Well, I am continuing to watch the Simpsons to improve my spoken French. It's an excellent exercise because the show is vocabulary rich, due to the wide range of cartoon plots. (I wonder why mothers banned their children from watching the show in the 90's... some mothers. Not me. )
I'm up to season 8, though I missed season 6. I only had seasons 1 to 5. I have to buy them now.
I take back an earlier post where I said the French Simpsons are sometimes better than the English. The acting is excellent and some jokes are 'localized' instead of translated, say a French Canadian personality is mentioned rather than an American. But the writing is not as good. (I put on the English subtitles which appear to be the dialogue verbatim.) Jokes are not translated to be equally sharp. Generalizations made where clever specifics are in the original dialogue. Say a character picks up a tie and calls it a 'noose' whereas it is translated as 'tie.' (Of course there are mouth flaps to consider: French is a longer language than English.)
Anyway, in season 4 or so, in the episode where Homer becomes an astronaut, there's a joke on the movie Planet of the Apes. (He FINALLY gets the significance of the final scene at a press conference at NASA.) So I got a hankering to see that movie again, the original. I've only seen it one or two times on VHS since I saw it in the theatre in 1968.
And what do you know, my husband and I found the Blu-ray version on sale at a Walmart in Messina New York, about an hour away, where we went just for fun and to see if food in the US really is cheaper. (Answer: yes and no.)
Then we watched the movie that evening.
You know, it occurred to me, that this excellent, iconic movie could have turned out to be the silliest film every put on screen. After all, it features a grown man prancing around naked or half naked the whole movie. And actors in Ape Heads.
Why is the movie so good? I assume because Rod Serling penned the original script, which got messed around with (another reason the movie should have tanked.) And good acting.
Just like Twilight Zone episodes, it's a concept movie, and even the set is an idea. Like most people, I haven't read the book, by Pierre Boulles, who also wrote The Bridge on the River Kwai that was turned into another famous movie.
( I did try to read a less famous book Boulles penned about Malaya during the Communist Emergency while I was researching my play Looking for Mrs. Peel about my grandmother at Changi Prison in WWII. It was not a great novel by any means.)
Now in 1968, at 15, I recall I went into the movie with no preconceptions and was pleasantly surprised. I recall the "Get you filthy paws off me," line the most - the audience cheered of course.
The fact that Charleton Heston pranced around naked the whole time didn't stay in my head. That sort of surprises me, but then Heston was my father's age in 68, so it's a good sign that I wasn't totally grossed out by the sight.
Girlish - looking men like Peter Noon of Herman's Hermits and David M. (Illya of The Man from Uncle were still more my style)... I was a little girl, after all.
My husband thought that Heston doesn't look like 'an action hero." I said "But he WAS an action hero, in the old style. One of the first."
He said, "But he doesn't run well, like, say, Tom Cruise."
I said, "Just because you have a perfect physique, doesn't mean your are athletic."
I looked him up on the Net. Heston worked as an artist's model as a young man. Not a surprise. He was in the military. But there's no indication he did athletics, so it might be true that he wasn't athletic. But he was 45 when he filmed this movie...or maybe the directing was such...
Nonetheless, at my more-than-middle-aged vantage point, it still doesn't gross me out to watch the famous actor run around near naked (albeit with a lack of grace of gait) for an entire film.
In fact, it's kinda fun.
And the movie still is relevant, if a little 'slow' for modern tastes.Still relevant? Well, duh. Or should I say DOH because that statement is worthy of Homer Simpson.
The Planet of the Apes is a statement on human nature. If the movie were no longer relevant, it would mean that human nature does indeed change and human beings actually learn from their mistakes and then....my head hurts. I want a donut.)
Oh,yes, a later season of the Simpsons has another joke on Planet of the Apes. Troy McClure, his career revived due to a sham marriage to Selma, I think, stars in a musical version of the movie, with the song "You can't Make a Monkey out of Me."
I haven't seen the Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but it comes out on DVD and likely satellite in a few days. My son liked it, my husband not so much.
My husband watched it one day, when I went to see THE HELP in the same theatre. That's coming out soon, too.
