I am closing in on 100 movies and sticking to my goal of seeing as many new ones as possible along with old movies I haven't seen in 20 years or more. This month features a number of interesting documentaries (thank you, HBO) as well as a few of my favorite comedies. Here is what I watched (new movies noted with an * and numbering picks up from last month).
81. Page One: Inside The New York Times* (2011) – Though I was not sure why I felt drawn to this movie, my sister offered the answer: I was editor of my high school newspaper for two years, which I had forgotten. Of course, any comparison between Somerville High's Valkyrie News and the august newspaper of record, The New York Times, can be made only in noting they are both printed with ink on paper, but that seems to be the issue these days with the Times. This engrossing documentary casts a wide net around the news business, delineating the failures of such recognized names as the Tribune company (The Chicago Tribune and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer), and discussing the credibility and responsibility of traditional media vs. the new activist journalism, as offered by WikiLeakes. The film poses the question of the role of newspapers, with a legacy of journalistic integrity and perceived duty to the democracy, versus the media frenzy that emanates from Twitter, the Huffington Post and other on-line options. Notes one of the journalists: "The media is not the message, the message is the media." The death knell and demise of print journalism in general and of The Times specifically has been reported for years, and this film tackles whether it is imminent and necessary. I vote no. 4 cans.
82. Slap Shot (1977) – Paul Newman, sports and a comedy. These are three things I love individually, and here, collectively, they make for a raucous two-hour movie about the trials and tribulations of a minor league hockey team about to fold. Newman is Reg Dunlap, the player-coach of the Charlestown Chiefs, a horrible hockey team in a crappy league full of has-beens and never-weres. When the bespectacled Hanson brothers – all three of them – arrive on the scene (complete with their toys) and are let loose on the ice, mayhem ensues and the team succeeds. Ah, but enough to make them an attractive franchise for another town to purchase? Newman is terrific, skating enough to seem credible as a hockey player. Michael Ontkean is the brainy player who won’t fight, and Strother Martin, Newman’s nemesis in the great “Cool Hand Luke,” is the general manager of the hockey club. 4 cans for a lot of laughs and the great Maxine Nightingale song, “Get Right Back to Where You Started From.”
83. Valentine’s Day* (2010) – Any Hollywood star or pseudo-star who was not in this picture must have been out of the country when this pastiche of Valentine’s Day stories was produced, because the cast here – all in relatively small parts – includes Julia Roberts, Jennifer Garner, Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Biel, Shirley MacLaine, Hector Elizondo, Bradley Cooper, Topher Grace, Patrick Dempsey, Eric Dane (lots of TV folks here), George Lopez, Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner. The whole thing reminded me of an episode of “The Love Boat,” with so many characters and just a dollop of script. The obvious premise is Valentine’s Day, with people falling into and out of love, relationships that are starting and ending, loosely held together by Kutcher’s florist business. The movie tries mightily to be endearing but reaches only the bottom of the cuteness scale. 3 cans.
84. The Lake House* (2006) – If you think a long distance relationship is tough (see #80, “Going the Distance”), try one in which the couple lives in the same house but in two different years. I didn’t want to like this movie because I have long-standing issues with anything that requires me to suspend my sense of reality, but I couldn’t help rooting for Kate the doctor (Sandra Bullock) and Alex the architect (Keanu Reeves) to bridge the gap in time and meet in this romantic fantasy. Alex moves into the lake house built by his father after Kate moves out, and they strike up a correspondence by leaving letters in the mail box, even though he lives in 2004 and she is from 2006. Will they get together? Will they fall in love? Will Cher show up and start singing “If I Could Turn Back Time?” (She doesn’t, thankfully.) This movie captured my imagination with its appealing leads and extenuating circumstances, and it made me want to go jump into that lake. 4 cans.
85. Mother (1996) – Sci-fi author John Henderson (writer-director Albert Brooks) has just been divorced by wife number two and has writer’s block. Wondering why he is failing with women and hoping to unblock, he decides to move in with his mother (Debbie Reynolds) to figure out how their relationship affects his life. Mother Henderson is sweet and loving, though her care and concern seems more critical than supportive to John, and the two go together like Oscar and Felix with slightly lower-key histrionics. Reynolds is brilliant as the slightly befuddled mother whose routine is interrupted by annoying son John. There are great bits with her trying to cope with technology, but my favorite part is when she offers her skeptical son the vintage sherbet with what she calls the “protective ice layer” residing in her freezer. I always insisted to my mother that her ice cream was stale, only to hear her counter that ice cream cannot go stale. Anyone who has ever had a mother will probably recognize qualities in this mother that remind them of their own. 4 cans.
86. Up Close & Personal (1996) – Tally Atwater (Michelle Pfeiffer) is all cheekbones and ambition as she enters the Miami TV newsroom commandeered by veteran newsman Warren Justice (Robert Redford). But she’s willing to work hard to overcome her lack of experience and soon Warren takes her under his wing to teach her the news biz. She such a good student that she not only advances, she gets the guy, too. Very loosely related to real-life newswoman Jessica Savitch, this movie shows the evolution of Tally from ditsy on-camera rookie into a seasoned reporter. And the shot of Redford at the bottom of the escalator is sigh-inducing. The movie’s two immensely attractive stars carry off the love story better than the somewhat cheesy news part. They are enough for me to award 3½ cans.
87. High Plains Drifter* (1973) – This movie is what I think of when I think of Clint Eastwood. Here he is a mysterious, steely stranger who arrives in a corrupt town and is prevailed upon to protect the citizens from the bad guys who are headed their way, bound for revenge. He organizes the townsfolk with a minimum of words and a maximum of fear, getting them ready to shoot from the rooftops of the town he has them literally paint red. When it is all over, he leaves town as mysteriously as he came. OK, I’ll admit it: I don’t know what the hell this was about. Revenge, clearly, but a metaphor for something deeper? Was he related to the marshal the town leaders killed and dumped in an unmarked grave? We can only guess because the stranger’s name is never revealed. If you like westerns, this might appeal, but it was clearly not my kind of movie. 2 cans.
88. Beginners* (2011) – Oliver (Ewan MacGregor) is the grown son of Hal (Christopher Plummer), a lifelong gay man who was married to Oliver’s mother for 40 years until her death, when he came flying out of the closet. When we meet Oliver, he is numbly moving his late father’s possessions and dog, Arthur, to his nondescript house. The son of a joyless marriage, Oliver draws cartoons of sad people when he is at work as an illustrator. When he meets Anna at a party, things begin to look up – briefly – but since his exposure to real relationships with people is skewed, he only recognizes happiness in his father’s last years, before he became sick and while he enjoyed friends, fireworks and parties. I sacrificed a near-perfect day to sit inside and endure this dreary movie with my pool pal, Dee, who described this film as follows: “Other than liking the actors, who all did a fine job with what script they had, ‘Beginners’ sucked the joy out of the theatre, the shopping center, the county, and central New Jersey like a huge black hole in outer space. 5 cans for the dog.” I agree. The dog was great and gets 5 cans of Alpo. The rest of the film? For me, “Beginners” couldn’t end soon enough. 2 cans.
89. Courage Under Fire (1996) – Courage has many meanings in this war drama. Lieutenant Colonel Nat Serling (Denzel Washington) is charged with reviewing the case of the Captain Karen Ward (Meg Ryan), who is under consideration for the Medal of Honor for her bravery in battle. But the conflicting stories provided by the men in her command confuse and frustrate Serling, who is under fire to wrap up the investigation and see the first woman receive this honor. Meanwhile, Serling is suffering from his own conflicts, emanating from his role in the friendly fire death of his good friend, a fact that the Army has covered up. Washington is determined and stoic as he clashes with the soldiers below and above him in rank. Meg Ryan handles her unlikely role as the Army officer well, and Matt Damon, in his breakthrough movie role, delivers a memorable performance as one of the soldiers who knows what really happened in that battle. I found the movie a little hard to follow, with the dialog often overpowered by the loud gunfire. But after multiple flashbacks showing various versions of the incident, you get the idea and appreciate the danger and demands placed on the soldiers. 3½ cans.
90. Who Is Jackson Pollack?* (2006) – That’s trucker Teri Horton’s question when someone with knowledge of art tells her that the painting she bought for $5 in a thrift store may just be the creation of one of the most important artists of the century. But is it actually a Pollack painting? If it is, it could be worth as much as $50 million. Teri, who lives in a trailer behind a VFW, may not have a background in art, but she does have dogged determination, and she enlists the aid of experts in her quest to authenticate the painting. The art establishment scoffs at the notion that a piece as important as a Pollack painting could have ended up in a thrift store in the first place. This documentary covers the search for the truth, interviews the experts and the skeptics, and follows the CSI-like work of one man who feels Teri has the real thing and tries to prove it with DNA and fingerprints. The question remains as the film ends, with Teri turning down an offer of $9 million for the potential masterpiece the 75+ year old thinks is worth much more. 4 cans of paint for this engrossing and entertaining film.
91. Lost in America (1985) – When ad man David (Albert Brooks) fails to get the promotion to which he feels entitled, he convinces his wife Linda (Julie Hagerty) to quit her job, liquidate their assets and buy a Winnebago so they can travel the country and find themselves. First stop? Las Vegas, where Linda manages to gamble away their “nest egg” while David sleeps. Can two yuppies become two hippies and live off the land? This is a clever comedy, filled with hilarious Brooks rants (he wrote the script, much of which sounds and seems improvised). The understated Hagerty ‘s performance balances Brooks’ over the top madness. The best scene in the movie is when ever-the-adman Brooks tries to sell casino boss Garry Marshall on the idea of returning their money as a sure-fire way to attract more gamblers, despite Marshall’s contention that then everyone will want their money back. This movie is a winner. 4 cans.
92. The Curious Case of Curt Flood* (2011) – This HBO documentary traces the story of baseball star Curt Flood, an accomplished athlete who challenged baseball’s reserve clause in the 1970s. By order of the Supreme Court, major league baseball was not subject to antitrust regulations, and the reserve clause bound players to the teams that signed them. Flood, traded against his will, took on the baseball establishment, backed by the players union but taking on the challenge alone. He failed to win the case, but his inroads against baseball eventually led to changes in the collective bargaining agreement that ultimately provided for salary arbitration and free agency (with ballplayers routinely signing for millions). Flood, for his part, lost his career as an athlete and retreated into alcoholism and depression, leaving the country and abandoning his family. Before his death at age 59, the man who was the voice of the ballplayers ironically lost his own voice to cancer. But by then, he had gained the respect of Civil Rights leaders and his fellow athletes for his courage in taking on a system he likened to slavery. 4 cans.
93. In & Out (1997) – Kevin Kline is at his most charming as Howard Bracket, engaged to marry fellow teacher Emily (hilarious Joan Cusack) when former student Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon) tells the world in his Oscar acceptance speech that Howard is gay. The small town of Greenleaf is shaken, the principal is ready to fire Howard, and Howard refutes it all, trying to convince his finance and himself that he is not gay after all. Covering the story is a TV reporter (Tom Sellick), who thinks otherwise. This is a comedic romp for Kline, whose body language alone could win an Oscar. Cusack, the woman who is scheduled to marry Kline that week, is confused and crazed. Debbie Reynolds, Wilford Brimley and Bob Newhart join in the fun in perfect supporting roles. There are so many juicy comic bits, and Kline shines throughout. 4½ cans.
94. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead* (2007) – Cash-strapped brothers Andy and Hank plan what appears to be a simple robbery of a jewelry store, but the heist goes awry in this crime drama. Directed by Sidney Lumet, the story goes back and forth between past and present, and secret lives are unveiled as the brothers grow more desperate to dig themselves out of the hole. The strong cast includes Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke as the brothers, Marisa Tomei as the woman they share and Albert Finney as the father. Suspenseful and increasingly forlorn tale. 3½ cans.
95. There’s Something Wrong With Aunt Diane* (2011) – And we’ll never know exactly what it was. This HBO documentary examines the case of Diane Schuler, suburban New York mother and aunt, who drove for one and a half miles the wrong way on the Taconic Parkway in July 2009, eventually crashing into another car and killing its three occupants, herself, her daughter and three nieces. Only her young son survived. The filmmakers review the facts of the case, tracing Diane’s route from an upstate NY campground to her eventual tragic end. Along the way we hear the 911 calls where other drivers reported her car traveling in the wrong direction. We see footage of her stop at a gas station convenience store and a McDonald’s. Although her autopsy revealed excessive amounts of alcohol and marijuana in her system, her family staunchly defends her as a very responsible woman whose first priority was her family. They insist she must have had a medical episode that precipitated her bizarre behavior along the ride home, when one of her nieces phoned her father to say that, “There’s something wrong with Aunt Diane.” A second set of tests on her samples confirmed the initial report and that the samples were hers, but what happened remains a tragic mystery to her husband and family and those who lost loved ones. 4 cans.
96. No Contract, No Cookies * (2010) - These HBO documentaries are compelling, and this one hits home with the story of 138 workers at the Stella D’Oro bakery in the Bronx. A veritable United Nations of workers, the employees went out on strike for 11 months after an investment company bought the cookie maker and slashed wages and benefits. Their solidarity eventually resulted in a ruling in their favor, but it was a Pyrrhic victory when the company simply turned around and closed the plant, moving baking operations to a non-union factory in Ohio. The reality of seeing these people, many of whom at worked for Stella D’Oro for 25+ years as bakers, forklift operators, janitors and the like, threatened with losing their homes brought today’s economic hard times to life. In the end, they were no winners. And I’ll probably never eat a Stella D’Oro cookie again. 4 cookies.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Memories
Recently I watched a hilarious YouTube parody of the song “Memories” from the Broadway musical “Cats.” (Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzSaoN2LdfU) In this version, an older woman laments her loss of memory, how she can’t find the keys, doesn’t know why she went into a room and, well, other stuff that I can’t quite remember.
This experience got me thinking about my own memory. I decided that a memory is like a woman’s purse: You know that what you are looking for is in there somewhere, and if you root around long enough, eventually you will find it.
However, unlike a woman’s purse, you cannot simply dump out all of the contents and discard the useless stuff, like the Lifesavers stuck to a tissue. We seem destined to retain – if not find – everything, especially the stuff we really don’t need. For instance, unless I am going to be a contestant on “Jeopardy” and that’s the night they happen to have a category for “New York Yankees Line-ups From the Early 1960s,” there is a lot of Lifesaver-stuck-to-a-tissue type of information that I wish I could just toss out.
My mind is filled with useless information that prevents me from accessing the information I need or want. This issue can be embarrassing. When I worked, I would claim not to know Wendy from accounting, and my assistant would always say, “You know her. You’d know her if you saw her.” OK, let’s take it on blind faith that somehow I know who the hell Wendy from accounting is. On the other hand, it is amazing the amount of detail I can recall about a basketball game, like when Khadijah Rushdan passed between someone’s legs to Epiphanny Prince in the Auburn game and that Rutgers scored in the first 10 seconds of that game. Yet I not only cannot recall the score of that game, I usually can’t remember the score of the game I just watched. I just remember that my team won. If we get blown out by 40 points, I might just try to forget the whole thing.
If you are of a certain age, try going through your high school yearbook. In mine, written in neat penmanship over the countless pictures of girls with flips, are now meaningless phrases like, “2 good to 2 B forgotten,” signed by people who swear they will never forget French class. Really? And who is Karen, who said she’d never forget me? I wonder if she has, because I have no memory of her at all.
Once, a few years ago, I took a photography class taught in the local adult school by a man who was a teacher in my high school. I was proud that I even recognized his name. When he went through the class roster, he recognized mine, too, and asked me if I had him in 6th period chemistry (“had him” is not the bad thing you are thinking, OK?). 6th period chemistry? I took chemistry? And then he started asking me about people in the class, names I hadn’t heard in 40 years. Did I remember them? I barely remembered taking chemistry at all. And aside from salt being NaCl and water being H2O, I claim no knowledge of the periodic table, which, surprisingly, has never held me back as an adult.
My contention isn’t that I am losing my mind, but instead that it is so overstuffed with information that I cannot locate the things I need to know. I think we all have selective memory. That doesn’t mean we remember only those things we want to remember. Our mind just selects for us the stuff that will stay with us forever, whether we need to know it or not. Do I really need to know all the words to “Love Child” by the Supremes? That piece of information takes up valuable space that might better be used on something I need to know. I figure that there is only so much room in the purse that is my mind, and I wish I could dump out at least some of the useless contents. Why can’t I remember that I wanted to stop at the cleaners? Probably because my brain cells are saving themselves for something else, like memorizing what everyone orders at dinner, so when the waitress asks, “Who had the linguini?” I can point to the right person every time. But don’t ask me what I wore that night.
When I worked, I used to write down what I wore every day so I wouldn’t repeat the same thing at meetings or events. Of course, I couldn’t remember what anyone else wore, so why I thought they would remember what I wore remains a mystery to me to this day. Besides, nearly every entry started with “black pants,” since I had more clothing in black than Johnny Cash (raise your hand if you’ve heard me say that one before…).
People come up with their own tricks to help them remember things. Though I doubt the guy who invented the Post-It note had this in mind, I remember seeing many women leaving J&J at the end of the day with a string of Post-It notes stapled around the handles of their purses. I have friends who have Post-It notes on the dashboard of their cars. Writing things down helps – if you remember to take the paper or Post-It note with you.
My sister likes to write things down on the tiniest scraps of paper. When she is preparing a holiday meal, you’ll find every serving bowl with little scribbles that say “mashed potatoes.” Yet, inevitably, when we put the food on the table she’ll suddenly realize she forgot to make the peas (so that means one little bowl stands empty, except for the tiny scrap of paper with “peas” written on it).
I find it helpful to place things where I can’t miss them – like right in front of the garage door. If I have to take my laptop to a meeting, I’ll hang the bag from the doorknob, so I can’t miss it on my way out. The other thing that helps is doing things immediately when you remember them. How many times have I gotten out of bed in the middle of the night and written something down, or grabbed my passport at that moment, so I wouldn’t forget that I need it next month? I’d answer that question, but I can’t recall.
In fact, I wanted to write this essay for some time, and I would have, if I hadn’t forgotten about it.
This experience got me thinking about my own memory. I decided that a memory is like a woman’s purse: You know that what you are looking for is in there somewhere, and if you root around long enough, eventually you will find it.
However, unlike a woman’s purse, you cannot simply dump out all of the contents and discard the useless stuff, like the Lifesavers stuck to a tissue. We seem destined to retain – if not find – everything, especially the stuff we really don’t need. For instance, unless I am going to be a contestant on “Jeopardy” and that’s the night they happen to have a category for “New York Yankees Line-ups From the Early 1960s,” there is a lot of Lifesaver-stuck-to-a-tissue type of information that I wish I could just toss out.
My mind is filled with useless information that prevents me from accessing the information I need or want. This issue can be embarrassing. When I worked, I would claim not to know Wendy from accounting, and my assistant would always say, “You know her. You’d know her if you saw her.” OK, let’s take it on blind faith that somehow I know who the hell Wendy from accounting is. On the other hand, it is amazing the amount of detail I can recall about a basketball game, like when Khadijah Rushdan passed between someone’s legs to Epiphanny Prince in the Auburn game and that Rutgers scored in the first 10 seconds of that game. Yet I not only cannot recall the score of that game, I usually can’t remember the score of the game I just watched. I just remember that my team won. If we get blown out by 40 points, I might just try to forget the whole thing.
If you are of a certain age, try going through your high school yearbook. In mine, written in neat penmanship over the countless pictures of girls with flips, are now meaningless phrases like, “2 good to 2 B forgotten,” signed by people who swear they will never forget French class. Really? And who is Karen, who said she’d never forget me? I wonder if she has, because I have no memory of her at all.
Once, a few years ago, I took a photography class taught in the local adult school by a man who was a teacher in my high school. I was proud that I even recognized his name. When he went through the class roster, he recognized mine, too, and asked me if I had him in 6th period chemistry (“had him” is not the bad thing you are thinking, OK?). 6th period chemistry? I took chemistry? And then he started asking me about people in the class, names I hadn’t heard in 40 years. Did I remember them? I barely remembered taking chemistry at all. And aside from salt being NaCl and water being H2O, I claim no knowledge of the periodic table, which, surprisingly, has never held me back as an adult.
My contention isn’t that I am losing my mind, but instead that it is so overstuffed with information that I cannot locate the things I need to know. I think we all have selective memory. That doesn’t mean we remember only those things we want to remember. Our mind just selects for us the stuff that will stay with us forever, whether we need to know it or not. Do I really need to know all the words to “Love Child” by the Supremes? That piece of information takes up valuable space that might better be used on something I need to know. I figure that there is only so much room in the purse that is my mind, and I wish I could dump out at least some of the useless contents. Why can’t I remember that I wanted to stop at the cleaners? Probably because my brain cells are saving themselves for something else, like memorizing what everyone orders at dinner, so when the waitress asks, “Who had the linguini?” I can point to the right person every time. But don’t ask me what I wore that night.
When I worked, I used to write down what I wore every day so I wouldn’t repeat the same thing at meetings or events. Of course, I couldn’t remember what anyone else wore, so why I thought they would remember what I wore remains a mystery to me to this day. Besides, nearly every entry started with “black pants,” since I had more clothing in black than Johnny Cash (raise your hand if you’ve heard me say that one before…).
People come up with their own tricks to help them remember things. Though I doubt the guy who invented the Post-It note had this in mind, I remember seeing many women leaving J&J at the end of the day with a string of Post-It notes stapled around the handles of their purses. I have friends who have Post-It notes on the dashboard of their cars. Writing things down helps – if you remember to take the paper or Post-It note with you.
My sister likes to write things down on the tiniest scraps of paper. When she is preparing a holiday meal, you’ll find every serving bowl with little scribbles that say “mashed potatoes.” Yet, inevitably, when we put the food on the table she’ll suddenly realize she forgot to make the peas (so that means one little bowl stands empty, except for the tiny scrap of paper with “peas” written on it).
I find it helpful to place things where I can’t miss them – like right in front of the garage door. If I have to take my laptop to a meeting, I’ll hang the bag from the doorknob, so I can’t miss it on my way out. The other thing that helps is doing things immediately when you remember them. How many times have I gotten out of bed in the middle of the night and written something down, or grabbed my passport at that moment, so I wouldn’t forget that I need it next month? I’d answer that question, but I can’t recall.
In fact, I wanted to write this essay for some time, and I would have, if I hadn’t forgotten about it.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tina's June Movies
There is a lot of variety in this month's movies, almost all of which I saw for the first time, and none of which really stood out to me, unless you like movies about financial crises and tort reform (which I did, I'll admit). Numbering picks up from May, and new movies are indicated with an *.
JUNE *=First time movie
69. Fire & Ice* – McEnroe/Borg (2011) – This HBO special documents the intense rivalry of tennis players John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg in the early 1980s. McEnroe was the tempestuous upstart, Borg the stoic Swede, and of their memorable matches, none is remembered more than their epic battle at Wimbledon. McEnroe won a nearly interminable 4th set tiebreaker 18-16, but Borg won the 5th set and the Wimbledon trophy. I was a big tennis fan at the time, and I recall that match vividly. Each man would go on to win many championships, but Borg abruptly retired at age 25, leaving McEnroe without a comparable rival but with a lifelong friend. These men and their contrasting styles made tennis a compelling sport in the 1980s, and the fire and ice they brought to the game has been lacking since. 4 cans.
70. Get Him to the Greek* (2010) – Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) is a man with a mission impossible. His task, which he must accept as a low-level lackey for a music company, is to escort rock superstar Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) from London to Los Angeles to perform in a concert intended to revive his flagging career. Along the way the mission becomes an exercise in observing and participating in boorish rock star behavior, with drinking, drugs and women waylaying our heroes from their destination. I endured this movie without laughing even once, because even the few clever references were overshadowed by scenes that were supposed to be funny that I thought were insipid, silly or disgusting. The movie was well played, particularly by Brand as the lonely and self-indulgent caricature of a rock idol and Hill as an affable loser who becomes his friend. I’m just glad I didn’t pay to see this one in the movies. 2½ cans.
71. Play Misty For Me* (1971) – Long-haired, 70s clad DJ David Garver (Clint Eastwood) has an ardent fan in Evelyn (Jessica Walters), who calls him nightly to request that he play “Misty” for her. Actually, she is less an ardent fan than a psychotic lunatic stalker. After a few sexual encounters, Evelyn’s take on their relationship is quite different from Dave’s, and she is determined to make him love her by pulling a bunch of bizarre and scary stunts to get his attention. The laid-back DJ can’t figure out how to discourage or get rid of her as he pursues a relationship with former girlfriend Toby (Donna Mills, sporting the quintessential 70s shag haircut). This movie, directed by Eastwood, portrays him as the strong, silent type, the same kind of character he would go on to play in so many movies. It came long before “Fatal Attraction,” with Glenn Close as a psychotic lunatic woman, but has nearly as much suspense – though not carried out as well (no boiling rabbits on the stove). 4 cans.
72. Love in the Afternoon* (1957) – The lovely Audrey Hepburn is French cello student Ariane, daughter of a detective (Maurice Chevalier). Intrigued by her father’s dossier on middle-aged playboy “Mr. Flanagan” (Gary Cooper), she meets up with the businessman in his hotel and begins an unlikely affair. They listen to music provided by Flanagan’s band of music-playing gypsies and exchange no information about each other, including first names. Of course, she’s read his dossier, so she knows exactly what kind of man he is, but all he knows is that she is a girl whose name begins with the letter A, and he calls her “The Thin Girl” (oh, if only anyone would ever call me that!). She convinces him that she’s been around the block as many times as he has, which makes her even more mysterious and interesting. There is nothing Gary Cooper can do to convince me he is anything other than wooden as an actor, but this is a somewhat amusing charmer from legendary director Billy Wilder and it has an “Ahhhh” ending. 3 cans.
73. The Holiday* (2006) – Unlucky in love Brit Iris (Kate Winslet) and California girl Cameron Diaz swap houses for the Christmas season to escape their problems with men and promptly meet new men in this movie by Nancy Meyer. If only life were that simple. Winslet adapts easily to beautiful Hollywood, making friends with screenwriter Eli Wallach and composer Jack Black. Meanwhile, back at Winslet’s remote English cottage, Diaz has only to open the door to find Iris’ brother, played by Jude Law, stopping by unexpectedly. Guess the rest – go ahead, you can do it. The women are charming, if a little befuddled by their love lives, and the men are too good to be true. (So is Diaz’ wardrobe, if we are to believe all those coats and outfits came out of the one bag she lugs into the house. But I digress.) Overlooking the improbability of it all, I still found this movie satisfying in a chick-flick kind of way. Diaz and Law look sensational, Winslet a little bedraggled and for once Jack Black does not overact. 4 cans.
74. Heart Like A Wheel* (1983) – Bonnie Bedelia portrays the real-life Shirley Muldowney, the first professional female drag racer, in this bio-pic. Supported by her mechanic husband, Shirley sets out to break into the male, good-ole-boy dominated sport after a successful local career as an amateur drag racer on the streets of Schenectady. Fellow racer Connie Kaleta (Beau Bridges) takes more than a professional interest in Shirley’s booming career, setting up the off the track drama. Bedelia’s Shirley is a tough-as-nails woman at the beginning of the age of women’s lib who retains a touch of vulnerability. The whole movie felt a little Lifetime-y to me. 3 cans.
75. Dear John* (2010) – Hunky, hulky Channing Tatum plays John, a special forces soldier on leave from the Army in Charleston when he meets beautiful college student Savannah (Amanda Seyfried). Two weeks is enough for them to fall in love and pledge that they will be together after John's tour of duty is up in a year. But when he decides to reenlist, Savannah makes different plans. This is a typical Nicholas Sparks story, with attractive main characters facing life-changing choices and working hard to make the audience cry. Tatum is handsome but needs elocution lessons, while Seyfried is all doe-eyed innocence as the girl he loves. The acting here is grade B at best, with the exception of the always marvelous Richard Jenkins as Tatum's coin-collecting father. This is a sweet movie, but to me, everything comes in second to Sparks' earlier work, "The Notebook." 3 cans.
76. Too Big to Fail* (2011) – This HBO drama serves to remind us of the financial crisis of 2008. With a large cast (William Hurt, Ed Asner, Paul Giamotti, Mathew Modine, Billy Crudup, Topher Grace) mixed in with actual news reporters on TV, the program combines dramatization and documentary in an effective recounting of the financial crisis that saw Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers go down. When the Federal Government, led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen (Hurt) refuses to bail out Lehman, the market begins to crumble and the Feds look desperately to avert a repeat of 1929. This movie is a little tough to follow, with the heads of major banks popping in and out and leaving you to remember who’s who, but it is an interesting story that makes you think about how disaster could be one failure away. In the end, we survived as an economy, but it is disquieting to consider that 10 banks control 77% of assets in the United Sates as a result of the fallout from this crisis. 4 cans, and especially suited for economists.
77. Hotel (1967) – The St. Gregory is the dowager hotel of New Orleans, still elegant but beginning to fade and woefully behind the times in this adaptation of the Arthur Hailey book. Owned by irascible but loyal Melvyn Douglas, the hotel needs investors to keep it from being swallowed up by a chain run by egotistical Kevin McCarthy. There is a large cast of characters in this hotel, led by Rod Taylor as the efficient general manager and brightened by cagey thief Karl Malden (trademark fedora and all). Merle Oberon, shot in soft focus, plays the Duchess in her last movie role. Not a terrible movie, but hardly a grand hotel. Plenty of vacancies here. 3 cans.
78. A Matter of Taste/Serving Up Paul Liebrandt* (2010) – This profile of chef Paul Liebrandt traces the New York career of the young chef, whose level of taste and sophistication exceeds those of the restaurants that employ him. The exacting chef, the youngest to ever garner three stars from The New York Times (at age 24), turns out food that is equal in artistry and taste. When the restaurant where he works is forced by the economy to turn casual, Paul is left making sophisticated burgers. He drifts around the food scene until he teams up with legendary restaurateur Drew Nieporent to create Corton. There we see the long hours, creative vision and dedication required to run a restaurant. As the new establishment gears up and finally opens, Liebrandt and the staff await the review of The New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni, whose judgment can make or break the restaurant. I’ll give this documentary 3½ stars, since Liebrandt undoubtedly would find a can of tuna quite offensive.
79. Hot Coffee* (2011) – In reading this review, my sister will roll her eyes and say, “Why would you watch a movie about tort reform?” Well, we all know – or think we know – about the 1994 case where an elderly woman spilled coffee on her lap and sued McDonald’s because the coffee was too hot. Contrary to the lore about the case, it turns out she wasn’t driving at the time and that her legs, shown in the movie, were severely burned. She sued only because McDonald’s refused to cover her medical expenses, and today, as a result, McDonald’s’ coffee is 10 degrees cooler when served. But the judgment against McDonald's started the push for tort reform and capping damages, all led by a clever PR campaign and not by a grassroots push to keep malpractice costs down and doctors in their practices. This HBO documentary presents several heart-rending cases where caps on damages were insufficient to care for people seriously injured by negligence. The piece chides President Bush and his crony, Karl Rove, for their efforts to protect the interests of corporations over the individual. 3½ cans.
80. Going the Distance* (2010) – Erin and Garrett (Drew Barrymore and Justin Long) meet at the Centipede arcade machine and begin a relationship for the remainder of her 6 weeks in New York, before she has to return to Stanford to finish her master’s degree. An aspiring writer, Erin lives with her married sister (a delightful Christina Applegate) while she seeks a newspaper job, waits tables and tries to maintain a long distance relationship with New York-based music flunky Garrett. Will she find a job? Will one of them make the cross-country trip for a visit or a possible permanent move? Could Garrett’s best buddies be any grosser or Erin’s sister any more uptight? These burning questions are examined during the course of this film, starring once upon a time real-life couple Barrymore and Long, whose on-screen chemistry is real even if Drew seems a little long in the tooth for Justin. They’re cute, the movie’s cute, and the supporting players are very strong. There were a few good laughs, but don’t invite me to dinner at her sister’s house. 3½ cans.
JUNE *=First time movie
69. Fire & Ice* – McEnroe/Borg (2011) – This HBO special documents the intense rivalry of tennis players John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg in the early 1980s. McEnroe was the tempestuous upstart, Borg the stoic Swede, and of their memorable matches, none is remembered more than their epic battle at Wimbledon. McEnroe won a nearly interminable 4th set tiebreaker 18-16, but Borg won the 5th set and the Wimbledon trophy. I was a big tennis fan at the time, and I recall that match vividly. Each man would go on to win many championships, but Borg abruptly retired at age 25, leaving McEnroe without a comparable rival but with a lifelong friend. These men and their contrasting styles made tennis a compelling sport in the 1980s, and the fire and ice they brought to the game has been lacking since. 4 cans.
70. Get Him to the Greek* (2010) – Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) is a man with a mission impossible. His task, which he must accept as a low-level lackey for a music company, is to escort rock superstar Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) from London to Los Angeles to perform in a concert intended to revive his flagging career. Along the way the mission becomes an exercise in observing and participating in boorish rock star behavior, with drinking, drugs and women waylaying our heroes from their destination. I endured this movie without laughing even once, because even the few clever references were overshadowed by scenes that were supposed to be funny that I thought were insipid, silly or disgusting. The movie was well played, particularly by Brand as the lonely and self-indulgent caricature of a rock idol and Hill as an affable loser who becomes his friend. I’m just glad I didn’t pay to see this one in the movies. 2½ cans.
71. Play Misty For Me* (1971) – Long-haired, 70s clad DJ David Garver (Clint Eastwood) has an ardent fan in Evelyn (Jessica Walters), who calls him nightly to request that he play “Misty” for her. Actually, she is less an ardent fan than a psychotic lunatic stalker. After a few sexual encounters, Evelyn’s take on their relationship is quite different from Dave’s, and she is determined to make him love her by pulling a bunch of bizarre and scary stunts to get his attention. The laid-back DJ can’t figure out how to discourage or get rid of her as he pursues a relationship with former girlfriend Toby (Donna Mills, sporting the quintessential 70s shag haircut). This movie, directed by Eastwood, portrays him as the strong, silent type, the same kind of character he would go on to play in so many movies. It came long before “Fatal Attraction,” with Glenn Close as a psychotic lunatic woman, but has nearly as much suspense – though not carried out as well (no boiling rabbits on the stove). 4 cans.
72. Love in the Afternoon* (1957) – The lovely Audrey Hepburn is French cello student Ariane, daughter of a detective (Maurice Chevalier). Intrigued by her father’s dossier on middle-aged playboy “Mr. Flanagan” (Gary Cooper), she meets up with the businessman in his hotel and begins an unlikely affair. They listen to music provided by Flanagan’s band of music-playing gypsies and exchange no information about each other, including first names. Of course, she’s read his dossier, so she knows exactly what kind of man he is, but all he knows is that she is a girl whose name begins with the letter A, and he calls her “The Thin Girl” (oh, if only anyone would ever call me that!). She convinces him that she’s been around the block as many times as he has, which makes her even more mysterious and interesting. There is nothing Gary Cooper can do to convince me he is anything other than wooden as an actor, but this is a somewhat amusing charmer from legendary director Billy Wilder and it has an “Ahhhh” ending. 3 cans.
73. The Holiday* (2006) – Unlucky in love Brit Iris (Kate Winslet) and California girl Cameron Diaz swap houses for the Christmas season to escape their problems with men and promptly meet new men in this movie by Nancy Meyer. If only life were that simple. Winslet adapts easily to beautiful Hollywood, making friends with screenwriter Eli Wallach and composer Jack Black. Meanwhile, back at Winslet’s remote English cottage, Diaz has only to open the door to find Iris’ brother, played by Jude Law, stopping by unexpectedly. Guess the rest – go ahead, you can do it. The women are charming, if a little befuddled by their love lives, and the men are too good to be true. (So is Diaz’ wardrobe, if we are to believe all those coats and outfits came out of the one bag she lugs into the house. But I digress.) Overlooking the improbability of it all, I still found this movie satisfying in a chick-flick kind of way. Diaz and Law look sensational, Winslet a little bedraggled and for once Jack Black does not overact. 4 cans.
74. Heart Like A Wheel* (1983) – Bonnie Bedelia portrays the real-life Shirley Muldowney, the first professional female drag racer, in this bio-pic. Supported by her mechanic husband, Shirley sets out to break into the male, good-ole-boy dominated sport after a successful local career as an amateur drag racer on the streets of Schenectady. Fellow racer Connie Kaleta (Beau Bridges) takes more than a professional interest in Shirley’s booming career, setting up the off the track drama. Bedelia’s Shirley is a tough-as-nails woman at the beginning of the age of women’s lib who retains a touch of vulnerability. The whole movie felt a little Lifetime-y to me. 3 cans.
75. Dear John* (2010) – Hunky, hulky Channing Tatum plays John, a special forces soldier on leave from the Army in Charleston when he meets beautiful college student Savannah (Amanda Seyfried). Two weeks is enough for them to fall in love and pledge that they will be together after John's tour of duty is up in a year. But when he decides to reenlist, Savannah makes different plans. This is a typical Nicholas Sparks story, with attractive main characters facing life-changing choices and working hard to make the audience cry. Tatum is handsome but needs elocution lessons, while Seyfried is all doe-eyed innocence as the girl he loves. The acting here is grade B at best, with the exception of the always marvelous Richard Jenkins as Tatum's coin-collecting father. This is a sweet movie, but to me, everything comes in second to Sparks' earlier work, "The Notebook." 3 cans.
76. Too Big to Fail* (2011) – This HBO drama serves to remind us of the financial crisis of 2008. With a large cast (William Hurt, Ed Asner, Paul Giamotti, Mathew Modine, Billy Crudup, Topher Grace) mixed in with actual news reporters on TV, the program combines dramatization and documentary in an effective recounting of the financial crisis that saw Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers go down. When the Federal Government, led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen (Hurt) refuses to bail out Lehman, the market begins to crumble and the Feds look desperately to avert a repeat of 1929. This movie is a little tough to follow, with the heads of major banks popping in and out and leaving you to remember who’s who, but it is an interesting story that makes you think about how disaster could be one failure away. In the end, we survived as an economy, but it is disquieting to consider that 10 banks control 77% of assets in the United Sates as a result of the fallout from this crisis. 4 cans, and especially suited for economists.
77. Hotel (1967) – The St. Gregory is the dowager hotel of New Orleans, still elegant but beginning to fade and woefully behind the times in this adaptation of the Arthur Hailey book. Owned by irascible but loyal Melvyn Douglas, the hotel needs investors to keep it from being swallowed up by a chain run by egotistical Kevin McCarthy. There is a large cast of characters in this hotel, led by Rod Taylor as the efficient general manager and brightened by cagey thief Karl Malden (trademark fedora and all). Merle Oberon, shot in soft focus, plays the Duchess in her last movie role. Not a terrible movie, but hardly a grand hotel. Plenty of vacancies here. 3 cans.
78. A Matter of Taste/Serving Up Paul Liebrandt* (2010) – This profile of chef Paul Liebrandt traces the New York career of the young chef, whose level of taste and sophistication exceeds those of the restaurants that employ him. The exacting chef, the youngest to ever garner three stars from The New York Times (at age 24), turns out food that is equal in artistry and taste. When the restaurant where he works is forced by the economy to turn casual, Paul is left making sophisticated burgers. He drifts around the food scene until he teams up with legendary restaurateur Drew Nieporent to create Corton. There we see the long hours, creative vision and dedication required to run a restaurant. As the new establishment gears up and finally opens, Liebrandt and the staff await the review of The New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni, whose judgment can make or break the restaurant. I’ll give this documentary 3½ stars, since Liebrandt undoubtedly would find a can of tuna quite offensive.
79. Hot Coffee* (2011) – In reading this review, my sister will roll her eyes and say, “Why would you watch a movie about tort reform?” Well, we all know – or think we know – about the 1994 case where an elderly woman spilled coffee on her lap and sued McDonald’s because the coffee was too hot. Contrary to the lore about the case, it turns out she wasn’t driving at the time and that her legs, shown in the movie, were severely burned. She sued only because McDonald’s refused to cover her medical expenses, and today, as a result, McDonald’s’ coffee is 10 degrees cooler when served. But the judgment against McDonald's started the push for tort reform and capping damages, all led by a clever PR campaign and not by a grassroots push to keep malpractice costs down and doctors in their practices. This HBO documentary presents several heart-rending cases where caps on damages were insufficient to care for people seriously injured by negligence. The piece chides President Bush and his crony, Karl Rove, for their efforts to protect the interests of corporations over the individual. 3½ cans.
80. Going the Distance* (2010) – Erin and Garrett (Drew Barrymore and Justin Long) meet at the Centipede arcade machine and begin a relationship for the remainder of her 6 weeks in New York, before she has to return to Stanford to finish her master’s degree. An aspiring writer, Erin lives with her married sister (a delightful Christina Applegate) while she seeks a newspaper job, waits tables and tries to maintain a long distance relationship with New York-based music flunky Garrett. Will she find a job? Will one of them make the cross-country trip for a visit or a possible permanent move? Could Garrett’s best buddies be any grosser or Erin’s sister any more uptight? These burning questions are examined during the course of this film, starring once upon a time real-life couple Barrymore and Long, whose on-screen chemistry is real even if Drew seems a little long in the tooth for Justin. They’re cute, the movie’s cute, and the supporting players are very strong. There were a few good laughs, but don’t invite me to dinner at her sister’s house. 3½ cans.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Justified
Let’s forget, just for a moment, the old Mark Twain adage, “All generalizations are false, including this one” and examine the shopping habits of men vs. women.
Men, at least many of the ones I know, don’t shop so much as they restock. The old khakis go, you get a new pair. Your t-shirts get ratty, you replace them. When you go on vacation, you buy a couple of shirts with the name of the place you stayed on them and you’re set for years of sartorial summer splendor.
In fact, I actually know men who don’t shop at all. My brother-in-law hasn’t bought himself a single article of clothing – with the possible exception of a baseball cap to go along with his immense collection of this particular kind of item – since he married my sister in 1983. At most, he goes with her if he has to try on pants because even she can’t explain the alterations on the inseam to the tailor (and may I say how unfair it is that there is no tailor waiting for me when I try on pants long enough to make a vest out of the excess material?).
Once my BFF’s son, who was staying with me for the summer while he worked for J&J, went clothes shopping with Aunt Tina, who promised to buy him anything he wanted. We walked out of the store 10 minutes later with two shirts and a couple of pairs of socks. I don’t know if he ever wore the shirts.
But with women, it’s just a bit different. Just look at the phrase “shopping habit.” Habits become addictions for some people, don’t they? And women don’t subscribe to the concept of “need” when it is really a matter of “want.” For women, shopping is “retail therapy,” a way to get some exercise by striding from store to store at the mall and trying on different things it turns out we claim to need but we actually just want.
Take my BFF’s daughters, who Aunt Tina took shopping – for an entire afternoon. They couldn’t decide which skirt/suit/whatever looked best, so we bought multiples, because, well, you know, you need these things, they are a bargain if they are on sale, you don’t know if you will get back to that store again and whether they will have them in stock, and besides, if you take them home and hate them, you can always return them.
At this stage, I’m just happy when clothes fit. If I can find something in a color other than black, I’m ecstatic. But if you fit into clothes easily, the world is your oyster – and every other kind of seafood on the buffet line. Then you have an array of items from which to choose – unless you cannot make the choice – and then the justification begins.
This fill-in-the-blank would be perfect to wear at so-and-so’s wedding. That top exactly matches the shoes you bought last year. This jacket is on sale and marked for clearance.
Women shop for shoes, purses, jewelry, etc., and we can justify anything. That beautiful sweater looks great on you, and you KNOW you already have jewelry to match it, so you really only have to buy the sweater, because you have white pants you can wear with the sweater, so just buying the sweater is a bargain if you consider you have a whole new outfit just by buying the sweater.
If you happen to find a purse that, say, converts into several different styles just by adding the included fancy clasp and by unzipping the attached pouch, it is really like buying multiple purses for one price, so who, I ask you, could pass up that kind of bargain?
Jewelry, too, requires justification. The good stuff is sometimes too good to wear, so you explain to yourself and anyone else who will listen that you will pass it up in favor of sporting the costume jewelry, which after all, is so inexpensive that you can afford to buy much more of it. A bracelet, necklace and ring to match your outfit? Still cheaper than anything by David Yurman for the same outfit, so really, aren’t you actually saving money by buying the costume version?
And then there are the shoes. What woman can pass up that precious pair of perfect pumps that go so well with that outfit, purse and jewelry you just bought? Besides, you can wear the shoes with the outfit to the special event or whatever you happen to have coming up and you won’t need anything else, so you have gotten off cheap, you tell yourself (and anyone else who will listen).
Recently I bought a Jones New York top at Macy’s that was originally $64. I wouldn’t have paid $64 or even half of that. By the time I found it on clearance, it was $9 – and I had a coupon, so it ended up costing me $7 and change. For a $64 top. Please, I HAD to buy it. If I wear it once and throw it out, it still cost me less than a sandwich! Besides, I already had the suit that matched it, and I bought that at half price and with a coupon. I guess men and women have some things in common: Some men like to hunt, and all women love to hunt for bargains.
We women do all this because we want to look our best, and yet, when someone compliments a woman on her outfit, the typical response is more of an explanation: “Oh, just the top is new. I’ve had the rest forever.” Or: “I finally fit back into these clothes so I bought a new pair of earrings to freshen them up.” Or: “This old thing?” Really, wouldn’t a simple “Thank you” be the best possible response?
For some women, spiriting the clothes and accessories into the house and actually wearing them without one’s significant other noticing and objecting requires elaborate plotting. You wait until he is gone to cart in your haul, or you bring one bag in that day and let the others wait patiently in the trunk for another time. And when you wear the new stuff and he notices, you explain either the bargain nature of the purchase, or you claim that this is all old stuff you have had sitting around in the closet forever and that if he ever noticed what you wore he’d know that. So it is his fault, after all.
Besides, all of your purchases contribute to the local economy, so you are really doing something patriotic by shopping.
And if you buy that, I’d like to show you a little bridge in Brooklyn that you can get really cheap…
Men, at least many of the ones I know, don’t shop so much as they restock. The old khakis go, you get a new pair. Your t-shirts get ratty, you replace them. When you go on vacation, you buy a couple of shirts with the name of the place you stayed on them and you’re set for years of sartorial summer splendor.
In fact, I actually know men who don’t shop at all. My brother-in-law hasn’t bought himself a single article of clothing – with the possible exception of a baseball cap to go along with his immense collection of this particular kind of item – since he married my sister in 1983. At most, he goes with her if he has to try on pants because even she can’t explain the alterations on the inseam to the tailor (and may I say how unfair it is that there is no tailor waiting for me when I try on pants long enough to make a vest out of the excess material?).
Once my BFF’s son, who was staying with me for the summer while he worked for J&J, went clothes shopping with Aunt Tina, who promised to buy him anything he wanted. We walked out of the store 10 minutes later with two shirts and a couple of pairs of socks. I don’t know if he ever wore the shirts.
But with women, it’s just a bit different. Just look at the phrase “shopping habit.” Habits become addictions for some people, don’t they? And women don’t subscribe to the concept of “need” when it is really a matter of “want.” For women, shopping is “retail therapy,” a way to get some exercise by striding from store to store at the mall and trying on different things it turns out we claim to need but we actually just want.
Take my BFF’s daughters, who Aunt Tina took shopping – for an entire afternoon. They couldn’t decide which skirt/suit/whatever looked best, so we bought multiples, because, well, you know, you need these things, they are a bargain if they are on sale, you don’t know if you will get back to that store again and whether they will have them in stock, and besides, if you take them home and hate them, you can always return them.
At this stage, I’m just happy when clothes fit. If I can find something in a color other than black, I’m ecstatic. But if you fit into clothes easily, the world is your oyster – and every other kind of seafood on the buffet line. Then you have an array of items from which to choose – unless you cannot make the choice – and then the justification begins.
This fill-in-the-blank would be perfect to wear at so-and-so’s wedding. That top exactly matches the shoes you bought last year. This jacket is on sale and marked for clearance.
Women shop for shoes, purses, jewelry, etc., and we can justify anything. That beautiful sweater looks great on you, and you KNOW you already have jewelry to match it, so you really only have to buy the sweater, because you have white pants you can wear with the sweater, so just buying the sweater is a bargain if you consider you have a whole new outfit just by buying the sweater.
If you happen to find a purse that, say, converts into several different styles just by adding the included fancy clasp and by unzipping the attached pouch, it is really like buying multiple purses for one price, so who, I ask you, could pass up that kind of bargain?
Jewelry, too, requires justification. The good stuff is sometimes too good to wear, so you explain to yourself and anyone else who will listen that you will pass it up in favor of sporting the costume jewelry, which after all, is so inexpensive that you can afford to buy much more of it. A bracelet, necklace and ring to match your outfit? Still cheaper than anything by David Yurman for the same outfit, so really, aren’t you actually saving money by buying the costume version?
And then there are the shoes. What woman can pass up that precious pair of perfect pumps that go so well with that outfit, purse and jewelry you just bought? Besides, you can wear the shoes with the outfit to the special event or whatever you happen to have coming up and you won’t need anything else, so you have gotten off cheap, you tell yourself (and anyone else who will listen).
Recently I bought a Jones New York top at Macy’s that was originally $64. I wouldn’t have paid $64 or even half of that. By the time I found it on clearance, it was $9 – and I had a coupon, so it ended up costing me $7 and change. For a $64 top. Please, I HAD to buy it. If I wear it once and throw it out, it still cost me less than a sandwich! Besides, I already had the suit that matched it, and I bought that at half price and with a coupon. I guess men and women have some things in common: Some men like to hunt, and all women love to hunt for bargains.
We women do all this because we want to look our best, and yet, when someone compliments a woman on her outfit, the typical response is more of an explanation: “Oh, just the top is new. I’ve had the rest forever.” Or: “I finally fit back into these clothes so I bought a new pair of earrings to freshen them up.” Or: “This old thing?” Really, wouldn’t a simple “Thank you” be the best possible response?
For some women, spiriting the clothes and accessories into the house and actually wearing them without one’s significant other noticing and objecting requires elaborate plotting. You wait until he is gone to cart in your haul, or you bring one bag in that day and let the others wait patiently in the trunk for another time. And when you wear the new stuff and he notices, you explain either the bargain nature of the purchase, or you claim that this is all old stuff you have had sitting around in the closet forever and that if he ever noticed what you wore he’d know that. So it is his fault, after all.
Besides, all of your purchases contribute to the local economy, so you are really doing something patriotic by shopping.
And if you buy that, I’d like to show you a little bridge in Brooklyn that you can get really cheap…
Monday, June 6, 2011
Slap Happy
I could slap myself for buying the “Slap Chop.” But I don’t blame myself, I blame Vince.
Vince is the extremely convincing host of the Slap Chop infomercial, a little slice of time stolen from your life where you subject yourself to the salesmanship of people like Vince. Vince demonstrates the Slap Chop, which appears to be a handy dandy device that speeds up chopping food for use in salads, etc. At least when Vince uses the Slap Chop, that is.
These “hosts” exist in life to demonstrate all kinds of products you did not know you needed until you saw their wonders on TV. Maybe it is a set of “Sham Wow” rags (not to be confused with MTV’s “Jersey Shore” star J-Woww) that can absorb a bottle of soda from your carpet (J-Woww, on the other hand, can absorb an entire bottle of tequila from your carpet. But I digress…). Or it could be a sandwich maker that you can fill with globs of dough and pie filling to make what at least on TV looks like a yummy dessert. Perhaps it is a pasta maker, either a machine that you fill easily with flour and water that turns out all kinds of homemade pasta noodles or another that you fill with hot water to “cook” the pasta noodles you just made in the other pasta machine.
These pitchmen/women reach you when you are at your most vulnerable. It is 4 a.m., and you have just gotten back into bed after your nightly trip to the bathroom, and you can’t fall asleep, so you turn on the TV, which just happens to be tuned to “Paid Programming.” There you see hair removers, hair restorers, or Ron Popeil and his Showtime Rotisserie. You can’t predict from the 30 minutes you see on TV how infrequently you will use any of these devices, how cumbersome they are to work with or how much space they take up in your cabinets or on your counter. It all seems like such a good idea at the time.
So you try to resist the urge to buy. More than once, I have had to stop myself from reaching for my credit card in the middle of the night to order the entire history of Rock & Roll through Time-Life, a collection that would take literally years to listen to even if I played the music for 8 hours a day.
But you can only resist so long. Because there in the store – be it Bed Bath and Way Beyond or Wal-Mart – you find the section devoted to products “As Seen on TV.” Now you can touch them, feel them, hold them in your hands. And you hear Vince and company extolling their virtues and you remember how you thought you couldn’t live without these items – even though you have spent your entire life without them. And you won’t have to pay shipping and handling, because they are right there. So you succumb. You buy them, take them home and eagerly try them out.
And you are invariably disappointed – in the items themselves and in yourself for your complete lack of willpower. Thank you, P.T. Barnum.
Granted, I never tried to pour an entire bottle of soda on the carpet just to see if the Sham Wow could blot it all up. But it couldn’t seem to clean a much smaller sample size, so odds were not in favor of the soda test. The pasta machine had all the various parts needed to turn out spaghetti, fettuccine, linguine, etc., but came without the warning that poking a paper clip through each of the holes where pasta emerged would be necessary to clean it, and that process would take longer than buying the machine, setting it up, making and eating the pasta. I used it once and sold it in the next neighborhood garage sale. Though I am sure I wasn’t as convincing as Vince, there were eager buyers who hadn’t thought through the cleaning process in advance and were only too willing to take it off my hands for a bargain price.
And then came the Slap Chop. First I tried it on zucchini. You take pieces of whatever you want to chop and place them in the bottom cup on the device or on a cutting board. Then you proceed to “slap” down on the top, which forces the incredibly sharp blades through the food and into the food. In theory, this makes for quick work. In reality – not so much. First, the device itself is so small that you have to cut the food first. Hmm, since the knife and cutting board were already out to do this part of the task, maybe I should have just used them. Second, the food gets stuck in the blade, which is actually one connected piece of metal shaped like a couple of “Ws” linked together. Anything that gets into the angled part of the blade just stays there. OK, I figured it was me. So when I tried it to chop hard boiled eggs for egg salad, I wised up and sprayed the blades with PAM first. Didn’t matter. The yokes were crushed to death, but the white part of the egg was hardly chopped at all. I had to pry the pieces out to make the egg salad, and then had to spend 15 minutes poking out the remains with a wet, soapy paper towel and a knife to clean the device since my sponge wouldn’t fit into the crevices.
Where’s Vince when you need him? Someone has to sell the CitiKitty Cat Toilet Training Device, the Mighty Mend-It or the Perfect Brownie Pan. But from now on, Vince and his like can sell all they want, but I won’t be buying. No more Ginsu knives, no more V-Slicers, no Nu-Wave Digital Ovens for me. I’ll just use the knives and gadgets already in the drawer and switch to SportsCenter, huddled up in my Snuggie (no comment), and go back to sleep.
Vince is the extremely convincing host of the Slap Chop infomercial, a little slice of time stolen from your life where you subject yourself to the salesmanship of people like Vince. Vince demonstrates the Slap Chop, which appears to be a handy dandy device that speeds up chopping food for use in salads, etc. At least when Vince uses the Slap Chop, that is.
These “hosts” exist in life to demonstrate all kinds of products you did not know you needed until you saw their wonders on TV. Maybe it is a set of “Sham Wow” rags (not to be confused with MTV’s “Jersey Shore” star J-Woww) that can absorb a bottle of soda from your carpet (J-Woww, on the other hand, can absorb an entire bottle of tequila from your carpet. But I digress…). Or it could be a sandwich maker that you can fill with globs of dough and pie filling to make what at least on TV looks like a yummy dessert. Perhaps it is a pasta maker, either a machine that you fill easily with flour and water that turns out all kinds of homemade pasta noodles or another that you fill with hot water to “cook” the pasta noodles you just made in the other pasta machine.
These pitchmen/women reach you when you are at your most vulnerable. It is 4 a.m., and you have just gotten back into bed after your nightly trip to the bathroom, and you can’t fall asleep, so you turn on the TV, which just happens to be tuned to “Paid Programming.” There you see hair removers, hair restorers, or Ron Popeil and his Showtime Rotisserie. You can’t predict from the 30 minutes you see on TV how infrequently you will use any of these devices, how cumbersome they are to work with or how much space they take up in your cabinets or on your counter. It all seems like such a good idea at the time.
So you try to resist the urge to buy. More than once, I have had to stop myself from reaching for my credit card in the middle of the night to order the entire history of Rock & Roll through Time-Life, a collection that would take literally years to listen to even if I played the music for 8 hours a day.
But you can only resist so long. Because there in the store – be it Bed Bath and Way Beyond or Wal-Mart – you find the section devoted to products “As Seen on TV.” Now you can touch them, feel them, hold them in your hands. And you hear Vince and company extolling their virtues and you remember how you thought you couldn’t live without these items – even though you have spent your entire life without them. And you won’t have to pay shipping and handling, because they are right there. So you succumb. You buy them, take them home and eagerly try them out.
And you are invariably disappointed – in the items themselves and in yourself for your complete lack of willpower. Thank you, P.T. Barnum.
Granted, I never tried to pour an entire bottle of soda on the carpet just to see if the Sham Wow could blot it all up. But it couldn’t seem to clean a much smaller sample size, so odds were not in favor of the soda test. The pasta machine had all the various parts needed to turn out spaghetti, fettuccine, linguine, etc., but came without the warning that poking a paper clip through each of the holes where pasta emerged would be necessary to clean it, and that process would take longer than buying the machine, setting it up, making and eating the pasta. I used it once and sold it in the next neighborhood garage sale. Though I am sure I wasn’t as convincing as Vince, there were eager buyers who hadn’t thought through the cleaning process in advance and were only too willing to take it off my hands for a bargain price.
And then came the Slap Chop. First I tried it on zucchini. You take pieces of whatever you want to chop and place them in the bottom cup on the device or on a cutting board. Then you proceed to “slap” down on the top, which forces the incredibly sharp blades through the food and into the food. In theory, this makes for quick work. In reality – not so much. First, the device itself is so small that you have to cut the food first. Hmm, since the knife and cutting board were already out to do this part of the task, maybe I should have just used them. Second, the food gets stuck in the blade, which is actually one connected piece of metal shaped like a couple of “Ws” linked together. Anything that gets into the angled part of the blade just stays there. OK, I figured it was me. So when I tried it to chop hard boiled eggs for egg salad, I wised up and sprayed the blades with PAM first. Didn’t matter. The yokes were crushed to death, but the white part of the egg was hardly chopped at all. I had to pry the pieces out to make the egg salad, and then had to spend 15 minutes poking out the remains with a wet, soapy paper towel and a knife to clean the device since my sponge wouldn’t fit into the crevices.
Where’s Vince when you need him? Someone has to sell the CitiKitty Cat Toilet Training Device, the Mighty Mend-It or the Perfect Brownie Pan. But from now on, Vince and his like can sell all they want, but I won’t be buying. No more Ginsu knives, no more V-Slicers, no Nu-Wave Digital Ovens for me. I’ll just use the knives and gadgets already in the drawer and switch to SportsCenter, huddled up in my Snuggie (no comment), and go back to sleep.
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