Recently watched movies

[mariab]

I've never watched 24 yet (is it with Kiefer Sutherland?), but even the French are crazy about it. I'm not sure if it plays on German TV.
Man, we watched The big chill 3 times on Xmas day/Boxing Day, as my friends staying over are more babyboomers than genXers. It's a good movie, but man, no wonder I feel a bit lost and even more desillusioned than ever now. What's clever is that the characters in the movie are both pathetic and (semi)sympathetic. I'm afraid that my American boss, who's in his early 60s and to whom I'm very close, is very much like The big chill characters. He keeps wimpering about how he supposedly knew the “Chicago Weathermen“ and how he used to be deprived when he was young (which is not even true, he was a fairly well off Jewish New Yorker of divorced parents, living in Manhattan, and able to travel in Europe as a grad student). Babyboomers truly depress me!
The Brady Bunch is a piece of American culture I've not yet quite understood. Are these movies, or TV series? Did Sara Michelle Gellar play a part in there?

[Tom_Wescott]

Right now I'm watching season 8 of 24 on dvd, but I also rented The Big Chill and the two Brady Bunch movies from the 90's. I love the Bradys.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

Hi C.D.,
I got what you mean. It's like in Woody Allen's Radio days. I don't think we have such retrospective programs here in Europe, but it might be that there are and I've never heard of them.

[c.d.]

Hi Maria,

When I mentioned old time radio programs, I meant entertainment programs not news. Before TV really took off in the 1950s, the source of entertainment was the radio. The period from the late 30s through the 40s is known as the Golden Age of Radio. People gathered around the radio to hear comedy programs, westerns, detective shows, mystery etc. It really brought the country together during World War II. I find them very entertaining and a nice change from watching TV.

c.d.

[mariab]

Tom Wescott wrote:
I've seen White Dog, about the dog trained to kill black people. I however have not seen Dogtown, although you've really piqued my interest.
Wow, finally someone who's seen White Dog. I got it on VCR and watch it fairly often. Paul Winfield (the black animal trainer), Burl Ives, and Christy McNichol are excellent in it. And the dogs (it was many dogs, not just one) are SOOO beautiful, and they act too. Even the score (by Ennio Morricone) is very good. Normally I'm not for bombastic orchestral scores for movies, but this one fits with the dog's confusion, especially when they show his legs when he runs in circles in his cage over a motif on the piano, and then comes another motif on the lower strings in minor mode, followed by a solo oboe. Real cool. Curiously, the book is by a French guy.

Dogtown the original documentary is amazing. It has tons of original video featuring Tony Alva and Jay Adams as teenagers skating empty pools, it shows Alva catching possibly the very first air on film, out of a pool coping, the music is original from the`70s, there are interviews of all the Z skaters later in life (including Jay Adams post jail), Peralta analyzes the socioeconomic evolution of Southern California and the surfers/skaters sub-culture in a thought-provoking way, and I think that parts of it are narrated by Sean Penn. As it is, I think I might watch it later tonight, this is a nice idea.

Tom Wescott wrote:
I must confess that radio isn't really my thing.
Interesting, mine either. I'm always too preoccupied by things to turn it on when doing odd jobs in the house.
Reminds me that my stupid piece of sh*t CD player from the stereo is kaput, I need to buy a new one, possibly before New Year's. A real drag. For some reason, there hasn't been one Xmas recently where not one godamn piece of electronic equipment fell to pieces during the festivities. Last year it was the VCR, which prompted my to buy a new VCR/DVD system just before Xmas. This year we found out during the party that the CD player doesn't even open anymore...

[Tom_Wescott]

C.D.,

I must confess that radio isn't really my thing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Maria. I've seen White Dog, about the dog trained to kill black people. I however have not seen Dogtown, although you've really piqued my interest.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Robert]

Lord Haw Haw :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_wYBn_olDg

[mariab]

Tom Wescott wrote:
That's the 80's. I'm very interested in the 20th century eras prior to 1983. Like you, the 70's are very fascinating to me.
Really, that's already the '80s? I thought the mullet was more representative of the mid-70s? I find the 1970s completely fascinating, politically, socially, and the music... I also own Stacy Peralta's skate documentary Dogtown and the Z-Boys – the original with the original shots by Craig Stecyk, not the stupid Hollywood flick made recently. I could watch it like, everyday and not get bored. But oldie surf films (like the original The endless summer) bore me, the surf style's too lame...
Has anybody seen White Dog? It's political, very 1970s, and Christie Mc Nichols is amazing. The dog(s) are amazing too.

To C.D.:
In Germany we have TV news from the 1980s. It's fascinating. (It's good though that they don't have radio news from the 1940! Although I'm sure they have them in archives, also from the London pirate stations, announcing D-Day and stuff...)

[Tom_Wescott]

Maybe I just dig the mullet haircuts and all those shirts with numbers on them.

That's the 80's. I'm very interested in the 20th century eras prior to 1983. Like you, the 70's are very fascinating to me.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

Not a huge surprise that (the best) Ripperologists are familiar with horror flicks from the early 20th century. Rob Clack too is too young to have experienced these films when they first came out.
I can't claim I'm a big horror fan, but I've seen lots, because some of my friends dig the genre. The oldest ones I've seen are the original Nosferatu and (I think) the original Picture of Dorian Grey. As a kid I've seen most of the old Dracula films, the Boris Carloff movies, and old black-and-white horror flicks with giant insects and stuff, because on Saturdays my parents were visiting friends whose kids were older than me and around midnight they sent us upstairs and the other kids always wanted to watch black-and-white horror movies on TV. So I remember that from age 6-9 or whatever, almost every Saturday night around midnight I had to brace myself for a marathon of old horror. It wasn't that I was really scared, but I sure as hell would have rather done something else...
I definitely prefer action to horror, but only if it's not too dumb. And I love comedy, even if it's a bit dumb. But I guess my favorite is drama. The genre I'd rather eat bricks than go watch is rom com. Ugh.
Some people probably will cry “sacrilege“ if I say that I've never ever seen Abbott & Costello. No clue if I'd find them funny. I appreciate the artistry in Chaplin movies, but it's not that I'd want to see them again and again.

Tom Wescott wrote:
I'm one of those people who is nostalgic about eras that I did not personally experience.
That's nicely said. It might be that I'm a bit nostalgic, or probably just fascinated by the 1970s. One of my favorite genres who not a lot of people wanna see is sports films and action films, or just outdoorsy films from the 1970s. Maybe I just dig the mullet haircuts and all those shirts with numbers on them. Christy Mc Nichols and her White Dog, Farrah Fawcett on a skateboard, this kind of thing...

[c.d.]

Hi Tom,

Did you know that Abbot & Costello's financial split was 60/40 in favor of Abbot? This was at Costello's insistence. He said that comedians were a dime a dozen but a good straight man was hard to find.

Also, do you listen to old time radion programs from the 40s? I love them and listen to them every Sunday night here in Washington, D.C.

There is a website -- otrcat.com where you can buy old programs on CDs. Also, they have daily free downloads which you can listen to or download to your computer.

c.d.

[Tom_Wescott]

OK, Robert has the same taste in movies as Rob Clack. Maybe they should meet?

Same as myself, also. I'm a huge fan of modern horror, but I also love the classics, going all the way back to Chaney (and Edison now, since I have the 1910 version of Frankenstein on DVD). I also own all the Abbott & Costello movies, along with their TV series. Love those guys. I'm one of those people who is nostalgic about eras that I did not personally experience.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

Actually, I'm auditioning for a production of "..Woolf?" next year

Hi Diva. Did you know Virginia Woolf was a cousin to Ripper suspect J.K. Stephen? Virginia witnessed J.K. stab a loaf of bread once and this ends up in every argument for Stephen's candidacy as the Ripper for evidence of his violent nature!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

OK, Robert has the same taste in movies as Rob Clack. Maybe they should meet?