Movie reviews for Mom

2009-12-08T09:14:00.000-08:00

A Serious Man

2009-12-05T17:45:00.001-08:00

A Serious Man (2009)

Well, Dad would have loved this movie. He loved the Book of Job (enough so that a verse from it is on his headstone) and this is a fairly good retelling with a few skirmishes into Jefferson Airplanes and other things. We enjoyed it very much. Here's a few things to think about:

In one Jewish tradition, Job does sin. He is placed in Pharaoh's court prior to the Exodus as an advisor. He remains silent when asked his opinion about killing the Hebrew boys. So all the bad things happen to him because of his sin of silence (he gets everything back anyway). A less accepted tradition is that Job was not one of Pharaoh's advisors and therefore did not sin as he claims in the story. One of the stories says that his wife and children didn't die, that they just got caught up in a windstorm and then blew back at the end.

Look up Schroedinger's Cat in wikipedia. It will help in understanding what the professor is talking about. Think about the idea of knowing the math but not the story in this recent incident I had at school: we were taking a walk with my students. One of my assistants wanted to cut across the grass to make it shorter as she knew the math behind the Pythagorean theorem. My other assistant said it was shorter staying on the sidewalk since he knew the story behind not walking in dog poop.

Also re-listen to all your Jefferson Airplane cassettes or 8-tracks. The lyrics are important clues into Kabbalalistic humor. Also into what one witty reviewer said about Coen Brothers' movies: They're either a parable or a joke. Maybe both.

The opening sequence with the dybbuk is crucial to the rest of the movie. Especially the hilarious response that the Korean father has to the professor. Compare the husband's denial of the dybbuk with the wife's acknowledgement of it. Their differences seem to be the main mystical motif throughout the movie.

The movie credits mention the "last of the just." Look up "Lamed Vovnik" in wikipedia. Also read an incredible book called The Last of the Just by a French author who happens to have the incredible last name of Scharwtz-Bart. Can't get any more incredible a name than that. Unless you leave off the first part.

The No Country for Old Men movie by the same Coen Brothers had a disclaimer at the end of the credits about the movie having a zero (or some other really low number) carbon footprint due to their ability to plant trees somewhere. The Serious Man has a disclaimer about "no Jews having been harmed in the making of this movie." Except the movie was made in the Coen's childhood home around Minneapolis (the grocery store scene was shot in Coopers grocery just two miles from our house). I'm hearing many reports of Jews in the Twin City burbs screaming about how the Coens are just making fun of them. Well, it ain't hard. The scene of the nude neighbor with the mezzuzah on the wrong side of the door is a pretty good joke on the silent assimilation of the Jews of the '60s. Except they got the mezzuzah joke from current events. In the nearby burbs. Maybe the sin of the silence of assimilation is what the Coen's are really getting across in this really good movie.

The Maiden Heist (2009)

Straight-to-DVD (due to bankruptcy of production company) very beautiful, funny, sweet, well-casted comedy with Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken and William H. Macy. Marcie Gay Harden is wonderful as Walken's wife. I loved the movie. Just a feel-good, laughter, art-inspiring movie.

Very funny joke for people who might be from Denmark. Or maybe it's funnier if you're not from Denmark, like most people. Of course, it helps to understand the joke if you know where the hell Copenhagen is. Took me a few minutes. I think Denmark type people might like the ending setting.
Wait, raise your hand if you are from Denmark.

Murder in the First (1995)

2009-09-13T19:54:00.001-07:00

Murder in the First (1995)

Kevin Bacon has a performance well worth watching in a fairly good movie about an Alcatraz prisoner and his experience in solitary confinement. Unfortunately, the movie made us feel very sympathetic to Bacon's character which the movie led us to believe was based on a true story. The true story was almost the opposite of what happens in the movie. It's one thing to reinterpret a story but manipulating the audience's emotions is another thing.

Knowing (2009)

Nicholas Cage tries to be an astrophysicist. I ain't buying it. The movie, either. Poor. Interesting, though, is that Discover Magazine had an article last year about what might still be around at the end of the world. The author said that what has been around the longest is usually what will survive to the end. He said that numbers and laughter were probably the first things in existence but that laughter probably came first and would probably out-live everything else. I didn't completely understand it but there it is. At least it gave me something to think about while watching this.

District 9 (2009)

Sci-fi meets apartheid in South Africa. Good movie. Intense. Well worth the time. An article said the title is a play on the real District 6 in Johannesburg which is a "vibrant mixed-race community."

Julie (2009)

So-so movie about a whiny blogger (aren't we all). Except she got hers turned into a movie. How in the hell did that happen? I want a movie. Also, I wouldn't mind a reader besides myself.

& Julia (2009)

Great movie about my favorite cook. Look for the OSS connections. I loved watching her on TV although I was always a Joy of Cooking cook on the ships. It was funny to see Irma Rombauer portrayed in this film. She mentions the trouble she had with the index when getting Joy of Cooking published. I became a Moosewood cook after settling in Portland. The first edition didn't have an index which infuriated me. I wrote to Mollie Katzen and complained (actually I whined). She wrote back and said the next edition would have an index. I have all of her cookbooks. Why don't all of us make all the recipes in all her books and blog about it and then watch the movie offers roll in?

Across the Universe (2007)

Wonderfully sweet musical using Beatles songs.

Vals Im Bashir (2008)
aka "Waltz with Bashir"

Intense, hard to follow, graphic animation film about the writer's experience in the Israeli army during the Lebanon War. Couldn't finish it.

State of Play (2009)

Highly rated suspense film when it came out this year. OK movie. Not too predictable. Not too boring.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

Wow! This is amazing. Paul Muni (yes, you know him from the Yiddish theatre circuit) plays the true story of a man who did escape. The commentary is exceptional. Almost a necessity to watch. Interesting that while the real story was almost more horrific than what is portrayed, Warner Bros. made his wife into a bad woman. It seemed to sell more at the time.

20,000 Cheers for the Chain Gang (1933)

One of the special features on the DVD for I Am a Fugitive. Very funny. If you've ever wondered why chain gang uniforms were striped then this will help. Also, Lassie as an alternative to bloodhounds. Along with other breeds.

The Soloist (2009)

2009-08-17T06:23:00.001-07:00

The Soloist (2009)

Wonderful movie. Great acting on everyone's part. More than a few people wrote in IMBd identifying themselves as either psychiatrists or as someone with a mental illness and said that Jamie Foxx realy captured the schizophrenic character. The director said in the commentary that he meant for the film to be viewed as almost a realist drama of the way a person with mental illness interacts with the world. And, of course, Robert Downey, Jr. does a great job being sardonic. Many other fine performances. The IMDb says that many of the people in the Lamp Community scenes were people with mental illnesses who lived there.

There's a scene where the young Nathaniel Ayers sees a burning car roll slowly by his basement bedroom window. This was in his hometown of Cleveland in 1969 (and filmed in Cleveland). Cleveland's Cuyahoga River catches fire in 1969 so the burning car could have been a result of that or perhaps of the riots that Cleveland had at that time. Or a way to show how Ayers' early life, while having a very loving family, still had a very difficult environment. The scene parallels nicely with the fire in his basement bedroom and with the later scene in the newsroom of the reporter being escorted out of the building due to all the firings and budget cuts which shows both Ayers and Lopez having their own issues. Some of you may know Randy Newman's song Burn On which is about the river burning.

In Lopez's book, he says that Ayers got verbally angry with him but never physically as shown in the movie, but then Lopez is also, in real life, happily married. And Ayers was not a cellist at Julliard but a double bassist which just looks like a big cello to me. Nope, sorry, it must be the cello they used for the Jaws (1975) soundtrack.

In late-breaking news, and of some relatedness to the movie at hand, and of special interest to any reader who knows where Columbia University is, your alert NYT obituary reader caught this one last week:

"Mrs. Hutchins was known for her pragmatism. In 1957 her friend Virginia Apgar, a doctor and amateur violinmaker, began to covet a shelf made of perfect maple. The shelf was in a phone booth in the medical school of Columbia University, where Dr. Apgar taught.

One
night she and Mrs. Hutchins stole into the building with some tools and
a replacement shelf, stained to match. As Dr. Apgar stood guard, Mrs.
Hutchins set to work. To their dismay, the new shelf was a quarter-inch
too long.

Mrs. Hutchins had a saw, and there was a ladies’ room nearby. As The New York Times reported afterward, “a passing nurse stared in astonishment at the sounds coming through the door.”

Dr. Apgar could think quickly. (She had, after all, devised the Apgar score, used worldwide to measure the health of newborns.) “It’s the only time repairmen can work in there,” she said.

Spirited out of the hospital, the shelf made a magnificent viola back."

You can read the entire obit here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/arts/music/09hutchins.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

In more late-breaking news, yesterday was the anniversary of the Harmonic Convergence in 1987.

The world might be at peace today and living large messianically speaking if it had not been for some schmo in Portland who couldn't follow what was going on while he was sitting in the giant circle in the giant waterfront park in Portland with a whole bunch of convergencers. There was a secret message being whispered around the circle but I (I mean him) couldn't understand what the person next to me (him) said which meant that the next person got a garbled version of the truth. Maybe next time I'll (he'll) get it right.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)

2009-07-20T20:43:00.001-07:00

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)

This is one time where I have nothing cute to say. This was one of the saddest movies I've seen in a long time. I haven't cried this hard since Whoopie Goldberg danced with Demi Moore and Patrick Swazye in Ghost (1990). I'm serious. This is a sad movie, but beautiful and funny. It constantly reminds us throughout the film that WWII is about to begin and that there are only two people in the whole movie who have any idea what had happened just 20 years earlier. The ending was overwhelming especially when I realized that the title really meant she was just living for each day as it came and that particular day happened to be the day England declared war on Germany. It just brought up more emotion than I had felt for a long time. I might have felt a little more emotional since we had just watched The Edge of Love and the scenes of England at war made it all very fresh. England had just been through a terrible war but everybody except two people in the movie acted as if tragedy couldn't happen again. It's obvious who one of those characters is but I would be giving away to much to say who the other one is.

The director is from India (and pronounces his first name "Bart") and says in the commentary that he hoped people would see the drama unfold throughout the movie. He had just finished a TV documentary on the tsunami that hit SE Asia in 2006 and said his own personal experience with tragic loss helped him see what the English might have felt. He changed a detail in the original 1938 book and had the day in question be the day that England declared war in 1939 (although that day was actually a bright sunny day, according to Wikipedia). He also cast a male character to be of an age that would mean he was probably going to be shipped off to war very soon. He wanted to show the disregard most other people had for the impending war and the then-current Depression by creating an extravagently elegant apartment, even spending 40,000 dollars on the wallpaper for the bedroom (which got cut up after the filming).

The Edge of Love (2008)

2009-07-18T21:40:00.001-07:00

The Edge of Love (2008)

Not an overly bad film about the friendship of the two women who were in love with Dylan Thomas, one of which was married to him. Most of the film is fairly accurate which makes Thomas look like the jerk he tried to be. His line in the movie about why he acts the way he does: "because I'm a poet . . ." He also sucked the life out of everybody else around him. But goodness, his poetry is beautiful. I've had two cassette tapes since I was 16 of him reading his poems.
But the movie really isn't about him. Keira Knightley stars. The screenwriter is her mother. The producer is the granddaughter of her character and either Thomas of her husband. Hard to tell from how the article phrased it.

The rating is R and somewhere it says partly due to "constant historical smoking." That's an understatement. The extras include a fairly funny "gag reel" which shows the cast trying to act while having to smoke so much. The commentary extra is fairly worthless.

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (2008)
aka "I've Loved You So Long" -

Kirsten Scott Thomas is great as a just-released-from-prison woman who goes to live with her sister and the sister's family. The ending seems a bit overdone until you realize the prison sentence is about Thomas' response to her actions. In French with subtitles. Her bio quotes her as saying one of the benefits of e-mail and text messaging is that people aren't as afraid of subtitles as they used to be. Oh, she smokes a lot in the movie but then she's lived in France longer than she lived in her native England. The commentary on the deleted scenes is worth watching.

July 5 is the birth anniversary of Cl...

2009-07-17T07:22:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the 233rd anniversary of the independence of our country. Happy Birthday! Since hitting the Restore button isn't going to work, let's be grateful for what we have and that what we have, even with all the mistakes and bad stuff, is not Iran. Or England. Or the bottom of Brule Lake in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.

July 5 is the birth anniversary of Clara Zetkin (1857), women's rights advocate who is credited with being the initiator of International Women's Day.

It's also the annual cherry pit spitting contest in our backyard. It would be watermelon spitting but that summer tradition is extinct since seedless watermelons become the dominant life form in the grocery store. Apparently nothing is sacred not even my writing which apparently some people are reading in the bathroom on their IPhone. So if the IPhone drops into the bowl and no one can read the words, is it still a metaphor?

We are also concerned that some people feel that my whining about the rain and wind in the Boundary Waters was a little too much. Let me remind you that this is Minnesota in June which means it was also cold. Ha! How's that for misery?

Seven Pounds (2008)

Will Smith's latest. It's a tearjerker. Woody Harrelson is great. The factual errors are obvious but really doesn't seem to matter that much which is an incredible thing for me to say since I get upset if the wrong camel gets used in a movie.

Whoops! It's late. Time for bed.

More Virgin Spring

2009-07-17T07:21:00.001-07:00

More Virgin Spring

My earlier post was a little hasty. Here's the link from Wikipedia for the original 12th or 13th century Swedish ballad which Bergman used for The Virgin Spring. Also, I had said that the foster daughter did not seem to have found redemption. I forgot that she's the first one to drink from the miraculous spring that comes up after the family finds their daughter. The symbolism is almost enough to hit you over the head but, I thought, still very effective as a movie device. It's interesting to read the original story. Bergman didn't write most of the movie version which some reviewers thought made it less of a good film along with the heavy-handed acting by several characters. Still, all in all, a fascinating film to spend an hour and a half with especially for me since I was confused as to who Bergman was and since it was in black and white I thought I was watching a film from 1920. It never occurred to me to wonder how the sound came out of their mouths. There is an option to listen to it in dubbed English which one reviewer made an interesting case for that being preferable to subtitles in every foreign language film.

"Töres dotter i Wänge" ("Töre's daughter in Vänge"), "Per Tyrssons döttrar i Vänge" ("Per Tyrsson's daughters in Vänge"), etc., is a medieval Swedish ballad on which Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring is based,^[1].

Oh, I finally decided to actually read a certain sibling's FaceBook page and found out whose birthday is whose. Wow! How clever of me!

Guilt and Rebirth

2009-07-17T07:20:00.003-07:00

Guilt and Rebirth

The Visitor (2007/I)

The visitors in this very thoughtful and musically-insightful film may not be the ones who are there illegally. Richard Jenkins goes to his Greenwich Village apartment and finds it occupied by two illegal immigrants. The guilt that each character takes on for different reasons (especially the mother later on) and the process of each one finding a purpose in life makes for a lovely film. The musical theme is essential to the rebirthing theme.

Jungfrukällan (1960)
aka "The Virgin Spring"

Ingmar Bergman (who shares a birthdate, tomorrow, July 14, with Woody Guthrie; also Bastille Day). Great movie. Guilt and rebirth: savage violence and sweet redemption (not for all since the foster daughter gets left out of any redemption, sadly, although her guilt in the murder may have been too great.

The Life of David Gale (2003)

2009-07-17T07:20:00.001-07:00

The Life of David Gale (2003)

Kate Winslet, Kevin Spacey and Laura Linney made a fascinating movie about a death row inmate and a reporter who interviews him. Well-worth the time to watch, especially since the family coincidences are weird (which is a joke from the movie, the part about coincidences being weird). OK, hang on: The role Laura Linney plays is a shoo-in for our late Aunt Patsy Morris who was described (by a death row inmate) in a 1979 Time magazine article as "The Queen of Death Row;" a pivotal character in the beginning has the first name of Berlin; the director's name is Alan; his son does some of the music and his name is Alex; a central character has the last name of Wright which is Tish and Deborah's middle name; there's a Chris in the sound department; and Leonard Cohen has a song in the soundtrack (he isn't family but I really like his music).

Changeling (2008)

2009-07-14T21:04:00.001-07:00

Changeling (2008)

Horrific and well worth watching. Most of the script is taken verbatim from court testimony and news clippings. Mostly about "female disempowerment" in the character that Angelina Jolie plays but also about the murders of the children. The movie says "A true story" which was a point argued with the producers as to whether it should be "Based on a true story" since a crucial fact is left out. It doesn't really matter for telling the story but it does make it more horrible. The man who is caught and then confesses was not acting alone. The movie leaves out the part about his grandmother and that she also confessed. Everything else, including the mental hospital issue, is taken from the newspaper although the movie does leave out the fact that the police chief is back in the same job within two years. LAPD: Our motto: Nothing much changes.

June 19th

2009-06-19T09:33:00.001-07:00

June 19th

Only one significant event happened today, but that event is so momentous that it eclipses any attempt in the future to out-do the do. Yes, June 19th is the anniversary of the most awesomest, amazingest acronym ever-est. No one else has had such a major honor bestowed upon him (her? you jest!). There is no AART, no CART, no LART, no DART. There is only the BART. Yes, the construction of my namesake began on this day in 1964 in San Francisco. There is, however, a small feeder section in a certain feminine section of the Bay Area that is named the TART. If you're really quiet you can hear the plaintive notes of a recorder busker trying to eke out a living on the TARTLine.

Something New (2006/I)

Not the 1920 movie written, directed and starring Nell Shipman who, as the IMDb says, is a "Canadian-born actress, writer, producer and animal trainer, best known
for writing and acting in several James Oliver Curwood stories and for
her portrayals of strong, adventurous women."

This one is also directed by a woman who doesn't cast herself but did cast a leading actress with the same first name. Very sweet, romantic, predictable but fun movie. Interracial relationships as well as inter-income issues. Featuring a very hot landscape architect (hot as in sweaty, also good-looking), but aren't all landscape architects hot? Let's ask Deborah, whose birthday is not June 29th. Sorry. I'm sure she's hot but she is my sister.

There's a special feature on the DVD about do's and don't for dating. One they didn't mention would have to be eating off your date's plate at her parents' home. Blair Underwood learned his lesson.

For those who care, and it seems a ton of people on IMDb do, the director is biracial with an American Jewish mother and a Muslim Moroccan father. The fact that she's very light-skinned seems to be a big topic. The writer is an African-American woman which didn't get quite so much attention. Very odd non-speaking cameo of the Cheers guy, John Ratzenberger.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Very funny Woody Allen movie. He didn't cast himself but instead used several of the cast members to sound just like him. Kind of unnerving to hear his neurotic lines come out of someone else. Good writing, nonetheless. Javier Bardem is great especially after seeing him as a pschyo killer and as an deeply romantic young/old man. He is really hot in this movie. So hot he can make straight men swoon. Not me, of course, but to paraphrase Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, he makes me want to be better looking.

Up (2009)

Lots of fun. We saw it in the theatre with 3-D. Well worth it. Ratzenberger is in this one, too. I think he has been in all the Pixar movies.

La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)

2009-05-24T20:34:00.001-07:00

La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)

Wow! Movie-making history and mostly even historical (except for a few interpretations and anachronisms like eye-glasses). The commentary is well-worth the time. We watched the movie with the optional and beautiful musical score sung by Anonymous 4 even though the director intended for it to be watched without sound. The musical score was synchronized recently (relatively). The movie I had was borrowed from a friend and contained a booklet with the translation of the songs. I don't know if the rental version would have that.

The director, Carl Dreyer, was described by a cast member as "certifiable insane." That might explain the use of real blood in the blood-letting scene (noticeably less difficult to watch for certain licensed medical personnel in attendance the other night than for certain squeamish husbands). He also used real nursing mothers, but then so did The Wild Bunch (1969) which revolutionized movie-making by using real bullet sounds. Not much of a connection, but there it is.

For those who won't watch the commentary first or read the authoritative Wikipedia article ever, let me enlighten a few things that would have helped me understand what was going on. The soldiers in the English-looking WWI helmets are actually English. In character. I have no idea what they were for real but the general is played by an actor who owned the inn where Rasputin held his orgies. The reason the helmets look like WWI-era is because that's what the commentary says the helmets in 15th century English-occupied France may have looked like. Also because English helmets are like English cuisine--unchanged in 500 years. No wonder they had to conquer the world; they were sick of their own cooking.

The Catholic priests are going to evoke disgust but then last week's report of the decades-long abuse in Ireland by priests and nuns should evoke enough disgust for a lifetime It might help to know that that the actors were well-known on the French comedy scene. Also, the actress who plays Joan was famous on the same stages. She got even more famous in 1972 when Patti Smith wrote a poem about her.

The director shot the movie chronologically and in almost the same amount of time as it took for the trial to take place. He insisted that everyone remain available and that the priests keep their topnotchers shaved even if they wore a yarmulke the whole time. He made a point of using no make-up. It works. Tremendous power in the acting.

It is not true, though tempting to imagine, that Dick Cheney played a role in the trial which of course included a trip to something that could well have been a waterboarding station.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (...

2009-05-15T02:41:00.001-07:00

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Not a bad movie. Well-liked by all including the current resident teenager, or, to paraphrase a phrase describing someone else besides James Brown, "the hardest working teenager not currently frolicking in Israel." Some of us may remember that Mr. Brown, who had the trademark description of being "the hardest working man in show business," was, on occasion, in trouble due to domestic abuse concerns. While he was in some such trouble at one time or another, another musician was described as "the hardest working man in show business not currently on a work-release program."

From the files of Wikipedia found on the Internet where you can also find the original story which will take about two hours and 15 minutes less time to read than to watch the movie.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a 2008 American fantasy drama film, based on the 1921 short story of the same name written by F. Scott Fitzgerald."
He of Saint Paul fame and who has several Historical Literary plaques around town.

Since Russia oddly figures into the movie we can inject Mr. Karl Marx, of some fame or other who had the oddly original idea that
everything ran on an economic basis. Hence, a story that originally
took place in Baltimore now moves to New Orleans due to the constant
struggle between the classes (read states) in giving tax breaks to Hollywood "intelligentsias". In an extraordinary act of compassion, the film makers donated the movie props to Katrina survivors. What next? Hardtack?

The Queenie character name given to the adoptive mother is oddly the same as the character name that Hattie McDaniel had in Show Boat (1936) . Hattie of Gone with the Wind (1939) fame and who famously said she didn't mind playing a maid if she was making 700 dollars a week. So goes the class warfare in once and still-segregated Tinseltown.

Oscar Hammerstein was involved in Show Boat somehow and was also involved with the dance that Daisy performs in the movie. And, of course, we all know where Daisy comes from. At least us historical literary intelligentsia types who either read The Great Gatsby or saw the movie. So now you have all the essential trivia that I bothered to dig up, some of it actually on my own.

Oh, and also, that really is Cate Blanchett on the hospital bed in makeup. She happens to share the same birthday as Linda which was yesterday which is when I meant to click Send. Happy Birthday, Linda!

The Way We Were (1973)

2009-05-09T22:34:00.001-07:00

The Way We Were (1973)

We watched this classic in loving memory of Ernie. Type "Ernie Amatniek" and the "Abraham Lincoln Brigade" into an Internet search and then watch the opening scenes with Katie handing out leaflets.

Katie played by Barbra you-know-who says "It's amazing how decisions are forced upon us willy-nilly." Odd coincidence that we saw this movie soon after the death on April 26th of Salamo Arousch, the Greek-Jew featured in Triumph of the Spirit (1989). His story was described as being one of "choiceless choices," meaning the Nazis gave him the choice of who to have killed if he won the boxing match. Katie's story certainly is not on the same scale, but there is a similarity since she is talking about the late-1940's Hollywood witchhunts (pre-McCarthy) that this movie uses as a backdrop.

Great movie regardless of all the problems with it. Fascinating special feature made in 1999 included with the DVD. It fills in the plot holes and adds some wonderful insight. Robert Redford is missing apparently due to scheduling conflicts. Couldn't they wait? What's another decade or two? Well, maybe they were right to go ahead without Redford. Interesting to hear Streisand called "the first openly Jewish actress." Watch Sydney Pollack play with the rubber band and then watch Absence of Malice (1981). Oh, there's also insight into a certain song that sold a million copies.

There's talk that Babs wants to make a sequel with Katie and Hubbell's daughter repeating the same mistakes. Again with a member of a different ethnic/gender/hair color group. Except now she doesn't have to go to Harlem to get her hair ironed.

Monster's Ball (2001)

OK, so political correctness has it's place. And this movie raises all sorts of PC places. But as a movie, it's great. Halle Berry won Best Actress for this and not only for the sofa scene. Coronji Calhoun, the extremely over-weight ten year-old who played her son, was not nominated and doesn't show up on the Internet any later than 2005. There do seem to be people looking and trying to help. I suppose that lets me off the hook. He was incredible. The IMDb says Berry told him to remember it was just a movie. He said it was no where as bad as what the kids at school did to him.

Directed by Marc Forester who also did several of my favorites, Stranger Than Fiction, Kite Runner, and Quantum of Solace. Billy Bob is good as is Heath Ledger. Peter Boyle is terrific. Anybody remember Joe (1970)? You'll have a hard time watching "Everybody Loves Raymond" (1996) (TV series) after these two. There's a great and horrible scene of the three men in the living room. If Monster's Ball is about confronting racism then it is also about confronting classism and the pre-redemptive sense that those people who belong to the "lower politically incorrect" class still belong to the human race even if they are the same color as us. But redemption is what this is ultimately about. Although how does a private home, even in the South, have a private cemetary on the property? And why are there three graves when one burial was shown in a public cemetary?

Lakeview Terrace (2008)

This could have been a much better film about confronting racism. Samuel Jackson is raising two daughters by himself after losing his wife a year earlier. The way she died is pivotal in understanding his character. You won't find out until later in the film, but it adds a much deeper complexity to his character. Unfortunately, the doofus white guy that moves in next door with his hip, beautiful black wife is not complex at all. Can I share a funny scene? Stop reading if you don't want to spoil it. The white guy drives up to his house after work. He has loud rap music on the radio. Samuel Jackson walks up to him and tells him he can listen to that music all he wants but in the morning he's still going to wake up white. Too bad it just slides into inanity after that. Wait, that was already inane. But funny.

Nights in Rodanthe (2008)

This is the movie that Mom gave a thumbs up to. It is also about confronting racism. Mainly, why does the director feel the need to cast a character as having a best friend as black when they're both white in the book? But if Diane Lane, who was born in 1965 and over-wrought Richard Lear who was born in 1949, can get it on then what the hell. Not as bad as Dustin Hoffman and any female currently able to walk. But, still, it's a bit too much male fantasy. Not mine, of course. I kind of stopped talking about the confronting racism rant two sentences ago and moved on to the age difference rant. OK, now onto the movie rant.

Ann Peacock is one of the screenwriters. She wrote the screenplay for A Lesson Before Dying. I loved that one. This one, no. Sorry, Mom.

Picky Problems:
Wrong season for hurricanes and hurricanes don't quit after one night.
Coastal people don't leave their cars where the storm surge will get them.
They also board up their windows a little more carefully. Lane should have known that.
Gere enters the inn and leaves the door open.
Lane buys Wonder Bread at the local store. What kind of B&B has Wonder Bread on the premises?
Gere looks dead.
Really. Not just because he's in character. Dead. As in toast. Maybe that's what the Wonder Bread was for. Metaphor.
Emmy Lou Harris pronounces Rodanthe one way and the radio announcer at the village says it another way. Wikipedia does it one of the two ways. I think.
It's a chick flick. Metaphorically speaking.

Ok, it's after midnight. Alan just got home from a babysitting job. I'm going to bed. I have to get up early and make breakfast. Happy Mother's Day, mamas and Obamamamas.

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

2009-05-09T19:17:00.001-07:00

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Today is the 17th anniversary of the Westray Mine disaster in Cape Breton, Canada. And by coincidence, I had just finished this incredible book by a Canadian author, Ann-Maire Macdonald. It would not be an exaggeration to say it was one of the best books I've read in a long time (other than History of Love, of course). Powerful. I felt like falling on my knees. She seems to be famous in Canada as well as in lesbian circles. It's not a lesbian book but there might have been a lurid scene or two. I'm not sure. I closed my eyes when I came to it. I may be undecided, too. Which one?

It really wasn't lurid. I just wanted to use that word. Twice.

Also, by coincidence, I found this book in the store at the same time as I was working my through my copy of the Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary by David A. Francis and Robert Leavitt. I am enjoying the dictionary very much. I've always needed a polite way to say "Come visit when you're sober." However, Linda now has a way to say "This man, they say, was very bad, but his wife was a good woman."

Did anyone see The Linguists (2008) on PBS last February? What a treasure for all of us to have a dictionary like this. I am enjoying it but am also deeply disappointed as I had hoped to gain a few new two letter words with which I could trick my Scrabble opponent/siblings into believing they were legitimate English Scrabble words. To paraphrase Roy Scheider from Jaws (1975), "Robert, if you want to play Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Scrabble, then you're going to need a bigger board." Those are some long words. But, I propose that at the next get-together we all play Scrabble. I'll bring the dictionary.

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

2009-04-26T19:34:00.001-07:00

Yes, we still have no second senator. Some might say that's a good thing. Here's some quickies of the past few weeks.

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

We finally saw this on video after Tish recommended it. We liked it. Very sweet. Not as much gratuitous sex as Amy Adams had in Enchanted (2007) with P. Dempy and and a bath towel. Remember the father in Breaking Away (1979)? The same actor has the same role in this movie. And he doesn't look any older. His work in Breaking Away was heartbreaking especially when he tries to sell the car. Also, Alan Arkin is always good.

Le voyage du ballon rouge (2007) or the Flight of the Red Balloon for those who forgot.

It's French so there's smoking. It's also 79 minutes longer than Le ballon rouge (1956) (or the red balloon, nevermind). This new one is not a sequel or a remake but "inspired" by the original. It's also extreeeeeeemly slow. If you like Franz Lizt then it should be easier to stay awake. Bear in mind that the movie is not about anything happening but more about what goes on in people's lives. The balloon acts as a support figure for one of those people. It's a must-see if you love the Red Balloon or if you love super-indie Chinese directors.

For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000)

Andy Garcia does a great job as does the rest of the cast especially Mia Maestro, who looks like a young Katherine Hepburn, and Charles Dutton as Dizzy Gillespie with the amazing chops and cheeks. Great music, great propaganda film depending on who you ask or just a good movie (originally for HBO TV). Good line about how worthless free education is if you can't read what you want.

Mad Max 2 (1981)
aka "The Road Warrior"

I saw this in the theatre when it first came out in downtown Chicago during a late-morning layover on a cross-country Greyhound bus ride. Walking out of the theatre into the streets of Chicago at noon on a weekday! If only I'd known about Joseph Campbell back then what I still don't know now. I bet Mel's wishing he'd known about pre-nups back then.

Fast & Furious (2009)

A newspaper reviewer said that in honor of Earth Day Vin Diesel is changing his name to Vin Biodiesel. That would help. This is a movie only for teenage boys and their fathers who love the drive-in. It's manipulation of the rating system is shameless. But only one f-word to listen to isn't so bad except Diesel uses the "aint" word in every sentence. Shameless.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)

Also a drive-in theatre movie and surprisingly good. Funny, sweet. Clever jokes about weight issues (wait, I mean heavy jokes). Best use of a shopping mall since Woody Allen did Scenes From a Mall. Beautiful choreography of the robbers inside the mall. Any movie where the name in the title is one letter away from being a famous name can't be all bad. That's why you gotta love Yahoo. The CEO is named Bartz.

Tuya (Tuya de hun shi (2006) or Tuya's Marriage

Beautiful Mongolian film. Tammy Wynette and Johnny Cash could have gotten several albums from the themes in this film.

Transporter 3 (2008)

Jason Statham does his own stunts! And allows himself to be objectified at the hands of a beautiful woman! And can't act any better than the Biodiesel guy! Who cares!

Quickie time

2009-04-24T14:02:00.001-07:00

Quickie time

Great news, folks! We have a decision in the US Senate re-re-re-re-re-count. Both contestants agreed to concede. Hallelujah, as Leonard Cohen would say who is going on tour and if anyone wants to send me lots of money then I would go see him but the tix are like too much.

The only other alternative, according to the judge, was to have Jesse Ventura referree a match between the two. They were going to rassle until the judge said they had to fight under their stage names: Self-Righteous Liberal and Never-Wrong Conservative.

Speaking of Conservatives, I would be amiss if I didn't mark the passing of a true friend of Joe (McCarthy), Paul Harvey, age 90. I did enjoy listening to him, however, when I hitchhiked around the country years ago. It seemed like most people who gave me a ride had Harvey on the radio.

For some people, Harvey could be as irritating as that person in the theater who laughs louder than anyone and who always laughs before the joke gets finished or even started. It must be even more irritating if you happen to married to me. I mean, him. Sorry, Linda. Speaking of irritating, we saw this one in the theater.

Marley & Me (2008)

Directed by David Frankel of The Devil Wears Prada (2006) fame but not related to Viktor Frankl of Man' Search for Meaning fame. Cute, funny at times, extraordinarily poor dog parenting. I know the book is much different and that Marley actually ends up passing the obedience school in real life, but the movie is what most people are seeing. A simple Gentle Leader collar can work wonders. Lots of other issues I would love to nitpick on but will spare you. However, we have a dog we love and would hope we could all be involved in what happens at the end instead of the really stupid way the movie has it end. Great scene with Kathleen Turner (she has rheumatoid arthritis and has changed a good bit due to the steroids, in case you were worried). OK, some of you probably loved this movie and we did to. It's just easy to pick on. Linda's probably going to get mad at me because she seemed to have an emotional response to it but she's probably more concerned with how she can avoid sitting next to one of those irritating laugh-a-matics who hasn't had an emotional response since Whoppie Goldberg was a ghost.

The Wings of the Dove (1997)

Beautiful adaptation of the Henry James novel with a screenwriting by an Iranian. (just thought I would throw that in for anyone who has a connection to Iran). Helena Bonham Carter makes it hot in a brief R scene.

The Revengers' Comedies (1998)

A very strange Helena Bonham Carter made-for-cable movie set in England but with no f-words. Interesting premise. Hard to follow. I'm not sure I finished it. Hard to tell.

Honeydripper (2007)

Directed by one of my favorites, John Sayles. OK movie but I was expecting more music. Not enough scenes with Keb' Mo' as the blind guitar player.

Righteous Kill (2008)

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Hey, what could go wrong? Mostly the movie. It seemed like an excuse for two great actors to have a buddy film together.

Taken (2008/I)

Liam Neeson in one of the best suspense, action, thriller movies I've seen in long time. I'm really glad they kept it PG-13 which means there's no stupid love scenes to mess up a good car chase scene. Just the action. That's all a grown man needs.

Happy Birthday to Annie yesterday which is when I started writing this. Next up, Alex. Thanks, FaceBook. Or whatever it's called.

The Arrowhead

2009-04-24T14:00:00.003-07:00

The Reader (2008)
OK, I suppose everyone else is watching the Oscars. Well, forget it. It's already sewn up. I do want to see Jerry Lewis, though. I've always loved his movies. But so do the French which possibly explains why they've never won a war unless they were fighting themselves. Sorry, bad hold-over joke from the Freedom Fries War.

We saw this incredible movie in the theatre the other night. Partly why it's so good is that it is so controversial and thought-provoking. The themes carry way beyond the post-Holocaust, German guilt/angst issue. It's hard to say too much without giving away some key plot lines. When they come up, it's a surprise and an emotional one. Teachers will find a particular emotional response separate from the other issues. People looking for sex will be disappointed. It really isn't that big a part of the movie. Although the possibility that there is anal sex involved does add another layer to the issues.
We read the book several months ago. It's a very good book and the movie is, too. But the movie can highlight several things that would have been hard in the book. Look at the scene where the defendant is asked why she did what she did. Then she asks the judge, "What would you have done?" The judge's response tells the whole story about what the movie feels any German would have done. Also, look carefully at the scene in the outdoor cafe when she looks at the group of children doing what she can't. Also, the apartment scene towards the end. The elegance of the decorations contrasted with the tin box. And where she puts it.

Next up is a movie about American guilt. What did we know, when did we know it, and why in the hell didn't we bomb the train tracks?

The beginning of the movie has a scene in an English classroom. The teacher says something like the sum of all literature is the secret that each character carries throughout the story. I think the whole movie is about each person's secret. Listen to the emotional question posed by the law professor.

Mary Oliver's collection of poems, When I Wake Up In the Morning includes this poem. I happened to read it the day after watching the movie. It pretty much sums up all the issues in the movie for me.

The Arrowhead
by Mary Oliver

The arrowhead,

which I found beside the river,

was glittering and pointed.

I picked it up, and said,

"Now, it's mine."

I thought of showing it to friends,

I thought of putting it-such an imposing trinket-

in a little box, on my desk.

Halfway home, past the cut fields,

the old ghost

stood under the hickories.

"I would rather drink the wind," he said,

"I would rather eat mud and die

than steal as you still steal,

than lie as you still lie."

Quiz Show

2009-04-24T14:00:00.001-07:00

The Wild Bunch (1969)

Well, John Wayne didn't like this either but for different reasons. Here's what Robert Mitchum had to say about Wayne: "Sure I was glad to see John Wayne win the Oscar ... I'm always glad to see the fat lady win the Cadillac on TV, too."

This movie is considered "ground-breaking" and "classic." It was and is but I still couldn't sit through the whole thing. I know it's supposed to be about old men and how their world is changing

Quelques jours en septembre (2006)

The Revengers' Comedies (1998)

Defending Your Life (1991)

2009-04-24T13:59:00.001-07:00

Defending Your Life (1991)

Happy Birthday to Shirley MacLaine who had a hilarious cameo in this very funny and thought-provoking Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep comedy which Linda and I saw when it first came out and she was due to deliver Peter so we went out to hot and spicy Thai food which was supposed to help induce labor but didn't work although it was delicious and the movie afterwards was very good. So here it is 17 years plus 9 months later and it's Shirley's birthday and Peter has landed in Israel. So see the movie, eat some Thai food, and remember, if the only thing we have to fear is fear itself then we better get our fears in order unless we want to be like Albert Brooks' character who was bought his Beamer before MP3s came out and had to face all his fears before he could finish this sentence.

Slumdogs

2009-02-27T20:34:00.001-08:00

Neil Gaiman (Writer, Stardust (2007):
"without darkness, light is meaningless"

May Sarton:
... without darkness
Nothing comes to birth,
As without light
Nothing flowers.

You may have heard about Slumdog Millionaire (2008) by now. We saw it several weeks ago and it's taking me awhile to write about it. Powerful and beautiful. Lots of controversy on everything from how the term "slumdog" is disrespectful to how an English director could dare make a movie about the poverty of India. The Wikipedia article addresses those and other issues with the movie. Danny Boyle also did Millions (2004) whcih is beautiful and a hilarious look at early saints and Trainspotting (1996) which has a similar toilet scene as Slumdog. But putting aside all the controversies, what I came away with was a profound sense of having watched a story of healing and joy in the aftermath of incredible darkness. There is also a dramatic story of redemption when a character who is Muslim says in English the phrase which translates as Allah Akbar and is, perhaps, more known in Western ears as the last thing homicide bombers say before they blow themselves up and anyone else in the area. In the ears of alphabetically -arranged siblings it's also a phrase once oft-uttered by Mom as she tried raising boys while home alone and after having lived in a country where it was expected for Westerners to have 200 or more people doing the housework. Honorable Oscar goes to Sogra, our nanny in Tehran.

The closing credits are done over a dance in a train station which is supposed to be a homage to Bollywood movies of which this movie is not. Since I've never seen a Bollywood movie, I had no idea and just thought it was an expression of incredible joy by the characters for having survived. Listen carefully to the closing song, especially the very last word.
The character, Jamal, and his brother are clearly Muslim in the movie which makes a huge difference in the story. An internet page said the book makes the characters more "everyman" and not distinctly one religion or another. I couldn't find out if the actors are Muslim although the name of one of the children who plays a younger Jamal is probably a Muslim name unless the name Mohammed has crossed over into Hindu territory. What is especially interesting to me is finally finding out what the hell happened to Bombay.

Quiz Show (1994)

Great movie with both Bobby Darin and Lyle Lovett standing in for Bertolt Brecht. John Turturro is always good. One of the characters makes a statement about Harvard having an admission quota for Jews. I seem to remember Dad saying that, too. Is that right or am I thinking of something else.
Next time you wonder where the entertainment value is in game shows that ask simple questions think of this quote from the movie, "difficulty of question not the issue, the size of the money is what the public wants to see."

Thanks to Youtube, you can watch the original with the real Herb Stemple. He gets asked what was the fate of King Henry's wives. He answers,"They died."

Married Life (2007)

Very fun comedy, romance, suspense. Well acted and directed. Also! Alternate endings! Just like Choose Your Own Adventure books.

Holes

2009-01-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

Holes (2003)

Eartha Kitt passed away on Christmas Day. Holes would be a good movie anyway but with her as Madame Zeroni the movie takes off.

Before Sunset, Godfather I, II, III

2008-12-23T17:47:00.000-08:00

Before Sunset

Beautiful sequel to Before Sunrise. I started crying within the first minute. Well, not real crying. Manly crying, you know, where there's just a little dampness in the eyes. Still, the way they flashed back to the first movie and then how it became clear that things weren't what we thought made the opening very emotional (in a manly sense). The scene in the coffee shop was good. Watching the people in the background was fun.

I wish it had ended differently, but still a very worthwhile movie. It impressed me with how nice French people are. I had no idea. But then they did treat our paterfamila nicely, as well as the rest of the family that could make it over there for the festivities.

Shakespeare & Co Bookshop Paris, France

Godfather I, II, III

Well, we made it through all three. You'll be glad to know there's good news. Yes, the Al Pacino godfather finally quits smoking by the third installment. I hope that isn't going to ruin the surprise for anyone. He also quits killing people, maybe, but in the end it's really just a very long movie about regrets.

Best of Sicily - Road Map of Sicily

Dogma

2008-12-23T08:13:00.001-08:00

Listen up everybody! I'm flying to Augusta for Thanksgiving. There might be a Scrabble game and probably no Wi-fi service. So unless we all get together and get Mom hooked up then you can expect frequent phone calls asking for an Internet search in order to verify a word. Wait, maybe I could just bring a Scrabble dictionary. It was nice of Tish to buy one last summer but it was also a lot of fun to call people and ask them to check a word for us. Keep your lines open.

Dogma

"I need you three to shuffle her loose the mortal coil..."

Ok, reading Hamlet last summer meant that I started seeing Hamlet in everything, hence my incredibly brillant connection with the Will Smith Hancock movie. Speaking of which, according to the admissions officer at Macalester who is a friend of mine, the tank top t-shirt that Charlize Theron wears to bed and which says "Macalester" on the front is a big seller at the Macalester bookstore.

Now, I watched the Hamlet movie last night and this afternoon the elder resident teenager comes home with a borrowed copy of Dogma which contains the above reference from Hamlet. I may have laughed a little too hard in the first half then got tired of it for awhile then got back into it. One of the many fun parts of this movie are all the references to movies and one major play. It is a fun movie even though one critic said "in spite of all the gratuitous violence and bad language, it's still a fun movie."

It has a very similar theme to the Surrealist Spanish movie I reviewed last year called Milky Way. I liked that one a lot and this one in the same way. They both try very hard to criticize the Catholic Church but both come out saying some very deep spiritual things in the process and somehow showing the good things about Catholic spirituality. Alainis Morrisette plays a very provocative role. Provocative in the sense of really having to think about what it means.

What Dreams May Come

As long as we're on the subject of Hamlet, I'll mention this movie that we saw a few years ago. The title comes from Hamlet's suicidal "to be or not to be" musing. I thought it was a beautiful movie. Robin Williams, Annabelle Sciorra, and Cube Gooding Jr.. Heaven and hell. Incredibly sad but beautiful.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Another Hamlet connection. A very strange movie but one I remember liking although it's been long enough that I really don't remember much except how interesting it was that a movie was made about what might have happened to two minor characters from a major play.

Here's a poem:

They All Want To Play Hamlet

They all want to play Hamlet.
They have not exactly seen their fathers killed
Nor their mothers in a frame-up to kill,
Nor an Ophelia dying with a dust gagging the heart,
Not exactly the spinning circles of singing golden spiders,
Not exactly this have they got at nor the meaning of flowers - O flowers,
     flowers slung by a dancing girl - in the saddest play the
     inkfish, Shakespeare, ever wrote;
Yet they all want to play Hamlet because it is sad like all actors are sad
     and to stand by an open grave with a joker's skull in the hand and
     then to say over slow and say over slow wise, keen, beautiful words
     masking a heart that's breaking, breaking,
This is something that calls and calls to their blood.
They are acting when they talk about it and they know it is acting to be
     particular about it and yet: They all want to play Hamlet.

Carl Sandburg a

Six Degrees of Separation

2008-12-23T07:50:00.001-08:00

Six Degrees of Separation

I got this one after seeing The Defiant Ones with Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis. This movie is the one based on the stage production which was based on the true story of a man who pretended to be Poitier's son. Fascinating movie. Wonderfully purposeful overacting as a way to show how everybody is really pretending to be someone else. I found this interesting bit about the director on Wikipedia.

"John Guare, (the screenwriter and original playwriter for the stage play version), was born in New York City and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens. He was raised a Roman Catholic, but now seems to be lapsed [1]. He was educated at Georgetown University, (BA, 1960), where in 1958 he contributed a song to an original musical revue entitled The Natives Are Restless and presented by the Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society. The song humorously attributed the success of many famous people to the syllable “O” in their names."-- from Wikipedia. Now fifty years later we have an "O" on the brink of being presidentially famous.

The Taming of the Shrew (the 1966 Taylor/Burton version)

Check out this real Bosley Crowther review: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9504E2D71E3BE63ABC4153DFB566838C679EDE

Liz and Dick divorced after this movie if that makes any difference. I loved it. Great sets and costumes. Great overacting. And, as Bosley says, great cleavage. Well, I don't think he says "great." Liz as Kate is great. Interesting trivia: Laurence Olivier played Kate when he was 15.

Hamlet

I'm on a Shakespeare kick since I started developing my own list of books to read before I die or get too tired to stay up past 8pm. I read almost half of his plays last summer (more daylight hours). This version of Hamlet was the 4-hour 1996 version with Kenneth Branagh. Wonderful but really need to know the language. Very fast dialogue and hard to keep up but the staging and casting and everything else is wonderful. Look at the cast list. A note on IMDb says Robin Williams and Billy Crystal were not allowed on the set together as they would get everyone laughing too hard.

Housekeeping

I read the book when it was first published in 1980 then saw the movie in 1987. Loved them both. Now the author, Marilyn Robinson, has a new book out and is getting a lot of attention for it. I don't think the DVD for Housekeeping ever came out, but I thought I would mention it in case enough people request it on their DVD rental service.

Even more

2008-12-23T07:47:00.001-08:00

OK, you can stop reading my drivel now. Just go the link below and watch me in video with my imaginary friend. I'm the guy. I think. Except I really disagree with him about Tropic Thunder and political correctness.

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=reelgeezers

Bella

Beautiful (sorry, but somebody has to think it's a funny and highly intelligent way of showing that I know what Bella means) movie about love, family, regrets, atonement and kitchen management. Shot in New York using mostly Spanish-speaking actors. It's significant that the three brothers have different accents which would only be noticeable to experts in the language or in using IMDb like me. The different accents signify the different relationship each brother has within the family.

Well-done movie and worth seeing even if it does have the blessing of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Charles Dobson of Focus on Family Spanking. I wonder what they thought of Juno? The bishops would like us to know that there is only one slightly objectional word in English and only one slightly more objectional word spoken in an obscure Spanish dialect. We liked it so much we saw it again right afterwards but still missed the bad words.

Times and Winds

Turkish movie made in 2006 but apparently timeless or least as far back as the revelation from Muhammad. Verrrrry slow dissertation on Turkish teenager angst and the effects of cardigan sweaters on wall-building skills. Beautiful musical score by Arvo Part and great scenery. The rest is pretty depressing. Fathers who abuse their sons, mothers who abuse their daughters, fathers who are also imans and call the village to prayer right after abusing their sons.

In the Time of the Butterflies

Lots of controversy over this movie: lack of Dominican actors, shot in Mexico instead of Dominican Republic, wrong emphasis, not what really happened because what really happened would not be able to be a TV movie (probably couldn't be filmed in the first place), Jennifer Lopez' husband should have had a better part, Jennifer Lopez' husband should have had a smaller part (at least his divorce prior to J-Lo was finalized in the Dominican Republic), Salma Hayek was in it, etc, etc.

But if you don't know the story or the book then it's an incredible movie. Beautiful, devastatingly sad at the end. The book was too difficult for me to read after the seeing the movie and knowing what was going to happen. It starts off like it could be a book for teenage girls. The other incredible part is the year this took place. I never knew anything about it.

Salma Hayek produced one of my favorite movies, The Maldonado Miracle. It'll make you feel good.

Nights in Rodanthe

2008-10-17T20:32:00.001-07:00

Nights in Rodanthe

Reader Alert!

The following review is repeated directly from the matri-familia, Mom, who has actually seen the movie, as opposed to me, who has only checked out the facts on IMDb ( my motto: Movie Reviews you can trust, you just have to trust my version of the facts.)

In Mom's words: "5-stars." "I loved it."

(warning: a comment on IMDb calls this a "women's film" which means I'll probably have to see it eventually) (I try to not let Linda see "women's" films with other women and especially not by herself; she can get all the wrong messages unless she has my presence there to remind her that things could always be worse.) (wait, that didn't come out the way I think I meant it)

Before Sunrise

Lovely "talkie" movie (kind of like My Dinner With Andre but with movement meaning they get up from the dinner table). A young woman and man meet on a train in Europe and spend the night walking around Vienna. I think they lay down at some point but I was really too engrossed in what they were saying. Ethan Hawke plays the man and a French actress plays the women. Like Casey Stengal said, "You can look it up" if you want to know her name. It's in English (American-English on Hawkes' part) but interesting use of other people speaking other languages without subtitles. There's a sequel we haven't seen yet but will try to soon. The title shouldn't be too hard to guess.

Diva

Absolutely one of the most gorgeous films I've seen in a long time. 1981 French film about an opera singer (a real American opera singer who had been asked to act in the movie after the producers saw her in an opera; beautiful voice and acting, you'll wish you could hear her live) who doesn't ever record herself. A young man is infatuated with her and secretly records a performance. The rest is incidental. The whole movie is about using all our senses to experience the movie. Even the sense of touch since we had to keep finding the remote everytime the phone would ring with one of the boys asking if they can stay out a little longer. Many of the scenes are staged like a work of art. Try watching it without subtitles so you can just sense what's going on. We watched it with half the subtitles since the bottom half of the subtitles was below the screen. We could easily figure out what was going on and it was much more of a sensory experience. A comment on IMDb said if you wanted to be hip in the '80's then this was one of the three movies you had to have seen. It's past the '80's now so the other two don't matter. Other comments said everything was realistic (from a French point of view) including how the man does the recording. Great scene of a philosopher and a jigsaw puzzle, also of him buttering a loaf of bread. The chase scene is supposed to be classic. If your subtitles don't work just remember what Casey Stengal said; not the one about how he was such a dangerous hitter that he got intentional walks during batting practice.

Cache

A 2005 French film with Juliette Binoche who was in The English Patient which I loved. This one had a very interesting plot, kind of like Atonement mixed in with The Battle for Algiers. Unfortunately, it really needed subtitles and they just weren't woking well in our DVD version. We missed most of the dialogue so quit after a bit.

My Dinner With Andre

I saw this in the theatre when it first came out in 1981. Since I mentioned it here I just thought I'd say, "5-stars; "I loved it."

2008-10-12T16:39:00.000-07:00

The Shop Around the Corner

Classics time and this is a great one to spend time with. Funny, sweet, political, beautiful acting and casting.

We liked the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks You've Got Mail remake, too, but this is much better. We also liked the British TV comedy several years that was based on this movie, Are You Being Served?

Margaret Sullavan and Jimmy Stewart parry and marry while living out their solitary lives in a Budapest gift store.

Ralph, they don't actually get married, just engaged, assumedly.

Ok, but isn't it clever of me to use parry and marry in a sentence?

Nevermind. I give up. But where's the politics?

The movie takes place in 1938 in Budapest and the Depression is referred to several times while the lifestyle scenes show that people are trying desperately to ignore it. Not much of a statement, but still very interesting to see in 2008.

There are two fascinating coincidental uses of numbers in the film.

When the store owner (a very pleasant re-encounter with an actor who everyone grew up seeing at least once a year) gets out of the hospital after a nervous breakdown he goes to the front window of the shop. There is a close-up shot of the cash register showing the price 51.50 (in Hungarian money). Due to extensive and coincidental Internet research, I discovered that the California code for involuntary commitment for mental illness is numbered 5150.

The other numerical casting is the post office box number that Sullavan's character rents. The scene where her gloved hand reaches into the empty box is extraordinary. The box number, 237, is large and clear (also mentioned several times). It happens to be the same number as the hotel room used in Stanley Kubrick's movie, The Shining. Kubrick's choice of that number was mainly the result of needing a number in the 200's where the digits added up to 12 and of being a number that was not a real room number at the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon which served as the backdrop but not the location for the movie.

Just as a quick aside,

Please.

I thought The Shining was an excellent film from many different angles. Scary movies aren't usually my choice but this is well worth it for film fanatics. And for political fanatics since Kubrick wanted to film it partly to draw attention to the genocide of native people.

The DVD of The Shop Around the Corner has a few special features. Unfortunately, no commentary, but there is an interesting short film called the Miracle of Sound, which is an old black and white MGM film that shows how sound was put on film. The opening scene has a very brief shot of a cotton field with a hand reaching out to pick the cotton (cotton was used to make celluloid). The hand, of course, belongs to an African-American and reminded me that I learned early in my teaching career to preview films that I ordered from the school district A-V department. A similar scene, yet much longer, was in a 16mm film of America the Beautiful that I showed to a class of 3rd graders in 1989. Teachable moments sometimes turn into long discussions.

And, of course, Mr. Political Correctness could not miss a chance like this to point out that 1940 Hollywood often billed the leading actress first over the actor (apparently due to chivalry), as in The Shop Around the Corner, while 1998 Hollywood billed Tom Hanks first in You've Got Mail (apparently due to Tom Hanks having greater appeal even over America's sweetheart and greatest fake orgasmic actress, Meg Ryan). Just an interesting note.

Thanks, Ralph. Apparently, you are due for a check-up.

2008-10-12T16:38:00.001-07:00

Quickies

We saw Atonement last week. Just in time for Yom Kippur. I think I already used the dumb joke about the Jewish connection with the family's last name. Beautiful movie. We read the book a year or so ago. Well told story and well done movie. English accents are only a little hard to understand but since I now qualify for the senior discount at Piccadilly I'm having a harder time hearing anything. Getting my ears cleaned out helped a little.

Love in the Time of Cholera came in the mail recently. I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez' magical realism style of writing. I first read his short stories, then 100 Years of Solitude. Have not read Love in the time of Cholera but wanted to see the movie anyway. Beautiful movie. I loved the casting. Javier Barden was great and a pleasure to see him after not really liking No Country for Old Men. The commentary on the DVD that I watched later was very interesting mainly because the director, Mike Newell, has a great voice. Very soothing, especially for an Englishman. Even though he is mostly a TV director the movie wasn't all that bad. Pauline Kael had a good point in the 60's that it wasn't the major movies that television was hurting but the fact that television killed the B-movie which had been the training ground for directors. With television ending the B-movie market, directors were coming from television instead which is much more one-dimensional (at least at that time, supposedly). I'm not sure if Mike Newell's television background affected this movie but he did do Four Weddings and Funeral which had Hugh Grant. That's about as one-dimensional as you can get.

I forgot about seeing Mountain Patrol in Augusta last summer. Strangely beautiful movie about a true story in Tibet several years ago concerning the poaching of wild antelope and the attempts by local Tibetans to stop the poaching. Gorgeous scenery and great acting. I read quite a bit of viewer response to the movie and got very confused about who was really the bad guys and was the movie really Chinese propaganda to show how environmentally concerned they are by supporting the anti-poachers but really acting the other way. Or was it the other way around? Hard to tell from all the emotional responses. One news article did clarify that the scene of what was supposed to be 100's of skinned antelopes was really goats that was the normal diet for the villagers. They just lined up the carcasses for the movie.

Saw the biopic about Bob Dylan, I'm Not There. All the jokes about the title apply. "I wasn't there either." "You had to be there." "There is no there, there" (Steinian philosophy). Compelling movie, nonetheless. The casting got most of the publicity. Cate Blanchett was good. Woody Guthrie has always been one of my heroes. The scene of the child actor playing Dylan and visiting Guthrie in the hospital was very moving. Interesting connection with my comment on the Mongolian Ping Pong movie about genocide practice in China. Guthrie had been recruited by the Columbia River (Oregon) Dam Company to write 26 songs commemorating the building of the dam and the resulting benefit of all the cheap electrical power. The other result of the dam being built was the total loss of the native American tribal way of life along the river. The tribes were moved inland to reservations and soon died off. The term used by other tribes in Oregon? Genocide.

We tried to watch The Rules of the Game by Jean Renoir (1939). It's billed as the "greatest movie ever made" mainly for the cinematic artistry. Unfortunately, the subtitles were obscured by the background so we gave up. Too bad since I love Renoir's film, Boudru Saved From Drowning (nicely remade as Down and Out In Beverly Hills). Pauline Kael is credited with praising the film enough to give it a new life in the US in the 60's. It's well worth the trouble to find it. Subtitles aren't all that necessary as the acting is so expressive.

We saw Moon Over Parador awhile ago. Richard Dreyfuss stars who I always like. Very funny movie. Sweet story. Great acting all around. Dreyfuss' brother plays the dead dictator in the freezer.

Tried to see something called Mona Lisa but I thought I had ordered the Julia Roberts film (another Mike Newell direction) and instead got some incomprehensible English gangster movie with Bob Hoskins. No idea if it was any good. Damn those English accents.

OK, that's enough for now.

Thk gdnes. OMG! I thought you'd never stp.

Yes, and damn those text messages from outer space.

2008-10-12T16:38:00.000-07:00

Mongolian Ping Pong

Alright, so it wasn't The Little Shop of Horrors Around the Corner which is what I was thinking. But if you join the Blockbuster movierentalsbymail (tell them I sent you) and type in Little Shop Around the Corner you not only get The Shop Around the Corner but you also get The Little Church Around the Corner which was a 1923 movie written by Olga Printzlau who wrote well over 60 movie scripts as well as several Broadway plays. They all sound good. I'd love to watch them sometime. I love really old movies mainly for the sense of getting a sense of the time. Some are hard to watch. I tried watching a silent movie last week written by and starring Harry Houdini, called Man From Beyond. Too hard to watch due to the incredibly annoying soundtrack but maybe if I played Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd at the same time it would be easier.

Anybody every try to watch the Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon as the soundtrack?

One of the founding members of Pink Floyd was named Richard Wright. He died last month which was the same month as the birth of the writer Richard Wright who we last visited in the McCabe and Mrs. Miller review. His birthday is September 4th which alert siblings and grandmother will note is the birthday of the famous teen rebel with many causes and ping pong extraordinaire, Peter Berlin.
Well, on to an extraordinary movie, Mongolian Ping Pong.

Actually flimed in Inner Mongolia which apparently means it's really China. Who the hell knows anymore? Outer Mongolia is apparently the Chinese name for Mongolia while Inner Mongolia is in China and has a majority of ethnic Han Chinese population with enough real Mongolians left alive to act in this movie. Apparently genocide is a term that hasn't been translated yet. If you want to know anymore then look it up yourself on wikipedia.

What I do know and will gladly share is that Mongolian music (inner or outer) and the technique of throatsinging is absolutely beautiful and the practice probably goes back thousands of years. Sadly, silence goes back even further which means the soundtrack to this movie is mostly that. A little throatsinging at the beginning and end. Just enough to whet your whistle as they say in Texas which also has a history of throatsinging amongst cowboys on the range.

The silence is obviously a way to get us to appreciate the awesome landscape and vast stretches of more awesome landscape. Somewhere inbetween is a remake of The Gods Must Be Crazy but not as funny. Cuter, though. Cute kids. Cute horses. If you want anymore then watch it yourself.

Evan Almighty

2008-09-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Evan Almighty

Linda and I hired two resident teenagers sometime ago. They moved in several years ago and agreed to eat and sleep in exchange for access to transportation and cash money. Apparently, it's the way things are done where they come from. Parents as taxi and ATM. Prior to their employment as teenagers, they were young and innocent enough to have seen Bruce Almighty at an early enough age to have God imprinted on their brains as Morgan Freeman. Now as resident teenagers, they have become very religious and seem to naturally gravitate towards any movie that has God's voice or face.

Except Evan Almighty, which we got on DVD just recently and after they began to realize that not everything God acted in was really all that good. So, only the younger resident teenager stuck around to watch it. It wasn't that bad, amusing but oddly unfunny. Jim Carrey did not want to do the sequel to Bruce Almighty so Steve Carell got talked into it. I haven't laughed at any thing I've seen him in. Is he supposed to be funny?

The movie cost 200 million dollars to make and still lost money. Wow! Imagine that! It was the most expensive comedy ever made and only made a strong argument for how the hell small countries can survive on less money. Of course, it was a green movie as the director bought everyone bicycles and insisted on having everyone plant trees in order to off-set the movie's carbon footprint. They certainly didn't want to get out-done by those Jewish green movie-makers, the Coen Brothers who had a statement at the end of No Country For Old Men about it being a neutral carbon emission movie.

It was hard to tell if this was a Jewish version of the Noah story, a Christian version, or a Messianic Mormanish version. When some of us were younger, God was much more clearly Jewish as evidenced by George Burns in Oh, God! The Southern Baptists protested the movie in Augusta way back when so it must have been the Jewish version of God.

There were several clever references to scriptural verses in Evan Almighty which only clever people like me understood especially after I read the trivia page on the IMDb website. I did, however, immediately recognize one of Dad's favorite sayings when Steve Carell tells Morgan Freeman that building an ark was not in his plans. God, of course, laughs as in Mann traoch, Gott läuch, which Alex translated the Yiddish for us at the funeral as meaning "Man plans, God laughs."

Evan Almighty is rated PG even though there is a cutesy reference to the really stupid 40-Year Old Virgin movie, so you can use it for Sunday School to teach the fun version of the Great Flood or you can use it in a socialist adult day care to teach a fairly literal version of the Great Flood of Johnstown, Pennslyvania, of 1899. Oops, I just gave away the plot. I'd apologize but according to most professional reviewers the plot was quickly obvious to everybody but me.

The Johnstown Flood was not, as the National Geographic fatuously said several years ago, a natural disaster. None of the wealthy members of the Hunting and Fishing Club got convicted of deliberately overloading the dam so they could have more water to hunt and fish but Andrew Carnegie did build a nice library for the survivors. And to add more insult to tragic injury a poem was written about the Johnstown Flood shortly after it happened. Not just any poem but one by Willaim McGonagall. It's called The Pennslyvania Disaster and is terrible which is fitting since McGonagall is famous for being declared the worst poet in the English language. He was probably also declared dead long before he actually died in 1902. He was known as the Bard of Banality before the title passed on to me. You will be utterly grateful that I am not pasting his poem here. It is awful.

We do want to extend our wishes for a speedy recovery to Morgan Freeman who was in a car accident recently. Sadly, he was also served with divorce papers at the same time.

It's hard enough for someone like my lovely wife to be married to someone who only thinks he's God.

No banal poems to paste, but since the subject of Jews came up, I'll just cut and paste some haikus from a website I can't bother to link to:

Jewish Haiku

*****

After the warm rain
the sweet smell of camellias.
Did you wipe your feet?

*****

Her lips near my ear,
Aunt Sadie whispers the name
of her friend's disease.

*****

Looking for pink buds
to prune, the old moyel
wanders among his flowers.

*****

Today I am a man.
Tomorrow I will return
to the seventh grade.

*****

Harsh Scrabble discord--
someone has placed "putzhead" on
a triple word score.

*****

Testing the warm milk
on her wrist, she sighs softly.
But her son is forty.

*****

The sparkling blue sea
reminds me to wait an hour
after my sandwich.

*****

Tea ceremony--
fragrant steam perfumes the air.
Try the cheese Danish.

*****

Lacking fins or tail
the gefilte fish swims with
great difficulty.

*****

Yom Kippur-- Forgive
me, Lord, for the Mercedes
and all that lobster.

*****

My nature journal --
today, I saw some trees and birds.
I should know the names?

*****

Like a bonsai tree,
your terrible posture at
my dinner table.

*****

Beyond Valium
the peace of knowing one's child
is an internist.

*****

Jews on safari --
map, compass, elephant gun,
hard sucking candies.

*****

Coroner's report --
"The deceased, wearing no hat,
caught his death of cold."

*****

The same kimono
the top geishas are wearing:
got it at Loehmann's.

*****

The sparrow brings home
too many worms for her young.
"Force yourself," she chirps.

*****

Jewish triathlon:
gin rummy, then contract bridge,
followed by a nap.

*****

"Can't you just leave it?"
the new Jewish mother asks -
umbilical cord.

*****

The shivah visit:
so sorry about your loss.
Now back to my problems.

*****

Our youngest daughter,
our most precious jewel.
Hence the name, Tiffany.

*****

Mom, please! There is no
need to put that dinner roll
in your pocketbook.

*****

Seven-foot Jews in
the NBA slam-dunking!
My alarm clock rings.

*****

Concert of car horns
as we debate the question
of when to change lanes.

*****

Sorry I'm not home
to take your call. At the tone
please state your bad news

*****

Is one Nobel Prize
so much to ask from a child
after all I've done?

*****

Today, mild shvitzing.
Tomorrow, so hot you'll plotz.
Five-day forecast: feh

*****

Left the door open.
for the Prophet Elijah.
Now our cat is gone.

*****

Yenta. Shmeer. Gevalt.
Shlemiel. Shlimazl. Tochis.
Oy! To be fluent!

*****

Quietly murmured
at Saturday services,
Yanks 5, Red Sox 3.

*****

A lovely nose ring --
excuse me while I put my
head in the oven.

*****

Hard to tell under
the lights--white Yarmulke or
male-pattern baldness

McCabe and Mrs. Miller

2008-09-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

McCabe and Mrs. Miller

Alright, Hussein, it's time for a Golden Oldie.

Hold on, Ralph, you aren't that old yet. This was an early '70's movie.

So was Billy Jack. That was pure gold then.

And just plain old now. Have you done anything new and exciting with yourself since 1971?

Well, last summer I did something that may be too difficult for some of our under-30 readers to be able to stomach.

Ok, let's hear it.

I sent my very first text message.

Wow! I feel sick just imagining you trying to find the spell-check feature.

Well, that was a challenge, but once I figured it out it 's been non-stop, especially during those exciting staff meetings when I can text without it being real obvious. Now I just need someone to text me back.

Well, don't hold your breath, Ralph, but what kept you from being so technologically advanced all this time?

You mean besides having to wait for a phone with spell-check? Money, Hussein. Until I ordered the family text plan and manipulated the boys into paying most of it I wasn't about to pay the 10 cents.

You're a good father. What a champ. So anyone bothering to read this and who has an unlimited texting plan could text you at 763-350-2522 and get to read more drivel.

Yep, but I like the word "dribble" which I found in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and who has the duke or friar or somebody say, "the dribbling dart of love."

Ralph, some true-blue texters don't know the meaning of fear. You don't know the meaning of pedantry. But what do you think Shakespeare was talking about besides the fact that he was the first one to use the word "pedant?"

The clap, Hussein. Dribbling darts of gonorrhea. He had just introduced us to Mistress Overdone, the madam of the brothel. Of course, he might have meant syphillis which may have been more common then and would explain the incomprehensible English accent which makes English movies needing subtitles.

Did you just insult an entire ethnic group called Anglo-Saxons? Welldone, I say. Movietime now, I say as well.

I wanted to see this movie again since the entire song list is made up of Leonard Cohen songs. I love Leonard Cohen. Good movie but only three Cohen songs. The movie starts out with a beautiful long scene of Warren Beatty riding up to the village of Presbyterian Church while Cohen performs his The Stranger Song which matches the scene so well that it could be a music video. The story I read somewhere on the Internet is that the director, Robert Altman, heard the song while making the movie and realized that it coincidentally fit the movie. Some DVD versions of the movie can be set for French which means you can hear the songs in French. I don't know if Cohen sings them but I'd like to hear it.

Ralph, Wikipedia is kind of wasted on you, isn't it? Good thing you don't need a proton accelerator. That would be 8 billion dollars down the drain.

What? Well, anyway, the movie has gained a following among Robert Altman fans and many film critics. It is good and bears a second viewing. It's supposedly a Western with an "anti-hero" which means Warren Beatty dies in the end to the great relief of those of us who don't care for him. Julie Christie plays the brothel madam, or as one reviewer put it, "the whore with a heart of opium."

The other prostitutes all seem to be portrayed as having hearts of gold. Good thing because they had very little else in those tents they started out with. There was a scene of all the women having fun together while soaking in a hot tub after they upgraded to hotel status. I don't know if that was too show that they weren't badly treated or just to show that they were human beings with the same desire for joy and companionship as everyone else. The movie did make a point of showing the prostitutes as being some of the first on the water brigade when the church catches fire. It is an interesting scene especially since no one ever went to the church yet everyone was anxious to save it when it started burning.

Altman used the novel as a starting point and then heavily interpreted it for his own sense of the story he wanted to tell especially given the era of Vietnam and the strong anti-war movement. He had just finished MASH and was able to get this made on the success of the MASH movie. I found out through the wonder of the Internet that the literary agent for the novel's author was the widow of Richard Wright, the author of Black Boy and Native Son. Wright also wrote several thousand haiku poems in his last year of life. About 800 of them were published in a book called This Other World. I happened to come across it last year in a bookstore. Beautiful poems.

Five Haikus

I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away.

I give permission
For this slow spring rain to soak
The violet beds.

With a twitching nose
A dog reads a telegram
On a wet tree trunk.

Burning autumn leaves,
I yearn to make the bonfire
Bigger and bigger.

A sleepless spring night:
Yearning for what I never had
And for what never was.

Here's one of Cohen's poems that I love. Each pair of lines has a double meaning which I know because I actually read about it in a book.

As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you and never will

Through windows in the dark
The children come, the children go
Like arrows with no targets
Like shackles made of snow

True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one
It's lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun

As a falling leaf may rest
A moment on the air
So your head upon my breast
So my breath upon your hair

And many nights endure
Without a moon or star
So we will endure
When one is gone and far

True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one
It's lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun

Lotsa Movies

2008-09-21T18:57:00.000-07:00

Moliere

The Apartment

Buster Keaton

Benny and Joon

Iron Man

Charlie Wilson’s War

Watermelon Man

Stromboli

Tropic Thunder

More Hussein’s Insanely Nebulous Movie Reviews from the uber-guru of the True Church of Reform Islam, Balack Hussein OBerlin.

Ralph Hussein, are you making fun of a particular presumptive presidential candidate?

No, Hussein II, but I should point out that he has fathered two black children. The world needs to know this.

Maybe so, but you need to know that getting into heaven is a lot easier the lighter you are which means losing the ego, O mighty uber buber. Even with your recent fan mail there is still a chance that your reviews are enjoyed the same way as fruitcake.

What? Well, onto the races, of which all but the first one was viewed in Augusta while mooching off my mother while various siblings dropped in or stayed in as in Tish.

Moliere, the 2007 version, was great fun, good acting, sweet story. Based more on his plays than his life. A reviewer on IMBb said it better than I have time to, even if I could: “Moliére may not fully capture the true essence of the French author but the fact that it does suggest a writer of depth, wit, and inspiration may entice the viewer to seek out the source material first hand. Granted that the film is speculation, not biography, but it is art and the payoff is a romantic and richly entertaining tribute to one of the greatest playwrights in history.”

The Apartment (1960) with Shirley Maclaine, Jack Lemmon, and Fred McMurray was great. Wow! What a story and acting! Billy Wilder had fun pushing the Production Code (precursor to the ratings system we have now) to its limit. Adultery and how to do it in the era of hotel detectives might have been the obvious plot, but just as obvious, through the incredible directing, is the same story as in Children of Men. Faceless individuals who get lost and lose their soul. All three main characters have no clue as to how their own actions affect their ability to become individuals. Much more of a drama than a comedy. Jack Lemmon’s character has become a model for man as mouse.

I had brought some Buster Keaton movies after having seen Benny and Joon 20 times. Silent movies are fun to watch, but unfortunately Buster Keaton used a really annoying musical score in College that worked much better with the sound turned down. He sure looks like Johnny Depp. Or is it the other way around? It’s eerie to watch him and see how much he influenced Depp not only in Benny and Joon but in Depps’s other movies.

Benny and Joon is just a beautiful movie. The soundtrack along with Depp sitting in a tree makes the movie. We didn’t watch it this trip, but I had to mention it.

Iron Man is great fun. As a certain California-based musician wryly noted, “Robert Downey, Jr. is so sardonic.” “Yes, he is, California musician female-type person”.

We did love the movie and saw it in the cheap theatre with the Augusta-based matri-familia type person who also liked it. Apparently and inexplicably, I may have found some of the more sardonically sexist jokes funnier than my companions found them. I do think that Terence Howard deserves much more than being cast as the token A-A gofer, best buddy character. But still a very good comic book movie. Great message movie which Nicholas Cage also did so well with in Lords of War. The real-life arms merchant that Cage’s character was based on was finally arrested this past year. No news yet on what happened to him next. I’m sure someone else stepped in right away.

We saw Charlie Wilson’s War the other night. The bonus feature on the real Charlie Wilson was good. Movie was good, too, but the book might be better according to Chris who lives in Birmingham, Alabama, not Birmingham, England, which recently discovered that their city’s webpage uses a picture of the skyline of Birmingham ---- Alabama..

Watermelon Man from 1970 was funny, still-topically satirical, and very dramatic at the end. Godfrey Cambridge stars and was very good. He starts off a white bigot and then wakes up black. Some early reviewers called it worth seeing but a one-joke movie. It is a long joke, however, with many layers.

Stromboli was the 1950 Ingmar Bergman movie in which she fell in love with the director, Rosellini, and left her husband and child for him even though she had just learned how to speak Italian and probably didn’t know any better. Then she left him several years later after she learned what those Italian men are really after.

Fascinating movie. Some actual book research in the library told me that the original version is a good bit longer than the international version and has a different ending. I couldn’t tell which version we were watching. It was VHS without any special features. It was also full-screen which means we may have missed some parts of the scenes without the wide-screen option of which letter-boxing fans like me and Tish were out-voted by old-school matriarchs like Mom. Still, a well-worth watching movie. The in-house Bergman expert visiting from California (at least, Tish claimed to have read her autobiography) said Bergman was the only professional actress on the set. All the others came from the island of Stromboli (the resident food expert visiting from St. Paul just stayed hungry throughout the movie; Pinocchio experts were missing ). The big mystery in the movie is why in the hell anybody lives on an island which has a volcano that blows up frequently. The evacuation scene in the movie looked really difficult.

Speaking of difficult, Tropic Thunder must be at the top of whatever level of difficulty movies are judged. It’s also near the top of the list of movies not to see with your mother. A Clockwork Orange is probably the first movie people think of when trying to find a movie not to see with their mother. Tropic Thunder is a close second. But, fortunately, I’m at the age now where when I go to a movie like TT with my mother (and adult sister, I might add) I can rest assured that at any time I can look over at Mom and see that she has fallen asleep.

The jokes in this movie-within-a movie, which is supposed to be a joke in itself, are mostly a repeat of Ben Stiller’s one-joke empire. The satire is appreciated. The irony is lost. At least on me.

I think it’s wonderful that Stiller and company included a skit on making fun of movies that use mental retardation as a theme. Unfortunately, they aren’t the ones to make that kind of joke. Most of the people who will see this movie (other than me, of course, and two other people of which at least one was awake for most of the movie) are going to be adolescent boys who may not understand that calling someone “retard” really is not a joke. It is sad that as the “N” word gets to be finally politically incorrect the “R” word is replacing it. Wow! What a surprise.

But the worst part about Tropic Thunder was that Robert Downey, Jr., while good, was not sardonic. According to Tish. I’m still learning what the hell that word means. And after 10 days in Augusta playing tournament Berlin Scrabble (rules are constantly shifting in Berlin Scrabble) I learned that my mother can add an “O” to “blini” and call it an Irish pancake which means that sardonicy has risen to new heights. I also learned that cheating at Scrabble gets harder when other people can see how long I’m taking to look up a word after a challenge. A certain old-school person had a strong objection to the Scrabble dictionary and since her one vote counted for more than any number of other votes we had to resort to calling up loved ones who happened to have Internet connection so they could look up a non-sensical two-letter word for us.

We finally forced our way in and bought a Scrabble dictionary but allowed the use of the in-house Webster’s to also count. Big mistake. Tish played “ra” which I knew was not in the Scrabble dictionary but she found it in the Webster’s which meant I lost my turn. I got so upset I called the phone number listed in the Scrabble dictionary and was promptly told that I should have insisted on using only one dictionary.

Wow, Ralph Hussein Oblini! And to think that only a few months ago I was happily enjoying heaven and now find myself in hell being channeled by a fruitcake.

Hancock, Dark Knight

2008-09-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

Hamlet, Hamlet, and more Hamlet

So many movies—so much time. Let’s get going with Hussein’s Insanely Speedy Movie Reviews.

Great idea, Hussein, but first, do you ever use spell-check?

No.

I suppose you subscribe to what a futurely famous movie blogger once said about something like, “Pity the person who only knows one way to spell.”

Mark Twain had a movie blog?

No, but you could start channeling him and give me something else to do, like write an advice column on how to get into heaven.

Right, but still I should acknowledge an earlier defect in which I misspellede sobriety and even worse, mistakenly put a still-stunning, ravishing red-haired Georgia native in a socialist-sisters ski club at Vassar. For the record, my mother was not a member of the Communist Party at any time nor was she ever a sorority sister. Further spelling error detections should be directed to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest which just announced its 2008 winner and which inexplicably refers to both Checker cabs which is the model that Dad had in Maryland after ditching the VW bus and also to our continuing theme of utility hole covers otherwise known as “manhole covers.”

Hence the just announced winning entry:

“Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.’”

Did you write that? No? Sounds like it could be. Movie reviews, please, Hussein.

Will Smith (note the initials) as Hancock in the revolutionary role of a black super-hero who also happens to be a drunk and along with the real Hamlet plays a tortured iambic soul who can't make up his mind. Co-starring with Charlize Theron’s cleavage (which easily out-acts Will Smith’s puckered lips). Literate movie-goers will not be looking at her earthly assets when she gets into bed wearing a tank top but will, of course, be reading the message on the tank top which bears the name of Macalester College, a pre-eminent school blocks from our house in St. Paul and the alma mater of the director, Peter Berg.

Theron’s father was an abusive drunk in real life which makes her role next to a drunken non-Scientologist all the more emotive. Will Smith claims to not be a Scientologist but he has (apparently) funded a school for budding Scientologists and (apparently) gave out free personality test coupons to the cast after the shooting was finished. Also, the entire story line in Hancock is about undergoing a personality change. So, make up your own mind. As in, does it make a difference in choosing to see a movie?

But in another incredibly coincidental convergence, Theron’s character’s name is Mary which happens to be Shakespeare’s mother’s name. As we all know, Freud said he based his Oedipus theories on Hamlet (as well as some old, dead Greek guy). So if Hamlet was mad at his uncle for marrying Hamlet’s mother because Hamlet wanted to marry her then the Hancock movie must be carrying the theory forward. But anymore and I’ll give away the vastly complex plot line. See this one at your own risk. Not really worth it as it makes "action movie" into an anagram for "I'm no actvoie." Spoiler alert: The movie does make a nice connection to angels and how they might interact with us. A much better movie is City of Angels with Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage which was a remake of Wim Wender's Wings of Desire which I haven't seen yet but have heard is very good.

Things got really weird after seeing Hancock in the drive-in with Get Smart as the second feature. I loved the TV show. Not the movie, which was a huge disappointment. However, erudite fans will note that the actress who plays Agent 99 is . . . . Anne Hathaway. Which is . . . Drumroooolll. . . . the same name as Shakespeare’s wife!

Bartman Hussein O’Berlin, you are nuts!

Which leads us to Batman, O’Dark Knight.

Also Hamlet?

Yes, with the exception that it’s true to the Comic Book Code which says the hero never directly kills anyone. Too bad, since Michael Caine as Alfred could have been the exception. Caine was much better in Children of Men with Clive Owen. I loved Children of Men and will spend more e-mail ink on that Hamlet connection later. If you do see it, remember that it is very sad and depressing but also one of the most hopeful and joyful movies that I’ve seen. I did have an interesting emotional response when I watched the YouTube attachment about the dancing guy that Tish sent out a few months ago. I had just watched Children of Men and then re-watched the YouTube clip for the 10^th time. The idea that an individual can bring people together in joy was the perfect real-life antidote to the possible near-future real-life of the “infertility of the individual soul” that is the story within Children of Men.

In anther stunning coincidence, the commentary to Children of Men (all the special features are worth watching) has a shot of the director wearing a sweatshirt from . . . drumrooolll . . . Vassar. We wonder what that means.

Hussein, another incredibly nebulous blog.

What the hell does nebulous mean?

Not clear.

Then why use the word?

Nevermind. And stop getting your jokes from the newspaper comics. And what the hell does “emotive” mean?

What?

Back from vacation

2008-09-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

It’s too much, Bosley. I can’t take it anymore.

Can’t take what, Ralph? And it’s not Bosley anymore. It’s Hussein, thank you very much.

I can’t take the suspense and where did you get Hussein from?

We’re all big O’bama supporters up here and he’s getting a lot of flak for his middle name sounding Egyptian or maybe Yemenite. Many of us are adopting his middle name as ours. That way we’ll all sound Kuwaiti or Omani and no one can say that his name doesn’t sound Americani. And what’s all the suspense?

Ok, so you’ve been reading the papers. Good for you. So how are things up there, anyway?

Oh, big happenings. The lesbian bloc rose up and had a mass self-resurrection of their souls. They’re all coming back. Remember what I said earlier. Don’t diss any dykes.

What’s up with them? Did the California vote on gay marriage get them all excited?

No. Most of them care more about finding out if Shakespeare really wrote those plays himself. Once you get up here you realize there is some truth to what that liberal Anglican priest said that arguing about gay marriage is really about rich people arguing about sex while the poor still look for justice.

Interesting point. So what’s heading up the annunciation?

Your new Poet Laureate. She’s a dyke and a hot mountain biking Californian, too. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/352?gclid=CPuUlrTT4ZQCFQN2sgodwFswSA

Poetry is what gets people worked up up here, not marriage. Remember that. Your lovely wife might like a little poetry from you.

I’ll work on it. What about the gay men? Doesn’t poetry get them excited, too.

Not as much as television. But they may be self-resurrecting, too, now that As the World Turns has a gay couple.

That’s right. Their name is Nuke as in Noah and Luke, just like Brangleina and what’s his name. Wow, I wonder what my mother’s mother, Granny, is thinking about that. She watched that show like it was a religion.

I’ll ask her. Of course, I still love Billy Crystal in the old TV comedy, Soap. That was good TV. What’s happened down there since scientists discovered that the brain in gay men closely resembles the brain in straight women? Any research on lesbian brains?

Still looking for one, but we did have a potential lesbian scare the other day. Amy Adams, who played the fairy tale princess in Enchanted, had her picture in the paper with the caption reading, “Adams to marry high school sweetheart.” Right next to her picture was a picture of Pamela Anderson. My first thought was not pretty.

Too much fantasy for you, huh?

What?

I’m still waiting for the suspense, Ralph.

Well, maybe I’ll use Hussein, too, and the suspense is all about which one of my siblings won the bet.

What? Bad bet, Black Bart? I mean Ralph or Hussein, or whatever. At least you didn’t switch to Bartman who was the spectator who stole the World Series from the Cubs in 2003 by interfering with the foul ball. Of course, you could be Bartman Hussein O’Berlin. Which would put you back in Ohio since Oberlin College is there and in an amazing coincidence so is the home office for Ho’Bart dishwashers.

Sure, and the bet was about how long I would last with keeping my mouth shut.

All Shall Be Restored

by Kay Ryan

The grains shall be collected

from the thousand shores

to which they found their way,

and the boulder restored,

and the boulder itself replaced

in the cliff, and likewise

the cliff shall rise

or subside until the plate of earth

is without fissure. Restoration

knows no half measure. It will

not stop when the treasured and lost

bronze horse remounts the steps.

Even this horse will founder backward

to coin, cannon, and domestic pots,

which themselves shall bubble and

drain back to green veins in stone.

And every word written shall lift off

letter by letter, the backward text

read ever briefer, ever more antic

in its effort to insist that nothing

shall be lost.

Indiana Jones, Zohan, Great Debaters

2008-09-21T18:53:00.000-07:00

Indiana Jones

Zohan

Great Debaters

OK, I'm going to be in Augusta this August for 2 weeks. Tish is supposed to be there for part of the time. Maybe she'll teach me how to do web links. Oh boy! I can hardly wait.

I took Alan and some of his friends out to the drive-in the other night. School's out and I'm nuts. The paper said Indiana Jones was playing along with Drillbit Taylor followed by the new Narnia movie. The first one wouldn't start until close to 10 which meant 5am before getting home but since I'm a responsible father I said only the first two. And I might have actually meant it this time except it started raining about 1:30 so I was saved from having to say, "OK, just one more."

When it rains in Minnesota it pours. At the drive-in you can listen to the movie on their speaker or on a radio station. It's louder on the radio but then the car has to be on. We listened to it on the speakers since it was a beautiful night (until 1:30) and I sat outside which I love. A crescent moon above me, stars in the sky, faint aroma of pot in the air.

Too bad the car next to us decided to use their radio. Their battery died and their sunroof was open. When the rain crashed down, their kids were sleeping in the back seat. We couldn't find the battery in the dark in my car so they found someone else to get a jump. It's a regular neighborhood out there.

The drive-in had decided to switch movies so Indiana was second and Narnia was third. Much to the teenage boys' delight the first movie was Don't Mess With the Zohan with Adam Sandler giving a really pitiful attempt at Jew/Palestinian reconciliation humor. I read that most Arab actors wouldn't have anything to do with this movie. Anyway, Oh boy!!! Yuck. Almost as bad as Borat. Clueless teenage boys loved it, though, as they did Borat.

It's probably not a coincidence that Zohan and Zohar are just a downstroke away from being the same word. Probably why Madonna had a bit part. No wait, that was Mariah Carey. Maybe she's also into kaballah.

Kevin James had a small part. He was the Chuck to Adam Sandler's Larry in Chuck and Larry get Anal. Interesting that that movie started off with an R rating because the MPAA deems homosexual content to be R. Sandler appealed it and got it down to PG-13.

Zohan contains vast amounts of really dumb hetero sex but only gets a PG-13. I suppose it is an advance after the Gay Deceivers in 1968 which started off with an X and then got appealed to PG-13.

Ralph, is it true that you wrote "content to be R. Sandler . . . " as a way of getting Adam Sandler to pay you for suggesting he's a rabbi?

It's called a period, Bosley. Complete sentences? Hello?

Then Indiana Jones and the Silver Spoon came on. The first one came out in 1981. I remember watching it with Mom and Dad. Great fun. Dad loved it. I think some siblings were there but what do I know? I do know that I didn't know that Indiana Jones had served in the OSS in WWII. He mentions it in this installment. Interesting that several years ago, the movie reviewer (hah! what does he know?) for our local paper commented that most of the events in WWII had been turned into movies with one major exception: The OSS missions in China. He said Hollywood better hurry before all the first-hand account-bearers, like Dad, are gone. It was already too late.

I only remember hearing a few stories from Dad about China or even France. I did hear the one about sneaking into the German camp in France to get sugar and coming out with salt. The only one I heard about China was Dad doing early morning push-ups in the POW camp so the Japanese would think he had malaria and wouldn't put him in the forced labor camp. I was never quite sure how push-ups resembled malaria. I think the idea was to look exhausted. Heck, I can do that with one push-up.

I met an 86 year-old man recently who had been shot down over Germany and finished the war in a POW camp. He told me he belongs to the Ex-POW Association. I went to their web site (link here later) and saw that they have a page to provide biographies of ex-POWs. Should we submit one for Dad?

Well, Indiana has seen better days. I missed the last half due to the rain but I think I had seen it all before. It's fun and well done, however. Lots more fun for kids who didn't see the first one when it was exciting adventure. Karen Allen got brought back. Speilberg called her up and said he had a part for her. Nice to see a romantic interest in a movie with an older leading man and an actress who isn't young enough to be his grandaughter.

The Communist Party in Russia hated the movie. They tried to get it banned there. I'm glad to see they put their efforts into something important and which means they never have to mention the 10-20 million people Stalin killed through his food redistribution program. (link would go here with a source verifing my info but you'll have to take my highly objective opinon as historical fact until Tish shows me how to actually write). Maybe it's the fact that it was poets and writers he lined up in the basement on August 12, 1952, and had executed that gives me an extra sense of disgust.

Well, the CP theme crept into the movie I finally saw tonight, The Great Debaters. Good movie. All about a small town Jew from Brooklyn who gets invited to use his GI Bill at Vassar College to debate the first southern sorioty sister he can find who wants to go out for ice cream.

That's not the real movie, but wouldn't it be a good one? The final scene could be shot in Mongolia with a whole bunch of Mongolian princesses racing their horses around the bride and groom and whooping it up with Pete Seeger. Let's see, who could we cast as Seeger's romantic interest? And, yes, I know about the controversy about Pete's CP and Stalinist roles. He did the Obama thing a long time ago. Pete for Prez!

Of course, in the real movie it's Denzel who is branded as the communist and his debate team which gets invited to Harvard. Wasn't it strange to see the Harvard Ve Ri Tas banner? I thought I was back in our dining room and looking at Dad's Harvard chair.

I loved seeing Forest Whitaker act with Denzel. They're both great actors but Forest is exceptional in all his scenes especially the ones he has with Denzel. He really gets into his roles. Denzel does, too, but they're often the same role.

Great music. Oprah's Harpo company produced it. Oddly, it takes place in Texas and the executive producer is named Davy Crockett. Was that a joke? Also the actor who plays the 14 year-old James Farmer is named Denzel Whitaker. No relation to either, but he was named for the other Denzel.

Denzel Washington plays the poet and professor, Melvin Tolson. I couldn't find any biographical info that supported the movie's plot line that he was a union organizer. Maybe they changed that just like they changed the final debate from the real-life contest at University of Southern California to the more upscale Harvard. Tolson was a famous poet. Here's an excerpt from one of Tolson's poems. (put a damn link here, Ralph! What's the matter with you?)

"The following is a section from another of Tolson’s great pieces, “Dark Symphony,” which was published in The Atlantic Monthly and won first place in a poetry contest sponsored by the American Negro Exposition in Chicago a year after the events of The Great Debaters. "

Lento Grave²

The centuries-old pathos in our voices
Saddens the great white world
And the wizardry of our dusky rhythms
Conjures up shadow-shapes of ante-bellum years:

Black slaves singing One More River to Cross
In the torture tombs of slave-ships,
Black slaves singing Steal Away to Jesus
In jungle swamps
Black slaves singing The Crucifixion
In slave-pens at midnight,
Black slaves singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
In cabins of death,
Black slaves singing Go Down, Moses
In the canebrakes of the Southern Pharaohs.

III

Andante Sostenuto³

They tell us to forget
The Golgotha we tread…
We who are scourged with hate,
A price upon our head.
They who have shackled us
Require of us a song,
They who have wasted us
Bid us condone the wrong.

They tell us to forget
Democracy is spurned.
They tell us to forget
The Bill of Rights is burned.
Three hundred years we slaved,
We slave and suffer yet:
Though flesh and bone rebel,
They tell us to forget!

Oh, how can we forget
Our human rights denied?
Oh, how can we forget
Our manhood crucified?
When Justice is profaned
And plea with curse is met,
When Freedom’s gates are barred,
Oh, how can we forget?

There Will Be Blood

2008-06-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

There Will Be Blood
Feast of Love

Well, yesterday was the anniversary of the U.S. Congress passing of the amendment to allow women the vote (it still had to be ratified by the states) (thanks to Garrison Keillor's Writers Almanac). And yesterday was the presumed crowning of Barack O'bama as the Democratic presidential nominee (right here in downtown St. Paul).

And the connection, Ralph?

Glad you asked. Since black men got the vote (technically or theoretically) way before women did then it follows that a black man will get the chance to be the prez before a women. Follow?

Sure, but what's with the apostrophe in Obama?

That's to help him get the Irish vote in Alabama since the university football team there is known as the 'Bama.

Wow, just like your Irish cousins who started O'berlin College in Ohio.

You got it. Now get this--

"1st Revelation: Jesus born of an Immaculate Conception

2nd Revelation: Christ returns from the dead, opens doors of heaven

3rd Revelation: the endtimes -- Jesus returns w/ his father and the Holy Ghost, raises the dead, and sits in judgment of all humanity for eternity.

The Church of the Third Revelation, then, is the church of the end of the world. Daniel is the 3rd revelation, because he is the final evolution of American capitalism. He goes from poor lone independent worker (first scene), to small wealthier entrepreneur (all business ventures before Little Boston), to stratospherically rich monoplolist (stranglehold on SoCal oil). Note that each permutation leads to more people under his control, and progressively less family/community."

Ralph. what the hell are you talking about?

There Will Be Blood. It's from an unlinked webpage I found that tries to explain the background for the Church of the Third Revelation which seems to be a central metaphor in the movie. The other central "metaphor that hits you in the face" is a how-to guide on how to acquire end-stage alcoholism. No wait, that's not a metaphor; that's a depressing movie to sit through. The opening music should be a clue. If you can sit through that then you can sit through the movie. Daniel Day-Lewis' extraordinary acting makes it worthwhile unless you were thinking there might be a more-than-two word speaking part somewhere in the movie for a woman. Of course, this makes it a good movie to watch in honor of Obama becoming the nominee since it is unlikely that Hillary will get a speaking part in the race.

Ralph, you should get the nomination for your genius in being able to make really stupid connections.

Thanks, but wait, there's more.

Daniel Day-Lewis' character is named Daniel, he is married to Rebecca Miller (Arthur Miller's daughter) who has a brother named Daniel, and the Book of Daniel in the Bible provides the background for the spiritual theme of the movie. And to continue this extraordinarily brilliant thread, his mother is Jewish, his wife's father is Jewish, the Hollywood industry is Jewish (as evidenced by a comment from a reporter who said "Hollywood is so Jewish that if you move there, your foreskin falls off after six weeks," and the movie was filmed in Marfa, Texas, which is where No Country For Old Men was filmed (at the same time) as well as Giant (not at the same time) and everybody knows that the Coen Brothers are . . .

"Are" what?

I can't say it. It's too brilliant.
I'm sure it is, but isn't it true that the Marfans still like Giant a whole lot better than these Jewish movies?
Bosley, you just asked that so you could say "Marfan."
Moving on to Feast of Love. WARNING! Men, make sure you know what color your significant other's eyes are before seeing this movie. Women whose significant other is a woman: Don't worry about it. You already know.
Alright, we loved this movie. Cliches and tears aside (and great sex), it is a sweet, funny, predictable, fluffy movie. Very good, and it has a Leonard Cohen song which makes most movies watchable. It also has Morgan Freeman as God (who else since George Burns died?) and Greg Kinnear who I first saw in As Good As It Gets so I always thought he really was gay, but in this movie he's just really happy. All the time. Even when he's filleting things he shouldn't be. It's his wife who is gay.
Lots of sex. Lesbian sex, straight sex, teddy bear sex. Rated R probably because the teddy bear is naked and the lesbians are white.
But the best part (yeah, right) is that it's filmed in Portland since the actual location in the book is really boring. Filmed in actual coffee houses in Portland and using my alma mater, Portland State University, as a backdrop, even though the campus scenes were shot on Reed College since PSU is really boring.
And to make another brilliant connection, it's directed by Robert Benton who co-wrote No Country For Old Men. No wait. He co-wrote Bonnie and Clyde. No Country For Old Men was the remake. Did I mention the sex?

When I lived in Portland (where Linda and I met on a forest trail on the first day of spring) I was very involved with what was called at the time the Association for Retarded Citizens, now just called the ARC, and was part of the Citizen's Advocacy program. A major friend of the program had been Lloyd Reynolds (1902-1978) a long time professor at Reed College. He was a champion not only of the rights of people with disabilities but also of the art form of italic handwriting. He also studied Zen poetry extensively and used a form of it he called Weathergrams. I do this with my class every year.

from The Calligraphy of Lloyd Reynolds by Gunderson & Lehman:

“Weathergrams are poems of about ten words or less. They are written on narrow strips of kraft paper cut from used grocery store bags. They are hung on bushes or trees in gardens or along mountain trails. There are generally seasonal and are left out for three months or longer. The name means ‘weather writing’ — notations by sun, wind, rain, and possibly ice. Written with the proper inks, the writing lasts. Let them weather and wither like old leaves. In composing one, let the meaning grow out of things, with some action involved if possible — in a here and now. The meaning is not all on the surface. The unexpected is essential. It is not a condensation, but a moment of vision.”

Here's an example:
"Bud,
blossom,
then fruit,
the final
goal.
But,
the seeds . . ."

Battle of Algiers

2008-06-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

Battle of Algiers

Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Silk

Homeward Bound

The Battle of Algiers. Incredible movie. Filmed two years after the Algerians finally became independent from France but during a coup that removed one Muslim ruler for another. The director, Gillo Pontecorvo, had been asked by the Algerian revolutionaries to make a film about their struggle. He agreed, but only if it was kept neutral in regards to how either side was viewed. Since he was a committed Marxist (although he quit the CP in 1956) he still had a bent towards the people and put it in at the end with a graffiti sign in French reading "Only one hero-the people" (thank you to a web site which I can't remember and don't have to since no one is paying me for this). Pauline Kael called him "the most dangerous kind of Marxist, a Marxist poet." Roger Ebert saw it in 1968 and thought it was good and presented without too much bias but then he saw it in 2006 after it got re-released in DVD with better sound and he said he could tell that the music was definitely composed to favor the Algerian side. Since Pontecorvo said he used music as the driving force in the movie it seems reasonable to agree with Ebert. Now, do I really care? I probably wouldn't have picked it up if I hadn't done this exhaustive and back-breaking research on the web and saved you, the dear reader, the trouble of doing it yourself..

Pontecorvo was a friend of Jean Paul Sarte. During the movie a character mentions that Sarte favored the Algerian revolutionaries. Sarte did favor them and was influential in changing public opinion in favor of independence. Several years later, Sarte went to visit Andreas Baader in prison. Baader was a member of the German Red Army Faction and had said that the Battle of Algiers movie was his favorite. Sarte came out of that prison meeting and said Baader was "incredibly stupid and an asshole." Just thought I would throw that in but of course I have no idea what web site it came from nor what relevance it has with anything.

Ralph, did you ever think about doing a little web page linking?

Linking? Isn't that what my sister, Tish, was talking about when she made the snide little insinuation that I don't know what a link is?

Yes. Do you? And she wasn't insinuating.

No. What?
Moving on; Pontecorvo's obituary in the UK Guardian (2006) mentions that he was the fifth child in an Italian Jewish family of 8, none of whom were interested in being Jewish. He wound up having to leave Italy because of Mussolino's racial laws and then working with the Italian resistance during WWII. (link would go here if I knew what it was; golf? sausage?)

The Battle of Algiers is also famous for being screened by the Pentagon in 2003 and by the Black Panthers and every other revolutionary group. Of course, the Berkley crowd was reported to have applauded hysterically in 1968 whenever a Frenchman was killed. Little did they know that they were only planting the seeds of anti-french fry mania after we went into Iraq. But the main discussion seems to be how the movie got made without using any newsreel footage or actual documentary film and with only one professional actor. Apparently, the bomb scenes would be illegal to shoot today and since Pontecorvo used Algerian citizens for the crowd scenes and bombings maybe he was trying to send a message.
A major reason to see this movie, however, is to be grateful for the evolution in burqa fashion. And also grateful that more men don't try to model the burqini like they do here.
Also, it shows how true it is about the French only winning wars that they fight against themselves.

Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Beautiful movie. Very, very slow. Good way to fall asleep in the first half-hour, but you would miss a great story and movie. Don't prematurely judge all the characters in the movie since in real life some of the roles weren't the way the movie presents it. I will see it again, but after reading the book he wrote.

Silk
Even slower than Diving Bell and even more beautiful. Just feel it, don't try to understand it or critique it. The music, the actors as they change physically and emotionally, the visual poetry. Watch it with someone you really like and who will appreciate the beauty of feeling.
Several reviewers who had read the book said it is a good adaptation. The long letter that is read by the brothel owner is much longer and more detailed and erotic in the book excerpt that I found on the web.
I really liked not having the Japanese dialogue subtitled and having the American and English actors play French parts without using French accents.
The director also did the Red Violin which we loved.
Albert Molinas is in this. He's always great. Watch him in Chocolate and in Not Without My Daughter. Also, the second Spiderman if you have nothing else to do or if there are young children around.
And yes, my expert research reveals that Japan did really have ice cubes in the 1800's.

Homeward Bound (the 1993 version)
One of my students brought this in so we watched it since it's May and I stop teaching until September. Disney does do well with these feel-good movies. Very good. I even stopped writing my customarily detailed lesson plans to watch it. Don Ameche voices the older dog. His voice makes you want to adopt him. Sally Field and Michael J. Fox are also good. If you've ever seen Sybil then listen for the possibly unintentional joke Sally Field makes about a bookcase.
The cat does not drown. It's a sock and special effects in the river (in case anyone thought otherwise).
I rarely write lesson plans. That was a joke.

I'm falling over laughing, Ralph.

Cold Mountain

2008-06-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

Cold Mountain

John McCain has been getting very cozy with Joe Liberman (sic) lately. Could Ol' Joe be VP material again? Maybe Secretary of State? Just in case it's SS, we watched Cold Mountain in honor of the last time a Jew was four heartbeats away from being president of a North American nation.

Puzzled? Need a brush-up on anti-American history? Think of the design of the highway seatbelt signs in Georgia.

Yes, folks, Cold Mountain is probably one of the few movies where you could watch a Confederate soldier and cheer him on as he makes his Homeric quest to get back to Translyvania.

Ralph, less famous (living) movie reviewers than you have commented on the fact that Cold Mountain was actually a pretty good movie. Your snide tone of voice sounds like maybe you didn't like it.

Well, Bosley, I almost turned it off after half an hour but then Renee Zellenger shows up and does an origami rooster quicker than it took Jeff Davis to slip away and become a respected snake-oil salesman after killing well over a half million sons and brothers and sisters and mothers.

I liked it after that. It starts out like the book, which I didn't read, but Linda did so I can make up stuff, with lots of back-and-forth time passages, and which tries to establish the whys and wherefores but makes it as hard to follow as Jude Law trying not to get hard sleeping next to Natalie Portman.

Ralph, you're hard to follow.

What? Anyway, I didn't even mind the clean sheets that Nicole Kidman sleeps on after she frees her slaves or her great complexion after several years of eating rooster eggs.

I know roosters lay eggs because that's what I so incredibly insightfully told Great-Great Aunt Bees her scrambled eggs tasted like when I was eight. See, even then I displayed a magnificent vocabulary. Aunt Bees was probably old enough to have heard nearly first-hand of our Civil War-era ancestor who was trying to mind his own business in Brunswick and was captured by the Union Army who was sure he was a Reb and then shipped to a prison in Virginia where he finally gets out after the war and tries to get back home but dies of pneumonia enroute. Very sad story and explains why his picture in Mom's living room is of a young man but his wife's picture is of an elderly woman. Call her up sometime and get the full story. It gives a personal connection when watching Jude Law try to get back to Cold Mountain. Remember, if you call Mom, you do not need to press one for more information.

Ralph, that was insightful yet boring. But what's with the Translyvania connection?

Well, Bosley, we also watched Cold Mountain in honor of Tish and Frances being there this week and of Frances' sister, Barbara, and family, who live there.

What?

Translyvania. It's the new North Carolina. Or the old since it has mountains with no telephone wires which would have to be edited out on the Apple software that cost less than 1000 dollars which the film uses and which is, apparently, going to change the face of cinema. Also, cheaper all around than filming the gorgeous mountain scenes in the actual Cold Mountain, NC. Which is ironic in light of a statement early in the movie that the reason for the South fighting the war is to preserve "the view."

But, since the author, Charles Frazier, wrote it partly as an Odyssey reenactment then we can see that the Trojan War was probably fought to preserve the view of Helen. Just like slavery really wasn't the issue in our civil war. Of course, the Odyssey story is well familiar to those of us erudites who have seen O Brother, Where Art Thou a few dozen times. Cold Mountain's blind seer isn't quite as mystical as O Brother's but the Siren scene is a heck of a lot more corporealistic (sick).

So, good movie. Good music. Sting and Bob White (sic) playing hoedown music should draw the kids.

Ralph, did you know that Odysseus means Man Of Constant Sorrow?

Yes.

And what's with all the (sic)(k)s?

Well, if Pauline Kale (sic) can make up stuff about what people said in the theatre then I ought to be able to make up stuff so I don't have to bother with looking it up.

Bravo. Very mature. Speaking of up, isn't your time up?

Yes, but then I remembered this Scottish lullaby that I used to sing to the boys which fits here since the white residents of Cold Mountain in the Civil War were mostly Scottish heritage. Apparently, that explains the statement about the South fighting for the view since supposedly most of the Blue Ridge Scots did not own or care about the slavery issue. Apparently and supposedly. I don't know. Anybody have an opinion? Anybody care? Anybody reading this? Hello?

The Skye Boat Song

(Chorus)
Speed bonnie boat like a bird on the wing
Onward the sailors cry
Carry the lad that's born to be king
Over the sea to Skye

Loud the wind howls, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air
Baffled our foes, stand by the shore
Follow they will not dare

Chorus

Many's the lad fought on that day
Well the claymore did wield
When the night came, silently lain
Dead on Culloden field

Chorus

Though the waves heave, soft will ye sleep
Ocean's a royal bed
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head

Chorus

Burned are our homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men
Yet e'er the sword cool in the sheath
Charlie will come again.

For some strange reason, the boys started to doubt this was a lullaby when Alan looked up at me one night and said something to the effect of "Dad, that is one helluva sad song."

OK, time's up.

Wait, I just found this great web page on IMDb. I'll just paste this little sucker in here and get back to my day job.

"Charles Frazier, Taoist writer, has based his book of the same name on the poet Han Shan, meaning 'Cold Mountain.' In the film, which is based on a place in the North Carolina mountains by the same name, Frazier has seen the elusive 'pattern' of Tao in the hills, the American Civil war and its sadnesses against the backdrop of two people almost inexplicably find they must be together.

The subtleties of the I Ching (the ancient and mystical Taoist Book of Changes) are found throughout the movie: When leaving on a train to fight in the civil war there is the slightest slip of a book page with a turtle and hexagrams. His woman (sic), left behind in Cold Mountain, goes to a well and sees the future-a vision in the water of the well that reveals the soldier's return to her. Her vision, that of him walking on an Indian trail with crows flying in front of him towards her is a vision imperfectly understood but this vision forms the basis of the events to come.

You will never see the I Ching treated so beautifully and with perfect subtlety in any book or film.

A poem by the poet, Cold Mountain, Han Shan:

I divined and chose a distant place to dwell-
T'ien-t'ai: what more is there to say?
Monkeys cry where valley mists are cold;
My grass gate blends with the color of the crags.
I pick leaves to thatch a hut among the pines,
Scoop out a pond and lead a runnel from the spring.
By now I am used to doing without the world.
Picking ferns, I pass the years that are left.

Charles Frazier is writing in the Taoist style where mystical things are hidden within the text or characters (as in writing)

Layers of Meaning: Found in Taoist writing including the I Ching:

Men ask the way to Cold Mountain.
Cold Mountain: there's no through trail."

-- Han-shan

The poem above, found on the cover of the book, is a tip: Cold Mountain means the town, its people and the events that shape their lives which has the Well where they try to 'see' their sweethearts, AND ALSO the poet, AND the mystical place where 'there is no through trail' In the mystical sense Cold Mountain becomes that place of magic where the Well can be found that will reveal the future, sometimes in dark visions.

This is traditional Taoist writing practice-many Chinese poems have hidden meanings and references. For example in writing 'The Secret of the Golden Flower" by the looking at the writing contains the idea for immortality as I remember.

The Well, Hexagram 48, is the primary symbol (there are certainly others) of the I Ching's reference to itself-the Well, the well that reveals the future.

Men ask the way to Cold Mountain.
Cold Mountain: there's no through trail."

-- Han-shan

Han-shan and his friend, Shih-te, were Chinese Zen recluses who lived at a place called Cold Mountain in the T'ien-t'ai range that stretches along the coast of Chekiang Province, south of the Bay of Hangchow, in the late eighth or early ninth century.

What we know of them comes from the preface, written by a T'ang Dynasty official named Lu-ch'iu Yin, for Han-shan's Cold Mountain Poems :

"He looked like a tramp. His body and face were old and beat.

** Yet in every word he breathed was a meaning in line with the subtle principles of things, if only you thought of it deeply. Everything he said had a feeling of the Tao in it, profound and arcane secrets. ***
[so, is Frazier saying he writes in the same way, with profound and arcane secrets?]

"His hat was made of birch bark, his clothes were ragged and worn out, and his shoes were wood. Thus men who have made it hide their tracks: unifying categories and interpenetrating things." [This is the pattern or li another fundamental Taoist concept-the categories unified and events interpenetrating.]

http://weblog.delacour.net/archives/000381.html

Why do you think there is no through or direct way to Cold Mountain? You cannot get there from here-meaning your logical mind cannot get there, only your Tao mind, for in this layer of meaning "Cold Mountain" means the Tao or the Way."

In memory:
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974)

War Dance, Blue State, Starting Out in the Evening

2008-06-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

War Dance
Blue State
Starting Out in the Evening

In honor of Israel Independence Day, I watched War Dance, a documentary about Ugandan children who have been orphaned or displaced by warfare and how they use music and dance to keep their lives together. Beautiful movie. Watch the deleted scenes. It's accurately rated PG-13 for the descriptions of atrocities.

OK, Ralph Bosley Bart, how is it accurately related to Israel?

Come on, it's Uganda. The alternative homeland suggested by Theodore Herzl in the 1890's. Maybe he was joking. I don't know, but it's what gets taught in the Israeli history books. Speaking of which, we watched Blue State tonight. Very funny line half way through about what doesn't get taught in US history books.

Blue State is also about a fathead Godless Commie Liberal who moves to Canada to protest the reelection of GW Bush. He travels with Anna Paquin who, according to a line in the movie, could be a Godless Commie Lesbian. Paquin is from Canada but I think the director isn't and missed a few key points that he would have picked up if he had read the IMDb comments first which means he would have had to make the movie last. Oh, never mind. I'm confusing myself.

Speaking of Canada, Moses almost took the Israelites there but he stuttered, so when God asked him did he want Canaan or Canada, Moses tried to say Canada but couldn't so God gave up and gave him another country with formerly free health care. I might be making up that last part. It sounded funny. But Blue State is also very sweet and partially fulfilled someone's MFA requirement at Columbia so watch it and feel helpful. At least now I finally know what people mean by Blue State/Red State.

We loved Starting Out in the Evening. Well told story about a young female graduate student who wants to do her thesis on an aging writer because she loves his books. It could easily be seen as an improbable, pretentious movie or just let all that go and see it as well-crafted movie about love between people and between people and books. Two of the characters go to a movie theatre. One of the movies that's playing is Battle for Algiers which is a real movie several people have recommended to me. It's on my Blockbuster queue.

It's somewhat significant that on the IMDb message board 21 people responded very intelligently to a question about one very small scene. Also, several people said they loved the book and the movie.

Well, thanks, Ralph. You have kept it blessedly short this time.

I could go on.

No.

John Q, Requiem for a Dream, Death at a Funeral

2008-05-08T05:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry, Denzel.

We had not seen a movie with Denzel Washington that we did not like. He had always been dependable for teenagers, mom and dad. But, sorry, John Q. just didn't get us past the 20 minute mark. He plays a father whose son needs a heart transplant and they can't afford it so Denzel takes over the hospital emergency room and forces the doctor to put the son on the transplant list without having to have the down payment. Exciting! Well, Michael Moore probably liked it as it's mostly a movie about how bad our health care system is. Imagine an action movie based on that. Wow! Of course Sicko let Moore wax self-rightous about how bad we are on health care without him ever having to acknowledge any responsibility for his role in keeping health care costs down. But then a research article made the news recently that said obesity and smoking-related diseases actually cost less for the health care system since those people die much earlier while healthy people live longer and put more of a drain on the system.

Ok, if that's all John Q. was then we could have lasted but it was also about how bad everyone else can act except Denzel. Sorry.

Then I really wanted to like Requiem for a Dream because Ellen Burstyn is in it and it was directed by someone whose last name is Aronofsky which sounded like Martha's last name. But, sorry, again. Way too depressing a movie about drug addicts and with a director's technique of making the viewers feel like we were on a drug trip. Ellen Burstyn is a great actress but we couldn't last. She had converted to Islam several years ago and practices the Sufism of Rumi and Hafez. Not quite enough to keep me watching.

Since we get the Blockbuster deal of 3 at a time (which means we can watch them and exchange them at the store for more movies which is double value) we saw a third movie that I gave up on. Death at a Funeral. A British comedy and I don't remember who was in it but it wasn't Hugh Grant which means I wouldn't have watched it in the first place. But the main character, of course, was the f-word and a bunch of other impossible-to-understand English dialogue.

So, three movies in one night and it took less than an hour.

Bart, that Blockbuster deal sounds like you like to save a buck.

You bet.

How cheap are you?

Cheap enough to take my Gideon to Bible study.

Wow, that is cheap. Was it supposed to be funny, too?

No, but but it means there's more text to print out so when I send this to my mother I don't waste paper by having too much blank space.

You could write a personal note.

What?

Bart, speaking of your mother, do you think she misses the name she gave you at birth? You changed it when you got married and got rid of the Ralph and added your lovely wife's last name as your middle name.

Well, it has been 17 years ( 18 this June 16th) and she just sent me a letter with my new name.

Ralph could be a good blogger name for you. I bet she'd like that.

How about Ralph Bosley Bart?

Sounds good. And the initials seem familiar.

Speaking of names, I still think about The Defiant Ones and how the two main characters were so lonely in their anger and hatred and then how they found each other. Tony Curtis' character had a name that kept changing and Sidney Poitier's character's last name was Cullen but all through the movie I thought Tony Curtis was saying "Colored" since I thought he didn't know his real name. So without names that people knew then they were really lonely.

There's a poem by an early 20th century Israeli poet named Zelda called Each of Us Has a Name. It's based on a kabbalistic understanding of how we acquire our name. A modern folk music duo, The Roche Sisters, put it to music and released it on a CD called Zero Church which was the address in NYC where they recorded it. Well worth hearing. The CD was put out by Red House Records which was owned by a good friend of mine, Bob Feldman, until he died two years ago.

EACH OF US HAS A NAME

Each of us has a name
given by God
and given by our parents

Each of us has a name
given by our stature and our smile
and given by what we wear

Each of us has a name
given by the mountains
and given by our walls

Each of us has a name
given by the stars
and given by our neighbors

Each of us has a name
given by our sins
and given by our longing

Each of us has a name
given by our enemies
and given by our love

Each of us has a name
given by our celebrations
and given by our work

Each of us has a name
given by the seasons
and given by our blindness

Each of us has a name
given by the sea
and given by
our death.

2008-05-08T05:10:00.000-07:00

Michael Clayton, Beowulf, He Was a Quiet Man, 5000 Fingers of Dr. T., Gay Deceivers.

Gay what?

Bosley! where have you been?

Sorry Bart, we've been in the middle of a major Moroccan movie marathon.

You mean that metaphorically, don't you, Bosley? You don't really watch movies up there, do you?

Oh yes, it's all movies, all the time. It's movie heaven. Well, except for the gay ghetto.

What happened there?

They were doing OK until they had to start letting in lesbians. Eventually one of them got the job of entertainment director and it's been non-stop, back-to-back showings of Personal Best and Desert Hearts.

Bosley, you read that in the St. Paul paper last week. A new gay senior-citizens home opened up and one of the senior men was quoted saying the same thing.

OK, maybe I did borrow, but it was funny, wasn't it? And it is true about the barrio going butch. Some people think Big L stands for another L word besides Love.

Who's Big L?

We're not sure. Just don't diss any dykes.

What's with all the awesome alliteration, Bosley?

Bart, that's how Beowulf was written in the Anglo-Saxon and since that's the language that Grendel is using in the new Beowulf movie I thought I would help you show your regal readers how smart we are.

And you read it in the Anglo-Saxon, Bosley?

We read all languages up here, Bart. It's what makes it paradise. Except for having to learn the accents.

Did we like Beowulf?

Not really. The teenage boys did, but they don't know the story and the book really is so much better even in English. The animation, especially in 3-D, is what everyone is talking about along with Angelina's high-heels.

Did we like Michael Clayton?

It was actually annoying. Too much going on and not enough to care about. Sydney Pollack was in it. He directed The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. That was a better movie. Nicole Kidman had a great line: "Vengeance is the lazy way to grieve." A significant contrast to V for Vendetta which is all about vengeance being justified.

The Beowulf story is based on the vengeance tradition of kinship retribution where if someone hurts your family then you go and kill their family. Interestingly, you live in Minnesota which has canonized Longfellow's Christianized version of Hiawatha. The historical Hiawatha lived about 500 years in what became the Six Nations area in upstate NY. Kinship retribution was the standard practice then. Hiawatha's wife and children were killed by a neighboring tribe. He decided to not retaliate and instead went to live by himself for a year. When he came out he said he had been visited by a strange man (The Peacemaker) who told him to gather all the tribes and tell them to stop the kinship retribution.

Great story and would have made a great movie in 1940 when the idea was suggested except the peacemaker role was seen as too Communist. Maybe somebody will try it again. In 3-D with Angelina playing Minnehaha. Sorry, bad joke.

Wow, Bosley, how do you know all that?

Bart, your son, Alan, wrote a paper on it in 5th grade so you know it, too. And today is his birthday. Happy birthday, Alan.

What about He Was a Quiet Man with Christian Slater and Elisha Cuthbert?

Good. Interesting story. Requires some thought. Great acting by Christian Slater. We loved him and Marisa Tomei in Untamed Heart. Baboon kings doing open-heart surgery made for a great love-story.

Well, I did like He Was a Quiet Man, too, except it's hard watching movies with medical issues when there's a female-type nurse watching it with me.

You mean your lovely wife?

Yes. She likes to point out all the silly inconsistencies and illogical medical stuff. That's the difference between men and women. When a beautiful quadriplegic is laying next to a beating heart monitor then the nurse-type woman will focus on the fact that she is not hooked up to it and the man-type man will focus on the fact that Elisha Cuthbert's beating heart is lying underneath her bare breasts.

I see what you mean. Better to let it pass. What made you rent The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T.?

Stanley Kramer produced it and after watching The Defiant Ones I looked him up. Very interesting. One of the writers for The Defiant Ones was blacklisted at the time and was originally listed under a pseudonym then relisted years later under his real name.

Sounds like that Woody Allen movie, The Front.

Yes, one of the few of his I could understand. Anyway, the 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. was a Dr. Seuss book that became a fascinating live-action musical with great choreagraphy and a main character named Bart. I showed it to my class in preparation for a visit from the symphony. They loved it.

Wow, Bart, that main character sounds like someone you could relate to.

Yes, also it was made in 1953 which was my birth year.

Sounds traumatic. Anything else happen in 1953?

Dylan Thomas finally finished pickling his brain a month after I was born.

I bet you fancied yourself as kind of a Dylan Thomas neophyte.

Yes, except for the pickle part.

Any good Dylan Thomas stories? Maybe with a nurse in it.

Well, I was in Augusta way, way, way before I got married to a beautiful nurse and I had been reading Dylan Thomas to Mom and Dad shortly before Dad went in the hospital for a short stay. Some surgery of one kind or another. I happened to score a date with another nurse a few days later who told me about this patient she had who kept calling out,"Rage, rage against the dying of the night."

Any other nurse stories?

Only the time I tried to get a date with the nurse at the Jewish nursing home in NY where Grandma was after she got hit by the bus. She turned me down so I took my poker winnings from the ship I had just gotten off and had a fantastic meal at the Windows on the World restaurant on top of the World Trade Center.

Alright, Bart, we need to wrap this up. I have to get back to the Moroccan film fest. What did you see in the Gay Deceivers?

Another Defiant Ones connection. The 8 year-old boy who should have been killed when he hits his head on the rock after Sidney Poitier pushes him was Kevin Coughlin who I thought looked familiar so I looked him up. Tragically, he was killed in 1973 by a hit-and-run driver on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles while he was washing his car's windshield at 1:45 in the morning while his wife was watching. I have no idea what he was doing washing his car window at 1:45 in the morning on a busy street but that's what the Internet says. He also starred in the Gay Deceivers which predates Larry and Chuck by 4 decades and was a little funnier but a lot more satirical. It was released in 1969 which was the same year as the Stonewall Rebellion. It was originally given an X rating due to a psychologist saying that it might entice any latent homosexuals in the audience to become unlatent. The director, Bruce Kessler contested the rating and got it changed to an R. Very interesting movie with the same theme as Chuck and Larry. Some of the personal reviews on IMDb said audiences in Hollywood laughed through the entire movie. I'm laughing now. Also time for bed. Goodnight, Larry.

August Rush

2008-04-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

Buskers 3:

First, the Irish Once, then the French Edith Piaf, now the American August Rush. Busking for dollars must be one of the loneliest ways to try to find yourself. But, of course, 20 years ago few people even knew what the word meant although most of us have contributed to it or probably would have if we had the time and hadn’t just threw all our spare change in the Salvation Army bucket six months earlier.

Bart, I thought you spend all your spare change on new age spas.

Right, that’s why buskers in my neighborhood die cold and stressed. But back to August Rush.

What’s the verdict?

We loved it. After we made jokes about it for being so predictable and derivative. What fun! I had brought the DVD along to a family gathering (Linda’s family) in case the conversation got too predictable and derivative. The teenagers tried to ignore it but eventually we all got caught up in what is essentially a gorgeous fairy tale that becomes deeply meaningful and is a powerful journey into exploring our own loneliness. That’s after ignoring the predictable and derivative stuff. Fagin as Robin Williams made up to look like Sting was almost harder to take in than the formulaic racial casting, but even that eventually worked. The director is of the female formula which may explain how this was able to really turn out well.

If anyone actually reads this drivel and knows Manhattan, then the mis-placed subway geography will be confusing but the Washington Square Park scenes will be oddly familiar to those who actually write this drivel. If you look carefully you can almost see the apartment on Sullivan.

The Defiant Ones

2008-04-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

Desmond Tutu was in town last weekend. He had been invited to speak at a Catholic university but was disinvited when the president heard that Tutu had once made a remark that the president's one Jewish friend told him could be interpreted as being (gasp!) anti-Semitic. When the Jewish Protection Association heard about it they said, "Who?" "Tutu?" "Forgetaboutittu." The Catholics tried to reinvite him but by then it was too late and Tutu spoke in a parking lot in what passes for the "inner city" in Minneapolis and became the forum for peace, truth, and reconciliation. In honor of Desmond Tutu being in Minnesota, a South African won the Masters in Augusta on the same day. A white South African, so in recognition of past deeds he wore a black shirt and white trousers. The jacket was green. (note to other golfers: winners do not wear plaid pants). In honor of a black South African and a white South African in the news on the same day I watched The Defiant Ones with Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis.

Stanley Kramer directs and Tevye plays a Southern sheriff for which he got an Oscar nomination. Poitier and Curtis got nominatons, too, but they both lost since Curtis insisted that Poitier receive equal billing. Curtis' name comes first in the opening credits but it was still signifcant for 1958 that anyone would insist a black man get equal credit with a white actor of equal drawing power. Has it happened since? I loved this movie. I wanted to see it since last winter when Deborah sent me a magazine devoted to Southern movies and this one was on the cover. The story is based in the South (though it could almost be Syracuse, NY, based on an experience I had there in 1970) but filmed in California.

The idea of a black man and a white man handcuffed together was odd since, of course, as many PC-people have pointed out, O Brother Where Art Thou (which was filmed in the South) did not have an integrated leading cast and should have since, of course, there must have been black people on the chain gang somewhere and how could the Coen Brother's not cast an African-American as one of the three hokey Homerites. But, of course, chain gangs were segregated (also in upstate New York in 1970) and it would have been odder had the Coen's integrated the gang.If they had paid attention when they watched The Defiant Ones then they would have had a very good explanation and one worth hearing Tevye explain. It is worth noting that Robert Mithcum was originally offered Tony Curtis' role (and Marlon Brando, later) but he turned it down since he had been on a chain gang and said it was too unbelievable to have it integrated even with the explanation.But, of course, this is not a movie only about a black man and a white man chained together (and later not-too regrettably remade with a black woman and a white woman), it's also a movie about a black man chained to a gay Jew and winding up in each others arms and both having significant smoking issues. Talk about deep inhalation. There's a new rating guideline based on smoking taking place in the movie. This one needs an R. And how did they get waterproofed cigarettes and matches?OK, enough. This is a great movie about two people suffering from loneliness, one from hatred and the other from the effects of hatred. The color issue really is only a way to tell the story. There's a lonely woman whose character could appear to be too stereotypical and pathetic to be serious but I saw her role as another way to show the human condition of loneliness. The ending is wonderful. The whole movie, while being ripe for ripping off due to some interesting casting, is well worth the time to watch.

There's a character played by a grown-up Alfalfa which will make you see the point of an iPod with good ear buds.Stanley Kramer had his share of people mad at him for not being anti-HUAC enough (but nowhere near Elia Kazan who has a three-vowel, four-letter first name famous for being an answer to a crossword clue and a last name famous for some people turning into a four-letter word). Kramer made some great movies. When I was growing up I remember loving It's a Mad, Mad, World maybe because it made me feel grown up. High Noon is supposed to be an anti-HUAC movie and he produced The Juggler (made in my birth year) which starred Kirk Douglas and was the first full-length feature film made in Israel. Kramer also did Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. It's not clear if Kramer is Jewish although he grew up in Hell's Kitchen but Dustin Hoffman is and played in the sequel to Meet the Parents which was a remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and who also starred in Kramer vs. Kramer. And that takes us from Kramer to Poitier and back again.Sorry, I just had to play the Six Degrees of Separation game which got started with Sidney Poitier. There you go. Go see The Defiant Ones.

Kite Runner

2008-04-20T19:27:00.000-07:00

In honor of the Pope gracing our fair shores, I offer the following incredibly old joke which has been previously told using any number of other religious leaders as the main character.

The Pope is visiting New York and is picked up at the airport by a limo. On the way into the city, the Pope says to the driver, "You know, I've always wanted to drive one of these limos but I never get the chance." The driver says, "Hey, you're the Pope. Whatever you want." So they exchange places but the Pope hasn't driven much before and pretty soon gets pulled over by a NYC policeman. The policeman approaches the limo and recognizes the Pope before he gets to the limo. He runs back to his car and radios the station house. He calls the sargent and says, "You'll never guess who I pulled over." The sargent says, "Who?" The police officer says, "I don't know, but he has the Pope for a chauffer."

It was nice of the Pope to express his sadness and shame over the debacle of decades of pedophile perverts. So in honor of his shame, we watched The Kite Runner.

Great book which Linda and I read when it was first published. Good movie, very true to the story. A few things got left out but mostly it stuck to the book. Great casting. The child actors really fit their parts.

The book talked about an issue which did not get covered in the movie. The issue of orphan status in the Afghan culture which makes adoption difficult and almost impossible for an orphan to marry due to the cultural importance of family background. If you can't prove who your father is then no one wants you. In the book, that issue is brought out very sadly.

The movie doesn't hesitate to show the extraordinary difficulty of Taliban rule. Stoning adulterers to death while at the same time using children as sex slaves.

The NY Times ran several articles after we invaded Afghanistan in 2001 about the American soldiers finding the Taliban living in what looked like mud houses from the outside but inside were almost palatial in style and sickening in use. Hundreds of boys and girls were freed by the Americans. They had been taken from villages and used as sex slaves.

I can deal with the fact of contradiction in religion and that without mystery there is no religion but the extent of contradiction in Taliban fundamentalism makes it difficult for me to find much compassion for them.

There is a branch of Islam which does get a lot of compassion from me. Sufism. Wow! Beautiful stuff. Rumi, one of the famous early 13th century Sufi poets gets quoted in the movie. There's another Sufi poet, Hafiz, who lived soon after Rumi. He became very popular in America due to an American, Daniel Ladinsky, who took a 19th century translation and interpreted it (or rendered as the publisher says) in a way that made our two teenagers say, "Wow, he writes like we talk!"

Louise Erdrich, the Minnesota Native American author of some of my favorite books (Love Medicine, Beet Queen and lots more) has a bookstore not far from where we live. She sells so many of Daniel Ladinsky's Hafiz books that she keeps a stack of 20 or more of The Gift on one shelf.

There's a bunch of web sites to find Hafiz and Rumi but I'll leave with just a few:

You Don't Have to Act Crazy AnymoreYou Don't Have to Act Crazy Anymore -
We all know you were good at that.
Now retire, my dear,
From all that hard work you do
Of bringing pain to your sweet eyes and heart.
Look in a clear mountain mirror -
See the Beautiful Ancient Warrior
And the Divine elements
You always carry inside
That infused this Universe with sacred Life
So long ago
And join you Eternally
With all Existence - with God!
From: 'I heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz' by Daniel Ladinsky

What Should We Do about that Moon ?A wine bottle fell from a wagon
And broke open in a field.
That night hundred beetles and all their cousins
Gathered
And did some serious binge drinking.
They even found some seed husks nearby
And began to play them like drums and whirl.
This made God very happy.
Then the 'night candle' rose into the sky
And one drunk creature, laying down his instrument
Said to his friend - for no apparent
Reason,
"What should we do about that moon?"
Seems to Hafiz
Most everyone has laid aside the music
Tackling such profoundly useless
Questions.
From: 'The Gift - Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master'

Last thought on pedophile priests: Why don't they just screw each other??"

Lonely movies

2008-03-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

Well, the weather was warm enough to go outside for a few days inbetween last week's snow storm and this one. Not too many movies. Or at least movies that I'll admit to watching. I need a movie muse. Perhaps a new name. Bosley, can you help?

Well, Bart, I'm dead, but I'll try. How about that nice movie reviewer the New Yorker had, Pauline somebody? She never liked me, but now that we're both dead I can forgive her. Take her name. Pauline Bart has a nice ring.

It does, Bosley, but it's already taken. She's a real person and a real doctor. A professor at UCLA.

You don't mean . . . ?

Yes, I do, Bosley. Her web page has listings from her students addressing her as Dr. Bart.

Wow, I bet your mother would like to see that. You probably have it bookmarked just to see your name next to Dr.

No.

Bart, did you get excited when Bart Bryant almost beat Tiger Woods last week or when you heard the mother on 6 Feet Under refer to her church as "St. Bart's"?

No. Maybe.

Did having a name that rhymes with so many lovely playground words make you a stronger person?

Stronger than what, Bosley?

I'm not sure. But what about Bart Starr? He's probably old hat as is Bart Maverick. What about that cartoon kid?

Him? He's a brat.

What about a movie review?

I still need a name, Bosley.

Bart, take mine.

OK, first on the docket:

Chalk-- a silly satire on high school teachers and using hand-held cameras that should be banned except by real independent movie makers like Charles Burnett.

My Brother's Wedding-- a very serious, funny, and loving portrait of an individual, a family, a neighborhood; directed by Charles Burnett of Killer of Sheep fame and a grad of UCLA where DR. Bart teaches (thanks to Tish for recommending that movie). It doesn't look like a hand held camera like Killer of Sheep, but it is definitely handmade. Great use of non-professional actors. There's gotta be an extra prize for any movie that gets made even after the main actor takes off for a year and can't be found until someone spots him preaching in New Orleans. Also, Burnett used leftover film from the MGM studio which should qualify him for a negative carbon tax as well as endear him to vegan fans. No Country For Old Men had a box at the end that said the movie was made with a neutral carbon footprint. The Coens could have posted an ad about having a negative footprint if they hadn't made the movie at all. Or they could take lessons from Charles Burnett. I'd rather watch movies like his than much of the Hollywood shlock that makes money for somebody.

Burnett has a great sense of telling the day in and day out story of living regardless of race. But, one scene would have only worked in a movie about inner-city African Americans. There's a black lawn jockey statue in the front yard of one of the neighbors. There was a movement at one time to paint them white so they wouldn't be offensive. But then most of us learned that the first Kentucky Derby jockeys were black and that there is a legend that they were used for signals on the Underground Railroad. So now black lawn jockeys on black lawns aren't so offensive. But not on my yard, probably. Of course, I'm not black. But I know some black people.

What might have been offensive if it had been in almost any other movie was a line spoken by the fiance and the brother. She says to her fiancee about his brother who keeps insulting her, "Is he retarded?" Her fiancee responds, "No, just ghettoized." It needs to be seen in context possibly like Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Obama fame. And I need to figure out the difference between fiance and fiancee. But I did manage to get the Burnett and Wright name mentioned in the same e-mail.

La Vie en Rose--

the Little Sparrow, Edith Piaf. Beautiful voice in her recordings and a beautiful voice by the singer who dubs in most of the singing in the movie. Also, great acting by Marion Cottilard who lip-synched like a genius.

I've loved Piaf's music for years, but had no idea she had a life that rivaled Johnny Cash and Ray Charles put together. Sad movie. Worth watching. You can see the real Edith on YouTube.

Last and keeping in the French theme (speaking of French, there is a powerful book called The Last of the Just by Andre Schwarz-Bart which I only mention because the author's name somehow reminds me of DR. Bart):

Amelie--

Lovely, funny, creative, maybe 30 minutes too long, kind of like my e-mails. Otherwise, well worth watching for a retelling of the Abraham/Eliezer story in Genesis. No, seriously, Amelie is a wanna-be shadchan/messiah who tries to make the world a better place and gets to learn about her own salvation in the process.

The movie is on a lot of people's lists of movies that changed their life. What's on your list?

There's a scene in Amelie of a television show featuring Sister Rosetta Tharpe. You can see the whole performance on YouTube. Sister Rosetta Tharpe will change anyone's life which is kind of a typical middle-class white person statement. Very funny blog at StuffWhitePeopleLike.wordpress.com which I found by searching for "So you want to be loved for yourself, like the poor people? What's left for the poor people, then?" which I found at the end of a post on IMDb about Amelie and seemed to sum up the main character in My Brother's Wedding.

Another post on the Amelie IMDb site pointed out a controversy that came out after the movie was made. A French writer criticized it for pretending to show Paris as it is but having no black characters. The director defended himself by saying that that the actor who plays the simple-minded but saintly grocery clerk is of North African descent (hard to tell) and that some of the posters used as scenery had black people pictured.

I think the director should have kept his mouth shut.

OK, I'm signing off now, Bosley.

Ok, Bart. Dare I say DR. Bart?

Sure.

Here's a translation of one of Edith Piaf's songs, translated thanks to the miracle of Babel Translator service.

Edith Sparrow

Padam Padam

This air which obsesses me day and night
This air was not born from today
It comes from also far as I come
Trailed per a hundred and thousand musicians
One day this air will return to me insane
Hundred times I wanted to say why
But it cut me off the word
It speaks always in front of me
And its voice covers my voice
Padam... padam... padam...
It arrives while running behind me
Padam... padam... padam...
It makes me remember the blow of
Padam... padam... padam...
It is an air which shows me a finger
And it trails after me like a funny error
This air which knows all by heart

It says: "Remembers your loves
Remember since it is your turn
' there does not have reason so that you do not cry
With your memories on the arms... "
And me I re-examine those which remain
My twenty years make the drum beat
I see entrebattre gestures
All the comedy of the loves
On this air which always goes

Padam... padam... padam...
"I love you" of fourteen-July
Padam... padam... padam...
"always" that one buys with the reduction
Padam... padam... padam...
"you" in here are per packages want
And all that to fall right to the corner from the street
On the air which recognized me

...
Listen to the uproar that it makes me

...
As if all my past ravelled

...
Is necessary to keep sorrow for afterwards
I have a whole musical theory of it on this air which beats...
Who beats like a wood heart...

The Frisco Kid

2008-03-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

We lost a pet cat when the boys were much younger. She had eaten a plant that poisoned her. We buried her in the backyard among the trees and wildflowers. Thankfully it wasn't winter time. Trying to bury a pet in Minnesota in the winter is a challenge. We lost a hamster a number of years ago in December. Explaining to young children about dead pets is hard. We wanted to provide a burial but the ground was too frozen for even a hamster-sized hole. So we did what everyone else does in Minnesota: We put him in a little box and put the box in the freezer. Of course, this meant that for the next four months, on a daily basis, one or the other of the boys would take out the box and try to revive little Hammie.

We had a favorite children's book when the boys were young (er), Blumpoe the Grumpoe Meets Arnold the Cat by Jean Davies Okimoto. Currently out-of-print (again, after being reissued several years ago, but available on ebay). Sweet and very funny story about a grumpy man who checks into a hotel which has cats that stay with the guests. Blumpoe gets Arnold for the night. By the morning, he isn't grumpy anymore.

Sadly, the hotel is real and so are the cats. It's the Anderson House in Wabasha, MN, and just a few hours drive from St. Paul. So, of course, we took the boys, 5 and 7, on a trip to Wabasha with the book in hand and cats in our hearts. We checked in happily. The next day the parents checked out grumpy. The boys were ecstatic. They didn't care that no one got any sleep. One room, two cats, two boys, two parents. You do the math. Linda and I looked at each other and said "never again." So, the next year the boys and I went back. Linda had to work. Also, she had better sense. One room again, two cats, two boys, one parent. Ok, they loved it. But this time I found that one feature that historic hotels have: A bathroom down the hallway with a big clawfoot tub. A pillow and a blanket and sleepy time.

Bart, it sounds awful for you.

Yes, but not as awful as what I recently found out about a favorite movie, The Frisco Kid with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford.

I saw it again last week, as it's on my life list of movies to see once a year and wanted to see it since I had brought up Gene Wilder with the Bonnie and Clyde connection.

Let's not go there again, Bart. It's a sore subject.
Ok, Bosley.

The Frisco Kid is a sweet and very funny movie (just like the Blumpoe the Grumpoe book). Gene Wilder plays the klutsy rabbi in what becomes, among other things, a buddy movie with Harrison Ford. The two actually have a romp on the beach with each other in their long underwear. Nice to see that two men can touch each other in the movies without it being a sex thing. Unlike Cagney and Lacey a few years later on TV who were never allowed to touch each other. The network even replaced an earlier actress for the Cagney role because she was seen as too "lesbian." Meg Foster, whose filmography shows that she played Hester Prynne in a TV series of Scarlet Letter. I wonder if she was too strong for the later movie role that Demi Moore got and totally ruined. What a disgusting movie! The book is amazing. The movie made Hester into a weak panderer, the opposite of what Hawthorne intended.

Bart, you're losing me again. What was so awful about The Frisco Kid?

Pauline Kael.

No, not her again.

Yes, Bosley.
Hold on.
She once said that the difference between casting for the stage and casting for the big screen is that we can imagine someone else playing a stage role. It is harder to imagine someone else in the role being played on screen. The awful thing about The Frisco Kid is that I read on the IMDb that the producers did imagine someone else playing Harrison Ford's role and while I don't mind that person in his own movies I don't want to imagine the possibility of him playing next to sweet, funny, innocent, pure Willy Wonka.

Bart, you don't mean . . .

Yes, I do. Sorry. The producers originally tried to get John Wayne.

Horrors! By the way, what's the big deal about typing a capital T for The Frisco Kid?

James Cagney already had a Frisco Kid movie and the The is like that New York State winery a number of years ago that tried to appear as classy as Champagne which is fermented a second time in the bottle it is sold in. The label on the New York wine said "fermented in the bottle" but what they did was to ferment it in a big bottle and then rebottle it into the bottle it got sold in. The Frisco Kid is playing a joke on us. Pretty tricky.

Horrors! But I think you're the only one who thinks it's a joke.

Beloved and Killer of Sheep

2008-03-05T05:17:00.000-08:00

Beloved and Killer of Sheep came in the mail at the same time. I had not thought there was such a strong connection, but watching Beloved first and then Killers of Sheep gave me a sense of a post-slavery experience immediately after the Civil War and then one hundred years later.

Beloved is powerful, both the book and the movie which I had seen when it first came out and shortly after reading the book. I wanted to see the movie again when the boys were assigned Huckleberry Finn in school and I found out that Toni Morrison intended a connection between her book and Twain's. Rereading the book is a better way to see the connection but the movie still remains something to see again.

Jonathan Demme, who gave us Swimming to Cambodia with Spaulding Gray which I loved and Caged Heat which is on my life list of movies never to watch, directed. He opens and closes with the same bookending method that John Ford used effectively in The Searchers. The framing of the headstone with the one word, Beloved, is dramatic. The movie doesn't explain what the book does, which is that Sethe, the mother (Oprah Winfrey), wanted to inscribe Dearly Beloved but only had time for one word. Interestingly, the cable TV show, 6 Feet Under, uses a similar headstone in one of its openings.

Watching this again, I was deeply struck by how people's actions can change through the power of grace, love, and compassion. Watch the townspeople throughout the movie and how they look at the house where Sethe lives. Then later, as the house and residents become more and more possessed, the townspeople start looking inward at their own imperfections. They start responding with gifts of food and kindness and end with The Thirty Women using massive amounts of prayer as a way to bring comfort and healing to Sethe. (look for Irma P. Hall; she's always great) I am still overwhelmed at the power of that sequence of scenes.

I loved Thandie Newton's performance as the title character. Her acting got trashed in the reviews but I think it needs to be looked at in the same stream of consciousness way with which Morrison wrote the book. As disturbing and mesmerizing as she is it is not as disturbing as her decision to act opposite three Eddie Murphy's at once in Norbit. That's on my life list to never see again.

Grace, love, and compassion enter as the translation in a morning prayer and really does describe for me what happens in the movie. The initials also happen to be the same as the model of the Mazda car that Linda owned when we first met and which we drove to Alaska on our honeymoon. It was a great little car which I think is what Mazda intended the initials to stand for. They're also the initials for godless, liberal communism which was getting a very funny reception at our Thanksgiving weekend last year.

Killer of Sheep takes place over a hundred years after Beloved. It is post-slavery, 1973 Watts. It's equally powerful but harder to watch as most of it was shot with a hand-held camera which, at my age, is like riding a rickety roller coaster. Not nearly as bad as the excremental Blair Witch Project but still too much for a second viewing right away which it needs to really appreciate. There is a wonderful sense of humanity that the director, Charles Burnett, draws from the scenes. At the beginning, it seems almost like the utter slowness of the movie is meant to portray the utter lack of humanity but I think that the difficult-to-watch scenes in the slaughterhouse and around the railroad tracks are meant to show how humanity perseveres. Also, the beautiful scene of the husband and wife dancing.

In one of the bonus shorts that Burnett made several years later, and which is included in the DVD, a character says that African Americans have survived slavery and discrimination and they will survive whatever else comes their way. That seems to be one thing that Killer of Sheep is saying but which could include any group of people whose lives are defined by extreme poverty and drudgery yet manage to find humanity in it.

There's a scene that only a nutcase like me could write an essay about so I will. The teenage son, or maybe preteen, is eating breakfast. I happened to watch this the same week as National Eat Breakfast Week which in the public schools means green eggs and turkey ham served for breakfast because it's also T. Geisel's birthday. Since my school is 95% free and reduced lunch everybody gets a free breakfast. Not everybody eats the green eggs. Yuck.

The teenager in the movie is pouring his second (at least) helping of frosted cereal. Not terribly bad given that some kids are eating that for dinner. But what happens next is horrific. He opens a box of Domino's sugar, the kind with the metal spout that you pull out. I went back and timed how long he poured out the sugar. It was almost two cups. Then he starts eating.

It is not too much of a stretch to connect nutrition to poverty. Wow, Bart, I never would have thought of that. Well, you should because I'm not going to write anymore about it. What I will write about is the Mom and Pop connection with Beloved and Killer of Sheep.

The daughter in Beloved talks about wanting to go to o'BERLIN College and the director of Killer of Sheep is named Burnett. Now what more reason could you need to watch them back to back?

Bart, are you OK?

Mishmash messiahs

2008-03-01T21:47:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been awhile. You might think I had been doing something productive. You might think I had been reading a book or interacting with live people. You might be wrong.

Hah! Linda told me to buy a laptop while she was skiing in Colorado with a friend (she said later that she was joking). I've been busy ever since. Also reading and interacting, but mostly watching truly intelligent movies. The kind men can watch when their better half is out of town. "Better half" as in "better sense." Some of these guy movies just aren't for all guys.

I went to the theater with the husband of the friend who went skiing with Linda. We saw No Country for Old Men since it had "men" in the title which meant it was for us men. I might have to start watching Jane Austen movies on PBS if this is what I have to sit through as a man. Overly predicatable especially towards the end when foreshadowing really doesn't make much sense, too much of an attempt to upstage Bonnie and Clyde and have it thought of as an art film, not enough of the story that Tommy Lee Jones was trying to tell his wife but which kept getting kicked to the ground and covered up with blood. I didn't mind that the ending didn't bring anything to a conclusion since the Coen Brothers make that almost their trademark (and way too predictable; maybe they could try experimenting with reality and really scare the audience); I did mind that the movie couldn't get me to really care about most of the characters which is one reason I want to spend an evening with them.

At least Bonnie and Clyde gave us Gene Wilder.

Bonnie and Clyde is the movie that Pauline Kael praised and with which she started her lengthy career on The New Yorker (and her long friendship with Warren Beatty). It's also the movie that Bosley Caruthers did not praise and which began the end to his long career as the New York Times movie reviewer. Too bad since he did so much in the 40's and 50's to advocate for quality movie making and less control by the big studios. Kael's main defense of Bonnie and Clyde seems to be her lengthy claim opposing the view that people would be influenced by the movie's violence and try to imitate it. She made that claim, however, before computer games came out and made masses of educated mothers and cousins waste their lives on solitaire.

Speaking of mothers, we saw Keeping Mum. Very funny, clever, creative, and deadly in a much better way than Bonnie and Clyde or the sicko in NCFOM. A wonderful Maggie Smith (who upstaged Laurence Olivier in Othello 40 years earlier; Olivier said he wouldn't work with her again since she out-acted him), Rowan Atkinson showing he can really act, and a great and very scary Patrick Swayzy (scary because Dirty Dancing was a long 20 years ago).

Then I started an unintentional but delightful series of messianic mad men and child-like cavorters.

First, Milky Way directed by Jean Brunel, a Spanish surrealist and inspiration to the Monty Python gang. Made in 1969, it's about two pilgrims who set off to a shrine and meet all sorts of characters, from Hosea to Jesus to Marquis de Sade. Obviously shot on a very low budget, but very independent and thought-inducing. Well worth the time. Brunel hated the Catholic church so much that Orson Welles said that Brunel made such spiritual movies that if Brunel was an atheist then the church couldn't want a better friend. Watch the special features first or after in order to understand what all the symbols mean. When it first came out, background leaflets were handed out.

Then I watched Help mostly by myself. Alan started it with me then left. We had all gone to the theaters last year to see Across the Universe which was very good and the boys play that damned Be-a-tle music so much it's like living in the 60's so I thought they might like Help. They thought I might need help. Well, it was fun but not as much as I remember when I first saw it at the Druid Theater in Damascus (an odd name for a theater in a solidly red-neck town, segregated by race and class and length of hair on teenage boys; remember the white's-only swimming pool that we belonged to so Dad could have a vote in breaking the segregation? I don't remember actually swimming there but did hang out at the sign, smoking and joking).

Help does have the messianic story line about the search for the ring that's needed for the sacrifice. Great line at the beginning by the High Priest who realizes that without the ring there can be no sacrifice and without sacrifice there is no need for a priest which then would put him out of a job. There's also a scene of a character coming out of a Utility Hole with its cover on his head which faithful readers will recall had a significant part in Enchanted but may have been, in the pre-globalization 60's England-age, union made as opposed to the 33% chance that the Enchanted NYC Utility Hole covers weren't even fair trade.

Since I do actually read real books, I happened to recently come across a poem by Karl Shapiro entitled, Manhole Cover, which I will try to include it if I can find it online which will mean I won't have to type it.

Third in line for the messianic movies and crossing over into child-like cavorting was The Red Balloon. It's not available on Blockbuster but is on Netflix along with a full-length re-make with Juilette Binoche who faithful readers will recall should have won the Oscar for her role in the English Patient but, instead, went to Frances McDormand in Fargo for doing half the work Binoche did and which I'm not really still burned about. You can rent Red Balloon on the free trial period from Netflix and then switch back over to BB so I can get the commission from BB for having the right initials.

I happen to have a VHS copy of the 1956 Red Balloon (long-distance kiss to anyone who sends in the connection between Red Balloon and Juno; double kiss to anyone who sends in their stripper name; according to Jon Stewart, mine is Persia Saint Paul.

I showed The Red Balloon to my class after we read the book. They loved both. That's a lot to say considering I had 8 kids with low-to-medium functioning autism glued to a book and movie that is pretty complex but not action-oriented in the Disney sense. They got everything: the boy's loneliness, the bus conductor's rule, the principal's strictness (time outs in a locked office?), the love story with the blue balloon, and especially the bullies. Wow, the ending is incredible to watch and to watch the response of children who could easily get bullied when they see someone they can identify with experience salvation from a gang of bullies. We watched it again the next day.

Anybody play Risk? A triple kiss for the connection between The Red Balloon and Risk.

The next movie blurred the line between messianism and child's play. Up the Down Staircase. I had read the book as a teenager and Mom sent me a copy several years ago. It has always left a powerful impression on my sense of history as a teacher. Sandy Dennis plays the teacher, Sylvia. Jean Stapleton, of All In the Family fame, is wonderful as the secretary. The movie was filmed in a NYC high school in the summer and used many of the neighborhood teenagers as extras. Great way to get a feel for teaching in that time. A very funny, almost jarring moment was when Sandy Dennis puts paper in a trash can. Wow, I haven't seen a teacher do that in 20 years.

Interesting choice of first name for the main character. Sylvia Ashton-Warner was a very influential teacher from New Zealand who was teaching about the same time. She wrote a book called Teacher and had a movie about her called Sylvia. I used to have the book and remember seeing the movie years ago. I think both may have been what got me thinking I could teach.

The director of Up the Down Staircase, Robert Mulligan, had also directed To Kill a Mockingbird. Sandy Dennis had just finished Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf which caused the Production Codes to turn into the Motion Picture rating system and let the movie keep "hump the hostess" but made them take out "screw you."

I don't have a problem with movie ratings. It seems to be a marketing tool more than anything else. I am very curious, however, about what seems to be a double standard like the one National Geographic used to have regarding female nudity. They would cover up the breasts of nude, white American women but show the breasts of nude African tribal women. The overwhelming implication was that American women were too pure to have their breasts shown. They changed that practice in the 70's although they may have just decided not to do strip club spreads anymore. I do remember some news article about NG changing the practice after reader protests.

The last two foreign PG films I've seen, were Milky Way (1969) and The Golden Door (2006). Both had female nudity in a non-sexualized context and both were rated PG. The Golden Door even had full frontal. When was the last PG American movie you saw that had nudity? Sean Penn's bouncing butt in Racing With the Moon doesn't count even though it started out R and then got changed to PG on appeal and Valda Hansen as a Scandanavian hooker in PG-rated The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972) doesn't count as the camera blurred her so much it was hard to tell what was what. (Robert Duvall is great in this otherwise odd mix of historical and geographical inaccuracies. Some people bring the mountain to Mohammed; others bring it Northfield, Minnesota, a lovely town 45 miles from here and which replays the real bank robbery every year and does not have snow-capped mountains. Good thing southern Oregon does, otherwise they couldn't have used them for a backdrop to Northfield.)

I'm going to write to the Classification and Rating Board about the nudity thing. I'll let you know. Now you let me know the connection between Up the Down Staircase and The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid. No kisses for this. It's too easy. And it is not connected to Bel Kaufman being Sholom Alecheim's granddaughter. Although her last name might be a hint.

Ok, Bart, this was rambling even by your standards, but what the hell is messianic about Up the Down Staircase?

Two words, Bosley. Albert Shankar.

That wasn't even remotely funny, Bart. And Shankar was not in the book or the movie.

Think about it, Bosley. The book was written one year after Shankar became president of the NYC teacher's union. Or maybe it's like Pauline Kael says, "You have to be sophisticated to appreciate it" (as she pretty much said in her review of Bonnie and Clyde and in a sideways slam to Caruthers)

Ok, that wasn't funny, either. Bart. But I would agree that Shankar was mesmerizing as a messiah in Woody Allen's Sleeper.

Manhole Covers
by Karl Shapiro

The beauty of manhole covers--what of that?

Like medals struck by a great savage khan,

Like Mayan calendar stones, unliftable, indecipherable,

Not like the old electrum, chased and scored,

Mottoed and sculptured to a turn,

But notched and whelked and pocked and smashed

With the great company names

(Gentle Bethlehem, smiling United States).

This rustproof artifact of my street,

Long after roads are melted away will lie

Sidewise in the grave of the iron-old world,

Bitten at the edges,

Strong with its cryptic American,

Its dated beauty.

Once

2008-02-13T21:25:00.000-08:00

Once

Every Valentine’s Day I do get to teach Malvina Reynolds by using her Magic Penny song. I loved Malvina Reynolds. When I was in my 20’s I wanted to marry her. Her second husband, Bud Reynolds, was a merchant seaman so maybe it could have been a strange kind-of vicarious marriage.

I typed her name into the IMDb to see what would happen. Turns out Magic Penny was used on a soundtrack for a ‘50’s beach movie called Summer Love. It’s not available on video which means the penny might not have been magic enough to overcome a lame story. I would love to see it just to hear Malvina on a movie soundtrack that wasn’t a documentary. Oddly, the movie people didn’t want one verse so they asked her to change it. She did and the movie version got copyrighted which means I’ve been singing that one all along. Here’s the verse she took out of the original--‘Don’t play with fire,/Once burned, twice shy,’/But now I’ve played with fire/And all I want to do is fry.” Maybe I’ll sneak it back in.

Another song I’d like to sneak some verses back into is Woody’s This Land is Your Land. Every school I’ve taught at or been a student at has sung it but never with the last two verses which I remember being told back in Maryland that they were too subversive.

But lo and behold, Malvina is on YouTube! Check it out. So is Woody. One of those clips has to have all the verses.

Speaking of musicals and Black History Month, we saw Once the other night. Once, as in “once I write the hits I’ll be a star.” At least that’s what the IMDb says the title means. Black history as in it takes place in Ireland and the newspaper in Saint Paul ran an article recently reminding us how the Irish still think they are “the blacks of Europe.” It’s beyond me, but then the closest I’ve been to Boston in 30 years is listening to WUMB on the Internet. Great station. Last time I was in Boston, I saw Psycho II. Wow! The best cure for the nightmares caused by a babysitter letting me watch Psycho I on TV when I was 9 or 10.

In answer to the people who asked the theater people why so many of us were laughing our heads off in the last 20 minutes: The movie was a satire on the first Psycho and was supposed to be funny. I didn’t laugh that hard again until I saw Malibu’s Most Wanted. I saw that one in the theater, too. People were moving away from me. I even managed to embarrass my children. Very funny satire on everything.

Once is a very sweet movie. Bob Dylan said it was his favorite movie which is a clue that it needs subtitles. It’s in Irish-accented British English except the character named “girl” speaks English with an Irish accent with a Czechoslovakian accent added on top. It all makes the dialogue almost unintelligible which puts it right in Dylan’s middle phase.

The “f” words are intelligible and there are lots of them since Ireland is close to England which means any movie other than Jane Austen movies has to have the “f” word at least once in every sentence. Also, it’s what gives the movie an R rating and therefore a hipper feel. I have read that some directors will manipulate the movie to get an R rating so young people will think it’s hip and therefore applies to them.

Kind of the opposite with Racing With the Moon which started out with an R rating then got changed on appeal to PG. Any movie with a great shot of a really young Sean Penn’s butt followed by a great sex scene with Elizabeth McGovern on the beach probable deserves to be PG. Maybe they appealed the R because they both had to be naked in a lake in northern California in the middle of winter. Maybe PG refers to pregnant which means if Sean Penn is in it then there’s going to be an abortion. Maybe I’m being satirical.

Once is a lovely love story which turns out in a way that I could have predicted if I wasn’t so naïve about how movies turn out. But I do like predictability even if I don’t recognize it. It’s what gives me a sense of knowing where I’m going.

The two main characters are actually credited as “guy” and “girl.” Wonderful casting of the girl’s mother and the guy’s father. Maybe they can get together for the sequel.

There’s a good scene of a group of people at someone’s home having a traditional singing circle. I’ve gone to some here and more back in Portland. Some of you are laughing, but not knowing how to sing never stopped me. Except the time I tried to join a 200-member men’s singing choir and the director said he never turned anyone away until he met me.

2008-02-03T19:20:00.000-08:00

Gangster Story.

OK, Linda is working, Peter's out with two very nice girls, Alan is doing is homework, and the Super Bowl is on. Wow. Can't get any better except watching paint dry. Football has to be the strangest excuse for a sport. Rugby. There's a sport. Last year's Super Bowl was actually an exciting cliffhanger waiting to see if an African-American coach would win the game.

Fortunately, I had the sense to have ordered Gangster Story from Blockbuster. No one else would watch it since it was black and white and short. But it has Walter Matthau which is why I had ordered it. It is so bad it's great. Plus, watching Walter Matthau as a young man is worth it. Also, he directed it and since I had watched a string of Catholic directors so figured I should give a Jew chance. There's a fascinating character early in the movie named Raikin Ben-Ari. All his bio says is that he was born in Russia and died in Russia. In searching the Net for him I found a listing for book on Hebrew dance by the same name. No other info.

The music for this movie is interesting. Much better than the acting and dialogue. Matthau loved classical music and he got a chance to show it here. The co-star is Carol Grace who was his real-life wife.

In an odd coincidence, the movie was filmed in Orange County, CA, which now has the highest concentration of Republicans in the country. Also, a movie by that name came out a few years ago. Linda and I wanted to see a matinee so we chose Orange County. It's still the worst movie I've ever seen--except for Blair Witch Project.

I'm going to watch Gangster Story again. Anytime the Super Bowl is on.

Golden Door

2008-01-31T19:16:00.000-08:00

Garrison Keillor was back in the news. He settled out-of-court with a stalker from the South. Not South Saint Paul, which is a separate city known for its dwindling supply of stockyards and for being on the way to the drive-in theater.

He's probably familiar with a movie I've wanted to see again for a long time, The King of Comedy with Robert De Niro, Sandra Bernhardt and Jerry Lewis. All of the acting is terrific, especially getting to see Jerry Lewis in a serious role. De Niro plays a fan obsessed with Lewis's talk show host character. Bernhardt is even more scary as a crazy, rich Jew who also stalks Lewis' character. Her line about waiting until "Shavous" kind of pegs her if she didn't stand out before.

It's a Martin Scorsese movie which makes it fun to wait for his customary crucifixion scene. Like trying to spot Alfred Hitchcock in his movies. De Niro gets the crucifixion scene in this one. Great shot. Probably deeply symbolic. Maybe not. We went to hear a friend sing Christmas carols in the huge Catholic cathedral in Minneapolis last month. We sat right in front of the equally huge and gory crucifix. Linda wanted me to sing along but I didn't want to draw attention to myself. I pointed up to the crucifix and said, "Look what happened to the last Jew they let in here." Peter laughed so hard that we were immediately checked for foreskin status and to see if we had stolen any blood from the crucifix.

Yesterday was the birthday of Richard Brautigan. One of my favorite writers from the '60's who I never read again. Apparently not too many other people did either after that era was over. I only know it was his birthday because I listened to Garrison Keillor last night on his Writer's Almanac. Brautigan had a much sadder life than I had imagined.

But speaking of poems and Scorsese, we watched a beautiful movie the other night, The Golden Door, or Nuovomondo in Italian. There's another Golden Door movie that hasn't been released yet but it has Snoop Dogg in it to distinguish it from the Italian Golden Door about 1900 era dirt-poor Sicilian farmers. The Snoop Dogg movie is directed by David Rosenthal who has a Master's degree from Sarah Lawrence in ... poetry. The Italian Golden Door was described as a tone poem so maybe there was a synchronistic meaning to it all.

Brautigan, Snoop Dogg, and Sicilian dreamers. Wow, makes me want to add a poem to this. I wonder if Snoop Dogg has one?

Nuovomondo would be worth watching just for the scene of the ship leaving the dock. Also for the two beautiful Nina Simone songs, especially Sinnerman at the end. Everything else works, too, if the idea of dream weaving entrances you. It did me. Beautiful. Especially the character of Lucy or Luce in Italian which means "light" and is explained a little bit more in the special feature about how the movie was made. Also worth watching.

For those of us for whom Ellis Island has meaning (isn't that all of us? Did Alexander and Harry come through there?) this movie will have special significance. The background I could find says that the scenes and details were all authentic although some people have different recollections or interpretations of the arranged marriage procedures. The main idea was that someone had to be able to vouch for you and for single women it usually meant an arranged marriage. If someone had to vouch for you, how did our grandfathers get in? Who was already here to meet them?

There's a very small part by a favorite character actor, Vincent Schiavelli, who was the subway ghost in Ghost and was one of the inmates in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He died halfway through making the movie. He's the rich character with the really baggy eyes.

Speaking of bloody crucifixion scenes, there's a movie I love called Maldonado Miracle. It's directed by Selma Hayek and has a good role for Peter Fonda. We last encountered him as the disturbed bounty hunter in 3:10 to Yuma but some of us first remember him from Easy Rider. Now that's going back to the beginning of the end of Brautigan time. Some of us might also remember Selma Hayek from a newspaper review of a movie she did with Pierce Bronson. In the accompanying picture, she's laying (lying?) on the beach with Bronson and the caption says, "Here's a picture of Pierce Bronson lying (laying?) on the beach with Selma Hayek's breasts."

Her directing work is great. Great movie, too. Miracle's really do happen in different ways. I once heard an interpretation of the Loaves and Fishes story in the Gospels. The miracle wasn't that Jesus made the food appear but that his compassion made people share what they had.

Speaking of directors, Scorsese does the introduction to Nuovomondo but I don't think there was a crucifixion scene in the movie. We did see The King of Comedy the other night. It's hard to find movies that teenage boys will sit still for which explains why we saw Balls of Fury. It is nice to see movies together as a family. But every now and then Linda and I want to feel like we're on a date. Nuovomondo was just the ticket.

There's plenty of poetry I could add here but instead I'll mention two of my favorite children's books about immigration, both illustrated by a good friend, Beth Peck.

Grandmother's Runaway Shadow by Liz Rosenberg and How Many Days to America by Eve Bunting.

Alright. Here's Emma Lazurus:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The Searchers

2008-01-24T18:41:00.000-08:00

Well, it really is 30 below today. That's with the wind chill which is a Minnesota invention along with Ole and Lena jokes.
Ole and Lena got married. On their honeymoon trip they were nearing Minneapolis when Ole put his hand on Lena's knee. Giggling, Lena said, "Ole, you can go farther if ya vant to"... so Ole drove to Duluth.

It's also too cold for the AAA battery guy to get the car jump-started which is why I'm sitting at home waiting for the tow truck guy. Lucky you. If it gets any colder in Minnesota everybody goes ice fishing. I tried it once but it took too long to cut the hole for the boat. The cold builds character which is why I agreed to move here when Linda decided she wanted to leave Utopia and move next door to Garrison Keillor. Actually, he lives two neighborhoods away, uphill. He just settled an argument out-of-court with a neighbor over her proposed garage addition. In Minnesota, garages are male which is why he didn't like it. He said it wasn't good-looking enough.

"Which is why" is my catch-phrase today. After watching The Searchers twice (second time with a great commentary with Peter Bogdanovich) I want to be like Buddy Holly who kept saying "That'll be the day." It made sense in the dialogue except once when it didn't seem to have any connection to what had just been said. But who am I too criticize Miles Davis? No, wait, Davis and John Wayne just share a birthday. Just like Aretha Franklin and our wonderful 102 year-old former neighbor who is now in the Jewish nursing home even though he's Catholic. Just like John Ford. Catholic, I mean. Ford's dead.

Aretha will not be as old as our neighbor. He will be 103, March 24th, God willing and the creek don't rise. He stayed in his house next door to us until he was 101. On his 100th birthday I wrote a letter to the editor that actually made sense and which described how much he had done for me, such as slip in a trailer hitch after I had struggled for two hours to get it in or how he jacked up a pole in my backyard that had been set in concrete or how he mixed up the concrete and patched my sidewalk all after he had turned 95. Very gracious man. He never said a word the time he came over to sit with me after I had fallen off a rope swing in the driveway that I had tried to set up for the boys. It was almost done so I tried it out thinking the boys would want to swing except right then the ice cream truck turned the corner. I fell backwards onto the concrete which is why it might not be the best place to put a swing.

John Ford as the director was the main reason I wanted to see this movie. John Wayne is a hard one to watch. Too many political issues. Of course I'd have to stop watching the Wizard of Oz if Godless Liberal Communism was my standard for entertainment. Another reason winter in Minnesota is hard is that we are close to the site and anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee which gets annual mention in the papers along with L. Frank Baum's editorial afterwards essentially saying that they had it coming. His descendants apologized to the tribes in 2000. Will Wayne's descendant's apologize?

Not to get too far off the topic (Bart, you lost me a long time ago) but it might be of interest to some esteemed readers of this drivel that the various Christian denominations had divided up the reservations back in the 1800's. Guess who got most of South Dakota including Wounded Knee? Yep, Reform Jews. No, really, it was the Episcopal Church. Easy to get confused. It's possible the Ghost Dancers were just trying to avert a schism unlike that other unfortunate result of colonialism, Anglican Africans. Which is why our mother will say is the reason current Episcopalians are being resettled in the California Castro St. reservation.

The Castro St. reference might have to get relayed to Tish. If you need someone to blame for the election of George the first and the second, then look no further than those California lesbians. Last time I was out there was in the election year for George the first. Lawn signs everywhere: Lesbians Love Bush.

"What makes a man to wander?
What makes a man to roam?
What makes a man leave bed and board
And turn his back on home?
Ride away, ride away, ride away."

begins the movie.

"A man will search his heart and soul
Go searchin' way out there
His peace of mind he knows he'll find
But where, O Lord, Lord where?
Ride away, ride away." is the rest of the song and which ends the movie. (What movie are you talking about, Bart?) (Star Wars, pay attention.)

Loyal supporters of Public Radio (not to be confused with community radio) will recognize the song as being sung by those original public radio members, the Sons of the Pioneers.

The line "A man will search his heart and soul" sums up what the movie is about even though I had to watch the commentary to understand it. A little authoritative Internet research taught me that Ford had made the movie with the intention of pointing out white racism and our genocidal history. He knew what he was getting with John Wayne and had criticized his WWII draft dodging but knew a western movie star when he saw Wayne ride up on a horse.

The script is pretty clear (and much different from the book in case anyone besides me read Westerns; I used to, on the merchant ships; Max Brand was great). White people are humans, only pure, uncontaminated white people are worth saving. And in the end, Wayne's character has searched his soul and found his heart. Beautiful story. Amazingly beautiful film which I only appreciated after watching the commentary. Ford's use of poetic writing, art technique, and Shakespearean humor is riveting. Amazingly, I'm being serious for the first time.

If you do see it, watch for the inscription on the headstone. Also, the interaction between Wayne's character and his brother's wife. The lineage of the adopted son, Marty, is also important to understand Wayne's character.

Ford uses a lot of violent acts that we have to imagine. Also lots of techniques from his silent movie days. The scene where Wayne scalps one of the native Americans is very well done. The fact that his character does the first scalping in the movie may be Ford's way of letting us on to the fact that scalping was first used by Europeans on Indians. A blunt point brought up in the very non-imaginative movie, Blood Diamond, was that the practice of chopping off limbs was first introduced in Africa by the Belgians.

Look for the way Ford begins and ends the movie and in the way he uses long scenes and composes them like a painting. Bogdanovich points out that while Ford may have used a white actor for the Comanche chief, for all the others he cast members of the Navajo reservation from Monument Valley where they did much of the shooting. The way he shoots the Monument Valley scenes are beautiful.

There's a famous quote from Frank Capra (who Wayne did not like and thought the "dago should go back where he came from" which means Capra was probably of the Catholic persuasion):
"If you want to send a message, use Western Union."

Another famous quote that provides an antidote to Capra and apparently much discussed on the web as to its origin is "The political is the personal."
One authoritative web source said it was Margaret Mead. But the one I believe is the one that has the right name. My name. And the prize goes to Pauline Bart (sic) who said it was some French guy but who cares. It's her name that counts. Web search for "political is the personal" and see what you get.

The Searchers is definitely not a telegram but I wonder how much of Ford's political message a 1956 movie audience took from this movie. Those of us today (Bart, do you mean you?) have the hindsight of endless analysis combined with a wish that the Green Beret movie had been more fashionable.

Bart, would this be a good time to employ the clever Shakespearean trick used by Ford to balance tension with humor? Yes, it would and here to provide that balance is a collection of Episcopalian jokes. Here's the first one:

A gay Episcopalian is visiting San Francisco where he hears that there's a gay church nearby. He walks in on a Sunday and notices an attractive young man sitting by himself. The visitor sits next to him and reaches his hand over. Suddenly, two burly ushers pick up the poor visitor and toss him outside. The visitor cries out, "I thought this was a gay church." The ushers say "Yeah, but no one messes with the pastor's wife."

Here's the other one:

A Lutheran, a Catholic, and an Episcopalian go up in an airplane. The flight is terrifying and the plane finally lands. A reporter runs up to interview the three "persons." The Lutheran says, "I was scared but I went up a Lutheran and my faith kept me strong so I came down a Lutheran." The Catholic says, "I was scared but I went up a Catholic and my faith kept me strong so I came down a Catholic." The Episcopalian says, "I was so scared that I went up an Episcopalian and I came down an Ecopalian."

Well, Bart, you've cleverly impressed yourself once again with how well you can manage all those Internet searches to show how much you know. What will you do for an encore?

I'm going to finish The Satanic Verses before Peter does.

Wow, you are smart.

It rhymes with the right name.

2008-01-20T08:32:00.000-08:00

3:10 to Yuma. The remake.

There are some movies I won't admit to watching and this was one of them. Until I looked it up on the IMDb to see how it got its favorable reviews. The more I read about it, the more I wanted to watch it again. I did. The next day.

It was fascinating the second time. The first time it struck me as the stupidest movie ever made. How could so many totally implausible film scenes get made? It all came together the second time, especially when I noticed Russell Crowe whistle 3 times in the first 20 minutes. It makes the ending powerful combined with what he says in the train station after what Christian Bale tells him while he's being choked. Listen carefully because both lines make the movie make sense. The implausible scenes are still implausible and completely distracting the first time. The second time they seemed either less implausible are less important. It's also very bloody and bloodthirsty, but on a second viewing it made sense in the story.

It's probably a film more for those of us men who have always doubted our manhood or who have always hoped for that moment when we could prove ourselves and then realize (hopefully) that we prove ourselves just by being the kind of man we are meant to be without having to be more heroic than just being a decent person.. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale's characters tell that story beautifully. There's also what has to be a great homoerotic character in Ben Foster's role of the second-in-command outlaw. His eyes at the bar scene when he realizes his hero has other interests!

The movie comes from a 1950's short story by Elmore Leonard, not to be confused with Elmore James who can be heard on a movie that Tish recommended, The Sheep Killers, a homoerotic CIA-al Queda buddy flick alternative to the Kite Runner. Not really, but it sounds exciting my way. Plus I got to use homoerotic twice even though Peter says I don't know what it means.

Tish is also the one who recommended I start a blog. When I asked how much and she said they're free, I said, Great, I'll take ten.

(Bart, didn't you mean to use that joke last time?)

Each character in 3:10 to Yuma has a story and most of them have a fate that fits their story, but it's hard to tell if it's redemptive or something else. The very annoying second-in-command banker sings a line to a song. I picked this up from the IMDb. I thought the age of the singer-songwriter was interesting.

"The title of the song used in the film is "The Arizona Killer" (lyrics and melody are by prolific Arizona folk singer/songwriter, Katie Lee http://www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=k_lee, still performing locally at age 88)"

It's a 1995 variation of an older ballad, "The Tennessee Killer" variously described as "Traditional" and an "Ozark Folk Song" (1rst known appearance: 1942)

The Arizona Killer

I killed a man in Dallas, And another in Cheyenne But when I killed the man in Tombstone I overplayed my hand

I rode all night for Tucson To rob the Robles Mine And I left old Arizona With a posse right behind

I rode across the border And there it did not fail The men that was a-follerin' me They soon did lose my trail; they lost my trail

They galloped back to Tucson To get the Cavalry While I stayed on in Mexico Enjoying liberty; Ayi-ha, enjoyed my liberty

I promised my Rosita A pretty dress of blue She said, "You'd go and get it If you really loved me true; did love me true"

So I went back to the border Just to get that gal a dress I killed a man in Guaymas And two in Nogales; killed two in Nogales

But the posse was a-waitin' To get me on the trail Now in Tombstone I'm a layin' In the Cochise County jail; the Cochise County jail

They-re gonna hang me in the morning A'fore this night is done They're gonna hang me in the mornin' And I'll never see the sun

I want to warn you fellers And tell you one by one What makes a gallows rope to swing A woman and a gun

The original 1942 song

The Tennessee Killer

Oh I've killed men in Georgia, And men in Alabam' But kill a man in Arkansas And God your soul will damn!

I'd killed a man in Memphis In the State of Tennessee, And I rode straight through to Arkansas With a posse after me.

I rode into the Ozarks And there it did not fail, The men that were a-following me They soon did lose the trail.

They rode right back to Memphis In the State of Tennessee, While I stayed in the Ozarks, Enjoyed my liberty.

But I went down to the city For to get my gal a frock, I killed a man in Conway And two in Little Rock.

The sheriff saw me do it, He got the drop on me, I went up to the jail-house, Give up my liberty.

So they'll hang me in the morning, Ere this long night is done, They'll hang me in the morning And I'll never see the sun.

Beware, beware, you fellows, If you must have your fun, Go do it in a harmless way, But do not touch a gun.

Stardust

2008-01-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

Stardust. A beautiful movie not loved by everyone. I wouldn't see it when it came out in the theater since it sounded like a remake of the Princess Bride which is our family's favorite movie. We've since seen it at least 3 times on video and again last week. A long way to go before it catches up to Princess Bride but it shows promise.

We first saw Princess Bride as a television movie when we were visiting in Augusta about 6 or 7 years ago. Normally, I would have made the boys read the book first but I lost that struggle when I wanted to see Spencer Tracy in The Old Man and the Sea so made the boys read the book. They didn't mind the book but hated the movie. They still haven't read the Princess Bride but love the movie.

Dad taped it for us on VHS while we sat in the living room and watched it. If anyone ever wondered why the living room was such a gorgeous deep burgundy and obviously painted by a professional drunk it's because I happened to show up at the house once years ago when Mom and Dad were going away for the weekend. They asked me to paint the living room. I said sure and as soon as they left I realized that the color they had picked out was going to require two coats. Hah! Not after I went to the paint store. Actually, I didn't start on the beer until I decided to paint the sun room next. Wasn't it a lovely minty green? I almost choked to death afterwards because I celebrated with a lunch at the Cafe Natural. They were still learning to cook and had dumped an entire jar of bay leaves in the eggplant dish I had ordered.

Dad loved to hold the remote while watching TV so he could mute the commercials. I do too, and feel like the Duplex comic where the dog walks in and asks Eno why he's holding a calculator while watching TV. Eno replies, "I couldn't find the remote." Men gotta hold something.

The same commercial came on at each break during the Princess Bride. Dad would try to mute it but we wanted to watch it. It was a young man tossing pebbles at a second floor window. A woman comes to the window and thinks he's trying to romance her but he's really trying to knock down the box of crackers that's resting on the window sill. When he finally does and the woman realizes she was tricked, she drops a flower pot at his feet. Very funny. We still watch the taped version that Dad made for us just to see the guy throw the pebbles at the window.

Now watch Stardust and tell me that it's possible it's a remake of Princess Bride since it's remotely possible that Dad wrote to somebody in Hollywood a few years ago and said, "Hey, my son, Leonardo, likes movies with guys throwing rocks at windows. Why don't you humor him?"

The Bucket List

2008-01-14T15:47:00.000-08:00

Saw the Bucket List in the theater last night. I had taken Peter to a snowboarding slope and instead of driving all the way home just to come back soon I stopped halfway at a suburban multiplex. Four bucks for a matinée. Not bad, but I do like to use the neighborhood theaters usually. I miss seeing most of my movies in the theater. There's a different experience. The sound, the size of the screen, the audience comments, and oddly enough, I really like to watch the credits for the names and for the fonts. It's an art form. Watching fonts, I mean.

My earliest theater memories are from when we lived in Maryland and I would go into Baltimore with Dad when he got the car serviced. For some reason, we always seemed to get there when the show was half over. We would go in, watch the last half and then stay for the next showing and watch the first half. I wonder if that accounts for why I tend to write somewhat inside out.

I saw Kathie's name on a movie credit list years ago. I don't remember what movie. It might have been a Western.

I do like to hear audience reactions. I saw Akeelah and the Bee in Augusta with Mom and Alan. The theater was full and we were the only white people. There was applause, not at the end of the movie, but at the end of a particular scene. I asked people in St. Paul who had seen it in a suburban theater (meaning no one but white people) if they heard any reaction. They said it was quiet. No clapping. Interesting difference that would not get noticed in Blockbusterland. Me? I clap for fonts.

When we lived in Portland, we would go to a neighborhood theater that showed mostly foreign or independent films. People would stay to the end just to clap when the symbol came up on the screen indicating a union projectionist. It was a highlight.

The Bucket List was not exactly a highlight, although it was funny to hear one older audience member comment on the number of younger people in the theater. I know which group everyone else falls into. The movie is definitely a tearjerker and very funny in places, but sillier in too many other places. I did like watching Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson act together. There now, I just gave Freeman top billing next to a white, male actor. Will it happen in the theater in my lifetime?

Nicholson isn't a big draw with the two resident teenage cynics, I mean critics. Well, maybe not. But Freeman is. They loved him as God and as the Voice in War of the Worlds. They also liked him in Glory. I like Freeman, too. Not so much Nicholson who seems to have the same roles in every movie.

The hospital scenes were meaningful to me. Not realistic, but in that I had just spent several days visiting with an elderly couple in the hospital while the husband was dying, I felt awed by how important end-of-life issues are.

movie marathon

2008-01-12T15:11:00.000-08:00

It’s a movie marathon—or as we like to say out here in toe-tapping, wide-stance airport men’s room-la-la-land—“The copper made me do it.”

Larry Craig needs to watch more movies. His excuses could use a little Hollywood edge.

Anyway, it was 30 below zero last week so all we could do was to watch the mailman deliver our little Blockbuster movies-by-mail and then sit back and veg out. No, wait. It was 30 above. Oh well. It’s easy to get mixed up here. But we still watched a lot of movies. Peter had his Ipod plugged in and Alan was still recuperating from his waterboarding accident.

First movie: Juno. I know it was still in the theater, but we saw it at matinee prices and at a neighborhood theater. Very funny movie. The boys loved it, too. Peter said the scenes in the high school were just like his school. The screenwriter is a woman who lived in the Twin Cities and wrote the screenplay from a local coffeeshop. It takes place in Minnesota but was shot in Canada, same scenery. Juno is the main character’s name and the name of a street 3 blocks from our house. It also has something to do with classic Greek mythology, too, according to the movie, but I just focused on how Romanesque it really is. And how I finally got to use some wisdom I learn from doing crosswords. She knows the neighborhood, just mixed up on Hera vs Juno. Or maybe that’s the way she meant to write it since she also mixed up Morgan Freeman with Denzel Washington.

Cute movie. Worth an afternoon. Good music.

Then the mailman came with the videos.

Talk To Me with Don Cheadle was a good movie. Based on Petey Greene who was a very influential radio host in Washington, DC, in the 60s through the 80s. Great way to see 1968 from a different perspective. Wonderful performance from Cheadle. Also Martin Sheen always does a good job. If you can, see him in the Dorothy Day Story. Moira Kelly plays Dorothy Day and Sheen is the priest.

Lots of swearing but might have been less than it really was when Petey Greene was on the air in Washington. I don’t remember him (maybe I was little young) but I do remember where I was when Dr. King was killed. Powerful scene in the movie.

An unfortunate result of the movie though is that it gives the impression that Petey Greene died without ever getting clean. In real life he was clean and sober and had a family years before dying of cancer. Also, according to a bio I read, his manager never reconciled with him in real life and the James Brown concert took place in Boston, not Washington. Strange reasons moviemakers have for changing things around.

The movie opens with James Brown’s It’s a Man’s World which I think was the first record I brought home when we lived in Damascus. It was a 45rpm. I played it in the living room to annoy everybody, but Mom and Dad ruined it when they said they liked the music. Parents! Of course, anybody who had Mississippi Fred McDowell records had to have some James Brown inside.

Then we watched Catch a Fire with Tim Robbins and Derek Luke. Powerful apartheid-era movie. I hadn’t read the description very well so I thought it was just another action movie that the boys would like. Robbins’ accent was hard to believe until I read a review later that said it was pretty good. He was powerful in Mystic River.

Derek Luke was also great. You have to see him in Pieces of April. One of my favorite movies especially with a pre-TC Katie Holmes.

For all the controversy that the African National Congress generated in pre and post-South Africa, this quote from the movie sums up my feelings:

“My children, when they speak if their father, they will say he was a man who stood up for what was right, a man who said he must do something now. What will your children say about you?”

The last movie was Paradise with an amazingly good Don Johnson and an always good Melanie Griffith along with Frodo as a ten year-old human. I thought this was a very well-done movie. I was drawn into it even though the main reason I had ordered it was to get movies with a female director. There’s a different perspective between us, unbelievably, and this movie brings out some of the best differences just in the things that get emphasized.

There was an interesting NYT article last December about the difference perspective means in the work of Alan Lomax and his folk music collecting.

“Mr. Work, the most eminent of the black folklorists, was not merely an acolyte of Mr. Lomax but clearly had ideas of his own. Where Mr. Lomax tended to treat black vernacular music as an artifact in need of preservation, Mr. Work sought to document it as it was unfolding. Thus on “Recording Black Culture,” instead of spirituals harking back to the 19th century, we hear febrile gospel shouting set to the cadences of what soon would become rhythm and blues and rock ’n’ roll.”

Thoughts on the Great Debaters and Mission Impossible

2008-01-02T20:13:00.000-08:00

I haven't seen The Great Debaters yet. It's in the theaters which means we can't afford it since we have to finish paying for the BIG TV. Of course the budget is almost balanced since we cancelled the gym membership. Stretch, 1, 2, 3, reach for the remote, Bend, 1, 2, 3, reach for the popcorn. It's a simpler life now.

I'd really like to see it in the theater. One less trip to the coffee shop should pay for it. We like Denzel Washington. I can't think of anything we've seen him in that wasn't at least worth the time.

The Great Debaters sounds like a good movie. A great and tragic story. Peter tried debate last year. There's Lincoln-Douglas debate which is civilised and policy debate which is a contact sport. Contact meaning the spit coming from the debaters mouths as they try to say as much as they can in 8 minutes. Peter did policy debate. The first time I saw it I almost ran out screaming. I would have except I had foolishly volunteered to be a judge which says something about how much it means at the novice level. He tried varsity this year but I forbade it. Too much time committment from the parents. Now he has a part-time job in a bicycle repair shop where they hang out and listen to loud music and goodness knows what else. No real marketable skills but then I don't have to get up early to take him to practice.

We saw Mission Impossible III with TC Cruise. Putting aside the objections to TC and especially putting aside the objection to the PG-13 rating for a movie that opens with TC and his fiancée in bed together—where the hell is Scientology on the issue of morality? No wonder we're all going to die at the hands of Godless Liberal Communism when the only 3 people who can save us are all Scientologists. Free Entertainment coupon to anyone who name the third after TC and JT.

My real objection was that the critical moment when TC is tied up by the super bad guys his fiancée is being held captive near-by because the bad guys are really bad. They want TC to reveal a secret before releasing her but he has to know she's still alive. So the bad guy holds up his cell phone to TC's ear who promptly bites off bad guy's hand at the wrist and escapes to save the world.

Our dear 80 something year-old mother, sister, aunt, cousin, friend has a cell phone with technology so far advanced over the M-III franchise that if she had been the bad guy we might have been spared the possibility of a sequel to The Hustler. No, wait, that one came first.

But back to MI-III. Yes, Mom's phone has the feature that would have meant she could have held her arm far enough away from TC to avoid getting Scientology cooties.

She has a speaker phone.

A Lesson Before Dying

2008-01-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

We watched A Lesson Before Dying the other night. It's another good book by Ernest J. Gaines and the movie is almost as good and well worth watching after reading the book. The book gives more emotional impact in the writing; the movie gives it in the acting. Great acting. Don Cheadle plays the main role and is always good. His mother is played by Irma P. Hall who makes the movie worth watching just to see her performance. She was the character in The Ladykillers with Tom Hanks who was the target and the only reason to watch that movie. I thought the movie was basically a silly excuse to say the f-word as much as possible.

Cicely Tyson is the aunt and just as good and almost as old a character in another very good Gaines' book and movie, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.

If you've seen Dead Man Walking then you know part of the plot except Lesson Before Dying was done as a TV movie and doesn't have the splash of Hollywood major stars which I think makes it a better movie given the subject matter. This might be about a lesson before dying but who learns the lesson and what they learn about living is well-told. The moment that Jefferson gets a glimpse of the lesson is as meaningful as when Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker gets the word for water. It's not as dramatically filmed but still a great bit of acting. Except The Miracle Worker is almost iconic so probably not the best comparison but I've always wanted to use the word "iconic."

What about a remake of Marty with the cast from A Lesson Before Dying?

Amazing Grace

2007-12-28T20:25:00.000-08:00

Amazing Grace. Good movie. I love the song. It almost doesn’t matter who sings it. Even me, although people have left the room when I try. I especially love the line about “who saved a wretch like me.” John Newton must have felt like a wretch after being a slaveship owner and then writing this hymn. Which is my way of letting any certain liberal clergy who change “wretch” to “soul” (so people don’t have to lose self-esteem over feeling wretchedness) that, if you sing at my funeral, DO NOT change the words.

Amazing Grace is a beautiful movie about Wilbur Wilberforce, the eponymic ancestor of Bill Williams and John Johnson. Funny, though, I thought it was going to be about the song. It’s almost like reading the book and being disappointed in the movie. But a more appropriate title would have been too long, something like The Once Azygous Recusant Who Mistook His Uxorial Mate for a Modiste but Wound Up Having a Serotinus Experience.

If you understood that then thank Cindy and her Free Rice Internet game. Of course in the website game you get multiple choices so here’s a matching game:

Azygous noncomformist

Uxorial late-blooming

Serotinus hatmaker

Recusant single

Modiste wifely

Seriously, though, this was not a movie in which I could be found in an oscitant state. My prosencephalon was directed towards the screen at all times. Not bad for a PG movie. Which may have been the problem with why the movie did not do well in this country. All-English movies are hard enough for young, American men to sit through (not as bad as German comedies), but a little more violence and more than one heaving bosom might have made it more marketable. The movie was supposed to be more about Wilberforce than about slavery and slave ships didn’t carry slaves to England, anyway, but still it could have used a little less countryside if for nothing else than to get more younger people to see it. Which is my main point, not that I need to see blood or see more than one heaving bosom.

It deserves to be seen. I really don’t know what makes a great movie, but I do know what moves me. While though there are many controversies about Wilberforce’s role in abolishing slavery and about the underlying motive of the abolitionists, he still had a significant impact. The movie does mention that the West Indian slave uprisings were partly successful because the slaves thought there was support in England which makes an interesting historical note to present-day protests in our country. Some of the controversies seem to be very similar to the one between Booker Washington and W.E.B. DuBois about which direction the campaign for racial equality should move. Slow and gradual or more radical.

The movie also has a fascinating take on fair trade issues as well as a scene of a poster in a shop window stating that it sold only sugar from free men. It gives our present day effort to buy fair trade products a nice historical perspective. The woman he ends up marrying (a lot quicker in real life than the movie implies) lets him know that she stopped using sugar for her tea long ago. Remember eating California table grapes in the ‘60’s? I hope not.

The reviews said it was historically accurate with only a few errors: the tune Wilberforce uses to sing Amazing Grace wasn’t used until 50 years later and the breed of dog they used in the movie hadn’t come to England yet.

There’s a scene at the dinner table which I loved. Wilberforce has invited a group of abolitionists to his house. One says to him that he understands that Wilberforce is trying to decide between being a man of God or being someone who can change the world. A woman to his left turns to him and says, “We would like to suggest that you can do both.”

Another part of the movie that interested me was the issue of over-crowding of the slave ships which led to many deaths of slaves at sea. There’s a mark on the sides of all American merchant ships called the Plimsoll Mark. It’s the safe load line that indicates what level the ship can carry a load. Samuel Plimsoll started his campaign from the House of Commons just a few decades after Wilberforce started his in the same place. Reaction to Plimsoll by shipowners may have been more violent than the reaction to Wiberforce by sugar plantation owners. There was an effort a few years ago to repeal or weaken the Plimsoll Mark. It was unsuccessful at the time. The ship owners will probably try to bring it back. A movie about Plimsoll and his campaign to save the lives of merchant seaman would be a welcome event. Maybe Michael Apted would be interested. It wouldn’t be hard to make it PG-13

The Unrepentant Marxist website has a very different perspective on the movie and one well worth reading. Especially for his discovery of who bankrolled the movie.

Here’s his website address as well as a poem he includes.

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/02/18/amazing-grace

Sonnet, To Thomas Clarkson,
On the final passing of the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, March, 1807.

Clarkson! it was an obstinate Hill to climb:
How toilsome, nay how dire it was, by Thee
Is known,—by none, perhaps, so feelingly;
But Thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime,
Didst first lead forth this pilgrimage sublime,
Hast heard the constant Voice its charge repeat,
Which, out of thy young heart’s oracular seat,
First roused thee.—O true yoke-fellow of Time
With unabating effort, see, the palm
Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn!
The bloody Writing is for ever torn,
And Thou henceforth wilt have a good Man’s calm,
A great Man’s happiness; thy zeal shall find
Repose at length, firm Friend of human kind!

William Wordsworth

Thomas Clarkson is the long-haired abolitionist in the movie who recruits Wilberforce for the cause.

I had never heard of the actor or any of the cast except for Albert Finney. But then I never saw Pride and Prejudice and slept through the Fantastic Four at the drive-in when I took Peter and Alan last summer. Finney is John Newton and has a great line in the movie about only being a monk on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Drive-ins are great fun. Unless it’s the middle of summer and the first show isn’t until almost 10 which means the second show isn’t over until 2 and if the third show is the one you really wanted to see then it’s 5 a.m. before you get home. The boys and I go alone. Linda has better sense.

Has anyone seen the Pete Seeger movie? I didn’t get to it in time when it breezed through the Twin Cities and it’s not in video yet.

Marty

2007-12-24T08:03:00.000-08:00

Ernest Borgnine, in case any eight year-olds are interested, is the voice of Mermaid Man in SpongeBob SquarePants. He’s also the main actor in Marty, a 1955 movie I’ve wanted to see for a long time.

We watched it last night and thoroughly enjoyed it although the more cynical teenage child called it quits soon after it started. The less cynical teenager stayed with it but kept saying, “This is stupid.”

Marty is 34 and never married. Clara is 29 and never married. It’s a great love story as well as a sad look into how single men spent their time in 1955. It might be sadder if a remake was done now. Interestingly, the actress who played Clara, Betsy Blair, was married to Gene Kelly at the time. According to her bio, she had been on the blacklist and couldn’t find work. Gene Kelly threatened to stop making movies unless she got the part of Clara.

There were some strange parts. If you see it, let me know how believable Aunt Catherine’s age is when she tells her (hopefully) older sister. Also, a scene in the bar with three grandmotherly-aged (I hope) women sitting at the bar drinking beer. Not that I would know (anymore) but isn’t that strange?

Marty is a lovely movie. It won several Oscars in 1955, although I have little faith in the Oscars ever since Frances McDormand won Best Actress for Fargo and didn’t come on-screen until half-way through the movie. I thought she was good but strange. I thought Kristin Scott Thomas in the English Patient should have won, not only for superb acting, but also for the amount of work she had to do like stay on-screen the entire time. I’m not sure why that matters to me. It just struck me at the time as odd.

Speaking of the Oscars, the screenwriter of Marty, Paddy Chayefsky, is the one who told Vanessa Redgrave in the 1978 Oscars in response to her Zionist remark, "I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple 'Thank you' would have sufficed." (thank you, Wikipedia) Regardless of my feelings about what she said, I love a good comeback. Mine always come a day late.

But the best part? Ernest Borgnine looks an awful lot like Dad in his younger years.

Also, it was nice to see a movie from the ‘50’s where the main characters weren’t smoking the entire time. Clara never smoked and Marty was only shown smoking once or twice, although there were an awful lot of butts in the plate when they went to the coffee shop.

If you ever saw Back To the Future then you’ll remember that the main character’s name is Marty and he travels back to 1955. The speed he has to travel is 88mph which is how old Mickey Spillane was when he died last year. Now you have to watch Marty to see where Mickey Spillane comes in. Using Spillane in the movie was a great way to underscore how lonely the men were. When I sailed in the merchant marines many of us always had a copy of one of his books in our back pocket. We were lonely men. Desperate seamen. Les Miserable. Professors of pain.

Hey, Marty!

Favorite movies and thoughts

2007-12-24T08:01:00.000-08:00

Email response from Debbie

The Namesake is an incredibly good book, one I loved so much that I decided
not to see the movie.... love to all, Debbie

Reply from me:

I'm always amazed when I see a movie and don't even think where the story came from. I'll have to look for the Namesake book.

Which brings up the question of seeing a movie first versus reading the book first or not seeing the movie. I would have thought reading the book would always be an option until I tried reading Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I loved the movie and tried to read the book several weeks later. I could not make sense of it. Maybe save it for a summer book like I do for Faulkner books.

Coincidentally, the movie was directed by Liev Scribner who I loved in the Painted Veil. He must be a nice Jewish boy who happened to have been raised on the Lower East Side.

Jonathan Safran Foer's wife is Nicole Krauss who wrote the most beautiful book I've ever read, The History of Love. Linda and I read it in turn. I was most of the way done and on a hike in Zion National Park last spring break. The book was in the car and I could barely wait to get back to it. It's been optioned for a movie but no developments recently. Maybe for the best. I've reread it twice since and only recently found out the meaning of the girl's name. Now I'll read it again with that in mind.

How about a list from people of books they would not want to see a movie of and movies they wish they had not seen after reading the book?

I loved Beloved by Toni Morrison and was enthralled with the movie. I've been listening to the soundtrack lately and want to see the movie again. Maybe I'll read the book again first.

Terms of Endearment was a deeply emotional read (a long time ago) but I hated the movie mainly because Jack Nicholson (before he became big enough to play Al Gore) goes to New York. In the book his character goes to Los Angeles. That just made me give up.

There's a classic children's book called Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit. Deeply loved by most teachers and children who can put aside the dislike towards thinking about meaning. A movie came out a few years ago with Winona Ryder. The opening scene made me stand up and scream "There's no motorcycle in the book!" Then I sat down and hated the rest of it.

Why do I get so upset about what I think are unnecessary trivial inconsistencies between the movie and the book? Am I making too much of it? Or should I come to expect it? Or not see the movie? I usually like to see how a director interprets the book. There's often only part of the book that's emphasized which can make it another way to experience the book.

Linda and I just finished Atonement by Ian McKellen. Mainly because it was on the basement shelf after we had picked it up months ago on the half-price bin at Half-Price Books. When the movie came out with rave reviews we started reading it. It was a good read but didn't leave any great emotional mark on me. We'll probably see the movie.
It's a story of Jewish guilt on a grand scale. If you know the book you're laughing at me. But look at the title and the last name of the family. It's gotta to be a conspiracy. Askenazkic guilt at that.

I realize I probably made a bad joke in my last e-mail using Daniel Pearl's last words in a joking way. I am sorry.

Mighty Heart and Namesake

2007-12-24T07:59:00.000-08:00

We finally saw A Mighty Heart last night. Powerful, well-done. R-rated but mainly for the tension and explosive use of the f-word. Particularly by Angelina. I thought she played the part very well. All the controversy about her being "white" and having to darken her skin to pay a real-life woman who is bi-racial may have its point but then how do we find the exact match in any film? Brad Pitt was one of the producers which may have made a difference in casting.

We all know the outcome of the story and it isn't shown. The emphasis seemed to be on Jolie's role as Marianne Pearl. I remember reading that the two worked together on the film. The special features are worth seeing. Good background into the movie. I did read some criticism of the movie that it didn't show the radical Muslims radical enough. It did show what I thought was an amazing amount of cooperation from the Pakistani police in investigating the kidnapping, after a period of non-cooperation. In the follow-up features the Pearls make the point that we have to keep an open dialogue. Maybe that was the purpose in downplaying the radical in favor of showing the positive. Or I could just be terribly naive.

The man who plays the Pakistani captain (and is listed as Captain in the credits) is Irfan Kahn who played the father in a beautiful Indian movie called Namesake. We saw it in the theaters last year and it just came out in video. I almost enjoyed watching him in the Mighty Heart more than Angelina since he played such a loving character in Namesake. It was good to see him again and in another good role.

Namesake is about a newly-wed Indian couple who move from India to New York and have a child. Their son grows up and the movie gives us his story and his parents and some insight into Indian culture. We loved it. Female director and the actress who plays the mother is named Tabu.

Just as a side point, the end of the Daniel Pearl tragedy takes place around the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Adha which, this year, is next Thursday. I know because I actually looked on our school calendar. This is a milestone for me. Anyway, I have tried to teach something about it in class. Especially since half of my class is Muslim. I just made sure I didn't use any teddy bears to help tell the story.

Eid Al Adha is a commemoration of the sacrifice Abraham had to make. In case you're confused, too, remember in Islam it's Ishmael who gets taken up the mountain and has nightmares the rest of his life about his father and a knife.

Unfortunately, we had our school carnival last week and another teacher and I helped out at the duck pond. We give out cheap trinkets that we get donated and have a huge carbon footprint. We also have a fair-sized Muslim student population. After the carnival, I happened to turn over one of the cheap donated trinkets. In small letters it said, "Jesus loves you."

My last words were, "I am a Jew." "But it's the goyim's fault."

Painted Veil

2007-12-24T07:56:00.000-08:00

We finally saw The Painted Veil the other night. Beautiful movie, scenery and acting.
I had tried to avoid it when it first came out in the theaters. Linda had gotten free tickets and wanted to go but I said, "It's a movie about two unhappy people who move to a village in China where everyone is dying of cholera. Why would I want to go?" But of course it's about much more and really is much more uplifting than it sounds.

The scenery almost upstages the acting especially if your TV screen is big enough. But the acting is good, too.
Edward Norton is great and looks like Stan Laurel with a straight face. This is a compliment since I always thought Laurel was the redeeming feature of his Hardy partner with the persistent Hitler mustache. If you're ever in Augusta, you might want to see what a once-major shopping mall looks like when it's been vacant for 20 years (Regency Mall, amazingly dreary history), or visit a museum focusing on Oliver Hardy in his birthplace of Harlem, Georgia, about 20 miles out of Augusta.

Naomi Watts is wonderful and almost made me forget she took Fay Wray's place in a movie I've tried to forget. Even our boys, 10 and 12 at the time didn't care for it.

One of the best scenes, for me, was when Liev Schrieber enters. He played the very evil son in the remake of The Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington. A great movie. I hadn't seen him since that movie and when he comes on in The Painted Veil I got a wonderful sense that something very complicated was going to develop. He's also the real-life partner of Naomi Watts if that makes any difference in what happens next.

There's a scene with Norton and Watts after they've been in the cholera village for a while and Watts has started helping the Catholic nuns at their orphanage. She tells Norton how inspired she is by the nuns' work with the orphans. Norton says yes but they aren't all orphans and that the nuns take them from families or pay them in order to raise them as Catholic. Very meaningful in light of the recent uproar in Sudan when the French charity tried to airlift the children that they said were orphans. The last I heard was that no one could document whether or not they were orphans and that they looked too well-fed to have been mistreated. Then an African leader was quoted as saying that there aren't any orphans in Africa since all children are raised by the village.

This movie is a remake of a 1930's film with Greta Garbo which I'm anxious to see. Also, a 1950's movie, The Seventh Sin, is the same story. Also with good reviews but no Garbo.

The title of the movie comes from this poem by Percy Shelley and helped me appreciate the movie much more after I read it about 20 times.

" Lift not the painted veil . . ."

Percy Shelley, 1818

Lift not the painted veil which those who live

Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,

And it but mimic all we would believe

With colours idly spread, --- behind, lurk Fear

And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave

Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.

I knew one who had lifted it --- he sought,

For his lost heart was tender, things to love,

But found them not, alas ! nor was there aught

The world contains, the which he could approve.

Through the unheeding many he did move,

A splendour among shadows, a bright blot

Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove

For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

If you listen closely, towards the end, you'll hear Edward Norton refer to the dog that died. This is the poem he was referring to.

An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog

Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man,
Of whom the world might say
That still a godly race he ran,
Whene'er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,
When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound,
And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad and bit the man.

Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wondering neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.

The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.

Oliver Goldsmith
d. April 4, 1774, London

Enchanted

2007-12-24T07:50:00.000-08:00

Friday night we went to the movies. It’s great having a soon-to-be eight year-old along as it lessens the discussion time over what movie to see.

Enchanted

Funny, sweet, subtle sex (if a gorgeous woman has just gotten out of the shower and wraps herself in a towel then it's unlikely she’s wearing anything else, so when she lands on top of Patrick Dempsey and straddles him on the floor there is something going on or up). Which means that if Disney can dumb down Cinderella then it can dumb down sex.

Political spoiler: The New York Times published an article several days later describing the terrible conditions in India where many of New York’s UTILITY-hole covers are made. It’s unlikely that Disney used fair trade UTILITY–hole covers in the movie. Although it was not unnoticed by concerned and observant movie-going liberals that Susan Sarandon’s UTILITY-hole cover blew off and smashed the giant Times Square Coke sign Edward Abbey-style. Yeah for Disney’s anti-corporate message. Whoop, whoop. If only the NYT knew what those round things are called in these times.

Enchanted sure tried to hit most of the cliched characters: one very excited, very butch gay guy, a Jew as evidenced by the mezuzah on the apartment door and seen only by the truly observant (and played by Judy Kuhn who may well be Jewish and who was one of the Disney princesses to have cameos -- she sang the Pochohantas role), and some ethnic characters (although I think they were the animated creatures). Also, John Travalto's sister was in it but she's not a cliche although he might be by now.

Good movie for girls, boys, less-cynical adults. Even our 13 year-old Alan liked it when Linda took him.

We just rented a a fairy tale more for adults:

Celestial Clockwork

A Venezuelan, French, Spanish movie that uses the Cinderella story in a cute, funny way and tries to be in the Magical Realism genre of 100 Years of Solitude. It's unrated and the review said it had no sex or violence but that's by Venezuelan standards. Plenty of drug use and gay camaraderie. It starts off in Caracas and then moves to Paris which I only know because I looked it up on IMBD. We ordered it from the Blockbuster DVD-by-mail service.

	Webster's Online Dictionary with Multilingual Thesaurus Translation
	English Non-English

Movie reviews for Mom

A Serious Man

Murder in the First (1995)

The Soloist (2009)

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)

The Edge of Love (2008)

July 5 is the birth anniversary of Cl...

Seven Pounds (2008)

More Virgin Spring

Guilt and Rebirth

The Life of David Gale (2003)

Changeling (2008)

June 19th

La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (...

The Way We Were (1973)

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

Quickie time

The Arrowhead

Quiz Show

Defending Your Life (1991)

Slumdogs

Holes

Before Sunset, Godfather I, II, III

Dogma

Six Degrees of Separation

Even more

Nights in Rodanthe

Evan Almighty

McCabe and Mrs. Miller

Lotsa Movies

Hancock, Dark Knight

Hence the just announced winning entry:

“Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.’”

Back from vacation

All Shall Be Restored

Indiana Jones, Zohan, Great Debaters

There Will Be Blood

Battle of Algiers

Cold Mountain

War Dance, Blue State, Starting Out in the Evening

John Q, Requiem for a Dream, Death at a Funeral

August Rush

The Defiant Ones

Kite Runner

Lonely movies

Edith Sparrow

Padam Padam

The Frisco Kid

Beloved and Killer of Sheep

Mishmash messiahs

Once

Golden Door

The Searchers

Stardust

The Bucket List

movie marathon

Thoughts on the Great Debaters and Mission Impossible

A Lesson Before Dying

Amazing Grace

If you understood that then thank Cindy and her Free Rice Internet game. Of course in the website game you get multiple choices so here’s a matching game:

Azygous noncomformist

Uxorial late-blooming

Serotinus hatmaker

Recusant single

Modiste wifely

The reviews said it was historically accurate with only a few errors: the tune Wilberforce uses to sing Amazing Grace wasn’t used until 50 years later and the breed of dog they used in the movie hadn’t come to England yet.

The Unrepentant Marxist website has a very different perspective on the movie and one well worth reading. Especially for his discovery of who bankrolled the movie.

Here’s his website address as well as a poem he includes.

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/02/18/amazing-grace

Sonnet, To Thomas Clarkson,On the final passing of the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, March, 1807.

Thomas Clarkson is the long-haired abolitionist in the movie who recruits Wilberforce for the cause.

Drive-ins are great fun. Unless it’s the middle of summer and the first show isn’t until almost 10 which means the second show isn’t over until 2 and if the third show is the one you really wanted to see then it’s 5 a.m. before you get home. The boys and I go alone. Linda has better sense.

Has anyone seen the Pete Seeger movie? I didn’t get to it in time when it breezed through the Twin Cities and it’s not in video yet.

Marty

Favorite movies and thoughts

Mighty Heart and Namesake

Painted Veil

Sonnet, To Thomas Clarkson,
On the final passing of the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, March, 1807.