Change Your Image
papyrus beetle
thriller that studios like PRC and Republic cranked out during the
thirties and forties. It is certainly cheap, made for $10,000 with only
six interior sets and a cast so small that it seems to take place in
some hermetically sealed pocket universe. But there is a weird alchemy
at work in this movie the likes of which occurs very rarely (other films
in which this alchemy occurs include White Zombie and Night of the
Living Dead). There is a spark of otherness that transcends its
cheapness and turns that very cheapness into an asset. That hermetically
sealed universe is a microcosm where doom stalks every character.
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I am a devoted fan of:
Richard Conte
Birth: Mar. 24, 1910
Death: Apr. 15, 1975
Actor. The son of a barber, he held down jobs ranging from truck driver, to Wall Street clerk before becoming an actor. In 1935, he became a waiter/entertainer in a Connecticut resort where he was discovered by Elia Kazan and John Garfield. Through Kazan's help, Richard Conte earned a scholarship to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse. His first Broadway appearance was in "Moon Over Mulberry Street." In 1939, while known as Nicholas Conte, the actor made his first film, "Heaven With a Barbed Wire Fence". 20th Century Fox promoted him as the "New John Garfield" upon signing him to a contract in 1943. Some of his better known roles while working for Fox included the wrongly imprisoned man who is exonerated by crusading reporter James Stewart in "Call Northside 777" (1947), and his role as a trucker in "Thieves' Highway" (1949). He also appeared in many TV roles, including a co-starring assignment with Dan Dailey, Jack Hawkins and Vittorio De Sica on the 1959 syndicated series "The Four Just Men." Appearing primarily in European films in his later years, he directed the Yugoslavian-filmed "Operation Cross Eagles." Richard Conte's most important Hollywood role in the 1970s was as rival Mafia Don Barzini in the Oscar-winning "The Godfather" (1972).
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=224
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"papyrus beetle" resides in Austin Texas USA, with 5 🐈, and a fascination with "noir" (and most films of the 1940's and 1950's.)
Just saw, and loved:
RACE
A ROYAL NIGHT OUT
CHILD 44
We will bury you"-NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
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This was a Russian expression for "We will attend your funeral" (ie, we will survive longer than you). It was disastrously misinterpreted as "we will bomb you into rubble".
Reviews
24 (2001)
"24" - why do these people work there?
"24" theorists? Help! I've watched (in marathons) seasons 1,2,3,4, AND 5 of "24". Besides watching poor Keifer Sutherland's slide into alcoholic deterioration (his features and skin), bless his heart, he's worked his guts out but lost his beautiful looks, ....besides that, each season (for the hapless Government employees of the CTU) brings new levels of torment, pain, and humiliation. In the 4th season they were actually dragging various employees straight down to the "white rooms" for torture, to get at the truth. As if anyone working in this hell-hole wasn't already a masochist!
As the seasons roll on, employees' relatives die (some right at the CTU office), no one ever gets to take a real bathroom break (the toilets are only for illegal cell-calls), and there isn't even a cafeteria, not that any of these poor people can get a snack, anyway. Having a sandwich at their desk would probably amount to signing their own death-warrant.
"Chiefs" of the CTU resemble Nazis in expression, and the Security Force routinely shows up to escort people off the premises. Hitler in his Bunker in Berlin had parties, great food, and music with his loyal staff---but at CTU, there are no smiles, no birthday cakes, no nothing except terror.
What does this mean? Is this ALL jobs? Is this how we imagine the government works? Is there some reason why people in dramas must suffer these tortures?
Juno (2007)
JUNO internalizes her mother's rejection!
JUNO is really just about JUNO---she "accidentally on purpose" gets pregnant with a boy she has set out to dominate. She loves everything about him (geek that he is, with no attractiveness at all). She chooses him the way a bird chooses a mate.....because she has absolutely no confidence in herself as a mother---she's been abandoned by her own mother, who had 3 "replacement" kids, and never even visits. Juno is as pathetic as Tim McVeigh. She feels so inadequate that she feels its pointless waiting to have anyone marry her. Why bother to have an abortion, if she's inadequate to raise a child LATER? She might as well pass on her genetic baggage and let someone else, anyone else, raise her child. Juno self-sabotages, because of her O self-esteem---not only that, she does all the "work" of planning what to do with the child, and "entertains" all the adults around her with her patter---without a tear, she wants a CLOSED adoption. Her life is closed---already---by her own mother. If her own mother didn't want her, why would her baby ever want her? Juno also doesn't exist enough to have the choice of abortion. She wants to get the whole thing over with, and never feel good about it---she doesn't see the kid, because only another woman deserves to see it. She takes no pride in her sexuality, her looks, or her clothes. Juno dresses as a boy, holds a pipe, strums a guitar, watches gore films and cracks jokes not to be boyish or mannish, but simply to disappear as a girl/woman.
Jericho (2005)
Love the show, the stars, the pace, the period, and the "noir"!
Absolutely love JERICHO and all the cast, it's like seeing a TV-series out of the Michael Powell movie PEEPING TOM, the crumminess of Soho in the 1950's, the grungy NIGHT AND THE CITY bars and clubs. This is a gripping show, with tons of depth and so many great back stories and characters I watch the episodes again and again just to enjoy the details. I'd never seen Robert Lindsay before this, and he IS the role. I love the way he moves--he's a blast to watch. So many movies and movie-genres have slid downhill in the last decades---but television series are now serious cinema art, and JERICHO is a super example of the detail and emotion an audience deserves. 1950's noir, British noir as it was meant to be!