Palmerin
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Posts posted by Palmerin
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Yesterday night I watched BAD BOYS on FLIX.
Among the many clichés I caught in this 1982 production are the following:
the Hispanic characters speak such poor Spanish that you cannot guess which is their ethnicity. In TRAFFIC my fellow Puerto Rican, Benicio del Toro, speaks such bad Spanish that nobody would recognize him as a Puerto Rican;
the background music for the Hispanic characters is salsa, obviously the only Latin music known in the USA. If this story were set in, say, Germany, the background music would undoubtedly be the German equivalent of salsa;
the tall blonde villainous boy of Nordic ancestry is nicknamed Viking; apparently the only thing that most people know about Scandinavia is that it was the home ground of the Vikings.
A producer famous for his silly statements once said that what the movies needed were new clichés to take the place of old clichés. What new clichés can you add to this list?
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What do the Westerns RIVER OF NO RETURN, THE TALL MEN, and RIO BRAVO have in common? That their stars, respectively Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, and Angie Dickinson, all wear at some moment in the story high heeled pointy toed pumps of the 1950s.
What's with that clearly anachronistic footwear that made men so hot and bothered at that point in the 20th century? Personally I find it grotesque and ugly and not at all attractive.
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One subject which obsesses Mankiewicz to the point that he is sure to mention it whenever he introduces an epic film from the 50s is the hostility that the movie industry felt toward the small screen at that time.
When did the movie industry discard such a myopic attitude? Steve McQueen, for ex., started his movie career not long after having cut his teeth on the TV of the 50s.
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When she joins James Garner, will TCM be able to broadcast MARY POPPINS and THE SOUND OF MUSIC?
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Going back to the seed of this thread: why are film makers so careless when trying to get the feminine look of an historical period, when there is so much evidence available of how beautiful the women of the past were? Judging from the portraits by David and Gerard, that contemporary of Napoleon I, Madame Recamier, was a stunning beauty who looked like a cross between Joan Collins and Jean Simmons. If I were to make a movie that featured that lady, you can be sure I would work real hard to make the actress portraying her look exactly like the real thing, instead of like a woman of the 21st century who for no comprehensible reason is wearing the fashions of the time of the first Napoleon.
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Your correct that it would make no sense for characters in movies made for the American (English), market to speak anything but English regardless of their actual native language. Of course if there is very limited talk in a foreign language that can be handled with subtittles, but one would have to be very clueless to not know why everyone is speaking English in a film where the characters wouldn't be speaking English.
Also I don't think it works well when a film tries to be 'real' with a mix of English and too many subtitles or always using subtitles (e.g. some war films did this).
It doesn't make the film more 'real' to me but instead it is a distraction. Come on director; I know those dudes on that Japanese war ship don't speak English in their day to day speech!
As a Puerto Rican who grew up with subtitles in Spanish I am not bothered by them at all. As regards Japanese and other languages I love their particular sound and music. The only thing that bothers me is bad Spanish accents such as that of Benicio del Toro in TRAFFIC, which does not sound Mexican, nor Puerto Rican, nor Cuban, nor Argentinian, nor like any other Spanish accent in the world.
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To me it is silly for a screenwriter to be concerned about insulting the people of Madagascar or Leipzip.
Most movie ticket buyers of fantasy movies do NOT feel a touch of reality is necessary for movie to be watchable. Again, the proof of this is that the fantasy movies you mentioned were box office winners.
Practically everything about India in TEMPLE OF DOOM is wrong, and SS keeps getting grief over it; for ex., no Hindi would ever eat the awful food of the notorious banquet scene.
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They were movies created for the purpose of entertainment! Not even sold as "historical" This is what Hollywood and other movie and TV makers are famous for.
So the people of Madagascar should overlook that there have never been any sultans of Madagascar, and the people of Leipzig should forget that, at the time of KINGDOM, Leipzig was communist territory?
Even fantasy stories need a touch of reality to be watchable; LORD OF THE RINGS makes abundant use of horses, a very real animal known even to people who are not cowboys or jockeys.
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Arlene Martel, the veteran TV actress who proved that vulcan women can be hotties, has passed away at the age of 78.
Arlene Martel as T'Pring in the famous star trek ep "Amok Time".
Why do Vulcans all have the same slanted eyes and eyebrows, and the same ears? Are Vulcans produced the same way ants and bees are produced?
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All the way back to 1981 I have been angry with SS and GL because the Indiana Jones adventures are full of inaccuracies; for ex., in TEMPLE OF DOOM there is mention of a sultan of Madagascar--Madagascar is not Muslim, so it has never had any sultans--, and in KINGDOM OF THE SKULL Jones talks about teaching at the University of Leipzig, which at that time was part of communist Germany and therefore not likely to employ an American professor.
Earlier this year a fellow poster at IMDb.com explained to me that the world of Indiana Jones is a parallel universe where the reality of the 20th century simply does not apply.
WHAT KIND OF DEMENTED JIVE IS THAT???!!! How is one supposed to be interested in the adventures of Indiana Jones if they have no relation to reality??? Movies like THE GREAT ESCAPE and THE LONGEST DAY are interesting because they tell stories based on the reality of a real event; would you watch them if they were so fanciful and inaccurate that they would present a totally distorted image of WWII?
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What is it specifically is it you want to know?
If you want to learn about a producer's responsibilities and different approaches to the job, I recommend you read Front and Center by John Houseman and Memo From David O. Selznick.
That is part of what I want to know. I am also interested in people such as Irving Thalberg, who loved his wife, Norma Shearer, so much that he did his best to nourish and protect her career and reputation.
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In every movie I've seen about Cleopatra, she always speaks English.
That is an interesting question: what language did Cleopatra VII speak? It seems she knew several, but which one was her main language? Greek, since the house of Ptolemy was Greek?
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Nobody has asked this:
why did Hitler choose to wear a Charlot moustache?
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Stars in Westerns with contemporary hairstyles, perfect white teeth, always clean, etc. doesn't bother me. The filmmakers, at least during the studio era, wouldn't have wanted their actors to look how real people from the Gold Rush era would have looked. Having Errol Flynn (which was a stretch as it was seeing how he wasn't even American) with matted, gross hair, dirty clothes and rotted teeth (if they weren't missing already!) isn't going to bring in audiences. Having the actors look attractive in their western garb adds to the "romanticized" Hollywood version of the era, which is what I personally like. Westerns aren't my favorite genre; but there are a few here and there that are interesting. It seems that many of the Westerns made after the studio era ended tried to make their actors look more realistic.
A mistake that I do think can detract from the film is when the costumes don't match the era being portrayed. Someone cited Good News as an example of this. I agree, the 1920s have such unique fashions and it was a shame they chose to outfit everyone in contemporary clothing. Maybe they thought nobody would notice. Another example of this would be in the film Suzy. This 1936 film takes place during WWI; but the actors are clearly wearing clothing from the 30s.
I know many people will cite automobiles, guns, etc. that were not available during the era portrayed. Example: "That car they're driving is clearly a 1942 Studebaker, but this film is supposed to take place in 1940!" I don't know cars well enough to be able to make these types of observations; unless the film is from the 50s and supposed to take place in the 30s and they're driving around Chevy Bel Airs; that would be pretty obvious.
Most films have some sort of continuity errors, which I figure happen as a result of editing. An actor will have a coat slung over a chair back in one scene and all of a sudden, it's gone. Those kinds of things.
There's a fun mistake in The Adventures of Don Juan; aside from Errol Flynn's earring moving ears (maybe Don Juan had both ears pierced?). In the beginning of the film, when Don Juan, mistakenly identified as "The Duke" is escorted back to London. The filmmakers used stock footage from The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex to show the caravan walking through the town. However, Flynn, who in had appeared in 'Elizabeth and Essex' nine years earlier is clearly in the front of the pack in armor. Flynn's Don Juan character is in the back of the pack. Here we have a 1939 Errol Flynn escorting a 1948 Errol Flynn through town. Not that the two Flynn's are ever seen in the same scene; but it is amusing.
I am willing to excuse historical characters having perfect teeth. Can you imagine how ridiculous the Robin Hood of Flynn would have looked if his dazzling smile was ruined by yellow teeth, let alone missing teeth?
As for INTOLERANCE, the women from the stories set in the past look awfully 20th century. Certainly the Mountain Girl hardly looks like anybody's idea of a woman from Babylon.
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Discussing WWI inevitably leads to its cause: the Southern Slavs' desire for an unified country of their own. That leads inevitably to the question of why Yugoslavia failed so dismally. The monarchic Y ended as disastrously as the socialist one: the Croats were so resentful of the Serbs that, when the Germans and Italians invaded in 1941, the Croats did not hesitate to throw all their support to the invaders.
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1976's Silver Streak starring Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh and Richard Pryor is one of my top 5 favorite movies. However, it is only a movie so I think almost having a heart attack over burning a piece of prop paper may be an over reaction.
You remind me of a childhood friend (?!) of my mother whose sadistic idea of fun was to ruin everybody's movie watching pleasure with comments such as DON'T WORRY; THOSE ARE NOT REAL BULLETS, SO THE HERO IS NOT REALLY IN DANGER and DON'T WORRY; HE IS THE HERO, SO HE IS NOT GOING TO DIE.
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... that the women do not look at all like women of that particular period, but look instead like women of the decade when the movie was made.
In INTOLERANCE and the BEN-HUR of Niblo the women don't really look like women of past history, but instead like flappers who are dressed up for a costume party. Similarly, in THE BLUE MAX Ursula Andress wears hairdos and makeup of the 1960s, not of the time of WWI.
This goof also happens with men to a lesser extent. How many Westerns of the 1950s do you remember in which the men clearly wear 1950s' style crew cuts?
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In this mystery-comedy, the McGuffin--to use the Hitchcockian expression--is a fake Rembrandt that Patrick McGoohan is trying to unload. In one scene McGoohan is reading a LETTER OF REMBRANDT that proves the painting is fake, and then proceeds to BURN IT.
Seeing that scene almost gave me a heart attack, because only about half a dozen letters of Rembrandt survive, which means that McGoohan burned a priceless treasure infinitely more valuable than his worthless forgery!
What other spectacular blunders like this have you seen in other movies?
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My usual interest in movies is the movies themselves, not the people who produce them. However, since you folk are so knowledgeable I am going to request that you tell me about the legendary producers of the films we see at TCM.
Some are famed for being very protective and loving of their people, while others were famously hateful. I remember a gossip columnist saying of a particular producer that YOU HAD TO GET IN LINE TO HATE HIM.
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I am so used to David Suchet's Poirot moustache that, when I see him clean shaven in other roles, it's as if he has no face!
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Until 1989 WWI encyclopedia articles enumerated as two of the war's most important results the Pan-Slavist triumph of the Slavs of the north and the Slavs of the south each achieving their very own countries, respectively Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, thus in effect affirming that something positive was gained from that war.
Now that Czechoslovakia has fallen apart and Yugoslavia has exploded into myriad pieces, the only positive results of WWI are that Finland, Poland and the Baltic states have recovered their independence--rather a paltry result for a war that literally turned the world upside down.
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what does the car driving under the rain symbolize?
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Bitterly? Only a movie that changed you in a negative way, ot gave you continuing nightmares, would qualify on that score. Can't think of any.,
How about OUT OF [...] AFRICA [...] mind with boredom, a bomb that totally destroyed my trust in the good judgment and integrity of the Oscar people?
I watched THE COLOR PURPLE when it was the favorite to win the Best Picture Oscar. When the Oscar was given to Pollack's movie instead, I went to watch it out of curiosity.
When it was over, I was FURIOUS! Dinesen had an interesting and even tragic life, but you would never guess it from [...] flat and uninspired depiction. [...] reaction when she is told that she has VD is to open her eyes and mouth just a little, exactly as if she had been told that she has a hangnail. [...] the beggar man's Rock Hudson, makes such a poor romantic lead that, even when they are sitting side by side, you get the impression that the two of them are totally unaware of each other's proximity. The plot is so insubstantial that, rather than a drama, this movie is more like an ANIMAL PLANET documentary of the fauna and flora of Kenya--in short, this is a movie in which [...] have no valid reason to stand in front of the camera.
I hear that the Oscar people were afraid of the controversy regarding Alice Walker's depiction of black men in THE COLOR PURPLE novel, and that that was the real reason why Spielberg was denied the Oscars for which his movie was nominated. [...]
It was a nightmare forgetting this torture of a movie; since this disappointment, when I choose a movie to watch the least important consideration is whether the Oscar people like it. This pill of a movie is hardly the only proof that they have absolutely no knowledge and no taste.
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The only good things about THE FORTUNE are Stockard Channing and her pet chicken. Other than that, the script of that ,,comedy'' is so witless, and the team of Beatty and Nicholson so charmless, that I still regret not walking out and demanding my money back.
Generally speaking the 70s are not my favorite movie era; too many films of that decade left me with a very bad taste in the mouth. For example, the so-called satire NETWORK was so crude and heavy handed that I simply cannot understand why it was thought worthy of being a candidate for the Best Picture Oscar.
Cliches Of Relatively Recent Movies
in General Discussions
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Shall we even start to count the thrillers in which the protagonist, obviously not a professional driver, nevertheless performs stunts that are way beyond the skill of 99% of the world's drivers?