Wednesday
Jan302013
Win "Cabaret" on Blu-Ray
Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 8:30AM I have two copies of Cabaret, one of my personal top ten favorite films of all time, remastered on Blu-ray™ for its 40th anniversary, to give away to musical-lovin' readers!
Flamboyant and eccentric American entertainer Sally Bowles (Minnelli) sings in Berlin’s decadent Kit Kat Club, even as Nazism rises in Germany in 1931. She falls in love with a British language teacher (York) – whom she shares with a homosexual German baron (Griem). But Sally's insular, carefree, tolerant and fragile cabaret world is about to be crushed under the boot of the Nazis as Berlin becomes a trap from which Sally's German friends will not escape.Remastered for the first time in over 20 years with new and vintage special features!
The new BluRay comes with a little book as well... 40 pages of insightful photos and text. (This special edition will also be available on DVD next week.) I haven't yet watched the blu-ray and I know that the negatives needed to be cleaned up but I hope they haven't scrubbed all the grain out of the movie. I love how filthy Cabaret always looks. Filthy and Gorgeous.
WILKOMMEN
To enter the Cabaret contest...
1) "like" The Film Experience on Facebook and tell us your favorite moment in Cabaret in a comment here or there. (You'll have to do both for it to count... since some of you have already liked the page)
No Facebook? if you are a Facebook agnostic (I understand some of you exist) you can e-mail me your entry instead with "Come to the Cabaret" in the subject line.
2) for a bonus entry send a photo of yourself inspired in any way by Cabaret along with a bit about your favorite moment in the film that I can share in a "life is a Cabaret" post with your fellow readers right here.
I'll announce winners on Monday February 4th.
after the jump the Cabaret cast on the Today show to celebrate the anniversary...
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Reader Comments (30)
Favorite moment? THE WHOLE MOVIE.
Not even I can believe that I never saw Cabaret... I love good musical movies, but still, I never have the chance to saw this movie!
LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie - I think I knew that as soon as the movie opened....but my favourite moment is when Liza exclaims "Ooooh you got the toothpaste glash!"
My favorite moment is "Maybe This Time" by a mile. In performance by Liza and in the thematic implications it just hits on too many levels not to enjoy.
Kander and Ebb wrote a song that seems to lack some of the cynicism that so defines their work, and wrote this big brash torch ballad. In this ballad, Sally sings of the possibilities that she has finally gotten it right. She thinks this man Brian is someone who finds her wildly desirable and in many ways that her singing is getting noticed and going to garner her some attention. Cut with the love scenes with Brian make it all the more poignant.
But as the film goes, we know on all counts that these are empty unfulfilled dreams.
As she reaches the climax of the song Fosse zooms out and we see she's singing this declaration to an almost empty night club. She's poured her heart out, and it's an empty gesture. Sally has moments of this denial throughout up to an including the finale title song, but it's in this first moment where see the powerful pull of it.
I'm not sure if Cabaret is the best film musical ever made, but I can't think of many that are as masterful. Cabaret the show holds special meaning for me because it was the first show I got paid to choreograph - and it's a fun one!
It's impossible to pick a single favorite moment - Maybe This Time (the lighting!)? Money (the pairing of two of the greatest Oscar-winning performances ever)? The title number (Liza at her MOST Liza)? Shouting under the train (a great addition for the film)? - but today I would say THAT push-in on Liza during the Mein Herr number (the most Fosse-esque number Fosse ever put on film?). Deservedly iconic.
one of my favs ever as well! :D
Liked the fb page.
My favorite moment, aside from the musical numbers "Maybe This Time," "Cabaret," almost all of the Emcee's songs, and even the chillingly uncomfortable Nazi-sung "Tomorrow Belongs To Me," would definitely have to be the somewhat pivotal argument between Brian and Sally. "Oh screw Maximillian!" ... "I do." ...... "ha. So do I." BAM CUE SALLY'S WTF FACE.
I just saw "Cabaret" for the first time this month. I'm still trying to process it, but I'm fairly shocked/scandalized that Joel Grey won the supporting actor Oscar for that performance. He should be grateful that the guys from "The Godfather" split the vote up like crazy that year.
Liza though, *bows.* "Maybe Next Time" is my new theme song. :-)
Facebook agnostics unite!
Cabaret is one of those movies i can watch over and over again.
I already like thefilmexperience on facebook. "Money Money" is special to me for purely selfish reasons (I sang it badly in a high school show). Other than that perhaps any glamour shot of Michael York. Naive-dreamy.
Omg, I just remembered one of my favorite memories of Cabaret, and it's before I had even seen the film.
Freshman year of high school we had this stupid mandatory class called Keystone and it was their attempt to teach us actual important things for post-high school life, like budgeting your finances, insurance, life lessons, etc etc. Needless to say it was stupid and my teacher was kind of dumb too. Once we hit the money section of the course, she would play "Money, Money" before each class even though it had literally nothing to do with anything and didn't teach us anything at all (except I guess that money makes the world go round ... can't really deny that, I suppose).
"Money Money" was so awesome. That number justified both Liza and Joel Grey's Oscar wins.
Cabaret is a great film with many great moments, but my choice will still have to be the last shot when the camera pans to reveals the audience to all be nazis. This shot stays with me because i saw this movie for the first time when i was 6 probably and that scene haunted me because it showed with an image the nazi's takeover. Being a jew this resonated with me deeply and haunted me. When i saw the show when i was 8 years old on my birthday at studio 54 i found it intriguing that the ending was different. It is revealed the emcee is jewish. And he is wearing a prisoner uniform. Even though i am jewish i do tire of holocaust movies with the biggest exceptions being Schindler's List and The Pianist, but this movie presented the nazi takeover through showbusiness and who can forget the choreography of course. I also love it when the little german boy sings. It conveys a similiar meaning that the last shot shows. I can't wait to see this again. if i don't win i will definitely pick this bluray up. I had no idea it was coming out.
One of the top 3 musicals of all time...
How hard was it for the Academy to choose that year? Liza, Diana, Liv, Cicely and Maggie. A 5-way tie, please!
And the supporting actresses also: Geraldine (my choice, that garden hose scene still cracks me up), Susan, Jeannie, Eileen and Shelley.
Definitely the opening song! I can't help but to think of it everything I hear the words Wilkommen or Bienvenu! (not so much with Welcome, I'm not that bad). Already liked the fb page! :)
Patryk, that was a phenomenal Best Actress lineup, but I have to find a spot for Ellen Burstyn in The King of Marvin Gardens. What a chilling performance that was! I have read very bad things about Maggie Smith's performance in TWMA, and I think I could see some cracks in that portrayal. As for Supporting Actress, Eileen Heckart so deserved the win. She really got to the core of that hilariously sad, insufferable woman.
LIFE IS A CABARET OLD CHUM!!
Such a brilliant film! You know a movie is great when it still holds up 40 years later. Perfect casting: Handsome Michael York, stunning Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli in the role of her lifetime. There's a reason it won 8 Academy Awards!! (Can you tell it's one of my favorites??)
My favorite moment in Cabaret:
Brian: "Oh, screw Maximillian!"
Sally: "I do."
Brian: (laughs) "So do I."
-Rob Waters
Miami, FL
I love Liza and I love this movie! I actually think it should have beaten The Godfather for Best Picture!
Love the facebook page and have been a big fan of the site/blog for years. My favorite scene is "Doesn't my body drive you wild with desire?" perfect scene and Liza has never been more beautiful. So hard to pick just one scene since there are so many. Also love when Sally and Brian both admit they've been with Max.
I have been obsessed with this movie ever since I saw a post for it you wrote on the old blog, it had a video of Mein Herr. That made me want to watch the movie for the first time and I fell in love. So that's my favorite moment of the film.
It's "WILLKOMMEN", double "L"
Liked in fb already.
Favorite line: Divine decadence darling!
My all time favorite musical, so fresh at 40! When I first watched it as a teen I was probably too young to understand the risque themes of the movie. Moreover it was censored in Spain and half of the dialog concerning homosexuality was altered in the dubbing. But no dubbing could overcome Liza's Sally Bowles. What a force of nature! what a comic timing! And that voice! Masterpiece.
BTW what happened to Michael York? He looks awfully old (the eyes! the hair!) in that Today video.
Suzanne -- me too (*ducks and hides*)
seisgrados -- well he is 41 years older than he was back then!
Nat-
so is Liza, Joel and Marisa and they look just fine. I couldn't recognize him. Can't be just age.
It is one of my top two favorite films, and choosing a favorite moment is ridiculous. When I was a very young kid I saw it in the movies, and Mein Herr was the first time I was ever rocked by dance-- I could not believe all the things Liza did on that chair.
Although as I've grown older, "he pounced" delights me.
Here is some trivia. My father saw the original musical in Boston, before it came to Broadway. In that version, the last line of "If You Could See Her" was, "She wouldn't look Jewish at all". He then saw it on Broadway, where they had changed it to "She isn't a meeskite at all". It seems the former was too intense/provocative. I love that Fosse put it back. (Also, meeskite would not have meant much in the film, with that storyline and songs not present.)
Something I don't get: why are they all celebrating its 40th anniversary? They're a year late!!
But anyway: I like this film very much. Watched it again a couple of months ago. Moments like the 'Mein Herr', 'Money Money' and 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me' numbers simply never get old.
And on an Oscars note, much as I love The Godfather (and am in no doubt that it is the better film), I fully support the Academy's decision to give the Director prize to Fosse for this. Sometyimes you gotta spread the wealth, and it would have been somehow wrong for Fosse not to win for what he achieved here.
My favorite moment in Cabaret is a quick reaction shot of an old man during "Tomorrow Belongs to Me". I love the whole sequence, but for some reason I really love how that one shot sums up the changes going on in the country at the time.