Hepburn and Astaire are a strange, unbelievable couple, and while I know that's just a convention of the time, this particularl story just left me feeling a bit cold. Sure, it has great dance numbers, but without a spark between our hero and heroine, and with Astaire seeming so fey, it just didn't gel enough for me to care. I love Audrey Hepburn, but under the studio system she was in some masterpieces and some ringers. This falls somewhere in between.

Good fun on a grand scale, with some top-notch acting by Hoffman and McQueen. Who need Steve had it in him? It's everything a Big Movie should be: scenic, personal, with a big arc and big ambitions: nothing short of the the restlessness of human experience.

Having been born too late to see this movie in the eighties, I was overwhelmed by how nonessential and frivolous it felt in the harsh light of 2011. A soap opera plot, gaudy art direction and slangy dialogue – it hits all the lowbrow notes while limply reaching for the 3-hour mark that would render it an epic. And so it was, and it reaped the requisite Academy Awards, but, God – have you watched it lately? It's the first movie in a long while that I couldn't finish.