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Saturday Evening Movie Thread - 11/4/2022 [TheJamesMadison]

Sam Peckinpah


When I told Mark Andrew Edwards that I was going to tackle the filmography of Sam Peckinpah, he replied, "That's strong whiskey." I think that may have been a bit of an understatement.

This is the man who brought the culturally significant bloodbath at the end of his revisionist Western The Wild Bunch, who filmed the sexual assault and home invasion of Straw Dogs, who made a movie titled Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia where, yes, a man's head gets carried around in a fly-covered sack for nearly half the film. He also has a host of behind-the-scenes stories of extreme antagonism and violence stemming from his lifelong alcoholism and later drug addictions like Joe Don Baker describing how he was perfectly willing to get into it physically with his director on Junior Bonner before Steve McQueen intervened.

It's hard not to come away from his body of work without appreciating his approach to violence, which is multifaceted, but, at the same time, understanding that there's something else going on. Peckinpah wasn't a nihilist who just loved to see guts and blood on screen. I don't often do this because most film directors don't have particularly deep histories in television before they start working in feature films, but after watching his first film, a work-for-hire job directing the Maureen O'Hara western The Deadly Companions, I went back and watched all of the episodes of the television show he produced, The Westerner, that he also wrote and directed. Working in network television through the fifties, there was no massive gunning down of an army like Pike does at the end of The Westerner, but it does provide a very clear view of his take on violence, as well as the sadness underlying almost all of his work. It's sadness about losing the independence of the Old West, about decisions made in the past that led to the present, and how some people simply can't be together.

There are filmmakers who are primarily storytellers, not trying to bring themselves to the screen in any conscious way, but Peckinpah really feels like an artist who was out there trying to make movies about himself.

Beginning at The End of the Studio System


I'm not going to go in depth talking about The Westerner because I did only watch five episodes, and I've read nothing about it. I would recommend it in general, though. Those five episodes were solid, short-form storytelling and really do provide a great window into Peckinpah as a filmmaker. Check them out.

However, it all happened in that period when television was really eating into Hollywood's dominance as the cultural hegemon in America. The studio system was failing and, more importantly to Peckinpah, the Western genre as a movie draw was dying as well. When provided with the opportunity to jump from television to features at the behest of his The Westerner star, Brian Keith, to direct Maureen O'Hara in a Western her brother was producing, he jumped at the chance. He ended up having no real say in casting, and he couldn't change anything in the script. He was dissatisfied with the filming experience, and it's largely forgotten and ignored by Peckinpah fans today.

However, in retrospect, it has a lot of what made Peckinpah interesting in film in some sort of proto-form. Men who feel out of place, caught up in the past, a "dancer" female character (I assume that if he could have changed the script, he would have made O'Hara's character an outright prostitute because just so many of his female characters are prostitutes), an odd journey into the desert, and people bonding through the shared experience of violence. If Peckinpah had been allowed to work on the script, a lot of this would have come out in greater focus, but the seeds are there. However, Peckinpah was unsatisfied and swore that he would never work on another film he couldn't have control of the script on as well (he ended up breaking this promise eventually, when he had lost a lot of his professional power and cache late in his career).

His next film could be viewed as just another Randolph Scott B-movie western, Ride the High Country, and it kind of is. I've seen a handful over the years, and this would fit, except that Peckinpah, well trained in efficient visual filmmaking and storytelling in his television years, combined with his sheer talent, helps to elevate the material. It becomes about more than just two roughs going up a mountain to collect gold in exchange for bank notes and return it to the bank below, but about two old friends who haven't seen each other in years, separated by different paths in life, and facing a world that is rapidly changing all around them, leaving both of them behind, and the moral choices one has to make to keep on. It also ended up being Randolph Scott's final film when he saw that he would never give a better performance and decided to retire on a high note.

Peckinpah's third film, Major Dundee, is the kind of film that really helped sink the studio system in the mid-60s. It's not Heaven's Gate (the Michael Cimino film that sunk the "director is king" approach in the mid-80s), but Major Dundee was the first sign of Peckinpah's inability to efficiently manage a production. There's a famous story where his star, Charlton Heston, had to threaten Peckinpah with a saber to get Peckinpah under control during a particular drunken tirade against his crew. He was firing crewmembers constantly to the point that the studio, Columbia, simply cut the shooting schedule short, preventing the filming of certain key scenes, while Peckinpah reportedly got so drunk that he couldn't work, and Heston helped direct the final scenes. That didn't end the troubles because the studio took the final cut from Peckinpah during editing, making changes he objected to, and cutting the film from the proposed four-hours (it was supposed to something akin to Lawrence of Arabia meets Moby Dick in the West during the Civil War) to just over two. There was a posthumous restoration that brought in some of what was cut decades later, but it's an obviously compromised work that still manages to touch on Peckinpah's key themes around violence and male comradery.

Violence


The debacle of the production of Major Dundee along with the fact that Peckinpah ended up getting fired from the production of the Steve McQueen film The Cincinnati Kid after a week (none of his material is in the final film), sidelined his career for a few years until Warner Brothers hired him to make the movie he's known for: The Wild Bunch.

I don't consider The Wild Bunch to be Peckinpah's best movie, though it's really not hard to figure out its cultural impact from the film itself. The violence of this film isn't that gory, but it is epic in scale and the embrace of the carnage of using a gatling gun on an army in an enclosed space. That ending of slaughter, especially when combined with the cool walk down the streets of the four remaining heroes towards their fate, is probably the perfect encapsulation of the public perception of Sam Peckinpah. There's no denying the importance of it in his body of work, but the rest of the movie give it this incredible sense of sadness and loss. These are men who have lived their lives on the edges of civilization, and civilization, with all of its corruptions, will not stop moving in on them until it swallows them whole.

The interesting thing about Peckinpah's filmography really came to the fore with his next film, though, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, which I'll get to in a second. All I really need to say now is that it was a financial bomb. The studio had no idea what to do with this tender, quiet, and largely non-violent follow up to The Wild Bunch and let it languish without much marketing. Peckinpah, finding himself swiftly on the outs with the studios yet again so soon after his financial success, ended up finding financial backers in England who gave him money to make Straw Dogs.

Returning to a certain embrace of shocking violence, this time including sexual violence, it tells the tale of a bookish mathematician who flees modern American (with special emphasis on Vietnam as an issue) to rural England, the hometown of his pretty, English wife. The violence of Star Dogs ends up transformative, essentially turning Dustin Hoffman's character into a man (the idea is present on taglines on the original posters), and that points to the nature of violence in Peckinpah's work: violence is a part of life, and it is neither inherently good nor bad.

Going back to The Westerner, the first episode "Jeff" includes a barroom fight between two men fighting over the titular woman, and the fight ends up actually bringing the men together. In Peckinpah's mind, fighting was simply part of being a man. It was transformative, a right of passage and how men communicated. There's a moment about halfway through Junior Bonner where a father and adult son are coming together for the first time in years, and father smacks son on the back of the head. It doesn't lead to a fight, and the father picks up the fallen hat and gives it back to his son. The fight is over, and the two end up slightly closer as a result.

Class Differences


Peckinpah called himself a "1939 American", an individualist who wanted America before the vast changes in American governance that swept across the country with the advent of WWII. It's also obvious that he viewed contemporary America as a "them" versus him proposition. The "them" took several forms throughout his work from the government wanting to kill Billy the Kid to corrupt Mexican federales in The Wild Bunch to drunk locals in Straw Dogs to glory hound aristocratic Prussian officers in the German army in Cross of Iron, and they're generally those with more power within whatever structure exists, grinding down on the individual.

This is where his view of violence gains a different hue, especially deeper into his career. The cynicism he feels towards those in power just increases the older he got. Sure, the evidence of this power dynamic is there in something like Ride the High Country where the two roughs are working for the man, effectively, but by Cross of Iron, fifteen years later, it had become pretty much the point. The aristocrat captain of Prussian descent makes it his mission to grind down and put under his thumb the individualist NCO who is too effective at what he does for the colonel to get rid of. The captain feels it is within his power to disobey orders and try and get the NCO killed. That's something much more than just hiring some men to do some dirty work.

That can get matched with how it plays out in his final commercial hit Convoy where the corrupt local sheriff turns a personal beef with some truckers into a multi-state chase where the governor of New Mexico shows up to figure out how best to take advantage of the situation to benefit himself politically. The man was out to grind down the individual and use them no matter what the individual wanted, and there was nothing that was going to get in their way. Considering Peckinpah's storied production history (Convoy was his last chance at independence that was a disaster from a production perspective that went weeks overscheduled and doubled its budget, so even though it was a financial success, no one wanted to work with him anymore), it's no trouble seeing how he had such a negative view of authority figures, especially when you combine it with his view of the America of his youth being shorn away by modernity.

He would have one more movie in him, the work for hire adaptation of a Robert Ludlam novel, The Osterman Weekend with a script he hated but couldn't change a word of. He only got it after doing uncredited second-unit work for one of his early mentors, Don Seigel, on the movie Jinxed!, repairing his reputation enough to get at least one more job. He died of heart failure a few months later, and it's not hard to see why. A life of hard alcohol drinking and a few years of hard drug use had turned him old. He has a small cameo in Convoy, and he doesn't look like a man in his mid-fifties, he looks like he's in his seventies.

The Softer Side


This is evident all the way back in The Westerner, but Peckinpah really did have a softer side. You have to get through his rough and tumble personality to find it, but the heart of his body of work is in movies like The Ballad of Cable Hogue and Junior Bonner. Both are quiet, character pieces about men on the edges of civilization trying to make their own ways. The first has a man, left to die by his two partners, finding a watering hole on a stagecoach route and turning it into a successful business while he connects with a (of course) prostitute. The second is about a traveling rodeo performer who returns home to Tacoma to reconnect with his family, most particularly his father, while he connects with a young woman who very easily leaves another man for him.

They're sedate affairs with little violence (can't be no violence) that show men figuring out how to survive in a world that is simply leaving them behind. They're also two of Peckinpah's worst performing films at the box office. The reaction to Junior Bonner was so wounding for Peckinpah that he latched onto McQueen (one of those who really did seem to like Peckinpah personally) for The Getaway, which is much more of a standard McQueen film than a Peckinpah one.

Once again, it's enlightening to go back to The Westerner. As I've said, there was violence, but there was also a concerted melancholy in episodes, especially about the young man wanting to be a gunfighter that ends in tragedy. In his best films (in my opinion, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia) the violence is supplementary to the sad state of the main characters, having to commit violence just to try and make their next steps in the world (the potential subtext of Peckinpah having to make violent movies to make the movies he seems to have preferred is unescapable).

Peckinpah was a man out of sorts with time, the conventions of Hollywood, and the needs of the box office. He knew it as well, and I think that may have been one of the contributing factors to his seeking escape through alcohol and later hard drugs. Peckinpah is ultimately a very sad figure to me, and that's clear in his films.

His Place in History


Peckinpah died with fourteen films to his name, at least three he probably wouldn't have minded having his name struck from (The Deadly Companions, The Killer Elite, and The Osterman Weekend), not because they're necessarily bad (the first of the three is better than its reputation) but because they're his mostly purely work-for-hire projects. The other eleven are as much him as he could make them at the time. Even with films like Convoy that were completely taken from him in editing, his mark is still present.

His productions were a mess, though. He shot so much footage and found ways to make it all work in the editing bay, in cohesion with his worldview, and he was consistently interesting. He was extremely talented, especially when things lined up right for him. He had cultural impact, especially with The Wild Bunch, and a dedicated little fanbase that celebrates him to this day (Tarantino was obviously influenced by him greatly).

His films are not for everyone. They're too violent on the one hand, and too understated on the other (an interesting contrast, if you ask me). However, I think there's really something to discover for those interested.

Movies of Today

Opening in Theaters:

The Fabelmans

Strange World

Movies I Saw This Fortnight:

Everything Everywhere All at Once (Rating 3/4) Full Review "At its core, it tells the kind of hero myth we've been telling each other for millennia told well, with energy, and uniquely. That it's overlong and overstuffed doesn't seem to bother most people. It just bothers me a little bit is all." [Library]

Ride the High Country (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "He understood the western, male relationships, and even disappointment in old age. This is his The Last Hurrah, in a way, only made by a much younger man. This is a wonderful film." [Personal Collection]

The Wild Bunch (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "After the intelligent mess that was Major Dundee and the emotionally gripping little portrait in "Noon Wine", The Wild Bunch is Peckinpah going for broke. He made a film that is fully his, and it is a very strong drink for sure." [Library]

Straw Dogs (Rating 4/4) Full Review "There are no easily tied bows at the end here. It's messy, brutal, and bloody, and nobody comes out clean." [Library]

The Getaway (Rating 3/4) Full Review "He couldn't help Ali MacGraw's somewhat limited performance and the script really needed another pass to focus more on the characters, but the end result is a good, tense chase through the Texas countryside." [Archive.org]

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Rating 4/4) Full Review "It's probably the most Peckinpah movie Peckinpah had made up to this point. The movie that most fully embraces the things he was trying to say as a filmmaker. I loved it." [Library]

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Rating 4/4) Full Review "This is raw Peckinpah. This is Peckinpah laying himself as bare as possible. This is Peckinpah at his best." [Personal Collection]

Cross of Iron (Rating 3/4) Full Review " It's not a last masterpiece from Peckinpah, but it is one final solid effort before he decided to go truckin' in an effort to find financial success again." [Library]

The Osterman Weekend (Rating 1/4) Full Review "It's always unfortunate when directors go out on their worst films." [Hoopla]

Contact

Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.

My next post will be on 12/17, and it will cover the Dirty Harry series.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:31 PM




Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Howdy!

Posted by: Duke Lowell at November 26, 2022 07:36 PM (u73oe)

2 "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" is a charming movie in its own way. Not the usual Peckinpah slo-mo shoot-em-up.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 07:37 PM (Dc2NZ)

3 Called em.

Posted by: Duke Lowell at November 26, 2022 07:37 PM (u73oe)

4 2 "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" is a charming movie in its own way. Not the usual Peckinpah slo-mo shoot-em-up.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 07:37 PM (Dc2NZ)

========

I maintain that it's as much a Peckinpah movie as The Wild Bunch. It might actually be more of who he was as an artist than his most famous ballad of violence.

He was a very sad man, and he made those kinds of movies that really tapped into that whenever he could.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 07:38 PM (LvTSG)

5 I am watching The Wild Bunch right now on the “Movies” channel on broadcast tv. That movie was so layered they could write a book about it. That is probably why they did just a few years ago. The book is ok but nothing amazing. If anything it was tmi.

Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 07:39 PM (LCG6i)

6 [SNAP!]

Roll film

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at November 26, 2022 07:40 PM (SbsCg)

7 5 I am watching The Wild Bunch right now on the “Movies” channel on broadcast tv. That movie was so layered they could write a book about it. That is probably why they did just a few years ago. The book is ok but nothing amazing. If anything it was tmi.
Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 07:39 PM (LCG6i)

========

Do you remember which book?

I was thinking of picking up Stephen Prince's book on Peckinpah titled Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 07:41 PM (LvTSG)

8 >>extreme antagonism and violence stemming from his lifelong alcoholism and later drug addictions

There were also negative aspects to his personality....

Posted by: Thomas Bender at November 26, 2022 07:41 PM (up/3i)

9 Major Dundee, my favorite marmalade!

Finale of Wild Bunch on tv now.

Saw that and Alfredo Garcia in theater back in the day.

Posted by: Commissar of Plenty and Lysenko Solutions at November 26, 2022 07:42 PM (MvM3W)

10 extreme antagonism and violence stemming from his lifelong alcoholism and later drug addictions
---------

Not seeing the problem.

Posted by: Hunter Biden at November 26, 2022 07:43 PM (gUQwJ)

11 Only seen Cross of Iron twice, but another war movie would watch again

Posted by: Skip at November 26, 2022 07:43 PM (xhxe8)

12 Confession: I was about to comment on "Cross of Iron" but I was thinking about "The Big Red One". Sam Fuller movies are kind of unflinching just like Peckinpah's.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 07:43 PM (Dc2NZ)

13 But I know I saw CoI back in the day.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 07:44 PM (Dc2NZ)

14 Don't see the belt fed shucking empties... "Gas" gun prop?

Posted by: Commissar of Plenty and Lysenko Solutions at November 26, 2022 07:44 PM (MvM3W)

15 This thread is a little light on Chuck Norris.

Posted by: Duke Lowell at November 26, 2022 07:45 PM (u73oe)

16 So, I know almost nothing about the filmography above, so let me talk movies I saw this week.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I saw A Christmas Story Christmas, which I admit, as one who HATES the original, this one hits the better "generic" nostalgic note. It's not a great movie, but it's a good movie and enjoyable by all (my spouse who loves the Christmas Story really liked this one).

We now have Spirited, The Santa Clauses, and The Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special on our "list of new Christmas movies/specials" to see. Why yes, I stuck it to Disney and got Hulu AND D+ for the year for $4.99/month yesterday. And I'll cancel next Black Friday after watching everything I want for next to nothing, and move on to my next discount streaming service. Win/win.

Posted by: Nova local at November 26, 2022 07:46 PM (exHjb)

17 To me the interesting part is I know virtually all of his films, good and bad. Probably only two or three others where I know their entire filmography.

Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 07:46 PM (LCG6i)

18 Pretty strong meat from Mr. Sammm Peckinpaaah!

Posted by: Rork at November 26, 2022 07:47 PM (EgYu9)

19 Nice Monty Python callback!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 07:48 PM (Dc2NZ)

20 "Salad Days" was Peck's most violent film.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 07:48 PM (Dc2NZ)

21 I only saw The Wild Bunch just a year or so ago. Thought it was a great, solid effort that was very entertaining.

Posted by: Wyatt Earp at November 26, 2022 07:50 PM (bkUtD)

22 He couldn't help Ali MacGraw's somewhat limited performance and the script really needed another pass to focus more on the characters

She's awful. I watched The Winds of War recently and couldn't decide who was the best mannequin, her or Jan Michael Vincent.

Posted by: kallisto at November 26, 2022 07:50 PM (8GeFp)

23 Evening.

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 07:51 PM (ovu40)

24 I kid about Norris, but I do so enjoy your threads, TJM.

Posted by: Duke Lowell at November 26, 2022 07:51 PM (u73oe)

25 Never saw a single one of his movies. Have a great night!

Posted by: CN at November 26, 2022 07:51 PM (Zzbjj)

26 This year's anti-Christmas movie is "Violent Night", in which Santa delivers "Season's Beatings" to bad guys:

https://tinyurl.com/29tum6wh

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 07:52 PM (Dc2NZ)

27 22 She's awful. I watched The Winds of War recently and couldn't decide who was the best mannequin, her or Jan Michael Vincent.
Posted by: kallisto at November 26, 2022 07:50 PM (8GeFp)

=========

She's okay in Convoy.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 07:52 PM (LvTSG)

28 >>>This year's anti-Christmas movie is "Violent Night", in which Santa delivers "Season's Beatings" to bad guys:

https://tinyurl.com/29tum6wh
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live!


David Harbour. Eh... pass.

Posted by: Wyatt Earp at November 26, 2022 07:53 PM (bkUtD)

29 Not a fan of Peckinpah .

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 07:54 PM (nBhwo)

30 "...fighting is part of being a man."
That is a reasonable assumption.
The downside is that sooner or later you will become too old to either deliver or receive an a** whoopin'...
If you are lucky.

Posted by: gourmand du jour, putting on sweaters at November 26, 2022 07:54 PM (jTmQV)

31 Eh, not enough shots of guys getting shot in the dick.

Posted by: Guy who likes movies of guys getting shot in the dick at November 26, 2022 07:55 PM (sn5EN)

32 Lewis Milestones All Quiet On the Western Front, is perhaps the best adaptation of a German war perspective that I can remember. It blows away Cross of Iron.

Posted by: Marcus T at November 26, 2022 07:55 PM (J47y1)

33 I enjoyed your write up TJM. Well done.

Posted by: Napoleon XIV at November 26, 2022 07:57 PM (AiZBA)

34
Sometimes a drunken asshole is just a drunken asshole.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 26, 2022 07:58 PM (MoZTd)

35
Joe Don Baker describing how he was perfectly willing to get into it physically with his director on Junior Bonner before Steve McQueen intervened.

Mitchell! was taken down by a Bullitt.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at November 26, 2022 07:58 PM (63Dwl)

36 Oh poo. Read the content. Could have been first.

Anywho...

Walmart starts their Black Friday sales a couple of weeks early and last week they put out their Black Friday Blu-ray's.

Picked up *inhales* Ambulance, Dune, The Northman, Top Gun ('86), Everything Everywhere All At Once, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Ghostbusters: Afterlife and The Matrix Resurrections. *Exhales*

Of those eight I've seen two (Top Gun and Ghostbusters). So when I get back I guess I'll have do some movie watchin'.

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 07:59 PM (xvsK1)

37 Added Rawhide to my TV show library on Plex, watched the first episode, there were more interesting characters actors and one hot dame in that one episode than there have been on television in the last 5 years.

The actress was in mighty Joe Young and was rumored to be the secret wife of Howard Hughes.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at November 26, 2022 08:00 PM (up/3i)

38 5, 7,
Hey TJM,

It was “The Wild Bunch….” By W.K. Stratton. The … is not in the title but there is a second line. I forgot the term for that lol. Heck, at this point I should have just typed the full title 😀. It is a full historical account of the making of the movie.

Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 08:00 PM (LCG6i)

39 Howard Sprague got the worst of it in The Getaway.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at November 26, 2022 08:00 PM (63Dwl)

40 38 It was “The Wild Bunch….” By W.K. Stratton. The … is not in the title but there is a second line. I forgot the term for that lol. Heck, at this point I should have just typed the full title 😀. It is a full historical account of the making of the movie.
Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 08:00 PM (LCG6i)

==========

Thanks!

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:02 PM (LvTSG)

41
g'early evenin', 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at November 26, 2022 08:03 PM (ENBF0)

42 Evenin', AJ!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:03 PM (Dc2NZ)

43 I didn't know until recently that Peckinpah wrote the pilot for "The Rifleman" and directed several.

Posted by: fd at November 26, 2022 08:03 PM (sn5EN)

44 Sam does violence well

Posted by: Skip at November 26, 2022 08:04 PM (xhxe8)

45 Peckinpah was pretty cool.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 26, 2022 08:04 PM (oINRc)

46
Hail, Eris

Posted by: AltonJackson at November 26, 2022 08:04 PM (ENBF0)

47 LOL - Per IMDB on "The Wild Bunch":

"Robert Ryan's incessant complaints about not receiving top billing so annoyed director Sam Peckinpah that he decided to "punish" Ryan. In the opening credits, after freezing the screen on closeups of William Holden's and Ernest Borgnine's faces while listing them, Peckinpah froze the scene on several horses' rear ends as Ryan was listed."

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:04 PM (Dc2NZ)

48 The actress was in mighty Joe Young and was rumored to be the secret wife of Howard Hughes.

Sounds like Terry Moore

Posted by: kallisto at November 26, 2022 08:04 PM (8GeFp)

49 I always like to think that after Frank returns to the hotel,

the Temples let Gaye stay on at the hotel

Posted by: REDACTED at November 26, 2022 08:06 PM (us2H3)

50 Here's the thing. I'm sorry. I don't know where I was going with that. I have no idea what the thing is.

Posted by: That NLurker guy where's my Irene Adler? at November 26, 2022 08:07 PM (eGTCV)

51 @48

>>Sounds like Terry Moore

It was, she was absolutely stunning.

They simply don't cast women like that anymore or women like that don't go into acting.

Either way, it's a sad commentary.

I hear the LGBTQWTF animated movie FartClammed at the box office.

I'm shocked, because I've been reliably informed by commercials that 75 pct of the US is G*yballs.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at November 26, 2022 08:07 PM (up/3i)

52 Thinking back on the Peckinpah movies I've seen, we are introduced to the characters as they are at the downward end of the arc of their lives and dubious careers. You get the idea that this is NOT where the characters saw themselves years ago.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:09 PM (Dc2NZ)

53 James Madison are you avoiding reviewing Clint Eastwood as a director?

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:13 PM (nBhwo)

54 So they were fighting over the Titular woman. Was she spectacularly Titular?

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:13 PM (r46W7)

55 53 James Madison are you avoiding reviewing Clint Eastwood as a director?

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:13 PM (nBhwo)

========

I just started at my little blog, actually. A couple of days ago.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:13 PM (LvTSG)

56 Saw the Paul Newman movie "The Verdict" the other night. Great script, and some very Irish faces in the cast as befits a story set in Boston.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:15 PM (Dc2NZ)

57 John Huston might have to be my favorite director based on his resume which includes 5 or 6 Bogart movies.

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:15 PM (nBhwo)

58 I just had a thought and I'm certain I'm the only person in existence that has had this thought.

Clint Eastwood should direct a Marvel movie.

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 08:15 PM (xvsK1)

59 Martin Scorsese should direct a Marvel movie!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:15 PM (Dc2NZ)

60 just started at my little blog, actually. A couple of days ago.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:13 PM (LvTSG)

👍

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:16 PM (nBhwo)

61 57 John Huston might have to be my favorite director based on his resume which includes 5 or 6 Bogart movies.
Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:15 PM (nBhwo)

=========

His very first directing job was second unit work on a William Wyler movie, Jezebel.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:16 PM (LvTSG)

62 Clint Eastwood should direct a Marvel movie.
Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 08:15 PM (xvsK1)

————

Did I destroy six planets or only five? To tell you the truth, in all this excitement I’ve forgotten myself.

Posted by: Duke Lowell at November 26, 2022 08:17 PM (u73oe)

63 Francis Ford Fucking Coppola should not only direct a Marvel movie, he should direct the next three Avengers films!

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 08:17 PM (xvsK1)

64 Major Dundee never worked for me, in spite of having a strong cast. Now I know what went wrong with it. He wanted to make that drag on for 4 hours? Really?????

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:17 PM (r46W7)

65 His very first directing job was second unit work on a William Wyler movie, Jezebel.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:16 PM (LvTSG)

Where do you rank him?

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:17 PM (nBhwo)

66 63 Francis Ford Fucking Coppola should not only direct a Marvel movie, he should direct the next three Avengers films!
Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 08:17 PM (xvsK1)

=========

He's actually making a movie right now, Megalopolis. Big, famous cast. I think he sold his winery to fund it independently.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:18 PM (LvTSG)

67 I loved Major Dundee when I was a kid but saw it a while back and it wasn't very good. I understood absolutely nothing of The Osterman Weekend. I was as disappointed in it as I have ever been in a movie.

I read somewhere years ago that Peckinpah was so far gone making Cross of Iron that he had shot some major scene with tanks and whatnot and the next day he got up to shoot it. He didn't even remember shooting the scene the prior day.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 08:18 PM (FVME7)

68 I hated Everything All At Once....bloated, self-important, redundant as all get out

Posted by: ghost of hallelujah at November 26, 2022 08:19 PM (sJHOI)

69 I've always thought it's kind of interesting that both "Straw Dogs" and "A Clockwork Orange" came out in 1971 pretty much on the heels of one another.

Both setting new standards for poke the audience in the nose violence and both using violence as the way a man gains/shows his independence. Only they look at the issue from opposite sides. The country yahoos of SD could easily be the Droogs of ACO, and Patrick McGee(?) character of ACO could easily be the Dustin Hoffman character of SD. It just depends on who the protagonist is. And which directors view you prefer Kubrick's dark cynical humor or Peckinpah's romanticism.

And in "Dirty Harry" from the same year, which takes a sideways glance at the same issues. And you see revolution as solution, only it's the puny revolution of one man.

Posted by: naturalfake at November 26, 2022 08:19 PM (UHIiC)

70 I sympathize with Peckinpah more than ever now. I feel like a 1939 American, too.

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:19 PM (r46W7)

71 "James Madison are you avoiding reviewing Clint Eastwood as a director?"


He will get to Clint as soon as he finishes his ten-part series on the works of Paul Feig.

Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 08:19 PM (qH6FZ)

72 Even if Peckinpah was an abusive, drunken, psycho hophead, at least he was never a homosexual, pedophile,
rapist, Communist, or some combination thereof. He was practically an Eagle Scout by H'wood standards.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 26, 2022 08:19 PM (oINRc)

73 He's actually making a movie right now, Megalopolis. Big, famous cast. I think he sold his winery to fund it independently.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:18 PM (LvTSG)
---

Check out the cast:

https://tinyurl.com/mvzphppr

This looks VERY interesting.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:20 PM (Dc2NZ)

74 >>Saw the Paul Newman movie "The Verdict" the other night. Great script, and some very Irish faces in the cast as befits a story set in Boston.

Are you saying I look Irish? Do you think all Bostonians look alike? Do I amuse you?

Straw Dogs was disturbing to watch. I'm just glad the left has taken over Hollywood so we can still watch movies without being given shit.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 08:20 PM (ZLI7S)

75 I read the Osterman Weekend so I knew the movie would disappoint.

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:20 PM (nBhwo)

76 65 Where do you rank him?
Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:17 PM (nBhwo)

=========

Hard to rank directors against each other, but I don't know enough of his filmography to even try. Sure, there's The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, The Man Who Would Be King, and The Dead, but I've never seen Escape to Victory, Across the Pacific, Let there Be Light, or The List of Adrian Messenger.

I've been considering running through his work recently. He's not on the schedule yet, though.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:20 PM (LvTSG)

77 hasn't

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 08:21 PM (ZLI7S)

78 Frankenheimer is my favorite cuz he did movies that I liked

like The Train

Posted by: REDACTED at November 26, 2022 08:22 PM (us2H3)

79 The Osterman Weekend (Rating 1/4) Full Review "It's always unfortunate when directors go out on their worst films."


Granted it's probably been over 30 years since I watched it, but I don't remember it being that terrible.

Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 08:23 PM (qH6FZ)

80 Are you saying I look Irish? Do you think all Bostonians look alike?
---

No, there are a lot of Guineas too!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:23 PM (Dc2NZ)

81 Straw Dogs came out the same year as The French Connection and kubrick's Clockwork Orange.

Tough competition.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:23 PM (mZ3xv)

82 79 Granted it's probably been over 30 years since I watched it, but I don't remember it being that terrible.
Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 08:23 PM (qH6FZ)

=========

It's pretty terrible.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:24 PM (LvTSG)

83 I really need to go back and reread Ludlum.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:24 PM (mZ3xv)

84 Clint Eastwood should direct a Marvel movie.
Posted by: Robert

I dunno.

A man's got to know his limitations.

Posted by: Harry Callahan at November 26, 2022 08:25 PM (tjZg/)

85 I saw Osterman Weekend at the theater. Don't remember it being that bad. I went because I liked John Hurt and Rutger Hauer.

Well now I need to see it again.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:25 PM (Dc2NZ)

86 Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:20 PM (LvTSG)

You forgot Key Largo and Treasure of Sierra Madre. That's a pretty solid body of work.

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:26 PM (nBhwo)

87 78 Frankenheimer is my favorite cuz he did movies that I liked

like The Train
Posted by: REDACTED at November 26, 2022 08:22 PM (us2H

And the original Manchurian Candidate, which is the only movie that ever made me think "wow, Sinatra really WAS a good actor!"

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:27 PM (r46W7)

88 TJM,

So how does a man like Peckinpah get multiple opportunities to make movies, when he appears to be such a train wreck?

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at November 26, 2022 08:27 PM (CCSxw)

89 The best two movies I've seen in the last year were "Thief," starring Jimmy Caan, and "Cop," starring James Woods.

The rest were all shit.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 26, 2022 08:28 PM (oINRc)

90 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ecpUX1m0k8
Just started watching this Kuruzov from 1943, a Sovet era ( obviously) about the war of 1812

Posted by: Skip at November 26, 2022 08:28 PM (xhxe8)

91 58,59, yuck.

I am willing to admit many people love super hero movies and super heroes writ large. I never got that. They always seemed the G word to me. Obviously they are money makers.

I think the reason for this is their is not much need for dialogue in general. These things are shot for an international audience, AKA, China. I don’t think Howard’s End did that well in China.

Pekinpah films, with the violence might work today. Those that get the symbolism and story telling with The Wild Bunch for example can appreciate it. Others can just enjoy the action and mahem.

Just watched Ride the High Country for the first time a couple weeks ago. It was a film I always knew about but just never got around to see. I liked it a lot. I do need a review of it though.

Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 08:28 PM (LCG6i)

92 >>No, there are a lot of Guineas too!

Dudette, I'm like totally German. I have no sense of humor and I freak out if my socks aren't perfectly folded.

This stereotyping must stop.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 08:28 PM (ZLI7S)

93 And the original Manchurian Candidate, which is the only movie that ever made me think "wow, Sinatra really WAS a good actor!"
Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:27 PM (r46W7)

only one problem with this

Frank was a fucking terrible actor and a tough guy at 115 lbs

Posted by: REDACTED at November 26, 2022 08:29 PM (us2H3)

94 I like a lot of Peckinpah's movies. "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" is a lot of fun. Stella Stevens might have something to do with that.

Posted by: Javems at November 26, 2022 08:29 PM (AmoqO)

95 John Huston was also a good actor and he was in Man in the Wilderness.

Man in the Wilderness > > The Revenant

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:29 PM (nBhwo)

96 John Huston might have to be my favorite director based on his resume which includes 5 or 6 Bogart movies.
Posted by: polynikes

Speaking of drunken assholes, I saw a documentary on PBS on Huston which included his WWII propaganda documentary The Battle of San Pietro. Huston was obviously three sheets to the wind. The host went into a lengthy story about how many of the GIs in the film were dead by a few days later. Houston then repeated the story almost word for word.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 08:29 PM (FVME7)

97 I sympathize with Peckinpah more than ever now. I feel like a 1939 American, too.
Posted by: Tom Servo

The 1939 American is the Forgotten Man.

History has been wiped...like with cloth?...of the things of value from the past.
My mother graduated from high school in 1939, and it was symbolic of a lot of things. She got a job, which allowed she and her widowed mother to buy a house together (and her younger brother was still in high school)...the same house I grew up in many years later.

Posted by: A face in the crowd...... at November 26, 2022 08:30 PM (tjZg/)

98 Peckinpah wasn't a nihilist who just loved to see guts and blood on screen.

Nihilist weren't well thought of in The Big Lebowski, either.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at November 26, 2022 08:31 PM (a3Q+t)

99 Saw "Ride the High Country" recently, and that really was a good movie for Randolph Scott to go out on. Scott and Joel McCrea were originally cast in the opposite roles, but when filming started both agreed strongly that they wanted to switch parts, so they did.

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:31 PM (r46W7)

100 The Westerner 13 files

https://archive.org/details/the-westerner

Posted by: Braenyard, _ want nuremberg trials? badger your congressman at November 26, 2022 08:32 PM (ZS+GP)

101 The Wild Bunch is a good movie because of all the sexy gubs. You know it's true.

Posted by: Eromero at November 26, 2022 08:32 PM (0OP+5)

102 88 Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at November 26, 2022 08:27 PM (CCSxw)

=========

By the early 70s, he was riding almost purely on personal relationships. Martin Baum, a producer at United Artists, believed in Peckinpah's artistic abilities and helped him find money for both Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and The Killer Elite. But these weren't exactly huge productions. He wasn't staging battles with armies. They were very much independent productions. He had his up and downs, and it was when he had his ups that more people were willing to give him more freedom, which he would then squander, like with the production of Convoy.

Last night I watched White Hunter, Black Heart by Eastwood, and it's a thinly fictionalized telling of the pre-production of John Huston's The African Queen where "Huston" essentially does the movie as an excuse to hunt an elephant. His producer deals with it, accepting the increased cost of location shooting in Africa because it's what "Huston" wanted but also because "Huston" was going to make a good movie.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:32 PM (LvTSG)

103 John Huston was also a good actor and he was in Man in the Wilderness.

Man in the Wilderness > > The Revenant
Posted by: polynikes

Have you ever seen "A Man Called Horse"?
And the sequels?

Posted by: A face in the crowd...... at November 26, 2022 08:32 PM (tjZg/)

104 16
...
As I mentioned earlier in the week, I saw A Christmas Story Christmas, which I admit, as one who HATES the original, this one hits the better "generic" nostalgic note. It's not a great movie, but it's a good movie and enjoyable by all (my spouse who loves the Christmas Story really liked this one).
...
Posted by: Nova local at November 26, 2022 07:46 PM (exHjb)

-----------------------------------------

The wife and I watched it last week. As someone who enjoyed the original, I was expecting this one to be a cash grab. While it did get off to a rocky start, it ended up being a surprisingly good movie.

Posted by: No One of Consequence at November 26, 2022 08:32 PM (uPgE/)

105 56
The Verdict is a great film with great performances. It is in my top 20. I think one reason some people don’t like tent pole franchises, or whatever they are is that they seem to be the reason movies like The Verdict are not made anymore.

Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 08:32 PM (LCG6i)

106 91 Just watched Ride the High Country for the first time a couple weeks ago. It was a film I always knew about but just never got around to see. I liked it a lot. I do need a review of it though.
Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 08:28 PM (LCG6i)

=========

Have I got the opportunity for you...

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:32 PM (LvTSG)

107 Saw "Ride the High Country" recently, and that really was a good movie for Randolph Scott . . . . .
Posted by: Tom Servo


Randolph Scott!
*Stands, Removes Hat*

Posted by: Tonypete at November 26, 2022 08:33 PM (qoGsy)

108 Oh! Movie thread! (Puts on pretentious top hat and monocle) I mean… film thread.

So, I know almost nothing about the filmography above, so let me talk movies I saw this week.…
Posted by: Nova local


Thanks for breaking the Christmas movie ice. I was thinking about the movie thread as we just now finished watching Earnest Saves Christmas.

Our first Holidays flick was, of course, Wonderful Life. I'm such a sucker for familiar old heart-tugs. How angel Clarence's voice cracks as he tells never-was George, "Every man on that transport died because Harry wasn't there to save them."

(Pixy-compliant continuation) …

Posted by: mindful webworker - save my YouTube channel at November 26, 2022 08:34 PM (VDcy5)

109 98 Peckinpah wasn't a nihilist who just loved to see guts and blood on screen.

Nihilist weren't well thought of in The Big Lebowski, either.
Posted by: Duncanthrax at November 26, 2022 08:31 PM (a3Q+t)

==========

Heh.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is about nihilism (also a few other things).

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:34 PM (LvTSG)

110 Great Scott!

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:34 PM (mZ3xv)

Posted by: mindful webworker - save my YouTube channel at November 26, 2022 08:34 PM (VDcy5)

112 The List of Adrian Messenger is a pretty good mystery movie and then it's got the giant practical joke on the audience at the end. Well, worth seeing.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 08:34 PM (FVME7)

113 Randolph Scott!
*Stands, Removes Hat*
Posted by: Tonypete


Well, of course!

Posted by: Howard Johnson of Rock Ridge at November 26, 2022 08:34 PM (tjZg/)

114 Somebody is barreling tonight!

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:35 PM (mZ3xv)

115 100 The Westerner 13 files

https://archive.org/details/the-westerner

Posted by: Braenyard, _ want nuremberg trials? badger your congressman at November 26, 2022 08:32 PM (ZS+GP)

=========

It's also on Amazon Prime.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:35 PM (LvTSG)

116 My movie today was Bridge over the River Kwai. Before Alec became Ben.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:35 PM (mZ3xv)

117 He had his up and downs, and it was when he had his ups that more people were willing to give him more freedom, which he would then squander, like with the production of Convoy.

... at November 26, 2022 08:32 PM (LvTSG)

Safe to say Peckinpah was bipolar, on top of his other issues.

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at November 26, 2022 08:37 PM (CCSxw)

118 116 My movie today was Bridge over the River Kwai. Before Alec became Ben.
Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:35 PM (mZ3xv)

=========

Ah...David Lean.

An artisan who became an artist.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:37 PM (LvTSG)

119 My movie today was Bridge over the River Kwai. Before Alec became Ben.
Posted by: AlaBAMA

Alec Guiness was a terrific actor, but he hated the parts he played in "Star Wars". But...he really needed the money.

Posted by: A face in the crowd..... at November 26, 2022 08:37 PM (tjZg/)

120 Thank you TJM for your always excellent film commentary. Decades ago in a college film class I was introduced to The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and it has remained one of my favorite movies since. Jason Robards was so great in Cable Hogue and in another of my favorites, Once Upon A Time In The West. Thank you again for your keen cinematic eye, and your solid wordsmanship.

Posted by: SuperMayorSuperRonNirenberg-A Hack Politician, Yes, But A Buff Politician, Too at November 26, 2022 08:38 PM (eWHDn)

121 only one problem with this

Frank was a fucking terrible actor and a tough guy at 115 lbs
Posted by: REDACTED at November 26, 2022 08:29 PM (us2H3)

to expand my thought, Sinatra was a lazy actor who sleptwalk through almost all of his roles, but Frankenheimer was talented enough to make even him look good.

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:38 PM (r46W7)

122 $#!+ - glad the barrel is closed for repairs. Continuing...

Threw Earnest in as our second seasonal show, and I'm glad I did. So many laudable aspects to this simple old silly movie. Earnest is just a thread pulling together the several different storylines that don't even include the rubber-faced clown. Greatest line is when Joe the new Santa can't say the SOB line in front of kids - director says, they've heard it before. Joe says, "not from me." Noble!

Nice role for Billie Bird, too. A sweet, sweet film.

And a far better transition of the torch from one Santa to the next than Tim Allen's horrifying Santa Clause. Which we will probably watch next.

Nominating Douglas Seale for 2nd best Santa in modern films. Nobody can top Edmund Gwenn.

Posted by: mindful webworker - YouTube cancelled my YT channel at November 26, 2022 08:38 PM (VDcy5)

123 117 Safe to say Peckinpah was bipolar, on top of his other issues.
Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at November 26, 2022 08:37 PM (CCSxw)

==========

https://tinyurl.com/bdd4xyh6

That's a picture from the set of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid after the producers sent a message to the set, worried about the stories coming out about Peckinpah's drunkenness. As a joke, they staged that picture of Peckinpah on a stretch with a bottle of whiskey acting as an IV.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:39 PM (LvTSG)

124 120 Thank you TJM for your always excellent film commentary. Decades ago in a college film class I was introduced to The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and it has remained one of my favorite movies since. Jason Robards was so great in Cable Hogue and in another of my favorites, Once Upon A Time In The West. Thank you again for your keen cinematic eye, and your solid wordsmanship.
Posted by: SuperMayorSuperRonNirenberg-A Hack Politician, Yes, But A Buff Politician, Too at November 26, 2022 08:38 PM (eWHDn)

=======

Thank you very much!

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:40 PM (LvTSG)

125 Opening in Theaters:
The Fabelmans


The Spielberg auto biography, but with 30% more eyerolling and cringe.

Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 08:40 PM (qH6FZ)

126 The Guinness role that was a revelation to me was his turn as the crass, hard-drinking Scots CO in "Tunes of Glory". Not the usual fey underplayed Guinness.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:40 PM (Dc2NZ)

127
Alec Guiness as George Smiley was the perfect wedding of actor and role.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 26, 2022 08:41 PM (MoZTd)

128 Every time I watch It's a Wonderful Life I laugh at the part where they show the newspaper headline-

Harry Bailey Wins Congressional Medal of Honor

Because that contains many aos commenters pet peeves.

I can see the comments ' you don't win it ! You are awarded the medal . And it's the Medal of Honor! Not the Congressional MoH ! '

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:41 PM (OznTU)

129 The Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special…
Posted by: Nova local


In the Aldi's weird-stuff aisle, I saw two sets of The Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special Lego sets. Thought they would be fun "gag gifts" to our sons (age 36) for Christmas. Alas, when I went back later to get them, they were gone.

Yeah, yeah, they're online somewhere, but it's not the same as grabbing a crazy impulse purchase, right

Posted by: mindful webworker - YooToob owes me an apology at November 26, 2022 08:41 PM (VDcy5)

130 >>The Verdict is a great film with great performances. It is in my top 20. I think one reason some people don’t like tent pole franchises, or whatever they are is that they seem to be the reason movies like The Verdict are not made anymore.


Boston, like every city, is dominated by a number of professions. From the outside most see the universities and tech but the core of the city has always been the Catholic Church, lawyers and hospitals. The Verdict was a heresy in Boston.

Fantastic movie and as disturbing to the powers that be as Newman's Absence of Malice was to Miami which is why neither movie got as much credit as they deserved.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 08:41 PM (ZLI7S)

131 I second SuperMayor's thought, this was a really excellent synopsis of Peckinpah's career.

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:42 PM (r46W7)

132 126 The Guinness role that was a revelation to me was his turn as the crass, hard-drinking Scots CO in "Tunes of Glory". Not the usual fey underplayed Guinness.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:40 PM (Dc2NZ)

=======

He was a wonderful actor. I think it was his Ealing Street comedies he had the most affection for like The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in the White Suit, and The Ladykillers.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:42 PM (LvTSG)

133 I saw A Christmas Story Christmas,

-
Is it on one of the streaming services?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 08:42 PM (FVME7)

134 128 Every time I watch It's a Wonderful Life I laugh at the part where they show the newspaper headline-

Harry Bailey Wins Congressional Medal of Honor

Because that contains many aos commenters pet peeves.

I can see the comments ' you don't win it ! You are awarded the medal . And it's the Medal of Honor! Not the Congressional MoH ! '
Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:41 PM (OznTU)

------------------------------

Well, that headline was written by a journalist...

Posted by: No One of Consequence at November 26, 2022 08:42 PM (uPgE/)

135 133 I saw A Christmas Story Christmas,

-
Is it on one of the streaming services?
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 08:42 PM (FVME7)

------------------------------

HBOMax.

Posted by: No One of Consequence at November 26, 2022 08:43 PM (uPgE/)

136 Boston, like every city, is dominated by a number of professions.

-
In Detroit, it's hitmen.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 08:43 PM (FVME7)

137 126 The Guinness role that was a revelation to me was his turn as the crass, hard-drinking Scots CO in "Tunes of Glory". Not the usual fey underplayed Guinness.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:40 PM (Dc2NZ

I haven't seen that one!

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:43 PM (mZ3xv)

138 137
I haven't seen that one!
Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:43 PM (mZ3xv)

========

Criterion released a very nice edition.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:44 PM (LvTSG)

139 The Verdict was a heresy in Boston.

Fantastic movie and as disturbing to the powers that be as Newman's Absence of Malice was to Miami which is why neither movie got as much credit as they deserved.
Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 08:41 PM (ZLI7S)

Only because the critics looked at Newman as just a "pretty boy" for most of his career.

Even when he was "older"...

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at November 26, 2022 08:46 PM (CCSxw)

140 The Guinness role that was a revelation to me was his turn as the crass, hard-drinking Scots CO in "Tunes of Glory". Not the usual fey underplayed Guinness.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord

Dancing has a bigger part in that movie than probably any other nonmusical movie.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 08:46 PM (FVME7)

141 I wish Peckinpah had gotten the opportunity to direct legendary dog's breakfast "One-Eyed Jacks".

He wrote the early draft for the movie before all the shenanigans. If you squint you can kinda see a bit of Peckinpah in there. Peckinpah and Kubrick would've been an awesome combo. As they were reverse doppelgängers

Posted by: naturalfake at November 26, 2022 08:46 PM (UHIiC)

142 Alec Guiness as George Smiley was the perfect wedding of actor and role.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 26, 2022 08:41 PM (MoZTd)


I watched both those mini-series on You Tube last winter. Man they were good. Saved me from watching the new Tinker Tinker movie.

Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 08:47 PM (qH6FZ)

143 Speaking of Huston, my favorite is probably The Man Who Would Be King.

Connery and Caine made a pretty funny pair.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:48 PM (mZ3xv)

144 142 I watched both those mini-series on You Tube last winter. Man they were good. Saved me from watching the new Tinker Tinker movie.
Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 08:47 PM (qH6FZ)

=======

The new one is really, really good. It also has a great trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW-F1H-Nonk

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:48 PM (LvTSG)

145 Also, tonight I watched a terrific version of Willy the Shakes' "Julius Caesar" (1953). The cast were uniformly great:

https://tinyurl.com/4s2sr87m

I grew up with the MAD Magazine view of Marlon Branflakes, but with the right director reining him in, he was very good (here, as Marc Antony). But Gielgud as Cassius, wow.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:48 PM (Dc2NZ)

146 Nobody's Fool is an underrated Paul Newman movie. Get to see Melanie Griffith's tits again.

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:48 PM (OznTU)

147 All I remember about Convoy is the song.

boy what a collection of schlock actors.
Kris Kristofferson
Ernest Borgnine
Ali MacGraw

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:48 PM (r46W7)

148 Orson Wells was no David Lean or lean of any kind.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 08:49 PM (FVME7)

149 147 All I remember about Convoy is the song.

boy what a collection of schlock actors.
Kris Kristofferson
Ernest Borgnine
Ali MacGraw
Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:48 PM (r46W7)

=========

The song came first. Peckinpah was in Germany making Cross of Iron, and he kept hearing Convoy on the armed services radio. It just sparked something in him, and decided to make a movie out of it.

I'd be interested in seeing his original cut before the studio fired him during post-production.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:50 PM (LvTSG)

150
Ah, Professor Peckinpah, of the old Professor Peckinpah all-purpose pocket pistol under the toupee trick fame.

I remember him well.

Posted by: Maxwell Smart at November 26, 2022 08:50 PM (Mzdiz)

151 >>In Detroit, it's hitmen.

I neglected to mention the mafia. The Departed was only marginally fictitious.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 08:50 PM (ZLI7S)

152 Quintet is by far Paul Newman's worst movie. It's in its own class for bad movies.

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:51 PM (OznTU)

153 When I was in 7th and 8th grade, there were three movies on HBO that made us say to each other the next day in school, "Oh, my God, did you see [fill in the blank]?!?"

The Killer Elite, Cross of Iron and The Warriors.

That's 2 out of 3 for Sam.

Still have a soft spot for all three.

Posted by: Taro Tsujimoto at November 26, 2022 08:51 PM (5YmYl)

154 151 >>In Detroit, it's hitmen.

I neglected to mention the mafia. The Departed was only marginally fictitious.
Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 08:50 PM (ZLI7S)

=========

I had a plumber over to the house this week, and as he was leaving, he looked into my media room and saw the full-sized poster for Mean Streets. We then talked for about ten minutes about the movie and his time living in Boston (I swear his accent was pure New York, but he insisted Boston) and how his father had a lot of mob friends while painting a wonderfully complex portrait of life with a large mob presence in the neighborhood.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:52 PM (LvTSG)

155 152 Quintet is by far Paul Newman's worst movie. It's in its own class for bad movies.
Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:51 PM (OznTU)


Pfft...

Silver Chalice

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at November 26, 2022 08:52 PM (CCSxw)

156 155 Pfft...

Silver Chalice
Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at November 26, 2022 08:52 PM (CCSxw)

=========

Whenever I see terrible ancient world production design in a film, I reference The Silver Chalice.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:53 PM (LvTSG)

157 Which film was the best film on the mob?

Godfather? Goodfellas? Casino?

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:53 PM (mZ3xv)

158 157 Which film was the best film on the mob?

Godfather? Goodfellas? Casino?
Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:53 PM (mZ3xv)

========

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:54 PM (LvTSG)

159 It's been a long time since I have seen

The Getaway (which I liked)
The Wild Bunch (which I also liked)
and
The Osterman Weekend (which kinda sucked)
and
Cross of Iron (which I really couldn't make heads or tales of...I saw it in a theater when it came out).

Yeah, Peckinpah saw violence as a vehicle to describe the struggles of men, the human condition. He would have probably liked John Milius. I think I saw an interview of Milius once where he did pay some homage to Peckinpah.

Posted by: A face in the crowd..... at November 26, 2022 08:54 PM (tjZg/)

160 Orson Welles in "The Critic":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i7ycxiog40

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:54 PM (Dc2NZ)

161 Pfft...

Silver Chalice
Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at November 26, 2022 08:52 PM (CCSxw)

ROFL! Somehow Jack Palance got into that stinker, too. Everyone involved with that needed to hang their heads in shame.

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 08:54 PM (r46W7)

162 I remember going to Detroit in the early 60's with my dad

pretty different and the Greek food was great

Posted by: REDACTED at November 26, 2022 08:54 PM (us2H3)

163 158 157 Which film was the best film on the mob?

Godfather? Goodfellas? Casino?
Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:53 PM (mZ3xv)
========
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:54 PM (LvTSG)

So young...so cynical...

For shame TJM.

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at November 26, 2022 08:55 PM (CCSxw)

164 I never saw a Peckinpah movie. But does Monty Python's 'Salad Days" count?

Posted by: Ranger Gord at November 26, 2022 08:55 PM (AKBA0)

165 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:54 PM (LvTSG)

Snort!

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:55 PM (mZ3xv)

166 164 I never saw a Peckinpah movie. But does Monty Python's 'Salad Days" count?
Posted by: Ranger Gord at November 26, 2022 08:55 PM (AKBA0)

=========

Peckinpah loved that, had a copy, and showed it to friends frequently.

So, yes. It counts.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:56 PM (LvTSG)

167 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:54 PM (LvTSG)

I was thinking Network

Posted by: REDACTED at November 26, 2022 08:56 PM (us2H3)

168 157 Which film was the best film on the mob?

Godfather? Goodfellas? Casino?
Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:53 PM (mZ3xv)

--------------------------------

Johnny Dangerously

Posted by: No One of Consequence at November 26, 2022 08:57 PM (uPgE/)

169 Peckinpah wasn't a nihilist who just loved to see guts and blood on screen.

-
I remember a Monty Pyrhon (I think) skit if Peckinpah directed an upper class twit garden party. The piano lid closes on the pianist chopping off both his hands with blood spurting out and all sorts of other mishaps.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 08:57 PM (FVME7)

170 Maybe Cagney in Public Enemy?

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:57 PM (mZ3xv)

171 I saw The Killer Elite too young and was seriously freaked out. One more film dad should not have brought me to see.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at November 26, 2022 08:57 PM (EZebt)

172 In the Aldi's weird-stuff aisle, I saw two sets of The Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special Lego sets. Thought they would be fun "gag gifts" to our sons (age 36) for Christmas. Alas, when I went back later to get them, they were gone.

Yeah, yeah, they're online somewhere, but it's not the same as grabbing a crazy impulse purchase, right
Posted by: mindful webworker - YooToob owes me an apology at November 26, 2022 08:41 PM (VDcy5)


The dopamine rush of an unusual Aldi find in-store is hard to replicate. You're right, MWW -- an online purchase just doesn't hit the same way.

Posted by: Schnorflepuppy at November 26, 2022 08:57 PM (XEl8M)

173 I was waiting for this thread all day, got distracted, and now I'm late! YouTuber Ya Boi Zack posted Brianna Wu's (super SJW lefty) Twitter summary of Strange Worlds. It's...something.

If you though conservatives freaked out over Lightyear, they’re gonna s*** the bed over #StrangeWorld, which is great.

Main protagonist is gay. Older people don’t find it remarkable. Biracial marriage. Almost no one is white. Climate change metaphor.

Even the dog is disabled!


Surprisingly, it sounds like it's not doing well at the box office...

Posted by: Intrepid Democratic Underground AoS Liaison at November 26, 2022 08:58 PM (NCgXW)

174
Johnny Dangerously
Posted by: No One of Consequence at November 26, 2022 08:57 PM (uPgE

Joe Piscapo was robbed of an Oscar!

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 08:58 PM (mZ3xv)

175 I love the original A Christmas Story. I rate it as one of the top 10 movies of all time, sincerely. I just hope the new one isn't awful. I have some hope because of Vince Vaughn.

Posted by: irright at November 26, 2022 08:59 PM (NTUk0)

176 Best film on the mob we know now to be All the Presidents Men

Posted by: Skip's phone at November 26, 2022 09:02 PM (xhxe8)

177 I got to visit the house where A Christmas Story was filmed in Cleveland.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:02 PM (mZ3xv)

178 I have been watching some French language movies recently. I was browsing the titles on Kanopy and instantly recognized Charlotte Rampling, the love interest in The Verdict.

I never really thought about that actress, her name etc. though it rings a bell now. Just a quick look at the title of Sous Le Sable, AKA, Under the Sand, and you know it is the lady from The Verdict.

Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 09:03 PM (LCG6i)

179 ALABAMA, that house is up for sale.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 09:04 PM (Dc2NZ)

180 124 120 Thank you TJM for your always excellent film commentary. Decades ago in a college film class I was introduced to The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and it has remained one of my favorite movies since. Jason Robards was so great in Cable Hogue and in another of my favorites, Once Upon A Time In The West. Thank you again for your keen cinematic eye, and your solid wordsmanship.
Posted by: SuperMayorSuperRonNirenberg-A Hack Politician, Yes, But A Buff Politician, Too at November 26, 2022 08:38 PM (eWHDn)

=======

Thank you very much!

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 08:40 PM (LvTSG)

According to the internet 126, 2022 08:38 PM (eWHDn)

According to the internet Ron Nirenberg is the Mayor of San Antonio

Posted by: Javems at November 26, 2022 09:04 PM (AmoqO)

181 I would fall asleep listening to Jean Shepard's radio show when I was little. What a great voice, what a storyteller.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at November 26, 2022 09:04 PM (EZebt)

182 I think I liked Donnie Brasco the best . Mob guys not idolized.

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 09:05 PM (OznTU)

183 179 ALABAMA, that house is up for sale.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 09:04 PM (Dc2NZ

Yeah, it didn't look to be getting a lot of traffic since it's back in a neighborhood.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:05 PM (mZ3xv)

184 I love the original A Christmas Story. I rate it as one of the top 10 movies of all time, sincerely. I just hope the new one isn't awful. I have some hope because of Vince Vaughn.
Posted by: irright at November 26, 2022 08:59 PM (NTUk0)


I watched the trailer and it looks pretty bad, there's a reason Peter Billingsley never made the transition to adult actor, he can't act.

Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 09:05 PM (qH6FZ)

185 175 I love the original A Christmas Story. I rate it as one of the top 10 movies of all time, sincerely. I just hope the new one isn't awful. I have some hope because of Vince Vaughn.
Posted by: irright at November 26, 2022 08:59 PM (NTUk0)

-----------------------------

Definitely not awful. It's not as good as the original (how could it be), but it is a worthy successor.

Posted by: No One of Consequence at November 26, 2022 09:05 PM (uPgE/)

186 -
Sam Peckinpah... That's a beautiful name in Navajo.

Posted by: Nobody at November 26, 2022 09:05 PM (NTUk0)

187 >>I had a plumber over to the house this week, and as he was leaving, he looked into my media room and saw the full-sized poster for Mean Streets. We then talked for about ten minutes about the movie and his time living in Boston (I swear his accent was pure New York, but he insisted Boston) and how his father had a lot of mob friends while painting a wonderfully complex portrait of life with a large mob presence in the neighborhood.

My family is originally from NY but we moved a bunch for my dad's job and ended up in Boston for most of my jr high high school years. If you didn't grow up in one of the city neighborhoods nobody has much of a distinguishing accent.

But the mob was real and it moved from the city to the burbs when some wanted to improve things for the family, you know what I'm say'in?

A bunch of my friends went to a party at the home of a girl in our class who moved to the burbs to our town. It was catered. And chaperoned. And scary.

We didn't stay long.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:06 PM (ZLI7S)

188 Bullshit alert!

Mediaite is reporting that Trump asked Kanye to be his 2024 running mate

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 09:06 PM (FVME7)

189 Tennis anyone?

Posted by: pawn at November 26, 2022 09:07 PM (wsHtO)

190 Ooppss

Further research. IE reading the decals instruction book. ETO and MTO P-38s had installed the SCR-522 radio. Not sure where I got SCR-501. You may resume your movie thread.

P.S. Now at 48,500 words on NaNoWriMo project.

Posted by: Anna Puma at November 26, 2022 09:07 PM (c5LhJ)

191 The best part of Getaway is the first 5 minutes that shows McQueen's character as an inmate at the prison farm in Sugar Land. Almost everyone in the sequence is not an actor. Peckinpah had actual guards doing what they did every day, actual inmates doing what they did every day, and McQueen going through their daily routines with them. It's almost a documentary, certainly a look at history, because the prison farm doesn't exist any more; it's all residential subdivisions now.

The best part of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is the sequence where Slim Pickens's character is gut shot and faces death, knocking on heaven's door. (Obvious homage in Breaking Bad with Jonathan Banks's character.) The resignation of Pat Garrett just doing his job is very well portrayed, too.

Best part of The Wild Bunch is the surprise when the cavalry unloads off the train to chase the train robbers.

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at November 26, 2022 09:07 PM (7B5FA)

192
ROFL! Somehow Jack Palance got into that stinker, too. Everyone involved with that needed to hang their heads in shame.
Posted by: Tom Servo


He flew through the air with the greatest of ease.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at November 26, 2022 09:07 PM (63Dwl)

193 Goodfellas was best in my opinion. Donnie Brasco for my underrated pick.

Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 09:08 PM (LCG6i)

194 Randolph Scott!
*Stands, Removes Hat*

‐---------

RANDOLPH SCOOOOOOTT!

Posted by: Taro Tsujimoto at November 26, 2022 09:08 PM (5YmYl)

195 Sooo, basically he was a dick.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at November 26, 2022 09:09 PM (VwHCD)

196 191 The best part of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is the sequence where Slim Pickens's character is gut shot and faces death, knocking on heaven's door. (Obvious homage in Breaking Bad with Jonathan Banks's character.) The resignation of Pat Garrett just doing his job is very well portrayed, too.

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at November 26, 2022 09:07 PM (7B5FA)

=========

It's such a wonderful moment, really made by Bob Dylan's music (written for the film). The movie's a bit of a mess, but holy shit does it have some of Peckinpah's best moments in his entire body of work. It's the exact kind of mess of a movie I just gravitate towards.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:09 PM (LvTSG)

197 I love the original A Christmas Story. I rate it as one of the top 10 movies of all time, sincerely. I just hope the new one isn't awful. I have some hope because of Vince Vaughn.
Posted by: irright at November 26, 2022 08:59 PM (NTUk0)

The original was a masterpiece.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at November 26, 2022 09:10 PM (VwHCD)

198 195 Sooo, basically he was a dick.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at November 26, 2022 09:09 PM (VwHCD

=========

Pretty much. But, it's kind of amazing the kind of loyalty he engendered.

He couldn't have finished a single film without his loyal crew who stuck with him through everything. Steven McQueen loved him while Charlton Heston threatened to stab him with a sword.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:10 PM (LvTSG)

199 JackStraw, nothing like a 'family' wedding.

Posted by: Eromero at November 26, 2022 09:11 PM (0OP+5)

200 "I'll show you where the Iron Crosses grow!"

Posted by: Taro Tsujimoto at November 26, 2022 09:12 PM (5YmYl)

201 @Quint, Charlotte Rampling has had quite the career, but mostly in Britain. I recently binge watched Broadchurch and she has a pretty big role in one of the seasons.

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at November 26, 2022 09:13 PM (7B5FA)

202 LOL - Per IMDB on "The Wild Bunch":

"Robert Ryan's incessant complaints about not receiving top billing so annoyed director Sam Peckinpah that he decided to "punish" Ryan. In the opening credits, after freezing the screen on closeups of William Holden's and Ernest Borgnine's faces while listing them, Peckinpah froze the scene on several horses' rear ends as Ryan was listed."
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 08:04 PM (Dc2NZ)
------
Was going to note the same thing; here's another Trivia note from ImDB: In an interview, Ben Johnson said that the Mexican women who "frolicked" with him and Warren Oates in the huge wine vats weren't actresses but prostitutes from a nearby brothel, who were hired by Sam Peckinpah so he could tell people that Warner Bros. paid for hookers for his cast.

Posted by: ShainS -- The Humiliation is Part of the Kink at November 26, 2022 09:13 PM (ai0yS)

203 The best part of Saturday Night Movie Thread is looking forward to it all week and when it gets here having very little to contribute because you haven't seen most the movies you guys talk about.

Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 09:14 PM (qH6FZ)

204 >>Goodfellas was best in my opinion. Donnie Brasco for my underrated pick.

I'd go with that. But The Departed should be in the conversation as well even if it went a little over the top.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:14 PM (ZLI7S)

205 More ImDB trivia for The Wild Bunch:

"According to editor Lou Lombardo the original release print contains some 3,643 editorial cuts, more than any other Technicolor film ever processed. Some of these cuts are near subliminal, consisting of three or four frames, making them almost imperceptible to the naked eye."

Posted by: ShainS -- The Humiliation is Part of the Kink at November 26, 2022 09:14 PM (ai0yS)

206 Way past time to turn this off
Everyone have a great evening, and don't eat to much popcorn

Posted by: Skip at November 26, 2022 09:14 PM (xhxe8)

207 You forgot Key Largo and Treasure of Sierra Madre. That's a pretty solid body of work.

Posted by: polynikes at November 26, 2022 08:26 PM


Can you help out a fellow American who's down on his luck?

Posted by: Cybersmythe at November 26, 2022 09:15 PM (iZEhM)

208 203 The best part of Saturday Night Movie Thread is looking forward to it all week and when it gets here having very little to contribute because you haven't seen most the movies you guys talk about.
Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 09:14 PM (qH6FZ

You can talk about Jaws.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:15 PM (mZ3xv)

209 And A Bronx Tale even if James Madison refuses to watch it.

Good movie.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:16 PM (ZLI7S)

210 208 203 The best part of Saturday Night Movie Thread is looking forward to it all week and when it gets here having very little to contribute because you haven't seen most the movies you guys talk about.
Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 09:14 PM (qH6FZ

You can talk about Jaws.
Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:15 PM (mZ3xv)

========

We've got a side conversation going about the sequel to A Christmas Story.

Just talk about any movie, and you'll probably end up starting something.

Hell, I've had threads where the topic doesn't get discussed after comment 50. It happens.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:16 PM (LvTSG)

211 I'd go with that. But The Departed should be in the conversation as well even if it went a little over the top.
Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:14 PM (ZLI7S


I couldn't accept Nickleson as a mob head. He just went ham.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:16 PM (mZ3xv)

212 It's such a wonderful moment, really made by Bob Dylan's music (written for the film). The movie's a bit of a mess, but holy shit does it have some of Peckinpah's best moments in his entire body of work. It's the exact kind of mess of a movie I just gravitate towards. Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:09 PM (LvTSG)

I like Billy's escape, too. Implausible, but not too far-fetched. (The actual historical escape couldn't have been that dramatic, but to make it watchable in Hollywood terms does take a bit of artistic license.)

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at November 26, 2022 09:16 PM (7B5FA)

213 You can talk about Jaws.
Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:15 PM (mZ3xv)


Probably won't believe this, but I've never watched it.

Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 09:17 PM (qH6FZ)

214 209 And A Bronx Tale even if James Madison refuses to watch it.

Good movie.
Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:16 PM (ZLI7S)

=========

I told you I watched it like a year ago. You even responded to me about it!

It's lewd, lascivious, salacious, outrageous!

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:17 PM (LvTSG)

215 Or the upcoming movie Violent Night where thugs get on Santa's Naughty List.

Posted by: Anna Puma at November 26, 2022 09:17 PM (c5LhJ)

216 Ed Driscoll drops a link about Casablanca.

https://instapundit.com/555948/

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 09:17 PM (xvsK1)

217 Probably won't believe this, but I've never watched it.
Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 09:17 PM (qH6FZ)

Aliens?

ET?

Pee Wees Big Adventure?

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:18 PM (mZ3xv)

218 212 I like Billy's escape, too. Implausible, but not too far-fetched. (The actual historical escape couldn't have been that dramatic, but to make it watchable in Hollywood terms does take a bit of artistic license.)
Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at November 26, 2022 09:16 PM (7B5FA)

==========

With any movie "based on real events," I have a rule.

90% is made up, 10% is history. No matter what, no more than 10% will be real.

It really helps me accept the stories in movies like that.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:18 PM (LvTSG)

219 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was an excellent flick. Probably my favorite Peckinpah flick and it's not because of all the violence and nudity. It's just a damn good movie. James Coburn was an amazing actor.

Posted by: Puddleglum at November 26, 2022 09:18 PM (sAmhv)

220 201, yeah I just read she did a lot of French, Italian, and UK stuff. I recognized here from a French title immediately. She has very distinctive eyes.

Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 09:18 PM (LCG6i)

221 It's lewd, lascivious, salacious, outrageous!
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:17 PM (LvTSG)

Sounds like my kinda movie!

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 09:19 PM (xvsK1)

222 Saw The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent last night. Nic Cage starring in a movie about Nic Cage. I have nothing deep to say about it. It was hilarious and I would recommend it to anyone who likes Nic.

Posted by: chris+opher at November 26, 2022 09:19 PM (5PBdA)

223 But the mob was real and it moved from the city to the burbs when some wanted to improve things for the family, you know what I'm say'in?
A bunch of my friends went to a party at the home of a girl in our class who moved to the burbs to our town. It was catered. And chaperoned. And scary.
We didn't stay long.
Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:06 PM (ZLI7S)
~~~~~

Went to a friend's party years ago. Someone had brought a big block of ice for the beer and the guys were hitting it with everything they could find trying to bust it up and not having much luck. The guy's father comes home from work, dressed in a nice suit, sees what's going on and steps in to help. Pulls an ice pick out of his jacket pocket and makes fast work of the block.

No lie, the family's last name was Capone, but no relation I'm told.

Posted by: IrishEi at November 26, 2022 09:19 PM (3ImbR)

224 219 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was an excellent flick. Probably my favorite Peckinpah flick and it's not because of all the violence and nudity. It's just a damn good movie. James Coburn was an amazing actor.
Posted by: Puddleglum at November 26, 2022 09:18 PM (sAmhv)

=========

I love it, too, but Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is just something else. It makes me want to give Peckinpah a hug, because it really feels like he needs one.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:19 PM (LvTSG)

225 I have watched ET. And Alien.

Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 09:20 PM (qH6FZ)

226 213, I can see that. If you were 12-50 in 1976, then I do not believe it.😀

Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 09:21 PM (LCG6i)

227 >>JackStraw, nothing like a 'family' wedding.

As silly as it sounds you will know when you walk into a family event.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:21 PM (ZLI7S)

228 ET was a mutant xeno-morph chest-burster?

Posted by: Anna Puma at November 26, 2022 09:22 PM (c5LhJ)

229 I think that there are two The Getaway's released or say it; One with different cuts. The one at Independent Archive, the scene where McQueen is briefing on the bank robbery and the scene where he shoots Rudy after the robbery, are different than I remember when I first saw it.

Posted by: Braenyard, _ want nuremberg trials? badger your congressman at November 26, 2022 09:22 PM (ZS+GP)

230 227 As silly as it sounds you will know when you walk into a family event.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:21 PM (ZLI7S)

========

Every guy is named Peter or Paul, and every girl is named Marie.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:23 PM (LvTSG)

231 228 ET was a mutant xeno-morph chest-burster?
Posted by: Anna Puma at November 26, 2022 09:22 PM (c5LhJ

Yes, but he was kept from transforming by an unknown allergic reaction to Reese's Pieces.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:23 PM (mZ3xv)

232 ROFL! Somehow Jack Palance got into that stinker, too. Everyone involved with that needed to hang their heads in shame.
Posted by: Tom Servo
--------
Reminds me...the other night watched 'The Professionals'. All of the big names do a great job...and there are several big names. Was reminded of what a perfect character actor Lee Marvin was.

Posted by: Hunter Biden at November 26, 2022 09:23 PM (qlgfj)

233 "Was reminded of what a perfect character actor Lee Marvin was."

You never see Lee Marvin and James Coburn together.

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at November 26, 2022 09:25 PM (7B5FA)

234 146 Nobody's Fool is an underrated Paul Newman movie. Get to see Melanie Griffith's tits again.
Posted by: polynikes



A Gene Hackman flick, 'Night Moves', you can see a very young Melanie Griffith nekid. It's a good movie too.

Posted by: Puddleglum at November 26, 2022 09:25 PM (sAmhv)

235 The second [Junior Bonner] is about a traveling rodeo performer who returns home to Tacoma to reconnect with his family, most particularly his father, while he connects with a young woman who very easily leaves another man for him.

--------

Correction: he returns to his home town of Prescott, AZ (where the movie is filmed, where I happen to live now, and where it is frequently celebrated and referenced).

Posted by: ShainS -- The Humiliation is Part of the Kink at November 26, 2022 09:26 PM (ai0yS)

236
You never see Lee Marvin and James Coburn together.
Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at November 26, 2022 09:25 PM (7B5FA

I'm convinced he was double dipping somehow.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:26 PM (mZ3xv)

237 In junior high my best friend was a girl whose family was in the Pentacostal church. They didn't approve of movie-going.

I snuck her into the movies.

Her first theater experience was "Star Wars".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 09:27 PM (Dc2NZ)

238 >>No lie, the family's last name was Capone, but no relation I'm told.

Sure, I believe that.

The North End of Boston was and still is the Italian neighborhood of Boston when I was growing up. A single woman could walk there a 3 in the morning and not worry about a thing other than tripping over a sidewalk. It was the safest place on the planet while other neighborhoods were free fire zones.

Lots of coincidences happened back then.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:27 PM (ZLI7S)

239 I have a soft spot for Steve McQueen because he and my father looked alike. Dad had brown hair instead of sandy blond, but they had a lot of the same facial expressions. One of my sons has those facial expressions too. It's weird.

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at November 26, 2022 09:28 PM (7B5FA)

240 I've never seen Jaws.

I hated ET.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at November 26, 2022 09:29 PM (UQUAY)

241
Her first theater experience was "Star Wars".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 09:27 PM (Dc2NZ

Spoiled from the getgo

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:30 PM (mZ3xv)

242 Speaking of mafia flicks....

You wouldn't call Charles Bronson's movie The Valachi Papers a great movie, but-

man, scenes from it really stuck in my mind.

Check it out if you've never seen it.

Posted by: naturalfake at November 26, 2022 09:31 PM (UHIiC)

243 >>I told you I watched it like a year ago. You even responded to me about it!

>>It's lewd, lascivious, salacious, outrageous!

You're high. This never happened.

But it is a good move.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:32 PM (ZLI7S)

244 243 You're high. This never happened.

But it is a good move.
Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:32 PM (ZLI7S)

=========

That's rich. Project much?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:33 PM (LvTSG)

245 First movie I ever saw at the drive-in was American Graffiti. Mom and Dad made us lie down in the way-back of our Rambler station wagon cuz it was a grown-up movie or something. I managed to watch most of it, peeking over the back seat. Not really good. I think Mom and Dad did not like it much either. Wasn't exactly Happy Days.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at November 26, 2022 09:34 PM (UQUAY)

246 A Gene Hackman flick, 'Night Moves', you can see a very young Melanie Griffith nekid. It's a good movie too.
Posted by: Puddleglum

Yeah, I liked that movie.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at November 26, 2022 09:35 PM (FVME7)

247 Gentlemen, please. We're ALL trippin' ballz here.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 09:36 PM (Dc2NZ)

248 Texas friend of mine who is now gone told me he lived in an Italian majority neighborhood in Chicago. He once remarked to a neighbor how nice the neighborhood was and the huy said 'we keep it nice'. When he said and no crime the neeighbor said 'we don't allow it'.

Posted by: Eromero at November 26, 2022 09:37 PM (0OP+5)

249 ET was a mutant xeno-morph chest-burster?
Posted by: Anna Puma at November 26, 2022 09:22 PM (c5LhJ)

ET was a metaphor for child sex grooming. ET was the morally and physically repugnant pedophile. Elliot was his hapless, brainwashed victim.

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 09:38 PM (xvsK1)

250 I love the original A Christmas Story.

I must be the only person who's never seen it.

Posted by: jewells45 fuck cancer at November 26, 2022 09:39 PM (nxdel)

251 When he said and no crime the neeighbor said 'we don't allow it'.

Posted by: Eromero at November 26, 2022 09:37 PM (0OP+5)

The Arthur Ave. neighborhood in the Bronx wasn't looted or burned during the NYC blackout of 1977, even though places just a few blocks away were destroyed.

Why?

The Mafia. Guys with guns standing on the corners.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at November 26, 2022 09:41 PM (XIJ/X)

252 jewells - you're not alone; I too have never seen A Christmas Story.
I am a sucker for It's a Wonderful Life.

Posted by: PabloD at November 26, 2022 09:42 PM (SZfqZ)

253 Do decapitated heads make for a good movie?

Is "8 Heads in a Duffel Bag" eight times better than " Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia"?

The answer is-

No.

Sadly, no.

Posted by: naturalfake at November 26, 2022 09:42 PM (UHIiC)

254 Amazing write-up TJM. Thanks for doing this.

Posted by: 496 at November 26, 2022 09:42 PM (0uPes)

255 I'd take IrishEi as my bodyguard through Southie because as scary as the Eyetalian mob was back then the Irish mob in Southie was straight up nuts. The only thing they were afraid of was an Irish woman, for obvious reasons.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 26, 2022 09:43 PM (ZLI7S)

256 250 I love the original A Christmas Story.

I must be the only person who's never seen it.
Posted by: jewells45 fuck cancer at November 26, 2022 09:39 PM (nxdel)

-------
That's ok Jewells... I'm the only person who's seen it and really fricking hates it.

Posted by: 496 at November 26, 2022 09:43 PM (0uPes)

257 I am a sucker for It's a Wonderful Life.
Posted by: PabloD at November 26, 2022 09:42 PM (SZfqZ)

Oh Dear Lord I hate that movie.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at November 26, 2022 09:43 PM (UQUAY)

258 "A Gene Hackman flick, 'Night Moves', you can see a very young Melanie Griffith nekid. It's a good movie too."


I must have watched 'Night Moves' and 'The Drowning Pool' to close together, I can't hardly remember which is which. I think they were both pretty good though.

Posted by: lowandslow at November 26, 2022 09:45 PM (qH6FZ)

259 I'd give It's a Wonderful Life about a C+.

Posted by: Teacher at November 26, 2022 09:45 PM (oTZbj)

260 257 I am a sucker for It's a Wonderful Life.
Posted by: PabloD at November 26, 2022 09:42 PM (SZfqZ)

Oh Dear Lord I hate that movie.
Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at November 26, 2022 09:43 PM (UQUAY)

==========

The story of how it became a holiday classic is kind of funny.

It was a box office dud upon its original release. It was so disregarded, that the studio simply forgot to renew its copyright for the additional 28 years, as was the law at the time. It entered the public domain, and local television stations were able to just put it on for free around the Christmas season when there was less original content being shown.

It started showing on TV a lot, and it became a family tradition almost by brute force.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:46 PM (LvTSG)

261 254 Amazing write-up TJM. Thanks for doing this.
Posted by: 496 at November 26, 2022 09:42 PM (0uPes)

==========

Thank you very much!

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:46 PM (LvTSG)

262 A Christmas Story is one of those movies you needed to see as a kid. If you saw it now you wouldn't quite get it. It's a very good movie, very funny, but I think nostalgia plays an important part in its popularity.

I've never seen It's A Wonderful Life. I've seen bits here and there, but never start to finish.

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 09:46 PM (xvsK1)

263 I like Donna Reed, though.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at November 26, 2022 09:47 PM (UQUAY)

264
I'm the only person who's seen it and really fricking hates it.
Posted by: 496 at November 26, 2022 09:43 PM


you are not alone

Posted by: AltonJackson at November 26, 2022 09:47 PM (ENBF0)

265
Oh Dear Lord I hate that movie.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at November 26, 2022 09:43 PM


you are not alone, either

Posted by: AltonJackson at November 26, 2022 09:48 PM (ENBF0)

266 Hell, I'm from Cleveland, and I've never seen Christmas Story....save a few of the scenes of downtown Cleveland at Public Square / Terminal Tower.

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at November 26, 2022 09:49 PM (CCSxw)

267 "A Christmas Story Christmas" is a good movie.
Though you can exactly tell the ending 5 minutes in.

It's a warm hearted smile movie. If you loved the original, you'll like this one.

Not as good a movie, but probably the nostalgia factor here is for the first movie and not for a childhood view and experience of Christmas like in the first movie

Posted by: naturalfake at November 26, 2022 09:49 PM (UHIiC)

268 I'm the only person who's seen it and really fricking hates it.
Posted by: 496 at November 26, 2022 09:43 PM

you are not alone
Posted by: AltonJackson at November 26, 2022 09:47 PM (ENBF0)
-------
I don't hate all Christmas movies though. I think Christmas Vacation is fantastic from beginning to end. Also Die Hard - beginning to end.

Posted by: 496 at November 26, 2022 09:50 PM (0uPes)

269 A Christmas Story runs on an endless loop around Christmas. For sure for 24 hours, but I think now they do it for days.

I did not see it as a kid. But it is a very good Christmas movie. Particularly conservatives should like it because it was about a better time.

Posted by: Quint at November 26, 2022 09:50 PM (LCG6i)

270 With any movie "based on real events," I have a rule.

90% is made up, 10% is history. No matter what, no more than 10% will be real.

It really helps me accept the stories in movies like that.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:18 PM (LvTSG)

I've come to believe that's true of all history books.

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 09:52 PM (r46W7)

271 In the opening credits for Momma Roma

you can see a fly on the still shots of the names

Posted by: REDACTED at November 26, 2022 09:53 PM (us2H3)

272 There's a terrible click-bait headline about why Big Bang Theory's Howard's mom was "killed off."

It's because the sweet lady Carol Anne Susie passed away. You fucking ghouls. Gawd I hate clickbait headlines, because far too many people are stoopid.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at November 26, 2022 09:54 PM (UQUAY)

273
I don't hate all Christmas movies though. I think Christmas Vacation is fantastic from beginning to end. Also Die Hard - beginning to end.

Posted by: 496 at November 26, 2022 09:50 PM


This.

those two, and Brazil are the only acceptable christmas movies

Posted by: AltonJackson at November 26, 2022 09:54 PM (ENBF0)

274 A love A Christmas Story because it's about the America I was born in, but don't live in anymore. I wish I was back there.

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 09:54 PM (r46W7)

275 Christmas Story is worth a watch just for Darren McGavin. "I told you not to use Lifebouy" still cracks me up.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 26, 2022 09:55 PM (a/4+U)

276 If you don't like A Christmas Story or Wonderful Life, you've got a cold heart and coal in your stockings!

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:55 PM (PY/t0)

277 *sings*

Fame! I'm gonna live forever!

....
..,.

Sadly, things didn't quite work out that way.

Who knew?

Posted by: Zombie Irene Cara at November 26, 2022 09:55 PM (UHIiC)

278 276 If you don't like A Christmas Story or Wonderful Life, you've got a cold heart and coal in your stockings!
Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:55 PM (PY/t0)

=========

So...you're saying I'll be able to stay warm this winter?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:55 PM (LvTSG)

279 With any movie "based on real events," I have a rule.

90% is made up, 10% is history. No matter what, no more than 10% will be real.

It really helps me accept the stories in movies like that.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:18 PM (LvTSG)

I've come to believe that's true of all history books.
Posted by: Tom Servo at November 26, 2022 09:52 PM (r46W7)

So you're saying Operation: Dumbo Drop was complete bullshit?

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 09:56 PM (xvsK1)

280 279 So you're saying Operation: Dumbo Drop was complete bullshit?
Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 09:56 PM (xvsK1)

=========

No, that one was fine.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:56 PM (LvTSG)

281 With any movie "based on real events," I have a rule.

90% is made up, 10% is history. No matter what, no more than 10% will be real.

It really helps me accept the stories in movies like that.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:18 PM (LvTSG)

This is what stunned me about "13 Hours."

"This is a true story."

I have never seen anything that declarative before in a movie. Guaran-damn-teed there were lawyers all over this.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at November 26, 2022 09:57 PM (UQUAY)

282 So...you're saying I'll be able to stay warm this winter?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:55 PM (LvTSG)

For a day, maybe two.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:57 PM (PY/t0)

283 No, that one was fine.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:56 PM (LvTSG)

*Whew*

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 09:58 PM (xvsK1)

284 282 So...you're saying I'll be able to stay warm this winter?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:55 PM (LvTSG)

For a day, maybe two.
Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:57 PM (PY/t0)

=========

Do I get more coal if I hate those movies extra, extra hard?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, navigating a corrupt and violent world with Clint Eastwood at November 26, 2022 09:58 PM (LvTSG)

285 This is what stunned me about "13 Hours."

"This is a true story."

I have never seen anything that declarative before in a movie. Guaran-damn-teed there were lawyers all over this.
Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at November 26, 2022 09:57 PM (UQUAY)

It's true it's a story.

Posted by: AlaBAMA at November 26, 2022 09:58 PM (PY/t0)

286 I like "A Christmas Story."

I hate "It's a Wonderful Life."

So, you know. Whatever.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at November 26, 2022 09:59 PM (UQUAY)

287 Thanks for another fine Movie Thread, TJM!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Live! from the Dungeon of Discord at November 26, 2022 10:00 PM (Dc2NZ)

288
I don't hate all Christmas movies though. I think Christmas Vacation is fantastic from beginning to end. Also Die Hard - beginning to end.

Posted by: 496 at November 26, 2022 09:50 PM -
---

I, as someone who loves "A Christmas Story", also loves those. People can love or hate a movie as they will, and OUGHT TO. It's one of the better parts of being an individual.
Popular opinion can fuck off. I'm ME, assholes!

Posted by: irright at November 26, 2022 10:02 PM (NTUk0)

289 It just seems that A Christmas Story tries a bit too hard and is a bit too "precious" - it throws every single stereotype into the mix and none of it ever feels believable or real.

Also, I could just be a grump.

Posted by: 496 at November 26, 2022 10:03 PM (0uPes)

290 *sings*

S A N T A
C L A U S
Hooray for Santy Claus!!!

Posted by: The Best Christmas Movie Evah at November 26, 2022 10:03 PM (UHIiC)

291 ONT is up.

Posted by: Robert at November 26, 2022 10:04 PM (xvsK1)

292 As for best Christmas cartoon, I'd have to go with either the Peanuts Christmas or the one that South Park did.

Posted by: 496 at November 26, 2022 10:05 PM (0uPes)

293 -
It just seems that A Christmas Story tries a bit too hard and is a bit too "precious" - it throws every single stereotype into the mix -

-----------

Wouldn't really argue. I think that's why I like it.

Posted by: irright at November 26, 2022 10:06 PM (NTUk0)

294 Mr Magoo Christmas Carol

Posted by: naturalfake at November 26, 2022 10:07 PM (UHIiC)

295 Muppets. Michael Caine was a delight.

When the tots and grandtots were a bit younger I could amuse them by betting them a quarter that this time -- THIS TIME -- Scrooge (or the Grinch if that one happened to be running) wouldn't chicken out at the end.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 26, 2022 10:12 PM (a/4+U)

296 That movie simply reminds me of my childhood, which I must have loved, because I love that movie.

Posted by: irright at November 26, 2022 10:48 PM (NTUk0)

297 Great essay, TJM

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards (Logan Tiberius 2012-2021) at November 26, 2022 11:47 PM (xcxpd)

298 "In Detroit, it's hitmen."

In the 1980s I tried a lawsuit where the party on the other side was a former member of the Purple Gang-mentioned in the Kefauver hearings and everything. By that time he was a skinny, dried-up little gink who looked half-asleep all the time and never spoke. His lawyers and I mistried the case twice, and while we were getting ready for the third go he died. The attorney for his estate immediately called me and offered to settle at our original offer; apparently the half million or so we were arguing over was too small an amount to be worth a delay in probating the estate.

Posted by: Pope John 20th at November 26, 2022 11:50 PM (cYrkj)

299 "'This is a true story.'

"I have never seen anything that declarative before in a movie. Guaran-damn-teed there were lawyers all over this."

John Sturges's 1967 Wyatt Earp film "Hour of the Gun" has a statement at the beginning to the effect that 'this is the way it really happened.' Interesting that, considering that Sturges also directed the very non-historical 1957 "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral."

Posted by: Pope John 20th at November 26, 2022 11:57 PM (cYrkj)

300 299 , Westerns are the worst. There is a good excuse because we have shit records from that time. It is an odd fact that we have much better records about Ancient Rome than we do about the American west in the 70’s and 80’s.

Wyatt Earp, Johnny Ringo, Doc Holliday, et al are among the worst aggrieved. I don’t know what it is about that gunfight, and those men that makes people want to be wrong. The worst offender was the movie “My Darling Clementine”. I won’t go into it but the history was poor, it was a good movie though.

Posted by: Quint at November 27, 2022 12:08 AM (LCG6i)

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Posted by: Jessica at November 27, 2022 11:52 AM (fffqg)

302 I get paid more than $85 every hour for working on the web. I found out about this activity 3 months prior and subsequent to joining this I have earned effectively $15k from this without having internet working abilities .

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Posted by: Tom at November 27, 2022 12:58 PM (OPUYn)

303 The historic Murray Hotel in Livingston MT has a very large top-floor suite where Peckinpah used to stay. If it is not occupied, the staff will let you in to take a look up at the bullet hole where Peckinpah once fired a pistol shot into the elaborate hammered-tin ceiling. The downstairs bar is pretty good, too.

Posted by: Fritz at November 27, 2022 05:20 PM (dS5zT)

304
Making money online is more than $15k just by doing simple work from home. I received $18376 last month. It's an easy and simple job to do and its earnings are much better than regular office jobs and even a little child can do this and earn money. Everybody must try this job by just use the info on this page..... www.worksful.com

Posted by: Jessica Willis at November 28, 2022 12:39 AM (27ITg)

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