The_Triple_Lindy

I'm actually shocked to know he was a diver, because he didn't really look like a strong swimmer ... his legs aren't straight and his arms were flailing. If you're a diver, I suppose you only really need to be strong enough to get out of the pool again, but I was a little concerned. Plus, when he's in the water, the camera tended to be right in his face. My thoughts were that the film crew were waiting just off-screen to save his floundering ass from drowning. I got the impression that Rainn Wilson was just a rich dude who was providing funding but wasn't really involved in the research. It was Suyin and her dad and Mack that were in it for the science.

I'll take "Things I Could've Googled Myself" for $400. Thanks, sycasey. Seems like a bunch of sites and orgs have their own lists. I just wanted one cadre of prestigious nerds to give me the definitive ranking.

So, I was re-listening to the episode with my wife today. The first thing that struck me was the way Paul and Amy were talking about the characters -- "What's the motivation for the character? Why don't they do this instead? What do you think their relationships are all about?" The second thing that struck me is the way that my wife and I then started having a similar conversations about the movie and the characters. And then, of course, the same thing is happening here on this board. I think that this, perhaps above all, is why the movie (as well as some of the others on this list) is so good ... we're only with these characters for roughly two hours, and yet this movie is so textually rich that viewers can deep-dive on it without even realizing it. This movie makes it so superbly easy to treat and talk about its characters like they are real people that we know. It's a total character study. Movies like Platoon, King Kong, and Titanic have other things happening, but All About Eve was just ... well, all about Eve, and Margo and Addison, et al, and how Eve's arrival upsets the balance between all of these people. The writing is so deep, the characters are so realized, and the acting is so good that talking about this movie feels like gossiping about friends.

Paul seems to have trouble "yes and"-ing with fictional characters. On Unspooled this week, Amy asked him something about "I wonder what King Kong would say about that," and he hit her with the whole implausible premise critique, too. I'd say it was his kryptonite, but he'd probably just tell me that kryptonite isn't real.

Just out of curiosity, is there an International Film Institute? I'd love Top 100 Films of the World list ... it'd be great what shakes out in the rankings if folks like Kurosawa, Eisenstein, Fellini, and Zhang were considered.

I really enjoyed this movie, and like Paul, I haven't seen much of Bette Davis save for Baby Jane. The writing here is somewhere between Hemingway and 30 Rock (as I type this, the Tina Fey clip just started playing, so that's awesome). Every line reveals and exposits something about the speaker. The dialogue is biting, witty, and full of puns and double entendre and metaphor. I had to watch the first 45 minutes over because I had started it in the background and realized I was lost because I wasn't paying much attention to what folks were saying, and once I closed the laptop I got totally absorbed purely by what they were saying. I really think the writing and acting saves it, though. Next to "That was a great line," the thought I kept having the most throughout the movie is "This is great, but is it Top 100 great?" It's one of those movies that, to me, would feel more at home on the stage. Some of the cinematography feels a bit clunky, like when Addison (?) follows Eve into a room and then talks to her from 50 feet away while she's obscured by the wall of the room she just entered. Maybe that's supposed to be a symbolic shot, but the oddity of the composition was distracting at times. But again, I really dug it and was surprised how relevant it still is (as I have been by several of the movies covered by this podcast). And I think I'm in love to Bette Davis now.

You're so cute for thinking that those who would self-apply the "American" label are internationally minded.

Oh see, I didn't even catch that moment. Yeah, he's just a lech, then, isn't he?

June's whole notion about Italian views on sex and love must just come from a combo of mafia movie "goomah" characters and the "swarthy, foreign fuckboy" stereotype, and maybe that one prime minister they had. Every Italian I've ever met has been ... you know, just a person, with the same attitudes about love and sex as most average people have. At some point, I thought that maybe Giorgio and his wife had a kind of "monogamish" relationship. Like because he's a touring artist on the road for long stretches and just can't or won't go for that long without sex, he's allowed to have a fling here and there to borrow some friction from strangers, just as long as he comes home to her in the end (as well as get tested, bring her t-shirt from San Francisco, whatever deal they have). Plus his manager admits knowledge that he's a total horndog, although his friends are obviously stunned. And if that were the case, who's to say that Carla isn't also getting it in on the side while he's gone? We never see her, so who the hell knows what she's up to. If that's the kind of relationship that fits the lifestyles of two consenting adults, I don't think anyone should judge. On the other hand, even though Giorgio doesn't lie about being married when he's confronted, he's not exactly forthcoming with that info up front -- that's a bad look. Plus that whole "you can't fall in love with me" bullshit is a non-starter -- once Giorgio gleans that Pahmella might even maybe get hurt over the course of their fling, it's on him to knock it off. That's trifling with affections, that.

Kitfo spaghetti?

Can we talk more about those kids that Dr. Pahmela is going to start hacking tonsils out of? There's the main kid, James, who despite not being a small kid himself and being obsessed with ice cream, jabs at Giorgio repeatedly about his weight. Then there's the kid in a neck brace from an unknown injury, but he taunts and teases James about the anesthesia, so I'm willing to bet he was there originally for tonsillitis and probably just got his neck wrung by the other kids in the tonsil ward. And there's the one kid in glasses and a red robe who, while Giorgio is singing with them, keeps hitting Green Acres in the shoulder. It's not in time with the music or anything ... just random slaps on the back. For me, even weirder than the pies-on-ladders was the stiff interaction between Giorgio and these kids. When James tries to run in fear of the upcoming operation, Pavarotti enters by blocking the doorway, putting his hat on him, and then they kind of waltz back into the room, and he's got this pissed-off scowl on his face like he's thinking "Ugh, fucking kids." But it's pretty clear later on that he loves kids and is really sweet with them. (Incidentally, OMISSION: Giorgio does mention here that he has two children ... that's the first moment we hear about his family. Sort of. In a real "gonna be just honest enough to still get laid" way.) (Also incidentally, OMISSION: the doctor who asks Pahmela about her wild opera fling is the same doctor who tries to sing for Giorgio when he's there with the kids earlier, so he's obviously some opera superfan groupie. It might also be why he's on tv at the hospital. Otherwise, one could only posit that they live in some kind of Metalocalypse universe where everyone's lives revolved around Giorgio.)

Paul talked about what a notorious horndog Pavarotti was in real life. Per Wikipedia, he divorced his wife of 35 years to married his personal assistant, who was already pregnant at the time. She's talking about Hannah Gadsby's comedy special, "Nanette." It's brilliant. Go watch it now. I'll wait. If Downton Abbey has taught us anything, it's that servants have work hours and off hours, and by god you better respect that shit.

At least Paul's harrowing childhood prepared him for those nights when he'd be sleeping in cars. Probably one of those moments as an adult where you miss your My Buddy, tho. Aww ... now, I'm sad. Let's hug it out.

There is not an ounce of tire tread in this whole goddamn movie. EDIT: I'm not sure about the correct units of measurement for tire tread.

I'd agree that Blues Brothers just does not work without John Belushi. The whole concept from SNL was originally just putting Belushi in front of a band and letting him blow everyone away with what a pure goddamn entertainer he was. Blues Brothers was his baby ... Aykroyd just danced crazy and played harmonica in the background. Goodman might have been a decent replacement if they had let him ... his performance in the stripster club was great, but he never really gets another moment like that. Instead of letting Goodman be Belushi, they tried to make Elwood into Jake, they tried to turn Scribbles into Elwood, and they just added Goodman probably for the same reason they had 104 cars in the pile-up ... just to add one more. I don't know what they were doing with poor Joe Morton.

Oh god, ihtm, PLEASE tell me you were the guy who actually got to hold the mic.

Ok, I laughed out loud at this, because yeah, that's exactly what I mean. I think the song may be just that dumb. And here we go back to the word "but," which doesn't appear during the dialogue portion at the end. So sure, saying "I won't do that" to the things she says makes sense there. I must say that I don't think anything you've argued precludes the idea that she would be "the other woman" for him, and I think all those other instances of him saying "I would do anything for love, but I won't [forget this moment/be better with another girl/not dream of you everynight]" has to be because "love" doesn't mean their love ... it means his love, ie. the way he falls for girl after girl, serial romance, being just another vampire creep who would sweep her away on his motorcycle to his giant house to use her and then leave her all dressed up and riding that giant glass elevator all alone. He has to assure her that he'll be a changed man for her, and yeah, she ain't buying it. Besides, even if you're right, he's still laying a bit too much pressure on a girl that is clearly not that into him. I 100% probably agree.

Redundant, yet sensical. Look, I get it, but I just feel like only a crazy person would turn a conversation that way. As grudlian points out, it just doesn't make sense to ask someone if they would, for the sake of their own love, do something that might actively harm their relationship. That sentence is a mobius strip of red flags. Furthermore, I will posit that the lines she sings at the end only make sense if we assume that she is someone with whom Mr. Loaf is cheating on someone else, because then we can infer that she knows he's capable of being unfaithful "for love," and when he's begging her to go all the way, and when he's assuring her that he won't forget the moment and he won't cheat on her, she's cynically saying, "Sooner or later, you'll be screwing around" because you've fallen in love with someone else.

[sigh] ... ok, here we go. The absurdity rests fully on the word "but," which is a conjunction that creates an antithesis. "But" is used when the second part of the sentence creates an exception or alternative to the first part. NONE of the statements in the song that could be considered antecedents to "that" create that necessary antithetical relationship. "I would do anything for love, but I won't cheat on you." "I would do anything for love, but I won't fuck someone else better than I fuck you. "I would do anything for love, but I won't forget about you." "I would do anything for love, but I won't not dream about you at night." None of those sentence make any goddamn sense. The only one that Cameron H points out that might make sense is "I would do anything for you, but I won't forgive myself if we don't go all the way tonight," which is the kind of asshole date-rape thing frat boys say around 1:30am. Switch "but" to "and," and all those other sentences work just fine.

This was my first time ever sitting down to watch a Buston Keaton all the way through. Of course I'm familiar with his stunt work and have seen a lot of clips. I have to say, I really loved The General and wasn't really bored for even a second. I was fascinated by some of the shots, like BK hacking away onboard the train while the army moves by in the other direction in the background. And Keaton's timing was so unbelievably perfect, not just with the big stunts that everyone has talked about, but also with the seemingly insignificant moments like where he's crawling in and out of the locomotive windows and jumping between cars just to get to the next action piece. It's the kind of effortlessness you get from cartoon characters. If his other stuff is better, I've got to check it out because this set the bar pretty high.

Yeah, a joke. [must resist deep dive into the grammatical absurdity of that title]

This song came on while I was having lunch out with family, and I was immediately struck by how conceptually similar it is to another song by someone who also had a nigh-limitless tolerance for "that" in a relationship: