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| judithannie |
 Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 2:44 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2004
Posts: 224
Location: Albuquerque NM
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Yes I do Gary. I hadn't thought of it that way.
I once saw a documentary about the original Acadian settlement in Canadan before the dispersement. Wasn't it what is now Nova Scotia? It was quite interesting. They had some of the most desireable properties at that time.
Do you know more about that time in history or can you direct me to a book or web site? etc.
I am very proud of my Cajun heritage - it was so exciting as a little girl to go to Breaux Bridge in the summer and listen to the old ladies speak French. Those trips were so magical - everything was different - the food, the language, the weather. That is why what has happened in New Orleans is so sad for me. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 3:36 pm |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:20 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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Nova Scotia is a beautiful province. As the name suggests, the Scottish ancestry is still strong and there are plenty of small towns with rich museums ready to show it off.
It also has Cape Breton, a tiny mountainous island that offers one of the most spectacular scenic drives on the planet. Alexander Graham Bell retired there. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:40 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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A bit of a surprise. I re-watched Shall We Dance on DVD, last year's version starring Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, and liked it even more than the first time I saw it in the theatre.
The story is so shmaltzy and so cliched I'm resisting the impulse to unreservedly praise the sucker, but damn -- this has to be one of the best date films to come around in ages! Gere and Sarandon are so good together, so likeable, so real, that everything in this simple little story goes down like warm comfort food. Gere especially is just so totally unaffected as a successful lawyer with a missing piece in his life that you can't help but get caught up in his life of quiet desperation.
One day he spots Jennifer Lopez staring out the window of a dance studio and gets a hard-on for her wistful, tight-fitting angst. He joins the dance class, presumably to introduce her to his mid-life crisis, but then, thankfully, the story keeps going and becomes much deeper.
It's funny, it's moving, it's mature, and Sarandon delivers one of the best monologues on the meaning of marriage I've ever heard. The film transcends its corny premise with a sharp screenplay, some great supporting perfs and, mostly, a chemistry made in dance heaven between Gere and Sarandon. Not for nothing are these two actors considered 'stars'. |
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| sioux |
| Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:55 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 802
Location: philly burbs
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l - I rented Shall We Dance as an antidote to a deep dark independent film. It ended up being even more marshmallow than I thought. Gere and Sarandon are powerful, charismatic actors but I couldn't justify any hope for this film. Your reaction reminds me of how I felt about Threesome when I saw it in a theater when it opened. Its a film without much heart about ambigious college sexual relations. Watching it years after the fact I find it terrible. When I saw it, just graduating college, the fluid sexuality and how it confuses emotional relationships - spoke to me. I think the film spoke to me in ways it didn't intend.
Maybe I'm projecting - maybe Shall We Dance has the emotional element you found. To me....I wanted to find emotional connection - but I couldn't. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 12:46 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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With 2 Supreme Court justices down,, I figured it'd be a good time to watch The Pelican Brief. The set-up is rather improbable, as a law student, through some simple case ressearch, discovers the reason behind the murder of the two justices. And she is sleeping with her law professor who just happens to have clerked for one of the slain justices, and has a former classmate in the FBI. This chain is all necessary to put the plot in motion.
It is a bit curious that the law student (Julia Roberts) writes up her conclusions in a report with her name and address on the cover. Was this just a cute little touch or was she hoping for extra credit?
Beyond that bit of silliness, the film just uses way too many shortcuts and cliches, both visual and verbal, as though it's aware that this has all been done before. At one point, the film even seems to acknowledge this, when the law prof (Sam Shepard) explains to Julia-law-student-sex-kitten-Roberts: "Justice Rosenberg was my mentor, a father-figure ... well you know the drill."
I'm usually a pretty big fan of Julia Roberts, but I thought this film contained some of her worst acting that I've seen. Especially in the scenes where she is supposed to be crying and breaking down.
In any case, if you want to see a film about expert professional hitmen who keep getting thwarted by a frightened civilian on the run, I'd go with Three Days of The Condor instead.
Around the one hour mark, I realized that I saw some of The Pelican Brief on cable TV a while ago. About 10 minutes later (73 minutes in), my dvd started stuttering and failing. Could this be a signal that some didn't want me to keep viewing? I was once an anonymous law school student. Might I make a connection to the current justices (was Rehnquist snuffed out? O'Connor blackmailed to resign)? Without waiting for definitve answers, I leapt out my second floor window and started running. Scrambling over the garden wall, I believe I heard bullets whizzing past my banana-less trees. I know that my cat won't talk. And a clueless amateur always manages to somehow elude ruthless, professional assassins. So I'm not too worried. Although now I'm sleeping in the bomb shelter and have changed my name to "Wallace." |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:49 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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Facets has a bin of tapes that volunteers can borrow, mostly "off label" stuff I've never heard of. I picked a few up the last time I was there and watched with Shane most of a 2001 indie feature called By Hook or By Crook. It involves two young people, Shy and Valentine, living on the fringes of life. Shy, and orphan, leaves Kansas and thumbs it to San Francisco, where s/he rescues Valentine from a beating. Valentine is mentally ill and searching for her/his birth mother by calling up people named Malone randomly from the phone book at every phone booth in range. Shy leads Valentine in petty crime, but is preparing for a big score as a bank robber.
The leads, who also wrote and directed the film, are Silas Howard (Shy) and Harriet (Harry) Dodge (Valentine). They are extremely androgynous. No matter what the story said their gender was, it could not be completely believed. In fact, both characters have sex with women that looks like men having sex with women. Maybe they had strap-ons, but that doesn't seem to really matter. This film really doesn't seem to care what gender its characters are. In fact, some youngsters wake up Shy, who has spent the night sleeping in the street, and ask "Are you a boy or a girl?" Shy answers, "Both." Valentine refers to herself as a girl, but has a small beard and says she's "two for one."
This is a film without limits, inhibitions, or definitions, but its characters--especially Valentine--long to find themselves. Interesting work. Original and exciting, if not always easy to grasp.
Joan Jett has a small part as a woman being interviewed about a bank robbery on TV, the inspiration for Shy's adventure. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 4:56 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Sioux,
You're second reaction was the perceptive one. Threesome sucked. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 1:36 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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I wanted to like Shall We Dance. I really did. And I can't help but think had there been more of Sarandon and Gere and less of Lopez, I would have. I preferred the original.
I give Lopez a lot of credit for her accomplishments, but IMO she is a star but she is still not an actor. Too bad because the one movie I actually liked her in was Selena. But that was a movie in which her accent was appropriate and even if you didn't like her acting, her performances were striking. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 1:41 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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| Meanwhile I was able to get a hold of Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast. I was afraid that since I saw it as a child it might not hold up. But I was totally entralled. A stunning and moving film. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:55 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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Lopez's presence in Shall We Dance was peripheral. She was the muse behind Gere's actions but she really didn't have a big part. To me, her story was on par with the stories of the rest of the notable supporting cast -- Bobby Canavale, Stanley Tucci, etc. -- no less important, but certainly no more. She wasn't bad at all, but her acting didn't match up to all the nice lighting around her.
My only quarrel regarding J-Lo was the ridiculous need to place her name in the credits before Susan Sarandon's -- an insult to the far more important, far more talented Sarandon, and a pathetic attempt to pander to the youth market. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:39 pm |
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Marj wrote: I wanted to like Shall We Dance. I really did. And I can't help but think had there been more of Sarandon and Gere and less of Lopez, I would have. I preferred the original.
I give Lopez a lot of credit for her accomplishments, but IMO she is a star but she is still not an actor. Too bad because the one movie I actually liked her in was Selena. But that was a movie in which her accent was appropriate and even if you didn't like her acting, her performances were striking.
Shall We Dance was filmed in Winnipeg and I expect an apology for that negative review. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 4:29 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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Quote: Lopez's presence in Shall We Dance was peripheral. She was the muse behind Gere's actions but she really didn't have a big part. To me, her story was on par with the stories of the rest of the notable supporting cast -- Bobby Canavale, Stanley Tucci, etc. -- no less important, but certainly no more. She wasn't bad at all, but her acting didn't match up to all the nice lighting around her.
I'd have to go back to the original Shall We Dance to see if I agree with you or not, Lorne. It certainly seemed that her role was much more than peripheral. But I could be wrong. One way or the other if she could act half as well as Canavale or Tucci I probably wouldn't care.
Ahh Gar,  |
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| Nancy |
| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 7:41 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
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| Haven't seen the remake of Shall We Dance, but loved the original Japanese version. I recommend it. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 8:31 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| The Japanese original is better, because the plot makes more sense in Japanese culture. The remake is pretty good, though. Richard Gere has never looked more elegant. |
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