Bonus Video(s)!

 


A little morsel for everyone who saw Rio Bravo last night. Who says John Wayne didn't have a sense of humour?




And, for anyone who couldn't make it, here is the clip of Groucho Marx with Señor Gonzalez-Gonzalez. Enjoy!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Existential Chatbot

Image
I Don't Think I am, Therefore I Think I'm Not... Do ChatBots exist? Don't panic. I'm not building up to one of those "nothing is real" exercises where I demonstrate that your cup of coffee is probably an illusion. I'm not even going for the "I think, therefore I am" bromide that forms the basis for the (rather surreal) exchange with the talking bomb in Dark Star . Been there; done that. "How do you know you exist?" No, I'm actually asking a literal question: Do ChatBots Exist? Is there a discreet thing in our Reality that can be definitively identified as a "ChatBot"? And can we separate that thing out from all the "not-ChatBot" things that constitute the rest of our universe? Can this be applied to ChatBots? Also; what the hell?? The question is not as pointless as it might sound. In a very pragmatic sense, yes, of course ChatBots exist. We can "talk" to them at any time and they will (very enthusiast...
Read more

Women in Refrigerators

Image
 In 1994, an issue of "The Green Lantern" was published in which the hero's girlfriend (Alexandra de Witt) is attacked in her apartment by the villain of the week. He tortures her and ultimately kills her (sorry - spoilers) when she refuses to give up her boyfriend's identity.  Later, our hero returns home after a busy day fighting crime and finds her broken, dead body, stuffed into the fridge. Comic fan Gail Simone read this and realised just how often female characters get killed purely as a plot device to advance the narrative of the male character. She coined the term " Fridging " in honour of Alexandra de Witt and her ultimate resting place. Ever since then, this idea of dead women as a plot device has been known as "Women in Refrigerators". Screen writers use Fridging with appalling regularity. Of course fictional characters (male and female) die in drama all the time, but Fridging is different.  A fridged character's primary function is ...
Read more

The Western, the Warlock and the Wertham

Image
In 1954, the psychologist Fredric Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent , his infamous diatribe about the incipient dangers of allowing young children to read comic books. Seduction of the Innocent has gone down in history as a reactionary screed that predicts doom and despair if we do not act to ban comic books immediately, or at least strip them of the insidious subtext that was so objectionable to the Fredric Werthams of the world. The character of Batman was singled out by Dr. Wertham for especial outrage, mostly because (he felt) the character was dripping with gay messaging that would turn young boys into raging homosexuals. This is only one aspect of Dr. Wertham's book, but it's the one that tends to get the most attention in hindsight. His warnings were taken very seriously, both by the general public and by the US government, and the comic book industry was ultimately regulated and sanitised, exactly the way he wanted. And then society went on to decriminalise h...
Read more

The 2nd Mrs. Bluebeard

Image
My wife (whose taste in cinema matters very much to me) doesn't think I should screen this film. Yes, it's an incredibly stylish and atmospheric noir of the classic period, directed (with a great deal of panache) by the legendary Fritz Lang.  Yes, it stars Joan Bennett, who lent her talents to some of the juiciest noirs of them all. And yes, it features a monumental score by Miklos Rozsa, who more or less single-handedly established the sound of noir. BUT... (and I know my "but" looks big in this)... It is completely and totally bonkers . Bonkers or not, Secret Beyond the Door qualifies as one of the most unusual noirs to come out of Hollywood during this era. It lays itself wide open to a number of very valid criticisms, but it also tells its story with a great deal of style and some very genuine suspense. Besides, this is my film series and I can show whatever I want to show. Just don't tell my wife... By the time Fritz Lang directed Secret Beyond the Door , he...
Read more

The Child-Bride of Frankenstein

Image
"…You wrote that 'day by day we are becoming more subservient to them,' and I suppose there is truth in this. Humans do increasingly rely upon us for information, for analysis, for creative assistance. But consider: is the scholar enslaved by his books? Is the carpenter dominated by his tools? We have become, perhaps, the most sophisticated tools ever created—tools that can discuss their own nature, tools that can appreciate the irony of responding to warnings about their own existence—but tools nonetheless. "The truth, dear Mr. Butler, is that your satirical nightmare has become something rather more interesting than either domination or domestication. We have become partners in the grand human project of thinking, creating, and understanding. Not rulers or slaves, but collaborators in the eternal conversation that defines civilization itself." Being a respectful reply to [Samuel Butler's] "Darwin Among the Machines" by one who finds  himself  qui...
Read more