Dancing At The Movies

An amazingly put together medley of dance sequences from musical movies; every bit fits in perfectly with the music throughout. Hope you enjoy it, I certainly did, immensely.

Nicholas Brothers In Stormy Weather

Fred Astaire certainly didn't exaggerate one little bit that this being the greatest dance number ever filmed. I can watch it over & over again!!

If Only Jesse Is My Dog! (3)

Kubrick's Lolita

Amongst many famous and unforgettable movies made by the brilliant film director Stanley Kubrick, 'Lolita' made definite and positive mark in changing how cinematography dealt with eroticism in the film history, in the late 50's through to the early 60's. This problematic adaptation from the no less problematic novel of the Russian author Vladimir Nabokov, was about a middle-aged professor's obsession for a precocious, 13 year old teenager. This film was prohibited in the United States until 1958.

It was Nabokov himself, in his first and only time, took on the adaptation of his own book into a film script (which earned him a nomination for an Oscar) although, to avoid the very strict censorship and hypocritical views from certain sectors, he changed the age of the girl to a 16 year old. The erotic scenes in the book had also been mitigated and 'softened' (What a shame!).

Under his direction, the main characters were meticulously portrayed and splendidly acted by James Mason as the professor, Sue Lyon as Lolita (Whatever happened to that actress?) and the always fantastic and multifaceted actress Shelley Winters, as mistress of the professor and mother of Lolita. Peter Sellers was also in the cast and nothing less than brilliant as usual in whatever character he played.

This story of sexual obsession was picked up in a vacuum totally unnecessarily by Adrian Lyne in a remake, with Jeremy Iron in the role of the professor. Excellent dramatic actor as he always is, he was paled in comparison by Mason in my opinion.

There's a Spanish saying: 'Rizar el rizo', (literally to curl the curl) meaning if you have curly hair already why curl it? And I think this is exactly apt to describe remakes of outstanding films; most of them somehow not quite up to the scratch of the originals. How can one perfect perfection?

I saw the rerun of this film about 2 years ago, and for those who are interested, it will be on again tonight at the Spanish Channel 8TV. The films lasts 152 minutes. It's rather long, but to me, not a minute is wasted.

Tags:Kubrick,Lolita

• Current Mood: Artistic

Suicide Online - Mis-placed Value

Another anecdote, a very sad one, now forms an unfortunate part of the Internet 'incidents', on the social web page that you, I, and millions of others are connected to. Not just about socializing any more, also about death. Abraham Biggs, a young man of 19, posted on one of these Blog sites, to be exact - on BuddyBuilding.com - a disturbing note of intended suicide, in which he announced that for those who wished to and had a web-cam, could view live the whole process of his self inflicted death. At the actual gruesome moment taking place, the web record showed 181 people were connected to his page. Some of these had alerted the police, but they didn't arrive in time. Amongst the written comments accompanying the images, were exclamations like "Oh my God, no!!" but there were quite a few more aptly described as 'guffaws'. Blog sites offer great opportunities to connect with people, share interests, ideas, experiences, experiments, to teach or learn, to buy or sell, to look for whatever one seeks ... but there amongst the users, more vulnerably the adolescents, who live in a sort of unrecognised schizophrenia, who have personalities real and normal for their families and friends, but at the same time having constructed for themselves another quite different personality, identity or environment online, a digital personality. Sort of a haven or refuge, compensating for all the disappointments or frustrations they feel they have in their day to day life. When the balance tips the wrong way, tragedy might happen. I certainly don't mean Internet is to be blamed for all the bad things, not even this very sad suicide. It would be the same as to condemn trains because there have been people who threw themselves onto the tracks. I feel that preventive cautions can be taken only when education in school, and in the family, is adequately given not just to gain academic knowledge, but to build a sane and healthy mind, being able to recognise right and wrong, and the true value of life. May tomorrow be a much happier one for everybody. Tags:suicideonline

• Current Mood: Anxious