So here's
the main feature of this site: summaries of all the movies Jane Adams has been in, of
the roles she's played in them, and little reviews of each, just to give you an
idea of what they're about and what sort of a role she's got. Now, I am of course a big fan of Jane's - but
I won't pretend I'm a big enough fan that I'd have seen her entire filmography if I'd known, for example, that she's only in
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle for about six seconds, or that Day at the
Beach would be the most nonsensical two hours I'd ever subject myself to. No, I watched them all because I didn't know
what to expect from any of them. So now
you'll be better-informed than I was, and you'll have a rough idea of what's
worth seeing and what's not. I've also
included summaries of any TV shows she was a regular on and of her past
Broadway plays, in the spirit of thoroughness, even though you obviously won't
have an opportunity to see those.
Anyway, have fun.
The Wackness (2006)
"Elanor"
THE
PLOT: Ben Kingsley plays Dr. Squires, a psychotherapist to whom the concepts of "boundaries", "professional ethics", and "personal hygiene" seem to be entirely alien. He develops a friendship with Luke, one of his patients -- a nice high school boy with quite the flair for dealing pot under Rudy Giuliani's metaphorical nose. (Oh, yeah, this takes place in 1994, a fact of which the director was much too self-consciously aware.) When Luke's not attending therapy sessions or paying for them by supplying Dr. Squires with pot, he spends his time mooning over the therapist's hottie daughter. Also trying to keep his parents from getting evicted. He does not spend any time trying to convince a perpetually stoned Mary-Kate Olsen that dreadlocks don't work on white girls, but he probably should.
JANE'S ROLE: "Elanor", one of Luke's regular buyers -- a onetime rock musician who has done an admirable job of hanging on to almost half of her brain cells in the face of her pot addiction.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Oh, the whole role is fun. She's foggy and druggy and her conversation drifts all over the place, and she has an adorable habit of explaining to Luke, each time she gets pot from him, which specific circumstances have made her need it this time -- as though he cares. ♥
WORTH SEEING: You know, this movie actually wasn't bad. It had its good moments and its bad moments (and, unfortunately, the title is taken from arguably the worst line in the movie), but overall I did enjoy it, although I am getting sick of the fact that I have yet to see a realistic depiction of therapy or therapists in any movie, ever. But if you assume Ben Kingsley loses his license to practice therapy the day after the movie ends, it's a fine picture, even if it does have the weirdest cast in the history of cinema. Gandhi, Method Man, and half of Michelle Tanner? WTF?
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: She is awfully, awfully cute here. And, hey, she's got easily ten, maybe even fifteen minutes onscreen! Plus a fairly significant role in the plot near the end! This is progress!
The Brave One (2006)
�Nicole�
THE
PLOT: Jodie Foster plays a woman whose boyfriend is beaten to death, and who is brutally beaten herself, in a crime the police are unable to solve. She deals with her PTSD by engaging in some nice therapeutic vigilante killings. Critics called this movie "a vigilante movie that even a feminist could love"; critics are assholes, and this feminist did not love it.
JANE'S ROLE: A friend of Jodie Foster's character's, who is more or less summarily friend-dumped as a signal of Jodie's increasing isolation as she becomes preoccupied with murdering random people that she happens to encounter throughout the course of an average day.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: You know what, I'm updating this site about five months after I saw the movie, and as far as I remember she has about six minutes' worth of dialogue total. I remember she told Jodie Foster and her Mr. Hotpants Nochemistry Boyfriend that they were "so cute, I hate you" or something like that. As that's the only line I remember, we'll go with that.
WORTH SEEING: Mmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnmmmmmmmeh. It was... for the first quarter of it I really thought it was going to work, and then for the next half I was hanging in there and figuring it could still be redeemed in the end, and then the ending was *horrendous*. So I guess, on the whole, not really.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Nah.
Little Children (2006)
�Sheila�
THE
PLOT: The quiet life in a small suburban town is disrupted when a convicted pedophile moves into the neighborhood. While the community works itself into a frenzy of self-righteous fury over the presence of this pervert in their midst, smaller sexual and moral transgressions play out beneath the facade of domestic tranquility.
JANE'S ROLE: "Sheila", a schizophrenic (bipolar? schizoaffective? Who knows) woman who, using the personal ads to reenter the dating scene after a period of years spent being crazy, has the supreme misfortune of winding up on a date with the town pedophile.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: This is, ah, not really a role in which she gets much of a chance to be "cute", "fun", or "amusing". She's heartbreakingly hopeful, sweet, and naive, but that isn't really the same thing, eh.
WORTH SEEING: The movie wasn't as good as the book (of the same title, by Tom Perrotta) - I don't know who had the bright idea to stick in all the voiceovers informing us of what the characters were thinking, but it worked very very badly. Still, the core plot remains interesting, and the guy playing the pedophile was great, as were several of the other supporting characters, and in summary you should see this movie, because...
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Yes. She's great in this. It's the first time in a long time she's gotten a role in a movie with any substance to it, and even though she's only onscreen for maybe five minutes, she's good enough in those five minutes that I've come across two separate reviews that specifically reference her scene as the best in the movie.
