dirac

Thanks for the long review, miliosr. I appreciate it when people take the time to tell us not only how they felt about a film (or anything else) but why. You could say there was greater theoretical justification for remakes in the days before video and its successors. Older versions were revived infrequently if at all, so it made sense, commercially and otherwise, to redo a property that had fallen out of circulation. (Sometimes the studios would go out of their way to ensure that the older version went away, an extreme example being "Gaslight" with Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard, which MGM tried reportedly to suppress when its version with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman came out only four years later.)

Glebb, must disagree with you here, respectfully. Streisand is a very good actress when she wants to be, which I concede hasn’t been recently. She can certainly play the part. True, she’s no ex-beauty, but neither has anyone else who’s been up for the role except Faye Dunaway (and Streep, in her way). I assume the Liz Taylor thing is a grim joke. Here’s what Liz Smith has to say: http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/...,0,407334.story I dunno about Berry and Gyllenhaal, but I think the anonymous producer is right and there is little chance that the stage version as performed will come to the screen. There may be something to the retro 70s idea, though. How about Jake and Stevie Nicks? Now, that’s just mean. Once in awhile Close gets together with Sigourney Weaver and they drink beer and throw darts at Meryl’s picture.

Remakes in theory are perfectly legitimate enterprises, if usually lazy ones – it’s been almost thirty years since the original “Halloween,” a fact I try not to dwell on. I haven’t seen this one, but I did see the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that was done a few years ago. The people doing these remakes tend to have more money to play with, but they don’t use it with any ingenuity, they just ramp up on the gore (in the case of Chainsaw, the goo). However, if this makes people go back to the Carpenter original, then that's a Good Thing. I'm reminded also of Michael Mann's version of Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon -- 'Manhunter' -- that was remade a few years ago with more money and big stars, and although it was closer to the book it wasn't nearly as effective a film. Yes, the original really isn’t very good, and yet it still manages to creep you out – I can still remember as a little girl being terrified by the empty black eyes of Katharine Ross’ replacement, and Patrick O’Neal scared me to death. And who can forget Nanette Newman? “I’ll just die if I don’t get this recipe....I’ll just die if I don’t get this recipe....” The remake of Stepford is terrible, but’s bad in an interesting way. The straightforward if simplistic feminism of the original is discarded and replaced with a very confused and ambivalent attitude toward Nicole Kidman’s career woman – it was as if the filmmakers thought the Men’s Association maybe had a point. With each new version it got longer and duller. I love Grant but Boyer was perfect, just perfect. That’s right. I’m really dreading Rod Lurie's remake of "Straw Dogs."

And there were many who had never heard of any ballet dancer before Nureyev. We owe him so much. I, too, would like to hear from anyone who saw his Solor.

I think you're right. Yes, it was wonderful. Nice towel, too.

Overall I thought this was a fine show. It was obvious that much time, money, and care went into its making. I hope everyone who sees it and liked it will drop a note to PBS praising this program and asking for more. Most exciting for me: the Bluebird footage; the folk variation from Gayaneh; the dance on the grass. I also loved the early footage of F&N in "Giselle," which I hadn't seen before. Peeve: More attention should have been paid to the niceties of pronunciation. They couldn’t even settle on the right way to say “Nureyev," for heaven's sake. I didn’t really appreciate Stefanschi’s referring to Dudinskaya as an “old lady.” A telling little detail for me was Kurgapkina’s story about company members waiting up nights in the hotel while on tour to monitor the comings and goings of their colleagues in order to be able to tattle voluntarily as a display of loyalty. Just one small way in which a closed society turns its members against each other. From what I’ve read, his defection was a disaster not only for his friends but for the company as a whole. I agree. It did say 1979, and I wondered about that. I think that particular excerpt and most if not all of the excerpts of later performances -- were deployed, often melodramatically and not always effectively, to point up the biographical incidents being described. I wouldn’t have chosen that segment, but in principle it’s not the function of a documentary to make them look good at all costs..... I couldn’t believe how fast he was in those clips. It looked like trick photography.

Gee. That's not too bad....

Thanks, miliosr. Marie Osmond. Wow. I hadn't heard that about Jane Seymour - anyone know for certain?

Lovely thoughts, Paul. Thank you.

sandik writes on the original thread: I know how you feel -- we didn't see it here in Northern California either, not yet anyway. I haven't checked my local listings yet, but if the Nureyev movie isn't broadcast, I plan to organize a revolt and storm my local PBS station like the Bastille. Well, that's very funny, because IMO, Nureyev had perhaps the most beautifully proportioned male body I've seen on a ballet stage. From what I’ve read, Nureyev did regard his legs as being on the short side and worked exceptionally hard to stretch his line for that reason. In photographs the torso does look longer than is fashionable. I agree, he looks fabulous from any angle. Sigh.

That sort of goes without saying, at least as far as BTers are concerned, I should think. (I trust I don’t have to supply an 'I’m Interested in the Art' disclaimer every time the subject arises.)

I don’t want to start the old ‘Secret Muses’ debate up again, but although the book was far from flawless I found much of what Kavanagh had to say about Ashton and his love affairs to be of considerable interest. (The letters to Dick Beard, to take only one example, were remarkable reading.) And from what I gather, we owe much of the new material in the forthcoming documentary to one of Nureyev’s early lovers. I’m looking forward to both film and book. I also suspect that, whatever his views while he was still alive (he was a mixture of discretion and boldness, it seems to me) Nureyev would be tickled pink to know that all these years later people are still interested in his sex life.....

Yeah, thanks for the reminder...I actually bought it, along with "Pink Flamingos" and "Female Trouble." I know.... No, it's not really off topic, cubanmiamiboy don't be too hard on yourself......

Very interesting points, canbelto, and thanks for raising them. Hmmm....it seems to me that Austen’s heroes tend to be lacking in the charm department: charm of manner is not a striking quality in Darcy, Knightley, Edmund Bertram, or Wentworth, although they are attractive in other ways. Notable charm in Austen tends to be a sign of villainy or carelessness in men (though not necessarily in women; Elizabeth Bennet is arguably the most charming heroine in literature).

And it wouldn't be far from Fellini, either, depending on how well the concept is executed. I prefer as a rule musicals with lots of dancing, but I agree, in the current climate minimal dance requirements are a plus.

If Cotillard is as great as people are saying, she'll be wonderful. Still peeved at myself for skipping La Vie en Rose......

Grace Paley has died at age 84. Rest in peace.

Thanks for reviving the thread, cubanmiamiboy. I had actually not heard of Enid Blyton before this thread was begun. Just another example of BTers broadening my horizons.

Thank you for posting this, Natalia. You just never know these days. I have never had the courage to shush someone, although I have directed dirty looks in the direction of the offender(s). This rarely has much of an effect. I'm afraid to be more assertive than that, especially as I'm not sure if the current gun control laws in my state allow people to carry concealed weapons. That's a stitch, zerbinetta. I hope it didn't hurt.

Good question. But even if they were including books like Zagat’s, I’d suggest that’s relevant, too – are people consulting guides between two covers, or are they going to the Internet instead? (Off the top of my head I think of TV Guide, which used to be a staple around my house when I was growing up. We stopped the subscription years ago, because the ready availability of television listings available from cable and the TV channel devoted to those listings made it superfluous. TV Guide still exists, barely, but in a much altered format.) If people stop buying guides like Zagat’s, that’s relevant, too. I do wish the article had more specifics. Nor I. The following is not a literary example, but I’m still annoyed that I allowed myself to get excited about ‘Dreamgirls.’ Thank you for the links, I'll peek at them when I have a chance. Yes, it's true, nobody wants to buy a paper these days except Rupert Murdoch. Poetry is more Internet-friendly than all but the shortest fiction, I would think, because many poems can be viewed complete on the screen and they are easily printable (unless you’re talking epic poetry). I think that some people who are uncertain of their taste – you see this also in dance and the other arts, too – are more likely to defer to received opinion, and to feel that if they don’t like a book that has been widely praised, there must be something wrong with them, not the book, and they qualify their voiced opinions accordingly. (Sometimes they’re right, it is them.) These may not be the people you have in mind, however. I may indeed try out a book because it receives raves, if they’re raves from good sources, but I do have enough confidence in my taste at this point in life to say I’m disappointed if I am disappointed. (Marilynne Robinson’s ‘Gilead’ comes to mind. I had very much admired ‘Housekeeping’ and was looking forward to reading this one, but I couldn’t get through it.)

Yes and no. Format does affect content (and style). The novels of Dickens, for example, tend to have chapters with cliffhanger endings because his novels were serialized and it was a good idea to leave ‘em wanting more. Had his novels not appeared in that form at first, it’s possible he would have composed them somewhat differently. We are far too early into what may be the era of the e-book (I think that announcements of the demise of the old kind of book are still premature) to tell, but it’s possible that writers may write differently as and if the reading styles of the audience changes. Would this be as radical a change as the one after pre-printing press era, when poems and stories largely ceased to be heard in groups by a live audience and began to be read on the page by one solitary reader? Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be significant differences, as time goes by, in reading from the printed page and reading from screens.

As a kid I found it romantic, too, but returning to it many years later I was struck by the S&M overtones of the affair between Jane and Rochester, although I guess it’s tidied up by having Jane marry him when he’s a blinded, burnt-out wreck...... Exactly. That’s also true for me. I love my old Constance Garnett translations of the Russians.

Thank you, cubanmiamiboy. I had forgotten Before Night Falls, I'm embarrassed to say. I've only seen Cruz in Almodovar pictures and several English language films, and in the latter I thought she was hampered by a lack of expressivity in English, although she was never less than appealing. A little on the bland side, for me.

Yes, indeed. Thanks for commenting, Ostrich. But..... maybe some of them were looking for guidance? Isn’t that a good thing? You were the one who was there, of course, but when I did a brief summer stint in a bookstore I encountered many well-intentioned customers who just needed some help.

I liked it better than you did, but then I would be favorably disposed toward any movie featuring Jim Broadbent singing ‘Like a Virgin.”