Film Experience Blog

Hello, all! Kurt Osenlund here from Your Movie Buddy, making my inaugural contribution to The Film Experience while Nathaniel explores the (very) wet and (sorta) wild country of Iceland (having paid a visit myself in March, I can safely say he is having one unique vacay).


Having watched Shattered over and over, I specifically relish the moment Chuck finally blows his top when confronted by colleague Caitlin (Boys costar Chloe Sevigny), who, like the rest of his staff, has been bewitched by charming, delusional story-spinner Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen).


I once recited this passage for an assignment in an acting class. Naturally, I just couldn’t match Sarsgaard’s precisely controlled intensity:

“Caitlin, when this thing blows, there isn't even gonna be a magazine anymore. If you wanna make this about Mike, make it about Mike, I don't give sh*t. You can resent me, you can hate me, but come Monday morning, we're all gonna have to answer for what we let happen here. We're all gonna have an apology to make. Jesus Christ, don't you have any idea how much sh*t we're about to eat?!? Every competitor we ever took a shot at, they're gonna pounce, and they should. Because we blew it, Caitlin. He handed us fiction after fiction, and we printed them all as fact. Just because we found him...entertaining. It's indefensible. Don't you know that?”

This speech comes just after a heated verbal volley between Chuck and Caitlin, beginning, of course, with Chuck’s cathartic eruption of, “I fired him!” and ending with a dig from Caitlin regarding the cuddly editor Chuck replaced (that would be “Mike”). Just one scene ago, Chuck was upstairs, leafing through back issues and scrutinizing Glass's phony articles, in a sequence briskly edited by Jeffrey Ford. It's the revelation Chuck needed to get people on his side, including the audience. Our patience with Stephen dwindles scene by scene, but before that point, we, too, are bewitched by him (despite all his sniveling). Though it requires some trust on the part of the viewer (it's not like Chuck's looking at concrete evidence), that confirmation of what Chuck already knew affords him a long-awaited release, and the chance to show he's really not the bad guy after all. As he drills some sense into Caitlin, our allegiances are definitively shifted.


Shattered misconceptions

I've been rooting for Sarsgaard ever since this performance, which did nab him a Golden Globe nod and recognition from the Indie Spirits, the NSFC, the OFCS and critics' groups in Boston, DC, Chicago, Kansas City, Toronto and San Francisco. I've been waiting patiently for him to once again be part of the awards season discussion (come on, Green Lantern!).

You might say this little Shattered monologue served as the crux of my devotion. Chuck won me over in the movie; Sarsgaard won me over for good. You?

I'm multi-tasking! It's a new episode of actors on actors, tv @ the movies and a monologue.

Recently after an accidental couch potato binge on The Golden Girls -- you all know what that's like, right? -- I realized that the boyfriend had never seen the classic 70s sitcom Soap, which is from the same creative team, so we've been watching. The main character is rich dotty matriarch Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond of Whos The Boss fame). She brings up movies and movie stars constantly. The fantasy of movies is a natural fit, since she doesn't have the firmest grasp of reality. She's basically a template for Rose on Golden Girls. Helmond, like White after her, has a very firm grasp of comic timing.

In this scene she wants to look through a family photo album because she believes they've all been cursed.

Jessica Tate: I think that in those pictures we'll find the answer. Mary did you see The Omen? Well, I mean nobody believed Lee Remick when she said that her son was the devil and he was trying to kill her and you know what happened? He killed her. And then, I mean, of course everyone said 'well, she was right' but it did her a lot of good, she was dead by then.

Ha. It's much funnier with Helmond's loopy train of thought speed delivery.

Have you ever gotten into an entertainment mood that you couldn't quite shake? See I've been in this broad yuks mood for like a month now. It's not a normal mood for me. I think it started when I caught the Off Broadway Hitchcock spoof The 39 Steps a few months back which had a lot of inspired slapstick. Recently this mood was reignited watching Mel Brooks Silent Movie (1976) on BluRay (from this terrific box set that). Lets just say I hurt from laughing... especially during Bernadette Peters repeat vavavoom number. Her hip swivels just knock audiences right over. Literally.

The success of any comedy is so dependent on your mood, isn't it?

Anyway, back to Emmy-winning Helmond. Here's another actressy bit when Jessica is accused of the murder of her young lover. Her husband promises her they'll get the best lawyer. "But what about that movie?!" she pleads confusing him, and she's off in her own world again. Instead of worrying about the trial she's worried about who will play her in the movie version she's certain they'll make.

Jessica: Promise me that you'll try to maintain some control. Because I just have a feeling -- I just have this awful feeling that they're thinking of having Shelley Winters play me! See I was thinking of someone like Catherine Deneuve --she's attractive enough. Or it could make a wonderful musical. Barbra Streisand could play me.

Shelley Winters, for those of you who are only familiar, was briefly a starlet and then an Oscar bait actress but as early as the 60s she had moved into her late period blowsy mouthy dame mode. She wasn't exactly an emblem of "class" in the movies.
If you were ever on trial for murder, would you worry about who would play you in the movie? 
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It's actually difficult to find items for the monologue series. Screenwriters generally favor single sentence utterances and the ole trusty shot / reverse shot conversations, leaving the bulk of monologue-writing to the playwrights. But watching Alice Adams (1935), now celebrating its 75th birthday, it's easy to think of virtually every scene as a Katharine Hepburn monologue. Occasionally her co-stars will start a sentence in response but Kate as Alice rarely lets them finish a thought. She spends the whole movie jabbering away as if she's the only character.


In her defence, this is generally because she's nervous, not from lack of interest in her partners. This is never more true than in her romantic scenes with Fred MacMurray. He's Arthur Russell, a young man of some bank whom Alice is desperate to win. (In the emotional logic of the movies, this is not heartless social climbing or gold digging so much as a girl who just wants to be happy. And therefore deserves the man above her social station.) One of the peculiar charms of the movie and of Kate & Fred's scenes together is that Alice is so busy trying to impress him that she never notices her own success; He's besotted from the start.

In their first lengthy scene together, he walks her home and she lies embellishes all of her truths to prove her social worth. She assumes he's already spoken for... but she can't help but try.

It eventually becomes clear, even to Alice, that this eligible bachelor is interested. Her parents finally talk her into having the prime catch over for dinner in a lengthy sequence that basically functions as the third act of the movie. I'm only excerpting a small piece of it here. Alice Adams was a big break for the young George Stevens in the director's chair and though the movie and central star turn are uneven this particular scene is truly a gem. Stevens is performing a difficult juggling act keeping socioeconomic satire, character arc drama, plot convergences and physical comedy all in the air simultaneously.

The unfortunate dinner is the sort where virtually everything goes wrong. The Adams have planned an elaborate meal made to impress but it's all wrong for the stifling heat, most of them don't understand what they're eating, everyone is sweating and the father can't remember the cook's name though they're pretending that she's their regular help. Alice even blames her in pretentious French though this isn't lost on the cook (Hattie McDaniel in fine comic form) who is struggling through the multi-course dinner herself.

While Hepburn sells nervous and rude chatter about the working classes (to which her character and family belongs) Stevens camera drifts away from her slyly following McDaniel around the table as she loses control of the service (the heat is getting to her, too).

Alice Adams: Father simply has to have a heavy meal at the end of the day. He works so hard in his terrible old factory -- terrible new factory I should say -- that he simply must have lots of food to keep his strength up. I don't see why most businessmen can't leave most of their details to their employees. But then I suppose some of them are like that. They just allow the help to sit around idle while they do all the work. Then of course there's the other type of businessman who simply drives his employees all the time and invents things for them to do if there's nothing else because he hates to see people idle.

Which category do you fall into Arthur? [She doesn't let him answer] I'm sure not the last. You're probably the idol of your office boys and secretaries.

The screenplay's use of homonyms there is delightful since any linguistic play delivered with Hepburn's vocals is welcome and it's also such a terrific point about the unspoken Alice Adams predicament; the Adams family is quite idle, really, and they spend the running time idolizing the wealthy.

Alice's father interjects, clearly excited about the notion of even having a secretary at all. Then Walter, the brother, enters and exits with some urgency (things are going very wrong offscreen as well) and takes the father with him.


At this point Hepburn lays on the charm offensive. Alice is flailing, searching for a way to salvage the already ruined evening, knowing that the ruse is broken.

Walter's such a funny boy -- so abrupt and unexpected. He-- oh, but then of course you know that about him. I guess all talented people are a bit peculiar. It's part of their charm, really. What are your talents Arthur? [She doesn't let him answer] Can you play any instrument or sing or paint? Or perhaps you have some secret hobby that derives its chief charm by just being secret, something you keep all to yourself and don't like to talk about.

