Profile for strummergirl

I don't know, A.O. Scott's observation of Johnna's use for the play/audience and the character's race having a regional specificity was a pretty damming cold-read cover to cover. And you don't have to have seen the play to tell which are scenes feel as though they were once these stagey monologues because some performers are not really quite translating those monologues and Wells is not quite helping them along. I know people wanted either Mike Nichols or previous Letts collaborator, William ...

Saw it. I'd give it ***/*****. Nothing too egregious in the direction but the adaptation choices made by Letts had some good choices and not so good choices. The good choices were mixing Bev's monologue with talking to Johnna to work for him and Violet. But the other issues (people call this an editing issue but really it is just truncating the play), the strongest performers (and poor Misty Upham who has not much to do in this) have their scenes cut down when to me their presences throughout...

It was a downer but sung as an upper. I liked it. It belongs in Vol. 2 of A John Waters Christmas album.

I wish those people shooting off on Kinky Boots directed those energies to the icky-ness of the SeaWorld float and performance.

Oh, Twitter is ablaze with tweets with, 'I had to make my children leave the room'/'What do I tell my children???' /'Thanks a lot, Macys!!!!' after the Kinky Boots performance.

Cast photos and stills suggest that her roles will continue for the remainder of season one at least.

I am at TIFF. Let me just say complaining about studios, particularly a company run by Harvey Weinstein, making a mistake about the roll-out of this will have you laughed at. He consistently has horses at TIFF. I've lost count of how many movies he has there right now and very few of them you'd be hard-pressed to call little. Joviedamian has it right. Silver Linings Playbook benefitted from TIFF a lot and its roll-out was oft-criticized at the time but it worked in the awards nominations and ...

Loved her. Amazing in The Haunting and the backbone to Kazan's East of Eden. RIP

Her eyes go into a panic clearly searching for something in the audience as nothing but pure gibberish comes out. She can't stop or anything.

Too me she was the best foil for Archie on the show (Reiner's Mike would often just be running in circles of the same conflict). But it was definitely the dark moments that really had me taken with the character from the rape (and when the audience bursts into applause when she is able to escape after sitting in minutes of shocked silence) to her death and complicated disclosure about her illness to Archie. RIP

"Because they produced last year's Best Picture. And they are George Clooney and Grant Heslov." Argo is tied to almost exclusively Affleck for most moviegoers. And yes they are A-list producers but they are synonymous with some pretty mediocre movies that only seemed to have existed as Oscar bait that have faded from the public memory. People are going to see this movie for Streep and Roberts and the trailer really delayed that selling point.

With a cast like that, why is the trailer insistent on the first thing shown in the credits is that George Clooney and Grant Heslov produce?

Lincoln Center has her at 3:00 pm tomorrow for a Q&A conversation. I assume it is mostly for Zero Dark Thirty but it probably covers the bases that includes The Heiress. http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/a-conversation-with-jessica-chastain

That exterior scene from the party was embarrassing for McPhee. Flat, flat, flat. Ivy is my antidote.

I feel like that is the 5th time this week I saw Margo Martindale on my TV (I am also including her bit part in The Rocketeer).

Holy crap, Harvey being a gossip to Tom.

I thought Wes Taylor was named a regular?

Reviews by Nathan Rabin and David Edelstein cannot even view this as a so-bad-it's-good film but rather so bad that the-actors-had-to-be-blackmailed-to-do-this sort of film.

Wesley Morris said it best that Chastain embodies the "mono-mania" of the film. You play somebody dedicated to one thing with limited characterization beyond that obsession. The script asked for that and I thought it was delivered. Plus it appears Maya was based on a real person and judging from the Washington Post article on the unnamed CIA woman, it seems to be an accurate depiction of her work life. There is also the fact Chastain has emerged out of nowhere the last 2 years and is a nice s...

I haven't seen the play but have run into a bunch of Heiress-related questions in interviews Chastain has had this Oscars season. Obviously there was nothing in the interview where she was like, 'Catherine is totally autistic and that is how I play her' but she did mention how she and Viola Davis had a conversation about the play and how Davis remarked about the role being 'a trap' for a lot of actresses as an observer of seeing a lot of Catherines. I'd recommend her interview with David Pola...