Vautrin

They paved paradise and put up a porno place.

Yeah, Dostoyevsky couldn't help but put his own personal beliefs into his novels. The atheistic liberal Westernizers had to come out on the bottom and the believers, though flawed, came out on top. I don't have a problem with that because most readers likely know about his religious beliefs and so they know what they're going to find in the books. One of my favorite characters was old man Karamazov, always playing the buffoon and outraging everyone around him. Too bad he is knocked off. The human misery in many of Dostoevsky works never depressed me. While there are many realistic elements in the books, there are also many melodramatic ones, so I take them with a grain of salt while admiring his talent.

I prefer high class porn as the movie theater floors are less sticky. I notice when I scroll down to just below the eyes on the I Am Curious (Yeller) it looks like Joni Mitchell.

I guess if people want to go around eating pigs' rectums that's up to them. I'll stick with a chocolate milkshake. It seems that suicide among the middle aged is increasing in general and not just among celebs.

You could be right. I don't keep up with that stuff and I've forgotten about the now long ago past. There was also a theory about Jones being murdered, but I still think it was an unfortunate accident. Maybe these people had their own problems and Jagger had little to do with their actions. Have some sympathy.

Unfortunately, this story has a tragic ending. Dobbsey and Bobby fell into the hands of Dr. Josef Mengele who, due to a temporary eye condition, mistook them for twins. Enough said. I haven't read any of Bierce's stories, but I do enjoy his Devil's Dictionary: Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

I guess this shows that even in the world of gastronomy there is a place for bad taste.

I had heard of Kate Spade before and knew she was famous for her handbags and gladrags, but that's about all. Same with Bourdain. With so many media outlets, it's common for folks not to know much about celebrities beyond their name and what they are famous for. Yes, Jagger is in the clear, Keith too, but where were Hillary, Podesta, and Big Daddy George Soros? Needs looking into.

I "knew" Bourdain in the same way I "knew" Kate Spade, just as another celebrity that I didn't have much interest in. There are really a surfeit of celebs so it's hard to take much interest in many of them. I would guess that Bourdain stuck his head in an oven, but that would be too obvious.

The NYT's movie critic I remember best is Vincent Canby. Read his reviews most days, though I obviously don't remember much about them now. I get the impression that when Canby started he was a bit daring, but he was there so long that by the end he was likely considered an old fogy.

How dare anyone knock the Tsar of Noir. Don't you know Eddie had a book on the NYT's best seller list. I repeat, Eddie had a book on the NYT's best seller list. Have you had a book on the NYT's best seller list? Case closed. I recall reading about Herbert Marshall and Vincent Price cracking up on the set of The Fly in Penny Stalling's Flesh and Fantasy. I would recommend that book to any film fan. It is light-hearted and funny and covers many topics with a ton of stills and photos. y

I think that twist ending to Diabolique would be a hoot. But as a Vera Clouzot fan, I can't see her, even in a movie, messing around with Charles Vanel. Yikes. Yes, old Fred C Dobbs was a pretty mean article, but I still felt sorry when he was killed by Gold Hat and his buddies. Let's see, Fred is seriously wounded, but he plays dead until the bandits leave. Then the barber from Tampico, who likes to go for long hikes on his day off, discovers Dobbs and nurses him back to health, throwing in a free hair cut. Dobbsey hangs around Tampico, what a town, and buys another lottery ticket and wins again. But he has learned his lesson. Instead of going prospecting for gold he returns to the U.S., buys IBM stock and lives off the dividends until he dies in his bed without his boots on.

Maybe he got the hint and took a slow boat to California, along with a time machine. I've never read the short story. The way the cop just happened by just at the time of the murder was a little cornball, but hey, that's Hollywood.

Yeah, she was way out there even for an ID show. Making all the other kids go in when she called her own children in. Crazy. She could have fired a warning shot or hit the other guy over the head or fired into his leg, etc. I wonder if her hubby was the little wimp he appeared to be in the show. One thing that cracks me up is the criminal "mastermind" who goes into the police station and confesses, maybe not fully but enough to get them in real trouble. Yeah, that's some criminal "mastermind." I'm watching Perry Mason on Family Entertainment TV instead of some of the ID shows. Of course they repeat the prime time shows later in the night. Perry Mason is kind of a strange show for family entertainment considering all the messes that they get into. One neighbor I don't even know and have seen maybe once. The other is a smile and wave neighbor, so I'm okay.

Yes I did. The first one about the nut in Montana who thought he was king of the mountain is a repeat, but the one about the nutty mom in Tennessee (I think it was) was a new one. I feel sorry for the people who are killed, but it's hard not to chuckle at folks getting into such deep trouble over mostly trivial disputes. That woman was really a nut case.

Yeah, it should have been nominated. (Victor) Sen Yung was very effective as the mega obsequious law clerk. There were a few occasions when James Stephenson looked like he was ready to take a swing at him. VSY was a lot friendlier when playing Hop Sing on Bonanza. In real life I like to think that Bette would not have gone passively to her fate, but grabbed a gun and started shooting.

I watched it mainly because I haven't seen it in a number of years. It is a product of Hollywood at its studio era prime, but I consider it a good movie but no great shakes. Bette seems to be giving poor Herbert Marshall a giant middle finger in the films they appear in together. Old Herb usually has a small hissy fit, then spends the rest of the time sobbing quietly into his dinner jacket. It's kind of funny, despite the seriousness of the plot. The Gale Sondergaard character isn't all that believable, and looks like she just stepped out of a Terry and the Pirates strip. What I like most about the picture is the life style of the British colonials among the exotic world of Malaya, sort of like a PG version of White Mischief. My only true complaint is that there weren't enough shots of the moon appearing and disappearing behind the clouds.

After about the first twenty minutes it went back to the correct ratio.

I haven't seen too many of Browning's films, just a couple of his "talkies." Browning spent some time as a carny in his younger days, that's probably why he was interested in that environment. He definitely had a unique perspective, armadillo-wise.

Maybe armadillos had some special significance for Browning. But they still look humorously out of place in Dracula's castle, not that this does any damage to the overall film. I would have gone with hedgehogs myself, but to each their own.

Didn't they make a Spanish speaking version of Dracula after hours. Maybe they put the armadillo in for that and forgot to take it our for the U.S version. I never drink...sangria.

Cook did often look like he was nervous and that someone was about to come out of a closet and beat the **** out of him, which wouldn't be too hard to do considering his small physique. He had the same look in the TV shows he guested on.

I feel a little sorry for any guy named Wilmer, even if he was a jerk. One of my favorite parts of The Maltese Falcon is the interplay between Gutman and Spade in the former's hotel room, the whole I like to talk to a man who likes to talk to other men who like to talk, etc. Cracks me up every time.

Wonder why he was called Woody.