Film Experience Blog

Cele|Bitchy shared cel phone bikini pics of Demi Moore. Gawker, where I first saw these photos in a clueless* article on John Travolta, suggests that Demi is starring in her own real life adaptation of Benjamin Button.

But I think what we're looking at is a Countess Elizabeth Bálthory situation.This 47 year old superlebrity is obviously bathing in the blood of virgins.

I still haven't had an opportunity to see Julie Delpy's horror/bio/period film version of this tale, The Countess. None of the confusing and rare reports of the other film version (the one supposedly featuring Tilda Swinton) seem to give me much hope that it's actually not an elaborate internet delusion. But obviously this story should be able to resonate in our youth obsessed age where 50 is the new 40 and 40 is the new 30 and every single pitch meeting on the West Coat involves vampires.

Might I suggest an I'm Not There / Palindromes style interpretation where all of Hollywood's most mysteriously ageless women get a crack at the role? Or maybe they should just make an omnibus film I ♥ Bathory with, say, a dozen filmmakers doing shorts on the evil Hungarian royal that picked up the vampiric baton from Vlad the Impaler back in the day -- the day being the 16th century.


But which filmmakers could do that fascinating story justice in short film form? I'm going with Martin Scorsese because he's always a bit more unpredictable when he skews girlie (see Age of Innocence or Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore); Jonathan Glazer because he needs to work more and Birth proves that he knows from eery and disorienting psychology; Lynne Ramsay because some of those shots in Morvern Callar were downright spooky and hallucinatory while still seeming so grounded in mundane realities; Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!) because there are five operas about Báthory and one musical, and I'd love to see how he'd respond to the constraints of a short film.

Obviously I want this supposed 2011 version starring Tilda Swinton and Isabelle Huppert but it sounds way too good to be true. I mean, Tilda and Isabelle?! Simultaneously!??? Get real. You don't even need sets or costumes or other actors. You just need a camera since both of those faces just emanate Unknowable Unfathomable Unboring Psychology.

But play my little game anyway. Which director would you like to see making a short film about the 16th century female alleged serial killer / vampire ? Sound off in the comments. Don't even say Tim Burton. I'm warning you!

*Trust me, if this is truly the "worst kept secret" for decades now, Kelly Preston knows. I love that people pretend otherwise. It's so cute and reverse sexist, Hollywood wives as wide eyed innocents. Hee. ♪ Money... ♪ Money changes everything.

Actors on Actors

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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With the Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road coming out on DVD on Tuesday (I'm eager to give it another look) I thought we should focus on one of the best actors working: Viggo Mortensen also known as "Aragorn"

<--- Viggo at twenty-two

Aragon's filmography is super odd. Or maybe not. In many professions if you do good work, your career very gradually swells but there's plenty of detours and error along the way as you feel your way up the ladder. I guess it just feels odd in the context of the movies. When we think of leading players in Hollywood don't we tend to think of them in terms of overnight sensations, has beens, or stars that have always been and will always be with us and seem to have arrived fully formed (Streep, Pacino. That type)?

Viggo fits none of those categories but he's very much a leading actor. I remember reading a magazine article about him around 1998 or so -- I think it was in conjunction with the release of A Perfect Murder -- calling him "the hot new 39 year old" as if he were a) new and b) way too old to find stardom. As it turned out he wasn't. He was too young.

Here's the posters... albeit missing a few.
Scroll carefully as there's an intermission this time!









Viggo Mortensen quite obviously improves with age. One could say he's like a fine wine but he's more of a whiskey, don't you think? I do worry about all three of his 2009 efforts flopping. Will the lead roles keep on coming? Next up is his third go at being David Cronenberg's muse. Actors are always better off once an auteur suddenly can't live without them.

How many of these 27 movies have you seen? I've only seen half of them. Oops.
What do you first think of when you hear the name Viggo? Tell all in the comments.
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multiplex
Movie|Line suggests that Lindsay Lohan stay in France. International diplomacy is admittedly not their strong suit
The Onion Ridley Scott and Tim Burton switch action figures. 'No tradebacks!' (this article is a couple weeks old but if you haven't read it, experience the hilarity)


The Big Picture questions the hypocrisy of dissing Shia Labeouf for dissing Steven Spielberg. Good piece. There's too many "yes people" in Hollywood and Crystal Skull stank.
The Hot Blog Poland waxes philosophical about revivals of genres, musicals, and cartoons
A Socialite's Life I wouldn't normally link to a Robert Pattison on set! thing (who cares?) but in truth I have read this book they're making into a movie Water For Elephants. The whole time I was reading it -- even though it wasn't great or anything -- I kept thinking 'this should be a movie.'NatashaVC an evocative Harvey Keitel story
I Need My Fix on the Demi Moore ♥ Ashton Kutcher romance. In truth they're one of my fav Hollywood couples, too

arthouse
In Contention Guy Lodge on Cannes winding down
Vulture The Fug Girls uncover and display the 10 loopiest outfits at Cannes. Their quote on Kate Beckinsale who isn't wearing anything crazy in the picture is lol

...tends to prefer either short prom dresses or really long prom dresses; ergo, for her, this is practically Gaga City.

Scanners With Jean Luc Godard's Socialisme premiering, Jim Emerson neatly summarizes the critical conversations about Godard over the past... entire career
David Germain on Sony Pictures Classics at Cannes and with Oscar
YouTube Have you seen this "Chlöe Sevigny" dragster yet? Funny. Love the coyness when dropping Tilda's name

great white way
Just Jared Paul Reubens still in process of bringing Pee Wee Herman back. Yay.

the page
Cooley! "Inappropriate Golden Age Book: Movies R Fun" [via]

the boob tube
Antenna an interesting piece on the Joss Whedon episode of Glee just past, which gives answer to the question i had while watching it: this doesn't feel like recent episodes. Why?

in the life
The Onion "New Social Networking Site Changing The Way Oh, Christ, Forget It Let Someone Else Report On This Bullshit."

For the final podcast, the original gang is back together: Nick, Joe, Katey and yours truly, Nathaniel. We'll be back soon for a new season but this time we close out the film year with the final discussion of Oscar's 2009/10 hoedown throwdown. You can download the podcast through Mediafire or Rapidshare. We're quite gabby this time (72 minutes) so bear with us as we pick apart the Oscar ceremony in our usual train-of-thought manner. Among the topics:

• Neil Patrick Harris's opening number. Did it really happen?
• George Clooney escape from his famous attractiveness
• Secret love for Hope Floats
• Smug and sour bitches
  
• Up in the Air's shutout and Jason Reitman's Oscar future
  
• Barbra Streisand's diva shit
• Can loving Gabourey Sidibe be wrong when it feels so right?
  
• Avatar in 20 years. Did the Academy dodge a bullet?
• Shouldn't all of the acting presentations have been famous duos rather than current co-stars (like Pfeiffer & Bridges)?
• Hidden satirical messages
  
• Nick's competing Precious allegiances
• Navigating the difficult post-Oscar period
  

Once you're done listening, continue the conversation right here. Are you glad "the ten" is booked for at least three years?

Previous Oscar Night Reviews: Fashion | Party Fashions | Tribeca Review | Best Moments | Worst Moments | Lingering Questions | Lingering (Gay) Questions | Hug it Out With Jeremy Renner | 'The Money Shot'

The Birthday Boys and Girls of 11/11

1821 Fyodor Dostoevsky, legendary Russian author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov fame. So many movies inspired by his work. But he's not the legendary Russian author that'll be getting all the press this next couple of months. That'd be Leo Tolstoy, soon to be chattered about when The Last Station emerges as an Oscar contender.
1887 Roland Young, popular 30s and 40s character actor (Topper, The Philadelphia Story, Ruggles of Red Gap)
1898 René Clair, (pictured left), wonderful French writer/director. If you've never seen Le Million I urge you to rent it maintenant. His Oscar nominated films include The Gates of Paris (1957) and À nous la liberté (1931)
1899 Pat O'Brien --Ewwww, not that one people -- the actor! whose film career stretches alllllll the way from the 1931 classic The Front Page to 1981's Ragtime.
1901 Sam Spiegel, powerful producer. Boy was he on fire in the 50s bringing us On The Waterfront, Suddenly Last Summer and The Bridge on the River Kwai.
1922 Kurt Vonnegut author of Slaughterhouse Five
1944 Kemal Sunal popular Turkish actor

