Vautrin

Roddenberry was just another Hollywood pinko who tried to spread his commie propaganda through a low budget sci-fi TV series. Needless to say, he failed miserably.

I watched Mr. Skeffington last night for the first time in a long time. After she gets diphtheria and loses her looks, you can see Bette practically turn into Baby Jane.

The producers asked Roberts to gain weight in order to play the underground railroad, but she decided against it.

I saw The October Man on YT probably about six months ago. Very well done and worth watching. I got a kick out of the slightly seedy hotel where Mills stays and the some of the eccentric occupants. The villain is also pretty creepy in his own oily sanctimonious way. There are just certain movies that I would not be interested in watching. I'd put Bandolero and The Black Stallion in that category. To each their own.

It's more noticeable in crime films than in some other genres. In the romantic comedy you know that the two kids who can't stand each other will end up in love at the finale and in musicals everything will turn out unicorns and rainbows.

Not that it matters all that much, but I don't see much of a connection, beyond the superficial, between The Hitch Hiker and Deliverance or Straw Dogs. They're really three separate movies with not much "cross over." Some of the psychological thriller aspect is gone when the simple fact is that one guy has a gun and the other two don't. Of course people will react in different ways to that fact, but the fact remains. I've seen it before a few times and enjoyed seeing it again, though obviously a lot of suspense is lost after the first viewing.

Trash.

Adam Cartwright. See what happens when you send someone to a fancy eastern college. They get above their raising.

Now that I think of it I don't believe that Eddie mentioned that many folks suspect that Lana actually killed Stompanato herself and let her daughter take the blame because a jury would be more sympathetic to the daughter.

Well if they can get the McMahon laugh right, the dog food commercials should be a breeze. I agree that bringing back dead stars to near life is off putting, but like most things if there's money to be made that's where we're likely headed. I've read that some celebrities who have been dead for a while make more now when their image is used than they did when alive.

Could they ever create a CGI Ed McMahon who laughs as often as the real Ed McMahon did?

Reel 'em in, Henry. James’s repressions and evasions are many, varied and exhausting. Why more people are not seen rushing shrieking from libraries, shredding James novels in their hands, I cannot say. I used to wonder whether enthusiasm for him was based on identification, since his passive, tentative heroes resemble many academics. Perhaps what is intolerable is his enshrinement in a soporific criticism. So much must be overlooked to crown him with laurel. Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 622.

I have a semi-amusing story about Jane Austen or rather her novels. As a lazy high school student I spent my freshman year in college at a Christian school out in the great American heartland. Between the fall and spring semesters this college had an about month long study program where a student could chose a course that concentrated on one specific topic. As the offerings were rather limited, I chose a course on the novels of Jane Austen taught by an old English professor. I knew very little about JA so I thought I could learn a bit about her. The class was assigned three or four Austen novels to read in that short amount of time, so one really had to bear down with ol' Jane. The funniest part was a farmboy I had made friends with also decided to take the course since I was taking it. I doubt he completed any of the novels as he was constantly asking me questions about the plots of the books. I guess he got through it with a gentlemanly C. I found Austen to be a bit on the dull side as I didn't have much knowledge of the 18th century background of the novels which led to some puzzlement about the books. I've read Austen since and in general like her. I've never found her novels particularly difficult to read. Of course she's no Henry James, but then who is.

Glossy gangster pic with nothing very particular about it, except for Taylor's incognito as a cabbie and Van the Man's alcoholic soliloquies. At the beginning of the movie Van says he hangs around Johnny Eager because he is playing Boswell to Eager. Eager doesn't seem to be interesting enough to have a Boswell, but maybe Van just wants to cage free drinks. I noticed that Taylor's pencil mustache has a space both above and below it. That thing must have been a pain in the neck to shave. Van was amusing for the most part, but he's no Oscar Wilde. Lana and her gal pal are Sociology students? I think it's more likely they were in the employ of Dr. Kinsey. I read in the book Flesh and Fantasy that Taylor became so attracted to the young Elizabeth Taylor when they were in a movie together that Bob asked the cameraman to try not to photograph him from the waist down. His johnny was too eager.

I've seen a couple of the intros/outros. Okay, but nothing special. Sort of what you would expect two comics to talk about. I think they screwed up on a minor point about Myrna Loy's detailed color scheme instructions. She didn't mention egg yolks, rather margarine. Whatever.

I thought maybe the one set in Flint, Michigan might just as well have been set in Lanford. It had that blue collar vibe to it. Of course Flint, Michigan has had a lot of back luck in the past few decades. There was one a few weeks earlier set in NC which was just a few counties over. I'm on the lookout, just in case. Okay, I kind of like Keith Morrison. Great voice and he gets a few good wisecracks into the interviews. Compared to Josh, Ben looks like Cary Grant.

I got a kick out of some of the over the top dialog, but the movie is so sleazily entertaining that it doesn't matter too much. And Steve Dallas is not only a supposedly red commie rat but the hepcat smokes weed too. OMG, that combo would set your average American's teeth on edge back in 1957. I don't think the fat cop would kill Falco. Just work him over and take him down to the station and make the marijuana plant charge and maybe that old standby, resisting arrest. Falco should have punched fat pig in the gut and taken off. Too timid. TSSOS was on a month or so ago. I wonder if TCM had one of these deals where the movie must be shown a certain number of times and so it was fit into the Noir Alley schedule.

Wonder what he thought when he first heard Miller's shtick. Is he going to keep this up for the entire game!

Those aren't actual examples, but they give the general flavor of what Miller did. I can't remember who the other two announcers were, but they usually said nothing or just groaned. The funny thing was the stretch that Miller had to make between football and his "witticisms." George Will does a lot of name dropping, but at least with Will it sounds organic.

I wonder if Miller will be using the hilarious intellectual name dropping that he used on MNF. Randy Moss has a greater alienation effect than Brecht. A two point conversion. 'Tis a consummation Detroit wishes for.

I think binge watching a particular TV show is different from binge watching TCM. The latter is more random. Unless people like every movie TCM shows, why binge watch? I think even folks who aren't that familiar with studio era films just won't watch every movie that's on. That would be rather peculiar. I prefer the 1970s version of Rod Stewart. When his "regular" music stopped selling that well he took up the Great American Songbook shtick and it worked like a charm. Linda Ronstadt did the same thing years before Rod did it. The problem was the GAS albums gradually became less popular. What will Rod the Unmod do next? Rod Stewart sings Ernest Tubb? I really don't blame him for going where the money turned out to be and no doubt those records are pleasant enough, but I have little interest in it. I enjoy watching these old films from the 1930s and 1940s as period pieces that show the mindset of a certain era. Of course they weren't originally produced with that in mind, but that's at least partly what they've become over time. And they're most entertaining in that respect. I find the lifestyle destination, we're a small group of special people vibe more entertaining than anything else. It's rather humorous. So TCM will likely continue to push this bs, which is mostly harmless. I just watch the movies and get a laugh out of all the other stuff.

What's so hilarious about TCM's attempt to turn watching old movies into some kind of elite pastime is it's so obvious and ham-fisted. Where's Don Draper when you need him?

Force of Evil, stylish crime movie with some nice cinematic touches and good location shots. Walmart is coming to put all the local mom and pop stores out of business. I thought Beatrice Pearson was very fetching, including her hairdo. Her character had that somewhat meek, under stated vibe which I found attractive, especially in that environment. Now state governments run the numbers' game. I agree with Polonsky's disdain for Elia "Lifetime Rat Achievement Award" Kazan.

It seems that Petra is more popular with critics than it is with "regular" moviegoers. As I posted before, while I can understand the criticisms of the movie, I still like it. And it definitely has a campy vibe too, which may make it easier to take.