The most beautifullest white woman of them all

Elizabeth Taylor has been on my mind the last couple days. It started when I was watching the DVD commentary of The Graduate the other day and Mike Nichols was talking about the experience of directing Taylor and Richard Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and what a contrast that film was stylistically to The Graduate, which he filmed the following year. (The fact that these were the first two films of Nichols's career speaks to what a beast he is -- and continues to be -- as a director, but I digress.)



So that got me thinking about Virginia Woolf and what a great film it is, and how long it's been since I've seen it, and what an impact it made on me when I first saw it in high school. (I really do need to cop it on DVD.) There is a scene in my romantic comedy, When It All Falls Down, that is seriously indebted to it. the main characters, Kenny and Jamilah, have recently broken up, and are bitter at one another, yet still, obviously in love. Kenny reveals an embarrassing secret about Jamilah to her family (in one of those moments where comedy segueways violently into drama) and one of Kenny's retorts, pulled directly from this movie (and Edward Albee's play) is, "And that, my friends, is how you play Hump the Hostess."



Sometimes I get fixated on people and they become omnipresent in my world until I stop thinking about them. My Netflix movies showed up Saturday, and one of hers was there -- The Sandpiper -- which I've never seen, but look forward to. A Place in the Sun, another tremendous influence on me in my film school days, played on Turner Classic the other night, and another of her films, Butterfield 8, (for which she won her first Oscar) comes on in about an hour.

Then, today comes this news item. Only Liz Taylor could do a show in the middle of the strike and get love from both sides. And man, her and James Earl Jones, on the same stage? Where was I at? It's not like I had $2500, but I'm saying.

We just don't have stars like her anymore. She matured from child star to ingenue to true actress (I could imagine cats was clowning when it was announced that she was going to play the frumpy, alcoholic, older Martha in Virginia Woolf. But she gained 35 pounds and came with it, to win her second Oscar.) Her 575 husbands, legendary glamorous gowns, tireless charity work for AIDS, and most of all, the amazing performances she gave in film after film (although it took me years to forgive that Cleopatra b.s.) Much respect.

As for me, I just got done watching the Patriots squeak by the Ravens in a heck of a game on Monday night. My Bengals are frazzled and stumbling as usual. It took my alma mater's upset of #2 West Virginia to make this a not as horrible football weekend.

The short script is just about done. I renamed it Parkside Boulevard, after a street not too far from my house. I grew up on Freeman Street, but hey, face it, Parkside Boulevard sounds better. I've got so many ideas for other stories, scripts, songs, etc. But with the day job and stuff, time is short. I just keeping jotting them down. They will come forth eventually.

Thanksgiving Eve report

I've had a GREAT four day weekend. The kind that makes it difficult to return to work, as I must tomorrow morning. Spent some quality time with the wife. Wrote a new short, 8 pages long, called Golden Street, an introduction to the TV pilot I'll be writing soon. My wife thinks it's hilarious. I'll do a few revisions and send it off to Rickie Castaneda of Storytime Entertainment who's helping me develop this idea. The plan is to film the short, write the pilot and make it a part of a package as a TV show once the strike ends, whenever that magical day should come.

It's basically a show about growing up in a neighborhood similar to mine in the 1980s. The short is pretty funny. It's loosely based on an old Intrepid piece I did, "The Five Week War," but also makes allusions to some of the show's main characters and potential episodes.

Of course, you'll get all the details as things progress. My Bengals made my day today, opening up the can of beat down I've been waiting on them to deliver all season on the Tennessee Titans 35-6. Both of my fantasy teams have Carson Palmer and Chad Johnson, so I should be sitting pretty this week. My nigga Killa Chad is a fool.



Had an interesting evening. Saw this abstract but ahead of it's time film on the Sundance Channel called Who Are You, Polly Magoo? It's a French film made by an American director, William Klein, about an American model who is the subject of a French TV documentary. It spoofs the modeling industry and has a lot to say about how insecure men try to tear down and objectify beautiful women. The director is played by the recently departed Phillipe Noiret, who film heads may know as Pablo Neruda in Il Postino or from his work in Cinema Paradiso. It was non-linear and confusing at times, like a lot of French New Wave films, but as I said, still enjoyable and worth repeated viewings.



The female lead, Dorothy McGowan, was a cutie pie in that anorexic model kinda way, and amazingly natural, considering that it was her first and only film performance. (Apparently, she quit modeling after the film's release and dropped out of public view.)



Anyways, I'm sitting here folding clothes and listening to the audio commentary for The Graduate with Mike Nichols and Steven Soderbergh. It's both intimidating and encouraging. Trying to immerse myself in a world of film has proven far more difficult than it was in film school. But what can you do?