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Originally posted by leo:
Superman - given that it was made so long ago, the special effects are very advanced.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
What If...

Smarter-than-average, Canadian-made rom-com starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan as platonic friends dancing around the edges of becoming more than that.

Maybe because it was produced at an arm's length from the Hollywood Dream Factory, it has fuller characterizations and more clever dialogue. Though I am not an expert on how twentysomethings talk and act these days, I suspect it probably captured the generational zeitgeist pretty realistically.

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Zoe Kazan is a treasure. I saw the trailer and Adam Driver is in it, too-- he's a guy to watch, too.

I am in the middle of watching "Unfriended" and I have to say, seeing a horror film generated from the mundane internet stuff you see everyday is really unsettling. Nothing really bad has happened yet, a I am still freaked out.

Also, it's fun to be watching a haunted internet movie and have the page start having freaky loading issues...thank you, computer, for adding to my viewing experience.


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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

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Also, it's fun to be watching a haunted internet movie and have the page start having freaky loading issues...thank you, computer, for adding to my viewing experience.

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Originally posted by leo:
Kill Your Darlings - Allen Ginsberg as a young man and the influences upon him.

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Originally posted by Sipech:
I've just got an extra tick on my geek credentials. Have booked a ticket to see the showing of the new Star Wars film at 1 minute past midnight next Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

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Not quite as geeky, I'm seeing it early in the evening on Thursday! When I had fewer gray hairs, I would go to the midnight showings.

Four more days!

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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I just got done seeing Frances Ha, which was nominated for just about everything in the Independent Spirit Awards the year it came out-- made a mental note to see it and never did.

It was wonderful.

Seriously, it reminded me of the good old days of independent film, when you would sit back and watch a Jim Jarmusch film and not know what was coming. It is authentic, organic, and nuanced-- a deep character study of a 2o something would-be professional dancer who is floundering in her career, her romantic life, and her living arrangements. The core of the story revolves around her trying to find her way after having lost her one centering feature-- her best friend moves out of their shared apartment to a fancier one .

The titular Frances is a glorious hot mess, but despite her accumulation of mistakes she is still easy to love.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
I think the part I liked best was when she flies to Paris, and doesn't do much of anything. It's even implied that she didn't bother to walk a few blocks to see the Eiffel.

I guess I liked that, 'cuz it's basically the way I travel. Spent a week in San Francisco in the 90s, never once saw the Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz.

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Usually it's the locals around here who avoid seeing the major landmarks until well into middle age.

( And screw rhe bridge-- Castro Theater, dude!)

As for the Paris scene--I walked out to fill my tea mug and walked back in and in that time missed the entire Paris scene. That's how eventful it was. I actually thought she was making the trip up until she started griping about the bill.

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
FINALLY saw Singin' In The Rain, about 30 years after my parents tried unsuccessfully to cajole me into watching it on TV.
As far as any social insights went, I did find myself reflecting upon what an upheavel the transition from silent to sound must have been for the film industry. In the scene where all the Hollywood stars and execs gathered at the party watch a sample of a talking picture, you have to think that impending unemployment was on the minds of a lot of them. Not that this issue was unique to that time, place, or industry.

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As for the Paris scene--I walked out to fill my tea mug and walked back in and in that time missed the entire Paris scene. That's how eventful it was. I actually thought she was making the trip up until she started griping about the bill.

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Originally posted by Sir Kevin:

and arguably the finest musical of the second half of the 20th century as 42nd Street is the best of the first half. [/QB]

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Originally posted by Stetson:
Kelly Alves wrote:

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As for the Paris scene--I walked out to fill my tea mug and walked back in and in that time missed the entire Paris scene. That's how eventful it was. I actually thought she was making the trip up until she started griping about the bill.

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I'm not sure if this is the entirety of it, but pretty close.

In addition the the character herself, I guess it's also kinda cool to see a writer/director purposely not genuflecting to the alleged charisma of a great city.

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Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Today I discovered I'd missed a call from a local courier company so popped into their office on my way to the supermarket and collected a package which turned out to be a movie recommended by a Passing Penguin - The Princess Bride.

It was fun and silly but I think I'll have to watch it again some time in the future so I remember the various awful one-liners. Not the greatest movie ever made, by any means, but worth keeping.


eta: It's time I watched Citizen Kane again, which probably is the greatest movie ever made.

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
What fascinates me about Holmes is that (although the author carefully never put it there) we instinctively demand an emotional connection from him. A famously unemotional man is made to have emotion, to fall in love, to feel. Why? Why can we not bear the idea of Holmes as a calculating machine? It is the one renovation that is always made, through all the reboots and redos and unauthorized sequels.

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

For romance, what about Irene Adler, The Study in Scarlet and the story of the young lad with a hidden wife. Then there's Watson's romanticism and inconsistent wife/wives.

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Conan Doyle wrote about the Freemasons in one of the short stories. I can't remember which, but I have never read the spin offs. It's years since I read any of them.

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'You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!'

It was worth a wound -- it was worth many wounds -- to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.

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Originally posted by Hedgehog:
On the Freemason issue, there is an interesting discussion in this article from "The Chattanoogan" (Chattanooga's source for local news--always the first place to go when looking up English detectives and freemasonry...).

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Originally posted by Stetson:
Umm, interesting. But is there a context for this? Did someone else in the Chattanoogan write an article with an incorrect portrayal of masonic symbolism, and Ms. Baker figured she'd reply in short-story form, just for the helluvit?

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Actually, Jody Baker was male. And he died this past February. But he loved the Holmes stories and frequently sent in columns to the Chattanoogan on whatever interested him at the time. He always wrote the columns as if they were written by "Inspector Baynes." There probably was an explanation for that once upon a time, but I don't know it.

So, no, I don't think there is any context other than the subject matter of Holmes and Holmes' knowledge of Freemasons struck his fancy.

Back on the thread topic, one of my Christmas gifts this year is a DVD of William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes (1916). What is remarkable is that it exists. Gillette was a stage actor who, in 1898-99, wrote a stage play about Holmes...more or less with Doyle's blessing. At one point, Gillette cabled Doyle to ask if he might "marry Holmes"--to which Doyle, heartily sick of his creation by this time, responded that Gillette could marry him or murder him or do whatever he liked with him.

The stage play was a hit and made Gillette's reputation. He performed the play some 1,300 times by 1916 and the popular imagination of Holmes was influenced by his portrayal--in fact, the image of Holmes with a curved pipe is purely because of Gillette (who found he could speak his lines easier with a curved pipe than a straight one).

So this film follows the stage play very closely. It uses many of the same stage actors as regularly did the play. It is the one and only film that Gillette ever made, playing a part he was very comfortable in. That is the hook for getting this DVD--the only chance to see a great stage actor playing his most famous part.

The plot is the same as the stage play (and would be used again about six years later when John Barrymore did his version of Sherlock Holmes. What is odd is that, while the Gillette film is more than just a filming of a stage play (there are both exterior and interior shots and massive sets), yet they kept bits that were a bit of stagecraft. For example, early on, Holmes leaves Baker Street and we see Watson, go to a book case, carefully select a book, settle down in a comfy chair and open the book to begin reading. Why? Well, no reason really. It is in the play to allow Gillette time to make a costume change before the next scene--but there is no point to doing that in a film. Yet the Watson scene is still there in the film.

Mind you, Watson doesn't have much to do in the film, so nice of them to keep it in for him.

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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'