What Swanky Things are you Watching?

[innerSpaceman]

I've been watching a lot of screeners lately, and some of them are quite swanky. It's the stuff that I missed in theaters cause it just didn't seem "big" enough to pay the money to see it projected large. But swank often comes in small packages.

De-Lovely is the umpteenth film I've seen lately about a real person's life, and it was - - as you might expect from a story about Cole Porter - - most swanky! It got around being a straight bio-pic in a very clever way by using the conceipt and gimmick that it was all vignettes of Cole's life as they flashed before his eyes in the moments before death.

That way, they could present the story in a less literal way, sometimes realistic-seeming and sometimes not. More important, they could feature Cole Porter's amazing songs prominently, and out of chronological order. It was a wonderful device that made the film work in a surprisingly effective way. I think the respective recent paradigms of 'Chicago' and 'Phantom of the Opera' have demonstrated that you can't just have people break out into song in musicals anymore; there has got to be a method for the numbers to work more seemlessly in modern film musicals, and "De-Lovely" tackled this problem nicely. Sweet performances by Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd as well.

I also recently saw 'The Aviator,' which was simply a straight bio-pic. Not bad, but neither was it the type of film that I thought deserving of an Oscar nomination blitz. It was only swanky, and only came fully to life, in the section about Hughes' love affair with Katherine Hepburn. Cate Blanchette was marvelous in that role - - and you simply cannot go unswanky with a good portrayal of Kate Hepburn on the screen.


The other screener I found most swanky was Closer. I think I ought to rent more Mike Nichols films. This was a fascinating tale of messed up love affairs between four well-drawn characters. Clive Owen certainly deserves his Academy Award nom, and there were surprisingly great performances from actors who've certainly turned in their share of drek over the past few years. Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Natalie Portman were flat-out terrific. The clever dialoge and dead-on sexy situations made this a pretty good swankfest. In the end, I was taken by how much the clever dialogue really revealed about these characters with some good acting ladled over the script. A brutal story of hurtful love among four of the more well established movie characters I've seen in quite a while.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

I think I ought to rent more Mike Nichols films.

Totally. He's one of my favorite directors.

Here are some of his cool flicks:

The Birdcage
Angels in America
Wit
Postcards from the Edge
Working Girl
Gilda Live
Biloxi Blues
Silkwood
Carnal Knowledge
Catch 22
The Graduate
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Regarding Henry

Both AinA and Wit are hard to watch in places, but worth it. (Watch AinA just to see Emma Thompson play a Jewish Rabbi. (!!) )

Skippable:

Wolf - Bleh

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, guess I've seen more Mike Nichols' films that I'd thought.



And, sorry G.C., but I love 'Wolf.'

[Not Afraid]

I lovr "Wolf" as well. As a matter of fact, I adore it.

I also loved AiA. It's one of the few things I actually watched on TV in the last 10 years.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I haven't seen 'Adaptation' yet.

I'm waiting for someone to do an adaptation of Adaptation

[Claire]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

The other screener I found most swanky was Closer. I think I ought to rent more Mike Nichols films. This was a fascinating tale of messed up love affairs between four well-drawn characters. Clive Owen certainly deserves his Academy Award nom, and there were surprisingly great performances from actors who've certainly turned in their share of drek over the past few years. Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Natalie Portman were flat-out terrific. The clever dialoge and dead-on sexy situations made this a pretty good swankfest. In the end, I was taken by how much the clever dialogue really revealed about these characters with some good acting ladled over the script. A brutal story of hurtful love among four of the more well established movie characters I've seen in quite a while.

I looooooved this movie and not (surprise!) because of Jude Law, although I thought he was intensely dreamy. He was overshadowed by Clive Owens and Natalie Portman...amazing. I'm seeing it again tonight with a girlfriend who hasn't seen it and my sister who has (we saw it together and agreed immediately to see it again). Mike Nichols is an actors' director. He's so good.

Giant was good! I hadn't seen it since high school when I was in my James Dean phase. Damn, but he and Rock Hudson were H-O-T. I watched some of the supplemental stuff. What's weird is that the next movie I have lined up is A Place in the Sun. Same director and Elizabeth Taylor.

We also have Seinfeld Season 1 &2 sitting on the shelf. I'm not sure if I'll get to it anytime soon......I'm not all that excited about it.

[Not Afraid]

We found "Eternal Sunshine......" last night at Borders. Unfortunantely, they were having a "buy 3 get 1 free" sale. We had no intention of getting 4 DVDs but, when I found Quills for $7.99 then Before Sunrise for $12.99 so then we had 3 and had to buy a 4th. We picked up Napolean Dynamite as the last. I'm a bit sketchy about ND. Not sure if it is something I will appreciate, but CP has offered to buy it off of us for $50 if I don't like it.

[Claire]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

We picked up Napolean Dynamite as the last. I'm a bit sketchy about ND. Not sure if it is something I will appreciate, but CP has offered to buy it off of us for $50 if I don't like it.

Hahaha!!! I hope you like it!! Enjoy the smallness of the movie. The simplicity of it cracks me up. It's nothing deep....it's just funny. I appreciate that the writer/director and the star (from Salem, OR) all have done nothing before this movie. It's so refreshing.

[Grumpy4]

I just watched Dodgeball: An Underdog Story. I laughed so hard through the whole thing! Jason Bateman was hysterical! In fact, everyone is!! And I also saw Boat Trip on Showtime and that was pretty funny too! I love Horatio Sanz and Cuba Gooding was great! And I finally saw Garden State. I thought that was really good!

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Lady Chatterley. BBC movie. If I didn't get positively lusty (even in front of my parents) every time Sean Bean - as my boyfriend Oliver Mellors - was on screen, I wouldn't have watched it. The crap score alone was enough to make me bat **** crazy.

Still, Sean Bean. I'm a Beanite. And I freakin' love the book.

But once again I'm forced to accept that I much prefer reading about sex than watching it. Especially in front of my parents. At one point my dad said - during a rather disappointing scene - "Wow, this was truly erotic in the book, but..."

"Yeah, yeah. I know," I said.

And at one point my mother said, "Does she not like it? She doesn't look like she's liking it." And though there are times in the book where that's the case, the time my mother was talking about in the movie wasn't one of them. I just much prefer knowing what's going on inside their heads than watching them. That book had so many lovely things to say about the things that happen to bodies when they come together: all the good, bad, amazing, boring, etc. things. Le sigh.

Ah, Sean Bean, you are a marvel.