Time has lost all meaning. What is a weekend? How long will the vestiges of taking stock of the last "work week" or weekend of new movies on a Sunday last only because that's when we used to take stock of things in the pre-pandemic world? At any rate... how is your movie or TV watching these days? Tell us in the comments, won'cha? I'll share two of my own screening adventures after the jump...
This week, in need of comfort I watched a handful of episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show on Hulu (1961-1967) which I'd never seen before. It's so funny so the 'classic' status is deserved. Mary Tyler Moore is a charming young treasure and Van Dyke does expert slapstick. It's fascinating to see the tropes of the marital AND the family AND the workplace sitcoms all experiencing their embryonic and/or toddler phases simultaneously (I Love Lucy and Leave it To Beaver preceded this).
The way Merle Oberon looks at Gary Cooper. Same, Merle, same.
For movies I'd already finished 2005 screenings so I'm on to 1938 (which will be the September smackdown). I screened both Adventures of Robin Hood (which, more on later) on HBO Max and The Cowboy and the Lady (which I'd never heard of) on Amazon Prime.
The latter is a romantic comedy starring Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon as the titular couple and it was up for three Oscars (score, original song, and an Oscar win for sound recording). Today's critics, obsessed as they are with 2020 points of view and unable to adjust when looking at earlier art, would be horrified at the normcore sexism and blatant deceit upon which the romance is based (Oberon continually lies to Cooper to win his heart and this is viewed primarily for comedy, at least at first) but it's a decent romantic comedy and sexy, too. The always breathtakingly handsome Cooper is quite funny in a chill way and Merle is... well, she sure is beautiful! 1930s screen kissing can be hit and miss given that faces just press together but Oberon and Cooper have good chemistry.
The film was shot by the masterful Gregg Toland and I only wish this were a good print since his cinematography is usually stunning. There's one surprisingly suggestive scene in the fog; these two badly want to get naked. It was probably ravishing to look at in 1938!