Meanwhile... Pt. 1

[prince hal]

I haven't seen Stand By Me in a million years, but I can see where you'd see a resemblance, but I figure that's sorta what you get in a rite-of-passage movie, whether it's a comedic or serious.

I get all those kids in the majors movies mixed up. And I hate when kids swear, act like imbeciles, etc. And a lot of kids movies toss in gratuitous piles of that kind of thing. Maybe that's why I've never gone out of my way to see The Bad News Bears.

I never played Strat-O-Matic, but I was a rabid player of the Sports Illustrated baseball and football games. I spent many a happy hour rolling the dice in those games with my younger brother. Great fun!

APBA was also a big game back then. I have a friend who still has APBA weekends with his brother. They're in their 60s now!

[Rob Allen]

I played Strat-o-Matic baseball by the hour. Also tried their football version but it didn't work as well.

And the last time I visited my parents, we watched The Scalphunters. Burt Lancaster, Telly Savalas and Shelley Winters were great, but the movie was absolutely stolen by Ossie Davis.

[Aaron King]

I skipped out of the thread for a day and had six pages to read. I don't know if I have anything specific to say, but here are the recent Top Five Movies I've Seen Recently:

Wonder Boys (except for Michael Douglas's hair at the end; I watch it every summer)

Joe vs. the Volcano (the only movie I brought on summer vacation, and the only Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie worth watching)

True Grit (Coen version; finally saw it!)

Yojimbo/Sanjuro (my favorite Kurosawa films; I'm counting them as one because they came in a two-pack)

Lost in La Mancha (I love Terry Gilliam and I'm a process junkie, so this is right up my alley)

[dan bailey]

Never played Strat-O-Matic, but I haven't the slightest doubt I would've loved it, given my near-addiction to the numbers aspect of baseball (not that I'm a so-called sabermetrics guy by any stretch of the imagination). Various guys at Baseball Think Factory swear by it.

Fantasy baseball, of course, I've been doing for some 20 years now, minus a couple of years off ('02-03, I think) for mental vacation reasons.

I'm with prince hal on the Bad News Bears -- never seen it, have no interest in ever doing so. Part of it, probably, is simply that it's a comedy, & as mentioned previously I'm usually not big on those. Never seen Major League, either ... or, venturing outside the diamond, such apparent generational touchstones as Caddyshack, Animal House, Princess Bride, Ferris Bueller or most others that half the people in my age group or the ensuing one seem fond of quoting from at the drop of a hat.

[benday-dot]

Local Hero Though, personally, my favourite will always be The Leopard.

Have you read the novel then by di Lampedusa? My goodness, that was a deeply moving and exquisitely written book. In tone, though not execution, it exuded a wistfully Proustian aesthetic. It may have been what actually led me to finally tackle that greatest "bit" of literature ever written in the form of À la recherche du temps perdu and its successor parts.

[Kan-Man]

I haven't seen Stand By Me in a million years, but I can see where you'd see a resemblance, but I figure that's sorta what you get in a rite-of-passage movie, whether it's a comedic or serious.

I get all those kids in the majors movies mixed up. And I hate when kids swear, act like imbeciles, etc. And a lot of kids movies toss in gratuitous piles of that kind of thing. Maybe that's why I've never gone out of my way to see The Bad News Bears.

I never played Strat-O-Matic, but I was a rabid player of the Sports Illustrated baseball and football games. I spent many a happy hour rolling the dice in those games with my younger brother. Great fun!

APBA was also a big game back then. I have a friend who still has APBA weekends with his brother. They're in their 60s now!

Not to belabor the point, but it's more than merely similar - from the adult narration that in a voice that sounds like Richard Dreyfuss to pretty much the same soundtrack, they follow the blueprint note for note. But I might notice it more since there are times when it's on a continuous loop in my house.

Was Paydirt the SI football game? I used to play that all the time.

From what I understand, APBA is very similar to Strat-O-Matic but I've never played it.

Wonder Boys (except for Michael Douglas's hair at the end; I watch it every summer)

I just read that Michael Chabon is developing a series for HBO about a group of magicians and con artists that team up to take down Hitler in WWII. Darren Aronovsky is directing the pilot.

Never played Strat-O-Matic, but I haven't the slightest doubt I would've loved it, given my near-addiction to the numbers aspect of baseball (not that I'm a so-called sabermetrics guy by any stretch of the imagination). Various guys at Baseball Think Factory swear by it.

Fantasy baseball, of course, I've been doing for some 20 years now, minus a couple of years off ('02-03, I think) for mental vacation reasons.

I'm with prince hal on the Bad News Bears -- never seen it, have no interest in ever doing so. Part of it, probably, is simply that it's a comedy, & as mentioned previously I'm usually not big on those. Never seen Major League, either ... or, venturing outside the diamond, such apparent generational touchstones as Caddyshack, Animal House, Princess Bride, Ferris Bueller or most others that half the people in my age group or the ensuing one seem fond of quoting from at the drop of a hat.

I'm a big Fantasy Baseball guy too although my team has been in the crapper this year due to the underwhelming performance of players like Mourneau, Uggla, Choo and Rios.

My cousin and I were just having a discussion about how our parents had the same habit of taking us to movies when we were kids that were completely inappropriate. It could've been that they just didn't want to see "kids" movies, but I saw The Great Gatsby in the theaters when I was 6 or 7 and The Bad News Bears when I was 8 or 9 among countless others.

Despite what Charlie Sheen says, Major League is just okay. I'm still amazed it's the same writer as The Sting, another of my all-time favorites.

As for the comedies you listed, there are some heavy hitters there and I wouldn't be surprised if you enjoyed a few of them. Have you ever seen Ghostbusters? I only ask because it's from the same family tree as Caddyshack and Animal House (and Stripes).

[DubipR]

Meanwhile...I just picked up a piece of my childhood, 30 years later.



Love me the eBay!

[The Confessor]

Kat and I danced to Nightswimming for the 1st dance at our wedding.

Awww...that's so cool. It's a beautiful, beautiful song.

[prince hal]

Not to belabor the point, but it's more than merely similar - from the adult narration that in a voice that sounds like Richard Dreyfuss to pretty much the same soundtrack, they follow the blueprint note for note. But I might notice it more since there are times when it's on a continuous loop in my house.

Was Paydirt the SI football game? I used to play that all the time.

From what I understand, APBA is very similar to Strat-O-Matic but I've never played it.

Wow, you have watched Stand By Me a lot! I'm going to have to watch it again with an eye toward Sandlot.

It may have been called that. We had both a college and pro version. There were tri-fold pamphlets for each team, and you each rolled dice to determine how many yards you gained or lost.

APBA probably is. It uses dice and a set of cards, one for each player.

[Cei-U!]

Back for more.

Musical Tastes Just to clear the air once and for all, here's a list of Musical Acts I Like That I Have Been Mocked For Liking At One Time Or Another: ABBA, Bryan Adams, The Beach Boys, Boston, Glen Campbell, John Denver, Eagles, Foreigner, Hall & Oates, Heart, Billy Joel, Journey, Kenny G, Melissa Manchester, Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, The Monkees, Peter Paul & Mary, Bernadette Peters, Starship, Styx, Shania Twain. The general thrust of the insults are that they are either "gay," "bubble gum," "posers" or (horror of horrors) "inauthentic."

Horror Movies Not a big fan of the whole "unstoppable slasher" genre as represented by the Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare On Elm Street, Scream or Saw franchises. Sadism and gore are not my idea of entertainment. Give me some subtlety, scare me through suggestion, though, and I'm right there. The original version of The Haunting, for example, or The Orphanage. Chills, not nausea.

