FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #11: Victor Victoria [1982]

“I’d sleep with you for a meatball” You’re down on your luck, famished, and unable to get a job despite having a voice like no other. What do you do? Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is asking herself that very question when we see her auditioning for Chez Lui—a dump populated by gangsters and hotheads that’s closed almost ever other night due to brawls. This soprano can shatter glass with a high B-flat at whim but her empty stomach barely allows her to walk home. And then, of course, once she’s…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #4: The Music Man [1962]

“You have trouble folks, right here in River City” Could Harold Hill be the best con man in cinema history? A man never for a loss of words, Robert Preston’s rendition of The Music Man puts forth a gentleman of great art, tastes, and disarming charm who is both loathsome and irresistible once you find out the truth behind his schemes. Salesmen despise him—and they aren’t too upstanding themselves—due to jealousy in how he can hawk his wares, no matter what they are, to any unsuspecting citizen in any sleepy…

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FILM MARATHON #3: Movie Musicals (Broadway & Original)

The reason I started doing my marathon series was to finally start seeing films I’ve neglected and needed to see. Doing the filmography of Terrence Malick couldn’t have turned out better with some of the greatest works of cinema I’ve ever seen. Days of Heaven easily vaulted itself into my top 10 of all-time and The Thin Red Line wasn’t too far behind. Checking out Julia Roberts films might have made me realize I’ve been wrongly ignoring her abilities as an actor, but Malick has given me a new auteur…

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