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| yambu |
 Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:49 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Rod wrote: I once made the mistake of trying to watch Pretty Woman. I found it colder than an icicle. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:56 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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Syd wrote: Nancy lent me a DVD of Charley Chase shorts she got from Grapevine Video. (More will be on TCM on April, but apparently none of the ones she lent me.) On the evidence of these, was a second-tier silent comedian, the first tier being Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. The second tier would be Arbuckle, Langdon, Mabel Normand, maybe Ben Turpin. Chase was very popular in the 1920s, and made tons of shorts but few features. The features were unsucessful, so he went back to shorts. He lasted about a decade into the sound era, and in addition to his own shorts, directed some of the early Three Stooges.
The DVD is labelled the Jimmy Jump Series, although some of the eight on the DVD don't really seem to be part of the series, and there were at least another eight or so. Of the eight, "Is Marriage the Bunk" is awful, and three of the rest are okay, but ordinary.
Hey - Arbuckle was by no means a second-tier comedian! He was a direct challenge to Chaplin (although they were friends and had worked together), and he was the person who taught the ropes to Keaton. He had a huge following, and his main problem was that the scandal cut him down too early, before the movie industry had matured sufficiently for him to establish a legacy. His first feature film never even had a proper release.
Beware the Charleys of March...
I've been watching Charley Bowers, which has me thinking that there were a number of Charley-named comics who looked vaguely like Chaplin in the 20s. He had the look, the height, the haircut... too bad he didn't have the talent. He did some early work with stop-motion animation (although no Starewicz), but he didn't find that one character like Chaplin's Little Tramp or Lloyd's Glasses Character. Bowers' characters don't quite gel, and the animation throws off the flow of the story. And it's just not that funny.
I saw Charley Chase's Mighty Like A Moose on one of Lobster Films' collections; I think it was about a butt-ugly couple who both secretly have operations, don't recognize each other, and start stepping out on each other with each other. Some pretty good bits in there, and quite respectable, although not top-tier.
I heart Harry Langdon.
And strangely enough I've been watching a tape of the PBS series about Jack Johnson, who fought Jim Jeffries in 1910 or so. Very not impressed with Jeffries, but it would be interesting to see the short from an historical perspective. |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:55 am |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
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yambu wrote: I'm with you. His best was An Officer and a Gentleman, yet to me Gere has vaguely cold eyes and a calculating mouth. I wanted to love the climax, but had to think, Paula Pokrifki, do you really want this brand new ensign to carry you off?
I'm not referring to Gere specifically; I've always liked him when he is at his best, that is in playing sleazes and nutballs (Internal Affairs, Breathless). But I was talking about the whole film.
I consider it rather important in my film education, to be frank, because - and I guess this happens to all of us at some stage, just with different examples - it was an specific moment when I could tell just how far I was drifting from the mainstream, Hollywood, mass audience view of the world. I'm watching it on TV, I'm about fourteen at the time, and this is supposed to be a monumental hit of a film, and I'm suffering through this film witless, mechanical, soft-core littered bit of tedium directed, photographed, and acted with all the panache of an ice cream commercial. I turned it off at the sex scene on the piano - I think it was a piano - as I felt like I was watching a pair of frozen fish recently plucked from an ice box down the fish markets making out. No Scorsese's film's prickly emotional content has ever so revolted me. And yet this film made a fortune, made a mondo star out of Roberts, and still gets sold on TV as a beloved film.
I haven't got any problem with Prince Charming films anymore than I have a problem with Princess Charming films - except when they're too bullshit and manipulative to be charming. As to whether one should be analysing it for messages and pro- or anti-feminist statements, I have to say actually I'm for it. Now, say, Irma la Douce has the same plot, but, for one thing, that's a much funnier, warmer film, and more specifically, it's quite satiric on sexual hypocrisy, which Pretty Woman sure as shit ain't. When a film is a financial success on this scale, it's not just what impulses made people see it, but the fact thatso many people did see it and thus it is an important part of the cultural landscape that makes legitimate fodder for such discussion. Therefore, if you wanna complain about the sexual stereotyping in the film go right ahead. [/i] |
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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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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 7:20 am |
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Kate, disregard what I said. I was cranky. And if a Prince Charming happens to come your way, just cross the street.  |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 7:53 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, it was terrible that Pretty Woman put such a positive gloss on prostitution. This light-hearted, modern Pygmalion would have been a much better film if Julia's character had been hooked on crack and regularly beaten by a ruthless pimp only to have her lingering hopes of redemption dashed when she contracted aids. |
_________________
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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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:31 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Marc |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:00 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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| tried watching THE INCREDIBLES. Couldn't get into it. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:36 am |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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lady wakasa wrote: ......Hey - Arbuckle was by no means a second-tier comedian! He was a direct challenge to Chaplin (although they were friends and had worked together)..... |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:36 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| You know, all my friends were crazy about it. I saw it in the theater, and it was okay. I wasn't bored. But I wasn't particularly wowed, either. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:50 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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yambu wrote: lady wakasa wrote: ......Hey - Arbuckle was by no means a second-tier comedian! He was a direct challenge to Chaplin (although they were friends and had worked together)..... He taught Chaplin the two dancing potatoes with the fork legs.
Very, very true (although rolls). There was quite a bit of borrowing going on.
I'm thinking of changing my name to Charley Wakasa now. |
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| Kate |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:59 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1397
Location: Pacific Northwest
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marantzo wrote: Kate, disregard what I said. I was cranky. And if a Prince Charming happens to come your way, just cross the street.
No problem Marantz. Just for future reference - in my world, being called a feminist is a compliment. |
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| Private Joker |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:02 pm |
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Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 322
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Marc wrote: tried watching THE INCREDIBLES. Couldn't get into it.
Same here. What an overrated mediocrity. |
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-joker
www.privatejoker.org |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:03 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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| I caught Mrs. Dalloway on cable the other day. I wasn't really in the mood for a slice of British upper crust, but I've taken a fancy to all things Virigina Woolf recently, so I watched. I did not like Vanessa Redgrave. She did not convey fragility to me. But the film itself shows everything that is wrong with Merchant-Ivory by contrast. This film did not reduce the complexity of this class of Britons we all think we know so well from the many, many TV shows and movies that have focused on them. It also did not make them seem enviable or glamorous. Hugh Whitbread, for example, was made quite loathsome, and not in the "but not really" vein that Merchant-Ivory productions would have glossed. Peter Walsh was made blind to his own considerable failings that caused Clarissa to reject him. This is the second film I've seen by director Marleen Gorris. The first, Antonia's Line, was quite delightful. She's quite a talent with a unique eye. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:29 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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| The Incredibles: overrated, maybe; a mediocrity, no. |
_________________
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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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:45 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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jeremy wrote: The Incredibles: overrated, maybe; a mediocrity, no.
Not even all that overrated. An excellent movie. |
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