Colleen: Hollywood seems to adore Winona Ryder. When Uma Thurman got pregnant, Warren Beatty suggested to Quentin Tarantino that he replace her in Kill Bill with either Gwyneth Paltrow or Ryder. Tarantino obviously waited for Thurman and gave David Carradine the Bill role in Reason #28 why I love Tarantino. Ryder doesn’t bother me in The Age of Innocence because she’s playing such an unlikable character anyway, but yeah, she’s two dimensional at best, and I feel your pain. Oy! Thanks for commenting!

Kelsy: Thanks so much for stopping by and approving of my writing/researching technique. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone wasn’t connecting with Scorsese’s films. You might give Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore or Taxi Driver a try as it’s possible some of his gangster films come off too macho for your taste.

I’ve been dipping my toes into Scorsese lately, but I can’t say I’ve really connected to any of his films. I think if any of his films would connect to me, it would be a costume drama, but something about the subtle jump cuts and the pacing kept me from really getting into it. Although Daniel Day-Lewis is the most personable I’ve ever seen him in a role.

I’m not some whack-job purist (well, I am, but it’s not applicable here) who thinks people have their purview and should stay the hell in it. Foreign-born directors have given us some of our sharpest, most insightful views into American life. Outsiders looking in see stuff we can’t, I guess (although I’m trying to come up with a vice-versa situation–American-born directors brilliantly depicting everyday life in Japan or Russia or even England, and drawing a blank).

As I recall, what killed this for me was Winona Ryder. Some actors–and yes, particularly American ones without the kind of rigorous outside-in training one gets in drama school–just stink outside of their own time. Ms. Ryder, whom I love in modern pieces, is like nails on a chalkboard or, to use a film reference, like Gwen Welles singing in Nashville or Shelley Duvall doing anything in 3 Women: cringeworthy. Only in the Altman film, those are skilled actresses making you cringe on purpose, not actresses working out of their range making you cringe inadvertently.

And yeah, I’m a little nervous about Kate and Leo having a go at one of my all-time fave novels, Revolutionary Road. I’ll probably see it anyway, esp. if SAG does a free screening, but oy. Life’s too short for that kind of crap-assery.