Eglentine V. Mary

We are putting on warpaint over here at BC/HF for a series of upcoming "VS" posts, dealing with some of the most controversial subjects we've held cooped up our lives over.  Today's fight:

Mary Poppins V. Bedknobs and Broomsticks

{ding ding}

Both Disney films were released in the early 70's.  Both contain musical numbers, gravity-defying magic, live action and animation interaction, David Tomlinson, and childcare.
This is a toughy.
Angela Lansbury or Julie Andrews?  Ladies, ladies, calm down.  I simply cannot choose, therefore, the fight will be based on the other factors of the film.
What is most curious is that the same company would release two highly similar films within only a year or two, with the same animation style and  dealing with such similar subjects.  However hunky-dory they both appear to be, one is definitely more dramatic than its fluffy counterpart.

A prominent issue to address with both films is the inclusion of animation.  Both are executed in the same style and really only include one continuous scene of animation apiece.  In mary Poppins, it is a dandy day trip to a farm, a bistro, and then to the racetrack.  But in Bedknobs, it is undersea and then up to the Isle of Naboomboo, where they duel the animal king in soccer in order to win for a trophy the Star of Asteroth, a critical artifact in the successful execution of powerful spells.

Here we see the children taking a fieldtrip to Portobello Road, where they see a proletariat market with dancing and a magic show.

Here Jane and Michael Banks receive tutelage in birdsong about how to straighten one's toys.  All previous attempts at order had failed until they employed magic and Julie Andrews.  I have no sympathy for these protagonists.

Both pictures contain elaborately choreographed dance numbers, often even involving animated characters.  The numbers often involve large groups of real-live humans dancing, as well and both are renowned for their music.
Mary Poppins was famous for the at-the-time preposterous and quirky song "Supercalafragelisticespialidocious," (sp?) but ol' Bedknobs used existing "big words" to describe magic, with "Substitutiary Locomotion."  What the former possessed in bedazzles gypsy ensembles the latter made up for with fine beat and elaborate puppetry.  Dancing nightgowns and armor, for God's sake.

There is then also the matter of the enchanted props which are employed to travel to worlds away, the cases with these films being a bed and a parrot umbrella.  Not that I have anything against parrot umbrellas, but if we are to suspend our disbelief so much as to allow for magical transportation at all, a bed would be a far better instrument.  It holds more people, and is much more comfortable.

My main thinking here is that, while in Mary Poppins, Jane and Michael struggle with the lack of parental attention, they are not impoverished orphans, and they take walks in the park as opposed to fighting Nazis.  It is really the Nazi occupation that sets these two apart the most, and you just can't compete with that for sympathy.  While the rich kids have to have a whole musical number devoted to them ceasing to be pussies and drink their tonic already, the siblings in Bedknobs are waging actual warfare. Substitutary locomotion comes to their aid in the form of reanimated suits of armor, bewitched to march eerily towards the enemy.

And the winner is:

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

For being accessible at every turn, humbly fantastic, and brimming with beautiful beatz.

O, to be the bangs upon that brow

It's hard to face, but there are a lot of lovely ladies in the world.  Many of them don't see how pretty they are, and others diminish their appeal by over admittance.  Today on BC/HF we do the pretty girl rock with the lady we think is the fairest of them all, not just in style and swag, but in brains, too.  You know her, it's Z-Z-Z-Zooey Deschannel.
Fine features, big eyes, porcelain skin, and a meadowlark's voice are but a few of the delights of this dashing, dishy dame.

I bet it feels good to be the pretty sister in the family, but Zooey's kind heart thinks no such thoughts, I'm sure. 

Long and hard have the BC/HF presses been stopped with dreams of Deschannel.  Her film repetoire is impressive - and hey, she was the best part of Elf

As many of you well know, Missy D. has teamed up with the very talented M. Ward to create the band She and Him.  It is a blissful sonic combination.  A lot of what they have been doing is very nostalgic - no problems there.  It has the feel of a semi-psychedelic Patsy Cline, and Zooey's voice is a miracle of unconventionality.  Normally when actresses turn to singing, the result is a banal breathy bag of shit, and really, the same is true of people who started off singing and stuck with it.  Typically, it all sounds exactly the same.  Deschannel, on the other hand, is completely recognizable, with beautiful timbre and vibrato, and boy can the lady belt it.

When I finally trap her in my cage, I'm not letting her back out again.  Indicated in the lower left corner, this photo is from a promo she did for Absolut Vodka.  When I searched for this picture initially, I was displeased to see it was on someone else's blog in which they dubbed her a sellout.  Sometimes fans just don't understand.  Plus, this photo is fantastic, and the least obvious thing about it is the ad, buncha fuckers.

Nice bicycle

Can you feel the rushing wind created by hundreds of pairs of dropping underpants?

If that's what I wore under my clothes, I wouldn't wear clothes

When we have down time, HF and BC enjoy lolling about in little to no clothing.  In our natural animalistic states we find ourselves very at ease.  Being outdoors, swimming, sleeping without clothing is far more relaxing than the conventional option.  We have both come to a point in our lives where we don't feel the need to wear bras under our clothes.  That being said, we also find lingerie to be an extremely appealing thing as well, and are delighted to see it increasingly becoming a part of every-day fashion.  The point is, when worn well, it just looks dynamite.  There are numerous tacky and displeasing incarnations of this, but most of the time, elaborately crafted garments made to support and compliment the beautiful female form do just that.  And with so much detail often going into the pieces, why hide them?

The man most recognized for his talent in the world of outrageous womens underwear is, of course, Jean-Paul Gaultier.  His couture corsets are renowned the world over, and are often so decidedly elaborate that one couldn't wear them under anything anyway.  He has done work for Madonna and Lady Gaga to name a few, but his signature lady is one of our favorites - Dita Von Teese, Burlesque royalty.

Splatter vs. Spatter {Rated G for GORE}

Something that intrigues us here at bc/hf is crime scene photography. Well, pretty much anything death related is interesting to us...

Back to business. Today, I was enjoying a "Stuff You Should Know" podcast (Check this shit out! It's rad!) about Jack the Ripper. I have heard lots of facts and lore about Mr. Ripper, but I learned an interesting new tidbit today. His last victim, Mary Jane Kelly, was immortalized in what is often touted as the first crime scene photo! Grainy? Yes. Ghastly? Indeed!

I remember being a young lass and watching the film Road to Perdition. What really struck me about the violence in this film was the spattering of blood. I guess I had assumed that blood just dribbled out. As a tot, my biological father watched an inappropriate amount of horror movies (I blame this for my morbid nature). When it came time for my shots, I envisioned the nurse pulling the finished syringe from my arm and Tarantino-style blood spraying from the minuscule hole in my arm.



 Needless to say, that didn't happen. Then, years later, I watched Road to Perdition and saw bullets force blood across the room and onto walls and (gasp) vintage lamps.

Stuff You Should Know also taught me that once the blood has hit a surface and is being examined by the ladies and gents of law enforcement, it is "spatter." That equates to "blood spatter analysis," as apposed to "blood splatter analysis." If I watched, Dexter, I might reference that now, but I don't so I won't.

Although, I will say that this character only makes this one face. Artistic choice or lack of facial malleability?

My fiance told me that all his lady-interests have all had one thing in common: curiosity for all things morbid. My head dropped in embarrassment. Morbid is an understatement.

"One girl sat with me and looked at this awful, bloody crime-scene filled photo book. She looked at it for hours..."

I immediately had a flashback to the days of yore (high school), when I dated a guy who worked in Barnes and Noble. He showed me the books that they kept behind the counter. It wasn't just Playboy Mags. He pulled out an old book, filled to the brim with black and white crime scene photos. I looked at it for as long as I could stomach, which wasn't as long as I would've expected. At risk of grossing out my fiance, I try to curb my morbid behavior, or at least wait  until he goes to work...

This photo is so dynamic.

Here is a more modern photo. Damn.

This one is a John Wayne Gacy special ;)

This one is purely for comic relief.

You might remember Elizabeth Short, the "Black Dahlia."

Sometimes, when I look at her, I see this:

or this:

Oh Heath, I never cared until I found out you were dead....

Interesting, yes? Well, sometimes...

Like I said earlier, I couldn't look at the book for long. My curiosity began to frighten me. Each person in the picture is a real person. Yikes. Everybody is somebody's baby.

Here at BellaCozy/holdfast, we are obviously huge fans of Sweet Movie. One minute it is like this:

And then, "The whole world is full of corpses..."

And you've got the Katyn Forest Massacre of 1943:

That's about 22,000 civilians. That's somebody's baby. They all are.

I used to spend so much time fervently researching the Holocaust. It was the only part of history that intrigued me for countless years.

 I began to frequently dream about living in a ghetto and walking around at dusk with the Gestapo monitoring corners under foggy light from a streetlamp. The dreams met frightening crescendo. I dreamt about Jewish children being tied to a chair by an SS officer and then thrown down  several flights of stairs. I believed that I must have been a reincarnated victim of the Holocaust.

Several years after the dreams ceased, I discussed it with my Psychology professor about my reincarnation theory. She told me that it was most likely Vicarious Traumatization. I had consumed so much information on  the subject and experienced so much empathy, that it was beginning to affect my thoughts. My professor had experienced the same scenario after 9/11 when she was inundated with news footage and photographs.

I feel comfortable speaking for us both when I say that, although we are often morbid, weird-ass girls, we do have respect. We might be strangely entranced by photos of the dead, but I think part of it truly is because of the human element. It is because we can feel for them. It is because everyone you know, someday, will die.