Mr. Hastings’ “Odds and Ends” Film List
(prepared for his high school students_
Disclaimer: Many of the movies on this list are R-rated and may be considered inappropriate for young people. American History X, for instance, has some very disturbing violence, and I would not show it in a high school classroom. However, you are all growing up, and this list is intended as much for future years as it is for the present. Also, maturity is not just a question of age; it is also a question of individual development. People mature in different ways at different ages. I leave it to you (and your parents if your age makes this applicable) to decide the matter of what you should watch. I pass along this list to those who love film like I do, especially films that bring us in touch with the things that matter most to us.
Amelie: Even though my film students see this in class, I can’t leave it off the list. It is a must-see movie if only for the cinematic fireworks, but it is a great movie for its story as well. It might just be my favorite movie of all time.
American Beauty: This is one of those “black” or “dark” comedies where the laughs overlay some thought provoking social commentary. Lester Burnham has just entered his midlife crisis, that age where a man sometimes wonders if his life has had any meaning. When an obnoxious mid-level manager at work lets him know he will be laid off, Lester masterminds a rather advantageous “severance package.” Actually, he blackmails the company, but his actions are at least partly understandable in the context of the heartless world of his corporate employer. Now that Lester doesn’t really have to work, he gets a job at a local fast food restaurant and regresses, adopting the lifestyle of a carefree but immature teenager which is okay for a teenager but suspect in a middle-aged man. He indulges a number of puerile fantasies, and, for the viewer, it is a little difficult to decide if his life has more or less meaning than before. Ultimately, he appears to need redemption. Find out for yourself if he achieves it by watching this excellent, thought provoking film. It is about a lot more than just Lester. As the title suggests, it is also about America and its values. It is disturbing, but I think, in the end, it is hopeful.
American Graffitti: It doesn’t have a real strong plot, but this 1973 movie by George Lucas gives some nice glimpses into a special time in America, especially the cars, music and innocence of an earlier era.
American History X: Edward Norton and Edward Furlong play two brothers. This film contains some graphic sex scenes and some disturbing violence, but it is a powerful movie about racism in America.
Annie Hall: If you’ve never watched a Woody Allen film, you might enjoy seeing how important dialogue can be in a movie. There are no special effects, but the talk is clever. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re a film buff, you might enjoy exploring.
Astronaut Farmer: Billy Bob Thornton is a Texas rancher and former astronaut who builds a rocket in his barn and wants to orbit the earth. No one takes him seriously—until he starts ordering rocket fuel. This is a feel-good movie that is about never giving up on dreams and also about the power of love in one’s family.
Away We Go. Sam Mendes directed it (same director as for American Beauty). Dave Eggers (and another person?) wrote the screenplay. This is an absolutely wonderful, funny movie! A young couple is about to have a baby, but they are not sure where or “how” they should live. They visit various friends who already have families (Phoenix, Tucson, Madison, Montreal), and after seeing a number of “anti-examples,” they finally find “home.”
A Beautiful Mind: Great acting by Russell Crowe. The fascinating story of a man who is both brilliant and mentally imbalanced.
Born on the Fourth of July: Oliver Stone’s movie about real-life Vietnam vet, Ron Kovic. He came back to the United States where his wounds restricted him to a wheelchair but did not restrict his ability to protest a war he had come to believe was wrong.
Bowling for Columbine: Michael Moore’s documentary about two teenagers who go on a killing spree at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.
Brother from Another Planet: A John Sayles film about an alien who has special powers on Earth. Except for his three-toed feet and his uncanny ability to “fix things,” he doesn’t appear alien; he looks like any other black man. Beings from his own planet are after him
The Burning Plain: A first-time film by a Mexican director. You may have a very difficult time understanding what is happening in this film at first but stick with it—it’s worth it. The story starts with the main character running a restaurant and having a series of meaningless sexual relationships. She is depressed, perhaps even suicidal. The question is—why? The rest of the movie—going backward and forward in time—gives the answer, and the answer, revealed slowly, is a series of secrets from her past. This is a fascinating movie about betrayal, love, suffering, and finally, redemption.
Carrie: It’s a classic horror movie directed by Brian DePalma and based on the book the made Stephen King’s career as one of the most popular and prolific writers in America. DePalma has some great symbolic visuals in this movie.
Crash: A personal, all-time favorite. This film has a cast of multiple “main characters” whose lives are entangled in with each other in contemporary L.A. Everyone is represented, women, men, whites, blacks, Latinos, etc. It’s really about jumping to conclusions about other people and the harm that can do. It’s also about beginning to recognize that and changing.
Das Boot: A German film about a World War II submarine crew. Jurgen Prochnow is excellent as the captain. A suspenseful film about courage, fear, self-discipline and all the other themes men think about in connection with war.
Dead Man Walking: A great movie starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon (from Thelma and Louise). It’s based on a true story. The heroine is a nun who agrees to talk to a murderer on death row.
The Deer Hunter: Most of my generation was affected by the Vietnam War in one way or another even if they didn’t serve in the military. Along with Coming Home, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, and Apocalypse Now, this is one of the more famous, must-see Vietnam movies.
The Departed: Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Jack Nicholson are all terrific in Martin Scorsese’s crime film set in Boston. For me, this is one of a great Boston crime trilogy along with Gone Baby Gone, and Mystic River.
Dirty Dancing: Is this your mother’s favorite movie? It’s one of my wife’s favorites. It will probably be a classic “dance” movie. If for no other reason, watch the movie to hear the music—it’s great. And remember, “nobody puts Baby in the corner!”
Diva: French film. A young courier is an ardent fan of an opera singer. He tape records her illegally. It’s fairly fast paced and fun.
Educating Rita. An enjoyable movie. It’s the Pygmalion story dressed in new clothes. Michael Caine is the suave Englishman who meets a working class girl in need of a little sophistication. He helps her acquire culture and polish, but he learns from her as well. Good romantic comedy.
An Education. A British movie set in 1961 in which a sixteen year old girl is trying to rise from her modest middle class background and gain admission to the famous and prestigious Oxford University. She is bright and capable of doing it, but then she meets David. He’s older and more experienced, and soon he is taking her to classical music performances, fine restaurants, and exotic night clubs. Soon her life as a student seems even more boring than it did before, and none of the adults in her world are able to articulate a good reason why she should remain in school. But, of course, many people we meet are not what they first seem, and David is one of these….
Erin Brockovich: Julia Roberts is a single mom who needs a job, and who wouldn’t mind a good man but doesn’t need one. Based on a true story about a woman who helps ordinary people fight back against a major corporation that has poisoned the groundwater and caused a cancer epidemic in the community.
Gone Baby Gone: A gritty, detective-criminal movie set in Boston. This is a suspenseful, fast moving film with a moral dilemma that is hard to sort out. A baby has disappeared. Has she been kidnapped? Murdered? Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan are the detectives who must find out what happened.
Good Morning Vietnam: Robin Williams stars in a lot of good movies, and many of them make you feel good too. This one has some of Williams’ trademark, fast talking humor, but this more than comedy. As you might guess, this film includes commentary on an unpopular war. It will give you one more set of insights into an important time in American history.
Good Will Hunting: A favorite with many young people I have met. Matt Damon plays the part of a genius who works as a janitor because he has some personal issues that affect his ability to interact with others. Robin Williams plays the shrink who helps him sort things out. It’s excellent.
Gosford Park: Another Robert Altman film (he did M.A.S.H. and Nashville) with a big cast of characters and a great mystery to solve at an old English mansion. Someone has been murdered… but it’s much more than that.
Gran Torino: A Clint Eastwood movie about an old guy whose neighborhood is going downhill fast. His wife has just died, and he’s feeling pretty anti-social, but then his life becomes intertwined with the Asian Americans living next door, and when he starts helping them, his life takes on new meaning.
The Green Mile: The green mile refers to the last walk of the condemned man before his execution at Louisiana’s Cold Mountain Penitentiary. Frank Darabont directed both this film and The Shawshank Redemption (another tremendously popular movie). Paul Edgecomb, a guard on Death Row, tells the story of John Coffey, a giant black man who ends up on Death Row even though he has been falsely accused of a crime. If you haven’t seen it, and you generally like King’s stories, you won’t be disappointed in this one. Darabont’s adaptations are excellent.
Harold and Maude. A boy makes a hobby of suicide, but his attempts are more comical than serious. His father is nowhere to be seen, and his mother is too preoccupied with herself to be much help to him. Then he meets Maude…. A classic from the seventies.
An Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore’s documentary about global warming. Within a year after this movie played in theaters, the media and the general public had begun to acknowledge that global warming was real.
Into the Wild: Is this Sean Penn’s best directing yet? Perhaps. The film is based on the true story of Christopher McCandless, an idealistic young man who has read Thoreau and Tolstoy and wants to reject the corrupt, corporate world of modern America. After graduating from college, he gives away his money, burns all his identification papers, and disappears from home in search of adventure and an honest way to live. When he journeys “into the wild” country of Alaska, he finally has a chance to live that kind of life, but it turns out to be very dangerous.
The Life of David Gale: Professor David Gale, an opponent of capital punishment, is accused of rape and, as a result, loses his job and his marriage. Later, he is accused of murder and awaits his execution on Death Row. This is the bare bones of the plot, but much more unfolds when secrets are finally told! A suspenseful film with a message on a controversial topic.
Lone Star: John Sayles’ movie. A sheriff in a small Texas town investigates a murder that happened years ago. Try any of Sayles’ movies. They’re “different” and some are intriguing.
The Magdalene Sisters: Three girls are sent to a “reform” school in Ireland. The nuns are cruel and the girls suffer.
Malcolm X: Learning history through movies can be risky. How do you know if what you see is true? If you really want to know, you have to check numerous sources (no substitute for reading here), but this Denzel Washington picture is a fascinating biopic that will give you director Spike Lee’s version of Malcolm X’s story, and it will entertain you at the same time.
M.A.S.H: It inspired one of the greatest, most popular serial comedies in television history. The mobile army surgical hospital is the setting for the hilarious exploits of characters like Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper, Radar, “Hot Lips” Houlihan, Captain Blake, and Klinger. Based on a book by Richard Hooker, the comedy in this movie was satirical, and much of the social commentary was directed at Vietnam even though the Korean War was the one portrayed in the film.
Midnight Cowboy: Jon Voight as the hustling cowboy and Dustin Hoffman in one of his greatest roles as Ratso Rizzo.
The Midnight Express: A young American is caught trying to smuggle drugs out of Turkey and finds that a Turkish prison is a living hell.
The Missing: Renegade Apaches take Kate Blanchett’s daughter. She calls a truce with Tommy Lee Jones, her father, and in return he applies the skills he learned from the Apaches in tracking and rescuing his granddaughter. A good tale from a grand tradition.
Much Ado About Nothing: Do you think Shakespeare is just for cultural snobs? Try Kenneth Branaugh’s version of this comedy. It has humor, a villain, two love stories, beautiful scenes from Italy, great costumes, and authentic Shakespearean dialogue. Trust me, you’ll enjoy this.
Mystic River: If I had to pick my favorite crime movie of all time, the one that I still think about sometimes, this would be it. The past comes back to haunt us. The lives of three young friends are changed forever when Dave is abducted and molested. Years later, the daughter of Sean Penn’s character, Jimmy, is murdered. It’s intense, but watch this one if you want to see great acting that meshes with a great plot.
My Left Foot, the Story of Cristy Brown: This is a good biopic. Cristy Brown suffered from an illness that allowed him only the use of his left foot and his brain. In spite of all, he transcended his handicap and became an accomplished painter and writer. Once again, Daniel Day Lewis does an incredible job of portraying the main character.
In the Name of the Father: Daniel Day Lewis. A young man joins the Irish Republican Army and ends up in a British jail. Another intense but very well done movie.
Off the Map: If I described this movie, you’d probably pass it by. When you’re in the mood for something off the beaten track, try this one. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Pan’s Labyrinth: Yes, it has subtitles, but like Amelie and Life Is Beautiful, this is a foreign film that is too good to pass up. A girl arrives at the Fascist outpost her stepfather commands during the Spanish Civil War/WW II. She escapes the horrors being perpetrated by her monstrous stepfather by entering into a fantasy world. She meets the demi-god Pan in a labyrinth and he gives her tasks that help her transcend the cruelty around her.
Rain Man: Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. A greedy older brother learns to care about his adult, autistic sibling. Excellent.
Running on Empty: Judd Hirsch, Christine Lahti, River Phoenix. Two parents blew up a napalm factory during the Vietnam War and have been on the run ever since. Their children must pay the price.
The Sapphires. What a joyful and inspiring movie. Four aborigine girls from Australia form a singing group and tour Vietnam during the height of the war. The plot is simple enough; it’s about the girls’ journey to success and greater self-awareness. It’s the characters themselves—especially the girl’s manager—who make the movie. Nothing but fun!
The Secret of Roan Inish: A movie about a little girl in Ireland who wants to return to the island her family had to leave years ago when the island living became too difficult. There are mysteries and myths involved—like the disappearance of her little brother Jimmy. The Irish coastal landscape is beautiful and the story is endearing. A good children’s movie too.
The Shawshank Redemption: Without a doubt, the best Stephen King adaptation ever done. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman in a prison movie, one of the best ever made.
Sideways: Paul Giamatti and his buddy go vineyard country to whoop it up one last time before his buddy gets married. They are both losers. Paul’s character steals money from his mother’s dresser on the way there. His buddy has a fling with a single mother he meets at one of the vineyard tourist centers. Paul meets a woman who actually cares about him, but he screws it up—at least at first. I’m not sure why this movie is so good, but it is. It’s funny and sad, and even though the main characters are not particularly admirable, they are very human and have good traits mixed in with less praiseworthy ones. Definitely on the all time hit list.
The Silence of the Lambs: Winner of five academy awards, this will no doubt become a classic of the thriller genre. Jodie Foster is always good. So is Anthony Hopkins. Watch with a friend and hold on tight—it’s scary!
The Sixth Sense: A psychologist must help a boy who sees dead people. It’s creepy, but it’s good. An excellent performance by Haley Joel Osment.
Slumdog Millionaire: It won the Academy Award for Best Picture for a good reason. It’s an excellent film about two orphaned brothers and an orphaned girl who band together to survive life in the slums of Mumbai. One of the brothers loves the girl, and when they are eventually separated, he can never forget her. Finally, he appears on the Indian version of You Want to Be A Millionaire? hoping that she will see him and they will be reunited.
A Stir of Echoes: I’m always willing to look at anything starring Kevin Bacon. He often chooses good scripts. This is a creepy thriller. Bacon’s character is hypnotized and he sees the ghost of a woman who once lived in his neighborhood which turns out to be dangerous for him and his family.
The Straight Story: When you see David Lynch listed as the director, don’t assume that this is anything like Twin Peaks. It’s based on the true story of Alvin Straight, an old man in poor health who has no driver’s license, but who makes up his mind that nothing will stop him from seeing his estranged brother who he learns is terminally ill. Alvin drives the 200 miles to see his brother on a lawn tractor. It’s an epic journey like you’ve never seen before. Along the way, of course, he encounters various people and adventures. It’s an uplifting story, and Richard Farnsworth’s portrayal of this character is terrific.
Stranger than Fiction: Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick. Harold is an IRS agent who counts how many strokes he does to brush his teeth, how many steps he takes to the bus, and so on. His life is utterly boring until one day he hears a voice addressing him from… well, he doesn’t really know where. He is very puzzled by this, especially when no one else can hear the voice. Eventually, he discovers that the voice belongs to a narrator, and that he is the hero of the story narrator is telling. The worrisome part comes when the voice mentions Harold’s imminent death. It’s funny (and thought provoking)!
Taxi Driver: There are some violent scenes in this Martin Scorsese film, but it’s worth watching. Check out the cinematography. The camera work in the opening sequence is terrific.
Thirteen: An amazing movie and an uncompromising look at the descent of two thirteen year old girls into a hell of lying, theft, betrayal, self-mutilation and drug use. Directed and written by Catherine Hyde.
Tom Jones: Get the A&E’s more recent version, not the one from the sixties. Based on Henry Fielding’s classic 1749 novel of the same name, this was a British mini-series now available on DVD. It is the story of a lovable rogue who always means well but gets himself into some awful scrapes. It’s a big, sprawling tale with many characters, a great mystery, and many laughs. Be prepared to watch this in installments. It’s five or six hours worth of entertainment.
Traffic: The original film was a British mini-series. Director Steven Soderbergh put together this award winning American version. Three storylines eventually merge to show how drug trafficking affects the lives of the movie’s major characters: a high school girl, the girl’s father (also the head of the DEA), several policemen, and the drug smugglers and dealers.
The Truman Show: Jim Carey stars in this movie about Truman Burbank, a man whose life is a t.v. show, but he doesn’t know it. Produced in 1998, this film was an ironic prototype for the reality television that became a national craze that started in 2000 and persisted for years afterward. Truman eventually discovers that there is something really “phony” about his world. Again, ironically, his quest is to find a life that is more “real.”
2001: A Space Odyssey: It’s the quintessential science fiction movie. I don’t say you’ll understand it all, and some of it will move a bit slowly, but it’s a cultural artifact. Again, if you’re a film buff, it should be on your list to see some day
Unforgiven: Okay, if you’ve read this far, you’ve probably gathered that Clint Eastwood is a personal favorite, both as an actor and as a director. This is one of the greatest Westerns of all time. If you like the genre, check it out.
Veronica Guerin: Based on the true story of an Irish woman journalist who uncovers the dealings of a drug lord and is killed for exposing his criminal activities. A good one.
December 14, 2016
There was a full moon over The Gilead as SSB Mark stepped from his car into the frigid Vermont night. “Colder than a witch’s tit, baby,” he muttered to no one. He tightened the belt on his trench coat, pulled his fedora over one eye, and picked up a box from the passenger side. He walked up the icy path. Once on the porch, he turned left toward the portal reserved for the wise, ancient, silver-haired embodiments of animal masculinity … the ones who call themselves Silverbacks.
Inside, he was greeted by familiar double-thump of a fellow ‘back. “You packin’?” asked SB SM.’
“I’m always packin’, baby,” returned SB Mark, oblivious to the convention of using “baby” only with members of the opposite sex. “And tonight I am packin’ pineapple upside-down cake.” He then placed the box gently on the kitchen counter and returned the double-thump.
Other Silverbacks followed shortly, and after devouring the pineapple upside-down cake, moved to the viewing room to admire SB SM’s new television.
The next fifteen minutes will go down in Silverback infamy, as first SB SM, and subsequently SBs Tom, Jon, and Marcus pointed assorted remote controls at the screen, grunting angry vocalizations that evidenced total confusion. Eventually, SB Marcus found some obscure setting that brought the screen to life, setting of a chorus of oo-oos never before heard in the jungle.
“Never … ” intoned SB Jon in his solemn basso profundo , “Never let a female of the species learn of this fiasco.” How many Silverbacks does it take …?
The movie, Double Indemnity, starring Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, and Ellen Burstyn, who also starred in last month’s feature, and who is likely to star in every Silverback movie reviewed this year. She bears a strong resemblance to Barbara Stanwyck:
Burstyn who smells like honeysuckle, a fragrance that drives men in the 1940s crazy, plays a femme fatale who tempts insurance salesman MacMurray into a plot to murder her husband.
MacMurray’s boss, Robinson, wants to turn him into a “claims guy.” He has this little man living in his chest, who is smarter than everyone else. MacMurray has this cool trick of lighting matches using only his thumbnail, something that I suspect all Silverbacks have been practicing today. I know that when Sandy came down and asked how the evening had gone, I lit my cigar with a thumb-flick and sneered “Shaddup, Baby!”
A big tip of the fedora to SSB Mark for selecting the show and baking the cake!
*******************************
A Magical Mystery Tour with Across the Universe
On seeing Julie Taymor’s film, Across the Universe, I was reminded of the summer I spent at Camp Rising Sun in 1967 when I was sixteen. As I watched the movie and listened to the Beatles’ great songs, I dove down Gracie Slick’s rabbit hole and took a magical mystery tour through my own past. I was skeptical about Camp Rising Sun before I arrived. Its name conjured up World War II Japan and kamikaze pilots flying zeroes into U.S. Navy warships. Louis Jonas, the founder of the camp, allayed my concerns on the day I arrived. Freddie, as we fondly called him, was bringing boys from all over the world to Rhinebeck, New York that summer hoping we would join his ongoing experiment to promote international understanding. We did join, of course, with the help of our counselors. We played soccer, staged the Pirates of Penzance, discussed Socrates under a catalpa tree, and waited, love-starved and breathless, for Delmar Day when a nearby girls’ camp would visit us for an evening dance.
