An amazing cast in a fantastical setting that suddenly veers into a loving homage to early filmmaking. It is worth making a pilgrimage to see it in 3D if you have the opportunity. I don't know if Scorsese ever shot anything else in 3D, but it is used in wonderful ways in this film.
Many of the early narrative story tellers in silent film tended to shoot in tableau form, staging each scene as if viewed from an audience at a play, and not intercuttinfg within the scene. In the US, Blackton set a new standard with his film "The Life Of An American Fireman" in 1903.
Keep seeing the reference to the caboose--if I may, did anyone else here grow up being told that you always waive at the folks in the caboose? (Shut up your filthy minds, this is a childhood thing).
When I was little, and we'd have to stop and wait for a train to pass (we had a lot of tracks that passed right through the main parts of town) my parents would always make me waive to the folks in the caboose, and they always would smile and waive back. It was some sort of good luck according to my parents, but I suspect it was mainly a way to distract the young child who's bored waiting on the train.
Anyway, I STILL do this as a full grown adult when there's a train passing and my husband thinks it's silly. I waive like an idiot at the folks in the caboose and they always waive back and then I feel that same little kid feeling of "They SAW me! I'm going to have good luck!"
We certainly did. Going to the paternal grandmother there was a track we had to cross. We were very young as mom and dad divorced when I was 4 or 5. They taught us to count by counting the cars (sometimes it would literally be close to it over 100) and the caboose waving was the pay off. We could hear the train and the whistle at night on sleepovers.
Today I live within a few 100 feet of the Caltrain station and they run freighters on the track at night. It’s somehow soothing to hear the train whistle as I fall asleep.
Not too many trains around here have cabooses anymore. They've been replaced by cameras that let the engineer up front make sure the back is still there. On the plus side, that meant you could buy old cabooses fairly cheap, so some got turned into things like cafes and diners.
I read the Harvard Crimson Article by the Harvard Student last name Hurlburt. Can some one please tell me WTH " The Advocate " magazine is, & why " reading back copies of the Advocate nesting in straw in the Lamont Basement " is a zinging burn 🔥?!? By Hurlburt ? I don't feel particularly heartened by her article, but her point that [ paraphrased ] "...the world doesn't revolve around us, we're not that special, " seems disingenuous coupled with her decrying ( the satirical ) invasion of Journamalists into Harvard Students underpants. I know the feeling. It's not pleasant, at all, especially how my little basement studio is frikken invaded by the Eye Of Morder-Sauron [ now the Eye of actual MURDER. ]
Like Right-To-Life, Right-To-Work means of the opposite of what it says. It's not like "Right to Leach" as if means a person can work at a Union factory without having to join the union or, more importantly, without having to pay the agency fee for the union's representation during contract negotiations or work conflicts. Another word for it is "Anti-union" or "The Right to Work for Less" since it's intended to destroy unions and without unions management ain't going to hand out raises.
So I don't know what the rest of you have been doing since January 6 (not THAT January 6, I mean 12th Night), but here in New Orleans it was Carnival season, which ended on Mardi Gras, Tuesday. Yesterday, Ash Wednesday, was the day we start vacuuming up all the glitter in our carpets, taking down the purple-green-gold twinkle lights we replaced our Christmas lights with in January, putting all the ribbons, glitter, tempera paint, hot glue sticks, silk flowers, pompoms, spray paint, etc. back in their boxes or bins in our costume closets, and replacing the band-aids on our severely hot-glue burned fingers.
Anyway, while scrolling through all my friends' hundreds of photos on Facebook, I came across an ad for Universal Studios at Orlando, FL, for - WTF? "Mardi Gras Carnival" event, running February 3 through April 7. Um....folks, you're doing it wrong. For one thing - it's supposed to be LENT now, dumbasses! April 7? That's a week after Easter.
And the comments are full of enthusiastic idiots exclaiming how exciting it's going to be, and how much more wonderful it'll be than New Orleans, and I just...can't. Nursing my Ash Wednesday bloody mary, I couldn't resist commenting, and then I got into a back-and-forth argument with a bot.
So just shoot me. I'm giving up Facebook for Lent.
Years ago, a New Orleanian explained to me that Catholicism is the perfect system because you get in as many sins as possible before Lent, and then you’re absolved by giving up something you love in repentance. Specifically, Catholicism.
A reminder that this Saturday's Wonkette Movie Night is 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐲 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐧. A fun Denzel Washington flick from earlier in his career. You probably haven't heard of it because it was released the same year as another Denzel movie, the Oscar winning "Glory"
He's a police chief on a tropical island who has to solve a murder. Filmed in a beautiful location and has a kickass reggae soundtrack.
Some idjit in an apartment across the alley, idles their big-ass truck for literally hours a day, filling the neighborhood with fumes. (No, not a homeless person.) Ten to one odds idjit is also a gas-price-voter.
You guys! I have one more tab for you, which is Jack Smith’s response brief to TFG’s application asking SCOTUS to stay his DC election interference trial a whole bunch more. Like, forever.
I wrote about TFG’s eyeroll-inducing brief when it was filed this Monday 2/12. You can read my thoughts here:
Smith’s response was due 8 days later on 2/20, but Smith said HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, MOTHERFUCKER, so he filed only 2 days later on Wednesday 2/14. It’s a thing of beauty, which relies on actual law and such, instead of bullshit op-eds by Jason Willick in WaPo (two of which TFG actually cited to in his brief).
Basically, Smith says SCOTUS should deny the stay for oh so many reasons, namely that TFG’s legal arguments are bullshit. He also gives them an out, in a footnote, to deny based on the specific facts of this case - which is that TFG unlawfully tried to overturn an election he lost like a common LOSER - and decide whether a former President can be immune from criminal prosecution for other actions some other day. Alternatively, he asks the Court to treat TFG’s stay application as a cert petition, and order expedited briefing and oral arguments.
It’s just a really good response, y’all. You can read it here:
I like the desk! I would TOTALLY use that desk if I had it! (not that there's a single room in my house that would be big enough.) It looks to me to be more of a reception desk, but damn, love that "surround me with surfaces" and "make 'em two-tiered while you're at it" and "good god think of the storage in that thing!"
That otter would have loved the smoked salmon eclair I had as an amuse-bouche last night. Also, fancy restaurant places, six courses for a Valentine's Evening dinner is fucking ridiculous, especially if you are going to make the main course way too big. Some of us have food self-control issues and are going to eat ourselves into a food coma long before the VD Fucking Event is supposed to take place. Shame on you, fancy restaurant place! The main course should have been scaled more like the smoked salmon eclair, or the beet salad, or the mushroom medley soufflé or the lobster-oyster bisque/chowder, or the OHMYGODTOOMUCHDESSERT! chocolate sea salt truffle served with strawberry and blackberry slices and scoop (two, really) of homemade coffee ice cream with almond cookies. I think I gained 60 pounds between last night and this morning.
Film editing is something we modern viewers know and expect, but it was a new concept when your hed gif source short was made. Learn more about “The Kiss in the Tunnel” here: https://open.substack.com/pub/martiniambassador/p/the-kiss-in-the-tunnel
Thank you for giving me an excuse to tout one of my favorite movies- Martin Scorsese's Hugo.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0970179/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
An amazing cast in a fantastical setting that suddenly veers into a loving homage to early filmmaking. It is worth making a pilgrimage to see it in 3D if you have the opportunity. I don't know if Scorsese ever shot anything else in 3D, but it is used in wonderful ways in this film.
Many of the early narrative story tellers in silent film tended to shoot in tableau form, staging each scene as if viewed from an audience at a play, and not intercuttinfg within the scene. In the US, Blackton set a new standard with his film "The Life Of An American Fireman" in 1903.
With its most famous homage, the final scene of Hitchcock's "North By Northwest."
A most durable visual metaphor.
Keep seeing the reference to the caboose--if I may, did anyone else here grow up being told that you always waive at the folks in the caboose? (Shut up your filthy minds, this is a childhood thing).
When I was little, and we'd have to stop and wait for a train to pass (we had a lot of tracks that passed right through the main parts of town) my parents would always make me waive to the folks in the caboose, and they always would smile and waive back. It was some sort of good luck according to my parents, but I suspect it was mainly a way to distract the young child who's bored waiting on the train.
Anyway, I STILL do this as a full grown adult when there's a train passing and my husband thinks it's silly. I waive like an idiot at the folks in the caboose and they always waive back and then I feel that same little kid feeling of "They SAW me! I'm going to have good luck!"
We certainly did. Going to the paternal grandmother there was a track we had to cross. We were very young as mom and dad divorced when I was 4 or 5. They taught us to count by counting the cars (sometimes it would literally be close to it over 100) and the caboose waving was the pay off. We could hear the train and the whistle at night on sleepovers.
Today I live within a few 100 feet of the Caltrain station and they run freighters on the track at night. It’s somehow soothing to hear the train whistle as I fall asleep.
Adrian Belew's "The Rail Song" from Twang Bar King; https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-iba-1&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-1&hspart=iba¶m1=RypDRDjp20T5Vc76fVk9yA%3D%3D¶m2=9dUI1n2R0BLDxNuWfiP4aSFOTltNdSPoIx38%2BUf%2FiXrvPdoGmStdlfwLFZYDvqkAJrWWk4yNReCLnBD%2FqPsDZd7olTZcV8HMx1G%2Fk786sE2Tis1g8dJd8zxVWs%2BbKztBnq1TfqUiqPYK9pXifXmJFyorDuCsYXJE71Y6G5tfejD%2B5tyTkSAJ%2F994UKwW08PJBLIHGEYfg9hi7QJpbEO%2FkObiwgKJH7d2tWCsWRgJ8PPSoob1Tmtqx61fLQL7DaH7J3oTxjTIegzsq91xKtE3IQ%3D%3D¶m3=NwVEMR%2FzKcG52XsVBYEh20CXm1wXp6anLmD4mFg%2BfsFf8Bd1Oe%2Fk9gCZeYeLI0w1LvOuUk9xLCblVeGHj6VXp81hwwCzLe689mqbyu8n1iHmFm6lUr4zLtSiGBjFbiJEgiey%2B2s1i6t%2FBHJCj%2BNfI98m3PeAvXh4g2vG1vOwUQ4QZxsBlkaZXe1Evp5FS01FwYvqmgkniWO8b7XT7yiIJcQYiBZ61wOOGnii6dzRfmPqVzIEtlRKdLH2zKUpHZre%2BYuy2NZkTWRFJbtcBogNX8o15hjP2mJUXmQwheRh9HBXw1wkHw6J5KIEe8d%2F5Ziv3SqY8PPsFBarDusuHly4lPsKkPfnHWESxMCYU2gRDiCCvYIn2%2FEyx7LcW1fUdcJj%2F6LPHQl%2FS%2BfGCH3whuB3qsu1HC6k3Os7kLkUbBmdzmbHP8XnqvQccYMLInlLcLUyppkzbxkTfh%2Fkf94tDCYaqG7iS%2FUTo%2BbJ6B7ZZfeq1uIHzo2MLj1c10O7lkWIv6tK¶m4=ylWjZI4%2BGY0%2BI4amK0UDxcWWinaNc1otbW%2FkspuXOKc%3D&p=the+rail+song+adrian+belew&type=qlpr_5056_CHW_US_bt0#id=1&vid=913e41fd14194e4a5596322ff1919834&action=click
Excellent album!
Ditto. I don't still do it (not many trains here anyhow), but It's utterly charming that you do.
Silly husband.
Not too many trains around here have cabooses anymore. They've been replaced by cameras that let the engineer up front make sure the back is still there. On the plus side, that meant you could buy old cabooses fairly cheap, so some got turned into things like cafes and diners.
Aww! 🥰
Another example of pre-code smut in the movies!
NEEDZ MOAR CHAPLIN
He would have been 10 years old when this was made.
Paging Dr. Freud!
First camera cuts in film history!
Train going into a tunnel (taps nose). Say no more. Say no more.
A wink's as good as a nod...
... to a blind bat.
Fun in the caboose!
Toot TOOT!
/bad sound effects.
I read the Harvard Crimson Article by the Harvard Student last name Hurlburt. Can some one please tell me WTH " The Advocate " magazine is, & why " reading back copies of the Advocate nesting in straw in the Lamont Basement " is a zinging burn 🔥?!? By Hurlburt ? I don't feel particularly heartened by her article, but her point that [ paraphrased ] "...the world doesn't revolve around us, we're not that special, " seems disingenuous coupled with her decrying ( the satirical ) invasion of Journamalists into Harvard Students underpants. I know the feeling. It's not pleasant, at all, especially how my little basement studio is frikken invaded by the Eye Of Morder-Sauron [ now the Eye of actual MURDER. ]
Like Right-To-Life, Right-To-Work means of the opposite of what it says. It's not like "Right to Leach" as if means a person can work at a Union factory without having to join the union or, more importantly, without having to pay the agency fee for the union's representation during contract negotiations or work conflicts. Another word for it is "Anti-union" or "The Right to Work for Less" since it's intended to destroy unions and without unions management ain't going to hand out raises.
Otters are mustelids (weasels). They are lavishly furry water weasels.
Those otters made my day.
Those otters were so nice to each other! This bit improved my morning!
So I don't know what the rest of you have been doing since January 6 (not THAT January 6, I mean 12th Night), but here in New Orleans it was Carnival season, which ended on Mardi Gras, Tuesday. Yesterday, Ash Wednesday, was the day we start vacuuming up all the glitter in our carpets, taking down the purple-green-gold twinkle lights we replaced our Christmas lights with in January, putting all the ribbons, glitter, tempera paint, hot glue sticks, silk flowers, pompoms, spray paint, etc. back in their boxes or bins in our costume closets, and replacing the band-aids on our severely hot-glue burned fingers.
Anyway, while scrolling through all my friends' hundreds of photos on Facebook, I came across an ad for Universal Studios at Orlando, FL, for - WTF? "Mardi Gras Carnival" event, running February 3 through April 7. Um....folks, you're doing it wrong. For one thing - it's supposed to be LENT now, dumbasses! April 7? That's a week after Easter.
And the comments are full of enthusiastic idiots exclaiming how exciting it's going to be, and how much more wonderful it'll be than New Orleans, and I just...can't. Nursing my Ash Wednesday bloody mary, I couldn't resist commenting, and then I got into a back-and-forth argument with a bot.
So just shoot me. I'm giving up Facebook for Lent.
Years ago, a New Orleanian explained to me that Catholicism is the perfect system because you get in as many sins as possible before Lent, and then you’re absolved by giving up something you love in repentance. Specifically, Catholicism.
Bon ton roulet.
Disney-obsessed adults are a special breed.
A reminder that this Saturday's Wonkette Movie Night is 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐲 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐧. A fun Denzel Washington flick from earlier in his career. You probably haven't heard of it because it was released the same year as another Denzel movie, the Oscar winning "Glory"
He's a police chief on a tropical island who has to solve a murder. Filmed in a beautiful location and has a kickass reggae soundtrack.
https://open.substack.com/pub/ziggywiggy/p/wonkette-movie-night-feb-17-the-mighty?r=2knfuc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Some idjit in an apartment across the alley, idles their big-ass truck for literally hours a day, filling the neighborhood with fumes. (No, not a homeless person.) Ten to one odds idjit is also a gas-price-voter.
GA / Fulton County hearing livestream linked here.
https://twitter.com/AnnaBower/status/1758138384180998258
"Good lord, I’m glad I don’t have to vote there, the land of my birth."
On the other hand, it has saved me some money because I know at least one good candidate will make it to the general election.
You guys! I have one more tab for you, which is Jack Smith’s response brief to TFG’s application asking SCOTUS to stay his DC election interference trial a whole bunch more. Like, forever.
I wrote about TFG’s eyeroll-inducing brief when it was filed this Monday 2/12. You can read my thoughts here:
https://substack.com/@2cats2furious/note/c-49425492?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knok4
Smith’s response was due 8 days later on 2/20, but Smith said HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, MOTHERFUCKER, so he filed only 2 days later on Wednesday 2/14. It’s a thing of beauty, which relies on actual law and such, instead of bullshit op-eds by Jason Willick in WaPo (two of which TFG actually cited to in his brief).
Basically, Smith says SCOTUS should deny the stay for oh so many reasons, namely that TFG’s legal arguments are bullshit. He also gives them an out, in a footnote, to deny based on the specific facts of this case - which is that TFG unlawfully tried to overturn an election he lost like a common LOSER - and decide whether a former President can be immune from criminal prosecution for other actions some other day. Alternatively, he asks the Court to treat TFG’s stay application as a cert petition, and order expedited briefing and oral arguments.
It’s just a really good response, y’all. You can read it here:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A745/300627/20240214180323991_23A745_Trump%20v.%20United%20States_Gov.%20stay%20resp_FINAL.pdf
I like the desk! I would TOTALLY use that desk if I had it! (not that there's a single room in my house that would be big enough.) It looks to me to be more of a reception desk, but damn, love that "surround me with surfaces" and "make 'em two-tiered while you're at it" and "good god think of the storage in that thing!"
#EnvyOfStupidBigThings
Fuck, that's an ugly desk. But at least there's plenty of room for your pencils.
I could fill that thing up with crap and papers before you can say, "Bob's your uncle."
That otter would have loved the smoked salmon eclair I had as an amuse-bouche last night. Also, fancy restaurant places, six courses for a Valentine's Evening dinner is fucking ridiculous, especially if you are going to make the main course way too big. Some of us have food self-control issues and are going to eat ourselves into a food coma long before the VD Fucking Event is supposed to take place. Shame on you, fancy restaurant place! The main course should have been scaled more like the smoked salmon eclair, or the beet salad, or the mushroom medley soufflé or the lobster-oyster bisque/chowder, or the OHMYGODTOOMUCHDESSERT! chocolate sea salt truffle served with strawberry and blackberry slices and scoop (two, really) of homemade coffee ice cream with almond cookies. I think I gained 60 pounds between last night and this morning.
"...Harvard Crimson on the national media and the New York Times. Daaaaang. That smarts!"
I hope anyone that reads that link realizes the piece is labelled "satire" ( by a Harvard freshman, to boot ):
"...𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑌𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑢𝑧𝑧. 𝐼𝑓 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝𝑓𝑢𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑠 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠, 𝑖𝑛 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡, 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑠."