'Him'
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.
JZ is crazy about Lew Ayers in Holiday.
Holy shit, I'm watching TCM and they're showing the trailer for The Lady Eve right now. It is, of course, fucking great.
In The Lady Eve I love how Fonda seems like he's from an entirely different movie. He just plays it so incredibly straight and gets bounced around to great comic effect.
Who couldn't like it? It's got Barbara Stanwyck in a tiara!
I love My Man Godfrey, but she is SO not good enough for him.
I'm still kind of hot for the bitchy, older brunette sister.
Now is when I admit to the highly unpopular, I don't much like Katherine Hepburn.
I think much of why I don't love TLE or BUB is that the guys don't work in those roles for me (as much as I love both Grant and Fonda in almost anything else).
I think I prefer later Kate Hepburn over her earliest work. Except for Stage Door--she was terrific in that. But her best performance was in Lion in Winter.
Now is when I admit to the highly unpopular, I don't much like Katherine Hepburn.
I like Kate a lot, but I love Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Arthur and Irene Dunne.
Also, I have to once again pimp The Vivacious Lady with Ginger Rogers. Best Slap Fight Ever.
JZ is crazy about Lew Ayers in Holiday.
Poor sad drunk Neddie. He breaks my heart. Linda got out, Julia's got her own brand of cold resilience, but you just know that family would completely destroy Ned. Poor puppy.
One of my favourite screwball comedies I haven't seen mentioned yet: The More the Merrier. Jean Arthur! Joel McCrea! Charles Coburn! "You've been shushing me for 22 months now. You've shushed your last shush!"
Oh no! Tim Burton's Secret Formula is horribly accurate.
I have a vague memory of being told I'd like Myrna Loy movies. Can't remember if that was here or not. Am not sure if I've seen anythign with her. Off to Netflix.
Vonnie, it was Zacharek - and her review is actually top of the "External Reviews" list on IMDB; Holiday was languishing for years with two sad links consisting of old TV Guide "Pretty good for an old movie, or anyhow better than the other version from a couple years earlier" blurbs, and when I found Zacharek's gorgeous essay I started poking the Contact Us email addresses on IMDB pleading with them for someone please, please to read her essay and then to link it. I never heard back from them, but it went up a week or two after my plea. So, I preen just a bit.
Oh, Neddie. Poor lamb. God knows Hepburn could be cringingly stagey and stilted, but she was utterly at her best, most emotionally naked and tender, in that quiet drunken New Year's Eve conversation with Ayres.