If you haven't discovered the FX series FARGO, you should try it. I'd suggest going to your cable carrier to watch the first episode of the season on demand, or go to Hulu, Netflix, whatever you have.
This series, created by the Coen brothers, who gave us the original film with Frances McDormand and an unknown at the time, Steve Buscemi, is just as quirky, funny, and outrageous (and not always in a good way) as the film.
Season 2 follows a slightly different storyline than the first season. In the first episode, the leader of the local crime family has a stroke, leaving the leadership position open. Each of his three sons want to take it, including the most sinister, played by Jeffrey Donovan, late the star of Burn Notice. The youngest son decides to confront a federal judge in a Waffle House late one night. In a monumental screw-up, he ends up killing her, the waitress, and the cook before he steals the money and runs out into the snow. (This takes place in Minnesota and South Dakota, always filmed in the winter.) He sees a UFO in the sky and stupidly stands gawking at it, only to be run down by a hairdresser on her way home. Kirsten Dunst (Peggy Blumquist) plays the ditzy woman. The man is halfway through her windshield, but she drives home and leaves him in her garage still stuck. When her husband Ed Blumquist (played by Jesse Plemons), a butcher, comes home, they panic as they try to figure out what to do. You won't believe what their resolution of the situation is...but that's FARGO for you.
The cast includes Ted Danson, as a Minnesota Sheriff, Patrick Wilson as his son-in-law (a state trooper still suffering from combat experiences in Vietnam in 1979 when the action takes place), and Jean Smart as the matriarch of the crime family, determined to take over for her ailing husband, no matter what her sons want. She is different than you've ever seen her in this one.
There are a slew of guest stars...my favorite is Bruce Campbell (he's everywhere!) who plays Ronald Reagan on the campaign stump across the country in search of the Presidential nomination. You will not forget his Reagan portrayal, complete with memory lapses. Painful foreshadowing for the real man, but that's FARGO for you, nothing is off limits.
When FX originally announced the first season of FARGO, I shook my head, wondering how they could replicate the ironic humor/tragedy of the film. But they have. The first season was excellent. The second season promises to be even better.
I love FARGO, even the very broad Minnesota/Dakota accent which all the characters have down.
My favorite moment in the film? Pregnant Sheriff Frances McDormand inspecting an accident scene off a snow covered highway, leaning down to inspect something she doesn't get back up. Her deputy asks her if everything was okay.
Her reply? In a wearily cheery voice, "Nope, I'm ganna baaaaaaaaarrf." A star was born.
And I got the means to torment one of my coworkers...he couldn't stand the accent.
Check out FARGO. It will leave you shaking your head in wonder.
Until next time...
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
SPECTRE
James Bond - to many of you he may have been around for your entire life. I remember when I was a young teen going to see the first of the movies, Dr. No. It starred an actor, unknown to Americans, called Sean Connery. I was hooked.
Ian Fleming was still around in those days and still writing. I devoured all of the books as they were published.
Although I haven't always liked the later Bond films - I'm sorry, Roger Moore and the silliness of his era of the films drove me away. But Timothy Dalton with his one Bond film brought me back. I've been back ever since.
Daniel Craig has become one of the best Bonds in my opinion, for all that my first thought of him was he looked more like a KGB agent than 007.
SPECTRE is the latest entry in the Bond collection. The entity SPECTRE is from the original Fleming books, worse than SMERSH, more deadly and more sinister, nihilistic in their enmity for all. The head of SPECTRE, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, is also a Fleming creation.
The film SPECTRE opens with a crowded fast-moving scene in Mexico City on the dia de los Muertos. (Day of the Dead) similar to Halloween in the states, it celebrates the dead.
As the scene progresses, there's a lot to celebrate. The action is huge, explosive, and loud with Bond triumphant when the scene ends. But the sheer magnitude of destruction gets him censured and put on leave.
Of course he doesn't stay put as he's ordered. Like an English bulldog with a bone clamped in his jowls, 007 keeps going after his nemesis. Do we ever expect him to do anything less?
This time, the entire 00 program is in jeopardy, seen as outdated, obsolete. Drones and other electronic surveillance is so much neater than a single agent going about shooting indiscriminately, killing, leaving a mess.
Honestly, there's not much new to the story, but the story isn't the reason the Bond films remain popular. The action is bigger, louder, more improbable than ever before.
Daniel Craig does another fine turn as 007. Ralph Fiennes, introduced as the new M in the last film, is excellent. His character will surprise you.
Christoph Waltz plays Blofeld with relish, complete with the character's sinister white Persian cat. Nobody can play someone so unapologetically wicked as he can. His villains are so happy in their evil.
Lea Seydoux plays James' reluctant love interest, although she gradually accepts the inevitable. Her character is the daughter of a late SPECTRE member.
Ben Whishaw continues his fresh take as Q, the long-suffering quartermaster. (Aren't they all when Bond breaks their toys?)
Also notable is Dave Bautista as a cruel SPECTRE assassin. I kept wondering where I'd seen him. It was only when I sat through the cast credits I realized he played Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy. This character is very different from that one.
If you like the Bond films, enjoy them as entertainment, check out this one. It's a great way to spend a couple of hours, enjoy your popcorn with an exciting movie. Some of the stunts are amazing.
Ian Fleming was still around in those days and still writing. I devoured all of the books as they were published.
Although I haven't always liked the later Bond films - I'm sorry, Roger Moore and the silliness of his era of the films drove me away. But Timothy Dalton with his one Bond film brought me back. I've been back ever since.
Daniel Craig has become one of the best Bonds in my opinion, for all that my first thought of him was he looked more like a KGB agent than 007.
SPECTRE is the latest entry in the Bond collection. The entity SPECTRE is from the original Fleming books, worse than SMERSH, more deadly and more sinister, nihilistic in their enmity for all. The head of SPECTRE, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, is also a Fleming creation.
The film SPECTRE opens with a crowded fast-moving scene in Mexico City on the dia de los Muertos. (Day of the Dead) similar to Halloween in the states, it celebrates the dead.
As the scene progresses, there's a lot to celebrate. The action is huge, explosive, and loud with Bond triumphant when the scene ends. But the sheer magnitude of destruction gets him censured and put on leave.
Of course he doesn't stay put as he's ordered. Like an English bulldog with a bone clamped in his jowls, 007 keeps going after his nemesis. Do we ever expect him to do anything less?
This time, the entire 00 program is in jeopardy, seen as outdated, obsolete. Drones and other electronic surveillance is so much neater than a single agent going about shooting indiscriminately, killing, leaving a mess.
Honestly, there's not much new to the story, but the story isn't the reason the Bond films remain popular. The action is bigger, louder, more improbable than ever before.
Daniel Craig does another fine turn as 007. Ralph Fiennes, introduced as the new M in the last film, is excellent. His character will surprise you.
Christoph Waltz plays Blofeld with relish, complete with the character's sinister white Persian cat. Nobody can play someone so unapologetically wicked as he can. His villains are so happy in their evil.
Lea Seydoux plays James' reluctant love interest, although she gradually accepts the inevitable. Her character is the daughter of a late SPECTRE member.
Ben Whishaw continues his fresh take as Q, the long-suffering quartermaster. (Aren't they all when Bond breaks their toys?)
Also notable is Dave Bautista as a cruel SPECTRE assassin. I kept wondering where I'd seen him. It was only when I sat through the cast credits I realized he played Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy. This character is very different from that one.
If you like the Bond films, enjoy them as entertainment, check out this one. It's a great way to spend a couple of hours, enjoy your popcorn with an exciting movie. Some of the stunts are amazing.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Bridge of Spies
Spielberg has given us another wonderful film in Bridge of Spies. Based on actual events it is taut and thought-provoking. If you think that means boring, think again. It is a riveting story which involves the audience from beginning to end.
This is the story of James Donovan, a NYC attorney, whose high-powered firm represents big insurance companies. One day he goes into the office and is told the senior partner wants to see him immediately. He is told the government has requested him to represent a Soviet spy they've apprehended. Donovan was on the prosecution team at the German (Nazi) war crime trials in Nuremberg. The CIA thinks he would be a great lawyer for Soviet Spy Rudolf Abel. Trouble is, Donovan IS a great lawyer, and takes the case to heart, giving zealous representation of his client, whom he comes to like.
When sentencing time comes, he visits the judge and pleads the case against the death penalty for his client. I won't spoil the story for you by telling you his reason for this, but it proves sound as well as eerily prophetic.
Naturally, Donovan makes himself and his family a target of the public outcry by his position. But he continues on his crusade to follow our Constitution and give his client a fair trial and later an appeal.
There is also a subplot about the U2 spy plane debacle which centered on pilot Francis Gary Powers. He crashed on his mission over the Soviet Union and was captured and held as an American spy.
The two governments discuss exchanging Powers for Abel. Naturally, they get Donovan to do the negotiating. When he gets to Berlin, where the wall has just gone up separating the eastern part of the city from the west, he finds the East Germans hold an American student who was caught behind the wall.
He becomes determined to get both men home, which all of the intelligence people, ours and theirs, say is not possible...
I won't reveal anything else about the plot. Don't want to spoil it for you.
Tom Hanks does a wonderful job as Donovan. He has aged (haven't we all???) But he retains his extraordinary talent to create an everyman character with many layers under the surface. This is not a showy performance. It's not that kind of character. But he is magnificent. I wouldn't be surprised if there's another Oscar nomination in it for him. Let me tell you something as an actor, anybody can emote loud and broad, but it takes a real master to use subtle facial, body, and vocal clues to reach the film audience, eliciting emotion from them. Hanks is such a master.
Also notable is Mark Rylance as Soviet Rudolf Abel, a talented artist as well as an enigma. I grew to really like him during the course of the film, as does Donovan.
Amy Ryan plays Donovan's wife, Mary, who worries for her family but trusts her husband. Ms. Ryan holds her own in the talented cast.
Austin Powell plays the hapless young pilot Francis Gary Powers, for whom nothing goes right on his doomed mission. He turns in a layered performance as the ace who is caught by circumstances he never anticipated.
Sebastian Koch plays Wolfgang Vogel, an east German attorney who meets with Donovan before seeming to set him up to fail. The character must be unreadable in order to work in the course of the plot. Koch plays the difficult man with ease.
A film is a collaboration of many artists working together. The Coen brothers were co-writers on the script. But the film has the Spielberg stamp, we've come to know. It is a well-made film with incredible attention to detail.
I read a review in the paper before seeing the film today. It said something about the audience should pay attention to the early banter in the film, as it will come to have significance at the end. Now that I've seen Bridge of Spies, I know what the reviewer meant. I give you the same advice.
There is a lovely bit at the climax of the film.
Steven Spielberg is arguably our best American director today in his meticulous methods of film-making. His attention to detail is incredible whether it is in Jaws, ET the Extraterrestrial, Schindler's List, The Color Purple, War of the Worlds, or in Bridge of Spies. His films shine in their humanity.
For us older folks who remember these events, the film will spark memories of our reactions to what is now history. For the rest of you it will show you what life was like in those gut-wrenching days when we anticipated Soviet hydrogen bombs coming to incinerate us with little to no warning.
Don't miss this film. You won't be sorry.
Until next time...
This is the story of James Donovan, a NYC attorney, whose high-powered firm represents big insurance companies. One day he goes into the office and is told the senior partner wants to see him immediately. He is told the government has requested him to represent a Soviet spy they've apprehended. Donovan was on the prosecution team at the German (Nazi) war crime trials in Nuremberg. The CIA thinks he would be a great lawyer for Soviet Spy Rudolf Abel. Trouble is, Donovan IS a great lawyer, and takes the case to heart, giving zealous representation of his client, whom he comes to like.
When sentencing time comes, he visits the judge and pleads the case against the death penalty for his client. I won't spoil the story for you by telling you his reason for this, but it proves sound as well as eerily prophetic.
Naturally, Donovan makes himself and his family a target of the public outcry by his position. But he continues on his crusade to follow our Constitution and give his client a fair trial and later an appeal.
There is also a subplot about the U2 spy plane debacle which centered on pilot Francis Gary Powers. He crashed on his mission over the Soviet Union and was captured and held as an American spy.
The two governments discuss exchanging Powers for Abel. Naturally, they get Donovan to do the negotiating. When he gets to Berlin, where the wall has just gone up separating the eastern part of the city from the west, he finds the East Germans hold an American student who was caught behind the wall.
He becomes determined to get both men home, which all of the intelligence people, ours and theirs, say is not possible...
I won't reveal anything else about the plot. Don't want to spoil it for you.
Tom Hanks does a wonderful job as Donovan. He has aged (haven't we all???) But he retains his extraordinary talent to create an everyman character with many layers under the surface. This is not a showy performance. It's not that kind of character. But he is magnificent. I wouldn't be surprised if there's another Oscar nomination in it for him. Let me tell you something as an actor, anybody can emote loud and broad, but it takes a real master to use subtle facial, body, and vocal clues to reach the film audience, eliciting emotion from them. Hanks is such a master.
Also notable is Mark Rylance as Soviet Rudolf Abel, a talented artist as well as an enigma. I grew to really like him during the course of the film, as does Donovan.
Amy Ryan plays Donovan's wife, Mary, who worries for her family but trusts her husband. Ms. Ryan holds her own in the talented cast.
Austin Powell plays the hapless young pilot Francis Gary Powers, for whom nothing goes right on his doomed mission. He turns in a layered performance as the ace who is caught by circumstances he never anticipated.
Sebastian Koch plays Wolfgang Vogel, an east German attorney who meets with Donovan before seeming to set him up to fail. The character must be unreadable in order to work in the course of the plot. Koch plays the difficult man with ease.
A film is a collaboration of many artists working together. The Coen brothers were co-writers on the script. But the film has the Spielberg stamp, we've come to know. It is a well-made film with incredible attention to detail.
I read a review in the paper before seeing the film today. It said something about the audience should pay attention to the early banter in the film, as it will come to have significance at the end. Now that I've seen Bridge of Spies, I know what the reviewer meant. I give you the same advice.
There is a lovely bit at the climax of the film.
Steven Spielberg is arguably our best American director today in his meticulous methods of film-making. His attention to detail is incredible whether it is in Jaws, ET the Extraterrestrial, Schindler's List, The Color Purple, War of the Worlds, or in Bridge of Spies. His films shine in their humanity.
For us older folks who remember these events, the film will spark memories of our reactions to what is now history. For the rest of you it will show you what life was like in those gut-wrenching days when we anticipated Soviet hydrogen bombs coming to incinerate us with little to no warning.
Don't miss this film. You won't be sorry.
Until next time...
Thursday, October 15, 2015
San Andreas
San Andreas, the granddaddy of all disaster movies finally came out on video. I had hoped to see it when it was still in theaters, but hey, the usual happened and I waited to see it on pay-per-view.
Whew, this one is a huge scale disaster flick. I'm old enough to remember Earthquake. In that one, there were special frequency sound effects that made you feel like your seat shook during the quake. Everybody flocked to it, some more than once...see I was seeing this guy and he was....well, never mind. I saw it so much I memorized most of the inane dialogue. ("Help me...my son is hurt...help me" woodenly delivered and accompanied by movement reminiscent of 1970s NFL cheerleaders...)
At any rate, San Andreas is way beyond Earthquake, in special effects (CGI is a wondrous thing), in the story, the characters, and variety of disasters...it's like former earthquake films, collapsing buildings, large scale fires, tsunami films, and big sinking ships falling on the unwary all rolled into a two hour movie. In other words, I am very glad I didn't see this one in the theater. For me, it would probably have been too much.
The disaster starts about ten minutes into the story and continues sporadically building to the end.
The cast consists of beautiful people. Of the main characters, only Dwayne Johnson's and Paul Giamatti's characters have brown eyes. The rest of the major players have impossibly blue eyes of varying shades. And everyone has bleached white teeth. In other words, they are impossibly pretty people, too. The film looks like they combed the headshots of all the young actors in Hollywood to find the best looking...You know you're looking at California by the beautiful people as well as the landmarks.
Still, this is an entertaining film, not riveting, but very entertaining. The storyline is good, but like in most disaster flicks, an afterthought to the chaos around them. Most of the good guys survive, and the weak-kneed villain gets his just desserts on the Golden Gate Bridge. And he knows it's coming. Probably just as well because he does a despicable thing during the early minutes of the disaster, compounded with another later on in the name of his own survival.
The one most uncomfortable moment for me was during the tsunami when a huge container-carrying freighter was capsizing on top of the main characters. Given the recent events with a freighter out of Jacksonville which apparently sank during Hurricane Joaquin, seeing this portrayal took the action out of the only-a-movie category and reminded me of the doomed ship and crew.
There were images of falling buildings that reminded me of 9/11, as well. But I just say, it's only a movie, though it is unfortunate that we all know these images from real tragedies. We're not as innocent of such things as we were in the 1970s.
It is a very entertaining film. As disasters go, it hit all the genres. The cast were believable in their roles, as previously noted, attractive people who were fun to watch.
I for one, love Dwayne Johnson as a hero. He makes a superb and most believable one. If you want a bit of exciting entertainment, check out San Andreas. They hit all the buttons in the disaster genre.
And now for something completely different...We have several zombie television shows currently on our networks. I watch most of them, though admittedly I miss episodes. But my favorite is SyFy's Z Nation. Why? It's exciting in places but it is also wryly hysterical in others. In last week's episode, our heroes, who escort the only human known to have survived a zombie bite to a medical lab in California in the hope of providing an antidote for all humanity, were in Wisconsin. In a small town, they encountered the remnants of a cheese festival. In the town square was a huge (and I mean HUGE) wheel of cheese. It was taller than the people as it rested on its end.
One of my favorite characters is an older doctor, permanently mellowed by his hippie youth. He's a hoot with his memories of the culture of his day. At any rate, he constantly has the munchies, and attacks the wheel of cheese to cut out a chunk. As he sighs eating the first real cheese he's had in a couple of years, a zombie horde comes over the road in their direction. Much to Doc's chagrin, his group pulls out the stops holding the giant cheese wheel in place and rolls it toward the oncoming horde.
It rolls over the zombies, picking them up in a permanent zombie cheese ball as it travels onward. One of the good guys says, "how long do you think it will do that?" And our leading lady shrugs and says, "from here it's all downhill to the Mississippi..." At the end of the episode, there's another shot of the cheese rolling down the road, picking up more of the "walking" dead. Quirky but fun...
Okay, I'm back and hope to see the new Spielberg film in the actual theater this weekend. Popcorn, here I come!!
Until next time...
Take care and watch a movie. They really are great escapes.
Whew, this one is a huge scale disaster flick. I'm old enough to remember Earthquake. In that one, there were special frequency sound effects that made you feel like your seat shook during the quake. Everybody flocked to it, some more than once...see I was seeing this guy and he was....well, never mind. I saw it so much I memorized most of the inane dialogue. ("Help me...my son is hurt...help me" woodenly delivered and accompanied by movement reminiscent of 1970s NFL cheerleaders...)
At any rate, San Andreas is way beyond Earthquake, in special effects (CGI is a wondrous thing), in the story, the characters, and variety of disasters...it's like former earthquake films, collapsing buildings, large scale fires, tsunami films, and big sinking ships falling on the unwary all rolled into a two hour movie. In other words, I am very glad I didn't see this one in the theater. For me, it would probably have been too much.
The disaster starts about ten minutes into the story and continues sporadically building to the end.
The cast consists of beautiful people. Of the main characters, only Dwayne Johnson's and Paul Giamatti's characters have brown eyes. The rest of the major players have impossibly blue eyes of varying shades. And everyone has bleached white teeth. In other words, they are impossibly pretty people, too. The film looks like they combed the headshots of all the young actors in Hollywood to find the best looking...You know you're looking at California by the beautiful people as well as the landmarks.
Still, this is an entertaining film, not riveting, but very entertaining. The storyline is good, but like in most disaster flicks, an afterthought to the chaos around them. Most of the good guys survive, and the weak-kneed villain gets his just desserts on the Golden Gate Bridge. And he knows it's coming. Probably just as well because he does a despicable thing during the early minutes of the disaster, compounded with another later on in the name of his own survival.
The one most uncomfortable moment for me was during the tsunami when a huge container-carrying freighter was capsizing on top of the main characters. Given the recent events with a freighter out of Jacksonville which apparently sank during Hurricane Joaquin, seeing this portrayal took the action out of the only-a-movie category and reminded me of the doomed ship and crew.
There were images of falling buildings that reminded me of 9/11, as well. But I just say, it's only a movie, though it is unfortunate that we all know these images from real tragedies. We're not as innocent of such things as we were in the 1970s.
It is a very entertaining film. As disasters go, it hit all the genres. The cast were believable in their roles, as previously noted, attractive people who were fun to watch.
I for one, love Dwayne Johnson as a hero. He makes a superb and most believable one. If you want a bit of exciting entertainment, check out San Andreas. They hit all the buttons in the disaster genre.
And now for something completely different...We have several zombie television shows currently on our networks. I watch most of them, though admittedly I miss episodes. But my favorite is SyFy's Z Nation. Why? It's exciting in places but it is also wryly hysterical in others. In last week's episode, our heroes, who escort the only human known to have survived a zombie bite to a medical lab in California in the hope of providing an antidote for all humanity, were in Wisconsin. In a small town, they encountered the remnants of a cheese festival. In the town square was a huge (and I mean HUGE) wheel of cheese. It was taller than the people as it rested on its end.
One of my favorite characters is an older doctor, permanently mellowed by his hippie youth. He's a hoot with his memories of the culture of his day. At any rate, he constantly has the munchies, and attacks the wheel of cheese to cut out a chunk. As he sighs eating the first real cheese he's had in a couple of years, a zombie horde comes over the road in their direction. Much to Doc's chagrin, his group pulls out the stops holding the giant cheese wheel in place and rolls it toward the oncoming horde.
It rolls over the zombies, picking them up in a permanent zombie cheese ball as it travels onward. One of the good guys says, "how long do you think it will do that?" And our leading lady shrugs and says, "from here it's all downhill to the Mississippi..." At the end of the episode, there's another shot of the cheese rolling down the road, picking up more of the "walking" dead. Quirky but fun...
Okay, I'm back and hope to see the new Spielberg film in the actual theater this weekend. Popcorn, here I come!!
Until next time...
Take care and watch a movie. They really are great escapes.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Scream Queens
Tonight, the second episode of Scream Queens will be shown on the Fox Network. If you're not watching it, why aren't you? It's a pluperfect hoot!
I taped the first episode last week and howled through it when I watched it a couple of mornings later...
Basically, it's a take-off of all the "nubile young things being threatened by a diabolical killer" whose identity is always concealed - a hockey mask for Jason in Friday the Thirteenth films, or a William Shatner mask painted all white for Michael Myers in the Halloween franchise. In the case of Scream Queens, it is a figure in a red devil costume, complete with a hard plastic mask.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Myer's chosen target who always managed to elude him years ago in Haddonfield, IL, the setting for the Halloween movies, plays the dean of students at the mythical university in which this farce is set. She plays her role with her tongue firmly planted in her lean cheek. Her character is hardly a paragon of virtue. Of one thing we are sure, she detests sororities and sorority girls. (Probably due to her own misfortune at their hands in her college career...)
They have guest stars (all under 25) who play the members of the sorority in question, who are invariably murdered during the episode by our red garbed villain or villainess...it's impossible to tell.
Scream Queens reminds me of my own sorority days. Although I didn't belong to the snooty, rich girl chapter at my school. I belonged to the chapter, losing members, who were desperate enough to take on a maverick like me...but I am familiar with the type portrayed in Scream Queens. Our campus was filled with them. And yes, they dated all the jocks, dressed in designer clothes, and walked about wafting expensive perfume around them, along with the distinct scent of entitlement.
Anyway, if you're in the mood for silliness to the max, and watching the rich girls bite it in fulfillment of their Karmic load, check out Scream Queens. You'll get at least a giggle or two, if not full-fledged guffaws.
Until next time, I'm back......and will write another post soon.
I taped the first episode last week and howled through it when I watched it a couple of mornings later...
Basically, it's a take-off of all the "nubile young things being threatened by a diabolical killer" whose identity is always concealed - a hockey mask for Jason in Friday the Thirteenth films, or a William Shatner mask painted all white for Michael Myers in the Halloween franchise. In the case of Scream Queens, it is a figure in a red devil costume, complete with a hard plastic mask.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Myer's chosen target who always managed to elude him years ago in Haddonfield, IL, the setting for the Halloween movies, plays the dean of students at the mythical university in which this farce is set. She plays her role with her tongue firmly planted in her lean cheek. Her character is hardly a paragon of virtue. Of one thing we are sure, she detests sororities and sorority girls. (Probably due to her own misfortune at their hands in her college career...)
They have guest stars (all under 25) who play the members of the sorority in question, who are invariably murdered during the episode by our red garbed villain or villainess...it's impossible to tell.
Scream Queens reminds me of my own sorority days. Although I didn't belong to the snooty, rich girl chapter at my school. I belonged to the chapter, losing members, who were desperate enough to take on a maverick like me...but I am familiar with the type portrayed in Scream Queens. Our campus was filled with them. And yes, they dated all the jocks, dressed in designer clothes, and walked about wafting expensive perfume around them, along with the distinct scent of entitlement.
Anyway, if you're in the mood for silliness to the max, and watching the rich girls bite it in fulfillment of their Karmic load, check out Scream Queens. You'll get at least a giggle or two, if not full-fledged guffaws.
Until next time, I'm back......and will write another post soon.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
New Day
Well, this is a brave new world today. Yesterday my dad moved into his new apartment in a senior living community...He called me several times last night and started calling me at 6:20 this morning complaining about the "hotel" and demanding to go home. He said he didn't know how they'd gotten his furniture and clothes there, but he wanted it all taken back...
After three more calls this morning from him, I finally called the facility. I learned they have a concierge service to have employees take the new residents to meals, to activities, all for a fee...I said YES, I'LL PAY IT!!!!
I told him later this morning that a couple of young ladies had been assigned to him during different times of the day and one of them would take him to lunch. Haven't heard from him since.
It's good but I'm not celebrating just yet...I don't know if I can trust this brave new world I met today. It's been so long since I was free to do whatever I choose on any given day, I'm hesitant to put more than a toe in the water, so I can jerk it back when the alligator surfaces.
I actually got some work done this morning. I met the shredders at the house where they dumped the forty years worth of financial records in their big tubs, carted them to their truck and weighed them...My niece and I went through 295 lbs of paperwork...I KNEW I COULDN'T CARRY THOSE BAGS...geez.
Is that the sum today of 40 years of a person's life? Well if the person is my dad, it's the sum total of 40 years of meticulous record keeping, anyway.
Later this morning, I actually cleaned my place. We were drowning is dust-covered doggy hair. My Tzus and I have all been sneezing and coughing...funny thing about that. I'm going to delve into more domesticity in a few minutes and change the sheets, then wash a load of towels. I hope I remember how to work the washer...
In this strange lull of emotionally charged activity I'm uncertain, cautious, concerned it will not last...
I'll give it the final test. If I'm not awakened in the morning by an angry call before 7:00, I'll know the new day is finally here.
Take care everybody. Keep dry if you're in my vicinity. Rain's pouring off the patio overhang once more.
After three more calls this morning from him, I finally called the facility. I learned they have a concierge service to have employees take the new residents to meals, to activities, all for a fee...I said YES, I'LL PAY IT!!!!
I told him later this morning that a couple of young ladies had been assigned to him during different times of the day and one of them would take him to lunch. Haven't heard from him since.
It's good but I'm not celebrating just yet...I don't know if I can trust this brave new world I met today. It's been so long since I was free to do whatever I choose on any given day, I'm hesitant to put more than a toe in the water, so I can jerk it back when the alligator surfaces.
I actually got some work done this morning. I met the shredders at the house where they dumped the forty years worth of financial records in their big tubs, carted them to their truck and weighed them...My niece and I went through 295 lbs of paperwork...I KNEW I COULDN'T CARRY THOSE BAGS...geez.
Is that the sum today of 40 years of a person's life? Well if the person is my dad, it's the sum total of 40 years of meticulous record keeping, anyway.
Later this morning, I actually cleaned my place. We were drowning is dust-covered doggy hair. My Tzus and I have all been sneezing and coughing...funny thing about that. I'm going to delve into more domesticity in a few minutes and change the sheets, then wash a load of towels. I hope I remember how to work the washer...
In this strange lull of emotionally charged activity I'm uncertain, cautious, concerned it will not last...
I'll give it the final test. If I'm not awakened in the morning by an angry call before 7:00, I'll know the new day is finally here.
Take care everybody. Keep dry if you're in my vicinity. Rain's pouring off the patio overhang once more.
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Wonder Woman - Aging Gracelessly
Sorry I haven't been on my blog since August 1st. Oh well, what's a month or so between friends?
Actually, I've been rather busy lately. As my dad enters a new phase of his life, with the help of my wonderful niece, I'm helping him transition.
Well, that sounds nice and bland compared to the reality of my current life. Nothing in the previous sentences gives you the visceral, emotional, physical jarring experienced by adult children caring for elderly parents as they watch them disappear.
You know my all time favorite superhero was Wonder Woman. Sorry, Captain America, sorry Thor, I was a budding feminist even as a child. I didn't know it then but I did know girls could do just about anything their brothers could, with a few anatomical exceptions. Not a popular opinion in those days, but hey, I was nothing if not progressive.
As most children believe, I thought I was invincible. And that attitude stayed with me well into my adulthood. I was in my fifties when the first blow struck. My mother, after several years of illness, was diagnosed with colon cancer and too weak to take the prescribed therapies of the day. She could have fought to grow stronger, but she opted not to. She opted to do nothing, so after seven months of being confined to bed she died, holding my dad's hand. My father took excellent care of her with the assistance of Hospice staff. I watched as he waned with her and worried he would leave soon, too.
He survived the last twelve years since her passing, but not without gradually fading. Five years ago I made the decision to move across the country to assist him however I could.
These last five years have been calm in places and horrendous in others, watching him decline, watching him disappear and become an angry, verbally biting stranger at times.
So we came to the inevitable decisions, should he stay at home or go to a place where he could have 24 hour care available? I let him make the decision, as it's his life. I wanted him to have autonomy as long as he could. We put the house on the market and began looking for places he could move. The first time the house was on the market and there was an interest expressed by a potential buyer, he knee-jerked and took it off the market.
We waited another five or six months before relisting. Finally, there's a buyer in the picture, and now the time is coming to move Dad, prepare for and hold an estate sale, and close on the house, walking away from their home of thirty years.
Folks, I never lived in that house, but this is hard...all the memories of my childhood, my parents, my brother,my grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, are all wrapped up in that home.
For the last month or so, I've been cleaning out possessions, marking other things to come with me, as my niece and her parents have as well. Bit by bit the "things" are going. It's funny how inanimate objects spark memories, old feelings, make you confront unresolved issues of the past. The latter is the hardest part of all. You fall into an exhausted sleep at night and first wake up to face another day, your natural good humor lasts about ten seconds, until you remember what hurdle is scheduled for today.
My niece and I have gone over about forty years worth of financial records in my dad's office. We've got eleven giant trash bags filled with them and two large plastic tubs filled with his taxes for the last five years, as well as information for his 2015 taxes...
Dad doesn't keep his ac on very much, so in Florida, even my fit, athletic niece broke into a daily sweat through the process. I looked like a wrung out mop at the end of every day, covered in the dust of old paper. I went home exhausted each day to be greeted by my puzzled, elderly shih tzus who would come sniff me in wonder...What have you been doing?
As the stress builds, I am increasingly short tempered, growling like a bear. My family knows to back off now when mato sapa (black bear) appears...
As with most real estate deals, we've had some stumbles along the way. Now we are being forced to replace the roof on the house...sigh. There is a schedule in place for what needs to happen...Dad moves on a certain day, the next day the estate sale people take over the house and spend three weeks cleaning out, rearranging, staging, preparing for the sale...did I mention it's a BIG house with lots of stuff in it?
Now we'll have the added issue of roofers hammering away...I just keep telling myself it will all be what it is. I've done all I can and couldn't change the outcome anyway.
Lesson for all of you out there, never ask What more can they do to me? You will find out in short order. I asked that once, parked at a park under the trees leaning out the open window in a fit of depression years ago. I barely finished the sentence with a bird pooped right on the top of my head...Like I said, don't ask.
Someday, hopefully when the weather turns, I'll get back to my life, watching movies, reading books, seeing television shows and blogging about them.
Til then I remain a disheveled, perspiring, depressed, droopy Wonder Woman, with no stamina and little impetus to write...
Take care.
Actually, I've been rather busy lately. As my dad enters a new phase of his life, with the help of my wonderful niece, I'm helping him transition.
Well, that sounds nice and bland compared to the reality of my current life. Nothing in the previous sentences gives you the visceral, emotional, physical jarring experienced by adult children caring for elderly parents as they watch them disappear.
You know my all time favorite superhero was Wonder Woman. Sorry, Captain America, sorry Thor, I was a budding feminist even as a child. I didn't know it then but I did know girls could do just about anything their brothers could, with a few anatomical exceptions. Not a popular opinion in those days, but hey, I was nothing if not progressive.
As most children believe, I thought I was invincible. And that attitude stayed with me well into my adulthood. I was in my fifties when the first blow struck. My mother, after several years of illness, was diagnosed with colon cancer and too weak to take the prescribed therapies of the day. She could have fought to grow stronger, but she opted not to. She opted to do nothing, so after seven months of being confined to bed she died, holding my dad's hand. My father took excellent care of her with the assistance of Hospice staff. I watched as he waned with her and worried he would leave soon, too.
He survived the last twelve years since her passing, but not without gradually fading. Five years ago I made the decision to move across the country to assist him however I could.
These last five years have been calm in places and horrendous in others, watching him decline, watching him disappear and become an angry, verbally biting stranger at times.
So we came to the inevitable decisions, should he stay at home or go to a place where he could have 24 hour care available? I let him make the decision, as it's his life. I wanted him to have autonomy as long as he could. We put the house on the market and began looking for places he could move. The first time the house was on the market and there was an interest expressed by a potential buyer, he knee-jerked and took it off the market.
We waited another five or six months before relisting. Finally, there's a buyer in the picture, and now the time is coming to move Dad, prepare for and hold an estate sale, and close on the house, walking away from their home of thirty years.
Folks, I never lived in that house, but this is hard...all the memories of my childhood, my parents, my brother,my grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, are all wrapped up in that home.
For the last month or so, I've been cleaning out possessions, marking other things to come with me, as my niece and her parents have as well. Bit by bit the "things" are going. It's funny how inanimate objects spark memories, old feelings, make you confront unresolved issues of the past. The latter is the hardest part of all. You fall into an exhausted sleep at night and first wake up to face another day, your natural good humor lasts about ten seconds, until you remember what hurdle is scheduled for today.
My niece and I have gone over about forty years worth of financial records in my dad's office. We've got eleven giant trash bags filled with them and two large plastic tubs filled with his taxes for the last five years, as well as information for his 2015 taxes...
Dad doesn't keep his ac on very much, so in Florida, even my fit, athletic niece broke into a daily sweat through the process. I looked like a wrung out mop at the end of every day, covered in the dust of old paper. I went home exhausted each day to be greeted by my puzzled, elderly shih tzus who would come sniff me in wonder...What have you been doing?
As the stress builds, I am increasingly short tempered, growling like a bear. My family knows to back off now when mato sapa (black bear) appears...
As with most real estate deals, we've had some stumbles along the way. Now we are being forced to replace the roof on the house...sigh. There is a schedule in place for what needs to happen...Dad moves on a certain day, the next day the estate sale people take over the house and spend three weeks cleaning out, rearranging, staging, preparing for the sale...did I mention it's a BIG house with lots of stuff in it?
Now we'll have the added issue of roofers hammering away...I just keep telling myself it will all be what it is. I've done all I can and couldn't change the outcome anyway.
Lesson for all of you out there, never ask What more can they do to me? You will find out in short order. I asked that once, parked at a park under the trees leaning out the open window in a fit of depression years ago. I barely finished the sentence with a bird pooped right on the top of my head...Like I said, don't ask.
Someday, hopefully when the weather turns, I'll get back to my life, watching movies, reading books, seeing television shows and blogging about them.
Til then I remain a disheveled, perspiring, depressed, droopy Wonder Woman, with no stamina and little impetus to write...
Take care.
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