herbiehancock

No 349 - Arthur Director - Steve Gordon Dudley Moore's Arthur is a bit of a weird one. He comes of as a bit unhinged. Especially at the start of the film. He is a bit of a laughing drunken loon. Reminiscent of a drunken uncle - cackling wildly at his own rubbish jokes. He is however manic and naive. A bit hopeless. He speaks about happiness and having fun but you can see that really, he isn't all that happy. He hasn't found that release yet. He is sort of pathetic - hanging out with prostitutes and getting blind drunk, just because he can afford to. It all changes when Arthur (who is an arranged marriage in order to keep his inheritance ) meets Liza Minelli's Linda. A lower class, shoplifting kook. And whilst I've never seen Liza Minelli as attractive, she is definitely cool. This film really provides a platform for her kooky cool - and you can see why young Arthur becomes obsessed about her. So, essentially the main plot is a love triangle between the hopeless...

No 367 - Cabaret Director - Bob Fosse Last year an invitation fluttered electronically onto my doormat. My Facebook doormat. It was an invitation for the New Sheridan Club's Christmas party and the theme was painfully precise. Weimar Berlin it shouted out. I was confused, I contacted outside help. "Oh!" came the exasperated sigh of a reply "Just watch Cabaret". So a year later I did. The film follows two friends/lovers as the parade through the decadence of Weimar Berlin and their scrapes and escapades throughout. What I like about this film is that the majority of the film is as flippant and as flighty as that sentence. Then it changes, after all... you can't have 1920's and 1930's Berlin without having a bit of a Nazi rise to power. But before we speak of such things, let us look at the magic of the titular Cabaret. The most important name to mention is Fosse . Him of the jazz dance wizardry. As we enter the world of the Cabaret, we are hit by...