Saturday, February 28, 2009

The Natural

I was just flipping channels and came across the end of "The Natural", the Robert Redford baseball movie from a while back. I love that movie. I think Redford really never looked better and never played a part so beautifully. I am a huge fan of his...I adored him in "The Sting" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and especially "All the President's Men". I love the end of "The Natural". I start to cry when Roy Hobbs breaks his bat and meets Bobby the bat boy on the first base line and tells him to go pick him a winner. And I don't stop crying until the movie ends, which thankfully isn't too much longer. The music is perfect, the cinematography is gorgeous, it's a happy ending after some really bad stuff has happened to Roy over the years. And a great, great supporting cast. I love it. I know that some serious critics were not fans (my beloved Roger Ebert among them), as it took some serious liberties with Bernard Malamud's novel upon which it was based, but I am in disagreement. Having never read the novel, I see it as near perfection in movie-making.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Why Is It Hard To Leave My House?

There are actually a lot of reasons why. I really got lucky in finding this house up here in the Adirondacks. I wasn't considering this way east part of the park, what's known as the Champlain Valley. I had concentrated my search in the areas where we've spent most of our time when we vacationed up here: Jay, Keene, Keene Valley, Upper Jay. Being forced to expand my horizons was the best thing that could have happened in my search for a home. My little town of Willsboro is set right along the lake, Willsboro Point is surrounded by the beauty of the lake, and it's a short 7 minute ride to the Essex ferry to Vermont.

My house is kind of cabin-like and it sits back from the street, up on a hill amongst the tall pines. It's a great house with a great yard in a great town.

But all of that is not why it's hard to leave. This is why it's hard to leave:



These boys are so precious. I was sitting in my chair, uploading photos to my laptop when I looked up and found all three dogs with me in the living room, and Bailey was in one of the chairs. Bailey is not a small dog, but he thinks he is, and he manages to squeeze himself into one of the club chairs on occasion. Usually you find Fred in them, which is why I always keep little doggie beds on them. Miller has decided that he is too old to try to get up on the furniture anyway. He's such a smart boy.

Here are some close-ups:

Bailey, getting small. I think Bailey just wants to be like Fred, so he uses the 'think' system and just is small. Adorable.



Ah, Mr. Miller. He's almost 16, so he sleeps a lot. But he also just rests, too, his eyes open, looking around, keeping an eye on his brothers. And me. And he rests up so that he can romp a little when he goes out, or play some with Bailey, but mostly with Fred. He's a sweetheart of a dog.

I think I forgot to download the close-up of Fred in his bed on the chair, but I also caught him the other day laying on top of the chest in front of the loveseat, on a soft fleece, in the sun. Nirvana, to Fred. He loves, loves, loves the sun. He has loved the snow, too, but he really is a sun-worshipping boy. I'm sure he's looking forward to the winter being over.


So you see, lots to enjoy in my house.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

A Final Word...

...on this year's Academy Awards show. I absolutely loved Hugh Jackman as host. I thought his opening number was adroable and he is so talented: he sings, he dances, he acts! Fantastic. And he's not bad to look at!

My favorite part of this year's show was the new format for introducing the nominees in the acting categories. Bringing back former Academy Award winners to give testimony to the performances of this year's nominees was genius. Some of the presenters did better than others and were either wonderfully moving or personal; specifically I loved Shirley MacLaine's introduction of Anne Hathaway (who was quite a trooper and very impressive in her bit with Hugh Jackman at the beginning) and Robert DeNiro's of Sean Penn. But Eva Marie Saint and Sophia Loren and Joel Grey were also all wonderful, and wonderful to see. I have read that some critics didn't like this bit, that they would have preferred to see clips of the performances rather than these testimonials. I LOVED this so much more than the clips. We've all seen bits and pieces of the performances; anyone who really cares about the Oscars has. I much prefer bringing back these winners. As a movie fan, it was just such a treat to see them. And the reactions of such personal introductions were obviously well-received by the nominees. We haven't seen that kind of emotion at the Oscars very often, except from the winners. It's nice to give all of the nominees a chance to really feel that emotion on their special night.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Thoughts on the Winners

I love the Academy Awards. I believe that I have only missed watching one year since I started watching the year John Wayne won the Best Actor award for "True Grit". I remember this because I was in love with Glen Campbell at the time and he was in "True Grit". I was nine years old. It was the first movie I remember seeing at a movie theater, this one was the Delsea Drive-in in Vineland. We didn't stay for the double feature, as I recall: "The Sterile Cuckoo".

Anyway, I have not seen "Slumdog Millionaire" but I think there seems to be uniform agreement that it's a pretty good movie. I'm happy it won, and I'm pretty sure that seeing it will validate my feeling of never wanting to visit India.

Loved that Penelope Cruz won for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona". I really enjoyed the movie, and she was great. Also happy for Kate Winslet. She is a lot like Meryl Streep in that even if the movie isn't great, she always is. And she has a lot of depth. Good choice.

Heath Ledger. Such a sad story, such a great performance. I do not believe it was a better performance than he gave in "Brokeback Mountain". That is the performance that I will always remember him for. Beautifully understated it was, pretty much the antithesis of The Joker. Both wonderful realizations of totally different characters. I hear his work in the new Terry Gilliam movie is equally compelling.

I have never been a huge fan of Sean Penn. But I loved what I saw in the scenes for "Milk" and do want to see the film. I was rooting for Mickey Rourke, the man who came from nowhere with a great comeback performance. Dog lover and not afraid to show it. And the star of one of my favorite movies, "The Pope of Greenwich Village". He had a great small part in Robert Rodriguez's "Once Upon a Time in Mexico", a movie that I highly recommend. Great entertainment. I hope he gets some good roles and he sticks around for a while.

No more time today. I just love the movies.

Great Depression Cooking, Episode 5

I caught this on Andrew Sullivan's blog and thought it would be worth you time. Clara is a cutie-pie at 93 years and I am sure she has other ideas that would work better for me than this one. My bread never gets old enough as she shows here. I LOVE bread. But it is interesting how she puts the olive oil on the bread, just like they now serve a small bowl of oil - sometimes with herbs - with the bread at some restaurants today. I often dip my crusty bread in olive oil at home.

Here's Clara:

Monday, February 23, 2009

Oscar Glamour

I'll have more to say about last night's Academy Awards show, but this post is about how beautiful the stars looked last night. I've been reading up on some of the female stars who were there, and now I understand a little bit better why so many of them looked so good.

Did you remember Supporting Actress winner Penelope Cruz's dress? It's this beauty:

This dress is a 60-year-old vintage Pierre Balmain gown. I think it is absolutely stunning. And I think she was so smart to go with a vintage gown. With the economy the way it is, I appreciate that thousands and thousands, often tens of thousands, of dollars weren't spent on something new. This dress is as beautiful if not more so than anything else on the red carpet last night. She was also wearing $3 million in Fred Leighton diamonds (loaned). Gorgeous. It just so happens that her performance was the only one I saw this year of the supporting actress nominees. I loved "Vicky Cristina Barcelona". I thought all the leads were wonderful (especially Javier Bardem, be still my heart), but Penelope Cruz was mesmerizing every time she was on screen. She was amazing and I was very happy to see her win.

Just a couple of more comments about fashion. The female star of "Slumdog Millionaire" was wearing a ring that was 150 years old. That's pretty cool.

Amy Adams had the most amazing necklace in a night filled with beautiful necklaces. Most everyone went with diamonds, Angelina Jolie's stunning emeralds nothwithstanding. But Amy didn't wear just diamonds and emeralds. She wore diamonds and emeralds and rubies and sapphires. All that color with the beautiful red dress. Definitely not a nun.

Marisa Tomei had another stunning gown, Versace with a long, pleated train. She wore the following vintage Van Cleef and Arpels jewelry: a 1941 diamond and sapphire bracelet, a 1960 diamond ring and 1973 lapis and diamond earrings.

Not everybody was a hit on the red carpet. What the heck was Reese Witherspoon thinking? And it wasn't just the dress, but the hair, her eye make-up. Yuck.

More on the show and the winners later.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Academy Awards

As some of you know, I used to have an Academy Awards party. I held it for twelve years and we always had a lot of fun. I mention this because I have just placed three poll questions here on my blog. You can see them to the right. Just an unscientific survey of who you think will win in the Best Picture, Actor and Actress categories. Have fun!

Oh, you were curious about who I think will win? Well, I think these will be the winners:

Slumdog Millionaire
Sean Penn
Kate Winslet

Who would I like to see win?

Milk or Frost/Nixon
Mickey Rourke
Kate Winslet

Happy movie watching!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Just Driving Around...


After our bi-weekly visit to the transfer station to get rid of our trash and recyclables and to say hello to the fellas there, Dana and I decided to go for a bit of a ride. We do this periodically, as I still feel quite new to the area and know that there are dozens of little roads that we haven't been down yet. I had my camera with me, which was cool, as we came across this lovely lady (photo above).

This pretty girl was on the other side of the house on our way by; I think she was taking advantage of the snow melt and grabbing at some of the grass at the edges of the house. It was, how shall I say, disconcerting to see a cow walking free like that in what pretty much amounts to a neighborhood. I saw lots and lots of this out west, but there are signs posted there, "Open Range", so you kind of know to expect this sort of thing there.

This is School Street in Essex. At the end of the road, as you get close to the end of the street as it dumps onto the main road in Essex, there is a schoolhouse. It's wonderful:

I gave Dana a grade of "D" for execution on this photo, as a little bit of cropping would have removed the sideview mirror from the frame, and given you a closer look at the building. But isn't it a great structure? I like to think it does get used in nicer weather; it clearly was abandoned for the winter.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

I Just Want To Punch It

Every time I see that set of octuplets' mother's face. I have such anger and, dare I say, hatred for this person that I have never met. How dare she do this? Six children was not enough? She had six children that needed her love and care and she didn't feel satisfied with them in her life? And she didn't think that she might need to commit all of what clearly are dismal resources, in every possible sense, to the care of her existing six children. And now the number is fourteen.

She is an idiot. She may be mentally ill, as some bloggers and commentators and lots of regular folks say, but that truly does not make her less of an idiot.

I cannot stand people like this. She will end up doing one of two things: making loads of money that she doesn't deserve, or she will take as much money in handouts as she can manage, as she has proven so far with her "disability" payments and the payments from the government for food stamps and her three "disabled" children. And in an interview she said she plans to use her student loan monies to pay for the support of her children.

What? I trust no monies from student loans ends up in her pockets now that everyone knows her intent.

I know this is more of a rant (or is it a rave) than most of you are used to hearing from me, but I really and truly find this woman to be the lowest form of human being. I am heartened to hear that no large companies are lavishing her with gifts (free houses like some multiple birth families have had, free diapers for life for others), because there is nothing about this story that should make them proud to be affiliated with this woman.

My sister and I discussed just after we found out the details of this woman with the fourteen children that she was after some fame, in the same vein as Jon and Kate Gosselin and their children on the TLC television series "Jon and Kate Plus Eight". And not so coincidentally, someone from TLC said in an article that I read today that there would need to be something that people actually want to see in order for them to proceed with any interest in this wacko's story. Jon and Kate are a riot and would make good television on their own. But how they are raising their kids (a set of twins and a set of sextuplets) and showing it to the world is a great and beautiful thing. The show is funny and touching and charming and not afraid to show the ugly side of life. This California woman could not hold a candle to the Gosselins. Master's degree be damned. I don't see the point of this woman continuing her education...she doesn't seem to have learned much so far.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Winter Weather


I have always been of the mind that there was little point to cold weather if you didn't get snow along with it. This was the frustration for me of living in southern New Jersey in the last few years. We really didn't get any snow. The last snowfall of significance down there I remember pretty clearly. It was our first winter with Fred, and it was an amazing storm. I lost some really large branches from some of the many trees in my yard; others were laying on the ground for days with all of the snow on them. This is Bailey wondering where this snow-covered branch came from.

I mention this because we have a fair amount of snow on the ground right now but we don't have a forecast up here in Willsboro for any significant snowfall for the next ten days. And there are some days in these coming couple of weeks when the daytime temperatures are heading towards 40. In fact, on Saturday when I took the boys out for their last walk it was 41 degrees at midnight. It was downright balmy.

I'm not complaining yet, but I like snow with my cold. I think we might be heading toward the end of the snow for this year. Maybe. Who knows, though. The one good thing about the warmer temps over the weekend is that most of the snow that had accumulated on the roof came tumbling down. That was a good thing.

Friday, February 6, 2009

R.I.P. James Whitmore


Oh, I do hate to hear when a wonderful actor passes away. James Whitmore was a marvelous actor, comfortable in drama, comedy, re-creating historical figures, even in musicals. I don't recall the name of the actor who worked with him in "Kiss Me Kate", but Whitmore's turn as one of the mobsters was just classic, with those riotously brilliant and clever lyrics from Cole Porter:

Brush up your Shakespeare,
Start quoting him now.
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow.
Just declaim a few lines from "Othella"
And they think you're a heckuva fella.
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopaterer


He was great in this and in his other major musical performance in "Oklahoma". Great casting altogether in both of these movies.

James Whitmore gave us so many performances to admire in his long career. And he was one of those actors, a truly exceptional actor, relegated to character parts. Too fine an actor to not get leading roles, but boy did he make the best of it. Here is just a short selection of the gems that he left us:

The Asphalt Jungle - as Gus, one of a group put together to pull off a heist. Sort of "The Usual Suspects" of its time, with a great cast, multi-award winning film co-written and directed by John Huston.

"Oklahoma" - as Andrew Carnes, a wryly frightening man who wielded the shotgun that nearly got Ado Annie married off to the wrong man.

Television guest appearances - on so many shows, the reason why James Whitmore is a face we all know. Playhouse 90, Studio One, The Law and Mr. Jones, The Twilight Zone, The Big Valley, Gunsmoke, The White Shadow. He finally won an Emmy Award for his multiple appearances on David E. Kelley's series "The Practice".

Give 'em Hell, Harry! - as Harry S Truman, the standard against which any portrayal of the former president will be compared. Academy Award nominated.

The Shawshank Redemption - as Brooks Hatlen, one of the oldest inmates at Shawshank Prison, he was the prison librarian. A lovely role for the great character actor in a film that has become a classic.

I think the thing about James Whitmore that I admired most was that all of his work seemed so true. Integrity, he oozed boatloads of it. And the great thing about that was that even when he did turn to do a television commercial, as he did for Miracle-Gro, he used the product in his extensive gardens at his home in California. He was quite the gardener, as it turns out. I know Cornell doesn't recommend Miracle-Gro necessarily (my Master Gardener Volunteer status with the Cornell Cooperative compels me to make the disclaimer), but it seemed to work for Mr. Whitmore.

In reading about him I found one more thing to admire about him. He was an early and ardent supporter of Barack Obama. He was campaigning for our new president long before my choice was knocked out of the running. I like that we both voted for him.

I for one will miss James Whitmore's passion and intelligence on the big screen and the small screen. We were lucky to have him around for as long as we did.

Bravo!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Celebrity

I posted this in email form, but I thought I'd put it here, too.

Not all that much goes on up here in Willsboro, New York. Well, this is not altogether true. Lots goes on, really, and in the winter it has a lot to do with snow!

But even up here in my little town, we have a celebrity. And a pretty big one. George Hearn, the great Broadway star, two-time Tony Award winner, Emmy Award winner and all-around talented fellow, lives just down the road. His house is not more than 10 minutes from mine (yes, I am practicing my stalker skills and took a drive by). Nice house. :)

Here is some more information about him at Wikipedia:

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

You can also see assorted recorded performances of his if you search You Tube.

My sisters, Deb, Dana, and I saw him on Broadway in his Tony Award winning performance as Max in Sunset Boulevard (the character played by Erich von Stroheim in the movie version).

And last year, not too long after Dana and I moved up here, we saw him in a reading of Samuel Beckett's Endgame. It was a benefit for restoration of the Whallonsburg Grange Hall and it was fabulous. And I saw him one day at the meat market, which is just a couple of buildings down from my house. I was so shocked to see him that I didn't say anything (damn). He smiled at me and I smiled back, and then he took his two gallons of milk (he has two sons at home) and headed to the checkout.

So, the actual news and the reason I am posting today is that Dana has auditioned for a part in a performance of "Mame" up here in Willsboro. The stars of the show you ask? Why George Hearn and his wife Leslie, who was also a perfomer on Broadway. Dana has been cast as Cousin Fan. She also has been given a prime bit part as the third performer in a song with Leslie and a secondary lead. Dana has a long and varied resume in community theater and a very good singing voice. She says that she thinks she's the "go-to" singer for when they need stuff.

I just think it's so cool. I have instructed Dana that should there be an opportunity at any point during rehearsals to get George or Leslie or both of them over here to the house, she is to do it. :) I have been a fan since seeing him on Broadway. His voice is amazing, and based on seeing him before the performance of Endgame and at the meat market, he seems like a right nice fellow.

Not to be outdone by Dana and her news, I have been busy selecting seeds for my vegetable garden. :|

I hope everyone reading this is well and enjoying your winter, whatever weather it has brought you. This has been a grand and enjoyable winter so far up here in the north country of New York State. We have loads of snow, the dogs are loving it so long as it stays above about 15 Fahrenheit...any colder and they zoom out for a quick pee and are back on the porch in a flash.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Hear hear

We were just discussing this yesterday and I agree wholeheartedly with Andrew Sullivan's little rant here:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/the-gateway-to.html

Indeed...grow up, people.

Bruce Rocks!


I've never been a big rock music fan and thus was never a big Bruce Springsteen fan. But being a New Jersey girl, I always knew of him, and who could not know of some of his biggest hits: Glory Days, Born in the USA. I have always admired him even if I haven't always been a big fan of his music. I must say that the performance during yesterday's Super Bowl was pretty impressive. Bruce and the E Street Band put on an electrifying show. I think he's at the top of his game, and boy did he look good. I was impressed.