Starry Sissy Spacek

File this under 'The Hollywood Walk of Fame Makes No Sense.' The star-getting procedure is such that some people get them in their first few years of fame while the danger of "flash in the pan" still looms and other bonafide legends get them a full four decades after they started making cinema-shaking waves. In short, it's utter nonsense.

But that doesn't mean we don't still like seeing the nation's actresses celebrated whenever that does occur. Congratulations, Sissy! 

Usually star ceremonies will include co-stars pushing whichever new project the star has (in this case THE HELP) and at least one really famous co-star (like when Bridges was on hand for Pfabulous Pfeiffer's star a few years back though they hadn't worked together since the 80s) but this one was oddly attended. Bill Paxton (Sissy did a guest role on Big Love) and David Lynch who directed Sissy in The Straight Story (1999) as the main guests? Neither are particularly representative of her career. Story is hardly a Sissy film even though it's a goodie. I don't know if David Lynch has a star on the Walk of Fame but if he doesn't and he ever gets one they should straight up rethink the honor and ceremony and his star should be unveiled on a wall framed by red curtains rather than carpet. 

Did you know...?
Sissy Spacek is #8 in Oscar's entire Actress Hierarchy, tied with the following women for an incredible six nominations: Redgrave, Burstyn, Sissy's closest star trajectory contemporary Jessica Lange, beloved Dames Dench & Smith, Winslet (the most recent to join this elite club) and the record holding most-nominated losers Deborah Kerr & Thelma Ritter. (Plus Norma Shearer depending on how you count her honors -- the Academy's early days are odd statistically speaking.) Close & Blanchett are the next possible party-crashers to this group with 5 nods apiece. 

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'Crimes of the Heart': The Other 'Steel Magnolias'

Kurt here from Your Movie Buddy. 

Crimes of the Heart is for people who love Steel Magnolias, who can't bring themselves to change the channel when The First Wives Club plays on cable, and who can't resist a small handful of emotive, big-name actresses playing off each other courtesy of a witty, womanly text. Now that I have the attention of what I'll dare to guess is about 89 percent of you, allow me to resurrect this twangy, dysfunctional black comedy, which turns 25 this year. Directed by Bruce Beresford (Tender Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy), it's one of those films whose title is so generic you'd swear you've seen it a dozen times, and yet its drop into the proverbial cracks has all but erased your knowledge/memory of it.

The film's official release-date birthday isn't until Dec. 12, but it's fresh in my mind because I just caught a fine stage rendition of playwright/screenwriter Beth Henley's source material – a Pulitzer Prize-winning work that draws its power from Henley's keen ability to mash the comic and the tragic with the frequent spikes and dips of a heart monitor (think Rachel Getting Married with more irony and fewer shattering tears). The story takes place in Hazlehurst, Miss., where the MaGrath sisters – Babe, Lenny and Meg – are reuniting at their childhood home under characteristically eccentric circumstances. Babe, the youngest, just got out of jail for shooting her husband in the stomach (she “didn't like his stinkin' looks”). Lenny, the melancholic eldest, just turned 30 and is nursing her pent-up sexual frustration with cookies and self pity (a shrunken-ovary problem makes her think she's useless to men). Meg, the rebel, has returned from L.A. with nothing to show for her singing-career ambitions but the after-effects of a nervous breakdown.

What's more, Lenny's horse was just struck dead by lightning, nosy and pushy cousin Chick is nagging outside the screen door, the girls' granddaddy/surrogate father is ailing in the hospital, and then there's the memory of the suicide of their mother, who, years ago, hung herself along with the family cat. You get the picture.

At first, it seems this movie – which is available to watch in its entirety on YouTube, btw – doesn't have much to offer in regards to justifying the play being committed to film. Despite its undeniable retro charm, the Plain-Jane opening is super indicative of the film's subsequent obscurity, from its credits (which could make a Power Point presentation look masterful) to its score (best described as low-rent Kenny G.). It doesn't take long, however, for the hooks to dig in. Turns out Crimes is quite the watchable little gem, thanks mainly to its four lead stars: Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek and a marvelous, neglected old Victorian that serves as the tack-tacular setting.

Diane Keaton as Lenny

The actress who portrayed Lenny in the stage version I saw was by far the funniest cast member because she was able to nail her character's emotional volatility and spastic, hysterical neuroses. Naturally, this is a role for Diane Keaton...

Keaton, Lange and Sissy's Oscar-nominated work after the jump.

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