Take Three: Carla Gugino

Craig here with Take Three. Today: Carla Gugino

Take One: Snake Eyes (1998)
Gugino was underused as the social worker in The Lookout, underdressed and all too briefly seen as the parole officer in Sin City, and under De Niro as a delectable detective in Righteous Kill. But one of her earlier roles as the mysterious ringside blonde in Brian De Palma’s Vegas boxing noir Snake Eyes gave her plenty of room to make a dent. There’s a killing about to happen at a big boxing match but is she in on the missile-based murder conspiracy? She’s certainly the focus of maniacally charged Nicolas Cage’s attention – and, by association, ours. Snake’s tricky structure and multiple viewpoints (especially the famous opening tracking shots) allow Gugino to play fast and loose with her character, Julia Costello, who ultimately, like all desperate women of noir, isn’t quite who we think she is.

Gugino’s evasive vixen is a ‘90s variant on the femme fatale or the ‘mysterious blonde’ (aroused via De Palma’s acknowledged love for Hitchcock). Julia Costello should perhaps be filed alongside the likes of Melanie Griffith in Body Double, Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct and Annette Bening in The Grifters as revisionist takes on old noir staples. Gugino brings  sly, slinky qualities and a perfectly deceptive approach to the part. Later on in the film she offers nicely-conveyed and unguarded emotion. It’s a key role in the movie, and she has the ideal voluptuous physique and versatile acting skill to carry it off. Outside of Cage’s OTT presence and De Palma’s bravura camerawork, Gugino was the one to keep your (snake) eyes on.

See also this 8-minute 2010 short, Tell-Tale, where she does actually play ‘Femme Fatale’.

Take two: Sucker Punch (2011)
Outside of its central gang of delusional madhouse girls, Sucker Punch had a few notable faces peppering the supporting cast list.

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Links: Refn Gosling Love, Tang Wei Wins, Green Lantern Bile

Alt Screen rounds up takes on Martin Scorsese's New York New York (1977) now that it's freshly released on Blu-Ray. Liza Minnelli is so great in that movie. I'm so excited to see it again. The Blu-Ray is still in its wrapping though. Must get to that soon.
Film Dr "12 notes comparing a purple bottle cap with Green Lantern" (One thing I deeply appreciated about dumbass movies like Green Lantern is the creativity they inspire in critics.)
<--- Movie|Line goes to the LA Premiere of Drive (2011) and enjoys Nicolas Winding Refn's freewheeling intro speech including this bit.

Now, I want to thank Ryan Gosling, because he gave me the opportunity to come to Hollywood and do this movie with him. It all started on a very strange blind date between us that led to a very strange, notsexual encounter, but it led to a mental creation between us. And of course, we couldn’t have done that without Jim Sallis’s book called Drive, which I highly recommend. 

i09 great find: an old "Equal Pay Act" PSA starring Batgirl from the Batman tv series.  ♥ 
Twitch has a series of neon movie posters from artist Mr Whaite. Here's Pulp Fiction.

I said god damn.

Pajiba "how homophobia lost its cool" good piece from a hetero man which kicks off with the homoeroticism of Michael Fassbender & James McAvoy in X-Men First Class
The Awl really lets loose the bile with Green Lantern and what's become of a too dominante subgenre of movies. (Note: We all know that reviews do not exist in a cultural vacuum so will the mass hatred for Green Lantern help or hurt Captain America reviews next month? It could go either way...) 
IndieWire Vera Farmiga hits Provincetown to promote Higher Ground 

FINALLY...

I'd like to personally congratulate Tang Wei, who many fine actress connoisseurs have been rooting for ever since her startling debut in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (2007). In the past two months she's picked up not one but two awards for recent performances in the romantic films Crossing Hennessy and Late Autumn. To make those rewards more impressive, one was from China (and remember they forbade her from working for a time after the sexual explicitness of Lust, Caution) and the other was a Korean Award which had reportedly never gone to a Chinese actress before. You can see her winning that one in this clip below. (She starts in Korean, switches to English, and then moves over to her native tongue.)

Will Crossing Hennessy and Late Autumn ever make it to US or European theaters? Stay tuned.

Best Actress "Character" Poll - Please Vote

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED -- PLEASE REVOTE ON PT 2 IF YOU'VE PREVIOUSLY VOTED. POLL FIXED.

I have a cagey request. I am in the brainstorming part of an "in development" project that may or may not show up on this blog and I'm not ready to talk about it yet. So I can't tell you why but I would like ALL of you reading to vote (why are people so shy/lazy about clicking on anonymous polls?).

This poll is not about your favorite performances or actresses or who you think deserved to win (though that will sometimes be affected by the following... ). I'm just wondering... Which MOVIE CHARACTERS you think about the most from the past decade of the Best Actress category. 

You are allowed multiple answers on this poll, but please choose no more than 5 characters in each poll.

 PART 1 2001-2005

poll by twiigs.com

Part 2 2006-2010

poll by twiigs.com

THANK YOU FOR VOTING.

Howling at MTV's "Teen Wolf"

Tyler Posey as "Eddie Munster"... I MEAN, "TEEN WOLF"! Have any of you been watching MTV's new series Teen Wolf? I thought I might give it a go as it premiered right after the MTV Movie Awards which we wrote up here (live blog) and here (fashion). I think with Mad Men missing from my summer schedule, I'm searching for a TV show worth writing about - not that an MTV high school show based on a cheesy 80s movie is equivocal but I was curious. I mean how long can the current vampire/werewolf craze last? Zombies reigned for nearly an entire decade of pop culture so perhaps this trend has got a few more years in it.

As with Game of Thrones I decided three episodes was enough before sounding off...

episode 1 (pilot) "Wolf Moon"
It begins, as many monster movies, do with an investigation: cops, flashlights, woods, dead body ...or half of one at least (ewww). We are then introduced to the lead character Scott McCall (Tyler Posey), who is shown shirtless fixing his LaCrosse gear. So he's already coded as "hot jock". His best friend Stiles (Dylan O'Brien), a cop's son, calls to urge him to sneak out and see what all this dead body business is about. Weirdly, Stiles has Scott who is a severe asthmatic, hold the flashlight while they run up and down forest hills in the pitch black. Pant pant. Cough cough. BITE BITE. wolf attack! Well, you saw that coming. The next morning at school there is this amusing but entirely implausible* conversation, as Stiles berates Scott for being such a nerd.

the writers of that 80s Michael J Fox movie, get a shout out but this is closer to borrowing a "title" than adaptation.

"Dragging me down to your nerd depths. I'm a nerd by association. I've been Scarlet Nerded by you."

The creator of the show cited Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an influence in a recent interview -- another reason I tuned in -- and in dialogue exchanges like this you can feel it reaching for the smart geeky pop culture fun of that classic.

But in no way shape or universe is a guy on a high school's #1 sports team who looks like this a nerd.

No that is not a key party invitation from a cougar. That is a sex talk with his mom! (Cuz, you know, people generally have those talks with their mom while dripping wet and wearing only a towel.) Of course the mom uses this opportunity to make an MTV in joke -synergy!

I'm not going to end up on some reality show with a pregnant 16 year old."

ANYWAY... I was talking to Joe after the show about all this sexiness and I said 'Remember in 80s and 90s movies how the people playing nerds were sometimes not regulation hotties who have personal trainers on speed dial.' And he says...

Oh, you mean the bad old days?"

So... uh, well, Joe won that argument.

Trust: I'm not complaining about looking at Tyler Posey. But when your casting director fills an entire high school with beauties, it's hard not to giggle at the conversations about who's hot and who's not.  There is one moment in particular in episode one that had me totally LOL'ing where I was supposed to be sympathizing: A super hot black girl (unnamed... this school is lily-white but for her) stares at the new girl chatting up the most popular couple in school. She asks Scott and Stiles why the new girl gets to hang with them on her first day and they tell her 'Duh, she's hot!' So basically three hot 20somethings pretending to be highschoolers are staring at three other hot 20somethings pretending to be highschoolers, whilst bemoaning their fate as the Unhot?

The things you're hearing are hilariously irreconciliable with what you're seeing. Hey, maybe the show is a sly satire on body dysmorphia?

But if there's one thing this show is not, that's subtle. [Lots more after the jump, including more Buffy comparisons.]

Click to read more ...

"Move Your Bloomin' Arse!" To Debbie Reynold's Auction

I didn't intend for this weekend to become such a costume freakout session but sometimes the universe shouts that something must be and you say "okay. okay. stop shouting." You see, Debbie Reynold's movie memorabilia is going on auction today. How much do you wanna bet THIS dress fetches?

I guess when you're "America's Sweetheart" with hundreds of other famous friends from multiple decades of stardom, you wind up with a few collectibles. But Audrey Hepburn's Ascot dress from My Fair Lady in pristine condition?

"move your bloomin' arse!"♫ What a gripping, absolutely ripping
Moment at the Ascot op'ning day.
Pulses rushing! Faces flushing!
Heartbeats speed up! I have never been so keyed up ♪

Reynolds also has a number of Barbra Streisand costumes from Hello Dolly as well as this "Roller Skate Rag" outfit from one of Funny Girl's best bits.

You can see other stunning pieces of the collection over at Tom and Lorenzo, who correctly note...

If you're any kind of film buff you'll gasp at some point.

My gasps were nearly all actressexual until Stephen Boyd's Ben-Hur scabbard whacked me in the face. I can't tell you how hard I ♥ed "Messala" as a young boy. Like Charlton Heston, I was hilariously unaware of the homo suggestiveness but even when you haven't yet learned to decode...

Debbie Reynolds CatalogueThe Auction is happening today at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills starting at 12 PM PST.

I'm not much of a memorabilia collector -- I prefer staring at it in uncluttered museum / travelling exhibit environs -- but if I were and had gazillions of dollars I'd be snatching up Marilyn's red Gentlemen Prefer Blondes number, Liz Taylor's iconic Cleopatra's headdress, and anything Judy Garland or The Sound of Music. And maybe Rudolph Valentino's matador look from Blood and Sand.

Have you ever collected memorabilia for anything?
Which pieces are you gagging over?