WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[CineMaven]

See you on the other side of the semester. You'll REALLY need a movie by then.

[RedRiver]

I think I'd like DAVID AND LISA. I heard the play was good. If it's dated, that's usually OK with me. I enjoy placing myself in the mindset of the era in which a movie was made. Besides, your descriptions of the characters sound like most of the people I know!

[charliechaplinfan]

See you on the other side of the semester. You'll REALLY need a movie by then.

Won't I just, Joe age 6 is addicted to watching Sylvester and Tweetie Pie, tomorrow I'll try to wean him on to something else.

[charliechaplinfan]

We just took the kids to watch Puss in Boots part of the Shrek franchise, I wasn't expecting too much but I was thoroughly entertained. I'd already banked on the fact that I could listen to Antonio Banderas for 90 minutes and that that would capture me if nothing else. For a movie buff like me I could see stunts that harked back to Douglas Fairbanks only this time they were animated. The storyline was good too and the audience were laughing out loud, a complete treat. Of course one of our cats looks like Puss which endeared him to the kids even more and as a cat lover I just love the way they capture cats nuances.

[CineMaven]

Of course one of our cats looks like Puss which endeared him to the kids even more and as a cat lover I just love the way they capture cats nuances.

Whoa...how do you keep the hat on your little cat's head??

[MikeBSG]

This afternoon, I watched "Backbeat" (1994), directed by Iain Softley.

This is a story about the Beatles in Hamburg and the relationship between Stu Sutcliffe and Astrid Kirchherr. The movie took me by surprise. At first I thought it was only okay, but then Astrid (Sheryl Lee) showed up, and "Backbeat" turned into something terrific. It is a movie about deciding what you want and what you are willing to give up. In a lot of ways, it is a tragic romance and rather old fashioned. There is a farewell in a trainstation that could be taken from "Love in the Afternoon." There is a genuine heart to this movie, which is more than a simple nostalgia wallow.

Lee made the movie for me, but I must pay tribute to the male actors as well: Peter Dorff was splendid as Sutcliffe. Gary Bakewell really captured McCartney's charm, and Ian Hart was rivetting as John Lennon. (I was stunned to realize later that I've seen Hart several times before: he was Prof. Quirrell in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and Dr. Watson in "Sherlock Holmes and the Silk Stockings.")

A very good, underrated film.

[movieman1957]

Being a long time Beatles fan I am reading another biography that goes into great detail about their time in Hamburg and those few years surrounding it. Astrid and Stuart are very prominent in the story.

Stuart was quite an artist. He had a very good talent and their were high hopes for him in school. As good as he was with a brush he made a lousy bass player. After a time it wore on the others. Astrid was a great inspiration to the rest of them as well.

I'll have to check it out.

[charliechaplinfan]

Of course one of our cats looks like Puss which endeared him to the kids even more and as a cat lover I just love the way they capture cats nuances.

Whoa...how do you keep the hat on your little cat's head??

Well we're not quite sure where he stores his hat and boots, the kids think he moonlights in Hollywood instead of going missing for days because he's on a mousehunt. Whether he moonlights or not the producers have got him down to a tee.

Please get Sylvester and Tweety Pie off my TV, I love them but not again and again.

Well, I did manage to squeeze in some of my own viewing, nevertheless I gave the kids a quick lesson in music and people who are identified by their first names only. The Elvis Comeback Special, I've wanted to watch it for years. For some reason I love Elvis but have found the films of his that I've watched far from satisfying. This has always been for me Elvis at his absolute best, I've had the CD for years, his sexiest, he does nothing for me in the films but wow put him in that leather outfit and I get goosebumps. Despite knowing the CD I was blown away by the special, I've never been able to quantify why I like Elvis, he doesn't really sit in with my other music tastes, it's his voice, it's haunting and his considerable charisma.

Why do I like this Elvis much more than the film Elvis, I've seen Loving You, Jailhouse Rock and King Creole but what's great about him isn't apparent to me here. Watching the Comeback I felt it was such a shame that he wasn't given a straight role to play. Is there a film out there of Elvis's that fellow members would recommend? Perhaps I'll give him another go.

[MichiganJ]

This afternoon, I watched "Backbeat" (1994), directed by Iain Softley.

This is a story about the Beatles in Hamburg and the relationship between Stu Sutcliffe and Astrid Kirchherr. The movie took me by surprise. At first I thought it was only okay, but then Astrid (Sheryl Lee) showed up, and "Backbeat" turned into something terrific. It is a movie about deciding what you want and what you are willing to give up. In a lot of ways, it is a tragic romance and rather old fashioned. There is a farewell in a trainstation that could be taken from "Love in the Afternoon." There is a genuine heart to this movie, which is more than a simple nostalgia wallow.

Lee made the movie for me, but I must pay tribute to the male actors as well: Peter Dorff was splendid as Sutcliffe. Gary Bakewell really captured McCartney's charm, and Ian Hart was rivetting as John Lennon. (I was stunned to realize later that I've seen Hart several times before: he was Prof. Quirrell in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and Dr. Watson in "Sherlock Holmes and the Silk Stockings.")

A very good, underrated film.

Backbeat was the second time Ian Hart played Lennon. He also played him in the film, The Hours and Times, which is a fictionalized telling of the vacation Lennon and manager Brian Epstein took together. Worth checking out.

Backbeat is a remarkable film and Sheryl Lee does, indeed, steal the show. (Her final scene is as heartbreaking as it gets.)

The music is also terrific, and it was an inspired idea to only use tunes that The Beatles covered, rather than the few originals they were playing in Hamburg, and to also not try and replicate the Fabs' sound, but rather their energy. The Backbeat Band was actually a who's who of members from early 1990s bands, and they kick butt on such numbers as Roadrunner, Long Tall Sally, and my favorite, Slow Down.

Worth checking out the soundtrack album (12-songs, 27-minutes. Rock on.)

[movieman1957]

Okay. It's in my queue and I should have it next week.

[RedRiver]

Holy cow! BACKBEAT. Everything about the movie is fine. But the music is simply on fire. Raw, driving, pure rock and roll. 1950's tunes, done remarkably well. It's some of the best non-original film music I've ever heard. Possibly the VERY best. It's irresitible.

Chaplin Fan,

Rarely has TV been as fresh and electrifying as in that 1968 Elvis special, with the leather-suited icon doing what he did best. Singing in concert. The energy, the passion, the heart and the soul were spellbinding. This special was rightly mentioned on a program devoted television's greatest moments. In movies, Elvis was a bad actor, in a mindless story, trying valliantly to make something of some very mediocre music. You see him at his worst. In this TV show, he's The King!

[MikeBSG]

Regarding Sheryl Lee how how convincingly she played a German woman, it turns out that she was born in Germany. (Parents were connected to the Army/Department of Defense in some way I'm guessing?) But she certainly did seem at home in the language.

It is a shame that her career never took off as it should, but then I'm trying to think of any actress in the last 30 years other than Meryl Streep who has played foreign women. Hollywood doesn't really make films that deal with that kind of story any more. We don't have musicals about Americans in Paris, nor do we make films about Countesses who fall in love with Napoleon or swashbucklers in general. Really, apart from James Bond films, I can't really think of a type of regularly produced film that would need an actress to play a European woman.