Word: magic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...actors, directors and producers, they were a paycheck. Why, then, were so many of the movies of 1939 so good? Clearly, something had gone wrong -- or wondrously right -- on the Hollywood assembly line: the studios were not merely churning out moneymaking products, as they thought they were, but a magic that endures to this...
There is no formula for magic, and what happened then is something of a mystery even today. Part of the explanation may be that the studio system, which had been born 20 years or so earlier, had come of age; it had reached its maturity but was still full of zest. The bosses may have been crude and often tyrannical, but they loved their business, they knew what they were doing, and they had created huge organizations whose only purpose was to send new pictures to thousands of theaters, most of which, in the U.S., were owned by the studios...
Other explanations for the magic of 1939 lie more in the realm of metaphysics than economics or technology. Hollywood in those days really was Hollywood, which is to say it was the place where movies, as well as deals, were made. Very few pictures were shot on location, and inventive scouts either found or contrived every scene they wanted within a few miles of Hollywood and Vine. The Yorkshire moors of Wuthering Heights were so faithfully recreated in nearby Chatsworth that director Wyler bragged that his field of heather looked more authentic than a real field of heather...
...Cortese), his flirtation with the goddess Venus (Uma Thurman), his captivity inside a giant fish, and his long-odds battle with the Turkish army. Except for young Sally (Sarah Polley), his listeners don't know if he's telling the truth. But his viewers know; Gilliam has used the magic of film to show them the wonders Munchausen has limned. Lovers dance in midair in an underworld waterfall ballroom. The baron sails to the moon in a ship wafted by a hot-air balloon. One of his servants (Eric Idle) outruns a speeding bullet. A terrifying angel of death hovers...
July 4, at home vs. Milwaukee. A strange breeze is blowing in Boston. On a high since Boggs' ignominious departure, the Sox roll out a 10-game winning streak. Bleacher bums begin to whisper about Margo's Magic...