Sunday, February 15, 2009 "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

You are cordially invited to George and Martha's for an evening of fun and games.

This Sunday's film selection is the next title in the American Woman series we have going under the umbrella handle of "International Cinema," the overall theme of Sunday's movie nights hosted by moi in Uptown, Minneapolis. I don't believe I've taken the time to discuss the theme of Sunday movie night, which was originally created back in May of 2008. Generally every other Sunday, a movie is selected (usually by me!) from a different country/culture, etc. In order to incorporate US films, I decided to create some different 'series' of American film (because there are many worth seeing). One of these series is titled American Women, of which previous selections have been Looking For Mr. Goodbar (1977) and Foxy Brown (1974), and is simply used as an angle to organize some excellent American cinema, here specifically with some iconic representations of female sexuality, femininity, female aggression, etc, all that fun stuff I love to go on and on about. That said, this Sunday's film is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

Now, I have seen this film before but most of the fun is watching it with people that have never seen it before. Elizabeth Taylor is laugh-out-loud amazing, as is Burton. Sandy Dennis & George Segal are also in top form as the young couple invited over to dinner at George & Martha's. As a small child, I didn't have access to the film, but having read the play in elementary school, I remember trying to get a performance of this going with a little theater group I was a part of in the fifth grade. Years later, I would discover that this film put the final nail in the coffin of the Hollywood Hays Code, as the last censorship issue that had yet to be toppled under the Code was foul language. Needless to say, with my fifth grade group we didn't even get past a read through of the opening scene after I explained to some fifth grade girls what floozy meant. I tried my best, let the record show. Needless to say, I love this play, Edward Albee (who wrote it) and Liz Taylor. If you don't know, Liz and Richard play George & Martha. The plot revolves around them inviting a young couple over for dinner, and the most alcohol you may ever see consumed on screen. This film was Mike Nichols' feature film debut. For those who don't know, his second feature was The Graduate (1967)---I have often wondered how it would feel to be the individual whose first two films define late 60's American cinema? The film won Oscars for Elizabeth Taylor (Best Actress), Sandy Dennis (Best Supporting Actress), Best Cinematography, Best Art-Direction, and Best Costume Design.

In honor of the infamous line Elizabeth Taylor utters in the opening sequences of the film, "What a Dump!" (an homage to Bette Davis in Beyond the Forest - 1949), I will be serving Dump Cake.

You are cordially invited to Nicholas Bell's for an evening of fun and games :)