What Movies Have You Seen Lately?

Quote: Pacomartin

Won't you be my neighbor has one of the slowest roll outs I've ever seen.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 99%, you
don't see that very often. Now some
Me Too woman will come forward
and claim Fred looked at her boobs
in 1957 and all the movies will be
pulled..

“I want you to know, Franc, that if you’re gay, it doesn’t matter to me at all. Whatever you say and do is fine with me, but if you’re going to be on the show, as an important member of the Neighborhood, you can’t be ‘out’ as gay. People must not know … Many of the wrong people will get the worst idea, and we don’t want them thinking and talking about you like that. If those people put up enough fuss, then I couldn’t have you on the program. It’s not an issue for me. I don’t think you’re less of a person. I don’t think you’re immoral.”

I think that the worst stuff they can print about him, was that he maintained the status quo feeling of the time about mixing open homosexual behavior and a children's show.

Quote: Pacomartin

was that he maintained the status quo feeling of the time about mixing open homosexual behavior and a children's show.

I always thought he was Gay from the
first time I saw him. Still do.

Quote: Pacomartin

“I want you to know, Franc, that if you’re gay, it doesn’t matter to me at all. Whatever you say and do is fine with me, but if you’re going to be on the show, as an important member of the Neighborhood, you can’t be ‘out’ as gay. People must not know … Many of the wrong people will get the worst idea, and we don’t want them thinking and talking about you like that. If those people put up enough fuss, then I couldn’t have you on the program. It’s not an issue for me. I don’t think you’re less of a person. I don’t think you’re immoral.”

I think that the worst stuff they can print about him, was that he maintained the status quo feeling of the time about mixing open homosexual behavior and a children's show.

Depending on what year we're talking about, an adult show might have survived, but a kid's show would have been canceled. There would have been the whole thing of converting and influencing.

Quote: Pacomartin

“I want you to know, Franc, that if you’re gay, it doesn’t matter to me at all. Whatever you say and do is fine with me, but if you’re going to be on the show, as an important member of the Neighborhood, you can’t be ‘out’ as gay. People must not know … Many of the wrong people will get the worst idea, and we don’t want them thinking and talking about you like that. If those people put up enough fuss, then I couldn’t have you on the program. It’s not an issue for me. I don’t think you’re less of a person. I don’t think you’re immoral.”

Franc? Who's Franc? What's this quote from? Did you mean Fred?
It's not like you, Paco, just to put some random quote with no link or context.

I finally saw Won't You Be My Neighbor. I saw it by myself, which is something I seldom do. For anyone who is my age and grew up with Mr. Rogers, I highly recommend it. We have all seen interviews and documentaries about Fred Rogers but this one digs deeper than I've ever seen done before. If there is anyone on this earth without flaws, it is Mr. Rogers, but the movie exposes some sides of him that one might take that way.

Somebody brought up that it became known to him that the police officer on the show was gay. Mr. Rogers said on every show, "I love you just the way you are." However, he forbade the actor to come out of the closet, at the risk of losing his job. To be honest, I would have made the same decision at the time, as homosexuality at the time was still very taboo and it would have killed the show with controversy and everyone knows it.

I heard a lot of people crying in the audience during the movie. If I were a crying man, I probably would have too. The movie was painful to watch at times. In response to 9-11 he did some public announcements but you could tell he seemed overcome by the incident and at a lack for words. It was also a disgraceful commentary on human nature that that his funeral was picketed by the "god hates fags" church.

All in all, I still maintain the Fred Rogers is the closest thing to a perfect human being I have ever seen.

Getting back to the movie, there are some movies that must be seen in a theater to be appreciated. This is not one of them. However, it is still a great piece of work about a great man. It doesn't fawn all over him, as I probably would have done, but strives to find the person behind the one everyone my age knows.

Quote: Wizard

I finally saw Won't You Be My Neighbor.

Tom Hanks is playing Fred Rogers
in a movie coming out next year.

Quote: Wizard

I finally saw Won't You Be My Neighbor.

His wife was on the Tonight Show a little while back. She made a number reference he used.

Do you know his favorite number and why it was his favorite?


(Btw his wife is 90+ but is as quick mentally as someone healthy at middle age. Doesn't even have the usually slower speech pattern)

Quote: Evenbob

Tom Hanks is playing Fred Rogers
in a movie coming out next year.

He does kind of look like him.

Interesting thing about Mr. Rogers I learned from the movie -- he maintained a weight of 143 for many years.

Trivia time! What was significant about the number 143 to him?

BTW, if you're tempted to say that it's prime, it's not. Any number that is one less than a perfect square can't be prime because (x-1)*(x+1) = x^2 - 1. In this case 143 is one less than 12^2=144, and is thus equal to 11*13.

I never watched children's shows so I don't know much about the show or the character.

I agree that a heterosexual veneer is mandatory in such things. Any media commentary about homosexuality and an actor on a children's show and it would be curtains for the actor and probably for the entire show.

Dirk Bogarde was a handsome matinee idol whose fans were often female and whose funding often came from the USA, yet he and his "manager" lived in the UK which prosecuted homosexuals particularly if they were in some sort of public limelight, so I could understand his hesitancy to come out of the closet. He would have lost his income stream and probably gone to a rather lengthy prison sentence.

Recently the UK has endured historical sex abuse trials and anyone connected to the BBC seems to have been fair game. Charges are so easy to make in the press and in the courts. Its certainly a death knell for any children's show.