Music Monday

From my "dream cast" movie yesterday, here's the funeral song:

The Fifteen Movie Questions Meme

I'm a movie lover, and I'm currently in process of watching each movie listed in 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen (LeonardMaltin), so this meme is quite apropos. It was actually quite hard because I could think of numerous answers for each question. From Sunday Stealing:

1. Movie you love with a passion.
The Wizard of Oz

2. Movie you vow to never watch.
Forrest Gump

3. Movie that literally left you speechless.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

4. Movie you always recommend.
Too many, but I am partial to movies with themes of how adult behavior affects children, such as:  Rabbit Proof Fence, Children of Heaven, Whale Rider, Stand by Me, The Kite Runner, Winter's Bone

Here are some lesser known interesting movies: Lars and the Real Girl, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, The Tunnel, The Man from Earth, Black Book, Man on Wire

If you like animation:  Mary and Max, Persepolis

5. Actor/actress you always watch, no matter how crappy the movie.
Robert DeNiro and William H Macey/Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren

6. Actor/actress you don’t get the appeal for.
Nicholas Cage and Jim Carrey /Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts

7. Actor/actress, living or dead, you’d love to meet.
Clint Eastwood

8. Sexiest actor/actress you’ve seen. (Picture required!)

Salma Hayek

Roger Moore, the second James Bond

9. Dream cast.

The Big Chill came very close: Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, JoBeth Williams, Don Galloway
10. Favorite actor pairing.
Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor

11. Favorite movie setting.
Castle/English countryside

12. Favorite decade for movies.
Call me old-fashioned, but my favorite is the 1930's, specifically 1939. In that year, the following big movies were all nominated for Academy Awards for Best picture: Gone With the Wind; The Wizard of Oz; Stagecoach; Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Of Mice and Men; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; Ninotchka; Dark Victory; Wuthering Heights; and Love Affair. Gone With the Wind won, but the competition was tough that year.

That decade also produced films of W.C. Fields, Mae West, the Our Gang kids, and the Marx Brothers.

13. Chick flick or action movie?
Action.  Don't get me started on chick flicks; I get all riled.

14. Hero, villain or anti-hero?
Anti-hero - is generally a more complex character than the others, which makes for a much more interesting movie

15. Black and white or color?
Both - depends on the movie, but I absolutely hate the colorization of old black and white films. The best thing is The Wizard of Oz was both.

Music Monday

75 years ago today, Oscar Mayer rolled out the first Weinermobile.

To celebrate, here's an ear-worm for you:

Friday Frenzy

Carmagedden

OK, I don't live in LA, but I have been there and yes, the traffic is horrible.  But do you really need to go out and stock up on food when the major highway(I-405) is only closed for two days - on a weekend?

This type of panic in the city reminds me when a major water main burst in Boston a while ago, and a blogger called the few days of annoyance as "a taste of the apocalypse".  People were fighting over bottled water.  They HAD running tap water, which they simply needed to boil before drinking.  And they HAD toilets that flushed. And they HAD electricity to run their electronics.

These are times we country folk can turn the tables on the city folk and call THEM bumpkins. We live with these inconveniences all the time.  They have no idea how to deal with a REAL disaster.

Casey Anthony

Thanks to non-stop media coverage of the Casey Anthony trial, the public was worked up into a frenzy to kill the jurors for returning the "wrong" verdict. 

Having been imprisoned  sequestered for over two months, those jurors had plenty of time to mull over and examine what was presented in the court room and make informed decisions without influence from the media circus going on outside their quarters.

Thank goodness we have a legal system that allows "beyond reasonable doubt."  Would the madding crowd prefer legals systems found in other countries, such as Italy, where strong evidence of reasonable doubt is ignored?

And why, exactly, was the media so hyped-up over this specific case?  There have numerous cases of mothers on trial for killing their children, but none with the publicity of this kind.  Was it simply because in Florida cameras are allowed in the courtroom?

KY

Corporate sponsors are everywhere these days - ball parks, schools, stadiums.  So I've been wondering why Kentucky hasn't approached KY for corporate sponsorship of their tourism bureau.

"Two minutes of intense, bestial aerobics with no chafing."

"Ease in to Big Bone Lick State Park"

"Lubricated hot rides at the National Corvette Museum."

What's your KY tourism slogan?

Liar, liar!

Yes, I did say that I would be back blogging regularly. I guess that does make me a liar because it has been two weeks since I last posted. Life keeps getting in the way and and requires me to adjust my schedule.



There are many more important events that can arise and re-prioritizing things becomes a necessity.



So, I won't make any more promises because I don't want to get the reputation of being a liar. Let's just say, if I disappear for a day or week, there's good reason for my absence.

Tuesday Titillation (and WoeWee)

A fellow in Ohio likes to play around.  He can't decide if he likes the German Shepherd, the horse, or the blow up sheep.

The kicker is apparently there is no law against bestiality in Ohio, so it must be determined if his dog was harmed in order to even charge him with animal cruelty.  The dog isn't talking.

********************************

Even if you're not a golf fan, you've probably heard about Rory McIlroy, the 22 year old Irishman who won the US Open Sunday.   

It's a good thing that Barbara Walters isn't a sports announcer or we'd be hearing a lot about WoeWee Mcawoy:

Monday Mourning

Questions have been asked why I haven't written a tribute to my mom like I did for my father-in-law after his death.  The truth of the matter is I am keeping a promise.  When I started this blog over four years ago, I wrote about my brother and his struggle with deadly pancreatic cancer.  I didn't sugar-coat my posts, because I have never viewed life with rose-colored glasses. My extended family wasn't happy that I wrote of family matters, and politely requested that I not ever write about my brother or any of them.  I promised them I never would, and to prove my conviction,  I deleted all the posts from those early blog days, and have pretty much limited my posts to generalities when writing about parents and siblings.

Often over the past few years, my mother would bring up a subject or a memory and then about a week later ask me if I wrote about it in my blog. (She didn't have a computer and never actually saw this blog.)  My answer was always no - that I made a promise and I keep my promises.  I was never certain if she actually truly wanted me to write about those things, or if she was testing me and waiting to chastise me in case I ignored her wishes.  I'll never know the answer to that.

One of my blogger friends told me her family and friends LOVE to have her write about them in her blog.  She even has a blog, lovingly filled with humor and sadness, entirely dedicated to her mother who suffers from Alzheimer's.  I'm envious.  People's lives are best honored in written word and shared, even with strangers.  Lessons can be learned, experiences empathized. Oral histories are unreliable and, as generations die, the stories will fade away, like old photographs.

So don't look for extended posts filled with anecdotes of humorous times or exasperating moments with Mom. Her memories will forever be held in the souls of those who loved her and not shared with the public. All I will say is that she was, in the words of those who knew her, " a beautiful woman inside and out," "a very, very nice lady," and "an asset to the local community."  So I guess in some ways this is a tribute after all.