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| Syd |
 Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 9:30 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12940
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Edward G. Robinson was 5'7" according to IMDb. I'm a bit skeptical of that, because I've seen him and Cagney in a film together, and Cagney looked taller. I may need to see "Smart Money" again.
Paul Muni was a towering 5'10". |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 9:39 pm |
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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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| If I was a teenage girl, I'd have adored Epic, as it was I hardly cried at all. |
Last edited by jeremy on Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:20 pm; edited 1 time in total
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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.
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 10:04 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12940
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I caught the last half of GoodFellas, which I hadn't seen for many years, and more or less confirmed my opinions.
(1) No, it's not the best film of the 1990s. Actually, I think I like Dances with Wolves a bit better, and there are a lot of 90s films I like better.
(2) It's still very good. I'd forgotten the scene where Jimmy is urging Karen down the street and she's more and more convinced that she's about to be whacked. Very tense scene, and one of the better in the movie.
(3) That said, the film has a problem that Henry and Karen are far from the most compelling characters in the film.
(4) Scorsese had a problem for many years, that he could do compelling scenes without making a compelling movie. Raging Bull is a good example, and to a lesser extent, so is GoodFellas. I'm convinced that a lot of people like Raging Bull for its brilliant boxing scenes without noticing that its lead character isn't really that interesting. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 10:34 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: No, it's not the best film of the 1990s.
Certainly not. But no one said it was that I know of. What I have said is that it is Scorsese's best and much, much better than Dances With Wolves. Best film of the 1990s would be hard to pick, but Fargo, The Silence of the Lambs and Schindler's List rank above GoodFellas just for starters.
My pick is Fargo, but that's just me. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 11:03 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Gromit,
We may evaluate a given episode of a t.v. series, but we don't evaluate, oh, Star Trek or Starsky and Hutch or The Sopranos overall on the basis of one episode, or decide the show has gone downhill because of a weak entry. It's part of a continuum, and if we like the thing overall, a sub-par entry here and there doesn't stand as an example of a bad series. In fact, it may only be in reruns that we notice how many sub-par entries their were because we were so into the overall concept and characters. First time around, we got our fix, saw the characters we like doing what they do, and that was satisfaction enough.
Similarly, when people went to see a Warners ganster picture or an MGM Gable-Harlow sex comedy, they were less interested in the specific picture and how it stood on its own than in whether they saw their favorite performers again and if said performers got to to do their stuff: if that happened, it was enough and the rest rolled off the audience's back.
Which is different than we evaluate even an intentional movie movie today, even entries in a specific franchise like the Dark Knight or Spider-Man. Though maybe that's how we still look at the Bourne trilogy or the Oceans series. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 11:10 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12940
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| At last, I've finally got my first disk of Goofy cartoons from Netflix! I'm not kidding, either. Many of the best shorts Disney ever did featured Goofy. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 11:20 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12940
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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billyweeds wrote: Syd wrote: No, it's not the best film of the 1990s.
Certainly not. But no one said it was that I know of. What I have said is that it is Scorsese's best and much, much better than Dances With Wolves. Best film of the 1990s would be hard to pick, but Fargo, The Silence of the Lambs and Schindler's List rank above GoodFellas just for starters.
My pick is Fargo, but that's just me.
I've seen people proclaim it. My choice would be Schindler's List.
Premiere proclaimed Raging Bull the best film of the eighties (in a critics poll), which I can't see. The Right Stuff was #3 and was my choice. #2 was Wings of Desire, which is pretty defensible. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:51 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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I don't really see Warner crime dramas as akin to earlier serials such as The Perils of Pauline or later TV shows such as The Rockford Files (much better than Starsky and Hutch). If you liked a genre or an actor you went to his films, not much different than today.
A quick Google search pegs Edward G at 5' 5" which sounds about right.
Anyway, there's no question that Cagney and Edward G had presence and could exude attitude.
Edward G was born Emanuel Goldenberg in Bucharest. |
Last edited by gromit on Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:58 am; edited 1 time in total
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:57 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| FIGHT CLUB was a great 90s film. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:05 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Raise the Red Lantern
Being John Malkovich
American Beauty
Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers
The Ice Storm
Hoop Dreams
The Big Lebowski
Fight Club
Three Kings
Man Bites Dog
I've never understood the great love for Fargo which always seems to me a rather ordinary well-made film. But I think we've been over this before. Similar to The Straight Story. Which is fine enough, but nothing special. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:49 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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| Here's the new Simpsons Treehouse of Horror intro, directed by Del Toro, with a number of Pan's Labyrinth references and Mr. Burns as the Third Eye Monster. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:12 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: FIGHT CLUB was a great 90s film.
I didn't love it. I think it's overrated by fanboy types, present "company" excepted. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:16 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: Raise the Red Lantern
Being John Malkovich
American Beauty
Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers
The Ice Storm
Hoop Dreams
The Big Lebowski
Fight Club
Three Kings
Man Bites Dog
I've never understood the great love for Fargo which always seems to me a rather ordinary well-made film. But I think we've been over this before. Similar to The Straight Story. Which is fine enough, but nothing special.
I would rank only one of your list (Three Kings) as a "best" movie of the 90s. OTOH, The Straight Story would be in my top five, so there you have it. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 7:59 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12940
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Mine would be totally different, but I'd be tempted to include The Wrong Trousers myself. There are five films there that I've never seen. I'm still waiting for a decent transfer of Raise the Red Lantern. Supposedly the first one didn't do it justice. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 9:40 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Watch Raise the Red Lantern. The transfer is fine enough.
See the others too.
Though I do think Man Bites Dog can be a polarizing film.
A mockumentary with cartoonish violence.
The others are pretty mainstream well-known films. |
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