MOVIE: "Therese and Isabelle"

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If you had your hand over your gaping mouth, it's a pefectly good waste of a hand!

How am I Queer for over 30 years and only now finding out about this movie???


Nobody committed suicide!! Nobody was branded with some warped neurosis! Nobody spontaneously combusted! Nobody had her skinf flailed from her meat with clam shells! No mobs arrived with ropes, torches and pitch forks!

Nobody "paid" for learning how to love!

Isabelle's not a natural blonde (I mean the eyebrows, you perv!).

And they're both definately over age, so even though it's school girls, there's none of that embarrassing lolicon creepiness to deal with.

Too much walking, filmed from roofs.

I say, less walking more pearl diving!



And not a hair out of place!

MOVIE: "Women in Trouble"

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I kept looking at the nun in the opening close up thinking, what's wrong with her?

Make up. ON a nun?

It's vulgar. I quit watching when the satin underwear appeared.

Pretty disrespectful of women with vocations that don't require sexual behavior with men.

So, i hear it's "deep" conversations about sexuality?

WHY can't there be conversations between women about philosophy, astrophysics, radio production cold fusion, chaos theory post modern art, classical composition and the evolutionary niche of the platypus?

WHY must we only hear conversations about genitalian and their byproducts: babies and menses, cooking, dieting, poor body image and how badly some boy (can't call them men) is treating them?

Oh, boy! Women have different sexual characteristics than men! And that's all that's important because, the bottom line is: women only exist for the gratification of boys. So sit on that phallocentricism and spin, ladies.

NO, I won't watch any more of this.

MOVIE: "Small Town Gay Bar"

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Urban LGBT! think we've come SO FAR in this country!

I live in a place where Rumors or Different Seasons would NEVER happen!

I love these people!

Great sound track!

Loved the edits.

Too much Phelps; not enought real people.

Man, this is what Los Angeles was 30 years ago when I first came out.

Rainbow Bubbas Unite!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Town_Gay_Bar

"MOVIE: "Harold and Maude"

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I was a seventeen-year-old teen runaway when I watched this at the Fox Venice Theater in California in '71.

I wanted so much to be Maude.

A funny thing happened between then and now, 2010.

I am a lot more like Maude than I ever could have hoped, or planned, to be.

This fills me with enormous satisfaction that, while I probably won't live as long as she, I have loved life very well.

An ex-lover told me yesterday, "I've never met anybody like you."

I wonder if my ex-lover ever saw "Harold and Maude."

I gave a minister my primary directive: how I should be handled, after my death.

I asked to be cremated and thrown in the rose beds, where bone meal does some good. I asked for an open party. I asked that they show "Harold and Maude."

Now, I'd only make one change: put me in a recycled cardboard coffin and hide me in the wild, where I can return to Earth as a body should.

I can't believe it! I made it! I am a lot like Maude. For a time, I even lived in a hotel, right across the street from that roller coaster in Santa Cruz. It was my alarm clock.

What a role model for a terrified, abused, frightened girl with no survival skills, loose on the streets of Los Angeles, to have managed to have done!

I'm so humbled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_and_Maude

MOVIE: "Frozen River"

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Under the same circumstances, I'd do it, too.

More, not less, non formula scripts. More stories of ordinary women doing extraordinary things.

I'm living in a single wide with broken windows, holes in the floor, missing skirting, no propane, no running water and no sewage. The landlord gets $150/month. He won't fix it and I can't move.

Spent all winter with no heat. Made a composting toilet. Patched the windows with pieces of broken glass, glued with clear silicone.

I'd do it in a fast minute.

But I have no car and live five miles from town.

I hitch hike.

But I have no kids. I would't do it just for me.

More movies about single mothers.

More movies about poverty, REAL poverty.

More movies about justice.

More movies about refusing to be a victim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_River

MOVIE: "The Spirit of the Beehive"

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It's a real purdy movie. Great lighting. Terrible sound (full of pops and clicks). Showed same cloud over moon two nights later: that's lazy.

This, my dears, is a 10 minute short story, stretched out excruciatingly into over an hour and a half.

Spoiler alert: absolutely nothing happens for over an hour, and it happens to a total stranger we first see apx. five minutes before!


All actors appear drugged: everybody moves so slowly and takes so much time to stare, dull eyed, at not much. THe most expressive being in the entire piece was that poor, strangling cat.

Speaking of animals, some wild creature barks and chirps through the entire movie. I don't know if it's a bird or a squirrel, but I could have used a close up at some point, so I wouldn't be obsessing through every outdoor scene as to what it might possibly be.

Very beautiful and totally vapid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_the_Beehive

MOVIE: "Oasis"

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He's a jerk and you won't like him.

Don't stop watching. Just wait.

His first encounter alone with her? It's terrible. Don't stop watching. Just wait.

Liberation is for everyone. Everywhere. All the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_%28film%29

MOVIE: "Itty Bitty Titty Committee"

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I was in L.A. thirty years ago, doing street art actions.

It's really hard work.

We never did anything that would endanger people's health or safety, including pulling fire alarms and causing panic. There's a good reason why that's illegal, you know.

There's anarchy and then there's chaos. I didn't hear well thought out theory on why certain actions took place.


Whining about lack of visitors to your website is no excuse for violence. Swap links. Put your URL in your signiture in online forums. Get OFF your website and onto OTHER websites, build community, network. Stop looking in the mirror and look out the window.

Where's the political analysis of the consumption of drugs?

Alcohol kills brain cells, decreases inhibitions until a woman can't make good decisions for herself, is used as a date rape drug and broadcasts commercials that objectify women.

Cigarettes kill and are a major contributor to the health care crisis we're in right now, including, but not limited to, breast cancer.

Weed comes across the boarder, trafficked by the same nice people who bring us child prostitution, slavery and toxic chemicals marketed to children.

Violence against a woman who hates Queer marriage is violence against women. Blowing up a tall structure made of heavy material pollutes the atmosphere and endangers lives on the ground, including non human lives, like the animals, birds and plants in the park.

REALLY radical feminism requires thought, discussion, compassion for others and personal discipline.

You get three stars because this is the first film I've seen in thirty years that actually mentions the issues.

Because of production quality, sound track, lighting, acting and set design, if this had been just a bit more realistic, you'd have gotten five.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itty_Bitty_Titty_Committee

MOVIE: "In the Time of the Butterflies"

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I hear it's not true to the actual story.

Most movies stick to the less-than-two-hours formula these days. Much had to be left out.

And what was in it let viewers with no historical perspective learn a bit about Carribean and Latin American history.

It's skin crawling to watch, so soon after the earthquake in Haiti, knowing how the Dominicans historically feel about darker skinned people and Haitian culture.

I kept thinking of that pig in North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Il, and his perverse interest in looking up little girls' skirts.



I never knew Nov. 25 was an international day to commemorate stopping violence against women and I've been a feminist for over thirty years. Such a shame!

Long live all the butterflies, everywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Time_of_the_Butterflies

MOVIE: "Seraphine"

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I can't find a good biography online, so I'll have to wait 'til I can buy it in paperback before I'm sure I'm on a right track about this woman. But I'm going to say this, anyway.

I think Seraphine was misinterpreted from the moment her patron "discovered" her. I don't think anybody ever really listened to what she said about her life and, instead, found her self expression unacceptable, simply because she was unconventional [read: especially for a "mere manual laborer." And a woman, at that.]

She was called to paint, and to paint visionary interpretations of the fractal qualities of the natural world.

She wasn't, as some interpret, wasteful with money. She had no concept of finances, and nobody bothered to teach her. She was at the whim of her patron and his decisions, just as she'd been at the whim of employers and landlords. And, just as with them, she was probably exploited by her patron.

Some interpret her as being "obsessed" that the end of the world was coming. I can't verify this. It, too, may be a misinterpretation.

Here's what I got from the final scene of her freedom:

I think her angels had told her to paint her way to absolution, redemption. I think she had to be baptized in paint, in order to become a Bride of Christ (in other words, a Nun). I think she gave away her most valuable possessions to people in the village who had respected her and shown her kindness. I believe that, once her parcels were empty, she planned to devote her life to her church.

I believe she was intercepted by small minded authorities, called by small minded gossips, who put her in a hell hole [also called "mental asylum"] and "diagnosed by small minded doctors who exploited her and encouraged her patron not only not to have contact with her, but to pay for better accommodations by preying on his guilt.

I think her spiritual intentions will never be fully understood because those who could have witnessed her filtered her through their own assumptions and prejudices.

I think she had fulfilled her duties to her spirituality and was on her way to be married to her God.

I think the world who would do this to such a talent is crazy, not Seraphine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9raphine_Louis

DOCUMENTARY: "Beautiful Daughters"

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This "documentary" is unbalanced, unfair and in denial.

First, where's a V Monologues for female to male trannies? I want to hear THEM discuss their genitalia, transitions, etc.

Next, I have to ask this: WHY are all the women portrayed so stereotypically, culturally acceptably "feminine?"

Being a woman has NOTHING to do with make up, pink, heels, ear rings..... and all of it passing for upper middle class.

Where were the trannies with dreadlocks, body piercings, gender Queers, MtF Lesbians, gender benders, etc.?

Where is the DIVERSITY of trans life? Why are we promoting propaganda that says women have to be "soft" and "receptive?"

How is this feminist? WHere's a discussion of the stifling artificiality of gender roles/

Wanting to wear glitter eyeshadow and twirl a baton doesn't mean someone wants to be a woman. Lots of drag queens have done that for centuries.

I won't pity you, although I do respect the hells you've gone through and I honor your courage for living your lives.

But I don't need one more person to tell me, as a woman, that I don't measure up because I'm not breaking my back to mimic some air brushed magazine photo at the grocery check out.

I'm too busy fulfilling my life to waste time, money and energy on appearing pleasing to men.

You're only getting four stars from me because it's about dang time this happens, but I don't agree with the "Vision" of "Womanhood" portrayed.

And WHAT's with the cover art?!

http://www.logotv.com/shows/dyn/beautiful_daughters/series.jhtml

MOVIE: "Drool"

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I'm sorry I can't give this film more than three stars. Production quality is fin: costumes, sets (esp. Savanna location), lighting and especially sound track. Acting was great.

The cover art is just lame. The title makes no sense.

But the first fifteen minutes or so were hideous.

I couldn't stand the daughter for agreeing to fulfill that boy's "dream," when he humilated her like that in front of his little buddies.

I found nothing funny about that, marital rape, racist words from a child's mouth.

It was so repulsive, I nearly gave up FOUR TIMES in fifteen minutes.

The beginning needs to be rewritten. Why should we care about that girl? Why should we care about that family of seeming losers?

One technical note with sets: Banana trees could never survive out doors in Oklahoma; it's just too cold.

I ended up really enjoying the movie but, at first, I could barely keep with it. The only reason I did was because I read the reviews here.

Otherwise, I'd have baled.

Give me a reason to stay. Rewrite the first, two scenes and give the viewer a reason to care about these people. It's not enough that it eventually has a feminist, anti racist, anti homophobic message. The opening scenes are repugnant as is.

http://www.uploadfilms.com/drool/movie.html

MOVIE: "Red Doors"

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Flaming dog poop in a bag, 30 or 40 suicide attempts, a simple duck recipe, Valencia cocktails, a pair of crutches, a red wedding dress, a pair of ballet shoes, an eye patch, VHS converted to DVD, exploding oranges, hip hop dancing, a pink dog, two engagement rings and gouda cheese.

It's all in the suburbs. It's all really funny, precocious, profound and poignant.

It doesn't matter what your age, the greatest lesson is love.

These people can cause more chaos at a simple family dinner that a gang of hyperactive donkeys in a light bulb factory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Doors

You are reading http://viridianariverstone.blogspot.com/.

I have a friend with whom I've corresponded for well over 20 years now. There have been gaps, some years long. But we are still corresponding.

We do, however, know how each other looks, have been in each others' homes, met each others' loved ones.

If you don't love books, you will by the 10th minute of this film.

True story. Wonderful story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/84_Charing_Cross_Road

DOCUMENTARY: "Very Young Girls"

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We don't teach girls self respect. We don't teach them what love really is. We don't teach them their true value, beyond superficial appearance.

We don't teach boys to be fathers. We don't teach them to be men. We don't teach them to protect, honor, shelter and nurture women. We teach them to mock, ridicule and prey on them.

Why should a child, kidnapped while walking home, gang raped by thirty men, held prisoner, threatened with murder if she doesn't let men rape her for money, be put in JAIL?

THIS is prostitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Young_Girls

Pearl Bailey history

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LOOK at this FACE!

I guess I STILL have a crush on her! Yummy.

It was on the movie set of "Porgy and Bess" (1958) that Bailey won an early skirmish for black civil rights by demanding the elimination of "undignified and unnatural" Negro dialect from the George Gershwin folk drama. "There's a lot of people out there waiting for a dialect, so let's talk the way we really talk, without the 'dems, doeses and deses,'" she told reporters. "We don't talk like that. Maybe we did 50 years ago, but not now."
..Hollywood Star

Though Bailey had a storied career—singing and dancing in black nighclubs in the 1930s, appearing on Broadway and in films in the ’40s and ’50s, marrying white jazz drummer Louie Bellson—she’s probably best remembered by D.C. audiences for her 1968 renaissance in Hello Dolly, where she was brought in to head an all-black cast (with Cab Calloway) and revitalize a then-tired show. The company played at the National Theater prior to Broadway, and at the height of the Civil Rights era, it made national headlines when Lyndon Johnson dropped by for a matinee performance and Bailey crooned a chorus of his campaign song (“Hello Lyndon”) to him at the curtain call.
..Washington City Paper

OMG! I just stumbled on the MOST INTERESTING bit of history: West Las Vegas.

Seems the first Blacks in 'Vegas were ten guys who were hired to work on the Hoover Dam. Soon, there were 150 Black residents. They had their own side of town and guess what?

They built a night club, called the Moulin Rouge, for Black patrons! I was looking at a video, "The Hidden Las Vegas" and I saw a photo of people standing outside a diner. There was a sign that said, "Only" Couldn't read the rest: White? Black? I'm guessing Black.

Bailey and a BUNCH of other Black entertainers performed there. It became very popular with white performers, who'd hang out there "after hours." Sammy Davis, Jr. turned the Rat Pack on to it.

The Rat Pack connection with Bailey explains the support to be a Republican, in addition to family history.

She's not from the Dakotas; she's from VA and her daddy was a Holy Roller.

Man, I want to watch the rest of those videos on Hidden Las Vegas. It's really interesting! Hot Dog! Never heard of THAT before!!!

Here's a link on the Moulin Rouge:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-sterling/las-vegas-moulin-rouge-a_b_200649.html

May, 2009

The Moulin Rouge burned down in Las Vegas on Thursday.

When I interviewed R&B legend Ruth Brown five years ago, she talked about the first time she came to Las Vegas in 1952. She came here to work and spend some time seeing entertainers like Sammy Davis, Jr., Nat Cole and Pearl Bailey perform. Pretty much all Brown knew about the city came from its nicknames like "Glitter Gulch" and "The Diamond in the Desert." Only, when she was told she couldn't enter the casinos where these performers were playing, she learned another nickname Las Vegas had earned, "The Mississippi of the West."

The black entertainers were quite welcome to play the casinos on The Strip. But otherwise -- to eat, sleep, see shows or gamble -- they were not welcome. Brown said, "It didn't matter how famous you were, you had to stay on the west side of the city, in boarding houses."

I've got to get Miss Pittman started and then guess what I'm gonna do? This stuff is PRICELESS! Hot dog!

I love radio...

More on Pearl Bailey

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Ok, wait now. I don't understand the 180 statement.

[comparing Dorothy Height to Pearl Bailey]

First, that's comparing a civil rights worker with an entertainer. It's sort of like comparing Marcus Garvey to Sachmo.

She was in the first all Black cast of "Hello, Dolly." She was in "Carmen Jones," "Porgy and Bess" and other all Black theater and film productions. She worked with Mahalia Jackson, Sidney Portier, Ella Fitzgerald and the rest of the heavy hitters.

In 1952, she married a white man, adopted two kids and stayed with him 'til her death.

Speaking of Sachmo, I've heard people characterize HIM as an "Uncle Tom," which is ludicrous. I'm thinking people characterize Baily as an "Aunt Jemima," which is scary.

Yes, her daddy was a Holy Roller preacher. Yes, Nixon made her "Ambassador of Love" (how sick was that?). Yes, she got an Presidential Medal of Freedom from Reagan and campaigned for Ford (but VOTED for Carter!). But Republican was a tradition among southern Blacks. Maybe she thought she was changing the system from within?

I think there's a lot more to Bailey, that's all I'm saying. My God, she had her own TV show, back when Oprah was a pup, yelling to the family, "There's colored folk on the tv!"

She ain't Cicely Tyson, I know. Tyson was a later generation, for one thing.

Another thing I've been noticing? This may be a coincidence. A LOT of really activist African Americans of previous generations have links to the Caribbean, West Indies, etc. rather than the south USA. Portier & Tyson fit that description. So does Belefonte.

I don't know, Kate. I guess I'll read her autobiographies, if I can find them. But I think we've made a mistake by passing Pearl Bailey by. I really do.

Yeah, she was a Republican at probably the WORST time in US history to be one until 2000. But I'm just not willing to write her off yet.

http://rogiriverstone.com

Too Small to Fail!

---

http://rogiriverstone.com

Too Small to Fail!

MOVIE: "Ladies in Lavender"

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Dench and Smith in the same movie! ah.

Sometimes, if you're very lucky, something shows up in your necessarily restricted life. It is stranded and weak, but you know, without any doubt, that this is extraordinary. You know it without language or history or experience.

And you find yourself loving this: quietly, personally, intimately.

When it has recovered its strength and shows its true talents, the world comes clamoring and pushes you aside. You watch, fearfully, as it gets pulled farther and farther from you.

Now, you are, again, alone and think yourself even worse off than before, because this beauty you loved has been taken from you and the loss is an aching grief. Now, just as you have found true love, it has gone.

If you sit very still with yourself and if you truly love this beauty, you will work past your personal loss and realize how magnificent it is that this love you gave has helped the beauty blossom.

It's as fulfilling as romance, marriage, parenthood and career -- none of which you've ever experienced. And it is the best gift you have for the world. That is enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladies_in_Lavender

What's up with Pearl Bailey?

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Kate,

When I was a kid, I had a real crush on PB. Have you ever looked at her upper arm muscles? She was STRONG. And very funny and not a half bad singer and a good actor. I suspect she's Queer, too and there seems to be some confirmation of that at Queer websites that are quoting her.

I'm wondering why I don't encounter discussions of her in Black & women's history/political discussions. I wonder if it's because she voted Republican (I think people have forgotten the history of southern Democrats).

Anyway, I totally admire PB and just wondered if you know why she's never mentioned in "liberal" and progressive documentaries like on PBS. Anytime there's a discussion of the history of African Americans, PB is usually noticeable by her absence.

What's up with that? Have a clue? Did she come out in favor of McCarthy, or something? If she did, wouldn't survival factor in: a Black WOMAN in a witch hunt?

I"m snooping around on the net, but I can't figure this out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Bailey

MOVIE: "Iris"

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This is my greatest fear: loosing words and, therefore thought.

I can't tell you if this was a profoundly moving piece, as I can't feel it. I expect it's my self protection: I cannot allow myself to be traumatized by this experience, so I dissociate from it.

Not surprisingly, I appreciated more the flashbacks. Wasn't 'til the movie was over I realized the young Iris was Winslet. I'd seen her name in opening credits, but had forgotten by the time the film began. Best thing I've seen her in.

How did Dench drain consciousness from her eyes like that? It was chilling.

I have personal experience, working with people with Alzheimer's. I know what to expect.

I don't suspect I'll have that; I suspect dementia. It's common with brain injuries in later life.

I have been forgetful my entire life; it's hard to tell if it's getting worse.

I do know how to humanely end my life and plan to do so if I see myself becoming too incapacitated. I won't be a ward of the state, if I can help it.

This film didn't really help me learn much about how to take care of myself in event of lost capacity. I think I watched it hoping it would. And I love Dench.

I did get confirmation that a person with behavioral health challenges like me needs to be more vigilante with housework. A disheveled house is just another excuse for whomever to judge and condemn me into helplessness. I have to be very careful not to give them reason. I can't, at my age and with my background, even have a conversation with a sheriff's deputy without the issue of medication being brought up. It's frightening. They assume I'm not competent.

So, no film review here, just my personal stuff around the film.

Ought you see it? Absolutely, if you've the stomach for it.

I need to read Iris Murdoch's stuff now. She sounds like my kind of gal. At least, she did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_%28film%29

MOVIE: "Phoebe in Wonderland"

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Childhood is terrifying: one can't make decisions about one's life. It's difficult to articulate one's experiences, if one has no language, because the experiences are all for the first time, so one has no reference point. Even if one can express one's needs and desires, and if one could make good decisions for one's self, adults, far too frequently, see themselves as in control of every aspect of one's life, rarely listen to what one is expressing and are frequent to anger, intimidation, threats and violence if contradicted with one's facts.

Now, add to this problem high intelligence, clear perceptions of the adults around them that those adults don't want to see and mix in a behavioral health challenge. At first, the adults don't notice that one is, perhaps, different, so one can cover up, more out of fear of adults' reactions than any guilt or shame for one's difference. Then, the difference becomes noticeable: first, to other children, who may taunt and tease or outright assault, attack isolate and shun -- but then, too, to those terrifying adults who have power over one's life. Adults can and do punish, refuse to hear, apply "punishments" (which are actually tortures, since one cannot change one's behavior and, ostensibly, "punishment" ought to be behavior modification, although it doesn't effectively work that way).

Now, one is totally alone: feared, hated and condemned by one's child peers and by the terrifying adults. Nobody can be trusted, especially one's self.

I would normally dismiss a "Lifetime" movie as sentimental garbage of no real substance. In this case, I would have been wrong.

This is the most powerful depiction I've yet seen on childhood behavioral health challenges. Anybody who knows a child, or just knows of a child, needs to see this.

It doesn't patronize children. The child's point of view is primary in the movie, yet it isn't a portrayal of a grown up mind in children's clothing.

It is not idealistic and it does not stereotype.

I just hope our little hero, Phoebe, comes to adulthood uninhibited by mind altering drugs and other useless "treatments." I hope the people around her can accept and love her as their equal, as she deserves.

Love heals. Respect heals. Dignity heals. Compassion heals.

I think the real Wonderland is out here, where people threaten executions and babble all manner of gibberish in the name of "Mental Health" and leave millions of sensitive, creative, delicate minds to wander in isolation and terror because we're just too stubborn, selfish and prejudiced to accept each other as we are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_in_Wonderland

MOVIE: "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie"

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How have I gone though over twenty years of adulthood without ever seeing, or really even knowing about, this movie? Is it because I live in the puritanical USA, so devoted to religious zeal for a mythologized and romanticized propoganda of democracy? Probably.

It's odd, though, that I, a born again feminist, never knew how important was this film.

I wish I could embrace her as a sister. In part, I can. She's right about the stifling, restricting, formulaic factory of educational systems. She's right to encourage "her girls" to think for themselves, to respect the arts, to examine and apply philosophies and to place beauty and truth above the mundane expectations of women in the 1940s. She's right to defy stifling authority. She's right not to respect the rigid restrictions on "her girls." She's right to wear bright colors in a school of drab grays; even the girls' uniforms are shades of gray. She stands out; she stands for something. This poster doesn't do justice to that suit, which was in vivid colors.

She's also a fascist sympathizer. I have to fear and distrust her for that and her self righteousness about it.

And I don't know how to reconcile her devotion to individualism, to liberated sexuality, her strong self assertions with her fascism. It must mean she is more a fascist than an instructor, and that is terrifying.

She is out of control. She rebels for the sake of rebellion, seeing herself superior to the unenlightened around her. And they are unenlightened, small, petty, sour, dry, timid. They gossip; they bully in the most passive aggressive ways. They are inferior, by those standards.

But her behaviors and assertions are too much reactionary. She merely reacts against her surroundings. She does nothing of substance to improve them. And "her girls" leave her class with "old heads on young shoulders." We see the impact of her influence on two students, in particular and know she is equally destructive to others who are bright enough, sensitive enough or just needy enough to absorb her every word as gospel.

This is a Lolicon movie: an adult, married man takes a student as his lover. He is, of course, a pig and can be easily dismissed as hateful. The girl is hideously warped into cynicism and self righteousness that, while reaction to Brodie's, is equal in ferocity to it. Both she and the man are with each other in reaction to Brodie.

She is not just a monster; she is a monster maker. And she appears so dignified, so elevated, so passionate that we can't see how monstrous she is until the damage is done.

It's completely smart, this film. I will forgive that the soundtrack is by that mewling Rod McKuen. I can't stand him.

Otherwise, sets, costumes, locations in Edinbourough, Scotland are excellent and well thought out. They perfectly compliment the story without being obtrusive.

I have an issue with an actress, playing an underage girl, appearing in the nude. To me, it doesn't matter if she is an adult, playing a child. Children need not to be seen as sexual objects. It pertains to the plot, of course, but I do not condone it. Clever script writing could have referred to the child, modeling for her artist lover, without actually showing us a nude body.

I hate the movie and I loved it. I wish more people would write unconventional scripts these days, but, I suppose, the stock holders wouldn't abide the risk. So, we're stuck with formula writing. It took risks, for sure, some of which I can't condone and some of which were "it's about time someone did this!" Some were just complete surprises.

In spite of its major flaw of child nudity, I have to recommend this movie. I think it's very important.

And I've always adored Maggie Smith!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prime_of_Miss_Jean_Brodie

MOVIE: "Paradise Road"

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Road

I've seen another movie about the Women's Vocal Orchestra of the internment camp. It may be "A Town Like Alice," but I'm not certain.

The movie I saw was black and white, I remember. It was on one of those xian tv stations in the middle of the day. I was astounded by the story.

MOVIE: "How About You?"

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This isn't one of those "pitiful old people" movies. It isn't one of those "plucky old people" movies, either.

In fact, it isn't an "old people" movie; it's a people movie.

I could be friends with any of them.

It makes me feel a lot better about getting older.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_About_You

MOVIE: "Julie and Julia"

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Now, I want to see Paris

Hi, Kate,

I broke down and renewed my long lapsed subscription to NetFlix today. Hulu is free and has been helpful, but NetFlix has stuff I really can't see elsewhere. It saved my sanity in Fort Sumner, as there is no movie theater for sixty miles, and that one shows movies that don't interest me very often. They'll send me one DVD by mail per month.

I've placed Season One of "Ugly Betty," my favorite show on tv since Mary Tyler Moore, probably; it'll come in 6 discs, so I'm assuming I've clogged my waiting list for the next six months. I may break down and buy all 4 seasons of "UB," as it's truly historical television, but not just now, as heart broken fans all over the world grieve like me over the cold-hearted and self destructive decision of ABC to cancel the best show they've aired in decades. But I digress; I'll probably write more about UB later, as the wound is still fresh and my heart wide open at the loss.

I have, happily, unlimited access to films, television shows, independents, classics online, viewed from my computer. They're not the newest releases, but I'm so far behind in recent cinema history, I'll be fine for the rest of my life with their selections.

I used to, when young, keep up pretty well with film. I was in Los Angeles, in the '70s and, while New Yorkers pretend there is no culture in L.A., I was kept quite busy, watching films from all over the world.

Of course, with modern technology, no human being can possibly keep up with cinema in general these days. Sadly, I'm afraid we've reached the era of viewer specialization: narrowcasting (as opposed to "broadcasting"), where one can tailor one's exposure to culture to only fit one's tastes, prejudices, politics and or religious persuasion. It's pretty creepy, actually; one need never stray too far from one's comfort zone, hence, never learning a gall dang thing about the rest of the world.

So, for my "Virgin" online video on demand tonight, somehow, I stumbled on "Julie and Julia."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_&_Julia

Do you remember me as a cook? I don't think you've had much exposure to my hobby of taking food pantry items, dumpster rescues and or day old mark downs and creating pseudo gourmet meals. I often use no recipes, at all; I just recall things I've learned from the internet or the PBS cooking shows over thirty plus years and "fake" something into existence.

I used to post recipes in my "Living In the Hood" blog. I compiled a few here:

http://rogiriverstone.com/kitchen/index.html

I'm not a serious cook, in a traditional sense, as I have no aspirations toward doing things Right; I just like to do them Well. I can rarely gather all the appropriate ingredients for traditional recipes. And I'll probably never own a copper bowl in which I can whisk eggs, darn it.

But I taught the kids in my house in the War Zone in Albuquerque to cook. For Christmas, we built a tree of gingerbread and decorated it with candies and cookies.

One of our most ambitious projects (maybe "ambitious" isn't the right word; it was actually a simple recipe) was chocolate mocha truffles. We couldn't afford cream. We couldn't afford MILK! But I had nonfat, powdered milk from the food pantry. And I had real, government commodity butter. So, we let the butter stand at room temperature until soft and beat the snot out of it with powdered milk and just enough water so it wouldn't be cheese. It came out like true whipped cream and, with the addition of highly concentrated espresso and cocoa powder, made a truffle filling so smooth, so mouth rich, so tasty and so evil, I wonder if a real cook could have detected the difference. That's just one example.

I refuse to deprive myself, just because I'm low income. They mark down portabela mushrooms and daikon radishes, if I'll just go to stores in the upper crust parts of town and drag things home on the bus.

In my refrigerator at this moment is a small, octagonal jar. It cost me $28 on my birthday two years ago. I refresh the salt water in it, so the real French truffle inside doesn't waste away as I try to figure out some way to eat it. I've never eaten a truffle. It was a windfall from a radio story I'd sold.

Well, this movie tonight kindled in me my very first genuine longings to visit Paris, because it seemed Julia Child just had so darn much fun, eating there. She was astounded that French people ate like that every day! I've heard stories, but this really brought it home to me. I know even French butter is a totally different experience than what we use, especially, sadly, these days.

I've had fresh churned, country butter on my Great Aunt Minnie's farm in West Virginia. But, I'm told, French butter is, some how, better than that, which I find impossible.

And this Julie, the woman who started a blog about cooking all the recipes in _Mastering the Art of French Cooking_ in a year: her struggle reminded me of something.

Remember that paper I did for you as an independent study over a summer? I'd gone through all my old issues of "The Lesbian Tide," kept a daily journal of what memories it brought back, cut the journal into strips, laid them out on the dining room floor, taped them together by subject and had a completed paper ready for you when you came back to teach in the fall.

I haven't done another writing project like that since.

I've been thinking very hard about how I'm going to possibly create radio, without money, without a newsroom, without resources, without a car, without people to interview, without a network of who's who.... It's been seeming impossible.

But I can do it. I need to research a subject (I have several) and keep a written journal. I can edit the journal into a script and record audio. In the modern world of online videos and other sources of audio, sounds, interviews, etc., as long as I'm very careful to attribute sources, I CAN create radio out here in an almost total vacuum.

So, that's a long way around saying, I watched these two women bash their brains in, Julie and Julia, to produce what they loved: food and writing and I could so relate to how hard it is. And I absolutely know I can. I just have to make a daily commitment to do a minimum of work, and the things will build themselves, like that paper did.

How are you?

NYTimes.com: Oratory From the Streets: The Homeless Lift Their Voices

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MOVIES | February 11, 2009 
Movie Review | 'Great Speeches From a Dying World': Oratory From the Streets: The Homeless Lift Their Voices 
By STEPHEN HOLDEN 
"Great Speeches From a Dying World" is an unsettling documentary portrait gallery of nine homeless people living on the streets of Seattle. 

===================================================================
Kate,

They don't have it on NetFlix, the service to which I subscribe, dang it.

Have you seen this?

I worry a great deal about documenting the lives of very vulnerable populations. I suspect this wasn't produced by a person who was ever homeless, but I'm not sure.

"At these times the premise feels like a stunt that has backfired."

I suspect it might be exploitive in its premise of having homeless people read famous writings. It reminds me of putting lepers in formal attire and photographing them for a gallery exhibit, to impress the art and academic communities and increase one's cache in the grant-writing world for future projects. Parenthetically, I have the same qualms about Diane Arbus (even though she was pretty much reviled by the arts and academic communities of her time).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Arbus

I'd much prefer to just allow homeless people to speak for themselves. Better yet, give THEM the cameras, audio and editing equipment, along with some training in how to use them, and see what they come up with. That's much more interesting to me. And pay THEM!

I saw a BRILLIANT documentary out of India once about children of prostitutes. They gave the kids cameras and taught them how to use them. Those kids produced the most compelling compositions from the world they inhabited. It was heartbreaking, thrilling, inspiring, uplifting and devistating, all at the same time. Quite poignant. At the end of the film, there was an announcement of how to support the photography project.

It's like all those anthropologists who filmed "the natives." I wish they'd given the cameras to the peoples they were "studying," and let them film the anthropologists! Better than the Marx Brothers, I'll bet!

Of course, I like it when National Geographic uses "fish cams," too: film from the subject's own perspective. It's just more honest and direct than holding bait and enticing sharks toward your camera.

Filming homeless people reading literature elevates the literature (oh, it's so universal, so true, so brilliantly insightful), but further segregates the homeless person from the larger society: the audience will be thinking, in the backs of their minds, "These words would never have come from that persno's mouth, without the intervention of the producers." My fear is they'll also think, "How nice, the producers brought culture to these pathetic wretches!" Framing the tragedy of these people's lives in elevated language allows the audience to distance itself from the real perspective of the subject. It seduces the audience into thinking, "I relate to those words because of something in my own life, and I'm not homeless. What's wrong with these losers?" Now, the words of homeless people can't do that.

I make it a habit to suspect the motives of artsy documentarians who turn their cameras on the vulnerable, forgive me.

WARNING: RHETORICAL QUESTIONS ALERT!
I would like to know more about the production staff's familiarity with homeless issues, whether they volunteer as community organizers, etc., in addition to making films. Are the showings of this film benefits for homeless people? Is there any information in the film to empower audiences to go out and DO something about homelessness and its root causes? Or, are they just social science majors or do-gooders, dispensing their sense of superiority along with the soup? I'm really suspicious.

When that woman said she got bored from being clean and sober, did anybody ask follow up questions, challenge the statement, offer her alternatives to boredom, introduce her to a role model who is clean and NOT bored or boring?

Did the film makers walk away from these people without doing anything to assist them in plugging in to the resources they need? Or did they walk away with their grant money and their film festival tickets, leaving these people as bad off as -- if not worse off than --before? Has there been any follow-up with the subjects?

I watched a collection, "The Ultimate Lesbian Short Film Festival" recently. Most of these were produced by film majors in Los Angeles universities. Parenthetical: if the opening titles are very fancy, the film sucks: just an observation.

There was one, "Tina Paulina: Living on Hope Street" that really pissed me off. The filmmaker, who narrates, admits she accidentally ran into Tina (this was on Hope St., downtown L.A. -- ironically, very near the first Women's Building). Here was a Lesbian filmmaker, getting course credit (and probably a grant, as well as being in this collection) for filming a Lesbian homeless woman, and speaking SO condescendingly and, yes PATRONizingly about her, as you can tell by the title. I was embarrassed for the film maker. Tina put on a VERY good show, behaving very cheerfully and chin up (she was hustling the film maker for pity money, but the film maker was too naive to understand that). The film maker left without giving Tina anything. Later, she returned to the corner on what Tina had told her was her birthday a week later. No Tina, of course; Tina was trying to get back to Arizona. Tina had been TRYING to say: I need money, so I'm going to tell you next week's my birthday, rather than asking you directly for a hand-out, as I've assured you, repeatedly, that I don't panhandle or use drugs." Tina was high as a kite, of course, as she pulled up her sleeves to reveal she had no needle marks. She said everybody around here uses heroin. I guess she felt very superior, exhibiting symptoms of crack, meth or some other drug that made her VERY hyper and chipper and is smoked, not shot up. The film maker was CLUELESS!

My point is, if you inflict enough pain on it, even a bear will dance to entertain.

When dealing with the most vulnerable members of a culture, it's usually more productive to shut up and listen, rather than imposing an artificial agenda or set of assumptions. They've been imposed on enough.

Now, I'm saying all this without seeing a frame of this movie. Did you see it and what did you think, if you did?

-- 
Rogi Riverstone