I Just Watched...

[Cinemaspeak59]

A Woman of Paris (1923) This movie had a lackluster box-office, largely due to Charlie Chaplin directing but not starring. Frequent Chaplin collaborator Edna Purviance, plays a woman from the French provinces, who mistakenly believes she was jilted by her fiancé. She heads to Paris to start anew, where she becomes the mistress of a wealthy playboy (a slick Adolphe Menjou), who houses her in a fashionable apartment. She falls under the spell of the city, partying and gossiping with Parisian high society. A Woman of Paris is ultimately a story of spiritual redemption. But It also works nicely as a comedy of manners. A movie this good deserved a bigger audience.

[Cinemaspeak59]

With only a couple days to the Oscars, one of the Best Picture nominees for this year has just turned up on MGM+ (and maybe Amazon Prime too), so I hastened to take a look at it.

POOR THINGS was on HULU and I made it almost all the way through and didn't hate it- it was actually a pretty clever story (kinda of a JEANETTE WINTERSON novel told by JAMES WHALE as an EROTIC TABLEAU film of the 1970s with a lot of DAVID LYNCH thrown in) and had some very funny things to say about HOW THE WORLD TREATS WOMEN- unfortunately it was drowned in a bunch of HIGHLY DISTRACTING candy colored CGI which inexplicably set the movie- which would have made perfect sense in the 19th century- in some sort of weirdassed MIYAZAKI-eesque STEAMPUNK alternaverse and that (and the persistent commercials) WRECKED IT FOR ME- along with an unecessary scene where the heroine (who was played very very very well by EMMA STONE- she gives up THE BUSH and EVERYTHING!) has sex in front of two young boys...made RAMBLING ROSE look tame.

MARK RUFFALO who has been nominated for BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR gives one of THE WORST PERFORMANCES I HAVE EVER SEEN IN ALL MY LIFE ON STAGE, TV, OR SCREEN, and there is another pretty important character who was played by someone who was also really, really, really bad.

WILLEM DEFOE was really good though, WHY HE DIDN'T GET NOMINATED IS BEYOND ME.

THE GREEN SCREEN "REAR PROJECTION" WORK IS LITERALLY THIS BAD THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE ****ING THING:



SIGH.

Modern cinema, it is what it is. (a variation on RUSSIAN ROULETTE)

Well said, Lorna. I enjoyed Poor Things, but found it overwrought. I guess the alternate Victorian universe was necessary for Yorgos Lanthimos to take the audience outside of normal settings, and to indulge in visual (rather unattractive) flourishes. The film lacked elegance, and Ruffalo's performance was ham acting in the service of ham acting.

[CinemaInternational]

Stone took it. Now, we shall see what happens.

I love how you worded this.

Makes me envision a scenario where just before they call out the name of the winner, EMMA STONE LEAPS UP OUT OF HER CHAIR and screams "IT'S ME!!!!" then HAULS IT to the stage, knocking several people in the head with that BIG OLE PEPLUM she had on.

and when she gets to the podium, BRENDAN FRASER is like "Emma, I don't think..." and she screams "EAT IT!" and KNEES HIM RIGHT IN THE GROIN before SNATCHING THE STATUETTE and screaming "IT'S MY MOMENT!!!!!!!" into the MIC.

Hah! I never thought of a predicament like that happening when I wrote that brief comment. Very funny.

I don't think they've ever had quite that display of personal swagger when getting as award although there was one winner who was whooping loudly and Shirley MacLaine , back in the 80s, said she deserved it the night she won (admittedly, she would have likely been a winner decades earlier, if Elizabeth Taylor hadn't nearly died during the Oscar voting season in early 1961 for the 1960 films)

I occasionally flipped back and forth just to hear winner announcements last night, but I didn't really watch the ceremony, which I heard was mostly pretty bad and unmemorable. It actually started five minutes late!

The In Memorium sequence, that I saw, but I wish I hadn't. That was a trainwreck with interruptions, names on multiple digital screens, and then to top the chaos, there were dancers running amok and shots of singers. Yikes. Also, it boggled the mind that the last spot went to Tina Turner, who as far as I know only appeared in four films and had a sizable part in only one of them (Mad Mad Beyond Thunderdome, which she was nomination-worthy for). She was a great singer, I loved her, but it just seemed odd to have her cap off the reel at a celebration of movies.

They brought back the slavish, lugubrious "praise from past winners" before each acting nominee was introduced. I wonder if there was some sort of weird karma going on, because Stone's praise came from Sally Field, another two time winner who just happened to share a birthday with Stone. Hmm.

Anyway, it does seem there was one scandal last night: an odd homage to the streaker whose naked run prompted a thousand jokes at the ceremony 50 years ago. Last night, saw a former WWE fighter stroll out to present costume design in only a flesh colored modesty belt and a strategically placed winner envelope, which made it look like he was fully nude. A lot of people seem taken aback by this, but maybe it was appropriate given that Poor Things, with full nudity of both genders, won for costumes, and one of the other women nominated for the prize had designed the leather dominatrix biker outfits for Showgirls and Sharon Stone's infamous dress from Basic Instinct.

[Lorna]

They brought back the slavish, lugubrious "praise from past winners" before each acting nominee was introduced.

I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE IT WHEN THEY DO THAT!!!!!!!!!

Did they do this in lieu of CLIPS?

