Wednesday Double Features – World War II Comedies

by on January 27, 2016 at 9:13 am
Posted In: Test

This week;s selection was World War II Comedies. Doing their best to mix humor with the horrors of war.

Kelly's_Heroes_film_posterThe first film of my selection, Kelly’s Heroes, Is a brilliant mixture of comedy, action and caper as a platoon of soldiers go awol into enemy lines to steal 16 million dollars worth of gold bullion.

This was a fantastic film with a tight script with some of the best character actors at the top of their games… oh yes and Clint Eastwood was in it too.

I have a hard time telling what I liked about this film best.. Despite it’s great humor it’s hard to call this a comedy since they do all of the war bits dead straight. But the balance is done wonderfully done and any time things get too serious we switch over to clueless jingoistic officers led by Carroll O’Connor who have no idea what is going on in the field sincerely believing that any setbacks are due to soldiers lacking team spirit.

This film is definitely my favorite Telly Savalas performance as he plays the curmudgeonly Seargent Big Joe who is against the whole thing but came along to keep everyone else from getting killed.  Donald Sutherland comes in a close second as the spaced out but brilliant tank commander Oddball.

operation_petticoat_poster_8022The second film on my list Operation Petticoat by Blake Edwards starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis tells the story of the crew of the Sea Tiger and it’s maiden voyage. Things start badly when it is sunk before even leaving port by a surprise raid. Now it has to limp to the closest ship yard for proper repairs. On it’s way it picks up five nurses who were stranded on an island and from there things get interesting.

While perfectly entertaining this film really didn’t do it for me that much. The battle of the sexes bits which the film focussed on were predictable and for the most part it was mostly a bunch of silly scenes linked together with a shoestring plot.

Not to say the silly bits were bad. I especially like the scenes whenever Tony Curtis’s character used some less than legal methods to get the necessary supplies to keep the Sea Tiger afloat… and the comedy of errors that lead to it being painted a bright pink are definitely worth the price of admission.

└ Tags: , ,
Comments Off on Wednesday Double Features – World War II Comedies

Junkyard Buddha

by on January 22, 2016 at 1:49 pm
Posted In: Test

Thought I’d share my Dune entry for January (on a side note there’s a great article about it in this month’s Art of America (unfortunately it’s print only))

This is called Junkyard Buddha. I kind of based it on the story of Buddha’s sermon in the Deer Park.

I’m not sure if I’m implying this is a post apocalyptic setting or not.

JunkyardBuddha20160122

└ Tags: , ,
Comments Off on Junkyard Buddha

Wednesday Double Feature – Western Musicals

by on January 20, 2016 at 9:17 am
Posted In: Test

This week was a bit of a bust. My idea for a topic was Western Musicals. I think the reason for this was it seemed to be too genres that clash in an amusing way but seriously, I’d heard of several, Oklahoma of course and what sounded like an amusing one called   Go West Young Lady. But I had two in mind. Unfortunately the reliable classic, that was half of my selection, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers turned out to be unplayable so I was left with watching the one that had piqued my curiosity to do this selection in the first place Paint Your Wagon.

Original_movie_poster_for_the_film_Paint_Your_WagonI’d heard all of the stories about it of course but I decided to give it a chance mainly because I liked it’s best known song “They Call The Wind Maria”

To put it mildly I set myself up for disappointment.

Paint Your Wagon features Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood as the drunken prospector Ben Ransom and his partner er… Pardner. It takes place in a boom town during the California gold rush that was built so quickly there are no woman. Naturally the men get.. Frustraed. All of this changes when a Mormon with two wives stops in the town and puts up one of the wives, Elizabeth, for auction. From there hilarity ensues.

The biggest problem with this film Is while they both look like they’re having fun, Marvin and Eastwood can’t sing and even Ig they could the playlist really isn’t that good to begin with. Marvin as Ransom is really the best thing about this as a wonderfully comic character. Regrettably Eastwood’s only there to be pretty.

The other thing that got to me was all of the values dissonance. I’m sure if I bothered to look I’d find a number examples of women as commodities and Polyamory in the history of the old west but personally it kept getting to me.

It has it’s moments but not enough to save it. In the end it’s a relief watching the town collapse into the earth when a bull gets loose in the honeycomb of tunnels Marvin and Eastwood and several others ugh to steal gold dust from all of the casinos, bars and brothels in the town.

└ Tags: , ,
Comments Off on Wednesday Double Feature – Western Musicals

Friday Sketches – More Gorillas

by on January 15, 2016 at 9:29 am
Posted In: Art

I went to Woodland Park Zoo again to draw the Gorillas. I’m still working on figuring out what times of the week are the most dead for visitors at the zoo and which of those times fit into my schedule. Unfortunately for the most part weekends are flat out so it generally long lunches are the best or quit early on Fridays.

Ultimately I don’t think this was my best session partially because it was an especially bitter and wet day so only three of the inmates were out and I only had an hour to work with because once again I forgot that the zoo closes at five during the winter months.

Also I’m finding that gorillas are much better models than orangutans. gorillas2016011501

└ Tags: , ,
Comments Off on Friday Sketches – More Gorillas