The Crab Chronicles

Mini Movie Reviews

If there's any good thing about the flu it's that I had a chance to sit and watch several movies I had been wanting to see for a while. I didn't feel like doing much else, that's for sure. I went to Publix yesterday and was worn out by the time I got home. Got the perishables in the fridge and then just had to rest.

I am thinking next year I will get a flu shot. I used to get them and I got the flu anyway, sometimes, so I wasn't too impressed with their effectiveness, but after this bout of flu, I am thinking maybe the shot would be better..

Life has been very very quiet recently. So there's not much to report.

So here are some mini movie reviews, or at least my thoughts on some movies that are available to watch on DVD. I decided to give each film a letter grade, only because that's a quick way to get an idea of what I think. Part of my judgment is whether or not I ever want to see a movie again.

 

Denial

I really like movies based on true stories so this seemed like a good one to see.

This is the blurb from IMDB: "Acclaimed writer and historian Deborah E. Lipstadt must battle for historical truth to prove the Holocaust actually occurred when David Irving, a renowned denier, sues her for libel."

I didn't realize until I started watching the movie that the main character, a college professor named Deborah Lipstadt, is a real person and she teaches at Emory University, which is about 20 minutes down the road from my house. They filmed some of the movie there. I was pleased to read this article which talks about the fact that Atlanta is now the third most popular place to film movies and there are lots of films being shot right on the Emory campus. [I didn't attend Emory but my best friend did, and I visited her several times, and then in later years took some non-credit courses on campus.]

English actress Rachel Weisz was playing Liptadt. She was excellent, as always, and really deserved an Oscar nod. She didn't "cry or die" in the film, and was overlooked even for a nomination, which is a shame. [There were several actors in the film nominated for BAFTA awards, the British Oscars, but Weisz wasn't one of them.] Actors who play non-flamboyant characters are just as deserving of recognition -- maybe more so because it's harder to play everything just with your face and body than by shouting/crying throwing yourself around. Weisz is an under-rated actor but very skilled and I want to see her in more things.

The story of Denial is about a man named David Irving who is an anti-Semite and Neo Nazi and in my view just plain crazy. I had never thought much about the kind of crazy person who would deny the Holocaust but (horrifyingly) there are a lot of folks out there who think Hitler was not such a bad guy. Irving said in a recent article that folks who agree with him are growing in number. [ISIS is winning new recruits every day, too, but I wouldn't call that a good thing..]

If you like a true story and you like a good courtroom thriller, check out Denial. It also is a fairly good source of information for Americans about how the British legal system works. I had always thought since our system was based on theirs they were really similar, but it turns out there are some crucial differences that go far beyond wearing wigs in court.

I give this a solid A; not sure if I want to see it again but I might.

 

Hacksaw Ridge

Another film based on a true story, and it totally deserved the Oscar nods. It was nominated for 6 Oscars and there were two wins, but not for Mel Gibson or Andrew Garfield, unfortunately.

The blurb: "WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people, and becomes the first man in American history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot." 

Mel Gibson is the director [and he was nominated for an Oscar, deservedly so] but he didn't act in this one. I've long been disturbed by reports of his past behavior but apparently he has cleaned up his act. He said on a talk show he has been sober now for ten years.

One thing Gibson really tries to do in his films, albeit with mixed results in terms of historical accuracy, is to illustrate history in an interesting way. Braveheart and The Patriot were filled with inaccuracies that have made historians apoplectic, but in their defense, those films have also entertained and informed younger folks and gotten them interested in history. Younger generations are very visual -- they want to see film, and stuff exploding, and flying body parts and blood. Hacksaw Ridge, like his other efforts, has those elements.   Most 20-somethings don't want to sit in a library reading dusty tomes. I am cautiously in favor of teaching them any way they want to learn, because history doesn't have to be dry and boring.

It also stars another English person in the starring role playing an American, in this case actor Andrew Garfield. I have to admit, I'd never seen him in anything and I wasn't expecting him to do that great a job just based on my knowledge of the only other role of his that got wide acclaim, Spiderman. Garfield nailed this role, however. His father (in real life) is American, so perhaps that helped. His performance is terrific. His eyes are very expressive, and even his southern accent sounds excellent.

I did some reading about the real-life hero this movie is about, Desmond Doss. He was an amazing person. I had never heard of him before.

That's one reason I love movies like Denial and Hacksaw Ridge -- they are great learning experiences.

My only big quarrel with this film is the amount of blood and gore and flying body parts. They must have used truckloads of fake blood. It makes Deadpool's level of violence look restrained.

I give it an A- because I'm not sure I ever want to see it again, just because of the gory aspects of it.

 

The Dressmaker

I didn't love this film, but I liked it. It's original and fresh, and never boring, and those are qualities I greatly admire in a film.

It's mainly about what it's like to live in a small town in Australia, but the themes are universal. It could have been a small town anywhere.

The blurb: "A glamorous woman returns to her small town in rural Australia. With her sewing machine and haute couture style, she transforms the women and exacts sweet revenge on those who did her wrong." 

Kate Winslet is excellent in the film. It's another leading role where the performance is really not showy but it's more restrained and she should have won an Oscar for it. Her character is unique in that you can't always tell exactly what she's thinking, and with everyone else in the film it's fairly obvious.

Judy Davis plays her mother in the film. Davis is one of my favorite actors, and always brilliant. She doesn't get cast in big movies much any more, which is such a shame. Her role has a lot of surprises in it, too.

The strength of this movie is that the story is fresh and I give it an A- -- only a minus because it's not a movie I particularly want to see again. The ending is unexpected but not happy..

 

Passengers

I liked this film and it was worth watching, but generally I am not keen on movies set in outer space. What makes this one a bit different is that it's more of a character study than an action movie. It also illustrated a premise I have long found fascinating: what will life be like in the future?

The blurb: "A spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early." 

I'm rather sick and tired of seeing Jennifer Lawrence in every other movie released nowadays. I have to admit she's a good actress though. She didn't carry this film, however; I don't care what she was paid for it. Any number of other actresses could have done as good a job or better. I really hope Lawrence doesn't get too big for her britches and start phoning in her performances, which happens to some hot young actresses.

After seeing actor Chris Pratt in Passengers I have to give him a lot of respect. He's got a lot of talent as an actor. I liked Guardians of the Galaxy -- a fresh spin on the typical Star Wars knockoff flicks -- but I don't think it showcased his talent all that well. Passengers really does that. He gives a nuanced performance that is very convincing.

If I were grading this film I'd give it a B- -- interesting story, uneven performances.

 

Here's the trailer for Hacksaw Ridge. If you're only going to see one of these films, see it.

 

 

Catching Up in March

I have not been feeling up to blogging lately but finally it occurred to me I should do a post, even just a small post, and let folks know what is going on. Nothing really earth-shattering but here's the scoop.

I have had the flu. Not normal flu that's easily recognizable, nope. I've had a weird strain of flu. Started feeling bad last Wednesday. By Thursday, I felt so awful I went to the doctor, which I hate to do. I felt awful -- headache, body aches, chills, nausea, weakness. The weakness scared me. I can never get my internist on the phone so I called the cardiologist. He's a great guy and saw me two hours after I called. I really thought it might be a heart issue because of the weakness. [Nope, my heart is fine.] He listened to me recite my symptoms and said "You have a weird strain of the flu. Everyone in my family has had it. I'm going to write you two prescriptions."

You cannot imagine my relief. WHEW.

Yesterday, after two days on the medications, I was feeling 90% normal; just didn't have any energy.

That was the yucky news about last week.

Well, it was also a weird week because we had several really cold [temps in the teens or 20's] nights. Some of the plants got blasted. I had to wear my heavy coat while walking Lola in the morning.

There was also good news. One of my essays, "Memories of Segregation" was selected by The Bitter Southerner. You can read it here.

I was contacted by a distant cousin who is also a descendant of John McConnell. He found me through this blog, after reading my post about McConnell. He is a college professor and has done a lot of research on the family and it's been fun emailing with him.

Friday was St. Patrick's Day. I was still feeling yucko but I recalled that at my house we always celebrate a little differently because my parents met at a St. Patrick's Day party in 1956. By the time St. Patrick's Day 1957 rolled around, they had been married about 6 weeks. They stayed married for 40 years.

That's all the news.

The Knoxville Journal

When I was a junior in high school I pestered my dad mercilessly about helping me find a job. I didn't want to work in fast food. Dad was friends with the editor of one of Knoxville's local papers, the Knoxville Journal. So he called Chubb Smith, the editor, to see if they needed anyone.

I was hired as a Copy Clerk. I was 16 years old. I turned 17 a few weeks later.

Now, to be fair, nepotism wasn't entirely a bad thing. I had 3 years of experience on my high school newspaper and was the Features Editor that year. I knew how to write. My teacher/sponsor for the newspaper, Mrs. Becker, was very thorough about teaching us budding journalists.

My dad also told Chubb if I didn't do a good job to fire me. He was serious. Whenever Dad helped me or my brother get a job he always told us to work our butts off and make him proud, and he told our employers to fire us if we were lousy workers.

That six months at the Journal was a real learning experience. I learned how to parallel park on the Church Street bridge, driving my 1968 Plymouth Fury. I learned my way around the old courthouse, where I went every day to record who had taken out marriage licenses for the I See By The Journal column. I learned how real reporters worked.

The editor let me write a few feature stories. He always re-wrote my lead. He told me I used too many big words, and the stories were supposed to be written for a 5th grade reading level. I thought he was kidding. He wasn't.

I got to interview and write a story about an actor named Eddie Mekka [The Big Ragoo on Laverne and Shirley] - a tiny man, in town for a charity telethon. He kept staring at me. I know he was thinking, why is this 12 year old interviewing me?! I looked younger than my 17 years.

I also got to meet Dick Van Dyke who was in town with a touring company of Damn Yankees. I didn't write about him but I talked the photographer into letting me tag along when he went to photograph the actor. Very thin. Very nice, genuinely nice. I saw the play and he was awesome.

The next summer, 1980, I wasn't at the Journal, but the editor Chubb Smith was killed in a plane crash. I had not known him well but I was really sad. He was a friend of my dad's and Dad was upset. Chubb's daughters were all in and out of the offices a lot and were just a little older than me. I felt awful for them.

That fall of 1979 I kept working at the Journal, part time, because I only had to take 3 classes in high school to graduate. I was moved from Copy Clerk to Morgue Clerk. The Morgue is where old clippings and photos were kept. Nowadays I'm sure all the stuff is computerized but back then it was a room full of filing cabinets. Stories were filed away in hard copy. There were photo plates in there from decades past and I loved to look at the old stories and photos.

I quit the Journal because I got cast in a play and I didn't have time to work, finish high school, and do the play. In retrospect I wish I had ditched the play and stayed at The Journal, but it was fun doing community theatre.

My clippings from the stories I wrote back then are all yellowed with age and falling apart. That makes me feel really old... [below, I am seated on the far left, in front of the man wearing a vest and tie]

Fake It Til You Make It

One of my biggest failings as a parent is not knowing when to shut up. I tend to get worked up about something and confront one of my kids and just blather on and on, oblivious to the fact that I have utterly ruined my chances of getting my listener to even listen closely, much less actually do what I want them to do. I think it's a habit borne of nervousness.

Verbally, I like to kill an ant with an anvil.

