Tag Archives: 2003

Dawson’s Creek

Ugh. Dawson’s Creek. Well, not necessarily “UGH”, but yeah, a definite ugh. Not my thing at all. BUT it did become somewhat of a pop culture moment, and surprisingly Virginia Madsen was along for the ride, and so here we are.

In 2003 the TV show Dawson’s Creek would come to an end with its Sixth season. The end of the Sixth Season would feature a double bill with two episodes “All Good Things…” and “…Must come to an End” (Not to be mistaken for the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation…).

For those of you unfamiliar with the show (lucky you), Dawson’s Creek was the quintessential late-90s teen drama, following the emotional roller coasters of a group of friends growing up in Capeside, Massachusetts. It’s got all the angst, love triangles, and painfully earnest teen dialogue you’d expect from a show of this type. It also helped launch the careers of several actors who went on to bigger things, including Joshua Jackson and Katie Holmes.

I never really watched it at the time, I was too old for it when it aired and I’ve no real desire to go back to it now that I’m even older. Especially as the whole “Teen Drama” thing was never really for me, even when I was a teen.
I, didn’t *really* watch the episodes with Virginia Madsen in, it’s a season finale and so I didn’t really stand a chance of really knowing what was going on. She plays Maddy Allen, an older woman who, in true Dawson’s Creek fashion, finds herself in an “inappropriate” romantic relationship with Pacey (Joshua Jackson). Apparently, he has a thing for older women, so much so that the relationship doesn’t seem to cause anyone to blink an eyelid at the whole thing.

Now, let’s just say that this kind of story line would probably cause more of a stir if the roles were reversed or if it aired today. But it’s 2003, and Dawson’s Creek was never exactly cutting edge when it came to progressive thinking.
As for Virginia Madsen’s role, it’s small but memorable. She does what she does best and adds a layer of emotional complexity to what otherwise might have been a one-note character.

Does she save it for me? Nope. But she definitely brings more to the table than what the show would’ve had otherwise, and to actually try and watch an episode…

If you’re like me and this kind of teen drama isn’t your thing, Virginia Madsen’s appearance won’t change your mind. But for die-hard fans of the show, Maddy Allen gives them something else to remember from the finale. And that can only be a good thing…. Right?

Availability:

Easy to get hold of in Box Sets, the Season Finale is actually available to buy separately for this one – It’s how I got it – It’s just the final two episodes as a stand alone thing, and as a collector that’s all you need.

Trailer:

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CSI Miami – Season 2 – Episode 4 – Death Grip

CSI Miami. It’s Episode four of the Second Season of this particular iteration of CSI, it’s title is “Death Grip”. And it guest stars Virginia Madsen.

Or, I wouldn’t be watching it.

I’ve only seen a handful of CSI episodes, these kinds of Police Procedural type shows aren’t my thing and they all kind of blend into one. I can recognise them on TV but I can’t tell one from the other.
Virginia Madsen stars as Krista Walker, the mother of two teenage girls feared kidnapped. Or, rather just the one as it turns out one of the sisters was hiding. The other one, Lana, is a well known tennis prodigy. Fears for her safety are escalated when an arm is found inside the body of an alligator and the CSI Team do their stuff to find out what happened.
Virginia Madsen’s role in the show is only minor, she doesn’t have a lot to do in this one. And, when she does it’s not exactly riveting stuff. I’d be surprised if this wasn’t one of those jobs that they do for the paycheck.

Availability:

Easy to find on DVD etc etc.

Trailer:

Not for this episode.

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Returning Lily / Tempted

Tempted, or Returning Lily depending on if you’re trying to keep your film separate from an erotic thriller from two years before with Burt Reynolds, is a 2003 film from Lifetime.

We get the story of a woman who is getting kind of fed up with her life and the way things have worked out for her. Emma Burke (the woman herself, Virginia Madsen) is a career woman whose marriage is in trouble and finding her job no longer gives her the satisfaction it once did.
She gets the sad news that her Nanny from childhood. Lily, has sadly passed away. One of Lilies last wishes was that she be returned home so her ashes could be spread over the island of Hawaii and that Emma should be the one to do this.

Glad of the chance to escape her life for a while Emma sets off to do just this leaving her husband begrudgingly looking after the kids back at home.

Once she arrives she finds herself, well, finding herself. She reestablishes her relationships with both her own and Lily’s family. One relationship in particular is, special, the one with Lily’s (much younger than Emma) nephew, Kala (Jason Momoa, yes that one).
Cue much soul searching, rediscoveries of things in her past which make her life make more sense and give her a little bit of what she was missing. It’s no deep stuff, no matter how much it tries.

The movie is, watchable. I mean. I didn’t hate it, but I don’t think it’s one I can really recommend. I particularly wasn’t a fan of the ending, it left a sour note with me.
Virginia is Virginia, as always you never doubt any part of her performance. She really does have this kind of role down at this point and once again you can’t help but wonder what could have been if she’d been picked for other roles. The DVD cover offers a giggle though, horrendous photoshopping going on here. I actually thought the DVD was a knock off when it arrived and was surprised to see the barcode scan as legitimate.

Availability:
The DVD wasn’t hard to find under the name Returning Lily, but I’ve seen it recently for much more than I paid for it. I’m not sure if it’s because of Jason Mamoas attachment to it or not. You can stream the movie on Amazon Prime where it goes my Tempted.

Gallery:

Tempted / Returning Lilly - Production Stills 3 images

Trailer:
#Nope

That DVD cover though…

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Artworks

Artworks. Now, I’m not going to lie. I like this movie, a lot. It’s just an easy and fun watch and more than once when I’ve been stuck for something to put on I’ve reached for this.

Emma Becker (Virginia Madsen) is a former artist now working as home security expert. She’s in an unhappy marriage after the loss of her child in childbirth and generally fed up with her lot. Through her work she meets Bret Rogers (Rick Rossovich), the owner of a local Art Gallery. They hit off, a little more than Emma’s husband would approve of.
Her passion for Art rekindled by Bret, she admits she is frustrated by the kinds of people she has to deal with. Bret has had his run-ins with the law himself but finds himself equally at odds with his clients. They talk and eventually come up with the plan that they should steal paintings from rich people who don’t appreciate what they have hanging on their walls.

Emma is reluctant at first, her Dad, Howard (Daniel von Bargen), is the Police Chief, she’s had law and order drummed into her. But, it isn’t long before she decides to give it a go. They team up with one of Brets old chums, Corey (Eddie Mills) and away they go.What follows is a crime caper kind of film, various heists and a woman finding her way to loving life again. Things start to go wrong when Corey starts helping himself to things he shouldn’t, it’s these little trinkets that sound the alarm ringing for the owners and the team are soon under investigation. Bret wants to quit but Emma is fully signed up for the criminal life and insist they carry on.

It shouldn’t work as well as it does, but it does. For me at least. It’s not as obvious as you think it is and if it wasn’t an indie film with a small budget then it might have done better than it did. Fair enough, it’s another where you’ve to switch your brain off. It’s never going to challenge you cerebrally, it doesn’t try to do. You’re just along for the ride. And it’s a fun one.

Virginia Madsen absolutely steals the show in this one without a doubt It’s her movie and she probably actually makes the movie so good. That’s not to say she carries it, but well she kind of does at the same time. It’s almost the perfect vehicle for her talents.
For whatever reason the movie seemed to score well with critics when it was doing the rounds but seems largely ignored by the masses. It has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 8% which should be criminal.

No hesitation in recommending this one, it’s a firm favourite of mine in Virginia Madsen’s catalogue. Even if you don’t think you’ll like the actual movie then it should be watched for her performance alone. A true gem.

Availability:

Not hard to find on Region 1 DVD and Amazon Prime have it to buy / rent as well. Shouldn’t prove difficult to track down. If all else fails there is always YouTube…

Gallery:

Artworks - Production Stills 9 images

Trailer:

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Nobody Knows Anything!

And so another film which I couldn’t get along with. This was another one that was actually my first time watching it. I’ve never fancied it, I’m not a fan of Ben Stiller or Janeane Garofalo or their comedy and it always put me off with those two being in it.

(To be fair one of my all time favourite films is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Ben Stiller, he gets more of a pass these days for that, but I’m still not a fan, really)

I zoned so far out of watching this film while I was watching it that at one point I genuinely wondered if I should just start again but I couldn’t bring myself to do it and just tried working it out.

Nobody knows anything is a comedy, in the very loosest sense of the word. I get the impression that it was trying to be *something*, but I don;t know what. I’d guess they were going for a satire vibe with a certain crowd when they were making it?

It’s a film about Hollywood and what it takes to get a film made there. Sarah Wilder (Alanna Ubach) wants to make a film, she thinks it’s going to be easy. Till she tries to get it done. She only has one proper contact in the industry in the form of her Uncle (Michael Lerner) who is has-been Screenwriter back in the day. He tries to help and she embarks on a ride through the weird and wonderful world of Hollywood, meeting various characters and getting into “situations” as she does.

It’s a film with a LOT of “names” in it, I mean, I’ve already mentioned Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo but joining the line up are; Margaret Cho, Kristen Johnston, Robert Englund, Mary Kay Place, Paul Dooley, Stephen Colbert, Tim Meadows,. MIke Myers. Fred Willard, Scott Thompson, Richard Kind, Mike Connors, Ed Lauter and of course Virginia Madsen.

Some are in it for a few seconds, some a few minutes.

It’s that kind of film. Like, it’s something special they all wanted to be involved in. Or, something. Like I said, I guess it’s some form of satire if you know that kind of world enough.

There is surprisingly little to be found on the film online, which is kind of telling. It doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Any reviews I could find were short and not-so-sweet, mostly, it just seems to have “been”.

I guess almost ironically, the movies title “Nobody Knows Anything” is actually a reference to a quote from William Goldman, an Oscar winning Screenplay Writer responsible for many a film such as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, the full quote is taken from a book he wrote, Adventures in the Screen Trade.

“Nobody knows anything. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.“

And, if nothing else this kind of proves his point. With all the star power floating around this film, it should, in theory, have been a lot better than it is.Virginia rocks up to do her bit quite late in the film, she’s a lawyer and doing her best to make the most of what she has to work with. It’s hard to make any real comment, I was definitely only half watching, despite Virginia and I was losing the will at that point.

Meh. Maybe some people will and do like this, I don’t. Not every film is for everyone, I get that, I mean I like Highlander 2 so maybe my opinion really shouldn’t count for anything…

Availability:
Region 1 DVDs are pretty easy to find, should you want to do…

Trailer:

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Spider-Man: The Animated Series

After lending her sultry, uh, sounds to the DC Animated Universe in the Justice League, in 2003 Virginia dipped over to the other side to spend some time with the Marvel gang over in Spiderman: The New Animated Series.

This time she takes on the role of Silver Sable in three episodes in the first season, “Spider-man Dis-Abled” and “Mind Games (Part 1 & 2)”.
I’m not the biggest Marvel fan, when it comes to comics at least – I’m a DC guy through and through and so I’ve never really gotten deep into the lore of any of the characters unless they’re named Wolverine.

Silver Sable was first introduced in 1985, she’s a mercenary character who sometimes works with Spider-Man, and sometimes against. In these cartoons, she’s against.

In “Spider-Man Dis-Abled”, Spider-Man accidentally videos Silver Sable doing her Mercenary thing, not wanting the tape to incriminate in her anyway she goes on the hunt for Spider-Man to retrieve the tape causing all the usual comic book type carnage as she does.Got to say, I was impressed with Virginia in this series, primarily because if I hadn’t known she was doing the voice work I probably wouldn’t have been able to guess from just casual watching. She adds a gruffness to her voice I’ve not heard before, it’s not that she’s unrecognisable once you know it’s her but I probably wouldn’t have put two and two together on it without a clue. She does as well as you’d expect, it’s not that easy to get into any detail about it given her limited screen time.

Availability:
Good, easily available on DVD for cheap. And, the Tube of Yous…

Trailer:
Not for the episode.

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Boomtown Season 2 – Episode 6 – The Big Picture

Boomtown was a TV show which aired on NBC between 2003 and 2003. Despite having a good cast and a good premise it only lasted two seasons. Personally I think it hit the air a bit too early and had it come along a bit earlier then we might have gotten more from it.

The first Season was quite odd in its storytelling for the time, it told the same story from multiple angles over one episode. It wasn’t really like anything else on air at the time. Those who got it, loved it, but perhaps the mainstream wasn’t quite ready for it.

The second season toned it down a bit, it took a slightly different way of telling the stories with flashbacks and the like but it wasn’t enough to save it.

Virginia Madsen took a guest role in the 6th episode of the second season, “The Big Picture” which aired on December 28th in 2003.

The story involved an ageing actress, Erika Ashland, trying to make her name in the industry before it was too late. Already feeling like she was past her prime as she was only being offered “Mom” roles instead of the more interesting roles she was being offered.

A chance meeting with a popular Film Director Mel Castle ends up with Erika heading home with him in the hopes of securing a role in his new film, by any means necessary.They’ve been home together for some time when the Police show up after a report of a disturbance at the house. The pair both reassure them that nothing is wrong and they go on their way. Erika looks a little out of sorts but assures them nothing is wrong.

The next day Erika is reported missing and the investigation begins into her disappearance.

It’s a good episode all in all – Obviously nothing is what it seems and there are plenty of twists and turns along the way. We don’t get to see a lot of Virginia Madsen in this episode but she’s pivotal to the plot, obviously.
It’s not much of a chance to do her thing with the screen time being limited, her character isn’t really something new that we’ve not seen her do before. That’s not to say she does it badly, mind you. What’s weird is the part where she really shines is a part where there is a montage of her going for different roles. She starts off all chipper and bubbly and slowly becomes disenchanted with it all. I also couldn’t but feel / wonder if the role might hit home for Virginia a bit in this one. Watching her audition for all the different roles and be continually rejected. I don’t know, there seemed to be some truth behind it for struggling actresses with genuine talent who get passed over once they reach a certain age in Hollywood.Although, she didn’t do too badly it was during her time on the Boomtown set she would meet Jon Avnet who she’d later work with on the WIGS project which gave us the web series Jan and the really quite good Ruth & Erica.

Boomtown isn’t a bad series in all. I enjoyed it, it wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen, but it was also years after the event and TV has changed a lot since it originally aired.

Availability:
Boomtown only received a Season 1 DVD release in most of the world. The Second season, as far as I can tell, has only ever been released as part of a full series box set in France. I managed to get hold of a copy from the French Amazon site. The box is in French as are the DVD’s but it’s not hard to work out how to get them playing, it has the English sound track so no issue once the episode starts to play, you’ll have to switch track manually at worst.

It’s sometimes available on Amazon Prime, you might need a VPN to watch it though depending on your location.

Or, once again. YouTube can be your friend…

Trailer:
Kinda, I guess…

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Tempted / Returning Lilly - Production Stills 3 images

Availability:

Gallery:

Artworks - Production Stills 9 images

Trailer: