dirac

Thanks, cubanmiamiboy. You remind me of Estela Bravo's excellent Castro documentary, shown some time ago on PBS. Great viewing. The Motorcycle Diaries has been showing up on cable this month as well. Wonderfully photographed and acted.

THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! Had to get that off my chest. We now return to our originally scheduled programming.

I'm inclined to agree. Odd that Homans is raising these familiar complaints at a time when things seem to be improving. Apparently these gloomy sentiments conclude a book that is a history of ballet, so I hope naive readers don't take it too literally.

Perhaps also it's associated with her so closely because it was made on her and she gave a definitive performance with Youskevitch, even if Balanchine wasn't making the ballet expressly as a showcase for Alonso. (It turned out to be one anyway, it looks like.) Thank you for mentioning it, atm711. Youskevitch and Alonso together in this ballet must have been an awesome spectacle.

NIce flick. The first twenty minutes or so are the Hemingway story, well done. The rest is the investigation, flashing back, etc., and it's mostly routine noir stuff that gets by on style points. This was a breakout movie for Gardner, who' been treading water at her home studio, MGM. Hemingway was said to have liked it. Thanks for telling us about it, cubanmiamiboy. Enjoy!

She did work on it, but Bonynge apparently thought that it was good enough, and he didn't want her to risk compromising her sound production.

Very timely for Halloween season.

Chinatown is miles ahead of Double Indemnity for my money. One of the best genre pictures ever. Not that DI is bad, but it was one of those highly praised movies that disappointed once I got to it. (Also true of the Turner-Garfield Postman.)

True but, they could also turn to it because it's a great movie and holds up, even if not all of it is up to the Odessa Steps sequence, which is almost too famous. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, another film class staple of yore, is terrific, too, and I'd prefer either of them to your average noir no matter how highly praised. But then I didn't much care even for Double Indemnity, so there you go.

Welcome, sidwich, it's been awhile. I will have to see Ossessione. One of the reasons I stopped going to film classes was because they made you watch movies like Postman over and over, as if they where holy writ.

Thanks, Quiggin.

I think so, cubanmiamiboy, but it's been a really long time. Visconti did his own version, Ossessione, but I've never seen it.

I can think of a lot of adjectives to describe Lana Turner, but "upscale" isn't one of them. As I remember the movie, she was surprisingly good at quotidian activities like washing the dishes and least persuasive doing the sex bomb thing. I wish I had enjoyed the movie as much as you did, cubanmiamiboy. The movie is entertaining in a good-bad way, but it has little of the clammy desperation that animates these characters, possibly because their surroundings, instead of being hopelessly dingy, look far too spiffy and have that studio-bound artificiality that afflicted many of even the best movies of the golden age; even drifter Garfield arrives in a snappy number and Turner's outfits speak for themselves. It all goes on too long, and thank goodness that Hume Cronyn and Leon Ames are around to pick up the slack. Garfield and Turner get stronger towards the end, as well. It's been a long time since I saw the remake, which tried much harder for naturalism in some respects, but it wasn't a better movie. Lange was beautiful and hot, without glamor, and of course she could act. Nicholson I remember was certainly untidy enough, but there was nothing appealing about him at all, he was only marginally more attractive than Cora's greasy hubby, and you couldn't help thinking that she could do better if she just held out for another drifter to drift by. The sex scenes were indeed graphic but gained little thereby. I also remember something about Anjelica Huston and a tiger, or maybe it was a lion.

The productions sounds charming.... Yes, I can picture Sutherland becoming the really good house soprano at Covent Garden without Bonynge. But she did a great deal for him, too. A nice double interview from 1985.

Thanks for telling us about it, Kyeong. It is indeed distracting when you're too worried about the Rhinemaidens to focus on the music and the drama.

I think richard53dog's point was that in making her observation Sutherland wasn't a superannuated old lady talking out of her hat - these things were/are happening and yes, she had a right not to like it and feel out of sympathy with some new trends. No doubt age had something to do with that, but one hopes, at least I do, that a wish for nobility and beauty in the arts (among other qualities) is a timeless one. A nice little story from a letter to the editor of The Australian.

That quote jumped out at me too, cubanmiamiboy. Wise words, indeed.

I never had that privilege, Farrell Fan. I did hear her on bootlegs, and the quality of diction and emotional engagement could be much higher than you'd guess from some of the recordings. Not to mention the thrill of hearing that voice sail over the orchestra.

I enjoyed reading this, Sandy. Thanks for posting. Certainly the last thing the Rhinemaidens should have to worry about is falling off their perch, although this wouldn't be the first production to make severe demands on them.

Yes, it does hold up, certainly for me. The first twenty or so minutes are just as instructive as the last in terms of editing and construction. (It's characteristic of the Oscars that Dede Allen was not even nominated in the editing category that year – and she never did win one. Ludicrous.) I can't say that any of Penn's other films reached the level of Bonnie and Clyde and it may be that he happened to be in the right place at the right time. But sometimes one film is enough. I also happen to like The Miracle Worker a lot, although as a stage adaptation it tends to get short shrift. Which is true. Although B&C has stood the test of time better, I think. When Truffaut turned down B&C, he directed the scriptwriters to Godard. It would have been interesting. Very true, Bonnette.

I saw the last scenes of Bonnie and Clyde again recently. They never lose their tension, shock, and strange beauty no matter how many times they are viewed. Penn's longtime editor was Dede Allen, who also died not long ago.

So sorry to hear this. A loss for her family and for the world. Thank you, dear Dame Joan, for sharing your gifts with us. We Callas fans were not always charitable over the years but we did recognize your talent and the debt owed to you and your husband by anyone who loves bel canto. An interview from 2004.

Touche, indeed, but tell us more.

Thank you, CM, for another great link. I was not aware the competition was underway. Hope some here will listen and comment!

Thanks for the report, Helene. I never get to film festivals these days but it's always interesting to hear from those who do!