A Day in the Life: Random Thoughts

When I was writing political crap, I used to write some quick thoughts about recent political happenings from the four corners of the earth.  I think I called it Around the World with Clyde or some idiotic sounding name.  So after having spent the week writing movie reviews and having polished up some of the old ones while hauling them over from the my soon to be deleted other blog, I thought I would take it easy for a moment and just write some of my thoughts on anything that comes to mind.  Let’s get busy.

The Let’s Get busy bit that I used here and on my Netflix reviews comes to you courtesy of the old Arsenio Hall show.  I began wondering whatever happened to him because at one time he was such a hot commodity. 

He showed up on George Lopez’s show as a guest, before it was canceled. 

He was once in consideration to host the crap game show Deal or no Deal, but lost out to Howie Mandel for that privilege.  Lost out?  He should consider himself lucky to have missed that gig. 

He has hosted a show called The World’s Funniest Moments on myNetworkTV.  I’ve never seen the show, I’m not even sure I get that network on our Craphouse Cable.  But for my money, video clip shows cloned from World’s Funniest Home Videos wore out their welcome with me a long time ago.  So has the original. 

He’s been a guest on Jay Leno as well, which is funny considering he once proclaimed he was going to “kick Jay Leno’s ass.”  So it’s nice to see he’s not impoverished and living on some street corner. 

I seldom watch talk shows anymore.  The guests are usually nothing more than celebrities trying to sell their next movie, book, or television show.  But now you know what happened to Arsenio and so do I.

My latest DVD/Purchase is a show from the seventies called Medical Center.  It starred Chad Everett and Tyne Daly’s dad James Daly.  As a matter of fact, I made the purchase just a few moments ago when Amazon so generously dropped the price down about ten dollars.  The thing to remember about Amazon is that some prices go up and down like schizophrenic yoyo.  Don’t blink or you may miss it.  I’ve put stuff in my shopping cart to mull over whether I really want to make the purchase, then come back a short time later to find the price all jacked up.  

I almost bought Medical Center from the Warner’s Archive Store for a couple of dollars less but by the time shipping, handling, and tax was added, then the price was jacked up quite a bit easily making Amazon the better value.

Bricks and Mortar stores claim Amazon has a huge advantage because they don’t charge tax.  That may be true, but if they think that Amazon charging tax is going to make customers suddenly ditch Amazon and head out to the shopping center, they are badly mistaken.  Here’s my opinion as to why that would be even when they do start charging taxes after having shopped there for about the past four years: 

1.  Amazon prices are often cheaper, regardless of tax. 
2.  If you buy a lot and have Amazon prime, you pay no shipping and handling and get two day delivery on most items.  Without Amazon prime, if you buy more than $25, there is still no shipping and handling fees but you get it regular ground shipping. 
3.  If you have Amazon Prime, you can get an item over night for $3.99.   For two day air, the Warner Archive wanted $10.00 which is just idiotic.
4.  As far as I’m concerned, Amazon customer service has been exemplary.  I’ve had no problem with item returns at all.  You simply print up a return label, and ship the article back.  It costs you nothing.  I’ve had to do that twice in two years, and once for something that was my own fault.

So I paid $41.79 at Amazon, I’ll get the item on Wednesday.  I would have paid $45.54 at the Warner store, and would have received it whenever via ground. 

I’ll be honest enough to say that last year I did drop Amazon Prime because I figured I could wait out the extra shipping time.  But I reinstated it when they added the free streaming movies, which made it a better value than Netflix, especially after Netflix jacked up their prices. 

And yeah, they need work with their streaming interface, and the selection isn’t as large, but it is growing steadily and actually growing at a pace faster than Netflix streaming did in it’s early days.  And besides, I found I really missed the free shipping and two day delivery when the order doesn’t total twenty five dollars.  Just a few days ago I bought a DVD for about $2.98.  And it cost me no more than that.  That’s better than the bargain bin at Wal-mart.

I’m sure you’ll say this post has something to do with the Amazon ads posted all over the blog.  No, it doesn’t.  I’ve had those ads previously on Clyde’s Movie Palace, the blog I’m in the process of integrating into this one.  I had those posted for three years.  Recently, Amazon closed all the California accounts and settled up  all outstanding balances. My settlement was just over $7 dollars for those three years, which almost paid for my Top Gun on blu-ray, but not quite.  When they sent me an email saying I was getting it, I’d just about forgotten I even had those ads.  So why am I  bothering with the ads again? 

