5 Off My Head: Toni My Queen

It's Toni Collette's 51st birthday today and you could knock me over with a feather upon the just-now-made realization that I have never done a list of my favorite Toni performances before. Not even for her 50th last year? What the hell was I thinking? Well there's no time like the present. I don't think this list will surprise anybody with my choices given what a vocal supporter of her I've been since I saw Muriel's Wedding way back in '96 and it became basically my number one favorite movie of all time...

... I think the only thing that will surprise is that I didn't up the number to ten or fifteen performances! Because I coulda! And I purposefully decided to leave T.V. performances off because that coulda doubled it again (but seriously, The United States of Tara forever). The fact that I got to hang out with her for a couple of drinks while she was doing press for Hereditary will probably always remain the greatest perk this gig has ever gifted me. That brag aside, here's my list!

My 5 Fave Toni Collette Movie Performances

Sandy, Japanese Story

"To say goodbye."

Annie, Hereditary

"I never wanted to be your mother."

Muriel, Muriel's Wedding

"Why can't it be me? Why can't I be the one?"

Lynn, The Sixth Sense

"Do I make her proud?"

Mandy, Velvet Goldmine

"It's funny how beautiful people look

 when they're walking out the door."

Runners-up: In Her Shoes, The Hours, Knives Out, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Velvet Buzzsaw, Krampus, Little Miss Sunshine, About a Boy, Clockwatchers, Emma... and all the rest!

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What are your favorite Toni Collette performances?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Hours (2002)

Virginia Woolf: Someone has to die in order that

the rest of us should value life more. It's contrast.

Stephen Daldry's wonderful adaptation of Michael Cunningham's wonderful book (sidenote to self: go back and re-read this beautiful book already, it's been ages) is turning 20 in December, and red hot news alert: one of the most important aspects of the movie -- its gloriously insistent score by Philip Glass -- is hitting vinyl for the very first time in September to mark the occasion! You can pre-order it right here. Hopefully they also finally put this damn movie onto blu-ray as well, since it's inexplicably never been here in the U.S. There is an out-of-print Region 2 blu but that's it. This movie deserves better! Why isn't Nicole Kidman stomping into that studio in her Balenciaga high heels and demanding her Oscar-winning turn get the respect it deserves? That is how these things happen, right? I don't just watch too much Dynasty?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Hours (2002)

Virginia: I'm dying in this town.
Leonard: If you were thinking clearly, Virginia,
you would recall it was London that brought you low.
Virginia: If I were thinking clearly? If I were thinking clearly?
Leonard: We brought you to Richmond to give you peace.
Virginia: If I were thinking clearly, Leonard, I would tell you
that I wrestle alone in the dark, in the deep dark, and that only
I can know. Only I can understand my condition. You live
with the threat, you tell me you live with the threat
of my extinction. Leonard, I live with it too.

A happy 62 to Stephen Dillane, one of this film's many many hidden treasures (speaking of Toni Collette, which we just were) -- Nicole won her Oscar for this scene but it wouldn't have been this scene without Stephen there. I keep hoping he'll get a really prime role but the closest he's come was his time spent in Westeros as Stannis the witch-fucker. To anyone who's watched it, did he have much to do in Outlaw King? I still haven't watched it -- once you've seen Chris Pine's peen there's not much hurry, I guess. Speaking of Stephen Dillane and peen though, have ya seen this ol' post of mine...?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Hours (2002)

Clarissa: I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.

There are about twenty-seven gajillion quotes from The Hours that I could use as one of our "Life Lessons" in honor of director Stephen Daldry's birthday today but this quote... man this quote just makes me wanna burst right into tears. What a movie.

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 2002

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You know how I tell you that it's gotten rough when I ask Siri to give me a number between 1 and 100 for this series? How I've done so many at this point that it takes me a dozen or so tries to get her to cough up a number I haven't already done? Well she apparently really wanted to talk about The Movies of 2002 today because "2" was the very first number she gave me. 

So 2002 we go. At first glance the year seemed fine but the deeper I dug into the list the bigger the list grew - turns out this was a hell of a year for the movies. But I decided to clamp down on myself - no top tens today. I twisted myself into knots and kept us at just five like we're supposed to do. Of course when you get down to all the runners-up you'll see - brutal. Absolutely brutal. 

My 5 Favorite Films of 2002

Far From Heaven

(dir. Todd Haynes)

-- released on November 5th 2002 --
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Sympathy for Mr Vengeance

(dir. Park Chan-wook)

-- released on March 29th 2002 --

Punch-drunk Love

(dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

-- released on November 1st 2002 --

Spirited Away

(dir. Hayao Miyazaki)

-- released on September 20th 2002 --

Adaptation.

(dir. Spike Jonze)

-- released on December 6th 2002 --

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Runners-up: Minority Report (dir. Spielberg), Spider-man (dir. Raimi), Catch Me if You Can (dir. Spielberg), The Hours (dir. Daldry), Signs (dir. Shyamalan), About a Boy (dir. Chris Weitz), Panic Room (dir. Fincher), 28 Days Later (dir. Boyle), One Hour Photo (dir. Mark Romanek), Femme Fatale (dir. Brian De Palma), Dirty Pretty Things (dir. Stephen Frears)...

... The Good Girl (dir. Miguel Arteta), Hero (dir. Zhang Yimou), Laurel Canyon (dir. Cholodenko), Talk To Her (dir. Pedro Almodovar), Ten (dir. Kiarostami), Movern Callar (dir. Lynne Ramsey), Bubba Ho-tep (dir. Don Coscarelli), 8 Women (dir. Ozon)

Never seen: Irreversible (dir. Gaspar Noe), Frida (dir. Julie Taymor), Death To Smoochy (dir. Danny DeVito), Solaris (dir. Soderbergh), Equilibrium (dir. Kurt Wimmer), Bend it Like Beckham (dir. Gurinda Chadha), Full Frontal (dir. Soderbergh), Moonlight Mile (dir. Brad Silberling), Russian Ark (dir. Alexander Sokurov)

What are your favorite movies of 2002?

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"I remember one morning getting up at dawn..."

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"... there was such a sense of possibility. 

You know, that feeling? 

And I remember thinking to myself: 

So, this is the beginning of happiness. 

This is where it starts. 

And of course there will always be more. 

It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. 

It was happiness. It was the moment. 

Right then." 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

you can learn from:

The Hours (2002) 

Vanessa: Virginia. 

Virginia: Leonard thinks it's the end of civilization: 

People who are invited at 4 and arrive at 2:30. 

Vanessa: Oh God. 

Virginia: Barbarians. 

The happiest of birthdays to Miranda Richardson today!

Somebody (Cronenberg? Lynch?) give this woman 

another kick-ass killer role, please! She rules.

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Heading Towards Dragons

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Having just gotten into George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series in the past several months, I'm new to the game when it comes to the constant semi-announcements instantly forgotten with regards to the fifth book in the series, A Dance with Dragons. The fourth book in the series, A Feast For Crows, came out in the Autumn of 2005, and apparently Martin's been promising the next book ever since with empty promise after empty promise and his fans have gone a little berserker over it.

I myself am only a little over halfway through the third book, A Storm of Swords, and having read them back to back to back I'm feeling a little blown out to be honest, so I'm not in a big rush to even hurry to the fourth book yet, much less a fifth, right now. I'm going to need a little bit of a break. (The fact that Michael Cunningham's new book is out helps. Must get to it!) It's not that I'm not thoroughly enjoying the world Martin's created and the stories he's telling and am not entirely wrapped up in the fates of all these awesome characters. I am. It's just been several months of dragon eggs and heads on sticks and boy kings and more dwarf-on-whore action than you can shake a stick at and I need to think upon something else for a wee while.

