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Wisefan
Reviews
Tipping the Velvet (2002)
Superb version of book
I read the Sarah Waters novel two years ago. From page one it gripped me. The Victorian scene was beautifully created but most of all I fell in love with the main character of Nan Astley. Hearing a drama would be made I desperately wanted it to do justice to the book.
I was not disappointed. Rachael Stirling as Nan is tantalisingly attractive. I cannot get her out of her mind. Keeley Hawes as the male impersonator Kitty ravishes my emotions. Anna Chancellor as the sexual predatory widow Diana is outrageously good. Jodhi May as Florence is heart-wrenching. The production qualities are top-notch, the music clever .
I like badgers scrotum's best.
He Walks in Beauty: The George Stevens Production 'The Greatest Story Ever Told' (2001)
Response to original comments
The Greatest Story Ever Told is one of my favourite films, and also one of the most critically underrated. I saw it first in 1965 at the Casino Cinerama cinema in London. Being a Christian I was deeply moved, especially by Max Von Sydow as Jesus. Since then I have three separate video versions. I am eager to discover the 240 minute version. But I see that the DVD, containing the documentary "He Walks in Beauty" has no UK release dates, which is very unfair since I suspect there is a core of fans in England who like me love admire and respect the film and what the great director George Stevens was trying to do. As Max Von Sydow said: "No film like this can please everybody so in a sense it was a failure, but it was a very beautiful and a very moving failure."
West Side Story (1961)
Re Academy Awards for West Side Story
Time after time I see in the record books that the films with the most Academy Awards are Ben-Hur and Titanic, both with eleven Oscars. West Side Story is then quoted as third with ten awards. Let me, if nobody else does, set the record straight for this musical masterpiece. It received ELEVEN, not ten, but ELEVEN Oscars, ten regular and one special, to Jerome Robbins "for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography."