spence
-
Posts
8,080 -
Joined
Posts posted by spence
-
-
The answer's pretty obvious. Some posters just love to tear people apart, no matter how petty their grievances may be.
If you don't care for the lady, how difficult is it to tune out during her two minute intro and just watch the film?
It is also obvious the network chose her for a couple of reasons. A younger audience hopefuls & B also trying to reach out to spanish movie fans She seems nice enough, but I wager Tiffany doesn't know any of the cinefacts & only gets it from the teleprompter
I KNOW MANY DISLIKE HER, BUT AGAIN & DESPITE SHE'S ON A CURRENT & AWARD WINNING TV-SERIES
WINONA-(l97l-) DID A MARVELOUS JOB, FILLING IN FOR OSBORNE ONE WEEK & WAS A GREAT "GP"-("Guest Programmer") as well
I don't mean for her as the regular full-time host, just instead of Tiffany
Matter of fact you can easily find several photos of her & Robert together, they got along famously-(a quote from her own 1989 "Heathers")
& She's an actual bona-fide old-time moviebuff & likely doesn't need it scripted-(the info) for her, like Vasquez.
Matter of fact, for yrs her Idol & favorite actress was Barbara Stanwyck-(l907-l990) She even appeared at the Academy Awards made up like Ruby Stevens.
& Winona's fav. classic actors:
*Laurence 0livier & *William Holden
& classic actresses:
Stanwyck
*Bette Davis
*I. Bergman
Garbo
*Greer Garson
Maureen 0'Hara
*Ginger Rogers
NATALIE WOOD-(she says "I have this weird affinity for her")
*Audrey Hepburn
& *Jessica Tandy
Stanwyck's still up there for her, but now her ultimate idol is Oscar victor Kate Winslet-(l975-) & her (4) films she chose as a TCM "GP"
Ball of Fire (l94l-RKO)
A Face in the Crowd (l957)
The front (l976)
& 12 Angry Men (l957-UA)
& she also always says ten movies she would take to another planet:
"A Face in the Crowd, To Kill a Mockingbird-(TRIVIA: though not in this discussion Madonna's A #1), Opening Night, The Tempest (l982), Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli, Don't look Now, Walkabout, *West Side Story, & Random Harvest-(was also among Mr. 0sborne's top pix)
& she's always firmly said she ranks Scorsese as the greatest filmmaker alive, especially when he helmed her, D. Day-Lewis & the luminous Pfeiffer in '93's The Age of Innocence
We even share the same birthday though I've got 7yrs on her Full name: Winona (Laura) Horowitz
(P.S. & who finds this also bizarre world, I used to think he was funny, but why is DENNIS MILLER on here now too???
-
1
-
-
For those that have no idea who the incredibally talented performer ANDY SERKIS is,
it's no insult, because of his amazing work in the movies & he's hidden behind cgi,etc
But, it's still a scripted performance each time he knocks one out of the ballpark
Where does one start?
Lord of the rings Trilogy (2001-03) as the Golum
King Kong (2005 version) as Kong
I get the titles confused, but the trilogy-(the 3rd is due this summer War of the Planet of the Apes) as Caesar in all 3
& other works-(to jakeem or anyone else, please fill in the blanks as to his other achievements please I know you'll have the answer)
at any rate, some AMPAS attention is due, especially from the looks of this upcoming epic
THANK YOU
-
1
-
-
Most have seen the now legendary & classic tv teaming of The chairman of the Board & The King of Rock N'Roll , performing together in their one & only time ever.
Frank was not fond of Elvis-(maybe feeling a bit threatened, because he may garner some of his legions of followers?)
Plus, he loathed Rock N'Roll BIG-TIME! He didn't despise Presley, he just had his own style & vice-versa & simply did not want to do that appearance between the 2 of them However, people around him talked him into it & it would lighten ol' Blue Eyes Up in the minds of many, to sing with the kid. So, he did it of course
Just prior to Elvis going into the Army too. (l958)
WHO RECALLS THIS CLIP?
Where they switched songs
By the way that was the one genre, medium FS bombed at, was his short lived tv show But pal Dino could do no wrong & al;l his tv jazz was a hit!
