It's
staggering to me that The
Incredibly True Adventure Of 2 Girls In Love is not available
on DVD yet. How is that fair? How is it anything but criminal? By
all accounts, this charming, upbeat film's no-budget shoot was a
heartfelt collaboration. I'm sure that if they saved anything, the
bonus material alone would be worth the purchase price! Why haven't
more movies like this one been made since its release in 1995? Also
criminal.
I
never forget an actor who creates an indelible character. I have
a vast store of favorites of every stripe stored away in the back
of my mind. It's something I've been doing since I was a kid, this
Rainman quirk of mine, remembering great performers. I
didn't know then that there was a reason for it. Aspiring movie
writers love movie actors. It's a thing.
Back
in 1995, Randy Dean was one of those characters. Laurel Holloman's
gritty, hopelessly adorable "baby butch" in 2 Girls
felt so real that I was pretty much convinced it was a self-portrait.
Kind of like Robin Johnson's stunningly intense Nicky in Times
Square. Laurel Holloman was so good as Randy that I thought
she had to be playing herself. Over the years, I slowly learned
that couldn't be further from the truth.
BLAME
IT ON JOSS WHEDON
In
May of 2002, Joss Whedon murdered
Tara Maclay and broke Willow Rosenberg's heart on
Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
I was among the destroyed. Truly, madly, deeply destroyed. Ask any
of my friends. And then something weird happened. Never one to get
all boycotty, I tuned in to Whedon's other show, Angel
out of boredom one Sunday night and I saw something that blew me
away. A flash of red hair caught my eye and I looked over from what
I was doing. My eyes grew wide as I stared at Laurel Holloman in
black jeans, a black tank top and a big silver belt buckle, mane
of flame red hair flying as she kicked a vampire's ass. It rocked.
There was swordplay. I was riveted. I learned that there's more
to her than beautiful doe eyes and sheer adorability. She's got
fire and a hell of a lot of sass.
Two
things happened that night; I was reacquainted with an actress I
really liked but hadn't seen in a while and Whedon narrowly averted
my complete contempt with this masterstroke of casting. Laurel Holloman
inhabited Justine the way she always does, and as I caught the complete
season's storyline, I was quite moved by the dark, sad journey her
character undertook.
And
it wasn't just me. There were others out there in Angel
fandom who latched onto this beautiful, conflicted wannabe bad-ass
slayer. A number of fan fics can now be found online. I confess
to using the outlet that Justine gave me for my anger at Whedon
to concoct a couple of Buffy/Angel crossover fics of my
own. In some small way, they helped me begin to work through that
very real grief a lot of us felt when Tara was killed. It was a
bit like putting a Band Aid on a sucking chest wound, but it felt
proactive.
Armed
with a filmography from IMDb and my brand new Netflix trial
membership, I rented everything I could find starring Laurel Holloman.
The theatre-trained Chapel Hill, NC native has worked steadily in
the years since her debut.
Loving
Jezebel was an entertaining little flick, an above average
romantic comedy centered on a good-hearted lothario with an unfortunate
penchant for attracting other men's women. Both Laurel and her 2
Girls co-star, Nicole Parker, played such women. Laurel's cute,
klutzy Samantha gets the guy in the end.
Lush
is significant only for the opportunity to watch Laurel dance at
a society party in her underwear in her very first scene. This misbegotten
drama sports a super-talented cast including Laura Linney, Campbell
Scott and Jared Harris, yet somehow it still fails to gel. But it
does contain one of my all-time favorite Laurel lines, "It
was very pretty and it was right in the hole; that's where it's
supposed to go, isn't it?" Sadly, she was talking about a golf
putt.
Tumbleweeds
is probably the best film I've ever seen that just happened to feature
Laurel Holloman in a supporting role. It's really Janet McTeer's
movie all the way. She won a Golden Globe for her part and garnered
an Oscar nomination as well. Her young co-star, Kimberly J. Brown
also won an Independent Spirit Award for best debut performance.
This is a film I can whole-heartedly recommend to almost anyone
who's ever had or loved a mother, or a daughter.
The
less said about the bizarre British thriller, Alone, the
better. Basically, one word comes to mind, "Yuck." And
maybe, "why?"
Along
this journey of rediscovery, I found that I already had
two Laurel Holloman movies in my rather massive video collection.
One of them was The Price Of Love starring Peter Facinelli
(Mr. Jennie Garth) as a runaway kid who becomes a street hustler
under the tutelage of Jay Ferguson. It also features Alexis Cruz.
Laurel plays fellow runaway, Roxanne, Facinelli’s love interest
until she learns he’s been tricking with men.
I also
have The Myth Of Fingerprints with Noah Wylie basically
doing a riff on his ER character John Carter as merely
upper middle class. You get to enjoy a lot of angst delivered by
a top-shelf cast in this movie, Julianne Moore among them. Unfortunately,
Laurel's cute, plucky kid sis never emerges as much more than a
very physical, very flirty sweetheart of a girl --- the only sibling
with seemingly no serious woes in an otherwise hugely dysfunctional
family. You wonder what her story is and you never learn. Too bad.
I
NEVER WANTED TO BE ZACH GALLIGAN BEFORE...
Only
Nicole Parker ever had it so good, if you're into smoochies
and cuddling, which I like in my movies. I'm old fashioned that
way. When Zach and Laurel hop in that hammock in The First To
Go, let's just say, I started wondering if I could live on
the royalties from Gremlins repeats on TV.
I bought
The First to Go sight unseen. It was at about this time,
I began to realize that Laurel Holloman has been in more "first"
films than any other actor I can think of. This one could've been
just another one of those rather obnoxious "guy" movies.
The premise is that the hero, the fortunate Mr. Galligan, is the
first of a group of yuppies to announce a wedding date. His buddies
throw one last weekend bash to try to talk him out of it. When they
realize he's brought the bride-to-be, they set about trying to split
the couple up. Nice friends, huh? The movie's saving grace is that
it feels personal to the first-time filmmaker. He cares enough to
avoid heavy exploitation and to give the female lead more layers
than these movies usually allow.
Laurel
turns in a sunny, engagingly earnest performance throughout.
One memorable scene revolves around Corin Nemic's attempt to seduce
Laurel's character into one last pre-marital fling. She stings him
for it, but doesn't wound him. In fact, she puts each of these lugs
in his place without emasculating any of them. In the end, they
wind up struggling to reunite the young lovers that they've so successfully
driven apart. It's an okay movie that only suffers a bit from a
tacked-on complication involving an ex-husband played by Mark Harmon,
who only seems to be in the movie so that they can trot out... Mark
Harmon.
I
still have 15 more movies to go before I can say I've seen all of
Laurel Holloman's film work. It's nice to have something to look
forward to. And so far, I've only seen one of her guest-starring
roles on TV. Ironically, in the middle of her stint playing tough-as-coffin-nails
Justine on Angel, she appeared as a depressed suburban
mom-with-a-secret on Touched By An Angel. Range, people.
WE'RE
GOING DIGITAL!
We've
been given no choice by our cable provider if we want Showtime,
so for The L Word, I'll
go digital. I first learned about the show on the Kitten Board.
Then, I read an article in a magazine at the bookstore. As is always
the case, I find out the important stuff when I'm in public and
can't react the way I might in the privacy of my own home. I mean
I could, but --- no. When I read the list of the entire regular
cast, I think I gasped. I was with a friend so luckily I had someone's
arm to grab. I do remember that my first reaction was, "Laurel
Holloman's going to be kissing girls again!"
Despite
all the worry about Pam
Grier's sailor hat, The L Word has me very intrigued.
The cast has enormous promise. Laurel will play Tina, better half
to Jennifer Beals' Bette. I hope she’s a full-fledged character
and not just an appendage. I hope she's smart and sassy and tough
and tender and constantly surprising, like Randy Dean, all grown
up. I want this to be better than anything we've seen so far. I
want it to be great. Because if this show does what it could do,
if it lives up to its potential, it could really mean something.
To everyone. To all the talent involved. To us. Finally, to us.
It's
about time.
Debra
McCampbell is a freelance screenwriter, online movie columnist and
newbie fan fiction writer. Her latest screenplay, A FINE LINE is
a lesbian love story in which no one dies or goes crazy. It can
be found at Kevin Spacey's TriggerStreet.com.
Her Justine-centered BUFFY/ANGEL fan fiction, "Parallel Lies"
& "Gemini" can be found at Nearheralways.com
under the byline, SisterDebMac. And yes girls, it's slash.
|
