A Streams Classic From 2017 Explores My Love of Films -- Lovingly

I've been working furiously on a novel lately and so haven't had much time to post on ye olde blog. I know many of legion of readers are desperate for something so I'm presenting a Streams of Unconsciousness classic. This one from May 2017. I had hoped to write something but it would have been political and I think we can all use a break right now (though there's no hiding from what's going on in this country and I'll address it eventually). Anyway, this is pretty far from political. It's a tribute to film. I hope you like it.

I Love Films and Here's Why

Ingmar Bergman  Woody Allen  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington  Humphrey Bogart  Jules quoting bible verse in Pulp Fiction  The way John Ford frames shots  Barbara Stanwyck seducing Henry Fonda in Lady Eve falling for Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe making a monkey out of Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity  Europa switching from black and white to color and back Chaplin's Little Tramp  Jake Giddes being told it’s Chinatown  Redford and Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein  Psycho  Joel Grey MC in Cabaret  William Holden  Denzel  Fellini  The Bicycle Thieves  The exquisite beauty of Barry Lyndon  The exquisite mystery of 2001  Happy couple in the city in Murnau’s Sunrise  Brando and Leigh in Streetcar  The tracking shots in Goodfellas

Franklin Pangborn perennial bit player in '30s and '40s  Vivre Sa Vie  Battleship Potemkin  Indiana Jones outrunning a boulder  Alec Baldwin’s pep talk in Glengarry  Michael Keaton and Edward Norton in Birdman  The shadows in The Third Man  Llewyn Davis gamely trying to become a star Faye Dunaway more than holding her own opposite Nicholson McQueen Hoffman Beatty Some Like it Hot  Finding out who Tyler Durden really is  Tarkovsky  The cinema photography in Raging Bull  The soundtrack to Midnight in Paris  The helicopter and The Doors in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now  Myna Loy and William Powell on screen banter  The ending of Melancholia  The ensemble cast of Down by Law  Anton Chigurh played by Javier Bardem Harold Lloyd  The dialogue, the humor, the story in His Girl Friday  Cary Grant opposite Irene Dunne Ann Sheridan Jean Arthur Constance Bennett Rosalind Russell Katherine Hepburn Ingrid Bergman  The Great Escape  The climactic dance scene in Footloose  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind  Antonious Block vs. The Devil in Seventh Seal  It’s party time in Animal House Jimmy Stewart transforming Kim Novak in Vertigo  Marlene Dietrich  Hearts and Minds  Wes Anderson  Au Revoir Les Enfants Chimes at Midnight  Persona Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott in Ride the High Country  The Bride of Frankenstein  The Rug and White Russians in The Big Lebowski  The flawless career of Finland's Aki Kaurismaki  Ping ping ping in Das Boot  Taking your date to see the Sorrow and the Pity in Annie Hall  Monica Vitti   I'm funny how? in Goodfellas Umberto D  Once Upon a Time in Anatolia  Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence Polanski's gorgeous Tess starring the gorgeous Natasha Kinski   You're going to need a bigger boat   The Passion of Joan of Arc Roma: Open Citti  Rufus T Firefly Wolf T Flywheel J Cheever Loophole Otis B Driftwood Quincy Adams Wagstaff  Dr. Hackenbush S Quentin Quale Taking Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan  Christmas Eve in Fanny and Alexander  Angels watching over Berlin in Wings of Desire Two men drinking milk and talking in Inglourious Basterds  Ossie Davis saying 'you've got to do the right thing'  The shrinking jury room in 12 Angry Men   Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper tearing it 

