Film School Rejects » Maggie Van Ostrand

Discuss: Where Have All The Thin Actors Gone?

Maggie Van Ostrand — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:32:09 +0000

Even the New York Times has noticed how there are more fat guys in the movies than fat guys at the movies. And they name them.

Making the Times’ list of actors whose many bulges are above the belt when there used to be just one bulge below it, are Russell Crowe (State of Play now playing), John Travolta (The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, due out in June), Denzel Washington (Pelham again), Hugh Grant (Did You Hear About the Morgans? Due out in December), Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island, due in October).

These actors can’t claim they put on thirty pounds for the role, as Robert DeNiro did for Raging Bull, these guys are just fat.

Crowe told the Today Show that he was trying to lose weight for his new film, Robin Hood, but that it was taking longer than he thought. Seth Rogen, on the other hand, seems to be successfully losing weight preparing for his title role in The Green Hornet.

If they ever remake The Maltese Falcon, maybe newly thin Jack Black can play Bogey’s part, and Russell Crowe can play Sidney Greenstreet’s.

What do you think? What’s the deal with the thickening of Hollywood’s herd?

Oscar in the Nude: A Revealing Trend

Maggie Van Ostrand — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 05:55:25 +0000

“It was just fast and furious,” said Marisa Tomei, of the pretty-much-in-your-face naked cavorting scene in The Wrestler. “… there was no room for being shy…” Tomei told the L.A.Times in an interview about her Supporting Actress nominated role. And she’s not the only nominee who went to the flesh academy this year.

Taking no chances on losing the race for the sixth time (if she loses again this year, she’ll tie with Thelma Ritter and Deborah Kerr for Oscar’s losingest nominee), Kate Winslet played the skin game, too, and has been nominated as Best Actress for her role in The Reader. “It wasn’t calculated! I swear! You must believe me!” said Kate to Gold Derby regarding her hot babe photo shoot for Vanity Fair. She knows want fanboys want. Who’ll get more votes, Hot Kate? Or Streep’s cold nun?

Actors who’ve won Oscars for films in which they’ve done the Monty aren’t as few as you’d think.

Charlize Theron did a mean shower scene as man killer Ailene Wuornos in Monster, and had the guts to let the necessary 30-pound weight gain all hang out.

Halle Berry humped Billy Bob Thornton’s brains out in Monster’s Ball showing more skin than a thousand footballs. When our trusty editor-in-chief Neil Miller saw her at a premiere a couple of years ago, she was wearing clothes. Awwww.

Rachel Weisz, was half in bath suds and half not in suds for her role in The Constant Gardener, wearing only a fake baby belly (though she had a real baby belly when she received the Oscar).

As Bree Daniels, a New York hooker in Klute, Jane Fonda won Best Actress when she went topless with Kiefer Sutherland’s father. She did it again in Coming Home with Angelina Jolie’s father, and was nominated for Best Actress. They said she had a breast double, but I think it was a misprint; they meant she had double breasts.

Hillary Swank exposed her upper half in Boys Don’t Cry, for which she received Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a trans-gender man. But real men have exposed themselves in movies (no, not like PeeWee Herman) and received Oscars.

Geoffrey Rush got Best Actor when he hung out in Shine, playing real-life pianist David Helfgott who did a long stint in the Rubber Ramada. But it was only a half monty that won him the Oscar. For a full monty, he was only nominated, when he played the Marquis de Sade in Quills.

Kevin Spacey took a shower in American Beauty and won Best Actor. His monty might’ve been lower than the camera shot, but calling him a tightass wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

Naked Oscar Trivia: One of the most interesting and little-known incidents in the history of the Academy Awards is Oscar’s connection to a star of the 30s and 40s, Dolores del Rio (the only woman Marlene Dietrich ever said was more beautiful than she was). Multi-Oscar-winning designer, Cedric Gibbons, was married to del Rio and, when the Academy assigned him to design their new statuette, she suggested actor Emilio (“El Indio”) Fernández as the model. Gibbons agreed that Fernández would indeed be perfect. It was Emilio Fernández who posed nude for the statuette so zealously sought: the Oscar.

Quick Trivia Burst: Born on Friday the 13th

Maggie Van Ostrand — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 22:42:43 +0000

Steve Buscemi, who played a serial killer in the movie Con Air, was born Friday, December 13th, 1957, and someone even scarier, horror star Christopher Plummer was born on Friday, December 13, 1929.

But the person born on a Friday the 13th (August 13, 1899) who scared more audiences than any other, was Alfred Hitchcock. If he had lived to be one hundred, he would’ve celebrated on another Friday the 13th.

If you find this trivia interesting, you’re as weird as I am.

‘Leave the Gun. Take the Cannoli,’ and Other Godfather Stories

Maggie Van Ostrand — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:46:48 +0000

When character actor Richard Castellano (Clemenza), orders his henchmen to whack Paulie Gatto in the parked car, he said the words, “Leave the gun,” and was then struck with an inspired improv and added, “Take the cannoli.” The Godfather has supplied many quotable lines, and that is surely one of them.

The Godfather, which succeeded in usurping Citizen Kane from the list of Best Movies of All Time, had production woes, sure, but some iconic dialog wasn’t scripted. It came out of nowhere and has taken an honored place in American lexicon. Like Bada-Bing.

A famous word pairing, this phrase landed in the English language like a grenade with the pin pulled. Bada-Bing “became a mantra for mobsters,” and even had a fictitious mob hangout named after it in The Sopranos. In an interview with Mark Seal for a Vanity Fair article (March 2009), Jimmy Caan ( Sonny Corleone), revealed that, although he had Sonny’s character down pat with the strut and how gangsters were always touching themselves, because “I grew up in the neighborhood,” he was stuck on a scene with Brando, the one where Sonny was to interrupt the Don during a meeting with Sollozzo. Then, says Caan, he began to recall characteristics of his “say-anything, do-anything” friend, Don Rickles.

Next day, he nailed the scene with a “rapid-fire, Don-Rickles-meets-the-mob bravado that elevated his character to a whole new level. Then a phrase was delivered to him straight from improvisational heaven. It popped into his mouth as he mocked Michael,” after Michael says he wants to kill rival mobster Sollozzo and corrupt-cop McClusky. Sonny says, ‘What do you think this, the army, where you shoot ‘em a mile away? You gotta get up close, like this – and bada-bing! You blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit.’ “Bada-bing? Bada-boom? I said that, didn’t I? Or did I just say ‘bada-bing’?” asks Caan. “It just came out of my mouth – I don’t know from where.” Many unscripted classics from The Godfather weren’t always dialog.

When pop singer Al Martino, an inexperienced actor, plays pop singer Johnny Fontane, whining about the role a Hollywood producer won’t give him, Brando barks “You can act like a man!” In a spontaneous effort to get some expression out of Al Martino, Brando extemporaneously slaps him across the face. “Martino didn’t know whether to laugh or cry,” says James Caan.

Sources have said that when director Francis Ford Coppola placed a stray cat on the Don’s lap because he knew Brando improvised best with props, Brando began to gently stroke the cat. The dialog had to be redubbed because the cat’s purring was so loud, it could be heard on the soundtrack.

One of the most beloved characters in the movie, Luca Brasi, was played by world wrestling champion, Lenny Montana, the six-foot-six-inch, 320-pound moonlighting bodyguard of a real-life young don who came around one day to see Godfather producer (and all-around mob buddy), Al Ruddy. He was perfect for the part. “Luca Brasi rehearsing his wedding wishes for Don Corleone as he waits outside the Don’s office is actually Lenny Montana rehearsing his lines, and his classic, stammering homage to the Don (“And I hope that their first child be a masculine child”) is actually the result of the wrestler’s blowing his lines,” says Vanity Fair.

Caan recalls that Sonny’s rage confronting the feds at Connie’s wedding was pure instinct. “When I grabbed that poor extra as he took the picture, the guy must’ve had a heart attack. None of that was scripted. Then I remembered my neighborhood, where guys could do anything as long as they paid for it afterwards. I had this guy choked. Luckily, Richie (Castellano) grabbed me. Then I took out a 20, threw it on the ground, and walked off.”

Andrew Yule’s book, Al Pacino: A Life on the Wire, reports that Brando showed up for Pacino’s first scene with Diane Keaton, and stood by the camera while Coppola took the two actors through their paces. During the take, without breaking pace, Pacino tossed away a leaf that had fallen from a tree onto his shoulder. “I liked what you did with that leaf,” Brando told him. Pacino and Keaton went out and got drunk on the strength of that comment.

Brando, revered by colleagues, very nearly did not land the role of Don Corleone. Even though Mario Puzo had only him in mind when writing The Godfather novel believing he was “the only actor who can play the part with that quiet force and irony the part requires,” the studio wanted anyone BUT Brando. Peter Manso’s bio, Brando, reports that his getting the part was strictly due to Coppola, whose obsession with signing Brando despite Paramount’s absolute refusal, caused him to argue with studio president, Stanley Jaffe. Brando, Coppola said, would attract other actors to the cast, and he was the only actor up to the part. When these arguments failed, Coppola fell to the floor, apparently so distraught by Jaffe’s refusal that he collapsed, hyperventilating as he clutched his stomach, writhing. Dumbstruck, Jaffe agreed to casting Brando, with conditions, all of which were met.

The late John Cazale, who was once engaged to Meryl Streep, won the role of Fredo after Coppola saw him in an off-Broadway play, Richard Castellano (Clemenza) was also a stage actor, as was Abe Vigoda (Tessio) who said “I’m really not a Mafia person.” Caan had been tested for the role of consigliere Tom Hagen, which went to Robert Duvall, whose previous acting had been largely in television. Caan had already been cast as Michael with Carmine Caridi as Sonny, but when Pacino came aboard as Michael, Caridi was too tall at six-foot-four, to play against Pacino’s five-foot seven.

Puzo and Coppola became fast friends while working on The Godfather script together. Says Coppola, “… when I put a line in the script describing how to make sauce and wrote, ‘First you brown some garlic,’ he scratched that out and wrote, ‘First you fry some garlic. Gangsters don’t brown.’”

People were fired and rehired, there were mob threats (“shut down the movie or else”), and internecine struggles (“I’m not using Caan” screamed Coppola. “I’m not using Pacino” shouted producer Robert Evans), but nothing derailed The Godfather, not even Frank Sinatra’s threat to break Mario Puzo’s legs.

The Godfather was, in the words of Robert Evans, “a film so authentic the audience would smell the spaghetti,” and “the best picture ever made.” With improvisations, it is Masterpiece.

Catfights and Clyde: And Other Remake Related Issues

Maggie Van Ostrand — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:00:30 +0000

The current Duff-Dunaway catfight began with Faye Dunaway’s reaction to the news that Hilary Duff would star in a remake of Bonnie and Clyde. “Couldn’t they at least cast a real actress?” snapped Dunaway, who had been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar when she played Bonnie Parker back in 1967. Who can ever forget her face as she locks looks with Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) amidst the hail of bullets that took both their lives?

