Lonely movies

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.

Next:

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.

Next:

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...