Smacking Down at Stinkylulu's

Dear Stinkylu provided an irresistible incentive for me to (at least briefly) return to blogging, as one of the nearest-and-dearest to my heart supporting actress years was finally selected for his enduring and endearing monthly Smackdown (now celebrating its 34th incarnation, I believe). I couldn’t image having the 1956 parade pass me by without opining regarding the nominees, so join us all over here at Stinky’s for a brand-new take on a truly fabulous five lineup of performers and their transcendent work in memorable films.

As a warm-up, here are screen caps of at least one of my favorite moments from each nominated performance (I've already professed my love for winner Dorothy Malone once before):


I've always enjoyed Mildred Dunnock's work in Baby Doll, but watching the film anew made it clear how much humor and pathos she gets into the role. Her scatter-brained antics (often regulated to the background) are very amusing, but she makes Aunt Rose Comfort both brave and tragic in her big "spotlight" moment.


I'd guess Eileen Heckart's astounding turn in The Bad Seed was probably Malone's closest competition for the Oscar- Heckart did manage to snag the Golden Globe for her incredibly vivid take on the despondent Mrs. Dagle. I think her most powerful, profound moment among many may be this final attempt to connect with Christine over the secret behind her son's death. Floors me every time.


As always, Mercedes McCambridge gets her point across with ease, this time playing Rock Hudson's overbearing sister, Luz. However, although she certainly manages to make a solid impression with limited screen time, I've never felt the part offered many challenges for the actress, or was a particularly memorable piece of work, outside of Luz taming this wild stallion. Well, trying to tame it.


Patty McCormick has stated she had a mysterious affinity with the role of Rhoda Penmark from the time she first read the play. She certainly “got” the role in a professional-beyond-her-years manner that’s as eerie as Rhoda’s obsession with that elusive penmanship medal. Sometimes theatrical affects in the performance that probably killed them on Broadway look too mannered on the screen, but McCormick’s devotion to the role is always apparent, specifically in this jaw-dropping sequence wherein Rhoda’s finally is forced to tell her understandably unhinged mama what’s up. If you haven’t been completely sucked in by the story’s wild premise yet, this scene and McCormick’s convincing emoting therein should do it.


I fear my unshakeable adoration for Dorothy Malone may not be in synch with the opinion of the other Smackdowners, but her racy, uninhibited, and very entertaining work as Marylee Hadley captured my imagination when I first viewed Written on the Wind as a teen, and she and the role still fascinate me. Sure wish more Oscar winners could appear to be having this much fun "selling" a role, while remaining true to the characterization. Her big upstairs rumba probably isn't her most impressive moment, acting-wise, but it's possibly the one that's hardest to forget.

Tears All Around (Silent video)

Well, I couldn't use the music for my latest YouTube endeavor, but I decided to post it anyway. The video's imagery is intended to match up with the Bee Gee's "tragic" 1979 #1 hit. If you can listen to the song, start it exactly the same time as the video, and the results should be pretty close to the desired effect. You can view the video over here.

Marilyn Monroe is Sugar Video

My latest YouTube endeavor features a lady who's held a lifelong fascination for me and zillions of others. Check out the results over here.


Yesterday, I caught Debbie Reynolds' final "An Evening of Music and Comedy" nearly sold-out show in North Hollywood at the El Portal Theatre. It was great fun to watch the living legend still trouping it up at 77 near her hometown with energy, wit and, yes, even grace. From humorously chastising latecomers ("Well, I got here on time!") by leaving the stage to personally greet them as they took their seats, to cutting up Eddie Fisher (my favorite line: after mentioning she grew up in a big family who, due to hard times, all had to share a large bed, Reynolds quipped, "So I never slept alone until I got married"), singing along with clips from her most famous roles, doing impressions of Katharine Hepburn, Mae West, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Bette Davis and Barbra Streisand, and finishing up with a tender rendition of "Tammy," Reynolds demonstrated how to put on quite a show, and she made it all look effortless and fun, while being extremely accessible to her adoring audience- you could actually take pictures of Reynolds throughout the show's proceedings, and she referred to the audience a lot during her nearly two hours onstage (while watching her perform, I kept thinking of the "And Debbie's out in Vegas working up a brand new act" line from the Loretta Lynn hit, "One's on the Way"- Reynolds definitely knows this territory well). A tough pro, the perfectly made-up Reynolds managed to whip through the 75 or so well-wishers after the show in record time, while still making sure every autograph was granted and every picture taken. I was too tongue-tied to say much when I finally came face-to-face with Kathy Selden, Molly Brown, and Beatrice Henderson, but I did mention my mom saw Reynolds perform in the 1980's in Reno, an appropriate comment for Mother's Day, I guess. I had enough wits about me to get an autograph to match the one Mom received over 25 years ago, and a blurry, camera phone snapshot of me and my bad teeth with Reynolds, as Debbie informs me to say "Hi" to the photographer (and yes, I didn't know what the hell to do with my left arm once it got stuck in front, as hugging a big star you don't know, even the earthy, roll-with-it Debbie Reynolds, just didn't seem appropriate):


