4.29.2014

Dennis Hopper on Nicholas Ray

Shakespeare Uncovered Panel Discussion

4.28.2014

Frank Darabont: A Filmmaker's Journey

Playing Shakespeare

Trevor Nunn: Shakespeare's Sonnets To Learn Shakespeare's Speech

Scorsese on Mean Streets

From Cinephilia & Beyond:

Linklater dubbed the semi-autobiographical ‘Mean Streets’ “the patron saint of independent filmmaking,” adding, “It’s the kind of film that says, ‘Go do this.’”
Martin Scorsese on Mean Streets.

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Thelma Schoonmaker Masterclass

Fritz Lang & Jean Luc Godard

4.27.2014

Masterclass With Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Movies in 2014

1. The Hot Rock
2. The Valley Of Gwangi
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
4. To Have And Have Not
5. The Third Man
6. Below
7. It Happened One Night
8. State And Main
9. Furious 6
10. Vengeance
11. Running Scared (1986)
12. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
13. The Thing From Another World
14. Matilda
15. The Shaolin Temple
16. The Avengers
17. The Raid
18. In The Heat Of The Night
19. Dillinger
20. The Mission (Johnnie To Film)
21. Odds Against Tomorrow
22. Outrage
23. My Name Is Nobody
24. The Wolverine
25. Fulltime Killer
26. Muppets From Space
27. The Man With The Iron Fists
28. Mad Detective
29. Batman Returns
30. Riddick
31. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
32. Captain Phillips
33. The Lego Movie
34. Now You See Me
35. Bull Durham
36. Nebraska
37. Big Trouble In Little China
38. Death Rides A Horse
39. Zero Effect
40. The Mercenary
41. A Fistful Of Dollars
42. World War Z
43. Batman
44. Monte Walsh (1970)
45. Ride The High Country
46. The 13th Warrior
47. Nothing Left To Fear
48. Raiders of the Lost Ark
49. Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
50. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
51. Mud
52. Stagecoach
53. Kill Bill Vol. 2
54. Iron Man Three
55. Dallas Buyers Club
56. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
57. Looking for Richard
58. Fort Apache
59. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2
60. 12 Years A Slave
61. Dead Man
62. Macbeth (Welles)
63. Dragonslayer
64. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine
65. Pacific Rim
66. American Hustle

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Jean-Pierre Melville

Robert Bresson

4.26.2014

Imagine: What Could Be Done With A Penny4NASA?


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The Tyson Series - Are We Alone In The Universe?

Warren Ellis At Cognitive Cities Conference

4.25.2014

Frank Darabont on Filmmaking

Jim Jarmusch Talks Dead Man

4.24.2014

Movies in 2014

1. The Hot Rock
2. The Valley Of Gwangi
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
4. To Have And Have Not
5. The Third Man
6. Below
7. It Happened One Night
8. State And Main
9. Furious 6
10. Vengeance
11. Running Scared (1986)
12. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
13. The Thing From Another World
14. Matilda
15. The Shaolin Temple
16. The Avengers
17. The Raid
18. In The Heat Of The Night
19. Dillinger
20. The Mission (Johnnie To Film)
21. Odds Against Tomorrow
22. Outrage
23. My Name Is Nobody
24. The Wolverine
25. Fulltime Killer
26. Muppets From Space
27. The Man With The Iron Fists
28. Mad Detective
29. Batman Returns
30. Riddick
31. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
32. Captain Phillips
33. The Lego Movie
34. Now You See Me
35. Bull Durham
36. Nebraska
37. Big Trouble In Little China
38. Death Rides A Horse
39. Zero Effect
40. The Mercenary
41. A Fistful Of Dollars
42. World War Z
43. Batman
44. Monte Walsh (1970)
45. Ride The High Country
46. The 13th Warrior
47. Nothing Left To Fear
48. Raiders of the Lost Ark
49. Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
50. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
51. Mud
52. Stagecoach
53. Kill Bill Vol. 2
54. Iron Man Three
55. Dallas Buyers Club
56. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
57. Looking for Richard
58. Fort Apache
59. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2
60. 12 Years A Slave
61. Dead Man
62. Macbeth (Welles)
63. Dragonslayer
64. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine
65. Pacific Rim

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The Mississippi River Today

Entrance to the Pier at Lasalle's Landing

This is sad to me:






This kind of sums up Kenner, La: a lot of potential, but no follow through. There were other people there disappointed they couldn't walk out on the pier too. This should be a beautiful walk and view, but the pier is falling down and clearly no money is being spent to keep it up.

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The Pier at Lasalle's Landing

From Warren Ellis' Ignition City

One of my favorite lines/panels from Ignition City by Warren Ellis:


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John Logan BAFTA Screenwriting Lecture

Screenwriter John Logan at the American Film Institute

Mark Gatiss on The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

Spike Lee's Dolly Shots

Clint Eastwood on Stagecoach

Found through Cinephilia & Beyond:

Eastwood noted his own 1992 DGA Award-winning film Unforgiven was described upon its release as a eulogy to the Western genre. “When I read that script I thought ‘this would make a perfect last Western.” He also disclosed he felt the real secret of the Western was something that Ford captured completely with Stagecoach —story. “If you have a shot of the lone man standing there, the question is: where did he come from? There is a story in just that one shot of a lone figure out in the vast land and the audience sees it. As a director, your job is to find that story and tell it— that’s what makes the picture work.”
 Hour length talk with Eastwood and Paul Schrader on John Ford's Stagecoach.

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4.23.2014

Jean Simmons on Olivier's Hamlet

Side by Side: Greta Gerwig

Side by Side: Lena Dunham

Movies in 2014

1. The Hot Rock
2. The Valley Of Gwangi
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
4. To Have And Have Not
5. The Third Man
6. Below
7. It Happened One Night
8. State And Main
9. Furious 6
10. Vengeance
11. Running Scared (1986)
12. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
13. The Thing From Another World
14. Matilda
15. The Shaolin Temple
16. The Avengers
17. The Raid
18. In The Heat Of The Night
19. Dillinger
20. The Mission (Johnnie To Film)
21. Odds Against Tomorrow
22. Outrage
23. My Name Is Nobody
24. The Wolverine
25. Fulltime Killer
26. Muppets From Space
27. The Man With The Iron Fists
28. Mad Detective
29. Batman Returns
30. Riddick
31. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
32. Captain Phillips
33. The Lego Movie
34. Now You See Me
35. Bull Durham
36. Nebraska
37. Big Trouble In Little China
38. Death Rides A Horse
39. Zero Effect
40. The Mercenary
41. A Fistful Of Dollars
42. World War Z
43. Batman
44. Monte Walsh (1970)
45. Ride The High Country
46. The 13th Warrior
47. Nothing Left To Fear
48. Raiders of the Lost Ark
49. Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
50. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
51. Mud
52. Stagecoach
53. Kill Bill Vol. 2
54. Iron Man Three
55. Dallas Buyers Club
56. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
57. Looking for Richard
58. Fort Apache
59. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2
60. 12 Years A Slave
61. Dead Man
62. Macbeth (Welles)
63. Dragonslayer

