Archive for the ‘Movies and tv’ Category
March 31, 2020
(A diversion in difficult times.)
Back on the 15th, Tim Evanson recognized the 3/16 birthday of Ares, um, actor Kevin Smith, writing on Facebook, “We miss you” (Smith died, at age 38, in 2002, from an accidental fall). A (female) reader commented on FB:
I miss that smouldering look.
Referring to this smouldering look, which KS was a grand master of:
(#1) “Kevin Smith as the studly Ares” (the Greek god of war, in tv’s Xena: Warrior Princess), as I put it in my 6/23/17 posting “Typo time”: the smouldering look, plus (among other things) a masculine plunging neckline, muscular arms, a confrontational stance, a huge phallic dagger, and a well-filled crotch dramatically displayed in leather
As I said on FB:
Oh my, yes. Steamy, studly Kevin Smith (especially as Ares in Xena). Is there a term for that look when directed at a woman? (I have often thought Smith deserved an Emmy for Best Cruise of Death from a Straight Man.)
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Posted in Facial expressions, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Movies and tv | Leave a Comment »
March 10, 2020
(Extraordinarily steamy ad, Mr. Fetish Spain in nothing but a pageant banner, and raunchy mansexual talk, so dubious for kids and the sexually modest.)
Today’s Daily Jocks ad re-uses an earlier flagrantly NSFW image in an offer of “Spanish fetish brand Locker Gear” underwear. Well, besides the hot guys in the ad, there’s the parsing of the nominal expression Spanish fetish brand (as a modifier of the brand name Locker Gear).
And the text of the ad, with another significant bit boldfaced:
The DailyJocks Backroom hand picks the best fetish-wear brands from around the world & brings them directly to your inbox. [directly to your inbox was probably carefully chosen, but let that pass]
Check out our hottest new addition, Spanish fetish brand Locker Gear. Featuring a rugged, classic look on all of their products.
From jockstraps with an open pouch to chest harnesses or unlock your addiction with the zipper pouch jockstrap.
Then these two expressions triggered a chain of associations that led ultimately to the romantic comedy movie All Over the Guy.
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Posted in Actors, Ambiguity, Association, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Movies and tv, Parsing, Underwear | Leave a Comment »
March 10, 2020
My morning name from ten days ago, from a celebrated comedy routine: a double dozen double damask dinner napkins. The original was apparently two dozen double damask dinner napkins, and it sometimes is performed as a dozen double damask dinner napkins, but its tongue-twisteristic core is the double damask dinner napkins part — and the history is interesting, but what consumed me that morning was where I’d first encountered that phrase and the routine.
I was pretty sure it was at Princeton in 1959-62, in the Bendon/Daingerfield menage on Nassau St., and I recalled clearly that I was familiar with them in the fall of 1962, when Ann Daingerfield and I moved into our house in Cambridge MA and discovered we were in possession of several dozen double damask dinner napkins; we dissolved in giggles repeating the phrase. (I still have some of those napkins; they are not only handsome but durable.)
(#1) An Irish linen double damask dinner napkin, in service
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Posted in Morning names, Movies and tv, My life, Spoonerisms, Tongue twisters | Leave a Comment »
February 10, 2020
Back at the end of January I noted briefly on Facebook that the January 25th coincidence of Robert Burns’s birthday with the new lunar year — the Year of the Rat, specifically — meant that this year 1/25 was the celebratory day of Basil Ratburn. Crossed swords and groans.
(#1) Basil Rathbone (on the left) as villain — rat — crossing swords with Errol Flynn in the 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood (you are allowed an adolescent snicker on crossing swords — and in fact those snickers have a basis in reality, in the term swordplay referring to body practices between men; see the Swordplay Bonus below)
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Posted in Actors, Holidays, Homosexuality, Language and animals, Language and food, Language and the body, Language play, Masculinity, Movies and tv, Music, Poetry, Puns, Writers | 2 Comments »
February 4, 2020
From the American tv police detective series Nash Bridges, S3 E19 “Lady Killer” (from 4/10/98): detectives Bridges (played by Don Johnson) and Joe Dominguez (played by Cheech Marin) have learned that Insp. Rick Bettina, under arrest in this episode, has escaped from custody:
Bridges, on the phone: He fugitized!
Dominguez: He fugitized?!
Yes, the verb fugitize ‘flee as a fugitive, go fugitive’. And no, it’s not in the OED, not that you should have expected it would be; fresh verbizings — with meanings that are clear in context, as here — are coined almost daily. In fact, this one has been independently innovated several times in the past.
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Posted in Derivation, Lexical semantics, Morphology, Movies and tv, Music, Semantics | Leave a Comment »
January 22, 2020
Today’s Wayno/Piraro collabo, another little exercise in cartoon understanding:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page.) Wayno’s title: “Number, Please”
No doubt you recognize the speaker as Satan / the Devil / Beelzebub, but the cartoon will still be incomprehensible unless you know that there’s a particular three-digit number that’s sometimes said to belong to Satan.
Pursuing this topic on my man Jacques’s birthday, today, will lead us, through a favorite verse of his, on a circuitous route passing through a mysterious British village, Chicago, and Santa Monica, on its way to the Big Gay Village, where men hug, spoon, and screw. (There will eventually be a content warning. I’ll warn you when the screwing is imminent.)
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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Humor, Language and the body, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Music, My life, Parodies, Poetry, Pop culture, Understanding comics | 3 Comments »
