movies Archives - Page 65 of 118 - Ramblin' with Roger

Tommy Lee Jones turns 70

The Fugitive (1993) – One of my favorite movie trailers ever.

On these Facebook ads I see often, one of the questions is which actor was former Vice-President Al Gore’s roommate in college. Yes, it’s the guy from Texas, Tommy Lee Jones.

In fact, “in 1970 he landed his first film role, coincidentally playing a Harvard student in Love Story (Erich Segal, the author of Love Story, said that he based the lead character of Oliver on the two undergraduate roommates he knew while attending Harvard, Jones, and Gore).”

“At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, he presented the nominating speech for…Gore, as the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States.”

He was a guest star in a bunch of dramatic shows such as Barnaby Jones and Baretta that I used to watch. But it was before I knew who Tommy Lee Jones was. I did see him in these movies, and almost always like HIM, even when the movie is not great.

Lincoln (2012) – Thaddeus Stevens. I was rather fond of his portrayal. Jones received his fourth Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor
Hope Springs (2012) – as a part of a couple aging.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
Space Cowboys (2000) – a bunch of aging astronauts

Men in Black (1997) – the movie that sealed Tommy Lee Jones as a bankable actor
Batman Forever (1995) – as Two-Face / Harvey Dent
The Fugitive (1993) – One of my favorite movie trailers ever. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford): But I’m innocent! US Marshall Samuel Gerard (Jones): I don’t CARE!” No wonder he won Best Supporting Actor for his performance
JFK (1991) – as Clay Shaw. If I’m remembering right, he was sleazily great. He earned another Oscar nomination

Lonesome Dove (TV Mini-Series, 1989) – he earned another Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Texas Ranger lawman Woodrow F. Call in the acclaimed mini-series, based on the best-seller by Larry McMurtry
The Executioner’s Song (TV Movie, 1982) as Gary Mark Gilmore. Chilling. He received an Emmy for Best Actor for his performance as the murderer in an adaptation of Norman Mailer’s book
Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980) as Doolittle Lynn; for which he earned his first Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of country singer Loretta Lynn’s husband

August rambling #2: how ridiculous xenophobia is

Will Your Prescription Meds Be Covered Next Year? Better Check!

It’s not just Freddie Gray. The Justice Department’s new report shows how wide and deep Baltimore’s police problems are

My four months as a private prison guard, which has led to the US phasing out private prison use

US: The Real Way the 2016 Election Is Rigged

Joseph Goebbels’ 105-year-old secretary: ‘No one believes me now, but I knew nothing’ – she said, Nothing!

Germany finally apologizes for its other genocide—more than a century later

Does Henry Kissinger have a conscience?

At what point is it impossible to separate art from the artist? (Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation)

Tote bag proves how ridiculous xenophobia is

“Christian” groups are handing out these creepy ‘gay cure’ comics to children

If your pastor says “RACISM ISN’T A SKIN PROBLEM, IT’S A SIN PROBLEM” you need to find another church

Pew Research: Choosing a New Church or House of Worship; Americans look for good sermons, warm welcome

In today’s troubling times, where are our faith leaders? But Even Reinhold Niebuhr could not be Reinhold Niebuhr in 2016

YOU THROW, GIRL: AN OLYMPIC SHOT-PUTTER’S FEMINIST MISSION

Michael Rivest: The Wall That Heals

Cartoon: The future of climate denial

174 Heroin Overdoses in Six Days in Cincinnati

NPR is closing its comments section – can’t blame them

Flat earth Theories

When New Parents Refuse Vitamin K Shots And Their Babies Get Brain Bleeds

Race and poverty

America’s wealth gap is split along racial lines — and it’s getting dangerously wider

Affluent and Black, and Still Trapped by Segregation

The Original Underclass; Poor white Americans’ current crisis shouldn’t have caught the rest of the country as off guard as it has

‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Recalls A Childhood Where Poverty Was ‘The Family Tradition’

Michele Bachmann: “White People Have Suffered More In The Last 8 Years Than Blacks Did During Couple Years Of Slavery”

Why Poor People Stay Poor -Saving money costs money. Period.

Auto Lending: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Will Your Prescription Meds Be Covered Next Year? Better Check!

The culture of the smug white liberal

What I said when my white friend asked for my black opinion of white privilege

A C-SPAN caller asked a black guest how to stop being prejudiced; Here’s how she responded

The infamous Stop White Genocide video

Arthur’s Internet wading

When Elite Parents Dominate Volunteers, Children Lose

Thurgood Marshall’s interracial love: ‘I don’t care what people think. I’m marrying you.’

Dashcam Video Captures Highway Pileup, Woman Rescued from Burning Car in Binghamton, NY

Larry Wilmore on the End of The Nightly Show and the Show’s Greatest Legacy

Arthur@NZ is getting better and his hospital bill; damn Kiwis!

Dustbury goes grocery shopping 2.0

At my alma mater at SUNY New Paltz, College mourns death of emeritus biology professor Heinz Meng, known for recovery of peregrine falcon – he was very cool

The only movies I’ve seen with Gene Wilder are The Producers, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask, Silver Streak, Stir Crazy, and one of my favorite movies ever, Young Frankenstein, which he co-wrote. They were all released between 1967 and 1980. But he was always excellent then and in a couple of episodes of Will and Grace early this century. Gene Wilder on The Truth | Blank on Blank | PBS Digital Studios, plus Evanier and Tom Straw remember.

Steven Hill, D.A. Adam Schiff on ‘Law & Order,’ Dies at 94

A Marvin Kaplan story

Jack Riley, RIP

‘I’ve had a good life’: Donna Wold, the ex-flame who inspired the Little Red-Haired Girl in ‘Peanuts,’ dies

Your Guide to the Fall Broadway Season

50 things about comics, featuring ME

The 10 most Influential Poets in History

Art is about surrender – Stop asking for it to be custom-tailored

Chuck Miller at the State Fair and Don Rittner at the county fair, and Jaquandor at the county fair

Now I Know: David’s Garden and Horse, Off-Course

Ken Levine HATES Robert Hall

The Casual Sex Project

Music

Harmonica legend Toots Thielemans, Known for ‘Sesame Street’ Theme, Dies at 94 and The Getaway – End credits – Quincy Jones – Toots; more Quincy and Toots; John Barry, Toots – Theme from “Midnight Cowboy” (mostly stolen from Steve Bissette’s Facebook)

U2 Live Albany New York – 13 November 1981

John Denver, Glen Campbell, Johnny Cash & Roger Miller – Rocky Top

Herb Alpert Foundation to donate $10.1 million to Los Angeles City College — making studies for music majors tuition-free

It’s only rock ‘n’ roll – and sometimes it’s better in mono

35 Years Ago: Violent Femmes Discovered by the Pretenders While Busking in Milwaukee

Movie review: Life, Animated

The trailer of Life, Animated suggested more of a Disney happy ending.

The trailer was so intriguing that the whole family went to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany on a Saturday night to see the movie Life, Animated.

Back in 2014, I happened to see Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ron Suskind being interviewed on some program, talking about his then-new book, Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism. He, his wife Cornelia, and their older son Walter were dealing with Ron and Cornelia’s younger son Owen’s autism. Much less was known about the disability in 1993, when Owen was first diagnosed, than now.

Ron Suskind’s book discusses the struggle, and the breakthrough, when he and his wife realized that Owen was attempting to communicate with them through Disney dialogue. The movie takes on that same path, but it can illustrate the desire of Peter Pan not to want to grow up, or the fear of Bambi, or being an outcast like Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Owen starts a Disney movie club with others with disabilities and developed relationships with a couple of Disney voice actors. He also travels abroad to explain his condition, and I was intrigued by how little his writer/father gave him.

The trailer suggested more of a Disney happy ending, but the movie delves into what happens when Owen is ready is getting ready to live semi-autonomously. Sometimes the Disney dialogue is insufficient, as when brother Walter tries to explain the birds and the bees to Owen.

What makes this movie, though, is the animation, not by Disney, but by Mac Guff, a French visual effects company, which takes a fantasy of Disney sidekicks and brings it to life.

