SORRY YOU DIE HARD FEMINISTS, BUT THE FATHER MAKES OR BREAKS THE FAMILY

"As the king goes, so goes the kingdom," recognizes Arthur in Excalibur.

OK —— I LOOOOVE knowing that my core principles are often politically INcorrect, so, "fellow" girls, try not to get your panties in a wad over the following. Think now – did Lorraine, when George was kind of a weenie, emerge as a stalwart career woman – harried but carrying on? No, actually, her life was destroyed and she was rendered ineffectual and pathetic. It's funny how, no matter how liberal and feminist minded Hollywood claims to lean, they actually GET IT. They understand on a basic fundamental level that it is the husband, the father, who makes or breaks a family.

Now there is no offense intended to single women families – women whose husbands died or abandoned them. My grandmother was a single mom who brought up her three children and struggled through the depression singlehandedly after her husband, my grandfather, died. I also have two friends who lost husbands to early death and soldiered on to raise their children alone.

To me those lone moms are heroes: keeping their families intact, earning a living, being the backbone of their children's lives all the while dealing with grief, loss of income, and spiritual challenges. But is that the way they WANTED it to be? My mother, to the day she died, mourned the fact she did not have a father while growing up. He died when she was 12. I have other friends who are mothers today, divorced, widowed, or alone in other ways. They persevere – and I respect them and thank God every day I did not have to raise my children without a stalwart husband at my side. But is that what these single matriarchs prefer? Do they find now that their husbands were irrelevant luxuries? Not the ones I know.

But what does the media try to convince us that they believe: that men are as useful to women as a bicycle is to a fish, thank you Gloria Steinham. Have you SEEN the shows Married with Children and The Simpsons? The fathers are — well, wastes of space would not be an overstatement, even though they stay with the family and continue to provide for them.

The mantra today is that women do not need men. Women's Lib, government welfare, commercials, movies, songs and TV shows attempt to treat the Dad as jokes – useless, unneeded baggage, or worse: alcoholic, abusive and better off gone. When in fact, if you watch closely, even in the media entertainments which denigrate the father, it is the Dad whose personality informs the family he creates.

A good father/husband, even when gone, leaves a legacy of strength. A bad one leaves his mark too, whether on the moral character, religious faithfulness, work ethic, or respect for the law. And this reality is reflected in the movie media, even seemingly against their own will, to trivialize the very person, for better OR worse, whose personality will primarily shape the persona of the children and wife either in their care or that they leave behind

Mary Poppins and The Pacifier

A NEW POST – A NEW LEAF

In both the reference to a movie of the same name, and as an analogy for the fact we are taking a break from the ongoing much longer blog about Back to the Future and fatherhood —–

We interrupt this multi-post on Back to the Future to bring you – as John Cleese might say – something completely different.

I would venture to say that most, if not all of you, have never heard of the movie A New Leaf. Penned, directed and starring Elaine May, co-starring the iconic Walter Matthau, this is a small budget film made in 1971 based upon the short story, The Green Heart, by Jack Ritchie. The protagonist, Henry Grahame, (Matthau) is a self-absorbed, self-indulgent aristocratic heir who runs through his family fortune until, in his late thirties finds himself without friends or fortune. There is only one person in the world who cares anything about him, Harold (the delightful singer and Shakespearean theatrical actor, George Rose), Henry’s valet, who sums up the basis for his loyalty to Henry in this one speech: “How many men these days require the services of a gentleman’s gentleman? How many men have your devotion to form, sir? You have managed, in your own lifetime Mr. Graham, to keep alive traditions that were dead before you were born.”

Of course, Harold tempers this with the warning that if Mr. Graham continues to be poor, he immediately tenders his two week notice.

Henry quickly realizes that, for him, there are only two options: suicide…………….or marrying rich. With Harold’s aide Henry embarks on a quest to find a rich widow or single heiress who would be tolerable to his refined tastes and isolated ways. He soon discovers that while there are MANY candidates, he can’t stand any of them…until he finds the least suitable one of all. An extremely wealthy but ugliest of ugly ducklings. Shy, socially awkward, clumsy, naive, gullible – she is everything Henry would NOT want in a mate, aside from the money. However, it suddenly occurs to him, she would be quite easy to —— murder.

So begins the courtship and honey-murder, I mean —moon of one of the most charming little comedies I have ever seen. It is ultimately a film about the power of love, redemption and poetic justice, but told in the singularly most UN-conventional and UN-sentimental way I have ever seen demonstrated.

I REALLY am not going to spoil this one for you. You have to see it……if you can. It is quite hard to find and after much searching I located a copy on VHS.

But if possible, I recommend this movie as one of my all time favorites. This movie would be appropriate, with parental supervision, for even younger teens. Henry is quite chaste. There is very little profanity and no sex. Henry’s SOLE vice is avarice. The only questionable moment is when one socialite attempts to seduce him and Henry, in a breathtaking moment of humor, literally runs screaming from her.

Walter Matthau is at his finest in a brilliant example of miscasting gone right. Aside from Hello Dolly, I can’t think of a less appropriate vehicle for Matthau. But – as in Hello Dolly – he is such an amazing actor that he pulls off the deliciously arrogant and thoroughly self-centered Henry while making him – somehow – adorable.

Elaine May is perfectly terrific as the totally INcapable Henrietta Lowell. Vulnerable, dependent, socially oblivious and educated to the point of being a blithering idiot in everything except her one field of interest – botony – May creates a child-like character who is both endearing and extremely annoying at the same time. You come to understand why Henry would consider killing her yet dread her disappearance. May is probably not familiar to too many. She made her biggest mark with Mike Nichols as half of an improvisational comedy duo and did a good deal of stage work. She was in only about a dozen films, including a teensy part in The Graduate, wrote only 10 screenplays and directed only four movies, the last mostly because of her tendency to go way over budget. As an aside, one of her directorial efforts was Ishtar, the biggest financial flop in history at that time.

But she did manage to produce A New Leaf – this beautiful blossom of a movie.

THE FATHER AND FATHER FIGURE IN BACK TO THE FUTURE

Continuing our background on BTTF, Marty is friends with one Emmett Brown, (Christopher Lloyd) local brilliant eccentric inventor. Doc has no family and Marty has no father to speak of. Their friendship is quite touching as Doc is Marty's substitute father figure, but it is ultimately not enough.

(Quick quiz: Did Lloyd and Fox, who had such amazing chemistry together in this trilogy, ever reunite to act together again?)

Fast forward to the end of the movie. Marty has changed everything by getting George to punch Biff while defending Lorraine. George's show of courage by standing up to whom he was most afraid – Biff – has informed the next 20 years of his life, making him a financial success, an inspiration to his children, and even a published author in his spare time. Their two oldest children are confident professionals. And Lorraine has blossomed into a lovely vivacious athletic woman, truly in love with her husband and her life.

The Father Makes or Breaks the Family

(Answer: Yes: Spin City in 1999 and The Michael J Fox Show in 2014. Full disclosure, I have never seen either show but found this info on Wikipedia.)

BACK TO THE FUTURE – LORRAINE (BACKGROUND REFRESHER FOR FUTURE BLOG)

As Lorraine (Lea Thompson) recounts when she fell in love with George, there is a moment of surprisingly deep pathos.

(Quick quiz: This is possibly the best work Ms Thompson ever did. Can you name how many distinct but necessarily similar parts she plays in the course of the trilogy?)

Biff has just brought back their family car in a wreck, intimidated George into doing his office work for him, leers at Lorraine, then departs. George takes his mind off everything by watching an old rerun of Jackie Gleason at the rickety kitchen foldout that serves as the family dining room table. She gazes at her husband and recounts, for the umpteenth time to her three ignoring children the story of how she fell in love with George when they were teenagers. George laughs mindlessly at a TV show. She winds up the overly familiar story with, "…and that was when I realized I was going to spend the rest of my life with him." The loss of their wasted life together etched into the pathetic expression on her face is heartbreaking.

(Answer: In order of appearance: SIX – Middle-aged pathetic Lorraine, young vivacious Lorraine, middle-aged blossoming Lorraine, Elderly Lorraine, Middle-aged BUXOM pathetic Lorraine, Western Lorraine/Maggie. Each has their own individual personalities. Each of the Lorraines, while the same character, are different in the way they move, react, use body language, speak. Middle aged buxom pathetic Lorraine has a raspy alcoholic voice and moves in the halting way you might expect of someone used to dodging blows. Western Lorraine/Maggie is Irish and moves with confidence and dignity but a healthy sniffy suspicion to the young intruder, Marty. You get the drift. Thompson does a truly magnificent job making all the Lorraines alike but different. And yes, there is no real reason that Marty's mother should look like his great great … great? grandmother Maggie unless we are to believe that her family and the McFlys have been intermarrying for generations, which would make Lorraine not only Marty's mother but a distant cousin … but we'll let that one go.)

The Father and the Father Figure in Back to the Future

BACK TO THE FUTURE – GEORGE (BACKGROUND REFRESHER FOR FUTURE BLOG)

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT

I don't like to give spoilers, but in a review of this kind for teachable moments it is often necessary. Most movie goers have seen the first BTTF, if not the entire trilogy of this rather brilliantly conceived and virtually flawlessly executed time travel/coming of age comedy. The consistency and seamlessness with which Zemeckis has interwoven the characters, story and time travel itself can be the subject of another article.

(Quick quiz: What other Zemeckis film dealt with a fatherless boy who becomes a hero, bringing everyone around him UP against very steep obstacles? Hint: not exactly time travel but the actor character was inserted, by movie magic, into seminal historical film footage.)

But, just for those who need a refresher: In the original time line, George is a cowardly geeky doormat. George is taken advantage of by the school bully, Biff, as a teen, and then still abused by Biff when both are adults and co-workers. Biff gets George to do his homework then office reports, advances over George's footprint tattooed self-esteem, wrecks George's car, and lusts after his wife, Lorraine. Lorraine, a former prom queen type, is now a chubby lush who drinks whisky from an 8 ounce tumbler like it was iced tea. We learn more about the details of how they met and the sparking for her infatuation later in the movie but suffice it to say that Lorraine married George because she felt sorry for him and had futile hopes that he would grow into a knight in shining armor.

Next Up: BACK TO THE FUTURE – LORRAINE (BACKGROUND REFRESHER FOR FUTURE BLOG)

Answer: Forrest Gump

THE REAL HERO OF BTTF

Hang onto your knickers girls. I'm not into political correctness. As a matter of fact, for any of you who have any respect for the N.O.W. gang – you should probably sit down.

(Quick quiz: What year did the first BTTF come out?)

I'm also not into brevity but I AM into being entertaining as well as informative. So I hope you enjoy this tribute to Back to the Future……..

Not all educational moments are for children. This one is for the moms, more particularly wives — or even just women in general. Do you remember Back to the Future – the story of the fairly cool Marty – played by Michael J Fox – who comes from a very dysfunctional family, accidentally goes back in time, inadvertently keeps his parents from falling love and getting married, and puts his own existence in jeopardy? The rest of the movie is about Marty trying to fix this. But have you ever considered that, while Marty is the titular hero, and I suppose he is in a way, that everything really pivots, not on Marty, but on his dad – George?

(Answer: It's the 30th anniversary this year. I remember seeing it with my Dad at the movie theater. Boy do I feel old.)

Up next:  Refreshers

 

Ree/eal Life – THREE THROUGH FIVE OF FOUR REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH MOVIES — WAIT?! WHAT?

REASON NUMBER THREE OF FOUR

Another reason movies are fascinating and why you should watch them is that they compress experience into condensed versions of that REAL life to which my husband alluded in the previous posts. In a well made movie nothing happens except that which forwards the vision/theme/goal of the film. One of the basics of screenwriting is: if it does not forward the motion of the plot then, even if it is a really good scene, cut it. It's called "killing your darlings". A painful but necessary process. If you have a story about a baseball pitcher, then having a long interlude on how his wife reconfigured the family recipe for orange muffins may not be in the best interest of the story, no matter how cute or well written. You want to stick to the thread of your idea and not wander too far off the trail that will get you from Point A to Point B. Films are not the lengths of real lives (though I have sat through some that were so dull they SEEMED to be closing in on that long). They are, by and large, a maximum of 120 minutes. So getting to and staying ON topic is pretty essential to good story telling. As a result, often what you see is fairly intense – intensely felt love affairs, exciting car chases, pivotal incidents in an otherwise mundane person's life, watershed moments, historic turning points. The rest is left on the cutting room floor. What you see in REEL life is a purer, or at least concentrated, experience than what you would normally have in REAL life.

REASON NUMBER FOUR OF FOUR

Another reason I find movies worth the time is that watching a protagonist or antagonist face a decision gives you an opportunity to test your own mettle – what would you do in that situation? Of course, you do not personally have the vested interest of stepping into a boxing ring, or racing from an exploding volcano. But if the film maker has any skill at all and you are the least bit cooperative in the effort, he will help you become emotionally invested in the scenario: Will the guy admit to the girl he loves that he is the biological father to over 500 children? Will the Olympic champion have the moral courage to refuse to run on Sunday? Will the man step into an apparent abyss to save his father's life based solely on the instructions written in his father's diary? What would you do in each of those cases? Would you: Admit? Refuse? Step forward? (Quick quiz: name each of the movies those scenarios come from, answers below.)

Now while it is unlikely one would face ANY of those specific situations, we likely WILL be asked to choose between: admitting a hard truth or adopting an easy falsehood, deciding on something we want versus God's Will, going forward with something that frightens us for a loved one or turning your back in fear. Were they clever? How did they work that courage up?

We are all interested in how others face challenges. Family stories of Grandpa's fishing expedition or how a cousin approached a job interview or how your best friend proposed to his girl can be the inspirations to how you will face your own challenges. Movies help expand our pallet of experience. And getting an opportunity to preview that issue, to get a good example or observe a horrible warning are helpful REEL life exercises running up to the REAL life lessons we will face.

REASON NUMBER FIVE OF FOUR ……WAIT??!!…WHAT?

That's four reasons there. But are there any others? Well – yeah! Of course!!! Because they are darned FUN! They make us laugh, cry, jump in fear and shiver in admiration. The best of them can make us proud to be American, thoughtful about the weaknesses of being a human, awe struck by the power of God or the capacity of people to be selfless. They can also take us out of ourselves for a while to offer us perspective or simply a vacation from our daily stresses. Or they can reinforce the importance of the simplest most mundane actions of decent people.

These are some of the reasons movies are important to me and why I think you should watch movies. But the impact – long and short – they can have on our attitudes, our psyche or even our children's dreams are why it is important  – as one of the characters in the quick quiz warns – to "choose wisely". See you at the movies!!!!!

Answers: Starbuck (story stolen by Delivery Man), Chariots of Fire, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

And — FYI, the caution to "choose wisely" comes from the knight of antiquity in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But you'll have to watch it to find out why.

 

Ree/eal Life – TWO OF FOUR REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH MOVIES

In the previous posts I explained my love of movies. Today, I'll begin to explain the why and source of that affiliation.

REASON NUMBER ONE OF FOUR

To me there are at least four reasons to watch a movie. For one thing, it is the only proven use of telepathy that I know of. What you see on the screen is the public visualization of someone else's dream. OK. To be more accurate the vision is more of a group effort – costume designer, cinematographer, location scout, casting director, and dozens or hundreds of other "chefs" add their ingredient to the stew. But USUALLY the final party plan is the director's; his or hers the vision that you get to see. For the most part, the "final cut" is the director's, he the one who makes what you see on screen most like what he has envisioned. Now granted that can be a good or bad thing, depending on whether the director is Ed Wood or Frank Capra. Then the choice is yours as to whether or not you want a peek into that person's mind. But it is a kind of telepathy – a (literally) "feeling from afar" as the term "telepathy" was originally coined by English psychologist Frederick Myers in 1882, even though that feeling is "limited" to visual, auditory and emotional.

REASON NUMBER TWO OF FOUR

Another reason why you should watch movies is that they are cathartic. You can, via sympathy, experience situations and events, that you may never personally get to do first hand. For example, I will not likely ever get to float in zero gravity watching the earth spin from miles above, but there are any number of movies which, with a little imagination, can help you vicariously get that experience, including Gravity and The Right Stuff.

………..Next – Reasons three, four and five out of four —— wait??!! what???…………..

 

 

Ree/eal Life – I DO NOT LOVE ALL MOVIES

I DO NOT LOVE ALL MOVIES

Continuing with the previous post…..

In the first part of this post, I described my love affair with movies. Let me clarify that point a bit.

I do NOT love or even like ALL movies. The kids say I would watch the washing machine go around, but that is not actually true. It would HAVE to at least have a good soundtrack.

But there are movies and genres I just do not much care for: soap operas and slasher movies would top that list – though there are some movies that would break even that rule, making the grade despite their parentage. I confess to the guilty pleasure of Titanic in the first case and the novelty of the concept behind Freddie Krueger in the case of the original Nightmare on Elm Street in the latter case. (One of the Elm Streets was definitely enough, however.)

And when I watch movies I try to remember something a friend of mine – a little known writer/producer named Phil Kirksey – told me about 30 years ago: "NO one sets out to make a bad movie."

Even the poorly made ones I have to, on some level, admire. At the very LEAST those people had a vision which they carried out.

I have been on a number of sets. I have written and tried to write a bunch of screenplays. I have participated in a few amateur film shoots and a couple of professional ones. It's NOT a cake walk. Even the simplest, dumbest pieces of dreck have to be planned, scripted, costumed, lighted, filmed, edited…not to mention convincing a bunch of other people to: act, give permission to film on their property, lend you props, bring or lend expensive often delicate equipment. The actors have to be: transported, fed, kept safe and comfortable, provided with potties. Need I go on?? It's not easy and it takes commitment. And anyone who can get ANYTHING up on a screen, whether professional or for the local film fest, I have to give them some respect.

WHY WATCH MOVIES??

But WHY do I watch movies? My husband often teases me: wouldn't you rather (fill in blank) than watch someone else do it? The answer is — well, that depends. Yes, I would rather eat a piece of chocolate cake than watch someone else eat it. Yes, I would rather rock my own baby than watch someone else rock theirs. Yes, I would rather take a nap than watch someone else sleep. But the topic of a film does not usually revolve around the kind of mundane activities most of us mortals engage in on a day to day basis.

On the other hand, I would rather watch someone else run away from a 60 foot Tyrannosaurus Rex than actually do it myself. I would rather observe someone else's technique for surviving the sinking of the Titanic than put that to the test personally. And as for comedy – well, think of the Three Stooges. Yeah, more of a spectator sport if you ask me.

Do I choose to watch a lot of movies? Yes. Do I choose to watch ANYTHING? No. Of course not. But, the $64,000 question remains —— WHY?

…………..To be continued………..

 

Ree/eal Life – I Love Movies

I LOVE MOVIES

I love movies. I love everything about them. I love hearing about the possibility of one coming out. I love finding out it's coming to a theater near me!  I love buying the popcorn, watching the trailers (though I admit that sometimes I end up enjoying the previews more than the movie I came to see. LOL). Then when the theater lights go down and the screen lights up, there is something magical about the descent into darkness and allowing the vehicle of your imagination to be chauffeured by someone else for a while – see where THEY want to take you and to go along for the ride.

Before the advent of TIVO, online streaming, DVDs or even VHS tapes, I remember, as a kid, biking down to the local grocery store once a week to pick up the latest copy of TV GUIDE! I'd thumb through it – sometimes not even waiting to get home but check it out on the sidewalk outside, in the shade of the awning, straddling my bike keeping it balanced while I scanned the movie titles for that week. I'd scour the list to find out if any movies that I wanted to see, or had missed at the movie theater, were going to be coming on and PRAYED it would not be on an early bedtime school night.

Movies I was not allowed to see at the movie theater I might be allowed to watch on TV because, back then, the sensibilities were less jaded, editing was pretty strict and an R rating would be knocked down to a tolerable PG when shown in the American home between Oreo cookie and Mr. Clean commercials.

The movie would also have to be on a channel we could get with my Dad's pivoting satellite antenna. He had a tower attached to the house and you could control its direction from inside the house, often getting – especially late at night – channels normally FAR outside of the regular viewing geography. Living in New Orleans, why, sometimes we could even get a channel that originated in Baton Rouge!

OK. This REALLY dates me. Boy what I wouldn't have given at that time for just the ability to copy onto a scratchy VHS the badly hacked movies shown on TV, even crudely truncated to make time for the interminable and poorly placed commercials. Because your choices back then were: catch it at the movie theater, see it on TV at a random time assigned by the station and hope it isn't too chopped up to make time for the advertisements, or …………….. Well, there were no other choices. You could read the "Book based on the movie," listen to the sound track on an 8-track cartridge and hope it included snippets of the dialogue, ask a friend with a good memory and gift for story telling to describe it to you….but really….there were no reasonable options. If you loved movies you could get pretty frustrated.

And I love watching movies – and rewatching them. My Dad used to carry around old beloved paperbacks in his back pocket. He said rereading his favorites was like visiting old friends. I feel the same way about movies.

I'm often told I talk too much. I suppose that bleeds into my writing too. I also understand that one shouldn't write into a single post more than one could read while sitting on the — well, while one is otherwise occupied. So, I have broken this rather loquacious blog into a series and see if that is more user friendly. Please let me know if you like this idea better or would rather get it all over with in one swell foop.  🙂 So, as in the old days………….

…..To be continued