I just saw this movie last week on the Floating Film Festival where top critics are all on a cruise ship and as we sail they present the films that they love to the audience. Roger Ebert, Richard Corliss (Time), etc. This one was presented by Kathleen Carrol from the New York Daily News and boy was she popular after she showed this film!
The ship projectionist screwed up the film and when they first showed it they could only show 20 minutes and the projector broke. What a crazed audience! Everyone was dying to see what happened. Well, by the time they got it fixed and showed the full film later in the week the anticipation was impossibly high, what with the word of mouth and all! But, the film completely lived up to it!
It was introduced as a documentary, but it was more like time travel where you see 100 different great stars (Shirley MacLaine, Angela Lansbury, Carol Burnett, Ben Gazzara, Stephen Sondheim, Martin Landau, Kaye Ballard and Alec Baldwin and a lot more) all talk about struggling and coming to New York City to follow a dream. Well, in fiction you would never believe a movie that had 100 people whose dreams all come true - but this one - reality - it did happen. It was really inspiring to me and to the rest of the audience!
And the old footage of New York! Times Square in the 40's! It really was a trip back in time to a bygone time that I am too young to have ever lived through! And the performances! A woman I had never heard of named Loretta Taylor who almost everybody in the film said changed their lives. And then the filmmaker found footage of her that he got in the film. Just beautiful. The original stars of "West Side Story" singing live - not dubbed like in the movie. And Bob Fosse dancing - with his wife Gwen Verdon. Ohmigod. Carol Hanie in "Steam Heat" - Marlon Brando in "A STreetcar Named Desire" - on and on. I have never seen a really passionate story about following dreams, New York, time travel and great peformances all combined in one film. AS much as it made me sorry I had missed this era on Broadway (Cats?! Les Miserable?! NO thanks!) it made me really love film even more to realize that one guy (the director) could make this movie alone. The critic who introduced the film talked about him and it is amazing that he shot it and edited it and directed it all alone and if he hadn't we would never have this movie. PBS does nice documentaries (Baseball, Civil War, NYC, Jazz, etc.) but they are always scholarly and have an "educational" feel. THIS did not. It was intelligent and passionate and had a REAL PERSON narrating it, not a disembodied, stentorian voice, and you really felt like someone was guiding, or walking you through this trip back in time.
Am I going on a bit? Yes I am! The most wonderful news is that we were told that the film is opening in movie theaters around the country this summer so everyone can see it. And also exciting is that the DVD has even MORE of this same. I can't wait. Everyone on the ship was asking for it all week. Bravo. Movies like this are why I love independent film!
The ship projectionist screwed up the film and when they first showed it they could only show 20 minutes and the projector broke. What a crazed audience! Everyone was dying to see what happened. Well, by the time they got it fixed and showed the full film later in the week the anticipation was impossibly high, what with the word of mouth and all! But, the film completely lived up to it!
It was introduced as a documentary, but it was more like time travel where you see 100 different great stars (Shirley MacLaine, Angela Lansbury, Carol Burnett, Ben Gazzara, Stephen Sondheim, Martin Landau, Kaye Ballard and Alec Baldwin and a lot more) all talk about struggling and coming to New York City to follow a dream. Well, in fiction you would never believe a movie that had 100 people whose dreams all come true - but this one - reality - it did happen. It was really inspiring to me and to the rest of the audience!
And the old footage of New York! Times Square in the 40's! It really was a trip back in time to a bygone time that I am too young to have ever lived through! And the performances! A woman I had never heard of named Loretta Taylor who almost everybody in the film said changed their lives. And then the filmmaker found footage of her that he got in the film. Just beautiful. The original stars of "West Side Story" singing live - not dubbed like in the movie. And Bob Fosse dancing - with his wife Gwen Verdon. Ohmigod. Carol Hanie in "Steam Heat" - Marlon Brando in "A STreetcar Named Desire" - on and on. I have never seen a really passionate story about following dreams, New York, time travel and great peformances all combined in one film. AS much as it made me sorry I had missed this era on Broadway (Cats?! Les Miserable?! NO thanks!) it made me really love film even more to realize that one guy (the director) could make this movie alone. The critic who introduced the film talked about him and it is amazing that he shot it and edited it and directed it all alone and if he hadn't we would never have this movie. PBS does nice documentaries (Baseball, Civil War, NYC, Jazz, etc.) but they are always scholarly and have an "educational" feel. THIS did not. It was intelligent and passionate and had a REAL PERSON narrating it, not a disembodied, stentorian voice, and you really felt like someone was guiding, or walking you through this trip back in time.
Am I going on a bit? Yes I am! The most wonderful news is that we were told that the film is opening in movie theaters around the country this summer so everyone can see it. And also exciting is that the DVD has even MORE of this same. I can't wait. Everyone on the ship was asking for it all week. Bravo. Movies like this are why I love independent film!
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