Live and Let Di

In Cold Blood

Relax! I did not finally snap and take out my whole family with a spatula or something.

I am a TCM addict. I admit it. I don't think it's a problem. I don't think I require an intervention. I have a secret love for Robert Osborne...his knowledge of movies (duh, I know it's scripted) is only surpassed by my other love, IMDB. I will turn the cable on to guide, surf to TCM and scroll through the next week or so, recording all of the classic movies that I want to see or re-see. In recent weeks/months, I've seen The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Sophie's Choice, Saturday Night Fever, Gaslight...just from TCM...this doesn't even count my Netflix selections. No commercials. No censored language. It may be the perfect television station!

Yesterday I watched In Cold Blood, starring Robert Blake and John Forsythe (who I recently watched in the my-Mom's-era tearjerker, Madame X with Lana Turner). I read the book by Truman Capote so long ago that it's not on my list of books read that I have been keeping since 1997. I recall that I heard that it was really the first "true crime" book...a completely new genre that has resulted in everything from incisive true crime writing to tabloid trash books that make it from event to bookshelves inside two weeks.

Now people know more about it because of the recent Capote movies. The basic story is that two ex-convicts decide to pull off a robbery where they have been told there is a safe with lots of money in it. They end up killing the family and walking away with about forty bucks. The book, and perhaps moreso the movie, delves into the minds of the killers. Purportedly, Capote became enmeshed with the killers, particularly Perry (Blake's character) to the point where it went well beyond journalistic propriety.

The movie was brilliant. Mr. Osborne forewarned me that the score was done by Quincy Jones...and what a score...certainly avant-garde for the time. It was Blake's performance that was mesmerizing. Blake was a child actor, with his credits going back to the age of 5. His younger days were spent in the Our Gang series of movies. He was also Baretta. He once won a Golden Globe for Baretta, but was not even nominated for his amazing performance as Perry in this film. Of course, the year was 1967 and the nominees were:

	In the Heat of the Night (1967) - Rod Steiger(winner)
	Bonnie and Clyde (1967) - Warren Beatty Cool Hand Luke (1967) - Paul Newman (I) Graduate, The (1967) - Dustin Hoffman Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) - Spencer Tracy

I think he just should have done the movie in 1966 when I'm sure he could have joined the ranks of Paul Scofield (A Man for All Seasons) and Alan Arkin (The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!) or 1968 when he surely could have supplanted Alan Bates in The Fixer for an Oscar nod.

Looking at this movie from our current day, you will be amazed at how ahead of its time it was in terms of lighting and direction. The actual murders are not shown at the beginning of the movie, but are later told in retrospect by Perry. Some fantasy scenes that depict what is going on in Perry's mind are both seamless and chilling. The director purposely delved even more deeply into the killers' characters than the book did in order to evoke...not really empathy for the killers...but a psychological understanding of who they were and how they got to that point.

Oh...and a little IMDB tidbit...have I mentioned how much I LOVE IMDB?...the eyes on the movie poster are the eyes of the real killer, not the actor portraying him.

Brilliant...and best of all, free on TCM. Go for it.

Di

Slumdog Teaser

I haven't tabulated the votes on what I should write about next, but it seems that a couple people were looking for the Slumdog Millionaire review. To whet your appetite, come on over to my blog for the News & Observer to learn how we got there in the first place and how you will eventually get a return on your investment taking your kids to EVERY SINGLE KID MOVIE THAT EVER CAME OUT!

Paybacks

Di

The Hustler

I don't write too many movie reviews because I don't go to the movies much. But a few weeks ago, Paul Newman died and it got me thinking about some of the classic movies that he has starred in. Apparently it got American Movie Classics thinking the same thing because they pre-empted all of their program for a veritable marathon of Paul Newman movies. I love Paul Newman (and his salad dressings!) So I set my DVR to tape just about all of them.

Last night my husband and I snuggled up in bed to watch The Hustler, the one with which we were least familiar. My husband probably knows ever line from Cool Hand Luke and I've seen The Sting many times. I was shaken to my core by The Hustler.

