*Official* Being the Ricardos thread

Lots of one-star reviews on Amazon

[quote] The linguistic anachronisms. Yikes! No, Lucy, Desi is not "gaslighting" you. No, Madelyn, you didn't just say that "literally" 30 seconds ago

I am five minutes in, just "meeting" Vivian and Bill, and I paused it to come here and bitch about the dialogue. It is TERRIBLE. They're not speaking like real people who know one another. It's all expositional, "info dumping," and they're telling one another things that they would implicitly know that everyone in the room knows.

Aaron Sorkin is most acclaimed for his dialogue, right? I don't get it.

The acting is weirdly and pretty consistently wooden. It has to be a directorial stylistic choice, but why? It feels like a TV movie, which is OK since I'm watching it free on Amazon, but if I had gone to a theater, I would feel bamboozled like when I saw Bombshell and realized it was a cheesy TV movie.

The movie is just one week, we need a full biopic without Botox face Kidman

As I stated in another thread, I would love a biopic that focused on the 30-year friendship of Lucy and Viv.

Bruce Beresford could direct it. It would require a subtle touch, much like the one he brought to Tender Mercies and Driving Miss Daisy. Their relationship was complicated, nuanced, and multifaceted, and its evolution would make for a great film I feel.

I had an idea years ago for a book or movie about Ball that would be kind of like 'The Great,' (*an occasionally true story), and my title is much better than Sorkin's!

Unfortunately, I am lazy and it would probably turn out terrible anyway.

I’m upset that it’s bad and Kidman sucks because I really do not want Kristen Stewart to win the Oscar

Overall, liked the movie, but can see others not liking it.

Acting was very good by all.

My only complaint is the movie was too long and at times repetitive.

The Oscar should go to either Penelope Cruz or Gaga.

Nicole Kidman doesn't even deserve a nomination. Neither does Kristen Stewart for her whispery, unintelligible performance as Diana. Do not believe the hype.

Is this out yet?

Nicole looks nothing like Lucy. Deb Messing would have been better when she was younger.

Let me tell you about Deb Messing...

R10 Yes, is out.

I would be shocked if Nicole is nominated. It’s a really bad film. Most Academy members will never get through it.

Did they spill maple syrup all over the camera lens? Every scene is lit darkly to hid Nicole’s rubbery face 🤡

What channel?

Amazon Prime

Grim! My main criticism is that Sorkin clearly had no love or respect for the subject matter or the characters. It's an awful movie with no affection or humor.

Since most threads can hold 600 replies, I don’t know why this thread was started, it seems a little premature

r18 = the ghost of Jess Oppenheimer

So much of the dialogue is mean without being especially witty or enlightning

I'm watching it right now. I SO wanted to love this. I don't.

It's just so boring and drab and Nicole - and I love her - isn't capturing Ball at all. She's playing her too smug or something. Though, the scene where she gets fired from the studio was great.

I actually wanted to love it too, r21, despite some of my snarkier comments on the other thread. (I'm OP here.) I've loved ILL most of my life and really wanted to get lost in the magic of its recreation, especially to escape from the shittiness of the the world right now.

And ... it just never happened. About 45 minutes in, I realized it was only going to go downhill. (Although I paid for my $10 ticket and stayed until the end, of course.)

It went wrong in so many ways.

Totally agree R22. Like you, the ILL reruns were a staple in my house growing up. I have always found Lucy and Desi fascinating for a thousand reasons.

And yet, I'm just over an hour into the movie and I find myself posting on DL.

That can't be a good sign.

I'm the one whining about the dialogue above.

I just finished it and actually found it moving at moments toward the end. I think Sorkin did a good job (as did Lucille in interviews and in her memoir) juxtaposing Desi's and Lucille's strengths (business savvy and emotional support/professionalism and intelligence) and weaknesses (fucking around/paranoia and overly serious) with the objective crisis (red scare) that tested all of that.

But on a line level, it was hard to listen to. Dialogue was too descriptive and unnatural throughout.

The Vivian B-storyline about her vanity was unnecessary to this story and it felt trite woven in with the major crises in Lucille's life.

J.K. Simmons doesn't look at all like Frawley but he sounded exactly like him and captured enough of Fred's energy to be very believable. Bardem was a better Desi/Ricky than I expected, but he looks nothing like him...kind of weird to see 'pretty Desi' looking old and weathered. Nicole is a great actress and she wisely balanced a little bit of impersonation with a performance she felt, but overall, I feel like someone could have done Lucille better, although I can't think of who. She clearly tried hard. At moments, she got the tone of Lucille's voice right, but that came and went and the accent was off—I guess knowing Lucille was from New York suggests to Nicole that Lucille spoke like a New Yawkur, and she wasn't quite so heavily accented. They did a better job making her up to resemble Lucille Ball than I would think could have been done, but I'd never mistake the two for one another.

Overall...meh. Interesting little appendix to Lucy lore, but if I had paid to see this in a movie theatre, I would have left really annoyed. There was nothing feature film-ish about this movie. It feels made for TV, and honestly, I'd only suggest J.K. Simons as an Emmy nominee.

I still would like to see Kaley Cuoco play Vivian Vance. Her nose/mouth resemble Viv's and I have a feeling she could be a bit of a chameleon if given the chance. She did a mix of comedy and drama well in The Flight Attendant.

Preferred Nicole's Lucy to Javier's Desi.

Complete and utter trash. This is what happens when you allow crotchdroppings of subjects to control the narrative. I particularly "love" how they made Desi look like a sober saint when he was famously drunk by 11am daily. To say nothing of the horrible casting; Kidman's facial prosthetics are so bad they're distracting, and she's just not convincing as Lucy, and her acting is wooden. I don't understand the positive reviews; the story itself is boring, hard to follow and convoluted. I was so triggered by how bad this was I created a Metacritic account just so I could slag it.

Sorry for my superfluous use of "and" above. Don't execute me.

Deb Messing should've played Lucy

[quote] I particularly "love" how they made Desi look like a sober saint when he was famously drunk by 11am daily.

Interestingly, the movie's version of Desi as a godsend aside from the whole infidelity thing is Lucille Ball's version of Desi.

R28 Given that this was effectively a TV movie of the week, yes, she would have been a more approproate lead.

That said, she imitates Lucy Ricardo well, but could she bring any emotional heft and beyond-sitcom emotional heft to a portrayal of Lucille Ball offstage?

Desi's real talent, aside from his business acumen, was his ability to identify talent. The cast and crew of ILL was perfection.

Thank goodness Gordon Gale wasn't cast as Fred Mertz. Can you imagine?

The verbal diarrhea in this movie is truly dreadfully dull, too much talking and no feelings at all.

I’m going to cross this off my list of Oscar films to watch.

I think we might see some surprise Best Actress noms. (The Haim girl? The girl from CODA? Vicky Kreips?) More than other years I can remember, the big films have not lived up to the hype this year. And there’s also Lady Macbeth lurking…

I can't see Lucille Ball confiding in Bill Frawley about her marriage woes. I thought that was a definite misstep and out of character.

And in real life, Viv and Desi were friends, and Viv often defending him in his arguments with Lucy. That dynamic wasn't captured at all.

I agree with someone upthread who said the film lacked warmth and affection for its subject.

^^^ defended

There was a 2003 TV movie that covered much of the same territory but with a much more believable cast. It was called "Lucy" and starred a youthful Rachel York and a muy guapo Danny Pino, both of whom did well.

The movie was rapped as shallow by many critics and criticized by Lucie Arnaz, but it's worth a watch for the talented cast.

It's available on Amazon Prime.

Oddly enough, I thought Linda Lavin and the other two were the most believable characters in the movie.

Nicole Kidman has never been able to do a believable American accent. She always sounds like she's trying too hard and like she's focusing on getting her vowels correct. I always find myself focusing on trying (and failing) to hit the sound of them rather than the performance. It was a terrible miscast. The entire foursome is poorly cast. And Alia Shawkat should never be allowed to work. She's awful.

Nicole’s face has become a kabuki mask. (Watching it now.)

I'm sure the TV movie wasn't very good, but I remember Frances Fisher's performance as Lucille Ball vividly from my childhood. When I saw Titanic, one of the first things I noticed was that "the woman who played Lucy" was on of the stars.

Why do they always get Ethel's hair wrong? It can't be that difficult.

Ugh ... Gale Gordon at r31

I can't multitask

My two cents on why I chose not to see this Lucy-Desi debacle and what I saw watching Lucy as "Lucy" and as herself in interviews growing up in the '70s & '80s... See the link...

500 replies on this POS?

501, r44.

Alia Shawkat has no business as a serious actress. She’s enjoyable in deadpan, hipster comedy but to see her be human or try and emote is pathetic.

I think I read somewhere that part of Sorkin's source material was Lucy's posthumous autobiography "Love, Lucy" which I am just finishing. And in it she gives full credit to Jess Oppenheimer for coming up with and supporting the idea of incorporating Lucy's pregnancy into ILL. But the movie presents the exact opposite scenario, and spends an awful lot of tedious time on the topic.

I wonder which version is true...

You all know that Cate Blanchett was attached to this project for years? But at the last minute dropped, I think because Nicole was considered a far bigger name in the streaming film world.

Though I was initially intrigued with the idea of Cate as Lucy, after seeing the film, which I totally abhorred, I think Cate would have been too steely and could not have brought some of the vulnerability Nicole naturally has - and I'm no fan of Nicole's - but Cate would have made Lucy even colder than Sorkin has written her.

I agree with the poster above who singled out JK Simmons as the only possible Oscar nominee. He's the only one of the 4 who came close, and without even much of a physical resemblance. Nina Arianda was too coarse as Ethel. And all her smoking - even if Viv actually smoked in real life - it gave the character an uncharacteristic toughness that didn't hep establish the Viv we love.

And I also agree with the poster upthread about Linda Lavin as well as John Rubinstein and Ronny Cox, as the only performances with any warmth and affection for the subject matter. It's like they were in another film. Hated the dim unflattering portrayal of the 3 writers when young. I wonder what Lucie Arnaz makes of them?

I think Nicole will be snubbed in favor of Penelope Cruz or even Jennifer Hudson.

Jennifer is DOA

Cate Blanchett has potential to be an excellent Lucille Ball, IMO. She has a more Ball-like face shape, and she can play daft comedy as well as she can play heavy drama and romance.

But like Nicole, she is way too talented for this script and direction. I'm really appalled by how poor both are.

I wonder what's up with Nicole lately...The Undoing followed by Nine Perfect Strangers followed by this. She's still one of the best actors out there. Is she only being offered terrible scripts now, or has she been popping painkillers and lost all discretion?

[quote] I think Nicole will be snubbed in favor of Penelope Cruz or even Jennifer Hudson.

Let's fix this.

[quote] Penelope Cruz deserves the nomination and Nicole needs to choose better projects.

A bunch of the potential best actresses’ films were significantly less commercially successful than predicted: Rachel Zegler, Jennifer Hudson, Cate Blanchett

Then another group’s films turned out to be less critically successful than predicted: Nicole Kidman, Kristen Stewart, Jessica Chastain, Lady Gaga

And then a third group whose films might still have some potential, but who haven’t got much love from other awards boards: Olivia Colman, Frances McDormand, Penelope Cruz

This leaves some space for more unlikely nominees: Penelope Cruz, Haim, the lead from CODA, the actresses from Passing, etc. I haven’t seen Drive My Car but isn’t that a lead female performance?

Both Cate Blanchett and Nicole have wrecked their faces with plastic surgery. I turned off Ocean’s 12 after 5 minutes because I couldn’t bear to watch Cate’s and Sandra’s faces. Plastic surgery is wrecking tv and film acting.

Cate Blanchett looks like a ridiculous drag queen in the trailers for that del Toro film with Bradley Cooper. Well, he looks ridiculous, too. So overwrought.

Really? I think Cate is a surgical success story along the lines of Jane Fonda (up until a couple of years ago).

Jennifer Hudson is the affirmative action nominee. Don’t underestimate my power.

It’s too much filler or something in her cheeks and around her nose and lips, same with Sandra. It makes their faces look very creepy and smoothed over all around the middle.

I’m still at the beginning, but there’s this really weird continuity error when Viv is trying on the red dress and half the time they show it slightly off one shoulder and the other half centered. It’s obvious, very, very obvious, unless it’s leading up to the idea that there are two realities going on in the movie and it’s a setup for some kind of divergent storyline I haven’t caught onto yet?

Cate’s initial plastic surgery (including nose job) was good but now she overdoes it with fillers.

Nicole is an aging pillow face. She can’t come back.

It transforms into Mulholland Drive about two hours in, r59.

Spoiler: Vivian is just a figment of Lucille's subconscious mind.

I noticed that about Viv's red dress as well. Just a bad continuity gaffe, I think, nothing more.

[quote] unless it’s leading up to the idea that there are two realities going on in the movie and it’s a setup for some kind of divergent storyline I haven’t caught onto yet?

...yes. Yes!! That is, uh, that's exactly what I had in mind with the script and direction. Only the smartest viewers will catch on to thedeep metaphysical alchemy of this story, which is why the critics don't see the value.

What's with the very beginning of the film where Sorkin focusses the camera for ten minutes on Lucy and Desi's hips as they bicker and then make love, refusing to show us their faces?? He finally realizes that eventually we have to see Nicole's face.

I grew up in the motion picture business and I can objectively say this is one of the best 10 movies of the past 50 years.

So, they get three Oscar winners to play the leads of the TV show, but short change the fourth? What’s that all about? Olivia Coleman has the bulky body that would have been perfect for Vivian Vance and it would have been a nice stretch acting wise for her.

I told r65 to stick to legitimate theater!

R64 Found footage from when Nicole and Javier didn't know the crew left the camera running during lunch service. Aaron thought it looked 'artsy' and it would be a good gag to embarrass them to include their real-life sex tape at the beginning of the movie.

And I told R67 she could have saved my parents' marriage if she had just eaten the goddamned eggs and sausage, the homewrecker!

Thank GOD I was left out of this travesty.

I didn't like the jumping forward, lurching back, jumping forward again, etc etc etc.

I feel it's a cheap gimmick in narrative. It's much harder, to my mind, to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end -- in that order -- than to construct a complex plot that lacks temporal linearity. Simplicity of narrative requires discipline.

Why on earth would anyone think Nicole would be believable as Lucy, even in flashbacks to when she was even younger at RKO? Yikes

R5 what a great idea! I would gladly watch that movie.

r46 Alia Shawkat is a graduate of the Selena Gomez School of Acting.

They say every line in a world-weary deadpan like a woman twice their age. It's very hip with the Gen Z.

If you expect a perfect recreation you’ll be disappointed. I didn’t hate it. I thought everyone had some good moments. AS did to JB what the world did to DA - overlooked him. I thought JB gave the best performance despite being underwritten.

r73 if only I were a film producer ...

NPR: If you love Lucy, you might not hate 'Being the Ricardos'

Not exactly a ringing endorsement

Rather low stakes but watchable. Lucy wasn’t extremely likable, which was probably true to life, but would have been more into it had I connected with her.

Jake Lacy has the look and attitude of 2019.

[QUOTE] Jake Lacy has the look and attitude of 2019.

I agree. He just wasn’t well cast in this at all and did not portray the right vibe. (Ali Shawkat was poorly cast too. She seemed like a 2021 hipster cosplaying 1950s “office worker”).

Lacy was perfect in The White Lotus (and even in Carol six years ago). This seemed like a paycheck film for him.

I don't care how good an actress Kidman is. I can never get past the scary face. From some angles that face is horrifying!

I'm watching it now. I like it. It's not great, but it's good and entertaining. Performances are good. Writing less so.

They left out Bill's tremors and uncontrolled flatulence.

I agree with the people who say Bardem gave the better performance. I've never seen ILL so I wasn't bothered by his leathery appearance. I also don't mind Sorkin's unnatural, expository dialog. That's been his trademark for 30 years and watching a Sorkin film and bitching about how unnatural everyone sounds is just stupid, imo. Overall it was an okay movie. Entertaining but I wouldn't bother rewatching it or recommending it.

[quote]Since most threads can hold 600 replies, I don’t know why this thread was started, it seems a little premature.

Because OP felt his observations were too important to be reply 501.

BTW, they aren't.

I loved it! I thought the acting was terrific, especially Nicole, and that includes her “Lucy Ricardo” scenes. Yes, the anachronisms bugged me. Saying Judy Holliday was Lucille’s competition for the 1942 “Big Street” bothered me (Holliday was a 20 year old nobody in 1942). Big all in all, I thought it was great fun.

But DL is ground zero for bitchy complainers who don’t like anything, so please continue.

[quote] From some angles that face is horrifying!

Then stop looking in the mirror, r80!

[quote] Aaron Sorkin is most acclaimed for his dialogue, right? I don't get it.

He's acclaimed for being a Paddy Chayefsky wannabe. His dialogue was never as great as critics made it out to be.

Yeah, what was with the Judy Holliday obsession? That was just weird and wrong.

You'd have thought he could have bounced over to the Judy Holliday Wikipedia page, since he was on the website anyway researching the rest of the film.

Sorkin completely screwed up the timeline of Lucy's film career. Which I suppose only matters if you're interested in the truth.

You literally can't handle the truth, r90! Now stop gaslighting me, got it?

Was Lucy an icy bitch? I don’t think so. This movie is AWFUL.

According to Elizabeth Taylor, she was a bitch to her when she did a guest stint on "Here's Lucy."

And Joan Crawford famously said, after guest starring on Here's Lucy: "And they call me a bitch!"

[quote]Was Lucy an icy bitch?

Take a number, r93/r94

R93 I think "bossy" would be a more apt description. She basically said that Lucy told her where to stand and how to deliver her lines.

Richard Burton was more severe, writing:

[quote] "She is a MONSTER of staggering charmlessness and monumental lack of humor….Milady Ball can thank her lucky stars that I’m not drinking. There is a chance if I had, I might have killed her!”

[quote] However, Lucy’s attitude did not just occur after her divorce from Desi. Katharine Hepburn, who worked with Lucy at RKO, refused to ever guest on a Lucy program as she knew her attitude. Once, during their RKO days, a make-up man stopped working on Lucy to take care of Hepburn who had an earlier call to her set. Lucy was so furious, she threw her cup of coffee at the make-up person and hit Katharine instead!

They were in Stage Door together. Hepburn and Ginger Rogers were the stars. Lucille and Ginger were close friends, and Katharine didn't get along with either of them (or vice versa).

Lucy looks so glamorous at R97

The Big Street trailer is kind of backhanded toward Lucy: "Lucille Ball's first great emotional triumph."

[quote] Lucille and Ginger were close friends, and Katharine didn't get along with either of them (or vice versa).

Lucille kind of confirmed that in this funny clip of her imitating Katharine Hepburn.

It's been posted on DL a lot over the years but there's a wonderful clip from a documentary about RKO on youtube of the elder Lucy talking about her early days at the studio. She is extremely engaging here, looks fabulous and doesn't have the typical coarse gruffness of her later years. And she chats in awe about Ginger and Kate! The whole documentary, which is in several parts, is terrific.

Worth searching for....sorry not to provide a link but it 's a good reference for Being the Ricardos.

Ooops, you beat me to it, r100! Thanks for posting!

[quote] 6. The linguistic anachronisms. Yikes! No, Lucy, Desi is not "gaslighting" you. No, Madelyn, you didn't just say that "literally" 30 seconds ago

People have *literally* been gaslighted for decades upon decades. Grow up and educate yourself.

The play Gas Light opened in 1938 and movie Gaslight was released in 1944, so I guess it’s possible they’d be using the term in the 50s. Still, Lucy had to explain "gaslighting" to Mary Jane in this 1967 episode of The Lucy Show.

i enjoyed it. oscar bait for sure.

[quote]Katharine Hepburn, who worked with Lucy at RKO, refused to ever guest on a Lucy program as she knew her attitude.

Yes, she much preferred guest starring on I Married Joan.

Per the horse's mouth (The Oxford English Dictionary), the first recorded use of "gaslight" as a verb was in Anthony F. C. Wallace's 1961 book Culture and Personality, r104.

Here's an idea: Amazon should remake the movie over and over with a different generation writing/directing/starring in each one.

This was the Boomer version.

Next up, Amy Heckerling writes and directs a version starring Winona Rider and Johnny Depp.

Then a Greta Gerwig x Ava Duvernay collab starring Saoirse Ronan and Luis D. Ortiz in his breakthrough debut.

And finally, a Zoomer version written and directed by ingenue Marsai Martin and starring Greta Thunberg as Lucy, Chance Perdomo as Desi, KJ Apa as Fred and Billie Eilish as Ethel!

Why is that back-handed, r99? She wasn't known as a dramatic actress.

[quote]Once, during their RKO days, a make-up man stopped working on Lucy to take care of Hepburn who had an earlier call to her set. Lucy was so furious, she threw her cup of coffee at the make-up person and hit Katharine instead!

How *dare* Kate get preferential treatment!

Mary me, r108!

10 for the idea, r108, but 5 for the execution. Your actor choices just weren’t amusing.

RUDE, R111.

And R111 don't tell me Greta Thunberg and Billie Eilish wouldn't make a memorable Lucy and Ethel!

Greta-Lucy: THE WORLD IS ENDING!

Billie-Ethel: Cool. Earth is hell anyway. Let's go out in style, Lucy.

Greta-Lucy: It is not COOL, Ethel! It is a tragedy! A tragedy no one cares about! And you are fat! A fat, self-indulgent American cow woman! Moo moo! Moo moo moo!

Billie-Lucy: Wig! You a boss woke bitch, my sis.

I love you, r114!

I didn’t read much prior to it so I had little expectations, but overall I liked it, but I do like the behind the scenes type of performances. I did like both of the twists at the end.

I love I Love Lucy and I have a lot of respect for Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz and Vivian Vance based on all I've read.

The movie is at least respectful to all of them (and possibly a little too respectful toward Bill Frawley if the accounts of his life are true—weird that Sorkin gave him that grandstanding moment in the end about men being called old). It's just not a very good movie. As I've said, it's an OK TV movie, but it's kind of alarming that the studio expects people to pay money to see it in a theater, and it's pretty weird that movie stars agreed to this script.

Of course Lucie Arnaz is going to like it, she has an executive producer credit on the movie.

R118 The movie clearly shows Lucie's version of her mother and father...she says Lucille was a control freak and exacting about rehearsing and having every movement planned out before taping the show, and that Desi was fun loving, funny, loving, smart, inventive, and basically the heart of the show and the family. Plus that pesky infidelity thing.

I also wonder if Lucie's influence is why Desi's alcoholism isn't even hinted at. I get the sense she romanticizes her father and can accept the philandering as a consequence of his cultural upbringing (there's a speech about it in the movie), but not his self-destructive addictions.

[quote]It transforms into Mulholland Drive about two hours in, [R59].

[quote]Spoiler: Vivian is just a figment of Lucille's subconscious mind.

As if Sorkin were such a creative writer...

Desi's drinking was referred to a couple of times in the movie.

In her autobiography, Barbara Eden wrote of having to basically hide from Desi for the entire week when she guested on an episode of "ILL" during the final season.

It wasn't the final season, r121.

Yes, the Judy Holiday references drove me crazy. Also, when Lucy is waiting to see the RKO executive in 1942/43, she's sitting under a poster of Stromboli, from 1950. I mean, just stupid easily fixed mistakes. I thought Simmons was the best in the film, though his part, at times, was ridiculous. Also, I don't think Lucy was a control freak back then, in the way she was later, when she took over at Desilu. From what I've read, they gave her the script and she made it work. She depended on Desi to do everything else. Maybe, if I didn't know so much on the subject, I would have liked it better.

They kept talking about Lucille's kinetic, physical comedy. And yet, Nicole's face is absolutely frozen solid. She can only act with her eyes and voice, and it isn't enough. Nina Arianda (playing Vivian) would have been better than Nicole as Lucy.

But the biggest mistake in the film is Lucille "imagining" how to improve her comedy. I don't believe this for one minute. She was given scenarios, and she improvised (like all good physical comedians). And even though she was great at the physical comedy, a LOT of her skill was saying lines with perfect timing to get a laugh. She could make the most banal line into a punchline. Desi said there would have been no show, no success, no nothing, without her. She was 99% of that show.

Please don’t encourage him, r115. He’s disappointing and unfunny.

*

I think Debra would have been great.

[quote] She could make the most banal line into a punchline.

That's very true. I was watching her first appearance on Dick Cavett. Even though she was a pain in the ass throughout the interview, she was naturally funny with her digs towards him, which only worked because of her comedic sense of timing. Otherwise, she would've come off as a cold, cruel bitch. She had the audience eating out the palm of her hand.

And WTF was Sorkin's insane obsession with that innocuous and totally unfunny "setting the dinner table" scene?

Of all the scenes in the 100s of episodes of ILL he could have focused on to make a point about Lucy's supposed intuitive comedic brilliance, that's the one he chose? And he kept returning to that scene again and again and again and again.....unbearable.

Deb Messing could have never lost the 40 lbs required to play Lucy at this point in her life.

It most certainly was, you ignorant fool R121.

"Barbara Eden appeared in one episode of I Love Lucy as young beautiful socialite Diana Jordan in the Season 6 episode "Country Club Dance"."

^R122

R129, After watching the movie today, I found that particular episode on Amazon Prime and watched the beginning.

Lucy entered the living room from the kitchen holding a floral centerpiece and placed it on the table as Ricky entered the front door.

Perhaps r122 is thinking of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, which continued with episodes with the Ricardos and Mertzes after “I Love Lucy” ended.

R134, Two different shows.

Why does Amazon Prime include a "nudity" warning?

Will there be a sequel - Capturing The Mortons?

Of course, any Lucy fan will recognize that they used the wrong set. They didn’t have that window until Episode 26 of season two when the Ricardos swapped apartments with Mrs Benson, played by should-be-a-DL-icon Norma Varden

Leave Desi alone, r119! He's the only straight man who treated me right.

Gary wisely talked her out of it, r137

I went into this with high hopes and came away completely stunned at just how BAD the whole thing was from start to finish.

The lives of the Ricardos were turbulent, fabulous and contradictory -- but there are absolutely NO stakes apparent throughout this film. Just like he did with "Studio 60", Sorkin completely fails at dramatizing the high (very real) stakes of mounting a weekly comedy show. But the dialogue is even worse here. It's all exposition. And deeply unfunny. And don't get me started on those 2 millennial writers. AWFUL casting, awful dialogue. They needed some salt of the earth, old souls to ground those parts. Even Tony Hale felt unsure of what film he was in.

I hate to rag on it, but I would've been pissed to have spent $17.50 at AMC seeing this lightweight dreck. It should've been so much better but really didn't know what story it wanted to tell. And as a result, we didn't give two shits about any of it as it transpired! Of course, Nicole's frozen face didn't help matters. She's a gorgeous woman but the fillers, botox and excessive lifts have hurt her ability to emote. It doesn't help her in any role, but it's especially damning in her attempt to portray one of the great comediennes of the 20th century.

Thank God for Nina and JK. They were the only reasons I didn't turn it off.

Nina Arianda won a Tony a few years ago. Her talent was completely wasted here.

Sorry, that should be the lives of the ARNAZs -- not the Ricardos (sorry it's late and that movie really sucked!)

So, was the lipstick smeared handkerchief set as a trap?

R144 -- well I think we know who that lipstick belonged to...

What Being the Ricardos failed to reveal is that the lipstick belonged to Cesar Romero

R144 I read the lipstick hanky thing as meaning that that was what was primarily on Lucille's mind all week when she was stressing out.

Desi heroically fixed the communism scare problem and that was all he was concerned with, and all week Lucy was holding onto the handkerchief and determining what she would do about their relationship. She praised him to Jess Oppenheimer, Desi saved her career and her life, and she displaced her frustration by obsessing over the inconsequential matter of the table scene. She lashed out at Oppenheimer, he bit back, and she snapped out of it and realized consciously that she had been trying to save her marriage by blaming others and displacing her anger while carrying around evidence of Desi's infidelity, and when Oppenheimer called her out for being unfair with him, she told him he was right and she decided then and there to end her marriage.

Or something like that.

I'm guessing Sorkin's idea was that all the pressures of that "weeklong fracture" culminated in breaking the marriage.

r147 has given more thought to the nuances of the plot than I suspect Sorkin did when he was writing this.

Possibly, R148.

I also assume Sorkin was experimenting with homemade Vitameatavegamin while writing the script. It would explain a lot.

[quote] A Wikipedia entry fed into what can only be called The Sorkinator, but missing the wit module, “Being the Ricardos” is cultural-television-marital history flattened into a babbling stream of airless, horribly shot scenes that never come close to the glorious timing of a single comic exchange on “I Love Lucy.” It’s almost beside the point whether Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem are well-cast or not as Ball and Arnaz (they are and they aren’t), because Sorkin is less interested in them as characters, anyway, and more as mouthpieces for their backgrounds and legacies. (“I am the biggest asset in the portfolio of the Columbia Broadcasting System!” is a descriptor for a parlor game, not a line of dialogue anyone should have to make believable.)

My thoughts exactly. Just poor writing and direction.

I didn't watch The West Wing and I haven't seen A Few Good Men since I was a kid, and I'm not that familiar with Sorkin's writing style. I do know he is reputed to be an esteemed, masterful dialogue writer and so I am really taken aback by the poor writing. "Show, don't tell" is a fundamental rule even for writing meant to stay on the page, to say nothing of writing meant for the screen.

r114, please ignore r125.

I think you're delightful!

CGI Kidman is terrifying

Bardem looks worse than Kidman. He's not rakishly handsome like Desi. In fact he looks like Desi's disgruntled father.

I turned it on to further my hatred for all things Nicole Kidman and I wasn’t disappointed. She truly looks like a deer in the headlights playing dress up in the local community theatre production of I Love Lucy (which after this fiasco of film should be returned I Hate Lucy). Javier Bardem has too huge of a head to be Ricky. He is a Woody Allen apologist so I loathe him personally which made me already not want to see him as Ricky but truly he’s better than her acting wise but still not convincing as Ricky. Vivian Vance and William Frawley casting was laughable. I’m not a Deb Messing Stan BUT she has proven to NAIL the nuances, mannerisms and look of Lucy. It’s shameful Sorkin went with the marquee name verses a true actress destined for a role. Ricky would’ve been better suited being played by John Leguizimo (spelled?) who is physically more in like with Ricky and wouldn’t have been so ogre like with his existence on screen (also he’s not team pedophile so easier to watch without disgust).

I enjoyed it but I was constantly distracted thinking about how DL would shred it.

I hope we didn't disappoint r155

Too many of you were looking for impersonations by lookalikes, not acting performances by solid actors.

The acting by the four leads was excellent.

I don’t recall this much negative backlash over Renée Zellweger in "Judy", who did not resemble her.

With the exception of Bardem (who decidedly does not resemble Desi), I found the acting mediocre, r157

r154 There was much more child and youth abuse and there were much more perverts back in the days than there is today and in the 90s and 80s, in the elite and elsewhere. Woody Allen was even just accused of youth abuse, there was lots more abuse of children, not pubescents back in the days, in showbiz and elsewhere. Picking out the few scape goats amongst the elite is tiring, And dlers are so uncritical about the sexual identities, character, lives and looks of old time celebs&co., and much more uncritical compared to today's, it's tiring.

English isn’t your first second or third language is it R159 ? For fucks sake, a pedophile is gross in any decade and Woody Allen has basically told movie watchers for decades he’s into young teen girls (his movies are autobiographies of a nebbish old creepy dude and a young teen girl). Not to mention the damming testimony from Dylan and how the New Haven PD always said he was guilty but he somehow paid off the Yale therapists.

Debra Messing is incapable of maintaining an acting performance throughout a two hour feature film.

R159’s entire post sounds like it was spit out of one of those English translator programs on Google. Americans do my say “uncritical.” In fact, no one does.

Try harder, pedo troll.

I don't have a dog in this fight and I'm not r159, but native New Yorker Julia Moskin of the NYTimes used "uncritical" a mere five days ago:

[quote]Her cooking show, “Mary McCartney Serves It Up,” on Discovery+ focuses on entertaining: Her guests are uncritical pals like Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey, who cheerfully announces that she has never before — despite being in her late 60s — made dip.

[quote]Of all the scenes in the 100s of episodes of ILL he could have focused on to make a point about Lucy's supposed intuitive comedic brilliance, that's the one he chose? And he kept returning to that scene again and again and again and again.....unbearable.

Particularly as it was--finally--revealed that what aired was the scene as written. So, in other words, Lucy did not show any helpful insight into comedy and just wasted everyone's time.

[quote] and she decided then and there to end her marriage.

But waited eight years to file for divorce.

Sorkin's script was really sloppy. He needed to make up his mind: Was he writing about putting on one episode of I Love Lucy, or was he doing the standard star bio that covered everything?

It would have been better if he had just concentrated on dealing with the Red Scare that week. All the tension about that was lost with all the other things thrown up against the wall.

And Vivian Vance seemed so angry and unpleasant. It was difficult to imagine her being funny as Ethel.

Never trust a biography when the kids are executive producers.

From what I have read, Desi's drinking was so bad, he would show up on the set rip-roaring drunk. And pass out.

[quote]And Vivian Vance seemed so angry and unpleasant.

Sorkin nailed it!

I'm no expert, but I didn't think Desi's drinking got that bad until the later seasons of ILL.

R169 You are right. By the end of the run, he was useless.

Does anyone know - once ILL ended its run, and they began shooting the hour long episodes - how often did they film? Were they shown in regular time slots? How many hour long episodes were made?

And was the special with Ann Sothern and Cesar Romero about how the Ricardos met done before the end of ILL?

This lists the hour-long episodes with filming dates, r171

I think Viola Davis should have played Lucy. I’m tired of seeing these white cunts play Lucille Ball. It’s so racist.

R173 Why are you so limited in your vision? The role should have gone to Laverne Cox with Ricky played by Billy Porter. Angelica Ross as Ethel and Patti Lupone as Fred.

R174 Octavia Spencer as Ethel

[quote] Also, when Lucy is waiting to see the RKO executive in 1942/43, she's sitting under a poster of Stromboli, from 1950. I mean, just stupid easily fixed mistakes.

All those people on the set and no one doublechecked these things? You could look it up on your phone!

Prop-master heads will roll!

Honestly, that kind of anachronism (which is off by seven years) is just fucking embarrassing. Is Sorkin back on coke?

How about those interviews with the old versions of the writers? They look like they got the wardrobe at H&M last week and succulents as side decor?!? I wasn’t aware that Madelyn and Jess were interviewed about Lucy in 2019. You can bet some stupid millennial cunts were the wardrobe & set decorator.

It also bothers me that Desi's most famous quote was not used in the movie: “I want you to meet my favorite wife – my favorite redhead – in fact, that’s the only thing red about her, and even that’s not legitimate – Lucille Ball!”

This thread is 1000x more entertaining than the actual film

I haven't seen it yet but am disappointed by the meh reviews. I was hopeful because of the early buzz.

Vivian is portrayed as petty and mean; I disliked that angle too. I think it was Hal King who said Viv rarely brought her personal problems to work.

R179, that was odd. I thought that the interviews would have to take place in the 70s or 80s at the latest.

Ronnie Cox was born about 25 years after Jess Oppenheimer (who died in 88). Lavin was born 16 years after Pugh. So the interview scenes must take place decades ago and yet the clothes and filming style are very 21st century.

I would like this trend to pass of using “one weekend” or whatever to frame a biopic about an entire person’s life. It goes along with the idiom that “people don’t change” and thus you can everything about a person at any one moment in time, but I think this is just dead wrong. And it’s a lazy way of writing a film because it releases the writer from the obligation to do real research into the subject’s life as a whole.

Pardon me, r185, but I read the Wikipedia entries of Lucy, Desi, AND Desilu!!

This is very much a “Wiki-movie” which is what I call what R185 was describing.

They can often be saved by really good performances (see: My Week with Marilyn), but they can be super lazy.

How did Arab Alia age into Jewish Linda?

Bardem doesn't resemble Desi Arnaz but he can at least move his face, whereas poor, dear Nicole...

Are the actual interviews with Pugh, Carroll and Oppenheimer available online?

Wait! I'll look for myself.

With Javier, I could suspend my belief and see Desi (or at least, a portrayal of Desi)

With Nicole, not so much. They tried to make her TOO much like Lucille and (for me) it backfired

No one is watching this POS.

r192 = Barbara Pepper

Speaking of r193, can you imagine Barbara Pepper as Ethel Mertz?!

[quote]No, Lucy, Desi is not "gaslighting" you.

Well..."gaslighting" is a reference to the plot of the film GASLIGHT, which came out in 1944. I can't say when people actually started referring to being "gaslighted," but they could conceivable have started doing so back in 1944.

Nicole Kidman looked like a creepy mannequin in this. Instead of Here’s Lucy, it was Where’s Lucy?

I didn't expect it to be so bad...and Nicole looks like she's wearing a rubber mask.

I do think Linda Lavin deserves a Best Supporting Actress nomination....and Javier Bardem is more believable as Desi than I initially imagined.

Still, the dialogue and direction is pathetic. Aaron Sorkin should've focused on the script and let someone else direct. He is so far failing in every attempt to direct.

The first recorded use of "gaslight" in the sense of making someone think there were crazy was in the 60s. But it was not commonly used for a few decades after that.

In an interview from the Television Academy, Madeleine Pugh was talking about ILL and starts referring to the "showrunner" then corrects herself, saying they were not called that back then--and uses the word "headwriter' instead.

Who would have expected a Rusty Hamer shout out in 2021?

r196 please see the OED entry at r107

The Vivianne Vance stuff was not clever.

Everybody else was caught up in the immediacy/urgency of the week’s events and she was left to stand around spouting bits from her autobiography. Sorkin couldn’t even imagine her as a person.

[quote]Vivianne Vance

Oh, DEAR!

Please turn in your gay card immediately.

I agree with the poster who said it wasn’t believable that Lucy would seek marriage advice from Frawley. That didn’t make any sense. Who was he supposed to be then?

Well...the fact that the first recorded use of the phrase to "gaslight" someone that was found was in 1961 doesn't necessarily mean no one used the phrase before that. Especially seeing as how the movie came out in 1944, I would think it's very likely that it WAS used before 1961.

r205 must be Aaron Sorkin

R201, so someone beat me to it!

As the OED entry at R107 confirms, the first recorded use of "gaslight" in the sense in which it was used in BTR, was not until the 1960s.

[quote]Nicole Kidman looked like a creepy mannequin in this. Instead of Here’s Lucy, it was Where’s Lucy?

This was my fear, and my prediction, from day one. When Kidman's casting was announced, lots of people bemoaned it because they complained that she doesn't look anything like Lucy, whereas my issue was that Kidman has destroyed her face through plastic surgery, making it look highly unnatural and also inexpressive. Why are so many people only now noticing this? I guess not a lot of folks saw THE PROM.

"Bill bothered me 24/7. I had to dip early for some cognitive behavioral therapy."

[quote]Two different shows.

Yes, r135. I know. As I pointed out, The Comedy Hour (or The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, as it was actually called when it first aired) continued the story of the Ricardos and Mertzes AFTER I Love Lucy ended.

[quote]As the OED entry at [R107] confirms, the first recorded use of "gaslight" in the sense in which it was used in BTR, was not until the 1960s.

But AGAIN, just because that was the first such usage the OED found to cite doesn't necessarily mean it really was the first usage. The movie GASLIGHT was presumably even more popular in 1944 and the years immediately following than in 1961, so I would not be surprised if some people started to use the phrase "to gaslight" or "gaslighted" during the earlier period.

I make this point NOT to defend Aaron Sorkin, because I'm no longer a fan of his, and the other examples of badly written dialogue in BEING THE RICARDOS that were given above do seem bad indeed.

R205, of course it may have been used. But it is hard to give grace to the script when it uses so many anachronistic phrases--notably "showrunner," "infantalize" etc. Plus other anachronisms, like the Stromboli poster...Judy Holiday...etc.

The anachronism do not seem to be used for any strong point. They just feel like ignorant sloppiness.

[quote]The first recorded use of "gaslight" in the sense of making someone think there were crazy was in the 60s. But it was not commonly used for a few decades after that.

What was that first recorded use, r205?

r213 see r107

[quote]Anthony F. C. Wallace's 1961 book Culture and Personality

And as someone who worked in media from the 70s. I have heard a lot of usage and slang--most of it forgotten. Gaslight was used as an active verb as a joke. but that was rare. People in New York and L.A. at least did not commonly use it in a non-joking context till the 21st century.

R212, how was "Stromboli" an anachronism? That movie came out in 1950, and BTR takes place in 1952.

[quote]Of course it may have been used. But it is hard to give grace to the script when it uses so many anachronistic phrases--notably "showrunner," "infantalize" etc.....The anachronisms do not seem to be used for any strong point. They just feel like ignorant sloppiness.

Agreed.

[quote]Gaslight was used as an active verb as a joke. but that was rare. People in New York and L.A. at least did not commonly use it in a non-joking context till the 21st century.

How can you make a definitive statement on this? Sounds totally anecdotal to me.

Thank you, r214.

r216 the film jumps backward to pre-1950.

The Stromboli poster and references to Judy Holiday are in a scene taking place in 1942 or 1943.

1942 ... 1950 ... tomato ... tomahto

Since the experts are here, can someone enlighten me about the origins of "but Gary talked her out of it." Thanks.

I'd like to, r222, but Gary talked me out of it.

Come the day will the stories of her demise be: Beloved actress Nicole Kidman or Oscar winning actress Nicole Kidman?

OP, Nicole Kidman already has an Oscar. I would think that would come first. She's very well-liked, but she's not "beloved"

R210, No shit, Sherlock.

I think if "gaslighting" was a phrase in the 1940s or 1950s or 1960s, there would be evidence of it heard in endless Abbott & Costello, Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis movies to name just a few examples, and, hey, even in some I Love Lucy episodes.

^ it was used in a 1967 Lucy Show episode.

Well, then the 1940s and 1950s, r228.

229 replies and this movie is STILL SHIT.

[quote]can someone enlighten me about the origins of "but Gary talked her out of it."

It is one of the most played-out memes in Dataloung history.

If you have been here long enough you may recall when it was actually funny.

I don't have any use for this anachronistic pair of cinematic hostess pants.

I don't understand why Sorkin made Lucy so blase about the Commie claim. Since she didn't really care about the accusation, than why should I?

That, to me, is the critical flaw in the film.

He should have made that a bigger deal, more life or death, or not included it all. Just have it be about Lucy's genius, Desi's whoring, their fight to keep the pregnancy a storyline, and whether Ethel remains a fatty or not.

r231 According to Lucy's friends, there were many projects offered to her later in life that were vetoed by Gary. At least she would blame him for turning them down.

One far-fetched idea was a Broadway musical based on the 1961 movie A Pocketful of Miracles with Lucy playing the Bette Davis role of Apple Annie. The thought of Lucy returning to the stage at her age was painful, but some friends tried to get her to do it. Until Gary talked her out of it.

R234, So she did "The Stone Pillow" instead?

Does anyone really believe that Lucille Ball discussed her marriage problems with William Frawley in a seedy bar at 10:00 AM?

This is yet another Aaron Sorkin production about how the perfectionist micro-managing boss who rides their employees hard is always right.

Desi appeared on an episode of Alice starring Linda Lavin who is in this film.

R2, R24, just like with 'Feud', they overuse expositional dialogue to supposedly appeal to a wider audience. As if anyone under the age of 40 would be interested in a movie about Lucille Ball.

I think I'm the only person on earth who could not get through 15 minutes of 'Feud' because of the horrible dialogue. Ruined it for me.

Just finished. I would be unable to tell you why this was made, since there seemed to be little point to it. I am especially baffled as to what the title meant--there was nothing in the movie about "being the Ricardos" (it should have been called "Being the Arnazes").

I was hugely impressed with Javier Bardem--I never would have thought this part was in his range. he did a superb job capturing Arnaz's sunny nature and (most of all) his body mannerisms. i couldn;t believe the way he would slouch against a wall just like Arnaz does. I was also hugely impressed with JK Simmons as Bill Frawley--I thought he captured his way of speaking perfectly.

I wasn't pleased with the Vivian Vance actress. Her face was a little, but her voice and manner is nothing like Vance's (even when the actress was playing Ethel), and she was far too skinny since her weight was part of the story. When Ball said "Most American women don't look like me, they look like you" to Vance, I was baffled because there seemed to be little difference.

Kidman was not much like Lucy. She didn't move like a dancer the way Ball always did in the 50s, with an erect but loose carriage: Kidman always holds herself very tight, and that especially worked against her in the scenes where she was playing Lucy Ricardo. She had Ball's grouchiness and her imperiousness, but not her funniness.

Martin Short did a GREAT 'late' Lucy...about 6:50 into this clip:

I was fascinated by how they would occasionally refer to Lucie Jr. but never would explain who was taking care of her, like she had been shipped off at age 3 to Switzerland.

Interesting and slightly creepy how they 'youthified' Bardem's face for the scenes when they met in 1940's. He definitely looks 10+ years younger than he does in the ILL scenes.

Kidman looks all wrong of course, but every once in awhile she does indeed sound exactly like Ball. Not anywhere near enough, but she does get it right about 25% of the time. Still, Messing would've been ideal, and yes, she definitely could've handled the drama as well.

I wasn't aware of the 2003 'LUCY' with Rachel York. From the clips the actors were spectacularly good. From the clips of 'Being the Ricardos scarely bad.

Well that’s a half hour I’ll never get back. Terrible movie. I shut it off after 30 minutes. Kidman is terribly miscast. She doesn’t sound anything like Lucy. And I would have ever known that other actress was Ethel. She looked nothing like our beloved Vivian Vance. Do yourself a favor - don’t watch.

It's like the only thing Sorkin knew about Vivian was that she struggled with her weight and disliked being portrayed as frumpy.

As I noted in the other thread, if her ghost watched this, I can't help but think she'd be annoyed that her entire narrative arc (if you can call it that) is whining that "no one sees my character as sexually appealing and I'm married to an old man." Nothing about her comic genius, acting ability, or other contributions to the actual show. (She was a great script doctor.)

In Sorkin's attempt to make her three-dimensional, to make her "Viv" and not "Ethel," he basically turned her into a bad caricature of Vivian Vance.

I’m so tired of these “ing” titles. It started way back with “Raising Arizona.” and somehow Hollywood still thinks it sounds cool. Will it never end?

Also, this thing has the “dark” aesthetic, all shadowy and brown. So trendy, hate it. Don’t get me started on the dialogue, Aaron Sorkin’s imaginings - feh. He must take himself so seriously.

Horrible. I couldn’t even watch 10 minutes of it.

The Taming of the Shrew r248

R250. Today it would be the less elegant “Taming the Shrew,”

Another thing that Sorkin needlessly left out ... Vivian argued that fat jokes about Ethel would only work if Ethel wasn't actually overweight. If she were, then the audience wouldn't laugh but would feel sorry for her. Which is a more insightful observation than anything that came out of Nina Arianda's mouth this entire film

Where did Ricardo come from, that doesn’t sound Cuban, more like Puerto Rican?

Let's start a petition to tell Sorkin we've had sufficient.

What about me? I am funny. I am fine with nudity. This should all be about me me me. I even look just like her.

I've always wondered how Lucille Ball went from being a B star at RKO, fired from the studio in 1942, to A list status at MGM by 1943 - check out her front row status in the memorable MGM 20th Anniversary photo. There's a story that Sorkin failed to dramatize.

Thanks for the link r195.

You're welcome r257

Desi describes the revolutionaries who dispossessed his family as communists.

Is that true? Or is Sorkin confusing the revolution of 1933 with the revolution of 1958?

Anyone else see DL anti-fave Roxane Gay having a meltdown because Lucy uses the word "gaslighting" which wasn't a term back then? People were correcting her! THE AUDACITY!

I have a vague, nagging memory of some TV comedy show in the 60s or 70s that had an episode in which “gaslighting” was a theme. Complete with references to the movie. Anyone else remember this?

From the shitty research to the didactic writing to the misdirected direction to the questionable casting, I'm amazed that about 20 percent of this thread is dedicated to Sorkin's use of a single word. It's curious that that is the one thing so many people are hung up on about this mess.

The Lucy Show episode "Lucy Gets Mooney Fired" has Lucy say she's giving Mr. Cheever the "gaslight treatment" to get Mooney back, r261.

Roxane bringing it up makes me think she reads DL. And that makes me laugh.

The issue is "gaslight" being used as a VERB, not it being used at all

Somebody needs to write an academic article on the word "gaslight," stat!

R264 I had the same thought and I assume now she is a DL reader, like the Cockgobbler, Andy Cohen and possibly Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper and David Muir, lured here by Google alerts of their names and then they stuck around to participate in the cathartic cruelty culture.

Anachronisms, when they are obviously thoughtless and not intentional for style, are annoying. But, I mean, they're relatively small things like typos that I notice and which can chip away at my confidence in a project, but people who obsess over such minute things get more sideeye from me than people who make the mistakes themselves. I seems obsessive compulsive or even autistic to get hung up on a potentially misused word. I've been a writer and editor as a profession since 2001, and I assure you that nearly all people make mistakes with language, grammar and spelling as a matter of course, no matter how confident they are in their abilities and no matter how well educated. It's why the editing profession is necessary and why there are many different types of editors, some of whom focus on minute details and some of whom focus on messaging, narrative and other content concerns.

I would expect better from a professional writer such as Aaron Sorkin except that the writing of this entire project is a sloppy mess, and so potentially using the term 'gaslighting' ahistorically seems like one small mistake swirling about in an ocean of mistakes.

I thought Kidman was surprisingly okay in it. Overall, though, it was just boring. Kinda flat.

“Gaslighting” got noticed simply because everybody on Twitter uses it.

[quote]I've always wondered how Lucille Ball went from being a B star at RKO, fired from the studio in 1942, to A list status at MGM by 1943 - check out her front row status in the memorable MGM 20th Anniversary photo. There's a story that Sorkin failed to dramatize.

Are you joking? Your post doesn't read as if you are....

Anyway, of course Lucy didn't have "A-list status" at MGM in 1943, or at any point during her time there. And I'm almost certain the stars were seated alphabetically for that event that was captured in photos and on film.

Uh, there was a pretty famous movie from 1944 called Gaslight. Anyone thinking that “gaslighting” is a 2021 Twitter creation is an idiot.

And…. End scene.

I akso think Kidman was better as Lucille Ball than she should have been able to be given that she doesn't resemble her at all and she doesn't sound at all like her. As extreme and strange as she continues to reshape her face, and as poor as her recent projects have been, she always impresses me as an actor. She's more than the sum of her parts.

I always give her credit for somehow being emotive and emotionally affecting despite having paralyzed her face, but this might be the first project in which it clearly affected her performance. She did sound like Lucille Ball during some moments and somehow quasi-resembled her, but as Lucy Ricardo, she failed to capture any of Ball's character's wacky and wild charisma and joie de vivre. If Ball really was a serious businesswoman off camera (she was by all accounts), then it's extra impressive that she brought no heavy feeling at all to the character of Lucy. Kidman can't not bring emotional heft to her roles. Something about her is just way too serious to pull off Lucy Ricardo.

I feel like the role would have been better performed by a little-known stage actress, but at the same time, the movie is not good at all and really the only big factor that really kept my interest was the spectacle of Very Serious Movie Star Nicole Kidman, in her 50s, playing Funniest Character of All Time Lucy Ricardo, 40, being criticized for being too old to work in Hollywood.

There was a movie called “Gaslight?” Wow, none of us had any idea. This changes everything!

Jfc, some of you are dumb and/or obtuse. (r272, I'm looking at you.)

A few things:

1. The issue is not the word "gaslight" itself. The issue is using the word "gaslight" AS A VERB. Per the OED (link at r107), the first recorded use of the word "gaslight" AS A VERB is from 1961.

2. Even then, it retained a very specific meaning, again, per the OED: "transitive. To manipulate (a person) by psychological means into questioning his or her own sanity."

3. In the past 15 years (and probably closer to 10), that definition has been expanded, in popular usage, to indicate "lying" and "manipulating" in a broader sense.

R262, I think people obsess over the one word because it is easier to identify as an anachronism than infantalize and showrunner, because it is more clear in our memories. We knew the movie, but we never used the word in that sense until recently.

I don't know when gaslighting was used for the very first time by a human being as a verb, but I'd like to introduce the term autisming here and now to refer to people who obsess over proving they know when autism was used for the very first time as a verb.

BTW, I've never heard anything about Ball being dropped by RKO. I always thought she moved to MGM when her contract ended. I did read that her first film at MGM, DUBARRY WAS A LADY was bought for Ann Sothern, but when she turned it down, it went to Lucy. And it was a leading role, though it was essentially a Red Skelton film.

There was also a recent hullabaloo about everyone misusing the word "gaslighting," so everyone on Twitter already had it on their minds when they watched the show, then calm, rational, sensible Roxane brought it up and everyone went berserk.

[quote]1. The issue is not the word "gaslight" itself. The issue is using the word "gaslight" AS A VERB. Per the OED (link at [R107]), the first recorded use of the word "gaslight" AS A VERB is from 1961.

For the third or fourth time, why do you take that "first recorded use" citation as gospeL? Isn't there lots of room for error in coming up with the first recorded use of a word or phrase? I mean, it's not as if ALL literature and ALL news media from the past are now stored digitally on some humongous hard drive and are searchable by computer.

[quote]2. Even then, it retained a very specific meaning, again, per the OED: "transitive. To manipulate (a person) by psychological means into questioning his or her own sanity."

[quote]3. In the past 15 years (and probably closer to 10), that definition has been expanded, in popular usage, to indicate "lying" and "manipulating" in a broader sense.

Not really. If someone clearly remembers that something happened and another person lies and says it never happened, that's "gaslighting." If a person lies and tells someone "I completed the project yesterday" when they didn't, that's not gaslighting, it's just lying.

r260 is hilarious to me

The Judy Holliday anachronism aside, when were Lucille Ball and Rita Hayworth ever in competition for the same role?

This site says that her RKO contract "was ended," which is a bit ambiguous but seems to imply the studio ended the contract. But it also states that MGM was a bigger studio and so her new contract with them was more prestigious—so it would seem curious that during the studio system when everyone knew everyone's business, Lucille was fired and then got a more impressive deal afterward. Maybe it was a calculated move on her part because she was dissatisfied with being relegated to sarcastic side gals and dancing girls.

[quote] Meanwhile, Lucille's film career seemed halted at the "Queen of the B's" stage. She was a success in the drama The Big Street, with Henry Fonda, but she was approaching the end of another stage of her film career. Lucille made one last picture under contract to RKO, Seven Days' Leave, then after seven years at the studio, her contract was ended, and in August of 1942 she signed on with MGM, the studio with "More stars than there are in the Heavens". She was in a whole new league now, MGM was the most prestigious studio at the time and once again she began being "groomed" for stardom. Her first MGM film was the splashy Technicolor musical Dubarry Was a Lady.

[quote]For the third or fourth time, why do you take that "first recorded use" citation as gospeL? Isn't there lots of room for error in coming up with the first recorded use of a word or phrase? I mean, it's not as if ALL literature and ALL news media from the past are now stored digitally on some humongous hard drive and are searchable by computer.

LOL, yes, think I'll accept an Aaron Sorkin script instead of the OED as my authority on English etymology and usage, thanks. I see the light.

From Wikipedia: Damon Runyon originally wanted to cast Charles Laughton and Carole Lombard in the lead roles, but neither one was interested in the project. Lombard suggested the producer consider her friend Lucille Ball and, despite pressure to hire a better-known actress, such as Barbara Stanwyck or Jean Arthur, from RKO executives, Runyon offered her the role. Ball later recalled that at the time she was cast, "nothing much seemed to be happening for me at the studio. My $1000 weekly paycheck came regularly, but I was still a regular among the Bs."[5]

Filming did not go smoothly for the actress. Director Irving Reis was a novice, and co-star Henry Fonda, a former boyfriend on loan from 20th Century Fox, did not offer her much guidance. Fearing his wife might rekindle her relationship with Fonda, Desi Arnaz frequently lingered on the set. Despite these obstacles, Ball considered the film her favorite.[5]

R275 - save all that for the Office Christmas Party. I’m sure you’ll be a fascinating hit.

R280, are we to think that Lucy and the ILL writing staff were current with psychological jargon in the early 50s? So that the use of "gaslighting" and "infantilize" were reflective of their familiarity with current psychological research and practice?

Or given the use of "showrunner," Judy Holiday, confusion about the 1933 revolution, etc--is it not more likely that Sorkin was just sloppy?

One often-overlooked thing about Lucille is that she was Old-Hollywood beautiful/glamorous, she was cute and she was pretty—which is interesting because all of these don't necessarily apply to everyone who can be described as one or another—and yet people remember her as a clown.

Bette Davis condemned Joan Crawford for her vanity and said her acting was limited by needing to look attractive, and Lucille painted her face in such a way as to make her expressions exaggerated for the sake of physical comedy and that became her whole persona. I was shocked to learn that my sister always thought of Lucille Ball as "ugly" because I have always seen her as remarkably beautiful regardless of the exaggerated makeup.

Just stunning.

Whoops.

R288, I never thought of Lucy's makeup as exaggerated -- at least, not until later in her career, around the time of "The Lucy Show" and especially "Here's Lucy," when she naturally began to wear heavier makeup to disguise her age.

The reason so many people don't think of her as beautiful was that they primarily know her from I LOVE LUCY and the other sitcoms, in which she was always making faces for comic purposes. Also, she usually wasn't made up and costumed to look beautiful and glamorous in those shows, though occasionally she was, sometimes when she was playing other characters within her character.

Lucy's makeup was the same on ILL as it was a decade earlier as a glamour queen. I don't think she painted it for the sake of comedy.

Lucy didn't paint her face to exagerate her makeup. That was actually glamour makeup of the time.

Her makeup was more exaggerated as Lucy. It was the same general 'glam' style as her movie-star makeup, but her lipline was significantly higher as were her eyebrows. This was done to exaggerate her facial features so they could be seen clearly on small, often fuzzy TV screens, because her 'surprise!" faces were a big part of the comedy. If you look closely at photos of Lucy Ricardo and photos of Serious Actress Lucille Ball, you'll see that the arches of her lips and eyebrows are much more exaggerated for the TV character.

Was Lucy Ricardo's poodle hairstyle popular in the 1950s?

As for Vivian, she knew what she was getting herself into. She said in interviews that when she auditioned for the role, they told her that Ethel was chunkier and frumpier than flamorous Viv, and so Viv went out to shops immediately and bought clothes two or three sizes too small so that the seams would bulge, and she went to a hair dresser and asked them to give her a terrible perm and dye job, and she went back to the people in charge of casting (maybe including Lucille and Desi) and they said "that's it!!!" I think she said that some of the too-small clothes she bought herself were used on the show. She wasn't really very overweight, but she knew ill-fitting clothing would make her look frumpy and lumpy, and she was an actress and she knew it was part of the character.

It DID come as a big surprise to her that her onscreen husband was so old and unattractive, and that made her self-conscious. She made a crack about it early on and Frawley heard her and supposedly that's why he was always so nasty to her, although he was reputed to be drunk, asocial and to spend all his time alone on set, often watching boxing and drinking. But I believe he was also a former Vaudeville actor of renown and was professional insofar as knowing and delivering his lines, although as the series went on, he petitioned to have a smaller and smaller role with fewer lines. He just wanted the paycheck and as little interaction with Vivian as necessary.

My mother had those same Oriental/Asian figurines on our living room mantle, like the Ricardos.

I didn’t mind so much them using the term gaslighting, but when the writers in the writer’s room referred to Lucy ad Girlboss that I drew the line.

This was never supposed to be Shakespeare, but if they had done the new McBeth as Lucy and Desi that might have been interesting, some of you are just to damn critical instead of leaning back and enjoying the ride.

r296 when Vivian signed on to play Ethel Mertz, no one knew what a huge hit it would be. I can see how she grew resentful of the characterization later on. She also blamed the show for the disintegration of her marriage

ya'll complain way too much!

Are you new here, r301?!

Isn't this about some US TV show from the 1950s? You lot most be some REALLY old Americans, I'm surprised you can type with such arthritic limp wrists.

Nicole (pretending to be Lucy) dragging Vivian and Frawley to the set in the middle of the night to work on the "Dinner Scene"

is the equivalent of

Faye Dunaway (pretending to be Joan Crawford) waking up daughter in the middle of the night and screaming about wire hangers

R303, the show has been in near-constant reruns over the decades, not to mention its easy accessibility on home video for the past 30 years or more, you bitchy moron.

[quote]ya'll complain way too much!

But I'm not going to complain

r304 if they were going for camp, they should have included a scene where Lucille (allegedly) walked up to Vivian, ripped off her false eyelashes, and screamed, "No one wears false eyelashes around here but ME!"

r271, you're confused. The clip you linked is to MGM's 25th anniversary luncheon in 1949 and Lucy was already gone from the studio by then. In my post I referenced the 20th anniversary photo which has Lucy sitting in the first row with LB Mayer and Hedy Lamarr, Margaret Sullavan, Greer Garson and Katharine Hepburn, among others, clearly not seated alphabetically (btw Desi is in the back row). So again, I ask, how did Lucy manage that incredible upward career move and why didn't Sorkin tell that story?

Nicole's Lucy character doesn't bear the slightest resemblance even in terms of the dialogue

Dialogue is supposed to be Sorkin's forte

Sorkin's Lucy sounds more like Allison Janney's C.J. Cregg on "The West Wing" than Lucy

Exiting Desi's funeral in 1986, a young girl approached Lucy and handed her a flower.

... and Lucy was about to accept it, but Gary talked her out of it, r310.

I don't want be one of those people who comments on Sorkin's past addiction issues. I respect his journey and his struggle for sobriety.

But Sorkin writes a very specific type of dialogue - a rapid-fire intellectual, high-intensity kind of dialogue that is well-suited for very specific types of shows.

It's not well-suited for this movie...

R312, Neil Simon wrote in a similar manner, all of his characters had snappy comebacks.

R308, sorry for my confusion, but regardless of her placement in the photo you're referring to, I can't imagine that Lucy was ever considered to be among the A-list group of stars at MGM. Maybe the powers that be wanted to try to make her A-list, as reflected by the seating in that photo -- but that's not the same as actually achieving A-list status.

Neil Simon wrote punchlines, not characters.

POLL: Which would you rather be?

a.) Gaslighted

b.) Strombolied

On right now...

Why did Lucy hate Judy Holliday so much?

[quote]POLL: Which would you rather be? a.) Gaslighted b.) Strombolied

At one point, Lucy tells Oppenheimer and the writers that they'll "circle back"

I think Frances Fisher did the best job as Lucy but if memory serves the actor who played Desi sucked. In fact all the actors who played Desi sucked. I think he's somehow harder to recreate than Lucy. Also, I don't speak Spanish but it seems that the actor who played Desi in this Ricardo film has a different kind of Spanish accent than Desi did. Is the current actor from Cuba?

[quote] Neil Simon wrote in a similar manner, all of his characters had snappy comebacks.

The only time I ever liked Neil Simon's dialogue was in The Heartbreak Kid. That's one of the few times where it didn't call attention to itself.

Rachel

[quote]Thank goodness Gordon Gale wasn't cast as Fred Mertz. Can you imagine?

No, because I've never heard of "Gordon Gale."

Do you mean Gale Gordon?

[quote] it seems that the actor who played Desi in this Ricardo film has a different kind of Spanish accent than Desi did. Is the current actor from Cuba?

Javier Bardem is from Spain.

Yes, r323, and I corrected myself all the way back at r42

I also really liked the scenes with Desi Arnaz and his orchestra because again Bradem really captured the way Arnaz moved. Arnaz would always become really wild when he played his drum and would let his hair flip all over the place, and Bardem caught that.

Didn’t care for it at all and would have been pissed if I’d gone to a theater to see it.

LOL!

May I add, Desi wanted to be the dominate personality in their marriage, while Gary was more passive and easy for Lucy to control. That is why their marriage lasted. As I have posted many times, my husband knew Gary and Lucy through his parents. They were close and members of the same country club. My husband's father played golf with Gary at least once a week. Lucy liked to play board games with my husband. In the movie they talk about Desi playing cards on the boat. Many of these males stars - like the Rat Pack - owned boats. As I have posted before my husband used to visit them. These boats were definitely places where they had sex with escorts. There were hundreds of them - beautiful young women. It surprises me that more of the haven't told their stories over the years.

[quote]Desi wanted to be the dominate personality in their marriage.....

Dominant personality. I don't know why so many people make this silly mistake.

This has little to do with Being the Ricardos, but during the pandemic, I discovered how amazing Cuban music is. I really like Trio Matamoros.

Beautiful:

Those Cuban cuties...

Let me tell you about "dominate" husbands!

r314, thanks for acknowledging my post.

I never meant to imply that Lucy became an A list star at MGM but what I wonder about is how she so quickly attained importance at MGM, signified IMO by her prominence in the anniversary photo which must have been taken within a year of her arrival, and what did MGM see in her that RKO did not.....even if MGM ultimately let her down.....or she let them down. I simply find that a fascinating moment in her life that I think might have been explored by Sorkin in his miserable little film.

But I'll let it go, everyone!

I can well believe Lucy would have been jealous of Judy Holliday in 1950 when Holliday was suddenly made a huge movie star at Columbia where she recreated her Broadway role of Billie Dawn in the film of Born Yesterday, and won the Oscar over Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson. I think Lucy was working at Columbia then, treading water in mostly B pictures and probably hoping that Columbia would reward her with the of Billie instead of Holliday (and I can imagine that casting!), who'd had little screen exposure.

But Sorkin got the timeline all wrong as the Holliday talk takes place at RKO in the early 40s before anyone in Hollywood had heard of her (I think she was still off-Broadway cabaret performer Judith Tuvim). And all of this under a Stromboli poster! Clearly, Sorkin doesn't care about these details but doesn't he realize only old movie buffs/theatre queens like us know the name Judy Holliday and would recognize the gaffe?

Lucille and Rita were both considered for Billie.

He clearly should have run the script by DL

Actually, wasn't it only Rita running off and marrying Aly Khan in 1949 that kept Harry Cohn from casting her in Born Yesterday? Can't imagine she could have achieved the comic or poignant aspects of the role but it would have been interesting.

In the meantime, I believe Kate Hepburn, a friend and fan of Judy Holliday, made sure she had that stunning supporting role in Adam's Rib as a "screen test" of sorts to insure Harry Cohn take notice.

[quote]Can't imagine she could have achieved the comic or poignant aspects of the role but it would have been interesting.

She wouldn't have, r338. But she obviously would have been the top box office name over Judy and Lucille.

[quote]*Official* Being the Ricardos thread

Is there is an *Unofficial* Being the Ricardos thread that isn't quite so stupid?

Hmmmmm......if Rita had starred in Born Yesterday, who would have won that Oscar in 1950?

Ooh, smell Miss Mensa at r340.

Ethel Kim Potter. We never forgot her.

So, instead of man caves the big male stars had yachts to party on and screw girls, the original yacht girls I guess, or if you’re Robert Wagner murder your wife.

Who would've been a better choice to hell this project? Controversy aside, I would love to see Woody Allen's take on it with his knowledge of early television.

He!m not Hell. Blame Autocorrect.

r345 I would love to see David Lynch's take on it. Seriously.

Or Bruce Beresford. See r5

I picked up today where I left off last night - where Lucy calls Bill and Viv to the studio at 2 am to reblock the table scene – and suddenly I started liking Nicole's performance, a LOT. Especially when she was smoking, that made it more believable. And I started thinking it was good to focus on Lucy's determined, slightly grim, professionalism. So I for one am feeling better about the whole thing.

gays like to shit on everything.

they should douche first, but the ones on here have no reason too and it's not because they are tops!

[quote]they should douche first, but the ones on here have no reason too and it's not because they are tops!

Oh, DEAR!

just how an unfulfilled bottom would post, r351.

typical.

and "douche" is correct in this sense.

Dataloungers are the only people besides Kremlinologists who think people spend hours and hours figuring out where people are placed in a group photo.

I'm sure it doesn't matter where Lucy was in that MGM photo. What matters is that she was in it.

What "Being the Ricarfos" should have shown was that dying her hair red was a huge change in Lucy's career because it emphasized her lusciousness when she was a starlet, and it suited her exactly for Technicolor musicals, which was where MGM displayed her (in fact she was nicknamed "Tessie Technicolor" as a result of her successful dye job). Lucy was a fine dancer and had a great body, so she was perfect in musicals (even if she couldn't sing).

Shut up...

Yeah, come to think of it, for real authenticity they should all have been smoking like chimneys throughout the entire thing. But, you know, we're morally prohibited from showing such a thing now (eye roll).

Lucy was a fine social dancer and moved gracefully, r354, but she wasn't a dancer-dancer. And they called her Technicolor Tessie.

R336, It was George Cukor who nixed Lucy for "Born Yesterday".

I know, r358. He wanted Judy and gave her a screen test called Adam's Rib.

Another niggling point: there was no guest director for the entire first season, Marc Daniels directed all the episodes, and then he also directed a few in season 2, although William Asher directed the rest.

I understand trying to create some drama, but what a strange way to do it.

And who in their right minds would block a scene with the actors' backs to the audience?

It didn't take a genius to put them on the other side of the table facing the camera, now did it?

ball gag all the bottoms.

And why were the writers so nasty to each other, without being especially funny. They were just starting their second season of a wildly successful show, with plenty offresh ideas and comical situations ahead, yet they were acting cynical and jaded for no apparent reason.

Maybe I have been spoiled by the Dick van Dyke show, but my idea of tv comedy writers is embodied by Buddy and Sally, quick with a quip even under pressure.

Lucy would've hated this revisionist history, I suspect.

[quote] Lucy would've hated this revisionist history, I suspect.

Who gives a shit?

Sour old bitch.

I wonder what the demos are for this movie. I'll bet not too many under 50 watched. Maybe, but I don't think so. I don't know any young people today who watch the ILL reruns. When I was young I watched every rerun a thousand times over.

....

r356. did you watch the movie? They're all smoking constantly through every scene. I swear the only direction Sorkin gave poor Jake Lacy was to light up and exhale .

[quote]I swear the only direction Sorkin gave poor Jake Lacy was to light up and exhale .

It's hard to believe Jake Lacy did this shitty movie.

He had so few lines he was practically an "Under 5"

We are in the 21st century and women have only just recently begun to benefit from the opening of doors in Hollywood. It took many women coming out about sexual harassment for it to happen, but it is happening finally.

I can't imagine what being a woman in mid century Hollywood was like, especially a woman who may have had a natural inclination to being aggressive and opinionated. Lucy was supremely talented at what she did, her name was on the her shows and once Desi was no longer around she had no one to buffer her aggressive personality. Both genders would benefit from the population at large broadening their idea of acceptable behavior for men and women.

[quote]And who in their right minds would block a scene with the actors' backs to the audience?

It kept trying to understand how this could ever happen. Who would do that in real life.

Eva the librarian...

r365 I saw it in the theater. In the audience were me plus eight other people. Average age was probably 65, if not older.

Forget to add at r372, I'm in my late 30s

I saw the film the first day of its theatrical release. There were 15 of us in the 75 seat theater, all of us over 50 but most over 65.

I know he wasn't a good guy, but I can almost feel sorry for Viv's husband. He'd had larger roles than her on the stage and had been the breadwinner prior to their arrival in Hollywood. But he never played any significant parts in film, nor did he return to the stage. (I'd say From Here to Eternity was his biggest film credit.) And not only was his wife on the most popular TV show in America, but her coworkers loathed him, and producers wouldn't even give him small parts on ILL. (I don't think they had much choice when he agreed to fill in for Dore Schary.) That must have stung quite a bit, to have known deep down that your wife would be remembered for generations, while you'd already been forgotten.

I still can't get over Don Juan being shelved.

r376 = the ghost of Ricky Ricardo

Ricky couldn't make it in Hollywood despite all of the hometown fanfare.

I can relate r378

[quote]Prop-master heads will roll!

I think you mean set designer, Mr. Sorkin.

Expecting a dumpster fire I was pleasantly surprised while cutting tons of slack.

The main characters were kind of hard to actually literally SEE which I think was intentional so we wouldn't constantly be clocking the appearance difference between Kidman and Ball. At times it almost had a CGI/dubbed effect but I was ok. Vocally it worked well enough with the delivery of Ball's lines conveying the things she was willing to confront and the things she was not.

Have always respected Desi Arnaz one major reason being he was not afraid of Frank Sinatra and when the two intersected in Vegas Arnaz was not having it. Barden conveyed that pretty well.

I thought Sorkin established the rhythm of how the two of them tried hard to keep the stuff that made them work going while looking the other way at the stuff that could blow it up. I did like the moment when Arnez asked her why she wasn't a star and talked about her kinetic physicality. It wasn't oversold. I actually think this is one of the more mature Sorkin efforts.

I liked the Vivian Vance/Wiliam Frawley dynamic. They didn't make it overdramatic. A guy who was talented but drunk a lot and probably too old for the role. Vivian having been around the block was way past ever having a meltdown over it and had figured out how to cope. I thought this was a lot more realistic than the super melodramatic way this stuff is usually portrayed. It's more realistic. "This is a hit show, I'm a main supporting character, the dude playing my husband is older and a drunk but I'll deal." And how it was offhand instead of underscored. They didn't make the mistake of overplaying things like Vivian being in a great dress and Lucy coming in a little bit (but in a self-aware way) on edge and Vance knowing how to spin it. There was a nice self awareness expressed through the top four cast members playing the cast members of "I Love Lucy". They knew where the lines were - and that included Lucy.

They didnt hammer us over the head with the Ball's wariness about ever being upstaged by Vivian Vance lookswise or otherwise but you could kind of see why she'd be wary since TV success is fragile, and you could also see where she knew to speak up or put herself in check. There was an adulthood to it.

It was a large, loose, baggy monster, and I know large, loose, baggy monsters!

Next year I hope they do Laverne and Shirley, I can’t wait to see Nicole’s Shirley Feenie/Cindy Williams!

↑ R381 Sorkin PR shill

r381, the way you write of Arnez just about says it all.

Fuck you bitches, I’m going to watch it again just to spite you all!

Desi stood up to Sinatra? Good for him.

Why not Oscar Issac as Desi? Desi was good looking in his day, Bardem is ugly.

r285 oh, dear.

I saw the previews for this before "West Side Story" (one of 20 previews - no joke - and the movie was long enough!) and it looked like a nightmare right from the first 3 seconds.

This is this year's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", a trainwreck of a movie that deserves no recognition whatsoever, and yet gets 10 Oscar nominations.

Nicole Kidman is a great actress, but she's not at all Lucille Ball. Sorry, ain't happening.

Well, all I can say is that this is a must see cinematic experience. If you've only seen it on television then you've lost the essence of the work.

I would agree with you, r391, that it's better suited for the big screen.

But either way, it's mediocre in its plot, characterization, and dialogue.

Yeah, if it had something...it fell out on the dark theater floor

because it didn't come across on my TV

I liked seeing Desi's orchestra on the big screen

My partner and I watched maybe an hour of it last night before we lost interest and put on [italic]Auntie Mame[/italic] instead.

This show is awful. It tries to cover too many themes. Just as soon as they win the victory of the studio audience not booing Lucy over her Communism, she's backstage attacking Ricky over his affairs. How long did they hold the start of that filming? Plus the Vivian Vance and Madelyn Pugh subplots really don't go anywhere.

It's just a mess of a show with flashbacks not really having any point.

Also, I've studied a lot of Lucy history, and I don't remember anyone saying that Vivian and Bill Frawley were called in for a two am rehearsal. Was that truth or an invention?

Plus, the I Love Lucy segments are way overplayed. The acting in them are at 9000% and seem unnatural.

What about the portrayal of long-time "Lucy" writer Bob Carroll, Jr. as a total no-talent riding Madelyn Pugh's coattails? Wasn't Pugh's mere presence in the male-dominated vocation of comedy writing the 1940s and 50s enough? But she has to submit her work as a co-product with a man? You think Pugh would have maintained her working relationship with Carroll through the 1980s, if he was not contributing to their output?

Arnaz, at least publicly, was not properly acknowledged for his contributions to the sucess of "ILL," but you don't right that "wrong" by taking away from other's and giving Arnaz unearned credit now. I believe it was producer Oppenheimer who first decided to incorporate Ball's pregnancy into the show. This movie, he's shown to say the network won't allow it, and tells Arnaz to forget it.

Of all the anachronistic dialog, I take most offense to how they will "tape" the show rather than "film" the show. It was a big deal how "ILL" would be done on 35 mm film, like a movie.

UGH. The film as a piece of shit. It was hard to finish.

This movie is mostly terrible.

R396, that was invented.

By making Lucy more engaged in ILL (she did not get that way till after divorcing Desi), that means they have to downplay Desi's engagement. We do not see him immersed in production, so when Lucy wants him to have credit---this film makes it look like he is riding on her coat-tails once again, which is not at all how it was.

Also, this makes it ridiculous that Lucy does not have a strategy for dealing with the accusations. In life, Desi fixed it like he fixed everything. But in this film, Lucy is the fixer so it seems uncharacteristic for him to be the architect of the strategy.

They also didn't include the very well known fact that Lucy and Desi had to pay for the pilot episode themselves and as a result were able to negotiate total ownership of the show. They have that scene where Lucy is doing her "Don't fuck with me fellas" to the men in the room, but she only pushes the idea that she'll only do the show with Desi and nothing is ever said about them financing it.

And it's also well known that Lucy and Desi perfected some of their act on the road. Lucy mentions it once, but wouldn't it be nice if they recreated a few minutes of the act, which Lucy and Desi later incorporated into a plot when Lucy does the "professor" bit with the cello.

Merry Christmas, bitches.

Surely you don't think Nicole was capable of recreating the "professor with the cello" bit or singing and dancing to "Cuban Pete", r399?

Sorkin was unwise to show even 40 seconds of her in the grape stomping bit. And that didn't include ANY dialogue. I'd be willing to bet they tried to get Nicole to do some of "Vitameatavegamin" but quickly realized she was totally incapable.

Speaking of r375, here's Ober with Claudette Colbert in the climax of The Secret Fury. Unfortunately, I don't think the whole film is anywhere online. It looks decent; maybe "Gaslight" adjacent (appropriately enough)

The Secret Fury belongs to Viv...

Excuse me, r403, I had a much more important role!

She couldn't even keep her character alive for more than a couple of scenes!

I think the most inane scene in Being the Ricardos is the one in which Jess tries to convince Desi he has top billing because he's the "I" in "I Love Lucy."

[quote] I think the most inane scene in Being the Ricardos is the one in which Jess tries to convince Desi he has top billing because he's the "I" in "I Love Lucy."

Which is also a fake story. Lucy wanted Desi’s name in the title (which she finally got later in the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour). Desi pointed out that he was included by the title I Love Lucy. Jess didn’t have to convince Desi because he was already on board with the idea.

Not only is it a fake story, r406, it's also a ridiculous, intelligence-insulting story

Who thinks Nicole will be nominated for an Oscar?

Nicole

^^ Not after this scathing DL thread.

i did just wonder if her holiday was messed up and she needed xanax due to "gaslighting."

[quote] Not after this scathing DL thread.

Not enough gays are Academy members for that kind of pull.

I think Nicole gets nominated and is a strong contender… and I saw the film and don’t think she deserves any recognition. There are some lazy votes every year.

Nicole NAILED it. Major snub if she's not nominated and I won't be sad if she wins.

Oh please, nothing in this movie is worthy of an nomination, let alone an Oscar. Thank god I saw it on Prime. I would have kicked myself if I had paid to see it. I think as long as Lucie and Desi Jr. are alive there will never be a truthful movie about Lucy and Desi.

You sound fun.

I'm pretty sure Desi Jr doesn't give two fucks and would sell his parents out for dinner at Musso & Frank's. Lucie is the one who thinks her mother and father shit rainbows.

417 replies and this movie is STILL SHIT.

Nicole reminded me of a marionette; that frozen face and odd gestures. The voice made the ventriloquist dummy effect complete!

After an hour I turned it off. I had sufficient.

Ethel Mae Potter did NOT get enough screen time.

Nor was she accurately represented!

[quote] Nicole reminded me of a marionette; that frozen face and odd gestures. The voice made the ventriloquist dummy effect complete!

Maybe this is the Lucy she should have played.

I thought this movie was okay (I generally don't care for Aaron Sorkin). The cast was fine. I was actually surprised by Kidman. She captured the spirit of Lucille Ball. Her mannerisms were decent. Her voice off-camera vs on-camera was also not bad, which was an accomplishment considering who she was impersonating, as well as Kidman's vocality being her biggest weakness (she often has "Nicole Kidman voice" when she's doing accents, etc). Her makeup (and accompanying plastic surgery) worked. An Oscar nomination would be earned, but, I think she'll just miss out this year. I thought Kidman was the strongest out of the cast, and the woman playing Vivian Vance comes in second. I was expecting more from J.K. Simmons, but he was well cast. Barden did well.

This movie was very much in the vein of those recent 1950s/1960s on-set Hollywood films My Week with Marilyn/Hitchcock (the movie)/etc, but, technically, a little bit better done and not as superficial. I think the critics were a little harsh.

Wow. The photo of Nicole accompanying today's NYTs feature about her sure looks like she's taken a page out of Lucille's book and spread vaseline on the lens.

Anyone who bailed on the movie early on is really not in a position to judge it.

R424, Ya think?

Just watched it last night on Prime (thank God it was free), and I can't add much to what everyone else has already said.

What bothered me the most about it was how every single character seemed to be nasty, angry, and thoroughly unhappy, like even existing was a labor for them. I have to believe that in spite of the stress and pressure and cast conflicts within the show, there were *some* moments of camaraderie and warmth among everyone. This movie makes it seem like being part of "I Love Lucy" was like having the worst job ever. Nicole Kidman especially played Lucy has a humorless, dour, soulless bitch.

And the scenes where Lucy would go into some sort of trance and envision what the script writers had created were just ridiculous.

I thought the trances were sort of interesting. Trying to show Lucy's comedic instincts.

R428 I thought they were stupid, like Sorkin was trying to make Lucy some kind of comedic soothsayer.

Loved every frame.

[quote]Nicole Kidman especially played Lucy has a humorless, dour, soulless bitch.

You do realize Lucille Ball was not Lucy Ricardo, don't you?

I never saw Garland in Zellwegger's Judy, but I defiitley saw Lucy in Kidman's.

R430 Pretty sure the real Lucy showed some humanity at some point in her life, unlike the character portrayed by Nicole Kidman.

From the article at R426

(Arnaz said Messing “just wants to be that person so bad,” but added, “We weren’t doing that. We weren’t trying to be that person.” A press representative for Messing declined to comment.)

The basic issue is that viewers expected something more sordid and nasty, but the daughter was heavily involved, and she wanted something nice and complimentary about her parents.

Well, Lucie failed, because her parents came across as humorless twat waffles in this movie.

I want to see a movie about Lucy filming Mame.

"Damn it, Bea, that's not how Vivian would have done it!"

R432, Debra Messing's campaigning for the role was as annoying as Levar Burton's campaign to be the new Jeopardy! host.

R433, Seriously? What movie did you watch?

r427 nails it for me.

I think I could forgive Being the Ricardos all its other faults if it had demonstrated genuine warmth for its subject matter and for its characters.

The more I learned about ILL as a kid, the more the show itself seemed somehow enchanted to me. The main players were dealing with marital woes, infidelity, alcoholism, domestic violence, mental illness ... heavy stuff, especially to my 12-year-old self, reading all the Lucy books in junior high. But despite it all, the show went on, like an oasis amid personal turmoil. Lucy and Viv, in particular, genuinely enjoyed working on it and there was real sadness when it ended.

Viv later wrote, "[Lucille] and I had so many laughs on "I Love Lucy" that we could hardly get through filming without cracking up ... Before shooting, Lucille and I would do advance planning. We'd plot together: "What if I step on your head when I climb down from the upper berth...Suppose we both get so busy crawling around on the floor that we back into each other under the table?" Sometimes it took no more than talking about it to send us into stitches."

Sorkin failed to capture this dynamic at all.

R7 Jesicca Chastain is going to win.

R438 is missing the point of the screenplay.

Everyone involved with "ILL" was on edge that week not knowing if the show would continue production.

Why would you expect two hours of fun and frolic?

I would have settled for two minutes of fun and frolic

I think Messing may as well have been cast because the character is too far outside of Kidman's considerable wheelhouse, and the material is far below the quality she deserves. I really admire her as an actor, and this is the third in a recent trilogy of sad and strange TV projects and for her.

I've always heard such great things about Aaron Sorkin, but this writing and directing was lazy, self-indulgent and confused. It feels so wrong to take such a sloppy approach to something so beloved by so many people, even if the TV show is old. It's like if he did a hackneyed biopic of Betty White on the Golden Girls set that just made up shit about her life and her personality. People would not have it.

Most people are simple-minded and maybe some have ran an ILL blog since 1998.

Why did Lucy make such a big deal about the director of that episode? They used the name Don Glass, but it was Marc Daniels who directed the episode and he went on and directed many other Lucy shows.

see?

Made it ten minutes. Didn't feel like Nicole was even trying with her voice. Awful. (On a side note, "Nightmare Alley" is amazing, see it on the big screen. I always think Bradley Cooper is a lightweight whenever he first shows up and then he always surprises me. Like Jake G., he's become a truly great actor along the way when a lot of us weren't even looking).

No one is watching this turkey. I doubt it will even be nominated for an Oscar.

[quote]but I defiitley [sic] saw Lucy in Kidman's

But then sadly, you sobered up

[quote]Most people are simple-minded and maybe some have ran an ILL blog since 1998

Conjugate verbs much?

Did you write this too, Aaron?

There's so little of interest in this film it's so meh!

[quote]“Gaslighting” got noticed simply because everybody on Twitter uses it.

Incorrectly.

So now that Nicole's done Bewitched and I Love Lucy, is a gritty retelling of Mama's Family far behind, with Nicole as Thelma Harper?

r440/443

I'm not sure now I "missed" the point of the screenplay and I would like to think I have at least a quasi-sophisticated critical eye -- I study literature for a living (not film, admittedly, but interpretative principles remain the same). My point is, when people are "on edge" during a "stressful week," they still retain their humanity. But Sorkin's characters seem to exist only in his own head; they are never allowed to transcend his myopic vision of them and develop interior lives.

Maybe this was already mentioned, but Sorkin puts all the emphasis on the impending cancellation of the show while failing to demonstrate what's truly at stake should it be lost.

^^^ r443

Sorkin made some really poor decisions and relied on audiences to know little about I Love Lucy.

The Communist episode was in Season 3, Episode 2 "The Girls Go Into Business." Lucy being pregnant was Season 2. The cast had already been through two seasons and with it being episode 2 of the new season, of course they would have been nervous about its cancellation.

Sorkin puts the Communist plot in the episode "Fred and Ethel Fight" which was Season 1, Episode 22. The show was still finding its footing and if it had been cancelled at Season 1, of course they would have been sad, but they didn't have as much at stake.

Additionally, the "Vitavetavegamin" episode is mentioned by Lucy and in one scene there is a picture of Lucy doing it on the wall. Yet, "VVV" episode was Seasons 1, Episode 30 and didn't go up until after "Fred and Ethel Fight" episode.

Finally, Desi Arnaz Jr was born in January 1953. Lucy would not have been pregnant yet when the Fight episode or VVV episode were filmed.

It’s so hard to believe that there were seasons of 36 episodes for TV series, now you’re lucky to get 8 or 10.

It sounds as though the Lucille Ball character is a sour bitch with no redeeming qualities, yet Lucie has said this is the best ever interpretation of her mother. According to her, Nicole's performance really captures Lucille.

Makes you wonder.

Oh honey r457, you have NO idea.

Really good TV movie from the Glory 90s; Lucille Ball is played by the mother from Titanic.

R455, You're really overthinking this. This was not intended to be a documentary. That is coming in 2022, directed by Ron Howard.

To quote Alfred Hitchcock, "It's only a movie."

I was surprised I liked Bardem so much as Desi. Nicole's performance was so drab, you couldn't guess why Lucy became such an icon. J.K. Simmons was the MVP.

R460, The upcoming documentary is directed by Amy Poehler and produced by Ron Howard.

r455, speaking of accuracy, it VitaMEATAvegamin. VMVM, if you will.

Spoon your way to health!

Do you poop out at parties?

Do you poop at parties?

In an interview years later, Doris Singleton said, "I didn't realize Vivian was as unhappy as she was at that time. ... Later I heard her marriage was on the rocks and she was a very unhappy lady."

Hmmm ... definitely not Sorkin's vision of Vance.

Actually many shows, like the Honeymooners, did 39 episodes in a season and while well paid for those days what they made for all that work was shit compared to people like that talentless bitch from Gray's Anatomy making 20 million an episode. How did this world get so sick and twisted. My guess is what Lucy made even once she was full owner of Desilu and in her lifetime was crumbs compared to what today's TV stars make in one year, and not just Lucy but all of them from those days. Of course they could probably buy a huge mansion in Beverly Hills for under $50,000, but still.

Wrong again!

"Do you pop out at parties?"

"Are you unpoopular??"

[quote]It’s so hard to believe that there were seasons of 36 episodes for TV series, now you’re lucky to get 8 or 10.

Thank god. Most American shows do far too many episodes AND seasons.

The British have it right. I love that The Landscapers is only four episodes.

36 episodes would be very hard on the writers.

Totally agree!

If you took only the 8 or 9 best episodes of ILL from each year, every season would be Pulitzer-worthy.

After watching The Ricardos and being disappointed with it, I watched an old I Love Lucy on Amazon - the episode where she thinks Ricky's trying to murder her. I laughed out loud a dozen times.

That was the original pilot but aired a few weeks later.

[quote]That was the original pilot but aired a few weeks later.

Actually, that wasn't the original pilot. The original didn't include the Mertzes and wasn't aired on tv.

[quote]The original didn't include the Mertzes and wasn't aired on tv.

But did include Desi's naked torso.

[quote] Actually, that wasn't the original pilot. The original didn't include the Mertzes and wasn't aired on tv.

OK the original pilot that aired.

[quote] OK the original pilot that aired. —Happy Dear?

I wasn't trying to be cvnty. I was just trying to point out the very interesting original pilot.

That original pilot REALLY needed the canned laughter.

[quote] Actually many shows, like the Honeymooners, did 39 episodes in a season and while well paid for those days what they made for all that work was shit compared to people like that talentless bitch from Gray's Anatomy making 20 million an episode.

It was a different time when there were fewer TV channels and therefore fewer content for TV.

Still praying for a Joan Davis biopic starring Ellen.

This thing was a mistake from its inception including the title. It had nothing to do with the hysterically funny Ricardos but about the real life nightmare I Love Lucy [and the stars' lives] was behind the scenes. I could have lived my whole life (and wish I had) enjoying I Love Lucy reruns having never seen this catastrophe of a movie.

R480, I hope you die very soon.

R481 I wish I could have died without seeing that movie and kept my wonderful memories of the I Love Lucy show untarnished.

Aaron that movie was crap. What were you thinking? Lucy is a symbol of extreme physical comedy. Most people laugh just looking at her. But you took this story to a really dark place. Nobody wants to see the worst aspects of the life of America's favorite funny lady, Lucille Ball, and NONE of the good parts. Where was the balance? That movie was a downer from beginning to end.

You should do the world a favor by ensuring that this craptastic flick is taken off Amazon and never shown again.

[quote]It had nothing to do with the hysterically funny Ricardos

If you really think "Being the Ricardos" had nothing to do with the story of the Arnazes, then you are incapable of understanding anything. No wonder you didn't like it. And stop speaking for everyone ("Nobody wants to see the worst aspects of the life of America's favorite funny lady"). There are plenty of people who like the film, a lot. You think if you keep posting in this thread about how much you hate it, it will make everyone else hate it, too. But you're just posting on DL. Your opinion has zero weight or consequence out in the real world.

Now go take your meds.

R483 Unfortunately meds won't help you since you apparently CAN'T FUCKING READ! 😂😂😂

You quoted me but still went off on a tangent about the Arnaz family. What a dumb fuck you are! "Being The Ricardos" had nothing to do with the Ricardos, which was the characters' surname. Instead it dealt with the very dark aspects of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Balls' lives. It was mistitled but I guess you didn't get that because you thought their real name was Ricardo!!! HAHAHA You are a fool! And YES this movie was very depressing!

I think most fans would have been fine learning about some of the sad aspects of Lucy's life. Actually a lot of it we already knew, but to have it all be about the negative aspects was too much. To cover a comedian's life in a movie with NO Comic Relief was quite remarkable in a negative way. NOBODY WANTS TO SEE LUCY DEPRESSED FOR AN ENTIRE MOVIE! She is America's Favorite (AND MOST ICONIC) Funny lady! The limited dark subject matter of this movie was an extremely bad call.

Nobody with any taste liked this movie!

The I Love Lucy Show brought a lot of joy to people's lives for generations. To throw this poorly written piece of crap on the screen to make a couple bucks without thinking about how this may impact the fans did a disservice to the memory of Lucy and Desi. I can't get that time back. This was such an awful movie. Anyone who is a true fan can see this was terrible.

And BTW, I will state my opinion whenever and where ever I want. You can fuck all the way off!

Girls! Girls!

Jesus R484 it's just a fucking movie.

I couldn’t watch 5 minutes of this. I saw Kidman as Lucy and had a physical reaction. A complete piece of shit.

This needs Razzie nominations

Matt the Loon is all over this thread. He's an Aspie asshole who has infected DL for about 7 years now.

Having watched "Spencer" last night, I now consider "Being the Ricardos" a masterpiece of the biopic genre.

Does Matt run an ILL blog?

R483 is so incredibly stupid, I'm surprised he knows how to breathe in order to stay alive.

[quote]I think most fans would have been fine learning about some of the sad aspects of Lucy's life. Actually a lot of it we already knew, but to have it all be about the negative aspects was too much. To cover a comedian's life in a movie with NO Comic Relief was quite remarkable in a negative way.

Exactly. A movie with a Lucy and Desi who could have expertly played the comedy of I LOVE LUCY in recreated bits and ALSO given compelling portrayals of the Arnazes' troubled life behind the scenes might have been great. But, apparently, this is not that movie. (I haven't yet seen it, but I'm assuming everyone else's description of it is accurate, and also, Lucie Arnaz said from the beginning that there would be VERY little I LOVE LUCY comedy in this movie.)

I think the choice not to have extended bits may have been necessitated by Kidmans frozen face---but it was a wide choice.

I Love Lucy is imprinted on our brains. No actor is going to going to match Ball's specific style of comedy.

Plus, people are watching this for a glimpse "backstage."

The real problem is Lucy at this stage of her life is not that interesting. The solution was to superimpose Lucy's post-Ricky personality onto her during an earlier period of her life.

To have a goofy, funny backstage world would have been so fake and easily identifiable as fake to anyone who read any of the books, watched interviews with people who worked on ILL, or even just read an article.

[quote]I think the choice not to have extended bits may have been necessitated by Kidmans frozen face-

Then, ummm, she shouldn't have been cast.

[quote]To have a goofy, funny backstage world would have been so fake and easily identifiable as fake to anyone who read any of the books, watched interviews with people who worked on ILL, or even just read an article.

NOBODY is suggesting that's what they should have done. You must be one of those unfortunate people whose brains are so small that they can only comprehend things in black and white extremes.

R494, there have been people calling for scenes of camaraderie and good times off-stage.

And I just think, few DLers have ever worked on a sitcom. Or any program for that matter. They think it all just comes together if we hang out and enjoy ourselves.

No. That is not what it is like.

As one showrunner said to me, "Don't waste your energy making the set fun. Put it all into making the show fun."

The behind the scenes of ILL as presented in Being the Ricardos seemed very credible if you have worked in television.

Well, all I can say we had a hell of a good time.

You're not seeing the forest for the trees, r495

But would people pay (or even tune in to a streaming service) to see a documentary about your work on a sitcom, R495?

What this show should have delivered was a balance: the comedy of ILL vs. the off screen drama of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

What it delivered was a bunch of unhappy women, J.K. Simmons with nothing to do and Javier Bardem playing the only interesting character in the movie.

But Desi wasn't interesting. If they had shown how he reacted to his own alcoholism and inability to stop cheating on Lucy , did he hate himself? Did he want to stop? Did he blame it all on Lucy? Did he see what it was doing to his kids? Did he resent that he was typecast for the rest of his life? Did he even want to be an actor or was the business end what he most enjoyed? Did he make any effort to try to save the marriage, not for show but for love?

Even Lucy wasn't interesting for the same reasons, the script never got inside her. We don't know anything more about her than we did before seeing the film.

On top of all this the casting stunk. I really like NK and have seen her in almost everything she ever did. This was not a part she was able to handle.

Was it Lucie that made them do such a vanilla job of this film or was that always the intent of all involved? If it was Lucie could they have done it without her having anything to do with it?

[quote]What this show should have delivered was a balance: the comedy of ILL vs. the off screen drama of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Exactly. It's amazing that Sorkin didn't realize this.

r500 I couldn't have said it better.

The thing is, Being the Ricardos is NOT a documentary. It's a narrative film. And as such, it has the ability to offer a glimpse into the characters' interiority in a way a documentary doesn't. Sorkin did not take advantage of his medium in this regard.

I would have also appreciated it if he'd cut the interviews with the writers -- a cheap gimmick -- as well as the flashbacks to the 1940s. But perhaps that's just my personal taste.

And my criticism above considers Being the Ricardos as a film, not a film about Lucy and Desi. It's not a good film. (Although I am a Vivian fan and feel her story is worth telling too.)

For those of you who are saying it's not a documentary, Sorkin tried to pretend it was by framing the story with "interviews."

The problem is that this movie doesn't know what it wants to be.

Is it a behind the scenes look at how a 1950s sitcom was put together?

Is it a biography about the two people who created one of the most successful sitcoms?

Is it a mockumentary or a Behind the Music documentary, except they use actors like in crime recreation shows?

WHAT IS THIS MOVIE SUPPOSED TO BE?

fodder for ocd eldergays.

I don't think dour "boss lady"/"Lucille Balls" emerged until after Desi was out of the picture. The link shows behind the scenes in 1970.

[quote]I don't think dour "boss lady"/"Lucille Balls" emerged until after Desi was out of the picture.

I think it was there all along, it just became more pronounced after Desi.

I cite the example of Vivian Vance: she said she showed up on the very first day of work all dressed up. Lucille showed up in old clothes, gave Viv a can of cleaner and told her to help her (Lucy) to clean the "john".

And I thought Lucille's whoring days were behind her!

I agree that Lucy didn't become the dragon lady until she took over Desilu. Until then, she could be nice and let Desi handle everything. From what I read, she felt she was in good hands and could just do her job.

It should've been more like this...

I can't believe this thread is still going. I tried watching but gave after 30 minutes. Nicole looks nothing like Lucy and the guy playing Desi was way too old to play a young Desi.

I'm off this week so I decided I to watch it this morning. I went in expecting to hate watch it for awhile and turn it off. I'd seen the trailer and I do like Nicole Kidman but something just didn't ring true. Boy was I wrong. It's not perfect by any means and yes you have to suspend your beliefs on a few things here and there but wow just as Lucie Arnaz says its not so much the physicality but the soul of Lucy and Desi. They really both committed to the roles and I loved the film. No its not perfect, but you saw the brilliance and the talent they both has as performers. I truly enjoyed the film. A very nice surprise.

Hi Aaron r511!

Hi 512!

I don’t get the dislikes. It’s a Sorkin movie, written and directed. That expository style is what’s expected of him.

Way upthread, somebody mentioned a funny thing that I hadn't thought about when watching but does make a difference. Desi's family would have fled the Cuban Revolution of 1933, not Castro's revolution, which of course hadn't happened yet. So Desi's family wouldn't have fled from Communists, but from a kind of military coup, the Sergeant's Revolt, though one that had support from university student groups, who probably were leftist.

