CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

It’s Christmas Day, and we’re watching TNT’s Christmas Story marathon (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0085334), and I am again (as I am every year) amazed at the wonderfully crafted, perfectly told, exquisitely cast, and fabulously created story that is this movie.

I’d seen it as a child but didn’t really remember it. Scott re-introduced me to it two years ago, and I was absolutely blown over! The movie is nostalgic without being one bit smarmy, hilarious without being smart-ass, and wonderfully narrated without being distracting (as a matter of fact, the adult voice-over is so well done, it’s almost the star of the movie). The characters are richly told — Ralphie is believable throughout, whether he’s hopeful, sad, fearful, or angry. Ralphie’s mother and father are both wonderfully imagined, fitting within their early 50′s archetypes without being caricatures. The scene where the father attempts to repair the “Major Award” while the mother tries not to

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I hadn’t watched It’s A Wonderful Life in a number of years, at least not all the way through from beginning to end. Well, we watched it last night, and I have to say that this movie deserves its legendary status. I know the whole story, inside and out, having seen it many, many times, but I was still caught up in the film, still cared about the characters, still marvelled at the darkness of the tribulations in this supposedly sweet holiday film, still got choked up at the end, and still loved it. LOVED it!

Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorite actors, and my admiration of him grows with each film of his I view. We recently watched the excellent “Anatomy of a Murder”, which (like Wonderful Life) allowed Jimmy Stewart to play light comedy while also exploring deep, almost dark, themes. His wit, intelligence, and everyman-ness make him

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What an idiotic show. These are supposed to be the crime scene investigators, but they end up questioning witnesses, pursuing suspects, making arrests, etc, none of which is their job. There was an episode with a private plane crash in the Everglades, and the CSI team handled the entire case. No local police. No feds. No FAA. Nothing. Ridiculous.

Some of the forensic stuff is interesting, but they dumb it wayyy down for the audience, and the characters spend a lot of time saying things like, “I think I’ll use the mike-row-scope now, which is a device that will let me be able to see tiny things as if they were slightly larger.”

And (my apologies to Marie) *what* is the appeal of David Caruso? He looks as translucent and fragile as a newborn baby bird (see http://us.imdb.com/Name?Caruso,+David), he arrogantly left his first-and-only hit TV show (NYPD Blue) for a film career

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If you took 24, La Femme Nikita, Dawson’s Creek, and the Matrix, mixed them all up, kept in all the mediocre parts, and took out all the really good and really bad stuff, you’d end up with something a lot like Alias. This series is okay, bordering on good, with the potential to be really good, meaning that the ingredients are there, but they just need to be tweaked, in my opinion.

The basic storyline is that there is a father/daughter team who are good guys working for the CIA, but they also work as double agents infiltrating an organization called SD-6. SD-6 is part of a global conspiracy to…take over the world, I guess…but they tell all of their staffers that they’re working for the CIA. So, our main characters work for the *actual* CIA while also working undercover as double agents at an agency that *isn’t* the CIA but

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Bravo has started showing The Larry Sanders Show in rerun. I used to watch it sporadically during its inital run on HBO, and really liked it, but was not a regular viewer.

Bravo shows it twice a night, and with TiVo I am now a regular viewer, and I have to say that this show is one of the best pieces of entertainment it has been my pleasure to experience. Just for kicks I checked it out at IMDB and found that The Larry Sanders Show was nominated for over 50 Emmy’s during its six year run! And most people I talk to have never even heard of it, much less seen it.

For those unfamiliar, the star of the show is Garry Shandling, and he plays a character named Larry Sanders. In the show, Larry Sanders has a talk show that competes with Leno and Letterman, complete with real guests playing

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The last TV drama I watched with any regularity was probably…L.A. Law, maybe? That was a long time ago. Since then I’ve never been able to ‘get into’ any of the drama series. Part of the reason is that I found it increasingly difficult to commit to an hour a week at a fixed time. But the major reason was that they just didn’t do it for me. I tried to watch ER, but didn’t care for it. I tried to watch Law and Order, didn’t care for it. I tried to watch some of the family dramas, but I not only didn’t care for them, their treacly contrivances actually offended me, artistically (even though I was allowing for the fact that it was television in the first place).

Then last year I saw the first couple episodes of the first season of 24, at Marie’s request. It was very interesting,

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2019 South Shephard – between Westheimer and West Gray

While  growing up in Texas, I never developed a taste for bagels. In my small hometown,  the only bagel options were store-bought, like Lender’s, and I found them to be  unremarkable.

Then I moved to the Northeast and worked for 6 years in the  New York/New Jersey area, and learned what bagels were *supposed* to taste like.  And boy oh boy, did I fall in love with bagels. There was a bagel shop a couple  of blocks from my home, and for years I started the day with a fresh, hot bagel,  usually toasted with either chive cream cheese or with butter.

Then I  moved back to Houston. I *love* Houston and moved back because I knew I missed  everything about it (except for the relentless heat), and I have never regretted  moving back. However, I did miss the hot, fresh, real-deal bagels that

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I walked in to Sum of All Fears expecting some standard Hollywood least-common-denominator ‘entertainment’. I mean, I love Morgan Freeman, but have a low Ben Affleck tolerance and have grown ever more tired of the string of movies based on Clancy novels. However, SOAF was a very gripping film, Affleck did an excellent job as Jack Ryan, Morgan Freeman was even more perfect than usual, the story was complex and interesting, the writing was significantly above-average, the supporting cast was recruited from the Character Actors Hall of Fame, and each gave a stellar performance.

All in all, this is one of the best big-studio movies I have seen in quite a while. Do yourself a favor and forget the paradox of a newly young Jack Ryan and go see this movie.

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I had many people, whose movie opinions I respect, tell me that ‘Fight Club’ was an excellent movie…a black commentary on the new twentygoingonthirtysomething angst/disaffection/rage. I see that it is in the mid-30′s on the IMDB Top 250, so many must agree.

I watched it recently, and have to say that it did not engage me to any degree. I have no objection to violence, surrealism, plot twists, or dark themes…all of which ‘Fight Club’ has in abundance. For example, I enjoy movies like ‘Full Metal Jacket’, ‘Blue Velvet’, ‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘Seven’, ‘Goodfellas’, and ‘Memento’. All have violence and/or surrealism and/or plot twists and/or dark themes…in spades. So I had no predisposition to dislike this movie.

But I did. The individual elements are there, but it didn’t work for me. As the movie progressed, I found myself anxiously waiting for it to end. Not to see the end, but for it to

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Perfect from beginning to end…not one false note or mis-step. I am not a fan of fairy tales, period pieces or romantic comedies. This is all three but is still one of my all time favorite films. Watch it with someone you love (spouse, children, family, good friends).

“Life is pain, anyone who says differently is selling something.”

“Stop that rhyming now, I MEAN it!” “Anybody want a peanut?”

“Inconceivable!”

Read these again after you’ve seen it and you’ll laugh out loud.

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