I just think of all those British actors like Vincent Price and Peter Cushing that maintained their dignity through hundreds of cheap, hokey movies.

Vincent Price was a brandname, and people hired him wanting Vincent Price. Fred Not-Established Actor has to do what the director tells him to, or he won't get work. If the director wants a caricature, that's what you deliver.

Also (to be pedantic), not British, but from the South (Georgia, if I remember correctly). Christopher Lee would have been the pick there (though certainly the keeping your dignity in appalling circumstances applies to Price in SPADES).

There is, I believe, a certain "Braugherness" that people pay AB to deliver...he has an ability, rather like Morgan Freeman's, to make really dumb dialogue sound like something that means a whole hell of a lot. But it's true that: a. Frank Pembleton was the icon, not necessarily Braugher.

b. I would probably rate that higher than the industry does because I am a big old fangirl and would be thrilled to hear my name in the Voice, right? And "Please don't be an idiot. Thank you." changed my life. Which is something your Piven-style agent is not going to cop to.

One of the few random facts I know is that Price was a Princeton grad. I saw a picture of him at about 22 in a student Shakespeare production, and oh my god, what a gorgeous young thing he was! In velvet and tights, no less.

I always remind people that Laurence Fucking Olivier did Clash of the Titans.

Don't forget that Michael Caine had to miss picking up his Oscar to film Jaws 4.

One of the few random facts I know is that Price was a Princeton grad. I saw a picture of him at about 22 in a student Shakespeare production, and oh my god, what a gorgeous young thing he was! In velvet and tights, no less.

It's funny how his career went since one of his first prominent roles was playing what basically amounted to a gigolo in LAURA.

A movie I highly recommend, by the way.

I saw two classic movies for the first time yesterday: The Hustler, which was amazing, and Dial M for Murder, which was fun.

Um... yeah. Yay classic movies!

Kattan Finds Inner Penguin

Comic actor Chris Kattan told SCI FI Wire he watched the Academy Award-winning documentary March of the Penguins to help figure out his voice for the penguin he's playing in the upcoming animated comedy Foodfight! The former Saturday Night Live comedian said he took the role very seriously and studied the cool birds before he took the role in the movie. It also stars Charlie Sheen as a dog, Eva Longoria as Lady X and Tony Longo as a Moose.

"I don't know, it helps to see what the real creatures are like," Kattan said in an interview at the premiere of his upcoming indie film with Parker Posey, Adam & Steve.

"How else did I find my inner penguin?" Kattan asked. "I ate a lot of Klondike bars and sat in a very cold pool for a long time. No, truly, I watched March of the Penguins and got some insight into my character." Kattan plays Polar Penguin, one of the birds who doesn't like the cold. "I personally don't really mind being that cold," he added.

Foodfight! is scheduled to come out in 2007 and also stars the voices of Hilary and Haylie Duff, Wayne Brady and Greg Ellis. Lawrence Kasanoff directed; he also produced the Mortal Kombat video games.

The 50 Greatest Indepenent Films

A lot of my faves are in there....

We watched Godard's Contempt and the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line (Hi, Larry!) this weekend. Between the two, I think we've covered the emotional gamut of relationship movies.

The former, for those of y'all who might not have seen it, is simultaneously about a couple who have fallen out of love and about the compromises of making movies. It opens with naked Bridget Bardot and the actor playing her husband having the least intimate sex-talk ever. Godard somehow made me feel weary and a little annoyed with myself for wishing they'd shut up so I could ogle Bardot's ass some more. The rest of the movie is split into three parts. In the first, the husband, a screenwriter, takes a job from Jack Palance (playing the sleaziest American producer ever conceived) to rewrite the script for a Fritz Lang-directed film of Ulysses (and Lang plays himself, which is awesome). Bardot shows up on the set, and the husband insists that she ride with Palance over to his estate for lunch. In the second part, the husband and wife have a very long conversation in their apartment that starts with a little idle bickering over the curtains and builds to a heated argument about whether or not they love each other any longer. In the third, the couple travels to Capri to watch the filming, and the husband again allows the sleazy producer to steal his wife away. The way the couple speaks with each other has devolved into some of the most hateful and painfully real dialogue I've ever seen in a film. Since there's three languages in the film (English, which Palance speaks, French, because the couple is French, and German, when Lang is around), there's an Italian translator around throughout the movie, and it's fascinating how she translates the various languages to the other characters. Lang never needs translation; he speaks all of the above languages, but the producer and couple don't have any language in common, and it's fascinating to see and hear the differences in what the characters say and how the translator slants it (almost always to flatter the producer's ego).

My main comment about Walk The Line is that it's pretty good as far as biopics go (and none go very far), but the way they characterize Cash's first wife is deplorable. I suspect John Carter Cash's involvement in the production amped up the nastiness of that character.

The only things I remember about Walk the Line (which I didn't watch all the way through) were as follows:

1) Dead Gay Larry played bass (dont' know who played fiddle)

2) Joaquin Phoenix, although passable as a singer, isn't low enough by half. The freaky and awesome thing about Johnny Cash, for me, is that he can hit those strange low notes that don't really sound like singing. (I think Phoenix is a tenor, so hitting the notes he did hit was an accomplishment.)

I saw Mysterious Skin this weekend, and, as a Gregg Araki picture, it was remarkably coherent, unobnoxious, and grown-up. As a picture, it was -- okay. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet were very good as the paired leads, but, the whole thing was a little in love with its own tabloidiness. Also, I wanted at least 3 more scenes after the final one, to wrap some stuff up.

(Gordon-Levitt, who coincidentally was profiled in my local paper Sunday, wore blue contacts in this movie, and looked like a hypercaffeinated elf.)