The Starlet by Mary McNamara

The Starlet by Mary McNamara was a fun summer beach read.  I always enjoy chick lit, and besides, who wouldn’t love a novel set in Hollywood and Italy? I know I do.

Mercy Talbot knows how to follow direction.  She’s been listening to everyone from her overwhelming force-of-nature mother Angie since childhood, when she first became a star at age eleven.  Mercy may have started life out as Tiffany Dawn, but she grew into Mercy Talbot, Hollywood starlet, and the book begins with this troubled twenty-three year old jumping from the top of King Triton into Trevi fountain in the heart of Rome.  While paparazzi are capturing Mercy’s drug-fueled public breakdown, Juliette Greyson, a Hollywood insider on a much-needed vacation, gives Mercy the direction she needed to hear.  She tells her to stop, and she “saves” Mercy from further embarrassment.  Even though Juliette had no intention getting involved, she couldn’t help but try to save the girl the world has been watching have multiple breakdowns and failed rehab stints.  To Juliette, Mercy is a girl worth saving.

Juliette and Mercy have a few things in common, including ex-lovers who turned up dead, as well as a history of drug abuse.  Juliette takes Mercy to her Cerreta, the two-hundred acre family farm near Siena that she and her cousin, Gabe inherited.  Gabe does not want Mercy there, and neither does Juliette, especially when she realizes she comes with a lot of baggage, including Juliette’s ex-lover Michael O’Connor who is replacing the actor who had just killed himself and who Mercy found dead in her hotel room.  Juliette’s has her own little Hollywood insert themself into her Tuscan vacation, the very thing she didn’t want to happen.  Then a detective arrives from Rome to say they are reopening the investigation into Mercy’s ex-lovers death. 
 
The Starlet has a bit of everything for everyone – plenty of murder, mystery, mayhem, Italians, Hollywood insiders, and all the drama that comes along with it, including what else … drug addiction.  This is definitely a story that could be ripped from today’s tabloids.  Ms. McNamara writes a one liner beautifully in The Starlet that seems to sum up all of Hollywood’s misadventures – “Or do you save it for the camera?”  You’ll have to read this book yourself to find out whether or not Juliette and Mercy do save it or not.

To purchase your copy of The Starlet click here.

To visit Mary’s website, go here.

CONTEST:

Regal Literary is sponsoring 2 fabulous The Starlet themed vacations.  If you don’t win a vacation, you may be one of the lucky 100 people to win an autographed copy of The Starlet instead.

To win a weekend getaway in Los Angeles, complete with two nights at the Four Seasons, a four-star lunch at the Beverly Hills hotel, a guided tour of Hollywood, and more!

OR

A four days and three nights in the rolling Tuscan countryside at Spannocchia, Italy, for you and a companion, half price tickets for two from New York to Rome, and more!

Enter to win by visiting Mary’s website here.

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I Coulda Been A Contender

I almost pooped my pants this morning when I got a phone call asking me to audition to be in a movie tomorrow as a featured extra!  Ok, the pay was only going to be $80, but I was going for the adventure and the chance to meet the dude pictured below on the left.  The best part was that the director had “hand picked me” out of “hundreds of extras” to be cast as the ex-wife of a “major movie star.”

And I was going to be feautured on the movie poster.  Just look at who else was going to be in the movie.  Sigh.  I was going to be the coolest step-mom ever if I met someone from “The Office.”

I’m a huge movie fan, former movie theatre manager and projectionist, so my inner geek was doing cartwheels today.  I have been having a streak of bad luck, and I thought today was the day when it was all going to change.  Whaw-waaay ….

To find out what went wrong, and why I came “this close” to becoming famous, please watch my video.  It’s a little lame and I come off dorky because I kept forgetting where the camera is on my new laptop.  Still, friends and blog friends will enjoy a glimpse of Beatrice.  Although, hubby made fun of me for filming in in my new cupcake pj’s.  Too bad, I am a dork, and who cares.  Enjoy!

Don’t You Forget About John Hughes

What would our lives be like without John Hughes and his influence on film making?  What a terrifying thought …

A Tribute to John Hughes, may he rest in peace …

John Hughes was a fantastic writer.  A great film maker.  He taught us all that being a teen was survivable, and at times, even fun.  He discovered Molly Ringwald, (Well, he made her famous) after she did Annie and season one of The Facts of Life.  He is responsible for The Brat Pack.  He put Beatles songs in teen movies when no one else could afford to.  He gave us Long Duck Dong.  And, he put matched music to film about as good as Cameron Crowe, my other teen movie triple threat writer, director, and producer.  He was even born in Michigan, like me.  And I’ll always thank him for introducing me to  Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat.

I feel bad for not writing this post earlier, as John died August 6th, during the week I went back to work.  I have been thinking about writing a little blog tribute for him ever since.  I adored his films.  What dialog, what humor, what angst.  I have spent hours of my life laughing and taking a good deep look into my own soul because of his movies.

