Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[mousepod]

Originally Posted by CoasterMatt

Jayne Mansfield was way hotter than Marilyn imho... till she lost her head.

Urban legend. But you get mojo anyway.

[CoasterMatt]

Well, she wasn't decapitated, but part of her skull was ripped off, along with part of her cranium - but it was quick and painless

[RStar]

The great ones always die in tragedy. Why is that?

My wife loves Danny Kaye so for her birthday last year I set out to get every movie he ever made. Some were out of print, some never printed, and all but two were not sold in stores. One was only sold for a short time on DVD, and was pulled from the shelves because someone purchased the rights and wanted to remake it. And that DVD was selling online for hundreds! I settled for the VHS copy .

Point is, I got them all, even the non-released one and out of prints on eBay (the non-realeasted must have been recorded off of a pay channel on TV, the quality was fair. And yes, I know that makes it an illegal bootleg, but I was on a mission!). At times eBay can be your friend! The out of prints were used, but in good condition.

I also got her from eBay a nice 8 X 10, and framed it in a double mat with a signed check (cancelled by the bank, so I'm pretty sure it's authentic. Plus I researched his signature to be sure it matched). Made a nice piece that would have sold at Starabilias for like $800. I made it for under $50!

[innerSpaceman]

Danny Kaye's The Court Jester is one of my favorite movies of all time!



Nice Mission-Accomplished tale, RStar.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by RStar

The great ones always die in tragedy. Why is that?

I often wonder if the great die young or if it is just that the great that die young never get the chance to tarnish themselves. The best thing that ever happend for Monroe's popularity or James Dean's was likely dieing young. If Marlon Brando had died after On the Waterfront would he be idolized by everyone or just movie geeks as is currently the case?

I wonder what the general view of the Beatles would be if they'd never broken up and were still touring the world like the Rolling Stones. So, probably the smartest thing they ever did was breaking up.

[BarTopDancer]

I really enjoyed Elizabethtown.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

I watched 12 Angry Men today for the second time. God, I love this movie. To have an entire film basically occur in one room, with a very sparse score, and nothing to carry it along other than brilliant dialog and wonderful acting. No special effects, no exotic locales, no overbearing soundtrack. Just 12 people talking. And I was glued to the screen the entire time. Great stuff.

[innerSpaceman]

^ yes, amazing that. It would have never been conceived as movie, of course. But is one of the best stage plays ever filmed. No stupid attempts to "open it up."


As for the Beatles ... i think their career could have gone on much longer. If simply the cream of all the solo albums had been gleaned for a few Beatles albums, those would have been some more great Beatles albums.

In the end, though, best that they did not make a mockery of themselves by pretending to be rockers into their 80's. Breaking up was indeed better than that. Of course, they also stopped doing live performances long before they broke up as a recording band, so I don't think the Rolling Stone analogy works very well.

Could they still have been producing good music into their elder years? Quite possibly. For instance, John Lennon's career was cut off just as it was getting good again.

But, yes, the breakup was a brilliant way to fix the magnificence and astounding growth of their music to a certain time period, with no chance for things to really go down hill - - the tragic arc of most artistic careers. Abbey Road is one of the best albums ever created. The End.

(or, as I should probably put it, And in The End, the love you take is equal to the love you make.)

[Prudence]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

I watched 12 Angry Men today for the second time. God, I love this movie. To have an entire film basically occur in one room, with a very sparse score, and nothing to carry it along other than brilliant dialog and wonderful acting. No special effects, no exotic locales, no overbearing soundtrack. Just 12 people talking. And I was glued to the screen the entire time. Great stuff.

Oooh! Then check out Closetland! Okay - totally dissimilar except for the one room thing. And knock the cast down to two.

[Alex]

12 Angry Men is one of the few examples I can think of where simply filming the stage production works magnificently. I don't know why it does, but it does.

On the great dying young thing another example that occured to me this morning is Elizabeth Taylor. Can you imagine how built up she'd be by this point if we hadn't spent the last 40 years just watching her get old?