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W. David Lichty

@thinkdeliberately.bsky.social
1.3K followers 142 following 560 posts

I'm a collection of cultural preferences! Look at my stuff! See who I am! This is my soul! Wheee!

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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
September 15, 1976 - Bugsy Malone, a singing, dancing, gangster kids (including Scott Baio, Jodie Foster and Dexter Fletcher, also two "not that ones" in John Williams and Michael Jackson) shooting each other with whipped cream guns '70s picture.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
It was 65 Years Ago Today . . . August 31, 1961 - The very new, local music magazine Mersey Beat, covering news about all the local Liverpool bands, publishes a story considered the 'announcement' of The Beatles, a recognition of their uniqueness, or maybe supremacy, in that burgeoning rock scene.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
August 28, 1948 - Rope, one of Hitchcock's best, not for everyone, but always for me.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
August 26, 1953 - The War of the Worlds is released wide in the US. This was my first ever favorite movie, and remains on my list of top films ever. Here's a neat little scene www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM3P...
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
August 25, 1950 - Rashomon is released. This is the classic he said, she said, then he said and *then* that ghost said movie, the same scene from different perspectives - in this case at least three lies.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
August 24, 1946 - Brief Encounter opens in the US. A few years ago, a poll in Britain's Guardian deemed it the best movie romance of all time.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
August 24, 1930 - All Quiet on the Western Front, one of the crown jewels of the American Movie Classics film preservation cause from the 90's; it now seems less like an artifact of its day and more like a real movie.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
135. On this day in 1891, the movies sort of began. web.archive.org/web/20150828...
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
"Painterly" is the word. This is a stepping stone to their 1959, 70mm widescreen picture Sleeping Beauty in it's... well, beauty! Bambi is one of Disney's best movies due to its lavish look. August 21, 1942 - Bambi released wide in the US
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
August 20, 1998 - The accurately titled Run Lola Run was released. Only Run Lola Run Lola Run could have been more on the nose. This from writer/director/composer...editor? Tom Tykwer. It's an action film and a relationship story.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
August 12, 1988 - Tucker: The Man and His Dream The screencap says something about what happened to that dream.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
August 12, 1939 - The Wizard of Oz premieres. It's an easy to dismiss movie, but only if you haven't seen it recently.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Movies & Rock day: August 11th - 2000 - Child of director Guy Ritchie and musician Madonna, Rocco, is born. Presumably Rocco Ritchie, or Rocco , if he took his mother's last name. Here they are, seen recreating the Duran Duran video: Rio.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Movies & Rock day: August 11th - 1999 - KISS get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (12 years before The Go-Gos? What's up with that?)
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Movies & Rock day: August 11th - 1973 - American Graffiti opens wide in the US
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Movies & Rock day: August 11th - 1965 - HELP! opens in New York
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Movies & Rock day: August 11th - 1964 - A Hard Days Night opens in New York
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Movies & Rock day: August 11th - 1954 - Musician Joe Jackson is born (named David Ian Jackson). He would go on to make one of my favorite one-shot film soundtracks for Tucker: The Man and his Dream.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Close Encounters is a gorgeous movie. This couple, it's their only shot in the whole film, and everything we need to know about them is on their faces. The hope. "It's finally happening!" "The wait really was worth it." and so on.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
August 3, 1992 - Unforgiven, a brilliant anti-violence movie, and one of the films that led me to liking westerns. This and The Road Warrior.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
August 3, 1946 - Bacall to Arms Directed by Bob Clampett, Arthur Davis & Friz Freleng
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Carl Davis October 28, 1936 – August 3, 2023 This expression, this is usually how I feel when I watch any of the 60+ silent films he scored.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Jerry Goldsmith February 10, 1929 - July 21, 2004 These are all in my Top Ten. These and his two Flint scores, but I found both of those films' artwork needlessly 'booby'.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
July 17, 1959 - North By Northwest Also, on top? Not even a matte painting, but just a painting! Nothing moves, not the cars, not the people. I'd've loved it if Hitch had pulled back from this painting on a wall inside the UN, revealing Thornhill entering.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
July 17, 1968 - Yellow Submarine
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Secret Beyond the Door (1947) Nice looking movie.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Die Hard is thirty-something today. And before everyone chimes in with the obvious, yes, yes, we all know it's a Harry Potter movie: a guy sneaks around a huge, multi-level, danger-filled building at night trying not to be caught by Alan Rickman?
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Lennon & Potsie. What could have been if the world were tilted just a little differently on its axis.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Live Aid, a global event, for those with televisions: July 13, 1985. I didn't see it live, of course, but my guess is that this would have been my favorite performance. Her music translates very well to the live stage. Helen Folasade Adu (Sade). I just went through another Sade phase last year.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
The still clever Time Bandits turns 45 today. In its day, Chaplin's final silent, Modern Times, was 45. And there was much rejoicing.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
And Now We Are 40. On July 2, 1986 Big Trouble in Little China was *way* ahead of its time: Bringing the elements of Chinese martial arts/Magic into the states in a giant gulp about 15 years before Crouching Tiger opened the door a little more generally wider...
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
July 2, 1980 Airplane.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
July 2, 1949 - The Fountainhead, in which Howard Roark says, "Nope, socialism!" I need to rewatch this. I tend to like King Vidor's pictures, and I need to erase Barbara Stanwyck from my memories of it and give Patricia Neal her places back.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
July 2, 1946 - The Stranger. There's Edward G. Robinson in the role of investigator again, more serious, though no less concerned than he was in Double Indemnity. 80 year old today, is Orson Welles' The Stranger.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
June 30, 1951 Strangers on a Train. It's on the rotation for my top Hitchcock picture. It pretty much has it all, humor, tension, consistently great cinematography, an unexpectedly spectacular ending and a fair number of well fleshed out, minor characters, including Hitch’s daughter, Patricia.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
June 15, 1990 - Gremlins 2: The New Batch What a surprise this was! A Why Did They Bother sequel turned out to be a comedy cavalcade. If Joe Dante's Looney Tunes movie was no great hit, it may be because he had already made it with this. Different characters, but absolutely the same comic ethos.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Just look at those eyes! June 15, 1960 - The Apartment Until recently, I thought this movie was a hollow nothing, having seen it widescreen, but on a VHS tape. No detail. It matters here, not for big sets and vistas, but for faces.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
June 15, 1948 - Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Some humor dates. Jack Benny and Burns & Allen haven't dated. The Marx Brothers and Abbot and Costello have. That doesn't mean that they're never funny, just not so consistently anymore.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
June 11, 1982 E.T. E.T. is looking. Later Keys is looking. Everybody's watching, observing, all in ways that tell you as much about them as about what they're eyeing.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
June 10, 2005 - Batman Begins. A pretty good picture that starts up a great trilogy. Especially if you think about cities. 21 years old now, Tim Burton's first Batman picture was 16 years old in 2005. This, for me, so-so movie became greater after the third of its trilogy gave it more potency.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
June 10, 1991 - The Twin Peaks finale ...the first one, anyway.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
On this day in 1974, Jerry Goldsmith began recording the score for Chinatown. 10 days later, it was in theaters. And that wasn't the closest call of his career, either.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
June 8, 1984 - Top Secret, from the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team better known for Airplane and Police Squad! It's a movie of some very funny gags glued together with too much tongue in cheek stuff. I like it a lot, until I'm actually watching it.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
June 8, 1984 - Gremlins is released. Pretty. Fable-ish. Wicked humor here and there. Sweet. Nasty. Definitely Looney, yes, as in "Tunes."
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
On this day in 1949, George Orwell's 1984 was released. On this day in 1984, Ghostbusters was released.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
On this day in 1972, presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm visited her racist opponent, George Wallace, where he was hospitalized following an assassination attempt. She tossed away a perfectly good, socially acceptable opportunity to hate. What was she thinking?
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
June 8, 1937 - Grande Illusion There's a lot of nice poster art for this one. A couple of years ago this was listed as opening on June 8th in France, not the 4th, but that's been updated, so I'm late.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
June 8, 1937 - Grande Illusion, probably the first prisoner of war camp movie, certainly the first great one. Warm, cold and witty, I think it was my first foreign language film too. It's 89, but feels much fresher than that.
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
1982, Tron. I maintain that this little scene is among the best Car Chase Scenes in cinema, next to the asteroid field scene from EMPIRE. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFuR...
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W. David Lichty @thinkdeliberately.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
3 weeks before it came out in 1984, my friends and I saw a sneak preview of Gremlins, expecting monsters and getting unexpected comedy. Midway through, there's a scene of chaos in a bar where Looney Tunes humor is dialed up to eleven, but this moment was the one that just dropped my friend and I.
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