Heh. I am going to be very disappointed if that isn't the title of Demi Moore's forthcoming memoirs. I'm just saying.
Some context for those too young to have seen Demi's 80s breakthrough, released twenty-five years ago on this very day. Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire is a story about a group of college grads who are struggling through their quarter-century life crises together. Jules (Demi Moore) is the messiest (and most fabulous) of them all. In the middle of the night she calls her most responsible friend in a panic. "I'm with these Arabs and they've been forcing me to do coke all night. I'm not sure because I don't understand much Arabic but I think I heard the word gangbang. You've gotta come and get me!" He rushes to her rescue only to find a tame unthreatening party. She refuses to leave with him and starts making booty calls instead. He tries to reason with her, until she lobs that delicious dismissal his way.
"And waste all this good coke?"
I have loved Demi Moore ever since. Which was not always a wise life choice, but what can you do? We love the actresses we love.
Because I can't quit there -- this movie is so addictive -- a Monday Monologue from the same film.
Uptight Leslie (Ally Sheedy) and Frumpy Wendy (Mare Winningham) have convinced Wild Jules to eat lunch at the soup kitchen where Wendy volunteers. This is not, shall we say, Jules' natural environment. It turns out her girlfriend's have an intervention in mind. They're worried about her obsession with her stepmother and her crazy-making sexual dalliances.
"Moi?" Jules asks, caught off guard. After a quick silent beat with a flash of 'how to navigate this?' worry on her face, Demi unleashes Jule's defensive fabulousity posturing.
Forrester? Come on, he's wonderful.
Forrest is her married boss. But she's got it all figured out.
This is the 80s. Bop him for a few years. Get his job when he gets his hand caught in the vault. Become a legend. Do a Black Mink ad. Get caught in a sex scandal. Retire in massive disgrace. Write a huge best seller and become the fabulous host of my own talk show.
"Well, it was silly of us to worry," Wendy says in disbelief and the kind of snark-free sarcasm only found prior to the late Nineties.
It really is. He's helped me so much. He's come up with so many alternatives for my stepmonster's funeral.
It turns out cremation is just as expensive as the non torch method and if I don't come up with a cheaper solution, I'm going to end up a bag lady...
Of course I'll have alligator bags.
A head toss, the laugh of the self-amused and then a look at the time get me the hell out of here avoidance of the real issues she's just been so flippant about.
And she's outta there... and every time she's outta there the movie deflates a little. Demi's comedic skills are underrated and paired with that famously husky voice and needy screen energy, she turns out to be the perfect match for this charismatic trainwreck.
A parting shot just to underline Jules' trying-too-hard fabulousity -- this is her apartment.
Art Direction by William Sandell / Set Decoration by Robert Gould & Charles Graffeo
Naturally she's wild about her decorator "Gay became very chic in the Seventies!" *
We're looking at each Meryl Streep Oscar nod and its competitive field. Previously: 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, 90and 95
Twenty years after her first nomination for The Deer Hunter (1978) Meryl Streep replaced Bette Davis as runner up to Katharine Hepburn's Oscar throne with her cancer victim in One True Thing. For a very short time period (i.e. twelve months) the three legends had a 10-11-12 Oscar nomination spread. Streep would soon leave both Hepburn and Davis in the dust. But we'll get to her #1 status when it rolls around.
1998 the nominees were
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth
Fernanda Montenegro, Central Station*Nathaniel's vote*
Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love
Meryl Streep, One True Thing
Emily Watson, Hilary & Jackie
The Blanchett vs. Paltrow contest has arguably been the most discussed in modern Oscar Actress history with the possible exception of Swank vs. Bening (both rounds). People still get hot under their ruffs about this one a full dozen years later.
Other '98 women for context: Globe nominees that didn't make Oscar's cut were Susan Sarandon (Stepmom), Jane Horrocks (Little Voice), Cameron Diaz (There's Something About Mary), Meg Ryan (You've Got Mail) and Christina Ricci (The Opposite of Sex). Elsewhere in Awardsland, Ally Sheedy (High Art) took Best Actress at the Indie Spirits, besting Alfre Woodard (Down in the Delta). Weirdness: Emma Thompson, an awards staple, couldn't get any traction for a mimicry job (Primary Colors).
Anne Heche & Ellen Degeneres still had tongues wagging --- >
1998 was a double dipper year for Drew Barrymore (The Wedding Singer, Ever After), Sandra Bullock (Practical Magic, Hope Floats) and Anne Heche (Six Days and Seven Nights, Psycho) who was the controversial rage at the time as the first out lesbian* headlining major studio movies.
