Ian, is that a Yes, Minister gif?Originally Posted by NogbadTheBad
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
I have the Yes, Minster/Prime Minister series on DVD. What a great show.
Ian, is that a Yes, Minister gif?NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
I have the Yes, Minster/Prime Minister series on DVD. What a great show.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Correct - Yes Minister, or maybe Yes Prime Minister, brilliant shows.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
I'm one of the 212.
Man, have I had this discussion before. I don't have a built in bias either but I always drag out all the shop worn reasons why I prefer older films over new ones. It's hard for people to understand because even in the pop culture wreckage, there must be something worth the effort. Well, I never really seem to get that far and at times I do wonder what I might be missing. I find my own attitude to be interesting at times because I feel just the opposite when it come to music especially if the "P" word is attached. I'm always ready, willing and eager to hear something new or something I've never heard before. Go figure.
The older I get, the better I was.
This is another fine point for me. Maybe it's because when your young, everything should stay in that context and you want to reject everything else about it. I feel this way about a lot of things from my youth.
The older I get, the better I was.
I've heard a lot about this series but I've never seen any. Funny because I rather fancy British TV.
The older I get, the better I was.
I'm still stunned that the Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce series had only 14 episodes. I would watch them every time they came on and would swear there were many more.
The older I get, the better I was.
Older movies relied on dialogue and real acting and directing. Today, much of it seems to more about the form and special effects. Today's audiences have shorter attention spans and less tolerance for dialogue. A movie like "12 Angry Men" would probably flop. In fact, it probably wouldn't even be attempted.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Agreed.
The older I get, the better I was.
In the old vs new debate; one area where new trumps old is films dealing with relationships. Studio era films had to dance around sex , intimate conversation , real life in an effort to not rile the Film Code. More talented and determined filmmakers found ways around complete censorship through suggestion , innuendo , and creative editing , think the fade up into the evening sky or more bluntly , Hitch's train into the tunnel trick. Im not talking nudity , but even a mild modern film like When Harry Met Sally couldn't have been made even into the 50s. A movie like WHMS is why I continue to keep an eye on current releases , there are worthwhile movies still being made.
Overall though , I enjoy the classics over most new offerings. I abhore CGI, superheroes, and the endless parade of inferior remakes. Adaptations of 60s TV series , beat the dead horse sequals . Cash in flics by flavor of the moment comics.
What passes today as a Star is no Bogey , Wayne , or Stewart. How does Adam Sandler even have a career ?
Hard not to agree with all of this. But I certainly wonder for instance, about the code. When did it become less and less important? Who and what events decided that our morality could all of a sudden, take on things like nudity and more graphic scenes pertaining to things such as murder? Were these things simply thrown out there or were there test events and scenes in the films? As in, let's see what the reaction is to this or that. Things that have been out of the norm.
The older I get, the better I was.
Seconded. The other day, wifey was watching a Transformer movie. Now, granted, I came in half-way through, but all I saw was mayhem and all I heard were very loud sound effects. It was total cacophony. I'll take Double Indemnity any day over this mindless stuff.
Lou
Looking forward to my day in court.
DI was just on a few days ago and I catch it as often as it's on. MacMurrys' voice over is riveting. I used to think that Nino Zachetti was a very young Richard Widmark.
The older I get, the better I was.
Don't even get me started on that unfunny hack.
Good god, what a great movie.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Well...
Dialogue played a much more important role in the oldies than in contemporary movies. There are exceptions, of course. Coen Bros' and Tarantino movies usually have good dialogue. Whatever I or anyone thinks of QT, he does like to write dialogue and most of it is good, in context. And probably the main reason why I judge a movie based on the writing is because I was informed by those old movies. Back then, there weren't a lot of original ideas. I mean, I could be wrong but I believe most of the material for screenplays came from novels & plays [indeed, before 1940, there was no distinction between adapted or original screenplay and the vast majority of nominees were adapted (40 of 42)]. Think of the greats based on Tennessee Williams plays (A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, etc). And just as importantly, there were some excellent writers that worked on those screenplays (i.e. novelists and playwrights). Off the top of my head were Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ben Hecht, Charlies Brackett (Billy Wilder collaborator), and Robert Riskin (worked with Frank Capra) [had to look up the names of those last two. old age; what are you going to do?].
Have to disagree on acting. During the Golden Age of Hollywood and the studio system, actors were marketed as stars and their acting ability took a back seat. That's not to say some of those stars couldn't act but as long as they were adequate, that was sufficient. Bette Davis, Edward G Robinson (after the gangster movies), & Henry Fonda immediately come to mind as actors that were as good as anyone today. But there's a good reason Bogey, George Raft, and John Wayne never won an Oscar (altho, Bogey could have won for The African Queen). Which is why most of the best actors, then, were English; they were Shakespearean trained and were equally stage actors. I'm thinking of Olivier, Gielgud, Guinness, and Ralph Richardson. It wasn't until the Method actors began making a name for themselves in the '50s that we saw the rise of great American actors. Guys like Brando, Dean, Steiger, and Newman turned heads. I don't know that I'd put "modern" actors above the best of the Golden Age, but there are certainly a lot more, now.
As for directing, that's almost a flip of the coin and I have a tendency to believe it's apples & oranges. The greats of yesteryear made a lot of terrific movies and influenced modern directors. But I doubt most of them would be as successful today. Maybe Wilder could be and most certainly Ford would be, Curtiz might be, but I seriously doubt Capra could be; the restrictive studio system was actually a benefit to directors; it kept them streamlined, so to speak. Not sure about Hitch because he was such a pioneer but also a man of his time. And I don't think the greats of the modern era would be as successful back then. Not only were they influenced by the early greats, they were also influenced by the great foreign directors - de Sica, Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Ozu, Truffaut, Godard, Antonioni, etc - as well as acting and directing theory and advances in technology (and, no, I don't mean CGI). I won't discuss foreign directors because they operated in a different culture and environment and I know little of the foreign industry. I will say, tho, the French Cahiers critics of the '50s championed the idea of the auteur as filmmaker and the French in general value smaller, intimate movies, which get little attention in modern Hollywood. And those same French critics believed the majority of the best American directors and/or films were in the Film Noir genre and eventually became filmmakers themselves. Their influence on modern directors cannot be overstated. Interestingly, the French New Wave was mostly made up of those same critics.
I'm wracking my brain trying to think of directors who transitioned from the Golden Age to the Modern Era and I can only think of two: Hitch and Kubrick. The problem is, Hitch only had two great movies in the ME - Psycho & The Birds - and Kubrick had two maybe three in the GA - The Killing, Paths of Glory, and Spartacus (then again, their inclusion in the GA is questionable, given that Kubrick was really an independent; his only "studio" movie was Spartacus). Interestingly, they were both auteurs who helped usher in the Modern Era. The difference being Hitch was in the twilight of his career while Kubrick was at the beginning of his. One could argue Sidney Lumet did, as well, but he actually started in TV which, imo, makes him a modern director.
So, I agree, disagree, and agree/disagree. I guess I covered all the bases. lol
Incidentally, I said in a previous post that the Modern Era started in '62. Leonard Maltin says '60, iirc, but I don't know why. Some may argue it started in '59/'60 with Truffaut's and Cassavetes' first movies. An article I read recently said '67 when The Graduate and Bonnie & Clyde were released. They certainly reflected the modern zeitgeist of America. But like all transitions from one era to another (e.g. Middles Ages to Renaissance), it's gradual. Still, you can point to something and say, "that's different from that." And, imo, for cinema, there were six, arguably seven movies made in just two years(!) that ushered in the Modern Era: Kubrick's Lolita ('62) and Dr Strangelove ('64), Lumet's Long Day's Journey Into Night ('62), The Pawnbroker ('64), and arguably Fail-Safe ('64), and John Frankenheimer's Manchurian Candidate ('62) and Seven Days In May ('64). These movies, for the first time, realistically touched on the subjects of pedophilia, the power of the military-industrial complex (and its conflict w/the President) and/or and the madness of the cold war (4 times!), drug addiction and alcoholism, incest, and the Holocaust.
Which is why I think '62 is a strong contender for the beginning of the Modern Era. LDJIN was released in May and Lolita in June. MC wasn't released until October but, man, what a heady year. And '64 was just as powerful: Dr Strangelove was released in January, 7DIM in February, The Pawnbroker in June, and Fail-Safe in October. That two year period is when you can say, "that's different from that."
Sorry I rambled on so long.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
It took me so long to write that damn post I missed all of your replies after Staun's "agreed" post.
The Hayes Code authority faded with changes in cultural attitudes. Filmmakers were always pushing the envelope and contributed to both. The subway blowing up Marilyn Monroe's dress in The Seven Year Itch, Frank Sinatra as a drug addict in The Man With the Golden Arm, Tony Curtis revealing he's a man to Joe E Brown in Some Like it Hot (a hint at homosexuality), and Jack Lemmon letting his bosses use his apartment for affairs in The Apartment, to name a few. Lolita would never have been made just a few years prior. And another movie I just thought of that was somewhat of a game changer was Butterfield 8 in which Liz Taylor plays a call girl, iirc.
Actually, now that I think about it, between The Apartment and Butterfield 8, both released in '60, I can see why that year is so often designated as the beginning of the Modern Era. I may have to rethink things.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Elia Kazan
Great post, BTW.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Geez Hal, just write a book and I'll never have questions about film every again. Yep, that was some post Virginia
.
The older I get, the better I was.
Now, if Hal will let me comment about a film or two he mentioned
The older I get, the better I was.
Directors who straddled both eras:
Billy Wilder (Some Like it Hot, The Fortune Cookie, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The Front Page)
William Wyler (Ben-Hur, The Collector)
Fred Zinnemann (Oklahoma!, Day of the Jackal)
It's definitely a good question, and hard to come up with many.
I Love "The Graduate."
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Oh alright, I'll take one more run at it. I'll do the same with, Some Like It Hot
The older I get, the better I was.
Hey, they're not for everyone.Oh alright, I'll take one more run at it. I'll do the same with, Some Like It Hot
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
I cant come up with any old / new directors myself. But IMO Ben-Hur is Old Hollywood.
Never really tried to pinpoint the Golden to Modern era with the precision and depth that Hal employed in his excellent post, all I know is that it started in the early 60's and by 69 it was effectively done. The 60s were one of Hollywood's great decades driven by new and willing to experiment directors. I have a fondness for the resulting 70's movies .
The shower scene in Psycho definitely pushed the envelope, as did Hitch's North By Northwest a few years before. There is an argument for Hitch to be considered one of the major forces contributing to the loss of control the Code had over content , IMO.
Would LOVE to see this but can't afford Amazon Prime.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Synopsis: "My Life Over The Top" Is the real rags-to-riches story of a self-made Kingpin turned Boss Pimp. From selling pots and pans for pennies, to moving kilos of drugs and pimping high-class prostitutes, Virgil defined what it meant to be a Hustler. This documentary depicts everything from the times he was living on top of the world with millions of dollars to the times he was sent to prison and had it all taken away. This is the success story of a man who, against all odds, was able to overcome the dangerous challenges of street life and the penitentiary. This is the story of a living legend as told by the first-hand accounts of numerous well-known cross-country pimps, hoes and kingpins.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Director: Curtis Elerson
Writers: Curtis Elerson, Ben Gillespie
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
☆ Ray Virgil Fairley (Himself)
☆ Gangsta Brown (Himself)
☆ Rolls Royce James (Himself)
☆ J.D. (Himself)
☆ Candy Man (Himself)
☆ Fillmore Slim (Himself #pimpin' 💯%)
☆ Pimpy Do (Himself)
☆ Frosty The Pimp (Himself)
and more...
Novels
☆ Mack Man Forced Into The Game
☆ Iceman! Reap What You Sow
☆ From The Inside Out
References:These books are fiction, but they contain some non-fiction events. Life is mostly all about fiction, because more people these days are acting on something that is not their reality. They’re living in a dream world, a world made of something they saw or heard. So do not read this book and create the image that it could be you.
It’s only a story, but as in all fictional stories, some real life does exist. The candy stick is the sweetest game for the jackers, the one that has no game at all. It’s so easy to point a gun and say give it here, but it’s also the less respected game. Most hustles carry the same traits as a balloon. The hustle blows up like a balloon, but when a pin gets stuck into the balloon, all the air comes out, and it crumbles to the ground, no longer floating on air. It’s the same when it comes to the game. You have to feed the game to know what’s required for taste. Be good to it, and it will be good to you, just like anything else. Remember, if you lay down with dogs you will get up with fleas." ~ Ray Virgil Fairley #Legendary
My Life Over the Top (2015)
https://youtu.be/aUwdhVxE444
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5010882/
https://www.virgilbooks.com
Yes, that's the point - he did Ben-Hur, and also directed The Collector in the mid 60s.
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