Three Beautiful Things 12/23/08: Maria Bello, Revenge, Trox Meal

1. I've written about this before, but I love watching women over about the age of thirty-five in movies. I've listed my favorites before (Patricia Clarkson, Joan Allen, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney, Hope Davis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Catherine Keener, etc.) and today, watching Maria Bello in "The Cooler", I enjoyed her fierceness, tenderness, sensuality, wariness, surrender, playfulness, intelligence -- not just her character's -- hers, Maria Bello's. She was the center of the movie for me.

2. In "The Cooler", Maria Bello helps William H. Macy avenge the noisy sex guy in the next door motel room. It's as fresh, frisky, and frolicsome a bit of prankish mischief as I've ever seen. Anyone, anyone who says this movie just replays old cliches of all the Vegas down on your luck movies must have had to take a pee and missed this scene. It's among a half a dozen or so set pieces in "The Cooler" that astonished me. This one was the best, though.

3. I hadn't sat down and shot the breeze over dinner with Randy and Marla Trox for about thirty-five years -- or so it seemed -- and we had a wonderful time. Marla prepared a smashing stir fry, Randy popped open a refreshing Merlot (he told me it had peppery subterranean flourishes or something...I just thought it was good), and we talked over old times and quite a few new ones.

What a Fantastic Sentence!

I just read this sentence about the upcoming movie "Synecdoche, New York ". Look who's in it! It's a dream come true for a guy like me who loves middle aged (or thereabouts) women in movies:

Jennifer Jason Leigh will next appear in Charlie (Adaptation) Kauffman's directorial debut Synecdoche, New York. Phillip Seymour Hoffman stars as a playwright but the true draw for some viewers might just be the delicious actress smorgasbord layed out to devour: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Emily Watson, Hope Davis, Michelle Williams and Dianne Weist. The movie can't arrive soon enough even if Jennifer Jason Leigh's first Oscar nomination continues to take its sweet time coming.

Okay. Michelle Williams is in her twenties and Samanta Morton is only thirty-one, but both are superb actors.

I love Hope Davis. I didn't mention her in earlier posts about favorite actors. I went on a Hope Davis tear about two years ago and loved her work.

And Emily Watson. Superb.

I love Catherine Keener and it's been a while since I've watched Dianne Wiest.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, of course, rules.

I can hardly wait for this movie.