Friday, June 13, 2014

Overheard at the Family Reunion, 2014

In chronological order


...and her voice is kind of annoying...
Oh, her voice is the FIRST thing that annoys you!

I'm not going to turn down a beer.

When you google stuff, are you actually googling it or safari-ing it?

Why not?
I've just never wanted to.
You should do it! Put it on your bucket list.
A bucket list is supposed to be shit you WANT to do.

Somebody called me to sell me something, so I started talking like Bobcat Gold-wait.

Terry's in jail?
Mmmhmmm. And that's probably why he's not on Facebook.

They've reopened the case. You know I kept that book all these years. I had it before anybody knew it was a book... Lori stole it.

[On a bet regarding his just-born daughter's weight with the doctor who had just delivered her] Well, Doc, you've kinda got an advantage. You're holding her. I'd have to hold her by the mouth over the side of a boat.

It goes for $400 an ounce.
[bat guano]

Hey, Julie. You wanna go fishing?

Old Leon W*****d's glasses didn't help, so he threw 'em away. One morning he got up in Houston to drive to Las Vegas. Said all he could see was the white line, so he followed that white line all the way to Vegas.

Now, listen to this shit (and I deserved it).

I love the smell of the woods. It's so...woodsy.

Nowadays people are defrauding their own self.

[Recitation of pi to the first 100 digits--he knows 547]



Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Movies I Have (almost) Watched Recently...

Unlike P. Jenks, I have lost all patience for movies.  Mostly it depends upon my mood but looking back at my netflix history I would say I'm in need of some Strattera or something..

Since May 9th...
  • Bobcat Goldthwait: You Don't Look the Same Either - 4 minutes
  • Full Tilt Boogie - 11 minutes
  • The Pervert's Guide to Ideology - 29 minutes
  • Stephen Fry in America - 9 minutes
  • Company: A Musical Comedy - 39 minutes
  • Best Worst Movie - 40 minutes
  • The Hidden Hand: Alien Contact and the Government Cover-up - 2 minutes
  • The Secret Village - 1 minute (no joke)
  • Anatomy of a Murder - 160 minutes :)
  • Machete Kills - 7 minutes
  • Much Ado About Nothing - 9 minutes
  • Evidence - 29 minutes
  • Scarlet Street - 5 minutes
  • False Witness - 4 minutes
  • Call Northside 777 - 40 minutes (I do plan on finishing this one)
  • Phantom - 4 minutes
  • Hammett - 10 minutes
  • Left Behind - 10 minutes

May 2014 MVPs

With no particular criteria in mind, I present to you May's list of monthly MVPs. 

Gents of the month
Robert Donat (Goodbye, Mr. Chips - 1939)
Jozef Kroner (The Shop on Main Street)
Fredric March (Executive Suite)
Christopher Walken (Pennies from Heaven)
Oskar Werner (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold)

Ladies of the month
Sara Allgood (How Green Was My Valley)
Judy Holliday (It Should Happen to You)*
Ida Kaminska (The Shop on Main Street)
Sian Phillips (Goodbye, Mr. Chips - 1969)
Vanessa Redgrave (Morgan!)

* I could watch the scene where she reads the cue cards every day for the rest of my life and not get tired of it.


Movies I Watched at Home in 2014, List #5

I did a little better in May. I'm continuing my list of movies I watched (from start to finish, no matter how boring). Same deal as before -- chronological order of watching with a grade I gave it at the time and a comment or two about what I remember now.
  • Pennies from Heaven (1981) - B+ / I want to schedule a double feature of this and The Purple Rose of Cairo at a revival house.
  • Marty (1955) - B / Never give up!
  • The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) - A- / I wish I had been in the theater with all the folks who had not yet read this book back in 1965.
  • It Should Happen to You (1954)  - B- / The movie never lived up to the easy charm and cheery sentimentality of the first 10 minutes. If it had --> A+! My favorite character was the male department store employee. (No kiddin!)
  • The Shop on Main Street (1965) - A+ / Worldwide horror plays out on the smallest of scales. Someone please find and buy me either or both of these posters.
  • Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) - B+ / There is no way you do not love Mr. Chips.
  • Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) - C- / Unless it's this Mr. Chips which is Peter O'Toole for crying out loud but I just did not like this one. They should have made a different movie about Ursula!
  • Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) - A / Life lesson: What would Judge Haywood do?
  • Lilies of the Field (1963) - B+ / I had Jester Hairston's "Amen" stuck in my head for days. (And it's back.)
  • Libeled Lady (1936) - B- /  It is incredible how much we have not only not changed as a culture but have just gotten so much worse.
  • Now, Voyager (1942) C / I thought we were heading toward a Marty but in the end we got a Ms. Chips.
  • Death on the Nile (1978) C- / I love this kind of shit but this was made like a TV movie with a lot of (amazing!) special guest stars. Oh well, time well spent for me but it is not very good.
  • How Green Was My Valley (1941) A- / One thing I've learned watching all these classic movies: There are few things as evil as a gossipy old biddy.
  • Morgan! (1966) B+ / Every character is simultaneously adorable and annoying. I am looking forward to watching it again and seeing which side sticks (I'm optimistic).
  • Executive Suite (1954) B+ /  Watching now, it's easy to think of Mad Men with respect to both the plot (office politics) and the characters (especially the women).  Sidenote: I have found that Mad Men significantly informs my viewing of a lot of these films from the 50s and 60s, and vice versa. Anybody wanna watch some movies, get drunk, and talk about it?