A Tribute To A Real Genius

Every once in a while, every other generation or so, we get a gift from the acting gods to grace the silver screen with their incredible and versatile talent. And more often than not, those wonders get taken from us far too quickly. In the past decade we've had more losses than we know what to do with, and the landscape of film has become lacking no matter how many surprisingly good performances Jennifer Lawrence turns out. 

The most obvious that comes to mind is last year's loss of comedy icon Robin Williams. It hurt particularly because he dedicated his life to making people laugh and in this world there is no more a noble profession, with the exception of Doctors Without Borders. But I'm speaking about entertainment here. 

For me personally, a day I will never forget was January 22nd, 2008. My mom called me around 8pm New York time to tell me that Heath Ledger was found dead in his SoHo penthouse. I didn't have a TV, so I hadn't heard, but made it over there in time just to watch the camera crews surrounding his building pack up for the night. It didn't take me long to realize the gravity of that loss. Heath Ledger was very much on his way to being our generation's Marlon Brando, and to die so tragically without even peaking at the young age of 28, without all of us seeing what more he could have given us, fresh off of his performance in Brokeback Mountain, none of us in the film community were ever the same again. 

Arguably his best performance in the rather flawed epic The Master working with frequent collaborator, P.T. Anderson as egomaniacal cult leader Lancaster Dodd.

Just when we had begun the healing process, we had another enormous blow; last year in February when one of the most talented people to ever gift the acting community with his presence lost his life; Philip Seymour Hoffman. Yesterday was his birthday, and instead of dwell on the fact that we will never have another brilliant Hoffman performance, I'd like to remember some of the best that he left us with. Unlike Ledger, Hoffman left behind an indelible legacy of stellar performances that will always be iconic and always be studied, analyzed, and used as basis and inspiration for others. As a true actor's actor, Hoffman had such a profound understanding of his craft and an even bigger respect for it. In every role he played, he brought to it heart, sincerity, and immeasurable depth. There will never be another Hoffman, but at least we have his legacy that generations upon generations of actors will look to when building themselves as masters of their craft. 

Hoffman so brilliantly embodied Truman Capote that his pastiche would be just as good to show someone if you were trying to tell them about who Capote was. It wasn't an interpretation, and it wasn't an impression. It was bringing someone back to life. 

I would go out on a limb and say that there is not a bad performance in his repertoire. From flimsy films like Along Came Polly to bravado like The Master, Hoffman never missed a beat. I personally will always remember his performance as Rusty, the down on her luck drag queen in the teeny Joel Schumacher film Flawless, opposite Robert DeNiro, as well as the awkward boom operator for a porn producer in Boogie Nights, as well as of course, his second to none almost carbon copy of Truman Capote in Capote, for which he won a well-deserved Oscar. Then there was Lester Bangs in Almost Famous, and perhaps my personal favorite; the blocked introverted novelist-turned-screenwriter in State and Main. No matter how small the role, or how small the film, Hoffman took it upon himself to elevate his role in the project and basically carried a lot of the films towards their successes. I don't know what the scope of cinema would be today without him, I would imagine very different. This was a man who could literally do anything, and was such a absolute master of his craft that he raised the bar for everyone else. So on his birthday (one day late, forgive me) I salute you sir. There will never be another, and you will always be missed. Thank you for sharing your gift, and even from a snarky sarcastic cynical person like me, I truly mean it. 

Below, some of the performances mentioned. All of which, unforgettable. 

No I Haven't Read the Fucking Book

'This special effect was way better in the book'

Seriously ya'll, there are certain books that I refuse to read because they are either 'Children's Books' or 'Young Adult Books' or 'Stupid'. But you know what? I'll still make it out to the theater and watch Hunger Games: Catching Fire (whistling noise). Not to blow my own horn or anything but I tend to gravitate towards books that Stanley Kubrick once turned into a film in fact, my favorite book of all time was turned into a film by Kubrick...I'll give you a hint, the author's Russian. I mean I gave The Hobbit a glance through while stoned in high school, and once at the Columbia Bookstore I actually picked up a copy of 'Twilight' before screaming and running out of the store like a mad woman, after which, taking a series of cold showers. But that shit doesn't wash off people. That's why I was hesitant to pick up the 'epic' books that The Hunger Games are based on. First of all, it gets so much criticism for basically being an amalgam of all kinds of shit, specifically the film Battle Royale (2000). 

I found it to have a little touch of Ayn Rand dystopianism, a dash of Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery', and basically every gladiator film that's ever been out since the camera was invented. But I finally watched it, I did, and though every extra of Panem looks like they're late for a Lady Gaga concert, and the narrative was somewhat fuddled I enjoyed myself. J-Law strikes again.

And I am looking forward to the sequel. And no I won't be reading the second book before I watch it so there. You know what I like about some movies? No reading involved. And you know what I hate? The phrase 'the book was so much better than the movie you guys', tell me you haven't wanted to punch the lights out of that pretentious assmunch. 

Aesthetically the marketing is fabulous, it appeals to the serious fashion crowd, and we know they don't read shit...unless you count Vogue...which I do.

You can see that the story is very 'Young Adult' and clearly not the model of post-modern dystopia and communist allegory we all know and love as literate individuals who once took an English class (O, Captain, my Captain), but hey, it's a children's book for fuck's sake. Girls that are no older than 15 will dress up like Katniss Everdeen for Halloween. Girls over 20 will go for 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', which I HAVE read (oh holy shit). 

The worst example of film or literature ever. Like ever. Also the best example of accidental marketing.

So basically what I'm saying is that some books are not worth reading, just watch the effing movie and get off on Peeta and Katniss having moments of awkward teenage love as they try to not kill each other. Don't read the motherfucking 'Notebook', in fact, don't read anything by Nicholas Sparks nor watch any movies that his books are based on. Just get your popcorn on and hush up screaming teenagers sitting next to you when you shamelessly as an adult over 25 buy your ticket to Catching Fire (2013) rather than something actually thought provoking like 12 Years a Slave (2013), also based on a book and a really good one, but let's face it how many of you are going to watch 12 Years a Slave and exclaim that you know all about Solomon Northup, slavery in America, and the Civil War. A lot of you, and I will be super annoyed. So let's put on our Katniss pins, do the three finger salute, and just have a little bit of illiterate fun while we still don't get judged for it.

Trailer below.

Hey Everybody It's Ok to Make Fun of Fat People Again!

The new Betty Draper which launched a million OMFG's

Against my wishes, they decided to thrust Betty Draper back into our faces, fat first. I don't know if you've noticed or anything but she's kind of put on some weight since last we saw her. And apparently, we as the public cannot get enough of making fun of it, myself included. In this day and age where rapid escalation in bullying has become a serious life-threatening issue, it's nice that we can still sit anonymously behind our computers and ridicule chunky people in the media with impunity. 

Now I'm sure that when we all tuned into the second episode of the 5th season of Mad Men (2007 - present) we were all 'how did Paula Deen finagle her way to AMC?'
You see what I did there? I'm speaking out against internet ridicule and simultaneously engaging in it. That makes me a very special type of hypocrite.

It probably has a lot to do with the fact that none of us really like Betty Draper, in fact she's one of those women we love to hate. My office was agog with comments around the water cooler about how gross she looked. When honestly, it's about time that girl put on a few. We as the public love to see seemingly flawless people be given their comeuppance for being so apologetically hot and better than the rest of us, so when they're taken down a few pegs (i.e. fat-suit and body double) then there's no better schadenfreude.

We can all sleep soundly knowing that even Betty porcelain-doll Draper is not above getting old and getting fat like the rest of us. 

Excuuuuuuuuuse me for having tits. J-Law's new spread in Glamour magazine. Take that skinny bitches!

This is coming off the heels of internet outrage about Jennifer Lawrence being too 'supple' to play a starving teenager in The Hunger Games (2012), which basically translates into people thinking she's a fatty just because she has a normal female form and her rib cage isn't protruding out of her chest. I thought we were over the whole women have to look like they're in the terminal stages of heroin addiction a long time ago, and all of a sudden we can't embrace a full-bodied figure because we all want to fit into Ellen Page's jeans? Um, I'll call BS. 

Remember when heroin chic was a thing? I blame all of my body issues on it to this day. 

Seductress Pick: Jennifer Lawrence

Barely out of her teens and already a major force in the industry, it seemed strange for this burgeoning seductress to at first even to be considered for LionsGate's much awaited adaptation of the insanely successful runaway hit The Hunger Games. They were probably pulling for Ellen Page, or Kristen Stewart as strong, sensitive, and uniquely versatile Katniss Everdeen. The next big ingenue role in town, and no one saw it coming. But I have faith that J-Law will prove wrong even the biggest of nay-sayers. 

She came from virtual obscurity, and landed her big break just last year in Winter's Bone (2010) when playing the desperate but strong Ree, a girl who has literally nothing to lose, prowling around the Ozark mountains in chase after her phantom meth-maker father. It was bleak, depressing, and difficult, and yet everyone left asking themselves, who is that blonde girl and why am I suddenly obsessed with her? Subsequently the *seemingly* timid Jennifer received an Oscar nom, well deserved,  but NO ONE expected she's dress head to tow in a skin tight, backless, burnt-umber Calvin Klien number on the red carpet looking like the rogue baby of Marlene Dietrich and Jessica Rabbit. That's when she went form that new girl with major acting chops from that tiny movie that gets all of the oscar nominations and no wins to 'oh my god we need her in our film, no matter what. Call her agent like now.' 

She's dangerous but she is not a femme fatale, she's flirtatious, but she's not the 'other woman', she's elusive, but she tough as nails. This kind of confidence makes her the perfect candidate for seductress picks. It's great that I get to focus on an actress who from the time she was born to us on the screen, and has the ability to draw even the biggest skeptics in. We are always left guessing, and because we now expect her to wow us with something new, which she has in the upcoming Like Crazy (2011)  and the widely anticipated Hunger Games (2012) hopefully cementing her cult status and knocking K-Stew off her pedestal. People want to hire her, and when she appears in Maxim soaking wet and half naked in a compromising pose, it doesn't matter, because she appears so confident and intelligent that no one can touch her. She's looking she slated to start take over at an minute, oh and keep in mind she's like 19 years old. 

She is classically beautiful, curvy, long wavy dirty blonde hair and pail stark blue eyes, full lips and a husky sultry voice. But she's not afraid of changing it up and not always looking like a Florentine Botticelli statue. She's almost other-wordly. She is the aphrodite being born amidst a plethora of scripts and cameras, and in this chaos the eventuality will i hope be some unusual but perfectly fitting element in cinema that an industry doesn't understand, and yet can't live without. I think for this time, she's that anomaly that has always existed in the industry. The kind of versatility she is able to produce while keeping a concrete sense of her 'brand' is what makes a seductress.