Gene Kelly (left) and Fred Astaire rehearsing a number for The Ziegfeld Follies (1946).

They are thesis and antithesis. Fred Astaire defies gravity; Gene Kelly is earthbound. Astaire is spirit; Kelly flesh. Astaire is the embodiment of grace, Kelly of athleticism. For Astaire, dance is the vertical expression of horizontal feelings for another; for Kelly, it is the expression of self. Astaire made dancing look easy; Kelly made it look like a workout. Astaire begot Michael Jackson; Kelly begot Patrick Swayze.

Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?  The eloquent Paula Marantz Cohen (Drexel professor, author and Astaire advocate)  and the learned Andrew Douglas (Bryn Mawr Film Institute education director and Kelly partisan) will make their cases on November 18 at International House (3701 Chestnut Street) at 7 pm. At the event sponsored by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Exhibit A is Top Hat (1935) and Exhibit K Singin' in the Rain (1952), both of which will be shown, enjoyed and argued.

Flickgrrl stands firmly in the Astaire camp, while noting the paradox that though Astaire is the best screen dancer ever, Kelly's Singin' in the Rain is the best dance musical. Though she admires Kelly -- especially in An American in Paris, Singin', The Pirate and On the Town -- she cannot say that she likes him. Because however superb Kelly's choreography and artistry, his aggressive muscularity suggests that he thought there was something sissy about a man dancing.

Of Astaire, whom she loves most in Swing Time, Follow the Fleet, Easter Parade, The Barkleys of Broadway, The Bandwagon and Funny Face, she has only one word: Perfection. To those who argue he wasn't a great actor, Flickgrrl retorts, maybe not, but no screen personality is a better argument that action is character.

Of course, the only possible resolution to the eternal question of Astaire v. Kelly is why either/or, why not both/and? On screen, the two danced together only once, in the 1946 revue musical The Ziegfeld Follies. The accompanying photo is of them rehearsing their number, "The Babbitt and the Bromide." Note how Kelly is conscious of the camera. Note how Astaire is conscious of conveying the sense of floating.

So, Astaire or Kelly? And in which movie(s)?

Jeff Bridges as Bill Django is The Men Who Stare at Goats.

The pleasure of an actor's company often makes a nondescript movie seem great. Call it the Jeff Bridges Boost. Every time Bridges is on screen in Men Who Stare at Goats, Grant Heslov's satire about a top-secret cadre of military intelligentsia, the movie pops.  Bridges plays Bill Django, a warrior for peace dedicated to psychic (and perhaps psychedelic) means of ending war, a character so far outside the mainstream that he seems to redirect the way the water flows. Django is a spiritual cousin of Bridges' cult hero, The Dude, in The Big Lebowski (see here for Bridges' thoughts on that movie and its belated success.)  One might consider Goats an example of Lebowskism, that philosophy of process without an object.

Ironic and iconic, Bridges combines the elements that made Robert Mitchum so appealing: He's eternally the guy who doesn't give a damn, but who cares deeply. (See The Last Picture Show, Fat City, Winter Kills, Cutter's Way, Fearless, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Fisher King.) While his tarnished charisma often seems misused in more conventional movies such as King Kong and Jagged Edge, he did a hell of a job as the extraterrestrial posing as a human in Starman , as the cagy U.S. president in The Contender and the monstrously egomaniacal author in The Door in the Floor. Your thoughts? Favorite Bridges performances? Why?

Hah! Humbug: The Muppet Christmas Carol with Michael Caine as Scrooge.

My reaction to "Disney's A Christmas Carol," the motion-capture animation released today, was that the Robert Zemeckis version of Charles Dickens evergreen was, "too much Halloween night and not enough Christmas morning." (Read my review here.) I scribbled in my notebook, "What would  Dickens think?"

Mr. Dickens is, of course, no longer with us. But his great-great grandson Gerald Dickens, 46, was happy to speak with Flickgrrl by phone from Oxford. (Not coincidentally, the actor will be touring the U.S. with his one-man show of A Christmas Carol next month and will bring it to Byers' Choice in Bucks County on December 11 and 12.) Dickens has yet to see the Zemeckis version, but among the many movie versions of Carol, he's fond of "the classic Alastair Sim version" (1951, by Brian Desmond-Hurst), because "it has the joyousness and captures the point that nasty Scrooge must get terrified and change his ways."

"I also enjoyed the George C. Scott version, with Scrooge as a big brash businessman of the sort you might see on Wall Street rather than this weaselly sort," Dickens  reflects. He has no thoughts about the 1988 Bill Murray update, Scrooged.

