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knox

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 9:09 am

Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1246 Location: St. Louis

I had that CC problem with a rental once. When I couldn't switch it off with the DVD player remote, I tried the TV remote and that worked. Basically, I turned the tv's CC function ON, and then switched it OFF. If one uses a single remote, like a universal remote, I guess that wouldn't work. Unless there are two buttons, one labeled CC and the other "Subtitles" ?

"...but it's still annoying because I am easily annoyed." Unwanted captions are annoying, period. I often permit dialog to go by uncomprehended simply because I hate having writing that pulls my eye away from the picture. I often find that the next line or two will clue me in and I will belatedly realize what the missed line was.

Would like to try Gung Ho, but $20 seems kind of steep for a non-BO-hit from the 80s. Out here, $5-10.00 seems the going rate for that kind of thing.

Syd

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 9:52 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12940 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

I've had that problem a few times. It's okay as long as they're unobtrusive. And in English, of course. I usually run captions anyway.

_________________
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!

billyweeds

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 10:20 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

knox wrote:

knox--It worked! Third Eye strikes again! Thanks!

knox

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:27 am

Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1246 Location: St. Louis

Most welcome.

I never root for the Cards, and all the best to the Boston Amish, but some of those beards look pretty grotty.

bartist

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:36 am

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6965 Location: Black Hills

Some of the fan beards, when they pan the crowd, are hilarious.

Those are some ugly beards. Bucholz's is wretched. Napoli's needs trimming before birds start nesting. Pedroia looks like he stumbled from the cast of "Witness."

Go Sox!

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

marantzo

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 12:03 pm

Guest

Fuck the Sox. They are only one behind the Yankees in their huge spending for players from other clubs.

Go Cards!!!!!!

gromit

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 6:22 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai

I haven't watched baseball in eons.
I saw my first NFL game in about 2+ years and it was the second half of a thoroughly entertaining wild 51-48 Denver win over Dallas.

Actually, last season I tuned in for one Jets game. I wanted to see Revis in action, but he got crippled a few plays after I tuned in. The other player I wanted to see was ex-Rutgers RB Ray Rice and some body part of his fell off and he had to be ushered out of the game and into some cloning facility. So pretty good handicapping, going 2-for-2 on picking the crips in advance.
********************************

As for filmage, I just picked up Smart Money -- pairing Edward G and Cagney
and
Madame X with Lana Turner.

Know nothing about either, but both sound intriguing.
*******************************

Watched It Happened Here, an alternative history with Germany occupying Britain. I guess not terribly hard to imagine with the example of France right across the way. It's an interesting gritty doc-looking b&w film, following one nurse who reluctantly enters into the fascist bureaucracy of England, as that's basically all there is on tap. The collaborationist govt tries to organize and control Brits along fascist lines by keeping a fear of communism front and center. While there are partisan fighters and small US raids on the West Coast stemming from Ireland. There's a fair amount of folks saying "We don't like it any more than you do, but ..."
Definitely an interesting film.

Any other alternate history films out there?

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

gromit

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 10:18 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai

Impressed with Employees Entrance a snappy 1933 pre-code flick.
Quite a nice pace, sets up things very well and efficiently, good supporting actors and subplots. A ruthless businessman runs a large department store, and his protege marries one of the models unaware the boss has already been there and done that.

Warren William is good as the heartless cad with a mix of charm and swagger. Loretta Young is sweet as the compromised working girl. Their initial meet-up is nice as she's trying to spend the night in the store's model home, hoping to apply for a job in the morning, and he's patrolling the store looking for flaws. It's sweet, but the truth is she's homeless and jobless and gets coerced into spending the night with the boss in order to get a job.

There's also some good humor, with a flirty type paid to distract one of the execs -- and then complaining that all he wants to do is play chess -- and a frequently broken 4th floor men's toilet that interrupts the boss' idea of running a perfect store. Good film.[/list]

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

bartist

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 10:22 am

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6965 Location: Black Hills

marantzo wrote:

Fuck the Sox. They are only one behind the Yankees in their huge spending for players from other clubs.

Go Cards!!!!!!

I'm not much a baseball fan, but the only city I lived in while growing up with a MLB team was Boston, so I've been saying "Go Sox" whenever I take notice. Didn't know their spending was up that high - that's too bad, they used to be a scrappy and less-funded club that you could like.

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

Syd

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 7:52 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12940 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Human Desire (1954, Fritz Lang) is a film version of Zola's La Bête Humaine, which was also filmed in 1938 by Jean Renoir. I saw Renoir's version a year ago tomorrow, and remember it pretty well, which makes it hard to review Lang's version with a fresh eye. It doesn't help that the opening shots, if I remember correctly, are virtually identical.

This one suffers by having Glenn Ford in the lead role, which immediately causes a problem, because the protagonist of La Bête Humaine suffers from a hereditary taint that, in his case, causes him to have fits of homicidal mania (and, in one case, attempting rape). You couldn't very well have Ford going around serially murdering and raping people in fits of madness because of the code and also because Ford doesn't have the range. This means changing the plot drastically toward the end. (Renoir had Jean Gabin, who was a much better actor, and Renoir was faithful to the novel.)

Anyway, a railway supervisor Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) loses his job, and browbeats his much young wife Vicki (Gloria Grahame) into convincing her former mentor to influence the railroad to give him his job back. However, she spends too long with the mentor, which makes him realize that that the two had a sexual relationship. So he beats her into writing a note arranging a tryst on a train, and when the two meet, Buckley kills the former mentor while she watches, and confiscates the note to blackmail Vicki into being faithful to him.

However, engineer Jeff Warren (Ford) is taking a smoke in the entrance to the next railcar, and it's necessary for Vicki to lure him off so Buckley can dispose of his bloody clothes. Vicki is a bit too successful, getting Jeff's interest, and when the inquest comes, Jeff gives Vicki, and, by extension, Carl, an alibi. This gets Vicki's interest and we are now headed firmly into Double Indemnity mode.

Of the two versions, Renoir's is easily the better, although Lang's is pretty good. Renoir had Jean Gabin and Simone Simon, who are better than Ford and Grahame. However, Broderick Crawford is very good as a brute who will eventually screw up at about anything, including marriage. He's got a pathetic streak for a murderous wife-beater. Both films are well-directed as you might expect from the names of the directors.

_________________
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!

Syd

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 9:18 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12940 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

I had a pleasant afternoon watching Children of the Damned and Them!. Now I know it was Village of the Damned I saw as a child. Children isn't a sequel to Village but a counterpoint, in which the children are disturbing more than scary, and good in a superhuman sense, although they are quite capable of doing terrible things. Besides, we're going to need a consortium of glowing-eyed supergenius mind-controlling children to deal with the giant ants when they re-appear. I liked this movie, including its moralizing, and especially the two scientists who are investigating the children, and Barbara Ferris as the kids' surrogate mom. I, for one, welcome our glowing-eyed supergenius mind-controlling child masters. Well, these, not the ones in Village.

Them!, of course, is the classic of the mutated giant insect movies, and even on the nth viewing is still thoroughly absorbing. I like that the beautiful woman scientist is exactly that and not someone who needs to be rescued all the time. Well, there is the first time we meet a giant ant, which I think is the only time she gets to scream, but the guys do a lot of screaming, too, which is my reaction every time I encounter fifteen-foot long carnivorous insects.

_________________
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!

marantzo

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 10:23 pm

Guest

I watched Them also. And liked it very much, as usual, I think I saw it the first time at a Drive-in.

Syd

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:27 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12940 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

The father/daughter team of entomologists are Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon. Gwenn is better known as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street, for which he won an Oscar. Weldon had a short film career of which this is the highlight. Both are terrific. Weldon is still alive, as far as I know.

_________________
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!

marantzo

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 9:39 am

Guest

I don't remember seeing Weldon in any other movies. I've seen Gwenn in many.

gromit

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 10:08 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai

Smart Money is a 1931 gambling flick starring Edward G with Cagney as his apprentice. Apparently the only film they made together. You can see Cagney just itching for a starring role. The film was shot after Little Caesar was released, and Edward G plays a similar role as a small time gambler who makes it to the top of the racket. Cagney's breakthrough Public Enemy was filmed at around the same time as Smart Money.

It's a pretty good film though the story is a bit on auto-pilot at times.
I quite liked Evalyn Knapp who enters the film late in a pretty unexpected manner. She has an interesting voice and somewhat reminded me of a 1930's Renee Zellweger. She went on to do the 1930 version of Perils of Pauline and a number of other early/mid 30's B films. Kind of an interesting presence. It took a little while to get a read on her character and style.

An interesting film in the growing Warner gangster and criminal films.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

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