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mopinko

(71,831 posts)
Sun May 10, 2020, 12:13 PM May 2020

i dont just love old movies, old movies are my refuge.

my marriage broke up in january, and i spent so much of that feb sucking up '30 days of oscar'.

the thing about tcm is that they give you so much background not just on the stars but the whole art of movie making. i learned a term- a bit of business.
i watch them these days, and i finally see just what they mean by that.
some movies i just chuckle at those little "bits"
those great, polished little pearls of dialogue. the different lighting styles of different directors. the costumes. the looks on the actors faces. the fedoras and the ties in film noir.

i have a real love for the old titles. as a graphic designer, i know that they did that stuff by hand, and made those type styles themselves showed me just how much goes into a movie.
i have really come to appreciate these little bits.

i used to want to go to grad school for film. way back in the day, when columbia was a cheaper little upstart across mich ave from my school, saic, their claim to fame was their film school, and i thought many times about crossing the street, or at least going there after i got a bfa.
that never happened. i didnt get to study it in a classroom.

but, thanks so much tcm for everything you have taught me about this amazing art form.
and in the end, guess what? all education is self education. you get to put letters after your name because you spent the requisite number of hours w your butt in their chairs, and paid them big bucks for the privilege. it has nothing to do w what you have learned in life, let alone what your talents are.
if they actually counted "hours", like they say, i should have more that the puny little aa and cd that i have to show for a lifetime of educating myself.
it's a good thing that is all i really care about.

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i dont just love old movies, old movies are my refuge. (Original Post) mopinko May 2020 OP
from my fb today- mopinko May 2020 #1
I love old movies too! redwitch May 2020 #2
times all those new guys times sexy eddie and jacqueline. mopinko May 2020 #4
What gets me about old movies is that they're a form of time travel. Jeebo May 2020 #3

mopinko

(71,831 posts)
1. from my fb today-
Sun May 10, 2020, 12:21 PM
May 2020

i posted yesterday about movies, and enjoying being able to see all the "little bits of business"
i'm watching wallace and grommet, and i'm here to tell you that every shot is knee deep in bits.

eta- and to think this all started w a lump of clay and one incredible brain.


i mean, the teeth alone. and the pictures on that wallpapered wall. obviously a lot of this is cgi now, and i know how easy it is to come up w a pattern. but still. the pattern is a little world all it's own. and just now- "it's just a little 'armless brain surgery is all" i mean. i bow down to this dude. what a genius.

also, i would hire anti-pesto to come get my f'in bunnies.

this movie is to funny what star wars was to out there.

i mean, a cotton candy tumbleweed in the big scene where they are all standing around w their jaws, w those teeth, are on the ground.

and i'm sure it only seems like it, but i swear every movie ever made is in there somewhere. but if there is any truth in the idea that there are a limited number of possible story lines that are just recycled, i think it's close enough for horseshoes.

redwitch

(15,081 posts)
2. I love old movies too!
Sun May 10, 2020, 12:27 PM
May 2020

And TCM is great, love Ben Mankiewitz especially! And I just butchered the spelling of his name!

mopinko

(71,831 posts)
4. times all those new guys times sexy eddie and jacqueline.
Sun May 10, 2020, 01:44 PM
May 2020

biggest issue now is that most of the features are repeats x3 for me.

which is how i ended up watching kids movies today. always said the best part of being a mom was disney. then pixar, holy hell.

Jeebo

(2,284 posts)
3. What gets me about old movies is that they're a form of time travel.
Sun May 10, 2020, 01:21 PM
May 2020

Think about that! Those people are, most of them, dead now. A few of them are still alive. Kirk Douglas just died. Olivia de Havilland is still alive, living somewhere near Paris, I believe, the last I heard. But most of them are dead now, and still, somehow, they are entertaining us and informing us and uplifting us and communicating with us from beyond the grave. An old movie is a portal through which we can view the past. We can't actually step through that portal and visit the past ... but, in a sense, we can. It really is a form of time travel. And that thought, whenever I watch an old movie, that thought is what just blows me away. It's one of the main reasons why I find these movies from the 1940s and 1930s and silent movies from the 1920s and 1910s so fascinating.

Movies are, as you said, a high art form. One of the highest art forms yet created by us, as a culture and a civilization. The same things could be said about other art forms, too. Novels, stories, operas, paintings, music, any form of expression by which the artist communicates something from his/her soul to another person down through the decades or centuries or millennia...

-- Ron

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