Chapter1-Take1

Before Matt Damon was The Talented Mr. Ripley, there was Alain Delon #book2movies

2024-04-19T11:47:00.000-04:00

My husband and I are headed to Europe in just over a week. After a week in London, we're heading to Paris, Venice, Rome, the Italian coast and the south of France. Many of the locations visited by The Talented Mr. Ripley in Patricia Highsmith's book. Seems like a perfect time for a Plein Soleil redux.

Sparked by the news that there's another Patricia Highsmith book-to-movie in the works, a remake of Strangers on a Train, I decided to watch The Talented Mr. Ripley again. That's when I discovered that long before Matt Damon was the talented Tom Ripley in 1999, Alain Delon played Tom Ripley in the first adaptation of Highsmith's novel, the sexy French thriller Plein Soleil in 1960. It was Delon's breakout role, the part that made the impossibly gorgeous Frenchman a star. Plein Soleil (Full Sun or Blazing Sun) was released with English subtitles as Purple Noon.

I decided to watch both films back to back; a delicious treat! Rather than talk about how the two versions differ — which they do in ways both small and large — may I just say Vive la Différence! and suggest you watch René Clément's Plein Soleil/Purple Noon for yourself. It's available on Amazon, GooglePlay and HuluPlus. Be warned: you may never look at The Talented Mr. Ripley starring Damon, the sexy and charismatic Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Philip Seymour Hoffman in quite the same way again. Matt Damon will always be magnifique but Alain Delon is, how do you say? — Ooh la la! I've got trailers below.

Dreaming of France? See what other Francophiles are posting at An Accidental Blog

Amy Adams IS The Woman in the Window: Trailer

2021-04-30T10:54:00.004-04:00

Just when I thought it was safe to back to blogging ... the subscription widget I was using is going away!

Which means while usually I only feel like I’m talking to myself when I blog, come this summer I really will be. Without feedburner, my book-to-movie content will just sit here, withering away, unread, unloved in the vast desert where failed blogs go to die.

That’s fine. Even before COVID hit I was spending less and less time here and more and more time tinkering away at a novel of my own I just didn’t have the creative energy to pour into Chapter1-Take1 any longer.

What I’d like to do—besides have my novel published—is invite you to check out my personal website SimCarter.com. If you decide to follow me there via TinyLetter I can pretty much guarantee I won’t intrude on your already overcrowded inbox more than once—maybe twice—a month.

So this is my “Hey! Good to see you and oh, by the way, Goodbye” post but before I go, a book to movie adaptation that’s coming to Netflix in May. It’s a book many of us loved, The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn starring Amy Adams as Anna Fox, the agoraphobic, alcoholic, child psychologist. Aren’t you glad the author titled it WOMAN in the Window rather than calling her a “girl”

The film also stars Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore, Anthony Mackie and Wyatt Russell. Joe Wright directed with a script from Tracy Letts based on Finn’s bestselling thriller. Watch the trailer below.

And thank you for following me here, some of since the inception. I appreciate the loyalty, the love and the comments. I will always have an avid interest in movies and books, especially movies based on books even though, let’s face it, they often don’t live up to the original. So if you’re watching, chances are, I’ll be watching too. Reach out on Twitter @SimCarter or on Instagram @simcarter28. And if you’re so inclined stop by Simcarter.com and give me a follow.

Thanks everybody That’s a wrap.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=J0hTmzISOlQ&feature=share

https://youtube.com/watch?v=v_0GJg_Jnlo&feature=share

Confined to her home by agoraphobia, a psychologist becomes obsessed with her new neighbors — and solving a brutal crime she witnesses from her window.

Starring:Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie

Where'd You Go, Bernadette: My take on the book Spoiler: I Loved this book!) #book2movies

2019-07-28T18:22:00.000-04:00

Since Where'd You Go, Bernadette comes out on August 15th, I thought I'd repost my take on the book. Yes, I loved it. Cheers!

‘Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people in general--has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence--creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

I got so excited reading the 2012 bestseller, Where'd You Go, Bernadette that I couldn't help telling my husband all about Maria Semple's fabulous fictional heroine, Bernadette, the former architect who won the super prestigious MacArthur Genius award back in the '90s. Bernadette now lives with her husband and 15-year-old daughter Bee in Seattle in a former school for unwed mothers she'd intended to remodel but instead had left to go to ruin. She never - or rarely - leaves the house, hates the other parents at her daughter's progressive private school and has all her errands run by an assistant based in India. Which frankly I found really really appealing! Having someone else take care of everything you don't want to deal with, and you don't even really have to deal with them? Heaven! Her husband is a genius too who works for MicroSoft. We know he's a genius because he's given to padding around the office in his stocking feet and he's delivered the fourth most popular TEDTalk ever.

Disney Corporate Headquarters/Burbank
Photo credit: DrWhoAnon

I was so enamored of the book I couldn't help telling him the whole sad/funny story, how one of her jobs was working for Michael Graves, the real architect who designed the Disney building down the road from us in Burbank, where Bernadette was charged with designing the men's' room. Another architectural job was being part of the quality control team assigned to assess the beautiful pale travertine marble used to clad the Getty Center. Again the fictional Bernadette worked for the real architect, Richard Meier. I remember being enthralled by the entire construction process back when the museum was first built on a stunning hillside overlooking the 405 in Los Angeles. I also told him how one of her first designs was repurposing an eyeglass factory in Venice and how after weeks of just staring at the boxes of left behind lenses and frames she finally had them knitted together to form walls, screens really. And, of course, the tale of her most famous design, the 20 Mile House which I won't go into just in case you haven't read this wild and wonderful novel yet. That story is just too good to spoil.

The Getty Center/ Los Angeles
Photo credit: DogMamon

Part of the appeal of Semple's work is that fanciful blending of the real and imaginary; the Forrest Gump approach if you will. There's something so magical and subversive about putting fictional characters in the real world where they interact with important or historical figures; I can't put my finger on what it is that makes it so compelling, I just know it's a kick. The whole book is a kick really, told through a series of pilfered emails and letters and transcribed voice mails that the daughter Bee puts together in book form.

Part of the appeal is the fresh, crisp writing and the hilarious and snarky outlook Semple gives to her characters; the hilarious insight into modern culture, the immersion into the world of MicroSoft, Bernadette's hatred of the gnats aka the parent body at Bee's school and Seattle's many Canadians in residence had me snickering as did the overly enthusiastic fundraising voice of Ollie O., the school's new principal, and the unforgettable Soo Lin and Audrey. Semple creates such original yet immediately recognizable characters built upon the types most of us know all too well from our own social networks.

As the title suggests, Bernadette goes missing, but she does so in both real and symbolic ways. At the heart of the book is the beautiful little Bee who loves and appreciates her quirky mother and a not so subtle message; Bernadette is a good wife and fantastic mother BUT she's also an artist who has to create otherwise she'll become 'a menace to society.' When I started telling my son all about the novel too, I realized I better just write up my thoughts to share with you, the kind readers of this blog, one of my little endeavors that keeps me from completely freaking out, retreating from reality and maybe, just maybe, becoming a menace to society too. Just so you know.

