Classic Movie Trailer of the Month - August 2013

Before the Brady Bunch, there was....

Dinner last night:  French dip ham sandwich at Phillippe's.

Both Awkward and August Start with the Letter "A"

Yeah, kid, I know.

Better hope Grandma didn't just eat a plate of cauliflower.

When you hire the homeless as babysitters.

When you hire a Food Network host as your babysitter.

Oh, wow.  It's Kirk Cameron's office birthday party!

She heard you could be aroused by using an appliance.

 So what if the bride has passed out.  Smile, everybody!!!

Grandma is smokin' hot.

Hair styles by Sweeney Todd.

 Whoa!  That's what I call a makeover!!!

You might want to stay away from the potatoes au gratin.

Voted Senior Class "Most Likely to Have the Shit Kicked Out of Him."

Dinner last night:  Bacon and cheddar cheese omelet.

Next Stop, Please

Remember my streak of seeing some wonderful, small budget, independent movies this summer?

Yeah, well, Joe DiMaggio eventually didn't get a hit in a game.  And I went to see "Fruitvale Station."

This film wasn't on my hit list.  This is what I call a "housekeeper movie."  One of those time wasters that I needed so I could clear out of the house while she worked.  Maria does a much better job when no one is around.  And, on this most recent day, the film that was playing at the time most adjacent to my housekeeper's arrival was....

Well, I told you already.

Okay,"Fruitvale Station" had been well reviewed, but, then again, so are most Judd Apatow movies.  I need to learn how to deal with critics who like everything as long as there's a tub of buttered popcorn on their lap. But, as I entered the theater, I had a sense that "Fruitvale Station" was going to disappoint.  And, by that criterion alone, I guess you can say the movie was successful.

Indeed, here's a movie that, at its very core, is manipulative and rather phony.  It harkens back to a cinematic time in the 60s when you had groundbreaking films like "Lilies of the Field" and "A Patch of Blue" helping to deal with the racial tensions of our land.   If "Fruitvale Station" had been made in 1965, it certainly would have starred Sidney Poitier.  But, it was made in 2013 and based on a real incident that happened in San Francisco on New Year's Eve 2008.  One could argue that, in the years since the 60s, we should be in a better place with race relations by now.  I would contend that we are.  And exploitative movies like this one only hurt the cause because they promote the tried business model that America is a racist country.

It's a true story and I don't deny that any of this happened.  The film gives us the last day of young Oscar Grant's life.  We know he'll be dead by the end of the movie because it was in all the newspapers.  Coming home from a New Year's celebration, the Black man winds up in a skirmish on the BART train and is ultimately shot to death by a sadistic White cop.  This shooting is captured on video by a bunch of cell phones and the police officer loses his job.

Of course, director Ryan Coogler, who was still in the USC Film School when this actually happened, chooses to give you the final-day-snapshot of the life that was snuffed out.  So we follow Oscar.  In loving moments with his Hispanic girlfriend.  Picking up his young daughter at school.  Helping a dog that has been hit by a car.  Bonding with his mother and doing grocery shopping for her. Even helping out a young White yuppie wife at the supermarket by sharing with her his grandmother's recipe for fried catfish.

It's so white-washed that Oscar could have been played by Ozzie Nelson.

Of course, since facts are facts, Coogler can't overlook the fact that Oscar is recently out of jail.  He clearly had anger management issues behind bars.  And still consorts with his drug dealing friends.  But, those moments clearly get in the way of the heart-tugging sympathy the director wants to evoke for the lead character.  So their placement in the story is downplayed completely.  Meanwhile, my research after seeing the film shows me that some other reviewers have conducted fact checks on the original incident. Coogler clearly revises history in order to arrive at a film that will have you reaching for that Kleenex by the end.  Hell, he's not the first director to do this and he won't be the last.  But, when you're trying to depict a real-time event honestly and accurately, you owe it to your audience to show all sides of what happened.

The murder of Oscar Grant by a policeman is a horrific moment in our time.  But it's a blemish in what has become a terrific half-century of improving race relations in this country.  We have come so far.  Is their work to do yet?  Most definitely.  But, are we still back in 1965 when people would sneer when Sidney Poitier holds the hand of a blind Elizabeth Hartman?  Absolutely not.  And, if this country is so damn bigoted, how the heck do we have a half-Black President elected not once, but twice???

Hollywood loves to play to this portion of their audience.  Delivering the message over and over and over about where we have been.  The trailers that ran prior to "Fruitvale Station" demonstrate that.  One was a movie about a slave in the 1860s.  The other was for "The Butler," which likely could be my next "housekeeper movie" only because it looks hilariously dreadful and might be a fun blog entry.  Again, we keep dealing with the past and not the present.  Jeez, even Steven Spielberg refrained from doing a sequel to "Schindler's List."

So, refusing to look forward, director Coogler gives us an angelic snapshot of Oscar Grant, who clearly had some issues.  The police in the attack are depicted as such villains that they make the Nazi storm troopers in "Diary of Anne Frank" look like Disney's Seven Dwarfs.  It's so one-sided an affair that the referee should stop the fight in round one.  Meanwhile, Coogler gets even sloppier by showing us that one of the people recording the event on their cell phone just happens to be the young wife looking to fry some catfish.  How utterly convenient and phony is that?   Maybe it really did happen.  But you know damn well that it didn't.  Another false moment in a cascading series of them in "Fruitvale Station."  You've heard of the old "meet cute" plot device in film scripts?  This is actually what I would call a "kill cute" plot device.

If director Coogler really wanted to forge some new ground, he should have devoted half the movie to following the guilty policeman during his day as well.  Let's see his life as well.  Are there kids?  A wife?  Was he in the super market, too?  And what, in his personality and make-up, brought him to that fateful meeting with Oscar Grant?  Two lives that collide in a split second.  Altering both forever.  

Now that would have been interesting.  

But, instead, as always, you can count on Hollywood to take the easy way out.  And remind us one more time that we all need to have a continual dialogue with each other on race relations in this nation.

As long as you talk like it's still 1965.

LEN'S RATING:  One star.

Dinner last night:  Leftover pizza and antipasto salad.       

   

  

This Date in History - August 21

Happy birthday to one of our favorite Mod Squad-ers.

1192:  MINAMOTO NO YORITOMO BECOMES SEII TAI SHOGUN AND THE DE FACTO RULER OF JAPAN.

It's a lot easier to spell Richard Chamberlain.

1331:  KING STEPHEN UROS III, AFTER MONTHS OF ANARCHY, SURRENDERS TO HIS SON AND RIVAL, WHO SUCCEEDS AS KING OF SERBIA.

For those of you whose goal it is to rule Serbia.  Wherever the hell that is.

1680:  PUEBLO INDIANS CAPTURE SANTA FE FROM THE SPANISH.

Does the Monopoly railroad come with this?

1772:  KING GUSTAV III COMPLETES HIS COUP D'ETAT BY ADOPTING A NEW CONSTITUTION, ENDING HALF A CENTURY OF PARLIAMENTARY RULE IN SWEDEN AND INSTALLING HIMSELF AS AN ENLIGHTENED DESPOT.

True enlightenment is always arguable.

1778:  DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, BRITISH FORCES BEGIN BESIEGING THE FRENCH OUTPOST AT PONDICHERY.

Two countries who never ever get along.

1810: JEAN-BAPTISTE BERNADOTTE, MARSHAL OF FRANCE, IS ELECTED CROWN PRINCE OF SWEDEN.

There's a lot of this Swedish bullshit today.

1831:  NAT TURNER LEADS BLACK SLAVES AND FREE BLACKS IN A REBELLION.

Years before his brother Ike met Tina.

1863:  LAWRENCE, KANSAS IS DESTROYED BY CONFEDERATE GUERRILLAS.  

And gorillas they are.

1879:  THE VIRGIN MARY, ALONG WITH ST. JOSEPH AND ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST, REPORTEDLY APPEAR AT KNOCK SHRINE IN IRELAND.

In Ireland?  Oh, that explains it.  Probably some green elephants, too.

1883:  AN F5 TORNADO STRIKES ROCHESTER, MINNESOTA, LEADING TO THE CREATION OF THE MAYO CLINIC.

Because the injured needed someplace to go.

1888:  THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL ADDING MACHINE IN THE US IS PATENTED BY WILLIAM SEWARD BURROUGHS.

Who realized that ten fingers and toes were not enough.

1897:  OLDSMOBILE, A BRAND OF AMERICAN AUTOMOBILES, IS FOUNDED.

Just in time for the 1898 car buying season.

1904:  MUSICIAN COUNT BASIE IS BORN.

Orchestra to follow.

1905:  ANIMATOR FRIZ FRELENG IS BORN.

Looney Tunes to follow.

1911:  THE MONA LISA IS STOLEN BY A LOUVRE EMPLOYEE.

Now how far can you get with that tucked underneath your coat??

 1924:  SPORTSCASTER JACK BUCK IS BORN.

Sadly, to some viewers, son Joe to follow.

1924:  SPORTSCASTER CHRIS SCHENKEL IS BORN.

Two great announcers born on the same day.

1924:  ACTOR JACK WESTON IS BORN.

And him, too.

1930:  PRINCESS MARGARET IS BORN.

The baby was crowning.

1936:  BASKETBALL STAR WILT CHAMBERLAIN IS BORN.

Can you imagine him coming down the birth canal??

1938:  SINGER KENNY ROGERS IS BORN.

Talk about your First Edition.

1939:  ACTOR CLARENCE WILLIAMS III IS BORN.

So there were two others before him??

1940:  RUSSIAN POLITICIAN LEON TROTSKY DIES.

So I guess we need to go on the trade market for another lefty.

1942:  THE FLAG OF NAZI GERMANY IS INSTALLED ATOP THE MOUNT ELBRUS, THE HIGHEST PEAK OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAIN RANGE.

Yeah, but not for long.

1945:  PHYSICIST HARRY K. DAGHLIAN JR. IS FATALLY IRRADIATED IN A CRITICALITY ACCIDENT DURING AN EXPERIMENT WITH THE DEMON CORE.

I am picturing the way the Nazis got fried in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

1959:  PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER SIGNS AN EXECUTIVE ORDER PROCLAIMING HAWAII THE 50TH STATE OF THE UNION.  

Aloha.  Now Jack Lord has some place to work.

1961:  MOTOWN RELEASES WHAT WOULD BE ITS FIRST #1 HIT, "PLEASE MR. POSTMAN" BY THE MARVELETTES.

Is there a letter, a letter for me?

1979:  SOVIET DANCER ALEXANDER GODUNOV DEFECTS TO THE UNITED STATES.

Because, for him, Russia wasn't godunov.

1983:  PHILIPPINE OPPOSITION LEADER BENIGNO AQUINO JR. IS ASSASSINATED AT THE MANILA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.

For those of you on stand by, a seat has opened up.

1991:  A COUP ATTEMPT AGAINST MIKHAIL GORBACHEV COLLAPSES.

Somebody didn't want him taking down that wall.

1993:  NASA LOSES CONTACT WITH THE MARS OBSERVER SPACECRAFT.

They eventually reconnected for Facebook.

2005:  INVENTOR ROBERT MOOG DIES.

He lost control of all his synthesizers.

2010: ACTRESS NANCY DOLMAN DIES.

Mrs. Martin Short.  Sad.

Dinner last night:  Leftover Thai chicken.

Do You See What I See?

You see this?  I do.

Now.

These are called floaters and maybe you're familiar with them.  I was not.  But, when I suddenly started to see them, I naturally panicked.  Suddenly, I was afflicted with every kind of brain disease possible.  I would be starring as the male version of Bette Davis in "Dark Victory."

It started about two weeks ago.  There are days where I stare at a white screen on a computer monitor for several consecutive hours.  Oh, I get up and walk around.  But, it's pretty much constant work.

I started seeing these little specks.  I swatted them, thinking there was a fly in my room.

They'd pop up intermittently and I figured I was simply gaping at the computer for too long.  I'd rube my eyes.  Gone.  Oh, wait, not quite.

Then, when I would turn off the lights at night before retiring, a quick turn of my head would send a shooting star right across my bedroom.  What the hell was that?  A lightning bug?  The world's smallest burglar.

When it happened over several days, I decided I was dying.  Or going blind and then never getting to actually see a World Series game at Dodger Stadium.

When the cobwebs start to form when I was out driving, I decided I was still too young to die.  I immediately called my eye doctor's office for the earliest possible appointment.

That afternoon at 415PM was not soon enough.

In the several hours prior to my date with a certain death sentence, I did the very thing I always counsel friends not to do.  

I Googled my health problem.  

"Black specks in vision."

Hmmmm....

I suddenly began a quick education on eye floaters.  Little pockets of jelly or liquid that can stream across your eyes.  Because virtually all of my good vision is in my left eye, I had no idea if I had floaters on the other side.  But, clearly, this was the diagnosis.  I then typed....

"Streaming lights in vision at night."

Hmmmm....

Okay, also associated with the same eye floater problems.  I wanted to then Google to see if all this knowledge would get me an optician's license to practice.

The summation of all this is that floaters happen to lots of people as they get older.  I hate the very last word in that sentence.  There's not much you can do with them.  You simply wait for them to go away.  As long as they are not caused by a detached retina, you just deal with them.

But this was all news to me.  And apparently not to my friends.

Speaking to several folks after my visit with Dr. World Wide Web, I learned that they all have experienced this from time to time.  Hey, how come nobody told me?  Suddenly, I wasn't so conflicted.  And then wondered why I had been left out of the floater loop for so long.

When I saw my eye doctor later that day, he pretty much regurgitated to me everything I read on Google.  So, Wikipedia is reliable, huh?  

He told me they had suddenly appeared with me because I was having "an event."  Those were the words.  Is this like a red carpet pre-show?  I told him I wasn't interested in attending this event, even if it was free.  

Subsequently, he sent me to a retina specialist because he wanted to rule out any real issues with this, my only good eye.  I got myself super-diluted to the point where outside sunlight presented a bright white aura that might be heaven-like.  And the subsequent exam showed no damage with the retina.

"You will just learn to live with them until they go away."

Like annoying relatives, they're still around.   But I noticed less of these pesky floaters, so perhaps the end is near.

Except ailments like this do provide me with another constant reminder.

That end is near, too.  Getting old sucks.

Dinner last night:  Home made pizza with mozzarella and proscuitto.   

Monday Morning Video Laugh - August 19, 2013

I miss Tonight Show moments like this.

Dinner last night:  Thai chicken, stir fry vegetables, and rice.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Next-to-Last Family Vacation

I actually marvel at some friends.  Even with children now in their 20s and their own careers and lives, the family unit still manages to go on summer vacation together.  When you would expect kids to say "see ya" to Mom and Dad, they simply ask about this year's chosen destination and how long they can go for.

That was not the case for me when I was in my teens.  I couldn't wait for this summer tradition to end.  And apparently so did my parents.

The photo above is from a motel in Cooperstown, New York and it was the location for my family unit's next-to-last summer sojourn together.   I was twelve and, despite the obvious focus on visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame, I wanted to be elsewhere.  

And apparently so did my parents.

This wasn't always the case.

For us, summer vacations had been a big deal.  You saw that from my father's Technicolor photos that I offered here last week.  Dad was always off the last week of July and the first week of August.  Our holiday fun was crammed into that two week period.  A trip to Radio City Music Hall.  Rye Playland.  A baseball game.  And usually a drive to someplace different for a few days.  We never got on a plane.  A vacation locale had to be something you could get to in an automobile.

Of course, those destinations were usually done in tandem with another family.  Some unit of parental friends who had kids.  So, it was ready-made fun for all.  Mom and Dad had other people to talk to.  I had other buddies to play with.  Virtually all of those trips invariably ended with somebody being mad at somebody else.  And my mother would make the official pronouncement that we would never be vacationing with THEM anymore.

These other families probably had the same feelings about us, because these group treks ultimately stopped.  Maybe their kids wanted to be elsewhere, too.  Whatever the case, the sole vacationers at this point were three people.  Me, my mother, and my father.  A situation that clearly reminded me of my status as an only child.  All I had to talk to in the car was my parents.  All they had to talk to in the car was me.  And each other.

None of this bode well for the future.

But, almost gallantly, Mom and Dad tried to press on.  We would be going to Cooperstown, New York.  Home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Given my new love for America's sport, this was a great choice on their part.  I couldn't wait to walk on Doubleday Field, where the game was allegedly invented.  I was dying to see all the plaques in the Hall itself.  And buy some nifty souvenirs.  

Plus it didn't look like that far a drive for me to be cooped up in the back seat of that year's family Buick.  

At least, it didn't on the map.

For some reason, my father, who was usually buttoned up on the driving part, opted not to drive up to central New York State on a highway.  He used back roads that seemed to add a week to the trip.  

Oh, look.  A farm house.

Oh, look.  A farm house.

Oh, look.  A cow.  And another farm house.

I fell into a coma.

Meanwhile, my mother was equally as pissed in the front seat.

Oh, look.  A farm house.

Oh, look.  A farm house.

Oh, look.  A cow.  And another farm house.

She wanted to put my dad into a coma.

When we finally arrived within the city limits of Cooperstown, another glitch raised its ugly head.  My folks hadn't exactly done their homework on lodging possibilities.  Given it was summer and close to that year's Hall induction ceremonies, rooms were scarce.  We found up at the motel shown above.  I'm sure it's been upgraded since.  

Back then, there was no air conditioning.

Well, we didn't have at home either.  But, here in hot and sultry Central New York State, we wanted it.  Badly.  But, we have few other options.  This would be our pressure cooker for two nights.  

The tension was as thick as the night air.  After the day of repeated farm houses, my parents were exhausted and wanted to go to bed.  The only child was once again reduced to finding his own fun.

I turned on my transistor radio and was transported to a magical world.  For some reason, you can pick up lots of out-of-town baseball game broadcasts at night.  I figured that this was because I was in Cooperstown, the mecca of all baseball.  Indeed, it was more likely that the calm night air allowed radio signals to travel further.  Nevertheless, I was in heaven.

Wow, it's the Pittsburgh Pirates game!

Wow, it's the Cleveland Indians game!

Wow, it's....

A voice came from the dark on the other side of the room.

"GO TO SLEEP!!"

I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame the very next day.  I savored every plaque and piece of memorabilia.  I took several weeks of allowance and purchased some baseball books from a local souvenir vendor.  And, while I couldn't actually walk on Doubleday Field due to some ill-time sprinkler activity, I sat in a dugout and pretended to be Yogi Berra.  

Even my mom seemed to enjoy the day, despite the fact that this was a good two decades before she became a Met fan.  She probably was simply happy to be out of the rotisserie grill that was passing for our motel.

But I could feel some friction going on between Mom and Dad.  They said little to each other in the car going home.  Except for one terse suggestion from my mother to our driver.

"Take the highway home."

If this was the next-to-last family vacation, you probably will want to know about the last one.  The excursion that killed it for all time.

Come back next Sunday for the details.

Dinner last night:  BLT sandwich at Blue Plate.