Aubrey McFate
Burn down the disco
I got it at the library. It's based on Washington Square. I don't know if a smart TV would be a nuisance, because on the small end they're 24", lightweight and portable, and cost about a hundred dollars. I wonder what Nicky Wire would think of right wing podcasts.
nicky wire's legs
Born to eat meringue says tanks instead of thanks!
they're not actually right wing podcasts. they're mostly in the centre, but loony leftists would probably call them right wing. im actually sort of not that into political stuff now that the scamdemic is mostly over. i really just watch Unherd now. i think nicky's pretty sensible.
do you need a cable hook up for a smart TV? i still dont think ill get one because i like to listen with ear buds (or can you get those with a smart tv?!).
Aubrey McFate
Burn down the disco
You can plug a cable box into a smart TV, but it doesn't need cable access. It does the same thing a computer does: it connects to your WiFi and streams video. And it will also have Bluetooth for ear buds. It would be fine for movies and podcasts.
nicky wire's legs
Born to eat meringue says tanks instead of thanks!
there's so much i dont know, papa audrey!! well thanks for letting me know. it's something to consider for the future.
Aubrey McFate
Burn down the disco
Intermezzo (1939). Ingrid Bergman's first Hollywood movie, and a remake of a Swedish film she had starred in three years earlier. Inexplicably, they did not change the setting. So it takes place in Sweden, with Swedish-named characters, yet everyone is speaking English with a variety of accents. They could've just set it in England or America, and had Bergman's character be originally from Sweden. Strange. Nothing else wrong with it, though. A tender little slice of marital straying, and it shouldn't be a spoiler to say that the title refers to the affair. It is not without some moralizing, though. The husband, Holger, is punished by the fates for abandoning his family:
Just as he makes his return, his daughter is hit by a car in a pretty gruesome-looking scene. You ask me, that kid is toast. But she languishes in bed, in and out of consciousness.
Then a miraculous revival occurs, and after having endured his dark night of the soul as atonement for his sins, Holger is welcomed back by his forgiving wife Margit. Which is rather depressing, when thought of from Margit's perspective. The final shot is of the front door of their house closing—and for Margit that is the door to a psychological prison. She has to spend the rest of her marriage knowing her husband's "soulmate" was not her. She had not Ingrid Bergman's youth, beauty, piano-playing virtuosity, or artistic synergy with him. Holger's damnation lasted only an evening, but hers is going to go on for quite some time. Perhaps she only took him back for the children's sake.
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J
j*e*t
Guest
I thought the wife looked happy to have him home, and she could see he needed a home. The film did make me sad though. The father and daughter had a special bond because of their shared love of music, but it upset me the way she was the only one on his mind after he deserted his family, especially near the end when he went to great lengths to take a gift to her and yet there was no mention of a gift for his young son. Also of note, Ingrid Bergman's eyebrows looked prettier in the original Swedish version!
Intermezzo (1939). Ingrid Bergman's first Hollywood movie, and a remake of a Swedish film she had starred in three years earlier. Inexplicably, they did not change the setting. So it takes place in Sweden, with Swedish-named characters, yet everyone is speaking English with a variety of accents. They could've just set it in England or America, and had Bergman's character be originally from Sweden. Strange. Nothing else wrong with it, though. A tender little slice of marital straying, and it shouldn't be a spoiler to say that the title refers to the affair. It is not without some moralizing, though. The husband, Holger, is punished by the fates for abandoning his family:
Just as he makes his return, his daughter is hit by a car in a pretty gruesome-looking scene. You ask me, that kid is toast. But she languishes in bed, in and out of consciousness.
Then a miraculous revival occurs, and after having endured his dark night of the soul as atonement for his sins, Holger is welcomed back by his forgiving wife Margit. Which is rather depressing, when thought of from Margit's perspective. The final shot is of the front door of their house closing—and for Margit that is the door to a psychological prison. She has to spend the rest of her marriage knowing her husband's "soulmate" was not her. She had not Ingrid Bergman's youth, beauty, piano-playing virtuosity, or artistic synergy with him. Holger's damnation lasted only an evening, but hers is going to go on for quite some time. Perhaps she only took him back for the children's sake.
nicky wire's legs
Born to eat meringue says tanks instead of thanks!
i so love ingy!!!! 
Aubrey McFate
Burn down the disco
I got the impression she forgave him, and on some level maybe it made her happy to have him back, but could she ever forget what he did? He abandoned her and their children for someone younger, prettier, and more talented. He might not even have gone back to them, if Ingrid Bergman hadn't done the honorable thing for him. A one-night stand is maybe okay, but a serious romance is different. For Margit, that fact has got to sting for life. I don't know how you live with someone whose very presence is going to remind you of their unfaithfulness. That is a martyrdom for the marriage. But I don't think it's impressive so much as it is pathetic. Better ending: Holger returns to find her living in domestic bliss with another woman. "And at last your life begins."
