"It has been a really tough weekend," Camping said Sunday, after emerging from his Alameda, California home for the first time to talk to a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle. "I'm looking for answers ... But now I have nothing else to say"
89-year-old Harold Camping's admission that he's "flabbergasted" the world didn't end last weekendOh cheer up Harold. We all make mistakes. Its not the end of the world
Monday, May 23, 2011
Heard from the Street
I can't take credit for these but it is just too brilliant not to share out
Sunday, May 8, 2011
星光伴我心之中西合壁
One of my somewhat embarrassing-to-admit interests is old black & white movies. I can never pass the opportunity if I happened to glance an old movie playing on TV when I was flipping through channels. That even included old-fashioned 粵語殘片, much to the annoyance of the people I live with since most of them would sneer at their corniness. Admittedly many 粵語殘片 are dated story and tilted acting galore, some actually are, however, in reasonably high quality (particularly those by 中聯) if only you give it a chance and judge it based on its own context. Naturally it caught my attention when net acquaintance Chris introduce the 粵語殘片 actress 麗兒 in his blog 子貓物語~~附庸風雅
麗兒 (Marianne Quon) is, of course, a ground-breaking Chinese actress in both Hollywood and Chinese movie history. However, what really took me a ride down the memory lane are the two actors in the audience in the above clip:
For those who are novice to 粵語殘片, the one on the left is 鄭惠森, one of his more famous (recurring) roles is 凌雲階 in 關德興’s 黃飛鴻 series. The one on the right is an actor named 馮應湘. His name was more obscure today because he was primarily a character actor and passed away in the mid 50s already. However, seeing 馮應湘 in the clip above has reminded me one of the most unusual 粵語殘片 I had once watched by chance when I was a kid years ago. 馮應湘 was often cast as ne’er-do-well or playboys but in this particular case not only did he play a hero, he actually played a superhero. I only remember bits and pieces of the movie but the part I remember is something like this:
It was an ensemble movie and 馮應湘 was just one of the many cast members who have super power but his is the one I remember the most. I have never come across this movie again and often I wonder if that actually happened at all. If this movie really did exist, it must be one of the first ever superhero movies in Hong Kong.
Now that my memory of the movie was triggered once again, I set out to locate the movie but even though 馮應湘 died at the relatively young age of 46, he has made a staggering two hundred something movies in his short life and most of them have details missing to say the least. It will need some detective work to find the match, if at all. Fortunately with its unusual storyline, I managed find a movie named 亂世英雄 (A Hero of Troubled Times) in 中國影視資料館 with the following synopsis and list of cast, characters:
The plot sounds like a page you ripped off from an episode of the 70s comic book superhero series Super Friends 萬能勇士:
萬能勇士
Remember that American TV program, featuring 正義堂 (The Justice League of America), 雙子少俠 (Super Twins)...? In fact, it is not hard to detect the American influence on 亂世英雄 from the photo still of the movie in 中國影視資料館:
Here we have the hypnotist wearing a sultan outfit that recalls the sorcerers in many old Hollywood fantasy movies like The Thief of Bagdad, an American cowboy and even a blackface, a distinctive (not to mention extremely racist and politically incorrect) piece of Americana.
The only other info I can find on 亂世英雄 is this photo still I came across on a discussion board on Hong Kong nostalgia, featuring "離魂秘客金萬成" (played by 鄭君綿) on the left and "迷魂賊章大朋" (played by 姚萍) on the right:
Even people of my generation would recognize 鄭君綿 since he had acted on TV from time to time until he passed away in 1994. He was famous for impersonating Elvis Presley during his 粵語殘片 days and he was nicknamed “東方貓王”. According to 中國影視資料館, 亂世英雄 was released in 1950, when Elvis had yet to put out a record. Looking at the above photo still, I can’t help but wondering if 鄭君綿 was channeling the famous Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí.
鄭君綿 vs. Salvador Dalí's self portrait
Even though I haven’t found any clip of 亂世英雄, I can’t tell you how excited I was to be able to locate the name of a movie that had lived in my memory for so long. For I have never met anyone who has recollection of such an odd 粵語殘片, even from people of my parents’ generation. Once and for all I proved that I didn’t dream the whole movie up. Next time I am in Hong Kong I definitely will try my luck with 亂世英雄 at Hong Kong Film Archive. In the meanwhile it would be more than welcome to hear from anyone who knows anything about the movie or how to get hold of it.
麗兒 (Marianne Quon) is, of course, a ground-breaking Chinese actress in both Hollywood and Chinese movie history. However, what really took me a ride down the memory lane are the two actors in the audience in the above clip:
For those who are novice to 粵語殘片, the one on the left is 鄭惠森, one of his more famous (recurring) roles is 凌雲階 in 關德興’s 黃飛鴻 series. The one on the right is an actor named 馮應湘. His name was more obscure today because he was primarily a character actor and passed away in the mid 50s already. However, seeing 馮應湘 in the clip above has reminded me one of the most unusual 粵語殘片 I had once watched by chance when I was a kid years ago. 馮應湘 was often cast as ne’er-do-well or playboys but in this particular case not only did he play a hero, he actually played a superhero. I only remember bits and pieces of the movie but the part I remember is something like this:
There was a guy who took refuge in 馮應湘‘s house because he was on the run from some kind of (righteous) mission. Unbeknown to this man, 馮應湘 happened to have a jacket that can turn him invisible. As a result, they decide to join force together to carry out the mission...
It was an ensemble movie and 馮應湘 was just one of the many cast members who have super power but his is the one I remember the most. I have never come across this movie again and often I wonder if that actually happened at all. If this movie really did exist, it must be one of the first ever superhero movies in Hong Kong.
Now that my memory of the movie was triggered once again, I set out to locate the movie but even though 馮應湘 died at the relatively young age of 46, he has made a staggering two hundred something movies in his short life and most of them have details missing to say the least. It will need some detective work to find the match, if at all. Fortunately with its unusual storyline, I managed find a movie named 亂世英雄 (A Hero of Troubled Times) in 中國影視資料館 with the following synopsis and list of cast, characters:
新任市長章大朋的真正身份是大盜'迷魂賊', 其妻梅玲則是'野女郎'. 二人軟禁了前市長馬頌潮, 企圖迫他道出國家藏金的所在, 但頌潮一直不肯就範. 由政府首都派來的監察員金萬成正對大朋的舉動有所懷疑, 遂展開追查, 並聯同'女黑俠'呂秀雲施計營救馬市長. 秀雲以歌女身份混入大朋的迷宮, 與萬成裡應外合. 此際梅玲發現了她的勁敵'玉面霸王'史劍青及其妻雪蝶尋至, 便擬先下手為強, 除掉雪蝶. 劍青在逃命期間結識了'隱形博士'戴鐵龍, 二人決定合力除害, 對付大朋夫婦. 各路英雄用不同方法混進迷宮, 皆被識破, 最後萬成巧施催眠術, 加上隱形博士的隱形衣, 終告打敗迷魂賊夫婦, 成功救出頌潮復職, 社會回復太平.
羅品超 .... 玉面霸王史劍青
郭秀珍 .... 野女郎梅玲
姚萍 .... 迷魂賊章大朋
徐人心 .... 女黑俠呂秀雲
鄭君綿 .... 離魂秘客金萬成
馬小玲 .... 周雪蝶
譚子駒 .... 陸隊長
冼江 .... 特務長
馮應湘 .... 隱形博士戴鐵龍
藍菲 .... 馬頌潮
林華 .... 獄卒
佩佩 .... 蕙絲
The plot sounds like a page you ripped off from an episode of the 70s comic book superhero series Super Friends 萬能勇士:
Remember that American TV program, featuring 正義堂 (The Justice League of America), 雙子少俠 (Super Twins)...? In fact, it is not hard to detect the American influence on 亂世英雄 from the photo still of the movie in 中國影視資料館:
Here we have the hypnotist wearing a sultan outfit that recalls the sorcerers in many old Hollywood fantasy movies like The Thief of Bagdad, an American cowboy and even a blackface, a distinctive (not to mention extremely racist and politically incorrect) piece of Americana.
The only other info I can find on 亂世英雄 is this photo still I came across on a discussion board on Hong Kong nostalgia, featuring "離魂秘客金萬成" (played by 鄭君綿) on the left and "迷魂賊章大朋" (played by 姚萍) on the right:
Even people of my generation would recognize 鄭君綿 since he had acted on TV from time to time until he passed away in 1994. He was famous for impersonating Elvis Presley during his 粵語殘片 days and he was nicknamed “東方貓王”. According to 中國影視資料館, 亂世英雄 was released in 1950, when Elvis had yet to put out a record. Looking at the above photo still, I can’t help but wondering if 鄭君綿 was channeling the famous Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí.
Even though I haven’t found any clip of 亂世英雄, I can’t tell you how excited I was to be able to locate the name of a movie that had lived in my memory for so long. For I have never met anyone who has recollection of such an odd 粵語殘片, even from people of my parents’ generation. Once and for all I proved that I didn’t dream the whole movie up. Next time I am in Hong Kong I definitely will try my luck with 亂世英雄 at Hong Kong Film Archive. In the meanwhile it would be more than welcome to hear from anyone who knows anything about the movie or how to get hold of it.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wedding Madness
Not until now did I realize what a big worldwide obsession the British Royal family is
I was in Milan when the news of the engagement between Prince William and Catherine Middleton broke. All day and all night it was Will and Kate on the hotel TV (in Italian naturally). Back in Boston we have been bombarded with every little detail of the upcoming nuptial for weeks (or was it months?). Even a local bicycle enthusiast had become headline news simply because she shares the same namesake with the bride to be:
And I thought the Yanks had fought a war against their former landlord!!
