Watched the Vikings on Monday night instead of working, so we’ve a scant top. I didn’t even do the Frank Reade Jr. update, so I’m going back to something hoarded for another day; I guess this is that day. All well and good, as I’ve nothing to say of note, except that I said to my today, quietly, “let us move, then, to Florida,” and she laughed, softly, as if to say “silly goose! You’ll die here.”
Well, now it’s 11 PM, and I have to write a column, and the brain is just tumbleweeds. Wish me luck.
I watched “The Irishman,” and this is not a review. (Although I really liked it. Yes, it’s long, but as I said in a tweet, If someone said “Here’s the last great mob movie with DeNiro, Pesci, and Pacino, directed by Scorcese,” I wouldn’t reply “well okay, but let’s keep it short, okay?”) The period detail s great, and you realize you trust them to get it right. You believe that accuracy matters, even if we don’t know the details exactly. But the people who do this knows there’ll be someone out there who can spot an anachronism. From IMDB’s goofs:
The scrap yard that Dorfman takes his car to is ran by all modern equipment that didn't exist in the 1960’s.
Everyone has their area of expertise.
Anyway. This made me smile, a lot:
It’s a Howard Johnson room, recognizable by the light fixtures and the big art on the screen that stands between the bedroom and the bathroom.
But I’d never seen that art before. Let’s take a look at the other examples of hoJo room art.
The “romantic European villa” style:
The ultra-modern Mondrian-style art:
Then there’s this.
It’s an autumnal-hued tree. When used in other rooms with different arrangements, it wasn’t reversed.
Back to the movie set:
It looks like a Japanese brush painting. I don’t think it’s accurate. So here’s the thing: Either I’m wrong, or they’re wrong. Does it matter? Yes and no. If I’m wrong, based on my limited knowledge and sense of the aesthetic choices of the time, then my ability to make pronouncements about these things is called into question, which is why I prefer to say I can’t be sure” when I can’t be. If they’re wrong - and I suspect it was just too much trouble to reproduce that art for the sake of a small scene - then it’s either intentional or indifferent. Again, I suspect the former. Doesn’t matter! Except it contributes to the inevitable Detail Drift, where we lose sight of the truth, even though it doesn’t matter and the general impression is accurate.
Which it is in this case. But give it 50 years and they might slip a lava lamp in there. Or perhaps they won’t, because there will be so much photographic evidence? All depends on who’s doing the research.
It's 1968.
This is an odd installation, since I’m not sure what I was thinking when I set these aside. Halfway between a Clippings installment and Product. But who cares? It’s old stuff everyone forgot!
Bring the kids! It’s a Sponge-a-rama! Also, buy a drill!
I miss SuperAmerica, but not a lot. It’s been absorbed by Speedway, which is a cooler name, and the local competitor - Holiday - is still around, so it’s not as if we’ve lost all the regional chains. I think we’re down to one Pump ’n’ Munch in the area, though.
Yes, Pump ’n’ Munch.
It’s . . . Henry Fonda on the left, vs. Warren Beatty!
Spoiler, from wikipedia’s not-so-good summation: “Cobb goes after Larkin and his men. They all but kill him and he takes them all out except Larkin who is killed by the widow Evelyn as he is about to kill Cobb."
Sounds predictable, but the imdb reviews are quite positive.
Not only were four of the principal actors from Hogan's Heroes the stars of this film, but four more actors in this film appeared on the TV series.
It’s set in the 60s, in East Germany. And no one is their original character.
Googling Crane to see how they handed his later years, I read this:
Due to the suspicious nature of his death and posthumous revelations about his personal life, Crane became a controversial figure. Crane had been popular and uncontroversial prior to his death.
Funny how that works. Elsewhere, in filial disgrace:
In June, 2001, Scotty Crane launched the website bobcrane.com. It included a paid section featuring photographs, outtakes from his father's sex films, and Crane's autopsy report that proved, he said, that his father did not have a penile implant as stated in Auto Focus.
When Miss Vicki's father dies she continues with her charitable donations. Unfortunately, the family wealth is depleted and she is flat broke. Her loyal butler, Claude Fitzwilliam, known as Fitzwilly, leads the household staff to steal from various businesses by misrepresenting themselves, charging goods to other wealthy people and misdirecting the goods shipments, all to maintain Miss Vicki's standard of living and her philanthropy.
Behold the late sixties:
I put these here because . . . well, A) you can see it was a year of big pictures, and B) I’ve seen them all. That never happens.
How I looked forward to Dr. Dolittle. How it fell short in ways I never wanted to admit to myself at the time. The books were my favorite, particularly the one where he went to the Moon, and the next one, which I recall had him riding back on a moth. He was very sick after that.
Let’s not forget the last one, in which Dr. Dolittle (well, the author) have given up on humanity.
The book starts with the Doctor giving up his dream of lengthening human life with discoveries he made on the Moon, and showing signs of despair. The tone of the passages for the first time acknowledges 'nature red in tooth and claw': another of the Doctor's experiments, a house where scavengers and parasites can live without harming other creatures, is also doomed to failure.
The Doctor then receives an urgent call to rescue what is literally his oldest friend: Mudface the Giant Turtle, who was a passenger on Noah's Ark. We finally hear Mudface's tale of the Great Flood which was missing from Doctor Dolittle's Post Office. Mudface's account of the Flood and its aftermath takes up most of the book, and it is by no means a jolly story. There are many references to genocide and slavery; not to mention a passage where animals gather outside a hut to devour the humans inside (a young man and his beloved, who are the most sympathetic characters next to Mudface and his mate).
Don't think they'll be optioning that one for a children's movie.
There must have been stories about Shopping Posture, and worrying articles about its effect.
The conclusion one draws: Festal was always on the bottom shelf, with the rest of the cheap stuff.
THE NEWSPAPER IS WHAT IS HAPPENING FELLOW KIDS
Finally:
It was a new skyscraper downtown. Mary Tyler Moore worked there. The parent company would melt down in spectacular fashion, but that was still almost two decades away.
Things are always two decades away.
That'll have to do. What's the thing I was hoarding? A batch of Brigg's strips about childhood in the 1880s or 1890s. I'm rolling them out six per week for the rest of the month.
Enjoy your Tuesday, and remember - it's the worst day of the week. All better from here.
