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Finals Week: 'The Ghost as Domestic Inheritance in Ursula Dabrowsky's Film "Family Demons"'

16 December 2009 12:50 PM, PST | Pretty/Scary | See recent pretty-scary news »

Family Demons: The Ghost as Domestic Inheritance by Donna McRae

Low cinematic genres – (as Clover, Williams and Robin Wood and others) have often pointed out – often handle explosive social material that mainstream cinema is reluctant to touch. — Joan Hawkins (1)

Can you make a film about the aftermath of incest and child abuse and its effect on three generations of women in the same family? Would this film contain an inherited ghost running through the narrative that could represent repressed feelings of colonial guilt on another level? Could this film prick the conscience of a nation that might be shuddering in silence for all its past sins? Would you get funding for this film from an Australian funding agency if you didn't have a track record? Would this very serious film fill cinemas, especially Australian ones? Could you get international profile actors to star in your film? Or would Australian film actors like Gracie Otto, »

- Superheidi

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'Mommie Dearest' Christie Brinkley Tied to Alexa Joel Suicide Try

8 December 2009 4:45 AM, PST | TheImproper.com | See recent TheImproper.com news »

Former supermodel Christie Brinkley has emerged at the center of Alexa Ray Joel’s suicide attempt because of her allegedly shrewish criticism of Alexa and her pop star father Billy Joel. It was likely one of a confluence of events magnified by the approaching holidays that led to Alexa Joel’s desperate cry for help. In one ”Mommie Dearest” episode, Brinkley supposedly chewed a brownie in front of her daughter and spit it into a trash can, telling Alexa, who was then 10 years old: “This is how you eat a brownie without gaining weight,” a former household employee told the NYPost.“Mommie Dearest” is the 1981 movie about an all-time dysfunctional relationship between a celebrity mother and daughter. It was based on a best selling memoir by Christina Crawford, who was abused and traumatized by her mother, the actress Joan Crawford. »

- kgirard@theimproper.com (Keith Girard)

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Review: ‘Precious’

20 November 2009 8:00 AM, PST | The Flickcast | See recent The Flickcast news »

I can’t really say that I enjoyed watching Precious. To do so would make me categorically misogynistic. Precious ( Based On The Book ‘Push’ by Sapphire) is a brutally punishing look into the life of an economically depressed 16 year old living in a ghetto with her insidiously evil mother. It is jarring, unflinching, and depressing. That is not to say that it is not a good movie, but don’t go expecting a joyful denouement to the story arc. Things are not wrapped up in a typical tidy Hollywood bow.

Precious is played by outstanding newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. She is an obese, dark-skinned, illiterate 16 year old pregnant with her second child. Her first child is mentally handicapped (Precious lovingly refers to her as Monglo) and is kept from Precious at a grandmother’s house. The only time Precious gets to see her child is when it is time for a »

- Shannon Hood

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Movies I Saw as a Kid (That I Shouldn't Have)

17 November 2009 2:00 AM, PST | Momlogic | See recent Momlogic news »

C'mon, tell the truth ... have you ever taken your kids to an inappropriate movie?

Paul Starke: I was flipping through the channels this weekend, pretending to listen to my wife, when I stumbled upon the movie "Kramer vs. Kramer" -- the 1979 film that chronicles the bitter custody battle between Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) and ... Kramer (Meryl Streep). I happened upon the scene in the movie where Dustin Hoffman's son falls off a jungle gym and is rushed to a hospital ... Pretty dramatic, depressing material. And then, as if suddenly recalling a repressed dream, I remembered: My parents took me to see this movie when I Was 6 Years Old!

Times were different back then -- parents would go see whatever movie they wanted, whether it would interest the kids or not. I don't think my parents thought I'd enjoy it, per se -- they probably just thought I'd get bored and fall asleep. »

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Blu-Ray Review: Underrated ‘Orphan’ Deserved Better Blu-Ray

5 November 2009 8:25 AM, PST | HollywoodChicago.com | See recent HollywoodChicago.com news »

Chicago – “Orphan” is a surprisingly effective thriller that delivers exactly what audiences should expect from it. This is B-movie filmmaking elevated by A-list actors Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard in a clever mix of honest emotion and ridiculous, over-the-top, “Mommie Dearest”-esque insanity. The film deserved a better Blu-Ray release.

