Archive for February, 2002

His Girl Friday

Published
by
James McNally
on February 26, 2002
in DVD
. Closed

Tonight we watched His Girl Friday (1940), another “Cary Grant tries to win back his ex-wife” story. Except in this one, he’s a newspaper editor, his ex-wife (Rosalind Russell) is his star reporter, and it takes place at about one thousand miles per hour.

Packed Weekend

Published
by
James McNally
on February 25, 2002
in DVD
. Closed

The weekend was packed, as usual. Highlights include:

  • seeing the National Ballet of Canada on Saturday afternoon. It was a mixed programme, but I was there to see Monotones I & II, choreographed by Frederick Ashton. The music was Erik Satie’s Prélude d’Eginhard and Trois Gnossiennes for the first part, and Trois Gymnopédies(which you will hear in the film The Royal Tenenbaums, though it’s not on the soundtrack) for the second. Satie was at least fifty years ahead of his time, writing spare, beautiful music that would be right at home in films. Combined with the minimalistic costumes and set decoration, the piece would have been right at home in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Mesmerizingly beautiful.
  • watching, on Saturday night with our little film group, The Philadelphia Story (1940), with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart. Razor-sharp and filled with intelligent laughs. Why can’t they make films like this anymore?

Ghost World

Published
by
James McNally
on February 22, 2002
in Awards, DVD and Oscars
. Closed

This evening, I finally got around to watching Ghost World, the DVD of which my wife bought me more than a week ago. We hadn’t seen it in the theatre, but I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed. As a fan of the comic book, I thought it was translated to the screen quite faithfully, and I thought Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi’s performances were wonderful. I’m crossing my fingers that it wins the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Waking Life Snubbed

Published
by
James McNally
on February 13, 2002
in Awards and Oscars
. Closed

I agree with Roger Ebert, who says Richard Linklater’s Waking Life was unfairly overlooked in the Best Animated Feature category in this year’s Oscar nominations. His theory is that Hollywood and its huge CGI industry didn’t like an indie film director’s use of off-the-shelf Macintosh computers and home-brewed animation software to challenge their supremacy.

What do you think of this year’s nominations overall?

Golden Globe Winner

Published
by
James McNally
on February 12, 2002
in Awards and Golden Globes
. Closed

In honour of Gene Hackman, I’m off to see The Royal Tenenbaums again tonight!