RedRiver wrote:They were married in real life for about a minute and a half
I once dated a woman for almost an hour!
I had a shorter date than that once.
I was talking with friends one day. There was a lady present who said she couldn`t go. It turned out that she had been invited somewhere but did not have an escort. She was a very nice lady so I said I would love to take her. In due course the day came and I arrived at her house. The conversation went something like this.
Me--Hello
She--( looking at my car, a Kia Sportage) If you want to marry me you will have to get a bigger car, I have five grandchildren.
I saw the tail end of a Tavis Smiley interview with Matt Damon which reminded me to come back here to comment and something you wrote:
[u]KING[/u] [u]RAT[/u] wrote:An important part of the story is not too plausible. Whenever director Gus Van Sant runs out of inspiration (about two-thirds of the way in), here come some pop songs on the soundtrack. Isn't that usually the case when a director or producer decides the images and story can't stand on their own? Gus Van Sant's films are all over the place in terms of quality, and this would probably be mid-pack.
I don't think that's necessarily true. At least I'm hoping not; I just used that device in the project I'm working on. Don't you think sometimes the music + picture montage thing-y serves as a way to illustrate what's going on with characters or setting the scene? Yeah, I guess it is kind of a cliche to use it, but I really don't think it's b'cuz a story can't stand on its own. Maybe I'm speaking for myself but here's how I used it in my web series:
(-) I filmed a montage of the SoHo area of Manhattan with trendy shops, art galleries, boutiques and people so that when these two SoHo Divas approach one of the characters, people already have a sense of the world they come from.
(-) A character meets a promoter who gets her some good gigs to play. I then have a montage of her playing at a nice club, and at a vineyard and a couple of other places to connote he's getting her gigs that move her career forward.
How do I get that across without having the characters "jawbone" and yak about it? I think it advances the story just a little. Does it mean I ran out of ideas? Uh-oh...are you sending me back to the drawing board?
I see previews about signing this deed, signing that deed. I can't get too excited about watching people sign deeds!
I love sparkling dialogue in the mouths of pros who know what to do with it
This fits with the debate we have with people who don't appreciate the classic era.
"The dialogue's not realistic." Should it be?
"It sounds scripted." It is scripted.
"The actors don't look like real people." Do real people look so great?
And on and on. I adore stylish, rhythmic repartee. Comic, romantic, cold and deadly. "Build my gallows high, baby!"
Marius (Horst Bucholz) and Fanny (Leslie Caron) have grown up together and are in love, but Marius has always dreamed of going to sea. After He has gone Fanny discovers that she is pregnant. The aging Panisse (Maurice Chevalier) is also in love with Fanny, marries her and takes her son as his own.
As he is dying Fanny realises that she loves Panisse. Panisse`s dying wish is that she be reunited with Marius, but their son keep the name Panisse.
This was a great film, but then I think That Leslie Caron seemed only to appear in great. I did not recognise Charles Boyer even after I saw his name in the cast list.
It's based on a trilogy of French films from the early 30s. It's good well cast, I love it mostly to see Cesar and Panisse going head to head, Maurice Chevalier and Charles Boyer in a film together, those voices and the talent. It's not as good as the trilogy but it runs at a third of the time, so it's nice to watch from time to time.
I'm going to write about this film here, even though it's a foreign movie it's been remade in Hollywood although my memories of the remake were of a good central performance but a slow movie. Profumo Di Donna or Scent of a Woman with Vittorio Gassman in the central role of the captain or Fausto, directed by Dino Risi and with Alessandro Momo as a cadet who is accompanying him on a trip as part of his national service. Fausto is blind and has a false left arm, he's irrascible, cantankerous, he goads people, he's got quite a naughty sense of humour making a nurse accompany him to the bathroom by telling her he needs the help, whereas he has got one useable arm. He's not above making a scene or even using his disability to rile people, he sends the cadet looking for a prostitute with certain specifications. It's not what the cadet envisaged, yet there is a hidden side to Fausto, he travels with a picture of a girl that he can't see, he also carries a gun in his luggage. They travel fro Turin to Naples and in Naples he meets a leuitenant, also blind and they enter a pact. Staying with the leuitenant is Sara, a girl who loves Fausto but he flirts and literally chases all the girls, he can't see them but they run around him letting themselves be caught. He rejects Sara time and time again, quite roughly and meanly and whenthe shots are heard the cadet and Sara race to Fausto's aid, the suicide pact has gone wrong or awry, perhaps Fausto couldn't do it and he is sprited away to an old farmhouse by the cadet, Ciccio and Sara. Still Fausto rejects the kind and loving Sara, Ciccio the cadet leaves having learnt a great deal about life from the Captain and Fausto imagines himself to be all alone after Sara had been told to leave him. He goes outside, falls and then breaks down and calls for Sara. I watched the film in Italian (which I don't understand with French subs, my French is almost non existent but I got a lot of what was going on and what I didn't get AnnHarding explained to me) I can only say it is a beautiful film, I'm even more in awe of Vittorio gassman as one of the best screen actors and once again in thrall to Italian film, in particular films like this that manage to have a comedy and tragedy running through in equal measure.
I don't remember the Pacino version having anything as risque as the Captain being accompanied to the toilet by a female to help him, or the cadet pimping for a prostitute. One thing Fausto did have was a good nose for women and scent. A transvestite was also in this picture, Fausto could tell intuitavely. In the remake I remember Pacino dancing but not much else.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
Fascinating! I didn't know the Pacino vehicle was taken from another movie. I like the American version. It's not on my top ten or anything. But I like just about everything about it.
I remember all the hype after Pacino won his Oscar, coupling that with the fact that he is one of the best actors of his generation I was anxious to watch it but I was underwhelmed I'm afraid. Perhaps if I revisited it I might think differently, however I don't think it could compare to the original.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
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