What did you watch today? v 33.0

[The Professor]

Welcome to version 33, the Egg McMuffin of discussions. 

 

The first post in this thread will be # 14,394. 

 

The ghost of George Sanders reminds you to link your films, and that one should feel free to move on if bored. 

[don]

I got it from a really diverse film store near my home called TLA Cinema (Theatre of the Living Arts). I often find films there that I can't find anywhere else.

[thatboy]

Not for long.

8/12/11

[T]he last TLA location will be in Bryn Mawr. And that will close in a year after its lease runs out, Murray said.

I mourned the loss of the CC location.  If yours is the last one, grab everything you can while you can. (and don't forget to save for their liquidation sale.)

[don]

Hi thatboy, Yes I did get that bit of bad news. They also closed their location in Chestnut Hill. The employees in Bryn Mawr say that one of the owners is looking for a nearby location with a much reduced floor space and rent. As you might expect, retail space on The Main Line is very expensive.

 

[Ando]

Shadow and Lies James Franco comes back to NYC to free his girlfriend from the grip of local hoods. I started watching it weeks ago but paused to re-watch Robert Bresson's Pickpocket, which it pays homage to but can't really touch (directed by James' then NYU professor, Jay Anania (not the one who got fired for giving Franco a D)). Heh

[Sevorin]

Pickpocket  kicks my ass, too.

[Knaldskalle]

Yep, mine too.

[The Professor]

I kicked a pickpocket's ass once, sort of: I tossed him off a NYC sidewalk and into the path of a cab. Ouch. Don't mess with the Prof. 

At least I think he was a pickpocket. 

[Sevorin]

He was just a guy searching for love.

 

And you spurned his amorous ass.

 

Shame, Prof.

[eviltimes]

I still got your wallet.

And 23 bucks.

[Ando]

Moby Dick on Netflix streaming. GQ does The Pequod. Aside from the intermittent pixelization problems the existential pretensions, which (from what I recall of Melville's novel) doesn't pervade the narrative nearly as much, leaves the adventure or quest aspect of the film rather limp. But it's not an "interior" film, either. Ishmael's narration, for instance, which often reads like personal disclosure in the novel is absent from the film so he often comes off rather creepy (that stupid grin that Charlie Cox sports actually mocks his altruism toward Pip and makes you think that he just really wants a fuck buddy (Queequeg for his bitch moods and Pip when he needs one). William Hurt is mostly just deranged. Ethan Hawke is sweet, hairy and, despite his age, would have made a much better Ishmael than the weird Cox. But the movie is so bent on surface impression (the cgi work is showoff - we don't really need to see the whale, for instance, until it's necessary. Didn't Mike Barker learn anything from Jaws??) at the expense of an honest examination of the relationships between men and women and mammals that you really don't believe a moment of it. 

[Sevorin]

I haven't seen this -- nor do I intend to.

 

I notice Gillian Anderson in the cast as "Elizabeth" ?!?

 

And where is Fedallah?

 

(Frankly, I never expect to see a finer adaptation of Moby Dick than John Huston's 1956 version. It shucks Fedallah, too, removes the obnoxious non-narrative chapters that generally please only the academia nuts, adds sperm to Elijah, and has a perfect cast -- perfect, that is, except for the catastrophic inadequacy of Gregory Peck as Ahab.)

[Ando]

Well, now You've got me revisiting the '56 version, which is fairly unforgettable abetted by the bizarre casting of Peck as Ahab (I did Forget Orson Welles' cameo as Father Mapple and Queequeg signing his name with the sketch of a whale. lol!). Youtube has a couple of full versions which will do until I get the film on disc. 

The Barker version is such a simp of a film (insistent politically correct/benign approaches to  flagrantly homoerotic situations) that I prefer the antiseptic 50s treatment. Sutherland's cameo in Barker's version, I must say, however, is much more effective than the Houston/Welles collaboration. Sutherland actually stirs. Welles can't resist Falstaff.