Glitz, Glamor, Gams, and Grammar

August 3, 2010 6:52 PM

"When I was in New York, I fell in love with some wild ideas in the shape of a woman. An English teacher, who was hard, but hard like a job I never wanted to end. But to her, I wasn't nothin' but a day at the office. That's what they call a Double Negative."
posted by redsparkler (34 comments total)

I am speechless with admiration.
posted by drdanger at 7:01 PM on August 3, 2010

"What kind of statement is that?"

"It's imperative."

Just between the three of us, this is a very funny video.
posted by governale at 7:02 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Drunk!
posted by cjorgensen at 7:12 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

So impressive!
posted by blahblahblah at 7:14 PM on August 3, 2010

Oh, I get it. My words, they hurt you.
posted by iamkimiam at 7:14 PM on August 3, 2010

Amazing - and not a wasted word in the whole video.
posted by 2bucksplus at 7:16 PM on August 3, 2010

It's like, double ententre'ing for a good cause.
posted by redsparkler at 7:31 PM on August 3, 2010

That was fantastic. Watched it twice.

Amazing - and not a wasted word in the whole video.

I agree... but there's plenty else wasted. I think it would have been better without the added effects (scratchy film, missing frames, popping audio, sound of projector). Had it been presented in clean b&w I would have liked it more (and I liked it a lot!). A good cocktail can have olives or a twist or onions... but when it's got all three someone's trying too hard.

Great script and acting, though!
posted by dobbs at 7:34 PM on August 3, 2010 [5 favorites]

I am awed. It is elegant.
posted by Peach at 7:36 PM on August 3, 2010

I'm dumb and didn't catch on to what was going on until half way through.

Here it is, footnoted:

"There ain't a person in the world worth waiting for besides you."

"Don't say it that way buck" (objecting to "ain't")

"It ain't gonna change what I mean"

"Where'd you learn to speak like that" (ungrammatically)

"At the end of the day, I'm just a man with a drink who can't win"

"You make it sound like you're putting down the drink, you're just a man who can't win and that's all there is to it" (clarifying hte previous sentence)

"I know what you're inferring,"
"I know what you're implying" (Correcting him -- one infers from listening, one implies by speaking).

"Say you got a light"

"I have a light" (complying)

"Can I bum it?"

"You may." The old Can I?/May I? thing.

"Say, you put these in your pocket after we swum the channel"

"After we, no that doesn't sound right" (Swam not swum)

"I wanna say everything is gonna turn out good, can I just tell you that?"

"No, you can't" ('well' not 'good')

"Well then I'll ask you, are you and me gonna turn out good?"

"You and I, Buck" (Subjective case!)

"Who else is there in the world besides you and I?"

"You and me, Buck" (Objective case, Buck!)

"There's no one else kid."

"You can say that you and I are going to turn out well." (If you wanted to have proper grammar).

"Is that right?"

"Yes, I'm sure of it." (grammatically)

"Good, because it's hard to walk you when you have me head of heels and the world turned upside down and sometimes I don't know if I can take this any farther."

"What are you saying, Buck?" (could you have mixed any more metaphors?)

"I'm wondering if we have any future."

"Well then it should be, oh how should I say this -- "I don't think we should take this any further." (If you're talking about time rather than distance, then you should use further instead of farther).

"Oh so now I'm just done?"

"Finished, Buck" (I think this is actually a non-error, but a lot of people say that people were finished and food was done) "Oh can't you see I'm trying to teach you a lesson" (an English Lesson?)

"How many whiskey's have I drank?"

"Drunk" (I have drunk, I drank)

"Seems like something's come in and caused trouble between me, you and the world."

"Leave the world out of it. If there's something divided between people, it's between just two people" (among/between)

"Love me."

"What kind of a statement is that?"

"It's Imperative"

"That's right." (You're learning!)

"It's like I've got two outstretched arms waiting for you to fall into them."

"I can't fall in your arms, it's impossible. Here, let me make this easy. This gun is in my hands. If I shoot it, the bullet in the gun will go into your heart, you will collapse in pain, into a pile on the floor - you see?" (I don't actually get where she's getting at here, can someone explain?)

"Do that, and you'll be in jail in no time."

"That's the idea." (you got whatever point that I was trying to make)

"You and I should run away together."

"You and I?"

"It just sounds right, doesn't it?"

"Yes, Yes, Buck, it sounds perfect." (Finally!)

"I've never been loved by no one like this before."

"That's what they call a double negative." (Literally)
posted by empath at 7:39 PM on August 3, 2010 [19 favorites]

I didn't catch the ambiguity in the "drink who can't win" my first 3 times through (I really liked it), so thanks empath.

With the outstretched arms bit, he says "in" instead of the correct "into".

I still don't get the joke in the last line.
posted by domnit at 7:51 PM on August 3, 2010

empath: I think she's making a distinction between the use of "in" and "into".
posted by smcameron at 7:56 PM on August 3, 2010

This is good. Thanks for this.
posted by Verdant at 7:57 PM on August 3, 2010

Ah, For some reason, I heard him saying "Fall into them" but he says "waiting for you to fall in them". Falling is an action, you have to fall into things.
posted by empath at 8:06 PM on August 3, 2010

I think it would have been better without the added effects (scratchy film, missing frames, popping audio, sound of projector). Had it been presented in clean b&w I would have liked it more

Agreed. This is all about the listening, and the production effects got in the way of the dialogue. But still, it was worth hanging in for the full viewing.
posted by Miko at 8:24 PM on August 3, 2010

(I watch a lot of old movies from the 30s and 40s - a lot. And the films themselves hardly ever have screen noise and dust artifacts like that; yet everyone now tries to make video imagery look "old" by adding in a lot of scratchy mess. In reality, there's nothing as smooth, clean, clear and silvery as a piece of early 40s bw film that's been recorded from a clean master - not even recent film.)
posted by Miko at 8:26 PM on August 3, 2010 [5 favorites]

For Comparison -- The Big Sleep, the Maltese Falcon.
posted by empath at 8:41 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

great...thanks! Sent it to the English Major daughter.....
posted by HuronBob at 8:47 PM on August 3, 2010

But baby, you know I'm a descriptivist. I can't go for nonsense like may over can, not when I've been slugged more times than Linotype.

Besides, sugar, the big guy who edits me? He uses the Black Lizard style guide.
posted by klangklangston at 8:58 PM on August 3, 2010

Nice.
posted by DougFromDover at 9:01 PM on August 3, 2010

Those are beautiful, empath. Lorre is fantastic there. And in the "related" for Maltese Falcon, there's the trailer for Peter Lorre in Mad Love, which is a bit worn and weathered-- the effect they were trying to achieve with filters, above. (Mad Love is the movie that Lowry referred to as Mano de Orlac in Under the Volcano.)
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:01 PM on August 3, 2010

I still don't get the joke in the last line.

He said: "I've never been loved by no one like this before." which is a double negative.

I needed a few listens to get some of them... "putting down the drink", sheesh.
posted by puddpunk at 10:01 PM on August 3, 2010

[insert the tirade of a linguist about correcting people's speech here]

But besides that tl;dr, beautifully done script and awesome annotation care of empath.
posted by cthuljew at 10:59 PM on August 3, 2010

Sent it to the English Major daughter

Air mail?
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:11 PM on August 3, 2010

"I can't fall in your arms, it's impossible. Here, let me make this easy. This gun is in my hands. If I shoot it, the bullet in the gun will go into your heart, you will collapse in pain, into a pile on the floor - you see?" (I don't actually get where she's getting at here, can someone explain?)

To me it sounds like a proposition with prepositions.
posted by Spatch at 11:58 PM on August 3, 2010

To make it easy for him to understand, she gives him several examples of the correct use of "in" vs "into".
posted by mono blanco at 12:44 AM on August 4, 2010

Goodest of the Web.
posted by Aizkolari at 4:21 AM on August 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

The projector and scratch effect is probably the editor trying to make up for the hollow sound recording.
posted by sammyo at 4:58 AM on August 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ah, this is beautiful; it almost brings a tear to my eye. I'm trying to decide, though, if I even know another person who will really get it.

This one ain't bad, neither.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:34 AM on August 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wow. That was extremely well done!! (I agree that the 'scratchy, old/worn filmstrip' effects were distracting, though.)

Empath, kudos to you for annotating it so carefully. Nice work. Thanks!
posted by zarq at 5:53 AM on August 4, 2010

He said: "I've never been loved by no one like this before." which is a double negative.

I understand that that literally is a double negative. Is there a subtext, though, like in all the other lines?
posted by domnit at 8:03 AM on August 4, 2010

That was incredibly awesome. If the CTW ever gets bored of working with Elmo, they should start a show for adults and hire these folks to do the sketches.
posted by condour75 at 8:10 AM on August 4, 2010

Well, it does contain the same type of ambiguity as the sentence, "I don't beat my wife because I love her." Meaning that, "I've never been loved by no one like this before" can be interpreted a bunch of different ways:

1. He's never been loved by no one. Not like this. (meaning, not before this point has being unloved felt like this.)
2. He's been loved before, but not like this. (meaning, not before this point has he been loved this much.)
3. He's never been loved by this person before. (meaning, not before this point has this person, or a person similar to this person - "no one like this" - loved him.)

I'm sure there's more, but my brain hurts.
posted by iamkimiam at 8:14 AM on August 4, 2010

Ha! I just noticed the credits.
posted by domnit at 8:21 AM on August 4, 2010