Tag: movies
Kitaro – Cosmic Love
“The Grasshopper and the Ants” – Disney’s Silly Symphony (1934)
An evening pause: I do believe the grasshopper sings the national anthem of the modern liberal, at the beginning of this cartoon from 1934.
Mitch & Mickey – A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow
An evening pause: From the movie A Mighty Wind (2003), a wonderful and funny pseudo documentary about the 1960s folk era. The folk team of Mitch & Mickey never existed, but this song is superb, made even more poignant by the story.
Cleopatra enters Rome
An evening pause: As today is the Ides of March, I am always reminded of Julius Caesar. With that thought in mind, here is a clip from the 1953 movie, Cleopatra, staring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, and Richard Burton. The movie overall isn’t very good, though the first half with Rex Harrison playing Julius Caesar is worth watching, partly because of Harrison and partly because it is very clearly inspired by George Bernard Shaw’s play Caesar and Cleopatra.
That first half also includes the scene below, when Cleopatra enters Rome, bringing with her her son by Caesar. A more classic example of late Hollywood spectacle would be hard to find. It is silly, absurd, impossible, and yet totally engrossing. And it was done with no computer effects. When Hollywood PR used to say a movie had a “cast of thousands,” they really meant it.
One of the many reasons I am no longer in the movie business.
One of the many reasons I am no longer in the movie business.
One of the many reasons I am no longer in the movie business.
Davy Jones of The Monkees has died
R.I.P. Davy Jones, 66, of the Monkees has died.
R.I.P. Davy Jones, 66, of the Monkees has died.
Aladdin – A Whole New World
Oklahoma – All ‘er nothing
The Producers
An evening pause: From Mel Brooks’ classic film, The Producers (1968), a good description of how our modern government functions.
Top 10 Ways Hollywood Can Win Its Audience Back
The top ten ways Hollywood can win its audience back.
As someone who spent almost twenty years in the movie business, I think Nolte hits the nail on the head. I also think Hollywood will not do any of the things he suggests, mostly because it would require them to abandon their elite, leftwing ideology that for the past thirty years has become the only thing too many Hollywood people care about.
The top ten ways Hollywood can win its audience back.
As someone who spent almost twenty years in the movie business, I think Nolte hits the nail on the head. I also think Hollywood will not do any of the things he suggests, mostly because it would require them to abandon their elite, leftwing ideology that for the past thirty years has become the only thing too many Hollywood people care about.
Tarzan’s chimp co-star Cheetah has died at his Palm Harbor sanctuary.
Tarzan’s chimp co-star Cheetah has died at his Florida sanctuary.
Tarzan’s chimp co-star Cheetah has died at his Florida sanctuary.
The Music Man – Till there was you
An evening pause: The same song, two versions, from the 1962 movie, and then from the 2003 television production.
The Rainmaker
Bugs Bunny – Racketeer Rabbit
Five ridiculous gun myths promoted by movies
Five ridiculous gun myths promoted by movies. I like this one:
It’s an old joke by now that nobody runs out of bullets in action movies (unless it’s suddenly convenient to the plot, that is). Hollywood shows some restraint with revolvers–usually no more than 10 or 11 shots per six-shot cylinder–but damn, do they go hog-wild with anything that fires full-auto. So much so that that most of us have wound up with an utterly ridiculous concept of how those guns work. They’re seriously depicting these things firing a hundred times more bullets than they can actually hold.
Five ridiculous gun myths promoted by movies. I like this one:
It’s an old joke by now that nobody runs out of bullets in action movies (unless it’s suddenly convenient to the plot, that is). Hollywood shows some restraint with revolvers–usually no more than 10 or 11 shots per six-shot cylinder–but damn, do they go hog-wild with anything that fires full-auto. So much so that that most of us have wound up with an utterly ridiculous concept of how those guns work. They’re seriously depicting these things firing a hundred times more bullets than they can actually hold.
Sons of the Pioneers – Tumbling Tumble Weeds
Casablanca – “I bet they are asleep in New York. I bet they’re asleep all over America.”
An evening pause: On the anniversary of the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor: “I bet they are asleep in New York. I bet they’re asleep all over America.” From Casablanca (1942).
Charles Laughton – The Gettysburg Address from Ruggles of Red Gap
An evening pause: On the anniversary of its first presentation, Charles Laughton gives his interpretation, from the movie Ruggles of Red Gap (1935).
Daffy Duck – The Great Piggy Bank Robbery
From Here to Eternity – Reverly
An evening pause: In honor of this Armistice Day, the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year: Montgomery Clift plays revelry, from the 1953 classic movie, From Here to Eternity.
Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova – Falling Slowly
The Piano
The Haunting
An evening pause: Once again, for Halloween, this short but truly unnerving scene from Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963), based on the story by Shirley Jackson. Captures what everyone imagines it would be like to sleep in a haunted house. And with no special effects at all.
Hope and Crosby – The Road to Zanzibar
Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers – Follow the Fleet
The Westerner
The Hubble Space Telescope: Movie camera!
Using Hubble Space Telescope images taken over a 14 year period, a team of astronomers led by Patrick Hartigan of Rice University have produced six very short time-lapse movies, showing the changes that have occurred to a variety of interstellar jets and bow shocks over time. The one below is my favorite. They are all worth looking at, as they illustrate forcefully how the changeless heavens are not so changeless.