Exercise with Roz

"Up Over, Up Down, Up and Stretch, Up Together, Up Down..."


Exercise is good for you. So why do some of us (ok, me) hate it so...? "No more 'up', this has got me down"

Don't you wish old photos came with audio tracks?

Or that you could time travel into the room as they were being taken.

[photo src]

And if either of those things were possible, wouldn't you grab every Old Hollywood candid you could find in order to listen in or join the party? What exactly would Rosalind Russell, Greer Garson and Merle Oberon chat about anyway? Roz only cares about the camera but who are Greer and Merle all smiles about?

I mean just fantasize for a moment about a night at ... on the bar with Marlene Dietrich and Claudette Colbert.

[photo src]

How much would you have to drink to not be starstruck and join right in. Too much. Too much I say. The mind clouds. The hangover would be epic.

Here's a photo I've cherished my whole life from an old out of print Natalie Wood book from the 80s. It's Dennis Hopper and Wood discussing acting styles as they screen A Streetcar Named Desire in the 50s. (Vivien Leigh was Natalie's favorite actress)


Imagine how many times "Method" and "Actor's Studio" were invoked in that conversation. Imagine the names that were casually dropped.

Blog challenge!
If you have a blog, post a hollywood candid or three you'd most like to hear the accompanying audio track to. I'll link up right here. Spread the namedropping / eavesdropping love.

first responders
Opportunistic Cinephile imagines that Bette Davis cares
Film Awards Watch goes on set with Jane Fonda and to theater with Orson Welles
A Blogwork Orange wonders if Liza Minelli was faking her laughter. Robert DeNiro can be so touchy. 'You talkin' to him?'
My New Plaid Pants gets kinky with Hitchcock and Kim Novak. Throw in Brando and Dean while you're at it.
Extra Criticum has a laugh with Monty & Liz. (sigh... How much do I love these two together? As much as kittens chasing their tails. Yes, that much)
Wipe That Smirk... attack of the princesses: Grace & Audrey
got here as soon as they could
Situated Laundry chooses Bette Davis and Joseph Cotton on the set of Beyond the Forest (I haven't seen this movie, have you?)
Culture Kid doesn't think Judy G needs that much cake. And what the hell are Queen Latifah and Meryl Streep doing?
The Silver Screening Room goes for Peter O'Toole and the "ladies", two Dames and confessions of a shopaholic?
Oscarvations wonders if DW Griffith was an the alpha male of United Artists? (I'm guessing it was Mary Pickford)
backup has arrived
StinkyLulu Sophia, Sal Mineo and Mae West. Oh my.
Stale Popcorn goes mental with Liza and Liz. Ha!
Reel Artsy Dorothy Dandridge wonders...

20:07 (Goodbye to Blueberry Pie)

Each morning a screenshot from the 20th minute and 7th second of a movie


"What are you, a crazy woman?"
*

20:07 ("Mrs. Stephen Haines")

Each morning a screenshot from the 20th minute and 7th second of a movie


The Roz: Stephen's a very attractive man, you know?
The First Lady of MGM: Isn't he? I can't imagine why he hasn't deserted me for some glamour girl long ago.

I've written about The Women before -- I love this flick. For those of you who haven't seen it in all its catty glory, enjoy this still. Ponder for a moment the 1939 fashion wackiness that led to Rosalind Russell's "eye" dress. Yes, those are eyes and eyebrows directly above her breasts.

20:07 (They'll Always Be Bosom Buddies)

Each morning a screen shot from the 20th minute and 7th second of a movie and the dialogue. (thanks to Nick for providing this week's entries while I'm at the festival)



Vera: Why'd that Oriental sandman let me sleep in my best Chanel?
Auntie Mame: He tried to get it off you but you bit him.

Friends of the Experience ~Finale

April will be action packed: Oscar predix, several reviews requested during this fundraiser, and the return of one popular series & two well received projects that have prompted many of you to say "hey, what happened to...?" But until then --wrapping up March!

The fundraiser is over. The goal achieved!