For me all I can say is time and tide – It doesn’t seem that long ago we were witnessing Diana madness when a twenty year old kindergarten teacher walked down the aisle to the arm of a (marginally) dashing prince, and now it is her son’s turn. How quietly the years can creep up on you!
In additions to the well wishing, the press has kept reassuring us that the road ahead for the engaged couple will be much less rocky than their predecessors – they are much closer in age; they have been together for almost a decade; the prince is not pressured into marriage this time; Kate grew up in a happier childhood and is more educated… etc. One particular argument the press like to emphasize is that Kate is far more worldly, confident and sophisticated than Diana was at the time of the wedding, so the verdict is Kate would be more ‘prepared’ for intense scrutiny to come, or is it so?
I have never actually paid much attention to Kate Middleton before but in the midst of the Royal Wedding frenzy I decide to dig up the interviews of both couples before their wedding on YouTube:
William and Kate do look like they are very excited and happy but which engaged couple wouldn’t? You could say the same about Charles and Diana at the time as well and we all know how the latter turned out to be. Diana did sound like ditsy and babbling at times but she was also more straight forward and uninhibited. Kate, on the other hand, appeared a lot more subdue than I expect. Apart from the bit where she said she was grateful that they have split up for awhile because it allowed her to grow and see relationship in a more realistic perspective, she didn’t appear to be particularly perceptive about their union. Especially when she was asked about the difficulty of stepping into the shadow of Diana, which understandably will dog her for years to come, you would expect she must have thought of that and be prepared for questions like this but her response is disappointing and confusing.
However, what a revelation Prince William is, he is supposed to be the one that is uncomfortable and shy from the spotlight but he was quite at ease here. More importantly he was very protective and ready to jump in to dodge the bullet for his future wife when she appeared lost in the question. How reassuring it is to have your prince give you a pat on your lap and said “she will do really well”. No wonder he is one of the biggest heartthrobs of England in his time.
Every marriage will have its problem and no one will know what the future will hold. When you decide go into a marriage you'll need to be brave and I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone can be *prepared* for it to be done in such a public way if you aren't born into it. Well, good luck Kate!
I was in Milan when the news of the engagement between Prince William and Catherine Middleton broke. All day and all night it was Will and Kate on the hotel TV (in Italian naturally). Back in Boston we have been bombarded with every little detail of the upcoming nuptial for weeks (or was it months?). Even a local bicycle enthusiast had become headline news simply because she shares the same namesake with the bride to be:
And I thought the Yanks had fought a war against their former landlord!!
For me all I can say is time and tide – It doesn’t seem that long ago we were witnessing Diana madness when a twenty year old kindergarten teacher walked down the aisle to the arm of a (marginally) dashing prince, and now it is her son’s turn. How quietly the years can creep up on you!
In additions to the well wishing, the press has kept reassuring us that the road ahead for the engaged couple will be much less rocky than their predecessors – they are much closer in age; they have been together for almost a decade; the prince is not pressured into marriage this time; Kate grew up in a happier childhood and is more educated… etc. One particular argument the press like to emphasize is that Kate is far more worldly, confident and sophisticated than Diana was at the time of the wedding, so the verdict is Kate would be more ‘prepared’ for intense scrutiny to come, or is it so?
I have never actually paid much attention to Kate Middleton before but in the midst of the Royal Wedding frenzy I decide to dig up the interviews of both couples before their wedding on YouTube:
William and Kate do look like they are very excited and happy but which engaged couple wouldn’t? You could say the same about Charles and Diana at the time as well and we all know how the latter turned out to be. Diana did sound like ditsy and babbling at times but she was also more straight forward and uninhibited. Kate, on the other hand, appeared a lot more subdue than I expect. Apart from the bit where she said she was grateful that they have split up for awhile because it allowed her to grow and see relationship in a more realistic perspective, she didn’t appear to be particularly perceptive about their union. Especially when she was asked about the difficulty of stepping into the shadow of Diana, which understandably will dog her for years to come, you would expect she must have thought of that and be prepared for questions like this but her response is disappointing and confusing.
However, what a revelation Prince William is, he is supposed to be the one that is uncomfortable and shy from the spotlight but he was quite at ease here. More importantly he was very protective and ready to jump in to dodge the bullet for his future wife when she appeared lost in the question. How reassuring it is to have your prince give you a pat on your lap and said “she will do really well”. No wonder he is one of the biggest heartthrobs of England in his time.
Every marriage will have its problem and no one will know what the future will hold. When you decide go into a marriage you'll need to be brave and I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone can be *prepared* for it to be done in such a public way if you aren't born into it. Well, good luck Kate!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
AA制之旅: Going Dutch Part 1
What do you do when you have the whole house all to yourself and you will have to cook for the entire month? Since a lot of eating out is expected when cooking is never my favorite pastime, I figure out I might just get the double whammy by eating out abroad. There I was, searching for a cheap flight and found a fare to Amsterdam that costs me only a low USD 500. So off I go for a five-day rendezvous in the land of wooden cloggs, windmills and of course weeds.
Flying
, it is a low cost airline from Ireland that I have never heard of until this trip; naturally my flight had to connect at Dublin. There was a nearly four and a half hour wait for my connection, I have plenty of time to kill even after a breakfast, so I just did some Duty Free window shopping at Aerfort Bhaile Átha Cliath. One unusual service their Duty Free offers is hair salon:
I suppose that does make senses. There must be plenty of people who want to look their best after a long flight, when their hair just looks like a mess.
Because I felt I was ripped off in getting my Euro during my trip to Italy last November (which I still haven’t blogged yet), so this time I want to make sure I get the best deal by keeping track of the exchange rate at the airport, so here on the right is the rate at Schiphol Airport from ABN AMRO Bank, the biggest bank in Amsterdam, advertised in vs on the left the rate I got at Boston Logan Airport:
If I read it correctly, that means one USD will get me 0.64758 Euro in Amsterdam versus 0.639 Euro in Boston. In the end I didn't get my Euro in either places. Instead I get it through the ATM of my brokerage account at Schiphol airport since they don't charge any fee. After checking my brokerage account statement, I actually get 0.705408 Euro with one USD. So I guess that is a wise move but I must say either I have misunderstood the rates in kiosks at the airports or they are just high way robberies.
Two observations I have about Schiphol airport
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is about 19 km (roughly 10 miles) southwest of Amsterdam. If you don't know your way in Amsterdam, the best way to get to town from the airport is through the train service offered by GVB, the company that manages all the public transport of Amsterdam, including bus, tram and subway. The railway station conveniently located underneath the terminal complex of Schiphol and you can buy the train ticket in one of the yellow ticket vending machines that can be found at the terminal exit:
These machines supports multiple languages and are relatively easy to navigate but there are quite a few options to choose from: namely the one way or round trip, same day or open ticket, first class (which I suspect no one uses) or second class… Although the ticket vending machine has the capability to accept cash, this option happened to be unavailable in all the machines at the airport terminal when I was there. So I can only pay by credit card. However, credit cards purchase in Europe in general requires you to enter a PIN which does not exist in North American credit cards. I know there is a workaround if you want to use your American credit cards in Europe but that would require human intervention. So you would be out of luck with these machines when they are programmed to prompt you for your credit card PIN. In the end I had to buy my ticket with a live person at the ticket counters just outside of the terminal. The catch of this is the fare will cost you slightly more (maybe half a Euro) but that was my only option, or so I thought – after I paid my ticket I found that at the train station there are plenty more of these ticket vending machines and a few of them did have the pay by cash option available. One final word, there is an extra one Euro fee to pay by credit card, so if you are nickel and dime-ing with your traveling budget the cheapest option to reach downtown Amsterdam is to buy a second class train ticket on a vending machine by cash, for EUR 3.6 one way.
GVB offers a few different lines of train service and even within the same line they don’t always stop at every station. But since Centraal Station is the main hub of Amsterdam’s public transportation, almost every train will indicate whether or not it will stop there on the billboard. For instance, the 1:39 p.m. train below will not:
However, if you are unsure, don't be afraid to ask the people at the platform. The Dutch in general are very friendly people and everyone can speak English in the Netherlands, some are amazingly fluent even.
After years of enduring the subpar services of North American public transportation, it is always a pleasure to take the train in Europe. Notice the scheduled arrival time (left on the billboard) and the actual arrival time (on the right) of the train I was about to take in the clip below:
to be continue...
Flying
, it is a low cost airline from Ireland that I have never heard of until this trip; naturally my flight had to connect at Dublin. There was a nearly four and a half hour wait for my connection, I have plenty of time to kill even after a breakfast, so I just did some Duty Free window shopping at Aerfort Bhaile Átha Cliath. One unusual service their Duty Free offers is hair salon:
I suppose that does make senses. There must be plenty of people who want to look their best after a long flight, when their hair just looks like a mess.
Because I felt I was ripped off in getting my Euro during my trip to Italy last November (which I still haven’t blogged yet), so this time I want to make sure I get the best deal by keeping track of the exchange rate at the airport, so here on the right is the rate at Schiphol Airport from ABN AMRO Bank, the biggest bank in Amsterdam, advertised in vs on the left the rate I got at Boston Logan Airport:
If I read it correctly, that means one USD will get me 0.64758 Euro in Amsterdam versus 0.639 Euro in Boston. In the end I didn't get my Euro in either places. Instead I get it through the ATM of my brokerage account at Schiphol airport since they don't charge any fee. After checking my brokerage account statement, I actually get 0.705408 Euro with one USD. So I guess that is a wise move but I must say either I have misunderstood the rates in kiosks at the airports or they are just high way robberies.
Two observations I have about Schiphol airport
- It takes a long time go through the security checkpoint but the security checkpoint is done at the gate level instead of the restricted area level. Therefore, as long as you’ve checked in it is unlikely you would miss your flight because of delay in security checkpoint
- A more difficult phenomenon to get used to is that like everywhere else, the janitors for public toilets (after living in US for more than 20 years, I needs a more deliberated effort to say toilet instead of bathroom) are held by women but unlike most of the places I have been to, the janitors do NOT shut down the toilet when they work, including men’s toilet. That means when you are using the toilet, don’t be surprised there is a woman standing next to you and it seems everyone is quite nonchalant about that. In fact that seems to extend to the entire Amsterdam where the general close proximity between public men’s and women’s toilets would allow you a few view of interior of either sex (Amsterdam is known to be a very tolerating city where prostitution and marijuana are not outlawed; I wonder what their attitude toward Peeping Toms is). So you might want to stick with the stall instead of urinal if you desperately need your privacy.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is about 19 km (roughly 10 miles) southwest of Amsterdam. If you don't know your way in Amsterdam, the best way to get to town from the airport is through the train service offered by GVB, the company that manages all the public transport of Amsterdam, including bus, tram and subway. The railway station conveniently located underneath the terminal complex of Schiphol and you can buy the train ticket in one of the yellow ticket vending machines that can be found at the terminal exit:
These machines supports multiple languages and are relatively easy to navigate but there are quite a few options to choose from: namely the one way or round trip, same day or open ticket, first class (which I suspect no one uses) or second class… Although the ticket vending machine has the capability to accept cash, this option happened to be unavailable in all the machines at the airport terminal when I was there. So I can only pay by credit card. However, credit cards purchase in Europe in general requires you to enter a PIN which does not exist in North American credit cards. I know there is a workaround if you want to use your American credit cards in Europe but that would require human intervention. So you would be out of luck with these machines when they are programmed to prompt you for your credit card PIN. In the end I had to buy my ticket with a live person at the ticket counters just outside of the terminal. The catch of this is the fare will cost you slightly more (maybe half a Euro) but that was my only option, or so I thought – after I paid my ticket I found that at the train station there are plenty more of these ticket vending machines and a few of them did have the pay by cash option available. One final word, there is an extra one Euro fee to pay by credit card, so if you are nickel and dime-ing with your traveling budget the cheapest option to reach downtown Amsterdam is to buy a second class train ticket on a vending machine by cash, for EUR 3.6 one way.
GVB offers a few different lines of train service and even within the same line they don’t always stop at every station. But since Centraal Station is the main hub of Amsterdam’s public transportation, almost every train will indicate whether or not it will stop there on the billboard. For instance, the 1:39 p.m. train below will not:
However, if you are unsure, don't be afraid to ask the people at the platform. The Dutch in general are very friendly people and everyone can speak English in the Netherlands, some are amazingly fluent even.
After years of enduring the subpar services of North American public transportation, it is always a pleasure to take the train in Europe. Notice the scheduled arrival time (left on the billboard) and the actual arrival time (on the right) of the train I was about to take in the clip below:
to be continue...
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Reunited at the Oscar?
The last time I seriously followed the Oscar race Hong Kong was still under the Union Jack. I supposed as one grows older you can’t help but get more cynical about how self-congratulatory these so-called honours are. However, as this year’s race is approaching its frenzy finale I can’t resist sharing a little trivia I have noticed. Coming to the home stretch Colin Firth is no doubt the favorite to win the Best Actor; his George VI in The King’s Speech has all the prestige and momentum for the award. The fact that he lost out to Jeff Bridge last year could only boosts his chance this year even more. Only slightly more suspenseful is the Best Actress race, Natalie Portman has been on a roll in the last couple months: a new husband, a new baby, a number one box office hit, the only thing missing is a statuette which seems inevitable since Annette Bening is the only other serious contender. On the other hand, if everything pans out according to the script, that means once again Bening will play the bridesmaid. Although there is no hard evidence to it, common consensus is that Annette was the runner up in both 1999 and 2004, both times to Hilary Swank.
At 52, Annette Bening has long expired her leading lady time limit and this year will be her last realistic chance to win the Oscar for Best Actress but that dubiously could be her trumping card to pull off an upset, particularly when Natalie Portman is considered still at the dawn of her career. Supposed the Academy did decide to honour the award this year based on one’s career instead of an individual performance, that means it could reunite Colin Firth and Annette Bening at the winner podium. For at the very beginning of their Hollywood careers Firth and Bening co-starred together in an A-list production but with few audience called Valmont.
The first starring role for Bening and the first Hollywood movie for Firth, Valmont was the Czechoslovakia-born director Milos Forman's follow up his Oscar success Amadeus in 1989. Adapting from the Choderlos de Laclos' scandalous French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses about revenge and seduction, Valmont, like Amadeus, is another costume drama set in Baroque Europe. The producer no doubt was hoping that the similar format could duplicate the success of its predecessor. But what was unexpected is that in the middle of the production, rising British director Stephen Frears had announced his first foray into Hollywood should be Dangerous Liaisons (孽戀焚情), the movie adaption of Christopher Hampton’s stage production of the same novel, and its release date beat Valmont by eleven months. Dangerous Liaisons went on to great success during the Award season and firmly established Frears in Hollywood. Milos Foreman is famous for stories about underdogs such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon and Amadeus (Mozart is the underdog to Salieri within the movie). However, in this case Foreman had become the underdog himself and Valmont would need to be his extraordinary in order to have a chance, and it was not - Valmont impressed few critics, fizzled at the box office and it did nothing to further Colin Firth's career in Hollywood (History will repeat itself when the public largely ignored Infamous, the Toby Jones’ vehicle about author Truman Capote’s research for his book In Cold Blood, one year after Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for the same story in Capote). Nevertheless, it is always interesting to, given the same sources, compare two movies for the creative difference behind them. In this case, it is also a career starting point of two of this year's award favorites.
Dangerous Liaisons vs. Valmont
For those who are unfamiliar, the plot of Les Liaisons dangereuses revolves around a bet between widow Marquise de Merteuil and notorious womanizer Vicomte de Valmont. Upon learning her lover is deserting her for her second cousin, the young convent-educated Cécile de Volanges, Merteuil suggests her ex-lover Valmont to seduce Cécile in order to humiliate Cécile’s future husband. Valmont instead sets his eyes on Madame de Tourvel, the virtuous wife of a judge who is staying in the châteaux of Valmont’s old aunt. Merteuil then promises Valmont if he succeeds in sleeping with Tourvel she will spend the night with him. In the meantime, Cécile falls in love with her music tutor Chevalier Danceny and the two carry on a secret affair behind Cécile’s controlling mom. Seizing the opportunity, Merteuil and Valmont pretend to help uniting the secret lovers in order to gain their trust so that they can carry out their own schemes…
Benefited from a stage adaption, the dialogues of the movie Dangerous Liaisons were more literate and concise but delivered a more powerhouse punch. Frears casted two theatre veterans (and bigger stars), Glenn Close and John Malkovich, for the two leads in order to be faithful to the stage flavor, even though Close and Malkovich are significantly older than the characters they portrayed. The movie also made strong use of close up and medium shots to accentuate the dramatic effect of the dueling between the various protagonists. (Some also suggests this is to mask the minimal sets in order to keep the movie in a relatively tight budget). Valmont, on the other hand, featured a much younger cast; the five main characters on average are six years junior to the respective actors in Dangerous Liaisons. Featuring numerous extreme long shots and crowd scenes, Valmont showcases its bigger budget on elaborate sets and on-location shooting, even with a more obscure leads.
Glenn Close vs. Annette Bening
As the bitterly scheming Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, Glenn Close was once again casted in a sexually charged role following her turn as the psychotic female stalker Alex Forrest in the box office smash Fatal Attraction. Although it was implied that she had numerous lovers in Dangerous Liaisons, one gets the feeling that it wasn’t carnal pleasure but revenge that Close’s Merteuil was seeking. Revenge against a male-dominated society where she, as a woman, was condemned to play a subservient part. When asked how she managed to invent herself with the murderous plans she had constantly plotted, Merteuil said:
"I had no choice, did I? I'm a woman. Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men. You can ruin our reputation and our life with a few well-chosen words. So, of course, I had to invent, not only myself, but ways of escape no one has ever thought of before. And I've succeeded because I've always known I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own"
When Valmont related to Merteuil the erotic bliss he experienced when he successfully seduced Madame de Tourvel into sleeping with him, the look of envy and self-pity on Close' face seemed to suggest Merteuil had never actually enjoyed sexual intercourse in her life. If Dangerous Liaisons was directed by a woman, I wouldn't be a bit surprised Merteuil will be turned into a closeted lesbian. On the contrary, after another round of secret rendezvous in the beginning of Valmont, Merteuil lying naked on the bed unabashedly yearned for the quick return of her lover Comte de Gercourt (a character who didn't appear in Dangerous Liaisons at all even though he was supposedly the primary motive behind Merteuil's bet), unbeknown to her at the time Gercourt was about to leave her for her second cousin Cécile. In fact, when Annette Bening's Merteuil first took Cécile under her wing upon Cécile's mother's request, she actually protect Cécile from the amorous advance of Valmont. Unlike Close's Merteuil, Bening's version did have a certain noble intention in her soul.
It was Stephen Frear who temporarily set Annette Bening’s career back with Dangerous Liaisons. Ironically it was also Frears who righted her course for he casted Annette as one of the double-crossing con artists trio in his next Hollywood movie, the neo-noir The Grifters, for which Annette received her first Oscar nomination and finally put her on the map. She followed that up with the role of Virginia Hill, 40s Hollywood starlet and gun-moll to Warren Beatty’s Benjamin Siegel in Bugsy. Warren Beatty and Annette Bening hooked up during the filming, almost a standard procedure for any Beatty’s movies but Bening managed to have Beatty married her, something none of the luminous list of Beatty’s old flames that includes Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton… had accomplished. They stayed married close to twenty years now, almost longer than all his previous affairs combined
John Malkovich vs. Colin Firth
Half bald, slightly crossed-eyes and looked older than his age, if not for his outstanding stage pedigree, John Malkovich was indeed an odd choice to play the supposedly charming but diabolical seducer Vicomte de Valmont. His renowned for playing creeps, however, gave an extra predatory dimension to the character, such as the time when Tourvel had to flee to her room to recompose herself upon hearing Valmont’s shocking declaration of love for her. The way Malkovich went after Michelle Pfeiffer to her room was like a wild beast toying with his wounded prey: giving his victim a false sense of security with an easy escape but always knows that it is within his grasp. Malkovich’s sadistic trait was never more evident than his callous and brutal brash off of Tourvel by repeatedly saying "It’s beyond my control":
On the other hand, Colin Firth was only slightly better casted himself. With the exception of Mr. Darcy in the mini-series Pride and Prejudice where he did a skinny-dipping, Firth usually played characters that are solid but stoic, dependable but internal and low in charisma, including his turn as the stuttering King George VI in this year’s nomination, which is a long way from the debauchery of Valmont. This is evident even in his first movie Another Country, where he played the intellectual Marxist Tommy Judd while Rupert Everett played the flamboyant Guy Bennett. Interestingly, Rupert Everett would play Vicomte de Valmont himself in a 2003 French TV adaption of Les liaisons dangereuses, and Everett would be a better choice than Firth had the series was made ten years earlier.
As a result, Firth’s Valmont was more playful and joie de vivre than dangerous. Instead of a charming devilish seducer, he was more an immature Casanova who was just unable to commit to one person. While Malkovich’s Valmont will charm a woman just for the sake of ruining her, Firth’s actually did care the woman he wooed, regardless how short that might last. His Valmont sincerely believed that one should only marry for love and not for honour and position and that’s why he openly sided with Cécile to choose Danceny instead of marrying a man she doesn’t love, even before he and Merteuil had declared war against each other.
In fact, Bening’s Merteuil had such an upper hand over Firth’s Valmont throughout the movie that the victor of their duel was never in question, while the pairing of Glenn Close and John Malkovich did at least have an element of tension.
Michelle Pfeiffer vs. Meg Tilly
While Forman presented a gentler, less malicious Merteuil and Valmont in his version of Les Liaisons dangereuses, he also presented a less virtuous Madame de Tourvel. Firth’s Valmont managed to breakdown Tourvel’s defense with all the time-honoured trick of courtship: a little horseback riding, a little picnicking in open garden, a little romp on the dance floor…etc, nothing out of the ordinary any hormone driven male wouldn’t do. Contrasting with the distance John Malkovich has gone: feigning a moral reformation, bribing and then blackmailing Tourvel’s maid, intercepting all Tourvel’s personl correspondence… Surprisingly, there was no hint of Tourvel’s religious faith at all in Valmont (Michelle Pfeiffer made her first entrance in Dangerous Liaisons in a Sunday mass). Michelle Pfeiffer actually turned down the offer of the Merteuil part in Valmont to play Tourvel in Dangerous Liaisons. Considered that she is never known for playing innocent characters, Frears probably cast Michelle Pfeiffer for her iciness than her purity. For the battle to breakdown Pfeiffer’s frigid façade with Malkovich’s connivance had been most dramatically effective
Meg Tilly, on the other hand, was known to specialize in ethereal childlike roles. A very appealing and promising actress during the 80s, Tilly aspired to be a dancer growing up. However a back injury cut her dance career short and so she drifted into acting, following her older sister Jennifer Tilly’s footsteps. She first gained notice in Psycho II, the surprisingly effective sequel to Hitchcock’s masterpiece. She followed that with a part of the ensemble cast in Lawrence Kasdan acclaimed cult dramedy The Big Chill. Her most famous role is the mysteriously impregnated nun in Agnes of God (神蹟奇案) , for which she won an Oscar nomination. Her casting in Valmont was actually a compensation for missing out the part of Mozart’s wife in Forman’s Amadeus. The part was offered to her only to be recasted due to Tilly's untimely foot injury. Although Valmont was not the success as Amadeus, Tilly and Firth fell in love during the filming and she bore him a son shortly after the film wrapped. Meg‘s career couldn’t sustain the momentum in the 90s and sadly she quitted movie altogether in 1995 to concentrate on raising her children and a new career as a writer. One interesting trivia about Meg Tilly: she and her sisters are actually half Chinese and their surname by birth is Chan, Tilly was the surname of their mother they adopted after their parents got divorced. In fact, her sister Jennifer Tilly was casted in a Eurasian part in the Aaron Kwok costume historic drama 白銀帝國
Uma Thurman vs. Fairuza Balk
Keanu Reeves vs. Henry Thomas
At 52, Annette Bening has long expired her leading lady time limit and this year will be her last realistic chance to win the Oscar for Best Actress but that dubiously could be her trumping card to pull off an upset, particularly when Natalie Portman is considered still at the dawn of her career. Supposed the Academy did decide to honour the award this year based on one’s career instead of an individual performance, that means it could reunite Colin Firth and Annette Bening at the winner podium. For at the very beginning of their Hollywood careers Firth and Bening co-starred together in an A-list production but with few audience called Valmont.
The first starring role for Bening and the first Hollywood movie for Firth, Valmont was the Czechoslovakia-born director Milos Forman's follow up his Oscar success Amadeus in 1989. Adapting from the Choderlos de Laclos' scandalous French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses about revenge and seduction, Valmont, like Amadeus, is another costume drama set in Baroque Europe. The producer no doubt was hoping that the similar format could duplicate the success of its predecessor. But what was unexpected is that in the middle of the production, rising British director Stephen Frears had announced his first foray into Hollywood should be Dangerous Liaisons (孽戀焚情), the movie adaption of Christopher Hampton’s stage production of the same novel, and its release date beat Valmont by eleven months. Dangerous Liaisons went on to great success during the Award season and firmly established Frears in Hollywood. Milos Foreman is famous for stories about underdogs such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon and Amadeus (Mozart is the underdog to Salieri within the movie). However, in this case Foreman had become the underdog himself and Valmont would need to be his extraordinary in order to have a chance, and it was not - Valmont impressed few critics, fizzled at the box office and it did nothing to further Colin Firth's career in Hollywood (History will repeat itself when the public largely ignored Infamous, the Toby Jones’ vehicle about author Truman Capote’s research for his book In Cold Blood, one year after Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for the same story in Capote). Nevertheless, it is always interesting to, given the same sources, compare two movies for the creative difference behind them. In this case, it is also a career starting point of two of this year's award favorites.
Dangerous Liaisons vs. Valmont
For those who are unfamiliar, the plot of Les Liaisons dangereuses revolves around a bet between widow Marquise de Merteuil and notorious womanizer Vicomte de Valmont. Upon learning her lover is deserting her for her second cousin, the young convent-educated Cécile de Volanges, Merteuil suggests her ex-lover Valmont to seduce Cécile in order to humiliate Cécile’s future husband. Valmont instead sets his eyes on Madame de Tourvel, the virtuous wife of a judge who is staying in the châteaux of Valmont’s old aunt. Merteuil then promises Valmont if he succeeds in sleeping with Tourvel she will spend the night with him. In the meantime, Cécile falls in love with her music tutor Chevalier Danceny and the two carry on a secret affair behind Cécile’s controlling mom. Seizing the opportunity, Merteuil and Valmont pretend to help uniting the secret lovers in order to gain their trust so that they can carry out their own schemes…
Benefited from a stage adaption, the dialogues of the movie Dangerous Liaisons were more literate and concise but delivered a more powerhouse punch. Frears casted two theatre veterans (and bigger stars), Glenn Close and John Malkovich, for the two leads in order to be faithful to the stage flavor, even though Close and Malkovich are significantly older than the characters they portrayed. The movie also made strong use of close up and medium shots to accentuate the dramatic effect of the dueling between the various protagonists. (Some also suggests this is to mask the minimal sets in order to keep the movie in a relatively tight budget). Valmont, on the other hand, featured a much younger cast; the five main characters on average are six years junior to the respective actors in Dangerous Liaisons. Featuring numerous extreme long shots and crowd scenes, Valmont showcases its bigger budget on elaborate sets and on-location shooting, even with a more obscure leads.
Glenn Close vs. Annette Bening
As the bitterly scheming Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, Glenn Close was once again casted in a sexually charged role following her turn as the psychotic female stalker Alex Forrest in the box office smash Fatal Attraction. Although it was implied that she had numerous lovers in Dangerous Liaisons, one gets the feeling that it wasn’t carnal pleasure but revenge that Close’s Merteuil was seeking. Revenge against a male-dominated society where she, as a woman, was condemned to play a subservient part. When asked how she managed to invent herself with the murderous plans she had constantly plotted, Merteuil said:
"I had no choice, did I? I'm a woman. Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men. You can ruin our reputation and our life with a few well-chosen words. So, of course, I had to invent, not only myself, but ways of escape no one has ever thought of before. And I've succeeded because I've always known I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own"
When Valmont related to Merteuil the erotic bliss he experienced when he successfully seduced Madame de Tourvel into sleeping with him, the look of envy and self-pity on Close' face seemed to suggest Merteuil had never actually enjoyed sexual intercourse in her life. If Dangerous Liaisons was directed by a woman, I wouldn't be a bit surprised Merteuil will be turned into a closeted lesbian. On the contrary, after another round of secret rendezvous in the beginning of Valmont, Merteuil lying naked on the bed unabashedly yearned for the quick return of her lover Comte de Gercourt (a character who didn't appear in Dangerous Liaisons at all even though he was supposedly the primary motive behind Merteuil's bet), unbeknown to her at the time Gercourt was about to leave her for her second cousin Cécile. In fact, when Annette Bening's Merteuil first took Cécile under her wing upon Cécile's mother's request, she actually protect Cécile from the amorous advance of Valmont. Unlike Close's Merteuil, Bening's version did have a certain noble intention in her soul.
It was Stephen Frear who temporarily set Annette Bening’s career back with Dangerous Liaisons. Ironically it was also Frears who righted her course for he casted Annette as one of the double-crossing con artists trio in his next Hollywood movie, the neo-noir The Grifters, for which Annette received her first Oscar nomination and finally put her on the map. She followed that up with the role of Virginia Hill, 40s Hollywood starlet and gun-moll to Warren Beatty’s Benjamin Siegel in Bugsy. Warren Beatty and Annette Bening hooked up during the filming, almost a standard procedure for any Beatty’s movies but Bening managed to have Beatty married her, something none of the luminous list of Beatty’s old flames that includes Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton… had accomplished. They stayed married close to twenty years now, almost longer than all his previous affairs combined
John Malkovich vs. Colin Firth
Half bald, slightly crossed-eyes and looked older than his age, if not for his outstanding stage pedigree, John Malkovich was indeed an odd choice to play the supposedly charming but diabolical seducer Vicomte de Valmont. His renowned for playing creeps, however, gave an extra predatory dimension to the character, such as the time when Tourvel had to flee to her room to recompose herself upon hearing Valmont’s shocking declaration of love for her. The way Malkovich went after Michelle Pfeiffer to her room was like a wild beast toying with his wounded prey: giving his victim a false sense of security with an easy escape but always knows that it is within his grasp. Malkovich’s sadistic trait was never more evident than his callous and brutal brash off of Tourvel by repeatedly saying "It’s beyond my control":
On the other hand, Colin Firth was only slightly better casted himself. With the exception of Mr. Darcy in the mini-series Pride and Prejudice where he did a skinny-dipping, Firth usually played characters that are solid but stoic, dependable but internal and low in charisma, including his turn as the stuttering King George VI in this year’s nomination, which is a long way from the debauchery of Valmont. This is evident even in his first movie Another Country, where he played the intellectual Marxist Tommy Judd while Rupert Everett played the flamboyant Guy Bennett. Interestingly, Rupert Everett would play Vicomte de Valmont himself in a 2003 French TV adaption of Les liaisons dangereuses, and Everett would be a better choice than Firth had the series was made ten years earlier.
As a result, Firth’s Valmont was more playful and joie de vivre than dangerous. Instead of a charming devilish seducer, he was more an immature Casanova who was just unable to commit to one person. While Malkovich’s Valmont will charm a woman just for the sake of ruining her, Firth’s actually did care the woman he wooed, regardless how short that might last. His Valmont sincerely believed that one should only marry for love and not for honour and position and that’s why he openly sided with Cécile to choose Danceny instead of marrying a man she doesn’t love, even before he and Merteuil had declared war against each other.
In fact, Bening’s Merteuil had such an upper hand over Firth’s Valmont throughout the movie that the victor of their duel was never in question, while the pairing of Glenn Close and John Malkovich did at least have an element of tension.
Michelle Pfeiffer vs. Meg Tilly
While Forman presented a gentler, less malicious Merteuil and Valmont in his version of Les Liaisons dangereuses, he also presented a less virtuous Madame de Tourvel. Firth’s Valmont managed to breakdown Tourvel’s defense with all the time-honoured trick of courtship: a little horseback riding, a little picnicking in open garden, a little romp on the dance floor…etc, nothing out of the ordinary any hormone driven male wouldn’t do. Contrasting with the distance John Malkovich has gone: feigning a moral reformation, bribing and then blackmailing Tourvel’s maid, intercepting all Tourvel’s personl correspondence… Surprisingly, there was no hint of Tourvel’s religious faith at all in Valmont (Michelle Pfeiffer made her first entrance in Dangerous Liaisons in a Sunday mass). Michelle Pfeiffer actually turned down the offer of the Merteuil part in Valmont to play Tourvel in Dangerous Liaisons. Considered that she is never known for playing innocent characters, Frears probably cast Michelle Pfeiffer for her iciness than her purity. For the battle to breakdown Pfeiffer’s frigid façade with Malkovich’s connivance had been most dramatically effective
Meg Tilly, on the other hand, was known to specialize in ethereal childlike roles. A very appealing and promising actress during the 80s, Tilly aspired to be a dancer growing up. However a back injury cut her dance career short and so she drifted into acting, following her older sister Jennifer Tilly’s footsteps. She first gained notice in Psycho II, the surprisingly effective sequel to Hitchcock’s masterpiece. She followed that with a part of the ensemble cast in Lawrence Kasdan acclaimed cult dramedy The Big Chill. Her most famous role is the mysteriously impregnated nun in Agnes of God (神蹟奇案) , for which she won an Oscar nomination. Her casting in Valmont was actually a compensation for missing out the part of Mozart’s wife in Forman’s Amadeus. The part was offered to her only to be recasted due to Tilly's untimely foot injury. Although Valmont was not the success as Amadeus, Tilly and Firth fell in love during the filming and she bore him a son shortly after the film wrapped. Meg‘s career couldn’t sustain the momentum in the 90s and sadly she quitted movie altogether in 1995 to concentrate on raising her children and a new career as a writer. One interesting trivia about Meg Tilly: she and her sisters are actually half Chinese and their surname by birth is Chan, Tilly was the surname of their mother they adopted after their parents got divorced. In fact, her sister Jennifer Tilly was casted in a Eurasian part in the Aaron Kwok costume historic drama 白銀帝國
Uma Thurman vs. Fairuza Balk
Keanu Reeves vs. Henry Thomas
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Measure of A Day
For us Chinese, February 2nd of 2011 will mark the end of the Year of Tiger. However, for American, Feb 2nd of any year will be known as the Groundhog Day. Groundhog is a kind of North American rodent that hibernates in the winter. According to folklore, on Feb 2nd, upon emerging from its burrow after a winter of hibernation, if a groundhog sees its shadow and retreat back to the burrow, it means the winter will extend for another six weeks. Otherwise, an early spring will be just around the corner, or so they say...
If every culture is entitled to have a certain idiosyncratic ritual, such as Mamemaki (豆撒き) for Japanese and Villain Hitting (打小人) for Cantonese, then for American Groundhog Day will be one of those. Although I don’t think many people will actually plan their spring vacation around the prediction the groundhog made, the occasion was greeted with much fanfare across the country, particularly in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where the tradition supposedly originated from. The whole proceeding receives major coverage from all weather channels every year and it also gave birth to one of his most critically acclaimed movies for comedian Bill Murray, also named Groundhog Day.
Strategically released the week after Groundhog Day and just before Valentine's Day in 1993, the movie Groundhog Day tells the story of a conceited man named Phil Connors who worked as a weatherman in a small local TV station in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He was, against his will, sent to Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog festival for the fourth year in a row. Accompanying him was cameraman Larry and producer Rita whom Phil secretly fancied.
However, even the charming Rita could not make the experience any more bearable for Phil and he won’t waste a moment to flee town the minute he perfunctorily finished his coverage. As fate would have it, a massive blizzard that supposedly should detour the area has changed its course and hit Punxsutawney in full blast, causing all the major highways to be closed and everyone had to turn back. Hardly the happy camper, Phil barely dragged through the night but then strange things happened: he woke up the next morning to the same date as the day before, re-encountering the same events with the same conversation all over again. Even stranger, the same thing happened again the day after, and the day after… Before long he realized by some force of nature, he was eternally trapped in a time loop and had to relive the day he detested the most over and over again, Groundhog Day.
Throughout the course of the movie, Phil’s reaction to this unexpected turn of events went through a series of stages – First he was perplexed, then he was elated as he realized he would never need to be responsible for his action when tomorrow never came, but soon boredom crept in which ultimately led to despair and suicidal. Nothing, nevertheless, could alter the fact that it will always be Groundhog Day every day. Eventually, out of desperation, he seeks comfort from Rita by confiding to her with his implausible tale even though he knew no matter how understanding Rita could be, it would all go back to square one when the day was over...
For many, Bill Murray’s Oscar nomination for the more pretentious Lost in Translation is just a belated remedy to his snub for Groundhog Day (and also Rushmore, another under-appreciated work from Bill Murray)
It is possible that the filmmaker never intended the movie to be anything more than a romantic comedy with a fantasy twist to it. Regardless, audience has read many different philosophies into the premise of Groundhog Day: when Phil rhetorically asked an acquaintance ‘what would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and nothing you did mattered?’, ‘That about sum it up for me’ was the cynical reply and I am sure many audience will concur. For there is a Groundhog Day in each of us and like Phil we are forced to confront the meaning of life when it appears to be just an endless repetition of routines with no consequence. It is this element of existentialism that elevates Groundhog Day from a mere comedy to a cult favorite over the years. It is also one of the few Hollywood movies that received a remake treatment from Europe, reincarnated as È già ieri (literally it means It's Already Yesterday):
European movies have always prided themselves to be more original than their Hollywood counterpart. However, in a rare reversal of norm, an Italian remake of Groundhog Day was filmed in 2004. Briefly showed in some isolated art house theaters in US under the name Stork Day, È già ieri retold the story with Italian TV personality Filippo who was sent to make a documentary about storks in Tenerife, one of the seven Canary Islands archipelagos that belong to Spain. However, after the filming wrapped, the ferry that supposed to take the crew back to civilization broke down and everyone has to return back to the island, thus accounted for the stranded element in the original tale. I have never watched È già ieri but instead of a gray, little east coast town in gloomy winter, Tenerife is actually a sunny, tropical paradise that attracts over five million tourists each year. A lot of convincing the movie will need to do if trapping there is meant to be a curse, the Bossa Nova flavored score certainly doesn’t help.
Bill Murray became famous along with Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Jane Curtin and Chevy Chase as the original cast members of the phenomenally popular sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) during the late 70s. The success of the show allowed Murray to spill over to a movie career and propelled him to a huge box office star with a string of hits like Meatballs (1979), Caddyshack (1980), Stripes (1981), Tootsie (1982), Scrooged (1988), peaking with one of the quintessential 80s blockbusters, Ghostbusters (1984). Groundhog Day continued his winning streak when it became the tenth highest domestically grossed movie of 1993 (Wikipedia said thirteenth but that is only because it was based on the final gross instead of the year-end gross, notice that three movies ahead of it, The Pelican Brief, Schindler’s List and Philadelphia, were released in the last weeks of 1993 and so technically it hadn’t passed Groundhog Day when the year ended)
However, Bill Murray has never been a box office draw in Hong Kong partly because SNL didn't have the same kind of impact there. A search in Internet revealed that Groundhog Day was released under the generic title 《偷天情緣》 in Hong Kong during late 1993 and grossed a mere HK$ 1.25 million, ranked 174 out of 380 released that year. Ranked number one was 《侏羅紀公園》(Jurassic Park) with the then record-breaking gross HK$ 61.9 million. Comparing with a special effect galore is of course unfair, but even measuring against the similar genre 《緣份的天空》 (Sleepless In Seattle) Groundhog Day still appeared to be under-performing when it only grossed one ninth of the former even though it definitely is a much better movie than the sappy Meg Ryan yarn. A common trait among cult movies is that they tend to get overlooked during initial release. Maybe it was high time for you to rediscover this lost gem in this Groundhog/Valentine's Day season
If every culture is entitled to have a certain idiosyncratic ritual, such as Mamemaki (豆撒き) for Japanese and Villain Hitting (打小人) for Cantonese, then for American Groundhog Day will be one of those. Although I don’t think many people will actually plan their spring vacation around the prediction the groundhog made, the occasion was greeted with much fanfare across the country, particularly in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where the tradition supposedly originated from. The whole proceeding receives major coverage from all weather channels every year and it also gave birth to one of his most critically acclaimed movies for comedian Bill Murray, also named Groundhog Day.
Strategically released the week after Groundhog Day and just before Valentine's Day in 1993, the movie Groundhog Day tells the story of a conceited man named Phil Connors who worked as a weatherman in a small local TV station in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He was, against his will, sent to Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog festival for the fourth year in a row. Accompanying him was cameraman Larry and producer Rita whom Phil secretly fancied.
However, even the charming Rita could not make the experience any more bearable for Phil and he won’t waste a moment to flee town the minute he perfunctorily finished his coverage. As fate would have it, a massive blizzard that supposedly should detour the area has changed its course and hit Punxsutawney in full blast, causing all the major highways to be closed and everyone had to turn back. Hardly the happy camper, Phil barely dragged through the night but then strange things happened: he woke up the next morning to the same date as the day before, re-encountering the same events with the same conversation all over again. Even stranger, the same thing happened again the day after, and the day after… Before long he realized by some force of nature, he was eternally trapped in a time loop and had to relive the day he detested the most over and over again, Groundhog Day.
Throughout the course of the movie, Phil’s reaction to this unexpected turn of events went through a series of stages – First he was perplexed, then he was elated as he realized he would never need to be responsible for his action when tomorrow never came, but soon boredom crept in which ultimately led to despair and suicidal. Nothing, nevertheless, could alter the fact that it will always be Groundhog Day every day. Eventually, out of desperation, he seeks comfort from Rita by confiding to her with his implausible tale even though he knew no matter how understanding Rita could be, it would all go back to square one when the day was over...
For many, Bill Murray’s Oscar nomination for the more pretentious Lost in Translation is just a belated remedy to his snub for Groundhog Day (and also Rushmore, another under-appreciated work from Bill Murray)
It is possible that the filmmaker never intended the movie to be anything more than a romantic comedy with a fantasy twist to it. Regardless, audience has read many different philosophies into the premise of Groundhog Day: when Phil rhetorically asked an acquaintance ‘what would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and nothing you did mattered?’, ‘That about sum it up for me’ was the cynical reply and I am sure many audience will concur. For there is a Groundhog Day in each of us and like Phil we are forced to confront the meaning of life when it appears to be just an endless repetition of routines with no consequence. It is this element of existentialism that elevates Groundhog Day from a mere comedy to a cult favorite over the years. It is also one of the few Hollywood movies that received a remake treatment from Europe, reincarnated as È già ieri (literally it means It's Already Yesterday):
European movies have always prided themselves to be more original than their Hollywood counterpart. However, in a rare reversal of norm, an Italian remake of Groundhog Day was filmed in 2004. Briefly showed in some isolated art house theaters in US under the name Stork Day, È già ieri retold the story with Italian TV personality Filippo who was sent to make a documentary about storks in Tenerife, one of the seven Canary Islands archipelagos that belong to Spain. However, after the filming wrapped, the ferry that supposed to take the crew back to civilization broke down and everyone has to return back to the island, thus accounted for the stranded element in the original tale. I have never watched È già ieri but instead of a gray, little east coast town in gloomy winter, Tenerife is actually a sunny, tropical paradise that attracts over five million tourists each year. A lot of convincing the movie will need to do if trapping there is meant to be a curse, the Bossa Nova flavored score certainly doesn’t help.
Bill Murray became famous along with Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Jane Curtin and Chevy Chase as the original cast members of the phenomenally popular sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) during the late 70s. The success of the show allowed Murray to spill over to a movie career and propelled him to a huge box office star with a string of hits like Meatballs (1979), Caddyshack (1980), Stripes (1981), Tootsie (1982), Scrooged (1988), peaking with one of the quintessential 80s blockbusters, Ghostbusters (1984). Groundhog Day continued his winning streak when it became the tenth highest domestically grossed movie of 1993 (Wikipedia said thirteenth but that is only because it was based on the final gross instead of the year-end gross, notice that three movies ahead of it, The Pelican Brief, Schindler’s List and Philadelphia, were released in the last weeks of 1993 and so technically it hadn’t passed Groundhog Day when the year ended)
However, Bill Murray has never been a box office draw in Hong Kong partly because SNL didn't have the same kind of impact there. A search in Internet revealed that Groundhog Day was released under the generic title 《偷天情緣》 in Hong Kong during late 1993 and grossed a mere HK$ 1.25 million, ranked 174 out of 380 released that year. Ranked number one was 《侏羅紀公園》(Jurassic Park) with the then record-breaking gross HK$ 61.9 million. Comparing with a special effect galore is of course unfair, but even measuring against the similar genre 《緣份的天空》 (Sleepless In Seattle) Groundhog Day still appeared to be under-performing when it only grossed one ninth of the former even though it definitely is a much better movie than the sappy Meg Ryan yarn. A common trait among cult movies is that they tend to get overlooked during initial release. Maybe it was high time for you to rediscover this lost gem in this Groundhog/Valentine's Day season
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Forever Golden
Ever since she co-starred as the spunky grandma of Ryan Reynolds in Sandra Bullock's hit comedy The Proposal last year, Betty White has been enjoying a career resurgence that had rarely been seen in Hollywood before. First she was chosen for a hilarious Snickers commercial during the 2010 Super Bowl final, traditionally the most expensive timeslot of the year for commercial airing due to its high viewership
That commercial was voted as best ads of the year’s event which led to a grassroot Facebook campaign that successfully lobbied her to be the guest host of the popular comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live(SNL). At the age of 88, she became the oldest guest host ever for the program, no mean feat considering the target audiences of SNL are primarily in the teen and 20s.
That episode registered the highest rating for SNL in two years and won Betty White an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series. Striking the iron while it is hot, TV network quickly offers Betty a spot in their new sitcom Hot in Cleveland. As if her comeback didn't gathered enough momentum, fellow cast member of The Golden Girls Rue McClanahan passed away on Jun 3rd this year, leaving Betty as the last survivor of the wacky foursome in the perennial favorite series and the sole receiver of all the residual fan’s devotion. At this rate I wouldn't be surprised Betty will end up as the Entertainer of the Year when December comes.
The Golden Girls was/is one of the best and most successful sitcoms came out in the 80s and it is the series for which Betty White is best remembered for (notice that it received the most applause when The Golden Girls was mentioned during her monologue in SNL). Even though the series has finished its run in 1992, it remains a rating champion on rerun for the last twenty years and continues to win fans who aren’t even born when the show went off the air. This September marked the Silver Anniversary of The Golden Girls and here is my tribute to the beloved series and the four remarkable women who made TV history
The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls was the brainchild of NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff who witnessed how his elderly aunt argued and bickered with her neighbor constantly and yet remained best friend to each other. He gave the idea to TV writer Susan Harris and thus The Golden Girls was born. Susan created a sitcom about four post middle age women sharing a house together in Florida: Blanche Devereaux, the owner of the house, was a vain, man hungry southern belle from Atlanta, Georgia who leased her house after her husband passed away. Answering her ads for roommate was Rose Nylund, a naïve, simple-minded farm girl from the fictional town Saint Olaf, Minnesota who moved to Miami to start afresh after her husband died of heart attack (when they were having sex!), and Dorothy Zbornak, a commanding, no-nonsense substitute teacher whose husband of 26 years dumped her for a stewardess. When the retirement home of Dorothy’s mother Sophia Petrillo, a feisty, spunky Italian immigrated to America from old world Sicily, has burnt down, she moved in with her daughter and completed the quartet. In seven seasons, the girls shared laughter, heartbreak, fights and most of all, cheesecakes, poked fun at everything under the Sun from sperm bank, menopause to age discrimination. Together they shared many riotous adventures such as a TV game show appearance where they shamelessly humiliated themselves for the prize, an inadvertent stint at a nudist camp, a fiercely competitive (with each other) bowling tournament and also this freakingly hilarious sequence in preparing for a romantic cruise in the Bahamas:
The Golden Girls broke new ground because for the first time there is a series with an entirely female ensemble cast. Even more amazing for the youth-dominated medium is that they are all over 50s, vivacious, sexually active and well-groomed. It is one of the rarity that depicted the life of woman doesn't end at 50s and they still date and lead an active life. It is debatable whether Sex and The City is just a blatant rip-off of The Golden Girls but one thing for sure is The Golden Girls featured a much better cast and chemistry. It had some of the most legendary veterans on TV and it is impossible to pick a favorite Golden Girls since each is wonderful in their own way. In fact their chemistry is so explosive that eventually each of them had won an Emmy for the show, becoming one of the only three (All In The Family and Will & Grace are the other) shows in TV history that had won an Emmy for the entire cast. But unlike the other two where each character won for a different category, three of the four members of The Golden Girls were competing in the same category and they each triumphed once. It showed you The Golden Girls was truly an ensemble piece since all four women has moments to shine and no one got overshadowed by anyone
Dorothy Zbornak
Bea Arthur was born to a Jewish family in New York as Bernice Frankel, a name she hated and as early as she can remember she called herself Beatrice instead. She started her career as a stage actress in off Broadway during the late 40s. Blessed with a statuesque physique and a baritone voice, Arthur specialized in playing strong and assertive women even though in real life she is very shy and quiet. She eventually worked her way up to the Broadway smash hit Mame in the late 60s. As Vera Charles, the bosom buddies to Angela Lansbury’s Mame Dennis, Arthur won a Tony award and in 1971 she was invited to guest-star in the hit sitcom All in the Family as the outspoken feminist Maude Findlay. It was well received enough to prompt TV producer Norman Lear to spin-off a separate sitcom named Maude, starring Arthur herself. The show is best remembered today for the episode “Maude’s dilemma”, which featured the first ever TV character to have an abortion when Maude found herself unexpectedly pregnant at the age of 47:
Riding the height of the feminist movement in the 70s, Maude became a big success and made Bea Arthur a household name. The show runs for six seasons but in 1978 Bea Arthur decided she didn’t want to continue the role of Maude. After the end of Maude Bea Arthur divorced her second husband and dedicated her time to her family, with only occasional TV guest appearance until the script of The Golden Girls arrived.
In the original script of The Golden Girls, the part Dorothy Zbornak was described as a Bea Arthur type character. It was only after awhile somebody had the genius idea to cast Bea Arthur herself as Dorothy. However, Bea Arthur initially was lukewarm to the idea because she was informed that fellow Maude cast member Rue McClanahan will be cast as the dimwit Rose as well and Arthur felt their characters will be too similar to what they have played in Maude. She only became interested in the project when Rue McClanahan personally persuaded her and it was Blanche Rue would be playing.
While Dorothy shared many outspoken traits with Maude, the writer did give Dorothy a little softer edge. For example, the fact that she was dumped by her husband for a younger woman and she was always the butt of the jokes for being unattractive gave Dorothy a more vulnerable side. However, Bea Arthur was at her best when she was in charge, such as how she fended off a potential prison brawl when the girls were (wrongfully) arrested for prostitution:
I work in the public school system and it's not that different from this
It is hilarious but it is also somewhat true :)
In 1992 Bea Arthur decided she wanted to leave while the show was still on top, thus ended the run of The Golden Girls. She kept a very low profile from then on but returned to Broadway in 2001 with her one woman show And Then There’s Bea. On Apr 25th 2009, Bea Arthur passed away from lung cancer at age 86. Private to the end the public has no idea of her illness. Upon the news of her death broke, I was surprised by how many women has found Bea beautiful and listed her as their role model, considered that Ms. Arthur was never the conventional beauty with her build and low voice. However, as American had learned from the women’s movement, of which Bea was very much a part of, a strong woman is indeed an attractive woman.
Blanche Devereaux
Rue McClanahan was born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in a small mid-western town in Oklahoma. Despite her small town background, McClanahan hailed from a rather progressive and liberal family where her mom owned her own beauty parlor business. Eddi-Rue herself was already a co-partner in a dance studio when she was still in high school, very unusual for teenagers of her time, much less a girl. Even at a very young age McClanahan was encouraged to realize her full potential and she excelled academically. However, McClanahan loved to perform and after graduating from college, she decided to move to New York to become a professional actress
Despite her obvious talent and love of performing, McClanahan had to go through a long apprenticeship before finding success and financial security in the business. Two things went against her: while her parents had always encouraged Rue to dream big, what they didn’t prepare her is the rough life of big city and McClanahan found her small town value is no match for New York. In additions, her romantic ideal of relationship had imprudently brought her six marriages and numerous affairs, many of which had seriously jeopardized her career and livelihood.
It was only until legendary TV producer Norman Lear, who had saw Rue McClanahan performed on stage before, casted her as the naïve Vivian, best friend to Bea Arthur’s Maude, in the series Maude that Rue finally has steady employment and not to mention income. However, when Maude finished its run after six seasons, Rue’s life was once again thrown back into crisis due to the nasty divorce from husband number four, who asked for half of her earning. Meanwhile she suffered from a near fatal surgical complication during an operation for gall bladder attack. So she kept her finance afloat by appearing as the mousy Aunt Fran in the sitcom Mama’s Family, a part she felt she was wasted in. All these were rescued when the script of The Golden Girls arrived. Rue instantly connected with the part of men-hungry vixen Blanche Devereaux and knew she had a hit in hand. The problem was producer intended to give the part to Betty White instead. Fortunately casting director had the senses to ask Betty and Rue to read each other’s parts during audition. Any indecision on who should play who was quashed and the rest is history
Even though all four characters in The Golden Girls are not shy from romantic pursue, Blanche is by far the most sexually liberal of all and the least socially acceptable for women of their demographic at that point. Rue played the part with just the right combination of aggressive sexuality and emotional vulnerability that the role never sank below good taste. It also allow women above fifty to feel sexy for the first time, that female empowerment has become one of the cornerstone of the show. In additions, The Golden Girls challenged many of the social taboos of its time, such as lesbianism in this classic episode that won the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy for the show:
It was way ahead of its time when you considered The Golden Girls debuted during the Reagan era, under which one saw some of the most homophobic policies due to AIDS. It will be even funnier if you know who Danny Thomas, perhaps the most famous and beloved Lebanese in America, is. By the way, Danny’s son Tony Thomas was actually one of the executive producers of The Golden Girls. He sure is a good sport to allow the show to make fun of his own father.
The Golden Girls finished its run in 1992 when Bea Arthur decide to leave, the other three tried to carry on in the spinoff The Golden Palace but without Bea the series never found its footing and got cancelled after just one season. Rue thereafter guest starred in a number of series, got married for the seventh time and released her autobiography My First Five Husbands…And the Ones Who Got Away. However, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 and poor health has undermined her subsequent career. On Jun 3rd 2010 Rue McClanahan passed away after suffering from a massive stroke. She was 76.
Sophia Petrillo
All the Golden Girls were already a household name before the series started in 1985, except Estelle Getty who played the octogenarian matriarch Sophia Petrillo. That is because Ms Getty took a twenty years detour in becoming a professional actress in favor of doing what was expected of her at the time – raising a family. Estelle was born Estelle Scher to a Polish-Jewish immigrant family in the lower East side of Manhattan in 1923. Though her family was not well off, one luxury Estelle got to enjoy as a kid was the frequent trip to vaudeville her father would take his family to after work. That experience had left a life-long impression on Estelle’s young mind but as with so many of the time her dream of being actress were met with dissuasion. As a result she compromised by taking secretarial jobs during the days once she graduated from high school so that she can audition for parts in the local theatres at nights
In 1947 Estelle met business Arthur Gettlemen and nine months later they were married. The Gettlemen soon started a family when Estelle gave birth to two boys. Even though Estelle continued to finding ways to act in the provincial theatres for the next thirty years, success was understandably limited when she had to stretch between her secretarial job and raising her children.
It was only until 1976 when her children had grown that Estelle could dedicate more her time in pursuing her goal. She met a young struggling playwright named Harvey Fierstein, who was writing a play about a Jewish torch-song singing transvestite’s search for love in New York. Estelle read the play and was smitten with it. She asked Harvey to write a part for her in the play and so he added a third act circling around the mother of the transvestite and the play became Torch Song Trilogy.
Torch Song Trilogy started off extremely modestly in off-off Broadway where the entire cast was made up of amateurish actors who mostly don’t have day jobs or real income. However, good word-of-mouth allowed the play to move to off Broadway within three months and before long it was moved to Broadway in 1982 where immense popularity means tickets had to be booked three month ahead. Eventually Torch Song Trilogy won the Tony for Best Play in 1983 and after plugging along for over thirty years, Estelle finally made it as a legitimate actress.
However, Estelle Getty remained an unknown outside of the small circle of New York theatre but that was about to change. While touring with Torch Song Trilogy in 1984 Estelle came to Los Angeles. She was called in by TV producers to audition for a TV pilot called The Golden Girls. The audition wasn't exactly a smooth ride because producers weren’t entirely convinced when Estelle was substantially younger than the character Sophia Petrillo. No decision were made even after numerous readings. It was only until her manager dressed her up to the part with powder in her hair during the last reading that Estelle had secured the part. Even so, Sophia was not originally designed as a regular cast member for the show. However, the chemistry among the four actresses was too undeniable in the pilot for the producer to ignore. Consequently, an original character, a male servant of the house, was cut after the first episode and The Golden Girls had become a foursome ever since
Sophia Petrillo was written to have suffered from a stroke before, which left her speaking whatever on mind with no inhibition. As a result the writer always gave Estelle some of the raciest lines ever on TV which endured her to millions of fans over all America. At a pint size 4’ 10 ½”, the physical contrast between her and Bea Arthur made Sophia and Dorothy one of the most memorable mother and daughter team. However, it is not just the feistiness that made Sophia such a colourful character. There is genuine affection between her and Dorothy, such as the time when it was discovered that the hospital might have switched the baby and Sophia might not be the real mother of Dorothy:
Interestingly, the writer never bother to resolve the real relationship between Sophia and Dorothy but I believe it is intentional: The show appeal to millions for because, blood-related or not, these four women are a family, however unconventional it might be.
For a few years after the end of The Golden Girls and The Golden Palace, Estelle Getty kept herself busy with various TV appearances and she co-starred in the hit family movie Stuart Little (also the last real hit for Geena Davis). However, in the late 90s she was diagnosed with dementia, a nervous disease that causes the loss of cognitive ability. As her health and mind began to decline due to the condition Estelle had stopped making public appearance. Reportedly she was unable to recall her former co-star when Betty White and Rue McClanahan visited her during her last years. On July 22nd 2008 Estelle died of complications from her disease, just three days before her 85th birthday and making her the first Golden Girl to pass away
Rose Nylund
Three of the four Golden Girls are originally from the stage. Uniquely, Betty White’s background firmly rooted on television. The oldest of the cast, Betty White was born on the outskirt of Chicago in 1922 to a household full of love for animal, which has a life-long influence on her. Her family would move to Los Angeles when Betty was only two. Growing up next to the movie capital didn’t not inspire Betty to become an actress. Her foray into show business was only because of her singing in her high school graduation. A producer of radio programming heard the performance and asked Betty if she would be interested in an experiment broadcast called television. Thus began Betty’s legendary television career in 1939, three months after her graduation. To put this in the proper perspective, before World War II the major public broadcast in America was primarily radio. It was only in April of 1939 New York’s World Fair that televisions made its debut in the country. That means Betty White was truly a pioneer of the new medium.
The outbreak of WWII temporarily halted the development of both American television and Betty’s career. In the meanwhile she did what was expected of women to do at the time – got married, first to an Army pilot and later to a veteran turned talent agent. Both marriages ended briefly in part of the fact that instead of being a cookie-cutter housewife, Betty, unusual for women at the time, wanted to have a career and NOT to have children. So by 1949 Betty White became twice divorced. With two failed marriage, a defeated Betty felt marital bliss probably is not in her card and so threw herself into her work in a local Los Angeles TV show. Soon it paid dividend as she was approached to star in and produce her own TV series Life with Elizabeth, making her one of the first female TV producer ever. The success allowed the show to move beyond just Los Angeles area and to be broadcast across the nation. Eventually it won Betty her first Emmy for Best Actress which led to NBC offering her her own daytime variety show on national TV.
Although her variety show ended only one year later, Betty moved on to become a frequent guest panelist in many TV game shows, a programming that has gain tremendous popularity in the mid fifties. One of the game shows Betty often made her guest appearance was Password, hosted by the king of game shows Allen Ludden. Turned out the widowed Ludden has more romantic intention behind her frequent invitation. In 1962 Allen Ludden proposed to Betty White but with her past failures Betty was more than a little hesitant and turned him down. Undeterred, the persistent Ludden put the ring Betty returned upon his proposal on a chain around his neck as a reminder to Betty. After a year of trying, Allen and Betty finally got married.
Professionally Betty also reached a new pinnacle through Allen. Through her relationship with Allen Ludden, Betty became a close friend with Mary Tyler Moore and her then husband Grant Tinker. At the time Mary Tyler Moore was starring in the classic TV sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Mary suggested Betty to the producers of the show when they were looking for someone to play a new character Sue Ann Nivens, a sweet on the surface but conniving underneath homemaker. Soon Sue Ann Nivens became Betty White’s first classic TV character and won her two Emmy for Best Supporting Actress.
However, just when life with Ludden was at its most charmed disaster struck. In 1980, not long after Betty's enormous success with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Allen Ludden was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. The cancer was on his stomach which was inoperable. Betty White was devastated when doctor told her that there was nothing they can do. In Jun the following year Allen Ludden passed away, just five days shy of their eighteenth anniversary.
Betty White never found another love like Allen but just as unexpected as Allen’s death, she was on the verge of her greatest professional success. Four years after the death of her husband, due to her previous fames as the home-wrecker Sue Ann Nivens, Betty was approached to play Blanche in the excellent script of The Golden Girls. A last minute switch of character with Rue McClanahan proved to be no challenge to Betty. During the first year of The Golden Girls, all four actresses were nominated for an Emmy but only Betty went home with the Best Actress award, making her the first to win an Emmy for the show. Her character Rose Nylund was written as a total naïve. On a lesser actress the character will appear innocuous but Betty played her with just enough sweetness to be endearing, as evidenced in Rose's moving monologue to her deceased husband back in hometown St Olaf:
Reportedly Betty blew her lines in the scene multiple times by addressing to her real-life husband Allen instead of her TV husband Charles
Betty White remained the most active of the four Golden Girls after the series finished its run in 1992. Even at 88 she is still going strong with numerous guest appearances on TV from The Simpsons to Family Guy to Ugly Betty to 30 Rock. With a TV career that is as long and luminous as hers Betty practically became the TV institution itself. With the passing of Rue McClanahan early this year, she also became the last surviving member of the cast. I’m sure when the new of Rue’s death broke many fans of The Golden Girls were reminded of this eerily prophetic scene:
However, just Sophia said, the ever indomitable Betty White will be able to carry on and keep the memory of The Golden Girls alive. I started this tribute almost three months ago and, due to my procrastination, it wasn’t finished until now. Turned out Betty White was indeed named Entertainer of the Year by Associated Press, and deservedly so. However, even with each new height she soared in the last eighteen months, I can’t help but felt something was missing, something like the magical chemistry among the four actresses that was so palpable in The Golden Girls. For individually they each are a legend in their own right but together, they are Golden
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