Last night, I was feeling pretty cashed. Tired and bleary and grumpy.
So I exercised my own personal “nuclear option” and stayed off the computer for the evening. Instead, I worked on a crossword and watched a favorite flick, The Prisoner of Zenda. (Or even better, you can download the original novel.
For an old movie buff like myself, the PoZ has almost everything you could want: a dashing leading man (Ronald Coleman), not one but two sinister villians (Raymond Massey and the irrepressible Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), great buddies (the baby-faced David Niven), swordfights, gunplay, horseriding, cheesy love interests (Madeleine Carroll). The only thing it’s missing are the Marx Brothers and a musical number. David O. Selznick was pretty obviously trying to bankrupt his studio with this one.
Sigh. Why don’t they make movies like they used to?
What’re you watching these days?
Ran, Dreams and Kagemusha by Kurosawa
La Dolce Vita by Fellini
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by Leone
Mulholland Drive by David Lynch
All dvds I’ve bought recently.
First three great, hated Mulholland Drive…
an acquired taste.
Sunset Blvd, the orginal
The Trilogy Lord of the Rings
Thats Entertainment, Four VHS tapes
and my mother in law dancing and father in law playing some of the music are in these tapes, not stars just one of the dancers and piano players
Mary Poppins, 40 Anniversary edition
Some good movies I’ve watched in the last couple weeks (click links to find out more about them):
Truly, Madly, Deeply
Gloria (the Cassavetes original, not the Sharon Stone remake–which I haven’t seen but am fairly sceptical of)
Night of the Shooting Stars
Truly, Madly, Deeply and Gloria actually should be called “great” rather than “good”. They have become two of my all-time favourites.
Alan
Maverick Leftist
I remember TMD, that was a great flick. Haven’t seen Gloria.
Is Night of the Shooting Stars the one where Jeff Bridges is an alien who lands in “Wisconsin”?
Oh, shoot, no. That’s Starman…
Cool that you saw and liked TMD!
I really liked all aspects of the film. The relationship between the main character and her (boyfriend? husband?) and how deep was their bond and her sorrow and her passing. The details like how the ghosts felt cold all the time. The gradual transition from drama to farce (and back, mostly, to drama at the end). And the Brandenberg Concertos! But I noticed many commentators felt that it should have stayed on a more dramatic, emotional level rather than get into the whole bit with the ghost friends coming over to watch classic cinema on the VCR (which I loved). And a lot of people hated the new beau and his quirky behaviour (though I thought it was charming).
One thing that did nag at me, though. I kept thinking the main character looked awfully like a man in drag! Perhaps that’s mean, but I really have to wonder if she’s a transsexual or something.
Alan
Maverick Leftist
I watched the Horror of Dracula last night. Surprise Surprise
Just how many vampire movies have you seen, anyway?
And how many of them were “Blacula”?
Recently visited our dvd player…
What about Bob?
Napoleon Dynamite
Full Metal Alchemist
Old favorites:
Singin in the Rain
Pee-Wee’s Playhouse episodes
Chasing Amy
We LOVE Napolean Dynamite. Gawrsh!
Thank Dog for Netflix 🙂
That is the FUNNIEST movie I’ve seen in a long time…I love having middle school aged kids to turn me on to the hip stuff…
At my local cinema called “The Star”(I call it “The Starlight Cinema”) last week I saw:
Merchant of Venice
tour de force performance by Al Pacino
Great script! 😉
Upside of Anger
tour de force performance by Joan Allen
Great script!
Highly recommend both.
PS. At “The Starlight Cinema” they offer pillows,
kleenex, money back if after the first half hour
patron’s don’t like the film and an introduction
by the manager.
Also they are beginning to show indie and foreign films. Woohoo.
The Prisoner of Zenda! I loved that book. I just managed to find the edition with the sequel, Rupert of Hentzau with the lovely ink illustrations in our local used book store! I haven’t read the sequel yet, I’m saving it for the next rainy weekend afternoon.
At the moment I’m reading Going Postal by Terry Pratchet, and it’s great! Just finished How I paid for College, A novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical theater, also very good.
Watching…well, aside from re-watching the first season of x-files, not much at the moment. Although now that my mind is on swashbuckling and romance I want to watch the Jose Ferrer version of Cyrano.
Heh!
Why Dr. Strangelove of course! Saw it 2 nights ago.
Time to refresh my memory of the future! <depressed smirk>
Slim Pickens, whoooooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooo
“How many times have I told you guys that I don’t want no horsin’ around on the airplane?…Well I’ve been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo and that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones.”
Why does your comment still say (none / 0) when I gave you a ‘4’?
Hmmmm …
Glinda,
I don’t think it changes until you get two 4’s so for now I say thank you
Remembering Slim riding that thermonuclear bomb and yippee kiyeahing
Say what?
It’s pretty good, a nice feel-good story.
Others on the recently viewed list:
Man of Ashes
Hotel Rwanda
Sorority Boys
The Sea is Watching
Dude, Where’s My Car?
Prisoner of the Mountains
The Other Side of Sunday
The Royal Tenenbaums
Autumn spring
Flawless
Japon
The Station Agent
Dan, are you responsible for this?
A Democrat, no less.
Are you kidding? I’m the guy up in the bleachers screaming “shake it, sister! Shake it like a bowl of jello!”
Actually, that’s a damn lie. Ever since we’ve had a now-16 yo stay with us on weekends, I’ve been a lot more sensitive about this stuff.
Hey, weren’t you supposed to be working on a project?
Yeah, but my project includes working on my computer where, unfortunately, this website is too tempting to ignore.
Does that mean old-movie buff of old movie-buff? 😉
Personally I’ll watch any movie that shows characters I care about and about what happens to them. The famous David O description of his ideal movies having the ‘icebox element’ ie provoking post-movie family discussion around the temple of their late night snacks is still true, except the icebox plays no part.
I used to work in a video rental store…
Oh the agony!!!!
However I still was able to maintain my love for films. It just increased my opinion that once customers enter a plane (I used to work for NWA) or a video store -their minds turn to a blob of goo.
Let me dispell some popular myths about rental clerks:
They have NOT seen every movie. Especially the obscure titles that you yourself haven’t heard about.
Unless they ask you – they truly don’t give a shit what your opinion of “Debbie Does Dallas” is.
Q: “You got any good movies?”
A: No. They’re all crap!
Moron: “Hey this movie you told me that wasn’t any good and after 4 years of renting to my family you knew no one would enjoy it but I rented it anyways… well I want my money back because I didn’t like it – like you said…”
Sex, Lies and the video drop off box…
Netflix. It’s a good thing.
The Great Lebowski so I can figure out what BooMan is always going on about, but it hasn’t come yet. And I rented and watched the first two episodes of the first season of Deadwood so I’ll know what Susan’s talking about. I liked Deadwood, and plan on renting more, but it’s going to take me a while to catch up. I can’t wait til I get to the one with the Hickock line in her sig.
Other than that, no time, no time. But now the semester is over (woo-hoo!) and I think I’m going to check into this NetFlix thing . . .
The one caveat about Netflix is that you may not be “in the mood” for a horror when it arrives Wednesday night…
So we set up our Queue – the order list – with a bit more flexibility. So I generally have it set up scary, funny, kid, scary, funny, kid…
I have only 3 movies a week and it works out rather well. No late fees. I live in podunk nowhere’sville and my movie/mail turnaround is two days. Which is super I think.
You can try netflix for 2 weeks for free. No, I have no connections of money in netflix. 🙂 It’s just a good thing for us.
Plus… I’ve noticed we take more “chances” with titles. Rent more obscure movies.
My Mail Queue:
Toys
HardyBoys/NancyDrew disc 3.series 1
Lemony Snicket
and you’re not!
Er, actually, you’re Janet and I’m not. Interesting about noms de blog. At first I found it very disconcerting to be addressed as “Janet.” Now I quite like having an alter ego. I’ve admired your name too, btw.
What can I say, my mom was a Hitchcock fan. Thank gawd she didn’t call me “Norman” 🙂
My first “chat” name was a non-gender name. “Azul” – what many many many of my friends still call me.
are my favorite, since Hollywood seldom “does” it for me. Last night at Chez CD I watched Baran. Humanity springs to action when a young Iranian laborer learns a secret about the illegal Afghan child working at the construction site. (Farsi w/ subtitles)
Compelling. Compassionate. Cinematic. That’s a movie!
okay, I’ve had it with my crappy verizon email. Does anyone know what I do to get this super special gmail everyone is talking about. Do I need an invitation or something?
I just sent you an invite. I used the “admin” email address. Enjoy! I know I do…
I’m pretty sure I have an adult form of A.D.D. and can’t sit long enough for a movie at home, but on Monday night I was glued to the new HBO movie about FDR, “Warm Springs”. I thought it was an amazing tribute to one of our greatest presidents.
The last movie I saw in the theatre was White Noise with Michael Keaton…it’s been that long.
I’m more of a book person. I can’t get enough of them!
Sin City…[ no offense PD ], it is off the scale…the acting ain’t great but the visuals are spectactular…apparently done w/ a blue screen w/ digital additions and editing…a comic book, oops, GRAPHIC NOVEL, come to life…
China Town…just cause.