Posted 2:23 PM by Gene

As yet another immortal masterpiece makes it way to screens everywhere and myriad perfessers waste time, tuition and taxes pondering why it was shot in Romania, I think of James Thurber and his flamboyant producer in "The Man who Hated Moonbaum":

"Not trying to do anything to me, he says!" screamed the little man. "Wasn't his fault! It's never anybody's fault! They give me ten thousand dollars' worth of Sam Browne belts for Scotch Highlanders and it's nobody's fault!"

Let us swallow hard: the several Oscar®-striving period pieces on the screen this season have fizzled at the BEEEEEEEEE-O. It was one thing to play these period pieces with Errol Flynns and Clark Gables, and they fit in a time that still believed in the old chivalries. Plus, and I hate to say it again, JACK and his penchant for Grand Guignol also ruin them. Hate to say this again, too: it isn't that people don't want adult pictures; it's that JACK's CONSPIRACY must make what it deems adult pictures ITS way, and largely to conform to the prejudices of the ad-blurb copywriters, which have now helped to strait-jacket the movies for two generations. And when these imbeciles are through the public can make out the Sam Browne belts. By January it'll be back to the dogs of winter, and the CGI machines for the stupid kids will soon follow, and whatever extremely marginal hope for better movies will disappear again.