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Post 0

Monday, June 27, 2005 - 3:00amSanction this postReply
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Hong,

I haven't seen this but it does look interesting. Does Patinkin actually sing in it?

MH


Post 1

Monday, June 27, 2005 - 2:57pmSanction this postReply
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"Does Patinkin actually sing in it?"

Unfortunately no. Nor does Peters. But Patinkin certainly can read poetry beautifully. He is also hilarious in this movie. A great actor.


Post 2

Sunday, July 10, 2005 - 10:12pmSanction this postReply
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Chick flick. Hated it.  Boring.

The one good part was Chopin and Liszt playing four handed.  That lasted about a minute.  Also, it seemed that Hugh Grant was actually playing.  He might not have been playing playing --- maybe they dubbed in another pianist -- but Grant apparently knows a keyboard when he sees one.

I don't know if it was the direction, or the writing, or what, but I monumentally did not care one iota what happened to any of these people.  The camera made everyone distant.  There were few close-ups.  Also, the actors were acting like people who...  I imagined a 1920s silent movie director saying, "OK, in this scene, the count takes you in his arms, but you resist..."  It was more like a high school production of Our Town.  I walked out close to the end. and went into my office to work on a column for a magazine.  My wife watched it all the way through and said she liked it.

(The kids were cute.  Poor frog.)


Post 3

Monday, July 11, 2005 - 7:55amSanction this postReply
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Michael,
Yes, Chick flick it certainly is. Thanks for watching it! Glad that you wife liked it, at least!

Actually, (now this is the cutest part), Hugh Grant doesn't know a thing about playing piano! he really was playing playing! He revealed it in an introduction when the movie was shown on TV some years ago. I think for people who really play piano, it is probably obvious.

Yes, I think the movie itself almost shout it at you loudly "Folks, don't take this all too seriously. Have some fun!" Even the actors couldn't keep a straight face here and there.

Hong


Post 4

Monday, July 11, 2005 - 8:33amSanction this postReply
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Hong Zhang wrote: "... he really was playing playing! He revealed it in an introduction when the movie was shown on TV some years ago. I think for people who really play piano, it is probably obvious."

Well, it was not obvious to me.  I guess I really don't play the piano, seeing as how I don't but I grew up with it and I grew up with Chopin being played on one.  We tend to underestimate what makes actors worth so much.

We watched the extra material on the King Arthur DVD and they trained for months before shooting started, learning to ride horses, handle swords, etc.  The girl in Flashdance really learned to weld.  On the other hand, Eddie Murphy confessed that when making Trading Places, he had no idea what was supposed to be happening on the floor.  We all have our limitations.  John Travolta really flies, so he plays pilots really well, in Broken Arrow, for instance.  The same is true of Harrison Ford in Six Days and Seven Nights.  In fact, speaking of Ford, he is quite the handyman, coming into acting as a carpenter. 

I just watched a Star Trek Next Generation oldie where Data and Dr. Crusher were tap-dancing.  They could have done almost anything at that point, but what they did was tapdance.  Actors who take themselves seriously tend to acquire a raft of ancilliary skills, just as a business manager will learn accounting, foreign languages, etc., etc.

Brent Spiner and Gates McFadden tapdancing was part of a continuing theme in ST:NG that I liked -- the cast got to work into the plots the skills they had, playing actors, playing instruments, etc.  Probably the best actor's movie I saw was Outrageous Fortune with Shelley Long and Bette Midler.  In that movie, at the moment of climax, Long hits the dirt as if she were shot dead and her life depends on her convincing her assailant that she is dead and I swear her face must have suffered in the fall.  It was perfect. She probably did it exactly once.  At any rate, I was convinced.


Post 5

Monday, July 11, 2005 - 9:16amSanction this postReply
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Yes, I remember Hugh Grant did say that he had spent some time practicing, perhaps, imitating piano playing.

Now if you remember Adrien Brody in "The Pianist", or Tim Roth in "The legend of 1900", those are guys who really CAN play. Though they also had to practice a lot in order to look remotely like a world class pianist.

btw, they all used mute piano during filming, and then dubbed with the sound played by professionals.

Ah, Harrison Ford, very much at home as Amish carpenter in "Witness".

I think there are also some actors who are not convincing at all in some movies, when they need to do something that requires special skills, playing violin, skating, singing, dancing, etc. But can't remember any specific case at the moment...


Post 6

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 - 6:02pmSanction this postReply
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Chick flick? Yeah, but I'm not embaressed to say I loved this movie, and saw it several times. It was both humerous and romantic.

Post 7

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 - 11:26pmSanction this postReply
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     I think a great 'chick flick' (story) was The Matrix Trilogy-Saga.

     'Course, that might depend on the 'chick.'

     NO reviewers commented on the fact that, on bottom line, it was fundamentally a 'love-story' that absolutely everything else hinged upon; bet most of present readers (who saw all 3) didn't really notice the necessity of that 'angle' in the whole story.

LLAP
J:D

P.S: Then again, maybe I'm not all that clear on what makes a flick a chick one.


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