A counselor named Phil Terry became my friend that summer. One day I walked into his tent while he was playing a record by Mississippi John Hurt. I’m still grateful for that discovery. It led to many more. I also remember the day he showed me another record album he had just bought. The cover art was a collage showing the Beatles surrounded by famous people, and it was like nothing I’d ever seen.1 It was the cover of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, of course. I was well acquainted with the Beatles—but not these Beatles. I didn’t even know the term psychedelic yet, but I think I had a premonition of the “long, strange trip” in store for me.
That album was a harbinger of all the exciting, scary, and momentous changes soon to come. My brother Scott left for college that fall, and I drove to Flagstaff, Arizona with the rest of my family so my father could earn a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. President Johnson sent more and more troops to the Vietnam War, and we saw atrocities from that war on Walter Cronkite’s nightly news. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, and race riots broke out in American cities. In 1969 the most famous rock concert of all time took place in Woodstock, New York, and that same year I registered for the draft.
I’m telling you all this because I can only think of the sixties in a personal way, and that’s how I need to talk about Across the Universe. In the late sixties I was falling in love, making lifelong friends, and hitchhiking across the country. I was puzzling over the rights and wrongs of the Vietnam War, racial discrimination, and my own future, and I was doing it all to the music of the Beatles. So were a lot of other people. This is what you will find in Across the Universe—something personal but also universal, a story set to music that will bring you to the heart of the sixties, to an experience in the best Hendrix sense of the word.2
Jude, Max, Lucy, Sadie, and Prudence are all named from Beatles’ songs, and they are both individuals and types. Jude is a McCartney/Lennon look-alike who leaves Liverpool to look for the American G.I. who had a brief romance with his mother and then went back to the states never knowing he had a son. Jude and Max become fast friends, and when Max drops out of Princeton University, the two of them move to a bohemian neighborhood in New York City. Max’s sister Lucy joins them after her boyfriend Daniel dies in Vietnam. Jude and Lucy fall in love to the accompaniment of Lennon’s ballad “If I Fell,” and then these two and their many friends begin the great sixties experiment in communal living, anti-war and civil rights activism, free love, psychedelic consciousness raising, and of course, music!
It’s a wonderful film. What makes it so wonderful are the fresh, passionate interpretations of over thirty Beatles’ songs; the carefully chosen, sometimes exotic costumes that were a hallmark of the period (check out the Bread and Puppet sequences); the authentic props and on-location sets in Liverpool and New York; excellent camera work and special effects that often mirror the creativity of sixties-era artists; and a tight script that sends the audience on a history tour that is also magical. Director Taymor has won awards for costume design, set design, and musical direction, and the awards are well deserved. She assembled a skilled team of actors and filmmakers to produce Across the Universe, and the result is a beautifully rendered work of art.
The decade of the sixties was a time of great civil strife. Americans disagreed bitterly about the Vietnam War, racial integration, abortion, and changing roles for women, gays and lesbians. Could that account in any way for the mixed reviews when this film was released forty years later in 2007? I don’t know. If the professional critics were divided on the movie, however, ordinary viewers were not. A sample of over 300,000 people gave the film almost four out of five stars.3 I side with the people on this one. If you weren’t there for the sixties, or if you’d like to go back, take the tour and watch Across the Universe. I hope you like it as much as I did.
1 British pop artist Peter Blake created this collage. http://goo.gl/PlXyCF
2 Yes, this could refer to a consciousness-raising experience with marijuana or LSD. As the years since the sixties have shown, however, a drug experience does not necessarily raise consciousness. As Hendrix himself said in the song (“Are You Experienced?” 1967) this could just as easily mean “not necessarily stoned, but beautiful.”
3 see Rotten Tomatoes at http://goo.gl/70ubWS
Don’t Look Now
That was the subject line in our last missive, and now we know the answer. The film he championed was “Don’t Look Now” which we have to agree is the most compelling title since “Don’t Look Then,” “Don’t Look Ever,” and “Don’t Look … Just Don’t Look.”
