Reese Witherspoon, classic or classic?

Actually I really loved her in that movie with Keifer Sutherland, where she plays a runaway and he's like a serial killer. Fucking awful plot, but god was she marvelous. She just owned that character, she was completely captivating.

Freeway--she was great in that rather tired movie. The main thing that movie had going for it was the natural exhiliration that comes from reckless taboo-breaking.

Unlike Amateurist I've just got in and am drunk.

It's a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

what amateurist sees as transcendent selfmade irony = my shiver at the cold metal flat of the fearblade. she horrifies me

P.S. Where does this "morally positive" thing come from? Did you read about it? If true it would mark a bit of a shift from Freeway at least.

Maybe William Bennet bribed her with his gambling cash?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4690892.stm

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41305000/jpg/_41305678_reece_203getty.jpg

PURE EVIL!

They'll both be equal when they're middle-aged and forgotten.

Hollywood biopics are only slightly more boring than Hollywood sports pics (ooh a big game! ooh a childhood trauma that haunts the protagonist! *zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*)

It's funny, but I know many people that agree very strongly with you there Mo, and in some cases I'm there too. But I'm always curious how much the "I hate all hollywood biopics" muddies the waters (hey, when are they gonna do one on McKinley Morganfield?) too much before some of them even have a chance. =>

they both look 15 yr old.

SO otm.

When is someone going to cast Becky Thyre as Reese Witherspoon's sister in a movie?

http://www.sarahthyre.com/images/beckie_ph.jpg

Compare:

http://www.blabberstar.com/img/news/2473/thumb.jpg

when will Gylly realize he doesn't belong with her?

when he comes out of the closet?

god i love this woman

You are crazy, dude. She is up there with Julia Roberts: why on earth she is so liked, baffles me immensely but the media keeps shoving'em down our throats. Also, that chin horrifies me. She probably cuts her kids' sandwiches up with it.

yea basically my 2 favorite movie stars

Surm OTM. Reese is awesome, skis.

LOL wkiw blame cinco de mayo tequila.

Reese is one of the famous people that helps me understand why some people get obsessed with famous people. I'm not obsessed, but I can understand the impulse.

yeah. when legally blonde came on the plane the other day, it just hit me like a ton of bricks.

I mean I've missed more of her movies than I've seen, but when I do see her I never dislike her.

also let's just revisit this year's oscars for a second

http://artlovefashion.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/reese-witherspoon-2011-oscars-04-e1298991401655.jpg?w=326&h=285

http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/Oscars-2011-Reese-Witherspoon-Is-Stunning-in-Armani-Priv-2.jpg

i mean ...

Takes a beautiful still photo, but Election is the only film of hers I'd call really good.

she's very talented

just rewatched walk the line. she was so good in that! i guess it's not a good movie, but she ruled!

also i love her and all her clothes

I love Pleasantville.

She teaches a mom to masturbate in it – what's not to like?

btw i think Freeway is the #1 most Recommended movie on imdb.com - like whenever you go to a movie's page (no matter what the movie is) and check out the section where they recommend 5 'similar' movies, for some reason there's like a 60% chance one of them will be Freeway - nobody can figure this out

i used to watch it over and over again when i was a kid

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023634/recommendations

WmC gtfo Cruel Intentions 4eva

Tape Store has been telling me to see Cruel Intentions 4eva

i am so excited for when i finally do it

My sister, a senior in high school when Freeway came out, used to watch the VHS copy over and over in '97 and '98. I have to figure the movie's cult reputation took off quickly; I have no idea how she would have heard about it otherwise.

Freeway is brilliant trash.

It's still her best performance.

omg surm you need to see cruel intentions right. now.

Little Red Riding Hood
This is not the Grimm Brothers' best work. The initial scenes in the forest are quite atmospheric, but the Grimms evidently have some trouble portraying domestic life. The Wolf simply fails to be the slightest bit convincing as a grandmother, and the story loses much of its hard-won credibility. By the ending we care little of the fate of Little Red herself. But a few choice lines from the Wolf redeem this subpar effort slightly. Two stars.

― amateurist (amateurist), Saturday, May 24, 2003 7:03 AM (7 years ago)

this needed reposting.

Freeway is fantastic ("sexo muey bueno!"), Election is fantastic, her bit part in American Psycho is great. After that it's all pretty much downhill though. Her romcom with the butterschotch Stallion and the Ruddness came on the plane the other day and we watched it with the sound up and made up our own dialogue about exploding bracelets, alien visitors, and top secret spy shenanigans. I'm reasonably certain our version was better than the actual version.

sound OFF

omg american psycho bit is awes, totes forgot about that

She acquits herself well in Cruel Intentions. As Michelle Pfeiffer discovered, it's difficult to play an innocent without looking like a doofus.

i think both pfeiffer and witherspoon are v good in those roles. surm what are you doing posting to ilx; you should be watching cruel intentions!!!

This interview with EW a few months ago confirmed every suspicion I ever had about her being an awesome person:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20448411,00.html

she's pretty terrific in everything i've seen her in, though 'vanity fair' looked pretty dire.

i like to think of her turn in 'election' as the best onscreen portrayal of richard nixon ever.

SURMOUNTER

You have never seen Cruel Intentions?

This is just . . . shocking.

I've always thought she was a good actress but something about here really bugs me. I can't really put my finger on it. I think I imagine that IRL she's something like her character in Election which is probably only because she was so good in that role but I feel like she'd be sort of like that in person.

HS I wish we could watch CI with Surmounter.

Oh and that think about Freeway being recommended on IMDB is truly weird.

mostly I just feel sorry for her, her career is emblematic of the crap material available to A-list women in Hollywood, it's like her acting chops (which she clearly has) are irrelevant.

Cruel Intentions is alright.

yes, and plaxico! where has he been anyway?

xp

After I hit send I was thinking oh I should have added Plax to that too.

He's in London probably, you know, having an awesome life and stuff.

i like to think of her turn in 'election' as the best onscreen portrayal of richard nixon ever.

Yep. Second best: Glenda Jackson in Nasty Habits.

Alfred, she said in an interview I read recently that she's not interest in doing genre stuff - sci fi superheroes, what have you - so these are the scripts she gets, for better or worse. She seems resigned to it.

* interested

increase the reese!

genre stuff - sci fi superheroes, what have you

baffling that she does not consider romcoms a "genre"

that's phil's wording, not hers

mostly I just feel sorry for her, her career is emblematic of the crap material available to A-list women in Hollywood, it's like her acting chops (which she clearly has) are irrelevant.

Cruel Intentions is alright.

― no slouch of a snipster (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, May 6, 2011 2:23 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

something tells me she doesn't need your pity

for some reason i was going to bring up michele pfeiffer before as well

Looks like I had it backwards, it was from an interview in EW where she said the kind of movies getting made today don't have roles for her:

Believe it or not, it’s been two full years since Reese Witherspoon has graced a movie screen, unless you count doing the voice of a nearly 50-foot-tall animated woman in Monsters vs. Aliens. In a candid interview, the actress — who stars opposite Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson in the upcoming romantic comedy How Do You Know — explains that her break from acting wasn’t anything she planned. “I just didn’t read anything I liked,” she says. “There are a lot of really, really, really big movies about robots and things — and there’s not a part for a 34-year-old woman in a robot movie.”

i'm astounded surm hasn't seen cruel intentions.

lol

it IS actually astounding -- i love smg and ryan phillipe as well

love love how this is like an ilx headline

"in what many call a shocking revelation, surm to watch cruel intentions for first time"

i can't wait to read your review.

Surm was going to link to the CI thread where horsehoe, plaxico and I had a big <3 fest a couple months ago but realized there are spoilers there so be forewarned and don't go looking for it before you watch it.