I can’t imagine my life without Some Kind of Wonderful, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Vacation, Pretty In Pink, or The Breakfast Club. 

I was thinking which movie of his was my favorite films, and I came up with a tie, between The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles, which was my first grown up movie if you will.  Well, Porky’s was my first movie without supervision, but that was a different type of movie.  It kills me not to do my top five and write about Ferris or Pretty in Pink, but I’m sure a hundred other bloggers have already written about those films already.  Let me just say this – Ferris Bueller, you’re my hero!

Sixteen Candles.  Only because it was the first big one of his I saw, and I felt like an adult that night walking out of the movie.  I was 13 when it came out, and I went to The Abbey on opening night to see it with my old pals S. and T.  What a fantastic film for a bunch of 13 years old girls to go see.  Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  What girl in the 80s didn’t fantasize about the hot older boys, fill out those little questionnaires that always dropped into the wrong hands during class, or got hurt feelings at the school dance when things didn’t go as planned.  What a perfect film for its time.  I am cracking up tonight reading on IMDB that Jim Carrey auditioned for The Geek.  Anthony Michael Hall was so perfect as The Geek, I can’t imagine anyone else playing that part.  I think I love this film the most because Sam was an outsider, flat chested, and had a screwed up family just like me.  Well, I wasn’t an outsider in high school but I felt like one, as I was pretty, smart, and poor.  I could identify with her I suppose.  And I loved the geeks, oh my dear sweet John Cusack and his head-gear.

Some of the Best Lines of the Film:

Oh Sam, let me take a look at you. Fred, she’s gotten her boobies.

Ooh. Sexy Girlfriend.

That’s why they call them crushes. If they were easy, they’d call them something else.

No more yankie my wankie. The Donger need food.

Can I borrow your underpants for 10 minutes?

Dong. Where is my automobile?  Oto-mo-biiile? 

What the hell are you bitchin’ about? I gotta sleep under some Chinaman named after a duck’s dork.

She at the church. She getting married to oily bohunk.

The Breakfast Club.  Really, this should beat out Sixteen Candles, because it is so much better, and much more deep, but … for whatever reason, it ties for first with Sixteen Candles for me.  I saw this film with V. and her older brother at Universal Mall when we were in 8th grade.  He had just taken us out to dinner and paid for all of us to go, and I was pretty impressed by that.  We went the Monday night after the movie came out, and of course Don’t You Forget About Mebecame my 8th grade class song as we were “graduating” a few weeks later.  What a flick.  I don’t think I know a person my age who didn’t like it.  The smoking dope scene in the school library, the mad dancing and the eight detentions in a verbal fight between Bender and Mr. Vernan.  You know you were all dyingwhen Judd put his face between Claire’s legs.  So dirty back then.  I loved when they stripped down their exteriors and came clean as to why they were in detention - Bender – pulled a false fire alarm; Brian - Flare gun goes off in his locker; Andy - tapes a guy’s butt cheeks together in the locker room; Claire – ditches class to go shopping; and Allison - didn’t do anything, she didn’t have anything better to do on a Saturday.  I just read that they all ad-libbed those reasons, how great.  And I am amazed that the script for this was written in two days.  Damn that John Hughes, he was so good.  Guess who else was considered for the cast? Molly and Jodie Foster were considered for Allison, and Brooks Shields was considered for Claire. Emilio was supposed to play Bender, as were Nick Cage and John Cusack.  Crazy, right?  Those five actors were perfect, just perfect in this film.  I walked out of there with that great “Oh, yes!” feeling I rarely get when a movie is perfect for me.

Some of the Best Lines of the Film:

So it’s sorta social, demented and sad, but social. Right? 

Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place. 

I never did it either. I’m not a nymphomaniac. I’m a compulsive liar.

When you grow up, your heart dies.

Eat My Shorts.

Well not at present, but I can see you really pushing maximum density. See I’m not sure if you know this, but there are two kinds of fat people: there’s fat people that were born to be fat, and there’s fat people that were once thin but became fat… so when you look at ‘em you can sorta see that thin person inside. You see, you’re gonna get married, you’re gonna squeeze out a few puppies and then, uh… 

Stupid, worthless, no good, goddamn, freeloading son of a bitch. Retarded, big mouth, know-it-all, asshole, jerk.

Just me. Just you and me. Two hits. Me hitting you. You hitting the floor. Anytime you’re ready, pal.

Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong.  But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain.  And an athlete.  And a basket case.  A princess.  And a criminal.  Does that answer your question? 

Every time I hear this song, I’m 14 years old again, young and innocent and free.  Not many songs can take me directly back to a certain year, but for the rest of my life, Don’t You Forget About Me will always take me back to 1985.