MOVIE COMMENT CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Phantom Lord]

I watched Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters earlier. What a hilarious film that was. The funniest part I thought was when Hansel in the later part of the first act gets all wobbly and he has to give himself a giant shot of Insulin because of all the candy the witch forced him to eat when he was locked up in the gingerbread house.

 

I liked how he needed to do this to survive, yet they dropped it for a good part of the movie allowing us the viewer to assume that he went a day or two with out taking a shot. But come crunch time at the end, what does he need? A fucking shot.

 

Edward the troll killing the Sheriff and his men had me rolling. I'm still amazed this movie got made and Jeremy Renner said yes to it. It's like an Asylum movie only with an actual budget.

[Isaacduke]

I watched Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters earlier. I'm still amazed this movie got made and Jeremy Renner said yes to it. It's like an Asylum movie only with an actual budget.

It sat on the shelf for something like 2 years, and after MI:4, the studio thought they could finally open it with Renner's name.Even so, they released it the first weekend of January, and in 3-D to hedge their bet.

[The Unholy Dragon]

Searching for a Friend for the End of the World is fucking depressing. I'd rather watch the end of The Mist on a loop before I watch Searching again.

 

Awesome movie. I didn't really find it that depressing, honestly though I'll admit I got a bit dusty eyed toward the end. Still, it's about the living that happens beforehand rather than how it all ends.

 

 

I watched Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters earlier. I'm still amazed this movie got made and Jeremy Renner said yes to it. It's like an Asylum movie only with an actual budget.

It sat on the shelf for something like 2 years, and after MI:4, the studio thought they could finally open it with Renner's name.Even so, they released it the first weekend of January, and in 3-D to hedge their bet.

 

 

One of the worst movies I've ever seen. Just so hilariously incompetent, with no flow to speak of and some hilariously dgaf performances. Also, the whole movie being written in present social context with ye olde technological equivalents. Ye Olde Shotgun. Ye Olde Taser. Ye Olde Insulin for Ye Olde Diabetes (which...I'm sorry, Hansel getting diabetes from all the candy he was force fed is HILARIOUS in how "grim and gritty" they tried to play it). Just such a total shitshow.

[Rev Ray]

I caught Brave on cable.  Visually great looking movie, but story was kind of lacking. 

[Reggie20x6]

That 'The Day the Clown Cried' footage is easily scarier than any movie I've seen.

 

Good gawd, Deadspin.

[piranesi]

Random chain of IMDB hunting leads to another installment of "OLD PEOPLE YOU SHOULD LOVE"

I was watching an episode of COLUMBO where Martin landeau plays identical twins who orchestrate a murder and there was a great old lady playing a housekeeper who keeps screaming at Peter Falk and calling him a bum. 

 

Just another old lady in some 70s show? 

 

It's never just another old lady. Anytime an old lady steals a scene, I am on the case.  There are thousands of them, yes.  But each one is special.  They all have some magical place in the history of it all:

Mean old Columbo-hating lady ended up being Jeanette Nolan.  IMDB gives her 197 acting credits.  Yes 197 credits...ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY SEVEN.  So take a few minutes and dive into the life of Jeanette Nolan., a life that included roles from 1948 to 1998.  Fifty solid years.  Bear in mind that her first role...her youngest role in film (she had already acted for years on radio), was a turn as Lady Macbeth at the age of 37.  By "a turn as Lady Macbeth" I mean she played Lady Macbeth in ORSON WELLES' INSANE FILM VERSION OF MACBETH!!!!!

Here big scene is at 1:40 here:

"all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand..."

That was her first screen role.  not bad.  Her last role?  Playing Robert Redford's mother in THE HORSE WHISPERER.  Jesus, shit Cain and Abel!  What a pair of bookends for someone most people have never heard of!  

In between is the usual sea of television roles including multiple turns as "creepy lady" on THE TWILIGHT ZONE and ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS.  For those closer to my age, she and her real-life husband played Dan Fielding's parents, who he is ashamed of because they are hicks, on NIGHT COURT.

 

The NIGHT COURT thing was something of a inside joke.  She and her husband often appeared together as old hillbillies.  He, himself has 140 IMDB credits, almost all westerns and almost all some version of "craggly old man" or "mean old judge" and he easily deserves a separate post.  But not tonight.

 

Most intriguingly, though, she had her own show for about a season.  It was the only ever official spinoff of GUNSMOKE and it sounds like the greatest idea ever.  It was called DIRTY SALLY and if you aren't comfortable googling "dirty + sally" I'll paste the synopsis, since it is completely bananas:
 

Sally Fergus was a cantankerous, tobacco-chewing, rough-talking, hard-drinking old lady on her way west to pan for gold in California. Accompanying her and her mule-driven wagon was young gunfighter Cyrus Pike, who was looking forward to the riches of California, and was often chagrined by the constant delays as Sally decided to meddle in the lives of those that they met.

Here she is as Dirty Sally. 

 

 

 

I mean, COME ON.  How is this not still on? It's like THE INCREDIBLE HULK (yes, she was on an episode of that too) but with a crazy old bag lady in the wild west.

 

You can get a taste of her in the role from the original GUNSMOKE episode that set up the spinoff.  She shows up around 10:27:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ-zNapkYOU

 

Absolutely Bananas.



Other Highlights along the way include THE BIG HEAT:

 

Prominent Voice over work in THE RESCUERS and THE FOX AND THE HOUND:

 

and perhaps most awesomely as the evil three-fingered Grandma spy in CLOAK AND DAGGER:

 

One of the greatest movies of all time.

 

 

Her son played Alan Freed in AMERICAN HOT WAX and HOLY SHIT JEANETTE NOLAN IS ON AN EPISODE OF THRILLER THAT IS ON MY T.V, RIGHT NOW! SHE IS EVERYWHERE!!!!! (if everywere = MeTv reruns which it pretty much does for me).


One special note:

In 1938 she also did what sounds like an amazing turn in a one-off radio play penned by the great Norman Corwyn called THE PLOT TO OVERTHROW CHRISTMAS. If you don't know Norman Corwyn and you fancy yourself some kind of profound writerly type, get on the ball and look up his old radio plays and speeches.  Especially his inspirational WWII "We can do it!" copy.  He is one of the great American writers to ever work exclusively to "the masses" and should be way more famous than he is today.  Ray Bradbury called him “…the greatest director, the greatest writer and the greatest producer in the history of radio.”  

THE PLOT TO OVERTHROW CHIRSTMAS is not a Bill O'Reilly special, yet.  It is a rhyming radio play about an army of hell ghosts gathering in hell and planning to kill Santa Claus (Okay, so maybe allegorically it is the Bill O'Reilly special that is playing on a loop in Bill O'Reilly's own brain).  The army is made up of Nero, Mephistopholes, Ivan The Terrible, Caligula, Lucrezia Borgia (played by our own Jeanette Nolan), and Simon LeGree...Yes.  Caligula, Lucrezia Borgia and Simon Legree from UNCLE TOM'S FUCKING CABIN are IN HELL conspiring THE DEATH OF SANTA CLAUS.  That's some serious shit for little kids to hear on the radio on Christmas Eve in the midst of the Great Depression.  They send Nero to do the deed, but at the last second he repents when Santa teaches him about the true meaning of Christmas and gives him a new violin.  

Did I mention that all the dialog is metered and rhymes?  Fuck the Grinch.  This shit is madness.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

Uh, care to guess who has 276 movie credits?

[piranesi]

Uh, care to guess who has 276 movie credits?

 

 

Before I realized how much fun stuff Jeanette Nolan did, I was just going to use her as an excuse to see who has over, like 500 credits.  Some guy on IMDB compiled a list, and it turns out almost all the top # of credits are people who worked in porn...I guess not surprising, though I'm a little surprised that all shows up in IMDB.

 

The only non porn person who cracks the top 10?

