De-Lovely The Cole Porter Story Special Edition

Product Description "The most unusual and enchanting musical in years" (Roger Ebert), this cinematic ode to legendary composer Cole Porter is at once buoyantly fun and "heartbreakingly beautiful" (Liz Smith). OscarÂ(r) winner* Kevin Kline (The Ice Storm) is "perfection" (Rolling Stone) as the elegant and deeply complex Porter in a film that offers "knockout performances" (Gene Shalit) from Natalie Cole, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Diana Krall, Alanis Morissette and Robbie Williams, and "melancholy, wit and style to burn" (The Philadelphia Inquirer)! From Paris to Venice to Broadway to Hollywood, the lives of Cole (Kline) and Linda (Ashley Judd) Porter were never less thanglamorous and wildly unconventional. Though Cole's thirst for life strained their marriage, Linda never stopped being his muse, inspiring some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century.*1988: Supporting Actor, A Fish Called Wanda Additional Features Director Irwin Winkler weighs in on two commentary tracks, one with Kevin Kline and one with writer Jay Cocks. Both tracks are thoughtful and filled with details about Cole Porter's life, how the pop singers joined the film, and how their numbers were conceived. As might be expected, a lot of stories are repeated, but they're good stories, such as how "Be a Clown" was ripped off for Singin' in the Rain's "Make 'Em Laugh." There's a very good 25-minute making-of featurette, plus a 15-minute music featurette that mixes clips and performances from the film with brief comments by the pop artists performing them (the Broadway re-creations are only mentioned in passing). Two other featurettes go behind the scenes of two numbers, and the eight deleted scenes include Kevin Kline's short performance of "You Do Something to Me." Because the musical numbers have the most replay value, it's convenient that they're listed on the scene-selection menu. --David Horiuchi