So, I’m up for doing this again this year… but there’s a problem.
The problem is, we did almost all the good Baseball Movies last year. The only famous one we missed was Pride of the Yankees, with Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig. We can do that movie if people want to. (I avoided it because I’m not a Cooper fan and I don’t like the Yankees, although Gehrig’s story is a tragic one and the movie increased ALS awareness.)
So, here’s what I’m gonna try. I’ll pick some movies that aren’t baseball, yet I think
you folks would enjoy them, from what I know of your tastes. Nothing weird and artsy. Mainstream movies, but ones I enjoy more than most. After these? Pipe in! Name some you want!
To start off with, since it’s Spooky Month, here’s four Spooky Movies. (None are actually scary.)
October 9: Young Frankenstein. The great Gene Wilder is a descendant of the infamous Dr. Frankenstein, and compelled to further his ancestor’s gruesome legacy of terror. Chaos ensues, and people sing Irving Berlin / 1910 operetta songs.
October 16: Bride of Frankenstein. One of the original classics, with the great Boris Karloff, the hilarious Ernst Thesiger, and the wondrous Elsa Lanchester wearing two VERY different hairdos.
October 23: Beetlejuice. If you say Michael Keaton’s name three times fast, he becomes Batghoul. With Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara, who is just the best. Plus Keaton is the best, too.
October 30: Little Shop of Horrors. Before Howard Ashman / Alan Mencken wrote the songs for several popular Disney films, they did this musical version of a 1960 Roger Corman cheapie flick. There’s a Murder Plant, and it is voiced by Levi Stubbs, and he is beyond awesome. He’s SO good. (And the songs are good, too.)
After that, if people like this, I’m open to any suggestions!
Anything and everything is fine by me, as long as it’s not crazy offensive, I don’t hate it, and if I can find a decent free no-commercials copy of it. (Commercials on Tubi and such come at different times for each viewer, and throw off the sync.)
If nobody joins in for the Halloween ones, I’ll stop doing Movie Nights. If people do join in, I’ll try to include the ones you suggest, if I can find the right streaming sources for those, or you can. Internet Archive is a good resource. There’s a few neat movies I can think of with no-commercials, high-resolution copies on YouTube. There’s also library DVDs, just sayin’.
So, we’ll start next Friday at 7:30. I’ll provide the link to a free no-commercials site an hour early with a short movie intro post. You start the flick exactly at 7:30 on your device of choice and we make comments about the movie. You can praise it or make fun of it or both; usually both is most fun.
If anybody wants the time earlier or later, or wants a different day, that’s fine! Just not Saturday nights. Sundays would probably work well for me if people want that.
Downside to this year: no (or far fewer) baseball movies. Upside: more movies you pick and not me!
I’d still throw in several picks if this continues, because I love ’em and I think you’d like ’em and I’d enjoy sharing them. (I found four good links to streaming Film Noir-type movies, two with Bogart, two without, all excellent. I’d like to do a month of those, if others want to.)
Ultimately, from last year when we tried this, it doesn’t matter if everybody likes the movie or not. We can make smart, funny comments because we’re grownups who understand that movies are imperfect, and we can snark on the flaws while enjoying the good parts.
Just like we do with the Twins.
I’ll leave you with what’s probably the best song in a movie I think we’re NOT gonna do, because… well, because I think it’s terribly directed. It’s a mess, and hard to watch. But this tune is fun, and filmed simply/cleverly:
Now, a fellow I know has seen every movie mentioned in the song, and wrote a post about how some of the song’s references are, in fact, wrong. To wit:
- Michael Rennie was not ill The Day the Earth Stood Still
- Fay Wray and King Kong were not in a celluloid jam — whatever that means
- Doctor X will not build a creature
- Leo G. Carroll was not over a barrel when Tarantula took to the hills
- Janette Scott did not fight a triffid — she cowered throughout The Day of the Triffids
- Dana Andrews never made a rune pun in Night of the Demon
- And George Pal is not in When Worlds Collide, and so said nothing to his bride.
I mean, I think the lyrics are just Richard O’Brien (the songwriter) reaching for rhymes. Leo G. Carroll rhymes with “over a barrel” and has the same number of syllables, so O’Brien ran with it.
The best of those movies is on Internet Archive, just saying.
So, we’ll all try out some popcorn and (not scary) horror next week! Or at least I will.
