The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Christina Ricci Day

 

‘Christina Ricci knows people judge her. She grew up in the public eye as the Goth girl, the alternative chick, the youthful indie darling. For her, those tacit critiques just provide the excuse to execute another hard turn.

‘“I’m a natural contrarian. So anytime someone tries to tell me what I am, I immediately change and I’m something else,” she said. “I can’t help it; I’m a total asshole in that respect. I never give people that. Sometimes it’s terrible and I should really just allow people to view me the way they want to, but I have a real desire and drive to define myself and to not be defined by others.”

‘As a child star, she was best known for her role as the malevolent Wednesday Addams in “The Addams Family.” In her teen years, she demonstrated a fondness for outrageous comments about subjects like death or incest; in her private life, she faced an eating disorder and other self-destructive behaviors.

‘“I had a very hard time with fame as a child, being interviewed and being asked about my life,” she said. “I think that the way that I answered questions and the things I said earlier on were just, it was like somebody twisting in the wind. I was very reactive and aggressive and I acted out. No child should be held up for adults to criticize, question, interview, weigh in on. It’s the reason we don’t have pictures of our children up online. It’s the same thing.”

‘Ricci attributes some of those difficulties to tumbling head-first into Hollywood. After being discovered in a school play, a few commercials followed, and then she landed her first major gig as Cher’s daughter and Winona Ryder’s sister in “Mermaids.” From there, it was years before she slowed down or even thought about the path that was chosen for her.

‘“I just auditioned and took things. For a very long time, because this wasn’t a career that I pursued, I didn’t have any personal passion, I didn’t really have a lot of understanding,” she said. “It took a very long time for me to have enough real meaning in my life to apply any meaning to the work I did.”

‘Nevertheless, she found inspiration and an anchor in movies as a fan. “I loved ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ and I just loved [Glenn Close’s] performance. It’s so beautiful at the very end to see all the pain,” she said. “I also looked up to a lot of men when I was younger. John Malkovich [in ‘Dangerous Liaisons’] meant so much to me, and this idea that maybe I could be something like that one day was really important. I was actually also really obsessed with Richard Pryor. There was something about Richard Pryor that made me hopeful about my own success, which is strange because I couldn’t be further from Richard Pryor.”

‘During that difficult time through her 20s, Ricci still delivered acclaimed performances in films like “The Ice Storm,” “Buffalo ’66,” “The Opposite of Sex,” “Prozac Nation,” “Black Snake Moan,” and “Monster” opposite Charlize Theron. She also dabbled in television, making occasional guest appearances on shows like “Ally McBeal” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” the latter which earned her an Emmy nomination. She made a more deliberate shift to TV in 2011 with the short-lived ABC series “Pan Am.”

‘Protecting and empowering children is a recurring theme for Ricci, stemming back to when she was a teenager. Now, she’s a mother to her four-year-old son Freddie. “Just recently have I actually started thinking, ‘What do I really want to contribute? Who am I? What means something to me?’” she said. “I deserve to do work that I feel good about. I want to contribute to the world, I don’t want to just take from it. I want to do things that I’m proud of instead of being exploited, as I feel I was when I was a child. I am now more in charge of myself and doing things because I understand more fully what life is supposed to be about.”

‘Producing her own projects is a start, but she’s also open to directing. “There are filmmakers that I absolutely love. My favorite filmmaker who’s not alive anymore is Bob Fosse,” she said. “The way he took well-known constructs and disassembled them throughout his films, it is very similar to the kind of thing that I would like to do.”

‘True to her contrarian form, she’s drawn to the unusual and unexpected. “My favorite movie recently is ‘The Favourite.’ Olivia Colman’s performance in that, the character [Queen Anne] couldn’t be a better example of what I’m talking about. Somebody who is on the surface so laughable or dismissible, but really so complex and tortured and interesting and powerful in their own way. I don’t like stereotypes, I like individuals.”’ — Indiewire

 

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Further

Christina Ricci @ IMDb
Christina Ricci @ Instagram
Christina Ricci Doesn’t Care What You Think Of Her
Christina Ricci: 5 Things You Might Not Know
Christina Ricci to Star in ‘Monstrous’
Christina Ricci Talked About Kissing as Wednesday Addams
Christina Ricci: Beyond Wednesday
Talking to Christina Ricci is, strangely, …
Christina Ricci: Nice and Naughty
christina ricci is not just a normal girl
things you didn’t know about vincent gallo’s buffalo ’66
how ‘200 cigarettes’ achieved cult status despite terrible reviews
‘I don’t think that being a child actor is healthy for people’
Christina Ricci: ‘One good thing about a conservative regime is there’s something to rebel against’
Why Hollywood Won’t Cast Christina Ricci Anymore
How Christina Ricci Became A True ’90s Icon

 

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Extras


Q&A Christina Ricci Comic Con 2020


WTF Happened to CHRISTINA RICCI?


Christina Ricci Says These Bruises Came From Being Abused

 

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Interview

 

Some child stars melt down from the pressure. You’ve managed to avoid all that keep your adult private life private. How have you done it?

I don’t know that I’ve really done anything that would have been good tabloid fodder. I didn’t marry a celebrity, I lived in Brooklyn when I was pregnant, so I didn’t try to avoid the press there just didn’t happen to be any paparazzi there. I’m really casual about big things in my life and I don’t make announcements because I think that’s weird. I think that’s a weird thing to announce to the world that you’re pregnant. How do you know people give a shit? I just feel like it’s very presumptuous to think that people give a shit.

Did other kids treat you weirdly at school?

I was smart enough at the time to immediately understand that I would not be accepted by my peers if I spoke about my career when I came back to school, so I never talked about it. I made a point of ignoring it and avoiding it. I was able to be very focused and disciplined in a way I think people were surprised by because it’s not necessarily a trait children have very often. But other than that I think I was pretty normal.

Are you sick of people still asking about The Addams Family now? I just did it. I’m so sorry.

No! [laughs] It’s a great thing, I’m lucky to have had something that people are still fascinated by. I come from that school of thought of longevity, and of making an impact, so for me it’s something to be proud of, that it’s survived this long and that people are still interested in it.

Who’s your favourite actress?

I have lots of different ones. My favourite classic – not “classic”; God, what is wrong with me? Sometimes I sound like a teenager still – is Elizabeth Taylor. My favourite movie is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I love watching her.

Have you ever seen her in Boom!?

No!

It’s John Waters’ favourite movie and he says if you watch Boom! and you don’t like it, you can never be friends with John Waters. It’s got Richard Burton in it. It’s terrible and I love it.

It’s not the one where they’re all stuck at the airport together, is it?

No, that’s The V.I.P.s. In Boom! she’s a rich woman and Richard Burton arrives and she hates him to start off with and then they end up hooking up. There’s a bit there Richard Burton looks down from a cliff and says, “Boom!”

I’m going to watch this immediately. How do you spell it? [Writes down the title] Thank you.

You’re welcome. Looking back at your career, is there one film you see as having been particularly pivotal for you?

I think the first movie I did that was more sort of my taste at the time was The Ice Storm. For me that was a big turning point, because what followed after that were more serious adult projects which were what I was looking for. As an actor, if you are able to plan your career then you are in a very, very lucky position. For the most part you are at the whim of somebody else’s desire. But I think there’s a much more entrepreneurial spirit amongst millennials and the generations coming up, and I think that is influencing the way that actors feel. They’re like, “Well, I act in movies so why wouldn’t I produce them or create them?”

With Z and The Lizzie Borden Chronicles, you also have a producing credit. Is that so you can have more control over the material?

Yes. For a woman, I think that’s it’s a very difficult process psychologically to age as an actress. And I don’t want to be worried about all the petty things I’ve been worried about as a younger person – I’d rather get more into the material and the art, and have more control. Being an actor can feel very much like a powerless position and I don’t want to go into my forties being powerless anymore at work.

Have you previously been afraid to speak up in case you’re thought of as difficult?

[Long pause] Ha, I was going to say a lot of things there, but yes, that is pretty much the situation. I hate to say it, but I found this to be true as an act-ress, you have to have the title to back up your opinion.

Are men more likely to speak up?

God, yes.

That’s the case everywhere.

Yeah, it’s no different. People make a big deal about women in Hollywood but it’s every industry. Going through this process of producing was really surprising to me, even in terms of casting. There are so many act-ors that won’t come in and audition and you’ve never heard of them in your whole life! Me and my peers – other women – we go in and audition all the time for things. There’s a reason why there are a lot of women in charge of our show.

You still have to audition?

You’d be surprised at the people who do. I don’t hate auditioning, it’s one of those things where I’ve been doing it for 30 years and I have to do it so regularly that there’s no point in having a bad attitude about it. But I do think that at this point I have enough movies, and I’ve played enough parts, that you can watch them and get an idea of what I’d be like. But what do I know.

I read you were up for the role that ultimately went to Thora Birch in Ghost World. What happened there?

I wasn’t up for it, I was attached to it. It became a scheduling issue and I couldn’t do it.

Were you a fan of the comic?

I was! Daniel Clowes is amazing.

How did you feel with Pan Am not continuing? When it started it felt like something big.

I had a lot of fun on that job. But what I learned from that show and what drove me into producing my own show was there can be a sort of diluted vision with television because of the way television’s made. A lot of people end up involved in the decision making. Sometimes you can work on projects where you ask, “What is this scene? Should I be playing this pure drama, or is this comedy, dark comedy?” and I’ve had the experience before where somebody will say, “Well, a little bit of both.” That’s not an answer! And then you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.

In Prozac Nation you played Elizabeth Wurtzel, a woman struggling with depression and substance abuse. And Zelda Fitzgerald’s story involves infidelity and alcoholism. Do you get nervous approaching dark material?

I don’t get nervous, but I kind of dread it because it’s a lot of work and I’m pretty lazy. And I get anxious. But it doesn’t make me nervous like I’ll worry I can’t do it, I just know it’s going to be a lot of work.

You were nude in Prozac Nation but I don’t remember there being a merkin as huge as the one in episode four of Z.

Oh God, I guess that they haven’t done the digital effects to the copy that you saw.

It was enormous! It was bigger than your whole head. What did you think when you saw it?

Well, things look very different on camera, especially at different angles, so that was something we put on knowing that they could digitally bring it down. [Laughing] I’m glad it gave you a good giggle.

I read that you once said, “If I hadn’t gone into acting, I probably would be one of those weird runaways on Hollywood Boulevard, no it’d be uglier, I’d probably be dead.”

When was the date that I said that? Was I a teenager? Like most people in the world I’d rather not be held to statements I made as a teenager. All of a sudden people ask you to talk about yourself and things that you have no experience to talk about. I felt like it was so insane and ridiculous to be asked my opinion about these things. Somebody said to me, “What would you be if I wasn’t an actress?” and I said, “Oh, a prostitute on Hollywood Boulevard.” You know what I mean? It’s like, what do you want me to say? I’m 17! I don’t know what I would be! I could still be so many things.

If you didn’t train as an actor you couldn’t even fall back on this-is-my-process chat.

Exactly! I didn’t even have a process! I was a child and every set you go to you’re expected to conform to whatever the adults are doing. And am very much a product of being a child on set. It’s a very different position. But you’re right, there was very little to talk about so I just said dumb things.

Another time you said you had a fear of plants.

I was being hyperbolic because I thought it was funny that there was a word for that! Botaniphobia. I think that’s hilarious. I don’t like plants inside because I think it’s gross because you’re bringing dirt inside and I don’t like dirt and I don’t like nature very much. Especially ferns. I don’t like ferns.

Was there any one line that you remember that you regret saying?

There are a lot of them, but repeating them would only make it be printed again. I know better than that now.

 

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17 of Christina Ricci’s 85 roles

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Barry Sonnenfeld The Addams Family (1991)
‘Wednesday Addams is known for her dark, dry humor — and few could play the character as perfectly as Ricci. Ricci starred in The Addams Family movie in 1991 and Addams Family Values in 1993, both of which have become cult classics among fans. And she’s even talked about her experience on the sets of the films. “Those movies have clearly had the biggest impact on my career and life,” Ricci noted, according to Bustle. “I spent a lot of my childhood working on them and promoting them, and I’ve spent the rest of my life talking about them!”’ — Cheat Sheet


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Barry Sonnenfeld Addams Family Values (1993)
‘Barry’s direction was very clear to me. I was a very sarcastic person, so I definitely got what they were trying to accomplish. As a result, there wasn’t a ton of notes on my delivery. It wasn’t really a technically complicated film to make; the most complicated parts had to do with camera movement and timing.’ — C.R.


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Addams Family Values: Christina Ricci Gives Behind-the-Scenes Tour

 

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Brad Silberling Casper (1995)
‘While The Addams Family was Christina Ricci’s first comic book movie, the most successful would be the 1995 Harvey Comics adaptation Casper, in which a 15-year-old Ricci plays Kat, whose paranormal researcher father (Bill Pullman) encounters the titular spirit and his uncles in an infamous haunted mansion.’ — Cinema Blend


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Anjelica Huston Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
‘This movie handles its tricky subject matter — which includes an account of child battery and rape — with just the right blend of tact and truthfulness. Despite the key events that account for tale’s notoriety, Huston’s pic, like the acclaimed Dorothy Allison novel on which it is based, concerns much besides child abuse. Set in Greenville, S.C. (though filmed in Wilmington, N.C.), not long after WWII, story looks behind “Tobacco Road” cliches to evoke the complex weave of love, hardship and family bonds that conditioned the life of poor whites in the days before New South prosperity kicked in.’ — Variety


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Ang Lee The Ice Storm (1997)
‘Suburban Connecticut, 1973. While Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” speech drones from the TV, the Hood and Carver families try to navigate a Thanksgiving break simmering with unspoken resentment, sexual tension, and cultural confusion. With clarity, subtlety, and a dose of wicked humor, Academy Award–winning director Ang Lee renders Rick Moody’s acclaimed novel of upper-middle-class American malaise as a trenchant, tragic cinematic portrait of lost souls. Featuring a tremendous cast of established actors (Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver) and rising stars (Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, Katie Holmes) The Ice Storm is among the finest films of the 1990s.’ — The Criterion Collection


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Vincent Gallo Buffalo ’66 (1998)
‘Gallo has made it clear in the past there was no love lost between he and Ricci. Two years after the film’s release, he described the actress as “an ungrateful c—t” who was “basically a puppet. I told her what to do, and she did it.”’ — Huffpost

‘That was very confusing because it was my first movie away from home, or without my mother. [Gallo] didn’t want my mom to come. He wanted me to be up there by myself. I was 17 and I had never worked with anyone like this and I had never worked on a movie that was that low-budget before. I’d always worked on things where the more money, the more structure, the more protections in place, all this stuff. But I spent most of that movie trapped in a car with a raving lunatic.’ — C.R.


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Terry Gilliam Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
‘Famous faces pop up throughout Fear and Loathing, most of them in the kind of two-minute roles they gave up three agents ago. Leading the pack are Tobey Maguire as a terrified hitchhiker, Christina Ricci as a disturbed painter, and Gary Busey as a lonely highway patrolman (his “give me a kiss” line was improvised). Also in the cast are Ellen Barkin as a waitress, Penn Jillette as a carnival barker, Cameron Diaz and Mark Harmon as reporters, Katharine Helmond as the clerk at the Mint Hotel, and Christopher Meloni as the clerk at the Flamingo Hotel.’ — The Culture Trip


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John Waters Pecker (1998)
‘In Pecker, Waters indulges his twin fascination with fine art and gritty, low-budget life. Usually the conflict between art life and street life in Waters’ films turns fierce, even violent. The evil Marbles in Pink Flamingos (1972), snooty criminals with artistic pretensions, look down on Divine’s trailer-trash family. In Polyester, Tab Hunter’s art-movie drive-in theater owner (featuring “Marguerite Duras From Dusk Till Dawn“) romances the nouveau-riche Divine, whose lower-class roots show clearly. Usually bloodshed settles the score between high-brow and low-life in Waters’ films. In Pecker, however, the two harmonize after some initial discord. Warmhearted, cheerful, incisive and inclusive, Pecker is Waters’ best work since Hairspray.’ — Metroactive


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Tim Burton Sleepy Hollow (1999)
‘In 1999, the man of macabre, Tim Burton, reinvented the age-old story of Sleepy Hollow. It’s a decades-old urban legend that was reimagined in Burton’s mind with the help of Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, and Jeffrey Jones. Shot with a very eery tone that only Tim Burton can achieve, Ichabod Crane, played by Depp, is sent to the town of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a string of decapitations. The alleged culprit? The Headless Horseman himself. Katrina Van Tassel, played by Ricci, immerses herself in the hunt and becomes quite fond of Ichabod Crane. Secrets once laid to rest are reawakened and terror takes over the town of Sleepy Hollow, as more people end up dead.’ — Screen Rant


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Sally Potter The Man Who Cried (2000)
‘A showcase of future résumé embarrassments, The Man Who Cried features Christina Ricci trying to pass off her couch potato carriage and disaffected stare of ”Whatever!” blankness as the secret fear and anguish of a wandering Jew at the dawn of World War II; John Turturro flashing his guileless gawk smile as a very, very famous Italian opera singer; and Johnny Depp playing — yet again — a monosyllabic designer gypsy with a Eurosuave dialect so generic that you’d swear you were watching a recurring ”Saturday Night Live” character to put alongside Christopher Walken’s ”champanya” guzzling Continental.’ — Entertainment Weekly


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Erik Skjoldbjærg Prozac Nation (2001)
‘The self-centered brat at the center of Prozac Nation spends most of her time making life miserable for everyone around her, but there’s little reason the public should have to pay for the same privilege. Ninety-eight minutes of this movie and you may find yourself reaching for Prozac or the antidepressant of your choice. A cheap shot, to be sure, but the movie earns it.’ — Variety


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Woody Allen Anything Else (2003)
‘The dialogue in Woody Allen’s “Anything Else” is an exercise of neurotic bravery, a defense against fear and insecurity. His characters are doubtful about their prospects in life. Careers aren’t going well, and romance works only through self-deception. To hold despair at bay they talk and talk, and because Allen is a master of comic dialogue, it is our pleasure to listen. At a time when so many American movies keep dialogue at a minimum so they can play better overseas, what a delight to listen to smart people whose conversation is like a kind of comic music.’ — Roger Ebert


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Patty Jenkins Monster (2003)
‘Aileen’s body language is frightening and fascinating. She doesn’t know how to occupy her body. Watch Theron as she goes through a repertory of little arm straightenings and body adjustments and head tosses and hair touchings, as she nervously tries to shake out her nervousness and look at ease. Observe her smoking technique; she handles her cigarettes with the self-conscious bravado of a 13-year-old trying to impress a kid. And note that there is only one moment in the movie where she seems relaxed and at peace with herself; you will know the scene, and it will explain itself. This is one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema.

‘Christina Ricci finds the correct note for Selby Wall — so correct some critics have mistaken it for bad acting, when in fact it is sublime acting in its portrayal of a bad actor. She plays Selby as clueless, dim, in over her head, picking up cues from moment to moment, cobbling her behavior out of notions borrowed from bad movies, old songs, and barroom romances. Selby must have walked into a gay bar for the first time only a few weeks ago, and studied desperately to figure out how to present herself. Selby and Aileen are often trying to improvise the next line they think the other wants to hear.’ — Roger Ebert


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Christina Ricci Monster Interview

 

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Wes Craven Cursed (2005)
‘Wes Craven’s Cursed was originally intended to be a fresh new take on the werewolf movie, but ultimately ended up becoming one of Craven’s most maligned films. The final version of the movie is actually so different from what Craven originally set out to make that the director basically disowned the film, but former Dimension executive Cary Granat confirmed that Craven’s original cut does still exist somewhere.

‘Craven’s original plan for Cursed centered on three strangers who are attacked by a werewolf following an accident, and was pitched as a bold reinvention of the werewolf horror movie. Directed by Craven, written by Kevin Williamson, and starring Skeet Ulrich, the original plan had all the makings of restoring another beloved sub-genre to its former glory – like Craven did with slasher movies after releasing Scream – but when filming was 90% complete, producer Bob Weinstein demanded sweeping changes.

‘Changed from an R to a PG-13 rating and removing Rick Baker’s practical effects in favor of poorly edited CGI, reshoots and changes to the plot not only destroyed Craven’s original vision, but it also forced many of the original cast members to leave due to scheduling conflicts. As such, Cursed became a totally different movie, but the likely far superior version is still out there.’ — Screen Rant


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Craig Brewer Black Snake Moan (2006)
‘Like the strangely simpatico films of fellow Southern humanist David Gordon Green, Moan fetishizes sweat and decay as it surveys a very dirty South seemingly devoid of computers, iPods, cell phones, and other ubiquitous fixtures of contemporary life. Ricci struts defiantly through this ’70s-style time warp as a lusty nymphomaniac who falls back into her bad old ways after jittery boyfriend Justin Timberlake departs for boot camp. When Timberlake’s redneck brother viciously beats Ricci and leaves her for dead, grief-stricken bluesman Jackson brings her back to his shotgun shack and tries to set her on the straight and narrow.’ — AV Club


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Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski Speed Racer (2008)
‘I loved the idea of working with the Wachowskis. I’ve wanted to work with them for a while and then Speed Racer was actually always something that people had mentioned to me like ‘oh, you know they’re gonna make Speed Racer. You’d be a good Trixie’, blah, blah, blah.’ — C.R.


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Christina Ricci on Speed Racer

 

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Clark Johnson Percy Vs Goliath (2020)
‘“Percy,” a new based-on-real-life drama from director Clark Johnson now playing in select theatres, is a David and Goliath story with a universal message of standing up for what you believe in. Christopher Walken plays septuagenarian Percy Schmeiser, a small-town farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan, who refuses to be bullied by a giant agrochemical corporation. “Percy” isn’t a flashy movie, although the landscape shots of Saskatchewan’s open skies and fields are often breathtaking. Instead it’s a low-key story of the fight to maintain the integrity of the food we put in our mouths.’ — Richard Crouse


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p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks for crawling in, Ben. Hooray on your relatively imminent expulsion! And great luck with peacefully absorbing your second jab. Great news all around! Whoop! ** Dominik, Hi!!! Wow, SCAB is like a machine gun! Everyone, Dominick’s mighty SCAB adds some pep to your what one hopes will be your generally peppy weekend with its new literary bullet, a poem by one John Sweet. This way. Yay! Oh, god, I’m sure it’ll be the same here in terms of sports trumps art/music except with a Frenchier, more cautionary approach. What is up with these dictators? Yeah, still emptying the storage, still being too lazy about it for my own good. But I’m going to try to go back to powering through this weekend. Your love has a big forehead! Or very tiny handwriting. Love supplementing his new tattoo with waist-length dyed blue-black hair, mascara, white contact lens, implanted vampire teeth, a fake blood nose bleed, and getting cancelled by the LGBTQ community, G. ** David Ehrenstein, I think I saw Dorothy Loudon in a production of ‘Sweeney Todd’ once if I’m not mistaken. ** Misanthrope, No, they were the means to a feast. Dropping shit is a sign of getting old? That’s interesting. I don’t think I do that. The only real aging signs I notice in my bod other than, you know, the wrinkles and stuff, are my legs act a little odd and slightly uncooperative sometimes. Well, Houellebecq is a hell of a lot better writer than Franzen, that’s one big thing. Houellebecq over here is kind of like a much more mainstream-acceptable Burroughs in the sense that he has this very developed personality schtick that reads well on television. And he reads as ‘very hip’ to boring people because he does ‘hip’ but boring things like collaborate with Iggy Pop. Ooooh, edgy! Yeah, no wine sounds like a plan. No change in the lockdown here until the 19th. ** BlueSmoke, Oh, it’s G, hi! Took me a second. Which is good. Confusion is the truth, blah blah blah. Obviously, I’m thrilled that the post impacted your poem. Its work causing fieriness in others’ work the ultimate blog dream. I didn’t teach in the classic sense at UCLA. I was a visiting advisor/artist/confident or something. I spent a lot of time with my ‘students’ — young sculptors — talking about their works-in-progress mostly one-on-one, which I guess is teaching, but it just felt like I was getting privileged access or something. Well, there is an apartment for rent in my building, and if ‘melodrama’ moves in, that will be no problem whatsoever. Well, depending on what his accompanying master is like. It’s quite possible that ‘themagictwink’ was here before. Some of the slaves have been hunting for masters for ages. I know that, with escorts, they always say that if escorts state that they’re 18, they’re usually 24 – 26, and if they say they’re in their later 20s, they’re usually in their early to mid/late 30s. And so on. And then there are the escorts who say they’re 18 but don’t look a day over 14. But those ones usually give clients a little clue like saying they’re 18 but their screen name is ‘aaron13’. It’s a wild world. Anyway, I suspect it might be the same with the slaves. Bon weekend! ** Bill, I thought so too: unusually artful. The new New Juche is amazing, and, in fact, it will be on display here in a ‘welcome’ post the next time you check in. ** Jes, Hi, Jes! Oh, thanks a lot! You were a BB person? Pray tell. What’s going on in and with you? Thanks for being here. ** Steve Erickson, So true. 100% capacity?! That seems a little rash? Huh. Well, good luck with that. Our movie theatres reopen on the 19th at limited capacity, and I’m tempted to take a sleeping bag and go camp out by the closest one’s box office. ** Right. Something came over me the other day, and I decided to do a Day about Christina Ricci. Why not, right? That’s your local weekend. Use it wisely, however you define wisdom. See you on Monday.

7 Comments

  1. Ian

    Hey Dennis. Hope yr having a killer weekend. Thanks for the post today. Casper was one of my favourite movies as a child. I love when you give us a string of stills and clips from movies. It’s such an interesting way to view an actor. That is all.
    Caio, Ian

  2. David Ehrenstein

    Crazy about Christina! My favorite film of hers is “The Opposite of Sex” where she plays a teenage temptress of such incredible intensity only Lisa Kudrow can defeat herHere’s the trailer It contains one of my all-time favorite movie lines. .

  3. David Ehrenstein

    Today is the birthday of everybody’s favorite gay alcoholic genius Lorenz Hart. And here with one of his most famous songs is (of all peopel) Matt Damon

  4. Steve Erickson

    When I interviewed THE KIDNAPPING OF MICHEL HOUELLBECQ director Guillaume Nicloux, he insisted that Houellbecq is completely sincere and does not do or say anything for shock value or attention. Living in Paris, you have a much closer view of his reception in the French media, but I find that very hard to believe.

    I wrote a song over the weekend, “Welcome to the Coven”: https://callinamagician.bandcamp.com/track/welcome-to-the-coven. It began as yet another attempt to write horror movie soundtrack music, but I decided it sounded too dirgelike, more depressive than ominous, so I added percussion and lots of reverb.

    Returning to the movie theater yesterday was great, but it also felt quite desolate. IL BOOM played one of Film Forum’s smaller screens, but there were only 6 other people there. It seemed quite safe: no one was sitting near me, everyone kept their masks on. Only 2 people seemed to be working at the theater – a woman selling tickets, and the usher – and the concession stand was shut down. If their films are playing to such a tiny audience, I wonder if they are even breaking even. This was the first U.S. theatrical run of a Vittorio De Sica film which has only screened in retrospectives here- at a certain point, that would’ve been an event.

  5. Misanthrope

    Dennis, Yeah, and really, I don’t know that Franzen is that much of a media whore, but boy, does he get all the raves. “Best American novel in the last 40 years!” Etc. Really? And then you try and read some of his stuff and go, “Um…REALLY?”

    Hmm, maybe Will Self is more akin re: the media whore type thing. Then again, a lot of Brits can’t stand Self, hahaha. Even the ones who actually like his stuff can’t stand him and seeing him on the telly all the time.

    But yeah, it’s all weird and gives credence to one searching out good stuff on one’s own and finding it and embracing it and not giving a fuck all what others think.

    That’s one thing I’ve tried to to do in my life: not let others think for me. Of course, I take very seriously the opinions of people whom I trust, but at the end of the day, it’s on me to explore stuff and find good stuff. And yeah, it’s not gonna agree with everyone.

    That part went well. I didn’t get home until 2. Got to sleep around 4 or 5. Totally fucked me for Saturday, but oh well. Still got all my shit done.

    Having a cookout tonight. Just hamburgers/cheeseburgers and hot dogs and baked beans. But it’s good to finally get the grill and the charcoal out again. Should be all right.

    I’m looking at a 29-page publication I have to proofread tomorrow morning. Ugh. But I get paid well to do it, so not really any complaints, and it’ll go faster than I anticipate.

  6. Dominik

    Hi!!

    Thank you for this post. I like Christina Ricci. I remember when a teacher asked us to find an example of “an ideal relationship” (or family, I can’t remember) in a book or movie, I said I found Morticia and Gomez’s relationship the most ideal, in The Addams Family. She didn’t really agree with me, haha, but I’d still reply the same thing.

    And thank you, again, for the SCAB shoutout!!

    How was your weekend? Any great news about the hacking and/or storage mess…?

    I’ve just finished working (there are always more available documents at the end of the week; I guess fewer freelancers work then), and now I’m off to my bed to read David Wojnarowicz’s “Close to the Knives.”

    I LOVE your love. Period. Love replacing his teeth with colorful M&M’s and smiling at you every time you look in his direction, Od.

  7. David Ehrenstein

    Olympia Dukakis R.I.P. Her very fist film was Gregory Markopoulos’ Twice a Man

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