The Chapel at Precious Moments is just as beautiful as the Sistine Chapel. I have been to both. Obviously Precious Moments was painted in a more modern style, but they are on the same level. Amazing Place!
No. I did not make this up.
I’ve seen many things during my travels but the Precious Moments gift store and attached Chapel take the cake for being the strangest, creepiest place I’ve ever been to.
I’ve been clipping copying these ads from the old Life magazines for a long time and, chances are, you might have seen some of them on my Facebook and Twitter accounts. The ads are just as neat and interesting as the actual content of the old magazines; nowadays some of them would be considered racist, sexist or both, but it doesn’t make them any less of a historic record of their epoch; they were perfectly acceptable at the time and they make the progress much more obvious. Makes, models, shapes, prices long forgotten; “amazing auto-pilots” and cars “for women drivers” – you won’t see ads like these in the magazines of today. I thought I’d share a few ads on this blog in a somewhat organized manner. The first installment will be about cars, but I am planning to follow up with food and other things. These ads are in no particular order since I was too lazy to make a not of the year and issue.
If you are a female over the age of 6 or a male over 28 and posted an excited review or Transformers 2, your movie-reviewing bona fides are hereby revoked. The only exception is granted to those who were stoned or too upset over Michael Jackson’s death while watching this pile of robot rust.
Two hours worth of repetitive CGI accompanied by non-stop metal clanging noises made me think how little was needed to impress a young viewer just 30-50 years ago. I remember my Dad telling me how during his school years everyone went crazy over the Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller. The old Tarzan movies produced in the 1930s made it to the USSR as war trophies and were shown everywhere for years after WWII (In the following book clip start reading the paragraph starting with “Basically Hollywood…”).
Many injuries resulted from attempting to swing on any hanging rope with one arm while imitating the Tarzan call.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwHWbsvgQUE
Cheesy special effects of the 1930s and even an obvious reusing of the same footage throughout the series didn’t prevent me from enjoying them when I saw Tarzan for the first time in the early 80s.
When I was very young another movie took me and my classmates by a storm. Zorro probably caused more property damage than any movie before it, with a “sign of Zorro” drawn, engraved, chiseled or carved on everything with a surface.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vT1aje5u1Y
Speaking about cheesy special effects, how can one forget “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad“. When I was 8 or 9 the monsters from this movie looked totally real. Not so much anymore.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a77pycC78Q0
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03k8di93r5Q
In the late 70’s a Japanese movie The Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds was the talk of the country, at a time when Jurassic Park wasn’t even a concept. From appetizer to dessert – One town becomes a monster meal – was the tagline.I still distinctly remember a half of a horse falling off the cliff, the other half bitten off by a dinosaur, and I still avoid bloody movies.
Another scary Japanese movie of my childhood was the Sinking of Japan (Tidal Wave) which came out in 1973 and was remade in 2006. Here is a clip of a recent remake.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJ6Cftc-E8
You can imagine pitiful special effects of 1973 but I still remember it as a terrifying movie years later.
There are plenty of acclaimed and beloved movies with really low-quality special effects, that did not benefit from a more sophisticated remake.
Unfortunately no amount of special effects could benefit Transformers 2.
I found this 1946 Life Magazine article while searching for vintage Kansas photos (the article features a farmer from Shawnee County, KS and a future post is forthcoming). We frequently hear about the way it used to be, stable middle class of the past, high taxes on the wealthy and many other economic and cultural realities that were lost over the past 60 years. The article briefly touches on several segments of the post-war society, their roles in the economy and their material well-being. The language of the article is strikingly similar to what we see in the media today. Over time, the classes described in the article were redefined or disappeared; rich people are not content with just two Cadillac’s; no one is paying two thirds of their income in taxes; and $12,000 a year does not equate to being successful. There is one notable exception: the teachers are still being screwed. Anyway, the article is short, enjoy.
