No 211 - Moulin Rouge! Director - Baz Luhrmann I remember very vividly when I first saw this film. I was in sixth form when it came out, and was a student of 'Theatre Studies', so there was naturally a lot of talk about this overtly theatrical piece. However, I was not convinced that I would enjoy it, it looked overtly soppy, a chicks film. Finally I was convinced to go and see it (Tom Done, who was in the year above and who was utterly terrifying, though who is now a good friend, won me over by stating the line I have used as a title. Surely a film MUST be good if it features unconscious Argentinians and cross dressing dwarfs!). So one evening I went to the Regent cinema in Wantage ( now shut down ) with my best friends Hanna and Richard . The film completely blew me away, and is the only film that has managed to firmly grab my attention in the first second, as the curtains open and the conductor arrives to play the 20th Century Fox theme. It uses the production company's
December 27, 2009. Watched DVD: Bus Stop (Joshua Logan, 1956). With RH and my very own Romain Duris double. My zillionth viewing since the 1970s. Never tire of it. Marilyn Monroe is so utterly moving, pseudo Southern accent and all. See the way she walks? Hear the way she talks? The way she switches on the RED stagelight with her high-heeled shoe? Don Murray plays a virgin very convincingly, at age 27. Depending on who you identify with, you can fantasize you're being literallyt swept off your feet by the boyish big butch cowboy, or you're winning the "gal." Any of her movies between 1953 is highly worth it, anyway, especially Billy Wilder's 1959 Some Like It Hot, obviously.
