moving day is coming

Yup. This ol’ blog, Worship Naked, will soon be kaput. Phffft.

Within the next month — I imagine — I’ll be moving to shiny new digs elsewhere in the ‘sphere. I kinda have to “mourn” the loss of Worship Naked, but I just can’t keep that name any longer. The reason should be obvious to most of you. It should have been obvious to me back when I first picked it, thinking I was oh so clevah. It should have given me … pause.

But alas, I am a mutant, both clevah and stupid, and I was hopped up good on my clevah stupidity, so, frankly — as much as it deeply pains me to admit it — this thought never ONCE occurred to me:

“Well, jeepers, Trace, with that name, you just might end up getting heaps and heaps of skanky spam from pervy p-o-r-n-o pushers talking endlessly about p-e-n-i-s-e-s and potions and such. Hmmm.”

Nope. Not ONCE. It was more:

“KnowwhatIthinkwouldbeagoodblogname,Trace?Doya?DOYA?Wannahearit?It’srilly
great.Seriouslyit’sawesomeandIamjustfreakinsmartandeep.Ready?WORSHIP
NAAAKED.N-A-A-A-A-KED,Trace!Man,IamsomodernandcuttingedgeandSMART.
IROCK!”

Uh, yeah. Well, pride goeth before p-o-r-n — or somethin’.

(And yes, I spell the words because I don’t want to draw attention to them — because I don’t want to spend another second deleting all the damn SPAM! Grrrrrrrrrr!)

Soooo …. just for fun, if you could name the new blog, what would you name it? 😉

over the edge of the world

Right now, I’m reading Laurence Bergreen’s Over the Edge of the World about Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe. I bought this book because, well, I know basically nothing about it or him and I just thought I ‘d change that.

Here’s just a bit of what he was up against before he even set sail:

Magellan was Portuguese, of course, but when Portugal’s King Manuel wouldn’t authorize such a massive expedition, Magellan left his home country to plead his case to Spain, Portugal’s bitter rival for control of the seas and trading routes. There, he received royal approval for his voyage — which was good — BUT he was hated by the Spaniards because he was Portuguese — which was bad. Once the King of Portugal heard of the impending journey, Magellan was deemed a traitor. To make his humiliation public, vandals were sent to his estate where they tore down gates and covered the Magellan coat of arms in excrement. Even very distant family members were objects of scorn, sometimes beaten, sometimes stoned. Many others, fearing for their lives, were forced to flee the country.

Just weeks before departure, the head of the Spanish House of Commerce removed Magellan’s Portuguese partner from his position citing “unstable condition” and replaced him with with one of his own inspectors general. The replacement — a man with no seafaring experience whatsoever — was given status virtually equal to Magellan’s, thereby stifling his full authority while simultaneously enabling the Spanish government to keep a watchful eye on this navigator from the hated Portugal.

Oh, and did I mention that the remainder of his crew consisted of Spanish and Castilian and Portuguese sailors — men whose animosities were long-standing and deep? I mean, nothing says “communal bliss” better than close quarters and white hot hate.

And did I mention that just he was loading the final provisions for his ships, Magellan received a secret communique that his Castilian captains were planning to mutiny at the very first opportunity? Even to kill Magellan?

AND that just as the ships set sail, the King of Portugal sent two fleets of ships in pursuit of Magellan — to arrest him?

To top that off, Magellan was deliberately sailing into the unknown, away from a society rife with superstitions about the world at large, all for the pursuit of the truth. This was a radical notion for the time, this empirical approach to discovery. The myths that circulated about what was “out there” were beloved, believed, sacred even, and yet in the face of that, Magellan’s stubborn stubborn vision was I will go see for myself.

Here’s a passage where Bergreen uses quotes from Pliny the Elder’s influential, encyclopedic tome Natural History to illustrate the kinds of things people believed in Magellan’s day:

He (Pliny) wrote of a tribe known as the Arimaspi, “a people known for having one eye in the middle of the forehead.” Herodotus related tales of a “continual battle between the Arimaspi and the griffins in the vicinity of the latter’s mines. The griffin is a type of wild beast with wings, as is commonly reported, which digs gold out of the tunnels. The griffins guard the gold and the Arimaspi try to seize it, each with remarkable greed.” …… Pliny also included curious descriptions of “forest dwellers who have their feet turned back behind their leg; they run with extraordinary speed and wander far and wide with the animals.” India offered particularly fertile ground for extraordinary creatures. Pliny evoked “men with dog’s heads who are covered with wild beasts’ skins; they bark instead of speaking and live by hunting and fowling, for which they use their nails.”

