Five Academy Award Nominees in Five Days

Tab, I am often the lone wolf/voice in the wilderness. I am the only person on this site who hated the Steven Speilberg sci-fi drama - A.I. We (Oscar, Johann, Chris and others) went back and forth, arguing over this and that. I love a good debate. Stick to your guns. If you like a thing, then stand up for it. That 's what I tell my children. I've done it all my life and I admire people who do so (to a point - the quote about guns being figurative and not literal). You liked "Les Miz" and "Argo" and have valid points. I would never say that my opinion is better than anyone elses because I know this or that. In my mind, this is an open forum and we are all free to express our ideas. I must add, that this group, this intelligent, witty group of disparate but talented writers, unlike other blogs, have stuck together through good times and bad. It is secretly my dream some day that we all fly to New York or Miami or Toronto or Salt Lake City, meet, have a beer/glass of wine/ shot of cognac and talk about movies for two days until we've exhausted every aspect of the subject. That would be a meeting of the minds.

Some dream. Huh, kid.

Tabuno, no one is insisting on a rigid conformity to anything. We are insisting on excellence. But you are welcome to your opinion, and you are talking about movies that the Oscar people have singled out as outstanding.

Just checking in to say how much I enjoy reading your posts, to make one clarification and one correction. Clarification: Although The Jazz Singer was the first sound film to include speech (only in two scenes), DON JUAN (starring John Barrymore) is considered the first "sound film". Correction: The Wizard of Oz made a small profit upon first release. It did not "lose money" or "was a box office failure" as noted above. Minor stuff. What's important is bon's assertion that a film must be judged against members of its own genre, or against the conventions of its genre, is quite right in my opinion.

Sunday, January 20, 2013
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – directed by John Madden

Seeing them all lined up at the airport, you are looking at the current “best of British Actors” group (or nearly so). It must have been a hoot on the set – the stories and all. With the age of the characters firmly established from the start as being the basis for the film’s humor, we can expect jokes about death, bowel movements, and missing sex – the usual. (Dirty Old Men, etc) Some of those jokes are used initially, along with nostalgia for one’s past. Looking back with regrets seems a common theme in movies about the elderly. But the script is more about living one’s life in the present as opposed to one’s past. In addition to the rich Indian setting and its colorful markets (chosen by director Madden specifically for that purpose) the film relies almost entirely on the performances of its core of “veteran” British “Old Vic” actors. What an ensemble Madden collected! Maggie Smith is a two time Oscar winner. Judi Dench also has an Academy Award. Tom Wilkinson has been nominated twice. The rest of the cast has appeared in numerous films over the past three decades or longer. Bill Nighy and Ronald Pickup started in British television back in the 1960’s.

The plot and situation are somewhat contrived. All seven happen to be retiring at the same time and find themselves with very limited funds on which to live. They all see an ad to live cheaply in India by staying at a retirement hotel called the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. An explanation for the name is never given by the manager, Sonny (Dev Patel of “Slumdog Millionaire” fame). When the group arrives, they discover no shuttle bus from the airport and must take public transportation (the first of many inconveniences). Sonny is painting as they arrive. The beds are unmade. The phones don’t work. Some rooms have no doors and air conditioning is non-existent. To say the place is a work in progress is to be kind. However, most of the hardy group takes this all in stride. Despite the hardship, they gradually adapt to the new life and begin to discover an aspect to their lives missing for a long time – an ability to feel needed. Each person begins to find their place in this Indian locale except for the wife of one guest, Jean (Penelope Winton). She doesn’t like India, is a nervous woman and frequently voices her complaints (an annoyance at best). Their marriage is falling apart. Rather than leaving her, the husband continues to support the wife until she finally sees the handwriting on the wall and simply walks away from their relationship. She returns to England, leaving her husband behind.

I purposely have left out most of the film’s story. I do not wish to spoil this film for anyone else so I won’t go further into the plot. Like “Moonrise Kingdom” this is a small independent film that has gained a reputation since its premiere last February in the UK. “Marigold Hotel” has become one of the highest grossing independent films of last year bringing in nearly $140 million US dollars worldwide, second only to “Moonrise Kingdom.” The film was nominated for two Golden Globes but did not make Oscar’s list this year. Since I could not view “Amour” on video (streaming) and “The Master” is also not available (unless I buy the DVD), I chose this film and tomorrow intend to see “Beasts of the Southern Wild” via streaming.

Post Script: My bad about info on "Wiz of Oz" as I was misinformed and the first sound film. Thanks, Oscar.

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/436...uanposter2.jpg

I should think AMOUR is not legally available in "streaming" yet because it is still in theaters in the US. It opened in NYC 18 Dec. but in San Francisco only last week I think and in the East Bay this weekend. BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL I reviewed in my Paris Movie report last May, it being released in the original English with French subtitles under the simpler title INDIAN HOTEL; and it's a pleasant, lightweight film. It's not on a level with MOONRISE KINGDOM in any respect other than commercial. Is it some kind of Oscar contender? I'm glad it didn't make the Best Picture list. Are you drifting away from your project, cinemabon? THE MASTER will be good to watch on DVD or BluRay when it comes out 26 Feb. 2013 because these will include 20 minutes of deleted scenes, it's been reported. Too bad you have to wait to see THE MASTER and AMOUR till after the Oscars but they are not all about the Oscars, even if AMOUR made the Best Picture List.

I'll certainly be interested to read what you have to say about BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, though, and it definitely IS on the Best Picture list, and if you wanted to put your review on the thread I originally started for it when it came out in these parts in theaters 13 July 2013 you'd go here.

From what I observed the public and the Academy are unlikely to overcome the contradictions and the mud and much to give this movie any big award, but the cuteness prize of the Oscars is sure to go to the youngest contender ever, seven-something Quvenzhané Wallis, who was five when she won the lead role of Hushpuppy, pretending to be six to qualify for an audition.

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In 1925, Warner Bros., then a small Hollywood studio with big ambitions, began experimenting with sound-on-disc systems at New York's Vitagraph Studios, which it had recently purchased. The Warner Bros. technology, named Vitaphone, was publicly introduced on August 6, 1926, with the premiere of the nearly three-hour-long Don Juan; the first feature-length movie to employ a synchronized sound system of any type throughout, its soundtrack contained a musical score and sound effects, but no recorded dialogue—in other words, it had been staged and shot as a silent film.
--Wikipedia, "Sound Film."

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F.W. Murnau's SUNRISE was similar, and a little later. There were a lot of "first" sound films, but it seems that THE JAZZ SINGER is a significant one because it contains, though not a full sound track, more on-set live recorded singing and dialogue in parts than any film before it; hence its frequent mention as
'first talkie." So maybe there's not a single right answer on this. If I were teaching a film history class I'd either be very vague on this part or I'd have to go into more detail listing all the intermediate stages. And what was really the first full-length feature film with a live-recorded dialogue and music soundtrack throughout? It must have come after both DON JUAN and THE JAZZ SINGER.

Oscar is quite right about THE WIZARD OF OZ's finances: it wasn't a big success, but it didn't lose money either.

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Although the film received largely positive reviews, it was not a huge box office success on its initial release, earning only $3,017,000 on a $2,000,000 budget.
--Wikipedia, "The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)."

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I assume this is more accurate than other online sources that give higher figures for both budget and box office. For 1939 this sounds like a lot of money.

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Originally Posted by Chris Knipp

If I were teaching a film history class I'd either be very vague on this part or I'd have to go into more detail listing all the intermediate stages. And what was really the first full-length feature film with a live-recorded dialogue and music soundtrack throughout? It must have come after both DON JUAN and THE JAZZ SINGER.

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Yes, it comes after those two landmark films: Lights of New York. It is interesting to note that all three were released by Warner Brothers and that all three used a Vitaphone sound-on-disc process that would quickly become obsolete.

I do get into a lot of detail when I teach the transition to sound. It's a most fascinating period in film history. BTW, a current debate among film historians concerns whether the need to enclose the noisy cameras in a booth and the unidirectionality of early microphones resulted in films with little or no camera movement. There is evidence of that, as well as evidence that filmmakers managed to make dynamic films anyway.

It's good to go into a lot of detail. It's also good not to deliver history lectures studded with simplistic milestones. As for recording and camera movment, well, you like Hou Hsieu-hsien and that Asian school of visual restraint, so you enjoy films that have very little camera movement. And so do I. I'd say we are in the throes of a period where there's way too much camera movement a lot of the time! But it depends on who's doing it, and why.

I love Hou, our contemporary master of the long take. For me, Red Balloon feels like a side project, a small diversion, in the career of Hou. It's been 8 years since Three Times. And finally, news that he is shooting The Assassin, "a martial-arts art-film" that is his most expensive one to date. Can't wait.

It's steady cam! It's been the death of editors and the tripod! Directors can take a steady-cam to a remote location, do a quick set up and start shooting. The only problem is that when you blow up that image to more than a hundred feet across, the slightest movement makes you feel as if you were on a ship at sea and the whole room was rocking. I was extremely upset with Bayona who employed veteran actress Geraldine Chaplin (Dr. Zhivago and others) for a cameo and then shot the entire scene with steady-cam so that we never looked at her performance without the camera rocking back and forth, up and down... very disconcerting and a god-damn waste of a superior talent. I'd like to take every steady-cam and throw it on a big pile and burn every last one of them!

You could be absoutely right about the shooting of that Geraldine Chaplin scene. I'd have to re-watch it to give an opinion. But I am far, far more happy with the cinematography of THE IMPOSSIBLE than that of LES MIZ. I thought the technical side of THE IMPOSSIBLE was admirable, on the whole. I was pretty well swept away with the tsunami action. LES MIZ on the other hand is more full of distracting, unpleasant camera work than any recent film. A large number of the in print film critics have commented upon it. Most who've found fault with THE IMPOSSIBLE have focused on the limitations of its story line in relation to the context of major events.

You're probably right about the shooting of that Geraldine Chapline scene. I don't remember but I'll trust you on that and would like to see the shot again to notice that. But I am far, far more happy with the cinematography of THE IMPOSSIBLE than that of LES MIZ. I thought the technical side of THE IMPOSSIBLE was admirable, on the whole. I was pretty well swept away with the tsunami action. LES MIZ on the other hand is more full of distracting, unpleasant camera work than any recent film. A large number of the in print film critics have commented upon it. Most who've found fault with THE IMPOSSIBLE have focused on the limitations of its story line in relation to the context of major events.

The photographic, camera technique used in Les Miz didn't brother me at all. Rather I was swept up in the entire epic and the movement and the sights and sounds. The camera movement for me added to the angst of the underlying theme of the movie. The feelings of anxiety, fear, unpredictable chaos only were enhanced by the shakiness but quite visually appealing and detail of the visual scenes that were not blurred or distorted like many action thrillers or sci fi/occult horror movies deliberate attempt to do.

Tab, I would agree with you to certain extent on the use of camera technique to create visual tension. However, in the case of this particular musical where you have a scene shot in tight quarters with a "wide" lens on a steady-cam, the effect when enlarged on a big screen is amplified by a factor of ten or more. This gives the scene that rolling motion, as if you were shooting on the deck of an oceanliner. Some shots require forethought and planning. While I like hand held scenes for dramatic tension in fights and car chases, when a woman is singing about her inner feelings, I don't like the idea that camera movement should draw attention to itself. That's a distraction and the reason so many critics and other people have complained about it.

As to "The Impossible" I would agree that techically the wide shots of the disaster and even the traveling shots inside the hospital were well planned and rehearsed in such a way ahead of time they did not draw attention to themselves. That's one instance of steady cam that turned out to support action and display an incredibly complex set filled with focused extras.

No, I would not agee with tabuno on this in any aspect. The cinematography on many of the solo song moments of LES MIZ is an absurdity and a total distraction and I could cite a dozen reviews that confirm the ridiculous use of wide angle and extreme closeup, with swoops between. I'll just recall Anthony Lane's review, which you read cinemabon, but tabuno may have eschewed:

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The director is Tom Hooper, fresh from “The King’s Speech,” and you can’t help wondering if this shift into grandeur has confused his sense of scale. The camera soars on high, the orchestra bellows, and then, whenever somebody feels a song coming on, we are hustled in close, forsaking our bird’s-eye view for that of a consultant rhinologist.

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I'm always dubious when somebody says something in a movie "didn't bother" her, or him. It just means they chose to ignore it, not that it is not a fault. I have a friend who watches a lot of bad movies with uncritical pleasure and then reports they "didn't bother" her. So what?

Last post seems overly dismissive of individual differences in motion perception as well as experiential differences caused by screen size, viewer position relative to screen, etc.

About half the critics like LES MIZ and half don't at all. Those who don't, find fault with the camerawork. Motion perception, screen size, or where you sat in the theater have nothing to do with it. Here are some examples of reviewers' references to the camerawork. I could give more, but I got tired.

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "The camera bobs and weaves like a drunk, frantically. So you have hammering close-ups, combined with woozy insecurity each time more than two people are in the frame. Twenty minutes into the retelling of fugitive Valjean, his monomaniacal pursuer Javert, the torch singers Fantine and Eponine and the rest, I wanted somebody to just nail the damn camera to the ground."

David Edelstein, New York Magazine:; "When an actor begins to sing, the camera rushes in and fastens on the performer’s face, positioning itself just below the head, somewhere between the navel and the Adam’s apple—and canted from 30 to 45 degrees, although the angle changes as the performer moves and the operator scampers to keep up. I imagined the cameraman to be small, fleet, and extremely high strung, like Gollum. The actors must have had to cultivate an inner stillness to keep from recoiling from him/it. A Zen forbearance would also have kept them from grimacing at all their missed notes."

Dana Stevens, Slate: "We're all familiar with the experience of seeing movies that cram ideas and themes down our throats. Les Misérables may represent the first movie to do so while also cramming us down the throats of its actors."

Jay Gabler, Twin Cities Daily Planet: "Hooper’s approach varies little. For the confessional numbers, he brings the camera in as he did with Hathaway and lets us watch the actors’ eyes redden for the first couple of verses, then as the song rises to its climax, he cuts to a medium shot at a 45 degree angle (dynamic!) and finally gives us an ascending helicopter shot so that we can see the computer-assisted recreation of 19th century Paris. . . Except we can’t actually see it very well. Much of the movie takes place at night. . ."

Kimberly Jones, Austin Chronicle: "Shot to shot, Hooper’s vision careens between lightly grotesque hyperrealism and tinny movie artifice, wherein unplucked brows and oozing open wounds share space, if not sensibility, with digital fakery and histrionic zooms. "

Lou Llimerick, The New York Post: "It’s worth seeing the movie for Hathaway alone. . .It’s the worst of times, though, when Hooper repeatedly traps his stars in tight close-ups during the musical numbers — practically shoving the camera down the singers’ tonsils."

Justin Chang, Variety: "As it shifts from one dynamically slanted camera angle to another via Melanie Ann Oliver and Chris Dickens' busy editing, the picture seems reluctant to slow down and let the viewer simply take in the performances. That hectic, cluttered quality becomes more pronounced as the story lurches ahead to the 1832 Paris student uprisings. . ."

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: "Content with steadier, soberer camera work in The Damned United and The King’s Speech (which won him a Best Director Oscar), he repeatedly chops Les Misérables’ setpieces into disorienting fragments seen from a crazed variety of angles."

Lawrence Toppman, Charlotte Observer: "Nor does Hooper know how to shoot musical numbers. He often locks onto actors’ heads for the length of a number, pointing the camera at open mouths, until we become more familiar with Jackman’s uvula than his otolaryngologist.

Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post: "There’s little sense of dynamism or pacing, a fault both of the original score and Hooper’s unimaginative staging and camera work, which tend to underline, italicize and boldface every emotional beat."

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times: "The director Tom Hooper can be a maddening busybody behind the camera. . . .Mr. Hooper’s maximalist approach is evident the very moment the scene begins — the camera swooping, as waves and music crash — setting an overblown tone that rarely quiets. His work in this passage, from the roller-coaster moves of the cameras to the loud incidental noise that muffles the lyrics, undermines his actors and begins to push the musical from spectacle toward bloat. . . . .his inability to leave any lily ungilded — to direct a scene without tilting or hurtling or throwing the camera around — is bludgeoning and deadly. "

Eric Kohn, Indiewire: "Relying heavily on close-ups over the course of a two-and-a-half hour narrative with almost no spoken dialogue, Hooper's approach comes across as the equivalent of sitting in the front row of a stage play while the entire cast leans forward and blares each song into your eardrums."

Calum Marsh, Slant: "Fisheye lenses and poorly framed close-ups abound in Les Misérables, nearly every frame a revelation of one man's bad taste; the best that can be said of the style is that it's deliberate, which at least distinguishes it from Hooper's work to date."

Matt, Cinecritic: " Two of the the musical's biggest numbers, Lovely Ladies and Master of the House, which involve large parts of the cast, were the weakest moments of the film because of Hooper's decision to focus on single characters with a zooming camera."

When I wrote that I "wasn't bothered" by Les Miz, I apparently under reported my experience to others. Instead the close ups and the less than stellar, perfect singing, held me "enthralled" for instead of the wide shot, on-stage spectacle, the film camera was able to bring into focus and clarity the richness of an intimate and intensely emotional personal experience. The ultimate in art form expression is to enable the viewer to directly connect to the message, thoughts, feelings of what is the most important sensory experience on the screen and this was accomplished directly and powerfully in how Les Miz was shot. When there was a need for wide angled, larger than life epic photography, Les Miz delivered, when there was a need for a deeply personal and singular focus on the humanity of a person Les Miz delivered spectacularly.

Too often the deep, secreted emotions and feeling are wrapped up in mystery and vagueness that damper the emotive and visceral stimulus available to be experienced on screen. Too often in real life, such deeply held thoughts and feelings are masked and in reality, the audience has been numbed and possess undeveloped perceptions of authentic communication with others, even their own family members and love ones. It is movies such as Les Miz that can bring this dull, vague sensations into rich and vibrant life by the use of music, lyrics, and close ups that penetrate the contemporary human filters and unused powers of observation. As a person who has experienced deep pain, loneliness, powerlessness, hurt, rejection...how Ann Hathaway captured Fantine was powerfully brought forth...Even Russell Crowe's less than stellar singing was all the more real and human, with its internal frailties even though supposedly masked by a strong exterior. Such is the delicate director that avoided perfection the actors in order to make the movie ironically more perfect in reality..

Tab, I don't mean to belittle your observations. However, there have been some great moments in film musical history that are very emotional and quite genuine. Take Shani Wallis singing "As long as he needs me," moments after her boyfriend nearly beats her to death for disobeying him. She could walk away and say, "Forget you!" But she loves the guy... no matter how badly he treats her. Now that's love... not a healthy love, but love nonetheless. The scene is shot through the broken dirty glass of abandon London wharehouses near the river Thames, a filthy place. But Carol Reed's camera work is both subtle and sublime, the colors muted, and Shani Wallis is quite emotional without us being thrust into her face. We feel with her but don't have to sit in her lap to understand how she feels. Carol Reed allows Wallis to tell us how she feels using her voice, that trained beautiful voice in one of the greatest solos in musical history. This is only one of many scenes down through the years when great directors have captured singers, and yes these actors are also great singers, in ways that convey the perfect emotion required for the scene without relying on techniques that tend to be "obvious" or "distracting" to a scene, rather than allow the actor to convey what is necessary in terms of human emotion. I can point others, many others in both cases where directors have used "techniques" that distract while other directors allow the actor/singer and the music to convey the meaning. The truth is that when a technique draws attention to itself and does become part of the story flow, then it becomes a distraction that undermines the integrity of the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzz-RmLM8Ic

Like a primitive who has never been out of the United States, I've heard that baked goods in France are to die for. There are children who lived in the Capitol of Utah, Salt Lake City, when they had had the opportunity to visit a local mountain for the first time in their lives which happened to overlook their city, they were amazed that there were "stars" below them.

cinemabon's detailed and moving description of a scene from a musical (it is inferred) offers up a transferred emotional imagined scene in one's mind that reflects my limited memories of Les Miserable through tinted, warped glasses. Without such other memories and experiences, the ones from Les Miserable are the only touching and moving ones I have upon which to judge a movie, as limited as they are. I've mentioned it before long ago that I reflect those mass audience tendencies of which we respond to from the perspective what we moves us and captures our imagination that haven't had the opportunity or resources to experience the "stars" of the valley.

I have a French baker up the street from Lyon who's pretty damn good.

Your inexperience when it comes to musicals shows

Here's a true Oscar-winning torch song delivered by the best there ever was... (I should add that this film was directed by the director whose movies have garnered more Academy Award wins and nominations than the next four directors combined, the great William Wyler)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdlz6QzyAVA

The first bearer of torch songs went to the great Lena Horne, who lasted 50 years in show business as the woman who never aged. She also broke the color barrier when it came top female stars. Here, from the 1943 musical, "Stormy Weather," she sings the title song that came to be her signature number. She was 26 at the time and passed in 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCG3kJtQBKo

Of course, Judy Garland, the little girl with the big sad eyes, probably set the standard for the "wistful" melody in "Over the Rainbow." But she sang many torch songs in her career. Here, she pines over the good looking young man next door... looking as wistful as ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUB4XcQYq9A

Cheryl Barnes, stuck on the streets of New York, homeless with a child, goes in search of his father who has abandon them. When she finds him, she discovers he wants nothing to do with her. Her heart-filled rendition fell on deaf ears that year, as she wasn't even nominated. From the musical "Hair," directed by two time Academy Award winning Milos Forman comes, "Easy to be hard."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCs1rkAXZ9o

One of the most original and creative talents of my generation, Madonna is a singular phenomenon who is unlike anyone before her or after. She made her mark on the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, "Evita" that many felt fell flat, but did not blame her. Here she sings the best song from the show and gives one of the finest performances of her career; directed by Academy Award nominee Alan Parker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA1QHtFkH48

There is a consistancy to all of these examples - great directors, good camera work, great singers, and memorable performances. I'm not certain your "Les Miz" measures up the standard... and there is a standard to follow. It works. Woe to those who fail to listen...

In an ironic twist of fate, Mario Lanza, who argued with the director of "The Student Prince" was fired from the picture by new studio boss, Dore Schary who wouldn't tolerate disobedient actors. Unwilling to give up the incredible voice tracks, Schary ended up hiring the director Lanza wanted but put non-singer Edmond Purdom in the role as Prince Karl, lip-synching the part.

In this scene, the prince learns that the only man he called friend, his father, just died unexpectedly and Karl must assume the duties of being king, alone. Standing before his father's coffin, he tries to muster courage in this emotional rendition of "I'll walk with god." Directed by Richard Thorpe, the man who made Lanza famous, Mario was blackballed and never allowed to work in Hollywood again (with "Serenade" being the exception).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUyZE1BDqSc

Told she had won the part of Rose in "Gypsy," Rosalind Russell sent a cable to Ethel Merman (who made the part famous on Broadway) apologizing to her and begging her indulgence as she was an actress and not a singer. Merman supposedly cabled back, "Just belt it out like I do and you'll be fine." Russell studied voice for three months, pushing herself; winning the Golden Globe that year for Best Actress.

In this scene, her daughter, along with her entire vaudeville act, walks out on her, leaving her and her other daughter alone. Determined to make a success out of her life in show business, she pushes her remaining daughter onto the stage, eventually giving up all moral objects when she allows her daughter to perform a striptease. Of course, Rose's daughter would become the most famous stripper of all time, Gypsy Rose Lee. Based on Lee's memoirs and directed by Oscar winner Mervyn LeRoy (who produced "Wizard of Oz") here is, "Everything's coming up Roses."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYGMguS2dD8

Based on the tragic life of rock and roller Janis Joplin, Bette Midler performed the title role of a lifetime in her Oscar nominated role directed by Marc Rydell. This film marked the debut of a different type of musical that while unique and was repeated in style by Barbra Streisand in "A Star is Born" never caught on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR6okRuOLc8

FAIL

This is how you take a great Broadway show and destroy it; even with Oscar winning actors and directors! Let's hope for your sake, they aren't putting "Les Miz" in this catagory a few years from now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-yjj6_LBCs

FAIL

"Paint Your Wagon" was a small Broadway musical produced by writers Lerner and Lowe (My Fair Lady) back in the early 1950's. It's two biggest songs, "I talk to the trees" and "They call the wind Maria" were hits at the time. Segue 18 years later and Paramount Studios wants to produce a big name musical with two big stars Lee Marvin (who won for "Cat Ballou") and Clint Eastwood along with European sensation Jean Seberg. Directed by Joshua Logan, the same man who butchered "South Pacific" and you have a recipe for sure fire disaster. Here is non-singer Clint Eastwood destroying one of the musicals big numbers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn8YubD01sk

FAIL

This highly staged number dubbed with the original 1930's recording attempts to stylize the great Busby Berkley. But if you want Busby Berkley, then watch one of his movies. This Herbert Ross movie tears the audience in two directions at once, trying to show us the dark side of the Great Depression while throwing nonsensical music numbers in for good measure. This is the title number with Martin picking up an alley stray and ... the rest is too confusing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-lt16Zm_DI

FAIL

Julie Andrews got screwed by Jack Warner - figuratively, of course. She not only nailed Eliza Dolittle on Broadway and then took the Oscar away from Warner's film version, but she came back and continued to win hearts of musical lovers with three more great roles. Warner put non singer Vanessa Redgrave in this disaster of a stylized musical that is remember more for its silly costumes, bad hairdos and horrible sets than it is for its Lerner and Lowe score. Here is one of the worst examples of how to destroy a Broadway play...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wijIn4xQ8jw

FAIL

As much as Ros Russelll (who played Mame in the non-musical version, "Auntie Mame") was gracious about taking Ethel Merman's part from her; Lucille Ball had no qualms about starring as Mame Dennis and brushed her rivals aside. Angela Lansbury had made the musical famous and was responsible for making several of the songs hits, my favorite being "When he walked into my life." While Lucy is probably remembered as televisions great lady of laughs, she did not have the range or depth to play the woman who endeared little Patrick to her. Mame was charming, witty, and a grand socialite. Ball is a brassy redhaired buffoon and not the sophisticate Lansbury made famous. In this opening scene, we quickly find out why this movie bombed so badly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdpwpfUbXl8

This is an amazing compendium, cinemabon! I will comment further when I've watched them all. In the CHORUS LINE scene the timing seems off.

SUCCESS, BUT WAIT! IT'S NOT A MUSICAL?

In this great opening, one of the finest of any non-musical adventure movies, Steven Spielberg makes a brilliant tongue in cheek tribute to the great Busby Berkley with his soon to be wife Kate Capshaw in "Anything Goes" a precursor to what is to follow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1H9eKWPGRo

Animated film as musical

Starting in the 1930’s, Walt Disney pioneered the idea that you could combine music and animation. Although the Fleischer brothers offered Walt competition (Gulliver’s Travels), Disney shined with Silly Symphonies. His work culminated in the first full length feature film, “Snow White.” The title character not only sings but acts! However, animated characters are limited in their emotional responses reduced to caricatures of emotions and not performances. Walt followed this success with “Pinocchio.” Instead of the main character breaking into song, those around him do all the singing. But by the time Disney arrived at Bambi, he put the music aside and concentrated more on the story. (Although Dumbo and Cinderella are more musically oriented). Animated musicals remained rare birds until a young gay man arrived at Disney Studios who would not only breathe new life into the genre but nearly save New York City in the process. It was Jeffrey Katzenberg who employed Howard Ashman to write a script for an animated feature. Ashman pictured a singing mermaid based on the Hans Christian Andersen story and pitched it to Katzenberg. The rest is musical history. Starting in the late 1980’s with “The Little Mermaid,” Disney Studios practically resurrected the musical (by popularizing that style of presentation), revitalized Times Square (which had fallen into disrepair), and brought audiences back into theaters. Musicals bloomed and gave rise in popularity to nearly every title that followed – Beauty and the Beast (the only animated film ever nominated for Best Picture), Aladdin, Lion King, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan – all musicals. Stage musicals flourished as well, including “Phantom of the Opera, Evita, Miss Saigon, and Les Miserables (among many others). All thanks to a little mermaid in the mind of a young gay man who longed for the glory days of musicals. We miss you, Howard.

A lot of clips to look at, but I'm looking at them all, and here are my responses. First of all let's not forget: all of these, good and not-so-good, are lipo-synched, not recorded live.

STRISAND. "My Man" is beautifully done, with grace and assurance. Lena Horne's "Stormy Weather" is from an era when movies were really glamorous. French film noir sometimes evoke those cool nightclubs. The dance sequence starting with the patchwork zoot suits in the rain is great, if incomplete.
JUDY GARLAND: 'THE BOY NEXT DOOR'. CLOSEUP: a bit of a bore to me, but beautifully done.
HAIR, CHERYL BARNES. She really belts it out. This song made me say, "Wow!" I never saw this before at all. I like that they shot it in the snow. You introduce this song well. She should have had recognition for this performance. I'd like to see this.
EVITA. How can you lose with Antonio Banderas in the audience? This is the most interesting visually of your excerpts so far, in the editing.
MIXED SUCCESSES?
THE STUDENT PRINCE AND MARIO LANZA. This also I did not know. Mario Lanza died at 38! He did have films that had great hits before the big battle with Dore Shary, and he did have a beautiful Italian operatic tenor voice. There are no singers in "Les Miz" within a mile of this voice! The dull actor lipsynching surely detracts from the emotion considerably.
ROSALIND RUSSELL. This is real campy musical grandeur. "This time I'm gonna make you a star, baby!" Not the greatest singiner.....bu there's Karl Malden.
BETTE MIDDLER. This is lovely. Very campy too. Let's not forget Bette Midler got her start performing in the gay baths. She achieves magic here.
"FAILS:"
CHORUS LINE. What is actually wrong with this movie, do you think? That the original itself is too stagey, too static? I was not that crazy about the original Boradway musical. I did see it. (There's something wrong with the formatting of this clip, by the way. It's badly compressed.)
CLINT EASTWOOD in PAINT YOUR WAGON. Wow. Yeah, nice voice, handsome man, stupid idea. Good example, maybe your best.
PENNIES FROM HEAVEN. We've already discusssed......I watched this after our discussion and also watched all the Dennis Potter original BBC version. Steve Martin is kind of creepy. It was meant to be Bob Hoskins. And it was meant to have the British class element. But it's still pretty weird and creepy; the Dennis Potter version has some even creepier stuff in it, but it fits better in the whole.
CAMELOT. I find this musical boring so who's in it hardly matters, besides the music doesn't seem to require a great singer, but if you say Julie Andrews should have gotten the role....I can't argue with you. But Vanessa Redgrave is elegant, and the feel is nice and light, and moves along, unlike the dreary, heavy, self-important "Les Miz."
LUCILLE BALL in AUNTIE MAME. Bad casting, I suppose. Also it seems that the rhythm is way off. It seems to me to drag.
KATE CAPSHAW doing "Anything Goes" in the TEMPLE OF DOOM opening. Yes, this is beautifully done. Is she singing it in Chinese? How did she doe that?!

When you're talking about animated "musicals," don't forget about Walt Disney's FANTASIA. That was groundbreaking, and I think wonderful, for bringing classical music to kids. It made Leopold Stokowski a star. With Mickey. Truly magical use of animation and music.