Tuesday - June 07, 2011
James Arness
Thanks to reader Dave for pointing out my oversight. James Arness died Friday from old age. He was 88.
James Arness of ‘Gunsmoke’ fame dies at 88
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LYNN ELBERASSOCIATED PRESSJames Arness, the 6-foot-6 actor who towered over the television landscape for two decades as righteous Dodge City lawman Matt Dillon in “Gunsmoke,” died today. He was 88.
The actor died in his sleep at his home in Brentwood, Calif., according to his business manager, Ginny Fazer.
Arness’ official Web site posted a letter from Arness today that he wrote with the intention that it be posted posthumously: “I had a wonderful life and was blessed with so many loving people and great friends,” he said.
“I wanted to take this time to thank all of you for the many years of being a fan of ‘Gunsmoke,’ ‘The Thing,’ ‘How the West Was Won’ and all the other fun projects I was lucky enough to have been allowed to be a part of. I had the privilege of working with so many great actors over the years.”
As U.S. Marshal Dillon in the 1955-75 CBS Western series, Arness created an indelible portrait of a quiet, heroic man with an unbending dedication to justice and the town he protected.
The wealth and fame Arness gained from “Gunsmoke” could not protect him from tragedy in his personal life: His daughter and his former wife, Virginia, both died of drug overdoses.
Arness, a quiet, intensely private man who preferred the outdoor life to Hollywood’s party scene, rarely gave interviews and refused to discuss the tragedies.
“He’s big, impressive and virile,” costar Amanda Blake (Miss Kitty) once said of Arness, adding, “I’ve worked with him for 16 years, but I don’t really know him.”
The actor was 32 when friend John Wayne declined the lead role in “Gunsmoke” and recommended Arness instead. Afraid of being typecast, Arness initially rejected it.
“Go ahead and take it, Jim,” Wayne urged him. “You’re too big for pictures. Guys like Gregory Peck and I don’t want a big lug like you towering over us. Make your mark in television.”
“Gunsmoke” went on to become the longest-running dramatic series in network history until NBC’s “Law & Order” tied in 2010. Arness’ 20-year prime-time run as the marshal was tied only in recent times by Kelsey Grammer’s 20 years as Frasier Crane from 1984 to 2004 on “Cheers” and then on “Frasier.”
The years showed on the weathered-looking Arness, but he - and his TV character - wore them well.
“The camera really loved his face, and with good reason,” novelist Wallace Markfield wrote in a 1975 “Gunsmoke” appreciation in the New York Times. “It was a face that would age well and that, while aging, would carry intimations of waste, loss and futility.”
Born James Aurness in Minneapolis (he dropped the “u’’ for show business reasons), he and brother Peter enjoyed a “real Huckleberry Finn existence,” Arness once recalled.
Peter, who changed his last name to Graves, went on to star in the TV series “Mission Impossible.”
A self-described drifter, Arness left home at age 18, hopping freight trains and Caribbean-bound freighters. He entered Beloit College in Wisconsin, but was drafted into the Army in his 1942-43 freshman year. Wounded in the leg during the 1944 invasion at Anzio, Italy, Arness was hospitalized for a year and left with a slight limp. He returned to Minneapolis to work as a radio announcer and in small theater roles.
He moved to Hollywood in 1946 at a friend’s suggestion. After a slow start in which he took jobs as a carpenter and salesman, a role in MGM’s “Battleground” (1949) was a career turning point. Parts in more than 20 films followed, including “The Thing,” ‘’Hellgate” and “Hondo” with Wayne. Then came “Gunsmoke,” which proved a durable hit and a multimillion-dollar boon for Arness, who owned part of the series.
His longtime costars were Blake as saloon keeper Miss Kitty, Milburn Stone as Doc Adams and Dennis Weaver as the deputy, Chester Goode.
When Weaver died in February 2006, Arness called it “a big loss for me personally” and said Weaver “provided comic relief but was also a real person doing things that were very important to the show.”
The cancellation of “Gunsmoke” didn’t keep Arness away from TV for long: He returned a few months later, in January 1976, in the TV movie “The Macahans,” which led to the 1978-79 ABC series “How the West Was Won.”
Arness took on a contemporary role as a police officer in the series “McClain’s Law,” which aired on NBC from 1981-82.
Despite his desire for privacy, a rocky domestic life landed him in the news more than once.
Arness met future wife Virginia Chapman while both were studying at Southern California’s Pasadena Playhouse. They wed in 1948 and had two children, Jenny and Rolf. Chapman’s son from her first marriage, Craig, was adopted by Arness.
The marriage foundered and in 1963 Arness sought a divorce and custody of the three children, which he was granted. He tried to guard them from the spotlight.
“The kids don’t really have any part of my television life,” he once remarked. “Fortunately, there aren’t many times when show business intrudes on our family existence.”
Former “Gunsmoke” actor James Arness, who played Marshal Matt Dillon in the western TV series for 20 years, died Friday from natural causes, according to his website. He was 88.
Over the two decades of “Gunsmoke” episodes from 1955 to 1975, Arness worked with hundreds of actors, some of them just up-and-comers such as Harrison Ford, Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson. He also worked with Betty Davis.
Born in Minneapolis on May 26, 1923, Arness served in the Army during World War II at Anzio, the Italian beach that the Army says was the setting for the largest and most violent armed conflict in history.
Arness was wounded in his right leg and received the Purple Heart.
Arness’ younger brother Peter Graves, of Mission Impossible fame, died last year.
Two great actors, exiting the stage a year apart.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/07/2011 at 09:35 PM
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Permalink • Friday - June 03, 2011
It’s like McCarthyism, only without actual Commies
Posted by Drew458
on 06/03/2011 at 02:55 PM
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Permalink • Tuesday - May 24, 2011
Gratuitous Newsity
What a sad life ...
Here we go again. Troubled Child™ Linday Lohan is at it again. This is now two days in a row she’s managed to “accidentally” flash her bits and pieces in public to keep her name out there. You would have thought that her nearly fatal drug addiction and various run ins with the law would be enough, but oh no.
And I could have sworn the last I’d heard of her, she was supposed to be doing 6 months in jail. What happened there? Oh, she’s too good for jail, so she got community service instead. Yeah, that was it. So she went to a shelter to feed the homeless, and made news - serious news! - for showing up not wearing a bra. I am not kidding. The UK’s Daily Mail ran a piece with a boob expert ( I think it was a bra fitter from Marks & Spenser ) yattering on and on about how all this bouncing about all free and pokey was going to give her issues with gravity in the near future. The UK Sun had the nippy pics.
Alas, the future is upon us. Yesterday’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ during a ‘modeling shoot’ made that all too plain. What was perfect and perky at 16 is quickly becoming a waistline accessory. And all the “we only do proper news” news sites run the story, and merely link to the Sun, which doesn’t pretend to be any better, and runs the pics.
And here we go again. Oh noes, Lindsay goes swimming in the ocean and her bikini top falls off! Giggle giggle, oopsie, wardrobe malfunction! Yeah, and the photographers were right there, managing to capture things in their razor sharp high resolution glory. Or lack thereof. Meh, I’d still give her an 8.5, but mostly because it looks like the blond dye is starting to wash out and her lovely natural dark red locks are starting to emerge again. Girl has hair, I’ll grant her that.
Lindsay Lohan suffered another wardrobe malfunction yesterday when a crashing wave removed her bikini top as she cooled off in the Miami surf. And despite clutching her arms across her chest, she could not stop her assets spilling out. The troubled actress, who’s currently serving 480 hours community service for stealing a necklace, gasped when she was struck by the wall of water.
NSFW PHOTOS AT THESUN.CO.UK
But she continued to merrily splash around nonetheless.
No doubt her jaw-dropping displays have gone down a storm with beady-eyed male bathers, but I’m not sure this is what the judge had in mind for her community service sentence.
Still, the freckly actress won’t be doing her hopes of landing more adult movie roles any harm with ‘incidents’ like these.
Next up she’s starring alongside JOHN TRAVOLTA and AL PACINO in Gotti: Three Generations, based on the life and crimes of notorious mafia boss John Gotti.
Let’s hope she makes the breast of it…
I don’t think she has much acting talent, and I hate her voice. Maybe she knows this too, and all her self worth is wrapped up in being a scag? Oh that makes sense. So I’m guessing her desire to stay in the limelight will eventually lead her to the porno industry, though I doubt by that point that even the expert soft-focus photographers at X-Art will be able to make her look good.
Seems a shame, but the porn world can always use another doped out fire crotch. For about a year.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/24/2011 at 03:13 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - May 04, 2011
Oh Poo
Actor and director Jackie Cooper has died. He was 88.
Cooper—who was nominated for an Oscar when he was 9-years-old—passed away yesterday at a hospital in Beverly Hills after a sudden bout with illness.
Cooper was a highly respected director in his adult years—winning Emmy awards for his work on “M*A*S*H*” and “The White Shadow.”
Cooper famously played the role of The Daily Planet newspaper editor [Perry White] in the 1978 “Superman” film.
Actually, I think Jackie Cooper got his start on The Little Rascals and other comedy shorts, back in 1929 ...
He also spent a long time in the US Navy, from WWII to 1982, on and off, full time and reserve. Had he stayed in just a bit longer, he would have been promoted to Rear Admiral; Cooper was the second highest ranked military officer in Hollywood, after Jimmy Stewart.
Cooper retired in late 1989, having compiled a list of 127 titles he acted in, and worked steadily in Hollywood throughout the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60, 70s, and 80s.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/04/2011 at 05:08 PM
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Permalink • Saturday - April 23, 2011
Not Child Safe
Disney has a new nature movie out called African Cats.
An epic true story set against the backdrop of one of the wildest places on Earth, “African Cats” captures the real-life love, humor and determination of the majestic kings of the Savanna.
Narrated by Oscar®-nominated actor Samuel L. Jackson, the story features Mara, an endearing lion cub who strives to grow up with her mother’s strength, spirit and wisdom; Sita, a fearless cheetah and single mother of five mischievous newborns; and Fang, a proud leader of the pride who must defend his family from a rival lion and his sons. An awe-inspiring adventure blending family bonds with the power and cunning of the wild, “African Cats” leaps into theatres on Earth Day, April 22, 2011.
Hold it. Stop right there. Parents, do not take your children to this movie.
Why not?
Isn’t it obvious? The film is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson. Can you imagine the dialog? Can you?
Your kids would be pop-eyed for a week.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/23/2011 at 07:16 PM
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Permalink • Monday - April 18, 2011
why I don’t fashion blog
Maybe I should just put it down to a major Generation Gap?
This is Jennifer Lawrence, she of the simple stretchy red dress from the Oscars ...
I think she’s very pretty, and I think the outfit looks nice. It has a bit of class, though it isn’t complex. The wrap dress has great texture and the colors are springtime warm. Maybe it’s a little high-waisted for someone so young (she’s 20) but I don’t follow fashion so I try to make allowances. Don’t ask about the bird. I think it’s a tie in to some movie she was in.
Picture from Teen Vogue via celebitchy.
On the other hand, under the fold is another magazine cover featuring a slightly younger actress on the cover, Emily Browning. She’s nearly as pretty, but in a spunkier way. And the outfit? (eye roll) (sigh) (double eye roll). Horry clap. I think this is the kind of vengeance young women wish on the other woman when they find their boyfriend has been messing around. IMO, it’s worse than meeting Prince Charming with creme bleach on your upper lip, raging pink eye, and yesterday’s broccoli stuck in your teeth. Has she been a very very naughty girl, to deserve such punishment? Because, understanding as I try to be, I doubt that I could avoid laughing in her face if I saw her in public in this get up. Especially if I looked down. Fashion? No, this comes under the cruel and unusual category.
But I probably have it all bass ackwards; J. Lawrence is probably wearing the frumpiest horror ever, and E. Browning is “fierce” and “cutting edge”. Which is why I avoid this stuff.
Pics and links originally from the Fug Girls.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/18/2011 at 09:41 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - April 07, 2011
Dumb Gun “Knowledge”
I have no idea why this was on CNN’s news page today. It’s a link to a story at Cracked from 10 months ago about the false ideas Hollywood spreads about firearms. As if you didn’t already know. Just for gits and shiggles I guess.
The bit about silencers is good, but it could use a lot more detail. They do mostly tell you the truth: there is no such thing as a silencer. In other parts of the world where such things are legal, even required for hunting in many countries, the devices are called suppressors. Because that’s all they do. They abate a noise loud enough to instantly damage your hearing down to a noise only loud enough to damage your hearing if you’re exposed to it for an extended length of time, like a whole 2 seconds. Guns are loud; wear double ear protection when you go shooting.
There is more to the gun loudness issue than just the boom that the gunpowder makes. Any bullet that travels faster than 1100 feet per second - and most do - is flying faster than the speed of sound, and that means it creates a sonic boom. Even though bullets themselves are relatively small, the noise of their passage is significant. This is why real “silenced” guns shoot slow bullets, around 950fps. And the only way to get any kind of power with a slow bullet is to use a really heavy bullet. Unfortunately heavy bullets at really low velocities aren’t usually fully stabilized, so accuracy suffers. Bottom line is that a truly silent firearm isn’t going to be accurate enough or powerful enough to get the job done at any kind of realistic range. 75 yards, maybe 100, and that’s really pushing the envelope.
Why don’t silencers work? It’s a simple matter of volume. Hur hur hur Drew, good one. No, seriously, it is. Not the “turn down the volume” kind, the “cubic feet of air” kind. To be effective they have to contain all the gas that comes out of the end of the gun and then release it to the atmosphere slowly enough so that there is not pressure wave. That’s the bang sound; it’s the air rushing back in to fill the volume displaced by the expanding powder gases as they leave the end of the barrel. It’s a small thunderclap.
Here’s the math in a simple example. (Sorry Rich, sometimes math is necessary)
The 9mm Parabellum ( 9x19 NATO ) is a very popular cartridge the world over. We’ll use this one for the example. Common ammunition generates about 35,000psi inside the gun barrel’s chamber, and we’ll use a barrel 5” long, which is pretty typical for a full size pistol. Granted that you’ll want to actually use a fully locked breech gun, like the single shot T/C Encore. “silencers” don’t work for jack on revolvers, because they’re open at the back end, but I digress. Stay focused Drew!
Ok, to actually silence a firearm you have to capture all the gas that comes out the end of the gun. Other than using a subsonic bullet, that’s all there is to it.
Typical groove diameter for a 9mm pistol barrel is .355”. With a 5” barrel this means that the volume of the barrel is 3.14159 * (.355/2)2 * 5 = 0.49489 in3. Call it half a cubic inch.
Standard atmospheric pressure is 14.7lb/in2. 35,000 ÷ 14.7 = 2380.952; 2380.952 * 0.49489 = 1178.33. 1178.331/3 = 10.56. This means that the half cubic inch of gas under pressure in the gun is actually 2/3 of a cubic foot at regular air pressure. No wonder it goes bang.
To capture that much gas, you need a vacuum box attached to the end of the barrel. Since no vacuum is perfect, you want to design it a little oversize ... so you’d need an airtight box of about a cubic foot to do the job. You want to handle the heat as well; gunpowder burns at a temperature higher than that needed to melt steel. Good old PV=NRT takes care of most of that; as the gas expands it cools off. But build the vacuum chamber a bit bigger than math requires just to be on the side of certainty. Naturally you’d stick in all those nifty internal baffles to deflect the ejecta blast and to stifle the muzzle flash. And you’d need to figure out the right kind of membrane for both ends that the bullet could pierce without impacting accuracy too much. Maybe Mylar film would work. And you’d need an evacuation valve so you could pump out the air and hold the vacuum. And all of this would be good for exactly ... one shot.
Not what I’d call a practical size. And this is for a puny little pistol. A hunting rifle runs at double that pressure so it would require a much bigger chamber; something about the size of a garbage can ought to do it.
(picture of T/C Encore pistol borrowed from The Firearm Blog)
So follow the math and follow the link, and take home today’s lesson: Hollywood feeds you lies about guns. About everything else too, but that’s another lifetime’s worth of posts.
Ok, that’s enough school for one day.
PS - I “cheated” See the first comment and figure out where I went wrong. UPDATED WITH MY ANSWER AND REBUTTAL
Posted by Drew458
on 04/07/2011 at 08:07 AM
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Permalink • Saturday - April 02, 2011
Loss of Local Color
I saw in the newspaper today that the last movie theater in our county closed for good last night. Movie theaters - a good idea who’s time has gone?
Once upon a time in the land of far away and long ago, the little town I grew up in (pop about 10K then, 32K now) had two movie theaters downtown. We also had 5 grocery stores; all but one of those is long gone. I remember being in the balcony of one of the movie theaters, to see Dean Jones in That Darn Cat, which tells you how young I was then and how old I am now. They closed the balcony area shortly thereafter for “safety” reasons. Two decades later one of the places converted to a duo-plex, and the other one soon went out of business. A few years later and the other theater followed suit. The duo-plex was reopened a few years later and I think it’s still in business. I haven’t been in either one of those places since the very early 80s, so I can’t speak to their interiors, but my childhood memory of them has big cushy seats in it, and a Panavision screen that must have been 80 feet wide. With a power operated curtain 2 stories tall that opened and closed for each showing.
When I was in college up in Binghamton NY there were two in the area that were kept open via federal arts grants. The one in Johnson City was huge, one of those massive plush and gilt relics from days gone by. I bet it had 500 seats. We’d go there to watch second run films on the cheap, and usually have almost the whole place to ourselves. The other smaller theater went the art house route, and did a decent weekend business that way, but I don’t think they were open more than 3 days a week.
Up in the town of Washington here there is another old time movie house, another of those gold paint and red velvet plush places from the past. They were closed for many years, but reopened a few years back. I haven’t been in there either, but I see the marquee every week and know that they run 3 or 4 films at a time. Whether that means multiple showings, or that they’ve cut the place into a bunch of mini-theaters, I don’t know.
The rise of the multi-plex was both good and bad for movie theaters. Good in that they could offer the customer so much more choice. Bad in that almost all of them did it on the cheap, and the partitioning of the grand old giant arenas into many smaller rooms resulted in bare concrete floors, raw walls painted black, and terribly small and uncomfortable rows of seats that had built in cup holders in the arm rests that made them unusable. And then they set the sound level to Deafen Everyone. Worse, they lost the giant projection screens, and with that they lost the magic. Panavision and CinemaScope are long dead*. Films are shot these days with an eye on showing them on standard television with it’s nearly square format. There is some hope with the ascent of HDTV; films can once again be shot in a bit of wide angle.
But that same HDTV is hammering the last couple nails into the coffin of movie theaters. The outrageous ticket price is another handful of nails, along with the knowledge that whatever film you’re going out to see now will be available either on disc or on download for just a dollar or two in less than 90 days.
Let’s ignore for today that the vast majority of modern movies have been total crap that aren’t even worth the one dollar disc rental. Our local small business video store closed 5 years ago. The Blockbuster in the strip mall at the other end of town closed last year. With delivery venues like Netflix and Red Box, who needs them? It’s easier to just click a mouse and visit your mailbox a few days later. Now even that is going away; just click your mouse and start watching the film right now. What you can’t get On Demand from your cable TV company you can download from the internet; some of the TV’s being built today hook up directly and you don’t even have to figure out how to wire in the computer.
So we sit in our homes and watch films on our really large wide screen TV sets, with our own surround sound multi-channel stereos. And the movie theaters die. And we lose the community event, the polite public gathering, the shared iteration of being part of a culture, that was going out to the movies. Sad.
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/02/2011 at 09:22 AM
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Permalink • Tuesday - March 29, 2011
SOJ Perfection
Along with the real person John Bolton, sometimes referred to as MOT for mustache of truth, we also have the fictional Horatio Caine from TV’s CSAI: Miami (oops my bad!), often referred to as SOJ, for sunglasses of justice. Sometimes Caine just says it best.
I stole this from CBullit.
Meanwhile, it appears that Sheen is back to being a dognapper again. Winning!!
Posted by Drew458
on 03/29/2011 at 08:40 AM
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Permalink • Wednesday - March 23, 2011
Obit .. Liz Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor died today. She was 79. She had been suffering from illness for quite some time.
Posted by Drew458
on 03/23/2011 at 05:06 PM
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Permalink • Saturday - March 12, 2011
I think I felt it
As I mentioned in my previous post - which is the next post here actually since the new ones go on top - I’ve been watching Laurel & Hardy films this week. Not that I’ve ever really considered myself a serious student of film, having only taken 2 courses on it in college, but Laurel & Hardy have this reputation as being the definitive comedy team from way back when. Perhaps in stand-up routines they were. In their 5 to 10 minute short films they certainly can be. But when it came to full length films, they bombed. That’s the saddening revelation I’ve come to after watching several. I can’t claim to have seen their entire body of work. That other post wrote a bit about Pack Up Your Troubles, which was far more of a “find the orphan girl a home” film than it was a war story. And aside from the barbed wire lasso scene, a few two-idiots-in-bootcamp bits stretched over several painful minutes, and one or two falling prats, the film wasn’t funny at all. What jokes there were, were both simple and far apart. The slapstick bits I can get, even though I have outgrown Three Stooges antics. But this film, and the one I’m getting to, Pardon Us seem to be cobbled together out of 2 minute skits glued together with long and boring non-sequitor scenes. I’m trying to cut them a lot of slack, because these are old movies from the early days, and tastes have changed. But the pacing is so slow I found myself nearly falling asleep, while the “killer comedy” did little more than get a small chuckle out of me.
And then I was blown away. In a very not at all funny manner. I was watching Pardon Us. I don’t think I’d ever seen this movie before. It’s another one from the Hal Roach period, 1931, which are supposed to be golden nuggets. Nuggets is right, but not golden ones. In this one, the boys get sent off to jail for bootlegging, and it’s a dark and forbidding place. There are little bits of funny here and there, which just seem to be thrown in and glued on, like when they have to go to one of those prisoner improvement education classes and the teacher gets the class going with a question and answer session:
Ollie: N-E-I-D-L-E.
Teacher: There is no “I” in needle!
Stanley: Then it’s a rotten needle.
Teacher: Now, what is a comet? You!
Prisoner: A comet. A comet is a star with a tale on it.
Teacher: Correct.
[points to Stanley]
Teacher: Name one.
Stanley: Rin Tin Tin.
Teacher: D’oh!
and so forth. When tough guy prisoner The Tiger attempts an escape, the boys walk out the other door when nobody is looking. And having previously mused, on one of their visits to solitary, about how great life would be down on the farm, after their escape that’s where they decide to make their hide out.
Cut to the farm. Not just any farm. Dat Ole Plantation, wid da cotton fields fa fa away. It’s an outdoor shot, and while the cotton plants look a bit scraggly and far apart [ Damnyankee boy here: even with red clay soil, wouldn’t the cotton plants be closer together than 4 or 5 feet? This field looks mighty poor ]. And in the field are dozens of black folk, dressed in the requisite Mammy and Big Jim clothes (this film was 8 years before Gone With The Wind), and they’re pickin’ that ol cotton by hand, and singing spirituals all de live long day. I was flabbergasted. I could not believe what I was seeing. And for one brief moment I felt White Guilt, right there in my own living room. Holy shit. I was stunned. But as the scene went on and on, and the Colored People went from singing By and By into Swing Along and then a rousing Hand Me Down My Silver Trumpet, hoppin’ and a boppin’, I realized this wasn’t anything racist at all. Hey, for all I know, poor black field pickers actually DID wear those Aunt Jemima outfits back then, and group singing at work was a black thing. I know that part was true. And then I realized that my immediate embarrassment was the result of cultural conditioning: in today’s world we deny the reality that such things ever even existed, and cry raaaaaacism whenever anything appears that shows that it actually did. We don’t just deny that black people were often portrayed in film as quaint or funny, we deny that black people ever even worked in the roles that these old films portrayed them in. And certainly not while happily singing on the job! And then the camera cuts to Laurel & Hardy, hiding out in plain sight. In the back of the cotton fields. In blackface. OMFG. Greasepaint faces and hands, with white lips and eyes. And their trademark hats. You know what the really funny part was? Neither one of them could pick cotton for shit. Stanley rips the whole plant out of the ground and stuffs them in his sack, while Ollie picks just one blossom at a time, and then plucks every last bit of dust and seed pod off