| Reports claim Aguilera and husband 'living apart' Christina Aguilera has reportedly split from her husband. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
An Affair to Remember: No 13 Leo McCarey, 1957For those of us who like to immerse ourselves in sense-assaulting love stories, this 1957 Leo McCarey classic is as good as it gets. A relentlessly heart-tugging tale of two soulmates whose love even great tragedy cannot tear asunder, An Affair to Remember tosses and turns the emotions but never descends into schmaltz; it stays compelling – partly down to its smart, surprisingly sassy script, which often holds back when it could go for the cheap weep, but also because it is brought to us by two of the classiest acts in Hollywood history: Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.Grant in particular is in devastating form as the charismatic womaniser who is struck down by lovesickness for a woman he believes has rejected him. (It's hard to believe George Clooney didn't spend the 90s watching reruns of this.) Even for those who have never seen it, An Affair holds a unique place in the collective memory of American film-goers, comparable perhaps to the place Brief Encounter has in British hearts and minds. But the film that reduced Meg Ryan to a snotty, gibbering wreck in Sleepless in Seattle is no iconic fossil – that final scene retains its powers to enthral and discombobulate to this day.RomanceJane Grahamguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Death in Venice: No 14 Luchino Visconti, 1971There is possibly a no more overwhelming death in cinema than the one that ends this adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella of homosexual desire. Feted composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde), his face smeared with tragically unbecoming makeup, sits on the beach at Venice Lido watching the object of his affections. To the unbearably bittersweet strains of the adagietto from Mahler's 5th symphony, Aschenbach sees the beautiful Polish boy, Tadzio, get beaten up by an older boy, before he himself is carried off in a Wagnerian liebestod.In Mann's novella, Aschenbach is a novelist. Visconti's decision to make him a composer instead opened the treasure houses of Mahler's 3rd and 5th symphonies. Otherwise the film is faithful to its source: Aschenbach has come to Venice to recover from personal and artistic stresses. Instead, overtaken by an unrequited passion for an unattainable boy, he courts death by failing to heed warnings about the cholera epidemic sweeping the city. There is something almost laughable about Aschenbach's prissy hauteur – a laughableness that only deepens when one learns from Bogarde's memoirs that the director smeared cream on his lead's face from a bottle marked "Do not let this come into contact with the skin". Thus, Bogarde was in agony as he played dead for the camera. Death in Venice recalls WH Auden's poem, Musée des Beaux Arts, about how suffering "takes place/While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along". At the end, filled with the joys and unwitting cruelty of youth, Tadzio and his bully make up and walk past Aschenbach in his chair, not even noticing that the great artist has died.DramaWorld cinemaThomas MannStuart Jeffriesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Cole worried for Waissell Cheryl Cole is worried for Katie Waissell ahead of the live ‘X Factor’ show tonight. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
'Harry Potter' Tops 'Tangled' at Thanksgiving Box Office Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and the Disney animated feature Tangled took in nearly $100 million over the weekend, and close to $150 million for the five-day Thanksgiving span feedproxy.google.com |