Five ways movies get everything wrong about gun battles in war
Link here.
Tag: movies
Glenn Miller – In the mood
An evening pause: From the 1954 Jimmy Stewart film, The Glenn Miller Story. They play on, even as a German V1 buzz bomb comes flying in.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Messier gets a scoop!
Heh. Doug Messier has found exclusive footage of the arrival of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin at the new Vostochny spaceport under construction in eastern Russia, just prior to Vladimir Putin’s visit on Tuesday.
Mark Knopfler – Going Home
An evening pause: The closing music from the 1983 film Local Hero, performed live by its composer Mark Knopfler.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli.
The real story behind “The Sound of Music”
Link here. And the story is surprisingly not much different than the movie itself.
Bambi meets Godzilla
An evening pause: A classic from 1969. I remember seeing this for the first time at one of the very first comic book conventions in New York. It brought the house down.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli.
The More the Merrier
An evening pause: Watch Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea in the classic kiss scene from The More the Merrier (1943).
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime (2014 edition).
Maria and the Captain dance the Laendler
An evening pause: From the classic musical, The Sound of Music (1965), a moment with few words where all things change because everyone understands everything anyway.
As I noted in my first Evening Pause on July 1, 2010, “Julie Andrews, in her prime, had one of the most incredible screen presences of any actor in the history of film.”
Five myths about hacking you probably believe, thanks to the movies.
Five myths about hacking you probably believe, thanks to the movies.
The article is focused on hacking, but it really illustrates the general difference between reality and the movies in almost all things. You simply have to ask the same questions about almost every other Hollywood generalization to find out how far from reality those generalizations are.
Five stupid movie deaths that should have been really easy to avoid.
Five stupid movie deaths that should have been really easy to avoid.
These examples are why I find most modern movies either boring, annoying, or stupid. They too often follow the same predictable action formula developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, they too often require their main characters to act stupid, and they too often are based on ridiculous concepts that are so silly that even after typing randomly for one million years one million monkeys would find them unworthy.
John Wayne in The Longest Day
An evening pause: As this is June 6, the anniversary of D-Day in World War II, let’s watch John Wayne show us how Americans once did it. From the 1962 film, The Longest Day.
Becket
An evening pause: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
Watch how a politician gets his underlings to do his dirty work, while keeping his own hands clean. From the 1964 film, Becket. Click through to part 15 to see that dirty work being done.
Barnes Wallis: the man behind World War II’s Dambusters.
Barnes Wallis: the man behind World War II’s Dam Busters.
R.I.P. Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013).
R.I.P. Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013).
Debbie Reynolds – Tammy
An evening pause: If you listen real close to the second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, you will hear the roots of this lovely song.
Judy Garland – It’s a Great Day for the Irish
An evening pause: On St. Patrick’s Day what could be more appropriate?
Mr. Smith goes to Washington filibuster
An evening pause: In honor of Rand Paul’s filibuster today, let’s watch Jimmy Stewart perform a movie filibuster from the (1939) movie, Mr. Smith goes to Washington.
As Mr. Smith says, “Somebody will listen to me.”
Life as it should be
An evening pause: I posted this clip from the 1972 film, Man of La Mancha back in 2010, where Peter O’Toole, as Cervantes, explains why he does not like to look at life, “as it is.”
It is worth revisiting ever so often, as it invokes hope and the possibility that even in the worst times, all things are possible, if we demand it.
Judy Garland – Somewhere Over The Rainbow
An evening pause: The words are still worth living by.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
The Seven Samurai – Kyûzô the Swordsman
An evening pause: A short clip from one of the best films ever made, Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai (1954).