Theresa Basile

This performance is technically from a television special, not a film, but I don’t care – my blog, my rules, and this performance is far too important to overlook.

The filmed production of Peter Pan was vital to my upbringing. I watched it all the time. It was my most-watched movie that wasn’t The Wizard of Oz or Disney or Muppet-related. It was my first exposure to a Broadway musical aside from the South Pacific original cast recording that my parents played for me (a cast that also starred Mary Martin). The TV special isn’t that well-done, with cheesy sets and costumes and choreography so uninspired that you can’t believe it’s the same guy who did West Side Story, but it’s notable for having the gayest Captain Hook ever and for Mary Martin as the boy who wouldn’t grow up.

This is a woman in her forties playing the child who always wanted to be a little boy and have fun, and she’s completely believable and engaging. I was bowled over in shock when my dad told me that this was a woman playing Peter Pan. Of course this is completely obvious within the first two seconds of watching her, but I was four when I first saw this performance, and my disbelief was completely suspended.

I’m an adult now, but even today, Mary Martin has the power to make me believe in fairies.

[The following is a guest post from abovethetitle.]

She will not be known as the greatest actress of my generation but she certainly will be remembered as the greatest female movie star. Some of her recent choices have been half-baked at best but let us not forget that she once held the power to spin something like “Runaway Bride” into box office gold. With “Erin Brockovich,” she did more than show her pearly whites, more than laugh when Richard Gere closed a jewelry box on her fingers, more than toss her mane of hair (that is NOT a horse joke). She played an Everywoman who brings a corporate giant to its knees, using her patented Julia charm to make even Erin’s very very rough edges lovable. I remember “Erin” as the second rated R movie I saw (“Elizabeth” starring Cate Blanchett being the first – I was a unique child…) and the first I saw with my mother. I wasn’t 17 yet so she had to take me to the movies. We saw a back-to-back feature of Natalie Portman in “Where the Heart Is” followed by an advanced screening of “Erin.” What can you really say about the movie? It is in many ways a glorified Lifetime story but it showed the world why Julia is Julia. I was still a little young for “Pretty Woman” so “Erin” remains my most indelible memory of America’s sweetheart in the prime of her career.

The Wizard of Oz is my favorite movie. No other film has ever captured the very specific, beautiful magic that you find in the land of Oz. Where would I be today without this movie and Judy Garland as Dorothy? I have no idea. Her performance of this song brings me to a special place. No one does it better.

Thank you, Judy. And thank you, producers, for cutting the reprise out of the final cut of the film, because if I had to watch and hear THIS in the movie when I was a little girl, I would have been traumatized for life:

Chilling.

[This post is brought to you by Lady T’s inner gay man.]

[The following is a guest post from abovethetitle.]

In the spirit of being behind on these posts, I meant to post this one last Saturday in honor of the premiere of “Game Change” and got waylaid trying to mirror Lady T’s posts. Hurrah. But we are all still celebrating the gloriousness that is Julianne Moore and what better way than to re-visit her Cathy Whitaker? A movie like this only gets better in the light of the popularity of things like “Mad Men.” A take on the Douglas Sirk films (specifically “All That Heaven Allows,” complete with “heaven” in the title), this Todd Haynes masterpiece is an expose on suburban life in the 1950s, exploring both homosexuality and racism against the traditional vibrant colors and poofy dresses on the era. Julianne gives one of my fave performances ever.

[The following is a guest post by abovethetitle.]

Simply put, is there a more frightening or more iconic performance?

[The following is a guest post from abovethetitle.]

It’s more trendy to say Bancroft in “The Graduate” (and she would absolutely be worthy for that performance as well) but Bancroft in “The Miracle Worker” marks a point in time in which I was obsessed with all things Helen Keller. With both actresses reprising their theatrical roles, Bancroft and her equally as impressive and formative onscreen partner Patty Duke went toe to toe as teacher and pupil. Of course I had to choose the w-a-t-e-r scene, one of the great moments of humanity ever portrayed in literature, theatre and film. With that one moment, Annie Sullivan was able to open up Helen’s whole world. They both won Oscars.

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be an actress. I pursued that dream for awhile and even minored in drama when I went to college. At some point, though, I realized that performing was a secondary passion of mine and writing was my main passion, so I changed focus.

Still, the performing bug is strong in me, and I have to blame part of that bug on Jodie Foster for her role in Freaky Friday.

That’s right – not The Silence of the Lambs, not The Accused. Freaky Friday.

The original version of this movie was a VHS tape that I borrowed many times from the local library. I couldn’t get enough of it. I couldn’t get enough of child actress Jodie Foster playing a grownup and playing it well.

She wasn’t the first child actress I had ever seen perform – I watched Sesame Street, after all, and I’ve written about other child performances that I really liked. But I couldn’t get over my excitement at seeing a child actress an adult. I fully believed that she was an adult woman trapped in a child’s body. This was one of the first movies I saw where the child performer was as strong as the adults, and though I didn’t realize this at the time, it was a formative performance that helped inspire my dream to become an actress.

Catherine O’Hara is a comic genius.

This is a fact. Do not argue with me on this.

If you haven’t seen her work in the Christopher Guest films Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show, you are missing out. (I haven’t seen A Mighty Wind or For Your Consideration yet because I am a terrible fan.) If you haven’t seen her work in SCTV and her impersonations of Katharine Hepburn and Tammy Faye Bakker and Lola Heatherton, you are missing out. Go rent these immediately.

I’ve listed some of her best work above, but my very first introduction to Catherine O’Hara was inHome Alone. She’s not the character or actor most people remember from this movie – they remember the kid and the criminals – but I loved  her as the mom trying to get home to her kid. It would have been so easy to play this character with too much sweetness, to play this scene with nothing but sentiment and feeling, but her frustration and snapping make me laugh even as I’m sympathizing with her.

(Yeah, just try to ignore the “Elvis” captions because it’s the only clip I could find of this scene.)

When I was kid, I remember being chilled and scared when she said she would sell her soul to the devil (Catholic upbringing alert!) As a kid and an adult, I crack up laughing at her frustrated, “This is CHRISTMAS! The season of PERPETUAL. HOPE!”

[The following is a guest post from abovethetitle.]

Up until Whitney Houston last month, the most distraught I have ever been over a celebrity death was far and away Princess Diana. There have been a plethora of articles recently about why we mourn celebrities so I won’t touch that topic except to say that Diana’s passing happened on the eve of me starting high school and it all just seemed like such a horrible tragedy after more than a decade of very public unhappiness. I think the world very much wanted her to have the happy ending befitting of a princess.

The film “The Queen” could have been your run-of-the-mill biopic about Queen Elizabeth II but it smartly chose to focus on one specific moment in time her life – right after Diana died. Long known as the People’s Princess for her empathetic personality and devotion to charitable causes, she was also (allegedly?) despised by the monarchy for bringing scandal, being the sympathetic one in her divorce from Prince Charles and generally for modernizing the old and stuffy British establishment. When she so suddenly died, the British people were in a state of abject mourning. The palace was stuck between a rock and a hard place, beholden to its constituency but at a loss as to why Diana was so beloved and what they could do for someone who disgraced them. No other pop culture piece was able to capture this dilemma so astutely nor so poetically. At the very forefront was Dame Helen Mirren whose performance as the titular rule was so well-liked that she swept every single precursor in sight for the entire season. She even won the NAACP Image Award!

Ladies and gentlemen, Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II…