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Movie Moments: #57

Take the Money and Run (1969)

Comment:

I am not a Woody Allen fan and I don’t like most of his films.  Take the Money and Run is one of the ones that I do like and it is both one of his earliest and one of his funniest.  The prison break, the chain gang “cousins”, the bank heist and his “gub”, singing “Gonna see Miss Liza…”, they’re all great comedic moments. 

Synopsis:

The first “mockumentary”, the first of Allen’s films to be directed solely by him and the first to be written, directed and acted by him, it chronicles Virgil Starkwell’s childhood and his becoming a criminal.

Quote:

Bank Teller #1: Does this look like "gub" or "gun"?

Bank Teller #2: Gun. See? But what does "abt" mean?

Virgil: It's "act". A-C-T. Act natural. Please put fifty thousand dollars into this bag and act natural.

Bank Teller #1: Oh, I see. This is a holdup?

Trivia:

One hundred San Quentin prisoners were paid a small fee to work on the film during the prison sequences. The regular cast and crew were stamped each day with a special ink that glowed under ultra-violet light so the guards could tell who was allowed to leave the prison grounds at the end of the day.

History: Le Mans Endurance Race, 1955

Scottish racing driver Allan McNish and nearby photographers were lucky to escape death when his car crashed into a barrier at the LeMans 24 hour race. McNish’s Audi R18 collided with a slower Ferrari GT, driven by Frenchman Anthony Beltoise, careered across a gravel trap and smashed into the barrier.  Mcnish, a two time winner of the race, crashed in the first hour.

-        News report

See the crash at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-cv0Izr11s

  

Anyone who watched the news on this Queen’s Birthday long weekend would have seen film of the above accident and, like me,  wondered how it was that some of the nearby photographers escaped injury. 

It brought to mind an accident at the Le Mans 24 hour race some 56 years earlier, in 1955, when a driver and spectators were not so lucky.  It remains the worst accident in racing history in terms of fatalities.

Movie Moments: #56

The Queen (2006)

Comment:

Helen Mirren deservedly won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the movie The Queen.  It lost the Best Pic gong to The Departed but imho should have won that award as well.  A superbly acted, behind the scenes look at the Royal Family and its failure to modernise in accordance with the times and the people.

Synopsis:

The tagline for the movie was “Tradition prepared her.  Change will define her.”  The film looks at the differing reactions to the death of Lady Diana in 1997.  The Royal Family follows aloof tradition, seen by a grieving public as cold indifference.  Prime Minister Tony Blair acts as a link between the two and tries to convince the Monarchy of its need to change tradition and respond.

Quote:

Alastair Campbell:: They, er, sent a copy of the Queen's speech. Might want to scrape the frost off it first...  Oh, I phoned them with a couple of suggestions, to make it sound like it came from a human being.
Toney Blair:  Yeah, all right, Alastair.

Alastair Campbell: Well, at least the old bat's finally agreed to visit Diana's coffin.

Tony Blair: You know, when you get it wrong, you really get it wrong! That woman has given her whole life in service to her people. Fifty years doing a job SHE never wanted! A job she watched kill her father. She's executed it with honor, dignity, and, as far as I can tell, without a single blemish, and now we're all baying for her blood! All because she's struggling to lead the world in mourning for someone who... who threw everything she offered back in her face. And who, for the last few years, seemed committed 24/7 to destroying everything she holds most dear!

Trivia:

• The film shows Alastair Campbell coining the term 'the People's Princess', when in reality it was Tony Blair who came up with it.
• The writer Peter Morgan says that Helen Mirren’s portrayal of the Queen was so convincing that, by the end of production, crew members who had been accustomed to slouching or relaxing when they addressed her, were standing straight up and respectfully folding their hands behind their backs.

Electrocuting an elephant

Topsy the Elephant

The recent movie Water for Elephants tells the story of a veterinary student who abandons his studies after his parents are killed and joins a travelling circus as their vet.  The film is based on a 2007 book by Sara Gruen, who has cited a Coney Island elephant, Topsy, as part of the inspiration for the fictional circus elephant Rosie. 

