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.
© Translation: 2004, Marcia Lee Falk From: The Spectacular Difference Publisher: Hebrew Union
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