#argentine male actors

[hombresargentinos]

[ghiacomo]

This poll is satire but feel free to vote anyway. I'm just tired of those polls that are obviously made for americans lol

[abirdie]

Gael Garcia Bernal: The Dear Heart Of 'Diaries'

Article from the Washington Post, 25 September 2004 (x)

By Hank Stuever

Gael Garcia Bernal: the Mexican actor, who is so very right now and here in town for, you know, just a day -- the whole thing with the big hotel suite and the half-eaten plate of fruit and dos publicistas tappa-tapping en los BlackBerrys over there. (Mujeres! Silencio!) He's promoting his new Che Guevara movie, The Motorcycle Diaries, and everyone who has seen it is going on and on about how saintly his portrayal of young Ernesto Guevara de la Serna is and how sumptuously the movie's 8,000-mile trek across South America unfurls onscreen and oh, btw, critics agree: Bernal's got Che's iconic, serious stare down pretty good.

Green eyes, we write in the notebook. (Big duh.)

Also can testify that Bernal is about 5 feet 7, though it long ago ceased to be news that the hotties of film are pocket-size. More notes: He turns 26 in November. He has a proud, long nose that sometimes blushes red when he laughs. He's wearing one of those Salvation Army-seeming plaid western-cut shirts that often turn out to be designer-label, a pair of deep blue vintagesque jeans and some scuffed lace-up boots the color of old asphalt. His hair is cut bubblegum-mishap short.

Awright, already, he's de-lish. Did we need to bring that dogeared copy of 501 Spanish Verbs with us? Of course not: Dude went to drama school for a while in London when he was a teenager; not long after he starred for six months in a Mexican soap opera called El Abuelo y Yo (Grandfather and Me), and this particular fact has dogged him in every interview. ("People think I did all these soap operas," he shrugs. "I did only that one. And it taught me a lot — it taught me I never wanted to do another soap opera.") When it comes to Spanish, he can bend it to his will, the way Nicole Kidman can do in English, with whatever accent directors like Walter Salles and Pedro Almodovar need him to speak in — Mexican, Argentine, Castilian.

During our interview, he spends an hour dissecting, in English, the current state of Pan-American politics, extolling his sensible, leftist-tinged childhood, and at one point he quotes from foreign-policy magazines.

We hold up our end of the conversation with such questions as:

"So, um, like, what do you do when you're not working?"

"When I'm not doing this?" Bernal asks, motioning around at the movie-star-with-movie-to-sell air particles of feature story nonsense. "I like to do all the things I cannot do as much. My common days are very different now. I would, if I could, I would be home" — Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City — "and I would sleep until whatever time. Swim, play futbol. Read and go to lunches and the lunches become dinners. Visit family, organize a party for that night."

Halfway through the image of Bernal swaddled in high-thread-count sheets until whatever time, a half-theory privately knocks around in our pea brain:

Gael Garcia Bernal, or someone very much like him, is exactly why so many of us faithful, independent-minded filmgoers still cram ourselves into the creaky seats of dumpy art house cinemas, even as the years tick by and things like Netflix, the Sundance Channel and the nicer stadium-seating art houses came along to replace them. No, you want to see Bernal's movie surrounded by drabness, because you get a better transport to the happy, imaginative place that way. The stale popcorn, the Fandango.com ads, the bathroom with only two toilets. (Cineplex Odeon Dupont Circle 5, we mean you.)

We do it because we're always waiting for that next small-time heartthrob — male, female, or sometimes just the foreign scenery itself. It's the subtitles and the eyes. It's whatever we can't get from those American goofballs who do those blech movies that tend to be about guys who go on canoe trips where a horny bear in the woods tries to hump them. Or whatever.

Bernal would never do that to us.

Hollywood beckons and he rolls his eyes because it offers him roles like, uh, okay, here's the pitch: He's an undocumented leaf-blower yardman caught up in a caper that only Jackie Chan can make right, if only they could understand each other's Engrish, ha ha.

"I'm open," he says. "I am, I am. But so far in the U.S. what they have offered doesn't even get close to the kind of things that excite me. Nothing is quite right, so I think I'll just stick with what I'm doing. I have to stay … hmmm … congruent to myself."

And so that's why certain filmgoers are inclined to sneak off to his "small little movies" (as he calls them) in the middle of the afternoon, get the large Diet Coke and consider the combustion in contemporary Spanish-language cinema that the rare actor like Bernal can harness. You feel like you've just gone somewhere, talked fast, smoked cigarettes. They call him the Marcello Mastroianni of Latino film when they're not busy calling him the Marlon Brando of it.

All that smoldering, the aching of youth! One, please, for the 2:50 showing of Y Tu Mama, Tambien. (That hormonal breakout hit, a coming-of-age road trip from 2001 starring Bernal and his childhood friend Diego Luna — people mix them up, still.) Or the 4:45 showing of Amores Perros (from 2000, translating as wordplay for "Love Is a Bitch," a chronologically scattered tale of how one car wreck in Mexico City changes three lives). Or the 3:10 showing of El Crimen del Padre Amaro, from 2002, about the sinful lapse of a young priest (Bernal, natch) caught up in a small-town mess of church corruption. Its release in Mexico naturally put hard-line Catholics there in a state of non compos mentis, which both baffled and delighted Bernal.

Some of his key appearances have been as himself. Fresh from Y Tu Mama, he and Luna graced the Oscar ceremony last year, cleaned up in their tuxes, to present a small award, and Hollywood swooned. He was seen dancing all night at parties at Cannes. For a while he dated Natalie Portman (well, that's what the tabs reported) and you almost can't stand the fleeting idea of how gorgeous their children would have been. (Cancel that. They broke up.)

His movies are always in exotic, crumbly locations, and we are there, because Bernal is there: the back roads of the Mexican interior, or ascending to Machu Picchu as a soul-searching Guevara or click-clacking around the cobblestone streets of Spanish villas in transvestite stilettos seeking revenge against priestly pedophilia at a boarding school, as he does expertly in Pedro Almodovar's next surrealistic offering, Bad Education, which will open this year in New York. (It's scheduled to open in Washington in January. Sorry, kids. Delayed for possible Oscar-sensitive reasons of timeliness, and to not get in the way of Diaries. He's one of those stars: Two big projects colliding in the art houses of the world.)

If Salles' Motorcycle Diaries, which opens Friday, doesn't make you feel like an earnest college sophomore with a crush on the Marxist professor who teaches your Latin American history class, then we don't know what will. Predating the muss and fuss of the Cuban revolution, the film is an epic, richly hued journey into the formative years of Che, back in 1952 when he was Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, an Argentinean med student in his early twenties.

Ernesto takes a year off school to travel on a 1939 Norton 500 motorcycle with his best pal, Alberto Granado (played by Rodrigo de la Serna), across and up the South American continent.

Guevara, a devoted diarist as a young man, took notes about the people and places he saw, and the gulf between rich and poor (it helps to open his eyes when his rich girlfriend dumps him). The further Guevara and Granado go, the more Che becomes Che, seeing native people and their lives transcending the bourgeois notions of government and ownership and greed. By the time Che's working with lepers in the Amazon, Salles' movie (and Bernal) have reached a subtly beatific realm. In case you're not quite feeling it, Salles ups the noble-people quotient with black-and-white still portraits of the working-class people the young men encounter along the way.

"We prepared for four months," Bernal says of the research phase, and the crew shot the film more or less chronologically, following Guevara and Granado's original itinerary. "I read 1,001 books about the land and biographies [of Guevara]. We traveled. We practiced on the motorcycle three times a week. We asked permission from the gods, and also the local political and cultural centers…. When finally we started shooting, I wondered if we were prepared enough for this daunting task. We got on the bike and the road started to appear and things started to happen the right way, without you even noticing."

Bernal was born in Guadalajara and raised in Mexico City. Both his parents are stage actors. He has been thinking about Che Guevara for half his life — and even played the revolutionary in a two-part miniseries on Showtime about Fidel Castro, which he would appreciate it if everyone forgot. It goes back, for him, like most kids, to middle-school social studies class.

"It happens when you are about 12 or 13," he says. "When you grow up in Mexico you have a very strong connection to Cuba. As a kid you listen to this story, it's incredibly, incredibly exciting to hear. [The revolutionaries] changed Latin America forever and they changed the world. So you start early, identifying with where [Guevara] comes from, and identifying with his ideas in a way, and identifying with the struggle, and therefore you're able to agree with it or criticize it. Leftist ideas redefine themselves constantly. I think my generation is much more critical of what works in Latin American socialist movements and what didn't. There used to be a stigma that any leftist revolution had to come with violence. I don't think we believe that anymore," he says, mentioning Zapatistas in jungles who carry wood carvings of rifles instead of actual guns, just for the symbolism.

You think this sounds a little pinko coming from the mouth of a movie star? Well, you try embodying Che Guevara and see what you feel like talking about when it's over. When Bernal speaks of politics and the world, it's not with fire. He leans back. He almost whispers. It's seductive, in a way.

Early in the shooting, Alberto Granado, now 82, was visiting the set, Bernal says. And he offered this advice to the actor: "He told me, don't try to copy Ernesto's voice, or his mannerisms. He said, 'Use your own voice. All Ernesto was was a 23-year-old Latin American like you. Traveling around. Seeing things.' And I realized that what the movie needs is that universal experience. Granado was right. I have a right as does any person to tell the story of Che."

When it was over, months later, having lost weight to play the asthmatic Guevara as the trip takes its toll, Bernal found himself still wanting to travel.

When the film was finished, "I felt serenely confused, like in a serene state of almost understanding something bigger, and then not quite understanding it. All the time I felt like that," he says. "It redefined my priorities. I have moments where I understand what has happened to me, and then moments where I don't. I wanted to just get back on the road and travel to anywhere." (He sort of does that now, subletting apartments in New York and London, spending four months in Spain working with Almodovar on Bad Education, spending a little time back home in Mexico. He recently spent a month in Austin, shooting an independent film called The King in which he plays a character named Elvis — "the bastard child of an evangelist preacher," he says.)

He says he can't believe how hamstrung American actors arewhen it comes to saying anything political. He wonders if the United States has forgotten how to hold a real election, with real debates. He shows up in gossip columns lamenting the lumbering, impervious quality of American imperialism.

"The U.S. is a great nation that's becoming a war machine. But it is a great people, which can save it," he says. "Some of us fall into traps where we can't say what we think. But it shouldn't be this way. Actors are free. That's the nature of being an actor, to do anything you want to do, to say anything. It's why we're here. And if I were an American, I could be pigeonholed for what I just said."

He'd go on, but our lecture has to end here, for it is time to throw us out and escort in another reporter. It happens to be a student journalist from American University, and she seems excited to meet the Mexican Marcello Mastroianni, but trying to keep it all in check, remain cool.

She shakes his hand, ready and willing for her revolutionary inculcation in the hotel suite of Gael Garcia Bernal. She's exactly the age where a young woman's thoughts turn to putting that Che poster on the wall, and we envy her.

[mzannthropy]

I've just remembered Argentine actor Facundo Arana (he was the male lead in the telenovela Muneca Brava in the 1990s, which once enjoyed huge popularity in my home country), funny thing is, he looks more like he could be related to Sam Claflin (who is British) than to Camila Morrone (who has Argentine origin)!

[qnewsau]

What to watch at Queer Screen Film Fest

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/what-to-watch-at-queer-screen-film-fest/

What to watch at Queer Screen Film Fest

Check out thirty-five new queer movies, and a few favourite returning films, at the 11th Queer Screen Film Fest.

Mardi Gras Film Festival organisers Queer Screen are holding Sydney’s second annual LGBTQIA+ film festival again in 2024 on the cusp of Spring, from August 28 to September 1.

“Get ready to feast your eyes on thirty-five new, and a few favourite LGBTIQ+ films, at the 11th edition of Queer Screen Film Fest,” Queer Screen festival director Lisa Rose said, ahead of the festival’s launch.

“We’re bookending the festival with two fabulously flirty and romantic films, and we’re continuing that theme with an incredible documentary in the program.

“Enjoy appearances from well-known faces like Elliot Page, Evan Rachel Wood, Lukas Gage, and Australia’s own Keiynan Lonsdale. Don’t miss our two Australian films, including one having its world premiere.”

The 2024 Queer Screen Film Fest will feature in-person screenings at Event Cinemas George Street, with an on demand program running from September 2-8.

This year’s program comprises three short film programs and a total of thirty-seven films including one world premiere, twenty-six Australian premieres, and seven Sydney Premieres.

Eight feature films will screen exclusively in cinemas during the festival, while eight will screen both online and in cinema, and two encores from past festivals will play exclusively online.

Opening the festival is the Australian premiere of The Astronaut Lovers from Argentine director Marco Berger who returns with another story about male desire that sizzles just below the surface.

One hot summer, openly gay Pedro returns to Buenos Aires to spend a holiday with his cousin and some friends – including Maxi, who’s seemingly straight and full of swagger. The pair enjoys some friendly, machismo fuelled flirting that even they’re not sure how to contain, but are they playing with fire?

Canadian film Close to You is also having its Australian premiere at the festival and stars Academy Award nominated actor Elliot Page as a trans man visiting his hometown for the first time since transitioning.

Baby, from Brazilian director Marcelo Caetano, tells the story of two sex workers in love on the streets of Sao Paolo as they try to balance business with their relationship.

Backspot stars Westworld’s Evan Rachel Woods as the coach of a professional cheerleading squad when two cheerleaders who are in a relationship join the team.

American Parent follows the everyday life of a lesbian couple who are trying to raise their toddler during the Covid pandemic.

The Judgement features an Egyptian-American gay couple who are forced back into the closet when visiting family in Alexandria.

