DeRosaWorld

Slow Dancing In The Fog - Screenwiter Tonino Guerra Has Died At The Age of 92

The screenwriter Tonino Guerra has died. He worked with Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Francesco Rosi, Theo Angelopoulos and Andrei Tarkovsky and many others.

Here is a link to his obituary in The Guardian:

Here is a small sample list of his work: (see the full IMDB page)

L'avventura

La notte

L'eclisse

Marriage Italian Style

Casanova 70

Blow-Up

Amarcord

Christ Stopped at Eboli

Night of The Shooting Stars

Ginger and Fred

During the last century, especially in the hands of a Tonino Guerra, screenwriting rivaled the novel in importance. That was before the dark times... before The Empire.

Saturday Musings: "When Was The Last TIme We Had A President With A Beer-Belly?" Edition

What is up with Andrew Breitbart? Didn’t he ever watch Berkeley In The Sixties ? He looks and sounds ridiculous; frothing at the mouth and screaming at kids who are doing exactly the right thing, expressing their right to free speech in protest against their government leaders.

Andrew, dude… I know you are trying to be cool and all, but you look old.

Matt Drudge’s bitch, indeed.  Oh, and you were trying to take down the wrong guy… still are.

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So, what is it about the Republican Party? One the one hand, they don’t want Mitt Romney telling them what to do either, but Rick Santorum? That guy is not only nuts, but really, really stupid.

To the State of Pennsylvania’s shame, they once replaced Senator Harris Wofford with Senator  Rick Santorum back in the 1990’s when the Corporate Media finally got their shit together and started to realize  their dream of destroying United States Constitution… remember Newt Gingrich? See Andrew Breibart's conversion...

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It’s too late, but it would have been interesting to see what kind of President Barack Obama would have been had he had a real progressive candidate run against him in the primaries and force him to the left. As it is, he could appoint Dick Cheney to the Supreme Court and Democrats would still have to vote for him in November.  He knows he can piss on the Unions and kick women into the gutter and he still has their support… amazing… they should give this guy the Nobel Peace Prize… oh, wait, they already did.

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It looks like now that St. Santorum has risen from the dead, Newt Gingrich may have to drop out of the race… do you think he will finally go get a real job? Maybe he can apply for that high school janitorial position he thinks is so great.

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The Oscars have nine nominees (?) for Best Pciture again this year... hehehe, yeah, I know. I haven't seen any of them either.

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When Etta James passed away this year, she left us with one last studio album: The Dreamer, with an incredible version of MIsty Blue. Treat yourself.

Signs of The End Times? Just Watch TV

So if you doubt the end of the American experiment... just turn the TV on... you may see Clint Eastwood telling you not to worry... or you may see The Avengers movie trailer or you may see Madonna turn to dust before our eyes... or you may see the Republican Presidential candidates debating...

It is all there in our living rooms, my fellow Americans... our automotive and manufacturing... our movie and entertainment... our political agenda... all wrapped up in nice well produced, overpriced, sophomoric advertisements.

Game over.

In Other Words: An Interview With Writer Walter Bernstein

Came across an interesting interview on-line with screenwriter Walter Bernstein after reading some of his journalism work during World War Two.

It is a seven-part interview and the official link from The Archive of American Television can be found below...

Walter Bernstein was interviewed for three-and-a-half hours at his home in New York, NY.  Bernstein discussed openly about being listed in "Red Channels" in 1950.  Despite being blacklisted and the pressure by the FBI, Bernstein wrote under pseudonyms for shows including Danger, Charlie Wild, Private Eye, You Are There, and David Susskind's The Prince and the Pauper.

Once his name was cleared, he wrote many movies including, Fail Safe, The Front, and the Emmy award-winning Miss Evers’ Boy s. The interview was conducted by Sunny Parich on April 20, 1998.

Here is Part One found on YouTube:

A Friend Has Died: Eleanor Hamerow: 1920 - 2011

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
      -- Henry Adams

men·tor:  [men-tawr, -ter], noun
1. a wise and trusted counselor or teacher.
2.an influential senior sponsor or supporter.

A friend of mine died this past week. She was 91 years old. She was a teacher, a filmmaker, a chemist and pharmacist, a dancer, a communist and atheist, a lousy cook and one hell of a person. They don’t make them like that in New York City anymore.

I met Eleanor Hamerow when I attended NYU’s Graduate Film Program back in the 1980s. She was my teacher and we were terrified of her gruff New York accent and attitude which was only a veneer for a caring and intelligent woman.

The heyday of the NYU Program was slipping fast, mostly due to the enormous popularity of film schools across the country. NYU was becoming a money-making corporate entity and some of the old timers like Ellie seemed to be in the way of a new image the school wanted to portray. Her last years at the school were a constant political battle for students and the art of film.

She hung in there as long as she could showing Orson Welles and John Ford movies and La Belle et la Bête and teaching film editing.  She was a film editor and documentary filmmaker of some renowned.

(CBS News (She was fired for including President Eisenhower's "beware the military, industrial complex" speech in their televised documentary of his life.), Martha Graham: An American Original in Performance,  A Dancer’s World, An American Family...)

Film Editing was her second profession after her early years as a chemist.  Teaching was her Third Act.

She got a small auditorium named after her at NYU...but when she finally retired, the soul went out of the school along with all the increasingly antiquated film equipment, like hand-cranked sound synchronizers, moviolas and film splicing blocks...and the old projectors that chewed up old French new wave or Italian neo-realist film prints...

After I finished school, Ellie gave me a job working for her to help me pay off my student loans and I was able to work on her last documentary...appropriately about a teacher.

Somehow...and it is probably worth a novel in itself, I travelled to Moscow with her in 1989 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the VGIK Film School started by Eisenstein in 1919.  One brief story I’ll share is we went in search of the Moscow Arts Theater...home of ‘The Method’ and Stanislavsky...the mythical directing and acting philosophy that breathed life into Marlon Brando, James Dean, Lazlo Benedict, and Elia Kazan...and the NYU Gradate Film Program under Ellie Hamerow.

We found the old theater in the early afternoon and walked into the empty lobby. The doors were open, but the place seemed deserted.  A man in a dark suit handed Ellie a rose and escorted us into the theater...on the stage was a casket with a large photo next to it of one of the actors from the theater troupe. They assumed Ellie had come to pay respects...she looked born and bred...her boots, her head popping out the top of a heavily-scarfed, long black coat...all 5' 1" of her...so we joined the line of mourners.

We had a young interpreter from the school with us and he found the administrator of the theater and told him that Martin Scorsese (me) and a famous American film producer (Ellie) were here. So he came to see us and though we didn’t fool him, we scored some tickets to the theater the next night, and Ihe gave me a poster for the 100th anniversary of The Seagull.  

The next night, we got to see a play that was banned since the 1930s by Stalin himself. Ellie was in heaven. There we were sitting in the front row at the Moscow Arts Theater watching a play in Russian. Our translator was there, kind of filling us in on what was being said and of course there was Ellie's running commentary as though the performance was taking place back at NYU in one of her classes...

Again, a story for another time...but Ellie had written a speech for the VGIK Film School celebration in which she was going to scold the Russians for Stalin and ruining the promise of communism...

After Ellie retired and the years started piling up, some of her contemporary friends began to get ill or even pass away. I would get a phone call from her telling me that Mimi or Ruby couldn't make the performance tonight at Lincoln Center and would I like to go...I saw my first Shostakovich with her and my first Tudor ballet...and my first opera...(a four-hour Semiramede where I didn’t realize that Marilyn Horne was supposed to be playing a man).

She introduced me to the Manhattan cocktail...she couldn't drink anymore, but she wanted me to order one so it sat on the table through dinner so she could smell it...she ordered it the way she liked it: gin, dry vermouth, a dask of bitters and a twist lemon peel.

She was a teacher, but also, always a scholar. Into her eighties she was taking classes at Columbia University. In her late seventies she decided she needed to read the Bible and took a class. I would get a call from her. “What do you know about The First Nicene Council?”  or “Have you read Aquinas?  Let’s have a nosh and talk about it.”  So I would wrap up in a scarf and coat and gloves and take a cab from my East 55th Street apartment to her West 89th Street penthouse and we’d get coffee and something to eat and discuss religion and inevitably movies.

I moved to Los Angeles over twelve years ago and only corresponded with Ellie at first by phone and letters and then dwindling to a few emails and a long Holiday card.

I wasn’t there for the dementia or the need to put her in a home, or for the end where I am told she simply refused food and shortly after, died.

To live such a life and to take it to age 91...Not bad Ellie, not bad at all. You are remembered and cherished...tonight over a Manhattan, Ellie-style.

Now Witness The Firepower of This Fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL Battle Station! ... On My Christmas Tree

Ken Russell - A Passing That Should Be Noted

Film director Ken Russell, who was Oscar-nominated for his 1969 film Women In Love, has died at the age of 84.

At leaset the BBC didn't simply describe him as 'controversial' in the first sentence.

I liked Ken Russell and as a youngster just starting to explore films that my parents didn't show me on television... Ken Russell was always an exciting day at the movies.

Altered States

It's The Pictures That Got Smaller

I just got old...

"An article at the moviemaking technology website Creative Cow reports that the three major manufacturers of motion picture film cameras — Aaton, ARRI and Panavision — have all ceased production of new cameras within the last year, and will only make digital movie cameras from now on.  As the article’s author, Debra Kaufman, poignantly puts it, “Someone, somewhere in the world is now holding the last film camera ever to roll off the line...”

Now I know how Norma Desmond felt...

The technical aspects of my NYU training no longer apply. No more Moviolas, Steenbecks or hand-cranked sound synchronizers.

No more loading film in a black bag using only your sense of touch and counting sprocket holes.

I guess it is easier now... more democratic... but light projected through film... you can't beat that.

It's Alfred Hitchcock's Birthday

A scene from Notorious, a good example of the best elements of Alfred Hitchcock, from the script, casting, direction, editing... all wonderful.

Three Chords And The Truth...

First-World Problems Rap

Marilyn Monroe At 85

Marilyn Monroe would have been 85 years old today.

Here is a nice article by Larry McMurtry.

Here is a scene from The Misfits.

Saturday Musings: 'I Tweet, Therefore I am' Edition

I woke up to NPR this morning to hear a Republican politician criticizing President Obama’s statement on oil industry profits and executive bonuses vs. gas prices, etc..

All very conservative/psychotic/corporate/anti-American…  NPR says the above Republican asshole’s statement were in response to the President’s Saturday address… so they lead the story with the Republican response?!

And don’t allow the President a sound-bite…?

When all you have left is the fall, the fall matters… 

If the Republicans in Congress told NPR they would stop picking on them only if Ari Shapiro were dead… we would find Ari Shapiro floating in the Potomac River with Hillary Clinton’s scarf in his pocket.

To make it worse, they followed this Republican/Corporate/Oil Company propaganda with Newt Gingrich and fucking Rick Santorum criticizing the Obama Administration about… you know,?..  I’m not even sure… they were just both going on about how badly managed America is under Obama… and this time, NPR didn’t even mention a Democratic response… the story simply was about giving Gingrich and Santorum a platform….

The next  segment was NPR asking for money.

I wish the public humiliation wasn’t so public… Don’t ask me to pay for it.

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I cooked Mario Batali’s recipe for Lamb: Roman Style… except I used Newman’s Own Caesar Dressing for the lamb marinade instead of following Mario’s recipe which basically had all the same ingredients as Newman’s Own Caesar Dressing.

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When the tornado ravage victims of the Confederacy line up for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) assistance this week, they should be required to show a long form birth certificate before receiving any Federal/Tax payer funds… What if we need them for a corporate bailout or bank failure?

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I was sick last week and sat on the couch watching Sam Peckinpah movies. The kids today think SAW, SAW II, SAW III, SAW IV, SaW V, SAW VI and SAW 3D are violent and that Ludacris, Vin Diesel and that wrestler-Rock guy are tough,.. How about I unleash a little fucking Warren Oates on your ass!

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia will make your girlfriend get up and walk out the door. .. But if you watch The Getaway, you will know how to get her back and behave herself… Ali McGraw her ass and she’ll be putting the DiGiorno in the oven and popping the cap off your beer.

It started with Major Dundee, a film I haven’t seen in decades. TCM was showing a ‘director’s cut’ of sorts with footage and scenes cut out by the studio before the film’s original release.  I enjoyed the acting, the cinemaphotgraphy, the directing, the script. I must have needed a little macho, Americano…  From there I had to watch The Wild Bunch and then Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. (Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado!!!)...

Oh the violence… poetry and death in slow motion… and the scripts are smarter than I remember. Lots of interesting history going on in the background.  Clint Eastwood can bite me… Little Bill, my ass.

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I’m finding myself drawn-in to the Game of Thrones series on HBO. Kind of like Lord of The Rings, but without elves, orcs or hobbits… there is a dwarf, but he is a real dwarf, not a mystical, magical nanny  dwarf or anything like that. And there is lots of HBO-sex, too… boobies and butts.

