Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Possessed"

We return to Season Three of the collaborative series Hit Me With Your Best Shot with not one but two tales of love-madness. I hadn't meant to pair them but I was so late with Possessed and it was time to bring the series back with The Story of Adele H. So there they were, two brunette screen goddesses Joan Crawford and (today's birthday girl) Isabelle Adjani, double-teaming me with their crazy-making sob stories of unrequited love. We'll cover Adele H tomorrow (yes, I'm running behind) but tonight, the first of these two Best Actress Nominated pictures.

Possessed (1947)
This 1947 noir stars the inimitable Joan Crawford as Louise, a woman who we meet after the events of the picture have taken place, wandering around in a daze looking for a man named "David". She is soon in a mental hospital and her back story, the story, begins to emerge. David (the dependably caddish Van Heflin), as it turns out, is the love of her life who she met while both were under the employ of a rich businessman. Louise, a feminist's nightmare, tosses aside all her dignity to veritably beg David to love her back and when he won't, she marries the boss instead and spends the rest of the movie obsessing over David and prone to jealous rages over her step-daughter's budding romance with her former lover. Louise is one of Crawford's most famous Victim roles but the actress is sly enough to also understand that Louise is enough of a masochist to also qualify her as the Film's Villain. The movie's best passage takes on a dream-like quality which is appropriate since Louise is a walking nightmare. 

Crawford Goes Mental after the jump!

Click to read more ...

Link Me Like You Mean It

Scanners Alien (1979) in just one frame. On Ridley Scott's compositional skill.
Fug Girls well played, Elizabeth Banks 
My New Plaid Pants Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter in 150 words or less 
The Wrap Metropolis is the world's most valuable film poster. How much will it fetch at auction?
Indie Wire a ten wide Emmy nomination wishlist from Kathryn Hahn in Parks and Recreation (great choice) to Laura Dern in Enlightened "the most burrowing television performance since Tony Soprano" 

Guardian smart piece, neither fully pro nor con on Brave and the evolution of the action princess...

the studio whose most iconic heroes include a toy cowboy, a rat, a fish, a boy scout, and a lonely trash compactor (all male-identified, of course), couldn't figure out how to tell a story about a human girl without making her a princess. That's the problem in a nutshell: if the sparkling minds at Pixar can't imagine their way out of the princess paradigm, how can we expect girls to?

Flavorwire "actors with the worst onscreen love lives" - a fun (?) rundown of heartbreak for Michelle Williams, Leo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Ryan Gosling and more
Huffington Post Mike Ryan took a male stripper to Magic Mike and wrote about their "date". I had this idea too and even lined up TWO of them, former Chippendale's guys that a girlfriend of mine once worked with. But then they both cancelled on account of  'conflicted feelings'. Argh. From conflicted feelings are beautiful movie conversations born.
Coming Soon Angelina Jolie on the very green screen set of Maleficent 
Cinema Blend Viggo Mortensen may smuggle vampires in intriguiging sounding The Last Voyage of the Demeter 

Let's end with two random nifty visuals. THE FIRST ONE IS UNFORTUNATELY A HOAX.

1. It's supposedly a Back to the Future screenshot but I started hearing it was a hoax and I looked it up on The Movie Timeline and it is. The future they were going to was... NOT today :(  I apologize for tweeting and sharing.

2. The second was a birthday gif a reader "Mark the First" made me. xoxoxo Mark.

Isn't it cute?! It totally made my week. At the risk of sounding hopelessly narcissistic ["What else is new?" - all of Nathaniel's friends] I accept birthday gifts all June long  be they handmade and heartfelt blogging fuel like so, generously monetary (see sidebar -- it's only 10¢ a day to make my life way easier) or bartery for those of you with special skill sets in Manhattan; as always I need a photographer, stylist, publicist, massage therapist, yogi, etcetera... I know that you can't always get what you want ♪ but I'm a firm believer that you should try to get it anyway.

Red Carpet Quickie: "Savages"

We're speeding up our red carpet convos with one event at a time. Today's guest is Guy Lodge, who you know and love...

Nathaniel: Time for a Red Carpet Quickie at the Savages Premiere. Hi Guy!‬

Guy:  ‪Okay, I've got Mary Louise Parker and Salma Hayek, but...?‬ 

Nathaniel:  ‪...Blake Lively and Kelly Preston‬ 

Guy:  ‪Aha. And with that, hi! I just had a moment of Actressexual Identity Panic‬

Botwin, Frida, Blake LIvely, Mrs. John Travolta

poll by twiigs.com

Nathaniel:  ‪It happens. I think Mary Louise Parker may be heading for an Identity Panic herself when Weeds ends (finally. thank god).

Guy:  ‪I still have fond memories of Weeds, having stopped watching it about five years ago and forgetting it exists.‬ 

Veronica Lakeisms and Scientology Secrets after the jump

Click to read more ...

Nora Ephron (1941-2012)

Goodbye NoraScreenwriter, director and all around wit Nora Ephron passed away yesterday at 71 from a long battle with leukemia. The Ephron movie I hold most personally dear (with the exception of Silkwood which is more of a Nichols/Streep thing for me) is Sleepless in Seattle (1993). When it came out on video I was in college working in a video store / pizza place. We always put movies on and they had to be safe for families so it was all G & PG titles. I'd play old movies and musicals and whatnot in the morning when people wouldn't complain about them but when it would get busier you'd have to have the new titles playing while they stuffed their faces full of hot melted cheese. Sleepless in Seattle was popular in heavy rotation. Loved that movie and always got a little heartsick right along with Meg Ryan, listening to that radio in her car.

My last Nora specific memory was the tickling experience of reading her brief spoof of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in The New Yorker. I remember my smile turning to audible laughter (aka LOL'ing ) a third of the way through and increasing in frequency as its brilliance sank in. There was an after pang - "If she's still this funny, how come we don't get another When Harry Met Sally?"

Alternate title for Nora Movies: "You've Got Relatlonships"

I didn't know at the time that she had already been sick for a few years. And even if her filmography contains its fair share of head-scratchers, on the whole its a good one. Her reputation has only been unfairly diminished by the shortsighted modern disdain for the rom-com genre which she ruled for a time. (While it's true that this genre is currently at its nadir, some of the greatest films ever made belong to it - think screwball.)

This morning my thoughts turned to Ephron's screen muses. While she worked with Tom Hanks, John Travolta, and Steve Martin multiple times I wondered sadly how Meryl Streep and Meg Ryan, her two most prominent interpreters, were feeling today. I have no idea what their personal friendships were actually like -- though Ephron's amazing AFI tribute speech to Streep suggests that theirs might have been filled with nonstop hilarious banter.

Since Ephron wrote so well and often about romantic relationships, I like to frame the collaborations in that way. Let's call her screen romance with Meryl Streep (Silkwood, Heartburn and Julie & Julia) an "amorous friendship" -- one of those mostly chaste things with occassional "what if...?" flarings of passion. The screen romance with Meg Ryan (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, Hanging Up) on the other hand can only be interpreted as "marriage" --unmistakably public, fruitful and life-changing for both.

Nora ♥Meryl, Nora ♥ Meg

What's your favorite Nora & Meg movie? What will you most miss about Ephron's best work?

Recommended Reading
The New Yorker The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut by Nora Ephron
Lists of Note "What I won't and will miss" by Nora Ephron 
...and my two fav Ephron tributes: NPR's Monkey See and Stale Popcorn.

Hugh Jackman Sings. "Emptys" Wins TropFest.

I wasn't able to attend TropFest on Saturday night here in NYC due to last minute conflicts -- what a crazy week -- but it looks like a good time was had by all. 

Hugh Jackman hosted the free event, the first in the US though the short film festival, born in Australia, has been going strong for 20 years. Hugh Jackman hosted while fellow Aussie Rose Byrne served with other celebs served on the jury. The winner Josh Leake won $20,000 and the once-in-a-lifetime chance to actually be on stage singing with Hugh Jackman. They sang Kander & Ebb's "New York New York" because, well, what else?

That acceptance speech duet and the winning film after the jump.

Click to read more ...