1960 Stanley Tucci enduring actor of stage, television and screen and current Oscar hopeful (Julie & Julia, The Lovely Bones). Looked very good in his birthday suit opposite Edie Falco in hers in the Broadway revival of Frankie & Johnny some years back, now. I love that play, don't you?
1960 Jackie Hoffman comedienne. Recently she made me howl with laughter in Broadway's Xanadu as an 'eee-eeevil woman'
1964 Calista Flockhart actress, Ally McBeal, Harrison Ford's girl, Kitty Walker McAllister. True story: I once went to The Vagina Monologues and Calista was in the middle of that horrific rape monologue and this guy two rows in front of me started to snore extremely loudly. I thought the audience was going to kill him. I wanted to. Flockhart never lost emotional focus and she was quite moving.
1972 Leslie Mann fine actress and Apatow player/wife
1974 Leonardo DiCaprio superstar

Finally, when celebrating birthdays, and especially birthday suits, you really do have to salute Demi Moore, turning 47 today, who has never ever shied away from celebrating hers. Not even in her mid-40s. Thumbs up.


If Demi were a musically gifted blond Scandinavian instead of a raven haired chick from New Mexico it'd be easy to imagine her as the truest reali life cinematic embodiment of Ulla ..."If You Got It, Flaunt It". I love immodest beauties and I love Demi. I only wish she hadn't made that short film Streak which was all preachy about loving your cellulite. Like she's ever had any.



...I have this sudden urge to watch her beat up Viggo as GI Jane.
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Faithful readers! You may have noticed my absence from the blog of late as I let friends fill in from the Toronto International Film Festival. The Canadian fest wraps today but we've got a few more TIFF related reports to get through. I hope you're enjoying (comment!). After the TIFF wrap, I'll be back. Things have been crazy for me. Apologies! (I can't wait to tell you about my star studded 'Oprah Day'). Here's five more capsules from Txt Critic who I like to argue with in real life (he sees everything) despite his anonymity here.

on The Joneses

This satire of consumerism starring Demi Moore (at TIFF with her man, left) and David Duchovny as parents of a fake family "cell" placed into suburbia to sell their neighbors on various products is about as stale and 'blah' as that plot description sounds. The screenplay leaves both leads grasping at straws to fill in the holes of their characters and it's awkwardly indecisive on a tone; the softball-satire "jokes" clash with the stabs at relevancy and pathos (including a "what have we learned here" climax), and none of the actors ever finds a consistent pitch. I'd be surprised if it gets theatrical distribution. (C)

on The Hole

While I didn't get to see the entire film (the fire alarm was pulled twenty minutes before the film was over!), I feel like I got the gist of this 3-D Poltergeist throwback from Joe Dante. The movie, which intends to be a horror film for family audiences (PG-13?), alternates between groan-inducing dialogue, family drama backstory and jumpy B-movie scares (e.g. a creepy clown doll that keeps reappearing in inconvenient locations). It’s not up to snuff with Dante’s Gremlins but what is? If you have any 8-to-12-year-old kids who like being scared, take them along. That said, you’d still probably be better off with a DVD of Coraline. (C+)

On Perrier's Bounty

Derivative of films like In Bruges (without the emotional heft) and Snatch (without the emphasis on style), this Irish crime comedy flew under the radar of most festival-goers, despite starring well-liked mick stars Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson and Jim Broadbent. Though it doesn’t bring a ton new to the well-worn genre, it boasts clever dialogue, fun performances (particularly Gleeson as the crime boss) and surprisingly off-kilter sources of humor, such as violence in the name of one’s affinity for dogs and dislike for homophobes. Seems a sure bet for small-time US distribution. (B+)

On A Serious Man

I can’t really be trusted when asked for my opinion on a Coen Brothers film. I’m more than a bit biased: for well over a decade, I’ve espoused the belief that they’re the best filmmakers working and I think even their worst movie (yes, The Ladykillers) is still pretty great. That said, even I was surprised at the level to which I was knocked out by their latest, which is supposedly their most personal film. It's about a much put-upon Minnesota university professor (Tony-nominated Michael Stuhlbarg) and how he attempts to grapple with the innumerable trials and tribulations in his life, most prominently via advice from the rabbis in his life.


