AndyM108
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Posts posted by AndyM108
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When I read the obits today in the Times and the Washington Post, I immediately went to YouTube and had myself a Jeffries mini-festival, beginning with
and his biggest hit,
, both recorded with the great Duke Ellington.What a voice, and what a life. R.I.P., "Bronze Buckaroo"
Anyone notice the second billing here, the actor later known best in the role of Andrew H. Brown.
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When I watch a movie from a commercial DVD, I never watch the previews or ads or whatever, I just press the "top menu" button or the other "menu" related button (I can't remember what it's called... "pop menu" maybe?) and it skips all that and moves right to the main screen. Sometimes you're able to use the fast forward button that allows you to quickly switch from one preview to the next before it gets to the title screen.
I'll try that on my next Netflix film, though SansFin seems to think it may not work.
I like having all my movies showing on a shelf, spines out so I can quickly grab something. I would be overwhelmed having to remember which 4 movies are on which disk. But that's just me.
I file my DVDs in chronologically arranged (by the date I recorded them) slimline jewel case boxes, 200 to a box with the range of dates marked on the outside. I can get to any title within a minute by simply looking at an Excel file that also has them listed by recording date. If I want to find a particular film, I use the "find on page" function within the Excel file, and the title along with the date of recording pops right up. It does require a bit of attention to keep the file current, but at most it's a few minutes a day.
What's exciting here is that everyone is basically able to acquire vast collections of movies that they can forever have at their fingertips whether it be recording them from TV or popping a disk into the DVD or Blu Ray player. Gone are the days (except for if you're wanting to record a specific movie from TCM) of having to wait for the annual viewing of "Wizard of Oz" (for example). Now you can basically watch any movie whenever you want.
It certainly beats having to find a warehouse to store all those 16mm films.
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It's one thing to rate movies and advise children or your parishioners not to watch them, but it's another thing to impose your personal beliefs on everyone else's choices.
It wasn't "on everyone else". It was for the majority of movie-goers.
But after the "Legion of Decency" (via Pope Breen) got put in charge of the Production Code enforcement, movie-goers who wanted to see classic films like Baby Face, Rain, Red-Headed Woman, The Story of Temple Drake, and scores more like it were simply out of luck.
I haven't been to a movie in a theater in 15 years because the bad stuff suddenly turns up with no warning or notice. Why would I want to pay to see someone puke, p-e-e, p-o-o-p, or cut someone's head off?
At least a warning list should be posted with each film, along with the timeline where I will know when to close my eyes.
Of course you might read the reviews and pretty much figure out whether a movie is likely to offend you, but maybe you're just better off sticking to Andy Hardy and Doris Day.
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I don't like seeing movies in which the crazy mean bad loco killer goes free at the end, after killing a bunch of nice people. I like to see killers either shot by their victims, the police, or maybe fall off a cliff at the end of a movie.
It's one thing if the criminals are really criminals in any real sense, and not the victim of a frameup. But in how many Breen era movies did we see a clearly good guy "criminal" get killed or sent off for a long stretch in the slam simply to satisfy the production code?
In these modern times, if we want to go out to see a movie, we must put up with being forced to see the "views of morality" of all the slasher film producers and directors. No thanks.
I didn't go see The Exorcist because I didn't want to be forced to see some actor puking in a color film close-up. No thanks, not for me. I don't want to see anyone puke, p-e-e, or p-o-o-p on film.
I don't like any of those movies, either, but whereas in the post-Breen era I can choose (and have chosen) to stage my own private boycott of them, under Uncle Joe I wouldn't have had that choice. It's one thing to rate movies and advise children or your parishioners not to watch them, but it's another thing to impose your personal beliefs on everyone else's choices.
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I'm Catholic, and I still refer to what the Catholic Church has to say about films. I find it very helpful.
