Best Actress, 2003

I will never forget that photo of Charlize Theron in full Aileen Wuornos drag, clad in a prison jumpsuit with hands clasped while awaiting mercy in a courtroom. It's the picture everyone used to say "this is our next Oscar winner", the picture everyone chose to say "gorgeous women can only win Oscars win they de-glam!" Hell, in 2006, the Academy Awards itself made a joke by saying Charlize Theron was once more "ugging it up" for North Country. If you read "We Predict the Winners" articles from the era, everyone tries to build suspense by saying it's a narrow race between Theron and Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give...and everyone predicts Charlize Theron. I was three days from turning 15 and even I knew who'd win:

Who should have won? The performances ranked, by me, from 5th to 1st:

Chick-Flick-a-thon!

Two weeks ago, I took in a chick flick double feature: You Again and Morning Glory. Both are notable for their veteran cast members (Sigourney, Jamie Lee, Betty White in the former; Diane and Harrison Ford in the latter), their spunky starlets (Kristen Bell, Rachel McAdams), and the fact that neither is a rom-com. No, they're chick flicks that address relationships among females and women as professionals. Both look promising. Only one of them lives up to it.

You Again is about a former high school outcast turned attractive Public Relations go getter (Kristen Bell) finding out that her brother is marrying her high school nemesis (Odette Yustman). Mom (Jamie Lee Curtis) tells her not to worry, until she learns Odette's aunt/guardian is none other than her high school frenemy (Sigourney Weaver). Hilarity allegedly ensues. Oh, okay, there are a few laughs here and there, Betty White is much better here (and more wisely used) than in The Proposal and Sigourney Weaver is giving an honest-to-God, deeply-felt, layered performance. But why is she trying? Jamie Lee has decided to play ZANY and little else: big reactions, dropped jaw, that weird frozen smile she does when something takes her characters off guard. I love her to death, but this was not her finest hour. Poor Bell excels at the deadpan, but she's grating when she's playing it at 11...and the director has layered a strange incestuous feeling between her and her brother. Jame Wolk plays the brother like Bradley Cooper's Wedding Crashers character during the seal story...only we're supposed to like it this time. And Odette Yustman...no, no, no, no, no.

I can't blame writer Moe Jelline, if only because there are so many inconsistencies concerning plot, characters, and tone, it's impossible that one person wrote it. This has to have been extensively rewritten by people who were only mailed certain pages out of context. One minute, there's a moment of reconciliation...the next, they're fighting again. With nothing in between. Or vice versa. Yustman's character is supposed to have forgotten high school because she regrets being a bitch back then (she's now a volunteer and suicide hotline operator and a saint)...but why, when Bell confronts her, does she put her hands on her hips and sneer, "Who do you think your brother's going to believe?" Wait, why doesn't Bell believe her brother would believe her over a girl he's just known for a year? Why isn't the connection between Sigourney and Bell's characters explored? How come the women have to learn how to listen, but the men frequently interrupt the females when they're trying to explain themselves? And why didn't anyone cut out that stupid romantic subplot?

Fickman, though...if Fickman had better control over the tone, this might go down better. Yeah, it's a comedy, but it's not so zany that everyone has to scream all their lines at each other. Everyone is playing it OTT, looking damn exhausted, hoping everyone will see WHAT A GREAT TIME WE'RE HAVING OMIGOD AREN'T COMEDIES FUN??? Not like this, they aren't. The only people who look relaxed are White, Weaver and Kristen Chenoweth: no wonder they turn in the best performances!

Morning Glory is more confident, better-written, better-acted, slicker. Young go-getter Becky (Rachel McAdams) exec produces a failing morning show and decides the best way to shake things up is to get a recently-fired though well-respected journalist (Harrison Ford) to co-host with Diane Keaton. And it's a lot of fun! The laughs are genuine, and the stars aren't the only ones given great characters. Even the unnamed Producers are fun to watch, like "Pink Shirt Glasses Guy"! There's believable back-and-forth between the characters, Ford looks like he's having the time of his life, and Aline Brosh McKenna has written a male character who actually understands the female protagonist and doesn't crucify her for her decisions!

McAdams and Ford are the film's strength. They work well together, the film wisely focusing on their relationship for much of the running time. Indeed, there was a long stretch where they didn't interact at all, and this, I realized, was when my interest started to wane. It's not that the rest of it is awful, but nothing is as interesting as their storyline. Diane Keaton is fun and all, but there's not much to her role (it doesn't help that she gets the film's clunkiest dialogue). And who wouldn't prefer a character/plot-developing interaction between Ford and McAdams over a montage?

Much as I adore Ford and McAdams, though, there are a few things about the movie that had me wincing. An oppressive soundtrack that never let up, for one. The aforementioned montage that goes on forever. Keaton's dialogue. And, perhaps worst of all, the main thrust of it. My good friend Andrew Syder said it "celebrates the death of serious journalism at the hands of ratings-oriented fluff TV" (direct quote from his Twitter), and to be honest, it does. Becky even says something along the lines of how entertainment vs. news has been debated for decades, and Ford's side (actual, serious journalism) lost; the people have spoken. What a chilling, horrifying moment that was, and for a moment I hoped Ford would turn around and slam her upside her head with that bottle of Scotch, or at least be vindicated by the end. Yeah, it's adorable to see Ford be warm and cuddly, but the message that it's sending is disturbing.

I'd recommend Morning Glory, though. It's cute, it's fun, it's well put-together. I don't agree with the agendas of every movie I like (The Birth of a Nation, for example), and if you can get past that, you'll have a good time. You Again, though? Never again.

Southern Belles and What the Hell?

From the opening credits, I immediately felt some worry about Crimes of the Heart. As each actress's name comes up, a cartoon heart falls through each in place of the letter "a" in their names: Keaton, Lange, Spacek. And then it falls in place of the "a" in the title. My first, cynical thought was, "What, did they cast these gals just so they could do that?" Having finished the film, I am convinced that I must be partly right.

Based on the play by Beth Henley (who also wrote the screenplay), Crimes of the Heart follows three days in the lives of three sisters, brought together when the youngest shoots her husband. From the picturesque houses and dusty roads, we can tell we must be in the South, and man do those shrill accents start in fast and furious. You think you'll get used to them over the 1 hr. 44 mins. of fighting, laughing, gossiping, etc., but you don't. Not all of them.

Sissy Spacek is the youngest sister, Babe, giving us the best performance in the film. Married at 18, Babe appears to have never grown out of her childhood, and even her costumes suggest the dresses of a child bride rather than the wardrobe of a senator's wife. Spacek has never been more lump-in-the-throat beautiful. While her co-stars make entrances and exits, Spacek strolls along, every movement completely fluid, every line flowing spontaneously. The girlishness she has after a meeting with her handsome lawyer is both touching and a little sad, and no matter how hard the script works against her, she manages to bring out the human being in Babe. Even though she shot her husband, even though she fooled around with a minor, even though she should probably be put in an asylum, we still manage to sympathize with her and hope for the best. Spacek was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and for now I can't argue with that.

Jessica Lange is the wild one, Meg, who went off to California to be a star. She is the only other believable, interesting character in the movie. Her accent ain't too bad, neither. When she and Spacek come together, the movie is easy to get through. Fortunately, most of the film is between these two, the "outsiders" bound by their spontaneity and beauty (though Lange almost suffers in this department thanks to the most unflattering hairdo I've ever seen on a woman). She's sexy, funny, and full of life! Yet she also lets us in on that sadness, never going full tilt into tears or anything, but hinting at it here and there. When she lies to her sick grandfather about her success, we know it's just as much for her as it is for him.

Tess Harper was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as busybody Chick, their cousin and next door neighbor. It's a small role, and I guess it's meant to be the comic relief, but Sissy and Jessica already give us both the laughs and the pathos, so in the end it feels like Tess is there merely to provide some exposition. I mean, she sells the role, and except for her last, strangely miscalculated scene, she's a welcome sight. But Judi Dench's work in A Room with a View was passed over in favor of this, and that cannot be forgiven.

