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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2015 12:00 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Gene Tierney was IMO one of the most beautiful movie stars of all time. Not a great actress, not remotely, but in the face of such loveliness one is tempted to say, "Who cares?"
Otto Preminger took over the direction from Rouben Mamoulian, who I suspect was responsible for the pluperfect decor. In any case, the movie jump-started Preminger's career, and as I said before I don't think he ever topped it, though Anatomy of a Murder came close. |
Last edited by billyweeds on Mon Nov 30, 2015 12:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2015 12:02 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Clifton Webb is the best thing in the film. I just thought everyone else was rather one-note. I liked Andrews tough-guy routine, and it's contrast with the socialites, through the first half of the film. Then got a bit tired when it didn't go anywhere (or went the wrong way?).
Tierney is really a looker.
She has a combination of a baby-face and sexiness.
Really one of the prettiest actresses.
She hooked up with JFK slightly before he ran for Congress and there was reportedly it was serious, but apparently as a good Catholic he was never going to marry a divorcee. Tierney had been married to the designer Oleg Cassini. Such information I got from a Biography Tv show on Tierney which was included on the Laura disc as an extra.
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2015 12:07 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Tierney in Laura and Lee Remick in Anatomy are two of the only times Preminger really scored as a director of women. Maybe he was as fond of overbites as I am. Whatever, Remick is one of the only actresses who rivaled Tierney for me in the looks department, and both had pronounced and extremely sexy overbites. Ok, right, TMI, over and out. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2015 1:05 pm |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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| I saw Laura when it was in the theatre at Winnipeg Beach a long time ago. I liked it, but I didn't love it. |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:06 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6967
Location: Black Hills
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Ione Skye, Eva Mendes, and my favorite overbiter, Marianna Hill (aka Dr. Helen Noel in the Star Trek OS episode with the neural neutralizer machine). TMI? Perhaps, but we live in an Information Age and must adapt.
Rita Hayworth. And Gillian Anderson. Long live the mandibular malocclusion! |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:21 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I'd like to meet bartist in the real world. We just might get along. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 9:24 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6967
Location: Black Hills
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| Thanks, and I'd say the same. My sigboth pointed out that many facial asymmetries are appealing because perfect faces are too austere. Beauty marks, slightly crossed eyes, overbites, subtly askew noses...all common in hollywood heartthrobs. And one that makes me chuckle, since artists and anthropologists have been pointing this out: features of the opposite sex. The Mona Lisa is Leonardo in drag. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 4:05 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Watched the 1967 version of Ulysses. It's certainly not an easy task filming Joyce's magnum opus, with all its word play and stream of consciousness and allusions, etc.
At times the film seems to just hit some highlights and string together a number of scenes. But the actors are good, even if it took me a bit to get used to the characters looking as they do in the film. I preferred the first half of the film and started losing interest during the fantasy/dream sections. Not sure how I felt about the long Molly soliloquy which ends the film (and book). The reading is well done but it's not that cinematic to watch two people lie in bed and hear an extended voice-over (10-15 mins or more).
I came away thinking it was a good thing and somewhat necessary to have read the book prior to watching the film, but now I'm not so sure. The book can be rather difficult and it might be a help to see the film first and then read Joyce's prose. Overall, I found it difficult to decide what I really thought of the film. Most of my fun was recognizing and recalling scenes and occasionally words/phrases form the novel. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 6:30 pm |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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Not sure how I felt about the long Molly soliloquy which ends the film (and book).
I don't remember seeing the movie, but I did read the book. The Molly soliloquy was magnificent! I read the book when I was 17 and I had read the soliloquy a number of times. The book itself was great. |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 6:38 pm |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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| I did start to read Finnegans Wake when I was 20 or so. I read about 35 pages but it was too much for me to figure out what the words meant enough for me. I did figure out a few sentences, but that was it and I quit. |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 11:25 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Last year my son and I read Ulysses, this time concurrently with a book of annotations that followed the text edition we were reading. Our one rule was no more than twenty pages of text, plus the annotations, per day. It took us months, but it was worth it.
The film is an odd thing. It's just a taste of the book, but it had some great visuals, like the opening one of Buck Mulligan, high atop Dublin's Martello Tower, conducting a mock Mass. What the movie cannot approach is the language, second only to Shakespeare, imo.
Milo O'Shea was terrific as Bloom. |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 8:30 am |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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| Now I remember, I did see the movie of Ulysses and I did enjoy it. |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 9:36 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6967
Location: Black Hills
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| Saw "Laura," enjoyed the OTT plot. You know, when Webb has to type his columns in a hot bath, that he's not going to be winning any fair young maidens. Can't say I buy the murder option, though - if a man like him can't add a Ming vase to his collection, he doesn't smash it on the floor. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2015 1:38 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6967
Location: Black Hills
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| "Locke" is amazing. One of those single-scene, single-set (the inside of a car) film experiments that actually works. Tom Hardy is terrific. He drives away from work, has phone conversations, and watches his life unravel. I thought this was going to be another broccoli movie, grit your teeth and hope to be bettered by seeing it, but no, it's quite compelling. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 11:53 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12944
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Stormy Weather, famous as a vehicle for Bill Robinson and Lena Horne, but to tell the truth, their love story seems somewhat slight. (Possibly because Robinson was forty years older than Horne.) However. the movie shines as a showcase of black talent of the forties, which includes Horne's "Stormy Weather," Robinson tap-dancing on the drums in "African Dance," the Nicholas Brothers in "Jumpin' Jive," and my personal favorite, Ada Brown and Fats Waller in "That Ain't Right," (followed by Waller singing and performing "Ain't Misbehavin'") Sadly, Waller died of pneumonia a few months after the film. It's also Bill Robinson's last film, and Horne's film career stalled for some reason after the film, though she did have relatively minor parts. |
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