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| Syd |
 Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:59 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Here's a link to "This Way Up", which was nominated for the Oscar last year in Best Short Animated Film. I liked it quite a bit. For me, it links automatically to pt. 2, then to "Lavoratory Love Story," which was also up for the Oscar, and "Father and Daughter," which won about a decade ago. Both of those are very good. There may be more links after that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf_voWB95NU&feature=PlayList&p=6F251A0ACC5C3276&index=29 |
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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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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 5:44 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: billyweeds wrote: I've TiVo'd My Winnipeg. Got Near Dark coming in tomorrow from Netflix. High time I became a Kathryn Bigelow completist. My daughter tells me Strange Days is quite underrated.
I agree with your daughter, although it may lack some punch after the turn of the millennium.
That may be what she meant when she said it was somewhat undisciplined and overlong. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 8:29 am |
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Billy, I hope you enjoy My Winnipeg. I liked it very much the first time I saw it and even more the second time. I took Marta to it when she was in Winnipeg, that was the second time I saw it. I had no idea what she would think of it. She had never seen a Maddin film. She loved it. There are a lot of scenes on and around where my wholesale was located and covered alleyway between buildings in which our loading dock is the first entrance way. I'm sure you will be thrilled to see these things.  The roof where some people live is on the building next door. 
A beautiful bonus that the movie has is the final performance of Ann Savage who Maddin brought back to the screen and was just wonderful. Really touching that she got a chance to show her acting chops before she died. RIP Miss Savage. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 9:44 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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My Winnipeg is a hoot.
Also, check out Brand on the Brain.
It's kind of like Nancy Drew drops acid and investigates parental fascism. I think. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:41 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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billyweeds wrote: Syd wrote: billyweeds wrote: I've TiVo'd My Winnipeg. Got Near Dark coming in tomorrow from Netflix. High time I became a Kathryn Bigelow completist. My daughter tells me Strange Days is quite underrated.
I agree with your daughter, although it may lack some punch after the turn of the millennium.
That may be what she meant when she said it was somewhat undisciplined and overlong.
And there's the absurd premise that the hero would be mooning over Juliette Lewis's character when Angela Bassett is right beside him. But I still like the movie anyway. |
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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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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 5:54 pm |
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gromit wrote: My Winnipeg is a hoot.
Also, check out Brand on the Brain.
It's kind of like Nancy Drew drops acid and investigates parental fascism. I think.
Same opinion here of course. Something that I have been pleasantly entertained with, seeing a Maddin movie early in its release, has been having the audience (always very positive) made up of mostly middle aged to older people who were definitely people who had known Maddin and Maddin's family. They made for very friendly and happy viewings. Convivial is the word. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 7:23 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| Brand Upon the Brain! is great. Looking forward to tonight's screening. I even bought real popcorn that I'm going to pop in a kettle myself! |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 7:41 pm |
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| Have a great time Wade. Marta liked your tribute to the Taco Bell doggie. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 8:36 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| Hola (?) Marta!!! Were your ears burning? I was just talking boutchoo. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 9:47 pm |
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| Hola is spelled correctly and I just told Marta about your post. She laughed. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:53 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Ballet Russes is a suprisingly absorbing documentary, even more surprising because I don't care for ballet. Ballet Russe was a dance company from 1909 to 1929 that featured such luminaries as Vaslac Nijinsky, Léonide Massine and George Balanchine. After the Russian Revolution, they performed in exile. That was directed by Sergei Diaghilev and fell apart at his death. This movie is not about that Ballet Russe although it looms in the background, many of its dancers and choreographers playing a role in what is to come.
In 1931 René Blum and Colonel Vassily de Basil decided to bring it back and hired George Balanchine to choreograph. At the time there were a bunch of young Russian girls who were being trained in ballet but facing an uncertain future; Balanchine decided to turn three of these absolute unknowns into his stars. The company became the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and Tatinia Riabouchinska, Irina Baranova and Tamara Touranova became the first of many new stars. (Tatinia was the model for the hippo prima ballerina in the "Dance of the Hours" in Fantasia. Fortunately, there's no resemblance. Her husband, choreographer, David Lichine was the model for the crocodile, but David had fewer pointy teeth.)
Balanchine was pushed out and replaced by Massine, who created the symphonic ballet (i.e., ballets done to symphonies). He also brought his lover Alexandra Danilova back to the stage. (Balanchine had refused to hire her because she was an ancient 27 years old. She was also his ex-girlfriend.)
Eventually de Basil got Blum out and quarreled with Massine, which led to the formation of a yet another Ballet Russe, beginning the process by which the Ballets Russes formed new companies by budding. Fitting because the original Ballet Russe was spun off by the Imperial Russian Ballet (now the Mariinsky Ballet). The New York City Ballet, for instance, was formed by Balanchine after another stint with the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo.
De Basil's company became the Original Ballet Russe after Massine won the name of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. (De Basil got to keep most of the choreography.) Both groups wound up in the US at the beginning of World War II under the same backer. De Basil being insufferable, he lost the backer and took his group on a long tour of Latin American, after which they fell apart. The Monte Carlo group declined in the 1950s and died in 1962.
Many of the people in the Ballets Russes were still alive during the making of the documentary, although, poignantly, five of them are thanked posthumously in the credits. Many of the rest have become professors of dance or founders of schools that teach kids to be starving dancers. (I suspect Yvonne Craig made a lot more money as Batgirl than she ever did in Ballet Rouge, and the dancers who made it into movies actually got to eat.) Some of them are still on stage, though not doing the athletic maneuvers. Considering many of them are in their eighties and early nineties, their water must be supplied by the Fountain of Youth.
Tons of ballet clips, lots of history I knew nothing about before. Okay, I'd heard of Nijinsky, Yvonne Craig and Maria Tallchief, but that's about it. It's really fascinating stuff. Thanks to Leigh, because this was one of the Netflix films she chose for her birthday. |
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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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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 6:05 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I was mistaken. The reptile in that section of Fantasia is supposed to be an alligator. I always thought it looked more like a crocodile.
One of the dancers who I didn't notice was Wakefield Poole, who became a director of gay porn films. (I know this from the credits. I'd never heard of him.) |
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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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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:22 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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I wrote a brief review of Ballet Russes a couple of years ago. Pretty fascinating stuff.
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:28 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road with DiCaprio and Winslett is about a strormy marriage of a young suburban family. Much of it is formulaic, but there are some very powerful scenes in it too. It holds your interest, but at the same time you wish it would end soon.
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 4:10 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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| I recall being somewhat dissatisfied with Ballet Russes. I think I would have liked more period footage of the dancing and dancers, and less recent reminiscing and filler, if my memory is functioning. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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