I've finished updating the acting charts. Just in time for Toronto so they might need fresh updates any second now as more reviews and hoopla hits.
I've opted to completely overhaul BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS which is a total cloudy mess. Beyond arguably Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom), Dale Dickey (Winter's Bone), Sissy Spacek (Get Low) and the Nowhere Boy women (Kristin Scott Thomas and Anne Marie Duff who have been kicking around festivals and international release for a year with this film), no one has yet proven their viability. It's all just assumptions about the films, their roles and the overall traction potential. Given that none of those women have yet laid claim to a super excited committed fanbase except Jacki Weaver, I've pushed her into predictions. In a wide open field this late in the game, a committed fanbase who have been beating your drum for seven months already will surely help. "Sweetie," I don't want to overstate the point and sound like I've built a "Jacki Weaver for the gold!" shrine in my living room, but it's the type of film-seizing performance that gets nominated -- period -- with a threat to win, if voters see the film. A mighty big "if" I'm fully aware.
Questions. I'd love to hear your answers
Do you think The Kids Are All Right can hog 40% of the BEST ACTRESS category?
Do you buy the category placements of Halle Steinfeld and Lesley Manville?
Which of these performances are you most excited about sight unseen?
Do you have any suspicions about who might actually win? (I don't!)
Do you think they'll just give up on supporting actress and nominate this field based on the Best Picture candidates?
Do you think the acting in Black Swan can win favor, even if they don't love the film?
So many release dates are up in the air. Who won't we see until next fall/winter?
Stale Popcorn Glenn surveys the 19 eligible films for the Australian Oscars. I Need My Fix Jane Lynch gets a wax figure. Glee has now officially taken over the world. Watch it take over the Emmys next. Hot Blog in depth Sissy Spacek interview. Goes all the way back to the early years.
I didn't work until I was 20. I just looked like I was 13.
HKMDB Daily Stills from the Chinese remake of What Women Want with superstars Gong Li & Andy Lau Towleroad Jennifer Aniston as Barbra Streisand? People...
Scanners looks at how the reviews of Salt deal with Angelina Jolie's super-sized star persona Box Office Mojo some release date shifts for Disney and two cancellations. Is the Beauty & The Beast 3D death another sign that 3D is over? If so, YAY! B&tB is perfect as is thankyouverymuch. His Eyes Were Watching MoviesVolver collects another fan. I honestly think that movie will continue to do so until it's regarded as one of Almodóvar's very best. Because it so is. That Obscure Object old paparazzi photos sometimes freak me out. This is the Thelma & Louise stars: Susan, Geena and Brad. Ah, sweet bird of 1991 youth. Empire when I read the capsule header or this article about Dolphin Tale starring Ashley Judd, Harry Connick Jr and Morgan Freeman -- that cast! -- I actually thought I had clicked on the wrong link and gone back to an article from the 1990s. True story, I did. Low Resolution Have you read Joe's entertaining & thought provoking personal Emmy ballots? You should.
must read contemporary post of the day Op-Ed Maureen Dowd and Sam Wasson, the author of that Breakfast at Tiffany's book discuss the sorry wrist-slitting state of the romantic comedy. They name names. Wonderful discussion. I just may read it again and buy Wasson's book.
must read retrospective post of the day Nick's Flick Picks reviews James Cameron's The Abyss (1989). As per usual his insights are totally invigorating. He always makes me want to see movies again. You can miss so much. I love this bit on Ed Harris
Harris, whose charisma, gaze, and body were like a periodic table of virile emotion during this period in his career, is tremendously moving throughout this key sequence, and really throughout the movie.
"A periodic table of virile emotion"...god, what a gorgeous distillation of Ed Harris. When is his honorary Oscar coming (since the real thing seems ever out of reach)?
Let's talk Sissy Spacek. My friend Matt has been highlighting her something fierce over at Pop Matters, but why should he have the Sissy all to himself?
The great actress, everyone's favorite telekinetic murderess, is finally in a buzzy film again (Get Low opens today). And though I don't much care for the new movie, it's always nice when a frequently absent major actress wins Oscar buzz and praise again.
She's a big name but what does that name mean to today's moviegoers? For people born in the late 80s or 1990s, maybe her stint on TV's Big Love comes immediately to mind (Emmy nominated this year). But I'm guessing if it's not the cross-generational popular Carrie, it's mainly In the Bedroom that takes over the imagination: Sissy breaking plates, Sissy slapping Marisa Tomei, Sissy taking weird drags on her cigarette that manage to be both furious and catatonic simultaneously. How can they be both at once? She's a mysterious but vivid actress in her best work.
