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Early Monday morning
Mon, Oct. 27th, 2003 07:25 amThe view from my livingroom window can best be described as "Fog with Towering Fir Trees." It looks like a haunted landscape, the mist clouding out everything but the two enormous evergreens only yards from the window, and the house next door. I can see two points of light shining through from the edge of the canal, but beyond that, it's just white-gray out there, like a "Twilight Zone" episode, as if the rest of the neighborhood had just disappeared.
Singin' in the Rain
On Saturday, bedii and ladyjestocost called to tell me that Singin' in the Rain was playing at the Cinerama. We immediately arranged to see it yesterday--and what a joy it was! Digitally remastered and rerecorded, the print is gorgeous, bright, sharp and surreally beautiful. Run, don't walk, to see this screening if you have any way to get there.
I've only ever seen Singin' in the Rain on a television screen. Seeing it this big was both literally and figuratively a change in perspective on the film. For one thing, as Boyfriend pointed out, it's actually funnier on the large screen. You can see facial expressions better, the physical gags are bigger and more exaggerated (which made "Make 'em Laugh" even more wonderful than it already was to me). If it wasn't clear before, on a bigger screen you can see what great shape Gene Kelly really was in (those biceps!), how young Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds really were, and how stunning Cyd Charisse really was. O'Connor, in particular, was a discovery to me. Having studied dance, when I watch dance I tend to watch the bodies, rarely the faces. This time out, I mostly watched the faces, and O'Connor is just having a blast. (So is Kelly, but it's like play for O'Connor.)
(Seeing Singin' in the Rain this large also brought into sharp relief my biggest complaint about Chicago, which is that the dance scenes were edited so badly that while you could tell everyone was dancing, you couldn't actually see what they were doing, a crime in my not-so-humble opinion. MTV has ruined filmmakers when it comes to stuff like this.)
On the big screen, however, the film's shortcomings (few though they may be) are also larger, for example, the insertion of the "Gotta Dance/Broadway Melody" pastiche (brilliant as its own, separate piece of work) really feels just stuck in at the last minute, and its relevance to the rest of the film is tenuous at best. Kelly's shortcomings as a singer were magnified, especially beside Debbie Reynolds. The film is still wonderful, but the larger screen does tend to reveal every flaw.
The greatest joy of the film, however, was seeing Kelly doing his masterpiece "Singin' in the Rain" number. There's no illustration of joy in movies quite so evocative, so much plain fun, as this, and I could have left the theater at its conclusion and gone home happy.
After the film, we stopped right around the corner at Palace Kitchen for dinner. Dark and atmospheric, the place has a sound system so good that the recorded music sounded like a live band. (When the singer is Sinatra, it's a pretty safe bet that the band is recorded.) While on the slightly pricey side (especially given that only one of the four of us at the table is currently employed), the food was neverthless delicious, served quickly and with elan, and very well-prepared. Though I didn't indulge, I'm told the desserts were to die for. Next time you go to the Cinerama of an evening, save a little cash and have a meal here before or after the film. It's a nice treat, though it could easily become an expensive habit.
Singin' in the Rain
On Saturday, bedii and ladyjestocost called to tell me that Singin' in the Rain was playing at the Cinerama. We immediately arranged to see it yesterday--and what a joy it was! Digitally remastered and rerecorded, the print is gorgeous, bright, sharp and surreally beautiful. Run, don't walk, to see this screening if you have any way to get there.
I've only ever seen Singin' in the Rain on a television screen. Seeing it this big was both literally and figuratively a change in perspective on the film. For one thing, as Boyfriend pointed out, it's actually funnier on the large screen. You can see facial expressions better, the physical gags are bigger and more exaggerated (which made "Make 'em Laugh" even more wonderful than it already was to me). If it wasn't clear before, on a bigger screen you can see what great shape Gene Kelly really was in (those biceps!), how young Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds really were, and how stunning Cyd Charisse really was. O'Connor, in particular, was a discovery to me. Having studied dance, when I watch dance I tend to watch the bodies, rarely the faces. This time out, I mostly watched the faces, and O'Connor is just having a blast. (So is Kelly, but it's like play for O'Connor.)
(Seeing Singin' in the Rain this large also brought into sharp relief my biggest complaint about Chicago, which is that the dance scenes were edited so badly that while you could tell everyone was dancing, you couldn't actually see what they were doing, a crime in my not-so-humble opinion. MTV has ruined filmmakers when it comes to stuff like this.)
On the big screen, however, the film's shortcomings (few though they may be) are also larger, for example, the insertion of the "Gotta Dance/Broadway Melody" pastiche (brilliant as its own, separate piece of work) really feels just stuck in at the last minute, and its relevance to the rest of the film is tenuous at best. Kelly's shortcomings as a singer were magnified, especially beside Debbie Reynolds. The film is still wonderful, but the larger screen does tend to reveal every flaw.
The greatest joy of the film, however, was seeing Kelly doing his masterpiece "Singin' in the Rain" number. There's no illustration of joy in movies quite so evocative, so much plain fun, as this, and I could have left the theater at its conclusion and gone home happy.
After the film, we stopped right around the corner at Palace Kitchen for dinner. Dark and atmospheric, the place has a sound system so good that the recorded music sounded like a live band. (When the singer is Sinatra, it's a pretty safe bet that the band is recorded.) While on the slightly pricey side (especially given that only one of the four of us at the table is currently employed), the food was neverthless delicious, served quickly and with elan, and very well-prepared. Though I didn't indulge, I'm told the desserts were to die for. Next time you go to the Cinerama of an evening, save a little cash and have a meal here before or after the film. It's a nice treat, though it could easily become an expensive habit.