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I’ve been interested in the Republican Town Halls that have been going on this recess… Republican Congressmen getting booed and hissed at and not answering questions, or holding the meetings in churches so they can arrest and mace Democrats from their districts and get away with it…

Where is the media coverage that captured the Tea Party Express as they interrupted Democratic Congressmen and Congresswoman Town Halls in 2010?  Not interested anymore?

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And on the technology front. I got an iPhone 4… and have no idea what to do with it. It sits there and I watch it and I wait for it to do something.  Once in a while it buzzes and that means I got an email, but when I’m at work I am sitting in front of my computer, so I know I just got an email… and I refuse to touch the fucking thing if it buzzes while I’m driving home on the 405 freeway doing like 70 miles an hour… although that does not seem to stop my fellow commuters… and the text key pad is too small for my fingers, it takes me four or five tries to get the word ‘the’ written.

Some of the younger co-workers have these things sewn into the palms of their hands. They gave me a list of “apps” I simply must have… So I bought … yes bought the Twitter app… but DeRosaWorld has been on Twitter for a while and I can’t see the difference between the Twitter app and the Twitter website, other than one is on my lap top and one is on my phone, now… which is I guess the point, so I can tweet when I’m not in the office… or at home… or just because I can on my phone, now… which I would pay for as part of my data plan… instead of for free on my laptop…

One of the younglings got frustrated trying to explain to me how to use one of these apps and said: “You sound just like my mother when I brought her an iPhone… just use it.”

I’m told it will change my life.

All I know is when I was a kid… TV was free, I owned the records I bought and I didn’t have to sign a multi-year contract to make a phone call.

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Speaking of records...A bunch of old-timers have come out with ‘releases’… we don’t say albums anymore, I’m told, in just the last two weeks: Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis, Robbie Robertson, Greg Allman, Paul Simon, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams… to name a few. Where are these artists get played today? Satellite radio? Or do they just jump on iTunes and hope someone will find them.

Sidney Lumet: 1924 - 2011

Filmmaker Sidney Lumet has died at the age of 86. With over forty movies, and an amazing television career (14 Academy Award winning films), he was truly an 'actors' director'... some of the movies' greatest acting performances are in Lumet films.

No one shot New York City like Lumet, with films like Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Prince of the City...

But is wasn't all cops & robbers... Lumet was a genre buster, like fellow directors John Huston and Howard Hawks, sometimes I would be surprised during the credits of a movie and find myself saying... that's a Lumet film?

Some examples:

Fail-Safe

The Pawnbroker

Prince of the City

Network

Dog Day Afternoon

Night Falls On Manhattan

Serpico

Q & A

12 Angry Men

Deathtrap

The Wiz

Saturday Musings: 'Bipartisanship = Anal Sex' Edition

You know, I'm tired of calling our political leaders names. We have a democracy here in America and even when elections are stolen, we have lots of people with lots of guns. So if our leaders are spawns of Satan, then we must be The Devil.

Now, back to insulting our  political leaders... Did that Kenyan/Indonesian-American President just sell out his own health insurance industry plan? Did the EPA just get flushed down the toilet by a Democrat? Did the Democratic Party... including the President just completely get rolled by John Boehner and the Republican Tea Party?

...But they saved Planned Parenthood until 2012!!! 

The details are not all in because Barack 'You Lie" Hussein Obama is running for re-election and is still trying to figure out how to spin the story to his ever decreasing constituent base.

How the fuck did we lose this one?

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And filmmaker Sidney Lumet died... so I'm really bummed.

You can take your Nolans and your Finchers and your Tarantinos... stick them in the Cash Cab and drive them into the East River. Sidney Lumet made movies. His movies about New York had more guts and realsim and heart and soul than any other New York filmmaker... (sorry Marty, sorry Woody.)

The Pawnbroker.... case closed

Serpico / Dog Day Afternoon / Prince of the City... simply the best...

Then there are the others... Long Days Journey Into Night, Fail-Safe, Murder On The Orient Express, NETWORK, Death Trap, The Verdict, Q&A, Night Falls On Manhattan... the list goes on.

And who else can fail so spectacularly with The Wiz and then have a decade of films like Lumets 1980's... no one, that's who.

 

Movie Ticket Sales Down 20%... Don't Worry, 'Pirates of the Caribbean 4' and' Hangover 2' Are On Their Way

An art form in decline and possibly murdered.

"With movie theater attendance in the U.S. and Canada down a whopping 20% so far this year compared with 2010, cinema operators and some studio chiefs surprisingly agree on at least one cause: The movies haven't been very good.

"I think it all boils down to the quality of the movies," said Gerry Lopez, chief executive of AMC Entertainment Inc., the nation's second-largest theater chain. "This year we just haven't had those kind of movies that cut across all quadrants of age, race and income."

Michael Lynton, chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, agreed: "So far there is just nothing terribly compelling about what we're delivering as an industry..."

No shit.

"...Many are hopeful that's what will happen by May, when Johnny Depp sails into theaters with the latest "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. At CinemaCon, studios are seeking to excite theater owners with previews of some of their highly anticipated summer sequels, including "Fast Five," "The Hangover Part II" and "Cars 2" as well as fresh event films like the comic book adaptations "Thor" and "Green Lantern..."

Are they fucking kidding?

Die! Die! Die!

Farley Granger: 1925 - 2011

Actor Farley Granger has died at the age of 85. One of my favorite 'Hitchcock actors'.

Here is Granger and John Dall in the hilariously gruesome opening of Hitchcock's Rope.

Warner Bros. Cartoon - Feed The Kitty

Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot

Movies Are A Collaborative Effort

John Barry was truly one of the greats of the film business. His credits astonish.

Somewhere In Time

Born Free

Frances

Out Of Africa

Dances With Wolves

Dr. No

Blake Edwards: 1922 - 2010

Blake Edwards was at the top of my "B" List of Directors. A very funny comic director.

I remember, as a teenager running to the theater see his latest Pink Panther movies, I couldn't get enough of them.

Here is the viking funeral scene near the end of one of his best films: S.O.B.

I Sense A Great Disturbance In The Force

Irvin Kershner, best known for directing the "Star Wars" sequel "The Empire Strikes Back," has died at the age of 87.

 

Veteran's Day

Boo!

A Lesson In Politics For Democrats...

This is what I want in a Democratic Candidate...

Keep Pushing The Democrats To The Left. Nothing Else Ever Works In America.

Nearly two years after a Democrat promising hope and change entered the White House, amid an economic crisis left behind by an unpopular Republican, unemployment remained at century-high levels. Despite new stimulus programs, recovery seemed far off. Opponents in the GOP (and even some in the president's own party) called for cutting spending to reduce the budget deficit. Democrats were split:  Was the president acting as boldly as possible—or was he not nearly bold enough?  Pundits on the left accused him of dithering and caving in to "big business." Yet as a midterm election approached—one that might decide whether the president and his programs had much of a future—right-wing demagogues on the stump and in the media accused the White House of imposing socialism on America...

