The Rose

may flowers, blooming each afternoon

Just remember.... in the winter... far beneath the bitter snow...

How beautiful is that song? On a scale of 1-10? 11! One of the all time classics.

I don't think we've ever discussed that particular Best Actress race. Sally Field took her first Oscar for Norma Rae "UNION!". But who gets your vote?

• Jill Clayburgh, Starting Over
• Sally Field, Norma Rae
• Jane Fonda, The China Syndrome
• Marsha Mason, Chapter Two
• Bette Midler, The Rose

I've just realized that the reason we've never discussed it here at The Film Experience is that I barely remember these movies (and have never seen Starting Over ... which sounds like a spiritual sequel or straight up remake of An Unmarried Woman). I remember really liking the other four performances when I saw them on VHS (gulp) in the late 80s. I was a huge fan of Chapter Two in particular for a split second but barely remember it now. No one speaks of Marsha Mason anymore...

Game of Thrones, Three Hours In

I've resisted commenting on the new HBO series Game of Thrones, made possible by way of The Lord of the Rings. (That's a gift that will hopefully keep on giving to the fantasy genre. No one wants to go back to the 80s when B movie status was forced upon an entire genre.) I wanted to see how the series did or did not evolve from the kick-off show a couple of weeks back. So after three hours in the Seven Kingdoms, it feels like time to discuss.

After glancing at a few reviews and comment pieces, most of which seem elated at the ratings or the instant second season renewal, it seems the general consensus is FuckYeahGameofThrones. I am personally not elated though I did want to be. I imagined that the right cast or storytelling decisions in the series would smooth over or even hurdle some of the problems with the book series. I loved the first book but grew less enamored with each until I finally gave up on the series halfway through the third. By that time we had been introduced to dozens of major characters (plus several dozen minor ones) and the story threads, splintered at the thrilling final chapters of the first book, had only been rebraided in the abstract. The characterizations were, generally speaking, quite interesting. What killed it was the lack of interaction between the characters. The map is so big and the plots so resistant to truly intertwining that it felt like you were reading 100 different novels at once and even the ones about blood relatives would almost never overlap. Great characters are great characters but even they need chemistry with other great characters to truly leap off the page or screen.

George R R Martin can turn a phrase with the best of them, build a thrilling moment, and make complex decisions about characterizations (the best longform aspects of the book may be that, aside from maybe three or four characters, most of them minor, nobody seems entirely like heroes or villains). But I found the author's voice too cruel -- the ratio of gruesome plot turns to endearing or lighter or funny or romantic bits is roughly 99 to 1 -- and the stories far too repetitve once it was clear that entire books would go by and we'd still be harping on the same points (in that way it was already a television soap opera!) and still yearning for some face-to-face time between ANY of the characters we'd seen interact in the first novel.

But here's how the pros and cons and character detail breaks down thus far.

Click to read more ...

"Hit Me"? Eraserhead

Check out these fine Hit Me With Your Best Shot entries to read about the visual highlights of David Lynch's 1977 calling card.

• Pussy Goes Grrr "in heaven everything is fine"
• Awww, the Movies loses its head.
• Antagony & Ecstacy Tim Brayton is one of the best film critics on the web so I hope you're all reading him religiously. He looks at Eraserhead's opening shot.
• Okinawa Assault also focuses on the film's early moments. These shadows will darken.
• Film Actually picks something truly grotesque but then... this is Eraserhead. ;)

Strike Two for Nathaniel. Way to kill one of TFE's most popular features, man. Never again do I wait until Wednesday to type up my entry. Strike One: The Beauty and the Beast was a fluke problem. My DVD up and vanished on me -- two weeks later it's still missing and I'm still confused about where it could have gone. Unless Monty ate it. Strike Two: Eraserhead. This one just goes to show you that addiction to Netflix's Instant Watch is unhealthy. I love that feature but it's just not reliable enough for appointment viewing.

The ironic part is that I chose the film almost solely BECAUSE it was on Instant Watch and I figured that would make it easier for anyone who wished to participate on short notice. Alas sometime within the last seven days, just when we needed it, they removed the movie. I didn't think to keep checking because I hadn't seen any notice of "only available until..."  

THE SCHEDULE
Next week we're looking at Matador (1986) and/or Law of Desire (1987) the Banderas/Almodovar double. I own both movies so it shouldn't be a problem. But if there's a consecutive Strike Three I'll know it's time to shutter the series until whatever bad mojo is haunting me has been exorcized (sigh).

"Savage Beauty" A Red Carpeted Conversation.

I felt like the red carpet lineup feature needed a rethink so let's make it a conversation instead. I've enlisted Kurt from Your Movie Buddy to chat with today. This is but a small sampling from this week's big event which seemingly hundreds of celebrities attended. But we're only talking about 18 of them.

SEVIGNY, FANNING, LOPEZ, PINTO

Nathaniel:  The Met's annual Costume Institue Gala has been nicknamed the "Oscars of the East Coast" in the past -- everyone goes -- so I figure we should uh, say something, though predictions cannot apply. Nobody wins anything except for maybe your oohs and aahs.

Hi Kurt!

Kurt:  Hi Nathaniel! I was not aware of such a nickname, but okay. I'm all for lavish attire and oohs and ahhs. As for the first quartet of ladies you've provided, shall we go through them one by one?

Nathaniel: Two by two because... Chloë Sevigny and Freida Pinto. Don't they seem like inverted images. The theme was "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" I think -- there's always a theme. Wouldn't it be great if Oscar had a theme each year?

Kurt: They have unofficial themes -- remember when everyone wore red in 2008? "Savage Beauty," eh?

Nathaniel: What's with the ties (?) and the black and white reversed?

Kurt: There's not much savagery in the Sevigny-Pinto duet, unless you count Chloe's 'do. The inversion is interesting. I feel like it's part of a trend I'm not privy to, as both of these ladies seem to be on fashion's cusp. As for who wore it best -- I'm Team Freida.

Nathaniel:  Vote Split! As for women in ties, I would like to vote for Diane Keaton circa Annie Hall in absentia and perpetuity.

Kurt:  Of course. for the record, though, I am a HUGE Chloe fan

Nathaniel:  True story. When i was a little kid I thought it was pronounced "shlow" and my friends never never never let me live it down.

Kurt:  In that case, I imagine you would've had a helluva a time with SEVIGNY

Nathaniel:  LOL. no not Sevigny herself. Just her namesake. But when one says they are a fan of Chloë that can mean SO many things. Don't you think she has kind of a schizo fan base like acting, fashion iconery, polygamist cult-obsessives, drag queens... So what kind of Chloe fan are you?

Kurt: Very schizo fan base indeed. I'm of the opinion that if you like Chloë S., we can prob. be friends. She has a very specific coolness. Me? I'm a fan of the actress first, the fashion icon second, and whatever else she's into third.

Nathaniel:  Is "whatever else she's into" a reference to Brown Bunny because this isn't that kind of blog!!!

Kurt:  Haha! I'm going to admit I've never seen that. I've heard it's such a slog, and I feel like I'd only be watching for the BlowJ part. Not that that's not worth seeing, I just feel like I'll let it keep its lore and mystique. Besides, I'm certainly no Vincent Gallo completist.

Nathaniel:  Fair enough. I worry for people who are. Is it fair to say that you're a fan of Dakota Fanning -- I know you liked her Runaways work -- or am I being too pushy about recruiting? She needs some support given The Rise of Elle.

Kurt:  I'm definitely a Dakota fan. She's one of my favorite young stars to watch. The whole evolution thing is really fun when the star is actually a big talent. I feel the same way about Saorsie Ronan (who suggests future Blanchett chameleonism in Hanna). I remember thinking in that awful movie Push, which Dakota totally ran away with, that she has all sorts of Jodie Foster parallels. I think she will be a star until she's dead.

Nathaniel:  Are you suggesting that Elle will have to kill her to dethrone her? I hate what Dakota is wearing here. But moving on... I only included Jennifer Lopez because she's "relevant" again (damn you American Idol) DON'T MAKE ME TALK ABOUT HER.
 
Kurt:  Oh no, we MUST. JLo is a perpetual red carpet fiasco, which is so funny because she's obsessed with fashion. Here we have another mess...

[long pause]

Nathaniel:  I've half typed seven different jokes and can only raise a white flag. JLo has defeated me. I have nothing to say.

Kurt: Was one of them "bondage gardener?" I was so excited when I saw her in the lineup. She is the queen of excess, which I guess is appropriate but MY GOD. It's always the antithesis of "take something off before you leave." And this getup looks so effing uncomfortable.

Nathaniel:  But does it look Savage? Or Beauty-ful?

Kurt:  I'll give her Savage.  Savage Garden

Nathaniel:  Heh. These lineups are very random except when I wanted to pair people.

KRUGER, MICHELE, IMAN, ZEEEEEE, MENDEZ

And I have to say this about both Zeéeeee and Eva Mendes. You have to give them points for tenacity. Whatever their onscreen merits, I feel like they both have death grips on their fame. They're just not going to give up. Eva's look screams very sophisticated key party to me. As for Zeéeeee, well she is fairly reliable as red carpet stars go.

Kurt:  (Oh, that inescapable pout...) Interesting point about death grips. Eva rides high on sexiness, which is definitely what keeps her working

Click to read more ...

50 Foot Woman (RIP)

Though I can't remember why I was watching Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) a few months back and thinking of maybe writing something up on it. (I thought I'd look at the 1990s Daryl Hannah remake too.) Needless to say that never came to fruition but this morning I read some horrific news. Yvette Vickers, the star of that infamous Bad Movie People Love about an angry adulteress who rampages once she's giantized, was found dead this week in her home in Benedict Canyon. She was 82ish.

The worst part of the story is this gruesome detail: her body was mummified indicating she'd been dead for a long time, possibly a year. That nobody checked in for that length of time -- neither friend nor neighbor (she had no surviving family members) -- is scarier than any horror movie.

Her first film appearance was in the showbiz classic, Sunset Boulevard. May she rest easier than those Hollywood ghosts.