PRIME SUSPECT
In A Nutshell: The Helen Mirren mini-series gets a makeover.
What’s It About: Homicide detective Jame Timoney (Maria Bello) has just transferred to a new squad in the NYPD – and her colleagues already dislike her. Jane is confident and focused – but also rude, abrupt and reckless – and quickly alienates the NYPD boys’ club. But Timoney is also a top cop, who’s great at her job and will do whatever it takes to find the Prime Suspect in each case… hmm, do you think her colleagues are going to come round in the end?
What’s The Competition: The Mentalist on CBS and Private Practice on ABC.
Will It Succeed: Here’s my main issue with Prime Suspect – I just don’t understand why it’s called Prime Suspect!
The show has essentially zero connection with the original Helen Mirren series, which aired as a run of 7 mini-series between 1991 and 2006. Bello isn’t playing the same character, none of the supporting cast are the same, the show is now set in NYC rather than London, and even the format is different – the US Prime Suspect is much more of a standard procedural than the arced, one case per series format of the original. So why on earth use the same title and call the new version an ‘Americanization’ of the original? They’re pretty much separate entities…
I’ve only seen the original Prime Suspect, which I thought was terrific, but I can tell you NBC has some big shoes to fill. No-one can compete with the superlative Helen Mirren (who for me is right up there with Meryl Streep and Glenn Close on the talent front) – but I’m also a Maria Bello fan so at least the network have got one thing right! I just hope the limitations of the procedural genre allow Bello’s character some space to shine and grow. These formats can be mightily restrictive for actors.
NBC have given Prime Suspect plenty of press and a big push – but they’re also trying to reclaim the Thursday night throne, which used to be theirs for years, until the network slate imploded. NBC haven’t been competitive on Thursdays for a long time now and that’s a lot of ground to make up. Private Practice on ABC is a marginal hit at best, but CBS’s The Mentalist is still healthy and relatively young so will post a threat.
At the same time, Prime Suspect will be inheriting a low audience from the Thursday night NBC comedy block. Community and Parks And Recreation are cult shows that barely hit more than 5 million viewers, The Office is fading and has lost its main star and who knows how Whitney will fare? Plus none of these comedies are exactly compatible with the dark tone of Prime Suspect. That said ER was never hurt back in the 90’s from its Friends / Frasier inheritance…
I suspect the biggest problem for Prime Suspect is that it doesn’t feel terribly original. The ‘tough female cop’ genre has already been done to death by cable shows like The Closer (which was ironically inspired by the original Prime Suspect) and I don’t know that Maria Bello’s name will be enough to pull in large audience (she’s still largely a cult actress). But then this is NBC, a network that’s rebuilding itself from the ground up. They’ll be patient…
Despite all of the above I do have to say the trailer looks pretty terrific. Bello kicks butt and Prime Suspect looks dramatic and exciting. I’ll definitely be giving the show a sample and suspect many others will do the same. The question is – will they stick around?
Chances Of A Second Season: It may not be the network savior NBC needs but I suspect Prime Suspect will be a reliable performer and enjoy a sizeable run.
Film Review: A History of Violence.
A History of Violence (2005)Starring: Viggo Mortensen; Maria Bello; Ed Harris; William Hurt; Ashton Holmes; Peter MacNeill; Stephen McHattie; Greg Bryk; Kyle Schmid; Sumela Kay; Gerry Quigley; Deborah Drakeford; Heidi Hayes; Aidan Devine; Bill MacDonald.
Directed by: David Cronenberg.
Colour/96 Minutes/R
Mild mannered small town man Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) violently kills two murderous robbers who try and hold up his diner. This makes him a local but reluctant hero, who even gets some much unwanted national media attention. This ends up drawing the even more unwanted attention of vicious Irish mobsters from the city, led by the disfigured Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), who claims Tom is actually a man named Joey who they knew from twenty years ago, and who was responsible for taking away one of Fogarty's eyes. They proceed to shadow Tom and his family around town, trying to force Tom to come clean and face up to his supposed past. Tom insists to his family and friends that he is who he says he is. But if that's so, then why (as Fogarty asks Tom's wife) is Tom so good at killing people? Is it really just a case of mistaken identity? Or is he really this vicious Joey person -- a person who has been pretending to be Tom for so long that he believes he is Tom? Joey/Tom eventually must go home to face his past and future respectively. He's got a lot to answer for to his brother Richie (William Hurt) -- who ends up giving a performance that almost steals the film away. Richie, now a local small-time mob boss, is not willing to let Joey stay dead.
There is no doubt that this is one of David Cronenberg's most commercial films, and it had the potential to attract an audience he's never been able to attract before with his much weirder, gore-filled pictures. And it did. However, saying that, this is still not an easy film to swallow if you're put off by violence and gore in films. Cronenberg still wants us to be uncomfortable here. He gives us exciting and brutal violence that thrills, but when it's over it makes you feel a bit put-off. The violence is all intimate, physical, and close up. Nasty, nasty stuff, that always ends up in really taking its toll on the human body. Bad people doing bad things to each other -- the ones who are more vicious win.
There seems to be a strong theme of something close to Darwinism here. The strong will beat out the weak and will pass on that strength to their offspring. This is explored in Tom's relationship with his teenaged son who discovers something about himself he never knew he had in him -- the violence around him having triggered another side to his personality. The film also deals with family. If Tom is not who he says he is, then is Tom the husband/father a lie? Was his family just part of his cover? Or is Tom a different person than this Joey from twenty years ago, even if they both share the same body? This is what his family has to struggle with as the tension keeps mounting around them.
This movie has a lot of style and a lot of depth to it that you just wouldn't see if handled by a lesser director. Take the opening scene involving the two robbers that hold up Tom's diner. Nearly four minutes of mostly only one shot, and it's drastically different from what follows right afterward, and it tilts the movie right on it's head because it almost seems like we're seeing two different movies spliced together for a moment. It's really just Cronenberg keeping us guessing.
Not to say the film is perfect. There are flaws, but they are minor. Some of the dialogue early on between Tom's family is a bit stiff and idealised. However, I'm still on the fence about it. Was that what Cronenberg was going for? I'm leaning towards yes, but who knows? Also, the actions Tom takes in this film, upon the first viewing, may seem rash and not in character. Watch it a second time and you may feel different. The acting is quite solid. Viggo Mortensen is the best I'd ever seen him to up to that point. He plays it very minimalistic, and much of his performance comes out of his physical actions and expressions. You really believe he could be two different people. Ed Harris is amazing anyway, but here he takes what could have been a very shallow, stock, gangster character, letting his fucked up eye do all the acting from him; instead he gives us a real, living, breathing person. A guy who wants revenge on Joey, but who also obviously has a life and has lived it for the twenty years since he had his eye taken away.
Maria Bello, who plays Tom's wife Edie, is strong and sexy and at the same time very scared and hurt by all of the things happening to her husband and her family. We see at the beginning of the film how devoted and connected Tom and Edie are, but then, as the film goes on, we see a gap form between them. If Tom is really Joey, can she still love this man? Does he really love her, or is she only his cover? Was the last twenty years a lie? It's a pretty big one-eighty degree turn from the loving married couple we see having sex in an early scene, that although brief, is physical and full of understanding and love, which reminded me of the scene between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland in Don't Look Now. Later on Tom essentially rapes her on a staircase, or is it Joey who is in the driver seat at that point? So many questions are presented that, I think, everyone who watches has to decide the answers to on their own, because the film does not. A very worthy rental or buy.New Maria Bello photoshoot (forever awesome because of the sex-on-the-stairs scene with Viggo in A history of violence):
The scene for those that asked for it:
Maria Bello's Cheerleader Sex Scene - A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Maria Bello
| Maria Bello | |
|---|---|
 at the Independent Spirit Awards in Los Angeles on March 5, 2010 | |
| Born | Maria Elena Bello April 18, 1967 Norristown, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1992–present |
| Partner | Dan McDermott (1 child) Bryn Mooser (engaged July 2008 - September 2010) |
Contents |
Career
Bello's breakthrough came when the producers Kerry Lenhart and John J. Sakmar cast her as Mrs. Smith in the spy show Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The show was cancelled after just eight weeks on the air. Then came a guest stint on ER as the feisty pediatrician Dr. Anna Del Amico, in which she guest-starred in the final three episodes of the third season. Bello remained on the show for one season as a regular cast member, departing after the medical drama's 4th season. The actress went on into movies landing a role in Coyote Ugly. She has been nominated for the Golden Globe award twice: for Best Supporting Actress in The Cooler (2003) and for Best Actress in A History of Violence (2005). She also starred in The Jane Austen Book Club as Jocelyn.In 2008 Bello starred in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor as Evy O'Connell, taking over from Rachel Weisz. Bello has stated that she has signed up for three more Mummy films.[citation needed]
In December 2008 Bello began developing a drama for HBO. Besides starring in the new series, Bello will also serve as an executive producer.[7]
Bello's latest project, the 2009 Sundance film The Yellow Handkerchief, was released in theaters on February 26, 2010 by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
It was announced in 2010 that Bello will guest-star in two episodes of Law & Order: SVU.[8]
Bello stars in the NBC TV series Prime Suspect in fall of 2011.
Personal life
Bello has a son named Jackson Blue, born in 2001, with former long-time boyfriend Dan McDermott. She became engaged to musician Bryn Mooser in July 2008 [9][10], but they broke off their engagement some time before October 2010.According to reports, her best friend is actress Carrie-Anne Moss, best known for her role in The Matrix, and each serves as godmother to the other's first-born child.[11]
Bello is a Muay Thai practitioner.
In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti, Maria Bello along with Aleda Frishman, Alison Thompson, and Barbara Guillaume founded WE ADVANCE. The focus of WE ADVANCE is to create a grassroots movement empowering Haitian women to collaborate toward making healthcare a priority, and putting an end to GBV (Gender-based Violence) within their communities. The organization seeks to act as a central agency to network the organizations working on women's issues in Haiti, and to provide urgent care to women victimized by the disaster. Currently their programs are headquartered in one health clinic and one community outreach center in Cite Soleil, Haiti.[12]
Bello sits on the board of The CQ Matrix company.[13]
Filmography
References
- ^ eMatrimony – Supporting, Encouraging and Challenging the WWME Community
- ^ "Maria Bello: after more than a decade of not being the one, suddenly she's well on her way" from FindArticles.com (originally published in Interview magazine)
- ^ Bello epoque – interview with actress Maria Bello from FindArticles.com (originally published in Interview magazine)
- ^ McCarthy, Ellen. Maria Bello, 'Getting Better and Better', The Washington Post, August 11, 2006. Accessed May 24, 2008.
- ^ "Maria Bello". Yahoo! Movies. Retrieved 2010-06-24.
- ^ "Maria Bello". AskMen.com. Retrieved 2010-06-24.
- ^ Schneider, Michael (December 21, 2008). "HBO seals deal with Maria Bello". Variety. Retrieved December 30, 2008.
- ^ "Exclusive: Maria Bello Signs On to SVU". TVGuide.com.
- ^ "Maria Bello gets engaged". Fametastic.co.uk. 2008-07-29. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
- ^ Actress Maria Bello Engaged, Us Magazine, July 28, 2008. Accessed September 10, 2008.
- ^ "Full of Grace: Maria Bello". NewYorkPost.com. 2008-07-28. Retrieved 2011-08-17.
- ^ Bello, Maria. "How to ADVANCE Our Money in Haiti". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
- ^ Bello, Maria. "CQ". MariaBello.com. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
External links
I am not sure if it is because I have been watching the first season of Friday Night Lights or that it is Friday and I am feeling lazy.Either way I am going to list some of the best looking actresses who have played cheerleaders in a movie or television show.
Now this info is not as easy to find as one would think on the Internet so please forgive me if I forget some. Every time I was ready to post I would think of one more.
Just enjoy the ones that are there and leave a comment saying who I forgot.
Now on to the pictures.
Movies
Ali Larter (Varsity Blues)
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Kate Mara (We Are Marshall)
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Mena Suvari (American Beauty, Sugar and Spice)
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Denise Richards (Wild Things)
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Brooke Langton (The Replacements)
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Kristy Swanson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
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Kirsten Dunst (Bring It On)
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Eliza Dushku (Bring It On)
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Gabrielle Union (Bring It On)
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Jaime Pressly (Not Another Teen Movie)
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Carmen Electra (Starsky & Hutch)
Amy Smart (Starsky & Hutch)
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Kerri Green (Lucas) For all of you over 30.
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Maria Bello (A History Of Violence) She dressed up as one anyways.
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Television
Minka Kelly (Friday Night Lights TV)
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Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
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Hayden Panettiere (Heroes)
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Tiffani Amber Thiessen (Saved By The Bell)
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Brittany Daniel, Cynthia Daniel (Sweet Valley High)
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Sophia Bush (One Tree Hill)
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Okay fire away, who did I miss? I will add them as you comment.
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From The Readers
Uma Thurman (Johnny Be Good)
A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)
This review was originally published on 10/05/05 at The Cinematheque and is being reprinted here (with a few alterations) as my contribution to the David Cronenberg Blogathon over at Tony Dayoub's wonderful film blog, Cinema Viewfinder.
Canada's very own Auteur of vexatiousness, David Cronenberg, the man who spewed forth some of the most deliriously disturbing cinema of the past two decades, takes now, as his most recent study of penetration (this word can be used both figuratively and literally in describing certain scenes in this film), the philosophical conundrum of violence in America. More accurately, Cronenberg wants us to think about how we see violence, how violence makes us feel and the ways in which we, as both individuals and as a society, have become so desensitized toward said violence that it is as if we no longer even notice it, let alone are appalled by it as we should be.
What Cronenberg has actually managed to do, as he did in the sublime Crash, is create both a reflexive and antagonistic film, that can be watched simultaneously as a neo-western, transposed to small-town middle America, and as an indelicately funny social attack on mores in America. What Cronenberg has really accomplished, after all is said and done though, has been to create the best damned English-language film of the year so far. Replete with a seething undercurrent of potential violence (the name does say it all, after all) that seems to boil just under the surface of every single scene, no matter how benign they may otherwise seem, Cronenberg may very well have created the best damned film in his deep, and quite diversely perverse oeuvre.
After a viciously malaisical prologue, Cronenberg's meditation on violence begins in the sleepy little hamlet of Millbrook Indiana, where the stunning and seemingly homespun husband and wife team of Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello appear to live the "American Values" idyllic life with their equally beautiful children, Jack and Sara. Firmly establishing, from almost the beginning, both the love and lust between these two people - including a sexual encounter that plays more honestly than any other I have seen in a long long time - it becomes all that more harrowing as we watch them fall apart from each other, and are swallowed up by the titular omen foreshadowing every moment of this film.
Full of Hitchcockian layers, whence the characters may not even know what is going on - even, sometimes, inside their own heads. Mortensen goes miles past his saturated LOTR days and opts for a much more adult-oriented role (as opposed to the rather mentally stunted fanboy-esque following that his King of the Rings garnered him). He is surprisingly nuanced as the everyman turned wrong man (just one of many Hitchcock allusions), possibly turned cold-blooded killer, or maybe even something all together different - a plot point question that can only be answered by seeing this film (there be no spoilers here!). Maria Bello, as Mortensen's wife, is at both her sexiest and emotionally-charged best, playing the damaged wife with such ferocity and teeth - not to mention about as much primal sex appeal as one woman can physically contain.
Full of Hitchcockian layers, whence the characters may not even know what is going on - even, sometimes, inside their own heads. Mortensen goes miles past his saturated LOTR days and opts for a much more adult-oriented role (as opposed to the rather mentally stunted fanboy-esque following that his King of the Rings garnered him). He is surprisingly nuanced as the everyman turned wrong man (just one of many Hitchcock allusions), possibly turned cold-blooded killer, or maybe even something all together different - a plot point question that can only be answered by seeing this film (there be no spoilers here!). Maria Bello, as Mortensen's wife, is at both her sexiest and emotionally-charged best, playing the damaged wife with such ferocity and teeth - not to mention about as much primal sex appeal as one woman can physically contain.
Speaking of sex - that too, along with our perspective of gratuitous violence on the screen, is at the heart of Cronenberg's film. We see the juxtaposing of a bookended pair of sexual encounters by this (to say the least) strained couple. The first, a loving, honest rendezvous. This attempt to capture their lost youth, complete with cheerleader outfit (I did mention how sexy Bello is here, right?) is followed - post violent explosion - by a brutal, near-rape attack on the stairs of their once quiet little home. It is these black and white, cracked-mirror image scenes that sum up the emotional percussion of these two characters. The urgency of sex as possible violent release (or is that violence as possible sexual release?) penetrates Cronenberg's film as viciously as anything else in there.
Perhaps not quite as dream-induced as some of his more esoteric works (eXistenZ, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch or, to a lesser extent, The Fly), it is the blurring of what is real, what is not real and what may or may not be real, that has shown up in both Spider and in this film. It is the maturation of Cronenberg as a Filmmaker that pulls it all together, and it is this notion of unreality - or perhaps even surreality - that holds sway over these characters heads like some sort of Damoclean sword - here strung up by the likes of David Cronenberg, in his finest hour.
Perhaps not quite as dream-induced as some of his more esoteric works (eXistenZ, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch or, to a lesser extent, The Fly), it is the blurring of what is real, what is not real and what may or may not be real, that has shown up in both Spider and in this film. It is the maturation of Cronenberg as a Filmmaker that pulls it all together, and it is this notion of unreality - or perhaps even surreality - that holds sway over these characters heads like some sort of Damoclean sword - here strung up by the likes of David Cronenberg, in his finest hour.
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