Red Carpet Lineup: Four On Blondes

Nathaniel: hey you!
Jose:  sir
Nathaniel: Time for a total quickie Red Carpet Convo.

We just have four blondes today starting with LUCY PUNCH at the premiere of Bad Teacher. There's something about this look (is it the seven bracelets?) that makes me think she's taken her gawdy character in You Will Meet A Tall dark Stranger to heart. (I have yet to see Bad Teacher...)

Lucy Punch, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, and Evan Rachel Wood

Jose:  Is it me or does Lucy look like a more wholesome version of Gaga?
Nathaniel:  Wholesome is not what i think of when i think of Punch so maybe it's ME who has taken her comic characters to heart?
Jose:  something about her bone structure...but yes, the bracelets and heels, yikes, very Pretty Woman
Nathaniel:  Pretty Woman before it was Disneyfied... $3000 !
Jose:  lol
Nathaniel:  I don't understand what CAMERON DIAZ is wearing. Like, not just the cut but the material itself. What is it? Apparently there was a black & white & blonde & leggy theme at the Bad Teacher premiere.
Jose:  it looks like her mesh t-shirt got attacked by pins from here, but let's not kid ourselves, everyone's just staring at her legs anyway
Nathaniel: I was actually staring at the bracelet wondering if it could deflect bullets but I am very gay.
Jose: Maybe she's trying to steal the Wonder Woman thunder from our Christina!
Nathaniel: (I think we should all except that there won't be a big screen Wonder Woman.)
Jose: I do wish Cameron would do something different with her hair sometime though. we get it, you're sporty and surfy and whatnot but find a freaking iron sister
Nathaniel: ♪ ♫ She's as free as her hair She's as free as her hair. She is her hair. She is her hair. ♪

Doesn't it seem like a trillion years ago that Cameron Diaz and KATE WINSLET were actually co-stars in a romantic comedy. Ohmygod maybe-it-never-happened-at-all?
Jose:  I'd been trying to forget The Holiday for years, thank you for rekindling that trauma

Oooh is Kate wearing the classy lady version of Cam's dress?

Nathaniel:  I don't know but I have to say that it's both fierce AND fugly. That midriff detailing is so... is she expecting the postman to deliver bulk mail?
Jose:  LOL Actually I loved it for very odd reasons it's a Victoria Beckham dress. and I remembered when i was 12 how I loved Kate and how the British press was always making her try to be as skinny as Posh Spice, so I see her in this dress as kick-ass cosmic retribution
Nathaniel:  the 12 year old in you rejoices.

Also this dress on Kate… David Cronenberg would salivate. It's very eXistenZ "portal" and... well, I can't look at it for too long. Disturbing.
Jose:  thanks to you now I'm expecting Jude Law to emerge from it (Holiday reunion?)
Nathaniel:  LOL. Speaking of emerging from Kate Winslet (ba dum dum chhhh)... Next we have her evil incarnate spawn from "Mildred Pierce" at the "True Blood" premiere.
Jose:  ...channeling Hayden Panettiere by way of "Express Yourself"
Nathaniel:  When you put it that way I suddenly love the look not.

And I was just about to say that I liked it.
Jose:  EVAN RACHEL WOOD always wears odd things to premieres, last True Blood premiere  she did a librarian sort of thing that everyone hated.
Nathaniel:  I was going to compare this to one of Dazzler's looks from the X-Men comics but I realize that would be like the 4th time I've gone there this summer. There is something very wrong with me. I apologize.
Jose:  uh-oh, she would make an awesome Dazzler though

poll by twiigs.com

Nathaniel: Anyway I kind of love it because it makes me think that I don't fully understand Evan Rachel Wood yet and that's always a good feeling when it comes to young actresses. Surprise us or risk replacement! There are a gigajillion young blondes eager for your spot.
Jose:  Totally. When it comes to the freaky, what-will-she-do-now department, Marilyn Manson did good by her. And her smile made me forget how much I hate her as Veda Pierce too
Nathaniel:  her or the character?
Jose:  o Veda, I hate all incarnations of that tramp but Evan's was especially easy to loathe.
Nathaniel:  but that's the point!
Jose:  I know but I was worried I'd hate Evan too afterwards. Hopefully True Blood will make me forget all about her
Nathaniel:  Veda. You know you're trouble when undead soulless bloodsuckers have more soul.

