Times changing for film critics Apr 4, 2008
"But online movie reviews live in perpetuity." Three months ago, she received a rush of mail about her 2005 review of "Brokeback Mountain." A feature on the centenary of Jeanette MacDonald yielded more than 200 emails, including college students comparing Ernst Lubitsch and Nelson Eddy. "That piece was sent all over the Internet," she explains, "all over the world. The Internet has made reviews not fish wrap anymore.". (Variety)
New on DVD: 'Gangster' is a gritty American crime tale Feb 22, 2008
It helps if you like Maurice Chevalier, the lead in three of this set's quartet; the fourth 1930's Monte Carlo pairs Jeanette MacDonald with British musical star Jack Buchanan, whose only other Hollywood appearance was his 1953 Oscar-worthy turn as the stage director in Vincente Minnelli's The Band Wagon. The Chevalier films are The Love Parade (1929; co-starring MacDonald in arguably the first real movie of the talkies); The Smiling Lieutenant (1931; the set's high point and, like Parade, a... (USA Today -- Life)
Afflecks are stellar in 'Gone Baby Gone' Feb 15, 2008
" GNS file photo Editor's choice 'Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?' -- The latest hit from playwright-director-actor Perry ("Diary of a Mad Black Woman," "Madea's Family Reunion") features him alongside an ensemble that includes Janet Jackson, Jill Scott and Malik Yoba. Adapted from his stage play, the movie follows four couples, old college friends gathered for their annual reunion as secrets are revealed, infidelity is exposed and everyone comes to question their own domestic choices.The... (Florida Today)
New DVDs: Gone Baby Gone, more Feb 15, 2008
This four-disc set packs four song-and-dance flicks Lubitsch made from 1929-32: The Love Parade, with Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald in a romance set among royals of the fictional realm of Sylvania; Monte Carlo, starring MacDonald as a countess who jilts her hubby-to-be on their wedding day and finds new real love on the Riviera; One Hour With You, reuniting MacDonald and Chevalier as a couple whose marriage is shaken by a flirty friend; and The Smiling... (MSNBC -- Movies)
A Sad Valentine for Grammy 2008 Hall of Fame Winner "Indian Love Call" Feb 12, 2008
Hollywood's greatest romantic singing team, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, were forever associated with the famous duet from their film "Rose Marie" (1936) ... New York, NY (PRWEB) February 12, 2008 -- "When I'm calling you-oo-oo " conjures a picture of stouthearted Mountie Nelson Eddy singing a much parodied song to his lady love Jeanette MacDonald ... Nelson Eddy repeatedly proposed marriage to Jeanette MacDonald after their first film together, "Naughty Marietta" (1935). (Yahoo News -- Press Releases)
Classic 'Lubitsch Musicals Set Feb 10, 2008
Jeanette MacDonald, who stars in three of the flicks, frequently appears in her underwear. That's all she's wearing when she runs away from her bridegroom and boards a train, where she memorably sings "Beyond the Blue Horizon" out the window, accompanied by field hands on her way to the French Riviera in 1930's "Monte Carlo.". (New York Post -- Entertainment)
Music And Lubitsch Jan 27, 2008
The other star of the Eclipse set is Jeanette MacDonald, another famous name who is remembered for the wrong movies. She is most often associated with the starched, sanitized films she made later with Nelson Eddy at MGM. But working at Paramount in the pre-Code years, MacDonald was sly and sexy - the difference is night and day. (San Francisco Chronicle -- Entertainment)
'Les Miz' scores with fans Oct 27, 2007
As Marius's own beloved-at-first-sight, the now-grown Cosette, Ren e Brna employs a warbly soprano that brings to mind Jeanette MacDonald. And doesn't it seem just a bit ironic that the culmination of their mutual devotion is a haute-bourgeois wedding feast populated by the very toffs whom Marius and his fellow hotheads so recently strove to overthrow. (Boston Globe)
Nellie McKay is a witty, whimsical charmer at the Paradise Oct 4, 2007
Her pinched, formal delivery of "Prisoner of Love" (dedicated to '30s actress Jeanette MacDonald) at first seemed like a joke; her commanding soprano convinced us otherwise. McKay slipped out from behind the piano to strum electric ukulele on "If I Were a Bell" from "Guys and Dolls," which she sang in a cinematic squeak, and Herman's Hermits's "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter," which she sang with an English accent and a huge grin. (Boston Globe)
Albertas Three Lakes of Louise Sep 6, 2007
The high jagged peaks and steep mountainsides of the Canadian Rocky Mountains have burned themselves into people's minds ever since Nelson Eddie crooned love songs to Jeanette MacDonald in long ago films. It's hard to see them without hearing Canadian Love Call or Rose Marie wafting in the mountain breeze. (Suite101.com)
William Tuttle, 95; his makeup created classic film characters Aug 3, 2007
Plucking, dabbing, swabbing, he fiddled with the faces of MGM's biggest stars, including Katharine Hepburn, Greer Garson, Jeanette MacDonald, June Allyson, and Donna Reed, to whom he was briefly married in the early 1940s. Reed said at the time: "The first day I went to the studio, they sent me to the makeup department, and a makeup man named Bill Tuttle looked me over. He shook his head, mumbled something about what will they dig up next, and then went to work on me. He changed my eyebrows,... (Boston Globe)
Review: Lord of the Rings Jun 21, 2007
He is sometimes let down by his actors - the central romantic couple, Arwen (Rosalie Craig) and Aragorn (Jerome Pradon), are about as charismatic as Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy and sing not quite so powerfully. At least the producers could breathe easy that the technology didn't fail on opening night. (Globe and Mail -- Entertainment)
A miraculous 'Les Mis' from Class Act Productions Mar 3, 2007
Next, we meet Fantine's daughter, (Caroline Davis, as young Cosette, sings with purity in "Castle on a Cloud," and golden-throated Jennifer Barnes plays the mature Cosette with a voice that reminded me of Jeanette MacDonald). Cosette's abusive caretakers are the cruel innkeepers, the Th. (Conroe Courier, TX)
