TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

City Lights (1931).  Rather funny and the ending is just so sweet it made me cry.  8/10.

[Savonarola]

NY77 The Coolest Year in Hell (2007)

This documentary covers 1977 in New York City; the year of the blackout, the Summer of Sam and the time when New York City was facing financial hardships all at once.  This was also a time of hedonism, with Studio 54 and Plato's Retreat in full force.  It was also a time of creativity as disco reached the mainstream, the bands at CBGB were coming into their own and hip hop was developing.

They interviewed a number of people from the various scenes.  The most entertaining were DJ Disco Wiz and Grandmaster Caz who explained how they used to get power from jacking into the base of street lights and run a series of six foot extension cords to their equipment.  They told about the time they challenged Afrika Bambaataa to a DJ battle; that didn't go so well for them.  Grandmaster Caz told about how he had DJ Disco Wiz protect their equipment during the blackout while he went and looted a mixer.  In those days you had to have all your own equipment to be a DJ.  They said that before the blackout there had been only a handful of DJ crews in New York; afterwards there were hundreds.

The other great part was when Randy Jones (the cowboy from The Village People) claimed to have smoked pot with Lilian Carter at Studio 54.

Most of the people interviewed were young in 1977, so many of them lamented the passing of decaying, decrepit New York for the city it has since become.  In fifteen years I'll probably be telling people what a great place Detroit was in the 1990s.

I had written the last lines in jest, but on my last trip to Detroit I found that midtown was now filled with the worst excesses of bourgeoisie America; all yoga parlors, sustainable development complexes and Whole Foods.  Downtown was almost entirely empty five years ago; today it's over spilling with chain restaurants.  My first thought was "My God, we need to bring back Kwame."

You can't go back home.   

[Savonarola]

City Lights (1931).  Rather funny and the ending is just so sweet it made me cry.  8/10.

Have you seen all of Chaplin's silent features yet?  Which one do you think is the best?

[Ideologue]

Oh, gosh, no.   In fact, I hadn't watched a Chaplin silent for a number of years till hitting up City Lights.  Been more interested in intermittently going through my Keaton collection and occasionally sampling some Lloyd.  Probably couldn't claim a favorite, unfortunately.  (And Modern Times kind of doesn't even count as a Chaplin silent. )

[Savonarola]

Oh, gosh, no.   In fact, I hadn't watched a Chaplin silent for a number of years till hitting up City Lights.  Been more interested in intermittently going through my Keaton collection and occasionally sampling some Lloyd.  Probably couldn't claim a favorite, unfortunately.  (And Modern Times kind of doesn't even count as a Chaplin silent. )

Technically "City Lights" isn't a silent film either.  I figured you'd like "Modern Times," you should see René Clair's "À Nous la Liberté."  Chaplin was sued by the film owners due to the similarities between it and "Modern Times" (though Chaplin had probably never seen "À Nous la Liberté")

[celedhring]

When I was 20 I went to an international filmmaker camp in the Czech Republic. Since everybody was from a different country and our English was in general still weak, the organizers decided to run a Chaplin silent movie marathon in the evenings. My favorite is City Lights by far; if that doesn't count as really silent, then I'll go with The Kid.

Honorable mention for A Woman of Paris that's been largely forgotten because it's a drama, and failed miserably on its release.

[Savonarola]

When I was 20 I went to an international filmmaker camp in the Czech Republic. Since everybody was from a different country and our English was in general still weak, the organizers decided to run a Chaplin silent movie marathon in the evenings. My favorite is City Lights by far; if that doesn't count as really silent, then I'll go with The Kid.

Honorable mention for A Woman of Paris that's been largely forgotten because it's a drama, and failed miserably on its release.

Personally I think Chaplin's best films are the shorts he made for Mutual (Easy Street and The Immigrant are probably the most famous).  For feature length my favorite is "The Gold Rush," (the 1925 version, I don't care for the voice over in the 1942 re-release.)

I had forgotten about "A Woman of Paris," that is a very good film.  Chaplin had the Lubitsch touch before Ernst Lubitsch did.

[Ideologue]

I guess City Lights isn't a true silent--it has sound effects when he swallows that whistle.  I thought that could just be easily replicated by live or recorded scores, but if it was 1931, no reason not to just make it a sound picture.

I need to watch Gold Rush again.  Think I saw it like ten years ago.

Oh, I also saw Cool Hand Luke (1967).  Hey, 1967 wasn't all bad!  Although it's not that damned great, it is still pretty good.  Bitchin' cinematography by Conrad Hall, and George Kennedy is always a really fun presence.  Newman's swell too. 7/10

[Josephus]

Fear the Walking Dead\\[spoiler]Seriously. They escaped a major city riot by hopping into their untouched car and driving away  [/spoiler]

[Admiral Yi]

I had written the last lines in jest, but on my last trip to Detroit I found that midtown was now filled with the worst excesses of bourgeoisie America; all yoga parlors, sustainable development complexes and Whole Foods.  Downtown was almost entirely empty five years ago; today it's over spilling with chain restaurants.  My first thought was "My God, we need to bring back Kwame."

You can't go back home.   

How long before the community activist types start bitching about gentrification? 

[Admiral Yi]

Oh, I also saw Cool Hand Luke (1967).  Hey, 1967 wasn't all bad!  Although it's not that damned great, it is still pretty good.  Bitchin' cinematography by Conrad Hall, and George Kennedy is always a really fun presence.  Newman's swell too. 7/10

If for nothing else, you have to give props to Cool Hand Luke for the egg crucifixion and The Greatest Single Line in Movie History.

Celery can correct me if I'm wrong, but Luke probably suffers from the same problem as The Sting: all the tropes about chain gangs that got reworked a million times, such as the superhuman boss man in the ton ton macoute sunglasses.

[Savonarola]

I had written the last lines in jest, but on my last trip to Detroit I found that midtown was now filled with the worst excesses of bourgeoisie America; all yoga parlors, sustainable development complexes and Whole Foods.  Downtown was almost entirely empty five years ago; today it's over spilling with chain restaurants.  My first thought was "My God, we need to bring back Kwame."

You can't go back home.   

How long before the community activist types start bitching about gentrification? 

Already well under way:

Detroit Doesn't Need Hipsters To Survive, It Needs Black People 

[11B4V]

I guess City Lights isn't a true silent--it has sound effects when he swallows that whistle.  I thought that could just be easily replicated by live or recorded scores, but if it was 1931, no reason not to just make it a sound picture.

I need to watch Gold Rush again.  Think I saw it like ten years ago.

Oh, I also saw Cool Hand Luke (1967).  Hey, 1967 wasn't all bad!  Although it's not that damned great, it is still pretty good.  Bitchin' cinematography by Conrad Hall, and George Kennedy is always a really fun presence.  Newman's swell too. 7/10

Cool Hand Luke is a good movie.

[celedhring]

Oh, I also saw Cool Hand Luke (1967).  Hey, 1967 wasn't all bad!  Although it's not that damned great, it is still pretty good.  Bitchin' cinematography by Conrad Hall, and George Kennedy is always a really fun presence.  Newman's swell too. 7/10

If for nothing else, you have to give props to Cool Hand Luke for the egg crucifixion and The Greatest Single Line in Movie History.

Celery can correct me if I'm wrong, but Luke probably suffers from the same problem as The Sting: all the tropes about chain gangs that got reworked a million times, such as the superhuman boss man in the ton ton macoute sunglasses.

The prison genre is pretty old actually, and always played out around the themes of enduring personal ordeal and destruction of the individual, like Cool Hand Luke. Hollywood actually played a big part in first ending chain gangs in the 1950s, there were lots of oldish films denouncing them that had quite an impact. Films like "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" are particularly striking for the era (1930s).

I like Cool Hand Luke a lot though.

[garbon]

Wiki told me that Sheriff Joe lets criminals volunteer to be on a chain gang...