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adarkrainbow · 22 days

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So... I was checking some free stuff given away and among a bunch of old VHS there was this tape:

I did not take it, because A) I do not have a working VHS player at home and B) The movie is actually fully disponible on the Internet for free. But it got me intrigued and so I decided to talk briefly about this Donkey Skin movie - which is obviously not the great 1970 classic by Jacques Demy, but rather a 1997 French animated movie...

The VHS above was for the movie's "solo" release, but it got a different release under the label "Mes plus beaux contes", a whole series of fairytale VHS apparently:

Let's begin with a bit of context...

This movie was apparently the result of a collaboration between Claude Allix and Vladimir Gontcharov. The scenario was written by Sébastien Viaud, the music composed by Gil Slavin, and the producers included Eric Bayle, Roch Lener and Victor Slepstove. The production companies involved included Polygram Video, Mathares and Borsifen.

And... that's it. That's all I could find. Nothing more, nothing less.

Well, except for one detail: while this movie is presented as... well as a movie, some websites list it as a two-episodes mini-series, each episode being 26 minutes long. I watched it for free on Youtube, where it is presented as a 50 minutes long movie.

Let me start by saying: Gosh this movie looks horrible!

As in... the animation is very rough. But especially the designs... By the devil, the designs are awful! Just look at the Lilac Fairy - they tried to shape her hair like a lilac flower, okay... But it doesn't work AT ALL. The worst offenders however are the dresses. The three magical dresses, meant to be the pinnacle of beauty in the tale... LOOK AT HOW GOSH AWFUL AND IDIOTIC they are! We said "Color of the moon", not "Shaped like the moon". We said "Color of the sun", not "with spikes coming out everywhere to imitate sun-rays". And the villainess' collar just keeps getting bigger and bigger until it becomes so ridiculous... Oh yes, and the guards ALL HAVE THE SAME FACE. They literaly reused the same model for all the knights and guards throughout the movie...

I know that after Jacques Demy's Peau d'âne, every adaptation of Donkeyskin in France will have a hard time challenging the classic... But I don't know if these people didn't put enough effort, or actually tried way too hard.

Now, in term of story, the interesting thing is that they decided to expand upon the original tale. Most notably, they introduce a new villain character, with a concept a tad similar to the one of queen Elspeth from The Fairest of them All.

The entire first segment of the movie is about the "background" of the tale. We begin with the wedding of the king of the realm of Azurie to his wife (Peau d'âne's mother - the princess is named here Ariadne, because "Arianne" rhyme with "âne" in French). We also have a brief introductory song which recaps the entire story... There's quie a missed opportunity because a whole segment of the song is asking "Why are you hiding, Donkey-skin? Why are you disguising yourself Donkey-skin? Who are you, Donkey-skin?" which could have been a strong idea of plot-angle, exploring the identity of Donkeyskin as a mystery to be solved... Except the verses right before this part of the song explicitely detail who she is and why she fled.

As the wedding unfolds, we have a very clever scene introducing the magical donkey - a present sent by mysterious friends of the king, and which stands out like a sore thumb among the treasures and jewels the fher frelieves it is a grave insult - before his queent believes it is a grave insult - before his queen calms him down and convinces him to trust their friend (for good reason, since they later discover the donkey's magical properties). The villain added to the story is the king's cousin, a power-hungry duchess named Malicia, and who is quite pissed off at seeing the new queen - because she herself wanted to and attempt to be the new queen of Azurie. As she leaves the castle, a mysterious sorcerer named Balthazar the Necromancer appears and briefly turns her carriage into stone to prove his powers. He says he came here to answer Malicia's wishes and desires - and he offers her to learn witchcraft, so that she can overtake Azurie... And in exchange, the price to pay will be that she abandons all her belongings and exile herself from Azurie to undergo a long journey fo fifteen years.

