The Beat Generation (1959) | Musical Chair Drive-In Classic | Steve Cochran, Mamie Van...

HEADING FOR THE BLUES, WANDERING THROUGH A 'COOL', BOOZY  UNDERGROUND FILLED WITH CIGARETTE SMOKE,  BRILLIANTEENED MEN IN SUITS & TIES AND SLEAZY WOMEN, HOOLA-HOOPING  IN SCHOPENAUER'S FAR OUT BEAT PAD..... 

Dexter, Knife Connoisseur

I was catching up with some missed episodes of DEXTER and noticed Dexter's tastes in kitchen cutlery. He uses A samarai-edge Shun Kaji SG-2 Damascus steel knife with Pakkawood handle....what a refined connoisseur, keeping Williams-Sonoma in business....on a blood-spatter-analyst's salary!

Nevertheless, I was motivated to award my own darkish-passenger with a set of pakkawood Damascus steel animal carcass dissection kitchen knives....  The knives arrived ......each, in a bag of oil.....to waylay rusting......they reminded me of the surgical 'tools' in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers....for cutting flesh and bone....sinews, ligaments and cartilage...and of Uma Thurman's knife-welding sprees in KILL BILL,  and the latest reincarnation of DEXTER, and....of course.....Christian Bale's AMERICAN PSYCHO..... and Norman Bates shower curtain shredding equipment.....   

SCENE THEFT

 WATCHING THE 1979 FILM ADAPTATION OF THE MUSICAL PLAY, "HAIR"......I RECALLED A SCENE IN THE 1978 FILM, "1900".......THE SCENE IN WHICH TREAT WILLIAMS DANCES DOWN AN ELEGANT, FORMAL DINNER TABLE, MAKING A BIG MESS FOR THE SNOTTY DINERS,  MAY HAVE BEEN REPLICATED FROM A SCENE  IN "1900", IN WHICH ROBERTO MACCANTI, AS "OLMO",  AND ROBERT DE NIRO, AS 'ALFREDO',  WALK DOWN A WOOD PLANK PEASANT TABLETOP.....CAREFULLY AVOIDING 'STEPPING ON THE FOOD' AS HE TRAVELS FROM ONE END TO THE OTHER........THESE SCENES IN BOTH THE BERTOLUCCI FILM AND THE FORMAN FILM MAKE STATEMENTS ABOUT CLASS SOCIAL BARRIERS.....

 

 

Were Thinko, Hal 9000, and "Sex Kittens", Kubrick's Cryptoslapstick Influences?...

"SEX KITTENS TO TO COLLEGE"...........trashy 'drive-in movie', sexist humor from 1960......  which introduced me to Martin Milner and, on TV that year,  his portrayal of Todd Styles in ROUTE 66......  and my first views of a chimpanzee, playing a piano...with its hind feet....or are those prehensile 'feet'......hands?   

AFTER WATCHING 'THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER'....WHICH HAS LOTS OF NOSTALGIA BUTTONS ON THE WALLS OF MY MEMORY CIRCUITS......

I RECALLED 'GOING TO BIRMINGHAM, ALA.....WITH MY FATHER.....PURPORTELY, TO WATCH AN 'ALABAMA/AUBURN' FOOTBALL GAME, THAT I HAD ZERO INTEREST IN.......I LEFT THE STADIUM PARKING LOT, SELLING MY TICKET FOR A ROUNDTRIP CABFARE AND WENT 'DOWNTOWN' FOR A MOVIE, INSTEAD........THE MOVIE? JOHN HUSTON'S  "THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER" ......TODAY, RETROSPECTIVELY, RESEARCHING BURT LANCASTER'S LIFE STORY  I CAME ACROSS THIS SITE ON THE INTERNET:   

https://mubi.com/en/films/the-list-of-adrian-messenger/cast

then, spent a couple of hours....clicking on the images of its cast and creative team.....all of whom were on my 'A' list when I was 17......and READY to get out into the World and discover 'what it's all about'.....

a year later:    

https://movingnostalgia.blogspot.com/2022/02/on-finding-photo-of-antonius-in-box.html

Guy Madden's "The Saddest Music in the World" | English Full Movie | (Comedy Musical ?)

"Hitting a new high" - Filme Completo / 1937

ELVA SPANGENBERG ........."SPEEGEE"

a 'memory' of Elva sprang up this morning........I remember getting tickets from Elva Spangenberg, fondly called "Speegee" at the artsy Rhodes Theater, that was a few blocks....walking distance.... from my apartment at 'The Manor' on P'tree St.......When the Theater's lease was not renewed, Speegee...then in her 90's....was out of work!.....Undaunted, in her 90's, she got a job working for my friend, Ronnie Mitchell, who had opened an antiques store, The Buccaneer, across from Mary Mac's Tea Room.......Speegee once said to me, "this antique store is a hotbed of sex!......but, it's a job!".....She was in her late 90's then....and 'lived' until she was 107! I went to so many 'movies' then....often viewing 6 a week.....that, a few times, in my 20's I was 'pressed for "Culture-Cash"'.....Speegee, noting my many visits to The Rhoades, would sometimes whisper, as she handed me an admittance ticket, 'keep your money, young man....the Theater's only a fourth full, and the movie sucks!'.......[i.e. a 'free' double feature, in air conditioning, on a hot, muggy summer day....rather than sweating in my top story un-air-conditioned abode......]

https://tomitronics.com/elva/index.html

It Came from Outer Space (1953) - Trailer HD 1080p

Kathleen Hughes, the 1950s starlet who released the scream... heard ’round the world.... in the sci-fi flick It Came From Outer Space,  died this week.... She was 96.   

    IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE.....in 3-D, was my first Science Fiction Film Viewing......My grandmother, Flora, in reponse to my having pled with her to 'take me to the 3-D movie, playing at 'The Grand', across the street from Becker's, in Huntsville, sat through the Film with me....the first film that she had viewed on a big screen in a couple of decades....Both of us experienced 'troubled sleep', that evening......as I crawled into bed with her and my grandfather, Rufus....who laughed at our 'terror'.......He'd, probably, not been to a 'movie house'  in 30 years!   Nevertheless, i became 'hooked' on Sci-Fi movies...from then...till Now......

THE DOWNTOWN MOVIE HOUSES.....'TAKE THE WEIGHT OFF' PARENTS...AND 'PUT THE WEIGHT ON' THE KIDS....

Recalling those 'every Saturday morning' movies, movietone news, featurettes, cartoons, serials and live stage talent/costume shows that lasted for hours at The Lyric Theater, in downtown Huntsville.....for a penny and a half per hour (plus popcorn, candy and cokes/RC's/Double Colas/Dr. Peppers) boys, in jeans with rolled-up cuffs, and girls, in skirts & blouses, were 'babysat'....giving their parents some peace of mind until late afternoon........This Saturday Morning Activity was, largely, supplanted by the TV set...so that these boys could drive their parents mad with hours of loud 'kid's programming'.....Movies went 'Color', Cinemascope, Vistavision and 3-D....to divert youthful attention back to the 'big screens'.....and with 7-fold...or more... price increases....to contain these hyperactive kids in a walled room......Now.....for $35 a head, parents can, still, 'drop their kids off' for a few hours.......older kid, as hormonal changes dictated...spent more time 'hooking up' at Soda Shops, iniatiating their later weight gains....and, again, couch-potatoing in front of their 'boob tubes'....munching on candy bars and salty 'treats'....

MY MEMORIES OF ALL THOSE 'GIANT INSECT MOVIES' THAT I WATCHED ON SATURDAY MORNINGS WHEN I WAS A PRE-TEEN.....

The Matrix Was a Documentary

 

"Trivial Obsessions and Refootling Postulations" OR "Maybe, you should keep your towel under your pillow"

 

 

Make sure that 'Frank' has some toilet paper.....otherwise, don't use that towel! Don't we all know at least one 'Ralph', that will use your toothbrush, drink from your milk carton and fart on your silk-upholstered chair. And, never 'drink after' Ralph.. You never know what he's had in his mouth, minutes before. I posted this over a year ago.....in the context of Today, it seems relevant...in another way, doesn't it?

LIKE CHANGING ONE'S NAME FROM 'IMA HOGG' TO 'THE MOST WANTED FIRST AND LAST NAMES'....FOR STARDOM

 Would Juan Vincent Apablasa, Merle Johnson Jr., Tommy Mapother, Issur Danielovitch, Demetria Gene Guynes, or Neta-Lee Hershlag have been remembered, had they not been assigned  their "new" names.... John Gavin, Troy Donahue,  Tom Cruise , Kirk Douglas, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman  during their ascent in Hollywood?   

Watch Jane Fonda’s 'Woke' Message During Life Achievement Award Speech a...

ROMANTIC MELODRAMARTISTRY .......RECALLED AFTER LOOKING UP, FROM THE CENTER/FRONT IDLE, RECALLING GEORGE SAND'S HAVING CLAIMED AN ORGASM WHILE LYING IN THE FLOOR, BENEATH CHOPIN'S GRAND PIANO'S SOUNDBOARD, AS HE PLAYED HER INTO EXTASY

The 'stuff' one digs up, with some time on his hands........ (left to right) Samuel Barnett as John Everett Millais, Sam Crane as Fred Walters, Aidan Turner as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Rafe Spall as William Holman Hunt. A Romantic Melodrama about the lives of the then young Pre-Raphaelite Artists, as they romp down dark alleys, squalid studios, brothels and chop-houses in 1850's London.......Looks like a good companion piece to Penny Dreadful......Young sophisticated, creative bad-boys writing and painting their Immortality, while risking their Mortality.... Better to spend 6 hours with these fellows, fictionalized, than 30 minutes with 'The News'.......This will be the cinematic 'biographical' update for Ken Russell's earlier film, Dante's Inferno.......I'm wondering if there's a boxed set of all of Ken Russell's biographical films about the lives of Artists.....I watched them all, on that old 21' black and white TV, with its screwed up 'vertical hold' circuitry, when I was in my early 20's.....hmm....wondering what I'd think of those crazy 'Youth-Takes' movies, now...cleaned up into HD with surround sound......My favorite is, still, IMPROMPTU, James Ivory's 'take' on another bunch, George Sand, Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin, Eugene Delacroix and that Creative Crew......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmC3rsgHD9E

 

THE ANGRY/DEPRESSIVE DOUBLE FEATURES OF ROBIN WILLIAM'S LAST TWO FILMS........BOTH DONE WITH 'A MONKEY ON HIS BACK'.....

Humor is often the mask of Anger......situation and romantic comedies have never been appealing to me....Nevertheless, I watched two of Robin Williams' last films recently.... The Angriest Man In Brooklyn and Boulevard.....both films were depressingly sad....Perhaps they reveal the Person behind the Persona....the tragic face behind the mask of comedy......I thought of Lenny Bruce, Phil Hartman, Feddie Prinze, and dozens of others, who only 'seemed' happy when there was an audience, laughing and applauding them.....There's that 'instant rictus' facile smile...quick to surface and quick to fade when the cameras exit....replaced by Hamlet's 'worry face' covering their anger, covering their hopelessness ........

THE BIRTH OF TELETUBBIES.......PARENTED BY GEORGE PAL AND ROBERT HEINLEIN

Last night, I noticed the 1950 George Pal Sci-Fi Flick, DESTINATION MOON.......and tuned in for the last half hour of the movie.....just because 4 time Hugo Award Winner, Robert Heinlein, had written the screenplay.........Not having seen the film in such a long while, I couldn't 'not see' the Teletubbies.....Pay it Forward to caped superpowerheros, now/always playing at your local Malls.....Incidentally, it is rumored that Winky Dink was the 'real' father of Tinky Winky.....although Tinky may have been created by a tiny tear in a plastic screen that separated a glass cathode-ray tube from a suspiciously penis-like purple wax crayon.

A wholesome human trafficking musical - Seven Brides For Seven Brothers

THE SHORT HOP, SKIP & A JUMP..... FROM WILLIAM WELLMAN'S "THE PURCHASE PRICE", then.... "WESTWARD THE WOMEN" to STANLEY DONEN'S "SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS'....... STORE-BOUGHT LADIES, CAPTURED BRIDES AND EASTERN FINERIES....SIGNED, SEALED AND DELIVERED TO 'THE REAL MEN' OF THE AMERICAN WEST.... FROM PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD CONNIVANCES TO THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN.......

WHO DID IT BETTER?

THE SHORT HOP, SKIP & A JUMP..... FROM WILLIAM WELLMAN'S "THE PURCHASE PRICE", then.... "WESTWARD THE WOMEN" to STANLEY DONEN'S "SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS'.......

 STORE-BOUGHT LADIES, CAPTURED BRIDES AND EASTERN FINERIES....SIGNED, SEALED AND DELIVERED TO 'THE REAL MEN' OF THE AMERICAN WEST.... FROM PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD  CONNIVANCES TO THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyMSxShz8UA

"I watched Wade Watts and his High Five both defeat plausibility and engender complicit deniability, as comics-reading/virtual gaming fantacizers, incapsulated in CGI-actuated-retro-nostalgia, fill their goggles and headsets with Alter-World displacements of the exigencies of Dulldrum and its replacements of excitement, super-powers and the considerable unthinking rewards of Deus Ex Machina,,,,,,,,,The escapist fare looked great!.... It IS all about the surfactants, isn't it.......with the catalyst of unquestioning adolescence, buying this all up...then rushing out to Circuit City for the latest escape mechanism.... Now....clean up all this crap and do your trig homework or move out and get a job wrangling your plastic trash into the garbage pickup truck.....and McDonald's needs drive-through window order takers, you know!...."

Sincerely, your parents, King Kong and Godzilla, recently wed.. to legitimize their many offspring...[recently, in a lake of molten discarded electronic circuit boards and batteries, as The Iron Giant melts like The Terminator, and the enormous gorilla with lifelike fur dissolves in evanescent, liquid Imagination.....]

it's about the disconnect between hemispheres, perhaps, that produces the illusion that Fantasy is already Reality, with the metaphorical assumption that Reality is, perhaps, a Fantasy to begin with.......99.9999999999% of everything is just Nothingness… floated on Waves of Probabilities........

https://veristes.blogspot.com/.../unzipping-brain-to...

A SUMMER'S TALE (Conte d'été) by Eric Rohmer--Official US trailer

Melvil Poupaud was the Timothee Chalamet of that Era........I'm surprised that there's not a recent remake of the film, with Chalamet ...as Gaspard....