Donald's Blog
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This old house was only a few blocks from the state Capitol in Madison,
Wisconsin. All the neighborhood cats lived in the basement during the
winter. The house has long since been torn down, but in 1972 there were
AR2ax speakers in the front room, and a lot of good music was heard there. |
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In the 21st century I am just as opinionated as ever,
and I now have an outlet. I shall pontificate here about anything
that catches my fancy; I hope I will not make too great a fool
of myself. You may comment yea or nay about anything on the
site; I may quote you here, or I may not. Send brickbats etc.
to: dmclarke78@icloud.com.
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July 9, 2012At the moviesEthne and I went to the movies yesterday. We would both like to see the third Madagascar animated feature, about animals escaped from a zoo in New York City; I haven't seen the second one, but I enjoyed the first, and Ethne loves them. But Moonrise Kingdom was also playing, and I voted for that.
When the picture started, I had no idea what it was. I had been thinking of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which is already gone from the cinemas; we'll have to watch that through Netflix. Ethne says I had read reviews of Moonrise KIngdom and said I wanted to see it, but I don't remember the reviews. The publicity says it's about two young lovers who've run away; in fact they're not lovers, they're about 12 years old and they don't even know how to kiss. (Are there still kids like that?)
It turns out to look like a movie made from a children's book, and I think that's what it's supposed to be. It has adultery, kids stabbing other kids, and people getting struck by lightning; the story is really pretty silly, partly about boy scouts, but they couldn't call them boy scouts, so in the picture they're called khaki scouts; the people struck by lightning are miraculously unhurt. And in the end nobody could be offended by it, and it was kind of charming and I enjoyed it.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has in it Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, and a bunch more of the best British character actors, but that's not unusual; Britain does that all the time. Moonrise Kingdom has it it Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Harvey Keitel, and my question is: How in the USA can you make a relatively low-budget live-action fable with that many big stars in it?
There's no billion-dollar special effects, not a computer to be seen. It was co-written and directed by Wes Anderson, who has a track record; I haven't seen any of his other pictures, but Ethne likes the Tannenbaum stories. So were Bruce Willis, Bill Murray and the rest of them being blackmailed? Are they friends of Anderson's? Did they invest in the picture because they wanted to see it made? What??
July 9, 2012The Costanzos
This snapshot has appeared here before, but I like it, so here it is again: Louis and Barbara and their daughters Lucia and Anne, a picture taken around 1980 I guess. The girls are pushing middle-age now, and still beautiful.
Memories are important.