Best Movie Ever!

[Speed Tracer]

Much of the Coens success can be attributed to their editor, Roderick Jaynes.

Jaynes began his career minding the tea cart at Shepperton Studios in the 1930s. He eventually moved into the editing department, where he worked on some of the more marginal pictures of the British film industry of the '50s and '60s. With the demise of the Carry On series he retired from film, but emerged from retirement to work on Joel and Ethan Coen's first movie, Blood Simple. He has worked on most of their pictures since.

Mr. Jaynes resides in Hove, Sussex, with his chow, Otto. He is still widely admired in the film industry for his impeccable grooming and is the world's foremost collector of Margaret Thatcher nudes, many of them drawn from life.

What many do not know is that Jaynes is a pseudonym the Coens devised because they didn't want to see their names too many times in the credits. It's worth noting that he has been nominated for an Oscar. The Coens had planned to have Albert Finney (heavily disguised) collect the award had they won but the Academy talked them out of it.

 

[Kiki]

Man! No offence, but your friends sound kind of cold. Assuming they know who she is.

Oh I totally agree. They had no idea who Katherine Hepburn was. It was quite sad.

Well, you have awesome tastes yourself! You mean you actually read my favorite movie posts? I have a tendency to ramble on and on (and on) about topics I enjoy. If you made it through 'em all, I congratulate you, and give you a merit badge!

LOL, "it stars Barbra Streisand? Ringin' a bell?"

Doc is a very clever movie. It took me a few viewings before I got all the bags straight. Madeline Kahn is great in her first film: "I am not a Eunice Burns, I am THE Eunice Burns!"

The ending on the plane is hilarious. Streisand tells O'Neal, "Love means never having to say you're sorry," and bats her eyes. O'Neal takes a beat and says, "That's the stupidist thing I ever heard!" Streisand's quote of course comes from Love Story (1970), which starred O'Neal, in which that quote was used several times, and served as the tagline for the movie.

I have the soundtrack to American Graffiti on vinyl (a two-LP set, I found it at a flea market) and on CD.

Same here! Love it. Has some great tracks.

Yeah, I read all of ya movie posts, they're really intresting, I always learn something from 'em!

Yeah, I love Doc, the end is great, how Steisand and O'Neal supposively end up together. The bit where Judy bats her eyelashes his priceless!

Now, where's my merit badge?

Yuppers. My sophomore year.

The play is different from the movie. The movie has a plot, but the show itself is virtually plotless; there's a lot of interaction between the actors and the audience. Before the show, for instance, the members of the Tribe passed out flowers to the people in the audience. During the show, actors would run offstage into the audience, sit on people's laps, duck behind chairs, etc.

In the play Claude is the leader of the Tribe, and Berger is his best friend. When Claude gets his draft notice, he doesn't know what to do: burn it like the other guys, or get inducted. Eventually, Claude decides to become a soldier. At the end of the play, he returns to his friends, wearing his Army uniform, but no one sees him. He speaks, but no one hears him. At the very end, after the Tribe has sung "Let the Sunshine In," Claude's body is lying on stage. Berger places a cross on his dead friend.

Haha! Really? I had no idea! Coolness! The music is a big part of Hair (well, it's a musical, a'duh) and I always listen to the Soundtrack! Gimme head with hair! Log beautiful hair! Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen!

 

[Speed Tracer]

Winslow, here's a question, since you seem to be a Peter Bogdanovich fan... what's your opinion of Noises Off...? It's one of my favorite comedies, personally. The play is also great. Last year, I played Garry Lejeune/Roger Tramplemain, which was quite a bit of fun, really.

 

[anytimepally]

Can I step in here and say I love Noises Off...? Of course, I've never seen the play, so I don't know if the criticism the movie received when it was released was justified or not... (one critic, Frank Rich, said it was funniest play written in his lifetime and probably always would be, but said the movie was among "the worst ever made")... but I enjoy it every time I watch it.. not that I've ever seen a bad Michael Caine movie.. and Denholm Elliott is wonderful as the drunken burgler... I especially love the scene where they're passing the bottle around backstage and he keeps reaching for it seconds too late... Sardines, fighting, Carol Burnett.. how can you go wrong? ... pure chaos and pure comedy!

 

[Winslow Leach]

Winslow, here's a question, since you seem to be a Peter Bogdanovich fan... what's your opinion of Noises Off...? It's one of my favorite comedies, personally. The play is also great. Last year, I played Garry Lejeune/Roger Tramplemain, which was quite a bit of fun, really.

I liked the film version of Noises Off! I thought it had a great cast: Carol Burnett, John Ritter, Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Julie Haggarty (from Airplane!), Denholm Elliott. It was very faithful to the play.

I'd love to do the show sometime. One of the theatre groups I belong to was considering it, but ultimately the director felt the set would be too complicated.

I'd like to play Freddie (the Christopher Reeve part)!

 

[Winslow Leach]

Now, where's my merit badge?

It's coming.

An Official Merit Badge to Kiki for Reading Leach's Movie Posts

How'd ya like a Sgt. Pepper badge?

 

[Speed Tracer]

Our show was fantastic. The set was very complicated, the hardest to pull off in our school's theatre history (and we've done Beauty and the Beast, mind you). Also, our Lloyd was actually British, which was great.

Yeah, Freddie is a GREAT part. What we always do in our shows is find special talents that members of the cast have and include them in our performances, and the one we decided to exploit for him was the fact that he is an accomplished yodeler.

 

[Speed Tracer]

I'd like a badge, too.

 

[D'Snowth]

Oh, how could I possibly forget Dragnet with Dan Aykroyd (who's Canadian, by the way) Tom Hanks, and Harry Morgan? Now there's a funny movie! And Harry Morgan still didn't look a day older than when he first stepped onto the set of M*A*S*H as Colonel Potter.

 

[Winslow Leach]

I'd like a badge, too.

Done!

Would you like a Wayne & Wanda or Speed Racer engraving?