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MOVIE REVIEW: Charlie St. Cloud

I’m willing to believe almost any near-death experience, but seriously hope that they don’t drag on like this.

Based on a positive review in the local paper by Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Wife and I decided to go to see the new movie Charlie St. Cloud at the Madison Theatre, in walking distance of our house, last week. Right before we left, I discovered that LaSalle’s opinion was the minority one among critics. Still, I wanted to give the movie a chance. Also, I had never seen Zac Efron, star of the High School Musical series, in any film.

Here are the good things: the movie STARTS with the big race. Efron shows signs of being a charismatic actor. And the Canadian Southwest, standing in for the American Northwest, is kind of pretty, as is Efron.

Here are the not-so-good things: if you saw the trailer, or even know the title of the 2004 source material, you pretty much know everything there is to know about this movie. Yet, at 1:47, it seems to run interminably long. I think that the basic premise, finding a way to move on after tragedy, is a good, solid lesson. And if this were a 1:30 Lifetime movie, including commercials, it might even have been more worthwhile.

It also has a reverse Sixth Sense feel, which some critics found objectionable but I did not; I’m willing to believe almost any near-death experience, but seriously hope that they don’t drag on like this. Though predictable, I enjoyed the penultimate scene and Ray Liotta as the wise man.

This may play better with the target demographic, though this $44 million film released on July 30 is not close to making back its production costs, as of this writing.

Some day, in a few years, you may be flipping through the channels on your TV and come across Charlie St. Cloud. You’ll probably watch it for a while before pulling out the remote. It’s that kind of movie; not truly awful, just a bit bland.
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I was sorry to see how poorly Scott Pilgrim did at the box office, despite mostly solid reviews. Makes me want to go see it even more before it totally disappears from the cinemas.

30-Day Challenge: Day 18 – Favorite Board Game

I have always loved board games. I used to play them all the time. As a kid, my favorite game was SCRABBLE, which I used to play with my great aunt, and from time to time as an adult, usually with my in-laws.

With children, I love to play SORRY. As Jaquandor explained, this is a game that by the time a kid is 4 to 6, can play an adult straight up.

I found this out when I used to play with my late friend Nancy’s son Jeff when he was about 6 in 1978 or 1979; I would not give him an advantage and he’d beat me almost half the time. Likewise, my daughter is very good at it. In fact, we often play with her stuffed animals as surrogates as well, with each of us essentially playing two colors, and she’ll often come in first and second, or at least first and third.

I’m quite fond of Monopoly. I could tell you what the purchase price and basic rent for every property on the board; unfortunately, it’s a game that really requires multiple players, and that has not been the situation I’ve found myself in of late. For our wedding, we received an Albany-based Monopoly set that I’m pretty sure we’ve never used.

I went through a phase of playing a lot of Trivial Pursuit in the 1980s and 1990s, but some people didn’t like the fact that I won too often – it’s a curse – and I probably haven’t played this century.

The game I play most often at this point is backgammon. It’s a game I learned at a bar appropriately called Bacchus in my college town of New Paltz, NY from my friend Anne. Then I didn’t play for a long time. Now I play my friend Mary at work at least twice a month at lunchtime. It’s a fairly easy game to play, though it takes a little while to ascertain the best strategy. The board often shows up on the back of checkerboards, and the game is available online, so one can hone one’s skills.

E is for English language

Will English continue to be the lingua franca, or will it be supplanted?

I don’t know about you, but I think that English is a bit of a tricky language to learn. Not so much for me as a native speaker, but for others first learning the language in countries where English is not primary, especially as one gets older. The example above from an early Dr. Seuss book is a perfect reflection of what I mean; the “ough” sounds like uff, off, ow (rhymes with cow), and a long o, respectively.

Yet, English is on its way to becoming the world’s unofficial international language. “Mandarin (Chinese) is spoken by more people, but English is now the most widespread of the world’s languages.”

How the heck did THAT happen?

Here’s a short history of the origins and development of English.

What IS English, anyway? As this article states: it belongs “to the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European language family, widely spoken on six continents… The primary language of the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the various Caribbean and Pacific island nations, it is also an official language of India, the Philippines, and many sub-Saharan African countries. It is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world (approximately 1.5 billion speakers), the mother tongue of more than 350 million people, and the most widely taught foreign language… Written in the Latin alphabet, it is most closely related to Frisian, German, and Dutch.”

I have been long fascinated by the differences in the English language from country to country. It’s not just the extra (or missing, depending on your POV) U in color/colour, or the extra/missing syllable in aluminum/aluminium. It is a whole different way of thinking. One of my favorite places to read about this phenomenon is Separated By A Common Language by an American expat in Britain named Lynneguist, who is a linguist (get it?) Recently she asked, Why is it the Mississippi River in the US, but the River Thames in the UK?

And there are even regional variations within the United States. In the North, you ask for tea, you get hot tea unless you ask for iced tea; in the South, you ask for tea, you get iced tea unless you ask for hot tea. Then there is the regional nomenclature for carbonated beverages, which, as the map here describes, might be soda, pop or coke.

So, frankly, I found it hysterically funny to read about whether an Academy of English is necessary. Or put another way: does the English language need protecting? This Academy would be along the same lines as what the Académie Française tries to do for French: protect the language from “impurities, bastardisations and the horrors introduced by the text-speak generation”.

But the great strength of English IS that it’s a mongrel language. Look at the etymology of some English words here, or at least skim this PDF article.

So, I have some trouble with the English-only crowd in the US. Not only may it be detrimental in the learning process of immigrants, as this report suggests, but it also cuts off the wonderful flavor of a vital language.

This video asks: What is the Future of the English language? Will it continue to be the lingua franca, or will it be supplanted? Interesting questions, these.

A conversation between Ellen DeGeneres and Hugh Laurie; she’s an American TV host, he’s a British actor best known for playing the title character in the American TV show House. And while I knew little of what he was talking about, I was even more flummoxed by HER examples.

Pretty much off-topic: Broken English by Marianne Faithfull, “live” performance, and the original video.

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

A Horrific Quiz

If blogging technology did not exist, what would I be doing?

This is about horror movies, allegedly, and I was going to pass on it until I actually read it on the blogs of SamuraiFrog and Jaquandor.

1: In Ten Words or Less, Describe Your Blog:

Movies, music, musings, whatever moves me.

2: During What Cinematic Era Were you Born?
A: The Classic Horror Era (late 30’s to 40’s)
B: The Atomic Monster/Nuclear Angst Era (the late 40’s through 50’s)
C: The Psycho Era ( Early 60’s)
D: The Rosemary’s Baby Era (Mid to Late 60’s)
E: The Exorcism Era (Early to mid 70’s)
F: The Halloween Era (Late 70’s to Early 80’s)
G: The Slasher Era (Mid to late 80’s)
H: The Self Referential/Post Modern Era (1990 to 1999)

I was definitely born in the nuclear angst era. I mean, I DID actually duck and cover.

3: The Carrie Compatibility Question:

(gay men and straight women – make your choice from section A)
A: Billy Nolan or Tommy Ross, who would you take to the prom?
(straight guys and lesbians – make your choice from section B)
B: Sue Snell or Chris Hargensen, who would you take to the prom?

Well, neither; do you know what HAPPENED at the prom? But at least Sue felt remorse for harassing Carrie.

4: You have been given an ungodly amount of money, and total control of a major motion picture studio – what would your dream Horror project be?

I wonder what a 21st century Frankenstein movie would look and feel like?

5: What horror film “franchise” that others have embraced, left you cold?

I saw trailers for a couple SAW movies, and it looks pretty horrific.

6: Is Michael Bay the Antichrist?

There are so many more qualified candidates, coming to a television or radio “news” broadcast near you.

7: Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Frankenstein Monster – which one of these classic villains scares you, and why?

Dracula, probably. It’s the blood thing.

8: Tell me about a scene from a NON-HORROR Film that scares the crap out of you:

I like the Frog’s answer. Is Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia a horror movie? If not, then there is a reveal in that which shook me. If it is, it’s the death of Moe Greene in The Godfather.

9: Baby Jane Hudson invites you over to her house for lunch. What do you bring?

The police.

10: So, between you and me, do you have any ulterior motives for blogging? Come, on you can tell me, it will be our little secret, I won’t tell a soul.

I’ve answered this before: world domination.
Seriously, it’s therapeutic.

11: What would you have brought to Rosemary Woodhouse’s baby shower?

A raincoat. Rosemary’s Baby was the first movie I saw with my college girlfriend, BTW.

12: Godzilla vs The Cloverfield Monster, who wins?

I used to own a Godzilla toy; call me biased.

13: If you found out that Rob Zombie was reading your blog, what would you post in hopes that he read it?

I have no idea. I’ve not seen his movies and don’t know his music.

14: What is your favorite NON-HORROR FILM, and why?

Annie Hall.

15: If blogging technology did not exist, what would you be doing?

Doing creative stress relievers such as shredding papers, hitting a punching bag, chopping wood…

30-Day Challenge: Day 17- A Childhood Picture

The elementary school I went to was the one closest to my grandmother’s house, rather than the one closest to our house.

Here’s a picture of (L-R) me, my sister Leslie (16.5 months younger), sister Marcia (5 years, 2 months younger).

My recollection is that we were 10, 9, and 5. One of my sisters thinks 8, 7, and 3. My mother doesn’t remember.

Regardless, it is our very favorite picture of us, especially compared with the next picture of the three of us (NOT SHOWN, thank you very much, which we call the “year of the bad glasses.” Mine were oversized horn-rimmed, and the girls were wearing cats-eyes.

The picture above, I THINK, was taken at McLean’s department store in downtown Binghamton, NY, where my mother worked in the bookkeeping department. For all the time I can remember, my mom worked outside of the home, at McLean’s, then at Columbia Gas & Electric. When she moved to Charlotte, NC, she worked at First Union Bank as a teller.

And because she was working, the elementary school I went to was the one closest to my grandmother’s house (Daniel S. Dickinson) rather than the one closest to our house (Oak Street), which had a HUGE effect on my life. There are seven kids I knew from K-9 from Dickinson, then grades 10-12 at Binghamton Central HS, at least four of whom I’m still in touch with.