I Just Watched...

[EP Millstone]

I've also read in articles about this that Dahl himself changed passages in his works during his lifetime to revise things that he felt were no longer in touch with the times.

I don't condone censorship, but as Holden points out, this is pure market pandering and absolutely capitalist.

On that note, would Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None still be published today with its original title?

[txfilmfan]

I've also read in articles about this that Dahl himself changed passages in his works during his lifetime to revise things that he felt were no longer in touch with the times.

I don't condone censorship, but as Holden points out, this is pure market pandering and absolutely capitalist.

On that note, would Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None still be published today with its original title?

No, but it never was published in the US with its original UK title.

[EP Millstone]

No, but it never was published in the US with its original UK title.

Forget the US! Could Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None be published today with its original title anywhere?

[Andree]

This is a wonderful marketing ploy. Bring out the new safe as milk Dahl books. Wait for the much ado about very little
angry reaction. Let the pot simmer for a year or two, then, due to "public demand" bring back the original Dahl books, so
there can be two versions of each book and two versions to buy, sort of New Dahl and Classic Dahl. Count the proceeds.

[EP Millstone]

I just watched The Curse of Nostradamus (1960), but I'm distracted at the moment, having just discovered that the Academy Museum in Los Angeles presented nearly a month of Mexican horror in October 2022, and I didn't know about it! And the image they chose to represent the entire festival was the very image from the scene that more than any other scene, represents the pinnacle of the genre to me: Elmer playing the violin in The Black Pit of Dr. M. (Dr. M, who has come back from the dead in Elmer's body, is playing Csardas by Monti on the violin, in that masterpiece of horror, The Black Pit of Dr. M (Misterios de Ultratumba).

Head's up, Swithin!

Misterios de Ultratumba is being released on Blu-ray Disc May 29 by Powerhouse Indicator! It is part of a limited edition collection Mexico Macabre: Four Sinister Tales from the Alameda Films Vault, 1959–1963.

I suspect that the PI boxed set will quickly sell out. So, if your appetite for it has been whetted, ACT FAST and ACT NOW!

[Swithin]

I just watched The Curse of Nostradamus (1960), but I'm distracted at the moment, having just discovered that the Academy Museum in Los Angeles presented nearly a month of Mexican horror in October 2022, and I didn't know about it! And the image they chose to represent the entire festival was the very image from the scene that more than any other scene, represents the pinnacle of the genre to me: Elmer playing the violin in The Black Pit of Dr. M. (Dr. M, who has come back from the dead in Elmer's body, is playing Csardas by Monti on the violin, in that masterpiece of horror, The Black Pit of Dr. M (Misterios de Ultratumba).

Head's up, Swithin!


I suspect that the PI boxed set will quickly sell out. So, if your appetite for it has been whetted, ACT FAST and ACT NOW!

I wish they found that lost gem, the dubbed in English version of The Black Pit of Dr. M. I long to hear those magical words: "Yes it's me. I came back in Elmer's body!" Normally I preferred the prints with subtitles, but I make an exception for that particular gem.

[TikiSoo]

Last night I revisited well loved PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE '85 with mrTiki who has never seen it.
THIS original poster hangs in one of my restoration work rooms:


It's still entertaining for me and I could tell MrTiki enjoyed it as well-pointing out funny things on the set and even enjoying Pee Wee's silly antics. You have to like the charactor though, I could see where some could be put off by seeing an adult man acting like a child.

The movie is simply an episodic tale of a retro US road trip, if you like that aesthetic. Revisiting the clothing, architecture, cars & tourist attractions of the US in the 50's was very popular in the 80's, similarly to the popularity of early pre-code & silent films in the 70's.

I didn't find the film dated at all, it was harmlessly cute & entertaining. It was fun spotting all the cameos, seeing Milton Berle was a bit of a shock!
Since familiar with the story, my mind wandered more to the direction, Tim Burton and Danny Elfman's music.

I find Tim Burton rather self-indulgent but that's OK, it's really just a result of excersizing your strong "voice", so I roll along with him for the most part. His storytelling was very good here, although I did think the editing was a bit too quick, but then again I'm watching with older eyes, heh!

My beef with Burton's style is it seems more a crutch than communicative but you only see that looking at his entire body of work, this is his first.
And boy I have never liked Danny Elfman's music & realize it's a very unpopular opinion.
I think Elfman's a hack but for this movie, his plagiarism is so extreme it is evidently an "homage". (Elfman gets to use ONE real Morricone tune)

Otherwise, we picked out several tunes, using the original instruments & style of familiar soundtracks with just a slightly altered melody-like the PSYCHO strings denouement as a chase slows.
There was an LA Company that would make "soundalike" tunes for film/TV/commercials. Their slogan? "Close enough for them to sue, but not close enough for them to win!" That's what's going on here.
Elfman has gone on to make very popular soundtracks of original music, but somehow they still seem contrived and clunky. Guess he's just not my cup of tea.
(JJG, I'd love to hear your 2¢)

[jamesjazzguitar]

And boy I have never liked Danny Elfman's music & realize it's a very unpopular opinion.
I think Elfman's a hack but for this movie, his plagiarism is so extreme it is evidently an "homage". (Elfman gets to use ONE real Morricone tune)

Otherwise, we picked out several tunes, using the original instruments & style of familiar soundtracks with just a slightly altered melody-like the PSYCHO strings denouement as a chase slows.

Elfman has gone on to make very popular soundtracks of original music, but somehow, they still seem contrived and clunky. Guess he's just not my cup of tea.
(JJG, I'd love to hear your 2¢)

Since Danny Elfman grew up in Southern California, I was familiar with this music; The Mystic Knights and then Oingo Boingo. E.g. I saw Oingo Boingo at a very small venue, prior to the band becoming more popular outside the So Cal area. (due somewhat to the Rodney Dangerfield film Back to School).

As far as Elfman's ability as film composer: I'm not too familiar with this side of his career, other than that he is known floating the line between homage and plagiarism (or lack of originally to use a gentler term).

[Fedya]

I'd have guessed you'd hate Elfman for not playing jazz guitar. :-p

[jamesjazzguitar]

I'd have guessed you'd hate Elfman for not playing jazz guitar. :-p

I would, but don't, since he can read and write standard musical notation.

[Masha]

Clue (1985)

A mysterious dinner party ends in murder.


Murder by Death (1976)

A mysterious dinner party ends in murder.


The Cheap Detective (1978)

Just about everything ends in murder.


The major difference which I found between these three is how effortlessly the jokes are presented. The Cheap Detective (1978) is the best in this aspect because it is simply taking each situation a bit over the top. I found Clue (1985) to be much lesser because it all felt forced to provide humour within a complicated plot and so shoehorned cute lines in where they could. I felt that many of those lines should have been accompanied by a notice on the screen that it was meant to be funny. Murder by Death (1976) is somewhere in the middle.

The three do make an interesting evening's entertainment. I suggest they be watched in the order listed above.

[EP Millstone]

Clue (1985) . . .
Murder by Death (1976) . . .
The Cheap Detective (1978) . . .

For me, Murder by Death is the funniest comedy in that trio. It is the only Neil Simon comedy in my movie collection. I never found Simon's comedies humorous, but Murder by Death was the hilarious exception.

The Cheap Detective was kinda, sorta a sequel to Murder by Death, with Peter Falk, in essence, repeating the shamus he portrayed in MbD but with a different name. I found it dreary and dull and only slightly better than The Black Bird (another spoof of The Maltese Falcon), which I found utterly crummy.

Clue I've seen, but remember almost nothing of it . . . which indicates how much of an impression it made on me.

[Swithin]

The problem with this argument is that the changes to Dahl's works are driven by the profit motive.
It is not "sensitivity readers" who clamored for the re-writes, but those who hold the rights to Dahl's works ---the Roald Dahl Story Company (headed by Dahl's grandson Luke Kelly) ---- who want to clean up Dahl's stories to make them marketable to today's audience.

Vandalism it is not.
No alterations are being made that aren't sanctioned by owners of the properties.

Stalinism it is not.
It is, in fact, pure capitalism.

I've also read in articles about this that Dahl himself changed passages in his works during his lifetime to revise things that he felt were no longer in touch with the times.

I don't condone censorship, but as Holden points out, this is pure market pandering and absolutely capitalist.

To further the marketing ploy, Puffin have agreed to publish the original texts of many of the books, as well as the newly "adjusted" texts, presumably in response to all the fuss.

A comment by Salmon Rushdie:

"Salman Rushdie, who is published by Penguin Random House, was among those to criticise Puffin, writing on Twitter that 'Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.'”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/ ... collection

[Swithin]

Some spoilers ahead...

I just watched The Fabelmans (2022), Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical coming of age film. The film deals with young Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle), who becomes obsessed with making movies after his parents Burt and Mitzi (Paul Dano and Michelle Williams) take the six-year old to see The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). The film deals with Sammy's increasing obsession with filmmaking, whilst at the same time focusing on the drama of his family life, particularly the tension between his parents and their friend Bennie (Seth Rogen), with whom Mitzi may be having an affair. (Sammy learns of the affair through the lens, as he's shooting a family film. Reminds me of Blow-Up, a photographer discovering something in addition to what he's shooting.)

I liked the film, with reservations. Unlike almost everyone, I did not like the performances of Dano and Williams, and I found many of the other characters to be flat stereotypes (particularly Jeannie Berlin in the small role as the grandmother, a role which could have been truer to type had it been written by Clifford Odets or even Fran Drescher. Judd Hirsch, however, gives a compelling performance as aged Uncle Boris). Spielberg wrote the screenplay with Tony Kushner, whom I've always felt to be a lesser writer, in terms of character roundness, than he's given credit for. A dinner scene in the movie reminds me of a dinner scene in Kushner's play, Caroline or Change, in which an extended argumentative Jewish family behave in a way that would make Odets cringe. (Kushner, whom I've never met, lives across the street from me. I have enjoyed his work on stage, despite what I see as his inability to create what E.M. Forster might call "round" characters, particularly in the supporting roles.)

In addition to dealing with the family issues, the film deals with anti-Semitism and bullying, in somewhat cliched ways. The segments of the movie that I did like, deal with Sammy's yearning and attempts to become a filmmaker. Gabriel LaBelle is fine in the lead role. One of the funniest scenes features Sammy's seduction by a religious Christian girl, who seems to be attracted to Sammy because, like Jesus, he's a "cute Jewish boy."

Those of us who love movies may find that the The Fabelmans final scene is among the best. Young Sammy is taken to meet his idol, John Ford, beautifully played by David Lynch. The cranky old Ford asked Sammy to identify the horizon on two of the paintings on the wall of Ford's office. The very last shot of the film shows Sammy leaving Ford's office, exhilarated. As the movie ends, the horizon in the shot moves, in a way that Ford would have approved of. (Btw, the scene with Ford is evidently an accurate depiction of what really happened.)

So, for me, The Fabelmans is decent, with many flaws. Though I've enjoyed many of Spielberg's films, he's no John Ford.

The Fabelmans seems to be doing well in France.

‘What a film!’ Spielberg’s The Fabelmans stuns French critics and audiences

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... -audiences

[HoldenIsHere]

The problem with this argument is that the changes to Dahl's works are driven by the profit motive.
It is not "sensitivity readers" who clamored for the re-writes, but those who hold the rights to Dahl's works ---the Roald Dahl Story Company (headed by Dahl's grandson Luke Kelly) ---- who want to clean up Dahl's stories to make them marketable to today's audience.

Vandalism it is not.
No alterations are being made that aren't sanctioned by owners of the properties.

Stalinism it is not.
It is, in fact, pure capitalism.

I've also read in articles about this that Dahl himself changed passages in his works during his lifetime to revise things that he felt were no longer in touch with the times.

I don't condone censorship, but as Holden points out, this is pure market pandering and absolutely capitalist.

To further the marketing ploy, Puffin have agreed to publish the original texts of many of the books, as well as the newly "adjusted" texts, presumably in response to all the fuss.

A comment by Salmon Rushdie:

"Salman Rushdie, who is published by Penguin Random House, was among those to criticise Puffin, writing on Twitter that 'Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.'”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/ ... collection

Salmon Rushdie is incorrect to label what Puffin Books and the Roald Dahl Story Company are doing as "censorship."
It most certainly is not.
The owners of the texts have worked with the publisher to release the edited versions.
No government entity has ordered the alterations.
Earlier versions released by other publishers aren't being removed from libraries.