caracas1914

The movies is in many ways "dated" but that doesn't necessarily mean it's all for the bad, more that it was emblematic of it's time. The paterfamilias role of Gene Hackman as the director I could have done without his homilies at the end, but dang, he's such a good actor. And Annette Bening just jumps off the screen. The best thing is the chemistry of Streep and McClaine, which is palpable, and I loved the bit where McClaine is making a "healthy" smoothie when she suddenly pours some gin/vodka to cap off the drink. Priceless. The one thing about Meryl Streep, I have to say her singing really bugs me in this film. I get that in her first number she's still a bit hesitant and cowed. However she doesn't inhabit physically when she sings , even in her last song in her triumphal moment, Streep's technically proficient but I never believed she was a singer. (And yes, I know she has a long musical background ).

The one thing I just didn't get, if Eudora had educated her daughter to standing on her own, being independent, why oh why did she throw her to the wolves by making her oldest stuffy son Mycroft her legal guardian.

I haven't read the books yet, but my the nagging question is why would Enola's mother have made I think NETFLIX purchased the rights to the completed film, it's not an original movie financed by them. From what I read, preCovid they were planning to release Enola in movie theatres. In any event, Cavill did "The Witcher" series for Netflix so he doesn't seem to have any qualms "doing TV". I mean when you have Chris Evans, Will Smith, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, etc, doing streaming TV movies/series, is there any actual difference anymore?

What hits me in the early scenes is the unvarnished NY city of the film, and the messy lives of his three grown children. Nothing catastrophic with the kids portrayed, just bruised adults navigating life. Loved that about the film.

Just wanted to point out an individual can be both an essentially nice person AND a smug asshole at times. People are complicated that way.

To show you how much Hollywood mangled storylines because of the Production Code, I didn't realize until years later that "My Foolish Heart" was based on one of my favorite short stories from JD Salinger, "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut". I guess the movie fills in the background story of an earlier affair referenced by an older and jaded female character later in life. The movie is so removed from Salinger's tone. Reportedly Salinger was so pissed on how they bastardized the story that he never gave permission for another adaptation of his work.

It's sooo personal. Disclosure: as filmmaking I think Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will is a masterwork of filming, the editing, the flow of the camerawork is mesmerizing, and yet it's also of a subject matter so repugnant and horrific that it's all so complicated as far as my POV. As someone said, it's related to how much we can personally compartmentalize.

I swear everytime I try not to redo the casting of a film in my head I get pulled back in. Armie Hammer? Ye Gods, Just no. Older, experienced and slightly bitter Englishman is not in his sweet spot to put it kindly. Clive Owen, Daniel Craig, Jude Law, Ewan McGregor, Colin Firth (if you CGI him younger) Tom Hiddleston, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Matthew McFayden, Thomas Hardy, James McAvoy, Matthew Goode, Michael FAssbender, Charle Hunman, the list is endless, or if you insist on someone younger, someone who can portray an inner brooding mysterious air, Richard Madden, even Dan Stevens. Have Chris Evans attempt an English accent. Vanilla Armie Hammer. No. Lily James is fine I guess, though I would love to see Carrey Mulligan have taken a stab as the female lead.

Love Norma, but damn she could have really bad “silent movie” hands throughout her talkies, straight out of a melodrama. Clutching them , covering her face in horror, stretched out in happiness, etc, etc. She was supposedly offered Norma Desmond in “ Sunset Boulevard”. While I can’t see her improving on Gloria Swanson , would have loved to see Norma’s take on Norma ( pun intended)

“Call me by your name”; the so called touching father/son scene near the end where Elio’s father lets him know he was aware of the sexual relationship going on between his son and the older graduate student Oliver. What set me off was that the father almost seemed to be living vicariously through his son’s affair, talking about how he never had the courage to do something similar in his youth and had regrets. So sending the guys off alone earlier in the films; It almost seemed to me his pimped out his son. I know we are supposed to think that the Professor was this ideal understanding father but it just gave me the creeps. Then claiming his wife/Elio’s mother had no idea what was going on. Imagine the Professor doing the same thing to his precocious 17 year old daughter with an older graduate student. It doesn’t help at all that Timothy Chalamet looked all of 13/14 and Armie Hammer looked in his 30’s.

Grace Kelly is viewed by many as the epitome of latter day Hitchcock Blonde goddess, but I actually find her the least appealing of his 50’s/ 60’s heroines. Kim Novak, Eve Marie Saint, Janet Leigh and even Tippi Hendren just seem so much more interesting and possessed of an inner life that seems entirely lacking in Kelly, for all her good bone structure.

This so much. I've always thought that the most stressful section of the competition are the technicals, and knowing now in hindsight that he's a nurse who's been in several war zones explains in part why David appeared almost unflappable to flipping out during pressure situations. I think he truly got that "it's only a cake".

"The people versus OJ " was probably the most coherent of the RM productions, but then again it wasn't actually scripted by RM. With Glee among the maddening things was the writers included RM seemingly responding to fans criticism or feedback, almost like they had no actually vision of the show on their own.

The rest of the tennis season may be the 5 weeks from the USO through the French Open. Doesn't look like beyond that it's more than wishful thinking to think ATP/WTA tennis is sustainable for the fall.