Bernadette let life kick her ass and lost her own way along the way; happily, Maria Semple gives us a grand adventure where hopes and dreams can be rerouted. I went absolutely wild for this unusual, funny, and inspiring book and as luck would have it, the novel is bound for moviedom. Remember we talked about that back at the beginning of 2013, with Annapurna's Megan Ellison producing? While Semple could write the screenplay herself - her credits include Arrested Development and Mad About You - at this writing those modern marvels of adaptation, Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter (The Fault in Our Stars, The Spectacular Now, Paper Towns and the original script, 500 Days of Summer) are supposedly writing the screenplay. I REALLY hope this comes to pass, I really can't wait to see the remarkable 20 Mile House brought to life by a genius production designer in her own right.

Can't wait to see Bernadette there!

UPDATED from 7/13/2017:
We learned Cate Blanchett was playing Bernadette back in 2015 and a few months ago we got the word about Kristen Wiig playing Bernadette's intrusive neighbor Audrey. Billy Crudup. Lawrence Fishburne. Judy Greer. I Really Can Not Wait. With the casting news that Troian Bellisario is on as someone named Becky, "the first person Bernadette encounters in the Antarctica"?

UPDATED: 3/7/2015 (originally published 10/14/2014)
I hope this comes to pass! The screenplay is complete and Boyhood director Richard Linklater is in talks to direct. He would be an amazing choice! If you've seen Boyhood, you know that while it's about a boy, it's also about mothers and about fathers and about life. He really knows people and their mangled efforts at relationships. While Boyhood has catapulted Linklater into the national consciousness, he's been working at his craft since the late 1980s. Note to self: Be sure to check out Before Sunrise and Before Sunset before re-watching Before Midnight again.

Philip Seymour Hoffman: 'In the arms of the angel'

2019-07-23T11:07:00.000-04:00

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN

July 23, 1967 - February 2, 2014

Like many of you, the news of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death yesterday hit me hard. As an actor he travelled regularly to the deepest parts of himself to fashion the face - the many faces - of humanity he presented to the world. But he was no ordinary actor, he was one of the great and the gifted. There is something about the greatest artists, whether they be painters, poets, dancers, directors, writers, artists or actors that allows them to access the hearts of men - our dark spots, our brightest hopes - and reflect them back to us. That is their great talent. Like angels they take us by the hand and show us glimmers of our true selves and in doing so, give us a glimpse of God. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was one of those angels; in life he gave and gave of himself despite fighting a constant battle with his own demons. In death, may he rest in the arms of his own angel and may he find some comfort there.

"Angel" by Sarah McLachlan

Spend all your time waiting
for that second chance
for a break that would make it okay
there's always some reason
to feel not good enough
and it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
oh beautiful release
memories seep from my veins
let me be empty
and weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight

in the arms of the angel
fly away from here
from this dark cold hotel room
and the endlessness that you fear
you are pulled from the wreckage
of your silent reverie
you're in the arms of the angel
may you find some comfort here

so tired of the straight line
and everywhere you turn
there's vultures and thieves at your back
and the storm keeps on twisting
you keep on building the lies
that you make up for all that you lack
it don't make no difference
escaping one last time
it's easier to believe in this sweet madness oh
this glorious sadness that brings me to my knees

in the arms of the angel
fly away from here
from this dark cold hotel room
and the endlessness that you fear
you are pulled from the wreckage
of your silent reverie
you're in the arms of the angel
may you find some comfort here
you're in the arms of the angel
may you find some comfort here

Vanity Fair #book2movies

2019-07-18T13:30:00.003-04:00

Olivia Cooke in Vanity Fair

Reese Witherspoon, Vanity Fair, 2004

Time to update this outdated post that Vanity Fair was getting another re-do! On the occasion of the anniversary of William Makepeace Thackeray's birthday!

But to do so, I'm going to have to watch the updated series which is available on Prime. Until then here's me waxing and waning on the last go-round.

The last iteration starring Reese Witherspoon was both a critical failure and a box office flop back in 2004 so word of a new version of Thackeray's classic satirical novel won't have anyone shedding tears. The news that the many many many paged book is going to be a seven-part series—rather than a 2-hour film—is very good news for obvious reasons.

Taking Witherspoon's place as Becky Sharp is Olivia Cooke, the young British actress many of you know from Bates Motel and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. We'll see her next year in the Steven Spielberg adaptation of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One and the intriguing sounding Life Itself, both coming in 2018.

Except for the fact that Becky Sharp is a social-climbing adventuress I confess I've mostly forgotten the book which I think I read back in college. Or thereabouts. I might even have read it for pleasure, I went through a time in the 70's when I went through 19th century period novels like Austen's Pride and Prejudice, George Eliot's Middlemarch, Charles Dickens Bleak House and Henry James Portrait of a Lady as though they were The Girl on the Train. These days, not so much. I may try to reread Vanity Fair but with the paperback weighing in at 848 pages, I'm not optimistic.

Here's how the Bantam Classic is described online:

“A deliciously satirical attack on a money-mad society, Vanity Fair, which first appeared in 1847, is an immensely moral novel, and an immensely witty one. Called in its subtitle “A Novel Without a Hero,” Vanity Fair has instead two heroines: the faithful, loyal Amelia Sedley and the beautiful and scheming social climber Becky Sharp. It also engages a huge cast of wonderful supporting characters as the novel spins from Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies to affairs of love and war on the Continent to liaisons in the dazzling ballrooms of London. Thackeray’s forte is the bon mot and it is amply exercised in a novel filled with memorably wicked lines. Lengthy and leisurely in pace, the novel follows the adventures of Becky and Amelia as their fortunes rise and fall, creating a tale of both picaresque and risqué. Thackeray mercilessly skewers his society, especially the upper class, poking fun at their shallow values and pointedly jabbing at their hypocritical “morals.” His weapons, however, are not fire and brimstone but an unerring eye for the absurd and a genius for observation of the foibles of his age. An enduring classic, this great novel is a brilliant study in duplicity and hypocrisy…and a mirror with which to view our own times.

My twitter friend who calls herself 'Crazy Book Lady' and goes by @rorysbooks on twitter reminds me they changed the ending of Vanity Fair in the Reese Witherspoon version—never a good idea for a lit loving movie fan. Any ideas for what else might have gone wrong? Does it have anything to do with this picture?

Here's the 2004 Vanity Fair trailer, should you want a reminder of how the movie went down. The new iteration comes from the producers of Poldark and Victoria and has been written for television (via Amazon and ITV) by Gwyneth Hughes, screenwriter of The Girl and Dark Angel. Production is supposed to begin this fall in London and Budapest so watch for more casting news in the coming weeks.

Ready for a remake?

Linking up with Joy Weese Moll's British Isles Friday

Chocolat: A delicious coupling based on the book by Joanne Harris

2019-07-03T15:49:00.004-04:00

Johnny Depp has gone out of fashion lately but the old Johnny? The one that starred in Chocolat, one of our favorite book-to-movie adaptations?

Couldn’t you just eat him up?

Based on the book by Joanne Harris, Johnny Depp plays Roux, a passerby of sorts (he docks his houseboat nearby) who drops in on the tiny French village where Juliet Binoche (Vianne Rocher), the mysterious new girl in town, upsets the uptight locals by opening a tantalizing Chocolaterie during Lent. The chocolates are supposedly full of magical elixirs with healing properties. (Sexual healing properties, yes please!)

Winning the Taste Test

Directed by Lasse Holstrom—the guy must be a foodie, he also directed 2014’s foodie’s fave The Hundred-Foot Journey—Chocolat was nominated for Best Picture, Best Screen Adaptation and Best Musical Score. Juliette Binoche was nominated for a Best Actress award while Judi Dench got a nom for playing Vianne’s chocoholic landlady. It didn’t win a thing but it did give us one of Johnny Depp’s tastiest roles.

The impressive cast of Chocolat also includes Alfred Molina, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugh O’Conor, Lena Olin, Peter Stormare, and John Wood, all of whom, along with Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench and Johnny Depp, received a cast nomination from SAG.

What do you think of Chocolat? Delicious? If not, what’s your favorite Johnny Depp role?

Chocolat is available to stream in the usual places: Amazon, YouTube, GooglePlay, Hulu, iTunes, and Vudu. As usual, you’ll have to check Netflix.

The Group: Based on the Book by Mary McCarthy

2019-06-21T12:27:00.000-04:00

Based on the classic novel by Mary McCarthy—born on this day, June 21, 1912—The Group was directed by Sidney Lumet in 1966 and starred Candice Bergen, Joan Hackett, Elizabeth Hartman, Shirley Knight, Joanna Pettet, and Jessica Walter. Candice Bergen was nominated for a Golden Globe for most promising newcomer for her portrayal of Lakey.

"Eight young women from the Vassar College class of 1933 rush out into the world to find exciting lives, but discover nothing is quite as they dreamed. Rather than blazing trails in art, science and literature, the friends are each variously burdened with disappointing relationships, children, aging parents and unemployment. Kay Strong (Joanna Pettet), the center of the group, gradually loses faith in the promise of their lives and, as war approaches, becomes unhinged."

The material was quite the eye-opener in its day with its frank and sometimes brutal talk of sex and the art of seduction ... what's clearly now seen as sexual assault ... along with the various traumas of young womanhood and the loss of innocence. Not just sexually, but also with the disintegration of one's dreams and the awakening to reality. This trailer, though, is everything.

Mary McCarthy

About the book

"Written with a trenchant, sardonic edge, The Group is a dazzlingly outspoken novel and a captivating look at the social history of America between two world wars.

Mary McCarthy’s most celebrated novel follows the lives of eight Vassar graduates, known simply to their classmates as “the group.” An eclectic mix of personalities and upbringings, they meet a week after graduation to watch Kay Strong get married. After the ceremony, the women begin their adult lives—traveling to Europe, tackling the worlds of nursing and publishing, and finding love and heartbreak in the streets of New York City. Through the years, some of the friends grow apart and some become entangled in each other's affairs, but all vow not to become like their mothers and fathers. It is only when one of them passes away that they all come back together again to mourn the loss of a friend, a confidante, and most importantly, a member of the group.

The film is available on disc via Amazon. Have you read the book, seen the movie?

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds ... On Location

2019-05-13T13:39:00.000-04:00

#SaturdayMatinee

My husband and I took a spur of the moment road trip up the 1 and the 101 this week. We stopped at Bodega Bay where the tourist information center has a print out listing both the location of the church and the school, back in Bodega. The church is still in use by the locals today.

The Porter School is used as a family home and there are signs requesting that you don't disturb them. While my husband and I were there, four other couples drove up to take pictures too. Yes, it's summer but it's midweek. We all agreed this must be a non-stop, year-round activity. Oh the poor people who live there!

‘A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.

Despite the fact that nobody asked for it, and nobody wants it, there has been a rumored remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds percolating for the past couple of years. The general attitude about the idea of remaking Hitchcock is pretty much ‘have you seen the cojones on these guys?’ What’s worse is that Michael Bay—4 Transformers movies plus one in the oven—has his big thumbs on it but mercifully his involvement is as producer, rather than director. A Dutch director, Diederik Van Rooijen, is supposedly signed up to direct, but no worries. I checked his imdb and his next announced project is Bankier van het Verzet which does not translate as The Birds. Unless your Dutch is better than mine. Plus he’s busy shooting commercials for VW, Heinekin, McDonalds etc.

So, fingers crossed, we can all breathe easily, sit back and relax with today’s #SaturdayMatinee, the one, the only The Birds directed by Alfred Hitchcock. While the legendary director was nominated 4 times, he never won and as far as The Birds goes, the only nomination it got was for Special Effects which, despite the terror it struck, contributing to lifelong panic attacks at the very sight of large black birds, didn’t win either. Cleopatra did. Okay, maybe relax is not the best choice of words.

You can stream today’s Saturday Matinee but first do not miss this vintage 5 minute ‘teaser’ trailer. Hitchcock wasn’t just the master of suspense, he knew how to promote a movie. Charming, kitschy, and unlike today’s trailers, it doesn’t spoil the film one little bit. And notice how he subtly introduces animal rights and reasons why ‘the birds’ may not always be our fine-feathered friends.

Based on a short story by Daphne DuMaurier which appeared in Good Housekeeping. Remember when magazines printed short stories? I grew up dreaming of getting a story published in the pages of Mademoiselle. Remember Mademoiselle? Those were the days. People still thought smoking made them look sophisticated.

Hard to remember, over 50 years later, that Tippi Hedrin wasn’t a household name in 1963. A model—just look at how she wears those clothes—The Birds was her first film, which accounts for promo sheet like this one.

The Birds, starring Tippi Hedrin, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette, is available to stream right now on Amazon, GooglePlay, iTunes, YouTube and Vudu. What are you watching?

Finding Neverland starring Johnny Depp & Kate Winslet

2019-05-06T11:50:00.000-04:00

PAN, the latest big splashy version of the Peter Pan story bombed but don’t blame J.M. Barrie! His Peter Pan will live forever. As may today’s Saturday Matinee: Finding Neverland. Starring Johnny Depp as Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie — a character at the opposite end of the spectrum of his Whitey Bulgar role— Roger Ebert called the movie ‘surprisingly moving’ and gave the film three and a half stars out of four.

I’m hoping to get out to see Depp in Black Mass this weekend and find a way to squeeze in Finding Neverland too. Good luck with that! the things I have to do snicker at me.

The Peter Pan Syndrome

In addition to Depp, we have a venerable cast including Dustin Hoffman and Julie Christie. We also have Barries’ muse(s): Kate Winslet as the mother of four boys, one of them a young Freddie Highmore in a heartbreaking performance as Peter. Barrie becomes besotted with the entire family, ignoring his own wife as he finds a way to stay in childhood forever. Barrie is the original Puer aeternus, in pop psychology terms, a socially immature man suffering from ‘the Peter Pan syndrome’. Like the ToysRus kids, the Puer aeternus won’t grow up. Like Peter Pan and the lost boys, they prefer to stay young, unfettered, to live forever. Try as we might, we can’t live forever, but through the power of his imagination and his own yearning to return to the magical place of childhood, J.M. Barrie found a story that will.

Winning

Finding Neverland received 7 Oscar nominations including Best Picture and a Best Actor nom for Johnny. Depp had been nominated the year before for his work on Pirates of the Caribbean. That was before he went completely over the top and we were still a little in love with his mad, staggering Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp lost out to Sean Penn in Mystic River that year, and the following year, in 2005, Jamie Foxx took the trophy home for the Ray Charles biopic. The Best Picture went to Million Dollar Baby.

Finding Neverland did win for its gorgeous musical score. The costumes by Alexandra Byrne are sumptuous and spot on and duly nominated but Sandy Powell, the costume designer for Cate Blanchett in Cinderella and this year’s Carol, won that year for her work in The Aviator. As gifted a designer as Byrne is, the 3 time Oscar-winning Powell is hard to beat.

Let’s watch the trailer.

Are you crying too? Finding Neverland is available to stream this Saturday afternoon on Netflix, Amazon, Google-Play and Vudu.

