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    Girl Crazy

    Girl Crazy

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    Girl Crazy is a 1930 musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book by Guy...

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Karina Longworth recommended Kitty Foyle (1940) in Movies (curated)

 
Kitty Foyle (1940)
Kitty Foyle (1940)
1940 | Classics, Drama, Romance
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Next would be Kitty Foyle, which is the movie that Ginger Rogers won her Oscar for. She is obviously mostly remembered for a singing and dancing star from the Astaire and Rogers musicals, but this is a melodrama – there was no singing or dancing. It basically tells the story of a girl who grows up on the wrong side of the tracks and falls in love with a wealthy heir to a big Philadelphia fortune, and has to navigate romance and class and all of these different issues. It’s a very conservative film and it’s very didactic. It’s extremely problematic in a lot of ways, but I find it fascinating. The performance that she gives, though… I think a lot of times, some of these great stars, they win an Oscar for a movie that’s not their best work, or it’s sort of given as a consolation prize for them not winning for something that is a classic. I think people think that about Kitty Foyle because nobody watches it any more, and people only remember Ginger Rogers as a dancer, but her performance in this movie is stunning. The character she’s playing has to sort of take on different personas over the course of her life and with different people in her life. The way that Ginger Rogers performs those unique and distinct versions of the same person is just really incredible. Obviously, there’s a huge degree of difficulty to a career based on singing and dancing. I wrote about this in my book, but there’s that old line about Ginger Rogers that “She had to do everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels.” The whole idea of her stardom is about how much harder it is for a woman to do the same things that a man does. But all of that said, I think there’s a degree of difficulty to this performance that is the kind of thing that is really, true great acting and great stardom, but it’s the kind of thing where the labor doesn’t show, and so people don’t talk about it in that way."

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A Damsel in Distress (1937)
A Damsel in Distress (1937)
1937 | Comedy, Drama, Musical
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"My favorite film is a Fred Astaire film called A Damsel in Distress. It’s without Ginger Rogers, but it’s based on a P.G. Woodhouse book, who is my favorite author of all time, and he wrote the script. And it’s hilarious, and it’s wonderful. Astaire is amazing in it. Joan Fontaine is 22 years old. It’s beautiful, and it’s based on this wonderful Woodhouse book. I watch that at least once a year. And it’s got Burns and Allen, and they’re hilarious. It’s a great film."

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Ginger Snaps (2001)
Ginger Snaps (2001)
2001 | Horror, Mystery
8
8.8 (8 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Ginger Snaps is certainly a product of it's time. A couple of decades later and it's so painfully 2000s, however, it still offers something fresh to the werewolf sub genre.

The allegory of burgeoning womanhood and simultaneously turning into a force of nature is an effective one, and is realised well, thanks to its well written characters and solid cast. Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins do a fantastic job in carving a realistic portrayal of sisterhood and a challenging time in life. Mimi Rogers is great on her supporting role as well.
For a film that has some potential to be silly, Ginger Snaps plays the whole ordeal pretty straight and sticks the landing for the most part. Nothing comes across as goofy.
There's plenty of impressive practical gore on display and some decent creature effects to top it all off.

This movie has a huge following for a reason, and although it's a little dated these days, it's still an enjoyable horror with a surprisingly emotional centre.
  
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
1952 | Classics, Comedy, Musical

"I was a dancer, and this movie inspired me to become a dancer, I think. I grew up watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films, and they really inspired me. I loved watching the big dance sequences in this film. Gene Kelly is phenomenal. I love that the film has fun looking into the transition from silence into sound in the movie world as well. It was a big challenge for a lot of actors to go from one to the other, and I think they have a really hilarious look at that transition. But also I think it’s these big dance numbers and big choreographed pieces with a hundred dancers on top of their game. You just wouldn’t see that anymore. You wouldn’t see sets like that either – the shots are just phenomenal."

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