TV/Movies Megathread

[Savonarola]

The Freshman (1925).  Also a movie, one starring Harold Lloyd.  As usual, he is a nerd.  However, the illusions he has about life are here are internalized, and when he goes off to college, deploying lines and goofy physical comedy he learned from the pictures, he gains a measure of popularity, but only because the actual cool kids like to have him around to laugh at.  But he makes those who have wronged him pay.  Notable for being funny despite 80% of the jokes being about sewing.  Some of the sewing is frankly erotic in nature, and the female lead, Jobyna Ralston, is really pretty.  She was also in Wings, which I really ought to see one of these days.

B+

The football scenes are reused as the beginning of "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock."  While that film, as I've said before, is a hit or miss affair, I think you'll enjoy the opening jokes about how the world beating Glasses character is transformed into a soul-crushed office drone by corporate culture.

[Savonarola]

The Blob (1958)

A mysterious alien comes from outer space!  It devours everything in it's path!  Only twenty eight year old teenagers Steve McQueen and Aneta Corsaut can save their town; but will the adults listen to them?

This low budget independent film was made at a time when both juvenile delinquent films and sci-fi films were becoming big.  The producer, Jack Harris, was a film distributor on the east coast.  He wasn't getting the films he thought would sell; so he made his own.  He got unknown stage actors from New York and from Philadelphia's Hedgerow Theater, he got a religious film company to film it and a local lab to produce it.  Paramount had an enormous bomb on their hands, "I Married and Alien from Outer Space," and offered to put "The Blob" on a double bill with that; but only if an unknown songwriter, named Burt Bacharach, wrote the theme song.

The film is a great deal of fun; and a wonderful snap-shot of  small town 1958 when "Bad" kids did terrible things like have backwards drag races and go to late night movies.

[CountDeMoney]

Just somewhat blindly bought Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion.  It's CDM's favorite movie.

That is an awesome movie 

[garbon]

My mother & aunt saw The Blob when young. They both were terrified though as she was older, my mother less so, and she used to torment her sister by mentioning it before bed.

[Malthus]

For all True Dectective fans out there - there is a luxury hotel in Malaysia called "Carcosa". Yes, it derived its name from the same source as the series - the King in Yellow. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcosa_Seri_Negara#Choice_of_name

To the Editor of "British Malaya" [British Malaya, May 1936]

SIR,

In the April magazine your correspondent in Malaya asks me, in courteous terms, to tell him why I gave the name "Carcosa" to the house that was designed and built for me at Kuala Lumpur by the late Mr. C.E. Spooner, assisted by Mr. A.B. Hubback – as he was in those days – and I have no objection to answer the question even though the simple truth may spoil a number of excellent stories. When this house was finished and occupied I read a book which interested me. It was called "The King in Yellow" and at the beginning of this book there were some verses with a note explaining that they came from Cassilda's song in "The King in Yellow", Act 1, Scene 2. Here are two verses: -

"Strange is the night where black stars rise, And twin moons circle in the skies, But the stranger still is Lost Carcosa."

"Song of my soul, my voice is dead; Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa."

I did not call the Resident General's dwelling "Government House," or "King's House," because neither seemed an appropriate name in Protected States. I did not give it a Malay name, because it was to be the residence of a British Officer; so I took a book name as has often been done before.

As to the word Carcosa, I imagine it was the Castle of the King in Yellow, but the book explains nothing about either the place or its occupant. That apparently can be found in the play, to which there are only occasional allusions. Probably it is a word created by the author's fancy, though it looks like a combination of the Italian words cara and casa and would mean "desirable dwelling," as indeed I found it.

The only curious fact is that this name was prophetic for, as I understand, the house has lost its name and is thus, "Lost Carcosa." The occupant, I am told, is now styled "F.S," instead of "R.G."

Yours obediently, FRANK SWETTENHAM

19 April 1936.

I rather imagine that inbred hillbillies from Louisiana are unlikely to be found staying there, though.

[crazy canuck]

the opening scenes are literally meters away from the trailhead where we enter the forest trail system (about 5 minutes walk from my front door).

J I took the dog for a walk this morning to see if we could spot where all the scenes were filmed.  I timed the walk from our front door to where the opening scene was filmed - 6 minutes 42 seconds. 

[Ideologue]

Just somewhat blindly bought Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion.  It's CDM's favorite movie.

That is an awesome movie 

Salt water, eh?  That's a good idea.

[Ideologue]

The Freshman (1925).  Also a movie, one starring Harold Lloyd.  As usual, he is a nerd.  However, the illusions he has about life are here are internalized, and when he goes off to college, deploying lines and goofy physical comedy he learned from the pictures, he gains a measure of popularity, but only because the actual cool kids like to have him around to laugh at.  But he makes those who have wronged him pay.  Notable for being funny despite 80% of the jokes being about sewing.  Some of the sewing is frankly erotic in nature, and the female lead, Jobyna Ralston, is really pretty.  She was also in Wings, which I really ought to see one of these days.

B+

The football scenes are reused as the beginning of "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock."  While that film, as I've said before, is a hit or miss affair, I think you'll enjoy the opening jokes about how the world beating Glasses character is transformed into a soul-crushed office drone by corporate culture.

I've been wanting to watch it since I learned it was related to The Freshman and it turned out The Freshman was pretty damn good.

I bought Safety Last and that should be coming tomorrow.  I bought a lot of stuff.

[Josquius]

I just can't watch silent movies. They're too creepy

[Ideologue]

Wages of Fear (1953).  Unlikeable guys drive delicate explosives up the side of a Goddamned mountain to blow out a well fire at a South American oil derrick.  The first hour features no nitro burning funny car action at all, and insofar as it builds up the characters, actually incurs a debit upon the film's account; the second forty minutes are good but suffer from the first hour.  However, the climactic fifty minutes are really great.  Then the last ten minutes kind of fuck it up, but I appreciated the contempt for his characters that Clouzot gussies up in tragedy.

B+

You might like Diabolique also by the same director.  It's more in the vein of Hitchcock than "Wages of Fear."

Howard Hawks's "Only Angels Have Wings" has a similar premise to "Wages of Fear" with explosives going over the mountain in South American; only by plane in this film rather than by truck.  If you like Hawks's films it's a must see.

Les Diaboliques was actually really great, except for when they [spoiler]telegraphed the twist so hard they might as well have just narrated it out beforehand, even if you hadn't already deduced it.[/spoiler]

B+

Should've given Wages a (high) B, but I was feeling overgenerous due to splitting the movie into two parts and watching the really neat last hour on its own.

[Ideologue]

Oh, and I watched like half of Tokyo Drifter.  Is "New Wave" foreign for "kind of boring and barely hangs together"?  More of a plot than Weekend, but actually even less involving characters.  And yet I rather liked the production and costume design.  Those were swell.

[jimmy olsen]

Sean Bean is playing Caesar in a film version of Shakespeare's play. Does he literally look for parts where he dies halfway through? 

[mongers]

Sean Bean is playing Caesar in a film version of Shakespeare's play. Does he literally look for parts where he dies halfway through? 

He get to play twice as many roles. :kerching:

[mongers]

'Non-Stop' with Liam Neeson - Damn that was seven kinds of stupid.

[Admiral Yi]

Watched most of "Love, Actually" the other day.  This is the kind of movie the English should not be allowed to make.