Contest!*

Favorite movies about people making movies.  Preferably, though not necessarily, comedies.

For example: 8 1/2, Living in Oblivion, Day For Night.

*not a contest
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Contest!*

Favorite / Least favorite character designs.

I’ll go first.

I don’t know why, but I find this character endlessly appealing.  Best-designed character on animated television today.  Not even the other characters on the same show stack up, with the possilbe exception of a couple of the villains.

There were Kim Possible dolls in the stores for a while, but I thought they blew it; they gave her real hair, which seems beside the point to me.  The point of her hair seems to be that it remains in its solid Jennifer-Aniston wave, not that you could imagine running a comb through it.

I often bring up character design when discussing animation and my wife starts looking at me like I’m speaking Chinese.  In some recess of her psyche, there is no “character design,” there’s just what people look like.  And yet, to pick only one tiny example, I would say that a good reason for the relative success of A Bug’s Life over Antz was purely character design.  Theirs were friendly and fun-looking, ours were comparatively “adult,” sophisticated and even a little creepy-looking.

The bottom line for character design, for me, is “when I look at this character, do I want to know more about them, or less?”

Case in point.

My other favorite, Sally Impossible, I could not find of image of online.

Hmm — Kim Possible, Sally Impossible? More than coincidence?

Animators: no fair nominating your own creations.

*not a contest
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Contest!

Physical Evidence.  Absence of Malice.  Reasonable Doubt.  Presumed Innocent.  Q and A.  The Verdict.  Witness for the Prosecution.  Anti-Trust.  Under Suspicion.  Class Action.  Intolerable Cruelty.  Irreconcilable Differences. A Civil Action.

Movies (mostly courtroom dramas, but often suspense thrillers,* and even the occasional romantic comedy) that use scraps of legal jargon for their titles have been around a long time.  The question is: how long?  Is it 1949’s Witness for the Prosecution, or is there something that predates it? 

More to the point, why doesn’t the IMDb have a “genre search” function?

And, what are some other scraps of legal jargon that haven’t been used yet?  Malice Aforethought, Murderous Intent, Assault with a Deadly Weapon, In Chambers, Suspended Sentence, Motion to Dismiss, Approach the Bench, I guess this could go on all day.

*Many of the suspense thriller titles on this list, one can see, also fall into the “Adjective Noun” genre of sure-fire moneymaking titles.  Other examples being Fatal Attraction, Lethal Weapon, Final Analysis, Basic Instinct, Narrow Margin, Stray Dog, Hidden Fortress, Minority Report, Dark Water.  I tell ya, nothing says “thriller” like Adjective Noun.  It makes it a breath of fresh air when they come up with the occasional surprise like the imperative statement Die Hard, or the puzzling whatsit Face/Off.
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Contest!

Favorite business/office comedies.

Model: Working Girl.

The Apartment has been ruled out for not being enough about business.
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New contest

Idea for a sketch, which I never developed. Memory jogged by the Memento joke from a few days ago.  How long can we keep it going?

All ideas will become my personal property.

1. What did you think of Hamlet?
2. I can’t make up my mind.

1. Would you like to read Bartleby the Scrivener?
2. I would prefer not to.

1. Did you read Waiting for Godot?
2. My copy hasn’t shown up yet.

1. When are you going to get back to reading Poe?
2. Nevermore.

1. When are you going to finish King Lear?
2. Never, never, never, never, never.

1. Do you want to read The Merchant of Venice?
2. Can I borrow your copy?

1. You should read Othello, it’s really good.
2. What proof do I have of that?

UPDATE: Excellent work everybody!  Keep going!
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CONTEST!!

Dear readers:

Please list for me your favorite heist movies.

Okay, it’s not a contest.
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