"Grass Widow" in Mildred Pierce (2011)

It's time for the Monday Monologue. How many of you caught Mildred Pierce (2011) last night on HBO? Todd Hayne's adaptation of the novel, previously adapted in the 40s, is a five hour affair. We can't say much as to quality yet as we're only ⅓ through (or thereabouts). Let it suffice to say for now that the new version is much different which we're immediately grateful for; no one needs a replacement of the terrific 1945 Joan Crawford noir.

Kate Winslet's Mildred Pierce, broke and forlorn.

My two favorite things about the first hours were the supporting players: Mare Winningham was tart perfection as Ida the head waitress at the diner where Mildred finds work and Melissa Leo adding to her noteworthy run as Mildred's know-it-all neighbor Lucy. Both actressses were deliciously in period; you could shove them right into a 30s movie and gobble them up with delight alongside a slice of Pierce pie.

Early in the first hour, Lucy gets a showcase bit where she schools Mildred on the complexities of dating when your marriage has broken up. She tells Mildred, who is looking anything but red hot with floured hands and apron-covered, that men now view her differently.

continue on to the monologue.

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Beauty Break: Kate Winslet

My friend Matt calls this "Mildred Fierce". I concur. The photoshoot is by Mario Testino for Lancome. Pretty pretty pretty and platinum.

I'm totally missing Kate. Stepping out of the spotlight for two years post Oscar win was a great career move. Now, I've gotta find a friend who'll host a Mildred Pierce party when the miniseries arrives on HBO on March 27th so that I'm not months behind.

I'm a freelance writer. I so can't afford HBO. tiny violins

I keep forgetting what a fine cast that the miniseries has because I get so caught up in the Winslet directed by Todd Haynes thing. It's not just Kate. He's serving up Evan Rachel Wood, Melissa Leo, Mare Winningham, Brian F. O'Byrne and Guy Pearce.

Trivia: This is the second time Winslet's had the surname of Pierce in a movie. She was Sarah Pierce in Little Children (2006). And that's not even accounting for the terrible things she did to Sarah Peirse's character in Heavenly Creatures (1994). The name just haunts her. Maybe she should guest star as Brittany S. Pierce's mom or aunt on Glee?

"It's Showtime" Bob Fosse

I have to ask: Wouldn't a Bob Fosse biopic be better suited to ShowTime  than HBO -- just on account of that catchphrase? Think of the cynergy of marketing. Somehow I'd missed (or had forgotten, more likely) the news that HBO was planning a Bob Fosse biopic and now it's been announced that Bryan Singer will direct.

Haven't any of these people seen All That Jazz (1979)?

See, Fosse already made his own (auto)biopic albeit with silly winking name-changes to protect the guilty. All That Jazz was brilliant (still is), one of the best films of a very amazing decade, and there will be no topping it ever. Face facts: he got there first. Fosse was so committed he even planned ahead by staging his own death scene for film while he still had all his chain-smoking, pill popping, eye-dropping visionary musical wits about him. Another thing that makes All That Jazz untoppable is its distinct lack of hagiography. Or sure you come away from it knowing that Bob Fosse is a genius but he doesn't dwell on this, he just is it, and there's no efforts to soften himself for mass consumption. There's lots of singing but there's not heavenly choruses declaring him Worthy of This.

Despite my reservations I would totally watch this. But it may be a long time off. The project has no writer yet and the producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron are not exactly unbusy.

What'cha think about that?