I watched Medium last night. It’s quite good. I’ve always been a fan of Patricia Arquette’s. I think she’s one of those under-rated gems. Her performance in True Romance is spectacular – what a performance!! The call girl huddled up in the blanket in the cold, crying about how she loves him, telling him that she is “completely ………. monogamous.” Great part. Alabama was her name. She’s terrific.
She’s very good in Medium as well, and I’m always happy to see her working. She has a couple of kids in real life, and works her schedule around them which limits the parts she gets. She seems okay with that – she’s never been a big careerist – but I never want to see her drop out completely. I also love her body. She seems very at home in it.
The part I’m playing in this play is a medium. Someone who can hear the dead speak, who is surrounded by voices that she needs to either filter out or listen to. Also someone who occasionally works with the police department (on the hush-hush, of course) to put together crime scenes, get into the mind of the killer, the victim, what have you. One of those. Not a psychic – they don’t like that word, apparently. They like “medium”, or “clairvoyant”.
I watched it just to get an idea of this real-life medium’s life, how this “gift” or “curse” works for her, how she experiences it … as research, if you will … but then ended up getting sucked into the story.
It’s really not all that bad. I rarely watch regular network television anymore – because most of it sucks. I religiously watch Yes, Dear for obvious reasons, and I also watch The West Wing on occasion, which I really enjoy. But for the most part – I never go near network TV. I watched a bit of Las Vegas which was on before Medium and … sorry if there are any fans out there … but it is really shockingly bad. Even down to the casting. The acting is generic. The actors cast in the smaller cameo parts are generic – not very good. All the real talent out there appears to be working for HBO. And Lara Flynn Boyle – good GOD, woman, lay off the collagen. How old is she? Is she my age? She must be my age … but she has now had so much work done that she looks way older. Ironically. Her lips are plumped out unnaturally. Her face is drawn and gaunt. Her collarbone juts out. But not as far as her lips jut out. What happened to that delectable freckled redhead who was so cute on Twin Peaks? What happened to her? She looks absolutely atrocious. And she can’t act anymore either. Whatever talent she might have had she has squandered. She got caught up in her own looks – so her acting is now self-conscious, guarded, and … feckin’ BAD.
Compared to the stuff on HBO, this network stuff is really bad. In quality, in direction, in what the show looks like …
But Medium was a pleasant surprise. I’ll watch it again. It was also very helpful for me, just in terms of what I was looking for. I took notes.
Lara Flynn Boyle
3-24-70
And the husband? Hawt.
Lisa – he is “hawt” – I love him. Who is he?
Jake Weber.
He’s British, and you can’t really tell.
My wife loves the show. I can’t get into it. Too late at night for my early bird self or something, I don’t know.
But I really dig Patricia Arquette. True Romance is one of my all-time favs. Val Kilmer is so great with his never-quite-seen Elvis.
Boyle. Ugh. I think David Kelley just sucks the life out of the folks who work for him. Look at what’s happening to James Spader, ugh.
‘Medium’ does not do it for me, unfortunately. Arquettes’a good actress but I find the writing very deficient. Her hubby, for example, is a complete lackey, and is so meek, she actually comes across as utterly selfish and self-centered. There’s no room for him to grow.
But then I find the writing on network telly appalling. A great writer–I can’t now remember whom presently–said no-one should write and publish anything after they turn thirty because they simply have nothing to say. Yet the networks are obsessed with hiring twenty-somethings to write and portray mature characters.
hahahaha That’s right – Val Kilmer as Elvis.
Just an amazing movie. Brad Pitt as the stoner roommate. There are just so many amazing scenes. The bloody standoff between Arquette and James Gandolfini – one of his first big parts. Tom Sizemore as one of the detectives – a great small part. (Too bad he’s such an addict – can’t get his act together – I really like his acting) – but to me it’s really Arquette’s movie. She’s so wonderful in it.
Oh my God – and Gary Oldman as that … terrifying gangster guy who thinks he’s black. Day-um, he was scary.
I see a mistake…should have read “until after they turn thirty…”
I’m losing it and, yes, I’m over thirty!!
“no one should write and publish after turning 30”? What a load of crap.
I agree that a lot of network television is crap writing – I could barely get through Las Vegas – but I think that piece of advice is total crap.
Yeah, the husband does come off as meek. Kind of cowed by her gift.
