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The bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even

Good morning, indeed.

Speaking of chemistry...

It's a wonder that the "Memorable Quotes" pages of the IMDb entry for His Girl Friday doesn't just reproduce the entire script, you know? Of course, the only way to represent on the page the speed at which the sparring dialogue between Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell [with the Greek chorus of hardbitten newspapermen and, don't forget, Mother] is rattled off would be to fill every centimeter of white space with words.

But now, instead of looking it up, you can watch the whole thing online. The film, which has passed into the public domain, has been uploaded to archive.org and is just waiting there for you to stream or download. There's also a pretty impressive collection of thumbnails, one from each minute of the film, so you can admire Hildy's impossible hats from every angle.

To be a radiant self for just a split second

The cinetrix's favorite lexicographer, David Thomson, pops up in the Guardian with a looooong examination of chemistry--that certain something--in movie pairings. [If you think of the checklist in the lyrics to "They Can't Take That Away from Me," especially delivered in Fred Astaire's reedy warble, you'll be well on your way.]

As one might expect from the man behind The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, he makes with the definitions up front:

We call this kind of thing chemistry when it shows in the way movie stars look at each other, and give every intimation of wanting to have sex the moment someone says, "Cut!" But maybe the thing happening is going on inside our heads more than theirs.

Sometimes, however, the dream of chemical combination turns into giddy passion.

It's a great sprawling piece, replete with the sort of discursive bits one expects from Thomson, but the cinetrix especially liked this:

Even after 150 years or so of still photography, many of us are wary of being photographed. We tense up. We hold ourselves against the scrutiny or the invasion. We become grim or shrill in our look. We give nothing away. And, in life, we are probably more trained in concealing our feelings than in revealing them.

But there is a type of person, not necessarily an actor, who enjoys being photographed because he or she reckons that revelation is their strength. They regard the camera as a friend, or a lover even; and it is not absurd to say that some screen gods and goddesses have had affairs with the camera. Nicole Kidman takes a positive pleasure - something not far from a passion - in being photographed. Marilyn Monroe had a similar rapport with the still camera. She was not always as happy with movie cameras, but the ethos of the still seemed to move her; it was her hope to be a radiant self for just a split second.

Far-fetched? Try photographing different people and soon enough you will notice this difference. And then, with luck, you will find someone whose whole being starts to expand when a camera is studying them.

Read the whole thing here.

Sunday morning

What better way to spend your day of rest than with Nico?

Watch a clip of her arrival in New York  from the 1995 documentary Nico Icon here. [You'll need Real Player.] The final freeze frame is the payoff. Trust me.

Some of you may not know this, but a while back, Bettie Seveert recorded an entire album of Velvets covers. I know. It's not Nico by any stretch, but in some strange way it works.

Now spend the remainder of the day mourning your own ravaged beauty.

Farmer Ted: ours forever

In either a case of uncanny coincidence or else a sign of the impending apocalypse [the cinetrix is not up on her Revelations], Maisonneuve's own Film Flâneur just filed an appreciation of Anthony Michael Hall. Yeah, you heard me. It's a brave stand Jonathan Kiefer's making. Respect must be paid.

No, he hasn’t died or anything. At least I don’t think he has. Wow, that would be terrible. Like one of those end-of-an-era things, except that the era isn’t over. I mean, when an Ossie Davis goes, or an Arthur Miller, it’s a huge loss, but it makes sense—you knew it would come and you half-expected it. There’s no way that time is up for Hall’s generation. Okay, maybe it is for Robert Downey Jr.—you half expect him to check out any time. Hall, though? He seems unfinished. This guy made it through the ringer of child stardom pretty well when you think about it, better than some. I mean, how many of those people would you really want to have a beer with nowadays? With Hall, there’s some humility there, some honest recognition of what life has given and taken; it reads appealingly on his face.

Say it with the cinetrix: I can't believe I gave my panties to a geek.

Hey, if Ilan Mitchell-Smith can grow up to be a medievalist, why not?

Will you recognize me? Call my name, or walk on by me?

Noted without comment:

Breakfast Club Cast to Reunite on MTV

Don't you forget about ''The Breakfast Club.'' At the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, to air June 9, the network plans to reunite the cast of the classic '80s movie, the cable channel said Friday.

Though Emilio Estevez, who played Andrew Clark, isn't confirmed, in attendance will be Molly Ringwald (Claire Standish), Ally Sheedy (Allison Reynolds), Anthony Michael Hall (Brian Johnson) and Judd Nelson (John Bender).

The 1985 film was directed by John Hughes, who had a string of hit films starring young people during the decade, among them ''Sixteen Candles,'' ''Weird Science,'' ''Pretty in Pink'' and ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off.''

Yellowcard will perform the film's theme song, ''Don't You Forget About Me,'' from the 1985 film. The song was originally recorded by Simple Minds.

The cinetrix has been burned by the Brat Pack before.

What does the O stand for?

Angelenos, hie thee to the cemetery for the Hitchcock flick with perhaps the most sparkling repartee in the whole oeuvre: North by Northwest, this week's Cinespia selection. True, it never hurts to have Cary Grant delivering the dialogue when you want your words to have extra zing, but Ernest Lehman's screenplay is a corker. Don't believe me?

Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself "slightly" killed.

Or perhaps you'll find this little exchange more persuasive?

Eve Kendall: It's going to be a long night.
Roger Thornhill: True.
Eve Kendall: And I don't particularly like the book I've started.
Roger Thornhill: Ah.
Eve Kendall: You know what I mean?
Roger Thornhill: Ah, let me think. Yes, I know exactly what you mean.

And don't forget, a young, oleaginous Martin Landau plays Leonard!

Leonard: You surely would have suspected....
Phillip Vandamm: You seem to be trying to fill mine with rotten apples.
Leonard: Sometimes the truth does taste like a mouthful of worms.
Phillip Vandamm: Truth? I've heard nothing but innuendos.
Leonard: Call it my women's intuition, if you will. But I've never trusted neatness. Neatness has always been the form of very deliberate planning.

The cinetrix could go on and on like this. Better you just go see the movie. I'll be there... with George Kaplan.

North by Northwest
Saturday, May 28th
NEW TIME: GATES AT 7:00PM FILM AT 8:30PM
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
6000 Santa Monica Boulevard at Gower
No reservation necessary.
$10 Tickets available at gate.

Talkies

Up front, the cinetrix should just admit that she'd be happy listening to Liev Schrieber reading tax code. It's that voice of his, which has been put to good use in several documentaries already, including the great BBC/WGBH coproduction about rock and roll several years back. It's sonorous and earthy.

Why bring this up? Well, the delightful Tuckova pointed me to this provocative little list: The All-Time Top 100 Voices in the Movies. And don't get me wrong, there are a lot of solid choices on it, but there is no Liev Schrieber. Chow Yun-Fat [in Cantonese, not English, mind] doesn't make the cut, either.

So do take a look for yourselves and let me know who else is missing. We'll write our own damn list. And when we do, we'll come up with something better to say for Ms. Lauren Bacall than "The predecessor of Kathleen Turner." Harrumph. Kids today don't know their history.

Amazing technicolor dreamcoat

The cinetrix is clearly overtired when she looks at a garment like this and feels lust in her heart.

Keep me company in the shame spiral: What's the one item of cinematic clothing you wished you owned? A leading candidate for me would be the pink Isaac Mizrahi that Shalom Harlow twirls around in in Unzipped, but there are so many....

RIP Ismail Merchant

He was 68.

Merchant died surrounded by family and friends at a hospital in London, Merchant Ivory Productions said.

''It is with great sadness that Merchant Ivory Productions announces that Ismail Merchant, our company founder and beloved producer for more than 44 years, has passed away after a brief illness in a London hospital,'' the production company said in a statement on its Web site.

Merchant, who was born in Bombay but spent most of his life in the West, had been ill for some time and recently underwent surgery for abdominal ulcers, according to Indian television reports.

As an undergraduate, the cinetrix looked at certain Merchant Ivory adaptions of novels for her thesis. A classmate, Sonali, knowing of my work, later regaled me with fantastic stories of Merchant's legendary cooking prowess and the enormous dinner parties he would host. Say what you will about the effect of Merchant Ivory's style on a certain type of art house picture--the cinetrix has always wanted to dine at his table.