Ramblin' with Roger

Movie review: The Life Of Chuck

based on a Stephen King novella

The description of the movie The Life of Chuck on IMDb: “A life-affirming, genre-bending story based on Stephen King’s novella about three chapters in the life of an ordinary man named Charles Krantz.” The movie starts with Act Three, and the characters in the film wonder, Who IS this guy, Chuck?

One gets a sense of Chuck as portrayed by four actors: Tom Hiddleston, Jacob Tremblay, Benjamin Pajak, and Cody Flanagan. It also stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Carl Lumbly, Mark Hamill, and Mia Sara as his grandparents, and Karen Gillan as perhaps his last dance partner, who also gave fine performances.

All that said, I don’t know how to review it without wrecking it utterly. One fan reviewer: “I want to leave my critique relatively vague as I believe the hook of the film works best going in without knowing much.” I did like it a lot.

Here’s a meh (5/10) fan review on IMDb that actually gets to the crux: “If you like movies that make you think about life, that make you contemplate existence, you will very much enjoy this. I personally don’t normally go for movies like that… but I would say The Life of Chuck is about as good as they come.”

Untidy

Diane Cameron, whom I know, wrote on Facebook: “Now, if you are the kind of person who needs to know what a work of art means, or what a poem means, or have a satisfying tidy feeling after a movie, skip ‘Chuck’. It will make you crazy. But if you like questions more than answers, and fabulous actors and some great dancing, and maybe to chew on a movie for a few days, then ‘Chuck’ is your next movie.” I’ll buy that.

Another reviewer wrote, “I left the film feeling a mix of joy and melancholy and appreciated the artistry that brought me there.” This is also true.

On Rotten Tomatoes, it received an 82% positive rating from critics and an 88% positive rating from fans. Mick LaSalle wrote, “The movie is maudlin and pessimistic and features a mildly sardonic voiceover narration by Nick Offerman that only serves to distance us from the action.” Well, no, on every count.

Ruth Maramis, by contrast, noted: “This poignant existential drama doesn’t just spoon-feed you everything but leaves room for interpretation as we connect its profound themes to our own experiences. Great seeing Hiddleston flaunt his killer dance moves.” Yeah, that.

See it if you’re not looking for tidiness. My wife and I saw The Life Of Chuck at the Spectrum 8 in Albany on the evening of June 27; the theater was 3/4 full.

Sunday Stealing is F.A.B. again

Ringo, Linda, Carlos, Alison, and Mick

Welcome to Sunday Stealing.

Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

Since it’s the 4th of July weekend, we’re going to keep this simple. We stole this from a blogger named Idzie, who called this the F.A.B. (film, audio, book) meme, so we’re F.A.B. again.

Movies

F. Film: What movie or TV show are you watching?

On Monday, my wife and I visited the Spectrum Theatre in Albany to see the comedy Caddyshack. Neither of us had ever seen it before, but we heard that it was very popular in 1980 when it came out. We were mostly unimpressed. Chevy Chase’s character was somewhat interesting, and Rodney Dangerfield was funny for a while, but Bill Murray seemed to be in another movie. I had to start looking at why so many find the film beloved.

The Wikipedia post was helpful: “The film was met with underwhelming reviews in its original release, with criticism towards the disorganized plot, though Dangerfield’s, Chase’s, and Murray’s comic performances were well received. Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, ‘Caddyshack feels more like a movie that was written rather loosely, so that when shooting began, there was freedom—too much freedom—for it to wander off in all directions in search of comic inspiration.'” If you’ve ever talked with a person who’s stoned, you’re not, and they think everything is hysterical? That may be this movie.

Harold Ramis, a first-time film director, noted that “In the DVD documentary, TV Guide had originally given the film two stars (out of four) when it began showing on cable television in the early 1980s, but over time, the rating had gone up to three stars.” Maybe it’s better with repeated viewing.

Music

A. Audio: What are you listening to?

This being July, some of the birthdays are those of Ringo Starr, Linda Ronstadt, Carlos Santana, Alison Krauss, Mick Jagger, and Jim Stewart. So I’ll play Linda, Santana, and the Rolling Stones. Who’s Jim Stewart? He co-founded the legendary STAX Records with his sister Estelle Axton. I also play a lot of compilations of Beatles covers, and I have many of them.