Melanie's Mini Memoir: Winslet, Jackson and "Heavenly Creatures"

Our Wednesday night series Hit Me With Your Best Shot resumes on May 4th with David Lynch's Eraserhead (see the May & June schedule here), but tonight we bring you A Very Special Episode.

We knew from Twitter that the actress Melanie Lynskey (Win Win) enjoyed this particular series. After our group gaze at Heavenly Creatures (1994), which happened to be her film debut, she sent us the following note with permission to publish it. How great! Melanie is currently in movie theaters as the troubled mom in Win Win but she's got two more films on the way. She's completed work on Eye of the Hurricane co-starring with Campbell Scott (another underrated actor) and Touchback, a sports fantasy starring Kurt Russell. 

Melanie takes it from here...

"So excited you did a Hit Me With Your Best Shot on "Heavenly Creatures". I loved reading what everyone had to say. I don't know if I can do a *best* shot, but the one that came to mind instantly as being the most symbolic of my experience on the movie as a whole is a small scene which is part of the montage in the early scenes of the friendship (you talked a bit about that montage). There's a shot where Diana Kent dabs her lips with a napkin at a dinner table and the camera swoops around the table and settles on me imitating the way she does that.

It's kind of a weird shot for me to choose; there are so many beautiful shots in the movie (the amazing Alun Bollinger, AlBol!) and so many moments I so clearly remember filming because I was so connected to Kate in that moment, or I was going through some crazy emotional turmoil for a scene and there it is, captured forever.

Filming that little dining room scene, to witness Peter's energy and how badly he wanted this tiny little moment to work out was about the most inspiring thing my little 15 year old self could see. He had this idea, and he wanted to make it work, and every take we did felt exciting, because we were all so invested in making that shot happen. I remember looking around the room and really feeling so grateful to be exactly where I was at that moment, with a group of frustrated people in a little room doing the same thing over and over.

I cant remember how many takes we did. We did it many times and I remember Peter just being so committed, even though it was proving very difficult to capture. The timing was very tricky.  The feeling of being part of a group of collaborators working together to create something was so powerful to me. I felt so fortunate to be part of the group.

The scene in the bathtub where it's all kind of blue - i remember that one like it was yesterday, it was so intense, the feeling in the room. And the shot of Kate is insane, about as beautiful as it gets. And any scene with Sarah Peirse feels extraordinary to me because she gave such a beautiful, honest performance. She just amazes me.

When I think about that shoot, the thing that I think about is how completely excited I was to be doing my first professional acting job, and how the most exciting times for me were those where I was sitting there thinking...

This is a movie. This is what it's like when people make a movie. This is amazing.

When Peter would get all excited about something, he would get like a little boy and it was adorable. Every camera move he and AlBol came up with was just mesmerising. The pieces would all click together and the chemistry of the scene would start to be created, and to me, it felt like magic.

They always wanted movement, and we as actors were always timing what we were doing to the camera move. Kate and I needed to have so much energy at all times, and Peter and AlBol and the way they were shooting really contributed to this sort of breathless, intense, excited headspace that we pretty much lived in for 3 months. Kate and I would go home at the end of a long day and hang out for hours just jabbering away to each other."

We sincerely thank Melanie Lynskey for this mini-window back to the making of one of the best films of the 1990s. [Here's the original post which prompted it.]

Next Wednesday on "HMWYBS" we're discussing David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977). Join us with your own choice or just be here for the discussion. Eraserhead is currently available on Netflix Instant Watch.

Best Shot: "HEAVENLY CREATURES"

Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Each week we assign a movie. Participants are asked to select its best shot and post it to their own webspace by Wednesday evening. Everyone is welcome to join in. Next week's topic is Beauty & The Beast (1991) and there had better be a big crowd. Who doesn't love that movie?

Today we're gazing at...

HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994)

With last year's mania for the dehumanizing Kick-Ass, this Spring's death-skilled Hanna and the internet's current casting obsessions with Hunger Games, in which a young girl Katniss (to be played by Jennifer Lawrence) becomes a killer to stay alive in a future that loves murder games, you'd think just about every other violent act in the world nowadays was committed by teenage girls. This type of violence can still shock onscreen -- and I hope it always will -- but it almost never arrives with both bludgeon force and emotional acuity the way it does in Peter Jackson's hysteric and hysterically imaginative Heavenly Creatures.

The problem that Heavenly Creatures poses with a "best shot" blogging experiment is not that it doesn't have these images, but that the images are rarely static and eager to be captured with your typical screen capturing devices. Only full on film clips would suffice. Peter Jackson loves the motion in his motion pictures and Juliet ("Introducing... Kate Winslet") and Pauline ("And Introducing... Melanie Lynskey") are about the most spastic female characters of the past couple of decades outside of maybe Molly Shannon's "Superstar!" They're constantly flinging themselves about. (read the full post.)

Click to read more ...

"Grass Widow" in Mildred Pierce (2011)

It's time for the Monday Monologue. How many of you caught Mildred Pierce (2011) last night on HBO? Todd Hayne's adaptation of the novel, previously adapted in the 40s, is a five hour affair. We can't say much as to quality yet as we're only ⅓ through (or thereabouts). Let it suffice to say for now that the new version is much different which we're immediately grateful for; no one needs a replacement of the terrific 1945 Joan Crawford noir.

Kate Winslet's Mildred Pierce, broke and forlorn.

My two favorite things about the first hours were the supporting players: Mare Winningham was tart perfection as Ida the head waitress at the diner where Mildred finds work and Melissa Leo adding to her noteworthy run as Mildred's know-it-all neighbor Lucy. Both actressses were deliciously in period; you could shove them right into a 30s movie and gobble them up with delight alongside a slice of Pierce pie.

Early in the first hour, Lucy gets a showcase bit where she schools Mildred on the complexities of dating when your marriage has broken up. She tells Mildred, who is looking anything but red hot with floured hands and apron-covered, that men now view her differently.

continue on to the monologue.

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Reader of the Day: Murtada

Since yesterday's Reader o' the Day was someone I'd met, let's make it a double feature. But afterwards we go back to people I haven't met which is 99.99% of you. Today we're talking to Murtada who lives here in NYC. I've only been recognized in public (at least to my knowledge) like 6 times so I've never gotten used to it. It is... strange. Murtada was one of those (unlucky) sharp eyed people. We were at a gay bingo event of all things.

Nathaniel: I'm still so embarrassed about our meeting. My friends were so mad at me... they were all "Why were you so rude to that nice guy?" I was just shocked/disoriented. I have no idea what I even said. Can you ever forgive me?
MURTADA: Of course I forgive you……as long as you promise to come back to gay bingo. I haven’t been back since that day, have you?

Haven't been back, no. LOL. Do you remember your first moviegoing experience?
I grew up in Sudan and there were not a lot of movie theatres there. I consumed movies on VHS. But there was an outdoor summer theatre that played mostly Bollywood movies. I remember seeing a Jaws revival on a very hot summer night sometime in the 80s and hiding under the seat for most of the movie because I was so scared.

Your 3 favorite actresses. Go!
The two C/Kates, Blanchett and Winslet. I can’t get enough of either. Blanchett was love at first sight when I saw her in Elizabeth but I love her most in The Talented Mr. Ripley, so casually snobbish.. delicious. And her big grand gestures in The Good German are even better than her Hepburn. Winslet was more of a love built over time and accumulated because  she just kept getting better and making better movies. My fave of hers is probably Revolutionary Road, she was combusting with emotion in that. And recently Michelle Williams took my breath away in Blue Valentine.

I know you're an Oscar obsessive. Take away one person's Oscar and give it to someone else.
I could play this game all day: Angelina Jolie’s (Girl, Interrupted) to Toni Colette (The Sixth Sense); Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s (Capote) to Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain); Rachel Weiz (Constant Gardener) to Maria Bello (A History of Violence); And don't even get me started on Hooper/Fincher, the wound is still raw.

But if I was given one chance I will have to take Kevin Costner best director Oscar (Dances With Wolves) and give it to Martin Scorsese. I know, obvious. But that doesn't make it wrong. In fact it will right maybe one of the biggest wrongs in Oscar history. GoodFellas is a fantastic movie that has endured and is now a big part of movie and pop culture history. In my opinion it's Scorcese's peak as a storyteller.

Who are you really rooting for over the next few years of cinema?
I am so glad that Darren Aronofsky is not doing Wolverine and whatever his next movie becomes I hope it's an original story of his. He is the most exciting American filmmaker out there.