This blog is dedicated to the memory of David Weintraub, who took on insidious astroturfers and won.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Four Blog Entries In One

This diary product was originally titled Degrees of Kevin Bacon Gone Bad. But seeing as we have almost locked down legendary blogger donkeytale® to a lucrative contract, it behooves DFQ2 to try as hard as possible to not obfuscate his entries. Thus, I'm gonna cram a lot of goodies into this one preserving his latest masterpiece in the #2 frontpage slot.


#1 Degrees of Kevin Bacon Gone Bad

The biggest reason the internet is such a colossal waste of time is because it's too easy to drift from one link to the next, and it just never seems to end like a 21 inning Red Sox game in Seattle.

On the other hand, some of the best stuff can be found from going with the flow and seeing where it takes you. My new fad has been watching old flicks at youtube. The only Montgomery Clift movie I didn't get to see was The Search. One of the good ones was called The Heiress. If it's still there, I advise you the good readers to get on your asses and watch it.

Anyway, the degrees of separation led me to Olivia DeHavilland. Before I knew it, I was watching Bette Davis movies. You get the point. It's like that shampoo ad from a few decades ago- I told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on.... I guess you had to be there.

Sometimes this approach backfires. I was impressed with Monty and Brando in The Young Lions. I wanted to then watch Brando in The Wild One or A Streetcar Named Desire. Unfortunately, some of the best movies are not available. And if you want to try one of those illegal places, good luck scrubbing possible viruses ending up on your computer.

So I watched this flick called The Brave. It might have been Brando's last movie, not sure. It was put together by Johnny Depp. That dude has definite acting skills. In this movie he reminded me of The Red Hot Chili Pepper dude, which has to be considered a positive. In short, the movie sucks. I think Depp suckered Brando into doing the picture because it did do a good job of highlighting the sorry plight of Native-Americans on reservations. But the script was utter nonsense. For one, it was based on an urban legend, that snuff films are for real. No, they're not. Some guy came up with the idea in a book, and that then took on a life of its own. The #1 reason this movie is stupid is because unless you want to start making up reasons for such and such meaning something, the thing is an utter downer with no universal themes. It ended up making the main character look like both a hero and a loser. Better put, it's just downright confusing and disturbing to think about. Depp's character got an advance for a snuff film he agreed to do for 50 grand. So what did he do with that money? He bought his kids frivolous crap. I think the book might be a lot better, and this was perhaps a case of Depp and his writers ruining what could have been a decent idea for a movie.





The bottom line is I advise folks to not watch it. You'll end up twisting your brain around trying to make sense out of the senseless. It had good acting, nice scenery, etc.. So what. When you get past the packaging of a movie, it all comes down to the story. This one didn't add up.

The problem with a lot of them is too much fiddling gets done to the original. Donkeytale has mentioned Miss Lonely Hearts by Nathaniel West as being a classic book. I bet it is. I enjoyed the movie starring a post-accident Montgomery Clift. I got a sense of the cynicism expressed in the book. I'd like to read it someday. I give the movie a grade of B. It's missing something, perhaps what can be found in the book.

I guess I'm saying when you're surfing anything Kevin Bacon style, some results will be good, others bad. I messed up by watching the Depp picture. Don't make that same mistake.



#2 Calling Something Dated is a Nice Way of Saying the Thing Sucks

I don't care when something was produced. It's either good or bad. Nothing is dated. That's a myth. We'd never be able to discuss History, if things could be dated. The Civil War? Oh, that's dated. Forget about it. Not.

There was something called the Hays Code, which came out around 1930 but took about 5 years to kick in. It was basically about enforcing "values." The small window before it kicked in is referred to as the Pre-Code Era. I saw two of them, one brilliant and the other exploitative and of the stupid variety.

Of Human Bondage with Leslie Howard and Bette Davis can't be recommended enough. While it would be rated PG-13 today, it had an R rating type sensibility to it. Probably not suitable for the too young.

The other one I saw was called Night Nurse with Barbara Stanwyck. It would be called dated today. Lots of legs, women undressing, bootlegger hitman is the hero, bleh, blah, bluh etc.. It's just a bad movie with a silly script. It did promote some good criticism of the medical establishment. Bottom line for this one is it was an exploitation film. Warner Bros. made a lot of those back then. It was during the Depression. People didn't have the cash flow to waste. This was lowest common denominator tactics used by the film industry.



Before there was Katie Couric, there was Barbara Stanwyck. Yes, they focussed in on Barbara's leg as seen below.



Donkeytale has mentioned a thing he has for Claudette Colbert. I don't blame him. She was a definite sweetie. Though she was covered up pretty good in a movie she did with Clark Gable due to the Hays Code. Here's a decent article on the Hays Code.


Columbia Tristar/Getty Images

Released in 1934, It Happened One Night was among
the first films to follow the Hays Code. No "scenes
of passion" here; a bashful Colbert shields her body
from Clark Gable's eyes with full pajamas and a
blanket divider.



Night Nurse didn't have a very good script and story compared to the likes of The Little Foxes with Bette Davis, which exposed greed while presenting it in art form. That brings me up to Film Noir. That category would dominate the industry from the WW2 Era into the late Fifties. They were black and white, full of cynicism, and had vernacular dialogue and plots. I don't know how to better describe the genre. There'd usually be a crime, and it would be unravelled over the course of the flick. Sunset Boulevard had to be the best one. It not only had a great storyline and acting, it confronted the bullshit which is Hollywood. Rent it out. Watch it on tv, if it shows up. Do not miss that one.

The last example of Film Noir I watched was Double Indemnity. I've never been more disappointed in a movie that that one. Yes, Depp's The Brave was trash, but if you look around, it's not like many are saying otherwise. Double Indemnity is made out to be some perfect movie. It's not. There's no character development. There's no real anything. It's like pop music. It's just there, unlike Sunset Boulevard.

Sunset Boulevard (Wilder, 1950)






#3 Donkeytale is Wrong that We are a Conservative Electorate

Donkeytale is a politics as the art of the possible kind of dude. Fine. The problem is it makes him appear as some form of Democratic Leadership Council operative. At this point, I do realise he's just some intriguing slob from Texas. He believes in free speech. He is pro-Democratic Party. He is averse to holding Obama's feet to the fire. He doesn't realise that triangulation is bad news. He fears what a Republican controlled Presidency would do at this point to America. I agree with that last point. There are profound differences between the two major parties. Nonetheless, I also see this as playing it safe, playing to not lose. That doesn't work in sports. You get a big lead then stop doing the things that established the cushion. Then by the last quarter the opposition has crept back in.

His premise is that we are a very conservative country. I agree there is a strong base from middle of the road to conservative. I just don't think he understands how liberal we are also. How many people actually vote? How many people are unfairly not allowed to vote because of a criminal record? I am not saying that donkeytale is completely wrong. I just think that if more people were registered to vote and did so, we would see a shift to the Left.

Clinton said, "It's the economy, stupid." Obama needs to do what he can to get unemployment down. That will decide if he gets a second term, nothing else.



#4 Donkeytale Would Like to See Some of His Old PFF Stuff

I'm sorry, dude. I'm not saying to totally give up, but it's not looking good. Archive.org keeps returning a lot of "Not in Archive" messages. Here's what's left of the front pages. I tried clicking on various entries, and they wouldn't show. Our best bet is this page. It has 500 results and will take you to complete diaries with the comments. Hopefully somewhere in there are some Donkeytale entries.

Too bad Denali, Ormond, and a few others forced Peeder's hand into closing down the joint. As a lover of pouring through archives, I regrettably can only get a small picture of what PFF accomplished. It's the same with Nowhereweb.com through archive.org. Not everything is available. What I could see through looking at NowhereWeb is that Donkeytale is who he says he is, one of the first to expose DKos for being a fraud website. Donkeytale didn't stop there. He would later have his blogging hopes further crushed by MLW, Booman, FSZ, and then finally Pffugee yet eventually get his revenge.

I'll do what I can looking through the last link above. If I find anything good, I'll link to it in the comment section for Four Blog Entries in One. To wrap this up, I cybersleuthed and found out that Donkeytale stole Frau Tale's heart from the King. At 59 seconds you can see Donkeytale's wife fawning over Presley with the Donkster in the background thinking, "Hey Presley KingFace, you can't compete with my sideburns."

Elvis Presley: Meta Memories

29 comments:

Tokyo Shemp said...

I've gone through 70 out of the 500 PFF hits. I've found one of your diaries, unfortunately a short one. The second link includes a few comments you made, and Failreft was all over you. There is hope to find more of your stuff, seeing there are still 430 entries to wade through.

One other thing I noticed. Maryscott O'Connor was posting at PFF. That's the same kind of bullshit MattyJack does by posting at Pffugee. They're the reasons the two places were created, yet there they are/were spamming their rubbish at the places most people with a clue would have the integrity to avoid.


Whose Pick is This, Anyway?

scroll down for a few of your comments

Tokyo Shemp said...

I promise to keep trying to find your old PFF diaries. I'm stopping now after skimming through 110 of the 500 results.

I did find an interesting entry from Noom. He was curious about Booman's take on the "Michelle Obama Whitey" hoax.

Booman smells like a plant. He admits he was old buddies with Larry Johnson. He seemed to be running interference for the hoax, making it seem like Johnson was confusing "Why'd he" for "Whitey."

The only question I have left is how Johnson put to rest his "Whitey" hoax. Did a tape actually exist? I doubt it. Did Johnson ever apologise or try to fudge why'd he spammed that internet fake, styled rubbish?

related links:

Re: BooMan's sleuthing

Is the Michelle Obama Tape a Matter of Enunciation?

Everything's Gonna Be All White

Tokyo Shemp said...

Ok, it's obvious that Larry Johnson is an internet fake. But so might be Booman.

Some old Johnson threads related to the hoax have had all their comments deleted. What's up with that?

Where'd Booman come up with that script? Johnson wanted folks to think it was circulated by the Obama Campaign thus proving in his CIA trained mind that the tape story was true.

I know it's hard to believe, but many bloggers appear to have been part and parcel of manufactured convolution as in psyops. Booman versus Johnson was the epitome of controlled opposition, imho. I'm not surprised that both websites are mere shells of what they once were. You can only be full of shit so often before people simply give up. According to quantcast, noquarterusa.net only receives about 11,000 visitors a month. Who knows how many of those are unique visitors, robots, and spiders? It is also fading fast. Booman Tribune only receives 5,500 visitors a month. That is chicken feed.

Here's Larry's final explanation made on May 17th, 2009. That was his response to being p*wned in a May 15th, 2009 blog entry.

Larry "I'm a Turd" Johnson wants people to think hard core conservatives were afraid of a McCain Presidency, and that's why the tape never emerged. Hey Larry, what's swampland going for these days?

Larry Johnson is a piece of shit!

Tokyo Shemp said...

Ok, the comments are probably still at No Quarters, and I just need to update my browser.

The comments at the Washington Independent are pretty good.

A dude named Lambert linked to a story he blogged on at Corrente on a similar dirty trick.

I think Lambert was the same dude who beat down Failreft a while back.

Anyway, that other story centered around a hoax saying Clinton supporters had talked trash about Indiana voters. I'm not sure why Lambert had to spin it as the Obama Camp being behind it.

Funny thing is, a few years back I was in direct email contact with someone named John Dean and Brad Friedman. That's how my insignificant real name would eventually be outed by a cyberstalker. Brad gave it to him. I was dumb enough to trust him. My name was on the throw away account.

Anyway, I had met John Dean way, way back at a disinfo website called Citizen Spook. Later on he hooked me up with Brad, after I found a lot of dirt on political operative Steven Hertzberg, former Director of the Election Science Institute. Long story short, Steven was a main blogger for a disinfo creep named Fintan Dunne. Fintan called Bev Harris and Brad among others CIA 9/11 ratfinks. Brad mysteriously ignored my finds, even how Steven's brother Robert had been one of the first politicians to sponsor funding for electronic voting machines. Funny how Brad liked to attack people like Kathy Dopp but not Steven Hertzberg. I had totally pinned down an influential "election integrity" activist with being in bed with someone calling Bev Harris CIA. This should have been right up Brad's alley. That he shunned the story despite all the proof spurred me on to investigate Brad. That's when I found out about Brett Kimberlin. Basically, you can't make this stuff up.

To get to the point, one night I emailed John telling him I was having some doubts about Brad. He told me he was too busy, that he was working on a story, which turned out to be the same one Lambert blogged on.

John was Bev Harris' pitbull. He outed a Diebold employee who was posting on "progressive" blogs. If any of ye followed the black box voting thingie, you know what I'm talking about.

Anonymous said...

Snuff films?

Faces of Death (1978)

Gimme Shelter (1978)

and possibly:

A Certain Sacrifice (1979)

Tokyo Shemp said...

Donleytale, I'm sorry, but for some reason archive.org won't let me see any links after 130. It looks like Peeder really let you guys down. He should have at least had the common courtesy to allow ye to copy anything you posted before white walling the place.

In other news, over at AAANI a dude named Isard has informed us of new developments concerning the push for Dr. Evil forms of geoengineering (Asilomar International Conference on Climate Intervention). Check it out. It's a good example of Propaganda 101.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Anon, that's a good point. But the "snuff films" I'm talking about are ones in which violent deaths are recorded for warped entertainment value and in pursuit of profit. That's where the urban legend is.

What you're referring to are murders caught on tape, whether intentional or not. There's the famous one of the JFK assassination. There have been some decapitations filmed by terrorists. However, those weren't done for profit in the sense of filming such to sell to a black market.

Gimme Shelter is a good example of the JFK variety filmed murders. The Rolling Stones were nuts to have hired the Hells Angels to be security at Altamont. That was asking for trouble.

I had to google your other examples.

Faces of Death might come close. But it looks like the only real killings done were of the variety described above or of animals.

A Certain Sacrifice was Madonna's first movie. Interesting. Madonna was paid $100 for it only then to try to buy the rights to bury it. When that didn't work, she tried to get it banned. My source is Wikipedia. So take that for what it's worth.

Anyway, that was scripted torture and murder, not fitting the definition of a snuff film. I don't believe even one "snuff film" has ever been verified.

I think there used to be a black market for horrific types of accidents and whatnot. But then that crap went mainstream with those World's Most Shocking Video kind of shows.

Thanks for the post.

antiv said...

Do you have a link to where I said I had a thing for Claudette Colbert? I'm not disputing you necessarily, but I don't recall ever saying such a thing or feeling it move, vis vis colbert.

Stephen Colbert, maybe....

arnststu said...

As for the conservative electorate, we agree that the current system of voter registration is a hoax.

I have long championed vote only by mail, exactly as they do in Oregon, where the vote did turn noticeably to the left when it became easier for minorities, the transient poor, the transient young to register. Voting percentages also increased greatly.

Now, some or most of this result may be peculiar to Oregon, which is a peculiar place populated with perculiar people, generally.

But I take your point, except to say the "electorate" is not more progressive, but the potential electorate is, at least in some states.

Still, you cant disqualify all the polls and the election results since roughly 1980, which show a definite voting pattern moving rightward.

You mite also say that the Left is too busy doing non-political stuff (like blogging, for instance, which is not political action but rather inaction)to get themselves organized into an effective electorate......but whose to blame for that???? If the will was there, the results would change.

Obama is a case in point. There was a will to get him elected and that was done. Timing and recent GOP screw ups aided and abetted his election, but 2 years later there is a counter movement growing with little resistance from the left, who seem in some cases to even be in agreement with the Tea Parties....

Tokyo Shemp said...

I don't get it. Your post as Arnststu spam code is showing up on one of the blogger links but not the other (permalink or whatnot). I've seen this happen before. It worked itself out the other time.

You: As for the conservative electorate, we agree that the current system of voter registration is a hoax.

I have long championed vote only by mail, exactly as they do in Oregon, where the vote did turn noticeably to the left when it became easier for minorities, the transient poor, the transient young to register. Voting percentages also increased greatly.

Now, some or most of this result may be peculiar to Oregon, which is a peculiar place populated with perculiar people, generally.



Voter by mail makes sense. I think though there should be special drop off locations to keep track of the so-called chain of custody. It may be unlikely, but things can get lost in the mail.

It's surprising to have seen "election integrity" fraud Brad Friedman come out strong against vote by mail. Another clown, I could track down the name, he started a website devoted to stopping it. He was Andy Stephenson's campaign manager in a Washington State election. These buggers can be tied to internet convolution. Friedman can easily be tied to someone like Larry Johnson. Something smells downright nasty about BradBlog!

Your main point I am in total agreement with. Make it as easy as possible for people to vote. Let them register through things like the motor registries. Have a public fund set up where the elderly and others can be given transportation to vote. Homeless people should be able to vote. Maybe people in prison shouldn't, but once they're out, why not?

The black box voting thing has turned into as much of a hoax as snuff films. Not one instance has it been proven that votes were switched through messing with computers. It's possible, and even in a way likely. But it turned into a strawman, especially when you look at all the other crap (like the Clint Curtis hoax, a moderator who would fit in with the likes of Failreft and LauraJohn) coming out of Friedman and the people he is associated with (e.g. Larisa Alexandrovna, Johnson, Kimberlin, Ben Burch, and other assholes).

There are other facets to the election integrity movement that have been overshadowed by the Friedman/Kimberlin/Stephenson tinfoil. Gerrymandering. Vote Caging. And the things you are on about- making it easier for people to vote.

You: But I take your point, except to say the "electorate" is not more progressive, but the potential electorate is, at least in some states.

Still, you cant disqualify all the polls and the election results since roughly 1980, which show a definite voting pattern moving rightward.



But the question is whether that shift has been organic, or whether it has been the direct result of dirty politics by Atwater and Rove Inc..

I think the solution has to come from education. Since reality has a liberal bias, the ptb's have been fudging the curriculums for many years. People in general don't have a clue wtf is going on. They know the government can't be trusted. They smell the influence of dirty lobbyists, corporations, the military-industrial complex, et al.

But all they can do now is make a protest vote, as with say Brown in Massachusetts over Coakley. They haven't a clue of how to protest, unlike say the French.

(continued)

Tokyo Shemp said...

If anyone thinks Obama is just as bad or worse than McCain would have been, they are deluded. The Supreme Court is a third of checks and balances. We need to start dominating the Presidency for the foreseeable future, until at least the more normal Republicans take back control of their party. Now is the time for Democrats to start stacking the SC with left leaning Justices.


You: You mite also say that the Left is too busy doing non-political stuff (like blogging, for instance, which is not political action but rather inaction)to get themselves organized into an effective electorate......but whose to blame for that???? If the will was there, the results would change.

Obama is a case in point. There was a will to get him elected and that was done. Timing and recent GOP screw ups aided and abetted his election, but 2 years later there is a counter movement growing with little resistance from the left, who seem in some cases to even be in agreement with the Tea Parties....



The internet is a pile of shit, periodicity. It's a vent. It's a honey pot used by "intelligence" to entrap the crazies. It's full of losers like Failreft who contradict themselves at every turn. It has nothing but mostly false opposition or infotainment of the HuffPo variety. It's pissing in the wind.

I see LauraJohn has frontpaged MattyJack at Pffugee. That's a joke. Pffugee was created because Matty turned out to be a UGOG in disguise, just another form of soapblox keep it in the family cynicism. Matty banned me from FSZ because I pretty much spelled out how he has been a UGOG supporter. I forgot who wrote it, maybe Peeder. This drama is created as a cynical attempt to drive up web hits. It's a false flag of Meta. It's like anything that comes out of someone like supersoling or those Booman posts you described as an interview with MoBettaMetta. It's like Karmafish with his stinky prose about Israel-Palestine on the net.

Or Deputy Dogg, no one has tried to establish such a shitty meta cottage industry as himself. Look, if DKos is such a drag, then why are these people still pouring over it, directing people to the website, yapping away about the usernames, etc.?

I admit I'm similarly guilty in a way with my references to FSZ, Pffugee, MLW, etc.. But at least I come up with some cool, original shit of my own having nothing to do with it. I don't want to sound like a conceited jackass, but some of the stuff in this blog entry alone was kind of interesting. It was human. It wasn't keyboard commando support of the Holocaust denying President of Iran or war porn, the kind of crap Fakey dishes out.

When push comes to shove, blokes like us are interesting and varied. We know we're not changing the political world through typing. And most importantly, we're not boring. The worst crime, imho, of places like FSZ, DKos, MLW, Pffugee, etc. is that they are boring beyond belief.

(contd.)

Tokyo Shemp said...

I'm glad you're not posting at Pffugee. Without us, their place can be seen as just another DKos affiliate. They may have a different schtick. They may not ban like DKos. But they are bullies and conformists. DKos is full of mainstream conformists, and Pffugee is full of whackjob conformists.

As for Claudette Colbert, perhaps you were lauding her acting skills. Though I remember it as you saying she was hot.

Hey, maybe you could blog on Miss Lonely Hearts by Nathaniel West. I don't have a library card right now, and if you could fill me in on it, I'd appreciate it. I'm under the impression that the Clift movie kind of sugar-coated the cynicism part. Yeah, he kind of got fed up with reading all those pitiful letters. But I don't think it was as sharp-edged as the book. I tend to go to IMDB to check out reviews and whatnot after watching a movie, to line up my review with others. I remember someone pointing out the differences between the movie and book.

By the way, Maureen Stapleton stole that movie with her limited scenes. I didn't quite buy that Clift's character would have the affair with her, as it was the only way he could truly help her situation. This was pre-Viagra, and her husband was having trouble getting it up. She was basically horny, and Miss Lonely Hearts (Clift) helped her out. But the movie never explained fully why he'd have done that, or how he was able to truly rationalise it. He had a hot fiancee. It just didn't add up. In Sunset Blvd., at least it was obvious that Nora was giving the Holden character a lot of perks like money probably or the idea she could help move along his scriptwriting aspirations. I think that's what his dream was. Maybe Miss Lonely Heart's fiancee was a prude who wouldn't give out?

The trouble with Miss Lonely Hearts was similar to what happened with Depp's The Brave. A lot of these movies get a bit full of themselves and before you know it, the thing is a mess. Sunset Boulevard rules because it was tight. Same with The Little Foxes. I'm sure West's book was too. It's a shame when something good ends up so muddled. There's something about Hollywood that doesn't add up. I liked Born Yesterday, but no way should it have won the Academy Award over Sunset Boulevard.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Here's some twisted irony. Francis is unfortunately blogging regularly at MattyJack's. One of his new ones is a glimpse into the state of his mental health. Basically he admits to being on meds.

Then Lauren S shows up to call him insane along with most of his posts. Pot meet kettle.

Melvin shows up at the end to describe his own medication plan.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I watched another classic last night of the "They don't make 'em like they used to" variety. A few more finds like this, and my movie fad could go on indefinitely.

Ir's title is Rebecca. It starred De Havilland's sister Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Great stuff and highly recommended. For now it is still available at youtube.

I think De Havilland had better acting skills than Joan, but Joan was better looking. I'm curious what drove the two apart. I'll have to figure that out at some point. I'd never seen Olivier before. I pictured him as some boring actor despite the accolades, that he was mostly playing King Lear and crap like that. But he was actually quite vernacular in this performance, despite playing some fancy schmancy Lord Byron type. It was quite a delightful picture. The end was fantastic, as it went from charming to Hitchcock styled suspense. The ending was not what I expected. I won't spoil it for others by saying what happened.

blushe said...

Its not easy turning literature like Miss Lonelyhearts into films. There is no storyline or plotline. Its been awhile since I read it and I'd be shocked if such a decadent book would be at the library. I'm going to now have to re-read it in order to deconstruct it. The part you are talking about with the woman I believe is at the end and he is killed at the end.

The book is both a macabre tragedy and a cynical comedy. West had a unique narrative voice. He had a distinctive pessimistic style which reminds of Kafkam Another similar American writer was Hubert Selby who wrote "Last Exit to Brooklyn."A really excellent and strange story about a guy's deteriorating mental, emotional and moral statw of mind. I think they made a movie from it too, in recent decades. I love these types of writers. Of course, Bukowski. LA lad of the bohemian gutter.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Here's a spoiler alert. If you don't want to know the end to the movie, don't read.

This was a pretty good movie. It was along with a few others, Monty's comeback films. He looked completely different. The whole left side of his face was off. He was no longer Mr. Good Looks for leading men.

He was a good writer looking for work. Myrna Loy took a liking to him and hooked him up with her husband the editor. Monty got the job, but not the one he wanted. He didn't mind starting at the bottom, covering mundane court cases or whatever newbies do. He got the Miss LonelyHearts gig.

He was basically Ask Abby. The editor wanted him to somewhat mock the people writing in, to tell them to stop being whiners. Monty took it to heart. It bugged him how sad these people were. He laboured over how to respond. The editor told him to chill out, that these were loooosers, just tell them to shut up, you know, just write something, and move on to the next letter.

Monty or the editor get debating. I forget how it came about, but the gentleman's bet or whatever was to see if Monty could meet one in person and see what was really up with a letter writer. He met with Maureen Stapleton, whose husband had some kinf of impotence issues.

Long story short, Monty bonks her. It was what she wanted. He had nothing to offer to her to help but that. Maybe Monty's fiance was making him wait til marriage to give out. I don't know. Stapleton was kind of cute in a plain but horny kind of way.

Now to where the ending got fucked with. Monty's character talks the husband out of shooting him. Hey, I'm not amiss to a happy ending, but don't do it at the expense of the story.

Which takes me to a movie I just watched which had to have the worst ending of all time. It was Suspicion with Cary Grant and Fontaine, directed by Hitchcock again like Rebecca. But unlike Rebecca which only tinkered with that ending yet preserved its essence, Suspicion's ending was a pile of shit.

It turns out it wasn't even because of the Hays Code. The movie studio didn't want to sully Grant's image. In the book, Grant is a heartless murderer who kills his friend and then his wife all to settle his gambling addiction and money he owed to an ex-employer he embezzled from.

It was meant to be about Fontaine knowing he was going to try to kill her and she let him, out of depression or something. Hitchcock had an interesting idea for the ending. He wanted her to write a letter to her mother explaining how she was murdered. So Grant would not be getting away with it. The Hays Code said murderers couldn't get away with it. So Hitchcock was clever to have that only tinkering with the essence of the book.

But noooo, it turns out Grant wasn't a murderer, Fontaine lives, and in a sloppy final ten minutes it turns out she was neurotic and paranoid the whole time. Not what the book was about. Suspicion was close to the book for 05% of the movie, then it ended up with the most stupidest ending of all time. Very disappointing. It's a worse feeling than I got from watching the second half of Stripes or watching Meatballs 2. Shame on you Hollywood. Tsk. Tusk. Tesk. Grrr.

Tokyo Shemp said...

oops, typo, meant Suspicion was close to the book for the first 95% of the movie then came up with some schlock.

nielkiel said...

You need to read the book. The editor is a nain character, and the writer is the advice columnist but the style and the narrative in the book is not possible in the movie. Why the happy ending? Typical H-wood bollocks...Hitchcock is of course the holy grail for American film studies along w Welles. "Rope" is an interesting movie, about the Loeb-Leopold thrill kill of the 1920s, which has an odd similarity to todaze media sleaze schtick, a sort of precedent. "Rear Window" of course. You will fall for Grace Kelly and fall hard. Bet on it. The other Hitch and James Stewart collaboration, "Notorious" I think its called, but not sure, also starring Doris Day singing Que Sera, which was later done better by Sly and the Family Stone.

Check out Sly too while yur at it. His late Family Stone albums are quite interesting musically and thematically especially when contrasted w his early, top of the pops efforts.

You will have to rent these Hitchcoks but the internet only movies are giid ones too, sounds like the early British Hitchcock productions.
Strangers on a Train also a great movie. I think that's a Hitchcock.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Yes, obviously the book is the real deal compared to the HollySchlock. I googled and can't believe how much the movie butchered the book. The editor was an ass in both, but in the movie he grows spiritually. Isn't that special?[/church lady]

Other things. In the book, Lonelyhearts has the affair with the editor's wife. In the movie the wife is only used as a vehicle to get Monty the job and as someone who helps prod the editor Shrike to stop being such a dickweed.

I don't mind a bit of tinkering, like I said. But come on. Don't hack the thing into something it wasn't.

I didn't see those other movies you mentioned. I'm kind of cynical towards these suspense movies. I feel like Barnes in Platoon. You boys smoking that stuff and think you know reality. I am reality or what the fock.

Sly Stone. Hmmm. Sounds good. I liked some of it with Tina Turner. I'm not sure what was up, but apparently he beat the snot out of her or psychologically tortured her. I wouldn't want to slander Sly, so I'll leave it at that. He really blew it. Stanwyck had nice legs. Same with Couric. But Tina had legs that never came to an end. Sly threw that away. Plus, no one has aged better that Tina.

Don't be scared to make some entries. You can embed videos here just like with soapblox. I noticed you've never added screenshots to your schlick-schlock. It's easier than juggling. If you want to ever be featured in Meta Magazine, you might want to consider it.

You wouldn't believe the number of crazies I've had to deal with during my blogging career. Some dipwad named Phil Jayhan just showed up in a year old thread here on Mike Rivero. He linked to some of the dumbest conspirotainment I've ever seen. He's the same dingleberry who promoted the pod missile theory for 9/11.

I had some of the strangest moderators at my Aircraft Wing forum. Some of the craziest shit imaginable.

The Cold Fake is still on vacation. Last night I checked in to see what was up. I got a forbidden 403 message. WTF? I checked it out through proxy. He deleted his FaceBook account as Hans Mundt. He provides video streams. Two of them are to some of the worst conspiro-arses of all time, Jeff Rense and Alex Jones.

Come on. How does someone go from writing about Honduras as if he's part of the resistance (Meno Argenti) to what he's become? Now all of a sudden he's moved onto being Mr. Islam and Palestinian Resistance linking to Joooo hate?

My last moderator has been on my ass for over a year. His plausible deniability is that he is an insane Mormon. I'm pretty sure that's a non-sequitor. You wouldn't believe the mind games he played on me.

The basketball playoffs should be FANtastic this year, if the refs don't do their usual garbage schtick. The Celtics are starting to put the fear of God into Cleveland and Orlando. Kobe's starting to look like a shell of his former greatness.

KG just got about a month of rest. He's one of the greatest defenders of all time. We only need him to be 90% of what he was in 2008. If he is, then there's no reason why the Celtics shouldn't be feared. This is turning out to be like when Ali was finally allowed to fight again. He had his belt stolen because he said no Vietcong ever called him the N word. Cleveland is going to be like Joe Frazier. Orlando is like George Foreman. It won't be easy for the Celtics, but it's looking a lot better than it did since the beginning of the year when they came flying out of the gates. I think the champion is coming from the East. I think the West is better for quantity of good teams. But the East is where the best teams actually are. Atlanta's not too shabby either.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Yikes, I confused Sly Stone with Ike Turner. That's embarrassing. That's worse than the Vivian-Janet Leigh scandal, where you thought I might have MattyJacked the joint. This is why you should blog some of this stuff. I'm less likely to look like a fool.

blessr said...

No prob. I mistook the Hitchcock movie w Doris Day. Notorious had ingrid bergman.

I think u were wrong about me thinking Claudette Colbert was hot, too, but no matter. I find all women hot sooner or later. Beer goggles working. Plus, I always enjoyed the occasional roll in the hay with a homely, and/or fat chick. They were generally friendlier and tried harder to please. For me, it was karma. I believe god wants us to take care of the women. But polygamy? No f'ing way. Heaven can wait

Tokyo Shemp said...

I started watching Notorious but found it kind of boring. I'm sure it must have eventually hit its stride.

I jusr know Bergman from Gaslight with Charles Boyer.

You definitely mentioned Claudette Colbert, but I can't remember what you said. You probably then just listed her as a good actress.

I like smart women who I'm attracted to. That's one of the things I've had to work out in my mind from early days. There were a number of women who were into me, we hit it off intellectually, conversations wise, but the attraction wasn't there. I used to feel guilty over it. I've even felt I was probably being a shallow creep for letting the lack of attraction end it. Ugh.

I found Network. Youtube is always taking the big movies down. The people posting them are getting more clever, not making it as obvious. The Network movie is easy to find right now, but for how long, I bet not too long.

What a great movie. Of course Maryscott O'Connor doesn't understand what the movie meant, that it was mocking her for being a robotic ranter. I recall her mentioning the clip where the dude tells folks to go to their window and scream they're mad as hell and don't give a damn or whatever anymore.

It had a most shocking ending. It did not take the cheap way out like Suspicion. I won't tell the ending. Network is a must see. Much to think about with that one. Holden did two flicks that took down Hollywood. Sunset Blvd., of course. Network thoroughly trashed television. That guy was a special actor. Faye Dunaway was good too. Duvall got it done.

I just found Citizen Kane and dowloaded all 12 ten minute parts. That one will not survive on youtube for long. These are the kinds of flicks I want to see. They should have a good chunk of meaning in them, or to me, it isn't art.

factia said...

Notorious is boring. The one I meant w Stewart and Day is much better. Our Man in Istanbul its called, or wtf. I confused them because I saw them together on a twin bill back in the day at Coolidge Corner. You simply don't get the same effect watching on TV or the infoboobtube.I remember the films being visually stunning in technicolour. Is Notorious the one that explores scizophrenia or wtf, in a completely trite and hackneyed manner?

I seem to recall Stewart dangling from Coit Tower in SF.

But I could be wong.

desse said...

I prefer women to be less smart to be honest. I mean, they already have all the natural advantages, including being smarter than the average dipshitted dewd, including yurs twuly.
The Selby book is a good juan. And I'm reminded that he was an early exemplar of mispellicism.

Per the wikipod, he teamed w Ralph Bakshi to make an animated version. Bakshi made Fritz the Cat and some other hipper than thou cartoon classics featuring a Henry Miller style attitude towards sex. Fritz I believe garnered the X rating.

As an aside, my "Frtitzcat" handle on Marisacat was a typo of "Fritzcat" which was a clever play on the feline schtick at that old hag's crappy website.

Just kidding. I like the ol hag OK, but her site gives new meaning to the term "repetition."

Hey, that would make a good name for a Hitchcock parody movie, except we upgrade it to the infoboobtubez and deal with internet addiction, blogging paranoia, group polarization, disinfo spreading and conformity.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I haven't a clue on those movies you mention. You can go to imdb.com and drop down the menu to titles, then plug them in and get all the info you want.

The youtube movie sounds like a good idea, but unless it goes viral, it's probably not worth the effort.

The masses aren't ready for the truth unless it's Paul Pierce.

They think Network is about getting angry and shouting at the system. No, it's about how such anger is deliberately produced by The Man.

Which brings us to today's installment of EatMe Theatre. EatMe is our shared nickname for MSOC, the personification of the loopy, angry, lefty caricature. We've all seen that picture of her looking nutso in The Washington Post.

MarisaCat is basically the poor man's version of me. Her best days were at the height of the PFF days. The meta, while not always crispy, was pertinent. I liked reading your schtick at her joint. I never could figure out why she banned you.

Anyway, that place has become too boring and predictable. Copy and paste. No human dialogue. That place turned into as blah a blog as any of them.

But back in the day, you had to give Marisa kudos for going after Booman and MaryScotty, not to mention the Curmudgeon(ette) twins. One of her bloggers, that HRH chick, she provoked or inspired, whichever, for MSOC to tell her to eat Marisa. Then she said, "there, I said it!" That was good fodder for me to use later on to get my revenge for her having treated me like dirt. I did mess up in thinking some other half-naked redhead was her, but so be it.

Anyway, I was just lurking MLW and was looking at a recent MSOC diary. In her first post or two, she ended it by saying, "Eat Me." She certainly makes a wonderful role model for her kid (NOT!), who surely will get abused at school for having a salty sailor talking Mom.

Funny thing is MSOC was talking about her zombie username at DKOS. And just to see if I still have the old socrates skills (oops, not cool to talk of oneself in the third person), I went to the googler.

She's posting as Georgianna Darcy. She's made 888 posts in about 9 months. Now we can understand why she was a gatekeeper for MAMZ. She likes DKOS, or else she wouldn't keep posting there. And I thought I needed to get a life.

Looking through some of her posts, she's clearly a hater. She's part and parcel of why lefties get stereotyped as being unhinged. A hissy fit once in a while is one thing. We all have them occasionally. But for MSOC it's a daily occurence.

forans said...

Never a fan of MCat's schtick. When her blog was good it was wholly a result of the supporting cast. Herslef is a total bore.

HRH a bigtime Palin supporter, is actually Heather Rose Ryan, wealthy Park Ave ingenue and doctors wife.Yecch. If you want a good laff check out her website. HRH pretty much says it all about the fakeleft, which is MCat to a Titty.

Her meta stuff was good in its time, but you should know if u were lurking then that Shadowthief was a regular there and I catalyzed Mcat outting him as Blogging Curmudgeon by posting his IP and getting cross blog confirmation from Crumudegette.

He was banned at both places. Ironically, sob was I.

MCat deemhasized the Meta which is why her joints a crashing bore. Nun of her other schtick or that of her pet bloggers was/is/or ever will be even remotely interesting m

Tokyo Shemp said...

Precisely on why MCat went down the drain. Turning off the meta took away the one redeeming value of the place.

HRH is a Palin fan? Got any proof on that? I wouldn't speak too badly of her, however. I could have sworn she said she has the ability to put together hexes.

I don't know why no one has gotten a strange feeling out of Curmudgette. I never felt as strongly about you as her being a possible operative. She's the rich man's version of supersoling.

As for MCat being the poor man's version of me, I meant that she used to accuse o'plenty of being paid fakes. Though I don't remember her coming up with any real proof. One person she came close to doing so was Tejano. But I think you're the only one who came up with solid proof to at least strongly consider it.

What you said about MCat, one could say about MattyJack. He added absolutely nothing to FSZ. It was all DFQ who carried that sucker into the spotlight. And of course like you've also pointed out before, he and now the equally untalented LauraJohn have been milking Peeder's legacy for all it's worth.

People could perhaps say the same about me and Dave. But at least I'm up front about it and have dedicated DFQ2 to his memory. I also provided a lot of links to his original blogging and stuck up for him the best I could. Like I tried with Annette Appollo.

I'm pretty sure Curmudgeon quit MLW. But you're correct that MCat and CurmudgetteFace outed him as being shadowthief. As for the info about him working for that school district, I'm not buying it. I think that ip was a proxy. She shouldn't have done that irregardless.

That was rather tough meta to ever figure out. It's possible, imho, that some dude named shadowthief at DKos and also Curmudgeon, yes, they seem to definitely have been the same person, simply quit the scene. The one's who have shown up as shadowthief at FSZ and Pffugee, I doubt that's him. That could be noom. I'm thinking maybe #5 is shadowthief. I am fairly sure #5 was anonymous army. You must remember AA. He was prominent. #5 told me they were roommates. But it felt like those cheesy dramas where someone's telling a doctor about a friend of theirs, but it's obvious they are talking about themself.


My new entry is pretty good. There are these three people called the West Memphis 3 and they were obviously railroaded. And all these corrupt creeps in Arkansas from cops to prosecutors to judges are the ones who should be in prison, not them.

That's a crime that should be fully prosecuted, wrongful imprisonment that wasn't because of human error. It's like malpractice by the judicial system. This symbolises the major problem with our society which leans fascist. There's no one to police the police and courts. Or think of how Bush, Cheney, and others never got impeached or into any trouble for their crimes. The teanuts have reason to be angry. Though they're still clueless as to why or how to make it a better society. Just like the fake lefties we've socialised with through soapblox.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I changed back to last seven days for greatest hits. This was on it. I don't think Of Human Bondage was a pre-code. I retract that and disavow the bad info. I just checked and it was released according to imdb on July 20th, 1934. So it was one of the first not a pre-code, i.e heavily censored. Directors had to be creative to get around it. For the first time, no one could ever get away with a crime. You could guess the conclusion. Scarlet Street starring Edward G. is a great example. Check it out if you have the time. It had a great ending.

Tokyo Shemp said...

One more update. It Happened One Night was released on February 23, 1934. That would make it a pre-code. I am under the impression the Hayes Code kicked in on July 1, 1934.