Pliny assured his readers that wonders never ceased in the natural world; the result of his labors was a Ripley’s Believe-It-or-Not catalog tinged with classics. “That women have changed into men is not a myth,” he wrote. “We find in historical records that a girl at Casinum became a boy before her parents’ very eyes.” He claimed that people in Eastern Europe had two sets of eyes, backward-facing heads, or no heads at all. In Africa, Pliny wrote, lived people who combined both sexes in one body, yet managed to reproduce; people who survived without eating; people with ears large enough to blanket their entire bodies; and people with equine feet. In India, he said, there were people with six hands. These marvelous accounts were later retold by various respected chroniclers and widely credited up through Magellan’s time.

I’m not that far into it, but LAWDY, Magellan! I’m astonished already!

(More Magellan updates to come ….)

because I hate soccer, that’s why

In honor of my loathing of World Cup and all forms of aimless scurrying — an excerpt from a Chuck Klosterman essay on soccer:

“The truth is that most children don’t love soccer; they simply hate the alternative more. For 60 percent of the adolescents in any fourth-grade classroom, sports are a humiliation waiting to happen. These are the kids who play baseball and strike out four times a game. These are the kids who are afraid to get fouled in basketball, because it only means they’re now required to shoot two free throws, which equates to two air balls. Basketball games actually STOP to recognize their failure. And football is nothing more than an ironical death sentence; somehow, outcasts find themselves in a situation where the people normally penalized for teasing them are suddenly urged to annihilate them.

“This is why soccer seems like such a respite from all that mortification; it’s the one aerobic activity where nothingness is expected. Even at the highest levels, every soccer match seems to end 1-0 or 2-1. A normal 11 year old can play an entire season without placing toe to sphere and nobody would even notice, assuming he or she does a proper job of running about and avoiding major collisions.”

Happy World Cup, everybody!

25 Most Controversial Films

Straight from Entertainment Weekly’s website, their list of “The 25 Most Controversial Films of All Time.”

Which have you seen? Where do you agree/disagree?

Here’s their list and commentary:

25 ALADDIN
DIRECTED BY RON CLEMENTS AND JOHN MUSKER (1992)
THE PLOT You know: the genie-in-the-lamp tale.
THE CONTROVERSY The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee balked at a lyric describing the film’s Arabian setting as a land ”where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face.” Result? The studio dubbed out the lyric for subsequent releases.

24 CALIGULA
DIRECTED BY TINTO BRASS (1980)
THE PLOT This lavishly decadent film depicts the orgy-filled life and death of ancient Rome’s most notorious — and clearly psychotic — emperor (Malcolm McDowell).
THE CONTROVERSY Described as a ”moral holocaust” by Variety, the film was first given a very limited theatrical release for fear of prosecution on obscenity grounds.

23 KIDS
DIRECTED BY LARRY CLARK (1995)
THE PLOT A group of teens (played by, among others, Rosario Dawson and Chloë Sevigny) prowl the streets of NYC in search of sex, booze, drugs, and other high-risk kicks.
THE CONTROVERSY Clark’s disturbing vision of promiscuous, borderline-sociopathic teens was heralded by some as a much-needed wake-up call about the nation’s youth. Others saw prurient exploitation. As a buffer against the furor, Miramax created a new entity, Excalibur Films, to release the pic.

22 DO THE RIGHT THING
DIRECTED BY SPIKE LEE (1989)
THE PLOT Racial tensions in a Brooklyn neighborhood escalate from amusing to tragic during the course of a single scorching summer day.
THE CONTROVERSY While the film was seen by some as a masterpiece (and earned Lee a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nom), others blasted the director as irresponsible, predicting that the film’s shocking climax — in which Mookie (Lee) hurls a trashcan through a storefront window, inciting a riot — would evoke similar reactions from urban moviegoers. Thankfully, the film proved to be more of a catalyst for heated debate than a flashpoint for actual violence.

21 BONNIE AND CLYDE
DIRECTED BY ARTHUR PENN (1967)
THE PLOT Faye Dunaway is Bonnie, a bored Texas girl looking for danger. Warren Beatty is Clyde, a pistol-packing ex-con. They fall in love and kick off an infamous Depression-era crime spree.
THE CONTROVERSY Two years before Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, Penn’s bloody, slo-mo bullet-riddled finale, where the young lovers bite the dust, sparked an outcry — even tough-guy actor James Garner, no stranger to shoot-outs, called it ”amoral.”

20 CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST
DIRECTED BY RUGGERO DEODATO (1985)
THE PLOT This nauseatingly graphic Italian prototype for The Blair Witch Project follows four documentarians filming cannibal tribes in the Amazon. They become lunch.
THE CONTROVERSY After its 1980 Milan premiere, the film’s print was confiscated by the city’s magistrate. Later, Deodato faced life in prison when Italian authorities believed the stars of his film were really killed. The actors finally appeared on TV to prove otherwise.