One of my earliest and fondest movie memories was watching The Unsinkable Molly Brown on T.V. one Sunday afternoon in the early seventies with my sister, both of us sitting in a transfixed state as we followed Molly's various adventures, while from the kitchen my grandmother worried why the youngsters were so quiet. I was wary to watch the film again after I grew up and became more knowledgeable, and therefore more critical, of films, but it holds up well- Reynolds and Harve Presnell keep the whole thing moving along, and Reynolds' high spirits and go-for-broke emoting, singing, and dancing make you believe in and care for Molly. In Reynolds' case, life appears to be imitating art: as the durable entertainer begins her seventh decade performing, she shows no signs of stopping, with plans to tour with her latest act (Vegas beckons yet again, according to her website), while also overseeing work on her yet-to-open Hollywood Motion Picture Museum, located at Belle Island Village in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. If the opportunity comes up, don't miss her (and bring along that Singin in the Rain DVD or Do it Debbie's Way VHS, as Reynolds' graciously signs all memorabilia presented to her).

Dancers a Go-Go Video

I finally finished piecing together another video. I hope you enjoy viewing the results over here at YouTube.

For the Heck of It 2009 Oscar Contest- Winner Announced!

Well, I managed to get across the street from the Kodak, where I caught glimpses of Danny Boyle, Amy Adams, Fred Willard, Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and yes, as the crowd went wild, a nanosecond wherein I spotted a smile and wave towards us belonging to Ms. Jolie (putting us one up on Ryan Seacrest, anyway), while Brad lingered nearby, outside my range of vision.

Congratulations to J.B., who came closest to acing the contest by correctly guessing all ten categories and coming within one of predicting the tiebreaker (he went with seven Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire, which won eight Academy Awards). You're our winner! Runners up were Pamela/Dave, who guessed all ten categories and came within two on the tiebreaker, and Brooke and Geri, who missed one category but guessed the tiebreaker correctly. Thanks to all who entered and made the contest fun.

I love entering Oscar contests every year, and I have enjoyed the rare ocassions when I've come out ahead. I still have some leftover inventory from selling music CDs online several years ago, so why not host a rinky-dink OSCAR CONTEST to get rid of a few items and make someone a winner in the process? If anyone wants to enter, just post your picks for the following ten categories and your answers to the tiebreak questions under comments, along with your contact information (alternately, you can email me at slc2466@yahoo.com with your picks):

Best Picture (Nominees: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader and Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Actor (Nominees: Richard Jenkins, Frank Langella, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and Mickey Rourke)
Best Actress (Nominees: Anne Hathaway, Angelina Jolie, Melissa Leo, Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet)
Best Director (Nominees: Danny Boyle, Stephen Dardry, David Fincher, Ron Howard and Gus Van Sant)
Best Supporting Actor (Nominees: Josh Brolin, Robert Downey Jr., Philip Seymour Hoffman, Heath Ledger and Michael Shannon)
Best Supporting Actress (Nominees: Amy Adams, Penelope Cruz, Viola Davis, Taraji P. Henson and Marisa Tomei)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Nominees: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, The Reader and Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Original Screenplay (Nominees: Frozen River, Happy-Go-Lucky, In Brudges, Milk and WALL-E)
Best Art Direction (Nominees: Changeling, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, The Duchess and Revolutionary Road)
Best Sound Editing (Nominees: The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E and Wanted)

Tiebreaker: What film will win the most awards, and how many Oscars will it win?

As for prizes, the winner will receive 3 Time-Life (brand new! unopened!) CDs featuring 62 original pop hit recordings from 1967, 1968 and the disco-mad 1970's-early 1980's era. Here's the CD rundown:

Disc 1- "1967- The Beat Goes On"

Tracks:
1) I Was Made to Love Her- Stevie Wonder
2) Gimme Little Sign- Brenton Wood
3) Let's Live For Today- The Grass Roots
4) Soul Man- Sam & Dave
5) Brown Eyed Girl- Van Morrison
6) Your Precious Love- Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
7) Carrie-Anne- The Hollies
8) Jimmy Mack- Martha and the Vandellas
9) Nashville Cats- The Lovin' Spoonful
10) Mercy, Mercy, Mercy- The Buckinghams
11) (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman- Aretha Franklin
12) Expressway to Your Heart- Soul Survivors
13) You're My Everything- The Temptations
14) Western Union- The Five Americans
15) Get On Up- The Esquires
16) (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet- The Blues Magoos
17) Pleasant Valley Sunday- The Monkees
18) Gimme Some Lovin'- The Spencer Davis Group
19) Him or Me, What's it Gonna Be?- Paul Revere and the Raiders
20) Sock It To Me Baby- Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels
21) The Happening- The Supremes
22) A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You- The Monkees

Disc 2- "Super Hits 1968"

Tracks:
1) A Beautiful Morning- The Rascals
2) Spooky- Classics IV
3) Light My Fire- Jose Feliciano
4) The Look of Love- Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66
5) Like to Get to Know You- Spanky and Our Gang
6) Classical Gas- Mason Williams
7) Angel of the Morning- Merrilee Rush and the Turnabouts
8) I Wish it Would Rain- The Temptations
9) Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing- Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
10) Do You Know the Way to San Jose- Dionne Warwick
11) Honey- Bobby Goldsboro
12) Hooked on a Feeling- B.J. Thomas
13) Stone Soul Picnic- The 5th Dimension
14) Goin' Out of My Head/Can't Take My Eyes off You- The Lettermen
15) Grazing in the Grass- Hugh Masekela
16) Turn Around, Look at Me- The Vogues
17) Wichita Lineman- Glen Campbell
18) (Theme From) Valley of the Dolls- Dionne Warwick
19) Dream a Little Dream of Me- Mama Cass
20) Abraham, Martin and John- Dion
21) I Heard it Through the Grapevine- Marvin Gaye
22) (Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay- Otis Redding

Disc 3- "Celebration"

Tracks:
1) Maniac- Michael Sembello
2) Celebration- Kool and the Gang
3) I'm So Excited- The Pointer Sisters
4) Call Me (Theme from "American Gigolo")- Blondie
5) Fame- Irene Cara
6) Upside Down- Diana Ross
7) Physical- Olivia Newton-John
8) More, More, More Pt. 1- Andrea True Connection
9) Right Back Where We Started From- Maxine Nightingale
10) Last Dance- Donna Summer
11) In the Navy- The Village People
12) Gloria- Laura Branigan
13) (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty- K.C. and the Sunshine Band
14) Get Up and Boogie- Silver Convention
15) Funkytown- Lipps, Inc.
16) Shake Your Groove Thing- Peaches and Herb
17) Take Me Home- Cher
18) Shadow Dancing- Andy Gibb

If the winner prefers Country music or Classical music, I can send him or her a couple of CDs from those genres instead. Entries are due before the start of the ceremony on February 22nd. Good luck!

Doris Day Has Personality Video

My tribute to Hollywood's Golden Girl (literally, as Doris Day was the #1 Box Office star for four years in the early 1960's, and didn't do too much worse a lot of other years)is up over here at YouTube (choose the "Watch in High Quality" option for best results).

Spending the last couple of weeks piecing together my video salute to the talented and lovely Ms. Day allowed me the opportunity to review a lot of this versatile performer's work. Some musings:


Day was a true pro. Watching the woeful 1954 outing Lucky Me, damned if Doris doesn’t seem intent on doing her best, regardless of the sub-standard material. She comes across as cheerful and skillful doing material most performers could be forgiven for looking depressed trying to put over. However, Day keeps strutting her stuff as if she's the lead in South Pacific (as she should have been, but that’s another story), putting her musical numbers over with verve and providing the film with its sole grace note.


Day’s abilities as an actress often come under fire, especially in the lightweight sex comedies that eventually killed off much of the reputation she’d built as a solid screen performer during the first ten years of her movie career. However, I often find her occasional mugging in comic roles appealing and amusing- her wit’s fairly quick most of the time, and she knows how to gets her laughs. In her best (non-sex) comedies (Teacher’s Pet, It Happened to Jane, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and The Thrill of it All come to mind) the mugging’s at a minimum, and Day’s just about perfect.


Day’s singing brooks no criticism. Listening to her (backed by Harry James) in Young Man With A Horn singing “With a Song in My Heart” would make those angels we have heard on high jealous. In this area of her career Day rarely, if ever, hit a false note.


Day and Rock Hudson had at least as much fun working together as any other great screen team- looking for upbeat clips to use in the video, nearly every scene I watched featuring Day and Hudson found them glowing and laughing at each other to a fare-thee-well. Even when Day and Hudson’s characters are bickering away, the chemistry’s still there, making an audience believe Day could somehow end up happily ever after with the charming, womanizing cads Hudson plays in Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back.

At her best, Day makes George Michael’s claim that anyone could make the sun shine brighter than her seem sacrilegious. She’s still going strong at 84 and has received a Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Golden Globes and, more recently, a richly deserved Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, but the Academy Awards and the Kennedy Center have neglected to bestow similar honors on Day. Get with it, people.

Supporting Actress Pros and Cons

Brooke from The Performance Review is asking bloggers both near and far to name their top five favorite and least-favorite Supporting Actress Oscar winners.

My top five favorite wins (in order of preference):


1) Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind- It may not be the greatest work to win a Supporting Actress Oscar, but I once called Malone’s Marylee Hadley my favorite supporting performance, and I haven’t seen anyone who’s changed my opinion.


2) Rita Moreno in West Side Story- Moreno knocks it out of the park; her work as Anita is not close to perfection, it’s beyond it.


3) Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost- I can forgive any missteps in Whoopi’s career just for the scene wherein Oda Mae makes it clear she really doesn’t want to give away that money. She’s hilarious all-around, too.


4) Goldie Hawn in Cactus Flower- Additional proof that work in a comedy can be as Oscar-worthy as any other kind of acting. The film’s not great, but Hawn is on-the-mark in sensational fashion.


5) Sandy Dennis in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?- I don’t know what the hell Dennis thinks she’s doing, but I can’t keep my eyes off her (very entertaining, and frequently inspired) neurotic ticking. An unmatched performance, whether one views Dennis' work in a good or bad sense.

My least-favorite (from worst to bad. Coming up with this list was tricky, as after the first couple choices, there’s not a lot of Supporting Actress Oscar performances I dislike):


1) Renee Zellweger in Cold Mountain- It’s an awesome performance all right, but not in a good way. If only the concept behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was real, so I could erase this one from memory. I’m convinced an evil, untalented twin locked Renee up in a closet and took her place just before Mountain commenced filming, as I refuse to believe this is the same girl we all fell in love with in Jerry Maguire.


2) Helen Hayes in Airport- Somewhere in Heaven, Hayes is thanking Renee for achieving the impossible by being even worse in Mountain than she was in Airport. Give Hayes credit, though: in her autobiography she states she kept far, far away from the movie, until she was on a cruise wherein some (supposed) friends tried to force her to finally watch the 1970 blockbuster onboard. Hayes told them she had to go back to her cabin and throw up instead. Smart lady.


3) Jane Darwell in The Grapes of Wrath- She has some touching scenes that helped her nab the Big One, but her Ma Joad largely consists of a lot of cloying, one-dimensional acting.


4) Gale Sondergaard in Anthony Adverse- The Supporting Actress category’s list of winners got off to a fairly undistinguished start, as Sondergaard also does a lot of showy one-note acting as the adverse villainess, Faith Paleologus.


5) Miyoshi Umeki in Sayonara- I can remember her name, but her performance escapes me, as I don’t recall anything about her work in Sayonara, while all four of her co-nominees gave distinctive, impressive performances- love Umeki in Flower Drum Song, though.