| Modifed from its original |
Bad in the day, this was my most favorite movie. I was sitting down with my partner watching it, and we both noticed that several scenes were deleted. Except for the two songs missing, this is the best movie I have ever seen, funny and witty. |
4 Rating
|
| Mrs. Arnstein, Mrs. Arnstein. What a Beautiful Beautiful Name... |
When Barbra Streisand reprised her role as Fanny Brice in the movie version of Funny Girl, her stardom was cemented. Not only was it a huge hit, but it was loved by audiences, has gone on to be one of her most adored performances, and made her an Academy Award winning actress. Through it all, she deserved every bit of it.
The movie tells a loosely-told story of famous vaudeville star Fanny Brice, and how she struggled for fame and finding the man she loves in the first half, and the second half goes more dramatic, telling how her true love, Nicky Arnstein, threatens to drag her down with him as he digs deeper and deeper into gambling debt and corrupt behavior. The story, if you really pay attention to it, is not terribly deep or original, and in the middle switches from a rags-to-riches/beating the odds in show business story to a more dramatic star-crossed lovers story. But even so , with likeable characters like Fanny, Nicky, Mr. Ziegfeld, and so on, you cannot help but feel involved in their ordeals.
The performances here are all top notch. Omar Sharif brings a perfect amount of charm and shadiness to Nicky, and Walter Pidgeon is delightfully smug and caring as Florenz Ziegfeld. But the performance to watch, without a doubt, is Barbra Streisand as Fanny. She not only balances her comic and dramatic abilities beautifully, but makes us really like Fanny as a friend. She is confident, naive, happy-go-lucky, and vulnerable all at once. She deserved the Oscar more than anyone else that night, and she got it.
Last, but not least, the songs are just magnificent. Almost exclusively sung by Barbra, she is perfectly at home singing all of them, and succeeds in most. She's fun in "I'm The Greatest Star," radiantly sexy in "I'd Rather Be Blue Over You," tearjerking in "People," and, of course, her bravura performance of "Don't Rain on My Parade" (the scene with the tugboat will give you shivers the same way Julie Andrews' scene on the hill does in Sound of Music). Some songs are good, and some songs are great, but no song is mediocre.
I could go on and on, but I want those who haven't discovered the movie yet to find out on their own. Barbra's fans will worship it, fans of musicals will love it, and even those who don't care for either musicals or Barbra Streisand will smile at least a few times. If you haven't seen it yet, don't waste another second. |
5 Rating
|
| Barbra At Her Best |
The vehicle that made Barbra Streisand a major superstar. From Broadway acclaim, to her 1968 Academy Award winning performance, "Funny Girl" is Barbra Streisand. When she sings its most familiar number "People", it seems all time stands still. And to date, there still is no one else who can touch that song but Barbra. As the popular comedic singer/actress Fanny Brice, we're given a lesson of survival through adversity. And Omar Sharif's finest hour since his appearance in "Doctor Zhivago" as Fanny's gambling addicted first husband Nicky Arnstein. You so much want to see these two succeed as a couple; but alas, it just wasn't to be.
Another standout is the finale, as Barbra so convincingly sings "My Man" with every award winning emotion imaginable. A note of trivia, Barbra Streisand won her 1968 Best Actress Oscar in a tie with Katherine Hepburn for her grand performance in "The Lion In Winter". An extreme rarity in Oscar history, having only happened once before back in the 1930s. |
5 Rating
|
