View from the Couch DVD reviews
September 17, 2008 at 1:55 pm by Helen Herbst in A&E
This week CL Charlotte film critic Matt Brunson takes a look at 88 Minutes, An American in Paris and more, including that dizzying color-fest Speed Racer.
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) / GIGI (1958). The film industry has produced a substantial number of truly transcendent musical masterpieces – Singin’ in the Rain, Top Hat and A Hard Day’s Night are but three examples – yet rarely have these films won Best Picture Oscars. Instead, the Academy’s taste in musicals tends to run toward lavish, overproduced extravaganzas that often lumber rather than waltz across the screen. MGM’s two Best Picture musical winners in the 1950s are entertaining enough – and certainly superior to such victors as Oliver! and The Great Ziegfeld – but they represent neither the finest of their respective years nor the movie musical genre itself. Read the rest here.
(Photo courtesy Warner Bros.)
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