On this day: Grace Kelly became a Princess, Madonna's "Live to Tell" and more...

On this day in history as it relates to showbiz!

1907 Composer Miklós Rózsa born in Budapest. He becomes an Academy favorite in the early 40s and is nominated 17 times for his music with 3 Oscar wins (Spellbound, A Double Life, Ben-Hur) 

1922 Emmy winner Barbara Hale (Perry Mason) born in Illinois

⇱ 1946 Hayley Mills born in London. She becomes the very last winner of the special "juvenile Oscar winner" for Pollyanna (1960) and chases it with the classic twin comedy The Parent Trap (1961). Did you know she was TFE's favorite classic child star? Now you do.

1947 James Woods born in Vernal, Utah

1953 Rick Moranis born in Toronto. Today's movie fans probably don't know this but in '89 he starred in 3 consecutive $100 million grossers in one single summer (Ghostbusters II, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Parenthood) and it was a very big deal because back then the same people weren't in every movie. TFE's theory is that casting is divided into two eras, pre Samuel L Jackson and after. After Samuel L Jackson (ASLL) it's mandatory to only have excessively familiar faces in every franchise, and it's even okay if they're competing franchises or the same franchises with different roles. It's madness! 

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Tribeca: "Third Person," An Inconclusive Panorama of Trust Issues

Just a few more Tribeca reports to go. Here's Diana on "Third Person."

In another chapter on writer stereotypes (see also: 5 to 7), Paul Haggis’ Third Person opens on Liam Neeson’s hulking handsome frame sitting at a hotel desk, staring at his computer, with an open bottle of red wine and an ashtray heavily weighted down by burnt out cigarette ends. In the midst of the toiling and typing, he hears a child’s voice say, “Watch me.” This phrase becomes an iteration throughout the film, linking together three stories of loss and trust issues. You know how Paul Haggis likes to link (see also: Crash). To paraphrase author Michael (Neeson), all three are weak, but each have strong, albeit bordering on cliche, choices.

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Review: Prisoners

This review originally appeared in my column at Towleroad

Thanksgiving in movies is usually overstuffed with dysfunction and hostility. Who can digest from all the bile at home? That's not the case in PRISONERS, the new dramatic thriller from undersung Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (Incendies), which is more retrograde in its approach with the family unit as something sacred and continually under attack. Despite the occassional interjection of ominous music (shut up Jóhannsson... there's plenty of time for your score later!) and an initially drab grey color palette, things seem realistically jovial at this get together.

The Dovers (Hugh Jackman + Maria Bello) are celebrating the holiday at the home of the Birches (Terrence Howard + Viola Davis) just down the street -- close enough to walk -- as they clearly do every year (or perhaps they trade off). The parents are realistically both amused and vaguely annoyed by their children, attentive but 'don't bother me' tired. It's only when the film leaves the homes of the Dovers or Birches that there's trouble brewing... somethings just off. Why did the movie open with a father/son hunting trip? Why is that strange RV parked on the road? Where did Anna's (Hugh's daughter) red emergency whistle go? Are Joy and Anna back yet? The two youngest children just went back to the Dovers to grab that red emergency whistle they wanted to p... OHMYGODwhere are Joy and Anna?

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Tuesday Ten: "Abduction"

Earlier today I got booted from an Oscar contender screening (Mexico's Miss Bala) that was over capacity. There was once this great thing called a "book store" (sound it out. I know it's unfamiliar) where it was easy to kill a couple of hours when you didn't have a laptop with you and something went wrong schedule wise. I've yet to find a suitable alternative so I went to the multiplex. The only movie starting at the right time to fill my schedule gap? ABDUCTION. I feel terrible about contributing to its box office gross but I will make it up to the cinema gods somehow (my first born child?). Don't judge me too harshly. I'm sure you've done something terribly terribly wrong in your life!

I'm opting to stay positive by listing... The Ten Best Things About Abduction

Best Trailer Screen Cap: Sigourney Weaver and Taylor Lautner with a huge black title card celebrating Sigourney Weaver covering his face. YES!!!

01 Sigourney Weaver has a fun entrance in one scene carrying a huge bouquet of balloons. 

02 At one point the villain threatens to kill all of Taylor Lautner's fans* on Facebook. (*okay he says "friends" but some people deserve to die.)

03 The star's girlfriend's eyebrows are more masculine than his.

04 In the movie's best stunt Lautner hurts his ankle and he remembers to limp for most of the rest of the scene. ACTING!

05 The movie hides the face of one key character the whole time but the lips were enough to give him away. Hi, Dermot Mulroney! Also: I will now fantasize that Dermot Mulroney did this for the money and was smart enough to put it in his contract that his whole face not be shown and thus associated with this movie. If Maria Bello, Jason Isaac, and Sigourney Weaver had all done the same this movie would have been very avant garde what with the entire adult supporting cast only shown through extreme closeups of lips and eyes.

06 The climax takes place at a ball game and I was able to reminisce about how good Moneyball is.

07 Maria Bello has this really emotional scene opposite a block of wood that questions its provenance "Are you my mother?" And she totally sells her love for the block of wood! "I'm not your mother but you are my son." That's what a damn fine actor she is!

08 It ended.

I tried to get to ten. I honestly did! 

It was terr-i-ble.

Small Screen: Prime and Suspect Pilots

I promised a bit more TV talk this year and though I haven't seen any show that would inspire me to cover it weekly (Mad Men and True Blood are rare beasts, as interesting to write about as they are to watch) here's a quick overview of first impressions of new series. 

PRIME SUSPECT
A bit strange to watch this one in the receding shadow of last weekend's Emmy Awards. The whole time I kept thinking "Oh... here's one to shake up the Best Drama Series field next year if it can be shook. And Best Actress, too!"

But then, immediately after it ended, I felt ashamed of this inner golden-winged monologue. Great acting is no promise of statues after all. I must must must remember my own mantra -- difficult as it is to remember whilst enthusiastically prepping for Oscar season -- Great Work Is Its Own Reward. And Maria Bello is her own reward (and so rewarding, too).  Which is as it has to be given the cold shoulder from Oscar in the past (The Cooler, A History of Violence).

Prime Suspect, her new show (adapted from the now 20 year old Helen Mirren series) details the murder investigations of the smart abrasive Jane Timoney, the only woman in her homicide department. The first hour had a few script and performance beats with the zing of those 'Clarice Starling surrounded by tall men' visuals in The Silence of the Lambs but Bello just refuses to shrink. Though procedurals never really capture my imagination, character studies do and Bello demands that I keep watching. Her detective is funny without feeling scripted-quippy and unusually capable without seeming infallible (such a danger for protagonist roles in TV and film). Best of all she shades all of Timoney's more typically admirable qualities like confidence, cleverness, intelligence, and femaleness in such a way that they throw shade; her confidence curdles into arrogance, her cleverness veers towards the reckless, her intelligence has zero warmth and her vagina is both interference and scapegoat. Yes, her department is sexist but isn't her cold arrogance and lack of sympathy for co-workers (who have justifiably open wounds in this episode)  more than half of the problem in being welcomed into their club?

Click for more on Prime Suspect plus Revenge, Charlie's Angels and two more newbies.

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