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Badmovies.org Forum  |  Other Topics  |  Entertainment  |  My Year In Film (2014) DECEMBER « previous next »
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Author Topic: My Year In Film (2014) DECEMBER  (Read 9675 times)
ER
B-Movie Kraken
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Karma: 1753
Posts: 13395


The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #15 on: February 23, 2020, 10:36:19 PM »

SEPTEMBER

“September girls do so much,
And for so long, ‘til we’re touched…”

---The Bangles “September Girls”


Not sure what that means but catchy song!

« Last Edit: February 26, 2020, 11:10:16 AM by ER » Logged

What does not kill me makes me stranger.
ER
B-Movie Kraken
*****

Karma: 1753
Posts: 13395


The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #16 on: February 24, 2020, 11:54:19 AM »

OCTOBER

As far as I’m concerned, the only two things wrong with October are those DJs who persist in calling it “Rocktober,” and the fact it only comes once a year. (The latter also being the punchline to a joke about Santa Claus’ childless state.)

« Last Edit: February 26, 2020, 11:10:30 AM by ER » Logged

What does not kill me makes me stranger.
indianasmith
Archeologist, Theologian, Elder Scrolls Addict, and a
B-Movie Kraken
*****

Karma: 2590
Posts: 15177


A good bad movie is like popcorn for the soul!


« Reply #17 on: February 24, 2020, 10:55:41 PM »

I'm going to have dreams about you in that ghost costume . . .
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"I shall smite you in the nostrils with a rod of iron, and wax your spleen with Efferdent!!"
ER
B-Movie Kraken
*****

Karma: 1753
Posts: 13395


The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #18 on: February 25, 2020, 12:00:45 PM »

NOVEMBER


« Last Edit: February 26, 2020, 11:11:01 AM by ER » Logged

What does not kill me makes me stranger.
ER
B-Movie Kraken
*****

Karma: 1753
Posts: 13395


The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #19 on: February 26, 2020, 11:28:13 AM »

DECEMBER

“Season of stasis
Defying pale death,
December, December,
Keeper of secrets!
Hearken, my children,
Under woven snows,
The sleeping flowers
Await lovers’ dreams.”


---From a poem I wrote in 10th grade, 1994.



Well, here we are. December. The last furlong of this project that’s been a year in the making.

As the Christmas season rushed toward us, another birthday came which made me twenty-nine again, right?

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies stomped into theaters this month, completing a trilogy that should at most have been a two-parter, and no amount of arm-twisting was able to persuade me to tag along to witness this abomination.

A movie I did welcome was the adaptation of Sondheim’s Into the Woods, which if not as powerful as Sweeney Todd, was still fun.

December was the calm after November’s storm, the golden sunset after a long day. It was thirty-one mornings spent with those I love.



Six Movies My Six-Year-Old Daughter Daisy Favors, And What She Says About Them

Charlotte’s Web (“Wilbur and Charlotte had each others backs.”)

The Lion King (“It’s funny when Pumbaa gets Simba to eat bugs for the first time.”)

Adventures in Babysitting (“If I met you when you were little, we could’ve watched it together.”)

Labyrinth (“Sarah doesn’t let goblins keep her brother. I wouldn’t let goblins keep my brother either.”)

Planes: Fire & Rescue (“It was cool when Dusty put the fire out with his butt. I would like to see him do that a lot.”)

Frankenweenie (“Zombie dogs aren’t scary, they’re nice!”)


 
Monday December 1, 2014
Not a lot of sleep last night for some reason. Instead of giving up and watching the last part of The Road on my tablet, I laid there thinking through most of the night before a fitful slumber overtook me. Landon is a good person to share a bed with since he sleeps placidly, whereas I am told I shift around restlessly and have hazardous elbows.

Anyway, our misty, icy morning gave way to a rainy afternoon, and our tires sang an insectoid hum as I loaded Shrek the Third into the minivan’s DVD player and drove with Dai-keag-ity (a combination of my children’s names) to make a pilgrimage to the Coin Star machine to cash in the big empty water bottle of spare change we’ve been jokingly calling our Christmas fund. It came to 481 quarters, 276 dimes, 154 nickels, and 559 pennies. $148.03 after fees.

Back home we bravely ascended to the attic (one part Fibber McGee’s closet, one part Hogwart’s Room of Requirement) and got boxes of Christmas decorations down. We also made our official green and red construction paper chain with one link to be torn off each day until Christmas, and suspended it beside the banister.

I told the kids that if they could keep it a secret, later this week I’d let them help me make tie-dyed t-shirts for presents.

“Even one for Daddy?” Daisy inquired.

“Especially Daddy,” I answered, trying to picture Landon wearing a tie-dye.



Random! Movie!! Factoids!!!

Clark Gable was such a bad dancer that close-ups of him dancing in Gone with the Wind, were reportedly shot while he stood on a small platform that slowly revolved under him.

Psycho is thought to be the first US film to show a toilet being flushed.

After falling into a Venetian canal in the 1955 movie Summertime, Katharine Hepburn contracted an eye infection that plagued her the rest of her life.

Dan Aykroyd has an uncredited cameo in Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Perhaps fittingly enough, it’s believed Jesus is the subject of more hours of film than any other human being.



Friday December 5, 2014
I put in some hours today working with my dad at his office, where I found out he has already reserved his tickets for the final Hobbit flick, (unwisely in my view) then he took me with him to a jeweler to get my opinion on what to buy his wife for Christmas.

Dad: “Remember, she doesn’t like silver like you do.”

Me: “Yeah, she’ll change her tune the first time she encounters a werewolf.”

I was late getting back, and I explained to him that I had to be careful since my boss was a well-known slavedriver.

“And I hear his kid’s even worse,” he added.



Monday December 8, 2014

“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”
--John Wayne


Obliged to drive to New York to attend a party for two one-time co-workers who went to jail in the contempt matter from a few months ago. Made it in thirteen hours, not rushing, and I played the soundtracks to Twilight, Eyes Wide Shut, The Watchmen, and Parade.

Napped in my hotel room until evening, then went out and found an Iranian restaurant with that amazing flat bread called barbari.

Talked to the kids before they went to bed, and gushed about how I missed them, and they in turn told me Daddy was letting them eat donuts and stay up late. (It so warms a mother’s soul to be missed…)

New York City after dark is a sensory assault, it’s just too big and too psychically energetic, so I sat up late and watched part of Doctor Strangelove, followed by most of A River Runs Through It, then caught a local talk show way up the dial and the aggrieved Jewish-looking host was asking his audience: “Heard about the CIA Torture Report just released?”

Matter of fact, I have.



Exactly Half A Quote I Like

“Oh, and this one time at band camp….”



Monday December 15, 2014
I finally got word about Celia, who wrote her sister Colna, in Ireland, saying she made it to California on her own. Now at least the tiresome jokes about shallow graves in Kansas can now stop.

Also Craig Ferguson’s final week as host of The Late Late Show kicks off tonight. As much as I like movies, I rarely like movie stars, and Ferguson’s irreverent attitude about them long ago earned my respect. Let’s face it, acting is basically doing the same thing small children do: pretending.

Nonetheless:


Five Movie Stars I Kinda Like

Harrison Ford (How can you not approve of a movie god who owns a hardware store?)

Scarlett Johansson (She was a good sport in Match Point, and she stands up for scrappy little Israel in the face of a lot of criticism for doing it.)

Katie Holmes (An Ohio gal who outmaneuvered The Powers That Be, and once upon a time played the cutest girl next door ever, Joey Potter.)

Malcolm McDowell (Terrific accent, most reptilian eyes in the business. Wouldn’t turn my back on the man!)

Gary Oldman. (Little known fact: Garry Oldman and Sam Neill are the same person.)



Tuesday December 16, 2014
While waiting in line to return Mr. Peabody & Sherman to Redbox, I saw this annoying man toss a wad of chewing gum onto the sidewalk right in front of Keagan, so I picked it up in a tissue, used a picture of his license plate to get his address, and anonymously mailed him the gum as a refresher course on why littering is bad manners.

When he got home tonight, Landon said he’d hurried back so he could be here for the stuffed mushrooms I was making---BTW, always bake the caps upside down so they drain---and told the kids he drove so fast he ran over “two old ladies and a cat.”

To which Daisy said, “Aww, poor cat! What color was it?”

Watched parts of Doomed Megaopolis before bed.

(Am I getting tired of movies after making myself watch so many this year? A little.)



Thursday December 18, 2014
Just before the Penultimate movie night of 2014, we learned my husband’s cousin Vince and his perfect-breasted wife Lindsey will be adopting a baby boy in March, and I’m so glad for them!

Hoping for a movie that would catch the right vibe for the Christmas season, tonight I naturally chose American Psycho, the icy screen adaptation of a novel I once considered among my favorites. American Psycho has something for everyone, dark humor, mentally instable Yuppies, a fiancée named Evelyn, and mayhem and murder set to Huey Lewis. I should mention it also shows Christian Bale’s doodle*.

(*That’s the second questionable word I mentioned back on January 4th.)

Despite the fact that he has a reputation for being a giant jerkwad* I like Christian Bale in this movie and Metroland, in which a humbler, lesser-known Bale shows that he really is a talented actor.

(*That’s the second questionable word I mentioned back on January 4th.)

After the flick, Rob asked if I thought 1890s mutton sleeves were sexy on women. I answered that they were probably the least sexy thing ever placed on an upper arm, why?

It turns out the question, which I kinda fumbled, was his way of announcing that he’s begun writing a steampunk graphic novel set in late Victorian Glasgow, starring a heroine who slays mechanical assassins while clad in….you guessed it. Way to go, Rob!

Another merciless spell of insomnia overnight, so in bed I watched part of City of Bones. Not a bad series of books, but someone should adapt them into a weekly serial on The CW, not try to fit them into movie format.



A Few Words About The Film The Children’s Hour
Because it’s no longer shocking to ponder lesbian schoolteachers, any punch that lies within this movie can come only from the timid baby steps used to nudge along this potboiler from 1961. Casting Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn in the title roles, then throwing in James Gardiner at his hunkiest, made it safe for scandal-loving film-goers to sit in on what was then surely a delicious story about the effects of vindictive slander in an American Everyville. To 2014 sensibilities lesbianism comes off about as controversial as the animal courtship episode of PBS Kids’ Zoboomafoo, which leads to the question, if it’s gotten that much harder to shock society in a mere fifty years, what will be left to scintillate movie-viewers in 2064?

I can’t wait to find out, can you?



Wednesday December 24, 2014
Today Christmas Eve competed with my birthday, and there was no movie-watching whatsoever.

Despite my stated intentions every year to move my birthday celebrations back to January 24th, I turned thirty-six today and the family jumped all over me first thing in the morning with presents and lovely hand-rendered cards.

The forenoon was birthday territory, the afternoon was given to visiting family, and as we drove along, clouds like inky Spanish galleons sketched on wet parchment flowed through the skies on a warm and windy Christmas Eve with weather better suited for April.



While I’m Thinking About It, Movies In Which Someone Has A Birthday

Sixteen Candles (Didja know Molly Ringwald was once a superstar???)

Uncle Buck (Didja know there was a character in here named Chanice?)

The Birds (Didja know PBS’ Arthur did a parody of this film named The Squirrels?)

Liar, Liar (Didja know there is an actual OCD condition in which someone cannot lie?)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Didja know originally this was called The Philosopher’s Stone?)

The First Christmas (Didja know it’s legal to punch someone who uses the word “didja” seven times in a row?)



And Also While I’m Thinking Of It, Christmas Movies

It’s a Wonderful Life
(The sun, moon, and stars of popular Christmas fare.)

A Christmas Story (The funniest Christmas flick of all time.)

Miracle on 34th Street (Just kinda what the heck, y’know?)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (Who says Christmas movies can’t be cool?)

The Polar Express (I detest this movie. I truly hate it.)

Santa & Debi Make XXXMAS Whoopee! (My eyes! They’re bleeding!)



Thursday December 25, 2014
It’s Christmas morning… It’s Christmas Day…

I opened my eyes maybe a minute before Daisy charged in wanting the door to downstairs to be unlocked. We gathered all the children and went down and ‘lo and behold Saint Nick had come in the night, bringing among other things DVDs of Babes in Toyland and A Christmas Carol!

A very merry day!



Saturday December 27, 2014
Talked to my father and after he answered my questions about the latest Hobbit movie, he said, “I can’t believe it was thirty-six years ago you were born…”

Life never moves at the pace it’s supposed to, does it?

He talked about life then, thirty-six Decembers ago. The 1970s. One Star Wars movie. Elvis barely gone. No President Reagan yet. No Rap, no internet, no space shuttle flights, no basic cable in the region, Grandma and Grandpa still with us and not even old. Dad was this newlywed man with a beautiful Irish bride, and he, still so young himself, not even entirely finished with college, had a daughter. The world seemed brimming with future then, all so amazingly, suddenly new.

“And in a flash it’s thirty-six years later,” he said. “And it’s even better now.”



Sunday December 28, 2014
Our final movie night of 2014, and for it Tara surprised us by going completely out of character and selecting Les Diabolique, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1955 psychological slam dunk that is so perfect it made Alfred Hitchcock envious.

Afterward we dined on leftover fruitcake made by Trappist monks, while we recounted the hits and misses of movie nights this year, duds like Inception, and my own flop with Adventures in Babysitting, to high points like 5 Centimeters Per Second, and Diabolique.  

It was not a warm night but I went out front with Rob while he had a smoke, and he asked if I’m ever going to do anything like this again and see what has been by my standards a deluge of movies, so I shared my idea of making the year about music instead of film.

An album a day in 2015?

Then we suddenly caught the lingering ghost of Dad’s nostalgia from the other day and were swept up in remembering Christmas vacation 1995 when Rob and I were teenagers, and in the chilled silence of the outdoors, on this last week of the year, we got lost in our shared mediation on the people we were then, and the time that was.



Tuesday December 30, 2014

One thing I may or may not do for New Year’s Eve is watch a movie, since I feel like a break from the world of celluloid wouldn’t hurt. I’m behind in books I want to read, and at least one I’d like to try to write. I began the year with Star Trek: Into Darkness and I suppose I should try to cap the year off with a cinematic bang.  

What will my last film of 2014 be?



So Who Is The Greatest Director Ever?

John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock? DW Griffith or Akira Kurosawa? Mack Sennett or Stanley Kubrick?  Satyajit Ray or Tim Burton? David Lean or Steven Spielberg?  Sergei Eisenstein or Amy Heckerling? Ed Wood or Quentin Tarantino?

Actually none of them. The real greatest director ever was doubtless some poor soul struggling to make ends meet and create a movie we’ve likely never heard of, shot on a shoestring budget, a labor of love this person cared deeply about, and which formed one tiny atom in the corpus of cinema. Because isn’t that what counts in the end, loving what you do, and doing what you love?



Wednesday December 31, 2014
We didn’t want to be away from the children tonight, so we, who were once a couple who went everywhere, stayed home for New Years, made finger food and put on Charlotte’s Web and Babe, ending movie-year on a pig themed night. The children drifted off one by one, first Trinnie, then Keags, and last of all Dizzie, who made it all the way to about 10:30. And even then Landon and I stayed there on the sofa with them sleeping between us, our family, these people we created, these unique individuals who are passing through our lives, and I wouldn’t have traded this little new year’s for all the parties in Beverly Hills…

Goodbye, 2014, and hello, 2015. Please be kind to us!


Other Films Seen In December

Holes (This is the best movie ever to feature a character named Armpit.)

Big Fish (I feel guilty about disliking a Tim Burton film, but Big Fish didn’t leave a rainbow in my brain.)

The Duchess (There isn’t anything I’ve read about the famed Duchess of Devonshire to suggest that she suffered the spousal abuse this movie depicts her enduring. If anything the 5th Duke was too lenient with his wife, who ran up crippling gambling debts and had affairs that resulted in her giving birth to another man’s daughter: and yet the supposedly evil Duke didn’t divorce her. I think the filmmakers were trying to draw a connection between Diana Spencer and this distant relative of hers, and skewing both biographies in the process.)

The Golden Bowl (I’m a natural born sucker for films that seem like an episode of Masterpiece Theater transferred to the big screen. For instance: The English Patient---I loved it. The Painted Veil---I loved it. Farewell My Concubine---I loved it. The Golden Bowl---ditto.)

Snatch (How clever Mr. Madonna was in pretending the title of his movie was a verb! Bravo, sir, bravo! P.S. Brad Pitt’s accent was hilarious!)

L.A. Story (I should have put Steve Martin at the head of the list of movie stars I like, as the man is a genius in every sense of the word. And in answer to our one-time question, I do suspect he could beat up Robin Williams these days.)

The Imitation Game (If I had to pull the name of an impending superstar out of thin air, I’d say Benedict Cumberbatch. In this film his magnetic performance even forged a soul for the machine-like Alan Turing, one of 20th century science’s more difficult and tragic figures---who happened to be obsessed with Disney movies, did you know that?)

Westall 66 (Like most Americans I wasn’t familiar with the April 1966 events in Westall, Australia, but I’ll admit few UFO reports have so many credible eyewitnesses to back them up. This amazing documentary raises the question: Why doesn’t everyone know about Westall?)



In Conclusion

Well, that’s it.

2014 has been a wild ride, hasn’t it? I got stabbed, I faced down drug dealers, I twice went to New York City, and once as far west as Kansas, though never did make it to see my relatives in Ireland as planned. I plumbed the depths with my husband, nearly lost a cousin, and I gained an uncle by marriage: he’s a whopping four years older than me. My children got a little taller, and the trees got a little thicker. McKenna went to Argentina, two of my best friends broke up, I met coyotes and tried to track a horny bear. I sprinted four miles one morning, became a hero to my godson, and watched dozens and dozens of movies, just like I set out to do twelve months ago.

Speaking of that, have I learned anything from the experience of seeing a stack of films? Undoubtedly. Am I going to do it again? Not for a while. Do I regret it? Absolutely not!

As for you, whoever you are, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this account. Just one more bit to go, but it’s a doozy….



Now let’s see what reviewers have to say about this memoir:


“This thing is utterly depraved, and I suspect the author has lost it.”
---Me

“This is why we paid for Catholic school?”
---My parents

“Anyone know a good divorce lawyer?”
---My husband

“We don’t discuss the subject of my mother.”
---My son, in the year 2039

“                                  ”
---Saddam Hussein

“There is no word in the English language that rhymes with ‘cheese’.”
--- Miss Information from Histeria

“Hey, I was in there!”
--- Most of my friends.

“I cheerfully bless this rousing good read!’
---Pope Francis


Okay, yes, I can’t fool you, the Pope and I penned these reviews, but thanks for reading, hope you see many good movies in your life, and feel free to shove Ebert’s ghost out of the aisle seat!

THE END!



« Last Edit: February 29, 2020, 08:25:54 PM by ER » Logged

What does not kill me makes me stranger.
indianasmith
Archeologist, Theologian, Elder Scrolls Addict, and a
B-Movie Kraken
*****

Karma: 2590
Posts: 15177


A good bad movie is like popcorn for the soul!


« Reply #20 on: February 26, 2020, 06:52:42 PM »

Huzzah!!  Thanks for sharing, what an enjoyable read!
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"I shall smite you in the nostrils with a rod of iron, and wax your spleen with Efferdent!!"
ER
B-Movie Kraken
*****

Karma: 1753
Posts: 13395


The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #21 on: April 27, 2020, 10:54:04 AM »

Gosh, this thread has gotten more views since I pulled everything but December than it did for all the other months. Anybody else wants a copy of all of it, message me.
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What does not kill me makes me stranger.
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