I Just Watched...

[speedracer5]

[...]
that, and My Man Godfrey. I'm sticking with the ones that I think have the most lasting appeal for now, before going full force into any 30s farce movies. You know, the ones with everyone walking around in tuxedos throwing out snappy banter. I love them, but they aren't the place to start.

It is all a matter of taste and you know your taste and that of your lady far better than I but I do hope that you plan at some point to watch: I Love You Again (1940). I personally rank it higher than many of the: Thin Man movies. It is farcical and a bit slapstick.

Absolutely! I have a DVD set of the Powell/Loy non-Thin Man films, and this is one of them. I told her about these movies and she was kind of iffy. "But I like them as Nick and Nora!" I said that she'd like them as anyone, because the actors are just that likable and always have such incredible chemistry. She's willing to give them a chance, now that we've watched several Thin Man movies. Her reaction was early on, after the second movie.

If the Powell/Loy set is the TCM Spotlight box set with the lavender colored cover, I have the same one. The films are all interesting, though I probably wouldn't show her "Evelyn Prentice" or "Manhattan Melodrama" just yet since they're dramas. I also love "Love Crazy," though Powell without his mustache is slightly terrifying. That man needed that mustache. He is very lackluster without it. "Double Wedding" is also fun, though sad knowing that Harlow passed during production, causing a very difficult time for Powell and Loy to complete it.

I actually really like the last Thin Man film, "Song of the Thin Man." I like it for Gloria Grahame and the jazz setting. My least favorite is the third one, "Another Thin Man," because I hate that so much of the plot focuses on their child. I am also not a huge fan of the fifth one, "The Thin Man Goes Home," because it's kind of dull with Nick just drinking apple juice. My favorite Thin Mans are in this order: 1, 2, 6, 4, 5, 3.

[speedracer5]

I have been getting my fiancée interested in classic films. We started with the Thin Man series, and she's enjoying them so far. On Saturday we watched Shadow of the Thin Man, which is probably the last truly good one in the series. We'll finish them up anyway, of course, because we both enjoy Myrna Loy and Bill Powell's chemistry and their characters. Then I plan to segue into a couple of other Powell/Loy films of the 30s (Libeled Lady, so she can see Harlow too, and Double Wedding), then move to It Happened One Night after that, and My Man Godfrey. I'm sticking with the ones that I think have the most lasting appeal for now, before going full force into any 30s farce movies. You know, the ones with everyone walking around in tuxedos throwing out snappy banter. I love them, but they aren't the place to start.

If she ends up enjoying It Happened One Night and especially My Man Godfrey, which definitely has a completely different energy than the other films you've mentioned, I'd recommend Hands Across the Table with Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray. Then if you want to go all out on Lombard, I'd watch Twentieth Century even though that movie is completely insane. I'd also recommend Easy Living (1937) and Midnight.

[TikiSoo]

I just watched the new Netflix movie "WE HAVE A GHOST". I had actually thought this was going to be a series, but it ended up being a 2 hour movie. Some of you know ghosts/angel fantasies are just about my favorite genres, so it was a must view.

The story was very good-kids discover a ghost in the attic of their new home, the Father & older son exploit the haunting, the younger son tries to help the ghost & the Mom is terrified, avoiding the ghost at all costs. the end.

Well this movie is full of the usual tropes found in any movie of this genre, but the special effects of the ghost and the guy who plays the ghost (David Harbour) are outstanding. The younger son is a typical withdrawn teenager in a new school and he quickly pairs up with the adorable but wacky girl next door. The mystery of the ghost's story is easy to figure out & wraps up nicely in 127 min.

Kids, teens are definitely the target audience here, since so much of the story is completely implausible-and I don't mean the "ghost" part but the real life part. For example, MrTiki & I LOL when the cop's car gets wrecked during a chase scene & he stands in the middle of the road shaking his fist as the kids get away. Sorry, there's no way police would simply give up without pursuing 2 teens on the run!
One aspect we LOL because it's so TRUE was how fast social media stories spread & how info is distorted & editorialized by idiots.

Overall it was fun & cute, all actors were excellent (although the adult women were EMACIATED & skeletal) the sets were great and the lighting, photography & editing top notch.

This was written & directed by Christopher Landon, Michael Landon's son. He seems to be interested in the paranormal genre and this one has the gentle feel of Touched By An Angel moreso than haunting/horror.

[kingrat]

Since we don't have a "Coming Up on TCM" thread here--at least I don't think we do--I wanted to remind everyone of the delight in store in the wee small hours tomorrow morning (Monday): Yes, it's THE OSCAR. This is what I wrote several years ago in another thread on this site:

Thank you to everyone who recommended THE OSCAR. Truly, this film is not like any other. Unbelievably pretentious dialogue AND Jill St. John's tiger-striped stripper outfit AND Stephen Boyd and others chewing the scenery AND possible gold medals in the big hair Olympics. Hedda Hopper's hairdo looked like one of those Cake Challenges on the Food Network.

The person who gives the closest facsimile to a real performance is . . . Milton Berle? The girl who's saving herself for marriage is played by . . . Elke Sommer? The most intellectual character in the film is played by . . . Elke Sommer? I agree with jdb1 about Jill St. John's inability to act, and I'd agree about calling Elke wooden if I hadn't recently seen Martine Carol in LOLA MONTES, who's the giant sequoia of wooden acting. In eleven years Ernest Borgnine goes from winning an Oscar to being in THE OSCAR. Oh, did anyone else relish the nomination for "Burt Lancaster in THE SPANISH ARMADA"? That's pretty funny all by itself.

When the dialogue is even more pretentious than Clifford Odets' "peritonitis of the soul" in THE BIG KNIFE, you know you're in trouble. I saw those films back to back, which I don't recommend. Now I'm going to have to watch Joan Crawford in POSSESSED to remind myself how normal people behave.

[EP Millstone]

Since we don't have a "Coming Up on TCM" thread here--at least I don't think we do--I wanted to remind everyone of the delight in store in the wee small hours tomorrow morning (Monday): Yes, it's THE OSCAR . . .

One of the writers of The Oscar (and the writer who fairly/unfairly reaps the lion's share of the blame for that movie) was Harlan Ellison.


"I practically wept. I saw this film for which I had worked for a year, and people are laughing in the theater and they're laughing at dramatic moments. And I'm sinking lower and lower and lower in my seat. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I said, 'This is the end of my feature film career.' " -- Harlan Ellison

"I saw a screening of THE OSCAR at the Egyptian in 2000, and Harlan Ellison was there. During the 5 seconds of black before the movie actually started, he yelled out to the audience that this was the best part." -- Frank Reynolds

Demanded Harlan Ellison, "Death to All Hollywood Awards Shows!"

[txfilmfan]

They should program The Oscar back-to-back with Valley of the Dolls...

Had to go look to see what Academy Award noms it got: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color and Best Costume Design, Color.

[EP Millstone]

They should program The Oscar back-to-back with Valley of the Dolls...

. . . which would be a Harlan Ellison double-feature!

"The perpetually emphatic novelist Harlan Ellison left the project and had his name taken out of the credits after the softening of certain aspects of the film’s ending." -- Valley of the Dolls: This Merry-Go-Round

"Original screenwriter Harlan Ellison had his name removed from the credits, because he vehemently disagreed with the tacked-on 'happy' ending that the studio insisted on inserting." -- Internet Movie Database

[jimimac71]

Ben Mankiewicz has been spied moonlighting on CBS Sunday Morning.
He interviewed comedian Nick Kroll.
I turned in to see a story about Charles Schulz.
He passed away 23 years ago just after creating his final comic strip.
I’m a fan of Peanuts. Who isn’t?
I do happen to live in Santa Rosa, CA.
“Sparky” was originally from Minnesota but lived here while drawing Peanuts.
All that snow in the comics and TV shows must come from his youth.
Personally, Ben is better with interviews than movie intros.

