DISQUS

Oh Siren, what a particularly wonderful post.

A Night to Remember is one of my own cherished films. I cry and cry on every viewing. One really fun fact about it for me is that Roy Baker directed seven of the 1965 b&w Emma Peel episodes of The Avengers, including my all time favorite "Silent Dust" and second greatest "The Girl from Auntie."

My other connection to the film is that I live by Straus Park, and the poignant memorial to the couple, called Memory. It's a beautiful bronze sculpture of a larger-than-life size reclining woman, looking into a pool of water. The inscription is from from 2 Samuel 1:23 "Lovely and pleasant they were in their lives, and in death they were not divided." There is a great photo of it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isidor_Straus

But as for Cameron, I must strongly disagree. Worse. script. ever. When Billy Zane pulled out gun at the end I thought I was going to explode.

Claire, we can only HOPE the X-Files is going to be good. James, that's an interesting plot line. And they could have CGI'd a cameo by Olivier to add some class.

Hey Weboy--you would like "Robin and the Seven Hoods" because it's the Rat Pack Meets their own Idol. I do think the worst thing that ever happened to Crosby was meeting John Scott Trotter, the guy who did all his arranging in the forties. That's why I love the Crosby of the thirties--much freer and more raw.

Tina, there is something about Crosby that unites people across generations. I first started listening because of my father.

BR, at least given how little he's seen or heard these days, you generally don't have to deal with him!

Kathleen, I have never seen any Chekov; maybe this is the moment. I would like to see Dianne Wiest, since I enjoyed her performance so much on In Treatment.

What's also interesting about Skeffington is seeing it in light of Davsis's own fairly famous "getting old isn't for sissies" line.

Marabunta! I am with you on The Naked Jungle. As you say, great electricity between the two. (Thanks for pointing out my Powell/Parker name confusion, which has been corrected.)

I'm with Manny that there is something in the Celtic soul that has a natural affinity for the complex and the poetic.

But the devastating effect of the abuse of the British invaders--over centuries--cannot be underestimated. Much of the specifics of that history has slipped out of current memory, which for the work of the Good Friday Accord to keep gaining traction, has to be.

Danica, your amplification of the one line from the psychiatrist I met is fascinating. Understanding what the Irish endured speaks to this national addiction--meaning they are not crazy, they are in pain BECAUSE of outrageous, often deadly treatment of a conqueror.

And still, they have contributed the pinnacle of English language arts (in their enforced conqueror's tongue !) to the world in Joyce and Yeats. Really remarkable.

Tina, even more telling, Cary Grant, Clooney's role model, never won either. Maybe George should have aimed more for 2-time winner Spencer Tracey.

Yea. For a guy known for nothingness, there's a lot there.

Karen, dark. That is the word for IAWL. The Mr. Gower hitting young George scene always chokes me up.

David, that's the great thing about Wonderful Life. It will be there waiting for you in 2015. There just isn't much you can count on like that :)

Kathleen, yes, I'm singing the alto part. Bach wrote some wildly difficult lines for the alto and basses in that Mass, considered the summation of his musical life.

Not to be reductive, but somehow it all goes back to Bach, the most towering of music's towering geniuses.

I am learning Bach's Mass in B Minor with a small semi-professional group, and believe me, my gray matter is firing on all sides.

I like your intro description about movie-going practices of yesteryear.

From an earlier generation, my mother insists that in Brooklyn in the forties, you never looked for what time a movie was playing, you just went and started watching from whatever point you got there. Which gave rise to the expression, "This is where we came in," and then you left.

So Mom insists.

Oh House of Cards--that is so worth renting to watch again. Sigh.

I haven't seen The Deal, but I too had a tour of Parliament during my college days. A friend's mother worked for a Scottish MP, and she swooped me through all sorts of rooms to the MP's dining room, where her boss drank me under the table at lunch after an aperitif on the Parliament balcony. Those were still the days when politicians and editors had a liquid lunch. Seems when I finally got "there" myself, everyone was drinking water. Sigh.

I say we make a pact to live blog Interiors the next time it's on IFC.

Hey Manny, there's something from Leeds in the film. I don't remember which song. When I watched it again, I was surprised how much talking they did over "Won't Get Fooled Again," which I didn't notice at the premiere, where I was so stunned be the performance.

I've watched the clip repeatedly now on Youtube, and there get a sense of the "transformative moment" Tom talks about.

Tom, I can't imagine what it must have been like to be at that concert. This footage is going to blow you away.

The fantasy of Don as Father Knows Best. Dylan, the furthest sensibility possible from Don Draper. A strange ending, but not surprising

It would be interesting for the actual person who came up with calling Kodak's slide thing "Carousel" to come forward

Ha! the statue on the window sill of the psychiatrist's office

This is certainly a women--of--MM centric episode.

You know, things go out with a whimper. . . This is the most engaging episode to date.

I hope Rachel runs in to Cary Grant on that cruise, and then they visit his grandmother