Jerry Langford: Alright, look pal, I gotta tell you... this is a crazy business, but it's not unlike any other business. There are ground rules, and you don't just walk on to a network show without experience. Now I know it's an old, hackneyed expression, but it happens to be the truth. You've got to start at the bottom.
Rupert Pupkin: I know. That's where I am, at the bottom.
Jerry Langford: Well, that's the perfect place to start.
Rupert Pupkin: I know that, but I'm not say... there's gotta be...
Jerry Langford: It looks so simple to the viewer at home, those things that come so easily, that are so relaxed, and looks like it's a matter of just taking another breath. It takes years and years and years of honing that.
(King of Comedy, 2011)
Who was Sandra Burnhard playing in that movie? She was convincing.
ReplyDeleteI think it was a blogger from Wisconsin. Just sayn'
ReplyDeleteZing!
ReplyDeleteThat makes me imagine Instapundit as the guy Jerry Lewis played.
I probably should watch that movie.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm still coming to grips with the fact that I'm just not a Scorcese kind of guy.
But I'm still coming to grips with the fact that I'm just not a Scorcese kind of guy.
ReplyDeleteMe neither, but you gotta make exceptions.
And your point is? :-)
ReplyDeleteScorsese has made some great movies - the Departed, for example. The Aviator, Gangs of New York, and who doesn't like Goodfellas? Come on!
ReplyDeleteI watched Mean Streets not long ago - didn't like that one so much. Alice Doesn't Live here Anymore - interesting, but it was no Raging Bull.
He has made a lot of movies - surely everyone can find something to like amongst all those hours of film.
I actually thought Mean Streets was one of his best movies.
ReplyDeleteOf course you can't beat Taxi Driver.
ReplyDeleteI am heading back to Boston!!! Two more weeks. It's been great Wisconsin and I am grateful I have been able to spend so much time with my parents after leaving home at 17.
ReplyDeleteMy tenant is on their way out of my very expensive loft in Cambridge and I am ready to rejoin society.
Just got a new Consulting Gig at MathWorks! Fabulous.
$125.00/hour, plus OT.
God I am Creative Economy.
The Departed is fucking amazing.
ReplyDeleteAll of the acting, except Cap was awesome.
Jack...tour de force.
And what can you say about the Dropkick Murphy song about heading to Boston? So amazing.
Boston is so incredible and I love her really bad. And it didn't really suffer an economic downturn or housing slump...in compared to the rest of the pit a country.
And most importantly...the guys in Boston are the hottest in the country.
ReplyDeleteImagine Italian or Irish or the Italian/Irish combo. So delish.
You haven't lived unless you had sex with a Boston guy who had a Boston accent and said he was wicked hard while he was about to cum!
Totally Dreamy.
I am all about AIRS, LinkedIn, GoogleJobs, Indeed, Perle, Clouds, Handheld, and C++.
ReplyDeleteLet's network and make it happen.
The Departed was watchable, but baroque and sorta self-indulgent. Shutter Island was ridiculously hacky.
ReplyDeleteI didn't really like Goodfellas much. I just don't "do" gangster. I thought Raging Bull, while technically gorgeous, was (from a story perspective) a big pile of seedy mediocrity.
I mean, how "sophisticated"! Let's spend tens of millions of dollars to make a stunningly aesthetic movie about a lowlife moron whose big claim to fame was that he was too stupid to fall down.
Nope, I really don't enjoy him. Like Tarantino, I find myself looking at the technique instead of getting into the story. Or Ken Russell. I'm afraid to go see a Spike Lee movie 'cause I know it'll be the same damn thing.
Just a taste thing. I recognize the skill just like I do with Woody Allen. It's just not my thing.
Though I do have one or both of Taxi Drvier and Mean Streets DVRed and will probably watch those.
Can't say I don't try.
"I mean, how "sophisticated"! Let's spend tens of millions of dollars to make a stunningly aesthetic movie about a lowlife moron whose big claim to fame was that he was too stupid to fall down."
ReplyDeleteAre we talking about "Raging Bull" or "Rocky"?
It's hard to forgive Scorcese for even thinking that DiCaprio was another de Niro.
ReplyDeleteMaybe "forgive" is the wrong word choice. "fathom" would be better.
ReplyDeleteThe man was no John H. Hammond in his later years.
That's an interesting take on Raging Bull, blake. It's true that overall you could say "What's the point?" about RB. The greatness is in the absolute truth of the details. For example: the scene in the locker room after DeNiro throws a fight on orders from the mob. The actor who plays his trainer slamming the door on the reporters and standing against it crying. That's tremendous. Or DeNiro losing it and stomping into his brother's apartment and beating him senseless. Or toward the end when he's thrown into the jail cell in Florida, beating his fists against the wall "You're stupid. Stupid. Stupid." The film is about a world in which no one stands at a distance from himself. So it may seem brainless (emphasis seem) but it's REAL.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to MamaM?
ReplyDeleteLoved her.
Is she gone forever?
I know a little bit about the world of boxing and Raging Bull is the real deal. At least the guys who were around in the fifties and sixties thought so.
