I keep watching things that get dismissed as 'fake' and 'artificial' in itself seems to be a bad word, as does comedy itself some days.
I understand being jumpy about something like that. My point about the Technicolor musicals, which may not have been clear, is that I don't think "artifice" is inherently a bad thing for Barrios—his complaint about An American in Paris is that (except for the Toulouse-Lautrec jockey moment, apparently) it doesn't go far enough over the top of which Vincente Minnelli was capable, as anyone who has ever seen The Pirate (1948) can attest. But I don't think he's using the word as a critique of the production values of the Day/Hudson sex comedies so much as he's indicting the attitudes behind them. I'm fine with that. The Production Code is the kind of fakery I mind.
But I don't know the films - I'm sure he has a very good point!
I've seen Lover Come Back (1961) and I wouldn't have called it the worst thing ever, but I remember almost nothing of the A-plot, having been distracted by the sight of a formerly repressed, magnificently hammered Tony Randall solemnly declaring himself the King of the Elevator. Barrios doesn't hate it as much as Pillow Talk (1959), but he does point out a mean-spirited running joke with a lavender-coded art director; he makes Pillow Talk and its close relative That Touch of Mink (1962) sound clobberingly heteronormative and queer-panicky and not at all out of the ordinary for the time, which is the depressing if believable part. The good news is that forty years later we got Down with Love (2003), a gloriously implausible pastiche-homage-subversion of that whole genre of comedy which treasures all the best bits and doesn't bother with the hurtful ones. If you want artifice as celebration, that film does it to the nines.
Even I have somehow watched enough US TV to recognise him, so that is quite impressive!
My primary takeaway from the few NCIS episodes I've watched was David McCallum.
no subject
I understand being jumpy about something like that. My point about the Technicolor musicals, which may not have been clear, is that I don't think "artifice" is inherently a bad thing for Barrios—his complaint about An American in Paris is that (except for the Toulouse-Lautrec jockey moment, apparently) it doesn't go far enough over the top of which Vincente Minnelli was capable, as anyone who has ever seen The Pirate (1948) can attest. But I don't think he's using the word as a critique of the production values of the Day/Hudson sex comedies so much as he's indicting the attitudes behind them. I'm fine with that. The Production Code is the kind of fakery I mind.
But I don't know the films - I'm sure he has a very good point!
I've seen Lover Come Back (1961) and I wouldn't have called it the worst thing ever, but I remember almost nothing of the A-plot, having been distracted by the sight of a formerly repressed, magnificently hammered Tony Randall solemnly declaring himself the King of the Elevator. Barrios doesn't hate it as much as Pillow Talk (1959), but he does point out a mean-spirited running joke with a lavender-coded art director; he makes Pillow Talk and its close relative That Touch of Mink (1962) sound clobberingly heteronormative and queer-panicky and not at all out of the ordinary for the time, which is the depressing if believable part. The good news is that forty years later we got Down with Love (2003), a gloriously implausible pastiche-homage-subversion of that whole genre of comedy which treasures all the best bits and doesn't bother with the hurtful ones. If you want artifice as celebration, that film does it to the nines.
Even I have somehow watched enough US TV to recognise him, so that is quite impressive!
My primary takeaway from the few NCIS episodes I've watched was David McCallum.
(I really don't watch a lot of TV.)