Saturday, September 03, 2016

Looking at the Movie FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS




We saw the movie FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS yesterday.  Not bad.
It is a true story about a wanna-be classical singer who, as they say, had more money than sense.  She was a terrible singer but her husband did not have the heart to tell her, so he gave fat tips to people, suggesting they should tell Florence how good she is.
Florence Foster Jenkins was played by Meryl Streep.  Her husband played by Hugh Grant, and the piano player, who in my opinion stole the show, was Simon Helgrove.  Another who stole the show was Nina Arlanda, who played a gum chewing sexy blond showgirl who recently married the owner of a meat company and he is trying to indoctrinate her into high society.
World War II in going on and Patriotism was coming strongly alive to show "those boys fighting for us" true appreciation.
The movie has a living room party scene where people come alive doing the Boogey Woogey.  It was a great demo!  And more than once The 1940s fast pace music broke out to fit the times.  It was well done.
Florence decides to give a concert at Carnegie Hall in invite about 1000 service men to show her appreciation. 
They and musical patrons pack the house and Florence (Streep) sings for them.  Everybody almost laughs her off the stage.  But suddenly the people realized she was giving all music ability she had to show them her appreciation. 
She got a standing ovation.
And died not long after that, in 1944.

Did I tell you the time when a bunch of us Navy friends went to Carnegie Hall?  Not that it had anything to do with this movie, but I recognized the layers of balconies.  We went on a week night to see a Folk Singers concert night.  There were a bunch of popular singers and groups there but the only person I remember by name there was Johnny Cash, and he wasn't what I would call a folk singer.  

No comments: