Links, links, links! That’s all I ever hear from you. And by you I mean Ian. And by Ian I mean you.
That’s right, you – coming here, reading these ramblings, watching videos. Whoops! Speaking of videos, let’s look at some of the things we talked about on this week’s episode of Sneaky Dragon – Episode 39.
We talked about Bloody Mary and her little known male counterpart, Muddy Barry. Unfortunately, since Muddy Barry, like Bloody Mary, doesn’t exist that makes it hard to find video links. Here’s Muddy Waters:
His real name was McKinley Morganfield, but it didn’t fit on theatre marquees.
I talked about the D&D show that Ian performs in once a month. By law, we can only link to that old D&D show once a year so here’s a different D&D:
And this makes donuts appealing how…?
I brought up Groucho Marx in a disturbing context. This is less disturbing:
My daughters and I watched the TV series Buffy together when they were little – all three of us grouped together on the couch. Ian thought I meant this Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I meant this one:
Okay…speaking of uncomfortable, here is a movie you don’t want to watch with your grandparents:
Geez, did Michael Murphy only play snivelling jerks in movies? Remember him in Manhattan?
Ian suggested that a pool filled with water and enough cornstarch could be crossed by eccentric walking. Need proof?
I enjoyed the inventiveness of the original movie The Swiss Family Robinson. I’m not sure if the TV show reached those levels of novel use of bamboo and coconuts though.
I didn’t know Helen Hunt was in that show! And Willie Aames (long before he found fame on Charles In Charge).
And with that, let’s start my Top Ten list of films:
First up, the wonderful technician of silent films, Buster Keaton and his film The Navigator:
Next, one of the most perfect comedies ever made. The only thing that would have made in better was Harpo playing his harp and Chico playing his piano, but you can’t have everything when you have a scene as perfect as the Mirror Scene:
I saw this scene from our next film Singing In The Rain in the compilation film That’s Entertainment and I couldn’t believe my little kid eyes. Watch for cuts. There are amazingly few of them. No wonder O’Connor is almost out of breath near the end.
Up next, Robert Altman’s quirky take on the hard-boiled detective genre with Elliot Gould as Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye:
This film may feel a little new to make a Top Ten list, but I haven’t left a theatre feeling that happy for quite a while. Well, since Damsels In Distress, but it’s been a long fallow period before these two films:
I love a movie that’s true to itself, that follows the line of the story and doesn’t shove a happy ending where it doesn’t fit or, conversely, an unhappy ending. No film is truer to itself and its own horror than John Carpenter’s The Thing. There are so many ways they could have gone to make this film more palatable to the slack-jawed yokels out there (please witness the recent remake), but they didn’t. They made one of the gutsiest, goriest, grimmest movies ever. Good job, guys!
Speaking of a film that’s true to itself and follows its plot to inevitable unhappiness (but not tragedy, thank God), here is Remember the Night, written by Preston Sturges:
Whit Stillman has written and directed four brilliant movies, each one slightly the same and also slightly different. This one edges out the others because I like it so damned much:
I know I like a lot of films that are “old”, but I actually think they’re pretty timeless, like Ruth Gordon’s character in Harold and Maude:
And last, but not least, my one nod to fantasy films, WC Fields wonderful fantasy Never Give A Sucker An Even Break, a movie within a movie as he pitches a film to the great character actor Franklin Pangborn. Ian has kindly picked my oldest daughter’s favourite scene:
Somehow Ian got a bit mixed up and thought I’d chosen eleven favourite films:
Actually this was listener/regular correspondent Gavin Pitts’ choice for favourite film, which we also discussed on the show.
If I was allowed to pick an eleventh film, it would be this one:
I stumbled upon this film as a teen, this film and Orphée, both by Jean Cocteau. They were shown on the French language station and both are absolutely brilliant. Through them I discovered Jean Cocteau, surrealism and, of course, my beloved Dadaists.
Finally, Ian picked a couple of superhero films for his Top Ten and we didn’t really get into it too much during the episode, but this is the greatest superhero film of all time – bar none.
(Pssst. It’s also better than Ratatouille.)
Till next time, everyone! Thanks for listening!