My Fair Lady

I think I'm having a delayed allergic reaction or something, and I've been feeling pretty out of it all day. Tried to chase away my throat pain with some tea, and it seemed to help. As a celebration, I'm going to have some tea and whiskey, which always seems to help stave off a cold (er...or at least I don't mind so much that I have cold or allergy symptoms).

Today I watched My Fair Lady, directed by George Cukor in 1964. I wasn't really feeling up to watching such a long movie today. I thought it was like, two hours max, but this is a pretty epically long musical. I sort of like this movie and I sort of don't. It's hard because I get it - I like the story sort of a little, I like the acting a little, and I can leave the musical numbers. I sort of get the humor, but I sort of bristle at it still. I don't really know how I feel about it. It's good, but it's not really for me, maybe? I have a really hard time pinning down my feelings about movies like this, because on one hand, I sort of enjoy them, but on the other, I find them frustrating and boring to watch.

West Side Story

I was sort of dreading coming home to today's movie - and you know that it's bad when I spent all day at work printing and slicing post cards. Not even joking - all day! I actually feel a little sore from the repetitive motion. Whine whine whine. I'm not a big fan of today's movie - West Side Story directed by Jerome Robbins and  Robert Wise in 1961. I saw it a long time ago, most recently in the beginning of high school when I was being forced to sing a song from it  (I was a total goth girl in high school, I'm not sure why this song was chosen for me. Perhaps hatred).

I wish I could have some interesting story of how now, shod of my goth boots, I could see the fun magic and unicorns of the story or something. Not so much. I still really dislike it. I really don't enjoy any of the songs, and find most of them sort of badly written and lazy lyrically. I think it's simply too long of a movie, and also pretty boring. I also just as a rule dislike musicals and musical theater, which makes this movie totally not my taste. I can understand why people like the movie, but personally, nothing about it works for me.

Swing Time

I've actually never seen a Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers movie until now, despite how crazy that might sound. I was sort of excited to watch tonight's movie, Swing Time, directed by George Stevens in 1936. In his essay on the film. Ebert asserts that this is the best of their movies, so I'm glad I was able to start with this one. I really liked the movie. It felt a lot less stupid than some Broadway style musicals, and the talent of Astaire and Rogers was incredible. I couldn't believe what great dancers that they were, and how engrossing it was to watch it.

The plot of the movie is about as hokey as you would imagine for a musical, romantic comedy. John "Lucky" misses his own wedding, and promises his bride, Margaret, and her father, that he'll come with a token of $25,000 for them. He leaves for New York to gamble, where he meets Penny Carol, a beautiful dancer who he is taken with at first sight. He pretends to be a horrible dancer so she will teach him, and his antics get her fired. He quickly launches into an astounding dance number to win her job back. They become dance partners and perform, and of course, a romance blossoms. But what of the weird orchestra leader who lusts after Penny? And what about Lucky's fiance? Drama! Comedy!

Singin' in the Rain

I am an avid loather of musical theater. There are one or two strange ones that I like, but they tend to be unpopular, depressing, or basically are just English opera. I really don't feel Broadway-style musicals or American musical movies. They just strike the wrong note with me (hurr hurr). I've taken voice lessons since I was in middle school. I started out with a teacher who let me pick whatever I wanted to sing, which I liked. In high school, I had a teacher who forced us to sing musical theater. She generally just picked all our music for us, which I hated, but having musical theater picked for you when you are 16 and dress in all black is pretty terrible. I wanted to sing Fiddler on the Roof, she wanted me to sing South Pacific. Maybe my history with musical theater music has left me surled. I grew up watching today's movie - Singin' in the Rain, directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen in 1952.  I spent a lot of time with my grandparents as a kid, and my grandpa loved musicals. He loved this one, and I remember him often singing at the top of his lungs along with, or just breaking out randomly into "Singin' in the Rain". I recently had to watch a few parts of it in a film history class, and I was surprised at the plot. It was set in the 1920's? It was about filmmaking? What? I only remember all the songs, which I'm not so wild about now. I really was shocked by how funny and clever the movie was when I watched it again, and watching it all the way through tonight, I really rediscovered this movie. I never thought I would say I enjoyed a musical like this, but I really did. It's so much fun! For me, the plot and non-music scenes are the best and the most enjoyable, but I already explained myself. I'm such a sucker for movies about movies, and this one is no exception. I just loved how lighthearted it was. I came home in an awful mood and I was convinced that nothing could make me smile - but this proved me wrong.