dirac

Rainer died late last year, aged 104. RIP. Film clips.

I seem to recall interviews with Anderson where he said he'd been reading Stefan Zweig and he did apparently intend a tribute to the Mitteleuropa of that time. For me it was only intermittently successful, but plainly I'm in the minority. Too bad for Jen, cubanmiamiboy. She was campaigning hard.

Redmayne won at SAG last night. Go Eddie!

I forgot all about Birdman, sidwich, thanks, and I haven't seen it. Keaton was a special talent back in the day. The reviews I've seen of Birdman have indeed been generally excellent but also somewhat mixed.

I agree in principle, California, but it doesn't make those two movies any easier for this viewer to watch. I thought there was little if anything in those two movies to equal the best of the dance bits even in The Turning Point. Theoretically Dancers should be worthwhile for the extended Giselle footage, and I guess for historical reasons it is, but on the evidence of it I don't think Baryshnikov and Ferri were keeping Bruhn and Fracci up nights.

I think you're right. Moore is close to a lock, I think. She's due, the competition is weak (not in terms of acting quality, I hasten to note). Pike and Jones are British and not big stars, Witherspoon and Cotillard have already won. I'd like to see Pike, Cotillard, or Jones get it just to see the look on Moore's face when someone else's name is announced, but I doubt it will happen. (I have nothing against Moore, who's excellent, even if I understand Bill Nighy cleaned her clock when they appeared together on Broadway.) Cotillard was great. I really admire that lady. Redmayne played a real person with a visually striking disease, which the Academy is big on, but he may get aced by Bradley Cooper in American Sniper.

True, although it may be worth noting that the ballet audience was smaller at the time of The Red Shoes, which was a huge international hit (and actually introduced many people to the art form). Even today, as the only ballet film to achieve classic status, it's often seen by non-dance fans who wouldn't otherwise seek out a ballet film. Desmond Kelly also shows up and Lynn Seymour, sporting aviator sunglasses, coaches "Giselle" in a room that's not terribly brightly lit. There's also a "Thomas" Rall in a featured role. Dancers is a tough proposition to sit through, however. It comes in at just around 90 minutes and seems looooooonger. Even Nijinsky was better. I respect the late Herbert Ross's dedication to bringing ballet stories to the screen, but.

Thank you for starting this topic, Pique Arabesque, and thanks to Jayne for chiming in. This seems reasonable enough. I can't really envision Tom Wilkinson as LBJ, as much as I like Wilkinson, but I'll wait to see the movie, which I plan to do soon. Jayne, I was sort of underwhelmed by The Grand Budapest Hotel. It seemed full of quirkiness for the sake of quirk and not terribly true to the period in spirit. Would welcome hearing differing opinions.

Thanks for bringing up the nominees, Pique Arabesque. I have not seen "Selma" yet but plan to do so, although I am not encouraged by reports that LBJ has been turned into some sort of comic book villain. I was unable to bring myself to actually see "Boyhood" in a theater. I am less willing to commit three hours or so of my time to new movies than I used to be, and it sounded respectable, earnest, and boring. Please tell us what you thought when you have a chance, perhaps in a new thread?

This. Judging by video can be a dicey business. Amour writes: The modern eye is not accustomed to seeing female ballet dancers with meaningful boobs. If we saw more of them, so to speak, our expectations (and the costumes) might change a bit.

I recently saw "Dancers," which is available online from Amazon, again on cable. I can't say much for it as a movie - it makes "The Turning Point" look like a masterpiece - but for dance fans it's a memento of ABT during the period.

Yes, you really start to see the decline in her writing in the late-80s/early-90s pieces. The hysterical tone of the anti-Peter Martins pieces is embarassing. Martins could have killed someone and received less criticism from Arlene Croce than he got for how he was managing the New York City Ballet. I'm dreading the (possible) release of Croce's Balanchine overview. I have the suspicion she'll bury him under a blanket of glassy-eyed 'religious' orthodoxy -- 'The Gospel According to Arlene', if you will. You might rant, too, if you believed you were watching a cherished artistic enterprise founder. (The problem with "Discussing the Undiscussable" is that it's a poorly argued, nasty rant.) Croce, like other Martins critics, started out cheering for him, not calling for his head on a stick. I'd welcome her book, but as mentioned I'm not holding my breath - obviously there's some kind of complication or it would be out by now.

