Recently watched movies

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, HerlockSholmes said:

The RJD version did take a couple of watches for it to grow on me but it did. I think his accent was fine and much better than some American accents by English actors. It didn’t come across as too exaggerated like the famous Robert Duvall version.

What movie(s) did Duvall do that accent in?  I don't watch a lot of movies, but can't think that I've ever heard anything that sounded like a fake American accent -- perhaps because there's such a variety of actual home-grown accents that I just assumed it was one I hadn't quite encountered before.

1 hour ago, HerlockSholmes said:

I did like Stephen Fry’s Mycroft too. I wonder what Doyle would have made of Mycroft having a nude scene? 

I loved Fry's Mycroft -- he's almost like Doyle's character just stepped out of a book.  Except for that scene!  I found it rather gratuitous, besides which I believe that Doyle's Mycroft was a proper Victorian gentleman, and a very reclusive one at that.  I can't imagine that he'd be so blase about encountering a woman while in that condition.

1 hour ago, HerlockSholmes said:

Elementary seems to go on forever but I’ve only watched the first 3 series .... 

Good heavens, is that still going?  I gave up on it after, I believe, season 2 -- when they stopped doing plots and started doing Big Reveals instead.  I've never been a big fan of soap operas.

1 hour ago, HerlockSholmes said:

What will come first? Holmes 3 or Sherlock 5? My money’s on the former.

I believe it's actually been announced, so I agree with you.

 

[Hikari]

1 hour ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

What movie(s) did Duvall do that accent in?  I don't watch a lot of movies, but can't think that I've ever heard anything that sounded like a fake American accent -- perhaps because there's such a variety of actual home-grown accents that I just assumed it was one I hadn't quite encountered before.

I loved Fry's Mycroft -- he's almost like Doyle's character just stepped out of a book.  Except for that scene!  I found it rather gratuitous, besides which I believe that Doyle's Mycroft was a proper Victorian gentleman, and a very reclusive one at that.  I can't imagine that he'd be so blase about encountering a woman while in that condition.

Good heavens, is that still going?  I gave up on it after, I believe, season 2 -- when they stopped doing plots and started doing Big Reveals instead.  I've never been a big fan of soap operas.

I believe it's actually been announced, so I agree with you.

 

Robert Duvall played Dr. Watson opposite Nicol Williamson in The Seven-Percent Solution (1976).  The movie also featured Alan Arkin as Dr. Sigmund Freud.  The movie didn't feature fake American accents so much as Americans doing fake British and German accents respectively.  Laurence Olivier was Moriarty, and I've got to say that's some good casting.  The casting of a blond Holmes caused a stir akin to casting a blond James Bond did 30 years later.

Found this on the Wiki page for the movie:

Mike Hale of The New York Times, after mentioning Robert Downey Jr.'s version of Sherlock Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock and Jonny Lee Miller in Elementary, opined that Nicol Williamson's Holmes was "the father of all those modern Holmeses"^[12] claiming the film "established the template for all the twitchy, paranoid, vulnerable, strung-out Holmeses to come."^[12]

 

Elementary is blessedly over with--it ended a couple of seasons ago.  For some reason Lucy Liu spent the entire truncated final season as a blonde.  It was a terrible look.  But then, I think her Watson is pretty terrible.  I watched Elementary for other reasons besides the two leads, which I found dreary and irritating.  I liked the production design--the show is like a valentine to New York City--the inventive supporting casting of parts like Mycroft (Rhys Ifans); The Woman (Natalie Dormer); Lestrade (Sean Pertwee); Kitty Winter (Ophelia Lovibond) & Holmes, Sr. (John Noble).  If I had to sum up the two biggest reasons I watched it, they would be: Aidan Quinn (Lt. Tommy Gregson) and Clyde, the tortoise.  Clyde hates Taylor Swift and so do I.

[Carol the Dabbler]

50 minutes ago, Hikari said:

Elementary is blessedly over with--it ended a couple of seasons ago. 

I'm relieved to hear that!

51 minutes ago, Hikari said:

For some reason Lucy Liu spent the entire truncated final season as a blonde.  It was a terrible look.  But then, I think her Watson is pretty terrible.

I like Lucy Liu's performances in general, but didn't care for the way her Watson was written (as an equal to Holmes, rather than as his assistant / biographer).  I cannot imagine her as a blonde.

53 minutes ago, Hikari said:

the two biggest reasons I watched it, they would be: Aidan Quinn (Lt. Tommy Gregson) and Clyde, the tortoise.

I loved Quinn as Gregson.  But the main thing I liked about the show in its early days was the clever casework plots.  Once they de-emphasized those, I lost interest.

 

[Hikari]

1 hour ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

I'm relieved to hear that!

I like Lucy Liu's performances in general, but didn't care for the way her Watson was written (as an equal to Holmes, rather than as his assistant / biographer).  I cannot imagine her as a blonde.

I loved Quinn as Gregson.  But the main thing I liked about the show in its early days was the clever casework plots.  Once they de-emphasized those, I lost interest.

 

Lucy as a blonde is horrifying.  I kept hoping it would be revealed as a wig for an undercover case, but no . . I don't know if she actually dyed her hair or it was a wig, but the reason given was that Watson wanted to change her look.  It was awful with her skin tone.  If she did actually bleach her hair, she ruined her best feature because Lucy has (had) lovely hair.  

Liu always came across in interviews as bubbly and upbeat.  She is an avid art collector and fan of interior design; has a lot of friends and it looked like they were having a blast on the set.  She appears to be able to laugh at herself and be very energetic.  So I can't really fathom her choice to consistently play Watson as such a downbeat pill all the time.  Despite having a pretty sweet situation in terms of her living arrangements and interesting work to do, this Watson is always complaining about something.  Her angst over her accidentally killing a patient drags on for the length of the series.  Granted, that is a big thing to carry, but surgeons have to be able to get back in the saddle.  Losing patients is par for the course when one is a doctor.  This Watson grew up in a rich and connected family and it seems like she thinks the world owes her something even though she couldn't cut the mustard as a surgeon.  Despite that, she lacks humility.  I am always in John's corner because despite his self-deprecation in print, he is a competent physician.  This doctor/soldier would be among the best educated in any room which does not include a Holmes brother.  John could stand on his education and his wartime experiences, but he doesn't--he defers to a greater mind, without always realizing or taking any credit for what he brings to the partnership--humanity, compassion, balance . . and his medical knowledge.  SH is a superior scientist, but a lot of his science is theoretical.  John has experiential knowledge of science as applied to the human body.  John is in every sense a people person, and he balances the detached clinician features of his friend with his warm bedside manner.  In this Elementary pairing, SH is supposed to be the more detached one, but I felt more humanity emanating off JLM than LL.    John Watson is both resilient and non-judgemental, and Liu's Watson misses the mark entirely.  She is a very judgmental type; she holds grudges and exudes the aura that her way is always the superior way.  

I don't think LL is this way in real life, so why her Watson turned out to be such a self-absorbed B is a bit of a mystery.  Also, I found her clothes very irritating.  LL is now past 50 but for most of the run they had Watson in these wispy little mini-dresses and ridiculous shoes that were more suitable to a 25-year-old art student.  Very inappropriate for the New York winters, too.  In the last couple of seasons, Watson's look abruptly morphed into an 'avante garde German lesbian' aesthetic, but at least she adopted trousers and more practical shoes.  You're right that the clever casework plots devolved into too much angst in the personal lives of the detectives.  LL directed several episodes of the show, and did so very well, so I don't think she could have been as prickly as Joan, or she wouldn't have been invited back to the director's chair so many times.

As for Tommy Gregson . . I fantasized about a BBC Sherlock/Elementary crossover episode in which the two commanding inspectors meet and discover accidentally that, separated by an ocean, they are both consulting with detectives calling themselves 'Sherlock Holmes'.  The game's afoot as Cumberbatch and Freeman jump on the red eye to JFK to unmask the impostors posing as them in America.  (Obviously, the 'real' Sherlock lives in London and would never condescend to set up shop in New York.)  In my scenario, the two Sherlocks hate one another on sight while John and Joan get on surprisingly well, taking in a Mets game and bonding over shop talk of cardio-thoracic surgery.

[HerlockSholmes]

As Hikari said it was Duvall’s English accent that caused comment. It was exaggeratedly posh. I’m sure that I’ve read somewhere that he’d modelled it on English conductor Sir Adrian Boult. I think he made a good Watson opposite the edgy Williamson. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, Hikari said:

Lucy as a blonde is horrifying.  [....]  It was awful with her skin tone.

