Nobody's Perfect

Expository Writing

Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot

We watched Some Like It Hot this week. It takes a while getting started, but as soon as the guys appear in their female disguises, it takes off and never stops. When Tony Curtis adopts his second disguise, as an oil tycoon, he does an impression of Cary Grant. It'll be interesting to see if anyone in the class picked up on that. I'll bet at least a couple of students did. I'll also be interested to hear what they made of the movie's famous final line. ("Nobody's perfect.") And then, of course, there's Marilyn Monroe. Will they see what made her an icon?

Class Act

Cary Grant & Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby

Adaptation
Well, that sure was a great class last night! My students were just so well prepared to discuss Rear Window and the whole concept of adapting a text as a film! I just hope we don't lose too much momentum next week, which we have off for Memorial Day.  Meanwhile, we watched Bringing Up Baby and I had the feeling that at least most of the students enjoyed both the verbal humor and the slapstick gags. You'd think that nearly four hours per night would be enough time to cover everything, but we had to leave a few loose ends hanging. Guess we'll tie them up next time.

His Girl Friday Meets The New Girl

Last week in my Comedy class I showed His Girl Friday, the fast-talking newspaper comedy starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. So wouldn't you know? Last weekend on Saturday Night Live, there was a sketch parodying the film! Zooey Deschanel, the guest host, played a new star reporter in a 1940s newsroom who couldn't understand a word anyone was saying because they all talked so fast. Pretty funny. A few of my students had seen the sketch and were clearly amused by it and by the coincidental timing. Wish I could have showed it to the whole class but time was really limited this week and there were technical issues. But I told them where to find it on Hulu.