CaveGirl
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Posts posted by CaveGirl
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On 9/13/2016 at 10:29 PM, slaytonf said:
Like a masterwork by Bach. The exposition of a theme, and its variations, is unequaled for the way it presents its proposition, and elaborates its corollaries. Elegant, spare, with not an unnecessary stunt, or missed bit of business. The comedy is not solely visual. The best of the aural humor are the sounds the piano makes bouncing down the steps. For all of its ostensibly broad humor, it has sly, witty, and satiric undercurrents.
I'm sure Godel, Escher and Bach would all agree!
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This is an interesting discussion and I have no valid opinion on it for either side. Don't know whether Hedy really did have the smarts or not, but it reminds me of the show on the History Channel, called "Ancient Aliens".
For some reason, on that show, any supposed leap of inventiveness in the history of mankind, is attributed not to the humans but always to aliens. They seem to believe that no human ever is born with a brain that even without a serious degree could possibly have come up with something above and beyond what is considered human potential. Not even poor old Leonardo is considered to be bright enough to have come up with some of his inventions, and we know he was not schooled in those areas technically, but mostly had art training. No, all they ever say on the show is something like "Is it possible that ancient aliens may have had a hand in helping Leonardo come up with the idea for a helicopter?" This goes on and on and frankly is annoying to anyone who thinks logically in my opinion. It's not that I don't think it possible there are aliens, but I also think many humans might not need reverse engineering to come up with viable ideas, as in Tesla.
Anyone reading books about Shakespeare are treated to the same premise that old Will was not bright enough to have created his master works and that it had to be a person more scholarly like Bacon or someone of higher lineage. Is it not possible that some people are just naturally bright and might have self discovery in various subjects without achieving a degree from Oxford, and come up with something brilliant?
I look forward to a final evaluation of whether Hedy did or did not have total control of this concept, and please report it here so we can all read of it. I believe in higher education but still do not think that a person without it could not be the superior of the one who has the diploma on the wall.-
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Love it!
I took my nephew to see "Uncle Buck" and I haven't recovered yet. -
16 hours ago, calvinnme said:
See, when you are a good looking woman men give you jewelry, furniture, condos, and apparently patents to telecommunications technology.
Even good looking women should always have Mad Money in their Cordey clutch to call for a ride if things get messy.
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Name your favorite early film performance from the WWII tailgunner.
TCM is showing his "Crime Wave" from the early 1950's tonite and luckily for us, although directed by Andre de Toth, it is not in 3-D like "House of Wax".
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10 minutes ago, TopBilled said:
Oh boy, that's a new one. Nobody ever told me that before!
Ya know, he was the one who said the reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated!
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On 5/17/2018 at 9:43 AM, TopBilled said:
We should point out that television movies and television series also have propaganda in them.
I watched an episode of The Jeffersons on Starz last night that I gave a 10 rating on the IMDb. It was very propagandistic, but worked beautifully.
George and Tom (Sherman Hemsley and Franklin Cover) want to attend a meeting in their apartment building that Tom heard about after a series of burglaries. Supposedly a group of men want to get rid of undesirables in the building they feel are behind the increase in crime. George is running late to the meeting so neighbor Harry Bentley (Paul Benedict) goes with Tom, and George will show up later.
The guys don't realize this meeting is attended by all white men, and this group is a chapter of the K*K*K. Where the undesirables the other men want to get rid of are black tenants. The group members don't know Tom has a black wife, but when George shows up they realize Tom is an N-lover. The N-word was used once and referred to several times.
This was a seventh season episode produced in 1981. It's called "Sorry, Wrong Meeting" and was scripted by two white sitcom writers (Peter Casey & David Lee). I thought the whole thing was brilliantly executed, even if it was didactic; they kept the liberal rhetoric to a minimum. There's no happy ending in the episode, which I think was also a smart move, because the racial prejudices of the world cannot be solved within a typical sitcom format. It was funny, sad, topical and realistic.
Any review with the term "didactic" in it, is one to be reckoned with, TB!
Your write-up of this episode, though of a comedic nature tackling a serious subject reminds me a bit of the tv movie, called "The Guardian" from the 1980's with Martin Sheen and Lou Gossett, Jr. Only saw it once but it stuck with me. I wish I'd seen this Jefferson's episode and will look for it. Thanks!-
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On 5/17/2018 at 8:54 AM, calvinnme said:
"The North Star" AKA "Armored Attack" shows Soviet youth as happy peasants under the watch of that grandfather like figure Stalin until those nasty Nazis come along and ruin their workers' paradise.
And you are saying this is "propaganda", Calvin?
Just kidding, of course it is. Just like the people in "Green Pastures".
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On 5/17/2018 at 1:52 AM, Dargo said:
My favorite "propaganda" film of all time is...
(...suck it Winston...you just never "got it", did ya, you tubby little superfluous-u user, you?!...it's a GREAT film, and DID serve your cause well!)
Good pick, Dargo and I bought that during my Powell and Pressburger obsession days. It also has Anton Walbrook in it, which means it is essential viewing.
Enjoy the use of "u" in the nicer words for "blimp" like avoir du pois.
Maybe if Powell had only called "Peeping Tom" as a film, something like "The Life of Colonel Tom Peeper" it wouldn't have ended his career.-
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You are so much like Mark Twain, TB that I think you might be he reincarnated.
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On 5/16/2018 at 12:12 AM, FilmSnob said:
The Odessa Steps in Battleship Potemkin. Brilliant as Eisenstein was, he didn't build the steps.
But they are wider at the bottom and narrow towards the top to give the impression of greater depth than there really is.
That is fascinating, FS! I never noticed that but always get thrilled seeing that superlative sequence. Eisenstein's use of montage and differing concepts for film is always so innovative. The optical tricks of making pillars larger at bottom or carytids smaller at the top with the heads is instructive as a film technique too apparently. Thanks for submitting your knowledge to the thread. I can't even think of anyone who is as amazing as Eisenstein in creating third images on film, as he did in things like "Que Viva Mexico".
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On 5/15/2018 at 11:48 PM, spauldingd said:
I think a great use of forced perspective was in Shock Corridor by Samuel Fuller. I just watched it again recently after watching Unsane in the theater. Little people are used in the background to make the corridor seem longer.
Love that Samuel Fuller movie! Thanks for mentioning that interesting use of FP, which I'd forgotten about, Spaulding.
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Any poll that includes "Letter from an Unknown Woman" has some street cred!
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Martha Mitchell
Billy Mitchell
Dennis Mitchell
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Spence, is this a Marry, Shag or Kill question?
Well, I would kill Bing for sure, but can't decide on the other two sadly.
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That documentary is wonderful, as you say, Yancey!
I've seen it but can't recall if it was on TCM. I think not, but don't remember the source. I do remember seeing many of the scenes and watching Laughton's performance is magical.
Though I will say one of the best boxed sets I've ever bought is the BBC television production from I think the 1980's with Derek Jacobi and Peter O'Toole's wife, Sian Philips [?] as Livia. Unbelievably mesmerizing production, and even the opening credits are enjoyable to watch. John Hurt as Caligula is amazing too.
Auto-correction: The BBC series was from the 1970's.-
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On 5/17/2018 at 12:55 AM, Dargo said:
Actually CG, your reference to this never to be substantiated rumor about Clara's supposed "o*r*g*i*e*s"(and most likely false...at least according to all the football players supposedly involved and questioned later in life about this) should have been to UCLA's crosstown rival, the USC football team.
OMG! I am mortified to have confused the USC team with the UCLA team. Thanks, Dargo for catching that mistake.
Now which team was John Wayne on as I think the rumor got started because of him, maybe???
Don't know though if I can believe any testimony by football players due to much frontal lobe injuries on the playing field that we keep hearing about and in those days, they only wore the light helmets, am I right?
Enjoyed the clever insertion of "o*r*g*i*e*s" into your post!
