What was the last film you watched?

[Snarky Oracle!]

Ah! I should have known. But Pierce is funnier - and they had Prissy from Gone With The Wind.

Prissy's in Burnett's famous 'Went With The Wind' sketch from 1976, too, airing the very week that GONE WITH THE WIND was broadcast for the first time in America. The scene when Carol descends the stairs in her new "gown" became one of the most celebrated moments in all of TV comedy, causing the studio audience to collapse in several minutes of hysterical laughter such that most of those laughs had to be cut out in order to avoid the episode running too long -- in fact, nearly all the audience reaction is gone in the final edit:

BTW: Eve Arden's black-and-gold striped party outfit from MILDRED PIERCE was recycled nearly two decades later and worn by Bette Davis' dive lounge jazz keyboardist (Perry Blackwell) in DEAD RINGER. (Miss Blackwell was also manning the piano bar in PILLOW TALK with Rock & Doris).

That's what I liked the most about it, initially. It hasn't aged very well.

Even then. The ratings for FRESNO were great for its first night in 1986, but the numbers collapsed pretty quickly because people found it just really boring.

Frankly, that kind of comedy needs a live audience. Not only that, but FRESNO was played almost straight.

 

[Willie Oleson]

When she says "You're June. Your brother is....Richard" looks like one of those clairvoyant performances.

 

[Willie Oleson]

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)



Alain Delon's Ripley is colder and more entitled. It was almost a cruel joke that someone so perfect-looking didn't have the world at his feet, at least that's how interpreted his character in the 1960s version.
Matt Damon plays a longing kind of Ripley, still a psychopath but a little easier to identify with.
It doesn't hurt (or it doesn't help, depending on your point of view) that all the other characters in this adaptation are truly despicable.
Even the most charming character, Meredith Logue, "rebels against" her wealthy, privileged upbringing in haute couture and expensive hotel suites. It all comes across as irritatingly frivolous.
Dickie Greenleaf is a spoilt brat who has the talent to make people feel good, but anyone with a little bit of instinct should see that he has commitment issues. I think he'd be exactly the same person if he didn't have money.
Then there's the appalling Freddie Miles played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and I think he plays the part a little bit too convincingly haha.
However, the biggest hypocrite is the seemingly friendly and seemingly understanding Marge Sherwood. Her suspicion is understandable, of course, but in the last act of the film she sarcastically says to Tom - in his nicely redecorated apartment - "look at you now. To the manor born".
To me that sounds like "you are supposed to be poor and miserable". Tom Ripley never had a chance to become her equal, and like Susan Stewart in The Servant Marge hates the murderous fraud for the wrong reasons.

When Dickie puts on Tom's glasses just for the fun of it, Tom remarks that he looks like Clark Kent. Now this is interesting because there's something funny going on with the various Tom/Dickie transformations. Glasses on he looks like Matt Damon, glasses off he looks like Leonardo DiCaprio. The hair looks cleaner, the complexion looks better....I'm sure they did this on purpose.
This was my first rewatch and I think it holds up very well.