Topsy was born in about 1875 and was a domesticated elephant with the Forepaugh Circus at Coney Island’s Luna Park.  Over a period of 3 years she killed three men, including an abusive trainer who thought it was funny to feed her a lit cigarette. Topsy was deemed a threat to safety and was to be put to death by hanging.  The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals stepped in and said no way.  This left the owners in a quandary as to how to do the deed.

Movie Moments: #55

DodgeBall (2004)

Comment:

Another movie that critics may hate but which is a fun watch.  A spin on the ‘win the comp to save the house’ genre, it provides some quite funny moments and a memorable bad guy by Ben Stiller.  And with Lance Armstrong.  And Chuck Norris. 

Synopsis:

Peter LaFleur, the owner of Average Joe’s gym, is about to lose his gym to the bank.  White Goodman (boo, hiss) is the nasty owner of Globo-Gym, determined to send him broke and shut him down.  LaFleur enters a team in the Dodgeball comp to win the prize to save his business.

Quote:

Patches O'Houlihan: If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.

Justin: What?

[Patches throws a wrench and hits Justin in the face]

Trivia:

In the US, the film is promoted with the tagline "Grab life by the ball". In foreign markets such as the UK and Australia, this is changed to the more risqué "Grab life by the balls".

Funny Friday

Today, some Jewish humour. . .

A Jewish grandmother is watching her grandchild playing on the beach when a huge wave comes and takes him out to sea. She pleads, "Please God, save my only grandson. I beg of you, bring him back." And a big wave comes and washes the boy back onto the beach, good as new. She looks up to Heaven and says: "He had a hat!"

Caution:  Risque language -

It’s the postman’s last day before retiring.  When he gets to Mrs Cohen’s house she opens the door, asks him to come inside and takes him to the kitchen where she gives him a bowl of chicken soup.  When he has finished the soup she takes him upstairs, where she proceeds to make love to him.  Afterwards she gives him a 5 dollar bill. The postman is confused and says “Mrs Cohen, you have given me chicken soup, made love to me and now you give me a five dollar note.  I’m puzzled.”  She replies: "Ahhh,  this morning I told my husband that this was your last day and I asked what we should give you.  He said ‘Fuck him, give him five dollars,’ but the soup was my idea.”

Movie Moments: #54

The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

Comment:

One of the better PP films, with the classic Cato attack scenes and the classic It’s not my dog! line. 

Synopsis:

Too complex and too much happening to summarise in a few lines.  Suffice to say that Clouseau has now driven Inspector Dreyfus around the twist to the point where Dreyfus spends the movie trying to kill him.

Quote:

Clouseau:: Does your dog bite?

Hotel Clerk:: No.

Clouseau:  [bowing down to pet the dog] Nice doggie.

[Dog barks and bites Clouseau in the hand]

Clouseau:: I thought you said your dog did not bite!

Hotel Clerk::  That is not my dog.

Trivia:

The Pink Panther was a large diamond featured in the first two Clouseau movies, The Pink Panther (1963) and The Return of the Pink Panther.  Because the Pink Panther image was so strongly associated with Inspector Clouseau and with the cartoon pink panther in the opening credits, all future films had the words Pink Panther in the title and no longer mentioned the gem.

Quote: Ronald Reagan

Early on in his presidency, President Ronald Reagan came out of his room with a sidearm attached to his hip. The agent in charge said "Why the pistol Mr. President?" Ronald Reagan reportedly replied "In case you boys can't get the job done, I can help."   It is also reported that it was common for Reagan to carry a pistol.

Movie Moments: #53

The Warriors (1979)

Comment:

A cult classic that puts the “Behind enemy lines trying to get home” genre in a different setting.  “Waaaaariors, come out to play-aaay . . . “  

Synopsis:

Cyrus, the leader of a NY gang called the Gramnercy Riffs, calls a meeting of all NY gangs, each to send 9 unarmed reps with guaranteed safe conduct.  At the meeting, Cyrus is shot and killed, with the Warriors blamed.  The movie follows their attempt to get back to the safety of their home base, Coney Island, whilst pursued by every gang in NY.

Quote:

(To a gang member threatening him with a baseball bat)

Ajax:  I'll shove that bat up your ass and turn you into a popsicle.

Trivia:

The Homicides were a real Coney Island gang, and they didn't approve of fictional gangs wearing colours on their turf. The wardrobe department made sure nobody walked off location wearing The Warriors colours. The actors were safe during the cemetery scene in Brooklyn because of a fence surrounding it. Crew members were sent death threats because local gangs weren't cast. Thousands of dollars worth of equipment wase damaged when one gang tore through the set during a lunch break. The Warriors sign painted on the bath house for one of the photos was painted over a real gang's tag. The gang didn't take lightly to this, so the producers paid them to be in the film.

Strange Houses: Ipswich

There is some dispute whether Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to climb Everest or whether it was George Mallory, who disappeared on Everest in n1924 and whose remains were found a fe hundred metres from the summit in 1999.  Was he going up or coming down.  But that is a Bytes for another day.  The point of mentioning George Mallory is that when asked why he wanted to climb Everest, he reportedly answered “Because it’s there.”

Years later, in 1983 in another part of the world, Ipswich architect Graham Birchall was working on a thesis for an architecture degree.  His thesis was the design of a house, which he also subsequently commenced constructing. I say “commenced” because even today the house, made of 11 domes and 16 rooms, is not finished.  Birchall says that it never will be.  Asked why he designed a house that looks like a mass of bubbles, he has replied “To see if I could.”

The house has several spa bath ensuites, a fireplace which emits multi-coloured smoke, two kitchens, an in-house waterfall that acts as an air-conditioning unit, a multi-level cinema and a driving range on the back porch that overlooks the Bremer River.  The lights, security cameras, even the front gate, can be operated through Birchall’s mobile phone.

And like the Energizer bunny, Birchall just keeps on going.  “I just think of unique ideas for the house when I’m going to sleep and then I set out to try and make them work. It can take a while but it’s always do-able.”

Movie Moments: #52

The Eiger Sanction (1975)

Comment:

Not one of Clint Eastwood’s best but still entertaining with some good climbing scenes.  Ignore the cheesy bits (see synopsis below) and stay with it as an action flick.

Synopsis:

Dr Jonathan Hemlock, a mountaineer and professor of art, is also a retired government assassin.  He is blackmailed by Dragon, an albino ex-Nazi in charge of black ops, into coming out of retirement and killing (“sanction”) a target who is a member of a coming Eiger climb. Hemlock joins the team and the climb but must not only kill his quarry, he must also find out which one it is

Quote:
(Ben Bowman, played by George Kennedy, is the climb manager).
Woman Journalist: Tell me, Mr. Bowman, in your opinion do these men climb to prove their manhood, or is it more a matter of compensating for inferiority feelings?
Ben Bowman: Lady, why don't you go get yourself screwed. It would do you a lot of good.

Trivia:
Clint Eastwood did all of his own stunts, including the scene where he cuts his safety line over a drop of at least 300 metres. The only stunt he did not perform was an 800 metre drop, for which a dummy was used.

Quote: Lemony Snicket

"It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things."

-       Lemony Snicket

(Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid)

Lemony Snicket is the legal pen name of American novelist Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970). Snicket is the author of several children's books, serving as the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events (his best-known work) and appearing as a character within the series. Because of this, Lemony Snicket is both a fictional character and a real person. As a character, Snicket is a harried, troubled writer and researcher falsely accused of felonies and continuously hunted by the police and his enemies, the  fire-starting side of the secret organisation Volunteer Fire Department.

Movie Moments: #51

Charlie & Boots (2009)

Comment:

If you ate a restaurant meal or a Sunday roast every day, you would eventually crave a hamburger or a Chiko Roll.  That’s why it is fun to also watch movies that are enjoyable, notwithstanding that they are panned by the critics and haven’t been nominated for Oscars.  Charlie and Boots us such a movie.  I’m not a great Paul Hogan fan but found this film engaging and watchable.

Synopsis:

Upon the death of his wife, Victorian farmer Charlie  goes into a deep depression.  His son Boots decides to make him honour a childhood promise to go fishing off the most northern point of Australia, Cape York.  From there on its an Oz road movie.

Trivia:

Watch the credits for the scene where Charlie and Boots are driving across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  Paul Hogan worked as a painter on the bridge prior to making it as an actor/comedian.

And now for something completely different . . .

 

I was comfortably ensconced in my favourite chair in front of the Teev, watching The Amazing Race on Sunday morning when the familiar sound of a Bing Lee commercial came on. . . “I like Bing Lee, I like Bing Lee . . .”

See an example at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-b3pufEcDo

The lyrics to the ad at the above link are:

I like Bing Lee

I like Bing Lee

Their prices are very low, you see

From here to China

It’s Bing Lee for me.

What younger generations may not realise is that the original of the above words and music was a Monty Python 1980 song called “I Like Chinese”, a song that would today be regarded as non PC.

Hear it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH2P_pVze6s

Movie Moments: #50

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983)

Comment:

My confession:  whenever I hear the words “Let us praise God” I immediately recall the scene in this movie that commences with those words.  Then, instead of praising God, I amsmiling and looking like an idiot.  This movie has so many movie moments:  the delivery room with the machine that goes bing, Every Sperm is Scared, the sex education class with Carter and his more interesting ocarina, Mr Creosote and the final wafer thin mint, the fatal mousse (“It’s a Mr Death, dear.  He’s here about the reaping.”), the birthday in the trenches  . . . all classics.  A fitting as the last Monty Python film.

Synopsis:

A collection of sketches loosely connected by a theme of the various stages of life from birth to death.

Quote:

Chaplain: Let us praise God. O Lord...

Congregation: O Lord...

Chaplain:...Ooh, You are so big...

Congregation: ...ooh, You are so big...

Chaplain::  ...So absolutely huge. Congregation: ...So absolutely huge.

Chaplain::  Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.

Congregation: Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.

Chaplain: Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying, and...

Congregation: And barefaced flattery.

Chaplain: But You are so strong and, well, just so super.

Congregation: Fantastic.

Chaplain: Amen.

Congregation: Amen.

Trivia:

During an interview to promote the film when it was first released, one of the members of the team said the meaning of life concept was the only way they could think of to tie together a lot of unrelated sketch material.

Dr Death and Nuremburg

Dr Death Dies

Jack Kevorkian, the man known as 'Dr Death' for helping more than 100 people end their lives through assisted suicide, died early on Friday after a short illness.

-        News Report, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 June 2011

The above announcement and a recollection of some earlier reading about  Jack Kevorkian raised a conundrum in my mind, which I will come to later.

Jacob “Jack” Kevorkian (1928 – 2011) was born in the US of Armenian parents.  He became a doctor in 1952 and became a physician consultant in death counseling in 1987.  From 1990 he became involved in public assisted suicides and he was tried a number of times for murder.  Convictions were not secured in that Kevorkian, who maintained that “dying is not a crime”, did not actually cause the death.  Instead, he provided  patients a means of suicide - a machine he called a Thanatron (death machine) and another called a Mercitron (mercy machine) – which delivered fatal doses of drugs when activated by the patient. 

Movie Moments: #49

A Few Good Men (1992)

Comment:

What better film to illustrate the above comments.

 

Synopsis:

Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee defends two Marines, Privates Dawson  and Downey, charged with the murder of another Marine, Private Willie Santiago, at Guatanomo Bay.   Did the Marine die during a “Code Red”, a form of violent illegal punishment, and was the Code Red ordered by Colonel Nathan R Jessep, the base commander?

 

Quotes:

Downey:: What did we do wrong? We did nothing wrong.

Dawson:: Yeah, we did. We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn't fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willie.

 

Trivia:

The original play was inspired by an actual Code Red at Guantanamo Bay. Lance Corporal David Cox and 9 other enlisted men tied up a fellow Marine and severely beat him, for snitching to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Cox was acquitted and later Honourably Discharged. In 1994, David Cox mysteriously vanished, and his bullet-riddled body was found three months later. His murder remains unsolved.

