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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.
I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.
Our messy unity will be our strength.
The unpunished coup was a training exercise.
Let me file that under fuck it.
We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.
Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.
Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”
You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.
No one could have predicted…
Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.
Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.
It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.
Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.
Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.
New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.
JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?
In my day, never was longer.
The worst democrat is better than the best republican.
They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.
It’s the corruption, stupid.
Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.
Nicole
What a good run he had.
Here’s a nice article from 2015 of him and Andrews, talking about The Sound of Music on its 50th anniversary:
https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2015/3/the-music-never-stopped?utm_source=twitter&utm_brand=vf&mbid=social_twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned
mali muso
The OG antifascist.
Young me had such a crush on him from multiple viewings of the Sound of Music.
WaterGirl
In the midst of life we are in death, etc.
Seems like your previous thread title was appropriate.
Lawrence Schuman
He will be missed. He made me explain what Nazis were to my five year old daughter. And he chewed scenery as a Klingon with an eye patch bolted to his face. And other things. Say hi to Ming the Merciless for me.
The Thin Black Duke
The last performance on film I saw Plummer in was Spike Lee’s criminally underrated Inside Man.
SiubhanDuinne
I will never forget seeing (in the cinema) his Prospero in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s marvellous live-on-film production of The Tempest, about ten years ago. Either Plummer was born to play the part, or Shakespeare wrote Prospero with Chris Plummer in mind. He gave enormous pleasure.
Also loved him in The Lake House and Knives Out.
JustRuss
Last saw him in Knives Out, thought he was great.
Benw
RIP. Best Klingon, non-Worf category
Chief Oshkosh
He hated that movie and role (thought it was too syrupy wrt to the broader subject matter of fascism). But, I loved it. It’s one of just a handful of movies I have stored on my phone. Also, if you ever get a chance to attend the Salzburg music festival (there really is one!), take it. The whole week is fantastic, not just the formal festival and competition, but also the free rehearsals and the general atmosphere.
SiubhanDuinne
@Nicole:
I watched an interview with Andrews and Plummer not long ago where they were both reminiscing sentimentally about TSOM. I think it was probably taped for the 50th anniversary.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chief Oshkosh:
He did hate it, for years — very publicly called it “The Sound of Mucus” — but later came to genuinely recognise and appreciate it for the cultural phenomenon it was, and for the positive impact it had on his career.
debbie
My favorite thing about Christopher Plummer is that he admitted he had been wrong for disparaging The Sound of Music back when it came out. He later came to appreciate it and acknowledged it had been very good for his career.
Nicole
@SiubhanDuinne: I think I saw that- did they talk about how the lights used at the gazebo started making popping noises that sounded like farts? That was one of my favorite “behind-the-scenes” stories from a movie ever.
Nicole
Also- I’m feeling a bit regretful because not two days ago, on FB, a classmate from high school recommended Knives Out and reminisced about our English class’s field trip to see Plummer and Glenda Jackson in Macbeth and I said, out of the 13 or so productions of The Scottish Play I’ve seen in my life, it was the 2nd worst. I mean, I stand by that opinion, but I feel bad about the timing.
All kidding aside (although it really wasn’t a good production of Macbeth), what a terrific actor. My favorite was his Mike Wallace in The Insider because he looked absolutely nothing like Mike Wallace but channeled him so completely that by the end I’d forgotten what the real Mike Wallace looked like.
SiubhanDuinne
@Nicole:
Yes, that was the one! Maybe somebody here linked to it.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Heaven only knows what he in private called Vampire in Venice, other than “a paycheck.”
;)
Matt McIrvin
He even managed to impart some gravitas and joy to the role of the benevolent Galactic Emperor in the ludicrous Star Crash, here pictured with Caroline Munro and David Hasselhoff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f77k9XeM7V8
bluefoot
@SiubhanDuinne: I remember reading an interview with him where he calls it “The Sound of Mucus.” But I’m glad he came around. :)
I recall once reading an article that said he was the one who added in the Shakespeare into the Klingon role. I don’t know if it’s true (and I’m too lazy to Google), but I like how it become Star Trek canon that Klingons have an affinity for Shakespeare.
Mike in NC
The last thing we watched him in was the excellent whodunit “Knives Out”.
Nicole
@SiubhanDuinne: I think I saw it on TV. I did find an article about it, though- apparently that gazebo was a problem for everyone who had to do a scene in it:
https://the-take.com/read/what-is-the-true-story-behind-athe-sound-of-musicasa-gazebo-scenes
sab
My nephew, doing geneology research, discovered that we are distantly related to Plummer. His and our first ancestor from Scotland to Canada are the same person.
sigaba
@Matt McIrvin: Plummer’s explanation for Star Crash was, in so many words: if you fly me to Rome and put me up in my favorite hotel, I’ll happily do anything, I’ll do porno, anything.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: my mother, who loved the Sound of Music, also loved telling that story about Plummer. For my mother, that was transgressive language.
When I was a kid, that scene when SPOILER ALERT! the Nazis almost catch them at the convent was genuinely scary. I hope Rolphe bought it hard in the war.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Nicole:
I am jealous.
Citizen Alan
@bluefoot: I may be misremembering, but as I recall, after the Shakespeare got added, they sent it to the guy who basically invented the Klingon language for the films. And it turned out that he, for some odd reason, had decided that Klingon didn’t have an infinitive for “to be” (or possibly no infinitives at all), and so, for example, it was impossible to directly translate Hamlet’s soliloquy. Or something like that.
Betty Cracker
@Chief Oshkosh: I spent a couple of days in Salzburg ages ago (not during the music festival). It’s a beautiful place, and I’ve always meant to get back there someday.
Dupe1970
@Lawrence Schuman: He was such a great Klingon!
Nicole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You should not be. I love that play, I loved that play when we went to see this production when I was a teenager, and I am telling you, I was very disappointed. It had every reason to be good (Plummer! Jackson!) and yet it was a slog. The witches were okay.
NotMax
Just for fun. A, um, different take on a song from The Sound of Music.
:)
NorthLeft12
Remember was also a great piece of work by Mr. Plummer. Worth a watch IMO.
sab
@Nicole: “…the witches were okay.” That made me laugh
Great Lakes Shakespeare Company, back when it was in the Lakewood High School Auditorium, did a production of MacBeth and all I remember from it was what an amazing array of plaid polyester they had managed to round up from local fabric stores. I can’t even remember the witches.
trollhattan
So long
Farewell
Auf viedersehen
Goodbye
You’ll be missed, sir.
pluky
@bluefoot: Well there are a lot of parallels to be drawn between Klingon succession politics and the goings-on in Shakespeare’s history plays.
Barbara
@Nicole: We watched Knives Out earlier this year as my daughter’s choice (we took turns). Plummer and Ana de Armas (Marta, the nurse) were a cut above the others.
As for productions of Shakespeare — sometimes the whole turns out to be less than the sum of the parts.
Brachiator
Plummer was a great actor. I avoided the Sound of Music for much of my movie going experiences (not a big musical fan), but he was good in it.
But I loved him as the twisted criminal in the 1978 file “The Silent Partner,” with Elliot Gould.
He was also great in “Knives Out.”
Barbara
@Brachiator: I had forgotten he was in that movie. That is one of the all time creepiest movies ever made.
Kent
Ah yes.
When it is a rich white family illegally crossing borders on foot to seek asylum we write musicals and award winning songs about it: https://youtu.be/AeOMwXeMYwE
When the families are poor and brown we separate them and put them in cages
I grew up on the Sound of Music because my mother had the soundtrack on record. And I remember perusing every detail of the photos and album notes contained in the LP when I was a kid. But didn’t actually see the movie until a bit later in life as during the 1970s you basically only got to watch what was on TV at a particular time and it either rarely played on network TV or just never managed to catch it. No VCRs or DVDs in the 1970s and we didn’t have cable.
Mustang Bobby
I saw Christopher Plummer at Stratford, Ontario, in a number of plays, including “Caesar and Cleopatra,” “The Tempest,” and his one-man show about his love of reading, “A Word or Two.” One evening my parents and I saw him having dinner at Rundel’s, a wonderful restaurant. We did not intrude. But a few years later when his autobiography, “In Spite of Myself,” came out and he did a reading and signing here in Coral Gables, I asked him how he liked his dinner. He laughed and said he loved eating there.
It’s too bad that the first line of his obituary has “The Sound of Music,” a film he famously hated making, although he acknowledged that it got him a lot of other work. But I’ll always remember him on the stage at Stratford, even more than “S&M” and “Star Trek VI.”
Arclite
A bit off topic, but here’s a game where the protagonist is named John Cole. I wonder if the developer is a fan of the blog?
Mary G
RIP Christopher Plummer. He made everything he was in better. Loved the voice.
@Nicole: When I was in 8th grade, the school took a group of us to see a play at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in LA. Of course, they didn’t allow enough time for traffic on the 5 and we were late. The ushers wouldn’t let us in to take our seats until the act was over.
We sat down, grumpy and bored. The second act opened to a scene with an empty stage except for a spiral staircase and a scarf on the floor.
Suddenly Kathleen Hepburn swooped down the staircase, picked up the scarf, said “SHIT!!” and ran off. We were enthralled. (It was a production of “Coco” about Chanel.)
Some parents were upset because we were chortling over profanity and we were not allowed to go to any more plays.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
I had forgotten he was in that movie. That is one of the all time creepiest movies ever made.
Yep. And the creepiness kinda sneaked up on you. The twists were honestly done. And Plummer started out … odd … and became increasingly sinister. Just wonderful acting.
And Gould’s performance nicely matched what Plummer was doing.
Another Scott
I believe I’m correctly recalling an interview where Andrews and Plummer were talking about how ungodly kitchy TSOM was on Broadway, how they would never be caught dead performing in it, etc. And then they realized what a huge hit it was…
RIP.
In other news, …
[OMG-was-that-shade.gif]
Cheers,
Scott.
PaulWartenberg
I recall my first meeting with Christopher Plummer in the movie “Return of the Pink Panther” as the retired Phantom who pretty much played the only sane man in a corrupt and insane world. Of course, as a devoted Trekkie I saw him again as Chang in ST VI, where he chewed the scenery so much you could see the teethmarks on the chair cushions.
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker: During the daytime hours of the festival, the various choirs from around the world hold rehearsals in venues in the old town. The rehearsals are free to attend — you just walk in to any building emanating music. To hear and see Mozart’s music performed in the church that he specifically wrote the music to be sung in was very affecting.
Nicole
@sab:
Either the same year or the next (late 1980s), I saw a high school do a (very condensed) Macbeth, which they set on Wall Street. It was absolutely hilarious (the final fight was with umbrellas and briefcases and Macduff called Malcolm on the company phone to let him know he was King now) and, at the same time, brought into high relief how much the play is about selfish ambition. Still one of my favorite versions of it I’ve seen.
PaulWartenberg
@Arclite:
Does this John Cole answer to a giant image of Tunch that spells out “FEED”?
LuciaMia
Saw that production on Broadway, and yes, I agree. It was so disappointing, considering those two great actors.
Roger Moore
@Chief Oshkosh:
I will always have a soft spot in my heart for The Sound of Music. A couple I know got married in Taiwan (she’s Taiwanese; he’s German) so they couldn’t have a regular wedding reception for their friends here in LA. Instead, they invited us all to the Sound of Music sing-along at the Hollywood Bowl, where we had a potluck picnic and participated in the sing-along. It was fun and very memorable.
sab
@Nicole: That sounds fun.
If you aren’t into Dorothy Dunnett yet, and are inclined to read a 900 page book, read ” The King Hereafter” about the actual MacBeth about twenty years after the first millenium and forty years before the Norman Conquest.
Scotland was very Norse then.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
A cut above.
I see what you did. :)
Almost Retired
He really was a very good actor. I have mixed feelings about TSOM. The music really is quite good and holds up well (except for that fucking goat song). But it also left generations with the impression that Austria was the Nazi’s first victim. It was also unfair to whoever wrote Austria’s actual national anthem, because almost everyone thinks its “Edelweiss.”
Kristine
@The Thin Black Duke:
I absolutely love that movie. Not a bad performance to be seen, and Plummer was so good in a small but pivotal role.
I recall an interview with iirc one of his ex-wives, Tammy Grimes, in which she describes the first time she saw him on stage. “Like a knife blade catching the sun.”
Last thing I saw him in was “Knives Out.”
sab
Everythone talks about how ephemeral live theater is, but I remember really good productions I saw in my teens as if they were yesterday. And those were 50 years ago. If we weren’t stuck at home in a pandemic how many movies of that era would we be watching.
Brachiator
@Almost Retired:
I don’t understand why people would confuse a musical with history.
Or almost any movie or stage play.
Nicole
@sab: Oh cool, I’ll check that out. I love history. I know Shakespeare was making sure to suck up to James I in Macbeth (Banquo was his ancestor, I think) so I bet I’ll enjoy reading about the actual Macbeth. Thanks for the recommendation!
Nicole
@Brachiator:
Richard III seconds that opinion, I’m sure. ;)
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@SiubhanDuinne: I have a different story involving a different British actor with a connection to the Star Trek franchise…summer, 1986. My mom’s sister, her husband (my uncle by marriage) and my three cousins live in the Cleveland area, and my uncle’s mom owns a place in Lakeside, OH, which is a small Methodist Chautauqua on the shores of Lake Erie – no where near as swanky as the original on Lake Chautauqua in Western New York State, which I’m familiar with only because my dad grew up in nearby Jamestown, NY.
Anyway, we’d get together at Lakeside at least once a summer. The oldest of my cousins was a student at Oberlin, which is between Cleveland and Lakeside, so a fairly easy drive from Lakeside. They’re doing a production of The Tempest on campus thrown together by a visiting scholar from the Royal Shakespeare Company, so we decide to go and see it. It was a pretty crazy production – the entire cast was dressed in contemporary ’80s era Miami Vice garb rather than Elizabethen-esque costumes. Most of the cast were drama majors at the college but the visiting scholar played Prospero and was fantastic. I didn’t think much of it until a year and some months later, September of 1987, when I decide to check out the new Star Trek series – Star Trek the Next Generation, and I see the guy who played Prospero that night on my TV screen – it was none other than Patrick Stewart!
Plummer was great in Knives Out, I liked him in Return of the Pink Panther too. And in The Sound of Music, of course, though I once asked my cousin’s boyfriend (the middle cousin in the family above) if he knew who Julie Andrews was and he had no idea. In the UK and America she is indelibly linked to Austria but most Austrians appear to have no idea who she is, based on my sample of one random Austrian guy.
Almost Retired
@Brachiator: Yeah, I wish people got their historical information from actual history, instead of fictionalized literature or movies. But pretty much everything I know about Thomas Cromwell is from the Wolf Hall Trilogy.
WereBear
@Brachiator:
Love it so much I own it. Seldom has someone been so seductively creepy…
geg6
@Brachiator:
I think it’s easy to have that happen when you are a child, see something like TSOM, you ask about the Nazis and get a short, censored version of the history that because your immature mind and understanding of the world makes you not quite ready for the brutal truth. I’m not a fan of the movie, but it is probably the first film I ever saw that even referenced Nazis. I was probably all of 7 or 8 years old.
Cameron
I have no problem with fictionalized history. After all, we just got done with four years of a fake president.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Nicole:
There’s a great BBC podcast called “Shakespeare’s Restless World”, short (15-20) deep dives on different aspects of his works. As I recall we owe to James I the Scottish theme and nod to his (probable?) ancestors, the witches (he was obsessed with them) and the relative brevity. His Majesty was known to have a short attention span, and Shakespeare didn’t want to lose him.
Brachiator
I see that Plummer was an EGOT man, having won at least one Emmy, Oscar and Tony.
Or BEGOT if you include the British Academy Award for “Beginners.”
Brachiator
@geg6:
Interesting. This might the case with quite a few people.
TSOM, or even more strange, the TV comedy show “Hogan’s Heroes.”
cain
For me, Plummer in Delores Claiborne as the police detective – just fantastic – he managed to look quite menacing in that role – but also he was the clever one who wasn’t fooled at all by Delores. I really loved that movie.
Of course, I can see why Plummer wouldn’t appreciate the TSOM – I remember the one scene where he holds his mouth and giggles like a little girl. Which I thought it was kind of out of character for such a tough disciplinarian.
