Tuesday, April 14, 2015

SHORT AND SWEET

 



cinema à la carte                                 





Credit Credits

That's it.  The entire credits. One screen.
This is the credit roll in its entirety for the 1939 movie The Great Man Votes.  First, a preface.   I have this Mobile Verizon; App on my iPAD that lets you see what's playing; even watch and record. That's how I happened upon this flick on TMC.  Something struck a chord so I scheduled it to record later in the day.  Got around to watching it a week later (Friday).

Brief Synopsis
A drunk fighting to hold on to his family discovers he has the deciding vote in a local election.

Unplugged
It turned out to be a great "feel good" film, even by today's standards; or maybe in spite of.  In fact, it's stuck in my mind yet. But that's not what I wanted to tell you;  although there will be very few of you who haven't made the same observation about movie credit length before.  That's it.  The entire credits.  Films like Kill Bill Vol.2  and Aliens Verses Predator run for 12 minutes! There was a period where credits included pictures on the cast along with names.  Love that.

So what does this portend about us, if anything?  Well, something profound.  So profound that it's like the meaning of the  universe.  I completely understand it, but cannot put it into words.  You're on your own.


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unions. Gotta recognize everyone down to the guy delivering extra creamer to the canteen truck.
Tim

Anonymous said...

AND their second and third assistants as well.

Mythology 101 tells us it was the first Star Wars IV that started the trend.

Anonymous said...

If you can find it, there is a Barrymore film called "Sweepings" that you might enjoy and it strikes me as relevant to today.

jim

Linda Fox said...

They re-made it with Kevin Costner. It sucked.

The original was awesome!

Tom Smith said...

Back when the Asst Gaffer was a nobody.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

I don't know (nor want to) what a gaffer does but my mental image is always some guy with a big hook.

leelu said...

Gaffers get lights and such positioned around the set. For years, I called it "gaffers' tape", until I learned the civilian term is duct (duck) tape.

Anonymous said...

OK, I give up. What was the Costner remake titled?

jim

Unknown said...

On a stage or movie set a gaffer works mostly with lights, but in general a gaffer cobbles together, Okie-rigs, jury-rigs or ni***er-rigs stuff together, often using gaffers' tape or other field expedients.

In the Pitch Biz, to gaff up something is to make it appear or perform far better as demonstrated than it ever would once purchased and taken home. There are any number of products that were designed to be demonstrated and sold but never actually used.

There are also products that do exactly what they claim to do, e.g. the Ginsu Knife and the Sham-Wow.

It's a point of pride for a Pitchman to say "There's no geuzaff in my peuzitch!"

The Pitch Biz usage comes from the Carny usage in which a game is gaffed or rigged to let the mark win or make him lose. Most games are gaffed. A gaff joint is any place (on or off the lot) where business is not K (for Kosher) or on the up-and-up.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

GOL Stu!

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