Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

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Dirty Work was notoriously interfered with by the studio. I think the original script was online somewhere, but I'm not going to look for it. It was watered down to appeal to a wider audience.



I almost never have watched SNL. I mostly know him from his random appearances on talk shows and such.

There's only about five people on the earth who I could count on making me laugh whenever they showed up. Now I guess there is four.

His final appearance on Letterman is one of my favourite moments from that entire show (Letterman being one of the remaining four). Rarely does a moment of affection and respect seem so honest on television. And, somehow, this came from Norm MacDonald, the least likeliest of places.
I agree about the final Letterman appearance. It was very genuine, and more so because Norm knows Dave well enough to know that he has a strong aversion to these kinds of shows of emotion. But in reality, Dave's aversion is to that specific kind of Hollywood ersatz performative emotion that makes such tributes maudlin and insincere (like James Cordon's lavish yet professional praise of his guests). This moment worked because Dave recognized it as sincere, and when he came out to support him at the end, you can see that he was genuinely touched.


Norm did a terrific Letterman impression on SNL. It wasn't flattering at all, but Dave loved it. Letterman was a long supporter of MacDonald during his problems (getting fired from Weekend Update). There's a really good Letterman youtube channel by fan Don Giller, and last year he compiled a 5-part collection of MacDonald's appearances on Letterman over 15 years. Even though the full set runs about 4 1/2 hours, it's a solid collection. I know that Norm's appearances on Conan O'Brien are legendary, but these appearances are also worth checking out, largely because of this mutual respect and....dare I say?...love.



I guess I can't just hyperlink youtube clips in the text.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
I guess I can't just hyperlink youtube clips in the text.

Highlight the text that you want to use to link the video, and use the "Insert Link" button in the Reply box. Paste the YouTube URL in the box, and change the "www" part of the YouTube link to the letter "m" to hyperlink the video clip.


For example:

Norm MacDonald on Letterman
__________________
.
If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.



I've been watching Don Giller's YouTube channel recently as well, very solid YouTube rabbit hole. Been working my way through the Charles Grodin and Sandra Bernhard appearances.



Highlight the text that you want to use to link the video, and use the "Insert Link" button in the Reply box. Paste the YouTube URL in the box, and change the "www" part of the YouTube link to the letter "m" to hyperlink the video clip.


For example:

Norm MacDonald on Letterman
Oh snap. Thanks goodies



I've been watching Don Giller's YouTube channel recently as well, very solid YouTube rabbit hole. Been working my way through the Charles Grodin and Sandra Bernhard appearances.
I enjoyed the recent combo SCTV cast stuff as well.





This seems like a movie that was salvaged from a fire. Only an hour of footage managed to be saved. Nearly all of it clips of a man in a cowboy hat, flying around in a helicopter, trying to pick up chicks.

I can’t help but be reminded of The Passion of Joan of Arc, a film once presumed lost, until it was mysteriously found in a mental institution in Oslo decades later. It also finds power in repetition. All of its action tightly focused on a woman pleading for mercy at the hands of witch hunters. Scene after scene of crying. So many tears.

If only Falconetti had a helicopter.

If only the guy in the cowboy hat had fewer cats.









This seems like a movie that was salvaged from a fire. Only an hour of footage managed to be saved. Nearly all of it clips of a man in a cowboy hat, flying around in a helicopter, trying to pick up chicks.

I can’t help but be reminded of The Passion of Joan of Arc, a film once presumed lost, until it was mysteriously found in a mental institution in Oslo decades later. It also finds power in repetition. All of its action tightly focused on a woman pleading for mercy at the hands of witch hunters. Scene after scene of crying. So many tears.

If only Falconetti had a helicopter.

If only the guy in the cowboy hat had fewer cats.





This is one of those movies I have a probably overfond opinion of because I watched in a large, crowd, as a midnight/post-midnight viewing, preceded by 7 other horror movies making sure my brain was the appropriate level of mush to enjoy it.
I also have a Night of a Thousand Cats t-shirt.



This is one of those movies I have a probably overfond opinion of because I watched in a large, crowd, as a midnight/post-midnight viewing, preceded by 7 other horror movies making sure my brain was the appropriate level of mush to enjoy it.
I also have a Night of a Thousand Cats t-shirt.

I was just looking for something I could quickly watch at the end of the night and I found it transfixing in how it refuses to offer anything beyond its basic premise: man feeds human remains to a bunch of cats. And this constitutes about five minutes of its run time.


We never know who any of these people are. We never know why there is a big cage full of cats. And there isn't really even any dialogue either because the helicopter he is always flying in clearly won't permit us to hear anything beyond the roar of its propeller.



In some very vague ways, it kind of uses that nightmare logic that Fulci is known for in something like City of the Living Dead. But it uses it in service of depicting one of those dreams you can't remember anything about beyond the most mundane of details. Not even worthy of jotting down in a dream journal.



"Um, there was a room...and I ate dinner...and there were some cats...and then I think I was in a helicopter...and maybe riding a motorcycle...possibly on a boat for a bit too...then I was back in a helicopter...did I mention there were cats"


It's really only a nightmare by default. The perfect kind of horror movie after you've spent three hours scratching your head over Marketa Lazarova.



Now I feel less silly about telling my girlfriend every detail of the dream I had the other night, where I was trying to help someone get on a television game show hosted by Orson Welles. It was called "You are Also the Wind" and whoever won would be granted the luxury of having Welles ruin them financially.



"I will rack up 600,000 dollars worth of debt on the credit card of one lucky contestant", he intones in the kind of voice one might use to sell a bottle of Paul Mason wine just before passing out face first in a bowl of clam chowder.



"Just what I need" beams the wannabe contestant. "That will motivate me to succeed!"



I looked up just in time to see my girlfriend continuing to walk our dog further and further away from me before I could tell her what happened next. Something about a cat and an escalator. I'm starting the script tonight!



I've had more vivid than usual dreams during the pandemic. Many of them have been celebrity adjacent as well. The most traumatizing was one where Isabelle Huppert was injured in a terrorist attack. And I think I posted the one about Isabelle Adjani in fee horror thread a while back.



I rated Night of a Thousand Cats and Marketa Lazarova the same on Letterboxd.


Oof, I'm bad at this.
You're not alone. My ratings would make absolutely no sense if I had to explain them to someone. In the past month I've given 4-star ratings to The Godfather and Squirm.



Victim of The Night
I feel like this is just the way ratings go. And actually, now that I think about it, I think it's a big part of the reason I stopped rating films.

How do you explain to someone that, by your rating system, Hausu is better than Schindler's List?



I'm still too confused about other things. Go about it.