Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!
Connie has been reviewing film uninterruptedly since 1970 (47 years) and routinely covers the Chicago International Film Festival (14 years), SXSW, the Austin Film Festival, and others, sharing detailed looks in advance at upcoming entertainment. She has taught a class on film and is the author of the book “Training the Teacher As A Champion; From The Godfather to Apocalypse Now, published by the Merry Blacksmith Press of Rhode Island.
Madonna onstage during her participation in the 1990 film “Dick Tracy.”
Just when you think you know a girl, you find out something that surprises you. So, here are some fun facts about the reigning Queen of Pop that you might not have known!
Her Papa Don’t Preach… He Was An Engineer
Madonna was born to immigrants Silvio Anthony “Tony” Ciccone and Madonna Louise Fortin on August 16, 1958, in Bay City, Michigan. Born and raised in Detroit, it’s not surprising that her father worked in the motor industry and was a design engineer for Chrysler and General Motors. Sadly, Madonna’s mother died of breast cancer before she was 5-years-old. Madonna would then go on to say in an interview with the Rolling Stone that if her mother was alive, “I would be someone else. I would be a completely different person.”
Record-Breaking Career
Madonna is one of very few artists that have made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. The Queen of Pop, a title she has held for three decades and counting, currently holds the records for highest-grossing music tour by a female artist, most US top 40 singles entries by a female artist, and largest environmental fundraising event. That last one is notable, as MTV reports that Madonna took the stage of Carnegie Hall back in 1998 and raised $2 million to support indigenous people and rainforests.
A Not-So-Material Girl
Madonna onstage in Rotterdam.
Speaking of fundraisers, Madonna is also known for her philanthropy. In fact, when Madonna won the SuperEnalotto in 2012, she consequently pledged her $132,174 winnings towards schools in Malawi. The SuperEnalotto has had quite the history of celebrity winners. George Clooney and Elizabeth Hurley also bought winning tickets in 2010. They also donated their prize money, this time to victims of the Haiti earthquake. These days, Lottoland notes that the SuperEnalotto’s jackpot is approximately €83.9 million ($92.4 million). Madonna’s generosity doesn’t stop there, as she pledged another $60,000 to Malawi schools as one of the ways to celebrate her 60th birthday last year.
Triple Threat
Madonna may just be the definition of a triple threat artist. Of course, her musical prowess needs no further explanation. However, her impact on the world of dance is also undeniable. Her signature Vogueing has become a pop culture phenomenon that’s felt to this day. Lastly, let’s not forget that Madonna’s acting chops are nothing to scoff at, either. She’s performed in a total of 22 Hollywood movies, including Evita, which earned her a Golden Globe Award for the Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Here’s a not-so-fun-fact: There are currently only 47 women (including Madonna) in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Madonna was inducted back in 2008 along with artists such as Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp, The Dave Clark Five, and the instrumental group The Ventures.
She Writes More Than Just Songs
Madonna onstage in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2015 during her Rebel Heart Tour.
What’s left for Madonna to do? She’s an accomplished musician, singer, dancer, and actor. Well, what many people may not know is that she’s also a prolific children’s book writer. Madonna released her first children’s book The English Rosesback in 2003, which made it to the Top 50 list of Amazon’s most ordered books way beyond its release date. Madonna has since written six other children’s books, along with several guest articles in magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar.
“I don’t know how these stories get started, but I do not approve nor sanction the upcoming film about Judy Garland in any way. Any reports to the contrary are 100% fiction.” So said the largely MIA Liza Minelli about the bio-pic “Judy”, which focuses on her mother, Judy Garland. The performance should earn Renee Zellwegger an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Zellwegger’s singing is good, too, complete with the awkward, nervous, arm-flailing delivery that those of us old enough to remember the real Garland associate with her.
“Judy” focuses on Judy Garland’s final shows in London at the Talk of the Town nightclub in 1969. She appeared for a five-week run that paid her $2,500 pounds weekly ($3,085 in dollars).
At that point in time Judy was considered unreliable and her life-long addiction to uppers and downers, dating from her childhood studio days, was contributing to her quickly failing health. She would be dead three months after these appearances, on June 22, 1969, at the age of 47.
THE GOOD
Acting: Renee Zellweger’s performance inhabiting the neurotic Judy Garland is the best thing about this bio-pic. It was nice seeing Finn Wittrock (“Write When You Get Work,” “American Horror Story”) finally get a chance at a “big” film, playing her last husband Mickey Deans, although the chemistry he and Zellweger generate was muted, at best; the film is very chaste in terms of depicting Judy Garland’s long history as a sexual being. The studio forced Garland to abort Tyrone Powers’ child in 1943 and, earlier, to end an “unapproved” pregnancy in 1941. We get no sense of Judy’s first 3 husbands. Vincent Minnelli (father of Liza) is omitted. Only Sid Luft and the 12-years-younger Mickey Deans are depicted, even though Deans was married to her for less than 3 months. Others deserving praise for their performances would include Darci Shaw as the young Judy Garland, and Jessie Buckley as Rosalyn Wilder, who is assigned to ride herd on the unreliable songstress during her London run.
Music: The quintessential Garland classics tell the story through familiar lyrics.”I’ll go my way by myself, I’m by myself, alone. I’ll have to deny myself love and laughter and friends…No one knows better than I myself know.” Or, later: “For once in my life I won’t let sorrow hurt me” or “As long as I know I have love in my life I can make it.” Zellweger has not sung since “Chicago” in 2002; she is terrific.
Costuming & Make-Up: Jany Temime does a fantastic job of dressing Renee as Judy. I did wonder how an actress who is supposed to be so broke found the money for such elaborate outfits and furs. The make-up and hair folks deserve plaudits for transforming Zellweger into a passable Garland. There were about 13 credited make-up folks and it took them 2 hours. It wouldn’t surprise me if they, too, snagged Oscar nominations on February 9, 2020.
THE BAD
Unnecessary Backstory: The opening “set up” of Judy speaking with L.B. Mayer on the set of “The Wizard of Oz” is used to establish the pattern that most of us already knew. The studio forced the 4’ 11 ½” Garland to diet and plied her with pills to keep her performing in good voice. Then it was barbiturates to help her to sleep. In her adult years, Judy became an insomniac, an alcoholic, and died of a barbiturate overdose that was deemed accidental, despite a couple of earlier documented suicide attempts.
Doting mother? The film insists that Judy was a devoted mother and depicts her traveling in a cab late at night with her two children by Sid Luft, Lorna and Joseph. They are turned away from their hotel for non-payment of the bill and end up going to Sid Luft’s house. The children appear to be of elementary school age—certainly not more than junior high school age—yet the setting for the film is 1968-1969. At that time, the two Luft children would have been about 13 and 16. Liza Minnelli, age 22 or 23 then, is shown only in a brief party scene where Judy “meets cute” with Mickey Dean (he actually met her while delivering illicit drugs.)
With the ages of her offspring much older than what is portrayed, the heart-rending conversation from an old-style red British phone booth where Judy more-or-less “gives up” her children becomes less touching. Judy stayed in London for three more months after her run at the Talk of the Town ended, ultimately dying at a rented house on Cadogan Lane, Belgravia, London, found by her fifth husband of only 3 months, Mickey Deans, in the bathroom on June 22, 1969. There is also a suggestion that ex-husband Sid Luft lost much of Judy’s money at the race track. Other sources say that subsequent managers after Luft mismanaged and embezzled her earnings. (One of them was Freddy Fields, husband of Polly Bergen).
This Rupert Goold adaptation of the stage play “End of the Rainbow” scripted by Tom Edge and Peter Quilter has been called “bland” by some critics and “melodramatic” by others. The scene with Judy befriending a gay couple was praised by some and castigated by others as implausible. The film really is most alive and engrossing whenever “Judy” sings. It soars in those scenes.One thing is certain: Renee Zellweger does a fantastic job of inhabiting and interpreting the trials and tribulations of a troubled icon.
“Ad Astra” translates to “To the Stars” and in this James Gray-directed film, which opened Friday, September 20th, Brad Pitt travels to the far reaches of outer space in search of his astronaut father long thought to be dead. (Tommy Lee Jones).”
The setting is “The near future. A time of both hope and conflict.” Earth has apparently established several bases on neighboring celestial bodies, including a base on the moon and an underground base on Mars that is one of the few such human outposts not harmed by recurring uncontrolled releases of anti-matter. The authorities think the electrical impulses originate from the long-ago Lima Project, which H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) headed up, journeying as far as Neptune and Saturn, the farthest point man has penetrated in space.
Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is assigned to find his father and the fear is definitely unspoken but potential that he will be part of a mission to eliminate the now-famous space hero. Brad is told, by Donald Sutherland as Colonel Pruitt, an old friend of the senior McBride, that suspicion for the electrical battering that the solar system is taking, which threatens Earth and the very survival of mankind, is perhaps something that H. Clifford McBride has caused. So, they reach out to his now 45-year-old son—also an astronaut—hoping that this tie to the man who may be intentionally hiding out—-will help find him.
I was reminded of Colonel Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now,” with Pitt playing the Martin Sheen part as the man sent to find Marlon Brando’s mad man/god. There is a religious undercurrent running throughout the film, including these words, spoken upon the burial in space of a deceased colleague: “May you meet your Redeemer face-to-face and enjoy the vision of God forever.” H. Clifford McBride (Tommy LeeJones), a believer in alien life forms, says, “I know for certain I am doing God’s work.” He was so convinced that his expedition would find intelligent life in the universe that he took drastic steps to prevent a mutiny from the others in his party. Ironically, the son performs an act nearly as violent in order to find his father.
Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) ponders the meaning of existence at several points. “We go to work. We do our jobs. We’re here and then we’re gone,” says the alienated Pitt. He is a cool customer who, more than once recites in voice-over the information that “I am focused on the essential to the exclusion of all else.” Compartmentalized is another way he describes his ability to deal with emotions. He seems to recognize, early on, (especially after the fantastic opening sequence where he survives a harrowing space accident where a robotic arm crashes and takes the orbiting space station down with it), that “ I should feel something. I survived.” By film’s end, the very basic lesson that we must live and love those close to us and that his father “could only see what was not there, and missed what was right in front of him” has been conveyed.
I couldn’t help but remember Jennifer Aniston’s remark at the time of her divorce from Pitt that he was “lacking an emotional sensitivity chip.” I did find Pitt’s acting spot-on, especially in the scene where he abandons the script that has been prepared for him and speaks from the heart via a secure laser transmission designed to reach his father, wherever he may be hiding in the Universe. The younger McBride acknowledges early on that “I don’t know if I hope to find him or finally be free of him,” but admits that, “I must accept the fact I never really knew him.”
Another echo from an iconic flick is that of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Not only is the path through the solar system that Brad’s character takes the same as that of the ship in Stanley Kubrick’s film, but James Gray finds a way to work in apes—something that seemed out of the realm of possibility.
THE GOOD
Cinematography & Visual Effects:
Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography is fantastic. The sets and visual effects in “Ad Astra” are completely believable. It’s a bit off-putting to see the base on the Moon crassly commercialized, right down to a Subway restaurant and a Virgin Atlantic store, but the set design and the harrowing action sequences set in space are completely believable and well done.
Acting:
Nicely-done, Brad Pitt! It’s great to see him back in leading man form and aging gracefully. This is the second film for Pitt this year that showed he is more than a pretty face, with his pairing with Leonardo DiCaprio in “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” worthy of a Best Supporting Actor nod and this solo turn equally good. It’s nice to see a return to form for Pitt, who has too often had his acting ability obscured by his good looks and the ubiquitous press coverage of Brangelina.
Screenplay & Directing:
The screenplay was written by James Gray and Ethan Gross and directed by James Gray (“The Lost City of Z,” “The Immigrants”). Brad Pitt and James Gray had planned to work together on two previous occasions, but circumstances intervened. Gray, in an NPR interview, acknowledged the “mash-up” of “Apocalypse Now” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” and expressed his admiration for character-driven films of the seventies, and is also quoted as having said, “This all sounds very pretentious, but I feel like love is a very important subject.”
THE BAD
Acting:
While Brad Pitt is fine in his leading man role, there is a waste of the talent of other cast members. Most notably, Liv Tyler has almost no part at all as the love interest who complains that even when he is there, Pitt is MIA. It as sheer coincidence that I watched a television special entitled “The Last Hours of Phil Hartman” that detailed how Hartman’s wife, possibly influenced by drugs and drink, but growing increasingly frustrated by his workaholic tendencies and his emotional distance from her, shot and killed him and then herself. While there is no homicidal wife in this space opera, the emotional underpinnings of the film are universal.
Donald Sutherland is another fine talent who is wasted in a very small part as Colonel Pruitt, an old friend of Tommy Lee Jones. He isn’t in the film for long. It seems as though the sequence in which Sutherland appears could be eliminated entirely without any harm to the narrative structure. Ruth Negga (“Loving”) also has a brief appearance as Helen Lantos, the Commander of the Mars space base, who assists Brad Pitt as he attempts to board the ship that will journey to Jupiter seeking his father, who Brad last saw at age sixteen.
While there are many exciting sequences, sometimes it feels as though they are being strung together like beads on a necklace. It is an exciting film, but there are slow portions in between the stringing of those action beads. And the film feels long, because it is—a distressingly common trend, it seems.
I’m wondering how the space aficionados will deal with facts in the film that are dropped into the mix, like the fact that it is going to take Pitt 79 days, 4 hours and 8 minutes to get from Mars to Neptune. I don’t pretend to know enough to begin to poke holes in scientific inaccuracies.
Snoopy, Come Home (1972) is re-releasing in theaters on Sept. 29th, Oct. 3 and Oct. 5th.
The1972 film “Snoopy, Come Home” is the rare exception to the other films involving Charlie Brown and the “Peanuts” gang in that (1) Charlie Brown’s name does not appear in the title, and, (2) When originally released, it earned back only $245, 073 of its one million-dollar budget.
The failure to do well at the box office can be attributed to the fact that Cinema Center Films was being shut down. They did not do the necessary marketing. “Snoopy, Come Home” would be Cinema Center’s last release and would also introduce Woodstock and Franklin to fans.
Snoopy visits Lila in the hospital.
The plot—also featured in the comic strip—involves Snoopy’s visit to his first owner, a little girl named Lila, who is hospitalized for three weeks and is very lonely. In a scene that would make no sense to today’s youth (“Why didn’t she just send an e-mail?”) Lila writes a letter and mails it to Snoopy, asking him to come visit her. Charlie Brown also uses an old-fashioned manual can opener to open Snoopy’s food—definitely an antique.
Clara decides she’d like to keep both Snoopy and Woodstock as pets.
Snoopy takes Woodstock, the bird, along as his companion in a trip through the woods, and the two have adventures, including being captured by a little girl along the route who ties Snoopy up and puts Woodstock in a bird cage. Clara (not named, but identified in the credits) wants to keep the two as pets, and she is quite persistent in chasing the pair as they try to escape.
Meanwhile, back at Charlie Brown’s house, Lucy says to Charlie, “You’ve got a used dog, Charlie Brown,” as they figure out the mystery of Lila of the letter. Charlie articulates his life philosophy to Lucy, saying, “I have a philosophy that no matter how bad things get, they will always turn out good in the end.”
Lucy gives Charlie her usual blunt appraisal, saying, “That’s not a philosophy, Charlie Brown. That’s stupidity.”
The songs this time around are by Richard and Robert Sherman, and the singing is considerably better than on “A Boy Named Charlie Brown.” The vocal credits are also different, going to Chad Webber as Charlie, Robin Kohn as Lucy, Stephen Shea as Linus, David Carey as Schroeder, and Johanna Baer as Lila. Bill Melendez directs again, and the explanation for the musical upgrade is that he wanted the film to be more Disney-like.
Is the film on the right wave-length for today’s youth? In the days of WWF and violence, it would seem so.
6% of the film has boxing or struggling over Linus’ blanket between Snoopy and Linus.
There is an extended sequence involving a battle for Linus’ blanket between Linus and Snoopy. Following hat, Snoopy and Lucy box (Snoopy wears the boxing glove on his nose). These scenes of active jousting take up at least 5 minutes of an 83 minute film ( 6%.) Maybe one explanation for these scenes would be it’s what kids do, or we can take Peppermint Patty’s words from the film and use them to explain, when she tells Charlie, “I’m an action type of person. When nothing is moving, I feel low. That’s why I always keep moving.”
Kids might notice that, when Snoopy and Woodstock leave home to go visit Lila, Snoopy carries a small valise that resembles a briefcase. Yet, from this briefcase Snoopy is able to take: a helmet; a football; a cooking pot; a frying pan; a complete dinner service; a large, rolled-up sleeping bag; an old-fashioned alarm clock; and a strange musical instrument that I couldn’t identify (mouth harp?), which somewhat resembled a harmonica, except that it looked like a key. That and the antique can opener were both artifacts that Seth Meyer might hold up on his show and ask a young person to try to identify. I’m an old person, and I couldn’t tell you what the “instrument” was that Snoopy plays when he and Woodstock are camping in the woods.
Snoopy, Lucy, Charlie Brown and Linus return on August 18th.
The good advice that was abundant in the previous Charlie Brown film is here, also. Example: “No one likes a moody person. If you go around in a mood feeling sorry for yourself, you do it alone—and I mean alone!” Or there is this profound bit of shared wisdom from Linus when he says, “Happiness lies in our destiny, like a cloudless sky before the storms of tomorrow destroy the dreams of yesterday and last week.” That pronouncement causes the retort: “I think that blanket is doing something to you.”
There’s a recurring theme of prejudice against canines. When Snoopy tries to go to the beach, he is kicked out because of a No Dogs Allowed sign. This discrimination continues throughout the entire film, up to and including Snoopy being banned from a library, a hospital, and an apartment building.
The songs are better in this Peanuts film, including “Fundamental Friend Dependability” and the song with the lyric, “I still remember a summer gone by. Why was it over so fast? Why can’t our summertimes last?” The explanation is that Melendez wanted the film’s musical score to be more like a Disney film.
Charlie Brown, as usual, is the lovable loser. He says, at one point, “I had 14 pen-pals once, but I did all the writing.” (Isn’t that always the way?) After Snoopy disappears without any explanation, Charlie moans, “I never know what’s going on.”
That feeling that we are the ones who “never know what’s going on” will keep Charlie Brown and the gang relatable for decades, even though so many visual constants of 1972 now appear dated. The beautifully colored woods that Snoopy and Woodstock hike through will be gorgeous on the large screen when the film begins showing at theaters on September 29th, October 3rd and October 5th as a re-issue.
The emotional messages conveyed by “Snoopy, Come Home” will remain true forever.
Lucy, Charlie Brown, and Linus examine cloud formations as “A Boy Named Charlie Brown” opens.
Way back in 1969, half a century ago, when my son was a year old, we watched “A Boy Named Charlie Brown,” directed by Bill Melendez and showcasing the lovable loser Charlie Brown from the “Peanuts” comic strip that Charles Schulz created. It’s 50 years later and, on October 18th, 2019, the film is being re-released on the big screen once again in honor of its 50th anniversary.
The songs in the film were both Oscar and Grammy nominated back in 1971, with music and lyrics by Rod McKuen like, “People, after all, start out as being small, And we’re all a boy named Charlie Brown.”
As the film opens, Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and Linus are all staring at the clouds and describing what they see. Linus thinks he sees an outline of the British Honduras Islands in the Caribbean and a profile of Thomas Eakens, famous painter and sculptor. When asked what he sees, Charlie admits that he was going to say a duckie and a horsie. Now Charlie is rethinking that response.
My son was one year old when this film came out, but most of it is as fresh and timely today as it was then. Perhaps the only exception to that remark is one of the final scenes that shows boys shooting marbles in a circle. Boys today would have no idea what that scene was all about. I remember playing marbles, and I’m sure Charles Schulz, who wrote the source material probably played marbles with shooters and Aggies, but today, it would be some video game.
Mostly, we are allowed to empathize with Charlie Brown, who goes through a depression when he cannot fly a kite (Snoopy can, immediately after Charlie has exclaimed, “Anyone who can fly this kite is agenius!”) or, seemingly, succeed at anything. “I just can’t seem to do anything right,” Charlie says, noting that his baseball team has just lost its 99th straight game.
Snoopy, Lucy, Charlie Brown and Linus return on August 18th.
But the times, they are a’changin’, and Charlie wins the local spelling bee and goes on to a larger competition, where he almost takes home all the marbles. As a former English teacher at the elementary school level, I applaud the spelling rules the film packs into the script. I guarantee you that 90% of today’s students probably won’t have heard most of them before and could benefit from taking notes!
Here is Lucy Van Pelt, pulling the football away just as Charlie attempts to kick it and causing Charlie to moan, “Why, oh why, do I let her do this to me!”
When Charlie embarks on a Lucy-directed attempt to follow up his school spelling bee championship by winning big at other spelling bees, he leaves town on a bus, taking with him Linus’ blanket, which Linus gave him as a good luck token. Unfortunately, the absence of the blanket leaves Linus in a funk.
Linus and Snoopy go to the big city to try to retrieve the precious blankie. My son had such a blankie and, when he was hospitalized with double pneumonia at the age of 2, his grandmother took his dirty blanket home to wash it, leaving son Scott with a substitute blankie. This substitute blanket did not set well with son Scott (“Accept no substitute!”) who went through his own meltdown while in an oxygen tent, pining for his wonderful blanket and rejoicing when it was finally returned to him. (He used to find “the good part” on the edge, which was a tiny segment of the lace that had worn off the entire perimeter of the blanket, and rub it against his cheek as he drifted off to sleep.)
Finally, Linus gets his blanket back (as did Scott) and all is well. Linus can finally stop saying, “Woe is me!” Linus plays Beethoven. (Lucy, seeing abust of Beethoven on his piano, asks, “Who is this? George Washington?”) and Snoopy ice skates like a champion.
The movie holds up remarkably well after fifty years (with the exception of thatmarbles-shooting scene) and the colorful sequences with animated pulsing color will be even better viewed on a giant screen once again. Enjoy it at your local theater beginning August 18th.
The second “sleeper” film of the summer, after “Late Night,” is “Yesterday,” an upbeat story of love and the Beatles.
Helmed by Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire,” “Shallow Grave,” “Trainspotting”) from a script by Richard Curtis (“Notting Hill,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Love Actually”) “Yesterday” has an improbable plot that presents as fact the idea that everyone in the world has forgotten about the Beatles, except for Jack Malik (Himesh Patel of the BBC’s “Eastenders”).
Don’t get hung up on why the knowledge of the Beatles and their song catalogue has disappeared. It’s not just their music, as Oasis (the band) has disappeared, as well, along with Coca Cola, Harry Potter and cigarettes. It all seems to have happened during a 12-second world-wide blackout, during which our hero is on his bicycle and gets hit by a bus that cannot see him because its headlights have gone dark.
Starring alongside new-comer Himesh Patel as Jack is Lily James as Ellie, his first manager and long-time admirer. Lily is recognizable from “Baby Driver” and her appearance in “Mama Mia.” She has just the right combination of fresh-faced admiration and loyalty to make her the perfect grade school teacher (which she is) and, eventually—although he is slow to recognize this fact—the girl of Jack’s dreams.
Along the way we are treated to a small appearance by Ed Sheeran as himself, a part he got after Chris Martin of “Cold Play” turned it down. Sheeran hears Jack sing a Beatles song on television and pops around to his Suffolk home to give him a shot at stardom (Sheeran really is from Suffolk). The scene with Jack’s father in the kitchen is pure Curtis and very realistic, as are Jack’s parents’ reactions throughout his climb from unknown to world-famous singer of Beatles songs.
As the press kit for the film put it, “Ultimately, this film is a great example of the power of song…To reconnect with the power of music is a fantastic treat.” One of the amusing points made by the film is the difficulty of remembering all the lyrics to a favorite song. In this film, that song is “Eleanor Rigby.” It proves to be one of the most difficult to re-construct from memory, after all Beatles tunes have disappeared from the globe.
Jack has been struggling to make his name as a singer/songwriter for years, but his own composition, “Summer Song,” just isn’t up to Beatles standards. As the villainess of the piece (Kate McKinnon of“Saturday Night Live”) put it, “I hated it, but I wasn’t interested enough in it to listen to it again to figure out why.”
Now that Jack has pinned down his failure to thrive to his songs, but not his singing, armed with the Biggest Hits of the Sixties and beyond, he completely blows the competition out of the water. There is even an impromptu song-writing competition with Sheeran where Jack’s contribution of “The Long and WindingRoad” is judged the winner. He seems to compose it in 10 or 15 minutes. (An interesting side note: the song that Sheeran wanted to contribute at that point was initially received with great enthusiasm—until his record company stepped in and said they needed it for his next album, at which point Sheeran composed another original work that runs at film’s end.)
Another role in the film is that of Jack’s roadie, Nick (Harry Michell). As the plot put it, “Nick is famously a world-class moron.” In real life, Michell was initially considered for the lead role of Jack because of his musical ability. When he auditioned he was ill and barely able to sing, but he was good enough that the part of Nick—comic relief—was his.
In part, the film is a hymn to the power of marketing. The scene where Jack is meeting in a board room with the marketing team that will decide how to present “his” songs to the world featured a dynamite monologue from the actor playing the lead marketer, who is, in reality, a well-known comedian. LaMorne Morris, the marketing guru, knocked it out of the park in shooting down such esoteric titles as “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in favor of “One Man Only.” The room used was loaned to Boyle for one day’s shoot because of his affiliation with WME and Cooper Wave Louise in L.A. and the W Hotel also makes an appearance. The rooftop scene of Jack performing at the Pier Hotel (a real Suffolk hotel) conjures up images of the real Beatles performing “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down” on the roof of Apple Records.
Patel does all his own singing and glowing references to his audition, when he sang “Back in the U.S.S.R.” were made, with the comment that “Danny’s approach is all about the performance; that’s what we were there to catch.” In other words, no lip-syncing.
One small criticism. The film is a bit over-long. As it goes on past 2 hours we meet John Lennon. I wondered if removing the John Lennon meet might have brought the film in at 120 minutes or less, because that would have improved it, and the meeting with the doppelganger for John is not really that central to the plot until they give him this line: “Tell the girl that you love that you love her and tell the truth to everyone whenever you can.”
In other words, not a good movie choice for Donald J. Trump.
An Irish illustrator, John Rooney, sent me his work on “The Films of Bill Murray.” Since I just took myself to see “The Dead Don’t Die” in Chicago at the AMC Theater, I told him I’d run his artwork with a few observations about the film. It’s not really a “review,” but simply some observations after my viewing of same.
The Dead Don’t Die film was exactly what I had anticipated: an oddball display of Bill Murray at his hipster best, playing a small town Sheriff with a deputy, played by Adam Driver of “Star Wars” and “BlackKlansman.” Zombie fare has been hot for a while now and this is a bit like “The Walking Dead” in that the principal characters (Murray, Driver, Chloe Sevigny, Steve Buscemi,Tilda Swinton) are told to “aim for the head.” Carol Kane also has a brief bit as a corpse who “changes” while in police custody.
Steve Buscemi plays a racist who is not mourned when he bites the dust (or, more accurately, when the zombies bite him). He is featured at a local diner drinking coffee while wearing a hat that resembles the Trump red hat with the words “Make America White Again.” Seated next to him is Danny Glover, who, at almost 73 years of age, seems to be taking just any old role these days. I saw him in a movie about the Ebola virus at the Chicago International Film Festival of 2017. It was pretty bad. Here, he only has a few lines, but the one that Buscemi speaks to him about the coffee is something along the lines of, “That’s too black for me,” which he immediately doubles back on, saying, “I was talking about the coffee.”
At one point, when Murray and Driver are trapped in their car in a cemetery and Adam Driver keeps saying, “This will not end well,” Murray freaks out and tells him to stop saying that. Murray then demands to know WHY Driver keeps repeating the line, and Driver says, “I read the script.” Murray has a momentary outburst of outrage over the fact that Writer/Director Jim Jarmusch (renowned for his “quirky”films) didn’t share the entire script with him. It’s that kind of “inside joke” film.
Tilda Swinton plays a very strange mortician. Her finale in the film is the kind that cannot be predicted, because it is fairly illogical. But, then, this is a Jim Jarmusch film. It really plays like a long commercial for the song of the same name, which is pretty good, but an entire film about the song? Really?
The horrible ending to the film, for me, was when I was charged $39 to park for 2 hours in the AMC parking lot under the theater. I was supposed to have had my ticket validated, at which point my charge would have been a mere $17. I spent 4 days trying to reach Tiara, who oversees 6 different parking lots, they told me. I did finally reach her, only to be told that she could not put the $22 differential back on my charge card. (Sigh)
A few days ago (May 13th), Doris Day shuffled off this mortal coil at the ripe old age of 97. I remember her well from movies like “Pillow Talk,” with Rock Hudson (one of herbest) and—when I was a young college girl, working as a waitress at Armstrong’s Department Store Cafe in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and at the Cherry Blossom Dining Room in Marion (Iowa)—if I had a dollar for every customer who said to me, “You look like Doris Day!”, I wouldn’t have been rich, but I probably would have made more money than I did working as a waitress that summer.
And if I’d had Doris’ job, I wouldn’t have had such sore feet from waitressing. It was a brutal job for minimum wage (a U-shaped breakfast island with a straight part to the left that people could also sit at; you’d wait on the interior part of the “U” and, behind you, people would be seated at the straight bar part that you were not at all aware had come in). All-in-all, both were demanding jobs for paltry salaries. [It was especially brutal the night the Cherry Blossom Dining Room booked a high school reunion (small class) and failed to notify me (the hostess) in advance that several tables of reunion-goers would be sweeping in, en masse, at the peak of the dinner hour). It’s never fun to have to go around and ask 4 to 5 tables of 8 if they’d mind relocating across the room. (!)] However, while fantasizing over Doris’ money made, I have to realize that she was thoroughly fleeced by her “business advisor” (Jerome Rosenthal) who managed her since the forties and by her third husband. It took her until 1979 to recover some of the millions he took in a colossal case of malpractice, which the courts recognized as such, although it took 5 years for Doris to get any of her money back.
Doris remained beautiful for many, many years—well into her sixties—and outlived her record producer son, Terry Melcher (who was probably the real target of Charles Manson’s murders, as it wasTerry Melcher‘s Hollywood Hills home that Manson sent his acolytes to, where they brutally murdered Sharon Tate and others.) She more-or-less faded into oblivion because the times changed. During 1960 and the 1962 to 1964 period, she ranked number one at the box office, the second woman to be number one four times. She set a record that has yet to be equaled, receiving seven consecutive Laurel Awards as the top female box office star.[57]According to the Hollywood Reporter in 2015, the Academy offered her the Honorary Oscar multiple times, but she declined as she saw the film industry as a part of her past life.[96] Day received a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in Music in 2008, albeit again in absentia.[97]
One of the roles Doris Day turned down was Mrs. Robinson in “The Graduate” (she found it “vulgar” and “offensive”). Anne Bancroft cashed in. Although scheduled to sing at one of the Oscar ceremonies, while strolling the hotel grounds she received a bad cut on her leg from a sprinkler system that required stitches; she had to cancel. She also was in talks with Clint Eastwood, her Carmel (California) neighbor to star in a Clint Eastwood project, but that never panned out.
She received three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards, in 1998, 1999 and 2012, for her recordings of “Sentimental Journey”, “Secret Love”, and “Que Sera, Sera”, respectively.[98] Day was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame in 2007,[99] and in 2010 received the first Legend Award ever presented by the Society of Singers.[65]
Doris’ personal life was not so successful. Doris Mary Koppelhoff of Cincinnati, Ohio married three times and basically dumped little Terry (her only child) in Ohio with her mother (also a divorcee) to continue touring as a vocalist with Les Brown (and his Band of Renown). Between 1949 and 1959, she recorded First husband Al Jorden was supposed to have been physically abusive, with a violent temper; she intended to divorce him before even while pregnant with her only child. Second husband was saxophonist, George Weidler. Third husband Martin Melcher adopted Terry and gave him his surname, but Melcher was abusive to both mother and son and managed to embezzle $20 million dollars of Doris’ money. Doris’ last husband (1976-1982) was Barry Comden, a maitre de, who later complained that she liked her canine friends more than him. Doris did NOT want to do “The Doris Day Show” (1968-1973) but found out after Melcher’s death that he had signed her to do one.
Day learned to her displeasure that Melcher had committed her to a television series, which became The Doris Day Show:.
It was awful. I was really, really not very well when Marty [Melcher] passed away, and the thought of going into TV was overpowering. But he’d signed me up for a series. And then my son Terry [Melcher] took me walking in Beverly Hills and explained that it wasn’t nearly the end of it. I had also been signed up for a bunch of TV specials, all without anyone ever asking me.
— Doris Day, OK! magazine, 1996[
Nobody has told me “You look like Doris Day” in quite some time, which may be because Doris remained slim, trim and out-of-sight as much as possible after 1968. When “All in the Family” was popular (I mention it because of the recent “live” recreation of that Norman Lear hit, produced by Jimmy Kimmel) there was the occasional mention of “Gloria” on “All in the Family,” but I always thought it was the long blonde hair and the lack of height. Gloria (Sally Struthers) has not retained her youthful appearance, post television, like Doris Day did but, thankfully, I’ve not heard the Sally Struthers comparison since the seventies.
I just thought I’d send out a prayer for Doris’ happiness in heaven. It didn’t seem as though all her stardom and fame translated to a gloriously happy personal life, for her. A contentious divorce (her son’s) kept her from ever becoming close to her only grandson, who regrets the manipulation and maneuvering that kept him from ever knowing his grandmother. By contrast, I (we) just got a call from the grounds outside the Eiffel Tower in France from my married son and wonderful daughter-in-law, with the 10-year-old twins (Ava & Elise) posing in pictures that made it seem like they were balancing each other AND the Eiffel Tower on their palms.
Day died on May 13, 2019, at the age of 97, after having contracted pneumonia. One day after she turned 97, she told an interviewer her All Time Favorite Film role was “Calamity Jane.”Her death was announced by her charity, the Doris Day Animal Foundation.[123][124][125] Per Day’s requests, the Foundation announced that there would be no funeral services, gravesites, or other public memorials.[126][127][128]
Doris supposedly thought she was only 95, as her birth certificate confirming she was really 97, was only ferreted out a few years ago.
Au revoir, Doris. May you live on in happy memories. “Que sera, sera.”
Bill Duke: My 40 Year Career On Screen and Behind the Camera
Bill Duke: My 40-year Career On Screen and Behind the Camera
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, 193 pages, plus index and photographs (15 pages)
Amazon: Print – $16.47. E-book: $13.99.
Bill Duke, with his 62 directorial credits, 17 as a producer, and 4 as a writer, is a face on the screen that movie-goers have recognized since the seventies. It was 1976, in fact, when his breakthrough role as Duane/Abdullah in “Car Wash,” paired with such luminaries as Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Otis Day, Antonio Fargas and the Pointer Sisters gave him his first big break in the 40-year career he writes about in “Bill Duke: My 40-year Career Onscreen and Behind the Camera.”
For me, one of his most memorable roles was as Leon, the gay pimp in “American Gigolo.” His movements were sinuous and catlike; he was an unforgettable character in this story of lust and greed, which focused on Gere and his romance of Lauren Hutton as a neglected politician’s wife and a murder suspect. Paul Schrader (Oscar-nominated this past year for his script for “First Reformed,” which Schraderdirected) was the director. The music by Giorgio Moroder imprints the film on my mind.
Duke admits, “I found it to be one of the high points of my acting career with one of the leading roles of the film. It was outside of my comfort zone, but it was a growing experience. I loved the character I played, and I loved working with Richard Gere.”
Duke goes on to say that “Richard Gere was meticulous with every movement of his character, like the movement of his eyes, the face, the lips, the hands, and the legs.” I would add that this attention to detail and movement goes double for Bill Duke in his roles. Leon was, indeed, a high point of Bill Duke’s acting career, and one I remember well.
I would also say that Duke’s praise of his fellow actors and directors and co-stars is universal throughout the book. “Never is heard a discouraging word.” If you are looking for a “tell-all” book from a Hollywood insider that will open the floodgates on unsavory doings, this isn’t it. Bill does allude to a low period in his own life when he gave in to the temptation of drugs, but the story of the seamier side of life in Hollywood is not this book’s mission.
BACKGROUND
When I was teaching junior high school students in a small town in Illinois, I was happy to find that the local library had a series of 16 millimeter After School Specials. I could rent these and show them to my students. I selected those where Bill Duke and Kevin Hooks were involved because they would be quality productions with good messages and the length was perfect to show to a class on a Friday afternoon late in the year. I was then (and am now) a film critic. I pay attention to who is in a film, and also to who is directing, writing and producing a film.
Duke has appeared in too many television series to list them all, including stints on those After School Specials as well as on “Cold Case” (2008), “Lost” (2006), “Battlestar Galactica” (2006), “Starsky & Hutch” (1978), “Kojack” (1976), “Falcon Crest, “Fame,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Knott’s Landing,” “Dallas,” and “New York Undercover.” He is still active on “Black Lightning.”
Bill Duke’s feature credits include the two films mentioned (“Car Wash,” “American Gigolo”), which really launched him, as well as “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit,” “Get Rich or Die Trying,” “Deep Cover,” “Hoodlum,” “Predator,” “Menace II Society” and “Not Easily Broken,” to name just a few. He has won NAACP Image Awards and been a nominee for a 1991 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or with “A Rage in Harlem.” Sundance Film Festival awarded “The Killing Floor” (1984) a Special Jury Prize and a Grand Jury Prize. More recently, the Northeast Film Festival recognized “American Satan” with a Best Ensemble Prize and, in 2018-2019, Bill Duke can be seen as Agent Percy Odell in the television series “Black Lightning.”
Reading about how this 77-year-old African American actor/director/producer/writer rose from humble origins in Poughkeepsie, New York and how he continues to open the door for so many other talented black entertainers was interesting, educational and amusing. He seems to write from the heart with sincerity, although there are a few areas that he treats “once over lightly,” including his own bouts with drug addiction and his personal life.
When Duke talks about Leon, his desire to excel shines through. “Playing that role gave me an opportunity to show other sides of my acting ability. I was seen by many casting directors as the big, tall, angry black man. I wanted to show that I could be more than that. The character of Leon was a soft-spoken brilliant sociopathic businessman, and I wanted the opportunity to let casting directors know that I had more range.”
Duke shares the trials and tribulations of being a television series regular. (“A television series is thehardest work for an actor on the face of this Earth.”) He thanks all those who have helped him along the way and does not speak ill of anyone, but does tell readers that, after appearing on a television series called “Palmerstown,” he could not find work as an actor for 2 years.
He explains, “In those days, they had something called a TV Q score, which was a way to measure how familiar audiences were with an actor, TV show, and so forth. If you were on a television show that garnered a lot of publicity, you could be considered ‘overexposed,’ which could make it difficult to get hired for another television show or feature because your Q score went down.” He adds that the experience made him depressed and angry and convinced him that he had “better learn how to do more than just act.”
Thus began a career move towards producing, writing and directing and this quote: “Once I figured Hollywood might typecast me as the police officer, I turned to directing. That way, I could wait until an interesting project came along.” Duke has also moved into the job of Chairperson of the Department of Radio, Television and Film at Howard University, as of 2000.
[*As an aside, I once interviewed the man responsible for the Q Score system. He had headquarters at that time in Marion, Iowa. At that point in time, he was tasked with making a television star spokesperson out of top model Cheryl Tiegs, something that never really worked. The man had worked for Gallup and took his knowledge of polling into the world of television and movies with the much-vaunted “Q Score” that Bill Duke mentions as having given him two years of idleness, sadness and depression. The Q Score Big Boss didn’t like what I had to say about the Q Score, so the article never ran. I was paid a “kill fee” after I interviewed him in his Marion, Iowa, offices.]
Duke scored a collaborative job with Joel Silver on “Commando,” which introduced him to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mark Lester (the director) and led, later, to his role as Mac in 1987’s “Predator.”’
PREDATOR STORY
One of the best stories in the book involves “Predator” and the unknown and inexperienced stuntman/actor hired to play the title creature. The actor was dressed in heavy black felt for the filming in the jungles near Puerto Vallarta. The heat and humidity were intolerable, causing the stuntman to pass out at least two times early on.
The director strode over and said, “If you pass out again, I’m going to have to fire you.” The original Predator creature (which did not appear in the film), was a smaller, more nimble creature that flew through jungle trees with speed and flexibility and fully packed laser guns. That Predator was also invisible and could strike his prey at any time. The bodysuit, including placement over the head and face, was originally used to insert computer-generated special effects over the actor’s body in post production. Unfortunately for the actor within the suit, he did pass out again.
At that moment, Joel Silver marched over to him and, as the actor awoke, suffering from exhaustion and dehydration, Silver said, “You’re fired.” The acrobatic, multitalented martial artist flying through the trees in a felt suit in one of his first jobs in America was Jean-Claude Van Damme.
ENCOURAGEMENT
One of the best things about the book is its “never say die” encouragement of young actors, in general, and African American actors in particular. While giving props to all of the heavyweights who have gone before (Sidney Poitier, Spike Lee, etc.), Bill Duke, himself, has proven to be a shining example of an actor who has paved the way for others. His work in Hollywood earned him an appointment to the Board of the California State Film Commission, as well as an appointment to the National Endowment of Humanities under President Bill Clinton. The Directors’ Guild of America honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Tribute. The reader may get the feeling that the author sometimes feels he has not received his fair share of recognition, and his Bill Duke Media corporation may be an attempt to rectify that by producing a great deal more quality film output.
As an unconventional actor—-not known for good looks, but renowned for good performances—Duke has had a career that has had many highs and lows. He shares that, “It’s all about relationships in the industry.” That remark could probably be expanded to any line of work. It may be intensified in Hollywood, but it seems true of many corporations, businesses and industries.
Quote: “Nobody else in this world is like you. There may be similarities, but nobody is just like you. You have value, and if nobody has validated that for you, it is time for you to validate yourself. Let your soul and your spirit out in your writing. Tell the truth of your experience in life through your writing. Writing forces you to love yourself and let out your truth. It takes courage, but the payoff is something that you cannot spend.” (p. 190)
“I wish I could say that writing this book was inspired by me and my courage, but the truth is that it was not. For many years, people told me that I should tell my story because of all that I had gone through in Hollywood, but I never believed that I had anything important to say. I thought a lot of people had gone through what I had gone through. I didn’t think there was anything special about bill Duke in Hollywood. However, when I reached my seventies, I wanted to leave something for those who come after me to benefit from.” (p. 190)
POETRY
Duke shares his poetry with us throughout the book. After reading of his humble origins in Poughkeepsie, New York, and the events that shaped him over the years, including a history of family violence, his poetry reveals a deep, sensitive soul, who arranges the poems on the page in vertical fashion. Lines like: “Nobody really cares. Nobody seems to really care about the other’s pain. For we must laugh and dance and sing and not remind us of anything that resembles fears that we’ve secretly tried to cover by pretending to be devoted lovers of everything except ourselves. “
What came through, for me, was that Bill Duke, at least early on, suffered from self-loathing. Was it his appearance? Was it because of remarks made to him when he was young? Was it because of his father and mother’s sometimes violent marriage? The source is difficult to pin down, as it often is in life.
WOMEN
Bill Duke during 1987’s “Predator” filming
It sounds as though Bill Duke doesn’t trust women. The reason for this is hinted at: a girl he had a crush on in college led him to believe that she’d spend time with him if he traveled to her school. He did (travel to her school). She didn’t (spend time with him). That seems to be one of the reasons why he stopped trusting ALL women. He had some sexual mistreatment by an early babysitter that also may have affected his views.
He frankly admits (p. 27): “I thought of sex as a game of pleasure from that day on, and maybe the reason I’ve hurt so many women in my life was because I always focused on the act, not the person. I liked having sex with different women, but I never went beyond that and made emotional connections. I simply enjoyed the physical act. Maybe it’s because of the way I learned about sex; I’m not sure.”
On page 171, Duke adds, “One of the many reasons I never got married was that I always thought I was ugly, and I didn’t want to have children that looked like me.” He goes on to say, “After my first love betrayed me, I used that as an excuse to become a scoundrel when it came to women.”
At least this sensitive, introspective man realizes it is an excuse and admits he has, at times, been a “scoundrel” when it comes to women.
TRUST
While Bill Duke trusts himself (“Trusting what is inside you is key”, p. 189) he doesn’t seem to trust many other people. He talks of loneliness this way (p. 178): “You have a couple of friends who are with you throughout your life. Some stay and some go, but when you’re not successful, not making money, and your career is not going well in our industry, there aren’t many people who flock to you. That shouldn’t be a shock, because they are hustling and trying to do what they have to do. If you can’t do anything for them, you are of no use to them.”
The book is good. The stories and experiences are fascinating and interesting. I always liked any film Bill Duke was associated with and that has proven to be prescient. If you’re interested in the film industry in any capacity as a career, this is a good read.
One of the Decorah eaglets has died. Poor little thing had a name/number, like DN10, but he (or she) was one of 2 born in the Raptor Research nest and it appears—judging from the way Mr. North pushed the little bird body off to the side of the nest—
The Day Shall Come at SXSW. (SXSW Press Photo)
the chick died only a day or two after being born.
The mysterious polio-like illness that doctors are calling AFM (acute flaccid myelitis) has struck at least 228 known victims in the U.S. in 2018. In an every-other-year cycle, has afflicted more than 550 Americans, including a 32-year-old. More than 90% are children around 4, 5, or 6 years old who come down with a cold that paralyzes them. Those of us who lived through polio epidemics are praying for another Dr. Jonas Salk.
Biden on the caucus campaign trail in Iowa prior to the 2008 presidential race. Don’t worry: I’ll be back to politics by the end of the week.
Conflicting reports on whether the GOP is going to address health care before or after the 2020 election. DJT has been quoted as saying they should come out with a plan before the election, but having a plan has not been the GOP’s strong suit under this president, no matter what the issue. There seems to be no desire to “fix” the things that would be fixable under Obama-care, because the current occupant of the White House is too obsessed with denouncing, denigrating and destroying the record of his predecessor to really do much beyond “framing” issues and using media to “pose” as having plans on issues, when it seems that little is being done.
Read a horrifying in-depth article (“New York Times”) about Michigan’s schools, which have largely been turned over to a topsy-turvy crazy quilt of Charter schools, which are not doing any better a job with the students than the public schools they replaced. Truly sounds like a nightmare scenario, but this is the scenario that Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, has always tried to foster. She is a native of Michigan and a huge proponent of charter schools, despite her own home state’s dismal record. She also has absolutely not one credential for occupying the position of Secretary of Education.
With Vice President Joseph Biden (then Senator Biden) at the Jefferson Jackson dinner in Davenport, Iowa, caucus season, 2008.
The Democrats continue to attack one another. I would say “eat their young,” but Joe Biden is not young. The latest attacks on the former Vice President come from a woman actively supporting Bernie Saunders and are largely undercut by photos of her with her hands on his shoulders at the same event that she claims so traumatized her. It is sad that campaigning in the year 2020 has come to this.
The weather remains pleasant here in the Austin area, but it sounds like the Midwest is pretty well flooded. With Trump’s typical lack of concern for those in dire straits, whether Puerto Ricans on that hurricane-ravaged island or Midwestern farmers who seem to have pretty well taken it in the shorts with the Chinese tariffs and flooding, it is going to be no fun at all trying to navigate the construction zone for the proposed new I-74 bridge over the Mississippi River, joining Iowa with Illinois. (Construction was delayed by the brutal winter). Not looking forward to dealing with it.
Image from Suzanne Weinert’s “A Good Son.” (SXSW Press)
The Lagoon in Cancun, Mexico, at sunset.
Posting a picture of one film I had to leave early in order to make it to “Shrill” and perhaps a photo from “A Good Son” (see interview with Director Suzanne Weinert, above). “The Day Shall Come” had not, to that point, “gelled.” It did have Anna Kendrick and I had an interesting encounter with Ms. Kendrick when I attempted to stop in the women’s rest room at the Paramount Theater on my way to the opening of “Shrill” right next door. A policeman told me I couldn’t enter the rest room. Cop: “I have someone in there.” Me: “A prisoner?” Cop: (Smiling) “No.” Me: “A female someone or a male someone.” Cop: “Female.” At that point, another woman, holding a Big Gulp cup and having just entered the theater from a side alley entrance tried to cut around the two of us out in the hall to gain access to the rest room. She was quickly dispossessed of the notion that either of us could enter. We continued standing awkwardly in the hall, while I tried guessing who or what was going on. Just then, the film’s star, Anna Kendrick, emerged, having been primping in the bathroom for at least 20 minutes.
The Royal Islander, penthouse view (9th floor).
I’ll be in Cancun in 3 days. I’ll try to post some photos.
A few days ago (May 13th), Doris Day shuffled off this mortal coil at the ripe old age of 97. I remember her well from movies like “Pillow Talk,” with Rock Hudson (one of her best) and—when I was a young college girl, working as a waitress at Armstrong’s Department Store Cafe in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and at the Cherry Blossom Dining Room in Marion (Iowa)—if I had a dollar for every customer who said to me, “You look like Doris Day!”, I wouldn’t have been rich, but I probably would have made more money than I did working as a waitress that summer.
Doris remained beautiful for many, many years—well into her sixties—and outlived her record producer son, Terry Melcher (who was probably the real target of Charles Manson’s murders, as it was
She received three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards, in 1998, 1999 and 2012, for her recordings of “Sentimental Journey”, “Secret Love”, and “Que Sera, Sera”, respectively.
Day died on May 13, 2019, at the age of 97, after having contracted 
Read a horrifying in-depth article (“New York Times”) about Michigan’s schools, which have largely been turned over to a topsy-turvy crazy quilt of Charter schools, which are not doing any better a job with the students than the public schools they replaced. Truly sounds like a nightmare scenario, but this is the scenario that Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, has always tried to foster. She is a native of Michigan and a huge proponent of charter schools, despite her own home state’s dismal record. She also has absolutely not one credential for occupying the position of Secretary of Education.
