Coronavirus (Covid-19)

[Randall]

My treadmill is nearly in front of my TV. I use it every day!

[Ben]

Haha...back in our tiny flat (apartment) back in the day, I had my exercise bike and treadmill-type track lined up in front of our proj screen and used to cycle through whole movies! Many’s a late 90s or early 2000 film that I have memories of walking or riding through, and on the bike I used to imagine that I was generating the powering for the lamp, which was good motivation to keep going!

[Randall]

Last night, I started A Song is Born while on the treadmill. What a great Danny Kaye movie, maybe my favourite of the 4 I watched in the past week or two, on the Criterion Channel. With all those jazz greats (Satchmo, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman...), it was great music to exercise to.

[Daniel]

I literally watched the "I Love Lucy" episode yesterday where she was trying to meet the Queen and had this exchange with the bellboy: "But I did get a look at him. Philip? No, ma'am. Danny Kaye!" Never tire of that redhead.

I really should try and exercise, but with how I'm cleaning that's like an exercise in of itself! Video games are actually pretty good for your brain and body. Getting lots of workout without an actual workout!

[ShyViolet]

Last night, I started A Song is Born while on the treadmill.

It’s silly I know, but this immediately made me think of “A Star is Burns!” Lol.


https://youtu.be/KVxHWEYdRi0


Oh God: “It didn’t die!”


“I was saying “Boo-urns!”

[EricJ]

Last night, I started A Song is Born while on the treadmill. What a great Danny Kaye movie,

It's...okay, but it's no Court Jester. (Which is also now starting to resurface on streaming, esp. PlutoTV, as one of the abandoned Paramount Orphans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zIWcCvQNqQ )

Even though I have no shortage of options, and a Blu-ray shelf that's starting to overflow again, I've been showing off my "preparedness" by finally--after NINE YEARS--digging into a backlog of free Digital-locker movies Warner sent me over the years for participating in their focus-group surveys, in their eternal hopes I'd fall in love with it and toss Blu-ray over.
I currently have a library of fifty, twenty of which I got free with the discs, twenty-nine of which I got as one free promotional bonus after another, and one that I ever actually paid for, that's been on my iTunes since the days when we used to download files for our Video iPods.

Five of them were classic movies given as an apology gift for their having to close Filmstruck, so I just finished "A Star Is Born" (no relation) and now realizing I'd never watched all of the Errol Flynn "Robin Hood" from cover to cover.

[Ben]

Rand just watched a Court Jester too, which is my personal fave of Kaye's films. None of the others *really* hold up, though I’ve a soft spot for Andersen even if I wish the deal with Walt Disney had worked out so the story songs would have been animated sequences. Despite the praise, Mitty has never worked or been as clever as it could have been, for me, and I do find his shtick to be very samey, but Jester is just a fun little flick.



Just sent this out to some email pals, thought I’d post here:

You guys are not getting any major movies until August...at the very earliest. Nov/Dec is more realistic (maybe for Thanksgiving), but a lot of these will end up coming out next year.

And now July and even August are being abandoned in terms of movie releases:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat- ... us-1285759

2021 in most cases, as I thought. Many dates will simply be a one-year delay. It’s the global pause button!

[Randall]

Yeah, while I did the enjoy the silly adventure of The Court Jester, it was the wonderful musicians in A Song is Born, as well as the delightful cast of character actors, that really made it for me. Plus, Kaye's performance there is pleasantly restrained, with nearly none of his usual clowning. Contrast that with Wonder Man or Walter Mitty, where I ended up skimming through some of the mediocre musical sequences. I'm half-way through The Kid from Brooklyn now (going to watch the rest on the treadmill today), which falls into the category of "amiable time-waster." *(I did not include Hans Christian Anderson in my mini-marathon, as I have that on disc already. The Kayes leave the Criterion Channel after today.)

[Ben]

You should try Hans Christian Andersen though, it’s better than Hans Christian Anderson.

[Randall]

Oh, yeah. Him, too.

[ShyViolet]

Oh my God that is absolutely mind-blowingly awesome, definitely lifted my spirits (plus that whole family sings really well). Thank you Ben!



I’m in the Northeastern US...things are pretty much the same.

[Randall]

I had to post that video on my Facebook, too, after Ben sent it to me. So many tears. So much laughter. Poignant. And a great summary of the times.

[Ben]

It’s been a bit of a big thing over here, that video.

As I said to Rand in a recent email, it’s so odd on the news, because there is just ONE story. Literally nothing else is being reported. And any other stories that *are* being mentioned become all but sub-stories, because EVERYthing has and is being affected by Covid-19.

Although this is nothing like wartime, I’ve never known anything like this and, I guess, gives us the closest feeling to what wartime might have felt like, although ironically the right attitude this time is not to carry on and fight, but to be proud in being a coward and hiding inside so as to escape it!

[Randall]

That's the challenge right now. I feel guilty for being safe at home, but in reality I am following orders and fighting this the best way.

[Ben]

Lots of date changes from Disney yesterday, including the not unexpected news (by those on the film) that Artemis Fowl will go to D+ (I called this as far back as last summer!), but here’s an interesting story from THR about Disney staff paycuts, specifically the first time I have seen a realistic admission that this thing is set to run and run:

Some believe that the virus crisis, at least as defined by its impact on Hollywood, could easily last 18 months. That’s the amount of time experts believe will be needed before a vaccine is available to the masses.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... ts-1288522