Uncouth Reflections

Notes on “Man Wanted”

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

Although William Dieterle had a long, distinguished career, I think he was at his best in his early Hollywood pictures. Movies like “Jewel Robbery” and “The Last Flight” have a light, off-the-cuff quality that leavens the director’s taste for Germanic pictorial effects. (Like many German film people of his generation, Dieterle studied under Max Reinhardt, the great — and aesthetically heavy-handed — theater impresario.) In the 1932 “Man Wanted,” Dieterle and cinematographer Gregg Toland seem intent on keeping the camera moving. Several shots are sneakily suggestive, such as a crane away from star Kay Francis that conveys her growing disillusionment, or a sudden glide out a window that underscores Francis’ doubts regarding her lover, played by a rather watery David Manners. There’s always the gleam of sex in Francis, but here her appetites are pressed right up against the surface, straining against the fabric of her rarefied manner and chichi accoutrements — she often looks as though she might swallow Manners whole in one swift bite. The plot is a sort of bedroom farce. Though it’s structurally a bit haphazard, and it’s always pretty clear whose bed each of the characters will end up in, screenwriter Charles Kenyon provides enough complications to keep you in a ticklish state of suspense; even the queenly Francis seems intermittently in doubt as to where she’ll land. Slim Pickens and Una Merkel are amusing comic seconds. At one point Merkel sings a little song, making no attempt to disguise the injured-quail wobbliness of her voice. It’s like a spoof of movie musicals.

Related

“Man Wanted,” along with “Jewel Robbery,” can be purchased in this nice collection of pre-code DVDs.
“The Last Flight” is available via Warner’s burn-on-demand DVD line. It’s a rip-off of “The Sun Also Rises” — but better than any official adaptation that I’m aware of.
“Man Wanted” and “Jewel Robbery” can also be streamed via Warner Archive Instant.
Some elements of “Man Wanted” are reminiscent — in a half-formed, minor-league sort of way — of Ernst Lubitsch’s great “Trouble in Paradise,” which also stars Francis. It’s available on DVD through the Criterion Collection.

Posted in Movies, Performers | Tagged David Manners, Film, Kay Francis, Man Wanted, movies, Pre-Code, Romantic Comedy, Slim Pickens, Una Merkel, William Dieterle | 3 Comments

“Barcelona”

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Eddie Pensier

Eddie Pensier writes:

This is a clip from a semi-staged New York Philharmonic concert performance of Sondheim’s Company, in 2011.

If you don’t like or care about musicals, just skip to the 22 second mark, where Christina Hendricks starts to take her clothes off. She performs the rest of the number in a tight low-cut slip.

You’re welcome.

Posted in Music, Performers, Sex | Tagged big tits, boobs, breasts, christina hendricks, company, stephen sondheim | 6 Comments

Napoleon’s March to Russia

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

The Corsican in more triumphant times. Portrait by Jacques-Louis David, 1801-1805.

The year 1812 was a turning point in Napoleon’s career due to his fateful decision to invade Russia. While many know of his defeat by the Russian army in the bitter winter cold, less well known (at least to me) is the arduous, hellish story of his army’s march to Moscow in the first place.

Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Economics | Tagged dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, Felix Markham, French Revolution, history, Leo Tolstoy, military history, Napoleon, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Stanley Kubrick, The Teaching Company, war is hell | 5 Comments

Cinemagraphs

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Enzo Nakamura

Enzo Nakamura writes:

I love GIFS and I especially love Cinemagraphs, an approach to GIF-making that involves isolating an individual element that will play out a looping animation while the rest of the image remains still. I believe a fashion firm has trademarked the term, but I don’t have a better one.

They’ve been in vogue for a couple years, but I don’t think UR has shared them out yet. Blowhards and Reflectors, let me know if the case is otherwise.

Fashion Cinemagraphs

http://cinemagraphs.com/

Nature Cinemagraphs

http://headlikeanorange.tumblr.com/

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/landscape-and-nature-cinemagraphs

Cinemagraphs for Photo Narrative

http://darkscorestories.com/another-mans-treasure#

Mixed Bag

http://www.buzzfeed.com/thegeshow/the-60-most-beautiful-cinemagraph-gifs

http://www.reddit.com/r/cinemagraphs

And of course,

Porno Cinemagraphs (absolutely, positively NSFW and hardcore)

http://xxx-gif.tumblr.com/

Feeling creative?

Any additional resources, UR?

Posted in Art, Computers, Movies, Technology | Tagged Cinemagraphs, DIY, gifs, Internet | 3 Comments

Space Dandy Promo

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Enzo Nakamura

Enzo Nakamura writes:

I haven’t watched any anime in years. But who can resist Space Dandy? It’s got everything!

Posted in Movies | Tagged Aliens, Anime, boobs, Japan, Pompadours, Space Dandy | 2 Comments

Notes on “Jack Irish: Bad Debts” and “Black Tide” (2012)

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Eddie Pensier

Eddie Pensier writes:

Guy Pearce, Roy Billing, and Aaron Pedersen in “Jack Irish: Bad Debts”

This series of telemovies is based on the novels by Peter Temple. Jack is a widowed criminal attorney who has drifted into a second life as a private investigator, debt collector, gambler, and quippy layabout. He hangs out in a decrepit old pub inhabited by old men, occasionally works as a carpenter’s apprentice, and finds himself in life-and-limb-threatening situations arising from the cases he takes on, which inevitably put him in the path of Melbourne’s criminal element.