He has (3) WOF-Stars, Elvis (2) & I think Bing has (3) To be fair, Frank should have (4), Dino (4)
But the champ on The Walk-of-Fame-(est: 1958 & 61-) is still RIDICULOUSLY Gene Autry? Bob Hope is the runner-up with (4)
-
I'm not a big fan. It's OK but I find Goodfellas to be far superior. And I'm Italian, so sue me.
Italian or Sicilian?
I kinda' grew up in a town that has in recent yrs gained some fame due to that stupid yet popular tv show Jersey Shore Seaside Heights, N.J. & the Irish settled the island/town, but in the 1970's & early '80's it was about 70% Italian
-
I'll never forget & it was a mistake on her behalf, she-(mom) didn't know about movies very much back then & took me to GFI, though it was a reissue around 1974 or so. & I had to use the bathroom & it was during the now legendary horse's head scene & some guy was in the bathroom puking his guts up BIG-TIME!
Compared to nowadays, that was nada of course
Ironically & a 180, is that she took me to my first movie as a little Irish lad & it was also a reissue Mary Poppins (l964) & then Disney's wonderful 1967 version of The Jungle Book On that note, I love that movie, but last yrs JB was even superior
-
"Are there more magnificent films?
Yes.
I found The Godfather incredibly boring. I have no desire to watch it again. Don't understand the appeal.
Goodfellas was way more entertaining and interesting.
The only film (so far) that I've found more boring than The Godfather is Apocalypse Now.
To speedracer, welp, that's a new one on me! Never ever heard of anyone thinking it was boring, but to each his own right
in regard to the brilliantly made 1990 GoodFellas though, I agree it's superb on every level. & I must admit GFI is more operatic, but as far as the real deal & dealings of the mafia Scorsese's film was more accurate. By the way did you folks know that Henry "The Rat" & "Blabber Mouth" Hill passed away awhile back at age 69 in 2012? (CINEFAX: The year GoodFellas was a big contender come Oscar time, though Costner's tremendous epic Western Dances with Wolves dominated sweeping (7), but every single annual pre-Oscar critics award voted for GoodFellas. Dances... also holds the distinction of being the highest $grossing$ Western in history at $184m. Runners-Up to date are True Grit (2011 version) $170m & Django Unchained $160-$165m You also truly made my head scratch including what I rate as the greatest war-picture ever made in Apocalypse Now???
-
Let's hope TCM does not pan and scan, because we all get the heebie jeebies when that happens.
Inventive Avatar of Tor Johnson-(d-1971) Did you see George "The Animal" Steele's take on him in Tim Burton's often brilliant 1994 "Ed Wood?" ($6m.)
I think Steele has since went? I remember as a teenager watching him-(this was prior to what Vince McMahon-(l945-) did in the '80's, GENIUSLY changing the entire face of the WWF/WWE & others. He combined Hulk Hogan, Cyndi Lauper, MTV & made it more family friendly i.e. no blood & he used to eat the turnbuckle. I heard from many that George "The Animal" Steele was actually a college professor!
-
Most may know this, & he never lived it down, but when Francis Albert-(his 1st career) was known simply as "The Voice" He did a song that gained instant notoriety "Mama Will Bark"
Who knows of this mess of a number.
& I'm not as huge a fan from what he dubbed his first career-(l940's) Of course his 2nd career really kicked into high gear with his 1953 Oscar winning turn as Maggio in From Here to Eternity.
He had all.....you know what hit the fan at the very end of the '40's, his MGM movies made $dough$ $Especially the 3 with Gene Kelly-(he liked "Take Me 0ut to the Ball Game") b4est, obviously because of his love of baseball. Matter of fact, it was nearly impossible-(due to Nancy Sinatra) to locate a Sinatra Bobblehead All the companies told me why. Then I stumbled upon some that were given to all the fans at a San Francisco Giants game-(his fav. team) & then I was lucky enough to nail one down & have it here on my desk. I just wish it had him with a microphone,etc as opposed to holding a baseball
The kicker is, they virtually sell bobbleheads for anyone, from 0bama, Trump, Hillary even Sadam Hussein had one? Of course they have an array of them on ELVIS!-(got my ma' one & though FS is my 32 Idol, I also own 1 on Elvis myself)
But, he was fired by L.B. Mayer because he made a little joke about a girl that The Mogul liked & as he said Mr Mayer was devoid of any sense of humor & some true little known but factual trivia on L.B. He was deeply "In Love' with Ann-Miller, she didn't feel the same way though & of all people Louis B. Mayer-(l885-l957) almost killed himself over it with sleeping pills! this was according to ann herself & others. He tried to get at her via her mother, apparently nothing worked for The Mogul of All Moguls & he was not used to getting his way. She said despite still working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he rarely spoke to her the rest of his days.
