1/2 Way Mark: The Acting

These are not Oscar predictions. They are my preferences -- the five performances in each category I have loved most this year from the 50 films I've screened. I'm doing this since the year is half over... and also just begun. (Oh, you know how Hollywood waits and waits to release the juicy stuff...) Unfortunately none of them will get any traction for acknowledgements later in the year when various groups start giving prizes. It's all in the timing...

Best Leading Actress
Amy Adams -Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day (review)
Irene Azuelas -Burn the Bridges
Famke Jannsen -Turn the River (interview)
Frances McDormand -Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day
Julianne Moore -Savage Grace (review)

Watch out people. Julianne comes roaring back into psychosexual territory and none too soon. I need redheads experiencing mental breakdowns in dramas like most people need warm blondes falling in sweet love in romcoms. I just do. Adams and McDormand are appealing if not extraordinary in Miss Pettigrew (though I was tempted to replace one of them with Katharine Heigl who was ready to do a lot more for 27 Dresses if the film or screenplay had only figured out what to ask of her), Azuela holds all the threads of Burn the Bridges to her bosom like a protective makeshift mother (any Mexican readers know anything about this young talent?), and Janssen announces again that Hollywood isn't properly utilizing her talents. She's strong in Turn the River.

Best Leading Actor
Robert Downey Jr -Iron Man
Colin Farrel -In Bruges
Brendan Gleeson -In Bruges
Espin Klouman -Reprise
Dominique Pinon -Roman de Gare (review)

[note: Before anybody gets their panties in a twist: I have not seen The Visitor. I do enjoy Richard Jenkins work generally so...] The hyperbole was really out of control on Robert Downey Jr's Tony Spark/Iron Man spin. It's not like he was reinventing the wheel. Still it was thrilling to see this great actor headline a big star vehicle for a change. Every other performance here was more surprising in a way but you can't fault RDJ for being reliable. He's been consistently charismatic and spot on since way back in the 1980s.

The other men didn't get even 1/100th of RDJ's praise but they deserve some as well. Colin Farrel especially. He gives his best performance yet in the deceptively simple but intricately enjoyable In Bruges (from the amazing playwright Martin McDonaugh --I'd also highly recommend his Oscar winning short film Six Shooter.) He plays a hitman with a guilt-ridden conscience and it's amazing to see him drift away from his sadness whenever something amuses or surprises him (dwarves, drugs, women) only for it to snag hold of him again as his mind invariably snaps back. There's so much happening in his face. Gleeson partners him well. Klouman (in his first major role) is beautifully attentive to all of his scene partners and a true natural. Finally, Pinon improbably transforms his weird self into something resembling a romantic leading man. Wow.

Best Supporting Actress
Audrey Dana -Roman de Gare
Shirley Henderson -Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Claude Sarraute -The Last Mistress
Charlize Theron -Sleepwalking (review)
Victoria Winge -Reprise

My apologies have to go out to Patricia Clarkson in Married Life (review), Eva Amurri in The Life Before Her Eyes (review) both of whom I talked up previously but I couldn't do without Henson's mesmerizing schemer, Sarraute's hilarious horny grandma, Dana's accidental muse, Theron's film stealing mojo and Winge (stealing a line from Pajiba here) "who looks like Björk if Björk was from Earth"

Best Supporting Actor
Eugenio Derbez -Under the Same Moon (review)
Ralph Fiennes -In Bruges
Val Lauren -True Love (previous notes)
Victor Razuk -Stop-Loss (review)
Channing Tatum -Stop-Loss

I am commentless at this moment.

Best Cameo / Tiny Role
Steven Coogan Finding Amanda
Ernesto D'Alessio Under the Same Moon
Henrik Mestad Reprise
Jérémie Renier In Bruges

I couldn't think of five but these men added wonderful notes to their films.

Drrrty (Most Indecently Luscious)
Asia Argento -The Last Mistress
Angelina Jolie & James McAvoy -Wanted
Gilles Marini -Sex & the City: The Movie
Julianne Moore & Stephen Dillane & Hugh Dancy & Eddie Redmayne & Elena Anaya & Unax Ugalde -Savage Grace (Too bad they're all such pervs)

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Which of these performances have you seen? Were you impressed? Whose acting reel (circa 2008) would you watch again?

Related Post: top ten of the year so far (Jan-Jun)

Kissing Kathleen Turner

Kathleen Turner was always asking for it in the 80s, wasn't she?


God, I love her. Still. I'd gladly break through plate glass windows to have her knowing that she'd betray me, roll around on beds with her knowing she's an assassin with a contract on my life, fight alligators for precious gems just to woo her, return to high school with her, destroy the home we shared together in mutually destructive broken love rather than leave her side.

Come to me Kathleen! I'll do anything...

So would Falco apparently. Remember him? He wanted Amadeus... Amadeus... Amadeus... Amadeus to Rock him. I don't know how I didn't know this previously but he also wanted to snog Kathleen. Didn't everyone? A reader sent me this link to download his 80s tune "The Kiss of Kathleen Turner" (thx!) Where he obsessively croons

Is this a dream, or is it real
Is this really happening to me
Or is this just fantasy?
In this world theres only one woman
Who can make my dreams my dreams come true
And that woman Kathleen
Its you

I know how he feels.
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Revelations Winners Revealed

Three alien-loving Film Experience readers have won The X-Files: Revelations DVD set. Eight episode of Chris Carter's beloved series (starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny) are going home with them. The episodes are handpicked for their relevance to the new movie. I asked all contestants what their favorite movie about aliens were. The randomly drawn winners named the following films...

Rene in Texas loves Mysterious Skin. An interesting choice for the aliens question. Those of you who've seen it will agree.

Lynsey in Maryland is fond of a James Cameron's flick The Abyss.

Ed Harris is simply the icing on a big old fantabulous cake when it comes to that flick.

Ed as icing? Yes, please. Smother my deserts with it.

Neel in Nevada choose one of my favorites Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! for three reasons.

1. The Bening, hot off The American President and willing to try something completely different.
2. When the filmmakers decided that the temporary solution of having the aliens saying only "Ack ack ack" was funnier than anything else they could come up with, so they kept it.
3. The scene where they show the contrast between The New York Times' sobering, scientific headline announcing the alien arrival and The New York Post's more tabloid approach.

"Ack Ack Ack" really is one of the funniest lines in the history of the cinema. I laugh every time... which is saying a lot because the line is repeated hundreds of times. I also completely love Sarah Jessica Parker in that movie. She's so undervalued as a comic actor in that she's only really valued for Sex & the City these days but hasn't she been wonderful in so many other comedies, too?

Bond & Bond Girl @ the Beach

Sean Connery and Ursula Andress in Jamaica in 1962. Aren't they adorable?

[src and src]

They were filming the Bond classic Dr. No which opened in the US the following summer. Honey Ryder is one of the best Bond girls ever, methinks. The shot of her emerging from the ocean was so choice. It wasn't bested in the franchise until Daniel Craig donned the blue speedo.

Time capsule
They weren't the only ones getting sandy. Lawrence of Arabia opened that year. They weren't the only ones getting wet. Mutiny on the Bounty was up for Best Picture. The Bond franchise wasn't the only classic thing debuting: 1962 also saw the premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf on Broadway, the birth of A listers Jodie Foster and Tom Cruise, the release of The Beatles first single and Spider-Man in comic books. Spidey would get his own powerhouse movie franchise 40 years later.

Oh, and the ground underneath the Bond playthings feet? It had a big year too. Jamaica became independent in 1962.

"like the Fourth of July, every time!"

With you it's like pow! pow! pow! -- like the Fourth of July, every time!

Happy 4th of July Movie Lovers!

The Film Experience's Holy Trinity -- wait... oops. I'm so bad at math -- (American Division), wishes you a wonderful holiday. Celebrate safely! I'm off to watch friends and play with fireworks and. Or... I... I'm off!

'Please Sir. I Want Some More'

Pretend you're Oliver and you're asking Hollywood for more.
What do you want dropped in your movie-going bowl? Sing for that supper in the comments.

"Guest Starring" Josh Brolin

At the risk of getting cheesy with a Before They Were Stars moment, let's go back to the time when Josh Brolin was only James Brolin's son. It wasn't until his very recent amazing triple play (No Country For Old Men, American Gangster, Grindhouse) that he became a true star just as he was turning 40. Now he's in demand. He'll play the lead role in Oliver Stone's George Bush bio W. this October and then Harvey Milk's assassin in Gus Van Sant's Milk in November.

But guess what? When he was all of 19 years-old in 1987, he warmed up for that Bush role whilst guest starring on 21 Jump Street.


His character "Taylor Rolator" --what a name --was the villain of the the episode "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades." Taylor is an over-privileged rich boy who had everything handed to him by his daddy. [Bush warm up? check ]

But wait, there's more. It gets funnier / spookier.

Young Josh shows up as soon as the credits begin. He's one of three prep school heirs who are out drinking and partying with a high school girl from the non-wealthy side of town. A hilariously underlining song plays over the credits... I wish I could make out all the lyrics because it's unbelievable...

My blood is blue...of the upper caste... Whatever I wear, Whatever I say. People stop to notice me...
My blood is blue. [back up singers: So cool, so damn cool. So cool, so damn cool]
That's all we do so don't you make a fuss. We're not ... But most people regard us with a lot more trust ... political preference. What we do always sets the trend...
We believe our press when they say we're cool... And we're breaking the rules!

Oy. Music was not this show's forte. Anyway, the girl is not long for this world. This is a cop show so they have to start with a crime. We don't see what happens but we do see her dead body the next morning. But first, Brolin has to get her properly liquored up.


He's still in high school and thus not old enough to buy booze. He slips the cashier $100 and then gets rude and bossy on account of the tip he just gave. Taylor disregards the laws of the land and behaves like an incredibly smarmy asshole. [Bush warm up? check, check ]

We desert Taylor/Bush soon so that the leads of the show get some story time. Johnny Depp and his cop partner are middle class guys and they resent these rich boys. They go undercover at West Chedway (the school) to befriend them and find out what happened to the girl But Johnny in particular has a real chip on his shoulder about their wealth "6000 a year just to go to high school!" and finds the assignment difficult.

In class the boys are reading All The King's Men. (How subtle!) The teacher calls on Taylor about a plot point. I was so sure he wouldn't know the answer like that horrible horrible scene in Fahrenheit 911 when Bush sits there stupidly when NYC is under siege. Wait is Taylor/Bush praying for the answer? [ check ]

God apparently answers smarmy asshole prayers because he gives a perfect answer pleasing the teacher. He sounds totally intelligent. [Bush warm-up: nope ] Cop Johnny isn't so lucky. He is totally stumped by the teacher's questions.

But soon enough the 21 Jump Street boys infiltrate the rich kid circle and learn more about them along the way. Taylor is the president of the honor council. When asked if he can be bought, he simply laughs.

He's the figurehead. Are these other guys rehearsing for Cheney and Rove roles?

Handed leadership role --doesn't take it seriously. [Bush warm up? check]

Oh but there is one thing he takes seriously. He is also the "President of the Fun Club" When asked what the Fun Club means, his co-hort explains

Thrill seekers, risk takers, wealth makers. Also known as the royal we. Dedicated to competition and recreation.

Taylor/Bush adds on:

The man with the most toys wins. Plebes be damned!

He follows this charming mantra by snorting coke and chasing it with some Absolut.

Booze. Cocaine. Greed. Dismissive of everyone outside of his base. [ check x 4 ]

I can't go on.This is getting too depressing. Taylor and all his pals talk about their fathers constantly. They've got big daddy issues. In another moment in the show he makes a toast while they're drinking "Here's to taking over!" Argh. He's power hungry too. [check, check]

But since this is television and not the real world "Taylor Rolator" doesn't get away with all his crimes like real world politicians and presidents do. Brolin's Bush warm-up ends before this episode does.

In 21 Jump Street Taylor's money and lawyers get him out of the triple rape and murder charges, but he still doesn't live to see the end credits. The murdered girl's angry brother confronts him with a gun in the street.

What did you do to my sister?

Fade out on Brolin's expression dropping and the sound of a gunshot.

Since Young Brolin is so good at playing Taylor/Bush I'm thinking "What did you do to my sister country?" instead as I watch this. But never mind that gunshot (vigilante violence doesn't solve problems... and boy would we be better off now if our president had known that) --let's just get to the fade out. November 4th can't come soon enough.


Time for the next episode, don't you think?
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Anne @ the Beach

Anne Bancroft in 1955 (unconfirmed on the date but close at least). She was 24 years old.


The beach is a studio backdrop. Those Hollywood tricksters! Normally when I see old photographs of movie stars I just think 'oh, look at the movie star when they were younger!' But in this case I had a total psychic disconnect...

I was like "Anne Bancroft was alive in the 50s!???" as if this had never occurred to me before. The most vivid Anne Bancroft memories all come from 1960s movies (The Graduate, The Pumpkin Eater, The Miracle Worker) and, for me at least, watching of those same movies in the 1980s when I was a kid and knew her primarily from her work and marriage to Mel Brooks and movies like Torch Song Trilogy (where she played Harvey Fierstein's homophobic mother) and that overheated psycho nuns drama Agnes of God. I guess I always thought of her as an older woman, one of these stars that came to prominence only late in life. I was wrong. She was only 35 when she was creating the ultimate older woman role in "Mrs. Robinson" and just 6 years older than Dustin Hoffman.

From 1953 to 1956, 'round the chronology of that beach photo, she made 11 movies. She was the same age as Scarlett Johansson now. I'm flipping out.

Time Capsule: In 1955 Disneyland (previous post) was opening in Anaheim, Gunsmoke (the longest running TV series of all time) was debuting on CBS, James Dean, the same age as Bancroft, was crashing his porsche tragically dying just months after the first of his three classics (East of Eden) opened in theaters, and "Rock Around the Clock" was making waves on the radio as one of the first hits of the modern rock era.

The Dark Knight's First Five Minutes?

Heath Ledger's body language is so... unsettling in its wrongness. It's as if he's got scoliosis of the soul. Ick (in a good way)



This is apparently not new but intermittently new as in. Shows up. Gets pulled. Shows up again. People freak like it's new each time. I haven't seen the movie yet so it's still new to me...

[tangent] although I totally have this theory that if you get all teaser and trailer and released clips from any excessively hyped movie you can actually edit together a short film approximation of the whole experience. Especially if the main trailer is of the 'give the entire movie away' school of marketing.

To whit, have you seen the Death Race trailer? I watched it out of curiousity as to why the great Joan Allen was slumming. But the trailer actually gives you everything: characters, plot set up, action setpieces, central plot twist reveal and even the hero (Jason Statham) figuring it all out and seeking his real triumph in addition to the expected triumph. It gives you everything. I would say "who the hell would pay to see it after they saw it?" but I've learned by now that the public likes to know the plot twists ahead of time. sigh. [/tangent]