I mean it's prob a given that there would be but I feel like it's esp important that you watch it without knowing any details beforehand.

Although if you've seen DL then you'll already have some idea. Oh whatever. Just watch it. This weekend!

i mean look - i have seen certain scenes from it

like i wasn't blindfolded for all of the 90s

but like, i haven't SEEN it

lol right

BTW I don't think that I actually love it quite as much as my posts convey but I really love the idea of u actually SEEING it. ;)

o believe me, i won't disappoint. i will fulfill this fantasy for you.

Ryan Phillippe is much hotter now than when he spotted Justin ghericurls.

that chin horrifies me. She probably cuts her kids' sandwiches up with it.

hehehe

i like to think of her turn in 'election' as the best onscreen portrayal of richard nixon ever.

What ARE you talking about? RMN had no social skills.

Her character and performance in that last Jim Brooks movie didn't really work at all.

What ARE you talking about? RMN had no social skills.

did Tracy Flick!

*neither did

Her chin is sort of out of control but it's grown on me over time or at least doesn't bother me as much as it used to.

just don't see Dick as a perky bubbly blond teen

the saddest scene in election is at the end when she goes to college and everybody there hates her too. in that sense she's very nixon.

as I've said before, Election is a fun movie, but the Perrotto novel goes to much more interesting places.

woah I didn't know it was based on a book

and like Nixon she's not self-deluded about her disinterest in socializing.

I saw election in the movie theater in Union Sq. and sat behind Frank Whaley in an almost empty showing. I sort of love him so that was pretty neat.

i.e. "Let's cut this crap and move to Important Stuff."

Cruel Intentions is excellent.

Great quote from that EW interview, I can almost visualise it as a Chuck Jones cartoon, with those bangs over Witherspoon's eyes.

Witherspoon: I know. (Pauses) I was followed all day today. It kind of reminds me of that cartoon — remember the cartoon with the sheepdog and the wolf, and at the end of each day they clocked out? ''See you tomorrow, Ralph.'' ''All right, Sam.'' (After taking pictures) they'll say, ''Thanks,'' and I'll say, ''Be safe. Don't kill anyone with your car today.'' It's like Stockholm syndrome.

who is the older guy that banged Nixon and made him feel "mature" in this Flick=Nixon scenario

uh, guys, we didn't intend a literalist take.

Correct answer is Bebe Rebozo though iirc.

also Spirow Agnew was 5 years younger

xp: damn too slow

the saddest scene in election is at the end when she goes to college and everybody there hates her too. in that sense she's very nixon.

― difficult listening hour, Friday, May 6, 2011 7:59 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

i don't think this is what happens at the end of election (?)

She acknowledges in voice over that she remains lonely.

ah, it's been a while. remember the scene at the end where he sees her, apparently now a young professional of some sort, get into a black limousine with other young professional (political?) types. am i remembering this right? had the sense that she'd found a place for herself in the world. didn't remember the voice-over.

loved that movie at the time. saw her as the/a hero.

How???

She vaporizes Matthew Broderick with laser eyebeams.

she's just a kid trying to figure things out, scared and defensive, from a very desperate seeming home, in a world that doesn't make much room for smart, uptight, nerdy girls.

jim, in contrast, is a monster

I don't think we watched the same movie

(the true hero = the football player's gay sister)

Part of the movie's weakness is that it isn't clear exactly how we should regard Tracy; it partly solves this problem by relying on Broderick's POV.

I would say that's part of the movie's strength.

It would be if the movie weren't attempting satire.

The last scene of the book is a meeting btwn the two antagonists

Satires aren't compassionate.

well, jim narrates and he's hardly reliable. we only ever see tracy through his eyes, after all. i think you have to cut through jim's misogyny and the self-loathing he projects onto her in order to get a handle on what tracy's all about.

just the way i took it. it's clearly open to interpretation.

But Metzler and his sister also regard Tracy in equally uncompromising turns.

Tracy's own narration paints her as a mean, manipulative person!

I can see rooting for the competent user but I really can't see her as sympathetic.

Morbs, does the book follow one character's POV pretty closely or is it more detached?

I did feel sorry for her when she lost the election though: another director would have omitted the scene of her single, devoted mom consoling her. It shouldn't be there but it works.

i don't think tracy's likable at all. that's why the movie works. she's the hero, but she's also a priggish, self-centered snot. we're deluded into thinking that she's also a legitimate villain only by jim's constant stream of cowardly, self-justifying bullshit.

Satires aren't compassionate.

um nothing good is discompassionate

anyway yeah the limo scene's the very end but before that there's a scene of tracy storming out of her college dorm room to yell at some stoners in the hallway, and when she leaves, they all break up laughing over how she's an uptight bitch, and it's horrible because tracy's one of those people who's promised herself her whole life that her social difficulties are not her fault and will resolve themselves In College. like, it's still her fault but she's just a girl, and has the disadvantage of being smarter and more engaged than the people around her. but she'll probably turn out okay: "i wonder what she's doing in that limo?"

She's actually not very smart -- she's shrewd, clever. She'll have a terrific career as a White House staff member.

um nothing good is discompassionate

You're not fond of satires then.

Morbs is OTM re: them being two antagonists; neither one is the hero of the story. If anything, the hero of the story gets summarily shuffled out of the school by a scared administration, leaving us with a dickish teacher, a dickish student and a really dopey student.

xp not gonna argue over the definition of a satire because what's the point but whatever election is it's compassionate which is why it doesn't blow

re: difficult listening hour

o yeah, forgot that bit. and OTM in general.

i don't think tracy is lovable but she's 17, which makes her flaws more forgivable than jim's. but yes the movie pretends that it's the other way round. one of its pleasures.

i actually have freeway out from netflix but haven't watched it.

Election allows people "their reasons," to quote that character in The Rules of the Game, which makes their venality and stupidity more layered.

in some ways Matthew Broderick has the more difficult role.

How was "Election" compassionate?

I REALLY feel like I watched a different movie from all of you.

She's actually not very smart -- she's shrewd, clever. She'll have a terrific career as a White House staff member.

― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, May 6, 2011 1:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

see, this is clearly how jim sees it. and if it's true, then the movie easily plays into a modern stereotype that i find extremely troublesome. that is: "sharp" (somewhere between smart and shrewd), tightly-wound, high-achieving, girl = evil corporate bitch.

i think the movie invites this reading but eventually subverts it, earning grudging sympathy for tracy (though she's never seen as a nice person), and exposing jim as a horrible lie. ymmv

DJP otm, don't know what y'all are smoking

in some ways Matthew Broderick has the more difficult role.

in lots of ways! this is a fantastic performance i think, even if witherspoon's (also very good) one is showier.

see, this is clearly how jim sees it. and if it's true, then the movie easily plays into a modern stereotype that i find extremely troublesome. that is: "sharp" (somewhere between smart and shrewd), tightly-wound, high-achieving, girl = evil corporate bitch.

Oh sure: remember those (awful) interludes with Jim hearing Japaneses fight music or whatever or those closeups of Tracy's contorted face?

How was "Election" compassionate?

you know that scene where all the other kids have gone home from the pizza party (many of them possibly in each others' company) and tracy is left alone in the booth at the shitty pizza restaurant to thrill desperately to praise from her lecherous teacher? i mean

to take it a step farther, i think the movie implicitly asks its audience this question:

how comfortable are you with the "sharp, tightly-wound, high-achieving girl = evil bitch" equation, and why?

xp: that certainly sounds like something I would call "compassionate"

oh wait, no it doesn't; it sounds creepy and unsettling and gross

far as I remember the novel switches first-person characters chapter by chapter, but I don't remember what I read last week so don't quote me.

anyway, I don't think Alexander Payne started ridiculing his characters excessively til the lousy About Schmidt.

Well, and the movie (I think) is fairly clear that Tracy genuinely cared for her former lover the teacher. Like I said, everyone's allowed their reasons.

I almost walked out of About Schmidt.

oh wait, no it doesn't; it sounds creepy and unsettling and gross

sure but it's up to you to decide how to feel towards people whose lives are creepy and unsettling and gross. like the movie can't do everything for you.

Well, and the movie (I think) is fairly clear that Tracy genuinely cared for her former lover the teacher.

right, and he insists he cared for her. but the difference is that tracy's a despised girl who feels totally alone amongst her peers and is told by an older man (=, to Tracy, Sophisticated, even though obv he's a doof) that she is super special and smart and beautiful; whereas dave (i think his name was dave?) is a high school teacher fucking a student.

More like About Shit.

(Someone was going to do it eventually, I'm just being "proactive.")

also brutal: that scene where the principal has to take the microphone from tracy to tell the entire student body to stop yelling/laughing at her.

or wait maybe that's tammy. i don't remember.

lol the principal is perfectly realized. PEOPLE....

then later:

SHE'S ON MY LIST!

while typing that i suddenly had this moment of incredible excitement where i thought the principal might have been played by john slattery. but no.

when i watch election in high school i thought of tracy as the villain (not sure if i felt like broderick was the hero but)

but i rewatched it a few months ago--having gone through high school and come out the other side--and it seemed so totally different. shes just a kid (a kind of irritating kid but) who gets used and abused by the people who are supposed to protect and nurture her.

otm, i did same thing.

the american pie kid is hilarious in this movie btw

totally

Huh, I've only seen the movie once (but I was... 27? 28? at the time), maybe I would have a similar change of heart on a second viewing.

Although, I kind of doubt it; I think part of the reason Tracy so effortlessly gets under Matthew Broderick's character's skin is because he recognizes that she is capable of holding her own with most, if not all, of the adults in the school.

A lot of the dramatic tension IIRC is driven by the fact that you have this girl who acts a lot of the time like an imperious, all-knowing adult most of the time facing off against an adult with all of the power and authority who, as the movie progresses, begins acting more and more like a juvenile.

well, tracy's voiceovers make it pretty clear how far she is from actually being an imperious, all-knowing adult, or from actually being able to hold her own

i think part of what youre getting at, dan, is that broderick and tracy think of each other in some sense or other as equals (albeit enemies). but theyre not! one is 17, and one is an adult.

Well yes, we know that, and the external forces that exert themselves upon Broderick's character at the end after he completely self-destructs now that, but the two of them don't know that as the antagonistic dance plays itself out.

Also, Tracy is absolutely a victimized teen, no caveats or excuses... but she is also the girl whose direct relationships (one inappropriate, one not) with two teachers in the school completely ruined their lives. You are absolutely correct to say the teachers should have known better, but I am not convinced you are absolutely wrong to say Tracy had more agency in their downfall than typical teacher-student dynamics suggest.

(read "you" as a stand-in for "one" in that last sentence)

i came here to say something but i can see this thread has already been ruined so

The fact that her victimization in case A doesn't absolve her of guilt in case B, C, D or thereafter is what really gives the story its maggotty squirmy unease for me. I don't see it as a comedy at all, and barely see it as a satire.

o noes, nerds talkin nerd shit...

anyway, i have a hard time seeing tracy as someone with any real agency in the downfall of either teacher. they're each destroyed by their own venality. she's just a student trying to fit in somehow, find some affection/respect and a place for herself in the world.

I guess another way to put it is that Tracy is the walking embodiment of an old school Internet troll and the teachers are destroying themselves trying to interact with her. (I would have to watch the movie again in order to really defend that position; it seems like it fits but I might be grossly misremembering parts of the movie.)

I've watched Election a lot (I own a copy) and everybody in it alternates between being loathsome and pathetic, albeit in different ways. I don't find Witherspoon sympathetic at all - pitiable, yes, sympathetic no. Just because bad things happen to somebody doesn't mean they are suddenly transformed into a good person - bad things happen to bad people too.

really the stupidest character is the most sympathetic - Paul always does the right thing, and tries not to hurt anybody. Tammy Metzler is maybe right behind him; her petty vindictiveness re: her frustrated lesbianism is at least understandable, and she's not the mess of neuroses and internal conflicts that the other major characters are.

jeezus, Amy Heckerling's Vamps IS some kind of near-classic! Reese's last scene is a great one.

(warning: Heckerling speaks through RW's 200-year-old character bemoaning social-media/electronic zombiehood, so Old Lady Shouts at Cloud)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I22Lqr9IRKY

errr, I meant to put this on the Alicia Silverstone thread. Never mind.

http://www.brendatobias.com/uploads/3/5/6/0/356011/9693820.jpg

did we talk about the whole "do you know who I AM?" incident?

she lost serious points for that. even if you're plastered, you do not say that.

who cares

nobody, really

lol balls

All the "do you know who I AM?" incident does is detract from the likeability of her image. It just lets us understand that she has more of an ego than we'd want in a friend. Bcz it's not cool to say that. It doesn't come anywhere near Mel Gibson territory in terms of revealing a scummy, purely horrific underside to her personality.

It was a very Tracy Flick thing to say, so there's that.

guys, she was being ironic

"do 'you' 'know' who 'i' 'am'?

it's like amanda bynes' "google me" comment when the flight attendants asked her for ID. these are people who understand the inherent absurdity of celebrity, and privilege in general -- anything that obscures the simple truth that we are all the same, essentially.

Reeserssance? http://news.moviefone.com/2014/05/12/reese-witherspoon-wild-release-date/

she's got a rough couple of decades ahead of her imo

Found The Morning Show (S1) a real mess--compelling, far-fetched (not the basic premise, just... pretty much every plot point along the way), a few strong performances (secondary roles all--I really didn't like Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, or Billy Crudup, three people I almost always like), probably no better or worse than Network. Weird seeing the COVID-afflicted cruise ship appear in the last three minutes of the finale; aired December 20, 2019.

show is batshit crazy, i love it - S2 is bonkers
Jennifer Aniston was the standout for me but Reese is great

I normally find Jennifer Aniston really engaging, but--the character, I know--I felt like they really hardened her here and kept all the things that are appealing about her in check. I didn't find it credible that this person was a beloved Katie Couric-type. And Crudup's cheerful-guy smarm wore on me.

I thought the standout performance was Karen Pittman as Mia (even though the big scene where she commanders the mic in the studio was a bit much...not her fault). I had to check details to remind myself who she was in The Americans--she was really good in that, too. Thought Mark Duplass was good for the most part too.

Will definitely proceed with S2. Can't imagine what bonkers entails, with S1 being so crazy.

kind of curious it just seems too good to be true

realized what it is about Reese's career is that she knows how to pick a damn good script

thought her performances in Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere, and The Morning Show were all pretty good

Thought she was excellent in the first two; The Morning Show, less so (or least her character is less interesting to me).

Laughed at Patrick Fabian (Howard on Better Call Saul) showing up as Bradley Jackson's business manager on The Morning Show.

Casting David Morse as Witherspoon's father in The Morning Show--estranged, killed a kid driving drunk when Bradley was a teenager--has to be an homage to The Crossing Guard, which I just rewatched. Either that, or there's just something innate about him that looks like a haunted drunk driver who's killed a kid.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/reese-witherspoon-hello-sunshine-world-of-women-partner-nft-movies-tv-shows-live-events-1235185212/

S2, E7 felt interminable, and the ending--Alex's headlights sending Mitch over the cliff--was a bit much.