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Archive for November, 2011

Beware the moors

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on November 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I haven’t seen An American Werewolf in London in a few years and, even edited for tv on SyFy, it is an amazing film.  Griffin Dunne is hysterical.  I have adored him since this movie.  Yes, David Naughton is really great, but it’s Griffin as Jack that cracks me up every time.  The visits he pays to David are classic.  The first one in the hospital, eating the toast, he is wonderfully nonchalant.  As the other corpses join him in visiting David, he still remains protective of his friend (see the scene when the corpses are suggesting ways for David to off himself).  The best scene for Jack is in the porno theater.  It’s hysterical that he’s holding this serious conversation with the horribly acted film in the background.

I love how Jack’s corpse keeps rotting throughout the film.  He has a wonderful delivery of lines that could be really cheesy.  “I’m not having a nice time here.”

The film is quite a good horror film…underplayed in many ways yet had ground-breaking special effects and make-up.  Rick Baker completely deserved the Oscar.  The art for the poster/cover was great, very simple and implied great scariness was coming at you. 

The movie delivered with the story, Jack, and David’s amazing transformation to the werewolf.

Now does anyone else think it weird that both Griffin Dunne and David Naughton had someone close to them horrifically killed?  David Naughton was on the show with Pam Dawber (My Sister Sam) with Rebecca Sheaffer and Shaeffer was murdered by a crazed fan.  Griffin Dunne’s sister, Dominique Dunne (oldest sister in Poltergeist), was brutally murdered by her boyfriend.  No, I’m not saying it’s a curse or anything, but it is an incredibly odd connection for the two of them to share.

This is one movie I quote rather often.  “Have you tried talking to a corpse?  It’s boring” is another of Jack’s lines that makes me laugh out loud every time.  “A naked American man stole my balloons” is very challenging to work into conversation, but sometimes it works.  I will leave you with this piece of advice… “Beware the moors, stick to the road.”

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Real reality television involves felt and fur

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I was brought back to my childhood today.  I was eight years old, sitting in front of the black and white television set, and singing along.  “It’s time to play the music.  It’s time to light the lights.  It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight.”  Oddly though, this time my eight-year old and six-year-old were sitting with me.  The Muppets was an amazing movie and a truly fun experience. The parents were all chatting about our memories and filled with excitement about seeing our childhood friends again.  The children were excited too, but with a different type of energy.

The theater my sons and I went to was incredible.  It was so old-school and reminded me of the theater I used to go to at the Quaker Bridge Mall.  This one was an AMC 8 and it was great.  We don’t go to movies often because the buildings are too big, there are too many people, and too many cell phones.  This one is only twice as big as the one I grew up going to and still has the same kind of service.  For example, as we sat watching the previews, an usher came in to bring someone the food that wasn’t ready when they were at the counter.  Then during the movie a person turned on her cell phone.  Within thirty seconds an usher was there telling her to turn it off.  Yes-there were ushers in the theater the whole time to monitor.  The audience was well-behaved (parents included!).  It was the magical experience I remember the movies to be from my childhood.  We will be going to this theater regularly.

Then add that the movie was hysterical.  Spoiler alert-I’m about to share details.  If you want to be surprised, I am sad to say it, but stop reading.  Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, the whole gang plus Mickey Rooney!  When Amy Adams says “this is going to be a short movie.”  Traveling by map.  The balcony guys.  Uncle Deadly (I think that’s his name).  Sam the Eagle.  Whoopi, Jack Black, people that I am sure the tween-set will recognize.  The songs were so Muppety.  The humor was the same but with a slight 21st century edge.  The music seemed very Paul Williams-esque.  And yes, I cried as I quietly sang “Rainbow Connection” along with Kermit.   It just felt so 1970s.

I know that some of the Muppeteers didn’t completely like the screenplay.  Let it go.  This brought the Muppets into today and kept their hearts pure.  Even with a wee bit of an edge, the Muppets are still so much sweeter than anything else out there.  It’s something parents and children can really enjoy together.  It’s intelligent humor (okay, Fozzie’s fart shoes don’t quite fall under that category, but it’s FUNNY).  If we want real television, it needs to connect with us emotionally.  These pieces of felt and fur accomplish this with little to no effort. The Muppets connect our entertainment past with our present and future.  The concept of a vaudeville theater and a variety show fully embracing the concept of live theater is wonderful and needed.  Plus we want children to grow up to be accepting of all the different types of people in the world?  Then watch the Muppets!  No judgement anywhere!