For those who lived through the 70s or 80s, the name will probably conjure multiple associations. Her filmography has a smattering of daring side dish classics but the main course is an oversize portion of middlebrow Oscar bait. To extend the food metaphor, that stuff can often taste healthy but afterwards... where is the nutritional value? In the long run aren't so many "prestige films" filled with empty calories? Her filmography also has intermittent weird gaps. And, unless I've got my dates wrong those gaps don't really even coincide with the births of her daughters (which is when many actresses take their long breaks). What happens in these gaps? It's almost as if Sissy gets an enigmatic closeup and then bolts from the cinema as enigmatically as teenage "Holly" abandons home in Badlands.
Oscar nominations are in bold.
Prime Cut (72) | Badlands (73) | Ginger in the Morning (74)
Note: Sissy worked with the brilliant art director / production designer Jack Fisk on Badlands and they married the following year when they were both still in their 20s. She's one of those rare actresses, like Meryl Streep, who has been married for almost the entirety of her fame to the same man. Another association. The two actresses are but six months apart in age and both became essential screen icons in the 1970s and won their first Oscars just one year apart.
Carrie (76) | Welcome to LA (76) | Three Women (77)
The underseen Three Women is one of Robert Altman's very best films. It's completely mandatory viewing for fans of Ingmar Bergman's Persona (an influential before) and Mulholland Dr (an influenced after). It's the middle link in that brilliant women-fused-together dream chain. Sissy disappears for a few years right after. And then...
Note: Such a star in the 80s she gets top billing over... Mel Gibson.
Violets Are Blue (86) | 'night Mother (86) | Crimes of the Heart (86)
The pinkish tone of the last two posters. They're screaming "GIRL MOVIES!" Not that we don't love girl movies, mind you.
It's too depressing to continue from there. Sissy's last two characters in 1986 were suicidal. Maybe the actress saw the 90s coming? After Crimes of the Heart, for which she was Oscar nominated, she disappears for four years until a series of movies crop up in the early 90s like The Long Walk Home (1990) that are well intentioned but don't go anywhere or did go places (JFK, '91) but didn't need her to get there. By the late 90s she'd been shoved into the supporting classes, from which she never really returns as headliner, but for her last classic, In the Bedroom. She collected a few trophies that year until the late surging Halle Berry (Monster's Ball) trumped her on Oscar night.
Here's three must-sees from the last twenty years of her filmography (though not always for her presence).
JFK (91) | The Straight Story (99) | In the Bedroom (01)
That's the first 15 films of her career (excluding extra work in a Warhol picture) and 3 more still. How many of those 18 have you seen?
And what would you like to see Sissy do next? Some of you have suggested in comment threads that she'd make a great Violent in August: Osage County whenever that becomes a film. She wouldn't be a bad choice for it at all, though one assumes Hollywood will want Meryl Streep to do it since they want her to do everything. As should be painfully obvious The Film Experience loves Meryl Streep, but some of her contemporaries sure could use her the big break of Streep passing on a choice role.
Exit music: Remember when we mentioned Streep's son being a fine musician? That's another thing the two actresses have in common. Here's Sissy & Jack's singer songwriter daughter Schuyler Fisk doing "From Where I'm Standing". Pretty voice, right? You can totally see Sissy in her. It's that lank sunkissed hair and those awesome cheekbones.
I know that a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has to be (literally) bought. But I still find the whole thing weird, exciting and confusing. People get one when they're barely established, others when they're legends, some never. Oprah Winfrey is getting her star for television next year. Yes, the Oprah. She's been ruling the small screen for so long that she's as synonymous with it as Philo T Farnsworth. And it's only happening now?
Nevertheless, I love those photos of stars holding their stars. It's so meta. Plus, it's fun to see who comes out in support of them.
Anyway, the 2011 crop was announced. Two music acts that I'd love to see biopics on despite my aversion to the genre made the list: The Go-Gos (I've discussed that one already) and Oscar winner Melissa Etheridge.
Here's the complete "movie" list for 2011: Penélope Cruz (good time in her career for this. Nice) Bruce Dern & Laura Dern & Diane Ladd (listed separatedly but ♪ ♫ its a family affair... it's a family affair ♪), Ed Harris (maybe he'll be an Oscar winner for The Long Walk Home by the time that ceremony is held?), The Muppets (who already have a star for television), Reese Witherspoon, Kenny Ortega (wait, who?), Gwyneth Paltrow and three major players you'd have thought would have had them since the 70s or early 80s: director Ridley Scott, Carrie herself Sissy Spacek and the enduring Donald Sutherland.
red carpet lineup. random celebs who've been out and about this week...
With Tribeca handing out their awards last tonight and me coming back to life (things have been crazy) I thought we'd talk about some people attending New York's glitzy festival. I'm asking a comment question in red for each of them because I'm "reader discussion guide" annoying like that. Maybe I should have been a T.A.? Tribeca doesn't have the same prestige or art-driven mentality as the far older New York Film Festival (always in the fall) but it does pack theaters all over town, offer up a diverse 'something for everyone' slate and bring out the celebrities in droves. To hawk their films. Though I did see Ben Stiller and Denis Leary as audience members at the religious satire The Infidel.
from left to right
Ellen Barkin plays a sullen drug addict in The Chameleon and she'll start her Shit Yearat Cannes next month in the Directors' Fortnight lineup. Is her career revving back up or is this another Oceans 13 false alarm. Do you care?
Mark Ruffalo seems to be letting himself go. Maybe it's just a 'between projects' kind of thing. Though, when is he between projects? Always working. I'm already stealing myself for disappointment if he doesn't get the credit he deserves for sly great work in The Kids Are All Right. Will he ever be Oscar nominated?
Kirsten Dunst is on the comeback trail despite being only 28. Today is her birthday! She was at Tribeca because she directed the short film Bastard. Are you rooting for her comeback?
Melissa Leo can't say no. That's my theory because she's made 15+ movies since Frozen River (2008) -- no joke -- and she's in two miniseries this year too (including Todd Haynes' Mildred Pierce). Should she be saying yes to everything? Riding that Frozen River momentum til it stops paying dividends.
from left to right
Andy Serkis came to town with his BAFTA nominated star turn in the rock bio sex & drugs & rock & roll. I wondered a few times if he could get any Oscar traction for it. Pro: there's the disability factor AND the biopic factor. Con: It's probably an unfamiliar rock story to most AMPAS voters and they like familiar. I admit I didn't know the story either. Do you know Ian Dury and The Blockheads?
she who must not be named was in NYC for My Own Love Song. You know how I felt about the trailer but believe me I don't want to be this frightened to go near her work. In all honesty I was really hoping to get back on board but then came that trailer. I even tried to give her a new nickname Zeéeeee which is vowel-accurate and friendly-like. Are you rooting for her comeback?
Christy Turlington is my favorite model of all time. But I realized sitting in the audience of her new documentary that it's weird to have a favorite model of all time. Because what can you do other than look at them? With favorite actors there's all sorts of imagination connection, storytelling, catharsis, etcetera. There I sat thinking "she's pretty" and my thoughts pretty much ended there. Unlike many of her supermodel peers from the 90s, she didn't try acting. But after marrying Ed Burns she is trying filmmaking. For a good cause though! Visit the website every mother counts. Have you a favorite model of all time ever?
Patricia Clarkson starred in a travel drama called Cairo Time in which she misplaces her husband in Egypt. Somehow I missed it even though I love my Patty and also enjoy her co-star Alexander Siddig. Bad planning me. Why do people go to the desert on vacations?
from left to right
Amanda Seyfried was starting her Letters To Juliet tour. Dominic Cooper walked her down the aisle -- I mean the red carpet -- for the premiere. Do you like them as a couple or do they give you painful flashbacks to Mamma Mia?
Guy Pearce should maybe be hired for Christian Bale's health scare roles. I'm just sayin'. He was in town for a special screening and discussion of Memento. Do you love Memento?
Sissy Spacek was promoting Get Low. I didn't like the movie -- which I saw before the festival and which most people do like for Oscar noms -- but it sure was nice to see her again in a substantial role. Still waiting for another In the Bedroom, though. What's your favorite Sissy? Other than Carrie I mean.
<---Brian Geraghty was the unofficial poster boy of the 9th annual Tribeca Film Festival. He was a home invader in the erotic thriller Open House, a muscley redneck brother-in-law in The Chameleon and he also appeared in Kiki's short Bastard. It's like Melissa Leo's Frozen River longtail... only with The Hurt Locker. Thoughts?
Popnography reveals the inspiration for Avatar. Hee! /Film plays defense for the critical attacks on Avatar
Wordastic on the language of stressful holiday exchanges (with movie referencing) Zach Young does a pretty great 2009 at the Movies montage but it's very very guy focused. Even when Nine enters in it's pretty much just DD-L Culture Monster Annette Bening is really making a habit out of this Los Angeles stage star thing. Next up "Female of the Species" in February Awards Daily "State of the Race" is Best Picture really anyone's game? CinematicalFor Your Consideration's post-nomination scene. I love it too. Catherine O'Hara is a genius. It's too bad about the rest of the movie though. Given the golden subject matter it should have been my favorite Christopher Guest movie but it's not even close. In Contention Maggie Gyllenhaal switches to a "supporting" campaign for Crazy Heart. Wise move but I'm not rooting for her for once. I'll explain soon. The Sheila Variations considers the creepy psychology of Sissy Spacek in Terence Malick's Badlands
Vogue Best Dressed of the Decade? Vote on the movie stars from each and every year. It's a trip through red carpet memory lane although they made some hideous choices, I must say Boy Culture Matthew Goode for GQ
Everything I Know... on the worst stage musicals of the Aughts. Let's hope no one makes a movie of any of these.
Finally,Off Cinema, I'm absolutely loving this youtube original from the wonderful Amanda Palmer about the "pop music continuum". It's so generous of spirit and so dead right about the way people are always trying to tear female stars down. Boo! on the latter and Yay! on the former. Generosity of spirit forever. Here's "gaga, palmer, madonna"
And yeah, yeah, I do wish Madonna would try as hard with her music videos as she used to and as Lady Gaga now does (bless)... but generosity of spirit: think of all the mini movie musical masterpieces the big M has made over the past 25 years. If we can give Meryl props for letting loose and being silly we can also grant Madonna a few years of coasting through merely fun videos.
I had no idea how many of you were fans but in the long running comments (almost to 100) on that August: Osage County casting post she seems to be a favorite for Violet. So here's to Sissy getting another role that's worthy of her sometime soon. It's been eight years since the last one.
next week:I'll try to touch onDeath Becomes Her (1992), Grey Gardens (2009), I Love You Beth Cooper, Brüno, a little more on Chéri, Schindler's List (1993), Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, The River Wild (1994) and The Hurt Locker.
When I began the April Showers series I was frustrated that I'd already written about the famous opening sequence of Carrie (1976). But then, Eureka! Something more to say.
Though it might be impossible to choose one thing that's "best" about Carrie, I think the juxtaposition of its two shower scenes is definitely in the running. I've never read the Stephen King book so I don't know which of the film's strengths to attribute to the famed horror novelist but Brian De Palma unquestionably did a lot of things right in the transfer.
The first triumph is his undiluted understanding of Carrie's sexual development as adolescent terror themes. The second is his facility with cinematic language. In the opening shower sequence there's slow motion bodies and soft music. Carrie herself (Sissy Spacek) is completely entranced by the water, lost in the pleasure of it. Until her hand, soaping between her legs, comes up red with blood. Carrie raises her trembling hands up and out, staring at them in a confusion and disbelief that shifts quickly into pure terror. Her screams for help invite mocking from her classmates. Carrie crumbles into the corner until her gym teacher rescues her.
The second shower sequence, even more famous, is its twisted malevolent twin. Carrie isn't any where near a literal shower this time. Declared prom queen, she walks to the gymnasium stage in slow motion, that now familiar sad and soothing theme playing again. Carrie's eyes are entranced and wet, lost in the pleasure of acceptance and applause. Until, standing on the stage, her sadistic classmate drops a bucket of pigs blood on her.
Two showers of blood, then, the second infinitely more garish with the stuff. For the second time Carrie raises her bloodied hands up and out, staring at them in a confusion and disbelief. This time, however, her open mouthed shock produces no screaming for help (none that we hear at any rate in the expressive sound design) and her emotions shift to fury rather than terror.
No crumbling in the corner. No waiting for rescue.
Psychotic break time. (God bless the split screen!) This time it won't be Carrie doing the screaming. *
Calling out sick never quite works for me...confessions of a blogaholic, I guess. Here are today's new DVDs. (Links go to Netflix for your ease of queue'ing)
The Must See Ashes of Time Redux I once tried to watch a copy of Ashes of Time before the "reworking" and the image quality was so bad that I gave up after five minutes. Who wants a Wong Kar Wai movie with its visuals compromised? Nobody who knows how ravishing his imagery is, that's who. I'm thrilled to have a real go at this swordsmen drama starring the unbeatable Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and his two greatest screen lovers: Happy Together's Leslie Cheung and In the Mood for Love's Maggie Cheung. Plus there's Tony's frequent co-star and offscreen wife Carina Lau, Jacky Cheung and the legendary Brigitte Lin (The Bride With White Hair). Yes please sextupled.
Your Other Options I've Loved You So LongKristin Scott-Thomas slow burns through this French drama like a woman possessed by intractable personal demons. Some people think she should've been in the Oscar lineup. My interview with this great British actress is here.
Beverly Hills Chihuahua Remember when Dalmations were all the rage and everybody had to have one and true animal lovers were a little concerned that people weren't getting pets for the right reasons. That's what's going on with chihuahuas now, right?
Lake City Sissy Spacek and Troy Garity (Soldier's Girl) star in this indie drama as an estranged mother and son. If the script is as good as these two actors it might be a gem.