THANX & keep the comments comin'
-
I pot these stats from a couple of sites & cross referenced it before writing it
Even L. King mentioned that Frank made (2oo albums & 1,800 songs)
& it's strange that his 6 decades of music output is not ranked up in the top 5 artists?
even though he's among my heroes, "Duets" was a mess
I was given "Duets" as a gift & wanted it, despite it being rather lame. a collectors item. He mostly phoned in his vocals & I believe it 3was made/produced at CHAPLIN'S old studio "Dream Factory" on La Brea. Jim Henson owned it for awhile, hence the reason Kermit the Frog is on top of it's frt gates. I do know for certain "We Are the World" was made at The Little Tramp's own studio in the '80's. It looks like it's been in a time warp-(GEE, SURPRISED THEY DIDN'T ALREADY TEAR THAT LITTLE STUDIO DOWN ALREADY TOO) & looks the same as in the early 1950's when Charlie said to literally just chuck the lot & went back to Switzerland
-
For me Frank Sinatra is the go to when I need to have my emotions expressed in music. He is able to make my insides tingle everytime I hear him sing. Along with Fred Astaire he is a celebrity I miss the most (not for his celebratory) but for his talent. I remember the day his death was announced and the following Sunday on a radio station in Dallas there was a three hour tribute to his career. The station began the tribute with his first recordings and proceeded through his career in the timeline of his performing life. The information between numbers was excellent and one of my colleagues at work, remembering my delight in Frank Sinatra, taped the whole show and I have it to this day...along with the People issue celebrating his life.
The next two singers for me are Nat King Cole and Jo Stafford. Thank goodness for You Tube that makes me able to resurrect my memories whenever I choose.
PERFECTLY PUT!
& on youtube, there's a ton of him & Elvis too! & as I've repeatedly told fans you must check-(MANDATORY IF YOUR A BONA FIDE FAN) just punch in SINATRA, DINO, SAMMY & JOHNNY CARSON IN A RARE CONCERT FROM '65 Rare because Johnny not only was filling in for Joey Bishop & even carried a tune along with the boys' IT'S A MUST SAVE!!! SO, PLEASE LET ME & US KNOW TO ANYONE OUT THERE, THAT HAS SEEN IT YET, OR PLAN TO. (it's about 90min)
-
For me Frank Sinatra is the go to when I need to have my emotions expressed in music. He is able to make my insides tingle everytime I hear him sing. Along with Fred Astaire he is a celebrity I miss the most (not for his celebratory) but for his talent. I remember the day his death was announced and the following Sunday on a radio station in Dallas there was a three hour tribute to his career. The station began the tribute with his first recordings and proceeded through his career in the timeline of his performing life. The information between numbers was excellent and one of my colleagues at work, remembering my delight in Frank Sinatra, taped the whole show and I have it to this day...along with the People issue celebrating his life.
The next two singers for me are Nat King Cole and Jo Stafford. Thank goodness for You Tube that makes me able to resurrect my memories whenever I choose.
Ironically Sinatra also rated Cole among the finest. Matter of fact, he once said he wish he sounded like the singer.
