Directed by:
Steven Soderbergh
Starring:
Dan Aykroyd, Debbie Reyolds Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Rob Lowe, Scott Bakula
2013
USA, Cert 15
Running Time: 1h 58m
Film £5.
Doors and bar open 7:00pm, Film 7:30, Supper 9:30
Latest bookings 1200 noon Sunday 17th November – pay at the door.
Bookings: filmnight@rockbournevillagehall.org.uk or phone: Lucy Matthews 01725 518695
“addictively funny and watchable” – The Guardian
“impossible to take one’s eyes off “Michael Douglas in fine Liberace biopic” – The Telegraph
“Too much of a good thing is just wonderful”
When in 1956 Cassandra in the Daily Mirror described the pianist and entertainer Liberace (then the most highly paid musician in the world) as “…the summit of sex—the pinnacle of masculine, feminine, and neuter. Everything that he, she, and it can ever want… a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love.” Liberace, in reply, sent him a telegram that read: “What you said hurt me very much. I cried all the way to the bank” – thus coining one of the most famous and apt quips in the history of show business.
Director Steven Soderbergh’s (‘Oceans 11-13’) film is wonderful evocation of the relationship between Liberace, played by the dazzling Michael Douglas, who won the ‘Emmy’ for his performance in a beautifully written role, communicating the complexity of a real human being, not just a two-dimensional celebrity, and his live-in lover Scott Thorson. The script, which is based on Scott’s autobiography, is a sort of gay Pygmalion – call it My Fair Laddie – in which Liberace moulds Scott (Matt Damon, who played the alpha-male Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity etc.) into a replica of himself. And remember that behind the candelabra, the flounce and the froth and the sequins Liberace was an accomplished pianist, so the film is filled with great tunes and music by Marvin Hamlisch, great sets and lavish over the top yummyness… But this film is more, much more.
John Crome
Next event: Rockbourne Christmas Party Friday 13th December