Trust me. You don't want any part of me teaching Casablanca for the umpteenth time -- an experience akin to flight attendants hearing themselves announce [with gestures] the location of the exits, keeping in mind that the closest ones may be behind you -- so we'll leave that aside for now. Forthwith, some divertissements that have kept me from proper prep or grading of late.
- Above: Bette Davis, first-rate potty mouth. Who's surprised? A blooper reel featuring outtakes from Dark Victory, Jezebel, and The Man Who Came to Dinner. Son of a bitch! Which is to say, NUTS! [via]
- This second item comes courtesy of the increasingly invaluable Vulture blog: cryingwife.com, "the official wife crying at movies site." Really. [Shudders] Its existence brings to mind A.S. Hamrah's invaluable contribution to crush video literature, and reminds me of the 'Fesser's musings regarding the "black cowgirl" phone sex ads in the back of our local alt weekly in Boston. Namely, which came first, the outre fodder or the fetish for it?
- The Siren lets her hair down with this assertion: "It is much easier to proclaim dislike for a popular movie than to admit to liking an uncool movie." Then she backs it up with her own "uncool" faves. The comments number 79 and counting. Chime in, won't you? [My answer: My Best Friend's Wedding. Yes. Julia Roberts. As a food critic. Paul Giamatti in a bit part as a bell boy at, sigh, The Drake. Burt fucking BACHRACH. Cameron Diaz in sorbet colors playing - cough - a U of C undergrad named Kimmy. But! In my defense: Rupert Everett coming the closest he ever will to playing the gay James Bond he was born to assay.]
- In honor of my anniversary Groundhog Day, the Onion A.V. Club examines the philosophy of Bill Murray. [I am left wondering how they'd categorize his neck-braced shyster turn in Wild Things. Ah, well. Perhaps next February 2nd.]
Finally, I feel it incumbent upon myself to laud FOC Dana Stevens for her debut appearance on Charlie Rose last night. If you click through, you'll note that although Annette Insdorff [of Columbia, as she'd be the first to remind you, but more on that and the sequined jacket she and Bob Mackie appeared to have killed and skinned Liberace for some other time, perhaps], Dana, and Stephanie Zacharek were holding it down avec M. Rose in New York, it's remote-from-Chicago Tony Scott's* mug that graces the thumbnail. I'm shocked, SHOCKED, etc. That said, a good, thoughtful Oscar discussion, with Dana especially -- I'd like to think even were she not she was opposite C. Rose and thus with SZ and AI to either side -- being her measuredly opinionated but always gracious and inclusive self.
UPDATED: Anne Thompson likens Dana to Louise Brooks; a Twitter regarding Insdorff's appearance that invokes QVC.
*Confidential to Scott. I haven't seen the Tolstoy flick, but calling out the leads' performance as British actors trying too hard to be Russian, when Russian emigre Helen Mirren plays the missus? Chicago's a little too close to chalk that up to jet lag, no matter HOW early you left Park Slope for Chicago that morning. Just sayin'.