But in the end, the man managed to do so many different roles and just phenomenal in all of them. We lost a great actor. While most will remember him for TSOM – I think all of us can appreciate all the various other roles he played. Rest in peace, Christopher Plummer – you will be missed.
sab
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Best bet for understanding Macbeth is avoid Shakespeare entirely. He had to jump through hoops and crawl down drainpipes to make any sort of positive statement about the Stuarts/ Stewarts. By the way, their last name was actually MacAllen. They were Normans. Stewart/ steward was their job, which they did badly and disloyally, seeing as how they ended up kings instead of running the kings’ households.
cain
Do people really link her to Austria? I mean I can see that with Arnold – but she sounds like a perfectly British actress – I mean have they not seen Mary Poppins or Princess Diaries?
Old School
@Brachiator:
The “G” would require a Grammy. Christopher Plummer had a Grammy nomination, but not a win.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think that “Macbeth” is Shakespeare’s shortest play.
It also has wonderful language and imagery. I once listened to actors speaking the lines with Scottish accents. One scene, where Macduff learns of the murder of his family really stood out. Simple language to express a reaction to unspeakable horror and evil.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cain:
Best line goes to Kathy Bates, in a Maine accent that was good enough for me
zhena gogolia
Love him.
Has anyone mentioned Wind Across the Everglades? That’s where I fell in love with him.
I’m too lazy to read the whole thread first.
Ben Cisco
@Benw:
Agreed.
Chief Oshkosh
@Roger Moore: Wow, now that is neat!
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t see it mentioned. Check it out. Gorgeous Christopher Plummer in his youth, facing off against evil Burl Ives, and Gypsy Rose Lee is in there too. And it’s an eco-thriller (1958).
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052395/
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@cain: She hosted the PBS broadcast of the Vienna New Year concert for, I think decades. Yes, she’s thoroughly British but thanks to The Sound of Music she is linked to Austria in a weird way.
Nicole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh, interesting! I was taught in school that scholars think some of the play may be missing but I would much prefer this explanation.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Do I recall correctly that TSOM had an intermission? If so, I can’t picture a movie doing that today.
guachi
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I don’t think so. Though at 172 minutes it was certainly a candidate for one.
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
A lot of big films did back then, like Fiddler on the Roof and Lawrence of Arabia. TCM actually makes you wait while they play the original music that was played in the theater during the intermission (I’m not sure if they do that for TSOM, but definitely for Fiddler.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Looking through twitter and he had so many great performances, including portraying Mike Wallace in “The Insider” and Rudyard Kipling in “The Man Who Would Be King”
Peale
@zhena gogolia: I think Gandhi was the last movie I saw with an intermission. Now they make 4 hour monsters like Interstellar and make you regret ordering that large Diet Coke in act I.
Nicole
@Brachiator:
When we read it (10th grade), our teacher made us each memorize 50 lines from the soliloquies- our choice, except that we all had to include the “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” one. I had a lot of trouble with Shakespeare up until then (I had floundered through Romeo and Juliet the year before getting a C on the final essay, I think), and wasn’t thrilled with this assignment, but I dutifully plowed into the “If it were done when ’tis done” speech for homework. I was walking up and down the hallway in front of my room, repeating the lines, over and over, and I can still remember, it was just about the part about “against the murderer shut the door/not bear the knife myself” bit, and I had a literal epiphany- it was like a light had flipped on and I suddenly understood EVERYTHING. Every word. And then completely fell in love with Shakespeare.
She was a smart teacher, that Mrs. Church, what with making us memorize the lines and all. It was meant to be performed and watched and listened to, not read.
JPL
He was great in Knives Out, and for those who haven’t seen it watch online.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It was common then, but I don’t remember. I do remember Dr. Zhivago having an intermission.
catclub
@Brachiator: I am terrified now of the child catcher in Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. I wonder what it did when I saw it younger.
rikyrah
RIP??
Handsome man
catclub
@JPL: Pretty sure Gone with The Wind did. Also, there was some Battle of Britain movie that I would not be surprised had one.
geg6
@Brachiator:
I’m quite sure a lot of people can relate. My father and uncles were all veterans of WWII. None of them talked about it except jokes about shit on a shingle and such. It wasn’t until I was about 11 or 12 that I got seriously interested in history, especially WWII, and talked to my dad about it. He told me some things, but he was never in serious danger himself. He was in the Army Air Corps, part of a crew that ferried planes to England for D-Day. My uncles were another couple of long stories that I never heard from them but partly from my dad and partly from my cousins, their sons. As a child, no one ever talked about the war. Ever.
geg6
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I love, love, love The Man Who Would Be King.”
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Kathy Bates killed that role.. she was awesome. Probably one of the better Stephen King movies.
Another Scott
ObOpenThread – Reuters:
Not bad for ~ 16 days in office. More to come.
Cheers,
Scott.
opiejeanne
@sigaba: Star Crash!
For years I have tried to remember the name of the only movie I’ve ever walked out on. My 17 yo son agreed that we should leave, just to show you how bad the first 10 minutes were.
It was the second movie in a double feature, the first of which we both wanted to see. He scoured the newspaper every week for what to see on 1/2 price night (reward for a B on French weekly test, long story, teacher trying hard to flunk him).
Saw a lot of movies, including Passage to India. That was his choice one week.
geg6
@catclub:
I believe Gettysburg had an intermission. I seem to remember one.
Comrade Colette
@Almost Retired:
I saw TSOM several times as a kid but never noticed goats fucking. Or anyone fucking goats. They must have cut that scene for TV.
debbie
@sab:
If I could get them on broadcast tv, that’s all I’d be watching. Back in the days when there were a few NYC stations that ran movies practically non-stop, I watched them non-stop. Alas, PIX, WOR, etc., alas.
sab
@opiejeanne: I walked out of the first Lord of the Rings because my fiance was bored and disgusted.
Best choice ever. Married to that guy still for 18 years, and saw the rest on tv and underwhelmed.
But I admit it made or revived a number of good actors careers.
Brachiator
@Nicole:
There you go!
Also, some of the sonnets I most enjoy are the ones that I can imagine as little plays.
I didn’t really enjoy Shakespeare until college. In high school I had teachers who dutifully talked about Shakespeare being the greatest playwright, but they could never tell us or show us why.
Later I also ran into an idiot who insisted that Shakespeare existed to be read. Which is of course, why Shakespeare wrote and staged plays.
Orson Welles did very lively filmed versions of “Macbeth” and “Othello.” Some wonderful visuals and expressive language by the actors.
opiejeanne
@opiejeanne: Wait, ignore that. It was 1984 when he dragged me to see A Passage to India. I Can’t remember any other movie we saw that year, but I’m pretty sure Star Crash was the second feature of a double header that year. That theater sometimes played older movies for the second feature.
Geminid
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Back then a certain category of movies with intermissions were known in the industry as “Road Shows.” Laurence of Arabia and How the West was Won were two more.
Almost Retired
@Comrade Colette: That’s why you should catch these movies in theaters or on cable. Network TV cuts out the interesting stuff.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
According to the polls, I think, Biden is getting a good amount of support from Republican voters. That should count as bipartisanship.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@zhena gogolia: Not quite the same thing but my husband and I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on TCM recently and it came with an Overture and what would be an intermission in another movie but Kubrick called it something else. Both with music to get you into the mood of the movie (a bit cold but with fabulous visuals and a great light show at the end).
debbie
@Brachiator:
I’ve never been able to read Shakespeare. We had to read one play per semester in high school, and if it weren’t for my margin notes about what the teacher said, I’d have flunked every quiz and test.
At lunch time on rainy days, they used to run old b&w films of Shakespeare’s plays. All the greats (Olivier, Richardson, Gielgud, etc.) were in them, but the sound was so crappy (as in degraded), they were unwatchable.
But give me a good film production and I am hooked! I don’t know how they were received critically, but Brannaugh’s Hamlet and Othello, along with others like Macbeth, Titus, As You Like It, etc. etc., and I got the language, rhythm, all of it. Back in the earliest days of Fox television, they ran a two-part production of Midsummer’s Night Dream with Jon Lynch as Puck, among others, and it was awesome. I also seem to recall their running a production of Lear with Olivier.
sab
OT My late uncle’s cocker spaniel is such an orphan. We have five cats and used to have a dog. Cocker came into this managerie, after having been the only dog of an elderly couple that adored him.
Now he is just another critter. And an annoying one. He gets underfoot in the kitchen and expects to be fed Huh!?
It’s painful to watch his isolation, but I have 5 cats who also need love. He is an absolute sweetheart. I try. But will never meet the love he used to have.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: As Jen Psaki puts it when they ask her the same fucking things every day, it definitely counts as “unity” when she mentions the support from republicans in the polls.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Geminid: When I was in high school a friend and I went to a bargain matinee doubleheader of Gone With The Wind and How the West Was Won. I don’t remember the intermissions but I do know it was dark outside when we (finally) came out of the theatre. I had never seen either of the movies before so didn’t realize what I was getting into.
WaterGirl
@sab: I wonder if 5 or 10 minutes of petting and snuggling every day – just the two of you alone in a room with the door closed would help?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
In the old days most movie houses only had one screen. any film that had a running time nearly 2 1/2 hours needed to had a intermission to gave the establishment an opportunity to sell more snacks, which was and is a major revenue stream.
Today movie houses have multiple screens which allows them to diversify and not put all their eggs into one basket, allowing them to run a long movie without the need for a concession break.
Nicole
@debbie:
You needed a Mrs. Church to make you memorize and recite 50 lines of it. ;)
I’ve seen a lot of Shakespeare, and I think, in a good production, the language makes sense to the audience, even if they’re not particular fans of the Bard. In a bad one, it doesn’t. And you find the good productions in the most out-of-the-way places sometimes. I went to a way-the-hell-Off-B’way production of Hamlet that was so good, and handled the language so well that it made me discover that the 2nd half of the play is not nearly as well crafted as the first half (sorry, Billy S., sir, my opinion). ;) )
sab
Geminid
@Brachiator: I count that as a very potent kind of bipartisanship, because some Republican voters are beginning to separate from Republican office holders. And Biden and the Democratic Congressional majorities aren’t going out of their way to chase these voters, but are just doing what they promised they would do.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@WaterGirl:
I love her. I watch her every day. You can see her suppress her anger over the stoopid questions that waste her energy and insult her intelligence.
The stoopid, it burns.
debbie
@Nicole:
Good god, I had to memorize Portia’s something rains twice speech. Hell on earth!
I transferred into the school in 8th grade, and Shakespeare had been part of the curriculum since 6th grade, so I was always way behind.
But you’re right: a good production is magic!
sab
@WaterGirl: Absolutely it would. He is a great guy. Greatest great guy. Just amazing. But I am emotionally all done.
L85NJGT
Intermission was part of roadshow movie marketing in the fifties and sixties. They’d run limited engagements of tent pole movies. Usually on widescreen, in stereo, with reserved seating, etc. It supported premium pricing, at least for a while. Mike Todd (Liz Taylor’s 3rd) was a big producer of this type of fare.
Brachiator
@debbie:
PBS ran a series of all the Shakespeare plays some years ago. Some productions were good, others not so hot. My sister was visiting me from college and talked about how she didn’t like Shakespeare.
I told her not to be afraid to dislike Shakespeare. I had recorded the PBS Lear. I ran the first part of it and my sister was not impressed. Rightly so.
Then I told her that one way to get into Lear was to see it as a fairy tale. “Once upon a time there was a foolish king who gave away his kingdom.” Then I ran the first part of Olivier’s Lear.
My sister was captivated an when I stopped the video, she said, “Wait. What happens next?” I told her I had to step out, but she could watch it if she wanted.
She did and loved it.
It is not the best all time production, but the acting is great and the language spoken clearly and used as it should be to propel the story along.
debbie
@Brachiator:
The fairy tale of Midsummer Night’s Dream totally hooked me!
You’re right about introductions. The first play I ever had to read was Merchant of Venice. I still can’t figure why that was deemed appropriate for 8th grade.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
I really enjoy some of the versions that re-set the plays in modern settings, like Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet or the Ian McKellen version of Richard III. They keep the language intact but manage to show how the themes of the plays are much more universal than their original setting. Similarly, I love Kurosawa’s interpretation of MacBeth in Throne of Blood (though he changed the ending).
