movies | dual personalities

February 12, 2014

Into paradise may the angels lead thee*

by chuckofish

You’ve probably heard that Shirley Temple died yesterday. Very sad. So it seems appropriate to include this picture of Shirley Temple sitting on Abraham Lincoln’s lap in The Littlest Rebel (1935) since it is the Great Man’s birthday today. Only Shirley could get away with such antics.

Shirley Temple Black, whom I have blogged about here and here and here, was quite a gal. She had a huge movie career–she was America’s top box-office draw from 1935 to 1938, a record no other child star has come near. She beat out such grown-up stars as Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford. After she retired at age 22, she had a great (second) marriage and family,

Shirley and her husband–hello, Charles

and, after a successful foray into television, an important second career in public service.

Ambassador Shirley in Prague 1989

Phew. She was a fine example to all women everywhere. And she was an Episcopalian to boot.

A statement released by her family said, “We salute her for a life of remarkable achievements as an actor, as a diplomat, and most importantly as our beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and adored wife for fifty-five years of the late and much missed Charles Alden Black.”

Well, I don’t know about you, but I plan to overdose on some wholesome Shirley goodness over the next few days. She was one-of-a-kind.

You can read the whole NY Times obit here.

TCM will celebrate Shirley Temple with eight back-to-back films on Sunday, March 9, starting at 4:30pm ET. Don’t miss HEIDI (’37), BRIGHT EYES (’34) & THE LITTLE PRINCESS (’39), among others. Mark your calendar!

*…and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem. (BCP, Burial of the Dead, Rite I)

5 Comments

February 10, 2014

“Grant us strength and courage…*

by chuckofish

Talk about dark and dreary–that was our weekend! But it was brightened a whole lot by my Saturday outing to historic Kimmswick for lunch with my good friends.

We dined at the celebrated “Blue Owl” restaurant. Our food was yummy and the company, as always, hilarious. Carla, our intrepid social planner, drove as usual. It is great to be like a child on these outings and just follow along. I mean that. With all my heart.

The boy came over and burned a CD for me. It is the soundtrack to the movie Inside Llewyn Davis.

Yes, that’s Justin Timberlake singing. It is a wonderful CD and I highly recommend it. (Also highly recommended by daughter #1) How can you miss with T. Bone Burnett producing? Well, you can’t.

I have also been listening to the new CD Old Yellow Moon with Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell.

I believe it just won a Grammy in the “Americana” field. What is this field, you ask? I had never heard of it, but it seems to be a category where old singers are put so they can still win Grammys. I am not trying to be harsh but, c’mon, this is a straight on Country album. I think Steve Martin and Edie Brickell were nominated in this field too. Anyway, it is a good album and I especially like their cover of the Kris Kristofferson song “Chase the Feeling” which includes the classic line: “You got loaded again, Ain’t you handsome when you’re high.”

Speaking of music, I heard that my friend Andrew Hunt will be opening for none other than (be still my heart) Dwight Yoakam

in Austin, TX soon. He will not be with his band Johnny Appleseed, but some other guys. Boy, wouldn’t it be great to see that concert? Okay, Dwight may not be the heart-throb he once was, but neither am I.

Saturday night I watched The Commancheros (1961) with John Wayne and Stuart Whitman.

Stuart Whitman (who replaced James Garner, Charlton Heston and several others) and the Duke in that iconic faded red shirt, leather vest and kirchief.

Stuart Whitman (who replaced James Garner, Charlton Heston and several others) and the Duke in that iconic faded red shirt, leather vest and kerchief.

It is the last film directed by one of my favorites, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood). He was very ill, dying as it turned out, during the filming of it and John Wayne stepped in and actually directed most of the movie. He took no credit for it, of course. Any film from this era of John Wayne westerns is always a winner in my book, especially when you have had it up to here (already) with X-Game sports at the Olympics.

At church on Sunday I was confronted with the fact that they have cut out a section of my pew (fifth row, epistle side) to accommodate oldsters with walkers. Carla had warned me about this, but still it was a bit jarring on Sunday morning. I had to find a new pew, and for oldsters like me, that is not easy! C’est la vie. I’ll live.

The boy and daughter #3 came over for dinner on Sunday night. I made Episcopal souffle, a nice salad and cut up a baguette for dinner. Perfect.

How was your weekend? Have a good week!

*…to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart”–BCP

7 Comments

January 24, 2014

Friday movie pick: “A man oughta do what he thinks is right.”

by chuckofish

As I mentioned earlier, daughter #2 sent me two Josh Ritter CDs to get me all set for the concert I am going to in February. I have been listening to them non-stop for a week or so and the song that has stuck with me is “Make Me Down”.

All that talk of making me down a pallet on your floor, has also given me an idea for this week’s movie pick: Hondo (1953) with John Wayne. You will recall that the Duke makes a pallet on Angie Lowe’s floor and, well, you can guess what happens.

John Wayne in the iconic Hondo pose with Dog

This is a movie that would have benefited mightily from a better director, but it is still a good western, based on a solid story by Louis L’Amour. Directed frenetically in 3-D by John Farrow with a sometimes snicker-inducing screenplay by James Edward Grant, it is carried forward by the inestimable effort of the Duke who swings manfully through the movie, chopping wood, shoeing horses, fighting Indians, etc. There is a lot of action in this movie–really too much for the simple love story it tells. You can see that they are trying to use the 3-D to its optimum effect and that they overdo it. What a shame.

3-D already. We get it.

The great stage actress Geraldine Page stars here in her first movie as Angie Lowe, a woman living alone with her young son in the midst of hostile Apache territory. Cast for her non-Hollywood looks, she is unfortunately not terribly appealing. Louis L’Amour wrote a compelling female character–unusual for mid-century movies–but somehow Geraldine, even though she was nominated for an Academy Award, doesn’t quite pull it off, which is also a shame.

Hondo is a movie that has received some criticism for its portrayal of Native Americans. Some of it is deserved. The white actors who play Indians look Italian and wear way too much body make-up. They say idiotic things like, “You have good man. Treasure him.” Really? (This is what I meant by “snicker-inducing”.) John Wayne-haters often cite this role, but his famous line–“Everybody gets dead. It was his turn.”–is always taken out of context. Hondo is part Apache and has lived with the Indians and respects their way of life. One wonders if these critics have even seen the movie!

Bottom line: this movie could have been so much better. John Ford did not direct it. Noted. But there is still a lot of good in it and, for me, any movie with John Wayne is worth watching. It is easy to see why Angie makes up that pallet on the floor for old Hondo. Who in her right mind wouldn’t?

There is also a great dog in this movie (see photo above)–really one of the great movie dogs of all time. His name, of course, is Dog.

9 Comments

January 20, 2014

“May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks”*

by chuckofish

Happy MLK Day! A three-day weekend is most welcome, n’est-ce pas?

I am enjoying my Monday at home. Hope you are as well.

Yesterday after church I convinced my old man to drive to West Alton to the Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary, located at the confluence of the Missouri, Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. It is primetime for watching Bald Eagles and Trumpeter Swans.

Here is a cool video about the awesome Mississippi Flyway:

http://riverlands.audubon.org/videos/spectacle-birds

It was very crowded at the Audubon Center (which is lovely), so we didn’t stay too long, but headed north up the Great River Road.

We saw a lot of eagles. (You know how I feel about raptors.) And eagles are the coolest, right?

“…and there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he forever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than the other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.”

(H. Melville)

Someone else’s cool picture of a Bald Eagle on the Mississippi Flyway

I did not take any good pictures with my iPhone, although I tried (see below).

But they were there. The river was filled with chunks of ice.

We drove all the way up through Elsah and Grafton to Pere Marquette State Park and stopped for lunch at the historic Lodge,

but the wait would have been too long, so we headed back down the road and home to terra cognita and our local Schneithorst’s Bavarian Koffee Haus. It was not crowded.

On my own “Road to Oscar” travels, I watched the movie Nebraska this weekend.

It is a “comedy-drama” starring Bruce Dern and Will Forte and is directed by Alexander Payne. It was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, where Bruce Dern won the Best Actor Award. It has also been nominated for 6 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Screenplay. My guess is it won’t win anything except maybe the screenplay award. We’ll see.

I can’t say I was impressed. It is one of those movies where nothing much happens and is, therefore, “arty”. Plus, it is in black and white, and that makes it even arty-er. It is also about people who live in flyover country, so they are all kind of stupid, vulgar and boring. (I live in flyover country and I do not know anyone like the people in this movie; they are what people who live on the East/West coasts think people in flyover country are like.) The only person who is at all nice is the son played by Will Forte. I kept waiting for something to happen, for the Bruce Dern character to finally have a say, but he never comes out of his dementia-fog. Why the French thought him worthy of the Best Actor award, I’ll never know.

It held my interest–mostly because I was waiting for a pay-off (none came)–and I have to say, my old man sat through the whole thing without a break. That is saying something. However, he didn’t like it either.

I also watched, per my recommendation on Friday, Buffy’s season 4 birthday episode with Giles as a fyoral demon.

It was a much better choice.

P.S. The Broncos won–go, my man, Peytie Pie!

*Gandalf

6 Comments

January 13, 2014

Weekend update: Another chance to disapprove, Another brilliant zinger, Another reason not to move, Another vodka stinger*

by chuckofish

Mostly this weekend was a time for catching up. I had no social plans beyond a birthday lunch with my girlfriends and church on Sunday. We had a baptism and it was good to renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness with my brethren. At the end of the service we sang the interminably long but deeply wonderful “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”. Verse 6 always brings tears to my eyes:

Christ be with me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ before me,
Christ beside me,
Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ in quiet,
Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

On the literary front, I finished In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje, which daughter #2 had encouraged me to read. I enjoyed it, but it was the kind of book where you are always aware that you are reading “literary” fiction. Not really my cup of tea. Great literature does not hit you over the head with its worthiness. Furthermore, I have to say that while some of the characters are engaging, they are also anarchists/terrorists. So again, how can you really care what happens to them? In point of fact, I didn’t.

I watched two movies–one was a really good one: Oscar and Lucinda (1997), an Australian movie directed by Gillian Armstrong and based on the Booker Award-winning novel by Peter Carey. Boy, I really liked it.

Ralph Fiennes plays an Anglican priest in the mid-18th century who is an obsessive gambler. His reasons for gambling are pure and his Pascalian argument for his legitimate use of it as a Christian, completely righteous. He meets Cate Blanchett, who is a compulsive gambler, on the ship going to Melbourne and they become friends. Lucinda bets Oscar her entire inheritance that he cannot transport a glass church to the Outback safely. Oscar accepts her wager, and this leads “to the events that will change both their lives forever.”

I was so impressed with Ralph Fiennes who plays the innocent and devout minister without the least bit of irony or judgement. He is totally believable and likable. Cate Blanchett is as always intelligent and precise and believable. Both are so good as kindred spirits. Plus there are lots of fine actors in smaller roles. The production is beautiful. The music is by Thomas Newman.

Just a great movie! I will have to read the book now.

I also watched Company (2011)–a filmed version of the Broadway show which won the Tony for Best Musical back in 1971.

I was talking to someone at work awhile back and I said I hadn’t ever seen Company and the next thing I knew he had brought it in for me. He said I’d like it. Well, I finally got around to watching it and I did not like it. Stephen Sondheim’s negative take on marriage and relationships (and women in general) is very cynical and “sophisticated”.

Puff puff. But there is not one likable/relatable character in the bunch. The main character, played by one of my least favorite actors–Neil Patrick Harris–is a jerk. Poor Mr. Sondheim. I feel that he was writing from experience.

On the home front, I took down our outside Christmas lights. It was 60-degrees yesterday so it seemed like the smart thing to do. I was impressed with what a good job the boy did putting them up. I guess he isn’t an Eagle Scout for nothin’!

Golden Globe update: FYI June Squibb is from Vandalia, Illinois. You go, Flyover Girl!

And I thought Diane Keaton was lovely.

* “Ladies Who Lunch” by Stephen Sondheim

5 Comments

January 10, 2014

Great God! this is an awful place.*

by chuckofish

Preoccupied as I am with snow, I got to thinking about a movie pick for Friday that is snow-related.

The first film that came to mind, of course, was one of my favorite musicals, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), directed by the great Stanley Donen and featuring the best-ever dance in the snow.

Then there is the entertaining Cold War thriller Ice Station Zebra (1968) starring a studly all-male cast that includes Rock Hudson, James Brown and Patrick MacGoohan. Who cares if the sets are terrible?

If you like Robert Mitchum (and I do), you could watch Track of the Cat (1954), a film noir western wherein “complex and dangerous family dynamics play out against the backdrop of the first big snowstorm of winter.”

Or there’s Scott of the Antarctic (1948)–the true story of the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his ill-fated expedition to try to be the first man to discover the South Pole. All the Brits have stiff upper lips (which become frostbitten) in this very sad rendering of a tragic tale.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972) with Robert Redford has a lot of snow in it and it is a much better movie than Downhill Racer (1969) which also boasts Robert Redford and lots of snow. I vote for Jeremiah Johnson.

Other movies that come to mind: The Shining (1980), The Grey (2011), The Pink Panther (1964). Can you think of any good movies that take place in a snowy locale? Did Elvis make a ski-bum movie?

*Scott at the South Pole

4 Comments

January 3, 2014

The family that plays together stays together

by chuckofish

Studies show that spending leisure time with one’s family – be it playing a game of Scrabble or taking a road trip – enhances the quality of life and the relationships at home. No kidding.

Here are a few pictures of my older brother and his two children literally “playing” together when they gathered from across the country (and from Spain!) during the holidays.

Fulbright scholar Foster and his old Pappy

Picking and grinning with geologist daughter Ellen

They have been playing together since they were little tykes and by now they are pretty good indeed.

Alas, we are not musicians in our family. My children did participate in band in middle school and two into high school, but none of them ultimately continued on with the clarinet, flute or violin. They all sang in the choir as well, but only the boy went on into high school with that. (He put the kobash on a Broadway career, because he thought it would be embarrassing.) I have encouraged him to re-join the adult choir at church, but, for now, that is but a pipe dream of his mother’s. Sigh.

We do not play board games in our family either. We tried that when the children were young, but the boy became hysterical when he lost, so we had to abandon games and we never went back for them. I have never been a game person myself–too many rules to learn.

But we have done plenty of playing I think. And by that I mean talking. We watch movies together and talk about them. Some families go hunting together or ski or fish. Some cook or hike. Or shop. Whatever.

It is the “together” that is important and not what you do I think. What do you do together as a family?

You know something, Wally? I’d rather do nothin’ with you than somethin’ with anybody else.
–Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver

6 Comments

December 30, 2013

Back to the salt mines or You’ve got to grind, grind, grind at that grindstone*

by chuckofish

Having gotten up at 4 a.m. to drive daughter #1 to the airport to catch an early flight back to NYC, I am now heading off to the salt mines where I may get a bit of rest after all the holiday hoopla.

Last week is kind of a blur. A blur filled with parties,

gift giving (and receiving),

eating too much , drinking more than usual,

shopping a lot, going to church (even a funeral)

and talking pretty much non-stop.

We also watched Mary Poppins and the next night saw Saving Mr. Banks, which I enjoyed very much.

I was in the third grade when I first saw Mary Poppins in 1964.

We went to see it at the fabulous Fox Theatre downtown for my dual personality’s 6th birthday. We went to the University Club for dinner first. It was a huge deal. The build-up was big. We must have been so excited. I just remember loving it–every minute–and being so sad when it was over. And wanting to go again, which we did.

When was the last time you felt like that at the end of a movie?

While you’re mulling over this question, here’s a little something fun from the Ashmoelean Museum at Oxford:

* Bert in Mary Poppins

4 Comments

December 13, 2013

Rest in peace or We have… GOT… to get organized!*

by chuckofish

It is that time of year again when TCM puts together its TCM Remembers video, honoring all the movie people who have died during the year. Here is the 2013 version, and I am happy to say they did not forget old Harry Carey, Jr. who died last December.

Good job, TCM! It would be an appropriate time to watch 3 Godfathers (1948) in memory of all three godfathers, but I will probably wait and watch it on (or around) January 6 for Epiphany which commemorates the visit of the original 3 Godfathers, the magi who visited the baby Jesus.

I would like to watch The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966) in honor of the late, great Jonathan Winters, but I don’t think we have it.

Two bad-asses: Jonathan Winters and Brian Keith

Old School Bad Ass: Jonathan Winters and Brian Keith

As is frequently the case, we have a VHS tape, but not a DVD. Curses.

Anyway, I am way behind in my Christmas movie viewing. Apparently we are in for some bad weather this weekend, starting today, so I think it will be a good weekend for hunkering down and watching movies, wrapping presents and toasting absent friends. Here’s to you, Ray Harryhausen!

*The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming

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December 10, 2013

“The main trouble is there are too many people who don’t know where they’re going and they want to get there too fast!”*

by chuckofish

Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young

The Bishop’s Wife (1947), directed by Henry Koster, is a wonderful black and white Christmas movie that you may have missed. We discovered it on television back in the 1970s and have loved it ever since. Of course, it is right up my alley, being about an Episcopal bishop (David Niven) who is trying to raise funds to build a Cathedral. And there is Cary Grant as an angel–talk about great casting–who comes in answer to the bishop’s prayer for “help”. According to IMDB, Grant was first cast to play the bishop and Niven the angel, but when the original director was replaced, Koster decided they should be switched. A brilliant move. The resulting film was nominated for Best Picture, Director, Film Editing, and Music. It only won for Best Sound. It also boasts a great script by the playwright Robert Emmet Sherwood from the novel by Robert Nathan.

It was re-made in 1996 as The Preacher’s Wife with Denzel Washington as the angel and Whitney Houston as the wife. I have not seen this version, but I know they’re not Episcopalians. Sigh. It isn’t cool anymore to make movies about Episcopalians I guess. C’est la vie.

Well, I highly recommend this terrific Christmas movie from 1947. You should definitely make room in your busy holiday schedule for this treat.

* The Bishop’s Wife (1947)

7 Comments

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