[txfilmfan]

Ben's been on Sunday Morning for years. His TCM job is just one of many. All the hosts have multiple gigs going, and TCM is just a part-time thing. Same was true for Robert Osborne.

[Intrepid37]

I just watched David Lynch's 2017 series 'Twin Peaks' in its entirety.

I had watched all of the original series - both seasons - as well as the film 'Fire Walk with Me', so I was really quite interested in where the story would go 25 years later. The doppel-Cooper plot was a lot of fun. Overall, this series didn't have nearly as much humor embedded, but was just as entertaining in its own way. It also had the benefit of having the adorable Naomi Watts in it. I'm not often smitten by blondes, but damn, she is cute.

[jimimac71]

Ben's been on Sunday Morning for years. His TCM job is just one of many. All the hosts have multiple gigs going, and TCM is just a part-time thing. Same was true for Robert Osborne.

Well … To quote Ben Matlock, “put my leg in a tea kettle.”
It was worth watching for the Charles Schulz story.
Don’t get me started on not enjoying TCM movie intros.

[LiamCasey]

I just binge watched SS-GB (2017) w/ Sam Riley, Kate Bosworth and James Cosmo on Amazon Freevee. This BBC series is based upon the 1978 novel of the same name by Len Deighton whose earlier novels were the basis for the Harry Palmer series of movies with Michael Caine. And is set in a November of 1941 within an alternate history where the previous year's Operation Sea Lion was successful and Nazi Germany has occupied southern Great Britain (not unlike the ancient Romans in that extent) and never got around to Operation Barbarossa against the USSR. And, in this setting, we have a English Scotland Yard homicide detective who reports to a local German SS officer and who is investigating what appears to be a routine murder until another SS officer arrives suddenly and suspiciously and takes charge of that investigation. An investigation which eventually involves the British Resistance, atomic scientists, the Wehrmacht, unseen American marines and King George VI. Plus the long-dead Karl Marx.

Now I read (and enjoyed) the source novel once soon after it first came out in paperback 40 years ago so I'm not going to rely on my memory and attempt any comparison between the novel and the television series (But I will admit that the ending felt different to me.). However I've always been interested in World War II history so alternate histories of that global conflict are right up my alley. And I enjoyed this adaptation of it. So if The Man in the High Castle (2015-2019) appealed to you, this probably will too.

[CinemaInternational]

Let's put it this way arout the very....aromatic film The Oscar. It's one of the very few films that I found so terrible that I couldn't see it through to the end. I couldn't take it anymore. I have sat and seen the wntirety of some ghastly cinematic abominations in my day, but The Oscar was one of the straws that broke the camel's back. As far as I recall, Eleanor Parker was the only one that kept her acting ability intact as that thing unspooled.

Also it should be noted that it gets the lowest possible grade, 1 star, from the TV Guide programming guide, a true rarity for TCM where most films get 2 and a half, three, three and a half, and even perfect fours. This one is that distinctive.

I know that, for some reason known to God alone, The Oscar received a new digital remaster a few years back before receiving a Blu-Ray release. The print I saw on TCM back in 2013 was a dreary pan-and-scan version that began with the old Columbia Pictures Television logo from the mid to late 1980s, indicating it was a nearly 30 year old print then. I wonder which one will play this morning: the now 35 year old pan and scan print, or the snazzy new widescreen "enhanced" one from Kino Lorber.

And I will give this "special" film a publicity blurb it deserves: "The Oscar makes Valley of the Dolls look like Hamlet in comparison!"

[TikiSoo]

I know that, for some reason known to God alone, The Oscar received a new digital remaster a few years back before receiving a Blu-Ray release. (snipped)
And I will give this "special" film a publicity blurb it deserves: "The Oscar makes Valley of the Dolls look like Hamlet in comparison!"

Wow- anywhere else a bad film would be turned off & immediately forgotten...but not classic film fans! Bad movies only get us "started"

[Intrepid37]

Bad movies can often have a charm of their own.

And it can be very entertaining to make a movie about the making of a bad movie. Example: James Franco's The Disaster Artist (2017) about the making of Tommy Wiseau's The Room (2003).