"But when it comes right down to it, you can't beat The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), can you?," asks Dickens rhetorically. He thinks that if his ancestor were alive, it would probably be his favorite, too. "He was fond of color and splash."

Your favorite? While I like the 1951 verson and also the 1970Albert Finney musical Scrooge, I think the most effective cinematic Carol is the free adaptation: It's a Wonderful Life. You?

Risk: The Movie. Do you cast Djimon Hounsou to play Africa?

In recent years, moviegoers have seen theme-park rides adapted to screen (Pirates of the Caribbean) and popular toys become the stars of summer blockbusters (Transformers). And even though Clue: The Movie wasn't a hit, it was just a matter of time before Hollywood producers rifled through their kids' toy chest s to consider the big-screen potential of other  board games. 

As was reported by the Los Angeles Times this summer, Transformers' Michael Bay has been linked to a Ouija movie, Pirates'  Gore Verbinski has expressed interest in a Clue re-do and Hancock's Peter Berg wants to board Battleship. One might well joke, what's next, Candy Land? Except that Enchanted's Kevin Lima has his dibs on that and Gladiator's Ridley Scott on - this is not a joke -- Monopoly.  (Expect Baltic Avenue to be as tough a proving ground as the Roman Forum in Gladiator.)

Still, I was surprised at today's news that Risk has been optioned for a screen adaptation by Sony Pictures. What's left? Scrabble? (I can think of a couple of actors suitable to be cast as the blank.)

Your thoughts? Is there a game you'd like to see adapted?  Should the movie Monopoly chronicle  Donald Trump's real estate adventures in Atlantic City? Flickgrrl welcomes your riffs.

The Alec and Steve Show, Part I

With last week's announcement from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association that Ricky Gervais, the Great White Snark, would emcee the Golden Globes, I thought that HFPA had trumped the Oscars. Then yesterday, announcing Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin as Oscar co-hosts,  Academy Awards producers bet that on awards shows, as in poker, two kings of comedy are better than one.

The frequent Saturday Night Live fixtures  -- who shared a memorable SNL skit on who was a better host of the late-night show -- have a comic competition going. Martin greeted yesterday's announcement with, "I look forward to co-hosting the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin."

Martin previously emceed two Oscar ceremonies with great aplomb, ingratiating himself both to home audience and that in the auditorium. For me, he's the best Oscar host since Johnny Carson and Billy Crystal, able to rib the big egos in the room because he himself is one of them. ( It's a skill that Chris Rock and Jon Stewart, hilarious as they are, do not possess.) Martin's understated delivery should play well off of Baldwin's bluster. (Still, I wish it was Tina Fey, Baldwin's 30 Rock co-star , instead of Baldwin who was tapped instead of Baldwin.)

Martin and Baldwin co-star in the upcoming Nancy  Meyers comedy It's Complicated  in which they play the ex- and  current bf of Meryl Streep. At next year's Oscars, there will be Streep jokes, to be sure. (And perhaps a Streep win for her jolly role as Julia Child in Julie & Julia.) So: Your favorite Oscar host? Why? Or is the discussion of best Oscar host ludicrous as that of best Titanic skipper?

Taylor Lautner and his tenpack. Is this the kid who played Sharkboy?

The shirtless cute boy is a pinup who displays his sixpack (or in the case of  New Moon's Taylor Lautner, pictured, his tenpack) for the delectation of his fans. It's the male version of a starlet (Megan Fox, anyone? everyone?) posing in a string bikini for Maxim or Sports Illustrated. Lately the vealcake on parade (vealcake being the teen version of beefcake) is inescapable. You can't open a magazine (or an Internet site) without seeing a shirtless cute boy (Zac Efron? Corbin Bleu?) bare abs and assets. It's not a new phenom: These male starlets are just giving us the shirt off their backs as Paul Newman (Cool Hand Luke), Burt Reynolds (The Longest Yard), John Travolta (Saturday Night Fever), Denzel Washington (Glory) and Brad Pitt (Thelma & Louise) did before them.

While neither a consumer of beefcake nor of cheescake, I suppose the shirtless cute boy is an index of gender equality in that males as well as females are objectifying themselves. But isn't this as dubious an achievement as actors being as ready as actresses to have face work done?

Are you a fan of the shirtless cute boy? If so, which pin-up is indelibly burned in memory? Not a fan? Why? While I have no objections to nudity in films when called for by the narrative, to me there's something self-conscious and gratuitous about pinup shots. I can think of an exception to this: In Alien when Sigourney Weaver walks around the space ship in her bikini underwear, the viewer is so distracted by her body that the shock of what happens next is doubly shocking.