Thursday, March 01, 2007

Great Moments in Massketeer History


Feb. 26, 2007
Anchoress drops by to make a comment at my post on Fr. Phil's homily. As when Elizabeth Taylor visited James Dean in Giant, romance is quite out of the question. Nevertheless, the screen chemistry sizzles.

6 comments:

Athos said...

Can you feel the sizzle???

My dear Porthos, it is inexcusable that you should flirt with the Anchoress at the 3Ms. May I remind you that it was I who left the comment at HER blog to look in on MY post regarding the purported Jesus Tomb?

I would NEVER flirt so incorrigibly at the blog ... other than that time I called Dawn Eden a "heartthrob" and she listed the 3Ms on her blog.

Porthos said...

Then it is to you we owe the visit of Anchoress? I should have guessed!

That was not flirting. That was . . . admiration from afar.

You know, Dante and whatserface.

That kind of thing.

Athos said...

Yeah, yeah, of course. That's exactly what I was doing with Dawn Eden: admiring from a fire.

How about this as a caption to your James and Elizabeth photo:

"After you finish breakfast do you want me to clean up the dishes and start vacuuming, honey?"

Porthos said...

Sacrilege! Have you seen Giant?

Not a bad movie at all, actually.

In the movie Liz is the wife of Rock Hudson, the big rancher, and James Dean is the surly ranchhand who becomes the wildcat oil driller. Liz is dropping by basically out of charity and curiosity, but James Dean has a crush on her. It's a cute scene, wherein James Dean tries to be hospitable to this great society beauty in his run-down ole shack, and offer her a cuppa.

Athos said...

I admit I've never seen it. There's a period in my life which is very hit or miss in terms of those top drawer films.

I've seen a quote from David Mamet recently to the effect that studios think nothing of dropping $150M for 2 hours of trash entertainment. That would feed, clothe, and house a great many "least of these My brothers and sisters," wouldn't it?

Porthos said...

Hollywood is stupid and always getting stupider, but I'd venture to say it has not always been consistently or universally stupid. I think you would find that Giant is one of those "blockbusters" that was probably very much worth making. It is probably James Dean's best performance, it is one of Liz's better performaces, it is a classic family saga somewhat on the order of Buddenbruck's (sp?), there is some Girardian resonance, and there is some social conscience uplift.