MIKA (Life in Cartoon Motion) on Good Morning America

I have been a fan of MIKA's for some time now. BEFORE ALL THE HYPE (I HAD to put that point across). It's wonderful that he's gained such success and popular appeal especially because he is unique and fun-loving (among many other qualities). His exuberance is contagious and brings me tears of joy because I know what that feels like. It's such a great, refreshing comfort to see that in a performer. True-love in what you say you Love to do. AND an added bonus is that he CAN perform LIVE! (Because y'all know there are some performers out there that SHOULDN'T be doing ANYTHING live. *ugh*)

He was supposed to perform in Bryant Park but the weather decided that they couldn't handle such a unique presence at this time! =PPP And because MIKA felt bad he offered a free show at Manhattan's Highline Ballroom at 1p. What a guy!!!

His band members are also very supreme! Yeah! On guitars and providing backing vocals is Martin Waugh, on bass and providing backing vocals is Michael Choi, on drums is Cherisse Osei, and on keyboards is Luke Juby. I dig how his drummer is a lady!!

MIKA singing: "Love Today"


"Big Girl"


A very short, but sweet, interview. I Love what he has to say.

Get his album NOW.

"Mortelle Randonnée" (or, When Ugly is Beautiful)

There is a little bit (or, for others,--don't want to exclude--a lotta bit) of ugly in all of us. This is not the "philosophical"-ugly dealing with a person's true identity. No. I'm talkin' about the face. Or your visAHge. I am laughing to myself because I keep thinking about why I started this post (or, I'm just plain crazy).

Now, let me start off by saying that I don't think when an actress turns "ugly" for a role that she is the bravest minx out there. No. Please. Get back to me when you find an actress that can do what Romy Schneider did in her career. That's bravery. That's courage. That's an actress. Having said that, I do admire actresses who go to ugly-UGLY. And it truly is mortifying and provides a jolt of shock when one of your favorites (who is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous and you feel NOTHING could make her ugly) is so vile on your screen that you can't help but let out gales of grossed-out, confused, horrified laughter. Case in point, Stéphane Audran in Claude Miller's Mortelle Randonnée (1983).

I apologize for not being able to provide a photo of her for you to see exactly what I am talking about. I couldn't find one. I know, I know, I know. *BOO*

Onward. Stéphane plays, La dame en gris (The lady in grey). She is not the main character. The story is of a young, pretty thing (Isabelle Adjani) that kills her many suitors that possess lots of money. She disguises herself and changes her name with each new suitor. One of her suitors ends up being a woman, and, I should add that along the way, she picks up a hitch-hiker that tries to swindle her but the plan backfires and they end up working together. They rob a bank but it turns awry and the hitch-hiker gets killed. She's not very wise with money, though. By the end of the film, she has no more cash because she has wasted it all away. Stupid, I know. There IS a man that I believe she was truly in love with (played by Sami Frey) but he gets "accidentally" killed by a detective (Michel Serrault) that was hired by the first suitor's parents. They wanted the detective to gather the girl's background. The detective has a story of his own. He has never met his one and only daughter. He doesn't know what she looks like. Through the course of the movie, he transfers his feelings for his real daughter onto Adjani's character. So, instead of turning her into the po-po's, he tries to protect her. Mm.

WELL...Stéphane enters the film right after Frey's character is killed. Her appearance! She was UUG-LEE. LOL! Very. Really. For true. C'est la vérité. I was stunned. I had read that her appearance in the movie was rather startingly ugly but I couldn't imagine it. And then, I saw her and I am still laughing! She really did look like she was somebody else. Well, maybe not somebody else, but close to it. Or maybe, I should say, she looked like a relative that would be locked in the basement if the family were obscenely cruel. (Isn't that a movie somewhere???) She looked like all the color from her face had drained away. Her eyes seemed very beady, with a bit of red and an outer circle of yellow. And I'm pretty sure that the top part of her teeth were not hers, they were disgustingly yellow and looked like they were decaying (a dentist's dream!). She was SO very funny in the movie. Funny and tragic. Maybe "tragic" is too strong of a word. I'll go with, ill-fated. Unfortuante. Wretched. Dreadful. Atrocious. Eh...

There are two scenes in which I defy you not to laugh. The first is when she comes back to the detective in a café after being locked out of her room by her co-hort. You feel so bad for her but you want to laugh (I'm still laughing). And you will. It may seem cruel to but you will. The lines Serrault throws at her are plain mean and cutting. At one point he says, "You might be less hideous with bangs," and he motions to right at his eyebrows indicating that's where her bangs should be. But, a split second after that action he lowers his hand to his mouth!!! LOL! Mean. The second scene is in the car and the both of them are outside the hotel where her co-hort is staying. The detective tells her a bunch of lies about what ensued between him and the co-hort and she goes off! Again, very funny. Serrault and Audran really played well off of each other. Their timing was impeccable.

Stéphane is so intelligent. She knows how to inject humor. It's very subtle and it can be very broad. That's part of what makes her so golden. Humor. Irony. Dry.

This brings to mind an interview that I read with Claude Chabrol. He spoke about Romy Schneider and humor: "There have been some people I’ve found tricky. Dear Romy [Schneider], for example. She cheated me. She said, ‘I warn you, I don’t have an ounce of humor.’ Amazing! A girl who can say such a thing. The trouble was, it was true. It went well. But she spent as much time acting in between takes as in front of the camera. We had a fight at the dub."

I don't think she lacked humor, though. I thought she was funny. It was very dark. She had a great sense of irony. Sardonic irony, dry wit, what you will. She wasn't a laugh-out-loud funny. She was an u*h!-what?!-yikes-WHOOPS funny.

Currently watching: Le Trio Infernale

"Les Demoiselles de Rochefort"

This musical from 1967 was directed by Jacques Demy (the restoration of it was looked over by Agnès Varda--Demy's wife--in 1996). The music was composed by Michel Legrand. It is pure fun with cheesy-corniness and I adore it! It also has such a first-rate cast: Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, Michel Piccoli, Danielle Darrieux, George Chakiris, Gene Kelly, among others... (Yes, you read the last two names right!!! HA!)

I mean, if this doesn't make you feel good...well...I just don't know!

It's really dorky. You will most likely roll your eyes, and you may even look down on me and question my taste. But, it's fun. You see, I'm into kitsch, as well=PPP

Dynamic Duo: Audran et Huppert

from Claude Chabrol's Violette Nozière (1978)

Violette Nozière

from Bertrand Tavernier's Coup de Torchon (1980)

I await for these 2 to get together once again. They are absolutely explosive together on the screen. In an interview with Tavernier, he said that he only had to do one or two takes when he was filming them. They were so good and on top of their game (no surprise). It was very easy for him.

I'd love to hear from their own mouths what it was like to work with one another. I really hope that they didn't hate each other. That would leave me disheartened because I adore them both.

Shakespeare Rules instilled in The Dench by Michael Benthall and Peter Hall

1. Remember it's a play, not reality.
2. Obey the metre.
3. Start scenes.
4. Earn a pause.
5. Don't separate.
6. Drive through the speech.
7. Antithesis, pauses, up at the end of lines.
8. Economy, simplicity, and negotiate with humour.
9. You don't have to carry the message, the play does it for you.
10. Trust the play, and your casting.

The Dench says that #8 is the greatest of all.

And, yes. It is.

John Stride and The Dench in ROMEO AND JULIET

10 Principal Shortcomings of Lilli Palmer (as named by Elsa Schreiber)

1. Remember: you have no charm
2. Don't act adjectives. No need to illustrate what you're saying.
3. Iron out those abrupt, hasty gestures.
4. Take your time. Then no one will be bored.
5. Don't mumble.
6. Listen to your fellow actors. That will make you interesting.
7. Stay dry. Sentimentality is Mortal Sin Number One.
8. Don't stand with your feet apart. Keep them together. You're not in the gym.
9. Stay vital. Monotony is Mortal Sin Number Two.
10. Courage--above all, courage!

*Elsa Schreiber was Lilli's acting teacher/coach. A woman with a great talent who shared her knowledge and helped her students blossom and bloom.

Lilli as Cleopatra (duh) in Shaw's CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA

I'm in love with Lee Marvin

Yes. You read the title correctly. I just finished watching Samuel Fuller's 1980 war film The Big Red One. It's the restored/reconstructed version.

I remember first watching Lee Marvin in one of my 8th grade elective classes. The movie was Cat Ballou. I also saw him in The Dirty Dozen. I think that's it. I wanna say that I've seen Paint Your Wagon. But, I may be lying.

Anywah...Yes. I am in love with him. There was just something about him in The Big Red One that got me goin' on him.


The film is moving, daunting and funny. Two scenes that are full of tenderness involved children. One with an Sicilian girl and the other with a Jewish boy. A scene of buoyancy involved these Sicilian women and children freed from German soldiers' hold on them in their village. There was much food, song and laughter. A scene of duality had the guys capture this Nazi boy who kept heil-ing to Hitler and the Sargeant forcing one of his men to shoot the kid. None of them would so the boy got a spankin' and his heil-ing to Hitler changed to him calling out for his papa. A hilarious scene had the guys helping to give birth to a Frenchwoman's child. The "qualified" of the group needed the woman to push but he didn't know the French for the word. The Sargeant said that it was, "pousser." Yep. They had fun with that word! There was a great scene of observation at a dinner table while all the men were eating and the French cook was eyeing and comparing how every one was eating. She caught the infiltrator. Whoops!

Now, there is an asylum scene. The star of that segment would be ... wait for it ... Stéphane Audran. She's a killer (named Walloon) that works for the underground and kills in silence, all the while acting insane in front of the Nazis. Yikes! If you blink, you'll miss her. That's how much time she has in the film. Well, maybe if you blink a few more times than once! She also has this tender, yet extremely carnal and desirous, scene with Robert Carradine. *le whew*

Another scene that took my breath away (and for a different reason than above) had this Nazi in a ward speaking to an injured Lee Marvin and kissing him. Mm. There's was the kiss on the cheek, the kiss on the lips, another on the lips, and then *whoops* here comes the hand of Lee's to the throat of the Nazi.

I thought the rest of the cast (Mark Hamill, Bobby Di Cicco, Kelly Ward) were first-rate. I'm not a war film kind of a gal but I think this one's a great one. The camaraderie of the men! There are many battle sequences but not much on the gore and blood, which I was VERY fine with. I mean, Samuel Fuller could have gone gore-out on the sequence in which Stéphane slashes away at the Nazis but he doesn't. I do understand about making things believeable but it's very difficult for me to watch and I usually don't. If I had a choice between gratuitious violence or gratuitious sex. If I HAD to choose... Well, it wouldn't be violence. But, gratuitous sex can also make me sick. So, I choose... Can I choose neither? Hey! Wait a second! This is my blog. I don't have to answer anything!

The sound on the following clip is a tish out of sync. *boo*

In Memoriam: Michel Serrault

(*sigh* Bergman, Antonioni and now Serrault. And I kept telling my Ma deaths usually happen in 3's)

Michel Serrault, Star of “La Cage aux Folles,” Dies at 79

By MARGALIT FOX

Michel Serrault, a French film star known internationally for his role as the temperamental drag queen Zaza in the original film version of “La Cage aux Folles,” died on Sunday at his home in Honfleur, France. He was 79.

The cause was cancer, Mr. Serrault’s priest, the Rev. Alain Maillard de La Morandais, told The Associated Press.

Mr. Serrault, who appeared in more than 130 films, worked with some of the most celebrated directors in French cinema, among them Claude Chabrol. His films shown in this country include “The Butterfly,” “The Girl From Paris,” “Artemisia,” “The Swindle” and “Beaumarchais: The Scoundrel.”

In 1978, Mr. Serrault reprised for the screen the role of Zaza in “La Cage aux Folles” (“Birds of a Feather”); he had previously played the part onstage in Paris. In the film, Zaza (by day known as Albin) is the star act at a nightclub in St. Tropez run by his longtime lover, Renato (Ugo Tognazzi). After Renato’s son announces his engagement, the future in-laws, pillars of rectitude, show up in St. Tropez. Mayhem ensues.

The film was an international hit, and Mr. Serrault won a César, the French equivalent of the Oscar, for his performance. He returned as Zaza for “La Cage aux Folles 2” (1980) and “La Cage aux Folles 3: The Wedding” (1985).

Michel Serrault was born in Brunoy, near Paris, on Jan. 24, 1928. He performed in cabarets and on the stage before appearing in his first film, “Ah! Les Belles Bacchantes” (released in the United States as “Peek-a-boo”), in 1954.

Mr. Serrault’s survivors include his wife, Juanita, and a daughter, Nathalie, The Associated Press reported. (Another daughter died in a car crash in 1977.) Information on other survivors could not immediately be confirmed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/movies/31serrault.html?ref=theater

**
'La Cage aux Folles' actor dies

PARIS, France (AP) -- French actor Michel Serrault, whose hit performance as a transvestite in the film and stage versions of "La Cage aux Folles" ("The Birdcage") catapulted him to international stardom, has died, his priest said Monday. He was 79.

Serrault died Sunday of cancer in his home in the northwestern city of Honfleur, Rev. Alain Maillard de La Morandais said.

Serrault appeared in more than 130 films during a career that spanned half a century. After debuting as a comic actor, Serrault became one of France's most versatile stars, playing a serial killer, a grizzled farmer, a crooked banker and accused rapist.

"I'm against those who only want to entertain," Serrault said in 2002. "I am very happy with all the roles I've played, and I take responsibility for them all."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid homage to Serrault's "impressive filmography," calling the actor a "monument of the world of the theater, the cinema and the television."

