Twins: The Poetry of "The Twins"

Are you enjoying the twins series? I can't tell but if not, what do you have against Geminis?

Pre-Cogs

A few days ago my mind flashed violently back to Minority Report (2002). I blame the recent screening of Prometheus (2012) since both films belong to the school of Gah!mazingly Art Directed Sci-Fi Movies that are nonetheless problematic given their collisions of greatness and "really?" moments. The other thing tying them together is one Not Entirely Human performance (Samantha Morton as "Agatha" / Michael Fassbender as "David") that is so damn enjoyable and smart that you can forgive a lot just for the pleasure of watching the actor do his or her best genre thing.

Fact: Samantha Morton and Michael Fassbender are inhumanly great actors.

Twins have always fascinated non-twins and not just from the visual double takes. Their assumed psychic connections suggest all sorts of telepathic supernatural and psycosomatic implications once you let your mind wander.  [The poetry of twins after the jump...]

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Reunions from the Edge

Meryl Streep has been out and about celebrating co-stars this week including Postcards from the Edge mom Shirley Maclaine who was honored at an AFI celebration.

Meryl, who turns 63 next Friday, is older now than Shirley was back when she played her mom in that great showbiz comedy. Stop spinning so fast, world! Excuse me... stop twirling so fast.

And just this past Tuesday, Meryl was all smiles on the red carpet posing with friend/co-star/rival* Viola Davis at the Women in Film Awards who she handed an award to.

From EW

Davis returned the love as she accepted the award. “I have a confession,” she said, sharing how touched she was when Streep sent her a card after [Doubt] wrapped.... “Okay Meryl, I framed the card,” Davis said. “So you can never come over to the house.” 

So cute.

*honest to god when I first saw the press room photo I thought Viola's award said "WTF" but that was just my image-altering fear of the Great Streep vs. Davis Oscar Debates Resurging To Destroy My Sanity again.

Mad Men @ The Movies Knocks Out the Cobwebs

Only the most surface reading of Mad Men would suggest that it's The Don Draper Show. His (forged) identity is, like most identities at some point or another, a prison. But it's also a prism and if there's a single best thing about the show it's the way in which he is reflected in his protege Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) and, to varying lesser extent, in the vibrant supporting cast. So it felt like a total gift when Mad Men's writing team chose to set their final scene (season?) together in a movie theater. Just for us, surely!

Don has had a rough week and heads there for solace only to find Peggy, who has recently flown his Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce coop already there. Don suggests it's far too early in her new job to be ducking out from work. To which she responds.

Just knocking out the cobwebs. Someone told me this works."

Movies to recharge, comfort, and shake out the writer's block? No wonder we can't get enough of this show.

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Open (Sick Bed) Thread

I had so much blogging planned today but some sort of achey feverish flu struck me and I am out of commission. Has some devil hexed me? Someone who doesn't like twins, Witches of Eastwick, Mad Men wrap ups, Prometheus discussions, Reader Q & As and other sundry forms of blogtainment.

Discuss amongst yourselves. Please tell me you're feeling much better than this! Back to bed with juice and extra blankets for me.

Twins: Michelle's Blonde Brood

We're celebrating twins daily at 2:22 pm while we're in Gemini

Gratuitous Anecdote! I've always loved to draw and in my high school years it's what people knew me for. I won the High School's Departmental Award in Art (Do they still have departmental awards? Hell, do they still have art classes?) in that heady stretch of graduation celebrations where they keep honoring star pupils. One day early in my senior year or maybe it was at the end of my junior year, the art teacher asked one of the students to pose for the class. A guy I didn't know volunteered and I felt totally inspired. Instant crushing helps. He loved my drawing and we became fast friends after the class. The first day I went to his house after school I was stunned to see a whole house full of doppelgangers. He had one of those families where virtually every kid looked like a clone of the previous one and since he was the oldest they were all mini hims. And, yes, there was an actual set of twins to drive the point home. Have you ever met an identical family like that? It's kind of freaky.

Michelle Pfeiffer's first scene in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK. She's buried in offspring

I flashed back to that memory while screening The Witches of Eastwick for its 25th anniversary week and smiling at Michelle Pfeiffer's introduction where a whole stream of authentically blonde children follow after like a trail of baby ducklings. There are two sets of siblings amongst these child actors who never worked again (perhaps they were locales?). The three towhead girls were played by sisters, surname "Ditmar" -- I couldn't find any information about them as they never acted again but if they're not triplets, there's a twin set in there!

Michelle Pfeiffer is so fertile ...onscreen. In real life the movie legend has only two children but onscreen her progeny number two dozen plus. For such a legendary beauty, Pfeiffer was never scared of screen parenting despite the widespread belief that you risk aging yourself out of leading lady roles when you start playing moms onscreen. La Pfeiffer didn't just dip her toe in to test the water but dove in headfirst becoming a mom onscreen for the first time in The Witches of Eastwick (she was only 28 years old while filming) not once not twice not thrice but six times over. And at the end of the movie Sukie Ridgemont had even had a seventh child, her first boy.

Daryl: Sukie, at last we meet.
Sukie: Hi. Hello. How are you?
Daryl: Let me look at those eyes of yours. My! You are a fertile little creature, aren't you?
Sukie: [uncomfortable laughter] Thank you... I think."
              -The Devil meets Sukie in The Witches of Eastwick. 

Pfeiffer's 27 Screen Children in the order I tend to remember them
Fertile indeed. 

• Alison Lohman - White Oleander (2002)
• Jonathan Jackson & Cory Buck - The Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
• Saoirse Ronan - I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007)
• Six Blonde Girls (Michele Sincavage, Nicol Sincavage, Heather Coleman, Carolyn Ditmars, Cynthia Ditmars and Christine Ditmars)- The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
• Claire Danes - To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996)
• Brittany Snow - Hairspray (2007)
• Anthony J Nici - Married to the Mob (1988)
• Katharine Towne - What Lies Beneath (2000)
• Ryan Merriman & Michael McElroy - The Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
• Chlöe Grace Moretz - Dark Shadows (2012)
• Alex D Linz - One Fine Day (1996)
• Casey Boersma & Dylan Boersma (twins!), Daniel Henson & Jake Sandqiv (1999)
• Colleen Rennison & Tara Blanchard - The Story of Us (1999)
• Chase McKenzie Bebak - I Am Sam (2001)
• infant - The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
• Elisabeth Moss and Michelle Williams - A Thousand Acres (1997)
• infant - Amazon Women on the Moon (1987, her scene is a hospital delivery sequence if I recall correctly?) 

the only one I haven't seen

• Spencer Hudson - Personal Effects (2009) 

 upcoming

• Chris Pine - People Like Us (2012). Yes, she's technically old enough to have a 32 year old son. But her real children are not yet 20.
• Who will play her children in in the upcoming comedy Malavita (2013) ?