Well I think so far RM's Netflix output has been mixed to put it kindly , The Politician Seasons 1 & 2 and Hollywood certainly don't seem to have generated all that much buzz nor critical accolades. Glee certainly was different and unique when it premiered, and certainly the first season had a fascinating (if flawed) mix of black comedy, drama, satire and musical elements that's hard to compare to anything else. Having a teacher plant pot in a student's locker to blackmail him to join Glee club, or another student accuse the prior Glee teacher of inappropriate behavior (for comedy!) that was insanely subversive. Just my spin, but I suspected the producers never expected Glee to survive beyond it's initial run, much less become the runaway hit it became , so Glee had a crazy "let's throw everything out there" spirit that somehow worked. Alas it couldn't sustain that level of insanity. To paraphrase Casablanca: " We'll always have that first season."

Good friend lost her cousin in a tragic river accident, and as irrelevant as it may seem to others, it was a huge deal to find the body (after several months as it was pushed downstream) for that emotional closure. I will always remember when Naya had her "star" moment in Bad Romance. It made me stand up and notice the character Santana. She added so much to the character that wasn't on the scripted page, just touches that were Naya. Good actress and singer , and from all accounts, a loving and devoted mother. Just so depressing.

The kid is all of 4 years old, how well is he processing/recalling events when he could understandably be shell shocked.

DAMN. Always thought she was one of the most appealing of all the Glee performers. Too tragic with how they found her son.

Blacks protested vehemently when "The birth of a nation" came out in 1915, glorifying the KKK and when "Gone with the Wind" was released in 1939 with it's idealized antebellum South. The irony is that GWTW the movie actually toned down the far more racist aspects of Margaret Mitchell's book. It didn't' mention the KKK by name, for example.

Whooah....first of all if you're saying she was an ass even with Corey around to others on set, how in the world was it that he "handled" her better than anyone else could? Doesn't make sense to me. Yes, they were a romantic item. Yet that somehow seems irrelevant to the apparent pattern of behavior she developed towards others on set. FWIW, we have no idea or any evidence whether Cory improved or not Lea's behavior on the Glee set: we do have an actor who publicly stated Lea made her life difficult on set, and Lea's statement acknowledging she might have patterns of behavior she needs to work on. Why drag Cory into this ?

Nobody is saying Ryan's responsible for everything out there. However he is responsible for a badly written , embarrassingly self congratulatory TV series whose premise is insulting on different levels. Ryan is this decade's Stanley Kramer, who made "well intentioned" liberal movies that for the most part were just bad movies... Neil Patrick already was starring as Barney, the womanizing character of "HIMYM" when he came out publicly. Would he have snagged the role otherwise, who knows? Whether Richard Madden, Jeremy Renner, etc, etc is gay or not (I have no idea) shouldn't be relevant, but it seems to be as far as roles offered for romantic or action leading men in movies. So even today, there is a wall or ceiling. Alternative history fiction works best when you could imagine how it might have happened if incidents X, Y or Z had occurred. That's where Hollywood fails miserably because it's not even plausible within the context of it's own storyline.

First of all, from all accounts Lea’s boorish treatment of others predates Glee and appears to be a consistent pattern of behavior for many years. Whether she was clinically depressed or not with the death of Cory many going through grief or depression don’t necessarily bully those around them or go off on racist or transphobic tirades. Again either she’s accountable for her actions, regardless of the reasons behind it, or she’s not. I’m sorry, But this Dr. Jeckl & Mr. Hyde Scenario, i.e. romanticized notion that while Cory was alive Lea was a better person who treated others well and that his loss somehow triggered her bad behavior Is insulting to the history of others who have stated how she mistreated them for over a span covering at least 15 years. As to Lea going forward and “choosing” to treat people better, It’s fair to say all people have that choice every day whether to be an asshole to others or not.

But again, some Glee actors who weren't perceived as a threat to her, especially her male costars: it's hardly surprising that they wouldn't jump on and say specifically she treated THEM badly. Fair enough. On Samantha Ware's charge that Lea was personally horrible/abusive towards her, NOBODY has piped in to say "That's not what I observed on set". That is a fairly simple thing to do. That is the silence that is a bit deafening IMO. One would think they would have more loyalty with someone they worked with /toured with for 6 + years as opposed to someone who was on the show just in the last half season.

It looks like Lea was equal opportunity basher/bully. Heather Morris is on the record that she was difficult to work with. With Amber you can pretty much infer that Lea wasn't exactly a bed of roses , yet Amber didn't refute what the other Glee actress first posted. While the original cast has absolutely no obligation to post or refute, it's almost deafenig how they haven't responded (other than Amber and Heather) to such a character bashing comment on Lea. Kevin, Naya, Chris, Matt, Jane and Jenna are MIA. I get the comments that being a bully and/or racist are not mutually exclusive, so I guess people can make up their own mind since Amber and Iqba have both stated that in their dealing with Lea they did not consider her racist, However one of her insults certainly seems racist-oriented (the Wig), Whatever else unfolds, damage control from her PR team has a tough road to hoe.