before placing it softly in his bag. Meanwhile the field hands are filling up 100lb sacks, dragging them along behind, of course with the obligatory cute little black kid catching a ride on one while her momma worked. At day’s end the white guy on a horse, dat ol oberseer, calls off work ( I was almost expecting 2 boys swinging on a bell while Big Jim yells “Quittin Time!” Wrong movie ) and the workers link arms and happily dance themselves off the field and back to their shanties. Where the music continues, with an uncredited but much better and more Western dressed quartet doing some song about a train going north. How black. How soulful. People today would be outraged. The racism! The exploitation! The stereotyping! But you know what? The field hand singers were damn good, and the guys who did the train tune later on were even better. Even Ollie had a good voice, doing a very nice “Lazy Moon”, followed by Stan’s loose limbed soft shoe routine. While in blackface. A regular minstrel show. At the end of which he falls in the mud and all the black washes off. That’s the only real race joke in the whole bit, which lasts the better part of half an hour. The black keeps washing off, even when the Warden’s car breaks down by the field the next day and the boys try to fix it. Slap on a handful of automotive grease and nobody notices. They get caught and go back to prison not because anyone realized they were white, but because Stanley has a loose tooth that whistles, which everyone is insulted by because they think he’s giving them the raspberry, and the Warden remembers him from when that same thing happened back when the two were in the jailhouse.
So from my short moment, I had a bit of an epiphany about just how much social conditioning has got through my defenses, even though I’ve been aware of it and working against it for nearly two decades.
Later on I watched that scene twice more. The black washing off running joke was pretty funny, and whoever those singers were, they were really good. No reason to deny that at all.
Posted by Drew458
on 03/12/2011 at 01:25 PM
Filed Under: • Hollywood • Racism and race relations •
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Permalink • Friday - March 04, 2011
Dry Bones, shaken not stirred
Posted by Drew458
on 03/04/2011 at 08:29 AM
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Permalink • Monday - February 28, 2011
Oscars Condensed for Guys
So the Oscars were on last night, all 183 hours of them. This is like the Superbowl for women, fashionistas, Hollywood gossipers, and film lovers. Umpty-seven prizes were awarded, and major nominees were given goody bags with contents worth more than your house. Nice work if you can get it. Since Charlie Sheen is currently in the Bahamas with all the seriously total sluts in Tinseltown, this year’s look was elegantly flowing gowns with only small amounts of lace and other doodads.
87% of the male population forced to watch this was on a mental dial tone after less than 10 minutes. So while you nod your head at your co-workers sagacity around the water cooler today, learning obliquely who won Best This and Best That, I’ve put together the parts that actually matter to guys.
Mila Kunis in that magical pale blue dress (the only lavender men recognize is the smell of their mom’s soap). Lacey, elegant, feminine. Hypnotic. The red carpet camera guy kept cutting back to her again and again, until your wife or GF had something to say. Secretly you could have watched that shiz all night long, no problem, just to figure out if it actually was see-through all over.
The surf goddess in the red dress was Jennifer Lawrence. She was nominated for Best Actress in a film you never heard of called Writer’s Bone. hur hur hur. I think this is Scarlett Johansson’s old dress, taken in quite a bit, but I don’t care. Where’s my defib?
And baby makes two! Natalie Portman looks 100 times better with some weight on. Sweet. So glad she’s a girl now instead of a stick insect.
In a night full of various heavily shellacked tightly up-swept girlie hairdos that only other women love, along with a serious number of WTF bed-head disasters, Amy Adams was one of the few who went with the “freshly shampooed and a little bit of a wave” look. And looked magnificent doing so. Giant emerald necklace? Who cares. Give us a twirl please Amy. Thank you.
Pics? Of course!
Posted by Drew458
on 02/28/2011 at 12:59 PM
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy • Hollywood •
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Permalink • Friday - February 11, 2011
‘That’s as good as you’re gonna feel’
I’ve been watching the old Matt Helm movies. I’ve developed a new appreciation of Deano…
Posted by Christopher
on 02/11/2011 at 09:06 PM
Filed Under: • Celebrities • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Hollywood •
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