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4.22.2014

Gareth Evans Top 5 Action Scenes

Thief: A Visual Essay

4.21.2014

A Timeline Of World Cinema

4.20.2014

Movies in 2014

1. The Hot Rock
2. The Valley Of Gwangi
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
4. To Have And Have Not
5. The Third Man
6. Below
7. It Happened One Night
8. State And Main
9. Furious 6
10. Vengeance
11. Running Scared (1986)
12. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
13. The Thing From Another World
14. Matilda
15. The Shaolin Temple
16. The Avengers
17. The Raid
18. In The Heat Of The Night
19. Dillinger
20. The Mission (Johnnie To Film)
21. Odds Against Tomorrow
22. Outrage
23. My Name Is Nobody
24. The Wolverine
25. Fulltime Killer
26. Muppets From Space
27. The Man With The Iron Fists
28. Mad Detective
29. Batman Returns
30. Riddick
31. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
32. Captain Phillips
33. The Lego Movie
34. Now You See Me
35. Bull Durham
36. Nebraska
37. Big Trouble In Little China
38. Death Rides A Horse
39. Zero Effect
40. The Mercenary
41. A Fistful Of Dollars
42. World War Z
43. Batman
44. Monte Walsh (1970)
45. Ride The High Country
46. The 13th Warrior
47. Nothing Left To Fear
48. Raiders of the Lost Ark
49. Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
50. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
51. Mud
52. Stagecoach
53. Kill Bill Vol. 2
54. Iron Man Three
55. Dallas Buyers Club
56. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
57. Looking for Richard
58. Fort Apache
59. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2
60. 12 Years A Slave
61. Dead Man
62. Macbeth (Welles)

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4.19.2014

More On Orson Welles' Voodoo Macbeth

More on Orson Welles' Voodoo Macbeth

Orson Welles' Macbeth Intro

Theater Talk: Patrick Stewart, Rupert Goold on Macbeth

Orson Welles' Voodoo Macbeth

4.18.2014

Tom Hiddleston Performs Henry V Monologue

The Seventh Inning by Donald Hall

The Seventh Inning
By Donald Hall

1.   Baseball, I warrant, is not the whole
occupation of the aging boy.
Far from it: There are cats and roses;
there is her water body. She fills
the skin of her legs up, like water;
under her blouse, water assembles,
swelling lukewarm; her mouth is water,
her cheekbones cool water; water flows
in her rapid hair. I drink water

2.   from her body as she walks past me
to open a screen door, as she bends
to wee among herbs, or as she lies
beside me at five in the morning
in submarine light. Curt Davis threw
a submarine ball, terrifying
to right-handed batters. Another
pleasure, thoroughly underrated,
is micturition, which is even

3.   commoner than baseball. It begins
by announcing itself more slowly
and less urgently than sexual
desire, but (confusingly) in the
identical place. Ignorant men
therefore on occasion confuse beer-
drinking with love; but I have discussed
adultery elsewhere. We allow
this sweet release to commence itself,

4.   addressing a urinal perhaps,
perhaps poised over a white toilet
with feet spread wide and head tilted back:
oh, what'delicious permission! what
luxury of letting go! what luxe
yellow curve of mildest ecstasy!
Granted we may not compare it to
poignant and crimson bliss, it is as
voluptuous as rain all night long

5.   after baseball in August's parch. The
jade plant's trunk, as thick as a man's wrist,
urges upward thrusting from packed dirt,
with Chinese vigor spreading limbs out
that bear heavy leaves - palpable, dark,
juicy, green, profound: They suck, the way
bleacher fans claim inhabitants of
box seats do. The Fourth of July we
exhaust stars from sparklers in the late

6.   twilight. We swoop ovals of white-gold
flame, making quick signatures against
an imploding dark. The five-year-old
girl kisses the young dog goodbye and
chases the quick erratic kitten.
When she returns in a few years as
a tall shy girl, she will come back to
a dignified spreading cat and a
dog ash-gray on the muzzle. Sparklers

7.   expel quickly this night of farewell:
If they didn't burn out, they wouldn't
be beautiful. Kurt, may I hazard
an opinion on expansion? Last
winter meetings, the major leagues (al-
ready meager in ability,
scanty in starting pitchers) voted
to add two teams. Therefore minor league
players will advance all too quickly,

8.   with boys in the bigs who wouldn't have
made double-A forty years ago.
Directors of player personnel
will search like poets scrambling in old
notebooks for unused leftover lines,
but when was the last time anyone
cut back when he or she could expand?
Kurt, I get the notion that you were
another who never discarded

9.   anything, a keeper from way back.
You smoked cigarettes, in inflation-
times rolled from chopped-up banknotes, billions
inhaled and exhaled as cancerous
smoke. When commerce woke, Men was awake.
If you smoked a cigar, the cigar
band discovered itself glued into
collage. Ongoing life became the
material of Kurtschwittersball.

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The Seafarer by Ezra Pound

The Seafarer
By Ezra Pound

May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care's hold,
And dire sea-urge, and there I oft spent
Narrow nightwatch night the ship's head
While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,
My feet were by frost benumbed.
Chill its chains are; chafing sighs
Hew my heart round and hunger begot
Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not
That he on dry land loveliest liveth,
List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,
Weathered the winter, wretched outcast
Deprived of my kinsmen;
Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,
There I heard naught save the harsh sea
And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,
Did for my games the gannet's clamour,
Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter,
The mews' singing all my mead drink.
Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten. fell on the stern
In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed
With spray on his pinion.
                    Not any protector
May make merry man faring needy.
This he little believes, who aye, in winsome life
Abides 'mid burgers some heavy business,
Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft
Must bide above brine.
Neareth nightshade, snoweth from the north,
Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then
Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now
The heart's thought that I on high streams
The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.
Moaneth alway my mind's lust
That I fare forth, that I afar hence
Seek out a foreign fastness.
For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst,
Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed;
Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful
But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare
Whatever his lord will.
He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having
Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight
Not any whit else save the wave's slash,
Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water
Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,
Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,
All this admonisheth man eager of mood,
The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks
On flood-ways to be far departing.
Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,
He singeth summeward, bodeth sorrow,
The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not -
He the prosperous man - what some perform
Where wandering them widest draweth.
So that but now my heart burst from breast-lock,
My mood 'mid the mere-flood,
Over the whale's acre, would wander wide.
On earth's shelter cometh oft to me,
Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,
Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,
O'er the tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow
My lord deems to me this dead life
On loan and on land, I believe not
That any earth-weal eternal standeth
Save there be somewhat calamitous
That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain.
Disease or oldness or sword-hate
Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.
And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after -
Laud of the living boasath some last word,
That he will work ere he pass onward,
Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice,
Daring ado, ...
So that all men shall honour him after
And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,
Aye, for ever,  a lasting life's blast,
Delight mid the doughty.
                     Days little durable,
And all arrogance  of earthen riches,
There come no no kings nor Caesars
Nor gold-living lords like those gone.
Howe'er in mirth most magnified,
Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,
Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!
Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.
Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low.
Earthly glory ageth and seareth.
No man at all going the earth's gait,
But age fares against him, his face paleth,
Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,
Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven,
Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,
Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,
Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,
And though he strew the grave with gold,
His born brothers, their buried bodies
Be an unlikely treasure hoard.

