Sunday, April 24, 2011

Another Handsome Gentleman! (From Vickie Rossi)


nitha072935_1, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.



My thoughts for what it's worth.


Saw "Water for Elephants" yesterday afternoon. Started out great but soon lost it's luster and then trickled to a bore. In my view, the most ridiculous part was the scene that cuts to husband, August, entering the elephant wagon in a rage while everybody stood outside waiting in a stupor while the elephant wagon wobbled back and forth as though caught in a mini-tornado. Then guess what? It's August, not (12ft, two-ton?) Rosie, who exists the wagon in a victory walk---his costume totally in tack, with hardly a hair out of place (no bruises, cuts or scraps), while poor defenseless Rosie lies on the bloody wagon floor moaning, having been taken down by the ringmaster's knockout punch to the trunk. Spare me, the reasoning behind whoever molded that totally laughable scenario into the script. Think of it, Buckles would have been happy to offer his expertise. Come to think of it, why in hell did they pass up Buckles? Why wasn't he on the consultant list? Well, I suppose the star elephant's owner had something to do with that!!! Politics!


Before that was the Tuxedo dinner, I'm mean really!!!!! And, oh please, the supposedly dramatic scene showing the mad rampage of tigers, lions etc. diving at the heels of horrified circusgoesrs---all of whom manage to miss the bestial clutch of fangs and claws by the hair of their chinny-chin-chin. And the final insult: after the show folds the big top is taken down, not by crew (having lost their jobs, they could've used the bucks) but by the simple scissor-cut of ropes, as if given any other alternative.


Certainly, the movie was visually beautiful. Reese's scenes with Rosie and her horses were lovely, though her acting was plastic as if she called it in. I'm a fan so naturally I expected more from the Oscar winning actress. In my view, Patterson was wonderful, and his boyish good looks fit the part. Granted, I'm bios because I'm a huge fan of his, even without the fangs. The actor who played August is a fantastic actor, that's a given, and yes, he was flawless in the part---but after a while his snarly character got on my nerves.


Happy Easter to all, stay safe and healthy,


Vickie

Posted by Buckles at 4/24/2011 05:53:00 AM

16 comments:

Buckles said...

I was busy on another project.

24 April, 2011 06:50
Anonymous said...

Vickie,

John Cuneo insisted on wearing a dinner jacket for years while living on the road and dining in an airstream(not just any airstream, but a Presidential), until his wife got him to relax the standards he was raised with. Class act, and nothing wrong with that.
Emily Post

24 April, 2011 09:47
Eric said...

Here are some comments from a fairly objective review of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS that is posted on the IMBd Movie Data Base:

“Rosie the elephant is easily the most endearing character in the film. The story has been dumbed-down to appeal to a teenage demographic. The costumes and period details are good, (although things sometimes look a wee bit too glamorous considering the milieu it plays out in), but the dialog and body language of the actors feels too contemporary.

I really expected more from this film, but I guess so many of today's films are tailored to a teen aged democratic who lack the ability to concentrate for long periods of time, want fast editing and are not interested in seeing characters breathe or develop in interesting, realistic ways.”

24 April, 2011 12:39
Ole Whitey said...

I'm probably going to regret posting this but here goes.

First all, good for you, Vickie.

Secondly, how many of you have actually read this piece of crap?

The book was given me by a friend so I felt I had to read it as a courtesy to him.

Eric, I don't think it could have stood much "dumbing down." It was about as dumb as it could get already.

Someone wrote in at the time of publication to the CHS forum about the book and I replied that I thought it very inaccurate and poorly researched, in fact I recommended that the party read "Gus the Great," which I consider to be THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL.

Some old gal, who could not have thrown a hitch over a stake if her life depended on it, fired back that it was her understanding that the book was very well researched and she demanded that I list the particular points that I didn't think were accurate.

Since I didn't have a month to list all the bad points, and since she obviously wouldn't have accepted them anyway, I did not respond at all.

I'm sure many of you have heard the story that later surfaced: that the author had actually sent a copy of the manuscript to a circus historian for suggestions, that he made a long list of them and that she then refused to make any of the suggested changed because it would "compromise the storyline too much." Or words to that effect.

24 April, 2011 14:53
Anonymous said...

What a great resource!