Mel Blanc (please don't tell me you have a porn with mel Blanc in it)

 

1036 credits, but that includes like 800 voice part probably.

 

The next non-porn person was someone named Bess Flowers, but almost all of her roles are listed as "uncredited" which means someone went through and put all the things she was an extra in on there.  Nope...

 

Francis Ford is the first recognizalbe name on the list, but that includes hundreds of shorts from the 1920s.

 

By the time you get to people who aren't filling up on porn, voice work, shorts, or extra work, you're around the upper 300s to 400.

 

James Hong is near the top at 382, but I see lots of video games in there.  Cleaning this up and deciding what parts count would be a task for a small army of interns.

 

Rippa?  We do have interns, right?

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

Come on pal, guess.

[odessasteps]

The welles version of the Scottish Play also has Alan Napier (alfred from the adam west batman) in it.

[piranesi]

Come on pal, guess.

 

You know we all know.  Just post a picture of him already.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

 

Come on pal, guess.

 

You know we all know.  Just post a picture of him already.

 

Ron's at 202, think bigger pal!

[piranesi]

I've underestimated you for the last time:

 

 

Truly nice choice.  I watched THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN the other night.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

Damn how did you guess?

[piranesi]

I think there was a discussion at some point on the old board where we compared what was awesome about Ron and Chris.

 

It started with wondering why they were both in so many awful movies and ended with how great they were in them and how much fun they had no matter how bad the movie was.

 

The Ron example was POLICE ACADEMY 7: MISSION TO MOSCOW

 

I can't remember what the Christopher Lee example was.  Maybe HOWLING 2??????

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

All of them, surely?

[AxB]

Percy Jackson 2: Bit different to the first one, you don't go to Olympus or meet many gods this time (No Sean Bean, and Hermes is basically one scene where he bitches about how great TV shows get cancelled and the snakes on his staff have a petty argument). It's more just the kids on an adventure. Shirley off Community is one of the three witches. One cyclops is human sized while the rest are giants, and there is no explanation as to why, and someone Peirce Brosnan has mutated into Tony Head.

[Victator]

Jerry Lewis should really release the Day The Clown Cried while is still alive and can control how it is presented. Have to think when he dies, it will be released in short order. 

[Ace]

Assuming he hasn't simply destroyed it.

[jaedmc]

Funny you should mention that flick, I was just talking to a friend of mine about that last week. I said when Jerry dies that movie will get a theatrical release.

[Victator]

He said the movie is in a safe in his office. 

[jaedmc]

You'd think someone would have Ocean's 11'd that shit by now.

[Victator]

Years ago, a guy who worked on the telefon grabbed the VHS and showed it to some people, including Harry Sheer. But this was when VCRs were still expensive, so he could not copy it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JGUKtc9Bjc

[Swift]

 

Uh, care to guess who has 276 movie credits?

 

 

Before I realized how much fun stuff Jeanette Nolan did, I was just going to use her as an excuse to see who has over, like 500 credits.  Some guy on IMDB compiled a list, and it turns out almost all the top # of credits are people who worked in porn...I guess not surprising, though I'm a little surprised that all shows up in IMDB.

 

The only non porn person who cracks the top 10?

Mel Blanc (please don't tell me you have a porn with mel Blanc in it)

 

1036 credits, but that includes like 800 voice part probably.

 

The next non-porn person was someone named Bess Flowers, but almost all of her roles are listed as "uncredited" which means someone went through and put all the things she was an extra in on there.  Nope...

 

Francis Ford is the first recognizalbe name on the list, but that includes hundreds of shorts from the 1920s.

 

By the time you get to people who aren't filling up on porn, voice work, shorts, or extra work, you're around the upper 300s to 400.

 

James Hong is near the top at 382, but I see lots of video games in there.  Cleaning this up and deciding what parts count would be a task for a small army of interns.

 

Rippa?  We do have interns, right?

 

 

Oliver Hardy has 413.

[piranesi]

Probably half or more of those are shorts though.

Rippa? Do we offer college credit?