shadokitty

Forgot about Vandread and my MST3K movies until just now. Maybe I'll watch them tomorrow.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Anyone need a hit of horror to go with their comedy? I saw this 10 years ago and just found it online. It's worth a watch and it's only 16 minutes.

http://vimeo.com/7450954

davidh777

Damn, I rented Red 2 from Netflix, and when I put the disc in, it asked me if I wanted to resume play. Took a bit of watching to make sure, but yep, I had already seen it.

Sampled a bit of Archer and wasn't thrilled, but had better luck with The League. I burned through season 1 and am into season 2. The fantasy references from 2009 are pretty outdated, but they'll improve when I get into later seasons.

Trevor

Yeah, I enjoyed the first couple seasons of The League, then it gets just too vulgar for me.

LJG765

I just finished watching Grosse Pointe Blank. While being a fun watch, the main reason I like this movie is the soundtrack. I just want to go and play my entire library of Violent Femmes right now.

shadokitty

Watched a couple cartoons today. First I watched the pilot episode of Vandread, Boy Meets Girl, and then I followed it up with "Forward March Hare", my first Bugs Bunny cartoon of the challenge.

Trevor

I've done more this November than I usually do. I've been watching my one birthday show a day for the Annual Challenge and syncing it with Comedy, but also binged on the horrible War at Home and moved it into my giveaway pile.

shadokitty

I'm trying to find a different take on the challenge now. I've taken 2-3 days off at a time because I just can't find anything I can get into. It was why I watched Bugs Bunny today.

coyoteblue

I finally got around to watching Frank Tashlin's delightful Son of Paleface (1952), staring Bob Hope, which I've been meaning to do the last couple of Comedy Challenges (I just never got around to it). Hope's collaborations with Tashlin were amongst his best movies, well best color movies at least. Roy Rogers was certainly a good sport, considering the amount of ribbing he took. Hope's movies took a bit of a nose-dive, eh, after the Fifties.

davidh777

Switching back to HIMYM, and watched nearly the whole first season yesterday after watching the ninth earlier this month.

Evidently Amazon is monitoring my Prime streaming activities since the complete series is the Gold Box DOTD. It'll serve me right if I pass on the deal then they yank it off streaming.

I'll see how it goes. Pretty raw already.

BobO'Link

I've been marathoning WKRP this week to finish the 3rd season and start the 4th. I'd forgotten just how good and funny this series was! It's one I tried to never miss when it originally aired and was constantly frustrated at CBS for the way it was treated - bouncing all over the schedule. In rewatching the 4th season I'm almost amazed at just how much better it is than the 3 prior seasons, especially considering those were all pretty darn good. I just don't understand why this one didn't have a 6-10 season run. No matter... it's a joy to watch the series again!

ntnon

Archer I enjoyed about the same as Family Guy - a lot of it is excellent, and very-fairly funny, but there are lengthy passages in both that are not only completely unfunny but that stand out as actually embarrassingly awful. And those sections extend excruciatingly, as they always seem to be the most drawn-out "joke" sections. It's very odd. Overall, I do like both. But without the veering, I feel that either/both could be phenomenal, rather than just middling..

coyoteblue

Just ordered Olsen and Johnson's Hallzapoppin (1941), since it's coming from England (even though I ordered it from amazon.com), it's not going to make it here on time for this years challenge. I would have watched it on youtube, but the copies there aren't up to snuff. The movie has floated in and out of my awareness for years, and now finally, I'm doing something about it. It's probably considered Olsen and Johnson's best movie, based on their Broadway play that ran for years. It's also (I'll know for sure once I've watched it) cast a very long shadow over American comedy, at least. The plot, well, in this case the plot was literally hoisted on them by the studio, but Olsen and Johnson went ahead and made a great movie anyway.

Ash Ketchum

I used to think SON OF PALEFACE was Hope's best color comedy, but then I saw CASANOVA'S BIG NIGHT (1954) and now I consider that one Hope's best color comedy. If any Hope film can be said to have been a direct influence on Woody Allen, it's this one. (The early, funny Woody, that is.)

I've seen both HELLZAPOPPIN and CRAZY HOUSE. Both are excellent, but the latter is filled with great gags about Universal Pictures (where it was filmed) and famous cameos and it reminded me a great deal of Mel Brooks' SILENT MOVIE. HELLZAPOPPIN was based on Olsen & Johnson's Broadway show of that title, but I'm not sure how close it was to the show in terms of gags, structure and content. There must be some contemporary reviews of the film that address that issue. There's a CITIZEN KANE reference that was a major spoiler for KANE--which came out less than four months earlier.

Here's a negative review from The New York Times, but it doesn't mention the show:
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?...649D946093D6CF

ntnon

Chris (BrassEye, The Day Today) Morris' Four Lions is both hilarious and deeply, disturbingly, worryingly plausible. And not just the main few (not merely from an incompetence point of view, but also the wavering of belief, the occasionally absolutely-insane brand of nonsense fanaticism, the desperation and everything else), but also all the peripherals - Cumberbatch's jovial attempts at intervention falling flat, Darren Boyd* & colleague's debate over bears and cover-up, the politician's justifications and misinformation and his reasonable thoughts being twisted and skewed.... it's all "true". And while peculiarly English, also easily mappable onto the bigger scale of American (and other) politics. (And if one were to change 'Islamic Fundamentalist' for 'Right Wing Christian', we'd get a film that would have Murdoch & co. calling for censorship and American fatwas.)

I can't quite decide if it's jumped to be one of my favourite films, or if it's just too depressing to think about much. Certainly the eerie parallels to known reality make you wonder how much HAS been suppressed or swept under the rug...





*He's turning up everywhere this month: Spy, Smack the Pony...

coyoteblue

Crazy House is harder to find than Hellzapoppin. If it can be found at all.

BobO'Link

I shifted gears again... I started on a W.C. Fields set (10 films) I'd picked up at WM sometime back. I've been quite surprised that, with *one* exception, I've either not seen or just don't remember any of the films in this set so far. Right now that's 4 films and I think Poppy will make #5 - but those may be the last as I'm almost positive I've seen the last 4 films in the set.

International House felt more like a George Burns/Gracie Allen film than Fields. At least I think they had more screen time. It was fun seeing the many familiar faces in that one and I was somewhat surprised when Sterling Holloway turned up in a bit role in one of the song & dance numbers! He was so young in that one that I had to do a double-take to be sure it was him! This one was so frenetic and off-beat that it could have been a Marx Brothers film.

The one I enjoyed most so far has been You're Telling Me! with Joan Marsh and Buster Crabbe. It was a real hoot! I loved the bit where he took pot shots at his "puncture proof tire" and caught the ricochets in a baseball glove!

Ash Ketchum

I was just thinking about W.C. Fields today when I was talking with my brother about clutter and I remember how in THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE he plays a "memory expert" with an incredibly cluttered desk and he's able to find whatever he needs, which is the same as me.

The last movie my father saw before he died was Fields' IT'S A GIFT, which I showed him on video back in 1985. Today, the last item we moved out of my parents' house before turning it over to the new owner was my father's overcoat.

Re: Sterling Holloway. I recently watched a western on YouTube called WILDFIRE (1945) in which Holloway plays Bob Steele's sidekick and he actually shoots and kills a bad guy in it. First time I've seen Holloway ever do something like that.

bacigalup

Bob, "You're Telling Me" is actually a remake of his 1926 silent film "So's Your Old Man", where WC invents "unbreakable glass" instead of the "puncture proof tire "!

Believe it or not, this movie still exists & can be viewed on You Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KowoNly0bMU

BobO'Link

I didn't know that. Thanks for the link!

It was interesting to watch the first version and I liked that the piano track sounded like it was written for the film. I think the tweaked gags and additional bits really improved the film for the sound remake. As I watched I kept looking for certain bits and was surprised that the majority of the gags from So's Your Old Man appeared in You're Telling Me with the biggest differences coming from the changing of the product. It was a enjoyable viewing.

BobO'Link

I'm home all week - 2 days vacation and the rest Holiday time off. BUT the grandkids are home all week for Thanksgiving break too, so it'll be more what they want to watch.

I started the day with another W.C Fields film, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939). This one has Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy as co-stars (I've always wondered how I might feel as a actor if a dummy gets higher billing). Begern & Co. have almost as much, if not more, screen time than Fields which makes it feel like a Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy film at times. It sometimes feels somewhat smarmy as Bergen is ~17 years senior to his on-screen love interest, Constance Moore. While he achieved great success as a ventriloquist, I've never considered Bergen to be a great ventriloquist in that if you stay focused on *him* he's obviously moving his mouth when his characters speak (of course he knew that and frequently worked it into the act by having McCarthy comment on it). In that, he does a serviceable job, but to me what makes his act so good is the appearance of life he imbues into Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. He does such a great job with their manerisms and movement that you are constantly distracted from *his* mouth movements to pay attention to their movement. His ability to switch characters in a complex dialog and *not* mess up is simply amazing! Something I noticed in this film that I don't think I've ever noticed before is he moves *his* head and body along with McCarthy - in exactly the same manner. I think this also helps detract from his mouth movement when McCarthy speaks.

Then the grandkids arrived. As she's done on dozens of occasions the youngest asked: "Can we watch Be Doh, Pa?" At least *this* time it *counts* for a challenge viewing! It's somewhat telling about the number of times viewed when all three kids constantly speak with on-screen dialog for entire scenes! I must admit that it's a cute and funny film, but a viewing once a week is a bit too much! At least I don't get the almost daily viewings Grandma gets!

JOE29

Watched High Anxiety last night. Dipping into my Mel Brooks stock. Really enjoyed it. Probably my favorite from Mel. So I wanted to at least get that one in. Like to do a few more from Mel but i'll have to see. Time is running short these days.

davidh777

I finished season 3 of The League and wouldn't mind watching more, but I'm pretty sure I won't have much time before the end of the month and it's cleaner to just stop here. So much for catching up to the current season during the challenge.

Looking for a change of pace, I watched Gregory's Girl, a quirky and charming Scottish movie I saw in some art-house theater back in the '80s. It's very '80s, and very British, but I enjoy it. At the time, it set me up for the more mainstream Local Hero, which I should also rewatch someday.

I also watched the first four episodes of Chuck. It's really one of the best pilots I've ever seen for establishing what the show was going to be about and just for entertainment purposes. I don't think I'll be able to binge any more of it, but I'll watch the season 2 Christmas episode, and maybe pick up some more for the TV challenge.

mrcellophane

Gosh, I love that movie! It's so great! I'm a Mel Brooks fan. My favorite Brooks films are probably Young Frankenstein and Silent Movie.

davidh777

I've wanted to break out my Brooks BD set for this challenge but it's not going to happen this year.