AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

calvinnme Revisiting this film, I was immediately pulled in by Howard Keel's opening song Bless Your Beautiful Hide. Audacious even in it's day, there's a tenderness in Mercer's lyrics that makes it somewhat forgivable-remember suspending your reality for a musical? Handsome Howard Keel's virility doesn't hurt. Instead of recoiling over the idea of "finding a wife" I just rolled with it as a silly plot idea. Once I had put myself in the same fantasy mode as when watching a Busby Berkeley musical, I started enjoying it. I really paid attention to the musical numbers, most notably the Barn Dance & Lonesome Polecat. Amazing. Not too many dances in movies were designed to actually TELL a story, showing what the characters were feeling so eloquently. The Barn Dance scene is the best example I've ever seen of this. The dancing styles of townies vs mountaineers, the girl's being hoisted up in the air, the colors, the acrobatics all contribute to a very coherent "story" in dance.Lonesome Polecat is also just extraordinary. It has a low base line of something like 3/4 but the lyrics are sung in some odd time signature like 5/9. (help me here music experts) The choreography too, is just excellent- the men really stand out as athletic, as is typical in many cultures such as Indian & Hawaiian dances.I was again struck by how awful crazy the story line is, but how easily it's vindicated by Keel's character explaining how tough life is for mountain settlers. And Janie Powell was so perfect as the sweet young pretty girl who makes lemonade out of a bunch of sour lemons. The entire story is really about how she orchestrates a success out of her bad situation. I like that she's physically tiny but controls the fate of everyone in the story, not with weak conniving but with strong confident guidance.At first you think this is a terribly sexist story, but it's truly a pioneering and feminist story.

Vonia Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) Director: Stanley Donen Watched: May 2018 Rating: 5/10 Gorgeous set design, Fun, laughs, and catchy numbers. That was how things were, But kidnapping girls for maids? Could not get past brash sexism. Tanka, literally "short poem", is a form of poetry consisting of five lines, unrhymed, with the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable format. #Tanka #PoemReview #Musical

Majikat A nostalgic childhood favourite of mine, I would watch at least 3 scenes every day. Including some iconic songs and scenes, this one is all singing, all dancing!

mark.waltz I'm sure that in 1954, any thought of this being misogynistic was only noticed by the most extreme of early feminists, granddaughters of suffragettes who wanted to toss a fly in the ointment of the real message of this macho musical. This gives no denial to the fact that they knew that the Howard Keel character was a male chauvinist pig, unapologetically so, and in the mountains of North America, why would he be any other way? He's searching for a wife, and finds her in the willing Jane Powell. He likes her spunk, and basically, it seems at first that his only sin is not telling her that there are six more just like him back at home. Powell, of course, has her initial hopes dashed, realizing that she's stuck after having been received. But the lovely Jane is no pushover, and gives them all what for. They slowly learn how to be gentlemen, but more often than not, turn back to their he-man ways as they pursue six of the lovely ladies back in civilization, eventually taking drastic measures that results with the women getting revenge and the marriage of Keel and Powell in danger of ending even before it's begun.The handsome six find their beautiful six, and a dance number between the uneducated young men and more civilized ladies ends up being the highlight of the film. Acting honors go to Jane Powell who gives even more toughness than she gets, and Russ Tamblyn as the youngest brother who ends up having a smarter head on his shoulders even than Keel.A great musical score adds to the cinematic look of this lesson in how to (and how not to) treat a lady, so anybody who sees this through misogynistic eyes is not seeing the point of the film clearly. Audiences of the 1950's were clearly smarter than today's in seeing what the brothers did as wrong, but quickly realizing that they would pay for their sins, even with a happy ending.This is one of those movie musicals that tried but failed to work on stage, and in it's 1980's re-conceptualization, I can see why it didn't work. It's fantastic on a big screen with beautiful sets capturing the wonders of nature. The fact that all six ladies end up falling for the brothers may disturb some progressive audiences, but in the context of a different time and a simpler world, it makes much more sense.