Milburn Stone

This is so funny. I was prepared to be enraged if Rudy Behlmer's Memo from David O. Selznick had not made the cut. But luckily it did, coming in at #27. (Which isn't too bad out of 100, although I would have ranked it higher. His Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck also got an honorable mention.)

That tableau! It was like a Jackson Pollack. I love that they held on it so long--long enough to study it as a work of art.

Was just gonna say this. The actor (I still don't know his name) was really good at conveying anger/rage/menace. I bet he enjoyed the opportunity to show those chops.

In the first episode, he was all of the appeal for me. His line readings frequently made me laugh out loud.

@shapeshifter, can you talk about why you hate it? We live in a house, but are of an age that the desirably/necessity of someday living in a doorman-building condo flits through my head.

Yeah, that rating for DtK is crazy! I'd give it an NC-17! I adore the movie and DePalma in that period, but I'm glad I didn't see it as a 14-year old. Or even a 24-year old. Deception has a great Korngold score including a cello concerto. I guess it's kind of a film noir? The inevitable has happened with Noir Alley, which is that the number of films noir in the universe is finite. So if Eddie doesn't want to keep running the same ones over and over, yet wants to keep the franchise going, he has to expand to films that are "arguably" noir as opposed to actually. No problem as far as I'm concerned. Noir or not, his intros and outros are worth the price of admission.

Definitely got pulled in by the first episode of S3. Welcome back, show! That said, the opening "previouslies," while much needed, were too fast-paced for us to keep up with! We kept saying "wait, what?"--there was much we didn't remember at all and couldn't quite process. But that that said said, we still understood the new episode (enough). Yay!

I enjoyed this episode more than any this season except the first couple. I even liked Selena. Why, I could swear, if I'm not mistaken, that I actually saw a human emotion flicker across her face for an instant.

I got turned on to this show last week by the Streamageddon podcast. (Which I recommend.) So I'm only about halfway through the first season. The thing that keeps going through my head is, how could a show be so much like The Americans, and yet also feel so fresh. It's definitely the same experience; and some of the incidents could be taken out of one show and dropped in the other, and vice versa. Yet I have none of the been-there-done-that feeling that usually comes along with that.

I join you Birds non-lovers. Although there's something about Hitchcock that, to me, makes his movies endlessly rewatchable. (I may rewatch and say "this mostly sucks" just like I did all the other times, but I still rewatch.) To me, the very best part of the movie is the beginning, basically everything in San Francisco. The single best scene in the whole darn thing is the one with a vaguely menacing Richard Deacon as an apartment neighbor. That's good Hitchcock. And I like all the scenes with Rod Taylor and Tippi in the bird shop. Both of them actually manage to be charming and/or interesting in the meet-cute, and not the stiffs they come off as in the rest of the film. All the Hitchcockian San Francisco scenes remind of his San Francisco of Vertigo--I even get mixed up sometimes between the bird shop and the flower shop--and that's no bad thing. @Rinaldo, do you find Valerie Hobson dull in Blanche Fury? I've not seen her in other films, so I believe you that she's dull in those, but I found her anything but dull as Blanche. Thanks for reminding me that she was the Anna of the OLC ofThe King and I. I wonder if there's an audio recording of that production. Seems like good casting.

Me too. And I'm adapting this phrase for use in everyday life.

I don't want to get into an argument, so I'm genuinely asking why you thought the direction was so terrible. The episode to me seemed totally of a piece in tone and style with all the other episodes of the season. Can you specify what you thought was badly shot? Perhaps I'll learn something.

"SNL, like the daily late-night shows and reality shows including Dancing with the Stars, is covered under SAG-AFTRA’s Network Code, which means that theoretically everyone could come back to work." How are the actors who make up the cast of SNL not actors?

What? This sucks. Even on Passport? (But I guess so, because that's how you're watching it too.) I could live with PBS doing this to fit the show into a time slot (if strictly necessary for some reason), but it's ridiculous to do this for the world of streaming where there is no such thing as a time slot. Not that I'm volunteering, but if iTunes were charging $2.99 for uncut episodes, I might go for it.

My interpretation has been that he doesn't know--consciously--that she is his biological mother. But that he does know unconsciously. Our emotions are largely driven by the subconscious and the unconscious. Our genes and our earliest experiences are powerful, whether we know what they're up to in there or not.

I think you're right about this. It's one of the things that makes her interesting to me. I don't "like" her. But I do like the season in part because of her.

TCM adjacent...Watched Blanche Fury on the Criterion streaming channel. Whoa! They have it under the grouping British Noir and that's as good a genre to put the film as any. It's a pretty darn good story. Here are some other reasons to watch it. 1) Valerie Hobson is a goddess in this. I'm not sure I've ever seen a more beautiful presence in a movie. I was half-afraid I might turn to stone from gazing at her. 2) A very good score by someone named Clifton Parker whom I'm sure I should be more familiar with! At this point I seldom hear a score that impresses me that isn't from someone I already know. I don't know this Clifton Parker from the realm of serious or light British classical music, either. @Rinaldo, you probably are familiar with him. 3) Breathtaking Technicolor photography by a team consisting of Guy Green, Geoffrey Unsworth, and Oswald Morris.

Possibly unpopular opinion, but I don't "get" Selena in this show, never have. She seems dead. Not in the manner that her character is dead, but like she, the actress, is dead. Being old, I came to this show with no prior knowledge of her, which maybe is the problem. Maybe if I already thought she was great, I'd think she was great in this.

There was an exchange in this episode where someone said "It couldn't have been [name of person] because of [this] and [that]!," and I went "wait, what's the logic there?," and I'm not entirely sure the problem was me. I hope millennials are watching this show so they will finally hear the names Gilbert and Sullivan.

This is the first season in which I'm souring on Sunny. I can understand his ambivalence about the pregnancy. But I can't understand his not catching the next train back to London when his fiancee thinks she is miscarrying. Saying "If you want me to come back, I will" does not cut it. You come back. And then go to Paris tomorrow or the next day. I mean, it's believable. He's conflicted. But I don't like it.

Wow, I guess Inglorious Basterds shouldn't have been nominated for Best Original Screenplay, since it was adapted from World War 2.

He is a hard worker, driven by a passion for justice no matter how delayed. However, something in Episode 2 of this season aroused my curiosity. (Maybe it will be explained by later episodes.) Why did he consistently refuse to take over leadership of the team? Because he's in mourning? He knew that somebody was going to get the gig, and that almost certainly he wouldn't like them as much as he liked Cassie. So something about him is more comfortable taking orders than giving them.

The show runners have been very smart in at least one regard with the new season. They knew that viewers were going to hate whoever Nicola Walker's replacement was, because she's not Nicola Walker. So they made the character unlikable, at least in the first couple episodes. There's nothing more fatal for a show than telling the audience they're supposed to like someone they just don't like. I have no doubt the writers are headed to redemption for her, but to start out with some congruence between the audience's feelings and the writers' intention is shrewd.

The show runners of Unforgotten have been very smart in at least one regard with the new season. They knew that viewers were going to hate whoever Nicola Walker's replacement was, because she's not Nicola Walker. So they made the character unlikable, at least in the first couple episodes. There's nothing more fatal for a show than telling the audience they're supposed to like someone they just don't like. I have no doubt the writers are headed to redemption for her, but to start out with some congruence between the audience's feelings and the writers' intention is shrewd.

Was Theo played by a different actor? This guy did an amazing job of channeling Nathan Lane right down to the eyebrow inflections, which of course makes sense. I don't remember Theo being this convincingly Nathan Lane's progeny before. My main question now: OK, the show opens in two weeks. Yet Oliver hasn't seen Loretta? Is she not a featured actress in his musical that opens in two weeks?!??!??