Duff slammed back at Dunaway with “I think that my fans that are going to go see the movie don’t even know who she is, so you know, uh, I think it was a little unnecessary but I might be mad if I looked like that now too.” Ouch.

Smackdowns usually help promote a movie, but nothing said or done will get me to see this remake. A classic like Bonnie and Clyde, nominated for 10 Oscars (won 2), should never be remade. How can you make a great film, a perfect film, over again and expect it to be anything more than a crappy copy? Duff is no Dunaway. Neither was Rene Russo.

Look what they did with The Thomas Crown Affair. Steve McQueen’s nose hair has more sex appeal than Pierce Brosnan’s entire package. And Russo had a lot of guts in attempting to overshadow Faye Dunaway’s translucent beauty. The remake sucked and they never should’ve done it. (MGM is currently close to pre-production for The Thomas Crown Affair 2 (aka The Topkapi Affair) with Brosnan.). Idiots.

Some movies are simply untouchable, like Rebel Without a Cause, Citizen Kane, The Shawshank Redemption, Godfather I and II, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Casablanca, everything by Hitchcock (Psycho remake was a piece of crap, as was Shadow of a Doubt, Dial M for Murder and other Hitch remakes), Blade Runner, and most of Spielberg’s movies. No one can ever come close to the dialog of Mankiewicz or Wilder. Why not rewrite Hamlet while you’re at it, dickheads.

If you’re as pissed off as I am with these douchebag remakes of iconic films, just say so. And say it loud.

Guest Editorial: The Impending Abyss Actors Call a Strike

Maggie Van Ostrand — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:00:57 +0000

Friend and FSR interviewee (Spider-Man 3), Michael F. Blake, a member of just about every entertainment union, expresses dumbfoundedness about the impending SAG strike. Is it counter-intelligent? Or is it just the way actors think? Blake welcomes your opinions:

Okay, the nimrods they call actors are on the verge of plunging this industry (and all who work in it) into an abyss called a strike. That is something we do not need. But let’s face it, actors have never been terribly smart.

Now, borrowing from Mr. Dickens, they are being shown by the Ghost of Prime-Time-To-Come what network TV will soon be.

Jay Leno has signed a deal to do a nightly show in Prime Time at 10pm. That’s right, for 5 days a week at 10pm, we’ll get a “variety” show (a la TONIGHT SHOW).

In that previous slot we had such TV shows as Miami Vice, Hill Street Blues, ER, Law & Order, Police Story, LA Law, Quantum Leap, Hunter, St. Elsewhere, Remington Steele, Quincy, Police Woman, Night Gallery, I Spy and a science fiction show called Star Trek.

Add to the programming of such “reality” shows as Biggest Loser, Big Brother, Survivor, Deal or No Deal and the ubiquitous Dateline, 20/20 and you have at least 6 additional hours of programming on Network TV. If they toss in a few cheaply produced game shows (say 4, at 1-hour slot) you have 15 hours of programming tied up.

And how many actors will appear on those shows? How many directors & writers will work on it? Crew members MAY be a bit better off, but not by much as most of those shows will be on tape, not film, and most likely will not cover their ability to qualify for health insurance or pension.

What is happening with Leno taking over the 10pm slot is “peppy & cheap” TV. Producing Leno’s show will be MUCH cheaper than 5 1-hour dramas.

It also means LESS WORK for actors (and writers, directors & crew members). An average 1-hour drama employs at least 80 crew members, has at least 5-10 regular/semi-regular actors, as well as an additional 10-20 actors per episode. You figure in 13 episodes, at least 5-7 directors will be hired and at least the same number of writers. Add on the various companies that supply material to shows (prop houses, makeup/hair supply shops, caterers, wardrobe rentals and retail stores, etc.) and the number of people/companies that do business with a 1-hour show adds up.

Now, 5 hours worth of employment & business is being taken away.

And the actors STILL want to strike?

Reminds me of Strother Martin’s line from “Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid”: ‘Morons. I’ve got morons on my team.’”

If this gets you mad, says Blake, “Take a tickey and stand in line!”

Sarah Palin: Enough Star Power for Movies?

Maggie Van Ostrand — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:00:31 +0000

If McCain/Palin aren’t elected to office on November 4th, we can assume he will return to the Senate. But will returning to the job as Alaska’s governor be enough for Sarah after the spotlight’s glare, designer clothes, and make-up and hair experts have molded her into a star? The Hollywood Reporter doesn’t think so. When Hollywood talks, we listen.

What if remakes of popular movies were made to accommodate the talent Sarah has exhibited on Katie Couric, Hannity & Colmes, and SNL? FSR has come up with five interesting possibilities.

The Godfather (retitled “The Godfather’s Wife”)

Sarah Palin as Kay Adams, Michael’s wife. Daughter of a Baptist minister, Kay knew Michael from their college days at Dartmouth. Not Italian, she’s the ultimate outsider to the Corleone Family, much as the real Sarah considers herself to be outsider to Washington politics.

In Godfather II, a pregnant Kay begs her husband to go legit and give up the family business, but he can’t. Not wanting to bring another child into a life of crime, Kay gets an abortion, infuriating Michael into a smackdown. But Palin would never have an abortion because Roe v Wade would be retroactively overturned, and Kay and Michael would remain married. So Palin and Pacino retire from the family business and die in each other’s arms from exhaustion caused by playing too much Splatterhouse.

All About Eve

Sarah Palin as Eve Harrington, the character first seen hanging out by the stage door waiting for a glimpse of the play’s star, Margo Channing (Hillary Clinton). Eve, whose ability to hide her burning ambition behind a façade of innocence and adoration, worms her way into a position of confidante, assistant, and understudy to the older actress by feigning adulation and loyalty. Eve secretly enlists the unwitting help of Margo’s inner circle to derail Channing’s finest acting opportunity, turning it into her own acting triumph.

Margo Channing is not given the great lines originally written for her by Joe Mankiewicz, like “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!” “Heaven help me. I love a psychotic!” and “Peace and quiet is for libraries.” They now belong to Eve. Palin also insisted that Eve retain the line “If nothing else, there’s applause … like waves of love pouring over the footlights,” quipping, “It’s just like the Republican Convention!”

Gone With The Wind

As Scarlett O’Hara in a proposed GWTW remake skewed to Sarah Palin’s talents, Scarlett declines to have Mammy sew her a new costume out of mom Ellen O’Hara’s green velvet draperies and instead takes $150,000 in gold from Rhett Butler (Joe the Plumber) and flies to Neiman Marcus in Dallas and Sak’s Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on a jet she bought on eBay. When her fetching new outerwear of endangered species fur is criticized by Mammy and Prissy as being too extravagant, Scarlett retorts that she shot the animals herself from a ‘copter, sold them to Pelts R Us for curing and cutting, and bought them back at a discount.

A new finale had to be written so Scarlett could keep Rhett, though they were battling bitterly and close to divorce by the end. It was rumored that the fights were because Palin insisted on taking Rhett’s last line for herself and changing it to “I don’t give a gosh darn.”

Joan d’Alaska

A somewhat revised story originally entitled Joan d’ Arc tells of a 15th Century French farm girl who hears voices from Heaven asking her to lead God’s Army against Orleans and crown a weak Dauphin Charles VII as King of France.

Traveling all over the country in Scarlett’s borrowed fur coat, Joan d’Alaska convinces fans with her faith in the voices, witnessed by a witch doctor who accompanies her as opening act. Her supporters form an army and follow her to conquer Orleans. Ready to take on Paris, Joan is ultimately sold out by corrupt politicians and after languishing in a French prison, she is burned at the stake. Her last words were “I am not afraid for I can see snowy Russia from this flaming pole.”

Wizard of Oz

Palin would play Dorothy as pregnant. “This will make the entire film modern,” advised Palin, “appealing to kids everywhere.” Palin insisted on changing the Kansas location to Wasilla where people are “real Americans.”

Wizard II will feature Karl Rove as the Wicked Witch, John McCain as Tin Man, Joe Lieberman as Scarecrow, Ted Stevens as Cowardly Lion and Rush Limbaugh as all the winged monkeys.

Governor Palin has also expressed interest in starring in and directing Bonnie Without Clyde.

Indie Spotlight: M.K. Asante, Jr.’s The Black Candle

Maggie Van Ostrand — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 08:30:49 +0000

The Black Candle is about belonging. A mesmerizing indie documentary embodying the search for commonality in the African American community, The Black Candle might have become a confluence of diverse influences, but in the hands of award-winning writer-director-producer, M.K. Asante, Jr., the story of Kwanzaa becomes an unforgettable tale of the joyous coming together of a people within a people.

When asked if they knew what Kwanzaa was, comments among the young interviewed across the U.S., Africa, Europe and the Caribbean, ranged from “It’s Christmas,” to “It’s about love,” to “I just don’t know. What is it?” In the film itself, the late, brilliant New York writer, James Baldwin, says, “There are days … when you wonder what your role is in this country and what your future is in it.”

25-year-old author-filmmaker-professor M.K. Asante, Jr. answers that question by taking us into another world, a world of love, art, jubilance, dedication, pride and struggle.

Everyone looks for connection, some of us through family history handed down through the generations, internet searches for old friends, and genealogical quests about where we come from and answers to “Why am I here?” Until The Black Candle, it was not apparent to all of us that U.S. schools mainly teach about the history and culture of Europe, with little about Africa.

Kwanzaa was founded in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga to correct that unfortunate omission. African- American yearning for such recognition is evident in the fact that, in a mere 42 years, Kwanzaa has become a worldwide celebration from December 26th through January 1st. The name comes from a Pan-African phrase meaning first fruit, a celebration of the harvest. It is a time to gather together in thanks for the creator’s bounty, commemorate the past, recommit to the highest cultural ideals, and to celebrate the Good of life, existence, family, community, culture, and the divine.

The Kwanzaa symbols of three green, three red, and one black candle represent the Principles of Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity and Faith. These Principles are exemplified by the non-commercialization of Kwanzaa, something no other holiday seems able to have managed.

Vibrant colors permeate The Black Candle literally, figuratively, and musically as Asante explores fact and opinion worldwide. Scholars, scientists, artists, historians, choreographers and musicians speak out (or tap out), along with students and non-conforming ordinary people, all embodying the search for common ground. Kwanzaa is it.

Narrated by Maya Angelou, produced by Ben Haaz, edited by Ted Griffis, music by Grammy-award winning team of Nnenna Freelon and Derrick Hodge, The Black Candle also features comments by Rappers stic.man (Dead Prez), Precise Science, and Chuck D (Public Enemy).

Other standout interviews from award-winning participants are Dr. Maulana Karenga, Kiri Davis (at the age of 14, she directed “A Girl Like Me”), author Amiri Baraka, poet/singer Sunni Patterson, and artist/writer Synthia Saint James.