If it sounds like a string of noir clichés, you’d be right. But the first two films, “Bad Debts” and “Black Tide” were still enjoyable thanks to the charisma of Guy Pearce. I’ve enjoyed Pearce in most of his performances, ranging from “Memento” to “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” to his underrated turn as Edward VIII in “The King’s Speech”. He plays Jack with a low-key charm interspersed with shots of wiry intensity. Even in a straightforward genre effort like “Jack Irish”, with a character determined to be as loaded with character-defining quirks as possible, he brings an appealing scruffy blokeyness that is friendly and ingratiating.

Aaron Pedersen plays his mate and fixer Cam with witty flamboyance, and Marta Dusseldorp is excellent if not always likeable as Linda, a driven journalist and Jack’s sometime lover. Other notable cameos come from Colin Friels and Steve Bisley (“Mad Max”). Technically the films are competently made, with wonderful camera work and great shots of Melbourne and its surroundings.

The “Jack Irish” films are on DVD and can be found via various Ebay sellers. (If you live outside Region 4, you might have to region-hack your DVD player.) A third movie is in production, with essential Australian supporting actors Vince Colosimo and Barry Humphries, which promises to be great fun.

I enjoyed the “Jack Irish” films on their own terms, as well-made but not earth-shattering mystery dramas. If you come across them, you might well be entertained.

Related:

The official ABC site of the show, with pics ‘n clips.
I reviewed an altogether sadder movie set in Victoria here.
Somehow, the uglier parts of Melbourne didn’t make it into the films.

Posted in Movies, Performers, Television | Tagged autralia, guy pearce, jack irish, melbourne, movies, peter temple, television, victoria | 3 Comments

Cocktail Du Jour

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

At a fun upscale — but not too upscale — Mexican restaurant in Goleta, CA, a tamarind margarita:

Note the non-traditional glass as well as the absence of a lime slice.

Although I’m someone who usually avoids margaritas, I was very pleased with it. Margaritas generally: blech. Even the freshly-made ones are nearly always ‘way too sweet for me. (And don’t get me started on the curse of “margarita mix.” Where beverages go, do Americans generally take their taste-cues from soda pop? Must we always remain Hawaiian Punch-swilling children? But I rant …) Anyway, here the sweet-sour, slightly musky taste of tamarind took the usual overbright edge off the drink and supplied a lot of exotic interest. A little bit of lime juice supplied some kick and provided an echo of the traditional margarita.

Verdict: Festive, streamlined and rewarding, yet not inane.

Related

I enjoyed (and learned a lot from) this well-done Great Courses series on spirits and cocktails. The section where Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan, the course’s babe lecturer (watching her sniff and sip is a real treat), explained the differences between the different genres of tequila (gold, añejo and white) was particularly gripping.
Will tamarinds ever catch on bigtime in the U.S.?
The history of the margarita.
Is the problem in California not so much too little water but too many people?

Posted in Food and health, The Good Life | Tagged cocktails, Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan, margaritas, The Great Courses | 6 Comments

Quote Du Jour

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Forth Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.

…

I heard nothing more of the Texas officer, LaBoeuf. If he is yet alive and should happen to read these pages, I will be pleased to hear from him. I judge he is in seventies now, and nearer eighty than seventy. I expect some of the starch has gone out of that ‘cowlick.’ Time just gets away from us. This ends my true account of how I avenged Frank Ross’s blood over the Choctow Nation when snow was on the ground.

— The first and last paragraphs of Charles Portis’s “True Grit”

Click on the image to enlarge.

Posted in Books Publishing and Writing | Tagged Charles Portis, McCarthy can suck it, Pynchon can suck it, westerns | 3 Comments

Movie Stills du Jour OR The Camera Loves OR More Noir

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

The ideal physique for women has definitely changed over the years. Less zaftig not only since Rubens but even since the 1940s. Tom Wolfe tried to capture how far the svelte aesthetic advanced by the turn of the century when he coined the term “boys with breasts” as the ideal type lusted after by his macho protagonist in A Man in Full.

[BTW I tried to find a suitable Google image to place here in connection with that term. Believe me, you don’t want to search Google images for the term “boys with breasts”. The distaff Wolfian meaning is not on display there–just . . . . boys with breasts. Hence no photo.]

But even if women were a bit plumper 60 years ago, a pinup from that period translates to the current day quite well, no?

Is the same true for men? Not so clear since the advent of ripped this and ripped that, steroids and weightlifting. What hath Arnold wrought?

Even scrawny Matt Damon

needs to bulk it up these days more often than not. Roles in the current era require it.

Ah, but in the good old days there was no such pressure. Real men were not obliged to show six packs.

An example. Here is Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet from 1944. The dame in the film, Claire Trevor, finds the door to his apartment open and just walks in, finding Marlowe getting dressed.

Her line, delivered in classic sultry-noir fashion:

“You’ve got a nice build for a private detective”.