WhyaDuck
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Posts posted by WhyaDuck
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Please watch ALFIE on NOW....Remember...Michael Caine is a horses rear end, but he is very good at it,
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Please turn off computers and watch Alfie...see my post. The lasrt 30 minutes and Cher song are ...the best. Caine is soo good in this as the horses rear end.
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I really like this actor. I imagine the the Batman may have something to do with this. Although I don't think of Alfred as his best role...... Right now Zulu is on. He is very good.
Not only is he good in Zulu, but he is good with the great Lawrence Olivier. He is great with Sylvester Stallone. I have yet to see him in a movie I didn't think he was good in. That for me is rare.
Let me now go to Caine and Sean Connery in " The Man That Would Be King ". Is this not a grat movie. What more could you ask for out of a movie.
And I could end this here were it not for ALFIE. I always thought this movie was 1960s bull with the send up and salute to master playboy Heffner....UNTIL......I saw Caine in the final 30 minutes. To me and this is me alone, I think the last 30 minutes of Alfie is the best thing ever filmed.
Yes, the playboy, but...such a but...as he talks his girlfriend into getting an abortion as he the playboy goes about it soo smooth, until...the doctor has him look at the aborted child and THATS wheen Michael Caine goes into saying " He must have been a living breathing son. The poor little **** must have felt somerthing. I could have had a son ". ...So Alfie had regrets, You bet.....Then to him being too old for even fat Shelly Winters to want....PLayboy indeed....
....Thart leaves Michael Caine to look at the audience and ask, " I could have had a son, Is this all there is " ...and as he walks away into thhe sunset, Cher sings " Whats it all about Alfie, Is it just for the moment we live. I believe in Love, Alfie "......and that Michael Caine last half hour finished by Cher is better than even what the director had in mind. It holds up. It ...It is a must see..
WAIT....It looks like Alfie is now on after Zulu. Please stop reading this and watch what is not only a great political football on abortion each year, but a great movie...." Keep your ears open for Cher at the end " ...but Caine is great in this. All the ups and downs of Playboy as Heffner wouldn't even know.
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It is too bad to read many of you saying you have never seen this movie or these great musical numbers on the big screen in all their glory.
Some citys and some theatres try to show classic movies. This would definatly be one for the different citys and theatres to show that are into showing classic movies on occasion. To watch Thats Entertainment at the theatre with a theatre audience and to hear the appause at the end because people are so impressed by the magic and talent they just saw.....If you ever see this being shown in a theatre, by all means go and support that theatre and the classics because you will enjoy this movie at the theatre in a way you only can at the theatre.
But in the mean time, the DVD or Video isn't bad if it isn't cropped to fit the TV screen thus cutting out alot of the musical scene.
Its also to bad that most theatres now are just about the lastest movie, where as theatres use to show Gone With The Wind and such up into the 1970s. Its also sad to see the vintage theatres close down in towns. I'm talking about the old time movie houses. All these great movies people have never seen at the theatre and all these small theatres that can't compete with the 25 screen mega monster at the mall. Wouldn't it be great if these small theatres and these classic movies could combine to find an audience for these. I know of one small town that is trying to save its closed town theatre with the vintage 1930s ticket window out front. I hope they make it.
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YES.....todays special effects are better and get better all the time. I'm sure about all the directors would agree. They can still do all the old special effects but they have what continues to be invented.
That said, I have seen some movies that were all special effects and nothing else. Now for the kids into video games that is great, but I kind of like a plot, a story, some acting.
One of my favorite special effects storys is Jaws and how they couldn't get the shark to work. THe first hour or so you don't even see the shark, its your imagination of the shark and the John Williams shark music. So with the shark not working, the story is built more around the characters, but isn't THAT what really makes this movie. The way these three men come together. The way Roy Scheider is developed into the suffering hero. This cop that got his family out of New York but hates the water and now has a killer shark and a crooked mayor to deal with. Richard Dreyfuss as the young rich shark expert with science, but then you have Robert Shaw, the shark expert from the school of hard knocks by World War II and by trade as a shark killer. None of these characters have anything in common, yet the movie brings them all together on a charter fishing boat. This is where this movie transends special effects and its a good thing the shark wasn't working and they had to go with actors and character development. ......Then towards the end of the movie as Roy Scheider is scooping out the bait, out of the water and onto the screen came the giant shark. THAT was the loudest scream out of the audience in that picture. Had you seen the shark alll through the movie, that audience scream doesn't happen because we the audience have seen the shark, are bored by the shark....its the fact that most of the movie goes by and the audience has yet to really see the shark....Thats the reason the audience screamed. It was really great on the big screen and a small TV doesn't capture that shark suddenly coming out of the water. It was as big as the movie theatre and went right into the theatre seats. It was great. ....From then on out you have alot more of the shark but its the end of the movie. Just as you almost never see Mobey Dick, you almost never see the shark, and Captain Ahab and Quiq have alot in common. ....Roy Scheider keeps saying " we need a bigger boat ", which gets laughs but we find out he is right. The audience cheers at the end because the last person they thought would kill the shark was suffering hero Roy Scheider. Quiq meets the fate he avoided years ago when his fellow Navy seamen were eaten by sharks after the USS Indiannapolis sinks after delivering the Hiroshima bomb.
I go on about this movie because its a great example of the special effects not working on the set very well, which makes the movie even better. Had this movie been all shark and no actors it wouldn't be as good.
So yes they have better special effects today and I like movies such as Twister or Transformers but they also had storys and acting. I do not care for movies that are just special effects period with no acting. An actor such as Anthony Hopkins is a special effect in himself. On this I suggest seeing Worlds Fastest Indian to prove my point.
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As it got to the end of the movie, I remembered I was glad I special ordered the Carnegie Hall Concert records in 1983. I was in my mid 20s then but I wanted these albums. Alot of people really liked them when I played them. I know I liked them, enough to buy it again on CD. If you've never heard this CD, I suggest you give it a listen. Its Pre World War II on January 16th, 1938. One set of the recording went to the Library of Congress. In 1950 another copy of the recording turned up in a closet at the Goodman home. CBS Studios was then able to give this concert back to the world. Now you would think the recording equipment for a live concert in 1938 couldn't have been very good...But thanks to Carnegie Hall and the talent of the musicians on the stage, this is an amazing recording. Carnegie Hall captures all the sound on whatever they were recording with in 1938. Its Live and it takes you back to Carnegie Hall on January 16th, 1938.
The Program :
1. Don't Be That Way ( solos by Goodman and Harry James )
2. One O'Clock Jump ( written by Count Basie )
3. Twenty Years Of Jazz
4. I'm Coming Virginia ( solo by Bobby Hackett )
5. When My Baby Smiles At Me
6. Shine ( Harry James plays the Louis Armstrong part )
7. Blue Reverie ( written by Duke Ellington )
8. Life Goes To A Party ( Goodman and James solo )
9. Honeysuckle Rose Jam ( Count Basie joins in with the Goodman band )
10. Body And Soul ( Just the trio of Gooodman, Gene Krupa and Teddy Wilson )
( Then Lionel Hampton turns the trio into a quartet on the next 3 songs )
11. Avalon ( by Al Jolson )
12. The Man I Love ( by the Gershwins )
13. I Got Rythem ( by the Gershwins )
( Back to the full band for )
14. Blue Skies ( by Irving Berlin )
15. Loch Lomond ( Martha Tilton sings. Harry James solos )
16. Blue Room ( by Richard Rodgers )
17. Swingtime In The Rockies
18. Bei Mir Bist Du Schon ( Tilton sings this Andrew Sisters hit of the day )
19. China Boy ( back to the trio again. Good solos by Goodman and Krupa )
( Hampton rejoins on vibes again as the quartet for the next 2 songs )
20. Stompin' At The Savoy ( A Goodman classic )
21. Dizzy Spells
( the full band returns for )
22. Sing, Sing, Sing ( by Louis Prima ...Goodman, Krupa, Hampton, James and the whole band really go at it for 12 minutes on this one, ending with a mood changing piano solo by Stacy )
23. Big Johns Special wraps up the show but its hard to follow what they did on Sing, Sing, Sing
That piano sole by Stacy. Considering what was going on in Europe in 1938 and World War II about ready to explode, this somber, sobering solo gives me chills to the end of a great night of fun and big band jazz and swing.
If you would ever purchase this CD, you not only get alot of songs for your buck, but its much more than that. It history. Somehow they were lucky to capture this night in 1938 on recording and thanks to Carnegie Hall it still sounds very good on CD to this day. ....Plus you will probably enjoy it. Some songs maybe more than others, but you will want to hear this CD and this 1938 concert over and over. It is very good.
I'm glad TCM showed this movie tonight and reminded me about this amazing recording of this concert. I had to tell others about this just in case you aren't aware of it. Thanks to Carnegie Hall and the great musicians, this 1938 concert sounds real good on CD in 2008. If its not one of the earliest live recordings there is, it could well be the best thanks to the sound quality of Carnegie Hall.
Oh, I forgot to mention the name of this CD : BENNY GOODMAN LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL. Its digitally remastered directly from the original analog tapes ( so Carnegie Hall capturing all the instruments on this night is enhanced even more ).
This 1938 masterpiece of a recording is indeed a classic. Its amazing the world has this early recording to enjoy to this day.
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Don't take my word for it. Take the word of my school teacher that compared Doris Day movies to her chasing after the most eligible bachlor that taught at the school. Doris Day is very underestimated , because she is soo good, she makes it seem easy. With Gable or Stewart, she is easily one of the best actresses that ever hit the screen. All she could do was sing, dance, act, and be good enough to be the leading lady....She was nothing but great.
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TV and newspapers are hyping this new Batman movie that hit the screens as Oscar material and the actor that just passed away is getting the sentimental Oscar support for his role as the Joker.
Now I will wait until around Thanksgiving or Christmas to rent the summer blockbusters because its just a thing we do at our house. Instead of watching Detroit and Dallas football, we watch summer blockbusters. They are new to us because we haven't seen them, and really they are only a few months old at that point.
Jack Nicholson was very good as the Joker and I don't see how much more a person could do with that character or how you could find a better actor than Jack. Ceasar Romero was very good on TV. I thought Adam West was funny as Batman and Michael Keaton was good also as Bruce Wayne. The movies after the Nicholson/ Keaton weren't as good. They kept coming up with names like Danny Devito,. Michael Phifer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Uma Thurman, and Terminator Arnold. Batmans became Val Kilmer and George Clooney. .....Myself, I thought Burgess Meredith was much better as The Penguin and Frank Gorshin as The Riddler. The Catwoman on TV was better and funnier, Julie Newmar. The TV show was funny and had Vincent Price as the Egg Man, Victor Bueno as King Tut ( I liked his Tut Mobile ). Liberace was Chandel. Art Carney was The Archer. The show was funny and had the cartoon BAMS and POWS when they fought. Otto Preminger as Mr Freeze.
Its hard for me to think of Batman as Oscar winning stuff. Maybe this new one is or maybe its just more media hype. If he played the Joker like the bands Kiss or Insane Clown Possey that our kids liked, that still doesn't mean its Oscar stuff, just more modern maybe. I'll check it out when I rent it over the winter holidays. I'm not looking for Oscar stuff then, just something besides the Dallas Cowboys. I don't see how anybody could do much more than Ceasar Romero or Jack Nicholson did with this Joker character, unless Insane Clown Possey it and thats just another twist to this old cartoon character. Jack Nicholson had worked with Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff and I just felt he brought all that to the table in not only The Joker but movies like The Shining and Witches of Eastwick.
I went on about Batman because it is the big media story this weekend. I never really saw the old 1940s versions. The TV show was funny and I liked the movie with Nicholson because of Nicholson. Terminator Arnold was a good Mr Freeze but the rest of the movie wasn't there. ......Good fun kids stuff for kids of all ages, but I'm not sure if any of it is Oscar winning.
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High Schools on a tight budget could always do this one. No trick scenery, just the jury room stage. All you really need is a table, 12 chairs, a fan and a knife.
On top of it, you have this paperwork on the table and some script lines could be on those.
The story holds up. You don't see the trial or the person on trial but it is about a low income kid from a poor neighborhood that couldn't afford a good lawyer. ....Now in this room are 12 people from the jury.
I might add that today a jury isn't just men so it could be 6 men and 6 women. They woulldn't be all white either. Any drama class in America could pull of this stage drama on a cheap budget. Just call it 12 Angry People instead and it would work. Considering alot of schools have been forced to eliminate the arts budget and that this story still holds up, it could be done by any school.
The elimination of alot of scenery leaves it all up to acting and this play lets the kids in drama class explore every range of emotion in a great stage play.
Also people don't dress for jury duty that much anymore, so you also eliminate costumes as well as stage scenery. I just don't know how a high school could do a play any cheaper, yet still have a good play because its all about the acting.
If none of these kids ever make it to Hollywood, odds are they and the kids in the audience will some day be on jury duty, and this play may make them take it more serious as adults. Holding the fate of the victim and the accused in their hands. This play develops a certain amount of citizenship as well as a chance at some real acting. The kids in the audience could learn from it also.
The Henry Fonda character could be a woman or african american or whoever but it would help if they are one of the better actors in drama class. All the characters could be played by different people. I'm sure a school could even get in a popular school sports star to help sell tickets. As I say, there are papers on the table to help with the lines and the audience can't see whats on those papers. You just don't give him one of the harder parts, unless he can act.
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Well, Paul Newman is getting up there in years. I don't care how much of a health person you are or how much you take care of yourself. Its like the WC Fields line, " Its a hard cruel world, it's amazing anybody gets out of it alive ". .....So if Paul Newman has cancer, I think you have to look at his age and not his lifestyle.
As for Paul Newman, he has been a great actor and has did alot of charity work. He drove the race cars and motorcycles and lived life to its fullest. I really like Paul Newman movies such as Cool Hand Luke and Nobodys Fool. ....I also like his Sockaronie spagetti sauce. He may have played the swinger but actually he has had a very long marriage and thats rare in Hollywood.
To Paul Newman : Get well soon and God be with you.
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I'm going to have to watch this some other time. I wasn't expecting anything like this. I do see the Tennessee Williams in this as the hot steamy sex in the deep south underneath the magnolias with mint julips drips from the screen. I've watched it a half hour and Brando has been told he is a hunk at least 100 times already. The woman get turned on if he just moves his head or lifts his little finger. Thats a little much.......but maybe this movie is something you have to watch a few times to appreciate. The Rose Tattoe was hard for me to like at first and I had to see it at the right time. I'm sure this is a good movie and I just wasn't ready for hot steamy sweaty Tennessee Williams southern tonight. Maybe some other night. Now that I know what I'm getting myself in for, I'll be more prepared the next time they show The Fugitive Kind, but I may still find it funny how these woman faint over Brando just walking across the floor. Does he play the guitar and sing in this thing. That might be funny. .......If they show this again and if I'm up to a heavy movie that I may have to force myself to sit through, I'm going to give this movie another look. I just wasn't up for it tonight. You are either in the mood for Tennessee Williams or you aren't. My guess is not everybody around New Orleans acts like his characters. I've also heard Brando doesn't stick to the scripts and kind of just does whatever pops into his head. The Brando version of Streetcar Named Desire is different from the character in the book, or so I have heard. ....But I like Brando and all these actors in this movie , so I will give it another shot sometime.
I'm trying to keep an open mind about this movie and say that I just wasn't up for it. I'll try it again some other time.
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TCM showed it tonight. I love this movie and I still have the record and I love the soundtrack.
Lets see, Music Composed by Quincy Jones. Title sung by Ray Charles.
Norman Jewison says on the back of the album cover : this film deals with a deep relationship between two men-one Negro-the other white. Both of them cops. It takes place now ( the mid 1960s in the deep south.) They turned to the talents of Quincy Jones who had scored The Pawnbroker, Mirage, Walk Don't Run, The Deadly Affair and Enter Laughing. Mr Jones felt the movie needed a dominate blues theme so he turned to Ray Charles. Alan and Maarilyn Bergman wrote the songs words. The score expands to jukeboxes and transister radios. Boomer and Travis switch the song " Little Red Riding Hood " to " Foul Owl ' . Glen Campbell and Gil Bernal from Nashville. Ray Charles and the Raylets. Billy Preston on the keyboord. Roland Kirk, the blind flautist from Chicago. Don Elliott on percussion. Bobby Scott on piano. Ray Brown on bass. Glen Campbell on banjo.
So you have Ray Charles singing In the Heat of the Night. Gil Bernal sings It Sure Is Groovy. Glen Campbell sings Bowlegged Polly. Ray Charles plays the piano on Mama Caleba's Blues. Boomer and travis sing Foul Owl. 11 other songs on this album such as Cotton Curtain, Where Whitey Ain't Around and On Your Feet Boy.
So the next time you see this, you may want to have an ear out for the music. If on the other hand you get too wrappped up in the acting of Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates and Lee Grant,. I don't blame you. They are very good in this.
TV threw Archie Bunker into this role of the **** cop but it wasn't anything like this movie and there was no opposite character as strong as Sidney Poiter. Just alot of Carroll O'Conner in a more mellow south like it was Mayberry or something. The TV show has little to do with the movie except for the same name. Not saying it was a bad TV show, just completely different from this Oscar winning movie. The Soundtrack shows how much work went into this by Quincy Jones, Ray Charles and Norman Jewison and Walter Mirisch. If you don't know who Quincy Jones is, perhaps you've heard of Barry White music and yes, thats Quincy Jones music backing up Barry White. The combination of Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Billy Preston and Glen Campbell impresses me about this soundtrack.
This is indeed a CLASSIC.
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Does anybody remember the old TV show about reincarnation ?
It had Jerry Van Dyke in it and it got pulled off the air after 3 or 4 weeks for lack of viewers back in 1965.
My Mother, The Car. That was the show, the guys car was his mom. As a kid I tried to watch it but it was really bad. Nobody cried when they took that thing off TV. ...Heck, I may be one of the few people that saw this show. ....They ran out of gags about the car being his mom in the second week anyway.
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TCM is very good and I'm a fan, but sometimes we may think of this as the station that only shows 100 year old movies and it's just not so.
Thursday night VH1 had this grand rock band salute to The Who and they built it up most of the summer and especially the last week. I watched some of it switching back and forth from the baseball game and " Jaws ". It was OK, but in looking for something to watch tonight, here is TCM showing " The Kids Are Alright ". I started to watch a few minutes of it and ended up watching it all because thats how this movie is. It is a CLASSIC in that at the time it was released the movie critics said it was the closest thing to being at a Who concert. Having seen this group 4 or 5 times I would have to agree. It takes the viewer from the Smothers Brothers Show to the Isle of Wright to Woodstock. From Tommy to Quadrophenia to the recording studio. .....I still like this movie much better than what I saw on VH1 the other night.
As a side story to this, I was almost trampled to death at concerts in Cincinnati Ohio in the the 1970s. I don't know why because the crowd was never like this in Dayton Ohio, but Cincy crowds liked to push and shove outside before a concert. I never knew why. I saw The Who in Cincy in 1975 on the heels of the Tommy movie coming out with Ann Margaret and Jack Nicholson included. Cincinnati made everybody stand out in the cold in December until the crowd was jammed together outside pushing and shoving. Then Cincy opened one door of a basketball arena that had people lined up outside 100 different doors. The crowd of thousands assumed all doors would open and when only one door was opened, I began being pushed as if in a sardine can. I was just trapped in this mob scene. It was festivel seating which means first in gets the best seat. I thought I was going to get trampled that night. It came as no surprise to me that in 1980 when Cincy did the same thing and 11 people died. Its not the bands fault, I blame Cincinnato Ohio and the way they do things there. I took my mom to the Reds to see Tony Perez Day in the late 1980s and they did the same thing. They made everybody wait outside for hours and opened the gates at the very last minute. As I saw my mom and a group of nuns stand in the concrete heat for hours in this 50 thousand people log jam, I was upset how Cincinnati treats everybody like garbage. I can only guess Cincinnati is cheap and trys not to hire the stadium people any longer than they have to. Cincy is also very bad at rushing fans out the second the game is over. .....So The Who bares no responsibilty for the deaths in Cincinnati because this could have happened at alot of Cincinnati events and I blame Cincinnati. From attending things in Cincy and attending things in other citys, I feel I'm very able to make this statement and call it fact. ...I mention this because I hear the band still feels bad about this tragedy and they shouldn't. I wish there was a way I cold tell this group from England that it wasn't their fault, it was Cincinnati and the way they do things there. ...I might add that I saw this group In Lexington Kentucky and Cleveland Ohio and those citys didn't make everybody stand outside and it was a pleasant experience.
As this movie ends with " Long Live Rock", let me say " Long Live TCM ". They were on it tonight with this one.
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The movie won alot of Oscars as is. ....Another case of finding fault with a very good movie.
I mean, you want to say who could have played this or that, look...Lucy was very talented and could have played Eve, but she didn't.
Joan Collins of course maybe or Liz Taylor or any woman that could play the backstabbing woman.
Who played the film critic that helped make Eve ? The guy that was nobodys fool. When Eve trys to cast him off as all the others, he has all the goods on her. A great line that may not be appreciated today is when he nails her down for lying about have a dead husband in the war. He says thats not only a lie but an insult to our sodiers. ... I really think that guy steals alot of schenes with some great acting. Without him, well....you don't have much. Maybe Anthony Hopkins could have played him or Rex Harrison but here we go again....these actors in this movie were very good and am I leaving out Betty Davis.
So you can always say what if somebody else did this or that. I don't see Marylin Monroe pulling of this character at all, it just wasn't her thing.
The movie is good as is and I never noticed Baxter being too old or any such nonsense. Monroe was good at what she did, but she didn't walk on water. This movie is an Oscar award winning movie as it is.
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If you saw the special the other night about about Mickey Rooney, it was great.
I knew he was in show bussiness early, but not at 18 months old. I had no idea he was a silent movie star before they invented sound.
You see, the Rooney I saw was an older Rooney on the Hollywood Palace TV show and such. Doing the Danny Thomas Specials. Very funny but as a kid, I had no idea.
Another generation probably saw him as an even older man in the White Stallion or Bill, which was very good.
Some modern day talk show hosts didn't have the class of Steve Allen, Jack Parr or Johnny Carson and didn't give Rooney or the other older entertainers their due respect, although when the writers were on strike I noticed late night shows were forced to turn to the talents of the older guests such as Don Rickels to make up for no writers. .
It was amazing to hear that Cary Grant called Rooney the most talented person on the screen. But you look back at him in Boys Town and his comedy, drama, singing, dancing, and he was and is very good.
Then you had Judy Garland and combined with Mickey they were just great. Wizard Of Oz of course but what about her in Easter Parade with Astair or with Gene Kelly or in Judgement At Nuremberg.
So you take these two incredible young talents and all their films and there is just something sweet about the two of them together but also the huge talent that you are watching. These are NOT just any two child actors. These are Acadamy Award winning performers that rise above the children and dog acts. Its Hollywood Magic.
Let us never get so advanced or into technology that we don't appreciate the combination of these two stars.
As for Ronney, there are so many of his films that just aren't shown. I've never seen him as Baby Face Nelson but I hear he is very good.. The film that was shown yesterday with Rooney and Buddy Hackett was a funny combination. A film Rooney is very good in is Quicksand, which also is never shown. It shows how crime can start very small and build up.
I don't think most of us can understand how big Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland were in Hollywood in 1940 but they were huge. Seperate and together.
So I'll just end with saying that I'm glad the Mickey Rooney thing was shown and it had alot of great film clips and yet I'm sure that only touches the tip of the iceberg. I gather if you had a Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland marathon of movies it might take weeks to show. I also wonder how many films of theirs no longer exist due to film not restored as they are now.
Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.......what an act. It doesn't get much better than those two.
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This 4th of July, a giant THANKS to the AmVets and VFWs. Not only did they serve over there, these organizations serve over here. Alot of communities and charitys have benefited from these posts.
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As its on now, what a great movie for the 4th of July.
The returning war vets, them, their familys........as the audience you can't relate to what they went through and the movie doesn't hardly try. Like most vets, they say little about the war itself.
Everybody says they are for the soldiers over seas....but this is about what happens when they come home.......This is about World War II but it could be Korea, Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. its about vets that can't get a job or a loan. Its about vets that have been handicapped. Its about not every woman sitting under the apple tree waiting for Johnny to come marching home. Dear John letters and such.
This is a movie that the more you see it, the more you see in it, and that makes it one of the best movies ever made. Frederick March is great dealing with bankers and Harold Russell is amazing dealing with no arms but perhaps the best actor is Dana Andrews as the vet that can't get a good job and his wife isn't to crazy that he is home. These 3 are very good. VERY GOOD !!!!
What I get from this movie is saying you support the troops is one thing, but maybe we should support them when they come home with the best VA Centers money can buy and GI loans and free college and job training. We could and should do that for all our vets instead of cutting back on these kind of things. ...Well, thats what I get out of it anyway.
How many familys have circled jobs in the want ads of the newspaper to show their vets now home, as if saying we loved you over over there, but not so much over here. ....and watching this movie shows how much better the vets need treated.
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A week ago there was the thread as to which movies shouldn't have won the Oscar. I went on this thread to say that it was rather negative and that just because a movie isn't your cup of tea, doesn't mean it didn't deserve the Oscar.
Case in point.....I don't see how you could make Ben Hur better than the way it was made in the late 1950s. .....But would you believe that someone who was a food and entertainement critic for a city newspaper at one point and for the most part was a high school journalism teacher who also helped for decades with the school drama class and plays ....that his opinion of Ben Hur was it was boring and he couldn't stay awake through it at the theatre and it was too long and boring for him and his wife. .........
.....and my point is you can't please everybody, not even with Ben Hur. .....Again, I saw Ben Hur once more on TCM last night and I just don't see how you can make the movie any better. I still don't know how they filmed the chariot races and the sea battle is pretty good also.
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As I watch this on TCM, I again feel this is a good version of the book but it could be remade better. It probably won't since Hollywood now focuses on blockbuster comic book movies and not the classics. ......Again, I say this is a very good version in its own way and very good casting. ......Yet much like an old movie its focus is on the love story and there is much more to this book than that. It actually begins as a ghost story as a stranger happens upon this dwelling on the moors one dark dreary night. The stranger is barely taken in for the night by this rough and rude strange household of characters. That night the stranger sees a woman outside and when he describes her later to Heathcliff, it is the deceased love of his life. .....The book then takes us to young Heathcliff who is the poor motherless child taken in by this family and treated as a red headed step child. He grows up being treated like a dog by the family. Yes he loves the girl and there is even a young love affair but she ends up marrying in her class. Heathcliff leaves and years later returns. He returns richer and wiser and full of revenge. ....Now the character of Heathcliff is no longer the likeable poor orphan child, he is a grown up monster and his revenge is such that he is beyond liking. If you once felt sorry for him, you do no more. He now sets out to have his revenge on everybody and for the most part he gets it except for his young love that ends up dying. Even if she hadn't died, Heathcliff has changed so much from his youth into a hate driven monster. .....This is where the book shows you how Heathcliffs revenge has made him go insane as he got older. So he gets his revenge and gets the house and the land but in doing this he has lost his mind. .......So the book is more than a love story and is alot more about how revenge drove one man insane. But of course Hollywood would rather show the love story. But there is more to the book than the love story. If the book was ever filmed as written, it would be a different movie than this old one and it could be a very good movie, but since its not Spiderman or Batman it probably will never be remade.
As with some older movies, the music is on the cheap side and not up to what John Williams or John Barry have been able to do in the last few decades. This is a movie that cries out for haunting background music at times and also Celtic Music and a group like the Chieftains would have been great. Of course you would have the musical change between the white lace rich with classical English music to the jigs and reels of the common folk. Stil there would have to be music to go with the ghost visions, music to show his poor treatment as a child, music to show their young love but also music to show her marrying in her class, music to show his revenge and finally music to show the insanity brought on by decades of revenge. This is something that a John Williams or a John Barry would be good at and far above playing the same cheap tune through the whole movie as this old version does. The music in this old movie is not up to the level of the book and its just cheap movie studio music of its day. The music could be much better.
The filming could be better on location on the English moors in color but showing also how depressing alot of this is, especially how bleak Heathcliff keeps the estate.
As for casting, Sean Connery, MIchael Caine or Anthony Hopkins are way too old to play Heathcliff, but perhaps they know which Celtic actor could. Hopkins could play one of the older parts. You need a good Scotsman and a good English woman to play the long time housekeeper. You need an English actress to play his love. The worst thing wold be to remake this as just another love story. These characters are flawed, each and every one of them. The girl is not perfect as she marrys for money in her class and Heathcliff is far from perfect. This is not a pretty little fluff piece. THis is not a movie where you want some cute little actress trying to be the next Hollywood love goddess. This is a classic and not The Hulk or the Fantastic Four.
Again, I would like to see this classic book presented in all its glory on a scale that Hollywood can now do with its advances in filming and music.....but it probably will never happen because its not a comic book. Also, the sad thing is that if they did remake it, Hollywood would probably once again turn it into a one dimensional love story and take out the ghost story or the story of revenge driving him completely mad by the storys end. The movie should leave you with you the audience questioning if she really is a ghost, but either way, Heathcliff is completely insane now.
Some might say you can't do any better than the actors in this old movie and this movie is a classic. Again, I say its a very good movie. I just would like to see the book presented someday as more than a love story fluff piece with sappy music in the background. The book is much more than that.
The revenge is important because in other classics such as Mobey Dick and The Scaret Letter you have characters that lose their souls over revenge, and so does Heathcliff in Wurthering Heights. Whatever revenge he attains on this village, he is consumed by his own revenge and he suffers for it. That should have been brought out more in the movie than the love story. This is not a true romance paperback.
Message was edited by: WhyaDuck
Message was edited by: WhyaDuck
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I didn't know Flower Drum Song would be on TCM tonight and I'm watching it now.
So much for Mickey Rooney getting praise for his horses rear end Breakfast In Tiffanys.
I just heard in this movie the Asian Americans say all white people look alike. Thats a great line, especially considering its decades ahead of its time.
The actress that sang " I enjoy being a girl " was hot, and the guy that plays the father is funny.
Still, I think without Jack Soo, you don't have the Sinatra cool that puts this thing over. I've seen Jack Soo in other things and he always was cool. Mickey Rooney might as well have been doing black face in Tiffanys and Jack Soo was so far ahead of all that at the time. ...Not just putting it on Rooney because it was a standard thing in hollywood for whomever.
But Jack Soo was so cool that he blew this whole stick away.
A hundred thousand miracles is a great song. This really is a great musical the more I look at it. Goes to show you don't need Hepburn, Karloff, McLain or Rooney playing these parts.
Jack Soo is great and cool and you can't beat him. Again, he must have blown alot of people away just being himself.
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In the Flower Drum Song, or The Oscar, or Barney Miller or whatever he was in, I thought this guy was great. As a kid I had seen White Americans playing Asian Americans and suddenly here is this Asian American Jack Soo that talks like he is Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin in Las Vegas. The guy was great, and don't think that didn't tear down a few images put in our heads by hollywood.
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So you had the number one son. Which son was number two ?
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One thats air conditioned.
I once saw Woody Allens " Love and Death " on a hot summer day in 1975, and the air conditioning felt so good that I stayed and watched it again.
It must be Michael Caine Day on TCM
in General Discussions
Posted
You know the major problem with ALFIE is he doesn't give a d#mn. It is so sad. He just has no heart.....BUt...the director has him talking to us the audience as if there is a some We Don't Give A Crap Alfie in all of us. ....I like the way this is directed. The chaep bloke talking about abortion and women to us as if he was in our living rooms. ...( Cher nails it on the ending song )....This ending always makes me cry and I never cried when I was the booldiest kid on the football field.
Message was edited by: WhyaDuck
Message was edited by: WhyaDuck
Message was edited by: WhyaDuck