Anne Hathaway Catwoman

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You can watch this entire scene from Preston Sturges' brilliant 1941 comedy The Lady Eve over here. I almost quoted the entire thing but you should just watch it. This is how you start a movie and introduce your characters.

It almost feels derogatory at this point in our cinematic history to call The Lady Eve a rom-com, the genre's name is so sullied by years upon years of dreck, but this is one of the gold standards and should be enough to keep "rom-com" in everlasting luster. I really can't hurl enough crazy-in-love superlatives at this movie, and the one-woman charm-school that Barbara Stanwyck is presiding over. She's the damiest dame to ever dame - she gives me goose-pimples and then pops 'em with a sly side-eye. Nobody, certainly least of all Henry Fonda, stood a chance side-stepping her beguile.

Oh and I chose that specific quote because I had no idea who Lillie Langtry was and her Wiki makes for a fascinating read. She was a close friend of Oscar Wilde, was the mistress of a couple of princes, and was the first woman paid to endorse commercial products. It was for Pears Soap, and "her fee was allied to her weight so she was paid 'pound for pound.'" (Kirstie Allie is so jealous!)

The Lady Eve is being shown in Bryant Park tonight for free. 

The heat wave's broken so you got no excuses, New Yorkers!

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Jordan (James Duval): I feel like a gerbil
smothering in Richard Gere's butthole.

Amy (Rose McGowan): There just is no place for us in this world.

Now that's love.

When I first pressed my mind to this topic I thought of course it was Scream where I fell for Rose, that was the first time I'd ever seen her in anything right? So I looked at her filmography and was all hot damn hold up, The Doom Generation of course! A film I wore out the tape of in college... although that wasn't entirely due to Rose, I'll readily admit.

But Rose was there and I loved her from the start. She was just awash in instant charisma, an instant star. And then Tatum Riley came just a year or so later to cement her place in the snark hall of fame. Bam, superbitch! I hope the Conan movie lets her live and breathe and be her awesome self a little bit - I miss her.

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I was reminded of this scene from Go - which you can watch below - with Craig's wonderful look at three of Melissa's best performances over at The Film Experience over the weekend. Save Wiig she's obviously the big break-out coming out of Bridesmaids - which I've been contemplating going to see a second time; didja hear how it became the highest grossing Apatow movie of all time the other weekend? Fuck yeah Wiig! - and Craig's right on with how excellent she is in The Nines. But we all fell in love with her for the first time in this scene, didn't we? And then we stood around waiting and waiting for ten years. It's about damn time!

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I find it strange looking through Tilda's filmography and realizing that of all the movies she's made it was the one starring Keanu Reeves where she won me over, but there it is. I was too young to get Orlando the first time I saw it (I've since fixed that), and of the few things I saw her in before seeing Constantine I'd liked her but not fallen for her. For example, she's obviously fantastic in The Deep End and I remember admiring her work there very much, but I wouldn't say I fell for her with it. She didn't become TILDA, force to be reckoned with and worshiped. Every else I love her for I'd see later - like, I've only started seeing her work with Jarman recently. So it was with golden ringlets and filthy swan wings as the hateful archangel Gabriel that something clicked into place, and it's been nothing but acolyte duty since. Thankfully she's proven her worth time and time and time and time and time again. And again. And again again. I just snoozed through Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control over the past two nights hoping for a couple more glimpses of her - far far too little her and far far too much Paz de la Huerta - and now I hold my breath in anticipation of what astonishments she'll deliver later this year with We Need To Talk About Kevin. Gimme gimme, I want it all.

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"That's right... who's laughing now?

WHO'S LAUGHING NOW????"

Wow, have I really never done this one before? For shame, me. Happy birthday, Bruce! Evil Dead II was the first one I saw and there's never been no looking back. You are and always will be The Man. Now let's watch the whole scene that moment's from because why wouldn't we watch the whole scene that moment's from?

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