“Documentary is a form that was created in hell,” said Sundance Lab Creative Advisor, Ra’anan Alexandrowicz. When The Black Candle is submitted there for the 2009 Festival, we’ll see if he changes his mind.

For more on the film, and to see its trailer, head over to TheBlackCandle.com

In Memory of Paul Newman (1925-2008)

Maggie Van Ostrand — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 16:04:47 +0000

Early this morning, publicist Jeff Sanderson confirmed that actor Paul Newman died Friday after a long battle with cancer at his farmhouse near Westport. He was surrounded by his family and close friends. To honor him, our own Maggie Van Ostrand has written a few anecdotes in his memory. Paul Newman was 83.

Paul Newman wasn’t just an Oscar-winning movie star and director, he was a philanthropist, practical joke player, and award-winning race car driver.

The roles he chose were immortalized by his outstanding performances in films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Hustler, The Sting, The Verdict, The Color of Money. He was an electric Mt. Rushmore with a thousand twinklers behind his bright blue eyes

And he tried to soften the effect he had on fans. Here are two stories of what it was like to encounter Paul Newman face to face:

When I was an agent, my office was at 9000 Sunset Blvd., a building owned by several show business people, including Paul Newman. I often saw him on the elevator, said hi, and averted my eyes out of respect (but it was really because I didn’t want him to think I was uncool or a slobbering fan).

One night about 2:00 a.m., I pulled out of the parking garage in my new Mustang convertible and at the first traffic light on unusually empty Sunset Boulevard, I happened to look next to me while waiting for the light to go green. There was Newman grinning at me and gesturing with his forefinger mutely inviting me to race him down Sunset. He was in a beat-up VW bug, rusty-reddish in color, and faded. Really dinky looking. No contest.

I had a new Mustang. No contest. I shrugged “sure, why not?” and, when the light turned green, I jammed down the pedal. Before it even hit the floor, I was covered in his dust.

Next day somebody told me Newman did that all the time, that he had a racing engine under that crappy looking hood and was always on the lookout for victims.

Another time, a Michigan tourist visited a small Connecticut town. Sunday morning, she got up early to take a long walk. After a brisk five-mile hike, she decided to treat herself to a double-dip chocolate cone, and stopped in at the local ice cream parlor.

One other person was in the shop. Paul Newman. He was sitting at the counter having a doughnut and
coffee.

The woman’s heart skipped a beat as her eyes made contact with Newman’s famous baby-blues.

The actor nodded hello and the flustered, star struck woman smiled back. Now what?

Pull yourself together, she told herself. You’ve got a life. He’s just a person like you. Oh really?

The clerk filled her order and she took her double-dip chocolate ice cream cone in one hand and
her change in the other. Then she went out the door, avoiding another glance in Paul Newman’s
direction.

When she reached her car, she realized that she had a handful of change but her other hand was empty. Where’s my ice cream cone? Did I leave it in the store? Back into the shop she went, expecting to see the cone still in the clerk’s hand or in a cone holder on the counter. No ice cream cone was in sight.

With that, she looked over at Paul Newman. His face broke into his familiar, warm,friendly grin and he said to the woman,

“You put it in your purse.”

Hemingway said of bullfighters that they lived all the way up. So did Paul Newman.

Cher’s Manager Talks About Ridiculous Catwoman Rumor

Maggie Van Ostrand — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:55:17 +0000

Cher’s in the news again (take that, Madonna! POW!) rumored to be considered for the juicily sexy role of Catwoman opposite Christian Bale in the next Batman. Is it true? Maybe yes, maybe no. Will we see Cher’s buns of steel undulating at The Caped Crusader? Will it be Cher wielding a black whip? Will they be Cher’s eyes squinting menacingly through the mask at Batman?

Telegraph U.K. writes, “Cher has been lined up to star in the next Batman movie…”

But in its never-ending quest for accuracy, FSR checked with Cher’s manager who said this morning that while “Chris Nolan may have said he’d like to get [Cher] for the role, no offer is out yet.”

Telegraph also quoted an unnamed studio executive as saying:

“Cher is Nolan’s first choice to play Catwoman. He wants to her to portray her like a vamp in her twilight years. The new Catwoman will be the absolute opposite of [former Cat Women] Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry’s purring creations.”

“I would LOVE nothing more than for Cher to play Catwoman,” said her manager Risa Shapiro in this morning’s phone interview. “She’d be great. She’s one of the most extraordinary women anyone could ever meet. But I haven’t received any phone call about this, and hadn’t even heard about it .” (Until FSR brought it to her attention.) I think I’ll call Chris Nolan and find out what’s going on.” We suspect there may be a little roiling of the Bat stew when Nolan and Shapiro talk.

If there’s one thing FSR is good at, it’s stirring up the pot, all in the name of movies.

Should shape-shifting Cher win this role, we can claim having had a small part in the casting chain. Otherwise, we have succeeded in furthering another ridiculous casting rumor.

Spotting Hitch: Help with Finding Hitchcock’s Cameos

Maggie Van Ostrand — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:56:54 +0000

This month, we honor the birth of Alfred Hitchcock and the 50th anniversary of Vertigo, one of his masterpieces. Hitchcock found actual filming a bore, but loved pre-production and transferring images from his mind to paper. Dozens of memorable visuals come to mind — PSYCHO: water swirling down drain, stabbings. NOTORIOUS: passing of the key, nibbling love scene. VERTIGO: dizzying elasticity of dimensions, mistlike reappearance of Madeline to obsessed Scotty. NORTH BY NORTHWEST: crop duster and Mount Rushmore scenes.

Hitch appears in 37 of his films. Here, FSR presents a guide to finding him in the ones he made after his U.S. debut.

Rebecca (1940) – Man passing telephone booth with George Sanders inside (rare — cut from most prints)

First American film. Hitch was painstaking, methodical, and tricky. Joan Fontaine was unsure of herself and Hitchcock intensified those insecurities revealing to her that Olivier really wanted Vivien Leigh in the part.

Foreign Correspondent (1940) – Man walking on sidewalk

Joel McCrea recalled Hitchcock’s habit of drinking champagne at lunch. “One day, there was a long scene with me just standing there, talking. When it was over, I expected to hear ‘Cut!’ I looked over and there was Hitchcock snoring …. So I said ‘Cut!’ He woke up and said , “Was it any good?” I said, ‘The best in the picture,’ and he said, ‘Print it!’”

Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941) – Man walking past Robert Montgomery on street

Hitchcock’s only comedy.

Saboteur (1942) – Man standing by newsstand

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) – Man playing cards aboard train

Hitchcock identified with Hume Cronyn’s character, obsessed with committing fantasy murders and living with an (unseen) sick, demanding mother. Hitch’s own mother was later portrayed as possessive and tyrannical in Notorious.

Lifeboat (1943) – Man in “before and after” newspaper ad for Reducing Weight

Hitchcock said of Tallulah Bankhead “She stood up to being doused by 5,400 gallons of water, and got a round of applause from stagehands.” However, the reason for applause was Bankhead’s lack of panties climbing up the ladder to climb into the water tank. “The whole point about Tallulah,” said Hitchcock, “is that she has no inhibitions.”

Spellbound (1945) – Man exiting elevator carrying violin

Gregory Peck’s character cries “Unlock the doors! You can’t keep people in cells!” “When I was six years old, I did something that my father considered worthy of reprimand,” recalled Hitch. “He sent me to the local police station with a note. The officer on duty read it and locked me in a jail cell for five minutes, saying, ‘This is what we do to naughty boys.’ I have since gone to any lengths to avoid arrest and confinement…”

Notorious (1946) – Man at party drinking champagne

Hitch: “I wanted to make this film about a man who forces a woman to go to bed with another man because it’s his professional duty.” Grant and Rains externalized Hitchcock’s two sides.

The Paradine Case (1947) - Man carrying cello case

Rope (1948) – Man crossing street

Under Capricorn (1949) Man listening to speech; Man on stairs of Government House

Stage Fright (1950) – Man turning on street to look at Jane Wyman

Strangers on a Train (1951) – Man boarding train with bass fiddle

Detail-freak Hitchcock personally selected the wet leaves, orange peel, gum wrapper, and crumpled paper for sewer debris as Robert Walker bends down to retrieve a cigarette lighter.

I Confess (1952) – Man walking across top of flight of stairs

Hitch: “Working with Montgomery Clift was difficult because he was a method actor and a neurotic as well.”

Dial M For Murder (1954) – Man in class reunion photograph

Filmed in 3-D, prints released flat. Strangulation and stabbing-with-scissors scene caused him so much anxiety, Hitch lost 20 pounds. “Nicely done,” he said after Take One, “but there wasn’t enough gleam to the scissors, and a murder without gleaming scissors is like asparagus without hollandaise sauce.”

Rear Window (1954) – Man winding clock

Hitch: “… We had to build a set containing 32 other apartments [Stewart] sees from his window … We never could have gotten them properly lit in a real location.” A foot fetishist, he spent half an hour directing a close-up of Grace Kelly’s shoes — a shot never used in the film.

To Catch a Thief (1955) – Man sitting next to Cary Grant on bus

Calling his scenarist during filming of final rooftop sequence, Hitch said “Look at them all down there. They think we’re discussing something important … But I only wanted to find out whether you’re as frightened of heights as I am.”

The Trouble With Harry (1956) – Man walking in front of exhibition

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) – Man watching acrobats from bank

Hitchcock directed the actor playing an assassin watching his target, “Look lovingly at him, as if you’re glancing at a beautiful woman.”

The Wrong Man (1957) – Man who narrates prologue

Hitchcock took no salary.

Vertigo (1958) – Man crossing street

Best example of Hitchcock’s frequent motif: making a woman over into his own fantasy. Said Stewart, “I didn’t realize … what an impact it would have, but it’s an extraordinary achievement by Hitch. And I could tell it was a very personal film for him even while he was making it.”

North by Northwest (1959) – Man who misses bus

Background shots filmed at Mt. Rushmore, actual chase filmed at Paramount.

Psycho (1960) – Man in cowboy hat outside an office

“It was very grueling,” said Janet Leigh, “to stand in a shower getting drenched for a week.”

The Birds (1963) – Man leaving pet shop with two white dogs

“I felt that after Psycho,” said Hitchcock, “people would expect something to top it.”

Marnie (1964) – Man walking through hotel corridor

Torn Curtain (1966) – Man sitting in hotel lobby with baby on his lap

Topaz (1969) – Man in wheelchair at airport

Frenzy (1970) – Man listening to speech

Family Plot (1976) – Man whose silhouette is seen through a window talking to another man

Hitchcock and nemesis, Selznick, agreed on one thing: “Nothing matters except the final picture.”

###

Sources:

The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, by Donald Spoto, 1983

David O. Selznick’s Hollywood by Ronald Haver, 1980

Trivia Unlimited, April 1980

Tallulah! The Life and Times of a Leading Lady, Joel Lobenthal, 2004

Be Really Offended, Check Out ‘Lenny’

Maggie Van Ostrand — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:22:31 +0000

In honor of the late George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV, FSR recommends 1974’s Lenny, the tragedy of comedian-satirist Lenny Bruce, who heavily influenced Carlin, Pryor, and Woody.

Dustin Hoffman is brilliant in his intense portrayal of upcoming comic Lenny Bruce, who burns with lust for Honey Harlow, stripper-junkie and enforced-lesbian fantasy woman who shimmies, strips, and shakes her “tits and ass” into his being. A punishing marriage to Honey dims neither his ardor nor his zeal to share drugs with her. With a cherubic face, appealing lisp, and steamy sensuality, one-time Vegas showgirl Valerie Perrine plays Honey with gay abandon.

Lenny is a dark biopic which partly explains Oscar-winning director Bob Fosse’s choice of black and white film. From Lenny’s start in small family Catskill resorts to big-city clubs, Fosse focuses Cassavetes-like extreme close-ups to great effect. It’s like being stoned at an anarchist’s convention in Andy Warhol’s studio. Transvestites, burned-out comics, musicians, and strippers, aided by Ralph Burns’s muted original jazz score, shine a bleak light on seedy off-stage life. Albert Goldman, one of Lenny Bruce’s biographers and a onetime film critic, has described Lenny as worshipping “the gods of Spontaneity, Candor and Free Association” who “fancied himself an oral jazzman.” Miles Davis lends musical authenticity to the atmosphere.

For a few years in the sixties, Lenny Bruce was famous for rapid-patter social commentary, fueled by his favorite drug, methadrine. His mouth hardly kept up with his mind’s frenetic pace. Honey and Lenny descended into an inferno of sex binges and heroin-sniffing marathons. They lived in a world of encroaching darkness. Then things worsened.

He endured a series of arrests for possession, and using “obscene” language onstage. He believed the real obscenities were not words, but the Kennedy assassination and Viet Nam. Arrests in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia, changed him from a bright, articulate, politically hip satirist, into a mumbling addict discussing little else onstage except his legal troubles. Fans found him boring.

Lenny’s real enemy wasn’t the cops who kept arresting him, but the era in which he came to prominence. At 40, drugs finally killed him. Bruce’s efforts to liberate words from categories of “good” and “bad” were thwarted by a morally inhibited public.

Lenny publicly flaunted the words “fuck” and “cocksucker” onstage. His believed frequent use of such words would render them impotent. He went further than we go now, trashing his audience with racial and religious epithets so politically incorrect that today, an instant apology would be demanded.

Lenny is filmed as a sparce documentary, using an interview structure, (”a variation on the Citizen Kane format in which characters are questioned about the protagonist”*) with Honey, Lenny’s possessive mom Sally, and his agent, Artie Silver, with quick cuts between stage performances and off-stage self-destructive behavior.

Fosse’s use of painful pauses in Lenny’s last performance causes us to shift with discomfort in our seats, just as did his real audience — before they started to walk out.

After the cops took away his cabaret card and the high cost of lawyers drove Lenny into bankruptcy, he disastrously represented himself in court. In one scene, he pitifully begs the judge, “Don’t take away my words. Please don’t take away my words!”

Critics felt that Bruce’s involvement with drugs and sex was played down in the film, but he had only been dead eight years, and Honey, daughter Kitty, and Sally, were all alive and kicking. Still, Fosse manages to convey an obsessed performer’s attempts to express himself to a world that simply didn’t get it.

Memorable Lines

“‘Fuck you.’ Never understood that insult, because fucking someone is actually really pleasant. If we’re trying to be mean, we should say ‘unfuck you!’”

“Did you know that Eleanor Roosevelt gave Lou Gehrig the clap?”

Some of Lenny’s best quotes (understandably) didn’t make it into the movie, which began with an X rating. One of them is “If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”

Trivia

“I rode with him in a taxi once, only for a mile and a half. Seemed like it took a couple of months” -Bob Dylan

The film’s producer, Marvin Worth, was Lenny Bruce’s first manager.

Contenders for the title role included Cliff Gorman who originated the role on Broadway, and Al Pacino.

Dustin Hoffman told the Village Voice, “I didn’t want to do the film. It was too hairy, too tender ground, too soon. People I’d talk to would suddenly start crying. It was important, they’d tell me, to catch the dichotomy that was Lenny. On stage, he was a tiger. In real life, he was agreeable, generous to a fault; people loved being with him, until just before his death when he got demonical. With such strong emotions at stake, I didn’t want to jump into it.”

Contenders for the role of Honey included Ann-Margret who turned it down due to the excessive nudity which Fosse said was absolutely necessary.

Nominated for six Oscars (Hoffman, Perrine, Fosse, Best Picture, Screenplay, and Cinematography/Bruce Surtees), it didn’t win any.

During a scene in which Lenny pulls the bed sheet off a titillating naked Honey, Perrine confessed she had a little surprise for Hoffman. “He couldn’t believe his eyes,” she told Viva in 1975. “I had gotten a big springy rubber cock from the prop department and tucked it right between my legs — and the minute the sheet was off, it sprang up and started going boing! boing! boing! That really cracked Dustin up.”

******************************************

*Razzle Dazzle: the Life and Work of Bob Fosse, by Kevin Boyd Grubb

Tom Cruise Suits Up, Brings the ‘Thunder’

Maggie Van Ostrand — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:00:11 +0000

Fat, follicle-free, and funny, Tom Cruise may yet get back in favor with his formerly rabid fans in his role as Les Grossman, the overweight, foul-mouthed, bald studio head in Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder, a big budget movie satirizing big budget movies, opening August 13th.

Buzz is that Cruise totally steals the movie from super stars like Stiller as a fading action star; Jack Black, a fat comic in a hairpiece; and Robert Downey, Jr., an Australian method actor who has an experimental skin-color procedure in order to play a black soldier.

Cruise has always looked like a Hollywood heartthrob, but not in this movie. Stiller told Contact Music it was all Cruise’s idea:

“The role was his idea. It wasn’t even in the script. I didn’t have to persuade him. Tom is amazing. We’d be talking about the characters, and in the middle of the conversation he’d say something like, `My character should have these giant hands.’ I seriously believe the man is a movie savant.”

Paramount/Dream Works has tried to keep this a secret, but photos were leaked of Tom Cruise in a fat suit with a bald head back in November.

Cruise does some hip-swiveling moves that have The New York Observer raving that it may well be ready to again give a stamp of approval to Tom Cruise, getting fans over the past few career and personal blips. They write in the August 11th edition:

“Tom Cruise has managed to completely flip our perceptions of him upside down and inside out. It doesn’t spoil a thing to say that the film is worth seeing for Mr. Cruise’s performance alone, or that we hope this might usher in a new era for the strange, secretive actor. Could it be that, in fact, Tom Cruise actually gets it? Is it possible that Tom Cruise has a sense of humor about being Tom Cruise? Can we love him again without also feeling creeped out?”

According to Tom Cruise’s article in this month’s Men’s Vogue, when he first met Stiller in 1992, “We shared common ground in a love of cinema and a desire to tell stories and challenge ourselves and develop as artists.”

Having Stiller as director can’t hurt, and neither can Tropic Thunder’s script co-written by Stiller, Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen.

It would appear that Hollywood has rediscovered that raunchiness sells. Look at the randy girls of Sex and the City, the exposed giblets of John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell in Step Brothers, and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s hairy ass in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. In Thunder, Cruise’s character spews out the most lewd and colorful X-rated words heard in Hollywood since Tom Sizemore’s last bust, leaving the MPAA no choice but to rate the film R for “pervasive language including sexual references, violent content and drug material.” That should confuse quite a few Scientology students who may not be able to discern which one is the real Tom.

Cruise is reportedly so effective in his comedy turn that a supporting actor Oscar nom has been mentioned more than once. Scuttlebutt says it’s the best work he’s done since his role as Frank T.J. Mackey in 1999’s Magnolia, for which he was nominated as Best Supporting Actor (but lost to Michael Caine for The Cider House Rules).

Considering the bombs Tom’s made lately, this role could raise his popularity to former heights. Just think what would do to Sumner Redstone’s blood pressure — It makes me smile just to think about it.

Audiences are traditionally loyal but occasionally, an actor’s personal life can screw things up. It would be nice to see Tom Cruise win an award or two for playing an obnoxious, hirsute, blobbed-up studio head, even if the fat is fake.

The Dark Knight Sets Another Box Office Milestone

Maggie Van Ostrand — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:31:59 +0000

The Dark Knight has passed $400 million domestic in 18 days, a feat that took 2nd place Shrek 43 days to accomplish.

TDK is now #8 on the list of all time money earners and might, by the time you read this, have already moved to #7, passing Spider-Man’s 403.7 million. When that happens TDK will become the top-grossing comic-book adaptation of all time.

Warner Bros. expects the film to pass the original Star Wars ($461 million) in about two weeks, making it No. 2 on the all-time domestic list behind Titanic ($600.8 million), but that number will change when adjusted for higher ticket prices.

Oscar Campaign Begins for Heath Ledger

Maggie Van Ostrand — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:17:43 +0000

An early whispering campaign has already begun in Hollywood for a posthumous Oscar to be awarded to Heath Ledger for his brilliant performance of the villainous Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.

The morning show on KTLA, Los Angeles, raves about Ledger’s “blockbuster performance” that “hits all the right notes.” They say that Ledger turned in the best performance of all time as a villain in a super hero movie.

And they were not the first to say it in print.

The Rolling Stone’s critic, Peter Travers, who calls The Dark Night an “absolute stunner,” a “thunderbolt,” and a “potent provocation,” pulls no punches in rhapsodizing over Ledger’s portrayal, writing, “I can only speak superlatives of Ledger, who is mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker. Miles from Jack Nicholson’s broadly funny take on the role in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, Ledger takes the role to the shadows, where even what’s comic is hardly a relief. No plastic mask for Ledger; his face is caked with moldy makeup that highlights the red scar of a grin, the grungy hair and the yellowing teeth of a hound fresh out of hell. To the clown prince of crime, a knife is preferable to a gun, the better to ’savor the moment.’”

Reviews thus far have been beyond glowing or incandescent; they have been nuclear blowouts for Ledger, as well as for the entire cast, particularly Christian Bale as Batman, Gary Oldman as good cop Jim Gordon, Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox the toy-designing scientist, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes, and Michael Caine as Bruce’s purring butler, Alfred.

But it’s Heath Ledger’s performance that will remain in your mind, in your soul, and in your nightmares. Dead at 28, The Dark Knight is his last completed picture. If he wins the Oscar, he will be the first to do so posthumously since Peter Finch in 1976’s Network.

Ledger was immensely talented, truly humble, and vastly popular. What could be a more fitting tribute to his legacy than an Oscar? Hollywood seems to be aiming that he gets it.

Film School Rejects » Maggie Van Ostrand

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