"Another Week"

"Where've YOU been?"

Well, obviously, I've been seeing a lot of movies--good, bad, and ugly. That's been on top of working every day on some audio project or another--two weeks of foley in the evening for one film and one video, doing some audio work for "The Agents" (one a documentary on an earlier project, if anybody doubts the value of meta to real life situations), some freelance stuff (more than ever!) for an old client. I'm trying to fill my days, so I don't have to spend a lot of time on "The Rock." I'm there to eat, sleep, and blog, but that's about it.

K and Smokey have been gone since a week ago Tuesday, and I was fully expecting them to come home this weekend to my open arms, but I got a phone call Thursday saying the project is taking longer--it's going to be another week.

"Another Week."

That phrase has been echoing in my mind ever since and has shoved any song out of my head (at the time it was "Spirit in the Sky"). Another Week. I miss them horribly, and think about them and worry about them and obsess over them. Poor K is having to work another week on this project--which will be draining and I know that at the end of the day, her eyes will be spinning in her head from looking at computer screens, and ledger entries. The dog has a support system down there, so he's fine and won't tax K (as he might me were he here). Still I miss them. And my recent spate of film-going (and the slew of video's from the library--see below for just the tip of the iceberg) has been a way of occupying and distracting me, and engaging my mind that raking leaves, chopping wood, recycling and cleaning gutters --or doing the dishes (gotta get to that) hasn't.

I went to see Dan "The Man" and his circus of cats for a visit this week, Friday The Nephew is in town, so with The Niece and Sister we all went out to a fine dinner of collegiality, and cracking each other up. Hopefully they'll come out to the Rock, but everybody's got schedules (Addendum: They came out Sunday for a very fun time--they're great kids). Saturday, I'm meeting up with FarmerScott just because we can and it's been too long...for any of the Gang of Four. More work for this, another week. I'll be busy, and more grateful than most for Friday to come around.

Here are some things to occupy your time:
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I mentioned a sad story a while back about Walt Crowley, which a lot of people mentioned made them very sad. Time to be sadder. A good man has passed.

http://blatherwatch.blogs.com/talk_radio/2007/09/walt-crowley-19.html#more
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003896470_webcrowley21m.html
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332802_crowley20.html
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/thebigblog/archives/122334.asp
http://historylink.org/This_week/index.cfm

Interesting to read the comments of John Carlson, who was there at his death-bed. Polar opposite politically, but good friends nonetheless. That's how to do it right.
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Marcel Marceau has died. Can we have a moment of cacophony? (Expect a flood of variations of that joke today).*

I don't know if the obits will mention this, but Marceau was the only person who had a line in Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie." After miming a minute of trying to rush to the phone in a wind-storm, he's asked by director Mel to be in his silent movie. Marceau says, "NON!" and hangs up.

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You want to see a man wrestling with his conscience on live tv? Here is San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, Republican, forgoing the ideology and "going with his heart."

You can practically see the angel and devil on his shoulder wrestling. He's probably going to catch hell from "his base." I hope he finds new supporters. This took courage, and that's something you don't see too much in politicians (like last week's oh-so-"brave" condemnation of the moveon.org "General Betray-us" ad. There IS a war going on, ladies and gentlemen. Do something about that, instead. The ad isn't killing anybody).

Might be nice to send him an e-mail, a card...a couple bucks.
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Here's an article I found facinating from Newsweek--this fellow followed the dictates of the Bible for a year, and found some joy in it (although the stoning part he had to work around):


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20910659/site/newsweek/
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Tales from the Red Envelope

"Millions" (Danny Boyle, 2004) One of those ones I missed in the theater, and one I deeply regret. It's a little gem of a movie Boyle made between his zombie-film "28 Days Later" and this year's sci-fi film "Sunshine," about a saint-obsessed child who finds a large duffel-bag of pound notes, seemingly from heaven, in the days before the change-over to the Euro. His older brother uses it to gain influence in his new school quickly becoming BMOC (Dad, a recent widower, has just moved his family to a new development by the train-tracks), but Damian wants to give it to the poor. He is visited by numerous saints to guide him along on his spiritual quest (and quite perkily announces their names and birth to death dates and how they died at each arrival). It's a highly charming movie, while avoiding the usual cute kid cliches, and maintaining a quite sophisticated tone of drama and off-the-wall comedy. That was a trick even Disney found hard to pull off. It gets a very high recommendation from me. **

"The Notorious Bettie Page" (Mary Harron, 2006) If Marilyn Monroe was the blonde goddess of sex in the 1950's, Bettie Page was her player on the other side. Marilyn was blonde, Bettie, brunette. Where Marilyn had success in Hollywood, Bettie never got beyond stag reels. Where Marilyn's sexuality was paired with a psychic pain, Bettie was exuberant. Marilyn had booze and pills for sanctuary. Bettie had Jesus. Marilyn died fairly young. Bettie's still alive and kicking*** and getting royalties from the continuing interest in her, thanks to devotees such as artist Dave Stevens, who used her as the model for the girlfriend of "The Rocketeer." Both Marilyn and Bettie appeared as centerfolds within the first year of the publication of Playboy Magazine. And this has to be said--Marilyn had talent. Bettie... wasn't much of a dancer. Marilyn was the epitome of sex in Tinseltown, while Bettie worked in the squalid back-rooms of seamy pornographers, and panting "photo clubs."

Bettie's story mirrors Marilyn's: Pretty girl, growing up dirt-poor and abused, an early marriage that doesn't work out, and heading to the Big City to get into acting. There they diverge: Marilyn to fame and early death; Bettie to obscurity, long life and delayed fame. Bettie quit modeling in the 50's after she was hauled to DC to testify in Estes Kefauver's pornography hearings (she was never called in to the hearing room), and so both Marilyn and Bettie are frozen, existing in images of their prime.

Does Mary Harron's film explain Bettie Page and her circumstances and times? Not at all. The facts are laid out, stopping precisely at the hearings that ended Bettie's modeling days and goes no further. The closest it comes is her repeated defense for her nude modeling: "Well, I figure Adam and Eve were naked in the Garden of Eden." Point taken, but it doesn't explain the spike heels, whips, spanking and ball-gags (The real Bettie always dismissed her bondage photos as being "silly" and paying the bills). Considering that most people only know her through her looks, Gretchen Mol does an amazing impersonation, right down to a clumsy dance in the end credits, that has just the right touch of amateur clunkiness. In fact, it's downright eerie. Still, it's nice to see this story have a happy ending. I think Bettie would be pleased to know that the copy I watched was from the Public Library. If that's not vindication, I don't know what is.

"The High and the Mighty" (William Wellman, 1954) One of the few John Wayne pictures that he produced himself, and one of his best-known and respected films outside of his Westerns, I had never sat through "The High and the Mighty." Oh, I could whistle the vague Dimitri Tiomkin theme, but I'd never seen it. William Wellman was a no-nonsense director and flyer, who no doubt seized the opportunity to do a dramatic film about the then-tony luxury of flying transcontinentally, and turned it into one of the first "disaster" films involving flying (Hello, "Airport!"). Wayne's character was meant for an older Spencer Tracy, but after Tracy left the project, Wayne stepped in to take the role of the haunted co-pilot, who has to fight his past and the demons of his pilot (Robert Stack) to "get this baby on the ground." With an international cast of passengers, all with stories to tell, it's a bit like "Grand Hotel" in the sky with its engines on fire (or "Stagecoach"). The emphasis is on character as there's only so much rollickin' Wayne can do in a plane cabin, though there is an over-the top scene where Wayne decks his pilot to keep him from ditching the plane in the drink...with his hands on the controls! It's also a bit dated in the need to explain every little detail about "plane travel," but not at all in how, at that early stage before rolling luggage, airline personnel were still griping about the passengers.



"Bananas" (Woody Allen, 1971) One of "his earlier, funnier ones," as he so famously spoofed them in "Stardust Memories." It is early, and Howard Cosell giving play-by-play on a military coup contains a movie full of belly-laughs. But I'm not so sure you could call it a film, so much as a collection of black-out sketches tied together with a burrito-thin junta-based plot. Yes, you can see early roles of Conrad Bain and Sylvester Stallone. And Allen's comedy still had that nasty streak of bad-taste sexual humor (in a porn shop that also carries "The National Review," he tells the counter-guy he's "doing a sociological study on perversion. I'm up to Advanced Child Molesting"), and his performances were like Harold Lloyd on benzedrine. It sometimes hard to tell if the Woodman is performing or going into a sneezing fit. But a lot of the ideas are choice: the dream of the two guys being carried on crucifixes...until a fight breaks out for a lone, remaining parking space, the commercial for "New Testament" cigarettes (Priest: "I smoke them. He smokes them."), the helpful instructions Allen gives to a person trying to park, and the line "If you're gonna fool around with women's lib, you're gonna need somebody to support you."

* Okay, how about this one: France is giving him a 21-gun salute--with silencers.

** Dan "The Man" told me a funny story about Danny Boyle at our last visit. He went to see a preview of "Millions" and there was a Q & A with Boyle afterwards. After the obligatory three questions about video cameras from techies and director-wannabes, Dan stood up and asked, "Mr. Boyle, as a recovering Catholic, do you have a love-hate relationship with your success, and do you feel redeemed?" This question so flummoxed Boyle that he couldn't answer and couldn't focus on anything else, ending the Q & A. I would liked to have heard the answer, frankly.

*** Bettie has been publicly reluctant to be photographed, preferring that people remember how she looked "in her prime." Still, an Image search for "Bettie Page" will reveal rare recent photos of her, and she looks GREAT! The woman's over 80!
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Finally as a way of signing off, here is a video of Smokey saying "Hello, I must be going." (Thought I'd better use this "widget" before the novelty wore off).