February 26, 2015 · 2:01 PM

Take a chance: early 2016 all-name candidate

It turns out there’s a kid in the next recruiting class named Chauncey Gardner and he’s interested in Georgia (he has an offer).

If he winds up in Athens, I’d like to watch.

38 Comments

Filed under Recruiting

38 responses to “Take a chance: early 2016 all-name candidate”

  1. glcdawg55
    February 26, 2015 at 2:06 PM

    well played sir, well played!

    Like

  2. watcher16
    February 26, 2015 at 2:14 PM

    Movie isn’t on Netflix 😦

    Like

  3. Castleberry
    February 26, 2015 at 2:16 PM

    One of my favorites. You took “I like to watch” so I’ll have to go with my second favorite bit…

    [upon walking out of an elevator]

    Chance the Gardener: That was a very small room.

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  4. .Dash
    February 26, 2015 at 2:20 PM

    Deep cut. Hal Ashby is the best.

    Like

  6. Mayor
    February 26, 2015 at 2:27 PM

    One of the all-time greatest movies by a comic genius!

    Like

  7. Mary Kate Danaher
    February 26, 2015 at 2:33 PM

    There will be growth in the spring!

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  8. Derek
    February 26, 2015 at 2:51 PM

    I wonder if momma knew the movie or if it was happenstance. Great movie. An all time favorite. We lost sellers far too soon. His performance in strangelove is one of the best ever.

    Btw: since there so many fans if the movie out there, why does gardener walk on water at the end? My take was that it was because he didn’t know he couldn’t. Never been terribly satisfied with that answer though.

    Like

    • Cojones
      February 26, 2015 at 3:29 PM

      I was torn between your answer and The Second Coming. That would be more hilarity stacked on top of the movie considering that the avaricious rich had just made him their next presidential candidate. They were getting a most humble and honest man unknowingly. You review all his statements and find nothing in the script except earthy honesty of a gardener as you would expect from Christ. You would expect an end to it ,but not before he would have married the ravishingly rich Shirley McLaine. You can laugh additional days when conjuring up the riot that ensues when everyone discovers : 1) He is either not all together well upstairs or 2) he is The Second Coming.

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    • Mary Kate Danaher
      February 26, 2015 at 3:29 PM

      Roger Ebert’s take:

      When I taught the film, I had endless discussions with my students over this scene. Many insisted on explaining it: He is walking on a hidden sandbar, the water is only half an inch deep, there is a submerged pier, etc. “Not valid!” I thundered. “The movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the image it is not permitted to devise explanations for it. Since Ashby does not show a pier, there is no pier–a movie is exactly what it shows us, and nothing more,” etc.

      So what does it show us? It shows us Chance doing something that is primarily associated with only one other figure in human history. What are we to assume? That Chance is a Christ figure? That the wisdom of great leaders only has the appearance of meaning? That we find in politics and religion whatever we seek? That like the Road Runner (who also defies gravity) he will not sink until he understands his dilemma?

      The movie’s implications are alarming. Is it possible that we are all just clever versions of Chance the gardener? That we are trained from an early age to respond automatically to given words and concepts? That we never really think out much of anything for ourselves, but are content to repeat what works for others in the same situation?

      The last words in the movie are, “Life is a state of mind.” So no computer will ever be alive. But to the degree that we are limited by our programming, neither will we. The question is not whether a computer will ever think like a human, but whether we choose to free ourselves from thinking like computers.

      Like

      • I Wanna Red Cup
        February 26, 2015 at 3:38 PM

        MKD you need to post more often. Your inciteful comments raise the intelligence level on the blog tremendously, and even make us assholes and morons feel better about ourselves.

        Like

      • Derek
        February 26, 2015 at 4:09 PM

        As much as the messianic image is there I have trouble with that connection. Whatever you may think of Jesus, he was neither unwise or passive. He had a goal and set about it. Chance couldn’t plan lunch. It seems that the movie is saying something about the limits that rationality place upon ourselves and the freedom that may come from innocence. While there is a great deal of focus in the movie on people believing what they want to believe and there certainly is an “empty suit” dynamic that happens with politicians who intentionally act superficial and lack substance, the water scene at least to me is suggesting that the innocent aren’t tied to concepts of our so called educated possibilities. That being said, drop a newborn in water and he’ll sink. It’s definitely a conundrum. It’s seems similar to Forrest gump but he was at least tied to the physical world as we know it, again, I don’t know the answer but it’s fun to think about and discuss.

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        • 69Dawg
          February 26, 2015 at 4:19 PM

          The Russians would disagree about dropping an infant in water. They like most animals would try to swim. Babies do it all the time, they just have a little trouble with the breathing thing.

          Like

        • Cojones
          February 26, 2015 at 4:25 PM

          But the word “Innocent” does fit with Christ. The innocence is tied into not being worldly just as Chance is in the film. It does not imply an unwise or passive individual in the sense being used.

          Anyway, thank you both for those thoughtful replies and it’s nice to know we aren’t alone in our curiosity. Bluto probably sees us as a polyglot of unwise stupidity running to wise and learned and knew the movie would appeal to many of his users. Thanks, Senator.

          Like

      • doofusdawg
        February 26, 2015 at 7:36 PM

        money is to happiness as happiness is to “life is a state of mind”.

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    • Slaw Dawg
      February 26, 2015 at 3:32 PM

      I always thought the walking on water scene was either Ashby’s poke at himself for pushing perilously close to the limits of our credulity and/or a finger in the collective eye of the viewers: “just how much disbelief are you folks willing to suspend, anyway”? All in good fun of course, to bring us together as co-conspirators in the movie’s central theme.

      Well, almost. The otherwise highly intelligent young lady (except, perhaps, for her taste in dates) who accompanied me to this pic gave voice, post movie, to the thought that maybe Chance was actually far wiser than everyone around him. “No, honey” says I (more or less) “he really was a simpleton. The whole point was folks’ willingness to write their own script on his tabula rasa.” Hard nosed SOB that I was, I just twernt a gonna fall for it. Though I did and do love the character and the movie–after all, Melvin Douglas gave me tacit permission to have it both ways.

      Like

    • Will (The Other One)
      February 26, 2015 at 3:55 PM

      It was another one of GOB’s tricks, wasn’t it?

      No, it wasn’t my trick…it was my illusion

      Like

  9. Dawg Vegas
    February 26, 2015 at 3:10 PM

    Just watched it on TCM a couple of nights ago (Love the 31 Days of Oscar every year). I remember seeing this when it was new in the theater. I was about 12, and I remember being happy that I ‘got’ it.

    I had forgotten the Basketball Jones clip he watches in the limo, and about 1000 other details. Such a classic film!

    Like

  10. Paint
    February 26, 2015 at 3:18 PM

    Great movie! A young Oteil Burbridge in the first scene. Peter Sellers is awesome, filmed exteriors at the Biltmore Estate, crazy good screenplay, so good Wilco named their second album after it.
    Got me rolling again. Now back to read the linked article.

    Cheers

    Like

    • Cojones
      February 26, 2015 at 4:12 PM

      The interiors weren’t filmed there as well? If not, do you know where? The Huntington in Pasadena has it’s share of marble even into bathroom detail in the rooms, but the entry is not quite as grand. I really appreciated all the marble in the movie, but figured it might be a public-money build like Grand Central Station, etc.. If anyone has it or is going to get it on Netflix, could you look and see where the interiors were shot?

      Like

      • Dog in Fla
        February 26, 2015 at 4:25 PM

        I’d go with Hearst Castle and if you look closely, you’ll be able to see “Patty was here” carved into the wall

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        • Cojones
          February 26, 2015 at 4:44 PM

          It ain’t the Hearst Castle. You will find it’s filled with antiques like an unfinished 500yr old bureau (in a bedroom) preserved only by care and low humidity climate. It was simplistic and cracked bare wood. Nothing fancy about it that would destroy the beauty that you could see in it’s simplicity. Likewise, nothing outside Hearst Castle matches the grounds or statuary in the movie.

          And the sign carved in the wall said “Off the pigs”. You just assumed it was written by Patty.

          Like

  11. Dog in Fla
    February 26, 2015 at 4:11 PM

    This is the best thing to come out of Jerzy since Warsaw, What Is It Good For

    Like

  12. WarD Eagle
    February 26, 2015 at 5:38 PM

    Bringing this back to football (and some rivalry)…Auburn has a Duke, a Prince, a King, a Queen, and a President.

    (Full disclosure: Duke is a nickname)

    Like

  13. Russ
    February 26, 2015 at 5:55 PM

    Have you seen Ramon?

    Like

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