katha

I've always thought Astaire was the better dancer. Isn't that the consensus amongst experts now anyway? And I just prefer him stylistically. Both his lightness and elegance and also how musical and flexible he is in his reactions to the beat. With Kelly it's very straightforward on the beat, Astaire is playing around with the music in his dancing which IMO makes it more interesting to watch. Way superior at partnering as well, of course. Partnering dancers as stylistically diverse as Rogers, Hayworth, Powell, Ellen, Bremer, Garland, Caron and Charisse and making it work with every single one of them. Not to mention the various non-dancers he managed to make look half-decent. And he was wonderful at ballroom dancing. Fantastic choreographer as well, and IMO really underrated in that regard. He didn't usually do directing or things outside of his own numbers, so it was smaller in scope. But as I understand it he usually did all his own dances either himself or together with Hermes Pan, and they're all brilliant work (that wasn't always indicated in the credit system that was used back then). Not only for himself either, but for his various partners as well. Brilliant, brilliant man.

Man, Tom Hiddleston keeps on being awkward. That was one misguided speech IMO. Way to make everything about you and pat yourself on the back. It went on forever as well. You could see that people in the audience were trying to keep from rolling their eyes at him as well LOL. Not that many surprises, were there? Huppert winning against Portman might be a big one, if it turns into a bigger trend. Who knows, though, it's the Globes.

You have it this year again with Colin Farrell getting a nomination for best actor in a comedy for The Lobster. I think it's a great movie and he gave a great performance in it, so it's cool that an off-beat small movie like that got the recognition. His performance absolutely warrants a nomination IMO, so good for the Globes for acknowledging something beyond the usual suspects. And there are disturbingly funny and absurd moments in the film, sure. But it's a dystopian nightmare. The way the Globes define "comedy" is just weird, is my point LOL.

I think it might be a bit of a neighbour of the child actor phenomenon? As in, often in these roles for very young performers, they're written around a certain quality they have and/or around their youthfulness, great display of range is not necessarily required. And so when they can't pass for a teenager/ingenue anymore, interest in hiring them fades. This has happened to both female and male performers in that age range. It's happening to child actors all the time, suddenly they're not cute anymore...then what? I'm sure it must be brutal to live through that. And it doesn't have to be tied to skill, even, you can have a decent amount of talent but still the offers stop coming in. Someone like Christian Bale, for example, might have been helped by the fact that the first role that brought him to public attention was Empire of the Sun. It's not really a typical child actor performance, it's not even an ingenue performance, it's so dark and considered that perhaps the industry was more accepting of seeing him as a grown-up because he was allowed to display range in that movie? But still, he struggled for years to establish himself as an adult actor. I'm sure that he turned out to be a handsome man helped here as well, the industry is brutal on that front. But for every case like that, where it worked out for a variety of reasons, you have countless examples of child or teenage actors fading away.

I've seen a few reviews in newspapers make this point as well, that the replacement seemed totally pointless and anti-climatic. I think that Farrell was so memorable may prove a double-edged sword for the movies going forward. It's perhaps a bit of a wasted opportunity? Farrell's Grindelwald would have been compelling in the sense that he's tonally so different from Voldemort, as far as Dark Lords go. It's actually very easy to see how someone like that could gain followers. He seems so reasonable, he's manipulative and knows how to twist people's weaknesses and use them as weapons against them, he's got authority and charisma, but charisma that reads as "just like a normal wizard, but more competent, more powerful, smarter". I can see even non-followers being duped into thinking "he's not my thing, but he sounds rational and like he knows what he's doing". Which is way different than the openly crazy vibe Depp was already going for.

I'm not sure "disappointed" is the right term, but I'm re-reading Little Women and Good Wives and the things that are irksome about it are really, really irksome. Marmee is the worst, though. And that her self-righteous, sanctimonious lecturing is held up as good parenting...it's really a product of its time in that sense and that hasn't aged well, and because it's such a big part of the books it's constantly spoiling things. I'd forgotten about that episode where she "taught" the girls that being lazy is bad for you, which included not feeding a bird that Beth had forgotten to feed until it starved to death. Wow. Way to be a cruel jerk, Marmee. And there's a constant smugness about her, as if she's only waiting for the girls to mess up so she can rejoice in their failures and bask in her own superiority. I know it's not meant to be taken that way, that she's supposed to be a pillar of virtue, but the writing and the mores of the time just don't translate very well for modern readers. Or at least it doesn't translate for this reader. I don't even much mind Amy and Laurie, whatever. Amy as a character is fine with me and I can perhaps see where she and Laurie might find common ground. But some of their scenes play through this tiresome trope that the text brings up constantly anyway: Women are babysitters for men, they must "make" them good, that is their main goal in life. Nah, men have agency of their own and they are responsible for their own actions. The end. Laurie is well enough drawn as a character and it's established that underneath his peevishness and temper tantrums he's a good person who wants to do what's right. And in the end he finds his own motivation to change. Also, Beth is such a flat character. It's all goodness and self-denial and sacrificing for others and being quiet. And everyone falling all over themselves to praise her, including the text. It's not interesting to read, since there's no conflicts, no chance for character growth. She's just there to be saintly and die. LOL, this reads as if I hated the books. I don't, I'm fond of them for the most part. But the stuff that I find bad is really prominent in them.

That's probably true about there being more avenues to keep yourself relevant now. Though I guess there's shades to that as well. I think Law, Farrell and McConaughey have good careers now, full stop, no qualifications. Not A-List, but solid. Christian Bale is also someone who clawed himself out of child star trappings and into relevance. RDJ made it back. Ryder to some degree? Though it remains to be seen if it holds. Though I'd also argue that Ryder might not be a master thespian, but she has a quality on screen that seems appealing. RDJ is talented and charismatic. Chris Hemsworth has that Marvel stuff keeping him going for now, who knows how it will work out afterwards (Is there an afterwards? Will these franchises ever end?).

I just wanted to say, with people like Pettyfer and Teller, there's also the rumours of being difficult on set. If you don't have much box office or critical success (obviously that's not totally true for Teller), you better not have a cloud of diva gossip following you around as well. With Lautner, there have been rumblings about his dad I remember now that the other post mentioned it. Actors aiming for action/romantic leads is what I'm talking about in general, people going solely for niche character actor parts aren't really aiming for Hollywood leading man status. And of course white men are given more chances if they play it right, but I don't think in that category you're given endless room for error. Jackman has to stumble into a critical or commercial success at some point (namely X-Men), to keep that train going. Gosling has to be a critical darling, even if most of his movies don't make that much money, now his latest one might. Brits like Cumberbatch and Redmayne seem to have leveraged critical success into franchises with good box office, cementing a sort of leading man status for them even though neither is the classical mainstream Hollywood star (I think that they both seem to know this and chose roles accordingly helped them here). I chose McConaughey, Farrell and Law as examples because these are also three who clearly aimed for action hero/romantic lead status and for a time there succeeded and then it's interesting to watch what happens when for whatever reason it gets bumpier and straightforward action hero/leading man stuff doesn't fly anymore. McConaughey had annoyed everyone and their grandmother by starring in 2 million obnoxious romantic comedies, so he had to basically take a break, wait for better scripts (that weren't coming for a long time, he talked about this) and take massive pay cuts in the beginning to get more interesting smaller parts that put him on the radar again as an actor. Law wanted to make himself happen, but then he oversaturated the market (to the point that Chris Rock was making cracks at his omnipresence) and none of his efforts took off. His good looks faded a bit as well, what do you do? Because the industry seemed to respect his acting abilities, he could go on with supporting player parts, character work, or being RDJ's sidekick. Things that aren't tied to only his looks. Farrell had addiction issues, so his struggles are tied to that, but once he wasn't a hot commodity for blockbusters anymore, there was also a fallback to more interesting smaller movies. Then his good work in smaller movies got him other work in interesting movies and parts in bigger productions as well. Perhaps not always as lead anymore, but still with parts where he could make an impact. The trajectory of those three, as examples, isn't possible for everyone. Because IMO when hype and good looks aren't working in your favour so much anymore, the industry will drop you if you can't offer anything beyond that. If you're bland and forgettable in every role. So then talent and abilities, as well as perseverance of course, start to matter and determine if you'll keep on getting work.

