dirac

I certainly remember the soundtrack - one of the most effective parts of the film, I thought. Thanks, Kathleen. I’m still inclined to be skeptical. Much of the story’s power and appeal lies in what is not said and in actions not taken. An opera can add to this kind of story with the characters revealing their true feelings in song, but I really don’t see Ennis bawling his heart out in an aria telling all as adding much to the proceedings. And choosing the story after the movie has been made seems a trifle opportunistic, which doesn’t matter if the end product is good. Always happy to be proved wrong, though.

Golden Globes aren’t that big a deal, and the movie was a turkey. Still, it was a feature film.

Good point.

Although now that I think about it, I seem to remember Fleming saying in one of the books that Bond's father was Scottish. A real Bond expert would know for certain, of course.

When did Scotland cease to be part of Britain? Perhaps you mean English? Yes, Mel, that's what sidwich meant. And who knows, it could cease to be part of Britain any year now.

So did his miner in The Molly Maguires, but then Richard Harris was no better. As carbro says, he’s Sean Connery. Grant’s accent never changed, true, but would you call it upper crust? The Cockney never quite vanished and indeed it was one of the reasons he turned down the role of Henry Higgins in the movie version of “My Fair Lady” – I gather he was worried he’d sound too much like the pre-transformation Eliza. Grant is elegant, but he’s no toff. Not really, GWTW. Gielgud was at various times in his career a matinee idol and/or classical star on the stage, and he did supporting roles late in life, but at no point was he a character actor in the traditional sense and he rarely if ever essayed the kind of character parts regularly assumed by his great rival Olivier. It doesn’t make him a lesser actor by any means, of course. Kidman has a marvelous ear for accents, I agree. Neither he nor Simmons was dubbed. I can't make a case for them as singers, but I thought in their scenes together they 'acted' the songs very well and made a cute couple. And I love Stubby Kaye even if the movie isn't so great.

I’m not really qualified to comment here, but I liked Katharine Hepburn’s playing in “Song of Love.” She’s hardly my idea of Clara Schumann, but it looked as if she’d put some effort into replicating the style of play that was current then. I agree about Hugh Grant in Impromptu. The movie itself, directed by James Lapine, is hopelessly twee and affected, although Judy Davis was fine as George Sand and Grant is a very sweet Chopin. Yes, because the context isn’t really serious. I thought she’d improved in ‘Autumn Sonata.’ Lip-synching is a slightly different if related issue - it's come up several times on various movie musical threads.

I'm inclined to agree with papeetepatrick and I suspect this one is DOA. I certainly didn't read the story or see the movie thinking "Great - now if only someone would set this to music!" Thanks for posting , Ray. We'll have to see how this develops.

“Da! Da!” Gielgud, to name only one, was not a character actor. I didn’t think so at all. Hoffman overdid the lisp. Gwyneth Paltrow can do a nice Brit. That’s right, and not true of 99% of “Southern accents.” She's a marvelous actor. One of Brando’s very best and most daring performances. Nice topic, miliosr. Thanks to everyone who's posted!

He seemed to be the only person in the movie with a clue. I'm going to miss him very much as an actor and director. I tend to skip over the scenes with Max Von Sydow, who's the one who gets stuck with saying most of Allen's Deep Thoughts. Allen's scenes with Dianne Wiest are pretty funny, though. Did you see Husbands and Wives? Pollack is really great in that, too.

Good question. I hope someone can answer it. Very nice photo for a lucky winning bidder.

A belated thank-you for the comment, sidwich. Coming to a bookstore near you. If anyone reads it assuming it does get published, please report back in this space.

Thanks for those, Estelle.

Well, I never said they still didn't come up with a few good lines now and then. I think my favorite late episode was the one in which Carrie goes a little bananas after Berger breaks up with her by leaving a Post-it, and she meets several friends of his at a club and loses it completely. One of Parker's best moments. On the other hand, the Baryshnikov episodes tanked completely IMO. I understand he's in the movie - does he have a lot to do?

You could slice and dice a few years I guess, but she was hardly 'middle aged' at the time, at least by our more flexible contemporary standards. Any other reports?

I have no idea.. I don’t think it matters - it's still a good rule. If they’d considered it was a bad story move they’d have thought of something else instead of committing the character to a baby. Terrible idea.

Thank you for reporting, cubanmiamiboy. It seems to be most popular, to understate considerably. I was a regular watcher of the show, and from what I’ve heard and read the movie is for those who thought the series got better or at least maintained a high level as it went along, whereas I thought it began a steady decline after the decision to get Miranda pregnant and have her keep the baby. (In television comedy, a pregnancy is an infallible sign that the writing staff is beginning to run out of ideas.) I kept on watching, because it was still better than a lot of stuff, and also there was a ghoulish fascination in speculating on how much worse it could get. By the time it finally staggered over the finish line, it wasn’t comedy or soap opera but something that mostly failed to be either IMO. In my view this material, as good as it often was, was never meant for the big screen and I don’t see how it can be made to work there. (This is not intended as a putdown.) None of these actors are true movie stars, and although all four of them are fine comediennes only Cynthia Nixon can really carry straight drama. It is nice that a feature film is starring four middle aged women who are shown as being still attractive and sexy. I just don’t have the stomach right now for any more bad puns, brand name dropping, and product placement. If it were only ninety minutes or so I’d probably go, but not two hours plus. I liked the early seasons because although they weren’t without strong elements of fantasy, they weren’t totally distant from real life problems -- the story of Carrie and Mr. Big was at one point a pretty realistic account of a certain kind of bad affair -- and they were really funny. (I must say, though, I don't care for some of the finger waggling going on in some of the reviews. Anthony Lane should hush up and go back to drooling over Angelina Jolie.)

Yves Saint Laurent, R.I.P. AFP obit.

I used to think there must have been deep pockets in the family for the parents to be able to cough up for all that.

Healy’s name comes up on a regular basis, so if you do a search I think several discussions should pop up. Her skating never advanced very far – she turned pro around age nine as I recall. I saw an interview she gave to ABC Sports when she returned to skating just after marrying the skating coach Peter Burrows and she talked about how awful and soul killing the ballet world was. Sounded quite bitter.

I've never actually read the book, although I might get around to it one of these years.

I doubt it. I thought that floating plastic bag sequence was the most irritating thing in the movie. You had to watch and watch and watch, with the director using everything short of semaphore to signal: “Look at this. This is amazing. This is really special.” Urrrggghhh. No apologies necessary – how could you know? If you look and can’t find anything let me know and I’ll do some rooting around. One of the best closing shots ever. Well, in the seventies everybody was strung out on something, pretty much. Martin Scorsese made some of his best pictures high as a kite. Nicholson is ‘over the top,’ yes, and it’s a watershed performance for him, foreshadowing lots of Wild Man stuff we would see from him in future. But I think it works. The remoteness of Kubrick’s control-freak style, which could hurt him when he was dealing with normal human situations, works beautifully here. I don’t know anyone else who could have given the hotel its peculiar life and transformed what could have been a very ordinary haunted house pic. I could blather on at some length about Kubrick’s masterly use of visuals, sound, and music (nice change from John Williams, eh, Davidsbundlertanze?) but I won’t bore you further except to note that Danny Lloyd gives one of the best performance by a child I’ve ever seen. And Shelley Duvall, normally an actor I can’t stand, is just right. I don’t mean to try to persuade you, Neryssa – we all have our preferences. I just think it’s such a great movie. Thanks for mentioning the movie about the making of the film -- BTW – I haven’t seen it. Thanks for the list, Ray. I’ll have to take a look at it. “Best 1,000 Movies” is casting a pretty wide net and it wouldn’t surprise me if there a number of less than great movies listed.

Neryssa, greetings. We had a spirited debate about 'Crash' the year it came out - if you do a search with 'Crash' and 'Brokeback Mountain' some of the posts are likely to turn up. I agree with you, but it had its defenders. I don't think it's a truly terrible movie -- just not that good. The reviews were actually quite mixed, as I remember. I'd have to disagree with you about 'The Shining.' In fact, I think it's a classic. It scared me witless when I first saw it, and those little girls still spook me every time. On certain days I'd even be tempted to call it Kubrick's best film, with the possible exception of Dr. Strangelove. A lot of people have strong and opposing reactions to the movie, though.

Thank you for starting the topic, premierdanseur. It's true that this subject is a recurrent one on the board, but it's worth reviving from time to time even at the risk of a little repetition. The Eifman Ballet did an Anna recently, which wasn't great but it was watchable, and certainly the audience at the performance I saw enjoyed it hugely. I haven't checked but I think it was a Tchaikovsky score.

Spielberg often does have a hand in the writing, and even when he doesn’t have an actual credit a director of his stature controls every aspect of the filming, including the shaping of the script. (An exception being a film such as “Minority Report” where Spielberg was essentially a hired gun; in such a case it’s the star, Tom Cruise in that instance, who has at least as much say in what gets on the screen.) The first half of Empire of the Sun is some of the best stuff he’s ever done. I always thought Spielberg was I think you’re right, canbelto. I remember in Day for Night one of the running jokes is that every theatre is showing The Godfather. It just made me think, “ Those were the days.” If today’s blockbusters were half as good as that, I’d be a happy camper. As a matter of fact, speaking of overrated movies, if I had to choose between seeing Day for Night again and The Godfather, I would choose the latter without losing any sleep over it. Thank you for the link to the article about The Rules of the Game, canbelto. You could make a case that the film is overrated, but I don’t think that article quite does it. Much of it seems to consist of a flippant retelling of the plot, and I don’t agree with the writer on several crucial points. I don’t think Renoir loves Octave too much, to take only one example – in fact I think in some ways Octave is the villain of the piece, intentionally so.