Care to leave a comment? Please join me on twitter

First published on 9/26/2015

My Fair Lady #SaturdayMatinee #book2movies

2019-05-04T12:57:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, as part of the virtual walk in London I take every Friday on SimCarter.com, I shared the image (below) of Audrey Helpburn as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

Thanks, I said to myself, reaching over to pat my own back, My Fair Lady is a great suggestion for this week's Saturday Matinee. Until I realize the classic film isn't available on the usual streaming services to watch on a Saturday afternoon. Not on Amazon, not iTunes, not GooglePlay. And of course it's not on Netflix because when is anything ever available on Netflix when you want it to be?

But I can't bear to ignore it. It's My Fair Lady, the Best Picture of 1964!

Adapted from George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion—did you know that Shaw himself wrote the screenplay adaptation of his play for the 1938 version of the movie?—the words and music for the musical version of are from musical great Alan Jay Lerner. How great? Gigi, An American in Paris, Brigadoon, Camelot. That great. Sort of surprising that while his was one of twelve Academy Award nominations the movie received, he didn't win an Oscar for his work.

What Oscars did My Fair Lady take home?

Best Picture

Best Actor in a Leading Role (to Rex Harrison)

Harrison dedicated his Oscar to "two fair ladies." Julie Andrews who he appeared with in the Broadway play and Audrey Hepburn who landed the movie role instead, much to the chagrin of Julie Andrews fans.

Best Director (George Cukor)

Best Musical Score (Andre Previn)

Best Sound

And back in the day when certain categories were still separated out by black & white and color films ...

Best Cinematography (Color)

Best Art Direction & Set Decoration (Color)

Best Costume Design (Color)

Did you notice Audrey Hepburn didn't receive a nomination? I wondered why, because surely My Fair Lady would never have been the mammoth success it was without that fair lady?

Roger Ebert explained in his belated review in 2006:

Many viewers would rather discuss the film that wasn't made, the one that would have starred Julie Andrews, who made the role of Eliza her own on the stage. Casting Audrey Hepburn was seen as a snub of Andrews, and so it was; producer and studio head Jack L. Warner chose Hepburn for her greater box-office appeal, and was prepared to offer the role to Elizabeth Taylor if Hepburn turned it down.

One of the best-known items in the history of movie trivia is that Hepburn did not sing her own songs, but was dubbed by the gifted Marni Nixon. So notorious became this dubbing, so egregious was it made to appear, that although "My Fair Lady" was nominated for 12 Oscars and won eight (including best picture, actor, director and cinematography), Hepburn was not even nominated for best actress; Julie Andrews was, the same year, for "Mary Poppins," and she won.

Hmmm. As Ebert points out later in his review, Hepburn did do her own acting, didn't she? She was riveting whether she did her own singing or not. I haven't seen this movie in such a long time, I'd really love to see it again.

So, digging down deep to the dark ages when we actually had to make a trip out to Blockbuster to rent a video, I could rent the video from Netflix for delivery as early as tomorrow, although it could take a few days. But that's only if I had signed up for the DVD membership, which I haven't. It certainly won't be a Saturday Matinee.

Let's watch the trailer. What would you do?

The Natural starring Robert Redford: Based on the Book by Bernard Malamud

2019-04-26T10:45:00.002-04:00

Bernard Malamud was among the writers covered in the American Literature: Post World War II Novels class I took back in college. So why didn't I retain the fact that Malamud authored The Natural, the book behind the baseball movie starring my all-time favorite crush, Robert Redford?

Baseball season kicked off earlier this month so I watched the movie as part of my unofficial celebration. I'm a fan when the Dodgers make it to the world series, otherwise, I'm fairly oblivious. I do sometimes love a good baseball movie though. Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Money Ball, Damn Yankees, A League of Their Own. And The Natural.

“We have two lives; the life we learn with and the life we live after that.”

We didn't read The Natural in class. It was Malamud's first book and noting the baseball bat was a phallic symbol, not considered his best work. I haven't picked it up in the many years after that class. But I knew when I heard Redford's character Roy Hobbs say his greatest ambition was to walk down the street and have people say There goes Roy Hobbs, the greatest baseball player ever—or words to that effect—something was amiss. That can't be a worthy life goal celebrated with Roy's final success on the mound, hitting that light-shattering home run.

Hobbs was a flawed hero but director Barry Levinson changed the ending, making Redford into the handsome hero, sacrificing his health to win the game for the coach.

Anyway, it's a great baseball movie. Redford at the top of his game and Glenn Close earned an Oscar Best Supporting Actress nom for her role as Iris Gaines, the girl Roy Hobbs left behind.

Bernard Malamud was born on April 26, 1914, and died in 1986 earning himself a spot on the list of greatest writers of the Twentieth Century, winning the Pulitzer Prize for The Fixer and the National Book Award for The Fixer and The Magic Barrel. He wrote eight novels and four collections of short stories. The Natural, The Fixer, The Angel Levine, The Tenants, The Assistant, & The Model have all been made into films.

You can watch The Natural in all the usual places: Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, GooglePlay, and Vudu. And possibly Netflix, as always you have to check their ever-rotating list.

THE NATURAL - official film trailer - 1984. from California Film Institute on Vimeo.

The original Gidget: Sandra Dee

2019-04-23T10:50:00.000-04:00

Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee. Like a lot of young boomer babes, when I was a preteen the girl I most wanted to be was Sandra Dee. Living in the cold of the Canadian north I'd watch Sandra Dee and James Darren as Gidget and Moondoggie on the late late show and swoon myself to sleep. Gidget, whether it was Sandra Dee in the original, or Deborah Walley in Gidget Goes Hawaiian or even Cindy Carol in Gidget Goes to Rome (which I inexplicably sat through twice in a movie theater in Niagara Falls when I was ten) or Sally Fields in the TV show, was always the cute one but lacking in the more obvious feminine charms of her female rivals. She was the girl next door, the wholesome one.

And despite her lack of breasts, her inability to cut a more alluring sexual figure, she was the one to get her man. That's so far from the way we think now but that's the way it was back then, getting your man was the end, daddy-o. Gidget's basic desire for Moondoggie to see the woman within the cute childish exterior always resonated with me. To tell you the truth I do know why I sat through Gidget Goes to Rome twice, I fell pretty hard for ol' Moondoggie in the original Gidget.
Why? Watch and listen!

Swoon!

My Sandra Dee obsession continued too. I loved her in those stupid, vapid Tammy movies but also in the classic Imitation of Life and A Summer's Place and it all began on a beach in Southern California.

I didn't pay any attention to Sandra Dee's personal life so when she died in 2005 in Thousand Oaks, California I was astonished to learn that I'd followed my girlish idol all the way from Canada to the beaches of Southern California, only to wind up, like Sandra Dee, living just minutes away in a stifling suburban community. I was also astonished to learn she'd battled alcoholism, depression and a lousy marriage to Bobby Darin. You just can't judge a book, or a life, by its cover, no matter how cute.

It all began with the novel by Fredrick Kohner based on his own daughter Kathy's real life adventures on the beaches of Southern California. And wound up on screen in a 1959 movie starring Sandra Dee, James Darren and Cliff Robertson as the Big Kahuna for you to stream on Google Play and Vudu today.

Originally posted on May 5, 2015

Are you watching A Discovery of Witches? Based on the book by Deborah Harkness

2019-04-19T13:05:00.000-04:00

I'm not normally a huge fan of fantasy. Witches, vampires, demons just aren't my thing but when the vampire is Matthew Goode and he's resisting his cravings for human blood the way author Deborah Harkness intended when she created the Discovery of Witches character, it seems to be another story.

The story belongs to the American witch Diana Bishop, (played by Australian Teresa Palmer) in England to do some research at the University of Oxford's Bodleian library. Diana's discovery of the Ashmole 721 manuscript—an ancient document that may the original Book of Spells which reveals how the witches can rid the planet of vampires altogether—serves as the underlying inciting incident.

Diana is one of those witches—not unlike Samantha in Bewitched—who resists her own use of witchcraft but I tell you what, if I had some power that enabled me to seduce Matthew Goode, I would make use of every power I had! All's fair in love and whatever, right? I have no idea why his ability to smell her adrenaline and clearly find it hard to resist her is so sexy but it is. There's something universal at play that has to do with the danger of giving in to our cravings at a very basic level, something about fighting the animal attraction that, even in our enlightened age, lies at the heart of what draws us to one another. It's dangerous to give oneself to another, to surrender to passion. But oh, the pleasure that comes with the pain! Anyway, the pair have deadly chemistry and it's good fun to watch the sexual tension and wariness between the species.

Moi on the left with Teresa Palmer

Personal Connection: I met the lovely Teresa Palmer at a wrap party a few years ago for Message from the King in which she co-starred with Black Panther's Chadwick Boseman, and was struck by how sweet and down to earth she was. You can see how comfortable she is, slinging her arm around my neck as though we'd known each other for years. We talked about being mothers, a subject that made me feel completely at home and at my ease too.

Watch the sexy trailer.

A Discovery of Witches is currently airing on Sunday nights on AMC, you can catch up On Demand. Or watch the whole sexy shebang on Amazon Prime.

Connecting with British Isles Friday via Joy Weese Moll

Robert Redford & Meryl Streep in 'Out of Africa': Best Picture 1986

2019-04-17T12:02:00.000-04:00

All the movies we’ve never seen

It’s Oscar season. Time for all the heavyweights to come out and play. Today’s Saturday Matinee features the Academy Award winner for Best Picture thirty years ago this year. Starring my all time fave Robert Redford and the oft-nominated Meryl Streep. Out of Africa counts as one of her 19 20 Oscar nominations! Poor Bobby, he’s only been nominated the one time for his work as an actor. That was for The Sting and he lost.

#SaturdayMatinee

Based in part on Karen Blixen’s memoir Out of Africa published under the pseudonym Isak Dineson, the film tells the story of a Danish plantation owner (Streep) in Kenya, unhappily tethered in a marriage of convenience, who falls in love with a free-spirited big game hunter (Redford).

It’s been thirty years since the film was released in theaters. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, Out of Africa won seven of them including Best Picture. I must have see the movie when it first came out but my memory is vague at best. I can see the two of them, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford together, but they’re not entirely clear. It’s almost like I’m blinded by the glare of bright golden sunlight that bathes them. Let’s face it, these are a couple of major movie stars. And thirty years later, they’re still making movies and contributing to the world of cinema in a very big way.

The Right Chemistry

Watching the trailer [below] it’s clear to me I never saw this movie! It’s just as clear that I need to.

Speaking of Out of Africa’s stars Redford and Streep, Roger Ebert noted in his 1985 review ...

“These are high-voltage stars, and when their chemistry is wrong for romances (as Streep's was for Falling in Love, and Redford’s was for The Natural), it is very wrong. This time, it is right.”

Ah, yes, I remember it well

If like me, it turns out you’ve never actually seen Out of Africa either, the Sydney Pollack directed movie is available to stream on Amazon, Vudu, Google-Play, iTunes and YouTube. Watching the trailer, seeing Redford and Streep together, I can’t help but wonder about seeing them onscreen again in something wonderful. Not just a cozy old romance about long lost love but something meaningful and majestic, as well as romantic. I have no idea what, I don’t have a project in mind or a particular book I’d like them to adapt. But it’s worth thinking about. Any ideas?

parts of this post originally appeared on 9/3/2015

Saturday Matinee: The Virgin Suicides based on the book by Jeffrey Eugenides

2019-04-13T13:37:00.000-04:00

“She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.” ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

About the book

“First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys—commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.’’

I'm a boomer, not a millennial with their supposed triggers but perhaps I've never read this book or seen this movie because suicide is my trigger word. My own uncle hung himself in his home in England, my mother and brother had to fly to England to deal with everything he'd left behind. Like all suicides, it was tragic, heartbreaking. He was gay but came of age in England in a time when it was not only not accepted, it was illegal. The world changed but I don't think he ever made the transition in his own head, accepting himself. I also worked with a woman whose son hung himself in the shower. Her neighbor told me she heard a wild screaming and raced over to find him there, gone. I can't unsee that. Or the troubled boy that went to school with my son who either accidentally or deliberately drove himself off the road into oblivion. That's part of the reason why suicide is uncomfortable for me as a literary or cinematic conceit. With that in mind, I'm not sure I can read The Virgin Suicides or watch the film adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides book.

But as it's Eugenides birthday today—the Pulitzer Prize-winning author turns 59—the film is today's Saturday Matinee. You can catch it on Prime, YouTube, iTunes, GooglePlay, Vudu and Tubi (whatever that is!)

Directed by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides stars Kathleen Turner and James Woods as the girls' religious parents with Kirsten Dunst, AJ Cook, Hanna Hall (my son was in a short called White Picket Fences with Hall!) Josh Hartnett, Scott Glenn, and Danny Devito.

Here's the trailer

Have you read the book? Seen the movie?

Perhaps I'm being overly squeamish? Lay it on me, I'm all ears.

Where the Boys Are: On Location with the Ultimate Spring Break Movie #book2movies

2019-04-08T12:07:00.000-04:00

The Ultimate Spring Break Movie

This ought to separate the men from the boys ... and the girls from the er, older ladies. I was too young to see Where the Boys Are, the quintessential spring break movie, when it came out in 1960 (nope, I'm not talking the eighties version with Lisa Hartman), but I saw it on the boob tube several times during a seminal time in my adolescence. Even if you've never heard of the movie, much less the novel by Glendon Swarthout—the same Glendon Swarthout who wrote The Homesman by the way...

I betcha you’ve heard the song by Connie Francis. No? Well have a listen on Youtube along with the opening credits and then come on back and watch the vintage trailer.

Both Swarthout's book and the film were huge hits, basically putting Fort Lauderdale on the map. You can stream Where the Boys Are on Amazon, Vudu and GooglePlay.

Including Where the Boys Are and The Homesman, Swarthout wrote 17 books before he died in 1992. Most of them were westerns, several of which were adapted for the screen, including The Shootist and Bless the Beasts and the Children. Lots of you have read my post about the Costume Design from The Homesman.

I'd totally forgotten that Where the Boys Are is set in Fort Lauderdale, spring break capitol of the USA! Good thing Spring Break is over because hubby and I are flying in to Fort Lauderdale en route to the Keys this weekend! We plan on stopping by the corner of Las Olas Blvd and North Fort Lauderdale Beach Drive where the above scene was shot; hopefully it won't be full of college kids.

