Luvsbway

Just got done reading that. Absolutely brilliant and absolutely spot on.

Those films are looking a whole lot better right now.

I had been waiting on Ken's review. He talks about how poorly sitcom writing is portrayed in the film . http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2021/12/being-ricardos-my-review.html

For a film that has packed so much into it I felt like it didn't have much to say or tell us about anybody. Starting with the 3 main plots, Red Scare, Baby and Confidential article, the Red Scare should have been the only one used. It does create tension throughout the week of rehearsal and it comes to a conclusion. Getting the baby episodes approved by CBS and Phillip Morris is just more executives in Desi's office, which we already have for the red scare. The Confidential article has major issues though. It keeps coming up throughout the movie and goes back to Desi saying he was playing cards with the boys on his boat. What I'm never clear on is if Lucy knew he had cheated in the past. This is crucial to know because it's something that ran through their whole marriage. Lucy knew. The Confidential article was the piece that now made it public. I was never able to fully feel that Nicole was Lucy and still think she was miscast. They could have helped her if they even tried to give her similar Lucy hair. But what was more troublesome was how she is written. Nicole acted this fine but the Lucy we got was a hard nosed lady with a witty remark, a comeback or something cutting to say at all times. This was not Lucy. Never once did I get warmth, softness, lovable and she loved to laugh. I don't recall her laughing once in the film. Javier is fine but unremarkable mainly due to the fact he felt like a supporting character. This is Lucy's movie. What my biggest problem in all the Lucy Desi scenes was is the lack of love. These are 2 people who deeply loved each other and were always showing it. The scenes at the studio felt more like business partners than lovers. I need to see this connection between them and why they believed in each other so much. I liked the first night they spent together but it lacked intimacy. An audience needed to see why under all these obstacles these 2 people stuck it out for 19 years. The I Love Lucy scenes were completely unnecessary, cringy and Nicole's Lucy Ricardo voice was a bit scary. The movie uses the writers as they were talking in a documentary in the future. It gives us exposition I don't think we need and slows down the pacing. Take those scenes and the I Love Lucy scene out and the time could have been spent elsewhere. Everything moved at such a clip that very few scenes had room to breath. A few that I really liked did and I wanted more like that. Especially in the Lucy Desi flashback scenes that I thought were effective and enjoyable. And I wanted more of those too.. We could have got a much better sense of who Lucy and Desi really were deep down but I don't feel I got to know Desi and nothing about why Lucy was the way she was. The rehearsal stuff on the set with the dining room scene is really tedious and as it went on just got annoying. Lucy would have never dressed down the writers at the table read or on the set. If she had script issues she went to Desi and he handled them. There are a lot of times Desi is talking to the writers and I saw none of his charm. The Cuban Arm as they called him. He knew how to get that stuff taken care of in a respectful way and this wasn't evident. As for the writers. WOW. With all the interviews out there of Bob and Madelyn and Jess's book I don't understand why they came off as nothing even close to the real people. Bob seemed like a timid little boy who Madelyn kept picking on. And she was always trying to get the credit, I think because they were making her out to be some female crusader in a world of men? Jess and Desi had issues but Jess knew how to stand up for himself and he also knew how to control Lucy, where he doesn't in the film. Bill really stole the film and that I think is because JK is a fine actor. I don't think it was necessarily entirely true to Bill's personality but I don't know him that well. Bill would often be the voice of reason but then that cramugeon side came out and it was funny. Vivian I just felt bad for. She got saddled with this story of her looks and weight being an issue. There is a scene in her dressing room about Vivian not eating, Madelyn brings her food. Lucy comes in and they discuss the weight and that it matters that Ethel stays fat so Vivian should stop losing weight. For Vivian who in real life dealt with mental health issues it just got to me. That scene was the only time in the film I really lost it, tears down my cheeks. Did I hate it, no but I didn't like it. I have so many emotions on how people were portrayed that I think it just leaves me sad for all those real people who worked on the show. But I don't think this will do damage to Lucy and Desi. That was a huge fear. They are too beloved that people hopefully will not believe this is who they were and reject this telling. Especially Lucy, because the Lucy I saw in this film was not the lady I've come to love.

Very cool. I know Amazon Studios bought so it will be nice to stream it at home. I hope though that this give post 1960 some equal time.

Fred and Ethel Fight as I need a refresh before the film.

Just mom though.

A very good article on the research and work Nicole and Javier did to prepare themselves for their roles. The more I read I'm starting to come to the conclusion that Aaron is really the problem here. Nicole wanted to get every same move down for grape stopping. Aaron said it didn't matter. And then his totally wrong fixation on how "Lucy" didn't look like Lucille stopped the hair and makeup department from giving Nicole the correct Lucille look. I mean a simple read of Desi's book and you'd know Lucy wasn't brunette when she met Desi. And this point Nicole and Javier have my sympathy for having to deal with a director who shut down the good work they were achieving. If Aaron could have seen in Lucy and Desi what the actors did in their research we may have ended up with a stellar film instead of a problematic one. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-11-11/being-the-ricardos-i-love-lucy-nicole-kidman-javier-bardem

I just can't with that Hollywood Reporter interview. The reporter asked excellent questions many of us had and all we got was BS from Aaron. He said people today don't find the show funny, he didn't care if the actor's looked or even tried to act like the real life people. He gave some answer I still don't understand about not casting a Cuban. He thinks Lucille off screen was either Marilyn Monroe or Rita Hayworth. I could go on but it reeks of arrogance and a writer drunk on his own power. Who did he make this film for because he insulted a huge fan base and anyone who even remotely likes Lucy.

I posted this on my social. Being the Ricardos trailer review. I was dreading this but honestly it gives me some hope. It’s clear that there was a lot of money put into it and it looks like a compelling drama. I’m not into all the moody, washed out lighting. Did everything happen in the dark? I’m still seeing Nicole in every shot. Hair when she is not on set is not at all how Lucy wore it, and the red tones seem really dulled down. I think they even have her as brunette when she first met Desi (she was a blonde). I haven’t seen enough of her acting to judge for Lucy mannerisms, but there is a similar head tilt. The Lucy voice seems to come and go, which I think is going to get annoying. Listen to her say “Sorry I got lost for a second.” That’s Lucy’s cadence and a hint of her voice. And listen close at the very end, an older Lucy laugh. The thing that pissed me off the most was the line from Lucy, “I’m Lucille Ball, when I’m funny, you’ll know it.” NO, NO, NO. Again, with the arrogance. Lucy said over and over. “I’m not funny. I do funny things (meaning on screen) My writers are funny.” And that voiceover on the last trailer is what gives me BIG concern they wrote her all wrong. If Lucy comes off as Diva, that will do more to hurt her legacy then any factual errors in this film. This right now is my biggest concern. Javier. I’m still getting very little from him to judge his Desi. Javiar’s age is throwing me off big time. I better see lots of warmth and charm in his portrayal because Desi had a wonderful softer side. But he also had an explosive temper too. It’s a fine line to portray him so that the audience will still love him. I was always on board with JK as Bill and I’m still liking what I see. At first I was not getting Viv, but the hair from the early 50s looks right once I looked up pictures. I hope the acting matches up. There is very little of Viv to watch from the 50s to get a sense of who she was. Most is after 1960. The trailer is heavy on 2 subjects. The Communist red scare is one. I will be taking a deep dive into that next week in a multipart series, so we know all the facts and how it happened. The other is the Confidential magazine story and Desi’s cheating. Now a certain producer on this film seems to think her father didn’t cheat very much. So, with that said, what version of the truth will this movie show? Because there are so many creditable accounts from other friends and family who witnessed that it was bad. Other scenes I’m interested in seeing is that meeting on top of Cold Water Canyon in the late 40s, Shooting Too Many Girls and their first meeting. That’s Ann Miller Dancing in that one clip. My Favorite Husband recording is also shown. And I’m curious as to what goes on at Ciros. Overall it’s goanna be a long month with the press tour and additional clips coming out. I’m hoping to see it in a theatre on the 10th.

