De lovely: a movie

[racerchiquita76m]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 12:43am

From MSN:
Kevin Kline plays Cole Porter in De-lovely, which finds the composer looking back on his life and seeing a string of musical theater production numbers. Ashley Judd co-stars as Linda Lee Porter, and the film features performances of Porter classics by the likes of Natalie Cole, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Diana Krall and Alanis Morissette.

Anyone know anything else about this? I hope it's good, it looks like it could be interesting.

[DAME]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 12:55am

The poster is up at Sunset 5

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 12:56am

It premiered at Cannes. Ebert loved it.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 12:58am

LOVE Ashley Judd. I'm writing a screenplay with her in mind for the lead.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 12:59am

"Puss on a Black Tar Roof?"

[Matt_G]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 1:00am

I loved her in that show. Let's not make fun of her here. Let's stick to Mr. Roxy. (Take it, Dame!)

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 1:06am

So should we take it to the main board, Matt?

[mominator]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 7:02am

I Have a major thing for Mr.Kliine, and there are two artsy movie houses here so hopefuly it will be playing at a theater near me real soon!
B

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 7:12am

The trailers are playing in NYC theaters. Visually it looks good.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 8:03am

When I posted about this b 4 I got whined at that it wasn't dealing enough with the "gay" aspects of Mr Porter & Ms Lee's respective lives, but the trailers I saw certainly were leaning in that direction. (not sure I want them to give the whole movie in the trailers) It mostly dealt w MS Lee as Porter's muse from what I could see. How important are "the relevations of the marital bed" in a bio pic about a man & his creativity(note: NOT irrelevant but how much concentration should be place on that aspect of the individual?)

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 8:16am

As the person who "whined" at you, SL, I thought I'd post two reviews. VARIETY leads off:

"De-Lovely" is an ambitious, erratic attempt to convey the emotional life of the brilliant Broadway composer Cole Porter in the form of an original musical biography. Structurally inspired by "All That Jazz" and indebted to the film of "Chicago" for its strategy of layering levels of reality in a musical context, Irwin Winkler's most elaborate directorial outing benefits greatly from Kevin Kline's outstanding performance as the ultra-sophisticated songwriter whose resilient marriage anchored a complicated double life. But in contemporary culture, this exploration of a champagne personality devoted to wit, fine living and discretion seems a highly esoteric undertaking, one for which the evident audience seems very small. MGM can only pin its hopes on the idea that interest in the music as performed by an eclectic array of modern singers will spark wider curiosity in the film itself.

The review also states that "The film is "weakest" when dealing with Cole Porter's "clandestine gay life"...

"...the recipients of Porter's attentions are never developed beyond well-groomed cardboard pretty boys."

Ashley Judd's performance is described as "somewhat stiff," but Todd McCarthy says the portions of the film dealing with Porter's marriage are among its most "credible."

And Datalounge' ever-articulate StageDoorJohnnie stated thusly:

"I saw it at a screening in NYC this past weekend.
Besides not getting the mere facts of Porter's life correct (for example, Linda was older than Cole - that's important - but Ashley looks years younger than Kline; after Linda's death the film has you believe Cole stopped writing, when in fact some of his most popular work, incl. "High Society" and "Silk Stockings", happened after her death), it mixes and matches the story of his life and his songs to suit the filmmakers' agenda (and I wish I could tell you what that was) rather than tell a more truthful or even chronological story of his life, or show what a genius he was as a songwriter. The story is told in the same way "All That Jazz" is told - the lead character has a conversation with a figure that could be Death, and it all flashes back and forth from there - BORING.

The guest cameos by singers are ill-conceived and the singers are badly matched to the songs they sing (you don't want to hear Diana Krall sleepwalk her way thru "Just One Of Those Things" or hear Alanis Morisette sing "Let's Do It"), and most of them have no idea how to sing these songs. It reminds me of those MGM biopics, where all the musical stars of the studio did cameos (think "Words & Music" or "Till the Clouds Roll By" or my personal vice, "Deep In My Heart") - at least at MGM they knew how to sing these songs and presented them well - this film does not. You never for a moment believe any of these singers are true to the period, and they don't represent any actual real-life performers who did Porter songs (at least in "Night & Day" Mary Martin played herself, and Ginny Simms was supposed to be Ethel Merman).

Kline is fine, but more reminiscent of Cary Grant as Cole Porter than the man himself; Judd is way out of her depth as a society sophisticate. There's also a stupid subplot about another married couple friend of theirs, given the names Gerald & Sara Murphy (the great Paris sophisticates) but having nothing to do with the real Murphys or their lives. There is some eye candy for the boys, but the film doesn't deal with Cole's gay lifestyle in depth, despite the fact that his gay life had as much to do (if not more) than his marriage did in shaping his work as a composer. On a very basic level, it's a lot like "Will & Grace" - a gay man and a straight woman share a life together, but the gay man doesn't have much of a gay life. Why are the filmmakers afraid of showing the truth on screen? Seems to me the more honest they'd been about Porter's "double" life, the more interesting the film would have been. Instead of this remake of "Night & Day", we could have had a musicalized "Far From Heaven."

In the end, I was angry - in this day and age, do we need another whitewashing, another misrepresentation of Porter's life? He should be celebrated as a great gay man, not as a gay man whose greatest inspiration was his wife and marriage."

[redhotinnyc2]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 8:57am

Master - thanks for posting those reviews. I've been torn over whether to see this one or not - might be better left as a rental.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 12:49pm

WEll after his accident I am not sure how much of an active sexual life he had. But the complaint was also that they didn't deal w Ms Lee's lesbianisim- and again not sure it was relevant.

[Jon]

Posted: 6/2/04 at 5:51pm

WHAT? Cole Porter was gay???