Zeitgeist Films

It’s heeeeeeeeeere: FUN FRIDAY!

This week we bring you another round of everyone’s favorite game - Six Degrees of Separation - starring everyone’s favorite actor-cum-blogger-cum-country singer… Gwyneth “GOOP” Paltrow! We were inspired to start with her because of blogger Molly’s night at the New York Film Festival’s Tenth Anniversary screening of Wes Anderson’sThe Royal Tenenbaums. Molly writes:

I went to the New York Film Festival’s 10th Anniversary screening of Wes Anderson’s film, The Royal Tenenbaums, last night in Lincoln Center. After, there was a great Q and A moderated by Antonio Monda and Noah Baumbach with Wes Anderson, his brother Eric, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray and Gwenyth Paltrow. All were very funny, cool and candid, and revealed some neat tidbits: they’re all afraid of Gene Hackman! There was originally a role planned for Jason Schwartzman! Gwyneth Paltrow took Paul McCartney bowling in an attempt to get rights to Beatles music! It was a great event (note to the Film Society: let Antonio Monda moderate all Q and A’s from now on), and I had the fun surprise of running into all of them after when I got horribly lost in the very nice but somewhat confusing layout of Alice Tulley Hall.

Note: You may have noticed that Amanda Dobbins at Vulture had pretty much the same take, EXCEPT for the whole “Bill Murray holding a door for her” experience Molly had. Molly has all the luck. Molly also confirms that Anjelica Huston’s regal cheekbones are even more mesmerizing in person.

Anyway, Gwyneth. The lady gets a lot of flack for pretty much everything she does. Yes, GOOP is annoying (it’s called “GOOP”, come on). It’s less a lifestyle blog than it is an e-scrapbook of Gwyneth in clothes you can’t afford, peppered with words like “splendid” and “Proenza Schouler”. No thanks. On the other hand, she’s also kind of frequently mocked (on sites like the HILARIOUS but almost entirely NSFW DListed.com) for… being fluent in Spanish? Injustice! And she was so good in Contagion!

Watch as we try to make up for wrongs against Ms. Paltrow by granting her the VERY EXCLUSIVE PRIVILEGE of being connected to a Zeitgeist Films film!

Here goes:

Gwyneth Paltrow, our starting point.

You do sick real good, girl.

Apart from the surprisingly riveting Contagion and the unsurprisingly you-should-probably-be-a-little-tipsy-if-you-want-to-enjoy-yourself Country Strong, another of Gwyneth’s notable roles is that of the unceremoniously sacked Helen of Sliding Doors.

If you are unfamiliar with Sliding Doors, you should know: 1) it is fabulously 90’s (lots of sweaters), 2) there are many British accents of varying quality, and 3) it involves PARALLEL UNIVERSES (like “Fringe”, except not).

Also in Sliding Doors was John Hannah (playing Helen’s universe-bending love-interest, James), better known for his work in the popular The Mummy franchise. 

Dawwwww. If you think that’s cute, imagine it in a SWEATER. Let’s all take a moment to salute the 90’s, when style criteria seemed to revolve solely around the question “but could I also sleep in this?”

The scrappy(, seedy, and weedy) Mr. Hannah had a two-episode run on season one of “Alias”, as Martin Shepard - a man brainwashed to be an assassin (we’ve all been there).

His wardrobe consisted of markedly fewer leather pants than that of Jennifer Garner. For shame!

One of the episodes in which the Martin Shepard character featured was co-written by the series’ executive producer (and producer of probably every movie you’ve seen in the last fifteen years), Alex Kurtzman. 

The talented and prolific Mr. Kurtzman has the great fortune of being married to one Samantha Counter, who…

was a producer and director of photography for Kim A. Snyder’s I Remember Me (not to be confused with the Jennifer Hudson song of the same name), a Zeitgeist release about chronic fatigue syndrome.

And that, dear friends, is one way to connect Gwyneth Paltrow to Zeitgeist Films. Can you think of another?

Happy weekend to you all!