Major 90s stars like Angela Bassett (How Stella Got Her Groove Back), Holly Hunter (Living Out Loud) and Jennifer Lopez (Out of Sight) came on strong. And Oprah Winfrey (Beloved) didn't generate the awards enthusiasm needed.
Finally, this is the year we met Lindsay Lohan, future hot mess -- and like Heche, also a future faux lesbian! -- in her wonderfully able child star debut in The Parent Trap. It was so wonderfully able, in fact, that I fell hard for her. To emphasize why that is unexpected is to admit that the Hayley Mills film was my BEST-MOVIE-EVER until I was about eight years old. Even thinking of it now in 2010 makes me all teary-eyed with nostalgia.
Nathaniel's List? He's not so sure. Oscar's roster is Classic Bait: terminal illness, mental disorders, Shakespeare, royalty porn, older person opening their heart to a child (Yes, they have a thing for that, too). How could any of these performances not have been nominated even if they weren't as good as they are? Originally in the now mythic war for the statue between Paltrow & Blanchett I favored Blanchett but my opinion of Paltrow's star making turn has grown considerably over the years. Still, I'm not sure either would make my list. I'm not sure who would make my list. Strangely, given the topic at hand, I barely remember Streep's cancer mom.
Apologies to Watson but she'd probably be the first to go to make room for one of the worst snubs of the decade. I'm talking about Ally Sheedy's devastating photographer/junkie in High Art. I was madly in love with both Hunter and Ricci's smart sexy comic work in '98 so maybe I'd dump a couple more of the Oscar women for them. Who knows? Revisits are in order. But to make a long story short, the LAFCA got it exactly right with their tie; Ally Sheedy and Fernanda Montenegro tower over 1998's actress field. *Anne "Celestia" Heche's lesbianism was short lived of course. But still. People were all "Oh My God!" -- OMG! wasn't in the vernacular yet -- "They're letting an out lesbian play romantic straight leads in movies! The world is going to end." *
To say that I was obsessed with The Breakfast Club growing up would be an understatement. It's one of five or six movies I've watched more times than any others. I hate watching movies on television (the dubbed over profanity makes my purist self revolt) so I haven't seen it in several years now but it's burned into my brain cells. I was madly in love with Molly Ringwald for two whole years. I obsessed over Ally Sheedy and the simple profundity of "...they ignore me" as chief behavioral, sartorial influence. My best girlfriend and I use to talk about the movie daily, wondering about our future selves...
When you grow up, your heart dies.
...and vowing to remember how we felt in high school if we ever looked back on the movie and felt it wasn't totally brilliant and deserving of multiple Oscars.
Oh, teen angst! You are so hateful to live with and then immediately loveable the second you've moved out.
So for The Breakfast Club alone, I must thank writer/director (and then mostly just writer) John Hughes who passed away today at the age of 59. And that's just one of the great things he gave us. There's also the other indisputable Molly Ringwald classic Sixteen Candles and the choice dialogue and monologues of St. Elmo's Fire which are both godawful and wonderful, often at the same time.
I've never quite understood why a director that popular quit so early (at 40 actually... though he continued to write, moving his focus to sequels and franchises) and I'll never understand why people have to die young. But his films or, more accurately, his enormous contributions to pop culture, will live on. *
Lisa Cholodenko is flirting with me*. How else to explain the multi-orgasmic news that the writer/director of High Art, one of my all time favorite lesbian movies, is making another and she's making it with two actresses whom I practically can't worship more than I already do? Yesterday, production supposedly began on The Kids Are All Right which will star Julianne Moore and Annette Bening as lovers who've raised two kids together. Their two teenagers (played by Josh Hutcherson and Alice in Wonderland herself Mia Wasikowska) decide to meet the original sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo).
Psycho, The Hours, Running With Scissors
Both actresses have played lesbians before. Moore re-interpreted Psycho's Lila Crane as a record shop dyke and she definitely didn't want to sleep with her husband in The Hours
Come to bed, Laura Brown
For Bening's part she ditched her screen husband for some self-actualizing labia time in Running With Scissors. Her paramours included both Kristin Chenoweth and Gabrielle Union (well done, Annette!)
There's a rumor that the new film will have a bit of steam and I hope that's true. It sounds more like a family dramedy than a romance but I'm hoping Cholodenko finds a way to bring out or at least hint at the passion of the two moms. The Bening is 51 and Julianne is 49. That's way too old for standard Hollywood romances but Bening and Moore are not just any actresses. Neither has ever shied away from forcefully wielding her sexuality onscreen. And Cholodenko is not just any filmmaker. One of her unique gifts as a writer/director is her understanding that women don't stop being sexual at 35. Her previous films have featured unashamed portrayals of sexually vibrant mature women: Patricia Clarkson and Ally Sheedy were nearing 40 when they sizzled together in High Art and Frances McDormand gave her sexiest performance ever in Laurel Canyon when she was 46. McDormand was so confident in that movie that it was easy to believe that the younger, ridiculously sexy musician played by Alessandro Nivola would be into her.
*If Lisa is flirting with me I would like her to know that I am TOTALLY into the idea of a threesome and have always loved her girlfriend Wendy. She's my favorite part of Prince's Kiss video** and I even know all the words to "Fruit at the Bottom" and "This is The Life"! Squeeeee**
**Someone rescue Nathaniel from this 80s binge he's been stuck in all month. It's starting to get scary.
5:00 PMMickey Rourke (a lot more on him if you scroll down), Kerry Washington, Taraji P Henson, John Malkovich, Darren Aronofsky, Debra Winger, Rosemarie DeWitt... lots of famous faces flashing at us, some of them probably trying desperately not to think about the Oscars tomorrow. Ben Stiller is talking at us to introduce our host Steve Coogan (Tropic Thunder, Hamlet 2). Why is it that I think Stiller is so funny when he's playing himself and not so funny in actual movie roles? Jokes about "most of us haven't seen these films"... why do I get so much flak for suggesting Hollywood types don't watch all the nominated movies and yet, they themselves joke about it constantly. (sigh) He's joking about how the Oscars are orgies of backpatting for beautiful people. At the indie spirits they're beautiful on the inside instead. People don't seem to think this joke is funny. Neither does the cameraman because they cut to Aaron Eckhart and Jenny Lumet (both classically beautiful, neither apparently amused)
...and then he's on to talking about Penélope Cruz and making lesbian jokes. Weird segueway.
5:10 Jonathan Demme is wearing an orange t-shirt. For a second I thought it had Obama's face stencilled on it. The face being inescapable. Even when we're celebrating movies.
5:20Best Supporting Actor goes to James Franco for Milk.Haaz Sleiman does not win but you can't really types "loses" when the subject looks like this...
<--- (yeah, like that) 5:25Best First Screenplay goes to Dustin Lance Black for Milk, beating Jenny Lumet for Rachel Getting Married (it's going to be a Milk day obviously. But then the Indie Spirits usually end up sucking up to one of the main Oscar nominees. Last year it was Juno for everything). Black gets political and says we can't wait 30 more years for equal civil rights for gay and lesbian citizens. It'll be awesome at the Oscars to hear this spoken aloud (since he'll win there, too).
5:30First Feature goes to Charlie Kauffman for Synecdoche New York. He thinks "best" is "crap"... I think that's a nod to his competitors but the speech is kind of jumbled so who knows. The speech is not circular or full of allusions or depressing or, in short, anything like his movies.
5:32Best Supporting Actress goes to Penélope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She's the only Oscar nominee in this lineup so winning the Oscar isn't the same battle at all. But her speech (she hasn't prepared one is really fun) and I love the story about Woody Allen actually leaving the set to see his dermatologist (new freckle discovery) on the day she was making out with Scarlett Johansson. Debra Winger loves this story too. It's nice to see her laugh. I love that Misty Upham (Frozen River) is all dressed up. At the Spirits!
5:45 John Cassavetes Award goes to ??? I forgot already. This is the type of movie one senses the Indie Spirits exist for. But if they didn't include all the Hollywood stuff nobody would watch the show.
5:55 No fair. No song to introduce Rachel Getting Married. Just a song from the movie.
6:00Documentary goes to Man on Wire. Shortest speech of the night. Basically 'thanks'. It was presented by Batman and a fake Joaquin Phoenix. Kinda funny but I have to admit --you miss a lot when you live blog. I don't even know who that was making the Bale "we're done professionally" jokes. How fresh!
6:05Melissa Leo wins Best Actress for Frozen River. Rachel Getting Married is going to lose everything but great films are their own reward. I'm watching this show with two friends one says "She made her dress from the Golden Girls couch!" The other says "She looks like a Relief Society President" You'll get that if you're Mormon but otherwise you're out of luck. But maybe you know enough about Mormons to know. They're taking over. Mormon raised at least: Amy Adams, Aaron Eckhart, Eliza Dushku, Dustin Lance Black. They're everywhere! When I was a wee tyke the only celebrities who were "a little bit" Mormon (past or present) were Donnie & Marie.
at some point in this presentation Teri Hatcher did a really disturbing "Bitch is Back" number celebrating Wendy & Lucy. I don't think Michelle Williams knew what to make of it but since she isn't exactly a "loud" actor or a "loud" personality it's anyone's guess what she was feeling.
6:11 Some woman won some award. That's all I know. See what I mean about missing things while live-blogging. She's from Seattle. There's some specificity for you!
6:15 I want this to be over.
6:somethingor other Rosie Perez is presenting something and says 'I hate Penélope Cruz.' I love Rosie Perez. Why doesn't Hollywood? 6:29 The Class won foreign film. Yay! So I got to see my silver medal director Laurent Cantet.
6:30 Cinematography goes to Maryse Alberti for The Wrestler. Director Darren Aronofsky accepts. I love that he always says "I'm Darren". For a brilliant auteur he sure doesn't waste a lot of time selling himself. Could you imagine M Night Shyamalan's trademark intro being "Hi, I'm M"?
6:32 Cameron Diaz gives the Robert Altman Award for to Synecdoche New York. Great cast that movie had. I just wish someone else had directed it. I love Kauffman's writing but I feel like his writing is too self-devouring for the same person who dreamt it up and wrenched it out of its creative womb to also try and visualize it. Just my take. Obviously, others disagree.
6:38 Rainn Wilson does a musical number for The Wrestler. I shan't torture you with a photo but Darren Aronofsky and Rachel Weisz find it amusing.
6:42 Laura Dern THE FACE presents Best Actor which goes to Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. I don't know if y'all checked that link the other day about "hair" and Oscar winners but if he wins tomorrow he'll be only the second Best Actor winner ever to win for a long haired role (the only other one was Jon Voight in Coming Home. His speech is on fire and it's spreading. It starts with a tribute to another 80s up and comer who never quite became what he was supposed to become (Eric Roberts -- Julia's brother, yes -- last seen in The Dark Knight) and I have to agree with him there. Someone give Eric another great role. If you've seen Bob Fosse's Star 80 you'll understand Mickey's shout out.
This might be the craziest longest most train-of-thought speech since Ally Sheedy won for High Art.
Update: Here is the whole thing...
To Darren Aronofsky ,who is worried about actors being scared away from working with him because of Mickey's story about how "tough" Darren is:
If they aint got the balls to bring it, then fuck 'em
He's crazy. He totally gets the room going. He cracks Laura Dern and Philip Seymour Hoffman up. He scandalizes Anne Hathaway with a story about wrestler's "banging chicks in the ass in the bathroom". Well done Mickey. This is what the Indie Spirits live for.
6:53 John Waters and quirk queen Zooey Deschanel make jokes about inflated budgets on these so called "indies". It's mildly amusing.
6:54Tom McCarthy wins Best Director of The Visitor. He's worried about following Mickey Rourke. No kidding. I love this guy although I wish the beard would go. He thanks "Dickie Jenkins" Hee. Richard seems very happy for him. And this also means more shots of Haaz.
6:59 Best Picture goes to The Wrestler. I'm happy for them. Darren... Just "Darren" please ... gets a full kiss from Mickey and the cheek kiss from his partner Rachel Weisz. Thank you. Darren calls The Wrestler a "Passion piece. We all bled to get here" It shows. Damn what a movie it is. I hope you've seen it by now. Twice. I'm not even that mad that Rachel Getting Married lost everything tonight. Because at least the awards went to fine films.
John Hughes seminal high school classic The Breakfast Club puts five barely acquainted students from different social orders into the library on a weekend to serve out a detention. The day begins with stereotype reinforcing banter. It’s easy to differentiate the jock (Emilio Estevez) from the outcast (Ally Sheedy), the spoiled rich girl (Molly Ringwald) from a nerdy A student (Anthony Michael Hall) and the burnout (Judd Nelson) from all of them. But soon their forced conversation –what else can they do? —leads to soul-searching confessionals and the crumbling of the social order walls that their high school identities impose on them. The Breakfast Club ends with the following quote, written by the brain, but delivered via voice-over with each student chiming in:
“You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.”
Some context for those too young to have seen Demi's 80s breakthrough, released twenty-five years ago on this very day. Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire is a story about a group of college grads who are struggling through their quarter-century life crises together. Jules (Demi Moore) is the messiest (and most fabulous) of them all. In the middle of the night she calls her most responsible friend in a panic. "I'm with these Arabs and they've been forcing me to do coke all night. I'm not sure because I don't understand much Arabic but I think I heard the word gangbang. You've gotta come and get me!" He rushes to her rescue only to find a tame unthreatening party. She refuses to leave with him and starts making booty calls instead. He tries to reason with her, until she lobs that delicious dismissal his way.
"Well, it was silly of us to worry," Wendy says in disbelief and the kind of snark-free sarcasm only found prior to the late Nineties.
Art Direction by William Sandell / Set Decoration by Robert Gould & Charles Graffeo
