Rinaldo

I don't mean to spoil anyone else's fun, so I'll whisper this and then shut up (as far as this thread goes): I don't really think these are references as much as coincidences, or devices that a lot of different stories would need to use, with no further justification needed. I mean, if anyone would need a signal with an assistant to get her out of unwanted conversations, it would be an elected official at a reception. OK, I'll move on. :)

Laura Benanti has really become a skillful actress, convincing in both light comedy and this sort of ominous drama. Plus, she's kept her beautiful soprano voice in good shape, as I saw in NYC just a few weeks ago: And then when she's just being herself, as in the following offhand summing up of this season's Broadway musicals, she's an engaging self-deprecating goofball.

Interesting thought! And I'll name another, who maybe wasn't movie-star material but was a fascinating talent whom I'd have liked to see given the spotlight: Tommy Rall. He brings new meaning to "triple threat": He had an early start in ballet, and his onscreen dancing had a balletic quality though he could do other things as well. He of course was part of MGM's stable of dancer-boy juveniles (we get all three of them in Kiss Me, Kate). When that sort of work dried up, he worked onstage, and was valued as a singer as much or more than for dancing: Juno, Milk and Honey, Cry for Us All. Then he started appearing in opera, and in leading tenor roles: Painter in Lulu, Don José in Carmen, Cavaradossi in Tosca, the juggler in Massenet's opera. He would still turn up once a decade in a movie bit: Fanny Brice's joke ballet parter, hoofing alongside Steve Martin in Pennies from Heaven. And he's still alive, in LA. He deserves an hourlong TCM retrospective, at least.

This is such an individual thing for each of us, isn't it? I have trouble watching I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners now, even though I (no doubt conditioned by my parents' enjoyment) loved them as a kid. Now they just seem kind of endless and unfunny -- and the occasional mention of hitting, even though I don't necessarily take it as solemn evidence of true spousal abuse, doesn't add to the good-times feeling. But clothes and hairstyles don't bother me or make a show unwatchable. I always figure it was fashionable once, it may be again, and our styles will look ridiculous someday too. So it's just part of the landscape for me. But older medical and police shows like Emergency or Adam-12 just seem so simple-minded now that complexity has been introduced to the genres.

Speaking of Betty Hutton....

My choices aren't going to be original. Heroes, yes. The first season hit my viewing bullseye again and again. Then the second season started and I found myself less absorbed and vaguely irritated (the Lady with the Magic Bleeding Eyes didn't help), and gave up by the end of that year. Lost had me through most of the first season too. I got bored almost as soon as season 2 started, stopped watching for 2 years, then heard they had an end date and that season 4 had picked up, and I returned to enjoy that and season 5 very much. Then they threw away my goodwill as the end approached, despite all the warning they'd had to prepare it. Left me with a bad taste in the end. How I Met Your Mother. Season 2 was as brilliant as any sitcom season I've seen. It kept me watching through still-good S3 and 4, and then I was aware of a dip but I attributed it to having to stretch out a saga that would ideally have been wrapped up in 3 or 4 years. So I stuck it out to the end, despite ever-fewer rewards, and as we neared the end I figured that the brilliant writing would return now that they knew exactly how far we were from the finish line. Especially as the mother had been perfectly cast, I figured that we'd get one great script after another in the final season. But it remained a chore that I did only to see it through to the end. Which they fucked up as royally as I've ever seen. And so it is likely to head my list permanently.

I remember seeing The Glass Slipper years ago and liking the prettiness of it, but not remembering much about it beyond that. So it didn't make much impression on me. I do like to see different versions of the Cinderella story, though. Ever After was an enjoyable, quite different one, with one of Drew Barrymore's best performances. Hoping this isn't veering too far off topic -- I don't think these appear on TCM but the Cinderella discussion most intelligibly would stay here -- the very first of the 3 TV productions of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Cinderella (the kinescope with Julie Andrews) is by far the best in my opinion -- it's the funniest as well as the most heartfelt. aradia22 (or anyone), how do you feel about the 1970s musical film, The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella? It's overextended, I guess, and has a few songs too many, but I have a soft spot for it. I love the musical arrangements, the filming around real castles, Annette Crosbie as the fairy godmother, Margaret Lockwood as a delicious wicked stepmother, Gemma Craven as Cindy, Edith Evans in her very last performance as the dowager queen, and Richard Chamberlain in one of his most enjoyable performances as the prince.

I wouldn't say the book falls apart but it does start

I always love seeing Laura Benanti on my TV screen. Even when she's being a sick twisted bitch.

I might disagree on this or that point, aradia22, but that's not important -- I do feel as you do that this is not one of the really great Fred Astaire movie musicals. (And I'm devoted to him as to few others.) He and Garland, two of the greatest things that ever happened to musicals, are not really a great pairing. I know we only have it because Kelly broke his ankle (and we have other movies that prove the Kelly-Garland pairing worked nicely) and begged Fred to step in; but what's here is here. It's not one of the real Fred debacles like Yolanda and the Thief or Let's Dance, but it just doesn't come to life as it ought. Partly, as you say, because the story logic hasn't really been worked out so that all the pieces fit. (A recurring problem in his 1940s movies -- he behaves like a jerk all the way through Holiday Inn and we're not supposed to notice.) There are at least some good Berlin songs, but I'll confess to some issues with staging, which may be purely my own. I dislike the sort of sooty-faced makeup that the two of them use for "A Couple of Swells" -- I just don't enjoy seeing it (my problem). And numbers that depend on technological trickery like "Steppin' Out with My Baby" leave me cold; I know it couldn't be happening like this in front of an audience, and Fred could create magic without such intervention. All this seems harsher than I mean. I still enjoy some of the movie, and there's always the unintentional entertainment of when they throw away the conventions of 1912 to make it look stylish or sexy according to 1948.

