ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[memento]

IMDB: Both trifles and structure are tossed out the door by director Ken Russell in this film. Here, historical content matters not so much as metaphors, feelings, emotions, and interpretations, and pay close attention, as every word and frame is intended to be important. The film takes place on a single train ride, in which the sickly, aged composer Gustav Mahler and his wife, Alma, confront the reasons behind their faltered marriage and dying love. Each word seems to evoke memories of past, and so the audience witnesses events of Mahler's life that explain somewhat his present state. Included are his turbulent and dysfunctional family life as a child, his discovery of solace in the "natural" world, his brother's suicide, his [unwanted] conversion from Judiasm to Catholicism, his rocky marriage and the death of his young children. The movie weaves in and out of dreams, flashbacks, thoughts and reality as Russell poetically describes the man behind the music.

[Meryl]

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From IMDb: Set in the early 1910s at a time of passionate artistic experimentalism, and based on biographical fact, this is the story of Vaslav Nijinsky, the young and brilliant but headstrong premier danseur and aspiring choreographer of the Ballets Russes. The company is managed by the famous Sergei Diaghilev, himself a controlling and fiercely possessive impresario. The increasing tension between these powerful egos, exacerbated by homosexual desire and jealousy, becomes triangular when the young ballerina Romola de Pulsky determinedly attempts to draw the increasingly mentally unstable Nijinsky away from Diaghilev.

[Fran]

Paul Giamatti will play noted science-fiction author Philip K. Dick in the semi-biopic "The Owl In Daylight."

Philip K. Dick

From IMDb:  The life story of science fiction author Philip K. Dick, whose novels inspired such popular films as "Blade Runner," "Total Recall," and "Minority Report" and includes "Owl In Daylight," the author's great unwritten novel.

[oilgun]

Plot: Based on the true story of Henri Charriere, also known as Papillon, which is French for 'butterfly' (the character even sports a large tattoo of a butterfly). A petty criminal, Papillon is wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to life in a French penal colony in 'Guiane' (French Guiana, South America). Papillon is determined to escape but attempt after attempt meets with difficulty, resulting in eventual recapture. He continues his attempts to escape despite incarcerations in solitary confinement as punishment.

[Fran]

P is not Q! 

LOL

[southendmd]

A short French documentary, "Who Is Alice Guy?"   We may never know, as IMDb gives no info whatsoever...

[oilgun]

Plot:  Farinelli, is the artistic name of Carlo Broschi, a young singer in Handel's time. He was castrated in his childhood in order to preserve his voice. During his life he becomes to be a very famous opera singer, managed by his mediocre brother (Riccardo).

I was very disappointed with FARINELLI.  Maybe I was expecting it to be a bit sexier because I had recently read Anne Rice's novel about Venetian castrati called CRY TO HEAVEN, which is just full of hot castrato sex(!).  Anyway this movie left me ..ahem..unmoved.

[oilgun]

=whoops= Fran
You are doing "Q", aren't you?

Nice try, Paul! 

[southendmd]

Nice try, Paul! 

Hey, I fixed it!  I deleted my "Rob Roy". 

I misread Fran's P is not Q LOL as something else!

Oh, feel free to use "Rob Roy".

[memento]

IMDB: Remember that man in the rainbow-colored Afro wig who carried the "John 3:16" sign? During the 70s and 80s he seemed to be everywhere: at televised baseball and football games, shuttle launches, and hundreds of other events. So who was he, and what ever happened to him? In Sam Green's award-winning new "slapstick tragedy," we find out. And the truth involving an unhappy childhood, a kidnapped hotel maid, and three life sentences in prison is stranger than fiction.

Hey, I fixed it!  I deleted my "Rob Roy". 

I misread Fran's P is not Q LOL as something else!

Oh, feel free to use "Rob Roy".

Rob Roy would have been too easy. I've got to try to use my brain somehow.