We also want to hit the Wreck Bar, a kitschy 'dive bar' located inside the Yankee Clipper Hotel at the south end of Ft. Lauderdale Beach. According to the Rum Connection, the Wreck Bar is one of the last remaining bars to feature mermaid shows —apparently that was a 'thing' in the 50's, and hasn't changed all that much since its appearance in Where the Boys Are. In the film some of the kids fall into the pool and, you guessed it, hilarity ensues. While the movie is billed as a comedy, and set in a time when women went to college mostly to find a man, there's a darker side to it as well. I won't spoil it for you but it's a side of male/female relationships that still exists.

Here's that vintage trailer I promised you. Enjoy.

originally published 4/23/2015

The Man with The Golden Arm: Based on the book by Nelson Algren

2019-03-28T13:34:00.001-04:00

I read The Man with the Golden Arm way back in a college English class. American Literature: Post World War II. Something like that. The novel was written by Nelson Algren, born on this day (March 28, 1909) in 1949, won the National Book Award in 1950 and was made into a film starring Francis Albert Sinatra in 1955.

The main character, Frankie the man with the golden arm is an army vet “with a monkey on his bank’’. He's an addict, a dealer in illegal card games, a wannabe drummer tricked into marriage to the wrong woman. Set in Chicago, on its poverty-ridden streets, revealing a dark underbelly of America in a way unlike the way I was used to seeing our country, I was deeply moved. At the time I was still very much enamored of the British writers ala Dickens or at least the American writers who crossed the pond and gave us their view of the continent, ala Henry James. This ugly America was for my sheltered eyes, a whole new bag.

‘Frankie Machine had seen some bad ones in his twenty-nine years. But any one of these looked as though all the others had beaten him all night with barrel staves. Faces bloody as raw pork ground slowly in the great city's grinder; faces like burst white bags, one with eyes like some dying hen's and one as bold as a cornered bulldog's; eyes with the small bright gleam of hysteria and eyes curtained by the dull half glaze of grief. These glanced, and spoke, and vaguely heard and vaguely made reply; yet looked all day within upon some ceaseless horror there: the twisted ruins of their own tortured, useless, lightless and loveless lives.

‘The clock in the room above the Safari told only Junkie Time. For every hour here was Old Junkie's Hour and the walls were the color of all old junkies' dreams: the hue of diluted morphine in the moment before the needle draws the suffering blood. / Walls that went up and up like walls in a troubled dream. Walls like water where no legend could be written and no hand grasp metal or wood. [...] He was falling between glacial walls, he didn't know how anyone could fall so far away from everyone else in the world. So far to fall, so cold all the way, so steep and dark between those morphine-colored walls of [an addict]'s terrible pit.

Essential reading, in my opinion. The novel, shocking and controversial in its day, was acquired for Otto Preminger to direct. While Algren was initially brought out to Hollywood to adapt, he wasn't able to adapt his writing style to a screenplay's tighter demands and was replaced. Preminger and Newman went on to make significant changes to Algren's original story, the film was eventually released as "A Film By Otto Preminger". Algren sued but had to drop the suit because he couldn't afford the legal fees.

Preminger cast Sinatra, earning the singer his first Oscar nomination and cementing his Hollywood street cred. The material was so controversial Preminger released it without seeking the Code of Approval but setting off a firestorm which eventually led to Hollywood being given more leeway to explore through cinema topics that were once taboo.

You can watch the movie for a few dollars on Amazon and Vudu. I believe I saw the film on a tv screen at some point in my life but I remember very little. Co-starring Kim Novak, Eleanor Parker as Zosch (the phony wheelchair-bound wife) and Darren McGavin as Nifty Louie, sounds like it's worth another look.

Did you recognize the titles by the great Saul Bass?

What do you think? Worth a look? I'm all ears.

Emma based on the book by Jane Austen: There's a new girl in town

2019-03-22T12:24:00.002-04:00

In what must certainly be a crazy confluence of something or other, Anya Taylor-Joy (Peaky Blinders, The Witch), the actress playing Emma in the latest adaptation of the Jane Austen classic—filming now— was born in 1996, the same year that two Emma films were released!

About the book

‘Emma is a novel about youthful hubris and the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively comedy of manners among her characters. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." In the very first sentence, she introduces the title character as "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich." Emma, however, is also rather spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives, and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray.’

Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma

Gwyneth Paltrow was the neighborhood matchmaker Emma in the splashy Hollywood film along with Ewan McGregor as Frank Churchill and Toni Collette as Harriet Smith, while the Kate Beckinsale iteration, starring Samantha Morton as Harriet was made for the telly by the BBC.

Kate Beckinsale as Emma

This newest Emma, filming now, also stars Bill Nighy as Emma's dad, Mr. Wodehouse. Callum Turner is Frank Churchill (you may remember him as the incestuous Anatole Kuragin in War and Peace)

Anya Taylor-Joy (seen here in The Witch) is currently shooting Emma

What it all tells me is that I need to re-read Emma which surely I read in my collegiate days, right? Or should I just watch the movies? If so, which one? Gwyneth's version is the more popular and available on all the streaming services including Netflix, while Kate's Emma is currently only on Prime and iTunes.

Have you seen either/both Emma's? Your favorite?

Check out the trailers if you need a refresher.

British Isles Friday

The Secret Life of Bees: Movie Based on the Book by Sue Monk Kidd #SaturdayMatinee

2019-03-16T11:07:00.000-04:00

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

from my chapteronetakeone instagram

It's no secret I love the pairing of books and movies, the act of reading the book first enhances our viewing and vice versa. Yes, Virginia. You can go back and read the book after you've seen the movie if necessary. Quite often the book and its cinematic adaptation are different, barely recognizable beasts.

And here's a perfect pairing to enjoy with today's Saturday Matinee, the adaptation of the beautiful bestseller The Secret Life of Bees: a thick slice of white bread (you heard me, we're not talking healthy, we're talking yummy!) toasted as you like it with a thick layer of honey and a cup of tea. With more honey? Why not?

About the Book

‘‘The multi-million bestselling novel about a young girl’s journey towards healing and the transforming power of love, from the award-winning author of The Invention of Wings

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily’s fierce-hearted black “stand-in mother,” Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina–a town that holds the secret to her mother’s past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sister, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.’’

The movie logline

‘In 1964, a teenage girl in search of the truth about her mother runs away to a small town in South Carolina and finds a family of independent women who can connect her to her past.’

The 2008 film stars Dakota Fanning as that young girl, Lily, with Jennifer Hudson as Lily's fierce protector Rosaleen with Queen Latifah as the august and aptly named August Boatwright and Alicia Keyes and Sophie Okonedo as her sisters, June and May.

While critics received it in lackluster fashion, the late Roger Ebert gave it his thumbs up with a qualification.

‘‘As a realistic portrayal of life in rural South Carolina in 1964, "The Secret Life of Bees" is dreaming. As a parable of hope and love, it is enchanting. Should it have been painful, or a parable? Parable, I think, so it will please those who loved the novel by Sue Monk Kidd. One critic has described it as sappy, syrupy, sentimental and sermonizing, and those are only the S's. The same reviewer admitted that it is also "wholesome and heartwarming," although you will never see "wholesome" used in a movie ad.’’

See it for yourself on Amazon Prime, iTunes, GooglePlay, YouTube, Vudu or Cinemax for about $3

Here's the trailer ...

Have you read the book? Seen the movie?

In my book it's worth a look ten years later, but how about you? Is it a honey or a miss? I'm all ears.

Indignation by Philip Roth: My take on the book [review] #book2movies

2019-03-15T08:00:00.000-04:00

I've been sharing images, pairing them with paragraphs from Philip Roth's small book, Indignation, all week long. A small book which carries quite a punch.

Our young hero, Marcus Messner, starts off his tale moaning—or should I say 'kvetching' as his 'Jewishness' is part and parcel of the story—about his overprotective father, a Kosher butcher in Newark, New Jersey. Jewishness, sex, death: those are Philip Roth's usual themes, much in evidence here. While Marcus–or Markie as his dad calls him—has enjoyed a wonderful relationship with his father for his entire life and lovingly details working together with him at the store from flicking chickens to how to kosher a chicken to washing out the pails of fat, but now that Marcus is in college his father has become a complete worry-wort and can't bear not knowing where Marcus is and what he's doing. He's terrified Marcus will do something to get himself thrown out of school and put at the front of the line to be sent to Korea. Marcus, 'a nice boy' hell bent on studying, can't stand the suffocating atmosphere and transfers to a Christian college in Pennsylvania, out from underneath his father's watchful eye.

The campus is rife with difficulties: mandatory weekly chapel attendance—problematic not because Marcus is an observant Jew but because he is an ardent atheist, roommate trouble, and a dean who decides the transfer student needs guidance which only leaves Marcus infuriated and full of indignation. Key among Marcus' problems is girl trouble. He meets a girl—I told you briefly about the mentally unstable Olivia Hutton in a prior post—a girl who gives out blow jobs the way preschool teachers give out gold stars. Inexperienced, shocked, Marcus is thrilled by everything about Olivia, utterly bewitched. Roth doesn't tell us a lot about the girl but what he does tell us is pointed. And troubling, at least for me, to hear the girl's sexual abandon equated with deep emotional troubles and mental illness. Sometimes I think Roth just loves writing about sex so much, he just can't help himself. If any of you younger women have read the book, I'd love to hear your take on Olivia's attitude about the subject. In the 1950's world in which the novel takes place many would have called her the town pump and sneered about her easiness and obvious lack of self-esteem; I wonder what a more modern reading makes of her.

There is a surprise in the book, which occurs about 25% of the way in, which I'll let you discover for yourself, a warning which does nothing to take away the abrupt punch at the end of the novel. Short but quite devastating, especially to this mother of a 23 year old. They say writers love writing about sex and death. Philip Roth does both here, beautifully.

The movie comes out today, I'm going to get myself to a theater asap. Can't wait to see what director James Schamus—who also wrote the screenplay—makes of Roth's little book of Indignation.

Indignation stars Logan Lerman as Marcus Messner, Sarah Gadon as Olivia Hutton, Tracy Letts (the playwright and actor) as the dean of men and Danny Burstein as Marcus' father.

Lerman is set to make another book lovers movie appearance in the long in the works The Wife, based on the book by Meg Wolitzer. The movie has been coming for years but it look like things are actually finally moving. The cast includes Lerman, Jonathan Pryce as the Nobel Prize winning author and Glenn Close as the titular Wife. IMDB promises it's slated for 2017 but so far I haven't been confident enough to slot it in

Movies Based on Books Coming in 2017

Michael Caine walked ‘straight into stardom' in 1965’s The Ipcress File #book2movies

2019-03-14T11:29:00.000-04:00

In honor of Michael Caine's birthday, today's post is a repeat featuring one of my favorite Brits. Let me know if you find the film streaming anywhere; I can't find it on any of the streaming services.

Everything old is new again

Robert Redford’s A Walk in the Woods did well at the box office. Richard Gere is getting some well-deserved attention from Time Out of Mind. Lately, I feel like I’m writing about actors who had their heyday in my own youth and are still ticking along. Michael Caine is back with another film. It’s called Youth and it looks like it’s about anything but. Youth—which isn’t based on a book and therefore ineligible for me to write about in this space as determined by the rules and regulations set forth when this book-to-movie blog was created (oops, that was me!)—looks, well, awesome!

But let’s not talk about that. I don’t want to have to fire myself from this non-paying position. Who else is going to work for free? (I also accept your comments; so please leave one.) On the other hand, don’t tell anyone but I might embed the trailer at the bottom of this post. Shhh.

“He walks straight into stardom as Harry Palmer”

Caine, now 86, has worked for well over half a century in film—he got his start on British television in the early 1960’s—before breaking out in the movies. He made a bit of a name for himself in Zulu in 1964 and by 1966, with the release of Alfie, Michael Caine was a star. In between came The Ipcress File in 1965, in which Caine played a British sergeant with a bit of a criminal past forced to play spy. His mission, should he accept it, is to rescue a top British scientist.

The movie won BAFTA’s Best Film as well as awards for its art direction and cinematography and is considered one of the best espionage films ever made. Based on the book by Len Deighton, The Ipcress File is today’s Saturday Matinee.

Known for its odd angles, cool sixties vibe, snappy dialogue, The Ipcress File is available to watch right now online at filmon.com and streamlord.com; it looks like you’ll have to order the disc from Amazon. Double check Netflix; it’s formerly been available but isn’t at the time of this writing.

Vintage ‘The Ipcress File’ Trailer

Oh, and here’s that top-secret trailer for Youth costarring Harvey Keitel.

Remember, mum’s the word.

UPDATE: When I tweeted this post out, I got a very cool tweet in response from @EdwardHMO a media executive, Len Deighton authority and the designer of a truly nifty MovieGraphic for BFI :

@simcarter And that stardom was well earned . . . He worked 61 of the film's 65 camera days! http://t.co/lVrTjLws0k
— EdwardMO (@EdwardHMO) September 5, 2015

Georgy Girl based on the book by Margaret Forster

2019-03-08T11:36:00.001-05:00

Georgy Girl

based on the book by Margaret Forster

One of the quintessential movies of the 1960s, Georgy Girl epitomized the 'Swinging London' lifestyle. Even if you've never seen it, you know the title song by the Seekers. Some of you, right now are singing Hey there, Georgy Girl in your heads.

“No matter what I try... God's always got a custard pie up his sleeve.’’

The logline

A homely but vivacious young woman dodges the amorous attentions of her father's middle-aged employer while striving to capture some of the glamorous life of her swinging London roommate.

Georgy Girl was played Lynn Redgrave of the acclaimed British acting dynasty—sister of Vanessa, daughter of Michael—in her first starring role for which she won the Golden Globe and was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Redgrave was born on this day, March 8, 1943, and died on May 10, 2010.

Georgy Girl also starred Charlotte Rampling—still actively working (we loved her in The Sense of An Ending based on the Julian Barnes novel and The Little Stranger based on the book by Sarah Waters) James Mason and Alan Bates costarred and you can watch the movie on Amazon, YouTube, iTunes, Vudu, and GooglePlay.

About the book

“Georgy is young, gregarious and fun - she is also large, self-confessedly ugly and desperate for love. Georgy bears her fate bravely as she alternates between playing the fool and humbling herself before Meredith, her pretty, callous flatmate, although when James, middle-aged socialite and self-imposed 'Uncle', asks Georgy to become his mistress, she is tempted to accept. Then Meredith announces that she is pregnant and Jos, the expectant father, decides he is in love with Georgy...’’

As upbeat as the theme song is, as kooky as the trailer plays, it's clear that Georgy Girl embraces Georgy's essential loneliness, an odd duck in a world where swans get all the love. It's been years since I watched the movie but I have a strong hunch that more than laughter, the material will have me crying a tear or two. Hey there, Georgy Girl. I hope you've found some happiness now.

Connecting with fellow fans of British books and movies British Isles Friday

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Coming to Netflix

2019-03-06T11:40:00.002-05:00

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Netflix announced today—which just so happens to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez' birthday—the production of a Spanish language series based on Marquez Nobel Prize-winning novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. The acclaimed writer was never in favor of adapting his novel for a movie during his lifetime. According to his two sons, both executive producers on the project, his concern was "he couldn't see how a novel about the Buendia family told over many generations could be adapted to the big or small screen." He also worried that producing it in a language other than Spanish would do it justice. Presumably, those concerns are addressed with a series where, as we drone on about, the writers can delve into all the details. And Netflix, as they did with the gorgeous Roma, by producing the material in its original language is doing the acclaimed novel the respect it deserves. What do you think? I'm excited although I've already seen a couple of snarky tweets to the effect that Netflix is bringing every boring book you were forced to read in high school or college to the screen. I say I'm grateful for the wealth of material Netflix is making available, it's like having an in-home video library. And like HBO who delivered Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend in its original Italian, it may not be for everyone but I gobbled it up.

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams”~Gabriel Garcia Marquez#happybirthday #GabrielGarciaMarquez #bornonthisday #writers pic.twitter.com/p0DnZGtrTL

— 📚Chapter1-Take1 🎞 (@simcarter) March 6, 2019

The novel was recently included in PBS Great American Read. But I'll be honest. As brilliant stylistically as Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the Time of Cholera is, as I shared in my take on the book, I'm not a fan.

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.

I haven't read One Hundred Years of Solitude but I recognize the genius of Marquez' writing. I think it's time I overcame my aversion and got the acclaimed book under my belt. What do you think? Do you agree with its masterpiece status?

Alan Rickman: Die Hard [Remembering Rickman on his birthday]

2019-02-21T10:41:00.000-05:00

Updated: February 21, 2019

Alan Rickman would have turned 73 today, instead, we lost him to cancer, on January 14, 2016. He was one of my specials, the actors who touch us through and beyond their movies. Reposting this in his honor.

I woke up yesterday morning to the news of Alan Rickman’s death. This one hit hard. Like Bowie, Rickman was sixty-nine. Like Bowie, cancer was the culprit. Like Bowie, Rickman had an iconic voice. And like Bowie, there was so much more. Rickman was on my mind, the sadness of his loss, the pleasure of his gifts, all day long.

I have only been to a handful of premieres in my life. One of them was Die Hard back in 1988. I was working at producer Joel Silver’s offices on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank at the time. Burbank being the real Hollywood back then. Simply put, I was an office p.a., a gopher, but nobody really calls them that. My friend Connie, an executive assistant to Silver, got me the job when the LAUSD teachers went on strike. I’d been working as a substitute teacher and was loathe to cross the picket line.

Instead I drove onto the WB lot in my red VW convertible every day, feeling a little thrill as I passed by the iconic water tower and discreetly checked the passing golf carts for famous faces. The job was so unlike subbing around the San Fernando Valley, one unruly class of kids after another, never knowing where I’d be working until the call came in at 7am with that day’s assignment. When I got the call at all.

While the teaching job carried its own brand of stress, Silver’s office held another. There were no screaming kids but you couldn’t help being wary of what might set Joel off. I made copies, answered phones, kept the office kitchen stocked and generally tried to steer clear of the heavyweight producer who had little patience for mistakes. A mistake was the grocery store being out of his beloved Yoohoo chocolate drink. I learned fairly quickly not to go back to the office without it.

The job had its perks though. Like going to the Die Hard premiere. It wasn’t quite the ritzy affair at the Chinese theatre in Hollywood I pictured. It was a casual event held at the long-gone Avco Theater on Wilshire in Westwood. It was a summer evening and if I’m not mistaken, I wore white jeans. We didn’t arrive in a limousine. We drove in Connie’s car and parked in the lot behind the movie house. There were no fancy schmancy valets in black tuxedos opening our car doors. We simply got out and hurried around the corner to the front entrance of the theater. Ah, there were the lights, the cameras, a red carpet leading up the outdoor stairs. As Connie and I made our way up we were assaulted with shouts of CONNIE! CONNIE! from the photographers covering the event. We looked at each other, dazzled by the flashing lights, confused until realized that it was Bonnie Bedilia—the actress who played Bruce Willis’ wife—walking up the stairs ahead of us. ‘BONNIE! BONNIE!’ they shouted to get her attention. ‘BONNIE! OVER HERE!’

The rest is a blur and while Rickman was there, I didn’t see him. But then I wouldn’t have known him. I knew to look for Bruce Willis and for Alexander Godunov—we all knew the sexy ballet dance and Russian defector from Witness and The Money Pit—but I’d never even heard of Alan Rickman. Die Hard was his first full length feature film. Then I saw him onscreen. And heard him. The sneer on his face and in his voice that signaled this was no ordinary actor. I thought he was incredibly sexy and attractive and was secretly annoyed he was the bad guy. I fell a little in love with him that day. I wanted him to be the hero. I’ve felt that way about Rickman a number of times over the years: can’t he play the hero this time, I’d think. But no. He was the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, Snapes in the Potter movies, the stupid arse husband in Love Actually. To be fair he did turn hero from grumbling has-been in Galaxy Quest, truly one of my favorite of Alan Rickman’s roles.

I learned yesterday that Alan Rickman never won an Oscar, was never even nominated for one. Which tells you all you need to know about the value of awards, some arbitrary measure of excellence. That being said, you’d think I’d have seen Truly, Madly, Deeply. A role for which Rickman won the BAFTA and from the looks of the trailer, a movie that will have me falling in love with him all over again. At the end of the day—or a life—the awards won or loss don’t amount to much. We know what—and who—we love.

Lilies of the Field starring Sidney Poitier, the First Black Man to Win the Best Acting Oscar #book2movies

2019-02-20T10:41:00.000-05:00

Paul Newman was spectacular in Hud but while his costars Patricia Neal and Melvyn Douglas took home Academy Awards (neither one actually attended the ceremony), Newman himself, lost out to Sidney Poitier in 1963's Lilies of the Field. Poitier won for playing Homer Smith, a traveling handyman enlisted by a group of German nuns in Arizona to help rebuild their convent when they come to believe he has been sent to them by God. It was the first time a black man won a Best Acting Oscar; it would take another 38 years for the feat to be repeated when Denzel Washington won for Training Day in 2001. It's hard to believe that Poitier wasn't even nominated for his work in To Sir with Love, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night, all of which came out in 1967. Three classic films and not one nomination? That my friends is indicative of the sad state of the ongoing civil rights struggle in our country.

Lilies of the Field was nominated for 5 Oscars: in addition to Sidney Poitier's Best Actor win—he also won the Silver Bear for best actor at the Berlin Film Festival that year—the film got noms for Best Picture, Cinematography, and for Lilia Skala's portrayal of Mother Maria, one of the few feature film roles this mainly television actress played.

The screenplay adaptation by James Poe for the script based on William E. Barrett's novel was also nominated.

Poe was the writer who penned the Oscar nominated adaptations of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, They Shoot Horses Don't They and Around the World in 80 Days.

I just love rediscovering these classic films. They're rarely available to stream on Netflix but if you don't mind spending a couple of bucks you can find them on Amazon, iTunes, YouTube and GooglePlay. That's the case with Lilies of the Field, my recommendation for today's Saturday Matinee.

Here's the trailer

Have you seen Lilies of the Field? Have you seen it lately?