Fred Astaire

DVD on Fred Astaire:

	The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Warner Home Video RELEASE DATE:  07 March, 2006
	Easter Parade (Two-Disc Special Edition) EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Warner Home Video RELEASE DATE:  15 March, 2005
	On the Beach EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  MGM (Video & DVD) RELEASE DATE:  29 February, 2000
	Finian's Rainbow EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Warner Home Video RELEASE DATE:  15 March, 2005
	Funny Face (50th Anniversary Edition) EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Paramount RELEASE DATE:  02 October, 2007
	Easter Parade (Special Edition) EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Warner Home Video RELEASE DATE:  15 March, 2005
	The Easter Bunny Is Coming to Town EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Warner Home Video RELEASE DATE:  19 February, 2008
	Holiday Inn (Special Edition) EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Universal Studios RELEASE DATE:  10 October, 2006
	Astaire & Rogers Ultimate Collector's Edition (Flying Down to Rio / The Gay Divorcee / Roberta / Top Hat / Follow the Fleet / Swing Time / Shall We Dance / Carefree / The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle / The Barkleys of Broadway) EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Warner Home Video RELEASE DATE:  24 October, 2006
	Daddy Long Legs EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  20th Century Fox RELEASE DATE:  21 February, 2006

Latest Film News

Latest news on Fred Astaire

Literature

Jonathan Carroll's The Ghost in Love: magical and wonderful fantasy novel about ghosts and love and nostalgia

Jonathan Carroll's latest novel, The Ghost in Love is the latest of thirteen genuinely magical fantasy novels in which the author makes magic the way Fred Astaire danced: effortless, simple, wondrous. In the Ghost in Love, Ben and his girlfriend German have just broken up a long-term relationship that seems to have been as wonderful as love can be (Carroll has a special gift for bringing happy family relations to life). Now they are on the outs, and sharing custody of Pilot, their shelter-dog, and every time they meet to swap the dog, their hearts break anew. Ben should have died the day he got the dog, when he slipped on ice and broke his head. But he didn't. So the Angel of Death sent Ben's ghost, Ling, to earth, to investigate why the universe has stopped obeying its divine destiny. Ling is hopelessly in love with German, and the ghost is also a fantastic cook (as is Ben), so whenever German is due to come over, Ling spends the whole day cooking elaborate, invisible meals for her, while chatting morosely with the dog (all ghosts speak Dog). That's all in the first few pages. Then it gets weird. Carroll's standard formula for his novels is to introduce us to wonderful people living magical blessed lives, lives so achingly rendered that you want to crawl into the page and snuggle under the covers with them. Then he smashes their lives like sand-castles, and his wonderful people fall apart while magic unmakes them, rewriting the rules of their world to reveal hidden truths about love, family, self-regard, self-loathing, and other emotionally charged subjects. In Ghost in Love, Carroll does this again, but even moreso, using a kind of dreamlike fluidity to constantly rewrite the rules of his world and its magic as evil and good tear apart the lives of Ben, German, Pilot and Ling and the people around them. The story grows ever-more existential, allegorical and weird as the pages fly past. But it's all handled so gracefully that the dream-logic never falters. Carroll is the omnipotent god of his characters and situations, and he is totally in control of every variable, so that we trust him throughout, even though he never plays fair. And the message, the conclusion in the end? Without spoiling things, I'll say this: The Ghost in Love contains genuinely profound and illuminating truths about the way that we love others and ourselves, and about the power of owning up to your bad deeds, and about the danger and wonder of nostalgia for our simpler pasts. I've read and enjoyed all thirteen of Carroll's novels, and this one is going right on the shelf with the others, and will occupy the same oft-visited part of my mental landscape wherein dwell his other magical books. The Ghost in Love on Amazon, The Ghost in Love, author's site with free first chapter...
Published: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:19:27 GMT - Source: Boingboing.Net - Read the article

• Webmasters: Add these headlines to your site

See Also:

Ginger Rogers	Mary Pickford	Cole Porter	Bing Crosby	Eleanor Powell
Gene Kelly	Judy Garland	Cyd Charisse	Audrey Hepburn	Petula Clark
Helen Hayes