Sunday, March 31, 2013

Gary's Playlists: Songs That Remind Me of the Year 2012

I love my playlists, yet they aren’t always the easiest things to make, especially if you’re trying to get enough songs to completely fill an 83 minute disc.  My tastes run all over the place, except towards heavy metal and rap (usually).  At three months into the new year, I still only have 16 songs for this particular playlist, which means I still need about four or five more songs to round it out.  But here it is as it stands for now:

  • “Higher Medley” from Joyful Noise, featuring Queen Latifah, Dolly Parton, Keke Palmer, Jeremy Jordan, Angela Grovey, DeQuina Moore and Andy Karl.

I couldn’t decide which song from this movie I wanted to include, but I definitely wanted to include something.  On the very day I decided to sit down and figure that out, playing snippets on iTunes, I still wasn’t sure when I walked out the door to go to work.  Now, I’m often rather OCD in the way I go about things, and that includes what radio station I listen to in the car on any given day; I have different radio stations determined for certain days, and it just so happened that on that day, I was listening to an AM Christian station that usually doesn’t play music.  But they played this song from Joyful Noise, featuring most of the cast, and if ever there was a coincidence regarding the songs I was listening to and downloading, this was just such a coincidence.  It almost felt like God saying, “This one, Gary.”  After all, it IS all about Him!  Check out this number from the movie linked here, and see if it doesn't get your feet stomping.
  • “A Little Good News” by Anne Murray

This song fits the times.  There is just so much hatred and violence going on in today’s society that I find myself thinking about this good ol’ song quite a bit.  But by that line of reasoning, I should be able to use it for any year’s playlist!
  • “The Lazy Song” by Bruno Mars

I had plenty of depressing days at the beginning of the year where I actually felt like this.  Being out of work and looking for a good job can take a lot out of you!  I love this laid-back song, especially when I saw the video Leonard Nimoy made, shuffling around the house in his bathrobe, then shuffling off to the store, still in his bathrobe, drinking milk from the carton in the middle of the grocery aisle and then scaring a little kid, then shuffling back home where he can’t find anything on TV but William Shatner Priceline commercials.  Later, he does the Vulcan greeting in the mirror like a gun, a-la DeNiro in Taxi Driver, and then answers his mail, which includes a young fan with a Spock haircut giving the Vulcan greeting, and Nimoy laughs and folds it many times until it’s the right size to fix his wobbly TV Tray leg.  The song is great, and this video was absolutely hilarious!  If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and check this link out, but be forewarned. it's not for kids:  He uses the bathroom, flips a few people off, and looks at some nudie mags.
  • “The Government Can” by Tim Hawkins

This is strictly comedy, and a bit over-the-top at times, yet I love the lyrics, and he does some pretty good impressions of Sammy Davis Jr. and Arnold Schwarzenegger (in the live version on iTunes).  This parody of "The Candy Man" expertly spells out everything that is wrong with the government.  Check out the video linked here.
  • “The Greatest Love of All” by Whitney Houston

I had to include a Whitney song since she died this year, and this was classic Whitney.
  • “Workin’ Day and Night” by Michael Jackson

When Whitney Houston died, I wrote a blog called “Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and the Death Dealers” (linked here) after seeing a documentary all about the market surrounding dead celebrities in general, and Michael Jackson in particular.  At the same time, I got that new job, which was an evening job, so this song was quite descriptive in this occasion.
  • “La Vie En Rose” by Louis Armstrong

I don’t even really remember where I heard this song this year.  All I know is that when I heard it, I put it on this list.
  • “Broken Wings” by Mr. Mister

The same thing goes for this classic love song.
  • “Love Song” by 311 from 50 First Dates

Several years ago, I caught this song on the extras for the movie 50 First Dates.  When we watched it again with Emily, I decided to include it on my 2012 playlist disc.
  • “Si tu vois ma mere” by Sidney Becht from the movie Midnight in Paris

I just HAD to include SOMETHING from this great film!
  • “Still Rainin’” by Phillip Phillips

Not only did he win American Idol, this song also reminds me that the Abba Tribute concert got rained out at Red Rocks, in basically the middle of a Summer drought in Colorado.  We were so bummed!  Apparently, that band continued playing after we left, but we weren’t going to subject ourselves to miserable conditions to hear them when we had already been twice before!
  • “The Four Seasons” by Joshua Bell

I heard him perform this on Dancing with the Stars, and after hearing this, I decided to download the entire CD of violinist Joshua Bell playing Vivaldi’s entire The Four Seasons, and burn it for myself and niece Brielle, who was just learning the violin over the last two years.
  • “Tuxedo Junction” by Glenn Miller Orchestra

My nieces Jessa and Emily also play instruments, in this case, the guitar, and Emily even joined a small group with her friend Sean.  This classic jazz song was played during one her school’s concerts.
  • “Two Tigers” by David Buckley, from The Forbidden Kingdom

I didn’t think I was going to like this movie, but I did, and then I decided some of the music was just as surprisingly good as the movie.  Check out the video linked here, and the music linked here.
  • “The Big Bang Theory” by Barenaked Ladies

Still like this show, and perhaps I was grasping when I picked this song, but it’s a good song, so shoot me!
  • “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” by R.E.M.

This, of course, has to be the last song on the playlist.  Not since Y2K has everyone been talking about a global apocalypse, and this year, you can thank the Mayans, whose calendar was only set up to run through Dec. 21st of 2012.  Of course, we’re still all here, but this song was on everyone’s mind, along with that great quote by Marvin the Martian of the Looney Tunes:  “Where’s the Kaboom?  I was expecting an earth-shattering Kaboom!”

Thursday, March 28, 2013

The Best and Worst Movies of 1991

Last week, I posted my ideas for the best and worst movies of 1990 (linked here).  So this week, it's on to 1991.  The list of my top ten favorites is followed by the best of the rest, the worst movies of the year (of the ones I saw, of course), and a comparison to the biggest box office hits and Oscar darlings:

My Top Ten Favorites of 1991:
The Addams Family
I suppose this big screen remake of the classic sitcom wasn't all it could have been.  Yet I still found it fun and entertaining enough to include in my top ten.  My favorite bit was probably the beginning, where the family gathers on the roof to pour boiling oil on Christmas carolers, and Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, and Christina Ricci were particularly memorable as Gomez, Morticia, and Wednesday.  Worst bit:  Christopher Lloyd as Uncle Fester, the main plot gimmick.  Is he Fester, or an impostor?

Beauty and the Beast
Disney had a great run in the late 80's and early 90's, probably not any more noticeable than this movie, the only animated film to be nominated for Best Picture (These days, animated films have their own category).  For the longest time, it seemed like nobody could liven up old fairy tales like Disney could!

Cape Fear
A dark movie, it is Robert DeNiro who makes this a classic, and some of Scorsese's old fashioned direction and choices in music and cinematography.  But then, I always loved thrillers.

The Fisher King
This one is on the strange side, but Robin Williams' performance is worth the price of admission, and truthfully, Amanda Plummer (Christopher Plummer's daughter) and Mercedes Ruehl were pretty darned good too.

JFK
I'm not the biggest fan of Oliver Stone, and critics haven't been all that kind to this retelling of the investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the preceding years.  What I liked about it was the way it presented so many theories about what really happened that it becomes rather difficult to believe it was simply one man in a book suppository.

The Silence of the Lambs
Even darker than Cape Fear, this movie was perfect in its conception and execution, and deserved it's Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor Anthony Hopkins, Best Actress Jodi Foster, Best Director Johnathan Demme, and Best Adapted Screenplay by Ted Tally.  The only downside is it's very grueling subject matter, with one character based on mass murderer Ed Gein (same as Norman Bates of Psycho and Leatherface of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and that's not even including Hopkin's brilliant, psychopathic Hannibal the cannibal!

Soapdish
"I'm guilty - guilty of love, in the first degree!"
"Stop calling me Mr. Lohman!"
"They put me in a turban, Rose.  A turban!"
This movie was a very fun, comedic romp through the world of soap operas, and the entire cast has a heyday with the material.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
A great sendoff for the original series cast has the crew of the Enterprise embroiled in political intrigue when Kirk and McCoy are accused of killing the leader of the Klingons, and Spock must figure out a way to rescue them and uncover a conspiracy.  There's a lot of plot here, but also some great character moments as well, including Christopher Plummer as the evil Klingon General Chang and Kim Cattrall as Spock's new Vulcan protege.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day
As with the Alien movies, this second outing by director James Cameron was arguably the best of the bunch.  Purposely following some of the concepts Joseph Campbell outlined in his book about mythology, this not only has some great action and special effects, but the story moves far beyond what was in the first movie, delving deep into philosophical and metaphysical thought, while continuing to tell the story of killer robots from the future.

Thelma and Louise
To round out the top ten, I chose this "road movie" about two women who bond after a tragedy.  The film has a lot to say about modern feminism, and had a startling ending that everybody was talking about.

The Best of the Rest:

Backdraft

City Slickers
Dead Again
Father of the Bride
Hot Shots!
The Last Boy Scout
Little Man Tate
Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear
The Rapture
The Rocketeer

A "searing" drama about firefighters, Jodi Foster's film about a child prodigy, a Kenneth Branagh/Emma Thompson thriller, two family oriented comedies, two parodies, a Rocketeer, a pretty good Bruce Willis action film (with lots of profanity), and an interesting, though nearly pornographic, independent film that ends with the second coming of Christ are all films that made it onto this list of other films I liked.

The Worst:

The Butcher's Wife
Child's Play 3
Dying Young
Ernest Scared Stupid
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
Hudson Hawk
Naked Lunch
Nothing But Trouble
The People Under the Stairs
Pure Luck

This was a bad year for Demi Moore, as you can see from the posters on the right.  But once again, horror movies and comedies, and horror comedies, top the list of the worst from the year, and that includes some of the worst sequels featuring razor clawed boogie man Freddy Krueger and the demon doll Chucky.  Meanwhile, Dying Young, with Julia Roberts caring for a dying Campbell Scott, was grueling to sit through, and I found David Cronenberg's film version of William Burrough's Naked Lunch disgusting and unwatchable!  Remind me never to make the mistake of actually reading it!

For comparison, here are the biggest box office hits of that year, along with the films that garnered the most Oscar wins and Best Picture and Best Director nominations.  Yes, City Slickers DID win an Oscar (for best Supporting Actor Jack Palance).  I never saw Bugsy, The Prince of Tides, or Boyz n the Hood, and I actually thought Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves wasn't all that great, though I liked the Bryan Adams single.


Notable Oscar Films                                         Biggest Box Office Hits
The Silence of the Lambs                                   Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Beauty and the Beast                                          Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Bugsy                                                                  Beauty and the Beast
JFK                                                                     Hook
The Prince of Tides                                            The Silence of the Lambs
City Slickers                                                       JFK
The Fisher King                                                 The Addams Family
Thelma and Louise                                            Cape Fear
Terminator 2: Judgment Day                            Hot Shots!
Boyz n the Hood                                                City Slickers




Saturday, March 23, 2013

Gary's (Old) Movie Reviews: How to Enjoy "West Side Story" and "The Commitments"


[The titles link to the trailers]

Skip the first 20 or 30 minutes.

Last month, as I watched both versions of Romeo and Juliet (see my review linked here), I also checked out this classic musical based on the classic Shakespeare play.
     What I liked about West Side Story was the story, as well as the music and dancing.  As ABBA asked in song many years ago, “Who can live without it?  I ask in all honesty.  What would life be?  Without a song or a dance, what are we?” 
     Like Moulin Rouge, once it got going, it was pretty darn good.  What I didn’t like about it was the first half hour, which has some pretty bad, and I would even say embarrassing, musical numbers.  Russ Tamblyn can’t sing, and he’s not the best dancer.  (But don't just take my word for it:  Check this link out.)  What they could do with that these days (as long as it’s not Baz Luhrmann doing the doing)!  Some of the music, especially between the star-crossed lovers Maria and Tony, is quite old fashioned and from a bygone era (see the link here), and I can’t say it's bad, just old fashioned.  Compare it, for instance, to something like Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy singing “Indian Love Call” from the movie Rose Marie from 1936 (“When I’m calling you-ooooooo-oooooooo!”)
     But things start to pick up at the school dance about a half hour in, which I described before as a “dancing delight”, and that’s followed immediately by the great number “America” featuring Rita Moreno (linked here), and there are several other great numbers and moments throughout the rest of the film – “Cool”, for instance, or Rita Moreno’s performance, or that ending where Maria learns to finally hate, just like all the rest of them do.  And unlike other musicals, because it’s based on Romeo and Juliet and deals with the theme of racial prejudice, it’s truly about something!  That’s why it won an Oscar.
            I just wish that first 20 or so minutes could have been better. 


Skip the movie, buy the soundtrack.

I watched this one this month for St. Patrick’s Day because it takes place in Ireland and has some great soul music.  However, I’m sure St. Patrick would have hated it! 
     I basically remembered everything I loved about this movie, and I also seemed to have remembered everything I didn’t like about this movie – and I’m afraid the bad outweighs the good.  On the plus side is definitely the music, since this is basically the tale of a group of working class Northern Dubliners who start an R&B band.  I have the soundtrack, and I really do love it!  Singer Andrew Strong is particularly memorable as a Joe Cocker variety soul singer (check out this link), but all the music is pretty darned good (check out these complete soundtrack links here and here).  But this same storyline is also the worst thing about this movie as well.  When the band isn’t singing, they’re always fighting with each other, and using some of the worst language on that side of the Atlantic.  I can’t begin to tell you how many times they used the “F” word in their strong Gaelic accents, along with a wide variety of other curse words, whether fighting with each other, or just having casual conversations.  In that movie poster above, those are not peace signs they’re doing; it’s the Irish equivalent of “flipping the bird”.  By the same token, when they’re not talking about music and Motown, they spend an awful lot of time talking about sex, or having sex, and all three girls in the band, known as the Commitmentettes, bed down with the old “bone” player who may or may not be lying through his teeth about the famous soul singers and bands he’s played with.  Then they fight with each other again, full of spite and jealousy, and using that same colorful language.  There was a bit of humor peppered in (thank you, Colm Meany!), and a few of the characters weren't quite as filthy as some of the others, but it still wasn't enough to offset the bad, immoral elements.

     I’d venture to say that other than the music, the rest of this movie was pretty much, as they might say, “fook’n shiite”!  Throughout most of this movie, I just kept wishing that they would simply “shut ta fook up en sing.”  Quite frankly, without the music, there’s nothing here to hold it together, as the rest of it is just a story about brain dead, working class, filthy mouthed Dubliners and their drug and alcohol fueled, low class lives.  Do yourself a favor:  Buy the soundtrack, skip the movie.  That’s the route I should have gone to begin with!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

The Best and Worst Movies of 1990

As I'm slowly going through my old journals and posting them in my blog in the middle of each week, I find myself now in March of 2000, and where I took the time to recount the decade of the 90's.  For instance, my last two mid-week entries concern how I became a Christian in the 90's (linked here) and the biggest news stories of that decade (linked here).  It was during this time I also did a list of my favorite movies from the 90's.  Any decade of movies, however, especially for a movie lover, is going to be quite extensive, and listing them all here right now would be quite overwhelming.  For this reason, I have decided to break it down by year.  This will take me ten weeks to recount the movies of just the 90's, but if you are a fan of movies, you might find it as fun a diversion as I found it while recounting it all, with many thanks to Wikipedia for their yearly movie lists (see what I used linked here).
     These weekly lists will cover one year in cinema history, as I name my top ten, and then list ten other movies that almost made my top ten list, my choice for bottom ten movies, and then finally, for comparison, I list the biggest box office hits of that year along with the biggest contenders at the Oscars, those which were nominated for Best Picture, or which won other awards (would you believe Dick Tracy won three Oscars?)
     After I spend the next ten weeks on the 90's, I will go back to my regular journal entries from that time, but I reserve the right to do the same thing at some point in the future with other decades - The 80's, the 70's, the 60's (the decade I was born in ), and maybe some of the decades before then, and most certainly the first ten years since the millennium.
        So, without further adieu, here is my list of my top ten favorite films of 1990, in alphabetical order:


Arachnophobia
I like good old roller coaster ride horror movies and creature features.  This delivers on the thrills and chills, and also has a surprising amount of comedy.

Awakenings
When Robert DeNiro was recently receiving some sort of Lifetime Achievement Award, he took the time to give special mention of this film where he played a man afflicted with encephalitis suddenly cured, but only for a short time.

Dances with Wolves
Critics and audiences these days might mention this film as one of those bloated, slow films that the Academy loves (like The English Patient), but they are wrong.  I got a lot out of this story of a Civil War deserter who is adopted by a native tribe.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder
I’m not one of those who is in love with any old Die Hard movie Hollywood and Bruce Willis decide to make.  Are there five now?  I’ve lost track.  But there’s no doubt I absolutely loved the first one, and this second one offered more of the same, but at a different location; in this case, an airport in a snow storm.

Edward Scissorhands
The first, and probably still the best, of the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaborations.  This modern day fantasy is simply brimming over with great ideas and imagery about the differences in each of us that both ostrasize us and make us special.  The parallels between Edward and Burton, especially in regards to their creativity and how they are perceived by the populace, are too glaring not to mention.

Ghost
Some find it maudlin, but this story of a man who becomes a ghost and then tries to contact his true love left behind, and save her from the bad guy, is just about the perfect combination of story, romance, emotion, and effects; and did I mention comedy.  It’s one of those rare few films Whoopi Goldberg was actually good in!  Normally, I can’t stand her!

Goodfellas
I’m not the biggest fan of gangster movies either, and some of my favorite Scorsese movies aren’t of the gangster variety (Cape Fear, After Hours, Shutter Island).  There are always exceptions.  Goodfellas is one of my all time favorite gangster flicks, mostly because of how well it is put together. 

Hamlet
Real Shakespeare fans can site Olivier or Branagh on film, or even something completely unconventional, like the modern take from 2000 with Ethan Hawke.  But in my opinion, Gibson is more than a match for any of them, and lending credence to this version are the performances of Glenn Close, Alan Bates, Paul Scofield, Ian Holm, and Helena Bonham Carter, not to mention Franco Zeffirelli’s superb direction.  This is often overlooked, but I think it’s worth another look.

Home Alone
The film that made Macaulay Culkin a star, at least in his child years.  Written by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus, this is a Christmas-time staple that hits all the right notes.

Misery
Kathy Bates’ performance and character are simply chilling, and this was the best non-supernatural thriller of year, by far!

The following are my top ten choices for the best of the rest, and my bottom ten:

Best of the Rest:

Back to the Future, Part III
Child's Play 2
Darkman
Europa Europa
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
The Grifters
I Love You to Death
Stephen King's It
Predator 2
Tremors

Time travel to the old west, deranged killer dolls and alien clowns, Sam Raimi's first foray into superhero territory, a Jewish boy hiding from the Nazi's right under their noses, gremlins and a predator moving to the city, the life of hustlers, an Italian philanderer surviving several comedic attacks on his life, and Reba McEntire with an elephant gun are just some of the joys to be found in list list of ten films.

The Worst:


Brain Dead
The Exorcist III
The Guardian
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
Men at Work
Night Breed
Repossessed
Revenge
The Sheltering Sky
Wild at Heart

I love horror movies, but don't think it hasn't escaped my attention that at least half this stinkers list contains horror movies.  The rest of the list has a rotten horror movie parody, Emilio Esteves and Charlie Sheen as garbage men, and Nicolas Cage in some cheesy David Lynch concoction.  Meanwhile, The Sheltering Sky was mind-numbingly slow and strange, and for those that thought Dances with Wolves was long and boring, I give you Kevin Costner's other movie from that year:  Revenge.  It wasn't even all that long.  It just seemed like it.


Just for comparison, I'd thought I'd also share the biggest box office hits of the year, as well as the top choices at the Oscars.  Notice how Reversal of Fortune, Dick Tracy, The Hunt for Red October, Pretty Woman, Total Recall, and Kindergarten Cop didn't make it into my top twenty.  I liked them fine, they just didn't make it to the top of my lists.  Meanwhile, I never saw Cyrano de Bergerac, Presumed Innocent, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.


Notable Oscar Films                                         Biggest Box Office Hits
Dances With Wolves                                           Ghost
Awakenings                                                         Home Alone
Ghost                                                                   Pretty Woman
The Godfather, Part III                                       Dances With Wolves
Goodfellas                                                           Total Recall
Reversal of Fortune                                            Back to the Future Part III
Misery                                                                  Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Dick Tracy                                                           Presumed Innocent
The Hunt for Red October                                  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Cyrano de Bergerac                                            Kindergarten Cop





Saturday, March 16, 2013

Gary's Movie Reviews: "Trouble with the Curve" and, Surprisingly, "Pitch Perfect" Were Better Than "The Words"


[The titles link to previews]

This was exactly what I was expecting it to be, and I was not disappointed.  I loved the story, the characters, and the relationships, even though it wasn’t anywhere near as “real” as a movie like As Good as It Gets.  I mean, we’ve seen these kinds of plots and characters many times before, haven’t we?  We have the old guy who is having difficulty with growing old, the daughter who has issues but is carrying on just fine, and in each case, the father and the daughter, there are other people trying to cut in on what they do best.  In the end, they prove themselves in a way that is very audience pleasing, and the girl gets the charming guy, a rather amiable Justin Timberlake.  Once again it's conventional movie making, but that doesn’t really make it a bad movie… just a little predictable, but never less than enjoyable.  Along with JT, I enjoyed Amy Adams and Clint Eastwood, of course, and liked the performances of many character actors who really know their craft, from Bob Gunton and Robert Patrick to John Goodman and Matthew Lillard.  Additionally, Joe Massingill was appropriately smarmy as the stuck up “Baseball Golden Boy” Bo Gentery, and I liked Jay Galloway as the humble Rigo Sanchez, the one who truly deserved the attention.  Again, these characters were crafted to eventually please the audience by what eventually happens to each of them as the story unfolds, and even if it was rather conservative, it was still very gratifying.  This was another good movie, and might I also add that it’s always a pleasure to see Shaggy, the Liquid Terminator and Fred Flintstone do a scene together in a Clint Eastwood baseball movie!


I didn’t really think I was going to like this movie, about competing a cappella groups.  Do I feel ashamed that I actually liked it?  Yes.  But I still liked it.  
     The plot was predictable and much of the humor was sophomoric, as I expected, but I liked all of the music and some of the characters were appealing, most notably Brittany Snow as the put-upon Chloe, Skylar Astin as the neglected boyfriend Jesse, Rebel Wilson as Fat Amy, and while Adam Devine seemed to be channeling Jack Black as the cocky leader of a rival group, the appealingly goofy Ben Platt (in, so far, his only acting credit) seemed to be channeling Michael Cera.  Funny how I didn’t care much for the lead characters – either of them.   Anna Camp’s character Aubrey was, of course, supposed to be a bitchy control freak, but I didn’t understand why her entire team just allowed it (and that scene where she puked and the quiet Asian girl fell in it and started making a “vomit angel” was disgusting, not funny!).
     I found it interesting that the main character of Beca, played by Anna Kendrick, was so arrogantly non-conformist from the start, looking down her nose at people who might like to sing in these college a cappella groups, not making friends and wearing it like a badge of honor, and then treating the cute guy who was interested in her like so much flotsam.  Of course, as one would expect of a teen romance film, it all works out in the end and they come together.  Interestingly enough, the main character Beca tells Jesse at one point she doesn’t like movies because they are so predictable and she loses interest by the end.  It’s sort of ironic, then, that this particular character is the lead in this particular movie.


There are a lot of movies that celebrate writing and the writer, or the stories they tell, and the power and magic of words.  Keeping in mind that there are more of these type of film than you would think, and I can’t quite limit this already pared-down list to ten, my absolute favorites over the years have been Bullets Over Broadway, Big Fish, Dead Poets Society, Finding Neverland, Martian Child, Midnight in Paris, Misery, Secret Window, Shakespeare in Love, Stranger Than Fiction, and The World According to Garp (and yes, I did notice that Woody Allen, Stephen King, John Cusack, and Robin Williams are each involved with two movies on this short list).  The question is, does The Words compare with them favorably?
     Well, I don’t think I’ll be adding it to my list of favorites anytime soon.  The film understood the power of words, and the fascination of story, but unfortunately, like many films of this type (meaning “independent”), [SPOILER ALERT] the ending was left up to the audience, which probably wasn’t the best way to write an ending for a story that was all about words and stories – with a beginning and middle, but not much of an end.  Bradley Cooper plays Rory Jansen, a rather untalented writer who stumbles across another man’s transcendent story and then sells it as his own.  Lo and behold, after becoming famous, he’s able to sell his other books that aren’t quite as good.  Then the real author shows up, superbly played by Jeremy Irons, talking about the real emotions and pain that went into that heart-wrenching story and those poignant words when he lost his baby girl and it drove he and his wife apart, especially after she read his brilliant manuscript and then promptly lost it.  It all sends Rory into a guilt-ridden tailspin, and ends up severing his relationship with his wife Dora, played by Zoe Saldana, who cannot deal with what her husband has done, and it eventually causes him to fall into the same sort of existence as the old man.  Yet another story encompasses the entire movie, featuring Dennis Quaid and Olivia Wilde, to set up this parallel (though poor Wilde’s character is never quite fleshed out).  In the end, unlike the other films about writers, writing, and storytelling I mentioned above, this one was not so satisfying a story after all.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

I Love the 90's: A Look Back at the Biggest News Stories of the Decade


In keeping with the format of this blog, to post newer stuff on weekends and old Journal entries mid-week, I'm up to March of 2000, and at that time, I had fun taking a look back at the entire decade of the 90's.  Since I wasn't blogging then, but I am now, these entries have never been seen by anyone on the internet (and with a few exceptions of those who visit my blog from time to time, they still aren't!).  Last week, I shared about how I became a born again Christian in the 90's, and being that I'm not willing to share some of the more personal stuff that went on with me and my family, that leaves culture, both the new and pop varieties.  This collection is from the news side of it, and I'll post some of the other pop culture stuff over the coming weeks and months (starting with a year by year look at the movies).  
     The decade of the 90’s began with the United States actively participating in the Gulf War against Sadam Hussein, turning Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell into household names, and it ended with the United States not so actively participating in another war, this one in Kosovo against Serbian leader Milosevic.  In between these two events have been countless wars, fighting, murder, political wrangling, scandals, natural disasters, high profile crimes turned into exploitative TV movies, and technological and medical breakthroughs that have reshaped the culture.  Some of the more high profile happenings that have occurred this decade have included:
  • Cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, killing and eating men and boys as part of a depraved sexual addiction.
  • The Heidi Fleiss scandals in Hollywood, sullying the reputations of actors like Charlie Sheen and Tom Sizemore, and speaking of actors, several of them spent time behind bars, most notably Robert Downy Jr. and Christian Slater on drug related charges, and both Eddie Murphy and Hugh Grant were involved in scandals after picking up hookers (Murphy’s was actually a transvestite, and he claimed innocence, saying he was just giving her/him a ride home).

  • Amy Fisher became known as the Long Island Lolita after an illicit affair with married Joey Buttafuoco ended with her shooting his wife, Mary Jo, who suffered severe head trauma but survived to tell the tale.

  • The Menendez Brothers were put on trial and convicted for the murder of their parents.
  • Michael Jackson’s career went down in flames when he was accused of being a pedophile.  He retaliated with two fabricated marriages, one to Elvis Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie, and the other to a white nurse, Deborah Jeanne Rowe, who conceived two children for him.
  • Anita Hill took Clarence Thomas to court for sexual harassment, and Thomas was then promptly installed as a Supreme Court Justice
  • After beating black man Rodney King following a high speed chase, and after the videotaped beating was shown in an edited version on television, the four police officers involved were acquitted, sparking the Los Angeles riots, which caused several million dollars in property damage and the loss of dozens of human lives.
  • The compound of religious cult leader David Koresh in Waco Texas was raided by ATF agents under the authority of Attorney General Janet Reno, and 72 people died, including Koresh, but also children.  Many people blamed Reno and the government for the tragic nature of how it all played out.

  • A figure skating scandal occurred when skater Tanya Harding had her boyfriend and a few others clubbed rival skater Nancy Kerrigan in the kneecaps.
  • A new porn star was created in the form of John Wayne Bobbitt when his wife, Lorena, became upset after years of mental and physical abuse, cut off his penis, and threw it in a field.  After a very public trial, they of course separated, and John entered the porn industry to show off his surgically re-attached pecker.
  • Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were brutally murdered, and suspect number one was her ex, football great O.J. Simpson.  In the most watched and scrutinized trial of the decade, Simpson was eventually acquitted, but not before making minor celebrities of the lawyers involved.  Simpson was later held liable in a civil suit.
  • The Oklahoma Federal building was bombed, and hundreds died.  Later, Timothy McVie and Terry Nichols were convicted of the bombing, with McVie getting death, and Nichols sentenced to life in prison.
  • Prince Charles divorced Princess Diana in England, and Diana’s unexpected death later in the decade in a car crash involving paparazzi drew more attention, spectators, and mourners than Mother Teresa’s funeral or John Kennedy Jr’s unexpected demise in a plane crash.

  • A bomb at the Summer Olympics went off, the major suspect being Eric Robert Rudolph, one of the guards who was later exonerated.  A man named Richard Jewell was falsely accused by the media.
  • The Heaven’s Gate cult, led by Marshall Applewhite, committed mass suicide to coincide with the comet Halle-Bop coming close to the earth.  The most famous of the suicide victims was Thomas Nichols, brother of Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols.
  • Tiger Woods became an instant celebrity when he broke multiple golfing records at the Master’s Tournament in 1997, but at the time, a lot more fuss was made about his African and Asian heritage.
  • Gianni Versace, Tupac Shakur, and Bill Cosby’s son were all murdered.
  • Scientists at the Roslin Institute and the company PPL Therapeutics cloned a sheep named Dolly, the world's first cloned mammal.
  • A gay boy named Matthew Shepherd was brutally murdered, sparking numerous debates over who was to blame, and who most heavily influenced the two boys who committed the crime.

  • Child beauty contestant Jon Bonet Ramsey was murdered.  Her parents, John and Patsy, were the prime suspects, but were able to avoid a standard police investigation through their money, connections, social standing in the community, and manipulation of the media.
  • Two teenage gunmen set off a number of copycat shootings involving minors across the country when they went of killing spree at their high school Columbine in Littleton, Colorado.  In fact, the Shepherd killing, the Ramsey murder, and the Columbine massacre were all national news events that originated in Colorado!
  • The president himself, Bill Clinton, was not above scandal this decade.  His sexual liaisons with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and subsequent smarmy, double-talk cover-up shook the foundations of the nation.  The impeachment hearings, however, worked in his favor when republicans primarily opposed him while democrats mostly supported him, turning the issue of his character into a completely partisan debate, and attention was instead turned towards prosecutor Kenneth Starr and the tactics he used to obtain information about our Commander in Chief’s solicitous affair and his lying under oath about it, rather than on the information itself.  Clinton and his administration played the American people much better than he himself can play the saxophone.  
  • Other political news found Newt Gingrich Speaker of the House for a republican House and Senate, yet forced to resign for ethics violations, proving once again how republicans are not above the law, but how democratic presidents, pop-music stars, former football greats, and the rich and powerful, are!

  • Technology was the wave of the future as the world wide internet began its massive public existence and Microsoft began its corner on the market with its Windows platform.
  • In the field of space exploration, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, a probe was sent to Mars and found the possibility of microscopic life, Americans and Russians teamed up on the Mir Space station, and John Glenn returned to space in his geriatric years.
  • Other national news included the killing of an abortion doctor in Pensacola, Florida, former president Ronald Reagan developing Alzheimer’s, the first woman allowed into the exclusive Citadel quietly quitting after winning her equality victory, Pope John Paul II visiting America on a whirlwind tour, and hundreds of thousands of black men, mostly part of the late Malcom X’s Nation of Islam, converging on the capital in the very high profile Million Man March.
  • Other international news included Nelson Mandela set free in South Africa, Germany reuniting, the breakup of the Soviet Union as Gorbachev resigned and Yeltsin won the first democratic election, the Rwandan civil war massacre with the death toll in the hundreds of thousands, a subway killer in Tokyo using nerve gas, escalated fighting in Bosnia and Croatia, and a deadly mad cow disease in Britain threatening their livestock.
  • As with any other decade, nature took its toll as well, and it wasn’t just limited to Global Warming and El NiƱo.  Earthquakes in Los Angeles and Japan in 1994 took more than one hundred lives, the US experienced major flooding in 1997, especially in North Dakota, and that same year, tornadoes ripped through Arkansas, Ohio, and Kentucky.  Flooding in China and an earthquake in Afghanistan each took thousands of lives, and more than 10,000 people died in a Central American hurricane.  The decade ended with Hurricane Floyd traveling up the east coast of the US while more devastating quakes hit Turkey, Taiwan, and Mexico.