A Movie Scene Quiz

I read that the Bros. love music and they do feature a lot of music in their movies. Harpo just played some lovely harp music. (lol) This is an all day Marx Bros. showing on TCM and I am, of course, doing other things while they're on. My daughter detests them. But, you can't go by her. She and her father used to love The Three Stooges.

I'm glad to know I'm "evolving" and not deteriorating, Bree. Wait a minute, that's the same thing, isn't it? (lol)

Certainly not!

Now, The Three Stooges are something I never got, either.

I'm glad you two feel the same way about The Marx Bros. Someone once told me that I didn't have a sense of humor when I said I didn't care for them. And, the Three Stooges, I detest.

Happy weekend everybody.

Mac: Be careful driving. You don't want to hit any dogies and
stay cool.

Bree: Take notes, please, so that you can keep us up-to-date on what's happening in the Big City and stay dry and warm.

Happy weekend to you, too!

I'm happy to report that there were no dogies on the highway on my way home. Lots of idiotic drivers, but no livestock.

My stereotypical picture of Texas obviously needs to be revised: I was sure there were dogies everywhere! (Actually, I've been to Houston - my sister lived there for about three years - so I know better.)

Here's an amazing instance of noncausal synchronicity. Remember the name of the pianist I heard at Carnegie Hall last night was Angela Hewitt? Well, this evening I started reading Ian McEwan's new novel, Saturday. The main character is a neurosurgeon. In the first chapter, there's a description of the way he likes to work, which reads in part as follows:

"he likes music in the theatre when he's working, mostly piano works by Bach - the 'Goldberg' Variations, the Well-Tempered Klavier, the Partitas. He favours Angela Hewitt, Martha Argerich, sometimes Gustav Leonhardt."

I almost dropped the book!

I'm not at all surprised, Bree. Don't you just love NCS!

I just read a short review of McEwan's "Saturday" which aroused my curiosity concerning "Atonement". Have you read that one?

Also, in the review I was impressed by:
"while reading a biography of Darwin, Perowne feels: "…faintly depressed by the way a whole life could be contained by a few hundred pages." I was thinking along those lines yesterday while posting some Celebrity Birthdays on the A2K thread "WA2K is Now on the Air."

And speaking of Darwin..... and evolving ....

Yeah, it's all kind of connected, isn't it?

I read "Atonement" and liked it very much. However, I recently had a conversation about it with someone who disliked it because there's a twist at the end which she thought was kind of a cheat (I'll say no more). Now, if she had said that about the movie The Upside of Anger, I would have agreed with her (boy, did I hate the ending of that movie!), but I didn't mind the way Atonement ended.

Here's what Roger Ebert said about the Upside of Anger and my curiosity is killing me. meooow!

"And then comes an unexpected development. Because "The Upside of Anger" opened a week earlier in New York than here, I am aware of the despair about this development from A.O. Scott in the New York Times (the ending "is an utter catastrophe") and Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal (the ending is "a cheat").
They are mistaken. Life can contain catastrophe, and life can cheat. The ending is the making of the movie, its transcendence, its way of casting everything in a new and ironic light, causing us to reevaluate what went before, and to regard the future with horror and pity. Without the ending, "The Upside of Anger" is a wonderfully made comedy of domestic manners. With it, the movie becomes larger and deeper. When life plays a joke on you, it can have a really rotten sense of humor."

Now, after reading several reviews, I figure that either Kevin Costner dies, or the husband returns and Joan Allen takes him back.

I know you're not going to disclose the ending, but Bree, could you please tell me -- Am I close?

Wow, maybe I need to see this after all.

Raggedy, I'll PM you about the ending of The Upside of Anger. mac, let me know if you want to be PM'd too, or if you want to see the movie first.

Thanks for keeping it a surprise. I'd thought I might go today, but the day just filled up (as always). I will probably try to see it after work one day this week.

Let us know what you think when you see it, mac.

New question:

On Saturday evening, I had a

Marx Brothers

when I went to see a work by

Tom Hulce.

You might say the title character of this work is a real

Johnny Depp (two words from a title),

who leaves every woman he meets

Stefania Sandrelli (an "aka" title of one of her movies)

until he's finally dragged off to

Steve McQueen (one word)

by the vengeful father of one of his victims.

Oh, a mystery - and I have to run some errands. I'll be thinking about this one while I'm out to lunch.

On Saturday evening, I had

A Night at the Opera (Marx Bros.)

when I went to see a work by

Amadeus (Tom Hulce)

You might say the title character of this work is a real

Don Juan DeMarco - Johnny Depp

who leaves every woman he meets

Seduced and Abandoned (or Traces of An Amorous Life :wink:) -Stefania Sandrelli

until he's finally dragged off to

Towering Inferno- Steve McQueen

by the vengeful father of one of his victims.

I have never seen "Don Giovanni". Did you like it, Bree?

You got them all, except I was thinking of Hell is for Heroes, for Steve McQueen.

I enjoyed Don Giovanni, except it made me remember one of the reasons I stopped going to operas, which is that they're so long: the performance lasted from 8 to 11:30, with one intermission. (I only went to this one because I was offered a free ticket by someone who couldn't use it.) It's a good thing it wasn't Wagner.

I had seen a live telecast of Don Giovanni on PBS a few years ago, but I don't think I had ever seen a live performance. I knew the basic plot outline, and many of the arias, which helped. Since I was last at the Met, they've introduced a system which allows you to switch on an English translation that appears on the back of the seat in front of you, or to leave it off if you don't want to be distracted by the titles. (This represents a compromise that was arrived at after heated debate between the pro-titles and anti-titles forces within the Met organization.) It probably would have helped me to follow the opera better if I had switched the titles on, but neither of the friends I went with did so, and I was too embarrassed to be the only one who turned them on!

Yes, that's a long time to sit through an opera, but ---The Met <sigh>

I don't think I'd switch the titles on either. I think it would be too much of a distraction.

I remember the first opera I saw was Il Trovatore and I had no idea what was going on, and it didn't bother me in the least. I enjoyed every minute of it. But, I did, when we got season subscriptions to the opera, make it a point to read the synopsis first. (lol)

I think most of the characters in Il Trovatore had no idea what was going on, either! Isn't that the one where the gypsy woman throws her own baby into the fire by accident, and then raises the royal infant (the one she intended to throw) as her own child?

Yes. And I was glad that I didn't know what was going on either. And the hero kills his brother (not knowing, of course, that it is his brother) and the hero's love, in order to save him, takes poison and dies, and then hero is executed and -- it's very confusing.