Melissa D'Agostino

Mary Louise Parker and my heartbreak…

admin — Sun, 05 May 2013 22:10:19 +0000

I recently watched the trailer for the film RED 2 – my boyfriend thought this was necessary, and I agreed. In it, Mary Louise Parker struggles to say her lines through the horrifying alien mask that is now her face. This literally broke my heart. I’m not exaggerating. My boyfriend left the room after we watched it (and I was horrified), and came back 20 minutes later and I was still on the bed looking like my favourite aunt had died. And I realized that in a way, that had happened. I had lost her.

Mary Louise Parker is an actor. A fantastic, interesting, dynamic actor of stage and screen. I’ve always been into her quirky, dark style and have loved so many of the projects she was a part of. I most especially love her in Angels in America as Harper. Just really loved her so much in that. And now, she’s gone. Literally. That woman is gone for me. She can barely move her face, and it doesn’t even look like her anymore. Now I could maybe (just maybe) understand if her career was based on her appearance or her beauty alone. If she didn’t have the actor chops to back up how pretty she is. But that’s not the case. She’s an actor. And now she can’t move her face properly, and I have no idea what she’s feeling. Ever. This is a death. We have lost a great face. A face full of experiences and emotional life. For what? So they’ll cast her in Red 2? Wow. What a terrible trade off.

I feel very strongly that we are dying. Women in the age range of 35 to 55 — we are dying. I’m almost there in age, and I feel it coming. We are systematically dwarfing and diminishing ourselves to fit into this idea of beauty and it’s terrible and scary and wrong. When we erase the emotions, the experiences, the laughter, the joy, the grief, the sorrow and the desire from our faces to be palatable to any industry, or mainstream ideal we are killing a part of ourselves – our LIVING selves – and moving forward as different entities. Our bodies are the vessels through which we experience the beauty, sorrow, anguish, triumph, elation and celebration of life. Our faces tell stories. Our faces ARE stories. And every injection that takes away that moment we fell in love, that moment our grandparent died, or that moment we saw a sunset for the first time, takes away our ability to connect with one another. This is the biggest disservice we can do to one another.

Plus, in case it’s not clear yet to the world, getting plastic surgery doesn’t make you look younger. It makes you look like an alien. It makes you look like a creepy, blank slate that can only compute things without actually feeling them. Why would anyone want to be that or see that? I don’t blame women like Mary Louise Parker. I get that she feels pressure to keep getting jobs, and to keep competing in an industry where youth is everything. Or maybe she was starting to feel old, and was not into that. I can’t blame her when everything everywhere is telling us to look younger and thinner and whatever she are not. She has a right to do what she wants to her body. But I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make me really sad that she felt she needed to take this step. I’ll miss her beautiful face a whole lot. And knowing how she feels about things. That was cool, too. I hope she’s good.

The thing is, I’m worried about the larger toll surgeries like this will take on our human experience. We go to movies, the theatre, watch television – all of this to watch people experience events and emotions that we don’t get to experience on a daily basis (or sometimes ever). We watch an actor break her own heart or fall in love over and over again because it allows us to feel connected, to have a catharsis. If we stop seeing this happen to REAL women with REAL faces, what will that mean for our own emotional life? How will we embrace our own pain? Joy? Aging? Who will tell the stories of vivid, exciting, challenging lives of women over the age of 35? Or will we all slowly replace our faces with alien faces? I literally just shuddered at that thought.

I hope I never want to do that to my face. I hope the pressure of being in an industry that is so public and competitive never puts me in a place where I feel this step to be necessary. And I hope that for all of the wonderful actors I know. Is this where we’re all headed? I don’t know.

All I know is it should not feel as revolutionary as it does for me to watch the incredible Michelle Fairley on Game of Thrones. Every time Catelyn Stark appears on the screen my heart skips a beat (and not just because I love the character so much — although that too!). She’s just the most beautiful to me. And every line on her face is so right. I watch her and I can breathe. I can feel. I can not be afraid that everyone is turning into an alien. Seriously: can we not all become aliens?

Representin’

admin — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:28:17 +0000

Hello lovely inter web folk! I am happy to announce that I just recently joined a new agency, and I’m really excited about it. I will now be working with Patrick Yang at Oldfield. I will keep you posted about this new adventure as things come up. In the meantime: Happy Spring!

Starlight? Star bright? I hate to be critical, but…

admin — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 03:13:52 +0000

I continue to be thoroughly confused about this whole Starlight TV situation. It would seem to me, based on the info on the website, that they are indeed acting like a studio/distributor, where they will hold a majority share in the films they help to produce (50 – 80%), and yet Robert Lantos continues to argue that they would not own the films (or at least not the copyright). I recently read Mr. Lantos’ rebuttal to a piece in Macleans criticizing this model, but am hard-pressed to find any other media pundits or outlets asking critical questions about whether this is truly a wise investment and/or the way to generate an interest and an audience for Canadian Film that could then create a bigger market and revenue stream so we can actually make movies here. All kinds of movies. About all sorts of subject matter and characters.

I want to get behind this idea, because I’d love for us to have the film industry we deserve to support the crazy amount of talent in our country, but I have a gross feeling in my gut about it. I don’t think this channel will accomplish what its supporters believe it will accomplish.

Firstly, why are we creating a television channel that people are forced to pay for that shows Canadian Films? How will this help us to get more Canadian Films in theatres, or more Canadians watching them? Shouldn’t we have them up in a place where films are shown? Or focus on a web platform like Netflix? I don’t know many people outside of my friends in the industry that would get excited about the idea of having to pay for a channel full of content they don’t see as valuable and/or necessary to their daily lives. Most Canadians think that Canadian film is boring, bad or negligible. And unless they’re also going to pay someone to hold people down and force them to watch said StarlightTV Channel, a la Clockwork Orange, I don’t see how, amidst the gajillion channels available to them, they will consider watching these films they consider boring/bad/negligible.