up in Silver Linings Playbook   Sunset Blvd. Claudette Colbert  The brave pacifism of All Quiet on the Western Front  Bull Durham  Jules et Jim  It's A Wonderful Life a Christmas staple  The road trip in Y Tu Mama Tambien The long shots in Grapes of Wrath  A Sea of umbrellas in Foreign Correspondent  Investigation of a Citizen Beyond Suspicion The transformation of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day Cinemaphotographers: Haskell Werner Gordon Willis Gregg Toland Sven Nykvist Vittora Storaro Robert Richardson Vilmos Zsigmond Jack Cardiff Robert Burks Kazuo Miyagawa The key in NotoriousDuck Soup Isaac Davis railing about intellectuals in Manhattan Red Desert  I am Spartacus!  The car chase (of course) in Bullitt  Rosebud A woman saying goodbye to her lover going off to battle in The Big Parade The ExorcistEvery second of Heaven's Gate The Emigrants and The New Land La HaineOlivier as Hamlet and as Richard III  The dance scene in Band of OutsidersAkira Kurosawa  Holden says 'let's go' in the Wild Bunch Melville's brilliant debut Silence De Lar Mer  Bonnie & Clyde reimagines cinema  The Stunning Stefania Sandrelli in I Knew Her Well  Bogie goes mad in Treasure of the Sierra Madre Joan Blondell Rushmore The starkness of The Last Picture ShowThe best of pre code from William Wellman: Wild Boys of the Road and Heroes for Sale  The ultimate musical A Hard Day's Night Buster Keaton's The General Sullivan's Travels Jeanne Moreau walking in the rain in Elevator to the Gallows  Attica! Attica! Cate Blanchett Ice Storm Fred & Ginger dancing cheek to cheek Intertwining stories by Altman in Nashville Gosford Park and Short Cuts  Diane Keaton The doubting pastor in Winter Light  Matti Pellonpaa and Kati Outinen sharing screen time Paths of Glory Jean Harlow Max von Sydow  Zodiac: the soundtrack, the re-creation of 70s SF, the cast  Anna Magnani in anything but especially Mamma Roma Germano Maccioni a directing star on the rise Early 1900s New York in Godfather Part 2  Match Point  Wes Anderson's casts Elizabeth Taylor  The storms of Take Shelter The ending and all of Personal Shopper La Dolce Vita 

Back by Popular Demand: Films I've Watched Lately Some of Which I've Loved Greatly

Cabaret -- old chum

Cabaret (1972) Fosse. I’ve been enjoying this picture for about fifty-three years, that is since it first appeared in theaters. I saw it three times during its initial theatrical run. I’ve no idea how many times I’ve seen it since but suffice to say my DVD is well worn. It sits at number twenty-two on my all-time top 100 films list which come to think of it seems a tad low. Cabaret features Oscar winning performances from Liza Minelli and Joel Grey and Grey’s turn as the master of ceremonies is one of the greatest supporting player performances of all time in any film of any genre. But one thing I noted during my latest viewing was how good Michael York was. He was evidently one of many candidates for the role of Brian Roberts. It is difficult to imagine anyway being better in the role. He had to play opposite the vivacious, the eccentric, the emotional, the erratic, the delightful Sally Bowles (Minelli) and let her do her thing. This he did with aplomb. Cabaret delights on so many levels. The music, the characters, the setting, the stories. I’ll never tire of it.

Lacombe, Lucien (1974) Malle. Talk about the banality of evil….A young Frenchman in war torn France seeks to join the resistance but stumbles into a group of French collaborators who work for the German police. What the heck, he joins them instead. The title character is not a lad with great intellectual gifts and he wants to be part of something, he wants to belong, he wants action and excitement, never mind with whom and for what. Lucien kills easily as we see early in the film when he needlessly kills a small bird with a slingshot. He falls in love with a young woman named France (the stunning Aurore Clément) and tears her life asunder. This is a story of how easily and thoughtlessly we can slip into various roles even ones that require us to kill.The horrors committed in the film are not presented so as to shock us, rather they are matter of fact, carried out by regular people who fancy themselves doing regular work.  The great Louis Malle directed. 

More Than a Secretary (1936) Green. What an awful movie and particularly a terrible waste of the great Jean Arthur. I’ve remarked before how Ms. Arthur had chemistry with every leading man she played opposite of. That was before I saw this clunker where her love interest is George Brent. Maybe they would have worked well together with a decent script or under a better director but this is one of those movies that doesn’t work on any level. Screwball romcoms are supposed to make us root for the couple to get together. In this picture I soon gave up any interest in the two and and whether they lived happily ever after or not. I just wanted it over.