In Fragments of a Life Lived, lesbian documentarian Chloe Barreau revisits her past loves since she was a teenager, offering a unique perspective on human connection.

Australian film Strange Creatures is having its world premier at the festival, and tells the story of two brothers, one pansexual, reuniting to scatter their mother’s ashes after four years of not speaking to each other.

Turtles tells the story of an older gay couple who find themselves struggling with each other’s company in retirement before fighting to rekindle their flame.

Videoland is another film premiering at the festival and follows a young lesbian video store clerk in Australia in the 90s who watches every sapphic film she can get her hands on in navigating her identity before falling for a customer.

Closing the festival is the German film Gondola. Told without dialogue over 82 minutes, this film follows the romance between two young female cable-car conductors as they pass by each other in the sky at work.

-For more information go to www.queerscreen.org.au.

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[crispycreativestudio]

Meet Matias Vidala, AKA Gloria Borealis

Creative Director Kylan Coats’ creation of Matias Vidala was inspired by a combination of several people and situations, including a bombastic neighbor and friend, a couple of both new and experienced drag queens, and the struggle of aspiring actors in Los Angeles. “From the beginning I wanted to have a drag queen crew member in some form or fashion. Dressing in drag is such a quintessentially queer and powerful act. And it fits into the space opera genre so well (see drag-adjacent Ruby Rhod in the Fifth Element)!” says Kylan.

“Drag queens tend to have big personalities both on and off-stage so they’re a perfect foil for more subdued crew members like Aylah or Truly. With drag there’s also a bit of sketchiness always on the periphery; the same that accompanies most subversively creative endeavors. So imagining a drag queen on the run was a fairly easy idea. As with most of our characters, we try to subvert people’s expectations on what they would be good at. Anyone who’s been to drag shows can testify to how physically strenuous the performances can be. Just like everyone else, queens come in many shapes and the idea of a big beefy queen for our Muscle skill was quite compelling.”

Kylan’s initial inspiration for Matias is a “former neighbor and friend who has such a wonderful personality. He’s a beefy gay man who came out later in life, his deep voice is husky from a long history of smoking and flavored by a sometimes thick Argentine accent.” “The first time I met him he towered over me dressed as Frida Kahlo at a Halloween party. While that was as close as he ever came to drag, when I was coming up with crew members, he was at the top of my mind for someone I’d want onboard.”

“For the real-life drag queens, one of them is a wonderful person who actually performed at my wedding,” says Kylan. “In the time before the wedding, he’d mention how he felt he was getting too old to compete with the younger queens (he was just a few years older than myself). The amount of energy and drive to keep performing and creating night-after-night was definitely intimidating. It lined up, to a lesser degree, with stories I’d heard from many small-time and aspiring actors in Los Angeles.”

But just who is Matias Vidala? A 44-year-old male performer/former drag queen, Matias Vidala is larger than life, both in his broad stature, and his vivacious personality. A born performer, Matias has always struggled to strike the perfect balance between his bulky, barrel-chested outer appearance and his delicate inner diva. Following a short-lived career as the unique “Gloria Borealis”, his pyrotechnic drag persona which involved third degree burns and the odd audience member, Matias may or may not be on the run and/or doing a revival tour of his fiery show. Kind, encouraging, but with absolutely no room in his big heart for criticism of a performance, Matias is quick to anger and even quicker to tears, he’s the epitome of “all bark, no bite”. Life is a show for Matias Vidala, and this big queen is the star. There’s no point debating that with him, trust us.

If you are interested in an LGBTQ+ spaceship management narrative game with inclusivity as a foundation, from a diverse development team then please do go and wishlist A Long Journey to an Uncertain End here: https://bit.ly/3V1gSag

[littledigest]

Asteroids indicating Activism and the Rebellious Spirit in your Birth Chart - PART 1

This will be separated into two parts since there are so many asteroids that have to do with the following:

Contributing to rebellion

Using your power to go against something bigger/tradition

Resilience as a stance

Drive and willpower

Intelligence and human advancement seen as a threat to others

Coming together as one group, power in numbers

Freedom, liberation

Justice

Sign of the times

Peace and Disharmony

PART 1 will focus on themes 1 - 5

21419, 1809, 126, 661, 897, 1181, h58, h13, h21, 175, 4921, 1589, 238, 5450

These asteroids could also point to a more negative manifestation: zealotry, extremism, etc.

GOING AGAINST:

Devience 21419

Deviance is where we stray away from accepted rules and standards

Prometheus 1809

Named after Prometheus, the Greek Titan god of fire

Defied the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humans = giving technology, knowledge, and civilization to humans

Champion of humankind, punished by the gods

Velleda 126

Named after Veleda, a Germanic priestess and prophet, who predicted success of the Batavian rebellion against the Romans

Cloelia 661

Named after Cloelia, a woman who was taken hostage as a peace treaty, but escaped from her camp and helped a group of Roman virgins escape too

Praised for her heroism and bravery

Lysistrata 897

An ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes about a woman who, with the help of other women, denied all men sex to end the Peloponnesian War. 

Ends up being a battle of the sexes

Known for its themes of sexual relations in a male-dominated society

Lilith 1181, Waldemath Lilith h58, True Lilith h13, Natural Apogee Lilith h21

Lilith 1181 is named after Lili Boulanger, a French composer and the first female winner of the Prix de Rome [often used as an asteroid version of Lilith, a demon and the first wife of Adam, although Lili Boulanger sounds pretty cool too]

Was equal to Adam and refused to be subservient to him

Left Eden and the narrative of Lilith as succubus and baby stealer persists

Lilith was later reclaimed as a feminist icon

RESILIENCE & DRIVE:

Andromache 175

Named after Andromache in Greek mythology

Her name means man battler, fighter of men, man’s battle, or courage

Represents the suffering of women during the Trojan War

Her husband and son die during the war, leaving her alone; she is made into a concubine and then a slave

But she survives, remains faithful to her husband, and lives to old age

Volonté 4921

Named after Gian Maria Volonté, an Italian actor

Can be read as the french word volonté meaning will, willpower, wish, goodwill

Fanatica 1589

Named after Eva Perón or Evita, the First Lady of Argentina and an Argentine actress, politician, activist, and philanthropist

Can also be read as fanatic, fanaticism, extreme passion

INTELLIGENCE AND ADVANCEMENT AS A THREAT TO OTHERS:

Hypatia 238

Named after Hypatia, a philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician in ancient Alexandria

Known for her intelligence, wisdom, and tolerance

Was murdered by a Christian mob and was made into a martyr for philosophy

Was later a symbol of Christian virtue in the Middle Ages

Sokrates 5450

Named after Socrates, a Greek philosopher and a founder of Western philosophy

Known for ethics and moral philosophy and was controversial in his time

Accused of impiety and corrupting the youth and was sentenced to death after a one-day trial

Refused help from followers and friends to escape prison

Read PART 2 here

[voidselfshipp]

THE//QUARRY SELF INSERT

"Ah, summer. The season that fills my heart with joy! Now! Who wants to go camping?"

