Beyond Rivalry - media_film_tv_radio

Cavalcade of Christmas Extravaganza

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:00:00 -0500

Welcome to the festival of Christmas goodness!

The Astonishing BetaMax Christmas: Click on the TV Guide to see the bazillion Christmas ads, Christmas shows, Christmas cartoons from days of yore, including ads by Folgers, Nyquil, McDonald's, Atari, Kodak, Tesco, Cabbage Patch kids, plus clips from Perfect Strangers, Teddy Ruxpin, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, the Muppets, One to Grow On, Will Vinton's Claymation, the annual CBS Christmas card, a Hall and Oates 'Jingle Bell Rock' video, some Max Headroom, ETC! Click the remote's channel buttons to change channels, and click on the TV Guide to see what's coming up in the next hour and a half or so.

If nostalgia from the 1970s and '80s isn't nostalgic enough for you, listen to Voices of Christmas Past, humdingers from 1898-1922, including Santa Claus Hides in the Phonograph, 'And the Glory of the Lord' from the Messiah, Christmas Morning at Clancey's, Uncle Josh Plays Santa Claus, Angels from the Realms of Glory, and 18 more!

Santas Working Overtime is a chaotic link dump of all things Xmas, from recipes and crafts to videos, audio clips, lists, quizzes, reviews, podcasts and mix tapes, charity links, classical music, Christmas customs, cartoons, and on and on. For instance: John…

Toujours L'amour, 1939 style

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:31:00 -0500

Just watched Another Thin Man, the third in the Nick and Nora Charles series starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. Noticed that the detective, Lieutenant Guild, says to Nick, when they're in Linda Mills' apartment, "Toujours l'amour, toujours" (pronouncing the 's' in toujours). Marjorie Main, who plays the landlady, Mrs. Dolley, in the film, walks into the room right after that.

It reminded me of one of my favourite films, The Women, in which Marjorie Main also has a sort of landlady role (as Lucy, who runs the ranch), and in which the much-divorced character of the Countess de Lave (Mary Boland) repeats her catchphrase, "L'amour! Toujours L'amour!"

Both films came out in 1939.

Is the "toujours l'amour" theme coincidence, I wondered, or perhaps something in the air at the time? I checked IMDB and found that the two films share a writer between them: Anita Loos, who wrote the screenplay for The Women from Clare Boothe Luce's play, and who was an uncredited writer on Another Thin Man, along with credited writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. Aha!

By the way, Virginia Grey, Muriel Hutchinson, Ruth Hussey and Nell Craig appear in both films, too, all in minor roles in…

Poirot for Illness

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:59:00 -0500

"It occurs to me now, for the first time, that film critics are the only people in the world who go to the cinema when they're not feeling well. Normal people slump in front of the telly and watch wall-to-wall Poirots until their eyes start to bleed. But the deadline of deadlines was looming. Captain Hastings was beginning to get on my nerves and the first blockbuster of the summer was in town. There was nothing else for it."

-- Marcus Berkmann, film critic, in The Oldie, July 2008.

Recent Reading

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:55:00 -0500

Woman killed by husband's coffin (11 Nov.)

God's Facebook Wall (12 Nov.)

Apparent 6th severed foot found in British Columbia (12 Nov)

Two Dead in Argument Over 'Bama-LSU Game (10 Nov.)

The Essential 007: A Recap of all 22 Bond Movies (13 Nov.)

Unregulated Credit Default Swaps Led to Weakness (31 Oct.)

Exxon Mobil: Biggest profit in history (30 Oct.)

The age when children begin attempting to appear racially colour-blind (27 Oct)

The Quest for the Perfect Morning Routine: The first in a series on lifehacking, at Slate (12 Nov): "The advice here is not my own, but I have clicked on it."

When Alzheimer's Hits at 40 in the WSJ (14 Nov.)

and

"I don't remember a whole lot about that period; I appear to have bought a couple of truly depressing sweaters, the kind you only wear when all you really want is to curl up under the bed for several years..." (The Likeness, p. 47, Tana French)

(Photo: Recent Drinking: Ironstone Cabernet Franc 2004)

You Can't Be Judgmental (And Yet)

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:40:00 -0500

I've watched most of season 5 via Hulu on my laptop. "Lucky Thirteen" (5x05) -- genius show. "Joy" -- again the realisation that House says what most people are really thinking but automatically censor because it's cruel and would cause conflict to say aloud (particularly, in this episode, about Cuddy becoming a mom; what he says is truly cringe-worthy -- and yet it's part of what was in my thoughts, too).

A few bits:

Wilson to House: "I'm leaving."
House: "What? Are you going to take another two months. Boy, you're really milking this bereavement thing, aren't you? [Pause] I mean good for you. Take all the time you need."

(Dying Changes Everything, 5x01)

House to Cuddy: "You have to stop Wilson from committing career malpractice."
Cuddy: "Talk to him."
House: "I already talked to him. Twice."
Cuddy: "Mocking him and insulting him --- let's see --- yes, technically those are categories of conversation.... Talk to him. Deal with his grief. Talk to him about what he's going through."
House: "That's a brilliant idea. I'll take him out for a beer. That'll make up for the fact that Amber's in a pine box and that there's randomness and chaos in the…

U.S. Economic Timeline

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 05:42:00 -0400

U.S. Economic Timeline: All on one sheet, which Good magazine is distributing through Starbucks stores. Brief review of GDP, the national debt and the national deficit, business cycles (booms and busts), recession - stagflation - inflation, etc.

What's A Stroke Feel Like?

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:38:00 -0400

On Oprah today, regular guest and cardiologist Dr. Mehmet Oz and neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor will be talking about what a stroke feels like and what's happening in your brain when you have a stroke. Taylor's book about her stroke is My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey (2008). You can watch her TED talk about her stroke online.

Dr. Taylor offers a few exercises to help us make the choice to be peaceful and joyful. Here are two:

>> Pay attention to the energy that other people bring to you. Realize that you can observe other people and interact with them without engaging with their energy. Write about a time when someone else's energy affected you in a negative way. Consider how different the situation might have turned out if you had chosen to observe rather than be engaged and swept away by their energy. How might you approach the exact same situation in the future?

>> Brain circuits are very predictable and consistent entities. The more time you spend thinking a thought, then the stronger that circuit becomes and the less outside energy it takes for that circuit to run. As a result, for many of…

Glamour: Mysterious, Translucent, Transcendent, Idealised

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:50:00 -0400

Watch Virginia Postrel's 2004 TED talk on Glamour. At first it seems there's not much here, but by midway, I was having to pause and backtrack to get it all, words and images.

I love glamour, particularly in its architectural and photographic forms. I find the Poirot series with David Suchet extremely glamourous -- the visuals, the voices, the music, the movements, the styling, the sensibility. Postrel says that glamour is about being transported from the real world to an idealised place, as through Art Deco streamlining. Trains, planes, and cars can be very glamourous, for this reason, as can arches, spiral or curved staircases, and other shapes that merely hint at something beyond. Current movie stars and celebrities completely lack glamour for me, perhaps because black-and-white seems so much more glamourous than colour; Postrel says that glamour is partly about editing out the 'grubby details,' at which b&w is so adept, and colour not so much.

Some elements and 'locations' of glamour that Postrel mentions in this 15-minute talk are mystery; grace; someone like us but at the same time removed; evoking a perfect world; transcendence, transcending the everyday; concealing and revealing at the same time; translucence -- inviting us…

Overheard on Reality TV

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:20:00 -0400

on Jon and Kate Plus 8:

Jon: "Who tore the pages out of the Bible? .... Nice. ... That can't be good."

Books about Hurricanes

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 05:20:00 -0400

Who knew that NOAA has a list of fictional books, plays, and movies that have been written involving tropical cyclones and hurricanes? I found out accidentally today, looking for the title of a mystery, written decades ago, set in Palm Beach featuring a nurse and tycoon! (Haven't found it yet.) The list of about 65 works is chronological and starts with Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611), ends with Hurricane: a novel (2008) by Terry Trueman, about Hurricane Mitch in the Honduras.