Review: Where Do We Go Now? (2011)

via fandango.com – © Sony Pictures Classics

Once upon a time, there existed a small village in Lebanon where the rival Christian and Muslim families learned to coexist in harmony.  Though Nadine Labaki’s 2011 film Where Do We Go Now? doesn’t begin like so, it may as well.  Rather than a realistic exploration of what happens in small town Lebanon – where everybody knows everybody’s business and where a woman’s neighbor knows more about her life than she herself – Where Do We Go Now? is an allegory for how everyone can learn to get along.

The film indeed opens with narration from Labaki, who plays a role in the film.  She and a couple dozen other black-clad women – both Christian and Muslim – march towards a gravesite, where they clean the graves of their dead fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons.  Though the women are all united in spirit, the gravesite is harshly segregated – Muslim graves on one side, Christian on the other.

For these women, however, religion is not an issue.  On normal days in the village, religion isn’t an issue for the men, either.  But every once in a while, a snippet of news from the outside world causes tensions to flare.  In this isolated village, the only bridge has broken and has become difficult to cross.  It’s even difficult for the residents to get television – and when they can manage to capture a signal, it’s an occasion for everyone to come watch together and for the mayor to make a grand speech.

That is, until the television brings news of violence elsewhere in Lebanon.  Before anyone can register that shred of news, the women of the town erupt in yells, distracting their men from hearing the news.  The women know their men well; they know that if the men hear that a Christian or Muslim man has been killed, they will start fighting.  They live in a village where a crucifix breaking by accident spirals into a series of nasty pranks and skirmishes between the two groups.

Though the town’s two religious leaders, the priest and the iman, try to ease the tensions between their groups, it is the women who succeed.  Often comically, they scheme to distract their men from their differences, going as far even as to bring a group of Ukrainian female dancers to the village.  For a few short days, all the men spend their time helping these foreign women, forgetting their differences.

But even this gesture is not enough.  Though distraction provides momentary relief from the religious strife, ultimately hostility arises again.  It will take something far grander from the women to end the discord.  The women will have to work together to literally end the religious divide, leading to a moving finale.

For all the heaviness of the subject matter, Where Do We Go Now? is surprisingly funny.  It skewers the men who take up any opportunity to fight and who are so easily manipulated by their women.  Insults and hilarious comments fly all around, and though the subtitles cannot catch everything, rest assured that they catch enough to send the audience into fits of laughter.  But the true heart and humor of the film are in the women of the village, who make gossiping and scheming one big party.  Though their actions may seem extreme, they are motivated by love for their families, and they merely want to see an end to the violence that plagues their homes.

If Labaki advocates one idea in Where Do We Go Now?, it’s that peace in the Middle East can be achieved – and that women would be best equipped to bring it.  It’s not easy to make those so steeped in the us vs. them mentality to see eye-to-eye with their neighbors.  But it can be done.  And ending the religious divide begins one village at a time.

The Series Finale of Awake: Perfectly Satisfying for the Head and the Heart

The second half post contains major spoilers for the final episode of Awake, and the beginning of the spoilers is clearly marked.

I wasn’t going to write about last night’s series finale of Awake.  But as I watched the final moments of the episode, I found myself a little misty-eyed, and I knew I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

via amazon.com – © NBC

You see, what Awake managed to do was create a finale that was satisfying on both an intellectual and emotional level – a rarity for a cancelled program.  When I think back to some other programs I watched that ended their run after thirteen episodes, none of them felt as complete as Awake’s “Turtles All the Way Down” did.  The Nine revealed a huge plot twist in its final moments, and the attempt honestly felt tacked-on.  Kings wrapped up one chapter of its story, clearly setting the stage for future stories.  The closest I can think of to the perfection of the Awake finale was Journeyman, which satisfied on a human level but didn’t wrap up quite so neatly as Awake.

That said, even though there was a sense of finality to the Awake finale, that doesn’t mean that a second season couldn’t have existed.  The final moments of Awake contained just enough ambiguity to fuel future seasons, and that, I think, is what made it so special.

