dirac

Thanks for posting your review, JMcN. I haven't seen the stage version either and so will not be able to compare and contrast, unfortunately. A relative of mine saw it last weekend, loved it, and also reported audience participation.

Lynn Seymour gave an after-glowy review of Martins' in her memoir, but, again, that wasn't Kirkland's complaint. I was commenting on the "f___ and publish" remark Mel had just posted.

I will if I can summon up the intestinal fortitude. I walked out, even though Lord Marchmain was nearly dead. Fortunately my companion was of the same mind, which helped. It’s not the screwing around with the source material that bothered me so much (although it did) – my attitude tends to be, Fine, if you can get away with it and come up with something interesting. They didn’t. I take your point, Old Fashioned, and thanks for posting, but I was speaking more generally – thinking not only of Batman, but also of older pictures such as Jurassic Park and The Last of the Mohicans, movies on subjects that are appealing to kids and would make enjoyable family films if they weren’t so violent and frightening – which they don’t have to be in order to be good, it seems to me.

A comment by kfw on another topic reminded me that we should probably have one a thread for Solzhenitsyn. Der Spiegel The New Statesman

Estelle, did you read Dickens in English or French? I'd be curious to know how he translates. I didn't finish 'Martin Chuzzlewit,' either. Liking Dickens doesn't mean you have to like all of him.

I couldn't get through a lot of Solzhenitsyn, unfortunately. August 1914 was unreadable. Brave man, of course.

They do, but it would be understandable if Gyllenhaal wanted to get roles in mainstream pictures as well. She and hubby Peter Sarsgaard are homecoming royalty at the indie senior prom, but it’s not enough after awhile. (I guess you get tired of playing ex-junkies and acting in ‘quirky’ comedies – indies can have their own kind of rut.) I also saw an interview with Laura Linney where she spoke feelingly about the difference in creature comforts for actors on the set. Not that she isn’t happy to do films like “The Savages,” but you can do good work in a big production, too, and stay in a nice hotel at the same time, one gathers. Nice to hear from you, Andrew73. Thanks for the quotes from those reviews, Quiggin. Guess I’ll have to go compare and contrast Jokers for myself. I almost went a couple of weeks ago but was shanghaied into seeing the new Brideshead Revisited instead. It’s a sad sign of the times that movies that really should be ideal for kids are made too violent for them. There’s really no reason for a Batman picture to be that scary.

Twyla Tharp gave his performance in the sack a rave review in her own memoir. I imagine they're still speaking.

This made me giggle and twitch -- when I was in high school I was quite sick for a few months and did most of my work from home. My English class was reading Jude the Obscure, and the copy I had was one of those bargain school editions with two books bound in the same cover. Jude was paired with Pride and Prejudice, and for me Hardy just couldn't compete. I tried and failed so often with Jude that I finally had someone bring me a copy of the Cliff Notes and I forced myself to read each chapter of the Notes and then of the text, and find every dreary point the Notes brought up. I read Ivanhoe when I was in junior high school (lots of free time) and liked it a great deal, but I've always been tickled by the comment from one of Vonnegut's characters: "Wuffo I gotta read no Ivanhoe? Wuffo?" I'm still trying to get my mind around the pairing of P&P and Jude the Obscure......

Thank you for that long and detailed report. I've never seen the troupe but I hear they're terrific. Has anyone else seen the show (or the Guangdong trouple in another performance)?

Yes, and it would have taken some doing for Draper to find that book, too. But I thought they handled it plausibly and the quote from “Mayakovsky” worked very well at the end. Off topic: But isn't that how girlfriends fit into a lot of boyfriends' lives these days? We all like to be superior to the fiftes via Mad Men, but I think the fifties had its subversive strategies for everyone and some real, interesting bite to it. True to a point, but the decade earned its negative reputation for some pretty good reasons. My mother had some unpleasant stories to tell about office life for a secretary in those days, and what ‘subversive strategies’ there were available didn’t offer much in the way of relief. I suspect that the inclusion of a leading lady no matter how perfunctory her role has more to do with steering away from any potential subtext of homoeroticism in movies aimed primarily at teenage boys and young men who are straight or pretending to be. Ledger must be awfully good to be better than Nicholson.

Thanks for clarifying, FauxPas. Well, 'fulsome breasts' got past her.... (Also, Kirkland's book is actually pretty mild fare as far as tell-all memoirs go. )

Thanks for the report! Good to know he's back in form.

I think some of these movies should just get rid of the token woman altogether. It’s a waste of their time and ours to have good actresses playing The Girl and I think it would also improve the films by eliminating unnecessary screen time. Although I suppose from a professional perspective it’s better to have a nothing role in a blockbuster than no role at all. I think you’re right. A movie Batman without a distinctive Gotham City isn’t really Batman. The reviews I’ve read have been mixed – I gather there’s a school of thought that says the film takes itself too seriously. It sounded to me like a drag, frankly, so I haven’t rushed out to see it. Also, it's two and a half hours, and I can think of no good reason for a summer pic to run that long. I sat through one of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels because my nephew wanted to see it and I thought it would never end.

FauxPas, just curious about something – did Kirkland actually say that she was sorry for providing Too Much Information about her affairs with Martins and Baryshnikov because they took it out on her professionally, or is this speculation? (I haven’t seen the interviews.) Thanks. Well, we have only Kirkland’s side of it. It seemed to me that Martins was a little confused himself, and if Kirkland had been more experienced in such matters she would have realized earlier that his loyalties were still with Watts and moved on. Right. They were scapegoated, in a sense.

I don't have much time today, but briefly, Dickens makes me laugh, and he can also inspire pity and terror. His powers of characterization are as good as anyone's.

Welcome back, Ed. Long time no hear.

I had a conversation about this broadcast recently with a friend who'd seen the original production with both Dean Jones and Larry Kert, and he thought that Jones had been much the better casting as Bobby, not because he was necessarily a superior performer but his reserve, almost passivity, in the role were closer to what Bobby should be like; Kert was far too active and involved, throwing the show out of balance. He liked Esparza very much and was more favorable about the show in general then I thought he'd be, so there you are.

I've had that experience. Most unnerving. I don't have any trouble with Dickens, myself, possibly because when I was in school I attended a summer getaway devoted to Dickens every year - pleasant locale, nice people -- and while I hadn't been a huge fan to begin with I grew to appreciate him.

I can certainly understand your incomprehension, miliosr. I'm completely out of it today, plainly. Sorry about that.

As somebody said somewhere, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then, the hell with it. I think that your M.O. is in fact the right way to go, although I don't always follow it myself.

Thanks for the further details, innopac. It sounds good and I'll have to get to it one of these days (or years).

Anne, I also remember reading about Nureyev's sometimes heavy landings, and in more than one book. You're not imagining things. I just hate those I-know-I-read-it-somewhere-moments. Thanks for raising the question and stimulating some interesting responses. And a belated welcome to the board!

The word of mouth does seem to be very good. I plan to go this weekend, schedule permitting, and I'll report back. Have you seen it, miliosr?

Thanks so much, Katalina. We have a number of posters who will be interested in this, I'm sure. Quite a lineup!