MyFavoriteFilms
-
Posts
3,069 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Never
Posts posted by MyFavoriteFilms
-
-
I keep missing ANATOMY OF A MURDER but it's on TCM in December so I will make a point to see it.
WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? is a good example, right as the code was ending.
-
Supposedly, GONE WITH THE WIND was the first American film to use profanity. And the word seems pretty mild today compared to the other foul language we frequently hear in movies.
Indeed, there are many other films that have been much bolder in their use of profanity. These are some of the most famous:
GLENGARRY GLENN ROSS
THE BIG LEBOWSKI
SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE
But I am more interested in the period from 1939 (when GWTW was made) to the end of the production code in 1968...what were some of the other films that pushed the boundaries in terms of on-screen language?
And were foreign films using swear words much sooner than Hollywood?
Plus, was THE MOON IS BLUE all that bad? Its original screenplay contained words like "virgin," "mistress," and "pregnant." But that was hardly profane.
-
Does this one qualify? LOL
-
*USER COMMENTS*
BIRTH OF A NATION on the TCM database:
bright 05/02/2006
This movie is part of our history whether we like the facts or not. The good and the bad events have made our nation what it is today.
Wendi 05/02/2006
For those of us too young to remember the civil rights movement, and with children who are growing up in an increasingly "PC" environment, it is important to have the historical context to understand tensions that still exist today. Showing "The Birth of a Nation" is a valuable tool for me, as a mother homeschooling teenagers, to help my children understand the history of racism in America in a way that books simply don't impart.
EdSanta 05/02/2006
A landmark film that should be seen by everyone.
Thomas Dyja 05/02/2006
To show this film and describe it without any historical context on this site--my cable system actually gives it four stars and simply says it's the story of two families after the Civil War!--is shocking and sad.
Lynda Wright 05/02/2006
I am a descendant of slaves who built America with their bare hands. I condemn the ideals that this film stands for.
Judith 05/03/2006
Just stop showing this movie.
Michael 05/03/2006
This movie accuratly shows how things were back in the post civil war times. White people sometimes had to protect themselves from the newly freed blacks rampaging through the south.
Dorothy 05/03/2006
I had heard of this movie but this was my first viewing. This is the most inaccurate portrayal of blacks in the South or any other place in the U.S.
Jeanie 06/23/2006
After seeing this movie, it is amazing how far the portrayal of African Americans in cinema have come. It's bad enough whites in blackface, but the Klan as heroes? How absurd!
Speedvan 08/10/2007
Racism aside, D.W. Griffith's, Birth of a Nation should be viewed for it's technical advancements whether than for it's subject matter. Closeups, editing, and the way the camera constantly moves are areas of filmmaking that hadn't been explored.
Polly 04/01/2008
At first the movie starts out good. It shows two families, one from the South the other from the North. You get to take a look at how diffrent there lives really were. When the Northern family comes to visit the Southern family they find out that there will be a war. The battle sence are pretty amazing. But it is not until the Reconstruction that it really gets bad.
Steven 10/26/2008
I love how the director used the cameras to tell the story so vividly. It's really good at the beginning, but I do have a problem with the view used for the Klansmen as heroes
UtahKeith 02/23/2009
It is a MOVIE DRAMA, not a DOCUMENTARY! The movie was designed to get a response and it did. It was the ignorant audiance (including President Woodrow Wilson) who took it as 110% gospel fact! The movie for the time was trying to take a SOUTHERN LOOK at the **** and a view of the BLACK RACE!
Joey 11/01/2010
It is a movie of rascism and hate. Singing in The Rain is one million times better than this.
-
PLYMOUTH ADVENTURE aired in August as part of Gene Tierney's SUTS. Maybe they have hit their yearly quota with it. LOL
-
Wouldn't it be interesting if Spike Lee remade BIRTH OF A NATION?
I'd like to see how he could take the same original source material and tell it more objectively. Maybe he would be too biased in the other direction.
-
Well, I didn't mean to comment specifically on Obama's abilities as a leader. I was remarking about the historical significance of his making it to high office.
I think if D.W. Griffith were around today, he'd be making films like Oliver Stone and Michael Moore do, with his old prejudices still in-tact. I think his views were not necessarily confined to his era, but to a certain way of life and attitude that prevails in many regions of the U.S.
-
I had a thought about this thread when I went for a cup of coffee:
I think screwball probably has roots in Shakespeare. The scene of Pyramus and Thisby (the play within a play in MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM) is a highly screwball scenario. The scene at the beginning of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (the play, not the films) where an old drunken man thinks he's rich and that a young man is his female companion. Later, in TAMING OF THE SHREW, the identity mixups that occur when the men are wooing Bianca.
But probably screwball goes back to the Greek comedies. Hollywood's screenwriters and directors did not invent this style of storytelling. They borrowed from what came before and helped comedy evolve.
-
Thanks gagman for explaining Griffy's use of the title. That does make sense. But in a way it's ironic, because the south did not stay a separate nation, except in thought.
Do you know what my greatest thought was while watching this film???
What would ole Griffy do if he lived now and he witnessed Obama becoming president? Those scenes with the black characters in congress being told to put their shoes on was extremely stereotypical...it was the director's argument that they were not qualified for high office. And now we have an African-descended president leading our country.
-
I hope you're not suggesting...heaven forbid...
...I need a moment to take a deep breath...
I honestly hope you are not saying that anti-semitic (Christian) films are okay, because Jews are in the minority and most Christians will bolster these films at the box office. Or that you are saying it's okay to have a pro-Aryan film cuz those n-words have ROOTS.
Please do not let that be what you are saying. LOL
-
Well, that explains it...but I am still dissatisfied with that rationale.
I think color means integration and tolerance. Black-and-white, to me, symbolizes segregation and intolerance.
Since most of the cast in PLEASANTVILLE is white, them hopping into a world of color should not be about their internal states as much as it should be about their external life and how they assimilate into a world that has all shades and varieties.
Somehow, I don't think the director of PLEASANTVILLE approached it the way I do. LOL
The film only made $9 million.
-
I haven't heard of Impact...I will have to look for it.
These channels help fill in the gaps...like when you are looking for a certain film, one that is not commercially available yet...and TCM never schedules it. I like to hope that TCM programmers will cycle in every MGM and Warners film, but the truth is they don't...either because they lack the time or the inclination.
-
TORCHY is one of the rare female leads in this realm. She and NANCY DREW.
-
Great...so you noticed a good thing a year ago. My local cable station just picked it up. I have a feeling it's just the beginning for THIS. I see it becoming more 'branded' into a niche-type channel.
They seem to like scheduling films starring Burt Lancaster and Charlie Sheen.
-
I am waiting for posters to say the films are not in widescreen format.
The way I use a channel like AMC or THIS is rather simple. For a long time, I had been curious about SEPARATE TABLES. It aired today and will air again later in the month. This was an opportunity for me to sample the film and decide if I want to order it when it becomes available on Netflix or if I want to buy it. I loved it so much that I think I will probably purchase it.
So while TCM and FMC may be the uptown buffet, AMC and THIS are more along the lines of a local greasy spoon or fast-food joint where I still get to see my friends Burt, Kirk, & Broderick. But we don't always sit at separate tables, sometimes we're at the counter just getting a cup of coffee.
-
> Admit it, you have an agenda of your own. You enjoy watching the movie because you know that you will be offended.
I can think of more entertaining ways to be offended. Let me assure you of that. LOL
-
The biggest problem I have with him, aside from his pro-Aryan views, is that I dislike his over-use of the intercutting. He tampers too much in the editing process. He is not an advocate of the long take. And you would think with those scenes of the bolted down camera, he would let something play longer...but he intersperses footage from another set-up and does all this cutting away and cutting back.
Now: the one thing I am a fan of is that I think he understands *story*. The narrative is logically divided into: antebellum scenes, the beginning of the war, the battlefield, victory for the north, Lincoln's assassination (probably my favorite sequence), then '40 acres and a mule,' followed by the rise of the Klan, into the kidnapping sequence and lastly, the rescue.
-
One thing that is not different in the 65 remake is that it is again filmed in black-and-white. I think it was done again in the 70s and I suspect that it was in color that time.
-
Another problem with NEVER SAY GOODBYE: they cast the always wonderful S.Z. Sakall (a Hungarian) in the role of Luigi, an Italian restauranteur. The only one I felt was right in that cast, aside from the little girl Philippa, was Lucille Watson in her usual domineering role as Flynn's mother-in-law.
-
I've seen enough to know.
The film contained many interior scenes...and the camera did not seem to move at all inside the mansion set. It was pulled back to the edge of the stage to allow us to see the downstairs and the upstairs and the connecting staircase. The characters fritted their way up and down. They moved around in front of a comatose camera operator.
I don't think all of the Klan's ride was filmed ahead of them on a moving truck. Many times it seemed as if the camera was positioned on the side of the road and photographed them at a 45-degree angle.
Still, let's say Griffy put the camera on a truck for most of those ride shots...that was one tiny fraction of the film and hardly justifies calling it must-see or revolutionary, or cough-cough, a classic.
-
I think you are veering into a discussion about THIS versus that. LOL
It's not a comparison. It's an _announcement_. THIS is a venue to catch some MGM & United Artists films and television programs that may not be available elsewhere. Consider it a _resource_...an extra _option_, not an alternative.
In my original post, I discussed how one can avoid the ads. If we are no longer able to press fast-forward on the DVR remote, then I ask ladies and gentlemen, what has the world come to???
-
Okay, Harry, maybe you are right about that. I ordered the Rene Claire version thru Netflix. I am going to watch it the next chance I get.
The sex scene was most likely not in the original. LOL
-
> Excellent writing is excellent writing, whatever the source material.
But in the case of THE AWFUL TRUTH, it is a source that predates the talkies and originates on stage.
> I think you are mistaken when you say that good screwball comedy...did not have stage antecedents.
I think the comedy of manners on stage was the antecedent for all these films. It evolved to become more exaggerated and farcical, usually with social commentary thrown in about the U.S. caste system.
> I DO like the many 30s screwball comedies (as well as some from later years), and if I am biased towards them, it's because most of the acknowledged classics (I really do hate repeating myself) came out in that decade, and most of those from later, especially the inferior 50s remakes, do not compare.
>
Those are the classics acknowledged by you, Arturo. LOL I am sure that there are fans of the remakes that came later. And there are fans of the screwball comedies that are being made today (yes, there are some...they are now fused with romantic comedies).
The idea that there is a PURE screwball format seems unreasonable. Is there a PURE western? Or a PURE horror film? Technically, all dramatic action springs from the melodrama.
-
Right...because if we said that the definition of anything screwball relies completely on the concept of 'mania' or a manic personality, then Martha Raye would be the queen of it. And Bette Midler would be a close second. LOL
Frankly my dear, I don't give a Clark Gable!
in General Discussions
Posted
DAMN YANKEES ran into censorship trouble in the U.K. over the title. It was renamed WHAT LOLA WANTS (after Gwen Verdon's character) to avoid using the word 'damn.'