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It's a Wonderful Life (1 Viewer)

I fell asleep to it, woke up to it, one of those stations that had it on a loop. Saw some scenes 4-5 times across my fitful,  old man sleep. The network put huge blocks of commercials in between, like the awful cable networks do...
Exactly why I own all my Christmas favorites on DVDs. It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, Home Alone, Rudolph, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, A Charlie Brown Christmas, etc. When you hit the info button and see It's a Wonderful Life is a three hour run, you know it will be painful. Ain't nobody got time for dat.

 
my friends all laugh at my love of plausible endings that enrich the spirit and edify our faith in others. They like bleak, actualistized, even nihilistic ones. So if the dark/bright stuff is what it does, then good on it. I'm all for it! 
a sign, all too common these days, that those people do not understand the most important element of humanity - that, as one and above of all living things, we were designed to work, succeed, even provide.

all organisms thrive mightily, whether as fodder, factotum or pharaoh. and we are the culmination of all organisms on this impatient rock, the apparent reason for life. how dare one be common, petty, if they may be otherwise?! and, more especially, selfish in one's ways. the payoff of billions of years of earthly progress, God's divine plan or both. sharing the miracle of one's gift should be second nature but instead becomes secondary impulse.

that is your fault, no matter how small your gift or few your chances. there is no difference between RA's bleakster buds and the bubbling fonts of false positivity one sees all around. both are frauds, little but onanists - i spooge, therefore i am. fuhgitchoo. fall on your knees, oh hear the angels voices, oh life divine. live the virgin day, every day. peace be with you.

 
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Why can’t actors these days act like Jimmy Stewart did in this?  It has to be one of the best performances ever.  The emotions are perfect. The dialogue and timing is perfect. The little stutters and stammers, they sound like the way real human beings actually talk. It’s outstanding. 

 
Why can’t actors these days act like Jimmy Stewart did in this?  It has to be one of the best performances ever.  The emotions are perfect. The dialogue and timing is perfect. The little stutters and stammers, they sound like the way real human beings actually talk. It’s outstanding. 
Pretty good as a 12 year old too. 

 
Jimmy Stewart was the oldest ### looking high school / college age kid. The weight of that building and loan business put a toll on him.

 
I was unfamiliar with his oeuvre. That said, take up this brightest light stuff with Bosley, bub. ;)

I just posted him late night because I had a funny feeling about the critics of the time, who were immersed in an economic worldview that incorporated a "labor" spirit, shall we say. 

In all seriousness and away from that aside, my friends all laugh at my love of plausible endings that enrich the spirit and edify our faith in others. They like bleak, actualistized, even nihilistic ones. So if the dark/bright stuff is what it does, then good on it. I'm all for it! 

And I typed why it was plausible, but forgot how to use the spoiler function of all things. 
All good and Crowther was a great film critic. He’s in the pantheon with Kael and Ebert. He was a huge influence on bringing an appreciation of foreign films to the US. However, he was finicky and wasn’t afraid to rip movies apart. I don’t agree with his take here but it’s valid. As for endings,  I like It’s a Wonderful Life because it takes you right to edge of the most bleak and nihilistic ending possible and then reminds us that when we step outside of our current self, we can see there is a larger design and purpose to the world and most importantly to each individual cog. 

 
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Some interesting wiki side notes include this one:

In 1993, due in part to the confusion of the ownership and copyright issues, Kinesoft Development, with the support of Republic Pictures, released It's a Wonderful Life as one of the first commercial feature-length films on CD-ROM for the Windows PC (Windows 3.1).  Antedating commercial DVDs by several years.

Given the state of video playback on the PC at the time of its release, It's a Wonderful Life for Windows represented another milestone, being as the longest-running video on a computer. Prior to its release, Windows could only play back about 32,000 frames of video, or about 35 minutes at 15 frames per second. Working with Microsoft, Kinesoft was able to enhance the video features of Windows to allow for the complete playback of the entire film — all of this on a PC with a 486SX processor and only 8 MB of RAM.

 
Popped in my new blu-ray and it looks fantastic. Well worth the tiny investment for those annual viewers. 

 
No wonder George nearly burned a hole in his suit with the cigar Potter gave him after the job offer.

A 20K salary in 1935 is roughly  equivalent to 375K today. 💰

 
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Why can’t actors these days act like Jimmy Stewart did in this?  It has to be one of the best performances ever.  The emotions are perfect. The dialogue and timing is perfect. The little stutters and stammers, they sound like the way real human beings actually talk. It’s outstanding. 
It really refreshing to watch. Seems so real.  I like older movies for that reason.  My 9 year old also loves it. 

 
No wonder George nearly burned a hole in his suit with the cigar Potter gave him after the job offer.

A 20K salary in 1935 is roughly  equivalent to 375K today. 💰
So like an entry level gig for the average FBG? Ok. Got it. 

 
Why can’t actors these days act like Jimmy Stewart did in this?  It has to be one of the best performances ever.  The emotions are perfect. The dialogue and timing is perfect. The little stutters and stammers, they sound like the way real human beings actually talk. It’s outstanding. 
:goodposting:

Jimmy Stewart was such a brilliant actor. He's just fantastic in this - hits every emotion right.

"Comes in pretty handy down here, bub." lol

 
Is it really that easy to detect the taste of poison versus foul tasting medicine? Gower sure knew after giving young George’s ear the business side of his hand.

 
Is it really that easy to detect the taste of poison versus foul tasting medicine? Gower sure knew after giving young George’s ear the business side of his hand.
I’ve never been a druggist for my entire life, so hard to say. 

 
Pottersville's Bert the Cop sure is trigger happy.
So reckless. Things were a little different then I guess. 
 

Also had me wondering, if he had shot and killed George there, what happens?  The angels just give him a free pass and go back to the old reality?  Like this was just a simulation sort of thing?  Or is it like dying in the Matrix or in a Freddy Krueger dream and you really die?  And if he died, is the world stuck in the crappy George-less reality forever?

 
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No wonder George nearly burned a hole in his suit with the cigar Potter gave him after the job offer.

A 20K salary in 1935 is roughly  equivalent to 375K today. 💰
It would have been a nine fold increase in George's yearly earnings.  That would be like me suddenly making Otis money.

 
It would have been a nine fold increase in George's yearly earnings.  That would be like me suddenly making Otis money.
And it would have ensured that there was never a decent home built in Bedford Falls again. Everyone would have been waiting and saving to get into one of Potter's shacks. George Bailey was like Dalton in Roadhouse; he was the only thing that kept one man from running the entire town.  Yes, he would have become rich, but he would have lost his soul.

 
Watching right now. It has an inauspicious beginning for a lot of reasons.
Speaking of fairy tales and all that, did you finish this?

and I agree- the first 15 minutes takes some powering through. It gets much better once we get to Stewart and Reed. 

 
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Speaking of fairy tales and all that, did you finish this?

and I agree- the first 15 minutes takes some powering through. It gets much better once we get to Stewart and Reed. 
Unfortunately, no, I didn't. I wrote that this morning and have been on the boards more than paying attention. I can be finicky or irritated quickly: I actually got put off with them riding down the shovel with the shovel's arm pointed that way against their ya-ya's (what kid does that? Even as a kid you know.) but your statement about the fifteen minutes helps. At some point, I'm going to watch it. I'm not sure I've been a Capra fan, though, in the past. I'd have to jog my memory on that.

 
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Unfortunately, no, I didn't. I wrote that this morning and have been on the boards more than paying attention. I can be finicky: I actually got nervous with them riding down the shovel with the shovel's arm pointed that way against their nuts, but your statement about the fifteen minutes helps. At some point, I'm going to watch it. I'm not sure I've been a Capra fan, though, in the past. I'd have to jog my memory on that.
Capra certainly has a clear POV. I will say this is Stewart and Capra's first movie after returning to WW2 and I think it shows. It gets dark as it paints the picture of a boy full of confidence and big dreams to a man who is ready to give it all up, considering himself a failure (It certainly comes to a much difference conclusion though than The Irishman). The war had a very profound impact on Stewart. Stewart had an Oscar for best actor but still was the first major Hollywood star to enlist in the army. Stewart was an accomplished pilot with a long family of history of combat in American wars so when it became clear the Army was going to use him for training videos, he demanded to be sent into combat. He received numerous honors from the US and France, was promoted to major for flying B-24 Liberator and leading a bomber wing. When he came back, he gave up his "aww shucks naive roles" and took on darker and more complex roles such as Vertigo and Winchester 73. You can watch the transition in his career happen in In It's a Wonderful Life. I am sure that is something that drew Stewart to the film. It is well worth the watch IMO, the talking stars opening and kids playing is really just a prologue to set the stage and isn't representative of what the rest of the film is IMO. 

 
Let's not forget about George's new-found wealth with Potter's offer of 20k/year.....it's a three year deal, which includes burying the savings and loan. After three years George is without a job and no fallback other than working for Potter all over again, likely at less than his $45 / week...because that's how Potter rolls.

 

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