Man recalls Barton Fink but definitively possesses its own unique identity. The film is consistently very, very funny but proves surprisingly weighty, too. A Serious Man depicts life as basically, ‘one fucking thing after the other,’ and espouses a supremely bleak worldview in an entirely original, oddly moving manner. While it possesses the Coens’ trademark immaculate filmmaking and shot composition, this is probably one of their most esoteric and least commercial films. It’s also, in my opinion, one of their three or four best films and in serious contention for my ‘best movie of the year’ title. (A+)

on George A Romero's Survival of the Dead

I appreciate the effort, but the guy should really give it a rest. I seemed to be one of the few in attendance who thought this was (mildly) more watchable than his last effort, Diary of the Dead. At least it featured a handful of fun, gory moments, and characters I didn’t want to instinctively murder. Overall, I think my reaction can best be summed up by my sold-out midnight audience’s behavior: they gave Romero a standing ovation when he showed up to introduce the film, and shuffled out of the theater as the credits rolled with their heads hung low -- not even bothering to stay for the Q&A with their hero. (C)

Whoa. High praise for the Coen Bros. After No Country For Old Men (my #2 of 2007) and Burn After Reading (#11 of 2008), both top-notch efforts, it's clear that they've jumped whatever hurdle they were struggling to clear in that weird mid-Aughts patch (The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty). Well done.
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When I heard tonight that Patrick Swayze had died, losing his battle with cancer at 57, my mind leapt immediately to Ghost (1990). Before Demi Moore's famous tear even finished falling in that movie theater of the mind the image was cross dissolving with scenes from other movies. I kept returning to Point Break (1991) in which Swayze played an improbable combo of surfing guru and bank robber and from which I nabbed this blurred screen shot.


I found it difficult to find a frame where Swayze wasn't in motion. Which, if you stop to think of it, is more than fitting. Dancing was his lifelong passion and rather serendipitously he became a household name by teaching it to the world (Dirty Dancing, 1987). His most famous roles smartly capitalized on his physicality whether he was throwing punches (bad movie classic Road House) fighting wars (the miniseries North and South) girlishly rethinking that lithe masculinity (drag comedy To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything Julie Newmar) or chasing big waves (Point Break). Even his name, Swayze, suggested movement.

Ghost, his biggest hit, was less physical but it resonates in other ways now. In that improbable Best Picture nominee he played a man who died too soon. He played that sad story in real life, too -- minus Whoopi Goldberg as medium. The movies will be his medium now, his way of staying with the world.
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Go Fug Yourself "well played" Kirsten Dunst & Demi Moore
Noh Way for counter programming purposes, here's a good piece from a writer who is not joining the Meryl Streep Julie & Julia love-in
Slate "the many accents of Meryl Streep" I wish this video was quicker and more inclusive but it's still kinda cool to hear the voices in close succession
My Internet... finally sees Reservoir Dogs
babblebook is not happy about the revisions to The Time Traveller's Wife
Cinema Blend Iron Man 2 footage leaked
Deep Focus on Dollhouse Season One. I'm itching for Season Two to start, aren't you?

three John Hughes pieces
NYTimes AO Scott's fine appraisal of John Hughes (RIP)
We'll Know When We Get There "Sincerely, John Hughes" an article from a John Hughes' fan turned pen pall
The Spy in the Sandwich on the poetry of John Hughes writing

Finally...


Finally, I neglected to spot this lengthy interview with the great Olivia de Havilland (The Heiress, Gone With the Wind and many more classics) when it was published last month. She's 93 years old and still trying to finish her memoirs. She wants people to understand what the 30s were really like in Hollywood, the sexual mores, the fame, the studio control. Unfortunately it sounds as if this book will exclude her much gossiped about multiple decades estrangement from her sister Joan Fontaine

That is one subject on which I never speak. Never.

Oh gods, please let her finish this book before she passes away. One nitpicky note, though. She is not, as this article implies, the oldest living Oscar winner. I believe that's Luise Rainer who, like Olivia, is a two-time winner (The Great Ziegfeld) who is still walking this good earth. She's 99 years old.

In honor of Penélope Cruz's recently announced pregnancy and the DVD release of Lindsay Lohan's latest Labor Pains (don't everybody rush out to snatch it up at once. I promise you they'll have enough copies) in which she fakes a pregnancy to keep a job, I thought a top ten list celebrating the miracle of childbirth -- or future childbirth rather -- was called for.

But first a bit more about Ms. Lohan. Rich at fourfour collected the Labor Pain lines that were more applicable to Lindsay the celebrity than the character she happens to be playing.



...not that Lindsay plays characters these days. The Actress wrapped things up with Mean Girls, only The Celebrity lives on.
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10 Juno in Juno (2007)
The general three act journey of zeitgeist movies goes like so... Act I: instant hype, audience love and acclaim births a new pop culture babe; Act II: media overkill curdles that hype, attempts to beat holdout audience members into submission spurring rebellions. Backlash turns pop culture darling into punching bag; Act III: Everything settles down until the darling/punching bag is just a movie again, neither the greatest nor the worst ever made. Are we in act three yet with Juno? I hope so because for all the swipes at its forced quirk and too widely adopted quotables, it's a good movie and Juno the character as written, and especially as performed by Ellen Page, should be appreciated as a pretty swell(ing) movie character, hamburger phones be damned.

But how do you think her baby turned out?

09 Demi Moore in...
Vanity Fair Magazine: The Movie. Don't even argue that that wasn't her best role.

08 Holly in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
That's a spoiler if you haven't seen Woody Allen's Oscar nominated classic. I love that Holly begins the movie as a bundle of cocaine snorting sister-dependent directionless neurosis and ends the movie aglow with the promise of new life and yet you never think to worry that she'll be a terrible mother. You're too in love with Holly to be anything but happy for her. Credit Dianne Wiest who is one of the most endearing actresses that the cinema has ever known.


07 Sarah Connor in The Terminator (1984)
If you give birth to the future savior of mankind you deserve a place on the list. I chose Sarah over Mary from any Jesus movie or Kee from Children of Men because I don't think they would have survived a robot apocalypse (too demure and too shell shocked, respectively). More on The Terminator and Sarah Connor herself.

06 Dawn Lagarto aka 'Bloody Mama' in Series 7: The Contenders (2001)
It's strange to me that Daniel Minahan's Series 7 never got its due as a prescient satire of the barbaric leanings of reality television and celebrity culture's fame fixation. In the movie, random citizens are selected to star in a show wherein they have to kill the other contestants before they're killed themselves. The final girl (or boy) is the winner. Did the black comedy arrive a year or two too early? Is it not quite as sharp as I remember it being? Either way, Brooke Smith's reluctant but efficient pregnant murderess still lingers in the memory with her big belly, flop sweat and bloody hands.

Is Brooke Smith cursed? Whenever you think her career is going to take off either the film doesn't (Series 7) or she's overshadowed by brilliant co-stars even though she's totally working it too (Vanya on 42nd Street and Silence of the Lambs) or she gets written out of the picture series (Grey's Anatomy, Weeds). If anyone in Hollywood had actually seen Series 7 maybe they wouldn't be so quick to write her off as a contender. Given the right opportunities, she's killer.

05 Ashley in Junebug (2005)
Cuter than a meercat. [Related post: Amy Adams interview]

04 Ruth in Citizen Ruth (1996)
If you've never seen Alexander Payne's satire of America's eternal war between the pro-choice and pro-life forces, you should. The ever brilliant Laura Dern (in one of the best performances of 1996) plays the druggy dimwitted and frequently pregnant Ruth and both sides of the abortion divide seek to co opt her for their cause. It's worth seeing for Dern's amoral comedy alone but the political satire has real bite, too. Here I'll help you. Rent it from Netflix or Blockbuster.


03 Marge Gunderson in Fargo (1996)
Frances McDormand's Oscar win for her seven months pregnant police chief is one of the greatest atypical Oscar moments of all time. A memorably comedic portrayal of a truly original character wins? There is a god. That's as hopeful as Marge's innate goodness, which provides the wintry brutality of Fargo's comedy with its sole warmth.

And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'cha know that?

And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well, I just don't understand it.

Marge is a great cop. You know she's going to be an awesome mom in just "two more months. two more months."

02 Trudy Kockenlocker in The Miracle at Morgan's Creek (1944)
This Preston Sturges comedy about a girl who gets knocked up on a one night stand with the troops should be mandatory viewing in film schools. It's not that it's the greatest comedy of all time or anything that hyperbolic. It's that it does two things superbly that Hollywood has forgotten how to do well at all. First, briskly paced comedic storytelling and second, an endearing good time gal lead who doesn't feel like she's been assembled from pull down menus in a screenwriting program. Betty Hutton is a total dream as Trudy: funny, sexy, radiant and supremely silly. She's just wondrously fruity. And her loins are unexpectedly fruitful, too.

01 Rosemary in Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Roman Polanski's enduring chiller is among my personal holy trinity of horror: the father mother (Psycho), the son (Rosemary's Baby), and the unholy ghost (Carrie). Most horror movies play with our loudly admitted phobias: fear of the dark, monsters, death. Rosemary's Baby plays a more masterful game, exposing primal fears about things we're not supposed to admit we're scared of. Fears such as pregnancy, childbirth, unknowable offspring and the dread of identities subsumed by our children's. Mia Farrow's brilliant star turn channels these anxieties which are especially pronounced in new mothers, whether or not they've been knocked up by the devil.

