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My accidental Famke festival
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Famke Janssen / Photo: Jacque Braun
Quite by accident, I recently spent a week with Famke Janssen ~ figuratively speaking, that is.
It started as I searched my local cable On Demand listings for something to watch, and happened upon Love & Sex. Hadn’t heard anything about it, but it starred Jon Favreau; I’m always looking to add to my repertoire where he’s concerned, so there we go.
Favreau (Adam) was in his element (this was his mostly-secure-but-vulnerable mode), and his chemistry with costar Janssen (Kate) was sublime. Love & Sex is an endearing little romantic comedy ~ little in that it makes no great waves in the genre, but endearing in its delivery of myriad amusing moments (when, for example, Adam comments on Kate’s "ET fingers").
Its mood could be called "When Harry Met Sally… lite." (Warning: Netflix says it’s enjoyed by those who enjoyed If Lucy Fell ~ if you liked ILF, this is a mega-improvement; if you, like I, utterly loathed ILF, don’t let that association dissuade you.) Though well-known for her role as the demented Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye, Janssen’s talents do reach beyond decoration, and Love & Sex displays a more substantive side; same goes for Eulogy.
A few days later, my friend C. and I were debriefing our latest viewings over a scrumptious lunch at Chacho's (Westheimer & Fountainview, best flour tortillas in Houston ~ I don't even care for them and I love these!). C., being a superheroes fan, had seen X-Men Origins: Wolverine since our last meeting and remarked, "There wasn't anything wrong with it ~ some weren’t wild about it, but it was well done, faithful to the original story, and Hugh Jackman worked out for a year for it, so how bad could it be?"
Indeed. I myself am not by nature a superhero fan, and barely remembered my obligatory viewing of X-Men pushing ten years ago now, but there was no arguing with C.'s logic on the last point... Thus, a few days later when I saw that it was on cable, I decided it might be just the thing to get me into some Wolverine spirit.
Kamala / Photo: Paramount
One of the things I'd forgotten was that Janssen starred in it as Dr. Jean Grey. One fun thing here is remembering Janssen's excellent early career performance in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation alongside X-Men costar Patrick Stewart ~ she played a visiting dignitary (of sorts) who ends up falling for Stewart's Capt. Picard; after a positive reception, she was offered the role of Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but turned it down in order to pursue motion pictures (she’d’ve made a great Dax, though!).
And then precisely seven days after Love & Sex, the red envelope containing Taken arrived. I’d already decided I wanted to see it, and had therefore (as regular readers know) remained deliberately ignorant of any fact beyond “Liam Neeson: Badass Papa Bear: Look Out.” So aha! Birthday party, ex-wife, Famke Janssen.
There wasn’t a whole lot to her role in this outing (except perhaps a profound, perhaps even negligent naïveté), but Janssen gave it just what it needed. And the movie was very good, very good ~ the score let it down, but it survived. I absolutely loved one particular conversation: … “Good luck.” >!!< That guy was dead meat, and you knew it ~ everything after that was mere formality. Neeson is so understated, that when he comes off with a quick movement it knocks you down. Love it.
And speaking of Janssen accidents, during one of our discussions at my movie Meetup, we were recounting “brushes with fame” ~ and A. told us how she found herself standing on a Manhattan street corner next to Janssen. I guess the oblique interaction is just my “Famke way.”
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