ReplyDeleteAnd Taxi Driver was what Times Square was like in the seventies. A perfect depiction of liberal politics gone amuck until Guiliani time.
ReplyDeleteI don't fault "RB"s artistry or accuracy. But if the greatest artistic talents of our time focused all their abilities on creating a lifelike representation of a turd, I wouldn't be oohing and ahing over it, because it's still just a turd.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Vikki LaMotta did a Playboy spread in 1981, right after the movie, and 24 years after being divorced from Jake, she still flinched every time he made a sudden move around her.
Pfeh.
Sometimes MamaM finds the Ways of Menz (both faux and real)peculiar. Especially the bonding rituals after skirmishes.
ReplyDeleteMamaM, yea!!!
ReplyDeleteShe's back.
No faux here.
Love ya doll, seriously.
Tits!
Especially the bonding rituals after skirmishes.
ReplyDeleteSkirmishes or scrimmages? I may have missed that.
And it's been a while since I wrote anything about bonding.
I love Sarah Jessica Parker.
ReplyDeleteSo beautiful and thin and a wonderful role model for young girls everywhere.
Titus said...
ReplyDeleteI love Sarah Jessica Parker.
That's an odious effection, Titus. Plus it taints your affections for MamaM.
Toying with Tainted Effections.
ReplyDeleteOld Henry David claimed "It takes two to speak truth, one to speak and another to hear."
What good are vaingorious expressions with no one to tisk or comment on the size of the loaf?
Interesting discussion. No. 1 son is getting seriously into film (went last weekend, for example, to visit New England colleges w/film schools), and several Scorcese movies, including Mean Streets and RB, are on his Film Studies list to see this summer. We've talked about Scorcese a bit, and he wanted me to watch RB or Mean Streets with him. I'm a little hesitant to do it, but this thread is making me curious to see them again after all these years. And, anyway, I should be a good Dad, and try to bond more with my fast-growing-up son before it's really too late.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm naturally with blake about Scorcese. I tend to prefer things witty, engaging, or uplifting, and the dark, when it's done, to be in fancy dress, being fascinated by the contrast between high status and evil. Pauline Kael, OTOH, loved Scorcese for his ability to make dark things real. Her famous review of Mean Streets is almost orgasmic. At the time, I didn't see the movie the way she did. Maybe I will now.
And, MamaM, not everything is a "skirmish," although some people like it that way. I'm old enough to remember going to the fights in LA with my Mexican cousins when I was a teenager. There were invariably several bleachd-blonde women wearing too much bling, who would jump out of their seats, shouting ¡Ahora! ¡Ahora! when the action got hot, and would pump the air with their fists, sweaty arms glistening and jangling with cheap bracelets, eyes glazed and ecstatic, when, for example, 'el Jefe' Calderon landed a solid uppercut to Frankie the Kid's jaw.
Despite having suitable personalities, it's doubtful any of them ever went into film criticism or blogging. You could say there were into keeping it real.
Old Henry David claimed "It takes two to speak truth, one to speak and another to hear."
ReplyDeleteHenry David was thoreau when it came to speaking truth to power. Duly noted.
What good are vaingorious expressions with no one to tisk or comment on the size of the loaf?
Veingory hits variclose to home. More than you know. :)
"I just want to show you my Pride and Joy."
ReplyDeleteAnd, MamaM, not everything is a "skirmish," although some people like it that way.
ReplyDeleteSome people focus on the oddest things. But one can easily understand how young teenage menz might find their attention captivated by a group of hot sweaty bleached blond females who are glistening, jangling and pumping their fists in the air while repeatedly shouting "Ahora!" So much glazed ecstasy, so far out of reach.
Maybe this story is a sign from the roach that he is longing to dip his pen in the creative ink more often!
Could ¡Ahora! ¡Ahora! be the time?
I am all about Clouds right now.
ReplyDeleteNot the ones in the sky but the ones on your computer.
It's the new hot thing.
I will be doing some Cloud Recruiting and Organization Design initiatives for a fabulous company and I really want all of you to be involved.
Generally my response to any posting in the future will be Clouds, replacing tits.
Clouds.
Titus' effections are nephelauxetic.
ReplyDeleteThe negative charge on the ligands makes the metal expand, cloudily.
ReplyDeleteHee Hee Hee
I have no idea. But neither do you. Only chicken and the Shadow know...cloudily. In a nephelauxetic kinda way.
Still confused? Good!
ricpic said...
ReplyDeleteThe negative charge on the ligands makes the metal expand, cloudily.
Into bondage are you?
chicken - Why shouldn't chemistry be sexy? Everything else is.
ReplyDeletericpic said...
ReplyDeletechicken - Why shouldn't chemistry be sexy? Everything else is.
To my ears, that's music!
That's how
ReplyDeleteThe Whole Thing
got Off Track
the First Time
The Nephallaux
started mixing
With the Baffoons
Making trouble
Shouting "ahora!"
Paying no never mind
To Clouds Forming
Low on the Horizon
Until the Big Jefe,
Calderone, said
"That's it...enough"
and the reign fell.
-More of that Old Time Natural Religion
To my ears, that's music!
ReplyDeleteit's all there
less repulsion between the two electrons
effective positive charge
doubly occupied
acts of overlapping
Don't forget:
ReplyDeletedonor/acceptor
hard and soft theory
attraction
lone pair
lobes
coupling
Then unsuspecting Chlorine
ReplyDeleteFelt a magnetic pull
She looked down and her outside
Shell was full
Sodium cried,
"What a gas!
Be my bride!
And I'll change your name
From Chlorine to Chloride!"
That's nice blake but didn't sodium used to be illegal in some states?
ReplyDelete@MamaM: Your 7:14 reads like an old "Warren Report"
ReplyDeleteIs there meaning there if I scratch?
Clouds
ReplyDeletethank you
Is there meaning there if I scratch?
ReplyDeleteThis one actually tracks back to Moses, but some of those old timey stories have a way of being relevant to the present age, once literal interpretation is lifted. Sometimes it's hard to tell the Nephalaux from the Baffoons, especially when things get sweaty and cloudy, and shouts of "tits' and "ahora" fill the air.
My Mexican relations, old-fashioned as they were, did not approve of women, especially Mexican women, and particularly cheap Mexican women, at boxing matches. It was a man's sport. They despised, not desired, las putas who squealed at the half-naked men in the ring.
ReplyDeleteNot having as much Latin cultural baggage, the very idea of women at such an event didn't bother me. But the sweaty, slightly chunky, polyester-clad ladies from Boyle Heights were to me, despite raging teenage hormones, objects of study rather than lust. Of course, by modern standards of L.A. gangbanger-infested low-life, it was all so quaint. Being fortunate that way, and despite appearances, I really am old. 1963 seems like it was yesterday.
Hop in mi carrucha
Chevy '39
Pick up on my weesa
She is so divine
Helps me stealing hubcaps
Wasted all the time
Zappa did a nice job putting an amusing face on it. But the truth is, I had enough actual, really godawful low-life growing up to do anyone for several lifetimes. That is why, for example, as the child of an entire family of cops, I don't read thrillers or detective novels, nor do I care for gritty, dark movies, no matter, or especially, if they're artistically done.
The metaphor may be old, but it has always seemed to me that the Pauline Kaels and other members of the intellectual class who like to revel in their soi-dissant badgirldom and edginess, have about as much relation to the actual, dark, hard existence of so many people as Marie Antoinette did to farm work.
Clouds in the shape of a tit
ReplyDeleteCloudy Tit
raining down on me.
hogs, loaf, tit, clouds, pinched.
thank you
Heh. Clever, Bruce, as always.
ReplyDeleteTim--
Just so. I think a lot of people who have it easy*—movie critics in particular—have this equation that squalor equals authenticity. But the "Raging Bull"s, the "Under The Volcano"s, the "Leaving Las Vegas"es always have this aesthetic sheen that just isn't there and serves to glamorize.
* I count myself in that category.
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ReplyDeleteNebulous Titus
ReplyDeleteOnan is an island entire of itself. In the one hand, cumulus Titus; in the other hand:
Cirrus Titus ranting impolitic on Althouse; then
Stratus Titus layer of loaves; while
Nimbus Titus flits from fit to fit and shit to shit.
Then rain cloud Titus, stealing thunder and reigning at will...til the clouds break leaving rainbow Titus and a promise to never again.
thank you chick...i think
ReplyDeleteclouds
Nebulous Titus (amended)
ReplyDeleteOnan is an island entire of itself. In the one hand, cumulus Titus; in the other hand:
Cirrus Titus ranting impolitic on Althouse; then
Stratus Titus layer of loaves; while
Nimbus Titus flits from tit to tit and shit to shit.
Then rain cloud Titus, stealing thunder and reigning at will...til the clouds break leaving rainbow Titus and a promise to never again.
Ah, chickenlittle, what more can be said?
ReplyDeletePerhaps if the other inventive chemist had humor and an ability to see shapes in clouds he'd have found the balance needed to stick around longer than he did.
Once again Titus reveals the Power of Shift as he moves from repeated mention of one visible mass to repeated mention of another.
To such work the MamaM can only sigh and and send a picher.
From 30 Creepiest Clouds on earth, here's the hog
@MamaM: Thanks for the cool link.
ReplyDeleteIs Titus saying that "he's looked at life from both sides now" or is he more in the vain of "clouds in your coffee"?
I'm currus (blue).
cheap Mexican women...las putas...god awful low life...
ReplyDeleteReally? It's not just bleached blondes then?
Is Titus saying that "he's looked at life from both sides now" or is he more in the vain of "clouds in your coffee"?
ReplyDeleteI'm currus (blue).
Maybe a both/and presentation with a light wafting of will o' the wisp?
Maybe a both/and presentation with a light wafting of will o' the wisp?
ReplyDeleteThat reminded me of a Montana Urban Legend concerning phosphorus.
MamaM found MUL hard to read.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete