Mal ,'Bushwhacked'
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.
Cool Andre factoid--when he was a little boy, he couldn't ride in the school bus due to his size, so he got a ride from the man in town with the biggest car. The man's name was Samuel Beckett (yes, that Beckett!).
I heard this story recently in a tv documentary on Beckett. The man was awe-inspiring.
I nabbed the '35 version of Midsummer Night's Dream off TCM.
It's fun! I don't know why people rag on it. Sure it's very 1935, but that's the charm. Maybe it's Mickey Rooney as Puck, but I like him fine.
Pre-pubescent Mickey Rooney could get away with the over-the-top acting style, but by the time he was in the Andy Rooney films, he had given himself over to it and it's almost painful to watch. (Seeing Boys Town, he almost ruins the film, even with Spencer Tracy to counter him.)
The most restrained I ever saw Rooney was in The Black Stallion.
The most restrained I ever saw Rooney was in The Black Stallion.
He was great in that role.
Hard to remember that he was Ava Gardner's first husband, huh?
I have no idea what she saw in him. IIRC, he was a drunk in the '40s, as well as a real arrogant ass.
I have no idea what she saw in him.
(sure to be a crosspost with Hec) Teh Sex. Arrogant and drinky, sure, but also apparently a great lay, and she credited him with showing her how much fun sex could be.
The Black Stallion is a movie that's really grown on me over the years. When it first came out, I loved the cinematography, but thought the story really lacked (I was a big fan of the book, and hated the fact that they made Alec some seven years younger than he was in the book). Now, I love the interaction between Kelly Reno and Mickey Rooney, as well as the wonderful performance by Teri Garr. Reno was really a good actor--too bad he only did the two Stallion films.
ETA: Seriously?!? He was that good in the sack?
Eight marriages.
Guess you had to be there. Can't picture it now...
That version of A Midsummer Night's Dream has one of my all-time favorite movie moments: Olivia de Havilland's Hermia going ballistic on Helena with the painted maypole speech and everyone else showing increasing fear as she got angrier and angrier.
Notice how no one was actually afraid of Anna Friel during her version of the tirade, even though a petulant toddler with a nerf bat could could snap Callista Flockhart in half?