Wow. I think I'm going to be calling in sick on the 5th.
Dawn ,'The Killer In Me'
Buffista Movies 3: Panned and Scanned
A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
The ones I'm planning on recording:
5:00 PM Love Me Tonight (1932) A Parisian tailor falls in love with princess. Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Charlie Ruggles. D: Rouben Mamoulian. BW 89m.
I've read that this is supposed to be wonderful, and rather risque since it's pre-Code.
1:00 PM Swing Time (1936) To prove himself worthy of his fiancee, a dancer tries to make it big, only to fall for his dancing partner. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore. D: George Stevens. BW 104m. CC DVS
5:00 PM Top Hat (1935) A woman thinks the man who loves her is her best friend's husband. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton. D: Mark Sandrich. BW 99m. CC DVS
I loves me some Astaire/Rogers fluff. Back in the '70s and early '80s, one of the local stations would have all Astaire/Rogers musicals overnight on New Years Eve, and since my babysitting years were the pre-cable/VCR era, I completely got hooked on them. Also loved The Gay Divorcee.
7:00 PM Show Boat (1936) Riverboat entertainers find love, laughs and hardships as they sail along "Old Man River." Songs include "Make Believe" and "Bill. Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Helen Morgan, Paul Robeson. D: James Whale. BW 114m. CC
Love Paul Robeson's voice.
3:00 PM Brigadoon (1954) Two American hunters in Scotland discover a mystical village that only materializes once every century. Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Van Johnson. D: Vincente Minnelli. C 108m. LBX CC
I love Van Johnson's cynical second banana performance here.
5:00 PM Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954) When their older brother marries, six lumberjacks decide it's time to go courting for themselves. Howard Keel, Jane Powell, Russ Tamblyn. D: Stanley Donen. C 102m. LBX CC DVS
The barn dance--'nuff said.
11:00 PM The Band Wagon (1953) A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star's comeback vehicle into an artsy flop. Fred Astaire, Jack Buchanan, Cyd Charisse. D: Vincente Minnelli. C 112m. CC
1:00 AM Silk Stockings (1957) A strait-laced Soviet agent is seduced by Paris and a high-stepping film producer. Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige. D: Rouben Mamoulian. C 118m. LBX CC
Fun later-era Astaire movies.
The barn dance--'nuff said.
Word.
Silk Stockings is on my all-time top ten musical list.
Silk Stockings is on my all-time top ten musical list.
Isn't that a musical version of Ninotchka?
I just watched Waking Life, which is not a movie to watch while tired. Actually, I should really stop watching movies when I'm tired and sleep-deprived. I always end up nodding off in the middle, regardless.
For those who haven't heard of it, it's a Richard Linklater movie about a guy stuck in a lucid dream. He filmed it on DV and edited it as a live-action movie...and then had animators draw all over it. The result is like watching paintings come alive.
The movie basically consists of a lot of "now, like my innocence, pie gone" talk about life and dreams and humanity and existence, and I think it might be a really interesting movie to watch with my full attention, because despite it all seeming dangerously close to pretentiousness, there was also some intriguing philosophy in there. It's very much a thinking person's movie.
And the animation really elevates it to another level. The DVD has a twelve-minute montage of scenes from the movie as they were filmed originally, and it looks like a low-budget student film. The animation makes everything look much more like the dreamworld it's supposed to be.
We did lots of musicals in high school drama. I was in the Chorus for "Brigadoon" and "Oklahoma." They were going to give me a solo, but the section required four voices able to reach the back row (late 70s, small-town high schools didn't have fancy sound systems) and I had one of the few that wasn't already in a featured part. So I got to carry the group.
I was a Nun in The Sound of Music, and in the pit band for Trial by Jury and Annie Get Your Gun and Li'l Abner.
Love Me Tonight is wonderful, though The Love Parade is better Chevalier-MacDonald.
5:00 PM That's Entertainment! (1974)
I want to see this to see if it holds up. I saw it in the theater when it originally came out and was enchanted. But '74 was the pre-video, pre-cable days, when small-town types didn't get the chance to see the oldies very often.
in the pit band for Trial by Jury
G & S! Woo!