I guess I would watch Patricia Arquette read the telephone book.
damian – hahahahaha
Disregard my last comment then. I read that quote and thought: Nobody has anything to say after they’re 30??? What crap!!!
hahahaha
thank you for the lara flynn boyle dismissal – she sucks, she can’t even move her face. And i think she likes hte look on her face that is always there because she can’t move it…
Yes. Her face is now a mask. So weird.
I was pretty sure that quote was wrong. I’m glad I was right.
Gary Oldman is great. I like everything he’s done (okay, with the exception of Dracula). But even in bad movies he’s good.
I took it personally. I’m over 30. I am just now finding my stride as a writer. I was like: huh????
hahaha
Weirdly, I thought Gary Oldman was really good in Air Force One – he and Harrison Ford have a physical fight – and you know how sometimes fights in movies like that come off as … sort of stagey? It just looks like two actors throwing fake punches – maybe they do it with skill and dexterity – but it still doesn’t seem real. But the fight that they have in that movie … looks absolutely real. and they’re two giant stars – and so often when you get 2 giant stars in a scene like that – it just doesn’t come off. One or the other will try to control the scene, so he will “look good”, or “be the hero” whatever – Harrison Ford isn’t interested in that, and neither is Oldman. They are both truly fighting for their lives. Oldman shoving Harrison Ford’s face up against the wall – it’s so so intense. Kind of a silly movie – but he’s great in it.
Ugh. Lara Flynn Boyle, please go away. I just watched Men In Black II the other day. Her character was hardly what you would call dynamic, but she was just terrible. TERRIBLE. She almost ruins the movie. She’s not even that conscious of an actress. There’s this one scene where she’s supposed to be chewing on a bite of hamburger (and you could tell she wasn’t chewing real food. I’ve totally imagined this exchange between her and Barry Sonnenfeld where she objects to taking an real bite because she might digest actual calories and spoil her 10 year-old boy figure) and she just goes on and on chewing forever, like it takes that long to swallow one hamburger bite.
It’s a very stupid detail to nitpick, but things like that really stand out for me when it comes to performances. I think good actors are aware of little details like those. Almost everything I’ve seen her in since “Twin Peaks,” she just comes across like a person in it for the fame.
emily – hahahaha Yeah, like she can’t do the simplest thing – like EATING – and be realistic.
She is a perfect example of the phenomenon coined by my friend Pat: “tiny people with enormous heads”. He wrote a song about it. Lyrics are here. Nicole Richie is another obvious example.
hahahaha
Lord, I’m glad I corrected myself… and fast or people on this blog would skin me alive if they came across me.
Trouble is, it’s been bugging me now all day as to the name of the author who made that comment.
I always remember Joyce said “Ireland is the sow who eats her farrow” and Hemingway said, “The first draft is always shit.”
Red, something exciting has occurred in the last few days which you as a thespian will appreciate. A playwright has recently been in contact via my agent about my novel…he’s interested to turn it into an Irish play. I can scarcely believe it. Very exciting stuff, though I think I’m going to hold my ground and insist I get to co-write. Probably a deal breaker.
I can remember
damian – did you get cut off there? what can you remember?
congratulations about the playwright – that sounds wonderful!! Let me know what happens if anything comes of it.
If she can’t eat realistically, I suspect it’s because she’s out of practice, judging from the look of her.
No Red, I just didn’t edit before I posted.
I’ll keep you appraised if anything happens. And who knows…maybe it’ll happen that you’ll end up playing Gabriel’s Mum one day. It’s a small, tight world is the theater. When I used to work in NYC, I commuted daily on a bus to and fro Bucks County and one of my traveling partners was the chap who looks after the actor’s charity (I’ve forgotten its name) and I was fascinated when he told me how they run a home for retired actors and others who worked in the business. That warmed the cockles of my heart, made me realize how theater people are solid, a family really, looking after their own years after the lights dimmed on them for the final time, or they dimmed the lights on someone for the last time.
I like the show “Medium” but I have a few complaints. Number one, the husband is a namby-pamby wuss and needs to cut his hair. He looks like one of The Monkees. eww. Number two, there are too, too many scenes of their bed- husband and wife talking in the morning, kids jumping in it, blah blah blah. Let her go to sleep and dream-it does not convince me that you are “just a normal family, hanging out in the bed.” Number three- her kids are brats. They need a spanking.