Fun political history from The Nation. The Republicans learned an important lesson in California's 1934 Governor's race. The targeted use of PR and the control of the new media to attack your opponent.  

"California's newspapers, led by William Randolph Hearst and Harry Chandler, covered only Merriam's activities, while mocking Sinclair day after day with quotes from books and novels taken out of context. (Chandler's Los Angeles Times referred to Sinclair's "maggot-like horde" of supporters.) Hollywood moguls, besides threatening the move to Florida, docked most employees a day's pay, giving the proceeds directly to Merriam's coffers. Millions of dollars to defeat Sinclair poured in from business interests across the country, all off the books. And then there were the attack ads (i.e., newsreels) shown in movie theaters around the state, created by the saintly film producer Irving Thalberg, causing near-riots in some places."

It never ends my friends.

"And if California slides into the ocean... Like the mystics and statistics say it will... I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill..." Tony Curtis Has Died.

Tony Curtis, a great example of the ups and downs of Hollywood, has died at the age of 85.

Sweet Smell of Success

The Defiant Ones

Some Like It Hot

The Great Race

Director Arthur Penn Has Died

Arthur Penn, one of the great American directors has died at age 88. He was an actor's director.

Bonnie and Clyde

Some more Bonne and Clyde

The Miracle Worker

The Missouri Breaks

Night Moves

Little Big Man

At Some Point... And Probably Not Forever... Claude Chabrol Becomes Every Film Student's Favorite Filmmaker

For a good part of the 20th century, movies were the medium that united the world through art and entertainment... and movie making in the hands of some, seemed an important and noble profession. Claude Chabrol was one of those important and noble filmmakers. He died on Sunday in Paris at the age of 80.

From the New York Times obituary:

...“Le Beau Serge” and a subsequent Chabrol film, “Les Cousins” (1958), are often cited as the opening volley of the French New Wave. “Le Beau Serge” (“Handsome Serge”) is an acerbic study of a smug Parisian, François (Jean-Claude Brialy), who returns to the provincial village of his youth and tries to rescue his former best friend, Serge (Gérard Blain), from a seemingly pointless, working-class existence. The film established the piercing antibourgeois themes that would shape much of the rest of Mr. Chabrol’s career. It also demonstrated, to a professionally closed and aesthetically conservative French film industry, that an outsider could break into the system and make a commercially successful, critically acclaimed film.

This lesson was not lost on his colleagues. Mr. Truffaut followed Mr. Chabrol’s example with “The 400 Blows”(1959) and Mr. Godard with “Breathless” (1960), both of which became internationally successful and established La Nouvelle Vague (The New Wave) as a phenomenon...

Saturday Musings: Guest Bloggers - Robert Towne, Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson and John Huston... Previewing The Republican Takeover of Congress 2010.

Creepy, seemingly all-powerful rich, old white men taking over our lives with the help of goons. Welocme to a Republican controlled Congress in 2010.

 

No Shame. No Scruples... And As Relentless As The Terminator

"Islamic marketing," some experts say, is the next wave in branding.

Paul Temporal, an associate fellow at the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, tells the New York Times, "For the last few years, it's been China and India. The next big market is the Muslim market. There's this huge group of people who have been relatively untapped in terms of what they want and need, and they represent a tremendous opportunity."

I guess this is why the World Trade Centers seemed like such an obvious target.

I wonder what is the number one iTunes download in Afghanistan?

"a great protagonist of one of the best seasons of Italian cinema." - Suso Cecchi D'Amico Has Died.

Suso Cecchi D'Amico, the Italian screenwriter of such celebrated movies as Bicycle Thieves and The Leopard, has died in Rome at the age of 96.

Suso D'Amico may be unmatched in the history of cinema as a screenwriter. Admittedly, that job can be a messy, complex collaboration, especially when working with the the great directors: DeSica, Visconti, Zeffirelli, Antonioni and so many more... what is art, what is acting, what is directing, what is script, what is cinema... but her body of work is marvelous... some of my favorite films.

Pardon the subtitles, but unless you understand Italian... and this is how I first saw most of these films...mostly on television.

A scene from Rocco and His Brothers

A scene from The Bicycle Thief

Saturday Musings: Guest Blogger - Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean Style)

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Oliver Stone: The Last Man Standing

"The often-inflammatory Stone’s new documentary, South of the Border—in which he profiles Latin American leaders—is an even-handed approach to a controversial subject."

In Hollywood, Oliver Stone has so far out paces his fellow directors that all the other film makers working today need to find another job title... like Court Jester...

"But these are strange times we live in, and this time around, Stone appears to be the most sensible guy on the block. It’s not the first time: W, released in 2008, was a sympathetic look at George Bush, if not of his politics and policies."

And you can count on one finger how many movies have shown us Richard Nixon as a boy or on a date as a teenager...

... or asked WHY JFK was assassinated in public...

...or made a film about Alexander the Great...

...or about the collapse of the World Trade Centers...

...or Wall Street corruption...

...or Fidel Castro...

...or the Palestinians...

...or hate radio...

...or a Vietnam Trilogy...

What is disturbing is not the right’s rubber-stamped attitudes–thanks to Fox, at least, for getting the word out there and making people aware of South of the Border–toward the rising Latin left, but how pervasive the negative image of the South American leaders is in our mainstream media. (CNN and the New York Times, among others, take severe credibility hits.)

Salvador Dali and Walt Disney: Destino

Destino is a short animated film that was half a century in the making... Walt Disney and Salvador Dali collaborated on the film starting in 1948. The project was canceled for all the bad Hollywood reasons that can be as surreal as Dali's paintings... but In 2003, Disney's nephew Roy finished and released the film.

Seven Days In May. The General and The President.

"Underlying the flap over Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s comments in Rolling Stone magazine about his civilian superiors, including in the White House, are tensions resulting from the growing sense that conditions in Afghanistan are not progressing as anticipated.

Even as the US presence in Afghanistan surges to nearly 100,000 soldiers, planned offensives for rooting out Taliban fighters from strongholds are delayed, setbacks mount in areas of earlier progress, and US and allied casualties rise to their highest levels of the nearly 9-year-old war.

In addition, corruption – acknowledged to be one of the Western alliance’s worst enemies – appears to be only growing as money pours in. And the training and building up of Afghan security forces – the backbone of the Western exit strategy – fall further behind schedule.

It is in this context that General McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and members of his staff offered Rolling Stone a scathing assessment of Obama administration officials including National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones, Afghanistan-Pakistan special envoy Richard Holbrooke, and even Vice President Joe Biden."

Wow!

General McChrystal has stepped so far out of line, that there is no turning back.. and there shouldn't be.

Generals answer to Congress and the President.

Happy Birthday to James Ivory

Today is director James Ivory's 82nd birthday. Quite a unique body of work. Here is a David Frost interview from a couple of years back.

Darth Vader: "Asteroids do not concern me, Admiral. I want that ship, not excuses."

On the 30th Annivrsary of the release of the movie Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas gives us the answer for solving the seemingly unstoppable oil leak.

Put A BP executive in charge of stopping the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and give him 24 hours to solve the problem.

When 24 hours has passed, Force-choke the motherfucker and move on to the next in line.

In 24 hours, if there is still oil flowing out of the rig, Force-choke that motherfucker and move on down the line.

Enough of this shit.

Saturday Musings: 'Greed. If You Know What's Good For You.' Edition

Filmmaker Oliver Stone debuted his new movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps at the Cannes film festival this week.

I can't wait to see this one. Once again, Stone is there holding a mirror up to America and making us take that long, critical look at ourselves.

The most important thing that has happened in American finance in this young century, the American Banks meltdown and US Government bailout decision, is on our television sets everyday, but not many in Holly wood seem interested or capable of delivering a topical film on the grand, society changing scale that only movies can bring to us.

Once again, Oliver Stone stands tall in the land of the tiny and the art of film for him is made to seem like going to war.

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Speaking of going to war... How the hell did the US Senate have the balls to vote on debit card usage fee cuts?

Something that really helps small businesses around the country and not the corporate banking system?

The Banksters have already threatened Senators who voted for the bill with holding out on corporate donations to their future campaigns... remember guys, these same politicians bailed you out... no questions asked... don't bite the hand that feeds.

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Some of my favorite progressive political blogs are taking swipes at President Obama's progressive street-cred.

These same blogs chastised the likes of little old me for supporting Senator Clinton in 2008 and not totally buying into the Game-Changer.

NOW all I read are FDL, TPM, Digby and such lecturing us liberal followers of their blogs on how uninformed we were to think Obama was a super-duper liberal. What were we thinking? What did we base that notion on? Certainly not his lack of record? Certainly not his lack of experience? Certainly not the color of his skin?

Certainly not by reading your blogs.

Disingenuous, ladies and gentleman… to put it kindly. And now most of Obama’s progressive support comes from liberals who have no choice.

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Music and Books. Books and Music. Two topics I haven’t wrote about here lately. My expatriate New York friends reminded me the other night what an intellectual wasteland Los Angeles can be.

Here is a town that holds the reigns to the entertainment business and all we get is Disney Channel intellect and Reality TV emotions. So once again, thank you Oliver Stone.

I came away from dinner last week with a gift bag of books. The best thing about it is the authors I haven’t read. (James Purdy, John Casey and Clyde Edgerton) I recently discovered Orhan Pamuk through My Name Is Red and now I get to read Snow.

I have Pete Dexter (The Paper Boy), Jim Harrison (Dalva). I have an autobiography of Samuel Fuller!!!

But what really excites me is The Just and the Unjust, a novel by James Gould Cozzens.

I discovered Cozzens only a couple of years ago. For some reason, we tend to bury our best and brightest and I had never come across his books on any list or even in the library. He is one of America’s great Post World War Two writers.

And hidden at the bottom of the bag, the book I have been avoiding. Norman Mailer’s last novel The Castle In The Forrest. I just didn’t think I wanted to go there with him.

As I pulled each book out of the when I got home and paged through them. I decided to read the first paragraph. Suddenly I was 15 pages in and turning the page to start the next chapter.

Mailer is a wonder. His prose are a powerhouse of the English language, his own intellect and psyche, his sense and sensibility of history.

Some of this book is gross and some is so engrossing that I want, but hesitate to recommend it to friends, because I’m not sure most folks would want to spend so much time with the young Adolf Hitler. I think I will just treasure it, hate it and marvel at it like I have so many other of Mailer’s books. (Harlot’s Ghost for example). Where do American prose go without Norman Mailer?

So we hit the movies and books, so all I got left is Santana’s Abraxas. “We stood before it and began to freeze inside from the exertion. We questioned the painting, berated it, made love to it, prayed to it: We called it mother, called it whore and slut, called it our beloved, called it Abraxas...”

I downloaded this second Santana album after hearing "Samba Pa Ti" on the radio as I drove to work the other day. I remember this album being at the top of the list of my oldest sister’s favorite albums of all time. So this weekend will consist of a bottle of Spanish roja and some Santana... and a young Adolf Hitler... sweet dreams.

Saturday Musings: 'Hit The Decks' Edition with Guest Bloggers Gore Vidal and John Meroney

John Meroney interviewed Gore Vidal for The Atlantic. 

Here are some excerpts from Meroney's whirlwind interview. There is lots more from Meroney and Vidal if you follow the above link to The Atlantic.

You  said earlier this month that you now wish you had supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries instead of Barack Obama. You said that she would make a better president.

Well, I was in a thoughtful mood.

Do you really wish you had supported Mrs. Clinton?

She would have been a wonderful president. As for my support for Obama, remember that I was brought up in Washington. It was an all-black city when I was a kid. And I’ve always been very pro-African-American – or whatever phrase we now use. I was curious to see what would happen when their time came. I was delighted when Obama appeared on the scene. But now it seems as though our original objection to him – that experience mattered – was well-founded.

The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy prompted a flood of coverage about him and his career. In 1969, you said in an interview, “By 1972, Kennedy will be just another politician whom we have seen too much of, no doubt useful in the Senate but nothing more. By 1976, Camelot will not only be forgot but unrestorable, if for no other reason than that Arthur’s heir will by then be – cruelest fate of all – unmistakably fat.”

I should think that’s rather well observed.

What is Ted Kennedy’s real legacy?

It’s nothing. But I predicted that at the beginning, when Jack started backing him for his U.S. Senate seat. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who was a loyal Kennedy courtier, agreed. But Jack was funny about it. He never took Arthur seriously. He always called him “the movie critic.” (Imitating JFK’s accent) “What does ‘the movie critic’ have to say about this issue?” He liked to tease Arthur.

What did Schlesinger say about Ted Kennedy?

On his own, he went to Jack and said, “It’s in the papers that you’re working behind the scenes to support Teddy. You can’t do that. You’re making an awful lot of trouble for yourself. You’re going to be accused of nepotism and worse for backing a boy who isn’t considered first-rate.” Teddy had been caught cheating at Harvard – and all the things that Republicans like to write about. I asked Arthur, “What did Jack say to that?” And he answered, (imitating JFK’s accent) “Teddy’s not running against George Washington.”

