Memorable.....

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/28/badseed.php

You want creepy little girls? In the stage version, she killed everyone and ends up just sitting calmly playing Au claire de la lune....

And it wasn't about adoption, turns out, it was the bad genes from the grandmother who was a serial murderess..... I'd forgotten.

Here.

For Anglophiles who buy dvds....

My pay-for site had a mini-series all of a sudden without fanfare. Seven episodes. It's called Downton Abbey. After seeing that Maggie Smith, ( the incomparable) was in it, had to take a look and got sucked into it, it was fascinating

The late Robert Altmann has lasting influence. His film 'Gosford Park' was extraordinary. Making a 'Krimi' into a study of mores and social strata of British society. It focussed on the people who ran an English manor, and the aristocrats were more or less the dress-up dolls who were fairly irrelevant.

Downton Abbey took a lesson, and sort of changed the balance.... sixty per-cent 'downstairs', forty 'upstairs'. I found it fascinating. It begins with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and ends with the outbreak of WWI in 1914. There is an issue about inheritance, as the Lord of the manor doesn't have a male heir, but three daughters.

But mostly, it is about the people 'downstairs'. And they harbour a villain and villainess the likes of which I hadn't seen before. A lady's maid with so much resentment she could curdle you with her smile. And a footman with ambitions and without morals, you want to smash his face. Dickensian.

Everyone has a 'sneakret'. The themes are social inequality, the rise of socialism and the suffragette movement, and nothing is out of balance, as some of the 'upstairs' people are aware that their time is over, and help others.

I won't put any spoilers in here. But suffice it to say that Maggie Smith is a wonder as Dowager Countess. That woman never makes a wrong move. Hard and calculating on the one hand... and able to move on as far as she can. Pride, and in the end, very funny. Beginning with holding up her fan to 'protect' herself from 'new-fangled electric lights' and what they might emanate.... which so reminded me of a Thurber story.. . to being sceptical about what good a 'telly-phone' was for. And in every segment, she would drop a dead-pan line so excruciatingly funny, I'd bust out laughing from the heart. And I don't laugh much any more, Preciousses.

I will always regret not having seen her in a play called 'Lettice and Loveage'. Peter and I saw it with top actresses in Vienna, and I could only shrug and think, 'Whaaa? She got a Tony for THAT'????' However.... the last act was so funny, we saw a production in Graz. And the Viennese version was cut to shreds, turns out. Seemingly no cuts in Graz, and it was 'oh WOW... now I understand'. It wasn't comedy, it was devastating. A totally different play.

Peter was impressed, but had a problem, because the acress playing the Maggie Smith role was one of his sworn enemies. They went waaay back. When he was star-struck, and had his first serious affair with a young actor who was so handsome, I never figured out what he'd see in me.... He died of leukemia. But she'd made his life a living hell.

Whatever, after seeing it her, I walked out shell-shocked, and said I'd never seen Gerti so good... she'd made my eyes leak. And he begrudgingly said, 'That was the best I've ever seen her.' And it cost him something to admit that.

So I got a close approximation.

Whatever, obtaining the DVD of Downton Abbey would be worth the money. It is suspenseful. Interesting. And the production values are top-notch. It's rich in narration, and worth seeing. I hope there will be a second season.

Uncertainty....

A couple of days ago, I saw there was this new movie on my pay-for channel, Rio.

I was surprised, because, it just opened in 'Murka. And had seen some people pimping it out on talk shows just before...

And hadn't seen a kid's film in decades, and best of all, it wasn't Disney. So I thought I'd look in and see what was subliminally infecting the country's youth. And it was sort of cool, if you think about it.

The last two blue macaws, they get brought together in RIO, which is the name of the fim... and if ypou think about the message... the blue macaws get imprisoned one way or another for most of the film. And yes, they get free, but not before some really bad guys come into play big time, and enslave them forever, and yeah, you can translate that to corporations, with a sugar coating... And the other birds who save them are kooky, and disorganised, and yet get it done. There are messages behind it all, I think. 'Setting up attitudes, I mean.

So I liked it. Was ok. I didn't have a favourite moment, it was just ok. Kids will certainly react differently to it.

The humans are so dorky, they should be banned, but don't take up much of the film.

Been under the weather.....

as my tendency to vomit daily suddenly returned. So I tend to stay in, go out once in the mornings, and then stay in, sleep a lot, and generally try not to get myself aggravated.

Although the news still riles me up, but never vomit over that. It's just spontaneous eruptions. And the news drives me to depression, so I try to balance it by watching other things.

So this channel I can get on the intertubes is expanding quickly, and of high quality at times, and am always up with the latest episodes of things I like and explore a bit of what I don't like, and it has a movie section.

Of the latter, I wasted 90 minutes or so watching one called 'You Again'. It was about high school bullying which turns out to be over three generations, and it was mildly funny, and well thought out, in that of the two, bully and victim were mirrored. The last third, I wanted to up-chuck, because in the Disneyfication of the world, (yeah it was from Touchstone, a subsiduary), everyone forgives, and everyone forgets, and 'happy ever after'. Well I was bullied, and I will never forgive my main tormentor, and that was so utopian 'Disney', well, just forget it. If I were to run into him, I would want to rearrange his face, he ruined a part of my life. The sick fuck. And so it really ruined it for me.

And the recent 'The Tourist' was up. Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, starring the city of Venice Italy. It was supposed to be an action thriller. So devoid of chemistry between the headliners, you could start yawning after about half an hour, and if you were in the back row of a movie theater with a date, totally forgettable, and you would be doing things you shouldn't do in public.

I kept watching because of the real star, Venice, and remembering. And tsk-tsking at the editing. Now some of you have been there with me. And we know that the famous estuary part beyond Piazza San Marco going toward the Lido to the west has the ultra-famous Hotel Danieli, which is one of the few Peter and I never stayed in. In one scene, Jolie comes out and looks right... and sees the Rialto Bridge. Uh-huh. Anyone who has been there knows that is impossible. There is an S curve in the canale grande, and it is at least forty-five minute's walk away if you are hoofing it from Piazza San Marco... although I did know a short-cut that could get me there in five minutes at a brisk walking pace. They made the airport look as if it were next to the train station, which is bosh... it's really far away. Screwy editing. In the end I decided not to be sour, and reminisce as things I recognised and loved about the city came to the fore. Gawwd, dining in style on the terrace of the Hotel Monaco, just across that weird looking basilica that glimmered so white across the way... So it was a trip to reminiscing. Left me sad. And the end of the film was so lame, it only irritated me.

Showtime has begun a series about the Borgias. Now that was 'fun'. Let's see: in the first double episode, Rodrigo becomes Pope Alexander VI. I hadn't known the family was of Spanish descent and hated by the Italians, who considered the Spaniards sort of ape-like. (What does that remind me of?)

His son Cesare, and yes, Preciousses, Cardinals and such like had mistresses, and sired children, and the eldest son was to be in the Church, the second in the Army and daughters were to be married off to form alliances with countries or fiefdoms who would bring more power and prestige to themselves. So Alexander makes his son a Cardinal, there is revolt among the cardinal's college, and an attempt to poison him backfires, when Cesare is able to flip the assassin.

(As historical 'evidence', the clergy had pleasure palaces on the island of Giudecca in Venice, after evicting the Jewish populace there and re-populating them in a part of the city called Ghetto, from where the name comes. It was walled, closed in at night, and only the Jewish poplulation were able to make loans and conduct bank business, because the Catholics thought it 'dirty'. One of the most profligate Cardinals going had a palace built for his mistress in Salzburg, with some water-works in his gardens which beguile tourists to this day. It was 'normal'. They had power.)

The second part ended with an assassin killing the maid of the mistress of the pope in another cardinal's chambers, one who was plotting against him. (Think Clinton hires a papparazzo to photograph Newt Gingrich in flagrante while he was married to his then-wife. So much cleaner...)

This has lots of blood, but the values are really very good. Jeremy Irons makes a good Pope Alexander VI. Chilling and interesting, and entertaining all at the same time. Worth seeing if you have Showtime. But not for kiddies...

And I started toing some comparative viewing of Soaps. as my site expanded to include ones from the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. I haven't checked much on the latter two yet, but enough of three others in the UK to notice some major differences so far.

I'd always HEARD of 'Coronation Street', so I tried that one first. I. didn't. understand. one. word. Not a word. But if you are IN the UK, they offer subtitles, so I guess it wasn't my fault. So I ended up sticking with three other half-hour long-running ones there. Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, and East Enders.

And find some very MAJOR differences between what is shown there, and what is in the US. Whereas in the US, everyone is wealthy, glamourous, and the things that worry them are more or less trivial, and they go on a sexual merry-go-round, the UK ones are far more reality based.

All feature people struggling to get by in a recession. Emmerdale is in a farming community, East Enders is in a rough part of London, Hollyoaks is also rural, and no one seems to be getting anywhere in the sense of financial success, but trying very hard.

The one thing the three have in common, and the US ones for that matter, is that the men are criminally stupid. And the women are very smart and conniving. But in the UK versions, the women are hard and scratching at every opportunity to lift themselves and their men up. And they aren't very nice about it. But in both cultures, the men are basically saps. In the UK they bond more.

I find it culturally interesting that the UK ones refer to a best friend as a 'mate', which is telling. They seem to regard their spouses as some sort of 'necessary evil', and the children a nuisance. No treacly family values stuff to be seen so far....

The guys hang out in pubs. In the US versions, they go to fancy restaurants, and vent on rivals, in the UK, they go to pubs, where their spouses and girlfriends show up and give them grief, and whereas in the US the waiters and waitresses are polite, in the UK, the barmaids all seem to have had their tongues sharpened on a whetstone made for swords.

In the US, only one show I have ever seen that REALLY put a gay theme out there unvarnished was One Life to Live, which a lot of people liked, but the right wing got so vocal, they had to cut the characters out of the show last year. And it was harmless.

In the UK, gay couples seem to be a matter of course. Just today, on Hollyoaks, one kid came out to his sister, she was delighted, and thought him 'snogging' his new friend in a pub was just fine, but there is some back-story, because she learns her brother had abused and beaten him till he fought back with a bat, if I understood it correctly... And in the East Enders, this second generation couple of Pakistani descent is getting married, and the groom's brother is gay, the family has disowned him, and at his bidding, Said goes to the engagement party, which provoked some extreme behaviour from his father and mother.

I wouldn't say one or the other is 'better' in any sense. Interesting? Yeah.

Soaps are definitely a mirror of the society in which they are produced.

And I wouldn't 'prefer' one to another, it is just 'interesting'.

Thank whomever I never settled in the UK, however. I'd be swallowing syllables, or coughing on my vowels. Or something.

And now that I've BOREDJa...

Night.

RIP

Unforgettable....

Sometimes when you are really bored, as on Sundays...

You might look at things you normally wouldn't even want to touch on the 'interments'. This being such a Sunday, I tapped into one of the last Christmas movies of 2010. 'Yogi Bear'. I was perplexed as to why the poster would choose that, but soon learned why.

It wasn't so much amazing for the effects as for the message. Now I grew up with the cartoon characters, but this was something different. A corrupt mayor wants to become governor, and since he can't balance the budget, (italics mine), he decides to sell Jellystone Park to land developers. Most of the film is aimed at kids, but, now, a few months later, and the havoc Walker is wreaking in Wisconsin... even a grown-up would understand the underlying message.

As a rule, I would have closed the window on a children's film. Except this one was fascinating in its' underlying message. Dan Ackroyd and Justin Timberlake as the voices for Yogi and Boo-Boo were fine. It was sort of a mish-mash of what is real and what is CGI. It had a happy ending.

I hope Wisconsin will as well.

We had some sun today

for the first time in weeks. I kept thinking I'd been living in the Lincolnshire of Dicken's novel 'Bleak House' and expecting to find Lady Deadlock's ghost roaming about in the courtyard, harbinging revenge.

Luckily, a crop of movies popped up on my subscription site, so that was some distraction. First I watched 'Rabbit Hole'. Nicole Kidmann had a nomination for that.... and I can't for the life of me imagine WHY. Immensely boring.

Then I tried Alice in Wonderland, nearly turned it off immediately when the Disney logo came up, but it was directed by Tim Burton. And his films are for anyone who have Halloween as their most sacred horriday of the year. This version has Alice at nineteen going back. She has to end the red queen's reign of terror. The visuals were excellent. It begins with parallels to the original, then turns very dark, which is what Burton's movies normally do. Enjoyable, and Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter was a ton of fun and very amusing.

And although I'd been putting it off... I watched 'The Fighter'. Had mixed reactions to it. Christian Bale deserved his award. Melissa Leo, don't know, she seemed so exaggerated, but reminded me of my bio-Mom. Mark Wahlberg really pulled back and gave a quiet performance.The film wasn't boring. But disturbing to me on a mess of levels. I don't think it did any great service to Lowell, Massachusetts. It depressed me on so many levels, most of them purely personal. But is a very good film.

Today's afternoon feature for me was 'How Do You Know'. Yeah, the title didn't appeal to me either at first glance. But if you have a cast like Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson, you have the perfect foggy afternoon movie to lift you up a bit. It's just a light, girl has to choose between two guys comedy, and Jack Nicholson being comic-surly-irritating. It was solid, has some hilarious dialogue at times, and was a nice escape movie. I'd recommend it as a date flick...

Oooo... got a bon-bon on Oscar day!

My site posted 'The Kids Are All Right'...

On this one, I have to say I watched it from a predjudicial point of view. But there was so much for me to like about it, and never a false note. It's about a lesbian couple with two children. The kids go and find their biological donor father, one of the women sleep with him, and nearly break up the family. No happy end, but no tragic one either. But lots of quiet insights into a same-sex couple and their marriage, and the problems that ensue. And could have just as well have been about any marriage. It was quiet, hardly anything over the top, but fascinating, and I could relate to so much of it.

I could relate to Annette Bening's portrayal. She was amazing. She has one of those faces.... she doesn't have to SAY anything, it all plays out in her expressions, and is crystal clear. And Julianne Moore was stunning, as usual. They drove the film, and it really wasn't about 'da kids'. If they don't get awards for the film, well... I guess that the general public isn't ready for that yet.

But I really liked this film. And I could so relate. But I think that anyone in a long term marriage or relationship would relate to the story. There was nothing 'shocking', or dramatic, or odd about it. It was about two people, and how they keep going on going on. It could have been about anyone. And that is pretty friggin' remarkable. In that sense, I would rate it 'daring'. Sometimes quiet truths say much more than turning things into psycho stuff.

Mark Ruffalo as the interloper was also interesting. I won't forget his behind for a while.... Stunning. But that was just eye-candy.

So... now am half-way up to speed, and can rant when the Academy does the dirty this evening and yell at my pc.

And the popcorn ran out. I would recommend it... to anyone who isn't a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.

Just read the Indie Awards were yesterday, and La Portman won again. She didn't convince me.

Hmmmm this year have seen

more of the nominated films for tonite's Oscars than in recent years past, thanks to my subscription web site. Last nite, 'Black Swan' was up. I had to force myself through that mess. Because everyone seems sure that Natalie Portman will get the best actress award.

The story? Neurotic ballerina gets to dance the Swan Queen in Swan Lake at Lincoln center. For those unfamiliar... a beautiful girl becomes enchanted and turned into a white swan, a sorcerer bewitches her further, and creates an alter ego, a black swan to thwart the white one from finding a true love to break the enchantment, and it ends badly, and the white swan kills herself. There's a prince who might have been the solution, but becomes seduced by the black swan, making him unpure and not able to break the curse, and in some versions he has remorse and jumps after her. In other words, Swan Lake is more like Grimm without the happy ever after.

I have seen several productions in the course of my life. And in most of them, the white swan and the black one are danced by two different performers, probably because there are few people who can do both roles and pull it off. Those who can are truly exceptional.

So.... Black Swan focusses on that latter aspect, but is really, really weird. Natalie Portman is picked to be 'the swan queen', and her director/choreographer really pushes her to get into the role of Odile, the black swan, which sends her into madness. And it becomes a mess, meaning her grasp on reality and the film itself. Good, you got the neurotic mother who never made it and has a very strange relationship with pushing her daughter. You get 'colleagues' who may or may not have her best interests at heart. There is a very odd relationship with one especially, who may be trying to undermine her, always dressed in blacks and she is always in white or very delicate pastels. And then it gets to be a mess.

Two thirds of the way through, the viewer is about as disoriented as the main character, Nina. Most of the New York shots are dark, and ugly. The black and white themes in the decorating and costumes keep up the main plot and help some in orienting yourself to what is dream or what is reality, but it's too much of a mess.

Natalie Portman spends three fourths of the film wandering about like a robot, and I found nothing about that to deserve all the accolades she has received. She must have worked her toes off for the rehearsal dance scenes. Although the self-mutilation scenes working on her feet and her finger nails were more than disturbing. It was like watching through someone else's eyes, where nothing is real. The last fifteen minutes, which is the premiere, were riveting enough, and involves a murder which turns out not to have been one... and her killing herself, as in accordance with what happens in Swan Lake, but there is never a prince.

Except for the fact that she danced proficiently, I fail to see how she should get the award for best actress. I usually love films about dancers, but this left me so cold, I ended up feeling immensely aggravated. And am glad I didn't spend 14 Euros for a ticket.

This year's crop of 'best films is fairly weak. I enjoyed 'True Grit' because it deconstructed that horrible 1969 treacle version with the insidious John Wayne. Watchted it twice, even, just to make sure my first reaction was viable.

But the jewel in the crown, you should pardon my pun, was ''The King's Speech'. Even a second view held me riveted to the pc screen. There was never a moment of lagging interest. I think the appeal is rooting for someone overcoming a huge handicap, and winning. It seems Geoffrey Rush is going to get robbed tonite for best supporting actor. Too low-key, probably, but an astounding performance. He is so underrated. Seems it will go to someone in 'The Fighter'. How many Rocky variations can you endure, hey.

I've only seen short clips of 'The Kids Are All Right', but think I would prefer seeing Annette Bening get the nod tonight. She's been short-changed so often, it's sad. But they have their own rules out in Hollywoodland.

As to some of the other films... It's one thing to imitate real artists, and another to surpass them and come up with something close to originality. People trying to emulate David Lynch, who could make you sit on the edge of your seat and really cogitate, absorbing the trips he could take you on in your mind, but you end up with 'Inception', which just failed miserably. Or Black Swan trying to go 'noir', but ending up just vexing the viewer without giving a clue as to what was 'real' or not... whether by changing lighting, or giving out some signal. Or the horrible best film 'Crash' some years ago which did not have one redeeming character, tried to emulate the inimitable and unattainable Robert Altmann, they were all despicable.... and led us to this year's film that had me pressing the escape button: The Social Network.

I admire some of David Fincher's films, and they are always dark. But his latest had me really puking. Rich kids without soul or conscience or any sort of morality. I had to pass.

So sometimes I have to ask myself.... what sort of crack-cocaine are these writers and directors ON????? It wasn't a brilliant year in my opinion, in other words. Will see the full fall out tomorrow on my pc. Should be interesting.

Ok, two more films on my channel up for Oscars

If you want to lose two and a half hours of your life being aggravated by a vexing illogical puzzle.... and probably go through two jumbo containers of popcorn in a movie theater, chewing to help yourself THINK... 'Inception' is perfect for you. The basic idea wasn't bad, mind you... but turning it into an Escher painting wasn't exactly the way to go. Oh yeah, you can follow it, if you can stay awake enough... except it doesn't make sense. If the makers wanted to go the way of 'Donny Darko', or 'Mulholland Drive', at least it would have been interesting enough to want to find out what it was ABOUT. This film is a mess, and in the end, boring in the extreme. And whoever made it is on something that really messes up perceptions so badly, they should run for the next Betty Ford clinic. I WOULD suggest that it might have a chance for an Oscar for set design. But it wasn't anything new either.

And 'Burlesque' was up. Only one nomination, for best song. Rightly so. The makers should be sued for gross plagiarism. The first half-hour seems promising.... but then, oh then! Someone spare us all! If you want to plagiarise... I wish for zombies, so that Bob Fosse rises from the grave and takes the choreographer and lighting director to an early demise, as they are being ghouls themselves. We SAW this all in the 70's with Cabaret.

The first half hour of the movie is good, as said above. But then it descended into 'quoting' every damned cliché about show-business you can think of.

I left after nearly an hour and a half. And left the popcorn behind me.

And Cher got screwed, minimal role.

And Christina Aguilera? After three songs... nothing new, gets old, and boring.

Blech....

This film is really upsetting me, because I hate every entitled son of a bitch depicted in it.

I'm only a half-hour into it, and I want to crush every one of the people in that film.

It should not get one award.

Harvard. I used to love running over to Ha'vad, and getting German magazines at the tiny store, after getting off the red line, and strolling around the campus, imagining how it might be to be a student there.

Which was unnatainable. Thank gawwd I NEVER had anything to do with the scum who attend that institution. Thank gawwd. Soulless bastards and bitches.

Oh, this film is making me so angry, I can't even express it at the moment. It's so precise. And it doesn't pretend to show a 'good' side of 'Murka, it shows the opposite, the greed, the destructiveness, but oh hey, if you're a rube with a good idea... you're gonna get TAKEN DOWN.

But what the hey, if you're on the losing side... you get fucked, but you aren't going to starve.

I had to stop watching. Mr. Zuckerberg and his story disgusted me to the point where I wanted to throw up.

The film is good. It is. But toxic for myself. I can't take watching that, I despise the people depicted, I'd like to be in their face for what they do, and I am disgusted by the people who raised such amoral monsters. I don't need to see the rest of the movie. It's well done.

The film is good. But I hated it. And I couldn't stay with it to the end, because it goes against EVERYTHING I believe and think and would never support.

I don't want this nor do I even LIKE Facebook. I think it is just as superficial, vindictive, and sometimes as assinine as people masturbating in an open park.

The King's Speech....

Woke up at three a.m. just sort of weirded out, and whaddaya know.... the film was available on the channel I subscribed to.

It's seemingly a favourite for the Oscars next month. It's about King George VI, father of Queen Elisabeth, who stammered terribly, and an Australian commoner who helped him.

Now, I know.... period film, Brits at their best, some people would say 'bo-ring'.

But it wasn't at all. To see Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush being brilliant to the point of inspiring awe for how good, was suspenseful. It helped that it is a true story...

I would recommend seeing this film. All the values are so perfect, it's amazing just for that alone. But the pivitol thing is the focussing of the script to two very diverse men, and the forming of a friendship. Colin F'irth was sometimes nearly painful to watch, the figure so tormented by his handicap. Geoffrey Rush hasn't been praised enough, for his portrayal of the man who helped him. It's very subtle, and he should have gotten a nomination for a very solid performance.

Again, I would recommend it. It's history. Beautifully done.

But I could relate, actually. When I worked as assistant in the cinema, we had ushers. Yeah, those were the good old days.... and girls on the candy stand.... and later usherettes... It was always the guys. Always. Some shy to the point of going beet red, really struggling to get one word out. And stammering.

I'm just glad I did the right thing. No self-praise here, but I sort of figured it out. I took the rest of the staff to a quiet moment, and laid down a law. 'I don't want to hear ANYONE making fun of ---whomever--- I do not want to hear ANYONE finishing his sentences, pretend everything is just normal. And be kind.'

Oddly, it always seemed to work. Within about three weeks, they suddenly started chattering up a storm, and some of them were usually the funniest people on the staff. There was no pressure.

The worst was HJ. The guy from Berlin who stuttered when he met new people. He spent six months, and worked in the drive-in and hung around the theater, and had this 'clicking' thing... it wasn't good. I did the same thing, and the result was the same. He had never relaxed among people before.

There are hints that it all goes back to childhood, and the film made that very clear.

What I never understood was a visit to Berlin, and hearing that man berate HIS son for stammering. I was shocked. As in 'this is beyond belief, how can he DO that?' And I got his wife out to the kitchen and asked her what the fuck hell was he DOING to his son, and didn't she know he had the same problem decades before?

My friend looked at me as if I'd delivered the biggest bitch slap she'd ever gotten. 'He never stammered.'

'You are so mistaken, when I met him he could hardly get a word out, and now he's doing this to your SON?'

The rest of that conversation is hereby censored, but you can imagine....

And of course, I had my own problems in communicating. I got bad grades in high school. I could be a motor-mouth in private, with people I trusted. But to have to speak in front of a hostile classroom, I just tried that twice. And I couldn't get a word out, and wanted to sink into the floor-boards.

I didn't even think I would survive the first two weeks I worked in the cinema. Because I would have to do 'the rounds', traverse the aisles, and ask people not to put their feet on the chairs in front of them.

Around week two, something happened, and I learned to be confident.

So yeah, the film resonated, and I wasn't thinking about all that directly while watching, but I so recognised and empathised with the people I was seeing. I should have made some popcorn, but at three in the morning... too much trouble.




I see the channel has put up 'The Social Network', so might go there the next time I have insomnia.... Facebook sort of makes me wary, so don't know.

Truly Gritty

Have been doing some quiet soul-searching the past few days, and needed quiet.

Today, I ran across a full version of the remake of 'True Grit' on the internets. Seemingly one that was intended only for awards jury members, because it would run a banner on the lower screen pertaining to that, and so on. 'For your consideration', it read.

And I thought, 'Good gawwd, why remake that horror???' And shuddered at the mere thought.

That 1969 piece of dung drove me crazy. Disneyfied Americana. And John Wayne was a cartoon in it as far as I felt at the time, and it had Glen Campbell, who couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, and it was syrupy, ballsy, punch in the shoulder, oh how the West was friggin' dandy. I hated it, in other words.

Now, I will admit, I am extremely predjudiced as to that. I hate Westerns, always have. And I hated John Wayne as a person, and especially his politics at the time with a vengeance, and punched a dent in the lobby wall of a cinema after seeing the horrible 'Green Berets', which was so propagandistic, I was incensed.

Whatever, I saw that the new version is available.... shuddered, and passed on by. Till I read that there was Oscar buzz out there for the girl and others.

Well, it being Sunday, I decided to take a look, certain I would start yelling at the lap-top screen within the first ten minutes.

That was after having looked at over one hundred reader's reviews on the NY Times website. Those told me the viewers were clearly divided into those who revere the first version, and those who loved the new one. Both sides maintain the films remained close to the novel, which I have never read.

After having seen the new one, and cringing over some YouTube excerpts of the original version, especially the credits with Glen Campbell twanging his vocal cords out, I DID see the new one in its' entirety. And was surprised. I actually liked it. I had skipped over the opening credits, thinking there was no sound to the upload, but was wrong, so I missed them. At the end, I should have known. It was by the Coen brothers. A-hah....

Just for those who love language, it was worth it. So archaic, funny, biting, I loved that.

The cinematography breathtakingly ugly.... dark, dank, cold, bleak. Exceptional. The music underscored, but never intruded. All fine values that make a fine film.

The girl who plays 14 year old Mattie was fine, which was a risk, because in this version, the story is hers, seen from her eyes. Matt Damon gave a stupendous 'in-love-with-himself' Texas ranger. Nothing over the top, just layered, and the script was complex enough to show who the man was beneath. Nice work.

Jeff Bridges took on the most thankless job of all. Playing Rooster Cogburn. That is one hell of a task to take on. I think he did very well indeed. His Rooster is a guy who mishandles Indian children without a second thought. (Throwing them over a railing off a porch to the ground. Twice. Little girls, by the way.) Mean to the bone, but also has his good side. Like lots of people.

And yes, they had the scene with him taking the reigns in his teeth and charging alone against five or six bandits, but it was more frightening than anything else. But they also had him in a scene being dead-drunk, and so mean and turning on his own, it was sort of shocking.

What impressed me was that this was probably closer to the novel than that piece of treacle from the Sixties, where 'Murkins were He-roes. The people in the new version aren't heroes at all. They are out for greed and revenge, and they never flinch causing damage if it helps them reach their goals. It is like looking at history through a dark mirror.

Undercurrents run through it, which I found menacing. Like Mattie waking up to find LeBouef watching her as she is sleeping in a boarding house from Hell, and making an insinuation that was sexual and dangerous. It kept me in suspense and wide awake for a change.

The ending wasn't 'happy', but supposedly in keeping with the novel. Mattie wants to look up Rooster twenty five years later, and had lost her arm due to a snake bite. He had saved her. She arrives to find out he had just died. He'd been trick riding in a travelling carney show. She has him interred in her family plot. It was a sad, but very appropriate ending. About people single-mindedly going after what they want, and damn the consequences, but in the end, all they have are hollow victories.

I can't say I 'enjoyed' the new version, but admire it very much. It stays with you. And that dark vision of a not so recent past was 'inspired', and it felt right. Someone on the Times reviews said it was 'a PG13 Deadwood'. Might be, never ran here. But it was gritty, all right, you could almost taste the dust and dirt. Whatever.... it stays with you.

I 'Lost It at the Movies' as well....

With humble apologies to the late Pauline Kael, movie reviewer of the NY Times. She had a book out with that title in the 60's, and I remember liking it very much.

I was up most of the night... one of the ones that make you mind-surf, and was writing 'The Venerable'. At first it had to do with my soap, and how Todd was getting back to form, torturing Marty, and how he had had her gang-raped in his frat house ages ago.

It rang a bell, as we say. Long story short? I was twelve or so, and ran errands to get my 35 cents' admission price for the double features on Saturdays. On this one Saturday, there was an over-long one, 'The Devil At Four O'clock', and all the kiddies left, mostly, and the second one was 'Town Without Pity'. Which begins with a rape, US occupying forces in Germany brutalising Christine Kaufmann. And the townspeople make HER the villain, and Kirk Douglas had to defend the rapist. I got that much of the story, and the luminous clock inside was telling me, 'You have to be HOME, youngster'. And I kept thinking, 'Oh, just another ten minutes, just another ten minutes...'

Well Da Ven came in of a sudden, and marched me home. It was a SIN not to be home for meals, back then, and actually, I was very punctual, so they were worried.

And I was sort of preoccupied with what I had seen and thinking out loud, which is a bad habit of mine, and said, 'Well, at least I now know what rape means.'

He doesn't remember that, but I'll never forget the expression on my parents' faces. I wouldn't say shocked, more like... 'How do we DEAL with this?'

Well, it was certainly a discussion we never had, but I was ok with it. Took me forty years to see the end of the movie, in Graz, of all places. It was actually good.

So he said he couldn't remember that theater showing films, it was a variety show place. But they did when I was twelve. I never went there much on Saturdays, but sure got some defining moments there.

Like Billy Wilder's 'One Two Three'. I saw that one twice, which meant I really really loved it. It flopped back then. It was filmed in Berlin, and the East Germans put up the Wall just as it was released. James Cagney played a Pepsi Cola magnate, and gave a scathingly funny performance. It was hilarious, but vicious, even I figured it out as a kid. And farce of the best sort. His daughter falls in love with a Communist (Horst Buchholz) and he weens him away from that with capitalist goodies, it was amazing, and so funny, I got cramps... from laughing. And the absolute highlight was the incredible Lilo (Liselotte) Pulver doing a wacky number on a table to the Fire Sable Dance. (For me, at the time, I guess.)

A few years ago, the film got rehabilitated, and became a hit forty some odd years after the fact. Which made me realise I had some sort of taste... just sayin'

So yeah, I guess 'I Lost It at the Movies', all right. I don't think those two influenced me in any way to make the decisions I made... but I remember those two with fondness. They were just two films among literally thousands I've seen. They just stuck out.

I guess I could do a blog just on that... except someone already is. It's called 'Tired Old Queen At The Movies.' Once you get past the histrionics, and all, he's a wealth of information of 'news you can't use, but like very much'. You can take a look HERE but sort of fasten your seat-belts. Steve Hayes is just outlandish. And very knowledgeable.

Except.... I'm glad I didn't lose it at the movies the way he did....

Have some Gene Pitney to sweeten up your Sunday.




And you can see the trailer HERE. I got two things wrong in my memory. Kirk Douglas was defending the rapist, but he knew what he was putting Christine Kaufmann through and hated it. And I always thought they filmed it in Germany. It was filmed in Austria.

And adding a trailer from Wilder's hilarious One Two Three. I'd forgotten how funny Arlene Francis was. Lilo Pulver floored me, she was so funny. She is still alive, and a VERY respected actress and entertainer, lives in Switzerland, and am a fan.



So have a fun Sunday. I'm going back to bed. The most productive part of my day. But just found a trailer. Kirk Douglas was very handsome. And Christine Kaufmann is still absolutely beautiful.

And now I am gonna bore your tits off...

In three days, the second-last Harry Potter film will open.

Yeah, groan all you want.

I fell in love with those books. I only read them because the right said they were evil, was on vacation, and said to myself, 'what the hell is wrong here? They can't be that subversive...' So I read the first three in paperback, and the fourth was out in hardback. And I was hooked.

I'd compare it to reading the 'Lord of the Rings' Trilogy, actually.. I'd been complaining to a friend, and he was reading almost as much as if not more than I was at the time, and there was a lull in publishing, and he said, 'Try Tolkien.' Well... a trilogy, hey.... wasn't gonna buy them all at once, why bother if you didn't like the first one, you know? And after the first chapter, I thought, 'My gawwd, what the hell is HE on? It's a children's book.' But then the Black Riders came on the scene, and I was totally hooked. And it became clear that you could interpret it on very many levels, and it was poetic, and beautiful. You don't get that very often, even reading seven to ten books a week over forty years. It was a Saturday, and when I'd finished... everything was closed till Monday, and I had to wait for the rest. That is how I felt about this series, but sometimes it took a year or more. oooo.

So I only cracked open the first one in the Potter series... and was sort of amazed. And in that week, I got the hard-cover number four, and was hooked. The films are sorta good. But never match the power and detail of the books, just impossible. But yes... will go see the newest. At the cinema that runs it in the original English, because NO one... can do Snape like Alan Rickman. He sends veritable shivers down my spine.

And am looking forward to seeing how he does these last ones. Because what is perceived as good can be evil, and vice versa, according to the book. And it is true enough. So... it'll be fun. Maybe. Or distract me, at least. Those books just aren't ONLY for children, believe me.

Found it hard to believe during the first reports on Sunday

That one of my all-time favourite books was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its' first publication. An older cousin of mine set it on the table, and said, 'you HAVE to read this.' She knew that I was a book fiend, had one wherever I went. And so I must have been twelve or thirteen years old, as it was paperback.

This novel just rocked my little world. I think it will go down in history as one of the greatest American masterpieces ever written to date. And am not being hyperbolic when I say that. At the beginning, there was so much I found hilarious, I literally laughed tears.

And it got darker, even though some things made me smile back then, for humorous. Doesn't have a happy end, the end was tragic, and the real ending was a surprise.

It was set in the South in the 30's, and has to be one of the most perfect novels I have ever read, the style is exqusite. The themes are so many, and so perfectly woven, it is sort of half a miracle.

It won the Puliter prize at a time when it was still prestigious, and not a lot of in-group glad-handing as it can be today in that category.

So you have probably guessed it by now. 'To Kill A Mockingbird', by Harper Lee. As a young kid, I found it thrilling and funny and perceptive. Later, in my adult years, have read it three times in different decades of my life, and it always blew me away. It is a book everyone should have, to return to and find the most important underlying message, having respect for everyone's humanity.

And yeah, everyone's dissected it to death, it is a very complex piece of work, and a masterpiece.

And it turns out that the strange little kid Dill was actually Truman Capote, and in reality, he spent summers in her town, and they were friends for a long time.

The film came out in my region in the summer of 64, and we saw it at a drive-in. Have seen it elsewhere many times, and it is classic. By then I had known the novel inside-out, was somewhat disappointed when my favourite scenes weren' t there due to the time limits imposed on how long a film could be, but the essentials were. And they were great.

So.... to celebrate... here is the vocal from the defense by Atticus Finch with just still pictures from the electrifying trial scene. It wasn't the real end, but it was emotionally wrenching, and the script stayed almost letter perfect to the novel.

And I find it upsetting that today, there are the most crazy Repubs I ever heard in my life wishing to turn the clock back. So just LISTEN. Gregory Peck DESERVED that Oscar. And there was no moralising in the book or the film, actually. The message was clear. Enjoy.

Since we were on the subject of movies, and I can't fall asleep yet...

They were my passion. And from my 8th year... I was allowed to go to the movies on Saturday afternoons, and those were double features. Only 35 cents! But I had to earn the money myself if I wanted to go.

My parents didn't have anything to spare, and it was a lesson in learning about the world. 'You may go, but I'm afraid you will have to earn the admission price for yourself.'

And that was fine.... it was good for me, long term.

So I found ways to earn money. Our block had a lot of elderly people, and I would run errands for them, and it was easy to get my movie money. It worked quite well, until... well will save that for now.

I got nightmares after seeing the original 'Invasion from Mars', and got grounded, no movies for two weeks. (Tee-vee never interested me.)

But ONE day, I got into the double-feature to beat all double features: 'The Devil at Four O'Clock' with Spencer Tracy, Frank Sinatra, and gawwd knows who else.. Everything a ten year old would love completely. An impending vulcano explosion, an orphan village that needed to be evacuated, it was heroic, tragic, and ultimately satisfying, and I would have paid fifty cents to see it. And it had to be about two and a half hours long, because there was a luminous clock in the theater, and I knew I had to be home by five p.m. But I friggin' earned my double feature, and remained inside. To see 'Town Without Pity'. With Kirk Douglas, and Christine Kaufmann, and a mess of stellar people.

It began with scenes of a town in Germany. And during the occupation. And a young girl gets raped by a G.I. And the town basically support the occupiers, and make the girl the culprit. That was the beginning, mind you.

Whereupon it was after five p.m, and the Venerable virtually dragged me out of the movie theater, and I weakly only had the alibi that I hadn't been watching the clock inside. (I had, but it was 'oh, what is going to happen NEXT films, you know?? Just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes...)

And all I could do was say, 'Hey, they were very looonnnng movies...'. Till I betrayed myself. Inadvertantly, because I was trying to understand that in my tiny mind???

And blurted out, 'Well, at least now I understand what rape is about....'

The Venerable choked on whatever it was we were eating and was speechless.

And Mom gave me two week's house arrest. No more movies. It was torture. For me, at least...

But they didn't lecture me. And they certainly didn't tell me about 'the birds and the bees'. They were speechless. They probably decided then and there that I was a changeling.

Back then, there were things that they wouldn't tell a 12 year old. Although they should have.

It took me thirty years to finally see how that film ended. It held up, and was very interesting, and well-acted.

It also took me over thirty years to catch up with 'The Snake Pit', which my step-mom also saw on a date with my father before she married him, and she really freaked out over it. It wasn't very good, but Olivia de Havilland made me laugh.

Movies can be a sort of telling thing in your life, and affect you, or just so superficial you forget most of them.

Thanks for taking interest in my odd fixations, and have to get sleep. Have a bus to catch tomorrow, and am not interested in flipping out right now... So I went mind-surfing, and I don't know why that stuff turned up.

Gene Pitney for a re-fresher. It was in the film score.

That had to be

The most boring Oscar Award show I have seen in a long time. Nothing surprising, no big musical numbers, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were just lame. The dance troupe for the intro
for the best score was an exception, and Ben Stiller cracked me up presenting the one for makeup. And the obvious shock on Katharine Bigelow's face at getting both the director and best picture awards was worth seeing. Otherwise.... yawn.

Most of the acceptance speeches were 'been there, seen and heard it', except for the one guy who only talked about how he'd gotten his first camera at nine years old, and gotten nothing but support, then encouraged children and young peopwho do not get that support to pursue their dreams, and assured them it wouldn't be a waste of time. That was all. None of the usual thanking everyone no one has ever heard of, or wish to.

I got to the social service office this morning, and realised how I did NOT miss riding the busses this past week. Picked up Peter's post and a few things at his place, as I am going down to Gamlitz tomorrow... He has two yellow slips that he has to sign for to pick up, which always means some kind of trouble... herrgottnochmal.

Not much else to tell at the moment...

Other than to say I won't be going to the movies any time soon. None of what was shown in clips last night made me want to spend 10 Euros for the price of admission. Especially not 'The Hurt Locker'. I have enough to depress me right now. And 'Nine' looks like a real stinker. But it was also based on the only one of the Fellini films which I found bad and tedious. I never got what the attraction to male mid-life crisis was, and still don't. But at least Fellini got it out of his system, and was back in form after that.

This is sort of trite, but just popped into my head, on my bus ride home today....

1968, and it was a memorable film, and a huge hit... 'Cool Hand Luke.'

And for some reason, that one line became unforgettable to me. 'What we have here, is a failure to communicate! Whoever wrote that should have gotten an Oscar, just for that line...

I know, I know... it was fraught with stereotypes, and so on and so forth, and nowadays, it really wouldn't be politically correct, or probably any good...

Oddly...

I walked out of my workplace one day some months after... and Paul Newman was standing at the bus stop. I couldn't believe my eyes, hey, and thought, 'What the fuck hell is Paul Newman doing waiting for a bus in Manchester, fucking New Hampsha.' ???

So I stayed circumspect, and observed. He had to have been the most beautiful man I have ever seen.

Even better off than on... those eyes...

Now, in New Hampsha... people don't go rush a 'star', and make them uncomfortable, at least not back then... It was on a big four-lane street, and young people across the way recognised him, and started yelling, 'LUKE! LUKE! LUKE! and he grinned ear to ear, a bit bashfully... Then a big black limousine pulled up, and Joanne Woodward was in it and they got zoomed away. Turns out he had been up there, doing some prelims for the presidential primaries....

Back-room haggling, I expect...

I just wanted to share that... it isn't every day you go out to go home and see a huge movie star...

But that isn't what this is about...

'What we have here is a failure to communicate.'

And what we have now... is more than a failure to communicate. It isn't about North or South or East or West.... It is about all the 'cowboys' who dig in their spurs and are just ornery.

And stubborn... hmm... who does that remind me of?

After spending a morning at Peter's---it just popped into me head... right.

He can be so off the charts for irrational, I wouldn't even mind 'teaching him a lesson', and on the bus home I was thinking... 'what we have here... is a failure to communicate', and not in a good sense.

And the Rethugs are the same. Exactly as assinine, exactly as stubborn, exactly as selfish... it is sort of incredible.

Things change... but they don't really.

So.... Disney has a new heroine, and ....

The hype just drove me crazy. 'It's so ground-breaking', so I dunno...

I've written a couple of things about Disney films here, and I find the underlying message mostly insidious.

Where was the hype when they did Pocohantas, who we know was a Native American? Where was the extreme when they did Mulan, and the main figure was Asian?

And NOW, the nets go bonkers because the new movie features an African-American princess???? And, 'oooo, she will be such a role model for little kids'?????

Well, that is fine, and I am all for that... except....

I remember a very odd one they did called 'Song of the South', and I saw it as a child sometime in the last milennia.... When I took another look at it on the tee-vee some decades later, it shocked me, it was so racist.

And all I can think of is a parallel here. Dickens. Yes, I know, go ahead and yawn all you want. Oliver Twist. His famous character Fagin caused much upset in the community of people of Jewish faith at the time. 'The old Jew.' And later he enraged 'small people' with his portrait of a manicurist, I can't remember the name at the moment, but they were off the charts. That was in 'David Copperfield', and a very minor character.

In his last full novel, 'Our Mutual Friend', Dickens tried to correct the criticism he had gotten for decades and created two characters to go against the predjudices. One was a man of Jewish faith, who gets to instruct the beleaguered heroine, and is depicted so well, you could swear there was a halo hovering over his head the whole time. The other was a crippled dwarved doll-maker, who had a bigger role, but it was still grotesque.

(The rest of the novel was wonderful, believe me.)

Point is, in trying to rectify his predjudices, of which he had many, he totally fucked it up.

See the parallel?

I haven't seen this piece of confection yet, of course, but the way the media is going on about it... I get the shudders and can only imagine the worst.

To have the Disney people go to Oprah, and have her seal of approval on the subject matter? Tells me so much about how and what they are thinking, and what they FEAR. And despite, 'oh, how positive they are', they are still wishing for the days of Uncle Remus and 'Zipidee-do-da'.

Since the Christmas season is about to start on Sunday.... I hope the ghost of Charles Dickens comes back and haunts them till they finally wake the fuck up.