Reader of the Day: Vinci

I'm always curious about movie buffs on the West Coast. It's like another planet to me despite being such an origin spot for my life's obsession. So today we're chatting with Vinci in West Hollywood.

Nathaniel: When did you start reading TFE? 
VINCI: I think it was about 2004/2005.  I'm not sure.  But I do recall questioning you on why you didn't consider Vera Farmiga as a Best Actress contender for Down to the Bone, so it was at least by then.  You were one of the first Oscar sites I visited (the now defunct EverythingOscar was the other).  I grew up in a small town before the internet and didn't have friends who were even casually interested in the Oscars, actors or even movies like myself.  I felt a kinship with you.  I stuck around because you write well and cover a lot of what interests me. 

Do you remember your first movie or obsession?
A Yankee in King Arthur's Court, from what I can remember.  The first moviegoing experience which I initiated was The Muppet Movie.  I was four years old when I used my blueberry picking money to buy a Kermit the Frog doll with patches of velcro attached to his appendages.  I also owned a Kermit the Frog watch.  

But which watch did Vinci own???

I collected all four special edition McDonald's Happy Meal-issued glasses from The Great Muppet Caper.  I loved the TV show and even checked out the short-lived reboot that had Michelle Pfeiffer hosting at one point.

You know I did, too! Also: blueberries are delicious. Okay, your three favorite actresses. Go.
Three?  I think I'd rather be water-boarded.  But, okay ... Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Tilda Swinton.

I have to ask about the body as that's the picture you sent. Were you motivated to recreate an action franchise physique, maybe a superhero?

LOL!  No.  My motivation is mainly getting older and being a single gay male. 

Well, it works for Oscar; I seem to recall you played our favorite naked gold man in a music video?

Good memory!  I did play the Oscar, more specifically, Sandra Bullock's Oscar. 

It was a lot of fun.  I was with my very talented friend Elissa Rosenthal and good people, so we ate a lot and had a great time.  I was laughing quite a bit, so the makeup artist had to keep repainting my face gold.

What kind of research did you do to embody The Hollywood Icon?
I didn't have a whole lot of time to prepare; I mainly focused on good posture and tapping into my inner stoic.

This & That: Pixar Classes, Taylor Animation, and Simulated Sex

The Film Doctor has nine notes on Zach Snyder's Sucker Punch.
Inside TV EW describes a truckload of new pilots. Which will make the cut for fall. Lots of movie peeps willing to say goodbye to movie stardom if their shows get picked up including Kerry Washington, Kat Denning, Zooey Deschanel and Patrick Wilson. Others like Anjelica Huston and Angela Bassett are less surprising since the film roles have dried up (Stupid Hollywood!)
Serious Film offers up Lawrence of Arabia in the Line Reading Hall of Fame.

Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, post coital in DON'T LOOK NOW

Twitch has doubts about Simon Kook becoming the new Thai action star in light of Tony Jaa's problematic career trajectory.
Cartoon Brew want to learn about animation and story development from the Pixar folks? You can for $500 during their upcoming New York seminar.
Movie|Line As the weekend began they followed up with the suddenly in-the-news again story about the infamous sex scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie in Don't Look Now. Love the ending of the article.

Besides, what better way to spend a Friday than by trying to figure out if two movie stars had sex 38 years ago?

As for his denial, Peter Bart's new book, and Julie Christie's 38 year old refusal to answer the question... Trust no one. The only thing that makes these stories fun is that you really can't trust anyone. Only the director and the stars know for sure. But I'll say this: it looks just as convincing as the sex scene in Lust, Caution but in both cases, who knows? Editing can be deceiving. Especially when the editing is rapid fire and jaggedy as it it in both films.

And here is one of those freaky Taiwanese animated news renditions this time on Elizabeth Taylor's passing. I know some people will consider this disrespectful, but it's of a piece with what they do.

They always manage to come up with a few visual gags that show a certain amount of perverse creativity and actual thought. (Remember Jake Gyllenhaal's fruity penis from that SXSW news bit?) Plus I bet Elizabeth herself would guffaw as she had a great bawdy sense of humor about herself and everything else, too.

Tennessee 100: Baby Doll

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, with a last-minute postscript to Tennessee Williams Week.

Sweaty, conflicted sexuality? Check. A seedy, decaying southern setting? Check. Characters who alternate wildly between decadent hedonism and harrowing descents into madness? Yes, we're in pure Tennessee Williams country with Elia Kazan's Baby Doll, starring Carroll Baker as the titular 19-year-old minx. She's married to Archie Lee Meighan (Karl Malden), the hot-tempered owner of a local cotton gin, and together they live in a rural mansion called Tiger Tail that, like their respective families, has seen better days.

This creaky house, considered haunted by the locals, plays a role similar to that of the cramped tenement in Kazan's adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire. It helps define the film visually with its labyrinthine corridors, piled high with the detritus of the past, and it's the perfect setting for the psychosexual slapstick antics of Baby Doll and her would-be seducer, Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach). Vacarro—a Sicilian interloper who's new to the area—suspects Archie Lee of burning down his cotton gin, and he's willing to resort to some hanky-panky in order to secure proof.

So begins an absurd, twisted battle of the wills, in which the line between economic and sexual success gets blurred to the point of invisibility. Read the full post.

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"Maggie the Cat is Alive!"

Tennessee Williams Centennial Week Wraps

Maggie the Cat, the sex-starved slip-covered wife at the heart of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (discussed earlier this week) is not just alive, she keeps coming back to life. True to her feline symbolism she's had several of them, eight bigs ones actually. Who will risk playing Maggie the Cat's ninth major life and how soon will that be?

Here is a history of the key Maggies for those who love the play... or just if you like to see major actresses in their lingerie. Have you ever seen a production of this play anywhere or just the 1958 film? Do tell in the comments. Would love to hear Tin Roof stories.

