Curio: Rich Pellegrino's Portraits

"Marty McFly" gouache
on hardboard, 5 x 7

Alexa here with your weekly art appreciation.

Nathaniel shared a link to this artist's work with me and I just had to blog it. Rich Pellegrino is a painter, RISD graduate, and child of the 80s. He paints in watercolor, acrylic, or gouache, straight out of the tube, creating richly textured portraits that are almost musical. ("I want a brush stroke to sound like a distorted A chord. You know -- something loud and visceral.")

It's not surprising that many of his subjects are musicians, but he's also inspired by film (especially the work of Guillermo Del Toro, who he calls a master of color and light).

Here is a selection of some of his colorful film characters. You can buy prints at his shop, too!

"Jack" (from The Darjeeling Limited) and "Audrey"

"Willy Wonka" and "Sobchak"

(Both from Gallery 1988 Crazy4Cult Group Show)

"Rosario Dawson/Zooey Dechanel"

Oscar's Collection: The Youngest Best Actress Nominees

Another Oscar Trivia Explosion. This time it's the Actresses. 

Jennifer Lawrence made quite a film-carrying impression in Winter's Bone this past summer. It was one of the leggiest arthouse hits in some time, playing for months, and wracking up $6+ million without a huge advertising budget or bankable stars and with grim subject matter. Well done. At Christmas Hailee Steinfeld will lead us on a revenge journey in True Grit. While we suspect she's the lead actress as well, people her age are almost always demoted to "Supporting" if they're sharing the screen with a big star as co-lead and she is. Hi, Jeff Bridges! But we're pretending she's an Oscar lead today so as to have double the excuse to make this list. Humour us, won'cha?

 Imaginary Movie: STEINFELD. LAWRENCE.  WINTER'S TRUE BONE.

36 Youngest Best Actress Nominees

And where Jennifer or Hailee would fit in, were they to be nominated. (Winning performances are in red.) Disclaimer/Bragging: You won't find info this extensive elsewhere! The Official Oscar site / Wikipedia only offer top tens. However the following info is approximate. Though the Academy's top ten is down to the day of the actual nominations, they don't provide official nomination dates only ceremony dates. Inside Oscar and Wikipedia also only list the ceremony dates so we're just using February 1st, ∞ as a general calculation date for when nominations happened for given years.

Youngest "Best Actress" Wins: Matlin & Gaynor

1. Keisha Castle Hughes, Whale Rider (2003) was 13.
   Wow, well would you look at this? Either Jennifer Lawrence or Hailee would become #2 if nominated for Best Actress.
2. Isabelle Adjani, The Story of Adele H (1975) was 20. [more]
3. Keira Knightley, Pride & Prejudice (2005) was 20 going on 21. [more]
4. Ellen Page, Juno (2007) was about to turn 21. [more]
5. Marlee Matlin, Children of a Lesser God (1986) was 21
   She's the youngest winner of all time in this category.
6. Elizabeth Hartman, A Patch of Blue  (1965) was 22.
7. Kate Winslet, Titanic (1997) was 22 and 4 months [more]
8. Janet Gaynor, Seventh Heaven/Sunrise/Street Angel (1927/1928) was just a few days older than Winslet.
9. Leslie Caron, Lili (1953) was 22½
10. TIE! Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman (1990) and Winona Ryder, Little Women (1994) [more on Julia, more on Noni]
    They were both 23 years and 108 days old when they were Best Actress nominated. And here's another twin moment: it was the second nomination for both as they'd been previously honored in Best Supporting Actress.
    

    

    What's in the box? Your first BEST ACTRESS nomination!

    As you can already see this list skews quite a bit younger than the parallel "Ten Youngest Best Actor List which ends with a 27 year old.
    
