Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 11:18AM Would you rather...
...sort through childhood photos with Baz Luhrmann or Sutton Foster?
... stand naked for Standing Rock with Josh Brolin?
... determine your own story with unapologetic Amy Schumer?
... or take a nap on Kiki's lap like Elle Fanning?
Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 8:38AM Anne Marie has been chronicling Judy Garland's career chronologically through musical numbers...
Full disclosure: I am in the middle of finals hell, wherein I have to write roughly 45 pages and grade exactly 48 exams before I can finally collapse at home for the holidays. So this episode is an especially selfish choice on my part. Since it's been a rocky year, I thought the best choice would be to post the entire episode, so that we could come together over a warm Christmas computer and spend the holidays with Judy.
The Show: The Judy Garland Show Episode 15
The Songwriters: Various, arrangement by Mel Torme
The Cast: Judy Garland, Mel Torme, Liza Minnelli, directed by Dean Whitmore
The Story: Call me a sap (and I am), but I cannot watch Judy Garland sing "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" while she and her children watch fake snow fall out of a studio set window. In a season that seems to demand yearly special televised events, The Judy Garland Christmas Show ranks as one of the most special Like every episode of The Judy Garland Show, there are some nasty rumors that have risen to the level of legend: that Judy and Mel were fighting, which caused her to flub his name and two song lyrics, that Judy refused to rehearse, that she was high, etc. But somehow the backstage antipathy doesn't diminish the near-camp joy of Judy and co. sitting around a mid-century fireplace singing the songs that she made famous. Much of it has to do with her kids: as the Luft siblings and Liza make appearances, their improvised bits may be stagey, but their affection for their mother is real. Gaffes, bad jokes, and creepy Santa dancers notwithstanding, The Judy Garland Christmas Show remains a classic staple of holiday television.
Holidays, Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, TV, musicals Tuesday, December 6, 2016 at 6:30PM Oscar has winnowed down that massive Best Documentary Semi-Finals list to a more manageable fifteen. We've reviewed just over two thirds of them. Nine are currently available to stream online (handy links provided) and four are in select theaters. The finalists for the five nominations are...
What's missing? Well, what isn't. There are always scads of depressing omissions. Let us focus our tears on the delicious Sondheim retrospective reflection about "Merrily We Roll Along" The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened which really deserves a big audience. But all told this list is not surprising finals list. In fact I am quite shocked to tell you that in my Top 20 Most Likely To Oscar chart page (being revised at the moment) I missed only two of these fifteen (Command and Control and The Witness) in favor of films like Newtown and Miss Sharon Jones.
Tuesday, December 6, 2016 at 4:44PM By Jose Solís.
In Tonio director Paula van der Oest chronicles the grieving process of two parents (Pierre Bokma and Rifka Lodeizen) who have just lost their 21-year-old son (Chris Peters) in a tragic accident. As they cope with the pain and chaos, they must also come to terms with the fact that Tonio was much more than they thought, and we see them discover their son’s passions and dreams. Based on an autobiographical novel by A.F.Th. van der Heijden, the film is an unsentimental portrait of pain, told with inventive storytelling techniques and featuring superb acting by the leads. I spoke to director van der Oest about finding the film’s tone, working with the actors and doing the Oscar circuit once again (she was nominated for Zus & Zo and her film Accused made the finals two years ago)
Read the interview after the jump...
Tuesday, December 6, 2016 at 2:45PM Here's Dancin' Dan to continue our mini Kirk Douglas fest. The actor turns 100 this Friday.
For every performer, a film lover has THAT performance. The one that makes you fall in love with them. Or, short of that, the moment you totally understand why they became a star.
I had seen a few Kirk Douglas films before Vincente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful, most notably Spartacus and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but I was not a great lover of the man himself even when I liked the films. That changed when watching Minnelli's behind-the-Hollywood-scenes epic. Whether it was due to the match of actor to character, the quality of the film, or Douglas's performance itself, who can say, but this performance made me a believer...
