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long national nightmare blah blah blah...
Hogans heroes (1965) clearly drew from stalag 17 (1953) and the great escape (1963) But today Tcm ran a Brit film from 1962 called the password is courage that seems even closer to the tv show In it's sense of humor, plot and character identities.
From HH wiki entry:
The producers of the 1953 feature film Stalag 17, a World War II prisoner of war film released by Paramount Pictures (which now owns the DVD rights to Hogan's Heroes), unsuccessfully sued Bing Crosby Productions for infringement.[15][not in citation given] In his book, My War, Andy Rooney, who was a friend of Don Bevan and Ed Trzcinski—the authors of the original Stalag 17 play—relates that "...someone at CBS apparently ripped off their idea and made a television series called Hogan's Heroes of it. The television program had too many similarities in character and plot to be coincidental, and when Don and Ed sued the network they won a huge award."[16]
Breaking Bad, season 4 episode 10. Wow!
Cooper is smart enough to be a coward. He knows what was true then and, sadly, is still true today. Will white consumers abandon a product once its brand is too black? Yes, they will. Will black consumers abandon a product once its brand is too black? Yes, not wanting to be stereotyped, they will. Even as multicultural image campaigns rightly lobby for more and better black representation in commercials, and as much as America now embraces the endorsement of certain black celebrities, the politically incorrect truth is that there’s a tipping point. The moment a product is “ghetto,” white consumers are gone—and then black consumers are gone, too.
ive got the premium package (at a reduced rate for a year) so i get every movie channel and i am just astounded at the paucity of selection and the repetition. im sure the networks will blame the studios for the rates they charge to air the back catalog but its immensely frustrating to have 50 movie channels with nothing worth watching that hasnt run 100 times before in the prior six months. if neflix streamings selection is any guide, i assume the studios will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a full catalog streaming future at a reasonable fixed rate.
But like the Komodo dragon or Kirk Cameron, a few Golden Age shows remain in production even if their evolutionary time has passed. Larry David will keep kvetching as long as there's bile in his body, and the brilliant Breaking Bad has one more batch of crystal to cook. But with three full seasons stretching out before us like the red carpet at the Clios, Mad Men will be the last of the Golden Age shows to grace our flat-screens. With a typically outstanding new episode, the first in 17 months, due to premiere on Sunday, it's worth asking: Is it also the best?
Just watched Game Change. Fucking terrifying.
mondays this march on tcm are british new wave films. billy liar is on at 1030. its a good flick but watch it for no other reason than its julie christie's breakthrough role.
get a life
one of my favorite podcasts, comedy bang bang, is coming to ifc soon. while there are a number of similarities between the two formats, im glad to see the show goes beyond what they podcast normally does. the host cut his teeth as a writer on mr. show and is plugged into the upright citizen brigade world so expect that sort of humor. this isnt great but it shows some potential.