Aspects of Rory's storyline in the revival had potential, but as always they flopped it all hardcore and didn't do anything interesting with it. I didn't mind that she struggled with her career, it happens, she's in a tough field and everyone can fall on hard times or realize that they're not cut out for certain sides of jobs they thought they'd love. Having a perfect life at 30 is the fairytale ideal, for various reasons it doesn't work out for loads of people. The problem then came in with Rory's reaction to it. The whining, the entitlement, seeing her scoff at job prospects she thought were "beneath her", talking about being broke with her jet setting life and her various trust funds. I think if she'd actually been shown to face adversity and try her best to change her situation, then even failing wouldn't have been an issue. You could always say, at least she tried. But IMO it didn't much look like she tried, she fell back into her usual spiel of passivity, seeking protection from other people and entitlement.

I actually think that not having something going for yourself besides hype and good looks will eventually cause trouble for young male actors as well, not as drastically, but it will. So acting ability or some form of charisma/star power that shows up onscreen is necessary for long-term careers IMO. Taylor Lautner faded. RPattz does okay because he knows he's not a star and seems satisfied with his indie stuff. One of the Hemsworths, the lesser known one, he might have trouble transitioning into much else. Ryan Reynolds was struggling until he found a vehicle that actually made use of things that make him compelling onscreen. Josh Hartnett was a big deal for a bit there, then it fizzled out. And examples of people aiming for leading man status, struggling for various reasons, but then finding their bearings again like Jude Law, Colin Farrell or Matthew McConaughey are also tied to them having acting ability beyond the pretty. So if the demand for being pretty on screen fizzles out, they can keep having careers tied to the actual quality of their performances. Though Matthew had to start a whole campaign doing indies for a few years to remind people again that he actually could act.

It makes sense that they'd focus on Harley Quinn and Deadshot, Robie and Smith got by far the best reviews and were routinely singled out as the two best things about the movie.

Watched this, didn't know what to expect going in, thought it was enjoyable but flawed. I'm not sure Redmayne's performance worked for me, I get what he was going for, but the flat affect and disconnection didn't always seem like a good fit. Kowalski was very well done, and finally a likable muggle. Tina and Queenie were reasonably well drawn as well. It did feel like two separate movies, though. Both pretty good in their own right, but tying them together wasn't a success IMO, it just felt tonally so different. The whimsy of the animals vs. the horror and claustrophobia of the witch hunters and the paranoia of the American wizarding society. Morton was chilling. The actors playing Credence and Modesty also really made me feel for them. It was surprisingly dark, and a surprisingly explicit depiction of long-term abuse and its consequences. Farrell was impressive, I felt he took a part that was only broadly sketched and thrown together and made it three dimensional and scary. He exuded power and authority and his scenes with Credence were so hard to watch because he infused them with predatory cunning. Also surprising that the movie went there, but it read as accurate given what is established about Grindelwald in the books. Bummer that he won't be back, if original Graves could make a comeback that would be cool, but if it felt shoved in for no reason, better not go there and ruin the great work he did in this movie.

I think it depends on the pro and isn't gender-specific. I've seen Maks be accused of giving his celeb not enough content, and also of being too ambitious (frankly, with him it's probably mostly just that he's an inconsistent pro who can do great and produce real knockout routines and also total blah ones). Louis was always the worst offender about going way overboard when he thought a celeb is capable, even as recently as in the switch-up with Tamar. I think no one else comes even close to him in that regard. Karina tends towards the ambitious as well, I'd say. I would also argue that when Mark has erred, it's rather been on the "giving celeb too much" side. Val more often than not goes for a lot of content and IMO pushes it as far as he thinks a celeb can handle it, without falling over the cliff like Louis with it. It is probably a fine line to walk: You have a capable partner and want to challenge them to get better, so you need to take some risks. But if you push it too far, they'll look sloppy and overwhelmed and it will cost you.