One of the few negative reviews notes: “It never addresses Disney’s wholly manufactured stranglehold on turning adolescent desire into a consumerist impulse.” True enough, and rather beside the point to a family looking for a way into their child’s mind.

Life, Animated was definitely worth your 90 minutes.

Movie review: Love & Friendship

Billy Crystal from When Harry Met Sally was almost unrecognizable in The Princess Bride.

The Wife suggested that we see Love & Friendship at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. I had no idea what it was, except that it was based on some Jane Austen novella, “Lady Susan”, which I had never heard of. The movie was written and directed by Whit Stillman.

In its favor: the opening credits, which moved along to the music. Overlays to explain who each character was, some rather humorously rendered. And the always scheming Lady Susan Vernon, played by Kate Beckinsale, who is trying to fix up her daughter Frederica, and herself.

I associate English actress Beckinsale with action pics such as Total Recall and Van Helsing, but she had been in a TV movie, Emma, also based on an Austen work.

Even with the clues, it was a tad difficult to keep many of the characters straight, with the exceptions of Tom Bennett as the silly Sir James Martin, and the distinctive-looking Chloë Sevigny as Alicia Johnson, “the American.”. I chuckled a few times. The Wife liked it more than I, though we both found it too talky. But the women across the aisle found it uproarious.

Interesting that Rotten Tomatoes gave Love & Friendship 99% positive reviews with the critics, but only 69% with the fans. It’s a good film, but not everyone’s cup of tea.

The Princess Bride

The nearby Madison Theatre has been showing classic movies fortnightly on Sunday afternoons in the summer for only 35 cents a customer. The Princess Bride (1987) is one of several movies directed by Rob Reiner that I enjoyed from that period (1984-1995): This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, and The American President.

And a couple of those actors show up here: Spinal Tap’s Christopher Guest as the evil Count Rugen, Billy Crystal from When Harry… as Miracle Max, unrecognizable to my wife.

I remembered almost all of this: the banter of the framing story between Grandpa and his grandson (Peter Falk, Fred Savage), Wallace Shawn as the bossy Vizzini, and Robin Wright as Buttercup in her first film.

The only major thing I forgot was how Westley (Cary Elwes) met up again with Inigo Montoya (the wonderful) Mandy Patinkin and Fezzik (André the Giant).

The place was nearly packed. A great outing.

Movie review: Finding Dory

Shades of Sigourney Weaver

Despite some positive reviews in Rotten Tomatoes (94% at this writing), I was a tad wary to see the new Pixar/Disney film Finding Dory. This comes from my basic lack of trust in sequels, though I liked the Toy Story franchise.

My family was at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany with about 25 other people, and The Daughter was one of only two children; I expect the kiddies had gone earlier in the day, which was Father’s Day.

In case someone had not seen Finding Nemo – it WAS 13 YEARS AGO – there’s a very brief recap of Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres) meeting Marlin (Albert Brooks). A year passes, and the forgetful blue fish suddenly has WHAT APPEARS TO BE a flashback. She crosses the ocean with those same groovy turtles from Nemo.

Then the film becomes its own narrative, as she is – shades of Sigourney Weaver – on the trail of her parents, helped by a couple of friends from her fragmented past, and by Hank (Ed O’Neill), a cantankerous octopus who’s trying to escape from the Marine Life Institute, and sees Dory as his ticket out. It was all rollicking fun.

But there’s a point about 2/3s of the way through when Dory’s memory failure threatens to derail her goal, when I heard sniffling, the distinct sound of suppressed crying. The seeming failure of Dory to achieve her goal, because of the inability to recall, thwarting that primordial need to find one’s way back home, also had The Daughter clinging to my arm.

Still, there was the finale, over the top even by cartoon standards, but would have seemed even more ridiculous had it not been earned emotionally. There were other fine vocal actors, such as Ty Burrell, and it looked nice, as Pixar films are wont to do. And yes, you should stay to the end.

The short before Finding Dory was Piper, about a young sandpiper, which was, I’ll admit, kind of adorable.