A Year With Kate: Mary Of Scotland (1936)

Episode 10 of 52 wherein Anne Marie screens all of Katharine Hepburn's films in chronological order.

In which Kate dons some regal duds.

Stick with me, folks. The next three weeks are going to be rough, but if we can get through it together, the last week in March will be Stage Door, and from there on it’s nothing but Kate classics. In the meantime, however, we’ll have to slog through three films which, if I’m totally honest, rightly earned Kate her “box office poison” moniker. But we’re jumping ahead of ourselves.

First we have to get through Mary of Scotland, a misbegotten, misdirected, miscast movie. “Misbegotten” because it dumbs down the political intrigue of Queen Mary of Scotland’s reign into a bad romance novel plot. “Misdirected” because John Ford clearly would rather have been out in Monument Valley with John Wayne and a wide angle lens. "Miscast" because how in the name of all that is holy did we miss the chance to cast Katharine Hepburn as Queen Elizabeth I??

Elizabeth is a great role for actresses, especially redheads with good cheekbones. You know where I’m going with this. Since everybody loves pitting Cate vs Kate Elizabeth I vs Mary Stewart, I decided to rank four stand-out Lizzies and Marys (some good, some bad, all unique).

VS

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Top Ten: Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett in Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine"Today is Cate Blanchett's birthday and since we just celebrated her Oscar-winning altar ego Katharine Hepburn, why not extend the love? As longtime readers know I have been notoriously cool on the Aussie star over the years equating her work with the kind of "click click click" technique-first acting that Meryl Streep was sometimes discredited for early on. But since I actually think it's interesting to hear other people talk about their favorite perfromances from actors they don't naturally respond to, I hope it will be interesting to you to hear the things I do love about Cate the to-others Great. Cate was EVERYWHERE throughout the Aughts aggravating me with her ubiquity (I have issues with this in general, I know. It's not just Cate but Hollywood's tendency, especially in the past decade, to put the same actors in every movie and wear me out on them) but after four relatively Blanchett-sparse years (2009-2012) wherein she was only doing cameos or that Robin Hood no one liked, I am actually excited to see her again. Which is a relief because they'll be no escaping her again soon...

She's coming back in a major way over the next 24 months with new pictures on the way from Terrence Malick, Woody Allen, George Clooney, and Peter Jackson. She'll cap off that new flush of activity with a blockbuster-hopeful evil queen showstopper in Kenneth Branagh's production of Cinderella. 

Here are the ten Blanchett performances of which I am most fond...

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Burning Questions: Can a Bad Sequel Diminish a Classic?

Michael C here. When you tune in to the movie chatter frequency one of unavoidable refrains you hear is that such and such sequel has spoiled a classic film. You know the drill. Part III forever tarnished The Godfather, turning a perfect two-part saga into a disappointing, lopsided trilogy. Oliver Stone ruined Gordon Gekko by dragging him out for a belated encore.  “Blah blah Jim Carrey blah blah The Grinch blah blah blah MY CHILDHOOD!”  

And so on.

This chorus was most recently heard lamenting the way Oz the Great and Powerful helped itself to a box office bonanza by trampling the sterling legacy of the Judy Garland classic. Next it will be Evil Dead’s turn to besmirch the memory of a cult classic. Amid all outraged accusations of violence towards film history shouldn’t we stop to consider if the basic idea has merit? Can an inferior sequel actually diminish the standing of a classic? 

Let me state right up front my answer is a firm “No, it can’t.” Except when it can. Let me back up...

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Sudden Flashback: Ladies in Waiting

I always forget that Emily Mortimer and Kelly Macdonald were Cate Blanchett's right-hand (and left-hand) girls in Elizabeth (1998).

(And Daniel Craig was in it, too!)

None of those ladies had to wait long for their careers to blossom... though in the case of Emily & Kelly maybe the careers should've blossomed more spectacularly. Aren't they great? Lovely & Amazing Emily can next be spotted in the comedy Our Idiot Brother (opening in August) and Kelly is playing "The Grey Lady" (aka Helena Ravenclaw) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (opening... well, you know when.)