Friday - December 30, 2011

For any George MacDonald Fraser fans

I present the the second book of his Flashman series. Royal Flash. In toto.

Posted by Christopher     on 12/30/2011 at 11:39 AM   
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   Tuesday - July 05, 2011

The inspiration for Indiana Jones

Who inspired Indiana Jones? Why none other than Charleton Heston in Secret of the Incas.

The whole movie is available on YouTube, in 10 parts. Up to you to find all the parts.

I only looked it up because I was listening to Xtabay; Yma Sumac’s debut album. Yma Sumac was allegedly an Inca princess directly descended from Atahualpa, the Incan king murdered by Pizzaro. I remember watching this movie as a child and Yma Sumac was in it. I was surprised when Mom pulled her debut album, Xtabay, out of her record collection. Her claim to fame was not only did she popularize some native Peruvian songs, she had a range of 5 octaves. For comparison, Sir Elton John has a range of about a half-octave. He really can’t sing worth a damn. Hell, my piano only does 4.5 octaves if it is in tune.

Anyway, I was listening to Yma Sumac’s Xtabay album and wondered: That movie starred Charleton Heston. I haven’t seen it since I was a kid. A quick check showed my library didn’t have it, even on VHS. Turns out that Paramount has the rights to release it on DVD, which they’ve yet to do.

Enjoy. Just remember, Harrison Ford owes Indiana Jones to Charleton Hestons’ character Harry Steele.

Posted by Christopher     on 07/05/2011 at 11:49 PM   
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   Wednesday - May 25, 2011

He’s Dead!

Something Macker said in the comments brought this to mind. Enjoy!

I’m still wondering, where is the orchestra during her dance?

Posted by Christopher     on 05/25/2011 at 10:53 PM   
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   Sunday - May 08, 2011

Yes, I’m almost done with Star Trek

Now I’m watching Star Trek Generations. The first thing that surprised me was how old the movie is. 1994. I’m getting old.

Anyway, I loved this exchange between Picard and Riker on an 18th-century (holodeck) version of Enterprise:

PICARD: Imagine what it was like, Will. No engines… no computers… just the wind, the sea and the stars to guide you.

RIKER: Bad food, brutal discipline… (beat) No women.

Yep! Trust Riker to target the main weakness of 18th-century navies! No women!

‘Course, I served in the 20th-century US Navy. No women on warships then.

Why did I get out? They wanted women on warships. I wasn’t going to hang around for the sexual harassment charges. If women want to be ‘equal’, then the laws need concerning sexual harassment need to be repealed. As a married civilian, I’ve been ‘sexually harassed’ many times. Just ask my wife. (why is it that a man is more attractive after he’s married? Maybe some BMEWSette can tell me?)

But the term used in civilian life is ‘flirting’. Flirting can be fun, and, like manners, is part of the social ‘grease’ that keeps things civil between the sexes. Flirting relieves the tension. Kinda like a fencing match: Attack: Retreat: Thrust: Parry: Coupe: Disengage: Stop-thrust: And if nobody scored, then you salute and leave the field to the next couple.

Posted by Christopher     on 05/08/2011 at 06:45 PM   
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   Saturday - April 30, 2011

More Star Trek

Wow! I can’t believe I missed this the first time I watched Star Trek: Insurrection.

Deanna Troi: (speaking to Dr. Crusher) “And have you noticed how your boobs have started to firm up?”
Dr. Crusher: “Not that we care about such things in this day and age. Thank you, Data.”

Good thing that Data was the only ‘man’ in hearing range. Data was bringing them some food and water.

Amazing how they sneak these little snippets into a family film.

Posted by Christopher     on 04/30/2011 at 11:38 PM   
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   Friday - April 29, 2011

Star Trek

I know. I know. I’m always several years behind the times. I don’t watch TV. The last movie we saw in the theaters was the first Narnia movie.

I’m watching ‘Star Trek’, the movie. Supposed to be a ‘prequel’ to TOS (The Original Series). Kirk first meets Spock and all of that.  Back to my observations of the movie. James Tiberius Kirk is doing his best James Dean impersonation in a bar:

After hitting on an attractive black woman, named Uhura, some Star Fleet cadets accost Kirk.

JTK: “Relax cupcake, it was a joke.”

Unknown Star Fleet @ss: “Hey farmboy, maybe you can’t count, but there are four of us and one of you.”

JTK: “So get so more guys and then it’ll be an even fight.”

Jim Kirk proceeds to get his @ss kicked. At least that part is realistic.

So far, this movie must be in some alternate Star Trek universe. None of this is even hinted at in TOS.

Posted by Christopher     on 04/29/2011 at 07:40 PM   
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   Wednesday - February 16, 2011

the girly men of hollywood?

If you could see our desk slash dining room table and the puter desk, you’d understand me saying I am literally buried under so damn much paperwork both old and new, that I should NOT be on a computer at the moment. I have been trying to work out the mess (papers and old puter magazines) that I alone created. There’s stuff here going back more then a year. That’s not as dumb as it may look cos often I find the answer to a problem in some old mag. issue. But enough is enuff. Can’t stand the disorder. So I need not to be here right now.

BUT …

I came across a quote by this Goddess, yeah, one of my many. They all seem to be that to me.  So anyway, I saw this and naturally I had to stop everything to share it.

Now I’m another hour behind.

Under a headline that read “Girly Men” the living Goddess otherwise named Rosamund Pike said:

“I auditioned for a job recently, and didn’t get it,” says the actress, speaking at the launch of the Birds Eye View Film Festival. “Word came back that they were looking for ‘a flirty piece of ass’.

“Now, I do not want, and have never wanted, to be a flirty piece of ass, but when told I was not one, I found myself quite offended.

I was thrust right back on the most primeval battlefield, the loser at the mating game.
“The point that sex appeal is not the level at which I want to compete was lost on me, momentarily.”

Pike, 32, appeared in the film Made in Dagenham, about women workers’ fight for equal pay. She adds of Hollywood power brokers: “The irony is that a good director needs to be really feminine.

“I mean, look at those fellas out there, with their long hair, – they’re real posers, some of them – natty dress sense and sensitive sides.
“They’re all so busy cleverly accessing their feminine sides that we don’t realise that they’re taking up all the space and pushing into the wings those people who really are feminine.”

-30-

So now I get to post her quotes as well as her pix. But I did think that was interesting.

Posted by peiper     on 02/16/2011 at 11:29 AM   
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   Thursday - September 09, 2010

an action whose time has come?  yeah. I’d say so.  for once, good for the lawyer.

I haven’t been to a movie in years. Don’t miss it either.  But I do miserably recall those god awful over modulated commercials they started to run in Ca. theaters.  Always bothered me. First, you’re paying to see a movie. You are not an invited guest. It isn’t enough that TV has tons of boring commercials. But at least with a remote control at home, you can do something about that.  And then the worst part is as stated, the volume they runs the ads at. Ear shattering.
But I guess it takes a lawyer, even in a place like China, to do something about it.  I hope she wins her case.

btw ... Coming attractions no thrill either. They used to be pretty good once upon a time.  Is it me?  Had the sound system gone south in the modern age?
Seems like it was a lot better when I was much younger and movies didn’t have the high tech toys for sound engineers to play with. Or maybe it’s the theaters in Ca.  ??

Chinese woman ‘sues cinema for wasting her time’

A Chinese woman is suing a cinema and a film’s distributors for wasting her time by showing 20 minutes of adverts before it started, according to state media.

Chen Xiaomei claims the Polybona International Cinema in the northern city of Xian and film distributors Huayi Brothers Media Corporation should have told her how long the advertisements for the film Aftershock lasted, Xinhua news agency said.

Ms Chen, who is a lawyer, has accused Polybona and Huayi Brothers of wasting her time and violating her freedom of choice.

The case has been accepted by the People’s Court in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province, Xinhua said, citing a statement from the court.

Ms Chen is demanding the companies refund her 35-yuan ticket (£3.30), pay her 35 yuan in compensation and one yuan (10p) for emotional damages and write her an apology, the report said.

She has also advised the cinema to publish the advertisement times on its website, in the lobby or on its customer hotline and asked Huayi Brothers to cut the length of commercials to less than five minutes.

“Aftershock”, which is about an earthquake that devastated a Chinese city in 1976, has become the highest-grossing domestic film, raking in 650 million yuan (£61,768,000), Xinhua said.

The movie directed by Feng Xiaogang tells the story of a mother’s emotional reunion with her daughter, three decades after a massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastated the northern city of Tangshan, killing more than 240,000 people.

CHINA STORY

Posted by peiper     on 09/09/2010 at 11:43 AM   
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   Sunday - August 08, 2010

The First Thing You Know

Wow, what a prescient statement of liberalism from a Lerner and Loewe musical.

Oh, yeah. Drew, I think you were thinking of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. That movie spawned the TV show ‘Here Come The Brides’ starring Bobby Sherman and David Soul.

In the comments I mentioned having to suffer hearing Clint Eastwood sing. I forgot that Lee Marvin also has a couple of songs. If they can sing, so can I. Now, how do I get paid to sing?....

UPDATE

Found my favorite Clint Eastwood solo.

Posted by Christopher     on 08/08/2010 at 12:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • MOVIES • Music •  
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   Thursday - July 08, 2010

Twilight…for guys

I’m a bit out of the loop on this ‘Twilight’ craze. Sure, I’ve downloaded the ebooks. Haven’t read them yet. Haven’t seen any of the movies. But by all accounts the Twilight series is geared to teenage girls and metrosexuals. My only question is…why?

So here is Twilight…for guys:

“an army of lesbians”? What a waste!

The werewolf ate what???

Posted by Christopher     on 07/08/2010 at 03:12 PM   
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Humor • MOVIES •  
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   Tuesday - January 12, 2010

Avatar hit by accusations of racism.  Some folks just have to see race in everything.