1955 ~ Original Maggie

Barbara Bel Geddes, originated the role on Broadway in the 1956 and won a Tony nomination. (She lost to Julie Harris in "The Lark"). Other Key Roles: I Remember Mama (1947, Oscar nomination. Lost to Claire Trevor in Key Largo), "Midge" in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), "Mary, Mary" on Broadway (1961, Tony nomination), and "Miss Ellie Ewing" on Dallas (1978-1990, 3 nominations/1 win at the Emmys)

1958 ~ Legendary Maggie

Elizabeth Taylor slinked, steamed, pawed and nagged her way to consecutive Oscar nomination #2 in the 1958 film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Suddenly Last Summer was Oscar nom #3 in 1959. Then a win for her fourth consecutive nomination for BUtterfield 8 (1960). Many more Liz photos in the gallery section of the site. If you've been away, catch up on the Liz commemorative posts.

Elizabeth is not the only two time Oscar winner who played Maggie. Lots of stars have slinked around in that white slip: Jessica Rabbit, a Dreamgirl, and even one of Elizabeth's few rivals in 60s Movie Superstardom. 

1974 ~Cognoscenti's Maggie

Elizabeth Ashley's early 60s film breakout gave way to a highly acclaimed theatrical career with lots of guest starring TV roles on the side. She won raves and a Tony nomination for the sexually charged 70s revival of Broadway. People Magazine featured her in their Stage section at the time.

'I was one of those people who became a 'star' very young, and I turned into a monstrous human beging - Bessie von Bitch, they called me. I was in analysis forever.'

She now sees herself as made for the stage - 'a leading woman who can handle anything they've got, but God knows I'm not a movie star.'

Other Key Roles: The original Corie from Broadway's Barefoot in the Park (Jane Fonda got the movie role); "Mollie" in Take Her She's Mine" (1962 Tony Award); Monica in The Carpetbaggers (1964, Golden Globe nomination); Jenny in the Best Picture nominee Ship of Fools (1965); Recently played Mattie Fae in August: Osage County (replacement).

Jessica Rabbit, a Dreamgirl and some crazy oroborus-style Jessica Lange trivia after the jump.

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Reader of the Day: Victor

Reader Appreciation Month wraps on Thursday but I hope y'all know The Film Experience appreciates you year round. We'll have Weekly Reader Spotlights for April because I'm having too much fun with it to quit at the moment. Today Victor in Brazil.

Nathaniel: Do you remember your first movie?
VICTOR: First moviegoing experience I actually recall - my mother told she had taken me before, but I don't remember - is Aladdin, when I was 8.  I really think it kind of had some deep effect in me, because if there are two things that I love they're musicals and animated films. I still know the lyrics of almost every song in in Portuguese and in English.

I can sing The Little Mermaid in Norwegian and English, so I feel you.
I grew up with the Disney musicals from the late 80's and early 90's. But First Movie Obsession, with capital M and O, was Moulin Rouge!. And that led me to The Film Experience.

Yes, we were all "Truth, Freedom, Beauty, but above all things Love" CRAZY for awhile there with that Bazmark classic. What's an Oscar injustice topic that gets you riled up?
Where can I start.... in general, I kind of hate every single Oscar that comes with "SORRY, YOU ARE GREAT AND WE ARE LATE!" written on the plaque, because every Oscar given as a career achievement award or a "sorry, you lost last year" award just increases the problem. Its like a freaking logarithmic progression, because every time they award someone for the wrong reasons (every reason other than "best perfomance") they make the situation 10, 100, 900, 3000, 50000 times worst.

It always comes back to certain years, right?

Giving Nicole the Oscar in 2002 for The Hours, because they liked her so much in Moulin Rouge!, makes Julianne Moore a loser for the crown jewel of her career. And Renee Zellweger, who lost in 2001 and 2002 and was snubbed in 2000, who we liked so much in Bridget Jones and Chicago, just shows up in 2003, gives the worst supporting performance of the year (or maybe the decade, or maybe ever?) and walks away with an Oscar just because she lost. See how it grow exponentially worst? 

The math is perplexing, I'll grant you that.

Did Jessica Lange really won her 2 Oscars for Tootsie and Blue Sky, or did she win for Tootsie because she couldn't win for Frances and won for Blue Sky because she had lost several times and they didn't want to give a 3rd one to Jodie Foster in less than 10 years, before she was even 35. I could give you a hundred examples.

It is perplexing math, always snowballing. What does your moviegoing diet consists of these days: theater? dvd?

Theater not so much, because its wasteland season in Brazil; the Oscar movies have come, gone and I've seen then all and the summer movies haven't arrived yet. Right now in Brazil, the biggest hit in theaters is called Bruna Surfistinha, the story of a middle class girl that becomes a low rate hooker, than a high rate hooker who blogs about her "job" and latter publishes a book, her memoirs of her life as a former prostitute. NO THANK YOU! - but I have to admit, i read the book.

So nowadays I'm most on a DVD diet. Recently bought and still sealed, all on the line to be rewatched: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Rose, Some Like it Hot, All About Eve (special edition), Moulin Rouge! (definitive edition), Nightmare Before Christmas, Death Becomes Her, Dogville, American History X and Beauty and the Beast (special edition with soundtrack!).

You're quite the collector. Okay. Five movies you think ought to be required viewing for all people of the Earth. Go!

Five. Just Five? I'll go by genre, ok. Musical: Cabaret; Comedy: Some Like it Hot; Drama: Sunset Blvd. ; Horror: Rosemary's Baby; Biopic: Amadeus. Sorry, really sorry to leave you out: Michael Nichols combo Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?/The Graduate and my beloved Moulin Rouge!