primosprimos
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Posts posted by primosprimos
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Wrong. It was also my understanding that certain religions push the concept of forgiveness.
Wonder if the Vietnam vets have forgiven her yet?
To me, she will always be Hanoi Jane.
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It's like trying to discuss Jane Fonda. You Know What is always going to butt in.
Who is YOU KNOW WHAT?
Because as you know, the truth is that Jane Fonda is a traitor and George Brent is dead.
Tsk, tsk, Lorna...................was that nice to call names?
But You Know What is always going to butt in was a very good pun, I gotta give you that. Because even though Brent is dead, he does still have a big butt, right? And Jane Fonda is always going to be a traitor, right?
Right?
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We are seeing less friendly behaviors on the boards recently. You're going to keep posting the way you always do, so no worries, right?
True dat.
So are the mosts, so there we are.
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Don't forget, Trixie Friganza's My Bag o'Trix (1929), the short, at 5:49am today.
The first part with audio only, since crime of crimes the video has been lost.
You'll be sorry if you miss it.
Did you see her? Did you?
My kind of gal.
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Don't forget, Trixie Friganza's My Bag o'Trix (1929), the short, at 5:49am today.
The first part with audio only, since crime of crimes the video has been lost.
You'll be sorry if you miss it.
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I think there is harm anytime a work of art disappears and the general public isn't given an option as to if they wish to view said art or not.
Therefore, while I understand certain stereotypes and works are offensive to certain folks, I don't feel that justifies removing said works from the general public.
The works of Wagner would be relevant to this point and thread.
Of course you are correct, james.
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Oh, is that what it means? And I just thought it was a statement of attention-getting bull-s h i t e.
That's not very polite. I thought we were all about politeness on this board?
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(hyperventilating right now.)
He's still dead?
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There's no need to be so rude or to make it personal. I thought my earlier comment in the thread was very balanced. I was lauding what TCM seems to do right (which is bringing classic film to as many people as possible in as many ways as possible) but also being honest about what doesn't seem to work with regards to some of its marketing strategies. I know that I cannot reach out and help those who get upset if the slightest criticism is posted about TCM. But a lot of folks who read these message boards are reasonable adults who can see that TCM is still perfecting its programming and marketing. It is balanced and accurate to say that. Now, a quick glance in my crystal ball says that this comment will generate a reply and I can push this thread easily to 25,000 views by arguing back and forth here. I am not going to do that, because I am selfish and want to save the time and energy for a few other pursuits. Thanks.
I know that I cannot reach out and help those who get upset if the slightest criticism is posted about TCM.
Best not to read their posts, TB. The TCM flag wavers have always, do now, and always will praise every move TCM makes.
Yes, of course, much of it is junk, and yes, of course, the flag wavers will scream and writhe on the floor, mouths afoam, when the brilliant suggestion of a TCM Classic channel is proposed, leaving the junk on TCM Original.
My teevee gets a nice rest when the junk is on.
Then TCM remembers what it was sent here to do and puts on Trixie Friganza. 
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HENRY V (1944)---The best on today's schedule. Starts in just a few minutes.
Saw it.
Breakdowns was better. Bloopers and stars saying the stuff that the auto censor here doesn't allow. It was great.
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I don't view the question as rhetorical. To me the question meant that when one does know the history behind the making of a film and \ or the director, actors, writers, producers etc... of the film does that impact how would views (experiences) the film. e.g. how one would 'rate' the film or actor?
e.g. the thread on George C Scott and how he beat this girlfriend. Some people will not view films that Scott is in. Clearly they are letting their knowledge of Scott as a person impact their viewing. Other may watch films with Scott but the knowledge of his personal actions distracts them (i.e. they are thinking about that while watching his performance).
While I'm very interested in film history I try to NOT let this knowledge impact my viewing of the film, but as TB noted subconsciously there is an impact. I just don't want to admit it!
But then, james, the issue of to whom does it matter enters into the mix. I didn't see the question as how the movie mattered to me, I was just being snarky as per my usual, but how it matters in the scheme of life.
If an actor is good, beloved by many, but was a insertyourownexpletivehere in real life, and is in a very good movie that is artistically and financially successful, and the movie stands the test of time, then that movie matters, does it not?
I'm not sure Fatty Arbuckle was in any great movies, but I would never see anything with him in it. I won't watch anything with Julie Andrews, but her movies matter, correct? Ditto on John Wayne, and Lee Marvin, but I'm sure they made movies that matter in the history of film? Some films just don't matter to me.
So, I guess if I read the question correctly, then all films matter, even Song Of The South.
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Well the point is that these works do not just magically appear out of thin air. There are forces surrounding it that help bring it into being (boy does that sound philosophical but you get what I'm saying). Also, not only is there the work history of the individual artists-- but there is world history at large, and usually the themes of a work of art (or film) are reflecting that, whether consciously or subconsciously.
Of course you are correct, TB, and of course I get it. All films are part of their time and part of the history of the filmmakers and actors in them. Think of the moguls, whom we now know were misogynistic megalomaniacs. IF they were not, they would not have had the stones to start the studios they did, with little regard for anyone but themselves. Thanks to them, we have catalogs of movies that utilized actors whom they wanted, and because it was their time, they ignored and were able to disregard actors they did not want. Today they would have been hit with lawsuits of racism and sexism and many other -isms.
Ditto on the patriotic pictures, which except for a very few examples, painted a picture of a country which wasn't true.
I absolutely see the bigger picture, TB. However, I have reached a stage where I have been there, done that, stood in awe of the philosophy of movies and movie making. Hence, my wish to view only movies from MY Golden Age. Barring that, I try to limit what I watch so that I won't be disappointed. I won't watch most of the garbage that passes for current movie making, and I won't watch movies with actors I hate.
I assumed it was a rhetorical question, since there wouldn't have been eons of film classes and movie studies if the history of film wasn't absolutely important to them.
Meanwhile, I can't even remember what I called Lee Marvin, but it wasn't bad, that's for sure. He is far worse than whatever I called him. What a mor - onic censor filter is on this site.
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This is like asking if the Mona Lisa should stand on its own, without taking into account any of the variables that helped shape is creation and the on-going appreciation of it by scholars and the general public.
Of course the history behind a movie matters. I used to like Lee Marvin, now that I know he's a ****, I won't watch anything he is in. Ditto Robert Blake. Here come all the posts telling me I am wrong, because of course I might change my mind.
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I worked on a project with Gloria Vanderbilt once. Lovely person, with the best facelift I ever saw! She talked eloquently about her childhood at the home of her aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, on Fifth Avenue.
How cool. Did you meet Anderson?
She's not leaving him her fortune, can you imagine that? Wonder what she would have done if her parents did that to her? She would have needed to learn typing and steno, I guess.
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I sat thru the entirety of Gentleman's Agreement last night for the first time. (I tried to find the thread someone started on it when it was first shown some months ago. No luck.)
It's a film I've seen pretty much all of, but in the form of thirty minutes here at the start, a chunk of the middle, the last twenty minutes (and not in that order.)
I know I have a tendency to really go overboard when I like a movie very much or when I don't like a movie very much, believe it or not, it's something I try to keep the reins on as best I can.
That said: what a crummy movie.
From hereon, I'm just going to laundry list from memory everything I recall from last night:
1. WHO was it at FOX who just LOVED the music from Street Scene so much they just had to use it in, oh, three out of every four Fox Films released in the 30's through the 50's? Did Zanuck owe poker money to the guy who wrote it and this was his way of paying the tab?
2. Anne Revere. God, did she ever not play a character whose main trait is that they so overtly hate life? She seems to have played a lot of bitter and resentful mothers/grandmothers who were at all times suppressing the urge to spill some rat poison in the eggs and be done with the whole f***ing lot of them.
3. Dean Stockwell is really good. I give you that. John Garfield, oddly and for once, seems a little uncomfortable and his role is terrible. Being John Garfield is enough for him to coast by this time. Celeste Holme is actually good too, I don't always like her, but I can see why she won the Oscar, although I don't think she was better than Kathleen Byron (?) in Black Narcissus. I know this has come up before, but omg, Greg you effed up. Celeste is the one you should've picked. Which brings me to:
4. Dorothy Maguire. I know she's a favorite of Osborne's. I don't get it. I officially don't like her now. I don't like her in this, I don't like her in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and I don't like her at all in The Spiral Staircase. I wish she could've backed up her undeniable physical presence with something in the charisma department. Which is a good way to segue to:
5. Gregory Peck. Never was he more handsome than he is in Agreement, and never was he more boring. I actually laughed out loud at his delivery quite a few times. Oddly, the only times where I thought he did any kind of passable acting was in his scenes with Dean Stockwell, who really could've taught Greg a thing or two about emoting.
6. It's hard to believe Kazan directed this. I know we could go off on a loooong tangent about just Kazan, but I'll just boil it down to: thank God he got away from Fox. The two worst movies he ever made (and he mostly made good ones, no matter what you think of the man himself) are Agreement and Pinky. (And the acting in both is rife with misfires.)
7. 1947 was a great year for movies, and a great year for dark movies (even Santa gets locked in a looney bin!). It just kind of boggles me mind that in a year that saw the releases of Monsieur Verdoux (the best, IMO), Miracle on 34th Street, Nightmare Alley (in which Ty Power gives a performance that knocks the starch out of Peck), Great Expectations, Kiss of Death, Crossfire, Out of the past, Body and Soul SmashUp! The Story of a Woman, Black Narcissus and Odd Man Out, the AMPAS actually managed to keep a straight face when they tossed the Best Picture gong to this piece of well-intentioned, but utterly ludicrous claptrap.
And I haven't even got time to get in to the story issues.
I kept shouting "people don't talk that way!" at the screen.
That said: what a crummy movie.
Told ya.
How 'bout that block of wood Peck?
Did you watch Crossfire? Wonderful movie, 1000% better than GA.
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Yes, I know Ben is a happlied married man (it was a joke, something I know you understand). Either way he isn't watching American Idol, he is watching the MOVIES channel.
(it was a joke, something I know you understand).
Absolutely, james.
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Oh, you cut deep! But really I think it is more Penn's vocal stance on social issues that wins these gals over.
james, I doubt Ben is sitting home alone, eating Cheetos and watching American Idol.
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@primosprimos:
I had no idea ORBISON ever did a version of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". Jazz singer CASSANDRA WILSON does a tasty cover of it on her "New Moon Daughter" CD.
Sepiatone
Indeed. Thanks for the pointer, Sepiatone.
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I liked that song! Actually, it was technically not "fromMidnight Cowboy; it had been written and released a few years earlier. So it couldn't be nominated for an Oscar. The year of Midnight Cowboy, my least favorite movie song won: "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." I hate that song. I preferred two other nominees: "Jean," from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; and "Come Saturday Morning" from The Sterile Cuckoo.
Everybody's Talkin' was a very good song, perfect for the movie.
More than Raindrops I liked, from **** Thomas, I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. His recent rendition of it is better than Orbison's. He's also better looking.
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Why not remake it? Clean up the offensive parts, use new actors, put some new songs, computerize it etc.
Lobotomize the audience? Have them wear a tag proving they were lobotomized before they can buy a ticket?
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Shall we even start to count the thrillers in which the protagonist, obviously not a professional driver, nevertheless performs stunts that are way beyond the skill of 99% of the world's drivers?
In cars that manage to go airborne, slam back onto the street, and continue to drive with no harm done?
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I agree that the relationships between the two branches of the family were especially fascinating. Regarding the politics, despite the political divide, the documentary did bring out the difference between TR and the Republicans and Democrats of today. Today, "TR would be to the left of Barack Obama!" (Which is true).
The documentary reminded me of a feeling I used to have about presidents and politics: that the best President is a rich old Yankee, steeped in the traditions of public service, who is not in it to enhance his personal fortune or the fortunes of his friends. To TR and FRD, public service meant helping the less fortunate, even when it meant going against their "class."
To TR and FRD, public service meant helping the less fortunate, even when it meant going against their "class."
Well sure, as long as they weren't inconvenienced and they had all the money in the world.
Easy to be altruistic when you're richer than Croesus.
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Also documentaries are fair game here, and there is no rule that says films and documentaries made for television are off-topic. Actually (and I was reluctant to mention this), the Roosevelt documentary shows an excerpt from Wilson, which FDR saw. I was afraid to mention it (though I love the film) because every time it's mentioned, someone brings up the old cliches about Zanuck's disappointment, the commercial failure of the film, etc. Burns made clear that it was a romanticized account of Wilson, but the point of the excerpt was how FDR responded to it.
I learned a lot about TR in the documentary. The newsreel footage used was fascinating. And although I knew that all the Roosevelts were related, I wasn't aware of the details, and of the closeness on one hand, and the rivalry/disagreements between the Oyster Bay and Hyde Park Roosevelts.
But back to your point, there is also an excellent discussion going on at AV Club, and some very good articles online.
I didn't realize Geoffrey Ward had polio, but as evidenced by his emotional reaction to the FDR footage, is understandable. I think he should have mentioned it in the documentary, since not talking about his suffering somehow give merit to the press hiding FDR's disability. Oh, need I append I.................M...................O?
Excellent documentary.
Then TCM remembers what it was sent here to do and puts on Trixie Friganza. 
GEORGE BRENT NEWS!!!!
in General Discussions
Posted
You also owe an apology to YOU KNOW WHAT.