January 2019 - Page 3 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Movie review: The Favourite (2018)

The acting in the Favourite by Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone was excellent.

The Favourite Yorgos Lanthimos — Weisz, Stone, Colman

Unless you’re paying close attention to movie releases, it may have been confusing to see two costume dramas released about the same time frame. One was The Favourite, set in the early 18th century with England is at war with the French, and Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) is unwell. The other was Mary, Queen of Scots, with the titular character (Saoirse Ronan) struggling to regain the English throne against Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie).

My wife and I opted for the former at The Spectrum in Albany because it fared better with the critics (94% positive) than Mary (62% positive). Moreover, people whose opinions I value also liked it.

The Favourite is, I gather, supposed to be comedy posing as a historical drama with a touch of palace intrigue. The humor (humour?) presumably was supposed to come from these British historical figures who one would think would be stuffy and reserved. Instead, they’re bawdy and crude. The concept I think is a valid one.

It didn’t work for me. Perhaps the film was just too weird. I didn’t laugh very much, though the disco dancing – seriously – was entertaining. The ending had several of us in the theater after the lights came up discussing it with WTH bemusement. The revenge of the bunnies?

This is is not to say that it was without merit. The acting, by Colman; Rachel Weisz as aide de camp Lady Sarah, who often acted as head of state; and Emma Stone as Sarah’s cousin Abigail, who had fallen on hard times and finesses her way into the Queen’s good graces, was excellent. The class struggle narrative was interesting, though it fell apart. My wife noted, correctly, that Weisz is “a very handsome woman,” and Rachel and I share a birthday.

I wish I had seen The Lobster (2015), which Yorgos Lanthimos not only directed but also co-wrote. I recall that most people either loved or hated it. It also featured Weisz, and in a small role, Colman.

The Favourite is going to get all sorts of technical nominations, maybe for cinematography, costume design and other categories. My wife mused that it was a movie for which we were somehow not privy to the code. I don’t regret seeing it, but I shan’t watch it again.

Analog guy: watches, cellphones, WordPress 5

These instructions, if I understood them, might even be useful

I am an analog guy. I was reminded of this yet again when I pulled out my watch from my mail drawer – don’t ask – and started wearing it. It’s SO much easier telling the time with a 90-degree flick of the wrist.

Sometimes, when I needed the time, and no one has a watch, it seemed laborious for people to pull their various devices from their pockets. Why is so important repairs watches? I have to tell you, I found the best! Times Ticking helped me to fix my timepiece.

Also:

* My blog briefly became much more difficult to create. As someone explained to Dustbury: “WordPress 5 changed to an entirely new editor where construction of a post that historically just involved typing now involves pasting together a series of blocks that have to be added, for example, just to have quoted text. Am I missing something?”

It was dreadful. Usually, I write in my test blog then cut and paste the whole thing, except for images, into my real blog. The new and “improved” system made me enter the text one paragraph at a time. I didn’t see a way to switch back to the familiar. Fortunately, Dustbury directed me to the Classic Editor plugin, which restores the previous editor.

Oh, the weird sizing in the text of this post – WP5. I could have rewritten it, but…

I’m also using FastCGI, and I don’t even know what that means.

* One of my buds has been experienced the blue screen of death repeatedly on his laptop and asked for assistance. He was sent these instructions, which, if I understood them, might even be useful. I experienced this irritant once myself, but the hard boot seemed to work so far, knock wood, or knock pixels, or whatever one raps upon.

* I pretty much hate my current smartphone.

1. It’s too small. It’s not just that I misplace it in the sofa or between the creases of my backpack. I was in a hotel in DC, sitting at the desk in my room, and it seemed to just disappear. It slipped under this odd, unnecessary ledge.

2. It doesn’t always work. When I fully charge it, then turn it on, it’s already down to 95%. I had it at that conference in DC and the only way to get the schedule was by downloading the app. Well, in this hotel, there were four floors BELOW the lobby, and the app did NOT work on the lower two floors.

So when I get a train ticket or tickets to Yankee Stadium, I order them online but get physical copies rather than getting them on my phone. An analog guy, I tell you.

Here’s another thing. They tell you to “protect your social network accounts with a strong, unique password and use two-step verification, when possible.” Every time I do that, I manage to lock myself out of my own devices because I’ve forgotten the password of the second step in the verification. I know there’s a password saver thing, but…

To quote Brian Wilson, “I guess I just wasn’t made for these times…”

Norman Gimbel: Happy Days; Killing Me Softly

Norman Gimbel wrote English lyrics for Michel Legrand’s music from Jacques Demy’s romantic 1964 French film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

One of the deaths of 2018 I managed to miss until recently was that of Norman Gimbel at the age of 91. You say you never heard of him? That’s possible, but surely you’ve heard his output.

“Norman Gimbel was born in Brooklyn on Nov. 16, 1927. His parents — Morris Gimbel, who was in the restaurant business, and Lottie (Nass) Gimbel — were Jewish immigrants from Austria.” He studied English at Baruch College and Columbia University..

He “wrote lyrics for two Broadway musicals, ‘Whoop-Up’ (1958) and ‘The Conquering Hero’ (1961), working with the composer Moose Charlap. The first show, set on an American Indian reservation, earned two Tony nominations; the second, starring Tom Poston as a fake war hero, had a book by Larry Gelbart. Despite positive reviews, both musicals flopped at the box office and closed early.

“Both of Mr. Gimbel’s marriages, to the fashion model Elinor Rowley and to Victoria Carver, a lawyer, ended in divorce. In addition to his son Tony, survivors include another son, Peter; two daughters, Nelly Gimbel and Hannah Gimbel Dal Pozzo; and four grandchildren.

“Mr. Gimbel gave relatively few interviews. In a six-minute segment as a contestant (alongside Burt Bacharach and Jerry Leiber) on ‘Play Your Hunch,’ an early Merv Griffin game show, he spoke only three words.”

Norman Gimbel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.

LISTEN TO THESE – His writing partner is Charles Fox, unless otherwise indicated. Chart action is generally the Billboard pop charts.

Ricochet – Teresa Brewer, #2 for two weeks in 1953, written with Larry Coleman and Joe Darion

Sway – Dean Martin with the Dick Stabile orchestra, #15 in 1954 “Sway” – “Quién será?” is a bolero-mambo written by Mexican composer Luis Demetrio, who sold the rights to fellow songwriter Pablo Beltrán Ruiz

Canadian Sunset- Andy Williams, #7 in 1956, with music by jazz pianist Eddie Heywood

I Will Follow Him – Little Peggy March, #1 for three weeks pop, #1 soul in 1963 – first recorded in 1961 by Franck Pourcel, as an instrumental titled “Chariot”. The music was written by Pourcel (using the pseudonym J.W. Stole) and Paul Mauriat (using the pseudonym Del Roma).

The Girl From Ipanema – Astrud Gilberto & Stan Getz, #5 in 1964 -written in 1962, with music by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes

I Will Wait for You – Nana Mouskouri and Michel Legrand (1973). Gimbel wrote English lyrics for Legrand’s music from Jacques Demy’s romantic 1964 French film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg)

Jim Croce – I Got a Name, #10 in 1973, from the movie The Last American Hero

Killing Me Softly With His Song – Roberta Flack, #1 for five weeks pop, #2 for four weeks soul. “Lori Lieberman, a California bistro singer, had recorded the song first (Mr. Fox and Mr. Gimbel were her producers and managers) and she said that the lyrics had been based on a poem she had written about attending an emotionally stirring Don McLean concert.”

Happy Days – Pratt & McClain, #5 in 1976, the theme song to a popular TV show

Laverne & Shirley Opening Theme Song

Wonder Woman TV theme (1975)

Ready to Take a Chance Again – Barry Manilow, #11 in 1978. Oscar-nominated song from the 1978 movie Foul Play

It Goes Like It Goes – Jennifer Warnes . Oscar-winning song from the 1979 movie Norma Rae, music by David Shire

The Paper Chase 1979 CBS Episode Preview & Opening Credit, performed by Seals & Crofts

Killing Me Softly With His Song – the Fugees, #2 for three weeks pop, #1 for five weeks soul in 1996

Dr. Charlie Kite (Aug 15, 1949-Jan 4, 2019)

The funeral of Charlie Kite is scheduled for January 20, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church.,

Charlie Kite Dr. Charles Havener Kite Sr was a pillar at my church, an ordained elder and deacon. When his grandson, who is in the third grade, received his own Bible this past fall, Charlie proudly held up the Bible HE got when he was a kid.

Charlie Kite was very helpful to me when my sister Leslie had her bicycle accident in June 2018. He explained that the fact that the brain bleed was detected for only a short time was a good sign. I was happy to get feedback from a neurosurgeon and a respected faculty member in the anatomy program at Albany Medical College.

The interesting thing I that I didn’t ask him straight out. I had put put Leslie on the church prayer list and was musing about her condition during coffee hour. Charlie, and/or his wife Tara, who also teaches at the medical college, would give me the 411.

Sometime in the past couple years, my wife noted, in his presence, some pain she was having, and he’d suggest how long one could take some over-the-counter medicines at a slightly higher dosage without causing other damage.

I’ll always remember that I found out that Charlie had metastatic pancreatic cancer when he announced it at the semiannual breakfast of the Bible Guys in early December. My contact with him that day was brief but meaningful to us both.

His family, literally and figuratively, rallied around him, most visibly at church. At the first service after his diagnosis was made public, there were nearly two dozen Kites in the front of the sanctuary for an Advent candle lighting and reading. But Charlie alone got the honor of reading.

After the initial shock and sorrow, he seemed liberated to say what was truly on his mind. During December, he spoke to me every week, telling me to fight the good fight online. He specifically enjoyed the jabs I took at a certain orange-haired persona. He would have enjoyed what former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, experiencing the same medical diagnosis, had to say.

Charlie was an unabashed liberal. His late mother Dorothy (1923-2011), who I remember well, was a real advocate for civil rights and social justice. He supported LGBTQ rights, the local Planned Parenthood, the FOCUS Churches outreach programs, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

I knew very little about the signs of pancreatic cancer except that most of them mimic other diseases. In other words, “many of these symptoms are more likely to be caused by other conditions,” so it’s tricky to diagnose early.

The funeral of Charlie Kite is scheduled for this Sunday afternoon, January 20, 2019 at First Presbyterian Church at 3 p.m., with the choir singing. Double-digit inches of snow are forecast.

Gillette, toxic masculinity, and the “war on men”

“Gillette seems to send the message that we can be better by being the men who heroically intervened in these various scenarios.’

The Gillette The Best a Man Can Be “short film” on Toxic Masculinity has become a phenomenon in a very short time. Two of the bloggers I follow, Arthur and Chuck, have already written about it. They favor the ad, and so do I. But that’d be a brief post.

I’m also interested in other reactions. Common Dreams says ‘Gillette Must Be Doing Something Right’: Toxic Men Freak Out… “So-called ‘men’s rights activists’ are mad that the shaving razor company has started a campaign calling on men to not be misogynists, jerks, and bullies.”

Some of the right-wing sites I follow naturally have followed the issue. GOPUSA quotes the CEO of branding firm Crutchfield + Partners that Gillette could quickly alienate its long-time supporters. “Does the customer want to be told they’re a naughty boy? Are you asking too much of your consumer to be having this conversation with them?” he asked. “It’s about execution. Sometimes brands stretch themselves too fine, and they snap.”

It then shared some of the negative comments: ““Get woke, go broke. Stick to selling razors.” “When did shaving have to get political?” “How to irreparably damage a brand in under 120 seconds: A Documentary.” And “See this is actually genius. What Gillette is doing here is trying to lower our testosterone to the point we won’t have to shave anymore.”

RedState complained that “Gillette seems to send the message that we can be better by being the men who heroically intervened in these various scenarios. The man who stops his friend from hitting on a girl, the guy who angrily prevents a man from telling a girl to smile, the man who rejects the idea that treating women as objects is okay.” Well, yes, it is.

I was most annoyed by the dismissive “Side note.” “I’ve never experienced a man telling a girl to smile more. I’ve seen women do that to other women, but not a man. I’m not saying it has never, or still doesn’t happen, but in my 35 years of life, I’ve yet to experience a single male member of our species advise a girl to smile more.” I’ve known lots of women who’ve experienced it, and I’ve seen it myself.

Should business be involved in “political” positions, such as toxic masculinity, risking the bottom line? Last I checked the ad had 321,000 thumbs up but 695,000 thumbs down.

Perhaps the company can be comforted by a statement by The American Psychological Association: “Socialization for conforming to traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict, and negatively influence mental health and physical health.”

I see the ad following in the tradition of The ‘Dove Real Beauty Pledge’. The Procter & Gamble ‘The Talk’ ad “showing how black parents have discussed racism with their children over several decades” won an Emmy.

Will the ad hurt Gillette’s bottom line? Perhaps. Conversely, Taking Risks Can Benefit Your Brand – Nike’s Kaepernick Campaign Is A Perfect Example.

Gillette’s website details plans to “donate $1 million per year for the next three years to non-profit organizations executing programs in the United States designed to inspire, educate and help men of all ages achieve their personal ‘best’ and become role models for the next generation.”