respublica

Famous Actresses?

I came across a story with a headline which made me read through it. The headline was: "Here Are 10 of the Most Famous Actresses from Illinois". Tell me if you are from Illinois you wouldn't read this.

In any event except for Betty White, born in Oak Park, I did not recognize the names or faces of any of the other 9. To be honest, I pay almost no attention to Hollywood, movies or even many TV shows these days. Even so, I'd have thought I'd know more than one. We recently watched the movie, Field of Dreams, with one of the Illinois actresses (Amy Madigan) playing the role of the wife of the field builder. She didn't leave much of a mark on my memory I'm sorry to say.

Here is the list if you want to see how many you know.

Being entertained during the virus shutdown

Sports directors for radio and often TV have used St. Louisans love for baseball in general and Cardinal baseball specifically, to replay games from the past. Mostly these were games of some significance, winning games, that we remember. But, really, this has become a constant thing and I wonder who really enjoys listening to all these past games. It makes me miss real time games that much more. I've come across Dale watching old games but even he, a real baseball fan, isn't all that excited by them.

What Dale does love is watching old movies which pop up on obscure stations. This was Man Week on some channel which featured all manner of war movies, one even based on the Revolutionary War. Others were men at war with the world. Lots of shooting, bombing, screaming, etc. And these movies are all long. I mean long. One lasted almost 4 hours.

What's old is new again these days.

Oh, and, one more new entertainment thing is rating the home basement or office rooms from which TV news anchors have been broadcasting their portion of the news. We've seen a lot of basements and offices recently and I confess we've studied them with a critical eye as well.

Eat eat or not to eat

On the campus we have many places in which edible things are growing and which are available to anyone on campus or anyone who takes a walk through the campus. We have lettuces, kale, spinach, collards, radishes, all manner of herbs, just about anything you can think of.

But people get so used to picking that sometimes a planting bed that looks like vegetable greens is really flowers, gets picked. So a sign is necessary.

One of our edible beds, actually 5 beds from front to back here.

And a not edible bed which needed a sign because the green looks lettuce-y

The Intern

Dale and I went to the movies yesterday1 A new record, this is the second movie we've see this year doubling our movie output since we saw Sea Biscuit who knows how many years ago. This time we saw The Intern with Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway.

This was a really good movie, funny, sweet and thoughtful. Far better a film than any of the many coming attractions we sat through appear to be. They will be filled with explosions and gun fire, boob jokes and pratfalls.

The Intern sees us through a 70 year old working with 20 somethings in a tech start up company. At first it was like they all spoke different languages, but by the end they'd come to work through the generational gaps and come to respect and like each other. Worth seeing.

And. We still cannot get over how plush the seating is in the nearby AMC theater. Whoa. And we had a beer with our popcorn. How cool is that?

Ever watch the Food Network?

One of the stars on this network is Giada De Laurentiis, a beautiful woman with a family history in the movies. Her grandfather was Dino De Laurentiis, a producer of movies in the 40's through the 90's which included Serpico, Three Days of the Condor, King Kong remake, Mandingo, and tons more.

Giada tweeted a picture of herself from her high school days in the 1980's yesterday.

And there's Michelle Obama

The Academy Awards ended with Michelle Obama announcing the best picture award. The general feeling among most people, Obama fans or not, was one of way too much Obama in every single cultural event. There was so much talk about MO's Oscar surprise that a Twitter hashtag broke out. There were many clever quips and comments about her appearance one of which was "Soon she'll be in every movie theater preview telling you to shut your cellphone off & put away the popcorn."

That might seem an overreach by someone who is definitely not one of the Obama fans, but here's what NYC's Mayor Bloomberg"s new rules look like:

His ban on soda's over 16 ounces will now include the 2 liter bottles of soda that are often ordered with pizza deliveries. And pitchers of soda with pizza served in pizza restaurants are now forbidden. 

Sometimes historic artifacts just aren't all that interesting

From Slate, a photo essay story on the print developing trays used by famous photographers of the past. Before digital cameras every photographer worth his/her salt developed their own negatives and prints. To do this you needed a pitch black room with a small red light to see, an enlarger, chemicals and trays. I had a darkroom for many years so these pictures are very familiar, but after initially being excited by the story headline, it turned out to be pretty boring.

photographs of print trays in groups of 3. As extraordinary as Ansel Adams was as a photographer, his tray isn't all that interesting as history. Actually we probably still have mine on a shelf in the basement as well as brown glass jars of developing chemicals which should have been tossed years ago. 

A better story might have shown prints Adams and the others decided against using.

First drive-in movie for the boys

Sent from my iPhone

Oscar noms

Big morning for movie buffs, the Oscar nominations were announced.

There are 10 nominations for best picture.  Does this seem like a lot compared to other years?  I seem to remember 5 being the traditional number of nominees.

And I'll confess without embarrassment, we haven't seen any of them, so it doesn't matter all that much to me how many or which ones they are. 

The worst movie in the history of the world

No one who has seen the new Little Fockers movie has anything good to say about it.  The original, Meet the Fockers, was fairly well received.  But the second sequel,  well, you may as well save you money.