A Matter of Life and Death (1946) Powell and Pressburger. David Niven is a World War II British pilot who was supposed to die but the conductor from heaven missed him in the fog. Every effort will be made to bring him back. It’s a bizarre premise but it’s still a very good film. Kim Hunter is the radio operator who the flyer falls in love with in the minutes before he was supposed to die. Roger Livesey plays a doctor friend of Hunter’s who is naturally skeptical that this downed flyer is being told he must ascend to the afterlife. But when he’s forced by personal circumstance to believe him, the doctor defends him in afterlife court. None of it is as silly as it seems and it all makes for an intriguing tale and moving love story. It’s got elements of Here Comes Mr. Jordan and The Devil and Daniel Webster. This is one of four excellent films in a row that Powell and Pressburger made between 1944 and 1947 (the others being A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I’m Going and Black Narcissus). 

Love Affair (1939) McCarey. Sappy, cloying ultimately dull. Not a total waste of time; after all, you get the charms of Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne as your leads but it's bit too melodramatic for my taste. I didn’t care for the remake, An Affair to Remember, either despite it starring Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant and the newest version, also called Love Affair with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening was a stinker. The passion in this version (the best of the three for whatever that's worth) is more told than shown. I never believed it. The side story with the grandmother seemed particularly contrived and lacking emotional heft. If you told me you liked or even loved this film I’d think not a whit less of you. Simply not my thing. Leo McCarey was a fine director but his films were often more technically astute than emotional impactful.

Ever Since Eve (1937). Silly movies can be good movies and of course great fun. Such is the case with this delight which was Marion Davies’ last film role. She was in her late thirties and still easy on the eyes though she looked puffy, doubtless from the heavy drinking that she was indulging in. Nonetheless she and co-star Robert Montgomery worked well together in the story of a woman (Davies) who makes herself look plain so that she can land a job as secretary to a novelist (Montgomery). Patsy Kelly and Allen Jenkins, two of the better supporting players of their era, are in top form here and add to the zaniness. Davies and Montgomery were two of the better comic actors of the their time and together they took a very silly premise and made a perfectly charming movie out of it.

What We Imagine, Keeping a Healthy Brain and a Few Stories From Mr. Blogger

Just for the heck of it here's Suzi Quatro

When I was teaching at a school in SF a colleague once asked if when I got home after work I kicked off my shoes, poured a glass of wine and turned on the telly. First of all I don’t drink and secondly I don’t turn on the TV when I get home from work unless there’s a football match (soccer game, to you Yanks) on that I want to watch. Another fellow teacher speculated that I lived in the Berkeley Hills. I pointed out that I’d been a teacher most of my professional life so could no more afford a home in the hills than a yacht. 

I suppose these two instances point to how we make up stories about people we don’t know intimately. We imagine what their significant other is like, what kind of place they live in and what they do in their spare time. Or we leave it all blank. I don’t tend to create stories for people I know. Now people I don’t know at all, there’s where I’ll go to town. Sometimes I’ll observe a person perhaps on a bus or in a cafe and imagine their background, what they’re doing and what fate has in store for them. In some of these stories I’ll interact with them. Nine times out of ten I’ll make their lives happy and successful. I might have them overcome some sort of adversity. It can pass the time and is good for the creative juices and the brain in general.

As I’ve gotten older (or, more accurately, old) I’ve been sure to keep my brain busy. I do a few world puzzles on the internet everyday, namely Octordle and Wordle and sometimes Connections. I also do the crossword in the Times. Writing as often as I can, like this stuff right here, also helps. Not to mention the fact that I’m still teaching. In other words I’m doing all I can to ward off dementia. 

I understand that exercise also helps the brain and I go to the gym regularly. It’s one thing to live a long life but we really want the quality to go with it, both physical and mental. I don’t suppose the fact that I’m back in therapy hurts. Reading is good too and I’ve always been a bibliophile. 

It seems to me that scrolling the internet is not particularly good for your brain regardless of your age. All those short bits of info, the quick looks at photos, the memes. Much better to be reading narratives, analyses, extended opinion pieces, personal accounts etc. People used to — likely still do — complain about TV rotting kids’ brains. Surely sitting in front of a set isn’t the best thing for you but I think it better than staring at your smart phone. 

I was just reminded of something again from my time working in SF. This was about fourteen years ago at the dawn of the smartphone. We had a meeting after school one day. I was chatting with two colleagues. One bragged to the other that he didn’t have a smartphone yet. She responded that she didn’t either. It was point of pride to them that they hadn’t succumbed to the latest trend. They were rebels and old school. I rolled my eyes (figuratively, though maybe literally too). During the course of the meeting we were told about a phone number we were required to have in case of an emergency like earthquake, power outage or major fire. It was written on the board. While people were scrambling to write it down I put it in an email that I sent to the entire staff. Took me seconds. I raised my hand and announced what I’d done and received thanks from all around the room. I then looked at my two aforementioned colleagues, held up my phone and said, “smart phone,” then I smiled. Within a few months they’d both acquired smartphones. Occasionally there’s a good reason that something is popular. 

One last thing. Yesterday in class I showed a video to students related to their reading in the course book. I then asked them to write a reflection in which they could say anything they wanted related to watching the video. A nineteen-year-old French woman wrote a few sentences on the topic then concluded by saying that the video was a little bit long for her. It was eight minutes and thirty-six seconds. When you’re raised on TikTok I imagine eight minutes and thirty-six seconds can seem like an eternity.

All in One Post: Therapy, "Losers," Sports Fans, General Health, The Oscars and Some People Don't Like Movies?

Chase Infiniti one of the possible Oscar nominees

One of the great things about therapy is that you get to ramble on for most of fifty minutes. You’ve got things on your mind? You need to let off steam? Go for it. At a twelve step meeting you’ve got a few minutes then you have to listen to other people babble on. My recent return to therapy has been healing in part because I‘ve been able to get so much of my chest. Talking or writing about what’s going on in your life allows you to gain a clearer picture of wha’s happening inside your head. You can see the forest for the trees.

Don’t compare your lives to others unless the person in question is a total loser.

Speaking of “losers” our idiot of a president has frequently referred to individuals and groups as “losers.” It makes him sound like a thirteen-year-old but it also raises the question: what exactly is a loser? Is it simply someone who has a different worldview as you? Is it someone who has failed professionally or whose personal life is a mess? Is it someone who was or is demonstrably wrong about some central tenet? Maybe — and hear me out on this — the real losers are the people who use the word as a blanket term for people they disagree with. Ya know, like Trumpy.

Here’s a tip for you sports fan: if you get angry at the result of a sports event you’re doing it wrong. Are you really going to let what a twenty-two—year-old does on an athletic field ruin your day? Your team losing is really something to throw a hissy fit over? You really want to spend time assigning blame? I realize that you’ve put a significant emotional investment in your team’s success. You derive great joy and even pride in your team’s success, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take defeat with equanimity. It really honestly truly is “only a game” a much as it may feel like the most important thing in the world. Save your anger for the really important stuff like what Trumpy is doing to the country and the world. I speak on this topic as an expert having a couple of team that I “live and die by.” I also watched my usually mellow father blow a gasket when his team would lose. Always confounded me. Sports should relieve stress, not compound it. 

As I write this it’s Friday morning. Always loved Fridays, last day of the work week. Plus on Friday’s I stop at the Coffee Hut across the street from work and get a decaf latte. Delicious. How my life has changed. Decaf coffee and non-alcoholic beer. A far cry from my younger days when I fueled my mornings with regular coffee then by the evening was drinking scotch or martinis or alcoholic beers. On some occasions I’d fortify myself with cocaine. I'd have laughed at the notion of non caffeine or alcohol. 

In my twenties I was drinking and using, had an erratic diet, often got little sleep, sometimes went months without exercise. Yet I usually felt great. Today I miss an hour of sleep and I’m a wreck. Have ice cream after tacos and my tummy is in an uproar. Miss a few turns at the gym and I feel like a fat tub. So I’ve learned to take care of myself. Physical health is easier to maintain — barring serious illness or injury — than mental health. You have the proper diet, get enough sleep and have some form of exercise and you should be physically fine. But to maintain mental health can be a tough one. It’s so damn easy to fall into bad habits. Unconsciously. Stinkin’ thinkin’ it’s called in AA. Here’s a definition: “Coined by Alcoholics Anonymous to describe reverting to old habits, it's now used more broadly in therapy to identify thinking errors such as catastrophizing, overgeneralization, and black-and-white thinking, which can be managed by challenging and reframing these thoughts.” Maintaining mental health is not easy, especially if you have some condition like anxiety, depression, addiction or PTSD. I have them all!

A reminder that Oscar nominations will be announced in the coming weeks and you should — and I can’t stress this enough — by no means take them seriously. Many people watch the Oscars despite having seen only a few movies all year. Many watch without having seen a single film. Remember what George C Scott said about the Oscars:  "(it's a) two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons." Amen. Better to see a lot of films and skip the stupid show. That is if you love cinema. Speaking of cinema, have you ever met someone who doesn’t watch movies at all? I have too. Very strange. There’s a lot of things I can understand  not following sports, or not going to museums or eschewing nature, even not reading books, but movies? That seems such a universal art form. Between art films, blockbusters, musicals, romcoms, sci-fi, classics, noir, you can’t find anything you like? Strange. Like I said in my last post: it takes all kinds. 

The Author Provides a Look At His Day Including Something Really Weird at the Gym

There's no reason to use this photo of Lana Turner but there's also no reason not to

A woman at the gym today was signing. Loudly. And badly. I was on a stair master and initially couldn’t figure out what the caterwauling was all about. Was someone in pain? Was a TV on? Was I hearing things? Nope. It was a woman who I estimated to be in her mid thirties “singing.” That in itself was weird enough. But singing loud enough for half the gym to hear was another matter entirely. Maybe it wouldn’t have seemed so awful if she’d had a nice voice. Not even her mother would like this woman’s warbling. She was trying to hit notes that were well beyond her range. It was bizarre. Being sensitive to noises, I had to move from the machine I was on and put on my headphones which I bring with me to the gym for those occasions when someone near me is talking on their phone, or sniffling repeatedly, or loudly chewing gum or humming. I never imagined needing it for a singer.

At the end of my workout I do another set of stretches. This after walking to another part of the gym. The woman “followed” me there. I had to get the hell away from her. I got a good look at her first. She appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be “normal.” But the too loud and too high-pitched and too awful singing betrayed someone who had a screw loose. I hope she gets it tightened soon.

As to the question of what kind  of singing she was doing, well that’s hard to say given how pitchy she was and the impossibility of deciphering any of her words or whether there was even a tune. It might have been a hymn or it might have been a pop song or it might have been an operetta. Who could say?

Once again I’m reminded of that trite expression: it takes all kinds. I’m also reminded of my firmly held opinion that maybe certain kinds we can do without. Like awful singers who cut loose in the middle of a crowded gym.

My workout done I walked home. More accurately I sloshed home. It was pouring rain. My umbrella kept me mostly dry but there was no help for my gym shoes, socks and feet. There were massive puddles, some the size of Lake Tahoe, every three feet. Normally I cut through a park but due to all the precipitation it is currently suitable for submarine rides. So I settled for sidewalks. Or aimed to. Puddles abounded. A large percentage of my walk home was on the streets. It eventually got to the point where my feet were sopping wet and it thus made no sense to bother going out of my way to avoid puddles. Once you’re soaking wet more wet isn’t going to make any difference. 

After returning to our puddle-free home I very much enjoyed a warm shower and donning dry clothes, particularly socks that had not an ounce of water on or in them.  

The missus was kind of enough to provide a warm lunch and Bob’s your uncle. 

The holidays are well and truly over and I miss them dearly. It’s back to a regular work schedule and the total absence of holiday decor, trees and music. Regular ole life.

Depression has been beating me over the head of late and was particularly bad this morning. The trip to the gym, despite the unwanted crooner and the veritable swim home, have snapped me out of it for the time being. I’ve also enjoyed the Sunday Times though articles about The U.S. violating international law and ignoring the constitution do not give one cheer. We’re in a sorry place indeed.

Well, I’m not going to dwell on that, not while my mood is at last elevated. I’ve got a book to read, a book to write, movies to watch and music to listen to. I’ll not be able to do all at once so I get to pick and choose. Lucky me.