WonderBlog

Okay...I've been watching the show Mad Men. I'm loving how carefully they recreate the attitude of the early 60s.

And the clothes! Oh my gosh.

I love those clothes the ladies used to wear. They were so fitted and constructed.

There was a lot of architecture that went into a simple wool suit. And the underclothing they used to wear!

it was not comfortable, though. I mean, there was a reason that women burned their bras a few years later.

But it wasn't just bras. We still wear bras now.

But we don't wear the slips and camisoles and garters that were the uniform then.

and don't forget:

the GIRDLE

I have never worn a girdle. I don't think I've even ever SEEN a girdle. But I have heard stories.

These massively tight full-bum tourniquets that melded two cheeks into one derriere unit--those were worn every single day by women young and old.

thank god we are free from these.

But then I started thinking...America has recently been complaining about the obesity epidemic.

We were not so fat in the 60s.

I bet when we lost the girdle, we lost a bit of internal restraint.

When you're wearing very tight elastic panties..WITH LEGS..you probably notice a lot sooner if you've gained a pound.

Who needs a scale if all day, every day, you are feeling the red welts of a too-tight girdle reminding you not to have a second bon-bon?

there is a connection...

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:24 PM | Permalink

My friend described this show to me long before I actually got to see it.

“There is this guy, Red Green, and he’s part of the Possum Lodge. He’s hilarious. He has all these friends and his nephew Harold…. Every episode at the end, they say the man’s prayer: I’m a man...and I can change...if I have to...I guess…”

I honestly couldn’t picture it, but he was so excited. I finally got a chance to see it for myself this last year. I have not been this into a Canadian PBS show since Degrassi!

The show is only on certain PBS stations. So, it’s hard to see. Second, 2006 marks the 15th and final year of The Red Green Show.
Thank God for reruns. I’ll be watching this--waiting for all the episodes I’ve missed. They also made a movie Duct Tape Forever! I’ll have to keep an eye out for it.

It’s so silly, and very refreshing. It’s a nice change to have a truly entertaining show that’s utterly clean. Comedy that’s not shocking? That takes talent.

Of course, Red Green (actor Steve Smith) is part of every show. He also has a rotating cast of regulars who come through. There is Dalton Humphrey, the proprietor of the Everything Store, and Winston Rothschild III of Rothchild’s Septic Sucking Services, just to name a few. My favorite, of course, is Red Green’s nephew Harold, played by Patrick McKenna. Harold has a lot of trouble with the ladies, and everything his Uncle Red has to say he takes with a grain of salt. Red has no respect for Harold’s opinions either, though, so it works out.

Duct tape, backyard projects, practical jokes and misadventures take up their time. Flannel shirts are the fashion.

The show has virtually no women, although the personalities of the lodge members' wives dominate the background. They are frequently referenced while the guys are considering their plans. Of course, Red Green has this advice: “Remember, if the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”

Each episode makes the grade by following their formula, but still being totally unexpected.

And any TV show ever that makes it through to 15 seasons is remarkable. It is hard to convey the genius of this show; you just have to see it.

You really have to see it.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I saw this performed by the local high school. They set it in the wild west, which allowed Kate to actually shoot at her suitors.

I love Shakespeare. I love that the high school does a play by the bard every year. I wish, of course, that they also learned to slow down and enunciate their words, but what can I expect for 7 dollars?

...But this play turned my stomach. What starts out as a strong woman, someone I could cheer for, turns into a broken women bleating the message.

Petruchio 'tames' Katherine buy torturing her with lack of food and sleep deprivation. By the end, she will do whatever her husband Petruchio says--and eloquently defends her 'choice' to do so. It's horrifying.

Yes, it's a comedy, and it is a successful one. There are a lot of funny moments. But the scene where Kate begs the servant for food did not make me laugh.

It was a different time, I tell myself at my desk as I look at the framed poster of Rosie the Riveter. It was a different time.

Dr. Laura would say that it makes sense, what Kate says at the end:
"Thy husband is ...one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt."

Dr. Laura posits that men love their women and will do all kinds of heavy lifting if their ladies are sweet to them and show appreciation.

To a large degree, I concur. I think that women need to recognize and appreciate the good stuff men do for them and not sweat the small stuff.

So what if he is lounging around in his ratty sweats? Don't nag him to throw them away. Sit down next to him and he's more than likely going to put his arm around you and give you a kiss.

So, if that is the message to take away from TOTS, it's not a bad one.

It was a different time, right? Then, women were utterly dependent on their men to make money and provide food and a place to sleep.

I was talking to my co-worker, a man born in Costa Rica, about my impressions of the play.

"It's still that way in some places," he said.

We've got a long way to go, baby.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:17 AM | Permalink

It's a musical that started out Off-Broadway, then moved onto Broadway, and now has been on TV and will very soon be for sale on a DVD near you.

I saw it this weekend on the "Wonderful World of Disney". Carol Burnett, who starred as the princess in the orignal off broadway performance, got to be the evil mother in the TV version.

It's a fairy tale story, the one about the Princess and the Pea. Tracy Ullman was the princess and the Pea played itself.

I really liked this production. It has music, it has dancing. It has Carol Burnett and Tracy Ullman! I mean, really!

It's a great DVD to get if you have kids. It's the kind of story that works great for kids and has enough intelligence to play well for the adults who have to watch along.

I don't know if I'd buy the DVD, but then again I don't have kids. If I did, I would get it for sure.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:14 PM | Permalink

Caught this one while flipping chanels and I couldn't stop watching it. It reminded me of Rebecca, in that it was a dark black-and-white romantic melodrama with hints that something creepy and occult going on. The heroine Miranda (Gene Tierney) is stunningly beautiful. I did not recognize the chisel-faced Nicholas Van Ryn at all, but IMDB told me he was Vincent Price. He was incredible.

Dragonwyck, in which no dragon appears, is the name of the Van Ryn ancestral home. But suprise! The regency romance is actually set in America. New York started out as New Amsterdam, remember? and the Van Ryn empire is a full-on castle with Peasants and Nicholas is the Dutch nobleman, called 'Patroon'.

That woud be totally weird, except that the movie takes it head on, with the American farmers revolting against their fuedal situation. Slavery in the south is well-known, but I didn't know that New York had this going on as recently as 1840.

I expected this movie melodrama to be a straight up romantic drama, but the political story was really intriguing. The status awareness of Nicholas Van Ryn creates the structure and motivations for the characters.

It has a lot of unexpected twists and tons of suspense. It has all the wonderful guilty pleasure of an overblown romance, but surprised me by keeping a pretty realistic hold on human behavior. I think I may have to get this movie.

Too bad for me, Amazon doesn't have it. They have the book, which I think I'll read. I'll let you know how that is

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:12 PM | Permalink

During the TV summer dry spell, TNT has come up with "The Closer" to catch out interest. Kyra Sedgewick plays this Deputy Chief of police in Los Angeles who solves crimes.

Love the cops shows. And I love "The Closer." First of all, the show is about the deputy chief, rather than the beat cops. It's a new take on police work. But in addition to the "dead bodies" we all love, the cool crimes and detective work, the Closer is character-driven.

We now pause this blogpost to give this emergency message:
WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE ARE HAVING A TOUGH TIME. Have you even noticed how ignored we chicks are? I know how rough it's been for me. And when I noticed a few weeks ago that even ivillage.com has taken down their 'careers' section, I felt so discouraged.

But as for "the Closer"...
This woman, a little southern-drawling slip of a thing, has to come in and command the respect of the hardened crew she's been given. Brenda, played by Sedgewick, was brought over by a former boss and lover to come work in L.A., leaving behind a murky scandal in her previous job. She is in a career that is so harsh, but she is totally feminine. I love her!

She is on top of her game, totally a woman with foibles and weaknesses and awkward moments, but she rocks. I love love this show.

I had the opportunity to actually shake hands with Kyra Sedgewick when I saw her at a local watering hole. I told her I loved her show and that she was living my life exactly as Brenda. She was very gracious and thanked me for watching.

You all should watch it to; you won't regret it.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I just finished watching the new PBS documentary about the making of the Alaska Canada Highway. This highway is very close to my heart. The first time I traveled it was in utero, and there were two more times after that.

And there was still a lot I didn't know about how it was constructed. For example, the reason they are showing this documentary right NOW is because it's black history month. And the highway was contructed by a lot of black engineers and regiments. It was really the first time the army had allowed black soldiers to be engineers and to operate big machinery.

I sure didn't know that growing up in Alaska.

Building roads, building methods of transportation is a hugely important task. More than just tanks and trucks, the ability to transfer necessary things from one place to a far place is something we've been perfecting at higher and higher rates of success.

First it was trails, then horse and wagon trails. Ships cut distance over the waters, and then sails gave way to engines that could pull gargantuan loads.

Trains ate up the land. Then, because we moved away from the regimented standardization that trains required, we all got cars and built highways.

Let's not forget planes. And sattelites.

At the moment, packages and information are shooting around the world at incredible rates, unthinkably fast and with a phenomenal success rate.

Did we do that? who did that? Was it us? Maybe it was.

Right now my meandering thoughts are being sent over the internet for anyone in the world to read. I live in America, where I am not censored, so those thoughts can flow and fly to anywhere in the world unchecked.

I was talking with Chris about how the Alcan highway was built, and I called out all the problems they were going to encounter before they hit them.

"Maybe the Russians would have known how to build a road over the permafrost," I said.

But no. The Russians did not build roads. They gave up on the permafrost problem and stuck to planes. Planes flew in the goods for whoever lived far away.

When it was the monarchy, the technology wasn't even there yet to need the roads built. They started the Siberian railroad, that's as far as they got. Stuck on the standardization, no surprise.

But the Soviets didn't avoid roads just because of the permafrost. They had concerns with the idea of allowing people access to get in their cars and just go somewhere. That sort of freedom was a bad idea in their minds. Keep people where there were, where you knew where to find them.

The ability to get around and the ability to get your deas and your stuff around is very powerful.

I am truly grateful for the men who build the Alcan highway. It got me around, that's for sure.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:57 PM | Permalink

So, I got to watch some TV this weekend. THey were showing this miniseries about how we got to the moon.

It was eerie. All these suited men with glasses going, "I don't know if this is possible. It might not be possible...But we have to do it."

And they proceeded to screw it up for the rest of us forever.

HOW many times have I faced that same dillemma in my IT jobs?

Management "we want this"
Me "I don't think we can do that. I dont' think it's possible."
Managment "Have it ready by next tuesday"

Impossible doesn't mean impossible anymore. Not for americans.

Of course, we wouldn't have all these cool toys and stuff to have the jobs we do if it weren't for NASA. I, of course, worked at NASA for a year intership to learn to do what I do.