Photograph – Ringo Starr

Telling Me Lies -The Trio (Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris)

Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen – Santana

Maybe – Alison Krauss

I Am Waiting – The Rolling Stones

Green Onions – Booker T. and the MG’s

You Can’t Do That – Harry Nilsson

Text

B. Book: What are you reading?

My friend Fred Hembeck wrote so kindly about former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, who died recently at age 73, regarding Fred’s participation in the Fantastic Four Roast and Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe, I thought I’d read the book The Marvel Universe According to Hembeck.

Please come back next week.

#1 Pop Hits of 1965

Beatles 4; Supremes 3; Stones, Byrds, Hermits 2 each

The #1 Pop Hits of 1965, formally the #1 hits on the Top 100, were right up my sonic alley. In the present tense, I own at least 19 of these 25 songs.

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction—The Rolling Stones (London), four weeks at #1, gold record. It may be the first time I heard the word “hook” in relation to music.

Yesterday – The Beatles (Capitol), four weeks at #1, gold record. I have a few dozen covers of this song.

Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season) -The Byrds (Columbia), three weeks at #1

Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter – Herman’s Hermits (MGM), three weeks at #1, gold record

I Got You Babe – Sonny and Cher (Atco), three weeks at #1, gold record

Help! – The Beatles (Capitol), three weeks at #1, gold record

I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pe, Honey Bunch) – The Four Tops (Motown), two weeks at #1

You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ – The Righteous Brothers (Philles), two weeks at #1

Downtown – Petula Clark (Warner), two weeks at #1, gold record

This Diamond Ring – Gary Lewis and the Playboys (Liberty), two weeks at #1, gold record. Jerry Lewis’ kid.

Stop! In The Name Of Love – The Supremes (Motown), two weeks at #1

Help Me, Rhonda – The Beach Boys (Capitol), two weeks at #1

Get Off My Cloud – The Rolling Stones (London), two weeks at #1

I Hear A Symphony – The Supremes (Motown), two weeks at #1

I’m Telling You Now – Freddie and The Dreamers (Tower), two weeks at #1

Eight Days A Week – The Beatles (Capitol), two weeks at #1, gold record

A single week at #1

My Girl – The Temptations (Gordy), platinum record. I still love the fact that Smokey wrote both My Guy (Mary Wells) and My Girl

Hang On Sloopy – The McCoys (Bang). Looking for a video, I came across this version; an album cut? It has an extra verse.

Mr. Tambourine Man – The Byrds (Columbia)

Eve Of Destruction – Barry McGuire (Dunhill)

Over And Over – The Dave Clark Five (Epic)

Ticket To Ride – The Beatles (Capitol)

I’m Henry VIII, I Am – Herman’s Hermits (MGM), gold record

Game Of Love – Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders (Fontana). The lead vocal Fontana’s real name was Glyn Ellis

Back In My Arms – The Supremes (Motown)

Ten Steps to Revolution

Journey to American Democracy

Heather Cox Richardson posted on her June 7th Letters from an American column, introducing Ten Steps to Revolution:

“The hard lessons of history seem to be repeating themselves in the U.S. these days, and with the nation’s 250th anniversary approaching, some friends and I got to talking about how we could make our real history more accessible.

“After a lot of brainstorming, we have come up with Journey to American Democracy: a series of short videos about American history that we will release on my YouTube channel, Facebook, and Instagram. [What they released was] a set of videos that can be viewed individually or can be watched together to simulate a survey course about an important event or issue in American history.

“Journey to American Democracy explores how democracy has always required blood and sweat and inspiration to overcome the efforts of those who would deny equality to their neighbors. It examines how, for more than two centuries, ordinary people have worked to make the principles the founders articulated in the Declaration of Independence the law of the land.

“Those principles establish that we have a right to be treated equally before the law, to have a say in our government, and to have equal access to resources.”

A crash course in America

“In late April, in an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News, [FOTUS] showed Moran that he had had a copy of the Declaration of Independence hung in the Oval Office. The interview had been thorny, and Moran used his calling attention to the Declaration to ask a softball question. He asked [FOTUS] what the document that he had gone out of his way to hang in the Oval Office meant to him.

“He answered: ‘Well, it means exactly what it says, it’s a declaration. A declaration of unity and love and respect, and it means a lot. And it’s something very special to our country.’

“The Declaration of Independence is indeed very special to our country. But it is not a declaration of love and unity. It is the radical declaration of Americans that human beings have the right to throw off a king in order to govern themselves. That story is here, in the first video series of Journey to American Democracy called ‘Ten Steps to Revolution.'”

From the YouTube page: “Journey to American Democracy examines how ordinary people worked to make the principles the founders articulated in the Declaration of Independence the law of the land. This series, Ten Steps to Revolution, explains how the king’s American subjects came to oppose monarchy and, over the course of only thirteen years, to embrace the right to govern themselves.”

Also

Transcription: Two years ago, in partnership with the National Park Service, the National Archives set an audacious goal to transcribe the more than 2.5 million pages found in the Revolutionary War Pension Files by America’s 250th on July 4th, 2026. Together with the National Park Service, we spread the word and recruited volunteers. In our first year, Citizen Archivists transcribed 65,000 pages, and we were so excited to see the stories of America’s first veterans that they uncovered.

Tories: From the Smithsonian: The Defiant Loyalists Who Chose the Wrong Side in the American Revolution. American colonists who aligned with the British lost their lands, their reputations, and sometimes even their lives.

“The popular image of the American Revolution may be of fired-up colonists united in the fight to overthrow their British rulers. But the reality was far more complicated. Many historians estimate that at least 15 to 20 percent of the population remained loyal to the crown, some even taking up arms against their rebellious neighbors and fighting alongside the British.

The Boss: Land of Hope and Dreams intro by Bruce Springsteen

Attending the closing of Trinity UMC Albany

Disciple Bible study

Of course, we were attending the closing of Trinity UMC Albany on June 22. Not just my wife and I, but our daughter, who hadn’t even been born yet when we left in 2000. The bulletin notes, “Celebrating 188 years of faith and service!” But it won’t hit 189.

The opening hymn was The Church’s One Foundation, which was the opening hymn on September 17, 1933, when the building was rebuilt on the corner of Lark and Lancaster for the second time in less than 35 years.

The choir numbered but five; they’re pretty good, given that. A small piece of me wishes I had been singing with them.

After the anthem, a Litany of Thanksgiving was offered for the physical elements (Baptismal font, communion table, etc.), the congregations over the years, the church’s mission, the study groups, music, and hymnals. Near the end: “We come together with so many good and treasured memories, but with a strong sense of grief at saying farewell to this hallowed place.”

The sermon by Rebecca Richards was based on Lamentations 3:19-26.

Remembering Our Ministries was offered by Nancy, the Lay Leader. Someone read a letter from Rev. Jeffrey Matthew, the pastor from 2008 to 2021. The hymn This Is A Day of New Beginnings, which made me a tad melancholy, especially as a Prayer of Letting Go followed it.

I saw several folks I recognized who were still attending, as well as many who came back for the finale, including Allie from California. Here’s the video of the service.

Repast

In the parlor where coffee hour is usually held, there were several items to eat and drink. People were encouraged to tell stories. My wife noted that she hosted the Disciple Bible study at her home, which I attended; subsequently, we got married at the church.

I could have spoken about our choir singing at the annual Troy Conference in Vermont, caroling on Lark Street, and the several choir members who passed away during my tenure there. Or a book club I attended for over a decade. But I was disinclined.

Someone asked me what it was like being there on that day. I compared it to going to the funeral of an old friend. Perhaps you experienced friction in your relationship, or maybe you’ve fallen a bit out of touch. Still, you didn’t want them to die. I know that building and the many souls past and present who attended there. It was/is a foundational time in my life.

I was very touched by the Goodbye Trinity video, which I saw a few days later. It showed people no longer with us, including Lillian, Fran, Bob, Jim, Jeannette and Bob, and even Mickey, and ends with a couple of touching pieces of music.