MUSINGS, PONDERINGS, RUMINATIONS AND FANCIES

[KayFrancis]

I'm in a kvetching mood too, probably because of missing Lucy Gallant! lol.
Yes, yes Philadelphia Story needs to go back in the vault for awhile.
Watched the last episode of Truman vs. The Swans on demand this morning. Soooooo depressing. The acting, the clothes, the location shots in this series were wonderful, but really, he was so miserable and the series was a downer.
Watching Ruth Roman, Julie Adams, Kathryn Grayson and Gloria deHaven on Murder She Wrote, although have seen all the episodes a ton of times. Considering how much I pay for Spectrum, they could use a shake up on their channels and programming too.Same shows, over and over.

Hibi wrote
I started losing interest about mid way through The Swans. It would've made a good 2 part telefilm, but stretched out to 8 episodes was too much. I started recording it then FFing through much of the Truman parts. HE's exhausting. And hated the made up stuff and innaccuracies. It was well acted and produced. But too much of a bad thing. They made it out like it was a decades long drama. It wasn't. They dropped him and it was over. I didn't care for the gratuitous sex scenes either.
I never get tired of watching the Loretta episodes on MSW. I wish they'd done more of them.

________________________________
Yes, that's why I put MSW on, love it when Ruth Roman, Katharine Grayson, Gloria deHaven and Julie Adams are on
I watched all 8 episodes of the Capote series. Yes, definitely hated the made up stuff. As talented a writer as he was, he had a miserable life. The last episode focused on his mother's relationship with him from the time he was a little boy ( played by Jessica Lange). Very messed up childhood. Anne Woodward's ( Demi Moore ) suicide tied into his mother's suicide.Anne Woidward reminded him of his mother, that's why he was so cruel to Anne Woodward.
Quite awhile ago I read an article in Vanity Fair about Jackie and Lee Radziwell's rivalry, their jealousy of one another is touched on briefly in this episode. Forgiveness was what Truman wanted in this rpiside.
To be honest, I dont know how I feel about the series
I know it was depressing , at least for me and for the most part ,Truman was a pathetic , self absorbed , ill man. The only sympathy we could have for him was that his childhood was awful.
The series was well done but I could have skipped it.

[KayFrancis]

I'm in a kvetching mood too, probably because of missing Lucy Gallant! lol.
Yes, yes Philadelphia Story needs to go back in the vault for awhile.
Watched the last episode of Truman vs. The Swans on demand this morning. Soooooo depressing. The acting, the clothes, the location shots in this series were wonderful, but really, he was so miserable and the series was a downer.
Watching Ruth Roman, Julie Adams, Kathryn Grayson and Gloria deHaven on Murder She Wrote, although have seen all the episodes a ton of times. Considering how much I pay for Spectrum, they could use a shake up on their channels and programming too.Same shows, over and over.

Hibi wrote
I started losing interest about mid way through The Swans. It would've made a good 2 part telefilm, but stretched out to 8 episodes was too much. I started recording it then FFing through much of the Truman parts. HE's exhausting. And hated the made up stuff and innaccuracies. It was well acted and produced. But too much of a bad thing. They made it out like it was a decades long drama. It wasn't. They dropped him and it was over. I didn't care for the gratuitous sex scenes either.
I never get tired of watching the Loretta episodes on MSW. I wish they'd done more of them.

________________________________
Yes, that's why I put MSW on, love it when Ruth Roman, Katharine Grayson, Gloria deHaven and Julie Adams are on
I watched all 8 episodes of the Capote series. Yes, definitely hated the made up stuff. As talented a writer as he was, he had a miserable life. The last episode focused on his mother's relationship with him from the time he was a little boy ( played by Jessica Lange). Very messed up childhood. Anne Woodward's ( Demi Moore ) suicide tied into his mother's suicide.Anne Woidward reminded him of his mother, that's why he was so cruel to Anne Woodward.
Quite awhile ago I read an article in Vanity Fair about Jackie and Lee Radziwell's rivalry, their jealousy of one another is touched on briefly in this episode. Forgiveness was what Truman wanted in this episode.
To be honest, I dont know how I feel about the series
I know it was depressing , at least for me and for the most part ,Truman was a pathetic , self absorbed , ill man. The only sympathy we could have for him was that his childhood was awful.
The series was well done but I could have skipped it.

