Lowball

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There are two grabbers in Katrina Onstad's 3.23 N.Y. Times profile of Stop-Loss director-writer Kimberly Peirce. One is a blunt comment from Peirce about her career, the second is her non-response to a cheap-shot question by Onstad (and a cheap-shot collusion on the part of her editors).

Stop-Loss director-writer Kimberly Peirce, Ryan Phillipe.

The first, following a statement that "after almost a decade in the Hollywood wilderness trying to find a project that would equal her first film, she earned just a single directorial credit, for an episode of the television series The L Word," is Pierce saying "Yes, I should have made a movie sooner...yes, I should be a lot richer than I am....mea culpa.Ã¢â‚¬Â

I'm not going to quote from or describe the second thing, but check it out and tell me what you think. I think it's an icky paragraph.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on March 22, 2008 at 7:01 PM

comment #1

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Kimberley Peirce looks shockingly like the young Hillary in that photo, no?

Posted by Mgmax, le Corbeau at March 22, 2008 8:07 PM

comment #2

T. Holly says ...

There's enough in this piece to get me really interested, even though there aren't enough quotes from Peirce. The whole idea is to weave the interview into the story, which is what makes feature stories so much more interesting than Lunch with David and the SXSW audio interviews. You/Wells manage(s) to make the audio interviews work, probably because you/he had to do it "the print way" in the past.

The writer's lucky Peirce didn't sock her in the face for asking her if she's a lesbian. How conscientiously private does she need to be in order to be demure about it?

. For all the good will she garnered in gay circles after â€œBoys Donâ€™t Cry,â€ Ms. Peirce demurs on the subject of her own sexuality

Posted by T. Holly at March 22, 2008 8:48 PM

comment #3

berg says ...

K Pierce told me, during an interview stop (loss) in houston, that her second film was going to be about the William Desmond Taylor murder, had Evan Rachel Wood cast as Mary Myles Minter and script by Robert Towne, but the studio pulled the plug. Part of her deal to make stop loss had the provision that the film was green lit from day one

Posted by berg at March 22, 2008 9:30 PM

comment #4

Gus Petch says ...

Mgmax, I thought it made her look like Tea Leoni.

On the paragraph in question, I agree with Jeff. Onstad wants us to believe she's saying something socially relevant, but really she's just being a gossip columnist.

Posted by Gus Petch at March 22, 2008 9:50 PM

comment #5

Mr. Peel says ...

Am I the only one who thought that if Boys Don't Cry had been directed by Jonathan Demme it would have been nominated for quite a few more Oscars than just performances?

Yeah, probably.

Posted by Mr. Peel at March 22, 2008 10:34 PM

comment #6

scooterzz says ...

she also mentioned during my interview with her that ben kingsley and hugh jackman had been signed for the desmond project.....and then said, 'it WILL get done....i WILL make this movie'.....
so,.....maybe....?

Posted by scooterzz at March 22, 2008 10:44 PM

comment #7

MikeSchaeferSF says ...

As a gay guy, I'm rather torn here. I looked at the picture before reading the post and my first thought was "if she's not a dyke than she's the butchest-looking heterosexual woman ever". There's a part of me that respects people who flat-out refuse to discuss their personal lives -- there's a certain integrity to that, compared with those who live elaborate charades ("arranged" relationships etc). But on the other hand, I get very annoyed with people who wear their lefty politics on their sleeves, yet refuse to discuss their sexuality (yes, Tracy Chapman, I'm looking at you). Is Hollywood swirling with rumors about Kimberly Pierce? That would make such a question semi-legit. If not, then no. However I'm looking forward to the interview in which that same writer asks the "gay question" of Tyler Perry.

Posted by MikeSchaeferSF at March 22, 2008 11:23 PM

comment #8

D.Z. says ...

Gus: More like an unattractive Tea Leoni.

Anyway, the way it's being promoted by her, this project feels as exploitive as United 93, but in the opposite direction.

Posted by D.Z. at March 22, 2008 11:29 PM

comment #9

scooterzz says ...

i've met kimberley peirce a few times and i've never thought her sexuality was a question (nor did i think it was any of my business).....that said, she does make jodie foster look positively feminine...

Posted by scooterzz at March 23, 2008 12:04 AM

comment #10

Terry McCarty says ...

From the NYT profile:
Ms. Peirceâ€™s first tangle with the complexities of success was â€œSilent Star,â€ a screenplay based on a piece of Hollywood lore about the unsolved 1922 murder of the actor and writer William Desmond Taylor. In 2001 she took the story to DreamWorks and began as a co-writer of the script. Two years later Evan Rachel Wood and Annette Bening had signed on to act in the film, but the deal with DreamWorks fell apart over budget issues, Ms. Peirce said.

I wish I could empathize with Ms. Peirce; maybe if she had figured out a budget she and the attached talent could live with and gone back to studio boutiques such as Fox Searchlight (which released BOYS DON'T CRY), Picturehouse, Paramount Vantage or Warner Independent--and been turned down AGAIN, I would understand.

Instead, she seems to not want to travel less than first cabin (sort of like Steven Spielberg, who ought to have shot THE TERMINAL guerilla-style in an actual airport in off-hours rather than blowing money on building a giant airport terminal set), wallking away from projects if they're not associated with "major" studios like DreamWorks (which tends to not know what to do with their occasional specialty-related product).

Posted by Terry McCarty at March 23, 2008 12:13 AM

comment #11

Craptastic says ...

The Hilllary comparison was my first thought when I saw that pic.

And as a straight man I can honestly say that Jodie Foster is f'ing hot. From "Silence..." up to "Flightplan" she's been the cat's meow.

Never been able to pinpoint exactly why.... just always found her extremely attractive. But, then again, I'm strange in regard to taste. I'd love to have a Jodie, Bellucci, Diablo Cody, Delpy (insert sloppy metaphor here).

Wait. I got it! Smart and exotic. Screw you, Freud!

Posted by Craptastic at March 23, 2008 12:26 AM

comment #12

The Winchester says ...

"Gus: More like an unattractive Tea Leoni."

So, DZ, you mean Tea Leoni.

Posted by The Winchester at March 23, 2008 1:57 AM

comment #13

D.Z. says ...

Winchester: No, I mean
http://upload.moldova.org/movie/actors/t/tea_leoni/thumbnails/tn2_tea_leoni_2.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads11/26329_Tea_Leoni_114704_BestEyeCandyCOM_122_907lo1196831014.jpg
http://www.ezthemes.com/previews/t/teawp.jpg
http://img.actressarchives.com/tea/leoni004.jpg
and http://www.cinemablend.com/images/sections/9316/9316.jpg
.
Peirce looks closer to K.D. Lang than Leoni.

Posted by D.Z. at March 23, 2008 3:14 AM

comment #14

D.Z. says ...

closer to=more like

Posted by D.Z. at March 23, 2008 3:16 AM

comment #15

The Hoyk says ...

Strange...in last week's Sunday L.A. Times profile on Peirce by Paul Brownfield, there was this:

"I look back and it's like 'Boys' asked me and asked my culture some of the seminal questions that I will ask in my life," said Peirce, who is gay. "Same thing in this. My baby brother, who I brought home from the hospital and who represented pure innocence, was taught to be a soldier and to kill."

Why so matter of fact here and yet so gossipy in the N.Y. Times?

Posted by The Hoyk at March 23, 2008 5:52 AM

comment #16

corey3rd says ...

Jonathan Demme could have made Boys Don't Cry, but he's been creatively dead since Oprah broke his ass on the set of Beloved.

Posted by corey3rd at March 23, 2008 6:20 AM

comment #17

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

So Kimberly Peirce made an independent film about a cross-dressing teenager, and we're debating whether she might be a lesbian? As I said another time on this site, "We're debating whether there might be something vaguely homoerotic about a movie in which the Phantom of the Opera runs around with his shirt off in a leather jockstrap?"

Posted by Mgmax, le Corbeau at March 23, 2008 7:36 AM

comment #18

T. Holly says ...

Hoyk, it sounds like the writer is clarifying Peirce's quote in a non-direct question about her sexuality, so it's ok. I don't think Peirce is hiding, she's just not wearing it on her sleeve.

Posted by T. Holly at March 23, 2008 9:32 AM

comment #19

MilkMan says ...

#1: Pierce is a dead ringer for Hillary Clinton.
#2: With the exception of Hilary Swank's performonce, Boys Don't Cry was magnificently mediocre.
#3: What happened to Jonathan Demme. I mean, seriously, how the can the man who made Something Wild and Melvin and Howard not make a good film in, what, 17, 18 years?
#4: Demme gave hands down the worst acceptance speech in Oscar history.

Posted by MilkMan at March 23, 2008 10:05 AM

comment #20

DarthCorleone says ...

Yeah, I agree it's an icky paragraph.

How is not profusely talking about her relationship demurring regarding her sexuality? She's not denying she's gay. She acknowledges her partner and gives a brief summary of what her partner does professionally.

The thing that she is demurring is talking specifically about her personal life, which anyone in her position has a right to do regardless of sexuality.

It's really rather ridiculous. Or just a very poor choice of words by Onstad.

Posted by DarthCorleone at March 23, 2008 11:10 AM

comment #21

George Prager says ...

Icky paragraph. In the New York Times? Impossible!

Here's some Tea Leoni lookalikes (saying Kim Pierce looks like Tea Leoni is like saying she looks like Sam Elliott)

Andy Williams:
http://www.biography.com/biography/images/episode_images/Andy_Williams_320X240.jpg

William F. Buckley
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbuckleyW.jpg

Hal Hartley
http://www.filmreference.com/images/sjff_02_img0693.jpg

Jonatha Brooke
http://www.hrpac.org/summer2007/3_sum07.jpg

(I hope I didn't just create the D.Z. version of "Boner Jam 2003")

Posted by George Prager at March 23, 2008 11:47 AM

comment #22

The Bandsaw Vigilante says ...

Since Arthur C. Clarke, like, just died and shit, a related question:

Wasn't Peirce at one point attached to an adaptation of Clarke's "Childhood's End"?

(Or still is? Big shock that both it and Kapur's "Foundation" movie will probably never see the light of day, considering that other intellectual-sounding film of hers got cancelled faster than a baby at Planned Parenthood.)

Posted by The Bandsaw Vigilante at March 23, 2008 11:56 AM

comment #23

D.Z. says ...

Milkman: "With the exception of Hilary Swank's performonce, Boys Don't Cry was magnificently mediocre."

But was it as good as The Next Karate Kid?

Posted by D.Z. at March 23, 2008 12:12 PM

comment #24

AndrewOwens says ...

After being ripped off by V and Independence Day, Childhood's End would probably be deemed as "unoriginal" nowadays; but I'd love to see those helpful, Satan-looking aliens on the big screen. Perhaps if you focused more on that rather than the "giant saucers hovering over the Earth" first part you could get it made.

Hope it's not 10 years until KP's next film.

Posted by AndrewOwens at March 23, 2008 12:34 PM

comment #25