So where is President Kennedy’s place in the pantheon of liberalism?

Jack was not a liberal. Why does anyone want to pretend that he was? When it came to matters of race, he behaved pretty well. But he wasn’t terribly interested in it. When he famously rang up Mrs. Martin Luther King after Rev. King had been jailed – well, Harris Wofford thought that one up. It was all the work of others who were liberals.

They were his closest advisors.

I remember when he was putting together his cabinet, he said (imitating JFK’s accent), “Do you know anybody who’s suitable for Secretary of Agriculture?” I said, “No, I don’t. And I don’t want to know anybody who’s suitable for Secretary of Agriculture.” Jack said (imitating JFK’s accent), “Well, that’s my problem. I don’t know any people.”He came up with Dean Rusk. He said (imitating JFK accent), “Who the hell is Dean Rusk?” I said, “Well, he’s your Secretary of State, I’m told.” Jack said (imitating JFK’s accent), “Oh, yeah, that’s right. He is.” When Jack got bored, he would tap his front teeth with his index finger.

Shouldn’t this be a golden age for the Democrats? They finally control both houses of Congress and elected a president.

But they don’t have a reason.

Do you blame Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi? Isn’t she a good leader?

Well, I’m not in the House, so I can’t tell you. If one wants to know about running the United States House of Representatives, look at Henry Clay. He ran it. But he’s totally unknown now, of course. I think, “Dear God, if only Henry Clay were speaker.”

One question that has been repeatedly asked since the economic recession began is, What exactly got the country out of the Great Depression? Do you think President Roosevelt’s policies were responsible for fixing the economy?

It was mainly luck. By 1939, the Depression was back. Unemployment was huge. Roosevelt didn’t have any quick fix. Remember, the New Deal, Works Progress Administration, and Civilian Conservation Corps – all that happened years before. Roosevelt was riding a storm.

So what policies of Roosevelt do you most admire?

I had supper with Mrs. Roosevelt at Hyde Park, and she said (imitating Eleanor Roosevelt’s voice), “My Franklin and I were very impressed with something our son James did when he got back from serving in the war.” Mrs. Roosevelt said (imitating Eleanor Roosevelt’s voice), “You know, it was James who convinced the President to create the G.I. Bill of Rights.” That policy changed the whole class system in the United States. Before it, you had to be a doctor’s son to go to college. After that bill, everybody could go.

In one recent interview, you referred to FDR as a great man.

He was a very great man.

But you opposed his foreign policy.

Well, of course. FDR was damaging the Republic by his imperial ways.

You’re pictured in this book doing an imitation of FDR during World War II.

Yes, I was in Alaska, the ideal place. Roosevelt sent me there.

You and Ronald Reagan have at least one thing in common: he did an excellent imitation of FDR as well.

Mine is better.

In September, director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for leaving the U.S. in 1978 before being sentenced to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson’s house in Hollywood. During the time of the original incident, you were working in the industry, and you and Polanski had a common friend in theater critic and producer Kenneth Tynan. So what’s your take on Polanski, this many years later?

I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?

I’ve certainly never heard that take on the story before.

First, I was in the middle of all that. Back then, we all were. Everybody knew everybody else. There was a totally different story at the time that doesn’t resemble anything that we’re now being told.

What do you mean?

The media can’t get anything straight. Plus, there’s usually an anti-Semitic and anti-fag thing going on with the press – lots of crazy things. The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko – that’s what people were calling him – well, the story is totally different now from what it was then.

What are “American values”?

Lying and cheating. There’s nothing better.

So you’re saying that a non-Jewish director wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught up in a sex crime scandal? Such a thing wouldn’t be an issue for Martin Scorsese?

Well, he’s an absolutely sexless director. Can you think of a sex scene that he ever shot?

You describe the New York Times as a newspaper “notorious for its dullness and hostility to excellence of any kind, other than thievery.” What do you mean by that?

Ask anyone who was a writer in the 1940s and 50s. If the ghost of Ernest Hemingway were here, he would explain it to you. The paper was a bunch of dull hacks.

During that period, the paper didn’t review any of your books. You’ve said this “blacklisting” was a blessing.

It was. My first book was in 1946. Eighteen years later, when I published the novel Julian, the paper caved in and finally reviewed me. Everybody told me that Julian, a very complex story about the apostate emperor of Rome, wouldn’t sell. But it was number one. The Times’ reviewer, Orville Prescott, came out of retirement to knock me. Now that’s dedication. I complimented him in public.

The Hearst newspapers wouldn’t review your books either. Is that ban what led you into writing for Hollywood?

Yes. You don’t think I wanted to write “Ben-Hur,” do you? I was stuck. One right-wing rumor about me, which I don’t appreciate, is that I came from an enormously rich family. I never inherited 50 cents from my family. They didn’t have it.

In a 1969 interview, you say that you’ve been on your own since you were 17.

Yes. That’s when I went into the Army. It saved me.

So Hollywood was a way to write and make a lot of money?

Well, you didn’t really come to Hollywood to make a lot of money. You could, however, make a living. But I had two hit plays on Broadway back-to-back. That seldom happens.

Did the process of writing a screenplay come naturally to you? Was it difficult?

I’m a writer. I write whatever I choose.

Who is the best leader in the Democratic Party right now?

 Do you mean, Who can give the best speech? Who can raise the most money? Look, I’m not a sentimentalist. Nor am I a romantic. I don’t believe in the Great Man theory of history. Great men come along very seldom – and when they do, it’s pretty bloody. But, as Chancellor Bismarck once observed, God looks after alcoholics, little children, and the United States of America.

Shorter Oscars

Sigourney Weaver and Hurt Locker beat the blue things from Avatar for Best Picture.

Everyone in Hollywood is gay.

That big black girl didn't win... not Mo'Nique, she did win, but that other really big black girl.

Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep didn't win either, but that skinny white woman did... red lips... Speed.

I saw a documentary: I Coulda Been Your Cellmate! that Mo'Nique made about going to do a stand-up comedy routine at a women's prison and her life changes there. She can't do the funny stuff anymore after meeting these women, but the show she does put on at the end is so much more powerful. I can understand where her motivation for her performance in Precious came from.

Tom Hanks ended the show quickly by opening the Best Picture envelope as he walked out on stage, he didn't read the nominations, just shouted Hurt Locker. (Way to go, asshole).

Along time ago, (and I guess I knew the day would come when me and Tom Hanks would be enemies), I decided that I was never going to see another Tom Hanks film... so Philadelphia, Forrest Gump , Apollo 13, and whatever the fuck else he has been in over the years has been skipped by me... one exception, I went to see Saving Private Ryan, one of the worst war movies ever made. Great opening sequence, bad, bad, embarrassingly bad movie. (remember the gang rape, ugly tree monologue by Private Ryan? Not worth saving after all...)

Good night everybody!

Saturday Musings: 'Long Live Rock' Edition

I haven’t seen any of the ten(?) Oscar nominated films this year.

A friend of mine just saw Avatar and her review sums up the state of the American film industry: (I paraphrase... and she's from Brooklyn)

"They were blue. So what? I sat there for three hours with these stupid 3D glasses on my face.

I went hoping that maybe, because of how much money this thing was making and how everyone was seeing it, that maybe there would be something worth seeing, but no. All I got was a headache.

The effects were impressive I guess, these blue things and flying creatures, but who cares. The dialog all sounded like it was written by a 13 year old. And there is supposed to be an ‘important message’. Again, who cares? After a while I was just embarrassed sitting there and wanted to go home."

And the winner for Best Picture…

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America is just a group of spoiled preteens. We are out of shape, undereducated and cocky about it. We have lots of technological gadgets that do not enhance our lives. We have phones that text and cars that talk and computers that give you TV shows to download in case you missed them when they were broadcast… over cable, which you pay for AND have to watch commercials during... and of course music. I'm slowly buying my entire fucking record collection for the third time in my life.

Our food is killing us. Our air is killing us. We take more drugs than our bodies have symptoms for. We depend on TV commercials more than doctors to tell us what drugs to take because we can’t afford doctors.

We do have nice teeth, even if they aren’t all real they are at least mostly white and straight... kind of like Republicans.

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I went to buy some clothes at Macy’s and everything in the Mens Department was for teenagers. And by teenagers I mean 15 year old, skinny Disney music stars with their own TV shows. That didn’t stop grown men in their 30s, 40s and even 50s from buying t-shirts with graffiti art and Sports Team logos on them. They even sell jeans with words on them, written down the leg. I think they were quotes form either Kobe Bryant, Kanye West or President Obama. I bought some socks and left. I guess I need to shop in Sears.

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As for politics. I am waiting to see if President Obama has this meeting of the minds with the Republican Leadership and asks them to take over the health care reform legislation and then I will be officially through with him. I thought I was voting for a black, intellectual, closet-socialist from the Chicago School of Hard Knocks and I got a guy who is right of the Blue Dogs in his Party.

President Obama is a very lucky politician. When he ran for the Senate in 2006 his Republican opponent was Alan Keyes. Next to Alan Keyes Michele Bachmann seems like a Green Peace whale-boat chaser. And when he runs for President he gets John McCain and Sarah-fucking-Palin? All he had to do was stand there and not talk to seem liberal and sane.

We didn’t get what we thought we voted for in 2008. And I assume in 2012, that we will have to vote for Obama again because the alternative will be even worse. The alternative is always worse.

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I bought the new WHO: Greatest Hits Live, a retrospective of their hits performed live throughout their long career. It rocks. It rocks so much harder than anything out there. And it ends with A Man In A Purple Dress. So if you like the Super Bowl half-time show, you’ll love this album. Long Live Rock.

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I am going to make Fallenmonk's Chicken Cacciatore today and drink red wine.

Jerry Goldsmith: The Man Who Lost 17 Oscars

Jerry Goldsmith was born on February 10, 1929. He is one of my favorite film composers... I mean, come on... PATTON.

Goldsmith was nominated for 18 Academy Awards. He was a big part of some of my favorite movies growing up.

The Sand Pebbles, Patton, The WInd And The Lion, Chinatown, Alien, Seven Days In May, Von Ryan's Express, Seconds, The Trouble With Angels... to name but a few of this man's cinema work.

Here is a list of his Oscar nominations:

1962-Freud (Music Score—substantially original)
1965-A Patch of Blue (Music Score—substantially original)
1966-The Sand Pebbles (Original Music Score)
1968-Planet of the Apes (Original Score—for a motion picture [not a musical])
1970-Patton (Original Dramatic Score)
1973-Papillon (Original Dramatic Score)
1974-Chinatown
1975-The Wind and the Lion
1976-The Omen (won)
1976 "Ave Satani" (Original Song) from The Omen [music and lyrics by Jerry Goldsmith]
1978-The Boys from Brazil
1979-Star Trek: The Motion Picture
1982-Poltergeist
1983-Under Fire
1986-Hoosiers
1992-Basic Instinct
1997-L.A. Confidential
1998-Mulan

Netflix...

The Oscar Nominations were announced today for the 82nd Academy Awards.

They Don't Make Them Like That Anymore... Hollywood Producer David Brown Dies

From Variety:

Producer and former studio executive David Brown, who produced Oscar-winning films including "The Sting" and "Driving Miss Daisy," died Sunday, after a long illness, at the Manhattan home he shared with his wife, Helen Gurley Brown. He was 93....

Partnered for many years with onetime studio boss Richard D. Zanuck, Brown produced hits of the 1970s and '80s including "Jaws," "Cocoon" and "The Verdict," his personal favorite....

His pairing with Zanuck, son of 20th Century Fox's Darryl F. Zanuck, was one of the longer-lived production associations in Hollywood. The two had a history that began in the 1950s, shortly after Brown caught the eye of Darryl F. Zanuck and joined Fox in 1951 as a story editor. He then moved up to head the story department. In 1967, Brown became VP of story operations at Fox and then exec VP of creative affairs....

During their joint tenure, Fox turned out "The French Connection," "Patton," "The Sound of Music," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "MASH," as well as costly disappointments "Doctor Dolittle," "Star" and "Hello Dolly."....

Universal won its first best picture Oscar in many years with Zanuck-Brown's "The Sting," which grossed more than $156 million in the U.S. The pair also produced Steven Spielberg's first film, "The Sugarland Express," and Clint Eastwood's "The Eiger Sanction." In 1975, they hit paydirt with "Jaws," which became the highest-grossing film for some time....

According to Brown, Spielberg at first didn't want to do the movie about a giant shark terrorizing beachgoers in a summer resort town....

"He said, 'There are movies and there are films, and I want to make films.' And we said, 'Well if this works, you can make films.'"....

During the 1990s, Brown continued to turn out high-profile films such as Rob Reiner's "A Few Good Men," "Angela's Ashes," "Kiss the Girls" and "Road to Perdition." His 2000 production "Chocolat" was again Oscar-nommed for best picture. For television, he was exec producer of miniseries "A Season in Purgatory" and two movies for HBO."

Oliver Stone's Nixon - A Mid-Week Film Clip

A clip from Oliver Stone's film Nixon. A little historical, political filmmaking to remind us all of what we get when we elect Republican Presidents.

... As well as the kind of movies that should be getting made in Hollywood.

Saturday Musings: 'Obama 2.0' Edition

President Obama was channeling President Clinton this week when he went on the TV to deliver his State of the Union, under duress, surrounded in the chamber by both Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court... and surrounded on the television screen by enemy pundits waiting to pounce as soon as he finished.

Our President was every bit the Executive Branch that night, but it wasn’t until this Friday when the President stood up to take questions from the Republican Congress that he really shined bright, and unfortunately for his television enemies and the GOP, Barack Obama schooled the group like he was a teacher asking a bunch of students who was buried in Grant’s tomb… and they didn’t know the answer.

I can’t think of another President other than Bill Clinton or going back to JFK that could stand up there and take such hostile and sometimes stupid questions and not lose patience. It was the best TV I’ve seen in a long time. It was a Democratic President, used to hostility from pundits, being able to answer critics for himself, without the damage of TV Newsroom editing. (FOX News couldn’t stand it and cut away early once they saw what was going down.)

Maybe President Obama learned something from his first year in Office. The Republican Party is the enemy. They should be treated that way. They are a danger to this nation. Too bad he couldn't make them stay after school or better yet, expel them.

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Fantasy question: How fast do you think Tim Tebow would have an abortion if he got pregnant in college and having a baby threatened his football career?

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Is there enough media spin in the world to keep someone out of jail who entered a Federal Building in a disguise and lied about being phone repairmen in order to either break or tap a United States Senator’s phone?  Again, I ask. Why are these young, loyal Americans not in the Army defending our American way of life in battle overseas? That goes for Tim Tebow, too. We could use a big, strong, righteous athlete over in Afghanistan taking on Al-Qaeda.

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A few novelist have struggled with injecting 9/11 events or post-9/11 anxiety into their novels, but American literature has yet to explain what happened that day… explain it like only a great novel can do; Norman Mailer-type of writing.

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An now that we have video-on-demand, I would like to request Director Martin Scorsese direct a movie about 9/11. He is the King of New York Film-making and supposedly one of  our cinematic geniuses, so hop to it, Marty… you can even cast Leonardo DiCaprio if you want. What does that day mean to you?

I’ve seen Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, some of that Flight 93, but no… and a low-budget indie called WTC View and Fahrenheit 911, of course… what else is there?

A Friday Night Video

Is this a music video, or sci-fi short? Here is Nancy Sinatra with This Town.

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809. When I lived in Philadelphia, his house was a very important place to visit. You listened for the pounding of the tell-tale heart.

Here is Vincent Price's interpretation of The Cask of Amontillado:

Eric Rohmer: 1920 - 2010 Filmmaker

Eric Rohmer. the French new wave filmmaker has died at age 89.

Rohmer was the last of the French New Wave directors to become established.

He worked as the editor of the Cahiers du cinéma periodical from 1957 to 1963, while most of his Cahiers colleagues, among them Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, were beginning their careers and gaining international attention. René Schérer, philosopher, is his brother and René Monzat, a journalist, is his son.

Rohmer came to international attention around 1969 when one of his films was recognised at the Academy Awards. He won the San Sebastián International Film Festival with Claire's Knee in 1970. In 2001, Rohmer received the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

His works were viewed by audiences around the world. He died of unspecified causes on 11 January 2010. In his obituary in The Daily Telegraph he was described as "the most durable film-maker of the French New Wave", outlasting his peers and "still making movies the public wanted to see" late in his career.

1965 "Place de l'Étoile" from Paris Vu Par... (Six in Paris)

There And Back... LAX To PHL Holiday

Flying out of LAX on the red-eye, I was still that good, post-9/11 American who showed up at the airport two-hours early. There was NO ONE in the security line and I breezed right through, shoes -off, belt off... was at the gate, bored, sitting for two hours before a 5 hour plane ride. I was asleep before we reached cruising altitude.

PHL had long security lines for the first flight out of their day before Christmas Eve, I stood on the moving floor and watched the miserable faces as I glided by. I was shivering. It was 27 degrees and there was two feet of snow on the ground all the way back into New Jersey.

Christmas Eve was cold and the snow hadn't budged. We traveled back into Philadelphia to visit some ancient relatives who still live in the 'old neighborhood'. The old neighborhood looks kind of like Baghdad. The driving was rough because Philadelphia can't afford to plow the streets anymore, but there was plenty of Italian food waiting: a pot of sausage, a pot of pepperoni, a pot of Aunt Rose's meatballs and plenty of lasagna and ravioli.

The Christmas Eve drive back into New Jersey was a little dicey with all the snow and ice that late at night, but it was Christmas Eve and the heat was set on maximum and Christmas songs were on the radio.

Christmas Day was nice. Everyone was coming over and I didn't have to move. It was my Mother's turn to present the pot of sausage, pot of pepperoni, pot of Aunt Kitty's meatballs with lasagna and ravioli. (Mom can't cook anymore, so the sisters did all the work to perfection).

Presents for the kids. Paper ripping, Wii games. Food coma.

Next day: Rain, 50 degrees, no more snow, but flooding.

A tradition that started with the release of The Godfather Part 3 is to go to the movies as a group on the day after Christmas. This year it was Avatar. I some how managed to skip it with the promise to mind Mom while everyone was away. We watched cooking shows. She likes Chef Ming.

Chinese Food take out feast that night. (egg rolls!!!!!! with duck sauce and hot mustard).

Final day: Cheesesteaks for lunch and the night flight back to LAX. Security, even after Amsterdam declared war on us, was minimal and easy. Sat and watched a Terrorism Special on CNN with my fellow travelers. The flight was six hours of which I slept five.

Got home midnight. Watered the Christmas tree. Opened a bottle of wine. Drank it and passed out.

I post this as I am about to go pick up the preciouses from The Holiday Hotel For Cats.

My Christmas presents consisted of a flannel shirt, bedroom slippers, a map of the Allied Invasion fleet into Normandy, June 6, 1944 (love it), an art print from an Etsy artist and two lovely books: my history major nephew gave me In The President's Secret Service by Ronald Kessler and my younger sister gave me Genoa and the Sea 1559-1684 (Lo amo).

The Somerset Maugham novels didn't seem to cause the hysteria among the family as did the Wii. Maybe as they read them, they will appreciate them more than the Wii games that they all distributed among themselves.

I need a salad.

Happy Birthday Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard was born on December 3, 1930. Godard and is fellow French new wave film directors gave new life to cinema halfway through the 20th century.