dual personalities

Tag: movies

July 31, 2023

“He wasn’t shot with no fawty-one Colt.”*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Hope you managed to keep cool. We had more storms and this time the electricity at our house went out for an hour and a half! I was just packing a bag to go to daughter #1’s house, when it came back on. Such drama–these days we are lost without our precious electricity.

Poor daughter #2 and famille had their air conditioning go out on Saturday and had to wait all day to get it fixed. I am sympathetic, but back in my day, we didn’t have central air conditioning at all and we had to wait all summer for relief. We are very spoiled now, that’s for sure. We would go to the movies to sit for a few hours in the AC. Grocery shopping was also a diversion!

Anyway, c’est la vie. Saturday morning I went to a flower arranging workshop at church led by the floral director at Schnucks Markets. I learned a lot!

I like the fact that the flowers at our church are always done by volunteers. There is no “the flowers are given (i.e. paid for) to the glory of God and in thanksgiving for/in memory of by so-and-so” announcement in the bulletin. It is just an anonymous gift. But we in the flower guild do our best (for the glory of God) and every week the arrangements are very different.

After church on Sunday there was a reception for a lady who is retiring after working there for 24 years–one of those unsung women who make everything run smoothly in the office and, if they are lucky, are appreciated for being “hard-working” and “organized”. Lois was also lauded for her sincere faith. Well, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23).

I watched a really good movie–Intruder in the Dust (1949) based on William Faulkner’s novel, which is basically a mystery story set in the deep South. It is the story of Lucas Beauchamp, an independent, land-owning black man, who is unjustly accused of the murder of a white man, Vinson Gowrie. Through the help of two teenage boys, the town lawyer and an elderly white lady, who figure out who the real murderer is, he is able to prove his innocence.

I had not seen this movie in many years. It held up. Shot entirely on location in Oxford, Mississippi, it has an air of authenticity that the backlot never would have achieved. The actors are all solid. The screenplay by Ben Maddow sticks to Faulkner’s book. The Director Clarence Brown, who grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee and apparently knew something about the South, was not even nominated for an Oscar for this movie, but he won the British Academy Film Award for it. (Brown holds the record for the most Academy Award for direction nominations–6–without a win.)

Not surprisingly, the film failed at the box office, not even earning back its negative costs according to studio records. There is, after all, no romance in this movie; there are no pretty girls. There is no real action to speak of–only the threat of action (a lynching). There are tense moments, to be sure, for our heroes as they ride around at night and dig up a dead body and, when they get the sheriff on board with their plan, dig the body up again. But American audiences were not interested.

It is said, however, that William Faulkner himself was pleased with the film and Ralph Ellison wrote that of the whole cycle of race-based movies released in 1949, Intruder in the Dust was “the only film that could be shown in Harlem without arousing unintended laughter, for it is the only one of the four in which Negroes can make complete identification with their screen image.”

Check it out. It’s worth a viewing. Then read the book!

“Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash: your picture in the paper nor money in the bank either. Just refuse to bear them.”

*William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust

4 Comments
July 28, 2023

Just slip on a banana peel, the world’s at your feet*

by chuckofish

Well, the first sleepover at Mamu and Pappy’s house is in the books.

Since the wee twins are not quite old enough to be introduced to our classic film favorites in their entirety, daughter #1 and I had the genius idea that we would introduce them to some favorite movie dance/song sequences from movie musicals. Their favorite was “Make ‘Em Laugh” from Singin’ in the Rain (1952):

Who can blame them?

We also watched the square dance/barn-raising scene from Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954), “Everything’s Up-to-Date in Kansas City” from Oklahoma! (1955), “Getting to Know You” from The King and I (1956), and the rehearsal scene from Viva Las Vegas (1964). When we watched “Do Re Mi” from The Sound of Music (1965) Lottie said, “They keep saying my name!”–Do re mi fa so la ti do! She was not wrong.

We also showed them the Moses parting the Red Sea sequence from The Ten Commandments (1956) because they love The Prince of Egypt (1998). They thought it was pretty cool, but were non-plussed to see the Pharaoh was also the King of Siam. Somehow this does not compute.

Anyway, all parties lived through the night.

*”Make ‘Em Laugh” by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown

3 Comments
July 25, 2023

How does it feel?

by chuckofish

Well, it’s the last week of July and the summer continues to rush by in a blur.

If you want to feel really old, I’ll remind you that today is the 58th anniversary of the day Bob Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. He was 24 years old. Dylan was said to have “electrified one half of his audience, and electrocuted the other”. He didn’t return to the festival for 37 years.

Dylan took exception with the people who called him a traitor. He later said: “These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you’ve been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equatable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil m-f-ckers can rot in hell.”

Today is also the birthday of the artist Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) who lived a long, productive and successful life. He was married once and had four children. He was a Quaker. During his career, he produced almost 900 pieces of art. 

He lived in New Hampshire where he belonged to the Cornish Art Colony…

His painting Daybreak became the most popular art print of the 20th century. Supposedly one in four U.S. households owned a print of the neoclassical landscape with two nymphs in the foreground.

We also toast Walter Brennan (1894-1974) on his birthday. Brennan played more than 230 film and television roles during a career that spanned nearly five decades. He won three Academy Awards for best supporting actor and deserved several more for movies like To Have and Have Not (1944), Red River 1948)…

and My Darling Clementine (1946) which I recently watched again. He is the definitive Old Man Clanton, playing against type, menacing and scary.

So join me in toasting these three great American artists. Put down your phone. Listen to some Bob. Look at some art. Watch an old movie. You’ll be glad you did.

5 Comments
June 26, 2023

Postcards from the weekend

by chuckofish

Did you have a good weekend? Mine was fairly quiet, the highlight being going to church with the wee twins at 8:30 a.m. so they could attend the children’s worship service and then going to daughter #1’s house for bagels afterwards.

Mr. Smith was living his best life, frolicking in the backyard with the twins…

…and everyone signed Lottie’s cast.

Meanwhile back in Maryland, Katiebelle started swimming lessons…

…and Idabelle watched the passing parade with vim and vigor.

I watched some PGA golf and read another D.E. Stevenson book. I went to an estate sale in a house that had once belonged to a family I went to church with growing up and whose daughters went to my school. It had since turned into Grey Gardens and was a wreck. Kind of Quite creepy. But daughter #1 got a book and her usual discount from Lamar.

I also watched Father Goose (1964), Cary Grant’s second-to-last movie. You remember–it’s about a guy during WWII who is forced to work as an airplane spotter on a remote Pacific island and then is saddled with a prim teacher and seven little girls to look after. It won an Oscar for best screenplay written directly for the screen.

It is nice to see Cary playing against type, scruffy and annoyed. I remember my mother took my little sister and me to see it when it was originally released, probably because she thought we would enjoy the little girl element and she got to see Cary Grant. I liked it then and I enjoyed it the other night. It is a good example of the kind of movie Hollywood was very good at making in the 1960s but cannot make now to save their lives.

June is almost gone–enjoy the last week!

4 Comments
June 13, 2023

A hard case (spoiler alert)

by chuckofish

The boy had a good idea for a blogpost which he passed on to me. What movie death were you most effected by? That’s a hard one. There are a lot of sad deaths in movies, but which ones really affected you?

He said his was Luke’s death in Cool Hand Luke (1967)…

…and I said mine was John Russell’s in Hombre (1967).

Both deaths (by characters played by Paul Newman!) come as a terrible shock the first time you see the movie. You just can’t believe it.

I would also put Steve McQueen as Jake Holman in The Sand Pebbles (1966) on my list. “What the hell happened?”

I asked the OM and he thought of the 50 escaped prisoners who are lined up and murdered by the Nazis in The Great Escape (1964). Again it is a terrible shock when this happens. He also mentioned Von Ryan (Frank Sinatra) running for the train at the end of Von Ryan’s Express (1965) and not making it.

I also thought of those movies where a parent dies, such as Life is Beautiful (1997) or How Green Was My Valley (1941). But you have to admit that of those parental deaths, this one (inexplicably) takes the cake:

I still cannot watch that without tearing up.

So what movie death most deeply affected you?

P.S. In case you were wondering, John Wayne died in seven movies. In my opinion, the most affecting is in Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) because it is totally unexpected.

6 Comments
May 30, 2023

Lest we forget

by chuckofish

Yesterday morning I got up bright and early and drove with daughter #1 to Florissant, MO to the historic Cold Water Cemetery, the oldest Protestant cemetery west of the Mississippi still in use, for an annual DAR event. There are some Revolutionary War veterans buried in this cemetery, so the DAR has been caretaking the cemetery for 60 years. We enjoyed the ceremony, especially the Lewis and Clark Fife and Drum Corps…

It was good to see some twelve-year old boys (probably all home-schooled) interested in history. We also liked these guys from the Militia de San Carlos and the Sons of the Revolution…

They gave a musket salute as well.

And we got to ride in one of these “shuttles” down to the cemetery…

It was almost like being on a hayride!

As is my tradition, I also watched They Were Expendable (1945), which is the best war movie ever.

Listen, son: you and I are professionals. If the manager says, “Sacrifice”, we lay down a bunt and let somebody else hit the home runs. We know all about those destroyers out of commission, tied up around San Diego. We could use them here. But they’re not around. They won’t be. Our job is to lay down that sacrifice. That’s what we were trained for, and that’s what we’ll do. Understand?

So keep showing up. Pay attention. Pray hard for your country.

3 Comments
May 22, 2023

Let angels prostrate fall*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? We had glorious spring weather here in flyover land and it was a joy to revel in it. We went to our favorite winery in Hillsboro and sat outside under the wide blue sky with other like-minded individuals and listened to the 1970s playlist of the band–so, perfect.

Earlier in the day we also went to a couple of good estate sales including one at the home of an old friend from my work days. Bettye was a sweet lady from Arkansas who was a founding member of the St. Louis Chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America. In January she went to Australia to visit her daughter, went off hiking by herself and never returned. They found her body the next day. I was truly saddened by this turn of events. She had been one of my right hand lieutenants for many years. I deduced that one of the estate sales was at her house and I wanted to see her lovely century home in U. City and hopefully find a few books (which I did) so we went. Granted, it is always a little disconcerting to snoop through the home of someone you knew. Hers was just like I expected–lots of books and old furniture, good art, a lovely garden.

Daughter #1 went back to two of the estate sales the second day, when prices are 50% off, and came away with quite a haul. IYKYK how exciting this is. I know Bettye would be pleased that a few of her things are in my daughter’s home.

I must also mention the passing of Timothy Keller on Friday. He was a pillar of the PCA. I credit him with bringing me into the Presbyterian fold. Back in 2017 (or thereabouts) I used to ride my stationery bike for 30 minutes before breakfast every morning and I would listen to Tim Keller sermons. He preached the gospel and talked unironically about John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. I have a notebook full of notes…Do not put yourself in the place of God, but become godly. He talked about sin, immersing yourself in the Bible, going to church. He knew what the harm was in blending worship of our triune God with the worship of our man-made idols. He knew God has no patience with this. Keller taught me about his intellectually stimulating denomination and that it is possible to spread the Word even in Babylon.

“Expository preaching should provide the main diet of preaching for a Christian community. . . . [It] is the best method for displaying and conveying your conviction that the whole Bible is true. This approach testifies that you believe every part of the Bible to be God’s Word, not just particular themes and not just the parts you feel comfortable agreeing with.”

And I love this last word from John Piper about Keller:

Also, rest in peace Jim Brown, who died last week. We all know he was an awesome athlete, but did you know that besides being a great football player at Syracuse University, he was a sensation on the lacrosse team? (He was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1984, 13 years after he made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.)

As you know, Brown retired at the height of his NFL career to be a movie actor and he made some good movies. “I had a great appreciation for Harry Belafonte and Sidney [Poitier] and Sammy Davis [Jr.] They were all great in their own way,” he said in A Football Life documentary from NFL Films that premiered in November 2016. “But I was a physical actor, I was a hero … We needed that as African-Americans.” He makes a good point. I think Woody Strode felt that way as well.

I recently watched 100 Rifles (1969) when Raquel Welsh died earlier this year, so I think I’ll opt for The Dirty Dozen (1966) or Ice Station Zebra (1968) or one of his other films.

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

*Edward Perronet, 1779

4 Comments
May 17, 2023

Mid-week movies

by chuckofish

We have had a lot of rain in the past few days. And, not surprisingly, there has been flooding near here…

(Photo of the Cedar Creek Lodge Apartments parking lot in South County courtesy of Fox2)

Anyway, May is a month for birthdays and today we toast Dennis Hopper (1936-2010), who had quite a career in Hollywood as a supporting actor in many films. He was also known as a notoriously difficult actor and his career nearly ended early on because of his reputation. Had it not been for John Wayne hiring him to appear in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Hopper acknowledged years later, it would have ended.

During the filming of True Grit (1969)–released the same year as Easy Rider–he got to know the Duke quite well. Perhaps this explains in part how he became a Republican in later years, having given up drugs and Rock ‘n Roll.

