Meet My Enabler

Friday evening, pre-Labor Day Weekend. I am coming down from 10 long days of covering for the Boss, with still 3 more hours of work ahead of me -- 2, if I concentrate, which I can not
because I am over-caffinated and the task is ridiculously uninteresting.

My dear sister, greatest of all sisters, without whom I would never survive, sends an IM:"Busy?"

(Constantly. )But never too busy, and I say "sup" (because we like to talk in poorly organized teen IM slang as a way to mortify her 13 year old daughter).

She says they are facing a long rainy holiday weekend, and she thought they would have a movie marathon of the best of Jodie Foster through the ages. "Like starting with Tom Sawyer?" she says.

Picture standing at your front door with the screen propped open, chatting briskly with your neighbor because you really do have jam on the stove, and you can't talk right now... and the cat runs out.
I am now completely derailed.

"Do you even know what that did to my brain right now?" I type.

There is a scene in Little Man Tate where Fred stares at a pool table and sees exactly where the balls are about to go seconds before Harry Connick hits them. This is my brain, swelled with titles dumped out of a folder and swished around into various themed piles.

I write, "You are diabolical."

But now I have to do this -- not because she wants it, but because IT wants being done. The little grey cat licks its shoulder, sticks its tail straight up in the air, and prances into the bushes.

So here they are.

The 5 Best Jodie Foster films
Overall -- that is, the complete package delivers what it sets out to deliver. Our Jodie has made some of the worst movies ever made, and though she is always the best thing in them, many are unwatchable. These are first-rate.
5. Taxi Driver
4. Contact
3. Inside Man
2. Little Man Tate
1. Silence of the Lambs

Why The Accused isn't on this list: A little heavy-handed. Contact is too, to be sure, but counters it by having an original story line. The Accused is essentially a standard Battered Woman movie with some stunning acting in it. (see below).

Unfortunately for my sister, this is not an appropriate list for her mother/daughter movie marathon. But I needed to clear my throat.

Best of the Lifespan
This is really what she was looking for
pre-teens - Freaky Friday
teens - Taxi Driver
(she is acually the same age in this, but of 8 movies between 1976-1977, these show the transition between Disney and not-Disney)
20s - Hotel New Hampshire
(Most of the movies of this period are not good. This is post-Hinkley, fat Jodie, and she just did not suit the Big 80s movie making style. This really is the best of that decade, until The Accused, but you probably shouldn't show it to a 13 year old)
30s - Silence of the Lambs
40s - Inside Man

Best Jodie performances
(some of these have very little screen time, but every second fascinates. These are not in a ranked order.)
The Accused
A Very Long Engagement
Bugsy Malone - acting circles around this ridculous premise
Siesta - I don't understand this movie for 5 minutes. Just watch her.
Inside Man
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore - Wanna get high on ripple?

So Bad it's Good
Svengali - everyone should see this once. Jaw-droppingly bad.
Carny - Only in 1979 does a movie like this get greenlighted.
Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys - yes, a peg-legged nun. You've never seen that before.

So Bad it hurts
Nell - I respect your "process" and all, but dear God.
Mesmerized - someone needed work
Backtrack - Blue Velvet, it ain't.

British Jodie
Mesmerized
Siesta
Anna and the King

Southern Jodie
Sommersby
Nell
Maverick
Silence of the Lambs

French Jodie
Jodie is so hot in French
Moi Fleur Bleue
Le Sang des Autres
A Very Long Engagement

This ought to reactivate my FBI file.


fun link: Kids in Mind, where someone else has counted the F-words for you.