What will she do during this journey? We don't know! It is a mysterious "initiation journey" But she returns fifteen years later to the kingdom to enact her devious plan. As for Balthazar the Necromancer... Every time Malicia uses her crystal ball to cast a spell, Balthazar's face appears to give her various compliments or warnings. And that's it... a sort of manifestation of the recurring habit of having the Magic Mirror of Snow-White act as a semi-companion/warning-deliverer to the Evil Queen. I compared Malicia to Elspeth but I could also compare her relationship to Balthazar to the evil queen's relationship to her mirror in the "Mirror, mirror" movie. In fact, Malicia seems very obviously inspired by Disney's Evil Queen... It makes you wonder why Balthazar was introduced as his own character before being reduced to an info-dropping disembodied face... Anyway.

Malicia is presented as the supernatural cause of the events that start the story - which is a quite interesting and solid move when you need to tackle Donkey-skin for children. The death of the queen is due to Malicia's hatred of the happiness and wealth of the royal family, and her ambition. She casts a curse that causes the deadly sickness, and then tries to convince the king to marry her. But when the king refuses by blatantly saying he promised his wife to marry a woman more virtuous and more beautiful than her, and that Malicia is not more virtuous nor more beautiful than the late queen... Let's just say Malicia is quite pissed off, and she decides to have him be dethroned by causing a second curse - the one that will create an incestuous desire of the father for the daughter. Balthazar warns her that such a curse will break if the princess ever ends up knowing true love - to which Malicia replies she will just have to make sure the princess will be forced to marry her father and never escape him...

I have to say, while the animation is garbage, the ideas and concept of the story are very interesting. The scene of Malicia casting the curse onto the queen is truly chilling, as you see the blue mist she conjures up slowly wither the flowers of the garden before crawling up to the queen's bedroom and entering her body... And I like how Malicia's incantations use elemental motifs matching her curses: she invokes the "spirits of the air" to cause a "deadly breath", a cursed wind that will "dry up" the queen ; while to "inflame" the king's passion for his daughter she calls upon the "spirits of fire" to cause an incestuous desire that nothing "shall extinguish". There is also a whole warning in the beginning about black magic needing the user to have an absolute control over their emotions - foreshadowing Malicia's downfall. At the end of the movie, when Donkey-skin/Ariadne is happily married and her true love break the curses, Malicia is so enraged she tries to cast a curse on her, despite Balthazar's warnings that she need to stay calm, and that she cannot fight true love which is the most powerful magic of them all... However she does not listen and the curse backfires on her, making her disappear forever... Again, this is all very Snow White's Evil Queen-inspired.

I'm not going to make a full breakdown of the movie - the rest of the story is pretty much the same as the original tale but with the characters slightly exaggerated and more prominent (such as the peasant woman and her son who use - and frankly abuse - Donkey skin when she stays around ; there's also the comical character of the prince's personal assistant who is always finding an occassion to "taste wine" whenever he has something to do). There's a lot of visual nods to classic illustrations - for example the goat-pulled chariot the princess use to visit her godmother, while seeming straight out of Norse mythology, is actually a reference to the illustrations of Gustave Doré where the princess use a similar chariot ; and the king's chambellan is made to look like Riquet with the tuft.

So yeah... In conclusion I would say it has good intentions, some good ideas and some moments that do work - but it stays a very rough, very dated product that needs one to take some effort to get into it... and is definitively NOT a masterpiece. But a valuable effort, it must be recognized.

#french movie #donkey skin #fairytale cartoon #animated movie #donkey skin adaptation #peau d'âne 1997

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rhapsodynew · 19 days

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#Everything you need to know about Rock📌

Cinderella

The American blues heavy metal band Cinderella was founded in 1983 in Philadelphia by guitarist and vocalist Tom Keifer and bassist Eric Brittingham, who combined in their music all the best from their favorite teams – Aerosmith, Nazareth and Led Zeppelin.

The original line-up also included guitarist Mike Shermick and drummer Tony Destra. At one of the club concerts, the band was noticed by the famous John Bon Jovi, who played a decisive role in the fate of the budding band and for the next few years was actually a protege of Keifer & Co. On Bon Jovi's recommendation, PolyGram got acquainted with Cinderella's work, which it saw as potential and signed a long-term contract with the group. However, by setting a condition - to change the guitarist and drummer. Thus, Jeff La Bar and Jimi Drank appeared in the band, whose place was taken by Jody Cortez just before the recording of the debut record.

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The sharks of show business were not mistaken in their predictions: the first album "Night Songs", released in the summer of '86, became a real bomb and landed right on the third place of the American hit parade! In this regard, the band's debut became its most successful album. Immediately after recording "Night Songs", Cortez was replaced by Fred Kouri, who had previously been Ozzy Osbourne's session drummer. Bon Jovi continues to help his younger comrades and takes Cinderella on his world tour, the culmination of which is the performance of both groups at the British Monsters Of Rock festival. This is followed by a number of concerts opening for AC/DC, David Lee Roth (Van Halen) and Judas Priest.

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In 1988, Cinderella released a second, more mature and interesting album, Long Cold Winter. In addition to the main line-up, drummers Cozy Powell and Danny Carmassi, keyboardists Kurt Shore and John Webster also took part in the recording of this disc

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The fans were jubilant, the music critics were ecstatic. Tom was certainly the heart and soul of the team. For example, "Nobody's Fool" was written in his parents' bedroom when he was visiting them, and "Heartbreak Station" during the "The Long Cold Winter" tour, when he was riding on the way to Memphis on a bus in the back seat and playing music on a 12-string guitar. "Coming Home" appeared in California during a tour with Bon Jovi. He just got a beautiful guitar "J200 Gibson", and to test its sound, he locked himself in a hotel room, and after 10 minutes a real hit was ready. "Gypsy Road" was also written in a hotel during the very first tour of "Cinderella" with David Lee Roth, a "Somebody Save Me" and "Bad Attitude Shuffle" were the result of just a rotten mood. And the idea of "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)" came to Tom's mind when he was driving in a car to the studio during the recording of the first album.

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During the 1988/89 Cinderella world tour, they visited the USSR, where they performed at the two-day "Peace Festival" in Moscow in August '89 together with "Skid Row", "Gorky Park", "Motley Crue", Ozzy Osbourne, "Scorpions" and "Bon Jovi". "It was a crushing success, the whole stadium stood and sang with us, these Russians did not know English, but they understood what we were singing about, it was unforgettable, if I write memories, I will definitely devote an entire chapter to this concert," Tom said after the performance.

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In 1990, the third CD of Cinderella, "Heartbreak Station", was released. A guitar slide and a saxophone were added to the infinitely lyrical blues sound. The most popular track was the song "Shelter Me", firmly entrenched at the top of the "Top 40", and the video for it was constantly playing on MTV. The album sold 1 million copies, and the band went on tour with David Lee Roth. Japan, which always follows the principle of "ahead of the whole planet", immediately released the concert album "Live Train to Heartbreak Station". And the song "Hot and Bothered" was even included in the soundtrack to the movie "Wayne's World".

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In 1993, Cinderella's career began to decline, which was facilitated by a number of events. Tom Keifer was found to have nodular seals on his ligaments. The verdict of the doctors was merciless - paralysis of the left vocal cord. The voice was gradually fading away. Tom had surgery, ate a ton of medications, studied with the best vocal teachers, spent long hours of chanting and intensive therapy every day, every note was painful, but Tom wanted to sing and was willing to undergo any tests in the name of what he really cared about. It was probably the most difficult period of his life. Fred Kouri left for Arcade. Kevin Valentine sat down at the drums. But he doesn't stay long either and dumps in the middle of recording "Still Climbing". The vacant place is occupied by Rai Brinker, and Kenny Aronoff played drums in the studio. To top it all off, Keifer's mother dies (he dedicated the song "Hard To Find The Words" to her). All this willy-nilly affected the band's work and the fourth album "Still Climbing", released in 1994, although it was of extremely high quality and received very good reviews from the press and radio stations, but could not rise to its former height in the charts.

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1995 brought nothing but fatigue and disappointment, and soon the band broke up.

