I'll always have Strathairn in my head as Eddie Cicotte, from Eight Men Out. He sits on the bed of this tenement apartment, his wife massaging his arm, and they're so hard up for money -- suddenly I was like, You absolutely ought to rook the owner for all you can get. Go Black Sox!

when and how the studio system changed and ended.

It was a process, I think, started by a court case where it was decided that a studio may not own movie theatres, because it acts as a monopoly. As the studios began to have to really compete with each other, and compete with television (which cut into their profits), actors realized they could go to the highest bidder per picture rather than for a long contract.

(I read a great biography of Burt Lancaster 4 years ago, in which I learned that Lancaster was a pretty powerful and successful producer. He got the producing gig basically by leveraging his power as a star in the 50s, and eventually was able to make films where he didn't even appear. I think he stayed within the system for a long time, but that's basically a step along the way towards actor-independence.)

I think it started happening in the 1950s, but as late as the late-60s "studio contracts" still did happen. Sometimes when they do retrospectives of Harrison Ford, they'll show footage of him from when he was a contract player for a major studio -- they had him playing bellhops. Not really a surprise that he took up with the independent George Lucas, rather than stick with that kind of boredom.

I saw A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE - I really liked it a lot. The climax of the movie felt a bit too conventional, but I thought the actual last scene of the movie was nice and quietly ambiguous.

I thought all the actor's were amazing. I even liked William Hurt, but, then, I've liked him a lot of things. However here he was playing a character like I've never seen him play before. Plus, he got one of my favorite lines in the movie: "How could you fuck that up???!???!?" - you could practically SEE the interrobang.

The theater was almost empty (4 pm show on a Tuesday), but there was a loud group in the back. Luckily, they didn't talk during the movie and, apart some hugely inappropriate laughter (I thought) during the "angry sex" scene, it was interesting seeing it with them because the movie worked like gangbusters on them. There were audible gasps at several points - usually in the shots of the aftermath of the violence, but also a HUGE one when Viggo said "I should have killed you back in Philly" to Ed Harris.

Robin, cool. Looking forward to GNaNGL. One of my "sitting around and talking' movies.So called because of this: MOM: That's just a bunch of people sitting around talking.
ME: Yeah. Isn't it cool?
Maybe that's what attracted me to "The Wire'...It's a crime show and a sitting around talking movie with one of my favorite TV stars, Baltimore, on it.

Hey, Erika, I just realized that the finance teacher from last week's Veronica Mars also played Levy on The Wire. It's been bugging me all week who that guy is.

Weird...gotta get back with the Mars love...my Dem meetings are that night and etc. Wonder if he's a bad guy there too. "I got the gun. You got the gradebook." Bodie sells Hershey's chocolate...much better business for him, actually, the cocoa game. But I was all sputtery recognizing him cause it can still be hard to keep the cornerboys straight. But it came back so I was less afraid about the aneurysm thing, as in having one.

Yeah, i've seen Bodie out there. Bub's partner (what was his name?) showed up in an episode of My Name Is Earl. Kima's girlfriend was in a Verizon commercial. And Veronica Mars played That Guy Who Was Levy's character rather noble.

Has anyone heard anyting about Charlize Theron's new movie North Country? I've only seen it advertised in women's magazines and for a bit thought it was period piece. It's not, it's based on a true story about a woman who took work as a miner and then faced and fought against harassment.

My tagline is from the AP wire article about political films, they talk about George Clooney's new movie, I wasn't planning on seeing North Country, but I now I'm interested.

Has anyone heard anyting about Charlize Theron's new movie North Country?

I've seen it.

I must have been skimming or skipping that day.

I'm going to definitly see it.

Why has Gary Oldman never even been NOMINATED for an Academy Award?