misswonderly3
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Posts posted by misswonderly3
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I'm no expert, Robert, but I can think of two options. You can post your questions on a thread in the "Information Please" forum; there are usually lots of people who are happy to provide answers there. Or you can directly ask the TCM people, by emailing them. Hope one of those works.
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red, the fact that *The Searchers*, *The Apartment*, and *The Maltese Falcon* are all titles that have come up in a conversation about revising one's opinion on a film just proves that there's a richness in those movies that encourages second thought.
As to the William Castle flicks - I can see where you could love them as a kid and think they were really scary, and then see them again as an adult and find them still enjoyable , but maybe a little campy. Not scary anymore, anyway.
Still...that one ghost in *13 Ghosts*, a kind of swirly thing that keeps swooping up to the dad character -now that's still scary !
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laffite, it's interesting that you mention *Pulp Fiction* as a film you "came around to" but were originally leery of because of the violence in it. I've been trying to get my sister to watch the Godfather movies ( at least the first one) for years, but she is reluctant to because of what she's heard about the violence in them. The day I get her to watch it will be a Hallelujah! moment for her.
*Amadeus* - My father loved Mozart's music, and was offended by this film because of its depiction of Mozart's rather earthy side. He did not like the "potty" humour displayed by Hulce's Mozart. This was definitely an occasion when I couldn't change someone's mind , Personally, I liked *Amadeus*, divine music, profane language, and all.
Hm, I seem to be bringing stories about my family members into this thread a lot. Not sure why, maybe because we're usually very familiar with our family's opinions of movies.
I agree with everything you said about "coming around" to appreciating Westerns more.
ps - I saw *Stagecoach* for the first time in ages in a film course I took a few years ago. I loved it! Yay, Claire Trevor !
Edited by: misswonderly on Oct 16, 2010 12:53 PM
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red, I haven't seen the 1961 *Something Wild*. I saw that TCM was showing it, and meant to watch it, but as often happens with me, forgot or didn't get around to it. Now I'm really disappointed that I missed it.
I looked it up and read the plot synopsis. It sounds pretty strange. It's frustrating to watch older films about rape, because things have changed so much now ( I know there will be people who argue they haven't ), and for the Carrol Baker character to feel she has to bear the horror of what happened to her alone because she feels "ashamed", as though it's her fault, is distressing. That's what I got from reading the plot synopsis, but I shouldn't really comment any further because, as I said , I missed it.
Anyone else see *Something Wild* ? (1961, not 1986)
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There's no question that in general, the word "classic" is seriously overused. Some musician comes out with a pretty catchy song, and it's immediately labelled a "classic", or, "a modern classic". It's one of those words that's gradually losing its meaning because it is so common, and so commonly applied to anything someone thinks is good.
I like the name of this television station, Turner CLASSIC Movies, but I'm not stuck on the word "classic". They show mostly films made before 1960, and I like that. When they show "more recent"movies ("more recent" being anything made after 1960 - that's still pretty old ! ), I don't really mind. I do want TCM to stick with its original mandate, more or less, of showing old movies, because as someone pointed out, you don't get much opportunity to see these films anywhere else on tv.
I tend to worry less about the term "classic", and think more in terms or whether a film is (in my view) good or bad, or at least, enjoyable or boring. (insert smiley face here.)
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As long as it isn't uni-brow.
Edited by: misswonderly on Oct 16, 2010 12:40 PM
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More Kinks. I can see that these guys are under-appreciated in your country. Besides, this song is very timely, what with it's being the middle of October and leaf-raking weather. "Autumn Almanac" :
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You could say that those grits n' gravy would have given everyone a glowing complexion.
I thought the dinner scene with the spinning table was the funniest scene in the movie. I also liked the bit quite near the beginning, when Fred is sitting on an ancient couch whose springs pop through the fabric. For some reason, probably sheer nervousness, Fred feels compelled to stuff the errant spring back into the couch. Somehow his hand becomes entangled in the spring, and the whole time he's talking he's trying extricate it. Finally, he gets up to leave, but the spring is still attached to his hand and follows him to the door. For some reason this bit of physical comedy struck me as hilarious.
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*Unforgiven* looks at the concepts of "hero" , "gunfighter", and "justice" in a whole new way. I don't think it's a noirish Western, either. What Eastwood does is take the myths of classic Westerns and deconstructs them. His protagonist is neither wholly good nor wholly bad. The "heroic" aspect of the Eastwood character is broken asunder right from the beginning. Whether a gunfighter is "good" or "bad", he can usually mount his horse with no trouble. Will Munney can't even control his horse- it's a running joke throughout the film.
*Unforgiven* is really about the whole issue of killing , the idea of "taking everything a man's got", as Munney says. When the young would-be gunfighter finally kills someone, he is horrified and devastated at what he has done. I have never seen a reaction like that in a classic Western.
I feel that the scene where he kills the man they have been bounty -hunting, and the scene following that, in which the young man literally weeps over what he has done "It's not what I thought it would be", and Munney's response, which is all about what it means to deliberately take someone's life, is the key scene in the entire film. *Unforgiven* takes the fact of killing a person and holds it up for examination in a way 50s Westerns, even the most philosophical of them, never did.
No one in this film is entirely "good" or "evil". The prostitutes, with whom we have some sympathy, are extreme and overly severe in their sense of justice. The oafish cowboy who cut the young woman's face did indeed deserve more punishment than was accorded to him by the sheriff, but he did not deserve to die, his friend who happened to be with him the night of the crime, even less.
The Gene Hackman character, "Little Bill" the sheriff, honestly believes he is a decent and fair man. Yet he is a horrible sadist, full of violence and rage, whenever his will is crossed. It is telling that his last words are "I don't deserve to die like this." He has no conception of what a vile person he truly is. There's no one like him in earlier Westerns.
In *Unforgiven*, the characters are far more complex and the ideas far more existential than even the Anthony Mann Westerns of the 50s.
I could go on, but this is turning into a bit of an essay, and it's not a thread about *Unforgiven* per sec.
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"You're not very tall, are you?"
"Trying to sit in my lap while I'm standing up again, eh?"
(sorry, the pic for that one didn't turn out.)
Edited by: misswonderly on Oct 15, 2010 7:34 PM
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There's a sequel to *This Gub for Hire*. Virgil Starkwell decides to augment his income as a hired killer by moonlighting as a podiatrist, or perhaps even a foot masseur. Watch for :
TAKE THE MONEY AND RUB
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My apologies, LFN baby, you did talk about your revised opinion of Betty Hutton on that thread, right after my o.p. on it, I think.
She is an acquired taste, I guess. I think the reason all that energy and "over the top"enthusiasm doesn't get on my nerves is because it feel authentic, like that's just the way Hutton is.
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JOEL McCREA !
JOEL McCREA !
Star of the Month
Before next May!
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Another change of heart -I used to not "get" Jean Harlow, and couldn't understand why she seemed so well-beloved by people on these boards. I didn't even think she had appealing looks. But one day TCM was showing *Bombshell*. I started watching it, just because it was playing and I was feeling lazy. I realized that Harlow was primarily a comedienne, something I hadn't given her too much credit for before. And in *Bombshell,* she's having fun making fun of her own image. When I saw her as a comic actress rather than a "serious" one, I relaxed and started liking her more.
(How could I have ever thought she was a "serious" actress, you say? Well, I didn't really -I just didn't know her forte was comedy. One of those case where I'd made up my mind about something before I'd fully explored it, never a good idea.)
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Hey, folks, you could put your turnaround opinion on Betty Hutton in the "Hallelujah" thread. (sorry a blatant plug for my thread, there.)
I really like Betty Hutton. There's something so uncalculated and joyous about her. She seems so happy in all her movies -not mindlessly happy, just somebody who's naturally exuberant. She really does literally beam when she smiles. And she seems so down to earth and no bs about her, too.
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Oh, there was a lot more to what made *Unforgiven* different from a 1950s Western besides the violence.
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This is a genuine lady tennis player from the 1940s:
Bet you're disappointed, eh?
Here are some sewing patterns to make your very own shorts, 1940s style:
Not exactly bloomers, but not the sexiest short pants I've ever seen either.
This is tennis shorts, Martha Vickers style:
Edited by: misswonderly on Oct 15, 2010 3:20 PM
Edited by: misswonderly on Oct 15, 2010 3:23 PM
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Well, maybe that just proves the complexity of *Best Years of Our Lives*; hate it, love it, hate it, -like one of those daisy petal games. "I like it, I like it not."
Speaking of Best Years of Our Lives - I had another conversion, this one about Teresa Wright. I used to loathe her, thought she was an annoying goody-goody. I don't really know where I got this impression. Yes I do, my mother always disliked her and said she was "simpery" so I disliked her too. Then I saw her in *Shadow of a Doubt*, a great film in which she's not even remotely goody-goodyish or simpery. She's smart and likeable. So I told me mother to get stuffed. No, I don't talk that way to my mother. I told her I disagreed with her about Teresa Wright, and that she should watch *Shadow of a Doubt.*
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james, Martha Vickers' outfit at the beginning of *The Big Sleep* is, I believe, a tennis outfit. The probably made the tennis shorts a leetle shorter than they'd normally be, for the movie. And while Carman Sternwood would most likely not have walked down the street in those shorts (although, knowing what we know about Carman, she might have ! ) she certainly would have gone wherever she needed to go to play tennis in them.
This is the hilarious scene in which she tries to sit in Bogart's lap while she's sitting down.
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kingrat, this is amazing! *The Best Years of Our Lives* was the other film (besides *The Searchers*) that I was going to use as one of my "conversions". I used to think it was too long, and as you say, rather slow. But a few years ago it was on tv (can't remember if it was Turner or some other station) and I gave it another shot. This time, I loved it ! All the actors, especially Dana Andrews, whom I always like, were great in it! I enjoyed Virginia Mayo so much as the trashy wife. But they were all good. And this time -and the times I've watched it since -the 172 minute running time did not seem like 172 minutes at all.
This was one film I went from hating to loving. Hallelujah !
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Well, since everyone likes the Pretenders so much, I'll chime in with my favourite, "Back in the Chain Gang", First, here's the very handsome SAm Cooke with the original "Chain Gang" :
And here's the Pretenders' "Back in the Chain Gang". I know it's not the same song, it's not a cover, but it certainly is kind of an "homage" (do you pronounce the "h" or not?) to the original. I like the
"uehs" and euhs" in both songs.
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Ok, I'll try again. For some reason I thought this topic would catch on with people more than it seemingly has. I thought all movie lovers had had the experience of revising their opinion of a film, either from hated to liked, or vice-versa.
I'll talk about a genre this time. I used to really dislike Westerns. Actually, dislike is too strong a term for it, it's more that I was totally indifferent to Westerns, but if I had an opinion about them, I would have said that they were boring. Even my father's love for one of his favuourite films, *High Noon*, could not change my mind. I thought they were full of deserts and guns and horses and two-dimensional characters. Maybe the odd saloon floozie thrown in for colour.
Then I took a film course, a study of film genres, and one of the genres was - The Western. I had to either bite the bullet, if you'll forgive the expression, and watch many films in a genre I preferred to ignore, or flunk the course. I chose to do the former, and never regretted it, not only because obviously it's not good to flunk courses, but because it opened up the delights of Westerns in a way I probably never would have discovered on my own.
I discovered that good Westerns, like any good film in any genre, are not boring. I discovered that there are a lot of innovative and psychologically complex Westerns, with characters as developed and stories as resonant as a movie in any other genre. I still have to be in a certain mood to watch a Western, but I could say that about just about any film genre (except film noir, for which I always seem to be in the mood.)
I'd love to hear from others about whether they've had a "conversion" to a type of movie they'd never thought they'd like. In fact, I'd love to hear from others about just about any aspect of this thread. At the risk of looking a bit silly, I 'll say that I'm a little disappointed that more people havent' had this kind of experience, or, if they had, they don't want to talk about it on this thread.
Brothers and Sisters, come clean and tell all. Now is the time for confession,It's good for the soul.
(kidding,lol,
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phroso, there was a Canadian connection to *A Christmas Story*, but I wasn't sure what it was, and looked it up. It was directed by Bob Clark, who also directed *Porky's*. *Porky's* was produced by a Canadian, Harold Greenberg. Now, I have a feeling there's more of a Canadian connection than that to *A Christmas Story*, but I cannot ascertain at this time what it is. Jean Shepherd wrote the original story, and I think contributed to the screenplay, but he was born in Illinois, and, according to Wikipedia, grew up in Indiana.
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Definition of CLASSIC
1+
a : serving as a standard of excellence : of recognized value b : traditional, enduring c : characterized by simple tailored lines in fashion year after year
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: of or relating to the ancient Greeks and Romans or their culture : classical
3
a : historically memorable b : noted because of special literary or historical associations
4
a : authentic, authoritative b : typical
5
capitalized : of or relating to the period of highest development of Mesoamerican and especially Mayan culture about a.d. 300?900
Examples of CL+
I got this definition of the word "classic" from one of those on-line dictionaries. Probably only (parts) of 3 and 4 would apply to this discussion.
Well, and also the first part of 1.
Edited by: misswonderly on Oct 14, 2010 12:20 PM
, etc, in case anyone thought that last bit was weird.)
SOMETHING WILD
in General Discussions
Posted
JOHNBABE, THERE'S ALREADY A THREAD ABOUT THIS FILM CHECK OUT A FEW THREADS DOWN ON THIS FORUM OR CLICK THIS:
http://forums.tcm.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?threadID=156102&tstart=0
Actually the original poster entitled his thread "Something Weird" so maybe it wasn't obvious.
Edited by: misswonderly on Oct 16, 2010 2:06 PM