Oscar predictions?

[skateluvr]

Sorry to double-post, but I wanted to get the YouTube extract out to you while I worked on this part of the post. Cinderella has been a popular ballet here and there. I believe the great British choreographer, Frederick Ashton, created a version that's still used over there (and sometimes here). If I recall correctly, in Ashton's version at least, the two stepsisters are played by male "character dancers."

Drat that recording! It ends just before the midnight section. Here's that part, and I think you'll find it very powerful. You can imagine all sorts of amazing choreography to it.


Come to that, why hasn't a skater used this music anytime recently?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLIml...feature=relmfu

TREASURE ALERT:

Here seems to be the ENTIRE ballet, a Nureyev version from Paris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqJIzUse-Us

Wow, that snippet is a dark cinderella. Who could skate to that? I will be watching the ballet when I feel I can do the whole thing. I am looking forward to Rudolph doing his thing. I was in love with him, then along came Baryshnikov who has no peer, kinds like Daisuke or Stephane when they are in the zone artistically.

Thanks so much O (not Oprah, but the "real thing" Olympia!!!!)

[skateluvr]

Streep is amazing. Iron Lady a great tour de force. So good.

[Olympia]

Oh, that's right, the DVD has just come out. I'll have to see about renting it. She's amazing, a force of nature. One thing that's fascinating about her is that she seems so down to Earth and healthy, not a headcase. Did you see Julie and Julia? I just love that movie. And then The Devil Wears Prada. Thank goodness I never had a boss like the woman she portrayed.

[skateluvr]

I loved the Devil Wears Prada-great acting all around. I mentioned in another thread I am disappointed in "The Descendants." It came across a very fake to me-hated the writing, whoever was responsible. I will rent Footloose someday, and there are a couple more movies I should watch, "Hugo." and "Warhorse" but I can't watch people or animals suffering. That is very limiting at this point. I wanted to see "The Passion" but I read of fatal heart attacks, it was so graphically real. "Phantom" the 25th anniversary is out on DVD as well, and I really loved it. Of course my heart breaks for the Phantom every time.

Right now I am with migraine again, so so much for GS . Night to all.

[Olympia]

I don't know where to put this post, but since a lot of Oscars were involved with this movie, I'm extending this thread. They're showing In the Heat of the Night on Turner Classics today. Whenever it comes on, there's one section I always watch: the part starting when Sidney Poitier is brought in to Rod Steiger's office and questioned, and he's revealed as a police officer. I'm always transfixed at Poitier's quiet intensity and then at the moment when Steiger, who comes across as a blowhard but knows expertise when he sees it (and knows that his people don't have it), manages to get Poitier to take a look at the body. Steiger deserved his Oscar for this: he plays a man who has been limited by his experience but who is not a limited thinker. In fact, I don't think it's a coincidence that Steiger so closely resembles Bull Connor, the awful Southern sheriff who kept a tyrannical clamp on the city of Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1960s. We viewers were meant to make that connection and to misjudge Steiger's character. It's a masterful portrayal.

Then another incredible performer, Lee Grant (who later won an Oscar and I think an Emmy for other grand portrayals) shows up as the wife. Her reaction to the news of her husband's death is riveting. Poitier reaches out to comfort her, and she recoils, not because she's prejudiced but because she can't stand at this moment to be touched. Events have touched her more than too much already.

This is one of those movies that are new every time you see them. The performances have a lot to do with it, of course, but the best part of this movie to me is the script. Just enough dialogue, wonderful "syncopation" between fast-talking characters (such as Steiger) and laconic ones (Poitier), just enough flavor of a dusty Southern town without ladling on the details, tackles the issue of prejudice without preaching about it. Great music, too.