William Morris

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1896 of William Morris, artist and author. His art is still used and appreciated in the decorative arts, and I've seen several postcard books and coffee table books of his designs. There is a William Morris Gallery, which offers access to many of his designs now in the public domain. There's a virtual tour here. ArtCyclopedia has links to his works online as does ArtPassions.

I know him best from his fantasy novels. I have read The Wood Behind the World, which can be read here, among other places, and The Well at the World's End, which is available online here, here and here.

Morris was influential in the fantasy writings of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. VictorianWeb has a lot of information on his life and works. There is a short biography here.

2 of his poems:

Love is Enough

Love is enough: though the world be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the skies be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter:
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

October

O love, turn from the changing sea and gaze,
Down these grey slopes, upon the year grown old,
A-dying 'mid the autumn-scented haze
That hangeth o'er the hollow in the wold,
Where the wind-bitten ancient elms infold
Grey church, long barn, orchard, and red-roofed stead,
Wrought in dead days for men a long while dead.

Come down, O love; may not our hands still meet,
Since still we live today, forgetting June,
Forgetting May, deeming October sweet? -
- Oh, hearken! hearken! through the afternoon
The grey tower sings a strange old tinkling tune!
Sweet, sweet, and sad, the toiling year's last breath,
To satiate of life, to strive with death.

And we too -will it not be soft and kind,
That rest from life, from patience, and from pain,
That rest from bliss we know not when we find,
That rest from love which ne'er the end can gain?
- Hark! how the tune swells, that erewhile did wane!
Look up, love! -Ah! cling close, and never move!
How can I have enough of life and love?

Godzilla: King of the Monsters!

Godzilla: King of the Monsters! is the 1956 Hollywood adaptation of the 1954 Japanese Gojira. The American version inserts Raymond Burr as a newspaper reporter who narrates the events. We'd love to have Gojira, but don't have it yet.

Moria has a review. 1000 Misspent Hours says,

This is it, the first and probably still the best of the Japanese monster movies, or kaiju eiga. This is the film that defines the genre, and in most people’s eyes, it also defines the somewhat broader genre of 50’s-style monster rampage movies as a whole, regardless of their countries of origin.

trailer:

Creature From the Black Lagoon

Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) is one of my favorites of the old monster movies. Maybe it's that music...

trailer:

Empire Online says,

The underwater scenes remain definitive, with the curvy Adams floating on the surface and dangling her long white legs above the Creature's claws, and the Gill Man performing a serpentine underwater ballet beneath her pin-up form. Few 1950s science fiction films bothered with sex, but this swimming flirtation remains as classic an image of impossible love as King Kong and his tiny blonde.

The Hollywood Reporter in a review from the time of the film's release calls it "a good piece of science-fiction of the beauty and the beast school, the beast in this case being a monstrous combination of man and fish. It makes for solid horror-thrill entertainment." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 84%.

The Student of Prague

The Student of Prague is a 1926 silent remake of a 1913 film by the same name. Conrad Veidt stars in the title role.

A poor student trades "anything in this room" to a money lender for a fortune with which to court a rich heiress. The money lender takes the man's reflection in the mirror, his "second self". There are a few scenes of fencing bouts in this film, especially in that second part, so let me know how their form is, ok?

"The deeds of ... lost reflection." Indeed.

1000 Misspent Hours says, "Though it very closely resembles the 1913 interpretation directed by Stellan Rye, it is a much more mature film, and it benefits from reuniting the actors who had played the two memorable villains in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."

Youtube has this online divided into 9 sections, all of which are embedded below:

part 1:

part 2:

part 3:

part 4:

part 5:

part 6:

part 7:

part 8:

part 9:

Puffins for Tea

What puffins eat for tea is one question, but what eats puffins for tea is another. I had no idea. Honestly. No idea at all.

October Films 2

Not Coming to a Theater Near You has named My Bloody Valentine, a slasher movie from 1981, as their movie for 10/2. I'm not going there.

The Projection Booth gave today to 28 Days Later. I'll check and see if The Elder Son has this one.

MovieFone has not named its 2nd horror movie yet. I'll check back later. (Later -they've picked Hellraiser for today. I've seen Hellraiser: Inferno and didn't enjoy the experience -such a preachy movie, so I'm not planning on watching others in the series.)

Facets Features is offering 31 days of horror clips starting with a clip from The Golem, which I've seen recently.

This Distracted Globe offers 31 Days of Hitchcock, picking Rear Window yesterday. I have seen that one several times but not since I started keeping this blog. They've picked Shadow of a Doubt for today. I've never seen that one.

Dawn of the Dead 2004

Dawn of the Dead (the 2004 remake) is on Day 1 of The Projection Booth's 31 Days of Zombie. I've never been much into watching horror movies except for the traditional "monster movie" type, but I made it through this one without trouble. I guess maybe it's not the blood and gore that bothers me so much but the tension and "jump" factor. This had plenty of gore but not much tension.

trailer:

Waxworks

Waxworks is a 1924 German silent anthology directed by Paul Leni. A man answers an ad to write a fascinating story about each one of 3 exhibits in a waxworks museum. The first story is of the Caliph of Baghdad and his desire for the baker's wife. The 2nd vignette is about Ivan the Terrible's murderous villainy. 3rd and last is a tale about the mysterious Spring Heeled Jack. I loved the sets and costumes in this one.

Moria calls it more fantasy than horror and says, "The design work in the film is amazing."

The Golem

The Golem: How He Came Into the World is a 1920 German silent film. Paul Wegener is one of the directors and also plays the title role. The subject is similar to Frankenstein. The Golem is created by a medieval rabbi to protect the Jews from Christian persecution, but the Golem rebels against his creator. There is a romantic subplot involving the daughter of the rabbi and one of the Christian knights.

Moria says it is "a good story and Wegener and Carl Boese’s direction is exceptional." 1000 Misspent Hours notes "The Golem is often cited as an influence on James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein, and indeed, there are a number of remarkable parallels."

10/31/2009: The Husband had never seen this so selected it to watch with The Younger Son and me tonight.

5/13/2010: David Bordwell's Website on Cinema has an article.

October Films 1

Not Coming to a Theater Near You has named The Elephant Man as their movie for 10/1. We watched this back in April.

Projection Booth gave the day to Dawn of the Dead, which I have never seen. I've seen precious few horror movies except for the classic monster movies. (I saw it later that day.)

MovieFone named The 2002 The Ring as its first horror movie. I haven't see it either.

Edison Studios Frankenstein

This Frankenstein is a 1910 silent short re-telling of Mary Shelley's book and was the first film adaptation of Frankenstein.

via Youtube:

The Sealed Room

Inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's "A Cask of Amontillado", The Sealed Room is a 1909 silent short film about betrayal and revenge. D.W. Griffith directs.

October Monster Movies

Not all of them are monster movies, but I thought any of them might be fun during the Halloween season. We'll also be watching Halloween-themed videos. We have a good selection on VHS and DVD, and there are quite a few available online.

Le Manoir du Diable (1896 short)
The Man with the Rubber Head (1902 short)
The Infernal Cakewalk (1903 short)
The Monster (1903 short)
Le Diable Noir (1905 short)
The Infernal Cauldron (1905 short)
The Sealed Room (1909 short)
Frankenstein (1910 short)
The Golem (1920)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)
Destiny (1921)
The Phantom Chariot (1921)
Haxan (1922)
Nosferatu (1922)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Shadows: A Nocturnal Hallucination (1923)
Waxworks (1924)
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
The Student of Prague (1926)
The Cat and the Canary (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928 silent short)
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928 French)
The Great Gabbo (1929)
Haunted House (1929 cartoon short)
The Skeleton Dance (1929 cartoon short)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
M (1931)
Betty Boop: Minnie the Moocher (1932 cartoon short)
Freaks (1932)
The Monster Walks (1932)
Vampyr (1932)
White Zombie (1932)
Betty Boop Halloween Party (1933 cartoon short)
The Ghoul (1933)
The Invisible Man (1933)
King Kong (1933)
Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
The Vampire Bat (1933)
The Ghost Walks (1934)
Mark of the Vampire (1935)
The Phantom Ship (1935)
Revolt of the Zombies (1936)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936)
The Old Mill (1937 cartoon short)
Topper (1937)
The Gorilla (1939)
The Devil Bat (1940)
Spook Sport (1940 short)
Invisible Ghost (1941)
King of the Zombies (1941)
Spooks Run Wild (1941)
The Corpse Vanishes (1942)
The Mad Monster (1942)
Dead Men Walk (1943)
Bluebeard (1944)
The Monster Maker (1944)
Fog Island (1945)
Sherlock Holmes and the Woman in Green (1945)
Scared to Death (1947)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Casper the Friendly Ghost in "There's Good Boos Tonight" (1948 cartoon short)
Who Killed Doc Robbin (1948)
Bride of the Gorilla (1951)
The Thing from Another World (1951)
Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)
The Tell-Tale Heart (1953 animated short)
Ugetsu (1953 Japanese ghost story)
The War of the Worlds (1953)
Popeye: Fright to the Finish (1954 cartoon short)
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)
Killers from Space (1954)
Them! (1954)
Creature with the Atomic Brain (1955)
Les Diaboliques (1955)
The Phantom From 10.000 Leagues (1955)
Tarantula (1955)
The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)
Bride of the Monster (1956)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956)
Indestructible Man (1956)
The Mole People (1956)
Curse of the Demon (1957)
The Cyclops (1957)
The Deadly Mantis (1957)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) part 1; part 2
Horror of Dracula (1958 Hammer Studio)
I Bury the Living (1958)
The Screaming Skull (1958)
Tales of Frankenstein (1958)
Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)
The Attack of the Killer Shrews (1959)
The Bat (1959)
A Bucket of Blood (1959)
The Giant Gila Monster (1959)
The Hideous Sun Demon (1959)
House on Haunted Hill (1959)
The Killer Shrews (1959)
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)
Teenage Zombies (1959)
Terror in the Midnight Sun (1959)
The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)
Black Sunday (1960)
Horror Hotel (1960)
The Last Woman on Earth (1960)
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
One Step Beyond: The Lovers (1960 tv series episode)
Psycho (1960)
Tormented (1960)
The Wasp Woman (1960)
The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)
Bloodlust (1961)
Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)
The Devil's Messenger (1961)
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)
Carnival of Souls (1962)
The Day of the Triffids (1962)
Hands of a Stranger (1964)
Atom Age Vampire (1963)
Day of the Triffids (1963)
Dementia 13 (1963)
The Sadist (1963)
The Terror (1963)
The Atomic Brain (1964)
I Eat Your Skin -original title: Zombies (1964)
Kwaidan anthology film (1964):

