Pier Paolo Pasolini, Oedipus Rex (1967)

I watched Pasolini's Oedipus Rex again. It has the COVID-19 tie-in. For some reason, it starts in semi-modern dress, apparently in Italy in the early 20th century, and it ends in the 1960's. The middle part was filmed in Morocco and was set in the ancient world.

It reminded me a little of Tarzan. They find baby Oedipus in the desert and the king adopts him even though he has several slave boys around him. The place was full of kids. Why didn't he adopt any of them? What made a random baby someone found so special?

I didn't really like the look of it when I watched it the first time. I changed the setting on the TV to "Movie" mode and now it looks great.

Available on Amazon Prime.

Pasolini's Oedipus Rex, another movie for the pandemic

From Jeffrey St Clair on counterpunch.com:

I watched Pasolini’s Oedipus Rex again last weekend. It was one of Cockburn’s favorite films and he often remarked that the greatest shot in cinema was the close up of Jocasta’s face (played by the wonderful Silvana Mangano) the moment she realizes she’s being having lusty sex with her son. I’d forgotten there was a plague in Thebes during Oepidus’ reign. The scenes of the parade of bodies to a funeral pyre in the film is very powerful. In Sophocles, the plague is the result, according to the Pythian Priestess at Delphi, of a miasma, a kind religious corruption. Instead of opening the temples, Oedipus demands that people stop their acts of worship until the cause can be found…The plague, as this intriguing study from the CDC, was almost certainly a zoonotic pathogen…

What kind of father is Steven Spielberg?

A couple of days ago, commenting on Steven Spielberg's daughter's foray into the pornography business, I posted:

I still say the poor girl could have a perfectly good career acting in regular movies. Everyone would want her in their movie. If Spielberg is any kind of a father, it would guarantee that he would see it. It could be their ticket to the big time.

On further reflection, what kind of father is Steven Spielberg? The asshole sent his daughter to boarding school. Why? What kind of "man" does that? She was abused because of her weight there which I would guess had something to do with her reported anorexia.

Long ago, I worked in a high end furniture store. Among our customers was a wealthy retired couple from California. The wife said they had been friends with cartoonist Charles Schultz. She said he was down-to-earth. Every time he had guests, he would serve tuna salad sandwiches. Every time. He was the son of a barber. But once he got rich, even HE sent his teenager daughter to a Swiss boarding school for not being docile enough. He wanted to ship his son off to a boarding school, too, so his daughter wouldn't feel singled out. What a nice guy.

Mia Farrow sent Moses to boarding school. He didn't want to go. But we already knew she was a horrible person.

Child murdering movie director John Landis send his degenerate son Max Landis to boarding school and look at him. Look at both of them

I don't know what's wrong with rich people. It doesn't matter what their background is, whether they're new rich or old. They're all horrible, horrible people.

George Kuchar, "Mongreloid" (1978)

The late George Kuchar's "Mongreloid", available on YouTube. A one person, one dog film. Something like it could be made while sheltering in place. A biography of the dog, Bocko, who belonged to George and his twin brother, Mike. He was Mike Kuchar's dog. He brought Bocko to San Francisco where George Kuchar lived and worked and left him with George when he went back to New York.

Bocko had a significant role in Mike Kuchar's "The Craven Sluck" which doesn't appear to be available on YouTube now. It's available on DVD along with "The Sins of the Fleshapoids".

Bocko lived an extremely long life for such a large dog.

"The MONGRELOID documents my relationship with my dog and parts of it were shot by an ex-student of mine so I guess you can look at it as him getting his revenge since I was photographed in my own habitat which makes me automatically look like an idiot." – George Kuchar

I don't know what to tell you. It's 4 AM. I'm getting ready to go buy groceries. The store opens at 5 AM and is open to the elderly and others at high risk from COVID-19. I'm neither, but I live with my mother who's pushing ninety and I'm afraid of bringing the virus home with me. I'll go in at 5 AM when the store will be nearly empty then come home and disinfect everything as I bring it into the house, then try to get a little sleep before I go to work.

I've really gotten used to never going anywhere.

[6:44 AM: I went to the store. There was an old guy wearing a mask that only covered his mouth, not his nose. For some reason he was digging though the packages of tortillas on the shelf. Really leaning in there, trying to get to any that were in the back. This is one reason you should disinfect your groceries before you bring them inside.]

Woody Allen may quit film-making

Woody Allen said in an interview with the Financial Times that he may stop making movies. He noted that he's quite old and could die any time, although his father lived to be 100 and worked a job when he was 90. He won't be directing anything until there's either a vaccine for COVID-19 or the pandemic peters out if that's possible.

Then there's the issue of movie theaters. The theaters in New York are closed at the moment and it's not clear how many will reopen. Allen said that people are getting used to staying home and watching their big hi definition TV's. He wants his movies shown in theaters,

I would imagine it's a money thing at least in part. He gets a percentage of the gross box office. He made a fortune off Midnight in Paris. If his movies go straight to streaming video, he'll be stuck with nothing but his directing fee, writing fee and acting fee if he appears in it.

He's like a low-level Spielberg. Spielberg rakes in a percentage of ticket sales. It's made him a billionaire. He attacked Netflix and blathered about the importance of seeing movies in theaters. He hasn't been to a movie in forty years. It's just the money he's after.

Allen's just like the rest of us. He thought he'd really get some work done while sheltering in place, but all he does is sit around the house.

I would imagine that Steven Spielberg's daughter has delayed starting her sex industry career although, out of some confused sense of sexual morality, she said she'll only do solo videos out of consideration for her husband or boyfriend or whatever he is. So she could start filming them now on her own. She could be a director as well as an actor. I hope she'll take time to re-consider her terrible choices.

I still say the poor girl could have a perfectly good career acting in regular movies. Everyone would want her in their low budget movie. If Spielberg is any kind of a father, it would guarantee that he would see it. It could be their ticket to the big time. She could be the new John Carradine appearing in movie after movie after movie.

Anybody see this?

What movie was this? I saw the beginning of it on a Roku channel showing only public domain movies. I've been trying to find it again.

Western made in the '30's. Had this horrifying opening. John Wayne (if I remember correctly) walks into the saloon and finds it strewn with dead bodies. It was bloodless and gore-free, like that episode of Dragnet where they investigated a mass murder.

John Wayne walks across the bar and shuts off the player piano.

I think he then cheerfully explains to the sheriff that they were already dead when he got there.

I never liked John Wayne. Didn't like his looks or his voice. Seemed like a big lout lumbering around in cowboy boots.

But now I've watched these other B westerns and I can see that he was better than the other cowboy stars back then. They were all terrible actors and they smiled too much as John Wayne did. But I think I could have beaten up half of those other guys and some were clearly wearing lipstick and eye makeup.

Herb Stempel, RIP

Herbert Stempel.

Herbert Stempel passed away at age 93 on April 7th. He had been a contestant on the quiz show Twenty-One and helped blow the whistle on rigged TV game shows of the 1950's.

Charles Van Doren, who replaced Stempel as star contestant on the show, died last year on April 9th, almost one year to the day, also at age 93.

Stempel was played by John Turturro in the movie Quiz Show (1994).

From Variety:

After the scandal, Stempel became a high school social studies teacher in New York and later worked for the New York City Department of Transportation. He assisted in a 1992 documentary about the scandal for the PBS series “American Experience” and was a paid consultant on “Quiz Show,” which also starred Ralph Fiennes as Van Doren. Stempel made a cameo appearance in “Quiz Show,” portraying a different contestant being interviewed by a congressional investigator, portrayed by Rob Morrow.

Charles Van Doren (right). "It's silly and distressing to think that people don't have more faith in quiz shows."