Jessica Walter | Cinema Parrot Disco

I love crazy ladies in movies! I was going to call this “Crazy Bitches” but didn’t want to get in trouble as people are so on edge about these sort of things nowadays. Actually, I could also be in trouble for using the word “crazy”, I suppose. I’m female so am I allowed to say “crazy bitch”?!

I feel like I should be offended when movies portray women as mentally unstable, especially when it’s over a “man”. But I’m not (well, okay – I’m a little offended by the “crazy ex-girlfriend” thing – the majority of us aren’t obsessed with men, believe it or not!). There are plenty of psychotic men in movies & no one seems to have any issues with that. Is it only okay for men to be psychos?

I have no issues with psychotic male or female characters – as long as the actor has fun with the role. The more over-the-top the better! I love when an actor clearly enjoys playing crazy & goes all out, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining or Kathy Bates in Misery. I have to say that I think it’s kind of funny that the term “bunny boiler” is so commonly used now, though. It just goes to show how great Glenn Close was in Fatal Attraction (written & directed by men). Women rarely get that crazy over men as far as I’m aware but it’s interesting that some guys think we might! 😉

Here are My Top Ten Crazy Ladies In Movies, counting down to my favorite:

10. Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Voorhees in Friday The 13th

9. Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard

8. Samantha Eggar as Nola Carveth in The Brood

7. Jessica Walter as Evelyn in Play Misty For Me

6. Lara Flynn Boyle as Stacy in Wayne’s World

5. The Xenomorph Queen in Aliens

4. Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes in Misery

3. Betty Lou Gerson as the voice of Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians

2. Glenn Close as Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction

1. Piper Laurie as Margaret White in Carrie

I’ve left SO many out. It was hard to choose only ten! So here’s a long list of honorable mentions (and I’ve still left a lot out):

Honorable Mentions:

– All the kick-ass ladies in Kill Bill
– Billie Whitelaw as Mrs. Baylock in The Omen
– Betty Davis as Baby Jane Hudson in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
– Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Carmody in The Mist
– Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers in Black Swan
– Fairuza Balk as Nancy Downs in The Craft
– Eleanor Audley as the voice of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty
– Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne in Gone Girl
– Essie Davis as Amelia in The Babadook
– Nicole Kidman as Grace Stewart in The Others
– Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct
– Juliette Lewis as Mallory Knox in Natural Born Killers
– Jennifer Jason Leigh as Hedra Carlson in Single White Female
– Rebecca De Mornay as Peyton Flanders in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle
– Drew Barrymore as Ivy in Poison Ivy
– Elizabeth Taylor as Martha in Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
– Kate Winslet as Juliet Hulme & Melanie Lynskey as Pauline Parker in Heavenly Creatures
– Margot Kidder as Danielle in Sisters
– Deanna Dunagan as Nana in The Visit
– Anthony Perkins in Psycho…

A Few I’ve Not Seen:
Audition
Mommie Dearest
Switchblade Romance
Suicide Squad

And here’s a shoutout to Crazy TV Ladies, including most of the females in Game Of Thrones! Love those Game Of Thrones gals.

Let’s end this with Taylor Swift’s video for Blank Space… 😉

I bet no one who knows my taste in music ever thought they’d see a Taylor Swift video on my blog! It just felt like the right video to end this post. To be fair to Swift, it’s cool that she had fun with the media’s unfair image of her.

You can read a great article about the portrayal of women as “crazy” & the sexist double standards that still exist in Hollywood (and in real life) HERE at dailydot.com. It starts out about Swift but then gets into detail about the history of the sexist treatment of famous women.

**Welcome to Clint Eastwood Week here at Cinema Parrot Disco! I’ll be reviewing Clint Eastwood films for the rest of this week (all of which are ones I’ve only just watched for the first time this year). Happy Birthday to Mr. Eastwood, who is turning 86 tomorrow! I figured I might as well do this during the week of his birthday. Plus, I chose one of his films for my 2016 Blind Spot Series. So here’s my month of May Blind Spot review, directed by & starring Eastwood: Play Misty For Me.

Play Misty For Me (1971)

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills, John Larch

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
A brief fling between a male disc jockey and an obsessed female fan takes a frightening, and perhaps even deadly turn when another woman enters the picture.

My Opinion:

This was one of my “alternate” Blind Spot choices (see them all HERE) but then I went & watched it right away in January as it was one that I really wanted to see the most. Here are the Blind Spot movies I’ve reviewed so far including this one (I might as well start ranking them! Counting down to my favorite…):

5. An Education – 7/10
4. Summer Wars – 7/10
3. True Romance – 7/10
2. Play Misty For Me – 7.5/10
1. Natural Born Killers – 8/10

So, yeah – Play Misty For Me is pretty high for me so far.

This movie is so Seventies it hurts! The clothing & the hairstyles are ridiculously ugly/awesome. I love that decade! I always have a soft spot for 70’s & 80’s movies so I may rate them a bit too highly sometimes but I did enjoy this. Fatal Attraction owes a lot to Play Misty For Me – Glenn Close must have watched this movie. I don’t know Jessica Walter but it looks like she’s been in a lot of TV shows, such as Arrested Development (which I’ve never seen). She’s a great crazy bitch in this! I didn’t know just how unhinged her character would be. I think, if you’re gonna have a psycho stalker in a movie, they should be full-on crazy. I wasn’t disappointed with the level of nuttiness!

I also have a thing for movies involving a DJ so I really liked that part of it. Although, we see Eastwood in the studio & doing his DJ thing far less than I was expecting – he was mostly at home dealing with the crazy bitch or outdoors. Part of this may have been Eastwood wanting to show off his hometown? It’s a lovely place! I’d happily live in a town like that. Thanks to the hubby for knowing this fact beforehand so I looked into it afterwards: this movie was filmed in the town Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, where Eastwood has lived for many years & was elected mayor in 1986. He filmed this in local restaurants, the radio station, and friends’ homes. Oh, and in reading a bit about the town at Wikipedia, I read that they have a law prohibiting women from wearing high heel shoes without a permit. Ha! That’s weird. (Although I don’t think it’s strictly enforced)

There’s not much more that I can say about this film. It’s just a really good “stalker” movie so, if you like that genre, I’d certainly recommend this one. It’s also worth watching if you like this era & to see Eastwood’s directorial debut. So far, this is my favorite movie that he’s directed (but there are quite a few Eastwood-directed films I still haven’t seen). It’s a nice break from his cowboy thing & Dirty Harry thing – it’s a shame he didn’t do more movies like this one. Seriously, though – this is so SO Seventies! Look at these tighty whiteys!