Cam Bert

I'm waiting for Ryan Kwanten to pop up but then I forgot how hairless he was.

For me the one aspect of this movie that hurt my overall enjoyment of it was some of the acting. Now I should caveat that by saying I believe that everybody that was not a five and under were great to good, but tonal I just felt if some of the performance didn't match. Specifically Gene Wilder and Estelle Parsons seemed to be giving more of a comedic performance than everybody else it just made them and their scenes seems out of place. I like the fact that this movie has comedic moments and I think those scenes are important for the overall tone of the film as well as defining the characters more. However, you have the other leads giving more serious performances and the humor coming more natural from the character than the performance per say. Take for example the scene when they first meet and recruit Moss. You get that Moss is a bit simple and him robbing the gas station he works at is funny, but yet he's not really giving a comedic performance. His character and acting in that moment is consistent throughout the film. I suppose you could argue that by Estelle Parsons playing Blanche that way sets her apart from the group and gives her that outsider feel, but I just found a lot of the time distracted by it. Especially when compared to how serious she is towards the end it just makes her being shrill and over the top early stick out more. I love Gene Wilder as well but like Paul and Amy said he's in full on Producers mode in this movie. Nothing wrong with that but fact that nobody else in the film comes close to that level of comedic performance just makes it stick out. To me these performances while good were just a bit jarring and took me out the film a bit each time.

We need to find a third Cameron and test whether our name dictates our taste

Out of curiosity how many people watched the two and half hour extended version of this movie which features scenes of Dan Aykroyd parking the blues-mobile by some power generators in an attempt to explain its quasi-super abilities? Bottom line, Dan Aykroyd is batshit crazy.

One of the film classes I took in university the professor was obsessive with 2001. To him, it was the greatest technical film ever made and would bring it up all the time. The two thing I remember most about what he had to say on the film are oddly related. First, was the Margaret Stackhouse letter. She was a child prodigy and she wrote to Kubrick with her interpretation of what the movie was about. According to my professor Kubrick felt that hers was the most accurate to his ideas and intentions (albeit the quote offered on the following site is not the same.) Here's a link to what she had to say: Margaret Stackhouse's comments on 2001 Then he followed it up with the second thing I remember. That is he told the the English majors in the class that 2001 was the Ulysses of the film world. There is no wrong answer about what the true meaning is.

I want to thank you all for watching Hello, Dolly! Not the best movie, but a good one to check off the list.

Oh I agree and echo everything my fellow Cameron said, but for me it drives home the point do we even need the framing device? We have all these little moments of things going on in the ship which are all based on recorded events of things that actually happened that are included because of a sense "this is what people know happened so we have to show it." These events have nothing to do with Rose and Jack and more about the actual story of the Titanic itself. Now if those things occur as you're watching the story of the Titanic and Jack and Rose that's fine. However, if you want to include those in the framework of Rose is telling the story about her time on the Titanic then you make those things suspect. I guess the idea is that we're suppose to get so wrapped up in it all that we forget that we're listening to Rose's story. Maybe the assumption is we are taking the events that we all know that happened and adding them into her story. By eliminating the Rose is telling a story aspect the only thing you are really losing is that ending. That said there are ways you could write and do the ending to arrive to the same point of her boarding the ship with Jack in the end. Old Rose telling a story doesn't draw me any more or less than seeing the grand spectacle of it all.

Not to mention her probably telling him lots of things he knew already about who was on board and what they did.

I've been thinking about the Cal problem a little more these last few days and I think I have the start of something. Given that this story is basically being told by Rose about her point of view on the matter could it be a slight case of unreliable narrator at play? She was so in love with Jack that in her memory she is more positive towards him remembering the good things about him and providing a bit of depth and character to him. While on the other hand she has nothing but bad memories and contempt for Cal so in her memories she just recalls the worse aspects of him thus he is reduced to this cartoonish villain when in reality he might not have been that bad. He might have had layers but we'll never know because this is Rose's story and we only hear what she wants us to hear. The only problem with this is the fact the movie really isn't Rose's story. That's the framing device but as it was pointed out earlier she seemingly knows what's going on in parts of the ship that she wasn't there for. Maybe the story that she's telling Bill Paxton goes "Around this time Jack told me that he and Nucci...." and "I heard many years later as we were running around on the ship an immigrant mother was reading..."

One of the things I found the most fascinating about this movie is the creepy and weird way the "bad guy" talked. He constantly had this odd slightly slurred low guttural wheeze about what he was saying. Like if you ever heard a guy talk like that in real life you'd immediately think "Boy, that guy is up to no good." Then when they were getting drunk at the dance he was talking the same way. This leads me to one of two thoughts. Either the character was a secret alcoholic or the actor was. The evidence is pretty inconclusive. One one hand you have this business man who lost his contract with Mongoose and is gambling everything he has on this Helltrack idea and Bart winning it all, and on the other you have an old character actor filming Rad in the boonies of Canada in the winter. It really could be either.

So I'm going to assume that the cavalcade of BMX racers we get at the start of Hell Track were all actual professional BMXers at the time. Those were their actual names and their actual sponsors. However, I secretly wish this was completely untrue and it was the work of a frazzled writer who spent days coming up with fake names and going around Calgary looking for a guy who looks like a "Kevin Hull from Texas."

Possibly my all time favourite Python sketch.

That last question works oddly well with another high grossing James Cameron movie...

I think you hit on a good point here. Arguably Billy Zane's Cal is the next biggest character after Rose and Jack and yet you'll notice not once was he brought up in the entire episode. Well, Danny Nucci brings him up but that's it. I found it very curious and I think the reason why is his character and performance is one of the weakest parts of this movie. They can't easily dismiss this as "nitpicking" but I guess they could try to defend it by saying it has to go back to old fashion story telling/melodramatic story notes. Does that excuse it? Again this comes down to the weakness of Cameron as a writer. I'm just going to be repeating other people but yes he does some clever things, but the dialogue is horrid and characterization of supporting characters is weak. Both those things come to a head in Cal. So while it is nice that in the back half you have these excellent done little scenes that have these minor characters in moving scenes, but at the same time you have a cartoonish and over the top Billy Zane running around.

Once in theaters as a family then my mom bought it on VHS and her and my sister watched it many times after with me drifting in and out of them watching it many times. Mostly coming in for the second tape.

The only thing I can think of was that in the song "It Only Takes A Moment" she says that when he held her she says his arms felt safe and strong. Up to that point I guess she's just having fun with him. They go to the Harmonia Gardens which is very expensive and swanky. She knows full well that he can't afford it yet strings him along before revealing "Oh, I can afford it and I will pay because it's been such a fun night." Where was the fun? Cornelius and Barnaby spent the majority of the dinner trying to run away.

It's going to get harder as it goes along but for now I'm going with a combination of enjoyment and what I think is the better made movie.

I believe the only film versions of the musical are the Albert Hall and the Gerry Butler one. I remember watching the Charles Dance one many years ago but I think that was just a adaptation of the novel and nothing more.

Since we're talking about Michael Crawford apparently Walter Matthau clashed with him but for completely different reasons. During a break in shooting the two went to a local race track. There they noticed that one of the race horse's name was "Hello Dolly" and Crawford thought it was a sign and they should bet on the horse. Matthau refused saying it reminded him too much of Streisand and didn't bet any money. Crawford went ahead and bet on the horse and the horse won. This infuriated Matthau and he refused to speak to Crawford for the remainder of the shoot.

He may be the original but he wasn't the best Phantom, right?

Also add to that list everybody during the making of Mad Max Fury Road had no idea what was going on and assumed they were in a bomb as well. The other thing to think about is a lot of these people were in a very different place 10 years ago or so. I'm sure John Oliver, Daniel Tosh, Rob Huebel, etc. were happy for any kind of exposure at that point in their careers as well. Like you said you're just starting to make it being in a Mike Meyers movie with big stars seems like a way to get noticed.

I think you are spot on with this. They go out of there way to make this movie about Dolly when it really shouldn't be. It's like some executive was sitting in his office asking why there wasn't a lot of Dolly in this story called "Hello Dolly." Which begs the question if you wanted to make an adaptation of Hello Dolly and a starring vehicle for Babs, why not cast her as Molloy rather than Dolly?

I do want to know why so many funny people are in such an unfunny movie.

So far we are the exact same. I'm curious now when our opinions will start to differ. Hint, I don't think it will be on Titanic.

I can support this idea as well. His locket is his VHS copy of Hello, Dolly.