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I've Been Going to the...MOOOOvies


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On 3/5/2021 at 10:11 PM, kipper said:

Just watched Fast Times again with director commentary on.  Amy Heckerling director and Cameron Crowe screenwriter.

I'm amazed that Heckerling (from the Bronx NY), and Crowe (grew up in Palm Springs and then later San Diego), was able to pull of a film set in Los Angeles (the Valley) so well.  But what we learn from the commentary, is how much Sean Penn brought to the film by "seasoning" the story with his own brand of SoCal "spice".  Penn being born here in SoCal and growing up in Santa Monica, he made the difference. 

 

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Those dudes are fags. 😄

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Started my weekend by paying respects to Ian Faith and his cricket-bat. Where is his knighthood?

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Then, I watched a couple of Charlie Chaplin faves. Both of these films premiered in January of their respective years of 1921 and 1931. Which makes "The Kid" 100 and "City Lights" 90 years old. I dare say that the number of people still alive that saw "The Kid" during its initial theatrical release is infinitesimally small, if not zero. The number for "City Lights" can't be that high, either. It is getting harder and harder to experience silent movies in a theatre today. These two Chaplin classics are two I hold close to my heart. They were two of the first Chaplin movies I ever saw and I still think they are good ones to try to introduce young people to silent films. It is a wonder to behold the old Los Angeles of one hundred years ago in "The Kid": Hancock Park, the Mid-Wilshire district, Olvera Street before it became a Mexican-themed tourist trap.

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Saturday was breakfast with Barbara. I'm always in the mood for some Barbara Stanwyck...especially Pre-Code Stanwyck! "Ten Cents a Dance" premiered exactly 90 years ago on March 6, 1931. "Illicit" beat it to the cinemas by a few weeks...premiering on February 14, 1931. Imagine taking a date to see that on Valentine's Day!

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Finished up Saturday night with something historic. "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" premiered exactly 100 years ago on March 6, 1921 and was the number one box office champ of 1921, doubling the box-office of #2, Chaplin's "The Kid". It launched Valentino and Alice Terry to stardom...and the Tango craze. Made the screenwriter June Mathis one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. How little people of today know of the impact this movie had on audiences of the time.
What a time 1921 was in America. The Great War had ended. Women (sorry...white women only at first) had just won the right to vote. America entered the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties by foolishly enacting Prohibition in 1920…which gave rise to the gangsters.
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It is getting harder and harder to experience silent movies in a theatre today. 

I feel lucky to have seen the silent Ben Hur in Seattle a couple years ago with Stewart Copeland and a 90 piece orchestra. One of the best shows I've ever been to. Copeland did 3 curtain calls. The pirates tied a Roman to the ship prow and then rammed the Roman ship with him. 

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On 3/7/2021 at 1:43 AM, redrum said:

Watched that one too. He was a bad boy. 

Trelane was the greatest Star Trek villain. Just a petulant child with "godlike" powers.

In the end, who can be mad at a child?

hehehe...

 

 

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On 3/7/2021 at 1:44 AM, redrum said:

Those dudes are fags. 😄

Careful!  Cancel culture is watching and listening....

I hate when they edit out that line when Fast Times plays on TV.  That is EXACTLY how teenagers talked, then AND now.

Was watching Snatch the other day on AMC. And my favorite line in the film where Cousin Avi tells Doug the Head to "Shut up ad sit down you big bald fuck!"  They edited fuck out and replaced with "freak".

So damn lame to do that, and why?  It isn't like the movie is airing ever on Saturday morning between Sesame street and the Billy Graham crusade.   Since when can't a gangster say "fuck"?

 

 

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On 3/8/2021 at 1:42 PM, Strider said:

Started my weekend by paying respects to Ian Faith and his cricket-bat. Where is his knighthood?

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I'll  bet you couldn't help thinking about Metallica and "Some Kind of Monster" while you watched it.

Spinal Tap is so good because the actors act so serious about everything. A brilliant film.

 

I was watching a more recent interview with cast and with Rob Reiner, and it was hilarious how after 30 years they could all just get right back into character and ad lib all sorts of funny things off the cuff.  They actually studied for months to become those characters.  There is so much more to what they created in them than just ended up on screen. They creates a very detailed back story which could not even be contained in the screenplay So, when the camera was rolling, they could just come up with things and play off of each other.

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6 hours ago, kipper said:

Trelane was the greatest Star Trek villain. Just a petulant child with "godlike" powers.

In the end, who can be mad at a child?

hehehe...

 

 

That was a great episode. I never watched it when it first came out as I was too involved in the 'Summer Of Love' wrecking my mind, man. 😄

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6 hours ago, kipper said:

Careful!  Cancel culture is watching and listening....

I hate when they edit out that line when Fast Times plays on TV.  That is EXACTLY how teenagers talked, then AND now.

Was watching Snatch the other day on AMC. And my favorite line in the film where Cousin Avi tells Doug the Head to "Shut up ad sit down you big bald fuck!"  They edited fuck out and replaced with "freak".

So damn lame to do that, and why?  It isn't like the movie is airing ever on Saturday morning between Sesame street and the Billy Graham crusade.   Since when can't a gangster say "fuck"?

 

 

Let 'em watch. Remember the scene in Midnight Cowboy where Ratso kept calling the poofter : FAGGOT!!! 

Another film they have censored is 'Sands Of Iwo Jima.' They blip out 'JAPS!' I'm sure The Duke is spinning in his grave. 🤪

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On 3/11/2021 at 6:09 PM, kipper said:

Careful!  Cancel culture is watching and listening....

I hate when they edit out that line when Fast Times plays on TV.  That is EXACTLY how teenagers talked, then AND now.

Was watching Snatch the other day on AMC. And my favorite line in the film where Cousin Avi tells Doug the Head to "Shut up ad sit down you big bald fuck!"  They edited fuck out and replaced with "freak".

So damn lame to do that, and why?  It isn't like the movie is airing ever on Saturday morning between Sesame street and the Billy Graham crusade.   Since when can't a gangster say "fuck"?

 

 

Watching any movie on AMC is an exercise in futility…they edit and chop the fuck out out of them. You might as well wax your balls with sandpaper. 

I won't watch anything on AMC, Spike, Bravo, IFC, or any cable channel other than TCM or the Criterion Channel. They are the only ones that still show movies unedited and in the proper frame aspect. Otherwise, I use my DVDs, and my streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video, CinemaHD, and ZuniTevi for watching movies at home.

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 I had an Agnès Varda mini film festival last week and finished with probably her best-known and best-regarded film, "Cléo From 5 to 7" from 1962. I just love Corinne Marchand singing "Sans Toi" in this...and that's Michel Legrand on the piano.

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I was in the mood for goofy this weekend. This 1966 Czech New Wave film is a Dadaist classic.

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One of Maggie Smith's finest hours from 1972. Corinne Marchand from "Cléo from 5 to 7" also appears in this.

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March is Women's History Month. I have been watching a lot of work by women film directors this month...both known and unknown to me. This was the very first Agnès Varda movie I ever saw...1985's "Vagabond". Starring one of my favourite contemporary actresses, Sandrine Bonnaire. Given the rising number of homeless and people living nomadic rootless lives, this film perhaps resonates even more strongly today.

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Agnès Varda does some very interesting documentary work, too. Especially her look at the wide variety of murals in Los Angeles, "Mur Murs". Filmed in 1979-80, it includes several classic murals that were later destroyed or painted over…like Kent Twitchell's Steve McQueen mural.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finished the new "Film Noir Style: The Killer 1940s" book I was reading by watching the final three films covered in the book.

1. "The Lady From Shanghai" 1948

2. "The Asphalt Jungle" 1950

3. "Sunset Blvd." 1950

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Celebrated St. Patrick's Day not by drinking putrid green beer (that shit is for tourists) but watching these two classics. "It's a Great day for the Irish" is a rouser. Technicolor was created for red-headed beauties such as Maureen O'Hara. John Wayne and Victor McLaglen stage one of the great fights in film history.

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Barbara Stanwyck is another sassy actress that I love watching. She had one of the longest consistently great careers of anyone in Hollywood…from the 1920s silent era through the Golden Age of Hollywood and into television from the 1960s onward into the 1980s ("The Big Valley", "The Thorn Birds", "The Colbys"). "Night Nurse" is a short (72 minutes), snappy 1931 pre-Code with a young Clark Gable. "My Reputation" is a surprisingly forward-thinking women's weepie from 1946 (although it was filmed in 1944 when WWII was still being fought) that also has the always fun and tart Eve Arden.

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I spent a day last week watching four Dorothy Arzner movies…two early pre-Codes that both star Fredric March and two of her last films. Dorothy Arzner is a significant figure in Hollywood history. One of the first women film directors and from 1927 to 1943 the only women director working in Hollywood. 1929's "The Wild Party" was IT Girl Clara Bow's first talkie picture. But as good as Clara Bow was, I think Sylvia Sidney was even hotter. I don't know…there was just something about her that always clicked with me. Those big eyes…her voice. 1932's "Merrily We Go to Hell" (which some newspapers and magazines refused to carry ads for because of the title) also has a young pre-stardom Cary Grant.

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March 23 was the day Joan Crawford was born…the year is a matter of debate. Some sources list it as 1905, some 1906, and Crawford herself claimed it was 1908. Anyways, I got together with a fellow Joan Crawford fan that night and we had a nice triple-bill of Joan movies…ending with the spectacular bitch-fest between Joan and Mercedes McCambridge in "Johnny Guitar".

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R.I.P. George Segal. An underrated Robert Altman film from 1974…it kind of got lost in the shuffle between "The Godfather Part II", "Chinatown", "The Exorcist", "Blazing Saddles", "Death Wish", "The Great Gatsby", "The Longest Yard", "Towering Inferno", and other high-profile films of 1974.

But it really holds up well after all these years and the chemistry between George Segal and Elliott Gould is fun. Not only does the film record a Los Angeles that barely exists anymore, it does the same for Reno.

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