Australia Baz Luhrmann's messy '30s outback epic might be both diminished and reenergized on DVD. On the downside, the huge vistas will be smaller and that great cattle drive sequence, the obvious highlight, will be less of a stunner. On the other hand, DVD viewing tends to break up movies and Australia might feel less like a misfire and more like a generously overstuffed adventure serial once you're able watch it in pieces. Baz's wife Catherine Martin fetishizes Nicole Kidman with costumes and Baz fetishizes Hugh Jackman with the camera. Mucho eye candy [full review]
Wonder Woman If you're a fan of the Amazon princess you'll want to savor this new animated feature since you know that that live action film is never going to happen, right? You've accepted that, haven't you? DC does not have a clear vision for their movie franchises. Remember how long it took them to get Superman flying again? Wonder Woman is basically DC's kryptonite. She's always popping up and the very thought of her defeats them. We'll be lucky if a live action Wonder Woman gets made in our lifetime. Or maybe we'll be luckier if it doesn't since her transfer would be tremendously difficult to pull off. She'd need a strong screenplay and directorial vision, not a corporate board, guiding her to the screen. *
Adam of Club Silencio here with a look at my favorite actresses and their distinguishing claims to fame.
Sissy Spacek is the rarest of Hollywood starlets. Nowadays she contently weaves her wonder into tiny, thankless roles, and so rarely glams up the red carpet or graces the tabloid page. She makes it almost easy to forget her certifiable A-list rank, even as we watch her dazzle and disappear in films like the upcoming Four Christmases. But never turn your back on her; Sissy's always been one for the third act stunner.
Consider it a lesson learned: It's always the quiet ones...
Sissy has mastered the ability to go from meek to madwoman in the blink of a telekinetic eye. How easy we forget that she torched her entire graduating class and took out a sizable portion of the Midwest population. Blame it on her strict religious upbringing or a boyfriend with homicidal tendencies, but Sissy's never one to be underestimated. That pleasant homegrown beauty and peaceful naivete can so readily warm our hearts like a smooth country ballad, but one should always be prepared for Sissy to steal an identity, or something far worse.
Fair enough, her characters often have good reason for turning on a dime -- things like public humiliation or familial loss. But if you think Sissy's always justified in this momentary madness, try saying it to Marisa Tomei's face...
Sissy says of her startling, unhinged moment with Tomei, "She was a really good sport about it, but I felt awful. I mean, she had a bag of ice on her face, to keep the swelling down between takes. And that was our first scene together."
Upon playing Ruth Fowler, her Oscar-nominated role from In the Bedroom, Sissy says she initially found little in common with the emotionally reserved character. But rest assured Sissy quickly found her creative spark as only she could, "I'll be in the middle of throwing a fit and I'll think, 'I've got to remember this, I can use this. This is going in my toolbox.'"
I decided that my red carpet series needed a new look. So I've adjusted slightly. I'm guessing I like doing it more than you like seeing it but whatevs. I blog for me. Me! Me! Me! So with my perplexing obsession with celebrity heighth in mind (I'm not a macrophile in my civilian life. I swear) I've coopted The Usual Suspects poster. Partially because I like to showcase actresses who most blogs who feature celebrity photos ignore. So... get it? It's tagline humor: "you've got to look beyond the usual suspects" No? Anyone? I blog for me. Me! Me! Me!
Anyway the blogs that showcase all the red carpet photos are obsessed with people like Phoebe Price, Heidi Montag and Kim Kardashian and honestly I don't even know who those people are. My brain is too filled with real actors to make room for these people, whoever they may be and whatever they may do. I don't need to know.
Here we go. On the carpets this week...
Saffron Burrows (or 'Mrs. Fiona Shaw' as I like to call her) is a tall drink of water and quite a looker. Fiona is a lucky crazy lady. Thespians Ruby Dee & Sissy Spacek I've grouped together. They're both so tiny. First person to guess why I've placed them side by side earns my immediate respect and may choose the banner motif next week. But one question: Is Sissy Spacek training for a roll in Kill Bill Vol. 3? What is that ka-ra-té outfit about? It's better not to ask what Sally Kirkland is "about" but merely to enjoy her flamboyance and her death's grip on her own peculiar celebrity. It's been 21 years since her one and only Oscar nomination (for Anna) and she still works the red carpet circuit like a tireless coke-fueled 21 year old starlet. It's like she's always looking for work and will be noticed. Naturally I love her. Kristin Chenowith is not even 5 foot tall! All that cuteness and those huge multi-octave pipes are packed into but 59 inches. And like I mentioned some time ago live-blogging, I love that she always wears huge bows like she's offering herself up as gift. It's astute self analysis, non?
Meanwhile Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Connelly are like "This line-up is too C-List for us. We're outta here." But Jennifer, honey, what have you done for us lately? ____ Reese, you're free to go. *
Tuesday Top Ten: For the listmaker in me JA and the listlover in you you
JA from MNPP here, guest-blogging the Top 10 for this week.
The way I reckon it, I don't want to step on any toes while guesting here, so I want to choose a topic that Nathaniel would never do on his lonesome. But I also want to choose a subject that'll tickle y'all's fancy at the same time. And it's gotta be something I know something about (which narrows the field down considerably). So taking into account The Film Experience's general love for the actresses (hence Nat's delightful term "actressexuality"), and my own love for horror movies, and (bless his scaredy-cat lil' heart) Nat's aversion to the same... well, a list was born unto us this day!
To the Year One, y'all. Tis a list of what I have deemed The Top 10 Leading Ladies of Horror. Basically... these are my 10 favorite female horror movie performances. I went for just leading ladies here, which kept stellar supporting characters (Hiya, Minnie Castavet!) from stealing the spotlight (again). I tried to cover all the bases - we've got the victimized types of course - where would horror be without 'em? - but also our tough chicks, and then there's those loveable crazies too. So without further...
10) Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project - “I am so sorry! Because it was my fault.“ – It’s easy to hate on Heather… she brings it on herself, really. Like so many of the characters in this most recent wave of first-person horror (think Cloverfield) that picked up from Blair’s 10-year old success, Heather was labeled annoying and self-centered and well won’t you just put the camera down, lady?
But horror would be nothing without its determination to show us the lesser sides of ourselves – people making terrible decisions and being punished so we the viewers don’t have to is par for the course. Hell, sometimes it's the whole course. And Heather, in her justifiably famous snot-faced soliloquy, turns the camera in on that side of ourselves that we’d like to think we wouldn’t be in that situation but 9 times out of 10 will, most assuredly, be. And if one of the most vital parts of what I consider to be a great horror performance is the ability to truthfully convey real fear – an uncensored, wide-eyed terror – Donahue earns her spot on this list for that alone.
9) Linda Blair (and Mercedes McCambridge... and Ellen Burstyn) in The Exorcist - "Keep away. The sow is mine." – It just doesn’t feel right leaving off credit to McCambridge, the woman who gave voice to little Regan McNeil’s demonic possession. So I had to include her name. That said, as horrific as the second-half of this film is (where credit must be paid not only to McCambridge but the make-up and effects people as well) I find the medical examination scenes of the first half nearly as terrifying as the later blasphemies, and all we have there is tiny Regan thrown into the midst of a bunch of loud machinery, so obviously Blair is doing some heavy lifting on her own. And then I find I must add on Ellen Burstyn’s fine performance as Regan’s helpless mother who can only look on… all said, it’s difficult for me to choose just one aspect to praise here; they’re all inextricably linked. The mother, the daughter, and the unholy spirit, as it were.
8) Kathy Bates in Misery - “God I love you.” – Yes, the film spins Annie Wilkes off into a bit of a hysterical caricature in those final ten minutes or so. But before she becomes an unkillable madwoman, Bates' performance is one of the simultaneously funniest and saddest portrayals of deranged loneliness ever put on-screen. Because I’ll be damned if she doesn’t just know that the writer named Paul Sheldon’s literal fall into her lap wasn’t a gift sent from cockadoodied wherever, and she’s gonna make it bitchin' worthwhile. Why shouldn’t the fans have their say, anyway? I’m not going to be the one to argue that point and make her feel all oogy.
7) Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween - “It was the boogeyman, wasn't it?” – She set the archetype in stone. The Final Girl. Sally may’ve screamed louder (and longer... and earlier), and Nancy might’ve built exploding light-bulb booby-traps, but nobody personified exactly what the Slasher genre needed better - the female yin to the male killer's wang - than JLC's Laurie Strode. Almost too smart for her own good – she felt it coming, annoyed everybody, but still couldn’t stop it all the same – there’s myriad reasons Curtis is, to my mind, still the greatest straightforward Final Girl, but none moreso than the first half-an-hour or so as we watch Laurie spot the boogeyman behind the bushes or in the backyard, and see her preparedness despite herself click defiantly into place.
6) Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs- “Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.” - Sweet Clarice Starling, just trying to bury the sounds of those lambs to the slaughter. Little girls, they go next, off to the dressmakers... somewhere in America there is a pit in a basement with a Senator's daughter all holed up. Loose skin. Come and get it, Precious.
5) Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley - “Get away from her, you bitch!“ – Of the first two Alien flicks, I only really consider Ridley Scott’s original film to be a horror film. But Weaver’s Ripley doesn’t emerge as the main player until the very end. She’s most obviously the main character of James Cameron’s Aliens, but that’s an action movie with monsters. So how do I justify placing her on a list? By just mushing the entire quadrilogy’s worth of her performances together. Yes, I’m cheating. But this list just seemed wrong without her. Where maybe too many of the women on this list are of the victimized sort - immediately previous company excluded, of course - I needed to include a woman who rocks off an acid-spewing alien’s face with a gun larger than my entire torso to even things out. And then, like a full half of this list, she's Mother, too. And if there's one thing this list proves - and this list, too! - nothing is scarier than mommy-hood.
4) Shelley Duvall in The Shining - “We're all going to have a real good time.” – Always overshadowed by Jack Nicholson’s Jack Nicholson-sized performance, Duvall’s Wendy Torrence is and always will be my favorite part of Kubrick’s coolly malignant flick. Duvall was always channeling her gawky physiognomy to great effect with her characters, whether it was her hysterical Olive Oyl stroll or just the way she held a cigarette in 3 Women… but nowhere to my mind was she more brilliant than here. Has anyone ever held a knife or an axe more awkwardly? And watch the way her occasional outbursts of positive energy – always so sadly forced - quickly slide back into a slumped-over shell of a woman, beaten down both literally and figuratively, and then the eventual, probably Kubrick-inflicted real-seeming terror that courses across her bug-eyed face… it’s a vanity-free, often humiliating role, which Duvall upends and owns with her every silent scream.
3) Ellen Burstyn in Requiem For a Dream - “I like thinking about the red dress…” – Like the invisible arm of Death itself that kills so many teenagers – and so imaginatively! - in the Final Destination flicks, the horror of Requiem is of a different breed - it’s the mental demons inside these characters that tear them to shreds. But make no mistake – this is a horror film, and one of the most horrifying ever made. And nowhere does that horror manifest itself more cruelly than in the guise of a lonely Coney Island widow that can’t let go of a dream long dead. Burstyn’s physical deterioration as she’s swallowed whole by her addictions is haunting enough – the final shots of the film rend my heart every time – but Burstyn makes it clear from the start that Sarah Goldfarb has one foot over the precipice just looking for anything that might offer her even the briefest of smiles.
2) Sissy Spacek in Carrie - “It was bad, Mama. They laughed at me.” – The most spellbinding moments in DePalma’s 1976 classic for me are the ones where we see Carrie White begin to come out of her shell – the way her inherent good-nature peeks around that shy smile… a flurry of compliments from Billy the cute boy asking her to the prom and from her teacher who means so well… all of which lead to that spinning-out-of-control on the dance-floor moment. And then falls the crown. And we all know what horror lay beneath that heavy load. Carrie White is horribly human… until she’s not human at all anymore. And then she’s back again… but it is too late. After all, sin never dies... and Spacek makes us understand every step of the way, with a most terrible accuracy, what has gone so very wrong.
1) Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby - “This is no dream! This is really happening!” – Is it simply the paranoia of a young lady with too much time on her hands, or is there something sinister going on with that too-friendly old couple next door? Is her husband distracted with work, turned off by her constant sickness, or has he perhaps made a Faustian trade-off with the soul of little Andy-or-Jenny? In the book, Rosemary Woodhouse is described as a large-hipped Midwestern girl, built for breeding, but in one of the very few deviations from page to screen, Polanski cast Farrow (once Tuesday Weld backed out) and the character clicked into perfection. Because the story is about watching the span of pregnancy as if in the nightmarish reflection of a fun-house mirror, it’s vital that Rosemary look like someone devoured by that giant belly, and tiny little Mia in her yellow sun-dresses with the face of a ghoul poking out fit the bill, and then some. But even beyond the physical perfection of the casting, Farrow nails every note of paranoia, and as we watch her flail about under the arms of all those she’s trusted as they drug her into unconsciousness, we truly know what helplessness is.
That Jack Fisk, art director extraodinaire (There Will Be Blood) is married to Sissy Spacek. And that's not all. That they've been married since...1974. They were in their 20s and they're still together. I wonder if they met on Badlands (1973)? --they've worked on several of the same projects including a personal favorite, Carrie. Y'all know I love that one. I have no idea why this particular nugget of info has captivated me all week. But it has. I suspect he might win the Oscar this coming weekend.
Approximately every 8 days in 2008 we celebrate the 8th Something of Something -- whoa, specific
The rest of the internet is going on and on about Marion Cotillard's PsychoJanet Leigh murder recreation in Vanity Fair , so I thought I'd hit the showers, too. I love Carrie. It's easily my favorite Brian DePalma picture. All of its excesses thrill me from the soft core of the title sequence to everything about Piper Laurie's Jesus freak mama-from-hell to the Psycho like sound cues when Carrie uses her powers.
