Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Birthdays
Peter Falk is only 3 years younger than Lauren Bacall??!!! And they are, respectively, 81 and 84 today?? Wow! Well, happy birthday to them both.

It's also Henry V's 621st birthday today. If you've never seen Kenneth Branagh's film of the same name, you must. It's fantastic.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:09 AM

Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Kay Francis month
Kay Francis is TCM's featured actress this month. As a result, September will be fantastic, wonderful and sleep-deprived. They're showing 42 of her films, possibly because she is one of the most interesting pre-code and just-post-code actresses. She infused each character with an unusual mix of toughness, feminity and clear-eyed genuineness. I often find her more modern all those years ago than many of today's actors. In fact I can't think of any current performers with anything like her combination of strength and power with charm, sex appeal and occasional silliness. Anyway, for our viewing and recording convenience, here is the schedule:













date / time / title / director and other leading actor(s)

Sept. 4

8:00 p.m. — Raffles (d. G.Fitzmaurice, w/ David Niven)

9:15 p.m. — Jewel Robbery (d. W.Dieterle, w/ William Powell)*

10:30 p.m. — One Way Passage (d. T.Garnett, w/ William Powell)*

11:45 p.m. — Divorce (d. W.Nigh, w/ Bruce Cabot)*

Sept. 5

1:00 a.m. — Man Wanted (d. W.Dieterle, w/ David Manners & Una Merkel)*

2:15 a.m. — Men Are Like That (d. S.Logan, w/ Pat O'Brien)

3:45 a.m. — Comet Over Broadway (d. B.Berkeley, w/ Ian Hunter & Donald Crisp)*

5:00 a.m. — I Loved A Woman (d. A.E.Green, w/ Edward G. Robinson)*

6:45 a.m. — Living on Velvet (d. F.Borzage, w/ George Brent & William Warren)*

Sept. 11

8:00 p.m. — Trouble in Paradise (d. E.Lubitsch w/ Herbert Marshall & M.Hopkins)*

9:30 p.m. — Cynara (d. K.Vidor, w/ Ronald Coleman)*

11:00 p.m. — A Notorious Affair (d. L.Bacon, w/ Basil Rathbone)

Sept. 12

12:15 a.m. — The Feminine Touch (d. W.S.VanDyke, w/ Don Ameche)

2:00 a.m. — Street of Women (d. A.Mayo, w/ Roland Young)

3:00 a.m. — Give Me Your Heart (d. A.Mayo, w/ George Brent)

4:30 a.m. — Stolen Holiday (d. M.Curtiz, w/ Claude Rains)*

6:00 a.m. — Mary Stevens, M.D. (d. L.Bacon, w/ Lyle Talbot)

7:15 a.m. — Passion Flower (d. W.de Mille, w/ Charles Bickford)

8:45 a.m. — Another Dawn (d. W.Dieterle, w/ Errol Flynn)*

10:00 a.m. — The Goose and the Gander (d. A.E.Green, w/ George Brent)*

11:15 a.m. — The House on 56th St. (d. R.Florey, w/ Ricardo Cortez & Gene Raymond)*

Sept. 18

8:00 p.m. — Transgression (d. H.Brenon, w/ Ricardo Cortez)

9:15 p.m. — Secrets of an Actress (d. W.Keighley, w/ George Brent)

10:30 p.m. — Women in the Wind (d. J.Farrow (Mia's father), w/ William Gargan)

11:45 p.m. — King of the Underworld (d. L.Seller, w/ Humphrey Bogart)

Sept. 19

1:00 a.m. — It's A Date (d. W.Seiter, w/ Walter Pidgeon)

2:45 a.m. — Playgirl (d. F.Woodruff, w/ Nigel Bruce)

4:15 a.m. — Little Men (d. N.Z.McLeod, w/ Jack Oakie)

5:45 a.m. — My Bill (d. J.Farrow, w/ Bonita Granville (of Nancy Drew fame))

7:00 a.m. — In Name Only (d. J.Cromwell, w/ Cary Grant)*

8:45 a.m. — The Keyhole (d. M.Curtiz, w/ George Brent)*

10:00 a.m. — I Found Stella Parish (d. M.LeRoy, w/ Paul Lukas & Ian Hunter)

Sept. 25

8:00 p.m. — Mandalay (d. M.Curtiz, w/ Ricardo Cortez)*

9:15 p.m. — Doctor Monica (d. W.Keighley, w/ William Warren)

10:15 p.m. — Confession (d. J.May, w/ Basil Rathbone & Ian Hunter)

Sept. 26

12:00 a.m. — First Lady (d. S.Logan, w/ Victor Jory & Anita Louise)

1:30 a.m. — Always in My Heart (d. J.Graham, w/ Walter Huston)

3:15 a.m. — Stranded (d. F.Borzage, w/ George Brent)*

4:30 a.m. — Storm at Daybreak (d. R.Boleslawski, w/ Walter Huston)

6:00 a.m. — Guilty Hands (d. W.S.van Dyke, w/ Lionel Barrymore)

7:15 a.m. — Allotment Wives (d. W.Nigh, w/ Paul Kelly)

8:45 a.m. — The White Angel (d. W.Dieterle, w/ Ian Hunter & Donald Woods)

*Particularly recommended by me or The Self-Style Siren or Laura or TCM or others (to be added). . . .

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Permalink | 2 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:25 AM

Sunday, August 31, 2008
Two forty-somethings
A disturbing and fascinating comparison here.  If you are even considering voting in November and if you want as much information about the candidates as possible and given that McCain is 72 and has said he will/may only serve one term, it is truly a must read.  (h/t Laura)

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:43 AM

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Fred, redux
Today is Fred Thompson's 66th birthday. Wouldn't it be a nice birthday present to us voters if he were McCain's running mate? Okay, okay, I know it won't happen and that McCain is going to pick one of the expected, safe, obvious, usual suspects, but it would be so nice.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:27 AM

Saturday, August 16, 2008
Torres and Bolt and Lezak and Phelps
Awesome. Amazing. Dara Torres is 41 years old, twenty years older than most of her fellow Olympians, and a mother who managed to win two silvers at this Olympics, one by that ridiculously small margin of .01 of a second (less than two inches). Bolt is the Jamaican who cruised the 100m sprint in 9.69 and won looking as if he was just in a practice (probably the point of all those practices, come to think of it). Lezak (see my post on him earlier this week), 10 years older than Phelps, is amazing and under-hyped, a superb swimmer and team-mate without whom Phelps' medal count might have been smaller and indeed Phelps has paid him much credit. And there's Phelps himself, of course, who physically and mentally handled everything both smooth and not so smooth (grabbing the wall at the end of the fly instead of letting it slip away, enduring nasty remarks by rivals, being unable to see in one race because of slipped goggles, etc.), 17 races in 9 days (heats plus finals) and, on top of it all, cracking 7 world records in the process.

Phelps' butterfly stroke is mesmerizing - strong and beautiful.  I must pay tribute to my daughter's butterfly, too, however, every bit as amazing as his. Yes I'm prejudiced but others who saw her fly said so, too.  (And her high school fastest time still holds, years later.  Who's a proud mom?!)   I felt happy for Phelps' mother tonight, I must say.  All those early morning practices, hurried dinners, rushed homework, weekends full of chlorine and humidity atop uncomfortable metal bleachers and cheering on all the other age-group swimmers. It was gracious and very sweet of M.P. to publicly acknowledge his mother's part in his success when he climbed over the photogs to give her his bouquet and his 8-medal plaque.

As many (tired) people have said, this is a particularly exciting Olympics.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 11:55 PM

Monday, August 11, 2008
Jason Lezak
The French coach Claude Faquet was gracious: "I am neither shocked nor disappointed," he said even though his foursome had been expected to win right up to the last .08 second. "[Jazon Lezak] is a swimmer with a huge amount of experience and he swam intelligently. As far as I'm concerned, it is not [we] who lost but the Americans who won."

The American coach Eddie Reese glowed: "There's never been [an anchor swim like that] in my memory. . . . Not running down somebody who holds the world record, who's on their game. That was incredible. ... It has to be in the unbelievable category. That's the biggest word I know."

The German coach Orjan Madsen was incredulous: "The whole thing was . . .one of those moments where you just sit back and say. . .if I [hadn't] seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it."

32-year-old Jason Lezak is a strong, thoughtful and amazing guy. He "figured this was one opportunity in all my career" so when he "flipped at the 50, it really crossed my mind for a split second that there was no way. Then I changed. And I said, 'You know what, that's ridiculous at the Olympics. I'm here for the United States of America. I don't care how bad it hurts or whatever.' ... Honestly in five seconds I was thinking all these things. I got like a supercharge and took it from there." A fantastic moment that I'm really really glad I saw.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:09 AM

Thursday, August 7, 2008
They tuck you up. . . .
Interesting, thoughtful and fairly serious interview with David Thewlis here.  Love his quote of Billy Bragg's retake on a Philip Larkin "thing about the enemy of the artist [being] the pram in the hall."
His view of that was he didn't believe it at all. He's got several children and loves it and finds it inspiring. He gave me a poem he wrote that was a pastiche of Larkin's "They f*** you up, your mum and dad". He changed it to "They tuck you up, your mum and dad" and rewrote every line to make it a positive, loving, parental poem. It was a beautiful thing.
He and Billy Bragg are right: you can make/take time to be both an artist and a parent.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 10:42 PM

Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Farmer MacGregor
Two discoveries:
-Beatrix Potter means more to the general public than I thought
and
-Google has a soul or at least whoever attends to their daily logo does.

Google honored her with this charming logo yesterday, her 166th.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:16 AM

Monday, July 28, 2008
Art, books, chocolates and men
Beatrice Wood was born on March 3, 1893 and died 105 years later, in 1998. She lives on to those of us who know about her because of her brilliant art but perhaps even more importanlty because of her playful and exhuberant joy in living. When asked the secret of her live and longevity, her answer was “art, books, chocolates and young men.”

Today is the 111th birthday of Marcel Duchamp, he of Nude Descending a Staircase (on left) and that wild and crazy art style now as cubism.

When I saw that it is his anniversary today, I was reminded of Beatrice Wood who was one of his closest friends and is one of the people I most admire. It is one of my huge regrets that I never met her but I hope to emulate her sense of wonder and joy at everything.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:24 AM

Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Alexander Calder
Happy 110th to Alexander Calder. What a wonderful addition he was to the world.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:16 AM

Friday, July 18, 2008
What's up with him?
I keep holding out hope that Obama will be a rational and calm leader. For one thing, many of the people who dismiss him sound petty and whiny, and for another I kind of like the idea of him. But ideas and reality are not necessarily the same, are they? And every now and then he says or does something that send little shivers of alarm up my antennae.

There was the almost-St.-Peter-like-I-never-heard-anything interview about Jeremiah Wright, with Anderson Cooper. As if you'd never know what your closest friend and mentor was really all about in twenty years. The Nile is in fact only a river in Egypt, after all.

Now there's this noise about the press should leave his wife alone. Excuse me? It bothers me more every time I think about it. Partly it's just silly but it makes me wonder what reality he's living in.

I agree that it's perfectly reasonable for a public figure to ask that his or her children be left out of the coverage. In fact the press has been good about it, cover (well, lack of coverage) of Amy Carter and both Bush girls - before they became adults - being proof. But Obama handed his two daughters out for a press interview the other day. Didn't that seem odd in itself? I mean, first he says "hands off my wife and kids" and then suddenly it's "here, talk to the girls." And just when you shrug and figure no one's consistent but obviously he's loosening up a little, he flips out when Fox's Sean Hannity talked negatively about Michelle.

But how can he say "hands off Michelle" with a straight face. Why should his wife be protected from the clutches of media coverage? What makes her more delicate than anyone else? None of the other candidates ask for special treatment for their spouses, goodness knows. Cindy McCain's hair and clothes and medical history are fair game as is Bill Clinton though I suppose his status as a former president lets him in for more than as a spouse. Laura Bush was examined in every petty detail and goodness knows Jackie Kennedy may have gotten more publicity than her husband. Lady Bird wasn't immune from press attention and may actually have softened Johnson's legacy. The list goes on and on. And anyway, Michelle plopped herself right into the fray by giving speeches on political subjects rather than on flowers or statues and other niceties.

Doesn't everyone know that a political campaign is a scorching free-for-all where many people get seriously burned? Obama had to know, especially after the primaries and recent previous elections. And he cannot seriously or honestly have thought the campaign - let alone the presidency itself - would be only about him and his thoughts. Therefore one has to wonder whether there's something about his wife that he wants to hide. Otherwise, I have to ask, what the heck is up with him?

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Permalink | 4 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:19 AM

Thursday, July 17, 2008
Musing Laura
Happy 3rd blogiversary to Laura! The 6th was Laura's own birthday and apparently today is her blog's. She's definitely one of the good guys, always articulate and verbal, always fun, informative and interesting to read. She thinks and writes with a vibrant combination of rationality, emotion and sense and covers a wide variety of subjects in the process so visiting her blog is like visiting with a friend. Which is why I often bring a cup of coffee! Besides, anyone who loves old movies and Disneyland as much as she does must be seriously okay.

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Permalink | 2 comment(s) | posted by jau at 11:37 PM