Continuing the Conversations...

Though I had a won-der-ful time on vacation, I do love the movie conversations. Some recent comments I wanted to respond to (for the patient and/or longwinded-like-me among you).

Clint totally approves of the Jodie Foster casting of God of Carnage (I agree that it's interesting and I hope she pulls it off) but I'm sure he'll be relieved to hear that Matt Dillon is no longer with the film. Not me.

Er... okay, I don't know which husband is which.

I was actually just discussing this with friends recently who had all seen the play and were kind of annoyed that John C Reilly will be playing Kate Winslet Jodie Foster's husband. He's not... handsome. Hollywood loves to pair anything from average to ugly men with ridiculously beautiful women, but it's clearly audience pandering to feed male ego fantasies: i.e. I can have / deserve to have a supermodel in my bed, no matter what I look like. It's okay once in awhile of course but all the time? Not realistic. Reilly is a very good actor but it's kind of silly when you stop to think of his screen conquests; he's already had (implied) movie sex with Julianne Moore, Renée Zellweger, Marisa Tomei, Jenna Fischer, Melora Walters, and Jennifer Aniston! Has he ever been paired with a homely woman? He's like a less cocky/noisy version of the Philip Seymour Hoffman phenomenon.

But mostly I'm just annoyed that...

...Matt Dillon never got a prestige gig or a meaty role as reward for that Oscar nomination. Most people do. And I'm also still slightly weirded out that even this play -- that was mounted with name stars -- got a complete cast overhaul. Usually when they replace a stage cast, it's because the stage cast are largely unknown to the public outside of theater fandom. You knew, for example, that Cherry Jones wasn't going to get her Doubt role on the screen or that the August: Osage County originals weren't going to transfer but Marcia Gay Harden (Oscar winner), Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels (longtime film regulars) and James Gandolfini ("Tony Soprano" himself)? These aren't unknowns.

Moving on...

I liked the comment conversation in the Silkwood post (thanks Tim) though I don't remember the bumper stickers that Deborah does from the 70s "Who Killed Karen Silkwood?" -- I was completely unaware of the politics surrounding that movie and first saw it only by way of combined Meryl/Cher fever 'round about '87/88, the next time they were both nominated. (I still find it odd that Silkwood missed a Best Picture nomination in 1983). Another controversy-friendly post from Erich ("Chicks of the Assimilated Animus") also provoked some interesting reaction and I liked Erich's defense of his own amusing/provocative list-making

Even the old and sexist templates of Freud and Jung have value as stepping off points, especially when dealing with the way our love of film icons intersects with unconscious archetypes...  dreams lag notoriously behind reality when it comes to updated social mores..

True that.

Manuel, who must have been searching that Cate Blanchett label, wonders when the great actress will try directing-- has she expressed an interest??? -- and  if we'll ever see a new film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire which Cate did on stage (I doubt anyone would dare. Oh god, please tell me no one would dare?) and he even free-form rhapsodizes thusly...

intelligent, gorgeous, respected, fashion icon, versatile, risky, husky voice, theater, loyal, quality, chameleon face, humble, dedicated

Though Cate is not really one of my favorites, I appreciate obsessive actressy devotions in all their diverse manifestations. If you love any actress this much, peace be with you!

DJ XRay loved Paprika Steen's performance in Applaus. You may remember I went wild for the Danish film earlier this year. UPDATE: Oscar qualifying run begins December 3rd. [thanks to Kyle for the info]. I hope it's opening in NYC in time to qualify for the Film Bitch Awards but I doubt it. Those Oscar qualifying runs usually only bother with LA. Pity that. But if you don't play in NYC -- the place for American cinephilia-- you are dead to The Film Experience.

Speaking of this site's awards. I'm all over everyone's suggestions (i.e. FYCs) for the forthcoming 11th annual Film Bitch Awards. I consider everything.

Angela Lansbury and Other Oscar Record Holders

Slow and steady tortoises may win races but sometimes we have to stop to celebrate the hares that sprint. In the case of Angela Lansbury, who celebrates her 85th birthday today, we can do both.

<--- Angela in her Tony nominated role from A Little Night Music last season on Broadway. She's won 6 Golden Globes and 5 Tony Awards. Emmy (18 nominations) and Oscar (3 nominations) have eluded her. 


Slow and Steady. She's been acting for 66 years and her longterm success is such that she means different things to different generations and may even mean different things to you at different times in your life. For example, when I was a wee lad I thought exclusively of Bedknobs and Broomsticks and as an adult, say "Lansbury" to me and it's like a switch has been flipped and I'll start talking about how great she is as Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate. Other people will think of Murder She Wrote or her stage work or something else entirely.

Sprint. Lansbury wasn't always 85 and she was no late bloomer either. She actually holds the acting record of Youngest Actor (either sex) to become a Two-Time Oscar nominee. To make that record yet more impressive and an example of "sprinting" she had achieved that within her first three movies!

 Gaslight (1944) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

We've been in a trivia / statistical mood for days now so here's some more "got there first!" Oscar sprinters. We're limiting it to the Actresses today. But more stat posts are coming. Wheeeee

OSCAR RECORDS
"Youngest" Actress to Become...

• a winner: Tatum O'Neal for Paper Moon when she was 10.
  runner up: Anna Paquin, The Piano at 11.
• a 2 time Oscar winner: OOPS. I said it was Jodie Foster who won her second for Silence of the Lambs at 29. But Luise Rainer actually still holds this record. She won her two Oscars back to back at the ages of 27 (The Great Ziegfeld) and 28 (The Good Earth). Jodie, then, is runner up.
  
• a 3 time Oscar winner: Ingrid Bergman won her third for Murder on the Orient Express at 60.
  runner up: Katharine Hepburn won her third for Lion in Winter at 61.
• a 4 time Oscar winner: Katherine Hepburn won her last for On Golden Pond at 74.
  runner up: aint no such thing.
  
  

youngest winner & the second youngest double winner

• a nominee: Tatum O'Neal for Paper Moon by the time she was 10.
  runner up: Mary Badham for To Kill a Mockingbird was also 10 but a month older.
• a 2 time nominee: Angela Lansbury for Gaslight and The Picture of Dorian Gray by 20.
  runner up: Kate Winslet for Sense & Sensibility and Titanic by 22.
• a 3 time nominee: Teresa Wright for Little Foxes, Pride of Yankees and Mrs Miniver by 24. runner up: Natalie Wood for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass and Love with the Proper Stranger by 25. Neither Teresa nor Natalie were ever nominated again. Too much too soon?
• a 4 time nominee: Jennifer Jones hit #4 with Duel in the Sun by 27.
  runner up: Elizabeth Taylor for Butterfield 8 when she was just turning 29. (Kate Winslet also won her 4th nomination at 29)
  
• a 5 time nominee: Kate Winslet for Little Children at 31.
  runner up: Olivia DeHavilland for The Heiress at 33.
• a 6 time nominee: Kate Winslet for The Reader at 33.
  runner up: Meryl Streep for Out of Africa at 36
  
  from this number on...
  It's all about Oscar's three all-time favorite women. There are a few other women with 7 nods or more but aside from Streep only Jane Fonda is still with us.
  
  
  
• a 7 time nominee: Bette Davis for Mrs Skeffington at 36.
  runner up: Meryl Streep for Ironweed at 38.
• a 8 time nominee: Meryl Streep for A Cry in the Dark at 39.
  runner up: Bette Davis for All About Eve at 42.
• a 9 time nominee: Meryl Streep for Postcards from the Edge at 41.
  runner up: Bette Davis for The Star at 44.
• a 10 time nominee: Meryl Streep for The Bridges of Madison County at 46.
  runner up: Bette Davis for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? at 54. This Letter to Daddy was the last she wrote with Oscar.
• an 11 time nominee: Meryl Streep for One True Thing at 49
  runner up: Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter at  61.
• a 12 time nominee: Meryl Streep for Music of the Heart at 50
  runner up: Katharine Hepburn for On Golden Pond at 74.
• a 13,14,15 and then 16 time nominee?
  It's only MERYL STREEP from there on out.

<--- Saoirse Ronan is 16. She's already been nominated once for Atonement. She'll need a second nomination by January 2014 to beat Angela's record. Can she do it?

All of this is a long way of saying... Winslet better get back to feature work if she wants to truly challenge Meryl Streep. And Saoirse Ronan, Dakota Fanning and the other teen drama queens of Hollywood had better work fast if they want to steal Angela Lansbury's "fastest to two noms!" crown away from her. She's held that record for an incredible 65 years.

So, um, happy birthday Angela Lansbury!?
I get distracted, I do.

"God of Carnage" The Movie

News this heavy with starry wattage and awarded source material spreads quickly. I'm sure you've heard this morning that Kate Winslet & Matt Dillon will square off with Jodie Foster & Christopher Waltz as the combative couples of Yasmine Reza's hilarious and occasionally disturbing four-hander, God of Carnage. Make that Roman Polanski's God of Carnage, since he's bound to make adjustments in the adaptation. I fear that they'll add characters and scenes and lose the play's intense get-me-outta-here vibe... all in the name of "opening it up" as a movie. But perhaps I worry for nothing. Polanski has shown skill at non-literal claustrophic material in the past. In the play two sets of parents meet up cordially to discuss a school fight between their children and the way it breaks down, everyone basically breaks down. The play is entirely set in the living room of one of the couples and takes place in real time.

James Gandolfini, Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden and Jeff Daniels
in Broadway's God of Carnage (2009)

Polanski is a reliable auteur and all four actors are strong but I still have to worry. It's my nature. I'm hoping that everyone involved understands first and foremost that it's a comedy. This type of material could easily fall apart if it loses its satiric edge and embraces the dramatic too willfully. If it does, people will just be like "ugh. these people are so immature. I hate them!" and you know how the public reacts to characters they don't like.

Pray for Jodie to pull this off!

The most intriguing casting choice has to be Jodie Foster, who I assume is taking on the Tony-winning Marcia Gay Harden role. I would haved loved to have seen Harden get this shot on the big screen but they rarely let people transfer... even Oscar winning people who aren't bankable. Anyway, Foster knows from claustrophic environs (Panic Room, Flight Plan, Silence of the Lambs) but she hasn't spent much time honing her comic gifts and this character is, at least in my experience of the play, the fulcrum point. She's full of abundant pretense and holier-than-thou speechifying and she'd be utterly detestable and annoying if she weren't also so funny and so endearingly a complete emotional wreck. It's just a killer role.

I'm glad the two time Oscar winner will be truly challenging herself for the first time in well over a decade but if you rest you rust and I hope she's up to the challenge.
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