Movies | dual personalities

October 1, 2018

Release one leaf at break of day*

by chuckofish

I watched 21 Jump Street over the weekend, and, as usual, I laughed.

You know that I detest vulgarity, but there is something about this particular avalanche of vulgarity that always cheers me up. I couldn’t say why exactly. It must be Channing Tatum in AP Chemistry.

I also got to see the wee babes when I went to cheer on the boy at the Pedal the Cause bicycle race on Sunday.

They enjoyed running around on a hot morning waiting for him to cross the finish line.

And they were proud of him when he did! I was too!

I had a good weekend puttering around. I also read quite a bit of Alistair McCall Smith’s 18th book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, The House of Unexpected Sisters. This suited me just fine. Precious Romotswe and I have always been on the same page.

Mma Romotswe was usually very even-tempered. She rarely allowed matters to rile her, and only very occasionally expressed a strong opinion. She could see the world as others saw it–she understood if people took a different view of things–but there were limits, and Mma Potokwane had just described one of them. “These people,” she said, with a note of irritation creeping into her voice, “what are they thinking of? They spend all their time criticizing the good things we have–the old Botswana morality, for example…but what do they say should be put in their place? They have nothing to offer, Mma. They say that life will be better if we get rid of our traditions, but what if we did that, all that would come would be selfishness, Mma. It would be every person for himself, or herself. People would forget about other people because there would be nothing to bind them together; none of the memories, songs, greetings, or customs that make people into a nation. We would have plenty of shiny cars, Mma–plenty of Mercedes-Benzes–but inside we would be as empty as an ant-hill…

And now it is October!

*Robert Frost, from “October’

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September 10, 2018

“For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert…”*

by chuckofish

It rained most of the weekend and I stayed in and recuperated from a hectic week and the flu. Indeed, I have no pictures of semi-exciting adventures and/or adorable wee babes since they stayed home and did the same. Instead I read the new Longmire book which arrived in the mail on Friday.

It did not disappoint.

I did get out of the house long enough to go to church on Sunday and it was nice to get back into the old routine. The OM and I went to Steak ‘N Shake for lunch afterwards. I picked up the house and did laundry. Since the temperature had fallen into the 70s I tried to do some yard work, but after 15 minutes I had strained my back, so I quit and retreated to Longmire.

We watched a good movie, which I found scrounging around on Amazon Prime, called Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing & Charm School (2005). Directed by Randall Miller, it stars Robert Carlyle and John Goodman and features a host of semi-has-been actors like Melissa Tomei, Mary Steenburgen, Sean Astin, Sonia Braga, Donnie Wahlberg, Ernie Hudson, etc., who were all excellent.

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I really liked it!

“Dance is a very powerful drug, if embraced judiciously; to reap its rewards, one must shoulder its challenges with intrepid countenance.” Frank Keene, a grieving baker in a near catatonic state, happens on a car accident. The loquacious and insightful victim, Steve Mills, is on his way to an appointment in Pasadena with a years-ago acquaintance; he asks Frank to go in his place. It’s a dance class. Frank goes, to find Steve’s friend. The story moves back and forth [between] Steve’s childhood, the scene of the accident, and the aftermath of Frank’s first Lindy hop. (IMDB)

It is rare these days to see a movie devoid of vulgarity, violence and political statements. It is just a good, uplifting story about real people. Give it a try–you’ll be glad you did!

*Isaiah 35:6

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September 7, 2018

“For the good old American life: For the money, for the glory, and for the fun… mostly for the money”*

by chuckofish

Did you hear that Burt Reynolds died? He was 82. We forget what a huge star he was back in the day. In 1977, for instance, Smokey and the Bandit was second only to Star Wars on the list of top-grossing movies.

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It was hard not to like him. And check out those guns, man.

Screen Shot 2018-09-06 at 2.48.45 PM.png What is your favorite Burt Reynolds movie? Personally I was always a fan of 100 Rifles (1969) starring the unbeatable trio of James Brown, Raquel Welsh and BR.

I also liked W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975) and The Longest Yard (1974). Maybe we can dig one up and watch tonight. Of course, there’s also the classic Don Williams song called “If Hollywood Don’t Need You” that mentions ol’ Burt in the chorus:

Oh, and if you see Burt Reynolds would you shake his hand for me
And tell ol’ Burt I’ve seen all his movies
Well, I hope you make for big time, I hope your dreams come true
But if Hollywood don’t need you, honey, I still do

Listen to it and toast ol’ Burt, won’t you?

Into paradise may the angels lead thee; and at thy coming
may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy
city Jerusalem.

*Bandit, Smokey and the Bandit

3 Comments

September 4, 2018

Postcards from a long weekend

by chuckofish

Daughter #1 breezed in on Friday night and stayed until Monday morning–such a treat! Per Friday’s blogpost, we watched The Odd Couple and enjoyed it thoroughly. Later in the weekend we watched McClintock! (1963) which I had not seen in forever, due to it usually only being available in terrible pirated form. But you can see it on Amazon Prime now in all its widescreen glory and it is worth it. One of the top-grossing films of 1963, it is John Wayne as John Wayne surrounded by familiar faces. Everyone has a lot of fun and there is a fight in a mud pit. Maureen O’Hara is on hand to be willful and stubborn and ultimately she gets spanked (as does Stephanie Powers on an earlier occasion) and everyone cheers.

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We also did some estate sale-ing…

Needlepoint rescue of the week

…and local shopping and had lunch at the Women’s Exchange. We searched the house for some lost counted cross-stitch pattern books and never found what we were looking for, but we unearthed a few gems. We also made a spontaneous trip to the STL Zoo to see the new-ish bear pits. It was probably not a great idea considering it was the Labor Day weekend, but we battled the crowds and found a place to park (a mile away) and visited said pits. Sorry, I don’t have a picture of the new Grizzly bears. They were large and scary, but not as scary as the polar bear who is huge…

We rode our beloved zoo train around…

and even took an obligatory selfie…which I will not share because it is truly heinous.

The wee babes and their parents came over on Sunday and even though they were sniffly and a bit under-the-weather, they ran us ragged.

Lottie loves this little chair…

…but the stairs are just the right size for sitting and thinking and taking a moment…

(I wasn’t kidding about the runny nose)

The OM stayed out of the fray per usual…

And we did have a dance party!

Dance Party!

After daughter #1 went home to COMO, I did laundry and picked up the house and caught up on the phone with daughter #2 and ordered my Christmas cards online. Don’t kid yourself–it’ll be here before we know it!

Today I am back at the salt mine for a busy and stressful week. I’m taking it one day at a time.

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August 31, 2018

“Don’t point that finger at me unless you intend to use it.”*

by chuckofish

Woohoo, three-day weekend coming up!

I have no Big Plans but daughter #1 will be driving in from mid-MO.

We’ll barbecue, because…

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Maybe we’ll have a dance party…hopefully with the wee babes!

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No doubt we’ll watch a movie…

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Maybe we should watch a Neil Simon movie and toast him since he died this week at 91. The Odd Couple (1968) is always a solid choice and funnier than you remember.

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I can’t take it anymore, Felix, I’m cracking up. Everything you do irritates me. And when you’re not here, the things I know you’re gonna do when you come in irritate me. You leave me little notes on my pillow. Told you 158 times I can’t stand little notes on my pillow. “We’re all out of cornflakes. F.U.” Took me three hours to figure out F.U. was Felix Ungar!

Murder By Death (1976) is also quite funny–a satire of all those Agatha Christie-type mysteries featuring all the famous detectives you can think of. As I recall, David Niven and Maggie Smith steal the show as “Dick and Dora Charleston”.

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We can all relate to Truman Capote’s character, Lionel Twain, when he says:

You’ve tricked and fooled your readers for years. You’ve tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense. You’ve introduced characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before. You’ve withheld clues and information that made it impossible for us to guess who did it. But now, the tables are turned. Millions of angry mystery readers are now getting their revenge. When the world learns I’ve outsmarted you, they’ll be selling your $1.95 books for twelve cents.

[Here’s an interesting article about Neil Simon and his influence on American society.]

Well, whatever you choose to do this long weekend, I hope you have a good one! Take a real break from your work and remember:

When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable. In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes. And the more we allow our accomplishments — the results of our actions — to become the criteria of our self-esteem, the more we are going to walk on our mental and spiritual toes, never sure if we will be able to live up to the expectations which we created by our last successes. In many people’s lives, there is a nearly diabolic chain in which their anxieties grow according to their successes. This dark power has driven many of the greatest artists into self-destruction.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

*Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple

5 Comments

August 28, 2018

#Momhasanopinion

by chuckofish

I really hate reviews like the one of the re-make of Papillon in the Wall Street Journal where the reviewer manages to insult the current actor (Charlie Hunnam) and the original one (Steve McQueen) both without really knowing what he’s talking about.

Steve McQueen…was among the last of a species cultivated by classic Hollywood, an icon of cool and a performer who enjoyed an ineffable on-screen charisma that translated into an intimacy with his audience—they were all in on this joke called movies…McQueen was the furthest thing from a Method actor. In fact, he wasn’t even considered a great performer…But his particular kind of stardom made it possible to actually enjoy something like “Papillon,” with its bleakness and violence, its constant reversals of fortune, and the injustice at its center.

As if it was his “particular kind of stardom” that made him good, made him watchable. As if the system did it. The system was long gone when McQueen came to town.

Anyway, someone in Hollywood got the bright idea that Charlie Hunnam could be the new Steve McQueen, and they do have some things in common: handsome blond looks and the ability to ride a motorcycle. But it is a disservice to Hunnam, whom I really like, because let’s face it, there is no one like Steve. Let Charlie be Charlie.

Screen Shot 2018-08-27 at 5.31.02 PM Re-making Steve McQueen movies is like like trying to re-make John Wayne movies. It is a Bad Idea.

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But what really triggers me is when reviewers label Steve as the “King of Cool” as if that was something he tried to do. He just was cool, something those nerds don’t have a clue about. Hollywood didn’t make him cool. And, hey, he was a good actor! “In fact, he wasn’t even considered a great performer”–give me a break.

We know better.

Few things trigger me, but, as my children know, this is one of them.

8 Comments

August 20, 2018

Come, holy Comforter

by chuckofish

…thy sacred witness bear in this glad hour:

thou, who almighty art, now rule in every heart,

and n’er from us depart,

Spirit of power

(Hymn #365)

I got a lot done at home this weekend. And you know, after such a busy week at work, it was nice to stay home and vacuum and put things away and gab on the phone. After church, I went to two estate sales (batting zero) and returned something at the mall.

We watched My Darling Clementine (1947) on Friday night

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(Henry Fonda was never better and is still the best Wyatt Earp in movies.)

and Run Silent, Run Deep (1958) on Saturday night.

Nobody says, “Dive! Dive!” better than Clark Gable.

I finished re-reading The Searchers by Alan Le May, poked around in the Memoirs of William Tecumseh Sherman, and started Glass Houses by Louise Penny.

The wee babes came over for dinner Sunday night. We hadn’t seen them in over two weeks!

As you can see, they were both obsessed with this antique chair, and vied to sit in it all night. After two days in pre-school/daycare, they are reading fluently.

All’s well in the world.

6 Comments

August 15, 2018

At the movies

by chuckofish

VICTOR LASZLO leading the patrons of Rick’s Cafe in the “Marseillaise” to drown out the Nazis’ “Wacht am Rhine” under the direction of Major Strasser—possibly that moment in Casablanca had as much impact on the World War II generation as the news of Pearl Harbor or the eloquence of Winston Churchill.

Or the African Americans in the Alabama courthouse gallery rising to their feet as Atticus Finch passes by below. Or Dolly Levi sashaying down the grand staircase of the Harmonia Gardens to find Louis Armstrong at the bottom radiant as the sun at noon. Or John Travolta lithe as a panther in his white suit and pompadour dancing in Brooklyn. Or Jimmy Stewart being bailed out by his friends in the last moments of It’s a Wonderful Life.

In a world where there are no longer books we have almost all of us read, the movies we have almost all of us seen are perhaps the richest cultural bond we have. They go on haunting us for years the way our dreams go on haunting us. In a way they are our dreams. The best of them remind us of human truths that would not seem as true without them. They help to remind us that we are all of us humans together.

–Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words

I agree with FB, don’t you? We all know those movie moments that haunt you and make you watch the same movie over and over, right? Sadly, I don’t think many people even know how to watch a movie anymore–not focused from beginning to end–giving it all it deserves. Well, I won’t go into that now, but here are some other moments like the ones Buechner describes. Unfortunately, most people nowadays haven’t seen a movie over twenty years old, but maybe you have…

I just watched The Searchers (1956) again for the umpteenth time. Definitely one of the greats. Iconic scenes abound. Here’s one.

Robin Hood (1938)–“I’ll organize a revolt…”

The Great Escape (1963)–“You’re the first American officer I’ve met…”

Life Is Beautiful (1997)–“Camp rules”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RAF87x23r4

The Professionals (1967)–“Lost causes”

My Darling Clementine (1947)–Sunday go to meeting

Awakenings (1990)–“The simplest things”

Ben-Hur (1959)–“No water for him!”

Chariots of Fire (1982) “Where does the power come from?”

I could go on…and on, but I will cease and desist. Turn up the sound, watch them all. You’ll be glad you did.

Oh, here’s one more: The World of Henry Orient (1964)–“Splitsing!”

7 Comments

July 27, 2018

Where the buffalo roam

by chuckofish

The weekend is upon us and we have several things to celebrate including the sixth anniversary of the boy and daughter # 3 on Saturday.

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We are babysitting so that they can go out to dinner. Keep the OM and me in your thoughts and prayers!

It is also the “National Day of the Cowboy,” which they celebrate with all due respect and in cowboy style at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

Screen Shot 2018-07-26 at 11.10.46 AM.png I wish I was there, but since I am not, I will have to celebrate the best I can by watching cowboy movies at home this weekend.

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I know you know who all these cowboys of the silver screen are, but in case you don’t, they are (from the top): John Wayne, Steve McQueen and Robert Preston, Viggo Mortensen, John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, Alan Ladd, Dean Martin, Clint Eastwood, and Jimmy Stewart. Who is your favorite?

I will also take this opportunity to toast one of my favorite ancestors, John Wesley Prowers, cattleman and pioneer, who was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1963.

Sounds like a good plan to me!

[Please say a little prayer for the wee laddie who is having some minor surgery today to fix his slightly crossed left eye.]

5 Comments

July 20, 2018

Back in the saddle again (and a little Friday vent)

by chuckofish

Today on the Episcopal calendar of saints, four American women who were pioneers in the struggle for black emancipation and for women’s rights are honored: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman. The date chosen for commemorating them is the anniversary of the Women’s Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19-20, 1848. These new additions are a result of the church’s work on the Lesser Feasts and Fasts revision, which includes an effort to increase the diversity of people held up as models. All very well and good.

My question is why choose Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who attempted to re-write the Bible as her own ‘Women’s Bible’–blasphemy to many–and Ms. Bloomer, who designed the pants that were named after her. Great.

Where is Susan B. Anthony? A Quaker by birth, she became over time more of a Unitarian, but she was no blasphemer. I would much rather recognize her today as a true saint than either Stanton or Bloomer. I would love to know what the thinking was behind these choices, but, then again, maybe I don’t want to know. My denomination disappoints me on a daily basis.

O God, whose Spirit guides us into all truth and makes us free: Strengthen and sustain us as you did your servants Elizabeth, Amelia, Sojourner, and Harriet. Give us vision and courage to stand against oppression and injustice and all that works against the glorious liberty to which you call all your children; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Anyway… it is Friday at last. I have a fun outing planned for Saturday with my BFFs. We’re driving to Mt. Vernon, IL to check out the antique malls there, which we noted as we drove south to Nashville, TN in June. We’re always on the lookout for new junk!

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