Tag: Hollywood

Elmer Bernstein – To Kill A Mockingbird Suite

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Performed live 2014 by the Beethoven Academy Orchestra with Sara Andon on the flute.

Some movies are made special because of their score, and I think this applies to the 1962 film, To Kill a Mockingbird. It is a superb work of art, but it rises above many comparable films due to the music that Elmer Bernstein wrote for it. His suite only gives a hint of its effectiveness, in the movie.

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Midnight repost: Truth, Justice, and the American Way

11:58 pm

Tonight Diane and I decided to watch again the 1978 Richard Donner movie, Superman. The overall film is lighthearted entertainment that captures the myth of this super-hero perfectly. However, it has two scenes that remain among the best moments in movie history (which you can watch here and here). The first captures the myth in every way. The second shows us that Superman truly stood for the best in America.

In watching the movie tonight again and reliving the myth I grew up with — that great things are possible if you believe and follow sincerely Superman’s motto of “truth, justice, and the American way” — I decided to repost my essay from 2020 where I attempted to explain what that motto really meant.

Enjoy!
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The heroic Superman as envisioned in the 1950s
George Reeves as the heroic Superman as envisioned
in the 1950s television show, emulated later by Richard
Donner in his 1978 movie. Click for show’s opening credits.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way

The words spoken during the opening credits of a 1950s children’s television show:

Faster than a speeding bullet.
More powerful than a locomotive.
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Look up in the sky!
It’s a bird.
It’s a plane.
It’s Superman!

Yes, it’s Superman, strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American Way.

That television show was obviously Superman, starring George Reeves, and these opening words expressed the mythology and basic ideals by which this most popular of all comic-book super-heroes lived.

I grew up with those words. They had been bequeathed to me by the American generation that had fought and won World War II against the genocidal Nazis, and expressed the fundamental ideals of that generation.

Much of the meaning of these fundamental ideals is outright and clear.
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Judy Garland -Trolley Song

6:01 pm

An evening pause: From the 1944 film, Meet me in St. Louis. I posted this in July 2010 as one of the very first evening pauses. As I wrote then, “The last line of the song says it all, about life and love.”

Hat tip to Judd Clark, who suggested it, which convinced me it was time to post it again.

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Thanksgiving repost: Miracle on 34th Street

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This was posted in 2023. Time to repost.

Original text:
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This movie used to be a tradition for television on Thanksgiving. At that time the holiday was well linked with the then joyous and relatively Christian Macy’s Day Parade (now warped into a queer agenda demonstration). [Editor: an agenda that thank god appears to be on the run.]

I think it makes for a good opening to the holiday season.

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Renewing the heroic Superman of America

11:57 am

The heroic Superman as envisioned in the 1950s
George Reeves as the heroic Superman as envisioned
in the 1950s television show, emulated later by Richard
Donner in his 1978 movie. Click for show’s opening credits.

Not surprisingly, the newest Hollywood attempt to tell the story of Superman appears by all accounts to be on the verge of another movie disaster, for all the usual reasons. Though the first weekend receipts were acceptable, a closer look suggests they also have feet of clay. When compared with the 2013 attempt to reboot the 1978 classic Richard Donner film, the numbers do not look that good.

Now, look at the number of tickets sold:

Estimated tickets sold opening weekend:
MAN OF STEEL (14.3M)
SUPERMAN (10.7M)

Sometimes a win isn’t quite a win.

The article also notes that the movie is having problems attracting foreign audiences.

The reviews meanwhile have been horrible. Take for example this review:

I’ve seen a lot of superhero movies, and this one — given the level of investment involved, the promotional push, the iconic nature of the character and the importance to the future of DC and Warner Bros. — is by far the worst. I would have left the theater if I hadn’t gone with a friend. There are minor Marvel entries with more to their credit than this. It doesn’t even manage to be fun.

Why should this new movie about the first true American super-hero standing for “truth, justice, and the American way” be having problems at box office? Isn’t the story exactly the kind of thing audiences love and normally consume with eager anticipation?

The problem is that this modern Superman movie is not about “truth, justice, and the American way.” Instead, the film’s director and producer, James Gunn, decided it should instead be about “truth, justice, and the human way,” a statement that is not only meaningless and carrying far less substance, it is a slap in the face of the very noble American ideals of this very American legend.
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Gina Lollobrigida – Pagan dance

6:01 pm

An evening pause: I think this makes a great start to the weekend. Clips from the 1959 movie Solomon and Sheba, centered on Gina’s pagan dance as Sheba, and edited to a piece of music by Dead Can Dance, called Cantara, which the youtube website labels “genuinely pagan music.” If you want to see the original film, go here and go to about 90 minutes. In the original, God steps in to stop all this hanky-panky.

Hat tip Judd Clark.

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John Gabriel & Nelson Riddle – El Dorado

6:01 pm

An evening pause: I think this song quite fitting to end the summer season. Sung by George Alexander, it plays over the opening credits to the classic 1966 John Wayne film of the same name, directed by Howard Hawks. The magnificent paintings that form the backdrop to the credits were painted by Olaf Wieghorst.

My daddy once told me what a man ought to be.
There’s much more to life than the things we can see.
And the godliest mortal you ever will know
Is the one with the dream of El Dorado.

So ride, boldly ride, to the end of the rainbow.
Ride, boldly ride, till you find El Dorado.

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