Actually, incredibly, in the Scopes Monkey Trial Clarence Darrow did call William Jennings Bryan as a witness, and it went pretty much as it did in the play/movie.
I was in a high school production of Inherit the Wind, appearing as the Reuters reporter (just a few lines), and had a blast. The guys playing Drummond and Brady were terrific.
Outcast (1937)
Unrelentingly obscure, this social conscience (lynch mob) film stars Warren William, Karen Morley and Lewis Stone and played like a cartoon at times, yet contained a shocking and truly horrifying moment of ignorance in action that will stay with me forever. Well-directed and photographed on location in Nevada, the film opens in a naturalistic style before subtly taking on Expressionistic touches as a small-town mob in Orchard Forks forms to deal with “fake news” about the local doctor. The story seemed especially topical from a contemporary political perspective dealing with themes of mob psychology, media manipulation and rejection of science, albeit in facile ways. A ridiculous makeshift-courtroom climax - similar to the better known The Ox-Bow Incident (1942) - and an anomalous lighthearted coda that utterly failed to erase the dismal state of Orchard Forks were bothersome, to be sure, but this movie proved surprisingly potent and engaging and imo should be better known (or even known at all).
I was thinking more of each lawyer making speeches to the jury with a witness in the stand. And Spencer Tracy getting so close to the witnesses in the box that he could lick their eyebrows with leaning his head forward.
Two one word B movies.
Bird (1988) - Biopic of jazz saxamaphonist Charlie Parker starring Forest Whitaker in the title role. It was pretty cool. Depressing, of course if you’re familiar at all with Parker’s life. All in all, interesting but kind of snoozefest. Maybe it was my mood at the time.
Burnt (2015) - starring Bradley Cooper as a “rockstar chef” trying to achieve his third Michelin star. It kind of grew on me as I watched it; by the end I think I really enjoyed it. I had tuned into it once mid-movie to see the scene where he stumbles into his rival’s restaurant drunk and beat up, and I thought that was going to be most of the movie. I’m glad it wasn’t, but the whole fine-dining cuisine sub-culture was like another world to me and I struggle to understand why anyone would find shit like that so important, but it was an interesting view into that world. Bradley Cooper, as usual put in a spectacular performance.
I recommend.
CBGB.
What I liked about it:
- It didn’t take itself too seriously.
- Was very funny at times.
- Good soundtrack.
- Did a decent job of recreating the atmosphere of the early 1970s.
What I didn’t like about it:
- It was mostly about Hilly Kristal. Sorry, but he’s just not interesting enough (IMO) to have an entire movie written about him. Why not focus more on the bands?
- O.K., I know this sounds minor but this is my biggest gripe: when the actors playing the Ramones took the stage, I was expecting them to play Ramones music. But they didn’t!
They were playing some crappy imitation songs that were supposed to sound like Ramones songs. That really took me away from the movie.
But it was still a fun movie to watch. I’d be willing to see it again.
No need to nitpick, it was close… (I mean, within 20,000 km).
I just finished sort of watching Bad Boys for Life (2020). Bad movie. Bad, bad movie. Straight out of the Fast and Furious superhuman heroes playbook. Friggin, Fresh Prince gets shot five times, three in the chest and it’s like a month later he’s walking around like nothing happened. I mean, sure I guess he was a little sore, but those pieces of lead having shredded his internal organs and turned his muscle into ground chuck healed up real nice. No PTSD issues either - just, “say captain, where were we?” Speaking of which, Captain Joey Pants gets one bullet to the neck and he bleeds out in the street – I mean, as he should, but he’s a hero cop. Why didn’t he just put a hand on his neck and say, “Go get 'em, Bad Boys!”
Anyway … there’s also a stupid subplot which was obviously ret-conned into the story arc (and I didn’t even see Bad Boys II) featuring his psychopathic son, who also apparently carries the “hold my beer” gene.
It’s really stupid. I pretty much tuned out toward the end there. It was on, but the internet was more interesting.
Triple Frontier - Five ex-soldiers doing a drug lord heist and a movie in two halves. Starts out reasonable, with sensible approach then it’s as if they fired the scriptwriter on the hour, and hired a 4 year old to write the rest. Gone are tactics, sense, or anything much at all, I can only assume the effect they wanted was to have the audience shouting “why are you doing that?” at the screen. It seems as if Charlie Hunnam’s career can’t have that many more duds left in it, but this one might be terminal. Also Ben Affleck trying to make a worse movie than his recent Batman performances.
I watched Charade, a 1963 movie with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. Audrey’s husband dies and a bunch of guys start trying to find out who’s got the money he had stolen. I figured out who the real bad guy was, but never would have figured out what had happened to the money in a million years. The movie had a lot of other famous faces as well and was a pleasure to watch.
I saw Project Power on Netflix the other day. Fun movie with Joseph Gordon Levitt and Jamie Foxx trying to stop a new drug that gives the user a random super power for 5 minutes.
Finally saw Whiplash. While I enjoyed the concept and the whole toxic dynamic between teacher and student, as a former music student I couldn’t help thinking that there were literally dozens of lawsuit-worthy actions by Simmons’ character in the film. Even the best teachers can only get away with so much for so long.
Also recommended: RBG, the documentary on Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Her pre-SCOTUS career was pretty damn amazing, and her personal life touching and weird.
Another way of looking at is, you were half right. 
Finally saw Whiplash. While I enjoyed the concept and the whole toxic dynamic between teacher and student, as a former music student I couldn’t help thinking that there were literally dozens of lawsuit-worthy actions by Simmons’ character in the film. Even the best teachers can only get away with so much for so long.
I love that movie too, but upon re-watches I realized that while Fletcher was an overbearing prick, Andrew brought all his misfortune upon himself. He over slept his first day (even though he was being punked, but still), he loses first chair’s sheet music (unless you infer that Fletcher took them to teach him a lesson, but he still irresponsibly left them out of eye-sight (how hard would it be to hold a book that you’re not supposed to lose for five minutes?)), he forgets his sticks at the car rental place and lies about it ending up in an accident due to his own negligent driving. I mean, a musical genius, sure, but Fletcher was right - get your shit together, kid.
This summer I watched almost every play put on by National Theatre of London. Their Streetcar was riveting. Gillian Anderson played Blanche beautifully.
You would never think "lunatic’ or “trash” (though most of my film fan friends wouldn’t jump to that judgement, even of the Brando/Leigh version).
I wonder if this summer’s plays are available anywhere… (find a guy who recorded them)?
The National Theatre often broadcasts its recorded shows later. I’ve seen Benedict Cumberpatch in Hamlet and Ralph Fiennes in Antony and Cleopatra that way, among others.
Sex and the Single Girl, from 1964. Painfully unfunny. If Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood weren’t so attractive, I couldn’t have gotten through it. Actually, during the interminable car chase, I left to wash the dinner dishes.
No argument there - Andrew is a mess and he knows it. He’s made it clear that he will sacrifice everything for “greatness” and he kind of does. His phonecall to his ex-girlfriend is pathetic, he screws up repeatedly, he nearly gets himself killed, and he jumps at Fletcher’s obvious sucker ploy. That he manages to turn it around is his triumph but it literally costs him blood. He’s not a likeable protagonist and he’s not supposed to be.
Agreed. Excellent analysis.
In that vein, my favorite little scene in passing is when Andrew is walking down the street and he passes a street drummer banging away on pickle buckets and his look of disdain at what an untalented louse this pretender is seals his character.
Clue (1985). My adult children grew up with it and love it dearly and quote it frequently, and my daughter reported recently that she was watching it (again). So I decided to give it a re-visit.
Meh. It’s just as I remembered it: not very good. It has some occasional good lines, but it’s mostly mediocre farce, with lots of running around and screaming. As a whodunnit it makes no sense whatsoever – borne out by the fact that they released it with 3 different (supposedly plausible) endings, with different murderers. (All 3 endings are included in the video release).
But it’s almost worth it, just for Madeleine Kahn.