stanley donen Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Free Flick of The Day: Blame It On Rio
Filed under: Comedy », Romance », Fandom », Home Entertainment »
A film about an affair with your best friend's daughter is probably the last place you would expect to find a lesson on morality. But oddly enough, that's exactly what you get in Larry Gelbart's sex comedy, Blame It On Rio. Like many of the films I saw during my childhood, I was well out of the prescribed age group for the story of a May-December affair, but I always remembered this movie for two reasons: it was where I learned about the world of mid-life crisis, and I even learned a little something about the consequences of your actions ... but we'll get to that later. So if you've never seen this movie, you're in luck because SlashControl offers the flick as part of their free film selection.Released in 1984, Rio was written by Gelbart, who is best known for his work in TV (as one of the creators of M.A.S.H) and in film (as the writer of Tootsie), and was directed by movie-musical legend, Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain). The story centered on two friends, Victor and Matthew (played respectively by Joseph Bologna and Michael Caine), who decide to go on vacation to Rio de Janeiro when their marriages have hit the skids. But things get a little tricky when Matthew (Caine) begins an affair with his best friend's teenage daughter, Jennifer (played by Michelle Johnson).
Jeffrey M. Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows -- Old School, Old Joy
Filed under: Foreign Language », New Yorker », Columns », 400 Screens, 400 Blows », Cinematical Indie »
By the time you read this I will be in Portugal, and so it seemed appropriate that I should take a moment to talk about Portugal's greatest cinematic export, film director Manoel de Oliveira. Oliveira holds a curious record: he's the oldest living film director, and the only living film director to have worked in the silent era. His first film, Working on the Douro River, was an 18-minute documentary made in 1931. Hollywood had converted to sound by then, but many other countries were still silent. (Reportedly, he worked as an extra in a film as early as 1928.)
Currently, Oliveira is 97 years old and has a new movie out, Belle Toujours (additionally, he has finished one other and is in production on two more). I haven't seen Belle Toujours yet; it opened in June in New York and appeared like a blip on the box office chart. It's a sequel of sorts to Luis Bunuel's 1967 masterpiece Belle de Jour, with Michel Piccoli reprising his role as Henri Husson, who once helped sexually awaken the married, bored Severine (Catherine Denueve), turning her on to a life of daytime sexual depravity and mild sadomasochism. Years later, Severine (now played by Bulle Ogier, from Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) meets Henri once again and the two come to terms with their bizarre past.
Who Are The Magnificent Seven Directors?
Filed under: Newsstand », Steven Spielberg », Lists »
Gerald Peary over at The Boston Phoenix asked readers to come up with their list of The
Magnificent Seven -- the seven greatest living narrative film directors -- and the results are interesting. Not a
single vote came in for Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Ang Lee, Pedro Almodovar, or any Italian, African, Spanish, or
Russian filmmaker. So who's left?The readers chided Peary (his list included Bergman, Antonioni, Godard, Altman, Herzog, Polanski, and Chabrol) for not including Martin Scorcese, and had votes of their own, for Clint Eastwood, Stanley Donen, Woody Allen, Gus Van Sant, Atom Egoyan, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Patrice Leconte and several others.
I might have added Steven Soderbergh. Who do you think is missing from the list? (The Guardian had a list recently that picked the top 40.)
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Discuss: Should Gay Actors Stay in the Closet?
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