२९ एप्रिल, २०१६

Do you have an old movie that you feel you've watched many times...

... and then you channel-surf into into it one day, somewhere past the middle, and you start watching it and realize that all those other times you watched it — except, perhaps, the first — you didn't put up with watching it to the end, so you take advantage of the opportunity to see the part you've rarely seen and it's just way less good than the first part, the part you're familiar with, the part upon which your positive opinion has been based all these years?

That happened to me last night. What movie? I'll just give you a clue. The lead male character was played by an actor who was born in the same year as the actress who played his mother — his pathetically unattractive mother. Not long after that, this actress was offered a part in another movie where she would be playing the mother of a character to be played by Frank Sinatra, and she was 10 years younger than Sinatra. She declined.

२९ टिप्पण्या:

donald म्हणाले...

Manchurian Candidate.

Michael K म्हणाले...

No, I usually watch old movies from the classical Hollywood period when the studio bosses understood what people wanted to see rather than to try to "educate" them in leftist causes like today.

Now we get tripe like "Truth" and "Trumbo."

I go to a theater about three times a year.

traditionalguy म्हणाले...

That's quite a riddle.

Mike Sylwester म्हणाले...

White Christmas.

However, Vera-Ellen did not play Bing Crosby's "mother".

tim maguire म्हणाले...

The closest I come is Amadeus, which was my favorite movie for many years. I watched it in its theatre release from many times before my sister bought me the director's cut on DVD. It was awful, pacing all wrong, key scenes ruined, plot twists made stupid.

That stuff on the cutting room floor is on the floor for a reason.

The tragedy is, now that I know these scenes exist, I don't enjoy the original as much.

campy म्हणाले...

"I go to a theater about three times a year."

The last movie I saw in a theater was Titanic.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

"Manchurian Candidate."

The text of the question asked excludes that answer on logic alone.

MadAir म्हणाले...

"Bye Bye Birdie." Maureen Stapleton played Dick Van Dyke's mother. They were both born in 1925. Stapleton was offered a part in a Neil Simon comedy, "Come Blow Your Horn" playing Sinatra's mother. Sinatra was born in 1915.

Sean Gleeson म्हणाले...

I’m gonna say... North by Northwest.

Henry म्हणाले...

I knew Psycho wasn't the answer.

dreams म्हणाले...

Following the stock market and watching CNBC over the years I used to see this guy named Richard Ney pushing his Investment Advisory Service "The Ney Report" and then I found out that he was in his earlier life the actor who played Greer Garson's son in the movie Mrs. Miniver and was briefly married to her. I had watch that movie a few times and remembered that actor, also he was noticed by a USA movie executive who mistakenly thinking he was Peter Lawford because of their resemblance was responsible for launching Lawford's US career.

"A graduate in economics from Columbia University, Ney is best remembered for his role in the Oscar-winning World War II film Mrs. Miniver (1942), and for his short-lived (1943–1947) marriage to his co-star Greer Garson, who played his mother in the film. He also appeared in The Fan (1949). He served in the United States Navy during World War II."

"By the middle 1960s, Ney had successfully transitioned himself into a career as an investment counselor. Initially he joined a Beverly Hills stockbroking firm, prior to launching a newsletter, The Ney Report, which had among its subscribers, J. Paul Getty. Ney wrote three highly critical books about Wall Street, asserting that the market was manipulated by market makers to the detriment of the average investor. The first of these, The Wall Street Jungle, was a New York Times bestseller in 1970. The second and third were The Wall Street Gang and Making It in the Market. Ney was credited with saying, "Hidden behind the facade of pompous jargon and noble affections, there is more sheer larceny per square foot on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange than any place else in the world." [2] Ney argued in his books that stock prices were manipulated and controlled by the specialists who work on the floor of the stock exchange."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ney

Sean Gleeson म्हणाले...

Oh, of course, Morgan is right. Bye Bye Birdieis it.

TVTropes has a whole page of exemplars of this practice, which they call “Playing Gertrude.”

dreams म्हणाले...

"The picture of Dorian Gray" is the movie.

dreams म्हणाले...

I've never watched the end of Dorian Gray, I don't think or remember it.

अनामित म्हणाले...

The only times I've not watched a movie all the way through have been the times when it was so bad I walked out. And in those cases I never thought of watching any part of it again.

अनामित म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

Morgan said... ""Bye Bye Birdie." Maureen Stapleton played Dick Van Dyke's mother. They were both born in 1925. Stapleton was offered a part in a Neil Simon comedy, "Come Blow Your Horn" playing Sinatra's mother. Sinatra was born in 1915."

That is 100% correct.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

I saw "Bye Bye Birdie" when it came out in 1963 and enjoyed it all the way through, including the speeded up Russian ballet and Bobby Rydell getting mad about Conrad Birdie kissing Ann-Margret and climbing up on stage and punching him in the face and A-M deciding CB isn't a worthy man because he has a "glass jaw" and Dick Van Dyke metaphorically acting out his ability to finally get over his mother and have sex. It was pretty bad on re-watch last night, but Meade and I talked through the whole thing, mostly analyzing the sex and drugs — drugs, because Dick Van Dyke was cooking up meth in the basement and ultimately deciding to break bad.

SeanF म्हणाले...

Sean Gleeson: TVTropes has a whole page of exemplars of this practice, which they call “Playing Gertrude.”

Gotta love TVTropes, doncha? :)

Although, on that page - they explicitly state that they're excluding cases where "the actress is convincingly made to appear her character's age," but then they include animated films.

dreams म्हणाले...

I watched a little of that movie last night myself waiting for the NFL draft but I got thrown off the right trail by someone's comment about the movie Manchurian Candidate.

Wilbur म्हणाले...

My late father always said the last movie he went to was "Going My Way". He said he didn't see the point of paying a quarter to fall asleep somewhere.

My shadow hasn't darkened the door of a movie theater in over 20 years. I refuse to put a nickel in the pockets of those trying to destroy our culture and country.

TheThinMan म्हणाले...

Sally Fields, born 1946, played the mother of Tom Hanks, born 1956, in the movie, "Punchline" (1988).

MarkW म्हणाले...

Given that Maureen Stapleton has been dead for 10 years and Dick Van Dyke is not only alive but still singing and dancing, maybe the filmmakers were on to something.

FullMoon म्हणाले...

AA says:"The text of the question asked excludes that answer on logic alone."

In the future, I will use that statement in online arguments to destroy the competition. Will be especially effective if I am losing the argument..haha.


Lewis Wetzel म्हणाले...

Well, last night for the first time decades I watched all of You Only Live Twice. It's shabby. I didn't mind the sexism and the racism, but there is a scene where bond leaves a room on a submarine. He closes the heavy-looking water proof door and the set shakes.

mikee म्हणाले...

Say what you want, Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin rocked it in The Man with Two Brains. And again in All of Me.

Yes, I know I am incorrect. Still liked those funny old movies.

TheThinMan म्हणाले...

Sorry, I got that wrong in my last post. Sally Fields was Tom Hanks's GIRLFRIEND in Punchline then his MOTHER in Forrest Gump. I had read this fun fact in an article about the poor oppressed Hollywood actresses.

Joe म्हणाले...

One day I was watching a movie and started predicting what was going to happen next. Then, about ten minutes from the end, I had a full blown deja vu experience. A minute later, I realized that I had seen the movie before, but hadn't consciously remembered anything but that end sequence. Went to IMDB and sure, enough, I had seen it, but still had/have no recollection of when. Oh, the movie was a mess and I don't remember the title.

Rusty म्हणाले...

Blogger TheThinMan said...
Sally Fields, born 1946, played the mother of Tom Hanks, born 1956, in the movie, "Punchline" (1988).

Din't she play a co-comedian? She was married(in the movie) to John Goodman and had two kids. Tom Hanks was from a family of doctors who were pushing him to graduate med school. poop chute.
Why do I remember this shit?