Below, I will attempt to sift through what happened in the Awake finale, so spoilers follow from now on!

Everything about “Turtles All the Way Down” pointed to the conclusion that the Red World, in which Hannah survived the crash, was the dream.  Events seemed more surreal – and Britten’s actions more erratic.  When Green World Britten came to visit Red World Britten in prison, I just knew that this one had to be the dream.

The scene in which Dr. Lee and Dr. Evans follow Britten down the hallway only solidified this feeling.  Green World Dr. Evans says, “This is fantastic,” which Red World Dr. Lee says, “This is madness.”  Of course Dr. Evans would be glad that Britten has finally realized the truth, and Dr. Lee wouldn’t want Britten to proceed with this realization because it would then mean that all of the Red World – including Dr. Lee – would cease to exist.

If I had any doubts that the Red World was the dream, the scenes that followed smashed them.  Everything about Britten’s goodbye to Hannah was so final that it seemed like solid proof that Hannah was dead.  And the image of the two Brittens meshing into each other seemed like the nail in the coffin.

If only things were so simple.  I should have known that Awake would throw a wrench in this seemingly tidy answer.  When Dr. Evans froze in the middle of talking to Britten, I at first thought something was wrong with my TV.  But then the door opened – and Britten crossed the threshold into perhaps a third world in which both Rex and Hannah are still alive.

The beauty of this scene is hard to put into words.  Suffice to say that, however hokey it may be, seeing the whole Britten family together – and not in a flashback – just worked.  But was it real?  That is the question.

Given the mind shenanigans of Awake, it’s entirely possible that the final scene of “Turtles All the Way Down” was just a dream within a dream.  Britten said in “Say Hello to My Little Friend” that he would do anything to have another moment with his son.  Imagine what he’d do to see his wife and son with him again.  The final image of Awake shows Britten closing his eyes before the screen goes to black.  Would the hypothetical second season have opened with Britten awaking in the Green World having just had the most splendid dream?

Regardless of the answer to these questions, Britten had the chance to see his wife and son together with him once more, giving both him and us the audience closure.  I daresay that I cannot think of a more perfect way that Awake could have ended.

The Classics Club: The Hound of the Baskervilles

This post contains minor spoilers for The Hound of the Baskervilles.

I admit it: I’m hooked on Holmes.

When I wrote up my thoughts on Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, I stated that it was the Sherlock Holmes book I’ve been waiting for.  After reading The Hound of the Baskervilles, however, this one might just take the top spot for me.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve maintained that I preferred the Holmes stories in short story format, like in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.  But The Hound of the Baskervilles, in novel format, gives both of the other books a run for their money.  More so than the previous Holmes novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, Hound is more of a traditional mystery novel, having enough twists, turns, and thrills to make it the most entertaining Holmes book I’ve read to date.  Written twelve years after The Sign of the Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles makes it clear that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle improved his novel writing in the years in between the two.

Like many other Holmes books, The Hound of the Baskervilles opens with Holmes and Watson discussing the process of deduction, with Watson attempting to employ Holmes’s methods.  From there, they learn of what is known as the Curse of the Baskervilles, a large, ghastly hound that has haunted the Baskerville family for centuries.  Heir Henry Baskerville has been found dead, and Holmes and Watson are called in to investigate what could be happening at Baskerville Hall.

What I enjoyed most about The Hound of the Baskervilles was that it seemed more hands-on than previous Holmes books.  We get to see Holmes and Watson feel through this case, as opposed to the speedy resolutions of the short stories.  Also of note is that Holmes disappears from the story for several chapters, and we instead follow Watson as he carries out his own investigation.  As fascinating as Holmes is, seeing Watson get his moments of glory in this story is a welcome surprise.

If one were to begin reading Sherlock Holmes – and would rather be hooked from the start than read the books in order – I might in fact even suggest reading The Hound of the Baskervilles first.  It’s that good.

