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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
 Posted - 01/15/2008 : 5:19:47 PM
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Sound of Music hasn't aged badly- it sucked back then too.
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2008 : 5:38:43 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by thewarden
Wizard of Oz, on the other hand, seems to have held up.
This is uber-nerdish but I'm easily amused. Before you watch The Wizard of Oz next time with the kiddies, thumb through your old geometry book. When the Wizard gives the Scarecrow a "brain", the Scarecrow recites what we are told is the Pythagorean Theorem. What he says, however, is completely wrong. I've never known what to think about it. Most likely the screenwriters were just lazy and didn't bother to look it up. On the other hand the whole "hand someone a diploma and he's smart" thing is kind of cynical so maybe they did it on purpose.
This is no criticism of the film though. It's one of the greatest kid's movies ever made and every kid needs to see it. I'd also deem the original Willy Wonka essential and timeless. While The Wizard of Oz is "fairy tale" scary, Willy Wonka has a scary "you are a bad person and deserve to punished" vibe to it. |
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RossM
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2008 : 6:23:02 PM
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Misstating the pythagorean theorem in the Wizard of Oz is quite deliberate and an inside joke. Watch he seen more carefully next time.
I agree that Enter The Dragon does not hold up. Its plotting is obvious and Bruce Lee is never in any real danger. His opponents are far too easily beaten. Crouching Tiger is so much better. Its fight scenes are far more exciting, its wit far sharper, and its story far more compelling and human.
As far as interrogations go many real interrogator's believe that is a suspect gets all the trivial details consistently correct in implies that his answers have been carefully rehearsed. They expect the trivia to be inconsistent. They are looking for bold faced lies on the major issues.
rossM |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2008 : 7:54:53 PM
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Wizard of Oz still works for three main reasons:
a) The movie's incredibly fast pace. The Munchkinland sequence (which is terrific) is the longest set piece while the rest of the movie flies by.
b) "The better the villain, the better the movie". Enough said.
c) Not one song is a clunker. ("If I Were King" comes the closest, but Bert Lahr is so lovable he gets away with it.) Most other musicals, unless the song and dance number kicks *ss, all it does is bring the movie to a screeching halt while the kids race down the aisles to buy more popcorn.
Sound of Music would have made a great 90 minute family film. Instead, it's three hours long. Cut out the lame musical numbers (all that singing nun business, for example) and tighten the script and you'd arguably have a winner.
Mary Poppins, on the other hand... ugh. At least Sound of Music had a sense of urgency (e.g. the Nazis) to move the story along. This movie just lies there. And lies there. Julie Andrews is perfect in the lead, but Dick Van Dyke with his relentless mugging and awful Limey accent is just plain embarassing. Outside of maybe four songs the musical score is completely unmemorable. I watched it in a theater as a pre-schooler and it bored me silly. |
Edited by - zombiewhacker on 01/15/2008 8:05:11 PM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2008 : 8:14:31 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhacker
Wizard of Oz still works for three main reasons:
a) The movie's incredibly fast pace. The Munchkinland sequence (which is terrific) is the longest set piece while the rest of the movie flies by.
b) "The better the villain, the better the movie". Enough said.
c) Not one song is a clunker. ("If I Were King" comes the closest, but Bert Lahr is so lovable he gets away with it.) Most other musicals, unless the song and dance number kicks *ss, all it does is bring the movie to a screeching halt while the kids race down the aisles to buy more popcorn.
Sound of Music would have made a great 90 minute family film. Instead, it's three hours long. Cut out the lame musical numbers (all that singing nun business, for example) and tighten the script and you'd arguably have a winner.
Mary Poppins, on the other hand... ugh. At least Sound of Music had a sense of urgency (e.g. the Nazis) to move the story along. This movie just lies there. And lies there. Julie Andrews is perfect in the lead, but Dick Van Dyke with his relentless mugging and awful Limey accent is just plain embarassing. Outside of maybe four songs the musical score is completely unmemorable. I watched it in a theater as a pre-schooler and it bored me silly.
I remember seeing Mary Poppins for the first time when I was about twelve years old; I think I caught it on The Disney Channel. I wasn't as film-savvy as I (presumably) am now, but even then there was a moment where something clicked and the whole thing came to life. When George Banks is walking alone to the bank near the end, I started wishing the rest of the movie had been as good. No dialogue, no musical numbers, no kids, no nanny, no Dick Van Dyke, just a man walking down the street knowing his whole life is about to collapse. I'm sure everyone here has seen a few movies where they could point to a scene and say "THAT's what this movie should've been."
So I wasn't a COMPLETE film idiot back then. |
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RossM
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2008 : 9:02:03 PM
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More on Enter The Dragon: The scene int he mirror fun house that I thought was so cool is actually taken scene for scene shot for shot from the Orson Wells movie The Lady From Shanghai. Just another reason that Enter the Dragon is really not as good as I remember it.
Mary Poppins was great when I was around 10 and it was new. That song "Lets Go Fly A Kite" stuck in by head, like a bad allergy, for years.
rossM |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2008 : 01:13:20 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Greenhornet
"Young Frankenstien" and "Blazing Saddles".
Brooks must have been going through his second childhood at the time because they are full of jokes that a TWELVE YEAR OLD would make!
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935
I PREFER Mel Brooks' early work. Remember THE TWELVE CHAIRS? His tendency towards bathroom humor got WORSE as his career advanced. I loved YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (admittedly I havn't seen it in a while) and lasted through about five minutes of SPACEBALLS. Remember the "cowboys eating beans and farting" scene in BLAZING SADDLES? I've been wishing for years that Brooks, or somebody would do a similar parody of the oyster scene in TOM JONES. They eat oysters and then-entirely possible in those days before refrigeration-they throw up. |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2008 : 01:20:39 AM
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Originally posted by Sardu
And yes, I'm taking High Anxiety into account.
I didn't care for HIGH ANXIETY (or SILENT MOVIE) either. |
Edited by - New Hinda on 01/16/2008 02:10:51 AM |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2008 : 01:23:20 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by andy80
Well Caddyshack is starting to show its age but it has four great comics in it so I still enjoy it every once in awhile. It helps if you're a golfer too.
I just watched the original Halloween a few months ago(by myself, in the dark) and was just bored out of my mind for some reason.
POSSIBLE SLIGHT SPOILER.
CADDYSHACK is funny, but it pulls at least one punch. Imagine if the candy bar in the swimming pool had been-what people thought it was? HALLOWEEN holds up very well. |
Edited by - New Hinda on 01/16/2008 02:11:35 AM |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2008 : 01:26:11 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by RossM
Seeing a movie in a theater as a child and seeing on tv as an adult are two different experiences and not I feel a fair comparison.M
TRUE. |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2008 : 01:29:08 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by thewarden
Take the Money and Run... Unwatchable now, even though I had fond memories.
I find a lot of the late-1960s, early 1970s action movies have aged poorly. They are just too slowly paced -- Bullitt, even French Connection... They now have to rely more on characters and plot, whereas in the past they go away on some of their trademark action scenes.
I think its all action scenes NOW, when once it was character and plot. I saw TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN when I was in high school-and walked out from sheer boredom. |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2008 : 01:32:59 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by R. Dittmar
[quote]Originally posted by thewarden
Woody Allen's an interesting case here. He's actually the filmmaker who was never as great as people remember. The last time I saw them, I thought that Sleeper and Love and Death still held up reasonably well. Annie Hall is kind of a middling case. I’d argue that it still holds up fairly well, but the telltale signs of the hubris that lead to Allen’s downfall are all there. Since then, however, Allen hasn’t made one single film worth watching. Not only that but given Allen’s real life proclivities, Manhattan is just downright creepy. And Husbands and Wives is the most unpleasant movie that I’ve ever seen. And in saying this, let me also say that I was a tremendous fan of his when I was a kid. Not only did I go see all his films but I owned all his books and his stand-up comedy albums.
So far as I'm concerned, Woody Allen's last good movie was THE FRONT. Admittedly, I havn't seen one of his pictures in decades. After, I think. STARDUST MEMORIES, I stopped watching his work. Didn't one of Woody Allen's stand-up comic albums have recipes on the back of the sleeve? |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2008 : 01:39:57 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by R. Dittmar
I’m thinking of a TV show though – “All in the Family”. I used to love the show as a kid. In fact, since this was long before video, I used to use a tape recorder to make cassettes of the soundtracks and play them over and over. When I watch it now, however, I’m aware of something extremely off-putting that just sailed over my head at the time. Simply put, the entire show is structured around ridiculing and vilifying Archie. We are clearly supposed to believe that he is absolutely wrong about everything and every other character in the show – if not the world - is his moral superior.
And Archie worked for a living and supported the whole family. I read on the IMDB that Carroll O'Connor was a diabetic. Does anyone know if he had diabetes while he was playing Archie? |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2008 : 01:51:07 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by thewarden
quote:
A confession, usually in the name of self defense is indeed the usual method of solving street murders.
But I'll tell you what. If I bring in a trained interrogator, he will highlight a half-dozen contradictions/inconsistencies in your description of your morning commute. How many sugars in your coffee? What was on the radio? Did you pass that red car on the left or the right? Does that mean you committed a crime driving in? No, well how can I trust you now when I can't even trust you to tell me the truth about how many sugars you put in your coffee?
As to "What was on the radio?" either you don't remember, or you remember it very clearly because you love-for example-Louis Armstrong. As it happens, I have had a cop question me about how I got to work that morning-he was suspicious because I was sitting on somebody's garden wall, crocheting sqaures for a baby blanket, very suspicious behavior if you're across the street from the Israeli Prime Minister's residence, near Terra Sancta, on Balfour Street-and he apparently believed me, because he didn't arrest me. |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2008 : 01:55:30 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by R. Dittmar
I agree that any interrogator can sit down with a person, start asking questions and turn up inconsistencies in their description of trivial events. That’s not what they’re looking for though. The good interrogators will catch the criminal in bald-faced lies that are clearly being told in an effort to conceal criminal culpability.
Remember THE WINSLOW BOY? "You're mixing me up! You're mixing me up!" |
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