Seasons Greetings!

[Thx to Jeffery for this fun image]

Happy Holidays.
Be back tomorrow!

Goodbye Dorothy Zbornak

Less than a year after we lost her television mother, Estelle Getty, television superstar Beatrice Arthur has passed away. We always knew her as "Bea" but her first name was actually "Bernice".

She'll live forever in reruns with both the trailblazing Maude and the blockbuster sitcom Golden Girls to her credit. She won EMMYs for both characters. Every once in a blue moon she lent her indelible sharp tongued comedy to the screen, most memorably as "Vera Charles" in Mame, a reprisal of her TONY winning performance for the screen.

Bea was born way back in 1922 when the movies were still silent. If it seems like she's always been an elderly woman, we can chalk that up to her unglamorous no-nonsense celebrity persona and the fact that she didn't become truly famous until she was in her 40s. It was a good long life and we have a very celebrated career to remember her by. The Boyfriend and I recently rented Maude (we'd never seen it) and were so impressed that everything we'd heard about its politics was true. You could never make a network television show like that today. We've regressed.

I last saw Bea on stage during her musical one woman show Just Between Friends in 2002. Today I'm wishing I'd clapped and whistled a little louder when she took her final bow.
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They'll Always Be Bosom Buddies

...friends, sisters and pals.
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DVD: Of Mice and Mame

N o w * o n * D V D

This & That
Longford -Jim Broadbent (yes) and Samantha Morton (amen!) co-star in this true story about a compassionate Earl and the jailed murderess he befriended. Presumably stupendous riveting acting follows. Adding it to the queue.
Reno 911! Miami -I have the screener DVD sitting right here -- hope to watch soon.
The Lucille Ball Collection -A box set of five of Lucy's movies but it doesn't include Douglas Sirk's Lured which is the only Lucy movie I've liked (among the few I've seen). It does include her offkey musical performance in Mame. One of my best friends loves this movie but I love him anyway. In his defence, "Bosom Buddies" is pretty bitchy/hilarious as musical comedy numbers go.
The Secret of Nimh -The only movie about rodents that I've ever enjoyed. I haven't seen it since the 80s. Does it hold up?

I'm Old
Bridge to Terabithia - I never knew what this was but apparently when it came out I was supposed to have known. Oops.

A Plague On All Our Houses
Miss Potter -This movie, about the author Beatrix Potter and her delightful picture books, gave me hives all over. Consider that a "proceed at your own risk" PSA. She Who Must Not Be Named gives another excruciating cutesyfussylookatme performance. Ewan Macgregor and Emily Watson are also onhand to conquer the itching. They're like a soothing oatmeal bath ... but why risk hives in the first place? [my initial outbreak]

20:07 (They'll Always Be Bosom Buddies)

Each morning a screen shot from the 20th minute and 7th second of a movie and the dialogue. (thanks to Nick for providing this week's entries while I'm at the festival)



Vera: Why'd that Oriental sandman let me sleep in my best Chanel?
Auntie Mame: He tried to get it off you but you bit him.

Back in New York

I realize my presence is an abstracted one. It matters not to you where I post from so long as posting happens. But I'm back in Manhattan after a clear my head trip to Connecticut. Just sharing is all...

I already posted about Manderlay. Nick and I also watched Louis Malle's lemon-scented shapeshifter Atlantic City(1980), the Natalie Wood headliner Inside Daisy Clover(1965) which is a dark Hollywood fable. The real mystery of it is how Ruth Gordon managed a supporting actress nomination for it. She's barely in it and the other featured woman (someone I'd never heard of called Katharine Bard) acts circles around her in this messy but intriguing picture. Finally we screened the glitzy Auntie Mame(1958) which I hadn't seen in well over a decade and which Nick had somehow never laid eyes upon.