TV/Movies Megathread

[jimmy olsen]

This movie rocks.  This movie is Yi's must see of 2014.

Syt gave it a 7.25 because he was afraid he was ahead of the curve and he didn't want to get strung up like Timmy whacking off to a Transformer movie. This is a solid 9 movie; this movie will still be appreciated 12 years from now on cable reruns.

Whatsherface is still bugeyed and plain though.

I've never been a big fan of them.

You're still blind.

[Savonarola]

Hey, Sav, what was that silent (or maybe just old?) movie with the robot wife that you watched?  For obvious reasons, it's not too easy to search for just with that info.

The Doll; it's a silent film from Lubitsch when he was still living in Germany.

[Savonarola]

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

George M. Cohan, after seeing it allegedly said "It's a great movie, who was it about?"   

Made in the darkest days of the Second World War, this flag waving extravaganza is undoubtedly what the country needed.  Even so it still holds up well largely on the strength of Cohan's songs and James Cagney's dancing.  I've seen clips of Cohan dancing, and Cagney copied his moves very well.  Even the running up the wall bit he does in the "Yankee Doodle Dandy" number is a Cohan bit.

Cagney would go on to play Cohan again in "The Seven Little Foys."  Bob Hope is Eddie Foy in that film, but in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" he's played by one of the seven Foys, Eddie Foy Jr.

[Ideologue]

Hey, Sav, what was that silent (or maybe just old?) movie with the robot wife that you watched?  For obvious reasons, it's not too easy to search for just with that info.

The Doll; it's a silent film from Lubitsch when he was still living in Germany.

Aw, man.  I thought it was Lubitsch too and when I googled "robot wife Lubitsch" nothing came up.

[celedhring]

How "accurate" is that sabre-in-hand-against-machine gun nests horseback charge in War Horse? Loved the bit where a German soldier tell Cumberbatch's character how utterly idiotic that action was.

By the way, the film is actually pretty good despite being a sappy horse flick.

[Ideologue]

I've been meaning to catch up on Spielberg for a while.

[The Brain]

Spielberg hates Germans. Go figure.

[Syt]

How "accurate" is that sabre-in-hand-against-machine gun nests horseback charge in War Horse? Loved the bit where a German soldier tell Cumberbatch's character how utterly idiotic that action was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_I

Britain continued to use cavalry throughout the war, and in 1917, the Household Cavalry conducted its last mounted charge during a diversionary attack on the Hindenburg Line at Arras. On the orders of Field Marshal Douglas Haig, the Life Guards and the Blues, accompanied by the men of the 10th Hussars, charged into heavy machine gun fire and barbed wire, and were slaughtered by the German defenders; the Hussars lost two-thirds of their number in the charge.[

[celedhring]

How "accurate" is that sabre-in-hand-against-machine gun nests horseback charge in War Horse? Loved the bit where a German soldier tell Cumberbatch's character how utterly idiotic that action was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_I

Britain continued to use cavalry throughout the war, and in 1917, the Household Cavalry conducted its last mounted charge during a diversionary attack on the Hindenburg Line at Arras. On the orders of Field Marshal Douglas Haig, the Life Guards and the Blues, accompanied by the men of the 10th Hussars, charged into heavy machine gun fire and barbed wire, and were slaughtered by the German defenders; the Hussars lost two-thirds of their number in the charge.[

Thanks, I was afraid it might be another "Polish cavalry charging tanks" kind of myth, but seems it actually happened, then.

[Savonarola]

Il Sorpasso (1962)

This is a Dago goofy buddy picture.  Vittorio Gassman is the carefree live for today type who drags serious law student Jean-Louis Trintignant on a road trip through central Italy.  They go on all sorts of wacky misadventures.  The movie works largely on the strength of Gassman's performance.  His character gets some great lines throughout:

Yes! There's everything! Solitude, the lack of communication, then that other thing, that one so fashionable today, alienation, as in the movies of Antonioni, right? Have you seen "The Eclipse"?  I fell asleep.  I got a nice nap; great director Antonioni.

It's also a vivid portrait of Italy in the early 1960s.  The director, Dino Rossi, sets up scenes to show the people and the countryside at that time. 

The film was an influence on "Easy Rider" and "Sideways."  In an interview, Rossi said that the film was so popular in Argentina that the word "Sorpasso" (literally passing a car, or figuratively "Full speed ahead") has come to mean "Braggart" there (taken from Gassman's character.)  Also the car Gassman drives, a Lancia Aurelia, has a horn with a distinctive sound.  That horn with that sound became so popular in Italy that the government outlawed them as a nuisance.

[dps]

How "accurate" is that sabre-in-hand-against-machine gun nests horseback charge in War Horse? Loved the bit where a German soldier tell Cumberbatch's character how utterly idiotic that action was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_I

Britain continued to use cavalry throughout the war, and in 1917, the Household Cavalry conducted its last mounted charge during a diversionary attack on the Hindenburg Line at Arras. On the orders of Field Marshal Douglas Haig, the Life Guards and the Blues, accompanied by the men of the 10th Hussars, charged into heavy machine gun fire and barbed wire, and were slaughtered by the German defenders; the Hussars lost two-thirds of their number in the charge.[

Thanks, I was afraid it might be another "Polish cavalry charging tanks" kind of myth, but seems it actually happened, then.

The Australians pulled off a successful cavalry charge at Megiddo.  IIRC, they weren't actually cavalry;  they were dragoons, and therefore weren't really supposed to charge, but they did anyway.

[celedhring]

Spielberg hates Germans. Go figure.

Dunno, there are several sympathetic German characters in that flick.

[The Larch]

Il Sorpasso (1962)

This is a Dago goofy buddy picture.  Vittorio Gassman is the carefree live for today type who drags serious law student Jean-Louis Trintignant on a road trip through central Italy.  They go on all sorts of wacky misadventures.  The movie works largely on the strength of Gassman's performance.  His character gets some great lines throughout:

Yes! There's everything! Solitude, the lack of communication, then that other thing, that one so fashionable today, alienation, as in the movies of Antonioni, right? Have you seen "The Eclipse"?  I fell asleep.  I got a nice nap; great director Antonioni.

It's also a vivid portrait of Italy in the early 1960s.  The director, Dino Rossi, sets up scenes to show the people and the countryside at that time. 

The film was an influence on "Easy Rider" and "Sideways."  In an interview, Rossi said that the film was so popular in Argentina that the word "Sorpasso" (literally passing a car, or figuratively "Full speed ahead") has come to mean "Braggart" there (taken from Gassman's character.)  Also the car Gassman drives, a Lancia Aurelia, has a horn with a distinctive sound.  That horn with that sound became so popular in Italy that the government outlawed them as a nuisance.

Great film. The horn is great. 

[Viking]

How "accurate" is that sabre-in-hand-against-machine gun nests horseback charge in War Horse? Loved the bit where a German soldier tell Cumberbatch's character how utterly idiotic that action was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_I

Britain continued to use cavalry throughout the war, and in 1917, the Household Cavalry conducted its last mounted charge during a diversionary attack on the Hindenburg Line at Arras. On the orders of Field Marshal Douglas Haig, the Life Guards and the Blues, accompanied by the men of the 10th Hussars, charged into heavy machine gun fire and barbed wire, and were slaughtered by the German defenders; the Hussars lost two-thirds of their number in the charge.[

In the 100 days offensives the allies routinely achieved breakthroughs which were exploited by cavalry in the hinterland behind the germans. It is often forgotten the the entire point of the mass offensives by the allies for the entire war was to get a breakthrough which could be exploited by cavalry.

[Sheilbh]

I think what we can't say is that fascism was a coherent ideology.  Like Raz said, there was--at least in the German brand of fascism--tremendous appreciation for family, for peasant smallholding, for the agricultural lifestyle, and for the romanticized past in general.

German fascism had kitsch. I think that's more to do with the German element than the fascist

An imagined idealised past is definitely a part of fascism, but that doesn't necessarily mean agrarianism.

And I vote "just ok" for American Gangster. I was actually a bit disappointed by it given all the talent involved; still, it's not a bad film, just not a great one.

I didn't enjoy it. Boring

Cal said he thought it was a tasty fish, Larch said he had peasant tastes: vendetta.

It's the most popular fish in Bangla supermarkets. It's easy to farm cheaply in muddy pools. It tastes of nothing. I'm with Larch.

Ghost Protocol. I liked it.