Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Trouble with a capital "T"

11-19-17

Originally Posted by edarsenal

...Rather like that description about an evening being more important than the food.

I don't know why I can think of stuff like that when I write the actual review?

Yentl had a similar feel. Wonderful movie, very relaxed pace to it. Though for Yentl it was about listening to Babs sing, which was pretty amazing.

We're watching that for sure.

What other Bab movies was your wife curious to see now?

Like all of them! Personally I'm more interested in the older films of Streisand:

1975 Funny Lady
1974 For Pete's Sake
1973 The Way We Were
1972 Up the Sandbox
1970 The Owl and the Pussycat
1970 On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
1969 Hello, Dolly!
Oh and Yentl too of course.

Oh, and tell her she gets serious reps for liking What's Up, Doc?

She watches all the Hof movies, usually we agree on them, but not always.

edarsenal

Women will be your undoing, P�p�

11-19-17

I completely forgot about The Owl and the Pussycat! Need to see that one!

gbgoodies

You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.

11-19-17

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules

Funny Girl (1968)

[color=#687CA3] Director: William Wyler
Writers: Isobel Lennart (play), Isobel Lennart (screenplay)
Cast: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Kay Medford
Genre: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Length: 2 hours 31 minutes

While I love Barbra Streisand's singing voice, I've never been a fan of her acting, but after watching What's Up, Doc? for the HoF thread, and enjoying it, I decided to rethink my opinion of her and her movies.

Coincidentally, several of her movies recently aired on a few different cable channels, so I decided to watch a few more of her movies. I watched Funny Girl, Funny Lady, and The Prince of Tides, and I liked all three of these movies. I think I liked Funny Lady a little bit more than Funny Girl, but that might be because I liked James Caan in that movie too. Surprisingly, The Prince of Tides was my favorite of the three movies.

I still don't like her in Hello, Dolly! and The Way We Were, even though I like both movies, and if I remember correctly, The Owl and the Pussycat is the movie that initially turned me off of her as an actress, but I haven't seen those movies in a while, so maybe it's time to revisit them.

@edarsenal, if you're the person who nominated What's Up, Doc? in the HoF, it was a great choice because I liked the movie, and it may even have made me change my opinion of Streisand's movies.

Ms. M

I won't dance. Don't ask me...

11-19-17

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules

Funny Girl

I think Funny Girl is my fav movie with Barbra Streisand. She deserved for all awards, she got for this movie.

Chypmunk

Registered User

11-19-17

Big fan of Babs - adore the woman and Funny Girl is great.

Citizen Rules

Trouble with a capital "T"

11-19-17

Originally Posted by gbgoodies

While I love Barbra Streisand's singing voice, I've never been a fan of her acting, but after watching What's Up, Doc? for the HoF thread, and enjoying it, I decided to rethink my opinion of her and her movies.

....I watched Funny Girl, Funny Lady, and The Prince of Tides, and I liked all three of these movies. I think I liked Funny Lady a little bit more than Funny Girl, but that might be because I liked James Caan in that movie too. Surprisingly, The Prince of Tides was my favorite of the three movies.

@edarsenal, if you're the person who nominated What's Up, Doc? in the HoF, it was a great choice because I liked the movie, and it may even have made me change my opinion of Streisand's movies.

Yup What's Up Doc was Ed's nom...a good one too!

OK, so based on you liking The Prince of Tides, I'll add that to my Babs watch list. I should have Funny Lady from the library fairly soon.

edarsenal

Women will be your undoing, P�p�

11-19-17

thanks @gbgoodies, rewatching What's Up, Doc is what got me to rewatch Yentl and consider a few of her old ones as well. I remember Owl and the Pussycat was one I had always wanted to check out so I'll be seeing that one soon and with all the accolades for Funny Girl and your recommendation for Funny Lady I'll definitely being seeing them as well.

I do remember Hello, Dolly as a kid - been way too long to form an opinion so I'd hafta do a rewatch to say.

