Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
According to Wikipedia.org, today’s song choice was released in 2007 and has been used in movies and televisions. I hadn’t heard it until I was shopping in Fred Meyers yesterday. Listening to the words, I told myself to look it up when I returned home. And ‘lo, I remembered and did.
Here is “New Shoes” by Paolo Nutini.
I saw that Pitch Black was available on HBO last night. I was like, I gotta watch it! And did.
Thinking about that, I decided to add it to my dirty list, along with others that mentioned in comments.
Here we go, round two.
Original list:
Unforgiven (1992) – “It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.”
Fail Safe (1964) – “You learned too well, Professor. You learned so well that now there’s no difference between you and what you want to kill.”
This Is Spinal Tap (1984) – “I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn’t believe anything.”
A Christmas Story (1983) – “Oh, fudge. Except I didn’t say fudge.”
The Great Escape (1963) – “Cooler.”
Tropic Thunder (2008) – “I know who I am. I’m the dude playin’ the dude, disguised as another dude!”
Being There (1979) – “It’s for sure a white man’s world in America. Look here: I raised that boy since he was the size of a piss-ant. And I’ll say right now, he never learned to read and write. No, sir. Had no brains at all. Was stuffed with rice pudding between th’ ears. Shortchanged by the Lord, and dumb as a jackass. Look at him now! Yes, sir, all you’ve gotta be is white in America, to get whatever you want. Gobbledy-gook!”
No Country for Old Men (1997) – “What you got ain’t nothin’ new. This country’s hard on people. You can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”
On The Beach (1959) – “The trouble with you is you want a simple answer. There isn’t any. The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained – – by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn’t possibly use – – without committing suicide. Everybody had an atomic bomb, and counter-bombs, and counter-counter bombs. The devices outgrew us; we couldn’t control them.”
Fifty First Dates (2004) – “Sharks are like dogs, they only bite when you touch their private parts.”
Bladerunner (1982) – “Time…to die.”
Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957) – “Are they both mad? Or am I going mad? Or is it the sun?”
Love Actually (2003) – “A tiny, insignificant detail.”
Men In Black (1997) – “No, ma’am. We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we’re aware of. May we come in?”
The Dirty Dozen (1967) – “I reckon the folks’d be a sight happier if I died like a soldier. Can’t say I would.”
Doctor Strangelove (1964) – “Well, boys, we got three engines out, we got more holes in us than a horse trader’s mule, the radio is gone and we’re leaking fuel and if we was flying any lower why we’d need sleigh bells on this thing… but we got one little budge on them Rooskies. At this height why they might harpoon us but they dang sure ain’t gonna spot us on no radar screen!”
Added:
Pitch Black (2000) – There are a lot of goofs in it, which is part of the fun. “They kept calling it ‘murder’ when I did it.”
Silverado (1985) – “The world is what you make of it, friend. If it doesn’t fit, you make alterations.”
Kelly’s Heroes (1970) – “Definitely an antisocial type. Woof, woof, woof! That’s my other dog imitation.”
Secondhand Lions (2003) – “WE’RE OLD, DAMN IT! LEAVE US ALONE!”
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) – “You never had a rope around your neck. Well, I’m going to tell you something. When that rope starts to pull tight, you can feel the Devil bite your ass.”
Hang them High (1968) – “Some people call this hell, but you’re still in Oklahoma.”
A Few Dollars More (1965) – “I was worried about you – all alone, with so many problems to solve…”
High Plains Drifter (1973) – “What makes you think I care?”
What of you? Andy dirty secrets about the movies you watch again and again?
Back when my mother was in her late seventies, she went dancing on Friday nights. She often mentioned how much she enjoyed it, and enthused about the old people and their dancing skills and energy.
That always drew my laughter. “The old people? Mom, you’re old.”
Impatience snapped through her response. “I mean the really old people, you know, in their nineties.”
While I understood her point, it amused me that she didn’t think of herself as old. Now, at sixty, I understand better.
My wife was in a conversation with a man in his mid-eighties. She’s a few years younger than me and mentioned to him that she was middle-aged.
He seemed amused. “Middle-aged? Isn’t that well behind you?”
I was taken back when she told me. If she’s younger than me and she’s not middle-aged, than what am I? What constitutes middle-age?
Does it matter?
Not really, and yes, and no. Middle-aged, as already demonstrated, is a vague, inaccurate term. Definitions by psychologists and institutions vary, as it does by era and culture.
Part of it, which disturbed Mom, and bothers me, are the connotations associated by these terms, young, middle-aged, and elderly. Think ‘young’ and contemplate the images and ideas springing to mind. Substitute ‘elderly’ and ‘middle-aged’.
Yet, in most of the advanced world, these labels mean less and less. So I’m taking up the Latin route. I’m sixty, so call me a sexagenarian. I like it. Easy to spell, and it has sex embedded right in it. Mom, in her eighties, is an octogenarian.
