EricJ
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Posts posted by EricJ
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8 hours ago, rayban said:
His "David Letterman" appearances were almost enough to destroy a career.
He was obviously "out-of-control".
Three nights later, a cynical, bottle-crawled Oliver Reed (he never got his career back until "Gladiator", and then it was too late) came on Dave's show to promote his breakout-indie movie--He arrived visibly sloshed, grumpy, and refusing to play along with the interview, instead putting on a Texas accent and pretending to be a "Dallas" character. (Dave: "Yes, it's fun to pretend, isn't it?")
Dave was still clearly smarting from Crispin's follies when he finally interrupted Reed with "Y'know, I've bailed out on these before...You might end up flying this plane by yourself."
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11 hours ago, NickAndNora34 said:
#30: JOHNNY TREMAIN (1957) Score: 1.5/5
A mostly dull film surrounding the Boston Tea Party and the Bostonians' issues with Britain.
Except for the (ahem) singing ?, it's a fairly accurate film version of the Tea Party and Concord & Lexington:
The BTP wasn't the rowdy town-mutiny whoop-up that certain history-challenged conservatives wishfully like to think it was; it was simply an organized power play of one poor warehouse night-watchman up against an angry local mob of twenty, and no violence needed to take place--As in the book/movie, the group simply dumped the disputed tea, and that was that.
Also, by historical myth, no one quite knows who fired the Shot Heard Round the World, but it's theorized that it could have been a civilian bystander.
(This is where Walt's live-action division starts to kick in, and it was practically all they had for most of the Ron Miller era, so if you're serious about including those too, better settle in--Those are at least the ones that show up more often on TCM Disney-Vault night.)
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5 hours ago, sewhite2000 said:
Glover's closest moments to big-time stardom were his playing Michael j. Fox's dad in Back to the Future and his David Letterman appearances (which I'm still not sure if they were Andy Kaufman performance art or a guy who was really struggling to get through the day). But either the big studios considered him too odd, or he followed his own muse. You can look at his career path on imdb, and while he's in some big Hollywood blockbusters, they're all in smaller roles, while his larger roles are all in indie films.
His David Letterman appearance was in his quirky-oddball character from "Rubin & Ed" trying to promote it, which...if we had ever heard of him OR the movie, would have been a maverick stunt. Unfortunately, we didn't and he didn't, you can see Dave's cold, hostile stare from the minute Glover walked out, and when Crispin aimed that kick ("I'm good at martial arts!"), to say Dave had no idea he was kidding is the understatement of the century. Dave had already been through Andy Kaufman's big faked-up wrestling stunts on his show, but that was back when we'd heard of Kaufman.
It was only later that everyone, including the show, found out what the heck Glover had been doing, and they invited him back on for an "apology" followup appearance if he agreed to come as himself. He did, showed off some of his weirdo art, and...let's just say it didn't exactly restore his career after the first appearance became TV legend.
And frankly, Glover playing George McFly just reeks of the "Look, I'm playing a NERD!" performance stunt that seems to attract the gonzo-quirky actors. Like Kaufman on "Taxi", one good acting gig fooled us into thinking he could ever be mainstream professional.
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8 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:
A King in New York (1957) - Uneven but amusing comedy from Attica Film Company and writer-director Charles Chaplin. He stars as King Shahdov, a recently deposed European royal who arrives in NYC with very little money left in the bank. He gets manipulated by advertising exec Ann Kay (Dawn Addams) into appearing in a TV commercial, and after it proves very successful, he agrees to several more commercials, as well as other public appearances, in order to refill his coffers.
Basically, we have Chaplin slipping in his comments on television, just like we get the joke about Chaplin trying to watch wide-widescreen Cinemascope/Cinerama at the theater, and watching a Western showdown like a tennis match.
When the old comics start Shouting at Clouds about current entertainment tropes, it's usually time to retire. At least Buster Keaton could keep up with the new kids.
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And, of course, most of Wayne's World (1992):
(The first movie anyway, I haven't yet rented #2, that's been floating around with all the other Paramount Orphans joining the MGM/UA Orphans on streaming.)
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1 hour ago, LawrenceA said:
A Dancer's World (1957)
Graham wears an outfit that looks straight out of Star Trek, though. (6/10)
...Hast thee the rights of the Vulcan High Council, T'Pau?
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9 minutes ago, BingFan said:
Good question. Simon was obviously a playwright, first and foremost. But he did some great writing directly for the screen (e.g., The Out-of-Towners, Murder by Death). And he wrote the screenplays when his plays were transferred to the screen (e.g., Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple).
And Max Dugan Returns is...pleasant enough if you like Jason Robards and 80's-teen Matthew Broderick.
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Any other fans of this film, and are there any other courtroom dramas you think compete with this one in quality?
I always like to think of Leo McKern in Thames' Rumpole of the Bailey as the "contemporary TV update" of Sir Wilfred Roberts, Charles Laughton or Ralph Richardson version:
Also a barrister of lost defense cases, for those who wish Agatha could have written a few more.
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I've been sitting out the thread because I could think of Simon plays and 70's Simon-boom movies that were droll, but couldn't think of one that I really liked.
And then I found myself quoting old lines from Murder By Death (1976), the original proto-"Clue":
Just mentioning Simon's plays brings up the memories of 70's old-school Broadway, when straight people went to original musicals and a Neil Simon play could be just as big of an out-of-town tourist draw. Even our idea of a live-audience TV sitcom like "The Odd Couple" comes from the experience of getting a half-hour taste of Neil Simon comedy theater in our living room.
The Tony Awards try to keep the drama-play business going by saying that while Musicals throw spectacle at you, Plays put you into the room with the characters. That works well for drama, but when you're in a room with FUNNY characters, that's just as much of a memorable evening.
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17 hours ago, rayban said:
It was written and directed by Menahen Golan, who was at the top of his form.
Okay, I must ask what Menahem Golan's "form" is.
(If you've seen the "Electric Boogaloo" documentary about the Cannon Pictures glory days, it's certainly not the first time Golan's ambitious literary eyes were bigger than his stomach--And I still can't find his 80's Cannon version of "Threepenny Opera" on YouTube.)
TBH, I thought he was dead, but this apparently predated that.
17 hours ago, rayban said:And, why, oh, why, isn't Crispin Gover a big, big star?
Ask Dave.
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Can anyone read spense's headline without flashing back on Lewis Carroll?:
QuoteAnd when I found the door was shut, I tried to turn the handle, BUT--'
There was a long pause.
`Is that all?' Alice timidly asked.
`That's all,' said Humpty Dumpty. `Good-bye.'
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1 hour ago, sewhite2000 said:
I put "original" in quotes, because you could go back to the 1936 Bing Crosby movie with a completely different plot for the first use of the title, but I discovered tonight that three years before the Steve Martin movie, Pennies from Heaven was a six-part BBC mini-series starring Bob Hoskins! Has anyone seen it, and if so, how does it compare?
In case you're wondering, The Singing Detective was also a six-part BBC miniseries before Robert Downey Jr.--
But either way, Dennis Potter symbolic-deconstruction is not exactly the easiest thing to sit through--The Pennies miniseries just wasn't as cheery, toe-tapping and feel-good as the Steve Martin version. ?
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17 hours ago, Sepiatone said:
DON KNOTTS movies are far from "great cinema", but as , thanks to his BARNEY FIFE character in The Andy Griffith show, his movies are like spendng time with an old friend. Since NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS it was clear he did that kind of character well, and made a good living with it. But I would(as I do with many others)have loved to see him cast "out of type" for some movie. Like the heinous villain in some cop flick, or even the brave cop in some cop flick.
Close enough would be The Love God? (1969, and yes, with punctuation)--in which Knotts' birdwatching magazine is turned into a 60's Playboy girlie magazine behind his back, and Knotts finds himself having to play the Hugh Hefner bathrobe-swinger role--which did rather disorient audiences at the time, as the Mature rating and "sexual revolution!" theme kept out the core kiddy audience. Let's just say Knotts was born to play one type, and played it better than most could.
In How to Frame a Fig-g (1971, the last of his non-Disney solo movies before Tim Conway), he comes off as a bit of a know-it-all A-hat to his dim co-workers, and doesn't really come across as likable--It's a tricky character act to make a jumpy coward or big-talking Barney Fife sympathetic, but basically "Ghost" will pretty much spoil you for any other solo Don Knotts movies.
"The Private Eyes", however, is still a classic.
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3 hours ago, Det Jim McLeod said:
This is a pre credit sequence but in "Frankenstein" (1931) Edward Van Sloan comes from behind a curtain and says the following picture may thrill, shock or horrify you.
"So, if any of you may wish to...no? Well, don't say I didn't warn you!"
On a lighter note, there's always the waiter's reaction to Leslie Nielsen drowning his sorrows, in Naked Gun 2-1/2: the Smell of Fear (1991):
Quoteand get extra points for ones that have opening credits where that wall goes tumbling down more shockingly than Jack's and Jill's fall from grace.
Think Marty Feldman's opening credits to The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977) might fill that basket for a start.
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17 hours ago, NickAndNora34 said:
#25: LADY AND THE TRAMP (1955) Score: 3.5/5
The protagonist, Lady, is the apple of her owners' eyes until Darling becomes pregnant.
And, of course, she's not the only one...
Ever wonder how we got from this:
To this:
To this:
with Jock & Trusty asking who's going to do the "right thing" for that little matter that no one wants to talk about, and that Lady is in tears over after hearing about Tramp's love life in the dog pound?
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1 hour ago, LawrenceA said:
The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969) - The fifth and final Fu Manchu movie starring Christopher Lee. This time the "yellow peril" super-villain blackmails the world from his castle in Istanbul. He's threatening to use a freezing technique to disrupt the world's waterways. Richard Greene is the hero. This is dumb, poorly-made trash from director Jesus "Jess" Franco, the master of dumb, poorly-made trash. It bears his usual hallmarks: nonsensical plotting, baffling editing, and some of the worst cinematography in film history. Whether it's out of focus, awkward close-ups, random zooms, or repeatedly placing actors behind things (glass, curtains, jail bars, etc.), Franco never misses a chance to make things look terrible. (2/10)
Lee makes a good Fu (better than Peter Sellers', anyway), but this movie became infamous among MST3K fans as a movie where absolutely nothing coherent happens for ninety minutes, and even the above description gives the story and pacing too much credit. One of the few movies the series considered truly painful to sit through, without hope of heckling.
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When I was a kid, it was years before I ever learned about the "framing ratio" that's blocked off by projectors, and that's why you see overhead boom mikes in films where the projectionist hasn't set it up correctly. That would explain one or two strange films I remember.
And then, I did mention that one year I was at an all-night cult-scifi marathon in the coldest day in February, the theater was showing some early archival foreign/silent animated version of "Baron Munchhausen" (I keep thinking it was Lotte Reiniger's, but can't find one on IMDB)....and the heat went out? All of a sudden, seeing foreign animation frolic about lost every bit of its whimsy, and the audience started to mutiny. Shouts to the projectionist started coming up from the audience, of "Stop the Baron!" and "The Baron must die!!"
(That's one of the few times our rowdy all-night audience couldn't make a painful film fun, MST3K style. For example, when they showed Michael Crichton's aptly-named "The Terminal Man"--with half an hour of surgical footage followed by another hour of George Segal running around as a lunatic killer--the audience was so restless that every time the scene faded out, we cheered "Yayy!"...And when the next scene came on, "Aww!")
I've always loved going to the movies and even want to work at one someday but also I have begun to understand why some people prefer to watch movies in the comfort and familarity of their own homes.
We have a generation to whom you literally can not explain what's so "fun" about going to see a movie, if they've never been to an old non-cineplex movie palace in their life.
In My Day, Junior(tm), theaters were on main street, had one to three screens, were either small or huge and antique, and since you could go to one just about anytime, it was all about the going, not about what was playing. If it was Friday night, you would actually go see something you hadn't heard of, just to get out and go...Try THAT one on studios today.
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5 hours ago, cigarjoe said:
Man In the Dark (1953) 3D Noir
This was the first stereoscopic 3-D feature ever released by a major American studio, Columbia Pictures.
No way was I going to be able watch this in 3D on my home screen. Incidentally, it worked just fine in 2D. However, even without it's 3D technique, Man In The Dark with the majority of it's cast so well steeped in Classic Film Noir can definitely be considered your basic a "meat and potato" Noir.
For the record, it's...okay in 3-D ( http://www.store-3d-blurayrental.com/Man-in-the-Dark-3D-Blu-ray-Rental-p/2115.htm ) but as Columbia's "first" one, still gives the impression that the studio had to jump on 3-D at the last minute, and grabbed any project they could shape to fit it.
Some nice moments with the dream scenes, the fake bats, and at the amusement-park climax, but nothing particularly gimmicky to stand out. Nothing on the level of the full-on House of Wax-knockoff they did for Vincent Price in "The Mad Magician".
(Hey, even if you didn't buy the screens, it's not too late to get a Playstation VR! ? )
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6 hours ago, LawrenceA said:
Yeah, as I said in my initial post about Funny Face, I recognize that it was not made for me, and I know it has a large fan base. Breakfast at Tiffany's is another Hepburn film that is beloved that I didn't care for at all. As Tom said, it's just not my cup of tea. I never know until I watch it if I'll like it or not, as I try to go in with an open mind even if the genre or subject matter aren't to my interests.
As long as you know the difference between your not liking it, and the movie not being likable.
I didn't go into Tiffany's overwhelmingly interested either, and only watched it for AFI-classic completism: My review was also pretty scathing, but only because I felt that the movie was overpraised for the wrong reasons--yes, Audrey's gloves are pretty, but she's maddeningly unsympathetic as a character--and I also wanted to be iconoclastic enough to strip some boxer shorts off the emperor. That's not the same as calling it "Two hours I'll never get back", or laying my own grudges into the movie as "worthless", or that I wanted to "throw things at it", as I didn't think it was bad-bad, just frustrating. Whether I wanted to throw things at Holly, OTOH...
Remember the old saying, "The critic doesn't say he 'hated' the movie, he asks, 'Why wasn't it BETTER?'" (From the same guy who gave us the "Two hours I'll never get back" phrase.)
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7 hours ago, TomJH said:
Still, Kane is a film with so many striking visuals. Let's not forget that cinematographer Gregg Toland deserves so much credit for the look of the film. Welles must have been leaning on him constantly. "Can we do this? How about this? Never been done before? Let's try it!"
There's the famous story of Welles trying to get Toland's camera low enough for one of his ceilinged low-angle shots of Kane, and when Gregg said "we can't get it any lower!", taking a pickax and cutting a hole in Culver's studio floor to get it:
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11 hours ago, Sepiatone said:
I-I-I-I-I-----don't know about counting THE DARK CRYSTAL as a "Muppet" movie. Sure, Henson was involved with the "puppets" used in the film, but beyond that, "Muppet" brings something else to people's minds. Just as one couldn't consider, because CHUCK JONES was involved with the animation and direction of "How The Grinch Stole Christmas", that IT is a "Looney Toons" cartoon.
That's okay, I wouldn't consider "Labyrinth" a "Muppet movie" either, for pretty much the same reason. (Even if Sony has beaten it into the ground as Default Sony Studio Kids' Film next to "Jumanji" for the last twenty years, and is already tossing around a house "reboot" based on the success of the other.)
Jim Henson in the 80's was like Walt Disney in the 60's--When Walt was so smitten with building technical marvels for his new park, he almost completely lost interest in animation, and left it to his best studio people to look after while he ran off to play with his new Animatronic toys. In Henson's case, Jim was so convinced that mechanical-creature-effect lab The Creature Shop (they almost got the contract for the Jurassic Park dinos) was going to be the Lucas-like moneymaker for the company, he tried to RETIRE the Muppet Show characters, with "Muppets Take Manhattan" not only marrying off Kermit and Piggy, but introducing the Saturday-morning Muppet Babies as their new replacement.
"Labyrinth"--made back when Jim had a personal fan fetish for the look of Ridley Scott's "Legend", and hired the same designer--was going to be the new flagship, but tanked badly at the box office for being disorganized and butt-ugly, taking most of producer George Lucas's expansion plans with it. And while the Creature Shop did try to do a few of the next Muppet shows, Jim went back to trying to revive Kermit & Co. for new TV shows. (That's when we got Kermit in talk shows saying "Well, y'know, that 'marriage' stuff was just a movie...")
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2 hours ago, nakano said:
The 2 dvd set has fantastic commentary by Roger Ebert and another by Peter Bogdanovitch,the Ebert comments are simply phenomenal,it gives a real perspective of the impact of Citizen Kane on the movie industry,ok the gross was not good,thanks to Hearst but whoever was working on films were flabbergasted,the special 2 dvd set is a must.
Does it still have the PBS "Battle Over Citizen Kane" documentary on disk 2?
That's one of the great classic-film docs that I've seen, disk or in general--that also gives some background on why Welles was such a hot property after the Mercury stage-theater company--and somewhat better than HBO's fictionalized docudrama version.
(Which shortchanges the real-life Hearst and Davies in trying to parallel them with the Kane versions...Not like Edward Hermann's more scarily true-to-life Hearst from the otherwise fictionalized The Cat's Meow (2001). )
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5 hours ago, laffite said:
But getting back to Kane, I have an admiration for the way the film foreshadows what the R word really means. We must know as we are watching that the revelation must have something to do with what we can expect to have seen in the story. Otherwise it would be a cheat. With this in mind I get a frisson when I see the you-know-what (I realize this is spilled beans but I still can't say it) in the hands of the child because if I were making such a movie I might worry that I gave the object too much prominence and that it might be guess-ible by perspicacious viewers. But I worry about that only because I am already in the know on a second or more viewing. On a first viewing, no one would suspect it ... right? //
We've gotten so used to smugsy Simpsons parodies of dropping snowglobes (again, the disgruntled Fear of Great Movies), that it never occurs to the first-time viewer to ask:
Just why DID seeing a snowy cabin happen to trigger that mysterious memory from dying Kane?(Just as there are people who never stop to realize just why Rick never did say "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca.)
20 hours ago, TopBilled said:Who names a sled?
Didn't Ralphie or George Bailey name theirs?
But seriously people: We know Beth's lost her Kane-ginity about the identity of Rosebud, but even if it isn't the third act of "Murder Strikes Out", let's go easy on new lurkers in the thread. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to whip up some Soylent Green in the kitchen, call up my dad, go fishing with Fredo, and pick up Bruce Willis' check in the restaurant.
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1 hour ago, rosebette said:
Lawrence, I must assert that you underestimate Funny Face, which I find a delightful film. Perhaps I'm a little prejudiced because I just went to Paris for the first time in my life, and couldn't get "Bonjour Paris!" out of my head. I think Kay Thomson lends great energy to this movie, Audrey Hepburn is charming, the color and clothes are magnificent, as is the Gershwin score, and Astaire's dance with his raincoat is worth as many views as "He Loves and She Loves."
It's like a vegetarian being served a perfect grilled T-bone with bacon-grilled mushrooms and onions, and saying "That was the worst meal I was ever served in my life!"
I don't like Westerns or romances either, but I at least take what I'm given in context at face value if I have to "study" it for film history. It's not the greatest Fred Astaire (from his "Daddy Long Legs" days when he was cast as the charming senior father-figure to the young lead), and as I can't stand Breakfast With Tiffany's (but wouldn't begrudge it to anyone else either), I don't feel qualified to say whether it's the best Audrey Hepburn...But at least I know a diverting Gershwin jukebox-musical when I see it, and I'd rather moon over Audrey's nerdy beatnik-bookshop Capri pants than see her as NY's best-dressed lunatic in her better-known role, or hear her sing about the Rain in Spain.
...Everyone admires an iconoclast, but nobody likes a danged Grouch. Hehehh...(trash-can lid slams)
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Great Movie Partnerships that never happened
in General Discussions
Posted
Little did we realize, Woody was flat-out playing Bob Hope as a labor of love in Love and Death (1975). And got Hope's one-liner rhythms down pat.
In his own PBS documentary and one on Hope, Woody later claimed the 40's "My Favorite Coward" Road-picture Bob Hope was his comic childhood hero, growing up--"I always wanted to be the little guy who could talk big and brag his way out of a situation like that." But we didn't know that back in the 70's SCTV days when Woody was making "Annie Hall", and Bob was making unfunny rightwing NBC specials and only remembered for Anita Ekberg.