《♡♡♡♡♡♡》

🌱Name: Nova Terreus (meaning Earth Born)

🌱Age: 22

🌱Studying: Animation and Acting

🌱Camp Counselor for Hacketts Quarry

🌱Born in: South America. Argentina. Region not specified.

🌱Height: 5'5

🌱MBTI: INFJ

🌱Personality Tarot Card: Judgement

《♡♡♡♡♡》

LIKES

🌹Helping Children

🌹Painting, Drawing, Reading, Writing

🌹Tending to plants and animals.

🌹The sea, Swimming.

🌹Eating

《♡♡♡♡♡》

Style:

《♡♡♡♡》

LORE

"I Guess You Could Say Im A Genderfluid Druid?"

Descending from a long line of Druids. Nova was raised at the outskirts of a beach town somewhere in the Argentine coast.

Soon as she reached the age of 18, they embarked on a journey to the US. To pursue their dream to become an animator and actor.

With the ever present company of their pet Mouse, Micelium, Nova soon found themself acting as a camp counselor during the summer to have a little bit more money to support themself. What best place to start than Hacketts Quarry, a place full of mystery, nature and animals.

Quickly grew to be respected by the locals and the werewolves, the locals could tell something was off with Them. But never questioned them.

The kids love him. So much so that Mr. Hackett himself has asked him year after year to come back to camp. Nova always obliged.

Xey Also stay to protect the kids and other counselors from harm at night. Nobody touches the camp while xey patroll the outskirts.

POWERS

->Nature bending/growth. (Able to grow plants and other flowers. Trees take a bit more of time and effort)

->Speaking with animals. (From common creatures to the big werewolves).

->Shapeshifting. As long as they know how an animal looks like they can replicate it. And also can change into a more female/male/androgynous bodytype.

Most used animals to shapeshift: Owls, Bears, foxes, ferrets

->Empathetic abilities, underdeveloped telepathy. (Can only communicate things. For a two way conversation more concentration is required).

->Earth bending. Sismic sight (can see through the vibrations of the soil and nature around them).

《♡♡♡♡♡♡》

EXTRA INFORMATION

->Likes to hang out near the lake and the island during very sunny days, or at odd hours of the night.

->Has a beautiful reindeer mask made by the elder druids of her clan.

-> Micelium was a gift from the same elders that gave her her mask.

-> mice can grow as big as a bear and has control over elements. On extreme ocasions they can catch on Fire.

->Romantic Interests: Dylan, Chriss H. (Maybe?)

-> Bffs: Kaytlin, abigail, Mischa (@80sboyfriends s/I!)

->Dislikes: Emma. Cant stand her.

-> Conflicted feelings about Jacob. Very conflicted.

->The only people that know about her Druidic nature is Chris, Travis and Mischa

-> She was introduced to the quarry by Eliza. Whom she sees as a familiar figure.

->Her favorite Tarot Card is The Hermit

->Can live off of sunlight, she can photosynthesize. So they are frequently found sunbathing with the biggest grin youve ever seen.

《♡♡♡♡》

Only mutuals/tagged people allowed to rb. Pictures arent mine but the moodboards are.

I havent finished the game so please no spoilers:D

Taglist: @tex-treasures @80sboyfriends @malewifehenrycooldown @mercuryships @sennamybeloved

Sorry for the Long post

[yourdailyqueer]

Dan Bucatinsky

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Gay

DOB: 22 September 1965

Ethnicity: Argentine Jewish

Occupation: Actor, writer, producer

[fantastica-daily]

Richard Elfman on his new bizarro comedy - Aliens, Clowns & Geeks

By Staci Layne Wilson

When it comes to cult science fiction movies, Forbidden Zone stands tall. Richard Elfman's 1980 Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo vehicle was a one-of-a-kind film zooming down on a one-way street to a whacky conclusion that’s stayed in the minds of schlock cinema fans ever since. His latest film, Aliens, Clowns & Geeks is an equally wild and expressionistic indie featuring Austin Powers' Verne Troyer in his last role, promising that Aliens, Clowns & Geeks is the antidote to mainstream and a breakneck cure for the run-of-the-mill.

“I was fortunate to have my dream cast on this one, including Verne Troyer (Mini-Me) as my demonic clown emperor–his final film role,” says Elfman. “Our ninety-minute film has seventy-five minutes of driving music by my brother Danny (Elfman) and acclaimed animation composer, Ego Plum Guerrero. Along with Danny’s to-die-for clown and alien music, Ego added a Latin element with the band we play with, Mambo Demonico.” The score was composed by Danny Elfman, who wrote the theme song to The Simpsons, the music to The Nightmare Before Christmas and did the singing voice of Jack Skellington, and won six Saturn awards.

"Eddy Pine (Bodhi Elfman) is a jaded actor dealing with the cancellation of his series," reads the official synopsis. "To complicate matters, he wakes up with the key to the universe stuck up his ass. Apparently an alien Clown Emperor (Verne Troyer) is in hot pursuit of this, as are his rivals, the Green Aliens. Professor von Scheisenberg (French Stewart) and his comely Swedish assistants, the Svenson sisters (Rebecca Forsythe as Helga, Angeline-Rose Troy as Inga), come to Eddy’s aid. If only Eddy hadn’t fallen for Helga, and then the aliens manipulate his mind to confuse her with Inga! And when the mad little Clown Captain (Martin Klebba) steps on the gas and shifts his spaceship into fourth gear, all hell breaks loose.”

We had the opportunity to sit down with Richard to ask him about his movie.

Q. To what do you attribute your enduring interest in clowns? And why do you think they’re so fascinating to people in general?

As I’ve always said: “To be born a male redhead is to be born into a clown suit.” Hence my carrot-topped brother Danny and I have always had a fascination with clowns. Coupled with our wicked sense of humor and a love of the horror genre, it was an easy morph into thoughts of creepy clowns. Just like dolls and puppets—yes, I’m speaking Anabelle—clowns can have something “surreal” about them.  Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise really nails it. And I laughed my head off at Killer Klowns From Outer Space. (And we have honk-honking shit-load of killer clowns in my new film).

Q. How did the idea for Aliens, Clowns & Geeks come about? Is it similar to The Forbidden Zone?

 Joined-at-the-hip. Yes. And no. Forbidden Zone is basically a surrealistic “human-cartoon” set to musical numbers. So I was working on Forbidden Zone 2, a thematic extension of FZ but on a much grander scale. I did a successful crowd-funder to develop the project, then, with the help of my producers, raised about half the budget. They asked me if we could do something quick (and cheaper) in the interim to keep the momentum going.

So I basically locked myself in my roof-top writing garret with a box of cigars and many bottles of whiskey and banged out my Geeks script over the next three weeks.

Geeks is utterly zany and music-driven, but it’s not a “singing musical” so to speak like FZ. It has surrealistic elements, thanks to my insane special effects department--and a little help from Hieronymus Bosch—but I would describe Geeks having cartoony elements rather than being a total “human cartoon” as FZ was…if that makes any sense. (And please don’t try!)

 Q. Tell us about the multiple roles played by your family – and do you have role as well? What was it like working with your family – any funny stories?

My son Bodhi Elfman—a serious dramatic actor with 100s of credits--did a great comic turn as Eddy, the lead; a bitter out of work actor who wakes up with the key to the universe stuck up his ass. He also played the ass-kissing clown (literally) on the space ship plus the green alien network executive who orders the destruction of Earth. My wife Anastasia played multiple roles, everything from a nun to a carny slut. She also danced and choreographed the cabaret burlesque numbers as well as played a clown…until she got sick from the chemicals inside the clown mask and had to throw up—after we got the shot, of course--committed trouper that she is. When I met Anastasia she was a ballet dancer with a “day job” at a horror fx shop. She can dance with a broken toe but seems to have developed a sensitivity to certain shop chemicals.

I played a clown as well and almost threw up from laughing. I must say Geeks was a fun show to work on (my greatest joy is creating a sense of fun) and the actors and crew had serious trouble keeping from laughing as I directed in insane clown attire. What a fucking visual!

And brother Danny—what can I say? As an independent (hence lower budget) film maker it helps when your little brother in Mozart.

Q. Tell us how you ran away and joined the circus.

Actually, The Grande Magic Circus--a French musical theatre company. 1971, I was twenty-one, visiting the Festival of New Theatre in Montreal. I ran into a scruffy Parisian street troupe. They had something though, a charisma, an élan, whatever-- it attracted me. Director Jérôme Savary needed a percussionist—et voila, that was me! I persuaded them to give me several minutes onstage at the festival doing my comedy/horror piece set to an Eric Satie’s Gnossienne. When I “killed” the pianist in a pool of blood the audience was shocked. And they loved it!

Then, back in California, I went to see Marcel Carne’s masterpiece Les Enfant de Paradise , a three hour film set in the Paris theatre scene of the 1830’s. I exited the theatre, stopped, turned around and went back in and saw it again.

A few months later I received a letter from Jerome. Peter Brook, famed director of London’s Royal Shakespeare Company was backing the Magic Circus in a large Paris theatre. Would I like to join them? Bloody hell!! Hence, I ran away and joined the “circus.”

Q. Tell us something about your time with the Magic Circus, how it influenced you and also how your brother Danny Elfman joined the show.

I might say that working with Jérôme Savary was perhaps my single greatest influence. The troupe had classically trained actors from the Comedie Francais as well as more Avant guard performers. Jerome was a genius, his material had a sense of Absurdism that really struck me. I would later develop this absurdism in my own fashion. Certainly with my own troupe, the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo (later Oingo Boingo). By the way, my film Forbidden Zone was essentially our Mystic Knights stage show set to film.

Danny—several days out of high school--showed up at my 5ème, Rue Descartes doorstep with his electric violin. The company violinist was from the Paris Opera. Jerome liked to improvise. The opera guy couldn’t deviate one note from the written score. I believe my brother is Mozart reincarnated. He could follow any improvisation and got the job and toured with us for the summer throughout France. He and I opened the show with him on violin, me on percussion—the first music Danny Elfman ever wrote.

Q. Any other interesting experiences that you and Danny had there?

We were in a Basque town near the Spanish border. If I may digress, I am four years Danny’s senior. I went to a high school in Crenshaw (Boyz in the Hood), Danny ended up at a school with no guns. I was a tough boxer. Danny might be described as a bespectacled science nerd. So it’s Friday night, the audience was really rowdy and restless. My “street sense” knew it was just a matter of time before the fights broke out. We had an Argentine fellow in the troupe, “Katshurro,” nicest fellow. Drunks in the audience picked up on his accent and shouted terrible Spanish insults about his mother. Katshurro stopped mid-performance, his eyes bugging out of head, and he dove right into the audience swinging away. All hell broke loose. Everyone was fighting, sets crashing down. Danny’s glasses got knocked off. Well, and not for the first time, I managed to get Danny out of trouble with both his glasses and violin intact.

Q. Tell us about the cast you assembled – which includes Verne Troyer in his final screen performance. What was he like? Who does he play in the film?

I really had my dream cast. Along with my son Bodhi we had lovely kung-fu kicking Rebecca Forsythe, versatile Angeline-Rose Troy who not only played Rebecca’s sexy Swedish sister, but donned prosthetics to play poor Eddy’s junkie/whore “Mom from Hell.”

Professor von Scheisenberg was played impeccable veteran French Stewart (Third Rock From the Sun). Another great vet was George Wendt (Cheers) as Father Mahoney. Six foot six comic Steve Agee (Sarah Silverman Show, Guardians of the Galaxy) played both a tough cross-dressing bar owner and a stuttering dufis in a chicken suit. Nic Novicki (Boardwalk Empire) played his nasty little-person boss. I was really blessed with a great ensemble to work with.

And, of course, Verne Troyer, our megalomaniac Clown Emperor. What a wonderful talent to work with! He was funny on set, insisted on doing things in spite of physical limitations and he gave us hilarious comic improvisations. Little body. Big spirit. I will certainly miss him.

Q. The music is by Danny and you also have great animation… please give us some details what it’s like to create worlds through music and manufactured imagery.

Danny, along with my band mate--award winning animation composer Ego Plum (Guerrero)—really gave it to us. Seventy-five minutes of music in a ninety-minute film. ♪ ♫ La, tee-da and a boom boom boom! ♪ ♫  Music is essential to everything I do—especially setting the tone of my films. I even play music before I start writing.

As soon as Danny saw our surrealistic Bosch dream sequence and goofy clown rocket ships he agreed to do the score…after he stopped laughing. I play percussion in a quirky Latin band, Mambo Demonico, led by Hollywood’s top tv animation composer, Ego Plum. He and Danny work with the same people, including Oingo Boingo lead guitarist Steve Bartek, who subsequently has done every one of Danny’s film arrangements. Steve and the original Oingo Boingo members all played on our sound track. I must brag that we do have great fucking music!

You know, Danny was a bespectacled science nerd growing up, basically stayed out of trouble. That was my department. Oddly, he wasn’t really into music. No bands, no concerts, no big music collection. Life is funny how things turned out. I showed him a rough cut of Geeks, he laughed his ass off and offered to do it. Yes, I’m very lucky to have “Mozart” as my little brother!

Q. Who is Aliens, Clowns & Geeks for? Do you think movies like this are more likely to find a mainstream audience?

Forbidden Zone may be a “cult” movie but it still plays all over the world--after forty years. Just this past month FZ played festivals in France and South Korea. Geeks is certainly not for everyone—no one falls in love then dies of cancer. But it will find an audience I am sure. Anyone who had fun with Killer Klowns From Outer Space, liked Rocky Horror, even What We Do in the Shadows in terms of a quirky, wicked sense of humor. I also think it will play well in mental asylums…it certainly shall send people there in any case.

Geeks doesn’t fit into the scheme of “modern films.” Actually, the shooting style and underlying three-act story structure harkens back to classic comedies (says the son of a former English teacher turned novelist). The trappings though, are insane and off-the-wall. You might say it’s just my own, goony creation. Love it or hate it, the humor is balls-out outrageous, definitely not for everyone--no one dies of cancer. Geeks is simply meant to be fun for essentially the genre audience.

Q. What’s your proudest moment associated with making the film?

Proudest moment? Maybe finally paying the actors. People say I’ve embraced the indie spirit. I don’t know how much I “embrace” it, so much as am fucked by it, having to work on such a modest budget. Although I’ve been a “hired gun” and directed scripts written by others, Geeks is really the first time since my 1980 Forbidden Zone that I’ve really done purely my own vision. Per John Waters, well, I’d hope he’d have something strong to drink and/or smoke and then laugh his ass off watching it! That’s what it was like creating the film: Drinking scotch and smoking cigars in my rooftop writing garret, laughing my ass off! The green aliens have a totally high-tech ship, except for the automotive steering wheel and four-on-the-floor to shift gears. For the clowns we went for an absurdly updated version of Flash Gordon. And when our tiny clown emperor takes possession of an earth body, he has little dummy of the earthling sitting in his lap, their heads connected by electrical wires. Absurd and ridiculous, and that’s my middle name.

Want to see a double feature of The Forbidden Zone and Aliens, Clowns & Geeks? You can! They will play at The Regency in L.A. as part of The Valley Film Festival on 1/30/21. Get tickets here.

Look for our review of Aliens, Clowns & Geeks here soon!

[rebellionandresistance]

The Witch Hunt

How far can the blindness of hate take you? How does a person get to lose common sense for the desire to achieve something? How does resentment distort the sense of justice and equality?

Today more than ever we can see how these questions have come to affect in a strong way the world we know and the societies of which we are part.

On December 11, 2018, a group of Argentine actresses held a press conference whose goal was to bring public awareness, which later would be a complaint against the renowned actor Juan Darthes, who is said to have committed sexual abuse towards several actresses during previous years. The main accuser of the event was the actress Thelma Fardin, who continued the list of actresses previously initiated by Calu Rivero, Griselda Siciliani, among others.

This situation led the actor to a domino effect that followed a relapse that took him to the hospital and an interview in which he explained his version of events and denied any intention of harassment against any of the women who publicly denounced him. So far everything is normal.

What leads us to the origin of this article is not the complaint itself, nor the defense of the accused, but the disrespect, violation and corruption of what is supposed to be justice. After the denunciation, the political movements of the moment initiated their march, demanding by the immediate incarceration of Darthes, without concerning the methods, arguments, bases or rational procedures. They do not care about the reality of the event, but satisfy a need of doubtful reality.

The groups that support Fardín have dedicated themselves to denying that Darthes could be innocent and that she for the simple fact of being a woman has been harmed and affected. They have dedicated themselves to calling "rapist" or "apology of rape" all those who prefer to trust the word of the actor or directly await the verdict that justice determines.

Regardless of the fact, we must bear in mind that a civilized society that has a constituted judicial body must respect and enforce the processes and laws that achieve the desired justice. Justice is not one that benefits or gives the reason to a capricious sector, but that which gives each individual the fate that corresponds to it equitably and with the due guarantees of each party even if we do not come to like the final result. A serious and effective judicial institution is one that knows that everything is equal before the law and fulfills it to the letter without favoring anyone.

Given the above, we should not be outraged if someone defends the accused. Every human being has the right to a fair trial and to have an impartial process. Every victim of alleged abuse has the full right to denounce and every accused or victimizer has the right to a legitimate defense, a presumption of innocence and a transparent process. Neither a majority, nor tears, nor empathy, nor blind faith can nor should determine who is guilty or innocent. Good or bad, justice is the only one that can determine the fate of Juan Darthes and proceed with the investigation to be able to take him to jail or freedom.

Believing him or her because we think the other is lying is very complicated. In the first place because we do not know any, secondly because people can lie with whatever, and thirdly because there are three truths: The truth A, the truth B, and the truth. It's her word, against his word. We can not believe a woman for being a woman, or believe him because there are false allegations elsewhere. Balance and impartiality is the only way we can find the truth in what we set out to do. Historically it is proven that the way to find meaning to everything that surrounds us is to question it. We can not crucify Darthes because we trust the word of Fardin. We do not know what happened there. We do not know what happened. You can not defend the unknown.

To begin with, they are all actors: Pretending is not a problem for them. Pretending is their profession, handling human emotions is their talent and dominating others through empathy is their skill.

Background According to the complaint made by the actress at the conference and in turn through a fairly well produced video, the alleged abuse would have occurred during a tour that made the cast of the then popular series "Patito Feo", where they made musical presentations in some countries of Latin America. When arriving at Nicaragua, Fardin explains that the actor would have entered his room and wanted to touch it repeatedly after the refusals of her simultaneously, which ended in violation. On the contrary, Darthes affirms that she was the one who insinuated herself and he rejected her repeatedly telling her that she had a family and that her children would perfectly be the same age, in addition to having photos in which Thelma appears doing activities with the rest of the family. cast and smiling as if nothing happened, and suggesting a fallacy on her part that although uncertain, it is reasonable to consider. Why do not they believe Thelma? The answer to this question goes back a couple of years back in Hollywood to be exact. Amid multiple polemics caused by an alleged network of pedophilia and sexual abuse in the film industry, the movement of American actresses "Me Too" was founded, which denounced several male celebrities among which were the producer Harvey Weinstein, James Franco, and Morgan Freeman. In the case of these last two it was revealed that the allegations were false (especially those against Freeman, which were numerous, but even so they have already ruined his career). It is a controversial movement that in spite of its supposed good intentions, ended up committing excessive persecutions and losing prestige because of the false accusations that were found. This phenomenon has been repeated now in Argentina, where they intend to do the same persecutions, but where we can not make hasty conclusions, because it is not yet known if there are false allegations or how to proceed with respect to Juan Darthes. On the other hand, in this conference the presence of the green handkerchief that symbolizes the promotion of legal abortion and, apparently, one of the new standards of third-wave feminism was noticeable. This detail has also caused great controversy because of the antecedents of the feminist movement in Argentine and international society, where violence, hate, vandalism, selfishness, arrogance, authoritarianism and disrespect for the rights of others always predominate. , which of course has taken away legitimacy, added to the null relationship of the case with legal abortion. I do not say that feminist intentions are bad, but certainly the methods they have used have not been adequate and that is playing against them. Finally, it is very difficult to make a report of this nature without some evidence that can give evidence of what happened and in this case the justice should be responsible for investigating with more reason. CONCLUSION For my part, I am not in favor of either of them. Unfortunately I am nobody to suggest a destination because I do not know what happened in truth, nor do I personally know the people involved, nor am I the justice to determine it. What I can say is that these cases have to be treated with tweezers. Thoroughness, care and prudence are essential to reach a conclusion. No matter what happens, do not marry any of the versions. Do not use empathy to understand the world or the whys of life. You can always defend the wrong person. This is not about whether she is a woman and he is a man. Here something repudiable happened and must be resolved no matter what. Facts do not care who you are, but what you do and what you are worth. I recommend high caution: The hunt has already started and the dam has already been selected. The truth will set us free, doubt will make us wise and honesty will make us real.

[hombresargentinos]

[hallmarkfanatic]

Raise A Glass to Love

Here we are again with Fall Harvest film #2. I think it’s been a solid start of the new season of films and I’m excited to see what the rest of the 2021 Autumn movies have in store.

Like always starting with the plot, I was SO happy it was not a ‘save the family business’ type story. It was nice to see something different between the wine competition and her parents anniversary party. While wine themed movies are nothing new with the network, I still always enjoy those types of films for some reason. Another thing I liked was the pacing and aesthetic. The movie felt like it had more of a chill pacing to it and while it was not giving off crazy autumn vibes, I still got the feel of the season from it. As for the characters, overall I liked Jenna. While I wasn’t crazy about the whole boyfriend side of things, I get it for the story and why it made sense for her to finally realize she wanted more and better for herself. Marcelo was just a kind, passionate, encouraging, charming guy who, like Jenna, had his own doubts and fears. I thought Jenna and Marcelo were great together and balanced each other nicely. The only thing I wish there was more of was witty banter between the pair, but since that was more of a writing thing, with what we were given, it was good. Moving on to the actors, it’s been nice seeing Laura Osnes grow on the network, as this is her 3rd film, and she makes a good female lead. I’m happy to see Juan in a Hallmark film. He’s a very attractive and charming male lead. Plus I like that the movie used his actual background of being an Argentine. He’s someone I would love to see more of on the network and I truly hope we do. I thought Laura and Juan had solid chemistry throughout the film and ending kiss was great. Overall I thought this was a good movie. 

Ranking: 2 - I thought this was very middle of the road film. It wasn’t a top pick of must see Hallmark movies for me but it is one I could easily watch again and enjoy. 

What did you think of the film? What did you like and/or dislike about this one? Let me know your thoughts! 

[acsversace-news]

Edgar Ramírez stars as Gianni Versace in the FX anthology series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.

Ramírez is an Emmy®, Golden Globe®, and SAG® nominated actor with an impressive resume in film and television. A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Ramírez grew up all over the world, has lived in countries such as Austria, Canada, Colombia, Italy and Mexico, and is fluent in German, English, French, Italian and Spanish as a result. In addition to acting, Ramírez is also an accomplished humanitarian. He was the executive director of NGO Dale Al Voto, a Venezuelan organization akin to Rock the Vote, and he currently serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF in Venezuela.

Ramírez has appeared in numerous films including, the Academy Award® nominated Zero Dark Thirty, and the Golden Globe nominated film, Joy. Additional film credits include: Gold, Hands of Stone, Girl on The Train, Point Break, Deliver us from Evil, Wrath of the Titans, L’orenoque (aka The Passenger), The Argentine, Vantage Point, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Domino which was his American film debut.

His work in television gained him critical acclaim for his role in Carlos, which resulted in the Cesar Award for Best Newcomer (Male). The project was released theatrically by IFC, and as a three-part miniseries by Sundance Channel.

Ramírez can next be seen in the Netflix fantasy thriller, Bright.

[dweemeister]

Three Little Girls in Blue (1946)

Most reviews on this blog are American films from the Golden Age of Hollywood. If you have read a handful of them, you may know that, during the height of the Hollywood Studio System from the silent era to the early 1960s, cast and crewmembers were often contracted to work for a certain studio. If Bette Davis appears in a melodrama, it’s probably a Warner Bros. movie. Bob Hope and/or Bing Crosby making you laugh? Try Paramount. Vincente Minnelli directing? Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). For a 20th Century Fox musical, Alfred Newman (who composed the Fox fanfare) is either the film’s composer or its music director. If the musical’s plot revolves around two or three cash-strapped women attempting to attract and marry a millionaire, that is also a strong indicator of a 20th Century Fox production. Released by Fox in 1946, H. Bruce Humberstone’s Three Little Girls in Blue has both those indicators – Newman as musical director and the millionaire-chasing plot. The film is a romp, most enjoyable when its three principal actresses are singing and the supporting men are nowhere to be found.

It is 1902. There are three little girls in blue. On a chicken farm in Red Bank, New Jersey live the Charter sisters: Pam (June Haver), Liz (Vivian Blaine), and Myra (Vera-Ellen). This farm, inherited from their aunt, is their springboard to travel to Atlantic City in order to find rich husbands. The plan is put on the fast track when they learn the monetary inheritance is not nearly as bountiful as they expected. Basing their operations out of an expensive waterfront hotel, the Charter sisters agree that Pam will masquerade as a wealthy heiress, “Ms. Charters”, while Liz serves as secretary and Myra as the maid. For whatever reason, the sisters have not looked up the hotel’s rates for the suite they are staying in. “Jiminy Crickets,” Myra yelps, “why, the rate for this suite is $9.25 per day!” Before you start giggling, that amount is approximately $277 in 2020’s USD – chump change that is not. The Charter sisters soon meet three men, flush with cash, who knock them off their feet with their charms: Steve Harrington (Frank Latimore), Mike Bailey (Charles Smith; uncredited), and Van Damm Smith (George Montgomery).

Van Damm Smith? That name is a headline writer’s dream!

Financial and romantic crises mount, and the film’s tangled plot in its second half is not worth a brain strain. Three Little Girls in Blue also marks the film debut of Celeste Holm, who plays Steve’s sister, Miriam. Holm, who appears late in the film, is a comical delight. For Haver, Blaine, and Vera-Ellen, they nail the sisterly ties (and rivalry) that set up almost all the situational comedy in Valentine Davies’ (1947’s Miracle on 34th Street, 1949’s It Happens Every Spring) screenplay. Latimore, Smith, and Montgomery are amiable enough, but beyond their handsome coiffures and white smiles, they do not surprise romantically, comically, dramatically, or musically. Other than the reckless plotting and dreadful romantic dialogue as the film nears its conclusion, the male leads are among its weakest features. With greats like Victor Mature and Cesar Romero leaving the film as production commenced (being replaced by Montgomery and Latimore), Three Little Girls in Blue is a movie in desperate need of steadier actors for the romantic interests.

