ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[memento]

From IMDB: After watching this film one thing I was left with was a feeling of tremendous euphoria, a glowing feeling which lasted well into the next morning. I could not help but think that this collage of events in the lives of 22 people in sunny LA was realism. Not the harsh gritty realism of 'Taxi Driver', but a different realism. This movie is who we are, as people. This movie chronicles the emotions we may have when confronted with a persistent crank caller, or the lingering suspicion of a partner's affair. And the acerbic intelligence of the script is tempered with director Altman's stunning technical virtuosity.

The style is very pastiche, and one scene cuts to another, as the title suggests, with reckless abandon. This lends a very fresh and watchable quality to what is by any standards a long film. While most of the characters never meet, the movie is given shape by the connections between scenes. The connections are of two kinds: thematic connections for which the credit goes to the script, and also visual connections whereby the direction and editing employed by Altman allow him to create recurring imagery with which he weaves the sprawling, kicking constituent bits and pieces of this movie together. This style works very well indeed and at the end of the film, miraculously you are left not with the impression of having just watched a series of 'short cuts', but something entirely more holistic in nature.

There was not a false note in the acting and the star-studded cast did great justice to a remarkable script. The casting is flawless, from Tim Robbins' adulterous cop to Julianne Moore's adulterous painter. The camera-work is refreshing in its fluidity and control, transmitting an intense watchability. However many feelings there are in the human emotional vocabulary (and I am sure there are a fair few), it seems that 'Short Cuts' is somehow able, in the course of three hours, to display (in the actors) and evoke (in the audience), each and every one of them. For those who are of the belief that modern Hollywood is unable to produce films of artistic merit, watch this movie now or hold your peace forever.

[Fran]

From IMDb:  Mexico's chief narcotics officer, Mike Vargas, is in a border town on a quick honeymoon with his U.S. wife. Soon he must testify against Grande, a drug lord whose brother and sons are tracking him, hoping to scare his wife and back him off the case. When a car bomb kills a rich U.S. developer, Vargas embroils himself in the investigation, putting his wife in harm's way. After Vargas catches local legendary U.S. cop Hank Quinlan planting evidence against a Mexican national suspected in the bombing, Quinlan joins forces with the Grande family to impugn Vargas's character. Local political lackeys, a hard-edged whore, pachucos, and a nervous motel clerk also figure in the plot.

Also from IMDb:  The best film of the 1950's, bar none. A 10 out of 10. My #5 all time. Welle's performance is also uniquely pitiable, corrupt and used up. Great performance by Joseph Calleia as his assistant. Even Charlton Heston seems human for a change. Janet Leigh is spot-on and as perfectly cast as she was in PSYCHO two years later. Akim Tamiroff as Uncle Joe Grandi is a hoot.

The greatest "low-budget" every made in a creepy locale (Venice, California) and a motel that matches the Bates Motel for weirdness. Dennis Weaver is on strange pharmaceuticals for sure. Nice cameos by Marlene Dietrich and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Cinematography -- brilliant. Everyone should own this one. Score by H. Mancini. Check it out!

=aside= Paul
You're welcome!

[southendmd]

Tagline:  Behind the scenes and on a location trip with a Hollywood movie company - that lived a real-life story more real , more strange, more thrilling than any picture they made.

[memento]

Description: The Great Central Valley occupies most of the interior of California and provides food for one-quarter of the population of the United States. Benning tells the story of how water irrigates this valley and how the produce is carted away in boxcars for the nation's consumption. He shows the lifestyle of a modest and growing rural community, whose concerns are often drowned out by the powerful railroads, oil companies, and insurance conglomerates which own the farms and ranches and benefit from undocumented immigrant labor while insisting on imprisoning an American population of color.   Movie Summary — Infoplease.com

[Fran]

From IMDb:  In a time when "The West" pretty much ends in Texas and only California is slowly being populated by the white men, there's a severe lack of women among the workers on Roy Whitman's farm in the California Valley. So he goes back east to Chicago to recruit 150 women willing to become wives for his employees. From the candidates he selects 138 who seem able to survive a months-long journey across "The Great American Desert" and the Rocky Mountains.

[Fran]

From IMDb:  Sub-titled "The Birth of Extreme," this documetary takes a look at the transformation of skateboarding from its former image as a land-bound pastime for surfers to its status today as an extreme and acrobatic sport in its own right. Starting from the California surf community of Dogtown, the film follows the evolution of modern skateboarding through it's 70's heyday, its decline during the 80's, and its eventual (and highly lucrative) return in the 90's.

[southendmd]

Tagline:Those Yanks are on the way... in a patriotic musical to stir your blood!

Keyword:  California

[southendmd]

Plot:  Two unlikely prospector partners share the same wife in a California gold rush mining town.

Famous song:  "They Call the Wind Maria":

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCgLNuXSaSc[/youtube]

Clint Eastwood sings (!) "I Talk to the Trees":

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh2UzWgSw3Q[/youtube]

Then there's the big production number:  "Hand Me Down That Can O' Beans"

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0y3Izc8riU[/youtube]

[Fran]

The "It's All Greek to Me" Round!

Featuring movies with a connection to Greece: 

Greek history, Greek islands, Greek director, Greek actor, fraternities, etc.
 
Please show the connection if it isn't obvious.

[Fran]

From IMDb:  Bartleby (B.) Gaines is a fun loving slacker who, unfortunately, gets turned down by every college he applied to, much to the chagrin of his overly expectant parents. So, with a little cutting and pasting, he creates the South Harmon Institute of Technology, and lo and behold, he is accepted (along with his friends Rory, Hands, and Glen, whose college plans were also all but dashed). However, his parents want to see the website, the campus, and the dean. So now he has his other friend Sherman (who has been accepted to the prestigious Harmon College) build a web page, they lease out an abandoned psychiatric hospital, and they hire Sherman's uncle Ben to be the dean. Problem solved? Not quite. The web page was done so well, that hundreds of students show up at the front door, all of which were turned down by other colleges. Faced with no choice, Bartleby decides to proceed with turning South Harmon into a real college and sets about figuring out what to teach and how to teach it. Meanwhile at Harmon, dean Van Horne meets with Hoyt Ambrose, a rich law student and head of the KBE fraternity (which Sherman is trying to become a member of), to discuss building a gateway for Harmon using land presently being used by South Harmon. He tries finding the leaseholder of the land, to no avail. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, Monica, catches him cheating on her, and a big party at South Harmon lures a chunk of Harmon's students away, including Monica into the arms of Bartleby. Now Hoyt uses Sherman, knowing he has been bouncing between the two schools, in an attempt to bring South Harmon down for good. However, Bartleby has an accreditation appointment with the state Board of Education to prove South Harmon's worthiness. Can he legally bring the South Harmon Institute of Technology to life and win the love of Monica?