Oz ,'Storyteller'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
It was a miniseries in the 1970s, starring Alec Guinness as Smiley.
My mother got the DVDs for Xmas. She was beyond thrilled. I've never seen it, or read the book. Should fix that.
Finally finished The Hunger Games, and now I am all WTF over Cinna's casting.
I wanted JGL, or Common. But after the trailers, I'll give Lenny a chance.
I'm starting my second annual "try to watch all the movies that might be nominated for Oscars". I saw The Help last night and while I enjoyed it, the book was so much better. Maybe I shouldn't have watched it within hours of finishing the book, but I couldn't help myself.
I've already seen Moneyball, Hugo, and Bridesmaids. I think The Descendents may be next.
Ha! Tootsie is on TCM tonight. Is it my imagination, or do they just not make comedies this good anymore?
Alas, I don't think it's your imagination, Matt.
I still laugh pretty hard on a regular basis. I don't think there was a consistent golden period of comedies at the time that can't be touched, or anything. Just good movies along the timeline.
I hold the WWII era screwball comedies as a golden age that will never be equalled, but I'm more bothered that no recent comedies have made me laugh as hard as the good ones from the 80s like Tootsie, Ghostbusters, and A Fish Called Wanda. I mean, I enjoyed The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Shaun of the Dead, but I think the last movie that threatened to make me pass out from laughing was Ready to Rumble. I've been getting most of my chuckles from sitcoms on TV the last decade or so.
Pineapple Express nearly killed me, laughing. And I love stuff like Little Miss Sunshine, even though it has its share of drama (but I would argue that Tootsie does, too, even if it's a little gentler).
I'm pretty sure I'd rewatch Shaun of the Dead before Ghostbusters. I like them both, but Shaun has my name all over it. Hell, Harold and Kumar makes me want to piss myself too. I don't really feel a dropoff in the past 30 years or so.
Bridesmaids is probably my second favorite comedy movie? That shit was amazing. Also sitcoms right now are in a golden age. So I don't think the Tootsie data point expresses a decline in comedy.