To Dos Day

___ Item 1: MADELINE KAHN APPRECIATION DAY THIS THURSDAY.
It's time - StinkyLulu's Madeline Kahn Appreciation Day on Thursday, May 29, 2008 -- a random day on which all bloggers are invited to offer their appreciations of the life and work of Madeline Kahn (1942-1999). And, please, don't forget to send me the details so's I can link...

___ Item 2: DEFINE EXISBLOGSISTENTIALISM. (FOR YOURSELF, NATCH.)
This week's NYT Magazine coverstory about the existential dilemmas instigated by blogging seems to have "exposed" a collective nerve shared by some of the most important stars of my own personal blogosphere (ModFab, FourFour, Andrew Sullivan). But amidst all this Gould-oriented contemplation, GayProf (another key figure in my blogstar constellation) offered his own prescient -- note the publication date, several days prior to Gould's piece going live -- on the problem: GayProf's Chart of Blogging Celebrity Status (scroll down past the images for the nifty quiz).

___ Item 3: CHECK ME OUT.
Over on StinkyLulu's Screening Log over on livejournal. My largely unedited ramblings about the movies I've seen at home and a'cinema. I'm having a great time doing the LJ ramblings but I have, like, three friends. Comments welcome. (See also the widget in my sidebar for ongoing updates.) Props to The Oscar Completist for the inspiration.

___ Item 4: READ SOME GREAT STUFF.
And Your Little Blog, Too has a fascinating piece on A Summer Place. Nathaniel's turned in a must-read essay on Network. Self-Styled Siren answers offers fascinating answers to a fascinating quiz. And there's some really interesting conversation over at Film of the Month Club about one of the strangest documentaries I've ever seen....

___ Item 5: 1999's NOT OVER YET.
Though the Smackdown for 1999 is already several days behind us, the excitement of 1999 will continue through this week, with Catherine Keener's profile coming on Wednesday as well as two Overlooked profiles (Lesley Manville in Topsy-Turvy on Friday or Saturday, as well as Madeline Kahn's final film performance in Judy Berlin on Thursday) and my "Died in 1999" tribute to Betty Lou Gerson in One Hundred and One Dalmations appearing later today....

___ Item 6: OVERLOOKED IN 1939.
Though the voting kept it something of a horse race, y'all decided to turn StinkyLulu's way back machine back 60 years from the recent glory year of 1999 to one of the more legendary years in Hollywood history: 1939. 'Tis quite a year -- one for which an "overlooked" profile is nearly certainly necessary. But how to limit the field to only ten contenders? That's where you come in, lovely reader. Help me to determine which 10 overlooked supporting actress performances should be up for the next vote. Share your top 1 or 2 in comments...

Have at it, lovelies...

Supporting Actress Smackdown - 1999

The Year is...

1999

And the Smackdowners for the 72nd Annual Academy Awards are...

BRAD of Criticlasm
BROOKE CLOUDBUSTER of Boy on Film
JOE R of Low Resolution
JS C of He Thinks He's A God
MIDDENTO of when i look deep in your eyes
with
yours truly, STINKYLULU.

1999's Supporting Actresses are...
(Each Smackdowner's comments are arranged according to ascending levels of love. Click on the nominee's name/film to see StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Sunday review.)

Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense

BROOKEA rather surprising nomination, but not a bad one. Collette, despite being in a rather neglected role, delivers a decent performance. If only the role was written a bit more, this offbeat talent could really have shone.
STINKYLULU Stirring a heady mix of ferocity and vulnerability, Collette avoids cliché while layering complexity and compassion into Lynn's every gesture, providing a formidable and funny emotional anchor for the film.
MIDDENTO I hate to say that I was sold on this flick, manipulative as it is, from Collette's performance alone. Touching and real, yet (despite the tears) unsentimental, the performance grounds the film in a subtle, nuanced way.
JS C"Do... Do I make her proud?"
BRADCollette dropped doing too much and did just enough. Though the nomination is probably based on the car scene, watching the film again makes me realize it's the woman she's set up – the woman who cares for her son deeply – that makes Lynn as resonant as she is. My favorite performance in the film by far – even more than Mischa Barton as Linda Blair.
JOE RKills me dead every single time. Fierce strength and shattering vulnerability, at once. The way she acts with her fingernails. And that scene in the car -- the rare "Oscar clip" scene that lives up to the billing.