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James Earl Jones Reading Part Of Othello

Labyrinth of Shakespeare - Tom Hiddleston

Stars on Shakespeare

The Grand Budapest Hotel - Anatomy of a Scene w/ Wes Anderson

Woody Allen on Goodfellas

4.17.2014

A Conversation with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola

A Talk With Hitchcock

Movies in 2014

1. The Hot Rock
2. The Valley Of Gwangi
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
4. To Have And Have Not
5. The Third Man
6. Below
7. It Happened One Night
8. State And Main
9. Furious 6
10. Vengeance
11. Running Scared (1986)
12. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
13. The Thing From Another World
14. Matilda
15. The Shaolin Temple
16. The Avengers
17. The Raid
18. In The Heat Of The Night
19. Dillinger
20. The Mission (Johnnie To Film)
21. Odds Against Tomorrow
22. Outrage
23. My Name Is Nobody
24. The Wolverine
25. Fulltime Killer
26. Muppets From Space
27. The Man With The Iron Fists
28. Mad Detective
29. Batman Returns
30. Riddick
31. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
32. Captain Phillips
33. The Lego Movie
34. Now You See Me
35. Bull Durham
36. Nebraska
37. Big Trouble In Little China
38. Death Rides A Horse
39. Zero Effect
40. The Mercenary
41. A Fistful Of Dollars
42. World War Z
43. Batman
44. Monte Walsh (1970)
45. Ride The High Country
46. The 13th Warrior
47. Nothing Left To Fear
48. Raiders of the Lost Ark
49. Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
50. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
51. Mud
52. Stagecoach
53. Kill Bill Vol. 2
54. Iron Man Three
55. Dallas Buyers Club
56. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
57. Looking for Richard
58. Fort Apache
59. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2
60. 12 Years A Slave
61. Dead Man

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Baseball and Classicism by Tom Clark

Baseball and Classicism
By Tom Clark

Every day I peruse the box scores for hours
Sometimes I wonder why I do it
Since I am not going to take a test on it
And no one is going to give me money

The pleasure's something like that of codes
Of deciphering an ancient alphabet say
So as brightly to picturize Eurydice
In the Elysian Fields on her perfect day

The day she went 5 for 5 against Vic Rashi

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A Channel Passage by Rupert Brooke

A Channel Passage
By Rupert Brooke

The damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick
   My cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knew
I must think hard of something, or be sick;
   And could think hard of only one thing - you!
You, you alone could hold my fancy ever!
   And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole.
Now there's a choice - heartache or tortured liver!
   A sea-sick body, or a you-sick soul!

Do I forget you? Retchings twist and tie me,
   Old meat, good meals, brown gobbets, up I throw.
Do I remember? Acrid return and slimy,
   The sobs and slobber of a last year's woe.
And still the sick ship rolls. 'Tis hard, I tell ye,
To choose 'twixt love and nausea, heart and belly.

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A Channel Passage by Algernon Charles Swinburne

A Channel Passage
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,
Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:
Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade men welcome: a dim sweet hour
Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower.
Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the starbright air
Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair.

Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark?
Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark.
Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, was saw the lightnings exalt the sky,
Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten and die.
Heaven's own heart as its highest of delight found utterance in music and semblance in fire:
Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the night's desire.

And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free:
And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea.
All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught:
And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things dstraught.
And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind:
And the might and the light and the darkness of storm where as storm in the heart of Ind.
Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the far fierce East,
Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night as an altar with death for a priest.
The channel that sunders England from shores where never was man born free
Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and the wrath of a tropic sea.
As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from a backward fall,
The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a sheer cliff's wall.

Stern and prow plunged under, alternate; a glimpse, a recoil, a breath,
And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the throat of death.
Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal joy,
Filed full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird's heart in a boy.
For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and flamed, sublime
As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the pulse of time.
The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light overheard,
The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the fire of a word,
In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of the sea,
And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but when heaven breathed free.

Far eastward, clear of the covering cloud, the sly laughed into light
From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with flames that were flowerlike and white.
The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as they fade
From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in the light they made.
Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous tune,
Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of the moon.
The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams may behold, and deep
As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the soul through sleep.
All gloried of toil and triumph and passion and pride that it yearns to know
Bore witness there to the soul  of its likeness and kinship, above and below.

The joys of the lightnings, the sings of the thunders, the strong sea's labours and rage,
Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the soul to wage.
No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths that the night made bare,
Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of air--
Air thrilled and stilled by the tempest that thundered between its reign and the sea's,
Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that bows men's knees.
No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike vision in dreams
Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love for a breath's length seems--
One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with love that subsides
As the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with storm, and released the tides.

In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering, assailed and withheld
As a soul born royal. if life or if death be against it, is thwarted or quelled.
As the glories of myriads of glowworms in lustrous grass on a boundless lawn
Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a light like dawn.
A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning sea,
And the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear as a tune could be;
As a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the keys of life or of sleep,
Audible always alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream to keep:
Too fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought to remember awake:
Light subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and laughs in the live storm's wake,
In the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud hear of the labouring hour,
A harvest of star's by the storm's hand reaped, each fair as a star-shaped flower.
And the sudden and soft as the passing of sleep is the passing of tempest seemed
When the light and the sound of it sank. and the glory was gone as a dream half dreamed.
The glory, the terror, the passion that made of the midnight a miracle, died,
Not slain a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power and of pride;
With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of power upon earth,
As a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a new God's birth,
The might of the night subsided: the tyranny kindled in darkness fell:
And the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and radiance of heaven and of hell.

The waters, heaving and hungering at heart, made way, and were wellnigh fain,
For the ship that had fought them, and wrestled, and revelled in labour, to cease from her pain.
And an end was made of it: only remembrance endures of the glad loud strife;
And the sense that a rapture so royal may come not again in the passage of life.

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4.16.2014

Martin Scorsese on Story vs Plot

Hitchcock Explains Cutting

Roots


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Coffee?

Yes, please.


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Analysis of Baseball by May Swenson

Analysis of Baseball
by May Swenson

It's about
the ball,
the bat,
and the mitt.
Ball hits
bat, or it
hits mitt.
Bat doesn't
hit ball, bat
meets it.
Ball bounces
off bat, flies
air, or thuds
ground (dud)
or it
fits mitt.

Bat waits
for ball
to mate.
Bat hates
to take bat's
bait. Ball
flirts, bat's
late, don't
keep the date.
Ball goes in
(thwack) to mit,
and goes out,
(thwack) back
to mitt.

Ball fits
mitt, but
not all
the time.
Sometimes
ball gets hit
(pow) when bat
meets it,
and sails
to a place
where mitt
has to quit
in disgrace.
That's about
the bases
loaded,
about 40,000
fans exploded.

It's about
the ball,
the bat,
the mitt,
the bases
and the fans.
It's done
on a diamond,
and for fun.
It's about
home, and it's
about run.

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A Sailor's Song by Paul Laurence Dunbar

A Sailor's Song
By Paul Laurence Dunbar

Of for the breath of the briny deep,
And the tug of a bellying sail,
With the sea-gull's cry across the sky
And a passing boatman's hail.
For, be she fierce or be she gay,
The sea is a famous friend alway.

Ho! For the plains where the dolphins play,
And the bend of the mast and spars,
And a fight at night with the wild sea-sprite
When the foam has drowned the stars.
And, pray, what joy can the landsman feel
Like the rise and fall of a sliding keel?

Fair is the mead; the lawn is fair
And the birds sing sweet on the lea;
But echo soft of a song aloft
Is the strain that pleases me;
And swish of rope and swing of chain
Are music to men who sail the main.

Then, if you love me, let me sail
While a vessel dares the deep;
For the ship's wife, and the breath of life
Are the raging gales that sweep;
And when I'm done with the calm and blast,
A slide o'er the side, and rest at last.

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4.15.2014

Drive-in Movies - Ray Lamontagne

A Fistful of Dynamite/Duck You Sucker

Baseball and Writing by Marianne Moore

Baseball And Writing
by Marianne Moore

(Suggested by post-game broadcasts)

Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
   You can never tell with either
      how it will go
      or what you will do;
   generating excitement--
   a fever in the victim--
   pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
      Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
      To whom does it apply?
      Who is excited? Might it be I?

When three players on a side play three positions
and modify conditions,
   the massive run need not be everything.
      "Going, going..." Is
      it? Roger Maris
   has it, running fast. You will
   never see a finer catch. Well ...
   "Mickey, leaping like the devil" -- why
      gild it, although deer sounds better --
snares what was speeding towards its treetop nest,
      one-handing the souvenir-to-be
      meant to be caught by you or me.

Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral;
he could handle any missile.
   He is no feather. "Strike! ... Strike two!"
      Fouled back. A blur.
      It's gone. You would infer
   that the bat had eyes.
   He put the wood to that one.
Praised, Skowron says, "Thanks Mel.
   I think I helped a little bit."
      All business, each, and modesty.
      Blanchard, Richardson, Kubek, Boyer.
      In that galaxy of nine, say which
      won the pennant? Each. It was he.

Those two magnificent saves from the knee-throws
by Boyer, finesses in two--
   like Whitey's three kinds of pitch and pre-
      diagnosis
      with pick-off psychosis.
   Pitching is a large subject.
   Your arm, too true at first, can learn to
   catch your corners-- even trouble
      Mickey Mantle. ("Grazed a Yankee!
My baby pitcher, Montejo!"
      With some pedagogy,
      you'll be tough, premature prodigy.)

They crowd him and curve him and aim for the knees. Trying
indeed! The secret implying:
   "I can stand here; bat held steady."
      One may suit him;
      none has hit him.
   Imponderables smite him.
   Muscle kinks, infections, spike wounds
   require food, rest, respite from ruffians. (Drat it!
      Celebrity costs privacy!)
Cow's milk, "tiger's milk," soy milk, carrot juice,
      brewer's yeast (high-potency--
      concentrates presage victory

sped by Luis Arroyo, Hector Lopez--
deadly in a pinch. And "Yes!
   it's work; I want you to bear down,
      but enjoy it
      while you're doing it."
   Mr. Houk and Mr. Sain,
   if you have a rummage sale,
   don't sell Roland Sheldon or Tom Tresh.
      Studded with stars in belt and crown,
the Stadium is an adastrium.
      O flashing Orion,
      your stars are muscled like the lion.

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Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Crossing the Bar
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
   And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
   When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
   Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep,
   Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
   And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
   When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
   The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face,
   When I have crossed the bar.

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4.14.2014

Elmore Leonard On Writing Westerns

The Making of Thunderball


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For A Few Dollars More Commentary Track

Christmas at Sea By Robert Louis Stevenson

Christmas at Sea
By Robert Louis Stevenson

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

We gave the south a wider berth, for there the tide-race roar;
But every tack we made we brought the north Head close aboard:
So's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.

The frost on the village roofs as white as the ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every 'long-shore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it's just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year),
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard's was the house where I was born.

Oh well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.

They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
"All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the captain call.
"By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first mate Jackson, cried.
..."It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson," he replied.

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as thought she understood.
As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

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Dream Of A Baseball Star by Gregory Corso

Dream Of A Baseball Star
by Gregory Corso

I dreamed Ted Williams
leaning at night
against the Eiffel Tower, weeping.

He was in uniform
and his bat lay at his feet
- knotted and twiggy.

"Randall Jarrell says you're a poet!" I cried.
"So do I! I say you're a poet!"

He picked up his bat with blown hands;
stood there astraddle as he would in the batter's box,
and laughed! flinging his schoolboy wrath
toward some invisible pitcher's mound
- waiting the pitch all the way from heaven.

It came; hundreds came! all afire!
He swung and swung and swung and connected not one
sinker curve hook or right-down-the middle.
A hundred strikes!
The umpire dressed in strange attire
thundered his judgement: YOU'RE OUT!
And the phantom crowd's horrific boo
dispersed the gargoyles from Notre Dame.

And I screamed in my dream:
God! throw thy merciful pitch!
Herald the crack of bats!
hooray the sharp liner to left!
Yea the double, the triple!
Hosannah the home run!

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4.13.2014

"My Name Is John Ford: I Make Movies."

A Fistful of Dollars Audio Commentary

Quentin Tarantino On McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Pablo Ferro: A Career Retrospective

Beneath The Surface by Priscilla Lee

Beneath the Surface
By Priscilla Lee

In a fish cleaning station near the equator,
off the coast of Africa, summer stretches
over the barracudas, their long mirrored-chrome
bodies heap like eel fillets, slung jaws gaping,
red canine teeth exposed as if they still crave
meat and muscle. Even dead, they are melancholy fish,
never satisfied, always wanting to bite off
more than they can chew, their curious white eyes
in a lidless showdown with an existence
beyond the visible. Maybe they are the spawn
of the serpent who prowled and tempted Eve,
cast into the saltwater. They are terrifying and defiant,
their pointed heads hammering towards the light,
waiting for the first sign of weakness. The fishermen
catch them hovering just beneath the surface.
What is it like to die with your eyes wide open
in the bright sun?

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Grand Slam by Marjorie Maddox

Grand Slam
by Marjorie Maddox

Dream brimming over,
childhood stretched out in legs,
this is the moment replayed on winter days
when frost covers the field,
when age steals away wishes.
Glorious sleep that seeps back there
to glory of our baseball days.

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The Making Of Goldfinger


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Tao In The Tankee Stadium Bleachers by John Updike

Tao In The Yankee Stadium Bleechers
by John Updike

Distance bring proportion. From here
the populated tiers
as much as players seem part of the show:
a constructed stage beast, three folds of Dante's rose.
or a Chinese military hat
cunningly chased with bodies.
"Falling from his chariot, a drunk man is unhurt
because his soul is intact. Not knowing his fall,
he is unastonished, he is invulnerable."
So, too, the "pure man"-"pure"
in the sense of undisturbed water.

"It is not necessary to seek out
a wasteland, swamp, or thicket."
The opposing pitcher's pertinent hesitations,
the sky, this meadow, Mantle's thick baked neck,
the old men who in the changing rosters see
a personable mutability,
green slats, wet stone are all to me
as when an emperor commands
a performance with a gesture of his eyes.

"No king on his throne has the joy of the dead,"
the skull told Chuang-tzu.
The thought of death is peppermint to you
when games begin with patriotic song
and a democratic sun beats broadly down.
The Inner Journey seems unjudgeably long
when small boys purchase cups of ice
and, distant as a pradise,
experts, passionate and deft,
hold motionless while Berra flies to left.

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Requiem by Robert Louis Stevenson

Requiem
By Robert Louis Stevenson

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die.
   And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
   And the hunter home from the hill.

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4.12.2014

Edgar Wright On American Werewolf In London

The Making Of From Russia With Love

Movies in 2014

1. The Hot Rock
2. The Valley Of Gwangi
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
4. To Have And Have Not
5. The Third Man
6. Below
7. It Happened One Night
8. State And Main
9. Furious 6
10. Vengeance
11. Running Scared (1986)
12. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
13. The Thing From Another World
14. Matilda
15. The Shaolin Temple
16. The Avengers
17. The Raid
18. In The Heat Of The Night
19. Dillinger
20. The Mission (Johnnie To Film)
21. Odds Against Tomorrow
22. Outrage
23. My Name Is Nobody
24. The Wolverine
25. Fulltime Killer
26. Muppets From Space
27. The Man With The Iron Fists
28. Mad Detective
29. Batman Returns
30. Riddick
31. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
32. Captain Phillips
33. The Lego Movie
34. Now You See Me
35. Bull Durham
36. Nebraska
37. Big Trouble In Little China
38. Death Rides A Horse
39. Zero Effect
40. The Mercenary
41. A Fistful Of Dollars
42. World War Z
43. Batman
44. Monte Walsh (1970)
45. Ride The High Country
46. The 13th Warrior
47. Nothing Left To Fear
48. Raiders of the Lost Ark
49. Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
50. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
51. Mud
52. Stagecoach
53. Kill Bill Vol. 2
54. Iron Man Three
55. Dallas Buyers Club
56. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
57. Looking for Richard
58. Fort Apache
59. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2
60. 12 Years A Slave

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Cobb Would Have Caught It By Robert Fitzgerald

Cobb Would Have Caught It
By Robert Fitzgerald

In sunburnt parks where Sundays lie,
Or the wide wastes beyond the cities,
Team in grey deploy through sunlight.

Talk it up, boys, a little practice.

Coming in stubby and fast, the baseman
Gathers a grounder in fat green grass,
Picks it stinging and clipped as wit
Into the leather: a swinging step
Wings it deadeye down to first.
Smack. Oh, attaboy, attyoldboy.

Catcher reverses his cap, pulls down
Sweaty casque, and squats in the dust:
Pitcher rubs new ball on his pants,
Chewing, puts a jet behind him;
Nods past batter, taking his time.
Batter settles, tugs at his cap:
A spinning ball: step and swing to it,
Caught like a cheek before it ducks
By shivory hickory: socko, baby:
Cleats dig into dust. Outfielder,
On his way, looking over shoulder,
Makes it a triple. A long peg home.

Innings and afternoons. Fly lost in sunset.
Throwing arm gone bad. There's your old ball game.
Cool reek of the field. Reek of companions.

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4.11.2014

A Ballad of Boding by Christina Rossetti

A Ballad of Boding
by Christina Rossetti

There are sleeping dreams and waking dreams;
What seems is not always as it seems.

I looked out of my window in the sweet new morning,
And there I saw three barges of manifold adorning
Went sailing toward the East:
The first had sails like fire,
The next like glittering wine,
But sackcloth were the sails of the least;
And all the crews made music, and two had spread a feast.

The first choir breathed in flutes,
And fingered soft guitars;
The second won from lutes
Harmonious chords and jars,
With drums for stormy bars;
But the third was all of harpers and scarlet trumpeters;
Notes of triumph, then
An alarm again,
As for onset, as for victory, rallies, stirs,
Peace at last and glory to the vanquishers.

The first barge showed for figurehead a Love with wings;
The second showed for figurehead a Worm with stings;
The third, a Lily tangled to a rose which clings.
The first bore for freight gold and spice and down;
The second bore a sword, a sceptre, and a crown;
The third, a heap of earth gone to dust and brown.
Winged Love meseemed like Folly in the face;
Stinged Worm meseemed loathly in his place;
Lily and Rose were flowers of grace.

Merry went the revel of the fire-sailed crew,
Singing, feasting, dancing to and fro:
Pleasures ever changing, ever graceful, ever new;
Signs, but scarce of woe;
All the sighing
Wooed such sweet replying;
All the sighing, sweet and low,
Used to come and go
For more pleasure, merely so.
Yet at intervals someone grew tired
Of everything desired,
And sank, I knew not whither, in sorry plight,
Out of sight.

The second crew seemed ever
Wider-visioned, graver,
More distinct of purpose, more sustained of will;
With head erect and proud,
And voices sometimes loud;
With endless tacking, counter-tacking,
All things grasping, all things lacking,
It would seem;
Ever shifting helm, or sail, or shroud,
Drifting on as in a dream.
Hoarding to their utmost bent,
Feasting to their fill,
Yet gnawed by discontent,
Envy, hatred, malice, on their road they went.
Their freight was not a treasure,
Their music not a pleasure;
The sword flashed, cleaving through their bands,
Sceptre and crown changed hands.

The third crew as they went
Seemed mostly different;
They toiled in rowing, for to them the wind was contrary,
As all the world might see.
The labored at the oar,
While on their heads they bore
The fiery stress of sunshine more and more.
They labored at the oar hand-sore,
Till rain went splashing,
And spray went dashing,
Down on them, and up on them, more and more.
Their sails were patched and rent,
Their masts were bent,
In peril of their lives they worked and went.
For them no feast was spread,
No soft luxurious bed
Scented and white,
No crown or sceptre hung in sight;
In weariness and painfulness,
In thirst and sore distress,
They rowed and steered from left to right
With all their might.
Their trumpeters and harpers round about
Incessantly played out,
And sometimes they made answer with a shout;
But oftener they groaned or wept,
And seldom paused to eat, and seldom slept.
I wept for pity watching them, but more
I wept heart-sore
Once and again to see
Some weary man plunge overboard, and swim
To Love or Worm ship floating buoyantly:
And there all welcomed him.

The ships steered each apart and seemed to scorn each other,
Yet all the crew were interchangeable;
Now one man, now another,
-Like bloodless spectres some, some flushed by health,-
Changed openly, or changed by stealth,
Scaling a slippery slide, and scaled it well.
The most left Love ship, hauling wealth
Up Worm ship's side;
While some few hollow-eyed
Left either for the sack-sailed boat;
But this, though not remote,
Was worst to mount. and whoso left it once
Scarce ever came again,
But seemed to loathe his erst companions,
And wish and work them bane.

Then I knew (I know not how) there lurked quicksands full of dread,
Rocks and reefs and whirlpools in the water-bed,
Whence a waterspout
Instantaneously leaped out,
Roaring as it reared its head.

Soon I spied a something dim,
Many-handed, grim,
That went flitting to and fro the first and second ship;
It puffed their sails full out
With puffs of smoky breath
From a smouldering lip,
And cleared the waterspout
Which reeled roaring round about
Threatening death.
With a horny hand it steered,
And a horn appeared
On its sneering head upreared
Haughty and high
Against the blackening lowering sky.
With a hoof it swayed the waves;
They opened here and there,
Till I spied deep ocean graves
Full of skeletons
That were men and women once
Foul or fair;
Full of things that creep
And fester in the deep
And never breathe the clean life-nurturing air.

The third bark held aloof
From the Monster with the hoof,
Despite his urgent beck,
And fraught with guile
Abominable his smile;
Till I saw him take a flying leap on to that deck.
Then full of awe,
With these same eyes I saw
His head incredible retract its horn
Rounding like babe's new born,
While silvery phosphorescence played
About his dis-honored head.
The sneer smoothed from his lip,
He beamed blandly on the ship;
All winds sank to a moan,
All waves to a monotone
(For all these seamed his realm),
While he laid a strong caressing  hand upon the helm.

Then a cry well nigh of despair
Shrieked to heaven, a clamor of desperate prayer.
The harpers harped to more,
Whole the trumpeters sounded sore
An alarm to wake the dead from their bed:
To the rescue, to the rescue, now or never,
To the rescue, O ye living, O ye dead,
Or no more help or hope for ever!-
The planks strained as though they must part asunder,
The masts bent as though they must dip under,
And the winds and the waves at length
Girt up their strength,
And the depths were laid bare,
And heaven flashed fire and volleyed thunder
Through the rain-choked air,
And sea and sky seemed to kiss
In the horror and the hiss
Of the whole world shuddering everywhere.

Lo! a Flyer swooping down
With wings to span the globe,
And splendor for his robe
And splendor for his crown.
He lighted on the helm with a foot of fire,
And spun the Monster overboard:
And that monstrous thing abhorred,
Gnashing with balked desire,
Wriggled like a worm infirm
Up the Worm
Of the loathly figurehead.
There he crouched and gnashed;
And his head re-horned, and gashed
From the other's grapple, dripped bloody red.

I saw that thing accurst
Wreak his worst
On the first and second crew:
Some with baited hook
He angled for and took,
Some dragged overboard in a net he threw,
Some he did to death
With hoof or horn or blasting breath.

I heard a voice of wailing
Where the ships went sailing,
A sorrowful voice prevailing
Above the sound of the sea,
Above the singers' voices,
And musical merry noises;
All songs had turned to sighing,
The light was failing,
The day was dying--
Ah me,
That such a sorrow should be!

There was sorrow on the sea and sorrow on the land
When Love ship went down by the bottomless quicksand
To its grave in the bitter wave.
There was sorrow on the sea and sorrow on the land
When Worm ship went to pieces on the rock-bound strand,
And bitter wave was its grave.
But land and sea waxed hoary
In whiteness of a glory
Never told in story
Nor seen by mortal eye,
When the third ship crossed the bar
Where whirls and breakers are,
And steered into the splendors of the sky;
That third bark and that least
Which had never seemed to feast,
Yet kept high festival above sun and moon and star.

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Shooting Arrows in Throne Of Blood

On The Violence of Seven Samurai

Profiles in Editing - Akira Kurosawa

Joe - Anatomy of a Scene w/ David Gordon Green

The Making Of Dr. No


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A Ballad of Baseball Burdens by Franklin Pierce Adams

A Ballad Of Baseball Burdens
By Franklin Pierce Adams

The burden of hard hitting. Slug away
    Like Honus Wagner or Tyrus Cobb.
Else fandom shouteth: "Who said you can play?"
    Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!"
    Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job.
Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom's ire
    Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob --
This is the end of every fan's desire.

The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight,
    Or in or out. or haply up or down.
To puzzle him that standeth by the plate,
    To lessen, so to speak, his bat-renoun;
    Like Chrissy Mathewson or Miner Brown;
So pitch that every man can but admire
    And offer you the freedom of the town --
This is the end of every fan's desire.

The burden of loud cheering. O the sounds!
    The tumult and the shouting from the throats
Of forty thousand at the Polo Grounds
     Sitting, ay, standing sans their hats and coats.
     A mighty cheer that possibly denotes
That Cub or Pirate fat is in the fire;
    Or, as H. James would say, We've got their goats --
This is the end of every fan's desire.