 

People almost always look better with their natural hair color, for that very reason -- most other colors will clash with their skin.  My natural-blond sister-in-law once (inexplicably) dyed her hair black, and that too was awful.

1 hour ago, Hikari said:

Liu always came across in interviews as bubbly and upbeat.  [....]  So I can't really fathom her choice to consistently play Watson as such a downbeat pill all the time.  [....] this Watson is always complaining about something.

I assume that's merely the difference between the actor and the character-as-written.  But I have no idea why the writers thought it'd be a good idea to make Watson such a b*itch -- just to make their adaptation distinctive?  I'm with you, I like the traditional Watsons much better.

1 hour ago, Hikari said:

As for Tommy Gregson . . I fantasized about a BBC Sherlock/Elementary crossover episode in which the two commanding inspectors meet and discover accidentally that, separated by an ocean, they are both consulting with detectives calling themselves 'Sherlock Holmes'.  The game's afoot as Cumberbatch and Freeman jump on the red eye to JFK to unmask the impostors posing as them in America.  (Obviously, the 'real' Sherlock lives in London and would never condescend to set up shop in New York.)  In my scenario, the two Sherlocks hate one another on sight while John and Joan get on surprisingly well, taking in a Mets game and bonding over shop talk of cardio-thoracic surgery.

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

7 hours ago, HerlockSholmes said:

I think his accent was fine and much better than some American accents by English actors.

OK, I misread that.  So -- could you (or anybody) give us some examples of not-so-good American accents by English actors?

Just offhand, the only one I can think of might be Sarah Jane in Doctor Who.  Not that I noticed her accent at the time, just that I heard later that she was supposed to be an American, and I had never noticed.  Watching the clip below, however, I am relieved to see that I did not (as I sometimes do) fail to notice an American accent in a British production, because (to my ear at least) she's simply not doing one -- and I find no online mentions of SJ being a Yank.  I'm now wondering whether my informant was mistaken.  In which case I can think of no examples at all.

 

[Hikari]

1 hour ago, HerlockSholmes said:

As Hikari said it was Duvall’s English accent that caused comment. It was exaggeratedly posh. I’m sure that I’ve read somewhere that he’d modelled it on English conductor Sir Adrian Boult. I think he made a good Watson opposite the edgy Williamson. 

I like Mr. Duvall as an actor, but I'm not sure why, out of all the potential Watsons they could have had who were actually British, they went with an American.  Mr. Duvall isn't even a Watson 'type.'  JW is always conceived as the proper English gentleman, but why have we never had a proper Scottish John Hamish Watson?  That's a big oversight!  It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, but didn't Alan Arkin play Sigmund Freud as a sort of parody?  

An English correspondent once said that she couldn't stand Renee Zellweger's accent in Bridget Jones's Diary.  She thought it was really bad.  I thought it was a fair effort for a girl from Texas, and Renee had actually moved to London and lived there for most of a year before production, to get into character.  She had gone undercover for several months and worked in a PR agency just like the movie Bridget, to perfect her accent.  Her co-stars Colin Firth and Hugh Grant said that when she showed up at the cast party 'talking in a funny voice'--her native Texan accent--they were shocked she wasn't British.  I think they may have been being chivalrous there--Renee had been nominated for an Academy Award a few years prior for Jerry Maguire.  She wasn't a massive star yet in 2001, but she got a LOT of buzz for that breakout role in 1996.  It seems incredible that they they wouldn't have crossed paths with her at some awards show prior to Bridget . .but that's their story and they are sticking to it.

I'm sure British women on the whole didn't think an American should be playing Bridget Jones.  I consider it a form of (mild) revenge for Scarlett O'Hara.  Bridge is no Scarlett and the two books can't even be compared, but for a time there in the late '90s, Bridget Jones was a cultural phenom in the chick lit genre.

[Hikari]

18 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

could anybody give us some examples of not-so-good American accents by English actors?

One of the most egregious EVER was Genevieve O'Reilly, who played a CIA officer and love interest of Lucas North (Richard Armitage) in S8 of Spooks (MI-5).  Her character was supposed to be a Boston native posted from Washington.

The Boston accent is notoriously difficult, and Ms. O'Reilly could never get a bead on it.  She'd start out pretty well, but in any given episode, her accent would go from Bah-ston to New Yawk (think Carmela Soprano) to Southern belle and back again--in the same speech.  Perhaps to her ear these all sounded the same.

It was a long season.  Her performance was so distracting that I'd cringe whenever she appeared.  It was torture for the viewers and I'm sure for her as well.  The character needed to be someone from a place she could do.  The Southern was the least bad, but most UK actors who are insecure about their American accents take refuge in the Southern because it is the easiest.  I was informed by my Shakespeare professor in college that the modern Atlanta-Georgia accent was in fact transplanted from the Midlands of a bygone age.  They might have easily written her as the product of an English upbringing working for the CIA.  Somebody like Gillian Anderson or Gwyneth Paltrow, who are American by birth but spent significant portions of their formative years in England, rendering them bi-dialectal.   Generally in series TV, parts that call for an American will be played by indigenous Brit actors owing to the British actor's union and stiff penalties of 10s of thousands of pounds a day charged against the production if they hire non-British actors.  I suppose a similar situation exists Stateside.  Maybe with their greater production budgets, U.S. productions don't care, or else it is easier for a visiting foreign performer to secure a SAG card?  Don't know.

Along a similar line, has anyone ever wondered why Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) with her plummy British accent is training American soldiers in American uniform? 

Two of the UK's most esteemed actors really struggle with Yank accents and should never bother because we don't want to hear them sounding any other way than their glorious selves:  Sirs Anthony Hopkins and Michael Caine.  You could check out their painful attempts at American in The Innocent (1993) or Mr. Morgan's  Last Love (2013), but I would not recommend it.  In The Innocent, Hopkins plays an American CIA operative named 'Bob Glass' working in the American sector of East Berlin during the Cold War.  The cast also features American Campbell Scott, playing a British colleague & the Swedish-Italian Isabella Rosselli playing a German housefrau.  Very interesting casting decisions here.  Mr. Scott's British accent was not objectionable, but they might have solved Sir Tony's difficulty by simply having the two leads switch nationalities.  Oh, I almost forgot--Anthony Hopkins was Oscar-nominated for his starring turn in 'Nixon'.  It was certainly a game performance from him, but in my opinion, he neither looked nor sounded much at all like the real Nixon.  Dick had very sharp features in a more angular face and Mr.  Hopkins' features are quite rounded.  Brown contacts alone couldn't make up for the completely opposite bone structure, body type and speaking manner, because I think he struggled mightily with the accent here too.  Nixon's voice was distinctive.

I've heard a lot of bad American accents in British shows I watch, like Inspector Morse and its spin-off Lewis and Foyle's War.  Henry Goodman (born in Whitechapel) turns up a lot as 'the American heavy'.  He briefly replaced Nathan Lane on Broadway in The Producers, and that kind of OTT cartoony New Yorker hammy accent seems to be his go-to.  

Offering apologies to any British readers here (hi, Herl!) or just non-Americans in general, if we all truly sound like braying donkeys to your ears.  If so, how hideous!  If I'm honest, too many of my countrymen and women on TV and in radio do sound very abrasive, and the more British shows I watch, the more I notice this.

Zoe Boyle (lately of Downton Abbey's ill-fated Lavinia who expires of the influenza after a brief engagement to Matthew, thereby clearing the decks for the woman he really wants, Mary) appeared in an episode of Lewis playing 'the U.S. Secretary of State's daughter' who was studying at Oxford.  Ms. Boyle is very pretty, and I could forgive the fact that her American Princess character's wardrobe was indistinguishable from any of the other Oxford undergrads--adaptive coloring--but her accent made my ears bleed.  Points for effort, but . . .nyet.

 

 

 

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

JW is always conceived as the proper English gentleman, but why have we never had a proper Scottish John Hamish Watson?

You do realize that the "Hamish" part did not originate with Doyle, it was a 1943 attempt by Dorothy L. Sayers (Holmes fan and author of the Lord Peter Wimsey stories) to reconcile the name John H. Watson with his wife calling him James?

Here's a link: https://pinchofnutmeg.tumblr.com/post/72507054707/dr-watsons-christian-name-by-dorothy-l-sayers

 

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

The Boston accent is notoriously difficult....

How true!  Even non-New-England Americans have trouble reproducing it.  For one thing, there isn't just one Boston accent, there are a number of them, ranging from upper crust to working class, with variations depending on one's ethnic background, home neighborhood, etc.  Tom Hanks (a fine actor in my estimation) attempted a Boston accent in Catch Me if You Can, and sounded pretty good to me, but even my non-native ears (I merely lived there for a few years) caught a couple of blatant slips.  As I believe I've said before, he'd have been better off merely suggesting a Boston accent, rather than attempting a full-blown one.

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

... in any given episode, her accent would go from Bah-ston to New Yawk (think Carmela Soprano) to Southern belle and back again....

Those accents are not entirely dissimilar.  Boston and New York share the northern nasality (also heard in Buffalo and Milwaukee, for example), while the Deep South shares their tendency to misplace terminal R's.

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

... most UK actors who are insecure about their American accents take refuge in the Southern because it is the easiest.

Oddly enough, the three American actors who spring to my mind as having played British characters are from the South: Daniel Davis (Arkansas), John Hillerman (Texas), and Terrence Mann (Kentucky & Florida) -- so maybe there's some natural resonance that works both ways.  (On the other hand, Martin Freeman seems to be specializing in northern US accents: New York, Chicago, Minnesota.)

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

Generally in series TV, parts that call for an American will be played by indigenous Brit actors owing to the British actor's union and stiff penalties of 10s of thousands of pounds a day charged against the production if they hire non-British actors.  I suppose a similar situation exists Stateside.  Maybe with their greater production budgets, U.S. productions don't care, or else it is easier for a visiting foreign performer to secure a SAG card?

I would guess the latter.  Foreign actors may have trouble being cast until they're better known here, but I've never heard of them having trouble getting their union card, once they're otherwise eligible.  William Shatner is still a Canadian citizen, for example.  (And by the way, his home country does have "Canadian content" requirements.)

According to the SAG website, you have to have a covered job first -- then you're eligible to join.  I don't see anything about citizenship.

 

[kimber8ada]

I was thinking of John Hillerman also. I remember being surprised to learn that the proper British major domo on "Magnum, P. I." was actually a Texan!

[Hikari]

1 hour ago, kimber8ada said:

I was thinking of John Hillerman also. I remember being surprised to learn that the proper British major domo on "Magnum, P. I." was actually a Texan!

He was fantastic.

Going the opposite direction, Hugh Laurie stuns a lot of people who didn't know he was British when he starts using his regular accent.

I will chuckle forever at the anecdote he tells about getting the lead on "House".  He was on location for another project and recorded his audition video for House while sitting on the floor of his bijou hotel bathroom, probably for the acoustics.  Executive producer Bryan Singer saw it and exclaimed, "Now *there* is just the kind of undiscovered American talent we've been looking for!"

Hugh was, of course, at that time, one of the best-known and beloved comic actors in England, having starred in Jeeves and Wooster, Fry and Laurie and Blackadder, plus a whole bunch of other TV films.  He made the irascible Dr. House such a sexy beast and that accent never wavered.  It didn't really have a regional flavor to my ear, but the show was set at a fictional New Jersey hospital.

Hugh is also a musician with a particular interest in blues and jazz and he plays about 14 different instruments.  He's got a few albums out and I've seen him perform on the talk shows.  He sounds American when he sings. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 9/16/2020 at 9:51 AM, Hikari said:

that accent never wavered.  It didn't really have a regional flavor to my ear, but the show was set at a fictional New Jersey hospital.

Most American actors don't do regional accents either.  Remember "Cheers," set in Boston's Back Bay area, where only Cliff had any sort of Boston accent?  (Too bad they couldn't have gotten a young Leonard Nimoy, before he managed -- by strenuous training -- to lose his accent!)  They did provide explanatory backstories for some of the main characters; e.g., Woody was from Iowa.  And admittedly, some real-life people don't have a regional accent (I knew one man who'd lived his entire life in the Boston area, yet had stronger terminal R's than I do), but they're clearly the exception.  However, most American actors just use a general-American accent for all their roles.  (Meryl Streep -- coincidentally born in New Jersey! -- is an outstanding exception.)

On 9/16/2020 at 9:51 AM, Hikari said:

He sounds American when he sings.

So did the early Beatles, having been influenced by the Everly Brothers.  Conversely, a number of American singers, the blatantly trained ones, seem to have an "opera accent."  I remember the first time that Jim "Gomer Pyle" Nabors sang "Back Home Again in Indiana" at the Indy 500 -- it came out "Een-dee-ah-nah" (*shudder*).

