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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 8:05 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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yambu wrote: billyweeds wrote: .....These guys are peddling fifty-dollar, cheesily-illustrated Bibles to poor people...... I did that. Maybe I should see it.
You DID THAT??? Then you definitely should see it. Available from netflix. It's a Criterion Collection selection. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 9:32 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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billyweeds wrote: Watched The Apartment for the umpteenth time yesterday. This movie just gets better and better. It's as fresh as tomorrow even though the milieu has dated. The shots of the office are reminiscent of Metropolis. The vibe of the job is depressing. The plot involves adultery, suicide, and sexual abuse. And yet it remains a romantic comedy--possibly the best one the screen has ever offered. Billy Wilder is a bona fide genius and Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray are as accomplished and charismatic a star trio as one could hope for. This was MacLaine's breakthrough role into superstardom, Lemmon's breakthrough into dramatic acting, and one of MacMurray's two great film performances (not coincidentally, the other was another non-hero in another Billy Wilder movie, Double Indemnity).
Something that struck me for the first time during yesterday's viewing was the amount of intelligence with which Wilder credits his audience. The dialogue in the final scene has no less than three echoes of previous dialogue in the movie, dialogue which was not hammered home in the earlier scenes but which Wilder expects the audience to retain.
Namely:
SPOILERS? OKAY (in white):
"I'd spell it out for you, but I can't spell."
"Is your knee all right?"
"We'll send him a fruitcake every Christmas."
No current director or writer of rom-com would ever trust his/her audience this much.
The Apartment is one of the handful of Oscarwinning movies (for Best Picture, that is) that is also not just a good, not just an excellent, not just a superb, but a great movie.
It's also one of my top ten and one which I may see again tonight. Yep. Tonight. In fact, I can't wait.
We also watched The Apartment last night, in between Die Fledermaus and Cinderella, as have done every New Year's Eve since the inception of home video/its acquisition. Lemmon and certainly MacLaine were robbed, robbed, I tell you, by that, um, film society.
C.C. Baxter: The mirror... it's broken.
Fran Kubelik: Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.
Am of late prone to watching it with the French dub, which is sort of delish -
Fran Kubelik : Quelle est une raquette de tennis faisant dans la cuisine ?
C.C. Baxter : Raquette de tennis ? Ah, je me rappelle, je me faisais cuire un dīner italien....Je l'emploie pour tendre la gaine.
Monsieur Baxtaire! Mademoiselle Kubelik! Merveilleux.
Easily one of my 10 or 11 favorite things ever, and I don't mean 10 or 11 favorite films, I mean 10 or 11 favorite anythings. |
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 9:34 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 2148
Location: my computer
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Cinderella? As in Lesley-Anne Warren and Stuart Damon? Because that was the production I've loved ever since childhood where I'd cry myself to sleep at night after it was aired annually, because I wasn't a princess like she became. (No comments from the peanut gallery - y'all know who you are)
STILL love that one and will look for the DVD sometime soon. It's a nostalgic delight. |
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Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarfs aren't happy. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 9:37 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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lissa wrote: Cinderella? As in Lesley-Anne Warren and Stuart Damon? Because that was the production I've loved ever since childhood where I'd cry myself to sleep at night after it was aired annually, because I wasn't a princess like she became. (No comments from the peanut gallery - y'all know who you are)
STILL love that one and will look for the DVD sometime soon. It's a nostalgic delight. |
Last edited by inlareviewer on Thu Jan 01, 2009 11:03 pm; edited 1 time in total
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 11:02 pm |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
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Speaking of films that get better and better:
I had my annual reviewing of Lawrence of Arabia last night, and it struck me forcibly just what a dark tale it tells. By the end Lawrence's personality has disintegrated, his great adventure has become a Conradian nightmare, his desire to build an Arab nation in compensation devolves into tribalism of both local and international varieties.
On top of this there's a rigour and depth to the filmmaking that's altogether superior to the patchy Doctor Zhivago. Lean's sense of poetic detail is at its most soaring.
Fuck yeah. |
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A long time ago, but somehow in the future...It is a period of civil war and renegade paragraphs floating through space. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 9:47 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| Yes, in the understandable admiration for its epic scale, sweeping vistas and impeccable technique, its tragic qualitiesare often overlooked. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 1:09 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| look @ inla's avvy *swoon* |
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It truly disappoints me when people do something for you via no prompt of your own and then use it as some kind of weapon against you at a later time and place. It is what it is. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:03 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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ehle64 wrote: look @ inla's avvy *swoon*
Who is it? |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:21 pm |
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| Wade might have been through some hard times, but it hasn't damaged his libido. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:23 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
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Location: Lawrence, KS
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billyweeds wrote: ehle64 wrote: look @ inla's avvy *swoon*
Who is it?
Sean Harvey Penn Milk. Am reluctant to use Meryl looking like a dour Amish penquin as an avvy, and none of my Les MiserABBA pix are small enough. Have seen too many WALL-E and Joker Heath avvies around the blogosphere to go that route.
If a suitable picture of, say, Mrs. Matthew Broderick with the wedding bird on her head, or La Belle Anne in Demme-driven dishabille, turns up, might use that, but am inordinately fond of that MooJuice shot. He looks so bemused and huggable. |
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:31 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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inlareviewer wrote: that MooJuice shot.
I'm not the only person who's said that, then! LOL |
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http://www.wakasaworld.com |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:32 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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lady wakasa wrote: inlareviewer wrote: that MooJuice shot.
I'm not the only person who's said that, then! LOL
It's a mooooovement. |
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 2148
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| inla, send me any pix you'd like made into avatars - I can help out if you'd like! After all, people like Syd and yambu are still using my work! (and btw, thanks for that, guys, it was fun to come back and see those still in vogue!) |
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Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarfs aren't happy. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:36 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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lissa wrote: inla, send me any pix you'd like made into avatars - I can help out if you'd like! |
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:38 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Since I'm rooting for Rourke over Penn, here's my response. Maybe not as dreamy, but plenty evocative, methinks. |
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