19 BASIC INSTINCT
DIRECTED BY PAUL VERHOEVEN (1992)
THE PLOT A trigger-happy detective (Michael Douglas) falls for a bisexual author (Sharon Stone) who’s suspected of murdering her male lover with an ice pick.
THE CONTROVERSY Gay-rights activists objected to the portrayal of man-hating lesbians before a frame of film was shot and protested through the film’s opening. Then there was the film’s eye-popping sex, including Sharon Stone’s notorious leg-crossing, which contributed to Basic’s initial NC-17 rating.

18 I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW)
DIRECTED BY VILGOT SJÖMAN (1969)
THE PLOT Freewheeling Lena experiences the swinging ’60s: protesting Vietnam, questioning the class system, and exploring carnal desires.
THE CONTROVERSY Before the 1967 Swedish film could open in the U.S., it was seized by customs officials concerned that scenes containing full frontal nudity and simulated sex acts were pornographic. The courts initially deemed the movie obscene, but the verdict was overturned.

17 FREAKS
DIRECTED BY TOD BROWNING (1932)
THE PLOT For his still-creepy circus noir about a midget who’s conned by a greedy temptress, Browning used real sideshow performers.
THE CONTROVERSY Audiences fled preview screenings in droves. (One patron claimed the film caused her to miscarry.) Even with a castration scene cut, the National Association of Women found the film ”offensive” and urged boycotts. It was banned in Atlanta and pulled from distribution; it was forbidden in the U.K. until the early ’60s.

16 UNITED 93
DIRECTED BY PAUL GREENGRASS (2006)
THE PLOT An ultra-vérité re-creation of the tragic heroism surrounding — and inside — the only hijacked 9/11 flight not to reach its intended target.
THE CONTROVERSY Greengrass’ virtually-there experience may have been a little too close for comfort for some moviegoers. Even the trailer’s suggestion of the movie’s content prompted audiences to shout Too soon! One New York City theater pulled the footage from its preview reel after many viewers (one left sobbing) complained.

15 TRIUMPH OF THE WILL
DIRECTED BY LENI RIEFENSTAHL (1935)
THE PLOT Riefenstahl’s notorious documentary of the 1934 Nazi rally at Nuremberg elevates propaganda to seductive Wagnerian grandeur.
THE CONTROVERSY While intellectuals still ponder the ethics of admiring so malevolent a masterpiece, others have had more visceral reactions. In the early ’40s, director George Stevens was so disturbed by the film that he joined the Army the next day. Protests greeted Riefenstahl (who never shook her Nazi-tainted past) at a 1974 Telluride Film Festival tribute, and the Anti-Defamation League decried a 1975 screening in Atlanta as ”morally insensitive.”

14 THE WARRIORS
DIRECTED BY WALTER HILL (1979)
THE PLOT Members of a street gang battle their way through a New York City populated by rival gangs (”Warriors, come out to plaaay!”).
THE CONTROVERSY Hill’s lurid nightmare of urban warfare was widely condemned for glorifying violence. Reports of criminal incidents where the film was shown — including the stabbing of a teenager in Massachusetts — fueled the outrage, forcing Paramount to temporarily pull its print and TV advertising for the film.

13 THE DA VINCI CODE
DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD (2006)
THE PLOT A professor (Tom Hanks) unearths a 2,000-year-old conspiracy to cover up the marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
THE CONTROVERSY It didn’t end up drawing mass pickets or boycotts, but there was much debate while the film was being made. Westminster Abbey wouldn’t allow Howard to shoot inside its halls, and some 200 protesters mobbed the set in Lincolnshire, England (although Howard says most were merely ”trying to get autographs”).

12 THE DEER HUNTER
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL CIMINO (1978)
THE PLOT The Vietnam War shatters the lives of three Pennsylvania steel-mill workers.
THE CONTROVERSY By the time it won the Best Picture Oscar, Deer Hunter had ignited major debate over its shocking POW-camp scenes, in which American soldiers are forced to play Russian roulette. War historians argued there was no record of such atrocities, and others called the Vietcong depiction racist. Cimino called the criticisms ”beside the point.”

11 THE MESSAGE
DIRECTED BY MOUSTAPHA AKKAD (1977)
THE PLOT Anthony Quinn plays Mohammed’s uncle in an epic telling of Islam’s origins.
THE CONTROVERSY The movie rankled Muslims and sparked riots, and that was just during production. Post-release, in March 1977, Hanafi terrorists took more than 100 people hostage in Washington, D.C. — killing a reporter and shooting the city’s future mayor Marion Barry in the two-day siege — demanding in part that The Message be banned. (It wasn’t.) In a cruelly ironic coda, the Syrian-born Akkad died amid al-Qaeda’s coordinated hotel bombings last fall in Amman, Jordan.

10 BABY DOLL
DIRECTED BY ELIA KAZAN (1956)
THE PLOT A Mississippi cotton-gin owner (Eli Wallach) humiliates a competitor (Karl Malden) by attempting to seduce the man’s still-virgin wife (Carroll Baker).
THE CONTROVERSY Written by Tennessee Williams, the film struck Catholic leaders as lewd. (A similar flap greeted 1943’s The Outlaw over Jane Russell’s bust.) New York’s Cardinal Spellman forbade the faithful to see it ”under pain of sin.” Some theaters pulled it, but it eventually earned four Oscar nominations.

9 LAST TANGO IN PARIS
DIRECTED BY BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI (1972)
THE PLOT A disaffected American (Marlon Brando) travels to Paris, where he throws himself into an affair with a young Frenchwoman (Maria Schneider).
THE CONTROVERSY Critics and audiences were sharply divided over this X-rated erotic psychodrama. The film’s stark (as in naked) depiction of loveless, animalistic carnality horrified some — and landed its director and stars in an Italian court on obscenity charges.

8 NATURAL BORN KILLERS
DIRECTED BY OLIVER STONE (1994)
THE PLOT Homicidal lovers (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) cut a blood-soaked swath through America.
THE CONTROVERSY Though intended as a satire on the media, the film actually inspired several copycat killers to seek their own 15 minutes of fame, some even using imagery and dialogue from the film. Over 12 murders in the U.S. and abroad have been linked to Killers. One victim’s family tried to sue Stone and Warner Bros.

7 THE BIRTH OF A NATION
DIRECTED BY D.W. GRIFFITH (1915)
THE PLOT Griffith’s epic follows the travails of two families during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
THE CONTROVERSY The film’s depiction of African Americans as childlike, conniving, or rabid sex fiends, and the Ku Klux Klan as heroic saviors, sparked nationwide protests by the nascent NAACP. (It also became a KKK recruiting tool.) Censorship debates and protests have dogged the film in subsequent rereleases and when it was added to the National Film Registry in 1993.

6 THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
DIRECTED BY MARTIN SCORSESE (1988)
THE PLOT Jesus (Willem Dafoe) pursues his calling but, in a Satan-induced hallucination, dreams of a normal life that includes sex with Mary Magdalene.
THE CONTROVERSY Religious fundamentalists picketed and threatened boycotts weeks before its release. One group offered to buy the $6.5 million film from Universal to destroy it; some theaters, and later Blockbuster, refused to carry it. Oh, and the French rioted.

5 JFK
DIRECTED BY OLIVER STONE (1991)
THE PLOT The true story of how New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) investigated conspiracy theories about President Kennedy’s assassination.
THE CONTROVERSY Some saw Stone’s documentary-on-steroids-like interpretation of those theories as lending them a certain patina of truth — raising fears that moviegoers would construe it as bona fide history. One result: a 1992 congressional act to release classified documents (which revealed nothing).

4 DEEP THROAT
DIRECTED BY GERARD DAMIANO (1972)
THE PLOT Distraught over her inability to enjoy sex, a young woman (Linda Lovelace) goes to a doctor (Harry Reems), who tells her the condition can only be treated, um, orally.
THE CONTROVERSY Intellectuals championed the film for striking a blow for First Amendment rights, while conservative leaders got it banned in many places and put Reems on trial for obscenity charges. Lovelace herself later denounced the film, claiming that while filming ”there was a gun to my head.”

3 FAHRENHEIT 9/11
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL MOORE (2004)
THE PLOT Dubya’s multitude of (alleged) sins, including the alliance between the Bush clan and Saudi Arabia and botched chances to prevent 9/11.
THE CONTROVERSY The documentary lit the fuse of right-wing America, detonating protests and hate campaigns to ban it (no dice). Moore was the first to break the post-9/11 moratorium on Bush bashing and set off a season of brutal smack-downs among the Bill O’Reillys and Keith Olbermanns of the world.

2 A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
DIRECTED BY STANLEY KUBRICK (1971)
THE PLOT Teen troublemaker/gang rapist Alex (Malcolm McDowell) gets brainwashed by a futuristic English government so that he becomes deathly ill every time he encounters violence.
THE CONTROVERSY You mean besides its irreverent use of Gene Kelly’s ”Singin’ in the Rain”? That the movie first landed an X rating and was deemed pornographic across the U.S. was nothing compared with its reception in the U.K.: Social uproar and reports of copycat crimes led Kubrick to withdraw Clockwork from distribution in his adopted country. It wasn’t officially available there again — in theaters or on video — until 2000, a year after his death.

1 THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
DIRECTED BY MEL GIBSON (2004)
THE PLOT You know the part in the Bible where Jesus gets betrayed, tortured, and crucified? That’s it. That’s all of it.
THE CONTROVERSY Gibson’s intention — born of his deep Catholic faith — was to produce an unflinching depiction of Christ’s suffering on behalf of mankind. What he succeeded at best, however, was igniting a culture-war firestorm unrivaled in Hollywood history. For months prior to its release, The Passion was both denounced and defended sight unseen amid reports that the film wasn’t just brutal, but compromised by dubious biblical interpretation and anti-Semitic sentiment. Gibson refused to let concerned parties view and vet his self-financed film, even as he was giving Passion previews to Christians as part of an unprecedented church-targeting promo push. Ultimately, moviegoers pretty much got the experience they were expecting, while Gibson got a $370 million gross — plus a provocative new reputation.

obsession

I love The Anchoress, her writing, her humor, her mind, just her whole darn shebang. Plus, lately, I have to say I’m loving her raging schoolgirl obsession with Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel. It’s hysterical. You could click on over there of a day and read insightful political analyses, deep spiritual challenges, and then, in the midst of it, a gushing geyser: hehehe, oh, Bryn! Frankly, I love Bryn BECAUSE she loves him and I don’t know anything about him.

The other day, the obsession reached new heights as she confessed to buying a keychain from an official Bryn fan site:

I’m kind of creeping myself out. I’m like some craven little deviate, a shrunken housebound type, a milquetoast too shy to ever actually do what other fans do – you know, buy a ticket and see a show and stand at the stage door, etc. No, I’m more like buck-toothed little Renfield, scurrying about in the shadows in service of my seductively-voiced master…..except that I’m not buck-toothed, I haven’t scurried in years and The Terfel is in all likelihood not a blood-sucking vampire ….

Ah, well…one more artifact for my husband to toss onto my flaming Viking death pyre before he moves on!

Now she’s buying a teacup, too. But who am I to point fingers? I’m currently in love with a cerebral-palsied standup comedian.

Long live obsession!

CONGRATULATIONS!

To The Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Wa., for winning The Tony Award for Best Regional Theatre!!

I love that theatre, have personal memories of that theatre, a theatre that for too long languished in the shadow of The Seattle Rep, but tonight, got some much-deserved recognition.

Oh, how I remember treading your boards! Thanks for those memories.

Congratulations, again, Ol’ Intiman!

UPDATE: ARGH! I was rooting for the amazing, weird, innovative revival of
“Sweeney Todd” to win Best Revival of a Musical but the Tony went to “The Pajama Game.” “Sweeney” is one of my absolute favorite musicals. Perhaps THE favorite. Because I was a very proud player in a fabulous production in Seattle once AND because I’m a sick, sick, sick puppy.

But how can you not LOVE a show where a barber decides to take revenge on the men who wronged him by killing them while giving them a shave (“the closest he ever gave”), but when that doesn’t quite work out, he completely snaps and starts killing random customers, which sounds bad, but — wait! — has the upside of providing his partner in crime, Mrs. Lovett and her failing meat pie shop with fresh, tasty meat for the best pies in town!? And how can you not love a show that makes THAT funny and dark and sick and soaring!? Of course, things like this generally end badly and “Sweeney” is no exception. But, oh, what a ride! What a crazy, angry, hysterical ride! And that MUSIC, those LYRICS. It’s in my blood forever. I know that whole show. That whole, almost-impossible-to-sing show. Get yourself the soundtrack, pronto. (Oh, start with the Angela Lansbury one, the original soundtrack. Then you can move to the revival soundtrack to compare/contrast and appreciate what this year’s revival did with the show. Haha! Listen to me — giving you a theatre assignment! I’m a loon.)

ALSO UPDATE: Okay. The actress who plays Callie on “Grey’s Anatomy” won a Tony last year. I didn’t make that connection until tonight. (Well, hm, I didn’t so much “make the connection,” as much as the announcer blatantly said, “Please welcome a Tony Award winner for last year’s ‘Spamalot,’ Sara Ramirez.” And there she was, Callie from “Grey’s Anatomy”!)

Excellent deduction, Tracey.

when bad actors go good

Okay. Not the best title, but I hate coming up with post titles.

A comment thread between Sheila and me on one of her posts the other day set me a’thinkin’. She’d written a great post about Something’s Gotta Give, one of the movies in her ongoing series of “Underrated Movies.” And in the midst of all the rightful acclaim of the performances of Keaton and Nicholson and McDormand and Peet, Sheila and I worked ourselves into a frenzy of commendation of Keanu Reeves’ performance in the film. (I say “commendation,” because, well, it IS Keanu Reeves and one shouldn’t overstate one’s enthusiasm — like we did yesterday!) Hahaha! We went on and on about how he’d “improved” and “grown” and “strrretched.”

But, oh, we are NOT condescending. We are sincere, as Sheila said.

At one point in the comments, I said I felt differently about him as an actor because of that one performance. Then I got to thinkin’ about something. I thought about the various actors and actresses over the years that I’d thought were mediocre or simply rotten or that I’d just blatantly disliked for one capricious reason or another. Then I thought about which of these same actors or actresses had had, in my opinion, a turning point, a moment where, after years of performances I’d deemed lackluster or stomach-turning, they’d finally shown that they HAD it or had SOMETHING and it had finally come out on film. A moment of redemption where Jesus came and saved us both from their bad acting.

So, of course, I HAD to make a list and I want yours, too.

A list of 10 actors/actresses who’ve had, in your opinion ……. The Turning Point.

Here’s mine (and some I’ll have more to say about than others, just based on memory, I guess).

Anyway, TA-DA:

1. Well, Keanu Reeves, since he inspired this whole thing. Keanu Reeves, Something’s Gotta Give. Smart, tender, not wooden for once, a real person, sexy, even. I’ve always thought his voice is a detriment to him. It’s not expressive, so he must rely more on his face, his eyes, which are nice, actually. I loved his empathy in this role, his playfulness, that he really did love her and then loved her enough to let her go with her true love. Turning Point for me, Mr. Reeves!

2. Kim Basinger, L.A. Confidential. Um, this was a HUGE one, I think. Because wasn’t she pretty much a joke in Hollywood before this? All those lame movies with Richard Gere. I remember the only thing I thought of her was that she had a bad voice and pretty hair. Well, she was a Breck girl once. But, sweet LORD, as the hooker “cut” to look like Veronica Lake, she’s canny, but quiet about it; sexy, but quiet about it. She sees things are they are, sees Bud as he really is, but again, she’s not pushy about anything and for me, that makes everything about her performance more intense. Nothing she does is overt and that’s the beauty of it. Turning Point!

3. Salma Hayak, Frida. Now, I’ll say that I ALWAYS thought Salma Hayak was one of the flat-out sexiest actresses in Hollywood. A pint-sized siren. And I liked her, but kept hoping for something more from her. Frida was that turning point to me. She could not possibly have been more “other” than she was in this part. Stripped of the burden of being sexy, she just burned as Kahlo — with her pain, with her loves, with her art — I don’t know how else to say it. She totally surrendered to being Frida. She just burned up that screen.

4. Woody Harrelson, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. Yeah, he was that dumb bunny Woody in Cheers and all and everybody seemed to love that character, but I’ve never liked him. Something about his face. It just ….. makes me want to kill him. I feel violent when I look at him. It’s completely irrational. Oh, and yeah, I hear he was great in “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” but I’ve never seen it, so I can’t choose that as my Turning Point for him. No. My Turning Point with him came in “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio” and while Julianne Moore carries that movie, Harrelson was reborn in my eyes. His character is a drunk and abusive and, overall, just a loser, but he has these moments of shame about who he is, moments of awareness.

Oh, there’s one …. well, I’ll just share it, to the best of my memory. Moore and Harrelson have all these kids, like 8 or something, and he doesn’t make enough money and what money he does make, he spends on booze. She enters product jingle contests and through her winnings — of things like shopping sprees and bikes and one-year supplies of this and that — she keeps the family afloat. And he knows that and can’t stand it. So one day, she wins one of those “grab all you can in 10 minutes” grocery store sprees. She asks him, “What do you want me to get for you, Dad?” He says nothing. “How ’bout one of those shrimp cocktails? I’ll get you one of those big shrimp cocktails.” So she has the spree, grabs a bunch of stuff. Later, at home, the whole family is sampling all the exotic foods they usually don’t eat. They’re pigging out on hearts of palm and caviar. But Dad stands in the corner, not participating. (I can’t remember now if he’s standing there eating Spam from a can or something. That seems right.) He’s ashamed; he’s jealous; he can’t join in or he’ll feel less than. He’s the dark cloud in the room, but Mom pointedly, cheerfully ignores his darkness. Moore is BRILLIANT in this scene. Finally, she offers him the shrimp cocktail. He takes it, reluctantly, still standing in the corner. Then he TURNS AROUND, back to her and his whole family, and starts to eat it. That moment …. Turning Point. I don’t know why. The shame in the face of her grace. It killed me.

5. Sharon Stone, Casino. Yes, Sharon Stone. Miss I’m So Sexy and So Smart and So Opinionated and I Reject Underwear and That Last One is the ONLY REASON I’M FAMOUS. Yes, THAT Sharon Stone. Now, this is where I cop out. I saw Casino once — what? — 10 years ago and don’t remember much EXCEPT that she blew me away for once. I saw that she had some acting chops, even if I’ve never seen them since. And maybe that’s part of The Turning Point concept, too. That you did see it — even if it was only once. I think she was nominated for an Oscar for this one, so SOMEone else must have seen it, too. All right. You guys can help me on this one. If you saw it, HELP me remember WHY, specifically, she was so great. (Well, only if you thought she was.) Still, memory problems aside, I stand by her as one of my choices — hahaha! — which is lame.

6. Michael Douglas, Falling Down. Okay. God help me, I had never been a huge fan. And I know he produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and won the Best Actor Oscar for Wall Street. Still, he made me weary. He was either playing the arrogant, preening ass as in Wall Street or the modern man victimized or manipulated by woman, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct. *YAWN*. I always found him simpering, self-conscious. Watching him made me irritated, then sleepy. To me, there was this undercurrent of entitlement throughout his acting: “Look at me! I’m a Golden Son of Hollywood and I have a jutty chin and I AM AAWESOME! I have genetic rights to your rapt attention to my ACTING! WATCH MEEE! WATCH MY JUTTY CHIN!!” Shut. Up. Gekko.

Okay. So I think we’ve established I didn’t like him.

Then I saw Falling Down and apologized to him, repeatedly and profusely, during the entire movie: I’m sorry, Michael Douglas. Forgive me, Michael Douglas. I would give you that Womlette, if I could. I swear. Seriously, his performance brought me to my knees and I thoroughly repented. My Lord. The sadness of that performance. I mean, he goes insane, basically, but he is SO desperately sad. I ache just writing about him in that movie, because how many times have each of us felt we are one last thread away from a complete unravel? How many times have each of us contemplated just GOING OFF like that, raging, in a tangible way, against the invisibility we so often feel? That irrelevance and purposelessness he felt touched the same in me. Ach. It was so painful and so cathartic, too. (Man, I need to see this one again!) Douglas was not some preening or self-conscious or masked “Actor” here. No. He was an ugly and sad and desperate everyman, really. And he just wanted a Womlette and some WomFries, for God’s sake! Sorry, Michael Douglas. BIG Turning Point in our relationship. AND I’ve liked you since then: Traffic, The Game, Wonder Boys. So …. well …. good for you ….. And I am NOT condescending …. hahaha …. ha …..

7. Halle Berry, Monster’s Ball. She’s always been beautiful, but that’s all I considered her: Beautiful. Great figure, perfect skin, chic hair. Big deal. But Monster’s Ball changed that for me. She was so raw and so broken, you practically squirm through that entire movie. She went where the character had to go and went there fearlessly and without reservation. I don’t think she’s been as good since. Drat that Best Actress curse. Still, Turning Point, Halle Berry.

8. Eric Roberts, Runaway Train. Yes, The Lesser Roberts, Julia’s brother. Mostly considered a joke and a loser. Then Runaway Train came out in 1985 and he was astonishingly good. I remember when I saw it, I was … yes, astonished. He has such a bad rep, he and Julia don’t get along, he’s hard to work with, etc., etc. But here, I think he finally found the right part for his particular quirks and intensities, playing a savage, impetuous escaped con, a man who operates on instinct, doesn’t care about consequences. This movie is an adventure, but not in an overblown, let’s- just-blow-something-up way. It’s spare, raw, character-driven. You’ve got Roberts; then you’ve got Jon Voight as his fellow escaped con and Rebecca DeMornay as the crew member on this runaway train. It’s a nail biter, but just as much from the interpersonal peril inside as from the physical peril outside. Plus, there’s a real doozy of an ending, too. The best work I’ve ever seen Eric Roberts do. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. This is Mr. Roberts’ only Turning Point, I’m afraid.

9. William Hurt, Broadcast News. I know, I know, some of you are probably saying ‘what?!’ I mean, the guy’s been nominated for an Oscar how many times? I don’t even know the number. Several. He was just nominated this year for A History of Violence, Tracey, for Pete’s sake! One of our most lauded actors, etc. But remember, I said one of the criteria for The Turning Point could be someone you blatantly dislike for one capricious reason or another. Well, William Hurt fits that for me. I just dislike him. I have blatant hostility towards him. It makes NO sense. He may be a truly wonderful person, volunteer at soup kitchens and adopt stray cats and help old gammies across the street ….. and yet, I still dislike him. So, you see, much like my general distaste for Woody Harrelson, it has a solid foundation based on no firsthand knowledge whatsoever. I dunno. To me, he seems to have absolutely NO sense of humor. He is quite in earnest about himself and expects everyone else to be, too. I asked My Beloved about him and he said it best, perhaps: “He just seems …… malignant.” That’s it! He has a malignant, depressive, needs-more-bran vibe. He speaks as if it’s a taxing effort for him, and, because of this great effort, what spills forth must be deemed a great favor to you, an unexpected blessing. Just writing this, I’m feeling my blood pound … about William Hurt, someone I don’t know and will never know! It’s utterly stoopid. Still, I imagine being around him would make me want to kill myself. But that’s just me.

Okay. So I think we’ve established that I don’t like him. But then again ….

I love him in Broadcast News! He is SO delightfully dumb as the anchorman who admits that he sometimes doesn’t “get” the news he’s reporting. He’s hilarious, vacant, following Holly Hunter around, wanting to “pick her brain,” all because he doesn’t really have one himself. I’m telling you, the first time I saw that movie, I literally felt like I was watching him move his emotional bowels. So freeing! That movie is William Hurt’s BIG BRAN MUFFIN. I LOVED him. For 2 hours, I loved him. Turning Point, however short-lived!

Okay. My last one. Hm. There are several I could choose, actually, like Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts. I suppose could pick one or two performances from those two that I’ve liked. But they’re easy marks. He’s a nutter and she’s, well, mostly overrated, shall we say? So no, I’m not picking them. And no, I didn’t just squeeze them in here like some kind of cheat. How dare you even suggest that?? No, I think I’m picking:

10. Jamie Foxx, Collateral. Yeah, well. Look, I never watched In Living Color. I never followed his standup career. I was out of the loop, I guess. I didn’t see anything there, really, acting-wise. “Oh, a comedian turned actor. How …. new.” And then, two years ago, he won Best Actor for Ray. Okay, fine. I saw that, thought it was good, but wasn’t nearly as taken with it as some. I dunno. He just didn’t make me say “WOW” with that one. Nope. The performance he should have won for was the one he was also nominated for that year: His supporting role in Collateral. There, he plays Max, a cab driver with a dream to start his own limo service “someday” who ends up spending his evening chauffeuring a hit man (Tom Cruise) to his various ‘appointments.’ Jamie Foxx has to play a man who basically sits on his butt for a living and I love how that seems to play against Jamie Foxx’s natural energy, his intense physicality. Here, he’s subdued, his evenings driving around give him time to think and dream. And he has dreams, but he’s in a rut and has been for a long time. During this evening, Vincent, the hit man, challenges him about his life, actually engages him in philosophical conversation, as they’re driving hither and yon so Vincent can kill people. It’s surreal-ish, and yet you buy it because it’s really a character study, a dialog between two completely different men who aren’t completely what they seem to be. I love that at one point, Foxx’s character is required to run — fast — and yet his characterization is so complete, he runs as a man who doesn’t run. He runs like a cabbie who sits on his butt all day dreaming of other things. He’s just lovely in this movie, really. Subdued and unexpected and dreamy. Shoulda won for that one. Turning Point, Mr. Foxx! Actually, 2 that year, I have to say.

All riiiiighty! That’s my big ol’ rambling list. Let’s hear it from you guys now. I gotta work early in the morning, so that gives y’all some time to come up with some gooood’uns!

(WHY am I talking like I’m from the South?? Seriously, I’ve spent tooo long on this post. Nighty-night. Y’all.)

my new tv crush

I’d never watched the show “Last Comic Standing” until last week. And now I’m hooked and you should be, too, if for no other reason than to watch two real contenders — a girl with a lisp, an actual lisp, NOT a put-on, and a guy with cerebral palsy who is seriously the funniest guy on that show.

Picture this: He looks a bit like Elliott Yamin from AI if Elliott had big, wild hair restrained by a head band. Because of the palsy, he shakes, has a googly eye, and a hand that’s bent back just like the wrestler I dated in high school.

I love him.

Here’s some of his routine from tonight:

So I was just walking along the other day and the cops pull up and want to haul me off to the drunk tank. And I say, “Wait! I’m not drunk! I got cerebral palsy!” But they haul me in anyway. I’m in there for 7 days! And they’re all like, “Duuude, WHAT did you drink??”

Later:

Okay. This is the part of the routine where I tell you guys you’re all going to hell for laughing at me.

I don’t know if it translates well to the blog, because, well, frankly, some of the humor is visual. The guy is hysterical and hysterical looking and KNOWS it and is completely willing to just make fun of it. I love him. I already said that, I know, but I think I have a comedy crush on this guy.

And the lisp girl — who wasn’t in last night’s round; she’s in next week’s semi-final — is also hilarious in a refreshing, unexpected way. This is some material from her routine last week — pieced together by me (great!):

So I have this lisp. And, yeah, it’s real. And I remember my third grade teacher, Mrs. Welcher, used to take me out in the hallway and make me repeat words until I said them correctly:

“Wa-gon.”

“Wagon.”

“Waa-gonn.”

“WAGON.”

“WAA-GONN.”

“WAAAGONNN!”

Look, lady. I can say “wagon,” okay?? I don’t have a problem with “wa-gon”! And d’you know why? BECAUSE IT DOESN’T HAVE AN ‘S’ OR A ‘T-H’ OR A ‘D’ IN IT, THAT’S WHY! How about givin’ me “Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious”? I SEEM TO HAVE A *BIT* OF A PROBLEM WITH THAT ONE!!”

The way she spit out “Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious” so unsuccessfully and yet with such VENOM! I’m laughing just remembering it!

And I love her, too!

(Oh, the guy’s name is Josh Blue. Gary Marshall, who’s one of the judges here, asks him, “Josh, what made you go into standup?” Josh says, “Well, it was kind of a no-brainer. What am I going to do — be a traffic cop?” Then he demonstrates what it would look like to have a cerebral palsied traffic cop directing traffic. Um, I can’t even describe it. I just know I could NOT freakin’ breathe. Oh, and this just in: He’s on to the next round and won the “audience favorite” award — which I think includes a thousand bucks. HOORAY!! Go, Josh!!)