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billyweeds

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 4:58 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

Eileen Atkins is a great actress and makes of that part (which could have been unwatchably twee) something hilarious and sad at the same time.

And thanks for the Kathy Baker shout-out. She's one of the most underappreciated actors going.

inlareviewer

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 5:56 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

Born for the roles that Mrs. Warren Beatty keeps getting. She is excellent in Last Chance Harvey. Her scene at the bar with Hoffman evokes an entire failed marriage in about 40 seconds without indicating, and she matches up beautifully with the seldom-more-effective James Brolin.

_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

whiskeypriest

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:31 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."

Last Chance Harvey is one of those movies where the ads convinced me to not spend my precious entertainment dollars on watching it, despite my passionate and unrequited love for Emma Thompson. Every ad of Hoffman saying "I'm gonna dance your socks off" just put me further and further away.

So maybe next time I get to the video store, I'll pick it up... provided billy can assure me that I will not find out it is all just a dream three quarters of the way through. Because that would just really piss me off.

_________________
I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed?

Syd

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:36 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

whiskeypriest wrote:

It is not a dream. But there are no hot lesbian sex scenes either.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

whiskeypriest

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:42 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."

Syd wrote:

whiskeypriest wrote:

It is not a dream. But there are no hot lesbian sex scenes either.

Pluses and minuses....

_________________
I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed?

inlareviewer

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 8:19 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

They didn't really market it well -- the "Dance your socks off line" has a very different impact in the context of where and how it occurs in the movie. Because it's not remotely the typical yok-yok-heave-heave romcom. It's just an intelligent, unassuming and idiomatic character (make that two-character) study, adult entertainment in the best sense of the term. It sent me.

_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

Befade

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 9:57 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 3784 Location: AZ

I liked it.......and I particularly liked the circumstance in which I saw it. I stayed at a Best Western in Indio, CA and they had an equisite dvd library. Just take what you want to watch on your room's player.....no charge.

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Lost in my own private I dunno.

inlareviewer

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 10:02 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

Befade wrote:

Now, that's my kind of motor inn. Wayeh kewl.

_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

billyweeds

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 10:45 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

Kathy Baker's performance in Clean and Sober is unforgettable.

inlareviewer

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 11:06 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

Never saw Clean and Sober. She was pretty darned indelible in The Right Stuff and Street Smart, a howl as suburban nympho Joyce in Edward Scissorhands, and oh, how I wish Altman had filmed her and Ed Harris in the roles they originated onstage in Fool for Love.

_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

billyweeds

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 12:01 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

inlareviewer wrote:

Never saw Clean and Sober.

Get thee to a DVD player and see it NOW. Great film, great Michael Keaton performance, inspired non-cliched treatment of addiction story.

inlareviewer wrote:

how I wish Altman had filmed her and Ed Harris in the roles they originated onstage in Fool for Love.

Amen, especially considering how dull Shepard and Basinger were in the roles on screen. Altman, however, was not the right director in the first place, IMO.

inlareviewer

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:17 am

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

billyweeds wrote:

Get thee to a DVD player and see it NOW. Great film, great Michael Keaton performance, inspired non-cliched treatment of addiction story.

Well, alright then. Now that I think of it, I do recall catching snatches of it on cable ever so long ago, but cannot say that I've ever seen the whole thing. Bumped up atop the list.

billyweeds wrote:

Amen, especially considering how dull Shepard and Basinger were in the roles on screen. Altman, however, was not the right director in the first place, IMO.

Perhaps not. It's probably more of a Martin Ritt or George Roy Hill or Michael Apted property -- even with Altman helming it would surely have been a more fulfilled film had Jessica Lange not gotten preggers and had to bail. But, really, it should have been Harris and Baker, who were not to be believed in the original production.

_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

billyweeds

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 6:49 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

inla--This past March I had the infinite pleasure of playing The Old Man in a really good production of Fool for Love at The Living Theatre in NYC. It was my third foray into Sam Shepard territory and by far my most fulfilling.

Joe Vitus

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 7:05 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston

Fool For Love was made at the lowest point in Altman's career. A really terrible picture. But Billy's right that he was the wrong director to make it in the first place. Does Shepard translate to the screen, in any case?

_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.

-Topher

billyweeds

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 7:48 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

Joe Vitus wrote:

That's a valid point. The best thing about Sam Shepard is his utter theatricality, and I mean "theater" as opposed to "movies."

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