part 1: Black Hair
part 2: The Woman of the Snow
part 3: Hoichi the Earless
part 4: In a Cup of Tea

The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Nightmare Castle (1965)
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)
The She Beast (1966)
Yongary, Monster From the Deep (1967)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Mad Monster Party (1969)
The Revenge of Dr. X (1970)
Crypt of the Living Dead (1973)
Horror Express (1973)
The Werewolf of Washington (1973)
The Ghoul (1975)
The Black Widow (1975 music video)
Count Dracula (1977 BBC)
The Curse of Demon Mountain (1977)
Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)
The Alpha Incident (1978)
Ghostbusters (1984)
The Terminator (1984)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the movie (1992)
The Halloween Tree (1993 animated tv special)
Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Boo to You Too! Winnie the Pooh (1996)
Fear, Itself (1999 Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv episode)
The Wolf Man (1999 animated short)
The Haunted Mansion (2003)
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
Corpse Bride (2005)
Witches of Mass Destruction (2005 Boston Legal tv episode)
American Witch by Rob Zombie (2006 music video)
Death Note (2006)
The Life and Death of a Pumpkin (2006 short)
Slither (2006)
The Snow Witch (2006 short)

Twins

A wonderful feel-good movie, Twins stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as twins separated at birth who had been conceived as a result of a scientific genetics experiment meant to produce the perfect child. We all got a kick out of this one, laughing out loud at several points.

trailer:

How Nerdy Are You?

Here are my results:




HT: Sci Fi Catholic

Sunday Psalm

Psalm 146

1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul.

2 While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.

3 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

4 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:

6 Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever:

7 Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:

8 The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind: the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down: the LORD loveth the righteous:

9 The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.

10 The LORD shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the LORD.

KJV

The City of Joy

This is book #1 for the Book to Movie Challenge. The movie City of Joy was released in 1992. I have not yet seen it.

The City of Joy, written by Dominique Lapierre, is the true story of the residents of a Calcutta slum.

from the back of the book:

It's the bestseller that has lifted the hearts of millions, the true stories of living saints and heroes in one of the most crowded places on earth, the sector of Calcutta they call "the City of Joy." Here, amid terrible poverty, you'll share the joy and pain of everyday men and women who abandoned affluent and middle-class lives to dedicate themselves to the poor. And you'll be moved by the people of the City of Joy themselves...not only by their tragedies, but by the faith, generosity, and most of all, boundlass love that will touch you, bless you, and possibly change your life.

It is an inspiring story about people who live hopeful lives in the face of tuberculosis, leprosy, famine and flood and about people who leave lives of comfort to share the lives of these poorest of the poor.

This NYTimes review says:

''The City of Joy'' is about suffering, sorrow, cruelty and deprivation; about practicies so hideous as almost to suspend belief, though they are shockingly true. It is about filth, rags, wounds, disease, even leprosy. Repulsive words. Yet even more, the book is about other words that wonderfully leaven the whole: loyalty, kindness, tolerance, generosity, patience, endurance, acceptance, faith, even holiness. And it is about such love that we cannot pass by on the other side. In any case, it is too fascinating to allow us to do that.

The City of Joy is a Calcutta slum where more than 70,000 people congregate on ''ground hardly three times the size of a football field,'' a place of vermin-infested hovels and shanties, ''without a single flower, a butterfly, or a bird, apart from vultures and crows - it was a place where children did not even know what a bush, a forest or a pond was, where the air is so laden with carbon dioxide and sulphur that pollution killed at least one member in every family; a place where men and beasts baked in a furnace for the eight months of summer until the monsoon transformed their alleyways and shacks into lakes of mud and excrement.''

5 Horror Movies and a Desert Island

So, there we were trying to put Horror movies on our Fantasy lists.... So we decided to make a separate list for Horror.

The Younger Son's list:
Creature From the Black Lagoon
Dracula (Louis Jourdan)
Hound of the Baskervilles (Jeremy Brett)
Hamlet (Mel Gibson)
The Birds

My list:
Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.)
Dracula (Bela Lugosi)
Cat People (the 1940's version)
Frankenstein (Karloff)
The Mummy (Karloff)

The Husband's list:
Frankenstein
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The Invisible Man (Claude Rains)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (silent)
Dracula (Lugosi)

The Elder Son's list:
Psycho (the original)
Underworld
See No Evil
Phantasm: Oblivion
Hellraiser: Deader

5 Fantasy Movies and a Desert Island

Inspired by SFSignal's idea of picking top 5 SciFi films, we kept thinking of fantasy movies we'd want on that desert island.

The Younger Son's list:
Mirrormask
LOTR2: The Two Towers
Pirates of the Caribbean
Harvey
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark

My list:
Mirrormask
Pan's Labyrinth
The Dark Crystal
Big Fish
Harvey

The Husband's list:
Harry Potter 1: HP and the Sorcerer's Stone
Shrek
The Incredibles
Superman (the 1st Christopher Reeve film)
The Sword in the Stone

The Elder Son's list:
Spiderman
Legend
Shrek 2
Hellboy
The Dark Crystal

Top 50 Dystopian Movies

1. Metropolis (1927)
2. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
3. Brazil (1985)
4. Wings of Desire (1987)
5. Blade Runner (1982)
6. Children of Men (2006)
7. The Matrix (1999)
8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
9. Minority Report (2002)
10. Delicatessen (1991)
11. Sleeper (1973)
12. The Trial (1962)
13. Alphaville (1965)
14. Twelve Monkeys (1995)
15. Serenity (2005)
16. Pleasantville (1998)
17. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
18. Battle Royale (2000)
19. RoboCop (1987)
20. Akira (1988)
21. The City of Lost Children (1995)
22. Planet of the Apes (1968)
23. V for Vendetta (2005)
24. Metropolis (2001)
25. Gattaca (1997)
26. Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
27. On The Beach (1959) (but the book was wonderful)
28. Mad Max (1979)
29. Total Recall (1990)
30. Dark City (1998)
31. War Of the Worlds (1953)
32. District 13 (2004)
33. They Live (1988)
34. THX 1138 (1971)
35. Escape from New York (1981)
36. A Scanner Darkly (2006)
37. Silent Running (1972)
38. Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
39. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
40. A Boy and His Dog (1975)
41. Soylent Green (1973)
42. I Robot (2004)
43. Logan's Run (1976)
44. Strange Days (1995)
45. Idiocracy (2006)
46. Death Race 2000 (1975)
47. Rollerball (1975)
48. Starship Troopers (1997)
49. One Point O (2004)
50. Equilibrium (2002)

HT: SFSignal

1/31/2009: I'm updating the ones I've seen.

Farewell, Bilbo Baggins

Maybe I should have waited until today to post the video of Leonard Nimoy singing The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. Today is the anniversary of Bilbo's departure over the sea.

The photo above of Ian Holm as Bilbo is from the Tolkien Gateway.

Michaelmas

Today is the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels.

A Prayer to Saint Michael

Saint Michael, Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

-- Pope Leo XIII

Appropriate lectionary readings can be found here. Michaelmas is one of the quaterdays and is associated with the Autumnal Equinox.

The Bourne Identity

The Bourne Identity is an action/adventure/thriller starring Matt Damon. I had heard he was a candidate to play Kirk in the Star Trek prequel, but now I've read that he's considered too old at this point to play the role. They are apparently taking Kirk way back. I think he'd have been perfect otherwise.

Jason Bourne is an amnesiac CIA assassin who has been targetted for elimination by the CIA when he fails an assignment and disappears. We all liked it. It was a fun movie -interesting and tense without being so stressful I couldn't watch it.

trailer:


We have the sequel and are looking forward to seeing it.

Maukie

Play with the kitty kitty.

5 SF Movies and a Desert Island

This question from SFSignal got a different list from each of us here.

The Younger Son's list:

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan
Independence Day
The War of the Worlds (1953)
The 1st Star Wars movie (the original one)
Brazil


My list:

2001: A Space Odyssey
Star Wars (the Star Wars, from when there was only the one)
Serenity
Star Trek 1 (I know, but I was so thrilled to see it after that long dry spell)
and, what... The Chronicles of Riddick, maybe. Or The Matrix.

The Husband's list:

The Day the Earth Stood Still
The War of the Worlds (the 1953 version)
Star Wars: A New Hope
Metropolis (the 1927 silent)
Independence Day

The Elder Son's list:

The Terminator
The Day the Earth Stood Still
the original Star Wars movie
The Fifth Element
Aliens

The Mission

The Mission is based on a true story of Jesuit priests trying to save South American Indians from enslavement. The director is Roland Joffe. It stars Robert De Niro (I've seen him in Brazil), Jeremy Irons, Liam Nissan (I've seen him in Excalibur, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Batman Begins). This film is #15 on the Arts and Faith list of top 100 spiritually significant films. It won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986.

trailer:


The Younger Son found it slow-moving but liked it anyway, though he said he wouldn't want to see it again for a while. I thought it was beautiful, both visually and the music. It's been years since I saw it last, but I found it fascinating both times.

Madeleine L'Engle: Feminist

The latest Feminist SFF Carnival is up here, and the last mention is a link to a post at blogher explaining what makes Madeleine L'Engle a feminist writer.

L’Engle’s strong, realistic heroines gave girls and young women characters to admire and inspire, and introduced many to a lifelong love of science fiction. Feminist bloggers are noting how important L’Engle’s work was to them, grieving, and celebrating her contributions to science fiction, feminism, and faith.

Links to other bloggers' reflections follow.

Edgar Degas

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1917 of Edgar Degas. It's odd to think that he died about a year before my mother was born. He's considered one of the founders of Impressionism and is perhaps best known for his paintings of ballet dancers.

The National Gallery of Art has some pictures including a close study of The Dance Lesson. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has some information on his life and art. PBS has some resources. There are pictures of his paintings and some information about his life at OCAIW.

BBC MasterWorks presentation Private Life Of A Masterpiece -Little Dancer Aged Fourteen:



A slide show of his work:

Kingdom of the Spiders

Thinking about Leonard Nimoy's bit part in Them! brought to mind William Shatner's starring role in Kingdom of the Spiders, a tarantula-filled 70's-era horror film. Not real scary, really. I remember seeing this on TV and even as petrified of spiders as I was I was able to watch this without difficulty.

5/11/2010: Horror Movie A Day has a review.

Castle Dracula Still For Sale

I remember this story from back in January when I wrote

While not an independent mini-state like Sealand, which is also on the market, at least you can drive a car up to the front door of this 14th Century Transylvanian castle. It is for sale by the New York City heir who only recently came into possession after communist takeover in 1948.

and again in July when I noticed that Castle Bran was back on the market.

Now Forbidden Planet reports

Castle Bran, often referred to as the ‘real’ Castle Dracula, is the centre of a legal controversy

They provide a link to this BBC video on the problem regarding ownership. It seems the government is saying, "Oops," and wants the castle back.

HT: Futurismic

10/5/2007:

update from sfscope

Penguins Are Canaries

It looks like Penguins are showing signs of environmental stress.

from the Sydney Morning Herald:

Some of climate's best canaries are turning out to be penguins. Down the mine, an upturned songbird in a cage was the first warning of a deadly gas seep. Above ground, an age of fossil fuels later, there are different silences.

In the sub-Antarctic, king penguins fledge fewer chicks if the parents must forage in warming seas.

Them!

In mentioning Fess Parker's role in Them! I found it online and watched it. It's gone now, but here's a trailer:

James Whitmore stars. Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy also has a part in this movie.

from Wikipedia:

When casting his planned Davy Crockett episode of the Disneyland television show, Walt Disney viewed the film to see James Arness who had been recommended for the role. However, Disney was impressed by a brief scene of Fess Parker insisting that he saw the giant flying ants despite being held in an institution. Disney realized he had found his Crockett.

Daniel Boone

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1820 of Daniel Boone, frontier hero.

I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.

—Daniel Boone

There is a Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail that stretches through parts of Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky. You can take a virtual tour of the Daniel Boone Homestead. The Daniel Boone National Forest is in Kentucky. A biography written by Thwaites in 1902 is online here. A purported autobiography can be read here. There is a 1936 movie based on his life:



Another film (1956) included Lon Chaney, Jr. as an American Indian. A Daniel Boone TV show ran from 1964-1970 and starred Fess Parker as the title character and Ed Ames as his Indian friend. Here's an opening credits clip from the series:



Fess Parker had a small role in the genre film Them!

Don Juan, Canto the Eighth

George Gordon, Lord Byron

LXI
Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer,
Who passes for in life and death most lucky,
Of the great names which in our faces stare,
The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky,
Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere;
For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he
Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless days
Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.

LXII
Crime came not near him--she is not the child
Of solitude; Health shrank not from him--for
Her home is in the rarely trodden wild,
Where if men seek her not, and death be more
Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguiled
By habit to what their own hearts abhor,
In cities caged. The present case in point I
Cite is, that Boon lived hunting up to ninety;

LXIII
And, what's still stranger, left behind a name
For which men vainly decimate the throng
Not only famous, but of that good fame,
Without which Glory's but a tavern song--
Simple, serene, the antipodes of Shame,
Which Hate nor Envy e'er could tinge with wrong;
An active hermit, even in the age the child
Of Nature--or the Man of Ross run wild.

LXIV
'T is true he shrank from men even of his nation,--
When they build up unto his darling trees,
He moved some hundred miles off, for a station
Where there were fewer houses and more ease;
The inconvenience of civilisation
Is, that you neither can be pleased nor please;
But where he met the individual man,
He showed himself as kind as mortal can.

LXV
He was not all alone: around him grew
A sylvan tribe of children of the chase,
Whose young, unawakened world was ever new,
Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a trace
On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you view
A frown on Nature's or on human face;
The free-born forest found and kept them free,
And fresh as is a torrent or a tree.

LXVI
And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they,
Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions,
Because their thoughts had never been the prey
Of care or gain: the green woods were their portions;
No sinking spirits told them they grew grey,
No fashion made them apes of her distortions;
Simple they were, not savage--and their rifles,
Though very true, were not yet used for trifles.

LXVII
Motion was in their days, Rest in their slumbers,
And Cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil;
Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers;
Corruption could not make their hearts her soil;
The lust which stings, the splendour which encumbers,
With the free foresters divide no spoil;
Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes
Of this unsighing people of the woods.

R.I.P Blogging?

Christianity Today says blogging has peaked and may be a dying medium, but they seem to assume the purpose of all blogs is thoughtful commentary and amassing readership.

Thanks to widespread blog burnout, everyone will be famous to 15 people for 15 minutes.

Tech researcher Gartner Inc. reported earlier this year that 200 million people have given up blogging, more than twice as many as are active.

"A lot of people have been in and out of this thing," Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer told reporters. "Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they're put on stage and asked to say it."

I see blogging as more of a modern commonplace book and a way of sharing with the family what my current interests are -film right now, but the name "divers and sundry" was specifically chosen with my changing obsessions in mind.

HT: Euangelion

Autumn Sumo

Ah, yes, and a Mongolian is champion:

Mongolian grand champion Hakuho captured his first title since his promotion to sumo's highest rank Sunday, ripping through ozeki Chiyotaikai to claim the coveted hardware at the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament.

Hakuho won hisfourth career Emperor's Cup, finishing with a 13-2 record at the 15-day meet. The 22-year-old achieved the feat in his second basho since his promotion, although it was in the absence of suspension-hit grand champion Asashoryu — sumo's dominant force.

Common questions about Sumo are answered here.

Some of the current problems besetting the sumo world are explained at American Thinker.

La Grande Illusion

La Grande Illusion, Grand Illusion in English, is a 1937 film about World War 1 directed by Jean Renoir. (I watched his A Day in the Country this past Saturday.) The only actor I recognized was Erich von Stroheim, who played Max in Sunset Boulevard. This is a completely different look at WWI than All Quiet on the Western Front. This one has no battles and focuses on French prisoners in a German prison camp and their escape attempts. It deals with some issues of class and race.

trailer:



1001 Flicks has a review. The Guardian calls it "a masterpiece". Roger Ebert includes it on his list of "great movies" and describes it as "a meditation on the collapse of the old order of European civilization." Variety says,

An artistically masterful feature, the picture breathes the intimate life of warriors on both sides during the [First] World War. It gives a different slant on the inner mental workings of those caught in the maelstrom of warfare, yet never deviates from the central thesis.

The American Historical Society has an essay that says that "The lasting success of the film rests on the extraordinary performances Renoir got from a cast" and that

In contrast to its aesthetic clarity, the political meaning of Grand Illusion is elusive. Renoir himself said it was a film against war and so it has usually been seen.

2/12/2009: Only the Cinema has a review.

Song at Midnight

Song at Midnight is a 1937 Chinese re-telling of The Phantom of the Opera. There's a love story and a revolutionary politics sub-plot. This is well worth watching to compare with the other versions if you don't mind foreign films with subtitles. It is a good movie on its own terms as well. The choices of background music are intriguing.



This one was visually dark and difficult, well impossible really, to see in places at the beginning of the film, but it doesn't take long to clear up.

1001 Flicks has a review.

Desperado

A mindless shoot-'em-up, Desperado was The Elder Son's choice for a second feature after Pan's Labyrinth. Directed by Robert Rodriguez and starring Antonio Banderas, Desperado is the 2nd film in the Mariachi trilogy which begins with El Mariachi and ends with Once Upon a Time in Mexico. He has shown me the other 2 already. We love Banderas in The Mask of Zorro and in the Shrek movies.

trailer:

Pan's Labyrinth

I'm speechless. Pan's Labyrinth must be seen to be believed.

trailer:


Oh! What I would give for this fairy tale to have qualified for a PG-13 rating!

1/25/2008: DailyFilmDose has a review.

11/4/2009: 366 Weird Movies has a review.

SF Films for Parents & Kids to Share

from SciFiScanner:

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

Robots

Star Wars

The Iron Giant

Treasure Planet

Zathura

I've never cared for E.T., but I liked Star Wars and The Iron Giant. That makes 3 of the 7 I've seen, and my kids only saw the 2 of those that I liked. Most of the ones on the above list weren't around when we were picking out movies to watch with the kids, and we made very different choices about the SF movies we thought were worth sharing.....

In addition to Star Wars and The Iron Giant (and not counting monster movies or fantasy) our suggested 7 would be

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Day the Earth Stood Still

The War of the Worlds

The Time Machine (the early one)

The Planet of the Apes (Charlton Heston's version)

Others we liked for the kids were The Last Starfighter and the 2nd Star Trek movie -The Wrath of Khan.

The Luis Buñuel Blog-a-Thon

Flickhead's Buñuel-a-Thon begins today and goes through 9/30. I am lucky in noticing that some of his works are in the list from the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and in looking them up see that some are available for online viewing. Jackpot!

You can watch Un Chien Andalou at googlevideo here. (11/11/2007: available here) (10/14/2007: It is no longer available online that I can find.) (9/26/2007: Broken Projector wrote a post on this short film for the Flickhead Bog-a-thon.)

L'Age D'Or:


(9/26/2007: CinemaStyles has a couple of L'Age D'Or posters.)

Las Hurdes:


This is a French documentary (English subtitles) on Buñuel:

Things to Come

Things to Come is a 1936 science fiction film starring Raymond Massey, whom we know best as Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel, and directed by William Cameron Menzies. The screenplay was written by H.G. Wells adapted from his novel The Shape of Things to Come. This film opens on Christmas, 1940.

It can be viewed online here:

1001 Flicks has a review. ScreenOnline discusses the film here. FilmReference.com has a page devoted to this movie.

3/27/2009: Ferdy on Films has an article.

R.I.P. Marcel Marceau

Marcel Marceau has died. I saw the news first at GreenCine.



obits:

AP
The Telegraph
BBC
CNN
NPR

Variety

9/25/2007:

Obit Magazine:

Marceau was a master of the joyful and tragic expression of humanity using only the medium of the body and face. His dedication to the purity of his craft and his passion for relaying its power through tireless international tours will be the hallmark of his singularity.

UM Portal

Judge Priest

Judge Priest was directed by John Ford and starred Will Rogers.



Now, for those of you who had no earthly idea what I was talking about when I described JarJar as reminding me of Stepin Fetchit, you won't have to watch much of this movie at all before you'll see what I meant. Wikipedia has a piece on the controversy here.

1001 Flicks has a review. TCM has an article.

Sunday Psalm

Psalm 113

1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise, O ye servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD.

2 Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

3 From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD's name is to be praised.

4 The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens.

5 Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high,

6 Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!

7 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;

8 That he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people.

9 He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.

KJV

Triumph of the Will

Triumph of the Will is a 1934 Nazi propaganda film. It is a great example of Art in the service of immorality. People will swallow anything if it looks good enough. Frightening. The scenery's pretty, though.

It does go on and on and on...

It's available online at the Internet Archive and from google:
That one's no longer available. Try this:


Videos With Bibi has a post. 1001 Flicks has a review. FilmEducation.org has some background information and some study questions.

The History Place considers the film in relation to Germany's history:

The film's most enduring and dangerous illusion is that Nazi Germany was a super-organized state, that, although evil in nature, was impressive nonetheless.

In reality, Nazi Germany was only well organized to the degree that it was a murderous police state. The actual Reich government was a tangled mess of inefficient agencies and overlapping bureaucracies led by ruthless men who had little, if any, professional administrative abilities.

Kevin Jack Hagopian writes:

Triumph of the Will, like The Birth of a Nation, presents the great conundrum of art: can art be both morally reprehensible, and yet "great"? Riefenstahl was imprisoned by the Allies after the war, and then released, partly because no one could figure out if a film could be an instrument of war. Riefenstahl was adamant; she had been concerned with matters of form, not politics. But she was never to be rehabilitated by the German film industry...

11/26/2007: A Film Canon has a review.

6/27/2008: Roger Ebert has a review:

That "Triumph of the Wall" is a great propaganda film, there is no doubt, and various surveys have named it so. But I doubt that anyone not already a Nazi could be swayed by it.

7/24/2008: Pesky Fly mentions this film in a post dealing with propaganda in this presidential election.

1/7/2010: The Sun's Not Yellow has a post.

A Day in the Country

A Day in the Country was directed by Jean Renoir. It's available at youtube divided up into several parts.

[update 4/6/2008: this film is now available online in one piece, so I'm substituting that version and taking out the separate parts:

]


What a sad movie!

Sleuth

A black comedy, I guess? The Husband says I loved Sleuth when I saw it in college, but I don't remember having seen it before and certainly didn't care for it this time. I kept thinking, "That Michael Caine character is an idiot, and no good can come of this." I was right. Lawrence Olivier also stars.

trailer:

She Done Him Wrong

She Done Him Wrong is yet another suggestion from that 1001 Movies You Must See book and stars Mae West as the mob boss' girlfriend and Cary Grant as the head of the Christian mission next door to the bar run by the mob boss. You can download it or view it at the Internet Archive or see it here from googlevideo:



I had an awful lot of trouble with the googlevideo skipping.

Videos With Bibi has a post. 1001 Flicks has a review, as do goatdog and Film Reference.

Zero for Conduct

Zero for Conduct is another from the 1001 Movies book. It is a French film from 1933 directed by Jean Vigo. It is about life at a boys' school and all the indignities suffered and the victories won.

YouTube has it online with English subtitles. It's divided into 5 segments with embedding disabled: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 [These videos have been removed.]

Here's another try:

Videos With Bibi has a post on this film, as does 1001 Flicks.

I liked the magic trick, and I got a kick out of the little animation. And, of course, Vive la Révolution!

William Wyler Blogathon

Today begins the 9/21-9/23 William Wyler Blogathon. William Wyler directed a lot of films, many of which received Academy Award nominations. Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives and Ben Hur won best picture awards. I'm just beginning to pay attention to particular directors in history so had never realized that he had directed such varied pictures.

I have seen relatively few of his movies. We watched The Best Years of Our Lives recently. I've seen his 1939 Wuthering Heights, 1953 Roman Holiday, 1959 Ben-Hur and 1968 Funny Girl, but it's been a long time. My, he was eclectic!

The ones of his I would most like to see of those I've missed are The Letter with Betty Davis and How to Steal a Million with Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn, but I've spent all my discretionary entertainment funds buying DVDs for the Akira Kurosawa Blogathon coming up in November. I've only seen one of Kurosawa's films. (sigh) So many movies, so little time....

Frtiz Lang's "M" again

OK, I give up. This film keeps showing up on lists of recommended movies, most recently in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. I will watch this tonight while I'm here by myself.

I have tried to watch it several times before, but could never get past that first scene with the balloon. Fritz Lang directed this 1931 movie. I always enjoy Peter Lorre.

Moria gives it 4 out of 5 stars. 1000 Misspent Hours provides some historical context:

Fritz Lang and Peter Lorre were both Jews, and Germany in 1931 was already nearly as bad a place to be Jewish as it would famously become a couple of years later. Worse yet, the owner of the studio where M was filmed was also a Nazi party activist! (That studio owner is the main reason for the film’s enigmatic title— when Lang came to him with a movie called Murders Among Us, the moneyman assumed he was being asked to produce an anti-Nazi political film, and refused to have anything to do with the project!) Though the subject never explicitly comes up, the early scenes depicting the terror-stricken townspeople scapegoating each other on the flimsiest of excuses, often threatening actual physical violence, take on a powerful subtext when you look at M as a product of its time and place.

It's on Roger Ebert's "great movies" list. 1001Flicks has a review. Images Journal reviews it here. Bright Lights Film Journal calls it "masterful". Senses of Cinema says it's "perhaps [Lang's] greatest work". Criterion offers an edition of this film.

4/22/2008:FilmsNoir posts a link to a review.

9/1/2008:MovieZeal has a review.