8/18/2007
Blooper: Other Way Around
This one is best left unexplained. It comes from Episode 46’s Top 6 segment.
8/17/2007
Blooper: Bliluhluhluhluh
Sometimes when you mow the lawn, a rock gets caught in the blade.
8/16/2007
Vintage: Ballyhoo, Part 8
The word “ballyhoo” means “a clamorous and vigorous attempt to win customers or advance any cause; blatant advertising or publicity.” 80 years ago, advertising was less burdened by cumbersome advertising laws, which now make such petty demands from advertising as that it should be truthful, that it not involve vandalism or littering, and that it not infringe on the civil liberties of private citizens.
80 years ago, advertising was a lot more interesting.
Time for another installment in our series on wild advertising stunts actually used by local theaters in the 1920s. If you’re new to the series, plunge right in if you wish, but I recommend backtracking to Part 1 first.
8/14/2007
All Movie Talk, Episode 46
Show contents, with start times:
- Director Spotlight: Alfred Hitchcock, Part 3 (2:13)
- Trivia Question: Batman Actors (24:39)
- Top 6: Plot Holes In Good Movies (25:01)
- Industry Trend: History of Editing, Part 1 (42:36)
- Closing: Trivia Answer, Preview of Next Week (63:41)
Press the Play button below to listen to the podcast, or the Download link to save it. Here’s how you can download new episodes automatically.
8/14/2007
Top 6: Plot Holes In Good Movies
Plot holes are generally considered flaws in narrative fiction, and perhaps they are. But many great movies have plot holes in them. Ultimately, if a movie is great enough, logical inconsistencies don’t amount to much of anything. For Episode 46, our Top 6 list is about plot holes in good movies. Some of our picks are minor plot holes in great films; others are huge plot holes in good films. None of the plot holes on our lists hurt the stature of the films they’re in in the slightest.
What are your favorite movie plot holes?
As always, we recommend listening to the episode before reading further.
8/10/2007
Blooper: Top 6 List
This blooper comes from Episode 44’s Top 6 List, but really it goes back to the very beginning of the show. For some reason, Stephen has this hang-up about starting off his Top 6 lists, specifically, saying the words, “My number six choice is….” Instead, it comes out “My number six list…” or something like that.
It wasn’t worth posting as a blooper, as it’s not all that funny when it happens once, or even twice or three times. But this was maybe the 15th or 20th time, and I figured it was time to preserve it for posterity. If only we still had the all the original recordings, I could edit together all of them into one sound bite, but, then again, time has probably been put to better use.
8/9/2007
Vintage: Women and Injuries
This week in our Vintage series, an exploration of the film industry in the 1927-1929, I thought we’d look at some of the legal issues of the day. It sounds like a dry subject; actually, it’s quite fascinating because of how starkly certain attitudes have changed over time, particularly following the equal rights movement. That discussion will segue (not so smoothly) into a look at how the “frivolous lawsuit” may not be as recent a trend as we tend to think.
Although you can read these posts in either order, this one can be seen as a continuation of the legal discussion in the Vintage: Boxing and Sunday post, which was about rulings concerning the distribution of boxing films and theaters being required to close on Sundays, both legal concerns that seem strange today.
8/8/2007
Robert Redford Presents: The Robert Redford Lectures
Have you folks seen the trailers for Lions for Lambs, the upcoming Robert Redford movie (starring and directed by Redford)? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more pretentious and off-putting trailer than the two I’ve seen for this flick. Near as I can tell, it’s two hours of Redford and Tom Cruise lecturing characters about international relations. Now, I like politics as much as anyone — my bachelor’s degree is in political science — but this looks like the most excruciating movie experience I could imagine. What kind of marketing campaign is this?