Russell must know what Alice doesn't like to talk about by now, what she's kept all to herself in their conversations. There are more interruptions and the mother also leaves. We hear the family arguing from another room. It's now just the young would be lovers at the table. Alice eyes the man she loves and believes lost, tears welling in her eyes.

Penny for your thoughts? No, I'll bid more. A rose... a poor little dead rose for your thoughts, Russell.

Will you ever forgive us for making you eat such a heavy dinner? I mean look at such a heavy dinner because you certainly couldn't have more than looked at it on a night like this.

Adams rises to escort her sweating suitor out. Hepburn in an inspired decision, drops the fawning for something like subtextual anger at her own inferior standing that's gotten them both into this mess. There's something about the body language and the line readings that momentarily turns a little condescending... even through the heartbroken defeat. It'll shift to self pity in the next scene.

Cheer up. Your fearful duty is almost done and you can run on home as soon as you like. That's what you're dying to do isn't it?

Though it's never quite clear what this young heir believes or doesn't believe about the delusional information that's been constantly flowing from this eager girl's lips (the movie is always lacking for clarity when it comes to the idol classes) it's always clear that he'd like to kiss them. Running on home is not what he's dying to do at all. But Alice is always charging through these onesided conversations in unreality like an incongruously delicate bull in her own china shop.

How to stop her from breaking her own heart?
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JA from MNPP here with this week's Monday Monologue.

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.


Naturally she's wild about her decorator "Gay became very chic in the Seventies!"
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this was supposed to be a reg'lar monday monologue but i got distracted

Put down that Activia and listen up. I accidentally saw Freaky Friday again (as funny as ever) so Jamie Lee Curtis was bouncing round in me brain. Long before Curtis was regulating the nation with great yogurt (What? It works.) she was already something of an icon of health & fitness.


Her marvelous bod first got a ton of media attention in Trading Places (1983, t'was the boobs). Most famously, the blockbuster True Lies (1994) exploited her goods with that memorable striptease sequence.

And twenty-five years ago this very day, Perfect (1985) opened. This proved to be the most literal interpretation of her 'Let's Get Physical' career thread. She even had Olivia Newton-John hair. In the film she played Jessie, "the aerobics pied piper" at the Sports Erection... excuse me... Sports Connection that Rolling Stone reporter Adam (John Travolta) is about to crucify in a big condescending expose about health clubs as the new singles bars.

Jessie is too savvy to agree to be Adam's profile subject but too enamored of the cleft chin'ed one not to bed him. This leads to one of the most ridiculous pre-sex metaphorical banter ever heard on film (warm up = foreplay and, well, you get the picture from there) and an even more ridiculous post coital scene. After their lovemaking Travolta attends Curtis's slimnastics class and for an ENTIRE FIVE MINUTES (I'm not even exaggerating by one second) we watch them doing a sweaty intense pelvic gyration routine while making ooh and aah and youaresobadyousexything faces at each other. It's hideous!


Adding to the hilarity is the lyrics of the song that's playing. "Shock me til I can't sit up I can't sit down. Oh no... temperatures higher" -- which sounds like... well, the characters might want to hit the free health clinic after their sexworkout. [Sadly it's one of the movie's only moments that's so-bad-it's-good. The film is too inert and serious overall to have become a fondly remembered Bad Movie We Love.]

Late in the movie Jessie's worst fears are confirmed about Adam and what he intends to write. She sees this heinous article on his computer AND I MUST SHOW YOU THE COMPUTER BECAUSE OF THE CRUCIAL QUESTION OF WHAT IS IT???


I don't even understand what I'm looking at. It's like a desktop computer grafted onto the back of a laptop with some sort of stand/lift on the back. And giant yellow letters, only 16 lines of them, on the screen. To erase it -- which Jessie does in anger -- she has to backspace every line. There's not even a highlight/delete function.

This movie should be placed in the Smithsonian it tells you so much you'd forgotten about the 80s. For example, I had completely forgotten that "eat shit and die" was like an every-single-day insult between friends and that people said "sleaze" instead of skank, slut or ho.

For reasons only my late 80s self comprehends, I was very obsessed with Jamie Lee Curtis's line reading of "What's so wrong with wanting to be perfect?" It's the only thing I remembered about the movie in 2010 before looking at it again. Watching it now, it's still an emotional climax but it's more blah than I'd remembered. Like the rest of the movie. It's one of those "duh" and OOH... SPEAK YOUR THEMES TO ME *HOT* moments that I sometimes like to make fun of in modern movies. Anyway, before Jamie Lee has her would be famous speech, she calls John Travolta a bitch. Which is awesome. And very non 80s of her, I think. Then she lays into the bitch.

You talked to me about Emerson and Baby Boomers and Physical Great Awakening and all you do is write a fucking little piece about people getting into each other's pants.

He whines "But every thing I wrote is true."

It's not the truth I'm worried about, it's the tone... and hurting people and using them.


You're so disgusting. How can you be nice to somebody like McKenzie and then shit on Linda? What did she ever do to you or anybody else for that matter? Nothing! What's wrong with wanting to be the best that you can be? What's so wrong with wanting to be perfect? What's wrong with wanting to be loved?

You're going to ruin her life.

The her in question is Linda played by Laraine Newman. I remember this supporting role was kind of a big deal at the time because Newman was an SNL regular and she's pretty good in a dramatic role as the desperate workout fanatic and "sleaze".

Perfect has a terrible reputation but it's actually kind of interesting in a time capsule way even though, no, it's not particularly good. It's angsty take on journalistic ethics is fairly typical of movies but it's an eye opener to watch this and remember that working out regularly was once looked down on as a fad and there's also the constant and now shocking reminder that magazine articles use to have major cultural impact. The life of a writer was certainly different.

Jessie: How many articles do you write a year?
Adam: I dunno. Ten?

Many writers nowadays have to churn out several a day. Quality and depth of research have surely suffered in this content and pageview driven new world.

But I don't mean to be a draggy downer like the film. Despite it's glum mood, it's sort of adorkable anyway since it has forgotten 80s lingo, hilariously awful 80s music, memorable 80s people (Rolling Stone founder Jan Wenner in his chubby pre-coming out days plays a Rolling Stone editor, Carly Simon cameos, Marilu Henner!) and actual 80s fashions (rather than costumed designed interpretations) all the way from single girl party wear to stripper costumes to workout clothes. You even see what we now call "mom jeans" on hot young pieces like Jamie Lee. Even Jamie Lee can't make them work. She looks better naked.

It's like these three characters (a throuple) say in the film.

"The better your body looks the more you want to take off your clothes."

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Have you ever tried aerobics? Which movie most screams "authentic 80s!" to you?

Further Reading?
Adam's "Signatures: Jamie Lee Curtis"
Susan's Top Ten Movie Hookers
JA's Top Ten Actress in a Horror Film Performancess

the monday monologue

Few movies are as delightful as Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). It has everything: clever production numbers, great quips, beautiful stars, and a zippy plot. But mostly the film sparkles just by ogling the twin pleasures of Jane Russell & Marilyn Monroe. Russell and Monroe play best friends and musical partners, wisecracking Dorothy Shaw and golddigging Lorelei Lei, respectfully. One of the best sequences plays like an extended joke on the movie itself, riffing on both the musical numbers and the two star personae that director Howard Hawks has so expertly shined up for the audience.


Toward the end of the film, there's a misunderstanding over jewelry that gets Lorelei (Monroe) in hot water. A tiara has reportedly been stolen and everyone thinks Lorelei is the culprit. Well, her eyes do flash at the mention of diamonds. Dorothy (Russell) attempts to buy her friend some time by impersonating her at a court hearing about the absent jewelry.

At first Dorothy isn't sure she's sold the Lorelei illusion. Jane fusses comically at her blonde wig, over selling the Monroeisms for the back row. The next time she's worried that the illusion is breaking she razzles and dazzles the courtroom to utter distraction with a coarser version of the number we just saw the real Lorelei perform "Diamonds Are a Girl Best Friend."

Just when it seems clear that Dorothy's (and therefore Jane's) approximation of Lorelei's (and therefore Marilyn's) 's breathless 'who me?' dumb blonde act has worked its trick, Dorothy's new boyfriend Ernie Malone (Elliot Reid) charges into the courtroom threatening to give the game away. Dorothy as "Lorelei" acts quickly to protect Lorelei and regain control of "Dorothy"'s man.

Your honor before he talks could I explain something?

Well, I have a friend named Dorothy and she's a really good friend. And Dorothy knows that I would never do anything that was really wrong.

It's a real kick to hear Russell comically mimic Monroe's line readings while playing her own romantic story arc.

There's a certain young man that Dorothy likes. In fact, she's very fond of him.

And Dorothy would never speak to this man again if he ever did anything to hurt me, Lorelei. So I think this young man had just better know that... well... well...

Dorothy thinks she's in love with him!

On this last line reading, Russell amusingly dumps Monroe's naive girliness for her own jaded womanliness. Dorothy's suitor is naturally delighted at this admission of love, even though she's underlined it as comic exasperation.

Needless to say Mr. Malone supports Dorothy's courtroom ruse and saves the day.

Jane's faux-Marilyn scene comes shortly after Marilyn's legendary "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" showcase. It's tempting to view this from a modern perspective -- "Diamonds" is the film's great legacy having been referenced countless times in pop culture since -- and assume that any performer would be hard pressed to follow that showstopper and mock it in the very next setpiece. But Jane Russell, a formidable star, doesn't sweat it. In fact, she appears to be having a complete ball. She sure had a pair.


The courtroom imposter scene isn't as famous as the musical numbers but it's as priceless as any missing tiara. All things considered it's Russell, top billed, who may be best in show. In the case of this 1953 classic, this gentleman prefers brunettes.

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Have we ever talked about Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion?

So rewatchable, don't you think? Most of the laughs spring from the stupidly succinct sycophantic banter between Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michelle (Lisa Kudrow). They've been inseparable for over a decade but somehow they're still surprised by every shared feeling.

Romy: Oh my god I hate throwing up in public.
Michelle: Me too!

One scene that always cracks me up comes right after the best friends have had a rare fight on the way to their high school reunion. They've concocted a lame "business women" story that they invented post-it notes in order to impress their hateful former classmates.

But since they split up on the way to the reunion, they're both trying to use the same story. Michelle, already flailing in her attempt to impress the four bitches who made their high school years miserable, rethinks her story as she notices Romy telling the same one. She adjusts.

Actually I invented a special kind of glue.

The ringleader of this Arizona-division Heathers wants to catch Michelle in the lie "Oh really? Well then I'm sure you wouldn't mind giving us a detailed account of exactly how you concocted this miracle glue, would you?"

No.

Kudrow takes a hilarious frozen pause. Her comedic timing has always been superb. The way she enhances the comedy can really only be seen and heard. She's working within Michelle's very limited register and it's all very slight eye flashes and movements. There's also the occassional escaping unh sound which, in Kudrow's comic arsenal, is both the aural equivalent of an eyeroll and a nervous tic.

Well. Ordinarily when you make glue... first, you need to thermoset your resin. And then after it cools, you mix in an epoxide which is really just a fancy-schmancy name for any simple oxygenated adhesive, right?

Her confidence growing in the telling, which surprises even her, Kudrow's line readings begin to shift from wobbly recitation to educational sass.

And then I thought maybe just maybe you could raise the viscosity by adding a complex glucose derivative during the emulsification process.

And it turns out I was right.

The scene is already a good joke in concept. You've got scientific formulas tumbling out of the mouth of a ditzy blonde character (whose still very much in character). In the execution it's even better. Kudrow as Michelle doesn't even seem to know whether she's making this up on the spot or remembering it.

The punchline to her science lesson is sweet revenge. There's a shot of the queen bees in stunned silence. "I don't believe it. You must be the most successful person in our class."

Uh huh. And you're not. Bye!

There she goes. A business woman... 'From L.A.'

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recommended further reading: Adam's wonderful "Signatures: Lisa Kudrow"
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Monday Monologue

When people think about Diane Keaton in the 70s, there are probably a couple of stray thoughts for The Godfather but 8 times out of 10 they're thinking of Annie Hall (1977). The same year that she entered the cinematic pantheon as that neurotic androgynous fashion plate, she nailed another role: the grade school teacher with a dirty mind in Looking For Mr. Goodbar.


When we first meet Theresa, a professor (Alan Feinstein) is reading her personal paper about "confession" aloud while she fantasizes about having sex with him. Later that evening she's at his apartment grading his papers and he praises her for her understanding of syntax and grammar. Not exactly what she had in mind when she took the T.A. job. Theresa was thinking of something along the lines of T & A.


He asks if she's in pain (she has a bad back), and she responds, "Isn't it obvious?"

"Nothing about you is obvious..." he answers in what might qualify as the most perceptive thing anyone will ever say to Diane Keaton in a movie not directed by Woody Allen.

But what is wrong with Theresa's back? The question annoys her since the professor is holding her when he asks it, but his embrace isn't the carnal one she'd prefer. She backs away from him, and begins to walk around the room.

Polio. When I was six. Left me with a limp til I was eleven. That's when they operated to straighten my spine. Scoliosis they said.

Her monologue is interrupted here with the jarring sound cue of an x-ray flapped on to a light box.

At this point the director Richard Brooks flashes to a younger version of Theresa who interjects in tearful fear, "Papa. Papa." The interruptions continue, though they're visual rather than verbal now. "After that..." Theresa begins, but rather than hearing her explanation (at first) we're seeing a montage of soundless still images of Theresa's childhood: a nightmare of casts, x-rays, shame and misery. Seventies movies were so blissfully experimental with their film grammar, even when they had actresses as riveting as Keaton and could have coasted with unimaginative close-ups.

I came home wearing a plaster cast. They put me on a bed downstairs in the living room where everyone could watch, day and night. For one whole year and two days. They prayed a lot. It was God's will they said.

I never did understand what terrible thing I did, you know, to make God so angry?

What's fascinating about Keaton's performance throughout the scene is the way she's conveying, rather unexpectedly, both the distant physical memory that defined her and a calculated manipulation of her physical present. The memory is emotional but the reciting is equally physical as she paces and pivots. She's constantly recalibrating the space between herself and her potential lover and maybe even bridging the distance between her immobile young self and the sensual adult woman she wants to be. Is she using this story and moment for sympathy (she claims she doesn't want it) or merely buying time to work up her sexual confidence? Possibly both.

The professor tries to interrupt her, but she doesn't let him.

No. No. I hate people feeling sorry.

I'd rather be seduced than comforted.

And with that, purpose vocalized, she's snapped back to the movie's opening scene; Theresa is totally focused on the man before her as an object of carnal pleasure. He chuckles, moving away from her advance and a flicker of self-doubt and confusion crosses her face. But Theresa is not moving through the room anymore. She's planted her feet. She unzips her blouse. Soon enough, mere moments after he zips her back up in half-hearted protest, he's unzipping her again. Keaton punctuates this expertly played scene by placing her hands expectantly on her hips, with some impossible combination of bitchy vixenish triumph and arguably virginal thrill.


He's hers. For the night. Many lovers to follow.

Even if Annie Hall had not existed (god forbid!), you could still make a case for Keaton as 1977's Best Actress. In truth, since we're on the subject, I prefer Diane Keaton's dramatic characters to her comedic ones, Ms. Hall excepted of course. It's that 'la-di-da' persona that stuck, but Keaton is underappreciated as a dramatic force. There's an inimitable erotic fire in her best work, despite a screen persona and physicality that more readily draw attention to neurotic fussiness.

Nothing about her is obvious.
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Jose here with the Monday Monologue.



At the beginning of Broken Embraces, Harry Caine (Lluís Homar) the protagonist, who is blind, asks a woman he met on the street to describe herself.
After a lush description that highlights her beauty without exaggerating, they proceed to have sex. The woman fascinated by the way he listened, the man yearning what he has lost.

Then, straight out of a pulpy noir he narrates his lifestory,
I always wanted to be another person, to be someone beside myself. To dispose of a single identity didn’t seem enough. Living a single life wasn’t enough for me. And half-joking, I came up with a pseudonym for myself, Harry Caine, an adventurer who, as fate would have it, became a writer. At that time, I had him author all the scripts and stories that I wrote. For many years, Mateo Blanco and Harry Caine shared the same person, me, but a time came when, all of a sudden, I couldn’t be anyone other than Harry Caine. I became my pseudonym. Just as I had planned, a heterodox writer and, never better stated, a self-made man, one might even say, “self-written man”. There was only one detail I had not foreseen, Harry would be a blind writer.

That last bit, confused the hell out of me when I first saw the film. Was he implying that Harry's blindness was fake?
After the film ends it's obvious that it wasn't, but it took me a few more screenings to see this as some sort of conscious Freudian slip from Pedro Almodóvar.

