The Story of Windy City Heat

A History of Comedy Podcast tells the story of "Windy City Heat" a real documentary about the making of a fake movie where the star didn't know that it was all an elaborate prank.

The full movie is on youtube:

Popcorn in Bed - Vertigo

 Another classic. Another Hitchcock classic.

If you haven't seen the movie, this will all be spoilers.

One of my favorite observations about "Vertigo" is from a Roger Ebert article that is hard to find and not very well known:

Let's close by returning to "Vertigo." Every time I've gone through any film a shot at a time over several days, someone in the audience has noticed something amazing. When I was at the University of Virginia, we got to the point when Scottie (James Stewart) rescues the unconscious Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak) from San Francisco Bay and takes her unconscious back to his apartment. He gently undresses her and puts her into bed.

"His action is incredible," I said. "He's changing an unconscious stranger."

"She's not unconscious," said a voice in the dark.

"What?"

"She's pretending. That wasn't Madeleine attempting suicide, but Judy playing Madeleine. She's pretending to be unconscious."

And Scotty saved her, did not ravish her, treated her gently, and tucked her in. That may help explain why the next time we see her, coming into the living room and joining Scottie, she has a glow in her eyes. Madeleine went into the bedroom, and Judy came out. It's then she starts to love and pity him. Oh, this is an even deeper film than it seems.    

And here is Roger Ebert's analysis of the color palette of "Vertigo" and what each means: link.

Read Roger Ebert's full review: here.

And here's a video "How Hitchcock Blocks a Scene" where the scene, of course, is from "Vertigo:"

Lingonberry

"What's the flavor of Swedish Fish?"

A question I had never thought of until a friend sent me this article:

More intriguing still is the classic red candy's tart berry taste (at once familiar and foreign), which has stumped millions of fans for years. But one needs only to look to the candy's country of origin — yes, Sweden — to discover what this red swimmer is meant to taste like.  It's the Scandinavian berry of choice, the lingonberry. 

I knew at once that I needed to try this out and find some lingonberries. I failed. The next best thing I could find (the only thing I could find) is lingonberry jam. 

What does lingonberry jam taste like? I tried to figure it out but failed at that too. It's very non-descript. It's like take strawberry and mix in some cranberry, maybe. Maybe there's some raspberry there but it's so vague. My tests were: I tried it with bread, I mixed it with yogurt, I was so stumped that I tried it naked. Very indistinct.

The main question I wanted to answer was: "Does it taste like Swedish Fish?" Hard to say, another failure. If I had to answer, I'd say "No" but it's very tough. We all know that cherry flavored candy doesn't taste like cherry and orange flavored candy doesn't taste like orange and on and on, so the fact that I can't even get a grip on the taste of the jam, there's no way to make that giant step of abstraction. Failure.

A Supercut of Reactions to "Rich Men North Of Richmond"

 It's an edit of videos reacting to a viral music video. Sounds like a train wreck but trust me, it works...

A Few More Observations from Rad Live and a Letter Concerning Toleration

 Watching "Rad" on the big screen, especially in contrast to the letterboxed VHS tapes, you really see so many more details that you never have before. When I saw "Rad" last year I noted many such details. Seeing it again, I have just a few more...

First, the big one: in one of the "Rad" deleted scenes, in preparation for the big race, Cru is gifted "the Murray from your store." That Murray, the shop owner and the store are established in the opening "walk this sucker" montage. The store is 7-11. The bike:

The bike has a sign on it. I wish I had memorized it from the theater but it's like a prize for Hell Track or an advertisement or something.

The store owner is someone Cru delivers to on his route:

In the scene where Cru is tempted by The Devil and resists the temptation, the trash can in the background is Pac-Man themed. The opening on the left is Pac-Man, the opening on the right is Ms. Pac-Man. She has a bow in her hair.

The third thing is a repetition... I am once again reminded that every Rad shirt available for purchase on the web is inaccurate to the props in the movie. Oh well.

In the era before this blog, I did some in-depth research to try to figure out where Cochran was. I believe I found it was in Canada, perhaps because imdb lists one of the shooting locations for the movie as Cochrane, Canada. Of course that's a dead end of sorts because the fictional Cochran was in the U.S.. Regardless, the decoding of the BMX magazine has already revealed the Cochran of the movie is in Oregon. It should be noted that the spelling is not consistent even within the movie: sometimes "Cochrane," sometimes "Cochran."

That said, seeing the movie on the big screen, I noticed the license plates in a way I never have before:

You can see how front-and-center this one is but it just blends into the VHS brown fuzz. I was able to find Oregon license plates from the past that look like that but not from the 1980s and not for passenger vehicles. This one is left to the viewer. Someone with access to the higher res will hopefully be able to take a look.

Finally, in preparation for this post, I found an old email of mine that notes there is a sign in the film that labels the date of Hell Track as June 26th. I don't have the original source on this, I don't know where I got it from but I trust myself. Somehow I never followed through with commemorating that day... we should all add it to our calendars.

Star Wars Dating Do's and Don'ts

Someone has put together of the classic sequence of Star Wars Do's and Don'ts for men looking to date women.

https://www.reddit.com/gallery/15tf7jk

The subtle escalation leading to a sudden crescendo gets me every time. It's so good.

Extracted from the Plinkett Review of Star Wars Episode 2.