I've been working my way through Monarchy, an overview of the British monarchy. The series is narrated by David Starkey who really drew me into the narrative. I'm vaguely familiar with many of the monarchs - mostly through fictionalized accounts (such as Shakespearean plays and historical novels) - but it's nice to fill out my understanding of history. I'm always astonished at the violence and misfortune that swirls around the crown. Glad I wasn't 1300s English royalty; my younger brother would have definitely have killed or exiled me by now!

Re: JET PILOT: It doesn't help that the film was made in 1950 and not released until 1957. Howard Hughes is supposed to have tinkered with it the whole time. Wayne, of course, became a much bigger star between the shooting of the film and its eventual release. Same with Leigh, so I'm guessing that neither star complained about the delay, nor would they have minded if it had never come out at all, although I'd love some confirmation of that. Then the film was withheld from distribution by Hughes for decades. I saw a secret screening of it in a 35mm print sometime in the 1970s and the audience didn't quite know what to make of it.

After watching a bit of it I had to look it up on IMDB to see the genres attached.

It has: Action | Drama | Romance | Thriller | War

What!?!?!? No "Comedy?!?!" Whatever... it's more Rom/Com than anything.

Yesterday I read some of the stuff on the IMDB page and then looked at reviews. A review from Stuart Galbraith IV here on DVDTalk says this:
I think it sums up the film quite well! I only gave it a 5 out of 10 stars *but* after reading the review I rewatched part of it early this morning and think I may have been a bit too hard. If you add the "Comedy" genre tag it suddenly moves a point or two higher.

Did you know Chuck Yeager did some of the stunt flying? The film includes footage of "Glamorous Glennis," the Bell XS-1 in which Yeager broke the sound barrier (it's the orange plane dropped from the transport). Pretty cool.

Ruby Dee died yesterday. In looking over her filmography, I find three films in my collection that fit this challenge:

THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY (1950) in which she plays Robinson's wife;
THE TALL TARGET (1951) in which she plays a southern lady's maid/slave who gets wind of a plot to assassinate President-elect Lincoln and helps a New York cop thwart it (the cop is played by Dick Powell and his character name is--get this--John Kennedy!);
AMERICAN GANGSTER (2007) about a real-life Harlem drug dealer played by Denzel Washington. I believe Dee plays his mother.

did a Charlton Heston double feature

55 Days at Peking and The Agony and the Ecstasy

both excellent 65mm hidef transferred blurays.

I've really not been able to get into this challenge. I've had a busy couple weeks and I just didn't have the energy to watch anything, really.

I did manage to watch over the last couple days a documentary/propaganda piece on World War II focusing on Germany. It contained a lot of footage on Eva Braun during the war, which I hadn't really seen before. It wasn't the most interesting of films, but I bought it for a dollar so it certainly was worth that.

Not sure what else I'll get to this month, but hopefully I can find at least a couple more things to watch!

Had a couple days where I didn't feel like watching much, but I feel like I'm keeping a good pace. Not racking up a huge total as most of my stuff has been half hour or hour long documentaries, but I'm not in this for the numbers. Been enjoying my aviation documentaries the past couple days. Makes me really look forward to my vacation to Oshkosh at the end of July. I'll be there for 3 days, but it's a week long fly in/air show. The biggest in the world that draws attendees and performers from all over the world.

I'm not in it for numbers either, but I've watched a grand total of two so far and just feel like I'm not doing the challenge justice...Oh well, there's always next year.

I hope you have fun at the airshow! I haven't gone to the show itself, but have been to the museum/location of it. My sister lives about 30/45 mins away so we've taken a trek there. I know that there are tons of people, but I hope you have a lot of fun! I'm not sure where you're from originally, but if you want a few things to do that aren't the air show, let me know and I can try to recommend some places within driving distance. You're not going to be too far from Appleton, Green Bay or even Milwaukee.

I take an airline, but fly into Appleton, so could always arrive a little early.

Well, if you're a football fan at all, Green Bay is only about 30-40 minutes away from Appleton. Lambeau field is easy to get to and has a museum, tours and a few other things to look at.

If you're a shopper, Oshkosh has an outlet mall that has a few good stores in it. I don't know if you have any little girls into American Girl Dolls (I have 2 nieces that are), but that is one of them.

There's a museum at the Castle or something like that that focuses on Harry Houdini (I've not been to this but have heard good things).

College Ave (downtown Appleton) has a bunch of craft stores and a few nice restaurants.

I'm not sure what all you'd be interested in, but if you're looking for something in particular, let me know and I'll do my best to answer!

I know there is a shuttle bus that takes you from the on site camp to the Outlet Mall in Oshkosh.

so there aren't any wild cards for this challenge - right?

Decided to revisit Planet Earth, as I've always enjoyed that series. Last night I tried watching Life, but couldn't even finish the first episode before turning it off. I don't know, maybe after being so used to David Attenborough, I couldn't stand Oprah's narration.

did a Dustin Hoffman double feature:

Papillion
All the Presidents Men

both I had never seen before, both excellent!

Not this year. Adding the "Zeitgeist" section to the official checklist expanded the specified scope of the challenge enough that it seemed unnecessary to continue offering wild card selections.

I've gotten away from the challenge the past few days. Not on purpose. Hope to get it back before it's too late.

I caught part of Life during its original airings on Discovery but couldn't stand the narration by Oprah. I felt like I was in a kindergarten class being talked down to. I made 100% sure to get the Attenborough version of both it and Planet Earth as I'd watched part of that one with the Sigourney Weaver narration and didn't care for it either, although it's not as bad as that from Oprah. I later found out that the non-Attenborough versions of those two are shorter as they've been edited to allow for more commercials when airing in the US.

I was watching episodes from The Life of Mammals last week when my grandson came in and proclaimed "Finally something *I* like to watch!" He loves the natural sciences documentaries. He noticed I have The Life of Birds awaiting a viewing so I'm waiting for him to come home from camp before starting it so he can watch some of it with me.

I recently replaced my flat transfer of A Fistful of Dollars with the Collector's Edition so I watched it last night. It's still one of my all-time-favorite Spaghetti Westerns. When I watch such films I often wonder just what happened to the art of film making? I truly don't believe such a film would, or could, be made today. While it was violent for its time it's fairly tame by today's standards. It has too much character development, moves too slow, has too little profanity, too little action, not enough blood shown... Even though it's rated "R" I'd allow my 10 year old grandson to watch it with me as it's mainly just violence, and not too much more than many movies aimed at his age group with less "blood and guts" shown than modern films. I think if it were re-rated it *might* get a PG-13.

When did FISTFUL get rated "R"? It came out the year before the ratings were introduced and when it got re-released, it would have had a "Suggested for Mature Audiences" tag on the ads and maybe an "M" followed by a "GP". But in all my viewings of it in theaters in 1970-73 or so, I never recall an "R" rating attached to it. I need to check my notes at home later today to see what rating I put down for it when I first saw it in 1970.

P.S. Here's what IMDB lists for FISTFUL's rating: So that answers my question.

Yeah... I probably should have indicated that, eh? I can see the "M" rating for its day as it was a vastly more conservative time. I know in my house the "M" rating was a kiss-of-death. It feels kind of odd that films I wasn't allowed to see when I was 10 are now considered OK for most 10 year olds.

what I don't get is how the MPAA gave 'The Longest Day' a G-rating - that has a huge body count, not a lot of blood per say but still, sheesh...

and the language in 'All the President's Men' there were at least f-bombs for a PG rated film.

I first saw THE LONGEST DAY when I was ten and I went by myself, too. I saw it again when it was re-released with a "G" rating in...it must have been 1969, the 25th anniversary of D-Day. It was considered a prestigious Hollywood production and a patriotic epic so of course it had to be "G" or Darryl Zanuck would have been displeased. "G" wasn't yet the kiss of death back then; heck, PLANET OF THE APES was rated G. So was 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. And GREEN SLIME! When STAR WARS was released in 1977, the producer wanted a PG rating because he thought kids would reject the movie as "uncool" if it was rated G. A lot had happened in nine years. By the time of STAR WARS, the G rating was applied mostly to Disney films (CANDLESHOE, THE APPLE DUMPLING GANG, etc.) and other family films.

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN involved intense negotiations with the MPAA. The studio and the producers wanted a PG rating because they felt the film was historically important and wanted young people to see it, but they felt they had to preserve the language of the newsroom, as represented in Woodward's book. I think they managed to get a specific number of f-bombs, but had to keep it to that. It was a big deal at the time and got a lot of press coverage.

@BobO'Link: I still don't get why they re-rated FISTFUL in 1993, changing it from the less restrictive "M" (PG) to "R." I don't recall a re-release of it in theaters at that time. It was on VHS already by then and years away from DVD. Curious...

Getting in on the nature-doc wave by watching Under the Sea. Not IMAX, but looks great on BD.

I have the Attenborough version of Planet Earth, and watched Life of Mammals last month on Netflix. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Even though Wild China had a different narrator, Bernard Hill did a good job too. Haven't seen Galapagos yet, so don't know about Tilda Swinton's narration.

I have those two in the wings as well, along with Ganges and Life in Cold Blood. At this point I don't think I'll manage to get to all of them as we have house guests the next few days (I think until Saturday and they are not a movie/documentary watching bunch) which will really eat into viewing time. They are some of my wife's cousins and I'm usually talked out after about an hour with them but if I disappear she'll think I'm being rude. Just ducking out to do this is somewhat risky...

interestingly - 'Chariots of Fire' was given a 'G' rating but Warners did not want such rating for the same reason that it'd be perceived as a kid's movie - they added an ADR'd "shit" on the print and it got it's PG rating.

oh and thanks for the explanation, fascinating read.