The Contenders:
Annie Hall (winner)
The Goodbye Girl
The Late Show
Star Wars
The Turning Point
Showing posts with label The Turning Point. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Turning Point. Show all posts
Friday, June 2, 2017
Friday, March 27, 2015
Friday, November 21, 2014
Friday, August 8, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
The Turning Point
Format: Internet video on laptop. 
I might be surprising a number of people with this review. Musicals generally aren’t my thing, but The Turning Point isn’t a musical, but a dance film, and specifically a ballet film. I’m certain I’ve mentioned my tenuous ballet connection here before; it’s the one section of the Arts that I actually know something of thanks to my daughters. And while The Turning Point is a ballet movie, it’s also a drama. In fact, it’s kind of unfair to call it a ballet movie. It is one in the same way that Field of Dreams is a baseball movie. This is a film about relationships and people seen through the lens of a ballet company. It’s impossible to divorce the story from the dance, but this is in no manner a film about dancing.
I admit that I was mildly worried at the outset because of the presence of Shirley MacLaine, who tends to come off in many of her roles as completely neurotic. It’s unfair of me to prejudge in this way, but also virtually impossible for me not to. I’ve seen too many neurotic Shirley MacLaine performances to go into a film like this with my eyes closed. And, it’s about dancers, and she plays a former dancer/current dance teacher, and I can tell you from personal experience that dancers in general and ballet dancers in specific have their own patented brand of neurosis.
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