-
What can anybody really add more to the legendary icon & all-time Oscar winning champion WALTER (ELIAS) DISNEY-(l90l-l966)
It's simply superb that the network has finally been able to broadcast his genius
I only wish they now can air the legendary likes of
Dumbo (l94l-Disney/RKO Radio)
Pinocchio (l940-Disney/RKO)-(most critics & historians in general vote this as his ultimate masterpiece, for me it's close between Dumbo & this one. (TRIVIA: Also Steven Spielberg's all-time fav. motion picture. Most may know this, but the closing credits to his 1977 "Close Encounters..." has it's theme playing as the mother ship flies away)
Fantasia (l940-Disney/RKO)-(many don't rate this as high as I've always done & since the early 1980's too! it wasn't the $B.O.$ bonanza of his others, due to being more experimental, which to me is why I've thought it the Citizen Kane of animation. I went to Fantasia": 2000 in the theatre when released & still like the original a tiny bit more)
Snow white and the 7 Dwarfs (l937/38 Disney/RKO Radio)
I've written numerous posts on filmmakers own favorite works they made, but don't yet know his???
& would someone knock it off & have the guts to air the terrific 1946 Song of the South???
& who else-(I've asked this before & nobody seemed to have seen this nice pic.) Saving Mr. Banks (2013) ($85m.) (***-out of 4)
Emma Thompson was perfecto as usual & though it was a stretch to buy Hanks as Walt, he still pulled it off & once again the yet to score an Oscar Thomas Newman delivered a nice score & it was it's sole nod. that year)
(TRIVIA/FUN/FAX: all heard the rumor of him being chriogenically frozen, but I'm hear to see I walked by his niche in the wall-(cremated along with a couple others) on the outside front of the wall veeery top of Glendale's "Forest Lawn' Unfortunately, on both times, I missed on snapping a photo-(it's shown though all over the net) because it was then covered in a lotta' foliage & like a big dummy, I walked right by it DUH I used to know the remaining family members of THE GREAT: SPENCER TRACY & Cyndi tracy always insisted that he was interred very close to TRACY, nope, as told her a few times, both are based on opposite sides of the "Freedom Mausoleum" I hated to burst her bubble, but the closest stars to TRACY's opulent garden grave are Errol Flynn, Ida Lupino & even closer actress Lillie Palmer.
A QUESTION FOR LAWRENCEA, JAKEEM, TOPBILLED
& ANY OTHERS. I read conflicting stories about his cause of death at only age 65. Heart of cancer? Walt was yet another like his contemporaries who smoke a lot, possibly up to 5pks per day. As the wonderful Ken Murray-(l903-88) says on his utterly tremendous docu's "Hollywood, My Hometown" "Hollywood, without Makeup" He ends them around 1964/65 with Disney & calls him The Hans Christian Anderson of our time" unquote (P.S also, to anyone, to your knowl4edge did Murray make anymore of this home movies?)THANX
-
From the polo clip, we may expect a "Horse" theme.
As I & a few others have written, Eddie Muller & Leonard easily deserve to be the networks main hosts
-
It's official: 'Star Wars: Episode VIII' will be called 'The Last Jedi'
http://ew.com/movies/2017/01/23/the-last-jedi-star-wars-episode-viii-has-a-title/ …
Man, man, o, man-(the immortal words of Walter Brennan in "Bad Day at Black rock" You are really on the ball pal
-
Agreed. More special effects, fantasy, comic book stuff, etc.
Saw the trailer for Dunkirk. Might be worth a look because I like history, but doubt if audiences will flock to see it.
Although very early in general there is at least 1 or more pix that make the Oscar cut & looking ahead "Dunkirk" & "The Beguiled' may be them?
-
Fine trailers, but do you see-(though as we know it's still premature)
Of her snagging her 1st nomination of it & more-over Nicole again?
I've been oddsmaking Oscar since '82 when I was a kid & among the few things I've learned & some fellow handcappers is go by the director & it's Oscar winner Sophia Coppola-(for the wonderful "Lost in Translation)
How could most 4-get Dunst in 1994's "Interview With the Vampire"
-
On Monday, I saw my first movie of 2017, Song to Song. Here is Richard Brody's review from his New Yorker blog:
Terrence Malick is a romantic idealist. His films revel in the unity of the virtues, of beauty, truth, and justice fused in an ultimate realm that leaves its glimmers on Earth and finds its ordinary place amid humanity in the form of love. Even more than his flowing, fragmentary, allusive methods, it’s his transcendental world view that renders him grandly untimely, that makes critics who are smitten with television’s cynical “darkness” repudiate the cathedral-like sublimity of his vision.
In his new film, “Song to Song,” Malick does something new with his familiar technique: he builds his cathedral from the ground up, filming mainly in his home town of Austin, Texas, and anchoring the movie on a starkly clear framework—a simple story of couples in doubt and conflict. But within his story of a shifting romantic triangle he develops both a teeming, harshly emotional web of relationships and an overwhelming, rapturous variety of visual experience. Forging under pressure a new way of telling familiar (and family) stories, Malick also displays a conspicuously painterly boldness, a sort of cinematic Impressionism that locates an indelible force of light and detail in the stuff of daily life.
It’s common practice when writing about a movie to offer at least a sketch of the plot; with “Song to Song,” that banality becomes an act of criticism—and of enthusiasm—in itself. That’s because, despite Malick’s daringly collage-like assemblage of images that only dart across the surfaces of their narrative elements, the movie has a rich, complex, thoroughly imagined plot of a novelistic amplitude. Going into detail about the story is, above all, proof that the movie has a story—that Malick is not a captive of his finely crafted style but, rather, able to deploy it to realize a dramatically engrossing world.
The names of the movie’s characters aren’t mentioned, with the exception of its protagonist, Faye (Rooney Mara), who’s pursuing a career in music and lands in a relationship with the record-company mogul (Michael Fassbender) for whom she had been working as a receptionist. With him, she has gotten used to a life of comfort, but she’s not doing much with music. At a party, Faye meets another young Austin musician (Ryan Gosling), who is something of the impresario’s protégé—he’s signed to a deal and being groomed for stardom—and she, the musician, and the mogul become something of a “Jules and Jim”-like trio, jetting off to Mexico in the rich man’s private plane and cavorting freely on the beach. But on that Mexico jaunt Faye—during a side trip to an abandoned monastery—realizes that she has fallen in love with the young man, and this becomes painfully clear to the mogul. Soon after the return to Austin, the mogul shamelessly flirts with a waitress (Natalie Portman), a former kindergarten teacher down on her luck, and eventually they marry.
On the basis of this classic setup of an unstable triangle, Malick goes on to build a wide and passionate tangle of new relationships and long-standing bonds. The mogul’s dealings with the young man fall apart, but the mogul and Faye aren’t done with each other; they still have a sexual relationship—and he offers her a record contract. Faye and the young musician break up; he meets a former girlfriend (Lykke Li) and gets involved with a socialite (Cate Blanchett), whom he meets at another fancy party. Faye gets involved with a Parisian artist (Bérénice Marlohe), whom she meets by chance. The mogul, despite being married, frequents prostitutes (one of whom, played by Jaylen Jones, speaks insightfully about her work) and drives his wife to despair. And, through the turmoil of erotic and professional distractions, Faye and the young musician (Gosling) find each other again. While the romantic entanglements tighten and slacken, the lovers’ families are woven among them. One of the movie’s strongest presences is the waitress’s mother, played by Holly Hunter, who delivers lines that ring like hammer blows: “You need money for a lawyer; the law’s no help for people who are ruined.” Linda Emond also plays a key and memorable role as the mother of the young musician, and, as Faye’s father, Brady Coleman invests just a few lines and glances with a deep, world-worn wisdom.
The music world is also woven into the story, with a sharp and self-deprecating backstage anecdote delivered by Iggy Pop, and, above all, with the recurring, majestic presence of Patti Smith, as herself, who serves as a mentor to Faye and as the movie’s tough-mindedly romantic philosophical conscience. “Song to Song” is filled with music, both applied to the soundtrack and performed onscreen by musicians and actors, and the spontaneous bursts of dance that arise, whether at parties or onstage, in a crowd or during isolated moments of flirtation and courtship, give the movie the feel of a musical, one in which the music arises from within and emerges in action.
Malick brings this mighty story to life in a copious array of images of a breathtakingly generous, gentle beauty. The cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki creates plunging, whirling, beatifically graceful, seemingly borderless images that gather light lovingly and avidly—and catch the light with which each of the film’s actors seems to glow. The filmmaker appears to allow the performances an unusual degree of freedom to create their actions in front of the camera, but the images never seem either subordinate to performance or constraining of it. Rather, the actors give freely of themselves (Gosling’s self-conscious whimsy adds some notable moments of comedy), while the camera, in sharp attention to gestures, glances, textures, and faces, and by way of some soul-shuddering closeups, gets past mere performance to the seeming core of character.
“Song to Song” offers a dazzling profusion of perspectives and angles, in some of the most radically inflected points of view since the heyday of Dziga Vertov. Malick brings his characters to a sharply varied range of places and spaces (with special attention to Austin and its surroundings), evoking a wide realm of experiences through architecture and décor. (The movie owes much to the production designer Jack Fisk, one of Malick’s key collaborators ever since his first film, “Badlands,” from 1973.) These images mesh and clash in a vast mental space that’s defined by the film’s mosaic-like editing. (No other recent film has as intricate and original an editing scheme.) The characters’ lines of dialogue are spoken, most often in voice-over, holding the narrative together and pushing it ahead while allowing the images to flow in an associative freedom that makes almost all other movies look, by comparison, like the stodgiest vestiges of filmed theatre.
As in his previous film, “Knight of Cups,” Malick makes art—his art—the subject of the film. By centering “Song to Song” on young artists struggling to find their way into the business and into their own finest vein of creation—while they’re also struggling to find their way into the world and make the intimate connections of which they dream—Malick catches life at its most dynamic and its most unstable. The boundless aspirations and ardors of young people are themselves the core of his romanticism. Without nostalgia and without sentimentality, this seventy-three-year-old filmmaker looks to the heart of his own inspiration, his own impulses, and creates a cinema that, with the creative command of his own life experience, feels more exuberantly youthful than that of most Sundance phenoms.
Is it another musical with Gosling, ala La La Land?
-
Why-(obvious reasons) the incredibally talented 3 time Oscar contender Johnny Depp keeps churning these out though? I know it's supposed to be the final in the franchise. it's just that he's done so much more & shoulda' moved on after #3 maybe? what do I know I do know one thing, he was robbed of a 4th nod for "Black Mass" ($50m.)
Amazing contrasts in his roles too. "Benny & Joon" "Ed Wood" "Edward Scissorhands" "Whitey" Bulgar, "Alice in wonderland" even "Harry & Tonto" & alledgedly he had a stronger role as :Lerner in "Platoon' but Oliver stone edited some of his scenes done, so he didn't appear closer to Charlie Sheen's leading character.
-
This just in: #WonderWoman is the best-reviewed #DC movie since 'The Dark Knight'! http://share.ew.com/gs1ZmnC
Jakeem, I for one love the huge poster images & such!
-
WOW! A GOOD SCOOP,etc
(TRIVIA: Some fun fax on Sofia Coppola, obviously a superior director then actress. Her role in 1990's "Godfather, Part III" ($67m.) (***)
was always slated for one of my favorite gals WINONA RYDER instead.
Sofia obviously found her mark though)
-
Jakeem, doesn't that rate it at #7 to date now
-
SOFIA COPPOLA WINS BEST DIRECTOR! She becomes the second female filmmaker in history to win: http://bit.ly/2qwG5Kv #Cannes2017
WOW! A GOOD SCOOP,etc
-
On Monday, I saw my first movie of 2017, Song to Song. Here is Richard Brody's review from his New Yorker blog:
Terrence Malick is a romantic idealist. His films revel in the unity of the virtues, of beauty, truth, and justice fused in an ultimate realm that leaves its glimmers on Earth and finds its ordinary place amid humanity in the form of love. Even more than his flowing, fragmentary, allusive methods, it’s his transcendental world view that renders him grandly untimely, that makes critics who are smitten with television’s cynical “darkness” repudiate the cathedral-like sublimity of his vision.
In his new film, “Song to Song,” Malick does something new with his familiar technique: he builds his cathedral from the ground up, filming mainly in his home town of Austin, Texas, and anchoring the movie on a starkly clear framework—a simple story of couples in doubt and conflict. But within his story of a shifting romantic triangle he develops both a teeming, harshly emotional web of relationships and an overwhelming, rapturous variety of visual experience. Forging under pressure a new way of telling familiar (and family) stories, Malick also displays a conspicuously painterly boldness, a sort of cinematic Impressionism that locates an indelible force of light and detail in the stuff of daily life.
