dirac

Not to change the topic to actors, but Angelina Jolie at this year’s Oscars partially refuted the second half of your point. Jolie had taken care with her appearance but obviously hadn’t spent the entire day dolling up and I would not be surprised if the dress was one she had in her closet. She still blew everyone else away. Dvorovenko, of course.

I love that scene. Another plus for Boheme is that because of its relative simplicity and small cast it’s a great favorite with regional companies and even a subpar performance can still be effective.

If richard53dog hadn't suggested Boheme, I would have. I think it's the perfect starter opera and would recommend it to anyone of theatre-going age. Carmen is a good one, too, although maybe not for kids. Nice topic, sandik, thanks. Any other suggestions out there? .

The Host was remarkable. I got dragged to see it, but I wasn't sorry. Those are both good movies, although I didn’t find either one terribly scary (except for Michael Redgrave in Dead of Night, who really creeped me out, he was superb). Dead of Night is interesting but wildly variable. Gail Russell was a sad case. It’s too bad, she was most appealing.

I’d say it’s more a question of what is seemly, to use an old fashioned word, on a big formal public occasion. Hoffman doesn’t have to look like a model, he just has to dress appropriately. No, I can’t imagine any woman getting away with that. I didn’t catch that about the female presenters in the supporting category mostly being older, but you may be right about that. I just think it’s sad watching the inroads plastic surgery is making on the women’s faces. Loren, MacLaine, and Hawn presenting Best Actress looked like they were ready for Madame Tussaud’s, and it was a striking contrast to the older men, who all looked more or less like themselves. Hathaway should have been born a few generations ago. She would have been a promising MGM musical lady, I think.

In these economic times, I think viewers would be better off saving the ten dollars and renting “The Times of Harvey Milk.” They borrowed from it heavily for the new movie and it’s far superior, so people might as well go to the source.

The peacock reminded me of Sally Rand. Although I don 't know if Rand ever appeared in the Follies...

But isn't that what plumage evolution is all about, although perhaps more often in the male in the lower animals, casting a spell to charm the mate? True, in a sense, but glamorous human being has to work at it a little harder than a peacock displaying the feathers he was born with. The peacock's just doing what birds do (although I see your point). I think that's a bit harsh. I never much cared for her, but Turner was bred to be glamorous by her studio from a very young age and was never encouraged to do or be more than that. Glamor was her job. And her book has a few good things in it, too. I think of Asylmuratova as a glamorous dancer, with such a dramatic face, although I never saw her in person.

A relative of mine was glancing through my book on Pavlova by Keith Money and remarked, "She's a little heavy, isn't she?" And of course, Pavlova was considered excessively thin (as was Sarah Bernhardt, who looks fine to us today).

Ravishing as that peacock is, however, I don’t think it detracts from sandik’s original point, which was that glamor is to a considerable degree a contrivance. (I think one of the word’s older meanings relates to magic, casting a spell, which is what glamorous human beings can certainly do.)

Oh, dear, cubanmiamiboy, now you’re confusing me. That’s a stunning peacock, although you wouldn’t think them so glamorous if you happened to live next door to one. They’re noisy.

I thought he might be expecting snow. The men can always get away with a certain amount of sloppiness, though, while all the ladies look as if they’ve been in makeup since 6 AM. Of course, they probably have. Jolie looked stunning, even for her. The dress itself was nice enough but it mainly served to draw your attention to the woman wearing it ("I'm too beautiful to need a lot of extra help from my frock, thanks all the same") and she looked elegant. The earrings were perfect with the gown.

Oh, thank you, Patrick. I knew someone had mentioned that book in the General Reading forum but didn't have time to pull up the reference.

It’s not so much that Horowitz doesn’t spend enough space on the Hollywood emigres, German or otherwise – it’s just plain from his text that he doesn’t know movies as well as he does music. But it's worth checking out, certainly.

Thanks for reminding me of the Horowitz book, bart. Horowitz may spread his net a little too widely for your purposes, Ray – there is much talk of emigres who are not German, Balanchine, for example. I found his judgments on Hollywood figures to be questionable, but one thing you can say about Horowitz, he's never lacking in opinions. Have a look by all means, but it certainly shouldn't be the only book you read.

Thanks for the post and the report, leonid. I enjoyed reading it.

Tzigane is one of my favorite pieces of dance on video, and Farrell is so perfect in it – a very American girl doing a dazzling riff on the theme of Gypsy Fire. (And sexy too – she knows what she’s doing with that look over the shoulder.) Off topic, of course. I agree – glamor is to some degree self-willed. As has been noted above, a woman can be beautiful, charming, or elegant (or a combination of all three) and still not be glamorous. I think some of the examples named in this thread are wonderfully beautiful and appealing women, but I still wouldn’t describe them as a glamorous. It’s a tricky thing. I should note also that although this topic refers only to women, men can be glamorous, too.

Ray, I have never read a book devoted to the subject, but I did see recently on PBS a documentary called “Cinema’s Exiles,” which was excellent. I remembered that PBS usually has suggestions for reading as well, so it might be worth looking around on the PBS web site link, here. Good luck and tell us about anything you find.

Thank you for reminding me about Langella, Giannina. You are quite right. I haven’t seen “Frost/Nixon” yet but I don’t have to see it to know he’s good. The best actor category is traditionally the most competitive one, unfortunately. Penn was certainly deserving.

Thank you for mentioning it, innopac. Sounds like a fascinating, if terrible, story.

He did fine but I was wondering what happened to him in the second part of the show. (So did Will Smith, evidently; I didn’t think he was joking). The Luhrmann number was bad, but not in the pleasantly old fashioned campy badness of Oscar production numbers gone by; just chopped up and painful – but hey, it’s Luhrmann. I understand it was kind of a slap at last year’s winning actors, who were deemed not to have the star names to present on their own and so were shored up in this fashion. Daniel Day-Lewis did not present, and if he was blowing them off deliberately, good for him. At least he didn't have to stand next to Michael Douglas. It wouldn't surprise me if Fey does host one of these years.

That was a good idea, I agree. I did not much care for the innovation of hauling out multiple past winners to announce the acting nominations and address the nominees in the audience with a laundry list of their many fine qualities. “In this role, Anne, you expressed the full range of emotions possible to the human condition in a performance unparallelled in the acting profession. You have a cute nose. You are kind to animals. You brush your teeth after every meal and floss regularly.....”

Yes, you were quite right. I would have preferred to see Rourke or Jenkins get it as body-of-work recognition awards, especially as it's unlikely they'll get another chance and I'm sure we'll see Penn iin the category again. I wasn't as crazy about "Milk" as many others were but it's certainly the best performance Penn has given in some time.

I hope anyone who sees the show tonight will post reactions. Not sure if I'll see it myself.

Good question, miliosr. Here is a link to the complete article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123500002830817227.html It's fairly easy to agree with the generalization that nothing lasts forever, but the devil is in the details. I would be curious to read actual case studies of organizations that did or should fail and others who deserve a boost, in the same way the business pages these days are full of post-mortems for Mervyns, Circuit City, et al, and features on others who seem to be prospering. There's no way Kaiser can be candid enough to say, "Here's why I think Company X should tank," of course, but it would be interesting if he could. As for great art well marketed, that's all very well, but some people have to put on Dracula to pay the bills, you know.