TOTAL: 25s

Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted

MIDDENTOAs we are supposed to venerate actressing at the edges, EDGES THAT CUT HAHAHA, I ask whether the uneven, JAGGED YAAAAAH rollercoaster ride Jolie takes us on supports the movie by foiling a subdued Winona WEEPING PAIN or her own clear ascent WHEEEEEEEEEE! to stardom
STINKYLULUJolie's palpable emotional clarity ably steers the film and the actress delivers a generally lucid performance. Not bad, but rarely subtle, and never deep.
JS C"Playing the villain, baby, just like you want. I try to give you everything you want. Because it makes you the good guy, sweet pea. Is that a dare or a double dare? I like that. How am I supposed to recover when I don't even understand my disease? That's everybody. So, what's your diag-nonsense?"
JOE RThe movie utterly fails her at the end, but I've long been a fan of an actor's ability to channel his or her charisma into a laser beam, and Jolie's Lisa has hers focused so tightly she could cut diamonds.
BRADJolie delivers what by now feels like a standard Jolie performance – fascinating, energy sucking, combative, more than present. She takes any light in the room, and is fascinating on screen. The perf feels almost bigger than the movie though, in the end, I was more emotionally interested in the scenes with Britanny Murphy – even to the point of feeling that hers is the most surprising performances of the film.
BROOKEA visceral and unflinching performance by this talented actress. Jolie manages to portray the crazy while still keeping the ever-changing moods of the character nailed perfectly.

TOTAL: 16s

Catherine Keener in Being John Malkovich

STINKYLULUKeener’s charismatic restraint maintains Maxine’s entrancing mystery even as the character transforms unsubtly before our eyes. It’s a thin characterization, long on style and short on subtext, but a consistently delightful performance nonetheless.
BRADKeener does a fantasia of her own tough cookie, smart and sassy broad roles, seemingly speaking only in lines that most actors would have as subtext for something much more polite. I don't think there is much of a transformation in the character and it feels that she's having such a great time being arch that the other stuff gets short shrift. And without that, I don't quite believe the ending.
JS C"You're right, my darling, it's so much more. It's playing with people!" (Gestures toward a 7½ story high window.)
JOE RThere's a fierce competition, in Malkovich, for Maxine's attention, and in Keener's hands, she wields her gaze like a weapon. There's an emptiness to the character, by design, but Keener slowly doles out pieces of Maxine. You can't know her, but she gives you enough to keep chasing.
BROOKEA stunning, scathing and sexy performance by this still criminally underrated actress. She balances the surreal comedy with the underlying emotions perfectly, a true display of actorly talent.
MIDDENTOSmart, sassy and conniving without being sorry for it: Maxine could be the villainous femme fatale hated in every other movie. Here, however, Keener mesmerizes with just enough restraint to make her (and the role) delicious.

TOTAL: 24s

Samantha Morton in Sweet and Lowdown

JS C"I had a wonderful evening. I don't need a genius to have a good time."
JOE RShe works her angelic, expressive face to its greatest advantage here, but it doesn't add up to much. Particularly when it's in service to Woody Allen's fucked up issues with women (better that they can't speak at all!).
STINKYLULUMorton inhabits Hattie's silent clarity and wordless integrity with endearing wit, yet even Morton's savvy performance can't ameliorate the creeping misogyny of the role. An adept, adorable but ultimately negligible performance.
BRADUnfortunately, she's constructed as something for Penn's great characterization to bounce against. As such she does her job, and some of her luminosity comes forward, but I was left confused by the character, wondering if she was slow, challenged, or just easily confused. A disappointing performance – sad, because I was really looking forward to it.
BROOKEIn her silence, Morton manages to steal scenes out from under Penn, on top form. She manages to elevate the character out of the pothole of dull writing, but traces do sometimes show.
MIDDENTOMorton electrifies here with the face and movements of a silent movie star – and I don't say that just because she's mute. She brings a lot to the role – which, oddly, I don't care for as much, tired as I am of Allen's simple girls.

TOTAL: 12s

Chloë Sevigny in Boys Don't Cry

BRADSevigny’s native insouciance works for the bored teenager Lana, but she's unable to break through it later in the film. Though she's definitely present, she comes alive more in the intimacy of the relationship than when the sh** really starts to hit the fan. It's during the violence and the difficulties where she feels a little lost to me, losing the screen to what's happening around her.
JS C"I hate my life."
STINKYLULUWhile often excellent "in the moment," I remain unconvinced that Sevigny’s as excellent "in the character." Still – a most astonishing, breakthrough performance in a year loaded with them.
MIDDENTOI remember not rooting for this to win that year; seeing the movie again for the performance makes me appreciate the small moves Sevigny makes to make this more than a simple "lust object" characterization.
BROOKESevigny is essential to the success of the movie, perhaps even more so than Swank. She keeps the film grounded with her truly humane and naturalistic performance; she doesn't overplay any moment and keeps it uncomfortably real.
JOE RI was initially ready to dismiss Chloe's as a nomination based on the audience's projected infatuation, via Brandon. But as Lana begins to leap impulsively off a series of cliffs, Sevigny's ever-intense face belies her desperation, and later gives way to the ecstasy of a way out.

TOTAL: 23s

Oscar chose...
Angelina Jolie
in Girl, Interrupted

But the SMACKDOWN forcibly dissents and, in a single heart squeaker, appoints...

Toni Collette in
The Sixth Sense
as
Best Supporting Actress of 1999!

BUT, lovely reader, what do YOU think?
Please share your thoughts in comments.

Chloë Sevigny in Boys Don't Cry (1999) - Supporting Actress Sundays

With her recently released second film, Stop-Loss, Kimberly Peirce has become one of the contemporary directors I most admire. For two main reasons. First is Peirce's fierce ambition, her acuity in tuning into a story that she feels needs to be told and her tenacity in finding the way that she can best tell it. Second is Peirce's profound capacity for empathy and respect. In the two Peirce films that I know, potential villains are abundant. Somehow, though, Peirce maintains a steady empathy for each of her characters; she may not endorse their actions but she does not judge their personhood. Instead, Peirce levies her -- and her film's -- fiercest critiques and clearest statements of blame toward the societal structures that give alibi to the least humane actions. I admire Peirce's work in narrative film for being political without being polemical, unflinching but rarely judgmental. It's the kind of storytelling that I usually gravitate to documentary for but I'm realizing that Peirce makes the harder choice: she chooses to work within genre. (Where Stop-Loss draws upon war-movie conventions, Boys Don't Cry operates within the frame of a romantic tragedy -- a tale of transcendant love doomed by the cruelties of circumstance.) Peirce's films don't provide answers; rather, her characters embody the challenging questions with which she wants her audience to wrestle. Peirce's smart, sophisticated filmmaking also often elicits astonishing, breakthrough work from her actors -- whether they know it or not. Such is the case with...

...Chloë Sevigny in Boys Don't Cry (1999)
approximately 45 minutes and 5 seconds
41 scenes
roughly 38% of film's total running time