It’s common practice when writing about a movie to offer at least a sketch of the plot; with “Song to Song,” that banality becomes an act of criticism—and of enthusiasm—in itself. That’s because, despite Malick’s daringly collage-like assemblage of images that only dart across the surfaces of their narrative elements, the movie has a rich, complex, thoroughly imagined plot of a novelistic amplitude. Going into detail about the story is, above all, proof that the movie has a story—that Malick is not a captive of his finely crafted style but, rather, able to deploy it to realize a dramatically engrossing world.
The names of the movie’s characters aren’t mentioned, with the exception of its protagonist, Faye (Rooney Mara), who’s pursuing a career in music and lands in a relationship with the record-company mogul (Michael Fassbender) for whom she had been working as a receptionist. With him, she has gotten used to a life of comfort, but she’s not doing much with music. At a party, Faye meets another young Austin musician (Ryan Gosling), who is something of the impresario’s protégé—he’s signed to a deal and being groomed for stardom—and she, the musician, and the mogul become something of a “Jules and Jim”-like trio, jetting off to Mexico in the rich man’s private plane and cavorting freely on the beach. But on that Mexico jaunt Faye—during a side trip to an abandoned monastery—realizes that she has fallen in love with the young man, and this becomes painfully clear to the mogul. Soon after the return to Austin, the mogul shamelessly flirts with a waitress (Natalie Portman), a former kindergarten teacher down on her luck, and eventually they marry.
On the basis of this classic setup of an unstable triangle, Malick goes on to build a wide and passionate tangle of new relationships and long-standing bonds. The mogul’s dealings with the young man fall apart, but the mogul and Faye aren’t done with each other; they still have a sexual relationship—and he offers her a record contract. Faye and the young musician break up; he meets a former girlfriend (Lykke Li) and gets involved with a socialite (Cate Blanchett), whom he meets at another fancy party. Faye gets involved with a Parisian artist (Bérénice Marlohe), whom she meets by chance. The mogul, despite being married, frequents prostitutes (one of whom, played by Jaylen Jones, speaks insightfully about her work) and drives his wife to despair. And, through the turmoil of erotic and professional distractions, Faye and the young musician (Gosling) find each other again. While the romantic entanglements tighten and slacken, the lovers’ families are woven among them. One of the movie’s strongest presences is the waitress’s mother, played by Holly Hunter, who delivers lines that ring like hammer blows: “You need money for a lawyer; the law’s no help for people who are ruined.” Linda Emond also plays a key and memorable role as the mother of the young musician, and, as Faye’s father, Brady Coleman invests just a few lines and glances with a deep, world-worn wisdom.
The music world is also woven into the story, with a sharp and self-deprecating backstage anecdote delivered by Iggy Pop, and, above all, with the recurring, majestic presence of Patti Smith, as herself, who serves as a mentor to Faye and as the movie’s tough-mindedly romantic philosophical conscience. “Song to Song” is filled with music, both applied to the soundtrack and performed onscreen by musicians and actors, and the spontaneous bursts of dance that arise, whether at parties or onstage, in a crowd or during isolated moments of flirtation and courtship, give the movie the feel of a musical, one in which the music arises from within and emerges in action.
Malick brings this mighty story to life in a copious array of images of a breathtakingly generous, gentle beauty. The cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki creates plunging, whirling, beatifically graceful, seemingly borderless images that gather light lovingly and avidly—and catch the light with which each of the film’s actors seems to glow. The filmmaker appears to allow the performances an unusual degree of freedom to create their actions in front of the camera, but the images never seem either subordinate to performance or constraining of it. Rather, the actors give freely of themselves (Gosling’s self-conscious whimsy adds some notable moments of comedy), while the camera, in sharp attention to gestures, glances, textures, and faces, and by way of some soul-shuddering closeups, gets past mere performance to the seeming core of character.
“Song to Song” offers a dazzling profusion of perspectives and angles, in some of the most radically inflected points of view since the heyday of Dziga Vertov. Malick brings his characters to a sharply varied range of places and spaces (with special attention to Austin and its surroundings), evoking a wide realm of experiences through architecture and décor. (The movie owes much to the production designer Jack Fisk, one of Malick’s key collaborators ever since his first film, “Badlands,” from 1973.) These images mesh and clash in a vast mental space that’s defined by the film’s mosaic-like editing. (No other recent film has as intricate and original an editing scheme.) The characters’ lines of dialogue are spoken, most often in voice-over, holding the narrative together and pushing it ahead while allowing the images to flow in an associative freedom that makes almost all other movies look, by comparison, like the stodgiest vestiges of filmed theatre.
As in his previous film, “Knight of Cups,” Malick makes art—his art—the subject of the film. By centering “Song to Song” on young artists struggling to find their way into the business and into their own finest vein of creation—while they’re also struggling to find their way into the world and make the intimate connections of which they dream—Malick catches life at its most dynamic and its most unstable. The boundless aspirations and ardors of young people are themselves the core of his romanticism. Without nostalgia and without sentimentality, this seventy-three-year-old filmmaker looks to the heart of his own inspiration, his own impulses, and creates a cinema that, with the creative command of his own life experience, feels more exuberantly youthful than that of most Sundance phenoms.
Skimpole, you got me & possibly some others here I didn't even know Malick had this picture coming up already.
His sole shot-(not that that always matters) at The Golden Boy so far was his massive WW2 epic from
98 "The Thin Red Line" ($36m.) which had the misfortune come Oscar time of going up against Spielberg's WW11 epic "Pvt. Ryan"
-
Kate's among the top 3 to5 finest actresses today!
Has anyone else also heard that Elba may be the next James Bond?
& ANY OTHERS. I read conflicting stories about his cause of death at only age 65. Heart of cancer? Walt was yet another like his contemporaries who smoke a lot, possibly up to 5pks per day. As the wonderful Ken Murray-(l903-88) says on his utterly tremendous docu's "Hollywood, My Hometown" "Hollywood, without Makeup" He ends them around 1964/65 with Disney & calls him The Hans Christian Anderson of our time" unquote (P.S also, to anyone, to your knowl4edge did Murray make anymore of this home movies?)
New TCM Hosts
in General Discussions
Posted
4 BIG STARS! ON BEING A JAMES STEWART FAN PAL!!! I got to not only see what was his fmr home-(pretty modest too for such a heavyweight) on 923 Roxbury Dr.-(once a famed tour road, now, not nearly as much? Lucy, Jack Benny, Peter Falk, Rosemary Clooney, Oscar Levant & others)
But & for others bear this in mind next time you catch 1932's Oscar winner The Champ (***1/2) *Wallace Beery-(l885-l949) once own exact same house that Jimmy later lived in for yrs. & it can easily be seen in The Champ. when he takes Jackie Cooper to see his mother & Jackie's on the roof. During Hollywoods Glorious Golden age & Studio-System-(circa 1925-1960) they had the double decker tour buses & he'd be out there mowing his lawn-(Stewart that is) & would happily come over to the bus & sign fans autographs.
& despite him officially being the highest decorated movie star during "The War"-(Audie Murpohy-(l924-7l) wasn't in movies yet of course) (NOTE: A fun true story on Stewart first though. at 6'3 & 1/2 & barely 139lbs he was turned down when trying to enlist at first,he had to gain at least 10lbs more)
He easily could have chosen Arlington, cem but instead chose to be laid to rest w/his Hollywood contemporaries at the massive & all-up very steep roiling hills in the 318 acre Glendale-(not Hollywood Hills) "Forest Lawn, park" sadly, though only married once & happily, his wife Dolores died a couple yrs before the legendary Oscar winner in 1994. & a lot of Glendale is closed to the public, however he wanted his fans to always be able to visit him, on a small hill & with no gates in site Although it was from his area at dusk that lots of coyotes come from 
He & great pal of 47yrs *Henry Fonda-(l905-l9820 were 180 different politically. he was a staunch republic-(but not as much as "The Duke") & *Fonda a lifelong liberal, it never interfered with their friendship though