With the plot in disarray, Three Little Girls in Blue is (mostly) redeemed by its eye-catching Technicolor and musical score. Finding a quality print of Humberstone’s film in order to enjoy that Technicolor might be tricky. Three Little Girls in Blue has only been released once on home media (2013 DVD), but Fox’s record in restoring their older films for home media releases is spotty, and that unfortunately seems to have been the case for this movie – the situation is probably worse now because of the Walt Disney Company’s purchase of Fox and their policy towards older Fox films. The print that made its debut on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) last March was more presentable, with gorgeous saturated colors that bring out the Charter sisters’ color-coded dresses when they arrive in Atlantic City and gallivant across Steel Pier (one of the oldest amusement parks in the United States). Even as story devolves into farce, Three Little Girls in Blue is always fantastic to look at – it just depends on the quality of the print one has access to.

At the height of the Hollywood Studio System, the unspoken consensus among cast and crewmembers specializing in musical films across the industry was that MGM made the best musicals. Art is subjective, yes, but that is wisdom – at this time in Hollywood history – I will not contradict. However, MGM’s musical dominance, to industry insiders, was not absolute. The studio of Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, and Arthur Freed (lyricist and producer; 1943’s Cabin in the Sky, 1951’s An American in Paris) may have had the best stable of musical actors, producers, and directors. But Fox, those same industry specialists believed, had the better arrangers and orchestrators, individual instrumentalists, and orchestra – like actors and actresses, musicians were also contracted by studio and the major studios boasted an in-house orchestra (in 1946, for example, MGM’s orchestra might record the score to The Yearling, followed the next workday by recording a Tom and Jerry short film.) Thus, attentive listeners will notice that Fox musicals from the 1930s-1950s will sound richer than their counterparts from Paramount, RKO, or Disney.

For Three Little Girls in Blue, Alfred Newman serves as the musical director supervising composer Josef Myrow (1947’s Mother Wore Tights, 1950’s Wabash Avenue) and lyricist/producer Mack Gordon (1940’s Down Argentine Way, 1943’s Hello, Frisco, Hello). Myrow and Gordon’s songs contribute the plot better than most musicals during this era, which could sometimes approach the material like a revue musical. Many of the songs are integrated in the film’s score, none more than “On the Boardwalk (In Atlantic City)” – which has become an unofficial anthem for Atlantic City. Other than the film’s opener, “A Farmer’s Life is a Very Merry Life”, this is the only time where all three actresses (Vera-Ellen’s singing dubbed by Carol Stewart) sing as a trio. It is a merry waltz, full of optimism and yearning to escape their modest means. In all its innocence, the tune is quoted by the score across the film as a reminder to the audience the goals and wide-eyed personalities of Pam, Liz, and Myra. The lush orchestrations one expects from a Fox musical appear in “Somewhere in the Night” (sung by Vivian Blaine) and the film’s most iconic number “You Make Me Feel So Young” – famously covered by Frank Sinatra and, given the probable age of Vera-Ellen’s and Charles Smith’s (singing voice dubbed by Del Porter) characters, make little lyrical sense.

Beside that quibble for “You Make Me Feel So Young”, one does not cast Vera-Ellen in a movie without giving her a dancing number. With dance direction by Seymour Felix (1936’s The Great Ziegfeld, 1942’s Yankee Doodle Dandy), Vera-Ellen athletically moves and taps her way across a fantastical stage, recalling the childhood frills of first crushes and a surrounding world that is larger than life. It may not be set amid hypnotic production design that could be expected in an MGM or Busby Berkeley-choreograph Warner Bros. musical, but the individual choreography is dizzyingly complex – mixing tap, ballet, and jazz dancing. This dance plays into the lyrics, swung gently by the orchestra, and cementing the song’s place as a mid-century standard. Other reviewers are more qualified to comment on Vera-Ellen’s moves than I, but there is no denying her footwork and physicality here.

Of the film’s three principal actresses, Vera-Ellen would proceed to have the most accomplished film career. June Haver would be overshadowed by other actresses at Fox; Vivian Blaine, who began her career as a stage actress, returned to the stage. Vera-Ellen reeled off one critical and commercial hit after another, but as demand for movie musicals waned in the late 1950s, so did her film career. Only appearing for a few minutes, Celeste Holm is the actress who would have the greatest presence in Hollywood history. Within several years, Holm’s career included memorable roles in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) opposite Gregory Peck and All About Eve (1950) – Holm would be somewhat judgmental of anyone, however, to anyone who listed either of those two movies as their favorite Celeste Holm film.

20th Century Fox, before its purchase by Disney in 2019, seemed disinterested in or lacked the resources to promote its classic library. Now under new ownership that is sending signals that they do not give a damn about the enormous film library they have just acquired, the status of Fox’s catalog is uncertain. Films released within the last few decades should be safe, and maybe the odd classic movie like All About Eve (which in any case probably won’t be made too available because it doesn’t adhere to the contemporary Disney brand) and The Sound of Music (1965; which fits with the brand). But a film like Three Little Girls in Blue – its plot bunk, its male characters baloney – may be endangered. This is not one of the eminent musicals in Fox’s library, nor will it garner much attention on home media or streaming (this is a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma, though, because many potential viewers do not realize what a classic Fox musical is and, because of Disney’s policies, it is not easy for them to find out whether they might want to see such a movie). But the committed performances, solid musical score, and posh Technicolor are worth preserving, commemorating, writing about, and viewing.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[honeykrps]

From Schwarzenegger to Damon

We just proceed chronologically. 10 cars from the life and films of Arnold Schwarzenegger. From Terminator to Last Action Hero, his time as Governator to The Last Stand. But what would a tango evening be without Tango dancers? The formation "Tango Argentino" of the dance school Lohbrandt will therefore put the original Argentine tango "on the floor" under the direction of Peter Keup. The new DC adventure with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role already has 2.64 million viewers after its third week. This places the film, which has been hotly debated due to many brutal scenes, in third place in the annual cinema charts. The value orientation in areas such as drug use, political radicalism or xenophobia is also examined with particular sensitivity. If the weather is bad, the Tango Festival will be moved to the Kathrin-Türks-Halle, so the event will definitely take place. However, only 500 tickets (hall capacity for this event) can be sold in advance. "Ctrl Shift Face" is said to be 31 years old and come from Slovakia. He does not want to reveal his exact identity. The Slovakian video editor Ctrl Shift Face is currently playing a lot with deepfake software. And you have to jealously confirm that he is quite good at it. And you also have to realize that it can get pretty spooky in the future. “Terminator” Arnold Schwarzenegger says that bodybuilding is not boring at 72, even in his own words. "You see, I consider it the same as sleeping or eating or sex," said the Hollywood star from Austria in an interview with "Der Spiegel" magazine. "Politicians or state actors could use" deep fakes "to run information campaigns. This becomes a real problem if the recipient does not or cannot check the authenticity of the message, ”says Hasse.

Pre-program - Tango dancing

With the help of so-called neural networks, the faces of people are recorded in original videos. Jack Garfein survived the Holocaust, bringing James updated blog post Dean the acting and stood as a director behind the camera. Now he died at the age of 89. Directed a male domain? Around the age of nine, children begin to differentiate between fictional and real stories. A distancing perception is possible.