Letty Lynton

Unavailable, even after all this time, Letty Lynton (1932) is at youtube in 9 pieces. For now. Wikipedia says "Soon after its [Letty Lynton's] release, a plagiarism suit forced MGM to withdraw it. It has never been shown on television or made available on home video". It stars Joan Crawford and Robert Montgomery.

part 1:

part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9

The New York Times doesn't like it. TCM has an overview.

HT: Self-Styled Siren

Stephen Fry Goes to the Body Farm

The kids are fans of Craig Ferguson, and I sometimes watch with them, but none of us caught this:



Since The Younger Son and I have plans involving the Body Farm, we perk up when it's mentioned. Not that it's mentioned all that often, mind you.

HT: Newscoma

Hart's War

The Younger Son bought this DVD on mega sale used ages ago and decided to watch it as he started lunch. I was in and out during the film but didn't see the whole thing. He has read the book and talked some about the differences between it and this movie. He's reading John Katzenbach books as he comes across them and wants to see the films that have been based on them. Hart's War is a 2002 WW2 film that takes place in a German POW camp. Bruce Willis stars.

trailer:


Roger Ebert has a mixed review. The New York Times describes it as a "morose and willfully dewy-eyed tale" and says it's "a movie that wants to be everything and adds up to nothing. ''War'' is a film that tries to excel on several levels and falls flat on all of them." Rolling Stone closes its review with this:

Director Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear) is merely arranging cliches in new patterns until the surprise ending blows enough pro-military fervor up the audience's ass to make Colin Powell call a halt.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Today is the anniversary of the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. There is a site "dedicated to informing others". The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum has a section of their site devoted to this boat:

The legend of the Edmund Fitzgerald remains the most mysterious and controversial of all shipwreck tales heard around the Great Lakes. Her story is surpassed in books, film and media only by that of the Titanic.

The cause of the wreck has been a controversial subject from the beginning, and this article reports a documentary exploring the latest research.

Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald:

Lyrics

Onibaba

I'm planning on buying the Criterion edition of this film, but since it hasn't yet made it to the top of my wish list I'm watching it online at The Auteurs. A quick and painless sign-up lets me watch several films free and some others for a fee. Onibaba is a 1964 Japanese horror film based on a folk tale. It is directed by Kaneto Shindo. I plan on getting the DVD in time for the family to watch this next October.

The film cannot be embedded here, but it can be watched free at this link.

Moria has a review and gives it 4 stars. Variety praises the casting. DVDTalk reviews the Criterion release and says of the film,

The supernatural part of Onibaba is secondary to director Shindo's main theme - the human debasement of war. The two women make a ghoulish living in isolation, with survival their only remaining value. It's a harsh world where everyone must make do on their own.

The New York Times opens its review with this:

SELF-PRESERVATION and sex in a primitive society made desperate and bestial by war are the raw materials out of which Kaneto Shindo has conjured up "Onibaba" ("The Demon")

The Band Wagon

I bought this 2-disc edition of The Band Wagon for The Husband because it's his favorite movie of all time. I'd never seen it, and he suggested The Daughter and I watch it with him tonight. I think The Daughter and I are still amazed that this, of all movies, is his favorite. It does have Cyd Charisse in it, and it seems to be universally well-loved but still... We just don't get it.

The Band Wagon is a 1953 musical comedy directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse.

trailer:


Senses of Cinema compares it favorably with Singin' in the Rain. Roger Ebert includes it on his list of great movies. Slant Magazine gives it 3 out of 5 stars and closes with this: "But only musical theater people will plug into this love-fest, breaking their arms patting themselves on the back. That's entertainment?" The New York Times says it "respectfully bids for recognition as one of the best musical films ever made." FilmReference.com says it

represents one of the most important of the MGM musicals of the 1950s, indeed in the history of this Hollywood genre. In particular, The Band Wagon stands as one of the masterworks to emerge from the very productive musicals unit that producer Arthur Freed controlled at MGM during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Anarchy in the U.K.

Anarchy in the U.K. is a 1976 song by the Sex Pistols:



The list of 500 Songs that shaped Rock and Roll comes from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Dark Star

Dark Star is a 1974 science fiction/comedy film, the first feature film of John Carpenter. At about 21 minutes in there's a delightful little musical instrument. This is the 2nd science fiction film I can remember seeing that includes surfing in the plot.

Watch it online:


Moria gives it 4 stars and says, "The film has this sense of deadpan humour that just sits there and keeps building to the blackly hysterical." The New York Times says, "Even in the glow of hindsight, "Dark Star" doesn't contain many indications that Mr. Carpenter is a director about to turn the world on its ear." Roger Ebert calls it "one of the damnedest science fiction movies I've ever seen, a berserk combination of space opera, intelligent bombs, and beach balls from other worlds." Variety says it "warrants attention only for some remarkably believable special effects achieved with very little money."

The Lavender Hill Mob

The Lavender Hill Mob is a 1951 film that I bought as a part of this Alec Guinness box set for The Husband in my quest to keep him supplied with comedies that make for pleasant relaxation. I picked this particular one for tonight because, at 81 minutes, it's the shortest thing in the stack, and he wanted to make an early night of it. It's an Ealing Studios film directed by Charles Crichton, who also directed A Fish Called Wanda. Alex Guinness stars with Stanley Holloway, Sid James and Alfie Bass (who later was Mr. Goldberg in the TV series Are You Being Served). Audrey Hepburn has a small part in the first scene. The film won a couple of awards. It's on the Vatican Top 45 List in the "Art" category.

trailer:


FilmReference.com says the film "remains lively, inventive, and a pleasure to watch." The New York Times says, "Jot it down as a picture that you will find it best to see at a moment when your mood is mellow and your sense of righteousness is slightly askew." RottenTomatoes.com gives it a 100% rating with 18 reviews reported.

Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon is a 2008 film based on a play about David Frost's 1977 series of interviews with Richard Nixon. Ron Howard directs. Frank Langella is Richard Nixon and Michael Sheen is David Frost. The Younger Son gave this to me for my birthday, and we watched it tonight. I remember well the events that led up to the story told in this film. It makes me mad all over again. And apparently we learned nothing from it, because the Bush years were 8 long years of presidential abuse of power.

trailer:


Roger Ebert says, "the film really comes down to these two compelling intense performances, these two men with such deep needs entirely outside the subjects of the interviews." CNN calls it "a compelling account, shrewdly bolstered with lively actors in both corners of the ring". The New York Times says,

Anchored by its first-rate leads, who originated the roles on the London stage — Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost — the movie is a talkathon embellished with camera movements.

Rolling Stone closes with this:

Frost/Nixon, one of the year's best films, far exceeds its roots as docudrama. It cuts to the core of a toxic culture that sees politics as show business, a culture still all too recognizable as our own.

Variety describes it as

an effective, straightforward bigscreen version of Peter Morgan’s shrewd stage drama about the historic 1977 TV interview in which Richard Nixon brought himself down once again.

Scariest Females in Film

iVillage has a list of the 13 scariest women (though some in their list are girls) in film:

1. Norman Bates' Mother in Psycho
2. Regan in The Exorcist
3. Carrie in Carrie
4. Annie in Misery
5. Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest
6. Alex in Fatal Attraction
7. Baby Jane in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
8. Jennifer in Jennifer's Body
9. Nancy from The Craft
10. Esther from Orphan
11. the Grand High Witch from The Witches
12. Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
13. the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz

I haven't seen all of these, so I don't know how scary they are, but I'm surprised the Queen from Disney's Snow White didn't make the cut. And the original Cruella de Vil. And the character Angela Lansbury plays in the original Manchurian Candidate. Now that is a scary woman!

Guy Fawkes Day

Today is Guy Fawkes Day.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up king and parliament.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's mercy he was catched
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

There's a website telling the history and explaining the practices here. Time has an article that begins:

The English, among other talents, are adept at nurturing their grudges. How else does one explain the enduring enmity toward Guy Fawkes, a conspirator in a plot to blow up Parliament in 1605? Some four centuries after Fawkes was caught, tortured and executed for his role in a scheme that never came to fruition, Britons still celebrate his demise each Nov. 5 by burning his likeness in effigy and setting fireworks ablaze.

This day features prominently in one of the Paddington Bear books.

Speculative Fiction in High School

Ah, where were these suggestions back when I was homeschooling? SFSignal (explanations for the answers below are given at that link) asks:

Q: If you were teaching a high school literature class, which science fiction or fantasy books first published within the past 10 years would you include on your syllabus?

Suggestions (from various authors) include the following, some of which are over 10 years old:

Nalo Hopkinson's The Salt Roads;
Ted Chiang's Stories Of Your Life And Others;
Justine Larbalestier's Liar;
Cory Doctorow's Little Brother;
Christopher Barzak's One For Sorrow.

Robert Sawyer's WWW: Wake;
Michael Swanwick's Bones of the Earth;
Joe Haldeman's The Accidental Time Machine;
Fast Forward II (edited by Lou Anders);
Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles;

Scott Westerfield's Uglies;
Patricia Wrede's Thirteenth Child;
Robin McKinley's Sunshine;
Elizabeth Bear's Dust;
Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind;
Kristin Cashore's Graceling;
Neil Gaiman's Coraline;
S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire;
Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana;
Elizabeth Moon's Once a Hero;
Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring.

Red Moon. First published as written by David Michaels, 2000; re-issued as written by David Michaels & Daniel Brenton;
Edward Maret by Robert I. Katz;
The Unincorporated Man by Dani & Eytan Kollin;
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer;
Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt;
The complete Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling.

John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids;
John Cristopher's The Death of Grass;
Nevil Shute's On the Beach;
M John Harrison's Light;
Ken McLeod's Learning the World;
Matthew de Abaitua's The Red Men;
Terry Pratchett's Night Watch.

Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold;
Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Mercy;
Sherri Tepper's The Margarets;
The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas;
Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood;
Kim Stanley Robinson's Years of Rice and Salt;
The Brief Wondrous Life of Dr. Wao by Junot Díaz.

Animal Farm by George Orwell;
River Of Gods, The Gone Away World, Anathem, The Baroque Cycle are mentioned as probably too long (not an issue for homeschoolers);
The Road by Cormac McCarthy;
Air by Geoff Ryman.

Ian McDonald's Cyberabad Days;
Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age;
Hal Duncan's Vellum;
Greg Egan's Incandescence;
Jay Lake's Mainspring.

Gossamer by Lois Lowry;
I Was a Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block;
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang;
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami;
After Dachau by Daniel Quinn;
The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley;
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist;
Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk;
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke;
City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer;
Fray by Joss Whedon.

Scott Westerfeld's Uglies;
Ian McDonald's Brasyl;
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville;
The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden by Cat Valente.

I did assign science fiction and fantasy books, but mostly I just kept sff books generally suitable for their ages and interests in the stacks of books I had for them to choose from and noted when they'd read them so we could talk about them. There are a lot of the books in the lists above that I've never heard of, much less read.

Facebook games

I had always thought Facebook games would be just a pointless waste of time, and I had no interest in working my way up the Mafia Wars ladder, but I kept having pleas for help show up... So, I started playing Cafe World. And Farmville. And My Zoo. And I can speak from experience now. They are a pointless waste of time.

I'm still playing them, but they are a pointless waste of time.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 horror/science fiction parody film starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Charles Gray and Meat Loaf. Tim Curry is priceless.

watch it online (HT: Monkeyfister):


1000 Misspent Hours is disdainful. Roger Ebert has praise for Tim Curry. FilmReference.com says it's "Less interesting as cinema than as a social phenomenon." Moria gives it 4 stars and opens with this:

The arguments still rage whether The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a cult masterpiece or seventies trash, but no matter what one’s opinion it doesn’t stop the film from being the numero uno cult film of all time.

Medea (Pasolini)

Medea is a 1969 Pier Pasolini film based on the play by Euripedes. It stars Maria Callas. I have seen this and didn't watch it again for this post.

Youtube has it in pieces. part 1:

part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10
It's available in one piece at veoh if you want to download their player, which I plan on never doing again.

The New York Times says, ""Medea" is uneven, but I admire the reckless courage of its conception, even when it goes wrong."

The Canterbury Tales (Pasolini)

The Canterbury Tales, winner of the Golden Bear, is a 1972 Pier Paolo Pasolini film based on Chaucer's story, which can be read online in language adapted for modern readers. The music is by Ennio Morricone. Tom Baker, my favorite Doctor, has a small role.

You can watch it online here, if you don't mind the lack of English subtitles:

It was a bit tedious for me, though, so I didn't make it very far. I need subtitles. I probably won't seek it out on DVD, because it gets poorer reviews than other of his films and seems to be out of print. There are probably others I'll want to see first.

Senses of Cinema examines it as the least successful middle film of the "Trilogy of Life".

Pier Pasolini

Today is the anniversary of the murder in 1975 of Pier Pasolini. FilmReference.com has an extensive list of resources and begins their short article on his films by saying, "Pier Paolo Pasolini, poet, novelist, philosopher, and filmmaker, came of age during the reign of Italian fascism, and his art is inextricably bound to his politics." Senses of Cinema examines his career. There is a documentary at youtube in 3 parts. part 1:

part 2:

part 3:


I have blog posts on the following of his films and will add more as I see them:

The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)
Medea (1969)
The Canterbury Tales (1972)

American Pie

American Pie is a 1971 Don McLean song:



Don McLean's site has a page devoted to the song. There is a website offering an analysis of the lyrics. Actually, there are lots of sites speculating on the meaning of the song... There is a fan group for Don McLean on Facebook, in addition to a group especially for this one particular song.

The list of 500 Songs that shaped Rock and Roll comes from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Skhizein

Skhizein is a 2008 short film  about a man who becomes sadly disconnected. It's directed by Jérémy Clapin.

HT: Cartoon Brew

Ferdy on Film has a post and says, "The muted animation, moody music, and flat affect of Henri make Skhizein a disturbing chamber piece that is open to various interpretations, and Clapin is more than happy to confuse the issue."