I make Canadian Content, and I’d often rather watch Girls or Game of Thrones, or Tootsie (Please don’t judge. It’s a classic.) than a Canadian Indie Film.

And yet I am always so pleasantly surprised to go to a small independent film festival and see the kind of work Canadian Filmmakers are creating. I would love to think that people I know who aren’t in the industry could have that surprise as well. But with a universe of Channels to watch, why would they take a chance on something/someone they’ve never heard of? This seems like a terribly ineffective way to foster an audience.

And isn’t that part of the point? How do we get people excited about Canadian film? Make good films, of course. Get well-known Canadians to be in them/direct them/produce them/endorse them is another way, I guess. Look at what Justin Bieber did for Carly Rae Jepsen (Yes, I’m going there and I am fully ashamed. Go with me. Please). He had basically the most Twitter followers the Universe can allow, he told them to watch her video, they did, she becomes a superstar and we will never, ever, EVER get that damn Call Me Maybe song out of our heads (see…you’re humming it now). People get excited when other people they like introduce them to things. Like when Oprah recommends a book. People like that. They trust Oprah. They don’t seem to like it when people they know force them to pay for something they may not want, and likely won’t participate in anyway. This is not how we make friends. Or build audiences.

Also: creating a protectionist channel within an already heavily regulated system, and getting a first window for all of the films they help create seems terribly shifty to me. Shouldn’t we be empowering filmmakers? Creating more competition in the marketplace to drive up demand? Giving filmmakers more of an opportunity for wider distribution and eventually, hopefully, other revenue streams? Maybe I’m missing something — if I am, I’d love some insight from the interweb folk out there.

If the argument is that the channel should exist because it’s important to our National, cultural identity — I can totally dig that, and support that. But if the argument is that having this channel will somehow increase interest in and audiences for Canadian film…I’m having trouble seeing that path.

I’m trying not to be cynical, but can’t ignore my instincts. Starlight TV feels like one more system within the Canadian Film/TV landscape that promises progress, but delivers the same narrow scope, and limited possibility for Canadian artists. And for the Canadian public.

My exciting new web project: Six Day Road!

admin — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:22:09 +0000

UPDATE: We are now up to over 14,000 views across all platforms! Thanks for watching and supporting this project!

I am thrilled to be working on a new web series written and directed by the Matt Campagna. SIX DAY ROAD aims for the complete reinvention of the Western Genre. In it I get to play a tough as nails Marshal who has seen a lot, and is out for justice. It’s so great to play such a strong, multi-dimensional character, and in a duster and gun belt at that!

We shot Episode Zero in Caledon, Ontario on a freezing February day. Real snow. Real ice. Really freakin’ cold. But so worth it for the piece we got to make. I can’t wait to show you more!

To keep up with news about the series and upcoming episodes you can visit www.YourGeekNews. com or check us out on Facebook and like us if you dig what you see.

SIX DAY ROAD
Parched and ragged, dragging a heavy iron chain from whatever prison he has escaped, a lone Gambler hobbles eastward through the endless desert. Barely a day behind him is a blood-thirsty Marshall in a priest’s collar who tortures and kills everything in her path.When the Gambler accidentally rescues a young boy from a town gone mad, the boy sticks to him like glue as they escape together before the Marshall burns the town to the ground on her hunt. But when the Marshall’s true prey turns out to be the boy, the Gambler must make a terrible choice if he hopes to escape with his life.

Les Miserables Parody

admin — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 02:03:24 +0000

*UPDATE: WE’VE NOW CRACKED 160,000 VIEWS ON DAILY MOTION! Thanks for watching — this is very exciting!

Wolverine vs. Gladiator in: Les Miserables by yourgeeknews

I am over-the-moon thrilled that our parody short Wolverine Vs. Gladiator in Les Miserables has reached over 50,000 views on Daily Motion! It was an absolute thrill to make this short. My inner nine-year old musical theatre geek who used to sing both parts of the Confrontation in my parents’ basement incessantly could NOT handle the opportunity to sing this score. Getting to also be Wolverine satisfied every other geek-y bone in my body. Basically a double-geek dream!

Take a look at my transformation into Wolverine Valjean. Direction and editing by the incomparable Matt Campagna.

Ca$hi: 7 Grains… Lying to You

admin — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 05:36:02 +0000

In the spring of 2012, investigations revealed that Kellogg was using GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) in some of the ‘natural’ products they sell under the brand name of Kashi.*

Since the FDA does not regulate the word ‘natural’ in the way it does the word ‘organic’, Kellogg’s claim of Kashi being ‘natural’ is not illegal.

But now you know.

*USA Today, April 29, 2012

Rhubarb Festival

admin — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 00:07:27 +0000

Maybe it’s that breakup talk you really botched. Or maybe there’s someone you know you’ll never, ever come out to. Whatever that unattainable conversation is, Melissa D’Agostino wants to (re)visit it with you. In all the things we should have said that we never said, participants submit details so D’Agostino can assume the role of the person her one-to-one partner wants to say something to, and a risky conversation is played out in a safe and confidential setting.

“My experience is that people are very willing and interested in opening up when it’s under the banner of art,” D’Agostino says. “There’s no consequence, no feeling weird about it because you’ll have to see or talk to me again. There’s something quite freeing about that.”

Programming at TIFF 2012

admin — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:57:45 +0000

Melissa will be appearing live throughout the Toronto International Film Festival’s 2012 season, leading Q&A discussions with some of the industry’s brightest stars and most established legends.