I rewatched all of Charlie's dances and some other things stood out as well: IMO Sharna didn't dress him well, sorta reinforcing that he comes across as younger than he is. It stood out in jive, cha-cha, quickstep and samba. Having him in more classical, streamlined costumes might have done a world of good for his overall impression. And in several dances Charlie is clearly overwhelmed with the content, tries to do it, but does it not quite cleanly and with hesitation. That stood out in paso and samba the most, but was kinda a running theme throughout his season. And nearly every dance is busy with concepts and change of location. I think jive and cha-cha in particular would have been even better without the gimmicks. Also, Charlie dropped all his props in the jazz and foxtrot. Perhaps just go without props, or at least don't do things that complicated with them? I loved his contemporary, jazz and quickstep and liked jive and cha-cha. But some of his other dances honestly don't seem all that enjoyable to me, and I do think that ties into Sharna's decision making. But it's not like she's the only one to do it, or even the worst offender with ringers, and she was really inexperienced at the time. Interesting sidenote about the paso, I've now noticed this happening with at least three different pros: Creating a paso routine that overwhelms the celeb. Sharna did it with Charlie, Mark has done it a few times, Val did it this season with Laurie's first paso. Is it something specific about that dance that lends itself to miscalculations like that?

It looked like a pretty wedding that was also suitable for the two people getting married. They're both hipsters tbh, so having it be a bit carnivalesque made sense. Cool that so many of the pros attended. I also saw that Sadie, Willow, Chelsea Kane, Candace and Kristi Yamaguchi were there, perhaps there were even more of Mark's former partners, who knows since instagram etc. wasn't allowed. That's very neat, too.

I have to hand it to the Palladinos, though: The way Rory turned out, that's probably a realistic depiction of the consequences of protecting a young person from all consequences like Rory was sheltered by Lorelai and Emily/Richard. Add in her timid personality, fear of conflict, inability to deal with criticism and self-involvement, this is what you get with the perpetual "special snowflake" treatment. It made a depressing amount of sense that she'd turn out to be a selfish, entitled and spineless jerk who seems incapable of making any kind of decisions and follow through in either her personal or her professional life.

All this talk about Shawn made me go rewatch season 8 and I'm always surprised by that because I liked her so much, but: Not only was she not the best dancer in that season (clearly Gilles), IMO she was not even a particularly good dancer until very late into the season when Mark had gotten her to a level where she was capable of executing memorable routines to a reasonable standard. For me she's practically one big meh until week 7 and the cha-cha. And I know this, but I'm shocked again and again because I always manage to convince myself I like her earlier dances better than I actually do until I watch them again...

With Charlie White I do think Sharna fell a bit into "pro gets over-ambitious with ringer" syndrome, she was still pretty inexperienced then as a pro. Some of his dances seemed overchoreographed for me (tango was meh, cha-cha had too much stuff going on, paso was try-hard, the samba was cringe) and they were just too quiet in a season where other pairs had bigger narratives. Danica had the same problem. Charlie also reads as "boyish" IMO, which isn't necessarily what the "charming male" crowd goes for, nor would they have gone for the fact that Sharna and Charlie came a bit across as older sister and younger brother. To be fair to Sharna, Charlie was also a contestant who was actively resisting storyboarding, I've heard somewhere that Sharna tried to make him propose to Tanith on the show like she later did with Noah, but Charlie resisted that as well. They're always super hard on male ringers, the only exception is Fons who managed to win, and they were pretty tough on him some weeks as well. Though I would argue the week they were so nasty to him about the paso and put him in jeopardy? That was a last ditch effort by the producers to shore up votes for him to get him to the finals, after that they gave up on him and he became the "shocking elimination". Ultimately, that was a good dramatic storyline for them as well, that's all they care about at the end of the day.

Is there a thread for "Unpopular DWTS opinions" or something? Because the general discussion here sorta reminds me of some of mine in that area.

Laurie did that one tumbling element in the freestyle. That's it. Other than that her gymnast background only shone through in things like lifts or jumps when it was appropriate for the dance given. I thought that was another neat aspect of her season.

