Coming Soon: The Movie Year 2011

I just watched "Beginners" again at home, on DVD.  It is a wonderful little film.  My review, written this past June, did not do it complete justice.  Christopher Plummer was even more impressive this time; and the treatment of a son's attempt to comfort a dying father held a special resonance and relevance to me.

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Tomorrow I will post a review of "The Artist".  Along with "Beginners", both films charmed me with their canine supporting players, both of them Jack Russell Terriers with the sweetest faces. 
"The Artist" was one of my most highly anticipated films of the year.  I am anxious to share my thoughts about this movie.

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In addition to "Beginners", the holiday added a slew of great new films to my personal collection (some of which will be re-viewed on these "pages") including "The Deer Hunter", "Gods and Monsters", "Never Let Me Go", "Inside Job", "Midnight in Paris", "The King's Speech", "Black Swan", "The Exorcist", and "The Thin Red Line". 

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When time permits, I'll be checking out "My Week With Marilyn", "War Horse", and "Shame".  I am not yet convinced that I will derive much from "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo".  "The Iron Lady" and "Albert Nobbs" have yet to be released in Chicago. 

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2011 was a memorable, heartbreaking and infuriating year.  Great travel, memorable music, an end-of-year movie bonanza, and wonderful Chicago weekends alternated with heartbreaking world news, infuriating politics, and a series of family traumas that have left me numb.  I cherish my closest friends, my readers, my animals, and Mark for helping me keep my feet on the ground as it continued to shift under me.

Looking ahead, Oscars 2011 should provide a well-needed escape, as well as an exciting showcase of some truly great movies (I hope).  I will weigh in at regular intervals.  I'll also take my annual look back to Oscars 40 years ago, when in 1971 the big names were Friedkin and Hackman and Fonda, when New York was the backdrop to the year's most honored films, and when the Russian Revolution played side-by-side with futuristic British  gang wars at local cinemas.

The Child Is Father to the Man (and Woman)--A Personal Journal

My muse has been wrestling with reality lately. So far, reality has an edge in this week's match.


I have never had children.  But I am unique among my friends, in that both of my parents are still alive.  At 77 and 83 respectively, my mother and father have shown alarming symptoms of age-related decline over the past year.


I have had to reinvent myself as a caretaker of two often difficult people with difficult challenges and ailments.  There are no road-maps for people like me, known as The Sandwich Generation. *

(Although, without children, I am more of an open-faced sandwich.) 

I try my best to provide basic needs, safety and comfort to a mother whose world has finally diminished to a small space of fear and forgetfulness, of self-neglect and mindless distraction to others; and to a father who has used silence and rage in equal measure to maintain his view of life and our place in it, who has stubbornly refused offers of help or requests to discuss future plans.


In brief, there was the car accident last Spring; the trauma; my fragile mother's breakdown; my father's annoyance and denial; an initial hospitalization; treatment by electricity; frantic uncertainty; more denial, and a relapse. 


There is my father's lack of mobility due to recent falls, his rapid weight loss, and his refusal to have his injuries examined.  Cognitive decline is evident, possibly due to lack of sleep.  That is due in large part to his insistence on caring for my mom at home....


My mother is in the early stages of dementia, and chronic (maybe lifelong) depression.  After returning home last June, she had not slept a whole night, and continued to keep my father awake.  She was filled with anxiety and confusion, asked the same questions over and over, and responded with belligerence to attempts to care for her.  It had been violently chaotic. It was recommended that a hospital stay would be best.  I agreed.


In this, her second hospitalization of the year, her medical professionals have deemed her unfit to ever return home, and so tomorrow, we must look at the situation and begin to make some hard decisions.


American medicine, and our culture at large, seem unsympathetic to the helplessness and pain of old age. 


In this journal I have chosen not to dwell on these things.  I never felt that this journal's purpose was as a confessional, or as a way to elicit sympathy. I feel that unless one knows the characters involved, it is difficult to make this relevant and to foster understanding with only one or two brief entries.  There are privacy concerns as well. 


Writing this now, as a way to refocus my efforts and clear my mind for appreciation of higher culture and  the kind of writing I want to do, I realize that there is so much more to all of this. The story of my parents, as viewed through the eyes of a son who always felt responsible for making them happy, and who followed his own path with a mixture of regret and pride, is so complex, and so deep, that this could make for a novel. 


You might think you have read this story before.  But if I ever decide to pursue this and shape it artistically, and do it justice, it could be a stunner, the novel I was meant to write.  But it might be so painful, I might not recover.


At such an intense time in the life of this narrator, I felt it was helpful to share some of the events that have consumed my time and mental energy, to put them in perspective.  I intend to return to film and art and animals and politics as the rightful topics of this journal.


Perhaps, instead of avoiding this topic altogether, I might visit it with more frequency.  It would be a release for me, a therapy.  If I can write compellingly, so that others will read with keen interest, then I will grow as a writer. If I share what I am learning from the experience, it might do someone else some good.


I conclude with a brief anecdote:


My parents have never been demonstrative with their affections.  More often, as a child, I witnessed hair-raising conflict, and always felt at fault.  It was rare to see them embrace, or to hear them speak endearingly.  Last night, as I started to wheel my father from the hospital at the close of visiting hours with my mother, I saw them reach toward each other tentatively, as if to shake hands. My mother mouthed the words, "I love you".  My father replied "I love you too". 


Had they been able to do that at home, instead of maintain the horror show that was their dysfunction, I would bet that things would have turned out so much differently. 


Thank you for listening..  I will return from time to time to relate any progress that we have made.

(* If you are a parental caretaker, check out this web site designed to provide help and information, researched and written by Carol Abaya, M.A.)

A Posthumous Honor for a Chicago Classic

Almost a year to the day after his passing ("The Cubs...Lose Their Biggest Fan", December 4 2010), former Chicago Cubs Third Baseman Ron Santo was finally elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It's a bittersweet victory.  Santo had been passed over for the honor since he was originally placed on the ballot in 1980.  For over thirty years, Ronnie swallowed his disappointment and put a gracious good face on the annual postponement of his dream.


Consider Santo's record as a Cub in the 1960's and early '70's: his high profile and loyalty to his team and to his city; his popularity with fans and players alike; his proficiency as a third baseman (a position rarely honored by the Hall of Fame) with 90 RBI's in eight consecutive seasons (a record); a 9-time National League All-Star player; and his ebullience and regular-guy good humor in the broadcast booth.  The fact that he was never honored with induction into the Hall until now seems like an almost deliberate, and cruel, snub.  I don't understand it, and neither do most Cub fans nor Chicago Sports Writers.



Santo's Cub Uniform #10 was retired in 2003, and his flag flies over his beloved Wrigley Field along with those of Ernie Banks and Billy Williams, Santo's teammates and the only other Cubs to have their numbers retired. After an emotional ceremony before a packed stadium, Santo declared: “I know getting inducted into the Hall of Fame had to be something, but that flag is going to be hanging there after everybody is gone.”

Having the recognition of his team, his fans, and his city, meant more to Santo than any other honor.  Still, he deserved better from the Hall of Fame voters.





"We dared to dream this because it was so important to Ron and such a long time in coming,” his widow, Vicki, said, upon hearing the news of Santo's posthumous induction into the Hall of Fame. “But we’re all thrilled. When I got the call from the Hall and then Billy [Williams] got on the phone and said, ‘Vick, we finally got it done,’ it made me cry.”  Vicky will make the induction speech in Cooperstown on July 22.


Somewhere, I hope Ronnie heard the news, and reacted with his characteristic unbridled joy:

It's Concert Time, Coming Soon... And Quiet Time To Myself, Tonight

Tonight is the final rehearsal for the 2011 Holiday Concert performed by the Windy City Gay Chorus and Aria!

With 2 shows on Saturday, December 3 and one matinee on Sunday, December 4, the auditorium of Senn High School in Chicago's Roger's Park will be ringing with traditional beauty and camp humor.

Since September, I have heard Mark repeatedly rehearse the second tenors' portion of the concert. Now, I will finally have a chance to hear it all put together.  Also, the concert promises some visual treats, and a special appearance by "Mrs. Santa Claus".

Aside from the fact that I am somewhat biased by Mark's performing in the group, I have enjoyed every single program I have attended since June of 2010.  Once again, I look forward to being moved, surprised, and amused.  I'll have a review by Monday.

As usual on the night of the final rehearsal, I am on my own, relaxing in a room in Evanston, safe and warm on a chilly night. These year-end concerts allow me a chance to reflect back on the year that was.   2011 was often a strange and difficult year, and at other times it has been a year of discovery and enjoyment.  A sad and deteriorating family situation has occupied my thoughts. Career sometimes becomes an almost robotic series of tasks to complete.

To counter these things, meaning was sought in other, more fulfilling activities.  There has been the writing, and our trips to Chicago for theater, film, and immersion in a neighborhood that welcomes us.  Best of all was Italy, with Mark, for me a once-in-a-lifetime experience. 

I'll do a more thorough re-evaluation of the year, and how we survived it, in a retrospective later this month.

Did I mention the writing?   As an activity, writing has become even more essential than ever.  More than anything, the 2-plus-year activity of creating this blog has let me  define myself first and foremost as a writer. 

I hope folks are still visiting, and reading here.  Either way, it's still a record of a daily life, a personal exercise, a worthy journal. I see the writing becoming stronger.  I still get excited when I find a comment.

The blog continues to allow me to focus on other things, things that make life more interesting. 

Like the Windy City Performing Arts!  "Let the music play....."

Tuesday Short-Take #1 : Woody Allen and Me

Last week, PBS' "American Masters" broadcast a new 2-part documentary about the life and work of Woody Allen. 

In my post just before the program aired (PBS Reviews the Career of Woody Allen, Nov. 20), I promised to offer my thoughts on the show, plus a few words about why Allen has been a comic and cinematic hero to me.


Allen's career spans over 50 years, and has so many facets that it would be impossible to compress it all in a 3-hour program.  Still, the show did an amazing job taking the viewer from Allen's early days as a standup,to his first attempts at filmmaking, through his tabloid years (and various love-interests), to his maturation as a writer-director. Running through it all is Allen's remarkable feat; since 1970, he has written and directed on the average of one film every year. 


Allen tells much of the story in his own voice, appearing on-camera much of the time in exclusive interviews for the program. They are active interviews: he shows us the old manual typewriter on which he still writes his screenplays; shares with us a drawer-full of slips of paper with ideas that he is constantly generating; and responds with unusual warmth and candor to his acolytes and critics alike.  He does not come off as a pseudo-intellectual, nor a sleaze.  Best of all are the many film clips that are used to illustrate and enhance his personal story, clips from scores of his well-loved classic movies.


For me, personally, Allen was a creative inspiration.  I loved to write satire as a young student, and yearned to make readers laugh as hard as Allen had made me laugh.  His book, "Without Feathers", made my sides literally ache.  Too bad they didn't mention his book in the documentary; nor did they introduce one of Allen's earlier film projects, "What's Up, Tiger Lily", an actual Japanese spy film that Allen re-edited and dubbed with devastatingly naughty dialogue, that spoke to the perennial adolescent in me. 

But I reveled in utter joy as I re-lived the pleasures of his movies, and recalled the theaters filled with laughter, and the nearly empty matinees where my romantic pain as a young man was alleviated, in the company of the likes of Diane Keaton, Louise Lasser, Diane Wiest, Mia Farrow, Mariel Hemingway, Tony Bill, John Cusack, Jeff Daniels, Michael Caine, and Allen himself.  Allen spoke directly to me, like he was a wise college senior to my awkward freshman.  His intelligence was something I could aspire to, and his awkwardness something I could identify with, and not feel ashamed. Allen said it was okay to laugh, and so, I was able to laugh at myself.


"Sleeper", "Bananas", "Love and Death", "Interiors", "Manhattan", "Hannah and Her Sisters", "The Purple Rose of Cairo", "Radio Days", "Bullets Over Broadway", and my iconic favorite, the game-changer "Annie Hall", shaped my formative movie-going years, and my attitudes as to what a film could accomplish. They let me escape, not into fantasy, but into a vaguely familiar world that I could learn to manage. The laughter was healing.  A few of them may have saved my life on one or two occasions. 


My relationship with Allen's work has mellowed over the years.  I missed some of the later titles, but found the old enchantment in edgier works like "Match Point" and "Vicki Christina Barcelona".


With "Midnight in Paris", I feel like my painful adolescent and my wiser older self have come together to enjoy Allen's most magical piece of work since Alvy and Annie took that nostalgic trip to Coney Island.

A Favorite Blogger Takes a Break--Sunday Journal #2

I want to recognize a fellow blogger, Ben of Runs Like A Gay, who has decided to take an indefinite break from writing.


Ben, who has been a prolific purveyor of film news, celebrity birthday greetings, and thought-provoking movie reviews for over three years, made a bold statement in his post yesterday: that he no longer enjoys writing.


I think it is courageous for a writer to admit when the pleasure has gone, and it has become merely a chore. 


Almost everyone in any profession, vocation, or hobby, confronts that moment when the activity seems to be nothing more than an obligation, when the original passion, fun, and satisfaction is no longer driving one's efforts.


This is especially difficult when the activity is a creative one.  I applaud Ben and others who feel they need to take some time away, for their sake and for the sake of their art, rather than continue, and risk their work becoming tired.


I never felt that Ben's work was tired, or forced.  I think he has a lot to give to the blogosphere, and to all of us writers and movie lovers who toil at this lonely thing called blogging, in hopes that we satisfy our readers, whoever they are,  whether they grace us with comments or not. 


Ben, I will remember our debates, and will always cherish the chocolate reward from a past contest.  Most of all, thank you for supporting me, a fellow blogger, with your thoughtful comments and praise, while I did the best I could to say what I think, and feel. 


In the next few weeks, I will make an effort to recognize others of you who have visited these pages, who have regularly provided encouragement, and whose work I enjoy, and learn from, like Ben's.


Take your time, Ben.  Refill your pipeline. I hope that very soon you feel that spark, that motivation to write because you just have to, and because nothing else will satisfy you more.


Until then, all the best, and know that you are welcome here any time.

Remembering "Family Circus", and a Favorite Spot in Scottsdale (Sunday Journal 3)

Last week, cartoonist Bil Keane (with one "l"), creator of the gentle, circle-shaped comic "Family Circus", passed away. He was 89.

Keane wanted each panel to bring a smile of recognition to typical suburban homes with parents, kids, dogs, and the occasional bemused grandparent.  The cartoon began in 1960, and eventually was syndicated in over 1500 newspapers.  Compilation cartoon books of the "Family Circus" sold millions.

Although I was not a "Family Circus" fanatic, I certainly enjoyed the cartoon in the daily newspaper. What saddened me most about Keane's passing was a personal connection I had to the comic strip.  It is a very remote connection to be sure, but it brings back fond recollections of the time when I lived in Scottsdale, Arizona.

You see, there is a well-known and beloved ice cream parlor in Old Town Scottsdale called The Sugar Bowl, with its memorable pink-and white decor straight from the 1950's when it opened.   Bil Keane, who lived in nearby Paradise Valley, set his comic strip in Scottsdale, and often used the Sugar Bowl as the setting.  The parlor reciprocated by printing Keane's cartoons in its menu, and featuring Family Circus memorabilia all over the shop. 

You can still see them there.

It was a favorite spot of mine on those sweltering summer days, when I was adjusting to the loneliness and excitement of being away from Chicago, the seismic fears of coming out, the preparations for a new job, and school at ASU, all tempered by generous servings of pasta and laughs from my grandparents, who lived nearby and provided me an almost daily life raft.

My grandmother would pass away eight months after my arrival.

I spent more time with Sam, my grandfather, after Lucy was gone.  After the mourning of the loss subsided, we enjoyed each other's company, and teased each other like college guys.

Sometimes he would come with me for a sundae at the Sugar Bowl.  Occasionally my cousin Tim would visit on business, and the three of us would go for lunch.  Sam marvelled at our gusto with food, especially ice cream.

I loved the Dusty Road: chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce, and a sprinkling of malt powder, covered with whipped cream.  I still enjoy it to this day.

I am printing some of the cartoons found on the Sugar Bowl Web Site.  I hope those who find this post will enjoy them as much as I do; maybe some readers have been to the Sugar Bowl too. 

Most of all, it gives me a chance to revisit Scottsdale, one of my life's touchstones, a place to which I will return often, perhaps as my life's final home base.

The Memorial To Flight 191--A Monday Photo Journal

A few weeks ago, I wrote in this journal about the tragic crash of Flight 191 in Chicago in 1979; and about the Memorial to the 270 people on board and on the ground who were killed (click here to see the post, A Memorial For A 1979 Aviation Disaster, August 30).

The Memorial, located in Lake Park in suburban Des Plaines, Illinois, was finally completed, and dedicated on October 15.  About 1000 attended the ceremony.

When I wrote the journal entry back in August, I promised myself that I would visit the site as soon as it was completed.

This past Sunday, late on a poignant afternoon just before dusk, I spent time at the park, and took some pictures.

The pictures tell their story; no more words are necessary.  I'd like you to stand next to me, in quiet contemplation....



 

September Eleven Eleven

Some brief musings on the day, today and ten years ago....
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On September 11 2001, I drove to work on a gently warm, cloudless sunny day... a morning just like this one... I heard on the radio about an accident that occurred in New York...a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers.... At the office, everyone was abuzz with trepidation...  we went into the break room to watch on TV what was unfolding.... Our boss was clueless, and forced everyone back to work...As the implications became clear, and some of us were able to find the news on our desk computers, little work got done that day.... 

*           *           *           *           *

When you live near a major airport, you begin not to notice the almost constant rumble of planes flying in various altitudes overhead...That afternoon, and for several days after that, planes stopped flying, and the noise stopped... It was more silent than I could ever remember, a deathly quiet....

*           *           *           *           *

I recall feeling like I knew nothing of a world that was suddenly very menacing... I knew I could not help change a world I didn't understand... So, I began reading, again, in earnest....

*           *           *           *           *

It is noon as I write this.  They are playing taps across America.  We hear it from the television broadcast at Soldier Field, as the Chicago Bears began their season.  A 100-yard-long American Flag is unfurled across the field. A deafening roar of the crowd while tenor Jim Cornelison sings the Star Spangled Banner.

*           *           *           *           *


Hollywood and 9/11:  A few days ago I read a Huffington Post essay by New York journalist Saki Knafo (Filming the Unfilmable: Hollywood's Attempts To Chronicle 9/11).


It occurred to me that the late Robert Altman might have been the ideal filmmaker to make the definitive 9/11 movie. His collaborative style of filmmaking, his painterly directorial eye, and his skill with large casts would have allowed him to treat the politically controversial subject matter, and catastrophe, through interlocking human stories.   He would have done this with respect, and with wry observation, without dogma, and would have built his scenario to a stunning conclusion.


And then it hit me with a jolt that Altman already made his 9/11 movie---"Nashville".  Although released in 1975, decades before 9/11; and though it took place, not in New York, but in the American South; still, his uniquely American story of politics and pop culture was politically and emotionally prescient. 

The finale at the Parthenon was like a microcosm of the shattering disaster that occurred twenty-six years later. The scene, in which a shocking incident is followed by the reaction of a crowd, is profound in its simple ambiguity, and is at once inspiring, chilling, infuriating, and exhilarating....


Americans responding to tragedy: resilient? misguided?  Watching "Nashville" today, Altman's orchestration and observation of human behavior applies in a strangely prophetic way to 9/11.





*           *           *           *           * 


San Francisco Opera presented the World Premiere of "Heart of  a Soldier" to commemorate a tragic hero of the day of the attack.

The opera tells the story of Rick Rescorla, "a British-born adventurer who fought in Vietnam before settling in New York as head of security for a brokerage firm based in the World Trade Center. On 9/11... his extraordinary courage and calmness in a crisis paid off: Rescorla led all of the 2,700 people under his care to safety—literally singing them down the stairs—before heading back into the burning building for one last check. He never emerged."

The opera stars renowned American baritone Thomas Hampson.

NPR recently interviewed Rescorla's widow Susan, who related the bittersweet story about how she and Rick found each other after their respective marriages had failed. Both in their 50's, they discovered in each other the love of their lives.

Maybe small, human stories are the most effective way to make sense of what happened in 2001. 

A Memorial For A 1979 Aviation Disaster

On May 25, 1979,  American Airlines flight 191 bound for Los Angeles, lost an engine shortly after takeoff, and crashed in a field near O'Hare Airport.  All 258 passengers and 13 crew members, plus two on the ground, were killed.


It remains the deadliest aviation accident ever to occur on United States soil.


I remember driving my sister to a job interview that afternoon.  The office was near O'Hare Airport, not far from our parents' house.  I decided to wait in the car while she was interviewed.  The office was near a large construction site, where an enormous mound of gravel had been deposited.  There was no view around it, only of the sky above it.  (The interview later proved successful; my sister got her summer job.)


All of a sudden I saw a flame rise from beyond the gravel mound.  At first it appeared as though someone's barbecue grill had simply flared up; but as soon as I re-gained perspective, and saw how the flame, and  the black smoke, kept leaping into the air, I knew that it was some kind of enormous fire.  Later, when we heard the news of the crash, I was rendered speechless by the stories of the rescuers' inability to find anything but the charred remains of the people on board, scattered across the field..

32 years later, on October 15, a memorial will be erected in the city of Des Plaines, close to O'Hare, to commemorate those lost in the tragic accident. 

The memorial was made possible by the efforts of a group of sixth-graders from Decatur Classical School in the north side neighborhood of West Rogers Park.  Their principal, Kim Jockl, lost her parents on the flight as they were embarking on a second honeymoon to Hawaii. The students, inspired by Jockl's story and unhappy that the survivors never received a sense of closure for their grief, began a campaign of calls and letters to politicians, the FAA, American Airlines, and victims' families.

(See the full story in the Chicago Tribune HERE)

The memorial will consist of a 2-foot high curved wall, with the names of the deceased carved into it, and surrounded by a red maple and other plants.  American Airlines paid $21,500 for the cost of the memorial.

Although Labor Day is coming soon, this time of year is seeming more appropriately like a Memorial Day.  

This poignant story, about a group of young students who undertook a mission to comfort the survivors of a decades-old disaster, and to remember that event and the lives that were lost, was one worth remembering.  I wanted to make sure I did my small part to ensure that these students, not to mention the victims of the accident and their families, would not be
lost in the shuffle.

Arrivederci, Italia: Some Parting Thoughts--A Sunday Journal

I have enjoyed re-creating our visit to Italy, on these pages, through journal entries and original photographs, and having readers come along on this special journey.


Coming to the end of this series has left me content, but wistfully heavy-hearted; I don't want to say goodbye again.  I could not hold back tears as we prepared to board the van for the airport in Florence.


The visit was capped by our consummate experience in cooking (see post below); but even that precious idyll was but a small part of what we had just been through. 

Although the big-picture perspective of Italy lingered, that picture alternated in my thoughts with the small things we encountered at every step.  Like one of the vast and intricate mosaics in St. Peter's Basilica, it offered an overwhelming impression of beauty, which compelled me to look closer and marvel at the small moments and anecdotes that produced it.


Sort of like a glorious spray of wild caper plants growing from an ancient stone wall which, upon closer inspection, reveals the most beautiful little caper blossoms, not visible from far away...

I don't know yet all of the ways the trip has transformed me.  But I do know that the experience has changed me, even in small ways.

Transformed? Yes indeed, in various subtle ways.

First of all, I have seen a whole new style of serving and eating food. Wine, too, will make more frequent appearances at our table.

Being surrounded by wonderful pieces of art and artifacts has soothed me, at least for a while, and helped me re-gain much-needed perspective on the annoyances and outrages of everyday life.  Alas, these have not gone away...but instead, in a sense, I have.

I have always believed in the power of language; so communicating in unfamiliar tongues has confirmed that belief.


In one respect, the transformation may not be to my benefit....While Italians have their share of social and economic problems, their ways of life, perfected over centuries, still seem more full, more meaningful, than what America purports to offer. And so, my discontent is becoming greater here.


Mostly I am ever more impatient with American ignorance of world issues, the American obsession with trivial things, with technology for its own sake, for a certain sterility of imagination that pop-culture pundits and taste-makers insist is the wave of the future.  We willfully forget the traditions that make pop culture simply a necessary diversion, not the basis for our economy or our existence.

I have always had an appreciation of the way my grandparents thought and lived. Being in their native land, I felt their presence in the very air around me.

Best of all, I am a different person by virtue of the many people we met. I asked almost everyone where they were from. I had some nice conversations that way.  We met folks from South Africa to Portugal, London to Spain, Holland to Maryland, and many others.


In particular, I will never forget a family from Oslo, Norway we met on a boat cruising between the coastal towns of the Cinque Terre.  The two parents and young daughter occupied the bench in front of us, and their son, 18-year-old "O.J.", or so he was known by his friends, sat beside us.  He spoke English very well and seemed to enjoy the company of us Americans, telling us about his role as a youth-leader and mountain-climber, and his proud love for American horror movies.

My encounter with this family occurred just a couple of days after the tragic massacre in Oslo that took the lives of dozens of young people. I was glad OJ and his family were away from Norway during that chaos, and were not among the unfortunate victims.

After all of the Italian phrases that I used (and misused) for over a week, perhaps my most treasured language acquisition was the 4-word phrase O.J. taught me in Norwegian:

Hyggelig å møte deg.

I'm happy to meet you.

From time to time I may return to these pages to write about a memorable incident or fleeting image from Italy .  For now, I plan to re-read the journal entries below regularly, until we have the opportunity to visit Italy once more. 

The End of a TV Era: A Three Hour Tour, and Three Times Two

"Just sit right back and hear a tale...
...Of a lovely lady...."

Once these songs get into your head, you're hooked for life...

"Gilligan's Island", and "The Brady Bunch"....Two of arguably the most recognizable sitcoms (and theme songs) in American television history. Both still have lives of their own, still going strong in syndication, decades after their original broadcasts.  Both were the creations of Sherwood Schwartz, who died this week at age 90.

Schwartz, who gave up the study of medicine to write jokes for Bob Hope in the 1940's, went on to great success in television.  He created these two popular shows from the 1960's and early 1970's.  Schwartz also wrote the lyrics to the theme songs which laid out the premise of each situation. The ideas and their finished products were simple and simplistic, but nonetheless brilliant for being so memorable and so iconic.  Schwartz lived and worked in a time when it was admirable to reach as large an audience as possible, when appealing to a broad common denominator was respectable, even desirable, and inclusive. 

"Gilligan's Island" sent six hapless characters adrift after their "three hour tour" boat is shipwrecked.  The fun of the show was watching such disparate characters; a millionaire couple, a starlet, a genius, a girl-next-door, a birdbrained captain and his bumbling mate--survive all kinds of wacky incidents, and coexist.  It's  a slapstick version of "Lost" and "Survivor",  before this premise took itself so darned seriously.  The episodes bore no resemblance to "reality", and everyone knew it: that was part of the innocent fun. Mind-numbing yes, and for me, a little went a long way.  And yet, a lot of respectable people grew up enjoying this stuff, and regard it with pleasant nostalgia. It is part of our pop-culture fabric.


"The Brady Bunch"  is perhaps even more well-loved.  Two single, widowed parents, each with three children, get married, and the children's initial resentment eventually turns into a bond, and mischief ensues.  The fun of this show was also how these two families, along with their wisecracking housekeeper, got into dilemmas that were neatly resolved in a half hour.  Even though it was a "contemporary" look at a typical middle-class family, everyone knew even then that it was all sugar-coated absurdity, not at all a reflection of real families.  And therein lay its appeal, the same as comfort food, not always nutritious, often bland, but predictable, safe, and good for some laughs.


As far as innovation and groundbreaking television was concerned, these were barely passable shows in general, but they were harmless, and fun.  They never went beyond the mildest level of tension, and that predictability was appreciated.   

And many regard them with a lot of affection, as a symbol of an era where folks across generations and demographics could enjoy something knowingly cheesy; and everyone across the country had these shows in common, and bonded over them.


(You didn't have to vote people "off"; no one was humiliated except in a gently comic way; no one feared having to see a ripped open corpse, or suffer through "hip" banter that elicits the laughter of degradation instead of joy.  The public did not require TV to establish its "street cred" in order to be acceptable, and TV didn't pander to that idea, either. We knew it was fake...we loved it for its artifice.)


And everyone was in on the joke, producers and audiences alike.  These shows have a following unlike anything that is currently broadcast. And nothing on TV now, I predict, will have anything like the longevity or staying power of Shwartz' creations.


Perhaps you  have heard the trivia regarding the little boat in "Gilligan's Island" called The S. S.Minnow...It was an in-joke, named after former FCC Chairman Newton Minnow, who, in a 1961 speech about media, ranted about the state of television, and coined the now-famous phrase "Vast Wasteland" to characterize it. 

Well, if Newton Minnow could do today what he urged media experts to do then, which is to spend an entire day in front of television with no other form of media input, he might find the reruns of "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch" to be welcome oases in a wasteland he could not have imagined 50 years ago.


I suppose if I were older when these shows were released, I would have cast a jaded, snobbish eye on them.  But then, things are different now. Maybe I like these shows because they have, in all of their innocence, endured, and are pleasing new generations of viewers. 


Fellow blogger Andrew of Encore 's World of Film and TV has asked readers to select their favorite episode of a "scripted" show from this past season.  You know what? I honestly can't think of one. But if I said something like "The Minnow would be lost", or "pork chops and applesauce", a lot of folks could launch into an entire song...or give a complete episode description.


The question that begs is: which of this season's episodes--and TV theme songs--will everyone remember, fondly and completely, after 40 years?

"The Exorcism": Our Super-8 Masterpiece

In my previous outing, I tried to describe what it was like for us to make Super-8 movies back in the 1970's (see post below).  I am more anxious now to see the movie "Super-8", even though I suppose I'll have to endure a lot of modern-day action, while the charm and nostalgia of kids making movies will take a back seat.


During the height of my passion for all things movies and filmmaking, I was becoming fascinated with "The Exorcist", a film that I had not yet seen (and would not see for quite some time). But I read the novel, and two versions of the screenplay (William Peter Blatty's first draft would have made a nearly 4-hour film).  I thought it would be cool to do a version of my own, with sound and music and makeup and special effects.


Not only did I learn a lot about adapting another work into screenplay form, I learned how difficult it was to create atmosphere, to find ways to create effects under the strict supervision of nervous parents, and the thrill of exhibition and critical kudos, and even winning awards.


My poor sister was always my leading lady.  At two years younger than I, she pretty much agreed to whatever I asked of her.  In our movie called "The Exorcism", she was to play both Chris McNeill (the mother), and the little girl Regan, who would be transformed from a sickeningly sweet child to a pun-spewing monster.

My two best friends from school, Dan and Jim, agreed to play father Karras and Father Merrin.


The cast would be made up and costumed (fake cardboard priest collars, black shirts, and our fathers' overcoats and hats for the "priests", a nightgown for Regan, and a few smart blouses for Chris.) To make her look older, my sister wore my mother's wig.  I don't know why, but women wore wigs a lot then as fashion statements. Her hairpiece got a great workout that summer.


My version was to be played for laughs, not chills. We would set up a scene for a chilling payoff, and end it with a punchline instead of a scream.


I worked on the script during science and history classes. 


I retained the prologue, but instead of a big demonic statue, our befuddled Father Merrin would be hit on the head with a "devil doll" falling from the sky, an old teddy bear with "horns" attached. 


The setting was a typical suburban house; the basement doubled as a living room, doctor's office, and rectory. My bedroom was where the "fun stuff" took place.  Regan would be a sweet thing, until her transformation during the party scene, in which the only "extras" were my sister's best friend and our grandmother.


The possession occurred quickly, and then the priests would be called in to perform an uproarious exorcism ceremony.


We had a load of fun with the "demonic" stuff.  An alarmed neighbor almost called the police when Father Merrin walked down our street in a heavy winter overcoat and hat (it was a 90-degree day) carrying a "bible" and a suitcase with stickers from Disneyland and the Wisconsin Dells.


Regan's first sign of possession was doing "sit ups" in fast motion on the bed.  It is much funnier than I can describe.  Soon her face was covered in "hideous" lipstick sores and green lips.  She said the most "evil" things to "herself", mostly eye-rolling jokes and puns meant to induce mild nausea in the viewer (but no swearing...)....  During the possession scenes, we animated letters forming on her stomach that said "oh hell", and she only could levitate half-way, by raising her legs in the air (because "the forces of evil on the other side of the room are keeping her down".)


Soon Regan was cured, and hugged her mother (my mother with the wig on, filmed from behind.)  After Chris' final line and "moral" of the story ("There's a little bit of devil in all of us") I needed shots of the cast spinning their heads.  I filmed several scenes of each person turning their head in one direction, then reversing their shirts and filming the same motion from behind. I cut them to make it appear that the head had gone all the way around.


We were restricted form doing anything too messy, and spewing green bile was forbidden.  So I filmed a shot of Regan opening her mouth like she was going to spew.  When I got that film developed, I projected it onto a translucent glass screen, projecting it a frame at a time.  I animated some green goo (dish washing liquid) on the glass, and filmed it from the opposite side, frame by frame.  It turned out pretty well!


I edited the film in increments, after each cartridge was developed.  After the film was finished, we shot the credit sequence, which was so ridiculously long for so few actual cast and crew names that it created laughs on its own. 


We dubbed the sound through the projector. I found the album by Mike Oldfield called "Tubular Bells", a small portion of which was used in "The Exorcist".  A small piece edited for radio was a big hit.  We used a lot of the music from this album, a new-wavey, jazzy 30-minute instrumental piece.  Regan's voice was my own, recorded at fast speed to sound comically deep slowed down to normal playback speed.



During the filming, we had few histrionics, but we still learned a lot about each other.  My sister was a tireless performer, and was better than she even expected she would be.  My friends were great sports and very supportive.  I was very shy in school and knew few people. I was unprepared for the acclaim and recognition "The Exorcism" would bring my way.  And I enjoyed it!


When word got out that the film was finished, I was invited to show it in a few classes. Soon I had to get permission to leave several classes to show the film, always to roars of laughter, always to applause and questions from classmates who rarely spoke to me before.

At the end-of-the-year Academic Awards ceremony, I was stunned to find my name called as the recipient of the English Award.  Before my name was called, the school Principal introduced me as "The guy who would have become famous for 'The Exorcist', but Hollywood released their version while his was still at the Fotomat."

Some day I will upload this epic on this site.

Thank you for coming with me on this journey of a once-aspiring filmmaker,  who had huge dreams,  before life intruded....

Recollections of a Super-8 Filmmaker

I want to share some stories about my own experiences making Super-8 movies years ago.

First a disclaimer: I have not yet seen the new J.J. Abrams film "Super-8". At first, I wasn't sure I wanted to;  I felt certain, based on the reviews I read, that it would completely miss the wistful charm of creating movies on this format, with a few friends, limited budget, and lots of heart and imagination.

But then I heard an NPR interview with J.J. Abrams, whose story retained some of the hilarity of what kids would do to get a scene right, and the pride of fooling your friends and family with home-made special effects.  Abrams even recounted an anecdote about how Dick Smith, the makeup artist, mailed him the black tongue worn by Linda Blair in a demonic sequence in "The Exorcist" and my feelings of fellowship were complete...because my High School Masterpiece was a satire based on "The Exorcist."

If I made a movie called "Super-8", there are certain elements that would have to be included.  First, I would devote a humorous and loving tribute to the format and the equipment we used.

For those who are not familiar with what super-8 refers to, it is the width of the film in millimeters.  Most independent film and advanced amateur movies were shot on 16-mm film, and of course theatrical films were usually made on 35mm. 

8-millimeter film was the first format for home-movies, created during the Depression, as a cheaper alternative to 16-mm.  After a few years, the technology evolved to allow for the "sprocket holes" (what the projector "teeth" used to pull the film through the projector) to be smaller, and the actual image area slightly bigger.  Film stock with this enhanced image due to smaller sprocket holes was thereafter known as "Super-8", created in 1965.

Super-8 film came in cartridges that ran about 3-1/2 minutes.  So a lot of cartridges would have to be purchased, exposed, and developed, to make a film of substantial length (if not depth). It took at least 3 days to develop a cartridge into a spool of film ready for editing, and projection.

Kids like us (and I would guess in the world of the movie "Super-8") would need a good allowance, or an understanding parent, to purchase a constant supply of film cartridges, not to mention a camera, and if you were sort of serious, an editing bench.

These were hand-cranked. You spooled the film through the viewfinder and you could watch the movie frame by frame.  There was a marker which punched a hole into the frame where the film was to be cut.

Then, the two ends of the film would have to be joined together.  There was a special "splicer",  which used either a special editing tape (with sprocket holes) or cement.  With cement, the emulsion (printed portion) of the film had to be scraped off, then the cement applied, and the ends joined together, overlapped slightly.  The cement actually melted the film for a stronger joint.

The splicer often cut one extra frame from each end of the film before scraping, so an editor had to mark each end of the film with an extra frame remaining.  It was a tedious and scary process, especially if you were editing your only print (copies were EXPENSIVE).  A wrong cut forced me to re-think the whole sequence!

And I loved it!! There is nothing like editing a film by hand, the satisfaction of getting the cut exactly on action, seeing a rhythm develop.  Editing my blog provides similar satisfactions (and it's a lot easier), but sitting at my bench with a mountain of "spaghetti" around me waiting to be shaped by my hands...it was one of the happiest activities of my life. 

Super-8 film was shot silent...we could not afford any sync-sound recording equipment, so we invested instead on a sound projector.  A finished film would be returned to the lab so that a magnetic recording strip could be added to the edge.  The projector doubled as a "tape recorder" with a microphone and a stereo input.  Music and sound effects were laid in first, and then voices were dubbed while we watched the film on the screen.

This is what my projector looked like:

Kids like us had heroes who were movie directors, editors, etc.  My heroes were Bob Fosse and David Bretherton, L.B Abbott, Stanley Kubrick...and I wanted to imitate them. 

If I made a movie like "Super-8", the kid behind the camera would obsess about his favorite movies and would attempt in a loving way to recreate the look and the effects.  ("Super-8" was set in 1979 and had a huge Spielberg influence and homage; I wonder if the kids in the film made a deliberate attempt to emulate actual movies?  In my film, they would).

We had to be creative.  We did our best to be "realistic", but sometimes we understood the charm of a certain amount of artifice.  As I got more comfortable with cutting my exposed film, I shot more...as much as our budget would allow.  We started to do more takes, more angles.  It sucked when the cartridge ran out in the middle of a perfect take. 

Interior shots were tough, because low-light film was grainy and poorly balanced for color. Plus, we had not experimented a lot with lighting, and had one flood light, which cast awful shadows.  We preferred the natural light of outdoors, and developed our material accordingly.  Also, our parents would have killed us if we re-arranged a room or created a set like Abrams did in his youthful movies.

And it was a process sometimes shrouded in secrecy because we didn't want to spoil the surprises of what we were doing.  Sometimes, though, we were ostentatious, because we felt so important as budding young filmmakers, and we wanted to be noticed.  We thought it might be our ticket to the big-time, to 35millimeter!

In my movie entitled "Super-8", I would remember.....

...Mounting the camera on a tripod and creating my first animation...credits forming out of Lego blocks.  What a thrill to see it actually work on the finished film

...Attempting to turn the basement over a la "The Poseidon Adventure", as I "animated" my sister in a chair sliding along the floor as I shot frame by frame and turned the angle of the camera slightly each time...Of course, we only managed to have her slide off the frame, as we were not allowed to drop furniture, etc, from the ceiling...

...Our first narrative film....my sister coming home from a vacation and everything going wrong, with Chaplin-like slapstick...

...Painstakingly cutting hours of footage of intramural football games, and using the "Clockwork Orange" soundtrack for a score, the synthesized Beethoven's 9th Symphony making a perfect background to rapidly paced runs and tackles, cutaways to a tense sideline audience, and a crescendo of quick cuts with the symphonic finale at the end....

...Editing many of my films, even vacation movies, with shock cuts and arresting angles, like Fosse did in "Cabaret"....

...Directing 15 school chums in a riotous chase film in the style of "the Sting".... costumes and everything, and taking over downtown to the amusement of passers-by.

...A "mood" film, which is what aspiring filmmakers did when their friends weren't available to appear as on-screen talent... I was just awakening to films from Sweden, turning on to Ingmar Bergman as taught by Roger Ebert on a show on our local PBS station before he got famous on "Sneak Previews.....Lots of light filtering through trees, slow panning shots, tracking shots achieved with the cameraman (me) sitting in a Radio Flyer wagon while a colleage pushed me....

Some day I will convert these vaulted films to digital format, and post them here....

And best of all, our summer re-doing "The Exorcist"...which was a huge hit in school, and even won an award.....

More about that in an upcoming post!