misswonderly3

ValentineX wrote about *Blow Up:* > {quote:title=ValentineXavier wrote:}{quote} > And the Yardbirds imitating The Who. Valentine, baby, the Yardbirds did not imitate the Who. The Who weren't as blues-oriented as a lot of the British invasion bands (although they did their share of blues covers, like they all did). The Yardbirds had their own musical identity. The song Stroll On by the Yardbirds is based on a " jump blues" song by Tiny Bradshaw from the early '50s. Not all British Invasion bands were alike. I can't really imagine Pete Townsend or Roger Daltry belting out the lyrics to Train Kept A Rollin' the way Yardbirds singer Keith Relf does. (Not that Relf was a better singer, far from it...just different.) Edited by: misswonderly on Feb 21, 2011 1:53 PM

Yay, Canada ! Yay, CBC ! (although I think they've dumbed down "The National". )

Continuing the spotlight on British Invasion bands...The Yardbirds were one of the best, and of course gave Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page their starts as ace guitarists. Since *Blow Up* was on TCM the other day anyway, it seemed a felicitious moment to post the Yardbirds' scene from that swinging London movie. Plus, this song really rocks. It is funny to see how dead-pan and stoic the crowd seems, standing stock-still to this irresistible pop beat. Antonioni must have directed all the extras to assume poker faces and turn themselves into stone; otherwise there's no way everyone would be so un-moved by this number. Stroll On :

That's a nice compliment, finance; thank you. I do like to think that I know more about movies, old and new, than the "average person" does,. But when it comes to names of character actors, who produced what films in 1947, and what stars worked for what studios, I just don't retain that kind of stuff -partly because that's not the aspect of being a movie fan that is important to me (sorry about the poorly structured sentence...) When it comes to the cinema, I'm more interested in thinking about the film itself, how was it structured, what was its "meaning" (if any), character development, the way the film looks, and most of all, does it take me to another world for an hour and a half ?

A track from Ken Burns' documentary about the Civil War: We are Climbing Jacob's Ladder :

cujas, cherie, , I was not meaning to impugn the worthy gamesters of the TCM trivia forums with accusations of cheating, whether by checking the internet or anything else. It is myself I was talking about. I'm afraid I do not have a treasure trove of film history knowledge stored away in my head like so many of the good people on these forums have, and I was just saying, basically, that I would not be able to play on those threads , I am absolutely not in the same league as yourself and the others on the "Games and Trivia" forums. And although I don't think I would "cheat" if I did play on them (where's the fun in that?) I just meant it might be tempting for me, as my storehouse of knowledge, as stated above, is woefully inadequate. Whenever I check them out just to read, though, they always look to me as though everyone is having fun with them.

I have actually seen him on "The Young Turks", and I guess I can see what you mean. On the other hand, I think people are shifting what he says and what he's like on TYT over to his gig on TCM. They hear his name, think of TYT, and just knee jerk assume that he's the same way on both shows. Not so. I wonder how many people who dislike Mankiewicz because of "The Young Turks" and therefore want him off TCM would feel the same about him if they'd never seen or heard the former show. Same with Alec Baldwin. People who have heard about his political views and don't like them transfer these ideas about him onto his host show with Robert Osborne on TCM. But in fact I have never heard Baldwin make an overt political statement of any kind on "The Essentials."

Good one, audrey ! (See, people ? It's easy. )

I didn't know that about Woody Allen, but I actually am a big fan of his.

Thank you, filmlover, that was very entertaining. Thanks also, finance, for your definition. I realize I did know what a "spit take" was, I've seen it hundreds of times in movies both new and old, I just didn't realize what it was called (guess I don't get out much.) Edited by: misswonderly on Feb 19, 2011 3:36 PM

JOEL McCREA ! JOEL McCREA ! *Come and Get It* ! Like I say... (Don't even know what exactly that one means, but it scans.)

What exactly is a "spit take" ? I'm serious, I don't know. (except it's not good...)

Just theother day they showed *Anna Christie*. Shirley you were happy about that.

Just thought of a couple more film noirs with a gay side-plot/subtext: *The Big Combo* (1955, dir. Joseph Lewis) : the two thugs who act as underworld boss Richard Conte's bodyguards , "Fante" and "Mingo" , are far more interested in each other than anyone or anything else in the story. They live together, they make plans together, they look out for each other -the gay relationship between them is almost overt, quite daring for 1955. *The Glass Key* (1942, dir. Stuart Heisler. ): Clearly the William Bendix character gets a big kick from beating up handsome Alan Ladd. There's an unmistakable homoerotic/violence vibe going on in this scene.

If CG is done judiciously, I suppose there can be a place for it. Personally, I love Peter Jackman's *Lord of the Rings* trilogy, and feel the CG effects in those films are very well -done. Besides, since there is so much of the magical in LOTR, it would have been extremely difficult not to use any CG and still create the world of MiddleEarth. But the Lord of the Rings movies are the exception for me. 90% of the time, I cringe when I'm watching what is clearly a mainly CG effects movie. They make me feel claustrophobic, for some reason.

Chalk up another "complaint" thread ! O, this is awful !

There are many examples in film where comedy meets pathos, and it works. In fact, much thoughtful comedy has an undertone of sadness to it. There is a fine line between pathos and bathos, but I think Chaplin pulls it off successfully. Edited by: misswonderly on Feb 19, 2011 3:48 PM

There are at least a couple of film noirs with a gay subtext, or at least side-story. It's hinted very strongly in *The Maltese Falcon* (1941 version) that the Sydney Greenstreet (Gutman) and Elisha Cook Jr. ( Wilbur, "the gunsel") characters have a gay relationship. Bogart keeps referring to Cook as Greenstreet's "gunsel", a word meaning not only "gun man", but also, on a more "underground" level, "of ambiguous sexuality". Also, Gutman is very upset when Sam Spade suggests they "sacrifice" Cook to the police; it's clear Spade believes there is a strong attachment between them. In another much more obscure film noir, *Port of New York* (1949), there is an unmistakably gay character, "Dolly Carney" (Arthur Blake), who does impersonations at a sleezy night club. He has a quite funny scene near the film's beginning, in which he imitates Charles Laughton ( ! say no more !) from *Mutiny on the Bounty* . The part where poor Dolly gets whacked is disturbing, because the way he is murdered has a sexual undertone to it. I don't want to describe it in detail, but anyone who has the chance to see *Port of New York* should pay special attention to this scene. On another note, what about the famous *Bringing Up Baby* incident, where Cary Grant finds himself in Hepburn's aunt's negligee. He answers the door in this, and when the caller asks why he is wearing such a thing, he takes a little jump, and responds, "Oh I just went GAY all of a sudden ! " No one's going to argue that the Grant character in the film is gay, but it's a funny scene, and some claim is the origin of the expression "gay" for what it means today. Edited by: misswonderly on Feb 19, 2011 11:02 AM Edited by: misswonderly on Feb 19, 2011 11:17 AM

Kitty Wells reminded of the Carter Family, both her looks and her sound. Here are the original country folk, singing Over the Garden Wall :

What do people think about computer-generated images in film? This is definitely a "high tech" development that had a direct impact on movies.

Are we done talking about Charlie Chaplin? I think he was one of the masters of silent movies. -Make that movies, period. Oh, well...

Cheated - I just entered your question verbatim ( "What was the first '60s U.K. "supergroup"? ) into "google" and , voila. (This is one reason why I stopped participating on the games forum ages ago - too easy to "cheat", and I didn't trust myself to be strong and never yield to the cheating temptation. )

Thanks, Kinokima, that was exactly what I wanted to know. I clicked your link and read the rest of the Roger Deakins interview. Something he said about the art of movie-making really moved me: "The trip of actually doing the job ? I operate the camera myself, I always have ? and sometimes you?ll be shooting a shot and you get that tingle down the spine when you realize you?re watching something that?s really unique. That it really works and has something to say that?s more than the sum of its parts. They?re not my images; they work because of their context, because of the script, because of the performances and everything else. That?s what the power of film really is; something can be more than the sum of its parts. It?s something you can?t really describe in words." (By the way, I was interested to see that this interview was from the now on-line film magazine Movieline . I remember I used to buy it and read it faithfully when it was hard copy. ) Edited by: misswonderly on Feb 18, 2011 4:50 PM

> {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote} > Maybe you havent noticed that he has changed, just within the last couple of months. Hes cleaned up now. He shaved his beard. He acts more maturely. He now wears very nice looking suits. And he no longer makes rude and offensive jokes about the movies he introduces. I never thougt he made "rude and offensive jokes about he movies he introduces" in the first place. The only "change" I've noticed is the clean-shaven look - I liked his slightly "indie" looking goatee better. If he doesn't watch it, I'll have to cancel our as yet unscheduled date at Gus and Motley Crue's before it even begins.

Heads Up, Chaplin fans: *City Lights* on TCM, Tuesday, March 8, at 2:15 a.m. (well, actually early morning of WEd. March 9, but we know how the schedule works.) If you've never seen this, chug down a caffeine-infused beverage to stay awake or record it ( or, in the case of people like me, videotape it -ah, the freedom of admitting my low-tech ways ! ). Worth it.