Last Dance for Donna Summer (RIP)

Goodbye to disco queen Donna Summer who died yesterday at 63 of cancer. She was one of the rare through lines in popular music of the 70s and 80s -- doesn't it seem like disco had its inordinate share of one hit wonders? But not Donna. Hit after hit and her voice defined the era: I Feel Love, Macarthur Park, Love to Love Ya Baby, No More Tears (Enough is Enough) and so on...

Donna was a "special guest star" in the movie, but promoted to top billed for the DVD release despite her small role.

Donna wrote or co-wrote some of her hits but not "Last Dance", the Oscar-winning one. Still, you can bet her indelible vocals helped win songwriter Paul Jabara that naked gold man. As you can see in the image up top Donna became the film's most important selling point retroactively on DVD but in the original poster, she only has a small frame to the bottom left of the poster (also excerpted above). She played a disco diva naturally. It was her first and last appearance in a motion picture.

Here's Donna Summer performing "Last Dance", the Oscar winning song from Thank God It's Friday (1978). I love that opening speech for its sheer retro wtfness... $12 a ticket, Donna? Different era! But if tickets were really only $12 she was working hard for the money. So hard for you honey.

Which song have you been playing in her honor since you heard the sad news?

Related: Barbra Streisand reacts to the news and here's a fine Advocate piece on Donna Summer's complex relationship with the gay community who were the first to embrace her sound.

P.S. Speaking of the gay community. "I Feel Love" with two gay trailblazers after the jump.

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "The Exorcist"

The Hit Me With Your Best Shot series is deceptively simple. Choose a single shot from a pre-selected movie that you think is best, best being in the eye of the beholder. Tonight we're looking at The Exorcist (1973). And for me at least, it's the first time I've looked at it. That's not quite as shocking as your 12 year old daughter's head spinning 'round 180º, but maybe it's close.

Nearly every horror classic I've seen I've resisted in some ridiculous way: I saw Halloween at a sleepover movie marathon but it took my horror-loving friend five holidays to convince me; I first saw Silence of the Lambs because I had five nightmares about it beforehand and wanted them to end; I can't remember what prompted Rosemary's Baby but I'm willing to bet that I rented the video five times before actually watching it. And so on. 

If I was ever going to watch The Exorcist, the power of blogging would have to compel me. And so it did.

And here we are in the haunted upstairs bedrooms of actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) and her daughter Regan (Linda Blair). The first thing that impressed me about the  movie was how rooted in character it was. Director William Friedkin and the novelist screenwriter William Peter Blatty spend more than half hour with the four main characters before the devil (The Devil?) crashes the party. The first shot that I truly loved foreshadowed the horrors to come in a wonderfully lived-in nonchalant way. After Chris MacNeil unleashes a stream of profanity on an angry phone call (including, pointedly, several "Jesus Christ!"s) we cut to the middle of the night when she's woken by a phone call. I love that the shot starts in the dark and when Chris flips on the light the only face that's really illuminated, given her bleary banged face, is Regan's in a photo on the bedstand; the young girl looks actively worried for her mother which is a brilliant set decoration move. Chris hangs up the phone and the camera tracks her movements to the right until we and she realize that her daughter has crawled into bed with her. It's the first time Regan is essentially split in the film, surrounding her anxious still oblivious mother.

Chris: What are you doing here?
Regan: My bed was shaking. I can't get to sleep.

Here in a sweet mother/daughter moment, Regan's telling us where all the horror will be found. The next voice we here, overlap edited over the end of this shot but just barely is the devil's if you want to get metaphoric about it is Captain Howdy's (The Devil's) who is banging about in the attic. Oh Chris, soon to be overwhelmed Chris, it's not rats. 

The Exorcist builds beautifully towards its truly grotesque last act but at least half of the reason it's so effective is that it never forgets who is terrified while it's terrifying us. My second favorite shot in the film is a beautifully quiet character beat for the title character(s) in the "intermission" of the exorcism. 

The Exorcist(s): Father Karras and Father Merrin

One of the movie's most disturbing famous images is "Help me" scrawled on Regan's stomach from the inside.  If Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) were to remove his clothing, wouldn't we see a similar cry for help from his private hell?

It's these quiet glimpses of internal terror that really sell the movie for me, whether it's Ellen Burstyn's increasing impotent understanding (when no one else has accepted it -- not even the priests) or Father Karras's personal doubts. This silence, this vacuum, lets the terror flood in, often courtesy of the Oscar winning sound work. In the shot above we still hear Regan's possessed wheezing from inside the bedroom, less shocking but even more unsettling than her loud profane outbursts.

This push and pull between external and internal terror, room-shaking chaos and sudden absences of sound but for Exorcist chanting to fill the void powers, for me, the most hypnotic shot in the film. The room suddenly goes quiet and we see Regan lift off the bed in crucifix pose until she's nearly touching the ceiling. A simple familiar image, yes, like you'd see in a magic show. But somehow alien and unnatural, too. Only the exorcists can break this unholy spell.

The Power of Blog Compels Them
Movies Kick Ass is Hollywood the devil?
The Tomas Experience "as sure as the sun rises, you can find evil anywhere"
Film Actually the mysteries of faith and science
The Sketchy Details Regan split in two
Antagony & Ecstasy a single mother's personal hell
Cheerful Cynicism the slow burn is the best part 
Cinesnatch has mixed feelings about the movie 
Okinawa Assault colours and threats 
Encore's World is moved by the mother/daughter bond 
Beau McCoy "The Exorcist and Nothingness" 
Stranger than Most find horror in the hospital
Pussy Goes Grrr "body and soul" and Linda Blair's eyes

Next Wednesday: Edward Scissorhands (1990)... will we catch you dancing in it?
Previously: Pariah (2011), Raise the Red Lantern (1991),  Serenity (2005)

4 Days Till Oscar. Flashback to "A Dignified Superstar"

It's all right. You can get your cheap laughs. I shall remain the dignified superstar that moi am."
-Miss Piggy to "Jonathan" at the 52nd Oscars 

What was Miss Piggy so miffed about in April 1980?

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12 Days Till Oscar. What Happened to the Juvenile Oscars?

Remember when... Okay, scratch the "remember when?" question this time. Unless there are some really really ancient AMPAS members reading. The Oscars weren't televised yet so nobody could remember this one unless they were there.

What was Judy Garland so happy about at the 1939 Oscars? (circa February 1940)

I mean besides sitting with 'The First Lady of MGM' Norma Shearer which would obviously make anyone euphoric.

Judy G was having a good night because The Wizard of Oz was up for six Oscars including Best Picture. It won two music prizes (Best Score and Best Original Song to the very nearly cut "Over the Rainbow"). Judy also won a special juvenile Oscar, presented to her by her frequent co-star Mickey Rooney who had won the year before.

One wonders why they don't still award those. They weren't annual so it took a special performances for the Academy to go there. They only did so 11 times in their first 33 years ending with Hayley Mills for Polyanna (1960)

I can think of several people through the years who would have been relieved if they passed those out instead of letting the kids compete with the grownups. Every time a child is nominated an adult gets bumped out of the shortlist. I mean would Winona Ryder be an Oscar winner today if Anna Paquin had been given a miniature Oscar instead? Would Madeline Kahn have been an Oscar winner for Paper Moon (1973) if Tatum O'Neal hadn't committed category fraud and won doing so for the same film?

Do you think child acting should be judged separately?

If they were still handing them out do you think Thomas Horn would've been the recipient this year since they obviously liked Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close more than critics did?

Perhaps I should have a child acting category at the Film Bitch Awards. I never know who to nominate at the BFCA "Critics Choice" award in their "young actor" category because I always forget to think about child performances.

Q&A Crumbs: Best of Best Supporting Actor + Legendary Why?

If the Q&A column were a TV series it'd be one of those painfully confusing ones that goes off the air unexpectedly only to return with 2 hour specials and extra webisodes and then go on hiatus again. I can't control it! It controls me. I've already answered small screen questions, and Thursday's column was on movie etiquette, crowd reactions, and purposefully bad acting. So here's are a handful of Q&A crumbs that I felt the need to answer and now we are dunzo until the next round. Whew.

As ever, I love to hear your answers to these questions in the comments. The more the merrier when it comes to movie discussions, don't you think?

MESHI: Are there any legendary performances (like, Vivien Leigh as Scarlet O'Hara-type legendary) that you just don't get what all the fuss is about?

I have a hard time understanding the fuss over Marlon Brando in Last Tango In Paris. To me it feels less Method then Show-Off with no one willing to say, 'pull it back dude. Modulate.' So, no, I don't get that one despite its enormous acclaim. I will entertain the possibility that I saw it when I was too young for it, though.

MARY: What are you most excited for? "Mirror Mirror" or "Snow White and the Huntsman"?

I believe you'll find my answer in if you click on the Snow White tag. I'm pretty good with the tagging at the bottom of each post to make things easy for y'all to investigate topics of interest. Short answer: Hunstman by a country mile on a horse drawn carriage with a bad wheel. 

CAL ROTH: Call the next Oscar winners now in acting now. No guts, no glory. Don't think too much about it. Just say how do you feel about these races.

I hate doing this because it's a lose-lose proposition before nominations are announced. If you're right and you go with the party line (I guess at the moment that's: Clooney & Streep, Redgrave & Plummer) you risk being part of that horrible machine that takes all the fun out of Oscars by making it into one big echo chamber that reenforces lazy voting. If you're right but you appear to be wrong (hmmm: Pitt & Davis* & Spencer & Plummer?) because your answer sounds too "two months ago*" people don't remember and they just think you're not that good at prognosticating. Anyway, i much prefer predicting nominees to predicting winners which is TOTALLY BORING due to the echo chamber... particular in the last stretch when the same 4 people will start winning every award and people will only guess otherwise to have something to write about.

* I often wonder why people have perpetual amnesia about the fact that buzz volumes always rise when a movie opens or start screening (provided it's not bombing) and always subside when it's been out a few months and is "familiar". But... buzz volume levels rise and fall and rise again...and fall again. The only thing that matters is how volumous they are when voting is happening.

SOSUEME: As an avid reader of TFE for the last two years, I finally had my first Nathaniel dream...in it, you were moving to California...obviously, the dream has more to do with me than anyone else, but it got me thinking...would you consider moving to CA to be closer to the industry, the events, possibly more money, or does New York suit you just fine?

I'm happy right here though I'd totally be bi-coastal if I could. Writing can be a lonely activity so you need handy social escapes for sanity. Nearly all of my closest friends live here so I gotta stick around. Plus: New York City needs me ;)  ...most of the Oscar pundits are in Los Angeles but AMPAS is bicoastal!

ONE MORE.... SPOTLIGHT QUESTION!

Best Ever Consecutive Run for Supporting Actor Oscar?

MITCHELL: What do you believe to be the most deserving performance to ever win Best Supporting ACTOR?

This is my least favorite of the four acting categories within Oscar because it seems to have the least correlation to actual quality year after year. For whatever reasons it's more beholden to other Oscar factors that aren't really about the work in question: career honors, which "types" they like, which films they like, fame levels before the nominations. This category is also particularly egregious in terms of category fraud. I mean you could argue that it's been five years since an actual supporting performance won (that'd be Alan Arkin) even though the last four winners were four kinds of miraculous in terms of actual quality [tangent: best run ever in this category if you allow for the fraud!]. Once you remove all the co-leads I think there are a few absolute essentials who not only did inspired work but who elevated already strong films by virtue of their lynchpin contributions to its tone, identity and overall aesthetic punch.

So without pouring over the books for too long I'd say I couldn't really live without Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Joel Grey as "the emcee" in Cabaret (1972), or Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood (1994).

But this list might change on a different day and I can't choose just one! Can you?