I mean, what does middle-age conspire to mean? I’ve been accused of being immature, old beyond my years, and an old man before his time. I’ve also been deemed young at heart by some, immature, or young in spirit by others. My older friends – in their late sixties to upper eighties – call me their young friend.
It’s all context and impressions. Like everything else, a spectrum of behavior, expectations and impressions establishes others’ perceptions and judgement. Yet this can change by day. Give me a short night of sleep and I can appear as a cranky old man. Pour a little beer in me and I can be as immature as a two-year old. Mostly, I’m somewhere in between.
I don’t dress ‘old’ but nor I dress ‘young’. I adopt dress that is neat without calling attention to me. My hair is thinning and retreating as fast as antarctic ice (but with less alarm), and when the sun gets its rays on it, it goes silver and white. Do I care?
Hell, yes.
And hell, no.
See, I’m trapped on that spectrum. I logically understand aging and its impact. I also appreciate the freedom of aging, and its limitations. I know I can’t do anything about it, nor influence others’ impressions of my age and their labels, so why care? But then someone says, “Isn’t middle-age behind you?” and I’m newly irked.
In the future setting of my novels, ‘Returnee’ and ‘Long Summer’, you can bet it’s addressed, because we’re driven by advertising, perception and self-image, themes that sharpen in that future setting. You can bet that a civilization that has developed a technological work-around to dying has done the same with aging’s impact and their appearance.
It becomes an exercise for the characters and their thinking. Many embrace genetic sculpting to develop a look which they like and others appreciate. It’s just like hair, mustache and beard styles and colors, or even jewelry. Some take up the approach, how do I want to look today? What color should my skin, eyes, and hair be? Others emulate famous people, but more establish a look and keep it. A few chose to resemble cats, dogs, dragons, centaurs, and other creatures. It’s almost free and relatively easy.
The 4G in my future (the fourth generation of space colonists) have taken it to an extreme, part of their statement about who they are and their stand. Their leaders look prepubescent. That fad is spreading. They think it’s a meaningful statement of who they are and represent, but others who have lived longer and done more, mostly understand how little that appearance really means. There are some who are more easily swayed, or want to be included in the new youth movement. It’s fun to think about and one of the great joys of writing fiction.
In one of my vaguely conceptualized ideas, people who become zombies immediately look young and beautiful, which sways a large segment of weak thinking people, who want to look young and beautiful again. And as zombies, they have no cares about work, taxes, politics, wars, civil rights or the environment.
Which takes me from here to there and back again. Because, after all, weren’t we really talking about mindless zombie thinking about what it means to be old?
We’re in a near television desert. I call it television but I mostly stream my joy. Most of the joy derives from selected television series.
The desert began with Game of Thrones ending. Then we finished off the latest year of The Vikings. The Great British Baking Show helped ease my withdrawal. We’re still waiting for Orphan Black and Grace and Frankie to come back. We’ve watched Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Wolfe’s Hall. Alpha House. Raised by Wolves. Jessica Jones. Stranger Things. Orange is the New Black. The Walking Dead. Fear the Walking Dead. Dead Set. iZombie. Dark Matters. Misfits. Gavin and Stacey. Miranda. We attempted The Man in the High Castle but it left us thinking, meh.
QI provides some diversion. So does stand up – Tig Notaro, Amy Schumer, C.K. Louis. Tig’s show, One Mississippi, is entertaining, but there are few episodes. All the Happy Valley, Cuckoo, Foyle’s War, Longmire, Wallander, The Wire, Doctor Who, River, Scott & Bailey, Nurse Jackie, Last Tango in Hallifax, Ray Donavan, Inspector George Gently, Bletchley Circle, Sharp’s Rifles, Justified, Jack Taylor, Jack Irish, Bosch, Miss Fisher’s Mysteries, and Rake have been consumed, along with multiple TEDs. The Killing and The Top of the Lake were watched yonks ago. While friends love the American version of Shameless and House of Cards, the aged Brit series make the American editions wilt. Watched The Bridge, Fortitude, Crossing Lines, Spiral, In the Line of Duty, Inspector Lewis, all the Holmes, all the Cranford, Downton, Larkrise, and Doc Martin. The Republic of Doyle is okay but not compelling. People recommended The Boss but we disliked it. We tried Flash, Green Arrow, etc, and different other Marvel output, but they did nothing for us.
It’s tough out here in the desert. Hot and dry. The Secret Agent is coming. Boomers. Then There was None, with a terrific cast. We’re hopeful that we’ll be saved. Otherwise, we’ll just need to keep reading.
Which isn’t a problem. There’s never a reading desert, for me. Reading tends to stimulate my writing so I’m not a fast reader, unlike my wife. (It’s amusing to watch her trudge through The Secret Magdalene, because she doesn’t like it, but it’s the book club selection, so….) I’m still turning pages in the second book of the Neapolitan series. Two more books remain after this one. Then a pile of other tomes await.
Television, though? It gets very dry.
What was the list? We’d written items on the blackboard. I paused by the rice to visualize the chalk scribblings and compare it to the shopping cart. Sweet pot, broc, car, ban, OM, cil. All secured. Ch. Butt. Brd. Blk b. Lem.
I’ll head for the cheese, get that done – no, the bread is closer. I’ll go through the bread to cross the store to reach the cheese. Then I’ll swing back by the rear aisle for the butter, detour to the canned goods for the black beans and lemonades, and then, off list, perhaps a bit o’ choc.
The store is easily Ashland’s most popular. Shop ‘n Kart has a vibe of peace and food. Lots of organics. Nice selections of fresh produce, cheeses, beers and wines, and green stuff made to help us reduce waste and our foot print. Good location, too, here on the town’s south side, off Ashland where it meets Tolman. Busy, busy place.
Background music plays. It’s usually rock. Sometimes it’s classical. ‘Hey Jude’ came on as I surveyed the bread and found the whole wheat offering desired. I sang along, remembering when I heard and sang along as a child. Shifting gears, I veered past other shoppers, passing as I remembered, pol – for polenta, backtracking to the pasta zone. Others softly sang with the Beatles as I went.
Exiting that aisle, I entered the perpendicular central aisle toward the dairy cases. ‘Hey Jude’ swelled. So did the store singing. More and more people sang the song, and sang it louder and louder. I don’t know if they knew they sang aloud, or if they were conscious of others singing aloud, but hearing more singing as the French horns flared and Sir McCartney sang, I half-expected the shoppers to begin synchronized dancing.
“Na, na, nah, na-na-na-na.” Visions of ‘Basketball Jones’ surfaced from my teenage years. I heard someone say, “Now the cashiers,” and the cashiers took up ‘Hey Jude’, then they called for “just the people in the ice cream section,” and they joyfully spun in their Nikes and sandals, kicking their legs up in their jeans, skirts, cargo shorts and capris, raising their eyes and smiling toward an unseen ceiling camera, holding out their purchases as they sang, “Hey Jude, judy, judy, judy, wow.”
The song ended. The singing silenced. Dancing stopped. Shopping resumed. Most of it had been in my head, of course, unlike the shopping list, which was now gone. Where was I going?
‘Nights in White Satin’ began. I heard someone softy singing along, but realized it was only me.
References:
Once upon a time, there was a movie, ‘Caddy Shack’. Starring Michael O’Keefe, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Ted Knight, Rodney Dangerfield and others, it was released in America in 1980. Not high brow, it had some memorable lines and scenes, and was fun. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 75%, which seems right to me.
It’s noteworthy that Rotten Tomatoes didn’t start until eighteen years after ‘Caddy Shack’. I always wonder how the mood of an era supports a movie’s reception. The same goes for books, music, politics, and other aspects of pop cultures. Like, did you know American cars of the late 1950s and early 1960s sported huge fins, huge, tremendously useless, fins, as a styling gimmick. The fins were popular, reminding people of jets and flight. Can you imagine, though, those fins on cars now? My rambling’s point is, what would we have rated ‘Caddy Shack’ if we’d had Rotten Tomatoes back in the day? Wonder if that’s been studied?
My favorite part of the movie was about the gopher that Bill Murray is attempting to kill as one of the sub plots. The gopher survives, and begins dancing to a song by Kenny Loggins. Kenny Loggins was good at that kind of music movie, performing ‘Footloose’ (the original) and ‘Danger Zone’ for the movie, ‘Top Gun’. The ‘Caddy Shack’ song is ‘I’m All Right’. The song gets you moving – or gets me moving. I don’t think Mom and Dad liked it, frowning and saying, “That’s not real music.” Today’s young listeners might be as amused by the song as I am by ‘A Bicycle Built for Two’.
So, talking with the baristas today, I asked these youngsters (ha – love utilizing that expression) if they knew the song or the movie. Both believed they’d heard of both but had never actually seen the movie and couldn’t place my rendition of the song. Not surprising, as both came out twelve years before the oldest barista present was born.
That’s amazing about our technology, that it exists and helps us create a present and past, by extension, influencing our future, and that these youngsters, if they want, can experience some of our collective past quite easily by watching that movie, just as I did when growing up and watching movies on TV.
There are differences. Today’s movies (and television shows) have made a move toward more realism. Two, it’s easier to select what we want to watch. Whatever was presented on one of three channels back in my youth was what we watched, which was beneficial. I saw movies and genres that I would have never otherwise watched. Some of them were terrible, and some of them were made again, like ‘The Fly’.
Which, to complete this circle, had me wondering, are they planning on a ‘Caddy Shack’ remake? Well, of course. Numerous people have been associated with such a product and in blogs, some refer to it as ‘inevitable’. Which seems true. I mean, have you seen ‘Star Trek’?
Which one?
In retrospect, I’m recommending a movie that came out in 1970. I’m speaking with people born in 1990 or later, because, see, they’re less than 25 years old. It’s thought arresting for me, that thes…
Source: Love Story
Michael Seidel, writer 