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Why I Love, Oscar Edition: Sarah Polley

BuzzSugar — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:30:56 PST

Even the dark strike cloud hovering over Hollywood can't dampen the annual awards season excitement about certain projects and actors (Juno! Daniel Day-Lewis! Atonement!). Yet, there's one woman enjoying an equally exciting year who has remained characteristically low-key about it all: Sarah Polley.

Polley has been acting for years, from the TV series Road to Avonlea to off-beat films like Dawn of the Dead and The Sweet Hereafter, and recently she's turned her sights to writing and directing. Her feature length directorial-debut, Away From Her recently earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. Julie Christie, the star of Polley's film, has already nabbed the Golden Globe and the SAG Award for Best Actress, and may just win the Oscar for her performance. Not too shabby for this 28-year-old's first time behind the camera.

There's more to love about this accomplished lady, however, so

read more. Accolades and serious talent aside, one reason I'm dedicating some space to this performer/filmmaker is how grounded and dedicated to her craft - read: not fame - she seems to be. This is particularly refreshing as she seems to have kept her head about her despite experiencing a high degree of success at an early age (I'm going to go ahead and admit here that I was addicted to Road to Avonlea when I was a little one). Doug Liman, who directed her in Go, spoke of her humility to the New York Times:

"I've offered Sarah a part in everything I’ve made since Go, including the female lead in The Bourne Identity, and she keeps turning me down,” he said. “She has a tremendous amount of ambivalence about this profession, but that makes her a better actress. She has no interest in seeing herself in a magazine, but she does have an acute sensitivity to real human beings. Even going out for lunch with her, it’s hard to scream, ‘Where’s my Diet Coke?’ when Sarah has just been incredibly kind to the waitress.”

Nice to waitresses? And she calls herself a movie star! Thankfully, despite her ambivalence toward show business, this multi-talented lady has plenty of projects in the works, and with all the attention her movie is getting this year, she'll have even more power to only work on what speaks to her. That can only lead to good things for all of us. Source

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:27:00 PDT

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to these titles, the big DVD releases today include the 3rd season of "Grey's Anatomy," the second season of "Supernatural" as well as the second season of "Bones."

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
This HBO movie is now at the top of my Netflix queue, since I unfortunately missed it when it aired. The story laces together the stories of three characters starting soon after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn. Adam Beach plays Sioux doctor Charles Eastman, August Schellenberg is the proud Lakota chief Sitting Bull and Aidan Quinn plays Senator Henry Dawes. Anna Paquin also stars as a schoolteacher working to improve reservation life. The DVD features some good extras, including one commentary by director Yves Simoneau and another by actors Aidan Quinn and Adam Beach. In addition there are behind-the-scenes featurettes: Making History, The Heart of a People, Telling the Story, and an Interactive historical guide prepared by the film’s screenwriter.

Two more new titles so

read more Away From Her One of the most lovingly told dramas of the year so far, Away From Her tells the poignant story of a marriage being tested by the onset of Alzheimers. First-time director Sarah Polley provides a truthful and achingly beautiful portrayal of an older couple grappling with this disease. It could have easily fallen into the realm of over-sentimentality, but Polley's deft direction keeps the narrative flowing and the story rooted in reality. To read more of my thoughts on Away From Her, check out my review.
The Starter Wife This summer's USA mini-series based on the Gigi Levangie Grazer novel features Deborah Messing in the role of wealthy LA mother Molly whose divorce leaves her feeling old and unhinged. She stays at her friend Joan's beachside home and has an extremely eventful summer, including new friends, a couple love interests and a very funny scene in which Molly pretends to be Joan's trashy sister in order to break her friend out of rehab. I'm not thrilled with the way the mini-series ends, but the rest of the series is a satisfying watch. Plus, it was nominated for 10 Emmys so it must have done something right!

Away From Her: Poignant But Not Sappy

BuzzSugar — Fri, 11 May 2007 06:44:25 PDT

I went into the Away From Her movie screening with a stack of tissues, fully prepared to bawl my eyes out over this story about a marriage being tested by Alzheimer's. Yet the sobfest never happened. The story is mostly sad, it's true, but it is also realistically told and casts an unapologetic light on each character. So while there is great sympathy for them, the movie never cycles through devastation to rest on being trite. This is a relief - not to mention a difficult balance to strike for a first-time director like Sarah Polley.

The luminous Julie Christie plays Fiona, a woman who appears to be developing Alzheimer's disease at a surprisingly young age. Her husband Grant (Gordon Pinset) is reluctant to admit this despite Fiona's inability to remember the word for "wine," and lapses of memory which cause her to wander the streets of the town they've lived in for 20 years. Fiona insists on being admitted to a home for Alzheimer's patients, presumably because she read a book explaining how difficult Alzheimer's patients can be when living with their spouses. The drama picks up once Fiona goes to live at the home, however, so

read more At the home Fiona becomes attached to a wheelchair-bound man named Aubrey (Michael Murphy) whom she adores because he doesn't expect her to remember things, and because he needs her. When her husband comes to visit, she is polite but vaguely annoyed that he is taking time away from her new relationship. As time goes by, Fiona forgets more and more of her life with her husband, and builds a new life with Aubrey. Grant befriends Aubrey's wife Marion (Olympia Dukakis), and during his painful visits to the home he finds support in a kindhearted attendant Kristy (Kristen Thomas), who provides a basis of logic about what is happening to Grant's wife. The wintry Canadian landscape provides incredible beauty (pink sunsets, snow-covered cottages, etc.) and a chilling quietude, at once familiar and coldly ominous. In addition to directing the film, Polley wrote the screenplay based on a short story she read while visiting Iceland. The writing is superb not only in character development and story arc, but in its poetic dialogue. Lines like these leap from the screen as perhaps the short story leapt out at Polley: "Sometimes there's something delicious in oblivion," and "People want to be in love every single day - what a liability!" Away From Her is largely a showcase for the female characters, and it is this that makes the movie so compelling and so complex. Grant is a central character but essentially fades away amidst so many intriguing women. Whenever people lament the lack of "meaty" women's roles in film today I will be thrilled to suggest this movie. Photos courtesy of Lionsgate

Movie Preview: Away From Her

BuzzSugar — Tue, 08 May 2007 03:58:07 PDT

Already playing in select theaters, Away From Her has been slowly gaining buzz from its screenings at various film festivals for its flawless performances and beautiful direction. Directed by first-timer Sarah Polley, the movie tells a poignant tale of a long-term marriage being tested by Alzheimer's. This movie has been repeatedly popping up in my day-to-day conversations and I keep seeing rave reviews for it, so I've taken the hint: it's time to see this film. Stay tuned for my review, and in the meantime you can watch the trailer if you

The Vow: Channing Tatum Is More Memorable Than the Romance

Becky Kirsch — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:30:00 PST

It's no accident that The Vow's release date coincides almost perfectly with Valentine's Day. The film promises the kind of epic love story that many of us, like it or not, are more amenable to getting swept up in at this time of year: a man tries to make his wife fall in love with him again after a horrific accident leaves her with no memory of the last four years, or of him. Channing Tatum is endearing as Leo and though he has chemistry with Rachel McAdams's Paige, it almost goes to waste due to the film's lack of focus and uneven plot.

For starters, having a stranger for a husband is just the beginning of Paige's problems. Sometime in the four years she's lost, she went from being a preppy law student to a free-spirited artist. Naturally, when she wakes up, she wants an explanation for why she doesn't talk to her family anymore, what happened to her pretty boy fiancé (Scott Speedman), and why her hair is so "weird." It's understandable that she's a little different from who she used to be, but a complete life transformation is a bit hard to swallow - both for Paige, and for the audience.

To see why The Vow may not be the love story you're expecting, just

read more. Watching Tatum and McAdams play off each other is what keeps the movie engaging, and Tatum is particularly sympathetic. Though Paige is the one who has suffered the trauma, it's even more difficult to watch Leo quietly suffer as the love of his life continues to slip away in favor of the life she actually remembers. Leo represents a life that the new Paige is enticed by but can't imagine: he's goofy, laid-back, and immensely committed to her. But Paige can't come to terms with a life she doesn't feel part of, and instead reverts back to her former self. The sincerity and sweetness that Tatum brings to Leo are reflected in flashbacks of his life with Paige and in his current attempts to win her back, but the film isn't the epic romance that it's packaged to be. In fact, it's more depressing than it is joyful; not only are most of the characters in pain throughout the film, but with the exception of Leo, most of them are downright irritating. Paige's family and friends couldn't be more stereotypically conservative, which only makes Paige's decision to stay with them all the more frustrating to watch. As the film goes on, the love story starts to take the backseat to her family issues, and the crux of the film rests on a subplot that's both lame and contrived. The Vow is certainly watchable, thanks to the intrigue of the premise, and the mystery of how Leo and Paige will (inevitably, of course) find their way back to each other. But the film tries too hard to manufacture extra drama out of Paige's memory loss, when all the audience really wants to see is a love story to get swept up in.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures

Sneak Peek: First Pictures From Game of Thrones Season 2!

Shannon Vestal — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:04:10 PST

We're just a few weeks away from Game of Thrones's April 1 season premiere, and today we've got another look at season two! These new images take us back to Westeros, where Arya is still posing as a boy, Sansa is grieving for her father, and Daenerys is fighting for power. It's not just old faces though, there are quite a few new characters in the mix as well. Take a look at at the sneak peek and be sure to check out the Game of Thrones season two trailer while you're at it.

Photos courtesy of HBO

Kate Middleton Makes a Solo Stop to Check Out Lucian Freud's London Exhibit

Allie Merriam — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:50:59 PST

Kate Middleton, wearing a dress from the UK store Jesire, undertook a solo appearance this evening in London. With her husband, Prince William, away in the Falklands, she's now focusing on the institutions near to her heart. At the end of 2011, Kate announced her plans to become a royal patron of London's National Portrait Gallery. She has a long-standing interest in painting, having studied art history when an undergraduate at St. Andrew's in Scotland.

Today, she stepped out to check out the museum's new exhibit from recently deceased London painter Lucian Freud. It was Kate's first solo public appearance since marrying William back in April of 2011. There may soon be a more permanent royal feature at the National Portrait Gallery. It was announced today that Kate will pose for a portrait bound for the museum.

Chelsea Handler on Reese Witherspoon's Dirty Jokes and Her Seriously Unsexy Sex Scene

Lindsay Miller — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:45:18 PST

Chelsea Handler may be worlds away from the married, slightly bored mom she plays in This Means War, but there's plenty about the part that her fans will recognize. A prime example? A decidedly unsexy sex scene Chelsea improvised that involves Cheetos, as well as a straight-talking banter with Reese's character she says is cribbed from their real-life friendship. We chatted with Chelsea at a recent press day for the film to talk about her circle of famous female friends, including Reese and Jennifer Aniston, her workaholic tendencies, and why she likes being interviewed even more than interviewing. Check out our interview and see This Means War in theaters on Valentine's Day.

Glee-ful Highlights From Episode "The Spanish Teacher"

Shannon Vestal — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:01:05 PST

Glee goes Latin this week when guest star Ricky Martin stops by to shake it and teach Mr. Schue a thing about Spanish (which, despite being a Spanish teacher, he does not know). A couple more people find out about Finn and Rachel's engagement, though Mercedes and Sam are still far more unclear about their relationship. Sue also announces a highly frightening desire to be a mother while clawing at the chance to be a tenured teacher.

There are some fun numbers this week, but they couldn't distract from the fact that this episode is all over the place. A couple of the subplots are just plain ridiculous, but it's not totally without its highlights, so let's go over them after the jump.

22 of the Best Runway Looks From Diane von Furstenberg

Brittney Stephens — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:00:00 PST

Diane von Furstenberg knows how to make women look and feel beautiful. She brings a fierce femininity to each runway collection, never shying away from throwing in bold lip color, dramatic eye shadow, or a carefully-crafted bouffant. See some of the prettiest looks from Diane's past runway shows to understand her daring, beauty moves.