24 April, 2011 15:51
Frank Ferrante said...

I'm a sucker for ANY Circus movie and I can't think of any of the films of the past eighty years, going all the way back to Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus", or "The Marx Bros. at the Circus", to "The Greatest Show on Earth", "The Big Circus", "The Big Show", "Trapeze", "Jumbo" and "Toby Tyler" that didn't take some form of "dramatic license" with the facts, behaviors or realities of circus life.

I thought it was a GREAT date movie, I agree that its focus was probably altered to favor the romance angle over the circus history, but I enjoyed it. (Takes a lot of cajones for a real man to admit that, given that it would surely fit in the genre of "chick flick")

IT'S ONLY A MOVIE, no writer, producer, director or star have ever gotten it totally right. Some movies are better than others and some will quickly fade from memory.

There were parts of the film that really hit home, thing that all show folk know did happen on one show or another, (red lighting comes to mind.) Seeing how shows failed during the depression hit home, how other shows caught work like wild fire and came swooping down to add to their own shows.

It did take a lot for Vickie to share her thoughts and I defend her right to do so. I do expect one of our more faithful bloggers' grandsons to do a scene by scene explanation of this film twenty years from now. ~frank

24 April, 2011 16:31
Lane Taburt said...

It's only a movie, whether you're raging against it or praising it. Few circus movies make it past the obligatory showings at a couple of museums or theaters. "Water for Elephants" owes its screen success to a well-written book of FICTION. Name one other book on the American circus which has sold so many books, stayed atop the NYTimes Best Selling Book list and been so favorably reviewed as this one.

Sara Gruen was a first of May when it came to knowing anything about the circus before she began researching the subject and following one or more circuses around for a brief spell. For better or worse, the movie followed the book fairly closely--save for the dialogue between our sexy heroine and heart-throb hero during their romantic backyard trysts.

I give the movie-going public at least some credit for knowing the difference between a work of fiction and a documentary. How many children of all ages really believed that "Dumbo" could fly? And yet it has been an all-time favorite of circus fans.

The reviews on "Water for Elephants" have been very mixed--to the extremes. So what else is new? Remember the "Poseidon Adventure," which was universally panned by the critics but was an absolute box-office smash? It remains to be seen whether this newest adventure thriller has that kind of legs in its second or third week at the theaters.

I had read the book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, just like I was entranced as a child by reading "Chad Hanna." I liked most of the movie adaptation of "Water for Elephants." (I also enjoyed the comic-book-to-movie-screen adaptation of "Spiderman I, II and III" even though I was aware of the films' many departures from the realities of physics.)

Maybe the movie should have shown a green-horn handler having a heart-to-heart with an elephant behind the barn and then later being shoved through the slats of the elephant car by the herd's auntie. Maybe it should have shown the law raiding the pie car and smashing the slot machines. Maybe it should have shown more circus acts--I vote for that. I also missed seeing any shots of set-up and teardown on a muddy lot.

Do I want to see the movie a second time? Am I going to line up to buy a copy of the DVD on the first day of sale--like I did on "The King's Speech"? Probably not. But I'm only one movie buff and circus fan, and I've seen so many pros and cons over the same character portrayals that I'm still a bit confused.

I'll still pay my money to see the real circus, up close and personal. And I'll still buy true-to-life circus books, like Vickie Cristiani Rossi's "Spangles," or Al Stencil's publications on circus/carnivals sideshow.

25 April, 2011 17:06
Anonymous said...

Lane; I can appreciate your enthusiasm for anything circus, but with respect it hasn't been conclusively proven that elephants have aunties. It is generally accepted for the moment that the suggestion of it is strictly an animal rights effort to make elephants "human," thus suggesting they should be protected by human rights. Like Dumbo in a sense yes, but fortunately few people have bought into the "auntie" scheme as yet.

Let's give it some time, then let's see what the animal rights movement does with the movie. Appreciate that it take's a lot of time to analyze what you have and how to front a world wide campaign with it. It doesn't happen over night. Consider also that the the head choreographer in charge of staging the circus scenes Sebastian Stella has known ties with peta associates. Let's be patient and see what eventually play's out.

Jason Carr

25 April, 2011 18:19
Lane Taburt said...

I don't pretend to be an expert on animal behavior. But the incident about the elephant handler being pushed through the wooden slats of a railroad car by an "auntie" was told to me in January 2000 by a veteran animal trainer and zoo director. He said it happened to him in the mid-1940s when he was a young, know-it-all novice elephant hand on Ringling Bros. I can't speak for the experiences of others, like Buckles, but I've been told on numerous occasions by more than one elephant guy that many elephant herds have matriarchs, and "aunties" have been known to assist in the birth of elephants in the wild.

