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#1
Games / Re: Answer the question with a...
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 12:41:18 PM
What was something you did when you were younger that you no longer do?
#3
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 12:25:25 PMSOCIETY is great. An 80s B-horror squashed together with an obvious but cutting satire ending in an orgy out of a Salvador Dali painting. Ragged, but that's part of its charm.
#4
Bad Movies / Re: Completely ruin a movie ti...
Last post by zombie no.one - Today at 12:24:55 PMfrom Six Seven to....
The Eightful Hate
The Eightful Hate
#5
Entertainment / Re: What have you been listeni...
Last post by Allhallowsday - Today at 12:23:36 PMBLUE CHEER Vincebus Eruptum
#6
Bad Movies / Re: Generate Movie Poster with...
Last post by claws - Today at 12:23:01 PMInteresting restraint from Grok. Usually it goes full grindhouse before you even finish typing the title.
Quote from: bob on Today at 09:35:41 AM
#8
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 06:16:30 AMSOCIETY really frustrated me as a teenager but I should revisit it. Maybe (like WAXWORKS) it has aged well.
THE PENALTY (1920):
Watching WEST OF ZANZIBAR and MAN OF 1K FACES set me up to accept the theory that Lon Chaney was a legitimate Great Actor (instead of just a special effect), and THE PENALTY put me over the top. Unfortunately for Chaney he has to mangle his body in order to be allowed to deliver a tour-de-force lead performance in this, one of his earliest headliners. But I guess that only serves to demonstrate how motivated this poor guy was to do real acting...!
As a kid Chaney is hit by a car and suffers a concussion, so his quack doctor naturally amputates both his legs.
Automatically one expects THE PENALTY to focus on Chaney's adult revenge on the doctor - but wait. First we need to establish adult Chaney as "Blizzard", the Jokeresque sadistic crime boss who runs his underworld empire with a kill-crazed fist. Absolutely no one f***s w/ Blizzard, even though he's four-and-a-half feet tall, tops (hobbling around w/ half crutches and little mini-peglegs). The cops want to break up his gang, of course, but every time they get a (female!) agent inside his operation, Blizzard sniffs 'em out and snuffs 'em! The clock is ticking because Blizzard has a master plan to take over the entire city during a riot of convicts. But what of the doctor! Oh yeah, he now has an attractive adult daughter who's a sculptress and has advertised for a model who resembles Satan so she can sculpt her masterpiece. What, teen feet tall w/ hooves and giant horns? Nope, as soon as Blizzard staggers in, the sculptress knows on the spot she's got her perfect Satan, and the viewer knows the film has its utterly implausible plot twist. 
THE PENALTY is 90 whole minutes w/ enough story to fill a 160-minute Christopher Nolan thriller. It's actually quite coherently and compellingly directed (particularly for a silent), which is good since the screenplay is wholly bonkers and can't keep the plot remotely on track on its own. Alas, the final 20 minutes or so take the story to an illogical and (worse) anticlimactic place. Ah, early cinema!
But, if there were Oscars in 1920 (there weren't), Chaney surely would've been nominated for Best Actor and should have won, too. (What the heck else was going on in Hollywood in 1920?) He's horrifying (because of his actions, not his body), he's sympathetic, he's magnetic. THE PENALTY is only A Thing because of Chaney. Watching him in wide-shot is hypnotic and appalling. One figures there's no way he could have executed the legless walking w/o extraordinary pain and injury. In fact, research shows Chaney was in agony onscreen and f**ked up his legs permanently w/ this role (though doubled down on its success and kept playing legless man roles
). Apparently he could only do "the stunt" for a few minutes at a time - but he's onscreen like 80 of 90 minutes and often he's legless, so production must've... taken a while....... Presumably he did all his close-ups/above the waist stuff while kneeling on a comfy pillow............
I've had surgery on both knees for "deranged meniscus" - the medical term! I did that to myself through "extreme stretches", tennis, and about 15 years of JFW (Jogging While Fat). Lots of mornings it's tough gettin' out of bed and up/down stairs. Never did I ever, however, do anything like the "extreme stretches" that Chaney does in THE PENALTY. Poor guy. Good actor, though! 3.5/5 But WEST OF ZANZIBAR is a better film overall.
THE PENALTY (1920):
Watching WEST OF ZANZIBAR and MAN OF 1K FACES set me up to accept the theory that Lon Chaney was a legitimate Great Actor (instead of just a special effect), and THE PENALTY put me over the top. Unfortunately for Chaney he has to mangle his body in order to be allowed to deliver a tour-de-force lead performance in this, one of his earliest headliners. But I guess that only serves to demonstrate how motivated this poor guy was to do real acting...!
As a kid Chaney is hit by a car and suffers a concussion, so his quack doctor naturally amputates both his legs.
Automatically one expects THE PENALTY to focus on Chaney's adult revenge on the doctor - but wait. First we need to establish adult Chaney as "Blizzard", the Jokeresque sadistic crime boss who runs his underworld empire with a kill-crazed fist. Absolutely no one f***s w/ Blizzard, even though he's four-and-a-half feet tall, tops (hobbling around w/ half crutches and little mini-peglegs). The cops want to break up his gang, of course, but every time they get a (female!) agent inside his operation, Blizzard sniffs 'em out and snuffs 'em! The clock is ticking because Blizzard has a master plan to take over the entire city during a riot of convicts. But what of the doctor! Oh yeah, he now has an attractive adult daughter who's a sculptress and has advertised for a model who resembles Satan so she can sculpt her masterpiece. What, teen feet tall w/ hooves and giant horns? Nope, as soon as Blizzard staggers in, the sculptress knows on the spot she's got her perfect Satan, and the viewer knows the film has its utterly implausible plot twist. THE PENALTY is 90 whole minutes w/ enough story to fill a 160-minute Christopher Nolan thriller. It's actually quite coherently and compellingly directed (particularly for a silent), which is good since the screenplay is wholly bonkers and can't keep the plot remotely on track on its own. Alas, the final 20 minutes or so take the story to an illogical and (worse) anticlimactic place. Ah, early cinema!
But, if there were Oscars in 1920 (there weren't), Chaney surely would've been nominated for Best Actor and should have won, too. (What the heck else was going on in Hollywood in 1920?) He's horrifying (because of his actions, not his body), he's sympathetic, he's magnetic. THE PENALTY is only A Thing because of Chaney. Watching him in wide-shot is hypnotic and appalling. One figures there's no way he could have executed the legless walking w/o extraordinary pain and injury. In fact, research shows Chaney was in agony onscreen and f**ked up his legs permanently w/ this role (though doubled down on its success and kept playing legless man roles
). Apparently he could only do "the stunt" for a few minutes at a time - but he's onscreen like 80 of 90 minutes and often he's legless, so production must've... taken a while....... Presumably he did all his close-ups/above the waist stuff while kneeling on a comfy pillow............I've had surgery on both knees for "deranged meniscus" - the medical term! I did that to myself through "extreme stretches", tennis, and about 15 years of JFW (Jogging While Fat). Lots of mornings it's tough gettin' out of bed and up/down stairs. Never did I ever, however, do anything like the "extreme stretches" that Chaney does in THE PENALTY. Poor guy. Good actor, though! 3.5/5 But WEST OF ZANZIBAR is a better film overall.
#9
Entertainment / Re: what was that video game?
Last post by drifterr - Today at 05:50:18 AMThat sounds a bit like Defender of the Crown to me? tag game