Today we'll return you to the originally scheduled programming. You opened your pocketbooks and hearts --sweet e-mails, even from those who couldn't contribute. I appreciate the love --and a great sum of $2140 was earned. This helps keep the roof over my head as I continue the journey transitioning out of corporate America and into freelance America. I have to flit back and forth between these worlds like most people pursuing creative careers do. But all the time I feel more like an actual writer which is fulfilling. Thank you for your part in that: the support, being part of a great community of movie lovers, the interesting suggestions, comments, and conversations.

Here is the final installment of the "friends of the experience" for the fundraiser. I'd also like to give one huge round of applause to all of the anonymous donors.

Aaron runs the best-titled live journal on the planet Sarcasm with Light Cream Sauce (hee) and he reads TFE daily but I don't think I've ever mentioned his favorite film

Paddy Chayefsky's Network. I've seen it more times than I can count. I think it's about near perfect. The dialogue sparkles like something out of William Congreve and the performances are incendiary. I know that having this as my favorite is a bit cliché, but I can't help it. Network's complicated blend of social commentary, sarcasm and unspoken pain gets me every single time.

I have seen Network only once and long ago. But someone else requested it for a review with their donation so I'll be going there soon.

Kat from Australia has been reading since she chanced upon the site looking for Moulin Rouge! information. She talked a little Oscar before getting to her favorite movie and brought up this interesting note about the year's movie slate. Focus Features has wayyy too many actresses to push this year. Think on it: Evening, Atonement, Reservation Road, Eastern Promises. How will they decide who to push? Good point Kat. Should be interesting. Anyway, she writes

My favourite film (or one of) is His Girl Friday. Not only does it contain the most hilarious rapid-fire non-stop dialogue I've ever heard on screen, its also really romantic. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell made an incredible team.

I'm not as crazy as the rest of the movie loving universe about that one. I'm really not sure what the disconnect is because I love Roz, love Grant, love screwball comedy (now that the musical is back, it's the genre that I most miss) and love rat-a-tat-tat comic pacing. If I had my way ALL modern comedies would speed up. Perhaps I should give it another go soon?

Joel in Australia is studying film and television at university. His three favorite films are Se7en, Magnolia and Heathers. Light stuff there Joel ;) Like many readers he started reading initially due to Oscar coverage but includes this cute switcheroo note

To be honest, i was actually more excited about your film bitch nominations that the oscar nominations! Aside from my the films I mentioned, I'm a big fan of Chistopher Guest's movies, and love trashy 'so-bad-they're-good' films like Showgirls .

Anyway, look forward to more film experience and 2007s film bitch awards!

As am I. I think I've now sufficiently recovered from last year's Oscars to really dive into 2007 now. Plus, I will be posting some retro thoughts on Se7en soon as well.

Garen is currently at university in Boston. He sometimes reviews operas and writes

Whenever I see a movie I find myself asking, "What would Nathaniel think?" (WWNT?)
My mainstream fave film is Mary Poppins. I loved the film and Julie Andrews as a child. I randomly saw it again in college and now consider MP to be an absurdist masterpiece. I love the little tangents such as Admiral Boom and larger ones such as "Step In Time" that seem to be haphazardly inserted to deviate from the plot. It's so strange, and so complex, and I find something new to overanalyze every time I watch it.

Outside the mainstream, Joseph Losey's Don Giovanni is without contest my favorite film. Most people regard Zeffirelli's La Traviata as the gold standard of opera films, and it is amazing, but Losey's is so underseen and just as fantastic, if not more. Diva lovers of the world are missing out if they haven't seen Kiri Te Kanawa and Edda Moser rip Ruggero Raimondi's Don G. to shreds in this film.

Various smart critical types tell me that Mary Poppins is a terrible film --but I'm probably with Garen on this one. As for opera. The only opera film I've seen is La Traviata which I saw at the Maple Theater in Michigan --the first arthouse I frequented regularly. But this week I went to Madame Butterfly at City Opera --part of my slow efforts to get better versed in cultural canons (I've seen only four operas *hides in shame*) The second act --wow.

