Wikio - Busby Berkeley

Waterfall (Pruned)

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:59:00 GMT

(One of Busby Berkeley's musical numbers from Footlights Parade , 1933.)

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MGM Heads To The Auction Block (Cinema Blend)

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:17:45 GMT

... to replace the sweet, sweet sound of MGM's logo? Weep openly, knowing that the studio that allowed Busby Berkeley to work his sweet, sweet insanity back in the 30s has been reduced to the auction block?Well, maybe. Deep within the Reporter piece, among all the speculation about which multinational corporations and crazy entrepreneurs might by the studio, there's this key sentence:...

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Fall Classics (The New Yorker - Arts and Culture)

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Criterion releases a trio of exquisite nineteen-fifties literary adaptations by Max Ophüls: “The Earrings of Madame de…,” from a novel by Louise de Vilmorin; “La Ronde,” based on Arthur Schnitzler’s play; and “Le Plaisir,” featuring three stories by Guy de Maupassant (Sept. 16).Musicals, pre- and postwar, are coming from Warner Home Video: “The Busby Berkeley Collection Volume 2,” featuring...

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2008's Real Stoner Classic (New York Magazine)

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:43:09 GMT

True stoner classics rarely have actual weed in them (see Alice in Wonderland, The Three Stooges). Pineapple Express bills itself as a stoner movie, but it makes way too much sense and, more important, can be enjoyed totally sober. We predict, however, that Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua can only be appreciated high. We base this on the trailer: A crazy-ass, Busby Berkeley–style cascade...

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Staging consultant: Busby Berkeley? (Mad Hare)

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:12:00 GMT

Robert Towle on his prolific and informative blog, Towleroad , has posted a picture of the upcoming Democratic National Convention's stage. They are either living up to the aphorism "Presentation is important," or they're planning a production of Moulin Rouge. Either way, I suspect it will be one hell of a show!

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Astaire, Kelly and the Sinatra Kiss of Death (SpoutBlog)

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:25:42 GMT

... essentially the Mad Men of mid-century musicals; and Take Me Out to the Ball Game , the last film Busby Berkeley directed without choreographing. Ball Game is more of a curiosity than anything else; rumor has it, Berkeley was too far in the bottle at that point in his career to really take control, and Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s credits for choreography. The numbers aren’t...

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Drums of change -- (Trinidad Express)

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:18:07 GMT

... their reduction of humans to a mass precision abstraction seemed to derive in equal measure from Busby Berkeley and Leni Riefenstahl. (Much of Berlin's 1936 Olympics, we should recall, was choreographed by Riefenstahl to fit the fascist aesthetics of her film Olympiad.) The subject of Zhang's ceremonies was a celebration of Chinese achievement and power, at all times stressing China's...

Source : Trinidad Express (subscribe)

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If You Will It, It Is No Dream (Who Is IOZ?)

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:27:00 GMT

Let us examine Harold Meyerson : China is something else again. If ever there was a display of affable collectivism, it was filmmaker Zhang Yimou's opening ceremonies, which in their reduction of humans to a mass precision abstraction seemed to derive in equal measure from Busby Berkeley and Leni Riefenstahl. (Much of Berlin's 1936 Olympics, we should recall, was choreographed by Riefenstahl...

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The Gang's All Here (Seattle Weekly)

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Screened outdoors at dusk, courtesy of Three Dollar Bill, this 1943 musical was directed by Busby Berkeley, though "orchestrate" might be a better word for the festivities. Carmen Miranda, Alice Faye, the dancing Nicholas brothers, and Benny Goodman plus his band are involved in the GI-falls-for-a-c...

Source : Seattle Weekly (subscribe)

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Dames & Cakes: Tilda Swinton’s Film Festival (SpoutBlog)

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:25:35 GMT

... Black Isle, Cromarty and Sutherland.” If you think that’s a lot to swallow, look at the line-up. Busby Berkeley’s Dames ! Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant ! Stuff by David Lynch and Roman Polanski, world premieres, an entire day devoted to singing! And, a mandate that the audience make a lot of noise at the end of each film. From the Ballerina website’s...

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Jumping Jehosophat (Baristanet)

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 06:38:47 GMT

Be afraid, be very afraid. The Chinese have fierce drummers, thousands of guys who can dance, run and perform synchronized martial arts with Busby Berkeley precision, and enough technological wizardry to put Pixar to shame. And we thought our iPhones were cool. Trust me, if Janet Jackson's boob had popped during this extravaganza, nobody would have even noticed. (Photograph, by Creative...

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The Ballerina Ballroom Cinema Of Dreams, Nairn (The Guardian)

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:06:46 GMT

... itself is as a personal and unique as you might imagine. Joel Coen has guest-programmed two slots (Busby Berkeley's Dames and Akira Kurosawa's High And Low), while co-host Mark Cousins is bringing the UK premiere of Senegal's Hyenas, a Palme D'Or-nominated black comedy about venal village life. There will, of course, be work by Swinton's old mate Derek Jarman, but the accent here...

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Let politics-laced Games begin (USA Today)

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:17:00 GMT

Let politics-laced Games begin Nicholas Wapshott, columnist, in The New York Sun: "The Beijing Olympics will open with a ceremony that will be half Busby Berkeley, half Nuremberg rally. It will be the most overtly political Olympiad since 1936. …...

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An eclectic film festival (Salt Lake Tribune)

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:05:00 GMT

... and ending with Fellini's classic "8 1/2." Guest programmers, the Coen brothers, picked a Busby Berkeley extravaganza and the Kurosawa crime classic "High and Low." "All About Eve" and "Singin' in the Rain" are on the bill, but so are little gems like the Canadian children's tale "Paddle to the Sea."

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Fests and events, 8/4. (GreenCine Daily)

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:28:53 GMT

... : Martin Rubin on Gold Diggers of 1933 , part of the Sex and the Single Girl : The Escapades of Busby Berkeley series at UCLA through August 12: "The 'Remember My Forgotten Man' number is noteworthy because it makes explicit the implicit subtext of the fallen women films; it sets the record straight. Rather than countering a real fall (the Depression, male unemployment) with a compensatory,...

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Does this mean we'll have to start watching Busby Berkeley musicals? (Air America Radio -)

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:01:22 GMT

Actually, I've always had a particular fondness for Busby Berkeley musicals. Busby Berkeley was sort of the Max Fleischer of live action films in that you wonder under what kind of drug-induced haze he came up with this stuff. "We're In the Money" from Gold Diggers of 1933 may be one of Berkeley's most tasteless numbers: ...but you have to get up early in the morning...

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Prunings XLVII (Pruned)

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:40:00 GMT

(As if choreographed by Busby Berkeley, snow machines sculpt an Alpine wonderland. Photo by Jules Spinatsch, from his series Snow Management . Source . Thanks, Geoff !) We're clearing our bookmarks again. Here are some links worth saving: Project New Orleans /// Fake Soil /// Designing Greener Dirt /// Chicago's Green Alley Initiative /// GROW:DC /// Cooking at the South Pole /// Pechet...

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Does this mean we'll have to start watching Busby Berkeley musicals? (Brilliant at Breakfast)

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:32:00 GMT

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Mengual aims to make a big splash in the Olympic pool (Scotsman.com)

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:29:38 GMT

When the sport made its first appearance at the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, its detractors mocked its inclusion and compared it to the Busby Berkeley 1940s Hollywood water spectaculars popularised by former swimmer Esther Williams.But one loADVERTISEMENT ok at the training schedule of the swimmers is enough to divest any remaining sceptics of the misapprehension that this is a lightweight...

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Will and Grace (Daily News Analysis)

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:52:05 GMT

... at the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, its detractors mocked its inclusion and compared it to the Busby Berkeley 1940s Hollywood water spectaculars popularised by former swimmer Esther Williams. One look at the training schedule of the swimmers, however, is enough to divest any remaining sceptics of the misapprehension that this is a lightweight Olympic discipline. “We train between...

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