Movie Madness - December 2009

I never said it was noble. I never said it would be easy. But I did it. I decided to try to watch 100 movies in 2009, and I exceeded my goal by watching 111.

Sure, it seems silly. Couldn’t I/shouldn’t I have set loftier goals? I could feed the hungry, build houses for the poor – whatever. I could have set a goal better for my health than for my cultural interests, like losing significant weight. But I didn’t. Instead, I watched movies.

It all started when I saw a list from the American Film Institute (AFI) that listed the top 100 movies of all time. There were many movies on the list that I had never seen (“Citizen Kane”) or had seen so long ago that I barely remembered seeing them, and I decided I should revisit them in my spare time (and when you retire you have lots of spare time). So in 2008 I watched “Chinatown” and “Mrs. Miniver,” among others, for the first time. This year (2009) I decided to watch more – to watch not just the AFI’s top 100, but any movie that struck my fancy. And my fancy was struck quite often, it seems.

My goal was simple: I vowed to see 100 movies in 2009, and I did. My first movie of the year was the Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire,” which, though hardly a feel-good movie, nonetheless emerged as one of the best I saw all year. Movie #100 – “Precious” – was similar in that it showed people living in horrendous conditions, overcoming poverty and rejection to simply survive. I thought both movies were great, and I never want to see either of them again.

In between “Slumdog” and “Precious” (there’s a sequel for you), I rented movies from Blockbuster, downloaded them from iTunes, watched them on demand or pay-per-view, viewed DVDs borrowed from friends, recorded movies on my DVR, watched them on cable (especially Turner Classic Movies) and ventured to a movie theater, alone or with friends. The only way I didn’t watch movies was from Netflix. Ironically, I don’t subscribe.

I saw something old (“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”), something new (“500 Days of Summer”), something borrowed (from Blockbuster) and something blue (“My Blue Heaven,” a Steve Martin comedy, not some raunchy movie). I wanted to see classics I had never seen (”Bridge Over the River Kwai”) as well as classics I had seen but wanted to see again (“An Affair to Remember”). I didn’t watch any movie more than once (which meant passing up repeated showings of favorites like “Apollo 13” and “The Notebook”) and, while I did see some of my favorites (including my all-time favorite movie, “The Graduate”), I tried to expand my horizons, which worked to a degree. I watched light, frothy comedies (“Paul Blart, Mall Cop”), romances (“An Officer and a Gentleman”) and documentaries (“Man on a Wire”).

I saw movies about boys, teenagers and men (“About a Boy,” “American Teen,” “The Last Detail”). I watched movies about kids in a band (“The Leopards Take Manhattan” and “Ballou”), about the demise of Enron (“The Smartest Guys in the Room”), and about a type face (“Helvetica,” a movie with not a lot of memorable characters but of interest nonetheless).

As an aside, I must say that I have become a fan of documentaries, seeing nine this year alone. Whether it was “Schmatta, From Rags to Riches,” a documentary about the garment industry in New York City, or “Kick Like a Girl,” about a girls’ soccer team, documentaries always teach me something I didn’t know or manage to warm my heart. The documentaries I watched this year and in recent years have run from 30 minutes to two hours and I think of them as time very well spent. I urge you not to overlook the documentary as a form of learning and entertainment.

The year was full of movies I loved (“Julie and Julia,” with the incomparable Meryl Streep), movies I barely tolerated (a terrible semi-musical remake of “Goodbye Mr. Chips,” with Peter O’Toole) and movies I hated (“Live Free or Die Hard”). I watched as many as 13 movies in a month and as few as five. One day, I watched three movies, from drama to comedy to documentary, all without leaving the house or spending a dime (assuming you don’t count my cable TV bill).

I watched movies about teachers and preachers (“Conrack” and “Doubt”), wrestlers, queens, lawyers and phony lawyers (“The Verdict” and “Catch Me if You Can”). I saw 11 movies about sports (among them were “The Blind Side,” “Invincible” and one of my all-time favorites, “Rudy”), that focused on high school baseball and football, girls soccer, college football, professional football, boxing and Olympic ice hockey. I even watched one movie I had waited 40+ years to see again – “Good Morning Miss Dove” – only to have the DVR recording interrupted just as the handsome doctor was about to tell the sick woman whether she would live or die. I had seen this movie as a teenager, so I honestly don’t remember what actually happened, and I have to admit it wasn’t worth waiting 40 years to see again. However, now that the star, Jennifer Jones, has died, I figure a Jennifer Jones film retrospective on TCM is inevitable, so chances are I’ll finally know what happened. I’m guessing that the main character, like the actress who played her, didn’t survive.

In case you are wondering, I’d say my favorite movie of the year was “Gran Torino” with Clint Eastwood, which actually came out in 2008, followed by “Slumdog Millionaire.” I liked “Up in the Air,” the George Clooney movie that opened in December, but not as much as the critics who raved about it.

