I had a chance to think it over with all that humming and singing

[sovay]

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 since the entire point of the movie winds up being that it would be fucking stupid for Esther to sacrifice her life to her husband's—and doubly stupid for her to throw her career over for some Miss Havisham-like mourning after he's dead—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.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't realize there had been so many versions of this film. Have you seen the earlier one or the later one? Is this one considered definitive?

ETA (probably unnecessarily.... ) By "this film" I mean A Star Is Born

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking about Brick recently. I think I would like to see it again.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was

WHUT? WHY?!

[sovay]

WHUT?

Read it and facepalm.

I understand why James Mason lost to Brando in On the Waterfront, but unless Grace Kelly was some kind of miracle of Thespis, Garland was robbed.

WHY?!

Because this is the same bunch of people who'd nominate There's No Business Like Show Business for Best Story?

(Jigokumon won for Best Costume Design . . .)

[sovay]

I think I would like to see it again.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

[sovay]

Have you seen the earlier one or the later one? Is this one considered definitive?

I have not seen the non-musical original; all reports indicate that the Streisand remake is entirely unnecessary.

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend seeing Mysterious Skin if you're interested in Joseph Gordon-Levitt. For a film that is about hustling, child molestation, and UFO theories it is astonishingly poetic. I sat on the aisle of the theater, in case I felt the need to leave (due to upsetting subject matter) and was transfixed from the start. Gordon-Levitt was fantastic in it.

[sovay]

I highly recommend seeing Mysterious Skin if you're interested in Joseph Gordon-Levitt. For a film that is about hustling, child molestation, and UFO theories it is astonishingly poetic.

I will check it out. Thank you.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Seconded. It was quite good!

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I also highly recommend The Lookout, which along with Mysterious Skin and Brick made me realize that I have to keep an eye on the actor who I vaguely knew used to play the little kid on some show called 3rd Rock from the Sun.