I've already watched "The Beaver" for you

It is not the worst film ever made. 

It is not even the worst film Jodie Foster has ever made.
Or the worst film Jodie and Mel have made together.

It is pretty gawd-awful.  Here's why.

The plot of The Beaver involves a sad little American family headed by a depressed father/husband who begins to express himself through a hand puppet. It is a suicide and madness film, rated PG-13.  Don't let that fool you.

So many things to disclose before we move on from here.
1. Jodie is the goddess.  Don't ask to see my collection, because it will frighten you, and then the FBI will call.
2. Puppets will indeed steal your soul.
3. A band of co-workers (including me) spent a few weeks using puppets of our bare hands to express all the negative feedback we couldn't deliver ourselves, rather like Seinfeld and friends doing the belly button voice.  We did not paint faces on our hands or anything; we just pointed them at people's faces and said 
angrily (but in American accents) "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard!"  
4. I acknowledge depression as a real and crippling disorder that drives people to desperate measures

So I am not dismissing the film on its premise alone.  Even if I did reject the premise, I acknowledge that you can make very good films out of completely implausible premises. But I do buy this premise, and have seen it filmed well before.  Magic, of course, did this very well.  Donny Darko will make you throw out every childhood stuffed animal you ever had. I might suggest... oh, Castway.    Fight Club.

If you watch this on DVD, you will first sit through a strange PSA from imalive-dot-org about a depressed whale (think the Zoloft guy, swimming) and an encouraging  mustachioed moon who lets the little whale know "you don't have to swim alone."  It is made of textile art, which is itself haunted -- textile art is  the very 
atoms of puppets sprung to life as other puppets -- and features some Triplets of Belleville music that is itself disorienting.  This brings me to my first point:

Jodie Foster dreams in French.
I have no proof of that.  But now it is a sentence indexed on the Internet.  Jodie is fluent in French and schooled on the French New Wave (English for "DO something already!")  Some films should be in French.  The opening of this film, with the sound off, is very artsy fartsy and does draw you in.  It is a shame you cannot watch it in French.  Only Spanish, and this is decidedly not a Spanish film.  It struggles to find its tone, and never really does.  Most of the broader comedy was cut out, and you'll be glad for it, because it wasn’t funny.

Jodie was trying for "wry," I assume because she uses the word 3 times in the first 10 minutes of commentary.  I assume she meant definition 1 "Dryly humorous, often with a touch of irony" and not definition 4 "Being at variance with what is right, proper, or suitable; perverse." 

The Michael Caine voiceover that opens the film is not Michael Caine, as you will soon learn, but having the Beaver speak as Michael Caine is so distracting that you can never fully suspend your disbelief.  I was already 5 minutes in recasting the Beaver as, say, William Shatner, or Linda Hunt.  Damn...it should have been Linda Hunt.

The timeframe of this story is odd -- way too much happens in such a short period of time.
The first day, Jodie decides Mel has to leave.  Now, if you are going to be mentally ill in America... in the movies... it helps to  be self-employed, or some variation of self-employed (See also United States of Tara) Jodie has a work-at-home set up a roller coaster designer for a Japanese firm. 

That's what I said.
Mind the brick that is falling on your head.

Mel piles a senseless pile of stuff into his trunk and drives off to a hotel -- not a nice hotel, because he doesn't deserve nice things, though he has some kind of 5000 sqf home for 2 children 10 years apart.  We do not know what has depressed Mel so much, and I don't think we really need to.  Later there are a couple of lines 
about his father's suicide, which are not delivered by a mallet and therefore refreshing.  I rather like the idea that we just meet him this way, as he is.  In fact, I would have removed the opening V.O. but I won't rewrite this whole film.

There is a good scene in the hotel room, Nicolas Cage style.  This is sad-suicide Mel -- tragedy mask to Lethal Weapon's zany-suicide Mel -- and he is acting hard.  But already I don't like this guy Walter Black (MALLET) and I barely know him.  After a self-inflicted mishap in the hotel (or 2, or 3) he wakes up eye to eye with The Beaver, and decides it’s time to come home.  He shows up back at the house with a little card claiming the Beaver is a kind of talking cure and he is ready to move back  in.

Only the older son calls Bullshit -- because it is the next day!  The very next day!

But Jodie takes him in, because it seems to make her younger son happy.  This is 9 year old Riley Thomas Stewart, playing a mentally deficient 7 somewhere between Cindy Brady and that weird kid in Shane.  He looks like all of the Lawrences, but may be familiar to you as young Barney in flashback episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

The introduction of The Beaver shifts the film into a "no one can see me or hear me" trope as the younger son acknowledges The Beaver as a real member of the family (notice how Mel's lips never NOT move).  Now that Mel has kicked x years of clinical depression in 1 evening, he can go back to work as (brace) the president of the family toy company.  Of course he has to own the company, or his worklife is impossible and now we are just making Barfly.  The Mechanic.  Monster's Ball.  (do NOT watch that as a triple feature without supervision)  The Beaver makes a speech to the toy team (getting ready for the Big Toy Fair) that reminds me, as I am often reminded, of the non-profit  executive who returned from his leave of absence to say to the Board, "My electroshock therapy has left me with some memory loss.  So it will be helpful if we could go around the table and introduce ourselves."

In his speech The Beaver offers a golden parachute to anyone who has no faith in him after 2 weeks as CEO.  Because 2 weeks is all it takes to turn the failing company around, launch Toy Fair, and convince your workforce they work for a Beaver Puppet.

The Beaver's/Mel's rise to cult stardom might be completely ridiculous if we hadn't just made Tiger Blood t-shirts, or pretended that we all really liked Amy Winehouse and what a shame.  Because that is such freshly trod ground, I could almost accept the idea that Walter/Beaver would get on the Today Show and win over the people.
  
The film wants to become a "message movie" 1 hour into a 90 minute piece.  Music swells in the background 
to tell us to FEEL that he is saying something deep, just like all the other characters we are supposed to believe are watching The Today Show.  I defy a viewer to repeat the big speech, even immediately after the scene shifts.   So I wrote it down for you. (Remember to read in your Michael Caine accent)

"Sometimes, Matt, we reach a point where in order to go on, we have to wipe the slate clean.  We start to see ourselves as a box that we’re trapped inside, and no matter how we try and escape – self-help, therapy, drugs – we  just sink further and further down.  And the only way to truly break out of the box is just to get rid of it altogether.  I mean, you built it in the first place.  If the people around you are breaking your spirit, who needs  ‘em?  Your wife, who pretends to love you.  Your son, who can’t stand you.  I mean, put ‘em out of their misery.  Starting over isn’t crazy.  Crazy is being miserable, and walking around half asleep.  Numb.  Day after day after day.
“Crazy is pretending to be happy, pretending that the way things are is the way they have to be for the rest of your bleeding life.  All the potential, hope, all that joy, feeling, all that passion for life is sucked out of you.  No, reach out, grab a hold of it, snatch it back from that blood-sucking rabble."

Jodie watches from the kitchen with her Somersby brow... "you are not my huuuuzzzband..."
Walter leaves the studio and is immediately embraced by the crowd outside.

And all I am thinking is, "Doesn't his shoulder hurt from holding that puppet up?  I can barely brush my hair some mornings." 

Walter's big idea for the Toy Fair is so ridiculous you will throw a real throw pillow.  Why wouldn't his idea be... a Beaver puppet?  It is just a lazy execution of an already stupid idea.  Cue Tom Hanks, "Why does the robot turn into a building?  What good is that?"

Why does he even have this puppet?  It was in his box of stuff from the trunk of the car.  Presumably, wouldn't the family know the lore about this puppet? Is it a Rosebud moment waiting to happen? Nope.  We just have to buy that a Toy Maker has Toys, and stop asking questions and watch the movie.

I have not even mentioned the B-plot.  Oh, there is a B plot, also of a Cyrano theme, involving the older son and a terribly wasted Oscar-nominated Jennifer Lawrence (the Winter's Bone girl) playing a girl the script decides will be like this.  The "this" is a valedictorian who hires the older son Porter (MALLET) to write her 
graduation speech because she can't express herself and it is important to her Mom.  (sins of the parents. etc...) She says to Porter she needs him "inside my head." 

Remember this sentence.  In about 20 minutes she will scream "You don't know me" when he does get in there.

I don't really want to spend time on the B-plot.  It is another movie.  It is an afterschool special.

The Beaver makes Walter popular at home too.  He fixes sinks.  He plays with the boy.  He makes crazy-man sex with Jodie, whom we never believe as a waif-wife with no ability to stand up for herself or her family.  Though pocket-sized Jodie has been raped or nearly raped in at least 8 films by my count, Frowsy Housewife is not her color.  When she finds out that The Beaver is not medically-sanctioned (which only she believed) she announces that she has "rented a house."

"I've rented a house."  Not an apartment.  Not "I'm going to live with my sister."  Not, "why don't you take the basement until you can find something," like the rest of us might have to.  In The Movies, everyone has enough money to change their situation.  This isn’t about a guy from the loading dock and his wife who works at Town Hall.  You can rent an entire second house and move away.

This set-up now leaves Walter and the Beav alone in the house, and things take a bizarre horror turn -- I'll reference Magic again, and Psycho.  OOOh... Black Swan....Unfortunately, we’ve never believed the Beaver is really in charge, so when he takes over the danger doesn't feel particularly real.

Meanwhile, over in the B plot, Jennifer Lawrence's character changes tack again, and who cares.  It's just a break from the main storyline: 2 wooden teenagers in trouble for Straight A student bad-assness.  Porter does end up writing her speech, but also seems moved by it on graduation day, as if he has never heard it before.  If this were a paper for David Pesto's auteur theory I could give you 2 paragraphs about surrogate voices and alter egos or some such, but we're all friends here.  

I have tried to suggest films you could watch instead of this one, for a more cathartic experience and some much better acting.
For alcohol category, I'll add Leaving Las Vegas, When a Man Loves a Woman
For sad marriages without so much alcohol, wallow in Blue Valentine or The Bedroom

Things to enjoy in The Beaver:
Terry Gross cameo.

Yep, that's it.  Nothin' else.

Dream a little dream of mii

 

You never really see yourself until you see yourself in a friend’s Wii Plaza

You never really see your friends until you watch them make your Mii (which really ought to be your Yuu).  But let’s get past it.

In a short span of time, I got to witness this in 2 very different households, and was surprised to discover how similar this process could be in both – and how identically creepy it made me feel.

I should add that in one of these households, I was being re-added, after having been removed.  re… MOVED.  This is like coming off the Christmas card list, surely, since you don’t need to actually be playing for your Mii to show up driving the speed boat or cheering on the beach Frisbee. (registered trademark of the Wham-o company).  You are part of the action!  So be removed from the Wii plaza is to no longer c-o-u-n-t.  It might have hurt my feelings if I had known it was going on.

One’s plaza can also include “celebrity Miis,” representations of stars, sports figures, fictional characters with whom your Mii can partner or compete.  People with a lot of Internet time post instructions for how to make them.  They are surprisingly accurate, considering the limited number of variables you have at your control. 

(Jodii)

Mii creation requires the use of the remote, and any home has a remote holder and a not-the-remote holder.  But just like when watching TV, the not-the-remote holder is much more vocal about their wishes than the one who holds it.  (They would have to be.)  Imagine this as Vermeer’s wife:  “Less BLUE!  And hurry up.”  They will shout instructions that are mostly unheeded by the portraitist.  You will just sit there and watch your closest friends argue over your caricature.

We have covered in this space before how you can put glasses on any cartoon and make it look like me.  Where it goes from there depends on your portraitist.  But I can tell you based on my 2 Mii-sessions in a week, that this is what you can expect:

A lot of back-and-forth staring at you.  When they glance back at you, you will do a goofy smile.  Or you will jut your chin out as if it makes you somehow more 3-D.

Discussion of your eye-color.  You will discover that your friends do not know what color your eyes are, and neither do you (even the 2nd time you are asked).  In any case, Wii only has a few options, like Mendel’s chart.

Height is subjective.  Miis are essentially bobble-head dolls.  You would have to make one the size of the TV screen for the head to make sense.  People seem to like their plaza in a pleasing symmetrical array, so expect to be unrealistically the same size as other people you know – in this digital Noah’s Ark, Tom Cruise finally gets to stand tall beside Nicole Kidman.  

Your hands are little balls.  That’s not your hosts’ fault.  It’s just weird.

Body “morphia” is also in the hands of the designer.  They will not look at you as they make this choice, so you can let out your breath.

Facial hair is funny.  They will put some on you even though you are a girl. 

“whatever.”  They will ask what color you want to wear.  They all look like Up with People costumes.  Say any color.  The artist will indulge your choice for a second, say “whatever” and choose something else.

You will still suck at Wii.

Fact finding mission

With all the journalists out of work, it’s becoming harder and harder to find the facts behind the “news” stories.  There is a headline, a provocative statement, and 7 minutes of punditry, but no one asks the things I want to know.  So here are a few things I have tried to unearth, then I am going back to not listening to the news or the radio because frankly I know less when it’s over than if I never heard it.

1. What was that poll question?

According to the Pew’s own site, it was:

“Do you happen to know what Barak Obama’s religion is? Is he Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, or something else?”  Most people answered that they did not know.  The Pew has asked this question 4 times in the past 2 years, and it is true that most people have said Christian (between 47-51%) until this year, when most people said they did not know.  “I don’t know” was the 2nd largest group until this year.  Now it is #1 and Christian is number 2.  The Muslim answer is up 7 points, still under 20% for 4 years running.  3003 people were polled.  540 answered that he is Muslim.

2.  Where is the proposed Islamic cultural center site?

45–51 Park Place, Manhattan.  1 and 2 WTC were off Vesey Street.  .2 mi away. 

3. Who from Target gave money to whom?

This wasn’t easy to pin down, since even Target’s site won’t give you a simple answer.  They proudly announce that they donate $3M a week to community causes, so some of that is going to get away from you.  I had to go to the 2009 Annual Report to see where $150,000 to MN Forward.  It had fruit on the cover.  Not kidding.  It did not have a list of everyone it gave money to, or how much, or its definition of “dependent” for employee benefits, so keep looking. I did find Robert Ulrich’s personal donations (Chair and CEO).  I can also tell you that Rupert Murdoch gave about a million to the GOP – not that we needed that to prove NewsCorp was right wing.

But that led me into Newsmeat, where I intend to wander for a few hours exploring everyone’s (and I mean everyone’s) financial activism.  Call me for breakfast.

Billie

Yesterday we talked about Stephanie's impressive movie mind and collection of Golden Hollywood titles.  I felt like Belle in the library (though I do own nearly all of the Jodie collection on VHS, Stephanie actually keeps her VCR in service, which enabled us to watch Billie.)

She's doing some sort of frug, I think, or the Charlie Brown dance.

You may be familiar with this film; I had never heard of it.  Let me make that clear;  I had never heard of it -- I, who hours before, had named Broadway Melody as an Oscar winner.  I, who had for days enjoyed a spontaneous game we had invented where one turned into Mrs Blandings without notice -- preferably when dealing with waitstaff  "I'd like the green lettuce, but not a regular 'leafy' green, more like a foam green.  Have the chef drive to the Safeway on West Market and take the Specials sign down from above the avacadoes.  It's a darker green than that."  I, who can invoke Patty Duke for an unlimited number of reference points (sudden clarity?  spell W-A-T-E-R!  Need to deny something?  Blame your identical cousin.  Defending your boys?  Quote Neely O'Hara, "Ted Casablanca is NOT a fag... and I'm the dame who can prove it."  Fed up with it all?  Throw the turkey into the alley.)

What were we talking about?
so Billie... never heard of it.  God bless our friends who will remedy these cultural flaws.

1965.
Patty (call me Anna) is about 19, playing 15, in a Lance Kerwin hairdo and capri pants.  She's a star athlete all right, but she's all girl.  She'll sing about it.  Twice.

Jim Backus and Jane Greer are her parents (they're tearing her apaaaart!).  The rest of the cast - only Dick Sargeant, Ted Bessell, Richard Deacon, Billy DeWolfe, Charles Lane, and WAIT A MINUTE Donna McKechnie as the lead dancer (and asst choreographer).  

Billie is recruited by a forward thinking coach who just wants to win, but her dad is running for Mayor on an "old-fashioned values" platform.  That is not the film's central conflict.  Dad gives into that pretty easily after Billie explains that the pursuit of happiness is her constitutional right.  This seems to sway him, even though that is from the Declaration, not the Bill of Rights.  The central conflict is Billie's weak boyfriend, who is bugged by the way Billie helps the other guys work out by teaching them to hear a groovy 60s beat in their heads and run to that.  what a gas.

Amazon recommends that people often buy Billie with The Trouble with Angels."  I think that tells you everything you need to know.

Billie Trailer here. 

YouTube has disabled the embedded link.

Linda Purl

#23 in an occasional series of repressed 70's memories that turn out to be true.

This season, television's once reigning queen returned to prime time as Pam Beasley's mother on NBC's The Office -- breathtakingly lovely, still dewy, fondly staring into Michael Scott's eyes with a look she never gave The Fonz.

I gasped.  For a second I thought it was actually Diane Lane.  But then Miss Purl had that effect on us even then.  She was our affordable Diane Lane, our family-friendly Linda Blair.  In the way that Helen Hunt stepped in to work Jodie Foster couldn't take, Linda managed to appear in an average of 3 movies, TV shows, or TV movies a year until the last gasps of The Seventies, before we started growing our hair up instead of down.

One needs to appreciate that TV had stars in the 70s.  To be a Big Name, you had to be able to do period drama (Young Pioneers), sit-dramedy (Happy Days), charm on talk shows, sing on variety shows, dazzle on Circus of the Stars.  The occasional Afterschool Special (or something that looked like one, like Having Babies or Black market Baby) wouldn't hurt either.

Linda's introduction to Happy Days was an attempt to get The Fonz into manhood as the girlfriend we thought might stick... if we had still cared about the show after 10 seasons.  And lord knows we didn't.  The line up that year, like Fonz, had hung around too long at the malt shoppe, and the younger siblings could not fill their origins' shoes: Little House New Beginning, Father Murphy, Joanie Loves Chachi, Archie Buncker's Place, Gloria (someone must have lost that in a bet), Benson, The New Odd Couple... oh make it stop.  Square Pegs was on the scene Monday nights and something new was in the air.

But Happy Days is hardly a repressed memory.  More of a sheepish embarrassment, really, but let's not pretend we didn't fall hard for that show.  The Linda Purl experience that marked me much deeper is 1974's (turn the lights on right now if you are reading in the dark)

Bad Ronald.

Shout out to Scott Jacoby while we're at it, who also used to be in the Made for TV stable, drunk driving or on angel dust.  But let's also remember he was the  good guy opposite Jodie's Rynn in Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane.

Plot summary from IMDB:

"Scott Jacoby, a nerdy high school youth, accidently kills a neighbor's young daughter. Panicking mother, Kim Hunter, fears the police will not believe that it was an accident. She moves her son into a bathroom that she turned into a secret hiding place. After her death, a new family moves in. In the mean time, Ronald has gotten lost in a fantasy world created in his own head from being hidden away for so long."

Oh, the call is coming from inside the house, all right....

Linda has a pivotal role, but is not in it for very long (spoiler hint); it is actually Lisa Eilbacher's picture (remember her?  Sugar Britches)  One can not accuse Ronald of going on a "spree" -- he's just clumsy.  And...unlucky.  But it's a pretty high death count for a Sunday night, Prince Norbert.

Bad Ronald was recently re-released, though not yet available on Netflix.  Let this be your call to action.

Junior High School

#22 in an occasional series of repressed 70's memories that turn out to be true.


I don't usually post two 70s entries so close to each other. I like you to think I am more well-rounded than this. After all, the President just won the Nobel Prize, the next door neighbors have moved out, and the news down the Mill is outragous as always. But I went looking for a beloved treasure whose songs I once knew by heart.


The only lines I can remember right now are
This is called a band saw/The blade can slice a tree
Be careful when you use it/Or you'll be an amputee.


Junior High School, the 1978 musical short that would have been lost forever if the ingenue had not grown up to be Paula Abdul. In its day, this bizarro and painfully accurate portrayal of Junior High (I myself was 14 and ghastly) was on The Movie Channel whenever Same Time Next Year was not. I knew them both by heart.


Cue theme music.
Tonight the DrawingIn Room does what it does best. Or at least most often:
Trolls the net for things you would rather not spend time on.
 
The main lesson of this particular department on this particular blog is that life is not harder for kids these days and the world is not at all a meaner place. Today's kids would not last one week on the banana-seat mean streets of our day. We are not better people than they will be because of it. I am just saying...
That they are pansies.
 
The plot: (from the film's facebook fan page)


Jerry (P. David Ebersole) wants to ask Lori (Karen Capelle) to Sherri's (Paula Abdul) party but she seems to be going with Bill AND Bob. Fearing he might end up with the dreaded Karen, Jerry decides to take Paul's advice and just ask her. Easier said than done, especially with the evil nerd Keith terrorizing the halls.


You may also remember this plot from your sad high-water slacks life.

The party, though hosted by Sherri, is actually at Julie's house because her folks are out of town. Folks were always out of town. Sixties parents were throwing cocktail bashes and progressive gin parties in their own homes, but seventies parents were god knows where.




You know Paula plays the popular girl because of her exceptional curling iron proficiency.
 
 Not long after Alan Parker made that freakshow Bugsy Malone, in which child actors were dubbed with adult voices (worst Jodie Foster film ever? Not if you have seen Svengali)


Sorry, I distracted you with that. That was unfair. About Junior High School...