Born on January 24, 1928, in Brunoy, south of Paris, Serrault initially set his sights on the priesthood, briefly entering a seminary. He dropped out, he later explained, because of the vow of chastity.

After studying acting in Paris, Serrault began as his stage career playing in cabarets.

He made his silver screen debut in 1954 in Jean Loubignac's "Ah! les belles bacchantes" ("Oh, the lovely revelers"), which was released as "Peek-a-boo" in the United States. His first big break came in 1972, with a leading role in Pierre Tchernia's "Le Viager" ("The Life Annuity")

Speaking Monday on LCI television, Tchernia called Serrault "perhaps the greatest French actor," saying he gave to his profession "all his talent, all his strength, all his humor, all his affection."

It was his role as flamboyant gay nightclub owner Albin Mougeotte, also known as Zaza Napoli, in the theater and film versions of the mega-hit "La Cage aux Folles" ("The Birdcage") that catapulted him to fame worldwide. His performance in director Edouard Molinaro's 1978 movie won him the first of three Cesar awards -- the French version of the Oscar.

Serrault remained active, featuring in films through his late seventies. Among his final films was Pierre Javaux's 2006 "Les Enfants du Pays" ("Hometown Boys"), about the role of African soldiers in WWII.

Serrault is survived by his wife, Juanita, and daughter, Nathalie.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/07/30/obit.serrault.ap

Here he is in a scene from La Cage aux Folles 3 with Ugo Tognazzi and Stéphane Audran:

In Memoriam: MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI

(first Bergman and now another magnificent creator has left our physical universe)

Antonioni, Italian Director of Introspective Films, Dies at 94

By Adam L. Freeman and Steve Scherer

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- Michelangelo Antonioni, the Italian film director who explored modern alienation and the enigma of human relationships, has died. He was 94.

Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni announced a public viewing of Antonioni's body tomorrow at City Hall, according to a written statement. The filmmaker died Monday night at his home, Ansa reported earlier, citing unidentified family members.

In milestone movies like 1966's English-language ``Blow-Up'' Antonioni's work offered the audience time to contemplate interior struggles through psychology and symbolism rather than action. When the director's classic ``L'Avventura was presented at Cannes in 1960 it greeted with jeers.

``Antonioni changed the narrative structure of telling a story,'' said Chiara Caselli, who acted in ``Beyond the Clouds'' (1995) in an interview. ``In the history of Italian cinema, Antonioni with always be there.''

Born into a middle-class family in Sept. 29, 1912 in Ferrara, Italy, Antonioni attended the University of Bologna where he studied classics and economics. As a college student, he wrote film reviews for a local paper, often angering the country's film industry with barbed attacks on Italian comedies.

His attempts at documentary filmmaking ended in failure. When he tried to film an insane asylum, his subjects became hysterical every time the camera turned on them, forcing him to call off the production.

Antonioni continued to write about film in Rome, where he worked for Cinema, the official Fascist magazine dedicated to movies and edited by Vittorio Mussolini, son of the Italian dictator. A political disagreement prompted his dismissal. He opted to study filmmaking at the Centro Sperimentale.

Fishing Documentary

After collaborating with neo-realist auteur Roberto Rossellini and French film director Marcel Carne, Antonioni returned to Italy for his military service and obtained financing for a documentary about the impoverished fishermen of northern Italy's Po Valley.

Italian filmmaking came to a halt with the Allied invasion in 1943. In the interim Antonioni wrote film criticism for magazines including Film Rivista.

His feature debut came in 1950 when he directed ``Cronaca di un Amore.'' The film recounts the story of a bourgeois wife who meets her penniless lover in cheap hotels and plots her husband's murder. When he dies in an accident, the couple are left guilt stricken.

Italy's New Rich

To film the story, Antonioni departed from fashionable neo- realist practice by employing real actors and shunning social criticism. He also steered clear of traditional plot lines, aiming instead to draw the audience into the character's internal drama. The film had little success, and the director had to wait a decade before his work was noticed.

Antonioni was sensitive to Italy's budding industrial success. Through World War II the country was largely agrarian and one of the poorest in Europe. With one foot in traditional moralistic Catholicism and the other in modernism, a new monied class emerged, confused and awash in wealth.

``Scientific man is already on the moon, and yet we are still living with the moral concepts of Homer,'' Antonioni said in a 1969 interview.'' Hence this upset, this disequilibrium that makes weaker people anxious and apprehensive, that makes it so difficult for them to adapt to the mechanism of modern life.''

Shark Lie

With ``L'Avventura'' in 1960, Antonioni focused on Italy's new rich and their residual ennui and anxiety. The premise of the story is a group of well-to-do couples who take a boat tour of the Aeolian islands off of Sicily. Anna tries to add some life to the dreary trip by crying ``shark'' -- a lie that the director uses to spotlight the passiveness and lack of curiosity of the jaded middle class, and to represent Anna's friend, the serial bed- hopper Sandro.

Anna later disappears on a volcanic island. After a search, her friends return to their mundane lives and Anna is dropped from the film with no explanation.

The audience revolted against the 145-minute film, attacking it as long and pretentious. L`Avventura ``is like trying to follow a showing of a picture at which several of the reels have got lost,'' wrote New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther in 1961.

Indeed, scenes come to an end leaving viewers scratching their heads wondering if they missed something. The slowly built- up drama doesn't peak, and seems to simply disappear --just like Anna.

``Antonioni never really learned the trade,'' IMDb, the Internet movie database, quoted Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman, who died yesterday, as saying. ``He never concentrated on single images, never realizing that film is a rhythmic flow of images.''

`Blow-Up'

Crowther and Bergman aside, critics loved `L'Avventura'' for its cinematography. Despite the audience reaction, the movie won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes. (Compatriot Federico Fellini's ``La Dolce Vita'' won the Palme d'Or.)

Antonioni's biggest international success was the 1966 ``Blow-Up,'' an existential murder mystery in hipster-Sixties London.

Thomas, a famous fashion photographer bored by the grooviness of free love, finds exhilaration by snapping photos in the park where he thinks he photographed a murder. The film earned Antonioni Academy Award nominations for best director and original screenplay. Hollywood psycho-thriller director Brian Di Palma did a remake in 1981 as ``Blow Out'' starring John Travolta as a movie sound technician.

``Identificazione di una Donna'' about a filmmaker on a quest for the perfect woman was a hit in Italy and won the Special 35th Anniversary Award at Cannes in 1982. It never was distributed in North America after New York Times film critic Vincent Canby called it an ``excruciatingly empty work.''

More than a decade after suffering a stroke in 1983, Antonioni collaborated with German director Wim Wenders on ``Beyond the Clouds,'' four vignettes about love. Much later, in 2004, Antonioni directed one of three tales on the subject of desire in ``Eros,'' alongside Steven Soderbergh and Wong Kar Wai.

Presented with an Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1995, Antonioni, debilitated by age and stroke, accepted the award with one word: ``Grazie.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=azNY_gwcxxp0&refer=home#

I leave this entry in sadness with 2 clips:

In Memoriam: INGMAR BERGMAN

Bergman passed "from one room into another"* at 89 in his home in Faro, Sweden. The world of art has lost one of its greatest creators, the "poet with the camera."

The last film he directed was in '82, Fanny and Alexander. He directed in the theatre as well. Most of his productions were for Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theater. "The theatre is like a faithful wife," he said. "The film is the great adventure — the costly, exacting mistress."

I've only seen a few of Bergman's films (Cries and Whispers, Autumn Sonata, The Seventh Seal, and Scenes from a Marriage). In homage to the poet, I will leave you with a scene from the first film of his that I saw, Cries and Whispers:

* when asked by Lilli Palmer if she believed in life after death, Helen Keller responded emphatically, "Most certainly. It is no more than passing from one room into another."

Career Updates

*After I came back from Hawaii, I had an audition that day for TWELFTH NIGHT. Yeah. Heard NOTHING from them. Damn! I really wanted to be Viola or even Olivia. But, I need to be Viola sooner or later. I forgot my first line (but not really, I knew what it was but it wasn't registering in my mind as my first line. How strange is that?). I was really nervous, too. But, I shouldn't have been. I believe it was because I had just gotten off the plane 12 hours prior and had to wait at the airport an extra hour or so for our luggage, also I hadn't eaten a thing, and I didn't really "rehearse" my monologue. Hm...but I was prepared. Doesn't sound like it, eh? They preferred a monologue from TWELFTH NIGHT. I didn't want to do anything of Viola's or Olivia's because I wanted to be "fresh" and different so I performed a speech by Fabian. I played the role in college. They seemed to like it. I guess not! *le bleah*

*The gig where I was exempt from the audition is no longer in production due to the other actress who did not want to drive all the way to the location. She dropped a day before we were to shoot.

*I had to drop out of the short film that I got through the recommendation of my good friend because I had planned on being out of town (forever, perhaps) but plans fell through when the apartment(s) I had counted on were taken away from me. I rang the director up straightaway and told him the situation and he told me that he still wanted me to be part of the film BUT he had to put me on tape to send to his casting director (since after I had told him I wouldn't be able to be part of the film he needed to find a good Asian actress that could cry and hired a CD to find one, but quick). He also wanted me to watch the tapes of the auditioners. I had to watch all the Asian girls vying for the role that was mine. I also watched other actors auditioning for other roles in the film. I watched a couple that I really liked. I'm horrible at auditioning (I think). So, we'll see if I'm even still truly part of this short film as the young woman that leaves her baby at the front door of a church. Hopefully, the casting director will be cool with me. If not, well...

*I had an audition for an all-female production of HENRY V. The director really liked me and wanted me at his callback but there was a condition: I had to already accept being in the play without knowing what parts he wanted me to read for. I was to blindly accept. What is with these offers I'm getting and having to blindly accept??? I felt rather odd having to blindly accept any role he would offer me upfront without even knowing what I was being considered for until I got to the callback. I rang him the next morning and told him my truth. I also said that the only role that I was eyeballing was Henry. I would have taken Katherine of France if this was going to be a "normal" production. Henry is the role that I for sure know would challenge me and make me sweat and bleed and feel like a failure.

*The playwrighting teacher I met at SCR emailed me and offered me a bit role in the project that she is doing for the Bowers Museum. I accepted. The short plays will be done radio-style. There are 3 short plays. I'll be in 2 of them, she told me. I will play, Thoth, an Egyptian mummy that comes back to life, I believe. She said that the role was probably a page of lines out of 14 pages. And the other role is of a Haitian Voodoo Woman in which I have 3 lines, I think. She told me the best thing about it is the exposure. But, I don't really mind. I've always wanted to be part of whatever projects she were to have. I adore the woman. For her, I would blindly accept anything. The end of October is when it'll go up.

*I've been keeping in contact with a director from NY whom I met when I submitted for his project that was casting in Paris. He told me that he was going to be in LA to cast another part of his film and that he would be interested in seeing me in August. We've kept in touch and in the coming weeks, I will hear from him (I hope). He sent me a clip of his work that was uploaded on YouTube and I really liked what I saw.

*I had to let go of my agent. It was a very scary thing but I did it and she was/is very supportive of me.

**
I think that's all.

Oh! Nope. I lied...

This does not even include some of the stuff I did BEFORE leaving for Hawaii. Here's what I can remember:

*A USC grad student cast me in his short film. BUT, when he sent me the script! Don't get me started. It was f'awful (the "f" in "f'awful" stands for...you know=)! First of all, I hated the role. Second of all, the girl needed cleavage. I don't have that. I never will. The thing is, if I liked the script, the cleavage thing would have NOT mattered to me. Mm.

*A UCLA grad student cast me in his short film. It was a very interesting script and I was all about doing it. BUT, my paranoia got the better of me. The location was very shady. I was to leave my car in a parking lot and get picked up by some or one of the crew members to the location. Maybe I was wrong, but still... I'm a big girl. I can drive myself and find parking (however long it takes...that's why you leave EARLY).

*I got an email from a producer in France. They wanted me to audition for their short film being filmed on location in Paris! All travel expenses paid! Yeah! They said I could just send a video/link/whatever to them of 2 scenes of my choosing from their script. I really liked the script. I rehearsed and was ready to film. No equipment, horrible lighting...nothing fell into place for me. And it was such short notice that I got. What an opportunity, though! Oh, to be in Paris!

*Not only do I, as a whole person get rejected BUT even my HAIR gets rejected! Ha! I went to a Bumble & Bumble "hair" call. The casting director was an hour late. I was the second one there. The CD was very cool and hip. She seemed to really like my hair ("You've got great hair!") but OBVIOUSLY not enough to cast me.

*There was a TV Pilot that needed a quirky Asian. I'm not really quirky (or am I?) but I got a ring from the director and he wanted to see me. I went and sucked. Not really. But...Ha! I'm tellin' you! It was for an untitled Paparazzi project. I liked the script. I didn't really like the character from my moral standpoint (but I always have to put that aside...HELLO!) but I wouldn't have minded getting cast.

*Right after that audition, I had an audition for a play. The guy said he put it up Off-Off-Off-Broadway (I mean, what does that mean? Long Island? The Jersey Shore? South Carolina? The outskirts of LA-county?) and he told me that he used to teach at Columbia. I kicked major ass in that audition and I thought he liked me. It seemed like he was going to keep in contact with me (as we were emailing back and forth after the audition). Yeah. No word. I know what you're thinking, "*EW*! What a jerk!" (If you're not, you should be=P) It's okay. I'm trying to get over communication! HA!

*A week before I left, there was another short film I went to audition for (I posted the rejection a couple of posts ago=). I REALLY wanted to be part of that. I felt like it was very Chabrol-esque. For true. A girl has a crush on a co-worker, he asks her if she could paint a portrait for him for his ... wait for it ... girlfriend, girl is crushed but says she will do it, girlfriend is dropped off by him to get her portrait done, girlfriend is gorgeous, girlfriend is murdered by girl! *le whew* The way it's being done is so... I would have loved to have been cast in it. The murder is not shown at all. The beginning is very ambiguous and then all the pieces of the puzzle come together! Yes and Yikes!

*The day before I left, I auditioned for yet another short film. I read with a guy that looked SO young. But, our audition together was fine. I just remember thinking: "Oh, my GOD! I feel so much older." I don't mind. It's just a strange feeling like I'm between the ages of 75 to older-than-dirt! Ah-hah! Really. Oh-la-la.

*I auditioned for a production of ROMEO & JULIET. I Know I Whooped major ass at that audition. A teacher of mine was there to help with casting. At first, I didn't like it but when we got together at the end of the week, she was able to give me feedback and the director's feelings towards me. They really liked me and were very impressed. They told her that my handle on the language was very impressive. They liked my command, understanding and presence. Yet, they didn't cast me. I mean, what are you gonna do? I would be a Very different Juliet. I must admit, with all my reservations about the role, I'd like to tackle it one day because I know it would be a challenge for me and all my world-weariness! HA! It was a very good audition. Right after I had finished my monologue, the director for R&J asked, "Do you have any Juliet for us?" (Thank GOD (!) my teacher told me to prepare a Juliet.) And I beamed, proudly, at them, "Yes, I do!" I didn't do the obvious choices. I did one that I could learn fast and get it over with! Short and sweet. That's how it should be. This audition was rather cathartic for me. I was so elated that I think I almost brokedown...or did I almost throw up? Maybe both! That audition felt so good.

*My agent got me an audition (after I told her about it) for Shakespeare Festival/LA's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. They needed a Helena. Mm. I was told to prepare 2 monologues. When I got there, I did them and the director asked me to sing. *ugh* I sang. Now, I can sing. I just freak out when I actually have to for an audition! Ha! I would be a Great Helena AND Hermia! ;)

**
It seems like I've been very busy. Nope. It just seems that way. I spend so much time on the damn road than at these auditons! As any LA-actor is all too-familiar with and will tell you. I need to be auditioning for theatre but as you can see, I've mostly been auditioning for short films. I don't mind. I'd just like there to be an equal amount of both. To be honest, I don't think LA is for me. I just don't have the "look," I guess, as people say. In truth, I don't have the feeling for it!!! I'm starting to think that, like community theatre, LA doesn't like me! Maybe I should stop putting myself down? I really need to pick up my French, again (from the beginning because, sadly, I've forgotten EVERYTHING), and get beyond conversational so that I can move to France, and make European films and act on the Paris stage! And right after I learn French...Italian, German and Spanish are next. Maybe even Russian! =)

I'm also spending too much time watching foreign films and playing in the devil's playground (meaning, the computer).

I Must really focus on getting myself a "regular" job so that I can save up clams-clams-clams and be on my way-way-way. (I've got a few prospects. Hopefully, I haven't jinxed myself by mentioning them ahead of time. I ALWAYS do that! Damn! Oh, well...)

NOTHING is impossible.
I can do ANYTHING (that is...except: Prostitution, Boxing, Politics, "Dancing" and Porn ;P).

I now leave you with a scene from, "Les Biches."

Stéphane Audran (tidbits from articles)

If it hasn't been apparent (by now!), I'm a nerd. I like to research all that deeply interest me. It has been rather difficult researching on Stéphane Audran. The resources I have are some of her films and the internet. (And I thought Romy Schneider was a difficult one to research! Sheesh!) Here's a sampling of what I've found...

[entrevues]
FESTIVAL DU FILM BELFORT

Trajectoire: Coup de Chapeau à Stéphane Audran

Les Noces Rouges (Claude Chabrol, France, 1972)

‘I have not made a career; I have not given that much thought. When I first started, I just wanted to be a good actress. My voice was wrong; I could not move around, I tried to improve with lessons. Then I was lucky enough to meet Chabrol (1)…’

Thus characteristically summed up by Stéphane Audran, her first steps were made on stage in the late 1950s in drama school, with Charles Dullin and Michel Vitold. She appeared on stage a few times, a little on television too and then came the cinema. While she married filmmaker Claude Chabrol in 1964, she had made film debut earlier (especially with Les Bonnes Femmes in 1960, a surprising film, sad and cruel; and in 1962 with offbeat Oeil du malin). The great works of the enchanting duo, like the ‘Karina years’ of Jean-Luc Godard, were yet to come.
Some are justifiably famous, like Le Boucher of 1970, where Stéphane Audran portrayed a seemingly well-balanced but secretly neurotic character, next to monstrous Jean Yanne. Les Biches (1968), which earned her an acting award at the Berlin Festival, is as mysterious as a secret ceremony, a film of ‘vampires’ and possession that rhymes with the Stéphane Audran- Marie Trintignant pair in the wonderful film Betty (1991).
Other films still, over those fabulous times, are unfairly little known : Juste avant la nuit (1971) should be viewed again and again as a climax of Chabrol’s art. To be seen again and again too, La Rupture (1970) demonstrates how intensely Stéphane Audran has managed to embody every possible character through one single director (23 films altogether so far with Claude Chabrol!). In this case she was a ‘mother courage’, ever faultless and even strengthened by encounters with vile, hideous people.

Along with this fantastic work with Chabrol, Stéphane Audran very comfortably moved into the world of Bunuel (Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, 1972). She worked in France at times and also abroad (Samuel Fuller, Ivan Passer, Gabriel Axel, etc…) and always unblinkingly switched from one part –one face, or mask- to another. She could be stern and glow inside as in Le Festin de Babette (Gabriel Axel, 198) or droll and cocky in Coup de Torchon (Bertrand Tavernier, 1981), or perverse in Le Sang des autres (Claude Chabrol, 1984), or a masochist in Mortelle Randonnée (Claude Miller, 1984): with her moving sensuality, Stéphane Audran has always best illustrated a strange paradox: that of a very popular artist, often funny or even burlesque, who never sheds her unforgettable allure, her elegant manners.

Betty (Claude Chabrol, France, 1991)

(1) Stéphane Audran, interview with Danièle Parra, la Revue du Cinéma, April 1988.

http://www.festival-entrevues.com/2003_uk/biographie_stephane_audran.htm

**
this tidbit is from Camille Paglia's interview with Donna Mills:
Stephane Audran--director Claude Chabrol's wile and leading lady in the '60s and '70s. Audran prowled Parisian salons to find exactly the right handbag for a role. She'd say, "Until I have the clothing, I don't know who the character is."

**
the following is from THE NEW YORK TIMES' article on Gabriel Axel and "Babette's Feast":
It is what the French call a "role in gold" for the French actress Stephane Audran, who is known to American film buffs for often playing the uptight French bourgeoise in the films of Claude Chabrol, her former husband. Her Babette is a portrait filled with poise, great dignity and an illuminating resonance as the solitary artist in exile who finally has the occasion to unveil her talents in the kitchen, to please her public, no matter how uncomprehending they be.

"You see her blossom in her craft, a craft she elevates into art," Ms. Audran said in an interview. "The two elderly sisters, they never lived, they slipped by their destinies. But Babette, she realized her destiny on this one night alone. It's a beautiful story. You just have to let your heart speak."

That was precisely the approach of Gabriel Axel. He kept close to the original story, and he turned to Karen Blixen's text when he needed help. Ms. Audran said his knowledge of both French and Danish cultures created a chemistry when she came onto the set in Denmark very much the way Babette came to the elderly sisters.

"Gabriel's enthusiastic, like an enchanted child, and that is very stimulating," she said. "There is no fear. He eases you into a state of total confidence. Actors, we're like children, you know. And he had such a love for this subject, there was necessarily a great joy in working with him to make Babette come alive."

Much to Ms. Audran's regret, Babette was a project no French producer wanted to touch, for many of the same reasons as the traditional Danes: no overt sex, no violence, no immediate box-office appeal for young cinemagoers.

"It's a shame, because this would have been a perfect co-production for the French," said Ms. Audran. "In France and elsewhere, there is a lot of talk about a crisis in the cinema. It is a crisis of producers and a crisis of quality. There can be no craft without love. It's a moral question."

Yes, and precisely the moral question so delicately probed by Karen Blixen and Gabriel Axel. At the end of the story, the sisters worry that Babette had spent so much money for their sake.

"For your sake?" replies Babette. "No. For my own. . . I am a great artist. . .A great artist, Mesdames, is never poor. We have something, Mesdames, of which other people know nothing."

**
It's not bad. It's a good start. I have read MANY MANY MANY reviews on her, her husband, their films together, the films she did without him, etc. I liked these particular bits because of her actually speaking about acting. Not just a person telling you what they perceive of her. Words from her own mouth (albeit translated into English). I'd like to find an actual interview with just her. There are these clips on, ina rechercher, that I found. If only, I kept on with my French. Damn! (BUT, I will be starting French lessons with the mother of one of my best friends=)

Oh! And how she feels about handbags...I feel the same. Especially about shoes and other accessories. She's right. The right clothing is important.

Are you ki---dding?

No one, and I mean, NO. ONE., can say that line like Gena Rowlands! Man! From, "Minnie and Moskowitz":