American Rebels

James Byron & Jake

Today, 51 anniversay of James Dean's death, I remember two films in which his name was brought up in very different angles. In the movie "Come back to the five and dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" (1982) by Robert Altman, the neurotic Mona (actress Sandy Dennis) has kept alive her memories about meeting James Dean 20 years ago during the filming of "Giant" and she reunites with her friends in a Woolworth store in a small town of Texas. I watched this film on T.V. in the 90's and I could easily relate to the lead protagonist -who recreated a similar role (Honey) in "Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?"- because her obsession with James Dean's myth is so blindly absorbing that has forced her to live apart of reality. In the end, stuttering a resentless poignant confession, she reveals us why she lied to herself half of her life.

In the other film, the controversial David Cronenberg's "Crash" (1996), where the characters attend staged recreations of famous car crashes for erotic purposes, like the one that killed James Dean, Vaughan (actor Elias Koteas) says: "These were the confident last words of the brilliant, young Hollywood star James Dean as he piloted his Porsche 550 Spyder race car toward a date with death along a lonely stretch of California two-lane blacktop Route 466... Don't worry that guy's gotta see us. The year... 1955. The day... September 30. The time... Now. The first star of our show is Little Bastard. James Dean's racing Porsche. He named it after himself and had his racing number - 130 - painted on it."

Beautiful future partenaire

I hope that Jake and Reese connect their chemistry plugs as much as Reese made it with Joaquin Phoenix, or how Jake with Jen Aniston.






These four scenes above belong to the dotty film "S.F.W." (So Fucking What?), one of my most guilty pleasures of cinema, by Jefery Levy (1994), it's difficult to make its synopsis coherent, as an anonymous viewer in a review for Amazon submitted:

"A FILM WAY AHEAD OF IT'S TIME. July 25, 1999
Take a look at this film and you will be amazed at how it predicted the future -- from OJ to JFK jr. Also, how many films have there been since SFW that have dealt with the same themes, but not nearly as well? NBK; Mad City; Truman Show; Ed TV -- SFW is, quite simply, a work of genius -- even more amazing: the book was written by a 17 year old college kid in 1987! The film, while it parodies teen romance films, also deals with the way popular culture (not just the media) takes a person or event, uses it to sell, sell, sell, then discards it, usually destroying it/him. The big cycle of pop culture. Check it out for yourself." -A viewer.

The antihero is Cliff Spab (performed by Stephen Dorff) and he is kidnapped by terrorists during 36 days in company of Reese Witherspoon (Wendy Pfister). Despite of a childish script and some camera work wreck, I haven't been able to forget its empty message, so although is despised as a dreadful sub "Natural Born Killers" by cinephiles, so fucking what? Some dialogue of the end by Stephen and Reese in the hospital after having been shot by a repressed teenager.

Cliff Spab: Wendy
Wendy Pfister: Spab
Cliff Spab: Wendy
Wendy Pfister: Spab
Cliff Spab: Wendy
Wendy Pfister: Spab
Cliff Spab: So are we gettin' married or what?
Wendy Pfister: Hey, guy. You fucking know it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And while Reese was running away as Vanessa Lutz in her car in "Freeway", in a time bucle Jake was riding his bike yesterday 28th September in West Village, N.Y.

Sexy Godmother of Jake

Jake's godmother and his ex share sexiness in the bathtub.


I know, the last picture is scary.
Temperature has lowered several degrees in my room.

In family

The countdown for Maggie is in its last legs, and Peter Sarsgaard is probably shooting "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" with Sienna Miller and Mena Suvari, two explosive actresses but not nearly so offbeat sexy as our pregnant Maggie Ruth is.

Jake & Reese together

According to Variety: "Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon will topline New Line's Middle East political thriller "Rendition."
Gavin Hood ("Tsotsi") will direct and Steve Golin will produce via his Anonymous Content banner. [...] Multilayered story centers on a CIA analyst, based in the Middle Eastwhose world spins out of control as he questions his assignment after overseeing the secret-police interrogation of a suspected terrorist," it would be based on a spec script by Kelley Sane about a Cairo-based CIA analyst that's in pre-productionpre-production at New Line.

And Hollywoodreporter also confirms this scoop: "Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon are in final negotiations to star in New Line Cinema's "Rendition," Gavin Hood's follow-up to his Oscar-winning South African feature "Tsotsi." Written by Kelley Sane, the multilayered story revolves around a CIA analyst based in Cairo who finds his world spinning out of control after he witnesses the interrogation of a foreign national by the Egyptian secret police. Gyllenhaal will play the analyst, while Witherspoon will play the pregnant American wife of the national. [...]The film is planning shoots in Los Angeles, Washington, Morocco and South Africa starting in November."

West Village family walk

The whole family clan gathered after lunch with Jake's Godmother actress Jamie Lee Curtis.
Maggie's red neckfular and sandals, a curious mix.

Leaving Pastis in N.Y.

"The movies that influenced me were movies that told their stories through pictures more than words." -Sam Mendes dixit.

Cats, Kittens and Meows

"That's where Dunst's performance is key, and it's a challenge she meets with surprising success. Looking not unlike the real Davies, and with a splash of Jennifer Jason Leigh gravitas, Dunst gives her best performance to date amid a skilled older cast. Believable as both a spoiled ingenue and a lover to two very different men, Dunst endows a potentially lightweight character with considerable depth and sympathy. Overall, the script comes down hardest not on her or Hearst, but on Chaplin, who emerges at the end as a total self-obsessive who isn't even aware of the extent to which he wrecks people's lives." Variety article







I'm glad of not being totally crazy thinking in the resemblance that Kirsten has with Jennifer Jason Leigh.
In these six pictures it can be EXPLICIT enough.

"Peter Bogdanovich's first theatrical feature in almost a decade imagines what might have happened the weekend of November 19, 1924, when newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst (Edward Herrmann) hosted a yachting party that included Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard), gossip columnist Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly), producer Thomas Ince (Cary Elwes), and Hearst's mistress, actress Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst). In some ways Dunst gives the most impressive performance, uncannily embodying the flighty if mainly loyal Davies, though Herrmann's portrayal of Hearst is equally sympathetic and multilayered." Chicago Reader



Bertie Knox's kitty was named Ray, and Ray likes boys a lot.