GRAFFITI CANT BE STOPPED!

FEEL LIKE TRAVELING #3

CUTE + SEXY + HOT = JAMIE CHUNG

WANTED: Polaroid Z340 Instant Digital Camera

WEIRDEST DOG EVER!

AMANDA SEYFRIED IS HOT!

STAY CREATIVE.

WTF JAPAN?

Japs found a way to solve the slow walkers!
This shit is hilarious tho!

FEEL LIKE TRAVELING #2

FEEL LIKE TRAVELING #1

A Midsummer Night's Dream (As Cast By Me)

{Also known as the post where Bette gets to ramble on and on about Shakespeare in relation to classic movies :-D}

My english teacher set me a great task the other day. We are studying "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare in class and she told us all to cast the play with actors we wanted and then write a letter to one of the key actors asking them to be in your adaptation. Now, this seemed to me like a great blog post to do, and it will give me the chance to write a letter involving random behind the scenes movie knowledge that might scare the rest of my classmates.

After mi amigo (who braved The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie with me the other day *shudder*, see the P.S. at the bottom of the post) asked the teacher if the actors could be dead, I set about my work. I knew that I didn't want the cast to be the same as previous movie adaptations. And after a little conversation with my mother (serious craziness went on during this conversation!) this was my final main cast list:

• Queen Titania: Ingrid Bergman
• King Oberon: Cary Grant
• Hermia: Elizabeth Taylor
• Lysander: Tony Curtis
• Helena: Katharine Hepburn
• Demetrius: James Stewart
• Puck: Henry Travers (Clarence the angel in It's A Wonderful Life)
• Nick Bottom: Steve Martin
• King Egeus: Lawrence Olivier (older years)

As you can see, there is one outlier in the cast, but Steve Martin cracks me up so much :-)

Here is the letter I wrote to Elizabeth Taylor asking her to play the part of Hermia. Just to tell you, this version is slightly more full of classic movie references than the one I handed in at school, but this is how I would have liked it.

Dear Elizabeth Taylor, 

I am writing to you to ask you to play the part of Hermia in my upcoming screen adaptation of "A Midsummer Nights Dream". My casting director and I think you are perfect for the role. Your way of portraying such heartbreak in so many of your films (in a good way) leads us to beleive that you would be more than capable of acting Hermia. Of course, as the director I will have to look into the character with you and help you really empathise with her. 

You may know me more as a supporting player in major motion pictures than as a director, in fact, this will be my debut in the directorial department. You may also have seen me in family portraits in fan magazines as I come from a long line of actors. The two movies you will know me best for are probably "The Women" and "Citizen Kane" in which I played a yoga instructor and Orson Welles's third cousin respectively. Although I am deeply proud of these achievements, I feel I will be more satisfied when behind the camera. 

Your fellow cast includes such big names as Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart and Ingrid Bergman. I had wanted to cast Richard Burton opposite you as Lysander, but knowing that relations between the two of you have not been brilliant over the past few months, I thought it best to cast someone else. I have decided to cast Tony Curtis as Lysander instead. This role should hopefully give him a great start in "serious movies". 

There should be no problem getting the others in the intended cast to play their roles. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman have already agreed to play their characters and Jimmy Stewart is also in on the picture. I have tried to contact Kate Hepburn, but she is holidaying with Spencer Tracy on some unknown island and goodness knows when she will be back. But if she fails us, we will always have Rosalind Russel to call on. 

Just in case you where wondering, the picture is to be filmed in black and white. I had hoped for Technicoclour, but the the budget the studio has given me does not have enough left to cover that. As you can see, the cast will set the studio back a little... 

Please think seriously about this film, we are going to stick to all of Shakespeare's dialogue, and the period. The sets will consist of intricate palace backdrops and beautiful on-location scenes in moonlit forests. 

Sincerely, 

Bette Barrymore of Warner Brother's Studios

I hope you liked it!

~Bette

P.S. I did watch The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie with my friend the other day... It was rated a 12 so we both thought it would be fine to watch as we are both over twelve. Maggie Smith was great in it and it was overall a good film, but both my friend and I will have a phobia of art teachers forever after watching this film.

My Word Of 2011

I have seen that lots of bloggers have been posting a word that they want to represent 2011 for them, and I really liked the idea. I know I'm a little late, but better late than never... Right? I gave it some thought and came up with a word that I would really like to be my buzz word this year.

Aspire

Aspire: To have an ambitious plan or a lofty goal.

This year, I'm going to aspire to do lots of things I've never done before.
I'm going to aspire to blog almost every day, even with everything going on.

I'm going to aspire to write in my beautiful moleskine passions film journal lots. It should make a wonderful accompaniment to my blog. (I tried taking my own photos, but they didn't work. It's dark now and photos taken on my camera look rubbish with the flash.)

I'm going to scan all of my old movie photos. It is so bad that I have amazing photos in lots of books that I would love to share that I haven't scanned. I really need to just free up a weekend and do it all in one go. 
I'm going to aspire to do my best in all my subjects at school and choose the GCSEs that will suit me and help me best. And then, after summer, I'm going to aspire to kick off my GCSE courses in the best way possible.

I'm going to aspire to do well in my performing as well as my academic subjects, because they are important to me too.
And last but certainly not least... I'm going to aspire to watch even more movies :D!!!

I'm going to keep this photo at the side of my blog. I just love the photo of Greer Garson with the flowers. I wish that aspiring to have hair like Greer Garson was a realistic aspiration, it would be at the top of my list.

~Bette

Photos Are A Classic Film Fan's Best Friends

I think that photo's are cherished in a very special way by classic film fans, because hey... If we didn't have all those lovely pictures of Cary Grant and Laurence Olivier,  we would have no way of seeing them in their natural habitats. If we didn't have those snazzy pictures of Greer Garson, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman... How would we have outfit and hairdo inspiration? The answer is probably it wouldn't be easy. Here are some of my most recent and/or favourite ones at the moment.

A beautiful moment in a beautiful film: An Affair To Remember. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr pictured.

Not so lucky with fur here... But it's Greer so we'll forgive her. Right?!

Beautiful Ingrid Notorious costumes. Love these dresses, but am afraid I will need to grow 6 inches to make me the same height as she was (5ft 9).

She really loves Cary Grant in this scene. How could you not?

This photo has probably been posted thousands of times on blogger, but I love James Dean! I always thought he should have been in The Great Escape.

What this post is also about, is the Classic Movie Blog Association's Hitchcock blogathon that is taking place on Monday. It is restricted to members of the CMBA and I shall be doing North By Northwest. This should be fun. 18 or more Hitchcock reviews on one day, yay!

I love the feeling of being back at school and being able to learn about cool things. It is so refreshing to be enlightened by the subjects I love, and it's just as refreshing to breath the fresh air when I get out of the classes I don't like. But that will all be different next year, I will be free to study my favourite subjects selected by me during the next six weeks. As of next wednesday my GCSE option choice process begins. I have to sit in assemblies and talk to teachers about mine and my parent's choices. I don't know how much time this will take and how complicated it will be, but blogging is sure to be my salvation along with my music and acting, as always.

~Bette

Frankly Ma Dear, I Give A Damn!

I am exhausted after a long piano practice. My exam is on SATURDAY!!!! And I do give a damn about how I do. I want everything to be perfect, meaning loads of practice (thats why i'm blogging instead right now ;D). But I really need some stress release, so here is a load of miscellenious anecdotes, photos, and ramblings.

Well, here is an anecdote I really, really love and it's from no other than ma main man, Monsiour Humphrey Bogart. I think it's exerpted from a book, I found it while browsing the internet.

“Bogart did drink. ‘I think the whole world is three drinks behind,’ he used to say, ‘and it’s high time it caught up.’ On one occasion he and a friend bought two enormous stuffed panda bears and took them as their dates to El Morocco. They sat them in chairs at a table for four and when an ambitious young lady came over and touched Bogart’s bear, he shoved her away. ‘I’m a happily married man,’ he said, ‘and don’t touch my panda.’
The woman brought assault charges against him, and when asked if he was drunk at four o’clock in the morning, he replied, ‘Sure, isn’t everybody?’ (The judge ruled that since the panda was Bogart’s personal property, he could defend it.)”
-excerpted from Peter Bogdanovich’s Who the Hell’s In It

In a 1949 LA Times article about Pandagate, Bogart defended his drunken misbehavior on constitutional grounds: “So we get stiff once in a while. So we have a little fun. What’s wrong with that? This is a free country, isn’t it? I can take my panda any place I want to. And if I wanna buy it a drink, that’s my business.”
(TIME magazine’s original 1949 article about the incident can be read here).

I love that. It's so cool that he loved pandas. Just the kinda story to read while in cosy black and white (black and white panda, get it?) pull ons. Hahahahaha. While I have been exploring my dad's new photo editing software, Adobe Lightroom, I did this surreal colourization of a Bette Davis picture.

Bette's Classic Movie Blog 2010 ©

if you want to use it (or any of the photos I note I have created) please give credit where credit is due and link to my blog. Here follow a series of classic movie christmas photos which I guess could be used as anything. I just think they are cute!

Bette's Classic Movie Blog 2010 ©

Bette's Classic Movie Blog 2010 ©

I will probably be posting a lot about Christmas films in the near future. I love them! I am slightly aprehensive about White Christmas. Two soldiers (one of whom happens to be a singer and Bing Crosby. Grrrrrr. I can't remember the names of the characters) are stationed somewhere in Europe. They put on a show in which Bing Crosby's character sings "White Christmas", and an air-raid starts. Conveniently, a wall nearly falls on Bing, and Danny Kaye happens to push him out of the way. Danny then claims that Bing owes him his life and wants him to be a duet act with him. There follows a very funny scene where they dress up as Vera Ellen and Rosmary Clooney and sing "Sisters", and something about putting on a show in a barn-ish thing (Summer Stock or what?). You gotta admire the film overall. The best things in it are the songs, Danny kaye and Rosmary Clooney.

Rosemary and Vera singing "Sisters"

Bing and Danny singing "Sisters"

Listening to Barbra Striesand do a very Jewish rendition of "Ave Maria". Have a great rest of day/evening/whatever-of-the-day-you-have-left!

~Bette

TWO O TEN

First of, I would like to make some kind of apology for the lack of update :P

I recently have been busy; for tasks and shit... 

so yeah.. hope you enjoy my massive update :D

Happy new year world! 

Respect and looking forward for something good

 in this new year

JAKARTA ALL STAR WRITERS