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| mo_flixx |
 Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 5:45 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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billyweeds wrote: Gary--I understand your objection, but as someone who has seen and loved the play, I have to stress that the thing you're objecting to is precisely what makes the script memorable.
So billy since you saw the play DOUBT, can you comment on this reaction?
Syd wrote: I suggest the screenwriter might want to avoid the pathetic fallacy. You do not need the wind blowing to suggest change. You do not need lightbulbs shorting out at convenient moments. You do not need torrential rain to add atmosphere to crucial conflicts. He does it five or six times during Doubt, and soon it becomes laughable.
Were there torrential rainstorms, blown out light bulbs, and blowing wind in the play? |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 7:38 pm |
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I recently saw a documentary on Anita O'Day called "Anita O'Day: Portrait of a Jazz Singer." It was made a few years ago - so I'm not sure if it's available on DVD yet or not. I saw it at a theater.
I didn't know that much about her...just the name. Didn't realize that she was the 'girl singer' with both the Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton Big Bands. Leonard Feather and others rank her up there with Billie Holliday, Sarah Vaughan (sp?), Ella Fitz, etc. She has a huge gay following...and most of the younger scholars interviewed in the film were gay. Every person interviewed in this film was totally knocked out by her. This is one out-spoken dame.
She'd seen it all - heroin addiction, rape, the loss of her voice - and poverty...living her last years in a tiny trailer in Hemet, CA.
Somehow she made it thru it all, kicked the addiction, and took to the road well after age 80 when she started singing again on cruise ships and in Europe.
This is an inspiring and uplifting documentary. O'Day herself is one of a kind...with a unique voice -- kind of raspy and at the same time melodious. She relates how a surgical slip during a childhood tonsillectomy gave her the "vibrato-less" voice.
BTW, her last name "O'Day" is pig-Latin for "dough." "Oh-day." An intentional name change. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 9:56 pm |
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| Anita O'Day: I saw her at Birdland around 1958. Only knew the name. I'll never forget her voice. What a wonderful surprise. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 11:58 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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I have this in my queue. Anita O'Day has always been one of my favorite singers too!
But after what you said, Mo, I really ought to double check. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 12:08 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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mo_flixx wrote: I recently saw a documentary on Anita O'Day called "Anita O'Day: Portrait of a Jazz Singer." It was made a few years ago - so I'm not sure if it's available on DVD yet or not.
I have it in my "save" queue. Don't know when it will be available. But there are a few other performance DVD's available. They're certainly worth checking out. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 8:15 am |
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Marj wrote: mo_flixx wrote: I recently saw a documentary on Anita O'Day called "Anita O'Day: Portrait of a Jazz Singer." It was made a few years ago - so I'm not sure if it's available on DVD yet or not.
I have it in my "save" queue. Don't know when it will be available. But there are a few other performance DVD's available. They're certainly worth checking out.
I guess it's (the film above) not out yet, but "Jazz on a Summer Day" about the Newport Jazz Fest. is. That played also (I haven't seen it) and did well. I saw the other O'Day DVD's listed at amazon.com . |
Last edited by mo_flixx on Sun Dec 28, 2008 10:50 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:30 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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| Mo: I was going by what Netflix has. And it does have "Jazz on a Summer's Day as well as "Live at Ronnie Scott's." I'll see if I can post their list later. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 5:16 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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mo_flixx wrote: billyweeds wrote: Gary--I understand your objection, but as someone who has seen and loved the play, I have to stress that the thing you're objecting to is precisely what makes the script memorable.
So billy since you saw the play DOUBT, can you comment on this reaction?
Syd wrote: I suggest the screenwriter might want to avoid the pathetic fallacy. You do not need the wind blowing to suggest change. You do not need lightbulbs shorting out at convenient moments. You do not need torrential rain to add atmosphere to crucial conflicts. He does it five or six times during Doubt, and soon it becomes laughable.
Were there torrential rainstorms, blown out light bulbs, and blowing wind in the play?
Absolutely not. It was underplayed in every way conceivable. The playwright Shanley, however, is known to be a rather over-the-top fellow, and therefore those choices sound right in line with his personality. Just another indication that writers should seldom direct their own work. Though John Huston in The Maltese Falcon and (more recently) Tony Gilroy in Michael Clayton are evidence to the contrary. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 6:47 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| There are also several scenes that are shot askew, as if the room is tilted about twenty degrees, which is symbolic of something or other. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Nancy |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 6:49 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Norman, OK
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Syd wrote: There are also several scenes that are shot askew, as if the room is tilted about twenty degrees, which is symbolic of something or other.
Nausea? |
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"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 9:01 pm |
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Nancy wrote: Syd wrote: There are also several scenes that are shot askew, as if the room is tilted about twenty degrees, which is symbolic of something or other.
Nausea?
Too much communion wine? |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Earl |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 10:00 pm |
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Joined: 09 Jun 2004
Posts: 2621
Location: Houston
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Slumdog Millionaire
In the first ten or fifteen minutes of Slumdog Millionaire, viewers are given a lot of information about where the storyline is going, as it is told mostly in flashback. This, however, doesn't prevent the movie from being two riveting hours of electric filmmaking in which the audience can never be completely sure of what is about to happen at any given moment.
Dev Patel, who plays the protagonist Jamal, carries the picture with an easygoing charm which seems effortless, but surely isn't. Freida Pinto radiates warm-hearted goodness as Latika,the object of Jamal's love. And Slumdog Millionaire's screen is infused with a vibrancy of colors which brings to mind Pedro Almodovar's Volver or Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.
In spite of a massive logical flaw regarding the ending (which shouldn't be discussed without major spoiler warnings), Slumdog Millionaire managed to entrance me and, for a little while, make me believe in things like destiny. I guess Jeremy won't be buying me that drink after all.
A sidenote: In all the Oscar talk about the movie and Dev Patel (deserved, of course), I believe it would be a shame not to give some credit to the superb supporting turn by Anil Kapoor as the host of the game show on which Jamal competes. Kapoor plays Prem Kumar exactly the way it seems to me the host of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" should behave. The American version of this show gets it all wrong in my opinion. Kumar is no kindly Regis Philbin or even kindlier Meredith Viera. His intent is to rattle the already nervous contestants. He mocks them. He needles them. He wants to get under their skin and take them out of any comfort zone they were hoping to find. By portraying Kumar this way, Anil Kapoor provides an excellent foil for our hero Jamal. |
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"I have a suspicion that you are all mad," said Dr. Renard, smiling sociably; "but God forbid that madness should in any way interrupt friendship." |
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| Nancy |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 10:22 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Norman, OK
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Earl,
I just wanted to second your words about Kapoor. He is very good as the slimy host you love to hate, and almost stole the movie. |
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"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 10:53 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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Syd wrote: There are also several scenes that are shot askew, as if the room is tilted about twenty degrees, which is symbolic of something or other.
I noticed this...it was done on more of a shot by shot basis, I thought...rather than entire scenes.
After Syd mentioned the rainstorms, I'm afraid my attention was really focused on them - open windows with rain blowing in, etc. This was definitely overused.
Meryl turns in the most hateful performance since Tea Leoni's nutcase in "Spanglish."
I really wanted to give her a tube of moisturizer to help with all those lines around her mouth -- caused by sucking on too many lemons, no doubt.
yam would know more about this than I would, but I have a hard time believing that a nun would find ballpoint pens so objectionable in 1964. She has about as much of a problem with ballpoints as Joan Crawford had with wire hangers.
I got a kick out of Meryl dumping the Smith Brothers' cough drops in the trash. These were made in my home town and came in 2 flavors, licorice and cherry. Yes, it was very right for the period. The old Smith Bros. factory building has been turned into the local historical society, I believe.
I wonder if the nuns in the play wore the old-fashioned bonnets. These nuns looked like they belonged in an Italian "giallo."
I was bothered by the different accents in the movie. I couldn't really place any of them...and because they were different, I assumed that the people did not come from the same place. Meryl sounded more Boston than New York (where it was shot), tho' at times she sounded Midwestern. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 11:09 pm |
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Nancy wrote: Earl,
I just wanted to second your words about Kapoor. He is very good as the slimy host you love to hate, and almost stole the movie.
Agree, he did a great job. |
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