Scarlet Letters

It's hard to admit it, but I cry like a child every time. Admit it: so do you. Of course, I'm talking about the end of It's a Wonderful Life.  We've all seen it so many times that it's a movie-length cliche. It's the hokey ending that solves all the problems in one beautiful bow, the sort of thing that never happens in real life. From his barstool on Cheers,  Norm even grouses that during the many times in his life that he's been in trouble, no one ever came to his door with a sackful of cash to bail him out. It's a Wonderful Life  is certainly dated, if that is a crime. It has its flaws of logic and characterization - for all of Mary's strength and self-assuredness in the original timeline, where is it in the alternate timeline? Are we to assume that her strength came only from her relationship with her husband, when she certainly showed it long before she became Mrs. George Bailey? Is it entirely logical that all the good people of Bedford Fa...

MAN: Ooh, the tree light timer. I need to set it - what time is it? BOY: Hold on. MAN: You got your phone? BOY: Yes, just a second.... *fiddles with phone* MAN: *waits* BOY: It's... hmm. ME: Boys. There is a clock on the wall. BOY: But... we've got our phones. ME: Taking orders for cookies. BOY: What are our options? ME: Chocolate chip, death by chocolate cookies, gingersnaps, sugar cookies or snickerdoodles. I don't think I have the stuff for turtle cookies. MAN: Chocolate chip or death by chocolate. BOY: Sugar cookies or gingersnaps. ME: ... ME: I don't suppose I can get you two to agree on a cookie, can I? Jim is cramming for a final on ancient Greek philosophy. Because hurriedly zooming through material the morning of the exam is the best way to insure retention, as we all know. ME: *nibbles on neck* MAN: Hey! Stop that, now! Aristotle! ME: Ooooh, I love it when you say Aristotle. It makes me sooo hot. Say it again! MAN: Aristotle. ME: Oooh!...

MAN: *excitedly hands me box of new electronic toy* ME: Yes dear. I will be setting it up shortly. MAN: *crestfallen* Shortly? Not now? ME: I am reading the directions. MAN: *puzzled look* ME: Yes, reading the directions. That's what we grownups do with complicated new devices. We read through the directions before we open the box. MAN: Pish tosh. ME: Go sit till I need you to help me with the cords. MAN: It may not take the same cables as the old one - ME: That's why I'm reading the directions. Shush. ------ Watching Alien 3 ... (quasi-spoilerrific) First two minutes. BOY: What the [bleep]! They killed them? (We're all with you, kiddo.) Halfway through. BOY: Wait, how you gonna get out of this one, Ripley? Ending. BOY: What! There's another movie to get through! ---- ME: Do you need a ride home tonight? BOY: Nah, I got a ride. We're going to stay for a while and help the girls' volleyball team. ME: *sporfle* How exactly are you...

Preparing to leave Dairy Queen, Boy catches a glimpse of hockey on the TVs they never turn off. BOY: [terrible Russian accent] Is Vladimir Tarasenko da hockey player! ME: God, that's awful. BOY: Is Russian! ME: You're about as Russian as Boris Badanov. BOY: Who? ME: Oh God. BOY: *shrugs* ME: Moose undt Squirrel! [bullwinkle] "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat!" BOY: I have no idea what you're talking about. ME: Oh my God I'm so old. And you are deprived. This naturally meant we had to go look up some clips, searching terms like "Boris and Natasha," "Rocky and Bullwinkle rabbit out of my hat," and "Rocky and Bullwinkle bad puns." So he did his own searching, and discovered the eminently forgettable 2000 film. Which he thought looked quite amusing, and now he wants to watch it. ME: But you couldn't possibly get the gags since you didn't watch the show! BOY: Then we'll just have to find the...

Boy is working tech crew for the school play: Oliver! He's having a blast, and had the idea this past weekend that we should watch the movie. He'd seen it as a young child, but barely remembered it. Spoilers ahead for a 180-year-old book. If you haven't read Oliver Twist  or seen the movie versions, you really ought to go back to high school and get your money back from your tenth-grade English teacher. ME: There's a lot of the story that probably will make more sense to you now that you're older. BOY: Yeah. Like, why does Nancy love Bill? ME: ... Why does any woman love a man who treats her like shit? You can't really help who you fall in love with. You can choose whether you stay with someone who treats you like shit, but sometimes even that isn't so easily decided. BOY: I don't get it. Later, the chilling Oliver Reed as Bill viciously beats Nancy in front of Fagin's boys to coerce her into helping him kidnap Oliver. It's awful and hum...

The Filmucation of Boy continued tonight with the conclusion of The Godfather Part II. It had been so long since we started the saga (Christmas!) that we had to go back and start over. Fortunately we didn't have to rewatch The Godfather, since he remembered most of that. I did have to pause to explain the entire history of Cuba and the Mafia investigations of the 1960s. Now, of course, he keeps calling me madre. I started to call him paisan, but then we remembered that means "brother." Thanks to Google Translate, I can now pop back with mio figlio. I am one-quarter Sicilian, and Boy was disappointed to do the math and realize he is only one-eighth Sicilian. (That we know of; while I'm pretty sure of my ethnic mix, Boy's father was adopted and his only paternal grandparent-by-blood that we know of was also adopted, so that side of his bloodline is pretty much a big question mark.) And now.... snippets! With spoilers, but seriously - you haven't seen th...

If journalism is the first rough draft of history, popular culture is the first rough draft of the artistic legacy we leave behind for future generations.  Cross-posting to CultureGeek on the Oscars: Why Spotlight  Matters.

JIM: You're evil! ME: Am not! How am I evil this time? JIm: "Kill her, kill the main character." Even my editor said if I did that my readers would hate me. ME: So? Screw em. JIM : Evil! Just because you always kill everyone... ME: Do not! JIM: Do too! ME: Sometimes they live! Dale* lived, and he will go on to have many other adventures! JIM: *mutters* He just won't want to live after what you did... ME: I don't believe in happy endings. JIM You're living one but you don't believe in them. ME: All love stories end sadly. They either break up or one of them dies. JIM: Evil! ----- JIM: I guess two of my classes won't be on Blackboard, since I don't see them yet. ME: You can always do what we did when I went to college. JIM: What's that? ME: Find out what your grade was at the next class. JIM: No. I want to know now. ME: You kids and your technology. JIM: I'm not going to college in the days of stone knives a...

I have officially given up on the Boy's generation coming up with good teen dramedies. It really must suck to be a teenager now. To watch a movie with teenage protagonists, they basically have the choice of fantastical worlds like The Hunger Games  (good times, but whoa depressing) or they can go to "old" movies like Harry Potter  (just let that sink in for a minute). Or they can go to movies like The Fault in Our Stars  or The Perks of Being a Wallflower , nicely tragic. Boy is all excited about Paper Towns,  because it actually is about teenagers. My new mission is to find good teen movies for Boy. The movie-teens of the Eighties might have been a little light on parental supervision and plenty heavy on sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, but they were awesome in all the bright-neon gaudiness I remember so fondly. The top themes were breaking through socioeconomic barriers: poor vs. rich was a constant theme, as well as busting through the caste system of the modern Am...

Boy's English class is reading Romeo and Juliet. They are watching scenes from the Zeffirelli movie, because the Luhrman has violence, sex, drugs and transvestism - you know, just like the play.  Seriously, I don't blame them for sticking with Zeffirelli; it's safer than risking the parental reaction to Luhrman. But it means the kids miss the glory of Harold Perrineau's Mercutio, which is simply the finest Shakespearean performance in film. Luhrman's work is hard to take; it's frenetic energy and wild choreography hit you between the eyes, and it's often too distracting. But if you can make it through the first twenty minutes, your mind acclimates to Luhrman Land and that's when amazing things happen. I always liked DiCaprio's Romeo - he didn't play a lovesick waif, but a street-tough young man with intelligence and common sense who is simply bowled over by love. Claire Danes is passable as Juliet, but the supporting cast really shines,...