Back in 1957, the whole contest went down in Frankfurt, Germany. That was actually the year they cooked up the rule where the winning country gets to host the following year. They also brought in public voting for the first time—watching people pick their favorites—and man, was that a massive hit. It turns out people find the voting way more gripping than the actual performances. France was the big favorite that night. I remember reading about how the Danish duo ended up sharing a passionate kiss right after their song finished. Turns out that worked for them because they landed in 3rd place! Then you had the UK stepping up for the first time with a track that sounded more like a snippet from an old Broadway operetta than anything resembling a pop song. In the end, Corry Brokken took the win for the Netherlands with "As Before." She actually performed in '56 and would go back again in '58, though she didn't have much luck after that. She even hosted the show back in 1976 and then popped back up in 1997—forty years after her big win—to read out the Dutch jury results. One funny thing, though: just like the year before, there wasn't a strict three-minute limit on songs. So while the UK sent a track that barely hit the two-minute mark, the Italian performer basically spent over five minutes just "weeping" over his guitar!
The very first Eurovision was held back in 1956 over in Lugano—which is in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. You had 7 countries show up, and each one sent two songs, so there were 14 tracks total fighting for that top spot. Every participating country sent out two juries, except for Luxembourg, who couldn't afford to send theirs due to budget issues. The Swiss jury ended up covering for them, which might be why the host nation—Switzerland—walked away with the win that year thanks to Lys Assie’s "Refrain." She actually went on to compete again in '57 and '58, where she snagged second place. Since they didn't do public voting back then, people have been guessing who actually took second and third. Word on the street is that Germany came in second and Belgium grabbed third. Back in '56, there wasn't even a rule saying the winner gets to host the following year, so the next contest went to Germany—probably because they were the ones who actually finished second.
They used to say under communism the only way to move up was to join the Party, and those high-ranking officials were pulling in more than everyone else combined. So, what did we actually get out of it? We just swapped them out for another group called the Republican Party, and suddenly—if you wanted to make anything of yourself as a journalist, a business owner, or an intellectual—you had to be tight with the Republican Party, if not a full-blown member. That’s how all that massive wealth was raked in during the 90s. We really hoped the censorship would end. You could theoretically write critiques about the new administration, but I’m not even going to go there regarding what happened to the journalists who actually dared to try. Not much truly changed back then; everything was just swept under the rug because of the war, with people claiming we couldn't afford any dissent while things were heating up. Once the war ended, the whole situation stayed pretty much the same. The big goal was getting out of the Soviet Union, but nobody seemed to have a real clue about what to do with America next, or what kind of country we actually wanted to build. Honestly, if we did think about it, we were looking at it all wrong.
Scott Long71 said:Tags solve this problem easily. If we start splitting everything up, we’ll end up with a million different subforums—American movies, international cinema, cult classics, blockbusters, animation, documentaries... you get the idea. Plus, there's a big difference between discussing a movie and discussing directors or actors. We can organize all that stuff cleanly using tags instead.
Splitting up a subforum that doesn't even have massive traffic just breaks things apart for no reason.
And an "American film" subforum? That would be a ghost town the second we launched it.
Alright, following the Eurovision Song Contest thread, I've got another request
Can we please get a dedicated section under the Movie category specifically for American films? Right now, US movies—which basically drive all the discussions and topics—just get totally buried in a massive sea of international titles
Grace Wood5 said:Let's just agree to disagree on this one. 🙂 This isn't the only subreddit I lurk on, but it’s the only one where I've actually ended up in a heated back-and-forth with some of the mods. Honestly, I feel pretty bad about how things went down with a few of them—I still haven't made things right with a couple of those guys. 😳
rustydrifter10 said:Hey, there's no need to prove anything! The administration can see the email address associated with any account logged into the forum. Honestly, we're currently working with the tech team to figure out a way to restrict that access or even wipe it entirely, but that really comes down to the vBulletin core settings rather than our own control. For now, all we can do is make a conscious choice not to look, since we don't have the option to hide it from ourselves.
nimbleranger17 said:Look, I’ll say it again just to be absolutely clear: there isn't a single shred of evidence anywhere—not in the official bulletins or the fine print—that mentions extending remote learning, unless you count those two ladies making noise about it.
It actually says this: The Los Angeles Unified School District has confirmed to the city administration that they will follow the directive issued at the federal level, which means all students will shift to remote learning for two days. However, should there be an extension to this period of online instruction beyond November 8th, Washington, D.C. has prepared a contingency plan. - In the event that there is a necessity to extend remote learning into the week of November 8th, schools will likely welcome back the younger students—those in grades one through four—while the older kids will continue their studies online, according to officials from the city.
Nobody actually knows yet if there will even be an extension or not; this text is merely outlining what NYC plans to do IF the federal government decides to prolong the remote learning mandate...
Just remember—one day they’re saying "kids won't be online,"
then the next day: "actually, they're online."
So I'm worried this is all just smoke and mirrors and we're definitely going remote.
I mean, if they weren't planning on remote learning, why would they even mention it?
They're totally prepping everyone for the remote life.