Well hello my friends hope you are having a wonderful day. If you have a few minutes stop by this thread and give us your recommendations for the new Crasstalk Amazon Store. Since it is cold and rainy here in NYC I feel like snuggling up with some awesome cartoons. This is one opf my favorite shows ever.
Drugs make you cool! Geckos are great at law enforcement. We can win the alien apocalypse. An old Lincoln works as an office. Seth Rogen’s comedy can save a movie! Paul Giamatti will wrestle lots of money right out of your puny hands! These are all lies.
Here’s the results of some of the millions you shelled out this weekend, and some other stuff you won’t see ever.
1) Limitless — $19 Million
So Bradley Cooper and his pocket full of magic beans tops the box office this week. And that just makes total sense since it’s not everyday in a movie some mousy, drab, rumple-person goes from geek to chic. That’s not something that ever happens in movies nowadays. Why, not since Melanie Griffith chopped off all her Jersey style hair-frizz, grabbed a pair of Reeboks, starched her shoulder pads, and stole a dress from Sigourney Weaver’s bony-ass has this happened in a movie. Nope. Not ever at all. Bradley is charting new territory by taking off his glasses, undoing that uncomely bun, shaking out his lustrous mane and becoming the va,va, va, voom we all hoped he’d be. Mostly, right? Maybe Robert DeNiro packs him a lunch in a cool lunch pail at the end of this thing, right before he stumbles into a real office.
2) Rango — $15.3 Million
In some sort of greasy hair-battle, Bradley Cooper managed to beat out the original oil-follicle Johnny Depp. Not that Rango isn’t an awesome movie. It so clearly is. But in order to sustain dominance, the viewing public needs to actually see an unkempt man parading himself in front of a movie camera with the hopes that he’ll either 1) turn into a heartthrob later on, or 2) rely on past 1980’s hotness to carry him through while he dresses up in various Halloween costumes. A Hawaiian be-shirted animated Gecko can only work for so many weeks until the audience is clamoring for more ratty hobo-ness. And if Johnny Depp can’t deliver, than well, they’ll just look for the next best thing — B.Coops serving Dim Sum and working on Wall Street until Harrison Ford DeNiro saves the movie by trying to steal his magic beans and his miracle shoulder pads.
3) Battle: Los Angeles — $14.6 Million
In with a bang, out with a farty whimper. The reviews of “blockbuster for the ages,” Battle: Los Angeles have not been good. Is it this year’s over-hyped Skyline? Maybe. After a decent opening week — yup, that $36 million got punched in the face reducing it by about $22 million. That’s a whole lot of people who decided they’d rather clip their toenails, or clean their gutters, or sew button eyes on socks, than go see Lt. Vasquez and Harvey Dent play shaky-cam Stratego with a bunch of alien-borg cockroaches or whatever the alien beings are now. There’s probably just as much satisfaction popping in a VHS tape of M. Night Shamaliarlans Signs and just watch that one scene with Joaquin sitting in the closet while the alien struts in an alley i.e. the only cool part of that movie. Simplicity!
4) The Lincoln Lawyer — $13.4 Million
The actor responsible for such enigmatic greats as Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Fool’s Gold, and Failure to Launch, failed to financially outdo these less than well-received films, which obviously premiered amid a world of McConaughey hypnotism. Really. In the past he must have used one of his shirtless enchanted nipples as a beacon luring unsuspecting virgins to various palaces of cinema with promises of a sip from his sweat-filled armpit of love. There’s really no other explanation. The spell must be broken, since his lawyer doing lawyerly things from a Lincoln’s backseat riddled with Wendy’s bags and Marisa Tomei’s Oscar didn’t do the same amount of business this weekend. He may need to unleash the unencumbered pectorals yet again. No, we really don’t mean this.
5) Paul— $13.2 Million
While Seth Rogen is probably stewing in Judd Apatow’s pool surrounded by a mountain of chicken fingers, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are having the best week ever! Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz debuted at $3.3 million and $5.8 million, respectively. So for these guys $13.2 Million is like starring in Star Wars, or Battle: LA! Perhaps they’ve finally made it. Maybe now we Yanks will see them as more than just a couple of witty blokes who’ve mastered the shock-faced close up! It’s certainly possible. We like that Ricky Gervais an awful lot don’t we? Uh, well, okay. Maybe not everyone likes Ricky Gervais, but certainly we like Pegg and Frost better than Rowan Atkinson (Stupid Mr. Bean!) or Gordon Ramsey (Evil Mr. Arseface!). That’s something to aspire to — continue being cuddly and American-friendly, and not a cunty-pisser. Good luck, gentlemen.
Honorable Mention
Win Win — $154,000
The limited release indie didn’t make a whole lot of bank, but the reviews have been strong and Amy Ryan is in it, so basically it doesn’t matter. The King’s Speech gained only marginally better reviews and look what happened there? And in a fight we think Ryan could take on Helena Bonham Hair Nest of Algae Carter. That is if she doesn’t use her crazy person super strength, and she leaves her mismatched-shoes-of-power home for the brawl. Support your local indie flick, after all, these are the things that win awards. What? You thought comedies and science-fiction did? You silly aliens.
The most popular browser on Crasstalk is Firefox 3. Today brings good news for those who have been suffering along with a browser that first came out in 2008. Firefox 4 is now available and is one day ahead of schedule. It’s not quite up on the Mozilla website but their FTP servers are offering up the latest bits. You can download them here. Just select your operating system and grab the language of your choice. Below are easier links for popular combinations:
If you’ve been running a Firefox 4 beta then you can get the new version by going to Help then About. The download will start and install automatically.
Firefox 4 brings better speed, stability, a few new usability features, hardware acceleration and a redesigned user interface. So, what are you waiting for, go download.
Minimum requirements are Windows 2000 or Mac OS 10.5. If you are on 10.4 Apple wants you to know that they haven’t published any security updates since April 2009 and that you should upgrade to 10.5 or preferably 10.6.
Kotaku recently published an Owen Good editorial in response to a recent study conducted by the GAMBIT gaming research center at MIT that explored the legendary capacity of anonymous gamers to utilize hate speech in play and on internet forums.
At first I thought the article’s title – “Is This Studying Hate Speech, Or Just Intellectualized Trolling” – might have been one of Gawker Media’s signature pageview-grabbing titles, but upon reading the text I found several things that I felt compelled to address. Normally I’d just leave a comment, but their system seems to be on the fritz again, and besides, I feel as though my thoughts on this are numerous enough to compile a full retort, blog-style, and this is as good of a place to provide that as any.
I should preface all of this by providing my “credentials”. I am in what is often considered the core demographic of the gaming industry – a white, nerdy male in his mid-20’s pursuing undergraduate degree. I have loved video games (particularly those of the role-playing variety) for as long as I can remember. My favorite game is the original Fallout (for some wizened veterans of the gaming community, that might serve as a dog whistle warning), which I received for Christmas as an 11-year old in 1997.
I think a lot about games, about their design, about what makes them fun and their potential for real brilliance. But I have some beef with gamers and the gaming industry – I’m skeptical of the notion of games as legitimate art and I find myself at odds with the culture in general and its activist strains in particular. So it’s no small wonder that I get my hackles up over pieces of gaming journalism such as this one.
The GAMBIT study involved creating and registering gamer profiles with the names PROUD_2B_MUSLIM, GayPride90 and Black_N_Proud90, and playing Halo: Reach online with random players (for those who don’t know, the use of hate speech in gaming is usually associated with the proliferation of console multi-player gaming via the original Halo). As you can probably guess, the players using those names suffered much verbal abuse directed towards the identities their names indicated they had. Not only that, in player vs. player combat those with the minority-identified names were more aggressively targeted.
Good’s analysis of this study is, to my mind at least, indicative of the ossified privilege that is endemic to gaming as an industry explicitly designed to serve the sensibilities of disgruntled white teenage boys. Good looks at the hate speech and aggressive play and concludes that the minority-identified players brought the abuse upon themselves. Good writes – “If you’re looking to be called the usual filth-flarn-flarn-filth-flarn, those are some awesome gamertags, well worth the 800 Microsoft Points change fees.”
Good’s insinuation, as per his title, is that GAMBIT is involved in “intellectualized trolling” here, but his use of the term “trolling” is both disingenuous and fundamentally incorrect. Trolling, as those who have spent even a small amount of time on internet message boards will tell you, is a sort of forum sport in which a member posts something for the sole purpose of causing arguments and strife within the topic or thread. By definition, trolling is provocation – it is done solely to elicit emotion and negative response.
Thus, what Good is really implying is that being a Muslim, or black, or a woman, or a gay person, and being open about that fact to others, is an open provocation in the gay community, that being a minority player is something that you inflict on other people. There’s no real scandal in being called a nigger or a fag or a cunt in a game, or being singled out for aggression based on your identity – it wouldn’t have happened had you kept it to yourself. The onus is on the abused to prevent abuse. This is, obviously, a repugnant view to hold to, but it’s one that seems to be held as widely agreeable within the gaming community.
It’s not just relegated to multi-player games, either. In recent months, gay panic in single-player RPG gaming has hit an all-time high. When Fallout: New Vegas came out there were a surprising number of people who were shocked, shocked to discover that a perk called “Confirmed Bachelor” unlocked in-game flirting with same-sex characters. As the game’s lead designer noted, players would only experience a majority of these encounters if they deliberately indicated that their character was interested in the same sex, via the perk choice. But this didn’t really address what I suspect is the core concern of the horrified gamers – that gay characters were visible in-game at all.
"Confirmed Bachelor"
Dragon Age 2 is another game that features a degree of sexual diversity within its game-world, and in the weeks since it came out there has been some fan uproar over “neglecting straight male gamers”. From a poster on the Bioware Social Forums, one of the skeeviest corners of the internet –
“every previous BioWare game, I always felt that almost every companion in the game was designed for the male gamer in mind. Every female love interest was always written as a male friend type support character. In Dragon Age 2, I felt like most of the companions were designed to appeal to other groups foremost, Anders and Fenris for gays and Aveline for women given the lack of strong women in games, and that for the straight male gamer, a secondary concern.
It makes things very awkward when your male companions keep making passes at you. The fact that a “No Homosexuality” option, which could have been easily implemented, is omitted just proves my point. I know there are some straight male gamers out there who did not mind it at and I respect that.
When I say BioWare neglected The Straight Male Gamer, I don’t mean that they ignored male gamers. The romance options, Isabella and Merrill, were clearly designed for the straight male gamers in mind. Unfortunately, those choices are what one would call “exotic” choices. They appeal to a subset of male gamers and while its true you can’t make a romance option everyone will love, with Isabella and Merrill it seems like they weren’t even going for an option most males will like. And the fact is, they could have. They had the resources to add another romance option, but instead chose to implement a gay romance with Anders.”
This sort of complaint actually first started cropping up when the first Dragon Age game, which had a bisexual male character that the player could “romance”*. The character, Zevran, was widely disliked, and there were anecdotal reports of players killing the character at the first opportunity so that they never had to deal with him. There were also complaints about being pigeonholed into gay romances, but as in the case of New Vegas and Dragon Age 2 (which also received the same complaints), gay romances actually had to be entered into deliberately and could be stopped at any time (except for New Vegas, which had no romances at all).
It seems as though the very existence of gay characters (who just come out and say they are gay and act as gay without the player’s permission!) is fundamentally threatening to many gamers, in a sad sort of reflection of grade-school level homophobia (is there any other kind?), like homosexuality is some flesh-eating virus that you can’t even acknowledge for fear of infection. It’s as sad as it is revolting.
And all that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The problems faced by female gamers are as old as multi-player gaming – ask a woman who plays World of Warcraft what she plays as, and chances are good she’ll be a male character so that she can move through the game without people assuming (correctly) that she’s a woman and acting according to game standards.
As for race, well, going back to Dragon Age 2, the third most popular fan-made modification for the game in its unofficial mod database is a reskin mod for Isabela, a dark-skinned romanceable character, that gives her fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. All told it’s been downloaded about 13,000 times as of this writing.
In his closing line, Good asks what the point of even talking about all of this is. “…if this kind of behavior is already known and largely assumed to be the norm,” he asks, “what is the application of this information?”
My reply is this: As represented by Kotaku and countless other gaming blogs out there, gamers have a pretty massive chip on their collective shoulder. They feel unfairly maligned, scrutinized, and persecuted. They feel stereotyped and disparaged (ironic, that). They hate being dismissed as ignorant, piggish college boys with no taste or intellectual merit, they feel like what they love is an art form, legitimate and worthy of respect. They want to be taken seriously.
The only way that the gaming community will ever receive respect (or be worthy of it, even) is by taking responsibility for itself, and that includes the ugly elements within the community. This sort of harassment and bigotry has no place in any other collective passion, why should it be accepted in gaming? The odd fatalism on display in Good’s editorial (“this kind of behavior is already known and largely assumed to be the norm”) is a tacit admission that a) Racism / Homophobia / Misogyny are acceptable as they are in gaming culture and b) there is nothing to be done about them. If these things are not worth paying attention to, how can they be worth addressing?
I think that taking ownership of these things is something that is actually possible, but given that a bigotry-supporting, victim-blaming opinion piece such as this one can be received with fanfare from one of the most prominent advocates of gaming culture on the internet, chances aren’t good. I honestly doubt the community is willing to commit. My only real hope is that diversity in games will be continue to grow, and that anxiety over it will abate. But that’s a slim hope. In the meantime, I’ve gone back to not reading Kotaku.
*And before you get the impression that Bioware is some vitally progressive company, they’ve refused to include queer male characters in their Mass Effect series, citing their “inappropriate for PG-13″ nature”, although female player characters can romance an alien character that is, by all signifiers, culturally and physically, a woman. The alien race is mono-sexed, so it’s not really a lesbian relationship, you see. They have ruled out exclusively gay characters in their games (all non-straight characters are bisexual) citing a lack of market incentive. Progress!
Profound silence; silence so deep that even their breathings were conspicuous in the hush. Tom shouted. The call went echoing down the empty aisles and died out in the distance in a faint sound that resembled a ripple of mocking laughter.
“Oh, don’t do it again, Tom, it is too horrid,” said Becky.
“It is horrid, but I better, Becky; they might hear us, you know,” and he shouted again.
The “might” was even a chillier horror than the ghostly laughter, it so confessed a perishing hope. The children stood still and listened; but there was no result. Tom turned upon the back track at once, and hurried his steps. It was but a little while before a certain indecision in his manner revealed another fearful fact to Becky— he could not find his way back!
– Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
A comment by SusanBAwesome on an open thread, about visiting Carlsbad Caverns, reminded me of one of my best memories of childhood. See, as a kid my local Boy Scout troop would make an annual “caving” trip. I always looked forward to this trip. It was the highlight of the year.
We didn’t go to a place like Luray Caverns. Where we went, there were no handrails, or electric lights and there sure as shit was no gift shop. There was a hole…. in the side of a hill…. somewhere in central Pennsylvania. It was far from anything else. I remember we camped the night before in a field next to a cow pasture.
To access the cave, we parked our cars on the side of the road and climbed up the side of the hill. My high-tech spelunking equipment consisted of:
1 Philadelphia Phillies souvenir plastic batting helmet
1 K-Mart brand flashlight that my dad wired to a 6-volt lantern battery. (Do they even make those any more? Probably not.)
Duct tape. For attaching the flashlight to the helmet, natch.
Extra candles. Just in case.
Matches. Just in case.
1 waterproof match case
1 souvenir Philly Phanatic fanny pack, to carry my battery, candles and matches
When I think back, this sounds ridiculously crazy but at the time it made total sense. The souvenir helmet would protect my head, the big battery would last longer than D-cells. I was set!
So we got to the cave, and we went in. Now, when people think of caves, they think of giant caverns and passageways you can easily walk through. That is horseshit! Most real caves are nothing like that. These caves were tighter than a nun’s birth canal. Even us 12-year-old boys had to suck in our stomachs to fit through some of the spaces. Oh, and there was standing water everywhere. I’ll never forget the time we were crawling through a section on all fours and I looked up and there was a baby bat just hangin’ out six inches from my head. He was surprisingly cool with having a bunch of hellions tearing up his cave.
And tear it up we did. I don’t think you can really cause that much ecological damage to a cave just by crawling through it, but we were allowed to run wild. I still remember walking into a room and seeing one of the kids squatting in the corner. Apparently last night’s dinner wouldn’t wait. (When word got back to the dads about the cave-pooping…. there was hell to pay.)
But for the most part, the dads let us just wander off to explore the passageways. At least it seemed like it at the time. Maybe they were keeping an eye on us… but I doubt it.
Now that I think back to those cave trips, I wonder if they’d still let kids do that today. Would parents let their children wander through caves without adults holding their hands? And this was the early 90s. That’s not even a long time ago! Are we really changing that fast?
As an adult I think back to how my great-grandfather had worked around the mines all his life. He was an Italian immigrant who became a blacksmith for a mining company in West Virginia. His trade spared him from a life spent underground, but the world of mining was all around him (actually, he apparently was an organizer for the UMW). Kids not much older than us little Boy Scouts were actually working the mines back in the bad old days.
And now that I’m older, I think I am at least a slightly better person for having gotten a little taste of what it’s like to spend time under the Earth. I’m glad I never had to work in a mine, but I’m also glad that my parents and the other adults around us as kids didn’t take away our ability to explore the world in the name of keeping us always safe.
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kristen Wiig, Jason Batemen and Seth Rogan
Directed by: Greg Mottola
Written by: Nick Frost, Simon Pegg
First of all let me say hello to you toothpicks (that is my nickname for humans). My name is Vermithrax Pejorative and I am a dragon. I am also a fan of movies (particularly ones with dragons in them). Given that I am exceptionally intelligent (as all dragons are), I have decided to share with you my thoughts on the movies that I watch. Why should you care what I have to say? Simple, did I not mention that I am a fucking dragon? I can eat you. I can burn you to a crisp. Need I have any other reason beyond that? I thought not.
I am also a dragon that is very fond of alcohol. That is how I will rate the movies I watch. What does that mean exactly? Say I sit down with a six pack of beer. If a movie is truly awful I will only watch it long enough to finish one or no beers. Where as if the film is exceptional then I would likely finish the entire six pack before I get back to terrifying ignorant peasants. Simple no? So without further ado here is the review.
I am an unabashed fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The British comedy duo introduced to most of us state side through the exceptional 2004 film Shaun of the Dead have never failed to deliver when their forces are combined. This is the duo’s third film collaboration which also includes the hilarious Hot Fuzz. However unlike the previous two which were directed by their long time friend Edgar Wright, Paul was directed by the new to them but equally talented Greg Mottola.
Paul is at its essence a science fiction movie. But much like in their previous two films it takes a conventional genre and puts a spin on it. The spin on this is that the story is set to the pacing of a road movie. And it works. Essentially Paul is the story of two friends from England that come to America on their dream vacation to attend San Diego Comic Con and then travel across the American southwest visiting sites related to aliens and UFOs. Then when they meet the titular Paul they are dragged into his adventure of trying to make it back home while being pursued by government forces. And of course problems and complications arise on the way.
Paul is a movie that gets the majority of things right. Pegg and Frost are very natural working together and have not only an excellent chemistry on screen but work off of each others comedic timing perfectly. Their characters friendship is the heart of the story.
Then of course there is Paul himself. When you have a live action movie that involves a CGI character as one of the main components it doesn’t always work particularly well. This is the area I was most concerned about going into the film. There are just so many ways to do this wrong. Fortunately between the script and Mottola’s direction they delivered something that was neither cliche or absurd. Paul does do some absurd things along the way, but he is a genuine character who possesses the sort of depth one would expect from a major character in a film. Paul is of course voiced by the always funny Seth Rogen and honestly that does make a difference.
In addition there is great supporting work. Kristen Wiig is really entertaining as the proverbial “bible thumper” who comes along for the ride. Jason Bateman also shines as a government agent who is tracking Paul. When freed from the shackles of having to be a romantic comedy lead Bateman is able to remind us that he can in fact be as funny now as he was in the days of Arrested Development. Bill Hader who has appeared in the most recent trio of Mottola’s films is always solid in a supporting role and this is no exception.
And Mottola himself to me delivers another solid film. Tackling very different territory than his last two features, Superbad & Adventureland, he shows that he is just as solid directing a more adult (and I use that term very loosely) cast and action oriented script.
All of that aside though the number one thing that I enjoyed about Paul is that it’s a love letter. In that I mean Pegg and Frost have used this platform to create a loving living tribute to the science fiction that they grew up on and helped form them into the dynamic geek duo that they are today. I won’t spoil any of it for you, but there are many references and shout outs to some of the best sci fi films of the past. And only fans would be able to spot most of them.
That very fact may seem to alienate a more mainstream audience at first glance. However Paul manages to keep the story and humor accessible enough that all the references and tributes just add an extra something without being distracting or unrelatable to an audience.
Paul is a film that deserves to have a wider audience than it likely will. But unfortunately this sort of film tends to be a hard sell. I only hope positive word of mouth will help keep it afloat. For anyone that is a fan of sci-fi, Pegg and Frost or a clever different comedy this one is a must see. I give it five and a half beers.
Hello chickadees. Are you excited over Spring’s arrival? LaZiguezon certainly is and spent the greater part of the week basking in glorious sunshine. This got me thinking about the properties of light, which led me to ponder over the development of modern lighting. So, dear Crasstalkers, today’s post will be about the illuminating qualities of Scandinavian design as it pertains to floor lamps, table lamps, and pendant lamps. Oh my! Continue reading →
Daisy: PandaRobots and I have many times expounded on the joys of watching our favorite black and white films from the 1930s and early 1940s.
I suppose it would make sense at this juncture to mention that my screen name, Daisy Sage, and my avatar were taken from a character in one of my favorite movies from the early 1930s, The Animal Kingdom(1932) . The photo I used for my avatar is a publicity still from the movie of Ann Harding, who played Daisy in the movie.
Like many “pre-code” movies of the very early 30s, there’s no real salacious content in The Animal Kingdom by our contemporary standards. And yet, this film touches on subjects that would be quite taboo in “post code” era movies. Premarital and marital sex is both alluded to, and it is mentioned that two of the characters previously lived together as an unmarried couple.
Ann Harding (as Daisy Sage) and Leslie Howard ( as Tom Collier) discuss their wild bohemian lifestyle in "The Animal Kingdom"
It’s also interesting that several of the protagonists in the story take a fairly bohemian view of life; artists pursue their art without worrying about money (even in the very beginning of the Depression era!), and look down upon friends who “sell out” and create commercial crap in exchange for financial security.
So Panda, why don’t you tell us what attracted you to the films of the 1930s and early 1940s?
Panda: What initially drew me to these films were the strong female characters. The women have lines! And personalities! And tell jokes!
I do think the world in which these characters live is idealized to a certain extent. The Depression is rarely mentioned. Sometimes vagabonds or people down on their luck will be shown (the mother and child in It Happened One Night, My Man Godfrey, Meet John Doe ), but in general at least one of the leads is incredibly wealthy.
Daisy: Yes, I’ve noticed that too. In My Man Godfrey (1936), which is basically a romantic comedy with some class-consciousness thrown in, you have the “forgotten man” theme juxtaposed with the very rich and spoiled.
One comedy I like that makes light of the difficult financial times is Three Broadway Girls (1932) . They do mention the stock market crash and refer to the stresses of being broke. However the three main characters are young attractive ex-showgirls who have nice lives as “gold diggers”, so you don’t see any actual suffering.
Another thing I like about these movies is the depiction of romantic love and how it develops. It seems so much more genuine than contemporary depictions of love. Sentimental, without necessarily being soppy. Panda, what are your thoughts about this?
Panda: I totally agree. The way they treat sex is fascinating, too. On one hand, I like that the filmmakers couldn’t substitute the characters sleeping together for actual relationship development; they have to write dialogue or think up other situations to show the couple falling in love. I think that makes the relationship seem more genuine, as you said. On the other hand, I was initially surprised at how modern they are about it, too. Even if everything’s done with a wink and a nudge, they don’t pretend that sex doesn’t exist. In fact, sometimes it’s a major plot point, as in The Philadelphia Story(1940) and It Happened One Night (1934) – two of my favorites.
Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert make riding the bus hot in "It Happened One Night"
Daisy: I love both those films, too! The Philadelphia Story was written by Phillip Barry, who also wrote The Animal Kingdom a few years previous. He had a wonderful talent for dialogue.
Panda: Oh yes, the dialogue is so important in these films. That’s another reason why I like movies from the ’30s and ’40s – the scenes last longer, there’s a lot more exchange between the characters, barbs being traded back and forth, etc.
One of my favorite lines is when the heroine tells the hero “You’re the most contemptible man I’ve ever met in all my life!” in The Lady Vanishes(1938). It set the stage for so many of today’s romantic comedies – and basically every Nora Ephron movie ever.
Daisy: It seems like a lot of care was taken with the plot twists, too. One thing I really like about The Philadelphia Story is that it’s one of the only romantic comedies I’ve ever seen, from any era, wherein the first time I saw it, I couldn’t figure out which of the guys the heroine would end up with at the end. The writer did nothing to broadcast the ending.
Best love rectangle ever - "The Philadelphia Story"
Panda: Choosing between Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart would be hard for anyone. Who are some of your favorite leading men?
Daisy: I like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart a lot, too. But I have an especially soft place in my heart for Dana Andrews. William Holden didn’t really start to get prominent roles until the late 40s and early 50s, but I’m a big fan of his too.
Panda: What is it about the leading men in these films that is so appealing or different from today’s leading men?
Daisy: I think one thing that makes these male characters so appealing to me is the sincerity element. When a guy falls for a girl in these movies it looks like he decides pretty quickly and pretty solidly. You can tell that there’s not a lot of waffling or indecision, even if it takes three quarters of the story arc to do something about it.
Panda, why do you think that so many movies of that era had newspaper people as the protagonists?
Panda: I researched it a little, and I found that many former journalists worked as scriptwriters and between 1928-1935, there were 79 newspaper movies. These movies helped to shape the public idea of the journalist as a hard-hitting, tough reporter, chasing after the biggest story (be it serious or gossip) no matter the obstacle, making wisecracks, and usually making some sort of moral or heroic decision. When I see the fast-talking female reporters, like in His Girl Friday(1940), I think they were the archetype for today’s romantic comedies where every heroine is a high-powered magazine executive or wants to write for one.
All Grant needs is the love of a good reporter.
Okay, let’s sum up with descriptions of some of these movies.
It Happened One Night – 1934
The master of the wink and nudge sexual tension. Claudette Colbert is absolutely gorgeous and portrays an innocent, vivacious, spoiled girl with hints of a burgeoning sultry woman in a very believable way.
His Girl Friday – 1940
This actually isn’t my favorite Cary Grant movie, but it should be mentioned. I like that Rosalind Russell isn’t a simpering ingénue. Plus, her and Cary Grant’s characters were colleagues – there was no “Now that we’re married, you won’t have to work” from Grant.
The Philadelphia Story – 1940
Cary Grant’s character is a recovering alcoholic. Katharine Hepburn’s character, a beautiful but chilly divorced heiress, refuses to embrace human flaws (and there’s kind of a “needs to get laid” subtext.) There’s a funny and fascinating “love rectangle” as well.
Daisy: Besides The Animal Kingdom, and My Man Godfrey, which I described above, I’d like to recommend:
The Women – 1939 directed by George Cukor, and starring Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, and a talented ensemble cast comprised entirely of women. Full of great dialogue, it shows how one woman deals with her husband’s infidelity while trying to save face amongst her pitying friends.
Here are places you can view some of Panda’s and my favorite movies of the 1930s and early 1940s. Enjoy!
Hello Crasstalk. As most of you can tell by the box on the upper right side of the page, Crasstalk is an Amazon Affiliates member. This is to help us raise the money we need to keep the site running and so that someday little Timmy can have that surgery so he can walk again. In an effort to increase the amount of funds we are raising Crasstalk has created its own Amazon store.
However, to make it a success we need to stock it with the kinds of cool stuff that people might actually be interested in buying. To find that cool stuff we are asking for your help. It is clear to us that the Crasstalk Nation has great taste so we are asking for your recommendations to pick the items for the store. Got a favorite band, writer, or designer? We want to know.
Making a recommendation is simple. Just find the item you want to recommend on Amazon, find the ISBN or ASIN numbers from the Product Details section, and post the number here in the comments section. You can suggest anything sold on Amazon. Music, books, accessories, games, or anything else you think other people would enjoy. Hopefully, this will not only be a way for us to raise some cash, but also a way for us to share some cool things with each other.
Anyway, your suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Below are a couple of screen shots with the product codes highlighted so it will be easier to find. As always, it is an honor to serve with all of you.