But still, it'd be nice to know there's forward momentum with the books so when I inevitably catch up I can have a little bit of faith that the story's actually heading towards something and not rotting on the vine. Hence this news making me happy:

"Good news from New York Comic Con's Del Rey / Spectra panel: George R.R. Martin is just 5 chapters away from the end of A Dance with Dragons!

... One of the first questions was, of course, "What's the deal with Dance with Dragons?" Here's what [Spectra senior editor Anne Groell] had to say:

We're hoping to have a finished manuscript by Christmas. He's told me he has five chapters left and bits of each chapter are done. He really wants it done by the end of the year. We really—I mean really—want to announce the pub date in January."

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The fact that the HBO series starts up next year probably has a lot to do with this - if they can cross-promote a new book alongside the series then there will probably be a lot of happy executives co-mingling with the happy fans. Everybody's happy! Except for Catelyn. Nothing but suffering for her!
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Two Of My Favorite People Yap Yap Yapping

Hey look, it's three videos of James Franco chatting about junk with his Brooklyn College writing prof. and famous favorite author o' mine Michael Cunningham. (via) I haven't watched them yet but I think they might prove interesting and frustrating and sexy and annoying all at once! Just a guess...

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I Don't Pay Attention To The Right Places...

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... so I missed this news whenever it became news, if it's been news already, which I assume it has, but hey whaddya know Michael Cunningham has a new book coming out! It's called By Nightfall and you can read what it's about at that link.

If I didn't already know that his sentences make me cry they're so pretty I might have an aversion to this being a story about wealthy Manhattanite art dealer types, but since I do know that only too well we're good, Mr. Cunningham. Can't wait! It's out on September 28th.
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"That is what we do. That is what people do."

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"They stay alive for each other."

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Today Is My Christmas

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That's what I have decided. Not only did I get a new Radiohead song today, but now I see there's news - as well as a 19-page excerpt online - of a new Michael Cunningham book on the horizon. In case you're unawares, Cunningham, the author of Flesh & Blood, A Home at the End of the World, The Hours, Specimen Days and the screenplay for "the movie where Hugh Dancy kissed Patrick Wilson, blessed-be" Evening, is my favorite living author. Love him. There's a chat with him over at EW and I'm just gonna excerpt a bunch.

Cunningham: ... I’m about two-thirds of the way through a new novel. I’m juggling that with the final drafts of two screenplays, a little thriller for Screen Gems called Beautiful Girl and the Dusty Springfield movie with Nicole Kidman. The Dusty Springfield film, as they say in Hollywood, just went into turnaround at Fox 2000, which is probably best all around. I like all the people at Fox 2000, but it’s probably not the right studio for this film. So now it’s just Nicole and me and Dusty. And we’ll try to find another home for it.

EW: Beautiful Girl is a thriller about a high school English teacher who exacts revenge on everyone who was cruel to one of his students. Let’s just say it does not sound like you at all.

Cunningham: Actually, I’ve always been a huge fan of horror films. I’ve seen all the horror movies. I have no limits when it comes to that. I’ve seen all the Saw movies. Do you know the writer Amy Hempel? She and I will go to any hack-’em-up movie, the gorier the better. So the genre has always appealed to me. Now, I should say that I have the highest respect for those who teach English literature, particularly in high school. But this individual is just a psycho. [he chuckles]

EW: You’ve always been a slow and steady writer, churning out a novel every five years or so. Does that mean we should be seeing another one soon?

Cunningham: “Slow and steady” is the right phrase to describe me. I’m closing it on my new novel. I could easily be finished by late September. It’s called Olympia."

There's more at the link - including a somewhat spoilery description of what the story's about - so click on over if you care to.

I'd posted about Cunningham's working on that horror film script before right here - I mean... a man after my fucking heart, this one. I haven't even seen all of the Saw films! Sheesh. Don't know if I knew about the Dusty Springfield thing; I'm not surprised Nic wants to work with him since he's the fellow who brought her her Oscar on a silver platter... but well, isn't Nicole a little old for Dusty at this point?


I guess it depends on what part of her life they wanna tell. Nicole's about ten to fifteen years older than Dusty was when she was at her most successful in the Sixties... (and thanks to all that work Nicole "hasn't" had she looks even older). Aaaanyway. Uh. Love you, Michael!
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I Am Link

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--- Drumroll Please - Who's gonna maybe direct the Predator reboot (titled Predators) that Robert Rodriguez is producing? Word on the street is calling out Neil "The Descent" Marshall. That "word on the street," it's such a tease! This would be AWESOME if true, so let's all cross our hearts and pray it is. Because? AWESOME. Neil's currently filming his Roman kick-assery epic Centurion with current It-Boy Michael Fassbender.

---Dolls & Slayers - EW.com chatted with Joss Whedon about the second season of Dollhouse - there are spoilers so beware, but he sounds crazy excited about where they're taking the story, so that's promising - as well as getting this Buffy-nugget (eww) out of him:

"Don't hold your breath that Whedon might become involved in the big-screen Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot. "I believe [the producers] did ultimately reach out to my agent after the news broke," Whedon says. "I think that's something better left untouched by me. So, I wish them luck.""

After my initial freak-out I'm trying to be slightly less insta-judgemental, slightly more open-minded... tis tough, but I'm trying. Who knows... god I feel queasy just saying that. But yeah. Whatever. Life's too short.

--- A Dream Is A Wish - It's weird, suddenly I feel like this week I've had some sort of spidey-sense tingling curious things into being. I'd been wondering what was up with Y: The Last Man, suddenly Shia's talking about it. And just the day before yesterday - inspired by my post on the film adaptation of his book The Hours - I was wondering what was up with writer Michael Cunningham these days. It's been four years since his last novel Specimen Days came out; he wrote the script for Evening (giving us our beloved "Hugh Dancy on Patrick Wilson" lip-lock), but since then, seemingly silence. Well today comes word on another screenplay of his being picked up (via DH):

"Screen Gems has picked up the thriller "Beautiful Girl" from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham ("The Hours") says Variety.

The story concerns a shy but brainy high school girl who returns for senior year after having slimmed down six dress sizes.

She finds herself flirting with the handsome English lit teacher, but the mutual crush turns deadly when the teacher's obsession with the student compels him to exact maniacal revenge on everyone who was cruel to her."

Sounds very The Crush! And here I was crushing anew on young Cary Elwes just yesterday! See what I'm saying here? I am riddled with visions to come! I am the Cassandra of meaningless things!

--- But When? When? --- The Kristen Bell & Josh Duhamel (swoon) rom-com When in Rome has been moved from this August to January 29th, 2010. Hrm. I hope they just saw the opportunity for an open-calendar slot and this isn't some commentary on the picture's worth. I mean... it stars Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel! Looking at the two of them is eye-porn, period, all that's needed, the end, put it in front of me now please and thank you.

--- When There's No More Room In Heck - AICN has got the first batch of pictures from the zombie-comedy (yes, zom-com) Zombieland, which stars Jesse Eisenberg (no), Woody harrelson (sometimes), Emma Stone (hells yeah!) and Abagail Breslin (sure). Even though I always dislike Jesse Eisenberg I still kinda think this looks possibly interesting. There are a lot of zom-coms that I end up liking, I think it might be a very specific sub-genre that I'm particular to, and Woody looks possibly very funny here. Plus Emma. Love you, Emma!

--- Eat Her To Health - I think the theory being posited at Slash/Film that Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell is actually about a girl who has an eating disorder and has begun to hallucinate because of it is really really interesting and I can't wait to watch the film a second time looking for it. It makes a load of sense off the top of my head. All the mouth-trauma for one - things being vomited onto her constantly... the eyeball in her slice of cake... Pork Queen! I can totally see it.

--- In A Post-Slumdog World - I don't really care about the actual news contained in this story about Danny Boyle - that he's signed a three-year deal with Fox Searchlight - no what I found curious was the visceral gut-reaction I had just seeing his name. I love Danny Boyle. Danny Boyle made 28 Days Later and Millions and Trainspotting. Yet I'm fairly certain I hadn't given him a thought since he grasped his Oscar for that turd Slumdog Millionaire and seeing his name for the first time since then in this article, I groaned. And that makes me sad. Make something good again so I can let the Slumdog thing go, Danny, please!

--- The Re-Hungering - Tony Scott is talking up a sequel of sorts to 1983's The Hunger, which starred David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon as a sexy trio of blood-slurpers. Apparently it would spin-off in some new direction but be somehow connected to the original. STYD thinks he mentioned the writer being Erin Wilson, who wrote the "Maggie Gyllenhaal's silken-draped ass obsession" flick Secretary. Curious.

--- And finally, Alexandre Aja really is not kidding around with Piranha 3D, y'all.

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"Oh, you're reading a book?"

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"What's this one about?"

"Oh, it's about this woman who's incredibly... well, she's a hostess and she's incredibly confident and she's going to give a party. And, maybe because she's confident, everyone thinks she's fine... but she isn't."

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An Embarrassing Admission

I've made it known in the past that, gore-loving devotions aside, I'm really a big softie and often find myself inclined towards the aggressively maudlin tearjerkers out there - I couldn't tell you how many times in my life I've watched the Bette Midler two-fer of Beaches and Stella and cried my damned fool's eyes out each and every single time. What can I say, I'm a mass of contradictions. I celebrate skewered eyeballs one second and the next I break down like a three-year old whose lost their binky the second Jenny-girl gets married while Bette stands outside the Tavern on the Green in the rain clutching her umbrella and giving that "I did right" smile.... "I just gotta see her face, ya gotta let me see her face!" Ugh! I'm welling up all over again.

Ahem.

Anyway, I watched Evening last night, and man the reviews were right - it's pretty damned bad. Vanessa Redgrave appears to be daring me to hate her, flitting around in her nightgown after a goddamned moth and babbling, and the editing... ugh, the editing is really the main culprit-o-awfulness here, seeming to likewise flit here and there from scene to scene with no coherent reason.

But there is a lot of good acting to be had - Claire Danes is lovely and Patrick Wilson is easy on the eyes and Toni Collette is Toni Collette and therefore incapable of anything but my love.

And the real stand-out is Hugh Dancy, who's simply wonderful; there's a scene between he and Danes, right after he's drunkenly kissed Patrick Wilson where he's put rightly but heart-breakingly into his place by her, and he's so incredibly good within it that the movie, for a brief moment, lifts far above its own messiness to something horribly sad and true.

Anyway, from that scene on, even though the film never really recaptures that strength of purpose - though Meryl Streep's scene is precise and terrific - I was an enormous ball of hysterical sobs. The movie ended, and I still could not stop crying; I lay there for about ten full minutes making this obscene braying sound. I finally had to will myself to stop, suddenly afraid the neighbors could hear it echoing through the walls and the police would be called or something.

It felt good, though; it's been a long time since a movie pawed at my tear-ducts so cruelly, and I'm, as I said, a sap who likes that sorta thing (and, thankfully, the boyfriend is outta town, or else I might be looking for a place to stay right now). It's really not too different from the vicarious thrill that being scared while watching a movie gives you - all we really want, when it comes down to it, is for a movie to grab us by the emotional balls and yank, right?

So there. I said it. I cried like a baby watching Evening. I am not a heartless violence-worshipping cretin. At least, I'm not just a heartless violence-worshipping cretin. Layers, see? I have layers.
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