There are sooo many great baseball movies. Love of the game, The Natural, Major League (1&2), 42, 61*, FoD, and of course BD. I wouldn't say it's the best baseball flick, I would say its one of the funnier looks into baseball you will ever see, particularly when it comes to the superstitions these guys choose to engage in...great stuff.
I only just saw it. It's been a bubbling around in the cultural zeitgeist for a while, but I'd never watched. I liked it. But I liked Pig better. But I'm just one of those types of people.
Somehow I missed Blazing Saddles as a kid, despite my dad’s repeat recommendation... in my early 30s I tried a few times (when DVDs via post were a thing) but couldn’t get through more than 20 minutes without even a smile haha
Adding Bill Durham to my rewatch list... thanks Sonny! Thief was a great rec, fantastic movie
For the record I introduced my then 15 year old to Blazing Saddles and while some things may have gone over his head - farting around the campfire and slapstick is timeless.
I enjoyed hearing the interview with Shelton. And re Bull Durham - the scenes are so rich in detail. A fabulous movie. And remove Susan Sarandon as Annie and it is hard to see how you get to the same marvelous place (Sarandon was NOT on the approved actress list at first). And then - imagine Anthony Michael Hall as Effie Calvin Laloush. Nope does not work.
As a trained artist, I went to suggest that we can divide art into two categories - new art and great art. For artists and members of the urban elite - new art must be seen, just to be in the loop. But then you have the great art - movies you watch over and over, books you re-read and paintings that you view many times over the years. New art fade and only some makes it to great. Bull Durham was once new - now great.
Good suggestion. There is always the classic list - I'm surprised how many people haven't seen this or that. 'You haven't seen Casablanca? No? Dirty Dozen? Original Magnificent Seven? So, ever heard of Seven Samurai?' Okay then.
I rewatched Bull Durham today and fell in love with it all over again. Perhaps what I love is the Americanness of. It’s precisely because it’s about quintessentially American things that it works so well, foreign audiences be damned!
Number 2 on your list just proves my opinion--most Social Justice Warriors are as humourless and clueless about ironic humour as most Southern Baptists...2 sides, same coin. I say that as a former SB. Mel Brooks himself has said the premise of the film is to show how truly stupid racism is.
Yeah, though it isn’t a new phenomenon like some people seem to think.
I had the same conversation with my best friend in college in the early 90s. She couldn’t see that it was, in fact, anti-racist and she was a sociology major who became a professor. Yet, now? She’s amazed she felt that way, even though she remembers the conversations/arguments - like anything else, it’s a result of mono-experience and lack of constructive challenge to arrive at a more nuanced understanding.
(But, yeah, when the 14yo is explaining to Harvard kids that Richard Pryor scripted the scene they’re upset over and why that matters, the echo chamber effect is real)
*Technically*, Richard only wrote the Mongo scenes...and that was because Richard asked to do that. Mel wanted him to write the Bart sequences, but, Pryor wanted Mongo.
Pryor did Mongo but also did the Sheriff self-hostage bit - with input from Cleavon Little - bc Brooks didn’t have an exit route in-scene up to a day before shooting.
There are sooo many great baseball movies. Love of the game, The Natural, Major League (1&2), 42, 61*, FoD, and of course BD. I wouldn't say it's the best baseball flick, I would say its one of the funnier looks into baseball you will ever see, particularly when it comes to the superstitions these guys choose to engage in...great stuff.
I only just saw it. It's been a bubbling around in the cultural zeitgeist for a while, but I'd never watched. I liked it. But I liked Pig better. But I'm just one of those types of people.
Somehow I missed Blazing Saddles as a kid, despite my dad’s repeat recommendation... in my early 30s I tried a few times (when DVDs via post were a thing) but couldn’t get through more than 20 minutes without even a smile haha
Adding Bill Durham to my rewatch list... thanks Sonny! Thief was a great rec, fantastic movie
For the record I introduced my then 15 year old to Blazing Saddles and while some things may have gone over his head - farting around the campfire and slapstick is timeless.
I enjoyed hearing the interview with Shelton. And re Bull Durham - the scenes are so rich in detail. A fabulous movie. And remove Susan Sarandon as Annie and it is hard to see how you get to the same marvelous place (Sarandon was NOT on the approved actress list at first). And then - imagine Anthony Michael Hall as Effie Calvin Laloush. Nope does not work.
The Anthony Michael Hall anecdote is the best, just a perfect case of an exec being like "We need to get the hot new guy into everything."
As a trained artist, I went to suggest that we can divide art into two categories - new art and great art. For artists and members of the urban elite - new art must be seen, just to be in the loop. But then you have the great art - movies you watch over and over, books you re-read and paintings that you view many times over the years. New art fade and only some makes it to great. Bull Durham was once new - now great.
Good suggestion. There is always the classic list - I'm surprised how many people haven't seen this or that. 'You haven't seen Casablanca? No? Dirty Dozen? Original Magnificent Seven? So, ever heard of Seven Samurai?' Okay then.
I rewatched Bull Durham today and fell in love with it all over again. Perhaps what I love is the Americanness of. It’s precisely because it’s about quintessentially American things that it works so well, foreign audiences be damned!
Literally took my 14yo to see a new 35mm print of BLAZING SADDLES before Covid.
With the caveat that as the child of a screenwriter, he’s been exposed to more cinema narrative than the typical teen, his reactions were:
1. Funny, but didn’t get some references (got the Bugs Bunny, not some of the Western tropes);
2. Surprised a lot of the college crowd didn’t see the racial humor as “obviously” anti-racist;
3. Had huge problems with the misogyny, especially the “Number 7” joke
4. Laughed til he cried at the campfire scene
5. Was confused by but enjoyed the 4th wall break at the conclusion, minus the gay stereotyping
FWIW
Number 2 on your list just proves my opinion--most Social Justice Warriors are as humourless and clueless about ironic humour as most Southern Baptists...2 sides, same coin. I say that as a former SB. Mel Brooks himself has said the premise of the film is to show how truly stupid racism is.
Yeah, though it isn’t a new phenomenon like some people seem to think.
I had the same conversation with my best friend in college in the early 90s. She couldn’t see that it was, in fact, anti-racist and she was a sociology major who became a professor. Yet, now? She’s amazed she felt that way, even though she remembers the conversations/arguments - like anything else, it’s a result of mono-experience and lack of constructive challenge to arrive at a more nuanced understanding.
(But, yeah, when the 14yo is explaining to Harvard kids that Richard Pryor scripted the scene they’re upset over and why that matters, the echo chamber effect is real)
*Technically*, Richard only wrote the Mongo scenes...and that was because Richard asked to do that. Mel wanted him to write the Bart sequences, but, Pryor wanted Mongo.
Pryor did Mongo but also did the Sheriff self-hostage bit - with input from Cleavon Little - bc Brooks didn’t have an exit route in-scene up to a day before shooting.
Wow--did not know that part...and that sequence was hilarious.
One bit that I wished HAD been kept in involved Madeline Kahn and Cleavon's elbow.