dual personalities

Tag: movies

September 16, 2021

“Speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world”*

by chuckofish

We have had some great weather this week. Sunny, warm and breezy, with low humidity–just great and much appreciated.

Our house has been in total disarray because we had some built-ins installed in our den this week. We had to take apart the audio/visual system so the guys could do it (2 days) and now we have to put it all back. The boy is coming over this morning before work to assist the OM. So. Many. Wires. Remember back in the day when you just plugged in the old television set? Now there is so much more to deal with. Surround sound. Oy.

This is a really good article contrasting two people who died this week (John Shelby Spong and comedian Norm MacDonald) and their different takes on Christianity.

I watched a movie recently (on Amazon Prime) which I can recommend: Mr. Church (2016) starring Eddie Murphy and directed by Bruce Beresford. It’s kind of a tear-jerker, but I enjoyed it.

The really amazing thing about this movie is the fact that, even though it’s about a black man bringing up a white girl, there is no racial conflict in the story. Never once does a white person sneer, look down on or insult Mr. Church. This probably explains why the film didn’t get good reviews. But Eddie Murphy plays it straight and the cast is excellent. (BTW, the trailer includes spoilers.)

And here’s another really good song from Mac Powell’s upcoming album:

Can’t wait til it drops on October 15.

One more thing: I could watch this amazing 3-year old 100 times:

Just a reminder:

The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel.

–Thomas Watson (1620-1686)

*Billy Collins, “Litany”

4 Comments
September 9, 2021

“A tinsel and spun-candy world”*

by chuckofish

I have been thinking about terrible computer-generated action movies and how basically this technology has ruined the story-telling art of movies. In particular I have been thinking about the old days when actors did a lot of their own stunts and about the stunt men who stepped in to attempt the really dangerous stuff.

Remember Buster Keaton who made silent movies almost 100 years ago?

Nothing was faked here!

Remember Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, who did all their own sword fighting?

What about Stagecoach (1939) where John Wayne does his own stunts up until the point where Yakima Canutt takes over in the classic retrieving the reins maneuver. (This stunt comes right after Canutt has played the Indian falling under the stagecoach.) Eight of the most exciting (and best edited) minutes in film history.

Then, of course, there’s Ben Hur (1959) with some of the greatest action scenes ever filmed that do not, however, eclipse the basic drama of the movie. Charlton Heston learned how to drive a chariot and his prowess is important to the integrity of the film. Joe Canutt, son of the great Yakima, takes over when the action gets too dangerous.

Compare that to this clip from the 2016 CGI version of Ben Hur…

And who can forget The Great Escape (1962) with Steve McQueen’s iconic motorcycle jump. Bud Ekins did the actual jump–insurance issues again–but the scene is great, as is the editing by Ferris Webster.

Here’s an interesting interview with Bud Ekins about how it all fell into place.

And remember when there was actually a real “cast of thousands” in movies like Lawrence of Arabia (1962)?

I could go on and on…remember the buffalo stampede in How The West Was Won (1962) and the car chase in The French Connection (1971)? Jumping Mulberry Bridge in Smokey and the Bandit (1977)?

What are your favorite non-CGI stunts in movies?

Well, CGI is here to stay and in my opinion that is sad. Even a well done CGI movie is like watching a cartoon–think Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote–there’s no risk involved, so there’s no tension. It’s just like one big amusement park ride and I never liked amusement parks.

Side note: I also read that George Lucas updated the puppet Yoda (puppeteered by Frank Oz) in The Phantom Menace (1999), digitizing him in the 2011 Blue-ray version. That is definitely not kosher.

Whatever.

P.S. Yesterday was the birthday of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, one of our favorite non-ancestors, so a shout out and a belated toast to him.

And Saturday is the birthday of daughter #1 so we have Big Plans for some fun.

However, it is also the 20th anniversary of the most heinous act of terrorism in my lifetime and we will remember it.

*Narrator, The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

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September 7, 2021

With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go

by chuckofish

After daughter #1 headed back to mid-MO yesterday, I sat down to do some “desk work.” I got nothing much accomplished and I came up with very little to blog about.

The OM and I went to Ted Drewes for some frozen custard and later we watched a really worthless movie. I mean, I like Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson and Idris Elba, but Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbes and Shaw (2019) went beyond ridiculous to just plain stupid.

Who does non-stop computer-generated violence appeal to anyway? Fourteen-year old boys? Good God Almighty, I need a mental cleansing after that whatever you call it.

So here are Josh and Carson covering one of my favorite songs from the olden days.

