Uncle Scoopy's Fun House

Scoop's note: like a ninny, I deleted the ICMS commentary for today, and didn't notice until the 11th hour, so these are actually my notes, not his.

"Don't Look Now" (1973)

1. This is the first movie about which I can remember discussion of the leads actually doin' the nasty on camera. In this case, there wasn't all that much controversy, since the particular nasty being done on camera was cunnlingus, which is pretty darned hard to fake. I mean, there's the lips, and there's the other lips, what could be fake about it?

2. Although I'm impressed with the cinematography, I hate this freakin' movie. Two words: evil dwarf! Tuna sorta liked it, so we split. Tuna also weighed in on his detailed observations regarding exactly which nasties were bein' done, and he makes a case to add fuckin' to the suckin'.

2. Julie Christie might have become one of the greatest screen stars of all time, an icon on a par with Liz Taylor, Bogart, Gable and Marilyn. She had talent. She had incredible looks. In fact, she completely looked the part of a glamorous movie star, but at heart she was a hippie. She didn't care about the money, or the fame, or the prestige, or the glamour. He family was both rich and smart. Her dad managed a plantation in India or something exotic like that, and her brother was a an intellectual, a Cambridge professor.

To make a long story short, she got bored with it all and pretty much just walked away from stardom after Heaven Can Wait. Even before then she turned down more good roles than she accepted. She refused the leads in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969), "Anne of a Thousand Days" (1969), and "Nicholas and Alexandra" (1971) - all of which earned Oscar nods for the actresses who took her leavings.

In the two decades from 1976 to 1995, she had only 15 total credits at IMDB, many of them insignificant. I don't remember the details of what she was doing, but she was into the gentle side of left wing politics (save the whales, no nukes, that kind of stuff).

I'm happy to see her taking major roles again. She came back as Gertrude in Branagh's Hamlet, and recently had major roles in Troy and Finding Neverland. At 63 years old, I guess she's sort of a GILF.

Julie Christie 1 (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)
Julie Christie 2 (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)
Julie Christie 3 (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)
Julie Christie 4 (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)
Julie Christie 5 (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)
Julie Christie 6 (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)
Julie Christie 7 (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)
Julie Christie 8 (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)

"Catch 22" (1994)

I disliked this movie when it came out, but really liked it when I watched the DVD a couple of years back. The book was a major cult item on college campuses back then, and the same people who worshipped the book also worshipped movies like Easy Rider and M*A*S*H - anarchic and self-consciously sincere movies that seemed to have been made by guys wearing sandals and smoking dope. Which, in fact, they were.

People hoped that Catch-22 would be that kind of movie, but it was more of a big slick Hollywood movie that looked like it was made by guys wearing ties and wing-tip shoes. Which, in fact, it was.

I bought into that whole line of thinking in 1970 but today, liberated from the pre-requirement for a politically correct approach, I think Catch-22 is a pretty decent movie - a nearly successful attempt to film an impossible book - an impenetrably labyrinthine work which derived much of its impact and much of its considerable humor from stylistic devices which did not easily convert to cinema.

Here are my detailed thoughts, and Tuna's as well

I remember that ICMS mentioned in his letter that Paula Prentiss must have been one of the first Hollywood actresses to do frontal nudity in a mainstream project. Yeah, I guess that's pretty much true, and I do remember that Playboy made a pretty big deal out of it back in the day. I always liked Paula. She was kooky and effervescent, kind of like the Mountain Dew of her time. She was a goofy comedienne with a naturally funny way to deliver lines in her odd voice, and she was also sexy as all get-out, giving her a rare combination of talents.

When they talk about the funniest sitcoms of all time, the TV pundits often forget one of the very best: He and She, which starred Paula and her husband (Richard Benjamin) as the straight men for those two complete crazies, Kenneth Mars and Jack Cassidy. If they ever issue that show on DVD, I'll be the first in line.

Paula was not a talent on the Julie Christie level and was never destined to be the brightest star in the firmament, but much like Julie, Paula she got tired of her career, and retired several times, finally packing it all in for good in 1983.

Paula Prentiss (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)