This was one of the saltiest, liveliest, jolliest and most informative half-hours I've ever seen on Netflix. And it has the perfect host. Actor Nicolas Cage is the host of Netflix's HISTORY OF SWEAR WORDS. If you're conservative or have delicate ears, you may want to avoid this first episode. It contains people who are proud to be profane as they frankly discuss...the F-word. Yes, that 4-letter word that can insult or seduce, be offensive or engaging and express pain or wonder. We hear from comedians, actors and a cognitive scientist. We see film clips and news clips. As we learn the etymology of the F-word, we're taken the 14th Century up to the 20th Century news-making controversy of gangsta rap lyrics from N.W.A. One of the people who speaks at length on the word's usage in films, its Hollywood history and how it was employed in a protest stage show presented by Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland, is noted critic Elvis Mitchell. I wrote about him in my previous blog post.
This HISTORY OF SWEAR WORDS 30-minute episode is like Monty Python meets the History Channel. Here's a short piece to give you a taste of the series. WARNING: Naughty words are said and seen in this trailer.
I recently posted my blog review of the new movie, BABYLON. It's a long, excessive Hollywood movie about Hollywood excess in the 1920s. The F-word was used so much in the first 15 minutes alone that I thought the screenplay had been written by Samuel L. Jackson. The delightful actress, Carole Cook, passed away last week at age 98. The beloved actress was in THE INCREDIBLE MR. LIMPET opposite Don Knotts, in SIXTEEN CANDLES and was known to Broadway audiences. On Facebook, a younger fellow actress who loved Cook wrote: "I once shared a dressing room with Carole Cook and Rita Moreno. I've never eaten so much caviar pizza bread or heard the word 'f**k' used in so many different ways before in my entire life."
And there you have it. This show was a 4-letter education.
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