The_Naked_Librarian Reviews

The Nutcracker (1993)

About the music

[9/10 · 5 December 2007]

As far as I can recall, Balanchine's alterations to Tchaikovsky's score are as follows:

1) The final section of the Grossvatertanz (a traditional tune played at the end of a party) is repeated several times to give the children a last dance before their scene is over.

2) A violin solo, written for but eliminated from Tchaikovsky's score for The Sleeping Beauty, is interpolated between the end of the party scene and the beginning of the transformation scene. Balanchine chose this music because of its melodic relationship to the music for the growing Christmas tree that occurs shortly thereafter.

3) The solo for the Sugar Plum Fairy's cavalier is eliminated.

It seems to me the accusation that Balanchine has somehow desecrated Tchaikovsky's great score is misplaced.

Music from the Inside Out (2004)

Sadly, not terribly interesting

[5/10 · 19 September 2005]

The first third of the movie shows individual musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra playing bluegrass, playing Latin music, running a marathon, listening to an accordion player on the street--doing anything, that is, but playing classical music. It seems like an interminably extended apology: "Classical Musicians Are People Too." They're interviewed, and few of them articulate any great insights into life or even music. And why should they? They're musicians, not philosophers and poets. Too bad we're not given much chance to hear them doing what they can all do so superbly. Even the final Brahms selection over the credits is cut off before the end. Ultimately, it was hard to see what the point of the movie was. I was rather bored.

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

A joy

[9/10 · 14 September 2003]

It's such a joy to watch these two consummate film actors playing against type and having so much fun doing it, Hepburn as the dizzy whirlwind who talks a mile a minute (she reminds me a bit of Carole Lombard in "My Man Godfrey"), Grant as the absent-minded scientist who, bemused, always seems to be following two steps behind her. Hepburn's line readings are hilarious. I laugh out loud just remembering the look on her face and the way she says, "Wait a minute! There's nothing up there. There's NOTHING up there." Real life is just as absurd as the plot of this movie, but never as much fun. Thank God for the movies!