And the word of the day is: CLAPTRAP!Ah, yes, CLAPTRAP! An intriguing backstager from 1993, about a libidinous Broadway wannabe who dreams of becoming a star but is brought down by her lack of proper hygene.
I vote for P/P DR MATTH!
Yes, I'm leaning that way, too. I've seen ANGELS the most recently when HBO first broadcast it. The others are older and I haven't seen them as recently.
DR MBARNUM how is that new doggie doing?
To answer elmore's question: The historical Richard III bears nothing to Birthday Boy Billy Shakespeare's Richard III...even to the real possibility that he did not kill the Princes in the Tower (I think it was Buckingham), but that does discount the fact, that inaccurate an historical portrayal that it is, Bill's RICHARD III, is one of the greatest and most compelling dramas ever written and one of the great, great roles for an actor to play. In fact, it was the play that led me to become a Richard III fanatic. I have about two shelves on Dickie III and the War of the Roses. There is also some evidence that MacBeth may not have been the bastard he is portrayed as in Shakes' play.
And, of course, we all know what an utter fantasy Warners' Cole Porter movie was...as well as most of those film bios of by Warners, M-G-M and others were of various composers and song writers.
Elmore - Does June Havoc count as a well-known figure? Didn't she actually threaten to see over the alleged distortion of facts in GYPSY?
Today is WS's birthday? Well well well. Congratulations to MR BK on getting a collection of his works.
I keep hearing about this boy, Willum Shakespurr - and I think from the way people are talking, if he keeps trying, he just might make it!
And of course we have Richard Dreyfuss' turn as Dick in THE GOODBYE GIRL. :o
Yes, elmore, that bit of character assassination by Oliver Stone was and is a real crime. And if you had asked me who the worst person would be to direct a film about September 11, he would have topped my list, but lo and behold, who do they choose?
TOD: Since some DR's have already chimed in, I would like to know about the Shakespeare collections of the other DR's.....
Maybe I'll mosey over to the Court's show after the partay...
..The theatre did provide a good place to get in out of the rain...
I think enough time has passed....what was the "secret" or the "reason" why Jodie Foster's daughter disappeared on that plane in that dumb movie?
Oh - and re JR's interesting question.... For something quite recent, how about CAPOTE? Harper Lee, herself, has written a few letters about the inaccuracies of the film. And William Shawn's colleagues and family say that his involvement with Capote and the writing of the book is totally incorrect. Apparently, on the DVD, the writers and producers address this.
Having written a number of scripts dealing with real people and true events, I'm usually on the side of the film-makers (unless a person is accused of doing something horrific he or she did not do). These are, after all, not documentaries. And, let's face it, even documentaries aren't 100% representations of what really happened.
Briefly - the Baddie wanted to smuggle a bomb onto the plane. He put the bomb into Jodi's husband's sturdy metal, combination lock protested coffin. He then snatched the girl in the (correct) expectation that ultimately Jodi would open the coffin in her search - or so I recall.
der Brucer
March 11, 2006
Disney CEO Robert Iger: No Song of the South Yet
During the question and answer session at Disney's 2006 Annual Meeting of Shareholders in Anaheim, CA, the question was raised by a Disney shareholder why Song of the South has not been released. Here is a transcript:
"My name is Howard Cromer. I live in Cypress, I'm a Disney shareholder. I'm actually delivering a message from my son, 10. He wants to know in recent years, in the midst of all your re-releases of your videos, why you haven't released Song of the South on your Disney Classics?" [Applause] "And, he wonders why. Frank Wells told me many years ago that it would be coming out. Well obviously Frank Wells isn't around anymore, so we still wonder why. And by the way, Mr. Iger, he thinks it was a very good choice when they made you CEO of Disney." [Applause]
Iger: "Thank you very much. You may change your mind when I answer your question, though. Um... we've discussed this a lot. We believe it's actually an opportunity from a financial perspective to put Song of the South out. I screened it fairly recently because I hadn't seen it since I was a child, and I have to tell you after I watched it, even considering the context that it was made, I had some concerns about it because of what it depicted. And thought it's quite possible that people wouldn't consider it in the context that it was made, and there were some... [long pause] depictions that I mentioned earlier in the film that I think would be bothersome to a lot of people. And so, owing to the sensitivity that exists in our culture, balancing it with the desire to, uh, maybe increase our earnings a bit, but never putting that in front of what we thought were our ethics and our integrity, we made the decision not to re-release it. Not a decision that is made forever, I imagine this is gonna continue to come up, but for now we simply don't have plans to bring it back because of the sensitivities that I mentioned. Sorry."
but how did they get EVERYONE on the plane to deny that the little girl existed?
Good luck, clever scripting, and the fact that one of the lead Flight Attendants was in cahoots.
der Brucer
Btw, I just realized that I am starving. Is it too early to eat leftover pizza?
Oh and btw, I did watch the last 2 hours last night of CELEBRITY COOKING. Thanks NBC I guess, although i'm sure most viewers did not even know it would be on last night.
Great good fortune about the Shakespeare set, Bruce! For my sweet sixteen, my dad bought me a 12-volume set printed some time in the late 1800's - which I still have. It was missing one volume - we got 11 - so the price for the WHOLE SET was $20. The leather bindings are cracked and broken now, for the most part. But there are the lovliest litho-type illustrations. And of course, the sentimental value of the gift... I was a young actor who loved the classics, and instead of a pearl necklace or a watch, my dad - who loved the English language in an uncommon way - gave me something far more valuable.
Happy Birthday to all of us, for the immortal Will.
Pogue as Claudio in MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
Good luck, clever scripting, and the fact that one of the lead Flight Attendants was in cahoots.
DB - I'll respectfully disagree on the "clever scripting" verdict.
I was being facetious!
Cillaliz I enjoyed the photo of you and Mary Badham. She looks like a fun person to know. Interesting background story, do you have any more?
DR Cillaliz - Thanks for the photo and the report on your To Kill a Mockingbird gala. Having just been through a community reading program using the same book, it's been interesting to compare events.
My ladies book group, every August, reads a book that has been made into a movie. We then have a covered dish dinner and watch the movie together. Here are the titles we've used (not all suitable for a community read, though):
The House of the Spirits
Possession
Like Water for Chocolate
Cold Mountain
Snow Falling on Cedars
A River Runs Through It
The Shipping News
Pay It Forward
Vanity Fair
This summer's selection is Bee Season.
It's a beautiful day in Sioux City.
Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight:
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare;
It is enough I may but call her mine.
DakotaCelt, lovely photos-thank you. It was fun talking to you and hearing your charming accent.
And in the case of both the mural and Song of the South, they are both cases where the art has, in a way, also become history...because it reflects the mindset and attitudes of a people at a certain point in time.
DR Cillaliz - Thanks for the photo and the report on your To Kill a Mockingbird gala. Having just been through a community reading program using the same book, it's been interesting to compare events.
My ladies book group, every August, reads a book that has been made into a movie. We then have a covered dish dinner and watch the movie together. Here are the titles we've used (not all suitable for a community read, though):
The House of the Spirits
Possession
Like Water for Chocolate
Cold Mountain
Snow Falling on Cedars
A River Runs Through It
The Shipping News
Pay It Forward
Vanity Fair
This summer's selection is Bee Season.
Well I'm off. I'm having a huge craving for grilled chicken, as in from the charcoal grill. So, I'm off to get all the necessary supplies.
Pogue as Claudio in MEASURE FOR MEASURE. The lovely wife is kneeling behind me.
The Blonds are upset that Angie has been getting all the good press, so:
Bonnie:
(http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL242/891350/3691292/141566301.jpg)
Buster:
(http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL242/891350/3691292/141566300.jpg)
Here's the pair: (When they were still Bonnie & Clyde)
(http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL242/891350/3691292/141566304.jpg)
der Brucer
Well - two raves.....like DRJANE - it will be the ELIZABETH dvd for me.
Do you have pics of Fletcher?
After all, what power can a little ole film have when we have vast religious institutions who have turned bigotry, hatred, and intolerance into a Fine Art?
Silly question...
Frolicking with Alex
(http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL242/891350/1624689/65416499.jpg)
Posturing
(http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL242/891350/1624689/65416528.jpg)
Fletcher's Avatar
(http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL242/891350/1624689/113897718.jpg)
Iger's "excuse" about SONG OF THE SOUTH is so much vague doubletalk. What SPECIFICALLY do they have problems with that was portrayed in GONE WITH THE WIND, THE LITTLE COLONEL, or other similarly set films that they think folks would go up in arms about? I want to know specifics so folks can address them individually.
Although some Blacks have always been uneasy about the minstrel tradition of the Uncle Remus stories, the major objections to Song of the South had to do with the live action portions. The film has been criticized both for "making slavery appear pleasant" and "pretending slavery didn't exist", even though the film (like Harris' original collection of stories) is set after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Still, as folklorist Patricia A. Turner writes:
Disney's 20th century re-creation of Harris's frame story is much more heinous than the original. The days on the plantation located in "the United States of Georgia" begin and end with unsupervised Blacks singing songs about their wonderful home as they march to and from the fields. Disney and company made no attempt to to render the music in the style of the spirituals and work songs that would have been sung during this era. They provided no indication regarding the status of the Blacks on the plantation. Joel Chandler Harris set his stories in the post-slavery era, but Disney's version seems to take place during a surreal time when Blacks lived on slave quarters on a plantation, worked diligently for no visible reward and considered Atlanta a viable place for an old Black man to set out for.
Kind old Uncle Remus caters to the needs of the young white boy whose father has inexplicably left him and his mother at the plantation. An obviously ill-kept Black child of the same age named Toby is assigned to look after the white boy, Johnny. Although Toby makes one reference to his "ma," his parents are nowhere to be seen. The African-American adults in the film pay attention to him only when he neglects his responsibilities as Johnny's playmate-keeper. He is up before Johnny in the morning in order to bring his white charge water to wash with and keep him entertained.
The boys befriend a little blond girl, Ginny, whose family clearly represents the neighborhood's white trash. Although Johnny coaxes his mother into inviting Ginny to his fancy birthday party at the big house, Toby is curiously absent from the party scenes. Toby is good enough to catch frogs with, but not good enough to have birthday cake with. When Toby and Johnny are with Uncle Remus, the gray-haired Black man directs most of his attention to the white child. Thus Blacks on the plantation are seen as willingly subservient to the whites to the extent that they overlook the needs of their own children. When Johnny's mother threatens to keep her son away from the old gentleman's cabin, Uncle Remus is so hurt that he starts to run away. In the world that Disney made, the Blacks sublimate their own lives in order to be better servants to the white family. If Disney had truly understood the message of the tales he animated so delightfully, he would have realized the extent of distortion of the frame story.
What a beautiful dog.... I suspect he is a dalmation. His markings are impressive.Yes, he is a Dalmatian (deaf and epileptic). His markings are startling but would be total disqualifiers in a show dog (spots can' touch or over lap).
Actually, there is a very vocal camp in the Black Civil Rights movement that feels that any depiction of the Antebellum South must include the forced separation of Black families, the rape of Black women by white masters, and much lashing of naked black torsos. For reconctruction era films, you must show at least one lynching. It's sort of a Black "Lest We Forget" and "Nevermore" movement.
Listen to this:Above extracted from Urban Legends (http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/sots.htm)
der Brucer
I spent the whole of the afternoon with the exquisite PRIDE & PREJUDICE. I hadn't watched this in six or seven years, and it was like I was lifted back through the decades and spirited away with these wonderful characters. Simply sensational.
Didn't finish it, of course. but I'm hurrying my afternoon internet surf so I can get back down to it and continue to revel in it.
Yes, he is a Dalmatian (deaf and epileptic). His markings are startling but would be total disqualifiers in a show dog (spots can' touch or over lap).
We adopted him from the local Dalmatian Resucue group, which, by the way, is shunned by the Dalmatian Society of America: they fele all deaf dogs are defective and should be euthanized; any rescue group that seeks to find them homes is anathema. Talk about elitism!
der Brucer
Are you watching the version wiht Colin Firth?
Yes, I mentioned on page 1 that this was one of the miniseries I was contemplating for today. In fact, I am heading back downstairs now to continue with it.
All this is leading to a question: how many films/plays can you think of where a well-known figure is distorted from the facts?
Sunday , April 23, 2006
ALTA, Ca — It was like a scene from a horror film: A 27-year-old man plummeted into a gaping hole that suddenly opened beneath a house, trapping him beneath foundation rubble and killing him.
Authorities say the home, built in the 1980s, may have been sitting atop a decades-old underground mine. Recent rains could have softened the ground under the home, in an isolated area near Lake Alta.
"It's unbelievable," Placer County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Dena Erwin said. "From the front of the house, it's absolutely normal. Then, in the middle of the house, is this enormous hole."
The victim was awake and on the ground floor about 9:30 p.m. Friday when the concrete foundation near the kitchen gave way, sending him plunging into to the ground, Erwin said.
It stll surprises me, though, when I see a dalmatian that has more black than white.
Actually they come with a variety of colored spots: liver, lemon, orange...
der Brucer
I am glad you gave him a loving home along with Buster, Blondie, and Angie... They must all keep you on your toes.
What are your summer hours?
Off to watch FOUR FEATHERS on TCM.
I ordered Heath Ledger's CASANOVA and TRISTAN & ISOLDE both of which will be released on Tuesday.
Briefly - the Baddie wanted to smuggle a bomb onto the plane. He put the bomb into Jodi's husband's sturdy metal, combination lock protested coffin. He then snatched the girl in the (correct) expectation that ultimately Jodi would open the coffin in her search - or so I recall.A sturdy metal, combination lock protested coffin? Why does this bring to mind the image of the corpse carrying a picket sign? "I may be dead, but I still demand my right to be heard!!!"
der Brucer
Dog Bosco and I have been out doing yard work all day...it is such a beautiful weekend!! Just returned from the SuperWalmart where I headed in order to buy a bag of potting soil...sometimes shopping in Walmart makes one feel as though they are in the middle of DELIVERANCE.
It was very scary in there!
And do you know how to pluck and clean a bird?
der Brucer
Yup, go to the grocery store and pluck up the chicken that looks best to me at the moment!
I am totally stuffed with chicken and home made potato salad.....hmmm
Planned for dinner tonight:
Venison medalions, with perhaps a splash of pommegranite molasses.
Home fries.
Salad (with avocado, beets, and marinated mushrooms).
Don't forget the eldest two: Marty and Mikey
der Brucer
I'm microwaving a baked potato - how long should it take? I set the cook time for ten minutes.
Flightplan was pretty awful in just about every way, save for Jodie Foster's always professional performance. It's screenwriting 101, and unfortunately it puts actors in a very bad light because they're forced to play the ineptitude of the screenwriting.
We had a fabulous weekend weather-wise, alas, the clouds are rolling in and it's going to get cold and rainy.
We adopted him from the local Dalmatian Resucue group, which, by the way, is shunned by the Dalmatian Society of America: they fele all deaf dogs are defective and should be euthanized; any rescue group that seeks to find them homes is anathema. Talk about elitism!
Whew! I've packed to the extent that I can until tomorrow morning. In the process, I've also been switching winter for summer clothes - that's a guarantee that it'll turn cold ;)
DR DakotaCelt, I actually really like our SuperWalmart...they have nifty items and good prices...oh, and those $1 DVDs! I bought two today which made the trip worthwhile.
...
Well, I had better get to bed. I see the second surgeon in the morning (for more bad news).
Hello, fellow Dear Readers. We are home from our whirlwind birthday trip. I will let DR Sandra post about her adventures. They are not your typical Vegas tourist adventures, of course.
Has anyone seen Unter Solen?
I have never seen Unter Solen.
They just reported on the local news that the average price of gas here in Olympia is $2.90! They say that if you go to www.gasbuddy.com, you might be able to find cheaper gas in your very own neighborhood!
We are sitting at 2.79 here