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J
j*e*t
Guest
You could well be right about your better ending, which has the benefit of practicality at a time of an outbreak of war! Maybe I'm naive but I think she still loved her ex-husband despite his affair. I don't come from a broken family and have never been the cause of such but it seems so commonplace as to be just human, so why not just accept it and try to rebuild a better relationship? I see the end of the film not as a living-happily-ever-after but as a chance to see how things work out, at least while the kids still want their parents around.
Aubrey McFate
Burn down the disco
Don't Worry Darling (2022). I normally wouldn't watch a movie with Harry Styles in it. When repugnant Friends was on TV and its stars were beginning to make their transitions to film, I resolved never to watch any movie featuring a cast member of Friends. I kept to this vow for years. Easy A (2010) broke the streak: someone else chose it, the situation was a "whatever," and I plumb forgot to vet the cast. Then Lisa Kudrow showed up as a guidance counselor. I was disappointed in myself for not having been sufficiently vigilant, as my hatred of Friends had not ebbed over time. I doubt I missed any great movies, though. There was a period when Office Space references were popular, and I occasionally had to endure "you've never seen Office Space?"
Anyway, I watched this Harry Styles film because my hatred of him was overcome by tantalization: I learned it was based on the cult of Jordan B. Peterson, who I hate even more than I hate Friends. Peterson broke down in tears on Piers Morgan because the movie's director Olivia Wilde had called him "a hero to the incel community." Which of course is true, but Peterson thinks "incel" is a cruel insult to confused young men yearning for meaning in life, which I guess is one way to say "aimless and gullible gamer bros." He has also broken down in tears when talking about Jesus. He is one gooey and emotional fellow. The movie, unfortunately, is focused strictly on his Social Darwinist and patriarchal side. It dispenses with all his God-bothery and Jungian piffle, and without this crucial aspect, the Peterson character is rendered too generically villainous.
The movie itself is mediocre. Its strongest suit is the set design. Florence Pugh is wondering why her existence as a Stepford wife in a pastel 1950s desert community is so strange, and it keeps getting stranger with no help from her husband Harry Styles, or anyone else for that matter—frustration leading to a crescendo where things are explained with a big reveal. At this point you realize you are watching what could've been a terrific Black Mirror episode, were its two hours whittled down to a sleek seventy minutes. It's not what you're looking for, though, if you're looking for something that deals with the uniquely creepy, treacly, quasi-religious program of Jordan Peterson. For that, the best effort remains Nathan Robinson's brilliant and hilarious 2018 evisceration, The Intellectual We Deserve. And there used to be a woman with a blog where she compiled and curated testimonies from all over the internet of young women whose boyfriends discovered Jordan Peterson, complaining about how insufferable they became. That was a fascinating horrorshow to read, but I don't remember its name and sadly now I can't find it.
J
j*e*t
Guest
I haven't watched this. The one trailer I watched included a car chase., which put me off. Several months ago, a friend said to me that every American movie includes a car chase. Obviously, this isn't so, but since then I've noticed how often they do occur!
Don't Worry Darling (2022). I normally wouldn't watch a movie with Harry Styles in it. When repugnant Friends was on TV and its stars were beginning to make their transitions to film, I resolved never to watch any movie featuring a cast member of Friends. I kept to this vow for years. Easy A (2010) broke the streak: someone else chose it, the situation was a "whatever," and I plumb forgot to vet the cast. Then Lisa Kudrow showed up as a guidance counselor. I was disappointed in myself for not having been sufficiently vigilant, as my hatred of Friends had not ebbed over time. I doubt I missed any great movies, though. There was a period when Office Space references were popular, and I occasionally had to endure "you've never seen Office Space?"
Anyway, I watched this Harry Styles film because my hatred of him was overcome by tantalization: I learned it was based on the cult of Jordan B. Peterson, who I hate even more than I hate Friends. Peterson broke down in tears on Piers Morgan because the movie's director Olivia Wilde had called him "a hero to the incel community." Which of course is true, but Peterson thinks "incel" is a cruel insult to confused young men yearning for meaning in life, which I guess is one way to say "aimless and gullible gamer bros." He has also broken down in tears when talking about Jesus. He is one gooey and emotional fellow. The movie, unfortunately, is focused strictly on his Social Darwinist and patriarchal side. It dispenses with all his God-bothery and Jungian piffle, and without this crucial aspect, the Peterson character is rendered too generically villainous.
The movie itself is mediocre. Its strongest suit is the set design. Florence Pugh is wondering why her existence as a Stepford wife in a pastel 1950s desert community is so strange, and it keeps getting stranger with no help from her husband Harry Styles, or anyone else for that matter—frustration leading to a crescendo where things are explained with a big reveal. At this point you realize you are watching what could've been a terrific Black Mirror episode, were its two hours whittled down to a sleek seventy minutes. It's not what you're looking for, though, if you're looking for something that deals with the uniquely creepy, treacly, quasi-religious program of Jordan Peterson. For that, the best effort remains Nathan Robinson's brilliant and hilarious 2018 evisceration, The Intellectual We Deserve. And there used to be a woman with a blog where she compiled and curated testimonies from all over the internet of young women whose boyfriends discovered Jordan Peterson, complaining about how insufferable they became. That was a fascinating horrorshow to read, but I don't remember its name and sadly now I can't find it.
Anyway, last night I watched This Happy Breed (1944) again. Apart from having the song 'Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty' in the opening scene (a different version from the one sampled in 'The Queen Is Dead'), there's a little speech from Robert Newton as Frank about his mother-in-law's death (approx. one and a half hours in) about how "she didn't pass on, pass over or pass out: she died" that sounded very similar to Morrissey's words about Jane Birkin on the day she died (16th July 2023) on stage in Dublin. I can't remember if this has been pointed out before.
Aubrey McFate
Burn down the disco
There is indeed a car chase. The odd thing about it is that Florence Pugh is driving a sports car, while her pursuers are driving sedans, but for some reason she can't outrun them.
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
Babyteeth is a 2019 Australian film. The plot reminded me of The Fault In Our Stars but this is more upbeat. It's about a sometimes chaotic white-collar family whose teenage daughter is ill and falls for an unconventional young man that mom and dad don't approve of, but accommodate. A realistic feel about it, edgy acting, and some nice tunes.
Aubrey McFate
Burn down the disco
Licorice Pizza (2021). Boring. So boring I had to watch it in two sittings, something I don't like to do unless the movie has an actual intermission. A 15-yr-old actor (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman's son) who also (absurdly) happens to be a business-&-sales prodigy romances a 25-yr-old Jewish photographer's assistant. She's Jewish, that is, not the photographer. Lest that be misleading, there's nothing particularly Jewish about the proceedings here, apart from a short scene where her atheist boyfriend (not Philip Seymour Hoffman's son, obviously, who looks like a pudgy Richie Cunningham with a Rubber Soul haircut—about as Gentile as it gets) refuses to recite the Hebrew blessing at a meal, and another bit where a casting director tells her she has a Jewish nose, so she lies to the casting director about knowing Krav Maga.
You can almost hear Paul Thomas Anderson giggling to himself as he wrote the script. It's very self-indulgent and meandering. Characters float in and out of it inexplicably. Bradley Cooper plays the producer Jon Peters as a spaz. I'll put it in the basement of Paul Thomas Anderson's films, along with Inherent Vice and Punch-Drunk Love. Top three:
- Boogie Nights
- The Master
- The Phantom Thread
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Aubrey McFate
Burn down the disco
Monsieur Hire (1989). This was an intriguing film. The French do venerate Hitchcock a good deal, and Monsieur Hire certainly qualifies as "Hitchcockian," but it is original in its tone, and goes well beyond just homage. Its source material predates Rear Window, but it is kind of an inverted, sicko version of that film: it's a Rear Window where the Jimmy Stewart character is a brooding, antisocial, brothel-going bachelor, a sadistic Jewish tailor who keeps pet mice just to kill them, and who likes the story of an elderly woman known & loved by her neighbors for her daily routine of feeding pigeons—only to leave a wicked note in her will telling them her birdseed had been laced with poison all along. The young woman he watches not only learns of his peeping tom behavior, but actually likes it. And naturally there is a murder. The twists in the plot are nicely nuanced: no sudden reveals or too-clever turns, just believable outcomes in a murder mystery featuring a quasi-romance between two strange people with psycho-sexual and -logical issues.
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nicky wire's legs
Born to eat meringue says tanks instead of thanks!
I loooooooove Sandrine Bonnaire. Now there's someone whose radiant beauty you might have remarked upon if, that is, you had any taste. (Ie. We all know you dont)
Monsieur Hire (1989). This was an intriguing film. The French do venerate Hitchcock a good deal, and Monsieur Hire certainly qualifies as "Hitchcockian," but it is original in its tone, and goes well beyond just homage. Its source material predates Rear Window, but it is kind of an inverted, sicko version of that film: it's a Rear Window where the Jimmy Stewart character is a brooding, antisocial, brothel-going bachelor, a sadistic Jewish tailor who keeps pet mice just to kill them, and who likes the story of an elderly woman known & loved by her neighbors for her daily routine of feeding pigeons—only to leave a wicked note in her will telling them her birdseed had been laced with poison all along. The young woman he watches not only learns of his peeping tom behavior, but actually likes it. And naturally there is a murder. The twists in the plot are nicely nuanced: no sudden reveals or too-clever turns, just believable outcomes in a murder mystery featuring a quasi-romance between two strange people with psycho-sexual and -logical issues.
J
j*e*t
Guest
I watched A Taste of Honey again, and when Jo said that her baby was due 'about November', I suddenly wondered if November Spawned a Monster was an imagining of if her baby had been born disabled. The film ends on Bonfire Night with the birth imminent. Too fanciful? Anyway, here's the clip:-
TheSmiths_1985
Moved to Off-Topic
Not very realistic.
Aubrey McFate
Burn down the disco
I think Sandrine Bonnaire has a certain beauty, but “radiant” seems the wrong word for it. There’s something mournful about her look. Anyway, you once (insanely) referred to another French actress, the truly radiantly beautiful Lou de Laâge, as “boring,” so I’m sorry but I don’t consider you qualified to lecture me on the subject of female beauty.