David from Connecticut says he's seen too many movies in his lifetime to name a favorite. But he gives it a shot anyway

...a dozen films in no particular order that I might show as a mini-festival at jewel-box movie theater (a place like the Paris in New York). Several of these films deal with romantic relationships and not necessarily happy ones:The Double Life of Veronique, Two for the Road, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Children of Paradise, Two English Girls, Maurice, The Seven Samurai, Local Hero, Sense and Sensibility, The Man Who Would Be King, Petulia, and Vincent, Francois, Paul and the Others (a forgotten gem by Claude Sautet).Bonus Costume Drama Double Bill: Far from the Madding Crowd and Topsy-Turvy

I would be buying tickets to that mini-festival so fast, wouldn't you? Plus anybody who programs a bonus 'costume double' is...well... awesome.

John from Minnesota, who writes about politics on his blog has enthusiastic words 'bout the site and happens to adore three actresses which get a lot of play here: Streep, Kate, and The Bening. He writes

My favorite movie is Casablanca, but that's everybody's favorite. If I had to select one to highlight, it would be the pop culture punching bag The English Patient. Thanks to its ubiquity with Oscar and the Seinfeld episode, people seem to have forgotten that behind its exquisite desert landscapes and haunting score is a love story that's twisty, heartbreaking, and terribly effective. Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, and Kristin Scott Thomas are possibly the most beautiful trio of paramours I've ever seen committed to celluloid, and for me, at least, this is one of those rare times where Oscar was right in jumping on the band wagon (unlike say, 1988, 1994, 2001, well, you know)

I do know. I wasn't part of the Patient bandwagon myself though I'm no hater either. I was pulling for Fargo big time --one of the many futile hopes I've had on Oscar night.

THANKS AGAIN TO EVERYONE! I'm glad the film experience means something to you.

Questions for Comment
What would you program for a mini film festival?
Mary Poppins: Absurdist? Or just absurd?
My His Girl Friday disconnect --ever experienced that? What movie does everyone love that you just can't get attached to?

#97 The Women

"Movies I Think About When I Think About the Movies"

If you ask any group of film buffs to name Hollywood's pinnacle year --it's "best year ever"-- chances are that "1939" will be uttered quickly and then argued about. That was the year that brought us Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Ninotchka and at least a dozen other extremely beloved films. Also strutting around in theaters that year was a bitchy but endearing comedy/melodrama mix. The film's impressive star line up was headlined by Norma Shearer as Mrs Stephen Haines. She was orbited by stars of similar (or then just-lesser) stature: Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard and Joan Fontaine among them. Even with the mega-wattage and box office pull of the stars The Women bore the sexist, reductive tagline:

“It’s all about men!”

Not that it isn't about men, I must quickly add. Or at least women's ideas about the men in their lives. The drama and comedy in The Women comes from the way the gathered actresses fight over men, adore men, adjust themselves for men, connect themselves to men and sabotage each other --presumably also for men. What? You thought with Roz Russell and bitchtastic Joan Crawford in the mix that this wouldn't be catty?

Continue reading... for more on this starry 30s comedy.

Tags: movies, cinema, The Women, comedy women, film, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer,MGM

Lois Lane. Lost in Translation

Though I enjoyed Superman Returns (and hopefully there'll be a review to come) I think one of its principal deficiencies is in its reimagining of Lois Lane. Otherwise in this film you'll find an unmistakable reverence for previous incarnations of its characters, particularly the Man of Steel himself. Superman has been away five years according to the plot but he's barely changed at all. He's still old-fashioned, heroic, and pure of heart. Bryan Singer and Co. weren't trying to update him for what's fashionable for heroes today: no sudden dark side emerges a la popular comic-to-movie heroes like Batman and Wolverine. So why then the new and quite changed Lois?


In the drawing above from an early Superman comicbook you might notice that Lois resembles a certain queen of screwball. She's like a 2D Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. The great thing about Lois Lane was that she was in a very modern sense, Superman's equal. (Even a previous tv version was wise to this calling the series "Lois & Clark") Or, more specifically, and to great comic effect: she absolutely believed that she was. One of her most endearing traits is that though she is narratively always the classic "damsel in distress", it's the last persona she'd ever picture for herself.

Which is why it's so hilarious and perfect in the first couple of Supermans that Margot Kidder is gritty, odd, gutsy and weirdly sexy/disarming. Take the classic oft-quoted exchange when Superman catches Lois falling from a building:

Superman: "I've got you."
Lois: "You've got me. Who's got you?"

That is Lois Lane. A little funny. A little too abrasive. A little blind to her own vulnerabilities. And this is why Parker Posey, stuck cracking us up in the background as Lex's girl, should have been cast in the role. It's the first thing my friend and I said to each other when we were exiting the theater. 'Why wasn't Parker Lois instead?' In the new film the feisty Lois gets shut up tight inside of Kate Bosworth's soft, lovely, brokenhearted damsel in distress. Lois is still the teensiest bit mouthy but she's far more generically 'the girl who is waiting for her man to save her.' The way I see it, the real Superman would never have been able to pick her out of a crowd.

[For more discussion of this same issue, there's a good conversation going on over @ Cinemarati. -ed]

tags: Kate Bosworth, movies, cinema, comic books, Bryan Singer, Parker Posey, Superman, films, Superman Returns

The Women (1939)

The Women was not my first choice for this edition of Classic Movie of the Week, but after the wrist slashing / bottle o’ pills swallowing pathos of last week’s entry... I figured “geez, lighten up Nathaniel” So instead I’ve opted for a gem from what many consider to be the pinnacle year of Hollywood, 1939. That was the year that brought us Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Ninotchka and at least a dozen other extremely beloved films. Also strutting around in theaters that year was this bitchy but endearing comedy/melodrama mix. The film's impressive line up was headlined by Norma Shearer as Mrs Stephen Haines. She was orbited by stars of similar (or then just-lesser) stature: Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Paulette Godard, and Joan Fontaine among them. Even with the mega-wattage and box office pull delivered onscreen the film bore the sexist and reductive tagline: “It’s all about men!”

Not that it isn't about men, I must quickly add. Or at least women's ideas about the men in their lives. The film's drama and comedy comes from the way women fight over men, adore men, adjust themselves for men, connect themselves to men, and sabotage each other. What? You thought with Russell and Crawford in the mix that this wouldn't be catty? The film is often so feline that I remain surprised that director George Cukor opts to open on dogs barking rather than cats fighting as the first reel unspools. For those hoping for enlightened gender roles, this is not the film. Alas, not all the ideas promoted in the film about the way marriages crumble or survive are so dusty. Though bits of it may have aged unflatteringly, the movie has a sharp wit [why are 30s and 40s movies so funny and today's comedies so strained?] and though it's often cacophonous with the sounds of children, pets, and gossiping groups, a good sense of balance. Cukor knows when to shut off the noise and allow Norma Shearer's strong and dignified performance to hold the chaotic processions together. Improbably, she even seems like an admirable pillar of feminine strength when she's learning to get catty. "Jungle Red!"



Despite regular Oscar love for 'The First Lady of MGM' (Norma Shearer had 5 Oscar nominations and 1 win behind her when this film premiered) AMPAS voters dismissed The Women with nary a nomination. Not even for the celebrated stars empathetic turn as the wronged housewife. Perhaps it was too fluffy? Nevertheless it remains a jolly good, surprisingly serious time at the movies. Whether you're after a witty comedy, old Hollywood eye-candy, or memorable performances, the film delivers. The jokes are funny, the sets and parade of outfits are glamourous or amusingly outre (you have to see Rosalind Russell's "eye" dress to believe it), and the gaggle of movie stars are a collective hoot.

Hollywood, always seemingly bereft of new ideas, have been planning a remake forever. The latest attempt has Diane English (TV’s Murphy Brown) at the helm and is currently set to star Annette Bening, Meg Ryan, Uma Thurman, Sandra Bullock, and Ashley Judd. But we’ve been here before with other gltizy line-ups. I’ll believe it when filming commences. With enough lawyers, agent, and star cooperation they may eventually be able to arrive at a start date and produce a film that matches the glamourous star wattage from the 1930s. But they’ll be hard pressed to match the fun of the original film itself.

Read more about The Women?
Norma Shearer: First Lady of MGM
Jon Danzinger Review (funny bit on the film as 'millinery porn')
The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia