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Joe Blevins 
"Don't I look handsome?"
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 Posted - 07/22/2010 : 16:37:00
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A brand new article:
Top Secret! |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 09/10/2010 : 03:00:15
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We took the month of August off (too hot to write!), but September's here and so is a new article...
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
I feel a little queasy linking to this article, since my half of it is more of a rant than a proper review (and not even a rant about the movie itself). But, still, it's there if you care to read it. Craig's half of the article is excellent as always.
It's really tough to write about comedies, so I'm glad we don't have any more of those on the schedule anytime soon. Our next flick is going to be Time Bandits. |
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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 09/10/2010 : 08:50:02
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quote:
Originally posted by Joe Blevins
We took the month of August off (too hot to write!), but September's here and so is a new article...
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
I feel a little queasy linking to this article, since my half of it is more of a rant than a proper review (and not even a rant about the movie itself). But, still, it's there if you care to read it. Craig's half of the article is excellent as always.
It's really tough to write about comedies, so I'm glad we don't have any more of those on the schedule anytime soon. Our next flick is going to be Time Bandits.
Joe, this is a truly brilliant piece!  Witty and engaging writing and a premise and expansion to keep the mental toes tapping in a mixed-head-to-foot metaphor. More, please, more!
PS - my consistent quibble with the Pythons pace Pythons, is their lack of trust in funny women. Cleese redressed for Faulty Towers, but da boyz never admitted da girlz could be boyz too. I don't mean they should have lost some of their OTT characters evoking the dame in panto, but they might have made room for some lady-clowns in roles that needn't involve the lurv interest.
As you won't be surprised to learn, yes, I was acquainted with some of them back in the 1970s -- but I'm glad to say when I later confronted Terry J about the lack of distaffs, he was suitably embarrassed and admitted they were wrong, a tad too much a product of their time. As in - "we didn't think women would want to appear as ridiculous as those characters were." Patronizing gumballs! But comic genies. And now Gilliam can't even raise enough to keep his Quixote at the mill. Gee - maybe if it starred Adam Sandler ...
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 09/15/2010 : 04:16:10
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quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
Joe, this is a truly brilliant piece! Witty and engaging writing and a premise and expansion to keep the mental toes tapping in a mixed-head-to-foot metaphor. More, please, more!
PS - my consistent quibble with the Pythons pace Pythons, is their lack of trust in funny women. Cleese redressed for Faulty Towers, but da boyz never admitted da girlz could be boyz too. I don't mean they should have lost some of their OTT characters evoking the dame in panto, but they might have made room for some lady-clowns in roles that needn't involve the lurv interest.
As you won't be surprised to learn, yes, I was acquainted with some of them back in the 1970s -- but I'm glad to say when I later confronted Terry J about the lack of distaffs, he was suitably embarrassed and admitted they were wrong, a tad too much a product of their time. As in - "we didn't think women would want to appear as ridiculous as those characters were." Patronizing gumballs! But comic genies. And now Gilliam can't even raise enough to keep his Quixote at the mill. Gee - maybe if it starred Adam Sandler ...
First, thanks for the kinds words about the article. Our 1980s series at Unloosen has yet to find an audience, but we keep plugging away.
As for the Pythons' lack of strong female characters (except the ones played by men), there is no good alibi here other than the ones the boys offered themselves: that they just couldn't write for women. (Michael Palin makes some kind of embarrassed statement about this on one of those umpteen Python documentaries.) Speaking from personal experience, I've written plays, short stories, and comics over the years, and essentially all the characters in them are me. Because me is all I really know. I'm white, male, American, born in the mid-1970s, and all of that stuff affects the way I write.
True story: I used to do a comic strip about the office where I worked, and there were characters based on several of my co-workers... all of whom, by the way, loved to be made into cartoons and usually asked why their characters weren't featured more often. Anyway, whenever I wanted to write "realistic" dialogue for the female characters, the best I could do was to remember conversations they'd had and more or less transcribe them verbatim, tweaking their words just slightly for comedic effect.
I will say that the unnofficial female Python, Carol Cleveland -- who joined the boys on TV, on record, on stage, and in all their movies including Meaning -- is a marvelous comic actress who makes the most of the parts she's given by the troupe. She originally was used strictly as sexy "eye candy" (with no lines!) but proved so adept with Pythonic dialogue that she was given more elaborate parts to play... and not always glamorous ones, either. In the extended version of Meaning, for instance, there's a terrific scene with Carol as a vaguely hostile, obviously bored waitress wearing an absurd Beefeater costume as she waits on two American tourists. And in Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, she even takes part in some of the boys' knockabout physical comedy when she does a spastic "dance" and gets bonked on the head with a giant hammer, not to mention her indelible "silly walk" as Mrs. Two Lumps in that same film. |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 12/03/2010 : 00:49:06
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Due to low/nonexistent readership, the series is winding down. BUT! Before that happens, we're doing two more. Here's the penultimate article:
Purple Rain
The final installment, a look at Scrooged, should be up later this month. |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 12/03/2010 : 06:37:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Joe Blevins
Due to low/nonexistent readership, the series is winding down. BUT! Before that happens, we're doing two more. Here's the penultimate article:
Purple Rain
The final installment, a look at Scrooged, should be up later this month.
Well, Joe, I for one, will be very sad to see it go. What a lot of care and work you and Craig have poured into the project. It is so refreshing to read such considered analyses of films that normally wouldn't get them.
Does that mean that you'll loose all of Unloosen? 
Actually, I'm working on something I'd like to chat with you about. May I PM you? Do you read your fwfr messages? Otherwise, please PM me and we can type-talk off the site. Sorry to be so cheeky, but don't know how else to contact you.
TIA! And thanks for providing so much food-for-filmthought.
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 12/11/2010 : 23:50:58
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quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
quote:
Originally posted by Joe Blevins
Due to low/nonexistent readership, the series is winding down. BUT! Before that happens, we're doing two more. Here's the penultimate article:
Purple Rain
The final installment, a look at Scrooged, should be up later this month.
Well, Joe, I for one, will be very sad to see it go. What a lot of care and work you and Craig have poured into the project. It is so refreshing to read such considered analyses of films that normally wouldn't get them.
Does that mean that you'll loose all of Unloosen?
Actually, I'm working on something I'd like to chat with you about. May I PM you? Do you read your fwfr messages? Otherwise, please PM me and we can type-talk off the site. Sorry to be so cheeky, but don't know how else to contact you.
TIA! And thanks for providing so much food-for-filmthought.
Hello. Sorry I didn't respond to this sooner. I don't check the Fourum as often as I should. I should explain that Unloosen isn't my site. It belongs to a California-based artist and graphic designer named Chris Leavens. The site remains up as long as he wants it to.
I have no idea what FWFR messages are, so I don't think I'm reading mine if I have any. Yes, though, I'd be happy to have you PM me. (If I'm not too late.) |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 12/18/2010 : 00:33:09
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And here, at long last, is the final article in our series:
Scrooged |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 01/15/2011 : 02:38:44
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Now that this project has been canceled, I thought it was only appropriate to do a postmortem.
Here's that. |
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My 1980s movie-reviewing project