The first scene is a volleyball game which Carrie loses with her clumsiness ("You eat shit") Right away we know this abuse is common for Carrie from her classmates [Aside: Karen Allen plays the queen bee heather (Chris) and Amy Irving is her veronica (Sue) in this early collection of mean girls] As the opening credits roll, the girls hit the locker room and DePalma and his cinematographer and composer lull you into soft-core land with slow motion nude girls and Carrie's sad theme playing.
The volleyball game, the actual opening scene, is all long and medium shots. So the first true close up of this classic anti-heroine is actually of her hand reaching for the soap, so I thought I'd count that out (pictured above). On the 7th shot, Carrie drops the soap. Something's wrong. uh oh... Which brings us to the 8th closeup of her hands and the reveal which sets this whole bloody (sorry) story in motion
Carrie has become a woman. She thinks she's dying. Her classmates attack mercilessly again ("plug it up! plug it up!"). Her psychic rage is triggered for the first but relatively harmless time. The gym teacher sends her home ... and boy is Carrie in for it when her mama realizes she's received "the curse"
I'm psyching myself up for Fall pre-Oscar season. Join me. You know how it goes once September hits. The prestige movies arrive and virtually everything from trailers to talk shows to box office numbers work as viral "for your consideration" ads. The new banner up top, which I've broken into two for discussion purposes here, shows in descending order the women with the most "Best Actress" nominations. No supporting nominations were included in the totals. These are Oscar's favorite leading ladies ranked. And this, is (duh) my favorite category.
01. Katharine Hepburn -12 nominations (32/33, 35, 40, 42, 51, 55, 56, 59, 62, 67, 68, 81)look at that time span ~ just astounding isn't it? 02. Meryl Streep -11 nominations (81, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, 90, 95, 98, 99, 06)the most modern woman on the list in terms of Oscar since she switches between supporting and lead nominations: that's very common now but it didn't use to be for big stars. 03. Bette Davis -10 nominations (35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 50, 52, 62) 04. Greer Garson -7 nominations (39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 60) She's the least well known today but see any of her performances and understand why Oscar fell hard. A charm machine.
05. (Tie ~6 lead noms each... in chronological order) Norma Shearer (yay!29/30, 30/31, 34, 36, 38) One could argue that she's only had 5 noms since she was nominated for two different performances in one year --before they changed the rules on that. But why quibble? Norma needs -- nay deserves your love Ingrid Bergman (43, 44, 45, 48, 56, 78) Deborah Kerr (49, 53, 56, 57, 58, 60) the most nominated female lead to have never won the naked shiny man... though Peter O'Toole has her beat overall in the male counterpart category Jane Fonda (69, 71, 77, 78, 79, 86) Sissy Spacek (76, 80, 82, 84, 86, 01) The last time there was a significant change in the field was when Spacek joined, expanding Oscar's top eight women to a top nine once In the Bedroom (2001) hit, ending her 15 year Oscar drought. How long until someone forces a true top ten?
10. (eight-way tie with 5 lead nominations each) The next group (5 lead noms) is bigger and includes actresses who've passed away (Susan Hayward, Anne Bancroft, Audrey Hepburn) and one retired giant (La Liz!) so let's just talk about the ones that are still living and working in films and who, thus, still have a chance at increasing their legends:
Almost all of them have been working strictly in ensembles in recent years. Can they find their own In the Bedroom?
18. (fourteen-way tie: 4 lead noms each) Just below them in the Oscar horse race are many who've passed on (Barbara Stanwyck, Irene Dunne, Greta Garbo, Janet Gaynor, Rosalind Russell) five retired winners (Jennifer Jones, Jane Wyman, Olivia DeHavilland, Joanne Woodward, Glenda Jackson) and one who has moved to TV guest work (Marsha Mason)...
Three working legends are also in this tier. How many more rungs up the ladder can Judi Dench (97, 01, 05, 06), Diane Keaton (77, 81, 96, 03) or Vanessa Redgrave (66, 68, 72, 84) climb? Or is it supporting roles from here on out?
Oscar's 80th birthday is just six months away ~ What happens to the Best Actress field in Oscar's octogenarian years? Must we wait until Kate Winslet is in her 40s for a real shakeup of the rank? You want to share your theories about the future of this hierarchy in the comments. You know you do.
Thanks to ~Little Golden Guy for a great database. Related stuff~This year'sBest Actress Race (updates soon) or click any of the labels below for more on these cinema greats...