[Hibi]

I'm in a kvetching mood too, probably because of missing Lucy Gallant! lol.
Yes, yes Philadelphia Story needs to go back in the vault for awhile.
Watched the last episode of Truman vs. The Swans on demand this morning. Soooooo depressing. The acting, the clothes, the location shots in this series were wonderful, but really, he was so miserable and the series was a downer.
Watching Ruth Roman, Julie Adams, Kathryn Grayson and Gloria deHaven on Murder She Wrote, although have seen all the episodes a ton of times. Considering how much I pay for Spectrum, they could use a shake up on their channels and programming too.Same shows, over and over.

Hibi wrote
I started losing interest about mid way through The Swans. It would've made a good 2 part telefilm, but stretched out to 8 episodes was too much. I started recording it then FFing through much of the Truman parts. HE's exhausting. And hated the made up stuff and innaccuracies. It was well acted and produced. But too much of a bad thing. They made it out like it was a decades long drama. It wasn't. They dropped him and it was over. I didn't care for the gratuitous sex scenes either.
I never get tired of watching the Loretta episodes on MSW. I wish they'd done more of them.

________________________________
Yes, that's why I put MSW on, love it when Ruth Roman, Katharine Grayson, Gloria deHaven and Julie Adams are on
I watched all 8 episodes of the Capote series. Yes, definitely hated the made up stuff. As talented a writer as he was, he had a miserable life. The last episode focused on his mother's relationship with him from the time he was a little boy ( played by Jessica Lange). Very messed up childhood. Anne Woodward's ( Demi Moore ) suicide tied into his mother's suicide.Anne Woidward reminded him of his mother, that's why he was so cruel to Anne Woodward.
Quite awhile ago I read an article in Vanity Fair about Jackie and Lee Radziwell's rivalry, their jealousy of one another is touched on briefly in this episode. Forgiveness was what Truman wanted in this rpiside.
To be honest, I dont know how I feel about the series
I know it was depressing , at least for me and for the most part ,Truman was a pathetic , self absorbed , ill man. The only sympathy we could have for him was that his childhood was awful.
The series was well done but I could have skipped it.

I haven't watched the last episode yet. I recorded it last night. Will watch this wknd or maybe tonight.

[KayFrancis]

If you do watch this last episode, you'll notice Truman says some awful things about Lee's last husband Herbert Ross. I love some of the films Herbert Ross directed. Truman is so malicious.
Btw as an aside, the actress that portrayed Joanna Carson looked nothing like her and Chloe Sevigny playing CZ Guest absolutely looked nothing like her and to be honest, CZ Guest was beautiful looking, Chloe in this role was not.
The mix of reality and fantasy in the series is off putting.

[CinemaInternational]

Notes on the time fillers after the end of The Best of Everything.....

Alicia Malone referenced the eliminated drunk scene that Hibi was speaking of earlier. She also said that Joan was to introduce and then narrate a trailer, but that got scrapped after she brought a Pepsi bottle into the shot......

The TCM Classic Film Festival promo unnerved me. They are now including The Silence of the Lambs (33 years ago), Pulp Fiction (30 years ago, and the festival's opening film), and Almost Famous (a mere 24 years ago!). I know time marches on, but it is shocking to me that they are being included so relatively soon after their initial releases. Probably the Almost Famous one shocks me the most, because I remember clearly when that one was first released and the ads and reviews that went along with it (I started reading movie reviews at the age of 4. I know that sounds strange.). I didn't expect a film released after January 1, 2000 to play the festival so soon.