So I should be grateful.

But man...we just can't give no for an answer anymore. Not since we've sent a person to the moon.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Is this weird? I am reviewing a movie before I have seen it. But this is one that I've been curious about for a while.

This is a documentary that talks about how Corporations have become imbedded into our society.

Now, here is what I bring to the movie:

The Corporation is an economic, social and political entity. They are fairly new, not really addressed by the founders of our country, or Marx in Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto. Granted, those books are more than a hundred years old and the world has changed.

We have a different class system now, and different ways of "getting ahead." We rely less on who we know and who we are related to. Things like "past performance" and "credit rating" have a lot more to do with what our options are.

America relies heavily on corporations to carry the slack for things that other countries have the government do. Traditionally, Corporations give us health care, and retirement. Our history has been one full of "company men" who worked hard for the corporation that would take care of them.

Other countries have governments to do health care and pensions-Socialized medicine and retirement. But American has worked out this other way of fulfilling those functions. We also tax corporations, because they make the most money. More than individuals do, depending.

Now, because the government relies on business corporations to do these social services, the government has to be nice to them. They have to cut them a little slack. It's like corporations are the sole supporter of a VERY large family of dependents. I've often heard the phrase "Government is in the back pocket of Big Business."

From my perspective, Big business is in the pocket of government too.

I'd like this movie to address how this interdependency came about.

ALSO, RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND, this interdependency is coming unravelled. Corporations are a little more flexible than government. They were carrying a heavy load, what with all the health care and pensions. They've been shrugging it off, to a large extent.

There has been a huge rise in the number of contractors. Contractors work for the corporation but are not part of it, and so the corporation is not responsible for their health care and pensions.

And as far as pensions, aka saving for retirement goes, that's been largely privatized. Remember the stock boom of the late 90s? That wasn't just a fluke. Corporations and government worked together to come up with a plan for individuals to be responsible for their own pensions (the 401K is an example). The money that corporations had held in reserve to pay for pensions was now free to be distributed to the individuals themselves and invested willy nilly.

And a lot of money disappeared after that. Enron? anything.com? There was money in that. And then there wasn't. That wasn't imaginary money . It is money that was lent to these corporations and didn't return to the investors.

Things were changing. The balance is tipping.

And health care. That's very complicated...Insurance and HMOs and Pharmacuetical companies (all their own form of corporations) are now offering to other corporations new or less expensive ways of dealing with their health care.

These are also things I hope this documentary addresses. Also, the labor movement (unions and female workers).

I am pretty sure that the documentary will talk about how big business is bad, because all documentaries shown in arty movie houses are lefty democrat. I find it amusing that the lefty types don't seem to think through some of their political agenda. It's frustrating to get a blank stare when I ask "and what then?" How can you then rail agains the unthinking masses when you are also unthinking?

Anyway, I hope that in the midst of the lefty political agenda, there will be some actual information and facts that will help me better understand the relationship of the american worker to corporations and government. I've been wondering about it, thinking about it for a while. Maybe the movie will give me some answers, or at least some new questions.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:56 AM | Permalink

Very freaky name for an incredibly serious play. This takes place on the grounds of a South African amusement park called playland, and it's a deadly serious story about a black man and a white man trying to come to terms with their murderous hate.

They are kind of crazy, both of them, and it comes out very slowly, in a building tension. The whole play is just the two men, with a voice over the loudspeaker of the amusement park being the only other part.

this playwright also wrote "the Road to mecca", which I also like.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Saw a piece of this on the TV, and then I had to run out and borrow the whole movie.

This is what You've Got Mail with Meg Ryan ripped off of. Oh, I really like this movie! I fell in love with Jimmy Stewart all week. He is so handsome.

The people in the movie seemed to act like people I know. A lot of the movies I have seen, the old movies, seem to be people that could never possibly exist in real life. But this one was dead on. I loved it.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:44 PM | Permalink

This is the most amazing play. So much is going on.

South Africa has a lot of issues, on top of all the normal issues every human society has. The story of Helen, an old Afrikaaner living in her house in the bush, is faced with the problem of whether to go live in an old folks home.

But Helen is an artist. SHe has been making fabulous artwork, sculptures on her land. SHe calls them Mecca. Her friend, the only real friend she had, met her because of the beautiful statues. THey were drawn to one another because of the meaning of the art.

The troubles in South Africa, the treatment of women and blacks, and what art means in human life- all these are what make up the story. It's dark and beautiful and powerful.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:27 PM | Permalink

Boy, this is a real tear-jerker. I didn't know that when I started though; it just came on TV when nothing else worth seeing was on. It seemed like it was a sweet teenage love story.

And I kept thinking, "I've seen that girl before...Where have I seen that girl before? Turns out it was Reese Witherspoon in '91, playing a 14 year old. She was pretty young, and I thought she was pretty good in the role.

TOTAL chick flick, but I enjoyed it. The pace was very slow and nostalgic of small town farm life. If you need a cry, this is a good one.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:30 PM | Permalink

This movie endlessly cracks me up. I wish I knew if it was supposed to be funny when it was made. I have the impression it was not, but maybe that's just my low opinion of people in the 60s.

The movie is SO 60s, oh my goodness. The filmmakers are excited about symbolism; they chose 'water' as a symbol and throw it in as often as possible. It feels very adolescent, like they are saying, "Look ma! Symbolism!"

I will say that Hoffman was pretty hunky in his younger years. Not bad, him lounging around in the pool. He puts on these huge sunglasses and he looks very Tom Cruise.

His performance as the awkward college graduate in his parent's house was SO awkward, it pre-shadowed his performance as the autistic in Rain Man. There was no mistaken he was a fish out of water...Oh look! Symbolism!

Anyway, this is a great funny movie, even it they didn't know it was funny when they made it.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:57 AM | Permalink

SO, I've read the book and loved it. Movies have a tough act to follow, when they are first great books.

And the story is very complicated. It's easy to say on paper, "He was a black man passing as jewish" It's harder to find a real life person who can do that. I confess, I was very leery of Anthony Hopkins as the lead.

But you know, I really really liked the movie. Hopkins did a great job. The movie was not a disappointment at all. It's a great movie, a movie that says things people ought to think about.

And I will say I really really want to see more of Wentworth Miller. MMMmmm MM!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:05 PM | Permalink

My honey has been away on a business trip this weekend. Which makes me miss him. Which makes me feel sort of mushy.

There are all kinds of excellent mushy movies on tv this weekend.

The first one I watched was called Beautiful Girl on ABC family channel. It was so formula, but I loved it! The story was about a fat, short girl who joins a beauty contest so that she can get the trip to hawaii for her honeymoon.

And her fiancee was so supportive, and there was all the discussion of beng yourself and what true beauty was. Of course, the old cheerleader from her high school that was mean to her but saw the light at the end.

I loved it.

And then there was Sabrina, I foget which channel, but it was the one with Harrison Ford. Oh, it made me cry! What a great fabulous movie. I have to see the original one now.

And I just finished watching One Fine Day, which was also sweet.

I loved all the women in these stories. I felt like they were people like me. And the men! They can be such bastards when they're bad, but OH! they can be so good. When they're good, they're very very good. I love men.

Mmm...And these shows made me feel all mushy and romantic. I guess that's what movies can do for you.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:37 PM | Permalink

Danny Kaye, with his curly blonde hair gets to be the inspector general for a Russian? French? town. They can't seem to decide which it is. But it doesn't matter, because Danny Kaye isn't either one.

It's very silly and funny. Danny Kaye does vocal acrobatics with his sound effects. The main plot device depends on the fact that Danny (a poor gypsy boy) cannot read.

I'd never seen Danny Kaye before. He's pretty good.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:54 AM | Permalink

She is SO bewildered. He is SO un-forthcoming.

What HAS happened with Mr. De Winter's first wife, Rebecca?

I have to use capital letters, you see. This movie is highly melodramatic. It's such a great story for it, too. Rebecca, who is the beautiful first wife. The current Mrs. De Winters, whose name I somehow never caught, is left to feel very inadequate and second class.

Rebecca must have been some act to follow, she thinks.

Of course, it's totally different than she thought. And WORSE!

This is one of those great old classic movies. They over acted, I think because they were still getting used to being able to talk. Over acting was the way you did in the silent movies...

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:42 PM | Permalink

At my favorite open mike night, the only one I go to really, I got to hear Gina Loring.

She huffed and puffed and blew my house down. She's a poetry slammer, the kind that make me think I can't write poetry, that I have no idea what it's about anyway. And she can sing so beautifully. She actually mixes the two, poetry and singing, which is amazing, really.

Really amazing.

She's been on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, which is a show I have not seen, but have heard great things about.

Amazon does not have a DVD of her performance available (Darn them!). But there is a def poetry on broadway performance. These kinds of things are worth seeing. So check it out.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:46 AM | Permalink

This man was incredibly talented, and his "Make 'Em Laugh" routine in Singing in the the Rain will bring joy to the hearts of many for years to come.

Dancing can be such an expresson of joy and humanness, and I loved the way that O'Connor moved. He loved what he did; there is no way he could have learned the types of moves that he mastered without that love.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:40 PM | Permalink

Just finished the movie, and I am left really thinking about a lot of things. That's what make s a movie good, right?

It's about piano playing, and it's about mental illness. Kind of both. David was supposed to be this raging genius, but right when he showed everyone that he was so extraordinary, he goes insane.

Or just gives in to his insanity, maybe.

What I can't help thinking about though, is what Gillian was thinking. What woudl life be like married to an insane person?

Of course, insane has many levels. David's level seemed to be mostly pleasant. But what kind of partnership would a marriage like that be? I guess there are all kinds of marriages, like there are all kinds of people. It blows my mind. I cannot imagine myself in that position.

It's also interesting to think about what constitutes genius and what constitutes insanity. Haven't we all been aware of the relationship between the two?

An insane person sees things differently than regular people. A genius does the same. Maybe it's only a matter of labels.

I also wonder about the idea of classical music. I play the piano. Rather badly at this point. Technique was never anything I worried about. I just wanted to play. And I always wanted to play new things. I hated practicing. I wanted to learn to play a song, and then just PLAY.

Originality is key. Play the same song, but play it in a new way. But a new twist on it. Practicing seemed going backwards.

But classical musicians play the same stuff over and over and over. 8 hours a day of practicing. Insane! How could you do that?

Don't get me wrong. I love the idea of reinterpretation. I think that the jazz standards can be done endlessly, and always be new.

But I will never understand the idea of playing the same thing, exactly the same as the guy before you. Maybe this is a throwback to a time before we had recording technology.

Interesting that jazz took off right after we had the ability to record stuff. Hmm....

Well, I recommend the movie.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:25 PM | Permalink

They had a Gene Kelly movie marathon on this weekend. Oh man oh man...I love those musicals!

On the Town
An American in Paris
Singing in the Rain
Summer Stock

Summer Stock is one i hadn't seen or even heard of before. But it has the COOLEST dance scene in it. You know how STOMP is a performance with all kinds of sound-making objects?
Gene Kelly does this dance that incorporates a creaky floorboard and the way a newspaper on the floor makes his tap shoes sound. My god, it is thrilling!

On the Town explodes, and it has the stellar voice of Sinatra in the harmonies. It's great! And I love the strong female roles.

An American in Paris is one I'm going to have to sit down and watch carefully again. It was very artistic. Yes, it's a light musical, but there are incredible interpretive moments that grab your attention. Dance is art, not just entertainment, and Kelly wanted the viewers to see that.

And Singing in the rain has no rivals. It's a classic for all time.

I am thinking that it is a crying shame that I have reached this stage of my life without learning to tap dance. Something must be done about this!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:39 PM | Permalink

I have gotten more interest in my post about Queer Eye than almost any other post I've ever done. This just illustrates that the show kicks butt!

Bravo, Bravo!

First of all, Carson is the star. He is the witty quipper of the show. Love him! And I loved the episode where he tried on the speedos. Oh my! And he says he doesn't work out! Liar liar pants on fire...

But my second favorite is Ted, the food guy. He does have very good food ideas, and he's so nice. I mean, he comes up with little digs every once in a while, but he is very careful to try and get food things that are what the straight person likes. I can't believe he sent to florida to get kosher Foi gras! Is that sweet or what? He's so earnest and I like his deep voice.

The rest blur a little for me...Except Kyan, the grooming guy. He ATTACKS the bathroom for styling products.

But here are the questions that must be asked:
What happened to the black guy? THere was a black guy, a culture guy, on one or two of the episodes. Did he disappear? I found no mention of him on the website yesterday. Umm...what is going on?

I thought that maybe they were doing a rotating thing, bringing on a "guest Gay guy." That would be cool, don't you think? I'd like to see the gay guys flirt with each other a little...You know? Add some chemistry. Right now, they are mostly teasing the straight guy. That's funny too, but the more the merrier! I could totally see having a guest gay guy working out.

Take a clue, bravo!

I will say, I am thinking more about my own home now. What would Kyan think of my bathroom? I know Carson would not approve of the things in my closet right now. I need to go shopping.

And I need to redecorate.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Maybe everyone has felt that way. I know I have. You want to throw away all restraint and be FREE. To walk barefoot in the park.

But then there is that person who hasn't hit the same moment of abandon you have, the one the says, "It's cold and wet in the park."

Then, if that person is married to you, you begin to doubt that you will ever have the same moments of abandon. You wonder whether this person has anything in common with you at all.

Neil Simon's a funny guy. This play is about a newlywed couple making their way through that exact situation. He has some great one liners in there. And the people are too human

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:34 PM | Permalink

You know, the world is not the perfect place we all wish it was.

And I think most of us would readily admint, a least in the abstract, that we are imperfect too. Which is why the world is imperfect--it's made up of us imperfect people.

This drama tells the story of Captain Queeq and his officers. The first mate relieved the captain of his command in the middle of a battle in World War 2.

This story starts after all the action happened; the first mate is on trial for mutiny. The main characters are the defense lawyer and the first mate.

I am not giving anything away by saying the defense attorney was not very pleased to be given this assignment. His reluctance to do his job is paralelled by the first mate's reluctance to serve under Captain Queeq.

Of course, the resemblance of the attorney's performance in the courtroom and the mate's performance on board the ship seem at first glance entirely removed from one another.

But I think that those two are the real crux of the drama. The fact is, every one of us is often required to do things in the line of duty or work that are unpleasant. Sometimes they are possibly out and out wrong.

What do we do about that? how do we handle it with character? What is really important?

The attorney's impassioned speech at the end about his mother raised some questions that seem simple at first hearing. But when you really take them to heart, it is a tough truth.

This is a great story.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Viola, the Perfectly Pious young woman.

Sir Andrew Aguecheeck, the hypocritical

Sebastian, the sissy

Orsino, the dreamy

This play is one of Shakespeare's more serious comedies. It is a tough topic, really. How far should the ruler apply the rules? And how strict should the individual be on themselves?

Viola is swoongling ready to dedicate her life to God as a nun. Her brother Sebastian is not as ascetic as she is, he's getting busy with a girl. He's going to marry her any day now, so he's not worried about it.

Until...

The good and just Duke leaves town, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek is in charge. Sir Aguecheek is a staunch Puritan-type, and he's not going to stand for the loose morals this town is coming to. He catches sebastian in the act with his lover-girl and plans to make and example of him.

Viola is persuaded to go to Sir A. and plead for her brothers life, even though she herself condemns his actions. And what do you think happens?

Sir A. falls in deep lust of Viola! What do you suppose he proposes to Viola as a way of "buying" her brothers life?

Viola loves her brother, but she is in love with her own purity too. Whatever shall our heroes do?

I studied this one in college, and enjoyed it very much.

TONIGHT, I get to see it live! I'm very excited. Live, outside, and FREE! and on the coast, so I won't be hot.

Here in LA, there is a lot of opportunity to see shakespeare for free. So many people here are into that sort of thing--acting, I mean.

I encourage all of you out there to check and see when your community might be having some theater. There is really nothing like seeing a play done live in front of you. It's totally different from reading it.

If you don't know this particular play, check out the pelican version.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:07 PM | Permalink

So, the college eddicated brother and the breaking-and-entering brother are thrown together in their mom’s house in Podunk southern california to fight over a screenplay and sibling rivalry.

One of the major things in this play is the question of what kind of story is true-to-life. In a lot of ways, the answer to that question depends on whose life you are talking about.

What is a Western anymore? Is the western dead? Or maybe westerns are not about horse chases and desert living.

Maybe they are more about trying to make it on freeways and in the office. But maybe they still involve horse chases.

It depends on your life. These guys are so funny. I think they are true to somebody’s life. The true west now might be a lot like that.

Or not. Hard to say. But this story was funny.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The philosophy of the Matrix is a half-step short of religion for some people.

I feel that I should be informed on pop-culture religions.

Plus, the cool outfits in the first movie made me want to see what came next.

So, I dragged my unwilling boyfriend down to the theater and we got into it. Since it's a movie, and you can go see it anytime you want, I'm not gonna tell you the whole plot.

I will give my impressions, however.

The movie was long, but it moved fast. I didn't feel bored or tired out by the length. So, that's pretty good.

Some parts seemed like there weren't enough explanation. It took conscious effort to suspend my disbelief. Not good.

But then, there were all kinds of hints at other unseen things happening. Lots of questions, the kinds of questions that give satisfying subject matter for endless after-viewing discussions.

Where did Zion really come from?
What are the motives of the Oracle?
Who is a program and who is not?
What change occurred in Agent Smith?

All good things, for those who give it importance, to talk over and ponder.

That is the sign of a good movie, for me. Interesting, discussable. I don't think I'll join the religion, but I'm waiting for the next one.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:38 PM | Permalink

I remember the first time I heard about the Scopes trial. My dad was talking about Pat Robertson running for President. He said it was good that Christians were getting involved in politics. He was a Christian and loved Political Science.

I was astounded at the idea of Robertson running for President. I thought, "Don't you have have some experience to do the job well?" I was worried he wouldn't know how to do it right.

But Dad was telling me that he didn't think Robertson would win, but that it was good for Christians to stop burying their heads in the sand and join the world of politics again.

"Why did they stop?"

"It was after the Scopes trial. Christians were so humliated that they just retreated from the public eye."

After listening to the dramatic re-enactment of the Scopes trial, I can understand why they were humiliated.

In 1925, the schoolteacher John Scopes volunteered to stand trial for teaching evolution in a public school. It was coming sooner or later, so he stepped up and made it sooner.

Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan came into the courtroom and battled out the sticky issue of church and state separation, and at the same time showcased the problem of fundamentalist thinking when it encounters new ideas.

Let me be clear:
every human being is a fundamentalist in some respect. We all have some belief or other which is untouchable.

That is not to say we are excused from honest ree-examination. But it's good to remember that we are all susceptible to being dogmatic at times.

Bryan, in this case, was the dogmatic. He was the one at the trial who was famous, and supposed to be the big gun.

But when he was cross-examined by Darrow, he ended up looking a fool. Well, in that particular case, he WAS a fool. He was 'standing by the word of the Almighty'. Right or wrong.

And he was wrong. He was wrong because he was not being intellectually honest and examining the fact.

I firmly believe in Truth. I believe that the truth, or true thing, were there before me, and will be there after me. It is not my job to change the truth, it is my job to adapt myself into acceptance and understanding of the truth.

Bryan was not adapting. THAT is what made him look like a fool.

He didn't learn his lesson, either. He was humiliated in the trial, but did not learn humble himself and try to be honest with the world in front of him.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:38 AM | Permalink

Jefferson was a young Luisiana black man in the 40s. He stood trial and was convicted of murder. He's in jail, about to get the death penalty, but his godmother takes the local schoolteacher to come talk with him. That's where the story begins.

It turns out that Emma, the godmother, wants the teacher to teach Jefferson how to die.

The Victorians were obsessesed with dying. They would think about how to do it right, author manuals about it. Some of them would create huge mausoleums. I guess we still do that today. Some of us do, anyway.

But in this case, this young man had to find a way to face the terrible injustice of prejudice with dignity. The whole community looked to him to be their representative.

Emma wanted the schoolteacher to teach Jefferson how to face death with courage. But Grant, the schoolteacher wanted nothing to do with it. Who would teach him how to face life with courage?

This is a very serious drama, about how a community interacts and relies on one another.

The power the women held in the story, the power of the preacher, and the lack of power of the sherrif were a very interesting juxtaposition.

Please god, let me never have to face such a terrible dilemma! But I would hope that i can remember to face my lesser trials with honor.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This play by Lillian Hellman traces the consequences of one schoolgirl's spreading rumors about her teachers. The two women who run a school for children have to bear the insinuations of this unpleasant child that they are in a lesbian relationship.

This story fits in very well with Lillian Hellman's experiences with the House Unamerican activities. Unproved rumors can be very unpleasant.

This story is surprising and very dramatic. Hellman gives a diverse portrait of different kinds of people's character. She also handles the subject of homosexuality with a frankness very uncommon in that time.

There was also a movie made with the script, starring Audrey Hepburn as one of the teachers. It was made in the 60s, so dealing with homosexuality was just a hair less scandalous. But the story was still pretty good.

There's a lot to think about in The Children's Hour

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and the President of the United states are lost in the woods. No, that's not the set for a joke. This is what happend in the play "Camping with Henry and Tom" by Mark St. Germain.

And it's based on an event that actually occurred. President Harding, Edison and Ford were really on a camping trip. The imaginative recreation of that event is pretty funny, and really sharp. No matter what changes, things remain the same.

Businessmen often get the urge to go in and clean up politics. Anybody remember Ross Perot? but politics is not the same as business. People are much more complicated.

The three men in the story are gigantically successful. But St. Germain brings out their human side in the very human circumstance of being lost in the woods. The story shows how people really do have pretty much the same things to deal with, wherever they are.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A perfectly healthy housewife discovers that she can't operate her legs anymore, drawing her husband and the doctor into a frightening examination of past and present feelings. Set in New York, right as the Nazi party is on the rise, these American Jewish people are forced by the paralysis to consider their relationship to the world and ultimately, themselves.

Miller is good at the kind of story that dredges up buried feelings. I like his way of taking a thing and turning it around to see the different sides of it.

In this story is good because, in a way, you pretty much know what's coming, but at the same time, you are surprised by the way it comes through.

It makes me think, which I appreciate.

And the actors were very good. The tension and the drama were very satisfying.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:15 PM | Permalink

Yes, it's John Cusack again! My only true movie star idol. But he's got some other great folks in there too, like Jack Black.

I watched this movie in the theater alone the first time, because I couldn't get anyone to committ to seeing it with me, and I really wanted to see it. I liked it a lot then.

But sometimes it makes a difference, to see a movie with someone and discuss it. This movie ended up being much better when I watched the DVD with a music nerd friend last night. It was AWESOME! we were poking one another to laugh at all the parts that were so true.

Who doesn't go over their relationships like Rob Gordon(played by Cusack)? His Xes were just classic, too. He hit so many classic relationship dynamics.

In the movie, the judge of a good movie would be how discussable it was afterwards. You know, how many things sprung to mind after you saw it. Things that just made you chuckle to yourself spontaneously. or things that made you turn and ask the person you're with a weird question.

I was going all that night and the next day with fuel on this movie.

Cusack didn't let me down on this one.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:15 PM | Permalink

It's tough when you are twelve. Nothing you liked to do when you were younger is interesting anymore, and you are not allowed to do anything else yet.

Frankie is dying to leave her town, longing to get out and do exciting adventurous things. Her brother is in the army, and she adores him for the adventurous life she is sure he is leading.

And when he comes home to introduce his new bride, that is only one more adventurous romantic thing that Frankie is dying to be a part of.

That's the main thrust of the story's action. But the relationships between the main characters (Frankie, Bernice, and John Henry) are more important than Frankie's delusions.

Bernice is the black cook. Her life, revealed in little peeks, has been far from dull. She cares very much about Frankie and her little cousin John Henry. She is very sympathetic to Frankie and tries to help her every way she can. John Henry gets the short end of the deal in the end.

It's funny, too, how they all end up acting like kids. That happens! Adults, like Bernice, get drawn into the logic of the children. If you spend that much time around kids, you do start to think like them.

Frankie is trying so hard to be the grown-up that she doesn't know how to be yet.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:10 PM | Permalink

Every day has some "stuff" in it. I mean, little thorns and snags of life. Things you would like to change, or wish you didn't have to deal with.

Sometimes they are not so little. Sometimes they feel, to you, like monumental struggles--rapids on the river of history.

This is why I like the X-Men. Boy, have they got problems. They are gifted, sure. But their gift is a curse.

And even if it were a true gift, they aren't sure how to deal with it. Because they are each absolutely unique in the universe, an undiscovered and uncharted force in nature's fabric.

Like me.

And like you.

You and I don't have the elemental force of weather at our command, like Storm. And it won't kill people if we touch them, like Rogue. I don't have claws that rip open my knuckles when I fight.

But I have my gifts. My powers, though not "super" are to be reckoned with.

I finally watched the XMEN movie last night. I love to see how these dramatic super heroes deal with their stuff and the stuff of those around them.

How does Rogue manage to be so sensitive to others, when she cannot ever reach out?

And how does Wolverine manage to be so brave in the face of all the pain he deal with?

How does Jean Grey stand up before congress and stay calm when pleading the cause of herself and her friends?

Theri problems are more exciting than mine, I have to say. But courage is courage. Self-control is self-control. Caring is caring. No matter who you are.

Xmen are so cool!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:30 PM | Permalink

America has never had a military coup--That we know of.

This story is about a "what might have been."

We see it in other countries all the time. Popular general-weak president.

The general sees fit to take over as president. After all, it seems to make a lot of sense.

I like this story because it had a lot of intrigue. You don't know what is going to happen, how things are going to work out even at the very end. The power play between such powerful figures is fascinating to me.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Two kids went on the missionary trail-but with a camera.

They sold the rights of their trip to Trinity Broadcast Network, and there is a show on TV about how they did what they did. Travel The Road, they call it.

Actually, as I understand it, only the one guy was a Missionary. The cameraman wasn't even a believer when they started. He apparently converted partway through the trip.

I think this would be a good show. I'd like to check it out!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:28 AM | Permalink

You know, I had always thought I'd seen Karate Kid. But I'd never seen it, really. I'd only seen Karate Kid 2. They play the last minute of the first movie in the sequel, so I thought I'd seen it when I hadnt.

Where did Ralph Macchio go? He is SO cute in this movie. Oh my god. I felt 14 years old, I swear. All googly and crushy at this boy.

I had to google him to find out what's he's up to. Well, to be honest, I wanted to find a more recent photo. He's 41 now, and I really thought I'd like to see how he matured. Mabye he's even cuter now, with a little more experience.

I couldn't find any older pictures of him. Too bad, i'm pretty sure he's aged well.

The movie is so familiar to so many people. I mean, how else could I have THOUGHT i'd seen it when I hadn't? But I was totally taken in.

Yeah, it's about Karate and kicking the ass of the high school rich bully. Which was great, don't get me wrong. OH my god, though, it is still a major chick flick. Just the way he treats his girlfriend...And the way he folds her into a hug..MMmmm...

I'm gonna watch it again.

Oh, I shouldn't forget to mention the Soundtrack. It is a total 80s time capsule. Some good songs on there.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:18 PM | Permalink

Seeing the previews for this movie made it seem like it had all the depth of a piece of paper. But actually, it was a lot better than it looked.

Classic Cinderella story, really. The maid in the hotel gets mistaken for one of the ritzy guests, the "Prince Charming." Of course, one of the irritating things about the classic Cinderella story is how passive Cinderella is.

The Cinderella we all know is the one who is so sweet and good, she wouldn't dare stand up for herself and push back at the wicked step-women. Of course, it turns out she doesn't has to, because the prince comes along and rescues her.

Dr. Phil would not approve.

Jennifer Lopez as the Maid in Manhattan Cinderella is not so passive. She has a lot more going on. She has a past, represented by her mother, her ten-year-old son Ty and his invisible father. She has a present, mostly represented by her job and her son's issues. And she has dreams of a future that she wants to make for herself.

The issues of class, self-doubt, and self-respect are a big part of the movie. And of course, LOVE. But a got-your-head-on-pretty-straight love.

It was quite an enjoyable show.

Oh, yeah. Don't forget the soundtrack. Little gifted Ty is all into 70s stuff. They picked some of the good tunes you remember, plus some break-your-heart love songs.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:51 PM | Permalink

I saw the TV movie about Martha Stewart last night. I turned on the TV while I was doing things, and I didn't realize it was about Martha Stewart.

There is more than one Martha in the world, after all.

It started out with her wanting to be a model. So I thought the story was going to go in a totally different direction. Of course, the cute little ambitious model turned into the bitchy Martha Stewart.

I enjoyed the story quite a bit more than I thought I would. But they didn't let Martha be very lovable. She was protrayed to be as hypocritical as we all hoped she was when we saw her in the smarmy TV show.

One thing I learned is that the Kmart thing happened rather early on. Martha Stewart entered my consciousness as a TV show. But long before her show, the Kmart backing really pushed her off the ground.

funny funny. Little miss priss got up in the world on the back of the blue light special.

I admire her for how hard she worked to make her ambitions happen. But of course, she should have paused once in a while to enjoy her family. Her husband in the movie was portrayed as a very dear man, and it's too bad she lost him.

I thought the story was pretty good. If they re-ran it, I might watch it again. Especially since, I confess, I missed the very last part about how she did the insider stock thingy.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:39 AM | Permalink

What is it about sexual abuse stories? They are such a strange combination of feelings. One part is the seduction, the sexiness of talking about sex. But at the same time there is the alarm bells, ringing "Danger! This is wrong!" There is the pushing-away feeling of disgust at the molester, that is part of the alarm-bell feeling.

There is also the hypnotic sensation of watching a car accident happen in slow motion. This horrible thing is happening; is the bad man going to get caught? Is the poor child going to be okay? and you are not sure of either.

And while I am wondering if the kid in the story is going to be okay, I also wonder if I am a sick person to be seduced into the sexy side of the story.

It makes me feel sick to my stomach, while being slightly turned on, which makes me feel even sicker.

That is what this story did. I guess that means Vogel did a good job of making me feel the same sort of thing that Li'l Bit felt. Surely she must have felt those feelings and more.

This play was better than just a "How I recovered from my Molesting Uncle" article in a woman's magazine. There was a stronger pull of power between the girl and her Uncle Peck.

It reminded me a whole lot of Lolita, the way Li'l Bit turned the situation to have more power. Lolita had a pull of power over Humbert too.

The influence of Li'l Bit's family on how she dealt with issues of femininity were quite funny-a horrifying combination of frankness and misinformation, high expectations and hypocrisy.

The characters are all sympathetic, Vogel made everyone come alive.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:07 AM | Permalink

One of the things I always have trouble with, in the WW2 movies, or really, almost any war movie, is that I can never tell the different characters apart.

They all look somewhat uniformly handsome, they wear uniforms. As the movies progress, they all get kind of dirty and greasy.

How am I supposed to tell who from who?

Some people, guys especially, can tell the difference by the hats and the insignias on their uniforms. Chris knows all about it. Even more!

He brought over a bunch of DVDs, A Bridge Too Far among them. We started to watch it. He would pause it and explain to me all the different implications of what was going on.

Boy, that made a difference! I mean, I could tell, when they talked, who was american, british, german and polish. But it was hard to tell when they were just walking around. And they would refer to each other by numbers: 82nd, tank support, etc.

This movie tried very hard to make the characters distinction by using famous actors. Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Elliot Gould, Sean Connery, Laurence Olivier were among the characters. That helped.

The story was a really amazing battle that took place towards the end of WW2. The Americans, Brits, and Poles all cooperated to try to close in on some bridges in Holland.

They used Paratroopers extensively, and the battle was the first to do so. It was amazing to see, in the movie, all the parachutes opening up in the sky. I kept thinking, "they are going to land on top of each other!"

The movie is almost three hours long, but it was gripping. It took some paying attention to keep track of who was where and who they were talking about at different times. The movie didn't let you rest.

I kept feeling sad about the whole thing. The difference between the enemy and the allies was just placement. This story did not focus on the atrocities of one or the other. It just seemed to show the damage to all involved.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:36 PM | Permalink

More Southern Drawly Drama.

This story is basically funny, but if you only look at what actually happens you wouldn't think it was. But the family, and the way they handle the problems that come their way make it comedy.

The action starts on Lenore's birthday. Her sister Babe is just being released from prison, because she shot her husband in the stomach. The oldest sister has come back from her failed starry singing career in Hollywood to help out the family. The family tragedy, one that happened years before, is that their mother committed suicide, hanging herself and their pet cat in the basement. All these things are definitely the makings of tragedy.

But it doesn't turn out like that. The sisters are so funny--the way they interact and bicker! They do foolish things, but they are very good-hearted about it.

They bring up the subject of their mother's death, and wonder why she did it. The only thing they can come up with is that "She had a really bad day." Towards the end, they decide that they have got to figure out how to get through the really bad days.

The sibling interaction alone makes this worth seeing.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:17 PM | Permalink

Foriegn language films have always had that mystique of being particularly sophisticated. The subtitles mean that you must READ, and if you READ you must be smart.

And sophisticated.

All About My Mother has subtitles in English-the language spoken is Spanish. Spain-ish Spanish, that is, which sounds different to my ears accustomed to the rythms of Mexican accents. They lisp: "Grathias" and "Barthelona." It sounds very gay to me.

But gay works in the story, even though the lisping was an unintetional addition to the gayness of the story. There are a number of transvetites who are important to the story.

The director, Pedro Almodovar, came highly recommended. He has another movie out right now, Talk to Her .

All About My Mother makes it sound like there is a main character whose mother we are learning about. But, the one who might be such a character died very early in the film.

It's kind of a creepy thought, that the heroine's son would be hanging around watching. The movie doesn't really worry about his afterlife.

It seems to be more the director's, Almodovar's story about his mother. Or more broadly, it is a treatment of what femininity is. The story focusses on women, or men who feel like they are women. Transvestites always cast a bright light on conceptions of femininity, because they challenge conceptions of what it means to be a woman.

This movie is really lovely, with amazing camera shots and situations that bring out real feelings in the viewer.

And it was fascinating to see Streetcar Named Desire played in Spanish.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:37 AM | Permalink

I mean the movie, with Laurence Olivier and all, not the book.

I confess, I've tried to read the book three times, and found it emotionally exhausting. This is the first book I had not been able to conquer, and it surprised me. I had loved Jane Eyre. But Emily is not Charlotte, as I discovered.

The next book that conquered me was the Silmarillion. I don't imagine that anyone is surprised by that.

I tried to read Wuthering Heights again later, and it had the same effect. It was just too much! I needed a break, and afterwards, I didn't feel like hanging out with those people again.

But I knew there was a movie, and I figured that I could make it through a movie. I did want to know how the end turned out.

The movie was on TCM this weekend, and I had my chance.

You know, it was less exhausting to see Cathy beating her brother with the riding crop than it was to read about it. Imagining it made it seem more cruel than seeing a little sister whapping at her brother.

Of course, Heathcliff as Laurence Olivier made it easy to believe that Cathy would be in love with him. Oh, Olivier is beautiful!

It was all gothic, love beyond death and stony castles and craggy rocks and a smoldering young hero. These elements have been used to good effect in many other places.

I guess what made the book so hard to read is how unlikeable Heathcliff and Cathy both are. When Cathy says "I am Heathcliff!" it is easy to believe, since they are both so mean to each other.

It really could be one of those "They deserve each other" situations. One over-riding message of the story is that true love conquers all.

But equally apparent is the idea that one does not need to be virtuous to have true love. Of course, the victorian idea of virtuous was mostly keeping up appearances. And staying in your given social place.

Heathcliff wouldn't do that. Cathy wished she didn't have to, but still wanted all that her priviledged position could give her.

I think she wished she could run away with Heathcliff, and didn't. In the end it killed her.

It's convenient, how heroines are so fatally unhealthy. Makes for dramatic death scenes.

This one was nice, I have to say.

I remember believing in love that tempestuous. I'm a little older now, and I am mostly glad that I am not afflicted with it.
Mostly.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of this movie is when Drew Barrymore is standing on the pitcher's mound and everyone in the whole packed stadium is applauding her wildly.

That ALONE is a huge-normous fantasy fulfilled.

And it's the first scene of the movie.

The rest, except for the very end, is flashback.

The whole thing is fantasy fulfilled. For everyone that's looked in the mirror and come up with the perfect response to yesterday's taunt, here is your movie. Everyone would like to go back and do it right this time.

High school was so tortuous, we all have things we'd want to do over. So that's what Josie (aka Josie Grossy) gets to do.

It's cute, and it's horrifying to remember all that high-school drama. And the crying in the bathroom scene! I swear, there could be a whole documentary about girls crying in the bathroom.

Naturally, it's all cathartic, and she emerges an empowered woman, finds her true love, etc. etc.

And that's what makes it such a good movie. I'd watch it again.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:23 AM | Permalink

Another one of those psuedo-documentaries, like Dog Show. It's kind of a cute movie.

Cory-in-the-closet has to direct the 150th anniversary play for Blaine. Red, White and Blaine is what they call it. So the documentary takes you through the lives of the people in the play.

The young lady works at the Dairy Queen. That's funny. And the singing Dentist. He's funny.

Cory, of course, it hilarious with his portrayal of the gay man.

But they are all excited about Guffman, who is a famous theater man from broadway coming to see their play. That just stirs up all kinds of feelings and reactions from everyone.

I think it's worth seeing, a light little video. You have to see Cory's little funky dance.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:46 AM | Permalink

Those Southern writers--it seems like they are all filled with drama and theatricality. Appearances, tragedy and social position.

And those amazing accents!

I have to say that it can be really heavy, diving into the Southern drama. When I first started listening to the performance, I felt myself thinking, "Oh no, not another one of these depressing Southern Dramas."

It was depressing. All the characters seemed so trapped. But the story showed about how people are.

It was incredible how much pressure was put on the son, the man of the family. I felt so sorry for him. He was the BREADWINNER, the one who had to make sure his family didn't starve. Yikes! I'm really glad that we have more equal opportunity employment now. I would not want to depend on anyone to feed me.

Or have to feed other perfectly capable people, either. It made me realize that women in this story were not considered "perfectly capable." They were supposed to be protected.

And Laura, the sister, sure seemed to need protection. Either that or a slap in the face. She couldn't even bear to go to school and take an exam. All she had was here little collection of glass figurines.

But the mother! Whoa nelly! She was more capable than any of them. But she had appearances to keep up, and besides, she was a female and had limited earning potential.

She at least understood her handicap. She didn't have any skills, but she wanted her daughter to be able to take care of herself. That's why she tried to send Laura to vocational school.

But Laura was too helpless.

Everyone seemed to be focused on Males. The deadbeat dad, the breadwinning brother, the 'gentleman caller.'

Not a place I'd want to be.

This particular version of the play was especially wonderful, because there is a recording of the author reading the last scene. His voice, with the accent, is so right for the dialogue.

If any actor wants to be in this play, they really should hear Williams himself reading the scene. It made it really come alive.

Also, Williams reads another short story of his at the end about the Yellow bird. It was a great treat that I wasn't expecting.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:15 AM | Permalink

This is another LA Theater Works recorded drama. As far as I know, it hasn't been made into a movie. But it really should be, wow! Arthur Miller knows his stuff.

The story is of a working-class Italian-American family in the 50s. Times are hard for them, and have been for a while. Eddie and Bea have been raising Bea's niece, Katy. Katy is turning into a woman.

It's a struggle for parents to let kids go up. Men especially have a hard time letting little girls grow into women. Some fathers are famously protective. And Eddie gets really protective of Katy.

The narrator of the play is a lawyer, who sees the whole thing play out. He talks about it, like it was a train wreck there was no way to stop.

And I believed it, as I listened to it all.

Bea's cousins from Italy sneak across the ocean to find work. They talk a lot about how hard times are there, that there is no work and that Marco's, the older one, children are starving and dying.

But Rodolpho is not married. He is there to work and does not have scary responsibilities. He is happy to be there, and happy about a lot of things.

He can sing.

How could Katy resist?

And the train wreck is set in motion.

This was an incredible story. It was fully compelling. I wish they would make a movie out of it. I really felt something after it was done, and it stayed with me.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:13 AM | Permalink

I saw an interview with Danny Devito talking about, among other things, Get Shorty. He said the movie was about confidence.

That made me want to check it out.

Devito's character in the movie was not very impressive. Maybe that was the point. Travolta, now, he was great. His character was riveting.

I don't know if it was because the acting was so great. I can't really think of a particularly dramatic moment for him.

It's just he was so active, he did so many amazing things. Chili Palmer, nobody got in his way. He got the stuff done.

Confidence. Well maybe. Is that what it takes to get things done? Interesting that Devito, a movie star, would choose that aspect to focus in on.

I think it might be something else.
In the movie itself, Palmer says that he would not go about business the way Zimm did. He wouldn't go through his shrink's other client, who happens to be the personal trainer of the great movie star.

He says he would just go ask him.

Of course, for Palmer, little barriers like walls and locked doors are trivial.

I don't know how attuned he was to psychological barriers. Not so much, I would think. But he never had to encounter any in the movie. Weir, the coveted star, just faded before his direct approach.

The movie put the film industry and organized crime in the same category. Position, territory, it seemed like it was all the same things but different titles.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There is so much wrong with this, I can hardly begin.

But did anyone else notice the glaring irony of Miss Princess going on and on about looks not being important ('I been around so many good looking guys that I just can't stand, because they rely on their looks...')

all this, and they show footage

OF HER PUTTING ON HER MAKEUP

!!!!

Repeat after me:

DOUBLE STANDARD

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:13 AM | Permalink

It is apparently easier to be charming and literate than people think. The con artist, if that's what he really is, in this production put on the whole think like a glove.

He burst into the lives of Upper Middle Class families and charmed them by pulling down their guards. He had learned the details of their lives and learned the little touchpoints that made him seem deep.

Culture and class is apparently very shallow, if it can be picked up so quickly.

Paul the hero was gay, too. He seemed like a bottom, one who derives his own pleasure from subservience. He wanted to do things for the people he conned. He made Flan and Weeza dinner, and even insisted on cleaning up after.

"Such a nice boy!"

The play checked assumptions, a check like in hockey. It challenged the notion of superiority that the middle class folks had about themselves.

It also brought up the issue of what the children and the parents had to say about each other. That wasn't really resolved, but it was interesting to bring it up.

I like Paul. I like how he turns into a ghost and floats through the walls of people's lives.

I think that the folks who were conned should have had a better sense of humor about it. What were they really harmed, anyway? Only their self-delusions had been stolen. You'd think that Flan, being an art dealer would have appreciated the new perspective on his life.

But he didn't.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hwang is a genius. That is all I have to say. This play is so insightful, cuts so close to the bone. It pulls away veils for anyone that encounters it.

I first read it in book form, and I was in love with it immediately. I was really lucky, because right after I read it, I was able to hear David Henry Hwang speak.

He seems so genuine and open. He wrote this play, but he is also kind of impressed with how it turned out. Often artists are humbled by their muse.

The basic story is a true one, of a French diplomat who carries on an affair with a Chinese person for 20 years. Whoops! The Chinese person was a man, not a woman, and even more whoops, a spy.

Gallimard, the Frenchman, was tried for treason.

Hwang takes this story and unfolds it like an accordion. There is so much to it, and he pulls it apart so nicely.

I remember him saying, during the Q&A period, that he himself had a lot of empathy for all the characters in his play. He said he understood the Asian perspective, but he was a man as well, and he understood the desire to objectify women.

I just heard John Lithgow and B.D. Wong play these parts. Lithgow gave a gorgeous performance, and that confirmed my opinion of his genius. But I hadn't heard of Wong before. He was SO GOOD. The rold of the mistress is a very demanding role. Wow. He was good.

This play is really necessary for everyone to encounter. It will make you check your assumptions.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:48 PM | Permalink

This movie was FAST! they didn't stop for a minute.

The girl reporter, what they would have called it then in the 40s, was romantisizing a regular housewife life. She had picked up some dumb cluck man and was going to settle down with him.

But she had to separate herself from the ex-husband/editor/boss that still seemed to think he was in her life.

Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant have so much chemistry, the dumb cluck has no credibility at all.

I love the heroine. She is in so much control. She is instantly in charge of every change in the situation, and works it all out to her favor.

A lot of classic movie irritate me, because the females are so beautiful and behave so impossibly. But this woman not only does things that I might do, she does them better than I would.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:28 PM | Permalink

More LA Theater Works!

This performance reminded me of "The Dollhouse" a little bit. Lily Dale was so tremendously protected and naive. I personally cannot imagine a life where I would never need to spend any money whatsoever. Maybe in Texas they have worked out a system where the wives can go about their business and never need to see the color of money.

Will Kidder and his wife Lily Dale have lost their 37 year-old son to a drowning. They are still mourning his loss when Will loses his job.

That's practically the whole story. Oh, except that the roomate of their son keeps hanging around.

Sounds homoerotic to me. Their son lives at the YMCA with a "roomate." YOU connnect the dots.

Anyway, the couple has to come to terms with what they have of their life. I guess it's supposed to be set in the 50s. I just cannot imagine a life like that. I have so much more freedom and possibility than Lily Dale.

She calls her husband "Daddy", which is also creepy.

It did keep my interest though. I was waiting to see what happened. Shirley Knight, the actress who plays Lily Dale, was nominated for a Tony for her onstage performance of this role. She did stick to it, that's for sure.

The world has changed a lot.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:48 PM | Permalink

Buffy is the evil spoiled upper-class heroine of this movie. Jaded beyond belief, she makes a deal with her step brother to seduce and humiliate people who cross their path.

She makes a bet that he can't seduce the headmaster's daughter, who has just come out in a magazine as the "virgin until marriage."

If the step-brother can't do it, she gets to keep his very expensive car.

If he can seduce the virgin, she promises to sleep with him.

Sordid enough for you yet?

It's just terrible, evil and sexy.

The setting is ultra-rich Manhattan, which lends a beautiful background to this very unhealthy and seductive movie.

If you want to be bad, this is the movie for you.

Continue reading "Cruel Intentions" »

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:30 PM | Permalink

Everybody knows that girls always go for the bad boys. That's waht Christy Mahon discovers. He was on the run, after killing his father. He finds a place of refuge in a pub.

Once he tells his story, all the village gets all a-twitter about this brave man who kills his own father.

It's set in Ireland, and it's a lot of fun to hear all the actor's speaking in a Irish brogue. LA theater works is great.

It does have an interesting twist at the end.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:08 PM | Permalink

I think every female who was young in the 80s fell in love with John Cusack after Say Anything. On the basis of the Cusack's picture on the cover, I rented Hot Pursuit.

What a movie! all notmals boundaries of the plausible are thrown out the window. It starts with Cusack's girlfriend sneaking into his all-boys' high school and keeping him from passing his chemistry final. It ends with Cusack throwing grenades and firing a machine gun to save her from pirates.

He flunks his chemistry test, so he can't go on the cruise to the Carribean with her rich family. BUt it's true teenage love! So he finds a way to follow her and just miss her for the whole vacation.

As unbelievably cheesy as it is, Cesack still pulled off his 'boyfriend' role perfectly. Maybe that's his whole genius. The man gives a perfect movie kiss. With the little funny, awkward wisecrack beforehand. It works.

There was also a good King Lear scene where he curses the storm (he's in a boat).

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:06 PM | Permalink

I finally watched the whole movie last night.

It's funny, I can read a book for hours, but it's really hard for me to sit through a movie.

Anyway, it is so real. It could practically be a home movie of the dorky guys around here. all those actor wanna-bees. It was amazing to see MY NEIGHBORHOOD all over the screen. Holy crap! The dude was even wearing an In'N'Out shirt.
Man...If I'd seen it when i lived in alaska, I wouldn't have believed any of it. But now that i'm HERE, every line is true. Who could ever believe that people could act like such idiots? You have to see it to believe it.

The whole thing was that the guys just needed to let go of their desperate clench on self-importance.

The guy couldn't get over his girlfriend, but that wasn't the main issue. He just had to get over himself. Him and the rest of the guys.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:27 AM | Permalink

Since It's A Wonderful Life was adopted by people born in the earlier half of the 20th century as THE movie to watch at Christmas, movies directed by Frank Capra have taken on the same old-people smell we associate with grandma.

IWAL certainly seems to have that depression era "Just be glad you are as well off as you are!" feeling, making those of us who did not live through those hard times feel like rolling our eyes.

Most of his movies have a kind of preachy, American propaganda feel to them.

HOWEVER, on a little closer examination, his movies are not all advocating that we sit back in a rocking chair with our hands folded, our job of being American handily completed upon birth.

I wanted to see Mr. Deeds Goes To Town and get some more impressions about Capra's style and message. I'm interested in American propaganda, and I wanted to see how well he fit into the genre.

Now that I've seen it, I'm not so sure Capra falls under that category. I'm seeing a message of "enjoy the real blessings in your life." It's hard to distinguish that message sometimes, because the iconic symbols of American kitsch (Kundera-style) get so wrapped up in it.

Those icons, like Apple-pie, ideal womanhood as a June Cleaver clone, men in suits and hats, people who know their neighbors, little houses all in a row, tree-lined streets with perfect tidiness...I don't know what else. These get in the way of me seeing the story as real or credible. I just see a doll house.

Mr. Deeds is a sweet man, and the movie is really funny in parts. The Tuba cracks me up, and so do the Pixelated old ladies. I think that there is a lot that's real behind the dolls...I could see someone I know, someone who really exists behaving the way that Mr. Deeds does. Heck, if you play a tuba, you wouldn't stop just because you inherited a ton of money.

In a lot of ways, Mr. Deeds was going against expectation, not behaving the way the other little dolls did. He held on to common sense and didn't lose track of what was important. He had compassion and humanity.

And naturally, Gary Cooper is great.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:17 PM | Permalink

My super cool and smart girlfriends came over to visit for the weekend.

One of them had to visit her brother. She was going to surprise him by showing up at his party unannounced.

But my other friend had never been to Hollywood. We had to go all over and see the walk, and browse the hooker shoe stores and vintage clothing shops.

We kept seeing places that were in the movie Swingers. It turns out that my favorite club The Derby is in it.

So, now I have to rent Swingers.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:53 AM | Permalink

It's Woman's history month, but even if it weren't, this is a good show to watch.

I didn't see the live version, that would have required forethought and effort.

I just happened to see teh DVD at the library when I was browsing for things to entertain me.

I loved it. I just hope my neighbors didn't hear me yelling out responses to the TV. I was loud.

I absolutely LOVE hearing women talk about what is. So often, we will skip straight to what should be. But that leaves out a good appreciation and assessment of what is going on right now.

It was so sweet to hear the older ladies talk about their vaginas. The way we think about women, older women, and sexuality, you get the impression that they just seal over at a certain age. Of course, that's silly. I plan on being an old ladies someday, and it's nice to know that my vagina will still be there.

The whole things makes me want to ask more and different questions of the people I know.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:50 AM | Permalink

I have an urge to wear sparkly clothing and take long lungey steps that include over-my-head high kicks.

I just saw Chicago.

It reminded me of Moulin Rouge, with the whole staging, singing, and dance thing going on.

It felt like a stage show on a movie screen. There were some effects that could not have been accomplished on a stage, but for the most part, it really felt like a broadway production.

The underlying message seemed to be how women, or more universally, people, can manipulate the public interest and get what they want.

THe story was based on events that happened in the 20s. I think we have the same things going on today.

It was a abstract portrayal of what the events and relationships. I liked that. Made things seem more evident that strict realism.

Continue reading "GAAHHHTA DANCE!" »

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here we go!

Best short series or special: The Forsyte Saga. I enjoyed it tremendously, and I've watched my tape of it again more than once. Good Show, PBS!

Best film: The Hours. Those ladies were fabulous.
Runner up: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Tolkien Rocks, and the movie was really good.

I thoroughly regret having no opinion on books of 2002. I am pretty sure I have never read a book the year it came out--not once in my life. I gravitate to the old, approved classics. Teachers of literature approve of me.

But maybe I should join the new millenium.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:02 PM | Permalink

(This is cross posted)

Is it the sunglasses? is it the blind thing? I don't know, but Ben Affleck was very sexy in this movie.

It was darker than I expected from a comic strip movie. Superman has always delivered his criminals into the hands of justice, and they always went to jail.

Batman sent them off to the institute for the Criminally insane.

But Daredevil just kills 'em.

He probably shouldn't do that. That's what I was thinking as I watched it.

And the character started thinking it too, after a while. It ended up being one of the motivating forces in the plot.

While I wouldn't call it a work of cinematic genius, I really enjoyed it. I'd watch it again.

Especially to see Affleck in that red leather suit again.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:25 AM | Permalink

Got this DVD out of the library recently. It's on the AFI list of recommended movies.

I'm not a fan of Westerns. They are such GUY movies. Usually there is no woman in the movie that acts in any way resembling what I might do.
Or even what any female I know might do.

But I thought I would give it a try.

I am pleased to say that this Western was not that kind of movie. There are some kick-ass females in it!

One, played by Grace Kelly, was a really strong female. She was the sugar one, but she had some real backbone.

You know the kind of woman in a movie who just can't seem to do ANYTHING? During the fight scene, her hero will get his gun kicked away from him, and it will land right at the woman's feet.

AND SHE WILL JUST STARE AT IT!

Stupid female.

But this chicky was not like that. She had some strong convictions. She did stuff. She even grabs the gun at the end.

The other female was the spice. She was actress Katy Jurado, and a latina. BEAUTIFUL, and in total control. She is the one I would want to be, much as I admired Little Bo-Peep Grace Kelly. She had everybody in the palm of her hand, doing what she had to do, and doing it better than anybody else.

The story was good, very suspenseful. I like that the story hinged on the relationships between the characters.

I might even buy this one!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:48 AM | Permalink

I went to see the Hours. I'd read the book before seeing the movie. What that means is that I ought to have remembered kleenex.

But of course I didn't.

I think that reading the book spoiled a certain amount of surprise at what was going to happen. But then, reading Mrs. Dalloway prior to reading The Hours had kind of spoiled some of the surprise.

It didn't matter, though. The movie was very true to the spirit of the book. The same feeling I had while reading the book, the feeling of being set adrift to revel in the details of the moment, were in the movie.

I could not help noticing all the small facts of decoration for the women. Their jewelry, their hair. Their clothes, yes their clothes. And the textures of their homes.

I don't know if it is something innately feminine or not, but many many women take great pleasure in the little pretty details of their dress and decorations. The Hours was so much about women.

Being about women, it is of course, about all of us. We all come from a woman, after all.

The title refers to the moment. The Hours, the hours that go by and the hours that stay. Life is nothing more than the hours that you inhabit. Not the days, because an entire day is far too full to live at once.

The story in this movie takes a single day in the life of three separate women and traces how it unwinds. The story shows the experiences they have and the choices they make. It celebrates the fullness of life, in a beautifully honest way, revealing how terrifying, glorious and precious life is.

Obviously, I loved it. I especially loved it because it was not sweet or happy. It was just true. I hope it wins some recognition.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sunday, I finally made myself do something I had been wanting to do for what seems to be months.

I went to see a movie at the Vista Theater.

I'd seen the theater in my many excursions and it is beautiful. A single theater on the corner of Sunset and Prospect, with a huge brick red facade with a huge white scrollwork all over the front. I mentioned it to someone and she said, "Oh the Vista! That's a great theater!"

So I was even more eager to go.

There was another local theater the Los Feliz 3. But people didn't say the same sort of nice things about it. And it didn't have scroll work!

Little did I know, the scrollwork was just the beginning!

The interior was beautifully decorated in Egyptian art. Men with towels around their waists did two-dimensional activities around the back walls of the snack bar. Inside the theater, though, was amazingly spectacular.

The bright red curtains (when was the last timeI saw real curtains in a theater?) were topped with hissy snakes. The corners were ornately molded with more snakes and other creatures.

Around the sides were gold-painted disembodied heads, regal in blue headresses. Under each was its own light. Lit from beneath, the heads were especially eerie. When the lights went down for the movie, the lights did not go entirely out for the heads. They glowed in the darkness.

But the seating was quite luxurious. The rows were very far apart. While I was sitting, I could stretch my long leg forward, point my toe, and still not touch the seat in front of me.

It was nice to have that much space. It occurred to me that I could have brought a tavle in with me, if I had wanted to.

The Vista is my new favorite local theater. Anyone making a trip to LA and wanting to see a movie in Hollywood (tm) ought to go.

I felt like it was worth the eight bucks. And for me, that is saying a lot.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN

Another Radio Drama! Great stuff, that LA Theater works. This one was a "docudrama." Love that word, it sounds so fake.

Of course, it is based on the House Unamerican Activities Committee hearings. Those hearings trouble me. I have been trying to get my head around them. The paranoia about communism seems excessive in retrospect. It was hard to believe that people really took it seriously.

But they really did. People lost their jobs because they knew people who were interested in a political viewpoint.

I can hardly think how this country, based on radical political ideals, would so trample on communism.
But it happened.

The play was based on real transcripts from the hearings: hence the "docu"mentary part of the docudrama.

There seemed to be a real emphasis on how bad it was to inform on other people. the consequences were pretty severe for the ones named as "members of the communist party." They couldn't get work.

It reminds me of the situation now, somewhat. I wonder how Muslim groups might be thinking and feeling now. I haven't heard much about how those detained have been questioned. I suspect they too are asked to name the names of people they know. I might have to find out more about this, I am only speculating right now.

The part that made the most impact on me was the conclusion. James Earl Jones played the voice of Paul Robeson. Of course, Jones's voice is marvelous. But the words that Robeson said were marvelous. He was so proud and magnificent, and the House committee members were scornful of him, because he was African American.

It made me want to find out more about Robeson.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:04 PM | Permalink

Guilt “On the Waterfront”

Rented “On the Waterfront” this weekend. I had seen part of it on TV years and years ago, and always meant to go back and see the whole thing.

It’s funny to see Brando so young. And Eve Saint Marie, she is so beautiful.

I thought the ideology behind the movie was very interesting. It was from the 50s, and it was set in a poor neighborhood. The men trying to work on the docks were “ethnic”, which was how things were in the 50s. They don’t seem SO long ago, but class differentiation was much more distinct then.

The 60s made a difference.

These men and their families talked about getting “food on the table.” One recurring motif is how a dead man’s jacket is given to someone else who needs it. Jackets, clothing, basic needs were not taken for granted.

They were poor and hard-working. They also had no prospects for anything better. Edie’s (played by Saint Marie) father tells her that he worked and slaved and saved so that she could get out of there. She had been sent to a convent to study. She was sheltered, but she had seen enough to be grateful for it.

The men kept complaining about unloading bananas.

Bananas, now, are the cheapest fruit in the store. Not so in the 50s. I doubt that the average dockworker ever had the opportunity to eat a banana.

They were struggling to get potatoes. It was hard.

But the point of the story was union corruption. That’s a tricky topic. Unions were created to stop corporate or “boss” corruption. But then, Unions became corrupt, and they began to exploit the workers. Almost like, where the bosses left off, the unions took up.

But it was hard to get unions going! They establishment of unions took a lot of work.

Also, I realized as I was watching it, Unions were considered socialist…Red..Communist! So how was this movie part of the whole McCarthy environment of the time?

Come to find out, the director Elia Kazan was brought before the House Unamerican Activities Committee. Twice. He Named Names on the second visit.

There were a lot of people that were blacklisted because of him. He didn’t feel too good about that.

The scene from the movie, where the priest stands over the dead body of the one man who had courage to name names about the corrupt union bosses springs to mind.

It was very preachy. The clergyman gave a very rousing sermon about what was right, and how you HAD to speak out to stop the bad guys. The laborers were throwing things at him, even, and he kept going.

He was SO righteous!

And all throughout the movie, the theme of informing and being a “stool pigeon” or a “canary” was repeated and repeated.

He even had real pigeons playing a prominent role.

One thing I noticed from the movie, too, was the lack of a real answer. Sure, they broke the back of the union boss. But what then? None of those guys were really capable of taking over. The viewer didn’t really have a sense that everything would be “happily ever after.”

You can see how Kazan had re-cast his own story, making himself a hero informant, making the world safe against unscrupulous bosses. I’m sure it scratched a sore itch for him, making this kind of movie.

But it didn’t really show any answers. Right then, I don’t think people had any.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:03 PM | Permalink

Checked out "Long Day's Journey into Night" from the library. There were a lot of different drama recordings to choose from, but I picked that one because it had a reputation of being really good. Eugene O'Neill is a reknowned playwright, and this play gets mentioned all over the place in anthologies, etc.

I thought it was something I should experience.

So. I listened to it. I was looking forward to posting about a brilliant play, and giving my opinion of it.

It is not a fun play. I really didn't know what to expect, but it was not a comedy.

The whole story revolves around the mother in the family, who has a drug addiction. But as the play progresses, you find out that everybody is some kind of addict.

Their interactions are filled with justifications followed by wallowing in self-loathing. Then they are all so full of regrets and warning for everyone else.

Typical junkie behavior. I find it repulsive. I find it irritating, annoying and icky. So why would a whole drama showcasing junkiness be such a hit?

I can only think that, when the play came out, not many people had experience with junkies, and so they were fascinated.

I've had experience with junkies. My former father-in-law was an addict. It was quite exhausting, to keep up with his whereabouts and moods. Everyone in the family had to be massively elastic and jumpy to keep up with whatever he was going to do next.

And the astounding feats of justification and self-recrimination that his wife and son did. I never knew him as anything but an addict, so I was free to categorize him. They knew what he had been before, and were always judging his current behaviour as how close or far it was from his "real" self.

Crazy.

And now, one of my dearest friends just discovered her fiancee is a crackhead. She was describing how he reacted when she discovered him, and the lengths he had gone to hide the habit and lie to her.

I remembered my father-in-law. I remembered "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

Self-deception. The easy way out...Thinking "It's not really a lie...I will have quit the stuff before she finds out about it"

Then just a little more. And the NEED for it.

There are more people that can relate to this play than perhaps I realize.

Maybe it's a mirror, too. It makes me wonder what I'm lying to myself about. It's so so easy.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:59 PM | Permalink

Some people, and I have the impression that it is mostly men, are terrified to go to the doctor. Maybe it is the doctor's hurried and supremely self-confident and superior way of tossing off diagnoses and prescriptions that make people dislike seeing them. It explains the gender difference, too. Most women are used to being condescended to, at least a little.

Of course, things have changed so much. The last hundred years or so have taken medicine so far.

But so much has changed so little.

"The Doctor's Dillemma" by Bernard Shaw satirizes the medical profession brilliantly. Shaw groups the brilliant doctors of his late victorian era and has them talk about their methods and their practices in such a way as to make any sick person set off in search of a witch doctor.

That's not the only point to the story, though. There is a dilemma for the doctor, after all. A lovely young woman comes to him for help; she wants him to cure her husband of tuberculosis. He is quite dismissive at first, but is charmed by her and agrees to see the man.

With time, he becomes more and more impressed with the young woman--at the same time he discovers her artist husband is a liar and a cheat.

Is he worth saving? For his wife's sake? For his art's sake?

The play is very interesting, dealing with serious subjects, but with a lot of humor.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Writing takes time. It takes a certain time of brain space, too. I have been really busy with work. I wish that work would back off a little...I would rather be reading and thinking and writing than doing all this JOB stuff.

But the job stuff pays the bills.

I had a chance to listen to PYGMALION by Shaw. That was a great play! All kinds of good stuff, about class tension and social climbing and the place of women and the importance of manners in society.

On the back of the package, it says "PYGMALION inspired the award-winning film and stage productions of Lerner and Loewe's musical, MY FAIR LADY."

I went and got MY FAIR LADY so that I could compare the two. I like musicals.

But you know, this was pretty different than the play. THe musical added songs which are very nice. But the story itself is such a practical story...I mean, it is about getting this work done--HIggins has to teach Eliza how to speak.

In PYGMALION, Eliza learned very fast and had a quick ear.
In MY FAIR LADY, Eliza couldn't hear the sounds at all until Professor Higgins essentially tortured her inot saying it right. I thought that change to be rather implausible, he didn't even TRY to explain how sounds are formed. Then, after he's starved her and been cranky to her all day, she gets it and they dance around sining "The Rain in Spain." Then, he demands that she stay up and study some more.

And she goes all googly and sings "I could have danced all night."
WHAT?! the implication is that she is in love with professor higgins.
I fail to see the attraction. He hasn't done anything nice for her, and he's done a lot of mean things.

It doens't make sense to me.

In PYGMALION, Shaw treats marriage as a much more practical exercise. In fact, on of the lines that are in common show his point of view, "In tottenham court, I was above this. I sold flowers, not myself."

That line seems incongruous in the musical. THe musical has all kinds of massively sappy moments of LOOOOOVVVEEE!!! Freddie is head over heels, and Eliza is exstatic over Higgins, and Higgins has grown accustomed to her face.

It doesn't hang together quite as well.

I think the play was much more complimentary to Eliza, giving her talents that are to her credit. But the musical makes her a patsy, whose only major selling point is how pretty she is.

It's too bad.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:43 PM | Permalink

I managed to find some quiet moments to listen to LA Theater Works' " The Prisoner of Second Avenue." Neil Simon is a funny guy. But you all know that.

This one wasn't full of symbolism and deeper meaning. It reminded me of a black-and-white slapstick sitcom. It was funny.

He published it in the 70s, and the many references to Valium make it seem pretty dated. Valium is not the trendy drug that it used to be.

I especially liked the gasps by Richard Dreyfuss...I think it must take practice to gasp that well.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:01 PM | Permalink

Arthur Miller’s “The Price” by LA Theater Works

I picked this out of my local library because I remembered Arthur Miller as one of the writers affected by the McCarthy era, blacklisted by the House of Unamerican Activities Committee. The recording was a radio drama, and I had been listening to KPCC’s “The Play’s The Thing” with delight since I moved to the area.

After I listened to “The Price” the first time, I immediately put in the first CD to listen to it again. Miller is an amazing writer. I am filled with admiration and envy-- I’ll admit it. Wow! He tosses off such amazing insights like candy to a throng. He’s astoundingly prolific too. Reading his chronology of works shows that he just doesn’t stop…Play after magnificent play just roll off his pen.

“The Price” first premiered in 1968. By that time, both his parents had died, he had been married three times, Marilyn Monroe was his second wife, and had been persecuted by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. His life spanned 2 world wars, the great depression and the rise of communism. As an American Jew, he encountered the holocaust and met concentration camp victims.

“The Price” is addressing how we pay for the life we choose. With all the dramatic examples of tumult and war and deprivation, Miller chose something much simpler. He took simple familiar family relationships and used it for the backdrop of his ideas. Victor and Walter are not utterly indistinguishable from the crowd, their family had drama. But given the times everyone had lived through, their drama was not extraordinary. One was a doctor, one was a policeman, and they confront one another about the choices they made that have brought them to where they are. Men in middle age taking stock and facing life-long illusions, they speak intensely and finally, with honesty, about their motivations.

The character of Mr. Solomon, the appraiser, really is priceless. He has such marvelous lines:

“The mania today is SHOPPING. Years ago, a person was unhappy, didn't know what to do with himself, he go to church start a revolution, something...Today, you're unhappy, Can't figure it out, what is the salvation? Go shopping!”

And all in the most wonderful Jewish accent. He’s real glue, bringing out points that the others cannot.

Miller wrote so many plays, this one is great, and not even in his top ten. I’m glad that LA Theater Works has captured the drama and made it available to those of us who might not make it to a theater as often as we wish.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This is cross-posted on Blogcritics

Yes, I recorded it. Of Course! I'll be watching it all week. The Forsytes are a complicated family, and stand up to repeat examination. Old Jolyon, Young Jolyon and Soames Forsyte are the men of note. Little June grows up before our eyes and Winifred scandalizes everyone, but harmlessly. Mostly. The Aunts tut tut over every little thing. There seems to be such importance placed on the smallest detail of propriety. And they all take such pride in the "Forsyte's good name."

The Victorian age was a tough time for people to figure out. With the Industrial era setting in, people who had no formal expectation of rising socially found themselves filthy rich and wanting to be upper class. England's class system of nobility couldn't hold all the worthy contenders.

Since nobility was not as easy to achieve as wealth, they had to settle on a different measure of what was upper class. Money, naturally, was easy to decide on. But there was that other part of nobility…nobility of character… that was implied (in complete disregard of evidence of such in their ranks) to the noble classes. Respectability was prized. If you were rich, but were vulgar or not respectable, all the other people, so desperately clawing for status, could look down upon you. You can see how the slightest impropriety would be pounced on as grounds for derision and exclusion.

Yes, the Victorians were prudish. And extremely money conscious. The Forsyte series makes that immediately evident.

But the Victorians were not without heart. Anyone who has read the Bronte Sisters knows the kind of high-flown passion the Victorians held dear. Jane Eyre and Heathcliff and all of them, falling so deeply in love, like falling off a cliff. They had nothing to orient them, and no handhold to grasp. Except respectability, which Jane had and Heathcliff did not.

So the Forsyte, and the rest of the Victorians, followed the rules to stay on track. There were so many rules, so so many, that it would keep them occupied past their moments of passion.

Young Jolyon, the artist, was able to recognize his passion. He knew enough to see the pearl of great price and give up what he had to in order to take it. He had the capacity for great love. It is easy for the viewer to recognize that—he is the artist after all.

But for poor Soames, to encounter the passion of his life and have nothing preparing him for it, the situation is agonizing. He was impeccable, always doing the right thing at the right time. Nothing but that, and always that, the right thing. He is the one who pushes the other Forsytes to harden their hearts against the members of their clan who trespass. Soames expresses the harsh opinion of "people" without a word, merely maintaining the hardness of his features.

It is chilling and wonderful.

But when he meets Irenie, he is lost. He is helpless in the face of his love, admiration and passion for her. There are so many men who are capable of falling so hard in love, but might be like Soames, having absolutely no idea what to do with their feeling.

Soames blunders it. He knows how to be respectable, but he doesn't know how to enjoy life. Irene does, but he will not learn from her. He expects her to meet him on his terms. It is not hard to see how this will turn out.

I am mesmerized by Soames, even more than Irene or Young Jolyon. He is so controlled, that when he finally says "You are charming beyond words," it is as if the words were formed in flame.

I can't wait to see the rest of the series.

Check your local listings. I think many places repeat the first episode, and the rest is still coming.

And if you don't "do" TV, then by all means read the books. They are as good, maybe better.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:55 PM | Permalink

It has beautiful dresses and restrained passion. And ENGLISH ACCENTS!

It's a chick show. It's wonderful

The Forsyte sage began tonight on Masterpiece theater. I have been looking forward to it for weeks now. I had the chance to read the series years ago, before I really understood anything about anything. I've only seen the first part of the series, and I'm already finding it much richer than I remembered it.

It's worth watching. The series captures the late-Victorian middle class's obsession with money and propriety.

And then love. Where DOES love fit into a well-regulated household?

Soames is marvelous, he behaves like a stalker. It's great! He's so beside himself. And he's so bad!

All of the characters are fabulous. I will be watching.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:54 PM | Permalink

What with all my free unemployed time, I have been working on reading all those books I’ve been meaning to get around to reading, and finding out all about those subjects I’ve been meaning to learn about, and seeing those movies I’ve been meaning to see.

Let me pause for a moment to say, this is not the most cheery chapter of history, this current moment. The economy by itself is a drag, but then there’s that pernicious TERRORIST nonsense, leading to all kinds of ominous rumblings from the Middle East and elsewhere.

So, escapism into good literature and good movies seems like a good idea.

But.

Have you ever noticed that the most recommended movies, books, etc, are extremely depressing?

I’m sort of stuck in the middle of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. It’s a cheery book about the fall of the Russian aristocracy, and the section I am dealing with has to do with a poor woman’s fall into prostitution, the contemplated suicide of another young man, and his sister’s pending marriage to a cruel man she does not love.

But it hasn’t really gotten off the ground yet.

I have been meaning to watch The Godfather for some time. “They” say that it’s absolutely essential for understanding so many other films. It’s about murder, family betrayal and mob crime, I understand.

I rented One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest earlier. I’d read the book not long ago, and I figured I would see the film.

Schindler’s List is another one I’ve been meaning to see.

Do you see the trend here? I mean, really! What’s up with all these depressing movies and books?

I guess we believe in tragedy more than comedy.

Last time I went to the library, I specifically went for light-hearted reading and videos. I am just oppressed by all these horrible situations. It makes me too sad.

I checked out Bridget Jones’ Diary. It is making me laugh out loud! Her problems are so pathetic as to not really be problems, so I can freely laugh.

I actually have a great respect for good comedy. I admire the artistry of stand-up comedians, who can tell the awful truth of something, and make you laugh at its absurdity.

That’s a real gift. I think that Life is Beautiful did that, but it was so heartbreaking, that I ended up crying before I was done laughing.

Whoopi Goldberg does that with her routines, sometimes.

Alice in Wonderland does that, although some of the message is lost in modern readings. Gulliver’s Travels was pretty funny.

I’m going to have to focus on the brighter side. I just can’t take all this gloom and tragedy anymore.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:58 PM | Permalink