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Ray helped Tom write his solo album, Eric worked on Marshall Coleman's team. Jeff decided to give up his music career, and Fred continued to play the role of session drummer for various bands, as well as engaged in the affairs of his recording studio in Nashville. That would seem to be all. However, in October 1996, the team received an invitation to take part in a charity concert at a nightclub in New Jersey. It was there that the four main members of the project gathered again, and it was decided to release the Greatest Hits CD "Once Upon A..." Released in May 1997. This CD contained all the best things of "Cinderella", plus a great cover of Janis Joplin's "Move Over" and a new song "War Stories". Cinderella got another chance.

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In November 2017, Keifer stated that Cinderella had no plans to reunite, explaining that "the problems between the band members are beyond repair."

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#Everything you need to know about Rock📌

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the-corvus-luna · 2 months

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Remember when I linked the Rayearth: Wings of Hope LD rip from internet archive? Well, the rough cut of the subs have been finished!

I'd consider this a version "0.9" since I'm not a native speaker. I use machine translation and my limited Japanese knowledge. I do subs as a means to make sure that media doesn't fall into obscurity.

LINKS BELOW!!!

Information about Rayearth: Wings of Hope from ShidouHikaru15's wordpress: The Untold Cephiro.

Here is the movie! Thank you, VCRWashington!

The subtitle file: srt format, made using Subtitle Edit by me (NoxLunae on IA, CorvusLuna on Tumblr)

[SUBTITLE LINK HERE]

Any questions, comments, and concerns are encouraged... especially if there is a translation mistake as I'll get those fixed ASAP.

BTW, Happy Bunny Weekend and HAPPY CLAMP DAY (4/1)!

#magic knight rayearth #mahou kishi rayearth #hikaru shidou #umi ryuuzaki #fuu hououji #90's anime #OVA #retro anime #internet archive #subtitles #clamp

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purpleshybear01 · 1 year

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Love trouble!!💓💓💗💗💘💘💕💕

It's love trouble about my favorite characters who are the three big bad wolves. A thirst trap, flirting and teasing of charm and romance. (Idk what to say the rest I just like too draw some fanart about my favorite characters from a movie, show, video games, Internet and a comic. I like it when there's drama, romance, love triangle, polygram relationship and other stories where it involves a romantic fantasy okay.) So that's all I'm gonna say here and I hope you guys like it I try my best on this and comment and follow my social media and my other accounts too support my artwork and others and if you guys want me to draw more like this just give me a like and a comment to let me know. It will be the best and how much grateful that I will be for you guys for liking and telling me that you like my drawings someday. And thank you guys for the support and I hope you guys have a wonderful day and stay safe out there and I'll see you guys later, bye.👍✌️💜💖❤️‍🔥❤️‍🩹💕

#artdrawing #furry #furry art #fanartdrawing #romance #fantasy #beastars #puss in boots last wish #the bad guys #beastars legoshi #puss in boots death #the bad guys mr wolf #death wolf simp #legoshi simp #mrwolf simp

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the-rewatch-rewind · 8 months

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My love for this movie is difficult to express, but here is my attempt.

Script below the break

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind. My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies in a 20-year period. Today I will be talking about number three on my list: Paramount Pictures, Guber-Peters Company, PolyGram Pictures, and Debra Hill Productions’ 1985 comedy mystery Clue, directed by Jonathan Lynn, written by John Landis and Jonathan Lynn based on the board game Cluedo designed by Anthony E Pratt, and starring Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren.

Six strangers are invited to an ominous, secluded mansion to meet the man who has been anonymously blackmailing them. But someone wants to protect their secret badly enough to kill for it, and as the bodies begin to pile up, the butler, maid, and guests race to discover the culprit before the police arrive.

I grew up in a board game playing family, so I learned how to play Clue soon after I learned how to read. We also had a slightly more complicated version of the game called Master Detective, which had more possible suspects, weapons, and rooms and included a couple extra features, and that has pretty much always been my favorite board game. What I particularly loved about it, especially as a child who never had much hope of beating my parents at games that required any skill, was that it was fun regardless of who the winner ended up being. I just liked seeing how close I could get to the solution before someone else inevitably solved it. I remember my parents mentioning that there was a movie version of Clue that had three different endings, and that they had seen Ending B in a theater, which confused and intrigued me.

The first time I ever watched this movie was when it happened to come on TV when I was visiting my grandparents. I think I was around 10 years old, and I actually thought it was kind of scary. Watching seven murders take place in a creepy old house was a bit much for me. But even then, there was something about it that grabbed me. The characters were all kind of despicable, and yet I liked them. I wanted to see more from them. So we started renting this movie from our local Hollywood Video, over and over again, and eventually we bought it on VHS and later on DVD. Once I got over my initial fright and started appreciating it as a brilliant comedy, I could not get enough of this movie. I can’t even begin to guess how many times I watched Clue before I started tracking my views in 2003, but I know it was a lot because every moment of the movie was already committed to my memory. If I was ever bored, I could close my eyes and play the film for myself with the projector of my mind. I wrote out the entire script so I could count how many words each character spoke. I used toys to act out the entire movie, along with the only person I knew who was more obsessed with Clue than I was: my brother, who was also fascinated by these characters and their antics, although as a preschooler he certainly did not fully understand the plot. But that was fine because ultimately, this movie’s appeal is not its plot, which is basically nonsense; it’s the ensemble. And it was so great having somebody close to me who understood that the same way I did. I think the rest of our family liked this movie too, but they definitely ended up watching it way more than they would have without my brother’s and my insistence.

My need to rewatch this movie was already beginning to wear off before I started keeping track, since the whole thing already lived rent-free in my brain, but even so, I watched it six times in 2003, four times in 2004, once in 2005, three times in 2006, twice in 2007, once in 2008, once in 2009, four times in 2010, twice in 2011, once in 2012, three times in 2013, once in 2014, twice in 2015, once in 2016, once in 2017, once in 2018, and once in 2021. I think part of why I’ve been watching it less in recent years is because ever since 2016, when I’ve felt like watching something like this, I’ve tended to watch Poe Party instead of Clue. But that’s not to say that I don’t still absolutely love Clue. I’ve just seen it enough that I don’t need to actually sit down in front of a screen to experience it.

One thing that I learned relatively recently that explains a lot is that apparently, Jonathan Lynn screened the movie His Girl Friday for the cast of Clue to demonstrate the feel he wanted for this movie. Even though Clue was made in the 1980s, it takes place in the 1950s, and was intentionally mimicking the style of fast-talking screwball comedies from the 1930s and ‘40s. So while I still consider watching Singin’ in the Rain in 2002 my proper introduction to Old Hollywood, falling in love with Clue a couple years earlier really prepared me to fall in love with old movies. Characters who look glamorous and sophisticated but are actually goofballs getting involved in ridiculous situations is my jam, and Clue takes what classic screwballs did with that to a whole new level. The script brilliantly combined several different types of both old-fashioned and updated comedy, and the perfect cast brought it to life in the best possible way. I don’t know if the His Girl Friday screening had any real impact, but regardless, every member of the cast fully understood the assignment and absolutely crushed it. A big part of what makes this movie so rewatchable is that everybody is so on all of the time that it’s fun to focus on what they’re doing in the background. Martin Mull is an amazing confidently clueless Colonel Mustard. Lesley Ann Warren gives Miss Scarlet just the right amount of sass. Christopher Lloyd makes Professor Plum sleazy enough that we get the picture without it ever getting too uncomfortable. Eileen Brennan nails Mrs. Peacock’s barely-holding-it-together-but-can-still-judge-you temperament. Mr. Green is accident prone which means he brings in the physical comedy, and Michael McKean fully commits to it. Of the main characters, Mrs. White has the fewest lines, but Madeline Kahn makes her presence known, doing absolutely everything possible with what she’s given, and improvising one of the greatest, funniest speeches in movie history. Jonathan Lynn discouraged improvisation on the set in general, but Kahn going on and on about the flames on the side of her face was too hilarious not to include. This devotion to delivering the lines exactly as written meant that Tim Curry as the butler Wadsworth, who ultimately figures out what happened and explains the whole thing, had to basically memorize a dictionary, and he killed it and I love him for it. When I was younger, I used to think I had a crush on Wadsworth, but I eventually came to realize that I just wanted to be Wadsworth, with the confidence to solve a puzzle and the eloquence to explain the solution in a highly entertaining, if long-winded, way.

The supporting cast is also excellent, and I wish that we could have seen more from them. Lee Ving’s name alone made him the perfect murder victim, but I also love the way he plays Mr. Boddy as sort of a cool mobster type of guy. Colleen Camp as the voluptuous, scantily clad maid Yvette is almost a throwaway joke of a character, but Camp manages to make her seem like a real person, or as real as any of these other ridiculous characters anyway. When I took French in high school and we all had to pick a French name, I chose Yvette because of this movie, even though I never even remotely identified with this character. Bill Henderson as the cop is an excellent straight man for the shenanigans with the bodies, which is either one of the funniest or most disturbing parts of the film, depending on how you look at it. Jeffrey Kramer, Kellye Nakahara, and Jane Wiedlin barely had anything to do, but they made their brief moments as memorable as possible. Basically, as fun as the script is, this movie would not have worked without an incredible cast, and thankfully, it has that. In some ways I wish the actors had been allowed to play around a bit more because then maybe we could have gotten other moments as epic as the flames speech, but at the same time, I feel like the pressure to say everything exactly as written in long takes added to the stress the characters were meant to be feeling. And the script is full of great jokes and excellent banter; it’s just that since the mystery aspect doesn’t really track anyway, I feel like the director could have let the actors have more fun with it.

I understand that they were trying to use the multiple endings to represent how the game is different every time, and also as a bit of a publicity stunt, but it kind of backfired. Theater-going audiences found it confusing, and the movie initially flopped. Thankfully with the home video version that included all three endings, Clue eventually did gain the cult following it deserves. But the problem is, in trying to accommodate three different solutions, the mystery gets lost in the middle, and none of the endings actually track. Yvette’s death is the part that makes the least sense – we clearly see that Mrs. Peacock and Mrs. White were both elsewhere seconds beforehand, so endings B and C don’t work, and in ending A Yvette was working with the killer so what she says right before she is killed doesn’t make any sense. For all of Wadsworth’s explanations, each ending leaves many unanswered questions, and they kind of draw attention to this in two of the endings, with one character saying, “There’s still one thing I don’t understand” and somebody else interjecting, “ONE thing?” Clearly this was meant to be a comedy rather than a serious murder mystery, but I do feel like if they weren’t trying to be so gimmicky, they could have made the mystery part work too (see Poe Party). Although in some ways, I kind of love that Clue doesn’t make sense. It feels perfectly consistent to have these characters who are pretending to be serious and dignified when they’re really all very silly people get caught up in a murder mystery with three endings that don’t work. When I point out Clue’s plot holes, it’s more like gently ribbing a friend than cinematic critique. I have to analyze the flaws in the story because of who I am as an overthinker, but I don’t think the flaws make it bad; if anything, they increase my enjoyment of the movie. It’s like a game: spot all the inconsistencies, and then realize that none of them matter. Because ultimately, fans of this movie aren’t here for the story; we’re here for the cast and the vibes. I don’t really know how to describe it, but while there are certainly other fun mystery-parody-type comedies out there, none of the others I’ve seen has quite the same tone as Clue, and that’s another reason I keep rewatching it.

And from an aroace perspective, Clue is great because there really is no love story. I mean, people mention spouses and affairs, and jealousy is floated as a possible motive for murder, but none of the characters that we see fall in love with each other during the course of the movie. Professor Plum does hit on Miss Scarlet a bit, but her reaction is very, “What the hell is wrong with you? We have way more important things to worry about right now.” When the cop shows up, in order to prevent him from finding out about the murders, some of the characters pretend to be making out with the bodies as if they’re alive, which is very weird on many levels, but it’s kind of a great illustration of the ridiculousness of allonormativity. If the cop had looked twice at them he would have noticed something was off, but of course adults at a party are going to be making out, nothing to see here, moving on. I always thought this part was hilarious when I was younger, and now that I understand my identity better I can articulate my appreciation for the way this movie portrays people who are focused on romance as the weird ones. Obviously that’s specific to this situation – like, I think most alloromantic people would agree that being locked in a murder house is not the best time to pursue romance. But aromantic stories are so rare that I’ll take whatever I can find. When Clue mentions sex, it’s usually either as a punchline (“Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage”) or part of a motive, since most of the blackmail victims are being blackmailed for something to do with sex. The sexual content is mostly in the background, adding to the vibes without pulling too much focus, kind of like some of my favorite classic films noirs. And this whole movie is so silly that I don’t feel like the sexiness is really meant to be taken seriously. Asking how an asexual person could possibly enjoy a film filled with so many blatantly allosexual characters would be just as ridiculous as asking how a person who had never killed anyone could possibly enjoy a film filled with so much murder. These characters clearly weren’t meant to be too relatable. But I still appreciate getting to see them on an evening when they’re at least mostly focused on things besides romance and sex.

I know I keep going on about how this movie is just silly fun, but one aspect that I do think was meant to be taken kind of seriously is the satirical criticism of McCarthyism. The exaggeratedly horrified gasps in response to Wadsworth's revelation that his wife had friends who were socialists is funny, but also, people’s lives were legitimately ruined because of that attitude. The only line that all three endings have in common is “Communism is just a red herring,” which is relevant to the movie because characters were trying to tie the murders into Cold War-related motives that ended up being irrelevant, but also kind of describes how trying to stop communism was used as an excuse for atrocities that didn’t always have much if anything to do with communism. It’s a little odd to stick that message in this movie, and I don’t exactly know why it’s there, but I like the way it adds to the Old Hollywood connection. Filmmakers in the 1950s had to be very careful about the messages they put in their movies, and what they said outside of their movies, for fear of being blacklisted as suspected communists, so it seems fitting that this movie set in the 1950s would be calling that out. Although there were very much still Cold War tensions in the 1980s as well, which is perhaps why this message is all but buried in silliness. And maybe I’m wrong and this aspect was meant to be silly as well, but it feels rather pointed to me, so I wanted to bring it up as one of the many fascinating aspects of this film.

I truly believe that Clue is a great movie that has something for everyone, and highly recommend it to anyone listening who hasn’t seen it, but at the same time, I am incapable of separating the movie from my own nostalgia. I can’t imagine what I would think of this movie if I watched it today for the first time because I would be a fundamentally different person if I hadn’t seen Clue a zillion times when I was young. Not only did it inform my taste in movies going forward, but it also shaped my understanding of the world, in a way. I think like most children, I once assumed adults knew what they were doing, but this movie showed me a bunch of adults who didn’t have the slightest idea, which was simultaneously terrifying and comforting. It also changed the way I talked, because I used to quote this movie constantly. I do it less now, but there was a time when instead of “I wasn’t talking to you” I would always say, “I was asking Miss Scarlet!” Or when somebody was looking for a key, I’d go, “Never mind about the key; unlock the door!” If anybody said, “Maybe…” with a long pause, I’d have to follow it with “Mr. Boddy killed the cook!” And similarly, “Oh who cares?” always had to be followed by, “That guy doesn’t matter! Let him stay locked up for another half an hour! The police will be here by then, and there are TWO DEAD BODIES IN THE STUDY!!!” And if anyone got confused about numbers, I’d helpfully chime in, “Even if you were right, that would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one.” I could go on, but I’d end up quoting the whole movie, because I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to work every single line into a non-Clue-related conversation at least once. Often people just stare at me blankly, but it’s fun quoting it to my siblings because they usually respond with the next line, and we can go through whole scenes if nobody stops us. I have so many fun memories of reciting and analyzing this movie with them, arguing about things like whether Mr. Boddy says, “It’s only glass” or “It’s hunky glass” about the conservatory wall – it’s definitely “only” but my sister will not be convinced. Memories of my little brother adorably misunderstanding lines, thinking that Mrs. White’s husband had a “big fair” with Yvette, or that Mrs. Peacock said, “Oh I got a horse!” instead of “Oh my god of course!” or that blackmail was what those dark brown UPS trucks delivered. At one point, I wrote a script for Master Detective, which had the same basic premise as Clue – a bunch of blackmail victims congregated in a house to confront their blackmailer and his accomplices – but made even less sense. I didn’t back it up so it disappeared when that computer died, thankfully, but I still remember enough of it to cringe about. Since all the suspects had color names, I decided all the murder victims needed themed names as well, so I named them all after body parts to go with Mr. Boddy and thought I was so clever. I don’t remember most of them anymore, but I know there was a Mr. Elbow and a Mrs. Toenail. I also remember at one point I wrote in the directions something like, “It’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop. In fact, Miss Peach drops a pin” and again was delighted by my own cleverness. My brother and I used to act it out with toys, and one time, after the dead body of the butler had been thrown out the window for some reason right before somebody else was arriving, my brother was being silly and had the new person pick up the dead body and say, “I brought your butler back!” seemingly without realizing that the butler was dead, and I thought that was so hilarious that I added it into the script, and it’s still my favorite part that I remember. It was a bad script, but in my defense I was very young, and anyway my point is, Clue inspired me to be creative in a fun way, without worrying about taking my work or myself too seriously, which is the attitude I’ve tried to take into making this podcast.

