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Feb. 11th, 2019 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Looked at DVR selections for tonight, and decided to watch West Side Story on Netflix -- for the fiftieth time. I used to own the DVD. What can I say, I like the musical. It's dated, but it has some amazing songs, musical compositions, and dance numbers. Also on plus side, I can do stuff during it and not finish watching it. Netflix is showing all these Oscar nominated films in honor of the Oscars. It also have Avenger Infinity War -- because nominated for sound editing and special effects. West Side Story was beautifully done except for miscasting Richard Beemer and Natalie Wood in the leads -- I've a few friends who won't watch it because of that. (I know. I think it's silly too. They aren't that bad, and the rest of it more than makes up for it. It had two of the best dancers at that time facing off at each other - Russ Tamblyn and George Chakiris, add to that all the other dancers who were professional dancers from NY Ballet and Broadway. The opening number has got to be one of the best choreographed dance and fight numbers on film. And it's almost equaled by the one at the dance, and prior to the dance - America. Michael Jackson borrowed heavily from it for Beat It. All Jerome Robbins choreaorgraphy (for notes on choreography read the comments...apparently it was a group effort by two uncredited choreographers), with lyrics by Sondheim and musical composition by Leonard Bernstein.)
2. EW has taken up the whole mag with lists of Rom-Coms from the 1980s forward (because apparently it thinks the Rom-Com began in the 1980s, it didn't.) I don't tend to like the ones most people do. (ie. Dorky guy gets goregous girl trope or dorky girl gets goregous guy trope, when in reality the girl is goregous...is lost on me. I don't consider those romantic comedies. Also anything by Judd Apatow or Amy Schulmer with few exceptions doesn't work for me. The only one that worked was Train Wreck -- which surprised me.)
My fav's?
* Pretty in Pink
* His Girl Friday
* It Happened One Night
* Desk Set
* Pretty Woman
* The Sure Thing (it's a road trip movie with John Cusak and Daphne Zuniga)
* Moonstruck
* 10 Things I Hate About You -- which is sort of a retelling of Taming of the Shrew with a young Heath Ledger and Julia Styles
* Clueless -- retelling of Emma
* Bridget Jones' Diary
* Shop Around the Corner (remade into You've Got Mail, but the original is the best)
* Philadelphia Story
* Train Wreck
* The Parent Trap -- the original with Haley Mills, Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith
* The Big Easy -- which isn't really a romantic comedy so much as a mystery/romantic comedy
* Gross Point Blank -- also not really a romantic comedy
* Must Love Dogs
What are yours?
3. Re-watched Avenger's Infinity War last night -- highly rewatchable, all sorts of things I picked up on that I hadn't seen the first round. Also, hands down the best of the ensemble super-hero films, with X-men Days of Future Past and Captain America:Civil War slightly behind. It's better plotted and builds more on what came before, also less gimmicky.
I almost want to compare it to Last Jedi and the MCU films to the DC and Star Wars franchises -- to sort of show why the MCU films work and the Star Wars and DC franchises are a cluttered mess. (Although cluttered messes are much more fun to write fanfiction about and be fannish on...just because you desperately want to de-tangle and make sense of them.)
Things I picked up on...little details:
Strange, who was a brilliant surgeon who used state of the art techniques is tortured with alien surgical lasers that are even more precise.
The parallel structure -- they have Gamora/Quill paralleling Scarlett Witch/Vision, with similar results. Gamora (Soul) = Vision (Mind), with the Quill (Reality Stone) = Scarlette Witch (Reality Magic).
Strange figuring out the only way to win is by sacrificing the stone for a life, as opposed a life for a stone. When up until that point, he'd thought the opposite. Nice parallel -- Strange had been a doctor tasked with saving human life, then becomes a Wizard and puts the Universe first -- only to come around again to putting a life first.
Stark faced with a villain who...outdoes him with both god complex and arrogance, realizing how important it is to ground oneself in human relationships -- yet is in the end left alone with a killer cyborg, when he himself is part cyborg. Both characters that are left alive on Titan, are cyborgs, Gamora's sister is more mechanical parts than organic, and Stark can't let go of his mechanical parts. Also both should have died, but their lives were put above the stones. Gamora trades her knowledge of the stone to save her sister's life, Strange trades the time stone to spare Stark's life -- both Stark and Gamora's sister are near death at the time, horribly tortured by Thanos. Both are the sole survivors on Titan. Left with each other.
And...the idea of sacrifice and cost, and balance...juxtaposed throughout in each section of the film. And how putting an ideal over life...can have horrific consequences.
It's a film that likes to play with my head. I could bore people for hours. ;-)
4. Still puttering away on my novel. It seems to be going on forever. Finding time to work on it during lunch and at night here and there. Cancelled PT for tomorrow due to snow and ice storm -- it was actually the rain and ice that concerned me.
