Flipping Through Movie Book Pages
Monday, August 22, 2011 at 1:00PM For no reason whatsoever on this summer day, 08/22, I pulled a few random movie books off the shelf -- i used to buy used movie books all the time as a teenager (though two of these are books from this past decade) -- and opened them to pages 8 and 22 and am sharing my favorite sentences therein with you! If it's a photo page, I shared that instead.
Ready? here we go!
page 8
page 22
We want our viewers not merely to enjoy the situation with a murmured, "Isn't he cu-ute" but really to feel something of what the character is feeling."
from Disney Animation The Illusion of Life
*
page 8
"Thirty-six tables with their scintillating glassware and long tapers, each table bearing a replica in waxed candy of the gold statuette award, filled the entire floor space of the room," said the hotel's press release.
page 22
The plot was farfetched -Shearer and leading man Robert Montgomery have an affair at the same time her father has one with his mother -- but Mrs Thalberg looked great in her chic Adrian wardrobe and bobbed hair."
from Inside Oscar aka The Holy Bible
*
page 8
Is that goo for his mouth, or the goo for his nose?" Lucas asks wiping a bit of brown slime off Jabba's cheek with his finger.
page 22
Disneyland is a movie that invites its audience right into the screen, combining mass appeal with mechanical ingenuity.
from Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas
*
page 8
After seeing that film I was left with the understanding that the Bollywood musical and its outrageous comic tragic storytelling succeeded because of a deal that exists between the film and its audience."
page 22
from Moulin Rouge!
*
page 8
'For example, it's striking how obvious it is in retrospect that the New Wave was, fundamentally, a product of it's time: impertinent, playful, inventive; emphasizing chance, rupture, improvisation, and brilliant intuition; creating sequences that loop back on themselves like gags or that metonymically demonstrate the entire film."
page 22
Critical thought enabled them not only to approach film but to conquer it, and it became such an essential element of their intellectual growth that it came to symbolize the entire creative process for them.
from French New Wave
*
page 8
The gypsy nature of my film life hasn't helped me resolve this disturbing sense of musical beds."
page 22
I wobbled into the building, found the office and in my best southern Brooklynese announced to the secretary, "Ah'm heah to play Scarlett O'Hara"
from Shelley Also Known as Shirley
*
Shelley Winters! Why do I have this book? LOL. The cover says it was a #1 bestseller (published in 1981)
I was just watching her in A Place in the Sun (1951) again Saturday night*. She was not exactly a subtle actress but she was definitely a born loudmouth storyteller. Some people are born to be stars but it's almost like Shelley was born to be an old loudmouth lady recalling stardom and gossiping about even bigger stars. When I was a kid it seemed like she was always on tv talking about one celebrity or another from '50s era Hollywood.
This post = SO RANDOM!
*times have sure changed. Shelley was nominated for Best Leading Actress for this movie but today this would 100% be considered a supporting performance given that she's missing for huge passages of the film.
Reader Comments (5)
Yes this is completely random - what major project are you avoiding?
Ok, totally random comment (as randomness is the theme of the day) - I just finished watching Cabaret for the first time and wondered why the hell did it take me so long? LOVED IT. (FYI - I am not familiar with the Broadway musical, Isherwood's stories, or the 1950's take on them, "I am a Camera".) One of the things that astonished me was how undated it felt, which made an interesting comparison to a "making of" featurette done at the time (included on the DVD), which felt so terribly dated. What the hell happened to Michael York's movie career, btw?
the other two thing that occured to me watching Cabaret 1)that Baz Luhrmann does overstate the whole mix of comedy/tragedy theme (alluded to in the quote above) as if he were the first person to discover it.
2) I kept thinking back to the comparisons you made with Cabaret in your Moulin Rouge tribute essay, especially where you said "Satine is less jaded than Sally." Do you still think so? I almost thought it the other way around; that Sally as played by LIza was very childlike and naive and foolish - in fact, I wondered how such a person could have survived the tough environment of the Berlin cabaret scene of the period.
Hey! What happened wit the Q&A? Where are the answers?
Vortep -- JESUS man. give me at least 24 hours. lol.
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