- Everything But The Girl - Best Of Brazil Import
Jamie Lee Curtis and Richard Lewis star as Hannah Miller and Marty Gold, best friends and co-workers who suppress their smoldering desires, not wanting to spoil their friendship. Once they do take the plunge, though, they quickly discover that falling in love is the easy part! Together, they face some of life's biggest challengesâ€"love, work, love at work, and working at loveâ€"with humor, sophistication, and feeling in this unforgettable TV classic.Welcome to Chemistry 101, class.
Anything but Love, a charming, quirky romantic-comedy series that debuted in 1989, stars Jamie-Lee Curtis, then at the height of her film career, and comedian Richard Lewis as journalistic colleagues with an undeniable romantic pull between them. The first volume of episodes showcases the crackling connection between Hannah (Curtis) and Marty (Lewis), which ! kept the show fizzy, and not fizzled--like
Cheers,
Moonlighting, and other sitcoms in which romantic tension died after "the deed." Curtis shows her best screwball chops as an ace reporter, struggling with her feelings, her friendship, and her work assignments with Marty, who’s a fumbling but well-meaning foil. Besides the two stars, the show features a great sidekick in Ann Magnuson, and cool cameos; look for memorable appearances by John Ritter and an elegant Wendie Malick. The set includes 28 episodes on three discs; it spans slightly more than a full season, from its debut in March of 1989 as a mid-season replacement through that fall and the spring of 1990. Extras include commentaries by Curtis (still the mistress of the dryly witty crack), Lewis, and director Robert Berlinger, and two featurettes on the creation of and tidbits from the show, "All About
Anything but Love and "Stories from the Set." Let the sparking begin.
--A.T. HurleyRoma! ntic, funny, tender love story about a struggling Cabaret sin! ger who yearns for the days of Audrey Hepburn and Rita Hayworth. Rated PG-13People in movies just don't break out into song and dance often enough anymore--at least that's the sentiment of
Anything But Love, a throwback to the Fred & Ginger era. Sweet-voiced redhead Isabel Rose plays an aspiring songbird in present-day Manhattan (in other words, she's a waitress), singing her beloved standards in a dowdy little club and auditioning for the big break. In order to learn piano, she must endure lessons from a cynical slob (Andrew McCarthy), with whom, of course, she strikes sparks. Anyone with an inclination toward old musicals will probably be willing to go the extra mile for this awkward, low-budget offering. It never really takes wing, but does have two attractions: the fresh presence of Isabel Rose (who also co-wrote the script), who's hopelessly lost in the past; and a long roster of standards from the American songbook, which are given the affection they deserve.
--Robe! rt HortonThe conflicted protagonist of Anything but Love, the steamy and sardonic first novel by Gustavo Pérez Firmat (author of the acclaimed Next Year in Cuba) may remind some readers of Peter Tarnopol in Philip Roth’s painful sexual farce My Life as a Man, and others of Bob Slocum in Joseph Heller’s dark corporate satire Something Happened ... but Pérez Firmat has imbued his fiction debut with a Cuban-American flavor uniquely his own.
Some people would call Frank Guerra fussy, even compulsiveâ€"but they’re wrong. He simply believes in perfection. He strives to make every textbook he writes into a work of art, and he intends that every Cuba Libre he mixes come out textbook-perfect. (The key? Exactly six drops of lime juice for each ounce of rum.) And Frank also believes in romantic love.
In fact, he believes in love so strongly that he’s willing to divorce his faithful wife Marta (who’s a real mensch about it), lose his old friends, and even le! ave behind his adoring daughter Emilyâ€"all for the sake of hi! s new am ericana, a sedate but supremely sexy schoolteacher named Catherine O’Neal, or Cat for short. But it’s worth all the pain: Cat believes in their love, too.
So why, when he looks deep into Cat’s cool sphinx-like eyes, can Frank never penetrate into her depths? Why does he begin to see only his own gaze reflected there, as if from twin funhouse mirrors? Is she hiding something from himâ€"anything? (Everything, maybe?) Is his Cat merely toying with him? Frank finds the possibility disturbing. He expects his perfect love to be fully and equally reciprocated. After all, in an imperfect, unstable world filled with disappointment, isn’t there any ideal, anything, that’s really worth living for, maybe even dying for? Frank can’t think of anything but love.
Born in Havana, GUSTAVO PÉREZ FIRMAT is the author of the acclaimed, best-selling Next Year in Cuba, published in Spanish by Arte Público Press as El año que viene estamos en Cuba, described by Library Jo! urnal as “A fascinating account of a 30-year search for a homeland and a new national identity... Engrossing and full of insights into the Cuban exile community,†and hailed by The Washington Post Book World as “A serious work of literature â€" as well as a ripping good book…[Perez Firmat] offers us an eloquent, amusing, often moving testament of a long moment in the troubled history of two countries.†A professor at Columbia University, he has published numerous nonfiction works and three collections of poetry.
The conflicted protagonist of Anything but Love, the steamy and sardonic first novel by Gustavo Pérez Firmat (author of the acclaimed Next Year in Cuba) may remind some readers of Peter Tarnopol in Philip Roth’s painful sexual farce My Life as a Man, and others of Bob Slocum in Joseph Heller’s dark corporate satire Something Happened ... but Pérez Firmat has imbued his fiction debut with a Cuban-American flavor uniquely his own.
Some people! would call Frank Guerra fussy, even compulsiveâ€"but they’r! e wrong. He simply believes in perfection. He strives to make every textbook he writes into a work of art, and he intends that every Cuba Libre he mixes come out textbook-perfect. (The key? Exactly six drops of lime juice for each ounce of rum.) And Frank also believes in romantic love.
In fact, he believes in love so strongly that he’s willing to divorce his faithful wife Marta (who’s a real mensch about it), lose his old friends, and even leave behind his adoring daughter Emilyâ€"all for the sake of his new americana, a sedate but supremely sexy schoolteacher named Catherine O’Neal, or Cat for short. But it’s worth all the pain: Cat believes in their love, too.
So why, when he looks deep into Cat’s cool sphinx-like eyes, can Frank never penetrate into her depths? Why does he begin to see only his own gaze reflected there, as if from twin funhouse mirrors? Is she hiding something from himâ€"anything? (Everything, maybe?) Is his Cat merely toying with him? Frank fi! nds the possibility disturbing. He expects his perfect love to be fully and equally reciprocated. After all, in an imperfect, unstable world filled with disappointment, isn’t there any ideal, anything, that’s really worth living for, maybe even dying for? Frank can’t think of anything but love.
Born in Havana, GUSTAVO PÉREZ FIRMAT is the author of the acclaimed, best-selling Next Year in Cuba, published in Spanish by Arte Público Press as El año que viene estamos en Cuba, described by Library Journal as “A fascinating account of a 30-year search for a homeland and a new national identity... Engrossing and full of insights into the Cuban exile community,†and hailed by The Washington Post Book World as “A serious work of literature â€" as well as a ripping good book…[Perez Firmat] offers us an eloquent, amusing, often moving testament of a long moment in the troubled history of two countries.†A professor at Columbia University, he has published numero! us nonfiction works and three collections of poetry.
CD > ! POPULAR MUSIC > ROCKThe British duo Everything but the Girl (Ben Watt and ex-Marine Girl Tracey Thorn) have gone through two distinct phases in their career--they spent most of it as an acoustic, folky duo with some occasional lounge accompaniment, but after a Todd Terry remix of
Amplified Heart's "Missing," they veered toward the dance floor.
Best of tries to encapsulate all of that in 15 tracks, and while it brings together many of the essential songs--the remix of "Missing," "Apron Strings," "Rollercoaster," "I Don't Want To Talk About It," and even Thorn's guest vocal on Massive Attack's "Protection"--it also has a lot of holes. There are only 10 tracks from EBTG's entire nine album pre-remix career, and none that feature Watt as vocalist; also missing is Thorn's guest slot on the Style Council's "Paris Match" (from
Café Bleu). As a slightly lopsided introduction to EBTG, this collection is fine, but you might do better buying a few albums instead (start wi! th
Amplified Heart,
Acoustic, and
Walking Wounded).
--Randy Silver