There have been plenty of so-called ringers on this show since the second season, for the most part they haven't won. Often they have been "shocking eliminations". Since the popularity contest/voting aspect comes into it, all their advantages can't compensate for the audience not taking to them. People watch and vote for varied reasons: They want to see the best dancers, they want to root for underdogs, they vote for "most improved", best partnership, best story, most likable, most heartwrenching drama, most inspirational, etc. Mostly they want to be entertained and everyone is entertained by different things. There's only so much the show can do to make someone happen. Sabrina Bryan, for example, was a case of the show pushing for her in two seasons, and twice the audience said "No, thank you". I'd also agree that gymnasts on this show are a bit of a "special case". They are clearly some form of ringer, but far removed from people like Nicole Scherzinger or ice dancers. They come with great core strength, athleticism, they are used to being coached, they have some form of performance ability. But all the gymnasts on this show had a basic rigidness to their movements in the beginning, music is just background noise in their floor routines, they don't perform with partners, being stiff and posing a lot seems a requirement in gymnastics while it's mostly a big no-no in the dancing done on DWTS. This all played out to various degrees with the four who have done the show. Val was talking about this as well: Laurie's fallback performance mode is "cute", she's used to performing solo and only outwards to the audience, she has the basic gymnast rigidness and punchiness (really a problem when you do dances with hip movement, or when you do softer dances). She's also a teenager and that brings its own set of issues: Zendaya and Willow could do nuance and character, but they are actors. The teenagers on this show usually struggle more to give correct interpretations of the character of a variety of dances because they lack the life experience. And I thought you really saw Laurie work on all these things and markedly improve throughout the season in both dancing and performance. Coming back to the ringer thing: One interesting aspect of having ringers on is seeing what the various pros do with them. Worst case scenario: They try to furiously design themselves to a mirror ball and throw everything and two, three, four kitchen sinks at the wall. This usually ends in a trainwreck because the audience will pick up on all that strain and tension. That was my worst fear before the season, seeing how intense Val can get. But he seemed to have a clear idea about what he wanted to do throughout the season, he stayed firm about only focusing on dancing, not on gymnastic abilities. IMO he found a good middle ground about doing things that pushed Laurie out of her comfort zone, but still rang true for her as a dance persona. And last week, when he was all "Yeah, I think we have a cool concept for the freestyle. Hopefully people will like it" instead of the usual freestyle meltdown, I knew everything would work out fine.

Yes, I thought this season was really enjoyable because I found many people entertaining. There were many nights of mostly solid dancing. All three finalists were likable and I enjoyed watching all of them, though everyone has different faves, obviously. The mood amongst the cast seemed to be a mostly pleasant and positive one as well, that's also not true for every season. I had a really good time watching season 23! (-:

Also, James barely had to do any fast latin dances. Not even for his fusion did he get a latin dance! He got the pimp spot on finals night, they underscored Laurie in her redemption dance IMO and were probably all set up to give him 40 for his foxtrot if he hadn't messed up. Even then, Bruno gave him a ridiculous ten. He had the big, emotional heartstrings freestyle that closed out the night. Please. They were helping him all season. Just as they usually "help" the contestants they know will get far.

It was obvious for weeks that Laurie was killing it in votes, that's why they were so comfortable underscoring her mid-season and setting up "narratives" for her. She's also constantly the most viewed on youtube. As for Facebook, her fanbase is younger. They don't really care for Facebook. And even then, she was doing very well there. Her fanbase also seems very well organized and so are Val's fans. Last night felt kinda ominous for James, tbh. There was just as much chatter about Laurie as about him in social media outlets that veer older, though it should be his main demo there, and there was HARDCORE hatred for Laurie. Because they felt seriously threatened and knew what was coming after those freestyles, I expect. Also my thought was: "Why are you ranting about Laurie? Why aren't you voting for James?" Because Laurie's fans were keeping quiet and voting, from what I could see.

Laurie was a lovely surprise this season. I thought she would be too perky and hyper for my taste and IMO the gymnasts usually come in with a set of issues when it comes to movement and performance that hinders my enjoyment of their dances. Laurie had some of that in the beginning, but as the season went on she really shed a lot of that. I thought she steadily improved in dancing and performance and I enjoyed almost all her dances. I was also very glad that Val barely used her gymnastics background, it made her run on the show markedly different from the other gymnasts we had, and I thought Laurie was a better dancer for this approach. Super work from him throughout the season, I loved that she was the center of every dance, I loved how minimalist it all was, well done.