JonnyGeetar

> {quote:title=ChorusGirl wrote:}{quote} > Regarding something being "overrated"....it is not the art's fault (see the absurd EXORCIST thread on here for an example). > > The Mona Lisa ends up being a tiny little oil painting surrounded by 6,000 Japanese tourists...so everyone just shrugs, marks it off their bucket list, and moves on. It doesn't mean it's not a masterpiece. > Many words and terms come to mind with regard to The Exorcist "Art" is not one of them. ps- what have you got against the Japanese? (Besides the whole whale hunting/ "Hello Kitty" obsession?)

> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote}Didn't Raoul Walsh also wear an eyepatch? Yes. And, for some reason, I want to say Andre DeToth did as well- though I may be wrong on that.

> {quote:title=helenbaby wrote:}{quote}You should clarify this is your opinion only. You can call me all the names you want & insult my intelligence... Thank you for the suggestions, although I have to admit I'm not entirely sure any of them is exactly what I would call "necessary", (and namecalling is so tacky.) And after all, if I may quote Hitchock "don't worry, it's only a movie" But if you like: The opinions of Jonny Geetar are solely the opinions of Jonny Geetar. Everything he writes is pretty much always his opinion, not that he isn't open to changing his mind every now and then (although that does happen verrrrrrrry rarely), he still can't stand Luise Rainer, The Films of Frank Capra and the 1967 production of Camelot, (and it's worth noting that he is not entirely alone on that last one.+)+ SansFin- your impassioned defense was excellent. I still hate this movie with a passion, but I get where you're coming from. Just ignore me, everyone else does.

> {quote:title=LonesomePolecat }{quote}As for Julie (Andrews), well, here again, having never had a chance to see Julie as Guinevere, who knows, though she was supposed to have been awesome. I have never seen her either, but I grew up with the Broadway recording of Andrews, Burton and Goulet and have never gotten over the disappointment of the 1967 version, which I saw as a kid on VHS and expected to see the Andrews/Burton/Goulet triumverate repeated on celluloid. Sigh. This movie sucks. Harris is very pretty, but not very good in the role- nor can he sing at all (of course, neither could Burton, but he somehow made it work- I also note that the fact that Arthur is a weak vocalist and Lancelot an excellent one works as a great metaphor for, um, other things- but I like it better with Burton/Goulet) Redgrave is waaaaay too sexy, she sings The Lusty Month of May as though it were staged in a brothel, she also is not up to the role vocally (to be polite.) And to complete the three-way fiasco, Franco Nero could sing (unless he was dubbed?) but cannot act. Did Jack Warner just hate Julie Andrews or something? Her not being in Camelot is- to me- a hundred times the tragedy of her not being in My Fair Lady because at least Audrey Hepburn did an admirable acting job in that movie, and Andrew's presence in Camelot would have been a brilliant career move- switching gears from her Goody-Goody persona, giving her film career longevity (which alas, Star! did not) and making the film itself a hundred times better. Gag, Redgrave is "singing" now. She hurts me so much. Go buy the Broadway album or listen to it on youtube. This could have been the last great musical, instead it's one of the most frustrating misfires in all Hollywood history. Edited by: JonnyGeetar on Oct 22, 2011 5:51 PM

Hey! You forgot Somebody Up There Likes Me!

Picnic and ye olde standard Guess Who's Coming to Dinner are coming on today. man they've been leaning on Picnic a lot. At least there's an inn-teresting (and stunningly Mildred Pierce free!) Zachary Scott salute on tonight. Wish Flamingo Road wasn't buried in the graveyard slot though.

from the trivia section for Bigger than Life on imdb: Though only Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum are credited for the screenplay, the shooting script was entirely re-worked by director Nicholas Ray and actor/producer James Mason, who added the first 20 minutes of the film depicting Ed Avery's daily life before being hospitalized. Re-writes by Ray, his friend Gavin Lambert (who at that time was living together with Ray, recently confessing that they were actually lovers) and Clifford Odets went on all through the shooting process. [Marilyn Monroe|http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000054/], who was friends with [Nicholas Ray|http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0712947/] and shooting [bus Stop|http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049038/] at an adjoining stage at 20th Century Fox, shot a brief cameo as a nurse during a hospital sequence. Her scene was deleted because the studio was afraid that Monroe would use this cameo as the second film she owed under her contract. Average shot length: 11 seconds. And: as per wikipedia, the film was "a flop" although I could not find any box office numbers for it. Edited by: JonnyGeetar on Oct 19, 2011 8:25 PM

> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote}Walter Matthau as a gym teacher is a role I never could have imagined for him... Yeah, I see him with a cigarette dangling from his lip saying something like: "gimme fifty burpees you lazy little bass-tids." But then again, he was in Bad News Bears. Wonder if he and Mason got along, they were so different in, well, every respect.

> {quote:title=runtopia wrote:}{quote}Was really looking forward to Bigger Than Life, as it racked up nearly 100% positive reviews. Imagine my surprise to see that it was a run of the mill drug pic, I just did NOT see what the big deal was folks Very often when I criticize something, people on the site chime in with "you're not taking it in its historical context...for the time such-and-such came out, it was a big deal." And I'm usually like "eh, I still didn't like it." That said: perhaps you are not taking the film in its historical context, for 1956, Bigger than Life is a big deal. Is it a masterpiece? Hardly, it's good, but I wouldn't say great (although I would say James Mason is great.) Like a lot of Ray's movies it could have been better, but it's not bad. On a scale of one to four, I'd give it three (it could have stood to really embrace the "psychological thriller" aspect that lingers in the background of the finale.) In spite of its grand color photography and cinemascope, it's a little intimate film without really big aspirations (as are a lot of other Ray pictures, The Lusty Men and On Dangerous Ground come to mind.), it just is what it is, and surprisingly candid for the chrome-and-formica plated 195o's. (Did Ike know this was going on?!) It's the sort of film dealt a death blow by television and modern blockbusters, the kind that simply isn't made anymore. If you were accessing it on rottentomatoes (as it sounds like you were) that site is not a good gauge of how everyone viewed a film as it takes snippets from reviews, glossing over their context and sometimes labeling a bad review as positive and vice versa. I'm sure there are plenty of critics who said it was good, but it had its faults.

Two things in regards to Bigger than Life : 1. It's a shame 1956 was such a big year for BIG movies as James Mason really did deserve to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for this. I guess despite it's BIG title and BIG Cinemascope and BIG color photography, it didn't stand a chance when put next to the mind-numbing (yet empty) BIGNESS of Giant. I get why Rock Hudson and James Dean were both nominated for that film, but I don't think Hudson deserved it and I think Dean's is a supporting role. If I could go back and mess with the nominations I'd knock the Giant guys out and replace then with Mason and John Wayne for The Searchers 2. A contradictory point: since 1956 was such a BIG year for BIG movies and everything about this film is BIG and circus-like (dig the circus theme for Mason's big freakout scene) I can't help but feel like this would have been just as good in Black and White- would have amped up the suspense-thriller aspect of the final third. But the BIG color is not a detriment, and it makes a nice companion to the mid-fifties Cimenascope triumverate of Ray's that includes Rebel and Johnny Guitar. ps- can you imagine the hilarity that James Mason in Sterling Hayden's role in that last film would've meant? Just thinking out loud here.

Last I checked, you could view This Gun for Hire in entirety on youtube. The Glass Key too.

Wow, is the programming budget running out as the end of the year approaches? Today we had a triumverate of REALLY, REALLY, REALLY OVERPLAYED TITLES: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Red River and (DEAR GOD!) From Here to Eternity. I am so tired of that last one: it gets my vote as the most overplayed title of 2011. (Just couldn't let it pass without noting.)

> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote}Are you saying that Ryan's only OVERwhelming films are those with SMALL-name female co-stars (THE SET-UP), or those with other dudes as co-stars (CROSSFIRE)? I'd hardly label myself as an authority on the films of Robert Ryan- although I like him a lot. But, well, it does sort of seem that way. I don't think "overwhelming" is the right word, but I would say his best films are Billy Budd, The Set-Up, The Racket, Bad Day at Black Rock, Act of Violence, Crossfire and The Wild Bunch and none of those really has a central lead role for a woman or a big name female star (I guess we could debate that fact for Act of Violence, but Mary Astor and Janet Leigh really sit on the sides in that one.) Nic Ray's On Dangerous Ground is the only really good film of his (that I can think of, there are probably some that slip my mind) where he is opposite a big female name star- Ida Lupino, and even her role totters on the brink of being a supporting one in that film.

> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote}Compared to the characters Joan (Fontaine) usually played, she was very bad. It's all relative. But then there is Ivy (1947) the one film in her early career where she plays genuinely eeeeville. (Kind of has a Joan Greenwood in Kind Hearts and Coronets thing going.) I agree that Fontaine and Robert Ryan were a good pair, I just wish Born to Be Bad was better. It's a shame, with the exception of On Dangerous Ground every film I can think of that Ryan made with a big name female star is underwhelming- Born to Be Bad , Beware My Lovely (which isn't terrible. but isn't good) and (shudder!) Clash by Night That last one is a real bummer since it's Ryan and Stanwyck, and there should be real electricity (and the two do give it their all) but as it's by Clifford "Golly, aren't I just Brilliant?' Odets we have loooooong talky monologue after looooooooong talky monologue. Never has a film about adultery been so damn dishwater dull.

I also also also throw in, that if anyone is interested: go to youtube and look up "Glenda Jackson Oscar." It shows the clip from the 1974 ceremony where Jackson won her second Best Actress Award (in three years!) for A Touch of Class. Granted, no one looks thrilled, but Burstyn (a nominee, somehow, for The Exorcist ) comes off as exceptionally graceless (at least to me.) She wrinkles up her face and says something like "wow, what a surprise"- really doesn't seem to take the news well at all, What? Did she think she was actually going to win a freakin' OSCAR for Linda Blair shoving her face into...well, you know, Yeah, that would've gone great into one of those "Best Actress" montages with the "I'll never go hungry again" scene from GWTW and Joan Crawford slapping Ann Blyth in Mildred Pierce. Edited by: JonnyGeetar on Oct 14, 2011 5:36 PM

> {quote:title=Hibi wrote:}{quote} I read somewhere that she lost a lot of money in bad investments. I dont know if it's true or not (hope not)...... A chain of Steak N' Kidney Pie restaurants? Auntie Angie's Non Alcoholic Ale? The Adventures of Pluto Nash? (Hope not too, but I don't think Old Girl is hurting any.)

I watched The Dark Mirror in ten parts on youtube a few months back. I don't know if it's still available nor not, but as Universal is not very aggressive about protecting their classic titles, I wouldn't be surprised if it was. Not meaning to poop on the parade, but I found it to be really bad: laden with plotholes and just...well, awful. Aside from The Killers, I have been seriously underhwhelmed with everything Siodmak ever did.

Believe me you are really missing out on something truly "wonderful." > {quote:title=Hibi wrote:}{quote}LOL. I'm happy to say I've never seen any of the sequels

You are SO right about Zhivago It's easily in the top 5 and there's a Hamburger Helper quality to its positioning on the schedule. It seems like they have stuck a lot of three-hour plus epics on Saturday afternoons, right after the murder mystery/ Zorro/ Tarzanathon, as if to say "we just throw up our hands, we don't care anymore, here's something to kill four hours worth of time. Enjoy your weekend...or not." Ben Hur was on last Saturday I believe. (That's another they could stand to call a moratorium on)

> {quote:title=Hibi wrote:}{quote}despite all her tv Emmy nominations, not ONE win!) Yeah, but to be fair- most of those nominations were for Murder, She Wrote and while she was a sturdy presence on the show, she didn't really have a lot to do "acting!"-wise, (there were rare exceptions, like the end of the pilot episode where she realizes a man she is involved with is a killer and the insufferable episodes where she played Jessica's British cousin- but little else.) It was mostly the same story over and over and over again, especially past season eight, where it got to be damn odd that every time she went somewhere on vacay or for a visit, someone dropped dead. I think the $30,000,000 she made during the run of the show made up for not getting a tacky, (and I've always thought rather pointy and dangerous) little award. Cagney and Lacey may have three Emmys a-piece, but Lansbury could buy and sell their double-wide a**es any day of the week. Edited by: JonnyGeetar on Oct 13, 2011 10:02 PM

I also also note: does anyone here play the (nearly impossible) trivia game on this site? Because it seems to me like it's a REALLY good guide to what the programmers have a hard-on for. There has been a question (sometimes two or three) about Stewart Granger or William Castle movies NEARLY EVERY TIME I have played it for the last YEAR, and those are two names whose films show up more on the sched than I would like to see... (Again once every five to ten would be what I would like to see, but again, I digress)

I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this, but 1973's musical version of Tom Sawyer is on tonight and it seems to me as if it's made more than its fair share of appearances on the net in the last coupla' years (especially on weekends!) Of course, a fair share for me would be once every five to ten years, but I digress.

I meant to mention this fact in me original post, and I direct this reply to you, Hibi, since I know you are a big fan of baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad cinema, that I actually saw Exorcist II: The Heretic before I saw this movie. It was on AMC for Halloween a coupla' years ago, and I took a long lunch break just to check it out. (verrrry long as AMC stretched the running time to four hours to accomodate the numerous car insurance and windshield repair commercials.) It did not disappoint. It's every bit as bad as the first, but it's got the original beat by miles in the audaciousness department. And really, it's a hell of a lot more entertaining in it's delicious, oh-my-God-are-you-effing-KIDDING-me? avarice and gleeful embrace of outright stupidity. My absolute FAVORITE moment (and one of my favorite bad movie moments of ALL TIME) has to be when Richard Burton (who is playing this thing like it's an outrageous screwball comedy, you know: just as he should be) forces Louise Fletcher's prim psychiatrist character to utter the name of the demon God "Pazuzu." You can tell Fletcher is TRYING to take the thing SO seriously and is baring her teeth like "Dammit! I just won a f***ing Oscar!" and Burton (who had long ago thrown up his hands and was all like "That's it, I just don't give a s*** anymore, give me my money, a case of Irish Whiskey, and show me to my trailer.") is like "SAY IT! SAY IT! GO ON: EMBRACE THE FACT THAT YOU'RE ONLY GOING TO BE IN REALLY, REALLY SH***Y MOVIES FROM NOW ON! SAY IT!" And she gives in and HISSES "Pazuzu" like it's the most disgusting thing she's ever uttered in all her life and Burton smiles with triumph, like "That's right, b****, embrace the dark side! *Bwahahahahahaha*!" Love it Edited by: JonnyGeetar on Oct 13, 2011 7:14 PM

> {quote:title=Hibi wrote:}{quote} How it got so many nominations looking back is puzzling, but it was probably a soft year for films as most of the 70's was. There were a lot of old timers in Hollywood who disliked the film so The Sting was an easy choice to win and did....... Actually, 1973 was a very good year for movies: The Last Detail, The Long Goodbye, The Way We Were, Mean Streets, Paper Moon, Serpico, Bang the Drum Slowly, American Grafitti and Last Tango in Paris, (that last one I don't personally get, but some people think it's hot snot on a silver platter.) My personal fave of the bunch is Altman's The Long Goodbye, I highly recommend it to anyone who has not seen it. Edited by: JonnyGeetar on Oct 13, 2011 6:54 PM

> {quote:title=ChorusGirl wrote:}{quote}The movie is "****"? Were you born in 1978...or 1998? "I was born when she met me I lived a few weeks while she loved me, And The Exorcist is a f***ing **** movie." I stand by my word choice 100%.