The Hound of the Baskervilles was the last Sherlock Holmes book on my Classics Club list.  As such, I won’t be writing about any more Holmes books for the Club, but rest assured, Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles have gotten me hooked on Holmes.  I plan to finish off the series at my leisure and will likely write about the rest of the books at some point.

A Tribute to Cancelled Television Programs

In the middle of upfronts week, everyone focuses attention on next fall: what new shows the networks picked up, what the primetime schedules will look like, etc.  Lost among all the hubbub are the shows from last fall that were not fortunate enough to be granted a spot on next year’s lineup.  These are the cancelled programs – those that, for whatever reason, did not connect with enough of an audience to become successful.

The shows I’ve watched that have been cancelled have given me a complicated relationship with network television.  On one hand, I love it – I hardly watch anything on cable.  But on the other hand, I hate how ratings-driven the network TV business is.  Pretty much everyone understands that the Nielsen ratings system is flawed – but no one seems to be able to come up with an alternative.  And so, many shows end up cancelled within their first year.

via amazon.com – © NBC

Since I started seriously watching network TV in fall 2005, I’ve seen ten programs I watched cancelled in their first year and an additional two cancelled in their second year.  These were Commander in Chief, The Nine, Journeyman, New Amsterdam, Cane, Aliens in America, Kings, Dollhouse, V, Pan Am, Alcatraz, and, most recently, Awake.  Major props to you if you remember any of these.  Some of these programs, like Alcatraz, limped along, growing steadily worse after relatively good pilots.  Others, like Commander in Chief, Kings, and Awake, were (at least to me) stellar throughout their runs.  It is a sad day when a gem like Awake cannot finish its story.

But looking at the ratings of these shows, it isn’t difficult to understand why their networks chose to cancel them.  The audiences simply weren’t watching them – at least not live, which is really all that matters.  The networks could learn a thing or two about nurturing new shows – just look at how much Fringe has improved (in quality, not ratings) since its first season.

via amazon.com – © NBC

More importantly, it really is a shame that more people did not watch a lot of these shows.  I’d go as far as to say that Kings, Dollhouse, and Awake were masterpieces, albeit flawed in some respects.

If there’s a common thread in my twelve cancelled shows, it’s that they aren’t the network TV norm – they all broke convention in some way.  Audiences weren’t interested in shows about a female president, a Pakistani exchange student in the Midwest, a modern Old Testament retelling, or a detective who experiences two realities.  I commend the creators of each of these shows for trying something different, and I only wish that their efforts had not gone so unnoticed.

What cancelled programs have you watched in recent years?

On Giving Old Stories a Fresh Spin

Today, classic film network TCM is showing eight movies based on the Robin Hood legend.  Among them is the legendary 1938 Errol Flynn version, The Adventures of Robin Hood, jumbled alongside films like Red River Robin Hood (1943), The Robin Hood of El Dorado (1936), and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), which sound as though they have nothing to do with Sherwood Forest.

via amazon.com – © BBC

It seems that one cannot make a Robin Hood movie or television series without reimagining part of it.  Even adaptations that have kept the medieval setting have branched away from idea of an outlaw stealing from the rich to help the poor, focusing on other aspects of the story.  In the 1976, there was Robin and Marian, which showed the couple in the later years of their life.  The 2010 film Robin Hood with Russell Crowe is an origin story.  There’s even a TV movie called Princess of Thieves, which follows Robin’s daughter.  Even the basic story of Robin Hood has undergone transformations.  Maid Marian wasn’t introduced until the fourteenth century, and then by the 2010 film, she actually disguises herself and rides off into battle.  Similarly, it has now become customary to include some kind of Turkish character, which 2006 BBC Robin Hood series even made a woman.

The story of Robin Hood has been around for so long and has become embedded in people’s minds that it only makes sense for revisionist interpretations to exist.  Fairly tales have also been given the same treatment – just look at ABC’s Once Upon a Time and NBC’s Grimm, not to mention this year’s rival Snow White movies Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman. 

via amazon.com – © Syfy

But even relatively newer stories, like Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, have undergone similar treatment.  The span of months between late 2009 and early 2010 saw two markedly different versions of the story: the Syfy’s television miniseries Alice and Tim Burton’s blockbuster film Alice in Wonderland.  In Alice, a wholly liberal adaptation, the heroine is not an innocent blonde seven-year-old, but a brunette twenty-something martial arts instructor.  When she falls into Wonderland (or Underland, as it is now known), people ask if she’s the “Alice of legend.”  Tim Burton’s adaptation also sets the story in the future, but this time, Alice is the same Alice – and for whatever reason, she can’t remember ever having gone to Wonderland.  The aforementioned Once Upon a Time even transports the Mad Hatter to the same fairy tale land that houses Snow White and Rumpelstilskin.

via amazon.com – © BBC

While not as extreme as what has been happening to other works, the plays of Shakespeare, when they’re not inspiring countless other stories, seem to never keep their proper settings nowadays, as a current trend performs the Bard’s plays using modern costumes and sets.  Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) famously updated the play to the modern world.  I’ve seen live or televised Royal Shakespeare Company productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra all done like so.  The version of Hamlet was so modern-looking that Hamlet himself was sporting a muscle t-shirt at one point.  And the whole action of Macbeth was transplanted to something resembling Soviet Russia.

With all of these stories, there exists a “been there, done that” feel.  Everyone knows that Robin Hood steals from the rich, gives to the poor, and falls in love with Maid Marian along the way.  Similarly, everyone is familiar with Alice, the Queen of Hearts, Snow White, and Romeo and Juliet.  No one wants to compete with the image of Errol Flynn as Robin Hood or the Alice of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.  And Shakespeare’s plays have been performed countless times.  So instead of staid adaptations, we have all of these revisionist interpretations.  I admit that I enjoy the creativity of what Once Upon a Time does with fairy tales and what the Alice miniseries did to Carroll’s stories.  But with Shakespeare, I just want to see his works performed as they were written.  Is it too much to ask to see a Macbeth that takes place in eleventh century Scotland?

How to you feel about updating classic stories?  Is there a point where you draw the line?

The Classics Club: Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

This post contains minor spoilers for Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is the Sherlock Holmes book I’ve been waiting for.  If you read my post on The Sign of the Four, you probably gathered that I didn’t much care for it.  But with Memoirs, the tables have completely turned.  Along with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Memoirs is a collection of short stories, and I believe that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s writing style works better in shorter format as opposed to the short novels of A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four.

What really struck me about Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes was that, by chance, it directly addressed some of the topics I discussed about The Sign of the Four.  In my earlier review, I discussed how interesting it was to see Holmes make a mistake.  In The Sign of the Four, Holmes merely thought a dog was leading him along the right scent.  But as Watson notes in the beginning of Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes’s “The Yellow Face,” it was the first time Holmes was entirely wrong about an outcome – and it was great to see someone like Holmes actually trip up.

In The Sign of the Four, I also noted the increased character development for Holmes, which only continues in Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.  Having him make a mistake certainly adds to this, but what was fantastic about Memoirs is first that its story “The Greek Interpreter” introduces Sherlock’s older brother, Mycroft, whom Sherlock describes as even more astute than himself, creating an odd scenario for the younger Holmes, who is, for once, outmatched.

But that’s not all the outmatching for Sherlock Holmes in Memoirs – for it also introduces the enigmatic Professor Moriarty.

I first started reading Sherlock Holmes stories last summer, and I vaguely knew that there was some Moriarty involved.  After reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, I watched the first season BBC’s Sherlock (a modern day retelling of the Sherlock Holmes stories), and it emphasized the mystery of this Moriarty, which left me wondering when on earth this apparently legendary foil to Holmes would appear in the stories.  Well, he shows up – right at the end of Memoires of Sherlock Holmes in the story “The Final Problem.”  It’s a brief appearance, but it’s a powerful one.  I see why Moriarty became the stuff of legend: he’s the only force that seems to put Holmes even slightly on edge.  And the ending of “The Final Problem”?  Let’s say I’m grateful I wasn’t spoiled on this one.

Now that I’m done with Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, I will proceed immediately to The Hound of the Baskervilles and write about it for The Classics Club.  But after that, I’m going to read Sherlock Holmes stories purely for fun.

If you’ve read some of the Sherlock Holmes books, where does Memoirs of Sherlock Homes rank for you?  Do you prefer the Holmes novels or short story collections?

Celtic Woman: A Triumphant Exercise in Sentimentality

via celticwoman.com - © Celtic Woman Ltd.

Saturday night, I went to see the Los Angeles stop of Celtic Woman’s Believe tour – and what a show that was.  Unlike most musical groups, Celtic Woman doesn’t put on concerts; they put on lavish, carefully choreographed shows.  Conceived in 2004, Celtic Woman has become a revolving door of ten singers and one violinist, with all but one hailing from Ireland.

But to be honest, Celtic Woman is a lot more about the sentiment than about any connection to Ireland.  Celtic Woman has never claimed to perform traditional Irish music, though people think that they do.  The original show, aptly entitled Celtic Woman, was the closest the group ever came to traditional Irish music, with (albeit dramatized) interpretations of “Siúlil A Rún” and “Sí Do Mhaimeo Í.”  By the time Celtic Woman reached Believe, most of the traces of traditional Irish music had vanished.

When you go see Celtic Woman, you go in expecting opulence.  As I was driving one day about a month ago listening to Believe, it suddenly hit me: Celtic Woman is an exercise in sentimentality.  I happened to be listening to “Sailing,” and at the part when all the bagpipes come in, I realized that this song was almost ridiculously over the top – and yet I loved it.  You see, Celtic Woman wears sentiment on its sleeve, relying heavily on emotion with songs like “You’ll Be in My Heart,” “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” and “You Raise Me Up.”

As I was driving, it struck me that my admiration of Celtic Woman’s music is stylistically tied to some other works I love.  I realized that some of my favorite classic movies are Bette Davis melodramas like Dark Victory (1939) and Now, Voyager (1942).  Just as nobody could ever accuse Davis of underacting, the soloists of Celtic Woman perform with so much emotion that some people accuse their music of cloying.

But it is this overdramatic stylization of their performances truly sets Celtic Woman apart.  For example, you cannot get the full impact of fiddler Máiréad Nesbitt without watching her twirl and jump while playing her violin, and you cannot experience the opulence of a Celtic Woman performance without visually seeing their shows.  Their high glossy style is at the forefront in “Awakening,” the opening number of Believe.  You see the choreographed motions, the plethora of background singers, and the general polished and rehearsed air – all of which makes for a very aesthetically pleasing performance.

Yet this isn’t even the biggest of their performances; that title belongs to their rendition of “Mo Ghile Mear,” a truly lavish finale that they still perform on tour to end their first act.

You see in this video the elements of “Awakening,” but here, there’s even more.  When they perform this song on tour, the drums at the beginning literally shake the whole theater.  And then there are the dresses.  I’m normally not a fan of Celtic Woman’s second act dresses (which are all in the vein of these big ones), though how the performers can swish them around certainly justifies their size.

The opulence of the costumes, lighting, and performances in Celtic Woman shows remind me of other grand movies I like, such as The Women (1939), with its larger-than-life cast and assortment of overstated costumes, and the film melodramas of Douglas Sirk, with their gorgeous color photography and lighting, grandiose scores, and heavily emotional stories.  Celtic Woman is almost the music version of a Sirk film, but to appreciate them in this regard, you have to either watch the DVD or, preferably, see them live.

Only then can you really see how elements like lighting and movement truly bring out the sentiment in their shows.  When Saturday’s performance finished, my friend and I talked not about the music itself (or any traces of a connection to Ireland) but about the color palette of the lights used, how quickly Máiréad Nesbitt spun around, or how Lisa Lambe’s hair bounced to the beat of the drums at one point.

Sometimes, I wish that Celtic Woman were more traditionally Irish so that the naysayers wouldn’t complain about them.  But then Celtic Woman wouldn’t be as wonderfully over the top as they are.

For a great interview with the members of Celtic Woman (from the Songs from the Heart tour) about this very subject, click here.

If you’ve ever seen or heard Celtic Woman, do you enjoy their sentimentality, or do you find it all too much?

5 Reasons Why NBC’s Awake Deserves a Second Season

I’d like to say that if you haven’t heard of NBC’s Awake, you’ve been living under a rock, but alas, that isn’t true.  Though met with relatively enthusiastic reviews from critics, the Jason Isaacs vehicle debuted to a sleepy start on Thursday, March 1^st and has been on a steady ratings decline since.  Despite its struggle with the ratings, I believe that Awake deserves to be renewed – and here’s why.

1.    Its great story: In case you don’t know, Awake centers on Det. Michael Britten (Isaacs), a man who was in a car crash with his wife and son.  He lives a split life; in one reality, his wife survived, and in the other, his son survived.  Every time he goes to sleep, he wakes up in the other reality.  Each episode weaves in Britten’s relationships with his wife and son, his therapy sessions with his psychologist in each reality (brilliantly played by Cherry Jones and B.D. Wong), and a different crime investigation in each reality, both of which bleed into each other.  All these elements make the program a multilayered rumination on life.  Watching an episode is like putting together the pieces of a complicated puzzle.

2.    Its impeccable cast: The aforementioned Isaacs, Jones, and Wong are the standouts this wonderful cast.  Isaacs brilliantly portrays the Britten’s confused emotions, a man who’s trying to make sense of his life.  Jones and Wong play two sides of the same coin, with Jones as the sympathetic, encouraging psychologist and Wong as the more aggressive psychologist who points out Britten’s dangerous path.  The rest of the cast consists of no slackers either.  Of particular note is Dylan Minnette, a teenage actor who can actually act.

3.    Its fascinating exploration of psychology: Every episode of Awake thus far has featured at least one scene of Britten talking to each of his psychologists.  Rather than becoming tedious, these scenes attempt to explain some of the incongruous events occurring in the timelines, such as the appearance of a penguin in “That’s Not My Penguin.”  The psychologists attempt to describe how Britten’s mind is coping with his dual reality, forming barriers so that he doesn’t have to give up either.  Some of these scenes even remind me of Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (in which psychologist Ingrid Bergman attempts to determine the identity of patient Gregory Peck) in that they use psychoanalysis to unlock how Britten’s mind could be lying to him.

4.    Its rare status as a true pseudoserial: A few months ago, I wrote about how I considered Fringe and The Good Wife to be of a hybrid format I called the pseudoserial, which combines a case-of-the-week with ongoing character drama.  Awake is another show that deftly blends these two elements, and in a perfect world, it would attract followers of both formats.  But like Fringe and The Good Wife, Awake isn’t a great ratings success story.  Shows that can manage to balance such vastly different storytelling methods deserve to be on the air.

5.    Its potential to restore the NBC Thursday 10:00p.m. slot to its former glory: Think about it: NBC Thursday at 10:00p.m. is the former time slot of Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and ER.  Ever since ER went off the air, NBC hasn’t been able to produce a hit there.  With only one misstep so far this season – last week’s “Nightswimming” – Awake has the storytelling potential to rebuild NBC’s Thursday empire.  Recent DVR numbers show a 56% gain in the 18-49 demographic, meaning that about 35% of those viewers aren’t watching the show live.  Of course, DVR numbers hardly mean anything to the networks, but Awake also has critical support.  One can dream of a second season on NBC.