5. Sigh...lots of television adaptations, no time nor money to see them all. We're in a content glut. OR television critic heaven.
List of shows...on or coming:
* Umbrella Academy on Netflix
* Good Omens coming soon to Amazon
* Game of Thrones finale on HBO
* My Brilliant Friend on HBO adapated in the original language -- Italian and filmed in Naples
* Discovery of Witches on AMC and BBC America soon
* Doom Patrol on DC Universe
* Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone on CBS All Access
* Two new Star Wars shows on CBS All Access
* Russian Doll - Netflix
* Miracle Workers - Steve Bucscemi plays god, with Daniel Radcliff as an angel..it's a comedy on TBS
* Foss on FX with Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams...
* The Stand miniseries coming to CBS All Access (I think?)
Ack.
Name your poison -- it's been adapted somewhere or will be, you just have to have the wherewithal to find and afford it. I had to draw the line somewhere. Will most likely cancel Hulu again. Keep Amazon, Netflix and HBO for now. Can't afford them all. Netflix is the most cost effective with 900 shows and counting. Amazon also is cost effective -- because gives me other things. Not quite seeing it with Hulu -- so far only watched one show on it (Runaways) tried another (Handmaid's Tale -- but it frustrated me, so no.).
2. EW has taken up the whole mag with lists of Rom-Coms from the 1980s forward (because apparently it thinks the Rom-Com began in the 1980s, it didn't.) I don't tend to like the ones most people do. (ie. Dorky guy gets goregous girl trope or dorky girl gets goregous guy trope, when in reality the girl is goregous...is lost on me. I don't consider those romantic comedies. Also anything by Judd Apatow or Amy Schulmer with few exceptions doesn't work for me. The only one that worked was Train Wreck -- which surprised me.)
My fav's?
* Pretty in Pink
* His Girl Friday
* It Happened One Night
* Desk Set
* Pretty Woman
* The Sure Thing (it's a road trip movie with John Cusak and Daphne Zuniga)
* Moonstruck
* 10 Things I Hate About You -- which is sort of a retelling of Taming of the Shrew with a young Heath Ledger and Julia Styles
* Clueless -- retelling of Emma
* Bridget Jones' Diary
* Shop Around the Corner (remade into You've Got Mail, but the original is the best)
* Philadelphia Story
* Train Wreck
* The Parent Trap -- the original with Haley Mills, Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith
* The Big Easy -- which isn't really a romantic comedy so much as a mystery/romantic comedy
* Gross Point Blank -- also not really a romantic comedy
* Must Love Dogs
What are yours?
3. Re-watched Avenger's Infinity War last night -- highly rewatchable, all sorts of things I picked up on that I hadn't seen the first round. Also, hands down the best of the ensemble super-hero films, with X-men Days of Future Past and Captain America:Civil War slightly behind. It's better plotted and builds more on what came before, also less gimmicky.
I almost want to compare it to Last Jedi and the MCU films to the DC and Star Wars franchises -- to sort of show why the MCU films work and the Star Wars and DC franchises are a cluttered mess. (Although cluttered messes are much more fun to write fanfiction about and be fannish on...just because you desperately want to de-tangle and make sense of them.)
Things I picked up on...little details:
Strange, who was a brilliant surgeon who used state of the art techniques is tortured with alien surgical lasers that are even more precise.
The parallel structure -- they have Gamora/Quill paralleling Scarlett Witch/Vision, with similar results. Gamora (Soul) = Vision (Mind), with the Quill (Reality Stone) = Scarlette Witch (Reality Magic).
Strange figuring out the only way to win is by sacrificing the stone for a life, as opposed a life for a stone. When up until that point, he'd thought the opposite. Nice parallel -- Strange had been a doctor tasked with saving human life, then becomes a Wizard and puts the Universe first -- only to come around again to putting a life first.
Stark faced with a villain who...outdoes him with both god complex and arrogance, realizing how important it is to ground oneself in human relationships -- yet is in the end left alone with a killer cyborg, when he himself is part cyborg. Both characters that are left alive on Titan, are cyborgs, Gamora's sister is more mechanical parts than organic, and Stark can't let go of his mechanical parts. Also both should have died, but their lives were put above the stones. Gamora trades her knowledge of the stone to save her sister's life, Strange trades the time stone to spare Stark's life -- both Stark and Gamora's sister are near death at the time, horribly tortured by Thanos. Both are the sole survivors on Titan. Left with each other.
And...the idea of sacrifice and cost, and balance...juxtaposed throughout in each section of the film. And how putting an ideal over life...can have horrific consequences.
It's a film that likes to play with my head. I could bore people for hours. ;-)
4. Still puttering away on my novel. It seems to be going on forever. Finding time to work on it during lunch and at night here and there. Cancelled PT for tomorrow due to snow and ice storm -- it was actually the rain and ice that concerned me.
5. Sigh...lots of television adaptations, no time nor money to see them all. We're in a content glut. OR television critic heaven.
List of shows...on or coming:
* Umbrella Academy on Netflix
* Good Omens coming soon to Amazon
* Game of Thrones finale on HBO
* My Brilliant Friend on HBO adapated in the original language -- Italian and filmed in Naples
* Discovery of Witches on AMC and BBC America soon
* Doom Patrol on DC Universe
* Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone on CBS All Access
* Two new Star Wars shows on CBS All Access
* Russian Doll - Netflix
* Miracle Workers - Steve Bucscemi plays god, with Daniel Radcliff as an angel..it's a comedy on TBS
* Foss on FX with Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams...
* The Stand miniseries coming to CBS All Access (I think?)
Ack.
Name your poison -- it's been adapted somewhere or will be, you just have to have the wherewithal to find and afford it. I had to draw the line somewhere. Will most likely cancel Hulu again. Keep Amazon, Netflix and HBO for now. Can't afford them all. Netflix is the most cost effective with 900 shows and counting. Amazon also is cost effective -- because gives me other things. Not quite seeing it with Hulu -- so far only watched one show on it (Runaways) tried another (Handmaid's Tale -- but it frustrated me, so no.).
no subject
Date: 2019-02-12 07:58 am (UTC)"coughs" "Strippers, showgirls & sharks p. 9 Chita Rivera said in her 2005 revue : "The Dancer's Life", that Peter Gennaro, billed as "co-choreographer", had staged "America" and the five sections of "Dance at the Gym". Insisted Rivera, "Peter did every one of these dances and has never been given proper recognition". "And you better believe I'm telling the truth".
no subject
Date: 2019-02-12 01:19 pm (UTC)Didn't know that. But, wasn't Rita Morena in the movie, not Chita? And the movie doesn't credit him at all. So isn't it possible that he only did the Broadway version and not the film? Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise directed the film. So how would Chita know about the movie?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-12 03:21 pm (UTC)Jerry was a man who was all about himself and refused to give credit to anyone.
Here's a good piece on Gennaro's contribution.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-12 04:52 pm (UTC)Thanks, didn't know any of that. I do know that business is ripe with egos. And often writers, directors, etc are credited with things on movies that they didn't do. For example? Kit Carson wrote the film Paris, Texas but Sam Shepard was credited. Happens a lot in Hollywood. Has a lot to do with contracts, Jerome Robbins probably had it in his contract to get credit -- it's more than just about ego, it's also about money, prestige, career placement, etc.... You get a portion of the proceeds sometimes if you are on the credits, and if awards are in the offing, they only give them to credited performers. Also, for resume purposes. It's often hard to prove after the fact that you did work that you aren't credited for. And the studio can pay you the contract fee, but not a percentage of the profits...
no subject
Date: 2019-02-12 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-12 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-12 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-13 02:01 am (UTC)Hmm, hadn't thought of that but a good point. Of course the problem with Strange having given up the time stone is that anything else anyone tried to do after that point was for nothing. Otherwise though, everyone would have died for the sake of a human construct -- Vision.
Surely the Star Wars shows are coming to the Disney streaming service?
Actually I think the glut of shows must be exhausting critics. I remember reading a piece on wrote some years ago now about how there was so much content they could never revisit stuff anymore because there was always something new.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-13 01:16 pm (UTC)Surely the Star Wars shows are coming to the Disney streaming service?
Most likely. Disney could legitimately just have a streaming service of Star Wars and MCU content...and get subscribers. There's so much of it. But, I think they've been more successful turning MCU into a franchise.
Actually I think the glut of shows must be exhausting critics. I remember reading a piece on wrote some years ago now about how there was so much content they could never revisit stuff anymore because there was always something new.
I'm overwhelmed by it, I can only imagine how the critics must feel. I have DVDs that I haven't touched in years and am considering getting rid of.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-14 04:16 am (UTC)I've kind of thought it a recurring theme throughout the movie and their "One Way to Win", too. Captain America said - we don't trade in lives, and they kept it up. Loki gave up the Tesseract for Thor's life, too.
Romcoms:
out of your list I absolutely love
Desk Set
Shop Around the Corner
Clueless
out of weird stuff I shouldn't like, but love anyway:
What's you number? (the premise is horrible, lots of cliches, but relationship between Anna Faris and Chris Evans just works for me so well)
out of new stuff everyone is talking about
To all the Boys I loved before (Netflix)