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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

The Frisco Kid

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.