First let's look at the stellar cast:

Paul Newman - Playing Fast Eddie Felson, his body is lean and chiseled before it was a pre-requisite to movie stardom. His acting was so spot-on that the viewer can't tell when he's hustling and when he's not. He underplays, having few over-the-top emotional scenes. But he embodies his character so that a few minutes in, you forget he's Paul Newman (of course the fact that the movie is in black & white so you can't fall into his blue eyes helps in that regard.)

Jackie Gleason - If you only know him from the Honeymooners, yelling, "Norton!" then you don't know the acting ability of this man.

Piper Laurie - It seems that before the role as Sarah Packard, Laurie was a veteran of many television shows and a few movies you wouldn't recognize. She's not the Elizabeth Taylor-esque beauty that you would expect to star with Paul Newman. It is not her looks that make her role in this movie. It is her expressions. It is the variety of emotions she dons and changes in the blink of an eye.

George C. Scott - You know him from Patton. Before I watched The Hustler, I had no idea he was in this movie. From the minute he appears on screen, you don't know quite what to make of him and that makes him perfect in his role.

And just for fun, there's Michael Constantine (Principal Kaufman from Room 222), Vincent Gardenia in a bit role, and Jake LaMotta as a bartender. There are even the uncredited hands of Willie Mosconi taking the Masse shot for Newman.

Every single one of the four major stars was nominated for an Oscar. None of them won. The film won two Oscars, one for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White and one for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White. The West Side Story cast pretty much swept the acting awards. Now I've seen West Side Story a hundred or so times and there is NO comparison.

I'm watching Newman over and over again and am constantly stunned. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? Watch it and FEEL the frustration Liz Taylor's character feels when that man rejects her.

The sad thing is that Newman only won one Oscar...ironically for reprising his role as Fast Eddie in The Color of Money. I'm pretty sure that it was a nod from the Academy to make up for his previous snubs....seven to be exact. It's sad because his performance in that movie was NOTHING compared to some of his earlier works. It's sad that the Academy couldn't see past the blue-eyed, hunk to the talented actor inside.

Set your DVR next time you see The Hustler coming on...and get ready to be blown away.

Movie Madness

On Monday morning I grabbed the News & Observer out of my son's hot little hands as he withdrew the coveted "morning after" Sports Page. He announced that he had already completed his bracket "for better or for worse." Oh, the drama! I topped off my morning meal of national and local news (in that order...never stray from my OCD reading habits) with a glance at Lifestyles where the headline of "Movie Madness" and the appearance of a complex bracket of comedies jumped out at me.

If the onset of March Madness has you updating your Netflix queue so you have SOMETHING to do while others in your family are planted in front of seemingly endless basketball games, then Movie Madness is for you. Office productivity has been way down as employees labor over their brackets instead of their in-boxes.  Now those who are as passionate about Caddyshack and It Happened One Night have their own brackets to work on and their own reasons to shirk their work responsibilities.

OMG...my son just said, "Come on Mom, Wayne's World HAS to beat Blazing Saddles." This is going to get ugly!!!

Just think of the water cooler discussions. Two hours of broad farce, nuanced dialogue and sight gags to argue about rather than a couple of missed free throws and an overlooked flagrant foul. A multi-generational team of actors and actresses to mull over rather than a bunch of pimply-faced soon-to-be NBA millionaires. Let them talk about Coach K, Roy Williams and Jim Calhoun. We'll muse on the leadership skills of Billy Wilder, Mel Brooks and Cameron Crowe.

I did my brackets and while my winner isn't exactly Cinderella, it's also not a favorite by any stretch. I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours! Click here for your Movie Madness online bracket. Ooooh....and the winners will win DVDs in addition to major bragging rights. Ahem...Vicky, Donnie, Elinor & Donna, if you are reading this, I expect the Duffy's Trivia Team to kick butt on this!

Di

 

Top 100 Movies

As a prelude to the VERY COOL movie bracketology I am going to post soon, I thought I would steal this idea from Nicholas who stole it from Lillasyster's Life. Of the top 100 movies as posted on IMDB, the underlined ones are those that I have seen, the bold ones are those that Nicholas and I have seen and the bold and underlined ones are ones that both Nicholas and I have seen.

1.    The Godfather (1972) - seen so many times that I can't count
2.    The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - cannot flip by this movie, must stay and watch
3.    The Godfather: Part II (1974) - ditto The Godfather comment
4.    Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966)
5.    Pulp Fiction (1994) - first saw this in pieces, then all at once and realized seeing it all at once is like seeing it in pieces.
6.    Schindler's List (1993)
7.    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) - saw this, lived this, kidding, kind of.
8.    Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - how can this be above the original?
9.    Casablanca (1942) - so many wonderful quotes!
10.    Shichinin no samurai (1954)
11.    Star Wars (1977) - saw it when it first came out with my cousin Mark
12.    The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
13.    12 Angry Men (1957)
14.    Rear Window (1954)
15.    Goodfellas (1990) - you've never really seen it until you've seen it at Cafe Martarano in Fort Lauderdale.
16.    Cidade de Deus (2002)
17.    Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
18.    The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
19.    C'era una volta il West (1968)
20.    The Usual Suspects (1995) - Kevin Spacey is amazing.
21.    Psycho (1960)
22.    Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
23.    Fight Club (1999)
24.    Citizen Kane (1941)
25.    The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - read the book...no WAY I was seeing the movie!
26.    North by Northwest (1959)
27.    Memento (2000) - saw it, loved it, saw it again when I was suffering from short term memory loss, forgot I saw it again.
28.    The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
29.    Sunset Blvd. (1950)
30.    It's a Wonderful Life (1946) - Nicholas, how could you not have seen this???? It's a Christmas Eve staple at our house.
31.    The Matrix (1999) - I still don't really understand it!
32.    Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
33.    There Will Be Blood (2007)
34.    Se7en (1995)
35.    Apocalypse Now (1979)
36.    Taxi Driver (1976)
37.    American Beauty (1999)
38.    Léon (1994)
39.    Vertigo (1958)
40.    Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Le (2001)
41.    American History X (1998)
42.    The Departed (2006)
43.    No Country for Old Men (2007) - how does this get on the list when it's so new?
44.    Paths of Glory (1957)
45.    M (1931)
46.    To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
47.    Chinatown (1974)
48.    The Third Man (1949)
49.    Leben der Anderen, Das (2006)
50.    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
51.    A Clockwork Orange (1971) - too weird for me
52.    Alien (1979)
53.    The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
54.    Laberinto del fauno, El (2006)
55.    The Shining (1980)
56.    Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
57.    The Pianist (2002)
58.    Double Indemnity (1944)
59.    Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
60.    Forrest Gump (1994)
61.    Saving Private Ryan (1998)
62.    The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - I think my Dad can't flip by this one.
63.    L.A. Confidential (1997)
64.    Das Boot (1981)
65.    Requiem for a Dream (2000)
66.    Reservoir Dogs (1992)
67.    Untergang, Der (2004)
68.    Aliens (1986)
69.    The Maltese Falcon (1941)
70.    Raging Bull (1980)
71.    Metropolis (1927)
72.    Rashômon (1950)
73.    Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
74.    Modern Times (1936)
75.    Hotel Rwanda (2004)
76.    Singin' in the Rain (1952)
77.    Sin City (2005)
78.    2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
79.    Rebecca (1940)
80.    Sjunde inseglet, Det (1957)
81.    All About Eve (1950) - it's going to be a bumpy night!
82.    Some Like It Hot (1959)
83.    City Lights (1931)
84.    Amadeus (1984)
85.    On the Waterfront (1954)
86.    Vita è bella, La (1997)
87.    The Great Escape (1963)
88.    Touch of Evil (1958)
89.    The Prestige (2006)
90.    The Elephant Man (1980)
91.    Jaws (1975) - saw this in the theater when I was 14.
92.    Full Metal Jacket (1987)
93.    The Sting (1973)
94.    Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988)
95.    Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
96.    The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
97.    The Apartment (1960)
98.    Braveheart (1995)
99.    The Great Dictator (1940)
100.    Blade Runner (1982)

I guess that's 55 out of 100 for me. If there are any that I've missed that you feel I MUST see, please let me know. Keep in mind that I have a very difficult time with movies that are excessively violent.

What have you seen?

Di

Feel Good Movie of the Year!!!

I know...you thought this was going to be about Juno or something. But alas I have not seen it (nor any other Oscar nominated films). My daughter has seen it twice and was terribly excited when she saw the Oscar noms.

My children will often call out from another room, "Mom...come on! You've got to see this on YouTube." My reaction is usually one of the following:

1. Ignoring them

2. Telling them I'm boycotting YouTube because the Church of Scientology tells me to

3. Responding, "No, because I will never have a chance to regain the three minutes I will waste watching some stupid video of a guy crashing a bike into a tree." (Oh, sorry, that was a video my son and his friend posted on YouTube.)

And I have certainly never posted a movie on my blog because I appreciate that you indulge me by just reading my words. I can't possibly impose additional minutes and a new media on you. But this video, sent by my friend and Trivia Partner, Elinor, was utterly irresistable!!! Trust me on this...take a chance on wasting two minutes:

Download FreeHugs.mov

Pass it along!

Di

Sicko - the Sequel

Sicko, the 2007 Michael Moore film, was an eye-opener for those of us who breathe a sigh of relief every day that we are fortunate enough to have insurance. We are annoyed by the capriciousness of our insurance companies when they inexplicably deny coverage for a new medication that would forestall a lengthy illness and possible hospitalization and blithely cover medications that are subject to potential abuse or dependence (I won't name them...we all know what they are) because they are available in generic form! But we soldier on, the lucky ones, the insured.

As it happens, having insurance is not a guarantee of good medical care or of avoiding the financial disaster that looms when the uninsured cross the threshold of any medical facility. Moore points out the many examples of insured citizens in the U.S. receiving care that is inferior to third world counties or being bankrupted due to the whims of managed care. While we await the election of a Democrat who will tackle the monster of healthcare reform, we can rest assured that if things get too bad, we can always go to France or England or...Cuba?

OK, now on to the sequel. The sequel will tackle the question of how insurance companies can possibly make money when they don't seem to have a lick of business sense in their collective heads.

Here's a quick question to determine if YOU have a lick of business sense:

You are a large, well-known insurance company (for the sake of this example, we'll call it True Floss...since I don't want to cast aspersions on any particular company). You need to explain to a customer what was paid and what wasn't paid during a 13 day hospital stay. What is the most cost-effective means of accomplishing this goal?

(a.) e-mail the pertinent documents to the customer

(b.) mail an itemized listing of the charges and benefits via mail

(c.) send a total of 16 separate Explanation of Benefits forms in 16 separate envelopes with 16 separate stamps on the same day

Hmmm...cue Jeopardy music. Yes, YOU have a lick of business sense because you opted for (a.), with (b.) as a reasonable back-up. True Floss, in its infinite wisdom, chose (c.)

So in the mail today I received a separate Explanation of Benefits for EACH DAY I was in the hospital, a separate EOB for the ER, a separate EOB for each test I had and strangely, a separate EOB for my release from the hospital. They even charge you to LEAVE!!! This takes us up to the day of my discharge. I have been back to the hospital as an outpatient five times since then, so I can only imagine the trees that are shivering in their boots in anticipation of the mountain of paper THESE visits will waste!

How can I feel like I am making an impact when I recycle my newspaper, carefully breakdown, fold and recycle boxes and painstakingly rescue every can or bottle from the trash and bring it to the proper bin in the garage? The amount I recycle in a week can be undone by one insurance company's paperwork on one hospital stay.

I have no more words.

Di

Everything Comes Down to Poo

It's official! We have a big orange sign in a ziploc bag nailed to one of the trees in our front yard.

This, more than looking at hundreds of plans, wrangling over exteriors and figuring out where we want fireplaces, makes it official.

After an hour or so (in the lovely company of a truly superior county employee) in the big city of Raleigh and writing a check for $846, we walked away with this. It lets the county septic people know that it's OK to examine our land to determine where our septic system needs to go to accommodate the new house.

Isn't it funny that before everything else...the vessel sinks I've been drooling over, the ice maker, the gas stove, the children IN ROOMS ON THE SECOND FLOOR FAR AWAY FROM THE MASTER BEDROOM....the first step is what we are going to do with our sh*t?

Di

The Universality of Dialogue

It never ceases to amaze me how we can communicate with others of our generation via music and movie dialogue. No matter where we are from and where we are now, if we were born sometime between 1959 and 1971 (I only include that because of Sharis who is an appalling 36...I believe the youngest of my friends) we can immediately sing the next line of a song, identify the movie a line is from and give the next line of dialogue.

Our children think this is really bizarre.

Last week my friend's daughter Casey was missing us because we were still in North Carolina for the summer. She sent me an e-mail and at the end she said, "Here come those tears again"...I told her to go to her mother and say that and I guaranteed her mother could come up with the next line. Casey asked if it was from sappy love song and I said no. Anyone got the next line, artist and album?

Yesterday, my friend Stacy was standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open and my daughter said, "What are you doing?" She replied, "You know, that's the problem with these things. You have to watch them every minute." She assured Haley that I would know the line, the next line and the movie. Anyone?

Di

Little Children - the movie

Several months ago I read and reviewed Little Children by Tom Perotta. The movie got a very limited release that somehow missed Boca, but earned Kate Winslet and Jackie Earle Haley well-deserved Oscar Nominations. The latter was mostly remembered as Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, so his surprising turn as Ronnie, the child molester and neighborhood pariah, was a compelling performance.

Kate Winslet, who is one of the most beautiful actresses around, somehow pulled off the character of Sarah, the intellectual, plain mom who just doesn't fit in with the pulled-together, judgmental toddler park moms. She is drawn to enigmatic "Prom King" Brad, the stay-at-home Dad whose gorgeous wife works making documentaries. Their affair is both trite and unique, physically passionate and emotionally charged.

This is one of the few times you will hear me say that the movie was as good as the book. The use of the documentary-ish narrator somehow works with the story and does not seem to be contrived or a short-cut around dramatic exposition.

One of my favorite scenes was when Sarah goes with her older friend to a book group meeting where Madame Bovary was discussed. Self-conscious about going, Sarah is further tested when she sees that another invitee is none other than Mary Ann, one of the perfect, self-righteous toddler park moms. Everyone knows a Mary Ann...life is black and white. Earlier in the movie she suggested to the other moms scheduling sex as a weekly date, emphasized the importance of keeping her child on a schedule and stomped away in a snit when Sarah and Todd impetuously kissed upon their first meeting (a meeting egged on by the moms who offered Sarah $10 to get the "Prom King's" phone number.) During the book discussion, she stridently asserts that Emma Bovary is nothing but a slut. Sarah who holds a masters in English Literature, reflecting on her own complicated relationship with Todd, talks about the complexities of Emma Bovary, her choices and her feminism. It is a powerful scene in Sarah's development.

Jackie Earle Haley's performance as Ronnie moves from creepy to sympathetic to disgusting to pitiful. The movie, like the book, manages to show the complexity of all the characters, most notably finding redeeming qualities in a convicted sex offender.

Little Children does not wrap the ending up in a feel-good resolution, but leaves you confused, uncertain and a little sad. A beautifully done adaptation of an excellent book!

QUESTION FOR READERS OR VIEWERS (I KNOW VICKY IS GOING TO KNOW THIS): I CAN'T REMEMBER FROM THE BOOK AND IT WASN'T CLEAR FROM THE MOVIE - When Sarah returned after leaving Lucy for the night with her friend (the older woman she walked with and from the book group, the woman left quickly and in kind of a snit. What happened?

Di