I feel like there is so much more I could say about Clue, but it’s hard to find words to adequately express how deeply I love this film. It feels wrong to call this a “comfort movie” when there are so many murders in it, but somehow it does feel comforting. It’s like an old friend, whose jokes I’ve heard a hundred times but still make me laugh, whom I love in spite of, and in some ways because of, their flaws. I know not everybody is into movies the way I am, but I think everybody needs at least one story or piece of art that they feel that way about. Not that experiencing art is a substitute for real friendship, but art is a form of human expression and connection that I think we all need in addition to relationships. And yes, I consider Clue to be a work of art. It’s a frickin masterpiece.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched movies. I fear these episodes are becoming less coherent as I get into my top films that I can’t even with, but I hope they’re still enjoyable. Next up will be my second most rewatched movie, which I have seen 37 times in its entirety even though it is by far the longest movie in my entire top 40. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: “Shelves in the closet. Happy thought indeed.”

#clue #clue movie #the rewatch rewind

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looseygoosey66 · 11 months

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Stoney with Michael "Goldie" Goldstone (he signed MLB and later Pearl Jam after staying in contact with Stone & Jeff even after he moved from PolyGram to Epic/Sony) and a few other pics from the private Loosegroove industry event in Brooklyn tonight. Also - a quick clip of Stoney playing with members of Tigercub and Jonny Polonsky (both Loosegroove artists) covering Sabbath🤘🏻

Gonna hold back a few more pics & video clips for now given recent events

#stone gossard #michael goldstone #tigercub #jonny polonsky #loosegroove records #regan hagar #billie jean sarullo #saint vitus #brooklyn #the orchard #pearl jam #mother love bone #polygram #epic records #sony music #jeff ament #black sabbath #live music #pbr

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myvinylplaylist · 1 year

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KIϟϟ: Crazy Nights (1988)

Polygram Video

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liquidgirl13 · 8 months

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Fuel

Shimmer

(Official HD Video)

youtube

Shimmer

She calls me from the cold

Just when I was low

Feeling short of stable

All that she intends

And all she keeps inside

Isn't on the label

She says she's ashamed

Can she take me for a while?

Can I be a friend?

We'll forget the past

Or maybe I'm not able

And I break at the bend

We're here and now

Will we ever be again?

'Cause I have found

All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade

Away again

She dreams a champagne dream

Strawberry surprise

Pink linen on white paper

Lavender and cream

Fields of butterflies

Reality escapes her

She says that love

Is for fools that fall behind

And I'm somewhere between

I never really know

A killer from a savior

'Til I break at the bend

We're here and now

Will we ever be again?

'Cause I have found

All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade

Away again