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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 19, 2019 22:02:18 GMT -5
Hoosier X, Shemp also has a funny bit in Hold That Ghost with A and C. Even if you're not a huge A and C fan, you might like this one, part gangster, part haunted house movie. Often considered by fans as one of their best. Some very funny stuff with them and Joan Davis, who should have been in more of their pictures.. Plus the Andrews Sisters bookend the movie in scenes that were tagged on later. Another movie of theirs I like quite a bit is an odd one, "The Time of Their Lives," set in Colonial times. Give that a try, too.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 19, 2019 22:31:04 GMT -5
Hoosier X , Shemp also has a funny bit in Hold That Ghost with A and C. Even if you're not a huge A and C fan, you might like this one, part gangster, part haunted house movie. Often considered by fans as one of their best. Some very funny stuff with them and Joan Davis, who should have been in more of their pictures.. Plus the Andrews Sisters bookend the movie in scenes that were tagged on later. Another movie of theirs I like quite a bit is an odd one, "The Time of Their Lives," set in Colonial times. Give that a try, too. I've seen so many comedies from the 1930s and 1940s, the Marx Brothers, Chaplin, Fields, Wheeler and Wolsey, etc., and sometimes, I think it would be nice to see something I haven't seen before. That's how I ended up seeing Africa Screams the first time many years ago. Maybe two years ago, I saw Abbot and Costello meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and I got a kick out of it, even if I didn't think it was very funny. It was set in London in Victorian times and I really liked the costumes and the sets and the subplot with the suffragettes. Very interesting and occasionally a little amusing. The one with the mummy is just bad. I've watched it twice because Marie Windsor is in it. It's not a very good reason because she has so little to do. I would definitely be willing to give Hold that Ghost a chance. I've never heard of Time of Their Lives. I would probably watch it.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 19, 2019 22:47:07 GMT -5
I went to YouTube to look for some early Shemp Howard and I found a bunch of stuff! I also found The Time of Their Lives! I was going to save it for the weekend, but I watched the beginning to get a little bit of an idea about it, and Marjorie Reynolds is in it! I love Marjorie Reynolds so much! It's only 80 minutes, so I might just watch it tonight.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2019 0:00:41 GMT -5
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 20, 2019 1:14:58 GMT -5
I went to YouTube to look for some early Shemp Howard and I found a bunch of stuff! I also found The Time of Their Lives! I was going to save it for the weekend, but I watched the beginning to get a little bit of an idea about it, and Marjorie Reynolds is in it! I love Marjorie Reynolds so much! It's only 80 minutes, so I might just watch it tonight. There are lots of movies I enjoy watching because of their look, or tone, or because of a particular actor or director. I also enjoy seeing movies that are well made despite a lack of budget or big stars just to see how the director, producer and writer pull it off. Agree about A and C Meet Jekyll and Hyde. Oddly enjoyable, and like you, I love the sets and the look of this one.
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Post by brutalis on Nov 20, 2019 7:29:58 GMT -5
I went to YouTube to look for some early Shemp Howard and I found a bunch of stuff! I also found The Time of Their Lives! I was going to save it for the weekend, but I watched the beginning to get a little bit of an idea about it, and Marjorie Reynolds is in it! I love Marjorie Reynolds so much! It's only 80 minutes, so I might just watch it tonight. I really like Time of their Lives, especially since Bud and Lou don't play as a duo and are instead connected by the story/plot. Also nice is that this one doesn't include ANY of their classic vaudeville routines being worked into the movie. The revolutionary war portion at the beginning is different and entertaining. Interesting factoid: Abott had never driven a car and learned how to do so for the gag in this movie. He didn't like it and once the film was over he never ever drove a car again.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2019 10:30:05 GMT -5
Watched Bringing Up Baby last night and it's a hoot to watch this crazy comedy again and Hepburn and Grant were great together.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2019 19:22:26 GMT -5
Watched Bringing Up Baby last night and it's a hoot to watch this crazy comedy again and Hepburn and Grant were great together. Bringing Up Baby is HILARIOUS! It's not one of those classics that I watch over and over again like The Bride of Frankenstein or The Maltese Falcon, but I've seen it a few times over the decades, going back to 1990 or so. I watched it a few months ago when I noticed it was on the TCM schedule. Just as funny as ever! Maybe I prefer The Awful Truth by a smidge. That's the one I've seen over and over.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2019 8:37:14 GMT -5
Watched Bringing Up Baby last night and it's a hoot to watch this crazy comedy again and Hepburn and Grant were great together. Bringing Up Baby is HILARIOUS! It's not one of those classics that I watch over and over again like The Bride of Frankenstein or The Maltese Falcon, but I've seen it a few times over the decades, going back to 1990 or so. I watched it a few months ago when I noticed it was on the TCM schedule. Just as funny as ever! Maybe I prefer The Awful Truth by a smidge. That's the one I've seen over and over. I first watched that movie with my Parents on Public Television back in 1970 and I have no idea what this movie is all about an I was a Cary Grant fan and along with Katherine Hepburn and believe me I have seen this movie at least 50 times and always gave me great entertainment. The ending of it ... put the punctuation mark of this crazy and hilarious movie!
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Post by rberman on Nov 22, 2019 9:48:46 GMT -5
Vertigo was not particularly well received when it came out, especially as compare to other Hitchcock films. However, and I'm going off the top of my head here, it was "rediscovered" in the 60s or thereabouts and was the darling of many critics, to the point that it was seen as superior to Citizen Kane, the reigning champ as #1 film of all time. I first saw it when I was a little kid, as I first saw Rear Window, on Saturday Night at the Movies, back in the early 60s. I was never bored by it, despite its lack of physical action; in fact I recall being mesmerized by it because it was so different, and I think also because of the eerie Bernard Hermann score. I also remember the fear I felt in the final scene, to be rivaled only by the appearance of Mrs. Bates in Psycho, which scared me so much that I fell out of bed. I think the performances are excellent, especially Stewart's. It's as if Stewart takes George Bailey's mask of sheer terror from that great close-up in It's...Life when he realizes that his world is irrevocably changed and lets it surface throughout Vertigo as the emblem of Scotty's fears and dark secrets. The story and the movie itself are as dreamlike as any film can be, full of contradictions and paradoxes. (It takes place in San Francisco, a big city, but it always seems as if Scotty is the only one walking or driving around, for instance.) The parallels between Scotty and Hitchcock, the controlling director obsessed by his blonde leading ladies, are just as creepy as Scotty's desire not just to resurrect the dead, but to turn her into his lover. If you ever do watch Vertigo again, perhaps thinking of it as a dream, or better, as a nightmare, will help. Though it has a linear structure, it is like an iceberg, and surrendering to it, as you would to a dream, might help to show you the bulk beneath the surface. spoiler alertI saw Vertigo (1958) for the first time in many years last night and didn't remember much about the plot. It has a killer design team: Saul Bass on opening credits, Bernard Hermann on score, Edith Head costumes, and of course direction by Alfred Hitchcock. It was terrific, as befits one of the few films with a metacritic score of 100 (perfect) on IMDB. Some particular thoughts: * After the opening police chase scene come two rather deliberate conversation scenes: one between Jimmy Stewart and his gal pal, and one between Stewart and his shipping magnate buddy. These two expository sequences would have been done much more quickly today. * Modern audiences weaned on David Lynch and the like might be tempted to see the second half of the film as occurring solely in the mind of a now-unreliable protagonist. But I doubt that was the intention of the creators in the late 1950s. Noir could be ugly, but part of the ugliness was that it was real. * Stewart does a great job in the role yet is problematic for the character as written. Stewart was 50; his gal pal (played by Barbara "Miss Ellie" Bel Geddes) was 36. Kim Novak was 25. Stewart and Geddes are said to have been engaged "for three whole weeks" in college together years before, and apparently neither have ever married. Stewart's pursuit of Novak shows him to be a red-blooded male, so how did he make it to 50 unmarried? Why did he go to college so late, to be attending with someone 14 years his junior? * The bigger problem with Geddes' character is that she simply disappears in the second half of the film. There's no payoff for her presence; she's just a useful recipient of emotional exposition from Stewart in the first half of the film. A modern version would have found something, anything for her to do in the second half of the film to pay off all the time we spend with her in the first half. (Indeed, there is sort of a "modern version"; see below.) * Would Stewart really have brought apparently delirious Novak to his apartment and taken off all her clothes "to dry them"? Seems pretty shocking by 1950s standards, and perhaps moreso today given modern sensitivity toward sexual assault. She takes it all in stride, perhaps too much so for the aristocratic character she was playing at that moment. The scene gains additional levels of skepticism in the full light of the third act's revelations. * Also the detail of Geddes and Stewart fingering and casually discussing brassieres must have been a luridly casual treatment of a verboten topic in 1958. * The film's big second-act reveal is well set up in the first half. All except for one moment when Novak goes into a hotel room, looks out the window, then is not present in the locked room just a minute later. The key was not available. How did she get out and get away in her car? We have to make up a lot of details (the house matron's collaboration, a second key) that aren't given in order for the scene to make sense. * I was totally fooled by Novak's makeover in the second half, until the big reveal. So was everyone else in the room with me. A triumph of acting, makeup, and costuming. * Hermann's music uses a leitmotif of two alternating notes (the sixth and sharp fifth) for the character of Madeleine. John Williams lifted this for the leitmotif of the Ark of the Covenant in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." * The film was inspired by a then-recent French novel D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead) which in turn was inspired by the myth of Orpheus seeking to return his beloved Eurydice from the dead. The novel ends with the protagonist committing murder when he discovers he's been played for a fool. Can't have Jimmy Stewart committing murder I guess, so the movie opts for a different solution, though with his maddened demeanor, the original ending would have made sense. I wonder whether they changed the ending at the last minute during filming. Either way, the main bad guy gets away. * I don't believe that Novak would have worn the incriminating jewelry. Indeed, I don't believe she would have kept the incriminating clothes in her closet, and then allowed Stewart to hang around her apartment unsupervised. It would have made more sense if he had seen the jewelry while snooping than to have her deliberately wear it. * The parallels between this film and Paul Verhoeven's film Basic Instinct were more obvious to me this time around, not just in the way that Sharon Stone was made to look like Kim Novak. The "gal pal" role was more fully exploited by Verhoeven, with payoff at the end of the story. None of this is to say it wasn't a great film. I can see how it earned its reputation, and hopefully I'll remember it this time around.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2019 7:13:55 GMT -5
On TCM Late Night Movies
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey, Nigel Bruce as the Prince of Wales really an entertaining movie to watch and I'm a fan of Leslie Howard who is the Scarlet Pimpernel as a master of disguises and saving French Aristocrats from the dreaded death of the guillotine was tour de force movie with flair, substance, and style. I really enjoyed this movie very much and I haven't seen it in years and it was on TCM late last night.
Full Movie on YouTube
The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1937)
Barry K. Barnes and Sophie Stewart were the main stars and I haven't seen this movie in 25 years and it's just as good as the 1934 version and their is really no YouTube to watch and if you do find on the quality is not good at all. James Mason who in this movie played a marvelous character by the name of Jean Tallien and I really enjoyed it with awe and he graces the screen quite well. Barnes and Stewart were superb and they each care of each other despite that his wife gave him away and at the end of this movie he saves himself and set a trap for Francis Lister who played Chauvelin wickedly.
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Post by rberman on Dec 10, 2019 22:01:40 GMT -5
The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen (1988) John Neville, Eric Idle, Oliver Reed, Robin Williams, Uma Thurman D-Terry Gilliam The utterly fantastic exploits of the famed Baron. Pissing off a Turkish sultan and beginning a war, travelling to the moon, romancing the goddess Venus-he is accompanied by companions endowed with super abilities like super-strength, super-speed, super-archery and super-breathe. A veritable Justice League When originally seen I quickly became exhausted with the overpowering visual tricks and story silliness. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood at that time because now I deem it rather decent. Yes its a bit long and I still tired of it for the last half hour but otherwise entertained. If you enjoyed Brazil or Time Bandits its probably right up you're alley. I saw this again tonight with a friend who hadn't seen it. What a delightful film. It is visually exhausting; Gilliam revels in mayhem. But it's also loaded with details that escaped me on previous viewings. Gilliam's favorite theme of "the creative mind vs the bean counters" gets another go here (each of his movies is a variation on Don Quixote), as we see that the bankers and the executives are in cahoots, conspiring against actors and storytellers. But Gilliam also takes aim at himself depicting a dreamer whose head is so far in the clouds that he needs a child to ground him. Sara Polley and John Neville were exceptional.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2019 0:15:49 GMT -5
I've watched two Gamera Movies today ... they are Gamera vs. Gyaos and Gamera vs. Zigra ... Gamera is a Flying Turtle and my 1st impression of watching these movies are so lame and I'm not going to watch anymore of these idiotic Japanese movies anymore.
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Post by beccabear67 on Dec 14, 2019 13:38:27 GMT -5
I watched some Gamera movies on the Comet channel not too long ago... I remember seeing them when I was little and they are definitely more a little kids type of series (like Johnny Socko & His Flying Robot). I'm hearing a lot of people have 'lost' TCM recently because it was moved to a sports-heavy package by their cable companies. I still have it and hope they don't pull this kind of bundling of channels thing in Canada. People should be able to buy just channels they want to support and watch and not be forced to take things they don't. It's like being told if you want to rent a car you have to rent a hotel room of their choice and a sand-blaster to get the car or something!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2019 14:29:16 GMT -5
I watched some Gamera movies on the Comet channel not too long ago... I remember seeing them when I was little and they are definitely more a little kids type of series (like Johnny Socko & His Flying Robot). I'm hearing a lot of people have 'lost' TCM recently because it was moved to a sports-heavy package by their cable companies. I still have it and hope they don't pull this kind of bundling of channels thing in Canada. People should be able to buy just channels they want to support and watch and not be forced to take things they don't. It's like being told if you want to rent a car you have to rent a hotel room of their choice and a sand-blaster to get the car or something! I'm paying ten dollars a month for TCM and I watch about a movie or two a week ... so I'm getting the most of my monies.
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