Desi's went with an overriding theme that I didn't see coming. I think it was handled very well because it lays the ground work to help explain things in their marriage and the eventual demise. I also like that these episodes are not trying to be light and fluffy but get into some very adult stuff with some adult language used by Lucy and Desi themselves.

Well when you are a producer on the film you can't really come out and say, "well sorry kids for yelling at you earlier this year that you must like this film, but it's really not what I thought it was going to be." Of course she is going to like it because if she doesn't, so many fans won't see it. That has been the number 1 thing I'm seeing from skeptical fans is that her support is huge. And maybe she truly did like it, but she has a very unique and one of a kind way of viewing this film. I really want to know that with all the inaccuracies I'm hearing this film has, why was it ok for her to criticize the other films for not being right, when this one won't get it right either? Did her dad somehow come off better in this one? But we still have the Confidential magazine cover story so we can not get away from the fact the man cheated. Maybe Javier gives some long speech justifying how it wasn't as much as it was made out to be.

Entertainment Weekly story out today clearing up and answering a lot of questions. https://ew.com/movies/being-the-ricardos-teaser-trailer-aaron-sorkin-interview/?utm_campaign=entertainmentweekly_entertainmentweekly&utm_content=new&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=616ec27f0fbc4500016b4094

Amazon has confirmed that the Being The Ricardos Trailer drops tomorrow. I'm so mixed with emotions right now. It's gonna be a rough Tuesday.

A great story from Stu's Show last night celebrating the 70th Anniversary of I Love Lucy. Stu in the 80s gave Lucy a copy of The Ann Sothern Show from 1959. She invited him to stay and watch it with him. Right before the sleeping pill scene Lucy asked him to pause the tape and told him this story. Apparently Ann and her daughter Tisha did not get along. Ann found out that her limo driver was having sex with her daughter. I believe Tisha was around 16 at this time. Ann and Tisha had a huge fight in Ann's dressing room that was right next to Lucy's. There was lots of yelling and things being broken.

I am in love. the rare clips, how they were used to tell the story, and how vividly they tell the story that I can picture it in my head. My favorite parts were Lucy and her mom discussing when Henry died. The story Lucy tells about her and Ed seeing Julius and especially all the Johnny stuff. I was listening on my way to work and applauded when I I heard Jimmy's name. From the social media reports I'm seeing on Lucy groups and pages people are loving this.

So in the last interview Lucie talks about a 70th Anniversary TV project. I'm having a hunch it might be something like they did with the Live Jefferson and All In The family recreations ABC did in 2019. Any thoughts on that?

Me too. And another good thing that she is the TCM star of the month for us to see all her wonderful film work and make it visible and known.

Yes. It's a big deal because Lucy was never fired from a studio. That's one of the things she sited during Life With Lucy, she was never fired. I don't count Columbia dropping their stock company as being fired. That had nothing to do with Lucy and her talents. In 1942 her RKO contract was up and MGM had her come over there. It was leaving for a better opportunity. Lucy left MGM on good terms and was going to go freelance but Easy To Wed did so well they wanted her back and when she renegotiated a new contract she asked for a lot more money and they gave it to her. When she finally left MGM again on good terms and she went on to do some fine films with Bob Hope and the Columbia ones (not Magic Carpet). And then My Favorite Husband comes at that time. So this notion of she was some washed up movie actress who couldn't get a job and had to resort to radio is a pile of crap and doesn't make her look good. She was making movies and doing radio at the same time. I don't understand why they had to change it except they needed some BS drama. I guess to make it look like that when TV came about she didn't have any other prospects and it was all or nothing to make the show a success. UGH.

Oh how cute.

Barbara Pepper as a teacher in the film A Child Is Waiting.

I heard a bit of Ron Howard today.

The Sean Astin one is just so oddly meta given the whole mess with his mom.

Saw they have one with Rosie O'Donnell.

Watching Broadway Beyond The Golden Age, a Carole story I never heard. Ethel Merman was Tom's date to the show opening night. After the announcement of Gower Champion's death and the curtain coming down, Ethel turns to Tom and says, "if you gotta go that's the way to go."