11. Lynn Redgrave, Georgy Girl (1966) was 23. 
12. Liza Minnelli, The Sterile Cuckoo (1969) was 23. [more]
13. Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace (2004) was 23.
14. Carol Kane, Hester Street (1975) was 23.
15. Natalie Wood, Splendor in the Grass (1961) was also 23. [more]
16. Joan Fontaine, Rebecca (1940) was 23. [more]
17. Laura Dern, Rambling Rose (1991) was 24. [more]
18. Merle Oberon, The Dark Angel (1935) was 24. 
19. Jennifer Jones, The Song of Bernadette (1943) was 24. [more]
20.  Julie Christie, Darling (1965) was 24. [more]
21. Shirley Maclaine, Some Came Running (1958) was 24. [more]
22. Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday (1953) was 24. [more]
23.  Jeanne Crain, Pinky (1949) was 24.
24. Carey Mulligan, An Education (2009) was 24. [more]
25. Joan Fontaine, Suspicion (1941) was 24. (becoming the youngest actress to earn Two-Time Best Actress Nominee status.)
26.  Teresa Wright, Pride of the Yankees (1942) was 24. [more]
27. Elizabeth Taylor, Raintree County (1957) was 25. [more]
28. Audrey Hepburn, Sabrina (1954) was 25.
29. Carrol Baker, Baby Doll (1956) was 25.
30. Maggie McNamara, The Moon is Blue (1953) was 25.
31. Natalie Wood, Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) was 25.
32. Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry (1999) was 25 [more]
33. Greta Garbo, Anna Christie/Romance (1929/1930) was 25. [more]
34. Carrie Snodgress, Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970) was 25.
35. Gene Tierney, Leave Her To Heaven (1945) was 25. 
36. Grace Kelly, The Country Girl (1954) was 25. [more]

Audrey & Natalie (♥) are the runners up to Joan Fontaine's "youngest 
woman to achieve 'Two-Time Best Actress Nominee' status." They both did it 
by 25. (It was Natalie's 3rd nom, see also supporting, but she never won.)

26 year olds in chronological order are (winners in red): Katharine Hepburn, Morning Glory (1932/1933), Luise Rainer, The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Wendy Hiller, Pygmalian (1938), Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind (1939), Joan Fontaine, The Constant Nymph (1943), Jennifer Jones, Love Letters (1945), Elizabeth Taylor, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Shirley Maclaine, The Apartment (1960), Samantha Eggar, The Collector (1965), Faye Dunaway, Bonnie & Clyde (1967), Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl (1968), Liza Minnelli, Cabaret (1972), Jodie Foster, The Accused (1988), Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love (1998), Samantha Morton, In America (2003), Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Gabourey Sidibe, Precious (2009).

Why did I stop there when the male list went to 30? Well, have you ever seen William Wyler's The Collector (1965) with Samantha Eggar and Terence Stamp?

Sexy Stockholm Syndrome: Stamp & Samantha in Sixty-Five

In the movie Terence Stamp plays an unbelievably sexy charismatic creep --perhaps he's just meant to be a creep but it's Stamp so --  who stalks and then kidnaps a beautiful young redhead (Eggar) who he takes to his lair intending to wine and dine her. It's easy to interpret it as a deeply symbolic film about The Academy Awards and their annual mauling/coopting of young actresses into Oscar's circus. "Get in the van missy, you're going to the Kodak!" [Where am I going with this?  Abort. Abort... Note to self: Blog Tourettes Medication. Look into it. Not all trains of thought need airing.] 

Ahem... You'll notice, perhaps sadly if you're a trivia nut like me, that this list does not include everyone up to the age of 30 as the corresponding Best Actor list did. Let me put it to you this way: in the whole history of the Academy Awards the Oscars have only nominated a leading man under thirty 22 times in 80+ years. I had planned to make this list exactly parallel, but I wasn't yet out of the 1930s (the 1930s!) and I was already past a top 25 and there was no way the list would ever be finished given that there were still 70+ years to go! So I decided I'd have to stop at age 26 and even then you can see that the numbers just explode.

In other words... Terence "Oscar" Stamp in The Collector! Here are The Girls from the past decade.

  Youngest Lead Actress Nominees of the Aughts

Do these lists make you feel old? Perhaps you aged just trying to make it through?

Links: Newt, Exorcisms, Movie Homes and More

Final Girl an exorcism movie flowchart. Hilarious even if you're not a horror fan.
Journalistic Skepticism I love this. "25 Most Optimum Film Residences". I think I'm going to go with the Pink Palace Apartments (as long as it comes with the cat), Howards End or Erica's Beach House from Something's Gotta Give (Nancy Meyers movies are real estate porn.)


Hollywood Reporter Actress Cammie Conlon (famously known as "Bonnie Blue Butler" in Gone With the Wind) has died. RIP
Greenbriar Picture Show "Fairy Dust Blown Off..." on the appeal and arguable repeal of Audrey Hepburn.
Just Jared Karl June on the set of the new Hugh Jackman picture Real Steel. I didn't know they were filming in Detroit. This means that right now as I type this, Hugh is wandering around my home state!
MNPP Another convert to Animal Kingdom. Let's hope the Aussie flick keeps building.
I Need My Fix Lindsay Lohan goes to the movies. Like this blog, I think this is a step in the right direction. But I still have a concern: which movie? Cuz, that's an important thing to know.

And over at Serious Film a question: "How about a little fire, scarecrow?" Have you ever noticed this bit in The Wizard of Oz? On a related side note I would like to note that Michael who runs Serious Film will be joining the Film Experience team this week with a new weekly column I think you'll enjoy. Welcome, Michael!

One more to go...

Disney Pixar has released several production images from the abandoned Pixar film Newt (2011). They look beautiful, no surprise. I realize that everyone thinks Pixar is infallible but something tells me it's downhill from Toy Story 3. The recent abandoning of original projects like this coupled with a new focus on sequels no one needs (Cars, Monsters Inc and the inevitable Toy Story 4) suggests to me... well, it isn't good omens. It just feels reminiscent of how every other studio behaves. And no other studio is as consistently grand as Pixar ... so why should Pixar start emulating the others?

Curio: All Things Audrey

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here. Audrey Hepburn would have been 81 today. Like many girls I spent my preteen years idolizing Audrey. From moment she brazenly chopped her hair in Roman Holiday, she has been the icon that all those manic pixies (e.g. Natalie and Winona) have chased after. And before Saint Angelina it was Audrey who was our humanitarian angel, trekking through Africa on behalf of UNICEF. In honor of her birthday, here are some of the more creative celebrations of her out there right now.


This illustration by Caitlin Kuhwald, titled "Audries," seems to show Audrey Tatou asking herself the perennial question, "What Would Audrey Do?"


Ms. Tatou is not the only one to notice that fabulous dress from Sabrina. Here, in Kate Gabrielle's charming imagination, Eloise tries it on for size.


Of course, there is the ever-popular Holly Golightly. It's still hard to imagine that Capote's novella was inspired by Marilyn; Audrey just grabbed the role and made it her own. All you need to see is her profile, like in these choice pieces of Breakfast at Tiffany's apartment decor, and you're ready for that cocktail. The chalkboard is available here; the pillow, here.


And to use the morning after those cocktails, you can fashion yourself a Holly Golightly sleeping mask like this one.



Finally, I have to include one of the charming odes to Holly Golightly created by the prolific El Lohse. You can buy prints at her shop.

Eliza Mulligan-Doolittle

...Just you wait Henry Higgins. Just you wait.

You'll be sorry but your tears'll be too late.....>>>......

Audrey Hepburn and the latest "new Audrey Hepburn" Carey Mulligan

So it looks like the remake of 1964's Best Picture My Fair Lady is going to happen after all. Carey Mulligan will be playing Eliza Doolittle instead of Keira Knightley as previously reported. Now, this is why I don't spend hundreds of posts tracking every pre-production film the way most sites do -- well, that and the time and the lack of staff and the preference for actual movies rather than movies no one will see for another year or three -- because things are always in flux. The Carey Mulligan news is also a handy illustration of why I never trust either rumors or denials. It was less than a month ago that Mulligan said there was zero truth to the rumor.

This seems like a risky move to me. Mulligan's already got the 'new Audrey Hepburn' tag as she worked the fashions with stick thin elegance all awards season. Maybe her agents aren't worried. After all every young actress must suffer the "new so and so" thing as they come into their stardom. [tangent: There was even a time --shudder with me now -- that Entertainment Weekly tried to call Julianne Moore the new Julia Roberts. I'm like an elephant. I never forget. Could any two actresses be more different?] But it's one thing to be labelled "the next so and so". It's quite another to be labelled so and then sign up to take on one of their signature roles. It's risking direct comparison. And who wants to risk comparison to one of the greatest movie stars of all time?

I don't exactly object to My Fair Lady being remade (though I assumed it would be a non-musical version when I first heard the news) and I'm thrilled that Emma Thompson is involved. That's a sure sign that the book inbetween the classic score will be witty. In truth I'm just happy that any musical is still getting made after Nine's bombing. See, Hollywood has a way of assuming that one thing equals every other thing ("Avatar made billions. Therefore ALL movies will make billions if we convert them to 3D!") so I feared Nine's financial blood bath would spell the end of the musical resurgence despite all the musical hits that directly preceded it.

Carey & Anne & Keira, Doolittle Triplets

I have no idea if Carey Mulligan can sing or not but this is yet another situation where we have a movie musical happening and Anne Hathaway is not starring in it. What is going on here? If any single actress from Young Hollywood should be doing musicals, it's her. She's the only one who has made it completely obvious that she was born for it. And yet nothing. Still. (And I don't think they'll let her do her own singing as Judy Garland in that biopic, you know?) And you'd think Hathaway would be a total fit for Eliza. Hollywood loves to see actors repeating themselves and Hathaway has had a lot of training at Pygmalian-esque screen make-overs (The Princess Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada).

If the movie does happen (we're still early in the process mind you), I will die with curiousity waiting for Oscar to react. The original My Fair Lady was a huge Oscar sensation but for Audrey herself who wasn't even nominated, despite it being one of her three signature roles (the others obviously being "Holly Golightly" and "Princess Ann"). It's widely believed she was snubbed as misplaced karmic punishment for winning the role when the producers deemed Julie Andrews (who originated it on Broadway) unfit to sell a movie, having no previous film experience. Andrews got the last laugh becoming a huge film star that same year, winning the Oscar for Mary Poppins and chasing it with The Sound of Music, one of the biggest box office behemoths of all time.

May Flowers, My Fair Lady

May Flowers, weeknights @ 11:00

The very first images we see in the classic musical and Best Picture winner My Fair Lady, before during and immediately after the opening credits are shots of flowers. Why the extensive florals? Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) is your main character is why. She's a flower girl. Not the kind what walks the aisle, mind you, but the kind what sells them on the street. Just so long as she stays off the curb. Almost as soon as we've seen her, dishevelled in the rain, she collides into dreamboat Freddy (it's still a mystery to me why she doesn't fall for him) and her wares go flying.

Look where you're going dear. Look where you're going. Two bunches of violets trod in the mud. A full day's wages.

When Freddy apologizes and walks away she tries some recompense from his controlling mum

Oh, he's your son is he? Well if you'd done your duty by him as a mother, you wouldn't let him spoil a poor girl's flowers and run away without payin'

Er... is she talking about what I think she's talking about? These old movies are so jammed with subtext.

Soon Eliza Dolittle is whisked off to live with Professor Higgins (Rex Harrison) as a socioeconomic / linguistic experiment but also as an elaborate three hour plot meant to transform her into Audrey Hepburn who the audience already knows she is. These old movies are as meta as modern ones.

But in every stage of her progression from Eliza to Audrey she's surrounded in florals. When she first enters Professor Higgins worlds she's surrounding by floral wallpaper and framed by clocks with floral decors. All the while she's dreaming of obtaining work in a florist shop. But first she needs to speak more genteel like.


Then when we first see her bedroom during her romantic awakening ("I Could Have Danced All Night") every inch of it is covered with delicate wallpaper of tiny flowers. By the time she hits the races they've gone to her head... the top and sides of her head and inside, too. She's a florid handful

Somebody pinched it and what I say is, them has pinched it done her in!

She only leaves the bloom and petals behind during her exquisite silver and shimmering coming out ball -- "I can tell that she was born Hungarian! ...a movie star -- but that night turns deeply unhappy.

So she leaves Higgins in anger. Now, she's no longer Eliza (flower girl) nor Audrey (screen royalty) but the cinematic fusion that the movie is waiting for her to be: The elegant movie star who is still wistfully connected to the humbler origins of her character.


Loverly.

I sometimes wish the movie ended right there with Eliza on her own, ready to explore her new identity. Wrap it up before the Freddy romance and that dread dutiful wife business with Professor Higgins slippers. But then, I'm a sucker for melancholy and complicated endings. And I really hate those damn slippers. I've half a mind to shy them at Higgins myself.

Take your slippers and may you never have a day's luck with them!

*

April Showers, Charade

April Showers evenings @ 11; with Dave from Victim of the Time.

Cary Grant usually sings a medley of old favourites when he's in the shower. Any requests?


Audrey looks stern, but she doesn't know what Cary's going to do yet. And Cary may look old, but there's some screwball zest in the man yet. Lest you think Hitch sucked it all out of him, but then Jimmy Stewart was the one who got mentally tortured, wasn't he? Cary just got terrorized by a plane and kissed by Grace Kelly. And Ingrid Bergman. Life is so unfair sometimes.

What were we talking about?

- How often do you go through this little ritual?

- Oh every day, the manufacturer recommends it!

- I don't believe it...

- Oh yes, it's true... Look... Wait a minute. Read the label! Look at the small print: "Wearing this suit during washing helps protect its shape."

I get the feeling that this scene is remembered purely for how bizarre it is- but then most of Charade doesn't really make sense. It's been said- exhaustively- that this is "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made", but he generally did make some kind of sense even if he never explained, say, why those birds were pecking everyone to death. (That was kind of the point.) But apart from that, when did Hitch ever make as chic and frivolous a movie as this? To Catch A Thief, I suppose, but that's Hitch on a bad day and it's hardly his signature style.

I do apologise. I've obviously got Hitch on the brain. Now, I love Cary. And his mannerisms in this scene are really quite amusing. But clearly the best thing about this scene- and indeed the entire movie- is my beloved Audrey Hepburn. Isn't she just a peach? Adorable. The third panel here is the highlight:

Aww.

Oh, and Cary gets wet some more. This didn't really work out very well, did it? Sorry. Feel free to dissect the goodness/failure of this cross-generational pairing in the comments.

Colette and Audrey. Michelle and Kathy

I'm well into the novel Chéri, the movie version of which will premiere in just two days at Berlinale. It's a great read. There's exquisite descriptions of complicated emotions and intriguing relationships. There's also an unembarrassed sensuality to the material. If they can capture the nuances and the texture on film, it'll be quite a good sit.

I didn't know much about French novelist Colette (seated spectacularly, left) prior to the news about this movie and I blame that on Gigi the movie which is based on her most famous novel. I'd never read it because I didn't like the movie. I figured she wasn't for me. How wrong I was! The more I learn about Colette, the more I love. Not only am I instantly on board with her writing but then to learn that she was once a performer at the Moulin Rouge?!? Add in lesbian love affairs, the ability to frequently scandalize/offend the public and end up hugely celebrated anyway (enormous appealing!) and top it off with a crucial role in making Audrey Hepburn a star (she was a virtual unknown when Colette demanded she play "Gigi" on stage which led directly to Audrey's Oscar winning coming out ball in Roman Holiday)... well, in short, she's swoon worthy.


The romantic relationship she penned in Chéri is between the 49 year old Léa (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her closest friend's (Kathy Bates) gorgeous and callow 20something son, Chéri (Rupert Friend) but it begins when he is only a teenager. Before you start thinking about The Reader controversy all over again, the better modern film perspective might be --psychologically speaking and at least in the beginning of the relationship -- the Amber Waves / Dirk Diggler pairing in Boogie Nights. The older woman's childless maternal instincts seem to be all entangled with her sexual ones while the younger man's feelings are opaque and possibly skin deep. Who knows how far the film or any of the actors will take the material but it could be something.

I'm especially eager to see Bates and Pfeiffer play this oddly close but not at all close friendship.

They had known each other for twenty-five years. Theirs was the hostile intimacy of light women, enriched and then cast aside by one man, ruined by another: the tetchy affection of rivals stalking one another's first wrinkle or white hair.


Theirs was the friendship of two practical women of the world, both adepts at the money games; but one of them a miser, and the other a sybarite. These bonds count. Rather late in the day, a stronger bond had come to link them more closely: Chéri.

We should be hearing opinions on the film quite shortly now. Two time Oscar nominee Director Stephen Frears has led six actresses to nominations in the past (for The Grifters, Dangerous Liaisons, Mrs. Henderson Presents and The Queen). Will Bates, Pfeiffer and Frears all head back to the Kodak theater in February 2010? It's too early to predict and entirely foolish to presume but that won't stop the hoping.
*

Breakfast With... Holly Golightly

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's

A cup of coffee and a croissant... it's a classic New York breakfast

The 9th Day of Christmas

Some 'Ladies Dancing' to kick off your weekend. Is there anything better than dancing ladies? That's a rhetorical question. There's not.

"move your bloomin' arse!"

100 Favorite Actresses

It's a Tuesday Top Ten blow-out. Top 10 multipled by 10. In other words, a Top 100. Can you tell I'm exhausted this week? Guest bloggers start pitching in Thursday --I've got freelance stuff due, friends visiting for the Yaz reunion concert [insert synthesized "woot" here] and more.

Enjoy fumes...

(For best results hit play in the "video of week" sidebar so that this gif has Old Hollywood musical accompanient!)

Nathaniel's 100 Favorite Actresses -in animated gif format... don't look for a link ;)
Extremely subject to change as I see more older movies. The goddesses appear in very rough ascending order... (Ask me tomorrow and the order will vary considerably but the actresses will remain the same, give or take a dozen of them... cuz you know it'd be a top 200 if I had the time)

Did you see your favorites? If not, too bad. They're mine. Mine. All mine! Jealousy will do you no good. Feel free to discuss them or make a case for some of yours.

May Flowers

Sabrina

Believe it or not I had never seen Billy Wilder's Sabrina until last night. I don't know why but I had this vague perception that it was a dated clunker. Maybe my fear of the remake (Remember that Julia Ormond vehicle in the 90s? Remember when they were trying to make Ormond into a big star?) which I never saw somehow bled into the original and, knowing that some classics are unworthy of their reputation, I somehow assumed Sabrina was one of those. Also this film is brought up in every article about Hollywood's sexism/ageism collision so I naturally thought "ew" about Bogie and Audrey as a couple.

But as per usual with Billy Wilder, it has the just-right combo of laughs, drama, and overall cleverness. If Wilder made beds, the princess would never feel a pea under the mattress. If Wilder made porridge Goldilocks would never feel it was too hot or too cold. Sabrinais "just right." It's lovely to look at (not just for Audrey Hepburn) and a couple of images/scenes will stick with me for their sheer perfection; I'm thinking of two shots of otherwise prim and proper people smooshed up against one another hopping up and down on a sheet of plastic. Once as a plot point joke, the next as a beautiful refrain and comic aside. It's all just so graceful. Wilder is such a confident smooth filmmaker. And my favorite scene is a climactic one in which Sabrina (Hepburn) finally understands out what Linus (Bogart) is up to with their frequent dating. Watching it I'm marvelling at how Hepburn geniusly underplays it. It's the type of scene that I think most lesser actors and directors would have really pushed -and thereby lost it's quiet wounding force. As she leaves the scene in beautiful longshot b&w cinematography -(haven't seen it but I bet the remake used a closeup) I just said to myself 'Doo-Wah!*'

* 'Doo Wah' being a term once overused as personal shorthand amongst friends in the 90s whilst in the collective fan throes of dance group Deee-Lite's shortlived 'World Clique'dominance. 'Doo Wah' being pulled from the song "Good Beat" as in 'I just wanna hear a...' Doo Wah being a term of respect/endearment/drop-jawed awe usually provoked by some diva-esque action. In the vernacular family of the finger/vocal 'Snap' and "you go girl!" -- i.e. unneccessary verbal/physical punctuations to dramatic/showstopping moments. This lesson in personal 90s pophistory is brought to you by Nathaniel's early morning coffee.