Not sure if it counts as screwball, but one of my very favorites from that era is Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.
I think of it that way, but that's mostly because of Myrna Loy.
In one of my favorite scenes ever:
Muriel Blandings: I want it to be a soft green, not as blue-green as a robin's egg, but not as yellow-green as daffodil buds. Now, the only sample I could get is a little too yellow, but don't let whoever does it go to the other extreme and get it too blue. It should just be a sort of grayish-yellow-green. Now, the dining room. I'd like yellow. Not just yellow; a very gay yellow. Something bright and sunshine-y. I tell you, Mr. PeDelford, if you'll send one of your men to the grocer for a pound of their best butter, and match that exactly, you can't go wrong! Now, this is the paper we're going to use in the hall. It's flowered, but I don't want the ceiling to match any of the colors of the flowers. There's some little dots in the background, and it's these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhock leaf, but the little bluish dot between the rosebud and the delphinium blossom. Is that clear? Now the kitchen is to be white. Not a cold, antiseptic hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white. Now for the powder room - in here - I want you to match this thread, and don't lose it. It's the only spool I have and I had an awful time finding it! As you can see, it's practically an apple red. Somewhere between a healthy winesap and an unripened Jonathan. Oh, excuse me...
Mr. PeDelford: You got that Charlie?
Charlie, Painter: Red, green, blue, yellow, white.
Mr. PeDelford: Check.
I read a review elsewhere of Jennifer's Body and put it in my queue when it comes out on DVD.
Also the comments on the Rotten Tomatoes post make me ill.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
I thought this movie was a joke and the trailer I saw months ago was a mashup from a fan put on youtube. My, how I was wrong. After seeing this trailer, I am firmly in the "do not want to see under any circumstances, not even on a plane."
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We saw
A Serious Man
last night. Very interesting black comic take on the sufferings of Job and doing what's "right". I would say it's 1st class Coen brothers in terms of theme and second class in terms of execution. Still makes it better than 99% of what's out there. Anyone else see it?
Anyone else see it?
No, but it's getting some real hostile reviews.
I've already seen both "self hating jew" and "condescending and misanthropic."
No, but it's getting some real hostile reviews.
Really? It got a really good review in EW.
"condescending and misanthropic."
The Coen's have been getting that one their entire career. I'm not sure they'd take that as an insult. "Self-loathing" however is a new one. They are pretty much equal opportunity abusers when it comes to the ethnic/religious backgrounds, IMO.
It's the same thing that Philip Roth got after Portnoy's Complaint. There's a lot of cultural enforcement about ethnic identities within a community.
Half Blood Prince has worked its way to the rep houses, and Emmett and I saw it at the Red Vic on Haight Street. It's my fourth time and it's grown on me. Jim Broadbent's performance is just so masterful - comic and tragic. If you just shift your focus slightly around, it's a very interesting and dark story about Horace Slughorn. I think you could take (the non-magical portions of) the plot and performance, translate them to Germany before and after the war and you'd have a Pulitzer Prize winning play.
