EricJ
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Posts posted by EricJ
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18 minutes ago, kingrat said:
Eric, Forbidden Broadway usually had at least a couple of versions. One was up-to-the-minute with parodies of new shows, and the other was called the "Midwestern Version," the one with well-known shows so that the audience would get the jokes. Sounds like your Boston audience needed the Midwestern Version.
Yep, we got the Sound of Music/King & I version (from the one where they had to start parodying old musicals during the 90's drought):
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2 hours ago, txfilmfan said:
One of my favorite Forbidden Broadway songs is this one, where Ethel Merman returns to chastise current singing trends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1u8-kTKdmY
I LOVE Forbidden Broadway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtB09codPAk 🥰
My 70's-Mad Magazine childhood has an addiction to in-joke ultra-scene-specific parody jokes. Only time I saw it, though, was when they tried road-companying the show to Boston hotel-cabaret, where it pretty much died since nobody got the New-Yorker in-jokes about about Tyne Daly in Gypsy, penny-pinching no-scenery productions of Sweeney Todd, "Jerome Robbins' Broadway" or Mandy Patinkin's overwrought one-man vanity show...But at least they laughed at the Les Miserables song.
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30 minutes ago, sewhite2000 said:
I found that scene funny, but didn't realize it was a parody of a specific work.
It's left over from the play version:
"If this were a Eugene O'Neill play, I could tell you both what I think of you. You're just lucky the Guild isn't putting this on...And so is the Guild."
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8 hours ago, kingrat said:
Oscar was way unfair in 1972. Stacy Keach was so real in Fat City that he should have run away with the Best Actor award. Think they gave it to some mannered fakey performance--can't remember the guy's name.
And, going across the board, Unfair 1972 is still remembered for Joel Grey winning Best Supporting Actor for Cabaret, who had already won a Tony for playing the role on Broadway, unlike Al Pacino in The Godfather.
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3 hours ago, Fedya said:
Designing Woman (1957).
MGM remade Woman of the Year, because they could. Lauren Bacall is as bland as ever as the fashion designer Peck hastily marries and who flies off the handle because Peck, horror of horrors, might have had a girlfriend before marrying her.
She managed the role a little better in the Broadway musical, though:
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On 6/5/2020 at 8:02 PM, Walter L. said:
I recall Coconuts receiving a full revival on Broadway in the 90s starring Marx Brothers impersonators in their roles.
Ever since Tommy Tune's Broadway "A Day in Hollywood & A Night in the Ukraine" was shut down by the Marx estate--now that celebrities' estates actually could sue for unauthorized use of a classic star's likeness in the early 80's--the only way theater companies have been able to do Marx Bros. imitations is through revival productions of "The Cocoanuts" and, more often, "Animal Crackers".
Apparently, the estate can't sue if you're playing Captain Spaulding, Sr. Ravelli and the Professor as written.
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5 minutes ago, Janet0312 said:
A great showing, especially Horse Feathers. Everyone says I love you...
The great big mosquito when-a he sting you...
I remember, back in the days before home theater, when we didn't have these old movies memorized, the local theater was showing Horsefeathers in a double-feature: There were some snickers of disgruntled PC annoyance when Thelma Todd tried baby-talking the football signals away from Groucho, and when Groucho responded, "...Was that you who said that, or the duck?" the whole theater exploded. 🤣
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5 hours ago, Dargo said:
"Don't you know what duplicates are?"
-"Sure, those five kids up in'a Canada."
"Stork Delivery Service...Oh, it's you, Mr. Dionne!...What?...Mr. Dionne, puh-LEASE!!"
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2 hours ago, sewhite2000 said:
I doubt there was a bigger DC comics fan than me in the '70s, actually. I don't recall there ever being a Wonder Woman jumpsuit in the comics like the one here, unless you're referring to the non-powered Diana Prince Secret Agent phase, when she dressed like Emma Peel.
Wasn't saying THAT was the jumpsuit, but TV's attempt at plausible superheroes certainly wasn't ready for the iconic eagle-bustier until they went Batman-camp with Lynda Carter in the next series.
(Although, of course, current designs for WW's armor now either have the movie battle-armor, or a "W" design across her cleavage, since, as the joke goes, Diana was "sick of fans shouting 'Make the wings flap, make the wings flap!'" 😆 )
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19 hours ago, sewhite2000 said:
I'm unsure if I actually saw that or maybe just clips from it. Ricardo Montalban was the villain, I thinkn.
Yes, ask any DC comics fan about Diana's 70's "jumpsuit" phase in the comics, that would be about when we got this TV-movie.
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I was struggling not to try and find some dirty joke out of that header.
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1 hour ago, kingrat said:
Serial is a very fun movie. Has it ever come out on DVD?
No, just Blu-ray: https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Blu-ray-Christopher-Lee/dp/B017PAYF6W/
As for Lee behind the scenes (and working on the Richard Lester Three Musketeers)...This is Your Life, Christopher Lee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w44kSeH-KWA
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On 5/27/2020 at 3:19 PM, David Guercio said:
This is a cool idea. It’s a great idea. It’s a really wonderful idea. After talk about Treasures From The Disney Vault with Lenoared Malton of course. You all probably have figured out that I’m also a Disney fanatic myself. I’ve really loved it ever since I was a little kid. So I was so excited when TCM acquired Treasures From The Disney Vault a few Decembers ago with Lenoared Malton as host. I missed the very first one though. Where Ben Mainkawitz sat down with Lenoared Malton. But maybe they’ll show it again sometime. \
Or maybe NOT. Now that Disney has its own marketable streaming service(s), and most studios have moved away from declining cable broadcasts.
If you're lucky, they might show Moana on ABC.
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2 hours ago, Sepiatone said:
Knowing when your Mother saw "Fiddler" on Broadway might help us figure out who your unknown(to you) actor was. If it was quite some time ago, maybe it was HERSCHEL BERNARDI?
Leonard Nimoy, who brought the Birkat kohanim to Vulcan, also had a well-known tour as Tevye, in '71:
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7 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:
I get the strong sense that in real life CHRISTOPHER LEE was probably not a very pleasant person, maybe I am wrong. He was also, um, not discerning in the roles he took throughout his career...but there is something that clicks so marvelously with his performance in this film. it's special. and it's a VERY special movie.
7 hours ago, SansFin said:He will for all time hold a special place in my heart for his adventurous spirit in seeking unusual roles.
Christopher Lee was famous as one of the last pleasant "Gentleman horror actors" in the days of Vincent Price and Peter Cushing, and in fact, Lee says the only reason he agreed to "Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf" is that he had good experiences working with bat-looney director Philippe Mora on The Return of Captain Invincible.
He has often publicly regretted it later.
(As for why Disney's Return From Witch Mountain (1977), at least that one managed to get Bette Davis, too, so go figure.)
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10 minutes ago, lavenderblue19 said:
He wan;t bad? I think Jack Lemmon was a great actor. He could do comedy and drama. His range was tremendous. To do Some Like It Hot and Days of Wine and Roses. Quite a difference in characters. No one could have done better in The Apartment.I loved his performances in all the films you also mentioned.
I was just looking back on his overlooked role in the movie of Broadway's Mass Appeal (1984). A bit generic for Lemmon-dramedy, but that's still a pretty high bar.
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10 minutes ago, speedracer5 said:
Has anyone seen “The Cat’s Meow” from 2001? Is it good?
It's VERY good, and better than some of Bogdanovich's 80's films before "Noises Off":
A sardonic movie version of that Hollywood urban-legend about "That one party on William Hearst's yacht...", with Kirsten Dunst as a cute Marion Davies, Eddie Izzard doing a surprisingly good backstage Charlie Chaplin, and Edward Hermann 180 degrees away from Orson Welles as a very real scary, insecure, and bullying party-animal William Randolph Hearst. Almost makes you want to believe it.
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14 minutes ago, sagebrush said:
Possibly, the film was sped up to look like her feet were truly possessed. Possibly, it wasn't really a stairwell she was descending, but in fact a ramp with stairs painted on it to look as though she was running down a stairwell ( we can see the camera cut three times during this tense moment. )
Even in her running, her feet are fluttering as a ballet dancer does on stage to simulate having covered a lot of territory. I find it hard to believe that even the great Moira Shearer could descend a staircase at that speed with her feet so feathery and not have it be extremely dangerous in Pointe Shoes.
Least of all a metal spiral staircase. 😱 It's clearly sped-up and edited, and the music only gives it the feel of being "fluid" motion.
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Okay, sort of "cheats" to do a Blu-ray, but it's a lockdown Sunday, and I wasn't sure whether I'd "officially" done this one already*, just to sound out other secret closet fans, or spark a few more Amazon Prime streamings...But, since I've been working down my new-unwatched-Blu-ray pile with the library closed, it counts as "Just watched":
Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer (1984) - 👍
I'm assuming some have already well heard of this one, and the rest...haven't, so thought it might spark discussion: If there was ever a "JFI 100" of great Japanese anime films on the level of live-action Kurosawa classics, this is literally considered to be in the top 5, if not actually #2 or 3. Unlike most folks' attempt to jump into "the kids' new Anime thing", only to land feet-first in either some dreary, impenetrably surrealist arthouse-import like Akira or Paprika, or get stuck in the cute Studio Ghibli canon and never find their way out again, this one's absolutely approachable (and yes, funny) for those neophytes new to the genre, and a lot more fun to sit through--But still with a touch of classic-status style that will allow first-timers to hold their own in a snooty discussion with uber-fans hammering them to watch "Grave of the Fireflies" or "Neon Genesis Evangelion" for their own "good".
It's usually not recommended for first-timers because it's the feature spinoff of a long-running, and very eccentric wacky sitcom, and requires knowing the pilot-episode setup (which is necessary for understanding a key moment of the climax), and being able to recognize some of the oddball supporting-characters' running gags (although first-timers should get the idea fairly quickly). The TV backstory, for those who tuned in late: Ataru, the high school's resident wisecracking, girl-chasing troublemaker-irritant, is picked as an "average Earthling" by aliens to defend the Earth in a race against the space commander's cute, and very Barbara Eden-like daughter Lum. Long story short, he wins by cheating, only to discover the "prize" involves an alliance marriage, and, in the true spirit of Maj. Nelson and Jeannie, she's all for the idea--While our hero tries to flee, she moves into his house, tells everyone they're "engaged", and even enrolls at his school, where, to put it mildly, the new alien in class may be the most "normal" one there.
Series director Mamoru Oshii, who later moved on to more famous artsy-anime classics like Ghost in the Shell, said he wanted to take a break from our wacky couple, and do a feature focusing on the "normal" school life of the underappreciated B-players on the series: Here, he takes the characters (almost) out of their chaotic comedy, and puts them in an eerie, X-Files like mystery, where the characters first feel as if their never-ending preparations for the school's festival have sunk into a Groundhog's Day-style time loop--And emerge from their long camp at the school grounds only to discover that everyone in the city, or possibly the world, may have mysteriously disappeared overnight. It's strange, but don't worry, it's all explained in the end, with both funny and imaginatively eerie/surreal scenes in a comfortable 50-50 ratio, and (with above backstory) a good first introduction to the series. Unfortunately, the remainder of the original TV series, and four other movie spinoffs, were originally licensed by a small US company, fell out of print fifteen years ago, now making it a "lost" classic, and the second feature fell between the licensing cracks to stay on as last remaining artifact. (The other four movie spinoffs have been just been picked up for next year on Blu by another company, but that's looking ahead.) However, it's now playing everywhere on Amazon Prime and other streaming services along with a package of other fan-archival 80's anime features, so that those first-timers who want to brag about having watched That New Anime Thing don't have to contain themselves to discussions of Hayao Miyazaki or Dragon Ball Z.
(* - I know I've alluded to its Amazon availability before, but when I did a past-discussion search for "Lum", I found only Abner. Guess this one's new, and if it's not, I'll delete and make note for the record. 😉)
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2 hours ago, Mr. Gorman said:
I remember watching JACOB'S LADDER. Once. A waste of time.
Like I said, it plays better if We Suspect What the Character Doesn't. The otherwise out-of-nowhere Danny Aiello character works much better in context that way, and the artsy-creepy stuff in the early part starts to make more sense..
(Otherwise, it has the same abrupt "Anyway: Years later..." problem with Bruce Willis in Sixth.)
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And one of the goofiest pasted-on twists in recent memory, No Way Out (1987).
Considering it wasn't in the original 40's version of "The Big Clock", this one's got both feet firmly in last-minute studio-meddled Made-Up Crap territory.
13 hours ago, txfilmfan said:The Others, with Nicole Kidman is another one. I had caught on to The Sixth Sense about 5 minutes before the reveal, but did not see the twist in The Others coming.
Had both spoiled by the Internet (remember "spoiler trolls"?), but The Others was a giveaway in Kidman's first scene, while Sixth Sense, er...could have used a better time-transition scene after the escaped-patient.
Jacob's Ladder (1990) might actually work better as a creepy, atmospheric art piece if you know the twist going in, rather than the frustration of simply trying to crossword-puzzle the "big twist" which you end up thinking they wouldn't use for being too obvious. At one point, the studio used that as the selling line to boost flagging box-office.
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1 hour ago, slaytonf said:
and to be sure, there do seem to be some theatrical releases of ballets.
- The Royal Ballet (1960) - Concert highlights of Margot Fonteyn in Swan Lake, Ondine and The Firebird
- Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971) - Dancers in mice and bunny heads
- George Balanchine's The Nutcracker (1993) and Nutcracker: the Motion Picture (1986) - The kid-friendly version with ex-ballet-class Macaulay Culkin inserted for box-office, and the gorgeous and iconic, if not...quite so kid-friendly Maurice Sendak-designed former Pacific Northwest production.
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10 minutes ago, SansFin said:
Godzilla vs. Megashark
(If you'd spent $200 on a Criterion boxset, YOU wouldn't be making Toho vs. Asylum jokes...Just saying.)
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1 hour ago, Sepiatone said:
QUENTIN directing FIDDLER? I'd bet he wouldn't do a "straight" version, which means really, doing FIDDLER as it's always been done. MY bet would be he makes some changes. To even some of the songs. Like the opening number "Tradition" would be changed to "Perdition" or something on that order.
Uh, I THINK we're missing the "Spielberg wishes he had Natalie Wood back again" joke Nip was trying to make--
And, free public-domain dumpster-diving aside, think the Spielberg/Jets comparison wasn't lost on the new Fiddler producer either. Nor was new-revival producer Lin-Manuel Miranda getting to make any movie he ever wants to make, after Mary Poppins Returns and before Hamilton and In the Heights.
Oscar '79: stupidity
in General Discussions
Posted
For those who couldn't hear Delerue's Vivaldi-pastiche in the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hirZbozxJEU
AND it was up against Lalo Schifirin's creepy Rosemary-knockoff The Amityville Horror theme, at that.
(Uh, it's Nip--There's not always a "beef", he's one of our three posters who just wants to hijack threads for whatever's on his mind.)