I did watch a few movies last week while I wasn't posting. Here's a quick rundown:
Kwaidan. Forgettable series of Japanese ghost stories. In fact, I don't remember the movie well enough to comment further.
The Divorcee. I love Norma Shearer and was hoping for some racy pre-code action, but the, ah, race wasn't racy enough, and the icky gender attitudes got the best of me. Shearer plays a woman whose husband has an affair, then asks her to take a man's attitude towards infidelity (i.e. forget about it). She "takes a man's attitude" by going out and sleeping with one of his friends, at which point he dumps her in disgust. She spends a couple of years leading a pathetic, dissolute life before they eventually reunite. Yawn.
The Magnificent Seven. Funny how I was just wondering whether I liked Fistful of Dollars or Yojimbo better. In this case there's no contest. The Magnificent Seven is a good movie, but it just doesn't grab me nearly as well as its inspiration The Seven Samurai. Great stars though: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Eli Wallach. Good soundtrack too. I was humming it for days after seeing the movie.
Down With Love. Do I even need to say how much I loved this movie? I really loved this movie. No surprise since Pillow Talk is one of my all-time favorites. I would have watched it for the clothes alone, but the movie was great fun too. David Hyde Pierce is uncannily good at playing Tony Randall. I wish they could have worked in my favorite line from Pillow Talk (said by Randall): "Jan, how could you fall in love with a tourist?"
3 Comments
For some reason, I had thought that you were underwhelmed by Down by Love. I liked it a great deal; although there were definitely quite a number of parts where it wasn't nearly as clever as it hoped to be, it just radiated charm.
"Down With Love" was fab-u-lous!! (/hugo weaving)
2 small things: (1)a little visual throwaway joke in the background of one scene; david hyde pierce is mixing martinis and at one point he picks up an unopened bottle of vermouth and waves it over the martinis he's mixing. comedy gold... (2) while watching the "fly me to the moon" montage scene, i was thinking that it would have been even better if they'd used julie london's ultraswanky version. on the dvd, there's a scene that was cut from the movie of dhpierce and sarah paulsen getting ready for the big night. those scenes were originally planned to be intercut with the scenes of macgregor and zelwegger and on the commentary track peyton reed says that for paulsen's scenes he was planning to use the julie london version.
I think I must have expressed underwhelmment with Rene Zellweger. But since I've recently seen 2 movies starring her, enjoyed them both, and enjoyed her in them, I think I have to step back from my previous anti-Zellweger stance.
I still think she always looks like she just sucked a lemon.