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| bartist |
 Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 10:37 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Gromit - Wells' view of technology was darker in other works, like The Time Machine. Some think his "Things to Come" was one of his weaker efforts in sci-fict.
For a truly amazing (as in, prophetic) futurist novel, check out the posthumously discovered "Paris in the 20th Century," by Jules Verne, written ca. 1863. You will be gobsmacked and mind-blown by his bulls-eyes (and the misses are amusing). |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 1:18 am |
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Funny Face. I saw part of this once (mostly the photo shoot around Paris, I think--it was a long time ago), and enjoyed it, and now saw the whole thing, and enjoyed that too. Astaire was getting a little old for partners like Audrey Hepburn, but they have several good numbers together, and he also has numbers with Kay Thompson, who is a good singer. Hepburn's just okay as a singer, but I like her a lot as a dancer, and she has a solo dance number that is part farce and part straight that was fun. The song highlight is "Bonjour, Paris!" I liked the duets "On How to Be Lovely" and "'S Wonderful," even though I usually don't like that song. Hepburn's best on those two songs.
I'm glad I'm too young to remember the Pink Weeks of 1957. However, I'll have to look into empathicalism. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 3:41 am |
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| Oh, it's a joyous film. A bit too long. "Think Pink" and "Ah, Paris" are wonderful songs, as enjoyable as any of the Gershwin numbers. Hepburn singing "How Long Has This Been Going On?" or the dance between she and Astaire to "He Loves and She Loves" are among my most treasured moments in movie musicals. That shot of her coming down the museum steps from Winged Victory is pretty nice, too. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 6:14 am |
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Agree with Joe much more than with Syd. Funny Face is a near-great musical, missing the "great" mark by making some severe narrative missteps, most especially the subplot about Hepburn and the existential philosopher who (surprise, surprise!) turns out to be a garden-variety lecher.
But "Bonjour, Paris!" (not "Ah, Paris!", Joe, that's from Follies) is one of my favorite musical numbers of all time. The photography of that song alone made me want to go to Paris more than anything else ever did. It does for Paris what Vertigo does for San Francisco--and in a much shorter time.
And Hepburn's rendition of "How Long Has This Been Going On?"--with the sensational yellow hat against the drabness of the bookstore playing as important a role as her performance--is a one-of-a-kind musical moment.
And coming down the stairs in front of "Winged Vidtory"? It doesn't get much more "divine" than that.
Add Astaire's unique genius and Kay Thompson's camp value and you have a supremely entertaining movie. Flawed, but the very definition of a must-see. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 7:03 am |
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Weirdly, Funny Face is the only movie I know where the leading character is not given a name until the movie is at least half over. Suddenly people start talking about "jo" and for a moment or two you have no idea at all who they're talking about. Hepburn never identifies herself as "Jo" for about an hour into the movie. Not a serious, serious mistake, but deeply strange--and highly unusual if not unique.
(In Rebecca, the leading lady never gets a first name, but that's intentional.) |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jun 30, 2013 1:13 am |
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| There are silent movies where all of the characters don't get a name at all. Sunrise and City Lights are two examples. Ruiz, the Usurper, in The Gaucho is obviously powerful because he has a name. That puts him on a par with the Virgin Mary, the only other character in the movie with a name. |
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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: Sun Jun 30, 2013 4:50 am |
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Syd wrote: There are silent movies where all of the characters don't get a name at all. Sunrise and City Lights are two examples. Ruiz, the Usurper, in The Gaucho is obviously powerful because he has a name. That puts him on a par with the Virgin Mary, the only other character in the movie with a name.
Silents are a different animal altogether. For example, in City Lights Chaplin's character is characterized as "the little tramp" and the leading lady (too lazy to look up the actor's name) is "the flower girl." These are icons more than "people," so the lack of a name is not surprising. More of a "problem" in Sunrise, but still no problem really, since silents don't depend so much on dialogue. In Rebecca, the whole story revolved around "Rebecca" being more charismatic than the second wife, so the lack of a name was an important story point. In Funny Face, it just seems like a cutting-room issue. "Jo" probably was identified in a scene that was excised from the movie. The result is very strange IMO. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jun 30, 2013 8:03 pm |
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King of Beggars (1992) stars Stephen Chow as 19th Century Chinese aristocrat So Chan who, to win the hand of his true love, has to win a contest for Martial Arts Champion (a combination warrior and scholar). When it is discovered he had illicit help from his father, the General of Canton, So Chan and his father are stripped of their wealth though the mechanizations of an evil courtier, and sentenced to be beggars for the rest of their life. As it happens, the woman he loves is the daughter of the last King of Beggars, and he happened to be killed by the same evil courtier.
It has all the humor and style you expect from Chow, although it gets more serious toward the end. He didn't direct or write it, but it looks to me like he had a lot of input. Oh, and it's based on a historical character. But then, so is The Legend of Drunken Master. (7 of 10) |
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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: Mon Jul 01, 2013 1:28 am |
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| I also watched Kings of Pastry, which is about pastry chefs vying to receive the Meilleur Ouvrier de France, after which you can call them MOFs without insulting them. It's not exactly a competition, since any number, theoretically all, could become MOFs. Unfortunately, the direction is substandard, so we really don't get a feeling for the people, and the closest thing to excitement is wondering if somebody's going to break a sugar sculpture while carrying it to the exhibition hall. Spoiler: Yes, someone does. The movie as a whole suggests a weak program on the Food Network. |
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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: Mon Jul 01, 2013 6:53 am |
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I see that you are up to Kings in the movie dictionary.  |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 7:40 am |
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| Heh! I felt compelled to scroll back and see if Syd's previous reviews had been titles like "The Kinfolk" or "Kind Hearts and Coronets." |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 11:42 pm |
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Gold Diggers of 1933 is vastly entertaining, with the powerful "My Forgotten Man" at the end to remind you that the Great Depression lies underneath both the musical and musical-within-the-musical. The three leads are all great, although I didn't really appreciate Aline MacMahon until she comes out of the bathroom and lays it on thick to Warren William and Guy Kibbee; that whole scene is hilarious. "We're in the Money" is the most famous number, but "Pettin' in the Park" and "My Forgotten Man" are the best.
This is considerably better than 42nd Street and almost as good as the follow-up Footlight Parade, which also has Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee and Billy Barty, and adds James Cagney, but, alas, has no Aline MacMahon (or Ginger Rogers, either.)
All three films are now in the National Film Registry. |
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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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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 11:22 am |
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It's probably my favorite among the WB backstagers.
Really wish the novel 42nd Street was based on would get reprinted. Not only very different from the movie, but an early example of gay lit. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 5:47 pm |
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Joe Vitus wrote: It's probably my favorite among the WB backstagers.
Really wish the novel 42nd Street was based on would get reprinted. Not only very different from the movie, but an early example of gay lit.
Never knew that. I would love to read it. How did you get to do so? |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 10:40 pm |
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Tonight You're Mine (aka You Instead) is an interesting experiment: It's a romantic comedy in which two rockers (Luke Treadaway and Natalia Tena) from different bands are feuding because of a meet-cute and are handcuffed together overnight by a preacher so they can learn to get along. Of course they do, and fall in love.
What's interesting (and sometimes exasperating) is that this was all filmed during a huge five-day rock festival, T in the Park 2010 in Balado, Scotland. Both bands are on-stage during the festival. This means a lot of wobbly camera work, and some awkwardness since they couldn't very well re-shoot after the festival. It also gives the film a certain amateurish feel and a good soundtrack, with a cast of 80,000.
I was wondering why Tena looked so familiar. She's Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter movies and Osha on Game of Thrones, and had minor parts in About a Boy and Mrs. Henderson Presents. And she's a rock singer.
I was truly disappointed they didn't combine the two bands and call themselves The 39 Steps. |
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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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