Chloë Sevigny plays Lana Tisdel, the young woman whose life is forever changed by her brief encounter with the new guy in town, Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank in an enduring, effective performance).
The romantic tragedy of Boys Don't Cry begins, as many such tales often do, when the boy sees the girl from across a crowded room.
The boy, in this case, is Brandon Teena, a transman who finds himself in a small Nebraska town "passing" as male in ways that affirm and thrill his sense of himself. The girl is Chloë Sevigny's Lana, a not unpretty young woman who likes the reflection of herself she sees in Brandon's eyes.
The film builds its central romance upon the charge of this mutual gaze. Brandon wants to be the kind of guy that a girl like Lana would find appealing. Meanwhile, Lana likes the ways she feels when Brandon looks at her.
Sevigny builds Lana as the kind of girl who has, by necessity, become accustomed to masculine attention, both welcome and unwelcome. Sevigny shows how Lana has learned to maneuver the limited power provided by her status as a desired object. Sevigny's Lana wheedles drinks and smokes and praise from guys. Sevigny's Lana also seems to appreciate, and fear, the limits of this "power." She bridles and bristles under the watchful, predatory eye of John (Peter Sarsgaard in a thoughtfully but fearsomely sleazoid turn). But Sevigny's Lana is caught short by Brandon, about the subtle difference in Brandon's gaze. In short, Sevigny's Lana likes the way that Brandon looks at her and that, in turn, causes Lana to start to like Brandon.
The charge of these mutually thrilling looks egg both Brandon and Lana to do things they might not otherwise do, adding to the thrill of the connection. As Brandon settles into the idea of living as a male in Lana's life, Lana's giddy at the thought that Brandon might be her key to additional new experiences -- of life and of herself.
Brandon certainly introduces Lana into a new experience of erotic pleasure. In one of the film's pivotal sequences, Sevigny's Lana experiences (and then re-experiences, through the comforting refraction of erotic memory) on one of the more spectacular female orgasms ever depicted in a mainstream film. This sequence -- which Sevigny depicts without vanity -- makes physically literal the core metaphor of Brandon's appeal to Lana: he makes her feel things she's never felt before.
But it's precisely this newness of sensation that ultimately pitches the romantic reverie toward romantic tragedy. As Brandon's secrets and deceptions unfurl, Sevigny's Lana encounters a difficult challenge: should she trust what she knows? or what she feels?
Swank's Brandon sees Lana as the embodiment of a lifelong dream fulfilled. In contrast, Sevigny's Lana discovers in Brandon a powerful fantasy she never knew she had, one that she's not yet entirely sure that she wants. This discrepancy -- Brandon finally realizing the selfhood he's long sought; Lana encountering entirely new dimensions to her experience of self -- rapidly becomes a chasm between the two lovers, with tragic results.
The historical circumstances of the true life story present a particular challenge to both Sevigny and Peirce. In death, Brandon became an icon; in life, Lana remains an enigma. Brandon's story hurtles in a doomed trajectory; Lana's feints and weaves with ambiguity and contradiction.
Sevigny's Lana is almost a different person from scene to scene, her fragmented malleability a stark contrast to Brandon's quickening clarity. For her part as an actress, Sevigny contributes a vivid commitment to each scene, permitting each glimpse of Lana to be as distinct as the next. Peirce utilizes this aspect of Sevigny's performance well as one plausible explanation for the events and circumstances depicted in the film. Yet, even as the actress digs deep to make each moment as human and real as possible, I'm not convinced that Sevigny tethers these moments to a core for the character that remains legible from scene to scene.
Thus, I end up feeling that, while Sevigny's often excellent "in the moment," I remain unconvinced that she's as excellent "in the character." A hazard of the role, perhaps, but one that's as much an opportunity as a burden for an actress at the edges.

"In Suede Gift Pouch" (Homo Heritage Fridays)

from MANDATE:
The International Magazine of Entertainment and Eros.
January 1977 ~ page 22
For details, click the image; then click again to magnify

'Spose the "6 minus" crowd is out of luck, in all kinds of ways...

p123 Meme

A week ago, I got tagged for the "Page 123" meme that's been rollicking around the interwebs. With the end of the semester and all, I've been unable to get to it until now. So, without further ado...

here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Locate the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing...
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged me.

The book I grabbed is one I've been longing to read for the last couple months: Acting Hollywood Style by Foster Hirsch. And at the designated point on page 123, we find:

One of the most unmasked of all screen actors, [Charlie Chaplin] is unafraid of incorporating aspects of the childlike and the feminine into his screen persona -- covering his mouth with his hands, he titters and then smiles coyly at the bloke who is to be his opponent in the boxing match in City Lights.

click image to be routed to video

Though the video clip doesn't seem to include the specific moment to which Hirsch refers, Chaplin's boxing scene does capture some of the same spirit, what I have called Chaplin's "witty daintiness"... Indeed, the quality that Hirsch names is precisely what I find most charismatic about Chaplin. Hirsch continues in a new paragraph:

Stubbornly unmoving, as if frozen against the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, Keaton's Great Stone Face is a seemingly fixed mask. Nothing in that wizened vizage moves -- except the eyes, which shift sideways as they register almost subliminal soundings from his characters' depths.

Check out that last sentence. An artfully composed synthesis of description and analysis, worthy both of Keaton and of an attentive reader. (Where can I learn to do that?) In the meantime, enjoy the "subliminal soundings" of Keaton himself...

click image to be routed to video

He's just so cute!

I love memes. And so I tag criticlasm, your mom,
canadian ken, verging writer and adrift in new york.

"Hail, Diane, Princess of Darkness" - Referencing Supporting Actressness in The Devil's Daughter (1973) - Final Girl Film Club

StinkyLulu offers the following as my tardy contribution
to the monthly FILM CLUB instigated by Final Girl.

There's much to enjoy about The Devil's Daughter, a 1973 made-for-tv movie depicting the intimate horrors wrought by a secret Satanic cult among elite Californians. Very much a product of its particular cultural and historical moment, the film is variously fascinated with (1) the malevolence of conspiratorial elites; (2) the dark side of upper-middle class society; (3) the perils of independent single womanhood; and (4) that widespread problem apparently sweeping the nation: Satanic insemination. Broadcast the same year abortion was federally decriminalized, and in the first years of the national shift toward "no-fault" divorce, the dystopian The Devil's Daughter exploits the emerging mistrust of marriage and motherhood as appropriate social routes for women's lives. That said, the film operates most amusingly as a genre spoof of popular literary styles (think Ira Levin and Jacqueline Susann) that purported to offer sophisticated cultural critique from the relative privilege of the top of the best seller lists. The film is part Stepford Wives, part Rosemary's Baby, and a whole lotta Once Is Not Enough (a dark romance featuring an orphaned daughter who battles her curious compulsion to be near and behave like her loathsome father). All told, The Devil's Daughter is a loopy confused hoot, composed mostly of oblique references to other films and narratives, in which it's abundantly clear that all involved are just looking to survive the shoot and cash the paycheck. But, for StinkyLulu, The Devil's Daughter also did two other things. First, the film reinstigated my recurrent fascination with just how much cultural angst even the thinnest horror films of the 1970s and 1980s can hold and, second, The Devil's Daughter entranced me as an unanticipated repository of references to my favorite topic: Supporting Actressness. Indeed, at nearly every turn in the narrative came a vivid reference to a nominated performance in the category of best Supporting Actress. As evidence, please consider the following:

Diane Lad as Diane Ladd

Perhaps the most prophetic reference to Supporting Actressness comes in the first moments of the film. The actress playing Alice (the mother of the demon spawn) is a newcomer named Diane Lad, an actress who would -- in the coming year -- add a second "d" to her surname and pick up her first Oscar nomination in a film called Alice -- check that coinkydink -- Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Ladd would go on to be nominated several more times, most frequently as a mother seeking to protect her daughter from men with whom the mother shares an unsavory history.

Shelley Winters as Shelley Winters

Surely the most derivative reference to Supporting Actressness comes in the person and performance of Shelley Winters as the ominous Lilith. Winters's Lilith inartfully disguises pettiness, bravado and imperiousness under a mask of respectable womanhood -- a loose reprise of the actress's first Supporting Actress trophy-snagging role (as Mrs. Van Dam in 1960's The Diary of Anne Frank).

Shelley Winters as Ruth Gordon

The most conspicuous reference certainly comes in Winters's Lilith as a chubbier version of Ruth Gordon's cheerier (but also trophy-snagging) performance as Minnie in 1968's Rosemary's Baby. In their own party scene, The Devil's Daughter's filmmakers ape the lens work, scenography and composition of the legendary party sequence in Polanski's 1968 film. An unsubtle homage that infuses the 1973 version with an enjoyable effectiveness that it doesn't entirely earn.

Belinda Montgomery as Katharine Ross

But the most interesting reference comes when the curiously cross-eyed Belinda Montgomery realizes that her marriage is a trap, an elaborate ruse to keep her from fulfilling her own wishes and dreams. Here, the filmmakers seem to be offering another homage to the lens work, scenography and composition of another late 196os auteur -- specifically, Mike Nichols's work in the apocalyptic conclusion (by domestic comedy standards, at least) of 1967's The Graduate. Montgomery's full-frontal bridal shrieks evoke Ross's in ways that underscore the comedy of The Devil's Daughter as well as the darkness of The Graduate.

There are other resonances to be noted too -- Montgomery's basically wearing Piper Laurie's Carrie hairdo; the doomed Jewish-ish roomie is basically the same character as Brenda Vaccarro's in Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough; the revelatory trance dance evokes everyone from Rita Moreno to Penelope Milford to Rinko Kikuchi -- but the four examples listed above are the ones with which a Supporting Actress obsessive must begin. And each permits my greater appreciation of this little 'sploitation movie from 1973 tv. The folks who made this obscure flick sure had a good time doing it and -- with some attentiveness -- so might we.

Be sure to check out what the rest of the Film Club has to say...

To Dos Day

___ Item 1: I LOVE NURSE SHELLEY.
An anonymous little birdie tipped me off to a recent appearance by the woman who is perhaps my favorite Reality TV "character" ever: Nurse Shelley! (From, you know, my beloved Celebrity Rehab!) Apparently, just last Friday, Shelley Sprague made an appearance on something called Dave Navarro's Spread TV, an online talk show in which the ever hot/strange Dave Navarro does his own version of a late night talk show "where he focuses on the arts and [the] human condition." See Shelley's appearance via streaming video (Shelley's on from about minute 11 through minute 25 or so) and discover that, yes, Shelley and I were both slutty groupies on a Red Hot Chili Peppers tour in the 1990s. Me in my fantasies, and her in scary reality. (Now I'm all caught up in the entirely inappropriate fantasy that Dave Navarro will come over to my house for turkey burgers and Celebrity Rehab once the next season begins. What can you say? Some are sicker than others.) But, as always, Shelley's great even when the show gets a little weird. Look for her skillful assessment of DaBaldwin as well as her discussion of the distinction between treatment and 12step. I love Nurse Shelley.

___ Item 2: CHECK ME OUT.
Last week, I asked if people cared about how I formatted my screening log. The response was, shall we say, overwhelming. Which helped me to get honest about the fact that I wanted to make a change in the way I "took notes" on all the movies I screen at home or a'cinema. So, I revamped my existing livejournal page as StinkyLulu's Screening Log, where I'll be posting my unedited ramblings. I've also added a "blidget" to the sidebar on this -- the main StinkyLulu page -- to keep you updated on what movies I've posted about. So, check it out. Bookmark it. Sign up for the RSS feed. "Friend" me. Comment promiscuously. Do what you will. I'm already sorta loving it and -- sniff -- I hope you do too.

___ Item 3: GAY FILM.
I really appreciated the beginnings of the conversations about the current state of independent LGBT cinema that got started a few weeks back. Be sure to check out the really smart posts at Criticlasm and Category D that, in their own way, took up the challenge and framed some even better questions. I'll be steeping in these questions for some time as I continue to serve on the selection committee for the 6th Annual Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival over the next several months. All of which is to say: you can likely expect more ruminations on the topic. I'm becoming increasingly curious as to whether "the queer cinematic moment" has passed.

___ Item 4: JOIN A FILM CLUB.
I've recently joined two: Film of the Month Club and Final Girl's Film Club. So far, I'm not a very reliable member of either one, but do look for my contributions to each...

___ Item 5: NOBODY CAN GET INTO THAT POSITION.
Don't forget - StinkyLulu's Madeline Kahn Appreciation Day on Thursday, May 29, 2008 -- a random day on which all bloggers are invited to offer their appreciations of the life and work of Madeline Kahn (1942-1999). And, please, don't forget to send me the details so's I can link up....

___ Item 6: REMEMBERING MODERN FABULOUSITY.
Most of you likely already know that StinkyLulu's beloved Modern Fabulousity has decided to step down from the pedestal of blogging semi-superstardom for a while. Witnessing this move is bittersweet for me. ModFab is both a blogfriend and a "for reals" friend and I know that this move is both courageous and correct. Yet, were it not for ModFab, StinkyLulu would literally not be what it is today. (For example, Supporting Actress Sundays/Smackdowns would have never happened without the blogfriends I made and inspirations I got by participating as one of the ModFab6.) So, join me in wishing ModFab "happy trails" and consider sharing your thoughts about this transition in comments. Do you think "blogging" is changing? On the way out? Passé? Do tell...

Have at it, lovelies...