Buffistas

Ah, the pitter patter of tiny feet in huge combat boots. Shut up!

Mal ,'War Stories'

Buffista Movies 3: Panned and Scanned

A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.

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Steph L. - Dec 17, 2004 4:30:52 am PST #7205 of 10001

I look more rad than Lutheranism

I'm most amused by this question:

Man, I love Frederick March. What are your five favorite Frederick March movies?

Because I have NO idea who in the hell he is. So the over-the-top-ness of not just loving the dude, but then rattling off 5 favorite movies, makes me laugh.

This is not a matter of opinion. This is a matter of demonstrable fact. All you are doing is convincing me that your critical faculties have shrunken to the size of a...a withered currant.

Hec has bogarted ALL the bossiness EVER.

Jim - Dec 17, 2004 4:35:26 am PST #7206 of 10001

Ficht nicht mit Der Raketemensch!

Isn't an unwithered currant a grape?

Jim - Dec 17, 2004 4:35:32 am PST #7207 of 10001

Ficht nicht mit Der Raketemensch!

Jim - Dec 17, 2004 4:35:38 am PST #7208 of 10001

Ficht nicht mit Der Raketemensch!

Isn't an unwithered currant a grape?

A good joke is worth repeating....

Vonnie K - Dec 17, 2004 4:40:03 am PST #7209 of 10001

Kiss me, my girl, before I'm sick.

Nothing Sacred, Best Years Of Our Lives, I Married A Witch, Dr. Jekyll and Hyde - He's the best Hyde ever..."

What? No "A Star Is Born"? Harrrumph.

And March and Lake did have great chemistry in I Married a Witch.

But not as much as Lake and Ladd in "The Blue Dahlia" and "Glass Key". Ladd is such a wee man, kind of blandly-pretty, but you put him next to Veronica Lake, and... whoa.

I keep thinking that Lake is tall--I guess it's the way she carried herself--and I'm always bemused when I realize how tiny she is on screen.

Calli - Dec 17, 2004 4:43:28 am PST #7210 of 10001

I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs

Isn't an unwithered currant a grape?

No, it's a rather pretty red berry. We had them at bookgroup last night -- unwithered currants, that is. They were kinda seedy and nicer to look at than to taste.

Frederick March. Wasn't he the March brother no one talks about? (What with the way he stole Beth's laudanum for his sad drug habit and all.)

Fred Pete - Dec 17, 2004 4:45:23 am PST #7211 of 10001

Ann, that's a ferret.

What? No "A Star Is Born"? Harrrumph.

Ah, yes. A perfect original followed by a perfect remake.

Steph L. - Dec 17, 2004 4:55:37 am PST #7212 of 10001

I look more rad than Lutheranism

Frederick March. Wasn't he the March brother no one talks about?

Exactly! I read that name and thought, "Was he in Little Women?"

DXMachina - Dec 17, 2004 5:36:42 am PST #7213 of 10001

You always do this. We get tipsy, and you take advantage of my love of the scientific method.

Favorite Fredrick March movie - The Best Years of Our Lives.

JZ - Dec 17, 2004 5:50:10 am PST #7214 of 10001

See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

basks in all the validation

So, uh, yeah... movies and shit.

So last night, pre-battle, we went to see Bell Book and Candle, which was much better than I remembered it:

Visually extremely tasty, with one Hollywood beatnik set after another (Kim Novak's living room, in both its witchy and human incarnations, looked like something out of

The Incredibles)

Gorgeous costume design (Kim Novak in one dark gown after another that looked very pretty but severely demure in front but were almost completely backless, and oh how I need to own the red robe with the jeweled obi)

An incredibly personable and cooperative cat (seriously, the cat was so present he was a damn character in the film, not just a living prop, and he was terrific, and God knows cats are nobody's first choice for trainable biddable cute-trick-doing movie animals, so this cat's performance was nearly a bloody miracle)

Jack Lemmon being his usual godlike self as a bongo-playing nonhuman (such a ridiculously fine actor -- this little weightless bit of fluff movie, and he was 110%

there for it, and he made you absolutely believe he was both a traditional movieland feckless younger brother, and a creature clothed in a human body that was carefully but not completely competently imitating human behavior and secretly harbored considerable amused contempt for humans)

Elsa Lanchester as Queenie, who was sweet and tiny and curvaceous and vaguely bewildered but untroubled by her own bewilderedness, and whose red hair, perfect lips, dreamy drifty locution, and air of otherworldly kindness and affection for her niece (not to mention the many, many gorgeous crepey and lacey and deep jewel-toned velvet dresses and tiny oddball hats) were astoundingly and deliciously Plei-like

Alas, James Stewart was still just as much bordering-on-too-old as I remembered, without a suitably Hitchcockian explanation for his obsession with the severely younger Novak, and (just in case anyone on earth hasn't yet seen it) the ending was still a pastel nightmare of ugly tchotchkes and Look How Normal She Is Now!!!!1!, and then there was the March/Tracy quarrel afterwards, and now Hec is all laid out with a bad head cold and gagging down zinc lozenges, so altogether not the best possible night out at the movies.

Still, not bad, and worth seeing for the backless dresses and Jack and Elsa and the cat.

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