That's fine, but the problem with the "Legion of Decency" and the Breen Code was that they forced their personal views of "morality" on everyone else who wanted to see a movie. When 90% of the crime and romance dramas had nearly identical endings (criminals dead or in jail / wedding bells ringing), it's kind of hard to imagine that the art of storytelling was being enhanced much beyond the Sunday School level. A lot of the Hollywood movies of that era still managed to be great in spite of it all, but it was often like watching an Olympic swimmer trying to strut his stuff in a wading pool.
Uh, uh, sister....Uncle Joe's watching you!
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My entire movie collection is all purchased movies-- I have a couple bootleg movies, but I plan on upgrading them to "real" copies eventually. I like having the box, cover art and special features.
I just finished watching 12 Years a Slave from a commercial Netflix rental DVD, and it reminded me once again why I much prefer recording myself. It literally took me five minutes to navigate through all the legal warnings, previews of other movies I couldn't care less about, and screen flashes naming all the subcategories of the studio that actually made the movie (I think it was Fox), before I could finally get to the actual beginning of the film. With commercial DVDs, you can't simply hit fast forward and zip through all the extraneous blabber, because all you get when you try that is a big fat forbidden symbol. You feel like a captive audience in your own living room, with a salesman who won't go away.
By contrast, when I record a movie, I wait until the original opening studio logo appears before pressing the "record" button, so I can view the film exactly as it was presented to the original movie audience. I always find it kind of jarring when an independent studio's film is preceded by some modern studio logo with a website at the bottom, since that's the last thing I want to see before watching the movie.
And if it's an overnight recording, a few seconds of fast forward cuts through to the movie's beginning. I'm a big fan of simplicity in technology.
The other advantage to home recording is the space saving. One DVD in a slimline jewel case can hold up to six hours worth of movies, whereas a similar amount of film on a commerical DVD would almost always take up at least twice as much room.
As for the extras, they're nice, I guess, but they're not worth the extra expense or room they take up.
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I have thousands on vhs, and several years ago, started the whole process again on dvd,...so now I have thousands on dvd. I also have thousands i recorded from AMC and FMC, most on vhs, but have replaced many from FMC on dvd.
Even though I'm sure it caused me to miss recording some movies that TCM hasn't repeated in the past five years, I'll still be eternally grateful that I didn't start my obsession until I got a DVD recorder. Those 3000 DVDs take up about half of a linen closet and are easily accessible by date coding and an Excel file, but if the same number of movies had been recorded on VHS tapes, I can't even imagine where I could find room to store them.
And while in 2009 there were plenty of good commercial free films on IFC and the Fox Movie Channel, IFC is now loaded with commercials, and the FMC's commercial free 12 hour days are now little more than an endless loop of repeats. So now I'm down to TCM and a handful of the American Experience documentaries on PBS. Commercials have no place in the middle of a movie.
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Probably about 3000 features and several hundred shorts since late in 2009, all on DVD. TCM is going to be in my will.
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What particularly saddened me was the removal of Sybil Jason's Warner Brothers movies, not only the full features but even most of the clips, such as her unforgettable street urchin renditions of "Little Big Shot" and "I'm Rolling in Money". I somehow missed recording The Captain's Kid with Jason and Guy Kibbee when it was shown on Jason's 80th birthday tribute, and after seeing it for a few weeks after that on You Tube, it disappeared and hasn't shown up again since. It's been four and a half years since it's been on TCM, and I sure wish they'd give it another screening. Jason was every bit as good as Shirley Temple, but never got the promotion that she deserved.
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I wish Hollywood made movies for the mainstream but many today are driving a political agenda.
That's a noble sentiment, but what exactly is "the mainstream" in a country that's been politically divided down the middle for nearly 50 years? Or is "the mainstream" just a euphemism for "family" films?
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There are a couple of good anti war WW1 movies made but I can't think of a real anti-war movie made during ww2 years by US studios? Anyone else think of any top movies done that were anti- WW2 at the time?
As Fred points out, there were no anti-war movies made during the first World War. All those movies came along well after the last soldier had been buried, but from then until sometime in the late 30's, it was hard to find any movie about The Great War that wasn't implicitly or explicitly anti-war.
What may have been the first U.S. "anti-war" movie made during a war was Samuel Fuller's early Korean War film, The Steel Helmet. Not that it was "anti-war" in any direct way, and it began with "This story is dedicated to the United States Infantry", but the complete lack of rah-rah compared to the scores of movies made during the Second World War made for quite a contrast. It was definitely not a favorite of the Pentagon.
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6. Betty Hutton (I think she was very attractive in the 1940's)
When I see Betty Hutton in the 40's, I think of Kathy Griffin on Seinfeld in the 90's. Out of control but okay in small doses.
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(Question: Who played Nazis in more movies, Sig Ruman or Conrad Veidt?)
Well, since Veidt died in '43 and Ruman was still doing it 10 years later in Stalag 17...
Good point, and so I guess that "Concentration Camp Ehrhardt" wins the Hollywood Iron Cross. It's also interesting to note that while they both played Nazis, Ruman's Face of The Enemy was usually one of farcical ineptness, whereas Veidt's was usually the Nazi version of the villain who tied the girl onto the railroad tracks, cackling and twirling his mustache as he left her there to die.
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I haven't seen the remake, but I can't imagine anyone but Sig Ruman as "Concentration Camp Ehrhardt".
(Question: Who played Nazis in more movies, Sig Ruman or Conrad Veidt?)
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On a related note, I'll mention Rod Steiger, Jerry Orbach, Valerie Harper, George Steinbrenner, and Garry & Penny Marshall, of whom I assumed were Jewish -- but weren't.
That's funny, since I've always assumed that George Steinbrenner's father was one of the founders of the German-American Bund.
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I've seen both versions several times each, and while they're clearly standard issue formula movies, they still keep your attention from beginning to end. What really surprised me is just how well cast Richard Boone was in Laird Cregar's role of the perverted detective Ed Cornell. Two different "looks"---one slightly effeminate, the other who looks like he was shot through the forest and hit every tree---but both highly credible for the part. About the only reasons I like I Wake Up Screaming a bit better are Victor Mature, Elisha Cook Jr., and of course the classic
, but they're both among the better noirs.BTW here's the full version of Vicki on You Tube.
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With the sole exception of Night of the Living Dead, the only horror movies I can watch more than once are those where the motif is psychological terror induced by human beings, not by some Hollywood makeup artist or special effects maven. Movies like Sudden Fear or The Night of the Hunter have more real tension in them than a hundred vampire or monster films.
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And George Reeves. Definitely murdered.
Jeez, I just assumed he forget where he was one night and decided to cruise the penthouse bar circuit by single leaps and bounds.
So who got him? Lex Luther? The Prankster? Please don't tell me it was Mxyzptlk, because that would have serious implications for all the rest of us.
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I don't think it's a coincidence that the stars who try to separate their private lives from their public lives also seem to do the best job of growing old. I'm thinking along the lines of Stanwyck, Newman/Woodward, Ryan, Widmark, Katharine Hepburn, and others who treated their work as a craft, and didn't play up to the gossip columnists and paparazzi in an attempt to keep getting their names in the paper.
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I agree about Hepburn and Grant--he is her best foil, though maybe not vice versa (I like him best with Irene Dunne). The entire Hepburn/Tracy series of films was, I think, based on their amazing chemistry in Woman of the Year. They rarely ever captured that "magic" again--I think Adam's Rib cpmes the closest, though more a portrait of an established couple rather than the newly wed couple--it's more cozy than sexy. And of course WOTY devolves --in my mind anyway--into another "Let's humiliate Kate movie" (though her character was rather a b*tch).
I liked WOTY a lot better the first time than on subsequent viewings, same with their other "comedies", if that's what you can call Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike. There's something about the whole Tracy/Hepburn chemistry that just grates on me after a while, probably just because I've never cared for Tracy's screen character, whereas Grant gives Hepburn room to breathe.* Tracy's characters are always walking around with a giant chip on their shoulder, and for all his alleged great acting (can't argue with a thousand critics) his screen roles all seem to run together, and not in a very entertaining way.
Hepburn matured into a pretty good dramatic actress--have you ever seen Long Day's Journey into Night? She's pretty terrific in that.
I haven't, but I will the next time it comes around. I was so turned off by her pre-Stage Door films, and so much love her comedies with Grant, that it's probably going to take me awhile to give her a fresh look as a dramatic actress. I do like her in Undercurrent with Robert Taylor and Robert Mitchum, so at least that's a start. Aside from those Grant comedies, where I really appreciate her the most is in those two Cavett interviews from the early 70's. My late Aunt in the Village knew her briefly when she was in New York on the stage, and never had a bad word to say about her. As a person she seems absolutely fascinating.
*I get the feeling that if Tracy had been given Grant's role in Bringing Up Baby, Hepburn would've wound up in a hospital.
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Although critics and audiences at the time certainly didn't agree, I find the beautiful Katharine Hepburn absolutely hilarious in Bringing Up Baby - as Susan and as "Swingin' Door Susie."
Absolutely. Drop dead gorgeous at her peak, and to my mind a much better comedienne than dramatic actress.
And also much better with Grant than with Tracy, since while Grant could match wits with her on equal terms, all Tracy mostly did in their movies was to growl and grumble and act like a pigheaded fool. Too much message and too little comedy.
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She wasn't the most gorgeous actress by modern standards, but there's never been another comedienne like her.
"THAT'S ARSON!"
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I watched FITB a second time yesterday, and I also agree that its problem was in the casting and directing rather than in the script. What's really eery about the casting is that if Jack Kelly hadn't dyed his hair blond, he and Zimbalist would be virtual ringers for each other whenever they flashed that squinty-eyed, self-depreciating, toothy smile of theirs. Kelly's face is a bit narrower, but other than that they could easily be mistaken for brothers. You can see this particularly at the start of the movie, prior to when they became political rivals.
You could almost make the same point about the movie after that, Twilight of Honor. Not as good a script as Fever in the Blood, but it still suffered from the incredibly bland performance of Richard Chamberlain. Even Claude Rains just kind of mailed it in, throwing out one bromide after the other and not letting up until the inevitable marriage at the end of the movie.
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Guess what, it's not easy to copy & paste columns.
Foreign + Hollywood Hollywood Only
Angi Vera All About Eve
Battle of Algiers (The) Best Years of Our Lives
Come and See (The) Crowd
Diabolique Deception
Elmer Gantry Elmer Gantry
Forbidden Games Forty-Second Street
Germany: Year Zero Goodfellas
High and Low (The) Hard Way
It’s a Wonderful Life It’s a Wonderful Life
(Le) Jour Se Leve Jungle Fever
Kapo (The) Killers
Libeled Lady Libeled Lady
M My Fair Lady
Nightmare Alley Nightmare Alley
Open City Out of the Past
Pandora’s Box (The) Panic in Needle Park
Quartet Quicksand
Red Beard Red-Headed Woman
(The) Search (The) Search
(The) Testament of Dr. Mabuse Trouble in Paradise
(The) Umbrellas of Cherbourg (The) Unsuspected
Vertigo Vertigo
Witness For The Prosecution Witness For The Prosecution
X, Malcolm X, Malcolm
(The) Young Philadelphians (The) Young Philadelphians
Z Zoo in Budapest
Recording movies
in General Discussions
Posted
Unless you've just got an aversion to owning DVDs or don't have enough room to put them, I've never understood the advantage of DVRs over DVD recorders, which are (1) much cheaper in the long run, and (2) allow you to get an instant permanent copy of a movie without a "middleman".
Okay, I do see one other DVR advantage: You can record on one channel while watching another channel. But since 95% of the most interesting TCM movies seldom if ever conflict with major sporting events, I don't think I've had any serious scheduling conflicts on that score more than a handful of times over the years. Think about it: How many prime time TCM movies are never shown again?