It is also the birthday of Bob Saget (1956-2022) who died last year under somewhat mysterious circumstances in a hotel. It turns out he fell and hit his head and died in his sleep. He never made any noteworthy movies, but he was the “raddest, baddest dad a kid ever had” on Full House (1987-1995). He was no Ward Cleaver, but he was pretty rad.

Yesterday was the birthday of actors Henry Fonda (1905-1982) and Harry Carey, Jr. (1920-2012) both of whom made quite a few movies with John Ford, any of which would be worth watching tonight. Harry is also the OM’s doppelgänger.

And lest we forget, today is also the 80th anniversary of the Dam Buster raids in WWII in 1943. It might be time to watch The Dam Busters (1955) again.

So we have quite a few toasts to make and lots of good movie options to consider watching. Thanks be to God.

2 Comments
May 9, 2023

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

As I mentioned earlier I have been reading books written by D.E. Stevenson and enjoying them immensely. The three I read take place after WWII in rural Scotland. Life is hard what with rationing and no one having much money, but people get along. There is a sophistication in these books which is lacking in contemporary fiction that I appreciate. The characters are educated and actually know things. They have read their Bibles as well. The lower class folk are not put down for their ignorance, but appreciated for what they do know. Everyone has a work ethic.

Anyway, I decided that I should not just go on ordering new books from Amazon, although I wanted to keep reading, so I went to our public library and got a library card! I had torn mine up 25 years ago in disgust over some triviality, but I swallowed my pride and went back. They, of course, have to order the Stevenson books through inter-library loan, so I still don’t have one. 🙄 But I did peruse the fiction section and took out Elizabeth Strout’s Oh, William!, which daughter #2 wrote about a few weeks ago. It won the Pulitzer Prize (!) and I liked some of her early books, so I thought I would give it a whirl.

I read it in two days–there is not much to it beyond a lot of navel-gazing. Oh, poor me, poor him, poor her. I am sympathetic to a point, but then I think, get over it. But they cannot because they are all self-obsessed. They believe in nothing and thus they understand nothing. God (only acknowledged in “Oh God!” hand-wringing moments) is a myth. In fact (spoiler alert) “we are all mythologies. We are all mysteries, is what I mean,” as Lucy, our protagonist, announces at the end of the book. And by the way, I hate that vernacular Lucy uses throughout–“…is what I mean.” But the author is patronizing in that way. It is her way of putting down the character for growing up in the midwest. Yeah, yeah, she cannot escape her past, we get it.

It is all very well to write a book and then announce that nothing is understandable and we are all mysteries, but that seems very facile and empty. But these people are empty vessels. So it’s back to D.E. Stevenson for me.

Interestingly, I watched a movie over the weekend that poses many of the same questions: Why do bad things happen to some people? Why do things work out for some people? I had not seen Tender Mercies (1983) since it first came out forty years ago. Robert Duvall won the Oscar for best actor for playing the washed up country singer and Horton Foote won the Oscar for best original screenplay.

Not much seems to happen in this movie, but really quite a lot happens. Mac (the alcoholic country singer) is near death at the beginning of the movie. His redemption and self-improvement run parallel with his conversion to Christianity and although many of the hard questions mentioned above are not overtly answered, the movie is not unsatisfying. Christians know that bad things will happen and that suffering is inevitable. But we can respond in faith to the tender mercies we have received. God is real, although He is mysterious. We can only understand ourselves in relation to Him. This is a good movie and I recommend it. (Available on Prime.)

Well, it is good to be reading actual books. So put down your phone, read a book, watch a good movie, praise God from whom all blessings flow, and enjoy your Tuesday.

3 Comments
April 18, 2023

Cheers to classic Hollywood music

by chuckofish

Today we toast Miklós Rózsa on his birthday (1907-95). He was one of those many talented Hungarians who found their way to Hollywood before WWII and made huge contributions to the film industry. Best known for his nearly one hundred film scores, he also maintained a steadfast allegiance to “serious” concert music throughout his life. Rózsa received seventeen Academy Award nominations and won three: Spellbound (1945), A Double Life (1947) and Ben-Hur (1959).

Just last week, after watching Ben-Hur for the umpteenth time, we were saying how great a score it is, one of the greatest in fact. Definitely Top Five. The opening credits, the chariot race, the battle at sea, all are great classics, but remember Esther’s theme?

And the theme for Jesus?

And the galley slave scene? “Battle speed, hortator.”

It is one of the longest film scores ever composed and is a remarkable achievement. He was often copied, but he was an original. Hats off to Miklós Rózsa!

2 Comments