Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Recommended Posts

Estelle--

I think that Chungking Express is a terrific movie--I have sent a few comments I did on it for a Hong Kong review site to your email address.

In the Mood for Love sold fewer tickets in the USA than in France, where if won the Cesar award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2001. Even "art house" films have to open with a bang, which this movie did not.

Link to comment

dirac wrote:

In re: Casablanca. I always had the impression that Rick and Ilsa do in fact resume their affair, although it is nowhere stated.

I am shocked to think that the ultra-perfect Ilsa Laszlo would be found in the arms of another man! ;->

Actually I had never really thougt of it, taking that part of the movie at face value. But it would certainly be the way that most adults would act, especially under the excrutiating stress of the characters in Casablanca.

Link to comment

I agree with Estelle about the "ick factor" in Lone Star.

I'm gonna pipe up and say that I never really liked the Hepburn/Tracy "romantic comedies." They always seemed a little too arch for my taste. I think the knowledge that in real life these two were lovers adds a bit to the comedies, but not enough for me. (By the way the real-life Hepburn/Tracy relationship was as much nightmare as romance. He was an alcoholic, and hit her and berated her.)

Link to comment
I'm gonna pipe up and say that I never really liked the Hepburn/Tracy "romantic comedies." They always seemed a little too arch for my taste. I think the knowledge that in real life these two were lovers adds a bit to the comedies, but not enough for me. (By the way the real-life Hepburn/Tracy relationship was as much nightmare as romance. He was an alcoholic, and hit her and berated her.)

What spoiled them for me was the nightmarish aspect of their real-life relationship -- talk about "ick" factor -- which I can never forget, especially since Hepburn is described as an iconic independent woman.

Link to comment
What spoiled them for me was the nightmarish aspect of their real-life relationship -- talk about "ick" factor -- which I can never forget, especially since Hepburn is described as an iconic independent woman.

Helene, I'll never forget reading the chilling line in Hepburn's autobiography. After going on about how she basically changed EVERYTHING for Spencer, she said, "I never knew how he felt about me. He wouldn't talk about it." Talk about a screen persona being night and day from real-life: Tracy conveyed such decency onscreen, but offscreen he was an alcoholic, abusive mess.

Back to a more pleasant topic, another romance I love was the screen adaptation of Persuasion. Amanda Root was so soulful. I always think Persuasion was the most poignant of Austen novels, and Persuasion the film was every bit as touching as the movie.

Link to comment
What spoiled them for me was the nightmarish aspect of their real-life relationship -- talk about "ick" factor -- which I can never forget, especially since Hepburn is described as an iconic independent woman.

This is news to me. I guess even icons have human frailties. I'm suddenly very sad.

When I mentioned Summertime above, it was because there is a touching vulnerability to Hepburn there that we never get from her comedies with Tracy. Perhaps the "battle of the sexes" depicted in the latter drew on the darker side of their relationship.

Link to comment

Regarding Tracy and Hepburn: I agree that most of their movies together are not really that great, with the exceptions of Adam’s Rib, parts of Woman of the Year, and my own personal favorite, Pat and Mike. On the other hand, we probably owe to the partnership with Tracy the fact that MGM kept Hepburn under contract at all. Her movies at the studio without him were not very good, and at the time he was the more valuable property.

And I couldn’t agree more about their relationship offscreen. Tracy was an unhappy man, but I’m most sorry for the unfortunate women – Louise Tracy and Hepburn – enmeshed in his toils. (For me, he’s not a very interesting actor, either. I’d just as soon watch his MGM rival Clark Gable, who was not technically as good as Tracy but a much more vibrant presence.)

Pat and Mike, to return to our muttons, is one of my favorite romantic comedies, although strictly speaking it’s not as good as Adam’s Rib. In many of Hepburn’s films after she recovered from her box office poison era, such as Woman of the Year, the subtext is often “Putting Kate In Her Place.” She has to learn that she’s not so special and let the man take the lead. In Pat and Mike, Tracy, as her coach – she’s a star athlete in multiple sports-- loves her because she’s special, not in spite of it, and for once the two of them really are, as he says in the picture, “five-oh, five-oh.” It’s her stuffy fiancee who drags her down, and in P&M Tracy is the agent of her freedom, not the cause of her surrendering it. It’s lovely to see, and Tracy is terrific.

“Summertime” isn’t a big favorite of mine, IMO. I thought it was a little overblown for a story that should be kept small scale (read Arthur Laurents’ original play and you’ll see what I mean). But then I don't much care for those Love Starved Spinster roles that Hepburn had to play later in her career.

Link to comment
“Summertime” isn’t a big favorite of mine, IMO.  I thought it was a little overblown for a story that should be kept small scale (read Arthur Laurents’ original play and you’ll see what I mean).  But then I don't much care for those Love Starved Spinster roles that Hepburn had to play later in her career.

dirac, what do you think of the Rainmaker? Hepburn isn't one of my favorite actresses (with exceptions of course -- I love her in Bringing Up Baby, for example) but I think it's the most touching of her "sad spinster" movies. I prefer it to African Queen, which I think is a good movie but nothing I'd watch again and again.

In Adam's Rib, I think the movie belongs to Judy Holliday, who really steals every scene she's in.

Link to comment

I’ve only seen The Rainmaker once, many moons ago, and I remember enjoying it, but that’s all. I’ll have to seek it out again. (I do recall thinking that Lancaster was a little Too Much.)

I prefer it to African Queen, which I think is a good movie but nothing I'd watch again and again.

I’m with you. I also enjoyed The African Queen and I can understand why it’s beloved by so many – I just don’t happen to be one of the many. I think it’s one of the great funny love stories of the screen, but the movie as a whole is a mixed bag.

In Adam's Rib, I think the movie belongs to Judy Holliday, who really steals every scene she's in.

Check. I would add David Wayne, who steals every scene he is in. (Too bad there’s no scene with Holliday and Wayne together -- the two of them could have duked it out for the title.) I do love the climactic scene where Tracy is waving his "gun" around and Wayne takes cover behind Hepburn.

tancos writes:

Something a bit different that I think qualifies as an "unconsummated romance": Millennium Actress.

Looked it up on imdb.com and it sounds appropriate. Another one for me to look for....

Link to comment
dirac, what do you think of the Rainmaker? . . . I think it's the most touching of her "sad spinster" movies.

(I do recall thinking that Lancaster was a little Too Much.)

A little Too Much? :) I didn't like Kate here, never believed that she fell for the guy. In Summertime, I believed.

I've seen the Laurents play. I probably should read it, though, because I found the comedy too broad. Also, having already succumbed to the film, I may have resisted it.

Link to comment

Now that I'm in full confession mode, I admit I don't really enjoy "To Have and Have Not" either. I don't really get the vaunted Bacall/Bogart chemistry. Slim doesn't for a moment seem like a real person, just sort of a male fantasy. Again, I think this is one movie that benefited from the publicity of Bacall and Bogart's very public romance.

Link to comment

SENSE & SENSIBILITY

PERSUASION with Amanda Root & Ciaran Hinds - I love this movie!

MANHATTAN

FALLING IN LOVE

AGE OF INNOCENCE

PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (I love Mia Farrow in this!)

MOONSTRUCK what an ensemble!

do we consider THE HOURS a romance? I do! When Meryl Streep finally turns to Allison Janney and kisses her...THAT's romance...

ANNIE HALL

MAURICE the iconic gay romance film

SHIRLEY VALENTINE

and a charming little film HOTEL DU LAC with Anna Massey

Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN romance/comedy/poignant ending

Link to comment

oberon writes:

MAURICE the iconic gay romance film

Hmm. Only by default, may I suggest respectfully. I hope we do better eventually. We'll see what happens with Brokeback Mountain.

Although it isn't really a "love story" I thought the liaison between Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke in My Beautiful Laundrette was romantic. And that bit with Day-Lewis surreptitiously licking Warnecke's neck in full view of Day-Lewis' skinhead chums is one of the sexier scenes in my recollection.

Link to comment

Off topic as "Priest" really isn't a romance, but since we've started discussing gay romance/sex, I think the sex scene there between Linus Roache and Robert Carlyle was incredibly sexy and romantic.

Maybe we need a new topic for favourite gay love/sex scenes.

Link to comment

I saw Ninotchka last night and think it was just absolutely charming and romantic. Some of the lines are priceless:

Ninotchka: I am interested only in the shortest distance between these two points. Must you flirt?

Leon: Well, I don't have to, but I find it natural.

Ninotchka: Suppress it!

Ninotchka: The whites of your eyes are clear. Your cornea is excellent.

Ninotchka: Chemically, we're already quite sympathetic.

I was shocked at how adorable and radiant Garbo was as Nina. I always thought of her as being slightly remote and forbidding, but even as a dour Russian emissary she was adorable. I loved the way she shook her head at the French hat.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...