Category Archives: Movies

Who resurrected the electric car?

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As part of my continuing quest to stay within shouting distance of at least a passing acquaintance with recent film, I watched the following three (on DVD of course):

  • "All the King’s Men."
    Fairly entertaining, but bizarre. I don’t
    think there was a single Southerner in it, much less a Louisianan, and
    the accents were all over the place. Why couldn’t they have gotten
    James Carville to play Sugarboy? Of course, Stark’s boys wouldn’t have been Cajun. He could have been Tiny Duffy, then, instead of Tony Soprano filling that part. It didn’t really disappoint, but my expectations weren’t high.
  • My expectations were very high for "The Departed," and I’m happy to report that they were exceeded. This may be Scorcese’s best, and that’s say a LOT. Yeah, it’s another gangster film, but it’s as different from "Goodfellas" as "Goodfellas" was from "Mean Streets." And it completely deserves to be mentioned alongside them. I’ll say no more about it; I don’t want to spoil anything. See it.
  • "Who Killed the Electric Car." Maybe not as great esthetically as "The Departed," but still a must-see. The conspiracy of interested parties that together ended California’s experiment in creating a market for electric cars is enough to turn the most sensible person into Oliver Stone. To see the wonderful vehicles GM and other major automakers created to meet that demand, then to see them crush the movement, then round up every one of the vehicles for destruction — even though the leaseholders (they never let anybody buy one) desperately wanted to keep them — is pretty powerful stuff.

But imagine my surprise, after seeing that, to go down to party on St. Patrick’s Day in Five Points and find — an electric car.

Not a mere hybrid, mind you, but a car that you can plug in anywhere, a car that uses NO fossil fuels whatsoever. (At least, not unless your electricity is provided by coal, which is too often the case.) Hybrids have their advantages, of course, with their unlimited range. But there’s such an inspiring purity about the electric car. If we could all drive those, with electricity provided by nukes, the Energy Party dream would be here.

In case you’re interested: The vehicle is called a Zap car (ZAP stands for Zero Air Pollution), and are being promoted locally by Dr. F. Steven Isom. His Website is EVCarolina.com, and the phone number on his business card — which proclaims "Electric Vehicles NOW!" — is (803) 233-1700.

Cool stuff.

Pelosi column

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The deep, dark secret of politics:
They’re all just people

BUSH: Is this movie gonna be called “George and Alexandra”; is that the name of this movie?
PELOSI: I don’t know. What do you think it should be called?
BUSH: Uhh… I don’t know — “Geourneys with George?” Pretty good one, huh? You can spell it with a G?
PELOSI: G, yeah! (laughs)

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
CONSIDER this to be a last kind word before the madness begins. OK, so it’s already started. But it’s never too late for a kind word.
    Joe Biden’s been hanging out here a year or two. I’m not sure John McCain ever left in 2000. We’ve seen Christopher Dodd, Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, Tom Vilsack. I haven’t actually seen Bill Richardson, but he spoke to one of my colleagues on the phone, so I know he’s thinking about us. Mitt Romney was here last Wednesday. Then Barack Obama on Friday and Saturday, and the other media darling, Hillary Clinton, Monday.
    Rudy Giuliani today, ex-Gov. Romney back on Thursday, and some guy named Duncan Hunter Friday.
    With 18 contenders between the two major parties, I know I’m forgetting somebody. Oh, yeah — John Edwards was down in Charleston the other day, and his experience was a good example of the madness I’m talking about.
    He came to talk about health care. The State’s reporter actually wrote about that. But the traveling press corps only wanted to know about a couple of kids he had hired to blog for him. Really. Not that it was in any way important, but that was The Story of the Day, as decreed by 24-hour cable TV “news” and the always-on-message partisan blogs.
    Brace yourself for a lot of this. Gather your strength. Sit back, relax. Rent a movie, and watch it. Specifically, this one: “Journeys with George,” a documentary about George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign for president, made by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter.
    No, really, it’s good. I was worried, too. I had ordered it from Netflix in late November, thinking it was something I ought to see. Then I let it sit on top of the TV until last week.
    Bush according to Pelosi, I thought each night. Too much like work. Tired. Watch “House” episode for third time instead.
    I broke down last week, at the behest of one of my daughters. Two minutes into it, I called another daughter who was upstairs, told her she had to see this, and started it over. It was that good.
    What was so good about it? Well, certainly not the production values. It was shot with a camcorder by Alexandra Pelosi as a home movie of her year as an NBC producer, traveling with the Texas governor as he sought the presidency. You’ve seen YouTube? Like that, only longer.
    What was good about it was that everybody in the film came across as a human being. If you don’t find that surprising, you need a quick unreality check: Put this down, watch a couple of hours of TV “news,” then visit a few of the more popular blogs.
    See what I mean?
    In this movie, the president-to-be is neither the warmongering demon nor the stalwart defender of all that’s right and true.
    He’s just this guy. The joshing, never-serious, somewhat condescending uncle to the young woman who keeps sticking a camcorder in his face for reasons that aren’t entirely apparent. A little on the goofy side, but no idiot.
    And Ms. Pelosi is neither the Spawn of the Liberal She-Devil nor what you think of when you say “NBC Nightly News” either. She’s not the former because, brace yourself, Nancy Pelosi is actually a human being, too. She’s not the latter partly because she’s a producer, not the on-air “talent” you’re used to. Producers are the ones behind the scenes who get actual work done — arranging travel, lining up interviews, soothing hurt feelings — while the ones you know are checking their hair. Think Andie MacDowell to Bill Murray’s weatherman in “Groundhog Day.”
    She comes across as what she apparently is — a bright, friendly young woman who is very tired of getting up at 6 a.m., herded to airplanes and fed turkey sandwiches all day.
    The two of them are practically friends. When she gets interested in a smiley guy from Newsweek (who later turns out to be a cad), Gov. Bush teases her, then offers semiserious advice. When she reports a little too accurately on her fellow media types and they all refuse to speak to her, George steps in to make peace.
    In other words, they act like people. Likable people, no matter what you think of their politics. So do the others on the bus, including some familiar faces. Nobody took the camcorder girl seriously, so they forgot to put their masks on. Sure, the candidate is deliberately trying to charm the press. What will surprise his detractors is that he’s so good at it. Karl Rove still comes across as a creep, but that’s because it’s real life.
    This brilliant little ditty of a film reveals a deep, dark secret: Like Soylent Green, politics is actually made of people. Real people, whom you are not required by law either to hate or to love. You just hang with them, and see them as they are in the tedium of daily coexistence. People, living their lives. Not symbols, not abstractions, not caricatures.
    I ordered the movie because Columbia attorney Jim Leventis, a perfectly normal guy who belongs to my Rotary Club, is Alexandra Pelosi’s godfather. He describes the speaker of the House as “just a wonderful mom and just a wonderful friend.” Really.
    You should see it if you can, and remember the lesson it teaches. It might ground you enough to preserve your faith in people over the next 12 months.
    I’ll try to remember it, too, as those 18 candidates posture for the extremists in their respective parties. If I forget, remind me.

Worst recent war movies

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Tell you what: To relieve the tension a bit (there’s a lot of angry back-and-forth in the last few days, and poor Mary keeps reposting her deleted posts, and is increasingly COMMUNICATING IN SHOUT MODE), let’s take a frivolous digression.

bud attaches great importance to Joe Lieberman having been seen cheering and pumping his fist when the Americans strike a blow against the Serbs in "Behind Enemy Lines." He sees this as reflective of a deep character defect.

Rather than our getting into a really angry back-and-forth about whether one should cheer for Americans or not (I come down on the "yes" side of that), I’m looking for common ground. bud says I don’t see flaws in my heroes. I say that cheering at any part of a movie as bad as "Behind Enemy Lines" is at least indicative of lousy cinematic taste.

Unlike the characters in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity; I don’t consider tastes unlike my own to reflect a deep character defect.
But I do unconsciously give extra points to people who appreciate the "good" stuff — "good" as define by my own proclivities.

So let’s make like Rob, Dick and Barry and construct a Top Five Worst War Movies (post-Vietnam era only, just to limit the field):

  1. "Behind Enemy Lines" — This was done so very much better in "BAT*21," so you know we can’t blame Gene Hackman, since he was in both of them. I was about to blame John Woo, but he didn’t direct this one. It just looks cheesy enough to be one of his.
  2. "The Thin Red Line" — Such a horrible disappointment, by comparison with James Jones’ novel, that I wrote a whole column
    about it.
  3. "The Great Raid" — Another disappointment from a perfectly good book. Hollywood tried to turn a remarkable, true story about rescuing hundreds of Allied POWs from the murderous abuses of the Japanese into a sappy romance. Why, I don’t know, but it failed on all levels.
  4. "Pearl Harbor" — More sappy romance, but that wasn’t the worst thing (you want romance done right, see "From Here to Eternity"). The worst thing was the use of special effects for special effects’ sake. In fact, it seemed the entire excuse for the film. Worst moment: When two fighter aircraft, locked in a dog fight, fly between two one-story buildings, turning onto their wingtips to negotiate the narrow alleyway.
  5. "Enemy at the Gates" — This one almost didn’t make the list, but it did for a reason it has in common with Nos. 2, 3 and 4: Sheer disappointment. Finally, I thought, Hollywood was going to pay proper, respectful acknowledgement to the horrors of the Great Patriotic War. Up until then, you’d have thought the Americans and British won the war by themselves; talk about ethnocentric. But the titanic, genocidal struggle between Teutons and Slavs that was the Siege of Stalingrad was reduced to the level of a personal feud between Ed Harris and Jude Law (Jude Law! As the emblematic New Soviet Man!) Really, really disappointing.

Borat make controversy

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Borat72

It’s not every day you get to put the star of "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" on the editorial page, but I managed it in this morning’s paper.

The thin excuse I used was the letter to the editor that touched — and indirectly, at that — on the subject on today’s page. I inserted a mug shot derived as a detail from the above photo. I hereby reproduce the full-length image for the benefit of you ladies out there — or at least, the really hard-up ladies.

I saw the movie over the weekend. It may be the funniest of the year, although it’s not for the easily offended. It’s not even for the moderately sensitive, for that matter. Come to think of it, it’s not all that tough to be the funniest movie around when one scene features the protagonist wrestling naked with a really hairy fat guy.

Anyway, have any of y’all seen it? What did you think?

Ricky Bobby reconsidered

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Nights_3_1
Having been warned away from "Talladega Nights," and having dutifully passed on the warning to you, I feel duty-bound to pass on any new evidence I encounter to the contrary.

I was sitting in a waiting room this morning, and had just heard via whatever "news" program was on the tube that always seems to be on in such places that the saga of Ricky Bobby had been the big money-maker over the weekend. This caused me to feel very superior to all those folks who had been duped into wasting their hard-earned means on something that I knew better than to go see.

Farrell1_1Then I found, among all the magazines that I would never read (with titles like "Self," which I suppose is some sort of libertarian think tank journal), a copy of the Sporting News . In it was a "My Turn" column under the name of the fictional Mr. Bobby himself, under a picture of Will Farrell in his NASCAR outfit.

And it was funny, in a snickering sort of eighth-grade locker room kind of way — which means it was wittier than most of the comedies Hollywood turns out these days. If whoever actually wrote this had anything to do with writing the picture, maybe it’s better than I had heard.

And if they didn’t get this guy to write it, why not?

Talladega

Important warning

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Farrell
Do not, repeat, do not go see "Talladega Nights."

You may think it will be in the classic, high-brow comedy genre as "Old School," but you would be wrong.

Two of my daughters went to see it. I, having a premonition, did not join them. My hunch was correct. The best parts were in the previews. Yes, it’s that bad.

Just providing this in the public interest. Of course, if you’re compiling a "Top Five Worst Movies Featuring Will Farrell in this Decade," you may be obliged to attend. Otherwise, stay away.

You’ve been warned.

How about, “Let’s Beat Up Burnett and Beckerman?”

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You know that stuff that Sweet Virginia needed to scrape right off her shoes (sorry, no links, you have to get it)? They must have been hip-deep in it when they thought up this one.

By far the most unlikely star of a prospective fall situation comedy
is that still-active lead singer of the Rolling Stones, who has signed
on to an ABC pilot for its fall schedule. Just to increase the degree
of unlikelihood, Mr. Jagger shot his scenes for the New York-based
pilot in a hotel room in Auckland, New Zealand, last week.

That
was the culmination of a saga at least as whimsical as the premise of
the show, which, for now, anyway, is titled "Let’s Rob Mick Jagger."

The writing team that came up with the idea, Rob Burnett, long David Letterman’s
executive producer, and his partner, Jon Beckerman, had previously
created the NBC comedy-drama "Ed." As Mr. Burnett outlined the tale in
a telephone interview, he and Mr. Beckerman "wondered if there was a
way do a serialized comedy — something like a comedy version of ‘Lost’
or ’24.’ "

Hatched in numerous meetings, the concept centered on
a janitor for a prominent New York building, to be played by the
character actor Donal Logue.
Down on his luck, the janitor sees a celebrity on television wallowing
in his wealth during a tour of his new Manhattan penthouse. Enlisting a
crew of similar ordinary but frustrated accomplices, the janitor
conceives a plot to rob the big shot’s apartment, a story line that
would unfold over a 24-episode television season.

Well, for one thing, serial comedy’s been done. Check the original BBC version of "The Office," which is highly unlikely to be topped by this high-concept freak.

For another thing — and this is the awful part — if I thought Mick would be nearly as much fun in this as he was in "Freejack" (which is on a list I haven’t yet completed of "Top Five Cheesy Movies that are Fun to Watch"), I might even tune in. For the pilot, anyway.

Morbid curiosity will take one a long way. Television counts on that.

Dances with Pretension

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Yes, Mark, of course we despise "Dances With Wolves!" It’s pretentious, silly, boring, condescending, tedious and intellectually offensive. The worst thing about it was that Hollywood thought it was profound, and that just confirms so much about Hollywood, doesn’t it?

You see, this "epic" — which I believe lasted about 14 hours, but it may have been longer — was intended to teach Deep Lessons to us hicks out here in Flyover Land all about the Noble Red Man. It seems that Hollywood had just discovered the American Indian, and learned that he was treated badly by the white man, and was going to teach all of us about it, because of COURSE we couldn’t have heard about it out here.

Never mind that the theme of the Noble Savage had been done to death in the early 19th century by James Fenimore Cooper, as any literate person (a category that, as near as I can tell, does not involve anyone in Hollywood) would know.

Or that the theme had become so passe that Mark Twain brutally satirized it later in the century. And remember, Twain was a very liberal, free-thinking sort, but he could not abide pretension.

Or that Hollywood — John Ford, no less — had decades previously given the subject serious, respectable treatment, in a way that might make even John Wayne feel guilty about the white man’s role.

Or that Hollywood, in a more thoughtful era, had even satirized that. In fact, let’s consider "Little Big Man" for a moment. It had fun with almost every Western cliche you can think of, including that of the noble, mystical Red Man (and yes, that was, is, and always will be a cliche, which is my point here — the people making "Dances with Wolves" were not sophisticated enough to know that; they actually thought they were breaking new ground, and that is what is so embarrassing and offensive about it).

"Little Big Man" paid the American Indian the compliment of treating him as a human being, rather than as a stereotype, positive or negative. Director Arthur Penn had the good sense to give his Indians — who, appropriately enough, referred to themselves collectively as "the Human Beings" — the full range of human attributes. They were brave, silly, wise, stupid, tragic, comic and so forth.

The best bit in the whole movie was when Chief Dan George, the wise, earthy Grandfather, decided it was "a good day to die," and went out and lay down to do just that. Of course, the viewer thinks, "Wow, Indians can really do that? I guess it’s because they’re just so much more attuned to the universe than we are." A few moments later, raindrops hit his apparently lifeless face. He opens his eyes and asks Dustin Hoffman whether he is dead yet. A relieved Hoffman says no, so Grandfather gets up with the younger man’s help, shrugs and says something to the effect of, well, maybe some other day would be a better day to die. Or so I remember; I don’t have it at hand to check.

It was so down-to-earth, real, fallible and human. And for those reasons, Grandfather actually is noble — unlike the cardboard cutouts of "Dances With Wolves."

Do you see what I’m saying?

As for "Apocalypse Now" — I’ll deal with that, at least in passing, in my next post. As it happens, my thoughts on it are sort of the opposite of Dave’s.

Such excellent bad cinema!

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Ow! Ow! Those are some awful ones! As Count Floyd would say, "Really, really scary! And in 3-D!" In fact, y’all have reminded me of so many wasted hours, and raised so many bad-movie vistas, that I’m going to have to think awhile, and maybe come back tomorrow with my own list. (Besides, I just got in after 10 hours on the road driving back from Memphis.)

How will I ever narrow it down? In fact, I’m wondering — should we have two categories? One could be, "movies that you would expect to be awful," such as "Plan 9" or anything from Ed Wood. I think "Night of the Lepus" and some like that would fit in that category. (I mean, as opposed to those Bruce Campbell vehicles that should have been bad, but turned out to be such classics.)

Second category would include such big-budget, much-anticipated flicks as "Dune," "Waterworld," and AAAUUGGHHHH "Dances With Wolves." I had forgotten some of those movies, they were so bad. Those are some great suggestions. In fact, I can see a whole wonderful SUBcategory of "books you liked or even loved, and looked forward to the movie for years, but were excruciatingly disappointed." "Dune" would by no means be alone there. Think, "Bonfire of the Vanities." (I’ve got a really bad feeling Tom Hanks may be about to repeat that mistake in "The Da Vinci Code." You know who should have played the lead in "Bonfire?" Kelsey Grammer. He has the chin, the accent and the precise pompous air that the character needs.)

Oh, and in a whole other field, here: Extra points to Uncle Elmer for coming up with "Pi." Excellent choice, my friend. It shows an excruciating dedication to seeking out the worst in cinema.

Oh, one other thing: As a golfer, I must defend Mr. Costner for having made "Tin Cup," and for his goofy turn in "Silverado." And I enjoyed "The Untouchables," although the largest credit for that belongs to Sean Connery (AND Charles Martin Smith AND Andy Garcia). But "Dances with Wolves" pretty much threw away any merit those performances got him. I’ll bet that one made more sense in German, Herb, nicht wahr?

In fact, let’s kick him again for one nobody mentioned: "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves."

Distraction

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Well, here I stand, in the same spot where I stood when I wrote this, and in complementary circumstances. Consider this one a bookend to the other.

The last one was written two or three weeks after I started the blog. It reflects energy and excitement at playing with my new medium. It also reflects the fact that I was just beginning my caffeine fixation at the time, and a single grande cup of Starbucks House Blend could set my brain into creative (or at least, fanciful) overdrive. Also, that earlier flight of fancy was an attempt to distract my mind from the fact that I was here because this is where my mother-in-law lived, and she had just a few days before fallen and hit her head and gone into a coma.

As I write this one, I am weary. I’m still pretty much devoted to the blog, but without that initial excitement. Caffeine has become a thing I need to function, rather than a rare treat. I just finished my second grande of the day, and there is no creative rush. The problem with my shoulders (perhaps intensified by the caffeine) has become a more-or-less constant pain, which becomes worse when I lie down, making a full night’s sleep nigh impossible. I just took a muscle relaxer, which I washed down with coffee, but I still remain self-deceptive enough to hope it works. And yesterday, we buried my mother-in-law, whom I loved very much.

But I’m not here to write about that. I’ll continue the Hemingway thing to that extent. (As Jake said to Lady Brett near the end — and I just went to the bookstore’s shelves to check the quote — "You’ll lose it if you talk about it," to which she responded, "I just talk around it.") Since I was not alive to be there on June 6, I have to say that yesterday was my Longest Day. It will take some time for me to digest the years of profound experience packed into those few hours. The digesting, and the unpacking of the memories, will be something for me and my closest loved ones, not for a public blog.

No, I’m here to distract myself. So I went skimming the New York Times site, and ran across this. Which brings up the question, was or was not David Lynch’s "Dune" the worst film in history? I mentioned this point in passing in a previous post — this seems to be a self-referential day for this blog — but the topic didn’t really take off that time.)

I’m quite sure it was, but I’m open to any interesting — and distracting — arguments to the contrary. If it was NOT, in your mistaken opinion, the worst film ever, tell which one you think was, and give me the reasons why. (And I’ll be glad to elaborate later as to why Lynch holds the title.)

Better yet, to return to an earlier, abortive attempt to start a new and fun category, give me your Top Five Worst Movies Ever, with short explanations on each. After you’ve jogged my memory a bit, I’ll come back with my own list. And yes, you may include "Plan 9 From Outer Space," if you insist. But don’t you think that one’s a bit obvious?

Sure, this is silly, but work with me here. If you want substance, go back to this one. Cindi’s doing substance for me today. I’m doing trivia.

Are transvestites so bad?

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This first struck me in reading Wednesday’s letters to the editor (if you follow the link, it’s the first letter), but when I saw the very same argument being made in a letter in today’s paper (in this case, the last one), I had to say something.

Both letters complain about our having run a Pat Oliphant cartoon making fun of all the hoo-hah overOliph_2 "Brokeback Mountain." For those too lazy to follow the links, here’s an excerpt from the first letter:

The comment from the “cowboy”: “Of course, they’re pearls, silly — what
else would I wear with basic black?” is what puzzles me. I know a
thousand gay men, including many in Darlington County, and not one of
them speaks this way, owns a set of pearls or has any interest in
women’s jewelry. That’s quite a slur.

It is?, I thought. Anyway, I set that aside until the Thursday letter, which in part said:

The cartoon appearing on the Saturday Opinion page regarding the harm
done to the cowboy image by the film “Brokeback Mountain” was a cheap
shot aimed at perpetuating insulting stereotypes of gay people.

Do you see the common thread (aside from the fact that neither writer is overly blessed with a sense of humor)? In both cases, the cartoon supposedly insults gay people by associating them with transvestites. This suggests that there’s something wrong with a man who wants to wear women’s clothing (or in this case, accessories).

This seems kind of judgmental to me. Did it seem that way to you?

This forced association of homosexuality and transvestism, which Mr. Oliphant is obviously using to ironic effect to mock the controversy (stereotypes are a fundamental part of the language of cartoons; the more absurd, the better), reminds me of a previous work of humor. I’m thinking of a particular sketch in Woody Allen’s "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But were Afraid to Ask)," the one titled, "Are Transvestites Homosexual?"

It certainly wasn’t the best bit in the movie. I vaguely recall Lou Jacobi being mildly amusing when, having snuck upstairs to the master bedroom, he pranced about in great delight wearing a dress belonging to his hostess. I don’t recall the putative question ever being answered, except that it seemed obvious that he was not supposed to be gay, but was a "regular guy" who got off on cross-dressing.

But that title, which I suppose came directly from the original book, seems in retrospect to contain a judgmental suggestion aimed not at transvestites (comical as they may presumably be), but at homosexuals. In "Are Transvestites Homosexual?," there’s a certain hint of, "Is there anything really wrong with transvestites?"

That was 1972 — well before it became unacceptable in Hollywood to suggest that there’s anything wrong about being homosexual. Much has changed since then. Today, we’ve got folks sticking up for homosexuals (defenders of tolerance, in other words) who call any suggestion of transvestism — even an ironic one — a "slur."

Is this progress?

New category! Top five lists

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So I was reading our special section last week on this year’s "20 Under 40," and thinking what a fine, upstanding groups of youngsters this was, when I got sidetracked — I started checking out what they listed as their "favorite movie," and suddenly the popular-culture snob in me came out for a romp, and I started looking only at that criterion, and began to judge them much more harshly.

Note that I realize full well that what this illustrates is shallowness and misplaced priorities on my part, rather than reflecting negatively upon our 20 honorees. Obviously, these folks spend their time and energy on more serious matters. This is why they are on a "20 Under 40" list, and I never was.

But indulge me here (which, come to think of it, is something you do every time you waste valuable time reading this blog). I mean, don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed "Red Dawn." I’m not one of those left-wingers who dismiss it as mere right-wing Cold War paranoid propaganda. (Of course, it was right-wing Cold War paranoid propaganda, but that was part of its charm; it wasn’t afraid to be what it was.) But favorite movie of all time? I don’t think so. Still, this young gentleman should get points for taking a risk with his pick (something I utterly fail to do with my own list below, I’ll admit), and that’s worth something. But risky choices need to be defensible.

Far more impressive was Mary Pat Baldauf‘s esoteric selection of "A Face in the Crowd." Now there’s a film buff. I mean, even though I’ve heard great things about it, I haven’t even seen it myself (although I just got it from Netflix and hope to watch it this weekend), but it’s got great snob appeal. Think about it — Andy Griffith, before he was famous, shining in a serious, dark role. And don’t forget it’s got Patricia Neal in it. So way to go there, Ms. Baldauf. And please note, she dared to list "old movies (especially from the 1950s and 1960s)" as a personal passion, which raised the bar on the discriminating reader’s expectations. So this was quite a high-wire act, and she pulled it off beautifully.

I would applaud Cynthia Blair‘s choice of "The Usual Suspects" (although, being more obvious, it’s not as cool as Ms. Baldauf’s), but it’s listed as "last movie," rather than "favorite," which just doesn’t count for as much.

So where am I headed with this? Well, as an ardent admirer of Nick Hornby‘s masterful High Fidelity — and as one who also thoroughly enjoyed the film adaptation (in spite of their having moved the setting from London to Chicago, it was rescued by a stellar cast, with Jack Black turning in a mind-blowing performance as Barry) — I have been tempted for some time to start a "top five" category on this blog.

What’s stopped me? Well, fear, I suppose — fear of being savaged by the real pop culture snobs, because I know my own tastes are fairly pedestrian, truth be told. There are an awful lot of Barrys out there ready to tear into my picks the way the original Barry dissed Rob’s and Dick’s. But ultimately, as a reader-participation exercise, this could be fun. So let’s do it.

I had wanted to start this with something less obvious, such as "top five movie endings," or "top five cover songs that feature the original artist singing backup," or some such. But since I just got on the under-40 crowd about favorite movies, let’s start with that very vanilla sort of list:

1. "It’s a Wonderful Life."
2. "The Godfather."
3. "Casablanca."
4. "The Graduate."
5. "High Noon."

Or maybe number four or five should have been "Saving Private Ryan" or …

Yes, I know. I’m stretching the concept of "vanilla" until it screams. Barry would call that list "very …". Well, never mind what Barry would call it, since this is a family blog. But hey — the best movies of all time are obvious, if they’re really the best. I could have thrown in "Life is Beautiful" or "36 Hours" or "Office Space" or something that had a little individuality to it. But I had to be honest.

I promise to do something a little more intriguing the next time I visit this category.

Meanwhile, I’m anxious to know what y’all think — not only your own "top five movies," which I’m sure will put mine to shame. I’d also like your suggestions for future lists.

Assuming, of course, that you dare…

Don’t be a FREAKIN’ IDIOT!

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While most of my readers seem to get more into Serious Issues of The Day, I try to leaven my offerings with a little fun. Sometimes that falls flat. But I’ll try once again, by sharing this item, which a colleague brought to my attention, knowing my fondness for the movie in question.

It seems that lawmakers in the state of Idaho — which doesn’t really spend a lot of time in the national limelight — passed a resolution showing their appreciation to the makers of "Napoleon Dynamite," the phenomenally successful little indie film, set in a tiny Idaho town, about a geeky high school student who finds acceptance by following his heart. At least, I think that’s what it was about. If you ask the makers, they’ll probably say, "It’s about what I FEEL like makin’ it about, what do you think? GOSH!"

I realize this is gibberish if you haven’t seen the film; it may be gibberish if you have seen it. Anyway, my favorite part of House Concurrent Resolution 29 is this:

WHEREAS, any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote "Nay" on this concurrent resolution are "FREAKIN’ IDIOTS!"

Hence my headline.

The Idaho Falls Post Register‘s report on the legislative action ended with this:

The only "freakin idiots" in the Senate, by the way, were Davis and Assistant Majority Leader Joe Stegner of Lewiston.