If NBC does not grant Awake a second season, hopefully, it can enjoy the same fate as Southland, which aired in its slot in 2009.  Southland, a critical hit, was canceled by NBC and subsequently rescued by TNT.  Can Awake hope for the same future?  I certainly hope so.

If you watch and enjoy Awake, what do you find exceptional about it?

My TCM Classic Film Fest Experience, Sunday

Sunday morning, I had a few things to attend to, so I only headed to TCMFF later to get in line to see Charade (1963).  Verizon, the sponsor of the festival, had set up a station by the line at the Egyptian, where they had trivia contests and free Internet for pass holders.  I was standing in line a bit away from the station, and I could hardly hear what they were saying.  While I was chatting with some people in line, I suddenly heard the people say, “Rosalind Russell” and “debut film.”  I wheeled around and shot my hand up.  They called on someone before me, and that person got the question (which I presumed was, “What was Rosalind Russell’s debut film?”) wrong, and then they called on me.  I said, “Evelyn Prentice” and won a DVD pack!  It was Volume 7 of The Essentials, which has Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Producers, and Hud.  I’m still not sure how I heard the question, but I’m so glad I did.  It pays to be a Roz fan!

Not long after this, the line shuffled into the theater, and I sat down to watch Charade.  This movie is a pure crowd pleaser – that’s what you get when you have Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn on screen under the direction of Stanley Donen.  I’d seen it before, but the plot has so many twists that I had forgotten some of the details.  The audience cheered for Grant and Hepburn as they made their first appearances, and even all the baddies of the movie got their cheers as well.

After the movie, we were treated to a conversation between TCM Host Robert Osborne and the man himself: Stanley Donen.  What a pleasure to be in the company of those two!  I had been hoping that Osborne would show up at one of the screenings I went to, and to see him chat with Donen was just wonderful.  Donen talked about how marvelous it was to work with Audrey Hepburn (whom he directed in three films) and how he almost couldn’t get Cary Grant to be in the movie.  He also mentioned that it was Grant’s idea to have Hepburn’s character chase after him because he felt he was too old to always be chasing younger women.

During the conversation – and the film – I was getting nervous about not getting in line in time for The Women (1939), one of my all-time favorite movies and the screening to which I was most looking forward at the festival.  But I needn’t have worried.  As soon as Osborne’s conversation with Donen finished, I raced out of the Egyptian and got in the line for The Women.  This was the only screening I got to see with my friend who was also there, and he and another friend and I could only find seats in the very front, about five rows back.

Boy, what an experience this was.  The Women is almost a larger-than-life movie in all regards.  You’ve got the legendary cast (Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, etc).  You’ve got witty lines spoken at a mile a minute, complemented by zany physical comedy that includes an all-out catfight.  And you’ve got the big, melodramatic performance style of Shearer.  Too witness all of these just yards away from the screen was something I’ll never forget.

Once again, I had the pleasure of being surrounded by an absolutely astounding audience.  This is probably my second favorite cinema experience ever, right behind when I saw Gone with the Wind on the big screen for the first time.  Since I was sitting in the front, I couldn’t see how many people raised their hands when they were asked who’d seen it, but I guess that at least half the audience must have seen it before.

This audience cheered for every character as she appeared on screen (except for Fontaine’s Peggy, though she first appeared in the background of a shot; I realized she was there too late to cheer, though there were scattered cheers behind me).  After the famous brawl with the meltdown of Sylvia Fowler (Russell), there were cheers for Russell as she is dragged off screen shouting and crying.

Having seen Auntie Mame and The Women on the big screen in the same weekend, I can safely say that nobody makes me laugh like Rosalind Russell does.  I have only begun to discover her work within the last year or so, but she has quickly become one of my top three actors of all time.  I’d seen His Girl Friday on the big screen twice before, and at both of those screenings, the audience seemed to react more to Cary Grant than to Russell.  But with Auntie Mame and The Women, it was Roz all the way.  With each of these movies, I can’t help but crack up whenever she’s on the screen, and this was no more evident to me than when watching The Women with this audience.  Every crazy scene she’s in – whether it is exercising with Fontaine’s Peggy, goading on Shearer’s Mary, or fighting with Goddard’s Miriam – is pure comic delight.  You could tell the audience loved her.

When The Women finished, I was happy to hear that my friends, both guys who had never seen it before, had really enjoyed the movie.  We spent a few minutes outside chatting about our favorite parts before leaving.

And that about sums up my weekend at TCMFF.  Though I may not have gotten to see many of the big events, I am so glad I had the opportunity to go this year, and I hope to make it back next year.  If you went to TCMFF, what were your favorite moments?

My TCM Classic Film Fest Experience, Saturday

Saturday morning, I got to the Egyptian Theater bright and early to line up for Auntie Mame (1958), the pinnacle of Rosalind Russell’s career.  Though I would have loved to see Kim Novak’s handprint ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, I was set on seeing Auntie Mame.  Writer Cari Beauchamp and designer Todd Oldham introduced the film, and they both happen to be big fans of it.  Oldham talked about the opulence of the costumes and the set decoration, which is a big major of why Auntie Mame is so hysterical.  Beauchamp mentioned that it’s one of the few movies that makes her feel good about life every time she watches it.

Like with Nothing Sacred, I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to see this with people.  I’d seen it once before, but the woman next to me had never seen it, and she was in stitches the whole time.  There was cheering when Russell first appeared on screen and when she declared, “But darling, I’m your Auntie Mame!”  I was surprised that fewer people cheered during the famous “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death” line – but I guess everyone was just wrapped up in how outrageous this film is.  The climax of the film, with Patrick’s fiancée and her family alongside Mame and her eccentric friends, was just wonderful to see on the big screen.

After Auntie Mame, I hightailed over to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to get in line to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).  It was my very first time inside Grauman’s, and to see a movie from my childhood was a real treat.  Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin briefly talked about the movie and introduced Marge Champion, who was the Snow White movement model for the animators.  He then introduced actress Ginnifer Goodwin, who plays Snow White (and Mary Margaret Blanchard) on ABC’s Once Upon a Time.  It turns out that Goodwin is a huge Disney fan and particularly loves Snow White, with whom she identified when she was a child because they’re both brunette (so she joked).  Goodwin offered an interesting perspective on her show, explaining that, in her view, OUAT imagines what the original tale of Snow White would be like – a tale that Walt Disney cleaned up for his film.

Before the film began, Maltin alerted us that we were the very first public audience to see this new digital restoration of Snow White.  And boy was this fun.  I was surprised at the sheer diversity of the audience.  There were literally men, women, and children of all ages – and they were a fantastic audience with whom to see this movie.  When the Queen, equipped with the poisoned apple, made her way to the cottage, the audience booed and hissed – and when she toppled off the side of the cliff, they cheered.

When this finished, I hurried on back to the Egyptian to get in line for Harold Lloyd’s Girl Shy (1924).  This was one of my favorite film going experiences ever because it was my first time seeing a silent movie accompanied by a live orchestra, which made this a special treat.  Leonard Maltin introduced the film alongside Suzanne Lloyd, the granddaughter of Harold Lloyd.  She talked a little bit about her grandfather’s legacy and how, even in his old age, he was making notes about how he should reedit his movies.

And then Maltin introduced the Robert Israel Orchestra, conducted by Robert Israel himself.  During the movie, I sometimes found myself watching them instead of the screen, but I always quickly tore my eyes away from them.  Although the film was a bit slow, though endearing, in the beginning, it skyrocketed towards the end.  The whole last twenty minutes or so was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen.  Lloyd steals cars, mans a trolley, commandeers a wagon, and jumps onto a horse in one wild race against the clock.  When he finally reached his destination at the end, the audience gave him one resounding round of applause.

And so ended my Saturday at TCMFF.  My Sunday recap will be up tomorrow.