Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 5, 2007 7:18:53 GMT
A Christmas Story (1983)Baby Geniuses (1999)Apparently he and his son were just killed by a drunk driver.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 5, 2007 8:27:44 GMT
'A Christmas Story' director, son killed in crash
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Film director Bob Clark, best known for the holiday classic "A Christmas Story," was killed with his son Wednesday in a head-on crash with a vehicle that a drunken driver steered into the wrong lane, police and the filmmaker's assistant said.
Clark, 67, and son Ariel Hanrath-Clark, 22, were killed in the accident in Pacific Palisades, said Lyne Leavy, Clark's personal assistant.
The two men were in an Infiniti that collided head-on with a GMC Yukon around 2:30 a.m. PDT, said Lt. Paul Vernon, a police spokesman.
The driver of the other vehicle, Hector Velazquez-Nava, 24, of Los Angeles and his passenger, described as a 29-year-old woman, were taken to UCLA Medical Center with minor injuries.
Velazquez-Nava was arrested Wednesday afternoon and booked for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol and gross vehicular manslaughter. He was being held on $100,000 bail.
"The initial investigation has concluded that Nava was driving without a license northbound in the southbound lanes while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage," Vernon said.
In Clark's most famous film, all 9-year-old Ralphie Parker wants for Christmas is an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle.
His mother, teacher and Santa Claus all warn: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."
A school bully named Scut Farkus, a leg lamp, a freezing flagpole mishap and some four-letter defiance helped the movie become a seasonal fixture with "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street."
Scott Schwartz, who played Flick in "A Christmas Story" and kept in touch with Clark, called Clark one of the "nicest, sweetest guys that you'd ever want to come in contact with."
"It's a tragic day for all of us who knew and loved Bob Clark," Schwartz said. "Bob was a fun-loving, jelly-roll kind of guy who will be sorely missed."
The director of The Christmas Story House in Cleveland, Ohio, which was used for several exterior shots in the film, said Clark had been planning to visit in August.
"We were all very excited about meeting him," said executive director Steve Siedlecki. "It's very sad to think that that will never happen."
The house started a condolence book for Clark's family that fans who visit the house can sign, he said. Renovated to look like Ralphie's movie home, the house opened in November and has welcomed about 30,000 visitors.
Clark specialized in horror movies and thrillers early in his career, directing such 1970s flicks as "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," "Murder by Decree," "Breaking Point" and "Black Christmas," which was remade last year.
His breakout success came with 1981's sex farce "Porky's," a coming-of-age romp that he followed two years later with "Porky's II: The Next Day."
In 1983, "A Christmas Story" marked a career high for Clark. Darrin McGavin, Melinda Dillon and Peter Billingsley starred in the adaptation of Jean Shepard's childhood memoir of a boy in the 1940s.
The film was a modest theatrical success, but critics loved it.
In 1994, Clark directed a forgettable sequel, "It Runs in the Family," featuring Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen and Kieran Culkin in a continuation of Shepard's memoirs.
In recent years, Clark made family comedies that were savaged by critics, including "Karate Dog," "Baby Geniuses" and its sequel, "Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2."
Among Clark's other movies were Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton's "Rhinestone," Timothy Hutton's "Turk 182!", and Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd's "Loose Cannons."
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 5, 2007 11:46:44 GMT
1. Black Christmas (1974) *****
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 5, 2007 12:11:31 GMT
Wow, really? Didn't expect that from the man behind the Baby Genius series.
Edit: AND the Porky's series.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 5, 2007 12:17:16 GMT
Yeah, there are some other early ones with good reputations (or at least cult acclaim), like Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things and Dead of Night, but I'm sure Black Christmas is his best.
I should see A Christmas Story. That gets more popular every year.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 5, 2007 12:23:41 GMT
Yeah now that I think of it you list The Texas Chainsaw Massace among your very favorite films, don't you. Or at least you did. So perhaps that isn't a 4 star film in the traditional sense, if you know what I'm trying to say.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 5, 2007 12:24:44 GMT
This is the second place I've seen his age misprinted by the way. I wonder why that is, either I'm subtracting wrong or there's no way he could've reach 67.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 5, 2007 12:37:52 GMT
Yeah now that I think of it you list The Texas Chainsaw Massace among your very favorite films, don't you. Or at least you did. So perhaps that isn't a 4 star film in the traditional sense, if you know what I'm trying to say. Yes, if what you're trying to say is that I like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre for reasons other than it being a great film, in which case you'd be mistaken. Likewise Black Christmas, though it's not in the same league as Chain Saw. Are you suggesting that horror films are somehow 'illegitimate'?
