The No Longer Mighty Patty Jenkins

Hi folks, Glenn here wanting to discuss the troublesome case of Patty Jenkins.

As you may have heard, the Monster director was all set to take over the director’s chair for Marvel’s Thor 2, but things got derailed within the last 24 hours and now Jenkins is out citing that old chestnut of “creative differences” and will be replaced by somebody else, presumably quick smart since the film has a release date of November 2013.

As much as I adored Thor, the fate of its sequel is far from the biggest concern to come out of this news. No, I am more worried about what will happen to Patty Jenkins, the woman who broke through in 2003 and helped win Charlize Theron an Academy Award. Since directing Monster, Jenkins hasn’t made a single feature film and has seemingly fallen prey to the terrible female director curse that also afflicted Kimberley Peirce (Boys Don't Cry... 9 years between films) and Courtney Hunt (Frozen River... 4 years and counting). Why can’t these breakthrough indie women who were responsible for providing Oscar wins and nominations not get secondary projects up and running? Oh sure, Jenkins directed some TV recently – Emmy nominated for The Killing – but Thor 2, as strange as it sounds, was to be her return to films and I was mighty excited. 

An even more disappointing angle to the story is that Jenkins’ appointment was a significant notch in the ever-fluid trajectory of the plight of female directors in Hollywood. Not since Mimi Leder and Deep Impact has a woman been given the job of directing such a big property (or none that I can think of) and now with Jenkins out of the game, I wonder where that leaves her. “Creative differences” tends to be code for “difficult to work with”, doesn’t it? I have no worry that Marvel will find a suitable replacement for Thor 2, but wasn’t the idea of a Jenkins-helmed Thor sequel just curious and curiouser? While Sofia Coppola is making movies about Hollywood thieves, Julia Leigh is caressing controversy with Sleeping Beauty (my review), Phyllida Lloyd paints beige portraits of Margaret Thatcher, and Kathryn Bigelow does everything but give James Cameron a run for his money, it was nice to know someone of Jenkins’ status could be given the keys to such an important vehicle. What could have been will now never be realised.

I do wonder, however, what other left of centre female director choice could Marvel make for Thor 2. Maybe Mimi Leder could be brought back to big budget blockbusters? Perhaps Lisa Cholodenko is secretly just biding her time to direct a superhero movie? And you just know Gillian Armstrong has nothing to do right now. 

Who would you like to see direct Thor 2 if only they’d be given the chance?

Oscar Horrors: Carrie White Burns In Hell

In the daily Oscar Horrors series we're looking at those rare Oscar nominations for horror movies. Happy Halloween from Team Film Experience.

Here lies… Sissy Spacek’s Oscar for Best Actress in Carrie (1976). Carrie White may burn in hell (along with her ill-fated off-Broadway musical), but Sissy Spacek’s nomination remains a shining beacon of hope that genre fare from little-known actors don’t have to be relegated to, ahem, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films Awards.

Can you conceive of it today? A 26-year-old actress, in one of her first major roles, portraying an introverted teenage high schooler with supernatural powers who kills the students at her senior prom. Sounds like fairly standard genre stuff, especially when coming from the minds of an up-and-coming writer (Stephen King was paid $2,500 for the book rights) and director (Brian De Palma). Yet somehow, it became one of the few horror titles to earn prestigious acting nominations at the Academy Awards. Can you picture this happening today?

Didn’t think so.

Spacek’s performance as the titular Carrie White was only her fourth major film role after Prime Cut (1972), Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973), and Ginger in the Morning (1974). Spacek would go on to win the statue just four years later for a musical biopic about Loretta “the Coal Miner’s Daughter” Lynn, which makes this breakthrough Oscar nomination all the crazier. Did the Academy see something in her that broke through the conventions of the genre, or was this merely one of those rare moments when they were able to look past all the barriers and recognise the defining, film-changing performance within? Her only other nomination and win of that awards season came from the National Society of Film Critics. High praise, sure, but tell that to Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Yolande Moreau, Sally Hawkins, Naomi Watts, Reese Witherspoon, Ally Sheedy… well, the list goes on (presumably...the strike rate was so high going back just 10 years that I figure there must be plenty more without spending the time to research.)

Somewhere behind the smooth as honey tracking shots, blood-splattered prom dresses and John Travolta (“in his first motion picture role!”) smashing a pig on the head with a mallet (I couldn’t quite stomach Carrie as a younger man due to this very scene), Spacek emerged. It probably helped that the young actress had the gloriously villainous Piper Laurie in her back pocket to help shine a light on her. Laurie, a previous nominee in 1962 for The Hustler, received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for being a mother that would make even Mary Jones shake in her boots. As mother/daughter combos go, the Whites are a doozy of a pair.

A quick look at the original trailer and you’d be hard-pressed to believe this was the sort of thing that would be to the Academy’s taste and yet Spacek’s repertoire of jutting sideward glances, shy upwards looks from behind flattened hair and high-pitched whelps of demonic terror makes for one of the greatest horror movie performances of all time. At a glance Carrie looks like little more a schlocky teen horror title; would Academy members even watch a film like that today? That Spacek lost the Oscar to Faye Dunaway in Network is hard to quibble with, but the miracle of the nomination is enough to keep me happy. 

Related
Oscar Horrors Rosemary's Baby, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, The Fly and more..
Top 100 Best Actress "Characters"
Sissy Gets Her "Star" 

'Happy 50th Nastassja' That's One From Our Hearts

Nastassja Kinsi by Richard Avedon

Editors note: For Nastassia Kinski's 50th birthday, I asked Glenn to write up a bit on her appearance in "One From the Heart" since it's a movie I know he loves (even more than me and I like it quite a lot) and also because I like to mark the big milestones for actresses and films. If you haven't seen this movie rent it. If you're too young to know Kinski's work, other must sees include Roman Polanski's Oscar nominee "Tess", the horror remake "Cat People" and Wim Wenders "Paris Texas". Here's Glenn from the great blog Stale Popcorn.

I’m going to commit what must be one of the ultimate cinephile no-no’s and go on the record as stating One from the Heart is my favourite Francis Ford Coppola film. Yes, moreso than The Conversation or Apocalypse Now, even moreso than The Godfather parts one and two, Coppola’s One from the Heart is a personal favourite that, to be sappy and pun-tastic at the same time, I hold very dear to my heart. I don’t have time to get into the hows and the whys, because I’m here to discuss Nastassja Kinski!

Is she for real?

Kinski’s Leila first enters the picture over 30 minutes in, her hair slicked back, waving a sparkler, wearing a beaded yellow one-piece costume and draped with a cape. When Frederick Forrest asks “Is she real?” you have to wonder the same thing. This was Kinski’s first American production and her film following her breakthrough in Roman Polanski’s Tess and she couldn’t have a more eye-popping entrance.

Before long she’s romancing Forrest by performing a dance routine in a neon-lit martini glass to the bluesy trumpet of Tom Waits’ Oscar-nominated music. Coppola himself has said that he envisioned Kinski’s Leila as a "Felliniesque circus performer to represent the twinkling evanescence of Eros,” whatever that means, but her sexy gymnastic routine around the rim of this giant, novelty prop remains the film’s most lasting, and seductive, image. Coppola didn’t exactly make Kinski stretch herself by casting her as an exotic, German goddess, but in the mean time he cemented the image that we all still have of her. And then, poof, “like spit on a grill” Leila is gone; the perfect encapsulation of Las Vegas’ intoxicating, but short-lived high.

But didn’t she leave quite the impression?