Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Crimson" data-source="post: 308451" data-attributes="member: 5079">Well, I watched Aaron Sorkin&#039;s BEING THE RICARDOS and I have opinions.To start with the casting: Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem.&nbsp; Neither particularly look like their subject, but the performances are awfully good.&nbsp; As a beautiful redhead of a certain age, Nicole should have been fine casting as Lucille; my only objection is that her Botox&#039;d face is distractingly anachronistic for 1953.&nbsp; Beyond that, her performance is really remarkable; the voice, the movements, the mannerisms, the personality are all there.&nbsp; The portrayal of Lucille is honest and accurate.&nbsp; Her talent and perfectionism are on display, but so are her rudeness and tactlessness.&nbsp; Bardem looks even less like Desi than Kidman looks like Lucy, but his performance does a surprisingly good job of capturing Desi&#039;s charm and energy; there were moments when Bardem&#039;s mannerisms were to close to Desi&#039;s, I forgot I was watching a recreation.The movie is at its best as a portrayal of the weekly production of I LOVE LUCY, with some added drama.&nbsp; The production schedule and creative process provided a good framework for the film; the interactions of the cast and crew -- their friendships, rivalries and resentments -- provide dramatic and comedic moments that felt honest. The historical accuracy of the film is not great.&nbsp;&nbsp; The plot revolves around a basic falsehood: that Lucy being accused of being a Communist, Desi&#039;s philandering making it on the cover of Confidential Magazine, and Lucy&#039;s second pregnancy all occurred in the same week.&nbsp; For the sake of dramatic license, I could live with this; it condenses a lot of true drama into a smaller time frame.&nbsp; (DeMille called this &quot;telescoping&quot;.) Beyond that false central conceit, there are a surprising number of inaccuracies and anachronisms.&nbsp; Some of these are petty.&nbsp; A poster for Ingrid Bergman&#039;s STROMBOLI is on display 8 years before the movie was filmed.&nbsp; Sorkin has some weird notion that Judy Holiday was a major film star in the early 40s and Lucy&#039;s chief rival.&nbsp; The movie states that Lucy was fired from RKO at the age of 39 (she was 31); if the movie&#039;s math was accurate, Lucille would have been nearly 50 at the start of I LOVE LUCY.&nbsp; &nbsp; Ten minutes on Wikipedia could have cleaned up this sloppiness.The worst aspect of the film is that Sorkin couldn&#039;t hide his contempt for I LOVE LUCY; he assigns his modern perspective to Madeline Pugh, using her as a 2021 mouthpiece to decry the &quot;infantilization&quot; of Lucy Ricardo.&nbsp; To portray one of the few successful female TV writers of the early days of the medium as being contemptuous of her own work isn&#039;t the stroke of feminism that Sorkin thought it was.&nbsp; (The scene also underscores that oddity that Sorkin apparently thought Lucille was older than she was.&nbsp; Madeline was only a decade younger than Lucy, but the film treats them like they were generations apart.)Which makes is odd that the ILL recreations in the movie are actually funny.&nbsp; The scenes of the show portrayed here are not just precise, they&#039;re performed with genuine comic flair; particularly J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda as Bill and Vivian.&nbsp; &nbsp; I&#039;ve seen numerous recreations of LUCY through the years and they&#039;re usually embalmed and unfunny.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crimson, post: 308451, member: 5079"] Well, I watched Aaron Sorkin's BEING THE RICARDOS and I have opinions. To start with the casting: Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. Neither particularly look like their subject, but the performances are awfully good. As a beautiful redhead of a certain age, Nicole should have been fine casting as Lucille; my only objection is that her Botox'd face is distractingly anachronistic for 1953. Beyond that, her performance is really remarkable; the voice, the movements, the mannerisms, the personality are all there. The portrayal of Lucille is honest and accurate. Her talent and perfectionism are on display, but so are her rudeness and tactlessness. Bardem looks even less like Desi than Kidman looks like Lucy, but his performance does a surprisingly good job of capturing Desi's charm and energy; there were moments when Bardem's mannerisms were to close to Desi's, I forgot I was watching a recreation. The movie is at its best as a portrayal of the weekly production of I LOVE LUCY, with some added drama. The production schedule and creative process provided a good framework for the film; the interactions of the cast and crew -- their friendships, rivalries and resentments -- provide dramatic and comedic moments that felt honest. The historical accuracy of the film is not great. The plot revolves around a basic falsehood: that Lucy being accused of being a Communist, Desi's philandering making it on the cover of Confidential Magazine, and Lucy's second pregnancy all occurred in the same week. For the sake of dramatic license, I could live with this; it condenses a lot of true drama into a smaller time frame. (DeMille called this "telescoping".) Beyond that false central conceit, there are a surprising number of inaccuracies and anachronisms. Some of these are petty. A poster for Ingrid Bergman's STROMBOLI is on display 8 years before the movie was filmed. Sorkin has some weird notion that Judy Holiday was a major film star in the early 40s and Lucy's chief rival. The movie states that Lucy was fired from RKO at the age of 39 (she was 31); if the movie's math was accurate, Lucille would have been nearly 50 at the start of I LOVE LUCY. Ten minutes on Wikipedia could have cleaned up this sloppiness. The worst aspect of the film is that Sorkin couldn't hide his contempt for I LOVE LUCY; he assigns his modern perspective to Madeline Pugh, using her as a 2021 mouthpiece to decry the "infantilization" of Lucy Ricardo. To portray one of the few successful female TV writers of the early days of the medium as being contemptuous of her own work isn't the stroke of feminism that Sorkin thought it was. (The scene also underscores that oddity that Sorkin apparently thought Lucille was older than she was. Madeline was only a decade younger than Lucy, but the film treats them like they were generations apart.) Which makes is odd that the ILL recreations in the movie are actually funny. The scenes of the show portrayed here are not just precise, they're performed with genuine comic flair; particularly J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda as Bill and Vivian. I've seen numerous recreations of LUCY through the years and they're usually embalmed and unfunny. [/QUOTE]

Verification

Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?