movies | dual personalities

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 It was revoked in 1917, along with medals of 910 other recipients dating back to the Revolutionary War, when Congress decided to create a hierarchy of medals.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”

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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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July 22, 2021

Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies

by chuckofish

Well, the summer is meandering along and soon will be over! We seem to do the same things over and over. Time like an ever rolling stream…

Anyway, it is a good time to re-read Thoreau’s A Walk to Wachusett, which he recorded on July 19, 1842.

It was at no time darker than twilight within the tent, and we could easily see the moon through its transparent roof as we lay; for there was the moon still above us, with Jupiter and Saturn on either hand, looking down on Wachusett, and it was a satisfaction to know that they were our fellow-travelers still, as high and out of our reach as our own destiny. Truly the stars were given for a consolation to man.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the death of Ulysses Grant in 1885. Let’s all take a moment to remember our 18th president. His funeral in New York City demonstrated the great love and admiration the country felt for their former president and Civil War hero. He was respected not only by comrades in arms but also by former enemies. Marching as pallbearers beside the Union generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan were two Confederate generals, Joe Johnston and Simon Buckner.

The column of mourners who accompanied Grant was seven miles long. (This is an interesting thread with photos of all the honorary pall bearers.)

Placed in a “temporary” tomb in Riverside Park, Grant’s body stayed there for nearly 12 years, while supporters raised money for the construction of a permanent resting place. In what was then the biggest public fundraising campaign in history, some 90,000 people from around the world donated over $600,000 to build Grant’s Tomb. A million people, including President William McKinley, attended the tomb’s dedication on April 27, 1897, 10 days after Grant’s body had been moved there. Grant’s Tomb was — and is —the largest tomb in North America.

I’ll also remind you that Saturday is the National Day of the Cowboy. Celebrate it in appropriate style!

As Emerson Hough wrote in his “Passing of the Frontier,” the time of the Cattle Kings, though short, was

…a wild, strange day…There never was a better life than that of the cowman who had a good range on the Plains and cattle enough to stock his range. There never will be found a better man’s country in all the world than that which ran from the Missouri up to the low foothills of the Rockies.

I plan, of course, to watch some good cowboy movies, including (but not limited to) Red River (1948), as is my tradition.

You might also want to read up on some of your favorite western artists or just look at some great western art…

They’ll be celebrating in Oklahoma City at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum with numerous events, but we can all plan our own party. Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving, as Auntie Mame said. So heat up some beans and join me in watching Red River!

By the way, last night we watched The Best of Times (1986), a movie I have a great fondness for, in memory of Robin Williams. You will recall that it is about re-playing a high school football game played in the fall of 1972, which was a disaster for the characters played by Robin Williams and Kurt Russell. (The OM was playing football that year and so it always resonates with him.) It’s a classic and I highly recommend it.

9 Comments

July 21, 2021

“You’d never know it but buddy I’m a kind of poet/ And I’ve got a lot of things to say”

by chuckofish

The Hibiscus is blooming! Huzzah!

You will recall that years ago I planted seeds given to me by my assistant (harvested from her yard) and they grew and bloomed once. Since then the plants have grown but never bloomed. Either they were cut down by accident, eaten by deer (?) or whatever. But, hallelujah, they have bloomed again! This brings me joy. You can see, too, that the Tiger Lilies are still going strong (all over our flyover town). I guess they like all the rain we’ve had.

Meanwhile I have been reading Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry. It is a good first novel, but not great. As I figured, it is told from the perspective of the boy, Lonnie, and Hud has only a small, incidental part. Someone in Hollywood must have had the idea that the ornery, bad guy would make a better subject for a movie, and they were probably right. They changed a lot in the book. I wonder what McMurtry thought.

“I just wonder, when it’s all said and done,” he went on, “who ends up with the most in this scramble. Them that go in for big shows and big prizes and end up takin’ a bustin’, or them that plug along at what they can kinda handle. Home folks or show folks. They’s a lot a difference in ’em.”

Here is Paul Zahl’s list of movies on TCM in July (Part II). As usual, we are on the same page. What he says about Bonnie and Clyde is right on.

Some good thoughts here and here.

Today is the birthday of Robin Williams. Maybe I’ll watch Awakenings (1990) or Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), my favorite RW movies. Or maybe I’ll watch RV (2006)–who knows? Just remember ol’ Robin and go for the gusto, or at the very least, reach out to someone with a smile. It might go a long way.

And here’s a toast to Don Knotts on his birthday: Just a little lower, Barney.

*Johnny Mercer, “One For my Baby”

7 Comments

July 15, 2021

“Little by little, the look of the land changes by the men we admire.”*

by chuckofish

Recently I watched the movie Hud (1963) for the first time in a long time. I was really impressed. Based on a book by Larry McMurtry (his first), it is directed by Martin Ritt and stars Paul Newman, Brandon de Wilde, Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal.

It’s a story about people and relationships. There are no explosions, no psychopaths, no CG special effects. It’s kind of a perfect movie in that it is a good story, well-written, beautifully filmed in black and white by James Wong Howe and intelligently directed. The actors are all pros–even 20-year old de Wilde had been acting for 10 years–well cast and believable in their roles.

Patricia Neal, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her part as Alma and who is not a favorite of mine, is really good. Paul Newman is terrific.

The only problem I had was that Newman, who plays a “cold-hearted bastard,” cannot really play one. I think you are supposed to admire his father (Melvyn Douglas)–and you do–but when his father asks him how he ever ended up with a son like Hud, you see pain register in Hud’s eyes. When Hud says sarcastically, “My momma used to love me, but she died,” you can’t help feel the probable truth in the statement.

You’re also supposed to sympathize with the de Wilde character, Hud’s nephew, who comes to realize what a “cold-hearted bastard” his hero is, and cheer him on as he leaves home at the end. But I felt sorry for Hud.

According to IMDB, Newman’s intention was to play the part as a bad guy, and he was later stunned that so many young moviegoers had a poster of Hud and viewed him as their hero. This is the main failure of the movie I think and also what makes it memorable. Well, I’ll have to read the book and see what McMurtry was trying to say.

Anyway, I am kind of in the mood to revisit some more Paul Newman films from his heyday in the 1960s. He really was something.

The Elmer Bernstein score is also excellent.

I also watched Ten Who Dared (1960), a Disney movie from the olden days, which I originally saw on the Sunday night “Wonderful World Of Disney” show.

The film, starring John Beal, Brian Keith, Ben Johnson et al, tells the true story of Major John Wesley Powell, who in 1869 is sent by the U.S. government to map and chart the Colorado River region. Powell is a geologist and ex-Union Army Major who lost a hand in the Civil War. He needs assistants but trustworthy skilled men are hard to find after the war. The Major has to accept any volunteer he can find and he assembles a diverse team of nine men. The movie is full of action and beautiful scenery–like most Disney movies of that era. I loved those movies back in the day–movies without an agenda beyond teaching about another fascinating footnote to American history. As a result, I learned, as a child, about the one-handed John Wesley Powell, trilobites and Andersonville Prison, among other things. Back in the day, Disney set kids up to enjoy history and fostered a lifelong interest in learning.

(I rented it on Amazon Prime. The print is not great, but I did not care. It was just fun to see it again. There are other such Disney movies available to rent on Prime, ones that Disney Plus does not include.)

I will note that Saturday is the OM’s birthday. We will toast Pappy and order pizza and hope that his grandchildren do not start pushing random buttons. We will have cake. Even though he already got his big present, there will be a few more to unwrap.

And this is a good reminder for all of us. “There is no circumstance in which God has nothing for us to do, no situation in which we cannot be faithful to his calling on our lives. He calls none of us to uselessness and calls none of us to another man’s life or ministry. He calls each of us to be obedient in the context he has ordained for us.”

*Homer Bannon in “Hud”

7 Comments

July 1, 2021

“So from today I’m travellin’ light. “*

by chuckofish

Yesterday morning they were cutting down trees somewhere in my neighborhood and grinding up the branches into mulch for hours on end. That has to be one of the most stressful sounds one can be forced to listen to I think. I mean it’s not like having your apartment building collapse underneath you, but seriously, I loathe it.

Anyway, I took out my latest book purchase, Selected Poems by Jorge Luis Borges, and started to read.

Camden, 1892

The smell of coffee and the newspapers,
Sunday and its lassitudes. The morning,
and on the adjoining page, that vanity—
the publication of allegorical verses
by a fortunate fellow poet. The old man
lies on a white bed in his sober room,
a poor man’s habitation. Languidly
he gazes at his face in the worn mirror.
He thinks, beyond astonishment now: that man
is me, and absentmindedly his hand
touches the unkempt beard and the worn-out mouth.
The end is close. He mutters to himself:
I am almost dead, but still my poems retain
life and its wonders. I was once Walt Whitman.

JLB is just so great. Here is an interesting interview with him on Firing Line in 1977. I can’t imagine anyone today having such an intelligent conversation on television. I have to hand it to Buckley who just lets him talk. He asks some questions to pull him back on track, but he isn’t concerned with inserting himself.

I watched a good movie the other night–The Fugitive Kind (1960)–an adaption of Tennessee Williams’s play Orpheus Descending. It stars Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward and is directed by Sidney Lumet. It is your typical overwrought Williams story of gothic southern proportion, but I still enjoyed it.

The characters are compelling, the acting is very good, and it is certainly better than anything new you will find on Netflix or Amazon Prime. And I forget how handsome and appealing Marlon Brando was in his prime.

I went to a third retirement party on my final day at work yesterday and was hugged a lot. I felt very appreciated and loved. I was asked a million times what my plans are and I thought I really needed an answer, so I started saying, “I’m joining the circus.” The truth is I have no plans. I want to enjoy every day and read a lot of poetry by Jorge Luis Borges and watch Marlon Brando movies. I think that is okay.

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” –Corrie Ten Boom

*Johnny Mercer

3 Comments

June 1, 2021

“Would you like to swing on a star/ Carry moonbeams home in a jar”*

by chuckofish

I do love a three day weekend!

I will note that yesterday was Clint Eastwood’s 91st birthday. Do you have a favorite Clint Eastwood movie? Well, do you, Punk? I actually do not, but this one will do.

We watched Run Silent, Run Deep (1958) in honor of Memorial Day. It is my favorite submarine movie and features a great performance by Clark Gable. Don Rickles is also in the movie. (He actually served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, on a motor torpedo boat tender.)

This article makes a strong point. “And in this way we see the challenge before us. There may have been times in the past when it took concerted effort to see and experience immorality; today it takes concerted effort to avoid seeing it. “

Tomorrow I am taking a few days off and heading east to visit daughter #2 and this little gal.

We will be celebrating her first birthday! Unbelievable, c’est vrai?

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
–William Wordsworth

Wish me luck on my travels. I haven’t flown since 2018. Yikes.

*Johnny Burke / Jimmy Van Heusen

4 Comments

May 28, 2021

“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough”*

by chuckofish

It was a busy week at work, and I was still getting over that cold. I went to the dentist, which is always a joy and a half. And I went in to my office on Thursday for various reasons and met with my assistant whom I had not seen in almost a year. We commiserated about our COVID weight gain. It is a mad world.

But, what ho, it is a three-day weekend and that in itself is something to celebrate. And we have Memorial Day to consider. I plan to watch They Were Expendable (1945) which has become one of my favorite war movies.

There is nothing remotely sentimental about this movie and its depiction of war. John Ford is admirably restrained. The American war machine is in retreat, as one by one the islands of the Philippines are seized by the Japanese. No help is coming, no one will save them, they are on their own. But we know who will win.

I watched Wee Willie Winkie (1937) the other night. Shirley Temple, Victor McLaglan, Caesar Romero as Khoda Khan–and also directed by John Ford–pretty great.

Grown men cry and whales blubber.

This was an interesting article. A celebration and lament over science. I concur.

Daughter #1 is coming home today and we will find some roof deck or winery on/at which to hang out. (The other grandparents are back in town so the twins and their parents will be otherwise occupied at their weekend abode.) The weather should be conducive to hanging out. Maybe I can get some sun on a part of my body other than the tops of my feet.

Enjoy the long weekend! Look up! Pray for the day ahead. Pray that you might bring glory to God, in thought, word and deed. Thank God that his mercies are new every morning. Thank God that his grace is sufficient for all situations that you may encounter.

*I Sing the Body Electric, Walt Whitman, whose birthday is May 31

5 Comments

May 24, 2021

”Oh the white tops are a rollin’ rollin’, and the big wheels keep on turnin’”*

by chuckofish

I hope you had a lovely weekend. I puttered around, planted some more annuals in pots on the patio, trimmed ivy, tidied up the house so that the wee twins could wreck havoc in it again…the usual.

The highlight was going to my new church with the boy and getting to spend a few hours together–an unusual thing since he is almost always working or in the midst of twin-created havoc. We had coffee afterwards at Bread Co. and had a real conversation. Super. Nice.

I watched some PGA tour action on TV and a couple of good movies, including Stagecoach (1939) and Wagon Master (1950), both directed by John Ford.

Stagecoach is, without a doubt, 96 of the best minutes ever put on film. Orson Welles called it textbook filmmaking and he was right. It is tops in storytelling, character development, acting, action, romance, cinematography, score–it has it all.

Wagon Master is also about a (bigger) bunch of misfits (Mormons, outlaws and stranded medicine show con artists) going on a journey and meeting up with impediments along the way. Even without John Wayne or, really, any star, it is a lyrical yarn with meaty characters, beautifully photographed.

I recommend them both, and seeing them together, is an interesting and worthwhile undertaking.

I also re-read a good bit of Harry Carey Jr.’s memoir about his life as an actor in the John Ford “stock company” which was somewhat enlightening about the behind-the-scenes goings-on of making Wagon Master and other Ford movies. John Ford was an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, as they say. But he sure made good movies.

The wee twins came over Sunday night and annoyed the OM and even prompted me to give them another mini lecture on the doctrine of total depravity. They look innocent enough, but…