Third Eye Film Society Forum Index
Author Message

<  Third Eye Film Forums  ~  Couch With A View

billyweeds
Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 7:05 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
carrobin wrote:
Speaking of Kazan--somehow I ended up watching "On the Waterfront" on TCM a couple of weeks ago. I had never seen it, as it's one of those films that one hears so much about and sees clips (at least one clip) too often. I always thought of it as a macho flick about boxing and moving stuff around on docks, and had no interest in it. But I was flipping channels and happened to see the beginning, and when the guy was thrown off the roof, I was intrigued. And it was great. Why didn't anyone tell me it started with a murder?


My mind was so blown by the revelations that 1) you had never seen "On the Waterfront" and 2) that you thought it was a sorta kinda by-the-numbers boxing flick that I almost overlooked the fact that you thought it was great. Well, my opinion of your opinion is intact. It is definitely one of the great films.
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
bartist
Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 10:26 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
More mind-blowing, then, in terms of films only just now watched:

Lolita

Though I read the novel eons ago, I realized neither of us had seen the movie. Despite some mixed feelings about the sanitizing process Kubrick was forced into by production codes, the quality of the performances make it worth seeing, with memorable swerves between creepy and comedic. Shelley Winters is amazing as Mrs. Haze -- predatory, pretentious, volatile, and whiny. Though looking a bit run down at the end.

Given that Sue Lyon was 15 by the time production ended, and easily passed for 17 (movie Lolita is in high school, not the 11 year old of the novel), the pedophile aspect is considerably watered down.

Some reservations about Sellers in this - his "Quilty" often has the feel of an actor amusing cast and crew with over-the-top riffs on other movie roles where he does funny accents, rather than something that really belongs in the film. That Humbert can't recognize Quilty when he impersonates a German psychologist is a bit improbable, and pulled me out of the movie a little. The scene where Quilty poses as a state policeman is just annoying and ridiculous.

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.
View user's profile Send private message
bartist
Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2019 9:33 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
We now have over 35,000 "registered" users. What happened to the idea talked over here about getting someone admin permissions turned on by Marc and then cleaning all the spam bots out?

Caine Mutiny tomorrow night. We're doing some serious catching up with film classics. I vaguely remember seeing it, she never saw it. Which I found out by means of making a film-based joke about us being out of strawberries, and getting a blank look.

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.
View user's profile Send private message
Syd
Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2019 10:53 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
Today's Lorne's birthday and I asked him how I can take over the site. Marc referred me to Lorne. I'd like to get some of my younger friends to contribute to the site and delete those 35,000 bots (or people we've ignored for far too long.)

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
lshap
Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 6:41 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 12 May 2004 Posts: 4246 Location: Montreal
Hey guys! About those bots... there's no way I know to mass-delete them. I spent the first few years of this site's existence zapping them one at a time on a semi-regular basis, trying to keep ahead of the dozens of fake names arriving in my personal email every single day. I manually deleted tens of thousands over the years -- one at a time -- banned email domains and IPs (accidentally banning a legit user once). Finally I just gave up. This site's software is simply not designed to deal with the daily onslaught and I'm not tech-savvy enough to know how to patch the problem.

If you want to address the bots, I'm guessing it'll require a software update. I have absolutely no idea what that costs or if it means flipping over to another site. I gave Syd admin permissions, so he's now free to look under the hood.

I still peek in here occasionally and read what y'all are up to, and am happy to have an excuse to say hi to old friends. Be well.

_________________
"Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?"
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
bartist
Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 12:19 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Lorne, Syd:

Part of my work is as a web administrator. PHP software, even its early versions, has a "prune" function in the admin section. There is a "manage users" page or similar wording. You can set criteria that will prune selectively, e.g. prune all users with 0 posts, which gets all those bots with those funny 3-letter last names (apparently, in Asia, there's an algorithm that makes names that way, e.g. WilliamWup or BennieVap, and whoever came up with it hadn't a real clear idea of what Western names look like) that aren't really fully registered and able to post. You can also prune by date of joining, which would be pretty effective at weeding here.