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 5, 2007 13:59:24 GMT
I am. Not my cup of tea.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 5, 2007 14:02:46 GMT
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of my favourite films, too. It's absolutely incredible.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 5, 2007 14:09:30 GMT
So, because 'horror films' (ridiculously broad term) are not your 'cup of tea', they are 'illegitimate', and any praise they receive should be considered less genuine or less justifiable than praise directed at other kinds of films. That's a very ignorant opinion. FYI, Irreversible is unarguably a 'horror film'.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 5, 2007 14:12:13 GMT
Before I respond, how do you feel about teen comedies?
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 5, 2007 14:14:15 GMT
Which "teen comedies"?
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 5, 2007 14:18:45 GMT
Just in general, American ones from the 80's and 90's if you need SOME sort of clarification. At first I was asking because I was going to try to draw some sort of parallel, because I like teen comedies myself very much, but I don't like them for the same reasons as I like other films generally, and I thought that perhaps Wetdog's liking of "horror" films could be somewhat compared.
But then I kind of decided it was a shoddy comparison, but then also decided that I was still just interested to see what tha Doog might have to say to that question.
So, yeah, there it is.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 5, 2007 14:24:33 GMT
Before I respond, how do you feel about teen comedies? The terms are not analogous. One refers to the essential, core, philosophical content of the film and the creative impulses behind it, and the other refers to the target audience demographic. Let me offer you a better analogy. Macho, capitalistic, fast-talking cops'n'crooks movies, it could be said, are not my 'cup of tea'. If I were to suggest that any praise directed at movies such as Goodfellas was inherently less genuine and less justifiable than praise directed at other types of movies, that would be very ignorant, dismissive and illogical of me. And 'macho, capitalistic, fast-talking cops'n'crooks movies' is a far less broad and vague term than 'horror'.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 5, 2007 14:34:19 GMT
I'm not going to try to formulate some of concrete response here because I probably can't, I often don't feel that strongly about any particular film conviction, if that's what you want to call it.
I will say this, my basic, fundamental criteria for what makes a good film is that it should, in some way, change the way you think about life. Now, granted, I like plenty of movies that don't do that, I even "love" some, Goodfellas being a prime example. I find it interesting that that's the film you happened to pick. You can see some of what I'm talking about in what I say in the film's thread here.
Thinking now I might say that Goodfellas changes the way I think about my life specifically because I happen to want to be a filmmaker, and it is an incredibly well made film.
So whatever that explanation does for you, again, I'm not claiming this is airtight. That's just part of the reason why I don't generally consider "horror" films to be worthy of real, genuine admiration.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 5, 2007 14:36:32 GMT
And with that, I go to sleep. You fellas leave me some goodies to take a gander at later.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 5, 2007 14:40:16 GMT
Texas Chain Saw is an incredibly well-made film, too. More cinematically interesting in every way than Goodfellas, in my opinion.
Anyway, there's a glaring gap in your logic.
Ergo:
I shouldn't need to explain what's missing here.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 5, 2007 15:23:36 GMT
;D
CHUD's title for this piece of news is "Children Shouldn't Play with Bob Clark".
Haha... that's irresistible.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 7, 2007 15:26:29 GMT
I will say this, my basic, fundamental criteria for what makes a good film is that it should, in some way, change the way you think about life. That to me is a load of baloney now. Not that I didn't use to be some kind of film snob, but now I'm of the philosophy or phase of mind that I simply wish to enjoy films, to feel them. They, as Art, have no duty to change my way of thinking. They might change my way of thinking, they might shape it, but they certainly don't have to. The greatest pleasure for me is in the actual watching, the feelings I get during the film, or the lingering images I might feel afterwards, or the certain need to go back to see the same film again and hope for more of the same... or more of a change. Your love of GoodFellas, despite it being the exception to your rules, is telling of how limiting your "theory" currently is. And with theories you've got to all the way; theories exist so that they can be applied to everything, and if you don't stick to them with full conviction, you end up in a swamp of contradictions. GoodFellas, in this case, being one of them. (You said it yourself.) If you're going to be so bold as to have some sort of pre-determined criteria going into a film in order for you to class it as "great", don't you think it should be an all-encompassing, as-open-as-possible one? Life's too short to expect greatness to be something which changes it. On the contrary, life's short enough to define greatness as mere pleasure.
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