1987

Mr Danny Kaye, during his act at the London Palladium, 12 Nov 1948

what is it with the movies today? is it just me or has all the sparkle gone out? they used to make them in the big-hollywood-oldfasioned-way where they actually spend hours and hours rehersing coreographies, making the sets from scratch, painting, building, etc. no CGI nothing fake, no special FX, not in the way they use them today anyway.

i mean, if you take the first color movie ever made, gone with the wind, which in my opinion should be classified in a category of its own, it's always gonna be a movie you can watch and in the end say; now that's a grand movie. a gem in and of itself. nothing bothers you, not the cast, not the cinematography, not the music, nothing at all. even the length. to tell such a story in those few hours is a miracle on its own.

nowadays i see movies like mission impossible 137th part already but with slightly different cast, bigger budgets and of course more explosions and gunfire without which naturally the movie cannot be made. and when they've run out of ideas, they make a movie telling a story before the 1st part of the trilogy saga began. what a load of nonsense.

there are exceptions but very rare ones. nowadays there's hardly a movie that you see and then walking out of the theatre think to yourself; that was really worth while. i'm glad i saw it. i'm richer for another experience.

i don't even need to use big words. i can just say there are less dimensions nowadays that there were before. now you have the cast, some story and a big budget (excluding independent films which in my opinion still have the integrity of genuine movie making). back then they had glamour, great story tellers, great cast, a great team that worked day and night to make the big sets come alive, with no CGI and stuff like that and most importantly they were constantly adding more and more dimensions to the movies with their great simphony numbers, actors and actresses that would blow you in another dimension, so that after you see the movie you feel sort of bitter-suite and bitterly admit to yourself -- those were the days, those were the times and i wish they would have never ended.

1987 was a dark year. in a sense that it took away most beloved entertainers of that time; danny kaye, fred astaire. too early they went and with them they took the glamour, bliss, exuberance and tender voices of the era that luckily we can relive in some small way at least, now at home, infront of our home entertainment centers.

but i for one feel that i've been totally misplaced. born in the wrong decade alltogether.

what would i do if i had a million bucks? i would build a time machine, go back in time to the year 1947 and do all the things i've been longing to do ever since i laid my eyes for the first time on Wonder man.