Four I noticed:
* Jesus is blonde. Like really blonde.
* Is that a Hoover in the Communist household?
* The mermaid gets pregnant after a sperm whale encounters her. (She marries a whale too.)
* Hobie makes a spaghetti western.
I loved the sexual innuendo in the sailor scene too!
The Vicar of Dibley (1994)
When Baird Whitlock enters, the Communists have "just read the minutes", which are "usually pretty boring". In "The Vicar of Dibley", John Bluthal (Professor Marcuse, teacher of the Communist study group) played the member of the parish council, who takes the minutes and bores everyone with his long pointless stories.
A further possible Latin wordplay:
Sword = gladius -> Claudius, (4th Roman) Emperor (after Augustus, Tiberius & Caligula) and God(head): "Those things are a nuisance". According to Robert Graves' "I, Claudius", he became Emperor only grudgingly. Originally he had been a historian (like the Communists in "Hail, Caesar!" aspire to be), which got him into some trouble, since the authority preferred to forge the past in its own favor. "You are going to Moscow to become Soviet Man and help forge the future." "If you understand economics, you can actually write down what will happen in the future, with as much confidence as you write down the history of the past."
Sword = gladius -> Claudius, (4th Roman) Emperor (after Augustus, Tiberius & Caligula) and God(head):
Too far out? ;)
Control yourself, man!Ok. I'll try.
Good eye on catching those things.
http://captain-smiley.livejournal.com/
Actor playing the heavyset bartender in the sailor movie with Burt Gurney: "That's my whole character, the slow burn."
The original slow burn has been invented by Edgar Kennedy (who has often been hired to play hotheads loosing their temper): looking into the camera, moving his hand across his face, expressing slowly growing frustration with some misfortune that happened to him. One of his most unusual roles (for being cast against type, not as a hothead) was a philosophical bartender in Preston Sturges' "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock".
Slow-burn-like gags have also been used by Laurel(*) & Hardy (like Kennedy working for producer Hal Roach): delayed reaction to some misfortune that happens to a character. And of course, there's Ollie's silently suffering, frustrated trademark look into the camera.
(*) -> Caesar's laurel, Burt Gurney's patron Laurence Laurentz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Kennedy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_and_Hardy
I don't know if it was 'hidden', but I loved the joke about why the writers decide to become Communists and get revenge against the studios.
The writer says "I think what Herschel's trying to say is just because the studio owns the means of production, why should it be able to take the money... our money, the value created by our labor, and dole out what it pleases?"
Quite a nice summary of Communism, if you ask me.
Got me to thinking that within a Capitalist system are all these micro-comminist organizations - we call them corporations - freely operating. Irony, indeed.
Never defend crap with 'It's just a movie'
http://www.youtube.com/user/BigGreenProds
On the surface, the scenes with the Communists poke fun at Marxism. Yet, one may also spot a dig at (neo)classical economics seeking to justify Capitalism "scientificly":
- "If you understand economics, you can actually write down what will happen in the future with as much confidence as you write down the history of the past, because it's science. It's not make-belief." In the 19th century (neoclassical) economics has been established with the aspiration of scientific accuracy, comparable to physics. Economists thought themselves to be physicists of economy/society, being able to figure out macroeconomic processes, like physicists physical processes. Yet, since then, there have been quite a number of unforeseen economic crises, bringing that aspiration into question.
- "Man is unitary, a simple economic agent" (comparable to physics' particles), "we all pursue our own economic interest": the "homo oeconomicus", rationally acting in his own best interest.
- Professor Marcuse's line "in pursuing our interest with vigor we accelerate the dialect and hasten the end of history and the creation of the New Man" is rationalizing egoism, like the "Invisible Hand" of the "Free Market". Act selfishly and, for society as a whole, everything will just work out fine.
- Neoclassical economics neglects (certain) monetary aspects: "We're not even talking about money, we're talking about economics."
- A central term of neoclassical economics is "equi-librium", which offers an alternative angle at the equus/aequus wordplay mentioned before. Also, left of the fireplace there are two antique pictures of men carrying yokes, for whom "equilibrium" is essential within the process of carrying out their work.
It's kind of Communists trapped in Capitalism; a bit like in "The Hudsucker Proxy": a Preston Sturges hero trapped in a Frank Capra plot. ;-)
Bottomline: there's economic reality and then there's a mathematical model of this reality. One might get so bedazzled by (the beauty of) its mathematical truth and/or its affirmation of one's view of reality, that one elevates it to an absolute truth without bothering to check the model's connection to reality, which science is about. The "little guy", the "regular Joe", may shrug his shoulders and say: "Beats me!" Yet, the results of those models get used by politicians to justify their decisions.
"Hail, Caesar!" is distributed by Universal. Legend has it that its founder, German immigrant Carl Laemmle, got the idea for the studio's name when a truck passed by with the writing "Universal Pipe Fittings" on it. "Hail, Caesar!: A Tale of the Christ" is directed by Sam Stampfel. German, colloquial: Stampfer, Stämpfel = plunger, i.e. tool applied to clear a clogged up pipe.
"Don't sit on the pediment! Recline! Relaxed, festive!" (*)
"I just wanted to visit again to see if there was some impediment we could help with, or if something in the offer isn't clear?"
- In Greek/Roman architecture a pediment is the triangular (decorative) gable above a columns portal. So in this context it may be a misnomer, falling into place with numerous historic errors in "Hail, Caesar!: A Tale of the Christ". The AD might have meant "pedestal".
- (*): In the very same scene, Senator Sestimus Amydias (respectively the actor playing the character) has a speech impediment (lisping).
- Ethymologically "pediment" and "impediment" don't have to do anything with each other.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pediment
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/impediment
- IMP: "Independent Moving Pictures", predecessor company of Universal.
"In pursuing our interest with vigor, we accelerate the dialectic and hasten the end of history and the creation of the New Man."
After the end of (real existing) Communism (in the Soviet Union and its satellite states), Francis Fukuyama spoke of the "end of history" (essentially meaning: Capitalism "has won" for good), which might have turned out to be wrong...