River ,'The Message'
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.
Oh dear. I don't even know where to start.
Uh oh. I didn't mean to denigrate the film in any way. I'm just saying that while it's clearly a great movie, for 1927, the greatness is generally in the filmmaking, and not in the story or characters or anything. It's not emotionally affecting (besides the fact that it sure feels weird to be rooting for the Confederates), but it's fun.
Me too! Yay. And I think I remember that we both hated Raising Arizona. We're kindred spirits!
Totally! Raising Arizona is ridiculously overpraised!
::high five::
I'm still irked that the Coens never bothered to see Tempe, Arizona. Other than that, I suppose I would think it's kind of funny, but no "Big Lebowski", for instance.
Raising Arizona is ridiculously overpraised!
Cue to say: NUH and UH! Best of the Coen Bros!
Raising Arizona is by no means my favorite Coen Bros. movie, but I think it's hysterical. Certainly not my least favorite either (of the ones I've seen; I couldn't bring myself to see LADYKILLERS).
HBO has optioned the books for a possible series.
Oooh. Given how freakin' LONG the saga is and the number of characters involved, this is probably the best format for the adaptation. Plus, HBO, so hopefully not sanitized.
I worship Keaton and can't wait to hear Hec's story.
Hate Raising Arizona, and Harvey breaks my heart every time.
OK, I think I've used up my allotment of Buster-fangirlish glee for the day....
I'll take up that mantle. He was still doing stunts past 50, and bruising the hell out himself in the process. He must have had a huge tolerance for pain. When he was working on Sherlock, Jr., he broke his neck, but didn't bother to get it checked out for years. When he did, the doctor was astonished that Buster was a) alive and b) walking. Buster said he hadn't really noticed anything out of the ordinary.
Heh. One thing I noticed was that were no close-ups. But that was a 1927 thing.
Those cameras were very heavy, and unlike todays cameras they didn't really have variable focal length lenses. So doing a close up would have required that they move the camera in closer, after the establishing shot, and moving the camera was something they desperately tried to avoid doing at all costs.
I lean more toward Harold Lloyd for my silent comedy (Safety Last being unbeatable), but I don't turn down Keaton. Did anyone else see College on TCM's Silent Sundays last week?
Some brilliant sight gags in the crew scene (though you may want to skip the restaurant scene).