How did you like that movie / TV show / book?

tonight i watched the columbo episode starring nicol williamson, the welsh actor. i knew him from his brilliant turn as merlin in excalibur (1981).

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a very interesting dude. he was considered quite a brilliant actor, but was apparently a rather moody chap who had a touch of a temper onstage. this alienated some and probably limited his opportunities to some extent. i also read that his portrayal as hamlet in the minimalistic film from 1969 is considered by many to be the finest performance of the role across film.


...


also, last week i was watching a pretty funny episode of columbo in which robby the robot and jose ferrer were costars! damn, that was unexpected.

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looks like they lost his original legs at that point.

side note-- there was a boy genius in this ep (pictured) whose name was "steven spelberg." a little tribute to a former episode director who went on to do a few other things.
 
I'd probably agree with that, as well. Although, for me, Farrow was the biggest surprise. While I liked Rosemary's Baby, I never cared much for her performance, and I made it through only about half of the Great Gatsby snoozefest... and that's about all I remember her doing before she hooked up with the Woodster. Oh well... la-dee-dah.
 
Fecking Excalibur! I remember Cinemax showing that when I was about 17. Must have watched it 30 times in the space of a couple months. That's a whole movie full of "Steven Spelbergs"! Liam Neeson and Gabriel Byrne both had smallish parts, if I remember (I could look it up, but that takes away the fun) and there's a couple brief shots of Patrick Stewart with slightly more hair than he has in TNG!
 
for sure! byrne played arthur's father uther pendragon. stewart played the father of gwenivere. neeson played... um... gawain, who lancelot dueled at one point over the queen's honor.

(d'oh... i had to look the last bit up)

WP also had something interesting to say about a feud between williamson and helen mirren who played his apprentice morgana le fey. apparently they couldn't stand each other and the director used that to his advantage.
 
Yeah, that sounds about like Boorman. Quirky dude. I noticed a lot of Boormans in the cast and crew on the Imdb page. Didn't he do that crazy sci-fi movie that featured Sean Connery in a diaper? Zardoz or something?


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I'll be good goddamned but I'm on a roll today! I remembered all the 'where were they now?' actors in Excalibur without looking, and I remembered this movie! You wanna know the real amazing thing? I've never even seen it. But somehow my brain is clogged with the information that John Boorman directed a movie called Zardoz that featured a diapered Bond. And I wonder why algebra was so hard for me to learn!
 
I Have Seen the Future and It Doesn't Work
 
zardoz was in fact a pretty neat, fascinating movie!
 
You know, despite how weirdo it looks, I would bet that it's at least a very original vision. Boorman's really got that down. Just looking at his Imdb page, there's only one movie he directed that I can say is an out-and-out lemon... and, if I remember my Hollywood lore correctly, Boorman took over Exorcist II after someone else dropped out. Hmmm... today isn't as good a day as yesterday. From reading the Imdb page, it looks like, while they offered it to Kubrick, Boorman may have to take responsibility for that one. But I digress! As usual! The last film on the list that I've seen is The General. And if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.
 
Boorman's first film was The Dave Clark 5 movie, "Catch Us If You Can".
His second film was, "Point Blank".

Back in '67, my old man claimed that "he walked in at the service station where he worked and almost ruined a scene that was being shot". That could be B.S. I haven't seen the film yet. So, if there is a scene in the film, at a Shell Service Station, then it probably wasn't. Else it made the cutting room floor, thanks to my old man showing up for work...

On a side note, about the first Exorcist movie, that Warner/Reprise Creative Services Dept. (that nearly killed me the first day in) was handed the task of distributing genuine plastic replicas of the bloody Crucifix that Regan used on herself, if you know what I mean. This was to promote the soundtrack release, but the bloody replicas only went to studio execs, D.J.s and the corporate heads of the record stores. This was just before I showed up as "Fresh Meat".

Gene Benson pulled me to the side one day and told my about these "bloody Crucifixes". And then he asked rhetorically, about Regan...
..."I wonder what she was thinking?". Gene was a funny guy. I wish I had one of those for a souvenir.
But then, I'd only hawk it...

My Sister and I, we went to see it on a Friday night in Hollywood, the second weekend of its initial release. We got there before 8 P.M., but the line was around the block and the theater was sold out for the night, through 1 A.M.
So we went to The Egyptian Theater and watched "Rollercoaster" "in Sensurround" instead. Sensurround was responsible for the subsequent adoption of subwoofers
in audio systems. And I wish the goddamn motherfuckers would pa...nevermind.

I like George Segal. :)
 
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This is the sort of thing that you can find around my apartment complex, if you don't mind looking through the dumpster.
I wonder where it comes from? At the time, I thought it was one of those things, like the bloody Crucifix. Maybe some WB studio swag, or a private screening custom ticket. Or it came with the comic books. But I have six of these packed away somewhere (I Hate Apartment Inspections! Gotta put everything away, and then I lose track of it all).

They appear to have serialized numbers.
Does anybody know about this item?
 

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I once had a can of pea-green soup autographed by Linda Blair from back when I interviewed her. I dug that thing. My mom decided to take her 12-year-old altar boy son to the drive-in to see The Exorcist. I think I slept in her room for about a week afterwards... with the lights on!

The General stars Brendan Gleeson as an Irish mobster... and Gleeson is pretty amazing in it. I usually don't care for non-American organized-crime movies, but this one could join... well, maybe not The Godfather or Goodfellas, but at least the second-tier with Carlito's Way and Casino.
 
Oh Thank God! A fellow human who can man up to being scared shitless.
I did nearly the same thing after watching Psycho on late-night local t.v. in '68.
I watched it alone while my family slept. And after it ended, I crawled on my belly and elbows to my parent's bedroom where I slept on the floor like a dog. They found me the next morning laying there, and my Mom wanted to know what was wrong.

I did nearly the same thing after watching "Night of the Living Dead" at 1:30 A.M. in the darkness of a distant drive-in with my older Brother as driver. I spent the night at his apartment afterwards, sleeping in a spare room, though I really didn't sleep at all.
There was this large closet in the room, and I left the closet light on because I wanted to make sure that the ghost in the mirror wasn't looking at me.

But in hindsight, I know what it was. In both instances, neither was a theater.
So it was because I couldn't smell the hot buttered popcorn!
 
That reminds me. I crawled to my parent's room. I did not pass Go. I did not use the bathroom.

I held my water til morning.
 
I pretty much treated The Exorcist as a scary amusement park ride once I hit my teens. I think I've seen that movie under just about every substance known to man (shroom viewing is the most memorable). By the time I saw the movies you listed, I was just past the age of having the crap scared out of me, but those are both worthy titles to be frightened by. I saw NOTLD for the first time in a college classroom and, man, did it give me the creeps! And that was after I saw Dawn of the Dead! The B&W definitely works in its favor. I think, besides The Exorcist, the Charles B. Pierce drive-in Bigfoot classic The Legend of Boggy Creek did a number on me. I was visiting family in Memphis when I saw it and the movie... all "based on real events", I'll have you know!... took place right next door in Arkansas! How long would it take Bogfoot to motor across the border, make a stop at Graceland and then cruise by my aunt's house where I was staying? Not fucking long at all, is the answer that scrambled around and around my brain through a couple of sleepless nights.
I take that back! I saw The Entity after I saw Psycho and The Entity scared the crap out of me! Ah well... the price one pays if one really wants to see Barbara Hershey's boobs (which were exquisite).
 
Oh, fuck... The Evil Dead! That's the last movie that scared the crap out of me! Man, if you caught that fucker in the early '90s before Sam Raimi became a thing, you did not know what was in store for you! That and NOTLD prove conclusively that you don't need millions of dollars to scare the crap out of someone.
 
Ah, The Evil Dead. I had read a misleading synopsis before seeing it and was disappointed. The synopsis stated that the mates had to each sacrifice a body part in order to banish the witch. All I saw was cold death. No sacrifice.

The makeup was cheese. Now, what I would have done with it would have been this.
Bruce witnesses the last death. We saw him in that heated fever while he was losing it.
But there, insert a mantle clock. The hands of the clock begin to rotate backwards.
Back to Bruce showing confusion. The camera then pans over the carnage, in smoky haze at sunrise. But now among the dead bodies, it's all normal faces with scarlet blood and bone.

Bruce then runs away, laughing.
 
LOL! Lemme get this straight... you were disappointed because, instead of lopping off body parts for a sacrifice, people were killed instead? You're a tough one to please, Arne! Everything was cheese about that movie... except for the camera work. Now it's been done a couple of million times, but those... well, normally, I'd say Steadicam shots, but they couldn't afford a Steadicam... those shots of the camera zipping through the woods was freaking terrifying!
 
Body parts? Or parts thereof? Yes! Especially if you are a friend who has to break the news to the next uninformed donor. Your girlfriend, or?

Else, the demon witch will not be banished. But that's what the synopsis said.
It wasn't me.

But then, that would indicate that Ash's "donation" was his sanity.
 
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Well, if you're looking for sacrificed body parts, you'll have to wait for Evil Dead 2. The good news is that the stump left after you sacrifice your hand can now be accessorized with a chainsaw!

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that pic reminds me a little of a new film coming out: "mad max fury road."

it feels like a million years since the original movies, but if there's one thing hollywood courageously specialises in, it's investing in reboots and remakes.
 
Yeah, I think I mentioned that in defense of Interstellar. I also pointed out that Colin Farrell's been in a bunch of crappy Hollywood remakes. It's weird that he passed on this one. This seems like a perfect fit for him as either good guy or bad guy. Or even Max's dog (it better be a blue heeler again... just like my gone but not forgotten Ruby[sans 651]!). I do have a growing appreciation for Tom Hardy, though. And it'll be interesting to see if George Miller's got one last good movie in him at his advanced age.
 
i would agree colin farrel's got the acting chops to play max' dog. or maybe a piece of scenery, whatevs.

i'm not familiar with those names you mentioned, but sorry to hear about your dog. i had a couple rescue cats that i still think about quite often. the problem with having a cat in a one-bedroom apt is that it's just everywhere. i need a smaller animal, but they don't let me keep those here.

speaking of scifi and dubious franchises, did you see the 2nd star wars trailer released the other day? it's fun seeing han solo again, but man it still just looks like leftovers from the previous movies.
 
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