The End of the World: in 5 Days in 5 Ways

For some odd reason, probably because I grew up under the threat of nuclear annihilation, I am addicted to end of the world movies. I have seen the destruction of the world via take-over from radiated mutated creatures of every description and a variety of things from outer-space as well as natural disasters like meteors. This week we will explore 5 ways the earth might end.
#1. The Crawling Eye

This is one of those low budget movies that have a lingering effect... I can still never look at mist the same way, or mountains and mist or ski-lifts and mist. Crawling eyes from outer space have landed in Switzerland hiding in clouds of mist. The horror! Climbers disappear. Heads are ripped off. Two Brit sisters (Janet Munro and Jennifer Jayne) (one's a psychic) a professor (Warren Mitchell) and Forest Tucker as a UN investigator do battle with these creepy crawlies. Could the earth end this way? Anything is possible in movie land.

One Last Comment on Awards Shows

A Lost Movie

I grew up in NY where we had the very best TV imaginable. Million Dollar Movie which showed movies like "King Kong" and "Moby Dick" twice a day for up to (if I remember correctly) 2 weeks. We had Zacherle and Ch. 13 PBS which showed early Fritz Lang films and Japanese film retrospectives. We had the Early Show and the Late Show and monster movies on Ch. 11 and somewhere in the mix there was one movie that stood out, one movie we'd watch every time it was on. "Home Sweet Homicide"!

"Home Sweet Homicide" was the story of the 3 Carstairs children, Archie (Dean Stockwell), Dinah (Peggy Ann Garner) and April (Connie Marshall). They lived with their widowed mother, Marian, a mystery writer. The kids decide they need to help their Mom make it into the big time by getting her to solve a real murder...which conveniently happens next door. Enter, a handsome detective (Randolph Scott) and his grumpy side-kick (James Gleason). This all added up to being a very appealing and delightful film that seems to have disappeared into outer space.

 The book the film was based on was by Craig Rice, and it is one of my very favorite books. It is often available on Amazon or ebay and worth tracking down.

So, rights owners to this movie wherever you are... this is the age of DVDs, Netflix and TCM. What are you waiting for? Don't you want to earn some extra cash by releasing it from the vaults? I'm ready to hit that Paypal button whenever you do!

Winter Wanes

Jean Reno : Cool, French and a Role Model For Young Girls

The other day I came across a fantastic French film, "Wasabi" starring Jean Reno, an actor I find very sexy and cool, so of course I had to watch it. In it Jean plays a cop who 19 years previously had been stationed in Japan doing some kind of under cover work and  had a relationship with a Japanese woman who was the love of his life and who ditched him after 8 months.
He has been unable to forget her and move on and after being ordered to take some time off for beating up some criminals and the chief's son, surprise, surprise...he gets a call from a Japanese lawyer saying his former flame has died and left everything to him and he has to go to Japan to claim his inheritance... which includes an absolutely adorable 19 year old daughter, Yumi, played by Ryoko Hirosue. It's a fun movie and got me to thinking of that other great Jean Reno film "Leon, The Professional" which costarred Natalie Portman in maybe her best role ever, as a little girl whose family are murdered and who turns to her neighbor, Leon, for help. Below are trailers for both these films. What girl wouldn't feel safe with a father figure like Mr. Reno?
Here's "Wasabi"


And "Leon, The Professional"

The Worst Hard Time: A Book Recommendation

The Goodwin Library Book Club has been going well this last year with a focus on some brilliant Young Adult titles which allowed us some pretty intense discussions. We just read an amazingly well written and researched non-fiction book that almost reads like fiction, the "Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan.

Many of you have already read this book when it came out. If you haven't... it's the story of the dust bowl problems affecting the Oklahoma and Texas panhandle and the people that stuck it out during this epic disaster plus it was in the midst of the depression. Huge dust clouds that swept over and devastated people and animals and filled them with dust and dirt causing a disease called dust pneumonia that killed many elderly and infants and people who were caught out in storms sometimes suffocated. The book goes into the causes for this disaster and what was done to try and rectify things. It's chilling and fascinating and filled with memorable characters. It really makes you appreciate having enough water and not having to eat tumbleweeds!

 NYTimes Book review

NPR story on the book and interview

Timothy Egan reads a selection

The Plow That Broke the Plains movie

 And Woody Guthrie. I would have put "If You Ain't Got the Do Re Mi" here, but I wanted to end on a more upbeat note!

Post Valentine's Day Cartoon

For those of you who have had it with all the pressure of candy, hearts and flowers...or not getting any!