dirac

He's no Mastroianni in that respect, for sure. I haven't seen much of Bardem but I have no objections to him. He had a nice bit in 'Collateral' and he was good in 'The Sea Inside,' which a lot of people liked better than I did.

As far as I know, "Prologue" is simply another title for the same book. What I find refreshing about this book is that it is a genuinely well-written autobiography. Yes, I agree with most of the comments, about her bitterness, her personal problems, etc. but it is an absorbing and grippingly written account for all that. It is indeed very well written.

Plans are moving ahead for a movie version of “Nine.” Rob Marshall is trying to line up Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Marion Cotillard. Thoughts?

Does content have to be a consideration? The intention here, as far as I can tell, was to find out if people are picking up anything at all between two covers.

An Associated Press article on who’s reading books and who’s not.

Hello. Thanks for chiming in! Going back to books you loved as a child can be tricky. Some of them still make wonderful reading, but other times you may wish you’d just preserved your beautiful memory – I wish I had done the latter with “Little Women.”

Thank you for the review, papeetepatrick. I’m not his biggest fan, either. (Forgive me, bart, but as soon as I read Denby’s review I thought, “The movie must be pretty good after all. Must check it out.” ) Don’t know about this movie, but Pfeiffer did her own singing in “The Fabulous Baker Boys” in the long ago, including a torrid version of ‘Makin’ Whoopee’ performed by her in a red velvet dress while slithering around atop Jeff Bridges’ grand piano. It was sensational. Her voice wasn’t big but it was pleasing.

Oh, how could I forget. Henry Miller. I thought he was the bee’s knees in high school, and I went back to Sexus years later and couldn’t believe my eyes. Tropic of Capricorn is still okay, though. And he was most educational at the time.

cubanmiamiboy posted the following comments on the book in the General Reading forum and I thought they would go well here:

I like the book too, cubanmiamiboy, although I’m not sure I’d characterize it as ‘light’ reading. We had a thread devoted to the book in the Writings on Ballet forum some time ago, and I’m going to copy and paste your own post to it, as it’s a thread worth reviving. As you'll see, this book excites strong opinions for and against. Thanks!

Thanks very much for posting this, Old Fashioned. My knowledge of jazz is not that extensive and it was interesting to read about him.

Thanks so much for the report, Helene.

Thank you for speaking up for “Possession,” aurora and GWTW. Maybe I should give some of Byatt's other work a chance. My experience has been that “Jamesians” are often no more like James than “Freudians” are like Freud. (They have everything down except the genius part.) Good to hear from you, Ed. I haven’t read the recent spate of atheistic polemics although I’ve seen several author interviews, but I imagine they are aimed at a more general readership. Certainly it’s true that much of this isn’t new, but very little is new under the sun, especially in this department, and I think the intention was not to say anything stunningly original but to push a few buttons and get a discussion going. I haven’t read Chabon’s recent workbut I very much liked “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” his first book. That sounds like a very interesting idea for a book – tell us more when you have a chance.

Thank you for starting the topic, bart - great idea. I can't contribute that much to the discussion, myself, because I don't do that much re-reading -- there's too much out there I haven't gotten to yet. On those occasions when I have, I don't find my opinions have changed much, although I pick up on things as an adult that I didn't in high school, obviously. I liked James in high school and I still like him now -- but I appreciate different things.

Becoming Jane” is no masterpiece but it’s not at all bad if you’re really at loose ends. It invents freely, but if it didn’t the movie would last about thirty minutes, so I thought that was fair -- although I rather doubt that Austen would have needed Mr. Lefroy or anyone else to introduce her to “Tom Jones.” Anne Hathaway is very appealing if you like her, which I do. (Her attractions are sufficient to cast doubt on her father’s grim warning, in re a proposal from a rich but torpid suitor, that “This is likely to be your best offer.” Sure.)

I had a conversation with a younger person in my family circle about Showtime’s very enjoyable “The Tudors." We both like the show, although I drew her attention to various ways in which the series departed from the historical record and she said, “How do you know all that?” I had to bite my tongue to refrain from saying, “Those things are all hidden away in books. Fiendishly clever system, isn’t it?” However, I do try to remind myself that “What is the younger generation coming to?” reflections are an infallible sign of aging. All older generations tend to think that the young folks are arrogant, ignorant, and going to hell in a handbasket generally, and it may very well be true in some ways, yet somehow each successive generation seems to manage.

I’m not sure if their lifelessness, which I concede readily, is due so much to their faithfulness as a lack of imagination and initiative in the filmmaking. I also suspect that the better a property works in one medium, the less likely it is to work in another and it’s easier to adapt a second rank work and make a success of it than to try to deal with something that worked to near perfection in its original form and context. An example of the director, Joshua Logan, trying to show some imagination and initiative and just making a boo-boo. Regarding good stage to screen adaptations, I think ‘The Sound of Music,’ like it or not, has to be on the list.

I doubt if Ananiashvili and Mason meant that this is the natural and immutable order of things, although you could certainly read it that way. Things have changed a great deal since 1950, but certain attitudes and behaviors are still alive and well. In many ways it is still very much a man’s world (and 4mrdncr’s post was to the point in that respect). I don't think that 'blaming the culture,' as long as it's not done hamfistedly and without nuance, is out of line.

aurora writes: That was my take. The age difference didn’t bother me that much, although I agree it was noticeable, and I don’t recall it bothering others I spoke to at the time who saw S&S – it doesn’t necessarily register on a modern audience that a woman of Thompson’s age would already have been securely on the shelf back in the day. In addition, Thompson did the very good adaptation of the book herself and was the animating spirit behind the enterprise, so I cut her a little slack on that count, too. (Similar considerations did affect Thompson in another film, however, ‘Carrington,’ where the casting really wasn’t age-appropriate and it did hurt the picture.)

I understand your sentiments, aurora, and you’re far from alone, but I admire Mansfield Park, albeit from a distance. I thought Austen was deliberately playing with our expectations to make a moral point – that what’s attractive, clever, and vital on the outside may be rotten on the inside. I kinda liked it, too, but not quite for the same reason. I don’t think it’s possible to do a version of Mansfield Park today that would be true in letter and spirit to the original – times have changed too much-- so I didn’t mind that they took huge liberties with the book. The conceit of turning Fanny into Jane, so to speak, didn’t work for me, though. I thought it was good, I just didn’t understand the hosannas it was greeted with in some quarters. (I’ll allow that Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds were not my idea of Anne and Wentworth.)

The adjective that came to my mind was 'tacky.' But it's strange, too.

Thank you for the review, bart. I'd still rather see Travolta than Fierstein - I have no idea what the latter is like on the stage, but I've found his screen appearances not that easy to take.

Heaven forfend. I also liked ‘Clueless.’ The adaptation of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet was very good, I thought. I liked the recent adaptation of ‘Persuasion’ less than many others did, but it was an honorable effort and has been influential – you could see it in the ‘Pride and Prejudice’ with Keira Knightley. A family member wants to see 'Becoming Jane,' so it looks as if I'll be going after all. Will report back in this space if I do.

Yep.... ah, and let's not forget (now that we're in the John Waters subject), to take a look back at "Pink Flamingos" too ...thanks for the reminder...Now, back to topic, any thoughts on the new movie anybody...?...What about John Travolta's part...? ( I haven't seen it, since i'm not particulary interested in "Hairspray", but since there's a topic already about the musical...) I have no plans to see it, either, but I'd be curious to hear from anyone who has. I like Travolta a lot; he's a very good actor. Unfortunately, he never met a script he didn't like.

I haven’t seen it for years either but my recollection is that the movie of ‘One Touch of Venus’ with two stars generally not associated with musicals (Robert Walker and Gardner, although the latter played Julie in the third film version of ‘Show Boat,' as you know I'm sure ). It was all too common – in fact, it was customary – for film adaptations of Broadway shows made before the 1950s or thereabouts to cut many if not all of the songs and substitute new ones that usually weren’t very good (think “On the Town”). (sidwich, do chime in if you're reading this.) glebb, I second papeetepatrick's words of encouragement. Tell us more, please. What was 'Bounce' like, BTW?