Netflix catchup

[ellen_datlow]

I watched the last episodes of The Sopranos over the weekend and was satisfied with the ending. It fit the show perfectly....so done with that.

I also watched Oscar and Lucinda with a brilliant (as always) Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes. I had the novel by Peter Carey for several years--may even still have it--but never got around to reading it. It's very sad. Miscommunication/lost loves. And magical--a glass church floating down a river....recommended.

I also saw Showgirls which while really lousy was also entertaining--far more so than I expected. Gina Gershon over the top as the star of a Las Vegas Burlesque show and Elizabeth Berkley as the up and comer. Think All About Eve with tits and ass and lousy dialogue and you'll get the idea.

And the utterly charming Whisper of the Heart anime about a teenage girl who follows a cat that takes the subway and meets an old man, a dapper fox doll, and a boy. It's wonderful how the details of the movie: the girls' family life and her journey following the cat-- brings back the feeling of being in Japan again.

Comments

[radiantfracture]

Showgirls is so brilliant because it's so uniformly effortlessly terrible.

I remember watching it with a friend, and when the sleazy owner of the strip club shows up to see the heroine perform in her 'real' show, she said "Oh, good, because until now we really didn't have closure with him."

{rf}

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

LOL. Yes, that was a great scene.

[czakbar.livejournal.com]

I loved Oscar and Lucinda too. The scene with the church floating down the river was gorgeous, and I loved their gambling addictions.

Showgirls was hilarious and I found it somehow entertaining for the same reasons. A terrible movie that I still had to watch. The dialogue was frightful.

I haven't seen Whisper of the Heart, but your description of it has me reaching to put it into my Netflix queue already.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I think I shouted at the screen during Oscar and Lucinda for not telling each other how they felt. Lucky I wasn't in the theater ;-).

I was surprised by the actual sexiness of some of the scenes in Showgirls Raunchy but sexy.

Oh yes, do it.

[czakbar.livejournal.com]

I always get mad at characters who don't say how they feel, too. I would hate to be so tied to social and religious convention as they were that it would keep me from speaking my feelings, and such important ones too. Of course it was also one of the elements of their relationship that made you get so invested in them. I always get caught up in characters who I really want to get together and that's part of the spell of the narrative, I think. If you come to Youngstown and watch a movie like that one, though, you can shout at the screen in the cinema. We all do it. It's sort of like going to one of those churches where it's *encouraged* to jump up and shout. ;-)

I recall being like eighteen years old and finding the hot tub scene in Showgirls really raunchy yet captivating. LOL.

Just put Whispers of the Heart in the queue.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I'm blanking on the hot tub scene. The one I was thinking of was her lap dance for Kyle MacLachlan.

[czakbar.livejournal.com]

Umm...I hope I'm not mixing it up with some, um, other movie I watched when I was eighteen. LOL.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

ummmm I don't know :-)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I just googled and there IS a hot tub scene but what can I say? I've already missplaced it in my psyche :-)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Aha, now I remember. It was truly dumb (sorry Chris):
the hot tub scene (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/30/worst_movie_romp/)

[czakbar.livejournal.com]

LOL, no need to apologize. It was my 18 year old self who snagged on that. And since then the whole movie is symbolized by this scene. So I guess the dumbest scene is the one that is the epitome of the movie for me. :-)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Someone describes it as similar to the opening of Jaws (with her thrashing) and I can actually imagine it :-)

[czakbar.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[halspacejock.livejournal.com]

When I watched the last ep of the Sopranos I'd not heard a whisper about the ending. I think it was great, though.

My favourite episode is still "Pine Barrens" - the one where Paulie and Christopher were stuck in the snowy woods.

"He killed 12 Czechoslovakians single-handed and is an interior decorator."

Classic.

[ashamel.livejournal.com]

Oscar and Lucinda is probably my favourite Carey novel, but Bliss is also highly recommened. The Tax Inspector is also interestng.

And I agree about the ending of The Sopranos. Though I think there could have been a bit more bite to Dr Melfi's conclusion.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I read Bliss and Illywhacker and I very much enjoyed his short stories in The Fat Man in History--that's how I discovered him. Unfortunately, I stopped keeping up.

Do you mean to her final scene? Maybe.

[ashamel.livejournal.com]

I loved the ending of Illywhacker, although it took an awfully long time to get there. I think you have hit the highlights of his books, though I haven't read them all.

I don't mean the last scene so much, just the situation in general. It was all handled fairly sensibly by all concerned, which seemed a bit... tame to me. But then, The Sopranos has always been good at building up drama, and then having something happen from an entirely different direction.

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

Showgirls is truly a movie that's so bad that it's good.

It sounds like the scene you're thinking of is the one in a swimming pool, not a hot tub, where she first gets it on with Kyle MacLachlan (after the scene where she gives him a lap dance that must have fractured several of his ribs). Though I preferred her scene with Glenn Plummer.

Joe Eszterhas really outdid himself with dialogue like:

Gina: I like nice tits.
Elizabeth: I like having nice tits.

[0ccam.livejournal.com]

Yes, Showgirls is great with the sound off, though I don't need to see the rape scene again.