Peek A Boo, Veronica

Veronica Lake was born eighty-nine years ago today. She had a hair-do built for Noir, one eye winking come hither while the other hid around the corner, a concealed weapon. Her most famous role in Sullivan's Travels is much less sinister than all that of course, but thanks to the visual loan that Kim Basinger took with LA Confidential I think Veronica will forever be thought of as a girl who had secrets in her hair.

"What kind of person marries someone they don't know?"

You did.

I want to win. All my life I've wanted to win.

Me too.

Dear Toni Collette,

I have loved you in everything I've seen you in. I can't think of an example where I didn't. You wowed in The Sixth Sense, in Little Miss Sunshine, in Japanese Story (oh my god so good in Japanese Story), in In Her Shoes, in three seasons of The United States of Tara, in your brief but better than everyone else scenes in The Hours... I could go on and on. I offer up this list as an apology for the fact that even though you've been so wonderful so many times over my first and last thought is always gonna be Muriel "Mariel Van Arckle" Heslop. I hope you don't mind. Have a happy birthday!

Sincerely, JA from MNPP

(PS - Here are some pictures of Daniel Lapaine in his speedo in case that hint of him above stirred your need for that like it did mine.)

Happy 75th Robert Redford

Just wanted to get this out there before the day is up. It's the 75th birthday of Robert Redford, actor/director/producer/film festival icon. Though his work as an actor and movie star isn't as obsessed over these days as his contemporaries from 60s and 70s cinema like past costars Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Natalie Wood or Dustin Hoffman, that doesn't mean his star has faded. Movie stars of yore fall in and out of fashion. Who knows which 60s and 70s giants will be beloved in 2036 for example when Redford turns 100!?

Fact: The movies wouldn't be the same without him.

 Without Robert Redford there's no Sundance Festival, no Sundance Institute and without those, so many young unproven talents would not have been boosted or introduced to us in the way they were... and some probably not at all. And without Robert Redford what would have become of The Way We Were, The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,  All The President's Men, Out of Africa, A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show, or Ordinary People?  The list goes on. Some of his best films wouldn't even exist without him given how difficult it is to get any film made; pull one string out and things unravel.

So this week in his honor, watch your favorite Redford film, or the one you've always been meaning to get to. At the very least, brush your hand across your significant other's forehead and hair and do your best wistful Barbra Streisand.

Your girl is lovely, Hubbell."

Happy Birthday Sandra Bullock, I guess...

Paolo here.

Back in 2009 I stumbled into what looked like Bullock's CAA page, and seeing a certain factoid, I posted this question on my Facebook. "What do Stanley Kubrick and Sandra Bullock have in common?" "Well neither of them have an Oscar," a friend of mine said. He spoke too soon. [Correction: Kubrick has an Oscar but not for directing. Shake fist]

Then it was time to watch the live feed of the Oscars on campus. The fedora-wearing cinema studies students were passing around this hipster German beer and I took a sip and put it down. I swore that if Bullock won the Oscar, I'd throw my beer at the screen - I didn't, no one should. The sound of angry young men and some women collectively screaming against her victory is one of the ten greatest experiences I've ever had in a movie theatre. How the powers that be hustled such a seemingly mediocre film into a Best Picture nod and a Best Actress win was like watching steel beams bend by themselves.

Anyway, to commemorate Bullock's birthday, I watched neither the movies that I remember her being good at (A Time to Kill, Crash) nor the ones I saw in high school nor college that did not age well (28 Days) or even the fun ones (Practical Magic). Instead I saw John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side, the movie that won her the said Oscar and made her, on paper, better than Kubrick. To be honest, I had two tall glasses of beer, ruining some brain cells and I was afraid that this film would do more damage.

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Meryl Streep, Collecting Our Hearts For Decades

It's always staggering to really stop and breathe in the whole of her career, how long this screen giant has wowed and wooed us. Consider that in 1980 (I nabbed this old pic to the left from the wondrous Simply Streep site), she already had an Oscar and the world was already in love with her! And that was just the very beginning.

There have been bumpy patches in the marriage between audience and star, as there are in all relationships, but for the most part we've all lived happily ever after with Mary Louise Streep (Gummer). The moviegoing public, both domestic and international -- and probably even intergalactic if alien cultures have been observing our screens and stages -- has remained hopelessly besotted with Meryl since the late 1970s when she first sprang up, fully formed, an instant movie star.

Today is Meryl's 62nd birthday and she's been famous for just over half of those! We ♥ her.

Many movie stars peak just as they ascend (sad but true) and are defined by one to three (if they're lucky) signature roles. The beauty of Meryl's career is that she simply refused to peak. It's like she wasn't climbing any mountains of stardom but just floating above us all, serenely. Ironically, given her chameleon reputation, the world's most acclaimed actress's signature role is actually MERYL STREEP.

Here's a video The Film Experience crafted for her 60th birthday... time to share it again!

The eighth wonder of the world.