His kin said his mom had to go,
so he killed them off all in a row
as he worked his way toward
becoming a Lord.
Did he get away with it? Oh, no.

He thought he was Christ, so his kin
threatened him with the lunatic bin.
Then he found it much hipper
to be Jack the Ripper,
and that's how he learned to fit in.

Hi Esther, welcome to Movie Madness.

Your first, I have no idea.
The second, well, I'm guessing -- "Jack the Ripper"?


A spinster while travelling gets
a lover who lights two cigarettes.
She finds all too soon
that they can't have the moon,
but the stars light the sky for them yet.

A young girl weds a man in midlife,
but their marriage is not without strife.
Her woes are made deeper
by a crazy housekeeper
and the shade of her husband's late wife.

got the second one. Is the first "Summertime"?

Guess I'll wait a bit and see if anyone guesses mine. (Not "Jack the Ripper.")

--

The jewel heist is very well planned
by a tight-knit, experienced band.
It goes off without hitches
till one of them snitches
and everything gets out of hand.


His mother has slept through the fall
of the GDR and Berlin Wall,
and to spare her the shock
he must turn back the clock
and pretend nothing happened at all.

Esther, your first one on this page is "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (what a superb film that is!)

Marion, your second one is "Rebecca" - at first glance, I was going mistakenly to say "Jane Eyre", with which of course it has a lot in common.

As for the others - dunno.

Esther's second is "Goodbye Lenin"

Nigel

Ah - I'm none the wiser. I haven't even seen the prequel "Hello Lenin".

Alvy wants what he hasn't been doing,
then a cameo by Marshall McLuhan,
then a bit more neurosis,
then a dismal prognosis,
lovers build what they later must ruin.

My first one is "Now Voyager" - classic 4 handkerchief soaper with La Divine Bette.

Yep, second is Rebecca, vintage Hitchcock but with a cop-out ending.

Pedro,
Take the Money and Run, methinks.

Whoops, no, Annie Hall, of course. Duh. :p

"Annie Hall", I think.

(The second one in my first post was "The Ruling Class" - too far out for non-cinephiles, maybe.)

The new Washngton Post contest would be a great place to enter these. Here's the link.

Esther,
I got The Ruling Class--I actually saw the play before the movie--that was great. Peter
O'Toole overacts, as I recall.

Martin

I remember some sheep go dropping.
The hero saves others from popping.
The cad is most dashing,
His swordplay most flashing,
The whole thing goes on without stopping.

(Hint: 168 minutes long).

Sounds like the film of the book my son did for O-level. The whole class managed to alter the covers to read "Fart on the Mad Crow". In my day I could hand-shear sheep faster than the hero of that one!

It opens with ticking and tocking;
the scene with the glass shard is shocking.
The rooms are all red,
it ends with one dead,
there's screaming and whispering and talking.

(I think like rhymes are OK in L1 and L5 of a limerick; am I wrong?)

Two lovers on an ocean liner rapidly going down
-- it's a James Cameron epic -- will they drown?
It's bound to be a success,
and to be chock full of excess.
Time to weep, my sweeties -- this boat is gone.

This great director hasn't been represented yet; this is just a weak first attempt:

The statue lay on the floor
She wondered who it was for.
A stooge or a star?
Her search took her far--
His son would even the score.

Martin,

"Cries and Whispers". Creepy downer of a film, in my not so humble. Even for Bergman.

George, my heart would sink if I didn't get yours.

I'm stumped by the sheep. Pull the wool from my eyes.

Marion

P.S. I think tocking and talking is fine. Limericks after all are allowed to use the same rhyme word for first and last line. So this is close enough. Besides, I don't think there are that many limerick purists who are going to quibble with it. Although you never know.

Marion - I thought the sheep and the swordsman were in Far from the Madding Crowd. I did a sort of slantwise suggestion and Martin didn't say yes or no - but I really could do two-and-a-bit Swaledale ewes in Gabriel Oak's "thrree and twenty minutes and a half".

Two lovers on a journey pelagic,
in a tale that is ancient and tragic,
swear eternal devotion
though they don't drink a potion,
for the screenwriters took out the magic.

Ay! We had to start this up again?:eek:


A big pooch and a scruffy young man,
with three friends and a mystery van,
run from monster and ghost
till it looks like they're toast,
but the ghouls are unmasked in the end.

Ann,
you got it right. The popping sheep scene is pretty unforgettable. Julie Christie and
Alan Bates, directed by John Schlesinger.

Martin

Marion,
right about Cries and Whispers, though it is a very powerful movie--I do have to
confess to being a Bergman fan, though I find The Virgin Spring harder to bear
than A Passion (the American title is a mistranslation).

Anyone have a guess about my third flimerick?

Here is one for the true cinephiles; it was shown only at festivals, though it is
now available on youtube:

Buster returned from retirement
to help with Sam's little experiment:
"Just what did I do?
I don't have a clue--
but knowing was not a requirement."

I'm also a Bergman fan, Martin! I can't figure out your third filmerick, though. Is it a Bergman film? (It doesn't sound like one! Give us a hint?)

As for the fourth: It's Film, isn't it?

Pedro.

Pedro,
right! Here is a great link:
http://www.apieceofmonologue.com/201...kett-film.html

The third one is just a bad limerick. The film is great. The director is a master.
Ask yourself what materials are used for statues.

Here is another one from the same director as the third one; the last line certainly
needs work.

So two men walk into this bar,
and one of them looks like a star;
he lights little flames
and mentions some names
and then kills the guy from the car.

Marion,

As a limerick purist, allow me to quibble.

I have to second that, Marion. Who wants to play tennis with a drooping net? I'm not a fan of the bearded ones cop-out last lines. Even his nursey rhyme model 'There was a sick man of Tobago' managed three rhymes

Under ground he loved watching Big Fred,
Who to country and warfare was wed;
Not having an I-Max
When it came to the climax
He just died on Braun’s marital bed.

For purposes of entering the Washington Post contest, I would definitely anticipate that Pat (the judge) would strongly prefer a new rhyme for the final line, though she would make an exception if the overall effect was extra funny.

And do enter the contest, people. I'm pretty familiar with it, and I confidently predict that some of these limericks would be printed in over 700,000 newspapers and chuckled over in thousands of homes over the Sunday breakfast table. Plus, you could win a coffee mug, grocery bag, or bobble-headed Abraham Lincoln.

Bob, how many can you enter? You probably posted it somewhere before, but could you give the link?

Twenty-five. I posted the link above.

Here it is again.

My sense is that the more popular and well-known the movie, the better your chances, and that some of the more obscure and arty films people have done so expertly here will have a harder time winning. But since you get to send up to 25, you might as well send them all. You also won't win if you use the word "crap". Also, don't send them anything that's been published.

Remember as well that the contest isn't limited to movies. Books and plays and tv shows are also fair game. And it looks like it needn't be a plot summary, just something "about" movie or play or book or tv show.

Those of you who Facebook can also look at the group called Style Invitational Devotees, where some of the regulars make inane banter and the editor, Pat Meyers, often posts as well.

We had something like five or six Sphericals in the last contest results, but the invasion is not yet complete. Let's take over the joint.

With a bum rap poor Andy gets hit
for a murder he didn't commit.
He breaks out of the joint,
but to get to that point,
he has to go through lots of shit.

Marion, the Washington Post won't print an entry with "shit" in it, though it could possibly end up in the blog.

With a bum rap poor Andy gets hit
for a murder he didn't commit.
He breaks out of the joint,
but to get to that point,
he has to go through lots of sewage.

Could I do it like this?

Here's the latest in my King sequence.

Poor Louis should have been more wary
when he moved near that old sematary,
for the dead that are lain there
aren't apt to remain there,
and--well, the rest's just too scary!

Yes, a limeroid might fly. As a general rule, you can be dirtier if you make the reader have to figure out it's dirty, but not if you just put it out there. We were told onc on Facebook that the top guy at the Post once said we can never use the word "crap," which would eliminate your Sound of Music limericks, though I seem to recall that a "crap" once slipped by even still, so who knows? Your most likely winner so far, in my opinion, is your Sixth Sense, even though I'm guessing she'll get more than one submission on that movie.