Daily News speaks with Peyton Reed, director of the upcoming Down With Love, a throwback to the "sex" comedies of the late 50s and early 60s, like Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, and That Touch of Mink.
Ewan MacGregor can be charming in his sleep and we certainly rather see more of him than less, but he's not so much the manly man Gothamist imagines from those comedies...Hugh Jackman, the best thing about the anemic Someone Like You, exudes more alpha male quality. The question is whether Renee Zellweger can reach the frothy affability of Doris Day. Her work in Bridget Jones' Diary and especially Nurse Betty say yes. But, after seeing Down With Love trailers, Gothamist was a little horrified by the pounds of make-up they have Renee wearing.
Down With Love premiered at the TriBeCa Film Festival. Next up for Reed, who also directed one of the best movies ever, Bring It On? The Fantastic Four.
Buy Pillow Talk on DVD. Pillow Talk is one of Gothamist's favorite movies - you can't beat Rock Hudson pretending to be gay while really a swinging playboy in New york. Plus there's Thelma Ritter as Doris Day's drunk housekeeper (basically playing the Thelma Ritter patented role of straight-talking salt-of-the-earth sidekick - see Rear Window) and Tony Randall as Doris' would-be suitor. Read more about Pillow Talk and its sexual nuances in Bright Lights Film Journal.
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
You'd think Hugh Jackman was one undoubtedly the supreme alpha male.....unless you saw the ad in the Arts and Leisure section of the Sunday Times last weekend, showing a full page ad for The Boy From Oz, which features good old Hugh doing a high kick in a hawaiian shirt. I don't think he could possibly look more gay, especially when you remember he will be starring in a Broadway musical that requires dancing!
about three weeks before we graduated from columbia i had three or four papers due on the same day. one of them was for the homosexual studies class (it was actually called "the homosexual imagination in literature and film") jen and I were taking. With no time and no ideas I cranked out the single worst paper I ever wrote, about love triangles in the movies of Doris Day and Rock Hudson, analyzed through the lens of the writings of prominent homo writers Bersani and Guy Hocquengham. It wasn't just a bad paper- it literally made no sense from pages 2-12. But our teacher threw me a bone and gave me a B+. With the Columbia grading curve it was literally impossible to do any worse.
I believe the class was called "The homosexual in narrative cinema." And I wrote about Doris Day and Rock Hudson too. I mean, how can you not?
Two words for Hugh Jackman romantic comedy fans:
Kate & Leopold
On the Rock & Doris front, the artist Jonathan Horowitz made this brilliant piece where he played the A&E Biographies of the pair side by side. He programmed in alternating pauses to keep them in sync; but the effect was incredible. Doris' bio was "Why do we all love her so much?" and Rock's was "How did this once-loved hunk destroy himself with lies and AIDS?" both told by Peter Graves' narration and using identical footage, images and clippings.
another gem in the "sex comedy" genre is That Funny Feeling. Doris Day wasn't the only one to score in this category.
Re: Hugh Jackman, I do think he is the leading man of the new century. He's just been so good in everything, he loves (and will be doing) theater and is unafraid to play gay, he elevated Kate & Leopold, Someone Like You and Swordfish, he's Wolverine. He's not too pretty in that Jude Law way, he's not too wooden in that Vin Diesel way, he oozes charm, men and women like him.
sidenote: I am still not over ewan mcgregor either.
I like Hugh Jackman (actually I didn't know his name until I saw him on David Letterman the other night)because he plays a great Wolverine. My life was intertwined with Wolverine for a few years when he was my son's favorite X-man. We had books, action figures, toys, holloween costumes...