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Drooling on the Pillow

Friday, March 26, 2004

Listmania 

There are a lot of "best" lists going around Blogonia these days including this 43 Favorite Movie list by Eve Tushnet. Jeez, makes me tired just thinking about it. I can't imagine having forty three favorite anythings. Favorite fast food? Easy. There was a shop called The Coney Islander I frequented when I lived in Tulsa one summer that made just that -- deelishious dogs with a rather happening chile sauce. I don't know if it's still there and I don't know if it spread anywhere else, but I still revere them. After that, it might as well all come out of the same hole in the space-time continuum.

As I've said a couple of times, I'm not a difficult person to please when it comes to movies. If I remember anything about a movie a year after I saw it, I remember it fondly. Here's the first six movies I remember when I close my eyes and think of popcorn and sticky floors:

The Little Shop Around the Corner - Charm is an undervalued asset. Jimmie Stewart gives an acting lesson. You don't remember how crabby and unhappy his character is because when he falls in love he opens up like a time-lapse carnation.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - Charm factor zero. I saw it when I was fifteen and it was the cherry on the top of my Adolescence and Life Sucks sundae. It's rudely made, at times it seems hammered together, but when those gnarly little no-hopers sing "Jerusalem" I still get choked up.

LOTR - I'm talking about the whole 81 hour butt-buster.

The Women - It's a terrific movie and a laff-riot, and I could cite a numer of reasons it's on this list, but the truth is I always had the hots for Norma Shearer.

Arsenic and Old Lace - Love screwball. Love Capra. Love young Cary Grant. But again, I always had a thing for Pricilla Lane.

His Gal Friday - cf above re Cary Grant. I probably saw all of these (except LOTR) first on The Million Dollar Movie after 11pm with Crazy Eddie commercials busting in every thirty-five seconds. This one I know I did. The characters talked as fast as the Crazy Eddie guy but they made sense. I think I loved it because it went just about as fast as I could think. A hair more and they're babbling, a hair less and it all comes tumbling down. I had no particular thing for Ros Russell except that I liked the fact that the only one she didn't blow off the screen was Grant, which is the way it had to be. Sort of like Allison Janney and all those mutts on The West Wing.

I'm going to think about this some more and post a foreign film list.
Posted by: Sluggo / 5:18 PM
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Thursday, March 25, 2004

Check Your Vital Fluids 

One day I'll move up from basic Blogger and be able to post pictures. Meanwhile, put Richard Clark's image from yesterday's testimony in your mind and, along side it, George C. Scott as General Buck Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove. What put it in my mind, aside from a general resemblance, was the horrifying rictal grin they both employ to signify a witticism.
Posted by: Sluggo / 12:33 PM
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Tuesday, March 23, 2004

And These 

More Spanish martyrs for freedom, via Iberian Notes. The story of Michael Michell Rodriguez is especially painful. He fled tyranny in Cuba to become its victim in Madrid.
Posted by: Sluggo / 10:40 AM
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Monday, March 22, 2004

Being Right Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry 

James Bowman in the on-line American Spectator quotes Steven Miller's article in the Wall Street Journal (no link -- I'm not a subscriber) "Anger Mismanagement" making the point that Kerry's refusal to apologize for calling Republicans liars and "crooked" sums up the current level of political discourse quite nicely. "Righteous anger is for many Americans a good thing: a sign of one's commitment and integrity," writes Mr. Miller. This reminds me more than anything of remarks I've seen in a number of places declaring that the willingness of the Palestinians to blow themselves up for their cause "proves" that they are right and the Israelis are wrong.

I can see that. If you're around nine years old. Argument by fulmination or by detonation can be very impressive. The only problem is, it's not argument.
Posted by: Sluggo / 3:20 PM
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And These 

More victims of 3/11 via Iberian Notes.
Posted by: Sluggo / 12:02 PM
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