26 April, 2011 00:57
Anonymous said...

I wasn't excited about seeing this one, but caught it tonight. I'm largely in agreement with Vicki, but from another standpoint--after the opening scenes with Hal Holbrook in the Vargas office, most of it went downhill for me. On the office wall was the famed Atwell shot of Clyde Beatty facing Nero, and they gave mention to the Hagenbeck-Wallace wreck of 1918.

The regular box cars used didn't approximate circus stock cars, and the killing aspect of the movie train had characters walking the length of the consist from a stock car, through the workingmens' car, on into the girls' car, through the pie car, and right into the owner's car.

The flying act did two passes credibly, but the lion guy, along with incorrectly holding his chair, had a few frames of nothing to do. The clowns worked straight out of a movie company makeup chair. An attempt to represent even a rag-tag Depression-era circus didn't register. Vestiges of suggestions were there, but this company just didn't get the idea after researching at Baraboo.

Tai, as Rosie, is a beautiful girl, and I was grateful for the well-composed studies of her and Reese working together. Carefully observed, decorative Reese actually did few mounts and briefly realized work with Tai, but what they did was welcome.

The storyline once again trotted out the all-too anticipated circus-staffers-as-villains theme, this time with the owner as cruel to Rosie, a murderer of men, the insanely jealous husband bringing doom to both his show and to himself in the act of trying to kill poor Reese. Rosie dispatches him with a pulled stake, the cops cut the guylines, and down comes the movie.

For anyone looking for circus on film, as much can be found in re-runs of "Circus Boy."

26 April, 2011 03:54
Anonymous said...

Lane; To suggest that "aunties" assist in a birth, is to suppose that an elephant knows who it's mother and father is, as well as who the mother and fathers brothers and sisters are? Why don't their own sister's help? I should think cousins would also. Why only "aunties?" Why not uncles? Horse mare's(as well as bovine and countless other species, or quite simply, herd animals), stand close by during a birth, even curiously sniffing. If they had a trunk, I suppose they could assist. They will occasionally take/steal a new born foal from it's "rightful" mother, and raise it as their own. Is that kidnapping? If an elephant mother, or "auntie" kicks it's baby to death, is that murder, manslaughter, or elephantslaughter?
Although Pat Derby, who is also an elephant expert, according the her, Bob Barker and many others might disagree with the real experts, and agree with you and your experts because she say's on her web site that two male elephants who had never been together or even laid eyes on each other, and only shared the same father, when seeing each other for the first time "Sabu is half brother to Nicholas, and they both appear to know they are related."
Mr. Talbert, is an elephant, who has "aunties" and "recognizes and knows" it's half sibling's, innocent until proven guilty, by a jury of their peers? Does this same elephant have rights inherent to all human beings, whatever their nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status. Elephants are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.

Universal human/animal rights are often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the forms of treaties, customary international law, general principles and other sources of international law. International human/animal rights law lays down obligations of Governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote and protect human/animal rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups.
So Mr. Talbert, as the animal activists claim, do the elephant "aunties", half brothers, grandmothers, grandfather and other family have the same rights as a human being?

Jason Carr

26 April, 2011 06:18
R said...

For the one labeled Anonymous, starting with, "I wasn't excited about seeing this one...", that's me. I have no more respect for Anonymous signers than most of you, and must be forgiven for the distractions that kept me from signing in properly.

26 April, 2011 17:18
J said...

Thank you "R" for manning up and coming clean.

26 April, 2011 20:09
Roger Smith said...

It still didn't post correctly. I just got back from $195 worth of computer repairs. So, I'll sign on again.

26 April, 2011 22:05
GaryHill said...

For everyone that posts Anonymous or uses just letters, I am sure that you must be Grateful that the Capt allows you to post here? He must know WHO you are, because he lets you??

26 April, 2011 22:17
Buckles said...

I tolerate most anyone on the Blog so long as they have something interesting to say.
Bear in mind, some contributors might resort to this due to Outstanding Warrants, Back Alimony, Unpaid Bills, etc.

26 April, 2011 22:44

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