Last Holiday (2006)
�Rochelle�
THE
PLOT: Queen Latifah plays a gorgeously voluptuous, incredibly sensitive, remarkably intelligent, brilliantly talented, all-around Most Fantastic Person You�ve Ever Met who suffers from an extreme lack of self-confidence and is therefore wasting her life cooking gourmet meals she won�t eat and ogling LL Cool J from a distance. So of course she finds out she�s got two weeks to live. And of course she decides to fly to Europe and take all the risks she�s spent her life avoiding. And if you couldn�t figure out from this summary alone that she changes the life of everyone around her, and hooks up with LL Cool J, and wasn�t actually dying in the first place, you probably shouldn�t be allowed to see any more movies.
JANE'S ROLE: �Rochelle�, coworker and friend of Queen Latifah�s character, back home at the Non-Wal*Mart of Corporate Assholery DOOM where Queen Latifah has been taking shit and wasting her talents.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: �You could crack a walnut on that ass!� � said by Jane, in reference to LL Cool J. Um. It looks like Jane is attempting to break out from Soft-Spoken Neurotic Waif typecasting, which, well, good for her.
TRIVIA: The screenplay for the original movie on which this was based was written by J.B. Priestly, who also wrote An Inspector Calls, the play in which Jane won a Tony.
WORTH SEEING: You know, despite the fact that I can�t say a word about this movie without reeking of cynicism (clearly), I enjoyed it. The plot couldn�t have been more predictable and LL Cool J�s line delivery is so devoid of nuance that at times I had to picture his sentences written out on a page, appropriately punctuated, to figure out what the hell he was trying to say. But apart from LL Cool J, the cast is great (Timothy Hutton!), and Queen Latifah lights up any film she�s in. So I liked it. Go figure.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: She is still the adorablest thing ever, but since she�s only in the movie for about 5-10 minutes total near the beginning, you�ll have to be the judge of your own level of obsession.
Stone Cold (2005)
"Brianna Lincoln"
THE
PLOT: Tom Selleck is the unnaturally implacable chief of police in a small town, whose duties expand beyond handing out speeding tickets when people start getting murdered and raped all over the place.
JANE'S ROLE: The murderer. You would think this was a spoiler, but really, they tell you within like the first five minutes. Anyway, she has an eerily detached way of speaking and a rather puzzling penchant for wearing really long flowy silk dresses all the time. Oh, and two guns.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: ACCOMPLICE DUDE, on Tom Selleck: "Stupid cop." BRIANNA: "I didn't think he was so stupid. I thought he was polite." ACCOMPLICE DUDE: "He was staring at your ass!" BRIANNA: "I told you he wasn't stupid."
WORTH SEEING: Meh. It bored me, more or less. It was a TV movie and it shows, basically.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Well, it's certainly one of her bigger roles. Not really one of her more interesting roles, but she's onscreen a lot. And, again, it's something of a departure from typecasting for her, which is good.
Lemony
Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
�White Faced Woman #2�
THE
PLOT: The three
Baudelaire children have really, really, really crappy lives.� More specifically, they had wonderful lives
until their parents died in a Mysterious Fire, after which they were sent to
live with their uncle, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), a villanous beast with a yen for the Baudelaire family
fortune.� They use their wit and
ingenuity to evade his evil clutches, he overacts a lot, Meryl
Streep is hilarious; s�all
good. �
JANE'S ROLE: White Faced Woman #2.�
I am not entirely sure why she is #2, as #1 (Jennifer Coolidge) has no
lines and Jane has at least a few. �I
guess people like the MILF better than Jane, so she gets higher billing.
:P� At any rate, she�s a member of Count Olaf�s acting troupe; she doesn�t have much to do, but the
makeup artist sure spent a lot of time on her.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Like I said, she doesn�t exactly do
much, but the costume and makeup are great.
WORTH SEEING: Yeah, definitely.� They
did a really good job of staying true to the odd blend of black comedy and
unexpected poignancy that made the books so successful.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Nah.� You
can see the best of her character in any of the photos in the photo
gallery.� See the movie anyway, though,
it�s fun.
Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Carrie
THE
PLOT: Joel Barish is devastated when, after a particularly bitter
fight, his free-spirited and impulsive girlfriend Clementine decides to undergo
a controversial new procedure that will erase him from her memory. Stung, he
decides to have her erased from his memory as well, only to realize midway
through the procedure that he doesn't want to forget her after all; this leads to
some inventive attempts to circumvent the erasure.
JANE'S ROLE: Carrie, a friend of Joel's - one-half of a constantly
bickering couple, whose husband is the one to spill the beans to Joel about
Clem's memory erasure.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: To be honest, it's not all that
interesting of a role, and it's pretty small. It was pretty funny when she
attempted to take a cooler out of the trunk of the car, staggered around, and
dropped it on the ground, though. It looked like the thing was about to break
her spine in half.
WORTH SEEING: I really liked it, actually. Kate Winslet,
in particular, was wonderful. And while anything done by Charlie Kaufman is
worth seeing, this is probably my favorite of his so far; it captures so
perfectly the dynamic of one flawed but intensely passionate couple, and it's
an evocative and very original take on the bittersweet nature of memory. That
sounds lame, but to be honest, I can't summarize it properly. Just go see it.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Nah. At least, if she's the reason you're
interested in it, go for it, but she's had much better roles.
Mona
THE
PLOT: Shaun (Colin
Hanks) is rejected from Stanford when his guidance counselor sends the wrong
transcripts under his name. With the aid of his brother (played by Jack
Black; no further character description necessary) he goes to the university to
get them to let him in
JANE'S ROLE: Mona, the admissions secretary at Stanford, who sleeps with
Jack Black and then winds up burning down the admissions building with a postcoital cigarette.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Seeing her underplay a role, for
once.
WORTH SEEING: If you're into Jack Black movies. Then again, I'm
not, and I will say it wasn't as bad as I anticipated.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Not really.
The
Anniversary Party (2001)
Clair Forsyth
THE
PLOT: Joe and Sally
are celebrating their six-year anniversary, fresh from a newly mended
breakup. Their marriage starts coming apart at the seams as drugs and
alcohol bring old hurts to the surface again.
JANE'S ROLE: Clair, a guest at the party; a highly nervous actress and
new mom who's strung out on diet pills in a more-than-successful attempt to
�regain her figure�, at least before Ecstasy mellows her out.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Watching her jump over the back of a
sofa when startled by a dog.
BONUS POINTS: The half-hour nude scene in the middle of the movie.
Of course, she looks rather anorexic, but still.
WORTH SEEING: If you're into melodrama and overacting, this is the best
you�re ever going to find. :)
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: In my opinion. She's pretty hilarious
here.� And it�s a decent-sized role, too.
Wonder
Boys (2000)
Oola
THE
PLOT: Grady Tripp
(Michael Douglas), a burned-out and perpetually stoned English professor,
attempts to juggle a brilliant � if slightly crazed � student prot�g�e who�s
latched onto him, a pregnant mistress, a dead dog, a rocky marriage and a
wildly out-of-control, 2000-page novel.
JANE�S
ROLE: Oola, a heavily pregnant cocktail waitress who alternates
between looking winsome and shrieking in terror.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Oola: �I
never forget a drink.� Grady: �I never forget an Oola.�
TRIVIA: Though this adaptation of Michael Chabon�s novel of the same name generally adheres very
closely to its source, Jane�s character represents the one significant
deviation from the novel�s plot.� There
is no Oola character in the novel, and though her
addition to the movie does give the Marilyn Monroe jacket a much better fate
than it has in the book, I really think they only added her so the
screenwriters could have their fun with the sort of Vernon Hardapple
games that Grady and Terry play in the bar.�
(If you want to know what the hell I�m talking about, see the movie.)
WORTH SEEING: For once, my answer�s an unmitigated yes.� Despite that always-awful
element of Michael Douglas-ness.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: She�s cute, but even so, I wouldn�t see this just
for her � she�s only in it for a few minutes. �Still, see the movie.
Songcatcher (2000)
Elna Penleric
THE PLOT: The year�s 1907.�
After getting turned down for a full professorship at her university,
musicologist Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer)
takes off in a huff to visit her schoolmarm sister in the
JANE�S ROLE: Elna (Eleanor) Penleric, the schoolmarm sister.� A lesbian one.� Involved with her
�colleague and friend,� fellow teacher Harriet Tolliver.� In 1907.� Victorian dykes.� WOOT.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: The Woods Scene�.
BONUS POINTS: Gorgeous, gorgeous folk music.� And Emmy Rossum is
freaking adorable.
WORTH SEEING: Oh, hell yes.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Oh, hell yes.
Mumford (1999)
Dr. Phyllis Sheeler
THE PLOT: A drifter wanders through the town of
JANE�S ROLE: One of the other therapists in Mumford,
who�s none too happy that she�s losing her business to a psychiatric
poser.� She�s also having an affair with
the other-other doctor in town, which isn�t helping her nerves.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: She does have one of her patented
neurotic breakdowns, but it�s a pretty bland role in general, and she�s hardly
onscreen.
WORTH SEEING: Not really, unless there�s someone in it you particularly
like � it features a big, really-very-decent cast.� Including Jason Lee, who�s always a good time.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Nah.� Even if you do particularly like her. :)
A
Mary Joan
THE PLOT: The patriarch of a large, camel-raising, ear-fetishistic
(no, really)
JANE�S ROLE: The boy�s mother.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Mary Joan: �I really think all this
� VD � is God�s way of punishing� certain people.�� Miranda: �Well, then God must especially love
lesbians, Mary Joan, because they hardly ever seem to get anything at all.�
BONUS POINTS: The dreadful halfway
WORTH SEEING: You know, surprisingly, it is.� Bizarre though it might be,
it�s quite witty.� Not, you know, four
stars, but fun nevertheless.� Good luck
finding it, though.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: It�s a pretty big role, and she�s good in it.� Accent and all. :)
A Fish in the Bathtub (1999)
Ruthie
THE PLOT: A cantankerous, eccentric older man (Jerry Stiller, perhaps
best known as George�s dad on Seinfeld) has a blowup with his wife (Anne Meara) over, among other things � you guessed it � a large
fish he insists on keeping in the bathtub.�
She leaves, he repents, she comes back, cuteness
ensues, yada yada yada.
JANE�S ROLE: Their common-sensical daughter
Ruthie, attempting to hold her family�s quivering sanity together, not making all that much of a success of it.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: I don�t know,
it�s somehow fun to see her playing a role that doesn�t involve a nervous
breakdown.
WORTH SEEING: It was fairly cute, and Jerry Stiller�s unfailingly
amusing.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Depends on how big a fan you are.� I think so.
You've Got Mail (1998)
Sydney Anne
THE PLOT: Sleepless in
JANE�S ROLE: Meg Ryan�s engaged when she meets Tom Hanks, so they need
someone to make the inevitable breakup less painful for her boring-but-harmless
boyfriend.� Which means he needs Someone
Else In His Life.�
Which means Sydney Anne, onscreen for all of forty-five seconds, uncredited, yet vital to the plot, right?� Yeah.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: It�s not a moment from the
movie.� But I found a review once � I
think it was on salon.com � citing her performance here as one of the top ten
of the year, worthy of an Oscar nomination.�
She literally is in the movie for no more than a minute and a half.� It was hilarious.
WORTH SEEING: As someone who a.) works in a
bookstore, and b.) has a guilty-pleasure thing for
mindless romantic comedies, I�m biased; but yes.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Well, according to salon.com.
Music From Another Room (1998)
Irene
THE PLOT: In the early �80s, a pregnant woman delivers her baby girl
at a snowed-in Christmas party with just a little bit of help from a
six-year-old boy, whose delicate little hands enable him to unwind the tangled
umbilical cord from around the baby�s neck before it�s born.� (Yeah, plausibility�s maybe not this movie�s
long suit.)� �I�m going to marry her,� he
declares as he leaves the party.� Sure
enough, twenty years later, he does, after all the required romantic-comedy
tropes.
JANE�S ROLE: This part � the nervous, neurotic, halfway-anorexic,
on-the-brink-of-a-breakdown new mom � really needs to be renamed The Jane Adams
Role.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: She shoots her philandering
husband.� Just in the leg, but
still.� Made my night, I�ll tell you
that.
WORTH SEEING: The lead is played by Jude Law.� I am a lesbian, and I was in another world by
the end of this movie.� If you have the
faintest smidgen of attraction to men anywhere in your system, you must. see. this. movie.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Well, she�s hilarious.� Hardly onscreen at all, but
hilarious.� There�s this one
moment where she�s got this odd almost-Molly-Shannon-esque
thing going.� Good times.
Day at the Beach (1998)
Marie
THE PLOT: Um.� Something about
a suitcase full of money getting flung over a bridge by some amateur filmmakers
and killing a guy in a boat by hitting him on the head.� Then there was something about the Mafia, and
a ravioli store.� The fine points were
very much lost on me.
JANE�S ROLE: The wife of one of the main characters.� She has a kid.� That�s about as much as I can tell you.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: She dances around with a beer in
her hand.� It�s amusing.� And a moment that has nothing to do with her,
but that was friggin� hysterical all the same:
Suitcase: ::arcs over bridge, kills
man::
::beat::
Cinematographer Guy: �There�s a big fuckin�
cloud, dude.�
You have to see it to understand.� �Come to think of it, you won�t understand it
even then.� And since this movie is more
or less impossible to find, it�s kind of a moot point.� ::shrug::
WORTH SEEING: I don�t think so, but I was honestly too
::ahem:: distracted to tell you.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: No.
Happiness (1998)
Joy Jordan
THE PLOT: Oh, dear.� How to
explain?
�
In-depth Portrayal of Pedophilia: Check
Exceedingly Disturbing Father/Son Conversations Regarding
Said Pedophilia and Other Matters: Check
Suicide: Check
Graphic Portrayal of Rape: Check
Vengeful Murder: Check
Dismemberment of Resulting Body and Disposal of Said Body in
Ziploc Baggies: Check
Graphic Portrayal of Phone Sex: Check
Multiple Cumshots: Check
Usage of Ejaculatory Fluids as Adhesive Substance: Check
Graphic Portrayal of Old-People Sex: Check
Obsidian-Black Humor: Check
Summary Conclusion That Life Is Shit and There Is No
Possibility Of Ever Truly Knowing, Understanding, Or
Receiving Any Comfort From Another Human Being: Check
�Yeah.
JANE�S ROLE: Joy, the youngest of three sisters in a perfectly horrid
family.� She�s the only non-horrid one of
the bunch, and is thus doomed to be regarded as a failure in life.� A struggling and really not-very-good-at-all
musician, just thirty (and it�s all downhill from here), wrestling plaintively
and futilely with situational depression� the most hopeful thing that can be
said for this poor, sweet girl is that she�s a little smarter at the end of the
movie than she was at the beginning.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: She sings.� A really bad song.� It�s adorable.� Bad.� But adorable.�
BONUS POINTS: Graphic sex scene.
WORTH SEEING: I hate to sound like an indie
film snob, but this really is one of the more brilliant films I�ve seen in
awhile.� NOT, however, for the squeamish.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Like it or not, folks, this is her biggest role, and
her best.
Father of the Bride Part II (1995)
Dr. Megan Eisenberg
THE PLOT: Father of the Bride was a box-office success.� They needed a sequel.� So Steve Martin�s (George Banks�, whatever)
daughter has a baby.� And just to shake
things up a bit � GASP!� So does his
wife!� On the very same day!� Who could ever have imagined!
JANE�S ROLE: The obstetrician, young but feisty and on-the-ball, who
delivers both of the Banks progeny.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Watching her play it cool and
collected to a neurotic Steve Martin.�
What a turnaround.
TRIVIA: According to IMDb, she dated Steve Martin for
awhile around the time of FOTBII�s filming.� No idea if it�s true or not � my mommy always
told me never to believe anything I readed on the
Internet � but wouldn�t it be cute if it was?�
(I always picture her as the basis for the main character in his novella
Shopgirl.� But
that�s a different story altogether.)
WORTH SEEING: Ah, it was cute enough.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: She is very cute here.� (I keep using that word.)� Again, she�s not in it very much, but what
the hell.
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)
Ruth Hale
THE PLOT: Dorothy Parker was a brilliant writer, and, in her personal
life, a supremely fucked-up individual.
JANE�S ROLE: Who can tell?� She�s
in it for about six seconds, and for three of them only her left half is
onscreen.� I can only assume she had a
bigger role and a lot of it ended up on the cutting-room floor.� The way it stands now, her character wouldn�t
need a name, much less one that�s supposed to have some historical
significance.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: No.
WORTH SEEING: My God, if I heard one more minute
of that dreadful nasal too-jaded-for-this-life voice Jennifer Jason Leigh was
affecting, I would have thrown up.�
No.� And it�s a shame, because the
concept � a biographical movie about Dorothy Parker � is so promising.� I mean, I suppose there�s really no way to
play Dorothy Parker that would be both true to life *and* non-annoying (though
I swear, I have heard recordings, and her voice was not that bad! Jesus!) but that
doesn�t make it any more fun to watch.�
Oh well.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: You�re lucky if you can find her in this.
I Love Trouble (1994)
Evans
THE PLOT: Oh, who can tell?�
Something about rival newscasters, murder plots, etc., blah blah blah.
JANE�S ROLE: Some sort of research assistant in a newsroom, I
think.� She�s hardly in it.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: �No again.
TRIVIA: A terrible movie it may be, but it�s got no less than four recurring
guest stars from Frasier on it (and I�m a Frasier fan, so yes, I think this is
trivia worth noting.)� Marsha
Mason (Sherry from Frasier, some kind of senator here) � Dan Butler (Bulldog on
Frasier, an evil-bad-guy-sidekick here) - Jane Adams (duh) - and Saul Rubinek (Donny from Frasier, the evil villain here).� They must all have the same agent or
something.
WORTH SEEING: God, Julia Roberts would have had better sexual chemistry
with a tree stump than she does with Nick Nolte - not that it�s all that easy
to tell the difference.� Definitely not.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: No.
Dead Drunk (1992)
Kevin's girlfriend
THE PLOT: A chilling HBO cautionary tale.� High school boy gets drunk, attempts to drive
home, has an accident, kills the driver of the other car and walks away,
physically unscarred, but forever haunted by the consequences of his
actions.� They still show it on HBO every
now and again, although the
JANE�S ROLE: Girlfriend of the drunk driver, who tries valiantly but
ineffectively to get him to give her the keys.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Well, she�s young here.� That�s always fun.
WORTH SEEING: If you happen to be awake at
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Well, there�s no other real reason to see it, unless
you have the idea that drunk driving is a good thing, in which case, of course,
you must rush out to see it immediately.
Light Sleeper (1992)
Randy Joseph
THE PLOT: Some suspenseful drug-dealers thing.� Suspense isn�t so much my bag, or I�d have
more details for you.� I tend to hide my
eyes when guns are pulled.
JANE�S ROLE: The sister of a murdered girl.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Again with the youngness�
WORTH SEEING: As suspense movies go, probably.� It�s got Willem Dafoe and the always-glorious
Susan Sarandon.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Not really.�
It�s a pretty white-bread role.�
Well, it�s early times for her.
Rising Son (1990)
(TV)
Meg Bradley
THE PLOT: A town whose lifeblood is pumped from a local,
independently-owned automotive plant is rocked when the plant goes out of
business.� The vice-president of the
plant (Brian Dennehy) has a rocky relationship with
his son (Matt Damon, who looks about sixteen here.) The son attempts to grow up
on his own terms.� Life goes on.
JANE�S ROLE: The girlfriend of the son.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Hey, she got to kiss Matt Damon.
WORTH SEEING: Heh, try finding it.� I got it off some random secondhand video
website for fifty cents.� But if you�re a
Matt Damon fan, this is his first role ever.�
I�m not a fan of his myself, but I suppose he�s pretty cute here, if you
like that type.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: You know, I�m going to say
yes, just for the young-cuteness.� If you
could not tell, I am a fan of that.
Vital Signs (1990)
Suzanne Maloney
THE PLOT: Third-year med school students attempt to cope with the
difficulties posed by their grueling workload, emotional pressure, and
unpredictable personal lives.
JANE�S ROLE: �Suzanne, one of the
med students.� She has a brief, nervous
fling with her roommate (sadly, he�s male).�
She also yells �CODE BLUE!!� really really
loudly at one point.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: She dances the �Dinosaur� in a bar
at one point.� Very cute, even though I
don�t know exactly what the Dinosaur is.
