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MOVIE REVIEW: Blue Valentine

This movie is best known for the fact that it was initially slapped with an NC-17 rating by the MPAA, a commercial kiss of death.

My wife and I wisely passed on seeing Blue Valentine on Valentine’s Day. Instead, we watched it on Presidents Day.

It is about love gone sour, and the flashbacks to a happier time, when love was fresh and exciting and not stifled by the routine or pathology. Michelle Williams, Oscar-nominated for this film, and Ryan Gosling, who could have been, are also executive producers of the film, which suggests that the actors really believed in the story. The film makes it easy to tell when the film is in the present-day and when it’s in flashbacks. Much of it is well done.

From John Rodat’s essay in Metroland: “Much of the dialogue of Blue Valentine was improvised, and the actors went to some lengths to develop a real-life closeness to facilitate the conversation. Early scenes of the meeting and courtship were filmed first, with later scenes of their married life waiting until after the stars had rented a house together, living and shopping on a budget appropriate to the circumstances of their characters, and learning to bicker.”

Yet we both found the film depressing as all get out. There’s no “if only he did this” or “she did that.” Love just dies. I admit I looked at my watch when one more reminder of what was once good flashed across the scene.

This movie is best known for the fact that it was initially slapped with an NC-17 rating by the MPAA, a commercial kiss of death, not that it’s going to generate boffo box office. The ruling was successfully appealed, and the simulated oral sex scene which had generated the original ruling didn’t seem any more provocative to me than any other simulated sex scene in an R-rated film.

Still, I just can’t imagine seeing this movie again, unless I have a burning need to be in a melancholy mood.

Private SNAFU

Dr. Seuss would have been 107 today!

Here are four of the 26 Private SNAFU (‘Situation Normal, All Fouled Up’) cartoons made by the US Army Signal Corps to educate and boost the morale of the troops. Originally created by Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and Phil Eastman, most of the cartoons were produced by Warner Brothers Animation Studios – employing their animators, voice actors (primarily Mel Blanc), and Carl Stalling’s music.

Booby Traps (1944). Private Snafu learns about the hazards of enemy booby traps the hard way.

Snafuperman. Private Snafu mocks his peers who study, saying that he would rather fight. His guardian angel (1st class with a cigar) grants him the powers and a comical version of a Superman suit, which he promptly uses to create more problems than when he didn’t have any powers!

Spies (1943). Private Snafu, while drunk, reveals military secrets that allow the enemy to torpedo his ship.

The Home Front (1943). Private Snafu imagines the good times his family is having back home while he’s stationed in the Arctic. Technical Fairy First Class shows that even his family is helping with the war effort – his dad building tanks, his mom planting a Victory Garden, Grandpa riveting battleships, and his girl joining the WACs and even the family’s horse is pitching in.

Not incidentally, Dr. Seuss would have been 107 today. My daughter’s current favorite TV show is the PBS program The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! The Cat is voiced by Martin Short. Here’s the theme song.

G is for Gertrude

Gertrude means “strong spear/spear maiden.”

My grandmother was born Gertrude Elizabeth Yates on August 10. For the longest time, we all, i.e. her daughter and her family, thought she was born in 1898, which I found easy to remember: the Spanish-American War was that year. But one day in the 1960s, she decided or was persuaded, to register to vote. And we were surprised to discover that she was in fact born in 1897. Why had she lied about this fact for so many years, we never knew.
My mother was born Gertrude Elizabeth Williams on November 17, 1927. The younger Gertrude was called Gertie by her family. Turns out, she HATED being Gertie, and, at some point before I was born, became Trudy. Only some of her cousins still referred to her as Gertie.

I’m fascinated how some names somehow get dubbed as “old-fashioned.” Gertrude is a perfectly serviceable name. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Gertrude is Hamlet’s mother and Queen of Denmark. Yet, in the Social Security’s baby name register in the US, Gertrude was #25 in 1880 for girl names, the first year for which there was data, and stayed in the top 30 through 1912, but fell out of the top 100 in 1931, the top 200 in 1942, the top 500 in 1955, and out of the top 1000 in 1966, never to return.

It used to bother me, and I suspect it bugged my mother, that comedian Red Skelton, who had a variety show on CBS-TV for many years in the 1950s and 1960s, featured cross-eyed seagulls named Gertrude and Heathcliff in his act.

But I do find it interesting that Gertrude means strong spear/spear maiden since Roger means famous with the spear/renowned spearman.

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The Mission Choir, the Catholic choir that my sister sang with for years and still an inactive member, requested and was granted the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to be offered in honor of my mom. That’s pretty amazing, apparently, since they know she was not Catholic. It will be Sunday, May 1st, 2011 at noon when the choir sings: Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala’, 10818 San Diego Mission Road, San Diego, CA 92108.

Also, a member of the Mission Choir enrolled Mom in the St. Patrick’s Mission Circle as part of the St. Patrick’s Fathers. The document says: “All members, living and deceased, are associated with the work of St. Patrick missionaries throughout the world, share in their daily Masses and prayers and in three special Masses each day as well as in sixteen Novenas of Masses each year.”

Not being Catholic, I don’t exactly know what that means, but it sounds nice.

ABC Wednesday – Round 8

My life from A-Z

Pisces. Pisces. Pisces.