How ironic that a film with Joan Crawford is followed just 3 or 4 minutes later with a trailer for Bette in The Great Lie. Bette always loved to one-up Joan....

[CinemaInternational]

Lucy Gallant is on Watch TCM, so in case you missed it, it is there for a week.

[CinemaInternational]

CI, I've got a lot of catching up to do with your list! I've only seen THE OSCAR, SKIDOO, THE SWARM, and THE NEW ADVENTURES OF PIPPI LONGSTOCKING, all truly terrible.

Spare yourself the torture! Stay away from the others. Especially Under the Rainbow with the dead dogs, murdered tourists, and Eve Arden getting felt up by a midget....

[Hibi]

If you do watch this last episode, you'll notice Truman says some awful things about Lee's last husband Herbert Ross. I love some of the films Herbert Ross directed. Truman is so malicious.
Btw as an aside, the actress that portrayed Joanna Carson looked nothing like her and Chloe Sevigny playing CZ Guest absolutely looked nothing like her and to be honest, CZ Guest was beautiful looking, Chloe in this role was not.
The mix of reality and fantasy in the series is off putting.

I know. If you didn't know much about this subject, you wouldn't be able to know what's true or stretching the truth or outright lies. I admit I'm not an expert on the subject, but I know a lot of what's portrayed isn't truthful or proveable one way or the other. Dramatic license. I didn't care for the dreams and fantasy stuff either. Filler.

[Andree]

First things first. Ditch the soapy Johnny Mathis vocal on the title song and in its place
have Steve and Eydie do it with a swingin' upbeat tempo. Even better have an opening
shot of Steve and Eydie driving around Manhattan in a convertible Caddie. Then Eydie
throws an empty bottle of champagne and it lands close to Hope Lange's feet as she
goes to report for his first day at the office. Don't worry, I graduated from Radcliffe,
but I majored in Stenography Themes and Comparative European Literature, so typing
is no big deal. Didn't they have orientation courses at this company where new hires
learned the basics of the job, like the buzz code and how to order coffee? But that
gives a chance for queen b**** Crawford to act like a jackass.

Lots of jerky men in this flick. Mr. Shalimar a.k.a., for non-mysterious reasons, as back
door man is not too bad compared to some of the other guys, though today he's be
fired and have his pants sued off. But that's not much compared to Roberts Evans who
picks up Diane Baker to get married and then tells her he's really driving her to get
an abortion, er operation. Yikes, what a sleaze. Louis Jourdan, only slightly less annoying
than Charles Boyer, is another cad as Suzy finds out. I figured one of the women would
die and I thought maybe Suzy was going to take a swan dive into one of the trash cans,
but that didn't happen. It was a sad freakish accident that killed Suze. Can't forget Joan.
First she decides to marry some hick from Illinois, then comes back saying she doesn't
have enough to give or some such nonsense. C'mon honey, admit it. You couldn't stand
living next to some corn field with this doofus and his two kids and couldn't wait to
get back to the concrete jungle of NYC. At least the two kids got a break.

At least things wind up happily for Hope. She got rid of her crummy old fiancé and meets
Boyd out on the street just as the movie ends. What a surprise!!!!!! I was wondering about
old Stevie. He had a number of opportunities to screw, er make love to, Hope but he never
took them. Maybe this guy is a closet case. No, just a guy with a drinking problem. But
that head stuck in a curling iron hairdo. Bad choice, man.

Now, if any of you career women happen to come across an ad man named Don Draper
......run like hell.

{Balzac is on a roll. A few weeks ago Grace Kelly had one of his books in her very modest
library in TCG. Now Fabian publications is putting out an edition of Balzac. Hail to thee
blithe spirit, bird thou, etc.}

[CinemaInternational]

Well, as it so happens, I have heard some horror stories about Herbert Ross. I'd rather not repeat them here, but he was so tough, he made Walter Matthau burst into tears. True story. He did direct a lot of good films though, including one masterpiece, Pennies from Heaven, so I'll forgive him for one or two that didn't fly, like Footloose (big hit, but not a good movie).

As for miniseries changing facts, frankly, even though its not right, it feels more or less inevitable. Hollywood has been doing this in films on TV for decades from things like Night and Day and Words and Music to things like this. Still, one would think that cable station FX would wish to be careful about changing facts before they went into this one: Olivia De Havilland sued a few years ago after the first miniseries, and they also did a political miniseries that became partially discredited after vintage video and audio tapes from the actual 1970s Democrat vs. Republican debate that was recreated on the show didn't match up with the show's reenactment. So you would think they would wish to be more careful.

The changes though with the Capote vs. the society women affair won't change the fact that the miniseries will undoubtedly be up for some Emmys in a few months, especially given the paucity of new shows running around due to the writers/actors strike.. It won't win for miniseries (that has the new Shogun written all over it, after the reviews for that were ecstatic), but I could definitely see a potential win in acting for Naomi Watts in lead (her big competition is Jodie Foster for a dark HBO miniseries, making her first regular appearance on a TV series since 1974) or for Diane Lane in supporting.

[Hibi]

First things first. Ditch the soapy Johnny Mathis vocal on the title song and in its place
have Steve and Eydie do it with a swingin' upbeat tempo. Even better have an opening
shot of Steve and Eydie driving around Manhattan in a convertible Caddie. Then Eydie
throws an empty bottle of champagne and it lands close to Hope Lange's feet as she
goes to report for his first day at the office. Don't worry, I graduated from Radcliffe,
but I majored in Stenography Themes and Comparative European Literature, so typing
is no big deal. Didn't they have orientation courses at this company where new hires
learned the basics of the job, like the buzz code and how to order coffee? But that
gives a chance for queen b**** Crawford to act like a jackass.

Lots of jerky men in this flick. Mr. Shalimar a.k.a., for non-mysterious reasons, as back
door man is not too bad compared to some of the other guys, though today he's be
fired and have his pants sued off. But that's not much compared to Roberts Evans who
picks up Diane Baker to get married and then tells her he's really driving her to get
an abortion, er operation. Yikes, what a sleaze. Louis Jourdan, only slightly less annoying
than Charles Boyer, is another cad as Suzy finds out. I figured one of the women would
die and I thought maybe Suzy was going to take a swan dive into one of the trash cans,
but that didn't happen. It was a sad freakish accident that killed Suze. Can't forget Joan.
First she decides to marry some hick from Illinois, then comes back saying she doesn't
have enough to give or some such nonsense. C'mon honey, admit it. You couldn't stand
living next to some corn field with this doofus and his two kids and couldn't wait to
get back to the concrete jungle of NYC. At least the two kids got a break.

At least things wind up happily for Hope. She got rid of her crummy old fiancé and meets
Boyd out on the street just as the movie ends. What a surprise!!!!!! I was wondering about
old Stevie. He had a number of opportunities to screw, er make love to, Hope but he never
took them. Maybe this guy is a closet case. No, just a guy with a drinking problem. But
that head stuck in a curling iron hairdo. Bad choice, man.

Now, if any of you career women happen to come across an ad man named Don Draper
......run like hell.

{Balzac is on a roll. A few weeks ago Grace Kelly had one of his books in her very modest
library in TCG. Now Fabian publications is putting out an edition of Balzac. Hail to thee
blithe spirit, bird thou, etc.}

Talk about type casting! (Bob Evans). I wish we could have seen more of Joan. She has a handful of scenes where she barks orders to underlings. Abruptly and for no good reason decides to shuck her career to marry some guy in farm country (do any in the audience think this'll work out?). Comes back a week or so later and wants her office back. (Hope is glad to oblige). We never get to see her paramour or his rabbit faced wife. The ending is kind of up in the air. Does Hope balance career with marriage? Quit her job and become a housewife? Does Boyd's drinking cause the marriage to break up? Guess we'll never know. All the men in this film are no prizes: leches; sleazebags and untrustworthy types looking only for one thing. (At least Jourdan is upfront about it). What's a girl to do???

Hope is about the only gal with a head on her shoulders in the film. Back then people actually read books. And paperback publishers still put out editions of the classics.

[Hibi]

Well, as it so happens, I have heard some horror stories about Herbert Ross. I'd rather not repeat them here, but he was so tough, he made Walter Matthau burst into tears. True story. He did direct a lot of good films though, including one masterpiece, Pennies from Heaven, so I'll forgive him for one or two that didn't fly, like Footloose (big hit, but not a good movie).

As for miniseries changing facts, frankly, even though its not right, it feels more or less inevitable. Hollywood has been doing this in films on TV for decades from things like Night and Day and Words and Music to things like this. Still, one would think that cable station FX would wish to be careful about changing facts before they went into this one: Olivia De Havilland sued a few years ago after the first miniseries, and they also did a political miniseries that became partially discredited after vintage video and audio tapes from the actual 1970s Democrat vs. Republican debate that was recreated on the show didn't match up with the show's reenactment. So you would think they would wish to be more careful.

The changes though with the Capote vs. the society women affair won't change the fact that the miniseries will undoubtedly be up for some Emmys in a few months, especially given the paucity of new shows running around due to the writers/actors strike.. It won't win for miniseries (that has the new Shogun written all over it, after the reviews for that were ecstatic), but I could definitely see a potential win in acting for Naomi Watts in lead (her big competition is Jodie Foster for a dark HBO miniseries, making her first regular appearance on a TV series since 1974) or for Diane Lane in supporting.

Yes, I'm sure it'll be up in some acting categories and technical categories. I'm not sad though, that the series is over. It was a burden to watch after the first 3 or 4 episodes.

[KayFrancis]

I wrote that the acting, clothes, location were all wonderful
As far as Herbert Ross goes, he's directed some wonderful films, but Truman's character made it seem that Rosses work was schlock. I stuck with the series watched all the episodes, some scenes were terrific but I found the series depressing and made me dislike Capote even though he was sympathetic because of his childhood.

[Andree]

Talk about type casting! (Bob Evans). I wish we could have seen more of Joan. She has a handful of scenes where she barks orders to underlings. Abruptly and for no good reason decides to shuck her career to marry some guy in farm country (do any in the audience think this'll work out?). Comes back a week or so later and wants her office back. (Hope is glad to oblige). We never get to see her paramour or his rabbit faced wife. The ending is kind of up in the air. Does Hope balance career with marriage? Quit her job and become a housewife? Does Boyd's drinking cause the marriage to break up? Guess we'll never know. All the men in this film are no prizes: leches; sleazebags and untrustworthy types looking only for one thing. What's a girl to do???

Hope is about the only gal with a head on her shoulders in the film. Back then people actually read books. And paperback publishers till put out classic additions.

Yeah, type casting and a nerve of steel. Sorry honey, we're not getting married, you're going to
get an abortion. Wow. Joan said she was in the film for only seven minutes, which might be
right. She disappears for long stretches of the movie after her first scenes. I'm still laughing
at her giving Hope a half dozen things to do when Hope hasn't even learned where anything
is yet. We also don't see the widower with the two kids. Maybe a middle-age Pa Kettle. The
future is left unresolved, though if it went as 1959 planned, they would have gotten hitched
and likely moved to the suburbs with the kids. Well, Hope had the advantage of that Radcliffe
College degree. What's a girl to do? Curl with The New Yorker, laugh at the cartoons,
and consider "Mr. Right." Yeah the men are low-lifes, some lower than others.

[Hibi]

You never see Joan out of the office (never mind with anyone else) aside from that brief scene at her apt where she's cleaning up after some dinner party. She actually had a few lines there where she seemed almost human.