November 25, 2007 - December 1, 2007

Great moments in movie history

The 60-to-70 minute comedies made in the '30s by W.C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, and the Marx Brothers are some of the most wonderful, practically perfect films ever made. And near the very top of a great list is Duck Soup, arguably the Marxes' masterpiece. It's non-stop funny business with the brothers at their finest (even Zeppo), and the mirror scene is justly famous as one of its best bits. It stands by itself-- all you need to know is that Harpo is disguised as Groucho and doesn't want the latter to catch him in the act. Here it is.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 30, 2007 2:57 AM

A man of the future

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 27, 2007 3:05 AM

The Monday Movie Quiz #151

It's probably one of the best-known comedies from the '40s-- but which one?

If you know what the above film is, send me an email by late Sunday with the title. If you're right, expect to see your name in next week's ink-stained winner's circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 26, 2007 1:19 AM

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

Lots of winners recognized Stanley Kubrick's classic 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, with more than a few expressing the belief that three picture clues were at least one, if not two too many. "You didn't need Beethoven, the first two pix are iconic." "You could have just shown the first photo of Alex's mother in her weird, 70s version of 21st century fashion, and that would have been enough for most of your faithfuls." (Another quiz winner pointed out, "Alex's mom's hair isn't purple: It's ultraviolet!") And all this recognition occured without a single glimpse of the film's star, Malcolm McDowell in arguably his greatest role, and considering the films he made with Lindsay Anderson around the same time, that's high praise indeed.

But of course, as good as O Lucky Man and If both were, neither had a scene like this one:

Malcolm wasn't really needed to identify the film, because as other quiz winners noted, the real star of A Clockwork Orange was its director. "Even without the lead visible, anybody who cares about film should have every frame of every Stanley Kubrick movie burned permanently into their memory." "The difference in the quality of the picture in his movies versus everything else that was out was like the difference between HDTV and the old analog signal." (Kubrick was legendary for his devotion to image quality, and flew around the country every time a new film of his opened, checking on the projection and print condition in theaters across the U.S.) The first commentator also noted that widescreen versions of Kubrick's films are finally being released, albeit against the director's wishes: "The argument in favor of cropping his films on top and bottom is that now they fill up all the space in a cool widescreen plasma monitor. Uh, isn't that the same reason too many movies were released pan-and-scan when TV screens were square?"

Despite the futuristic aspects of both the book and film, the origin of the story behind A Clockwork Orange had less to do with science fiction and perhaps more in common with Brian de Palma's latest film, Redacted, because the prototypes for Alex and his murderous droogies were-- brace yourselves-- American G.I.s. During WWII, Burgess's pregnant wife was attacked one night by three AWOL yank soldiers, nearly killing her and causing her to lose the baby. Knowing this back-story makes Burgess's now-famous denouement even more startling: after the state takes away Alex's violence and leaves him a helpless victim himself, the only solution is to de-deprogram him, returning him again to his thuggish glory!

Not a single wrong answer this time, so congratulations and a Bang and Olufson stereo to the following winners: Vince Tuss, Gus Mastrapa, Wayne Palmer, John Seffl, Joe Rosenberg, Song-Un Lee, Mark Gisleson, Denny Lynch, Bryan Jackson, Eric Castro, Jack Sparks, Bill Hearne, E. Yarber, ron frigstad, Michael Mattson, Donald Greene, Bob Redwing, Nick Rupar, Nancy Louise Rutherford, mick, J.D. Henderson, and Kevin Musolino.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 25, 2007 3:10 PM

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