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JonParker

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Posts posted by JonParker

  1. I fully understand how you can love classic films and soaps. I'm not much on soaps, but I'm a huge fan of "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway," neither of which is exactly quality programming. Nearly everyone has their guilty pleasures.

     

    I suspect that I may have ADD as well. I took an online test and scored through the roof on it. I know there are medications that can help, but I keep procrastinating going to the doctor.

  2. hen I was leaving my ex-husband I flung all of "his" records out of the second story balcony on to the roof of the car port. It was very therapeutic!

     

    AHAHAHA!

     

    My ex left all my stuff on the front lawn, which wasn't nearly as classy. She kept my records, including one that is now worth quite a bit of money (the first Flaming Lips EP, which I bought from them at a show). Also about half of my comic books.

     

    I neglected to say where my screen name came from. It's my real name. I can be pretty confrontational at times, and decided a few years ago that if I'm going to **** people off, the least I could do is not hide behind net anonymity. I may be irritating on occasion, but I'm always me.

     

    Oh, and I am also not a conservative.

  3. Male. Turned 47 last week (!). My job is difficult to describe so I won't. Divorced, but in a LTR for the last nine years. Live in a suburb of Baltimore.

     

    I have no idea how I became a fan of old movies. It's just something that happened along the way.

  4. 10. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Is this a classic?)

     

    It's not only a classic, it is the single best movie of all time.

     

    The DVD is great, with two commentaries -- one by many of the original cast, and one by screenwriter Roger Ebert.

  5. My disappointment with modern-day, mainstream cinema is that '**** and explosions' have come to replace personality and aesthetics. But because a dumbed-downed audience creates a demand for 'T&E' (not much unlike the Colisseum audience of Ancient Rome demanded mindless, wholesale slaughter), who's to blame?

     

    Film professor Thomas Doherty* makes an argument that this was a natural evolution. In the 1950s the rise of television and the evolution of the teenage market led to films aiming more at a juvenile audience -- parents with children were more likely to stay home and watch TV for entertainment, so movies that teens were apt to see became more commonplace, even if they weren't the primary market. Note that there are plenty of exceptions, but we're talking general trends here.

     

    In fact, the indie market is booming right now. Actors like Depp do indie work because they want to, even though the money isn't even close to what they make on PotC. They alternate between working for the money and working for their art.

     

    Audiences have changed. The bulk of the movie going audience is now teens and young adults, so it's no surprise that the movies that are made cater to their tastes. Also, TV is better than ever and aimed more at adults. As people mature, they tend to move over to TV and away from going out to theaters.

     

    Just in the last few years, I see more good movies aimed at adults being made (I want to say "adult movies" without the obvious porn connotations). I think that's due to the rise of DVD and videotape allowing adults to watch films at home without having find babysitters.

     

    As Theodore Sturgeon famously said, "90 percent of everything is crap." That was true in the past, and it's true now. Ever spend a sick day watching old programmers on TCM?

     

    Also, I'm totally in favor of ****, although explosions do get boring after a while.

     

    *Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s

  6. I think Fox still has the rights to most of them. I know "Call Her Savage" shows up on FMC once in a while, so it's possible the others do as well.

     

    I'd rather see more of them make it to DVD. I know "Down to the Sea in Ships," ""The Plastic Age" and "It" are on DVD. "Wings" is not, and it really needs to be.

     

    A lot of her films are lost, which is a real shame.

  7. ...and not at all as terrible in her talkies as she thought she was.

     

    The scene where she wrestles the dog in "Call Her Savage" would be memorable even if she couldn't act. Damn. That's what I watch pre-code for.

     

    I think one reason we don't see much Clara on TCM is because they don't have the rights. They have showed the "Discovering the It Girl" documentary, and I think they've showed "Down to the Sea in Ships" before.

  8. Once again I forgot to record this. I guess I'll just have to buy the DVD. I keep seeing part of it, but never the whole thing.

     

    Carroll Baker -- whoa. Definitely a movie to heat you up on a cold night.

  9. Sid's death is very sad news indeed. He was totally brilliant, if disturbed. Pink Floyd's heyday may have come under Waters's direction, but for me they never equaled the Barrett period.

     

    Perhaps when I get home this evening I'll try listening to "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" while watching the 1925 silent "Wizard of Oz."

  10. Number one for me has to be "Passion of Joan of Arc." Nothing else like it before or since.

     

    I'm not sure I could do a top ten list of silent films. Murnau alone would take up at least three spots, and then three each for Keaton and Chaplin, two or three for Griffith -- there we are at 10 and I haven't even gotten to Eisenstein, Fritz Lang, King Vidor, Joseph Sturnberg yada yada yada.

     

    But "Passion" is number one. Possibly the best move ever made.

  11. Matt, I'll give you credit. You're an expert in right wing talking points.

     

    But this is all beside the point. In the first 90 seconds of the first debate, Kerry said "I believe America is safest and strongest when we are leading the world and we are leading strong alliances.

    I'll never give a veto to any country over our security. But I also know how to lead those alliances."

     

    Now how you get from that to "It reminds me of Kerry saying he thought we should get the UN's persmission before we do anything" is impossible without the willingness to flat out lie, which is what you charged me with proving. As far as I'm concerned, I did prove it.

     

    I'll grant that Kerry was politically tone-deaf with some of his statements, but he never even came close to saying what you said he did.

     

    I'm done with this. If you have anything else to say to me about this, take it to PM.

  12. I am not foaming at the mouth, nor am I ranting. Kerry is politically tone deaf when it comes to some of his statements, but he never said or suggest that we "would need the UN's permission" as you dishonestly claimed. He very clearly said the exact opposite.

     

    And you were the one who went off on a tangent about the truth and justice bit, so you're the one responsible for the turn that this thread has taken.

     

    A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, frankly.

  13. It's an interesting movie -- definitely precode. The gay relationship between Wilmer and Guttman is a lot more obvious, as is Spade's womanizing.

     

    It's not a bad film for an early precode, although Ricardo Cortez drives me batty with all his smirking. It's worth catching though.

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