 

Unicorns, Teapots, Dragons and Noodly Appendages

The Invisible Pink Unicorn is a rhetorical illustration to show the fallacy that something must exist because its existence can’t be disproved.  It is commonly used in the context of God and atheism, to counter the argument that runs “God exists, prove to me that He doesn’t.”  The response is “I can’t disprove the existence of God.  I likewise can;t disprove the existence of invisible pink unicorns.  Therefore they must also exist.”  The fallacy comes from trying to prove a negative, for example:  “Prove to me that there is no Santa Claus.”

The concept of the IPU started in about 1990 in internet discussions, was popularised by college students and led to the development of a spoof religion based on numerous invisible pink unicorns. 

"Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them."

-           Steve Eley

Movie Moments: #48

The Cheap Detective (1978)

Comment:

Yesterday I mentioned Neil Simon’s Murder by Death.  That movie was followed up by The Cheap Detective, a very funny detective flick that parodies a selection of Humphrey Bogart movies including The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep and Casablanca, as well as Chinatown, To Have and Have Not and a Streetcar Named Desire.  Another movie to beg, borrow or steal, or hire if you can find it, or buy on Amazon. 

Synopsis:

Peter Falk plays Lou Peckinpaugh, a detective in the Humphrey Bogart mould who is suspected of murdering his partner at the instigation of his partner’s wife, with whom he was having an affair.  At the same time as he tries to stay ahead of the cops and find out who killed his partner, he meets up with various characters in various situations, including John Houseman as Jasper Blubber, parodying Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon.

Quote:

Jasper Blubber:  You drink, of course?
Lou Peckinpaugh:  Why not?

(Blubber calls out to the Asian waiter).
Jasper Blubber: One gin sling!
Lou Peckinpaugh:  I'd rather have a brandy.
Jasper Blubber: Won Jin Sling is the waiter. One brandy, Won Jin Sling.

(The waiter brings the drink).

Lou Peckinpaugh:  This is a gin sling!
Jasper Blubber: It is? I was wrong - the waiter's name is Brandy.

Trivia:

I love the way that the corpses die standing up.

Funny Friday

In Greek mythology, King Laius of Thebes and his wife Jocasta were warned by the Delphic Oracle that their future  son would kill Laius and marry Jocasta. When Jocasta had a son, Laius left him to die on a mountain side. A shepherd found the child and brought him to his king, King Polybius of Corinth. Polybus raised the child as his own, naming him Oedipus, which means "swollen-foot".   I kid you not.

 

When Oedipus reached adulthood, he too consulted the Oracle of Delphi to find out about his future. The Oracle told him the same prophecy that had been told to his Laius.  Believing that Polybus was his real father, Oedipus went to Thebes so as to be away from Polybius.  On his way he met up with pilgrims on their way to Delphi. Oedipus asked them to move out of his way, but they would not yield. He killed all of them, not knowing that their leader was his real father, Laius.

Movie Moments: #47

 

Murder by Death (1976)

Comment:

A very funny Neil Simon movie with a great cast that spoofs not only various fictional detectives but also the Agatha Christie style of whodunit where characters keep getting murdered, one by one.  If you ever get your hands on a copy, don’t let people borrow it, you won’t get it back,

Synopsis:

A mysterious Lionel Twain invites various famous detectives to his country mansion and challenges them to solve a murder that will take place at midnight.  The detectives themselves started getting killed and various personal histories are revealed.

Quote:

Jessica Marbles:: I smell gas!

Miss Withers: I can't help it, I'm old.

Jessica Marbles: No, not that kind of gas. The kind that kills!

Miss Withers: Well, sometimes my gas . . .

Trivia:

All of the detectives in the film are parodies of the work of three authors: Dashiell Hammett, whose Nick Charles and Sam Spade were the basis for Dick Charleston and Sam Diamond, respectively; Agatha Christie, whose Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple inspired Milo Perrier and Miss Marbles; Earl Derr Biggers’ Charlie Chan was the basis for Inspector Sidney Wang and his son.