Cranky Lesbian

Look what the homosexuals have done to me!

Tag: Ellen Page

This Week on DVD: January 29th Edition

By

On January 29, 2008

In Home Video

The best new DVD release of the week is only slightly new, but it’s so good that it’s worth pointing out to anyone who missed it the first time around: Warner Brothers has re-bundled their two-year-old Val Lewton Collection with the new documentary Martin Scorsese Presents Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows, which recently debuted on TCM and will also be available separately.

For those of you with one-track minds, lesbian subtext found its way into several Lewton movies (he was Alla Nazimova’s nephew, after all), most memorably 1943’s The Seventh Victim, but what makes this set so remarkable is that it gives fans an opportunity to appreciate the scope of Lewton’s visionary ability to recognize directorial talent and emphasize psychological horror in response to budget constraints. Also, Simone Simon was the hottest “cat woman” ever, until Michelle Pfeiffer came along.

If you think my eyes are distracting, wait until you hear my accent.

Also new on DVD:

Glenn Close fans can gorge themselves on 500+ minutes of her new FX series, Damages, as the complete first season makes its way to DVD. Rose Byrne, Ted Danson and Tate Donovan costar.

Sophia Loren is reliably gorgeous in El Cid, which gets the 2-Disc Deluxe Edition treatment, but you’ll also have to sit through two hours of Charlton Heston.

If you’re so inclined, you can relive Groundhog Day over and over (and over) again, this time with a Special 15th Anniversary Edition release.

Sony releases Monty Python’s Life of Brian in a new Immaculate Edition; the Criterion Collection edition is still available.

Spellbound documentarian Jeffrey Blitz focuses on nerdy kids again, this time in an acclaimed fictional film, Rocket Science.

Mary McCormack, who played Nia Long’s partner in The Broken Hearts Club, stars in Right at Your Door, a thriller about dirty bombs in Los Angeles that is bound to make you queasy.

Monday Morning Short Cuts

By

On January 28, 2008

In In the News

Julie Christie looked great at the SAG Awards last night, just as you’d expect. Equally unsurprising, Juno star Ellen Page was born without the dress posture gene:

“Why, yes, I used to play team sports.”

Five minutes with John Travolta would change all of that, but it’s imperative she bring along someone who can yank her out of the room when the E-meter comes out. I volunteer Diablo Cody.

Is Hayden Panettiere the new Jane Fonda? (These Washington Post reporters are referring to her activism, of course. While my exposure to Heroes is limited, I did catch Panettiere in Raising Helen and I don’t think we’ll be seeing her in a remake of Barbarella or Klute or Tout va bien.)

In an interview with New York Magazine, Clay Aiken forgets that he isn’t Lucinda Williams and journalist/fellow lesbian Ariel Levy isn’t Bill Buford as he plays up the Southern shtick. What you’ll learn, if you can hang with the Aiken for four excruciating pages, is approximately this: he’s a Democrat now, a shameless self-promoter, and he “has never had a romantic relationship with anyone, unless you count the girls he took to dances back in high school in Raleigh.” Sounds perfect for Raúl Esparza.

Reviews of Shelby Lynne’s Just a Little Lovin’ are coming in, and you can read them here and here. If you’re looking for Lynne’s contentious Advocate interview, we’ve got the scoop.

The Times points out that Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama have identical opinions on gay rights issues, while fear-mongering Republicans continue to pander to bigots.

Margo Bennett, the former lover of crazy lesbian novelist Patricia Cornwell, is blabbing about their relationship—you know, the one that made headlines when Bennett’s husband hatched a murderous plot that landed him behind bars—in an upcoming book called Twisted Triangle. In a passage that makes Cornwell’s schlocky prose sound downright Proustian in comparison, authors Caitlin Rother and John Hess write: “As they talked, Margo felt the blood coursing through her veins, very aware of the close proximity of her body to Patsy’s. It felt dangerous. Wrong. Thrilling.” Anyone else think this would make the perfect made-for-cable comeback vehicle for Kelly McGillis?

Ellen Page on The Breakfast Club and Blow Jobs

By

On January 14, 2008

In LGBT Actors

Ellen Page in Hard Candy: “I fucking hate Goldfrapp…but love Team Dresch.”

Clearly this item belongs in the department of delayed reactions bin—this New York article first appeared in late November, before I started spewing nonsense here—but out of the kindness of my heart I’m posting it anyway, for the throngs of young lesbians who have been running straight home from screenings of Juno en masse to Google “Ellen Page + baby dyke.” (I know you’re out there because I’m related to one of you.)

From Page’s interview with Logan Hill:

“What they do to Ally Sheedy at the end of The Breakfast Club,” she groans, recalling how Sheedy’s androgynous loner gets a pink Barbie makeover so she can kiss the jock. “How could that have been allowed to happen? No, really. I mean it. I know it’s iconic…but you’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Think about the poor kids who’ve watched this stuff,” she continues, leaning into her argument. Films like that make tomboys like her “start judging ourselves, just because, you know, you’d rather climb trees than give blow jobs.”

And Hill notes of Juno:

The movie could very well make her a star, not just the next Molly Ringwald but the next Johnny Depp: a transgressive teen idol whose weirdo-hero crossover appeal might evolve into real staying power. But perhaps it really is best that she avoid L.A. Because right now she’s watching herself play one kind of girl yet still being pushed toward another. “It’s just freaky. Like, are we really still stuck there?” she asks, noting that a few photo shoots have already set off waring bells. “Every shoot, I don’t want to be thrown some lacy pink shirt—sometimes I would prefer to not wear a shirt at all. At least I’d be owning that moment.

I mean, Annie Lennox used to be able to dress like a man and sell albums,” says Page, in her flannel shirt and Converse sneakers. “I don’t think a big star could do that right now.”

So, let’s tally things up. Ellen Page calls out John Hughes on his hackiness, points to Annie Lennox as a style icon, and comes out in favor of climbing trees over giving blow jobs. By my calculations that means she kicks ass, and that must be celebrated now, before Hollywood chews her up and spits her out, right onto the sets of movies like Anna and the King and Flightplan. And don’t play dumb about that last part; you wouldn’t be here right now if you didn’t think there were a few similarities between Page and Jodie Foster.

Speaking of which, if you’re disappointed by a lack of explicit lesbian content in this post, thinking perhaps I’d have footage of Page re-creating scenes from Bound with one of her Canadian compatriots to offer you, I have two things to say. First: You’re an idiot. Second: Keep an eye out for an upcoming movie called Jack and Diane, which stars Page and will feature some lesbianism with a lycanthropic twist. It is undoubtedly the film Lon Chaney Jr. always wanted to make.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén