ValentineXavier
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Posts posted by ValentineXavier
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> {quote:title=dedhedjim wrote:}{quote}
> I love TCM, and turn to that network more often than most other options, however there seems to be an obsession with showing movies about WWII recently.
So, if TCM must show a war film, perhaps you'd prefer *King of Hearts* ?
Or, perhaps *How I Won the War* ? That one is on the schedule.
Edited by: ValentineXavier on Oct 25, 2010 8:33 PM
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> {quote:title=misswonderly wrote:}{quote}
> D'oh..I don't know important films, but I know what I like.
I like something that will look good, in front of the couch...
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> {quote:title=Dogleg wrote:}{quote}
> I just registered but I love watching the older movies.
> Why are the credits not run at the end of the movies?
Ideally, I'd like credits at the beginning and end of a film. Sadly, lots of old films have few credits, and often none at the end. But, my favorites are the old films where the opening credits include cameo shots of the leads, with their names, and the names of their characters. I wish that was the norm, and not the rare exception!
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> {quote:title=LonesomePolecat wrote:}{quote}
> Alec remains my favorite actor of all time.
That's just a Jedi mind trick...
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Two of my favorite illegal dramas are *The Ox Bow Incident*, and Fritz Lang's *Fury*. Lang's *Beyond a Reasonable Doubt* is quite a good legal drama.
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> {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote}
> In mid to late-40s films, we can see kids doing the jitterbug type dance, but this is actually the very same as the earliest rock and roll dance of the early to mid to late 50s. In fact be-bop, jive, and jitterbug rather quickly evolved into rock and roll in the early to mid-50s.
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Spot on. As my ballroom dance instructor explained to me in 1960, the Single Lindy, the Double Lindy, and the Triple Lindy of the Jitterbugs was the same thing the rock and rollers were doing in the 50s.
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> But in the early 50s we were called rock and rollers, hoodlums, and *juvenile delinquents*, and the rest is history.
Or, just "JDs," for short. I still remember my favorite Alfred E. Neuman saying from the 50s -
"Adults who act like children are called immature.
Children who act like adults are called juvenile delinquents."
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> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote}
> Then again, many actors almost always played themselves, even if it was in the guise of a character with a different name.
Or, perhaps more accurately, actors who always play the same sort of character, the sort of character they would like to be. That would be a subject for another thread.
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> {quote:title=HarryLong wrote:}{quote}
> I've also heard that many studios made use of their "worthless" silent films by threading prints & negs into campfires to make them burn more brightly for the camera. So next time you're watching a scene of cowpokes gathered round the fire (or gypsies if you';re into Universal horrors)...
That would add to the horror.
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I agree, resurrection would be best. And, as others have pointed out, that is the preferred thing on most web forums.
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> {quote:title=SansFin wrote:}{quote}
> > {quote:title=ValentineXavier wrote:}{quote}
> > Ouch! That makes my head hurt!
>
> I hope it does not hurt too bad. I was hoping you might write synopsis for movie.
Okay, we'll start with Judge Hardy and Arletty having an S&M affair, as cross-dressing pirates.
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The two guys on the right are wearing different shirts after the leap, and I think one has different pants, too.
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> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote}
> Don't you find the plot to be a little convoluted and difficult to believe?
I find non-convoluted plots difficult to believe.
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> {quote:title=finance wrote:}{quote}
> I think THE LADYKILLERS is clearly the best of the three. Katie Johnson is a scream.
I like it best, too. It's also in widescreen, and color. Plus, it has Peter Sellers, and Herbert Lom.
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> {quote:title=MyFavoriteFilms wrote:}{quote}
> > I have never seen as much mis-information or under-information as I have seen posted on the internet. Wiki is the worst offender, in my opinion.
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> I discovered a perfect example of this yesterday. I watched a DVD copy of LET'S MAKE IT LEGAL, a Fox classic from 1951. One of the special features was an audio commentary by Robert Wagner who plays a supporting part at the beginning of his career.
> One thing RJ said at least twice on this audio track was that Zanuck signed him in 1949. Later, when I went to the Wiki page on Robert Wagner, it said that he did uncredited bit parts at Fox and after his work in THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA and LET'S MAKE IT LEGAL, Zanuck was impressed and offered him *a long-term contract*. Not true at all! He had already been under contract to Fox for two years by this point, ...
The wiki may well be right. The key words here are a long term contract. Perhaps the contract signed in 1949 was a short term contract. Not unusual for a beginning actor. Then, once he seemed to be panning out, he got a longer term contract for better terms. I don't know that is true, but from what you have presented, I don't know it's not true.
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> {quote:title=lzcutter wrote:}{quote}
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> Sometimes, other channels in Canada hold the rights. In the case of the *Topper* films, it's because it's unknown, (despite tons of research on TCM's part) who does own the Canadian broadcast rights.
Perhaps TCM should just show them, and see if anyone sues... That would be one way to find out who has the rights.
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> {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote}
> > {quote:title=ValentineXavier wrote:}{quote}
> > > {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote}
> > >
> > > But in the meantime, maybe you can find the switch on your remote control to change the size of the picture on your TV screen, so that you can manually click it back up to full screen.
> >
> >
> > Fred, most HDTVs can't be zoomed while receiving a HD signal. Generally, only 4x3 and "Wide" picture sizes are available with HD. HDMI inputs may allow a few other settings, designed for PCs.
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> I have a Sanyo DP19647. Its about 3 years old. It has 4 picture settings. #1 is normal old fashioned, with black bars on each side. #2 makes the image wider, getting rid of the side black bars. #3 is the HD format for full screen. My local stations switch over to this automatically when I change channels. The non-HD channels switch back to #1 automatically. #4 is an image enlargement, full screen, which I never use.
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> So, if I experience a situation like sixtiesstereo mentioned, I can manually switch back to the #3 screen, which is the standard HD full-screen format.
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> When TCM shows a wide-screen letterbox film on regular non-HD TCM, I get a window-box effect. Black bars all around the wide image. I call this bandaid-box, since the image is about the size of a bandaid. But I can switch to screen #3 and get a full wide screen image for 1:85. But for very wide early Cinemascope films, such as 1:2 or 1:2.5, I see some narrow black bars at the top and bottom.
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> I dont know if other TVs have this feature or not.
My TV is a 2007 Samsung DLP. it, and AFAIK, most HD TVs can't do your #3 on a HD signal, only a SD signal. This doesn't often cause a problem, because most HD widescreen signals aren't shown in a 4x3 letterboxed format, which has black bars on all four sides. It is called 'picture-boxed,' 'window-boxed,' or sometimes 'postage stamped.' I'm surprised your set will do this on HD signals, but not on SD signals, where it is more often needed.
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> {quote:title=Arturo wrote:}{quote}
> The term "bobbysoxers" describes the teenage female fans, not the male idols. It comes from the white socks these girls would wear that were turned down and usually worn with saddle shoes.
Quite right. I thought I was going to have to post that, until I got to your post. Bobby socks were long and thick, but rolled down to the ankle, forming a thick cuff. Shirley Temple fans might want to check out the 1947 film *The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer*.
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Fred, the next PBS series Nova ep will be about the rescue of the Chilean miners. Although the show has a scientific orientation, I'm sure it will explore the psychological effects on the miners, as well as the tech used to sustain, and rescue them. I'm looking forward to it. I do expect that they will dismiss the soap opera aspects, or at least view them from a standpoint that is more clinical than titillating.
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> {quote:title=misswonderly wrote:}{quote}
> MyFavouriteFilms wrote:
>
> I am concerned about the proletariat emotional responses to popular film. I think they contain many biases that I am not comfortable with...again, a driving factor in all my writing on these boards and in blogs I create is to really examine the way the working classes shift their film tastes down on to the next generation and perpetuate a type of 'common film knowledge' and what I see as a somewhat uneducated, unenlightened attachment to certain films and stars. I believe this taste or preference has been handed down and taught in a pedestrian sense, rather than as a critical reflection on art, culture and nature.
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> What does that even mean?
I think it means that us proles don't know no better than to like what we like... and it ain't art.
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> {quote:title=SansFin wrote:}{quote}
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> 20th Century Vole Special Presentation: *Judge Hardy's Children Of Paradise For Three Little Pirates Of The Prairie Thunder in the City Without Men Of The Fighting Lady Of Vengeance of the Zombies On Broadway Ladies They Talk About Face of a Fugitive in the Sky Murder on a Honeymoon* (M-Mmm-Good) All Star Cast. Directors: Seitz, Carne, et al. 20th Century Vole, 1439 mins.
Ouch! That makes my head hurt!
At only 1439 min., it needs a short before it. I recommend *Satantango*, at only 450 min.
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> {quote:title=HarryLong wrote:}{quote}
> Not to make light of this event, but it's ironic that an actor who spent much of his screen time swinging about in trees should die as a result of falling out of one.
> I hope TCM does a day-long Bomba-thon.
According to what I read, he fell off a ladder he was using to trim palm trees. I guess there were no vines handy.
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Orson Welles plays himself, doing his magic show, in 1944's *Follow the Boys*. Marlene Dietrich, Donald O'Connor, W. C. Fields, and others played themselves in the same film. Orson shows 101 appearances as "Self" on IMDb. Of course, most are TV shows, but there are also films. There were lots of WWII films with stars playing themselves, usually in context of entertaining the troops. Lots of stars play themselves, even today. Just look them up on the IMDb, and go to the "Self" list.
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Quite a good explanation of restoration, Fred. You only left out one part. Often, the individual film elements are physically cleaned, before they are scanned electronically. This removes not only loose dirt, but also dirt accumulated on the whole frame, that darkens the images.
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> {quote:title=VP19 wrote:}{quote}
> Regarding the comment about the book "Topper Takes A Trip": I'm a bit surprised no one has tried to remake "Topper" using the more bawdy elements of Thorne Smith's book that couldn't be done on screen after the Code was strictly enforced in mid-1934. Done properly (and tastefully), it could be plenty of ribald fun -- though it would admittedly be hard to displace the ghosts, pardon the pun, of Constance, Cary Grant, Roland Young and Billie Burke.
Yeah, I think it would work, just need a bit of up-dating. Another riotous scene from the book was Marion trying on lingerie in a shop. Lots of funny stuff they could do now, but not then. I, too, am surprised no one's thought of it.
Mediocre Classics
in General Discussions
Posted
> {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote}
> Ok, I'll accept that. As long as you quote yourself an *official* source.
Turn your spell checker on. The correct spelling is "oafishul."