Reader of the Day: Walter

For Reader Appreciation Month, we're having mini interviews with readers. Here we have have Walter.

Nathaniel: Do you remember your first moviegoing experience or first obsession?
Walter: The first theater-going experience I remember is sitting in the movie theater with my aunt watching The Nightmare Before Christmas -- I was four years old and absolutely aghast at the final battle between Jack and Oogie Boogie and the end result. God, that was terrifying. And AWESOME.

According to my father, though, the first time I ever sat up was to watch a movie on TV. Babies get distracted; he claims I stayed with the story until they turned it off. I wish he remembered what movie it was, because it was clearly the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

When did you start reading The Film Experience?
Spring 2006, I want to say. Fresh off the 2005 Oscar Season, the first one I really got into, I Googled 2006 Oscar Predictions. Film Experience and many others came up, and I still follow the Big Four: Hollywood-Elsewhere, Awards Daily (it was Oscar Watch then), In Contention, and this one. I visit, like, three times a day, because I never know if there's an article I've missed, or I want to visit something, or I want to freshen up on my Film Bitch Trivia.

Have you ever dressed up as a movie character for Halloween?
Well, here's where I answer the "or" part of the very first question. My most memorable Halloween costume was Bela Lugosi, my first movie star obsession, in third grade. Not Dracula: Bela Lugosi. I had just seen Ed Wood, so I got a cape, a felt hat and a walking-stick, and my dad took me to a late-night screening of the Lon Chaney Phantom of the Opera. It was AMAZING.

Has any movie character as dressed as you?
William Hurt as James Leeds in Children of a Lesser God. We had the same elbow-patched blazer. I loved that thing, and I left it in the trunk of a friend's car...a friend who later moved away. Damn them!

Two fearsome and formidable icons: Bela & Maggie

Your 3 favorite actresses. Go
Maggie Smith is my all-time favorite actress: we watched The Secret Garden in second grade, and when my friend asked me who my favorite character was, he was appalled when I said the old woman. "But she's so mean!" he insisted. Well, yeah, but I also loved the way she cowered before the master of the house, and the subtle power plays she tried, and the smackdown she put on the maid. I love her so much. Meryl and honey-kissed Patty Clarkson are the other no-brainers for me.

What does your movie diet consist of these days?
I haven't seen a movie in a theater since February...and I work in one! Hopefully, that will all change this month: Jane Eyre calls. Mostly, I've been watching movies on TCM and Netflix Instant, the latter especially.

previous readers of the day: Paolo, Leehee and BBats

Kiss Her, She's Irish. Plus: Maureen O'Hara & "Connemara Days"

Two generations of screen fame: Maureen O'Sullivan and Mia FarrowHappy St. Patrick's Day to all Irish or Irish-appreciatin' readers out there. There are numerous male Irish actors who get plentiful attention. In fact, there almost always seems to be a new one tearing the screen up. Case in point: Michael Fassbender (Irish/German), who we're suddenly not so sure we're happy about sharing with the entire world. How will there be enough to go round? He's slim as it is and WE SAW HIM FIRST, DAMNIT.

The actresses never get much attention. We seem to go whole decades without an important Irish lass winning substantial popularity or acclaim. So why not celebrate today's working actresses of Irish descent with a photo gallery?

But first, we must bow to the greatest of them all, Maureen O'Hara. How adorable are these photos which I nabbed from Mothic Flights and Flutterings and Stirred, Straight Up With a Twist who writes on the image to your right...

After a few green beers, this photo of Maureen O'Hara will begin to make sense.

Gah. Don't you just love Maureen O'Hara? The world is totally in need of an O'Hara revival. I must seek her out and beg for an interview or something.

Okay, after the jump some current stars. Who do you love?

Click to read more ...

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: MEMENTO

"What are you going to do when you find him?"In honor of cinematographer Wally Pfister's recent Oscar win (Inception) and the 10th anniversary of Memento's theatrical release (today), we're looking back on Chris Nolan's breakthrough for the season 2 debut of Hit Me With Your Best Shot.

Memory and its malleability are the skeleton themes which Memento's inky flesh clings to. Leonard (Guy Pearce), who has lost both his wife and his short term memory to a murder/rape, is out for revenge. He tattoos "facts", quotes intended, onto his skin to remember them and he also takes polaroids; these repetitive shots of skin and photography are the movie's signature images. My "best shot" naturally combines them both.

The most ingenious thing about the screenplay's reverse construction is that as you become acclimated to it you start to wonder how each scene will begin in order to get to where you know it's already ended. The same thing happens with the polaroids. After a few of them are revealed you begin to wonder how each was taken. So in addition to Memento's overarching mystery "What exactly happened with that murder?" you get the continually evolving mini-mysteries of what the hell is going on has just gone on?

The final crucial polaroid, which is actually the first in true chronology is this spookily cheerful one of Leonard, pointing to his chest. This is a space we already know he has left empty on purpose, for (maybe) hen his revenge is complete. But that's too literal as he's also pointing to his heart. He looks nothing like the Lenny we've come to know.

Look how happy you were.

Lenny flips it over but no clues await him on the other side. The clue we're looking for this late (i.e. early) in the game is not what happened but who Lenny is or has become. Later in the narrative (i.e. earlier in the film) he'll turn the photo over again while talking to a cop about how no one trusts him. It's an especially telling moment as it's the only time he's not looking for clues by flipping a picture over. "We all need mirrors" he says at one point in the film but he obviously doesn't want to see this particular reflection.

Chris Nolan has returned to these themes of self deception and adjusted memory in subsequent films, but it works best in Memento. Returning to this impressive calling card ten years later,  the biggest shock to the memory is how much fun it is. Each scene involving Dodd (Callum Keith Renne of Battlestar Galactica fame) in particular has a bracing dark humor.

This sense of humor is not referenced to imply that the film fails to intrigue or haunt with its disturbing undertow. It's just that Nolan's subsequent films have often been clever without exactly being "a gas" (just occassionally gassy). I'd be hesitant to call Memento Nolan's best film without rescreening The Prestige but it sure makes a strong claim.

Do I know you?
I urge you to check out these entries. I'm usually pretty proud of my own pieces for this series but I still felt a bit of the old disconnect with Nolan (I've always had to look at the critical reception of his work at a certain remove) and honestly I think some of these accomplices have outdone me with their pieces. Bravo.

FACT 1: Pussy Goes Grrr chose a vulnerable fleshy moment.
FACT 2: My New Plaid Pants sees the symmetries and the fog of memory.
FACT 3: Cinephilia & Sass remembers Sammy Jenkis.
FACT 4: Okinawa Assault identifies the bullet casing as totem.
FACT 5: Serious Film doesn't trust Teddy's lies.
FACT 6: Movies Kick Ass doesn't trust Nolan's eyes.

and my apologies... I forgot to link to...
FACT 7: Amiresque is waiting for Natalie to come into focus. Beautiful choice, Amir!

late arrivals!
FACT 8: Against the Hype knows that Memento knows from irony; "it peddles unabashedly in it."
FACT 9: Luisergho finds the facts touching.

Next Wednesday...
We'll be gazing at two bonafide immortals, Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando, in the well-Oscared classic A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951). It's part of our weeklong celebration for the Tennessee Williams Centennial. If you've never seen it, talk about a perfect opportunity to fill that void in your life. Will you join us?

Cover Those Tracks

My best friend recently moved apartments and I got one of his bookshelves in the move so suddenly I'm noticing my old buried movie books again that couldn't fit onto my previous shelving. I used to buy them in the 90s at garage sales or used book stores. This image is from "Life Goes to the Movies." published in 1975. It's basically just a picture book.

Caption:

In Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Peter O'Toole practices crawling to the resuce of a guide trapped in quicksand while two production crewmen stand by to sweep away the dry-run tracks before actual filming.

Never once while watching Lawrence of Arabia have I stopped to think  "damn, that's a lot of sand sweeping during production!" you know? Hee. Movie-making is so magical and mundane. Was that the least epic duty on that epic set? The sweepers undoubtedly had good tans by the end of production.

Reader of the Day: Paolo

It's Reader Appreciation Month so we're doing interviews with YOU. Well not you literally (although... maybe?) but you collectively. Here's Paolo from Toronto.

Nathaniel: Do you remember your first moviegoing adventure / obsession?
Paolo: Probably The Lion King, coming out weeks before the movie I actually remember watching first: Forrest Gump. We had a full row in the theatre, my artsy paternal grandma, me, my sister and like five cousins from my dad's side. I remember the bus stop interludes, "run Forrest run", meeting Jenny for the last time, but none of the Vietnam, hippie, black power, Gary Sinise, coked up whore scenes in between. I was seven. I don't even remember Forrest being special needs. Either the old country censored the hell out of the movie, I slept during some parts, or Lacuna exists.

My first movie obsession was with Anastasia, the cartoon. It's about a princess, what else could fuel a little gay boy's mind? That fueled my slight but ongoing interest in royal families. I also made my own fanfic that's probably sitting in a floppy disk in Quezon City somewhere.

Ha. That's great. When did you start reading The Film Experience?
Around 2009, the aftermath of the highway robbery that is the 2008 Oscars. Most film blogs are either fanboy-ish and/or snarky, and what TFE offered instead is Langlois-esque connoisseurship and well, love. I'm the kind of guy who cheated on his tests, so I looked up your site and the name I used to comment on. Apparently what caught my eyes was the April Showers series. As Juno's best friend would say, 'yum'.

That's coming back next month! Okay. 3 Favorite Actresses?
I love Kate Winslet like Josh from 30 Rock loves Elizabeth Taylor. Michelle Williams. And...blast from the past Bette Davis. As a person of colour, I'm kind of ashamed that I don't have an actress here of colour. I've seen three movies with Lubna Azabal on them. The perfs are great, but I can't knock my top three for her.

Take one Oscar from someone and give it to someone else.
Sandra Bullock's Oscar should have been Kim Hye-Ja's.

The movie of your life. Title, director, etcetera
Paoloisms, starring an unknown, directed by Charlie Kaufman with a soundtrack by whoever does the Lisa Cholodenko soundtracks.