The burden of a pennant. O the hope,
    The tenuous hope, the hope that's half a fear,
The lengthy season and the boundless dope,
    And the bromidic, "Wait until next year."
    O dread disgrace of trailing in the rear,
O Piece of Bunting, flying high and higher
    That next October it shall flutter here --
This is the end of every fan's desire.

ENVOY

Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry but the Chase
    Be that to which most fondly we aspire!
For us not Stake, but Game; not Goal, but Race--
    THIS is the end of every fan's desire.

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Song For All Seas, All Ships by Walt Whitman

Song For All Seas, All Ships
By Walt Whitman

I

To-day a rude brief recitative,
Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal;
Of unnamed heroes in the ships-Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach;
Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing;
And out of these a chant, for the sailors of all nations,
Fitful, like a surge.

Of Sea-Captains young or old, and the Mates-and all intrepid Sailors;
Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise, nor death dismay,
Pick'd sparingly, without noise, by thee, old Ocean-chosen by thee,
Thou Sea, that pickest and cullest the race, in Time, unitest Nations!
Suckled by thee, old husky Nurse-embodying thee!
Indomitable, untamed as thee.

(Ever the heroes, on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,
Ever the stock preserv'd, and never lost, though rare-enough for seed preserv'd.)

II

Flaunt out O Sea, your separate flags of nations!
Flaunt out, visible as ever, the various ship-signals!
But do you reserve especially for yourself, and for the soul of man, one flag above all the rest,
A spiritual woven Signal, for all nations, emblem of man elate above death,
Token of all brave captains, and all intrepid sailors and mates,
And all that went down doing their duty;
Reminiscent of them'twined from all intrepid captains, young or old;
A pennant universal, subtly waving, all time, o'er all brave sailors,
All seas, all ships.

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4.10.2014

Twelfth Night

The Making of You Only Live Twice

Ray Harryhausen on King Kong

David Arnold On You Only Live Twice

Talking Pictures - Orson Welles

Casey's Revenge by Grantland Rice

Casey's Revenge
By Grantland Rice

There were saddened hearts in Mudville for a week or even more;
There muttered oaths and curses -- every fan in town was sore.
"Just think," said one, "how soft it looked with Casey at the bat,
And to think he'd go and spring a bush league trick like that!"

All his past fame was forgotten -- he was now a hopeless "shine."
They called him "Strike Out Casey," from the mayor down the line;
And as he came to bat each day his bosom heaved a sigh,
While a look of hopeless fury shone in mighty Casey's eye.

He pondered in the days gone by that he had been their king,
That when he strolled up to the plate they made the welkin ring;
But now his nerve had vanished for when he heard them hoot
He "fanned" and "popped out" daily, like some minor league recruit.

He soon began to sulk and loaf, his batting eye went lame;
No home runs on the score card now were chalked against his name;
The fans without exception gave the manager no peace,
For one and all kept clamoring for Casey's quick release.

The Mudville squad began to slump, the team was in the air;
Their playing went from bad to worse -- nobody seemed to care.
"Back to the woods with Casey!" was the cry from Rooters' Row.
"Get some one who can hit the ball, and let the big dub go!"

The lane is long, some one has said, that never turns again,
And Fate, though fickle, often gives another chance to men;
And Casey smiled; his rugged face no longer wore a frown --
The pitcher who had started all the trouble came to town.

All Mudville had assembled -- ten thousand fans had come
To see the twirler who had put big Casey on the bum;
And when he stepped into the box, the multitude went wild;
He doffed his cap with proud disdain, but Casey only smiled.

"Play ball!" the umpire's voice rang out, and then the game began.
But in that throng of thousands there was not a single fan
Who thought that Mudville had a chance, and with the setting sun
Their hopes sank low -- the rival team was leading "four to none."

The last half of the ninth came round, with no change in the score;
But when the first man up hit safe, the crowd began to roar;
The din increased, the echo of ten thousand fans was heard
When the pitcher hit the second and gave "four balls" to the third.

Three men on base -- nobody out -- three runs to tie the game!
A triple meant the highest niche in Mudville's hall of fame;
But here the rally ended and the gloom was deep as night,
When the fourth one "fouled to the catcher" and the fifth "flew out to right."

A dismal groan in chorus came; a scowl was on each face
When Casey walked up, bat in hand, and slowly took his place;
His bloodshot eyes in fury gleamed, his teeth were clenched in hate;
He gave his cap a vicious hook and pounded the plate.

But fame is fleeting as the wind and glory fades away;
There were no wild and woolly cheers, no glad acclaim this day;
They hissed and groaned and hooted as they clamored: "Strike him out!"
But Casey gave no outward sign that he had heard this shout.

The pitcher smiled and cut one loose -- across the plate it sped;
Another hiss, another groan. "Strike one!" the umpire said.
Zip! Like a shot the second curve broke just below the knee.
"Strike two!" the umpire roared aloud; but Casey made no plea.

No roasting for the umpire now -- his was an easy lot;
But here the pitcher whirled again -- was that a rifle shot?
A whack, a crack, and out through the space the leather pellet flew,
A blot against the distant sky, a speck against the blue.

Above the fence in center field in rapid whirling flight
The sphere sailed on -- the blot grew dim and then was lost to sight.
Ten thousand hats were thrown in air, ten thousand threw a fit,
But no one ever found the ball that mighty Casey hit.

O, somewhere in this favored land dark clouds may hide the sun,
And somewhere bands no longer play and children have no fun!
And somewhere over blighted lives there hangs a heavy pall,
But Mudville hearts are happy now, for Casey hit the ball.

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Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach
By Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; -- on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, abd it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing by this distant northern sea.
The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world which seams
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

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4.09.2014

Casey At The Bat by Ernest L. Thayer

Casey At The Bat
by Ernest L. Thayer

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first,  and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upn the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They though, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that-
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, tot he wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It pounded on the mountain and  recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded  when he wiped them on his shirt;
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance flashed in Casey's eyes, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

A now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.

Form the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, "Strike two!"

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
And now the pitcher hold the ball, and now he let's it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

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The Sailor Boy by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Sailor Boy
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He rose at dawn, and fired with hope,
    Shot o'er the seething harbour-bar,
And reach'd the ship and caught the rope,
    And whistled to the morning star.

And while he whistled long and loud
    He heard a fierce mermaiden cry
"O boy, tho' thou are young and proud.
    I see the place where thou will lie.

"The sands and yeasty surges mix
     In caves about the dreary bay,
And on thy ribs the limpet sticks,
     And in thy heart the scrawl shall play."

"Fool," he answer'd, "death is sure
     To those that stay and those that roam,
But I will nevermore endure
     To sit with empty hands at home.

"My mother clings about my neck,
     My sisters crying, 'Stay for shame;'
My father raves of death and wreck,-
     They are all to blame, they are all to blame.

"God help me! save I take my part
     Of danger on the roaring sea,
A devil rises in my heart,
     Far worse than any death to me."

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4.08.2014

Richard Curtis: BAFTA Screenwriting Lecture

The Secret of the Sea by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Secret Of The Sea
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me
As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends,
All my dreams, come back to me.

Sails of silk and ropes of sandal,
Such as gleam in ancient lore;
And the singing of the sailors,
And the answer from the shore!

Most of all, the Spanish ballad
Haunts me oft, and tarries long,
Of the noble Count Arnaldos
And the sailor's mystic song.

Like the long waves on a sea-beach,
Where the sand as silver shines,
With a soft, monotonous cadence,
Flow its unrhymed lyric lines:-

Telling how the Count Arnoldos,
With his hawk upon his hand,
Saw a fair and stately galley,
Steering onward to the land: -

How he heard the ancient helmsman
Chant a song so wild and clear,
That the sailing sea-bird slowly
Poised upon the mast to hear,

Till his soul was full of longing,
And he cried, with impulse strong, -
"Helmsman! for the love of heaven,
Teach me, too, that wondrous song!"

"Wouldst thou," -so the helmsman answered,
"Learn the secret of the sea?
Only those who brave its dangers
Comprehend its mystery!"

In each sail that skims the horizon,
In each landward-blowing breeze,
I behold that stately galley,
Hear those mournful melodies;

Till my soul is full of longing
For the secret of the sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me.

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Twelfth Night Opening

The opening lines to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night:


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Movies in 2014

1. The Hot Rock
2. The Valley Of Gwangi
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
4. To Have And Have Not
5. The Third Man
6. Below
7. It Happened One Night
8. State And Main
9. Furious 6
10. Vengeance
11. Running Scared (1986)
12. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
13. The Thing From Another World
14. Matilda
15. The Shaolin Temple
16. The Avengers
17. The Raid
18. In The Heat Of The Night
19. Dillinger
20. The Mission (Johnnie To Film)
21. Odds Against Tomorrow
22. Outrage
23. My Name Is Nobody
24. The Wolverine
25. Fulltime Killer
26. Muppets From Space
27. The Man With The Iron Fists
28. Mad Detective
29. Batman Returns
30. Riddick
31. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
32. Captain Phillips
33. The Lego Movie
34. Now You See Me
35. Bull Durham
36. Nebraska
37. Big Trouble In Little China
38. Death Rides A Horse
39. Zero Effect
40. The Mercenary
41. A Fistful Of Dollars
42. World War Z
43. Batman
44. Monte Walsh (1970)
45. Ride The High Country
46. The 13th Warrior
47. Nothing Left To Fear
48. Raiders of the Lost Ark
49. Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
50. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
51. Mud
52. Stagecoach
53. Kill Bill Vol. 2
54. Iron Man Three
55. Dallas Buyers Club
56. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
57. Looking for Richard
58. Fort Apache

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4.06.2014

My Own Shakespeare


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BBC Shakespeare Unlocked - Julius Caesar

I Voted Yesterday

4.05.2014

Books in 2014

1. A Dance At The Slaughterhouse
2. A Walk Among The Tombstones
3. The Devil Knows You're Dead
4. Bandits
5. Slam The Big Door
6. The Red Pony
7. Callaghen

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Movies in 2014

1. The Hot Rock
2. The Valley Of Gwangi
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
4. To Have And Have Not
5. The Third Man
6. Below
7. It Happened One Night
8. State And Main
9. Furious 6
10. Vengeance
11. Running Scared (1986)
12. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
13. The Thing From Another World
14. Matilda
15. The Shaolin Temple
16. The Avengers
17. The Raid
18. In The Heat Of The Night
19. Dillinger
20. The Mission (Johnnie To Film)
21. Odds Against Tomorrow
22. Outrage
23. My Name Is Nobody
24. The Wolverine
25. Fulltime Killer
26. Muppets From Space
27. The Man With The Iron Fists
28. Mad Detective
29. Batman Returns
30. Riddick
31. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
32. Captain Phillips
33. The Lego Movie
34. Now You See Me
35. Bull Durham
36. Nebraska
37. Big Trouble In Little China
38. Death Rides A Horse
39. Zero Effect
40. The Mercenary
41. A Fistful Of Dollars
42. World War Z
43. Batman
44. Monte Walsh (1970)
45. Ride The High Country
46. The 13th Warrior
47. Nothing Left To Fear
48. Raiders of the Lost Ark
49. Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
50. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
51. Mud
52. Stagecoach
53. Kill Bill Vol. 2
54. Iron Man Three
55. Dallas Buyers Club

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Articles On Filmmaking Inspiration & Lessons

Sam Peckinpah's West

4.04.2014

Shakespeare In America

Tony Gilroy: BAFTA Screenwriting Lecture

Lee Marvin On John Ford & John Wayne

More Spielberg On John Ford

John Ford Interview

Movies in 2014

1. The Hot Rock
2. The Valley Of Gwangi
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
4. To Have And Have Not
5. The Third Man
6. Below
7. It Happened One Night
8. State And Main
9. Furious 6
10. Vengeance
11. Running Scared (1986)
12. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
13. The Thing From Another World
14. Matilda
15. The Shaolin Temple
16. The Avengers
17. The Raid
18. In The Heat Of The Night
19. Dillinger
20. The Mission (Johnnie To Film)
21. Odds Against Tomorrow
22. Outrage
23. My Name Is Nobody
24. The Wolverine
25. Fulltime Killer
26. Muppets From Space
27. The Man With The Iron Fists
28. Mad Detective
29. Batman Returns
30. Riddick
31. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
32. Captain Phillips
33. The Lego Movie
34. Now You See Me
35. Bull Durham
36. Nebraska
37. Big Trouble In Little China
38. Death Rides A Horse
39. Zero Effect
40. The Mercenary
41. A Fistful Of Dollars
42. World War Z
43. Batman
44. Monte Walsh (1970)
45. Ride The High Country
46. The 13th Warrior
47. Nothing Left To Fear
48. Raiders of the Lost Ark
49. Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
50. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
51. Mud
52. Stagecoach
53. Kill Bill Vol. 2
54. Iron Man Three

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4.03.2014

Books in 2014

1. A Dance At The Slaughterhouse
2. A Walk Among The Tombstones
3. The Devil Knows You're Dead
4. Bandits
5. Slam The Big Door
6. The Red Pony


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Eric Kress lighting Workshop Pt 4