Wednesday, May 29, 2013

The Love Of Lee's Life

Director Steven Soderbergh says he's retiring from film. If so, it's too bad his last project was Behind The Candelabra, currenty showing on HBO.  Starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, it's the story of Liberace's love affair with Scott Thorson.

The two met in the 1970s when Liberace was in his late 50s and Thorson still a teen.  The early days of the relationship, when Liberace seduces Thorson and brings him into his household, is the best part of the story (just as the early days are often the best part of a relationship).  They go on to establish a true rapport and seem to be in love, before it all falls apart with Thorson's drug use and Liberace's fooling around.  Thorson would later sue Liberace, but the two would reconcile in Liberace's final days when he was dying of an AIDS-related illness.

So it's your basic boy meet boy, boy gets boy, boy loses boy story.  The flamboyance and kitsch of Liberace and his surroundings, as well as Douglas's performance, add to the fun, but by the second hour the story gets to be a drag.  Damon does a good job as well, and Rob Lowe is memorable as the plastic surgeon who tries to make Liberace look younger and Thorson look more like Liberace.

Marvin Hamlisch, in what must have been one of his last assignments, adapts Liberace's work faithfully, which was a mix of technical talent and just awful music.  Liberace was a successful act for decades, but really, who enjoyed this stuff?

PS  Debbie Reynolds is unrecognizable as Liberace's grumpy mom.  At one point she says "It is what is it." I don't believe people were saying that in 1980.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

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2:39 AM, May 29, 2013  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I find comfort in bot companionship.

So, no "Arrested Development"?

3:09 AM, May 29, 2013  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"It is what is it" does sound like something an old Polish lady would say in 1980.

7:14 AM, May 29, 2013  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


For what its worth, I heard the phrase 'it is what it is"* at my law firm when I started there in the late 80s with a whole bunch of other noncool business jargon- cut to the chase, push the envelope, which may have been old sayings but were the first I heard them.

* It had a more precise meaning in financial contracts - I recall t referring to actual measured results (as opposed to financial targets which sometimes got confusing when negotiating financial tests and ratios in long complicated credit agreements) which is a little different for the current meaning of [I think] "just deal with things as they are because [I'm][its] not going to change")

7:26 AM, May 29, 2013  
Blogger LAGuy said...

I don't get Netflix so I haven't had a chance to see the new Arrested Development episodes yet.

10:13 AM, May 29, 2013  

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