The Awful Truth

As you can tell from prior posts, I've been pretty into classic films and screwball comedies from the 1930s. A new discovery for me are the handful of films Cary Grant made with Irene Dunne. Dunne is phenomenal in both comedic and dramatic roles, but for some reason is not well remembered. In "The Awful Truth" Dunne and Grant play a couple who decide to divorce after Grant suspects his wife of spending the night with her music instructor. In the 60 day period in which they wait to finalize their divorce, they work on sabotaging each other's new conquests.

The first clips shows a short conversation between Dunne and Grant just before their divorce becomes final. During the conversation, Grant's new girlfriend calls and Dunne answers. To cover up the awkwardness of a woman answering his phone in his apartment, he tells his girlfriend that it was his sister.

In the second clip, Cary is trying to impress his new girlfriend's aristocratic family when Dunne walks in pretending to be Grant's non-existent tawdry, heavy drinking, chorus girl of a sister. The timing and chemistry between Grant and Dunne in this second scene is amazing. She's working on two levels, first to destroy his chances with his new girlfriend, and second to win him back. The jokes in this scene are both subtle (mostly class-related remarks that Dunne makes) and slapstick (the more physical comedy).

Watch just enough of the first clip to get an idea of the character Dunne is playing, then watch the second to see her versatility as she takes on this new role to embarrass Grant:

A Classic Freak-out

Those of you who know me well understand that I have an eclectic (read nerdy) taste in films. I have a fairly high tolerance for slower moving films, films with little or no plot, and humor that is often more charming than clever. Classic films of the thirties hold a special place in my heart - I love the dialogues, the overacting, the poignancy and cinematography of many films from this era. One really popular film from the thirties was "Dinner at Eight." I have to admit, it unfolds slowly, and you may only recognize a few characters in it (Lionel Barrymore - Mr. Potter of "It's a Wonderful Life," Jean Harlow - Hollywood sexpot of the thirties, and my favorite Billie Burke - you'll remember her as Glinda the Good from "The Wizard of Oz"). The scene here is the one that makes me laugh the most in the film. Billie Burke is planning this lavish dinner to court some influential British couple visiting New York amidst family and financial crises happening all around. As the dinner slowly falls apart, poor Billie reaches her breaking point and freaks out on her daughter and husband. Every little gesture, twitch and eye movement is genius:

When I feel blech...

Sometimes, when I've got the blues or imagine that my life has gotten too humdrum, I go to my dvd collection and pop in Swingtime for a little escapism. I always watch this scene which to me is one of the grandest in classic film history:

Curiouser and Curiouser

This post is a companion post to my friend Aiichiro's post on the same subject. I would link to it, but my Mac browser doesn't let me do it easily, so you will just have to trust me when I say that he wrote about this first. Anyway, as someone who enjoyed art and wanted to be an artist at a very early age, I was naturally attracted to kids books with superior illustrations. I liked Maurice Sendak, Edward Gorey, etc. But my favorite illustrations were the ones Sir John Tenniel had done for Lewis Carroll's Alice books. After I admired the pictures and tried copying them in my own notebooks, I actually read "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" and was so happy to find out the stories were (unlike the Disney film) brilliantly complex, humorous, and completely sarcastic. Carroll, through these books, is able to show how ridiculous the adult world must seem to children, and poke fun at imperialism at its worst to boot.

I've seen several versions of Alice in Wonderland and have never been satisfied because they have all seemed too cutesy, and Alice isn't cute - she's strong, and whiny, sometimes a brat, and very often full of common sense. I like Alice, because she is not passive - she explores the worlds she's dropped into and discovers new things. Most versions of Alice focused on the putting famous actors in caterpillar or turtle costumes and having them dance around like theme-park mascots.

Enter Jan Svenkmajer, Eastern European stop-action animator. I'd heard he'd made a version of "Alice" in the 80s but after my sister and her friend had seen another of his films, "Little Otek" (about a child made out of a stump of wood - a child that grows and devours neighbors), I kept putting it off. I didn't want to be disturbed. When I saw YouTube had some clips of "Alice", I watched them and then ordered myself a copy of the film. It IS a bit disturbing, but not in a bad way, and it completely captures the feeling of the original books without resorting to sentimentality. In fact, it's completely unsentimental. At times, Svenkmajer's wonderland is nightmarish and his Alice, who is correctly played much younger than in most adaptations, is run through the wringer (is it wringer? or ringer? I think it must be wringer because you are wringing out water as from recently warshed (I actually spelled that incorrectly on accident, so I'll leave it) clothes).

After watching the film, I had to bring it to Aiichiro because he quotes Alice at least once a week and has a special love, bordering on obsession, for this book (which to me is very cool).

So for your viewing pleasure (Liz, you will love the teeth!), I am including Svenkmajer's version of Alice and the caterpillar (it's four minutes long, but you can spare four minutes for bizarre, can't you? I thought so.):

How to Make Matt Happy:

Transform yourself into an Agatha Christie DVD collection, place yourself in the mail and ship yourself to Japan (even though you chose surface mail, I eventually will forgive you).

Let the 36 hours of Poirot nerd-dom begin!

Summer "Camp"

One summer, right after I got out of college, a bunch of my friends (including SpoilSport and Jon) and I went to the Walker Art Center sponsored Movies and Music in the park. While many of the films were really campy, some were quite important as well. "Johnny Guitar" was one of them. I remember the fall after I watched it in the park seeing it again in a film class that I sat in on - SpSp and I almost got kicked out because we were laughing so hard at it. It's a equal parts 50s Western and cat fight with Joan Crawford as the lead cat. Starring opposite her was an "actress" named Mercedes McCambridge.

Crawford plays a hotel owner named Vienna who owns a valuable piece of land (the railroad is coming through). She has to take on a posse of angry cowboys who want to take over the land so they can maintain control of the town as it grows. This bunch is lead by Emma Small (McCambridge) who's voice sounds exactly like Rocky the Squirrel. The movie is AMAZING - the technicolor makes Crawford look severe and frightening, and the whole thing is just plain surreal. I own the video, but couldn't find it on DVD.

Luckily, YouTube has a clip - a clip that just happens to be my favorite scene in the movie. The initial showdown between Emma and Vienna. It's four minutes long, but well worth the viewing, especially to hear each of Emma's lines. Her final line, "I'm going to kill you" is classic. I've never quite heard a delivery like this one. When I get back, we need to have a viewing of this bizarre film.



You like?

A Video Response to Jean's Kool-Aid Post

I enjoyed Jean's post about Kool-Aid so much that I decided to look for some Hawaiian Punch ads (because I loved the sugary awfulness of the drink) and found this hysterical one with Donny and Marie Osmond (which is also sugary and awful):


Let me just say that if I had hair, I would want it to look EXACTLY like Donny's feathered 80s hair.

I laughed out loud at this because it reminded me of a parody of this commmercial that I saw with Catherine O'Hara and Dave Thomas on SCTV - they capped their teeth and sang the same tune, only now the product they were advertising was something you use to . . . well, let's just say a certain someone at MMC on Thursday nights (someone who dips herself) might find useful. I filmed it with my camera while playing the episode on my laptop, so the quality isn't too great, but you'll get the idea:

Too much time on my hands

This idea for a small movie had been running through my head for a few weeks and I decided over the last two days to see if I could actually make the thing. I'm pretty happy with the result. I've been a fan of the 40s/50s vocal band The Pied Pipers for a number of years now- they used to sing with Tommy Dorsey and back up Frank Sinatra in his early crooning years. Well, I got one of their albums from Amazon a couple of months ago and when I heard this song, it made me so happy that I wanted to do something with it.

It didn't take very long to make the movie, but did require me to collect footage of produce in the grocery store (which was a little embarrassing), and engage in foolish antics in my apartment (which was more fun than embarrassing). So anyway, I hope you enjoy it:

I know I am dating myself with this post.

Okay, so I've been a little bored in my free time, so I have been looking up children's show videos on You Tube. Just so you can see how much better things were in the 70's with children's programing, I am giving you some clips. I won't disturb you with any Tellytubbies (sp?):

This is children's television I remember as I was getting older. These are from two shows that came out in the 80s when I was getting too old for kid's shows on PBS. :

Reading Rainbow. Ah, LeVar, whiter than me...


The Great Space Coaster. I am embarrassed that I watched this show, tho' Gary Gnu was pretty cool:


Here's Sesame Street stuff I used to like watching:

This one, I always liked the animation on as well as the youngest son's voice:


This tune always made me smile:


I saved the best for last. Here's the stuff from Electric Company. It's gold. Tho' I can't find the "Loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter" one. That one was my favorite.

This one has a Foxxy Brown edge to it:


This one you've probably seen at sometime in your childhood and it represents the funkiest music:


I tried to find some of Captain Kangaroo, the old 1971 Zoom, and the New Zoo Review, but couldn't find them. Also found a funny clip where a kid shows Mr. Rogers how to break dance, but I'm still in mourning his death so I won't post that one yet. I also looked for the Maurice Sendak animated songs with Carole King, but no one's uploaded them on YouTube yet.

Well, I'm not sure if any of you have seen these in re-runs, but they gave me a few laughs and I hope they do the same for you. If you think of/ find others, let me know, or post the links in my comments.

Hiragana Practice

Okay, here's a sample of my hiragana - I spliced together some videos and tinkered with the colors and aging features - I hope you enjoy:

Hiragana

I decided to play around with some of the features on iMovie. Then I broke iMovie. My parents brought my iBook installation discs and I finally figured out how to properly compress a movie file for QuickTime. Here's a short film I shot while practicing hiragana one night and listening to Norah Jones:

A Quick Movie Review - cuz I don't want to write another site about personal injury (why not impersonal injury, I ask you?)

Sunday night I saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with the Kuypster. This is going to be a quick bulleted list of what I liked and didn't like and then a rating.

What I liked:
-The kids were well cast: Lucy and Edmund win for the best acting of the four. Peter and Susan were great as well, but these two were great.



-Tilda Swinton kicked ass as the White Witch. She was creepily sweet to Edmund and completely composed and calm as she was trying to kill Peter in the battle.



-The battle rocked - awesome sword work by WW.
-The digital figures - particularly the beavers were awesome. Aslan was pretty good too.
-The setting looked appropriately Narnian. WW's castle was like this frozen jade fortress.
-The slaying of Aslan was REALLY well done - all the creatures were appropriately creepy.
-Liam Niesson (sp?) did a pretty good job with Aslan's voice.
-All of the transitions from wardrobe to forest and forest to wardrobe (especially at the end) were really great.
-The WW's look and costuming was great.
-There was some great humor.

Things I didn't like:
-A couple of unnecessary changes to the plot (a prison scene with Edmund and Tumnus, and some extra action scenes) took away from scenes that needed more development - particularly Lucy and Tumnus in his house, the scene at the beavers, and the scene where the WW turns the animals at the Christmas banquet to stone.
-While the movie remained very true to the spirit of the book, I felt Lewis' dialog -which I always enjoyed for its unique style - became somewhat affected by more modern colloquialism as well as some pretty syrupy, hit-you-over-the-head-with-the-symbolism lines. Let's just say it got a bit Disneyfied at times.
-The lead wolf in the WW's employ was one of like two characters to have an American accent - his was this tough New York type thing that I found ridiculous.
-While for the most part the film images seemed inspired by the original (and amazing) illustrations,

some of the look of the film itself didn't work for me. I didn't like the look of the tree spirits (which usually were tree blossoms brought together to form some weird looking woman), the centaurs looked like they belonged in a fantasy porno, and the Queen's dwarf didn't do it for me - tho' he gets an awesome death.
-Some of the stuff they were doing with Susan as far as foreshadowing goes for "The Last Battle" was too heavy-handed. That should unfold more slowly, otherwise it's not the surprise in the end that it is in the last book.

Overall: ***1/2 out of 5 Stars

It was a great beginning to what I think is going to be a great series. If anyone else has seen it, I'd love to hear your reviews.

Sorry guys

Please accept my heartfelt apologies for not blogging in so long. I've been on a bit of a personal retreat from society for a little time, trying to sort out my life. This blog is a super short one to tell you that a bigger one will be posted soon. One thing I do know: My thesis is taking up way too much of my time - It's sapping it out of me.

Anyway, here's a movie everyone should see: Hotel Rwanda. I saw it with my sister, her husband, and our friend Kari two nights ago and it's still resonating with all of us. Ya know what I learned? I don't know a damned thing about what's really going on in the world.

I've decided to start thinking more globally - especially regarding the Sudan right now. Heck, I may even join Amnesty International.

Any thoughts?