Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Come to the Cabaret

Ha. Have marched confidently into the modern technology market by finally purchasing a DVD player. Previously, all DVDs had to be watched on my Playstation, but that stopped playing them some time ago.

Faced with the alarming choice of complicated modern technology, I opted cheerfully for a DVD player from the supermarket which came in a plain white box and cost £19.99. I am pleased with this. I like cheap, utilitarian electronics from the supermarket. In the same way I like their cheap, functional T-shirts.

It works well, and I was enthused enough to buy copy of Cabaret, one of my favourite movies. Cabaret is such masterpiece, I love it. Why, I wonder, did Liza Minnelli never star in anything else?

It was sometimes said, as a criticism of the film, that Liza Minnelli's fabulous performance as a nightclub artist made a bit of a mockery of the whole story. Because the whole point of the story, really, was that the character she was playing was meant to be a lousy cabaret artist. Which is a fair criticism, I suppose. But it's still a great film.

* money money money, money money money... *

Excuse me, I was just humming one of the songs.

Joel Grey is excellent, as the Master of Ceremonies. Many years later, he turned up unexpectedly in season five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He actually stabbed Dawn! But Dawn was quite an annoying character anyway.

I may now be inspired to watch more films. I do have fourteen movie channels on cable, but I rarely watch them. You would be amazed how many poor films my cable network can show on fourteen channels.

4 comments:

  1. Oh, I love musicals! My favourite film is West Side Story, but I have a very soft spot for Cabaret. It's brilliantly scripted, acted and filmed. Definitely Minelli's finest hour - nothing she did after came anywhere near close, sadly.

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  2. Anonymous2:36 pm

    for me it's a tie between sound of music and carmen jones for musicals. with singing in the rain a close second. but i'll watch anything with audrey hepburn anyday.

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  3. Anonymous3:09 pm

    The first half-hour of New York New York starring Liza Minelli is very good indeed, although it goes downhill after that so you may be better just renting that one.

    I wish they'd brought Doc back onto Buffy, he was a great character and not really explored enough. I think he may have been the inspiration for a similar character called Bilis Manger in Torchwood recently (who again was sort of quickly written out, then again Torchwood is pretty rubbish I'm afraid).

    andrea

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  4. Anonymous2:19 am

    liza minneli was great in arrested development. too bad they cancelled the show after the 3rd season

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