More LA Theater Works!

This performance reminded me of “The Dollhouse” a little bit. Lily Dale was so tremendously protected and naive. I personally cannot imagine a life where I would never need to spend any money whatsoever. Maybe in Texas they have worked out a system where the wives can go about their business and never need to see the color of money.

Will Kidder and his wife Lily Dale have lost their 37 year-old son to a drowning. They are still mourning his loss when Will loses his job.

That’s practically the whole story. Oh, except that the roomate of their son keeps hanging around.

Sounds homoerotic to me. Their son lives at the YMCA with a “roomate.” YOU connnect the dots.

Anyway, the couple has to come to terms with what they have of their life. I guess it’s supposed to be set in the 50s. I just cannot imagine a life like that. I have so much more freedom and possibility than Lily Dale.

She calls her husband “Daddy”, which is also creepy.

It did keep my interest though. I was waiting to see what happened. Shirley Knight, the actress who plays Lily Dale, was nominated for a Tony for her onstage performance of this role. She did stick to it, that’s for sure.

The world has changed a lot.

Buffy is the evil spoiled upper-class heroine of this movie. Jaded beyond belief, she makes a deal with her step brother to seduce and humiliate people who cross their path.

She makes a bet that he can’t seduce the headmaster’s daughter, who has just come out in a magazine as the “virgin until marriage.”

If the step-brother can’t do it, she gets to keep his very expensive car.

If he can seduce the virgin, she promises to sleep with him.

Sordid enough for you yet?

It’s just terrible, evil and sexy.

The setting is ultra-rich Manhattan, which lends a beautiful background to this very unhealthy and seductive movie.

If you want to be bad, this is the movie for you.

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Everybody knows that girls always go for the bad boys. That’s what Christy Mahon discovers. He was on the run, after killing his father. He finds a place of refuge in a pub.

Once he tells his story, all the village gets all a-twitter about this brave man who kills his own father.

It’s set in Ireland, and it’s a lot of fun to hear all the actor’s speaking in a Irish brogue. LA theater works is great.

It does have an interesting twist at the end.

I think every female who was young in the 80s fell in love with John Cusack after Say Anything. On the basis of the Cusack’s picture on the cover, I rented Hot Pursuit.

What a movie! all notmals boundaries of the plausible are thrown out the window. It starts with Cusack’s girlfriend sneaking into his all-boys’ high school and keeping him from passing his chemistry final. It ends with Cusack throwing grenades and firing a machine gun to save her from pirates.

He flunks his chemistry test, so he can’t go on the cruise to the Carribean with her rich family. BUt it’s true teenage love! So he finds a way to follow her and just miss her for the whole vacation.

As unbelievably cheesy as it is, Cesack still pulled off his ‘boyfriend’ role perfectly. Maybe that’s his whole genius. The man gives a perfect movie kiss. With the little funny, awkward wisecrack beforehand. It works.

There was also a good King Lear scene where he curses the storm (he’s in a boat).

I finally watched the whole movie last night.

It’s funny, I can read a book for hours, but it’s really hard for me to sit through a movie.

Anyway, it is so real. It could practically be a home movie of the dorky guys around here. all those actor wanna-bees. It was amazing to see MY NEIGHBORHOOD all over the screen. Holy crap! The dude was even wearing an In’N’Out shirt.
Man…If I’d seen it when i lived in alaska, I wouldn’t have believed any of it. But now that i’m HERE, every line is true. Who could ever believe that people could act like such idiots? You have to see it to believe it.

The whole thing was that the guys just needed to let go of their desperate clench on self-importance.

The guy couldn’t get over his girlfriend, but that wasn’t the main issue. He just had to get over himself. Him and the rest of the guys.

Since It’s A Wonderful Life was adopted by people born in the earlier half of the 20th century as THE movie to watch at Christmas, movies directed by Frank Capra have taken on the same old-people smell we associate with grandma.

IWAL certainly seems to have that depression era “Just be glad you are as well off as you are!” feeling, making those of us who did not live through those hard times feel like rolling our eyes.

Most of his movies have a kind of preachy, American propaganda feel to them.

HOWEVER, on a little closer examination, his movies are not all advocating that we sit back in a rocking chair with our hands folded, our job of being American handily completed upon birth.

I wanted to see Mr. Deeds Goes To Town and get some more impressions about Capra’s style and message. I’m interested in American propaganda, and I wanted to see how well he fit into the genre.

Now that I’ve seen it, I’m not so sure Capra falls under that category. I’m seeing a message of “enjoy the real blessings in your life.” It’s hard to distinguish that message sometimes, because the iconic symbols of American kitsch (Kundera-style) get so wrapped up in it.

Those icons, like Apple-pie, ideal womanhood as a June Cleaver clone, men in suits and hats, people who know their neighbors, little houses all in a row, tree-lined streets with perfect tidiness…I don’t know what else. These get in the way of me seeing the story as real or credible. I just see a doll house.

Mr. Deeds is a sweet man, and the movie is really funny in parts. The Tuba cracks me up, and so do the Pixelated old ladies. I think that there is a lot that’s real behind the dolls…I could see someone I know, someone who really exists behaving the way that Mr. Deeds does. Heck, if you play a tuba, you wouldn’t stop just because you inherited a ton of money.

In a lot of ways, Mr. Deeds was going against expectation, not behaving the way the other little dolls did. He held on to common sense and didn’t lose track of what was important. He had compassion and humanity.

And naturally, Gary Cooper is great.

My super cool and smart girlfriends came over to visit for the weekend.

One of them had to visit her brother. She was going to surprise him by showing up at his party unannounced.

But my other friend had never been to Hollywood. We had to go all over and see the walk, and browse the hooker shoe stores and vintage clothing shops.

We kept seeing places that were in the movie Swingers. It turns out that my favorite club The Derby is in it.

So, now I have to rent Swingers.

It’s Woman’s history month, but even if it weren’t, this is a good show to watch.

I didn’t see the live version, that would have required forethought and effort.

I just happened to see teh DVD at the library when I was browsing for things to entertain me.

I loved it. I just hope my neighbors didn’t hear me yelling out responses to the TV. I was loud.

I absolutely LOVE hearing women talk about what is. So often, we will skip straight to what should be. But that leaves out a good appreciation and assessment of what is going on right now.

It was so sweet to hear the older ladies talk about their vaginas. The way we think about women, older women, and sexuality, you get the impression that they just seal over at a certain age. Of course, that’s silly. I plan on being an old ladies someday, and it’s nice to know that my vagina will still be there.

The whole things makes me want to ask more and different questions of the people I know.

I have an urge to wear sparkly clothing and take long lungey steps that include over-my-head high kicks.

I just saw Chicago.

It reminded me of Moulin Rouge, with the whole staging, singing, and dance thing going on.

It felt like a stage show on a movie screen. There were some effects that could not have been accomplished on a stage, but for the most part, it really felt like a broadway production.

The underlying message seemed to be how women, or more universally, people, can manipulate the public interest and get what they want.

THe story was based on events that happened in the 20s. I think we have the same things going on today.

It was a abstract portrayal of what the events and relationships. I liked that. Made things seem more evident that strict realism.

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Here we go!

Best short series or special: The Forsyte Saga. I enjoyed it tremendously, and I’ve watched my tape of it again more than once. Good Show, PBS!

Best film: The Hours. Those ladies were fabulous.
Runner up: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Tolkien Rocks, and the movie was really good.

I thoroughly regret having no opinion on books of 2002. I am pretty sure I have never read a book the year it came out–not once in my life. I gravitate to the old, approved classics. Teachers of literature approve of me.

But maybe I should join the new millenium.