Fifty years ago.......................

At the cinema........Gene Wilder in The Adventures of 

                                Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother

 

Fifty years ago........................

At the cinema...Clint Eastwood in The Eiger Sanction

 

Fifty years ago.....................

At the cinema........Monty Python and the Holy Grail

 

Fifty years ago.........................

At the cinema............Sean Connery and Michael Caine:                  The Man Who Would Be King

 

Fifty years ago............................

 

..........................at the Cinema in 1975:

Jaws

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Shampoo

Dog Day Afternoon

The Return of the Pink Panther

Three Days of the Condor

Funny Lady

The Other Side of the Mountain

Tommy

The Apple Dumpling Gang

Rollerball

I'll tell you what's fair.....................

Animal House................................Deltas on Trial

 

     courtesy of

Fifty years ago.................................

At the cinema.....................The Godfather Part II

 

Fifty years ago................................

At the cinema..........................Blazing Saddles

 

Remember......................

Opening cemetery scene from Saving Private Ryan

 

Mel Brooks explaining much................

 

While checking in with.............

...........................friend Greg at Sippican Cottage, this beauty was found:

Everyone in Hollywood takes themselves very, very seriously at this point, but I think the movies as a true art form is in the rear-view mirror. Exactly how many comic book movies can you watch? But for a while, with everyone pulling in the same direction, Hollywood produced some astonishing stuff. And there’s really no way to listen to Ned Beatty’s speech in Paddy Chayefsky’s Network and come away with anything less than astonishment. 

 Some people nail it. And nail it to the church door, too. 

 Which led me to find Beatty's monologue. Enjoy.

 

The script is here:

Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it!! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!
You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.
It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!
Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?
You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.
And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
Beale: But why me?
Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

Beale: I have seen the face of God.

Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

Let the Christmas season...........................

 ...................................officially begin.

On this day in 1920...............

.....................The Mark of Zorro, with Douglas Fairbanks as our hero, was released in New York.

 

I see what you did there........................

Everyone says the new speaker, Mike Johnson, has no experience, but that claim just makes me smile. If our current condition is the result of “experienced” politicians, how could “inexperienced” politicians be any worse? Besides, I thought this whole “self-government” thing meant ordinary Americans could participate fully in the exercise of state power. At this point, any of the Johnsons of Rockridge would do, since nearly all House members are fluent speakers of authentic Beltway jibberish.

-Steven Hayward, from here

 

The uncancelable......................

more fun here

The journey is the point.....................

 Dorothy had the slippers all along.  The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion already possessed everything they needed to find happiness.  And the wizard didn't actually need a broomstick.  So why bother going on this perilous journey?

     The quest for the broomstick was a MacGuffin, of course, an illogical centerpiece that moved the story forward.  Illogical, and yet, The Wizard of Oz, eighty years later, remains one of the most remembered and beloved movies ever made.

     Corporate profits aren't at the center of Dorothy's journey in the Wizard of Oz.  Neither is selfish gain.

     The movie resonates with us because it's about connection and possibility.  It captures our desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to help others when, perhaps, there's not much in it for us.

-Seth Godin, as excerpted from The Song of Significance

Fifty years ago.......................

At the movies..................................American Graffiti

 

God love............................

 ...................................Michael Caine.

Is this a great country, or what...........?

........................................Or, as my young son used to say, "this cracks my head up."

I can only afford one rebel on this ship...

At the movies.....................Master and Commander

 

The movie, twenty years later, is apparently making an intertunnel comeback.