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caracas1914

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Posts posted by caracas1914

  1. On 9/22/2020 at 1:40 PM, freddi said:

    I know that "Postcards from the Edge" will never be on a "Best" list for Meryl Streep, but I was so delighted and surprised to see it on TCM last night.   The scenes with Shirley MacLaine and Streep are such a perfect balance of humor and deep strife, and the small roles are so perfectly cast.  My utterly favorite scene, which I caught just in time last night, is the stroll and conversation of Streep and Annette Bening.   A scene of two characters in completely opposite modes:  one disgusted and one delighted, one police officer and one cheesy hooker:  what a world of contrasts.   "Geeze, I thought for a minute you were part of a celebrity AIDS notification program."  "Endolphins."  And that scene where Streep in a calm three minutes transforms MacLaine from a frightened, intimidated, eyebrowless gnome into a swaggering star:  so deeply touching and mesmerizing.   Richard Dreyfuss.  Gene Hackman.   All gems.  

     

    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 ).  

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  2. 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.   

     

    • Love 5
  3. I haven't read the books yet, but my the nagging question is why would Enola's mother have made 

    21 hours ago, Raja said:

    I got to the end wondering how they got Henry Cavill to commit to a series of TV movies. maybe the production budget went to the cast? Given the cost of the period production it looked  more like The Librarians or Warehouse 13 than something for a pre COVID big screen.

     

    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?

     

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  4. On 9/19/2020 at 9:45 AM, freddi said:

    I love "Harry and Tonto," but the realism is just so raw for me.  It certainly captured the feel of the early 1970s, just by pointing the camera.   My first cat had the exact same color/markings and happily walked on a leash and lived 20 years (walking a quarter mile many days).   I usually stop watching about five minutes before the end.  


    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.

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  5. On 9/21/2020 at 5:14 AM, GHScorpiosRule said:

    Not exactly. I don't want to spoil it here, as that is a television show that is now available on Netflix. I will say I find it very difficult to believe that Johnny ended up where he was when the show opens. But there's enough of the "Danny and Johnny are 'gray' characters" from the creators that just have me rolling my eyes. 

    But a lot of people seem to love their take on this and on Johnny and that Danny turned into a smug asshole. I'm not one of them.

    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.

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  6. 5 hours ago, jah1986 said:

     

    I just saw this movie for the first time a couple weeks ago and really enjoyed it. I too was surprised by how open they were with her having a one night stand and resulting pregnancy. The only real concern she had was from her father. I think part of what made it acceptable was that the father died in combat, so she "suffered" and she didn't get to raise the child even if she did get her happy ending when he finally figured out she was his birth mother.

    A similar movie, though not as good in my opinion, was My Foolish Heart with Susan Hayward and Dana Andrews. It wasn't a one night stand but a relationship over a period of weeks. You weren't sure the two had actually slept together until she found out she was pregnant. She chose not to tell the father because she didn't want him to marry her just because she was pregnant.  I was surprised by how matter of fact the movie was about it all considering the year (1949).

    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.

     

     

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  7. On 9/16/2020 at 6:37 PM, Spartan Girl said:

    This is something that's been on my mind lately, and I'm not sure this is an unpopular opinion or not, but here it goes: I think it's okay to like movies/stories that are problematic or come from problematic people. It doesn't automatically make you a bad person.

     

    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.  

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  8. 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.

     

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  9. On 8/15/2020 at 6:53 AM, StrictTime said:

    My take on Norma Shearer is that she was great in silents, but the transition to talkies was tough on her. Not because her voice wasn’t pleasant, but because, especially in her early talkies, her gestures (facial and hands) are still over-emphatic, as they had to be in the silent films. I noticed it particularly in Private Lives, which seemed really rushed and frantic overall. 

    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)

  10. “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.

  11. 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.
     

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  12. On 11/24/2019 at 8:08 AM, Dobian said:

    I didn't buy Paul's underdog assessment of him, though.  Yeah he never won star baker, but the fact that he won one technical and finished second six times showed that he was remarkably consistent. 

    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".

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  13. On 8/5/2020 at 1:18 PM, Bill1978 said:

    ITA that the Netflix output hasn't been fantastic but at least, IMO, each season was tonally consistent and the episodes fed off each other. Shows like Glee, AHS and Scream Queen often showed signs that the scripts were written almost the week before the episode aired and reflected moments happening in real life or course adjusted due to criticism. Glee was especially guilty of this in trying to shoehorn the latest big song into a plot that it made no sense in. While the Netflix shows may not be brilliant, it is obvious that they have been mapped out from beginning to end without any crazy last minute adjustments because something became newsworthy.

    "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.

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  14. 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.   

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  15. On 7/16/2020 at 4:31 PM, Bill1978 said:

    II've said it on other boards but Murphy shows work better on Netflix where he has to commit to an idea before it ever hits our screen so the story and generally the tone is consistent for a whole season. Even with all it's weirdness and downward quality I am grateful for all the musical performances it has provided me with.

     

    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."

     

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  16. 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.

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

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  18. On 5/16/2020 at 9:17 AM, SeanC said:

    I don't think so.  Minority groups were campaigning for civil rights all through this period, the biggest difference is how much those in power opted to listen.

     

    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.

  19. 23 hours ago, theschnauzers said:

    You totally missed the point. During and after Glee’s run, the cast and crew acknowledged Cory’s role on set. I’m not saying Lea wasn’t an ass BTS while Corey was alive, I’m saying Corey could handle Lea better than anyone else could. What the production staff did or could do really wasn’t the point, even Ryan Murphy wasn’t able to keep Lea in check all the time as he wasn’t on set all the time either.

    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 ? 

     

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  20. 5 hours ago, Florinaldo said:

    Yes, there are isolated examples, but it will be a slow process.

    That being said, Ryan Murphy does not have to answer to the fact that there are so few out lead actors; he is not responsible for what every other casting agent, production company or studio does in Hollywood. So he can indeed be happy and satisfied with what he does, and be all gushing and praiseworthy to his writers, cast and crew for their achievement, even with the work's shortcomings. 

    He's only accountable for his work and the portion of his field that he can have an effect on or can change on his own, not for what all others do and how slow the industry as whole changes in spite of small individual pushes in the right direction.

    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...

    20 hours ago, methodwriter85 said:

    It's happening in TV (Neil Patrick Harris) but we still have Jeremy Renner and Richard Madden with their respective "roommates." Is there anyone here who doesn't think that Matthew Bomer would probably be leading a movie franchise right now if he hadn't come out?

    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.

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  21. 8 hours ago, Scarlett45 said:

    Ive noticed that there are people that can turn mean and nasty when they are miserable (for a legitimate reason or not), but when they are happy they are perfectly benign or even pleasant to others. 
     

    I can see after Cory died Leah being depressed (legitimately so) and lashing out towards others (which was wrong), but maybe not exhibiting that behavior so much when she was more personally happy (madly in love with Corey and the show was going well). 
     

    Most of us know we can’t go off on the boss (even if we wanted to) or we would lose our jobs. 
     

    I can see a situation where Lea was wrong for her behavior and may choose to treat people better going forward. 

    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.   

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  22. 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.

     

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  23. On 6/5/2020 at 2:15 PM, Snow Apple said:

    If all these stories are true, and I have no reason to believe they are not, she really knows how to go for the jugular, doesn't she? The number one tactic of a bully is seeking out weak spots. Racist comments to the black actress, comments about looks when a person is most vulnerable, telling understudies they don't belong and are not good enough, etc. 

    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.

     

     

     

     

     

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