AndyM108
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Posts posted by AndyM108
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That's my opinion too. I'll be very glad to see him as host, even more so, if that means more noirs - my favorite genre.
If I were running for president on the TCM ticket, my campaign slogan would be
*"LESS SINGING, MORE KILLING".*
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The new movie playing in theatres, "Wolf of Wall Street" the f-word is uttered 506 times, breaking all records.
I'd just like to know who goes around counting such things. Is this something a future Jeopardy contestant might be well off knowing?
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Did you ever read the script for the Broadway play version of The Philadelphia Story ? It actually contains a number of saltier phrases, which were cleaned up in the movie,
Goodness gracious sakes alive, we learn something every day.
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All I care about is that the language used in a movie is true to the language that would have been used in similar real life situations. You wouldn't have expected to hear Cary Grant cursing in The Philadelphia Story, and you wouldn't expect to hear Joe Pesci in Goodfellas coming out with "gosh darn" or "aw, shucks". I just want the language to be believable.
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*Too Late For Tears* would be a real TCM coup. Lizabeth Scott was great as an actress in direct proportion to the lowlife rating of her character, and it's hard to get much more lowlife than she is in this one.
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1. What kind of film would Jennifer Jones & Gary Cooper have made? A melodrama, a western? Something, anything.
Well, maybe anything but *Carrie.* After watching Laurence Olivier give one of the best performances of his career opposite Jones in the 1952 screen adaptation of the Drieser novel, the thought of Gary Cooper in the Hurstwood role makes me shudder.
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Maybe it's just that my eyes are in better shape than my ears, but 99% of the problems I've had with the film quality on TCM has had to do with the sound, as opposed to the picture. The problem is worst in the movies in the early sound films, and it reaches its peak during movies that combine muffled voices with constantly playing background music. It only seems to affect about 2% of the films I watch, but at least for me it's many times bigger a problem than the picture quality.
And ironically, I have the same problem with some relatively current movies, especially certain scenes in mob movies where the gangsters all seem to be trying to channel their inner Don Corleone and see who can speak in the softest whisper.
But then there are some older movies that look as bright and clear as if we'd been transported backward in a time machine. Last night's Drums Along The Mohawk (1939) was one such film. I only watched it for a few minutes, but I can't recall ever seeing a better or clearer print from a Technicolor movie that old.
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Hi Andy - this is the book that I have:
http://www.amazon.com/Hurrells-Hollywood-Portraits-Chapman-Collection/dp/0810934345/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1390801318&sr=8-2&keywords=georgehurrellhollywoodportraits+
Wow, that's one I'd never even known about, and I can't believe I missed it when it came out. The one I have was published by Graystone Press in 1991, with Jean Harlow's portrait on the cover:
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All my books are in bookcases, but these are my five favorite "coffee table" sized movie books:
Sin In Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood
The Portfolios of George Hurrell*
The Art of Film Noir (Eddie Muller)
The Dark Page
The Dark Page II
The last two are by the Baltimore rare book dealer Kevin Johnson (Royal Books), who specializes in film books, film manuscripts, publicity photos, press kits, and first printings of novels that were made into movies. The Dark Page and The Dark Page II both feature full page color photos of the dust jackets of the first printings of novels that were the basis of classic film noir titles. The first volume features the noirs of the 40's, and the second volume deals with the noirs from 1950 - 1965, though in both cases the novels themselves (and the jacket photos) sometimes pre-date the films by quite a bit. They make a nice complementary companion to Eddie Muller's lavish book on film noir posters.
BTW Kevin's website is http://www.royalbooks.com/ , and anyone who loves classic film, both domestic and foreign, will find a lot to drool over on it. I was in the book business for 29+ years, and I've never seen a collection of movie related material on Royal Books' level anywhere, even in Hollywood itself.
*This may be the "older" Hurrell book that Eugenia's talking about.
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Funny but I was going to say something similar to "Bette Davis up to about The Petrified Forest", but I didn't wish to be picked on!
Usually I go much more for the natural look in women, but from a sexiness POV Davis was at her best when they put concentrated peroxide into her daily shower. She was great in all of her earlier films, even the many potboilers, but she was especially compelling in So Big and The Petrified Forest. Those were far from her meatiest roles as an actress, but it's hard to remember any other movies where she conveyed such a radiant sense of youthful exuberance.
I do find her very cute in those early years even when she has just washed her hair.
Nice one.
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Maybe it's due to my relatively young age (I'm only 26), but I think there are plenty of films from the 90s that have stood the test of time after 20 years. But I don't see today's cineplex-friendly, CGI and explosions fare ever being regarded as "classic". I don't think TCM is ever going to play Michael Bay because no one considers his movies to be classics.
Anyway, I find that it's good to keep an open mind about things and not blindly dismiss something as not being "a classic" just because it's newer (or to dismiss anything made before the 90s as "boring" just because it doesn't have CGI in it).
Just a few years ago I was three times your age, but I think your POV is the only sensible one. There are scores of movies from the 90's that definitely qualify as "classics" of one type or another, and some that should already be considered for top 10 all-time lists. And most movies from any era are pretty much trash - - - TCM just happens to screen out many of the worst ones from earlier decades, so much of us aren't even aware of their existence,
But I also agree with your other point that the cheesy focus-group, special effects based movies are unlikely to stand the test of time, at least among people like yourself who will probably have seen far better movies of the 90's to form a real basis for comparison. But just as there are plenty of people from my generation who still consider Elvis movies and Beach Blanket Bingo to outrank The Godfather, there will probably also be people now in their 20's who will always treasure today's trash and never even watch the much better movies that are also out there.
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Does the film impart some helpful philosophy about the human condition?
That's probably *the* foremost factor I have in mind, even if it's only subconsciously, in elevating a film from "genre classic" to "top 50 movie of all time", though it's not an ironclad condition. But that's why as much as I love the noir genre, I couldn't rank even something as great as The Killers or Out of the Past on the same level as Kapo or Angi Vera.
IMO the very best movies have the ability to open up our eyes to aspects of the real world that we might not have been fully aware of before. That may be too rarified a standard, but I can't think of any other way to separate the merely great from the sublime. This doesn't mean that we'd all look at the same movies and come to the same conclusion about them, but it does mean that it's the most important question to pose.
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The only older actor I thought was credibly paired with Audrey was Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, and that's only because their relationship was much more subtle and less overtly romantic. The most inane pairing she had was with Gary Cooper in Love In The Afternoon, who could have passed for her grandfather, and biologically he could have been.
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"Crushes"?
If you mean vintage actresses whose combination of looks and screen personae would make me want to get to know them, then it'd be
Louise Brooks
Clara Bow
Barbara Stanwyck
Glenda Farrell
Jean Harlow
Bette Davis up to about The Petrified Forest
Ida Lupino
Katharine Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Ann Sheridan
Priscilla Lane
Luise Rainer
Myrna Loy
Susan Hayward
Sylvia Sidney
Jeanne Moreau (if she qualifies as vintage)
Lauren Bacall
Anouk Aimee
Cyd Charisse
Lilli Palmer
Carole Lombard
Rita Hayworth
Jeanne Crain
Kim Novak
Lee Remick
But if you just based it on looks alone, then add
Loretta Young
Kay Francis
Gene Tierney
Ava Gardner
Jennifer Jones
Jane Greer
Lana Turner
Brigitte Bardot
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I limited my list to ten titles. I've seen some of these movies at least 50 times over the years.
That is truly amazing. The only movie I've watched more than a dozen times without getting tired of it is Reefer Madness, and that's probably because 99% of the time I was collecting a dollar from every college student I was showing it to.
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Are films that "one never gets tired of" synonymous with one's favorite films?
Not always. In a lot of cases the only reason I'm not yet tired of them is that I haven't seen them enough times to give them a true test. I had Casablanca on my Top 10 list for many years, but now after seeing it for about the 13th time it doesn't even make my top 50, and maybe not even my top 100. It's not that I think any less of it, but now doesn't grab me the way it did the first 10 or 12 times. Same with The Lady Eve, though that one's only slipped from my 2nd favorite comedy to about my 4th or 5th. It may be just that I've never been a big fan of Henry Fonda, even though in this case he's perfectly cast as Stanwyck's foil.
As a general rule, if a "serious" movie can make it past a second viewing, it's likely to be one that I can watch at least once a year forever. OTOH an "entertainment" movie has an easier time making it through 3 or 4 viewings, but after that I get kind of wary of seeing it without a long lapse in time, for fear of the "Casablanca" effect.
Of course I'll never, *ever* get tired of Reefer Madness.
There are just too many great lines and scenes for it ever to wear thin. -
The only movies that wore me out from overwatching have been Casablanca and The Lady Eve, though it took about a dozen viewings in each case to do it. I still love them, but I now ration them to about once every 2 or 3 years.
But I still can't get enough of these movies, which I've already seen at least 3 times and can't wait to see again:
The Battle of Algiers (seen at least a dozen times)
Reefer Madness (seen close to 100 times, though mostly for profit)
Angi Vera (stuck on about 10 viewings because of lack of availability)
Kapo
The Killers
Out of the Past
Goodfellas
A Bronx Tale
Mean Streets
It's a Wonderful Life
Breaking Away
Short Cuts
Boyfriends and Girlfriends
42nd Street
A Star Is Born (Garland version)
Nightmare Alley
Bombshell
Libeled Lady
Sons of the Desert
The Fields segment in If I Had a Million
The Sheep Has Five Legs
All About Eve
Baby Face
Mildred Pierce
Sudden Fear
The Search
The Asphalt Jungle
Thieves' Highway
Laura
Bringing Up Baby
So Big (Stanwyck version)
Hard Times
The Hard Way
Gilda
Bringing Up Baby
Every Kurosawa / Mifune non-Samurai collaboration
Every Jean Gabin movie TCM showed in August of 2012
The Crowd
The Unholy Three (either sound or silent version)
The Penalty (Chaney)
Greed (the 4 hour version)
Time Limit
Pandora's Box
M (Lorre version)
And probably at least 100 more, not counting films I've only seen once or twice and want to see again.
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I haven't seen THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK. A few of you have mentioned that one.
That was Al Pacino's first starring role, and both he and his co-lead Kitty Winn were fully Oscar-worthy in their performances.
And while this may or may not serve as a recommendation to everyone, a late friend of mine who was a part of that New York scene in the 70's told me on many occasions that *The Panic In Needle Park* was far and away the most realistic movie about "the life" that he'd ever seen, at least from the perspective of a former addict. He rated it above *The Man With The Golden Arm,* which to him was about the highest praise he could give a movie about the drug life - - - and he'd seen every movie about that subject that he could.
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Special effects can enhance an otherwise well-told and well-acted tale, but if the story isn't there to begin with, it's like spraying deodorant on a man who hasn't bathed for a year. When I read a review that dwells on a movie's special effects, I know that it's a movie to avoid.
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Parody? Are you referring to, "Do Your B**ls Hang Low"? I still remember the complete lyrics to that one.
Let's just say it was a closely related variant to that one, only it began with "Does".
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*Part* of the late Lawrence Tierney???
Sure, the part that when matched with John Dillinger's made two of a kind in a poker game depicted by Jack Davis in Tales From The Crypt.
Long before part of Tierney joined him, Dillinger's entry was so well known that it inspired a parody of the old soldiers' song *"Do Your Ears Hang Low?"* that Washington schoolchildren used to march to during the years of the Korean War. And God knows how many of them made a pilgrimage up 16th Street to that medical museum, only to be told that it was closed to children.
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A recent urban legend I've heard is that part of the late Lawrence Tierney is on display at the Walter Reed medical museum here in Washington. Supposedly this was one of the reasons that Tierney was cast in the title role of the 1945 biopic of John Dillinger, whose own body part is on permanent exhibit at the same museum.
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I didn't notice that last night, but I've just about given up on relying on the Now Playing guide for anything much more than "Probable Listings". I've always thought that TCM should send out e-mail notices whenever there's *any* change in the program guide, either to Now Playing or to the online listings.
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2. What about Cary Grant & Rock Hudson in a movie? I suppose it would have been a romantic comedy, though both actors were capable of straight dramatic fare.
Stop, you're killing me with those straight lines!
salty language
in General Discussions
Posted
I don't like to see smoking in old films, but they didn't know any better. In today's films, we do, and don't need to show it, which glamorizes it, even when the bad guys do it.
As far as I'm concerned, we should line up every last tobacco executive against a garage wall and give them an old fashioned St. Valentine's Day greeting, circa 1929. They are truly the scum of the Earth.
That said, smoking is like swearing. To the extent that it's credible within the context of the movie's time and place, and among the demographic being portrayed, I don't have any problem with it.
But no "product placement", please. And don't let John Waters film the smoking scenes in Odorama.