Okay, now I'm mad

The economy is tanking, the media's already there, people who dare question Obama are being compared to George Wallace, and I have so much work it's insane, but I was fine. Really, I was; there's nothing like a Virginia fall to remind you of how beautiful life is and to put everything in perspective.

Then I found out about this. The liberals have gone too far. You can rewrite political and social history all you want, turn FDR into the man who saved America from the Great Depression, turn LBJ into the man who saved the black family from dissolution, heck, you can even pretend that the Democrats didn't invent the politically-correct lending to broke minorities that caused this whole meltdown, but you. do. not. mess. with. Bette. Davis.



They will have to take TCM from my cold, dead hands. Heck, I would even man the barricades over the occasional Seinfeld rerun.

The Lost Art of War

Via the indispensable Libertas, an absolute must-read. Some of the best lines:

"During World War II, Hollywood stars like James Stewart and directors like Frank Capra enlisted in the military to combat dictators as willingly as Sean Penn and Michael Moore now tootle down to Venezuela and Cuba to embrace them."

"the movie business merely provides the most glamorous example of a greater change throughout our creative and intellectual communities: a decades-long drift toward an idiot radicalism."

"Though European intellectuals and their left-wing American acolytes are loath to admit it, the U.S. had already provided an excellent new rationale for that emotion. Our Founding redefined nationhood along social-contract lines that Europeans can still only theorize about. Our love of nation at its best was ethical, not ethnic. Our patriotism was loyalty not to race, or even to tradition, but to ideals of individual liberty and republican self-governance."

"The English Patient is such a visually beautiful film that the mind has to overcome the eye in order to comprehend its moral emptiness."

Anyway, I liked it, please check it out.

Movie Corner

Been a while since I've done one of these, and I do watch an awful lot of movies, so I thought I should update you with the best four from the past few months.


The big news: I have a new love. Myrna, Jean, Irene, move over (well, not too far over!). My heart belongs to Ginger. Now I know, you're asking, what took me so long? The truth is, I always stayed away from Ginger Rogers movies because I associated her only with dance routines. This is because I, ladies and gentleman, am an idiot. TCM had a Ginger Rogers day a while back and Fred Astaire was nowhere in sight; hardly a shimmy to be seen, just one top-quality comedy after another. And Miss Rogers was just ... *sigh*. What a voice. What timing. What looks (in both senses of the word). What a dame.

Bachelor Mother

I loved it. Niven and Rogers are both so wonderful, and it's such a funny movie. It also has a great pro-life, pro-adoption message, in a totally non-preachy, indirect way (the plot centers around an abandoned baby being mistakenly forced into Rogers' care). This is around the point you begin to realize I have no idea how to review movies - my goal here is simply to post some good screenshots and to gush like a schoolgirl with a crush, and I'm fine with that. I will say one thing, which goes for three of the four movies in this post. I watch a lot of oldies and am fairly familiar with which ones are considered classics, but I had never heard of this one until TCM played it one afternoon. It's a small, old, low-budget, relatively unknown little flick, and yet it is infinitely better than just about anything Hollywood has put out in decades. With all the joy I get from gems like this, there is always a sadness, too, because I know that the world is changed, that sweet little movies like this simply will never - can never - be made anymore.

Vivacious Lady

Jimmy Stewart as young as I've ever seen him. Rogers at her comic, sexy, and romantic best. Gush, gush, gush.

And speaking of Jimmy Stewart...

The Shop Around the Corner

So obviously this is the one movie in the bunch that I had heard of before watching. Don't know why it took me so long to see it, considering I do like the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks remake (You've Got Mail). Turns out, this one is about a million times better. And I'm not just saying that because it's Hungarian! Also, as far as Jimmy Stewart Christmas movies go, a million times better than It's a Wonderful Life.

The Strawberry Blonde

Rita Hayworth may be the blonde from the title and Jimmy Cagney may be onscreen every moment, but, as terrific as they both are, don't let them fool you: it's all about Olivia, baby. There's this one scene she has with Cagney when she tries to fake a bad-girl persona that is absolute comic gold. The way she winks at him - priceless.

In conclusion, God bless Turner Classic Movies. And please watch these four charming little gems, I promise you won't regret it. Just stay away from Ginger, she's mine!

UPDATE: I immediately thought up an exception to my nostalgic rant above. One of my absolute favorite movies, one which proves that, even in the 70s, if you really put your mind to it, you could make a 30s masterpiece.

Paper Moon

Please, please see this. One of the best ever.

Reactionary

Ambivablog has a very interesting post up (as always!), which somehow reminds me of the David Warren piece Kathy Shaidle linked this morning. The line of the day comes from one of my favorites, Evelyn Waugh, as quoted in the Warren article:

"'I refuse to vote for those [persons],' the late Evelyn Waugh is said to have once said, of the British version of the Conservative Party. 'They never set the clock back a single minute.' "

Veteran's Day

LOVE this:



this, too:



God bless America and all the troops.

My Book to Help America

No, not mine. His. Doubt we'll see anything like that again (except, naturally, as an exercise in teaching children irony, workin' 'em up to cheer for Colbert with all the cool kids).

Why We Hate Us

"George Whittemore. 17 September, 1862. Antietam."

There are 136 such entries carved into the marble walls of Harvard's Memorial Hall. 136 students who gave their lives for the Union. From the doorway, you can see the steeple of Memorial Church. There, hundreds more names are carved into stone, honoring those who died in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Above the names, these words: "While a bright future beckoned they freely gave their lives and fondest hopes for us and our allies that we might learn from them courage in peace to spend our lives making a better world for others."

There will be no memorial for my generation. The names of my classmates will never be carved into those hallowed walls. What, after all, would there be to inscribe? "George Whitmore. 17 September, 2062. Goldman Sachs."

What with Ahmadinejad taking a break from killing American soldiers for a photo-op at Columbia, I've been thinking a lot lately about what fuels Ivy League anti-Americanism. I think I've finally figured it out. What I think it comes down to, in a word, is shame.

A thought experiment: you believe, you sincerely believe, that you live in the greatest nation ever known to man. A nation of heroes. You look around, and you see men and women, just like yourself, who freely give their lives, their fondest hopes, for the nation. No, not just for the nation, but for all nations. For universal rights, for freedom. To make a better world. Then, you look at yourself. You are evaluating some stocks, or perhaps studying for the bar, or working hard on a dissertation. You look again at your beloved country, at the heroes around you, and, worlds away from all that, again at yourself. What would you feel?

Cowardice. Embarrassment. Shame. You would, I think, be sick to your stomach with shame.

It is to escape this shame that my generation of future world leaders lacks patriotism. Way I figure, you're either ashamed of America, or ashamed of yourself. The choice, especially for a thoroughly self-satisfied Harvard type, is not a hard one.

Everything bad about themselves that these students know deep down to be true - their narcissism, their petty materialism, their ultimate emptiness - all this is harshly revealed by the shining light of America's righteousness. They can delude themselves, can live with themselves, only so long as America is wicked. If America is evil, then they don't have to feel ashamed.

How I Built My Resume Over Summer Vacation

First they came for our childhood, then they came for our adolescence. A great essay in the WSJ (via the invaluable ALDaily).

I would say that adulthood is next, but I feel like that's been missing for quite some time already.

More Music

Hey, why not?

Be My Baby

Just trying out the youtube embed function, figured I would use this video, as I have watched it maybe twenty times today. I'm chaperoning a high school dance tomorrow, it's going to be full of awful modern teenage music (kids these days and their rock and roll!), so I'm seeking refuge in the great teenage music of yore!

Movie Corner

I watched a lot of movies grad week, here are some quick thoughts (basically, just an excuse to put up lots of cool pics):

Notorious


The only non-comedy in the list, though it was actually quite funny at times. I think it could have used an extra ten minutes or so at the beginning to better establish the Grant-Bergman romance (okay, okay, so I just prefer romantic comedies to thrillers, so sue me). Though once it gets going, it really gets going. Hitchcock, as we all know, was basically God; the man knew how to make a movie, how to create suspense. I loved the subtext based around Bergman's slutty reputation (no, really, this is the heart of the romance, and Grant's distrust manifests itself in some truly cruel lines about her sleeping around), and the final scene will stay with you forever. Strangely enough, though, the whole living-with-a-psychopath angle reminded me of another Bergman film, Gaslight, which I think is actually much better. So my overwhelming feeling after finishing Notorious is that now I really want to watch Gaslight again. My mind works in very weird ways.

You Can't Take It With You

Was very excited to see this, and ended up quite a bit underwhelmed. I love Jean Arthur, as you know, and she was great, so no complaints on that account. And I won't deny that a couple of the scenes are hilarious. But the film was so gosh-darned preachy it almost made me sick. Honestly, are there really that many people who think that working late to make lots of money is more important than time spent with loved ones and family? Who would prefer a dull office job to fun and games at home? I seriously doubt it. Yet the movie goes on and on and on about how family and fun is more important than work. You think? Yet it's a completely false choice - you work hard not because you enjoy your job but because you need to support your family. I know I'm just paranoid, but the film seemed to me to be quite a piece of communist propaganda. Not just the whole 'let's all quit our jobs and live together in a commune' angle of it, but an actual commie-apologist subplot. This plot involves some harmless, slightly dull people who innocently hit upon the idea of making a fireworks recreation of the Russian Revolution and who advertise it by distributing little red pamphlets across the neighborhood, with the words "The Revolution is Coming." In the film, they are completely naive, harmless, and not communists at all, and the whole thing is played for farce, and the police who suspect a plot and come to investigate are portrayed as idiots. In real life, however, there were communists in America who did truly sinister work, and it seemed to me that the film was trying to create a narrative that excused them - oh, no, it's all an innocent, madcap misunderstanding, just like in our movie!

The More the Merrier

Absolutely loved the beginning, up until the romance started kicking in (I know, the exact opposite of my Notorious comments, but this romance was nothing special), at which point things went downhill quite fast. The beginning, when Coburn forces himself into sharing a small apartment with Arthur, out Odd-Couples the Odd Couple (and, indeed, the popularity of the Odd Couple proves that this movie could have had much greater success if it didn't bog things down by bringing in a third wheel). The very end, when things return to a screwball pace, is also very amusing.

Twentieth Century:

Fairly dull script rescued by amazing, hilarious, perfect performances. Barrymore reminded me, bizarelly enough, of Kevin Kline. He and Lombard both know how to throw a tantrum. Two moments - one, when she is on her back and kicking him as he tries to come closer, and another, when they are trying to outdo each other with screaming fits in the same room - are the stuff of comic legend. There is a silly subplot about a madman thrown in at the last minute when the writers realized things needed to get more madcap. As long as either Barrymore or Lombard is on-screen, though, you can't look away.

It Happened One Night

Perfection. Exceeded even the highest of expectations. Brilliant performances backed up by a hilarious script. Never lags. Nothing more to say.

The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer

I will never understand why this movie isn't more well-known. Okay, it isn't as great as my absolute favorite, Bringing Up Baby, but it's close. Grant and Myrna Loy (my other love) at their absolute comic best, very funny script, very good direction, and the teenaged Shirley Temple isn't bad, either. So many great moments, I can't pick a favorite. This deserves to be right up there as one of the greatest comedies ever.

The Awful Truth

Once again, an occasionally uneven script is rescued by out-of-this-world comic performances. Sheila has a great post about it. However, while her focus is mainly on Grant, I think that Irene Dunne was even funnier. Both of them have a very subtle, understated style, saying so much with a slight shift in tone of voice or a tiny gesture, so you have to pay close attention - but be careful when you do, because there is almost no time to pause for air, you'll be laughing so loud. You really have to watch it over and over, it never gets old.

Recap: When it comes to the golden age of Hollywood stars, you are absolutely guaranteed a wonderful performance. These actors have a presence, a charisma, an aura, the likes of which no longer exists. And they are all very, very funny. The only question is whether the script and the story is up to snuff. When it is, as with It Happened One Night, sit back and enjoy absolute perfection. But even when it isn't, with movies like Twentieth Century or The Awful Truth, there remains so much to love in the performances, and in certain immortal moments, that you really can't help but fall in love anyway.

Interlude: Rosalind Russell

Graduation is this week, and my parents are about to arrive; things might get hectic, blogging might be light. So I just wanted to have a good looking dame as the top post for a while. Sheila's great post on Rosalind Russell helped me out with that, and pointed me to this tribute. The line that breaks my heart: "Jean Arthur was the first choice, followed by Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Irene Dunne and Ginger Rogers." Arthur, Hepburn, Lombard, Colbert, Dunne . . . please excuse me as I go shoot myself in the head.

I watched a lot of movies this past week, incidentally, many of them with those very stars, and I'll have a post up about them all eventually. I just wanted to say that, as great as many of them were, few were on the same level as His Girl Friday, please do see it, it's as good as it gets.

Move over, Relapsed Catholic

Okay, okay, Relapsed Catholic is still my favorite blog. But Small Dead Animals just may have stolen my heart by linking mockery of Stephane Dion to what may very well be the greatest song of all time. Kate, Bonnie, I love you all.

"If they won't be peaceful, kill 'em"

Remember when Hollywood's dangerous bad boys used to be, you know, actual dangerous bad boys?

And now I'm depressed

Prof Althouse has a post up about free-roaming childhood in the good old days. Read the comments, which broke my heart. My childhood: karate lessons, recorder lessons, and three hours of tennis training every day. And my parents wonder why the very sight of a racquet is enough to make me sick. But it all got me into Harvard, so it must have been worth it, right? Right?

If I ever have kids, I'm moving to the Outback and shooting any approaching college admissions officers on sight.

"in the very detailed index for the book, the entire entry for 'Communism' is: 'Communism, see McCarthyism, McCarthy era; countries and conflicts'"

Hitting on a couple recurring themes from this blog, Roger Kimball has a great post up about David Halberstam. Read the whole thing, as they say!

"Your car is uglier than I am. Oops, that didn't come out right."

One of the most annoying films of my lifetime is Pleasantville. Prof Althouse, back from an auto show, has taken some truly beautiful photographs which prove that life back in the day was a great deal more colorful and stylish than the makers of that movie would have us believe.
If you'd like to see a great picture about those times, by the way, chock full of beautiful cars, it doesn't get much better than American Graffiti.