Starry Sissy Spacek

File this under 'The Hollywood Walk of Fame Makes No Sense.' The star-getting procedure is such that some people get them in their first few years of fame while the danger of "flash in the pan" still looms and other bonafide legends get them a full four decades after they started making cinema-shaking waves. In short, it's utter nonsense.

But that doesn't mean we don't still like seeing the nation's actresses celebrated whenever that does occur. Congratulations, Sissy! 

Usually star ceremonies will include co-stars pushing whichever new project the star has (in this case THE HELP) and at least one really famous co-star (like when Bridges was on hand for Pfabulous Pfeiffer's star a few years back though they hadn't worked together since the 80s) but this one was oddly attended. Bill Paxton (Sissy did a guest role on Big Love) and David Lynch who directed Sissy in The Straight Story (1999) as the main guests? Neither are particularly representative of her career. Story is hardly a Sissy film even though it's a goodie. I don't know if David Lynch has a star on the Walk of Fame but if he doesn't and he ever gets one they should straight up rethink the honor and ceremony and his star should be unveiled on a wall framed by red curtains rather than carpet. 

Did you know...?
Sissy Spacek is #8 in Oscar's entire Actress Hierarchy, tied with the following women for an incredible six nominations: Redgrave, Burstyn, Sissy's closest star trajectory contemporary Jessica Lange, beloved Dames Dench & Smith, Winslet (the most recent to join this elite club) and the record holding most-nominated losers Deborah Kerr & Thelma Ritter. (Plus Norma Shearer depending on how you count her honors -- the Academy's early days are odd statistically speaking.) Close & Blanchett are the next possible party-crashers to this group with 5 nods apiece. 

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Posterized Sissy 
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Signatures: Sissy Spacek
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I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski

Michael C here. Have you heard that according to LA Weekly the Venice, California bungalow owned by the none other than Big Lebowski's The Dude is on the market and can be yours for the low, low price of 2.3 million dollars? 

Cozy place. Perfect for entertaining ferret-bearing nihilists or special lady friends you are helping conceive. Rug not included, but would really tie the room together.

Right about the moment I was chuckling to myself about the type of person who would make such an important decision based on movie trivia, a voice in my head chimed in to remind me that I am totally that person. It was not unlike asking yourself “Who is that total loser over there?” before realizing you are looking at your reflection. 

Fortunately I’m a New Yorker and can't be tempted by The Dude's iconic pee-stained floors. Still, I know in my heart that if presented with a similar situation I would jump at the opportunity. If the realtor mentioned I might recognize this as, say, Diane Keaton’s apartment in Annie Hall, the place could have exposed wiring shooting sparks onto the living room floor and I would still sign the lease on the spot. Then I would be out on the balcony trying to speak in subtitles before the ink was dry.

 

I put the question to you, the reader:
What movie character's residence would you pony up the dough to live in?

Sing Out Jodi! "Part of Your World"

She wants to be part of your woooooooooooorrrld. 

The original Ariel, Jodi Benson, sings her signature tune at the opening of the The Little Mermaid ride which I think just opened in California ("Adventure Park")  but I can't keep track of their parks. It's coming to Florida's Magic Kingdom too.

How many times do you think people have asked her to sing that song for them since 1989: 1,989? 14,000? 890,000? Infinity?

I'm not sure when I came to be so obsessed with The Little Mermaid but sometime about 4 years ago I realized that though I always claim Sleeping Beauty and Beauty & The Beast as my favorite Disney movies (and Jungle Book as my childhood favorite), I mention Little Mermaid, like, a thousand times more often than any of those. What's wrong with me?

Obsessed.

The ride apparently has a surprise ending and Movie|Line made nine cheeky guesses (though #7, "flounder sandwiches", wouldn't surprise me at all, since Disney is totally cannibalistic with their 'children) but they forgot one.

I'll help them by providing it...

#10 the fattest white-haired passenger is impaled and electrocuted.

Curio: Gus Van Sant, Painter

Alexa here. Lately James Franco has gotten a lot of press for his artistic aspirations, earning multiple degrees while he exhibits his artwork in Berlin, seemingly hosting the Oscars as an afterthought.  So also getting attention is "Unfinished", an exhibition of film and visual art by Franco and Gus Van Sant.  Most of the attention is focused on Franco, and what the show reveals about him. (For the exhibit he reedited footage from My Own Private Idaho, creating a 12-hour-long film titled My Own Private River.)  

But what I find interesting about the show, currently showing at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills, is seeing what Gus Van Sant is like as a painter. He studied film and painting at RISD, and was there at the same time as David Byrne (apparently urging Byrne to keep singing).  These watercolor portraits of young men, shown alongside Franco's film, obviously recall Mike and Scott from My Own Private Idaho, and share the film's dreamlike, loose, almost gangly quality.

more paintings after the jump...

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