No, the real weak link here is the horrifyingly miscast, head-scratchingly underwritten Lenny, played by Diane Keaton. I love my Diane, but dear Lord in Heaven, what in the blue blazes happened here? It's a shrill, scenery-chewing turn, as she screams, slams things around, whips her hair about, and even leaps off of her feet (!!!) a number of times. Her accent is atrocious, and she appears to be playing everything for the benefit of the rear orchestra -- there's none of the subtlety or nuance that her earlier comedies and dramas showcased. Even the script seems uninterested in her, and for much of the movie she is relegated to the background, tilling in the garden as her sisters talk out their lives and share plot developments with each other.

I can't believe this is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning, Tony-nominated play. Beth Henley's characters are mostly whiny do-nothings, most of them amoral. A lot of it works, though, so obviously she knew what she was doing -- though so many inconsequential things occur, you'll wonder what THE POINT of it all is. I think the main problem here is director Bruce Beresford, who seems too entranced with the quaintness of The South to actually plumb the depths of despair and hurt Lange and Spacek are so desperate to explore. Sure, it's a comedy, but it's a DARK one, which means you can actually go for emotional truths and sincere moments. Tonally, it's a mess, going from dramedy to broad comedy to whatever movie Diane Keaton's in. Seriously, Spacek and Lange are the only people making sense, and that's probably because they have the only real characters.

Crimes of the Heart is not a terrible movie, but in the hands of a different director -- and with someone besides Keaton in the film -- it could've been largely enjoyable. It's half-interesting, half-forgettable. A real treat for Spacek fans, as I keep reiterating (she's just so good in this movie!), but it's not a must-see.

Academy Award Nominations
Best Actress - Sissy Spacek ***
Best Supporting Actress - Tess Harper **
Best Adapted Screenplay - Beth Henley **

Golden Globe Nominations
Best Picture - Musical/Comedy **
Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy - Sissy Spacek *** (WIN)

"Don't Get Mad, Get MUSICAL!"

Ah, the musical! Nothing like it in the world, is there? And count me as a fan of the new musical from movie tradition. I don't understand the hate, truly. Look, My Fair Lady is the play Pygmalion with songs, Wicked is based off a novel, Rent is a modernization of La Boheme. Why is staging a film any different (or worse) than musicalizing a stage play? It's bizarre.

Anyway, after first hearing about in the summer of 2006, a musical I've long awaited is finally in existence! From the novel by Olivia Goldsmith, from the film starring Diane Keaton, Bette Midler, and Goldie Hawn: THE FIRST WIVES CLUB: THE MUSICAL!!!



So happy am I. True, I was hoping I would be the one to bring one my favorite films to Broadway, but that's all right. I have plenty of other choices (Nixon, To Wong Foo..., Death on the Nile, etc.). But my God, the caliber of people participating in this is staggering! There's director Francesca Zambello, who directed the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid. The producers have had a hand in bringing Big River and The Full Monty to the stage. And holy crap, the ORIGINAL songs are written by Lamont Dozier and Brian and Edward Holland. You may know a few of the songs they've written. Like, oh, "Stop in the Name of Love" or "Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch" or "It's the Same Old Song" or my own personal favorite, "Come See About Me."

And this cast looks promising! Details are a little vague, but it looks as though Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler will be replaced by:

Tony Award Winner for Featured Actress in a Musical (Contact): Karen Ziemba (Curtains, Never Gonna Dance, Steel Pier) as Annie
Tony Award Nominee for Lead Actress in a Musical (Dreamgirls): Sheryl Lee Ralph (Thoroughly Modern Millie, TV's Moesha) as Elise
Tony Award Nominee for Featured Actress in a Musical (Falsettos): Barbara Walsh (Big, Company revival) as Brenda


I repeat: Moesha's stepmother is taking on the role originated by Goldie Hawn. How amazing is that?

The only downside I see so far is this: if it's all original, does that mean we won't be getting any Lesley Gore songs? Because if so, damn will I miss this: