Oscar (Personal)

An attempt to watch all the Best Films I've missed and comment on them, where I was and where I am.

[yourchornstein]

1932 Grand Hotel

Matters of national security here have led me to betray a confidence, Marla Maples! I am sorry…

She was a small-town girl who was kind and thoughtful. He was a dashing young real estate developer.

Wait--whose story is this? Let me start again...

Rob and I had been together a short time when we met up at his apartment one day. His face was pale and he was sweating. What happened? I asked. He had been working on construction of one of the Trump Casinos down in AC. “I feel like I’ve seen Satan,” he said as he flopped down in a chair. I laughed. AC to me was a place I had visited as a child when it was truly in decline--a scary place with a few cheap amusements left for kids.

I had read, like many New Yorkers, the stories in Vanity Fair about The Donald, his marriage to Ivana, and her tyrannical reign over those who were working in “her” casino/hotel in AC. Rob was totally disheartened by the elderly people who he saw gambling there, and the way they were being exploited. To me, it was something taking place elsewhere. Donald Trump was a joke. Ivana was a joke. These celebrities come and go. What do they have to do with our lives?

The house doesn’t always win. In a couple of years, Trump’s real estate empire was crumbling, and Rob, newly installed in working with real estate debt at Citibank was there to comb through the pieces. Donald was in debt to Citi and it was Rob’s and his colleagues’ job to sell off what was left.

In the meantime, we enjoyed the scraps. When my father came to town, Rob made sure he got one of the nicest rooms at the Plaza. Rob and his friends spent one epic weekend with a three-day party at the Plaza. Spouses (yes, there was one guy) were invited on the last day to a palatial suite where we enjoyed whatever food and drink we wanted on the house and lazed away the afternoon. Rob attended Donald and Marla’s wedding at the Plaza. And the Donald was required to show up at his colleague’s events. In a weird twist of fate, Trump had to kiss up to the bankers.

When one of Rob’s colleagues got married, Donald and his former mistress, now wife, Marla were there. I motioned to Rob to take a photo of me chatting with Marla at the reception. It wasn’t the thrill of being with anyone rich, powerful, or talented that made me excited for a photo--that was something that is part and parcel of the New York experience.Instead, it was those headlines in the Post: “Best Sex I Ever Had!” “Whatta Rock!” and “Marla-vous!”  And the meetings at Marble Collegiate (church of Norman Vincent Peale, whose tomes I was reading after a a higher-up at one of my jobs, a devoted follower of Peale, told me she had won an award for cutting down on paper use after learning to “Think Positively”). Somehow this appealed to my innate cheapness..

“This was a nice wedding!” I chirped.

“Not like mine,” she said, looking down at her drink. “I didn’t know most of the people there.”

Because I am a kind person, I tried to reassure her, “It’s not so much what your wedding is; the relationship is what’s important. After a time, your wedding will seem less important than what you have with your husband.” I smiled at her. I thought of her and Donald meeting in a back pew at Marble Collegiate on their lunch hour. Maybe she was a better fit than the evil Ivana.

She said nothing.

Friends, I’ve very occasionally voted Republican. I hate paying taxes. I’m not a huge Hillary fan. I’m probably what you would call a moderate Democrat. Throughout this election series, I’ve refrained from lobbing hate towards the Republican Party. I grew up in Trump Country!

But let me tell you this: Donald Trump is going to be a bad hangover. He doesn’t care about you. Whatever you think you’re going to get out of this relationship: a giant ring, a fancy wedding, time spent in a gorgeous hotel, a feeling that you’ve finally arrived, the Power of Positive Thinking, here’s what you’ll really get: a group of bankers laughing at you while trying to figure out what to do with what’s left of your life and your possessions after our economy tanks again. And Donald will have long ago left the scene.

"Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens."

[yourchornstein]

1978 - “The Deer Hunter”

In John’s Gospel, the first gift of the risen Christ to his frightened disciples was God’s peace. Christ sends us out with the gift of peace, just as he sent out our ancestors in the faith.  Every one of us can be a bearer of peace in eastern Massachusetts and beyond. The violence which is everywhere in our country profoundly touches all of us. In September 2012, violence struck at the heart of our diocesan community when 19-year-old Jorge Fuentes was murdered while walking his dog outside his home in Dorchester.  He was an exuberant, remarkable young man and natural leader, adored by the children he mentored at St. Stephen’s Church and St. Mary’s Church in Boston and respected by his peers.  Many in our diocese knew him because he grew up and worked in the B-SAFE summer and B-READY afterschool programs and the Barbara C. Harris Camp of our diocese. Many of us will be on “Walk for Peace” this weekend, remembering Jorge, and the many other victims and families of victims affected by gun violence.

“The Deer Hunter” presents a whole culture in which guns are central…guns are for hunting, yes, but hunting is in many ways, a prelude to violence, war, and the horror of “Russian roulette.” It presents  a gun culture that runs so deep that it ruins lives, while initially presenting a front of “normalcy.” 

I grew up in gun country (upstate New York). It’s not Texas, or Nevada, or the deep South, but it was white, rural America.

Some of my childhood memories include being shot at by bb guns, hearing rifles go off in the woods by our house, and gun play by children (including me) of all ages and sexes (cap guns, play rifles, play machine guns, etc.) All of this took place in the shadow of the war in Vietnam, and in the glowing light of huge doses of violent television (from “Gunsmoke” to “Starsky and Hutch.”) Summer camps included courses in riflery. Both kids and adults hunted and one of my schoolmates got in a lot of trouble for bringing a couple of rifles to school and keeping them in his locker for some time. By trouble I don’t mean getting locked up, but maybe being suspended or arrested (I don’t recall).

My uncle had an extensive gun collection which he displayed with great pride in his “den.” I kind of thought it was some weird male thing but not particularly noteworthy.

When I was older and staying at a B&B in my home town, the host stepped in to warn me that he’d just bought a new automatic weapon (maybe an AK-47 or something like it) and was going to be doing some target practice in the back yard of where we were staying. Another time on vacation, someone in a car driving by shot me with an air gun. Meh.

Reality is a social construct. For me, the take-away of growing up in a culture like this was that guns were a “normal” part of life. So, despite being fairly liberal, and growing up in a bespectacled intellectual home as the daughter of an academic and a writer, for many years I scoffed at the notion that we should do away with/limit/stress out about guns. I mean should we do away with axes, in case there is a Lizzie Borden among us?

The relationship between guns and violent crime was one that I mostly saw played out in the movies. My love for gangster and spy movies was probably made possible by the fact that I never thought of myself as someone who might become a gun victim.

In my 20’s in a job in Brooklyn, we worked with a young man with intellectual disabilities from an impoverished neighborhood (more impoverished than the one I worked in, anyway.) He emptied the trash receptacles on our street as part of our “business improvement” and we’d often sit together in my office where he’d laugh at the fact that I didn’t eat the crusts on my sandwich. “You better eat that sandwich!” he’d say to me. One day, he didn’t come in. I found out he’d been a bystander in a shooting in his drug-plagued neighborhood and had been shot in the leg. He came back after a couple of weeks, but he was scared. He would sometimes talk about the shooting and a look of agony (recalling more the pain than terror) would come over his face. He was now walking with a limp.

Did that turn my point of view around? I’m sorry to say it didn’t! I still felt that violent gun play was something that was “out there.” And that guns were not the root of the problem.

The shooting at Newtown changed me. The horror of a mass shooting in which the shooter didn’t know any of his victims (unlike Columbine which to me seemed a clumsy crime which at least was predicated on relationships) was so disturbing because it made the murderer’s gun the actual murderer: basically a machine without a conscience. Seeing that crime take place in a setting so familiar to me…an elementary school, the classroom with small children, a quiet suburb, and seeing people trying to dissect the personality of the shooter while not focusing on the danger of automatic weapons, made me turn around. Since then, the Bible study group, the Christmas party for social workers, public schools, walking a dog--these have all been scenes of shootings where I can see my “self” as a possible victim.

This weekend I will “Walk for Peace.” I am walking against gun violence, and for those who have lost loved ones to violent crime. Personally, I am not necessarily walking because I see the neighborhoods most affected by gun violence to be the ones who need peace (although that is partially true). I am mostly walking against guns. I get a daily feed of gun accidents and killings that take place in white rural and suburban America. Yes, all you hunters, home protectors, first responders, I hear you. I don’t believe in taking away all our citizen’s guns. But I would like to encourage gun manufacturers to insist on responsible sales practices and to invest in potentially safer "smart gun" technology. And I would like to see some kind of ban on automatic weapons--why would you hand over your thinking to a gun when a gun essentially pulls its own trigger?

Yes, people kill people. But if guns can be characters in movies, they can be killers too. They are not just a part of the culture of the “other,” they are a part of the culture of me, and the culture of us.

����1��xS

[yourchornstein]

The Godfather, Part 2

I went last week to see the trees I planted in Brooklyn. As a 25-year-old, I had one of the strangest jobs of my life: organizing a group of Brooklyn merchants to improve their shopping district.

The shopping district, “Kensington,” was and still is a rather dirty, crowded and jumbled collection of variety stores (now phone stores), crumbling supermarkets, Russian clothing stores, Halal butchers, and Vietnamese restaurants. Merchants hung paper banners in their windows advertising sales, blocking views into the store, while rotten fruits and vegetables sat baking in the sun.

My job, much like a turn-of-the-20th-century settlement worker, was to walk around and convince this international crowd, that American things like clear windows with attractive displays, trees planted outside the stores offering shade, themed trash receptacles, and improved signage would be a way to improve the neighborhood and their sales. We had a beautifully illustrated booklet from the City of New York with twee pen-and-ink drawings of how the street should look (think: West Village, or Park Slope).

It is the blessing of being 25 that I just set out down the street to chat with everyone, with a “I can’t believe I’m getting paid $12 an hour to do this!” I soon made many a friend and enemy, from the guy from Trinidad who made me mix tapes of his favorite Trinidadian songs, to Mimi the Puerto Rican baker who gruffly pushed a bag of “bachelorette cookies” towards me (is that shape what I think it is?). People were mostly happy as I made up advertising flyers for them and offered them microloans. The grudging acceptance and eventual friendship towards my Clueless self was pretty amazing to me.

There were plenty of complaints though--from the Italian guy who complained that residents would come and dump their garbage in the beautiful new trash receptacles I’d ordered (what?) to the Russian merchant who explained that no one would even enter his store if he didn’t have a huge banner announcing a sale in the window. What killed me were the complaints about trees--apparently they have leaves on them that would fall to the ground, and then the City would come by and ticket you for having trash on the ground. Who knew?

One of my assignments was to collect a small amount of dues from each merchant, maybe $25. In one of the strangest encounters I had, a Vietnamese man, who had one of the nicer restaurants on the street, was at first terrified of me. I couldn’t understand why every time I went into his restaurant he insisted I sit down, have whatever I wanted to eat, and then would start handing me cash. I would go back to the office mystified. A co-worker explained, “He thinks you’re part of the mob! He thinks you’re one of the people who control the street. Other people come by and ask the merchants to pay up in order to do business--he thinks you’re just another one of them.”

It was the closest I ever came to being a mob guy.

In another weird twist of fate, a young Anthony Weiner would often drop by the office to talk about the merchants’ concerns. Whenever he left, I am sorry to say, we would have a big gigglefest over how dorky he was.

My trees are still there. And I am amused and humbled that the neighborhood remains much the same.

[yourchornstein]

Daylight Saving - Movie Trailer

This November, they call it Daylight Saving but the thing that needs saving...is us! WHAT TIME IS IT?! #DaylightSavingMovie Check out the Sequel! ► https://w...

hahaha...hilarious!

[yourchornstein]

2006 - The Departed

2006 The Departed

I am anxiously awaiting the opening of “Black Mass” tomorrow! I never thought I would have any interest in the Boston mob.

It’s not like I “missed” the Five Families in New York when I moved here, but I thought when hearing about the mob here…these guys are small potatoes. Where is the Gambino family? Where is John Gotti? You mean I have to learn about the mafia all over again in a new location?? You gotta be kidding me!

Little by little though I’ve been caught up in the story of Whitey Bulger, and intrigued by the idea that the mob basically ran Southie throughout the whole 1970’s Boston school desegregation, an event which most of America watched from afar, and which is brilliantly described in Michael McDonald’s memoir, “All Souls.”

“The Departed” was the film that brought me up to speed in learning about the Irish mob in Boston. The thing I love about “The Departed” is that it portrays another breed of mobster. You know how in “Goodfellas”, or “The Godfather,” it actually looks like there might be some perks to being a gangster--i.e. hanging out in tiki bars, or on the beach in Miami, or in a swanky nightclub, or having a great house in Brooklyn? As far as I can tell, if you are a mobster in Boston, there’s nothing like that--at most you get to hang out in a seedy non-decorated dark bar with frequent fights, or you’re driving around in foul weather trying to shoot someone, or trying to bury someone by the certainly frigid waters of Boston Harbor. You are never well dressed. Your diner has terrible food. You don’t really have a pack of fun friends. If you have to infiltrate the police, your office will be in one of the ugliest buildings you’ve ever seen.

And even Whitey Bulger, after basically running multiple neighborhoods in Boston, not to mention Somerville, had to live out his life on the lam in a tiny apartment in Santa Monica, where he basically never went out.  

Crime doesn’t pay. But unfortunately, in Boston, it doesn’t even have style.

�h�.�

[yourchornstein]

1974 - The Sting

I was just speaking to someone today about having grown up in a small town/rural environment, and how it has given me a perspective that I might not have had if I had always lived in cities.

For instance, one time I was recalling camping out in my backyard, something that often took place in the summers of my tweens, despite ants, dew, and loud giggling in the night. My husband-to-be and roommate stared at me, a look of incredulity on their faces. They recounted growing up in Brooklyn and Queens in the 70’s, a time of black-outs and Son of Sam. No one “camped out” in the backyard (if indeed they had a backyard.)

So oddly my memory of seeing “The Sting,” is one in which I have recently had two moles removed from my feet, one on the ball of one foot, one on the heel of the other. My doctor saw them, and insisted that they must be removed, immediately, and at the same time, the result of which was that I had to walk around for one week, on the ball of the opposite foot and the heel of the other.

“Let’s go see The Sting!” I announced to my best friend. “You know, it has Robert Redford in it…” I trailed off. I was 10, not sure if it was weird to like a man who was clearly in his late 30’s. Somehow, I had seen him in “The Way we Were,” the year before and following some strong identification with Barbra Streisand, the Jewish misfit paired with the gorgeous WASP writer, had decided that he was a romantic figure.

My friend, who had a much more luxurious set-up involving a tent on a platform in her backyard, begrudgingly agreed to stay over in my backyard, which didn’t have a tent, but a hard brick patio/ant farm on which to place our sleeping bags.

We must have had a ride to the theater. Throughout it, the complicated plot lost on me, my feet, newly stitched were stinging so that whenever I hear, “The Sting,” I think of my feet. What we took away from the film, was not any undying devotion to Robert Redford, but the thrill of going to a PG movie alone, walking home (for me on heel and toe) and then throwing our sleeping bags down in the backyard, giggling into the night about Robert Redford, the ragtime soundtrack playing on in my head.

  �

[yourchornstein]

1972 - The Godfather

In 1972, I was eight, much too young to see “The Godfather.” But the cultural references were everywhere--people talked for years about the horse head in the bed, long before I even saw the movie. And I have this vague recollection that I won a poster at the local carnival around 1972, that was day-glo and had a loosely rendered Marlon Brando depicted along with a line about “making him an offer he can’t refuse.” In orange and purple, that poster was at the bottom of our basement steps, so that I saw it every time I went down to play in my cardboard box clubhouse.

There was something vaguely threatening about that poster and as much as can be said for childhood being a time of innocence, I was always vaguely aware that there were more sinister forces at work: the mob that supposedly ran Utica, the carnival workers who I knew were manipulating their games, people who could hurt animals with little compunction, the fact that the poster seemed a rip-off of a legitimate movie poster.  It made me cautious, if not anxious.

The Godfather is resonant with many people I think because it suggests a duality that exists in all of us and indeed in the world: Michael can be a good son, a good husband at times, but he is also a killer. Kay is a kind schoolteacher but she is also later aware of what goes on in Family life--even if much of it takes place behind a closed door and when she asks for reassurances that it won’t continue. As much as there is talk about loyalty and honor among the men, the same individuals often betray each other in the most brutal ways.

It seems that nowadays, parents are always on the lookout for danger that might befall their child, danger that came from “out there.” But as a child, perhaps with more freedom and free range in the 1970’s, I was well aware that evil could be pretty much anywhere and in anyone and that I needed to negotiate it.  I needed to make sure the carnival didn’t take too much of my money, that I kept my pets inside on Halloween, that I avoided people who promised me things that I knew were not true. I developed a second sense, an antenna for bullshit and danger that I sincerely hope my kids have, or will acquire.

I think that is why I’ve always liked mob movies--somehow they depict something that is evil and real, but that I can handle. I can observe it, but not be a part of it. I don’t need to be hardened by it, but to negotiate it with caution, by stepping back and being an observer. I can always, always, run if necessary--or fast forward...

[yourchornstein]

1958 - "Gigi"

I looked up “Gigi” online and found that it’s listed on several blogs as a guilty pleasure. I wondered why--I hadn't seen it for 40 years or so, but I had loved it as a kid.

This movie could never be made today, though I think it's about to be revived on Broadway so maybe I'm wrong. Gigi is a young girl, described as a “tomboy” but played by the very beautiful and femme-looking Leslie Caron. Her aunt is raising her to be a courtesan--that’s right--she is training her niece to be a high-class hooker! Say what you will--it’s Europe, it’s France, it’s over 100 years ago, she’s more like a mistress--forget it--Gigi is being trained to seduce men in the hopes of becoming a kept woman with beautiful clothes, jewels and a chauffeur-driven limo!

I must have stumbled upon this film on cable TV as a child and I still remember my parents’ slight disapproval. As a child, I totally missed the courtesan thing--this was a movie about makeovers! Men appreciating women! Fancy clothes and beautiful parks in Paris!

Today, watching the film I find Maurice Chevalier somewhat creepy and I am grossed out that Gigi has to eat birds that have crunchy bones in them on her way to becoming a lady--I can’t even explain this; you’ll just have to watch. In fact, despite loving this film as a girl, I struggled to get through it this time--it felt really uncomfortable to watch. Not to mention the fact that I had paid $14.95 to “buy” it from Comcast as my library dvd’s didn’t arrive in time for me to watch them this weekend.

Uncomfortable. Until the end. Which I won’t reveal to you. You’ll just have to look it up online or watch it yourself. Love you, Gigi!

[yourchornstein]

1984 "Amadeus"

My one and perhaps only chance to become part of the film industry was blown (by me) in 1984.

I graduated from college in 1984, two years earlier than most of my peers (I was 20), and with an intense desire to live in New York City. I saved my money all summer, working at a local ad agency, and headed down to NYC on the train with my little suitcase. I had actually bought a book called, “How to Move to New York City”--I kid you not. I also had a little fold-out map.

The book was filled with all kinds of advice from where to live (there might be hidden bargains in Chinatown), and how to hail a cab (if you want to go to the airport, flap your arms like a bird.) It also recommended cheap places to stay while you looked for a job and a place to live. I chose the Hotel Martha Washington for Women.

There were still a couple of these old residences for women around, and though they had a smattering of newcomers to town, the Hotel Martha Washington was filled with sad-looking near elderly women who looked like they had signed up for an extended stay (and indeed I think they were the recipients of low-cost housing vouchers).

In any case, a friend of my parents, who was a movie producer, and who had met me earlier in the summer, called to check up on me and asked where I was staying. When I told her about my humble digs, there was a brief silence on the phone. “Why don’t you come up here?” she said. “Here” was the Beresford.

If you don’t know, the Beresford is one of the most elegant apartment buildings in Manhattan. Tatum O’Neal, John McEnroe and Beverly Sills shared the same apartment tower with my parents’ friend. I tried to gauge whether the offer was genuine and I think it was that New York Jewish “welcoming the stranger” thing--she really insisted on it--so I packed up and left!

The producer sought to become my Professor Henry Higgins--she offered me advice on dressing--“California funky is in right now;” perfume--I still have a bottle of Alliage that I kept from that time. And housing--“I saw a cute little place on west 78th on my way home!” (I think she was unaware of my $400 a month maximum housing budget) and most of all, my career. “Don’t develop a checkered job history.” “Do whatever you can to be seen.” “Work harder and later than anyone else.” Most of these speeches were peppered with fun name drops--“Oh gawd Tatum’s cat is on our balcony again!” and “Darling, remember when Ed Koch was here for dinner this summer?” “Shared a cab with Beverly today...”

She took me over to her office and thrust a script in my hand. “Here you go--read this and tell me what you think.” Reader, it was a script for “Cocoon” and unfortunately, I thought it was the dullest thing I had ever read. I am not sure if it was because it was a screenplay and not a novel or a play and I wasn’t familiar with the format. Or the fact that it was about elderly people that in my youth I in no way could relate to. Or that it was science fiction. In any case, I did not love it. “Well??” she asked a day or two later. “Interesting!” I said. “It was okay.” I smiled weakly. Her face fell.

I honestly was feeling as though I was not cut out to work in her office with my California funky clothes, working until midnight at what was then a job as an assistant in, I think, handling licensing for videotapes, which was a relatively new thing.

In retrospect, I wonder what the chances were of my becoming a hard-charging producer myself. Probably given my somewhat introverted personality, not much! I don’t think I could have sold “Cocoon” to anyone.

Shortly, thereafter, I found an apartment share in a 5th floor walk-up for $375 a month. I packed my suitcase and moved crosstown.

The producer went on to produce, “Dirty Dancing” about the same time that her studio came out with “Cocoon.” Both went on to become big hits.

About “Amadeus,” which I’m supposed to be writing about: my parents so detested this film and the fact that it won an Oscar that I had never watched it up until a month or so ago. Guess what? It’s pretty funny! And although the characters do seem too modern, and annoying, there is something really interesting about this film. Interestingly, I read that Mozart's character in the film is partially based on John McEnroe's mood swings.  I guess the lesson here is that others’ reviews are not always accurate…

Also, I just looked up Hotel Martha Washington online to find it has been reincarnated as a swank boutique hotel.

[yourchornstein]

1997 "Titanic"

“Once Mooooah you open da doooah an you heaah in mah haht an my haht will go onnnn and onnnn…” she sang. She was probably 4 or 5. My two-year-old daughter looked at her with shock and wonder.

“Oh yeah, she just loves that movie and that song,” said Amelia. We are standing in Little Angels Hair Salon on Court Street in Brooklyn. The old Court Street about to be shocked by the very new. At the moment there are only rumblings--fancier pastries and a couple of restaurants on Smith Street.

This is the same neighborhood where years before I used to jog down Smith Street--totally deserted at night--after tutoring because I wanted to look busy and not invite trouble.

Amelia chatted with her mother in Italian as she cut my daughter’s hair. My daughter needed frequent haircuts. She was born with so much hair it looked at times like a wig. She needed a haircut by 6 weeks. “Il volto di suo padre,” Amelia’s mama would say, looking knowingly at my husband's face and hair.

Little Angels was a remnant of Olde Breuklelen: where my husband was from, a Jewish guy growing up in an Italian neighborhood--a neighborhood which would eventually become Russian and Latin American.

There are some things in life that others consider to be “tacky,” while I find myself, well--just loving them. “Titanic” is dripping with melodrama, costumes, unrealistic accents, Celine Dion, and a fake ship. Little Angels was the type of place where you could have your two-year-old’s hair styled in a Jennifer Aniston. Another shop out by Coney Island sold mostly girls' dresses covered with fur and sequins to an Italian and Irish clientele.

I did it--I dressed my daughter in red velvet trimmed with fake fur and rhinestones for Christmas. Dyker Heights and its Christmas Splendor. Kate Winslet in sequins. The Gingerbread House in Bay Ridge.

I was often pointed out as an imposter. “She looks like a Gap baby,” one saleswoman said, appraising my daughter’s style in the Coney Island shop. And indeed she was often sporting overalls amongst the Petit Bateau crowd in the playground.

Kate Winslet is a Gap Baby dressed as a Bradley doll. Celine Dion is a hick from Canada dressed up as a Vegas Showgirl. Brooklyn is a wrinkled old man in a hipster cape.

I went to see Titanic alone in the theater when it came out. I later rented it on video and didn’t return it for about 3 months. When I sheepishly took it back to the store, the owner let me buy it. My heart will go on.

Amelia’s has now become “Emilia’s Place Salon,” btw.

[yourchornstein]

1970

Patton

In 1970, I was six. My grandmother didn’t like “Patton, “ and she certainly didn’t like that it won an Oscar. I remember her voicing her strong opinion about this as strong opinions about movies, books and various other things were often offered up in my family. Because I was often too young to join the debate, I became an observer and more than that, I sort of developed this voice in my head that would say, “Why? Is that really true? And “What about…?”

Did she not like the fact that the movie was about war? Did she find it had some perceived connection to the bombing of Cambodia? Was it boring because it was about war? Did she not like Patton’s character as portrayed in the movie? Or did she have real-life WWII era knowledge of Patton that caused her to dislike him? Did she find the movie too long? Did she feel terrible in the moment that Patton slaps a young soldier who is refusing to return to battle? Did she find that George C. Scott’s makeup was not well done? Did she not like the fact that there were no women in it? I’ll never know.

Often I found grown-ups would make announcements such as this, but there would be no rational discussion of why and how they had formed their opinions. It was more like a contest. And I began to see the hole in an argument a million miles away.

Today, this is the voice that still drives me nuts. I see everyone’s postings go by on Facebook and Twitter and I think, “Well she’s got a point there, but what about??” Doesn’t matter if you’re liberal or conservative, my mind is often wracked by “If we raise the minimum wage, don’t people pay more in taxes? Why don’t people just get more tax breaks and we can cut the military budget?” And “isn’t kind of hypocritical to demand an end to the use of fossil fuel when you use it to heat your own home? Lest you think I have become an arch conservative, I also think, “Isn’t it ridiculous to talk about people being too lazy to work when the very structure of our economy since WWII had in the past been based on manufacturing, and indeed being a leading manufacturer, a structure that now is almost nonexistent?" And then I'm back to, "can we really think the service economy will replace that?" 

I miss discourse. I find it sorely lacking in modern life. I miss being in American Politics and Middle-Eastern Politics classes with my little contention cards, arguing with people, reasoning with people, but not out-shouting or shaming them.

Recently, I became aware of Alison Bechdel’s rules for movie-going. Bechdel, a critic and Oberlin grad has developed The Bechdel test which asks whether a work of fiction or movie features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. If it doesn’t, she refuses to see the movie, or read the book. 

I consider myself a feminist and I do indeed find that the lack of women in movies continues to be a real problem. But the other side of it is…what about movies that feature settings in which women, if at all present, played a very minor role…i.e. most war up until recently? Should we stop watching “The Deer Hunter,” “The Hurt Locker,” or “Patton?”  Or should we stoically ditch the Bechdel test and man up to the films much as a man would do? (I have to confess I was recently cowering under my blanket during “The Deer Hunter,” while at the same time asking, “did people really play Russian roulette in gambling dens during the Vietnam war?”

Why didn’t you like Patton?

[yourchornstein]

2013 - Argo

As a child, the landscape of Hollywood and southern California in general was almost fully formed in my mind. When so many of the movies and TV shows I saw referred to “Beverly Hills,” or “Burbank” or “Pasadena,” I formed a sense of what they were, what they looked like, and where they were in relation to each other--a kind of 1970’s Middle Earth.

On a brief trip to San Diego and Disneyland many years ago, I realized that things were spread so very far apart. California is huge.

I had also pictured southern California as another version of New York--i.e. urban, but with nicer weather.

Now that my daughter is going to school in L.A., I’ve had three trips out there--and now I realize: L.A. is a stage set. It’s a city plunked down in what used to be a wilderness. It’s both super-populated and barren. It’s not a city where you can walk from West Hollywood to Burbank; almost everywhere you go is by car.

It’s Tinseltown--and it’s real at the same time. It’s a restaurant that looks like a set. It’s a set that looks like a restaurant.

This juxtaposition of real and make-believe is so wonderfully conceived and played upon in Argo. Iran is a stage set for its revolutionaries whose actions are filmed for worldwide TV distribution. A  middle eastern marketplace is a place in which fake producers pretend it’s a set. A hotel is a setting for a fake reading of a movie that will never be made. An embassy pretends to be one thing when it’s another.

Now that I’m older the world seems smaller. I’ve just recently read about the young British man who’s visited every country in the world. It makes the world seem not like the unknown planet of the 1400’s but a rinky-dink amusement park divided up into zones where in a Hunger Games scenario we can zoom in on a tiny bit of forest and orchestrate the actors there.

[yourchornstein]

1953 and 1955

"From Here to Eternity" and "Marty"

“Oh, look at him,” the librarian said regarding Ernest Borgnine with love and longing. 

“Really?” I wanted to say.

“You know he was in ‘McHale’s Navy.’ I used to love that show. “ Was she recalling his death? She looked so sad.

I sized her up. She may be ten years older than I. I think I may have watched “McHale’s Navy” twice as a child. It seemed really boring and slapstick at the same time. It was in black and white and had to do with WWII.

By the time I was born, in 1964, WWII seemed light years away. But of course it was only 20 years earlier. Now twenty years ago is 1994—a time that for me seems like not so long ago in my adult life with a world that seems that it would still be identifiable should I travel back for a day (okay maybe it was pre 9/11 and there wasn’t much of an internet.)

I’ve started renting movies at the library per my sister’s suggestion. Netflix DVD’s are often broken. I think there is some elderly person ordering all these movies for the library and then no one ever watches them so they’re in good shape. Except for “Here to Eternity.”

I recall my mother babysitting a girl in high school (it is so long ago that she told me that I can’t quite remember) who was desperate to see this movie. But she was Catholic, my mother explained and since the movie has a very sexy make-out scene with Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster having an affair, her parents had not allowed  her to see it. So she must have complained bitterly to my mother about not being able to see it—or maybe begged her to take her to it.

I actually googled, “Did people really have sex in the 1950’s?” after watching “Marty.” The combination of the fact that several of the characters were devoutly Catholic, that Marty and his date don’t even kiss and that his friends allude to making out with women (maybe?) but we don’t see any of it just seems so odd.

“Marty “is a sweet film—two very shy people find love after confiding their deepest fears and dreams to each other—two not very attractive people who don’t even kiss.

From Here to Eternity broke down and skipped/got digitally messed up during the make-out scene. Maybe someone watched it too many times. The rest of the film seemed so dated to me, while at the same time not being very historically interesting. I could barely watch it. My husband was riveted—I guess because it involves guys sizing each other up and fighting. Or maybe it’s Ernest.

[yourchornstein]

1960

"The Apartment"

In 1960, I haven’t been born yet. The Apartment, for many years, was a movie I hadn’t seen but felt I knew. A couple of years ago when I got hooked on Mad Men, and the season was over, I read an article about movies to watch when you didn’t have any more episodes of Mad Men to watch.

1960’s New York, and especially the 60’s before the late 60’s was my vision of my future as a child. I am not sure what I was responding to--maybe re-runs of Family Affair, That Girl and My Three Sons (though I know that takes place in the suburbs, but it does have Fred MacMurray.) Anyway, even as a child, I imagined myself a carefree Holly Golightly living in a walkup apartment or elevator building, going off to an office job (if I were not already employed as a stewardess--my dream job as a girl) and spending my days as my parents and grandparents did, listening to jazz and throwing back cocktails.

The Apartment is set in this very time and place--office workers go out for drinks, to the theater, to crazy Christmas parties. But the underlying conceit of the movie has to do with the hi-jinx of extramarital affairs taking place in Jack Lemmon’s rather seedy walk-up apartment.

Of course in my childlike projection of the future, I am engaged in none of the kind of what I saw as embarrassing grown-up behavior; just living a Marlo Thomas life. I was going to have the lighting from Lum’s, a player piano from Shakey’s pizza, and bead curtains from the Boston Store, installed in my apartment. And shag carpeting.

Where did it all go? In a matter of a few years, that New York life was gone. The late 60’s came with sweeping changes--feminism, the Vietnam war, and anti-establishment views that made a dream of being a stewardess in a clutter-free mid-century modern apartment about as far away as anything a girl like me would or should want. Or at least until now, when we can view it through a historical lens. And I can say,  “Don Draper, I want your apartment.”

  P.S. Shout-out to Andi, our new Bachelorette for wearing that dress last night that practically screamed, "Opening credits of Family Affair!"

[yourchornstein]

1996

The English Patient

Three hours is a long time…it is so long that I started watching this movie this past August, when my older daughter was still at home, and I convinced her to watch some of it with me. It is now six months later and I’ve finally finished watching it…two On Demands, and one Netflix later. 

I would fall asleep. I would need to go to bed. There’s only so much laundry you can fold.

And now my daughter's already finished her first few months at college.

Time is strange.

When this movie came out in 1996, she was a baby and occasionally I went out with my husband in Manhattan on the weekends. My friends referred to this as “the $300 date.”

Theater tickets at least $100, sitter @$10 an hour for 6 hours--$60; dinner and carfare for sitter $30, cabfare $20, dinner at a nice restaurant with drinks $100. 

OK, if you just went to the movies it was $200. I had to really, really want to see the movie. And it had to be something my husband would like too.

When my daughter was very young, and I went out, I spent most of the evening worrying about whether she was okay. I remember watching “Cabaret,” thinking, “wow, what if something happens to her and no one can contact me?”

And one night coming back from the movies to see an ambulance on my street and thinking, “Oh my G*d—this is it! She’s fallen into the tub…” 

By the time I got a chance to watch this movie, she was the one going out. And she was the one who had to explain the movie to me. “He’s having flashbacks, Mom.”

What—you mean that's Ralph Fiennes? No way!

Ralph and Juliette have a young love. This is it; the one where you hide your lover in a closet. And walk three days through the burning desert, sell your maps to the Nazis and then go back to claim your lover’s body. Carrying her body through the desert with scarves flowing.

When I had my second daughter, I couldn’t wait to get out of the house. I once left her with my housecleaner and her boyfriend while I ran out to Banana Republic. “Yeah, he’s out of Rikers; that’s why he’s here,” she explained when I came back--while he sat in my kitchen, making cute faces at my daughter.

  I even got the call once that my daughter was actually too sick and my babysitter thought we should come back. I was shocked. I had been looking through books at Barnes and Noble and waiting to see a movie when she called.

Now I can go out to Banana Republic whenever I want.  It’s not the same. Time is strange.

[yourchornstein]

1952

The Greatest Show on Earth

"We bring you the circus — that Pied Piper whose magic tunes lead children of all ages into a tinseled and spun-candied world of reckless beauty and mounting laughter; whirling thrills; of rhythm, excitement and grace; of daring, enflaring and dance; of high-stepping horses and high-flying stars.

"But behind all this, the circus is a massive machine whose very life depends on discipline, motion and speed — a mechanized army on wheels that rolls over any obstacle in its path — that meets calamity again and again, but always comes up smiling — a place where disaster and tragedy stalk the Big Top, haunts the back yard, and rides the circus train — where Death is constantly watching for one frayed rope, one weak link, or one trace of fear.

"A fierce, primitive fighting force that smashes relentlessly forward against impossible odds: That is the circus — and this is the story of the biggest of the Big Tops — and of the men and women who fight to make it — The Greatest Show On Earth!"

“The Bachelor will probably pick someone heteronormative and of ‘ideal’ body image," says my 14-year-old feminist daughter.

"Huh?" My husband and I say. But I get it--whatever the terminology--you can see what’s coming a million miles away: he’ll pick a pretty, thin girl who is probably also a bit of a trickster. And everyone will gossip about them.

I had never seen this film before a week ago; it seems so dated to me, and yet it offers up a rather cynical and timeless point of view: that the circus is all about illusion, tricks and business--there is very little art in it.

In 1952, a woman looks like a woman--she is allowed to be a bit curvy. Betty Hutton takes it one step further, though. In her performance as a high wire/trapeze artist, her body often looks as muscular as a man’s.

In addition to her physical strength, she is a formidable female presence: she is furious when she learns that she has been booted out of the center ring by The Great Sebastian, a male trapeze artist.

Not only aggressive in the circus ring, the women in this film all share a goal of “snagging” a husband, and they go about it with as much aggression as men in a high-stakes corporate boardroom: planning, knocking others out of the way, tricking and aggressively pursuing both Sebastian, the male trapeze artist, and Brad, the circus manager.

The “ballet women” of this circus aren’t looking for romantic partners, interesting conversation, or male “best friends,” like the girls on “Girls,” they’re looking for marriage and meal tickets. And maybe just a bit of Juan Pablo…

Dated and yet not so--I learn that the circus is a business. When I hear Charlton Heston talking about profits and losses and which towns to skip travelling to, I realize that the circus isn’t a nonprofit mission, an art which offers a magical transformative experience to its audience--it’s about selling tickets and getting paid. I had never thought of it like that--that the experience of the circus is not far removed from the midway--games which cheat you and barkers who beckon you to part with more of your money.

Just as the Bachelor isn’t about finding true love, best friends, or shared interests. It’s a colorful and massive money machine--but I can’t look away!

[yourchornstein]

Oscar State of Mind (2014 Oscar Predix)

2014 OSCAR NOMINATION PREDICTIONS written by Samantha Massell and Ted Stevenson produced by Ted Stevenson makeup/hair by Rachel Estabrook filmed by RJ Brown ...

Bill's nephew...