Most people have [or adopt] an infant, so they get to learn and grow as a parent as the child grows. I didn't get to do that with my children. I still remember after my daughter's adoption, a moment in a Russian hotel room when I looked at this little girl who was nearly as tall as me and spoke nearly no English, and thinking WOW! What the heck have I gotten myself into?!? I had worked so hard and faced so many obstacles in adopting her that once it was a done deal I had to scramble a bit to actually get my game together as a parent.

I was talking to my son last night and I think [hope, pray] I might have said the right thing at the right time. I think there was no anvil in sight..

I was telling him that when I was in college I was scared to death, my senior year. The thought of having to leave the safe cocoon of college life and go out into the world was terrifying. What was I going to do with my life? How was I going to find a job? How was I going to forge a life for myself? I had been so intent on getting through with college and making good grades that the practical stuff just got shoved aside. Then one day it suddenly hit me: what to do next?!

I just kept my head down and went to class, cleaned my apartment, hung out with friends, and tried to remain optimistic. Routine was comforting.

I was lucky to have a Dad who inspired me with confidence.

One thing I realized, with the help of Mom and Dad, was the importance of just getting on with life. Go to sleep at a reasonable hour. Get up at a reasonable hour. Eat nutritious food. Drink water. Pet the dog. Notice the sunset. Say "I love you."

So many little things, mundane things, but their very ordinariness and routine can become the framework for a life that is rich and meaningful.

I went through a dark time my junior year of college when I was depressed, and I actually dropped out of school. I slept a lot and rarely left my apartment for days. Digging my way out of that hole was, I realize now, an important step to becoming an adult.

Going through the motions is not always a bad thing. My mom sort of browbeat my into going to church when I finished college and moved back home. I was having a lot of doubts about God and felt it was stupid and pointless to go to church. "Why should I go? That's being a hypocrite," I argued. She argued that going, and participating in at least one church activity [for me, choir] was important. SHE wanted me to do it, for her. So I did it, for her. I felt really stupid, at first, but then one day I realized that "fake it til you make it" is actually not a bad philosophy. I DID fake it, for a while. No question there. Eventually I realized that God was everywhere, all around, however, and by concentrating on my relationship with him a couple of times a week, I was learning valuable lessons about faith.

I didn't say this to Michael but I was reminded of it just now, that there was another time in my life I had to "fake it" until I got through. After my dad died I just sort of walked through my life like a zombie, for months, doing my job and getting on with life, but feeling as though the rug had been yanked out from under me. There is a period of about 8 months there that I literally have no recollection of, except that I know I got through that time. I didn't get fired. I didn't become an alcoholic. I didn't screw anything up. I did talk to my mother every day on the phone, and my brother, frequently, and we got through that time together.

My son is going through a challenging time right now and still learning his way in the world. He is very mature in some ways, not so much in others. What people don't always see, however, is the battle he wages daily to not let his past overwhelm him. Most of us have incidents from childhood that haunt us, at times, until we learn to cope. We have small incidents, small waves that rock our boat. Michael had to deal with tidal waves of misfortune in his early life. He has 8 years [his first 8, with birthmom] of severe neglect, abandonment, mutilation, and more, to deal with. Michael has been able to mostly not let things get to him too much, but he is still learning coping strategies.

I try to tell him occasionally that he shouldn't compare himself to most of his friends because none of them have the same background he does. Even if I had been able to afford to send him off to college a couple of years ago I doubt he would have been successful, because he still needed to process his early pain. He is getting a lot of help with that now, fortunately. I see big signs of progress in him emotionally and maturity-wise.

I just realize I have failed to really explain what I advised him last night. I basically said: eat well, sleep well, get outside and get some exercise every day, and pretend everything is fine. Develop a routine and stick to it. One day, it will be fine. Have faith that God has a purpose for your life, because I know he does.

I think probably most people need reminders of that, once in a while.  

this is a tray I did recently for one of my cousins; it has nothing to do with the post except I might add that for me, doing something creative every day really relaxes me...