dirac

I read somewhere that Streisand's tights were a gift from Fonteyn.

Rosie, Nureyev is certainly in heaven. If he isn’t, he’d be outside the Pearly Gates throwing things. In “Dancing on My Grave” Gelsey Kirkland said she loved dancing with him (they did “Le Corsaire” at an ABT gala). Had he been a little younger and she a little older, they might have danced together more, and that would have been a most interesting partnership, assuming they didn’t kill each other. Mel wrote: I seem to recall Miss Piggy going after his towel with her snout, and her intentions were all too clear.

Copying Walboi's post from another topic:

walboi, we do have a relatively recent Other Arts thread (link here) that discusses Astaire and Rogers and the new DVD releases, so I'm going to close this topic and copy your comments to the old thread. Thanks!

That's very kind of you to say, walboi. It's true -- there are many boards out there where you can chat, but not all of them keep to a certain standard, unfortunately. And thanks to Helene for the detailed explanation of our local customs. If on occasion you hear a new classical recording, or hear a concert that provoked thought, by all means share it with us.

Anthony_NYC and chris217, thank you for joining the discussion. As it happens I saw Breakfast on Pluto last night and my view was quite different. I agree that much depends on how you take the central character. He’s a fantasist who lives in his own world, and ultimately he’s a survivor, but I didn’t think we were intended to identify with him or even admire him. He’s too strange for that and he’s not bidding for our sympathy. You could say that the picture rambles, but I took it as an variant of the picaresque. Lots of good actors in addition to Murphy, who’s awesome – Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson, Stephen Rea (as an inside joke, mooning after a guy in a skirt again – some men never learn ), Ian Hart, Steven Waddington, and damned if Bryan Ferry doesn’t show up, too. The picture walks a fine line and succeeds, IMO. Another note: many, many movies use a pop music soundtrack in order to establish a period atmosphere and comment on or highlight the action. Most often it’s done in an obvious and hamhanded fashion. The songs chosen for Breakfast on Pluto, which range from pop to classical, are handled as well as I’ve ever seen, or heard, I should say. People are all over the map on Munich for a variety of reasons. I have not seen it, but I suspect it’s one of those films where you can’t go by even the most ordinarily reliable judgment, you must see for yourself if you're interested....

We need poorly placed reaction shots, so we can check out the famous folks in the audience and how much they are enjoying it all. These are essential. After all, how would we know the dancing was good if we were unable to see celebrities beaming appreciatively? I’d have liked Farrell’s segment to be longer, but it was okay if not the best they’ve ever done, and I second Farrell Fan’s comment that the scheduling of it just before Turner’s boffo finish was surprising and pleasing. I feared they’d stick her in the middle somewhere.

Rosie, there's a thread on our other board, Ballet Talk for Dancers, that has something of what you need (link here) in addition to a wonderful essay by Ballet Talk's founder, Alexandra Tomalonis, on Nureyev and his importance to ballet and dance. Nureyev has been the subject of many books, by John Percival, Otis Stuart, and Diane Solway, among others, and he is mentioned in many biographies and autobiographies of other dancers, so a trip to the library may be beneficial, as well. Hope this helps. Also -- it's Noo-RAY-ev, if my information is correct.

The president of Iran bans Western music from the airwaves. Lee Harris comments. Hearing Beethoven in Teheran And Just for the record, it’s 50 Cent, Lee. Comments on the larger issues?

Bringing the topic back to movies of the season, as I ought to have done before, “Breakfast on Pluto” began playing in my area this week – anothe one I’m looking forward to. Cillian Murphy is a new favorite of mine.

I neglected to add that in this particular instance, I think that the international profile of the three women stars was more germane to their casting than indifference to nuances of nationality. All of them are well known to Western art house audiences.

I understand what Oh is saying, but I don’t think it’s quite the same. (She's also conflating race with nationality, and it's a different although related issue.) It's not as if Hollywood makes major movies set in a Japanese context with all-Japanese leading characters every day of the week. (There is also a long Hollywood history of casting Chinese as Japanese and vice versa, and it wasn’t intended as forward looking race blind casting, but proceeded more along the lines of “No one can tell the difference anyway, they’re all dark and slanty eyed, right?” And that’s when they bothered to cast Asian actors rather than putting some white person in ludicrous makeup.) Fiennes isn’t going to be cast as an Asian man tomorrow – which is actually progress. (As recently as a few decades ago, a white star with a higher profile might have been cast in Watanabe’s role.) However, the picture appears to be going over well in Japan, and my own view of the matter is, If they don’t mind, I don’t mind. Note: I was posting as the same time as canbelto and so did not respond to her comments.

Munich hasn’t opened in my area yet. I plan to see Brokeback Mountain this week but will most likely post my thoughts, if any, over on the General Reading and Lit thread, as it may be interesting to compare and contrast the story with the movie. I saw Memoirs of a Geisha and I thought Rob Marshall was handed more than he could handle. Would love to turn Luhrmann or Almodovar loose on this material – that would have been fun. I still recommend the picture, however, because it’s eye candy – not only three gorgeous leading ladies to look at, albeit of the wrong nationality, but also my samurai harem king, Ken Watanabe, and decor and costumes to gurgle over. canbelto, I hope you feel better!

At the very least they might have referred to Zorina as Eva Brigitta Hartwig. I haven't received my subscription copy yet, but I'm on the opposite coast so it takes longer.

silvy, the collected plays of Chekhov a/o Turgenev would seem a logical place to start. If he's adapting short stories, Gogol would provide rich basic material to work with -- maybe a monologue version of "The Nose"? When I was taking theatre classes, I recall being able to find several anthologies of monologues for actors. A trip to the library or a keyword search on a bookseller's website would probably provide him with plenty of selections to choose from. Hope this helps.

If l’affaire Schreuder could in some way be blamed on Martins, trust me, she’d be there.

From Associated Press via The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, an article on preparations for the celebration of Mozart’s 250th birthday. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pop/1403AP_Mozart_Mania.html

I also remember Villella expressing similar sentiments previously -- can't recall when, unfortunately.

Well......I don’t know how much food for serious discussion there is here (“dashing and tempestuous playboy,” etc.) bart has a point -- one is distracted by the poor writing and organization. It seems quite gossipy (although I noted one bit of old gossip left out, which I won’t repeat for obvious reasons), and for the most part, as anthony_nyc notes, it’s he-said-she-said stuff – very hard to judge on the basis of the article what happened. I'm not necessarily complaining -- I like a bit of dish as much as the next person -- but it's hard to take this piece too seriously. Horowitz seems to want to tie in complaints about the company’s dancing with the Bass departure, but the complaints have been around a very long time. Not everyone likes the way Martins runs the company. He has a lot of old girlfriends. People he fired don’t like him. And so forth. atm711, I fear I had the very same thought. Safety pins? a belt, perhaps? I was posting simultaneously with Alexandra, and I agree with her comments. It's unfortunate that Horowitz didn't seem to be very interested in the issues she raised....

Well, she doesn’t actually audition. Because of plot developments too complicated to go into here, Diane believes mistakenly that her teacher regards her as a great unfulfilled talent, so she goes to Boston Ballet clad in bright blue tights to make her case. She barges onstage while the dancers are rehearsing to Tchaikovsky and makes a speech declaring her dedication to dance, and receives grudging permission to go ahead, but after a last minute interrruption decides not to do so. Long is very funny, and it’s a cute show. There is a bit of business about a video that Diane has made of her dancing, but we never get to see it. (Earlier in this thread, I made references to "junk." After recent viewing a few episodes of shows like "Happy Days" after a long time, I have to say that it was a better show than I gave it credit for, really quite good on its own terms.)

Barrie Chase, it was. She’s better known, of course, for her television appearances as Fred Astaire’s partner in his very successful Sixties television specials. (The gap in age may give one pause, at least it gave this viewer pause, but they work very well together and she was reputed to be his favorite partner, a large statement considering the competition. There are photographs of them in rehearsal, and Fred, who could be very fussy and demanding, looks entranced. They were also romantically linked for awhile, in gossip at any rate.) Thank you, Faustine, for reviving this thread. I am reminded of the "Cheers" episode in which Diane, the character played by Shelley Long, is taking ballet lessons. No dancers appear except briefly, but it's a funny show. Briefly, Diane, under the mistaken impression that her teacher believes she has great talent, auditions for Boston Ballet.

The new issue of Vanity Fair, featuring a thoroughly airbrushed Naomi Watts on the cover, has a photograph of Baryshnikov, I think it’s by Annie Leibovitz but can’t recall offhand, accompanied by a brief item by Laura Jacobs describing his arts center.

Associated Press interview with Annie Proulx about the short story and the picture.

We can speculate more once nominations are announced, but we're wandering a little afield at this point. :blush:

You were indeed correct, canbelto. As a rule the Best Actor awards tend to be the most competitive, because there are more and better roles for actors than actresses in the kinds of pictures that get nominated. In every year there’s a deserving performance(s) by an actor that gets left out in the cold because there are just too many good ones out there, while the Best Actress nominations get filled out with entrants of the It’s-An-Honor-Just-To-Be-Nominated-But-You-Have-No-Chance kind. I thought it noteworthy that only independent films were nominated in the Best Picture category.