P.S. Sweet Baby James was released as the first single from the James Taylor’s second album but it did not chart. Typical.

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August 31, 2021

The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye

by chuckofish

It is the last day of August! Zut alors–the year continues to fly by.

Today is the birthday of the great actor Fredric March (1897-1975) who won two Oscars for Best Actor and two Tonys for Best Actor. I suppose he is all but forgotten these days, but he was highly thought of for decades and I always liked him.

(March is on the right in The Best Years of Our Lives.)

March also made several spoken word recordings, including a version of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant in 1945. Here it is. (You might want to get your Kleenex out.)

The boy turned me on to the old What’s My Line show (1950-1967), which you can watch on Youtube. It is a rather sophisticated show, especially by today’s standards. Here is the episode with Fredric March:

Daughter #1 gave me the sad news that Ed Asner has died at 91. Asner is the most decorated male performer in Emmy history and received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2001. He is also the recipient of five Golden Globe Awards and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. We remember him, of course, as the lovable Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and as the bad guy Bart Jason in one of our favorite westerns El Dorado (1966).

I cannot say what he was like in real life, but I knew and liked his cousin Herschel Asner who took classes at my flyover institute. Herschel was a paratrooper in WWII who jumped into France on D-Day. Unlike his cousin, he led a relatively quiet life after the war. He was a really good guy.

Today we also remember the Puritan John Bunyan who died on this day in 1688.

“All states are full of Noise and Confusion, only the Valley of Humiliation is that empty and solitary place. Here a man shall not be so let and hindered in his Contemplation, as in other places he is apt to be. This is a Valley that nobody walks in, but those that love a Pilgrim’s life. And tho’ Christian had the hard hap to meet here with Apollyon, and to enter with him a brisk encounter, yet I must tell you, that in former times men have met with Angels here, have found Pearls here, and have in this place found the words of Life.”

The Pilgrim’s Progress

And isn’t this an interesting story? A Pixar artist who made beautiful maps of Christian’s journey to the Celestial City.

The world is more than we know.

5 Comments
August 26, 2021

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

I have several books going right now. I just can’t get into any of them, but I will keep plugging away.

I am almost finished with The Only Woman in the Room, which hardly does justice to the remarkable Hedy Lamarr. It is as shallow as a movie of the week. It is not enough to say, this was a beautiful woman who was also smart. You need to show it. Good grief, writing 101. The main character has no personality and moves through the book like a face in a movie stilI.

It’s not enough to say she disguised herself and escaped to London and met Louis B. Mayer there and he got her to Hollywood. You can read that on the back of the book jacket. Sigh. Clearly the author was not up to the subject.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek has potential, but it is a novel with obvious hooks and gimmicks and I have to just get over that and read. It is better written than the Hedy Lamarr book.

For Old Crime’s Sake is standard Jane and Dagobert Brown fare, which I really enjoy, but I need to read it during the day when I still have some mental energy.

The Patriot was written in 1960 and is about a teenage WWII recruit learning to be a fighter pilot. We’ll see. I think he is not a patriot. Lots of irony.

Maybe I’ll just re-read Busy, Busy Farm (see above).

Anyway, here’s a good post about reading TLOTR for the first time as a 45-year old: “If [Tolkien] had to do it all over again, I bet he would make Mark Zuckerberg into Sauron…” I bet you’re right.

In other news, daughter #1 went back to JC yesterday after a fun few days spent taking it easy and indulging ourselves. We watched a couple of movies. After discussing the End Times while drinking margaritas, we thought it only appropriate to watch Ghostbusters (1984). “Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.”

Somehow it resonates today.

We also watched Wonder Man (1945), a truly bizarre Danny Kaye vehicle, also starring Virginia Mayo and Vera-Ellen in her first movie.

BTW, Amazon Prime has a whole bunch of Danny Kaye movies available to watch for free if you are so inclined.

Last night the OM and I went to an event at the Eugene Field House/Museum featuring the Missouri Bicentennial Quilt. It was pretty cool. Each county in the sate had a quilt square. I must say, however, that St Louis had a mighty disappointing block.

It’s the one on the right with the braille inscription, representing the Missouri School for the Blind. All very well and good, but really, what about the Gateway to the West and the Arch and all that? St. Louis County has Grant’s Farm–appropriate. Jefferson County has Mastodon State Park–appropriate.

Jackson County (where my ancestors settled) has that cool covered wagon and the jumping off place for the Santa Fe Trail and the Oregon Trail.

C’est la vie.

Well, today I start my Bible Study at my new church. We are reading Leviticus. I’ll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, have a fine day! Try to “slander no one…be peaceable and considerate, and always gentle toward everyone. At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us…” (Titus 3:2-5)

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August 19, 2021

“Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits…”*

by chuckofish

It’s been quite a week with some scary stuff happening in the world.

The best antidote for anxiety is frequent meditation upon God’s goodness, power and sufficiency…Nothing is too big and nothing is too little to spread before and cast upon the Lord.

A.W. Pink

This article articulates what a lot of us are thinking. “We had better wake up to the real world in which we live. There are realities in North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran (the list goes on and on) that would leave you terrified every single day of your life. The sad reality is that while many potificate over fabricated evils on social media in the Western world, the better part of those enduring extreme suffering in the Middle East, North Korea, and Africa never get a voice on social media. Most of what we rant about in our bubble is child’s play compared to the real evils of a fallen world.”

I liked this post from Duo Dickinson. We are not in exactly the same place, but I hear him. God has likewise always been with me since I was a small child.

“A raw and scary childhood meant God was there, with me, since I knew my parents were not. I never felt like a victim; I never blamed my parents — they were human, like me. There was no mistaking them for God (or the reverse). Jesus was not an invented coping mechanism, he was just there. I could not have constructed him; he was just with me. My atheist friends all assume that a genetically triggered survival response of religious rationalization made an alcoholic family less painful. That could be true except even my young adult coping was fully inadequate for twenty years. An adult rationalization is simply impossible for a five-year-old, it was the reality of God that made faith real.”

Once again, let’s concentrate on being thankful for those 10,000 things God is doing for us. For instance, on Tuesday I had to go in for my 6-month check-up at the Cancer Center at MOBAP. On the way there, the Christian radio station played Lauren Daigle’s “Look Up Child” and I calmed right down. Thank you.

Here are Paul Zahl’s TCM movie picks for the rest of August. I am definitely going to DVR The Rainmaker (1956) which I have not seen in a long time. Back in the 1960s I saw 110 in the Shade at the Muny Opera which starred, I believe, Robert Horton. By the way, I watched The Natural (1984) yesterday on Robert Redford day on TCM and it was great. They wouldn’t know how to make a movie like that today and where would they find actors who could actually hit a ball? They’d have to CG it. Great supporting cast–there’s no one like Richard Farnsworth, Wilford Brimley, Darren McGavin, Robert Prosky around anymore. And great music, of course. If you missed it, you can watch it on Amazon Prime.

And here are more prayers for our children from my old schoolmate Kathleen Neilson.

And, finally, just a reminder that beauty is everywhere. Don’t stop looking for it. The boy sent this picture of his drive home last night. (Don’t text and drive!)

In the midst of our bustling days,

O Lord who knows and sees our bustle,

May we not forget the presence of our Savior.

*A.A. Milne

2 Comments
August 12, 2021

De choses et d’autres

by chuckofish

One of the nice side effects of having a party, is all the leftover flowers…

(We also have a lot of leftover food!) But we miss seeing our loved ones and that “and then we were all in one place” feeling. Sigh.

Well, moving along, I read Redhead by the Side of the Road, Anne Tyler’s latest novel. NPR said that it “is heartwarming balm for jangled nerves.” Well, maybe. It is an easy read, but there just isn’t much there. Tyler wrote a few masterful books back in the 1980s and some good ones followed, but she is yet another example of someone whose editor keeps goading her to write one more novel because the publisher knows it will make some money. Anne, you’re 79 years old, it’s okay to retire.

Now I am reading The Only Woman in the Room, a fictionalized telling of real life “glamour icon and scientist” Hedy Lamarr’s escape from Nazi Austria and transformation in Hollywood. She was, no doubt, quite a woman, but in the hands of this author, it’s all pretty dull, re-hashed material. The book was a gift, so I will read the whole thing and hope that it picks up.

To celebrate the 200th birthday of the state of Missouri, I watched Across the Wide Missouri (1951).

(This photo must be of lunch break on the set, because look at that cowboy in the background!)

Directed by William Wellman, the film stars Clark Gable as a fur trapper and mountain man in the 1830s. Gable is a bit old for his part (typical for Hollywood) but I enjoyed it. Beautifully shot in Technicolor in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, there is a lot of action and nary a dull moment in this movie. Gable’s stunt double Jack N. Young was particularly impressive. The final action scene where our hero’s baby son, attached as a papoose to a horse that bolts, is quite exciting. The supporting cast is excellent and includes the usually suave Adolphe Menjou playing against type as a French trapper as well as Russell Simpson and James Whittemore.

Although romanticized, the plot and the depiction of the Blackfeet Indians seem fair. There are plenty of “good” Indians to balance Ricardo Montalban’s “bad” Indian. According to Wikipedia, the 31-year old Montalban was seriously injured during the making of this movie and had back problems for the rest of his life. I don’t doubt it. (You can rent it on Amazon Prime.)

Well, I hope everyone is keeping cool. We are experiencing a typical August heat wave.

Things could be worse.

I was happy to see this. You go, Isaac. You were always a favorite of mine.

Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favor, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ Our Lord.

–BCP, 1662

5 Comments
August 3, 2021

“and in the rhythm of the swim/ I hummed a two-four-time slow hymn”*

by chuckofish

So have you been watching the Tokyo Olympics? Me neither. I have just lost all interest since everyone went professional. But I did enjoy being reminded of Billy Mills, the only American to win the Gold Medal for the Men’s 10,000 meters long-distance running event at the Summer Olympic Games. A Native American from the University of Kansas who was a three-time NCAA All-America cross-country runner but not expected to distinguish himself at the Olympics, he surprised everyone when he won Gold in 1964 in Tokyo. It is exciting to watch him come from behind and blast over the finish line.

That is what the Olympics are all about to me. Amateurs who push themselves to do more than they think they can do and are proud to represent their country.

I had forgotten that they made a movie about Billy Mills called Running Brave (1984) which starred Robbie Benson. I have never seen it, but I may have to check it out if I can find it.

Jim Thorpe–All-American (1951), starring Burt Lancaster and directed by Michael Curtiz, tells the story of another great Native American athlete who won medals at the 1912 Olympics and distinguished himself in various sports, both in college and on professional teams. But the injustice of taking his medals away upset me a lot as a child when I first saw this movie and it still rankles, especially considering how everyone gets paid for everything now. (His Olympic honors were reinstated in 1983, thirty-two years after this film was released and thirty years after Thorpe’s death.)

Well, a toast to Billy Mills and to Jim Thorpe. And while we’re at it, I’m going to toast Buffalo Bill Cody, who was no Olympian, but could have been. When a scout for the U.S. Army, he performed an exceptional feat of riding as a lone dispatch courier from Fort Larned to Fort Zarah (escaping brief capture), Fort Zarah to Fort Hays, Fort Hays to Fort Dodge, Fort Dodge to Fort Larned, and, finally, Fort Larned to Fort Hays, a total of 350 miles in 58 hours through hostile territory, covering the last 35 miles on foot. Cody was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1872 for documented gallantry above and beyond the call of duty as an Army scout in the Indian Wars. It was revoked in 1917, along with medals of 910 other recipients dating back to the Revolutionary War, when Congress decided to create a hierarchy of medals. Good grief. His medal was reinstated in 1988.

Frankly, you can have your medals. This is how my mind works.

*Maxine Kumin, “Morning Swim”

6 Comments
August 2, 2021

“I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder”*

by chuckofish

The last of the Hibiscus unfolding…beautiful!

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty quiet. Daughter #1 returned from her conference in Salt Lake City, but she went home on Saturday to attend to things in Jeff City before leaving again on Monday. I practiced driving the OM’s new car. I am so used to driving my little Mini Cooper that it takes quite an adjustment to get used to a large SUV with all the whiz bang updates. My car doesn’t even have a rearview camera much less a buzzing seat to tell you when you are drifting over the line!

This is an interesting piece about the Unifying Power of Singing. I have mentioned how nice it is to attend a church again where everyone sings–and sings with gusto. I grew up at a church where everyone sang and we all sang in morning chapel at my private school. But increasingly (in the Episcopal Church anyway) it seems that singing has been left to the choir. It is part of the show, something to be appreciated, but not to be participated in. Maybe the small congregations feel self-conscious singing, who knows. But singing is good for the soul.

I recorded Paper Moon (1973) on TCM and watched it the other night. I had not seen it since 1973 when my Aunt Susanne took me to see it when I was back East visiting colleges the summer before my senior year in high school. I liked it then and I liked it this time around.

Well directed by Peter Bogdanovich, who keeps it simple, it was shot in Kansas and Missouri in black and white. It feels authentic to the 1930s without being precious. Ryan O’Neal plays an itinerant con man, Moses Pray, who meets nine-year-old Addie Loggins at her mother’s graveside service, where the neighbors suspect he is Addie’s father. He denies this, but agrees to deliver the orphaned Addie to her aunt’s home in St. Joseph, Missouri. O’Neal and his real-life daughter Tatum O’Neal work well together and Tatum steals the show without any Margaret O’Brien-style showing-off. I liked her. In reading about the movie, it seems that Bogdanovich had a hard time pulling a performance out of her, sometimes taking up to 50 takes of a scene (which sounds like borderline child abuse), but it doesn’t show. 

Tatum O’Neal won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, but clearly she is not a supporting actress. She was only nine years old, however, so I guess they thought that award was appropriate. Madeline Kahn was the supporting actress in the film and, as usual, she is terrific. You can watch it on Amazon Prime.

Here is Paul Zahl’s next list of “to watch” movies on TCM. As usual, he is right on target, but I do disagree about Vertigo (1958) which I find hokey and unwatchable. C’est la vie. I love it when he says a movie “is worth seeing once.” Quelle burn.

Here is a summer reading list of books on historical subjects from Albert Mohler, whose opinion I respect.

And finally, Baruch dayan ha’emet, Jackie Mason, who died on Saturday at age 93.

*Stuart Hine, “How Great Thou Art”

4 Comments
July 26, 2021

“Hey Dude, how do you like them apples?”*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Ours was quiet. Daughter #1 arrived on Sunday after church. She is going on a business trip on Tuesday, leaving from our airport, so that is why she came into town at the end of the weekend. The boy and his family were in K.C. all weekend and came home on Sunday afternoon. We had the pleasure of the boy and the wee laddie’s company for a barbecue Sunday night…

…but the girls were too tired and stayed home. It is always interesting to see one twin without the other. They are two very different people indeed.

I watched Tombstone (1993) on Friday night. I had seen it back when it came out and I didn’t think it was a good movie then, but I thought it might bear watching again. I was so wrong. I had forgotten how really bad it is. First of all, it is totally derivative of classic westerns, but of all the obvious things: you know, lots of cloud filled sky and lawmen walking/riding four abreast.

Anyway, it was just a mess–a horrible bloodbath of a violent nightmare. The movie starts off with a gang of cowboys shooting up a happy Mexican wedding for no reason. Yeah, that happened a lot. The movie doesn’t even try to be realistic or to be historically accurate.

The acting is pretty bad and also derivative. Powers Boothe offers a full blown imitation of Lee Marvin as Liberty Valance. Kurt Russell struggles (and fails) to be Henry Fonda. Was Bill Paxton going for Earl Holliman? 100%. I couldn’t help wondering what Sam Elliot, stiff and uncomfortable, thought of this mess. Only Val Kilmer attempts to make his part his own and his Doc Holliday is lost in the flood of violence and competing action. There are no good guys. Everyone is drowning in liquor, drugs and/or gambling. Nobody actually works. No one has a plan. The Earps just want to get rich so they can, what, settle down with their families? There is no ethical standard to judge right or wrong here. Is this the point, because, if so, it is a false point. This is a 20th century, post-Christian point, thank you, imposed on a revisionist dream of fake history.

The women are all cardboard and the actresses can hardly handle walking in their overly fancy dresses. Dana Delany plays a “modern” woman who has a crush on Wyatt Earp and doesn’t care that he is a married man. She just wants to have fun! Wyatt is attracted by this crazy idea (having fun, ordering room service) and to this liberated woman (who nevertheless rides side-saddle). It made me long for Burt Lancaster and his puritanical version of Wyatt Earp in the bad, but infinitely better, Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957).

All this made me want to watch My Darling Clementine (1947) which I will do soon. First I had to watch Red River (1948) on Saturday night in honor of National Cowboy Day. I almost cried, the contrast was so great. John Wayne and Montgomery Clift = perfection.

Sorry about the rant, but I despise movie makers who think a western is just an excuse to fire guns and kill a lot of people. There is talk of border ruffians in Missouri and lots of threats of violence, but only one person dies in Red River and he is trampled to death by stampeding cattle.

On a totally other subject, I liked this about going about your business in our rock-star culture:

But I say: Be nobody special. Do your job. Take care of your family. Clean your house. Mow your yard. Read your Bible. Attend worship. Pray. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Love your spouse. Love your kids. Be generous. Laugh with your friends. Drink your wine heartily. Eat your meat lustily. Be honest. Be kind to your waitress. Expect no special treatment. And do it all quietly.

You want to be a spiritual hero? Distinguish yourself? Ironically, you have to give it up. This sounds like “lose your life so you can save it” for a reason. Being nobody special will feel like losing your life, maybe the life you’ve dreamed of in front of the mirror…But to distinguish yourself in our world, you must be happy about being a nobody.

Matthew Redmond, The God of the Mundane

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

*Stumpy in Rio Bravo (1957)

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