Citizen Rules

Trouble with a capital "T"

11-19-17

I liked Hello Dolly and I seen that several years ago.

Gideon58

Registered User

11-19-17

Originally Posted by gbgoodies

I still don't like her in Hello, Dolly! and The Way We Were, even though I like both movies, and if I remember correctly, The Owl and the Pussycat is the movie that initially turned me off of her as an actress, but I haven't seen those movies in a while, so maybe it's time to revisit them.

I don't understand how you can not like Streisand in Hello Dolly or The Way We Were but you liked the movies...both movies were focused completely around her character, she appears in about 99% of Hello Dolly.

GulfportDoc

Registered User

11-19-17

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules

...
I love that photo of Barbra Streisand! It says so much about her and the character she plays. It was her first movie and she scored an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Not too shabby. Before the movie Babs was a Broadway sensation in the stage play Funny Girl. So she when acclaimed director William Wyler decided to make a big budget, sweeping story of the life and times of Fanny Brice, Barbra was a natural. And of course she could sing!
...

Streisand's voice was other-wordly, certainly among the very greatest of musical/pop female vocalists of all times. And she was enormously alluring as a comedic actress.

Music was my first career. It's interesting that in Cincinnati we gave the first permitted performances of Funny Girl off Broadway. The musical opened on Broadway in '64, and we gave several performances of it in 1965. It just so happened that we had a conservatory trained voice major with an operatic quality voice, who even looked a little like Streisand, to play the role. And she got standing O's every night. It's a wonderful musical with lyrics by Bob Merrill and music by Jule Styne.

Despite my experiences with the show, my favorite Streisand film is What's Up, Doc? Excellent direction by Bogdanovich (who also wrote with Buck Henry and others), and comedic timing by Streisand, Madelyn Kahn, and Kenneth Mars work together perfectly to make a hilarious film. Steisand's singing was used sparingly, but tastefully, to good effect.

~Doc

Citizen Rules

Trouble with a capital "T"

11-19-17

Big (1988)

Director: Penny Marshall
Writers: Gary Ross, Anne Spielberg
Cast: Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, Robert Loggia
Genre: Comedy, Drama

Tom Hanks gets BIG in this 1988 hit comedy directed by Penny Marshall of Laverne & Shirley fame. The premise is simple but it works...Tom Hanks is a boy who wishes he was big and an evil looking carnival game genie grants him his wish.

The humor comes from how a 13 year old boy would cope in the adult world? The answer, he gets a kick ass job at a toy manufacture company and gets a hot babe as a love interest too. Which then begs the question, does a 13 year old boy in a man's body constitute abuse when an adult woman sleeps with him???

Hey! it's the 80's and no one is overly uptight about that kind of stuff. But I wonder if this film could be made in today's climate?

OK, so did I like it? Yuppers! This was a fun flick and I laughed out loud which is always a good thing!

Tom Hanks always delivers in his movies and in his younger days he cornered the market on nice guy comedies. I liked Elizabeth Perkins here too. It was interesting how she goes from wearing severe black/charcoal gray business suit/skirt outfits, to having a more lighter feel in softer colors and fabrics. I don't know why I noticed that but I just did.

Penny Marshal made a good one here!

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Last edited by Citizen Rules; 11-20-17 at 03:53 PM.

Citizen Rules

Trouble with a capital "T"

11-20-17

Wings in the Dark (1935)

Director: James Flood
Writers: Jack Kirkland & Frank Partos (screenplay)
Cast: Myrna Loy, Cary Grant, Roscoe Karns
Genre: Aviation Adventure, Romance Drama

"In his dedicated pursuit of technology that will aid pilots to safely 'fly blind' during adverse conditions. aerial innovator Ken Gordon is literally blinded in an accident, but this setback doesn't deter him from his goal."

Of all of the 1930s Cary Grant films that I've I watched, and I've seen more than a few...I found Wings in the Dark to have a very different type of Cary Grant. Here he's more surly, more downbeat and even angry at times (at least in parts of the film). I liked it that way, he does serious drama as easily as he does lighter comedy. In a way this is a precursor to Howard Hawk's Only Angels Have Wings, made just one year later in 1939.

This film just goes to show how diverse Cary was in his acting. This movie centers around Grant wanting to fly across the Atlantic in a solo flight and doing it 'blind' on instrumentation only. A very dangerous feat in the early days of aviation.

His girlfriend, Myrna Loy is also a flyer who takes on dangerous flying stunts including one that gets her lost over the Atlantic. I couldn't help but think that her character was molded on Amelia Earhart, who ironically would be lost during a flight only 2 years after this movie was released. That fact alone makes this film worth looking at.

Another great Cary Grant film from his early days...and a good role for Myrna Loy who actually gets top billing. At only 75 minutes this flys by!

Last edited by Citizen Rules; 11-20-17 at 03:56 PM.

gbgoodies

You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.

11-20-17

Originally Posted by edarsenal

I added Yentl to my watchlist, but I haven't found the time to watch it yet. I might also rewatch The Owl and the Pussycat because it's been many years since I've seen it, and my opinion of Streisand seems to be changing.

gbgoodies

You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.

11-20-17

Originally Posted by Gideon58

It's not that I think she's a bad actress, or anything like that. It's just that I find her kind of annoying. It's kind of like watching a Nicolas Cage movie, even if you hate him. You can still appreciate the movie, even if you don't like him.

gbgoodies

You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.

11-20-17

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules

Big (1988)

Director: Penny Marshall
Writers: Gary Ross, Anne Spielberg
Cast: Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, Robert Loggia
Genre: Comedy, Drama

Penny Marshal made a good one here!

++
[/font][/font]

It's been a long time since I watched Big, but back in the day, it was one of my favorite movies. It's still one of my favorite Tom Hanks movies. I like Tom Hanks more in comedies than I do in dramas.

Coincidentally, I just bought the DVD at a garage sale about 2 weeks ago, so I'm planning to rewatch it for the Women Directors Countdown.

gbgoodies

You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.

11-20-17

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules

Wings in the Dark (1935)

[font=Georgia][size=3]Director: James Flood
Writers: Jack Kirkland & Frank Partos (screenplay)
Cast: Myrna Loy, Cary Grant, Roscoe Karns
Genre: Aviation Adventure, Romance Drama

I think Wings in the Dark is a very underrated movie. I like Cary Grant in this role, even though his character wasn't as easy-going as he usually is in other movies.

The only thing that I couldn't quite figure out was how a blind person could fly a plane. How could he read the instruments in the plane if he couldn't see them?

Chypmunk

Registered User

11-20-17

I'm generally not a Tom Hanks fan but I did enjoy Big which I think he was excellent at conveying his inner child in.

Wings In The Dark is certainly ringing a bell but any watches I gave it were surely a long time ago so thanks for the reminder about it and I'll give it a rewatch before the deadline for the 30s countdown if I can

Citizen Rules

Trouble with a capital "T"

11-20-17

Originally Posted by gbgoodies

I'd never seen Big before, and just happened to run into it at the library. I didn't even know it was directed by Penny Marshal, but it stands a decent chance of making my Directed by Women countdown list. I really liked Penny Marshal's other well known film, A League of Their Own. I like her style of directing, but that's the only two films I've seen of hers. Have you seen any of hers that you can recommend?

Originally Posted by gbgoodies

Brail maybe?

Originally Posted by Chypmunk

...Wings In The Dark is certainly ringing a bell but any watches I gave it were surely a long time ago so thanks for the reminder about it and I'll give it a rewatch before the deadline for the 30s countdown if I can

Have you seen Only Angels Have Wings?

Chypmunk

Registered User

11-20-17

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules

Have you seen Only Angels Have Wings?

I certainly have but like so many from the 30s & 40s they were many, many moons ago. Any particular reason for asking or was it just because of the aeroplane/Grant connection?

Citizen Rules