WORTH SEEING: I wouldn�t bother going out to rent it, but they rerun it
on FMC (no, that�s not Fsomething Movie Classics,
that�s Fox Movie Channel; they�re so misleading) every now and again.� It�s a passable drama.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: She�s at her youngest and cutest here. :)
"Citizen Baines" (2001)
Reeva Eidenberg
THE PLOT: An aging senator loses, for the first time, his bid for
reelection.� With the aid of his three
daughters, he attempts to cope with the knowledge that he�s past his
prime.� Meanwhile, the daughters have
personal struggles of their own, which look, from the summaries on the episode
guide (I never caught the show) to have degenerated pretty quickly into
Lifetime Original material.
JANE�S ROLE: Reeva, the middle daughter,
burdened with an adulterous husband, an unfulfilling housewifely routine, and
an uncertain career path.� She gets
pregnant a few episodes in and isn�t sure whether she�ll keep the baby, but before
they had a chance to resolve the issue the issue the show went off the air.
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: I have no idea, I never saw the
show. By the time I realized she was in it it had
been off the air for a month.� It only
ran about eight episodes.
WORTH SEEING: See above.� I really
don�t think they�re going to be bringing back these eight eps
for a syndicated run.� Ah, well.
"Frasier"
(1999) (regular guest appearance)
Dr. Mel Karnofsky
THE PLOT: This was season 7, and if
CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Mel: �I was on HealthChat
last month; I did a segment on breast augmentation.� Frasier: �Oh, well, how
uplifting.� Mel: ::stares:: �Yes, well.�
WORTH SEEING: Hey, you�ve got to love Frasier.� Best sitcom ever, man.
WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Honestly, they should have kept her with
"Relativity"
(1996) (TV)
Karen Lukens
THE PLOT: A soap opera which follows the romance between two twentysomethings, Leo and Isabel, who meet while on a
vacation in
JANE�S ROLE: I never saw this one either, and I just can�t tell from the
episode guides I�ve found online.� Something about being married and having an affair because her
husband doesn�t pay her any attention, or something.
WORTH SEEING: I can�t exactly tell why, since the episode guides make
this look like a pretty bland, juiceless drama, but apparently this was some
sort of a cult hit.� And since it ran
almost a full season, there�s a marginally better chance than there is with
Citizen Baines that it�ll show up again at some point.� I wouldn�t call it a good chance,
though.� How can you run eighteen
episodes over and over again?
��������� GUEST TV APPEARANCES
�In Plain Sight"
Episode: �Don of the Dead�
Ruth Ferguson or Ruth Fraser; it changes with her Witness Protection status
THE EPISODE: See for yourself -- it's up as of 8/10/08, and though I can't guarantee that it'll stay up, I'll summarize it before they take it down. For those of you who want a summary now: Witness Protection blah blah blah. Also, silly representation of the ways in which Catholics are ridiculous. There are many ways in which Catholics are ridiculous, but this show does not get them right; take it from the girl who grew up marinating in the religion. Dude, it is so easy to buy an annulment. Your premise sucks, In Plain Sight.
�Outer
Limits� (2001) Episode: �What Will the Neighbors
Think?� Mona Bailey THE PLOT: A hypochondriac who fancies herself handicapped is
accidentally electrocuted and subsequently finds herself with the power to read
her neighbors� minds.� Shocked to discover
sinister plots lurking behind the innocent facades of her once-friends, a
bloodbath ensues as her mindreading capabilities
become known and her friends lash out at her and at each other.� Emerging unscathed from the wreckage, she is
immediately pitched out the window by her scheming husband, the only person who
was able to shut his mind to her, and killed. JANE�S ROLE: The mindreading hypochondriac. CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: None.� This is probably the worst role I have ever
seen her play.� I mean, there was just no
possibility of redeeming it.� The show
was phenomenally bad, bad enough that even though it was only a half an hour�s
investment of my time and I had gone to the trouble of taping it to boot, I
nearly shut it off twenty minutes in, because it was driving me crazy. WORTH SEEING: Oh, God no.� The
crazy camera angles, the deranged overacting, the *stupid* plot� no. WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Nope. �Night
Visions� (2001) Episode: �The Doghouse� Amanda THE PLOT: A man, running from shadowy enemies who are after money he
hasn�t got, is caught by them and is being beat up when a car pulls up
alongside the fight.� He jumps in and
makes the driver speed away, despite her well-founded terror.� She brings him back to her place in an act of
Good Samaritanism, and as she�s a vet and he can�t
risk going to a regular doctor, she treats his broken ankle and various
bruises.� She offers to let him stay with
her for a bit, and he accepts, despite being a little weirded
out by her overly close relationship with her two German shepherds.� His instincts prove correct when she more or
less takes him prisoner, Misery-style, with the dogs watching over him to make
sure he doesn�t leave; he attempts to drug them and take off, but she catches
him and chains him in her cellar until he can learn to be a good boy. JANE�S ROLE: The chick with the dogs. CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: The subtle glint of psychosis in
her eyes as she locks him in the cellar, combined with his anguished shout of
�I�m not one of your DOGS!!!!�� Good
times. WORTH SEEING:� Well, it sure amused
me. :) WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Granted, I am predisposed to enjoy a show which
features her chaining men up in her cellar like dogs.� But I would definitely say yes. �Family
Ties� (1989) Episode: �They Can�t Take That Away
From Me� Marty Brody THE PLOT: Alex (Michael J. Fox), on the verge of graduating from
college, has already gotten a jump-start by teaching some classes in
economics.� There � during a couple of
weeks when his girlfriend (Courteney Cox) is
conveniently out of town � he meets Marty Brody, a (you guessed it) nervous,
semi-neurotic, bohemian music major who�s definitely struggling with the more
practical and prosaic elements of economics.�
He offers to tutor her, and quickly finds himself falling for her,
despite the fact that she�s got the worst haircut the Western world has ever
seen.� However, he realizes in time it
isn�t going to work; she�s a sophomore, he�s graduating and moving to JANE�S ROLE: By now, I hope that you know that when you see the word
�neurotic� in a summary, it refers to Jane�s role. CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Watch for the pratfall she attempts
to make in the classroom, when her character�s supposed to trip and fall down
the stairs.� She�s a fabulous actress,
but let�s just say physical comedy isn�t her strength.
;) BONUS POINTS: Like I said, this is seriously the worst haircut ever.� Shoulder-length and
violently straight, with heavy bangs.�
Add in the terrible eighties clothes, and it�s
one hell of an appearance she puts out there. WORTH SEEING: I have always had a weakness for Family Ties.� Maybe it�s just that Michael J. Fox is cuuuuuuute.� Anyway,
it�s no worse than most of the episodes of this show. WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Hee hee
hee.� You have
got to see this hair. �Family
Ties� (1987) Episode: �Dear Mallory� �First Love� THE PLOT: Mallory gets a job as an advice columnist for a grocery
circular, but things start to spin out of control as she finds the pressure of
her readers� emotional dependence to be too much for her to handle. JANE�S ROLE: �First Love,� the dorky and emotionally disturbed writer of
the first letter Mallory ever receives.�
She�s afraid her boyfriend is cheating on her.� Mallory tells her to ask him directly.� This results in her getting dumped, and she
shows up on the Keatons� doorstep to take Mallory to
task for it, blaming her for the breakup and adding to the room at large that
�you�re all gorgeous!� and therefore couldn�t possibly understand what it�s
like to be an ugly girl who has trouble getting boyfriends. CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: I found their attempts to �uglify� her to be extremely entertaining.� Basically, they pulled her hair back in a
messy ponytail and gave her a pair of those inevitable thick black-rimmed
glasses, and called it good.� It was somewhat
less than effective � and the irony is doubled when you consider that Justine
Bateman has never really been �gorgeous�. WORTH SEEING: It�s not really one of the better episodes of Family Ties,
but now that Nick at Nite�s started running the show
twice a night in syndication, any given ep winds up
being on every couple of months.� I
wouldn�t go out of my way, but if you happen to notice it�s on, go for it. WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Like I said, it�s fun when
taken from an ironic standpoint, and it�s fun to see her when she was, what, a
young-looking twenty-two?� She�s honed
her dramatic skills considerably since, obviously, but it�s
all part of the fun. :) Match (2004) Broadway Lisa THE PLOT: A graduate student and her husband conduct an interview with Tobi Powell, a former professional ballet dancer and current
Juilliard professor, about his dance career and - increasingly - his personal
life. As the interview continues and Lisa's husband becomes more and more
hostile towards Tobi, it becomes clear that their
intentions are not as simple as research for a dissertation after all. JANE�S ROLE: Lisa, the woman who conducts most of the interview - a
sweet but rather intensely unhappy woman, trapped in a difficult marriage. CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: The play is a great blend of comedy
and drama, actually, though Tobi gets most of the
funniest lines. However, there's this great moment when Lisa, having smoked a
little pot and starting to get the munchies, is conducting her interview while
stuffing Chex cereral into
her mouth with both hands. And I must admit I did a little too much sixth-grade
giggling at the cunnilingus scene. (...no, not exactly what you're imagining. Discussion of cunnilingus, not performance of it. Even in
Happiness she didn't go quite that far.) WORTH SEEING: Definitely. I really loved this show - and it was such a
surprise, because I had no idea what it was about when I went in to see it. The
cast is *amazing*, really. Everyone knows who Ray Liotta
is and the strength of his typical angry-man performance, so I won't devote too
much time to that. But damn, Frank Langella is
awesome. I kept asking around of everyone I met - "Have you ever heard of
this guy?" - after I'd seen the show, because I
couldn't imagine why I'd never heard of him. I guess he's bigger on Broadway
than in film, although my mom did say "I know him! He was in
Dracula!" Don't know anything about that, but this role certainly suited
him, and then some. He plays this genial, effervescent, extremely gay ballet
teacher, and half the time he had me cracking up and the other half he had me
wanting to run onstage and give him a hug. Anyway, so the point is if it's at
all plausible, this is definitely a show to go see. WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Oh yeah. She really gave a wonderful performance
here. It's hard to explain why I loved it so much, since it wasn't exactly the
flashiest of roles, but it was just... whatever, I loved her in this. Go see.
:) My thirty-second
meeting with Jane Enchanted April (2003) Broadway Rose Arnott THE PLOT: Four very different women, each ground down by the dreariness and
stresses of life in 1920�s JANE�S ROLE: Rose Arnott, the sweet, shy
one.� She�s unhappy in her marriage, in
large part because when she lost a child and her husband started drifting she
turned to a sort of dreary Christian martyrdom for �solace,� if you can call it
that.�� So she�s glum, depressed, and
very badly dressed at the beginning of the play, but a month in CUTE/FUN/OTHERWISE AMUSING MOMENT: Everything!� She�s adorable!� Everything about her is adorable!� ::coughs:: Um.� ::attempts to figure
out when she whisper-squealed the most:: Probably the white nightie
with the bare feet.� But then there was
this moment when both her companions, upon setting off on the journey, let out
hearty cries of �Al Italia!� complete with a complementary fist-pump; the
long-suffering, half-hearted hand-raise she gives in response was quite
possibly the cutest thing ever. BONUS POINTS:� There was a fun
moment when, sitting in the front row of the mezzanine as Jane came onstage, I
realized �If I leapt off this mezzanine, I could quite possibly land on top of
her.�� Not that I would.� But it amused me to realize I could.� ::realizes she
sounds like a violent stalkerperson:: ::quietly
shrinks into corner:: WORTH SEEING: Well, you can�t anymore, but if you�re interested - for the
play in itself� enh.�
If you�re looking for a pick-me-up (an expensive one; in keeping with
Broadway prices, orchestra seats are $80, mezzanine $60, balcony $40, and rush
$20 � it was only because the show�s attendance was so low the day I went that
I got a mezzanine seat through rush), it�s a good bet, since it�s lighthearted
and intermittently hilarious.� (Thank God
they didn�t take out the pericoloso bathtub from the book � I thought they
would, because it�s not integral to the plot, but it�s the funniest scene in
the whole thing.)� But it�s a bit too
saccharine for my tastes.� I don�t know
what the big deal was about Jayne Atkinson, who scored an Outer Critics Circle
Award and a Tony nom for her leading role � yes, her character was eccentric
and therefore her constant state of overjoyedness
(word?) wasn�t technically uncalled-for, but I still thought she was
overplaying it. WORTH SEEING FOR JANE: Closed at the end of August.� Sorry about that.� Logically, they must have known that a show
called �Enchanted April� was not likely to have a long run.� Maybe they�ll revive it next April. My six-second
meeting with Jane An Inspector Calls (1994) Broadway Sheila Birling THE PLOT: A happy, upper-middle class family is celebrating their
daughter�s engagement when a strange, imposing police inspector comes to call
with questions about the recent suicide of a young girl.� Though at first each member of the family is
confident that they could have had nothing to do with this terrible tragedy, as
the interrogation continues they gradually realize they have each played
separate roles in this girl�s life which contributed to her horrible demise. JANE�S ROLE: Sheila, the daughter of the family, celebrating her
engagement to Gerald Croft when the inspector pays his visit.� In a family which otherwise consists of a
hardened, insensitive businessman patriarch, a cold, haughty matriarch, and a
sullen and alcoholic son, she�s by far the most sympathetic character.� She�s also got a sharp wit, a tendency
towards mild hysteria and, as one interviewer puts it, a bit of a Cassandra
complex.� I so wish I�d seen this. AWARDS: She picked up a Tony for this one. She also won a Drama Desk Award for
Featured Actress and was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award. TRIVIA: This production was directed by Stephen Daldry,
who recently won much well-deserved acclaim for his direction of 2002�s
Oscar-nominated The Hours.� Sounds like it was a hell
of a show. WORTH SEEING: Oh, don�t rub it in. The Crucible (1992) Broadway Mary Warren THE PLOT: Arthur Miller�s classic drama of the JANE�S ROLE: Mary Warren, a servant girl present at the unfortunate
occurrences which lead to all the hysteria, and one of the teenagers whose
psychosomatic afflictions come to the center of the story. I Hate Hamlet (1991) Broadway Deirdre McDavey THE PLOT: Andrew Rally, young actor whose TV career has hit the
skids, relocates to JANE�S ROLE: The young, virginal
girlfriend of... uh... Rally, I guess. I don't know, I never saw nor read the play. Google was nice enough to tell me what the production notes from the script say about Jane's character, though: "Deirdre McDavey must also be played with delicious comic ferver, as she is not a ninny, but a wild romantic. She enjoys a whole-hearted swoon every few seconds, and she is delightfully resilent. She is not a mere kook, but a beacon of breathless wonder." Heh. Between "not a mere kook" and "breathless wonder," I bet she gave an entertaining performance. AWARDS: She won an Outer Critics Circle Award and a Drama Desk Award for this. TRIVIA: Apparently, the leads playing Andrew and John Barrymore in this
particular production (Evan Handler, Nicol
Williamson) did not exactly get along very well � culminating in one
performance where Williamson simply walked off the stage mid-scene, leaving the
rest of the actors to try and cover for his temper tantrum.
TRIVIA: She took over the role for Melora Walters just days before the show was set to open in
previews; however, the opening was only delayed by one day, which I would
imagine would be rather a large stressor, especially since she's onstage for
the entire show. I heard that at the first one or two performances she called
"line" a bunch of times; but I saw the show barely a week after it opened, and she seemed to have it down by then. Good for
her. I certainly wouldn't have. :P
TRIVIA: �She stepped into this
role for Molly Ringwald mid-production, after Ringwald took maternity leave.� I don�t know why I have a hard time picturing
Molly Ringwald in the role.� Maybe I have Sixteen Candles too much on the
mind.