I'm Rinaldo. I heard the good word about The Wire while it was on the air but did watch it then -- partly because I just failed to co-ordinate with its scheduling, partly because I feared that it would be nothing but a depressing report on the state of our society today. I did try to watch one episode from, I think, the third season (which is of course exactly the wrong way to go about starting it). Finally in January 2013 I decided it was time I remedied the lack. I rented season one, one DVD at a time, through the mail, and by the end of that I knew that I needed to own the whole thing, and bought the complete set, finishing within the month. Otherwise, I've had a spotty history with cable drama series. I liked Oz (though the generous amounts of male nudity helped), somehow could never get interested in The Sopranos, failed to connect with Deadwood (there are only a very few Westerns ever made that don't bore me), liked Six Feet Under a lot on the whole, gave up Dexter after a season or so, and so it goes. But The Wire remains ever absorbing and entertaining to me.

I hadn't seen this myself, so I looked around and found the spot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_hTKMkPEPM I wouldn't have recognized her either (I know that Penelope Cruz is big in movies now, I saw her win an Academy Award, but I'm not sure I've actually seen her in a movie), but from the setup it looks as if this is a standard press junket situation: she's touring to do PR for whatever, she's in her hotel suite in the current city, and reporters have gathered in the waiting room to wait their turns to interview her. To keep things moving along, the press rep limits each reporter to three questions. And as in traditional stories of being granted three wishes, the reporter we see wastes his three -- on asking about coffee.

Wow, I feel so... innocent. And I was old and experienced enough at the time that I should have caught more. My memorable moments were more related to what the lighting did for the men's speedos as they were standing around waiting (and those sequences are exactly what's being eliminated in the current abridgements).

I saw it as Diane trying to retrieve a verbal misstep and being, if anything, as gracious as possible under the circumstances. Haven't most of us used some standard expression and then in the next moment mortifyingly realized it could apply literally to someone present, and wished we could un-say it? There was really no good way out of this. What she said was the short version of something like "When I said 'mistress,' I truly was not thinking about your relationship with Will, which we never acknowledge and I would never want to, except I now have to, in order to clarify that I didn't." And Alicia seemed to get it and accept it.

That made me curious, so I searched out the commercial. I don't mean to be argumentative -- we all have our personal impressions -- but I don't see where embarrassment comes into it. It looked like a pretty typical cruise ad to me. I didn't find Ben especially attractive in that shot, but I didn't get the impression that I was supposed to -- he just seemed like a regular person enjoying the breeze on deck. The idea seemed to be that we could all have fun and be informal together. Which may not be how it really is, but again it seems pretty standard advertising to me.

Mary (Richards, that is) had a bit of a running gag throughout the series that the thought of Robert Redford made her weak at the knees. But the special guest, whose presence would have redeemed her previous dreadful parties if only the lights hadn't gone out, was definitely Johnny Carson. (I couldn't find a YouTube clip, but here's the IMDb episode writeup.)

It's not a matter of "cheap" -- licensing a well-known song for an ad campaign is far more expensive. But it's safer for some ad exec: a new composition may or may not catch on, but an existing song has fans already. Even if it doesn't work out in the new context, the exec can still cover his ass with "it's not my fault, I chose a proven song." So, more than cheap, they're scared to be original.

I'm prepared to be surprised/contradicted by the actual film in this respect, but I have assumed from the start that the movie will need to use a lot of voiceovers. (Which is fine by me.)

Unless I'm remembering a different episode, wasn't that Johnny Carson?

I think of this series as having a very evenly balanced ensemble cast, but if it has a most valuable player, it's not even the amazing Andre Braugher, it's Terry Crews. Week after week, he has a moment that just takes off into the stratosphere. I smile broadly when I think of him: "No waiting, just toasting. I want you to toast, now I wanna eat toast, gimme some toast!" "Release your sweets!" "You're not gazelles!" "Stop eating crab wrong!"

The same person uploaded "Mountain Greenery" (one of Rodgers & Hart's first big hits!) and here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYNjsGKx7Vs

As the Petries and their friends were in show business, it was natural that they would perform for each other (though I'm still not sure how Richie got onto the Alan Brady Christmas show). Many viewers have enjoyed the episodes that feature such sequences, though not everyone does (and even I feel that they maybe returned to the well once or twice too often as the series was winding down). But when I watch the numbers now, I just grin with enjoyment at the chance to revisit that time. Someone has created a medley of several of Rob and Laura's song and dance scenes, to make the enjoyment easier. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n5zxDwmRlw

Laura was the country's introduction to Mary Tyler Moore, and much of the country fell in love with her. The flip, the Capri pants, the funny cry, and an unusually "real" way of talking and behaving compared to other TV housewives of the time. I can very well believe that after she did her first reading, Carl Reiner grabbed her and took her around to all the writers' offices, shouting "Listen to this girl! She says 'hello' like a person!"

I just got to introduce some undergraduates to Laura by showing them the first 5 minutes. They were intrigued enough to want to see it all on their own. The story doesn't really hold up to scrutiny all that well, but the story isn't what captures us anyway. The wonderfully theatrical, memorable lines that the actors deliver with such theatrical conviction, the world evoked by the designs, the aura of mystery and obsession, that unique musical score... And Gene Tierney is just about the most stunningly beautiful woman to appear on a Hollywood screen.

It wasn't just not knowing showbiz stuff (though she didn't), She couldn't put information together and reason her way to an answer. She had "Happy Days" and "Days of Our Lives," and yet, even after a hint and second chance, couldn't come up with "Happy Days of Our Lives." I know not everyone is equally adept at such stuff, but that degree of incomprehension baffles me; it's my own bias as avid gameplayer, I suppose.