I didn't serve much cheese...

...but the whine flowed like a mighty rivahhh!



I type, of course, of the last MDN, in which I chose decent movies that were still mocked relentlessly. First up was this bleak, cynical film, on a tape hampered by poor sound and some serious pan & scan. How Gig Young didn't get on that AFI villains list, I don't know. Not much character development aside from Young, but that's okay. You don't watch Survivor or The Real World for the character development. You watch to see who's gonna throw forks, dammit. I think today, how you take TSHDT depends mostly on one's Jane Fonda tolerance level. Also, it's hard to tap into the desperation of the marathon participants. Today's reality-show participants are going on just to be on TV, or to do some travel, or get some endorsements...not because may be the only chance to get regular meals for a month. And dance marathons today are the domain of well-fed college brats.



Next up was this Busby Berkeley/Ray Enright musical. I love this movie's silly plot, decent songs, and terrific musical numbers. There are some problems with showing a film like this. Foremost is the jarring casual racism of the era, which Deeablo touches upon (and is why I didn't show Footlight Parade, which gives you dancin' Cagney on one hand, but "Shanghai Lil" on the other). Secondly, all the Warner Brothers Depression-era musicals have corny, formulaic plots and cram in all the musical numbers at the end. So there's a fair amount of downtime before the payoff. 42nd Street is for some reason considered the classic WB/Busby musical (probably because of its Broadway revival in the seventies and the "You've got to come back a star!" line), but to my mind it doesn't stand out any more than Footlight Parade, Golddiggers of 1933, or Dames. I went with Dames because Guy Kibbee's a great second-banana of the era, and because it's got Berkeley at his most insane -- "The Girl At The Ironing Board" has a washerwoman serenading her client's skivvies...and them serenading her back. "I Only Have Eyes For You" foretells "Being John Malkovich," only with the disturbing mug of the long-on-connections, short-on-talent Ruby Keeler.



So yeah, much complaining, specifically about false advertising when we claimed to be showing "good" movies. To this I say a. they are good, you philistines, and b. with some of the swill that's been shown , the bar for good has been lowered substantially.