three stooges

If you thought the last word on the Pythons had been the DVD box sets, the CD reissue of their albums and their Autobiography modelled on the Beatles' Anthology book, then . . . Yes, here at seven and a half hours with all the living Pythons interviewed and reflective -- plus relevant clips, period footage (the Goons) and commentary from...
> film/2680/monty-python-almost-the-truth-the-lawyers-cut-eagle-rock-dvd-this-is-all-getting-far-too-silly/

When a history of animated film is written, it is possible that the largest chapter about how this genre emerged will go not to Walt Disney or Otto (Felix the Cat) Mesmer but to a modest quietly spoken Scots-born Canadian, Norman McLaren. McLaren’s whimsical films charmed and delighted audiences for nearly 50 years. He entered the...
> film/2010/norman-mclaren-animator-making-the-screen-come-alive/

On New Zealand's national Poetry Day in 2004 a television news team buttonholed people on the street and asked them to recite a piece of poetry. One guy did an impromptu local variant of Spike Milligan's Silly Old Baboon. By coincidence, that very day a letter writer to the New Zealand Herald expressed outrage about the artist et.al...
> writingelsewhere/2734/the-essential-spike-milligan-complied-by-alexander-games/

Jerry Lewis is in his early 80s so it’s hardly surprising people don’t talk about him much anymore. His last decent movie appearance was in The King of Comedy in 83 as the arrogant television talkshow host Jerry Langford stalked by Robert DeNiro’s deluded Rupert Pupkin. Lewis was terrific, oozing oily indifference. The...
> film/1921/the-genius-of-jerry-lewis-all-fall-down/

It seems only yesterday that Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ was being debated for its uncompromising brutality. I wonder if those who bought it on DVD watch it often? And will they watch it 30 years time? Gibson has a sense of humour -- he made Braveheart after all -- so maybe he would get a laugh out of the irreverently...
> film/2335/monty-pythons-life-of-brian-30-years-on-2009-still-a-bit-of-a-naughty-boy/

Even if you'd only ever seen one film in Carry On series and hated it, you'd still remember Kenneth Williams and his nasal delivery, high camp mannerisms, effeminate manner and innuendo-laden quips delivered with a knowing look. It was in Carrry On Cleo that Williams had the funniest and most memorable line of his career when, as Caesar in...
> film/2266/kenneth-williams-an-audience-with-kenneth-williams-dvd-madman/

The debate about the amount of violence on television isn’t going to end soon. There are too many people doing well-funded research for it to die quietly. By the time kids get to school they have seen, oh just heaps, of violent acts on television. They’ve also seen lots of programmes about sharks, but has anyone conducted a...
> film/1948/the-three-stooges-violence-spoken-here/

There was a scene in Michael Palin’s much acclaimed travel-doco Himalaya which, even if you didn't see it, you'll recognise. It was of a towering mountain with clouds scuttling over at about 10 times the speed. Such an image is over-familiar these days -- you see it often in ads which indicates how cliched it has become -- but the...
> film/2097/quentin-tarantino-the-director-defining-the-landscape/

Subtitled “eccentric characters from New Zealand’s past” this collection of short biographical articles by Dunmore -- Professor Emeritus of French at Massey, Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2001 -- is considerably more insightful than it looks. To his more than two dozen, diverse subjects -- from ambitious or...
> writingelsewhere/1981/wild-cards-by-john-dunmore-reviewed-mad-bad-and-dangerous/