Swithin
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Posts posted by Swithin
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Marlene did all those things.
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Miss W., honey, I understand, but what troubles me is that, in so many of the earliest posts in the other "boring" thread, people seemed to equate thoughtful Swedish (Bergman and his style) movies with boring. That attitude offers a more negative statement about the viewer than the film. Many people can look at a great painting and find it boring, but in many cases it has more to do with their inability to appreciate/undertand it than any fault with the film/painting itself.
I continue to think that what we find boring says more about the viewer than the film. You find Dr. Z. boring; I haven't seen it, apart from the odd clip; but many people don't find it boring. So it all boils down to taste in many of its infinite manifestations.
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Right you are, Lavender!
(Btw, Gertrude Jekyll's family were friends of R.L Stevenson, who gave the Dr. the name as an homage to them).
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I think Tilda Swinton could do a great Mitt Romney.
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My Hepburn comment was an "aside." Haven't seen So Big. Stella Dallas is Lily Powers and Joan Gordon; one might say a hard-up Martha or Leona or Julia. And of course "Big Valley" fits right in, too. I don't get the subtlety that I get with Bette.
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Dr. Z. is one of those famous movies that I've never seen! Of course, what we find boring says as much about us as about the movie.
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Renowned 19th/20th century English gardener gets postgraduate degree; meets up with 20th/21st century U.S. Republican congressman from Illinois.
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There seems to be a consensus that we all define boring in our own way. For me, as I define it, the most boring film is NBNW. Hitchcock needed to make a big Hollywood film and a few bucks, and threw all of his tricks together to make one of his weakest films. But the totality is tedious and without the grace and meaning that his greatest films display.
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I agree, Dargo, Irene Dunne was one of the most versatile, with Davis and a few others.
Andy, I agree that Hepburn did not do the lower/working classes, but I still prefer her to Stanwyck. When Stanwyck played poorer women, she still seemed to be Martha Ivers/Julia Treadway. And of course Leona Stevenson in Sorry Wrong Number was merely Martha or Leona in bed with a telephone. And, earlier on, in those great scenes with BS's pimping father in Baby Face, BS is Martha and Julia in a dump.
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I know BS is the queen of this board. I like her well enough, but not as much as I like Davis or Hepburn or Loy or Russell or Harding or many of the other greats. But in terms of the subject of this thread, i.e. versatility, you can pick a film/role here and there that BS could have tackled as well as someone else, but she could never have played the range that Davis and some of the others did. She played certain types very well: Martha Ivers is Julia Treadway, etc.
My favorite BS film is The Lady Eve. She's great in that, but Hepburn could have played it as well. And the greatness of that particular film is really in the script and in the character performances: Coburn, Demerest, and especially Blore and Pallette.
So I like BS, but she's not even my favorite Brooklyn Blonde: Mae West wins that contest!
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To take your example further, there have been some simply awful evil vicious dictators throughout history. I don't think any of them was boring; but whatever they were, was worse than boring! Boring as a deadly sin has become sort of a cliche. You might say, after a day of dealing with exciting people, one is happy to have dinner with a boring friend.
To try to take it deeper -- look at the other thread of which your thread is an offshoot. The gist of many of the posts is that slow movies, particularly in the genre of Bergman, are boring. I disagree. I love Rivette -- Celine and Julie Go Boating is a great film, but many people find it excrutiatingly boring.
So, Miss W... there are worse things than boring! Cruelty, evil, disease and... being shown on TCM on March 23 at 12:45 p.m.
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The subject is worst sin, not boring. There are worse sins than boring! (Sometimes boring can be a good thing).
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Being shown too frequently on TCM is a movie's worst sin. An egregious sinner is on TCM on March 23 at 12:45.
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Sullivan, *Blonde Venus* is a movie in that category. Marlene Dietrich needs to get money so that her husband, Herbert Marshall, can get some expensive new treatment in Germany. Dietrich has to sleep with Cary Grant to get the funds, which Marshall can't forgive. But at the end, after alot of surreal drama and some great songs, all is forgiven.
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*Murder, He Says* ?
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If we're talking about really boring movies -- and I don't think that was really the gist of this mis-named thread -- the winner would be that over-touted piece of crap, beloved of dilettantes, Brazil.
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The Brainiac is one of those films that's so bad it's good. And there are bits that are really creepy. Those Mexican filmmakers knew what they were up to! It's never shown, to my knowledge. I'd like to see it on a double bill with The Black Pit of Dr. M. (the dubbed version of course, though I hear it's lost.)
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wouldbestar: the scenario you describe is depicted in one of the trashiest (and most enjoyable) movies of that genre: *The Brainiac* (Mexico, 1962). The eponymous creature has this incredible tongue with which he sucks out people's brains. There are also scenes verging on the kinky. Here are two rather hilarious descriptions of the film, which includes a photo of one of cinema's oddest creatures:
http://jabootu.com/brainiac.htm
http://www.coolcinematrash.com/movies/brianiac.htm
casablancalover: since you forgot to watch the trailer of Graveyard of Horror at 5:30 am, you have to watch the whole movie, courtesy of the very annoying Hulu format:
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Robert Penn Warren wrote what is perhaps the South's greatest novel: All the King's Men. The movie is good, but way different from Warren's masterpiece. Warren, of course, had the good sense to spend his later years in New England and is buried in Vermont.
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Correct!
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Chance gathering of the crops
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That's not funny! X-(
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I would pick four Mae West films that are rarely, if ever shown.
Every Day's a Holiday
Klondike Annie
Goin' to Town
Belle of the Nineties
and a fifth: Go West, Young Man
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Do you remember the 1982 film *Q* ? About a sort of flying serpent that lives in the top of the Chrysler building. Sort of a Flying Serpent with George Zucco (1946), but set in NYC.
BORING : a movie's worst sin
in General Discussions
Posted
I didn't say that either.