CineSage_jr

To be at least a little fair, Oskar Schindler may just be one of those impenetrable, inscrutable people whose motivations resist dissection or any clear, definitive, final analysis, but he did do what he did, that much is certain, and that makes it notable and worthy of dramatic treatment. That's certainly true in the case of T.E. Lawrence: at the end of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA you really don't know any more about why he did the things he did than you knew before the film began but, as the saying goes, it's all about the journey (which all dramatic stories are, after all), and not the destination.

> {quote:title=laffite wrote:}{quote} > I never forgave Steven for bringing ET back to life...especially after rolling us through the emotional wringer of watching it die. Cheap sentiment is something that Speilberg is good at. Your referring to E.T. as "it" instead of "him" suggests that you're probably immune to Spielberg's patented brand of sentimentality, anyway.

> {quote:title=OldIsGood wrote:}{quote} > Barack Obama took Michelle to see the movie "Do THe Right Thing" on their fist date. > > Does anyone know the name of the movie theater they went to on their first date? > > Name Of The Movie Theater: It was the Biograph Theater. Oops, that was where the FBI gunned down John Dillinger in 1934.

It's a good movie; certainly not a great one. Reviewers, Academy voters and the public in general often allow themselves to be seduced by the nobility of a film's subject matter and intentions; as a result they then tend to be blinded as to the film's cinematic and dramatic failings. Spielberg has demonstrated, throughhout his career, that he is an inveterate Pollyanna, always in search of the happy ending and/or some excuse for taking the edge off material to make it more commercial. His films are dramatically soft and, often, inexcusably sentimental; he is constitutionally incapable of going after the jugular, regardless of the subject (unlike, say, Billy Wilder, whose affinity for the jugular was unavoidable and legendary. Interestingly, Wilder had sought to make a film of Thomas Keneally's book Schindler's List for years, but his age -- late-70s by then -- boxoffice track record since the mid-1960s, and studio disinterest kept him from doing it. To be fair, only Spielberg's boxoffice Midas-touch did persuade Universal to back the project, but even so, they got cold feet several times). My personal choice to direct the film would have been Fred Zinnemann (informally retired for years by then, or William Wyler, but he'd been dead for several years); either man would've made the unsparing, unsentimental film the subject matter demanded and deserved.

> {quote:title=nightwalker wrote:}{quote} > > {quote:title=CineSage_jr wrote:}{quote} > > > {quote:title=mongo wrote:}{quote} > > And speaking of Buster Crabbe, isn't it about time for whoever holds the copyright and film elements to issue the 1930s BUCK ROGERS serial on DVD? I always liked it much better than FLASH GORDON, in that it had a serious anti-tyranny message underneath all the Saturday-mornihb serial derring-do. > > BUCK ROGERS, 1939, was released on DVD by VCI Home Video back in 2000. As far as I can tell, it isn't a "bootleg" copy but a genuine release. It's available at Amazon and probably other places as well. All 241 minutes crammed onto one disc. The quality must be execrable. Surely somebody will eventually do the proper release the serial deserves.

I just hope that Fox did at least a bit of restoration on the film, and didn't use the substandard print/master that airs on the Fox Movie Channel (which is missing part of the Main and End Titles).

> {quote:title=redriver wrote:}{quote} > I was disappointed. And I'm being polite. A sex comedy. Probably intended to be risque' at the time. Now it's just embarrassing. Wilder peaked with THE APARTMENT. Some people like IRMA LA DOUCE. After that...not his best work. And I'm being polite. Usually, when a movie has been unheralded for decades, there's a reason for it. IRMA LA DOUCE was the most financially successful film wilder ever made; it was also the last profitable film he ever made. In both cases, it's rather inexplicable if one judges the film merely according to taste. Of course, if one analyzes it a little more deeply, it bexomes fairly obvious that, due to the unraveling of the Breen Code, which had regulated the sexual content of films for decades, Wilder was finally able to give free rein to his more vulgar instincts, and was quite happy to pander to the equally obvious appetite of the public for more vulgar content.

> {quote:title=mongo wrote:}{quote} > Thanks for your input, MovieDiva. I'm also glad that I stuck with the name even though I was > as far from a Mongo as one can get. > > Message was edited by: mongo That's kind of irrelevant, as far as a forum like this one goes. Every time I see "Mongo" posted here, I imagine that big galoot, Alex Karras, punching the poor horse in BLAZING SADDLES. And speaking of Buster Crabbe, isn't it about time for whoever holds the copyright and film elements to issue the 1930s BUCK ROGERS serial on DVD? I always liked it much better than FLASH GORDON, in that it had a serious anti-tyranny message underneath all the Saturday-mornihb serial derring-do. Of course, since you're a Joe, your real identity just might be Joe Don Baker, who played the title role in the 1971 TV movie, Mongo's Back in Town.

Well, my friend, Eric, is much luckier, then, for having had Annakin as a pretty good friend for several years. As for "Anakin Skywalker," I really have no inside information, but the name is fairly uncommon, and George Lucas does have a substantial knowledge of film history, so draw your own conclusions...

> {quote:title=HollywoodGolightly wrote:}{quote} > Just as a reminder to all Fritz Lang fans everywhere - remember that Lang's The Man Hunt (1941) will be finally making its DVD debut in little less than a month: > > http://www.amazon.com/Man-Hunt-Walter-Pidgeon/dp/B001SMC9L2/ > > I've never seen it, but I hear very good things about it. Its video release is obviously timed to coincide with the release of Valkyrie, so I guess sometimes good things can come from bad ones. The film is titled, simply, MAN-HUNT and, yes, it's very good.

I met him a few years ago at a screening of a restored 70mm print of THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES at Hollywood's Egyptian Theater. While I didn't, and don't, think the film works at all as either drama or comedy (that its screenplay was nominated for an Oscar is, frankly, unfathomable), it did an extraordinary job of physically establishing the time, place and milieu of its setting. For that, Annakin deserves great praise), it was quite spectacular, particularly in the large-frame format which rendered the image remarkably sharp and textured, at times appearing almost three-dimensional. As for THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE, it's one of those films that keeps you watching, even as you realize, early-on, that it's not very good, filled as it is with stock, one-dimensional characters who pontificate on this or that, and do, or say, little else. It's best characterized as one of those how-we-won-the-war movies that concerns itself with battle tactics and chronology rather than characters or the effects those battles have on people (by contrast, Francis Coppola's early script drafts of PATTON, BULGE's rough contemporary, were much the same way; when the producers brought in veteran writer Edmund H. North, who found the real heart and soul of the man who was supposed to be the film's subject, the screenplay grew wings, and the film made from that script became, justifiably, one of the great epics and character studies ever made by Hollywood). Annakin, who was a friend of a friend, seemed a very nice man, and certainly dedicated to his craft. Judging by the obituaries just this week, one's mid-nineties seem to be a real minefield, and one that's probably best avoided.

I had the pleasure of meeting Cardiff at the Motion Picture Academy about four years ago, at a screening of BLACK NARCISSUS (unfortunately projected in high-def digital video) as part of a celebration of his career. He was kind enough to sign an 8" x 10" still from Powell & Pressburger's A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH for me. A lovely man, and probably the best bloody cinematographer who ever lived.

> {quote:title=helenbaby wrote:}{quote} > I also remember that Robert O. would occasionally have a night where he would read letters from viewers and play some requested films, before the internet got big. The Internet is big; it's the pictures that got small.

Nobody ever really dies in Roswell, New Mexico. They're just frozen, taken to Area 51 and culled for spare parts.

> {quote:title=mr6666 wrote:}{quote} > how about Edward G. Robinson as 'Rico Bandello' in *Little Caesar* and as 'Wilson' the Nazi hunter in *The Stranger*? Robinson's role as FBI agent Edward Renard in CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY is probably a little bit closer to the mark.

