Peter O'Toole 1932(33?)-2013

Peter O'Toole has died after a long illness. I am very sad about that but also slightly amazed he made it this far. In addition to his spectacular performance in Lawrence of Arabia*, one should also check out Lion in Winter and his two later roles in The Stunt Man and My Favorite Year, for all four of which he should have received the Best Actor Oscar.

This is borderline unfair but funny nevertheless:**



*In which accuracy took a back seat to drama and flair and a dash of misrepresentation, much like Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the work on which Robert Bolt based the screenplay.

**Just like this blog! Although some might switch the use of "borderline" around.

Banana Karenina (fo-fina)

Laura reports that Banana Republic is launching a line of Anna Karenina-themed clothing as a tie-in to the upcoming - and hitherto unknown to us - latest adaptation of the Tolstoi classic. Herewith the trailer:



Laura's coworker asserts that Jude Law and Keira Knightley are two of Hollywood's least liked people. Can someone whose last film experience was not Madagascar 3 (which was actually quite good, by the way) check on that?

Based on this there is no comparison to the 1935 classic with Greta Garbo and Basil Rathbone. I saw that ages ago in high school and remember quite clearly both the elaborate drinking games at the officers' party and Rathbone's tremendous speech (as Karenin) from the top of the stairs casting out Anna. I see that there was also a 1997 version featuring Sean Bean, probably as Anna given his characters' track record (Warning: not for the faint of heart or spoiler-averse):



Herewith the crappy ad copy:

Faux fur on collars, hats and coats fall under the spell of Romantic Russian Imperialism, while richly-textured fabrics in black and dove gray betray the Dior influence.

Yeah, so go to Banana Republic and betray yourself to Dior or whatever. You'll look good on the train or under it!

Ammunition?

It's daunting to follow an inspiring post like JWT's with nothing more than a link or two, but I saw this post on Cocktail Party Physics recently and have been meaning to bring it to the attention of the throng because, after all, reading about drinking is second only to actually drinking. It makes me wish I liked martinis.

The post particularly captured my interest by leading off with a reference to The Thin Man, perhaps the finest film in the alcoholic private detective genre. Coincidentally, those unfamilar with the movie could catch it tonight in a booze-soaked double-feature at the Black Cat. Mid-week booze-soakings, unfortunately, have become a thing of the past for most of us.