TV @ The Movies: "Meryl Streep Realness"

TV @ The Movies is a series that came to life because we always perk up when movies or movie actors are name-checked on the small screen. Who and what fillters into pop culture? And in what form?

Are any of you watching RuPaul's Drag Race Season 3? In the latest episode The Supermodel of The World gave her competing "gurls" scripts to film a movie trailer "Drag Queens in Outer Space: Return to Uranus". The acting in the final trailers was so hideous I didn't even remotely wish the fake movie was real and given that it was called "Drag Queens in Outer Space: Return to Uranus,"  that's a fail.

Shangela & Mimi discuss their upcoming performances

Shangela and Mimi Imfurst already hate each other and have become immediate rivals. This is because they're both crafty disingenuous camera hogs and nothing drives people crazier than seeing their unflattering traits reflected in other people. They're both continually making trouble (Shangela) or breaking down (Mimi) so as to log more camera time. Essentially, this is a fail safe ploy in the reality TV format: I already know their names and faces and the other queens are still bleeding together after two regular episodes. Mimi brags about her acting experience and on the read-through of the script, they have this exchange:

Shangela: You better get that Oscar, bitch.
Mimi Imfurst: I'm bringing Meryl Streep Realness. You gotta get ugly to win the gold.

As quotes go it's no "I was giving Michelle Pfeiffer bitch" uttered magnificently in season 2 by Raven (It's all downhill from Raven. Sigh). Meryl Streep Realness and the tried and trued De-Glam Oscar trick both make sense on their own but putting them together is like talking in gibberish. Streep has never had to downplay her beauty for Oscar's attention. In fact, her Best Actress Oscar went to arguably one of her most glamorous performances in Sophie's Choice. Yes, yes, she also deglams within the same film in flashbacks. But that's Meryl; she does it all. Except for maybe camp.

Okay, okay. That's not exactly true.

Mimi ended up going for full Leigh Bowery Artifice, Meryl Streep Realness never entering the picture.

But the queens weren't done paying homage/defaming the prestige screen divas. Later Stacy Lane Matthew's performance as "Lady Tata" in the sci-fi trailers prompted comparisons to none other than Dame Judi Dench.

Stacy: Honey, I don't know who in the hell I was.
Shangela: Girl, you were some British bitch.
Mimi: You were Judi Dench giving us Shakespeare.
Shangela: Where in the hell did you get that accent Miss Back Swamp North Carolina? Next thing you turn around you're a British bitch.
Stacy: Bitch, I was thinking Julia Child.

[Ahem]. Speaking of Streep Realness/Camp.

For reasons that are still unclear Lily Tomlin was a guest judge. (Sci-fi plus Lily? Why?) Strangely, she didn't say much and only made one funny.

If you were starring in "Drag Queens From Outer Space," which legendary actress would you be using for inspiration? Would you be okay with Lily Tomlin judging you?

RuPaul's Drag Race is available to watch online. If you dare.

Sweet Bird of Link

Zimbio The 50 Most Beautiful Women Over 50
Towleroad Conflicting reports about how gay Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar Hoover biopic is going to be.
Cinemablographer Canada's Genie nominations. Incendies, also nominated for the Foreign Language Film Oscar (see here) is big stuff.
Hero Complex Hugh Jackman now bulking up for Darren Aronofsky's Wolverine. The director wants him thicker and more feral.
Socialite's Life Nicole Kidman in Marie Claire magazine.
Awards Daily Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris to open Cannes Film Festival
Arts Beat James Franco to join Nicole Kidman in Broadway's revival of Sweet Bird of Youth. I hate my poverty that prevents me from seeing the big ticket star outings on stage. So hard to find good discounts for those short term plays.
IndieWire I hadn't heard of this Gambit project, a remake of a Michael Caine movie scripted by the Coen Bros, though they're not directing. Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz will star.

In Contention "Relatability" interesting AMPAS voter quote regarding The King's Speech.
Pajiba names today "Joseph Gordon-Levitt" day since he's joining the cast of the next Batman flick The Dark Knight Rises. The rumor is ... well, I'm sure there's a billion of them but the role is unknown.
Cinema Blend Rupert Everett thrilled for Colin Firth's current success. Nice to hear him compliment someone for a change.
The Atlantic reviews the American version of Being Human, now airing on SyFy with a second eye on the original British version. For what it's worth, I'm not crazy about either show but I think the American version shows a better understanding of how series television flourishes... at least at this early stage.

James and Anne Vs. The World

 ♪ A little ditty 'bout James and Aaaa-aanne... two American kids growing up in the heartland... ♫

THE OSCAR BALLOTS HAVE GONE OUT.

Since the Oscar race is all over but the gowns and speeches and the checking of ballot boxes --once the Weinstein Co have finished reediting their film shouldn't they just retitle it The King's Sweep ? --  what should we focus on in regards to Oscar? How about the hosts? I polled The Film Experience team to see what they most want to see from James Franco and Anne Hathaway on Oscar night and here's what they said.

Alexa

I'd love to see Anne and James reenact a scene from Bride Wars.  We all know he can do drag.

Kurtis

What I'd really like to see them do is reenact scenes from their own films, namely "The Devil Wears Prada," with Franco as Meryl Streep: "Everyone wants to be us!"

Two votes for James Franco in drag, heh? Whaddya think readers?

poll by twiigs.com

JA

They reenact scenes from each other's 2010 movies: Anne saws off her own arm on the stage in spectacular Grand Guignol fashion, spraying blood down onto Jack Nicholson and other folks in the front row; a large bed is wheeled into the middle of the stage where James Franco and Jake Gyllenhaal will reenact the most memorable moments from Love and Other Drugs.

Robert

Duke it out as Catwoman vs Goblin

I will co-sign all of these things. Except for maybe Anne sawing her own arm off. I'd prefer she keep all her pretty parts attached. And YES to Catwoman.

Craig

A series of pre-prepped comic sketches - live on stage with a lot of costume changes. Bring back the horrible/marvelous days of Rob Lowe and Snow White!

Finally, Jose and Michael step off of preexisting James & Anne movies. They do a little sidestep.

Jose

I'd love for Anne Hathaway to use the entire ceremony as a big audition for her future Oscar

winning role as Judy Garland and have her do a whole "Born in a Trunk" kinda number. "Mrs. Norman Maine" siiiigh.

Michael

I'd like to see James and Anne fight Oscar's seven evil ex-hosts for the privilege of hosting together

Yes. Musical numbers for Anne.

All praise the unexpected Scott Pilgrim vs. The World reference. Pilgrim for the win. It's too bad that skit/joke would fly over the heads of AMPAS because how undefeatable would that extended show narrative be.

It would mean cameo battles with the following people, the last Seven Evil Ex-Hosts:

• Alec Baldwin & Steve Martin
• Hugh Jackman
• Jon Stewart
• Ellen DeGeneres
• Chris Rock
• Billy Crystal
• Whoopi Goldberg

Our new favorite fantasy (thanks Michael) doesn't count Steve Martin both solo and paired, mostly so we can squeeze in Whoopi Goldberg. If any of those seven evil exes can't show you have to reach back to David Letterman who is next in line. Billy Crystal hogged the duties for so many years that you have to go back nearly a quarter century to get to Chevy Chase.

Your turn!
Oscar night is just three weeks away. What are you hoping to see?

Best Supporting Actress. My Ballot

I'm so tardy with my own awards. I generally get all the major stuff up before Oscar nominations but no such luck this year. I'll try to throw up at least one category per day now so we can finish this month. The actress categories were TORTURE this year because there were definitely more than 5 award-worthy performances per. In fact, the performances were so good this year that it's really too bad they couldn't have been spread out over the past few years when the pickings were slimmer. I'm not finished with lead actress but Supporting Actress was easier. As is the tradition, I only list 12 women as nominees, finalists, and semi-finalists. I could've gone to 20. These are the dozen best in my estimation for the Film Bitch Awards...

Amy & Melissa, Acting Heavyweights for "The Fighter"

• Amy Adams, The Fighter
• Dale Dickey, Winter's Bone
• Anne Marie Duff, Nowhere Boy
• Kirsten Dunst, All Good Things
• Kimberly Elise, For Colored Girls
• Ann Guilbert, Please Give
• Barbara Hershey, Black Swan
• Melissa Leo, The Fighter
• Rosamund Pike, Made in Dagenham
• Mia Wasikowska, The Kids Are All Right
• Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
• Olivia Williams, The Ghost Writer

And even then I had no room for fine work from two of my favorite actresses: Dianne Wiest (Rabbit Hole) and Kristin Scott Thomas (Nowhere Boy). Apologies! Awardage is a hair-tearing teeth-gnashing business when you love too many too much and too often.

MY ACTING NOMINEES

Who made your list? Do you share the love of these performances?

New DVD: Let Me In

It occurred to me recently that I had never said anything about Let Me In, post theatrical release, so let's do that now since it's fresh out on DVD. The American vampire film won a few year-end citations here and there as a high-quality film but it didn't fare well with the public. It was featured in Cinematical's surprising and funny list of the lowest grossing wide releases of 2010 a month ago. Here's what they said about the vampire film.

Let Me In (Gross: $12.1 million. Widest release: 2,042 theaters.) Let's face it. No matter how good it was, a moody remake of a Swedish import about a non-sparkling teen vampire was never going to be a blockbuster. But we were still surprised at just how poorly this fared in theaters. For comparison's sake, 'Twilight: Eclipse' made $300 million, and even 'Vampires Suck' made $36 million. This is why we can't have nice things.

I get the sentiment and love the joke but I can't agree that it's a big loss as a "nice thing".

It's true that I objected to the remake so I wasn't automatically the most receptive audience. But I kept hearing how good it was so I finally caved and watched a couple of months ago, at first with great interest, about what they'd alter and how its new American setting would affect it. The strong reviews are not surprising. It's a well made, handsome movie. The cinematography is beautiful and moody (though it heavily borrows from the aesthetic ideas from the original, particularly in regards to depth of field), the performances are solid, etcetera.

But the movie fails to answer the question that all remakes must answer: What is the reason you are remaking this? If the movie presents no answer beyond "because it was in a funny language" the movie has failed.

The American version of Let The Right One In didn't make radical changes or bring in new exciting ideas about the characters/story. The few alterations seemed to merely underline the originals suggestion that the victimized boy (Oskar/Owen) would one day become the serial killing man (Håkan/The Father) because he loves that little monster (Eli/Abby). It's creepier when you have to do the work to connect those dots yourself. The only big alteration (place but not time) adds nothing new. And then there were minor erasures of the first film's more difficult and more ambiguous sexuality. Gone was the shock cut to Eli/Abby's genital area and gone was Oskar's gay (?)  father  -- this character never appears in the remake except by telephone where we learn that he's shacked up with someone named "Cindy". Unless that's a drag queen, he's safely heterosexual for American audiences. Audiences of the original seem to disagree on matters of Eli's gender and on Oskar's father's orientation but the very fact that they prompt argument is another testament to the first film's insinuating ambiguous grip on its audience.

Oskar & Owen

Mostly Let Me In seems content to love and ape Let The Right One In clinging to it as willfully as Oskar/Owen latches on to Eli/Abby. The love is a mark of good taste but a weak excuse for a remake. If you love something, watch it! Be inspired by it. Make your own thing instead. The film it most recalls, other than the Swedish original, is Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998). That earlier much-reviled "recreation" is a far more interesting artistic exercize because it's so weirdly honest about it's own borrowed artistry and masturbatory xeroxing. Critics weren't at all kind but then that one wasn't in a 'funny language' to begin with.

Also New on DVD This Week
Critical darling indie Monsters, the true story Conviction (interview with Juliette Lewis), the sci-fi tinged drama Never Let Me Go (here's a piece on Andrew Garfield) and Oscar doc finalist The Tillman Story.