Disqus - Latest Comments for Lance Mannion

Re: Blondie’s Children: The Best Domestic Sitcoms

Lance Mannion — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:28:27 -0000

I'm going to do better with the workplace comedies.

After Dick Van Dyke, what?

All in the Family.

The Bob Newhart Show.

Seinfeld.

Cosby, for the first few years.

Andy Griffith.

Mad About You, until the baby appeared on the horizon.

Evening Shade. (Lost in the shadow of Murphy Brown and Newhart on Monday nights.)

To me, I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners are museum pieces. I appreciate them for their place in history, but I don't really enjoy them.

Well, ok, Art Carney was great.

Hey, Ralphie Boy!

And Gleason...humana humana humana...

But the shows themselves?

Give me Bilko. Sorry, started on the workplace list...

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Lance Mannion — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 20:38:57 -0000

Helllll-oooh, bay-bee!
Chantilly Lace count?

Re: Right Back In the Alley with Skeezix

Lance Mannion — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 22:40:59 -0000

Walt and Skeezix are both still alive???

Re: Marty Cares, and So Does the Siren

Lance Mannion — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 01:43:04 -0000

Good post, Siren, but I kind of wish the Academy had stiffed him again. I think there's more dignity in having never won than having won for a lesser work. There wasn't even much competition for him, either. It's as if the Academy stacked the deck in his favor. Might as well have been a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Re: Marty Cares, and So Does the Siren

Lance Mannion — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 01:44:18 -0000

I'm just trying to turn off the blasted italics here.

Mr Watson, come in here, we need you.

Re: Art, craft, and the tragic nature of baseball

Lance Mannion — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:11:21 -0000

Viscount,

Watched it the other night. It got to me. Alan Arkin's parts especially. I'll be writing about it as soon as I get it a little more sorted out in my head.

finest,

I'm glad to hear Reign Over Me's that good. I like Don Cheadle but I've been put off by what I've seen of Adam Sandler in the trailers.

Re: Watching for Keira - Almost Nightly

Lance Mannion — Tue, 29 May 2007 11:09:31 -0000

Haven't seen it yet. But what the Moviegoer said about Depp being over at the margins, amusing himself and no one else, struck home, as did what Tom writes about Depp's performance in Dead Man's Chest and At World's End being copies of his original Jack Sparrow. That's sort of what I felt when watching Dead Man's Chest, that he had forgotten how to play Captain Jack and so he had to imitate himself. But I also thought that the director and screenwriters had forgotten what made Jack Sparrow tick and so they didn't give Depp any help in recapturing the character.

The difference between Captain Jack in the original and Depp playing at being Jack Sparrow in the second, and I gues s the third, since it's really the same movie, is that in The Curse of the Black Pearl the Keith Richards act is a disguise Jack wears to throw people off and in the other two it's all there is to him. In other words, Depp and the Verbinski and company have turned their main character into a joke because they decided what audiences loved about Jack was the joke.

At World's End doesn't correct that course, I guess.

Re: Bada Bye

Lance Mannion — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:24:00 -0000

Barney Miller ended well. But they took the whole season to build to it.

Cheers had a great finale. Unfortunately, it came a year before the show went off the air---Woody and Kelly's wedding. I believe that was intended to be the end but they talked Ted Danson into coming back for one more season and that was too bad because the last season was a waste and even a travesty of the show as the writers and the actors seemed to have turned on the characters.

I hope they don't do a Sopranos movie. It's done, Tony's dead, whether or not he was killed, and besides, practically none of the great supporting cast of mobsters is left. The movie would have to give Tony a whole new crew and if Chase was going to do that he might as well just start a whole new series.

Good post, Mr Perrin.

Re: Bada Bye

Lance Mannion — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:31:24 -0000

Oh, and Seinfeld had a pretty good last show, except that it was the second to the last show. The Puerto Rican Day Parade show summed up the characters and the whole series and having the four of them walking away from Jerry's upended car to go to Monks and eat and talk as if nothing had happened would have been just the right way to end. But, no, they had to go out BIG.

Chase did it right.

Re: Sopranos Watch: This Thing of Ours

Lance Mannion — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 23:24:30 -0000

I'm glad Chase left the ending ambiguous. It lets those of us who have to wait to catch it on DVD the pleasure of reading all about it without having it spoiled for us. No matter how many great posts like this one, and Chuck's and Dennis', I end up reading, I'm still going to have make up my mind for myself when I see it. I should write Chase a note thanking him for thinking of us poor non-HBO subscribers.

But just from what I've read it sounds to me like there are more clues that Tony got hit than that he lives on.

Re: ‘You Think I’m Hostile Now’ … Hostel Part II

Lance Mannion — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 23:32:38 -0000

Don't get 'em. Don't want to get 'em. But I don't get amusement parks either and I think these movies have more in common with roller coasters and tilt a whirls than to do with other kinds of movies. So I guess I understand the flocking to the theaters, since most of the flocking is done in flocks, or gaggles, or packs, or gangs. It's a social occasion. I don't, however, understand people like your roommate who watch them at home and alone. Unless it's like an addiction. I have to have a cup of coffee late at night. Now that's weird.

Re: Ward Cleaver’s Club: the Great TV Dads

Lance Mannion — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 07:43:31 -0000

Richie Petrie's job was to be heard of but seldom seen, a role-model for TV children more shows should have followed.

To add to the list of best TV dads:

John Schneider as Jonathan Kent on Smallville.

Since the 1970s some of the best fathers have been father-figures rather than actual fathers, surrogate dads to the rest of the cast.

Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Col. Potter on MASH
Dr Westphall on St Elsewhere, with Aushlander as a surrogate grandfather---Westphall was a good father to his teenage daughter and autistic son but most of his fathering was of Dr Morrison.
Adam Schiff on Law and Order.

After 1970 or so, the fathers in TV sitcoms all but disappeared. When they returned in the late 1980s they became the biggest babies on their shows.

Fathers have been largely absent from TV dramas on the main networks because the main characters are almost always intended to be sex symbols and the shows they're in focus almost entirely on their heroic work lives.

There are more fathers on the premium channels and cable networks---WB, now the CB, had a bunch, but they've all been canceled now.

Re: The terrible loneliness of being free

Lance Mannion — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:22:43 -0000

Dan, I don't want to make too much of it, but it's a small gem of a film, if not a minor classic of the last 25 years.

Tom, I need to see Down and Out again, but you're right, it's a good companion piece to Moscow.

Viscount, it's ironic---your friend's last speech there? He sounds just like Robin Williams does in one of the later scenes in the movie. I swear Williams has a line that's close to word for word what your friend said.

I've known several people who came here from Soviet Bloc countries who had one thing in common---they couldn't stand it that nobody here hated the Soviet Union as much as they did. Of course, you couldn't hate it enough for them. Even if you agreed it was a terrible place, they got mad because you didn't sound mad enough about it.

Re: The terrible loneliness of being free

Lance Mannion — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:31:12 -0000

One more thing. Tom, I watched the movie with the soon to be 14 year old. He's a bit of a history buff anyway, but he'd also recently studied the Cold War in school, so the defection plot, even the facts of life behind the Iron Curtain, resonated with him.

I suppose it's like asking how well do you have to understand why all those people are waiting around Casablanca for the plane to Lisbon. But I think the movie itself teaches the lesson it needs us to know in order to follow the rest of movie.

Re: The Bronx is Burning, But It Lacks the High Heat

Lance Mannion — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 10:17:59 -0000

I'm surprised about Platt. I expected him to be a hoot as Steinbrenner.

Re: Emmy, schmemmy

Lance Mannion — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 08:12:19 -0000

Claire, the second season of Extras came out on DVD while I was on vacation, otherwise I'd have watched all of it by now. Great show. Can't wait for the first disc to arrive from Netflix.

I'm glad you took on the Emmy watch. I think the Emmy nominations have followed the Nielson ratings for years now. Nominations seem to be based on the premise that the Emmy show should be a celebration of what's already popular.

Here's a link to Boston Globe's TV critic Matthew Gilbert's take on the nominations.

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2007/07/20...

Re: How To Make a TV Show That DoesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t Suck (Part One)

Lance Mannion — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:50:26 -0000

Twin Peaks wasn't real?

Not even the pie?

Re: Live Blogging Mad Men: Your Fantasy, or Mine?

Lance Mannion — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:14:26 -0000

Peirre Cardin?

Shoot.

I'm Brooks Brothers, head to toe. I'll go change.

Tassels on the loafers still ok, though?

Re: Live Blogging Mad Men: Your Fantasy, or Mine?

Lance Mannion — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:24:57 -0000

Baby Face Campbell just doesn't fit. His look's wrong for the period and for the character.

Re: Californication: Or, Mulder Does the Wild Thing (a lot)

Lance Mannion — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:45:32 -0000

their twelve-year-old daughter (who looks disturbingly like a miniature 19-year-old art student)

Yes! Exactly! It's very disturbing.

And you're dead on about the waste of McElhone, who, by the way, was also good in Laurel Canyon.

Re: Live-Blogging Mad Men: The Debt to Cary Grant

Lance Mannion — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:24:20 -0000

I'm late. What did I miss, besides Mrs Draper's lingerie?

Re: Live-Blogging Mad Men: The Debt to Cary Grant

Lance Mannion — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:30:00 -0000

Thinking about Tom's opening with Cary Grant's ad men characters:

The look of the show is right---the clothes, the lighting, the decor, the beer cans, but there's no period background sound. I don't hear the late 50s.

Re: Live-Blogging Mad Men: The Debt to Cary Grant

Lance Mannion — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:31:57 -0000

And I don't get the sense that these people are at all plugged in to their times. They reference them, but they don't carry them in their speech or attitudes.

I'm saying I don't think any of these people saw North By Northwest.

Or even heard of Hitchcock.

Re: Live-Blogging Mad Men: The Debt to Cary Grant

Lance Mannion — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:34:26 -0000

why are the women in this series so incredibly uncomfortable in their own skins? ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s unsettling - like they literally canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t stand to be who they are, in the clothes theyÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re in, in the relationships they have.

Isn't that one of Weiner's themes? Life was miserable for women then?

We're never going to bump into Donna Reed along the way, of course. But where's Laura Petrie and Sally Rogers?

Where's my mother?

Re: Live-Blogging Mad Men: The Debt to Cary Grant

Lance Mannion — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:36:44 -0000

Tom, the traffic noise in North By Northwest is exactly what I was thinking about. When Hitchcock gets the bus door slammed in his face, you can hear the street noise, even though, if I remember correctly, you actually can't because the theme music's playing. Hitchcock and other filmmakers back then could suggest sound.

Re: Live-Blogging Mad Men: The Debt to Cary Grant

Lance Mannion — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:09:56 -0000

For Tom:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2KAjkS3RD9Y"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2KAjkS3RD9Y" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Re: Live-Blogging Mad Men: The Debt to Cary Grant

Lance Mannion — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:54:38 -0000

Roger Thornhill: I'm an advertising man not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives, and several bartenders dependent on me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself slightly killed.

Re: The Shamus’ Back To College Edition!

Lance Mannion — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 10:01:40 -0000

Best College Fight Song:

Stand By Old Ivy. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Underachiever with Best Excuse for Slacking-off: Peter Parker. Spider-Man 2.

Re: War Over War Movies

Lance Mannion — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:48:04 -0000

Ditto what the Viscount says.

Forty year streak of treason, eh? Treason being a failure to portray warmongering and slaughtering brown people as both beautiful and holy is what's meant here. Guess those Rambo movies were a lot less subtle in their pacifism than I thought. Oh, wait. I'm confusing them with Hot Shots Part Deux.

John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey had a good post last year, that I'll have to go dig out, about how Right Wingers, even ones supposedly in the movie business, don't seem to understand that it is a business. A theme Roy Edroso keeps coming back to his how they don't understand the difference between art and entertainment and propaganda. And our own Self-Styled Siren has been on a mission to show that they don't know anything about the history of movies or to have actually seen any of the movies they discuss.

They apparently aren't aware that Apocalypes Now and Platoon were made after we left Vietnam and Three Kings after the first Gulf War.

And, besides the movies Bob mentions, they've never seen Windtalkers or We Were Soldiers either. All they know about recent war movies is that none of their friends have told them to go see that great new movie about Iraq where a whole lot of evil towelheads get blown away to riotous applause.

Re: Death Proof But Not Boredom Proof

Lance Mannion — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:15:31 -0000

You make it sound tempting, Dan, but even with Dawson in it there's no way, no how I'm going to watch another 90 minutes, let alone 114, of Tarantino reliving his glory days in the back room at the video store.

And wrecking a GTO in 1978 was cool. Wrecking one now is like slashing a Van Gogh.

Re: My Favorite Comedy, Explained

Lance Mannion — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:28:40 -0000

Jon, you left out the most hilarious slapstick moment in the film, when Geraldine Page wades out into the surf intending to drown herself and Mary Beth Hurt chases after her into the waves. I think both Hurt and Page proved themselves in that scene to be every bit as good at physical comedy as, say, Chaplin, Keaton, and even Garbo.

Re: Sex, Power and Aging in the Movies

Lance Mannion — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:52:22 -0000

Bob, you inspired me. I just went to Netlfix and put Langella's Dracula in my queue. It's been a long time, but at least in my memory it's a far better Dracula than the Coppolla version.

But I've always thought that Langella just wasn't made for film. The camera just doesn't seem to be able to take him in. I wish I'd seen him on stage when he was in his prime.

I wish I could see him on stage now in Frost/Nixon, but I'll have to be content with the movie, I guess.

One more of his movie performances worth mentioning. As William Paley in Good Night, and Good Luck. In that one, George Clooney almost managed to fit him on the screen.

Re: Bah, Humbug and All That

Lance Mannion — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:47:38 -0000

Someday, when the technology can make it seamless, I'd like to see a version made up of the best of all of them...

Alistair Sim as Scrooge with the Cratchitts from the Albert Finney version and Edward Woodward as the Ghost of Christmas Present from the George C. Scott version and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come from that one too---I like the way his bones creak and Alec Guinness as Marley's Ghost.

And from the Magoo version, the razzleberry dressing.

I hope you all have the Lord's bright blessing, and knowing we're together, knowing we're together heart and hand, and you have the whitest Christmas, the lightest, brightest Christmas, a Christmas far more glorious than grand!

Re: Pornographers in Mayberry

Lance Mannion — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:59:21 -0000

Viscount,

Depp's good, no question. And he's catching up to Bridges and may pass him soon. Right now, though, his work seems still a little too full of posturing to me, and he's at his best when he's playing human cartoons, monsters, and grotesques. When he plays real human beings he's kind of a Johnny One-note. But what do you think I should watch to make me change my mind?

Norton's also a fine actor but he's been way too inconsistent.

Re: “A Perfect Gentleman Through It All”: Roy Scheider, 1932-2008

Lance Mannion — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:08:12 -0000

Oh damn. Can't anybody out there in Hollywood learn to live forever?

Re: Pornographers in Mayberry

Lance Mannion — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:39:15 -0000

Blow! That's the one I've got to watch.

As for Norton, I was thinking of his having done The Illusionist (he's terrific) and Down in the Valley (he's laughable) and The Painted Veil (he's ok) back to back to back.

But I just read some cool news about him. He's starring as Bruce Banner in the new Hulk movie for which he wrote the screenpaly!

Also Robert Downey's making a cameo appearance in as Tony Stark/Iron Man.

William Hurt's playing Thunderbolt Ross, and there's somebody who could have been the greatest leading man of his generation who has comeback to be the next Gene Hackman.

Re: Juno talks back to the King of California

Lance Mannion — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:48:34 -0000

Thanks, Dan. You've confirmed what I suspected---the narration was there but a waste of sound and time. I didn't "hear" it because it wasn't worth listening to. I'm not a fan of Dennis Lehane's writing generally, but the detective series that includes the novel Gone Baby Gone is overwritten, over-determined, and under-interesting, mainly because the character Casey Affleck played is a dull storyteller and a pretty poor observer of life.

Murder My Sweet is an all-around good detective novel. Powell is a surprisingly good Marlow.

Re: The Adams Chronicles

Lance Mannion — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:55:08 -0000

I wish I could be watching this. But based your post and other things I've read I wish more that I could be watching The Adams Chronicles. Sounds as though Grizzard was a better Adams and the writers understood his story as a drama while this series pushes it as a high school history lesson.

Re: I Got The Music In Me

Lance Mannion — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:33:30 -0000

Welcome to the band, Weboy. Good start. Though now I hate you for putting the Merm's voice in my head belting out Everything's Coming Up Roses, thanks a lot.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:02:40 -0000

Ok, where do you want to start? With the ending or should we get right down to the age thing?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:07:21 -0000

Somebody want to put something on the stereo?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:08:02 -0000

Sure, Lance. What do you suggest?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:08:45 -0000

Simon and Garfunkel?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:09:14 -0000

Good call.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:09:47 -0000

Hello, Watson, my old friend...

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:10:17 -0000

I've come to blog with you again...

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:11:05 -0000

Hey, Tom, how ya doing?

Was that a comment on Elaine or a crack about Katherine Ross' acting ability?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:13:08 -0000

Well, I'm here until the last dog gets hung, but I'm hoping we run out of rope or dogs before midnight.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:14:29 -0000

Don't get me started on her in Butch Casdidy.

"Keep going, schoolteacher lady..."

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:15:19 -0000

Her living doll routine kind of works for Elaine, though, don't you think?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:19:06 -0000

Victoria, good point about the poisoning. But she doesn't seem all that protective during the melee in the church.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:22:15 -0000

Jason, so Kevin Costner works as a middle-aged Dustin Hoffman? Or is he supposed to be the character from the novel?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:24:02 -0000

Victoria, I'm thinking the Robinson's marriage was dead from the start or at least from the moment Elaine was born. What she's killing isn't the romance but the business arrangement.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:25:42 -0000

Also, by destroying her marriage she'd be destroying the illusions of a lot of her friends and neighbors, possibly forcing them to confront the emptiness at the hearts of their own marriages.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:29:25 -0000

I used to think I was teaching the children of the Ben & Elaine (types) in the movie (that is, late sixties college grads) - people who, though unconsciously unsettled by the energies of the decade, never really caught the conscious part of it. The kind of Boomers who are vaguely off to the side of their generation.

That describes a lot of us, sadly.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:31:29 -0000

I like the movie and don't mind the staticness. But I like something different about it every time I watch it.

This time it was all the scenes in the hotel lobby and bar.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:33:23 -0000

I also liked the scene where Ben goes to the frat house and all the brothers talk about Elaine's fiance as if he was Sam Malone.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:35:52 -0000

But we've seen the guy and we know he can't possibly be the lothario they're describing. If he's gotten past first base with any girl, it's because she met him at first and carried him down to second herself. Among these guys, all it takes to be known as a hound is to actually touched a live girl. These are the future Mr Robinsons.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:38:39 -0000

Hey, I think there are lurkers out there. I can hear them breathing.

Yo! Lurkers! Chime in already!

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:39:49 -0000

AG, I think that's the $64,000 question about the Graduate: Are love and romance really at stake here?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:43:10 -0000

Victoria, what you said about the movie's style...I think that's part of what I like about the hotel scenes.

That hotel is almost something out of Hitchcock. You can see Cary Grant wandering in there on his way to Chicago in North By Northwest. I can even picture him in Ben's place when he's caught at the doorway by all those old people coming out of the party. The fact that it's Ben Braddock there and not Cary Grant adds to the comedy for me.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:45:08 -0000

AG:I dunno. The 64K question in the movie and for me is why do the ones who want it the most get hurt the deepest?

Who do you think wants it the most in the movie?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:48:44 -0000

Ah, the other $64,000 question: Just what does Ben want?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:51:11 -0000

Victoria, that's an interesting story. I never heard that one before. That would mean that Spielberg's first two big hits were the result of lucky accidents. The mechanical shark never worked right during the shooting of Jaws so he couldn't show the shark as soon as and as often as he'd have liked. Imagine that movie if the shark kept popping up every five minutes.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:53:59 -0000

The Graduate started out as a very different kind of movie. Based on what made it to the screen it's impossible to imagine Robert Redford or Warren Beatty as Ben Braddock, but judging by what Mark Harris says about the novel, which I've never read, a tall handsome preppy type would have been the right choice for Ben, if the script had been faithful to the novel.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:57:22 -0000

Other writers worked on the script before Buck Henry took it over, and Henry's getting it was the result of an accident. He happened to be at a party that Mike Nichols happened to be at and they happened to wind up talking and they happened to hit it off, according to Harris.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:58:56 -0000

Donna. I think she sees her own lost youth. And an opportunity to cause mischief.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:01:06 -0000

Jason, I think you're right about Ben, but I don't know about Elaine, because Ross doesn't give much away. And this gets back to what Tom and I were beginning to talk about up top. Just how much of Elaine is due to Ross' bad acting and how much to her being the kind of a person who has learned how to be an obedient cipher so as not to upset her fragile and volatile mother?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:04:23 -0000

Donna,

One of the things Buck Henry told Mark Harris for Pictures at a Revolution is that he, Henry, thinks that Mike Nichols unconsciously drove the writing and the rewriting of the script in such a way that the character of Ben became something of a self-portrait of Nichols.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:09:44 -0000

Nichols was an immigrant who came to America as a boy. He never really understood America but he had a gift for observation and "fitting in." Ben returns to his home state but in the years he's been away at school he's become an outsider. He feels like a foreigner among the people he should know best and who should know him best and he finds them and their "customs" strange and confusing. He adopts two strategies to cope. He withdraws and he plays along. The playing along lands him at the bottom of the pool in his scuba gear, feeling alone and lost.

The hotel scenes show Ben trying to play along with the local customs too.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:14:15 -0000

Elaine is another go along to get along type. She does it because she's a good and obedient daughter. But the result is the same. At the end she and Ben are left alone with the one person in the world they don't have to fake it with, which should make them happy. But they just don't know how to do it on their own. The possibility is that they will learn how to be "real" with each other. The other possibility is that they will fall into their most comfortable old habits and start playing along with each other, pretending to be the only kind of married people they know how to be, their parents.

Maybe that's what Nichols meant.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:16:15 -0000

There are still lurkers lurking. I can see their shoes sticking out from underneath the arras.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:22:55 -0000

You know what though, there's a scene in which Ben and Elaine are in the red Alpha Romeo eating burgers off of trays at a drive-in restaurant and they're just talking and munching on their fries and sipping on the straws in their milk shakes. We can't hear them. But they are clearly wrapped up in their conversation and it's a happy moment. Maybe the only truly happy moment in the whole movie. They just seem so right together. If they aren't really in love, they're close enough.

One of the evils of the situation Ben has gotten himself into is that he and Elaine aren't going to be allowed to have more dates like this. This is all they need right now, a summer romance, but somehow it's got to be all or nothing for them.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:28:40 -0000

Actually, donna, plastics gets said within the first five minutes of the movie. It's in one of the YouTube videos Tom posted a link to at his place.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:30:42 -0000

Tom had to pack it in. He says goodnight. I'll hang around for a while yet. Maybe some folks from out west will turn up or the lurkers will get some courage. But the thread's going to stay open forever so feel free to come and go over the next couple of days.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:34:20 -0000

Commenter on my post about Charlie Wilson's War today, over at my place, thinks he sees a streak of misogyny in all of Nichols' films. I'm not sure I see it, but what do you think?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:40:49 -0000

Dan, I didn't feel the movie was at all dated, although it's clearly a product of its time. The reason for that is something I was trying to get at in my post above. For all its reputation, The Graduate isn't really a 60s movie. It's almost timeless. Ben's dilemma is universal. There are thousands of versions of his plight being lived out every year at graduation time.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:44:39 -0000

Also, the script contains very little "period" dialog. Nobody says groovy. Simon and Garfunkel turned out to be a good choice for the music, not just for their songs' commentary on the action, but because their style has never gone out of fashion. If you'd never heard them before until today and somebody told you they were kids just starting out you might believe it.

The clothing and hair styles aren't ridiculous either. In 1967 people were still dressing somewhat classically.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:46:26 -0000

And like I said, the movie completely ignores the politics of the time.

Donna, I don't think the lurkers are going to help us out, so feel free to give us your answer.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:49:56 -0000

Dan, maybe we can make that a future series for Wednesday Night at the Movies.
"Great Films That End With Dustin Hoffman on a Bus."

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:54:39 -0000

Things are growing quiet. Too quiet.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:55:33 -0000

What's that I hear?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:56:33 -0000

Sounds like the sound of silence.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:02:16 -0000

At least donna's still here.

I think you're right. People-hating seems to be one of Nichols' hobbies.

I haven't seen Closer. Virginia Wolf, The Graduate, Postcards From the Edge, Working Girl, Primary Colors, and Charlie Wilson's War all contain variations on a type of woman---the domineering scold who bullies and belittles and bosses all the men and at least one young woman, often her daughter or a daughterly type. But I'm not sure if he's drawn to the movies by those characters themselves or by the opportunities they give to his favorite actresses to strut their stuff.

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:08:53 -0000

Sorry, donna, I guess I was typing while you were answering.

It's been too long since I've seen Carnal Knowledge. I'm afraid to look at it again. Can Art Garfunkel act?

Re: “They become their parents.”

Lance Mannion — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:12:09 -0000

Goodnight, donna. Thanks for joining in.

Getting late for me too. Lurkers, I hope you're there. I was expecting a few more people and I hope the reason they didn't show wasn't the awful weather in the Midwest. That is, I hope everybody out that way is ok.

Thanks, Jason, Tom, Victoria, AG, and Dan too.

If you're showing up here late, please feel free to leave your thoughts. Like I said, the thread's staying open all week.

Goodnight.

Unplug the coffee pot before you go, please?