Browsing: History versus Hollywood

A Brief History On November 1, 1968, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) introduced a system of rating motion pictures with a letter rating system to guide audiences in choosing which movies to see, especially insofar as movies they deemed appropriate for child age groups.  The initial ratings included the letter designations G, M, R and X.  (We will stop right here to take a moment and announce our opposition to censorship in almost all of its forms.  Historically, censorship is a tool in the oppression of thoughts and ideas that limit the advance of mankind.)  This letter rating…

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A Brief History On October 30, 1942, the heroic efforts of three British sailors resulted in the capture of codebooks and key setting sheets for the top secret Enigma code machine used by the German military during World War II.  The sailors had boarded a sinking German submarine, U-559 in the Mediterranean Sea, costing 2 of the men their lives but reaping incredibly valuable coding material.  The 2000 French-American World War II movie, U-571, shows a fictionalized account of American Navy forces capturing an intact German U-boat, a coup reminiscent of the U-559 incident and certain other U-boat related incidents…

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A Brief History On August 22, 1962, the French ultra-nationalist terror group known as the OAS (Organisation armée secrete, which means “Secret Army Organization”) made a famous attempt on the life of Charles de Gaulle, president of France.  The OAS had tried and failed to kill de Gaulle before, but this particular attempt became all the more famous as the inspiration for the 1971 Frederick Forsyth novel, The Day of the Jackal.  The book became enough of a best seller to in turn inspire the 1973 major motion picture by the same name, starring Edward Fox and Michel Lonsdale.  The…

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A Brief History On February 12, 1976, Hollywood actor Sal Mineo, age 37, was murdered in an alley outside his West Hollywood apartment, stabbed in the heart by a pizza deliveryman in the act of a robbery. Mineo became famous as 1 16 year old playing across from James Dean in the 1955 classic film, Rebel Without a Cause. Digging Deeper In Rebel Without a Cause, Mineo played a sensitive teen that idolized the iconic James Dean character, juvenile delinquent Jim Stark. The role put Mineo on the Hollywood map and spurred a following of adoring young girls. Mineo got…

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A Brief History On October 27, 2017, Paramount Pictures releases Suburbicon, a noir-ish “dramadey” written by the Coen Brothers and directed by George Clooney.  With the star power of Matt Damon and Julianne Moore, the film is sure to make a major splash on the movie scene.  We watched a pre-screening event on October 23, 2017 and will share our thoughts on the film. Digging Deeper The Coen Brothers have brought us a string of somewhat odd, but highly successful films, such as Fargo, The Big Lebowski (one of our favorites), No Country for Old Men, and True Grit (the…

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