The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Mailbag
Once more into the e-mails. Our e-mail address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.
Regarding last week's "This edition's playlist," Lee e-mailed to note we didn't say which Carly Simon album was on our playlist? Elaine also noted our oversight. It was Spy and our apologies for leaving that off. We've fixed it in the article and added a note to the bottom of the article.
Belynda e-mailed to say she loved "Turntable Triumphs" and hoped it would be a monthly feature. Many other e-mails praised our selection of Carly Simon's Anticipation for the kick off of this series. But the most e-mails? Asking which album covers are in the illustration?
Well, first off, the above is smaller than we normally use but we want to be sure nothing is cut off -- click image for larger version.
Starting in the top left corner, you have Sandy Denny's The North Star Grassman and The Ravens, Melanie's Melanie (or Affectionately Melanie, if the full cover was utilized), Carly Simon's Playing Possum.
Starting in the bottom left corner, you have Joan Armatrading's Back to the Night, Joni Mitchell's Wild Things Run Fast and Tina Turner's Tina Live.
Those are the six albums. Kat, Betty and Ty picked them out.
Belynda, we are hoping it will be a monthly feature.
One regular feature we do is "Film Classics of the 20th Century." And Micah insists we're missing something. In our last one (we have a new one this edition), we covered Sleeper and opened with this: "In this ongoing series on film classics of the last century, we've looked at Diamonds Are Forever, Sleepless In Seattle, My Little Chickadee, Tootsie, After Hours, Edward Scissorhands, Christmas in Connecticut, Desk Set, When Harry Met Sally . . ., Who Done It?, That Darn Cat!, Cactus Flower, Family Plot, House Sitter, and Outrageous Fortune."
Micah's not arguing, "You missed my favorite film!" He's saying he thinks we've done at least one selection that's not listed in our listing. He could be right. If you know what it is, our e-mail address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.
On that ongoing series, Frank e-mails to complain that we're not including 17 of his favorites so far. Frank, none of them will be included. We love some of the ones on your list. But every one of the 17 came out after 2004 -- they are all 21st century films so they can't be part of "Film Classics of the 20th Century."
Taryn is glad we highlight comedies and wondered about her two comedy favorites? Your second one? Yes. It will be covered here. It's actually one of Jim and Rebecca's favorite comedies. Your first? Norbit was released in 2007 so, like Frank's picks, it doesn't qualify. If it helps any, we all know that film by heart and love Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Cuba Gooding Jr., Katt Williams and the rest of the cast. It's a very funny movie.
Blake is bothered by "all the comedies" on the list. We explained when the series kicked off that we loved comedies. We've, so far, offered different types of comedies. Abbott & Costello's Who Done It?, for example, is not the same as Sleepless In Seattle or House Sitter.
Keenen wishes we'd include all the James Bond films. We do another James Bond this edition, it's our favorite of the Sean Connery films. We actually think every James Bond film could make the list -- every one released in the 20th century -- except for one.
We're big James Bond fans -- and think Daniel Craig is the best Bond ever. But there's one film we can't stomach. Let's see if any longterm readers can guess which one. Next mailbag, we'll note the answer and whether anyone guessed correctly.
Lucy feels she's waited and waited for her pick and we've blown her off.
Lucy, your pick is one of C.I.'s top ten all time favorite films: Some Like It Hot. Elaine, Jess, Stan, Cedric, Trina and Marcia all rate it as a favorite. We keep meaning to write about it. Thus far, we've not been able to. So if you feel blown off, take comfort in the fact that we're also blowing C.I., Elaine, Jess, Stan, Cedric, Trina and Marcia off.
Kim had an interesting question on the series, "Are there any artists that you feel have made a number of classics?"
Yes. To cite only two people, we believe the bulk of the work of Goldie Hawn and Warren Beatty qualifies as film classics.
Moving to Iraq, Jose writes, "You should feel vindicated by recent events in Iraq. As you have repeatedly noted for at least two years now, things are out of control in Nouri's Iraq. I wish other outlets had taken time to cover it. I started college in 2002. So I saw the Iraq War create all these websites and blogs all over the place. And yet the bulk of them haven't bothered to cover Iraq in years until the last week or so."
Jose, we wish others had been covering Iraq as well.
We don't feel vindicated, though. We just feel sad that the Iraqi people have suffered so much and the US government has caused the suffering but so many US websites and bloggers turned their backs on the Iraqi people.
_____ is in summer one. (We're withholding any name for a reason that will be clear in a moment.) The professor assigned them to write about Iraq coverage and "I cribbed a great deal from the media piece you did" -- "The media rediscovers Iraq (Ava and C.I.)" -- and "I was wondering how long it took to write that?"
Ava and C.I. wrote it. They wrote it in about an hour and ten minutes and then spent two hours pruning it. They say they ditched about two-thirds of it before it went up.
Glad you enjoyed the piece but remember you can get a failing grade and put on academic probation if you 'crib' in a manner that's seen as plagiarism. We wouldn't rat you out but if you directly copied, you should probably be silent until after you have your degree in your hand.