Milburn Stone
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Posts posted by Milburn Stone
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I enjoy the whole first act of Marnie, if that's the right term. Marnie going to work for Martin Gabel under a false name, Martin Gabel coming to trust her, Marnie stealing from his safe, Martin Gabel figuring out it was her, the uncomfortable scene with Connery, Gabel, and Marnie in Gabel's office, et. al. Then that scene in the second act, when Martin Gabel runs into Marnie at the Connery family house. Maybe I just like Martin Gabel! 🙂 I think he's a perfect Hitchcock actor in this.
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2 hours ago, Suzn said:
I hated Frenzy. The strangulation scene was filmed so close-up and lovingly that it was obscene. There are other Hitchcock films that I don't care for but it's the only one I can't bear. Odd I don't remember the nudity, but I do remember some humor - the police officer's wife's awful cooking in particular.
I guess I need to steel myself and watch it again.
Not necessarily. The violence is shocking, more than in any of his films other than Psycho. I didn't even appreciate how shocking it was when I saw it at the time. I think I received it then as Hitchcock seeing how much he could get away with in the "New Hollywood." Now I saw it as Hitchcock digging into the subterranean psychology of some very unpleasant proclivities (and making us complicit in them). Which he always did, but now could go further than ever before.
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I'm sure this has been shown on TCM sometime: Hitchcock's Frenzy. I came to rent it because I had recently listened to a CD by one of the artisanal soundtrack labels, containing the score by Ron Goodwin and the rejected score by Henry Mancini.
Listening to the CD and watching the movie (for the first time since I saw it in the movies in '72) contained surprises. Re the CD, the score I greatly preferred was that by Goodwin. My expectation was that I would prefer the Mancini, for a couple of good and not-good reasons. The good reason is that I love Mancini. The not-good reason is that I have a knee-jerk, movie-soundtrack-freak prejudice, whenever I find out a score has been rejected and replaced, to think that score was the one they should have gone with (even though I've never heard it). Probably started when the news hit the film mags that Hitchcock had rejected Herrmann's score for Torn Curtain and replaced it with one by John Addison (a score that is mostly mediocre at best). Torn Curtain as released was so awful that the Herrmann score could only have improved it (even if it couldn't have saved it).
The other surprise was my reaction to Frenzy the film. At the time, I regarded it as a disappointment. It wasn't the Hitchcock I was hoping for, the Hitchcock of epic wrong-man chases over awesome landscapes. But now I saw it for what it was--Hitchcock in his Stage Fright, Shadow of a Doubt mode, Hitchcock contained, miniaturized. The film is funny! (Which I just didn't get at the time.) And suspenseful, not in the hanging off Mt. Rushmore sense, but in the way all the better episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents were. Exquisitely, quietly suspenseful, all the better for how contained it feels. (Exemplified in a memorable set-piece, the kind we hope for from Hitch.)
Another thing that surprised me. I remembered how in this film Hitchcock had taken advantage of the freedom of the times to show a woman's bare breasts. I hadn't remembered he also had put a woman's pubic region on display in this film. Nor that there's a visual joke graphically simulating cunnilingus!
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On 4/12/2024 at 8:12 PM, EtheltoTillie said:
I had that problem this week with my Roku. I had to come back later to watch.
I'm another Apple TV'er who had the problem. Could it be that so many people wanted to watch it that we broke the internet?
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On 4/25/2024 at 9:15 AM, EtheltoTillie said:
I too thought the whale was going to save Maxine.
Do we know that this isn't going to happen?
I read in the Vulture recap that it's now revealed that Douglas, not Perry, has been having the affair with Mitzi. What? When did that get revealed?!?
I liked this episode more than any to date, and the reason can be entirely laid at the feet (or fins) of Evelyn and The Whale. Only Allison Janney could have sold it. But she did.
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On 4/21/2024 at 9:58 PM, EtheltoTillie said:
This week’s Noir Alley was great! Did anyone watch? Born to Kill.
Thanks for the tip, @EtheltoTillie. I fell out of the habit of DVR'ing Noir Alley; hope this movie is on the Watch TCM app.
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On 4/19/2024 at 6:54 PM, wanderingstar said:
[Ball Girl] was so good I wanted to smack her several times 😆
She was really good, wasn't she? She reminded me of a funny TikTok content creator who goes by the name of Stasi. (No idea what Stasi's real name is.)
Of the many deliberately Columbo-like elements of this show, one that I enjoy is how the perps always make the mistake of offering up alternate theories. Nothing is more of a "tell" in these two shows than offering up alternate theories! The innocent characters never do that, they just say "Huh, that's a real puzzler" and leave it at that. They don't try to "help."
One thing this episode made me realize is how much I enjoy the speed at which this show moves. It's over before I know it. For some reason I don't even mind the implausibilities (e.g. oblivious cart woman) and loose ends. The characters are well-drawn and the show is light breezy fun. I hope it's doing well in the ratings and will keep going.
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7 hours ago, LisaM said:
Brokenwood Mysteries Season 10 returns on April 29!
This is terrible news! Because Mrs. Stone likes the show, and that means I'll have to watch it. 😂
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3 hours ago, Rinaldo said:
The Mancini music is mostly light frisky stuff until Gleason has an introspective moment and we hear the evocative dream melody that for years was the only thing I knew about Soldier in the Rain.
It was also the only thing I knew about the movie, so when I watched the beginning of it on a previous airing, I couldn't make sense of it. I needed a movie that matched that magnificent, melancholy, morose music!
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On 4/14/2024 at 4:50 PM, dleighg said:
I should probably try it. I absolutely loved Endeavour. I started watching episode 1 of Morse and had trouble connecting him to Endeavour. I should give it more time I guess.
My opinion based on the first two is that trying to connect it to Endeavour will be in vain. (Except for the Oxford scenery.) I enjoyed these episodes on their own terms, though.
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Believe it or not, just starting Morse now! As a result of seeing Endeavour, which was incredible.
Not quite as character-driven as its prequel, but the mysteries are pretty interesting, based on the first two of Series 1 that I've seen. And I love how smart Morse is. (Which is consistent with the prequel.)
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Thought this episode was a big improvement over the previous one. The villain was better-written, with quite a bit of wit, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson gave a great comedic performance. The satire on "reality" TV was good (even though not the first time that's ever been done, I'm sure), and the murderer was sufficiently heinous (and the murderee sufficiently undeserving of getting killed) that I actually gave a damn that he get caught. And Elsbeth was sufficiently un-ridiculous.
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After giving up on the show in Episode 5, we watched Episode 6 anyway, and actually liked it. Some things were funny, and like you said, @Cineaste, the scenes between Linda and Skeet were moving, absorbing, and (surprising for this show) believable. Felt the same to some extent in the scene between Evelyn and Skeet. And every scene Evelyn was in. And the scene where Maxine confesses all to Ann.
Douglas continues to be too stupid to live, and I find the whole performance by the actor annoying. (There's a fine line between me understanding the character is supposed to be annoying and me just not wanting to see the character on my screen and almost feeling insulted as a viewer by him.)
As for Ann not being impressed by Maxine's lies, my guess is that's because she knows everybody in Palm Springs is a phony. (Except Skeet.)
(BTW, I had to consult Google to know the names of the characters while typing this. With most shows I can retain that information! For some reason not with this show.)
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On 4/5/2024 at 1:14 PM, Irlandesa said:
I was thinking it had Only Murders In The Building vibes too.
Indeed. There's a fine line between doing an "homage" and shamelessly riding the coattails of another show's popularity. I got more vibes of the latter in this case.
Elsbeth seemed less extreme to me in this episode but the murder mystery, and the villain, were far less interesting than in the pilot.
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On 7/5/2022 at 11:23 AM, LennieBriscoe said:
"...most people think morality doesn't exist in fiction." I think most people know, even in the basic "good guys vs. bad guys" sense, that there is much morality, or at least a moral sense, in well-written fiction.
In an essay by the 19th Century English novelist Anthony Trollope, he posits that fiction is the most moral of literary categories, and that in fact every novel is driven at its core by morality. The novelist wants his/her readers to feel something, and that something is invariably driven, at least implicitly, by "who Is behaving badly, who is not behaving badly, what circumstances are awful, what circumstances are less awful," etc. Even "amoral" novels with amoral protagonists--which Trollope couldn't imagine--are moral, in that they suggest a common morality that the protagonist doesn't live by.
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I loved this episode!! And what's more, I loved Kristen Wiig more than I ever have. in my entire life! She really is a treasure, when not being used and re-used in done-to-death character sketches.
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We just couldn't with this episode. Pretty sure we're done.
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4 hours ago, sadie said:
It was on the old invitation she found.
Aha. So this falls into the category of "words that are too small and on the screen too short a time to read even on a 43-inch high-def TV."
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18 hours ago, sadie said:
Am I the only one watching?
No, but you may soon be.
18 hours ago, sadie said:I knew [the Laura Dean character] would end up being the one that Douglas dumped
Wait, what? I missed that. What told us that?
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The movie is not doing well. (Per Box Office Mojo.)
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I expected to like the movie, and instead loved it. Far more substantial and innovative than I expected it to be. And the comedy parts made me laugh out loud, which I practically never do from movies or tv shows, even when I find them amusing.
I haven't seen Oppenheimer, but I highly doubt Cillian Murphy's performance could have been more Oscar-worthy than Jeffrey Wright's.
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25 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:
In addition to popping up as Debbie's rehearsal song halfway through the story, it gets a full rendition by Sinatra, awkwardly walking slowly toward the camera, before the opening credits even start.
I love that Sinatra opening, with its wide wide lens putting him so far away at the start--don't think there's an analog for it anywhere else in filmdom. Had to be a Charles Walter inspiration.
(But maybe you have to be a Sinatraphile to love it as much as I do.)
Finally finished Forever Amber last night. I continued to find it fascinating, and I really can't separate my feeling from the David Raksin score. (I wish autocorrect would stop auto"correcting" the spelling of his name.) That is, if you took the score away and replaced it with some journeyman effort by someone, I might find the same movie ridiculous instead of liking it a lot. But all I can react to is the movie as produced, and with that score, it works for me.
The only thing that truly bothered me was the abruptness of the ending. I won't make this post longer by describing it, but it doesn't feel like an ending. It made me almost positive there must have been something that ended up on the cutting room floor, or got excised by the Production Code, or something.
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22 minutes ago, tres bien said:
I don't know how much she will achieve in suing but NBC will now have to sleep in the bed they made
I agree. I don't blame her (although I hate her). NBC asked for this.
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18 hours ago, krankydoodle said:
Oh well, at least we know Dalgliesh is coming back for season 3.
I missed this announcement! Is a U.S. airdate known?
TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel
in Movies
Nice that they had Harrison Ford for her to play against.