To quote Ethan's explosive line in THE SEARCHERS (probably John Wayne's finest moment as an actor) as he describes to Marty and Brad (not altogther honestly) his finding Lucy's body in the canyon: "What do you want me to do, spell it out for you? Paint you a picture??" The trouble with audiences nowadays is that, often as not, they do want everything spelled out, cut into nice, little bit-sized pieces so they can digest it all without having to chew any more than is absolutely necessary. Debbie doesn't need her thinking explained; it's not her story, it's Ethan's, and an air of unresolved, unsettled mystery about him is essential to establishing and maintaining his sense of dislocation and estrangement from society.

> {quote:title=johnm_001 wrote:}{quote} > Not sure what your definition of the word "syndication" is, but *Gone With the Wind* and *The Sound of Music* are two films that have never been in syndication. *GWTW* is always broadcast on a Turner Network, and *TSOM* is only shown on an ABC Network. Prior to its current license by ABC, *TSOM* was licensed to NBC (for 20 years), and ABC, prior to that. Never in syndication. Sorry, but GWTW has been syndicated to local stations for years; TCM/TNT/TBS airings of it are not exclusive.

> {quote:title=MarianStarrett wrote:}{quote} > And as far as *The Searchers* goes, there are those who question why there weren't any scenes where Debbie would explain why she was a willing sexual partner of Chief Scar for all of those years. Some have even suggested that that would have made John Ford uncomfortable. (I believe it is mentioned in one of the supplements that WHV added to the home video edition). Why would you want to pin her reasing down, anyway, not that there really was any reasoning involved? Debbie was raised as a Comanche, and Indian squaws were not noted for having much say as to how they lived their lives in that patriarchal society/

The ABC network has rights to the film locked up for decades (it's the only major Hollywood film older than 2-3 years that has never been in syndication). If you want to see it at any time other than their once-a-year Passover/Easter showing (cut, panned-and-scanned and in pretty crappy color), you're going to have buy the DVD (which isn't that great, either).

> {quote:title=hamradio wrote:}{quote} > MarianStarret wrote: > << He's also possibly the most racist character John Wayne's played. And so are some of the other characters in The Searchers. >> > > You're using today's standards in defining the culture of mid 19th century America. > What CineSage jr is referring to is called "Honor killing" which was a common practice back then. > These were the days of "shotgun weddings", duels, settling family feuds on ones own, etc. > > To show the mindset of people back then, look at Andrew Jackson who dueled over his wifes honor - and this was only something said about her verbably. Just having sex with an unmarried girl back then could have gotten one killed by her family members and the girl could have also gotten shunned and shamed (if she was lucky) the the fellow community! Many countries have honor killings even TODAY such as in the Middle East and the Balkins (sic). Ethan isn't a racist in the sense you mean. He doesn't hate Indians (or any minority) in the abstract, as a pure racist would, and does. Ethan respects and even admires Indians (after all, who, in the film, knows more about Indians, how they think and what they're apt to do than Ethan does?). What Ethan hates and despises is mixing of the races, particularly sexually. He firmly belives that whites belong in their world, and Indians in theirs. THE SEARCHERS is, then, a story about miscegenation, a term little understood nowadays in what we like to think of as a modern multi-cultural society. It was, however, immediately perceived and understood by audiences in 1956, and probably made them quite uncomfortable, contributing to the so-so critical and boxoffice reception during the film's initial release.

> {quote:title=voltron wrote:}{quote} > Does anybody know when tcm is ever going to air Sampson > You're obviously referring to the late Will Sampson, who played the hulking, enigmatic "Chief" in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO'S NEST.

If you want to let her know, you're going to have to hold a s?ance; the woman's been dead for more than two years.

> {quote:title=TriciaNY wrote:}{quote} > But, there are UFO's! Jackie Gleason said so. Of course; how else do you think that, bang, zoom!, Alice was going to get to the Moon?

Ethan Edwards is decidedly not a hero. Neither is he a villain. He is, in fact, a man who's not much of anything, neither full Confederate nor Yankee, honest man nor criminal, white man nor Indian, and that's the whole point of the character as relates to a story about a man who wants to find his niece -- first to return her to "civilization," and then to kill her.

Gibson's film is rubbish, exaggerating the brutality and ant-Semitic aspects of the story, while short-changing the real reasons for telling the story of Jesus's life, works and death.