Comrade Colette
@debbie: We started with Julius Caesar in the 6th grade. I have no idea what the hell they were thinking; at least it didn’t ruin my lifelong love of Shakespeare. My son’s school did JC in 8th grade, though, and he loved it.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
Agreed. Ethan Hawk’s Hamlet comes to mind.
Nicole
@debbie:
Yeah, I have to grant you, Macbeth’s stuff is a lot more fun to recite. More stabby stabby.
Though the same teacher took us on a field trip to see The Merchant of Venice (even though we weren’t reading it) in DC and Kelly McGillis played Portia. That’s a good way to see that play. :)
Nicole
@debbie:
Senior year of HS we read King Lear and our AP teacher arranged for us all to have dinner at one of our classmates’ houses and watch that production on VHS. I still remember seeing her roll to her side when Lear carries out the dead Cordelia so that we wouldn’t all see our English teacher cry.
NotMax
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Few remember Patrick Stewart (speaking with a Scottish accent*) was in Mel Brooks’ short-lived TV romp, When Things Were Rotten.
*An inside joke with the cast and crew, as Sean Connery wanted to play the role but Brooks couldn’t afford his askng price.
debbie
@Nicole:
Ha! Our (male) English teacher took us (41 girls) to see Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. Imagine listening to all that bawling!
WaterGirl
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I love her, too.
I can’t be certain, but I think she flashes a smile when she gets a question that would annoy me.
They just keep asking the same stuff. Figure it out. She’s not gonna negotiate from the podium. She’s not going to give a firm deadline for anything she hasn’t already announced. Do they think she’s stupid or bad at her job?
is our children learning?Is our media learning? I would say “not yet”.WaterGirl
@sab: You can’t give what you don’t have. ?♀️
Miss Bianca
@NotMax:
OMG, really? I *loved* that show when I was a kid! I wonder if it’s out there on DVD anywhere?
Geminid
@debbie: I saw a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the early 1970s. Carmen de Lavallade played Titania, and her husband, Geoffrey Holder, played Oberon. Wow!
columbusqueen
@sab: what! My brother & I were completely absorbed, & we both went home to reread Fellowship until 3 am.
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
They’re still programmed to deal with Kayleigh McInaney, who was indeed both stupid and bad at her job.
No name
@sab: would you consider rehoming him? It’s sometimes the best option. He deserves the love and attention and you don’t deserve to feel bad if you can’t give that to him.
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
Memory mix-up. Stewart was in Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men in Tights movie. (Brooks is never one to throw away a concept.)
J R in WV
One of the worst thing about aging (I’m now 70m wife is 71) is the death of so many people that you love personally, cousins, parents, aunts and uncles, etc, AND the famous people you grew up with.
Like Mr Christopher Plummer, who I have seen in movies and on TV my whole life.
Like all the other great stars of Screen and Stage and Rock and Roll and classical music who have been dying lately. But I guess I just have to go along with it, it’s been going on all of history and won’t stop just because I’m upset with the tide of history.
RIP, Christopher… we won’t forget ya!
Bex
@Almost Retired: I remember drinking new wine in Salzburg one evening and singing “Edelweiss” about fifty times with all the Austrians in the bar. It might as well be the national anthem.
arrieve
Christopher Plummer played Iago to James Earl Jones’s Othello on Broadway many years ago. He was just mesmerizing — one of the best performances I ever saw. And a long way from Captain von Trapp. He could really do everything.
mrmobi
@Lawrence Schuman: That Klingon was great, as was his turn as a prosecutor in the Stephen King movie, “Dolores Claiborne.” A wonderful actor, RIP.
Inspectrix
On Shakespeare… I have to recommend the Canadian series Slings and Arrows. Someday I’d love to to a book club, rewatch discussion.
On Sound of Music, I never really took to it as a kid but now really enjoy it with my own kids. The musical holds a special place in my heart now as the last live theater I saw before the pandemic hit. My in laws bought the grandkids matching ugly Christmas finery for the occasion. We had a wonderful meal afterward where the waiter joked with the kids and gave the kids all goofy pseudonyms. It was perfect and aim sure I took it all for granted at the time.
Starboard Tack
@WaterGirl:
They’ve got to protect their phony balony jobs. A stupid question at least gets them noticed.