Mean Girls: 1) Choose Your Seat and 2) Scribble in the Burn Book

Mean Girls Anniversary Week 

Two comment party questions for you this lovely Friday.

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THE CAFETERIA
I love how detailed the North Shore High's social structure is and that Janis & Damian ('the coolest people you will ever meet') make a map for Cady.

1. Was your High School as regimented? And which table would we have found you sitting at? My table was more "the brains" but I don't see that here so I definitely would have been with seated at either of the "Band Geek" tables (all my friends were in band), sexually active and otherwise. 

THE BURN BOOK

it seems kind of unsanitary to leave lip prints all over a book.

2. What would people have written about you in high school? Or were you one of the mean girls who did the writing? 

JANIS: What does it say about me?
CADY: You weren't in it.
JANIS: Those bitches! 

Tribeca: "Zero Motivation," Winner of Best Narrative Feature

Here's Diana on one of the big winners of the Tribeca Film Festival...

A young woman saves a seat on a bus for her friend. The friend runs on and all is well, or at least until the driver tells everyone that they have to exit the bus and get on again. The two women shout dibs on their seats, but the jump cut reveals it was to no avail, with both standing in the midst of the jam-packed aisle for the very long and arduous bus ride ahead of them. No, this isn’t a Megabus or a school bus, but it is on its way to a camp of sorts: an army base in middle-of-nowhere Israel. These two women are army secretaries, serving their mandatory two years out handling mail, shredding paper and having their rearends ogled as they serve coffee and biscuits to predominantly male officers. Loosely based on her own experiences in the Israeli army (and a Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Lab participant), Talya Levie’s Zero Motivation follows Zohar (Dana Ivgy) and Daffi (Nelly Tagar) through boredom, romance and record-breaking Minesweeper scores...

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Supporting Smackdown '03: Holly, Marcia, Patty, Renée & Shohreh

For the latest edition of StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Smackdown -- which was delayed for reasons I won't bore you with again --  Stinky and I welcome you to a much-discussed Oscar contest, ten years back. This was not, as we've rediscovered, a particularly strong vintage despite a certain nostalgic pull for any storied shortlist that combines five very distinct performers. The truth of it is that most of 2003's acting races were messy affairs with little precursor agreement or too much of it. Further complicating matters was a mix of various stages of career momentum, a frontrunning film without any acting bids (Return of the King), and that semi-annual deadly combo that always mucks with Academy discernment: weak prestige pieces and much of the best work occuring in genres Oscar doesn't care for. The Best Actress race, for example, was historic but totally odd and disatisfying, and Best Supporting Actress coalesced around these five players...

THE NOMINEES

Shohreh Aghdashloo, a "discovery" at 51 though she was already famous in Iran, and previously snubbed character actress sensation Patricia Clarkson were the first timers. Oscar winners Marcia Gay Harden and Holly Hunter were also included for anchoring gritty dramas as desperately confused mothers. And finally Renée Zellweger, the eventual winner, on her third consecutive nomination but her first for a drama after two lead nominations for popular comedies. (All legitimately supporting roles. That doesn't happen over a whole supporting field anymore)

You know who won the Oscar but who will win the Smackdown? Read on...

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS

Nick Davis, Guy Lodge, Joe Reid, Nathaniel R, Tim Robey, Stinkylulu and You (we tabulate reader votes as well and quotes from your ballots appear).

2003
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN

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Tribeca: Five Films From Midnight

Here's Jason on five films off of the Midnight Movies portion of the Tribeca Film Fest's expansive programming.

Rupert Evans in the great new horror film "The Canal"

Every year when the New York Film Festival rolls around I always find myself a little bit saddened by the lack of horror offerings. Oh sure I'm always up for the latest Claire Denis joint, I'm not complaining, but sit as it does on the cusp of Fall my mind's usually turning towards Autumnal things at that time, which for me equals Haunted Houses just as much as it does Oscar-Bait. But if I wait around til Winter's passed it's good times again for a genre-loving New Yorker, since the Tribeca Film Festival always offers up a thorough Midnight Movies program. Here's my quick takes on five of the flicks they're offering this year that go bump in the Spring night.

Saving the best for first, The Canal tells the story of a film archivist named David (played by Rupert Evans) who moves his expectant wife into that old standby, The House They Really Should Have Done Research On Beforehand. Sure enough as the mysteries pile up so too do the news-clippings of its horrifying past, which begins to seep its insanity into everybody inside. Somehow the Kubrick it reminds me of is Eyes Wide Shut more than the similarly plotted The Shining (that green party dress the wife wears gives off total Kidman sensations, not to mention all the Christmas-bulb lighting) but it comes across as a harrowing Kubrickian experience all the same. Think if Stanley had directed Don't Look Now. [more...]

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Tribeca: "Vara: A Blessing" A Colorful Hallucination

More Tribeca from Nathaniel...

Have you ever felt cheated by a movie you actually liked? If so sit down next to me and let's talk Vara: A Blessing over popcorn.

Vara: A Blessing
A general rule of thumb for non A-list film festivals: the foreign films will be better than the home-grown product. (There's a reason some films don't win the lottery of distribution beyond bad luck). So of all the films I saw at Tribeca one that I was quite excited for was Vara: A Secret, which is about a temple dancer named Lila (played with impish gorgeousity by Shahana Goswami) who is obsessed with Krishna, the blue skinned god. She decides to pose for a lowly field worker named Shyam who wants to be a sculptor. That's something quite above his station and will anger the village if they find out. 

Shyam looks like this... 

(and this isn't even a particularly flattering photo of first time acting beauty Devesh Rajan)

...which means Lila is in deep trouble and not just from spiritual ecstasy. She starts picturing Shyam as Krishna with blue skin in stylized hallucinations and continues to dance up a passionate storm, exciting the wealthy Landlord who is looking for a young wife. Lots of drama of the spiritual, social, political and carnal nature follows.

I was thoroughly engaged though you can see a lot of the plot points coming a mile away rendering several scenes redundant or extraneous when the film only really takes off whenever it ditches plot for Lila's imagination and worship; more dancing and hallucinations, please.

Maybe it's reductive of me, but I enjoy feeling like I've learned something about "exotic" (sorry) cultures when I go to the movies - escapism with subtitles. So color me perplexed that this extremely Indian film (very steeped in old school traditions and the caste system and the taxonomy of Hindi gods) was in English!!! I felt cheated that I didn't get to read the screen. (This also killed the US release of Kon-Tiki for me since I was so looking forward to all those hunky blonde Scandinavians speaking Norsk. Foreign actors speaking English in movies from their home country? No sale!)

Well, there were subtitles but Vara doesn't need them at all because all of the actors speak English well (the only time I've ever needed subtitles for English language films is during slang-filled movies about the British/Irish/Scottish underclasses, Trainspotting and Fish Tank and the like - you know the type.) B/B-