| Author |
Message |
|
| billyweeds |
 Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:42 am |
 |
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
Saw Lakeview Terrace, with Samuel L. Jackson as the neighbor from hell, who in this case is a racist African-American who starts acting out when an interracial couple moves next door. They would call the cops on him except that he happens to be a cop. Quite a sticky situation, and quite a cliched movie, but well acted enough to be entertaining albeit superficial. Worth a look but not as good as similar outings (Pacific Heights with Michael Keaton as the Jackson surrogate, Arlington Road with Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack standing in for Sam).
Why are all these movies named after a district or street? Is this a rule of the neighbor-from-hell genre? |
|
|
| Back to top |
  
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:13 am |
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
|
lady wakasa wrote: You just had Peter Dinklage on the brain...
And of course there is still the great likelihood that Dinklage had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.
Quote: It is dwarf, not midget, and a lot of dwarves take it very much amiss when they are mischaracterized as midgets.
I assume that they also aren't thrilled when somebody claims they all look alike. |
Last edited by gromit on Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:37 am; edited 1 time in total
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:26 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
gromit wrote:
I'd assume that they also aren't thrilled when somebody claims they all look alike.
They don't, of course, but Jordan (?), who plays the dwarf in In Bruges, does look quite a bit like Dinklage. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:28 am |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
|
gromit wrote: I'd assume that they also aren't thrilled when somebody claims they all look alike.
I'd heard that all Canadians look alike, myself... |
_________________
===================
http://www.wakasaworld.com |
|
| Back to top |
|
| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:39 am |
|
|
|
Guest
|
billyweeds wrote: gromit wrote:
I'd assume that they also aren't thrilled when somebody claims they all look alike.
They don't, of course, but Jordan (?), who plays the dwarf in In Bruges, does look quite a bit like Dinklage.
The guy in front of me really did look like Dinklage, but now that I think of it, maybe it was Jordan? Dinklage coming on the TV is even weirder if it were Jordan.
Jordan is Canadian, I should have listened to hear if he ended his sentences with "eh". |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:41 am |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
billyweeds wrote: It is dwarf, not midget, and a lot of dwarves take it very much amiss when they are mischaracterized as midgets. (I assume midgets feel the same, but I have no close midget friends the way I do dwarves.) Dwarves are out of proportion, with very large heads as compared with their bodies. Midgets are in perfect proportion, just everything very small.
The latest word on this, from the community itself, is that the word "midget" if verboten period. It used to be that "midgets" referred to people smal but proportionately sized, and "dwarfs" were people very short in hight, but otherwise essentially the size of a full grown person.
But no longer. "Dwarfism" is the medical term applied to anyone of small size and "Little people" is the prefered cultural term. Trying to determine a distinct difference between types is difficult because there are so many cause and forms dwarfism takes that trying to assign two generalized categories to cover all little people is essentially impossible.
"Midget" is seen these days by most little people as a demeaning term. In part because it is a variation on"midge-ette," and a midge is a tiny flea, and also because of the name's association with carnivals and exploitation. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:24 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
| That all makes sense. I know that "little person" is acceptable to everyone. More commonly sized people are properly known as "average sized." |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:36 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
|
Actually, "little person" sounds patronizing to me, but I guess sometimes it takes time to get with the new terminology (and sometimes it's worth resisting faddish or strained labels).
The upshot seems to be that it is probably isn't acceptable for me to ask if Billy's dwarf buddies are from his bowling team.
Moving on ...
Finally got around to watching Delicatessen. Amelie was quite enjoyable and I liked City of Lost Children. But Deli was somewhat of a letdown. The casting is great, lots of nice wacky closeups and faces, plenty of clever scenes and silly jokes, along with Caro&Jeunet's trademark coloring, so that everything looks like a modern-day version of silent film tinting.
But the story was a bit too silly and predictable, the scenes and characters didn't coalesce into a whole, and the underground dwellers were too cartoonish.
It's probably partly my fault for watching these three films from newest to oldest. Maybe if I started with Deli, on to Lost Children and then Amelie, I would have been more satisfied. |
Last edited by gromit on Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:39 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:39 pm |
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
I confess when I saw the dwarf in In Bruges, I also thought it was Peter Dinklage for a while. Maybe it's because he's such an excellent actor I wish he were in a lot more movies.
I want to see the Lassie movie with him, Peter O'Toole and Samantha Morton. It's a version of Lassie Come Home, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's really good. I really like the 1943 film, but in this case and with this cast, I don't mind a remake at all.
I'd like to see a version sometime where Lassie is actually played by a border collie. |
Last edited by Syd on Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:40 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
|
| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:40 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
|
gromit wrote: It's probably partly my fault for watching these three films from newest to oldest. Maybe if I started with Deli, on to Lost Children and then Amelie, I would have been more satisfied.
I'd never thought about it like that before (and years went by between each viewing), but that probably is true - order probably does matter (although I wasn't *that* keen on Lost Children). |
_________________
===================
http://www.wakasaworld.com |
|
| Back to top |
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:41 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
|
Syd wrote: I confess when I saw the dwarf in In Bruges, I also thought it was Peter Dinklage for a while. Maybe it's because he's such an excellent actor I wish he were in a lot more movies. I want to see the Lassie movie with him, Peter O'Toole and Samantha Morton. It's a version of Lassie Come Home, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's really good.
I'd like to see a version sometime where Lassie is actually played by a border collie.
I agree. But it sounds like a daring move casting Dinklage as Lassie. |
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:45 pm |
|
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
| I saw Something Wicked This Way Comes and Local Hero back to back, which was a mistake. Local Hero is so underplayed in comparison that it almost disappeared. It took a couple more viewings to realize what a great picture it is. I like Something Wicked a lot, both as book and movie. |
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:49 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
gromit wrote: Actually, "little person" sounds patronizing to me, but I guess sometimes it takes time to get with the new terminology (and sometimes it's worth resisting faddish or strained labels).
It sounds patronizing to me, too, but a lot of this cultural. For instance, a lot of little people have troube with "midget" just because a lot of people will point them out on the street and say "look at the midget," and the term is connected with that uncomfortable experience. Whereas people who use the term "little people" know that's a term they prefer and so tend to speak more respectfully when using it.
Of course a lot of these terms are somewhat baffling. 19th and early 20th century gays liked to be called "Uranians" and shunned the word "homosexual" as too coldly clinical. The term "people of color" which was around a few years ago struck me as an odd return to the old prejudicial term "colored" (which always reminds me of the sarcastic rejoinder "I'm wasn't colored, I was born this way").
But the bottom line is to use whatever term a group itself identifies as the most positive/appropriate one for itself. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:50 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
billyweeds wrote: That all makes sense. I know that "little person" is acceptable to everyone. More commonly sized people are properly known as "average sized."
As a child I came under the size designation, "Too big for his britches." |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 3:00 pm |
|
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
| Sometimes, though, someone will tell you a term is offensive when the people it refers to don't find it particularly offensive, or only a small percentage do. For instance, most Native Americans don't find "American Indian" offensive or the other way around. (I arbitrarily differentiate by including Eskimos among the Native Americans, but not American Indians, since they are very distinct and migrated many millennia later.) |
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