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Here's the part where you horrify me by telling me who I've forgotten...

I know you Meryl Streep fanatics out there are getting tired of waiting for the "Streep at 60" pieces. I can only move at the speed at which I can move. My ideas are always larger than what can be shoved into my viewing/writing schedule. The retrospective is not going to end right on her birthday (June 22nd) so just enjoy as it comes. While you wait -- I'm working on the 1979-1981 movies at the moment -- please enjoy highlights from the past 48 hours of Streep related tweeting... stweeping? One of my favorite things to do on Twitter is just look up a phrase or name and see what complete strangers are saying about that topic. It's so random, weird and amusing ... so long as you can edit out the dull parts, which I've done for you!

I'll kick things off by stating the very very obvious.


My favorite tweet from that batch above is from sinistergiraffe, partially because I imagine Glenn Close has the exact opposite take on the actressing situation as is.

For the record, Don Cumming's A Good Smoke (today's reading) is about a mom (guess who?) who quits all her medication cold turkey and goes into severe drug withdrawal in a desperate ploy to wrestle back her family's attention. Gee... a narcissistic drug addled mom tormenting her daughter? I guess Meryl is already rehearsing for August: Osage County : The Movie !



Oh and here's the performance Meryl was watching yesterday in Williamsburg via L Magazine. That's her son Henry Wolfe strumming and singing. Beautiful song.
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We haven't done a fashion lineup in a while, so here goes...some ladies walking the flashbulb-lined red this past week.


Even though Rumer Willis (who turns 21 this summer) is not what you'd call traditionally beautiful I admire that her public persona often screams "I'm hot shit!" I think you have to respect that. Martha Plimpton is hot shit on Broadway (where she's currently enjoying her 3rd consecutive TONY nomination) if nowhere else. But isn't Broadway enough? She seemed to give up on her dwindling movie career just as the new decade began. It pisses me off that most people only think Goonies! when they see her because, helloooo, she was so good in other 80s gems like Shy People, Mosquito Coast and Running on Empty back in her River Phoenix days. And though I barely recall it I seem to remember that she was hilarious in 200 Cigarettes (1999). Does anyone remember that holiday comedy?

Anne Hathaway is fierce. It's like she just stepped out of the opening credits of Dynasty -- loves it.

Audrey Tatou is... I have to admit I don't really get her though she was cute in Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie. I'm vaguely curious about (Le Fabuleux Destin de...) Coco Avant Chanel but isn't it weird how there's always a glut with bios? First the Shirley Maclaine TV movie and now this AND Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky. No Coco and then Coco tripled.

And I have to give credit when it's due: Renée Zellweger looked amazing at the Met Costume Ball. I'm totally confused. Gone is the weird 'she'll break in half' hot mess we've been seeing for years. The skin looks fresh, the dress is flattering... the eyes are open! It's a small miracle.

I've hidden Kerry Washington behind Renée because none of us should have to see that dress full on. Y'all know I've been rooting for Kerry for years but if she doesn't ascend in some memorable way in the next two years I don't think it's ever going to happen. She's got three movies on the way: Life is Hot in Cracktown with other semi-famous B & C listers, A Thousand Words with Eddie Murphy and what looks like an important supporting role in the acting showcase Mother & Child starring Annette Bening and Naomi Watts.

Marisa Tomei is here because I'm addicted. Why isn't everyone? I don't understand why she doesn't have 12 projects lined up post Wrestler. And as StinkyLulu pointed out -- here's to her longevity. She's been Oscar nominated in her 20s, 30s and 40s -- a rare feat. It's like Cher with #1 singles. Here's to a fourth Oscar nomination once Marisa hits her fifties.

And finally, one more note on "Miss Golden Globe 2008" (that'd be Rumer). She co-stars in her mother's directorial debut, a short film called Streak (pictured right). Brittany Snow plays an uptight sorority girl who is always counting calories and making herself miserable. One day she meets free spirit Rumer. There's some lesbo subtext/teasing and eventually the girls end up streaking together across campus. Streak beats you over the head with a 'love your body no matter what you weigh!' message but then when Brittany finally does love her body, stripping off her clothes in a moment of joyous abandon, we only see her from the neck up. It's total Message Dysmorphia. It's... unfortunate.


I'm sorry Demi. I still love you. xoxo
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