"But for Wales..."
Saw it, and read the play, in school at the age of 15.
banal-thouse, indeed.
As long as that bottle isn't of Franzia, seeing as you've basically just finished a PSA about that stuff. "This is your prose, this is your prose on. . . ."
[Actually, I shouldn't blame the booze--plenty of fine writers have had drinking problems.]
Better the bottle in front of you than Althouse's lobotomy. Or something.
I'd thought you'd be talking about Jonah Goldberg's David Mamet column. But then there are only so many bottles in the world...
You cannot make it up.
The "UPDATE" clinches it.
you know, sometimes, OH MY GOD just doesn't quite say it.
I am going to drink this bottle of whatever this is in front of me.
mine was Drano. I can't decide if I'm happy or sad.
"Here he comes!" shouted the boys along the street. "Here comes the man with the snake in his bosom!"
What an incredible first line.
Do you suppose she's actually ever watched her favorite scene?
It might have interested me back then...
But "A Man for All Seasons" was the exactly kind of movie we shunned and scoffed at then.
These two statements are separated by two sentences. Two.
"These two statements are separated by two sentences. Two."
And 1966 and 1969 are separated by 3 years. Do you have any idea what those 3 years were like, how important they were to a young person back then? Spokane Moderate, perhaps instead of assuming you're smarter than me, you should spend some time learning the political and cultural history of the United States. You might be almost ready to read my blog, which requires spotting things like you saw -- good for you --and then thinking. You have to put in that extra step, the thinking part. Or you can be lazy and keep reading Roy and laughing at what he tells you to laugh at. The fact is "A Man for All Seasons" is an old-fashioned, stagy movie that is not an interesting piece of film art and does not become so because an old man dies.
Bull fucking shit, Ann. I was eight years old in 1966 and I think I saw "A Man for All Seasons" at least once by 1969. Since then it's played in continuous loop on certain cable movie channels. It's got everything TV wanted for years in a movie: High Drama! Henry VIII! Good Acting! Redeeming Values! Critical Acclaim! Courtroom Scenes! Nifty Costumes! No Sex Whatsoever! I've even seen it analyzed about two years ago on The History Channel for accuracy (not very, the court scene, according to experts). Maybe you have better things to do than trot down to one of those "new-fangled video-DVD stores" and rent a copy, but if that circumstance is so, you probably should think twice about referencing it in your blog.
and somehow you know this despite, you know, not having seen it?
I suspect, Professor Althouse, that you're probably not the optimal source for Spokane Moderate on investigative techniques.
"The fact is "A Man for All Seasons" is an old-fashioned, stagy movie that is not an interesting piece of film art and does not become so because an old man dies."
So, I apologize. You have seen it, then?
Is that the actual Ann Althouse or a perfect parody?
Dunno. Was it smarter than Glenn Reynolds?
Professor, the point is that you stated "It might have interested me back then" and two sentences later you said it"was the exactly kind of movie we shunned and scoffed at then." You contradicted yourself there. Then you bring up the three year gap you mention, which is uttelry irrelevent to the issue.
You are all chasing a ghost. That was not Ann Althouse, but our house troll Conservative Guy, who has been back to the factory and born again hard as an Identity Troll.
At least that's the Occam's Razor explanation.
Susan, I seriously doubt that Roy believes he's writing at the level you're reading.
And Brian, as Marlon Brando once said in a movie I did see back then, man, you are too square.
Okay, Roy, you've baited me successfully. I'll do a post and point here, but mainly because I think my comments would amuse my readers -- the better class of readers that I have.
Professor, I am referring only to your words. All my quotes are from you; none are from Roy. You response doesn't address the issue of your contradiction.
Susan, I'm afraid you must try again. You're going to make poor Roy feel bad about the quality of readers he's got here, so do put in the effort.
The fact is "A Man for All Seasons" is an old-fashioned, stagy movie that is not an interesting piece of film art and does not become so because an old man dies.
Ann Althouse is Gary Ruppert?
Professor, again you ignore the contradiction in your words. Insulting me does not change that.
Shorter Althouse:
I was higher than bird pussy in '68. Now I'm mostly drunk or sleeping.
Susan, I'll give you one more chance, but I will not spoonfeed. Remember, I'm a law professor. Think of it this way. Assume it's not a contradiction. Assume it's your job to argue that it's not a contradiction. What do you argue? This is what my exams are like, by the way, so imagine that your grade for the whole semester depends on your framing the argument well.
Professor, it is a simple question. If you don't care to explain, that's fine, but asking me to answer my own question is odd in this context.
Frame: writer a self-possessed git.
The argument that then follows: whatever writer say is loaded with arrogant bullshit, and when called on said bullshitness, writer will respond by blaming reader.
voila.
Susan of Texas, you know darn well that a smart lawyer only asks questions she already knows the answer to!
I haven't viewed "Man For All Seasons" in decades. However, I have vivid memories of Scofield as King Lear in a black-and-white production from a long, long time ago. In my book, that was was the most heart-rending Lear ever.
I don't get it:
"You have to put in that extra step, the thinking part."
Does this mean that Professor Althouse admits that her writing is a series of gibberish statements that the reader must fill with the "thinking part?" Its always read like a drunkard's bricolage but this is the first time I've realized that is intentional.
aimai
It may be a surprise to you, Ms Althouse, but "I'm a law professor, so you shall bow down before me!" is not actually an argument.
Especially given the fact that Althouse regularly complains when people accuse her of behaving poorly for a law professor.
"Also middlebrow (and pathetically nerdy): insulting people with a quote from a Nathaniel Hawthorne story you read for high school English class."
Far better to post youtubes of movies you haven't seen to bag on them.
Assume it's not a contradiction. Assume it's your job to argue that it's not a contradiction. What do you argue?
Professor Althouse:
I'm confident that as a law professor you know the elements of constructing a specious and plausible argument in the face of the facts, just as you say.
But you are not in the law classroom. You're writing about entertainment on your blog. I pay you the compliment of thinking that in your off hours, when your time is your own, you might prefer to live in intellectual honesty and respect for logical consistency and truth. Stupid of me? Yeah, maybe.
I'm sure Sanjaya said something apposite if we really need to inject deep culture into this thing. Faute de mieux and all that.
I'm of the same age as Ann and I agree... It “might” have been an interesting movie to see at the time if I had allowed myself to see it, but we were so immersed in throwing away the culture of and rebelling against the older generation that we (as a generation) laughed it off and relegated this fine movie to the old to the dustbin of history. We/I were/was much more interested in the hip new cool groovy psychedelic (use your own dated slang)things that were being produced by our OWN contemporaries. Fillmore West, Jefferson Airplane, Hair the musical, Janis Joplin getting drunk on stage Jimi Hendrix playing his guitar high or low as the case may be on heroin....now there was culture. A Man for All Seasons was my parent’s type of movie and what self respecting rebelling flower child would want to see their parent’s movie?
Our reactions were somewhat like the unthinking, knee-jerk postings that seem to be prevalent in this and other blogs from people who were not even a glimmer in the eye in 1966. Don't think for yourself or even try to imagine what the older generation may have been experiencing. .After all.....we didn't. The Great War, WWII and the Great Depression, all pretty much myths in our generation’s viewpoint.
Intellectual laziness is the hallmark of every generation. Be proud in your ignorance since you have it in such abundance. J
So the problem is that, in a manner of speaking, we're reviewing a production we haven't seen?
Once again, banality clasps hands with inanity, mediocrity and stupidity to pronounce upon greatness, and the pratfall resounds throughout the internets.
Where's Norbizness when you need him?
"assume it's not a contradiction. Assume it's your job to argue that it's not a contradiction. What do you argue?"
For the record:
"It might have interested me back then ... But "A Man for All Seasons" was the exactly kind of movie we shunned and scoffed at then."
Probably means:
The 60's Elisabethan-manquee aesthetics (this was neither the first nor last movie in that little hellish genre) was the kind of thing college students shunned and scoffed at (quite rightly!). So you didn't see it then. But knowing what you know now, you presume that had you seen past the middlebrow facade and actually watched it, (your modern self imagines) you probably would have found it interesting.
"Assume it's your job to argue that it's not a contradiction. What do you argue?"
At this point I'd just pound the table.
Susan,
I am not a law professor. I am happy to spoon feed.
Ann wrote:
"I've never seen "A Man for All Seasons." I was around in 1966 and went to a few movies in those days, but that wasn't one. It might have interested me back then."
Note that she is here talking about 1966 when the movie was released.
Then she adds:
"It must have played around campus in the years went I was in college (1969-1973). In those years, we went to see every movie we had any interest in...But "A Man for All Seasons" was the exactly kind of movie we shunned and scoffed at then."
Do you see the 1969-1973??? That's three years later.
Note also that since the 1969-1973 marks the years she was in college, it is only a small bunny hop of faith to assume that she was 15 years old in 1966.
Is it so remarkable that a person's views of a movie might shift so much between sophomore year in high school and college???
DBQ, you and Althouse are far too subtle for the likes of us. I have no fucking idea what your point is, either.
"Is it so remarkable that a person's views of a movie might shift so much between sophomore year in high school and college???"
Yeah, especially of a movie she admits she's never seen. I actually saw the movie in a drive-in theater around 1969. My 17-year-old self enjoyed it -- I mean how could you not like a movie that had John Hurt in it, even though nobody knew who he was then. Subsequent viewings took some of the air out of it. It is a conventional if florid piece after all. But Leo McKern was at his pre-Rumpole best in it, too.
I haven't viewed "Man For All Seasons" in decades. However, I have vivid memories of Scofield as King Lear in a black-and-white production from a long, long time ago...
Whattaya doing? Talking about the old dead guy? That was a big long time ago and like who cares? Ann Althouse is our subject, as usual.
Up next: Althouse and the Vernal Equinox. If she spends it indoors, does spring still happen? Also: what the sun looks like through a fish-eye lens.
Thanks Rich.
Glad you did the work. Personally, I wouldn't waste my time trying to figure out the musings of a woman who is merely three years older than I and acts like she's God's gift to rational thought.
DBQ, you and Althouse are far too subtle for the likes of us. I have no fucking idea what your point is, either.
Wow. Sorry. I guess I should have used a sledge hammer. The point is: that people grow, change and the things that you eschew (too subtle? Try a dictionary) in your rebellious narrow minded youth may later become things that you are willing to give a second chance....unless you have your head firmly up your butt for the rest of your life.
Wow, Roy, you square, you, you've really baited the Althouse to achieve new heights of asininity.
But was it worth it? I'm not sure. She's kind of scary.
Intellectual laziness is the hallmark of every generation. Be proud in your ignorance since you have it in such abundance.
Uh-huh. Well, gosh, DBQ, I can't tell if you're being serious or not but I was interested in those 60's things you mention (Filmore East, though) and even played the electrical geetar in a band and such back then. But maybe us east coast types were a bit different than your "generation" because we also dug theater, books, and films which it seems your crowd "laughed off" without even seeing. For some reason, we also didn't think young 'uns like you and Ann who shunned stuff like A Man for All Seasons (or Becket, or Death of a Salesman, etc.) were immersed in throwing away the culture of our elders, we just thought you were assholes. And it was definitely not cool to venture an opinion on say, a film not seen, unless one wanted to be labeled a complete fucking moron, too. Apparently, for some people intellectual laziness is never outgrown.
Um.
DBQ?
She wasn't willing to give it a second chance. Said so, right up there.
Does the rest follow?
Kia writes; "But you are not in the law classroom. You're writing about entertainment on your blog."
Yeah, you should stop over there. The comments section is way more amusing then here, where it's a remedial reading class. I mentioned that I'm a law professor so you'd understand something personal about me, which is that I don't spoonfed. It offends me aesthetically, even in off hours. I and my readers actually think it's fun to figure out texts. But frankly, only a bad reader has a problem with that "contradiction" and since you were rude to me, I didn't feel like helping you.
"I pay you the compliment of..."
Oh, bullshit! Susan was insulting me and at the same time exposing her own laziness/dumbness. It would have been absolutely legit to insult her for that. You don't even seem to appreciate that I was being nice to her. I could have spoken the language that seems to prevail in these comments section and said quite simply "You are an idiot" with a obscenity thrown it. I paid her the compliment of giving her a chance to understand. She and you did not rise to the occasion.
***
And as for this notion, expressed several times in this thread, that I can't judge something I haven't seen, let me cross-post what I said over on my own comments thread (where, as I've said, the conversation is far more amusing):
Oh, good lord, this notion that you have to see a movie to know it's not the sort of thing that you want to see! That's crazy. It's a crucial life skill to figure out what you don't want to do. A typical male thing too I think. Sort of: How do you know you won't like sleeping with me unless you try it?
spoonfeed
sorry
Uh oh. Someone was RUDE to the great Ann Althouse, law professor.
Awesome.
Hey Roy, has the Ole Perfesser ever taken the bait before? Can we shoot for that next?
Ah, so we're not talking about whether the movie's worth seeing by anybody, it's about whether it's worth seeing by HER. After DBQ defends the subtle idea of her changing tastes one wonders if her preference will ever change to actually getting around to viewing the thing.
dms,
"Personally, I wouldn't waste my time trying to figure out the musings"
LOL!!! Time?? To figure THAT out?? It took the same amount of time that it took to read it once.
The only time "spent" was the time it took to explain it.
Probably a waste of time, but what the hey....
We have a crane inspector here in town who feels pretty much the same way.
Cocktail hour in Madison has begun! Let's party.
Oh I see, DBQ. You're projecting your youthful ignorance on us. Gotcha.
"anti-Althousiana". My goodness.
Oh, good lord, this notion that you have to see a movie to know it's not the sort of thing that you want to see! That's crazy. It's a crucial life skill to figure out what you don't want to do. A typical male thing too I think. Sort of: How do you know you won't like sleeping with me unless you try it?
Damn, check out what Roy's got caught in his vortex.
Thers is jealous, as usual.
"...in your rebellious narrow minded youth may later become things that you are willing to give a second chance....unless you have your head firmly up your butt for the rest of your life."
DBQ | 03.22.08 - 1:23 pm | #
Well, since AA has firmly stated she has yet to give this film she shunned in her "rebellious, narrow-minded youth" a second chance, are we to assume you've flipped?
Well, so far the professor's response has been to call us lazy, dumb, nerds and squares. Oh, and she and her readers are much more amusing at her blog.
Wow. Judging by the wit she brings here, it must be Mme de Stael's salon over there.
Ann Althouse said:
"I mentioned that I'm a law professor so you'd understand something personal about me, which is that I don't spoonfed. It offends me aesthetically, even in off hours. I and my readers actually think it's fun to figure out texts."
Ann - everyone knows your a freakin law professor. Roy sent us to your site to read your post, where you state it plainly.
Nobody cares. Well, except for you apparently.
If you were a Nobel Prize winner and stated something as goofy as:
"Oh, good lord, this notion that you have to see a movie to know it's not the sort of thing that you want to see! That's crazy. It's a crucial life skill to figure out what you don't want to do. A typical male thing too I think. Sort of: How do you know you won't like sleeping with me unless you try it?"
- the fact that you were a Nobel Prize winner would hardly disqualify you from criticism.
And I'm sure the ladies really appreciate the patent sexism in assuming they, as a class, wouldn't care if you actually haven't seen a movie before offering reasons why it is "stagy" and "not an interesting piece of film art."
Finally, I do agree with you that you do not have to actually see a movie to know that it is something you don't want to see, but it does make your criticism of its content, production, and overall merit wholly meaningless.
But I'm sure you'll just say I don't know how to read and that I'm lucky to even share the blogosphere with a professional of such high importance as yourself.
Forgive me, folks. I just realized with my diminishing powers of ratiocination that the original entry was Prof. Althouse's sort of homage to Paul Scofield on the occasion of his death. How it became another Festival of Althouse is a complete mystery.
Thers is jealous, as usual.
Oh gracious no. You're providing more than enough for everyone to enjoy an ample sufficiency. You don't stint, I'll say that much for you.
Since I am a lazy, dumb idiot, according to the law professor, let me make myself perfectly clear.
Ann unthinkingly tossed out "It might have interested me back then" to make herself seem smarter. For the same reason she declared herself too avant garde to see the movie. Caught, she tried to get me to give her a coherent answer. She could have said nothing, or refused to answer further, or explained her taste had change, but instead she bobbed and weaved. That might work in her classroom, but I am not interested in helping her find an excuse for her vanity.
Her failure was followed by a steady stream of personal abuse to cover her gaffe.
Y'know, if the Professora teaches the same way she blogs and comments on blogs, then I feel deeply sorry for anyone that is required to take her classes.
Rich,
Ah, I must have written unclearly. You see, I didn't think that the fact that A Man for All Seasons MIGHT have interested Professor Althouse in 1966 (although she wasn't a professor then) and MUST have been playing three years later (two "facts" about which the Professor is rather non-committal) were central to her point, which, without too much thought on my part, I guess was to honor Paul Scofield, the old man who died.
Professor Althouse's life is of no interest to me, nor are her opinions. If her past is unclear to her, why should I consider that she was 15 in 1966, at which point she MIGHT have been interested, and three years later, and for the following four years, was too absorbed in her "college" identity to even consider seeing a movie that MUST have been playing?
Susan of Texas,
Thanks for the parsing. Frankly, Ann lost me at "blah blah blah" and I couldn't follow the logic of her attacks on you. Really, I think we can say that if althouse didn't exist it would be impossible to invent her because who on earth could produce a character, even a fictional one, of such unbelievable mediocrity and vapidity wrapped in such an impenetrable hide of preening self worth? Other than Dickens, I guess, or one of those other modern writers that I would have been interested in if I weren't interested in them...you know?
aimai
Aimai: Have you read "Emma" lately? Mrs. Elton would be perfect.
Susan of Texas,
You are so right! I was thinking of Uriah Heep, but I think he actually has a whole lot more self understanding, and was certainly a more interesting character, than althouse. By the way, I try never to miss a chance to say that you should have your own blog. I love your comments.
aimai
oh my god, I just clicked on roy's "that really is her" link and found myself drowning in the loneliest pool of self regard on earth. That woman is certifiably, pathetically, lonely. I mean, I know *I* am when I post. But jeez louise I'm not a self important law professor. Doesn't she have any law review articles to be writing, or some blood sucking corporations to be defending?
aimai
Well, as much as I love the Dickens/Austen discussion (two of my favorite authors), you both do understand (other than delighting me and those who read/read novels) you're wasting your time with Ann. She doesn't read novels. Nothing to be gained therein.
Roy: I just took a side trip over to Ann's shop to compare commenters. Sleep well tonight, Roy...your commenters haven't lost their edge. And Ann...you really WERE a dish at 17!
Aimai, thanks so much. I did start a blog a little while ago, although I need to start paying more attention to it.
My ode to Ann is here.
pure hilarity. It has everything - the accusation of poor reading skills, insane appeals to sexism, petty insults, severe whihing, a complete lack of self-understanding, willful failure to comprehend anyone else. Even Thers couldn't have invented such a perfect Althouse exchange.
"severe whining"
Finally, I do agree with you that you do not have to actually see a movie to know that it is something you don't want to see, but it does make your criticism of its content, production, and overall merit wholly meaningless.
Exactly. The only problem is, in Ann's World, Ann's lack of interest in seeing a movie = the final judgment of the universe on the movie's value. Susan of Texas was much more poiite to the "law" "professor" than I would have been.
Does this now make more sense?
Oh, good lord, this notion that you have to actually bone Ann Althouse to know it's not the sort of thing that anyone would ever want to do! That's crazy. It's a crucial survival skill to figure out that one should never bone Ann Althouse. A typical AA thing too I think. Sort of: "How do you know you won't like sleeping with me unless you try it?"
I choose not to stare into the Althouse, in other words, lest I find the Althouse staring back.
- Roy Edroso, 3/19/08
Actually, I've never had sex with "Ann Althouse." I was around and boned a few chicks in those days, but she wasn't one. She might have interested me back then. She must have played around campus in the years when I was in college (1969-1973). In those years, we had sex with every girl we had any interest in, because we never knew when we'd get another chance and assumed it would only be on TV with commercials messing it up. But "Ann Althouse" was the exactly kind of girl we shunned and scoffed at then.
Nevertheless, I am more than qualified to critique her bedroom performance. Did I mention I am a lawyer? Her lovemaking is exceedingly middlebrow.
"Ann Althouse" and the anglophilic stuff like it is exactly what "middlebrow" originally meant.
Also middlebrow (and pathetically nerdy): She will shout "IT GNAWS ME! IT GNAWS ME!"; insulting her sex partner with a quote from a Nathaniel Hawthorne story she read for high school English class.
Say what you want about Althouse, but I'm stealing that "I don't spoonfeed" line the next time I get caught making some half-assed argument I can't back up.
"What do you mean, it doesn't make any sense? Figure it out for yourself. I don't spoonfeed, you know."
Jane Austin would have had a wonderful time with Althouse. Mrs. Norris, move aside!
Yes, sure, but the thing is could we actually *believe* in An althouse as a character the way we *believe* in Mrs. Norris or the Veneerings? The thing that totally stuns me is that an omnniscient narrator might be able to make these characters make sense, situate their external dialogue with the world in some kind of context (parents tortured kittens in front of her while giving movie reviews and drinking wine) but when we read An Althouse we don't get a narrative or biography that makes her maunderings *make sense.* Sometimes I think I'm listening to the stream of consciousness of a very, very, old one year old.
"I want the breast, want the breast, would have wanted the breast, give me another drink, everyone look at me" but dressed up a bit because, after all, this one year old has not only lived quite a long time but also ended up as alaw professor. Sometimes Althouse reminds me of that priceless scene in buffy the vampire when buffy can read everyone's thoughts and discovers that the most shallow and horrible of her friends, cordelia, simply has no barrier between private thoughts and public utterances.
well, the mystery remains. But susan I bookmarked The Hunting of the Snark so get cracking and write something every day!
aimai
I wonder how many hundreds of 1L's want their money back.
"Oh I see, DBQ. You're projecting your youthful ignorance on us. Gotcha."
No, no , no Leeds man. I just recognize that I 'was' youthfully ignorant. Of course I didn't recognize it then. Floating through life as if my opinions really mattered in the big scheme of things.
The hubris of youth. Older and wiser now in that I realize my opinions don't really matter. Doesn't stop me from sharing however. 
I bet that "back off proles, I'm a law professor" line goes down just as well when she tries to push into the front of the queue at Starbucks.
Y'know, if the Professora teaches the same way she blogs and comments on blogs, then I feel deeply sorry for anyone that is required to take her classes.
Key word there is "required." I asked a friend of mine who has a law degree from Madison about Althouse, and all he had to say was, "I don't know anyone who ever took one of her classes voluntarily."
Christ, Ann, you're a true dick. Citing "I'm a law professor" as credential to excuse not having at your fingertips a movie, or play, seen by perhaps 80 percent of your generation? Are you any good at what you do? I remember a photo of the "Man for All Seasons" Broadway production pasted into my high school English textbook.
"I'm an architect, Ann." Also, I have seen the movie and read the play. I also watched Kenneth Branaugh's "Hamlet" and the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men" last week. I have opinions on such shit as that I've actually seen. Not all of them favorable to the works in question.
Good luck up there in Madison, Ann. We here in Charlottesville do hope you get a real job. You know, with a real university that has real post-graduate training of the kind I got from it, although not in yer particular specialty. Although I understand UVa has a law school, too.
Christ, what a goddamn prick, Roy. I thought the Jacob Riis photos of Irish gangs were supposed to rid us of these troublesome types.
Dunno. Is Hawthorne middlebrow? I thought he'd been re-evaluated as groundbreaking in the gothic intensity of his psychological insights or something.
"The comments section is way more amusing then here, where it's a remedial reading class."
OK, Remedial Reading Class, what's amusing, nay risible, about the above Annimism?
Whattaya doing? Talking about the old dead guy?
(f/x - startled) You're right; what was I thinking? Good old Paul was 100% biodegradable, but that box wine could keep Perfesser Ann with us for long past her expiration date.
"Ah, I must have written unclearly"
LOL!!! OK. Fair enough. There is much being posted here that is perfectly legitimate.
I was ONLY addressing Susan's insistence that Ann contradicted herself. Whatever other flaws might be found in Ann's posts, that one is clearly not there.
I do notice that Susan stopped talking about the "contradiction" after my post, so maybe I didn't waste time after all.
Here's the big problem with the "I'm a law professor" gambit - there's no chance of a soft landing if you flub your argument, which is what Ann is doing here. I've seen people with graduate degrees, professors, leading lights in their fields, make total fools of themselves in on-line discussions.
To borrow Roy's schtick: next, Perfesser Ann discusses her qualifications for MENSA.
Oh, and Perfesser Ann? Please post your SAT scores.
Is it so remarkable that a person's views of a movie might shift so much between sophomore year in high school and college??
Ann's never seen the movie, Rick, so her opinion of it can't change.
If you are saying that Ann thought "Season" was interesting as a teen because the grown-ups in her life thought so, and thought the New Wave films were interesting as a young adult becasue the other young adults thought so----well, why would I listen to someone without an opinion of her own?
I'm going to go the Paula Abdul route in assessing Professor Althouse's initial post and comments here and say "Ann, you look really pretty today."
Rich,
Sorry, but...
dms,
"Personally, I wouldn't waste my time trying to figure out the musings"
LOL!!! Time?? To figure THAT out?? It took the same amount of time that it took to read it once.
The only time "spent" was the time it took to explain it."
I don't think you were only talking to Susan.
"Ann's never seen the movie, Rick, so her opinion of it can't change."
LOL!!!!
Ok. LOL!!!
If you say so!!!!!!
LOL!!!!!!
I'm only linking to this ripe piece of anti-Althousiana...
... here ... because something moved me to participate in the comments and I think you may enjoy my remarks over there.
Did Ann just reverse blog-whore a comment thread?
Ok, what the fuck? In sanityworld, a place I inhabit at least part-time, these conversations go like this (let us sub in Superbad for A Man For All Seasons, because I just saw it and don't feel like trying to remember a more impressive movie)
"This is like my favorite scene in Superbad where the guy has a flashback to where he gets busted for drawing penises all the time!"
"Dude! You haven't even seen Superbad."
"I didn't? Huh."
"How could you possibly know what your favorite scene is in a movie you haven't seen?"
"Huh. I guess you're right. Well, I saw that scene once and it was fuckin' hilarious."
Then I look on blogworld and find whatever the fuck trainwreck this is. Jeeezus.
Althouse: How many times do I have to say my hair was red? Here's a color picture of me when I was about 17. For some reason, it's the most popular of all the pictures in my Flickr account.
Another demonstration of her perfect inverse ratio of self-regard to self-awareness. She can't see how much this little "offhand" photo dance reveals about her in this context.
She's been battered over here and needs a little ego repair over there. So she posts something guaranteed to garner compliments, at least about her youthful loveliness and, NOT incidentally, get the men in the audience ...Thinking. About Ann. THAT way. Oooh.
It causes her such delicious little flutters to imagine them (MEN!) doing that Thinking about her. So soothing to a woman's sense of herself, dontcha know. It also doesn't hurt to imagine that there might be some envy among the women....
Is it so mockable that a person's views of a movie they didn't see might shift so much between sophomore year in high school and college???
There we go, fixed. And why yes, Rich, it is, thanks for asking.
For example:
DBQ -- ...Hair the musical... now there was culture. A Man for All Seasons was my parent’s type of movie and what self respecting rebelling flower child would want to see their parent’s movie?
This particular pairing, Hair vs. A Man For All Seasons just kills me. Hell, seeing Hair next to Jimi made me spit-take.
From banalthouse to trollthouse and back again, in the space of a day. Remarkable, if it weren't so sad.
Dear Professor Althouse:
It's not simply that you're not as smart as you think you are. It's that, in practice, you're not as smart as you are.
Actually, I've never seen "A Man for All Seasons."
The fact is "A Man for All Seasons" is an old-fashioned, stagy movie that is not an interesting piece of film art and does not become so because an old man dies.
How would you know, Professor Althouse?
HOLY CRAP!!!
I see that la Althouse had alredy answered the question I asked....
Thanks to everyone who criticized me for disrespecting a movie I've never seen. I've heard this criticism many times — like back in 2005, when I was taken to task for knowing not to waste my time seeing "King Kong." But this time, thanks to this new wave of criticism, I had the revelation that had evaded me for years. I finally realized what's really going on. How do you know you won't like it if you haven't tried it? It's guys who flip out when they hear that from a woman. It strikes to the very core, doesn't it? How do you know you won't enjoy sleeping with me?
So, really, the problem here is that all us male chauvanists are trying to keep a woman with strong (if uninformed) opinions down. And we all want to sleep with her....
"Susan, I'll give you one more chance, but I will not spoonfeed. Remember, I'm a law professor. Think of it this way. Assume it's not a contradiction. Assume it's your job to argue that it's not a contradiction. What do you argue? This is what my exams are like, by the way, so imagine that your grade for the whole semester depends on your framing the argument well."
Dear Professor,
Assume it's *your* job to write clearly in the first place, you supercilious twit.
You write like a squirrel crosses the street.
LOL!!!!
Ok. LOL!!!
If you say so!!!!!!
LOL!!!!!!
Rich Beckman
Wait, Rich, let's be clear...are you laughing? Are you laughing...out loud?
LOL!!!!!!
This must be an example of the witty repartee to be found over at Chez Althouse.
And no, I'm not going to explain what "LOL" stands for. I don't spoonfeed, you know.
Brian C.B.! We need some alicublog swag so we might recognize each other around town!
I was in junior high school when I first saw A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (tv broadcast on NBC). I was engaged from the first moment to the last, and the scene that was excerpted has stayed with me since, among other scenes. I was expecting comment on post-9/11 constitutional high jinks in regards to Moore's speech--pro, con or pro-con--but there's probably no traction for that.
The KING LEAR film starring Scofield was by Peter Brook, and worth checking out. And it's still not too late for Althouse to check out A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. The terrorists won't win if she did.
This must be an example of the witty repartee to be found over at Chez Althouse.
Oh no, there is much better;
How funny Ricpic-I did just pinch a loaf.
It was a nice hearty loaf, cohesive, solid, and slid out in an easy non threatening way.
After I finished my business I looked in the toilet bowl to inspect the loaf. The loaf was floating, happy, and ready to be flushed.
Seems to be a lot of loaf-pinching going on over there.
Shoot, you chased her away.
What was this post about again?
This particular pairing, Hair vs. A Man For All Seasons just kills me. Hell, seeing Hair next to Jimi made me spit-take.
I guess you guys don't do sarcasm with out having flags and flashing lights on it.
I wasn't seriously comparing the two. I was stating that in our misguided youth, we trashed one (A Man for All Seasons) just because it was our parent's thing: didn't give it a chance. We thought that Hair and the like represented the new cool culture. Just as the beat generation of my parent's time looked down on their parent's culture.
So on and so on like endless picture of the person looking at themself in the mirror, looking at themself in the mirror..........
When we become adults (some people never do so, no matter how old they get) we realize that we may have overlooked and disrespected many things that have had value and should be willing to give them a second chance. Even the musical Hair has some redeeming features
I want the last half hour of my life back.
Chris, unlike the cruel SteveB, I will help you out. "LOL" is a dental related term. It stands for "lisping on lidocaine," but what it really means is "drooling like an idiot."
Now do you understand Mr. Beckman? Glad I could help.
Seems to be a lot of loaf-pinching going on over there.
You know, there are many things I like about Roy's Place, but here's one I didn't even know about.
So I'd just like to put out a big "thank you" to my fellow alicublog commenters for not sharing reports of your bowel movements.
Shorter DBQ: Once I was young and foolish. Now I'm old and foolish, and patronizing.
"Shorter DBQ: Once I was young and foolish. Now I'm old and foolish, and patronizing."
Now you have it! I knew you could catch on.
With the stipulation that at least "I" recognize it and own up to it. Unlike many who blithly think that they are the center of the universe, the font of all knowledge and refuse to consider any other viewpoints.
Oh, DBQ, you're cute.
See, the basis for the argument here is precisely as you frame it. The problem is that the ignorant children are the ones who are holding out for being open-minded enough to take a fresh look at what you're reacting to, while the lady you're defending is apparently appalled that anyone would ask her to do any such thing to the point that the mere asking is tantamount to crude sexual pressure.
You're preaching to the choir (which, by the way, is rather older than you assume it is), and there's at least one congregation out there that's far more in need of your pastoral services.
So what about us onetime arrogant young punks who went out to see both Hair and A Man for All Seasons because we wanted to see as much theater and movies as we could?
Unlike many who blithly think that they are the center of the universe, the font of all knowledge and refuse to consider any other viewpoints.
Good gravy. And you're defending Althouse's drivel?
'With the stipulation that at least "I" recognize it and own up to it. Unlike many who ...'
I agree to your stipulation. The always unnamed "many", are narrow-minded, arrogant bastards. You are clearly somewhat better than they are. 
The super-duper smart law professor admires another intellectual giant:
This got me thinking about a smart essay Jonah Goldberg wrote back in 2000....
There's more, but this says it all.
Brian C.B.! We need some alicublog swag so we might recognize each other around town!
frantz fanonymous | 03.23.08 - 9:27 am | #
Be puking cheap lager into the gutter near the storm drain next to Hamilton's off the Mall any weeknight. I'm the one with my right cheek resting on the steel angle at the top of the drain. If you're sober, we'll never meet.
Well, Roy might have a leg to stand on here if he hadn't posted this:
ADDED: Actually, I've never slept with "An Ann Althouse for All Seasons." I was around in 1966 and slept with a few Ann Althouses in those days, but that wasn't one. It might have interested me back then. It must have played around campus in the years I was in college, whenever I was in college, assuming I ever went, whatever. In those years, we went to see every Ann Althouse we had any interest in, because we never knew when we'd get another chance and assumed it would only be on TV with commercials messing it up. But "An Ann Althouse All Seasons" was the exactly kind of Ann Althouse we shunned and scoffed at then.
Whoopsie! My mistake! He didn't post this, so he's not obligated to sleep with Ann Althouse before he decides whether or not he wants to sleep with her.
Right?
Are we really this starved for what could never in any known universe be referred to as 'celebrity interaction'?
"while the lady you're defending is apparently appalled that anyone would ask her to do any such thing to the point that the mere asking is tantamount to crude sexual pressure."
Defending? I thought I was making the point that as we get older we should become more open minded and revisit the things that we cast aside in our youth. Movies that we refused to see, books we didn't read, political ideas we wouldn't entertain. Isn't that the opposite of what Ms. Althouse is saying? How is that defending.
Josefina welch,
Yes it was I and not Roy who famously did not sleep with Ann Althouse and yet feel perfectly justified in criticizing her sexual performance.(see comment at Althouse Altediter | 03.22.08 - 5:12 pm |
In the future, please accurately quote my misquotes of our beloved Ann.
What I wrote was the following:
"Actually, I've never had sex with "Ann Althouse." I was around and boned a few chicks in those days, but she wasn't one. She might have interested me back then. She must have played around campus in the years when I was in college (1969-1973). In those years, we had sex with every girl we had any interest in, because we never knew when we'd get another chance and assumed it would only be on TV with commercials messing it up. But "Ann Althouse" was the exactly kind of girl we shunned and scoffed at then.
Nevertheless, I am more than qualified to critique her bedroom performance. Did I mention I am a lawyer? Her lovemaking is exceedingly middlebrow.
"Ann Althouse" and the anglophilic stuff like it is exactly what "middlebrow" originally meant.
Also middlebrow (and pathetically nerdy): She will shout "IT GNAWS ME! IT GNAWS ME!"; insulting her sex partner with a quote from a Nathaniel Hawthorne story she read for high school English class.
Althouse Altediter | 03.22.08 - 5:12 pm | #
You wrote above,
"he's not obligated to sleep with Ann Althouse before he decides whether or not he wants to sleep with her."
You totally miss the point of the spoof. Do I have to spoonfeed it to ya! You or Ann can choose to sleep or not with anyone , or watch or not any movie. She has as much right to critique a movie she hasn't seen as I or Roy or anyone has to critique her sexual performance.
Also, (I can't speak for Roy hear) if my woman shouted "IT GNAWS ME!" during lovemaking, that would kinda freak me out. What was Ann thinking?
Assuming Roy hasn't slept with her
I thought I was making the point...
The thing you're missing here, DBQ, is that no one (at least that I've seen comment so far) really gives a shit about your point. Others have addressed this quite well since then, I'd say, but let's start back where you & I left off.
I guess you guys don't do sarcasm with out having flags and flashing lights on it.
Well, if you say you were being sarcastic about Hair, I guess that's fine, kinda proves the point I was making at the time, actually. However, if you "did sarcasm" in regards to the others on your list, I'm going have to dissent, at least in a way.
Cuz you see, I don't see how anyone wouldn't grant the Fillmore and what Bill Graham hath wrought it's historic due; I've got nothing particular against Jefferson Whatever-they're-calling-themselves-at-this-
moment; Janis, well, there were 2(!) of her songs performed on the one episode of Idol my kids got me to watch this season, so apparently, some 30 years later she's still got something going; and I still hear Hendrix a few time a weeks on the radio, and I suspect his place in the Rock pantheon is not especially controversial; Hair, though, kinda the odd man out even for it's generational counterparts. I mean, it doesn't compare well against, say, Jesus Christ Superstar.
Oddly, a Hair vs. Paul Scofield in A Man for All Seasons comes closest in your list to an apples to apples comparison: film of a musical vs. film of a play. Hence my amusement.
But, the thing is, I didn't, and never did, dismiss Hair as a generational thing. I don't disparage it because it's Boomer or hippie.
I suspect this is what Leeds man meant by when he said you were "projecting" on us. You think everyone does what you did and Althouse still does with the preceding generation's art & entertainment, and, more annoyingly, you seem to think that we still are as well. You seem to think you've made a serious breakthrough because you no longer do so, but in fact you've merely gone from foolishness to stupidity.
That would be, "a few times a week" for the Hendrix tunes.
So I'd just like to put out a big "thank you" to my fellow alicublog commenters for not sharing reports of your bowel movements.
DAMMIT.
Defending? I thought I was making the point that as we get older we should become more open minded and revisit the things that we cast aside in our youth. Movies that we refused to see, books we didn't read, political ideas we wouldn't entertain. Isn't that the opposite of what Ms. Althouse is saying? How is that defending.
Oh, hey, I agree with that.
It's just that some callow readers might have encountered your framing of idiot children commenting here who you're arguing with vs. the mature, sensible stance they oppose as being a defense.
I'm pleased that I've misinterpreted you.
Regarding what students think of Ann's "teaching" see
http://ratemyprofessors.com/Show....jsp?
tid=594762
Every time I encounter Ann Althouse, I am moved to ask, how can someone so old still be so juvenile?
It's probably unfair to the kids to make that comparison, now that I think about it. Seriously: "My blog is better than yours"? And pointing to her snippy little comments as something they're something to be proud of?
I gotta go watch some Sean Hannity and get my discourse elevated.