Miscellaneous Film/TV Discussion

[Disney Duster]

Glad we both liked the nurse!

I would say Winnie the Pooh is a little less charming than the original, but I still really like it. The facial expressions and humor are a little modernized compared to the old, but it would be impossible to replicate the old magic of a Walt Era classic. Time does this to things. The songs are not nearly as good as the Sherman Brothers, that is also true, except I really like "So Long" and count that as one of the best songs in a Disney movie. I know Rabbit was voiced by Tom Kenny, but even though I heard him, too, I liked his portrayal. It's funny, Tom said he didn't like Rabbit's character and had to find a way to like him. He thought of the stuffy, classy, proper guy from The Odd Couple and tried voicing him like that character because he liked him. I guess it worked, because I liked Rabbit this time!

[blackcauldron85]

I agree with you guys that the Sherman Bros. songs are better. I like TMAoWtP, it's just that WtP is funnier to me.

[JeanGreyForever]

I can't even remember the song "So Long." I'll have to google that. I haven't heard of The Odd Couple either but Rabbit is very stuffy and uppity about rules, although classy and proper wouldn't really apply to anyone in the 100 Acre Wood.

[Disney Duster]

Hm...I feel Owl and Rabbit are proper and classy or try to be.

[JeanGreyForever]

I wouldn't say Owl is really all that proper and he's only "classy" in the sense that he's British and a know-it-all even though he doesn't really know anything.

[Disney Duster]

Oh. I guess we disagree about those characters.

[Avaitor]

Hey all, sorry I was away for a little bit. But I'm glad you enjoyed both of those movies, Duster! Rear Window is among my favorite Hitchcocks, and Winnie the Pooh isn't perfect, but it's a fun return back to such wonderful characters. I've mentioned before that I think it'd work better if it wasn't just one long segment like how the film turned out, but it's still cute for what it is.

Oh, and my Godzilla set has 15 films in it:

Godzilla
Godzilla Raids Again
King Kong vs. Godzilla
Mothra vs. Godzilla
Ghidorah the Three-headed Monster
Invasion of Astro-Monster
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
Son of Godzilla
Destroy All Monsters
All Monsters Attack
Godzilla vs. Hedorah
Godzila vs. Gigan
Godzilla vs. Megalon
Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla
Terror of MechaGodzilla

It's not a perfect collection of everything from that era- they could've easily added Mothra's debut film, for instance, but it's still pretty cool to have. I've only seen a handful of these before, and I've mostly enjoyed them (although King Kong vs Godzilla makes the original King Kong look practically progressive with its treatment of the natives), so it'll be cool to go through what I haven't in nice, pristine restorations.

I have picked up one more movie before the sale ended- Crumb. It's a documentary about R. Crumb, the cartoonist responsible for the "Keep on Truckin'" image, Fritz the Cat, and other works. It's a pretty interesting look inside the mind of a unique, to say the least, creative mind. It also has a Disney connection with him talking about their take on Treasure Island's influence on him, which is, uh, something. It's fun to watch and has a great score.

Oh, and I've done two movie night since last updating:

47- Chinatown- I had good memories of buying my local Blockbuster's copy of this for a buck right as they were closing. I was still getting into film, and had seen a handful of film noir, so this was a cool, more modern take. But I don't think it's aged all that well. Jack Nicholson gives a good performance, but his character is not likable to say the least, and the ending is not pleasant in the slightest. John Huston's character also seemed to have gotten away with everything, which is not good. My friends were mostly uncomfortable with it, which I could understand.

One thing I do like about it is how I was able to note the similarities between it and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Both are neo-noirs about seminal changes in the landscape of California. You could even say that Jessica Rabbit took some cues from Faye Dunaway's character here.

48- Monty Python and the Holy Grail- I have to admit, Monty Python is not my thing. I've seen this film a couple of times, as well as Life of Brian and some of the show, but I just don't gel with most of the humor. This seemed to be a hit besides myself, though, as most of my friends got into it. One of them noted that it was weird, but a nice change of pace, which I think was them implying that they felt the same way as me, but I do agree that it was nice to do a straight comedy for a change. We'll do more soon, and they'll be welcome.

We're aiming to do the next movie on the list, La Dolce Vita, in a few days. We've talked about going back to Lawrence of Arabia, maybe doing it in two nights, but we're going to need to take some time off after this one, since one of my friends is going on a trip, and another couple are moving.

[UmbrellaFish]

Oh I hate Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I’ve been forced to sit through it a few times, and man, do I hate it. But I feel awful because the people who love it, love it! I don’t know... I just feel like the cast on screen is having a much better time than I am watching them.

[Disney Duster]

Yeah, I'm a Monty Python fan. I am a little weird so maybe that's it!

[blackcauldron85]

^ I like it, too! The first time I saw it was in 12th grade English class- you know how you'd watch a film in class before vacations? My teacher let a student pick what to watch. When the knight was getting chopped up, she freaked out- she thought it was the grossest thing!

[Avaitor]

ha, it looks like Monty Python continues to be a great divide for me, but at least I'm not entirely alone. But it's okay, comedy is subjective. There are some movies and shows that I find hilarious that others don't- I remember trying to watch The Jerk with a few friends before, but none of them were impressed, and we stopped about halfway in. I was disappointed, since I really like the film, but it is what it is. At least they appreciated It Happened One Night, which we had just watched right before.

I saw that Rotten Tomatoes just updated their list, which now has 300 films instead of just 200! I'm going to be doing this forever, haha

There are a bunch of really good ones added here, albeit one or two I'd prefer to look the other way towards. but what really disappoints me is how they ranked it in alphabetical order, as opposed towards their attempt towards ranking this in terms of review scores like before. But hey, there's plenty of more Disney films now. and they added the full LOTR trilogy this time.

[TheSequelOfDisney]

Oh I hate Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I’ve been forced to sit through it a few times, and man, do I hate it. But I feel awful because the people who love it, love it! I don’t know... I just feel like the cast on screen is having a much better time than I am watching them.

I turned it off after two minutes. I saw the stupid coconut horse-clomping and had enough of it. That was years ago but I still don't have any inclination to try and watch it.

[Disney Duster]

Yay Amy!

Avaitor, I think Rear Window is the best Hitchcock film I have seen! Glad to know your opinion of Pooh, even though I like it a little more than you, and really like it as the long segment it is, though maybe the disconnected segments thing could work, but that was one reason I didn't like the original as much.

I have not seen the other films you listed. Maybe someday I will.

[Avaitor]

49- La Dolce Vita- I do really enjoy this one, but I'll admit, I prefer Fellini's next film, 8 1/2, as well as some of his earlier stuff. The earlier films had a stronger touch of realism to them, while I'm more entranced by 8 1/2's mixture of surrealism and autobiographical material, but there is plenty to like here. The Sweet Life of Federico Fellini has some of his best shots and a shocking sense of humor.

I don't think that it enticed my other friends as much, aside from my other most film-literate friend, but even he is still confused by the ending, as am I. My other friends seemed more confused by the whole thing, and turned off by its darker moments, particularly Steiner's story, which is understandable. One friend in particular says that she may need to take some time away from the movies, between this and the general unpleasantness of Chinatown.

We're still planning to get to Lawrence of Arabia, and have The Searchers and It's a Wonderful Life to look forward to. Not exactly the happiest movies, especially compared to Monty Python's playful sense of humor, but they're not quite as bleak. We're definitely skipping next week, but we'll see after that.

[Disney Duster]

I have never seen that movie Avaitor, but who knows, maybe one day. It's cool that it's surreal. I wonder if I would get anything in it.

I Amazon Primed Metropolis (1927). It's a weird movie, but it's good, too, and very impressive for being from the '20s. The machine-man's eyes were scary. The living Sins and Death were really cool, as well as creepy. It's even more incredible that this film wasn't based on a novel or something. I don't think I understood how the Tower of Babel was supposed to be a good thing tough, but I am guessing in the end the son of Freder makes his father and owner of the city understand and be more fair to the workers?

[Avaitor]

I'll admit that it's been a good while since I've seen Metropolis, so I'm fuzzy on the details and can't help you with speculation. But I'm glad that you liked it, and I agree that it's technically fantastic for its time. What I remember are many of its incredible visuals, which still stun today.

[Disney Duster]

I'm glad we feel similarly about the film, and yes it has stunning visuals.

[Disney's Divinity]

I watched a Lucille Ball film today for the first time, titled Too Many Girls. I watched it more out of curiosity, since I'm not really a fan of I Love Lucy or anything. I’d known she starred in musicals, but I’ve never seen one (if I had my choice, I would have seen Mame by now). I just could never picture her singing, so I imagined she wasn’t that great at it. I was very surprised she actually had a pretty nice voice. With all the guys following her, I thought eventually she’d cycle through the others and end up with Arnaz, but that didn’t happen*—although I didn’t really mind because Richard Carlson was the cutest one, jmo. And it was fun seeing Buzz (Rose’s high school fling from The Golden Girls) when he was young. The film itself was very unimpressive; I doubt I'll ever see it again.

*Looking at her Wiki page, this film was actually how they met and then married.

[UmbrellaFish]

I haven’t seen Too Many Girls. Does Lucy really sing for herself? She sang on Broadway in Wildcat (I’ve only listened to one song from this and she’s fine but she wasn’t a pretty singer) and she’s famously a poor singer in the movie version of Mame. It’s interesting, both Wildcat and Mame were after I Love Lucy, and well after Too Many Girls, and her voice changed after doing that TV show. It’s drastically different, probably because of her smoking habit and the fact that she used a higher pitched character voice for Lucy Ricardo— Lucie Arnaz thinks that character voice contributed to the damage, at least.

Here’s Lucy in Mame: https://youtu.be/mLtMOvEys6c

And Angela Lansbury’s original recording from Broadway: https://youtu.be/LZjfxs7y9Go

[Disney's Divinity]

As far as I knew, she was singing for herself. There wasn't a credit on Wikipedia saying otherwise, but I decided to Google and apparently Trudy Erwin sung her part. That explains it.

I own the OBC album for Lanbsury's version. I thought she was really fantastic in that one. I bought it some years back and enjoyed the whole thing; it was much different than I imagined. Hard for me to say what my favorite song was. Leaving aside the title song and "We Need a Little Christmas," it's probably "Open a New Window." "Bosom Buddies" is a lot of fun though. Somehow the title "Mame" made me think I was taking a chance on something that might be dull back then and couldn't have been more wrong.

Speaking of Jerry Herman, I don't know if you own it / have listened to it, but, if you have, would you recommend La Cage Aux Folles (1983 Original Cast)? I've had it bookmarked for a long time to buy because I do like the song "I Am What I Am," which I've heard elsewhere, and I like other work by Herman. I just wondered if that might be the only good song in the thing or not, but it's not like anyone I know has even heard of it, so I wouldn't have anyone to ask for advice on that.