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).
Tag: movies
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.
Angst
Hope and Crosby – The Road to Morocco
A Bell for Adano
An evening pause: This lovely and poignant scene from the 1945 film, A Bell for Adano, showcases the superb acting of Gene Tierney and John Hodiak. He is an American commander of Italian descent put in charge of an Italian village now under U.S. rule near the end of World War II. She is a local Italian girl longing to find her sweetheart who went off to fight for Italy and is now missing.
The movie was based on a short but profound book by John Hersey. And what I remember most from that book is this speech by the Hodiak character in trying to explain to the Italians the right way for government officials to act:
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The story of Hayabusa inspires three major movie releases
The story of Hayabusa, the Japanese space probe that was the first to successfully return material from an asteroid despite serious technical failures, has now inspired three major movies.
The story of Hayabusa, the Japanese space probe that was the first to successfully return material from an asteroid despite serious technical failures, has now inspired three major movies.
The Muppets – Movin’ right along
Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears
John Adams – the vote
An evening pause: To close out my Declaration of Independence celebration that I began two days ago, here is the vote and public release of the Declaration, as portrayed in the 2008 John Adams mini-series.
To all government leaders, you ignore these words at your peril:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. [emphasis mine]
July 2, 1776 – The vote for independency
An evening pause: From the movie 1776 (1972). The actual vote and signing of the Declaration of Independence took place 235 years ago today, on July 2nd, not July 4th. We celebrate the Fourth of July because that was the date put on the Declaration itself when it was made public.
Joe Hisaishi Live – Summer ( from Kikujiro )
Battleground (1949)
An evening pause: On Memorial Day, one short scene from the William Wellman film, Battleground (1949), to remind us why sometimes it is necessary to fight a war.
The finale from 42nd Street
An evening pause: The finale from the movie 42nd Street (1933). Stay with it, as it gets better and better.
Three Little Kittens
For the birds
Snow
Islamic killer motivated by US antiwar film
This is horrible: It appears that the man who killed two American soldiers in Frankfort was partly motivated by watching clips taken from one of Hollywood’s numerous anti-Iraq war films.
This is horrible: It appears that the man who killed two American soldiers in Frankfort was partly motivated by watching clips taken from one of Hollywood’s numerous anti-Iraq war films.
SNL A very British movie
An evening pause: For anyone who likes to watch modern British movies, whether on public television or in the theater.
Diner scene from Five Easy Pieces
An evening pause: All Jack Nicholson wants is some toast. Five Easy Pieces (1970). This scene is probably more famous than the film itself.
The climax to The Roaring Twenties
An evening pause: The Roaring Twenties (1939). Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney were often cast as gangsters. However, their film personas’ were very different. Bogart’s characters generally showed a trace of weakness in his soul, while Cagney’s characters were rock solid no matter how much things fell apart. The finale of this classic Hollywood film, in which each man dies, illustrates this difference quite starkly.
A Christmas Carol (1951)
An evening pause: Scrooge awakes on Christmas Day. From probably the best movie version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1951), starring Alastair Sim in an astonishing performance.
Facing the facts
An evening pause: The reaction of the ship captain in the opening section of this clip from the movie A Night to Remember (1958) exemplifies better than anything I have ever seen the clarity and courage of an open mind, willing to face new facts instantly and to react correctly, even if by doing so you risk failure and disgrace.
If only our leaders today had as much courage.