 

[Fantasy Lover]

The secret garden 2020

 

The beginning is rather slow paced and the parents are idiots, that being said the make up team did a good job with making Colin Firth look like someone who didn't take care of himself, I give it a 6/10

 

 

[Hikari]

Herl,

The other night I re-watched Murder by Decree (1979).  I like it on the whole, but I have a few quibbles.

The 'frightened psychic' character, Robert Lees (played by Donald Sutherland, looking like a more demented Willy Wonka) is entirely out of place.  Holmes visits with him several times and even gives credence to what this man is saying.  Lees is sincere (and apparently, a real psychic), but in the early going, he certainly seems like he could be a suspect.  I just don't get this silly part being stuck in, and it wasn't worthy of Sutherland's stature, either.  

James Mason is quite delightful as a mature Doctor Watson.  I think he hits the esprit of the character perfectly, albeit he's a lot older than his Holmes.  Christopher Plummer, who played Captain von Trapp in a wolfish and vaguely leering manner that is unsettling, is here, as the famously misanthropic Holmes, so twinkly and good-humored.  It's quite startling.  This Holmes is positively cuddly!  But really, the Inverness cape and deerstalker *at the opera*, Bob Clark?  Sherlock would never be so gauche.  Excellent job of playing 'the Chimney sweep' though--one of SH's favorite disguises.

[Arcadia]

The Hallelujah Trail. Not as funny as I remembered from my childhood, but Donald Pleasance was still great.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Now which one is that?  *goes off to check Wikipedia*

Hmm, the title sounded familiar, but the plot doesn't particularly ring a bell.  If I saw it at the time, it didn't make much of an impression on me.  Wikipedia describes the movie as belonging to the 60's genre of "large-scale widescreen, long-form "epic" comedies" such as The Great Race and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  I did see those, and was not impressed.  So, despite the great cast, I guess I'll pass.

There are other western spoofs that I'd gladly rewatch, though.  I have a DVD of Support Your Local Sheriff, with James Garner, Jack Elam, Harry Morgan, Joan Hackett, Kathleen Freeman, Walter Brennan, and Bruce Dern; I think it's terrific (and far better than Garner's Support Your Local Gunfighter).  There's Blazing Saddles, of course (which I mostly like).  And there's one I haven't seen since it was in the theaters, Texas Across the River, which I found hilarious at the time, but have no idea how well it's aged.

 

[Arcadia]

I remember the title 'Texas Across the River', but I don't remember that it was a comedy.

A couple others in that vein that I remember finding really funny was "Advance to the Rear" and one about the cavalry's use of camels, which I've forgotten the title of. Both featured sort of B list cast members, as I recall, but were fun. (Whoops, no, Glenn Ford was in "Advance to the Rear." Ah well.)

However, I find that most comedy doesn't hold up well for very long. So who knows if any of those are worth watching again. I'd definitely pass on 'Hallelujah Trail', based on my last viewing.

I do remember seeing 'The Russians Are Coming' awhile back and laughing my head off. But I also remember seeing it many years ago and thinking it wasn't very funny any more. So I guess it has something to do with my mood, or situation, or something, as well as the actual humor in the film.

[Carol the Dabbler]

6 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I remember the title 'Texas Across the River', but I don't remember that it was a comedy.

More of a farce, I think, but funny (to me) at the time.  I read a synopsis and some Amazon reviews just now, and I'm not sure I'd enjoy it as much now.  It's hard to predict, though.

6 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I find that most comedy doesn't hold up well for very long.

 

6 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I guess it has something to do with my mood, or situation, or something, as well as the actual humor in the film.

More the latter, I think.  But as you say, some humor does seem to age more gracefully than other humor.  I think some of that depends on the humor being inherent in relatable characters and their relatable situations, rather than being just comedy set-ups or pasted-on gags.

One more western spoof that I have consistently enjoyed:  The Frisco Kid, starring Gene Wilder (as a young Polish rabbi) and Harrison Ford (as a professional bank robber).  It was funny to me in the theater in 1979, it was just as funny some years later on VHS, and it's still funny today on DVD.

 

 

[Arcadia]

On 11/24/2020 at 3:08 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

But as you say, some humor does seem to age more gracefully than other humor.  I think some of that depends on the humor being inherent in relatable characters and their relatable situations, rather than being just comedy set-ups or pasted-on gags.

I think, for the most part, the things I find funniest is the humor in drama, rather than actual comedies. I laugh my head off at (parts of) Sherlock or Star Trek, e.g., but barely crack a smile at something like Friends or Seinfeld. 

But that's TV ... I can't actually think of a movie equivalent. The Birdcage, maybe? Usually I laugh like crazy at that movie, but I remember watching it one time and thinking "wow, I didn't realize this was so sad." But I don't think it was meant to be a "funny drama."

Aha, Forrest Gump. That's a "dramedy", yeah? And a good one.

[Fantasy Lover]

Shazam

 

It was definitely more lighthearted than what you usually see with a DC movie, that being said Billy was the wrong person to receive power from the wizard, I give it a 7/10.

 

 

 

Spiderman: into the spiderverse

 

I'm kind of done with spiderman, I blame that on the fact that we had 3 different spiderman actors in barely 20 years. I get it, he was bitten by a radioactive spider, his uncle Ben died and because of that he started to fight crime. There was no need repeat that in this movie multiple times! Not even the fact that this movie deals with alternate universes made this movie enjoyable to watch because of said repetitive origin story, a 5/10 from me.

 

 

 

 

[T.o.b.y]

After months of no movies at all, I finally saw "The Nightmare before Christmas". For the first time. Can't believe I missed that one until now, it has everything I love - melancholy, musical, weirdness, animation, Christmas, freaks and outcasts, humor and the Tim Burton aesthetic. 

10/10 for me. Seriously. Especially right now. 

 

[besleybean]

My daughter's fave.

[Hikari]

Last night I revisited a seasonally appropriate entry, The Snowman.  A Nordic noir piece based on the international bestseller by Jo Nesbo, featuring his signature boozehound detective, Harry Hole.   This name makes me smile every time I read it; apparently there are no smutty associations with this alliterate moniker in Norwegian, though it certainly doesn't sound indigenous to Norway, either.  Rather like a Norwegian author's attempt at an American-style gumshoe detective like Philip Marlowe.

After a harrowing opening setpiece in which a young boy watches his mother commit suicide by driving her car onto a frozen lake, almost taking her with him, we pick up with our protagonist, Harry, who  is significantly the worse for wear and seems to have slept in a bus shelter overnight despite being a high ranking detective with the Oslo police force.  A junior colleague transferred in from Bergen (Rebecca Ferguson) is assigned to work with Harry on a potential serial killer case.  Several years ago, a young mother in Bergen disappeared without a trace, and her body was found later on a mountaintop, being eaten by birds.  Now another mother of a young child has gone missing from her home, and the tie to the earlier case was a snowman in the yards at both homes, peering into the windows.  The young daughter at the current scene says she did not do it.

This movie got panned by critics who thought that a snowman wasn't intrinsically creepy as the calling card for a killer.  I beg to differ.  This snowman is like a frozen 3-D version of the taunting Smiley Face left in blood on the walls of crime scenes by the homicidal maniac called Red John in The Mentalist.  These are not happy, smiling snowmen wearing carrot noses, top hats and red knitted mufflers.  These are nihilistic frozen-in-place White Walkers with vacant eye holes.  Creepy, you bet.  Not the shining moment in anyone's career here, but a surprisingly A-list cast and director (Tomas Alfredson, who helmed one of my favorite thrillers, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) The production doesn't lack for talent.   I like to tailor my movie viewing to the season, and when there's snow on the ground, like now, I like to watch snowy movies.  This one is a little short on hygge (Danish, but trendy) but if it's snow you want, this movie has it in spades.  Also, Michael Fassbender is not too hard on the eyes, even in a 'rough' state.

[Carol the Dabbler]

 

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

This name makes me smile every time I read it; apparently there are no smutty associations with this alliterate moniker in Norwegian, though it certainly doesn't sound indigenous to Norway, either.  Rather like a Norwegian author's attempt at an American-style gumshoe detective like Philip Marlowe.

You're apparently at least half right about that.  This is from Wikipedia:

Harry's surname "Hole" translates to "Hill" in English and is the name of a historic Norwegian town (Hole, Norway) with a heritage that goes back to the Viking Age. The name is derived from Old Norse Hólar, the plural form of hóll, meaning "round and isolated hill." The word is pronounced as two syllables, with stress on the first (HOO-leh). In The Bat, the Australian police call him "Harry Holy."

Critics link the personality of Harry Hole to those of the famous literary detectives such as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Jules Maigret, and Nero Wolfe. According to Jo Nesbo himself, the character is inspired by and a tribute to Michael Connelly's character Harry Bosch.

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