Movies | dual personalities

Today is the birthday of Lou Diamond Phillips, born Lou Diamond Upchurch in 1962. His American father was Scots-Irish/Cherokee and his mother Filipina, allowing him to play a wide range of ethnically varied characters.

LDP as the King of Siam

In case you were wondering–as I did–he was named after Marine legend Master Gunnery Sergeant Leland Sanford “Lou” Diamond (May 30, 1890 – September 20, 1951) who was revered as the classic “Gunny”–a tough, hard-fighting career Marine who served in the corps in the years from WWI through WWII. (Bonus point: Diamond was an Episcopalian.)

Isn’t that interesting? I think so too. Surprisingly, there has never been a movie made specifically about Lou Diamond, but his “type” is recognizable in many movies and in NCIS.

Fun fact #2: Lou Diamond Phillips was in the episode “Red Tape” from season three of Miami Vice (1987) in which Viggo Mortensen dies before the credits.

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Viggo and Lou play detectives about to get their gold shields, Eddie Trumbull and Bobby Diaz. Following standard operating procedure, they call Rico and Sonny for help executing a search warrant, unaware the residence door has been rigged with explosives until Trumbull dies. Annette Bening also has a tiny part in this episode.

Well, it might be time to unearth this classic episode and watch it tonight.

This is how my mind works. Have a good weekend.

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February 14, 2017

Love never ends

by chuckofish

Looking for a romantic movie to watch tonight? Good luck.

Here’s a list from Vanity Fair that isn’t terrible. It even includes some old movies, which most lists don’t. I don’t agree with a lot of it, but why quibble–although it’s difficult to validate any list which includes the dreadful An Affair to Remember (1957).

What amazes me is that the most romantic movie ever is not on it. What about The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland?

I sent this movie to daughter #2 and her fiancé so they could watch it together tonight. Nate is woefully ignorant when it comes to old movies–but think of what he has to look forward to!

Also missing from this list is Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)–I know I sound like a broken record, but c’mon. I saw this movie again recently and Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard are tops in this film.

Another movie which I re-watched recently that is surprisingly quite romantic is The Best Years of Their Lives (1946). All three of the returning G.I.’s have romantic storylines. There’s Myrna Loy and Frederick March as the reunited middle aged couple and there’s dreamy Dana Andrews realizing what a big mistake he made in his quickie war marriage, who finds true love with Teresa Wright. And then there’s poor Harold Russell, who has lost both of his hands in the war, discovering that his high school sweetheart Cathy O’Donnell still wants him.

BEST YEARS-16-L.jpg This is powerful stuff.

Well, to each his own. Maybe you will have something better to do than watch a romantic movie on Valentine’s Day! More power to you.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; ⁵it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. ⁷Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; ¹⁰but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. ¹³So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13)

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February 10, 2017

“Southstreet, give your testimony.”*

by chuckofish

I went to a funeral at our church yesterday. Joe was a real pillar of the church, a former vestryman, junior warden, senior warden, softball coach, scoutmaster–you name it, he did it. He was in church last Sunday, sitting as usual a few pews behind me, so when I heard the news on Monday, I was a little freaked out. He died on Sunday night in his recliner, watching an old movie. (John Wayne was his favorite.)

All three of his sons spoke lovingly of their dad before the service. All three are Eagle Scouts and active churchmen. Impressive. Joe was always there for them, “present” as they said; something that I’m afraid is rare these days.

For 40 years Joe and his wife had a party at their house every Christmas Eve after the children’s service at church for all the misfits at church who didn’t have family in town. We went to this party for over 10 years. Sometimes my children were slightly chagrined to be associated with some of the kids who were there–other misfits like us. But I know that now, from their more mature perspectives, they look back fondly on those Christmas Eves and on Joe who would talk to anybody–even awkward middle schoolers.

The church, of course, was packed for the memorial service–as one of his sons said, like Christmas or Easter! Of course it was. Joe had friends from high school, his college fraternity, work, volunteer work, scouts, and church. I held out until the last hymn–“Amazing Grace” with bagpipe accompaniment–and then wept openly. The boy was with me and he patted my shoulder. Joe, after all, had been at his Court of Honor and at his wedding. He knows they broke the mold with Joe.

But thankfully it’s Friday again! I am really looking forward to the weekend, aren’t you?

I get to see the wee babes who have been moved to another section (“the yellow side”) of the NICU and are down to 2% on their oxygen–practically room air! They are sleeping in open cribs and their parents can pick them up and hold them like regular babies now.

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Pretty exciting!

If you are trying to think of something good to watch this weekend, you might pick something written and/or directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909-1993) whose birthday is tomorrow. Among his films are The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), All About Eve (1950), Guys and Dolls (1955) and Cleopatra (1963).

guys-and-dolls-27443 You can’t go wrong there.

It is also the anniversary of the death of Henry Hathaway (1898-1985) who directed The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Legend of the Lost (1957), North to Alaska (1960), How the West Was Won (1962), Circus World (1964), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), True Grit (1969) and many others.

Can’t go wrong with Steve, but I may have to watch one of those John Wayne classics and raise a glass to Joe.

Into paradise may the angels lead you, Joe. At your coming may the martyrs receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem.

*Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls

3 Comments

February 3, 2017

Friday movie pick

by chuckofish

Tomorrow is the birthday of the famous character actor Nigel Bruce (1895–1953).

The second son of a baronet, Bruce served in WWI as a lieutenant in the 10th Service Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry. He was seriously wounded at the Battle of Cambrai (1917)and spent the rest of the war in a wheelchair. After the war, he went on the stage and then moved to Hollywood, becoming a leading member of the British film colony in Los Angeles where he was captain of the (mostly British) Hollywood Cricket Club.

Best known for portraying Dr. Watson in fourteen Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone,

he made 78 movies–many of them classics. He is one of those guys who is always turning up in favorite films.

My personal favorite is The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) starring Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon. Bruce played the Prince of Wales: “Why, damn me, Percy, you’re brainless, spineless, useless: But you do know clothes!”

I think I will toast Nigel Bruce tonight and watch The Scarlet Pimpernel, but you could watch The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Rebecca (1940), Lassie Come Home (1943) or any one of those Sherlock Holmes movies.

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They just don’t make ’em like Nigel Bruce anymore!

I should also note that February is ’31 Days of Oscar’ month at TCM, so check out their schedule for a particularly strong line-up of Academy Award-winning titles.

Have a great weekend!

2 Comments

February 2, 2017

Thursday chuckle

by chuckofish

Here are a few examples I found recently of movie posters that bear no relation whatsoever to the film they are allegedly marketing.

I mean seriously. Fort Apache (1948) takes place in the desert and was filmed in Monument Valley, Arizona. There are no Indians in canoes. And if there were canoes, John Wayne would know better than to stand up in one.

Are you kidding me? Words fail. “Men and women on the last frontier of wickedness”–if that’s what you were expecting, you were in for a big disappointment!

I wonder if this marketing method–i.e. blatantly wrong illustrations–ever worked.

Weird.

Have a good Thursday, or Friday eve, as we say in flyover land.

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January 19, 2017

Happy birthday, Mary, Dolly and Buffy!

by chuckofish

Can it be January 19th already? Zut alors! Readers of this blog may remember that this is the birthday of our dear mother, as well as Dolly Parton and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Truly a day to celebrate!

Here is a photo of our little mother holding one DP who is one-year old.

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I think my older brother (age 6) took the picture because 1) the look on our mother’s face and 2) the artful set-up of the snapshot, the empty garage taking a prime part of the photo.

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There are other snaps in this series taken by my mother of the baby in the stroller and of Cowboy Chris. But I’m betting my brother picked up the camera and said, “Let ME take a picture of YOU!”

Anyway, I’m glad he did.

Well, I plan to toast Mary, Dolly and Buffy tonight. (Drynuary turned out not to be a thing.) In their honor, I may watch one our mother’s favorite movies. Possibilities would be:

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Decisions, decisions…

In the meantime, here’s a little Bruce Spingsteen to brighten your day: O, Mary, don’t you weep no more…a rockin’ rendition of an old favorite.

Have a blessed day and never forget that pharaoh’s army got drowned.

4 Comments

January 16, 2017

Day by day

by chuckofish

Happy MLK Day and, if you are lucky enough to be home like I am, I hope you are enjoying your day off.

That’s ice on the trees…

In fact, this has turned out to be a very nice four-day weekend for me, because we had a “snow day” on Friday due to the ice storm here in flyover country. I stayed home for two days puttering around and re-organizing drawers and shelves and closets.

By Sunday morning the storm was pretty much over. I went to church and was surprised by how many people were there. The OM said they were probably stir crazy and just wanted to get out of the house. Well, maybe.

After church we went to lunch and then to the hospital to see the wee babes and their parents who were kangarooing as they do every day (even during the ice storm).

We watched Sully (2016) over the weekend and liked it a lot. Tom Hanks was just right as the remarkable pilot who landed the plane on the Hudson River without a single loss of life back in 2009. I think the movie could have used a little more backstory, but I won’t quibble. It was good.

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I cannot say the same for the much heralded Manchester By the Sea (2016) which I did not like.

Bad things happen in life, terrible things, but this movie seems to say that all of life is just a long, sad, hopeless journey and then you die. The characters in this movie are uniformly unable to express their feelings, much less talk without use of the F-word in every sentence. After the movie the OM and I both wondered what the writer/director was trying to say. I just didn’t get this movie.

Well, today I am going to enjoy my day off as the temperatures continue to climb and the ice melts. And I will continue to believe that life has meaning.

The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God’s things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak — even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys. We cannot live our lives constantly looking back, listening back, lest we be turned to pillars of longing and regret, but to live without listening at all is to live deaf to the fullness of the music. Sometimes we avoid listening for fear of what we may hear, sometimes for fear that we may hear nothing at all but the empty rattle of our own feet on the pavement. But be not affeard, says Caliban, nor is he the only one to say it. “Be not afraid,” says another, “for lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” He says he is with us on our journeys. He says he has been with us since each of our journeys began. Listen for him. Listen to the sweet and bitter airs of your present and your past for the sound of him.

–Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey

4 Comments

January 9, 2017

“Memory is a strange thing”*

by chuckofish

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Thirty years ago: the boy, suitably attired in black tie with his Auntie DP at Christmas.

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Yesterday: the boy with little Lottie in the NICU. Ah, sunrise, sunset…

I spent my weekend catching up at home, putting everything back in pre-holiday order. But, without fail, there is always something I cannot find and sure enough, this year was no different. C’est la vie. I am coping.

We also celebrated daughter #3’s Epiphany birthday and had a ~~gourmet~~ meatloaf meal, because she is so easy to please. Then we watched 3 Godfathers. Is she not the best daughter-in-law ever?

The OM and I also watched a couple of other movies this weekend. Our favorite was Hell or High Water (2016) starring Chris Pine and Ben Foster as two modern-day bank-robbing brothers set on saving the family ranch. Jeff Bridges plays the Texas Ranger bent on catching them.

Directed by the unknown-to-me Scotsman David Mackenzie and with a screenplay by actor/writer Taylor Sheridan (he was in Sons of Anarchy), it gets high fives from me. I appreciated its excellent, intelligent screenplay featuring interesting, relatable characters and a plot that kept me guessing. The acting was top-notch. My only complaint was the sound mixing, which like most modern movies, stunk–i.e. it is frequently difficult to understand what people are saying. And what they were saying was worth hearing, for once.

We also saw Arrival (2016), which was also very good and thought-provoking too. It stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. It is science fiction, however, and not really my thing. My DP really liked it though and recommended it highly to me, so I pass that along.

I will also note that we saw La La Land (2016) last week, which has received rave reviews and a lot of hype. Directed by newcomer Damian Chazelle and starring the appealing Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, it is about two young people struggling to make it in L.A. I didn’t buy any of it.

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Not to be harsh, but I found it amateurish and forgettable in every way. Rent Singin’ In the Rain if you want to see a good musical.

P.S. You can bet that La La Land will win all the Academy Awards this year (as it swept the Golden Globes), and that is why I no longer watch the show.

*Dr. Louise Banks in Arrival

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January 6, 2017

“Winter is coming”*

by chuckofish

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We had our first snow of the season Wednesday night. Of course, the local media had everyone whipped up into a frenzy of anticipation, some schools even closing preemptively the night before.

We received half an inch or so. Most of the heavier snow slid south of our flyover region. Par for the course.

Personally, I was fine with the half inch. I have a lot to do this weekend and it doesn’t all involve staying home and wrapping things in tissue paper as I undeck the halls.

I also intend to spend some more time with the books I received this Christmas and which I have already been enjoying.

I also am reading Just Kids by Patti Smith, which I bought for myself. In this National Book Award-winning memoir, Patti offers a fascinating glimpse into her life and relationship with the controversial artist/photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies.

I always kind of liked Patti Smith and now I know why. She may have been the queen of punk in her day, but she is a deep soul.

“I understood that what matters is the work: the string of words propelled by God becoming a poem, the weave of color and graphite scrawled upon the sheet that magnifies His motion. To achieve within the work a perfect balance of faith and execution. From this state of mind comes a light, life-changed.”

I highly recommend her book.

Here are some more great suggestions for reading material in 2017.

And don’t forget that today is the feast of Epiphany, which means it is time to watch 3 Godfathers (1948), John Ford’s classic film about three men on the lam with a baby in the old West.

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I think we will enjoy it even more than usual this year…

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Have a great weekend!

*George R.R. Martin

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December 5, 2016

Look toward the east, O Jerusalem*

by chuckofish

Call him a stick-in-the-mud, a dinosaur, a fusty throwback, but indeed, jumping into the fray the day after Halloween was akin to hitting, and holding, high C for a couple of months, while a bit of patience saved Christmas for Christmas morning and kept the holy day fresh and new.

I re-read Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon over the weekend and enjoyed it thoroughly. Although I agree with Father Tim about getting ahead of ourselves in regards to the Christmas season, we did go ahead as usual and buy our trees. They’re not up yet–they’re in the garage for now. I’ll try to get the little one up in the dining room this week, but I’m not going to stress about it. At least I don’t have a bad cat to deal with like the boy does.

In between getting organized for Christmas, doing laundry and sundry household tasks, and going to a baby shower for daughter #3,

I watched Donovan’s Reef (1963)–a film which the New York Times described at the time as “sheer contrivance effected in hearty, fun-loving, truly infectious style.” I would agree with that assessment whole-heartedly.

It takes place at Christmas and includes an amusing Polynesian Christmas pageant, so I count it as a Christmas movie.

Directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Lee Marvin, it is heavy-handed in the Irish humor department, but if you’re in the right mood, it can really hit the spot. (Shot in Hawaii, the scenery is beautiful as well.) I was in the mood.

I also went to our Advent Service of Lessons and Carols on Sunday night at church. I read lesson five, from Baruch:

Look toward the east, O Jerusalem, and see the joy that is coming to you from God…

We sang quite a few of my favorite Advent hymns and the choir sang and the bell choir played. Then I went home and ate chili, which the OM had made, and we watched Gregory Peck as King David in the technicolor extravaganza David and Bathsheba (1951).

Despite GP’s awesome presence, it was pretty bad and not surprisingly, as it is based on one of the Bible’s more sordid stories.

So back to Christmas movies already.

*Baruch 4:36

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dual personalities

Category: Movies

February 17, 2017

Fun facts to know and tell

by chuckofish

February 14, 2017

Love never ends

by chuckofish

February 10, 2017

“Southstreet, give your testimony.”*

by chuckofish

February 3, 2017

Friday movie pick

by chuckofish

February 2, 2017

Thursday chuckle

by chuckofish

January 19, 2017

Happy birthday, Mary, Dolly and Buffy!

by chuckofish

January 16, 2017

Day by day

by chuckofish

January 9, 2017

“Memory is a strange thing”*

by chuckofish

January 6, 2017

“Winter is coming”*

by chuckofish

December 5, 2016

Look toward the east, O Jerusalem*

by chuckofish