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Lois lives a little

The cinetrix is still having a hard time grappling with the senseless nature of Adrienne Shelly's death. As mouthy Maria in Trust, Shelly seemed invincible, the first in a long line of tough, radiant Hartley beauties.

In 1997, the cinetrix was living in New York and was fortunate enough to see two of Shelly's directorial efforts. The first, her debut feature Sudden Manhattan, I saw at that theater on 11th . I found it a little meh at the time, perhaps because the already not-cute Woody Allen neurotic shtick becomes even less cute when it's a young woman floundering about. [What can I say? I was myself a floundering young woman. I suspect it may have hit too close to home. I'd love to see it again. I remember how beautiful and hidden she made certain streets in the Village feel.]

The other was a short Shelly shot for Lifetime, which screened as part of a slate of women-directed flicks at Lincoln Center. The channel had commissioned them for an on-air "film festival" for viewers who lived too far away from any real fests. [Imagine! The cinetrix snickered knowingly along with the rest of the urbane audience and now, well, I live in the hinterlands.] The only two things I remember about the program was that the head of Lifetime was a man, and that Shelly's short, Lois Lives a Little, was hilarious.

Lois [Alix Elias--Coach Steroid from Rock 'n' Roll High School] is a frowsy hausfrau on Longuyland, fed up with her marriage and prone to increasingly elaborate romantic fantasies about the boy who does yard work.  In her Walter Mitty-meets-Harlequin-romance imaginary life, she swoons around in bodice-ripper togs, while in her drab real life, she packs and repacks her bags, dreaming of a tropical escape. Does she eventually rekindle the spark with her nebbishy husband? Does she confuse dream with reality and frighten the unsuspecting yard boy? The cinetrix can no longer remember, but she'd sure love to see it again.

I hope Shelly's family will someday find some peace. As for me, this exchange from Trust has been rabbiting around my brain ever since I first learned she was gone.

Matthew: I respect and admire you.
Maria: Is that love?
Matthew: No, that's respect and admiration.

I had all that and love for her work, in front of and behind the camera.

Every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.

For those who wondered what would happen if Mike Judge's Office Space was a lot more like Cindy Sherman's Office Killer.... [Thanks, slobra.]

Mmmm, yeah.

This is. A Public. Service. Announcement

You people know what to do. Don't make the cinetrix go all Jimmy Cagney Yankee Doodle Dandy on your asses.

Kisses.

Off with her head

Thwarted.

That's how the cinetrix feels. On the last day of her sojourn to the big city and having dispensed with her for-pay obligations, she'd planned on making this an afternoon of cinematic whimsy: Marie Antoinette at 1:30, followed by The Science of Sleep at 4:30. Please note the time stamp below.

I wafted into the lobby of the theatre, primed and ready for a little New Order-infused monarchy, only to be informed by the underpaid peons at concessions that the Austrian fashion plate would escape with her pretty neck intact today. The projector was broken.

The projector was broken? Homies, puh-leeze. This is what comes of relying on unskilled workers and the platter system. In fact, I'm pretty sure historians would cite this as evidence of an empire in decline.

So what should I do to pass the time between now and my date with Charlotte Gainsbourg? Short of learning how to fix a projector, that is?

Looking at my WWSD [What would Sofia do?] bracelet, I realize there's only one answer: shop for something bon chic, bon genre. Back soon.

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema

Rockstar film theorist Slavoj Zizek sits on a toilet to discuss how a sequence in Coppola's The Conversation invokes the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. And then he talks about The Birds. Also, shit. It's like someone read the cinetrix's mind and made a television show just for her. Seriously, watch it just for Zizek's masturbatory hand gestures. Comedy genius.

[Thanks to J.M. for the tip.]

Sweet home Chicago

Lock up the flamethrowers.

The cinetrix just got word that a mere 15 years after she first headed off to study film in Chicago [and left somewhat ignominiously soon thereafter], she'll be rolling back into town to present a paper at the 2007 Society of Cinema and Media Studies conference this March.

Truth be told, I'm pretty geeked to lose my conference presenter virginity at the schmanciest confab in the field. Here's why: I first thought of the paper while enrolled in a program from which I did not earn a Ph.D. And Chicago is where I first failed to matriculate into a doctoral program. Now I know how Jackie Earle Haley must feel.

You aren't too smart. I like that in a man.

To observe el dia de los muertos, the 'Fesser and the cinetrix have this little ritual we like to call "thinking of the perfect Halloween costume one day late."

The cinetrix spent her Halloween afternoon watching Lawrence Kasdan's satisfying little neo noir Body Heat for the first time. So this year my candidates are Matty Walker [tight white dress, lots of hair, smoker's voice] and Ned Racine [sleazy early '80s moustache, dangling cigarette, epic pit and back sweat stains]. Incendiary devices and convertibles are optional, but encouraged.