Friday, December 23, 2011

Musically Inclined

I've been actively following the American awards season, as I am want to do, but haven't been discussing it here at all (Twitter is another thing altogether!) I figure there are so many other websites, written by people far more plugged in to the whole affair (they live in America, generally) writing about it at a far quicker pace than I could ever muster. Take not of how quiet it has been around here the last two week!

I plan on doing some end of year pieces in the vein of the "design of a decade" countdown I did last year to celebrate the '00s and everything I loved about them. They should start up after Christmas, but until then I wanted to direct your attention to this fabulous piece at Indiewire that gives a very comprehensive rundown of the year's best musical scores. Just today the Academy announced the 97 films eligible for Best Original Score so there was synchronicity there. Sadly missing from the list of scores to compete is Cliff Martinez for Drive, but I can understand the omission since so much of the film's revolve around the musical themes. To be honest, I think Drive is the best film of the year and even I don't think Martinez would make my personal ballot, but it's a shame one of the most acclaimed scores of the year cannot compete. Martinez still has his fantastic work on Contagion to battle for so there's still hope for the former Red Hot Chili Pepper!

The Indiewire piece though is a definite must read. Or, should that be must listen. Both, really. Highlighting over 20 of the year's best musical achievements, including personal favourites Jane Eyre (Dario Marianelli), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), The Skin I Live In (Alberto Iglesias), Rango (Hans Zimmer), Hugo (Howard Shore), Attack the Block (Basement Jaxx) and Rubber (Mr Oizo). I had an Academy member's ballot I would be feverishly scribbling down Contagion, Hanna (The Chemical Brothers), Insidious (Joseph Bishara), The Skin I Live In and either Hugo, Jane Eyre or Attack the Block. My vote would go to Insidious because, I guess, that's how I roll. I look forward to Jed Kurzel being on the list of eligible contenders next year for his claustrophobic sonic landmine score of Snowtown when it finally/hopefully snags an American release in the new year. I know I keep harping on about that Aussie's film's score, but it bears repeating time and time again just how incredible it is. I didn't even like the movie and the score gives me the shivers. Every time I mention it I search on YouTube for a video of it, but to no avail. Now, however, there is at least this video of the music being performed at the APRA Screen Music Awards at which Kurzel won. Listen to it below alongside some of my other favourite compositions of the year.









Review: War Horse

War Horse
Dir. Steven Spielberg
Year: 2011
Aus Rating: M15+
Running Time: 146mins

Steven Spielberg’s latest film, War Horse, opens with picturesque shots of rolling British countryside set to a boisterous John Williams‘ score. You’d be forgiven for thinking Spielberg and his screenwriters, Lee Hall and Richard Curtis working from Michael Morpurgo’s novel and the Tony-winning Broadway play, were desperate to choke sobs out of their audience from the opening moments. Even if you’re not crying yet, they will keep trying and trying until only the blackest of hearts are left un-moved. I guess I should hand in my organ donation card because I clearly don’t have a heart judging from the dismissive reaction I had to this patently artificial film.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Review: Albert Nobbs

Albert Nobbs
Dir. Rodrigo Garcia
Year: 2011
Aus Rating: M15+
Running Time: 109mins

“Sing to me softly / your tales of woe,” wails Sinead O’Connor in the theme song to Albert Nobbs. It’s a particularly significant lyric from the song that plays over the credits of this drab affair that gently whispers its tale of never-ending woe amid a sea of grey and tweed. Director Rodrigo Garcia has made an unadventurous film that has only the smallest of fires in its belly. Albert Nobbs barely registers on any level whatsoever, with its potentially fascinating subject matter blunted by an adaptation that has taken its protagonist’s buttoned-up personality to heart and been sapped of life and character.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

I mean, really. Good grief, could this movie be any more bland?

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Review: Happy Feet Two

Happy Feet Two
Dir. George Miller
Year: 2011
Aus Rating: PG
Running Time: 100mins

Five years after those toe-tapping penguins sashayed into cinemas, George Miller returns to Antarctica with Happy Feet Two. A truly strange animated film that I can’t fathom many people clamoured for, but still manages to succeed at being an inventive experience. While the plot – Mumbles must save his penguin clan after they become trapped by a moving glacier – seems curiously secondary, where Miller succeeds is in the oft breathtaking animation, choice music selections and a truly radical subplot involving a pair of krill that must be seen to be believed.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

You may remember that I spoke of this film last week and I still find that aspect of the film to be particularly memorable. Good to know.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Trash for Treasure