If it’s good enough for Ken Levine…

• A-Available/Single? Available for what? Oh, wait, I see. Not available.
• B-Best Friend? Well, my oldest friends, Karen and Carol (not my wife), I’ve known since kindergarten. Carol’s e-mailed me recently, and Karen called.
• C-Cake or Pie? Pie. Fruit pie, especially.
• D-Drink Of Choice? Water with some True Lemon added.
• E-Essential Item You Use Everyday? My electric toothbrush.
• F-Favorite Color? Green, obviously. Or blue.
• G-Gummy Bears Or Worms? Not a great fan of either.
• H-Hometown? Binghamton, NY, the Parlor City.
• I-Indulgence? Reference books on pop culture.
• J-January Or February? February. Closer to spring.
• K-Kids & Their Names? Lydia. Oh, and Daffodil and Unicorn and Valentino and Kenya and… all of Lydia’s dolls and stuffed animals are my children. I have over two dozen, yet stay true to the ZPG mantra.
• L-Life Is Incomplete Without? Music.
• M-Marriage Date? May 15, 1999.
• N-Number Of Siblings? 2 sisters, both younger.
• O-Oranges Or Apples? Apple, especially McIntosh.
• P-Phobias/Fears? Downed power lines.
• Q-Favorite Quote? “All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.”- Benjamin Franklin
• R-Reason to Smile? Photos of the daughter.
• S-Season? Spring
• T-Tag Three or Four People? Zero. Wait a minute, I’m tagging YOU.
• U-Unknown Fact About Me? I failed the test to be on the $10,000 Pyramid in 1977.
• V-Vegetable you don’t like? Cauliflower
• W-Worst Habit? Losing track of the stupid swiper thing that gets me into my building.
• X-X-rays You’ve Had? Teeth, rib (when I broke it in 2008), knee (when I tore the meniscus in 1994).
• Y-Your Favorite Food? Spinach Lasagna.
• Z-Zodiac Sign? Pisces. Pisces. Pisces. Smack dab in the middle of Pisces. Don’t care what that zodiac kerfuffle said about me being an Aquarius. Aquarian? Whatever.
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Talkin’ Baseball (Willie, Mickey, and the Duke) in honor of star outfielder Duke Snider, who was among baseball’s Boys of Summer in the late 1940s and ’50s, helping lead Brooklyn to its only World Series championship in 1955. His death was reported yesterday; he was 84.

February Ramblin’

I still have trouble with Leviticus myself, so this is quite intriguing.

I think I have an instinctive sense of balance about my blog between the personal and the other stuff (politics, popular culture, etc.). Obviously, that’s been skewed more than a little this month, and frankly, I’m all right with that.

Serene Green- the flower arrangement my office sent to my mother’s funeral (and which we brought to my parents’ gravesite

I received a bushel of great notes of condolences re: the passing of my mother earlier this month. Some came in the form of e-mails, others in comments to various blog posts. I received cards, e-cards, cards with flowers. This doesn’t even count the telephone calls and the face-to-face comments. One that struck me greatly was written by someone I’ve worked with for 17 years:

It must be more than just a coincidence that the last blog post you wrote before telling the news of your mother was about circle songs. When I see “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” in print, I always hear Aaron Neville’s voice, singing of “my dear old mother”.

Judging by the comments to your posts, you have many wise friends, with all manner of experiences. I’ve no clue what to say, except that your mother will live on in song, and in spirit. Bless her soul, and my best to you and all your family.

So I played the Neville Brothers’ track and I cried more than I had all month.

Anyway, I’m sure that I’ll get back to my less open-book self-analysis blog. Eventually.

Steve Bissette notes a terrific new documentary illuminating the music & marvels of composer/musician Raymond Scott. YOU may not know Raymond Scott, but the folks doing old Warner Brothers cartoons, Motown, Devo, and composer John Williams did. And speaking of my buddy Steve, there’s an interesting early 1990s, two-part Lou Mougin interview of him here and here, where he talks about Swamp Thing with Alan Moore, independent comic publishing, and other interesting items.

I get an e-mail about a “truly infamous and heinous work [called Obama Nation – get the pun?] that a couple of people in the comics profession have just done. I am just plain ashamed to see this, and the commentator can’t even bring himself to show the whole thing (though what he describes is enough to make your blood run cold). It’s like a time warp back to Jim Crow, I kid you not.”
Then Mark Evanier writes that the cartoon WASN’T “racist or disgusting, especially compared to a lot of what’s said about the Obamas on the web these days.” A low threshold, IMO.
Certainly, the caricature that Alan David Doane showed in his post makes me queasy, but ADD is certainly correct when he says that Obama Nation is “a loathsome, unfunny comic strip obviously fueled by hatred.”

From the 1944 movie Broadway Rhythm, the Ross Sisters doing Solid Potato Salad. You WILL say, “How did they DO that?”

Here’s THE most interesting thing I ever found in my spam filter:

“Unexpected lessons on the power of obedience—and how grace can fuel it. – HOW TO BE PERFECT, Daniel M. Harrell – One Church’s Audacious Experiment in Living the Old Testament Book of Leviticus. As a longtime minister and preacher who had successfully skirted Leviticus for most of his life, author Daniel Harrell wanted to come to grips with all that Leviticus teaches–not just loving neighbors, but the parts about animal sacrifice, Sabbath-keeping, skin diseases, homosexuality, and stoning sinners, too. Yet rather than approaching Leviticus with a view toward mitigating its commands, he decided to simply obey them. http://www.danielharrell.com/“

I still have trouble with Leviticus myself, so this is quite intriguing. Even if I don’t necessarily come to the same conclusions as the author – and there’s a lot here to examine without having read the book – I applaud the effort to tackle it, rather than do what some modern Bible studies do, which is to selectively ignore it.

A revision of Genesis 19.

An edit of Huck Finn that I could get behind. And, BTW, Toni Morrison’s introductionon to the 1996 Oxford edition of Huck Finn (pdf).

What ‘The Simpsons’ could teach us about global warming

“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.” – Marin County newspaper’s TV listing for “The Wizard of Oz”
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Video of Eyes on the Prize – Mavis Staples.