Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

[dreaMaker]

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

10/10

Absolutely brilliant. The best Wilder's movie... Gloria Swanson is tremendous, just as everything else - acting, screenplay, directing... wow.

[Eric]

Best direction: Cabaret
Best screenplay: Pink Flamingos

[Big Magilla]

Best screenplay - Cabaret. Best direction - Luis Bunuel, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie.

[Damien]

Cabaret (1972) - Bob Fosse

7/10

I had great expectations for this one but was rather dissapointed with the film as a whole. The dance sequences are beatifully directed and the best part of the film. Michael York is miscast in my opinion.

Christopher Isherwood thought Liza fect as Christopher Isherwood.

I think both gave great performances.

I don't know why my post got garbled. What I thought I had typed was "Christopher Isherwood thought Liza Minnelli was badly miscast but that Michael York was perfect as Christopher Isherwood.

I think both gave great performances."

I'm the opposite of most people regarding Cabaret. I love the interaction among the characters and think Jay Pressen Allen's script is brilliant, but Fosse's "Hey, Look MA! I'm Directing!!!" visuals irritate the hell out of me.

I thought the Academy royally screwed up when it gave Cabaret Best Director and The Godfather Best Screenplay -- I have always firmly believed that the results should have been in reverse.

[mlrg]

I think Cabaret is absolutely brilliant when sticking to the music. The scenes at the boarding house do not have quite the same impact.

My thoughts exactly. This is what I felt while watching the film.

[Big Magilla]

I think Cabaret is absolutely brilliant when sticking to the music. The scenes at the boarding house do not have quite the same impact.

I recently had the chance to observe the real Christopher Isherwood in the 1978 BBC documentary on Charles Laughton that is part of the Criterion Edition of Hobson's Choice. Isherwood did not resemble Michael York so much as Laurence Harvey who played him in I Am a Camera taken from Isherwood's Berlin Stories.

In I Am a Camera the focus is on Britisher Isherwood (his real name is used) and his relationships with American Sally Bowles (Julie Harris) and his German student Natalia Landauer ( Shelley Winters).

The Broadway musical jettisons the character of Natalia and builds up the character of the landlady, Fraulein Schneider (Lotte Lenya) who is now the one who is in love with a Jewish man (Jack Gilford). The more mature romance gives the story more poignancy and the songs for this couple are among the strongest in the show. "Married", introduced by Lenya is next to the title song the best song in the score.

Also changed in the show were the nationalities of the principals. Christopher Isherwood is now the American Clifford Bradshaw (Bert Convy) and Sally (Jill Haworth) is now British.

The film version went back to the source. The male protagonist (Michael York) is now called Brian Roberts and is once again British. Sally is once again American by birth and Natalia (Marisa Berenson) is back. The landlady is reduced to a minor character.

An even bigger change is that now all the songs are either sung in the nightclub or used as background ("Married") with the powerful exception of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me".

The uncanny thing is that both iterations work, albeit on different levels.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1241980853

[Mister Tee]

Two things about Cabaret (about which I can't pretend to be objective, as it was for my young self what Citizen Kane was for earlier generations -- a film that expanded my ideas about the possibilities of film):

Any weakness in the York character likely comes not from the actor but from the role's status as authorial stand-in. Even the best writers tend to imagine their alter egos with less dimension than other characters (e.g., Long Day's Journey, which has three sensational characters, with the O'Neill equivalent tagging along).

The techniques Fosse used in the film have been so widely copied (Moulin Rouge and Chicago the most obvious recent examples), it may be impossible to recapture the excitement they created when they were fresh. It's like watching a Marx Brothers movie and thinking, those jokes are so old. Well, they weren't old when the movie first came out (most of them, anyway).

[Hustler]

Mayo days (Días de Mayo) directed by Gustavo Postiglione. 7/10 An argentinean tribute to the nouvelle vague. The action occurs in the sixties.

[Penelope]

Star Trek (2009)

8/10

Awwww. i loved it!
Fun, spectacular... And Zachary Quinto is gorgeous.

I found Anton Yelchin to be the adorable one. Perhaps a bit too twinkish, but still yummy.

[Hustler]

Star Trek (2009)

8/10

Awwww. i loved it!
Fun, spectacular... And Zachary Quinto is gorgeous.

I loved it too.

[Damien]

Cabaret (1972) - Bob Fosse

7/10

I had great expectations for this one but was rather dissapointed with the film as a whole. The dance sequences are beatifully directed and the best part of the film. Michael York is miscast in my opinion.

Christopher Isherwood thought Liza fect as Christopher Isherwood.

I think both gave great performances.

[mlrg]

mlrg....

yes?

[dreaMaker]

Star Trek (2009)

8/10

Awwww. i loved it!
Fun, spectacular... And Zachary Quinto is gorgeous.

[Reza]

mlrg....Never mind.....I think it's great you are catching up on all these Oscar nominated films.



Edited By Reza on 1241953668

[mlrg]

Cabaret (1972) - Bob Fosse

7/10

I had great expectations for this one but was rather dissapointed with the film as a whole. The dance sequences are beatifully directed and the best part of the film. Michael York is miscast in my opinion.