Thanks for posting this, Kathleen. I hope that others who read more recent fiction than I do will offer opinions!

Her prejudices were pretty clear in the article - no "seeping" required. I don't think she was called upon to say anything along the lines of "As a staunch conservative, I think...." I agree the article was essentially political, not aesthetic, in intent. Years ago I read Croce's long-form essay against the feminist movement and my hunch is if she had tried a straightforwardly political article it would have been even more confused. Back when she was writing for NR its arts coverage was much better - Buckley recruited interesting young writers like John Leonard and Garry Wills along with Croce. Not holding my breath for that one.

"Dance to the Piper" is one of my favorite dance books. For another view I would recommend Carol Easton's biography of de Mille, "No Intermissions." It's not a great book and Easton is not nearly as fun to read, but it will give you another perspective on aspects of de Mille's life that are somewhat glossed over in her writings, such as her professional conflicts and her marriage (Walter was really kind of a jerk, apparently). The biography of Martha Graham is well worth reading but highly opinionated in the de Mille manner. Definitely not the only book you should read on Graham.

The film I've seen shows a wonderful dancer. RIP. An obituary for Sizova in The Daily Telegraph.

Thanks for posting, cubanmiamiboy. Surefire Oscar bait, indeed. Turing v. Hawking, played by the latest hot young Brit actors. Perhaps they will cancel each other out?

Croce's essay was uncharacteristically incoherent. Still feverish from spending time in the Jones swamps, I guess.

As I remember from assorted "Google Alerts" and Tweets when the show was taped, Baryshnikov was in London for the opening of his photography exhibit. But he is on the selection committee for dance and no doubt was happy to endorse her. I meant it was unfortunate that he wasn't there to introduce her because of his star power with the general public, which is higher than that of any other living classical dancer. Like AlbanyGirl, I think Christine Baranski was fine, but possibly his presence might have given McBride's segment a little more prominence in the evening.

I'm afraid that the producers don't really trust that dance will communicate to the audience, which is too bad, since I think it's a much more direct art than music or spoken theater. I would guess it has more to do with the fame differential. Hanks is a very big star. McBride is a homegrown ballet star and not even a defector, unless defecting from New Jersey counts, so she isn't as well known to the general public as Baryshnikov or even Makarova. It's unfortunate that Baryshnikov didn't introduce her segment last night, I think it would have helped.

I did think this dance segment 'felt' shorter than the dancing that was done for the recent Makarova Kennedy Center tribute. I can't know--well, not without doing more research than seems called for--but I'm pretty sure we got some longer excerpts for that one if only because more in the way of pas de deux... I had the same impression, but I also seem to remember there were fewer individual excerpts for Makarova, so maybe these seemed/were shorter because they were including more (?)

Seconded on all counts. "Effortless" is the word - Peck makes everything look so easy it's a little eerie. I could have done without the reaction shots. It's not as if these were lengthy dance excerpts to begin with and I didn't need them interrupted in progress by cuts back to McBride and the general audience to get that they were enjoying it. Otherwise, very nice segment.

Turner Classic Movies has shown "The Black Stallion" a couple of times recently. A beautiful movie, ideally seen on a big or at least biggish screen, with a fine late performance by Rooney.

Very true -- "Night and Day" (Cary Grant as Cole Porter.) There's a story that after the picture came out one of the screenwriters rang Porter to apologize for his part in the atrocity and was stunned to hear Porter tell him that he just loved the whole thing. He relayed this puzzling response to Oscar Hammerstein, who asked, "How many of his songs were in it?" "27." "Well, of course he loved it. You don't think he noticed all the stuff that went on between his songs, did you?" One of Grant's rare embarrassing performances, especially when he is required to disport as a Bulldog undergraduate, although arguably not quite as cringe-inducing as his rugged man-of-the-people frontiersman in "The Howards of Virginia." Even so Porter probably preferred being played by Grant on a bad day to almost anyone else. No, he wasn't. But I'll always like the way he tells Garland in "Meet Me in St. Louis" that "That Welsh rarebit was ginger peachy." And the following scene where the two of them go through the house turning down the lights has a delicately erotic aura.

Thanks for bringing back this thread, Bored_on_Wall_Street, which I had missed previously (and thanks to sasark as well). Enjoyable reading, and I'd like to see this production.