Reminder: GREY GARDENS on HBO, Saturday, April 18 at 8:00 PM!!!- Page 4

[Testing1232]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 12:01pm

I cant get enough-- watching it again now !!! So good !

[kazacalo]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 3:08pm

I think in some scenes Drew had the accent perfected, in others, she overdid it.

[jaystarr]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 3:36pm

Did I say..Will Chase?! I mean Malcolm Gets..I must have combine them after THE STORY OF MY LIFE! LOL.

Yes. Best Show Ive seen for the longest time. Second Viewing~I did not get bothered by seeing Drew do Drew in some scenes anymore.

I was thinking why they did not put Jerry? probably because it wont really weave to the story and will make it longer plus they want to concentrate on those 2 ladies- nah! It did not bother me a bit after watching it on the 2nd viewing.

J*


Updated On: 4/19/09 at 03:36 PM

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 5:41pm

Yeah, the monologue about the brown outfit and the phrase "revolutionary costume" are separate.

She talks all about her skirt and cape combo out in the sun, but earlier they show her asking one of the Maysles if she looks all right because it's "the revolutionary costume. [She] never wears this in East Hampton" on the porch.

In fact, they might be the same costume, I don't remember.

[Corine2]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 7:05pm

http://corinescorner.com/interview/ChrisBeale.htm

I hope you like the interview with a real living relative of big and little Edie.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 9:20pm

I, too, take the Edies seriously. When I said the cabaret scene was "comical" I didn't mean the I found it amusing. I meant there was an abrupt shift in tone that ruined "the moment" for me. The next time I watch it, I will stop it before Reno Sweeney's (although I do like the little glimpse into that never-documented performance...just not as part of THIS portrait.)

[beltingbaritone]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 10:26pm

I thought the best part about the movie was the chemistry between Drew and Jessica. The two scenes where the pair is walking upstairs (after Little Eddie cuts off her hair, and after they view the movie and they're telling each other what stars they are) are so simple, but I felt had electrifying chemistry.

Loved it!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 10:42pm

I was glad that they ended with Edie's Reno Sweeney appearance, since that is where the Beale story began for me. My friend Peter brought me to see her act there, and it was at the same time the worst thing and the best thing I ever saw at Reno Sweeney.

It didn't matter that she was bad. The point was that she was living out a lifelong dream. The audience reacted as if she were brilliant, and it was really quite thrilling.

I think the HBO film is extraordinary in that it ends on two high notes: the premiere and the cabaret act.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 10:45pm

It's such a shame that camera phones and youtube did not exist in the days of Little Edie's Reno Sweeney act. PJ, just wondering, were tickets hard to come by for her cabaret? Were they a hot commodity?

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 10:48pm

Was her performance at Reno Sweeney completely undocumented? How could that be?

I'd do anything to turn back time and see it.

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 10:49pm

I also loved that it ended with Edie's cabaret show. It left me uplifted rather than sad about the story, and of course, as PJ said, Edie fullfilled a lifelong wish. It was wonderful seeing how happy she was then!

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 11:53pm

Someone just did an complete reenactment of her Reno Sweeney performance in DC.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 11:54pm

I haven't seen it yet but I've heard nothing but great things!

It's saved on my DVR so I'll be watching it at some point this week hopefully and really can't wait!

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:01am

And I "get" the whole thing behind her living out her dream with the cabaret act and so forth. I tried to adjust my response to the ending with this in mind. But I just didn't care for it, and were I the director (which, obviously, I am not!), I would not have ended the film on this note.

I do want to echo what everyone I've read has said about the makeup. I was awed. In terms of the costumes, I can't tell you how many times I just gasped and said aloud, "That is so gorgeous."

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:03am

Do yourself a favor and watch it now. I just watched it again and those 103 minutes (1hr 43 min) goes by like a flash. It could have easily been a 3 hour film and you wouldn't have felt it.

This film is brilliant and that raid sequence said more than anyone's description could have ever.

Jessica Lange IS Big Edie. Drew Barrymore IS Little Edie.

Nothing more; nothing less.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:13am

I agree that the raid sequence was perfect.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:13am

God, yes, Brody. The raid on the house is the center of the film--the single emotional punch that neither the documentary or the musical could have delivered.

It's both devastating and liberating at the same time.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:17am

PJ, it's funny that YOU are talking about the raid scene because, honest to god, when I was watching it, I couldn't help but think of how YOU posted in that thread a couple of years ago: "Two words: mouse urine." I'll never forget that.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:20am

I love when the appalled Jackie says "Aunt Edith, that cat is going to the bathroom on your portrait."

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:26am

Bettyboy, I don't know if it was hard to get tickets. I was a broke grad student then, and I was taken to the Reno's by my friend Peter Schifter, a theater director who was represented on Broadway with the play Gemini ("I'm not hungry. I'll just pick.)

Peter would hire me to assist him on fabulous and crazy productions and take me to see things he thought I should see, like Little Edie, Liberace...and the Mineshaft.

It was the late 70s.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:34am

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:43am

Here's some information about After the Garden: Edith Beale Live at Reno Sweeney. The reviews were mixed.

Too bad it only extended to April 5.
Jeffrey Johnson IS Edith Beale at Reno Sweeney

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 1:00am

Well, NO. Jeffrey Johnson is not NECESSARILY Edie Beale at Reno Sweeney.



Any DC BWWers see it?

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 1:08am

What would have been great is if YOU had seen it, PJ, since you saw the original. You could tell us how "authentic" it was. I have no idea if this production "worked," but I do believe, from everything I've read that it was created with love and profound respect for Edie as well as her performance at Reno Sweeney.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 7:55am

I just didn't think it was all that good. I don't think it examined the psychology of the two women in a very illuminating way. I felt that it fell back on moments from the documentary a little bit too much, and several scenes that weren't based on the doc, such as the one where the ladies accept the offer to do it, just came off as awkward. I do, however, think that Jessica Lange's performance was exquisite.


Dave Poland expresses some of the same feelings I had about the film:

"Simply, there is about 20 missing years of deterioration and whether by design or because there is no better answer, it is missing in this film as it is in the doc and musical, but somehow, because the film is a straight drama, you feel the hole as an audience.

And while I hate to tell a filmmaker what I would have liked him or her to do, I wonder whether there was a better answer in a more raw portrayal? Both the doc and the musical address the idea of sexual jealousy between mother and daughter. Not so much this film. What the film does offer that the other versions do not is an actual affair for Little Edie. Yet, the film doesn?t really dig into its raw power, just the idea that Edie gets hurt by a married man acting like a married man.

What I wanted to know, to be frank, is whether Little Edie, who****teases the boys in another scene, likes sex. Does she see it as a means to an end? Is it something she truly experiences with passion?

I guess that issue circles around the bigger issue for the film? what are these women passionate about? Anything? Nothing? Are they dead of heart? dead of loins? If so, why? Is it really just as simple as confusion and missed opportunity?"

http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2009/04/review_hbos_gre.html