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Of the most recently added regular features in Entertainment Weekly, none is more pointless or more reviled than...well, than that crap Stephen King serves up on the back page, and for which he is surely spectacularly overpaid, given that what he produces as a "column" displays a lot of similarities to Peggy Hill's Musings. But the second-most pointless feature has to be "Ask the Critic," a Movies section sidebar where "readers" write in with "questions" that allow the magazine's film critics to talk out their self-indulgent asses. And you can always tell when it's Owen Gleiberman's week at the helm, because if the question is something like "Why do the critical darlings of independent film seemingly sell out to star in blockbuster extravaganzas?" or "Which actors do you think need to break out of their current stereotypes?," he will find a way to name-check Parker Posey in his answer. It's almost like "Ask the Critic" keeps catching Gleiberman in the midst of a Fame Audit he's administering to Posey, in which he finds her always less famous than he thinks she should be, so he's forever giving her suggestions as to how to raise her profile.
Okay, he's only done it twice. Still: we've noticed. Parker Posey's turned into the Gleib's pet project. (And dude, seriously? She has a boyfriend. If we've noticed, maybe he has too, and you should consider backing it up.)
Regardless of Gleiberman's counsel, it's hard for us to think of career moves Posey has yet to try. Like everyone in her generation, Posey's tested her mettle in countless indies, which, yawn. Not that they're not good, but developing a reputation as a member of the Hal Hartley posse is really not that hard to do. But Posey's also done generic romcoms (You've Got Mail, The Sweetest Thing); beloved ensemble comedies (Waiting For Guffman, Best In Show, A Mighty Wind); franchise actioners (Scream 3, the current Blade: Trinity); crappy TV movis (Frankenstein, Hell On Heels: The Battle Of Mary Kay); period pics (Dazed & Confused, Basquiat); serious drama -- or, at least, a third of a serious drama (Personal Velocity: Three Portraits); camp (Josie And The Pussycats); and Matt Groening-affiliated voice acting (The Simpsons, Futurama). Posey has also appeared in a respectable number of projects of interest to the gays: The Event, a recurring role on Will & Grace, and Tales, More Tales, and Further Tales Of The City. Though Gleiberman seems to have some idea that there are all sorts of other rols Posey should be playing, the only things she hasn't tried are Shakespeare and Kabuki. And there's a decent chance that one or the other of those will be the basis of Christopher Guest's next film.
For PoseyFan#1 (that's Owen Gleiberman's IM handle, y'all), the question is: why isn't Parker Posey a gigantic superstar? And the answer is that she isn't built for it. She's very pretty, but in an unconventional way. She has a memorable screen presence, but it's hard and flinty. She's had leading roles, but only in small movies. She started out as a character actor, and so she should remain: she provides a prickly jolt of energy to scenes she has to share with the likes of Tom Hanks or Rachael Leigh Cook, but if you're going to dole her out in larger portions, it has to be in the service of a story that's sufficiently quirky to begin with that it won't be totally overwhelmed by the force of her angular, jerky, motormouthed manner. (See: The House Of Yes.)
If Posey's goal is to prove to us all that, despite her H!ITG! beginnings, she's a well-rounded artist with a broad performance range, she needs to go the Paul Giamatti route, and choose a smart, yuppie-friendly indie that allows her to be eccentric but still recognizably a realistic human being, as Giamatti was in Sideways. But this may not be Posey's goal (Gleiberman's boosterism be damned!). And it's fine with us if that isn't her goal, anyway: we already have a Catherine Keener, and if Posey got so big that she couldn't be in Christopher Guest movies anymore, we'd all be the poorer for it.
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