I can't guarantee the same results at home (different players/timing) I use a VLC
~Did you work hard in school today? What did you study?
~Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.
~How depressing. What else?
~English.
~English... I suppose we must. They refuse to learn French.
An amusing exchange to be fair but contrary to popular belief there are musicals that Nathaniel does not enjoy. Next.
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18 comments:
A topaz in my collection???!!!
well...maybe it's my mood, but i've been invited to a screening wednesday night for "Lions for Lambs"....redford and cruise are supposed to be there. why am i not excited - im thinking of not going. should you talk me out of it?
This was one of my favorite films when I was a teenager - I couldn't tell you why, as it's been too many years since I've seen it. (And hence am not in the position to write the definite defense of it - but someone here will...right?) But perhaps it's time to revisit it, at any rate.
What I'd like to know is WHY you don't like it, Nat - assuming such things can be put into words. Which it isn't always possible, I know.
RedSatinDoll
Jimmy....don't go!! See a good movie instead.
Yeah, this movie is just ok. Part of it is that I've never been a fan of Leslie Caron.
This was my favorite musical when I didn't think I liked musicals. Now that I know I like musicals, I'm afraid to revisit it, and from what you and Nick have said, maybe I should just leave it as a fond childhood memory.
I agree. What a dud. I think it's the only Vincente Minnelli film I don't like.
Not a fan, either. Looks great. Hermione Gingold is funny. But even before I knew it was Lerner & Loewe offering a decoy till their contracts allowed a film of My Fair Lady, it already felt like a wan substitute for something better. And I'm not a Caron fan, either. Plus, I remember it being so static; even the merriment of "The Night They Invented Champagne" felt a little forced and heavy.
P.S. I did, however, hear a funny story from a friend's parents last week that their neighbor in Wisconsin went to see this back when it was out and came back really angry. He had thought it was a war movie called "G.I. G.I." I'm guessing he noted the mistake pretty quickly.
my father, somewhat clueless, back in the 80's....came out of "sophie's choice" not thinking it was funny and said dustin hoffman (dressed up like a woman) wasn't even in it. he had wanted to see "tootsie"....got the names mixed up when he bought his ticket.
Interesting? Can we get a few other names of musicals that Nathaniel doesn't like? Maybe a worst of top ten list for this upcoming Tuesday?
- Adam
Nick: that little anecdote just made my day, thank you.
I rented this recently. Not a good one I must say. the "God Bless Little Girls" number creeped me out, something Kevin Bacon's character would have sang in "The Woodsman".
Must be too cynical or something.
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls"....i think it would be kind of cool to have Louis Jordan & Leslie Caron come on as oscar presenters in 2008. "Gigi" is 1958 best pic - 50 years old...I would assume they are the oldest living co-stars of a best picture. I get tired of seeing the likes of Jennifer Garner, John Travolta doing the presenting year after year.
I have never made it all the way through Gigi, that's how much I hate it.
I have seen it five times by now. It is one of the last MGM musicals. The cast was excellent. The acting had a lot of charm and "savoir faire." Although Leslie Caron's singing was half-dubbing by Betty Wand, her performance is very complete. She is abosulutely lovely. Louis Jourdan was a pure gentlemen. People knew how to feel in love not a very long time ago. Romace was true love in movies. That is part of the magic of the classics, its romanticism. Maurice Chevalier, Hermione Gingold, Isabel Jeans and Eva Gabor also add a characteristic personality to this film, which had thousand of the greatest movie artists of every time, like director Vincente Minnelli and producer Arthur Freed. A decade later after this movie, the Old Hollywood would sing its swan song! Thank Heaven for Those Little Things called DVDs!
"They refuse to learn French" how sadly true and still accurate for today! :p
*Cough* all right, I will join the fray. I think Gigi is one of the most visually sumptuous movies MGM ever made, which must surely mean it's one of the most sumptuous ever. I think you have to look at the film as a valentine to Paris, more than anything, which is why Minnelli said he wanted to make it in the first place. On a broader level it's a celebration of all things French, made in a way that possibly only Francophile Americans could. The way Louis Jourdan argues with himself, taking first one position, then the other, was conceived by Alan Lerner as a very French way of making the rather bored and anemic Gaston more active and interesting. While Gigi was filming in Paris, Janet Flanner wrote a piece for the New Yorker describing the extraordinary variety of women Minnelli had assembled for various sequences -- the profiles, the figures, the range of ages, all in Cecil Beaton's gorgeous costumes. I get a thrill each time I see Gigi; the fountain in the Place de la Concorde at night, Gaston's family mansion (actually the Musée Jacquemart-André), everything about it thrills this Paris fan to the core. And the characters and themes are, I think, essentially faithful to Colette and her wry, understanding view of the ways that humans pair off.
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