Batista was one of those Sergeants, so oddly his family wasn't fleeing Communists. They were fleeing the people who would ultimately be kicked out by the Communists.

I do wonder if Sorkin actually realized that, or just decided oh the hell with it. It's more fun to picture Desi fleeing communists and Lucy joining the communist party, at least officially, which may actually be the right decision overall.

oy!!!

I haven't gotten around to watching it yet but does Kidman don kabuki makeup to play old age Lucille?

that's jada in the matrix.

I realize the week between Christmas and New Year's Day is traditionally a slow week, but some of you are spending way too much time dissecting this movie.

Just accept it for what it is and go for a walk.

Actually it's cold and snowy, so walk or dissect a movie to death? yeah, I've made my choice and I stand by it. Even better, mostly just reading other people's dissections.

and liking your own posts.

worst movie of the year. oh yea lets watch 2 hrs of luch/desi fighting with each other . kidman is ridic. how did sorkin choose such a piece of shiz to direct ????

He wrote it.

I don't think I've done that r521. But if I did it was a mistake.

I enjoyed the film. Kidman really surprised me at how much she nailed Lucy but who blew me away was Javier. When I first saw the trailer I thought he was miscast. Boy was I wrong. He embodied Dezi. I think the film really gave you a look into what their relationship was like and how much they respected each other. I thought showing the behind the scenes at a TV was done very well. Working in television isn't fun and it's funny how many people think it is...until you work in it. It's often very grueling work with people who don't like each other having to find ways to get along for the sake of the show. I loved the scene of them meeting on Mullholland Drive at 4am.

Lucy and Dezi always seemed so glamorous to me and they were, but at a very big cost to their relationship and their careers. You could tell they loved each other but that they both had huge flaws. And I loved how they let us peek into Lucy's brain to see her genius. She really was a comic genius and Dezi was a technical genius. We have him to thank for how sitcoms still are filmed today. He was a visionary. I honestly felt sad that Lucy was so upset that he cheated on her because if she could have just gotten past that, they might have remained married. But alas, cheating back then was a huge thing so I understood it. It still is a big deal today but as I get older, I just don't see cheating as that big of a deal anymore. I know they stayed friends for their entire lives but man were they magic together. I think the film really showed that.

[quote]Lucy and Dezi always seemed so glamorous to me and they were...

Lucy obsessively took pencils and toilet paper from the set and hoarded them at her home, because of the poverty she had endured earlier in her life

Even when Desi pointed out they were paying for the most of the pencils she took, she still did it.

She would sometimes laugh and show close friends cabinets full pencils in her home.

R525, Excellent post.

↑ Maybe leave this to your PR shills, Aaron...

or just go start on another project

For those of you saying Lucy came off as "depressed" or angry, from what I've read about Lucy, she was a mix of a lot of things. I felt like this film showed her professionalism. She was the first woman to run a television studio. You don't get that kind of power being a goof in real life. She knew her stuff, even when she tells Vance that she had to remain overweight because the majority of the women in America looked like her and not Lucy Ricardo. She was right and yes, it comes off as mean but she was fucking smart. She was a genius actually. To think she was anything like Lucy Ricardo in real life is laughable. I'm friends with a few actresses and the portrayal of her in this is spot on as to how actors think and work. The scene where she gets let go from her contract at RKO was done really well because it's STILL the prevailing thought in Hollywood that once you are over 35 you have "aged out" of movies or tv. It has taken until recently to start changing but even today, this is pretty much the thought process. When I watched this I felt like I had been given a glimpse into the real Lucille Ball and not some made up Hollywood version (even though it is). I can see why Lucie says it was accurate. Both she and Dezi came off as very human.

Geez what a god awful boring movie....why make such crap????

I hope there's a sequel, there's so much more to tell.

[quote]I hope there's a sequel, there's so much more to tell.

At the very least they could have given us Ethel Mae Potter singing "Shortnin' Bread"

[quote]I hope there's a sequel, there's so much more to tell.

BEING THE MORTONS

Who'd play Gary?

Why was Viv as skinny as Lucy in this dreadful film?

WTF film did you watch, r534? Vivian was never fat, she was just a bit larger than Lucy. Remember the camera always adds more weight.

They always dressed Ethel in frumpy clothes so she would appear heavier than she really was.

Ethel was never fat, but Viv's weight fluctuated during the series. Compare Season 1 with Seasons 4 or 6.

In an interview, Madelyn Pugh once claimed that Viv herself started the "20 lbs overweight" rumor, because she knew she'd gained weight and it embarrassed her.

Who's "Dezi"?

[quote]Maybe leave this to your PR shills, Aaron...

Whoever told you you were special and only your opinion counted lied I liked the picture a lot, you didn't and yet the world is still turning.

As for Lucy being tough, I will always remember as a kid I read an interview where Lucy was tough with the kids and wouldn't let Desi Jr screen any Bond movies in the screening room. She thought they were too adult for him, and I thought that was strict.

100th episode celebration, 1954

Lucy, Desi and Vivian winning Emmys in 1954 for the 1953 season.

William Frawley seems genuinely happy for Vivian's win when she returns to the table.

Viv was so excited when she won. Her husband later hid her Emmy from view in their home

I've always noticed that about Frawley's enthusiasm in the Emmy clip. I think his working relationship with Viv was far more complicated than it's been made out to be over the years. I'm sure there was a lot of mutual respect and appreciation for each other's talents even with all the hostilities.

I remember reading she did permit The Fox, r538, because she thought it was a Disney film. To her dismay...it wasn't.

r542 my understanding is that the Vance/Frawley acrimony was largely one-sided -- hers. He might have been a curmudgeon, but her mostly wanted to be left alone. But for Vance, Frawley became something of a bee in her bonnet. My Freudian theory is that a lot of her animosity toward Frawley was displaced anger she felt for her real husband.

^^^ he mostly wanted

What I would like is a narrative film in a quasi-documentary style.

I really hated the "talking heads" parts of the film with the aged versions of the writers and producers of the show. It was distracting and it seemed like lazy writing to me. Why not just tell the story in the movie itself?

It was like Sorkin couldn't be bothered and said, "Okay, let's get Linda Lavin to set up some scenes and provide some exposition. I can't figure out how to work all this crap into the actual story."

r519 must be new here.

R538, I remember reading that Lucy found "Thunderball" objectionable.

R538, Desi, Jr. was banging groupies when he was just 13 and touring with Dino, Desi and Billy.

Hubby and I watched this.

It wasn't as bad as I was thinking it would be, after reading this thread, but it was still lacking...something.

Kidman showed an occasional glimpse of Ball, but I didn't feel a consistent connection.

I was more interested in the period recreations than the half-hearted storytelling.

The best book I ever read on Ball/Arnaz was "Desilu," which told the story of their relationship through the lens of their business empire. Read it if you can find it.

My husband, who doesn't know a lot behind the scenes other than ILL itself, was devastated at the end of the move to find out that Desi had really HAD cheated and that the published gossip was true. The mumbled dialogue about "they're only hookers" got to him, and he was really thoughtful the day after about Ball's ability to deliver comedy every week while being in such personal pain and turmoil.

I remember seeing Lucy on either Merv Griffin or The Tonight Show (can't remember which) in the 1970s talking about how upset she was with Desi Jr. when he appeared nude in the movie "Joyride." Apparently, he didn't tell her about his nude scene (he only bared his butt - a quite fine one at that), and when she went to see the movie she was so angry, she threatened to disown him for it.

She was a bit uptight.

We're doing the sequel. Being The Retardos.

I'm old enough to remember how devastated Lucy was when it was believed Desi, Jr. had fathered Patty Duke's baby.

A DNA test proved that Sean Astin had actually been fathered by John Astin, but Sean and Desi, Jr. maintain a relationship to this day.

Actually, no, r554. Sean grew up thinking that John AStin was his biological fatehr but it turned out to be Patty's husband at the time, I think his last name is Tell.

R540 Based on everything we know about these people from books, articles and actual interviews, I don't believe any of the relationships in the movie were accurately depicted.

The movie tried so hard to show us a different side of these people that they seemed to forget that there is a lot about these real life people that fans already know about them. There is a lot of contradiction in their real life and this story as well as contradictions within this story. These things made it difficult for us as an audience to connect with the people they were depicting. It was like they were talking about some other people and not the Desi and Lucille we know.

Lucille and Desi we saw were ALWAYS magical together on and off screen during their marriage. It was jarring to see NONE of that magic in this movie. They were depicted as basically hating each other (but occasionally fucking). Their show was I LOVE Lucy. It was like the director wanted the audience to believe it all was a lie and that everyone really hated each other. I think it was more complicated than that. Why be so one dimensional?

If you are going to introduce new narratives then support them! Desi was supposed to be this super businessman who was running the show. [I've actually heard that before but it was never really confirmed by anything]. It appeared Lucille ran everything in this movie. The only time Desi seemed to step up was insisting that she play pregnant on the show. The rest of the time he seemed to hide behind Lucy's skirt. The credit they kept saying he deserved never materialized. Was he a mastermind or not?

And if you are gonna show only the bad of their relationship then at least be honest about it. Was Desi a battered spouse? Madelyn Pugh said they were always basically fucking or fighting. But in the fight scene we heard, it was implied that Lucille was whipping Desi's ass! Are we to believe that uber machisimo (which they repeatedly emphasized in this film) and alcoholic/philandering Desi just stood there and took that ass whipping without fighting back? I believe they tried to protected Desi in this film so he would not be viewed as a wife beater. Yet they had no problem portrayng Lucille as a complete Bitch and engaging in domestic violence! It wasn't realistic.

I understand this was not a documentary and they have a lot of creative license to tell any story they want to tell (especially with the Arnaz kids supporting the project). But the "suspension of disbelieve" required for movies is a little different when you are telling a story about real people which millions of people have connected to. You can't just throw any shit at that audience and expect them to swallow it whole because you want to tell a story you think is interesting and make a few bucks off their famous names. This storytelling seemed at best incomplete or at worst, grossly dishonest.

^^^^^ *"Suspension of Disbelief"

For all of Desi's other faults, I don't think he was a wife beater, r556.

how the FUCK do you know how they acted during their marriage in private?

Phil Ober was a wife beater, and everyone at Desilu knew it, r559

R558 The point is we don't know either way. We also don't know THAT Lucille was a spouse abuser. If you are not going to show what happened, why imply something so destructive to both their characters?

I tend to think "something" probably happened since the Arnaz kids greenlit it (and they would know), but if you are not willing to say specifically what happened then it is best to just leave it out or you leave things this volatile open to all kinds of speculation. That is unfair to both Lucille and Desi since they are not here to defend themselves.

update your blog.

you said you knew in the previous post.

R562. NOPE I merely said that what they presented was realistic!

[Quote]in the fight scene we heard, it was implied that Lucille was whipping Desi's ass! Are we to believe that uber machisimo (which they repeatedly emphasized in this film) and alcoholic/philandering Desi just stood there and took that ass whipping without fighting back? I believe they tried to protected Desi in this film so he would not be viewed as a wife beater. Yet they had no problem portrayng Lucille as a complete Bitch and engaging in domestic violence! It wasn't realistic.

*Was NOT realistic!

R556 needs a pet or a hobby or a part time job.

R565 It's the holidays. Go have another glass of egg nog and stop being a bitter old grump! 😂

What's with the fidgeting?

R567 This clip is yet another example of why that movie was complete trash.

I believe this was a genuine moment for her. Lucille could be sincere and even sweet sometimes. Why could we get NONE of that in this movie? She was just portrayed as a nasty bitch from beginning to end.

No successful woman could be as nasty as they portrayed her, especially in that era.

Lucie told Aaron to take the gloves off.

He took that too far. She had more dimensions than busting balls. You know real life Lucy would've hated this dark portrait of her.

I think Lucie has complicated feelings about her mother.

She was pretty much abandoned by Lucille as a child. The only time she got to spend much time with her mother was when she worked on her mother's show. Because Lucy always cared more about working than being a mother.

And Lucie said that while she had hoped to reconcile with her mother during her last years, Lucille became bitter and difficult.

So I think Sorkin was given permission to make Lucille look like a bitch and to rehab Desi's rep. Lucie always talks more fondly of her father and thinks he doesn't get the credit that is due.

Considering Lucy's rough childhood her daughter could give her the same break she does her father.

Ready for my close up!

R572 It always bugged me how she up her lipstick on way above her upper lip. Who told her that was a good idea?

Max Factor?

Lucie made Sorkin cut the line: "They were just hookers. You know, like you used to be."

Was it ever proven that Lucy was a prostitute?

R572 Lucille Ball never had the best hair but she always had fabulous wigs and hair pieces which I suspect she wore most of her life. She also was quite plain without all the wigs and make up, but she knew how to "create" herself.

I see why she is the perfect person for drag queens to emulate. Her appearance is a whole character in and of itself!

R576 They did not get into any of that in the movie which supposedly took place over the course of one week in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Arnaz while they were doing ILL.

.... See

R542 Both of them surely realized they had a good thing going being on such a popular show.

R580 Well, that was a whole lotta nothin'.

Side note. Why wasn't Nicole Sullivan considered for either Lucy or Ethel? She is so underrated.

r580 forgot the episode where Lucy and Ethel came across Fred's limp body after he passed out from autoerotic asphyxiation.

New thread, since this one is getting close to 600:

Can't we just ride this one out?

R577 Yet I've never seen a drag queen who impersonated Lucy! Garland, Streisand, Cher, Tallulah, . . .but never lucy

I've seen drag queens do the Vitameatavegamin routine.

do The Punchy players count?

R587 Plenty of Drag Queens have appeared as Lucy. Here's one for you!

Here's another!

And another!

I agree with most of the criticisms people had of the movie, so I won't repeat what others have already said. It was mildly entertaining, nothing more.

I do wish they reshot some of the opening scenes with Nicole. That's where she looks the worst because of whatever she did to her face. For most of the rest of the movie her face isn't as distracting.

Lucy was so beautiful here.

outtakes

It's fun to see Gale Gordon out of character.

Just watched the 2000 documentary Becoming Lucy on youtube. Brilliant!

Oooops! Sorry, it's called FINDING LUCY

R594, Not surprising that Lucie wasn't cast.

R594 Lucie really isn't worse than some of the child actors actually cast. However, it would have been jarring to have some of Lucy's onscreen children portrayed by her real children alongside side the other child actors.