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!

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.