Not long after Bugsy Malone, director Michael Nankin shot Junior High School using real jr high kids, some with more talent than others, but most with very little at all.
Roger Ebert tells how it got made.


This is Michael Nankin's website. There is nothing on it.   literally.
Michael Nankin... Nan--kin... stop doing your stagey head scratching and snap your fingers, HARD.  He's the Battlestar Galactica Guy. Here is an interview with him by a guy who should help him with his website.


Nankin was a young film student, collaborating with writers David Wechter, Helyn Spears, and Steve Jacobson (who according to IMDB did nothing else with himself) who created Junior High. Helyn went on to become an editor and professional name-changer.   But she has an Emmy and I don't.


In 37 minutes, it packs in production numbers, multiple plotlines, and a surprising lot of jockstrap and titty talk.  We were jaded beyond our years.  See also Foxes.
 
Notice that the gym teacher is named Miss van Dyke.


You can watch the whole film on You Tube, but only in You Tube style chunks. Picklepuss' channel seems to have all of them. 

Interesting side note: The filmmakers received the Golden Knight award in 1978 for their achievement. This is an amateur film award (an award for amateur film; I am sure the award itself is professional. Or professionally ripped off from the Academy award) sponsored by the Malta Cine Circle.


Malta?   hunh.
I am unable to uncover how this little film by some 2nd year film studentds made its way to Malta.
 
Other things that are Maltese.

I am going to admit that any snicker that may have elicited was not worth the effort it took to make that image. And it was off-message anyway.

Viewmaster

#12 in an occasional series of repressed 70's memories that turn out to be true.



When I think cutting edge educational toys, I think Henry Fonda!

It's a toy so boring even Peter Brady and Jodie Foster can't give it oomph. Ok, I get the joke - kids think it's educational; grown-ups think it's fun! Damn, that's .............yawn.

How brown were the 70s? Seriously.

You know you loved your Viewmaster; don't act all hipper-than-thou. My fave Viewmaster reels. I really would watch them over and over.

Barbie goes to the beach - I can not explain why Barbie does not qualify as a creepy puppet. Possibly because she is so FABULOUS. And I am a big old queen.

The White House - Greatest of All Sisters and I had a joke commentary for this reel. It involved Nixon stumbling into rooms and lighting fireplaces. [ a tooth-sucking sound works well here to fill the beat. ] We thought we were hilarious.

South Viet Nam - Sometime later we will discuss how Viet Nam used to be 2 words. This reel should be in my mother's attic somewhere, possibly distintegrated. Like its namesake.

Oh, to get my hands on the little propoganda book that came with it.
Slide # 15 is "Green Beret medic treats boy at Tra Bong Village." I promise you I am not making that up.

Please also enjoy "Traditional Funeral procession" and "The 17th Parallel Bridge."

Twenty-one stereo pictures! Perhaps now you can understand a generation that went mad for Pong.

Doesn't that just figure

It has been unbelievably cold, grey, windy, rainy all month. Naturally this would happen when I left town. It is 100 degrees in Texas right now, and I don't think the sun came up yet. I said, "I promise not to complain that it's hot." He said, "Well we're already complaining."

I thought I would eventually get myself caught up to the actual calendar on this blog, but like most of my tasks, there are more of them than time in the day, so I am just going to fill them in here and start fresh when I get back. Also what I did with my work email last night.

I once worked with a procurement guy who confessed that once a year he just swept everything off his desk into the trash. He might-a been funnin' with me.

Notice how they have to remind us all the time it is cooler on the Cape. Because God-forbid we broadcast any weather outside of 128.

So here's what was on my list to Draw In for you, but I will just have to direct you to it and rant instead.

The Baroness sent a great story about washboards, and how the last washboard company in America has rediscovered its relevance by supplying washboards to troops in Iraq. They haven't done so well since the Big One. (Dr A and I argue over whether WWII is the Big One. But I distinguish between it and the Great One. Not Jackie Gleason. What were we talking about?) It seems they are just right for field clean-up, and probably will do for up-armoring if you went to war with the equipment you had.

I like little Americana stories like this, like the VT lumber company that makes Scrabble tiles. Or it did until it closed about 10 years ago. If you like those stories, re-visit our salute to pink flamingos and Table Top pies. And buy one, would you?

There was a story about how I am the Susan Lucci of the Audio Information Awards, having been nominated 6 years running without anything to show for it. It featured this photo, and (I sort of hoped) had a different outcome this year. It didn't.

Oh but it is Radio Reading Day at the State House, so that should either be great exposure... or a disorganized mess. I'll play nicely either way.

Speaking of the State House for a minute, let's talk about Ted Kennedy, because I want you outlanders to know that the "gracious outpouring of love" for the Senator you're reading about is both exaggerated and sort of...hypocritically true. Because there is some Teddy Bear fencing (good pun) going on for sure, but in the day-to-day, most New Englanders -- Bostonians especially -- really can't stand Ted Kennedy.

He is referred to as (talk out of the side of your mouth very low) "Kennedy." Sometimes Bleepin' Kennedy. never Senator Kennedy. And we find him and Victoria quite annoying. Joan - very annoying. Remember when she passed out on Marlborough St? Know who lives on Marlborough St? So why do we keep re-electing him? Better smile when you say that, South Carolina.

We loved our Rose. What a passel of mess she raised up, huh? And Caroline we love, because seriously... can a person take much more? John Jr was a hottie of course, and we liked him for that. What a teddy bear fence that was.

Games to play with your Kennedy coverage. One point each for use of the word

- lion or lionized

- stalwart

- liberal (extra points if capitalized)

- Chappaquiddik

By the way, Mary Jo would be 68 this July.

And Wikipedia has already been updated with the brain tumor story.

Other current news we must discuss is the alleged splitting of Jodie and Cydney, which was reported by The Enquirer, by the way, and picked up by every online news outlet as a real lead. I suspect the Enquirer is hoping that by denying the story, they acknowledge their relationship, in a "Have you stopped beating your wife" kind of way. If 2 children doesn't acknowledge a relationship, I don't know what would. But this was the best answer ever.

In parting, let me say to Karen both "thanks" and "thanks" (with rolled eyes) for getting me back on Grey's Anatomy for this season. I was really fine to let that go, but I realize what was dragging my mood was being unable to channel Dr. Bailey through my work day. I am so much better now.


I will see YOU all later.

Things to do in the dentist chair

1. Prove your legs are equal in length.

2. Imagine your nemesis instead of you. Imagine yourself instead of the hygenist.

3. Explore the various pressure points you can find on your own hand.

4. Shoot the video of the song playing through the speakers. Feature yourself.

5. Choreograph an ice skating routine to it.

6. Imagine trying to do your job by looking at it upside-down in a mirror.

7. Kegel.

8. Name all the toothpastes you can think of. Wonder why America needs so damn many brands of toothpaste.

9. Go to your happy place.

10. Compare to your mammogram.

Gratutitous Jodie Foster link.

Hey Kids, here's a game you can play....

....while watching the ABC Afterschool Specials, deliciously packed in DVD by year.

Let me caution you, these are so much worse than you remember, and appear to have been written by the 5th grade class of Our lady of No Life Experience.

And Yet... and yet so much better.

Most of the people I know these days are parents, and eventually we get around to a "but it's different now" kind of conversation. Usually when I am asking why they can't just leave their preteens in a drawer and come out with me.

And perhaps it is, if different means no 10 year old knows how to make a pot roast. Recently I said, to one of those moms, "What I remember is that you threw a baby shower for one of your 8th grade friends, we knew by name everyone who smoked pot, the high school boys had their own 'frat house' in the woods, where we heard all the details of what went on out there, and there were no parents around." (and slurpees were a dime, rantrant)

Take a look at your afterschool specials -- watch them with your shrink -- and play a game I call "Let's Ride Bikes." I call it that because we didn't call it a play date and we organized it ourselves. And if they brought us to an awkward place where we had to say (Nancy McKeon stutter style), "G-g-osh, you guys, I don't feel right about that," we had the AfterSchool Special behind us.

Like a little Lifetime network for your teen.

Be the first to call out......

1 - a shot or a scene that you would never see on a kids' show today or in anything geared toward family viewing. I like this one as an example:

If you are playing Let's Ride Bikes Drunk, drink once for the close-up of the girls lighting these candles, the fact that they are holding a seance, the clear lack of smoke detectors in the house, and this entire conversation, which is about putting a hex on the father's new wife to make her disappear.

2 - the bootstraps/it's tough-out-there moral. Later in this episode, Dana Hill (Fallen Angel!) goes crazy-goth and cute girl above has to friend-divorce her. The outcome of this story is, (honestly) that if your friends are wierd, you should ditch them and they should get counseling. And that is probably better advice than your parents should adopt them (this means you Bradys, Seavers, and Cosbys).

3 - hey, that's ______! This is the best part of watching Afterschool Specials, of course. But it is not fair to spot the leads as future stars (Rob Lowe never prettier), but for the walk-bys: Felicity Huffman, Cynthia Nixon, Lance Kerwin.

4 -the 70s technology - AT&T desk phone, "selectric" typewriter, TV remotes the size of a brick, and kids cooking dinner.

5 - Count the parents. Drink once for every time one puts their work first and twice when a kid explains it to another kid.

6 - Really bad writing. You can make bingo cards for this.

"let me get this straight."

"I already know about you, Carrie Bender. You just moved here from Pasadena, you have a dog named Luttiebell, and your brother died last year of leukemia."

"I know, I know..." "Ok, Ok!" "All right, all right."

"It's not exactly the most _____ in the world."

7 - Even worse acting. To be fair, it is amateurish acting enhanced by bad writing and embarrassed further by bad directing. because our Jodie is still the best thing going on in every stinko thing she's in, Rob Lowe has a complete Method Acting breakdown as a schoolboy father, and Lance Kerwin has clearly been told to play to the balcony. And when is James at 15 going to be on DVD?

That ain't him. we all looked like that.

Oscar Minus One

I know how important it is to the Readership to get a full day-after coverage of this night of nights. So you are receiving my balcony commentary just in time for your morning coffee.

This is the first year that I have not seen all of the nominated pictures since 1984 when I failed to line up for Passage to India, and probably for the same reason I didn't see Babel or Letters from
Iwo Jima.

I don't haaave all day.
(goose your neck when you say this)

Already I have to retract this statement, because I never saw the 2nd or 3rd Lord of the Rings pictures either because, even more than the above statement... I don't give a damn about any of those people.

8:05pm - Lisa Ling just said "leaping out of luxurious limos." So I
shot her.

I have not missed an Oscar ceremony in about 35 years.
1973 is not the year I discovered my love for the movies, but it is the year I discovered grown-up movies, and saw a lot of them. The Sting, American Graffitti, Paper Moon. The Day of the Dolphin. Jesus Christ Superstar. Poseidon Adventure.
Also Bednobs and Broomsticks, Charlotte's Web and Tom Sawyer (oh Jodie! Jodie!)

I remember the Godfather winning the year before, but April 4, 1974 was the first night I had a stake in the game. I wanted American Graffitti, but it was The Sting.

I love it all. I love it when it's bad; I love it when it's good.
I cry through the acceptance speeches; I announce flatly "stupid" to the screen when the dopey production numbers are done.

The way to approach the Oscars is like you might approach any industry awards ceremony you happen to be invited to. Just enjoy the view. I suppose it also helps to really respect the industry too.

Maybe you don't. Maybe you like to sit through the whole 4 hours then come to work all mad about it. Maybe you do the same thing Super Bowl Sunday. Maybe you have no one to blame but yourself.

Me, I think it's nice to see people at the top of their game achieve their wildest dreams thanks to the support of their co-workers, who are also their competitors. You know if you could accept an award in a gown in your workplace, you would elbow your way to the stage.
(said 1991's Emersonian of the year)

The fashion stuff? No, I don't care. But I don't begrudge the people who do. It doesn't last long and is easy to avoid.

8:27 pm the red carpet people have finally shut up.
I am already tired of Abigail Breslin's HP commercial.

I like the presenter pairings. I would like Abby Breslin, Anna Paquin and Tatum O'Neal to present something together.
I would like Jon Voight and Rick Schroeder to come out together.
I would like Jon Voight to finally lose that damn evening scarf.

8:35 - the announcer just stole my copy by saying "top of their game." I demand satisfaction and throw a glove.

8:40 - first look at Jack Nicholson's shaved head.
8:44 - gospel onslaught. See, this is absolutely ridiculous. And why not? You're usually watching Desparate Housewives, which is no more dignified than this.

8:57 - here's how to break down the Comedian at the Oscars number.
Imagine your workplace, where the cool clique gets up and does a skit. Or Henry Becton walks out of a fog of smoke to the theme of Carmen Sandiego. See how I just made an obscure in-joke reference that maybe 5 people reading this will get to explain the in-joke reference?
That's all that is.

9pm - Abby Breslin gets more exposure. Jadan Smith out Elijah-Woods Elijah Wood.
9:07 - first glass of wine.

Whatever happened to Helen Hunt?

9:31 - Did Randy Newman just get nominated for an Oscar...again? And did he just steal the opening bars of Elton John's "Your Song"?
Melissa Ethridge writes another version of her song.

9:38 - Al Gore is played off stage. Funny stuff.
9:41 - the phone company proudly announces that they do not run on electricity. even funnier.

9:50 - now, I love the clip bits. It's like a list. Categorized. On film.

I will not likely buy Apple's new phone. But I like its ad for the same reason. Know your audience.

The Departed is based on a Hong Kong film, in Chinese. Not a Japanese film.

I believe Fran Lebowitz just won Best Costume Design.
I think Gwenyth looks better a little hippy, don't you? I would cut the hair. But that's just me. Ooo... she can rrread e-thpanith naymth. The Academy is determined to make me see Pan's Labrinyth. But they still owe me money for Henson's Labrinyth. Until I get paid, I'm not falling for it.

10:22 - blind joke! oh, how droll.
10:23 - Catherine Deneuve's still got it. And another clip sequence. See more foreign films! Did someone just thank Schwarzneggar?

I haven't commented on the shadow puppet/tumblers because it's just too easy.

10:35 - Jennifer Hudson proves again that Supporting Actress is the ingenue's award. Thank you for not winning it for playing a hooker.
Actresses who got their start with this award: Eva Marie Saint ~ Rita Morena~ Patty Duke~ Goldie Hawn ~ Meryl Streep ~ Jessica Lange
Actresses we never heard from again: Tatum O'Neal ~ Anna Paquin ~ Olympia Dukakis ~ Marisa Tomei ~ Kim Basinger

10:49 - Jodie shot. Notice how I mention that instead of Al Gore accepting the Oscar. Because I am shallow and blinded by her intensity. I don't even know what Al said, but I know she agreed with it.

I think Clint Eastwood might be having a stroke. How can we be sure? Smile, Clint! I had to know what instrument that is that makes the whistle in the The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly theme. This took some doing. It is called the arghilofono, and is related to the ocarina, which perhaps tells you less than you knew before. And along the way I had the opportunity to buy it as a ringtone.

11pm - 2nd glass of wine. Notice how I practice alcohol in moderation. You know what else is nice - a little dark chocolate. The Russell Stover's heart box is now 75% off. Buy one for your desk at work.

11:28 - where've I been? I got distracted during the Dreamgirls music sequence and started searching Netflix for Oscar nominated pictures I had not actually seen (LOTR chapters not included). I decided maybe I really should see A Passage to India and the next thing you know, I had lost half an hour somewhere.

11:40 - the "America" film sequence was a little odd. I would have traded that for the In Memoriam rollcall, which should have happened by now, and I am wondering if it is going to at all. And now The Departed gets its first award as Thelma takes the stage. I have delayed announcing my best picture pic, which is The Departed. The others (that I have seen...) are quite good -- Little Miss Sunshine is an impressive first film.

SHUT UP! IT'S JODIE! I had to interrupt my own thought. May I point out she is reading the roll call.

so - who is Randy Stone and what's the story there? He may be the father of her children, Charlie and Kit. He was a producer, casting director and otherwise movie-maker who died Feb 12 at 48 of heart failure. His other contribution is The Trevor Project.

12:01am - Lead Acting awards. Peter O'Toole's moment? Is he there with Angelica Houston? I rather like Forrest Whitaker.

Three cheers and a Tiger for me! What's with Forest's eye? Strabismus. Look it up. I can't link everything.

12:07 - Director - I am actually predicting the United 93 guy over Marty. And I am wrong. But how happy we are for Marty. It is only 9 o'clock in LA. They are just getting started. Now, seriously, go see this film. And Good Fellas. And Taxi Driver. maybe Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. But not Gangs of New York. or New York, New York.

12:13am - Departed should be a shoe-in now. And Scorcese may be right about the first movie he has ever made with a plot. here's a crazy-ass Scorcese moment - Robert DiNiro's Scorcese impression as Lou Cipher in Angel Heart. Really... really no other reason to watch that film.

I have to post this now. The back of head hurts from the laptop. I have a meeting at 10:30. And it might be snowing.

Goodnight everybody!

How to Waste an Evening on the Internet

I must credit my circle of friends for fiendishly showing me many of these. The ones that were my own idea are fairly obvious.

1. Google people you know. Now combinations of people you know. Combinations of people you know and Kevin Bacon.

2. Try to outlast the Amazon Recommendation engine. The game is to keep refreshing your recommendations by marking what you own or are not interested in until you are offered a page where you don't refuse anything.

3. Try to stump Netflix. I'll give you a safety: they are not stocking Carl Sagan's Cosmos. But Amazon is.

4. Look up "Jodie Foster" on YouTube. Watch long interviews in French even when you can't understand a word. [this is 20 minutes long. Vous avez été avertis.]



Discover that she gave the same interview on Ellen and you didn't miss much.

5. Translate phrases into Japanese, then back to English. Get childish giggles

6. GoogleEarth. Damn, that's entertaining. Fly from your childhood home, to college, to your first apartment. Try to spy on the Crawford Ranch. Does it seem pixelated to you?

7. Dial-up blogs on the Blogger Randomizer

8. Library of Congress Memory Page

9. Browse movie gaffes

10. Make this list

Meet My Enabler

Friday evening, pre-Labor Day Weekend. I am coming down from 10 long days of covering for the Boss, with still 3 more hours of work ahead of me -- 2, if I concentrate, which I can not
because I am over-caffinated and the task is ridiculously uninteresting.

My dear sister, greatest of all sisters, without whom I would never survive, sends an IM:"Busy?"

(Constantly. )But never too busy, and I say "sup" (because we like to talk in poorly organized teen IM slang as a way to mortify her 13 year old daughter).

She says they are facing a long rainy holiday weekend, and she thought they would have a movie marathon of the best of Jodie Foster through the ages. "Like starting with Tom Sawyer?" she says.

Picture standing at your front door with the screen propped open, chatting briskly with your neighbor because you really do have jam on the stove, and you can't talk right now... and the cat runs out.
I am now completely derailed.

"Do you even know what that did to my brain right now?" I type.

There is a scene in Little Man Tate where Fred stares at a pool table and sees exactly where the balls are about to go seconds before Harry Connick hits them. This is my brain, swelled with titles dumped out of a folder and swished around into various themed piles.

I write, "You are diabolical."

But now I have to do this -- not because she wants it, but because IT wants being done. The little grey cat licks its shoulder, sticks its tail straight up in the air, and prances into the bushes.

So here they are.

The 5 Best Jodie Foster films
Overall -- that is, the complete package delivers what it sets out to deliver. Our Jodie has made some of the worst movies ever made, and though she is always the best thing in them, many are unwatchable. These are first-rate.
5. Taxi Driver
4. Contact
3. Inside Man
2. Little Man Tate
1. Silence of the Lambs

Why The Accused isn't on this list: A little heavy-handed. Contact is too, to be sure, but counters it by having an original story line. The Accused is essentially a standard Battered Woman movie with some stunning acting in it. (see below).

Unfortunately for my sister, this is not an appropriate list for her mother/daughter movie marathon. But I needed to clear my throat.

Best of the Lifespan
This is really what she was looking for
pre-teens - Freaky Friday
teens - Taxi Driver
(she is acually the same age in this, but of 8 movies between 1976-1977, these show the transition between Disney and not-Disney)
20s - Hotel New Hampshire
(Most of the movies of this period are not good. This is post-Hinkley, fat Jodie, and she just did not suit the Big 80s movie making style. This really is the best of that decade, until The Accused, but you probably shouldn't show it to a 13 year old)
30s - Silence of the Lambs
40s - Inside Man

Best Jodie performances
(some of these have very little screen time, but every second fascinates. These are not in a ranked order.)
The Accused
A Very Long Engagement
Bugsy Malone - acting circles around this ridculous premise
Siesta - I don't understand this movie for 5 minutes. Just watch her.
Inside Man
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore - Wanna get high on ripple?

So Bad it's Good
Svengali - everyone should see this once. Jaw-droppingly bad.
Carny - Only in 1979 does a movie like this get greenlighted.
Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys - yes, a peg-legged nun. You've never seen that before.

So Bad it hurts
Nell - I respect your "process" and all, but dear God.
Mesmerized - someone needed work
Backtrack - Blue Velvet, it ain't.

British Jodie
Mesmerized
Siesta
Anna and the King

Southern Jodie
Sommersby
Nell
Maverick
Silence of the Lambs

French Jodie
Jodie is so hot in French
Moi Fleur Bleue
Le Sang des Autres
A Very Long Engagement

This ought to reactivate my FBI file.


fun link: Kids in Mind, where someone else has counted the F-words for you.

Nature/Nurture

What I looked like then:










What she looks like now:












Still trying to work out the math on this one.