Monologue: "My name is Charlene. What are you wearing?"

Time for our Monday Monologue...

Missi, Uggie and Jean DujardinOne of the unexpected joys of this year's edition of Endless Awards Season has been the presence of the very funny, very talented Missi Pyle. She's kind of blink and you'll miss her as "Constance" the 'Lina Lamont' silent star archetype in The Artist. But she's been everywhere at the events. That's oddly appropriate given that she always seems to be blink and you'll miss her in movies but she makes the best of it. Often when I see her in that big ball of joy that is the cast and crew of The Artist (winning makes the joy part a lot easier) I think back to my favorite moment in her filmography to date.

She was the comedy MVP of the oft-delayed and then underseen and weirdly trashed Spring Breakdown (2009) which is much funnier than it gets credit for. Her MVP status says a lot since the three leads Amy Poehler, Parker Posey, and Rachel Dratch have been known to wring laughs from even the weakest material. Somehow Pyle steals the show out from under them.

Pyle plays Charlene a Spring Break junkie well past age appropriateness for the Endless Summer cruising and bingeing. She takes this trio of new girls under her drunken wing.

After a particularly booze-fueled night she stumbles home with her new friend Gayle (Amy Poehler) and goes all weepy pontificating drunk. 

Every spring this place she flares up like a cold sore and I'm back for more, you know? The kids and the sex and the booze. And you think it'll go on forever but it's like one of those videos, you know, of a fireplace that you put on your TV.

And, like, no matter how close you get to the screen it's never going to warm you up."

Suddenly then, she's all nonsequitor.

Her moods tilt and slide around like formerly coherent thoughts sloshing around in alcoholic waves.

I just wanted to be a stylist to the stars.

[Suddenly high pitched] 'You think so?' 

Oh hello there fine fella! Who is this?

She veers towards... a tree.

"Oh honey, that's a tree," Gayle tries to stop her but Charlene is already making her move. 

[To the tree] My name is Charlene. What are you wearing?

[Glancing to the side. Suddenly crying] I love him!

 
[To Gayle] Don't touch me. Please touch me. Thank you.

Let's just stay here for awhile.

Pyle keeps this comic train hilarious, frisky and sharp even as it jumps right off the tracks careening towards its next blackout: Crying jags, weird bursts of horniness, pickled blood stream, and yet she's weirdly touching.

It's comic magic.

It's hot mess tragic. 

Her name is Charlene. I love her!

It's "Action!" for Bond 23 SKYFALL

What a lovely image to wake up to this morning...

Don't you just love clapboards?

Skyfall (aka BOND 23) shooting has begun and here's photographic proof from the official James Bond twitter account @007. Does this mean that Daniel Craig is a liar liar pants on fire since he said at the press conference we live-blogged that they were going to be shooting that very day. Here we are four days later and we see "Day 1". 

...not that movie timelines ever make sense; scene 45 is first!

poll by twiigs.com

P.S. Roger Deakins, eh? Bonus points for Bond on that one, he'll look even better than usual. We interviewed Deakins for True Grit earlier this year... and we're still confused that he's never won an Oscar.

April Showers: Stanley Kowalski

wateworks weeknights at 11

Have you ever been so out of control drunk that your buddies had to do a physical intervention and shove your sorry ass in a cold shower? Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando) has.

In A Streetcar Named Desirei, which I haven't been able to shake since we did our "Best Shot" episode (how about you?), Blanche Dubois is always taking baths to relax or to clear her head. Her nemesis and brother-in-law law Stanley isn't obsessed with bathing. His liquids are clearly blood, sweat and tears. But in this scene the shower wakes him from his violent stupor.

But still dripping wet, he's back to generating his own waterworks; a crying boy seeking comfort from the woman he's abused.

Hey baby? HEY STELLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Links. Episode #14,001,382

I apologize for my uncharacteristic absence today. The day is just not really working out for me. Enjoy these links while I try to shake the mood off.

Frankly My Dear... Captain Adama Edward James Olmos honored at the Florida Film Festival. He's still very proud of his contributions to Blade Runner and Stand and Deliver.
My New Plaid Pants signs on to the Saoirse Ronan bandwagon post Hanna. People keep asking me if I have seen this. I have not seen this. I need a reason as I'm so not enjoying this teen assassin pop culture craze. It makes me so queasy.
Slash Film Robert Richardson, one of our favorite DPs will shoot Brad Pitt's World War Z movie.
Sunset Gun on an unusual choice in heartbreaking Woody Allen pictures: Take the Money and Run.
The AV Club looks at the new Mike Leigh Topsy-Turvy DVD.
The Wrap the BFCA has a spin off group now BTCA which will host Emmy style awards. Hopefully they'll use their powers for good and not try to predict the Emmys. The Emmys, way more than the Oscars, need pushes towards quality tv when they are often so content to vote for whatever they voted for the year before, even when shows take quality downturns.
Celebrity Blend Kelly McGillis is working at a Rehab Center. Good for her.
Slate with Arthur in the pop culture air again -- albeit sobered up -- here's a piece that looks on artists before and after sobriety including Stephen King and Martin Scorsese.

One of the things that makes The Shining one of the best books ever written about alcoholism is that it doesn't know what it is about. It was an act of urgent self-diagnosis, conducted in the pitch dark.

Finally...
Tribeca Film asks if movie theaters should think more like Netflix. I L-O-V-E this idea. I really think subscription models are the way to go in many business.

Would you buy admission to your favorite movie theater on a subscription basis?

'Happy 50th Nastassja' That's One From Our Hearts

Nastassja Kinsi by Richard Avedon

Editors note: For Nastassia Kinski's 50th birthday, I asked Glenn to write up a bit on her appearance in "One From the Heart" since it's a movie I know he loves (even more than me and I like it quite a lot) and also because I like to mark the big milestones for actresses and films. If you haven't seen this movie rent it. If you're too young to know Kinski's work, other must sees include Roman Polanski's Oscar nominee "Tess", the horror remake "Cat People" and Wim Wenders "Paris Texas". Here's Glenn from the great blog Stale Popcorn.

I’m going to commit what must be one of the ultimate cinephile no-no’s and go on the record as stating One from the Heart is my favourite Francis Ford Coppola film. Yes, moreso than The Conversation or Apocalypse Now, even moreso than The Godfather parts one and two, Coppola’s One from the Heart is a personal favourite that, to be sappy and pun-tastic at the same time, I hold very dear to my heart. I don’t have time to get into the hows and the whys, because I’m here to discuss Nastassja Kinski!

Is she for real?

Kinski’s Leila first enters the picture over 30 minutes in, her hair slicked back, waving a sparkler, wearing a beaded yellow one-piece costume and draped with a cape. When Frederick Forrest asks “Is she real?” you have to wonder the same thing. This was Kinski’s first American production and her film following her breakthrough in Roman Polanski’s Tess and she couldn’t have a more eye-popping entrance.

Before long she’s romancing Forrest by performing a dance routine in a neon-lit martini glass to the bluesy trumpet of Tom Waits’ Oscar-nominated music. Coppola himself has said that he envisioned Kinski’s Leila as a "Felliniesque circus performer to represent the twinkling evanescence of Eros,” whatever that means, but her sexy gymnastic routine around the rim of this giant, novelty prop remains the film’s most lasting, and seductive, image. Coppola didn’t exactly make Kinski stretch herself by casting her as an exotic, German goddess, but in the mean time he cemented the image that we all still have of her. And then, poof, “like spit on a grill” Leila is gone; the perfect encapsulation of Las Vegas’ intoxicating, but short-lived high.

But didn’t she leave quite the impression?