anything goes.

seriously blogger is killing me! just right now it deleted the intro for this post. and now i have to start over! (i just looked and there is an update to fix this so got that taken care of!)

my friends and i recently saw "anything goes" at the ahmanson (we are season ticket holders) and i fell in love with it! rachel york's performance was stellar, the storyline was cute and the dialogue was witty! and of course, since cole porter wrote the music, the music was amazing!!!! i absolute love cole porter and was delightfully surprised because i did not know that "i get a kick out of you" and "de-lovely" were in this musical. i also learned that "friendship" was a cole porter song! i only knew of it because it was a song on this disney sing-a-long video i had as a kid, though they cleaned it up to make it kid-friendly. "friendship" was my favorite number of the night but all the music was so good that we were singing songs as we left the theater (my friend danny said that back in the day if the audience left singing the numbers it was an indication that the show would be successful). danny and i were singing them the next day too, so it was super successful in our eyes. also if you are reading this and are not familiar with cole
porter go google him! i love his songs because they are so well-written and clever. his little ditties are so witty and adorable.

i was so excited about the show that i decided to check out the DVD from the library so i could listen/watch the songs over again. sadly i had my hopes up too high, the movie version was horrible compared to the the stage production. even bing crosby added to its horribleness, my grandma told me she always thought he was wrongly casted and i have to agree with her. though crosby had a voice, they needed a dancer. i love donald o'connor and enjoyed his performance. however, would have liked him in the lead role from the stage than the one played. mitzi gaynor was adorable in her role. i also like jennmarie though i loved her wardrobe more! the polka dot dress she wears during "all through the night" was de-lovely and delightful!

but the actors couldn't save it. i disliked the movie because the book from the musical was not used in the movie. the stage storyline was a lot more entertaining, it had stowaways, public enemies, sex fiends, secret lovers, gamblers and ended with a wedding! the movie verison not as exciting. crosby played a broadway star putting together a new show with an upcoming television star who was also kinda rude (which broke my heart). they both head to europe and they each (without the others' knowledge) sign a girl to play the lead. they both try to convince the other to fire the girl the other signed but end up falling in love with that girl. in the end, they ended up changing their production storyline so that everyone can live happily ever after. basically they change the storyline to what happens them so it's one of those weird musical in a movie thing, though we don't see them reinact their story. but in contrast to the stage production it was boring! not even gabriel blowing his horn could have helped it. (85 actually didn't as its closing number.)

sadly they did not use all of the songs from the stage production. it broke
my heart because there was no "friendship" which as i mentioned before was my favorite. also they didn't use my favorite songs as part of the storyline (meaning they didn't break into songs randomly to express their innermost thoughts) but rather use them
as production numbers within the movie kinda like a show within a show. for example, "i get a kick out of you" was sang to a lover in the play but was a nightclub number for the french singer. and they kinda killed "you're the top" which was a cute ditty between two friends but instead in the movie was a used as a number they were practicing to prove which leading lady was the best. and i think this is what made the difference and resulted in my dislike of the movie. the musical numbers were not the words of lovers but actors playing lovers. "all through the night" and "de-lovely" were sweet because they were sang to their girls versus an audience. by making the songs productions within the movie, it resulted in the songs losing their sincerity. in this case, using the songs like this did not work, anything did not go.

though i love the songs, the storyliruined too weak especially in contrast to what i saw on the stage. so skip the movie but if you get a chance to see the stage production, go see it!

cover girl.

in sandra cisneros' "caramelo", i learned that rita hayworth was mexican!?!?! thanks to madonna, all i knew of hayworth was that she "gave good face". so i wikipedia-ed it and sadly discovered she isn't mexican, her father was spanish and her mother was irish-english. the mexican rumors started because she worked in mexico, according to this website . so sad that her mexicanness was a bust, however, while reading her wikipedia article, discovered she starred in a number of movies with fred astaire and one with gene kelly. this inspired me to check out "you were never lovelier" and "cover girl" from the library.

growing up, i watched a lot of musicals with grandma bea, especially gene kelly and fred astaire movies, however i don't recall rita hayworth being in any of them. i know grandma bea had me watch "cover girl" when i was little but i didn't remember hayworth or even the movie. as i watched "cover girl", bits and pieces started to come back to me. i remembered gene kelly's "alter ego" dance (though it could have been featured in one of those "that's entertainment" specials). and as much as this makes me sound like a lush, i remember her drunken part . . . i also remembered the oysters tradition. but other than that it was a "new" movie to me.

rita hayworth was lovely and entertaining. i had no idea she could sing and dance! she also had the most amazing costume and outfits. that is one thing that i hate/love about old movies, the fashion! i love it all but am sad that i can't find it at the mall or in a boutique. though i will be on the lookout for a coat like this at my local goodwill:

it was also great to see how things have come back around. in the broadway number, cover girls are featured on different magazines and i was surprised there were so many flower headpieces that would have been right at home at coachella. there was also a huge brimmed hat (think samantha in "sex and the city: the movie") that i would give my left kidney for.

but back to the movie. so a quick synopsis, hayworth played a dancer named rusty that worked a club owned by (she was also his girlfriend). she entered a magazine contest to be a cover girl and won because she looked like the long-lost lover of the magazine owner (turned out he was in love with rusty's grandmother). so after the contest, rusty gets bigger and better opportunity and sadly leaves gene kelly. i would tell you what happens but you should check it out for yourself. the ending is very cute.

i will say that i for one would never leave gene kelly. maybe it's because i have grown up watching him as a leading man but he is like the ideal man (he might be the reason why i have a thing for boys with brown hair over blondes). he can sing, he can dance, and when his character is in love, gets a look on his face like there is no other girl in the world for him but her! swoon!!! he is so dreamy and i fall in love with him every time i watch one of his movies. and of course the same goes for "cover girl", i would love to spend my nights with him, shucking oysters for pearls!

the whole time i was watching, i was bothered because rita hayworth reminded me of someone. in the end i decided it was geena davis in "a league of their own."

also the whole time i was watching i couldn't help thinking to myself how much phil silvers looked like
stephen colbert:

am i right or am i right?

but all in all, a very sweet film and if you have't seen it, you should!

ps this DVD was available thanks to measure b!

you were never lovelier.

as i discussed in my "cover girl" post, i checked out rita hayworth movies after i discovered that she was mexican in sandra cisneros' "caramelo". though it turns out she is not, i did discover that rita hayworth is an amazing actress.

before i discuss the movie, i have to express my thoughts on fred astaire as a leading man. maybe because i was so young when i started watching his movies but in my eyes he is really elderly looking. like way-too-old-to-pursue-the-women-in-his-movies-old (don't get me started on "daddy long legs" that one always kinda grossed me out.) even in my favorite movie "funny face", i'm always like really audrey?!?! sadly "you were never lovelier" was not an exception. hayworth is so beautiful and all i can think of is why is astaire so old? and i googled it. he was about 42 and she was 26 when they made this film. and no offense, but he wasn't a hot 40 like brad pitt or george clooney or even colin firth. maybe he's not my type but never drooled over him like i did/do over gene kelly. there is no denying it the man can dance but even that doesn't help his case or should i say face.

so "you were never lovelier" is set in buenos aires and astaire has travelled there looking for work. (which is very similar to his first film with ginger rogers' "flying down to rio"). in his quest for work, he ended up landing a job when he pretends to be the secret admirer of a club owner's daughter who is played by hayworth. the club owner wanted his daughters to marry in order and hayworth was next. her younger sisters also wanted her to marry because they couldn't until she did kinda like "the taming of the shrew" (or "10 things i hate about you" for generation x-ers). but of course, with all of this secretiveness, confusion and drama ensued.

hopefully without ruining it for you, astaire and hayworth do end up together. and the ending was very pretty woman-esque or "pretty woman" has a very you were never lovelier-eque ending. hayworth is upset that she was lied to so astaire had to woo her again. as a last resort, he donned a suit of armor and rode into hayworth's home to sweep her off her feet like a poem she loved. and yes it did work. it was what gere should have done in pretty woman. also i would like to add that i love musicals because before they kissed at the end, astaire and hayworth did a dance! so cute! if only life was like that!

and of course the fashion was amazing!!! just look at these dresses!!!

that sequin ones is to die right?!?!?

after watching two of her films, i am now a fan of hayworth. though i am sad she is not mexican. but ethnicity aside, she really is beautiful. i foundjust lovelier in this film versus "cover girl" (could be the black and white). i do want to see more of films so will start checking them out from the library. (also thanks to measure b for this one too! for my LA readers, not measure b the porn one but measure b in fresno that was to give libraries funding!)

p.s. the dad used an anthology of love letters to help him write love letters as the secret admirer and this reminded me of big from "sex and the city: the movie". also because the receptionist brought the dad love letters from napoleon as well, didn't carrie read one of his in the movies? anyway, right now i am at the end of "war and peace" and reading about napoleon's war "genius". but i plan on checking out a book of napoleon's love letters so i can see his softer side!

once.

i remember "once" playing at the landmark but i never saw it. i have seen the swell season, at the hollywood bowl, it was a beautiful show. but i thought the band existed first and they happen to be chosen for the movie. but when i googled it, the movie actually came first than the band. which is cool, life imitating art.

when i saw them at the hollywood bowl, i didn't know their music. i went because she & him were playing. but swell season was definitely the highlight. it was the perfect setting too, the night sky and their beautiful songs. i remember it being emotional or it could have just been that my friend nina was in tears their whole set. i also remember that some of glen's songs made me feel like i was in an irish pub. so thanks to the hollywood show, i was familiar with the music in the movie.

it was a very sweet film. glen was very charming in the movie, i loved how he sang his life's love story on the bus. he also was handsome, boy could we rock a grandpa sweater. markéta was endearing, especially how she made life happened and wheel and dealed. i also loved how she dragged that vacuum around town. i did think she was too young to be married with a child (how old is she?). also her eliza doolittle job was a little too much for me. but they were great together and i was a little teary-eyed at the end. it was sad that they couldn't be together but that is life. and it would have ruined the film if they got their hollywood ending. though how did he afford that piano?!?

i think if i watched this while on my period, i would have been in tears every time a song played. i started to get teary-eyed during te piano scene with "falling slowly" that song just brings me to tears:

it was a great film and i am disappointed with myself or waiting so long to see it. however, now i want to see the broadway production of it: