Jodie is Single. And Singular.

Jodie Foster broke the internet. That’s what happens when you are globally famous, drunk, accompanied by a persona non grata (one Mel Gibson) and come out as a gay person… again… sort of. Jodie was being honored with the annual Cecil B Demille award, a lifetime achievement prize earned at the  young age of 50 (we’ve been celebrating her birthday lately right here) and her acceptance speech won the night’s most important intangible prize “Most Talked About”.

Why? Because it mattered.

Watching this storied actress battle with her past self and its direct conflict with The Way Things Are Now was amazing live television. We were watching deeply personal internal backstory play out as a public Living History right there on the television, intoxicated and intoxicating.

more after the jump

Click to read more ...

Jodie Foster at 17

Our Jodie Foster 50th Anniversary Celebration continues...

Her answer is priceless

Michael C here to pass along this clip I discovered while researching the estimable Ms. Foster. Nowadays child stardom is commonly seen as the first stage in an inevitable downward trajectory of substance abuse and self-destruction so it's a bit jarring to watch this footage of Jodie Foster interviewed at age seventeen.

It's a rare thing to hear a movie star – or a politician for that matter – of any age speak with such poise and thoughtfulness. To listen to it after having lived through the E! News and TMZ takeover of celebrity reporting makes it seem positively alien. I love the way she keeps gently steering fluff questions toward substantive answers, like when she responds to a question about a potential boyfriend with an observation about the phoniness of fawning celebrity praise.

I imagine many young stars that meet with similar success so early in life receive a shock when they discover the world is not going to unroll at their feet in all their future endeavors.

Yet here we find the young Jodie Foster already tempering her big ambitions with the knowledge that there will be surely be failures along the way. Agents of up and coming celebrities should play clips like this for their clients to study. 

Jodie Foster in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore"

For Jodie Foster Week I invited guests to talk about favorite Foster films. Here is one of my favorite authors Manuel Muñoz ("What You see in the Dark," "The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue") on a pre-Taxi Driver Scorsese/Foster collaboration. - Nathaniel R]

Coming up with another word for “precocious” is hard, since its precision begs no real qualification. The word bothers me a little as a go-to choice to describe Jodie Foster’s brief appearance in 1974’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. What are we seeing in her portrayal of a girl who dislikes her real name (Doris) so much that she ditches it in favor of another (Audrey)? I thought my pleasure in rewatching Alice would come in getting to see Foster in that vulnerable adolescence where few of us had learned to mask, moderate, or amplify our sexual identities. How much more apparent would this be on camera, especially when we, as viewers, sometimes willingly blur the lines between performer and performance?

I’m happy to come away from Alice seeing Doris/Audrey as more than a thinly written tomboy role... [More]

Click to read more ...

Playing Dress-Up: Jodie Foster in "Bugsy Malone"

[For Jodie Foster week, I invited a few guests to write about pivotal Jodie Foster movies for them. Here is Susan Posnock, who you may remember as a regular on Awards Daily a few years back. - Nathaniel R]

With Jodi Foster turning the big 5-0 tomorrow, Nathaniel asked if I would come out of my semi-retirement from film writing to help celebrate the actresses’ oeuvre. He offered up a number of films to reflect on, but the one I immediately thought of – despite the fact that I hadn’t seen it in about 30 years – was Bugsy Malone.

Long before the Internet, DVDs and even videos, I remember catching the film as often as I could (and my parents would allow) on HBO. In addition to Foster in a relatively small part, as tough-talking gangster’s moll Tallulah, it starred then-unknown Scott Baio in the titular role. Watching it this week I was struck by how completely odd it is – something I didn't pick up on as a kid. But as an adult, its unique flavors stand out. [More...]

Click to read more ...

Jodie's high-low profile in 'Maverick'

Hi Lovelies. Beau here with a look at a fascinating performance from an actress we've been celebrating this week. The Fantastic Ms. Foster.

Jodie Foster gets a bum rap for comedy. A consummate actress who has long been championed for her dramatic talents, Foster is rarely recognized for her comedic efforts, a scant few that round out an already impressive career. It’s not that the criticisms don’t carry some validity; her work in last year’s Polanski vehicle Carnage was an example of taking the clearest path in interpreting an admittedly difficult character. The piety and self-pity comingling with textbook liberal martyrdom is a fine line, a high-wire act that few could tiptoe across seemingly without any effort. (Emma Thompson is one actress that comes to mind. But then, what can’t Emma Thompson do?) 

And this brings me to a point, in that few actresses can so easily traverse the heavy terrain between genres and come to their destination relatively unscathed. Foster struggles, but so does [MORE...]

Click to read more ...