And yes, you have to be careful about banning IP address ranges, especially if you go xxx.xx.*.* which can take out whole cities or regions. That said, I can pretty near guarantee any IP address from Vietnam, Congo, or the Ukraine is a spammer. You'd think someone in those nations might like to talk to us about cinema but no, apparently they just want to sell us porn or cheap pharmaceuticals or pre-written papers for college classes.

Feel free to PM me anytime if you encounter any difficulties.

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.
View user's profile Send private message
lshap
Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 4:38 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 12 May 2004 Posts: 4246 Location: Montreal
bartist wrote:
Lorne, Syd:

Part of my work is as a web administrator. PHP software, even its early versions, has a "prune" function in the admin section. There is a "manage users" page or similar wording. You can set criteria that will prune selectively, e.g. prune all users with 0 posts, which gets all those bots with those funny 3-letter last names (apparently, in Asia, there's an algorithm that makes names that way, e.g. WilliamWup or BennieVap, and whoever came up with it hadn't a real clear idea of what Western names look like) that aren't really fully registered and able to post. You can also prune by date of joining, which would be pretty effective at weeding here.

And yes, you have to be careful about banning IP address ranges, especially if you go xxx.xx.*.* which can take out whole cities or regions. That said, I can pretty near guarantee any IP address from Vietnam, Congo, or the Ukraine is a spammer. You'd think someone in those nations might like to talk to us about cinema but no, apparently they just want to sell us porn or cheap pharmaceuticals or pre-written papers for college classes.

Feel free to PM me anytime if you encounter any difficulties.


Thanks! I'll give your suggestion a try. In my defence, I didn't realize we were trying to eliminate the porn.

_________________
"Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?"
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
lshap
Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 4:46 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 12 May 2004 Posts: 4246 Location: Montreal
The Pruning option only applies to topics, not users. There's no function that recognizes post count. The only Pruning link is in Forum Management; clicking it brings up a dialogue box saying:

"Prune topics with no replies in this many days __"

So we can mass-delete entire forum threads, but not users. There is a manage-users area, but none of the links involve pruning.

EDIT: Just found a setting that adds a visual recognition field to the registration. It won't delete anyone, but it might stop new bots from getting in. Let's wait and see...

_________________
"Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?"
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
bartist
Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:41 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
PHP is freeware, so you can upgrade to the latest version whenever you want if you've got "founder permissions." It must be a fairly old version, if the prune function is so restricted. Another way to prune with the 1.14 ancient version might be to click on "inactive users" then click on "mark all" and choose a delete option. Or that might only do a pageful at a time, in which case NM.

BTW, since we're in Couch WAV, you can delete this post. or my others off topic. Glad you dropped in.

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.
View user's profile Send private message
gromit
Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 5:08 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
A handful of deleted scenes from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Some a bit broad.
Some they went with other variations.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
bartist
Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 7:51 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
bartist wrote:


Caine Mutiny tomorrow night. We're doing some serious catching up with film classics. I vaguely remember seeing it, she never saw it. Which I found out by means of making a film-based joke about us being out of strawberries, and getting a blank look.


Holds up well. I found this tidbit of interest, in the wiki...


Quote:
The film and novel influenced the drafters of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which set forth conditions for removing the President of the United States. John D. Feerick, former dean of Fordham University School of Law, who assisted in drafting the amendment, told The Washington Post in 2018 that the film was a “live depiction” of the type of crisis that could arise "if a president ever faced questions about physical or mental inabilities but disagreed completely with the judgment," which was not dealt with in the Constitution. Lawmakers and lawyers drafting the amendment didn't want an "Article 184 situation" as depicted in the film, in which the Vice President of the U.S. or others could topple the president by merely saying the president was "disabled."


Oddly, it's Fred MacMurray, by the film's end, who seems the more Trump-like character. Queeg is a decent man at heart, but worn down and broken by years of war.

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.
View user's profile Send private message
gromit
Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 2:09 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Not sure what you mean by MacMurray being Trumplike.
He's depicted as an intellectual type -- a writer -- who has strong ideas, but when the going gets tough, he gets nervous and backs down. Then during the court-martial, he's even more spineless, and is more concerned with saving himself and is willing to toss the others under the bus to do so. But then at the end, he's relatively self-aware and willing to admit his cowardice.
Isn't that how it plays out?

Certainly being intellectual and self-aware and admitting failings are antithetical to the Trumpiverse. Blustering is Trumplike, but cowardice? We'll see ...
__________________________________________________

Queeg is tricky, because he has had a distinguished career, is trying to improve the ship's discipline and readiness, but he can't handle pressure, has become erratic and makes stubborn mistakes that endanger the crew. So do you just suck it up, hope you survive and report what he did wrong when/if you return to port? Or do you cut him out of the chain of command, to ensure safety, which is a pretty drastic step military-wise?

I was thinking that Queeg is like Joe Biden, while MacMurray = Obama.
Then again, there's a good deal of Rudy Giuliani in Queeg as well.

I saw a funny line yesterday where a writer was discussing Trump and Rudy and posited that they "somehow managed to synchronize their mental decline."

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
bartist
Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 11:09 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
I meant only that popular comparisons of Queeg to Trump are sufficiently off that one could really say MacMurray is, because of his defensive lying and his rather cynical manipulation (priming Van Johnson with psychology texts and Article 184), more akin to Trump. For sure, he is not at all like Trump in other respects.

Though Queeg's irrational orders and then paralysis, in the typhoon, might be made analogous to a leader endangering the Ship of State, Queeg's problems come from a very different place than do Trump's. Indeed, Queeg has been, for most of his career, quite the opposite of Trump: disciplined, highly competent, not one to cut corners, and very respectful of the law ("by the book"). This is what allows Bogie to render him as a tragic and somewhat sympathetic character.

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.
View user's profile Send private message
Syd
Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 6:59 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
Running on Empty was on TCM and I got caught up in it all over again. This is the one with Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti on the run from a 1971 Napalm Factory bombing that left a janitor blinded and paralyzed. It's now about 15 years later, and they have two kids, Danny (River Phoenix), who's about 17, and a ten year boy born while they were on the run. Every time they sense the FBI closing in, they have move and change identities, and release the family dog if they have one.

But Danny's new music teacher discovers Danny's phenomenal music talent and is quickly advocating him going to Juilliard. And the teacher's daughter Lorna is played by Martha Plimpton and she and Danny quickly fall in love.

One of the best films of the 1980s with all actors in fine form and a compelling script, and it still feels fresh. I still miss River Phoenix.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
gromit
Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:55 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Bob le Flambeur. This was my 3rd viewing and I can see why I remembered so little of the film. It's such a shaggy story, and the first 2/3rds just follows Bob around and we see his interactions with a bunch of friends and assorted marginal characters. I like how old French films often have interesting characters for the police inspectors. There's a bunch of small-time doings until about 2/3rds of the way through, Bob decides it should become a heist film. We get some getting the gang together and planning, and then ... anti-climax. The heist never comes off. Even the likeable police inspector says Bob will probably get 5 years, maybe just 3 with a good lawyer. Shrug.

I'm not sure what the message is, but it's all done with a certain style. Bob is respected in the bars and gambling dens, but he's not what he used to be. I like how all of the criminals where suits and ties and pomade their hair. One thing that irked me was the way women are treated. Bob has a minor rant against a pimp, but the main girl in the film is just passed around, and she is very detached and doesn't seem to much care what happens to her. It's made clear throughout that she's just one step away from prostitution (which wouldn't be allowed to be so directly stated in a US film of that vintage).

I expect the film will slip my kind again, and be new the next time I watch it as well.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail

Display posts from previous:  

All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 2385 of 2426
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 2384, 2385, 2386 ... 2424, 2425, 2426  Next
Post new topic

Jump to:  

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum