On a COMPLETELY unrelated note, any Cronenberg fans interested in his early, completely self-made experimental movies should note that two of them are on the 2nd disc of the special 2-disc FAST COMPANY dvd. FAST COMPANY being the shoot-out at the dragstrip exploitation movie he made (either before THE BROOD or SCANNERS, can't remember which) which is an unabashed B-movie with with stars to match (Claudia Jennings, John Saxon, etc.).
I just watched STEREO and, yeah, it's basically a student film, but it's not dumb. I figure it HAS to be a satire, since it takes place at the CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR EROTIC INQUIRY. :) The man did have a good eye for striking architecture and composition even then, though. And he photographed and edited the damn thing himself back in the very early 70s. I believe he managed to beat John Waters at the DIY thing, even, and with a helluva lot more style.
Also, the most prominent actor looks like a really fey, and (believe it or not) an even-more-creepy-than-either cross between Walken in DEAD ZONE and Spader in CRASH.
CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR EROTIC INQUIRY.
hey, it could happen....we happen to be very curious...
CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR EROTIC INQUIRY.
hey, it could happen....we happen to be very curious...
And if anyone could turn sexual curiosity into a bureaucracy, it's us.
OTOH, committee meetings could be slightly more tolerable.
Next up, watch Halle abduct a bus full of Desi Arnaz impersonators.
OTOH, at least Rat Race was supposed to be a comedy.
Skippity-doo-da--after taking an entire day away from my computer. Unprecedented. (plus venetian blinds got washed in the bathtub...it was an ordeal)
Magnolia grew on me like kudzu. I could not get it out of my mind for days and days. The themes, the visuals, the possibilities. It wasn't a love-based fascination, but an intoxication in the almost literal sense.
oops. gotta go. more later.
I saw A Farewell to Arms on TV. Rock Hudson pretty, and bonus points for a romantic lead named "Frederick." Also some good "war is hell" scenes.
But really, a love story where no chemistry appears until the last half hour? What's the point?
It's been so long since I read/watched
A Farewell to Arms,
I can't remember how the story ends. With a death, no doubt.
The thing about the wide-spread knowledge of Rock Hudson's sexuality is that I now find it difficult to look at the movies in which he plays a serious romantic lead without looking for slashy subtexts elsewhere. (The Doris Day movies, I've got no problem with thanks to their tongue-in-cheekness.) Which gets in the way of my appreciating the romance on its own merits. I don't recall Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones had much in the way of chemistry in
Farewell to Arms.
Now, Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck in
Duel in the Sun
... *that* was chemistry. I feel like I should have been put off by its egregious stereotyping and over-the-top melodrama, but no. I adore the movie, all the way to its operatic ending.
I don't recall Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones had much in the way of chemistry in Farewell to Arms.
Gotta admit, I almost fell off the couch when she suggested he go into town and find "a gay young playmate."
I'm thinking of a movie....
I thought Jennifer Jones but I can't find it on her iMDB so I'm thinking no. It's about a man who was wounded in the war and a disfigured woman. THey both end up in this cottage in the middle of the woods somewhere, both ashamed of their appearance to go into public. THey fall in love eventually and their disfigurements go away. Or so they think. It's really the eyes of love making them beautiful to each other. The rest of the world still sees the disfigurements. Called The Magic Cottage or something cheesy like that.
The Enchanted Cottage. Robert Young and, um. I forget. LOVE that movie.
ETA: Dorothy McGuire was the female lead.