[Lorna]

I GOT so DISTRACTED TALKING ABOUT "POOR THINGS" that I didn't get around to mentioning that I watched CABARET (1972) on SUNDAY MORNING and have since watched many of the musical numbers again.

few films have ever, will ever, or could ever age as well as this movie has- and it's a film that has meant different things in different degrees and measures to different audiences- I can only imagine how mind blowing it was to see such honest(ish) representation on screen when it first came out in the 1970's, watching it in the 1980s meant reaffirmation to a lot of people, watching it in the 1990s (as camp) through the 2010s (when I first saw it) it was a fascinating time capsule within a time capsule...and then came 2016...and let me tell you, CABARET- more than ever- RINGS TRUE in a way that even the makers at the time (from FOSSE on down to ISHERWOOD) would be unable to predict or aspire to- THAT ENDING, when all the entertainers DISAPPEAR in AN ABRUPT, JARRING JUMP CUT and within seconds, THE WORLD OF THE CABARET is GONE and the audience become NAZIS- it hits HARDER today than ever before as did the TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME scene and THE FACES OF THE ACTORS IN IT.

I actually admit to skipping ahead during that part because it got to be too much.

[CinemaInternational]

They brought back the slavish, lugubrious "praise from past winners" before each acting nominee was introduced.

I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE IT WHEN THEY DO THAT!!!!!!!!!

Did they do this in lieu of CLIPS?

Yes....unfortunately.... making it very long, very dry, and very repetitive

So, the slavish praise was put on thick by:

Brendan Fraser, Nicolas Cage, Ben Kingsley, Forest Whitaker, and Matthew McConaughey for Leading Actor
Sally Field, Jessica Lange, Michelle Yeoh, Charlize Theron, and Jennifer Lawrence for Leading Actress
Tim Robbins, Sam Rockwell, Ke Huy Quan, Christolph Waltz, and Mahershala Ali for Supporting Actor
Jaime Lee Curtis, Rita Moreno, Lupita Nyong'o, Regina King and Mary Steenburgen for Supporting Actress

It was a pleasure to see some of these stars again (Indeed Jessica Lange hadn't been to an Oscar telecast since 1996!), but the praise was too much....

[Lorna]

question though: was DON'T TELL MAMA cut from the film version (I know it plays as instrumental in the background, but LIZA doesn't sing it)- because of JUDY GARLAND???

[HoldenIsHere]

question though: was DON'T TELL MAMA cut from the film version (I know it plays as instrumental in the background, but LIZA doesn't sing it)- because of JUDY GARLAND???

"Don't Tell Mama" was replaced by "Mein Herr" in the movie adaptation of CABARET.
I think they just wanted a new song that was a better vehicle for Bob Fosse's choreography and possibly Liza Minnelli's dancing, the same way that "The Money Song" was written to replace the similar song that was in the original stage play.

In the CABARET stage revival in the late 1990s/early 2000s, both "Don't Tell Mama" and "Mein Herr" were used.

[Swithin]

Two versions of "Don't Tell Mama:" Jill Haworth in the original Broadway production; Judi Dench in the original London production:

[Hibi]

question though: was DON'T TELL MAMA cut from the film version (I know it plays as instrumental in the background, but LIZA doesn't sing it)- because of JUDY GARLAND???

LOL! I doubt it, as many numbers were cut from the Broadway show, but it's funny to think about!

[Lorna]

"Don't Tell Mama" was replaced by "Mein Herr" in the movie adaptation of CABARET.

[/quote]

thank you, WOW! "MIEN (LIEBEN) HERR" is SO ICONIC, it's hard to believe it (and MAYBE THIS TIME, which is my favorite song from the film) were not in the stage show!

[CinemaInternational]

I GOT so DISTRACTED TALKING ABOUT "POOR THINGS" that I didn't get around to mentioning that I watched CABARET (1972) on SUNDAY MORNING and have since watched many of the musical numbers again.

few films have ever, will ever, or could ever age as well as this movie has- and it's a film that has meant different things in different degrees and measures to different audiences- I can only imagine how mind blowing it was to see such honest(ish) representation on screen when it first came out in the 1970's, watching it in the 1980s meant reaffirmation to a lot of people, watching it in the 1990s (as camp) through the 2010s (when I first saw it) it was a fascinating time capsule within a time capsule...and then came 2016...and let me tell you, CABARET- more than ever- RINGS TRUE in a way that even the makers at the time (from FOSSE on down to ISHERWOOD) would be unable to predict or aspire to- THAT ENDING, when all the entertainers DISAPPEAR in AN ABRUPT, JARRING JUMP CUT and within seconds, THE WORLD OF THE CABARET is GONE and the audience become NAZIS- it hits HARDER today than ever before as did the TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME scene and THE FACES OF THE ACTORS IN IT.

I actually admit to skipping ahead during that part because it got to be too much.

Cabaret has aged very well. Maybe it was a good move on the Academy's part to give director to Bob Fosse that year, because he did an exceptional job with the material, and it serves to remind people that even though he only directed a handful of films, he was a natural born moviemaker.

[Lorna]

[quote=CinemaInternational post_id=196289 time=1710188371 user_id=349029
Cabaret has aged very well. Maybe it was a good move on the Academy's part to give director to Bob Fosse that year, because he did an exceptional job with the material, and it serves to remind people that even though he only directed a handful of films, he was a natural born moviemaker.

(end quote)

HE UNDERSTOOD EDITING and THE JUXTAPOSITION OF IMAGES SO WELL, as well as anyone who has ever made films.

[Lorna]

also noteworthy:

in her review of CABARET from 1001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES, PAULINE KAEL refers to the songs as "metallic"- it's not in a disparaging way, but I'm not entirely sure it's a completely apt adjective.

of course, in the same review, she also refers to JOEL GREY as "THE DEVIL DOLL EMCEE" which goes to show- when PAULINE hits the nail on the head, she drives it clear into the wood.

[Lorna]

i mean, C'MON: