Who needs leaving the house on Halloween when you have flickr?

rudi and spider, originally uploaded by you!me!dancing!.

When I came across you!me!dancing! and her beau (I presume), I came dangerously close to spilling my coffee all over the keyboard. My reaction was something along the lines of:

"HOLY CRAP! IT'S RUDI AND SPIDER!!!!"
*as the mug fumbles in my hand*

It makes me wish I was at least in the same state as my best friend, he would make a great Old Gregg. We could do some sort of group Boosh themed costume with my friend, me, and mister.boyfriend.. *sigh*

L--I--V--E

Back to my 3 comfort movies... I previously rambled about the classic Hitchcock film Vertigo, a film that I consider to be romantic in an oddly strange way. I'm not even going to discuss the next film. If you've seen it you should know what a fantastic film it is and if you have not seen it, you really should.

Harold and Maude is like sunshine on celluloid. Yeah, I blubber a bit at the end but overall the story always helps me out of the worst of moods.

As mentioned previously what ties my comfort films together is their location. Harold and Maude is littered with scenes taking place in areas that I know well.

The scene with the motorcycle cop was filmed at the east end of the old Dumbarton Bridge. By the time I moved with my family to the East Bay a new bridge and highway had been built. What remained of the old bridge was left as a pier for fishing and the old highway was now part of a wildlife refuge. Just a short bike ride from my house, I can not even begin to count how many times I rode my bike down that stretch of road completely unaware that a really great scene was once filmed there.

Oh Midge....

I started writing my previous post on Vertigo prior to getting dressed in the morning. My musings on Midge inspired me to imitate art today.





I was originally going to pair the vintage red cardigan and white blouse (both thrifted) with a black skirt but my choices were a lacy black skirt or a very fitted black pencil skirt. Neither seemed very 'Midge' so I opted for a grey a-line skirt I thrifted recently. The final touches were a pair a vintage black heels (also thrifted) and my glasses. (that I've had for 8+ years).

Which makes todays Midge tribute 100% thrifted. yay!

(btw... Please excuse how wrinkled the skirt looks. The cotton fabric is evil and will wrinkle if you just look at it.)

Vertigo

When I'm feeling a bit down or overwhelmed I tend to resort to watching one of my comfort movies. Three films, that I've long consider as some of my favorites, consistently rise to the top whenever I am away from California. The movies have little in common plot wise but all were filmed in San Francisco and/or the Bay Area. Location may in ways be irrelevant to how much I enjoy the film as a whole (and the plot) but I can not deny that having glimpses of places which hold memories for me adds something extra to the whole cinematic experience.

The first film I'll blog about is one from a director that I've immensely enjoyed ever since I can recall. Frequently I use the blanket phrase "I hate horror movies" but its less that I dislike being scared and more I don't particularly enjoy seeing body parts fly around in a realistic fashion. That tends to send my already overactive imagination into overdrive long after the movie experience is over. I love a classy psychological thriller and many of the films directed by Alfred Hitchcock fit that bill.

By todays standards, the "chills" in many of his films seem quaint and I'll even admit that I'm not the biggest fan of when he went all out in Psycho or The Birds.

Shadow of a Doubt was the first film that gave me a good scare. The heroine realizes that her beloved uncle is really a serial killer and will anyone listen to her? No! At the tender age of six I was both frightened and riveted by her plight to escape the clutches of both the killer and make everyone else realize who Uncle Charlie really is. Needless to say this is 1943 and you won't see body parts flying. Just a clever use of sounds, lighting, and purpose to send your mind reeling.

Not all of Hitchcock's films involved blatant killers. An often reoccurring theme seems to be the poor hapless fellow who ends up over his head due to a situation that found him. Classics like Rear Window and North by Northwest tends to follow this general scheme, as does my favorite Hitchcock film Vertigo.

I will forever be dumbfounded to know that Vertigo was not very successful at the box office when it was first released in 1958. It stars James Stewart and the gorgeous Kim Novak, it's filmed in beautiful San Francisco (and some surrounding locations) and the story is absolutely mesmerizing! Even after you've already seen it and the initial twists are no longer surprising, I think its still plays as a very romantic film!

In a sort of twisted way....

The first time I saw "Vertigo" I was a bit young (7-ish) and subsequently could not completely follow the plot... but boy did I think Madeline (Kim Novak) was pretty.

and that suit!
I'd do horrible things to people for a suit like that...
(in a Hitchcockian fashion, of course)

Every time I watch Vertigo my heartbreaks for Scotty (James Stewart) and his illfated romance with Madeline... but in recent years a small part of me gets peeved that while Scotty is preoccupied running after the tragic Hitchcockian goddess. Who comes in and tries to set his mess of a life right? Good 'ole Midge.

Both to the audience and Scotty the girl pretty much stays on the back burner. She rushes in when her sensible nature is needed just to be overshadowed the next instant by the supernova that is Madeline.

Midge (Barbara Bel Geddesis) is the antithesis to Madeline. Of course she's not gonna grab Scotty's attention by floundering around in a puddle like a damsel in distress. The girls got a career, a level head and better things to do than spend hours getting dolled up or getting into trouble.

She's adorable, quirky and totally overlooked.

Beautiful, tragic, unattainable, as a little girl I loved the idea of the Hitchcock blond. It was almost as if she was an anti-heroine in a world filled with anti-heros. To this day I'd love to be siren in the vein of Madeline but as I get older the more I realize I'm destined to be a girl just like Midge. Every time I watch Vertigo I begin to see Midge as slightly cooler and hope that post-film she gave Scotty a swift kick in the ass for being such a jerk.

What about Midge you dofus??!!

(screencaps taken from screenmusings.org)

I think I might just wee myself....

BERLIN (Reuters) - Film historians had doubted they would ever find the missing portions of "Metropolis" -- until three reels of the science fiction film made in Germany a long time ago, were discovered in a country far, far away. (read the rest here)

Doth mine eyes deceive me? I am not just thrilled out of a biased love for the Fritz Lang masterpiece. It always tickles me when 'lost' portions of silent films are found......

In my younger days I was adamant with my belief that people were absolutely brainless not to recognize certain films for the masterpieces that they were and care for them accordingly. Box office returns? Who cares? Conservation of space and recycling of materials be damned!

Now, I see such things as both a collective and subject experience. I'm sure that there is a whole slew of films that any viewers of this blog could agree with me, if they were somehow destroyed, none of us would cry over it. Yet, to the dismay of my roommate (and I'm sure many of you), I have to admit that every time I wander past my roommate's collection of Doris Day films and I see Doris' glowing face smiling up at me, I want to chuck the lot into a raging fire.

I may be a total idiot for not seeing why people find Doris Day appealing (I'd like to think I'm not) but the fact that remains that if I became ruler of the world, Ms. Day movies would be the first thing to go.

The studios that manhandled what became classic cinema might have felt completely justified when they made their decisions, much like how I feel completely justified in wanting to create a Day-free world.


Edit: You can view a few stills from the found footage at the German paper Die Zeit's website... (gallery over here)