A very ambitious first effort, well worth seeking it out. |
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Hello, and welcome. As always, many thanks to all the people who take the time to read this column. It really means a lot to me. I don't get paid to do this; it's simply for the gratification of being a geek.
That being said, I am going to play against type this time out, to borrow the showbiz parlance, and talk about a filmmaker not involved in the horror genre. In fact, she made *gasp* the dreaded Chick-Flicks!
The woman in question is Adrienne Shelly. Born and raised a New Yorker, she started performing at the age of ten. Later on, like any good artist, she dropped out of film school and moved to the city to make it on her own, in a very Mary Tyler Moore fashion. Which she succeeded at. She hooked up with indie film guru Hal Hartley, who instantly recognized her abilities. He cast her in the lead role of her first two film appearances, THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH and TRUST (1989 and 1990, respectively).
Between 1991 and 1997, Shelly racked up some decent film and television credits (as well as appearing in several of Hartley's numerous and infamous shorts). But 1997 is the year that interests me, in that it is when she branched out and wrote and directed her first film, SUDDEN MANHATTAN. In fact, not only did she write and direct, but she starred in it, after failing to find any suitable actress for the job. And she is in every single scene.
SUDDEN MANHATTAN is a very Woody Allen-esque film, about a neurotic woman just trying to find her place in the world, whilst being surrounded by kooky characters. Such as veteran character actor Roger Rees as Murphy, the head of her writing group as well as the owner of her building. A building which he lets her live in for free, because he is desperately and dysfunctionally in love with her. And to make the Woody Allen connection even stronger, she cast the wonderful Louise Lasser, a regular in Allen's films, as a slightly dubious psychic. She also cast her friend Tim Guinee in the lead male role, who just so happens to, in my mind, bear a striking resemblance to Nathan Fillion. I enjoyed this film immensely, precisely because it is so neurotic and quirky. As she says in the director's commentary, the film is meant to have a sort of fairy tale vibe. So if you watch it looking for a sense of logic, you obviously don't understand what she was trying to do.
The doppelganger trend continues in her next directorial effort, 1999's I'LL TAKE YOU THERE, where she cast Adrien Brody look-alike Reg Rogers. Though also written by Shelly, she chose to take the smaller role of Lucy, sister to Rogers's lead character of Bill. This time around she gave the lead role of Bernice to Ally Sheedy, who really took the ball and ran with it. Without her, and another inspired character-actor choice in Alice Drummond (best remembered as the Parkinsonian who walks across the checkerboard floor to get a drink of water in AWAKENINGS), the movie would have been just 
The film that would have made Shelly's star shine that much brighter. |
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so-so. In it, Billy has been dumped by his wife, Rose, who left him for his best friend, Ray (played by John Pyper-Ferguson, who should be known to Bruce Campbell fanboys as Pete Hutter from The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.). Despondent to a cartoonish extreme, Lucy fixes Bill up with Bernice, whom Bill promptly morally offends. Bernice then makes it her mission to make Bill understand how much he hurt her feelings, and to help him get the spark of life back.
Her third, and final, stab at writing and directing is the aforementioned WAITRESS, starring the aforementioned Nathan Fillion. Fillion is just but one of a bevy of casting coups on screen here. There's Keri Russell, Cheryl Hines, Andy Griffith, and Jeremy Sisto. Sisto plays Earl, the abusive and controlling husband to Russell's pie-baking whiz Jenna. She gets moral support from fellow waitresses Becky and Dawn (Hines and Shelly herself, in her last screen appearance), but just can't seem to build enough of a head of steam to finally leave Earl and realize her dream of winning $25,000 in a pie-baking contest. Matters are made more complicated by the pregnancy she discovers at the beginning of the film, and the affair that she ends up having with her similarly married OB-GYN (Fillion).
This film picks up on the fairy tale theme from SUDDEN MANHATTAN, and is like watching an onion peeled in reverse, as Jenna applies layer after layer of self-esteem on, desperately trying to crest that last level and be more of a force in her own life, instead of merely being acted upon by other forces. Shelly shows a deft hand and inspired storytelling technique, managing the comedy amongst such an unfunny plot. When Earl slaps Jenna across the face for trying to leave him, it's like we, as an audience, are being slapped as well, so that we don't forget that amidst the Alice-type waitress banter and Three's Company-type fumbling love affair, there is a very sad and heart-breaking story taking place.
The end of the film is a very sweet note for Shelly to have ended her career on, and I found myself a little misty during it. You see, Shelly did not choose to end her career. It was ended for her on November 1st, 2006, by a sonofabitch named Diego Pillco. It seems that Shelly, whose office was in an apartment above his, complained to him about the amount of noise he was making. So, since he was "having a bad day," he viciously strangled Shelly to death, and then hung her by a bedsheet from the shower curtain rod in the bathroom, in an attempt to make it look like a suicide. Except the stupid bastard left sneaker-prints in the bathtub while doing it.
Adrienne Shelly was a sassy, cute, talented woman. Her three films show great progression in terms of both technique and storytelling, and WAITRESS is a good example of the places she might have been able to go, if she had been allowed to live long enough to do it. It is no secret that the world 
You will be missed. |
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of cinema doesn't have nearly enough women making their mark on it, telling female stories from a female point of view. Shelly managed to do just that, and do it without saccharine or schmaltz. She will be missed.
Since June 24th will mark what would have been Shelly's 41st birthday, and her last film is still in theaters and doing quite well for itself, I think we should all honor her memory by attending a showing. If not on the exact date, at least sometime this coming week or over the weekend. Not only will you be paying your respects, but you'll also be treated to a really good movie.
There are many other films that Shelly starred or co-starred in, and television shows she appeared on. Please feel free to look her up on IMDB for a more complete list.
In closing, I want to mention to you The Adrienne Shelly Foundation (http://www.adrienneshellyfoundation.org/). Run by her widowed husband, Andrew Ostroy, the foundation seeks to award scholarships and grants to women looking to become filmmakers. I will close this column with some words from the website itself, and the hope that you might see fit to donate a dollar or two, whatever you think you can spare.
Thank you.
"The Adrienne Shelly Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated in loving memory to the uniquely gifted actor and filmmaker Adrienne Shelly, whose highly accomplished life was tragically cut short November 1, 2006.
Those who knew Adrienne knew her as wonderfully funky, spirited, funny, silly and smart. She believed in spreading love wherever she went. She was a truly kind and beautiful soul, whose infectious smile illuminated everything around her. There was no one else like her.
Adrienne's passion in life was to make movies. She lived for her art; she never compromised her integrity or commitment to her vision. She always strived to help women obtain every opportunity possible to create their mark in film.
It is in the spirit of her passion and vision that The Adrienne Shelly Foundation has been established. We know that Adrienne would like us to do everything possible to help young women pursue their filmmaking dreams, and to assist others in making the same leap from acting to writing and directing as Adrienne had done so successfully.
In carrying out our mission, we've partnered with the industry's finest academic and filmmaking institutions to assist women in this journey with film school scholarships, production grants, finishing funds, and other invaluable resources. Other Foundation initiatives will be announced over time.
With your generous tax-deductible donation, you can honor Adrienne's memory, her talent, and help preserve her legacy, while affording others some of the same opportunities she was grateful in life to have experienced.
Adrienne, we love you and will never, ever forget you."
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| Agent Provocateur |
Every other Sunday
Eating the flesh of lesser film geeks since '72.
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| Zombie Boy |
Zombie Boy is not a Hollywood insider, just a movie
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