Cam Bert

Fine! I'll make a list too!

I apologize if I kinda lost the plot halfway through my last post. As I said I love the movie Wall-E and without getting too personal and bumming people out I connect a lot to the themes of loneliness in it. It hits very close to me, and can be hard for me talk about with out getting overly emotional or in my head about things. I think I did a bit with the hand holding bit. Wall-E does play this up in a love story kind of way, but for me anyway, it is not so much about the love but more just about connecting with another person and feeling, as odd as this sounds to be using in talk about robots, a human connection. If anything finally watching Hello, Dolly and seeing the Cornelius connection makes me appreciate Wall-E a bit more.

As I said the characters or Cornelius and Barnaby are rather pure and innocent. In fact a lot of ways the character of Cornelius is a lot like Wall-E himself. For as long as he can remember all he has been doing in working as a stock boy and clerk at the feed shop. He has no free time. When he's not working he's sleeping at the shop and this has been going on for a long time. Similarly Wall-E as I said is living in a similar rut. Work, home, sleep. I suppose this makes the cockroach his Barnaby. Cornelius desperately wants to end this cycle. All he has known is Yonkers and wants to go be part of the bigger world with people. Wall-E lives alone and also wants to end his loneliness and be around people. Cornelius wants to be with a woman. Now, naturally you ask most any 28 year old virgin if they want to sleep with someone the answer is yes. Cornelius being human, wants this too, but being a bit shy and hindered by his lack of experience states he just wants a simple kiss but that's not even what he wants. He wants to live. As he tells the cop he has lived his 28 years in Yonkers and for the first time ever he feels alive. What has made him feel that way? Falling in love in a moment with Molloy for as he sings it only takes a moment to end his loneliness and feel loved all life long. This is why this movie is for Wall-E. He sees that all it takes is one moment, a time according to the song that is less than a second, and in that moment he will no long feel alone but rather finally feel alive. The song also states "And we'll recall when time runs out, that it only takes a moment to be loved a whole life long" which rings true for an ageless lonely person on a dead world in which time has run out. Wall-E is a fantastic movie and one of the things that I absolutely love about it is in a weird way how beautifully and wonderfully it kinda captures the feelings of loneliness and depression to a lesser degree. Wall-E is a lonely character. We have no idea how long he has been alone but we can safely assume it is has been a very long time. I already stated the way his life is in a rut and meaningless. The movie further shows his loneliness with the way he finds these things that tell him about people that he's never and will never meet. Like he's trying to figure out what a normal life was and is. But these things are dead, and can only tell him so much. His only real glimpse into what being "alive" is all about is through Hello, Dolly. He doesn't truly live rather he follows a pattern and occasionally distracts himself with things that give him joy but ultimately his life is meaningless. When he meets Eve he finally has a chance to be alive to finally not be alone. But you can be in a crowd of people and still feel alone. You want that connection. You want your Cornelius and Molloy moment. All he wants to do is be with her and end his loneliness and give his life meaning. With Eve as a potential Molloy, he finally has a chance for that moment. How is that moment sung about in the song? When they touched, when Cornelius put his arm around Molloy. The song also ends with the two holding hands and thus two become one and a moment is achieved. This goes a bit beyond just two becoming one. In Japan there is a word called "skinship" which basically means physical contact for positive reinforcement. The idea of bonding or showing affection and care is closely linked to physical contact. This is something as simple as a high five, just basic playing, a hug or holding hands. This is something that science has proven and as most of you know as parents and partners is an important part of bonding and connecting. This is something Wall-E has been denied. Hand holding is seen as something as a intimate act in the west but is it? In other parts of the world it is sign of caring and affection and friendship. It is just connecting with a person who you care about. The holding hands is for Wall-E is more in line with this, not a sign of intimacy but a sign of affection and more so an end to his loneliness. It is a moment for him to feel loved and no longer alone and this can all be traced back to the specific scene he watches in Hello, Dolly. TL;DR: Wall-E is Cornelius and both are looking to truly live and no longer be alone.

This always makes me think how it was explained very well in Thank You For Smoking. You can add a single line that while not perfect is good enough to patch that one plot hole. Have Dolly look at a locket and the guy kinda looks like Horace and have her say "He's got your kind spirit" or something like that. Boom, solved. Not great but took all of 15 seconds and people would get it.

I will get into that later when I have a bit more time to write.

I think that is a big problem for me too. She is a widow and at the start of the movie she is only interested in Horace because he's a "half millionaire." How long was she married and why was she such a young widow? It all just makes her look like a gold digger. Unless unknown to us her former husband was actually very young as well and died in a freak accident or something.

Walter Matthau is born and raised in New York and so was Barbra Streisand. You'd think this commonality would create some kind of mutual bond between the two actors. Well I guess that was not the guess. Walter Matthau hated Barbara Streisand and she was not a fan of "old sour puss" either. He'd only show up to do scenes with her when absolutely necessary and flat out refused to do the final climatic kiss at the church. They had to angle it in a way to appear they were kissing while keeping their faces far apart. To put in in a bit of perspective, Walter Mattau was fresh off an Oscar win and been acting for years and now he's playing supporting role to someone twenty plus years younger than him in their second movie who wasn't a trained actor. It was slightly understandable. It wasn't her fault though as him being set in his ways and an angry man plays a large part in it too. But just how much did Walter Mattau dislike Barbra Streisand? Here are a few choice quotes:

That is an aspect of the movie I found fascinating. Barnaby and Cornelius are pretty pure and innocent guys. Heck, all Barnaby wants to do is see a whale and go home. So when Cornelius wants to kiss a girl that's all he seemingly legitimately wants to do. He's been single his whole life and at one point it is stated that for the last ten years or so all he does is work in the shop and sleep. Then on the other side of the coin you have Molloy who is much more experience and forward. Like the scene when they are in the restaurant and Cornelius puts his arm around her and says "I've never touched a woman" and she responds with "You still haven't that's my corset." It's such a reversal of the more dominating man and the shy and innocent girl. I found it interesting. I have more to say about this but I'll save it for later.

Embarrassing admission time! I fully expect the full ridicule of tomspanks but as I was watching the movie today I had to do a check online because I had a moment in which I did not know if Yonkers was a real place or not. It was a name I heard so much in movies and TV and I always just thought it was an East coast/New York way of saying "out in the sticks" or "out in the boonies."

North Shore perhaps?

In a way I can see this as Casablanca is a very writer-ly movie if you know what I mean. This is why I love the segment that Amy does with the old reviews. To us these movies are classics but maybe when they first came out they weren't considered that way or written off as something else entirely.

I did! I am a total jerk.

I honestly don't get it's non-inclusion. For sheer cultural significance alone. I mean how many movies have you heard described as "Die Hard on a..." Other than maybe Predator it is the quintessential 80s action movie. It spawned so much, is still actively talked about, it defined a genre and a decade, it made a movie star out of Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, and it is well made and highly entertaining. It is a great movie. If you need further proof look at all the other movies that tried to copy it and end up paling by comparison.

I hate myself for watching this alone

So with Rad we'll have our BMX movie, Airborne had roller blades, so when it comes time to complete the 80s/early 90s trifecta of cool sports, may I suggest Thrashin' for the skateboarding option.

Not entirely French Connection related but I think they hit upon a very valid point about the movies in the top 100 list having a bit of an inherit genre and age bias involved. The list is mostly dramas and often just takes a sample of non-drama genres. Take horror for example. One of the oldest film genres and so many movies made in that genre to choose from. Yet there are, depending on your definition of horror, four horror films on the list (Sixth Sense, Silence of the Lambs, Jaws and Psycho.) If you were to consult any horror movie fan, expert or critic they most likely wouldn't have these as their top four. Friedkin's The Exorcist is often cited in numerous top lists of greatest horror films ever made and yet it is nowhere to be found in the top 100. It just seems odd that you have a well made film like The Exorcist that is considered a classic and one of the best of its genre and it is no where to be seen in a list of 100 best movies. Fun fact, the closest the AFI came to ranking horror was a list of "best thrills" to which The Exorcist came in third behind Psycho and Jaws while the Sixth Sense came in 60th. However this doesn't just apply to horror it extends to other genres as well. Comedy is probably the second biggest genre represented by number of entries on the list but when you look at the ones included it seems a little odd. The average year of the comedies on the list is in the early 1959 which is offset solely because of the only comedies from 1970 and beyond are MASH, Annie Hall and Tootsie. Comedy specifically is something that is very generational. This goes to the point they were making about the age of the AFI members putting this list together. A lot of these are probably on here because of the age of the people putting it together and the movies that came out in their formative times. Bringing back to The French Connection, Amy and Paul seem to think that it was included in the list for what it did for "the cop genre" or "crime genre" more so than quality of film which could very well be the case. The AFI seems to put a lot of one off type genre films that are notable for the genre they are in more so than top 100 worthy which is kinda what we saw with Swing Time. They wanted a classic musical, Ginger and Fred were classic, let's pick this one. Done, next. All that said I did enjoy The French Connection. Top 100 worthy? Not sure, but I did enjoy it more Swing Time and Ben-Hur. Well, if Ben-Hur dropped the leper stuff I'd put it above The French Connection maybe.

Tony Curtis nearly ruins the movie for me, but Jack Lemmon is so delightful he outweighs that.

I'm getting better! I was going to make that jokes and I thought, "No let someone else have it this time."

I have a hard time imaging Walter Matthau as love interest to anybody but Jack Lemon.

Maybe not so sad news, I thought I had open class this week on the Sunday but I have it for the Saturday as well so I won't be able to join you all. I will watch this privately and share in your pain.

Sorry for the delay. When I had to make my first pick I wrote down a listen of movies I wanted to do for Musical Mondays. So far we've done all but two of them. I'll save the other because I think it highly unlikely anybody will ever pick it. The other is a movie I bought last year to watch while I was sick and never got around to it. The movie by all accounts is not that good but it features another major star that we haven't encountered yet. Why do I want to watch it? Well, I love the movie Wall-E. It is my favourite Pixar movie and a movie that despite seeing it multiple times always makes me cry for reasons that that we don't really have to get into. If you've seen Wall-E, you know he finds and old VHS featuring a certain musical that becomes important to the plot. Well, we're going to do that. So I present to you my next choice for Musical Monday...

Sorry took me awhile to get to this. And I'm going to echo some things already said so I apologize. As it has been mentioned in the HDTGM forums we have a regular thing we do called Musical Mondays. The movie Top Hat came up for a lot of us that was our first Ginger and Fred movie. This marks the second, and while you could argue nothing tops the first I think that Top Hat is the far superior film. Now, I'm not just saying that from the point of "well top hat has no black number" besides that there are a bunch of reasons it is a superior movie. Firstly and most importantly it is a better story. Top Hat finds its roots in classic French farce of identity confusion. Fred dancing in his friend's room awakes Ginger who is staying below. When she goes to complain she's told that the room belong's to the Fred's friend who is producing the show. Thus the movie follows his attempts to woo her as she tries to avoid him thinking he's this other married man. Identities are swapped there is confusion which leads to humor that's all set up at the top of the movie. Like Paul said Swing Time pretty much starts each scene with new information that will propel itself to the next new scene. This hurts the flow of the story as it isn't set up from the start or slowly unfolding. It's like driving in a car that's hitting gas then brake, gas then brake. In addition in Top Hat by the nature of the story it is more in line with modern romantic comedies and you actually want this couple to get together. Because it has its roots in farce as well a lot of the comedy works well too. The supporting characters are just as strong as well. It also has classic songs. Top Hat features "Cheek to Cheek" which is a song that has been in referenced in other films and is as notable as "The Way You Look Tonight" or any of the other songs in Swing Time as well. Where Swing Time out does Top Hat is in that finale dance number. It is so incredible that yes it and the shadow dancing are technically better than the dances in Top Hat, but that doesn't mean that the dances in Top Hat are bad at all. They just don't have the same technically wow to them that Swing Time has. "Cheek to Cheek" is a very intimate dance number much like "Never Going to Dance Again" it is a number to show the progress of the relation of the characters but again just lacking in that technical flair. I guess the question becomes is Top Hat more deserving to be on the Top 100? I'm going to say no. Is Swing Time the best Ginger and Fred movie? I've only scene two and I think the other one is much better movie. I think the only reason Swing Time is on the list is because of the incredible nature of its dance scenes. I doubt it is actually considered to be on of the best movies of all time or the best of Ginger and Fred, but strictly from a technical aspect the dancing cannot be matched so they award it a spot. I guess there will be more to talk about or compare when we get to the other musical from around this time Yankee Doodle Dandy. So if you watched this and enjoyed please go check out Top Hat. If you were unsure about this, maybe try them in Top Hat which is brisker and funnier. If you hated this, you probably won't like Top Hat, but you won't know until you watch it.

Would also explain the bend in the wrist!

What if his piano is like some kind of holophonor?

But have you seen him disco?