I have been slowly making my way through the Paul Morrissey boxset, "The Andy Warhol Collection". It's been wonderful and weird in equal measure; I liked that Heat was like some warped version of Melrose Place and that Flesh for Frankenstein was their version of a lush, lavish period piece. And in 3D no less! That dinner table sequence with the panning camera was simply divine, and that finale is some sort of cracked out insanity right there! I can't say that any have had the potency and the sticky imprint of Flesh though, which was a rather incredible piece of cinema that is edited through a woodchipper in the same way Lars von Trier does and photographed like the lens has been smeared with grime and sweat. Nick Davis' typically intuitive write-up of that film for his Top 100 Films list has a particularly delicious comparison to Douglas Sirk and melodrama that I can't say I'd particularly thought about before, but now can't do anything else.

Still, it was while researching Trash that I came across perhaps one of the greatest bits of movie trivia ever. Oh sure, some people think it's absolutely wild that Tom Sellick was meant to be Indiana Jones, but I found this bonmot regarding transgendered actress Holly Woodlawn to be the very definition of amazing.

In October she was assigned a bit role in Trash, but so impressed director Paul Morrissey that she was given a larger role. In 1970 she received word from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that George Cukor, supported by others, was petitioning the Academy to nominate her for Trash however, nothing came of this campaign.

Apparently George Cukor, Oscar winning director of My Fair Lady, The Philadelphia Story, and many others, initiated the campaign and got signatures from Ben Gazzara and Joanne Woodward. Doesn't this just blow your mind? Actors and filmmakers of their calibre are not the kind you would expect to go to stumps for a transgendered actress in a no budget independent movie that features intravenous drug use, full frontal male nudity and lots of sex. Woodlawn's performance is electrifying and magnetic, I literally couldn't take my eyes off of her even when she's sharing a scene with a naked Joe Dallesandro (and given he's one of the sexiest actors to grace the screen, that's a tall order). Cukor's initiative was obviously doomed, but it certainly makes me curious as to what other fringe dwellers caught the eye of the Hollywood establishment.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 10 of Scream 3 (0:32:46-0:35:31)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!



SCENE 10 of Scream 3
Length: 3mins 15secs
Primary Characters: Detective Kincaid, Detective Wallace, Gale Weathers, Dewey Riley, Roman Bridger and Jennifer Jolie
Pop Culture References:
  • Hannibal Lector and Se7en (examples of similar scenarios given)
  • Jane Pauley (Dt Wallace jokes about her)

More of the whodunnit aspect of Scream 3, here. The other two definitely had this aspect, but in line with Scream 3 being a riff on older horror films rather than the slashers of the first two entries, the mystery angle is far more prominent here. The franchise was always a bit better because of this angle, but if they were going to do that then I wish they'd made the mystery solving scenes a bit more punchier, like the Randy death scene in Scream 2 or better integrated into the horror genre like all of Gale's snooping throughout Scream.

"The old killer playing with the cops routine. Very Hannibal Lecter, very Se7en."
"Doesn't the killer come after the cops in those movies?"
"Usually one cop makes it... and one cop doesn't. Usually."

Another reason to dislike the Adam Brody/Anthony Anderson characters in Scream 4 is that the very reason for their existence was already actually utilised in Scream 3. They were there to provide the comic dialogue about cops who are one week away from retirement dying and all that, but did everyone just forget that they were in Scream 3 doing the same? Maybe Kevin Williamson wrote that scene of Scream 4 and hadn't actually even watched Scream 3 because he felt bitter about how it all went? Just like he apparently did with Scream 4. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, more blood in this long shot of Sarah Darling's crime scene that there actually was in the scene itself. I guess she fell on a lot of glass?


I love that Dewey and Gale just show up at a crime scene and somehow get inside when not even Detective Wallace is aware that they (well, Gale Weathers, at least) is working with Detective Kincaid. Whoever let them in is doing some sloppy security detail!

"The produces told us that there are three different versions of the script. Something about wanting to keep the ending off of the internet."

I definitely think Scream 3 (and later Scream 4) went too far into the self-referential territory. At least for less obsessive fans. Like I've noted already, the films that Scream 3 appears to be referencing most are its own franchise with far less nods to Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street and so forth. A line like this one only works for people who have followed the Scream franchise well enough to know the stories about how the Scream 2 screenplay was leaked online and that the film had to be rejiggered as a result. So, while lines like this amuse people like myself, most viewers were probably like "haha! the internet! :/"


Peter Deming is the director of photography on Scream. According to this shot he is also the director of photography of Stab. He likes his Ghosty slasher flicks! Plus, further on from what I was saying up above about Scream 3 taking after older, less slasher-bred horror films, the font used is like some Creature from the Black Lagoon style typeface. Which seems odd for the movie within the movie, but makes sense for Craven and his crew having a bit of fun on the set of Scream 3.

Meanwhile, how amazing is Parker Posey's expression here. Gawd, she's amazing in this movie.


She renders me speechless (er, wordless? typeless?) sometimes, honestly.


In a moment of accidental actorly goofiness, I somehow managed to inadvertently catch Scott Foley looking directing into the camera during this speech about how innocent he is that he didn't really call Sarah Darling before she was killed. I'm going to take this is a subliminal way of clueing the audience in on who the killer is (er, Roman Bridger) and not just Scott Foley being a big dumb dummy.

Have I mentioned I don't like Scott Foley in this movie and think he's a dope? Yeah. Like, all the killers have their own way of masking the fact that they are indeed the killer. Roman Bridger's is to whine himself into looking innocent, apparently. Where everyone else seems to be having a bit of fun with the whole thing, Roman just sits around moping and whingeing. Even the reveal sequence is more of his crying, but we'll get to that later, obviously.

Wow. I didn't realise I felt so harshly about this topic until I typed it down just now. The more you know...

"God, Roman. Remind me not to sleep with him again."

She is a goddess.


GODDESS!

She deserves a Las Vegas show starring Cristal Connors, that's how much of a goddess she is!

Scream:
Intro, Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14, Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, Scene 31 Scene 32, Scene 33, End Credits

Scream 2
Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14. Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, End Credits

Scream 3
Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 9 of Scream 3 (0:29:57-0:32:45)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!



SCENE 9 of Scream 3
Length: 2mins 48secs
Primary Characters: Gale Weathers, Dewey Riley, Jennifer Jolie and Steven Stone (Patrick Warburton)
Pop Culture References:
  • Nancy Drew (Jennifer calls Gale this)
  • Julia Roberts, Salmon Rushdie and Posh Spice (all former clients of Steven Stone)

It's like an establishing shot out of The Closer. Wes was getting a bit lazy, wasn't he? I do like that they brought back Marco Beltrami's excellent score from the original. It's so distinctive for this kind of movie, don't you think?


The great thing about Parker Posey as Jennifer Jolie is that within minutes of her first appearing on screen - it's 30 minutes in and she's barely had more than a couple of minutes - she is such a full character. We know her everything. Despite the fact that she's costumed to look so utterly trashy, you can sense that's her character. I can picture Jennifer Jolie on red carpets and being mercilessly fugged, while also coming off as somewhat charming. I actually think her character is modeled a little bit on Drew Barrymore, which just adds to the fun.

"You see this Dewey? I haven't had one of these in a year and a half. Someone's gonna pay for this!"

I certainly hope that wasn't Ehren Kruger's attempt at making Jennifer Jolie a viable red herring! Like, 'see how mean she can get! grrr!' of course, the whole smoking thing would have then been her fault, so...

"You! Like I'm ever gonna win an award playing you!"

I love the way Parker Posey does these weird movements and body contortions. Like I said just up there, it's all part of the character, it's so lived in and fresh. You don't have a character like this in a slasher movie unless they're a big obnoxious idiot, but Jennifer is just so endearing and playful I can't help but love her. I love the way Gale can't even hide the fact that she think's Jennifer is a big ol' loon. But, speaking of Gale and Jennifer... as I've been writing up this scene, I've had this song stuck in my head! I think it's apt, don't you?


Amazing.

"Cotton Weary, Sarah Darling... don't you get it?"
"Someone's killing them in the order that they die in the movie!"

I like that in the ensuing conversation, Gale ask's "who dies third?", which continues on with Sarah Darling's "girl that gets killed second" stuff and it's like everybody just forgets that there are two opening victims. Christine was just collateral damage, I suppose.


It's for scenes like this that I love the Scream franchise. Other films would cut this more character building sequence out, but these films have always been more about the characters so that you feel a bit more about them when they bite the dust. Sure, sometimes we don't feel a thing (hello Tyson and Tom), but more times than not, it works.

"I get killed in Stab 3?"

To be honest, getting killed third does seem like an very un-glamourous way to go. Very unfitting of one of the franchise's defining characters. You'd think, even in the fake world of Stab 3, that she would make it to the end. Or, like a later Stab 3 script change infers, she's the killer. Wow, this is all getting a bit confusing!


I kinda love this big, goofy grin on Dewey's face as he talks about how he's Jennifer's "rock". Reminds me of the "She's with me!" grin from the original that was so adorable.


He calls him "Dew Drop"! Meanwhile, I suggest you read the comments of this Scream to Scream entry for a bit of backstory regarding the character of Warburton's "Steven Stone" and who was originally meant to play him.

"Your resume reads like the obituaries."


This is so very true. Why would Woodsboro hire him again in Scream 4?

Scream:
Intro, Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14, Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, Scene 31 Scene 32, Scene 33, End Credits

Scream 2
Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14. Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, End Credits

Scream 3
Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 8 of Scream 3 (0:27:37-0:29:56)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!



SCENE 8 of Scream 3
Length: 2mins 19secs
Primary Characters: Gale Weathers and Dewey Riley
Pop Culture References:
  • 60 Minutes 2 and Diane Sawyer


Time for some Gale and Dewey action! And by that I mean Gale and Dewey talking! And by that I mean who cares about Dewey, why isn't Jennifer Jolie there?

"Why would the police come to you?"
"Well I did write the definitive book on the Woodsboro murders."

Gale's complete and utter lack of humility is why I love her. It's like during the Randy death sequence of Scream 2 where she tells people on the phone that she is "Gale Weathers, author of The Woodsboro Murders!" Even if, as Scream 4 implies (and Scream 2 admitted - "He wasn't gutted, I made that up. His throat was slashed."), Gale made a bunch of stuff up, chopped and changed the events to suit her narrative and so forth.


I like this moment between these two, as they discuss why things didn't work out between them. "We tries, we're different", she says, much like Courteney and David in real life. "We used to say that was our strength", he replies. Aw. And now they're separated in real life, too. Still, I does actually do a good job of setting up the groundwork for their relationship in Scream 4, even if that is all one big accident.

"Dewey, you're not just here because of that second rate, K-Mart, straight-to-video version of me, are you?"

Oh, Gale. I love you so hard. Oh, also, there's a bunch of exposition in this scene, but it's Gale's hair that I find more extravagant and hard to fathom. Just... I... but... what? It makes no sense! And I remember this hairstyle from when she was on Friends, too, so I know it wasn't just some "this is what Hollywood entertainment reporters look like now" sorta make-up department stuff up. Also: ugly jewellery.

Scream:
Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14, Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, Scene 31 Scene 32, Scene 33, End Credits

Scream 2
Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14. Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, End Credits

Scream 3
Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7

Friday, November 25, 2011

Review: Arthur Christmas

Arthur Christmas
Dir. Sarah Smith
Year: 2011
Aus Rating: G
Running Time: 97mins

Bah humbug!

Australia celebrates Christmas in the heart of summer and yet watching the latest animation from the esteemed Aardman Studios I couldn’t help but notice the chill. Arthur Christmas may look like a cute and inoffensive yuletide movie for the kids and their undemanding parents, but it eventually proves to be a thoroughly unpleasant experience. As I slunk into the back of my chair, my eyes peering out through the unnecessary 3D glasses at the hyperactive action unfolding on screen, there was little more I could ask for Christmas than for this exhausting cacophony of noise to end.


Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

I really am a Grinch sometimes. :/

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Review: X

X
Dir. Jon Hewitt
Year: 2011
Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 85mins

The opening scene of risqué new Australian film X features a beautiful woman (Viva Bianca) in the driver’s seat of a car cruising through the upper-class suburbs of Sydney. She’s wearing a beautiful dress, her hair in a cute brunette bob and she is listening to French lessons on her car stereo system as she makes her way to something, somewhere. Perhaps she’s joining her fellow socialites for brunch, or attending an important business meeting. This being a Jon Hewitt film, you should already know that was never going to be the case. Instead, she’s on her way to perform for a group of wealthy clientele by removing her clothes and having sex with the equally good looking Giles (Darren Moss in an eye-opening debut) right there on the living room table in a room filled with antique furniture and expensive paintings on the wall. And all while the female voyeurs sip daintily from champagne flutes.


Read the rest at Onya Magazine

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 7 of Scream 3 (0:21:56-0:27:36)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!



SCENE 7 of Scream 3
Length: 5mins 40secs
Primary Characters: Sarah Darling, Roman Bridges (voice), Tyson Fox and Ghostface
Pop Culture References:
  • Psycho and Vertigo (Sarah gets these two Hitchcock films confused)
  • Scream 2 (Sarah is an obvious play on Sarah Michelle Gellar from Scream 2 and references to the making of Scream 2 are included)


I hope they change these establishing shots up!


I've long held the belief that Scream 3 can be read as a spoof of its own franchise. What better way to continue mocking the horror genre than to mock your own series of films that revitalised the very genre you were mocking in the first place?! It's moments like this that make me believe I'm right in a way. There's no reason for the filmmakers to throw in a scene of Sarah here being spooked by a mysterious noise in the middle of broad daylight, there's just not, and yet they have it there. The filmmakers just decided to turn their own frachise's MO up to 11 and put every single cliche in there, even when it was completely unnecessary.


"Stab 3. Jesus, I gotta get a new agent."

So, we come to the second chase sequence of the movie. Scream 3 slicks closer to the Scream blueprint here with scene 7 here coming at exactly the same time in proceedings as it did in the original, unlike Scream 2 that featured far more talk and didn't get around to "the chick who gets killed second" until the 29 minute mark of scene 9.


I've said it before and I'll continue to say it, the cinematography of the Scream franchise is always really wonderfully framed. Always used in a great way to get the viewer into the space of a scene. Think of the way Drew Barrymore looked standing in front of those big glass patio doors or the way the above-angle shots of Randy in the park provided that sense of menace. I always like how characters are framed to show any manner of places in which the killer could be hiding. Like in this shot, for instance, we have an open door right in front of Sarah or the long passageway with doors opening up on either side into rooms that could easily hide the killer. He could quite literally be anywhere.

After working on Scream 3, cinematographer Peter Deming went and made Mulholland Drive with David Lynch, which worked the LA movie world in a far different, but even scarier, manner.

"Fuck you very much."

Why didn't this catchphrase, er, catch on? Oh, that's right... it's stupid. Although, in 2011 that line probably sounds like poetry to some people.


So, I see headshots for "Jennifer Jolie", "Cotton Weary", "Tyson Fox", "Sarah Darling" and "Tom Prinze". The one for Cotton is obviously a prop since there's no way that would actually be Liev Schreiber's headshot, but the others all look legitimate and real. Do you reckon they are? Who are the others, too? Scream 3 extras? Crew who got headshots taken as a joke and used in the movie as set decoration?


Okay, so, when I went to go see Shark Night 3D I inadvertently witnessed the trailer for that new Adam Sandler movie Jack & Jill. It looks really bad. Really, really bad. There's one bit where Sandler, dressed as a woman for some reason, kicks a football (or something - I am not going to YouTube to watch it and find out exactly) and it hits Al Pacino's Oscar, which then shatters into hundreds of little pieces. I don't think Academy Awards are that fragile, to be honest. Same goes for this award, whatever it is. What is this trophy made of if it falls apart the moment it gets dropped on the ground. I'm surprised it made it out of the ceremony unharmed if that's the case (especially given some of the stories we hear about award show after parties!)


"Since I've got you on the phone, let's talk about your character."
"What character? I'm Candy, the chick who gets killed second, I'm only in two scenes."

The meta is off the chart! Jenny McCarthy who is only in two scenes of Scream 3 and gets killed second (third technically, but second death scene) playing a character in Stab 3 who is in only two scenes and gets killed second who is obviously modeled on the actress who was only in two scenes of Scream 2 and got killed second (third technically, but second death scene).

Wait, what?

"Ring ring. Hello."
"Hello."
"Who is this?"
"Who's this?"
"It's Candy. Hang on, let me put on some clothes."

Hah. Amazing. I adore the way she says "ring ring" for some peculiar reason.

"I don't understand why I have to start the scene in the shower. The whole shower thing's been done; Vertigo, hello!"

Oh Candy. I actually like Jenny McCarthy in Scream 3. She's obviously playing off of her own dumb blonde routine - but future movies like, say, Dirty Love, prove she may be aware of her image but not willing to do anything about it - and I think she looks great, too, I just have a bit of an issue with the behind the scenes metamorphosis of her character. The story goes that Sarah Michelle Gellar was a bit too hands on for Wes Craven's liking and spend much of her time on set giving Wes "ideas" for how her scene could play out. Having worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer had apparently given her ideas on stunts and the like. Craven was probably glad she got cast as CiCi and not someone who got to stick around longer.

So, apparently Sarah Darling is highly influenced by Sarah Michelle Gellar and makes me wonder what Smidge thought of Scream 3 if she ever did see it.

"Candy. Is that like candy cane or candy apple?"
"Come on, who is this? I think you have the wrong number."
"But you know my favourite name?"
"I'm hanging up right now."
"It's Sarah."
"Roman, that's not the line."
"It is in my script."


"Has there been another god-damned rewrite? How the fuck are we supposed to learn our lines when there's a new script every 15 minutes?"

"It's not just a new script, it's a new movie."
"What? What movie?"
"My movie..."
*click*
"... And it's called Sarah Gets Skewered Like a Fucking Pig."


"Still in character... Sarah?"

Okay, so, a few things about this exchange: