Sepiatone
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Posts posted by Sepiatone
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I have my own ideas about the obesity problem, James, and it has nothing to do with lack of excersize or eating too much. But there's another aspect ot consider:
I drive around (rather, WHILE I drive around) listening to an all news radio station. Once, recently, there was a story about some university study( I forget the university, but they ALL seem to be doing some kind of "study", don't they?) found that since 1950, restraunt plate and portion sizes have increased 50%. Where once a quarter pound hamburger was considered extra large, it is now thought of as smaller than average.
I have at least lived long enough to know that is all true. When I was a kid, something the size of a WHOPPER would have been cut four ways and shared by the entire family. Two of my uncles used to own a local restraunt in the early to mid '60's, and when it closed, several of the dishes, cups and glasses went to various members of the family. When my Mom died, I wound up with a plastic storage tub full of the restraunt's dinner plates. And they are noticably smaller than the plates I have in my cupboard, which are the average size of what you can buy in today's market. But when their place opened, those plates were the industry norm. But I digress...
Tiki, I can't blame social media for young people today thinking they're the center of the universe. I look at parents and society in general. People mistakenly thinking you can buy "self esteem". Or making the mistake of instilling NOT a sense of self esteem in their children, but "self centeredness". "You are special", "You are unique", "If you do your best, that's all that matters"(let's forget that their best might SUCK). When I was a kid, if you did well in class, you got a star pasted on your forehead. NOW, kids get trophys just for showing up! It was claimed that by singling out the kids who did good by pasting that star made all the other kids feel bad about themselves. What I remember was wanting to TRY HARDER so I could get a star, too. I think that was the intention in the first place.
Kids sports leagues with no winners or losers. Special certificates for failing( "At least you TRIED"), no insistance for accountability, TIME OUTS instead of honest to God DISCIPLINE. No wonder things are getting out of hand!
My friend's daughter claimed she tried the "old fashioned" approach to discipline on her daughter. The girl reared up on Mom and said, "I HATE you!", and the Mom crumpled into tears. "How would YOU feel if your child said that to YOU?" she asked. I told her I wished I had a DOLLAR for each time I heard that crap. I suggested she keep up with the OLD SCHOOL, and buy her daughter a REAL fiddle to play. At least one thing parents need to get across to their kids is that no matter how "special" or "unique" and wonderful THEY think the kid is, once they're out the front door and into the rest of the world, THAT world doesn't GIVE A DAMN. THAT would be one small step for Mom and Dad, but a GIANT LEAP for mankind!
Sepiatone
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I thought it was 50% of republicans use pencil and paper, the other 50% use chisel and stone slab, 50% dems use mac, the other 50% use cheese and 100% greenies use soup can and string.
Sepiatone
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Television "GOD SQUAD" perrenial PAT ROBERTSON has been maligned as a crackpot for insisting there's a correlation between the increased usage of artificial sweetner Aspartame and abhorrent public behavior. Claiming since it's introduction, there's been an increase in incivility, road rage, domestic violence, violence in general, the need for "anger management" workshops and the like.
I don't subscribe to his RELIGIOUS beliefs, but in this case, I think he's on to something. I often tried to tell anyone who would listen that since they started removing all the "good" stuff from foods( ie: FAT free, SUGAR free, CAFFIENE free, etc.), people have increasingly started to get **** off at virtualy nothing important. I would often end by claiming that they're probably HUNGRY! But now I wonder...
Sepiatone
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Sorry, Hibi. Don't even know what PLAYBOOK is.
One thing I noticed on the Oscar broadcast concerning LES MISERABLES: For years, my literature teachers, many librarians, and even the guy from FRANCE that I knew at work always pronounced the book title as "LAY MIZZER-AHB". On the Oscar show, more than one person called it "LAY MIZZER-AHB-LEH".
Did I HEAR right?
Sepiatone
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Since I no longer subscibe to my cable server's programming guide( due to innaccuracies), take no newspaper, or the TCM magazine, I have to wait until prime time to look at the onscreen guide to see what's coming up. On any other channel, I know what peice of crap "reality" show is starting six weeks or more in advance!
I'm not suggesting TCM starts running those annoying graphics on the bottom of the screen during movies(AKK!), but more promotion in between of what's coming up in the next night or so would help.
I have no tablet, and I'm not a twit, so that aspect doesn't interest ME, but that's no reason NOT to make us of them for TCM. Good ideas. You should approach TCM for a JOB of some kind.
Sepiatone
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Things are different here at the rock I live under.
On Oscar night, I HAD heard of all the movies nominated EXCEPT *Silver Linings Playbook* . Never saw an ad for it. Never heard the frequent moviegoers I know MENTION it!
MY guess is that it must be good!
But I haven't seen any of them. However, last night on PBS, there WAS a program about the "real life" ARGO. And it DID sound like a movie waiting to be made!
On your list, the ones I really wish to see are:
ARGO
LIFE OF PI
LINCOLN
DJANGO UNCHAINED
I've long heard all the music of LES MISERABLES, and didn't care for any of it. My only interest in it would be that it's a long favorite book and story, and for some time I thought Jackman would make a good Valjean. Plus all the clips I've seen look good from a cinematic standpoint.
Sepiatone
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I was beginning to think we were already ON Mars!
It can all be taken in a matter of perspective. My Grandmother thought my Mom's generation was nuts. My Great-Grandfather thought my GRAND MOTHER'S generation was nuts. MY Mom thought MY generation was nuts. But it seemed to stop with me.
As my "children" are 40 and 37 respectively, I've found them more able to amalgamate youthful exhuberance with a mature sense of responsibility better than MY generation. As they get older, they seem to accept the inevitability of aging easier than most of us "Boomers". They more easily still look at the world through young eyes, in spite of the fact that those eyes might now require bifocals. Their similarity to my age group is that they recognize what individuality really means, while, as my older daughter put it, the newer crop of kids are more "uniform" oriented than any age group before them.
My Mother passed away in 1999. but at the time, the fashion of the "saggy pants" and oddly positioned baseball caps was in full force. At one point, she apologized to me for once thinking MY age group, when young, dressed ridiculous.
I sometimes pass the hours writing songs. I once DID write one about "American Youth", and since I know that there's no possibility of it ever being published, would like to share the first verse to help sum up what I was observing:
There he goes, down the street, you can see him;
Brain working just in spurts;
Hair no longer than a five o'clock shadow;
Peirced everywhere it hurts;
Sagging pants and a hundred dollar sneakers;
Talkin' like he got the flu;
His shirt says his name is TOMMY HILFIGER;
But I don't believe it's true!
Anyone of any age can live anyway they choose. It's AMERICA after all. What bothers me is, when modern trends in human behavior seem to serve no purpose other than break down common civility and courtesy. Our family now is suffering a breaking apart ironically due to "social media". Too many people I know get on FACEBOOK and write anything they want about anybody thinking it's their RIGHT to do so, and seem to think there should be no consequence. The problem is, what they write eventually gets back to the people they write scathingly about. When THAT person reacts and responds on that same medium, and truthfully unmasks the flaws and distortions of what they write, the one who wrote the crap in the first place DELETES it, leaving anyone else who logs on to their page to believe the disortion and glom all sorts of pity and "love" for the liar. At least, in MY case, this is the situation. People get together in space only. Once there, they are so involved in their handhelds to take much notice of what's going on around them. The original source of some things are entirely overlooked. When the movie *Alice In Wonderland* was out, one nephew, 13 at the time, asked, "What do you think is better: The movie out now, or that old Disney cartoon?" My answer? "The BOOK!" It was NOT well recieved.
My only solace is in the fact that way too sooner than they realize, THEIR kids are going to drive them CRAZY! I hope I'm still around to see it.
Sepiatone
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Yeah, THANKS.
I was gonna bring up that GAP ad, but couldn't remember that it WAS GAP.
I can sleep now.
Sepiatone
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The big difference here Froy, is that I'm NOT talking about ART!
Sepiatone
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She wouldn't be FRANCINE BORDEAUX, would she?
Sepiatone
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I guess we'd all agree that SETH McFARLANE would say, "She does look good WET!"
Sepiatone
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As long as the picture resolution is good, I wouldn't really sweat it too much. If TCM can't give you a satisfactory answer, try the tech support of your cable provider. Not having the HD feature put onto my set, I wouldn't know. But if letterboxing never bothered you before, why should it now?
On the other hand, I'm reminded of what my nephew pulled on my brother-in-law.
Whenever he'd (the b-i-l) watch a DVD, the picture looked "compressed", like what we all used to see at the end of a "cinemascope" movie on conventional TV that was panned and scanned until the closing credits, and then everything in the picture would be taller and thinner. Well, all his DVDs had that look, and he couldn't figure it out. I had a hunch, and told him to check the settings on his DVD player. Sure enough, someone( turned out to be my nephew) put the settings on "compress". The nephew owned up to it and said he did so because he "didn't like" those black bars( letterboxing) at the top and bottom of the screen. All I could say was, "Well, little minds DO get distracted by the most insignificant things, don't they?"
Sepiatone
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In the "I liked the Oscars" thread, Fred C. Dobbs vented his dislike with the term "sicko" several times, warning us to take notice and put in check the direction our culture seems to be headed. To hell in a handbasket, his opinion seems to be. And I, an old middle-to-left traveling "hippie" can't really argue with it. While I always eschewed the notion of "sacred cows" and felt the need to do away with many of them, I never promoted the BARBEQUEING of them!
My own daughter reminded me of this, unwittingly, by recently( and facetiously) chastising me on her upbringing.
"You ruined my LIFE", she began, "You and your insisting me and my sister have MANNERS, and always to act like CIVILIZED human beings in public! And all that crap about talking as if we had BRAINS in our heads! If you hadn't have done THAT, WE might be on TV now, like those JERSEY SHORE morons, or HONEY BOO-BOO and the GYPSIES. We might even have moved to Myrtle Beach and lived in a trailer park and would have been STARS! But, NO! YOU had to push us into being RESPECTABLE. To be the kind of person the public laughs WITH and not AT! THANKS!"
So it seems even a generation younger than mine recognizes the fact that our "culture" is quickly becoming one that is usually seen growing in a petri dish.
It behooves me to think of an intelligent sounding reason why anyone would be entertained by the uncouth behavior of undereducated sleezeballs living in trailer parks( Author's note: It is NOT my belief that all people living in trailer parks are "sleezeballs". Over the years, several good friends and relatives have lived in trailer parks), or South Boston. Or WHY anyone would CARE about them in the first place. But them that produce the programming feel there's gold in them thar empty shells. What's troubling is, they're RIGHT!
It's hard for parents to raise their children to have any level of self respect when those who can't even spell "CAT", even if you spot them the "C" and "T", become millionaires. Just by acting like idiots. It's even MORE dismaying when you realize it isn't an ACT.
Fred, my hat's off to you. You saw it true and called it. I propose no answer here, for I wouldn't know where to begin.
Sepiatone
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Clark Gable? Well....
I kinda always likened him to Robert Preston. Anyway...
He WAS a well known and liked name from my childhood. Always a likeable character. And even though most of us "boomers" know him primarily from television( I too, like IRON HORSE), he did make some pretty good movies.
Let's make bets NOW if he'll be mentioned in next year's Oscar "Memoriam".
Sepiatone
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I must have been watching the "Boobs" number while in a parralel universe. I actually thought it a clever jab at the purile sexism in the motion picture industry. For whatever "artistic" excuse a director chooses to push at us in giving reasons for gratuitous nudity, at least half of the movie going public( read: MEN) only notices the boobs. Any "artistic" statement the film maker THINKS he's making gets lost in the bounces. Don't hate Seth for saying what others are probably thinking.
Sepiatone
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My wife and I frequent a family restraunt that offers a "senior discount". The age requirement is 60. I've started asking for it when I was 55. And I'd GET it!
I didn't know if I should have been happy with getting the discount, or dismayed that I was NEVER asked if I QUALIFIED!
Sigh...
Sepiatone
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As I've said somewhere earlier, they could shorten this show by relegating certain awards to those earlier ceremonies. Like "Sound Editing". If the idea is to up the ratings and entertain the television audience, most of who might not have as yet seen any of the movies in contention, then shoving some categories to another ceremony makes sense. Name me ONE "Oscar pool" that has the nominees for sound editing on it. Yeah, I know it's a vital part of the completion of a motion picture, but WHO really goes to SEE a movie because "so-and-so" did the SOUND?
DROP some of the "nobody knows WHO the F*** they are" tech categories, and stick to the actors, actresses, and film score wins.
STOP obsessing on the needless "red carpet" crap.
Let performances of the nominees for "Best Song" be the ONLY musical numbers on the show.
Just let the FAMILY of some dead film critic do the mourning.
Whoever in this forum that asked "WHY do the Oscars need a THEME?" is absolutely correct!
Insist that those who win needn't thank everybody down to their elementary school CROSSING guard in their acceptance speech.
These ideas MIGHT make the whole evening move along at an acceptable pace.
Sepiatone
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I just read an online article about the memorial "omissions", and discovered that family members of the departed, as do the award nominees, have to campaign to get some of the departed mentioned. THAT'S just wrong!
Sepiatone
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The "Special Edition" of CE has the footage where Dreyfus enters the mothership and we see the interior. But the scene where Dreyfus is in discussion with other workers at the power plant before he goes off into the back roads is cut. Have no idea why, since it was already longer than the average movie, leaving it in wouldn't have made much of a difference.
I always thought this was a cleverly concieved and executed sci-fi movie, in spite of a few, very minor effects issues. The discovery of the WWII airplanes in the Mexican desert, the ship in the Asian desert, all the people in India singing that same tune, the psycological affect the sightings had on those who witnessed them, and last, but not least, the scene in the airport control tower. Masterful build up to what the audience already knows must be coming. There are countless little things that most directors would have not bothered with that makes this an exceptional movie in this genre.
Sepiatone
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Y'know, I DON'T CARE! I mean no disrespect to Mr. Hamlish, but his was NOT the most tragic passing last year. And he was NOT the most iconic film composer. Sure, he was very talented. Of COURSE, we all know he and Streisand collaborated on many well recieved songs and recordings. But it looked to me they tried to make it seem HOLLYWOOD has died along WITH him! And having Babs at the ceremony was treated as if it were the SECOND COMING! And all it wound up being was a nose-thumbing of disrespect to those NOT mentioned or given tribute.
What an embarassment!
Sepiatone
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I also noticed there was no "sweep" this year. And it seems to me they could have squeezed the "Lifetime Achievement" in the spot instead of having Streisand warbling.
And I STILL don't get the adoration people have for Adele! I actually DOZED OFF during her "Oscar winning" song!
And I laughed at Queen Latifah jumping in announcing the winner while Zellweger kept squinting at the card!
Sepiatone
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The MOVIE, hands down!
The TV show, while OK, still is no comparison.
Sepiatone
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McFarland has a base and straightforward sense of humor. Not to everyone's taste for sure, but in MY humble opinion, he was not the worst host ever. Nor the best. THAT'S a matter of opinon.
No celebrity can have a thin skin when HE'S involved, that's certain. But I think Affleck was upset at the TRUTH of McFarland's joke ( "The mission was SO top secret that the DIRECTOR of the film is STILL unknown to the Academy!") than the joke itself. I'm STILL chuckling at the line, "The only actor to get inside Lincoln's head was JOHN WILKES BOOTH". My favorite gag was the last song he and Chenowith sang, dedicated to the "losers". Surprisingly good singing voice that boy has!
Somewhere in the late '80's, I think, someone decided it was better to say "The Oscar goes to..." instead of "The winner is...". Likely some PC horseship about NOT offending anyone. But face it, if you DIDN'T get the statuette, you LOST! So get OVER it, LOSER! Maybe it was Seth's HONEST humor some didn't care for.
I already gave my opinion of that God-awful "in Memoriam" segment in another thread. Words cannot express how abysmally terrible it was.
By the way...I must have been in the bathroom or something...WHO got the "Lifetime Achievement" award?
Sepiatone
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Diller was also in *Eight On The Lam* and *The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell* with BOB HOPE.
I sat up in my chair when they ended the "In Memoriam" segment with Babs singing Marvin's "The Way We Were". I knew instantly there was a whole host of people they left out! Yeah, Griffith was one. Among others.
The most shameful memorial ever presented by the academy.
Sepiatone
How do you know you are old?
in General Discussions
Posted
"Old" jokes? OK:
An 80 year old man shows up in a confessional booth. The priest asks him what sin he wanted to confess. The old man says, "After 60 years of marriage and never ONCE being unfaithful to my wife, I had sex with 18 year old twin sisters." The priest said, "Well, after that many years of faithful marriage, it doesn't seem that bad. You know how to make your pennance?" The old man says, "I don't know anything about that. I'm jewish". The priest asks, "What? Jewish? Then WHY do you come in here TELLING me all this?" The old man replied:
"Hey. I'm telling EVERYBODY!"
When leaving church one Sunday after services, an old man stops to shake the hand of the minister as he's walking out the door. The minister, delighted to see him in church says, "I suppose at your age, you're starting to think a lot about the hereafter, aren't you?" The old man says, "Oh, I think about the hereafter a LOT. Whenever I open a cupboard or closet door, or walk into a room I ask, 'What am I here after?'"
Sepiatone