Veronica Cartwright'd

Very, very occasionally (3 or 4 times a week, max) I look at my life and think;

"What the hell's gone wrong?"

I'm not fabulously rich, not incredibly famous, not directing the movies Wes and P T Anderson are making in my stead and most distressingly of all...

I'm not married to Winona R. I'd keep her on the straight and narrow, you'd see!

In fact looking around all I seem to have to my name is a thread bare social life, stories of drunken shame that I repress for fear of going permanently loopy, a blog that no one reads and a small dog with three names.

My friends are married, mostly with little chimps of their own. With particular upset coming from the fact that yes, they all seem quite happy and content.

Apart from that is, my friends who aren't. But who cares about them anyway?

Losers!

So when I do get all introspective I start to get that feeling in my tummy...

You know the one...

aching...

twitching...

...nervous like a crate of agitated butterflies on suicide watch have been poured into my guts through my belly button whilst I slept the sleep of the drunken fool...

What is that feeling exactly?

Is it jealously, maybe?

Is that it?

No, no not that, I'm not jealous, because that would imply that I want what they have and truly I don't, I want something else...

It's just this, I appear to have ended up on my own. And I wasn't quite expecting that.

All Alone.

On my own.

This must be how Donald Sutherland felt after he discovered that Brooke Adams had been taken from him.

Confused, broken, distraught...all alone.

Except in this version the pod people become emotionally mature and readily sociable duplicates. Able to easily feel love and compassion and live full and enriching lives.

Whereas those that are left, the real humans are cold and detached.

Like me.

Or maybe I'm more like Veronica Cartwright?

Faking right up until the end, trying to blend in, to not give herself away.



Veronica Cartwright is a real star of the genre movie.

Obviously you'll already know her from the film I alluded to above 'Invasion of the Body Snatcher' (1978) but did you know she was the little girl in 'The Birds' (1963)?

Of course you did.

'The Birds' is without a doubt the greatest 'revenge of nature' movie ever made. It is also a particularly fine example of how you really do not need to explain everything to the movie viewing masses, as this rare lost piece of dialogue demonstrates;

Cathy: Why are the birds attacking us, Mitch?”

Mitch: They're pissed off because their nests are uncomfortable.”

She played Lambert in 'Alien' (1979). Lambert was by all accounts anally raped to death by the Xenomorphs tail. And this was long before being anally raped to death by Xenomorph tails became passé.

Cartwrights portrayal of Lambert is, in my opinion probably the finest and most realistic piece of genre cinema acting ever burnt to film.

She is quite clearly the most human of all the crew aboard the Nostromo. Lambert is by turns, sarcastic, reluctant, hesitant, cautious, furious and absolutely terrified. I defy you to watch the film and not identify 100% with Veronica as Lambert. As good as Weaver and rest of the cast are, only Cartwright is the real deal.

No one before or after her will ever be able to do abject fear the way she can.

This is the genius of Veronica Cartwright. The real, raw emotions that seem to drive through all her performances.

I think she got all mashed up after The Devil pushed her downstairs in 'The Witches of Eastwick'(1987). This was shortly before she was choked to death, again with his help of the Devil, whilst eating a couple of berries.

She also appeared alongside Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn in 'The Children's Hour' (1961), which as it happens is one of my sisters favourite films... but then she watches the Hallmark Channel so what the hell does she know, right?

Veronica has made a ton of movies but these are my favorites (except Witches, which despite Veronica's fabulous turn, is utter tosh).



So anyway...

...erm..

...what was I bleating on about before?

http://www.veronica-cartwright.com