The photograph cameos by the late great Jim Henson brought tears to my eyes.  I believe he is smiling as he watches the generation who grew up with the Muppets share a new movie with their children.  My sons have already seen other Muppet movies (Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island are staples in our home).  I would love for the Muppet Show to return to television.  I would love to be able to sit with my sons and laugh with these adorable felty, furry, and fuzzy creatures each week.  Thanks to Jason Segel for bringing them back.  Thanks to Jim Henson for creating them.

Mahna mahna (feel free to substitute Phenomena)

Do doo be-do-do

Mahna mahna

Do do do do

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Here sleep dinosaurs

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on November 22, 2011| 1 Comment »

My eight year old has been a paleontologist since he was about four.  Even more impressive is that he could spell paleontologist since that time as well.  He knows dinosaurs like the back of his hand.  The bedroom is painted with dinosaurs.  So far Mommy-artist has finished the t-rex, volcano, and velociraptor.  The Brachiosaurus has been sketched onto the wall but not painted.  That is a great project for this weekend, just a little note to self.  The other bedroom, which is more of a playroom, has the shark from Jaws and other sea creatures painted on the walls.  Neither room is ever very tidy.

But yesterday when I came home from work the boys proudly showed me they had made their bed and kept the dino room clean all day.  How?  Why?  They got new bedding as an early Christmas gift.  Dinosaur bedding.

Honestly, I think I was more excited than them at first.  I have looked for dinosaur bedding for several years and had only found “baby” or “toddler” stuff, nothing that was “grown up” enough.  This bedding has great dinosaurs, dinosaur tracks on the sheets, and neat stripes on the other side of the reversible comforter.  It looks great with the existing colors of the bedroom, including the curtains (What, the curtains?).   They feel very grown up with their new bedding and triceratops LED night-light.  Who knew it would help motivate them to keep their room tidy?

They also have been enjoying a dvd about dinosaurs that they keep watching over and over again.  But I don’t mind.  It’s narrated by Kenneth Branagh.

My little dinosaur hunters are becoming quite the big boys.

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The Creepiness of Fall

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , on November 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The leaves provide a foley artist soundscape as I am walking around campus.  The crisp leaves crinkle under everyone’s foot steps.  As the trees become more bare, they take on their skeletal appearance.  The branches look like arms of the dead reaching out for something we don’t want to know about.  It’s tolerable during the day.

But at night as I walk my dog, it takes on a darker feel.  The crinkle of the leaves underfoot echoes a bit more.  The random solitary leaf blowing down the road sounds like the feet of a small creature approaching for an attack.  Even my dog lifts up his eyes and searches the road for the origin of the sounds.

The night is crisp tonight.  The cold stars are twinkling down but seem more mysterious with the dark, dark sky surrounding them.  When the moon is full, one would think you would feel more comfort with it shining brightly through the skeletal trees, but in fact the full moon’s glow only creates more shadows, more areas to watch.

But it is the cycle.  As winter closes in, the days will be grayer and the nights will be creepier.  Snow and ice will add to the dark mood of the winter season.

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My universities didn’t have football teams

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , on November 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I went to two universities, neither of which had a football team.  Clearly, I am not one who follows college football.  I have heard bits and pieces of the Penn State mess.  My prayers go out to the victims.  My disgust goes out to the pig and the others who knew but turned away.  My awkwardness goes out to the alums, current students, and future students (especially if it’s a family tradition to go there).  How do you say you are proud of a school that covered up such a scandal, potentially in the name of the powerful football dollar?

No.  I haven’t walked in the Penn State student’s shoes.  But I can write that I am not proud of the fact that I used to be Catholic.  I left the Catholic church in ’83, right after I was confirmed. I haven’t been a part of that church for almost 30 years.  I’m sure they do some good for the church members, the community.  I truly hope and pray there are Catholic churches that haven’t been touched by that scandal.  But since they all listen to the Pope…

I am not proud of the fact that the Catholic church I went to did have one of the priests that helped contribute to the scandal.  He got what amounts to a slap on the wrist.  I shudder to think that I knew altar boys there.  I shudder to think of how their lives were impacted by that priest.  And the church knew.  Just as it seems to be shaping up at Penn State, people knew.  People knew and didn’t do anything.

One thing both of these situations have in common is money.  If there is enough money, it can be covered up.  If there is enough money, turn away.  Pretend you don’t see it.  Part of the reason I left the Catholic church.  I can’t pretend I don’t see things that don’t seem to make sense.  Possibly part of the reason I earned my BFA and MA at schools without football.  I never did get all the hype around football.

Sadly this has probably happened since humans began walking the earth.  We all now know about it instantly because of technology.  We learn about it before all of the facts have been gathered-is there any chance of the actual truth coming out now?  Now that snippets have been released, will memories be tainted?  Will people remember things a bit differently?  Do we know how to process it?  Do we know how to react?  Will we ever figure out how to prevent this from continuing to happen?

Most importantly, how do we help the victims heal and move forward from this?  I will pray for them.  That’s one thing I can do.

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Autumnal Leaves

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on November 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Once I was done vacuuming the rocket sled (the boys thought it would be fun to see what made the rubber chicken so squishy-little styrofoam balls, in case you were wondering), it was time to participate in suburbia’s annual ridiculousness known as raking the leaves.  When did we forget that God had a pretty good plan when He designed trees?  And the seasons?  The trees lose their leaves and they fall to the ground.  If we were to leave them there, their nutrients would go back into the ground and they naturally mulch plants that need mulching.  But no…here in suburbia, we want neat, well-manicured lawns.

I rebel against this in several ways.  First, today was the second time I raked and dragged the leaves to the curb.  It will be the last for the season.  I’ll just “not have any more time” to work on this task.  This way I’ve conformed enough to the societal demands, yet still leave enough leaves to let them do their natural jobs.  When my neighbor says something, and she will, but always in a gentle way, I’ll simply say it’s tough keeping up and hasn’t the year gone quickly?

Another rebellion is to mow my lawn but keep the height of the mower so the grass doesn’t get a crew cut each time.  This helps keep more moisture if the rains take some time between showering us with water and makes the grass wave ever so slightly in the wind.  I know my lawn is an even mixture of grass and weeds, but the flowers of the weeds are so pretty.

My other rebellion involves my holly trees.  I used to hate them.  They were in bad shape.  They were planted way too close to each other (they came with the house) and in need of serious shaping.  I still haven’t properly shaped them, but I stopped trying to get rid of the natural underbrush that grows around them.  Turns out this provides a lovely home for birds.  Remember the movie Over the Hedge?  We’ve pushed the little woodland animals aside and then with our beautifully manicured lawns, with no underbrush, taken away any possible refuge for the critters.  I read that keeping an area like this in your yard provides a natural habitat for birds and is more effective than any bloody bird house you could stick out there.  The holly trees and the viney plants that grow around them provide shelter, a place to build their nests, protection, and food.  It’s lovely walking by it during the spring and summer-lovely little bird noises coming from it.  During the nesting period, it can be a little tricky for our dog.  Those mama birds interpret him as trouble if he walks too close and he has had a few birds dive bomb at him.  Fortunately, he’s gigantic and we walk away before the birds do anything serious.

So, if you are partaking in suburbia’s ritualistic insanity of undoing the good work God did in designing trees and leaves, go light this year.  You’ll have a greener lawn next year with less work.  Let your dog fertilize your lawn too.  That’s what we do.  For every season…

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Grace and daily life

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , on November 12, 2011| 2 Comments »

Grace.  Graciousness.  I ponder this concept daily.  I try to be graceful or gracious each day, but there are moments each day when I lose the grace.  It could be on my commute to work when someone cuts me off…actually whenever this happens I lose the ability to be graceful.  I don’t understand the people who change lanes every few minutes, especially when the flow of traffic is at a crawl.  Do they truly believe that jockeying for a spot in front of one more car in the other lane will get them to work any sooner?  And during these traffic jams, I despise when the motorcycle forgets that we’re supposed to treat them the same as any other full-sized vehicle and magically drive on the dotted lines.  Hello!  Sit in the traffic like the rest of us, you putz.  See, the grace disappears even while writing about it.

Once I lose my cool I then get angry with myself that I lost my grip on grace.  I am getting better at letting that go quickly, but I need to stop losing the grip all together.  I maintain grace pretty well at work (I think).  I feel as though I use up most of the reservoir of grace throughout the work day.  What I have left over at home always seems to take more effort.  I know grace is always attainable, so is it that I’m meaner at home or is that I feel as though the ones I love are able more easily to take me losing grace?  The irony is the ones I want to shower with grace and love and patience seem to get the leftovers.  This is not the way I want it.  I need to be more disciplined in the way I share grace at home, without simply spoiling the boys out of guilt.

The boys are having an awesome streak.  They’ve been very loving, very into sharing, and working their manners like maniacs.  They are in full “I want that for Christmas” mode.  Must avoid commercial television-would help me to keep my grace!  They want everything that isn’t pink.  Most items have lots of small pieces (further challenges to grace).  I can’t see Santa bringing many of those though since they haven’t gained consistency in taking care of the many small pieces they currently possess.

But the big gift they each want is a bike.  Hamilton can ride, with training wheels, but he doesn’t practice very much.  I’ve never even seen Harrison try to ride a bike.  The only good part about this is at least I didn’t miss while I was at work.  If Santa does bring bikes, I really will have to finally get new tires for the bike I bought at a yard sale three or four years ago.  It would be nice to go riding with my sons in the spring.  Hopefully, the cup of grace will be running over when they learn how to ride.

Sleep calls.  One of many ways to recharge the grace battery.

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Jersey Devil Hunt

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , on November 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

On Sunday, the boys and I had a blast hunting for the Jersey Devil.  We made a little film of the boys’ adventure.  This is the trailer to the film.  Hope you enjoy it!

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My lunch with Christopher Lloyd

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , , on November 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Don’t know where I would have lunch with Christopher Lloyd.  If I am recalling correctly, he is rather shy so I assume it would be a quiet out-of-the-way restaurant.  I’d probably have to adjust my schema to the fact that he is 73 since I have been watching him in shows and movies since the mid-70s.  Loved him in Taxi.  What does a yellow light mean?  Slow down.  Whaaatt dooeesss aaaa yeellloooowww liiiigghhhttt meeeaaannn?  Slow down.  Whhhhhhhaaaaaattttttt doooooeeeeesssss aaaaaaa yeeeelllllloooowwww liiiiiiiggghhhhhhttttt mmmeeeeaaaannnn?  Classic.  I would definitely thank him for Reverend Jim.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest would be an interesting discussion.  I love the movie.  It’s an amazing film, with an unbelievably talented cast.  The acting, the story, the filming was brilliant.  The filming was so very stark and the characters were not caricatures which was a step forward for a film dealing with mental illness.  Still, my frustration would be that the film still did put folks with mental illness in a crappy light and set back acceptance within society in some ways.  ECT is a very valid form of treatment but after the film the concept was looked at as obscene and cruel.  It is still used today (Carrie Fisher gets it about once a month, so she says).  Lobotomies by the 1960s had fallen out of vogue as more research showed that lobotomies took away more from a patient than necessary and as more and more medicines were available that gave superior results.  Yes, they were still using lobotomies as treatments in the early 60s, but by the time the book was made into a film, over a decade had passed and they were nearly obsolete as a standard treatment.  I don’t know how many people realized that in that decade treatments had changed dramatically.  The film perpetuated an antiquated procedure.  Nevertheless, the film is a landmark piece of American film history and Mr. Lloyd was splendid in it.  He had a child-like innocence in his character which is quite realistic, sort of an arrested development.  He showed the muted energy of one heavily medicated.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was another film that affected the future of films.  No it wasn’t the first human-cartoon pairing (hello, remember Mary Poppins? Song of the South?) but it revolutionized it.  Christopher Lloyd is one character actor that can play the most trustworthy character (Doc) and also a great villain, as in Roger Rabbit.  Judge Doom is a wonderfully cartoonish meany.

But let’s face it.  The majority of the conversation would center around Back to the Future.  I watched all three today, twice, thanks to HBO.  Lloyd does some amazingly nuanced performances in these films.  The continuity of character is unbelievable.  He has to play the same character in three different centuries, with different amounts of knowledge about his time machine and about the world.  He uses his voice so brilliantly for this character, as he did with Reverend Jim.  The cast as a whole is again amazing, but it’s the chemistry between Marty and Doc that make the movies.  The mentor/friendship/father&son relationship would make great fodder for a college course or dissertation and I’m sure someone has already done that.  I suppose another reason why I like the character of Doc is that he is a geek and shows it.  While I’m a geek of a different color, all geeks can connect on some level.  I suppose it’s the pure joy he has at various moments in the movie, the free laugh of joy he has several times when things work out the right way.

The other aspect that the two characters share is both are outcasts.  Marty and Doc just don’t quite fit the standard mold.  These films were released while I was in high school and then college.  I was not in the “in-crowd” (I’m still not, and about twenty years ago I got comfortable with that concept).  These two outcast characters were so easy to connect with for me.  I also love to look for errors in continuity in films and these three presented a lovely challenge.  I don’t recall any major issues, though I think there was a question at one point in time that there are one too many DeLoreans at some point, though while watching today I couldn’t remember it.  Plus the movies have some wonderful tongue-in-cheek moments, a diverse use of vocabulary and general playfulness with language, and a fun historical angle.

Finally, I think well after dessert, I’d get to Clue.  If you haven’t seen it, stop reading and go watch it.  It is reminiscent of Murder by Death (in fact, the two films share Eileen Brennan in their casts) and is freaking hysterical.  Lloyd as Professor Plum is perfectly cast.  The film is so wonderfully quotable.  “Wait a minute, so who did I kill?…  My butler…  Oh, shucks.”  “Why has the car stopped?…  It’s frightened.”  “Nevermind about the key, unlock the door.”  (This last one is not one of Professor Plum’s lines, but it must be included.)  “Even if you were right, that would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one.”

You could easily spend the day watching Christopher Lloyd movies in your pajamas, as I did today.  I may in fact break out my Clue dvd after the trilogy finishes again.  I will then feel the need to watch Murder by Death.  Luckily, we get that extra hour at 2:00am.

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Grimm fiction and fact

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on November 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I really am enjoying Grimm.  I like the use of the fairy tales and acknowledging that the stories were, in fact, grim in their original incarnations.  The fantastical stories have always been ones I’ve enjoyed.  It would be great if the show inspires folks to read the stories again and revives fairy tales in the world of literature.  I am optimistic that the actors will start to relax a bit and settle into their characters.  They took care of the necessary exposition within the first two episodes, I hope.  Now just keep getting deeper into the legends, the rules, and how the blond chick is involved.  A little bit of X-Files conspiracy action is slowly being built into the series…I hope.

Not changing the channel quickly enough, I then got sucked into another grim show.  Dateline was covering the Michael Jackson trial.  I wasn’t there, I didn’t know the man, but the doc seems like he was involved.  It’s tacky, really tacky, to continually change so many parts of the story when the only person who could truly and accurately counter the doctor’s version is dead.  That’s grim.  Why do people feel so compelled to lie?  In the case of Jackson’s trial, it’s a big deal to be dishonest.  But there is dishonesty in so many parts of this world.  Students lie to teachers, children lie to parents, (and sometimes parents to children) but usually these lies are small lies that won’t impact anything in a large way.  So then why not tell the truth and deal with the consequences (because I can’t let go of Santa yet!)?  I know why the doctor doesn’t want to necessarily tell the truth-he could go to prison.  But why tell the little ones?

Like when I asked my sons who played Tic-Tac-Toe on the wall going up the stairs the answer was “not me, not me.”  Then who did, a ghost?  I know my mother-in-law wouldn’t write on my walls and that’s the only ghost I know of in my house.  Why do they stick with the lie?  But the writing is on the wall-it doesn’t particularly matter that neither one owned up to it, they both will have to work at getting the writing off the wall.  Not as grim as the show or the trial, but still…

Speaking of grim, the fun plans for tomorrow include hunting down the Jersey Devil.  My oldest son is psyched and really hopes we find him.  My youngest son wants nothing to do with it and claimed to have a stomach ache this evening laying the groundwork to cancel the hunt.  It is tricky to satisfy both boys’ hopes for tomorrow.  “Yes, we’ll probably find the Jersey Devil…well, maybe we’ll find some evidence and just enjoy a nice walk in the woods”.  I just hope the “evidence” we find doesn’t include any carcasses.  The older one has already collected bird bones from the neighborhood that he attributed to JD.  Yes, I made him wash his hands for two or three hours.

Ah, boys.  It can be grim.

 

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