study break time
Antigone is so brilliant and unsettling and I can't lay the script down for a moment. And as I'm broke I'mforced to memorize from the moniter and subsequently my eyes hurt.
just opened a nice email from one of D's improv classmates:
Hi Sonja,
>
> Just wanted to let you know how great it was to
>work with you at our little 'ad hoc improv' group on
>Wednesday night at HB. Playing a straight man to an
>actor with your talent was easy and wonderful.
>
> Here's wishing you great success and a long, long
>stay here (if that's what's best for you)!
>
>Jack Morris'
here's captivating bits and peices of the ny times review of 'Black Dahlia'...haha, so dead on it's brilliant! Dubbing the God awful Josh Hartnett as Mr. Droopy and the the normally awesome Eckhart (who is trying far to hardand it's painfull) as Mr. Hammy is perfect.
"Mr. De Palma can be a director of dazzling creative lunacy, but there’s little craziness in this restrained, awkward film. With the diverting exception of Hilary Swank, who plays a slinky degenerate named Madeleine Linscott, the leads are disastrous. Ms. Johansson and Mr. Eckhart are actors who need as much help from their directors as they can get, the kind of help that Mr. De Palma, as the uneven performances in his films indicate, cannot always provide. Mr. Eckhart flails about, mistaking volume for passion and inviting regrettable comparison to Russell Crowe running amok in “L. A. Confidential.” Ms. Johansson tries to fashion her character by flourishing a cigarette holder; Mr. Hartnett, who provides the narration, flounders on the shallows of his interpretation.
Only Ms. Swank, who puts some Katharine Hepburn into her voice and just as much conviction into the rest of her performance, delivers the goods. Her character, a rich brat out of Raymond Chandler by way of Mr. Ellroy (think “The Big Sleep,” but creepier) lives with her whack-job family in one of those mansions that serves as a tomb for its inhabitants and a monument to their ambitions.
But if he seems right at home among the Linscotts, Mr. De Palma is ill at ease when he spends time with most anyone else. His best work here, which notably involves none of the principals, is a fantastic shot that moves up from street level to peer over the roof of a building where some crows are ominously cawing. Behind the building on the next block, a woman with a carriage pauses to look at something in a lot, before breaking into a shrieking run. This is bravura filmmaking, reminiscent of some of Mr. De Palma’s other grand flourishes, in that you are both aware of the image’s self-conscious artificiality (you can almost feel the director hovering nearby) and captive to its emotional impact.
The murdered woman simply doesn’t inspire Mr. De Palma to unhinged creativity the way she did Mr. Ellroy. That said, there are tantalizing glimpses of another film interpretation in the short scenes featuring Betty Short. During the investigation, some audition reels turn up, with her trying out for a role. As Ms. Kirshner, wearing torn stockings and streaked mascara, reads for the part, looking into the camera with her spooky, clear eyes, you see need and desperation and why a frightened young woman with no resources beyond her looks might have relied on a body whose very vulnerability would finally betray her. Every so often, an off-screen male voice asks Betty a question, needling and provoking her until she crawls toward the camera like a sacrifice.
And the man behind the voice? Why, Mr. De Palma, of course."
God,I worship Mia Kirshner...
I'd kill for a role like that and I'mcontimplating how to turn some of her dialogue into a monologue
richie yelled at me for being a loud and uncortious roommate (he sleeps the strangest hours) and now I'm moping and feel like a schmuck. back to work now.
just opened a nice email from one of D's improv classmates:
Hi Sonja,
>
> Just wanted to let you know how great it was to
>work with you at our little 'ad hoc improv' group on
>Wednesday night at HB. Playing a straight man to an
>actor with your talent was easy and wonderful.
>
> Here's wishing you great success and a long, long
>stay here (if that's what's best for you)!
>
>Jack Morris'
here's captivating bits and peices of the ny times review of 'Black Dahlia'...haha, so dead on it's brilliant! Dubbing the God awful Josh Hartnett as Mr. Droopy and the the normally awesome Eckhart (who is trying far to hardand it's painfull) as Mr. Hammy is perfect.
"Mr. De Palma can be a director of dazzling creative lunacy, but there’s little craziness in this restrained, awkward film. With the diverting exception of Hilary Swank, who plays a slinky degenerate named Madeleine Linscott, the leads are disastrous. Ms. Johansson and Mr. Eckhart are actors who need as much help from their directors as they can get, the kind of help that Mr. De Palma, as the uneven performances in his films indicate, cannot always provide. Mr. Eckhart flails about, mistaking volume for passion and inviting regrettable comparison to Russell Crowe running amok in “L. A. Confidential.” Ms. Johansson tries to fashion her character by flourishing a cigarette holder; Mr. Hartnett, who provides the narration, flounders on the shallows of his interpretation.
Only Ms. Swank, who puts some Katharine Hepburn into her voice and just as much conviction into the rest of her performance, delivers the goods. Her character, a rich brat out of Raymond Chandler by way of Mr. Ellroy (think “The Big Sleep,” but creepier) lives with her whack-job family in one of those mansions that serves as a tomb for its inhabitants and a monument to their ambitions.
But if he seems right at home among the Linscotts, Mr. De Palma is ill at ease when he spends time with most anyone else. His best work here, which notably involves none of the principals, is a fantastic shot that moves up from street level to peer over the roof of a building where some crows are ominously cawing. Behind the building on the next block, a woman with a carriage pauses to look at something in a lot, before breaking into a shrieking run. This is bravura filmmaking, reminiscent of some of Mr. De Palma’s other grand flourishes, in that you are both aware of the image’s self-conscious artificiality (you can almost feel the director hovering nearby) and captive to its emotional impact.
The murdered woman simply doesn’t inspire Mr. De Palma to unhinged creativity the way she did Mr. Ellroy. That said, there are tantalizing glimpses of another film interpretation in the short scenes featuring Betty Short. During the investigation, some audition reels turn up, with her trying out for a role. As Ms. Kirshner, wearing torn stockings and streaked mascara, reads for the part, looking into the camera with her spooky, clear eyes, you see need and desperation and why a frightened young woman with no resources beyond her looks might have relied on a body whose very vulnerability would finally betray her. Every so often, an off-screen male voice asks Betty a question, needling and provoking her until she crawls toward the camera like a sacrifice.
And the man behind the voice? Why, Mr. De Palma, of course."
God,I worship Mia Kirshner...
I'd kill for a role like that and I'mcontimplating how to turn some of her dialogue into a monologue
richie yelled at me for being a loud and uncortious roommate (he sleeps the strangest hours) and now I'm moping and feel like a schmuck. back to work now.