The story line of this movie … actually there wasn’t much of a story line, since this wasn’t a movie this was what SB Jon called a “film,” more precisely an “ohh-tur” film, meaning it only makes sense to people who took film courses in college. Regular folks need not apply.
Little known fact: SB Jon “did” Dr. Ruth. Kinda funny to picture that, isn’t it? She’s only about three feet tall!
So anyway, we did get to see Julie Christie naked, and for that we are grateful, although we did see considerably more of Donald Sutherland’s naked butt. (Maybe this is why SB Jon described this as “the best sex scene ever filmed.”) I say, to each his own. If he finds Donald Sutherland’s butt appealing, who am I … you know what I’m saying?
Things grew a bit heated in the waning moments. SB Jon kept referring to himself as a “compulsive liar” whereas newly anointed SB Rob correctly pointed out that the phrase was “pathological liar.” SB Mark, ever the diplomat (and a wannabee “ohh-tur”), said he really enjoyed the film.
SB Jon has announced formation of an alternative film group for next season. The group will be known as the Limp Chimps.
Silverbacks will kick off next season with the world premier of “Wo-Mandingo.” Happy Rutting Season!
SSB SM
The mid-Winter Silverback assembly on Wednesday was notable for several reasons.
* The troop had 9, count ’em, nine recent movies to choose from, all of Oscar-worthy quality, provided generously by SB Jon.
* SB Jon was awarded his valuable prize for predicting the Super Bowl outcome– a hand-carved, soapstone Moombah stick that he fondled continuously throughout the evening.
* A potential new Silverback, Ralph Malerba, made his virgin appearance and immediately ingratiated himself by bringing a six-pack of Peak Organic IPA.
* The troop quickly reached consensus to watch the film “Foxcatcher” which proved a controversial choice. While everyone agreed that it was an excellent film with a potentially Oscar-winning performance by Steve Carell, some in the group questioned its suitability, due to the fact that the Silverback of the film (Carell) did not display the usual Silverback qualities of intelligence, loyalty, and nobility. He was, to be blunt, a Silvercreep, and would never be invited to watch a film with this group.
* The Silverback choice for best film of the year (drum roll) … “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”
* Mark your calendars for February 25. Feel free to make a film suggestion. Otherwise, we might end up with “Mandingo” after all.
The outstanding question is … will FSB (Fledgling Silverback) Ralph return? The expression on his face as he left was non-committal, or was it perhaps befuddled, or perhaps annoyed, or perhaps chagrined, or perhaps ???
We’ll find out three weeks hence.
SSB SM
It was not a vintage Silverback night, despite near record attendance from the ‘backs who defied winter’s Arctic blast to be in the company of their peers.
The evening’s selection was “Looking for Richard,” a documentary chronicling Al Pacino’s quest to make Shakespeare relevant and accessible to an American audiences. The film was terrific and inspired some quasi-intelligent grunts on behalf of the hairy spectators. The DVD, however, was defective and turned into pixelated garbage halfway through.
Partly to compensate, Senior SB SM revealed the hitherto secret theme of the season “For Me to Know and You to Find Out.” It was … (drum roll) … that each of the selected films featured someone he had known at college.
Deafening silence ensued, followed by muffled snorts of derision and vigorous thrashing. It was best summarized by SB Jon who sighed “At least we didn’t have to watch ‘Mandingo.'”
Ed Koren was NOT in attendance, fueling speculation that he might be further demoted from his current status as Monkey. His excuse, however, redeems him:
“Today has been a very bad day for journalists in general and cartoonists and satirists in particular. My heart is heavy in thinking of my 3 colleagues assassinated in Paris, (one of whom I knew slightly) . I am feeling a great sense of loss and am oddly grieving . The New Yorker is putting together a posting on this and has asked for cartoonists to comment. I’m staying home tonight to do this. And my spirit is not really up for the very good bonhomie that will be flowing through the Silverback cave.”
And for his heroism, Ed has been promoted to SBP (Silverback Provisional), and he will be given another opportunity to regain full status.
Let’s convene again on January 28, and having been spared the dreaded “Mandingo,” we will watch whatever film SB (and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences member) Jon says is the front-runner for the Oscar.
SB SM
The Missing Link 
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