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OCClient

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    Jack Benny

    in Comedy & Tragedy

    Posted · Edited by OCClient

    I had SiriusXM for a while, and one of the channels ran all of his radio shows. Hilarious and held up quite well over the years.

    I ran across the old radio show station on SiriusXM. They play a lot of Jack Benny. They also run a lot of other old shows, comedies and dramas. It's great! Yesterday I listened to Fort Laramie, with Raymond Burr as Captain Lee Quince

     

    https://www.siriusxm.com/radioclassics

    2018 Movies

    in Movies

    Posted · Edited by OCClient

    The Playlist published their 100 anticipated films of 2018.

    I saw 12 that look interesting in random order.

     

    1. Boy Erased Lucas Hedges, Xavier Dolan (conversion therapy)
    2. On The Basis Of Sex Armie Hammer, Kathy Bates (about R.B.Ginsburg)
    3. Where’d You Go Bernadette? Cate Blanchett, K. Wiig (Director R Linklater)
    4. Under The Silver Lake Andrew Garfield (A noir set in modern day Los Angeles)
    5. The Old Man & The Gun Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek, Casey Affleck
    6. Burning Steven Yeun (Director: Lee Chang-Dong)
    7. The Death & Life Of John F. Donovan Kit Harington, (Director Xavier Dolan)
    8. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote Adam Driver (Director: Terry Gilliam)
    9. Suspiria Tilda Swinton, (Director Luca Guadagnino)
    10. Isle Of Dogs (Director Wes Anderson)
    11. The Irishman Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel (mobster flick)
    12. If Beale Street Could Talk (Director Barry Jenkins)

     

    I saw Isle of Dogs today.

     

    I expect if you are a Wes Anderson fan like me, you will get a kick out of this movie. The story is set in Japan, but the theme is universal and apropos to our world today.

     

    Brody-Isle-Of-Dogs.jpg

    Call Me By Your Name

    in Movies

    Posted

    Interesting @OCClient. I heard an Aciman interview where he stated that his first idea of Anchise in the novel was as an older, predatory gay man, with the idea that he would be the "villain" in CMBYN, which you can still find vestiges of in the novel, what with Elio's feelings that Anchise is scary and he (Elio) never feels comfortable around him and also how Anchise insists on applying a homemade poultice to Oliver himself, when Oliver falls from his bike and scrapes his side.

     

    I must also point out that since (SPOILERS!!!) Anchise dies in about fifteen years from when we first meet him in the novel at only 50 years old, he is much younger (about 35!) in the novel than in the movie. Aciman decided early on that the novel would be more about the love between Elio (first love) and Oliver, (first gay love?) and would need no predatory antagonist, so he ended up not writing Anchise that way. Thus, Anchise becomes only the gardener, who sometimes argues with Mafalda's husband, Manfredi, who is the Perlman's chauffeur (Manfredi is a character who was cut from the movie script entirely!) as to which duties belong to him as gardener and which duties belong to Manfredi as chauffeur/mechanic.

     

    So once again here's another point that is completely up to the viewer. Perhaps there are more clues that Anchise in the novel may be gay but I don't believe there's any basis for that idea in the movie at all.

     

    TruHart1 :cool:

     

    Thanks TruHar1!

    :)

    When Manfredi berated Anchise for being dumped out of the Army, I though that was a clue. I also thought Anchise and Professor Perlman had a history. But as a reminder to SK, it's just fiction. :p

    Call Me By Your Name

    in Movies

    Posted

    Aciman admits he wrote Elio from his viewpoint and feelings. He is a straight man with three boys.

     

    So one might not be surprised about the comments Elio made about someday having a wife and kids or how much he enjoyed the feeling of a woman, a feeling he could get addicted to.

     

    Oliver's office was brimming with memories and artifacts about Elio, safely away from the wife. He never forgot how deeply he felt for Elio, his cor cordium. I expect his love for Elio was never matched by any man he might have played with after Italy.

     

    Aciman admits his intent isn't to give all the answers, and after all he wrote the book in a flash so he probably never knew all these things that we want to figure out, such as my burning question whether Anchise was gay, the kind of question that probably drives Aciman nutz!

     

    The takeaway will always be the mark that a man Elio desired, a man named Oliver, made on Elio's life. Beyond that, Aciman recommends we remember it's just fiction.

    Call Me By Your Name

    in Movies

    Posted

    So these are the last two paragraphs from the article hyperlinked by TruHart:

     

    "Aciman is married to a woman, and he doesn’t believe in labeling sexuality. Guadagnino is gay. Elio and Oliver both seem bisexual, but Elio is likely going to move more toward women as he gets older, while Oliver is probably going to move toward men when he feels like he can. They won’t ever forget what they felt for each other, and maybe you could say that their lives will be ruined because of that.

     

    But maybe what Call Me by Your Name (both novel and film) is saying is that you are lucky if you can have your life ruined by a love affair, if you can feel something with that much intensity. Something of that intensity wasn’t meant to last. But that close-up of Hammer’s face where Oliver tries to smile expresses the grief over that realization as profoundly as any human facial expression I’ve ever seen."

     

    One of the things I liked about the movie, which was very much reflected in my binge reading of 26 pages of reactions, is that beauty and art are in the eye of the beholder. Different people took very different meanings or nuances out of the film. The author of this article suggests, for example, that Elio's Mom "not only knows what is happening but ... understands that Oliver is more in love with her son than Elio is with him." Try to prove that theory based on the actual script. That's part of what I loved about it, and why I was delighted that Ivory won an Oscar. It was a subtle film. And it seemed more designed to start a conversation and exploration than to end it.

     

    Having said that, the notion that "you are lucky if you can have your life ruined by a love affair" when you are 17 is a bridge too far for me. I've talked to a couple people who read the book after seeing the movie, and I learned enough about the structure of the book that I decided I don't really want to read it. I'd rather view this movie the way the director seemed to intend it: a story about being able to be vulnerable, very much in the moment, and let yourself go. The idea of Elio looking back on and revisiting his affair decades later doesn't much appeal to me. Lord knows it took me a very long time to figure that out as a Gay man. If Elio could pull it off for the first time as a 17 year old, good for him.

     

    I'd like to imagine the experience in the movie opened him, just like Elio's father described in that great scene, and better things and deeper love are still to come. But the idea that the experience ruined him, or this is a once in a lifetime magical love affair? Forget that! Both times I saw the movie it struck me that Elio's Mom and Dad probably had the kind of love that Elio and Oliver could have had - if they decided to hunker down and spend a lifetime building it. That's a different thing than a Summer dive into the pool, no matter how deep the water is.

     

    Regarding the issue of Gay sex, what I also find interesting and a bit ironic is that the real world actions and statements and even conflicts of the chief designers of this movie echo some of the conflicts written into the movie they created: which is to say, the conflict between an idealized relationship that lasts for a Summer and starts off maturity, and a mature relationship that lasts a lifetime.

     

    For example, here's Ivory present day bitching and moaning:

     

    The screenwriter has expressed disappointment in the past over the film’s lack of full frontal male nudity, but he flat out criticizes director Luca Guadagnino for the choice in a new interview with The Guardian. “When Luca says he never thought of putting nudity in, that is totally untrue,” Ivory said. “He sat in this very room where I am sitting now, talking about how he would do it, so when he says that it was a conscious aesthetic decision not to – well, that’s just bullshit.”

     

    http://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/james-ivory-luca-guadagnino-full-frontal-call-me-by-your-name-chalemet-hammer-penis-1201944399/

     

    But then here's a very different Ivory describing why he kept his own lifelong love relationship with Merchant under wraps:

     

    "Ivory himself is gay. His relationship with his producing partner Ismail Merchant, which began when they met in the early 60s, lasted until Merchant died during surgery in 2005 at the age of 68. Though the pair had been making films for more than four decades – often with their friend and favourite screenwriter, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who died in 2013 – any references to their personal life together were only ever made discreetly and euphemistically by the press, if at all.

     

    Even with the release in 1987 of Maurice, they batted away any prying questions about their private lives. When I ask Ivory why this was, he comes as close to calling me a blasted fool as someone so urbane can. “Well, you just wouldn’t,” he splutters. “That is not something that an Indian Muslim would ever say publicly or in print. Ever! You have to remember that Ismail was an Indian citizen living in Bombay, with a deeply conservative Muslim family there. It’s not the sort of thing he was going to broadcast. Since we were so close and lived most of our lives together, I wasn’t about to undermine him.”

     

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/27/james-ivory-ismail-merchant-love-secret-call-me-by-your-name-nudity

     

    The latter version of Ivory sounds exactly like how a mature couple who are sensitive and in it for keeps, and operating in a homophobic industry, might feel. I don't begrudge Ivory any of his choices. I deeply admire his choices. So it's all well and good now to say they should have actually had that reverse cowboy fuck scene Kenny and I longed for. ;) But I can understand why a Gay Director who wants his movie to work at the box office with a mass audience, and wants to get more directing jobs, might be a little concerned about going there.

     

    There's a difference between intensity and maturity. The movie definitely captured the first between Oliver and Elio. It only hinted at the latter. The other word I like that Hammer used in one of the interviews in this 26 pages was "duality." The fact that a two hour movie about "Gay love" also was able to incorporate "Straight love" on the part of both "Gay" characters was also interesting. It was also a bit unrealistic, perhaps. I spent about one year of my life calling myself "bisexual," and most Gay men's reaction when I said that was, "No, you're just confused." :eek: Eventually, most people - like the Director, the screen writer, and the author of the book - settle down, and have to be one or the other.

     

    I'm rambling, but what I loved about the movie was that it felt like it was about "becoming" and possibility. It certainly did not feel like it was about Elio being ruined.

     

    When saying Elio was ruined, wasn't he indicating how great the pain was? I don't think Aciman meant Elio was literally ruined for life, but just that he felt devastated when Oliver went home to the States. Aciman has repeated how the book is about desire, as well as the pain that can result when acknowledging your desire, and acting on it. He is not making any judgment. He's just writing about what can happen, and the extent that it affected Elio.

    Call Me By Your Name

    in Movies

    Posted

    James Ivory: why Ismail Merchant and I kept our love secret:

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/27/james-ivory-ismail-merchant-love-secret-call-me-by-your-name-nudity

     

    James Ivory and his long time writing partner Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, along with his writing and

    ________producing partner Ismail Merchant who was also his lifetime lover.

    http://image.oregonlive.com/home/olive-media/width620/img/ent_impact_tvfilm/photo/16069615-mmmain.jpg

     

    TruHart1 :cool:

     

    Great article. The nudity in Maurice was perfectly natural. Love that movie.

    Too bad the funding for CMBYN didn't come through sooner and with enough to afford Ivory directing. I'm glad he spoke the truth again, leaving no doubt about why CMBYN had no frontal nudity.

     

    Honestly, I didn't know he was partners with Merchant until the re-release of Maurice. Didn't know Ivory was gay until then.

     

    His comments about Merchant being Muslim and gay in India are important. Gay movie creators still face obstacles in India, a country that is a world leader in cinema productions. By the way, anyone that hasn't seen LOEV should go to Netflix and stream it!

    Call Me By Your Name

    in Movies

    Posted

    From Gotham Magazine, a little interview with André Aciman:

    https://gotham-magazine.com/andre-aciman-on-call-me-by-your-name-and-its-sequel

     

    TruHart1 :cool:

    Great article. Thanks TruHart1 for posting it. I really love Aciman's books.

     

    The whole idea about wanting a happy ending to the movie sequel is not something I need, but it is something I hear over and over, how people pine for a happy ending to the story of Oliver and Elio, both the book and the movie. Perhaps happy endings help people mentally move on, having every loose end tied up, and the characters leaving us on a sweet and safe footing.

     

    Some on Goodreads have asked if Aciman will write a sequel to his book. My hunch is that no, he will not return to these characters. But only Aciman knows for sure.

     

    http://gotham-magazine.com/get/files/image/galleries/aciman2.jpg

    Call Me By Your Name

    in Movies

    Posted · Edited by OCClient

    That’s intriguing. Care to expand and explain the comment?

    Not all that intriguing.

    It's just that TC mentioned AH took smoke breaks up in the tower room where the peach scene was shot. Forgot what the other personal comment was but it was pretty mundane. Something about Hammer taking an 8 hour lunch at a favorite restaurant in Crema.

     

    Also I believe it was TC that mentioned the two actors dancing to their car stereo in the square were from Luca's partner's theater production.

    29342490_10160105224700035_8528697102912454656_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=8a5f0edd6984031f5e1b2964bdb335dd&oe=5B3A0A97

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