February 2010 Media Consumption - Champion Edition

Bridget has decided to be a figure skater.  (By the way, she just told me that her phone reminded her that it's time to eat ice cream.  It's a Barbie cell phone.  I'm not a bit surprised.  Barbie would be all about her friends eating ice cream and getting fatter than her.)  After watching the Olympics on TV for a few nights in a row, Bridget began asking if we could watch the ice skaters randomly during the day.  Since everything Bridget sees (mostly just her movies) on TV is an interactive experience, she would "skate" right along with the Olympians.  I asked if we should take pictures of her skating and she was more than happy to oblige:

 

She's good, right?  I know.  I actually labeled all those moves painstakingly and when I made the collage all the labels disappeared.  You win again, computer.

I've also been watching Oscar winning movies on TCM.  No commercials and a bunch of movies made before 1990?  Count me in.

My first film (I call them films now) was Kramer V. Kramer (1979) with Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.  It's about a mother who decides that the best way out of her hum drum life is to take off (eh) one day and leave her six year-old boy to fend for himself with his self-involved dad.  WHAT?  I was determined to hate Meryl Streep's guts during this movie because I don't care how unfulfilled you are, you don't leave your six year-old kid. Most of the movie is spent on Hoffman's character (the dad) having experiences that help him discover that he was a huge bonehead.  He and his son, Billy, (kids in movies and TV are always Billy or Bobby) become a team.  After a year and a half without mom, they've got life down pretty well.  Then she shows up and wants him back.  Again... WHAT?  And guess what?  That pesky Meryl Streep made me cry again!  I may not have agreed with her character but I felt for her.  Well done, all.

Next was Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), a Woody Allen film.  We follow Hannah... and her sisters in New York City (shocking) struggling in their self-indulgent existences.  Mia Farrow is Hannah and she's married to Michael Caine currently and Woody Allen formerly (their characters - I don't think Mia Farrow was ever married to Michael Caine in real life).  Barbara Hershey (don't get her at all - she talks like she's got a ventriloquist's dummy sitting on her knee all the time) is one of Hannah's sisters and Michael Caine wishes he was with Barbara instead of Mia.  Never.  Dianne Weist plays Hannah's other sister.  Before we started following them around, Dianne's character was a coke addict.  The funniest scenes in the movie are the ones with Weist and Woody Allen on the Worst Date of All Time.  Anyway, stuff happens and I laughed a few times, but I can't endure much of the talk about being in "analysis."  Fun fact, Dianne Weist and Sam Waterson went on a date during this movie.  Gag and shiver, right?!  (That was only fun for Law & Order fans.)

Then I watched Splendor in the Grass (1961) with Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty.  It was the age old story of girl loves boy, boy's dad wants him to go to Yale instead of getting married to girl, boy hooks up with the Town Slut, girl is humiliated and cuts her hair, boy goes to Yale, girl goes to mental institution, blah blah blah.  You know the rest.  It was very melodramatic.  The movie was set in 1928, back when people were melodramatic in real life.  I did enjoy watching Wood and Beatty together, though.  I wish things had turned out differently in the movie so that they ended up together.  (Belated spoiler alert.  Whatever - this movie has been around for almost 50 years.  I can't be the first one to spill the beans.)  I also understand now all the hubbub about Warren Beatty.  I've only known him as the wrinkly old guy with the giant face.  Turns out he was very handsome, had a great voice and a "way" about him.  He reminds me of Brian.  And I could pass for Natalie Wood.  What?  Is it not okay to think you look like a famous person?

Last, but not least, Citizen Kane (1941).  I've heard many times that it is the greatest movie ever made.  I think it might be.  I was blown away.  The style was so different and ahead of it's time.  Everything I've heard about it is right.  Go to a place where videos are rented or sold and buy it or rent it and WATCH IT.

In other media consumption news, Oprah is out.  I finally figured out how to cancel my subscription to O Magazine, the magazine dedicated to solving all the problems that Oprah herself is experiencing.  In other words, it's full of gentle therapy and "medical" opinuendo.  A year ago I found myself reading exactly two of the pages (Suze Orman's column and the celebrity favorite books page - how pretentious is Jennifer Connolly picking Ulysses by James Joyce as one of her Top Five Favorite Books of All Time.  YEAH, RIGHT.) and wanting out.  O-U-T.  I thought, "A-ha!  I just won't renew my subscription and all will be well."  Next thing I knew, I got a note in the mail assuring me that there would be no interruption in my service since they went ahead and took payment for another year out of my credit card.  I was ready for her this time, I went online and read all the tiny tiny words that led me to the magical page where I could cancel my subscription.  We're done here, Oprah. Clean out your closet without me.  You're crazy.