Yes TIS, it was a treat. I remember watching the GF on TV for the first time outside of a theater probably as a Saturday Night at the Movies presentation. Of course, it could also have been Sunday Night at the Movies. I forget. Some Board members may be too young to realize that BC (before cable), networks would bid for a showing of movie hits like the GF, Jaws, The Exocist, etc. So, there was a proliferation of ... at the Movies on just about every night of the week. Now we're spoiled with HBO, Cinemax, PPV, and Netflix.

I was just telling the Hollywood Finochio that the 1977 television network release of GF I & II edited together was the vehicle that hooked me as a GF lover. I was always interested in the mob stuff...Capone, Chicago Outfit, St. Valentine's Massacre, etc...but while other 12 year olds were getting hooked on "Star Wars", Puzo and FFC got me with the 1977 television network premiere of the 2 GF films. Was that called the epic or something like that?...

Remember...."I wanna play with youuuuuuuuuuu"


I like that movie too.


TIS

I finally saw Cinema Paradiso (1988) [The New Version] last night. As I briefly posted on Facebook, it was a sweet film, but eerily familiar (was there an American remake?). Nicely done, but, thought it was somewhat disjointed -- maybe because of the extra footage? It could've gone the Godfather II route with back-and-forth intertwining, but, all in all, very pleasant. Anyone interested in cinema, movie theaters, and Italy/Sicily -- and doesn't mind subtitles -- should enjoy this classic.

Watched THE WIND THAT SHOOK THE BARLEY last night. A very powerful film about 1920's Ireland and the birth of the IRA. It pulls no punches and shows the Brits in a brutal light (which is deserved by all accounts).

A film well worth watching!

Although I've seen it twice, HBO is running Dark Knight. I simply can't resist Ledger's performance. I have the tv on low volume waiting or every Ledger seen. I love that villian.


TIS

Watched "Gran Torino" last night with Clint Eastwood. Wow! What a good movie. If you forgot any racial or ethnic slurs, this movie is a refresher course. If you are easily offended by these epithets, this is not the movie for you! Over all - good flick! The scenes with his "Dago" barber are hilarious!

Mark,

I see that is on HBO this month. I have always liked Eastwood, but am more a fan of his earlier work. However, I may check this out. The previews don't give a lot away about the storyline.


TIS

IS, I recommend it if you are not easily offended by his comments. It really does have great storyline regarding Eastwood's character and a young Thailand boy and his family who lives next door to him. Surprise ending that I did not expect, making it a very gripping film. "Movie Meatball Mark" gives it 4 sausages! Also, Eastwood SINGS the the ending song during the credits!

I've always been a huge Mickey Rourke fan, especially his earlier to Late eighties stuff. I was bored yesterday and decided to watch some of my all time favorite movies that he stars in. I had almost forgotten how bloody brilliant he really was. A lot better than he is now.

I started off with "Angel Heart" which also stars good old Bobby DeNiro. Definitely a film ahead of it's time which opened the doors for films like Fight Club etc IMO. Eerie shit.

Then I cracked open "Barfly". Definitely my favorite film. A lot of people don't like or rate this very High, But I think it's brilliant. Never will there ever be a better portrayal of a drunken writer. Matt Dillon massacred the remake in "Factotum".

Lastly, "The Pope of Greenwhich Village". A great Comedy/Drama that Is also highly underrated. Seriously folks, Rourke was the King. Such a pity about all his stupid shit that ruined his career...almost.

The Wrestler was great though...

YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968) - ****1/2

"Are you, er...blueish? You don't look Blueish."

Once upon a time, there was some rock band called The Beatles, who at best I'm vaguely aware of, and at worst mostly ignorant about. They came upon my radar when the Internet got their panties twisted over their upcoming edition of the ROCK BAND videogame series, which Microsoft spent a fortune after a brutal bidding war (pluck it GUITAR HERO!) buying up the rights. But I don't get it.

How can I be remotely intrigued by an act who can't even spell the word Beetle right? I know those English people have a different way of spelling, or just different slang compared to us, but this is silly phonetics and pompous arrogance. I mean do you see Pink Floyd call themselvs "Pink Floyed"? or "Nirvanah" instead of Nirvana? I think not. You goofball limeys.

Supposedly these Beatles were the biggest rock force ever seen, heard, or felt. Nothing before or since, not even Elvis or the Jonas Brothers, the latter which CNN thought last weekend was more newsworthy than those protesting Tehran kids fighting for their liberties. I guess the Beatles were like that, but 1000 fold. Rolling Stone magazine seems to think so, for on their epic Top 500 Albums list, 11 Beatles albums (more than anybody else) scored rankings, including 4 in the Top 10 and the exclusive #1 slot for their SGT. PEPPER'S LOVELY HEARTS CLUB BAND. See you learn something every day, for I didn't even know the Beatles scored that Bee Gees movie.

My parents also apparently loved them too at the time too, listening to their albums inbetween growing long hair, practicing free love, smoking dope, and finding creative ways to dodge Vietnam. That whole generation blames their breakup, along with Vietcong, Watergate, and JFK's assassination for why they are such irresponsible grownups. That would certainly explain Clinton and Dubya. So yeah thanks Beatles, for wreaking my present.

Allegedly, "The Fab Four" (I guess Marvel had trademarked "Fantastic" by then) were all individually talented musicians who've had either great or at least respectable careers after 1970. I wouldn't know, for I'm just writing what I've been told. I do know that one got shot by an obsessed fan, another lost alot of his money to a one-legged golddigger, the third once got stabbed in his bed repeatedly by a stalker, and the last acted in a Pizza Hut commercial. Well maybe not the second one, if you believe those conspiracy theories that the real second one died decades ago. I wanna laugh, but since I sincerely think Kurt Cobain was murdered, I'll shutup.

An interesting comment posted at Aint It Cool News' Talkbacks (a rarity) described The Beatles as "the first Internet band." Don't take that line literally, but if my parents are correct, these guys didn't just conquer the music industry in the 1960s. They were everywhere, a centralized fanatic sensation shared across the globe in Fashion, television, toys, merchandise, politics, movies, etc. They even had their own saturday morning cartoon on ABC. The closest subsequent comparison to that might be KISS and their comic book, but that's hardly qualitative. Not bad for some fellows who misspelled a bug's name

So I'm reviewing YELLOW SUBMARINE, which if you don't count their 1970 documentary LET IT BE, was the Beatles third and last movie. This followed the well-applauded seminal classic IT'S A DAY'S NIGHT and HELP!, which isn't. You know the idea of NIGHT considered to be "the father of MTV" intrigues me so I might check that out sometime, though what can I expect of a picture from the director of SUPERMAN III and the bad parts of SUPERMAN II? Anyway, the Beatles wanted to complete their three-film contract with United Artists, but since they didn't want to do a movie, an animated movie was their solution. SUBMARINE was directed by the same crew who produced that ABC cartoon:



Wow, now I feel awful for bashing on Filmation all these years. Jesus. For a project with their name it, featuring several songs from their catalogue (including new ones), they wanted nothing to do with it, not even bothering to voice-act as themselves. Gee I wonder why they had no enthusiasm at all for SUBMARINE. Then months later they were shown a roughcut:



And they go oh shit! How did they actually get involved with making not just a tolerable movie, but a rather darn good one without realizing it? How the fuck did that happen? To make-up for effectively dismissing SUBMARINE as a dirty paycheck and probably feeling like a bunch of assholes, they filmed a live-action ending coda for it. That was nice of them.

YELLOW SUBMARINE is a classic example of what choice you make when given something that on paper looks flimsy thin, and not much money to work with. You don't have the time or budget to go Disney with the articulated realist drawings. You're given a silly song to build a whole movie around, much less other songs that don't really connect together at all? So what do you do? Do you just say ah screw and not put much thought or energy because it's just another job like that BEATLES toon? Or do you decide to be motivated by your limitations and soldier through, and even thrive in spite of them?

Thankfully the YELLOW crew went the second route. Alot of people call YELLOW a psychedelic classic and made by people stoned for stoned viewers, but that's a disservice. For one thing, if YELLOW had been made by animators tuning in and out, the whole budget would have been blown on hundreds in pounds of macaroni, dozens of green bowls, and 5 minutes of scribbled papers taped together. Trust me, I would know. Second, since YELLOW can't go all Disney, those filmmakers instead to use that to their advantage by playing around with color scheming (purple faces?), and embrace the surrealism, thus marking out an auteur niche for themselves within the genre. Consider when water is splashed, its not droplets flying like you would expect, but instead you get like a paint brush smear. I dig that.

Besides, I don't see how some of these Beatles songs are drug-related or were inspired by narcotics. That's too easy of a copout, not even the notorious "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." No sir, no way....No...

Lucy in the
Sky with
Diamonds

Oh my.

Alot of the crazy shit in YELLOW make absolutely no sense within our rationality, but they hold their own sort of logic. A flying fist that makes evil grin in space between fingers, "Snapping Turks" (stereotype with jaws in their stomachs), apple tossing giants, the "headlands" (hands sticking above ground), demusic missiles (or Nickleback in WMD form), and pushing the "cavalry" button (fires out horseback-riding U.S. Cavalry like you would see in Westerns). I like that one room in the Beatles Mansion which has giant statues of superheroes like Flash Gordon and The Phantom. Why? That's not the right question to be asking, its Why not? My favorite though has to be the monster who eats everything in sight, and I mean everything. Other creatures, the background, the film frame, and inevitably itself.

Of course that not-so-very-subtle allegory of anti-materialism fits perfectly into a 60s capitalism-fighting flower child like YELLOW SUBMARINE, with a peaceful utopian land of Pepperland (hippies) conquered by the music-hating Blue Meanies (Scottish Bagpipes are deadly to them) and their Mickey Mouse hats (corporate bastards). One of the Pepperland citizenry escapes to our reality to get the help of the Beatles to help free his world. Me I would have gone to the U.S. Air Force instead, but whatever. Love and Yes triumph over hate and No. The last song, a reprise of "All Together Now," subtitled in several languages. We're one world man, one people! Yeah!

BTW, I hope these cartoon Beatles aren't anything like the real-life ones, for they sure acted like dicks when their drummer gets jettisoned. They only go back to save him because they didn't want to start learning to play Trio. No wonder they broke up, I would have quit that shit too if my bandmates had left me behind with some dinosaurs. That sort of prank I wouldn't easily forgive, you know?

The story in YELLOW is irrelevant, for it's all about the soundtrack, and I must admit something that you fans of the bug band will roll your eyes at me, but the music here is pretty good. The YELLOW team must have thought so too, for they were obviously inspired in their art that they nearly sync up perfectly with the tone and rhythm of those songs. Really reminds me of another great tradition-breaking and utterly creative musical in PINK FLOYD THE WALL. Now here is where YELLOW truely breaks away from Disney by its willingness in experimentation of the visual storytelling narrative in using rotoscoping, engravings, symbology, pop culture iconography (as typified in Post-Modernism) and so forth.



YELLOW is really creative, charmingly fun, and unique (you know, effort?) and some ways the Pixar of its time in that it it holds basic appeal to children, and yet there is a surprising amount of sophisticated humor for adults with puns and even some risque innuendo. Like when someone brings up "condiments" someone knee-jerks responds in shock until they realize what was actually said.

The only fault I might find is the unlikely static ending, which begs me to wonder if YELLOW simply ran out of money by this point. Too bad if YELLOW was around today with the title vehicle lighting up a cigar for a monster, the MPAA would slap a R rating faster than Tehran secret police can bash a student's head in.

"It's blue glass."
"Must be from Kentucky, then."

"I've got a hole in my pocket."

"Hey, I wonder what'll happen if I pull this lever."
"Oh, you mustn't do that now!"
"Can't help it. I'm a born Liver-pooler."

"Today, Pepperland goes...Bluely!"

"Well, in my humble opinion, we've become involved in Einstein's time-space continuum theory. Relatively speaking, that is."

(And yes, I was kidding.)

Great review Ronnie, classic film..

Would you believe, after all these years, I have NEVER seen Yellow Submarine.

Last night they showed Rocky Balboa on tv and I saw it again. I actually liked it better the 2nd time.


TIS

Stallone went out in style with Rocky Balboa. What a great way to end a great character's story. I like the speech he gave his son about life not being fair and it's not how hard you can hit but how hard you get hit and get back up to fight some more. Great swan song, Stallone.

I agree Mark. I am a Rocky fan and a Stallone fan, BUT no more Rocky movies. This ended the series appropriately IMHO.



TIS

Now that surprises me.



ROCKY BALBOA is the best of the ROCKY sequels, if because Sly has an actual story to tell, about something. And not just another actioneer plot about fighting the Russians or a bigger and meaner rival or the protegee that stabbed him in the back.

Hey RR!!

My boss gave me a gift bag which included the latest Bourne book, "The Bourne Sanction". I didn't know there was a another book out yet. Anyway, I can't wait to read it AND for the movie (I hope)!!!



TIS

Yeah with those damn BOURNE movies' super success, the Ludlum estate (Robert Ludlum died many years ago) hired some new writer to churn out more "official" Bourne books.

BTW TIs, did you know Universal Pictures didn't just buy the rights to all those books including the "new ones," but actually own the character of Jason Bourne? Never heard of a studio actually pulling that off, but its true.

I guess Universal didn't want to make the same mistake EON did regarding that whole THUNDERBALL/NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN fiasco.

I finally saw RB last night. I liked it. Stallone brought the story to a fitting end. But did you think that he was over made-up or does he really look like that these days? His eyebrows almost seemed to be painted on. And was that the original young girl actress from Rocky?

idk if that was the original...anyway though its a good thing that stallone did make an other rocky movie. the 5th one was just terrible to end on.

I am not sure if you are speaking generally as far as Sly looks. I am sure he had make-up on throughout, to a degree. I hadn't seen him a quite a while before the film and can see he is starting to show is age. I figure he probably didn't have make-up (or didn't appear to) during some of the training clips and assume that might be a more natural look for him these days.

As far as Marie goes, I thought I heard she was in the original Rocky, but can't seem to find a link to confirm it, so I'm not sure.

TIS

According to imdb.com, Jodi Letizia played Marie in the original "Rocky". Geraldine Hughes played Marie in "Rocky Balboa". However, Letizia supposedly sued Stallone because she says that he had promised her the role and then cast Hughes instead.

I thought the woman in Rocky Balboa was an entirely different character?

nope...when i first saw it i was surprised that they did that since well we didnt know of her. i just wonder if the part of adrian was killed off in the beginning or due to money issues.

I also believe that Stallone looks that way. There was a rumor going around that there is going to be another Rocky movie.

Where would Sly go with another ROCKY picture?

Leave it Sly, you ended that series with some respect, and redeeming fucking ROCKY V.

RAMBO 5 though, I'm for. I guess. If it happens.

I agree, i thought the Rocky film ended well..

i heard they are planning on doing rambo 5...maybe they should call it john rambo? lol

That was the International title for RAMBO aka Rambo 4, actually.

I would like at least another 4 Rocky films


Rocky is my hero