“Birds do it, bees do it… July 5, 2004 ~ 6:14 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedEven educated fleas do it!” Come on, you know you were singing by the time you got through the title.
I saw De-Lovely this morning on my way back to Brooklyn, and it was great. I’ve been a Cole Porter fan for years, loving his songs even before I knew who wrote them. I’ll read any biography of him, see any show of his the plays, and get almost any album that has Porter songs on it. So needless to say, I’ve been looking forward to this movie for a while. Finally, a biography that was honest about his sexuality and the double life that he led (in a way that Night and Day with Cary Grant couldn’t be)!
It was everything that I had expected and then some. The relationship between Linda and Cole was heartbreaking at times, beautiful at others. And seeing how the horseback riding accident affected his later years was truly saddening. Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd were amazing, and I loved the constant stream of cameos for the musical numbers.
The only part of the film I wasn’t sure I agreed with was the overall conceit, which was that an old Cole Porter is watching a play of his life. I was even okay with that 95% of the time, but there were two musical numbers that were a bit jarring in that context. I’m not going to spoil it for everyone, but let’s just say that the idea that Jonathan Pryce was the “director” of Cole’s “play” had been sidelined, and halfway through someone said “Oh, yeah” and brought it up again. I’m all for using a device once you’ve established it, but this was a bit out of place. Either use it consistently, or don’t use it.
Other than that, a fantastic film. Go see it. Now.
Monday blahs July 5, 2004 ~ 5:45 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedWell, here it is, Monday, and the holiday weekend is almost over. And I’m feeling very blah at the moment.
We took the kids to see the fireworks at South Street Seaport last night, and my friends Jordana and Thabiso came over to watch with us. The fireworks were nice, but I wasn’t really impressed with them. I’ve been spoiled, I guess, because I grew up watching Zambelli Fireworks, which are the best in the world, as far as I’m concerned. The Zambelli family is based in Pittburgh, and the head of the family is a doctor in the town next door to where I grew up. So if they had a new type of firework to test out, they’d put on a show in Beaver County. They put on amazing shows for every occasion they could think of, shows that would last at least a half hour, most of the time longer, and would showcase all kinds of fireworks. Their specialties are yellow ribbon and purple heart-shaped fireworks for the troops. Every 4th of July, my mom and I would go “chasing fireworks” and hit everyplace up and down the Three Rivers that had a display. It got to the point where we could tell you what the fireworks were new that year, because we had seen so many shows.
The radio stations in Pittsburgh made it a point to match the spectacle in the sky with great choreographed programs. Anyone can synch “The 1812 Overature” to fireworks, and most radio stations leave it at that. But the stations in Pittsburgh would do rock spectaculars, and we would get to hear “Keep On Rockin’ In the Free World” and “Crazy Train” synched to the explosions.
So, yeah, I guess I’m a bit jaded by last night’s display. The only “new” fireworks I saw were the smiley faces, which were fun, but only lasted a few minutes. And while at 20 minutes long, everyone was saying “Wow! This is a really long show!” as we got to the grand finale, I was thinking “Where’s the rest of it?” The grand finale was cool, but that reminded me of what Zambelli fireworks shows are like during the majority of the program. Once they get to the finale, the earth is moving, even if you’re miles away. That’s the kind of fireworks show I was expecting. And I was disappointed.
But hey, the kids liked it. 
