1. Things did indeed go pear-shaped in the second act, but as a film A Star Is Born (1954) did not fall apart appallingly or otherwise; it remains on my shortlist and continued to manage the trick of sounding too melodramatic to live when synopsized and in action, well, not. The title is accurate, but it's also incomplete—though the story tracks the personal and professional chiasmus of Esther Blodgett and Norman Maine, it is as much or more a refutation of the oft-Hollywoodized myth that you can save someone if you just love them enough. I am not quite sure whether I can classify as feminist a film which ends with a woman introducing herself by her husband's name, but ( spoilers, if you care )I think there are arguments to be made. And on a structural level, I was simply delighted by one scene which did more with layers of sonic text and the interaction of artifice and technology than even Singin' in the Rain: it took Here's our own hands against our hearts and anticipated YouTube with it. I still haven't decided whether it's actually a movie musical. Judy Garland would have deserved her Oscar. It is incomprehensible to me that A Star Is Born wasn't nominated for Best Screenplay and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was.
2. Brick (2005) is a very fine, perfectly classic film noir that happens to take place at a high school; I watched it tonight with Viking Zen. The language in which all the characters converse, half adolescent clique-speak ("Who's she been eating with?"), half slang that went out with World War II ("What first, tip the bulls?"), made me very happy. Between this and Inception, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is someone I'll watch for.
3. Eric Portman originated the role of Andrew Crocker-Harris in Terence Rattigan's The Browning Version at the Phoenix Theatre in 1948. I really would like that time machine.
2. Brick (2005) is a very fine, perfectly classic film noir that happens to take place at a high school; I watched it tonight with Viking Zen. The language in which all the characters converse, half adolescent clique-speak ("Who's she been eating with?"), half slang that went out with World War II ("What first, tip the bulls?"), made me very happy. Between this and Inception, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is someone I'll watch for.
3. Eric Portman originated the role of Andrew Crocker-Harris in Terence Rattigan's The Browning Version at the Phoenix Theatre in 1948. I really would like that time machine.
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