Saturday Matinee: To Die For starring Nicole Kidman #book2movies

Nicole Kidman turns the big Five-O this week. Her birthday is June 20th, making Nicole a fellow Gemini. In the happy position of reaching midlife while being affixed in the firmament, her recent foray into tv, Big Little Lies a whopping success, the upcoming The Beguiled pronounced a huge hit at Cannes, Nicole Kidman is also happily married to a cute & sexy country music star. A true movie star, Kidman has been working in film and television since she was sixteen years old and had been working for a dozen years when she won her first Golden Globe for To Die For in 1995. Based on the book by Joyce Maynard, To Die For is in some ways an early model of reality TV and the glamorization of the news as entertainment.  

At the time Roger Ebert gave the Gus Van Sant directed film 3 and 1/2 stars praising Nicole Kidman's performance as Suzanne, the small suburban town weather woman who lives only to become a famous tv personality. Nothing, but nothing—and no one—will stand in her way.

 'Kidman is superb at making Suzanne into someone who is not only stupid, vain and egomaniacal (we've seen that before) but also vulnerably human. She represents, on a large scale, feelings we have all had in smaller and sneakier ways. She simply lacks skill in concealing them...

Finally, though, the movie is about Suzanne, and Nicole Kidman's work here is inspired. Her clothes, her makeup, her hair, her speech, her manner, even the way she carries herself (as if aware of the eyes of millions) are all brought to a perfect pitch: Her Suzanne is so utterly absorbed in being herself that there is an eerie conviction, even in the comedy. She plays Suzanne as the kind of woman who pities us - because we aren't her, and you know what? We never will be.'

It's been awhile since I've seen this movie and while I knew Matt Dillon played the husband Suzanne wants to get rid of, I didn't remember that both Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck play a couple of high school stoners that Suzanne twists around her little finger to help her. 

Check out the Phoenix & Affleck's reaction to their first sighting of Kidman in the clip above. Am I the only one who can't remember Joaquin Phoenix ever being young?

Seeing these three together has got to be worth the price of admission! The price of admission being about $3 to watch today's Saturday Matinee on iTunes, YouTube, GooglePlay, Amazon and Vudu.

Let's watch the trailer. And if you end up watching the movie, give me a holler, let me know what you think.

Happy Saturday & Happy Movie Watching!