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.0/5.0

In theaters, some questioned whether or not the more ridiculous moments in “Orphan” were meant to be played for laughs or horror. I honestly don’t care. Movies are enjoyable for what they are, not what they mean to be. And I enjoyed “Orphan”. It runs way too long and features lot twists that stretch credulity but it is as genuinely intriguing and entertaining as any of the adult thrillers released this past summer.

Orphan was released on DVD, Blu-Ray, On Demand and Digital Download on October 27th, 2009.

Photo credit: Warner Brothers Home Video

The great Farmiga (who »

- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)

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AFI's 100 Years ...100 Movie Quotes

4 November 2009 4:45 AM, PST | Extra | See recent Extra news »

"Extra" brings you AFI's 100 Best Movie Quotes of all time! From "The Wizard of Oz" to "Taxi Driver," see if your favorites made the list!

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie QuotesGone with the Wind (1939)

“Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.” —Said by Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.

The Godfather (1972)

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” —Marlon Brando as Don Corleone.

On the Waterfront (1954)

“You don’t understand! »

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Desperate Housewives 6.05 "Everybody Ought To Have A Maid" Recap

26 October 2009 2:27 PM, PDT | TVovermind.com | See recent TVovermind.com news »

The moral lesson of the week, peeps, is the concept of judgment: how to judge someone, being judged, and how you handle each position of the fence were all at play this last night on Wisteria Lane. I have always loved how Desperate Housewives starts my week off with a moral lesson, which I kind of look at as Sunday school with a bit of dressing up. Anyway, let’s get down to it.

Mommie Dearest

During a play date at Gaby’s house, one of Juanita’s friends named Rachel is “injured” while sliding down the steps in a suitcase with Juanita. Rachel’s mother, Laura (guest star Barbara Aly Woods), is none too pleased about Gaby’s role as a mother. She declares that Gaby is a bad mother after Gaby is nonchalant about the incident and de-invites Rachel from Juanita’s birthday party. Thus, the seeds are »

- Mark O. Estes

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AFI Fest 2009: Something’S Gonna Live, North By Northwest

26 October 2009 12:41 AM, PDT | Alt Film Guide | See recent Alt Film Guide news »

Cary Grant in North by Northwest Among the highlights of AFI Fest 2009 is the Nov. 2 screening of AFI Conservatory Alumnus Daniel Raim’s documentary Something’s Gonna Live, which profiles several behind-the-scenes Hollywood veterans — most of whom have already passed away — including production designers Robert Boyle (who turned 100 this past Oct. 10), Henry Bumstead (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sting), Harold Michelson (Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Mommie Dearest, Dick Tracy), and Albert Nozaki (When Worlds Collide, The War of the Worlds, The Ten Commandments), in addition to cinematographers Conrad L. Hall (In Cold Blood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Road to Perdition) and Haskell Wexler (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, In the Heat of [...] »

- Andre Soares

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Screen Queens: Hammer Horror

24 October 2009 12:21 PM, PDT | FilmExperience | See recent FilmExperience news »

Hi, Matt here with your weekly dose of Queer Cinema. With Halloween coming up, we turn our focus to horror.

Hammer Horror films are not truly part of the gay canon, and as a body of films they are conservative in their narrative arcs and messages. However, I've always been a huge fan. They are undeniably camp and always feature either subtle homoeroticism or full on Lesbian Vampires. For those unfamiliar with this horror subgenre, it is a collection of films produced by Hammer Film Studios from the late 50s to early 70s that mixed Gothic melodrama with exploitation horror. The studio was most famous for their vampire, mummy, Frankenstein, and cave girl pictures.

The vampire films stand head and shoulders above the rest. Hammer's Vampires went through two major cycles, the gothic Dracula films with Christopher Lee and the later sexploitation-y lesbian vampire films. The early Hammer films are the most respectable. »

- CanadaMatt

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Movie Review: Motherhood

22 October 2009 9:01 PM, PDT | MovieRetriever | See recent MovieRetriever news »

Oct 23, 2009

Uma Thurman, recently in the Windy City for the Chicago International Film Festival, has been telling reporters that the reason she was interested in starring in Katherine Dieckmann's Motherhood is because there haven't been enough films made about the day-to-day life of the modern matriarch. That's an undeniable fact. If there's a major character in a film and the identification of her as a mother is a crucial part of the story then it's almost certain that she's either going to die in a touching hospital bed scene or turn into “Mommie Dearest.” We need more ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com »

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Villains We Love: Joan Crawford 'Mommie Dearest'

21 October 2009 4:02 PM, PDT | Cinematical | See recent Cinematical news »

It always amazes me how your perspective can change when you grow up with a movie, and sometimes the movie takes on a whole new meaning when you see it again with the eyes of an adult. When I was kid, I watched the 1980 cult classic Mommie Dearest and was terrified of Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford, the maniacal clean freak and abusive mom. But as an adult, I watch this movie, and it's pretty darn funny -- of course, that has a lot to do with watching the film with John Waters' commentary (and if you haven't heard it, I highly recommend picking up the Hollywood Royalty edition of Dearest on DVD).

Dearest was based on the exposé written by Crawford's daughter Christina in 1978, and the book dragged the Hollywood icon's reputation through the mud, and even inspired other celebrity tell-alls from other famous kids in the years to come. »

- Jessica Barnes

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Monkey Uncaged: The Ten Worst Gay Movies of All Time!

13 October 2009 5:59 PM, PDT | AfterElton.com | See recent AfterElton.com news »

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Send it to aftereltonflyingmonkey@yahoo.com! (Please include your city and state and/or country.)

A Note from the Flying Monkey: Of the many emails I receive every week for my column, some are so good that they simply can’t be answered in just a few words. So from time to time, the editors have decided to let me out of the “cage” of that regular column, in a feature we’re calling Monkey Uncaged! 

Q: What, in your opinion, is the worst gay film ever made? Why? – A.R.

A: A couple of months ago, I wrote a list of what I considered to be the ten most “important” gay male films – not what I felt were the “best,” mind you, but the ones that I felt had had the most impact either on the Glbt community or society at large. »

- Brent Hartinger

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Screen Queens

12 October 2009 6:53 AM, PDT | FilmExperience | See recent FilmExperience news »

Hi, Matt Canada here with a weekly column looking back at gay cinema classics. I think that alot of people, gay and straight alike, view gay films as formally, thematically, and socially ghettoised and sub par. It is my goal that this column will reflect the diversity, breadth, and quality of the gay canon. This body of films encompasses everything from those made by gay filmmakers dealing explicitly with gay issues (Milk); to gay authored films that are nominally straight stories, but are interpreted by many as allegorically commenting on Lavender themes (George Cukor's Rich and Famous); camp classics (Mommie Dearest); gay films authored by heterosexual directors, screenwriters and/or producers (Brokeback Mountain); and those "heterosexual films" that have always been appropriated by gay audiences as queer (All About Eve). With such a wide array of possible films to look at, this column will bring something unique to the table each weekend. »

- CanadaMatt

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Nyff: Lost Control

29 September 2009 3:23 PM, PDT | ifc.com | See recent IFC news »

Cinema have produced some memorably bad mothers -- Faye Dunaway's wire-hanger-wielding Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest" springs to mind -- but I'm hard-pressed to think of a meaner mom in movie history than Mary, from director Lee Daniels' "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," a hateful, bitter woman who manages to be the most abusive parent in a family where the father has sired two children with his own daughter. This mortal-lock-for-an-Oscar-nomination of a performance comes from Mo'Nique, the comedienne who I previously knew best as the host of a reality television show that placed her name in tandem with the phrase "fat camp." After the accolades she rightfully deserves for "Precious" start coming her way, she won't be hosting any new seasons of that series anytime soon.

Mary lives with her daughter Precious (Gabourey Sidibe), who she openly despises and treats like a servant. Precious »

- Matt Singer

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'90210' recap: How much more fun is rock-bottom Annie?

16 September 2009 6:30 AM, PDT | EW.com - PopWatch | See recent EW.com - PopWatch news »

There is no better way to make a character a thousand times more likable than to send them to the dark place. Exhibit A: Annie Wilson. Last year she was the worst combination possible of sunny and whiny. This season, she's 100-percent emo, having suddenly gone through enough stuff to make even Shenae Grimes' onetime Degrassi character cringe. (And those Degrassi kids go through a lot.) Somehow I feel so sorry for Annie that she didn't get to have sex with hot hot Liam -- what with taking the blame from jealous Naomi, she ought to have at least gotten to touch his pecs -- that I don't mind at all that she killed a dude in a hit and run on Mulholland that she's yet to be blamed for. Heck, I feel sorry for her for that, too. Circumstances really piled onto our anti-heroine this week, though she »

- Jennifer Armstrong

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'Melrose Place' recap: Mommie Dearest?

15 September 2009 10:00 PM, PDT | EW.com - PopWatch | See recent EW.com - PopWatch news »

It’s week two and the mystery is gone…maybe. It seems Melrose 2.0 has rushed to a few reveals in the second episode without letting characters, and their seedy pasts, reveal themselves more slowly. Oh well, Melrose Place was never about subtlety. In addition to seeing more of Auggie’s abs (thank you, opening shower scene!), we also learned more about his post-aa bedroom romps with Sydney and about a pre-sobriety bar fight in which his then-girlfriend died and Auggie killed a guy in self defense. The other big Sydney revelation in this flashback-rific episode was that Violet had told Sydney she was her mother. If it’s true, that’s not exactly a shocker (they’re both redheads, and Violet had stolen that photo of Sydney in the first episode). But I’m hoping that the theory is just a little too neat – maybe Sydney’s denials will turn »

- Wendy Mitchell

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The Best of the Obsessed

4 September 2009 12:26 PM, PDT | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

The Best of the Obsessed Sandra Bullock's new film All About Steve is hitting theaters today. In the film, Bullock plays Mary Horowitz, a woman who is set up on a blind date with Steve (Bradley Cooper) and instantly believes that they are soul mates. Obsessively, Mary decides to follow Steve anywhere he goes and will stop at nothing to be with him. This got me thinking about how Hollywood often produces movies centering the domineering, aggressive and downright crazy, on-the-edge female character. Today, the majority of them are stereotypes, cliched personas of other characters (such as Bullock's Mary in Steve) and are, honestly, annoying. Here are what I believe to be some of the best of the obsessed female characters to grace the silver screen. 10.Cameron Diaz in Vanilla Sky (2001) I remember seeing this film in theaters and saying to myself “Cameron Diaz better be nominated for an Oscar. »

- Eric

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Pell James--The Hollywood Interview

25 June 2009 10:23 AM, PDT | The Hollywood Interview | See recent The Hollywood Interview news »

Actress Pell James

Pell James Takes A Hot Rod To The Dark Side In Surveillance

By

Alex Simon

Virginia native Pell James hit the ground running following graduation from Nyu’s drama school in 1999, mixing TV and stage work, then landing her first high-profile part in 2005’s The King, co-starring with Gael Garcia Bernal and William Hurt. Since then, James also made impressive turns in Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers and David Fincher’s Zodiac, in one of the film’s most unsettling scenes, as one of the notorious Bay area killer’s victims.

Pell James shines in an entirely new light as Bobbi, a drug-addicted drifter who comes face-to-face with evil incarnate in Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance, a smashingly original thriller hitting theaters June 26 from Magnet Releasing. She also appears in Shrink, a tableaux-like satire of life in L.A., starring Kevin Spacey, which arrives from Lions Gate on »

- The Hollywood Interview.com

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Five Movies You Shouldn’t Watch With Mom On Mother’s Day

10 May 2009 6:07 AM, PDT | MTV Movies Blog | See recent MTV Movies Blog news »

Mother’s Day. Of our many Hallmark holidays, this is the one that’s easiest to get on board with. Mothers are the unsung superheroes of this world. They raise us and they feed us. Their love is unconditional. Even the troublemaker who leaked that workprint of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” online has a mother who loves him. Probably.

So we all agree: moms rock. That doesn’t mean they’re always welcome though. You probably don’t want to bring her to the bar or to some friend’s house party. You definitely don’t want to bring her along on a date. And unless you get a thrill from squirming around in embarrassment, there are at least a few movies that are best left for occasions other than Mother’s Day. Movies like these…

“Savage Grace”

Director Tom Kalin’s “Savage Grace” is all about the naughty mommy love. »

- Adam Rosenberg

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Mothers Day Salute: A Tribute to the Horror Moms

9 May 2009 10:00 PM, PDT | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

Well, congratulations. It’s Mother’s Day, and you’re playing on the Fangoria website instead of calling your poor mother. But why should you worry? I mean she only fed you, clothed you, and let you know when you were slouching. You just go on about your day, and don’t worry about your poor mother.

Hopefully, you are now feeling sufficiently guilty and are currently handcrafting the world’s largest and most extravagant Mother’s Day card. But before you head down to the craft store for a crate of construction paper and a wholesale bag of pipe cleaners, lets reflect on that special breed of celluloid madre, the horror mother.

May we present our count of the top 10 horror mothers:

10- Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Voorhees in Friday The 13th - Mrs. Voorhees avenges the mistreatment of her son by killing off camp counselors, warning us all »

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2009 | 2008 | 2005 | 2001

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