Oh, if only Hitchcock had been allowed to keep the novel’s ending!

The last scene is total rubbish.

This is one of those lovely films from MGM’s 1950’s treasure trove of dreamy productions.

Leslie Caron is completely believable as a naive girl who falls in love with a carnival magician, and Mel Ferrer is heartbreaking as a failed dancer turned puppeteer who can only express himself through his puppets.

Add in Technicolor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and a couple of dance numbers, and you have a sweet little film that’s completely worth watching.

They found the most lovely, most passionate designers to interview!

This movie was fraught with tension. I was surprised at the frantic pace of it, particularly compared to the movies being made in Hollywood around the same time. The music added to this feeling as well.

I was also struck by the powerful body language. The actors are placed in the frame very strategically. It speaks volumes. For example, the brothers who are fighting over the community water supply are shot on the far ends of the frame as a crowd literally comes between them. There are also some interesting mirrored shots, and frequently when power is changing hands as a scene goes along, the characters will walk around, rearranging themselves so that whoever has the upper hand is physically higher as well.

The film was recently restored by Martin Scorsese and his World Cinema Foundation and can currently be viewed for free on The Auteurs.

This silly little thirteen-episode series that ran on MTV from 2002 to 2003 is filled with a surprising amount of talent.

There are a lot of Scrubs connections: Zach Braff John C. McGinley, Donald Faison, Christa Miller and Neil Flynn. There’s also a couple of Mad TV and SNL connections—Michael McDonald, Nicole Miller, and Will Forte—and special appearances by Michael J. Fox, Tom Green, Jack Black, Andy Dick, and John Stamos, to name a few.

Way way back in the 1980’s
Secret government employees
Dug up famous guys and ladies
And made amusing genetic copies
Now their clones are sexy teens now
They’re going to make it if they try
Loving, learning, sharing, judging
Time to laugh and shiver and cry
Clone High, Clone High

Brilliant.

Not quite what I was expecting. Much darker. Much more complex.

It is, of course, a technical wonder, right up there with Citizen Kane. Much of the plot is advanced without dialogue. The three-strip Technicolor is used to advantage, especially with Moira Shearer’s hair and the titular pointe shoes.

I was also impressed with the ballet sequence, particularly the fantasy elements of it. The stop-motion effects were believable, as was the manipulation of the camera speed to suggest longer jumps.

If you’re not one for dissecting shot length and camera angles, however, it’s still worth watching. Ultimately, it’s a story of three people destroyed by passion, something that is fascinating to watch in any context.

I bought this book for my mother for Christmas when this book was still new. I scoured the bookstore for something she might like. I even asked one of the overworked staff for advice. He recommended Tatum O’Neil’s autobiography, on the merit that it was too awful for words. I kept looking.

I should probably add that I’d already bought my mother a book for Christmas, which I had to return because my stepfather decided to buy her the same book. He had also decided that he was going to be the one to give her said book and I was going to be the one roaming the aisles of a crowded bookstore a week before the big day.

So after the O’Neil lover abandoned me for another customer, I was in the new release section, borderline catatonic. And suddenly, Julie and Julia caught my eye. Mostly it was the cover. Green is a very soothing color, and I could relate to the whisk collapsed on it’s side.

The premise seemed very cool: A woman cooks her way through Julia Child in a tiny kitchen during her thirtieth year. Sounded good. I bought it, wrapped it, and gave it to my mother, whose only comment upon reading it was, “She seems a little self-involved.”

I completely forgot about the book until I was sitting in a movie theater and all of a sudden, Amy Adams and Meryl Streep popped up. A movie! From a book! From a blog! (Is it just me, or shouldn’t Meryl Streep exist in a world where blogs don’t exist?)

So I figured I’d finally read the book. And…eh.

I just kept waiting for the revelation. Why adapt a blog into a memoir, anyway? Isn’t that redundant? Why not a novel? At least that would let her fictionalize and put in some kind of theme or at least an ending.

And yes, like my mother, I found it terribly self-involved.

Watching Hotel Babylon is like watching a big, glossy British magazine.

“You could spend the rest of your life studying 1939. It’s all there.”

This is truly one of my favorite movies. The story of a princess who gets to cut loose in Rome for a day, it also marked the starring debut of Hollywood royalty: Audrey Hepburn.

The romance with Gregory Peck is so sweet, Audrey is fresh-faced and feminine, and 1950’s Rome is breathtaking.

It’s so easy to see why she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this.