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I love movies with Royalty included. I've seen ones with the King, Elvis...with Duke Ellington, with Count Basie and Prince, and enjoyed them all.
There are also ones with pretenders to the throne, which can be fun. Name your favorites and royalty that you have never seen but wish had been filmed, for example something like a performance in "Beach Party" with the Viscounts doing the hit "Harlem Nocturne".
Warning: Do not pronounce the Viscounts name as...VIS, rhyming with Swiss, and COUNTS, rhyming with flounce, or you will sound like an uneducated American boob. Say, VI, that rhymes with LIE and all will be well with the world.
vis·countˈvīˌkount/noun-
a British nobleman ranking above a baron and below an earl.
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On 5/17/2018 at 1:26 AM, Dargo said:
First...another terrific thread premise here, CG. And once again, very astutely posed.
Secondly, and to answer your question here...the first film that crossed my mind which I think encompasses this same sort of "disorienting" cinematic experience(at least it has always felt this way to me anyway) would be Apocalypse Now.
In my view this film has always been a great example of that old saw about "the journey being more important than the destination".
(...and which in a way seems like another way of expressing the same thought as your thread's premise here)
You are so kind, Dargo. I can see making that generous contribution to your shell company has softened your feelings toward my posts. And yes, "Apocalypse Now" definitely has a disorienting effect as does the daily miasma of napalm in the air. Shoot, even being in the movie could cause disorientation, cuz didn't Sheen have a heart attack during shooting or something like that? Thanks, Dargo!
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On 5/16/2018 at 7:24 PM, cigarjoe said:
You should catch the 1978 remake with Mitchum, it follows the book closer and leaves out the tacked on romance, the story is brought up to the then present 1978, and the local is switched to the UK, but it works in it's own curious way.
Thanks, CigarJoe! I have seen that film and I actually really enjoyed it, just based on its own cache. You are so right that it has its own charm and works, even though Mitchum is a bit old for the part, but still, Mitchum is always fun to watch. I love reading Chandler's works, and recall some saying he wrote beautifully but in person was such an old curmudgeon. Always thought his wife Sissy [?] was the inspiration for the detective story called "The Chill" by Ross MacDonald.
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20 hours ago, TopBilled said:
Spence,
To clarify I did not say TCM would be folding in four years. But I have said that I think TCM and FilmStruck will merge, especially if TCM moves away from being just a cable channel.
It's all speculation...we'll see what happens. Sometimes change is a good thing!
I heard via the grapevine that you also predicted n the next four years, the collapse of Amazon AND the marriage of Meghan and Harry, TopBilled.
What do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Jean Dixon, Junior?-
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23 hours ago, midnight08 said:
That's great news however I wonder why they didn't include the Thelma Todd/Zasu Pitts shorts as well? This would have been the complete collection.
Yeah, I love Thelma but sometimes Patsy can drive me crazy. If I'd been Rosemary when Patsy kept trying to rock my devil baby way too fast at Ruth's apartment in the Dakota, I would have swatted Patsy with anything I could get my hands on. But I love Zasu so much so will wait for her shorts to be released too. Thanks for the info!
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On 5/16/2018 at 4:48 AM, spence said:
*"THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD: FRANCIS (Albert) SINATRA-(l95-98) always said everytime Judy sang, she died a little bit more and more unquote She was barely 4'11 & 1/2 as well
Really? I'm talking about her height, as Jud Holliday seemed much taller. Not quite sure what Old Blue Eyes might have meant by that, but maybe he was drinking with Dino when he said it? Thanks, Spence.
Addendum: Spence, not that I believe everything I read online but the IMDB has Judy's height at 5'8" which is a lot taller than 4'11". Wait, could you be talking about Judy Garland and NOT Judy Holliday since that seems more logical, especially with the singing bit?
The Music Box (1932): The Most Perfect Movie Ever Made
in General Discussions
Posted
Carson does often use some of Ollie's [or Babe as old friends called him] physicality, vocal mannerisms and the playing with the tie bit, to emulate him.