The guy who made Avatar is a liberal for gosh sake.  Seems like even a sci-fi pitcher-show is now seen by some in terms of race.
Can’t they just watch and enjoy (or if not leave the theater) without seeing the dreaded ‘R’ word?  Guess not.  It’s a movie. It’s fantasy. It’s make believe.  But some just have to sniff around till they find the evidence they have planted in their heads.

James Cameron’s $1 billion sci-fi epic Avatar has been hit by accusations of racism.

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor
Telegraph

Critics claims the story of a white US Marine who saves an alien race perpetuates the “white Messiah fable” and suggests that non-whites are primitives incapable of helping themselves.

Hundreds of blogs, YouTube videos and Twitter postings have sprung up on the subject since the film’s release three weeks ago, with one writer dubbing the 3-D extravaganza “a racial fantasy par excellence”.

Avatar is set on a distant planet populated by the Na’vi, an eco-conscious, blue-skinned alien tribe with no understanding of modern technology. A disabled Marine, played by the Australian actor Sam Worthington, is sent to infiltrate the tribe but soon “goes native” and leads them in a defence of their homeland against the white invaders.

He also falls in love with an alien woman, who rejects a Na’vi suitor and becomes his wife. The main Na’vi characters are played by black actors, including Zoe Saldana and Laz Alonso.

David Brooks, a columnist writing in the New York Times, said: “Avatar is a racial fantasy par excellence ... It rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that non-whites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace.

“It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.”

The ruthless treatment of the Na’vi has been interpreted as a metaphor for the plight of American Indians. Brooks said Avatar followed a long tradition of “white Messiah” movies which began in the 1970s with A Man Called Horse, starring Richard Harris as an English aristocrat who is captured by a Sioux Indian tribe and becomes their leader, and which includes Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves and the Tom Cruise film, The Last Samurai.

Robinne Lee, a black actress who appeared opposite Will Smith in the film Seven Pounds, is also among Avatar’s detractors.

Likening the film to Pocahontas – “the Indian woman leads the white man into the wilderness, and he learns the way of the people and becomes the saviour” – she said: “It’s really upsetting in many ways. It would be nice if we could save ourselves.”

Annalee Newitz, editor-in-chief of io9.com, a sci-fi website, said: “The main white characters realise that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, aka people of colour ... then go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. When will whites stop making these movies and start thinking about race in a new way?” Cameron strongly denied any racist intent. He said that his film “asks us to open our eyes and truly see others, respecting them even though they are different, in the hope that we may find a way to prevent conflict and live more harmoniously on this world. I hardly think that is a racist message.”

The controversy has done little to dent Avatar’s remarkable run at the box office. It took just 17 days to pass $1 billion in ticket sales – a new record – and to become the second highest grossing film of all time behind Titanic, also

AVATAR SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 01/12/2010 at 12:08 PM   
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   Saturday - January 02, 2010

DARN IF IT ISN’T ALL THE FAULT OF DREW AND TOM HORN … MY PLANS ASKEW …

ASKEW is right cos I had planned on something else to start with. Can’t do that right now.

I was always a fan of Steve McQueen going way back to the TV series in 1958.  There was always something believable about him.

Drew’s take on Tom Horn is right on the money and I honestly don’t think I’ve read a better movie review.  No kidding.

I have a ton of stuff to do and more or less planned out my posts for today.  We have been finding more things packed away left by the wife’s late mother. Because it’s difficult for her to do, she says she feels like she’s starting the new year by getting rid of her mom, I’ve been going through and seperating stuff like 50 years worth of diaries.  And due to the mania for seperating cardboard and recycle from hard plastics, well.  You can imagine how I spent a great deal of yesterday, and there’s more of other things today.  My inclination is to simply toss everything in a pile but ... can not do.  There are addresses there and phone numbers AND, the powers that be WILL check what you toss away.  Stiff fines and aggro I don’t need.  So ...  I had stuff lined up and came to BMEWS to start and got hit with Tom Horn. 

There is not a single thing I could possibly add to that review.  Drew missed his calling. But hell, it’s not too late should he tire of windows.

Westerns in the past and most especially the silents were sooooo corny I can’t believe how ppl took to em.  Movies in general were cornball. Not all of them, there were a few standouts.  Anyway ...  I got to thinking about the beginnings of the western ....

http://www.silentmovies.com/edison/gtrscenes/gtr.htm, and of course you can Google The Great Train Robbery and see clips.  What an innocent age.

Then I recalled a name from the past, William S. Hart.  He was a major star in that period. Just think, here was a guy born in the final year of the war of northern aggression.  okok. The Civil War.  (most uncivil) Anyway, you could say he was the Steve McQueen of his time. Not in acting ability to be sure. But in popularity.  I remember my mother speaking of him.  Then there was real cowboy named Tom Mix.

So I just thought I would post this very old stuff so we can see where we all came from.  Movie wise.

I will leave you with this. And to think, I actually got paid for playing it.  That was the life let me tell ya.

Posted by peiper     on 01/02/2010 at 06:12 AM   
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