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#61
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by M.10rda - September 25, 2026, 05:54:59 PMOH DOCTOR! (1917):
A year earlier and unlike GOOD NIGHT, NURSE!, this one really has no connection to healthcare except for Roscoe playing a Doctor (who we only ever see outside of his practice) - but, both OH DOCTOR! and GOOD NIGHT, NURSE! suggest a traditional/farcical French influence of Moliere upon Arbuckle's comedy. Moliere's funniest plays are his Sganarelle plays, which all involve characters pretending to be doctors in pursuit of sex and money. Doctor Arbuckle here is a classic Sganarelle, shirking his work to chase ponies and ladies at the track even though he's got a long-suffering wife and a child (Buster in short pants!) at home. Moliere wrote Satyr(e) plays and Doctor Roscoe is a real monster here - but also ala Moliere, the audience's sympathy shifts to Roscoe when even more reprehensible characters try to scam him and his family out of everything they've got.
Some Arbuckle movies are outrageously funny and some are just pleasant, but all of them so far have been distinct - the guy gravitated towards similar themes but he never made the same movie twice. OH DOCTOR! is a 23-minute epic w/ tons of plot and complex French farcical choreography. The characters, though broad, are more motivated than in many of his films, and you kind of care about them (or loathe them) beyond just laughing at them. There are fewer memorable laughs than other Roscoe flicks from the period but his direction is very tight and I actually wanted to see the conflict resolved in favor of the Doctor's family. The two female characters (the sexy Con Woman and Missus Doctor) have more to do onscreen than the women in most Arbuckle movies and are even alone onscreen or together onscreen w/o men a bit. Buster is secondary as the neglected/abused son, thus Al gets a beefy role as the Bad Guy. For the first time it occurs to me that Al is a way more plausible Leading Man than Roscoe or Buster - he looks like Jude Law w/ some crazy Jim Carrey energy. He also gets to perform several impressive stunts that normally Buster would handle unilaterally.
As often was the case in Roscoe's movies (and personal life), cops are no help at all and/or only make matters worse. Roscoe skips cross-dressing this time and instead runs around in a cop uniform for a while at the climax. In the end, Evil is punished in several ways and, in a universe devoid of moral authority, Doctor Roscoe is almost rewarded for his nefarious habits... almost. 3.5/5 Not super-funny yet still extremely interesting.
A year earlier and unlike GOOD NIGHT, NURSE!, this one really has no connection to healthcare except for Roscoe playing a Doctor (who we only ever see outside of his practice) - but, both OH DOCTOR! and GOOD NIGHT, NURSE! suggest a traditional/farcical French influence of Moliere upon Arbuckle's comedy. Moliere's funniest plays are his Sganarelle plays, which all involve characters pretending to be doctors in pursuit of sex and money. Doctor Arbuckle here is a classic Sganarelle, shirking his work to chase ponies and ladies at the track even though he's got a long-suffering wife and a child (Buster in short pants!) at home. Moliere wrote Satyr(e) plays and Doctor Roscoe is a real monster here - but also ala Moliere, the audience's sympathy shifts to Roscoe when even more reprehensible characters try to scam him and his family out of everything they've got.
Some Arbuckle movies are outrageously funny and some are just pleasant, but all of them so far have been distinct - the guy gravitated towards similar themes but he never made the same movie twice. OH DOCTOR! is a 23-minute epic w/ tons of plot and complex French farcical choreography. The characters, though broad, are more motivated than in many of his films, and you kind of care about them (or loathe them) beyond just laughing at them. There are fewer memorable laughs than other Roscoe flicks from the period but his direction is very tight and I actually wanted to see the conflict resolved in favor of the Doctor's family. The two female characters (the sexy Con Woman and Missus Doctor) have more to do onscreen than the women in most Arbuckle movies and are even alone onscreen or together onscreen w/o men a bit. Buster is secondary as the neglected/abused son, thus Al gets a beefy role as the Bad Guy. For the first time it occurs to me that Al is a way more plausible Leading Man than Roscoe or Buster - he looks like Jude Law w/ some crazy Jim Carrey energy. He also gets to perform several impressive stunts that normally Buster would handle unilaterally.
As often was the case in Roscoe's movies (and personal life), cops are no help at all and/or only make matters worse. Roscoe skips cross-dressing this time and instead runs around in a cop uniform for a while at the climax. In the end, Evil is punished in several ways and, in a universe devoid of moral authority, Doctor Roscoe is almost rewarded for his nefarious habits... almost. 3.5/5 Not super-funny yet still extremely interesting.
#62
Entertainment / Re: What have you been listeni...
Last post by Rev. Powell - September 25, 2026, 09:46:28 AM"Here Because of Hope" by Ezra Collective
#63
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by M.10rda - September 25, 2026, 08:31:38 AMGOOD NIGHT, NURSE! (1918):
"Can you imagine America's human tank in the role of a nurse?" Roscoe Arbuckle Movies fall into rough sub-genres, where he spends a year or so making a bunch of movies about the movies, or about poor rural folk, or about restaurants, or whatevs. Some of those sub-genres overlap and this one intersects w/ restaurant comedy WAITERS' BALL as both belong to the sub-genre where Roscoe and/or Buster got into Drag for a while. Roscoe is "in the role of a nurse" for less than 5 minutes of this (epic, sprawling) 23-minute short, and actually it would've been a better and funnier film overall if the entire film was about him playing a large and flirtatious cis-female nurse.
But whatevs. My bigger/biggest issue w/ the film is that Roscoe uses Al St. John in two roles here, and the first one is in brownface as an organ grinder. 
I don't know why this was necessary, as actually the entire first act of the film (where alkie Roscoe wreaks drunken havoc on his wife and she commits him to an asylum) is mostly unfunny and unnecessary. (The actual capuchin monkey that accompanies Al the non-white organ grinder is pretty funny, though.)
But then Roscoe is trapped in a mental institution run by mad doctor Buster and chief henchmen Al (again). Roscoe doesn't mind being institutionalized when he checks out foxy madwoman Alice Lake, giving a very accurate prediction of the madwomen Helena Bonham would start playing 70 years later. But then Alice wants to escape so Roscoe tries to help her, and wackiness ensues. Among other tactics to avoid re-apprehension, Roscoe steals a nurse's uniform from the same plus-sized actress he stole the party dress from in WAITERS' BALL, and hence we have the eye-popping raison d'etre for this film's title.
I suppose mileage will vary depending on your taste for Drag and Camp, but for at least a couple of minutes, GOOD NIGHT, NURSE! is laugh-out-loud hilarious. The funniest part to me makes almost no sense - a good minute and change where Doctor Keaton lays eyes on Nurse Arbuckle across a hallway, and vice versa, and they make lascivious eyes at each other at great length, both performing ad infinitum a gesture that must've had more cultural cachet in the Roaring Teens: each sticks a finger in their own mouth, sucks on it, and then presses it against a wall or door or doorframe while continuing their googly-eyes shtick. Okay, Roscoe wants to be a convincing large female nurse, I get it - and Buster (I guess) just decides this large female nurse is the hottest woman he's ever seen - yet there is a "Blue Rose" element to this scene that remains mystifying. Yet both actors are so committed to this nonsense, and it goes on for such duration, that it seriously made me lose my marbles (in a good way).
But eventually Nurse Roscoe is found out, and the chase is on again, and Buster performs several impossible leaps into and through the air, and Roscoe (a human tank, but a fleet one) enters a marathon and is chased on foot by the entire staff of the asylum. Roscoe the Director doesn't cut Roscoe the Actor any slack - he hoofs it convincingly for long distances in wide shot, ahead of a bunch of skinnier guys who are also acting like they're running fast. Roscoe and Buster were their own special FX department. 3.5/5
"Can you imagine America's human tank in the role of a nurse?" Roscoe Arbuckle Movies fall into rough sub-genres, where he spends a year or so making a bunch of movies about the movies, or about poor rural folk, or about restaurants, or whatevs. Some of those sub-genres overlap and this one intersects w/ restaurant comedy WAITERS' BALL as both belong to the sub-genre where Roscoe and/or Buster got into Drag for a while. Roscoe is "in the role of a nurse" for less than 5 minutes of this (epic, sprawling) 23-minute short, and actually it would've been a better and funnier film overall if the entire film was about him playing a large and flirtatious cis-female nurse.
But whatevs. My bigger/biggest issue w/ the film is that Roscoe uses Al St. John in two roles here, and the first one is in brownface as an organ grinder. I don't know why this was necessary, as actually the entire first act of the film (where alkie Roscoe wreaks drunken havoc on his wife and she commits him to an asylum) is mostly unfunny and unnecessary. (The actual capuchin monkey that accompanies Al the non-white organ grinder is pretty funny, though.)But then Roscoe is trapped in a mental institution run by mad doctor Buster and chief henchmen Al (again). Roscoe doesn't mind being institutionalized when he checks out foxy madwoman Alice Lake, giving a very accurate prediction of the madwomen Helena Bonham would start playing 70 years later. But then Alice wants to escape so Roscoe tries to help her, and wackiness ensues. Among other tactics to avoid re-apprehension, Roscoe steals a nurse's uniform from the same plus-sized actress he stole the party dress from in WAITERS' BALL, and hence we have the eye-popping raison d'etre for this film's title.
I suppose mileage will vary depending on your taste for Drag and Camp, but for at least a couple of minutes, GOOD NIGHT, NURSE! is laugh-out-loud hilarious. The funniest part to me makes almost no sense - a good minute and change where Doctor Keaton lays eyes on Nurse Arbuckle across a hallway, and vice versa, and they make lascivious eyes at each other at great length, both performing ad infinitum a gesture that must've had more cultural cachet in the Roaring Teens: each sticks a finger in their own mouth, sucks on it, and then presses it against a wall or door or doorframe while continuing their googly-eyes shtick. Okay, Roscoe wants to be a convincing large female nurse, I get it - and Buster (I guess) just decides this large female nurse is the hottest woman he's ever seen - yet there is a "Blue Rose" element to this scene that remains mystifying. Yet both actors are so committed to this nonsense, and it goes on for such duration, that it seriously made me lose my marbles (in a good way).
But eventually Nurse Roscoe is found out, and the chase is on again, and Buster performs several impossible leaps into and through the air, and Roscoe (a human tank, but a fleet one) enters a marathon and is chased on foot by the entire staff of the asylum. Roscoe the Director doesn't cut Roscoe the Actor any slack - he hoofs it convincingly for long distances in wide shot, ahead of a bunch of skinnier guys who are also acting like they're running fast. Roscoe and Buster were their own special FX department. 3.5/5
#64
Good Movies / Re: Recent theatrical viewings
Last post by Rev. Powell - September 24, 2026, 06:48:44 PMSHAUN THE SHEEP: THE BEAST OF MOSSY BOTTOM: A farmer is mistaken for a monster after a mixup between hair gel and an experimental miracle pumpkin growing potion. Clever slapstick farce that's nonstop gags (reminiscent of a 20s silent, but animated and sustained), with a pleasant Halloween theme and no coherent words spoken. 4/5. My niece didn't want to see this with me because it wasn't branded, so I was the only person in the theater---as it should be.
#65
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by lester1/2jr - September 24, 2026, 04:21:04 PMHauntedween (1991) - There are low budget, irreverent, and amazing movies like, off the top of my head, "Little Corey Gorey", but this one, while irreverent and low budget, is not brilliant, but is still mostly fun.
Cut rate Animal House characters similarly need to save the frat, so they put together a haunted house. Translation: it's a sex comedy AND a straight to video horror movie. Alas, it's regional and a little too amateurish and timid to be super successful at either of those things, but they do try. The head frat guy is likeable and his blonde girlfriend is really pretty hot. The extras all very much look like people off the street/ friends of friends of the cast. The dialogue and line deliveries in general could have been much stronger. There's an awful lot of just walking around the frat house saying stuff.
Similarly to the aforementioned Little Corey Gorey, this was released in the early 90's but has it's heart much more in the 80's. (Actually, I think LCG was filmed in the 80's and released later). The last third works up a decent head of steam and is clearly where they put the most attention/ budget. There's even a Hauntedween title song and an authentic regional (Kentucky? ) college rock band that sounds like George Thorogood meets REM or something playing at a party.
4.25/ 5 some would likely rate it higher for it's historical/ bad movie significance. I would watch it again. It almost becomes a real horror movie in the that last act.
Cut rate Animal House characters similarly need to save the frat, so they put together a haunted house. Translation: it's a sex comedy AND a straight to video horror movie. Alas, it's regional and a little too amateurish and timid to be super successful at either of those things, but they do try. The head frat guy is likeable and his blonde girlfriend is really pretty hot. The extras all very much look like people off the street/ friends of friends of the cast. The dialogue and line deliveries in general could have been much stronger. There's an awful lot of just walking around the frat house saying stuff.
Similarly to the aforementioned Little Corey Gorey, this was released in the early 90's but has it's heart much more in the 80's. (Actually, I think LCG was filmed in the 80's and released later). The last third works up a decent head of steam and is clearly where they put the most attention/ budget. There's even a Hauntedween title song and an authentic regional (Kentucky? ) college rock band that sounds like George Thorogood meets REM or something playing at a party.
4.25/ 5 some would likely rate it higher for it's historical/ bad movie significance. I would watch it again. It almost becomes a real horror movie in the that last act.
#66
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by M.10rda - September 24, 2026, 03:36:03 PMTHE MOVIES (1925):
If you keep watching silent comedies compulsively, you realize there weren't a couple of other guys trying to be Keaton and Chaplin and Lloyd, there was an endless parade of mostly interchangeable guys, and now I learn there was at least one guy, Lloyd Hamilton, trying to fill the large void left when Roscoe Arbuckle stopped playing leads onscreen. No one can ever be Roscoe, alas, but he's behind the camera doing his best w/ doughy & mischievous proto-Roscoe Hamilton, who plays two roles here. The main role is a big jerk and kind of a sociopath, who spends the first 10 minutes (which feel like 25) wandering around picking unnecessary fights w/ strangers. The second role is movie star "Lloyd Hamilton", who appears in the second 10 minutes (which feel like 15), which I guess provides the audience w/ assurance that Hamilton himself is a nice guy and it's just the main character in THE MOVIES who is Chaotic Evil. Predictably, Hamilton's lead proceeds to wreak even more havoc for the Real Hamilton.
THE MOVIES is one of the weakest Arbuckle auteurial efforts I've seen, though to be fair most of them have been Good to Amazing. But THE MOVIES is interesting as it represents (alongside CHARACTER STUDIES and MY STARS) a side-trip for Roscoe through Meta movies about Movies. The second half of THE MOVIES takes us inside the studio system - onset, backstage, in the commissary, et al - which is priceless as a historical Primary Source. It's also tempting to read the second half of THE MOVIES as Roscoe trying to have some fun at the expense of his own cursed reputation. Both he and Evil Lloyd Hamilton are husky gentlemen who get in trouble for bein', well... too thirsty! Of course IRL Roscoe was an evidently nice (if scrumpy) guy who privately retained the loyalty of his colleagues after being unjustly accused of sex crimes. Publicly, though, he must've felt more like Evil Lloyd, getting chased off the set en masse by both the police and the entire production company. 3/5
If you keep watching silent comedies compulsively, you realize there weren't a couple of other guys trying to be Keaton and Chaplin and Lloyd, there was an endless parade of mostly interchangeable guys, and now I learn there was at least one guy, Lloyd Hamilton, trying to fill the large void left when Roscoe Arbuckle stopped playing leads onscreen. No one can ever be Roscoe, alas, but he's behind the camera doing his best w/ doughy & mischievous proto-Roscoe Hamilton, who plays two roles here. The main role is a big jerk and kind of a sociopath, who spends the first 10 minutes (which feel like 25) wandering around picking unnecessary fights w/ strangers. The second role is movie star "Lloyd Hamilton", who appears in the second 10 minutes (which feel like 15), which I guess provides the audience w/ assurance that Hamilton himself is a nice guy and it's just the main character in THE MOVIES who is Chaotic Evil. Predictably, Hamilton's lead proceeds to wreak even more havoc for the Real Hamilton.
THE MOVIES is one of the weakest Arbuckle auteurial efforts I've seen, though to be fair most of them have been Good to Amazing. But THE MOVIES is interesting as it represents (alongside CHARACTER STUDIES and MY STARS) a side-trip for Roscoe through Meta movies about Movies. The second half of THE MOVIES takes us inside the studio system - onset, backstage, in the commissary, et al - which is priceless as a historical Primary Source. It's also tempting to read the second half of THE MOVIES as Roscoe trying to have some fun at the expense of his own cursed reputation. Both he and Evil Lloyd Hamilton are husky gentlemen who get in trouble for bein', well... too thirsty! Of course IRL Roscoe was an evidently nice (if scrumpy) guy who privately retained the loyalty of his colleagues after being unjustly accused of sex crimes. Publicly, though, he must've felt more like Evil Lloyd, getting chased off the set en masse by both the police and the entire production company. 3/5
#67
Entertainment / Re: What have you been listeni...
Last post by Rev. Powell - September 24, 2026, 02:17:45 PM
Si!
#68
Games / Re: Answer the question with a...
Last post by Rev. Powell - September 24, 2026, 10:01:56 AMWhat bedtime story do you tell your kid?
#70
Games / Re: Answer the question with a...
Last post by bob - September 23, 2026, 06:41:26 PM
How's the ghost?