I know, I know, you’re thinking, “She has too much time on her hands,” and that might be true to you, but not to me. I worked for years without having time to do just what I wanted to do, so now, sandwiched in between committee meetings for the organizations I serve as a volunteer (lest you think I am completely self-centered), aqua aerobics, attending basketball games, photography outings with my camera, going to plays and museums and spending time with friends, I managed to accomplish my goal. Maybe I’ll save the world next year.

Or, maybe I’ll finally get to see “Citizen Kane.” It’s on my DVR as we speak. And if I start it now, maybe it can make the 2009 list…

Hair Today - December 2009

I am letting my hair grow. At least for today.

I’ve been through this before, but I usually get over it quickly and head to the salon before it even approaches my shoulders. After all, what woman doesn’t obsess about her hair? Is it too long, too short, too gray, too blonde? Should I get it highlighted/dyed/bleached/permed/streamin’/flaxen/waxin’?

I like my hair short in the summer. “Give me the convertible cut,” I tell my hairdresser (I just can’t call him a stylist, because that would sound as if I have style). He knows that means cut it short enough so that when the top is down on my convertible it will simply blow back in place (the hair, not the top on the convertible). However, we are no longer in convertible weather, so, with my top firmly closed, I may be able to grow my hair out for a while.

Usually when I decide to let it grow it is because on that very day I think my hair looks good. It is not unusual for me to make an appointment to get it cut immediately thereafter, having awakened the next day with hair that has grown Rapunzel-like overnight and suddenly is over the top.

We all know our own hair better than anyone else – which is not to say we don’t need hair advice. I’ve been known to ask others about my need for a haircut and whether it looks better shorter or longer (which, granted, for me is a very small range). Once I got a very short haircut that I thought looked completely different. I asked my BFF about how she liked it and she replied, “Your hair always looks the same to me.” I decided to take that as a compliment.

There are days (in an office environment where the same people see you every day, everything is under scrutiny) when people have come up to me and said, “Your hair looks so good today,” and I have argued with them. Generally the day that compliment was bestowed was a day I thought it looked terrible. I mean, you know when your hair looks good, and no one can tell you otherwise when you are sure it doesn’t. “Oh, thanks,” I’d say, “but I need a haircut badly and this is not a good hair day for me.” Unless it was the actual day I was getting my hair cut. For some unknown reason, you always have good hair on the day it gets cut. And then it takes, by my count, about 10 days before it looks good again. I always try to get my hair cut 10 days before any big event, assuming, of course, that these events don’t happen weekly, in which case I’d have a shaved head.

My hair is a bone of contention in the pool. At home, I wear a baseball cap to keep my face out of the sun and my hair dry (clearly, I don’t believe swimming pools are actually for swimming). But at aqua aerobics, I just try to avoid getting my hair wet. To quote John Travolta’s Tony Manero in “Saturday Night Fever” after his father smacks him upside the head: “My hair! Watch the hair. I spend a lot of time on my hair.” Alright, I don’t spend as much time as Tony Manero spends on his hair, but still, I don’t want to have to go through all the required steps after I emerge from the pool – washing, gelling or moussing, drying, spraying, etc. There is one man who swims laps while we do our aerobics, and he is the splashiest swimmer you can imagine. I try to stay on the other side of the pool, but sometimes I get caught in his wake. Come on, man, I’m not here to get wet, I think. This is an issue when we play aqua volleyball, since I refuse to dive (or is it submerge myself?) after a ball (this is not the Olympics, believe me). I am usually the only one who finishes playing and doesn’t need to dry her hair. If I let my hair grow, this will be even more of a problem, since some of the exercises require us to keep own shoulders (and presumably our shoulder-length hair) in the water. I might have to resort to wearing the bathing cap fellow AA (aqua aerobics) friend Angela (shout out) so graciously provided. Suffice to say they just don’t make them like that anymore, except for this flowered masterpiece.

It is almost impossible to communicate appropriately with one’s hairdresser. His interpretation of “short” or “long” never quite matches up with yours. I’ve gone to the salon with pictures of hairdos I like in my hand. Yet I seem to exit with the same haircut every time. I don’t dare use someone else in that salon because that is just not proper hair protocol. Once my guy was away and I really needed a haircut, so I went to the person who blow dries my hair (this is a two-person job, you see) for a haircut. She did a great job, but it is her boss who always cuts me, and I didn’t want to undercut him, so to speak. (Oh, Jerry Seinfeld, I totally got that episode when you had the other barber come to your house. You just can’t cheat on your own guy in the same shop.) Yet I am already worried what I will do when this guy retires, since neither of us is getting any younger and I have gone to him for at least 15 years.

But I don’t have to worry about that now, because I have decided to let my hair grow and won’t need a haircut for some time. Or at least for today.