Columbo v. CSI Don't remember who made the comparison but wanted to point out that the latter is a police procedural, not a mystery. Different (sub)genres, different rules.

Baseball Board Games Never played Strat-O-Matic or any of the others, mostly because I never had the opportunity, but I suspect I would do at badly as that as I did during my brief ventures into Fantasy Baseball and Football. Guys with dyscalculia (numeric dyslexia) shouldn't try juggling stats. Nuff said?

Speaking of baseball, I was thrilled (well, mildly satisfied) to see dan mention It Happens Every Spring and Rhubarb, two wonderful baseball comedies I try to catch whenever they pop up on TCM. And I've seen both the original and remake of Bad News Bears and was unimpressed to say the least.

There! Now I feel like I've caught up.

Cei-U!
I summon the whirlwind!

[Fesch_]

I've only recently read about The Leopard and I am very intrigued.

One of the best novels of the 20th century and a beautiful, incredibly elegant (well, it's Visconti's, after all) movie adaptation. Don't trust me, though, better check them yourself!

Have you read the novel then by di Lampedusa? My goodness, that was a deeply moving and exquisitely written book. In tone, though not execution, it exuded a wistfully Proustian aesthetic. It may have been what actually led me to finally tackle that greatest "bit" of literature ever written in the form of À la recherche du temps perdu and its successor parts.

Curiously enough, I have only read the novel quite recently (after having seen the movie many times), while I read La recherche when I was just 16 years old. People around me who had read Il Gattopardo kept saying that it wasn't worth it, so it took me years to finally decide to read it myself at the risk of ruining part of the movie's charm. I can't believe how wrong they were! It's absolutely amazing, Lampedusa captures the spirit of the South in a way that it resonates even with this other South in which I live. I'd say that Lampedusa, because of the times in which he lived (and because Palermo isn't Paris!), is much more pessimistic than Proust, and more concerned about the tragedy of his Sicily. In that sense, the Prince of Salina, though a great character by itself, is also a symbol of something that is dying, while Proust's narrator provides a perfectly subjective, self-centered point of view that makes his feelings completely personal. Thus, I would have a hard time trying to compare both novels, even in terms of tone and aesthetics; I can only agree that both of them are fabulous.

(Ulzana's Raid is naturalistic Western movie making at its best. If you liked it, try also Lawman, another spot-on Lancaster performance.)

That's one I haven't seen... I'll check it, thanks.

[Lone Ranger]

For those interested, we recorded our episode covering The Swimmer and it is now up in the iTunes store and directly at http://marriedwithclickers.libsyn.com/

I'm off for a computer-free Canada Day weekend, so please keep up with the civil conversation in here. It is working well thus far.

[Lone Ranger]

Awww...that's so cool. It's a beautiful, beautiful song.

Thanks, it was fitting as we're both kind of sentimental about swimming in the lakes of cottage country north of Toronto. The song is nostalgic and serene.

[Lone Ranger]

One of the best novels of the 20th century and a beautiful, incredibly elegant (well, it's Visconti's, after all) movie adaptation. Don't trust me, though, better check them yourself!

I will track it down, thanks for the tip.

[adam_warlock_2099]

Awww...that's so cool. It's a beautiful, beautiful song.

I just now caught this. Nightswimming was the reason I bought that REM album. I ended up liking quite a few of the other songs, but I'd never not listen to Nightswimming if I put that CD on. Great piano in that.

Which reminds me, I wish I could remember this pianist album my mother had. It was a man. He played soft music. Kinda like something Air Supply could put words to. There was one song on there that was just awesome. A sweet melody.

I think the first Omen movie was awesome. I watched that about 3-4 years ago for the first time, and holy crap what a good movie. The graveyard scene ... no real special effects, just something simple, but the impact ... that's a horror film. Though if I want to be truly afraid I have to only watch something like Communion or Fire In The Sky. I have an irrational fear when it comes to that.