Anyone else see this-no pun intended-or am I reading too much into a simple grammatical confusion?
For that matter are there such things as simple grammatical mistakes?

Craig here with the Monday Monologue.


She can touch this: Annie says it's hammer time.

Annie Wilkes, you crazay beyatch. What you can do with a sledgehammer and a pair of feet is... is interesting, yes. It's inspired, sure - and so well researched; it's great that you spent all that time in secluded domesticity whiling away the hours not just re-reading old Misery Chastain adventures, but swotting up on creative hobbling techniques. Well done you. (Although what you do with a match, some lighter fluid and an old portable garden barbeque is just plain mean.) But what you can do with a potty-mouthful of bombastic dialogue can strike a person harder than any sledgehammer blow to the ankles. 'Sticks and stones' and all that, yes, but your words hurt, too.

So, Annie m'dear, you wander in to halt Paul Sheldon - mid-flow with your next Misery Chastain instalment - before he continues to write what you see, what you know, is unworthy of him ("this is all wrong, you'll have to start again") - and not before allowing yourself a sly touch of humour ("... apart from naming the gravedigger after me - you can leave that in") - to oh-so-forcibly explain the pitfalls of deceptive plotting:

Annie Wilkes: When I was growing up in Bakersfield, my favourite thing in the whole world was to go to the movies on Saturday afternoons for the Chapter Plays.

Paul Sheldon: [nodding] Cliffhangers.

Annie Wilkes: [shouting] I know that, Mr. Man! They also called them serials. I'm not stupid ya know... Anyway, my favourite was Rocketman, and once it was a no breaks chapter. The bad guy stuck him in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last week. And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But I didn't cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn't what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn't fair! HE DIDN'T GET OUT OF THE COCK-A-DOODIE CAR!

Paul Sheldon: [long pause] They always cheated like that in cl... chapter plays.

Yeah, get it right Caan - Mr. Man! Chapter plays. Chap-ter. Plays. Well, or serials. I guess it doesn't matter though - she told you. She told us, too. Of course these are William Goldman's words, by way of Stephen King, but Kathy Bates made Nurse Wilkes flesh and bone. Without the fusspot mannerisms and manic vocal inflections she honed to a tee in the role, Annie wouldn't have been half as enduringly fearsome (think about what the original actors suggested for the roles - Bette Midler and Gene Hackman - would've been like.) Ol' over-animated Annie does have a point though. Notsamuch with the kidnapping and breaking of bones and all-round generally murderous, demented behaviour, no, but with the being cheated in works of fiction thing.

Annie, via Goldman (the go-to guy for King adaptations), knows her stuff. It's right there in the way she - shaking her head and certain how right she is about it all - comes out with: "but I didn't cheer". It's in the knowing that implausible escapes won't wash with a savvy audience. And Annie was savvy enough - still discernible through her cloudy, haphazard ranting during the scene - to call the fictional writer of Rocketman (and the fictional King replacement of Sheldon - nay, all fiction writers) on this little dishonest nugget of plotting. Sheldon shouldn't be allowed to get away with such shoddy penmanship. Just 'cause you're tied to a bed, tortured and forced to write an entire novel from scratch against your will is no excuse for sloppy plotting.


Nurse Wilkes, you're taking the p**s, surely?

But it's perhaps ironic, and a bit of a shame, that the film's dénouement falls foul of its own instructions and has Annie do a 'come back from the dead' routine (after the nifty metal-pig-to-the-face bit). But then again, I always allow Misery this one minor stumble due to the fact that the killer-coming-back-for-one-last-attack thing most popularly refers back to Carrie (1976), which as we all know King was responsible for. (This was, of course, before the Scream franchise made parody of this whole thing, too.) If King "started" it, then he can surely shoehorn it into whatever story he sees fit. And, if anything, it's a testament to Annie's desperate, undying desire to see good writing restored to her favourite books. And what's really wrong with that? (If you ignore all that daft and unnecessary kidnap, torture and murder business. Tsk.)

So, Annie, despite your dirty bird ways, there was some method in your madness. You may be barmier than a bag of cats, but at least you tried to maintain some kind of quality control in your life. And couldn't you have 'come back' just one more time, to do a quick polish job on the script for Dreamcatchers? Lord knows it needed a woman's touch.

I'd write more, but I better wrap this thing up, post haste. There's a woman in the next room playing Liberace records at full volume. She just got back from the store (she was out of matches and lighter fluid), and if she discovers me writing this she'll make a right old oogie mess of it for sure.

It's time for the Monday Monologue.

I don't think we've ever discussed Oliver! (1968) in all the years of The Film Experience. Weird. Today it's often disparaged as a typical example of the bloat of 1960s musicals. It's six Oscar haul (including Best Picture) is to blame for much of the critical animosity it engenders. Oscar enthusiasts know that winning the big prize isn't always good for your place in film history.

When I was a child I couldn't get enough of this musicalized telling of Oliver Twist. And it probably won't surprise you to hear that literally every one of my favorite scenes was focused on Nancy, the prostitute with the heart of gold (Shani Wallis). It may well have been the first movie to unlock my actressexuality. I was obsessed with Nancy's sadness, her maternal instincts, her slightly forced joy, her ginger hair, her heaving bosom. Okay, yeah, and maybe I danced in front of the television and got really into that "I'd Do Anything" number where all those smudge faced orphan boys declare their love for her. What of it?

I haven't seen the movie in years but the number that haunts in the memory and that I'm absolutely sure I didn't understand as a kid is "As Long As He Needs Me". Nancy has just been violently back-handed by her man Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) because she doesn't want to go along with his criminal plans.


She exits the scene humiliated as her adoring orphans look on stunned. Once outside of this den of thieves she watches her beloved bully of a boyfriend walking away down the street and tears fill her eyes.

Not all ballads double as monologues but this one sure does. Wallis even begins the number talk-singing.

As long as he needs me.
Oh yes he does need me.
In spite of what you see, I'm sure that he needs me.

As her song progresses, the talk-singing gives way to a fuller musical performance but Wallis's vocal style is mostly subdued. She's not pulling out any vocal pyrotechnics to distract you with her pipes. She's playing the emotions more than the notes.

Who else would love him still
When they been used so ill?
He knows I always will as long as he needs me.


I miss him so much when he is gone but when he's near me I don't let on.

The way I feel inside... The love I have to hide... But hell, I got my pride as long as he needs me.

What's fascinating about the structure of the song (and the detailing of Wallis's performance) is that it's both interior monologue and plea for audience understanding. As such it's more in keeping with stage traditions than the cinema where the fourth wall is more sacrosanct. Nancy's monologue keeps swinging back and forth between addressing us (notice all the questions and the "yous" and the "people") and dark retreats into her romantic interior spaces.


At this point in the song/monologue Nancy hesitates for the last time as if she's still unsure if she should keep justifying her love or start carelessly shouting it. Her final excuses begin to emerge, the abused victim apologizing for the abuser. (I didn't understand the adult psychology of this at all as a child). Once she's gotten this out of the way, the belting commences.

He doesn't say the things he should. He acts the way he thinks he should. But all the same, I'll play the game his way.

As long as he needs me, I know where I must be. I'll cling on steadfastly as long as he needs me. As long as life is long. I'll love him... right or wrong. And somehow I'll be strong, as long as he needs me.

After several of these belted phrases the masochistic sadness of the song really sinks in. It's a heartbreaker. And Nancy knows she's broken.

If you are lonely, than you will know... when someone needs you, you love them so.

There'll be no turning back for Nancy once she's uttered this last rationalization. She'll sing her love for this man until it's the death of her. It's quite obvious that it will be.

I won't betray his trust, though people say I must. I've got to stay true just as long as he needs me.

The climactic lines are sung in far away profile and the song ends with Nancy's back to the camera as she walks slowly away. It's an incredibly sad exit, made more powerful by the use of the forgotten movie grammar of the long shot. Not every scene should be in close-up. Sometimes you have to let your actors walk away, diminished.


This film clip is strangely not available on YouTube so here are some other renditions of the song from the immortal Judy Garland through Ruthie Henshall to Melinda Doolittle...




I include the American Idol clip because, though Doolittle's voice amazes, it's sung without any emotional understanding of the song's content (the frequent bane of that particular pop culture behemoth). Like "Cabaret" after it, "As Long as He Needs Me" is a frequently misunderstood standard. The song is a defiant declaration of purpose, yes, but its mostly a terrible and desperate rationalization. If you don't sell both, you're just singing notes.
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