Well, $7 dollars is still better than no dollars.  And once you put them up, they really don’t require much maintenance.  As for the wish list near the bottom of the right hand column, that’s there for family members to find easily.  I became tired of them asking me to send it to them last Christmas, especially since it was always changing depending on what I bought or finding something I wanted more and what I thought were real possibilities.  And besides, how the hell else am I going to get them to read this blog, something they seem to regard as pure poison. So Merry Christmas to you all.

About a week and a half ago I pre-ordered The Donna Reed Show, The Complete Fourth Season.  These are the Lost Episodes, that weren’t seen when the series ran on Nick at Nite.  When I ordered, the price was $39 dollars and has dropped down to under $30 as of this writing.  (Which is another thing about Amazon.  When you pre-order you always get the lowest price from the time you order until the item ships.  But this little article isn’t about Amazon.)

I already own seasons one, two, and three, and for a long time it looked as if we were not going to get season four.  So this made me extremely happy.

I’m sure the biggest percentage of those who read this will shrug their shoulders when I mention The Donna Reed Show and this DVD release.  But it is important, and it’s important in a lot of ways.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m also big on Classic Television.  I hope to write a lot of articles regarding that hobby but they will have to wait until I get the other blog articles transferred over here.  By then I should have more time.

What I’m afraid of is that we are going to lose our television heritage.  Even more than films, I believe that most television programs are a microcosm of the world in which we lived at a certain point in time.  They are a part of our history, and in a way are a recorded time capsule.   Yet, while much is being done to preserve our motion picture history, the majority of our television history is being ignored, except by those of us who are old enough to appreciate it for what it was.

Think about it.  If someone hadn’t been willing to put together these episodes of this show, they would have probably been lost forever.  And if there are to be more released, it will probably be dependent on how well these sell.  We hear about one society after another working for film preservation, yet I know of no effort to preserve our television heritage unless more than a few pennies in profit can be squeezed out of bringing these shows back to life.  But this is just the tip of an iceberg, and part of a longer article I really have to be writing.  Maybe a series of articles.

If you visited this blog before I began re-working it, you probably saw a long list of feeds in the margins.  Most had to do with entertainment sites, some with political sites, and others concerning consumer affairs.  I debated a long time before taking them down, but after studying the situation, I found out that most of them had the same exact stories and it was all very repetitious, not to mention how much they slowed the page down when it was trying to load.  I had all of these same sites in my Google reader and when I would go to read the articles, there was seldom very little difference between most of them or the headlined stories. 

So I decided it was all pretty useless information, just as posting the same news bits on here would be.  I made up my mind there would be no copying and pasting news articles unless I knew for sure it was very fresh information, (the Netflix/Qwikster story broke and I was on top of it by accident which is why I posted it), or if I had something to say about the story other than one or two sentences.  So my advice is if you want to read all that stuff, use an RSS reader.  Most of it is boring useless crap anyway. 

But on the other hand, I’m still pasting links on my Clyde Stuff Facebook page in the hopes that someone will respond and there will be a half way decent follow up or discussion of whatever it is I posted about.  And if by chance you go there, try hitting the like button for me.  There is no prize, this is not Digital Bits, and it is not DVD verdict.    This is just me writing my fool ass off.  But maybe someday.  But feel free to post and comment as long as you keep it in bounds.

I’m a skeptic sometimes when it comes to new gadgets.  I for one thought that blu-ray players were not that big of a deal and repeatedly said I wouldn’t buy one.  But when the prices came way down they made them so that you could stream Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon I caved and bought one.  Yeah, I know I could have bought a Roku but for a top of the line Roku Player, the price difference just wasn’t that prohibitive.  I did eventually buy a Roku for one of the other rooms.

But having experienced the format,  I can now say that for many movies, the difference is remarkable, especially when a studio ends up cleaning up older films so that the picture is like it’s brand new.  My son bought me Casablanca on Blu-ray, and it was as if they had developed the movie off of a fresh negative.  Likewise, some others have just blown me away like Gone With The Wind, How The West Was Won, Ben-Hur, Quo-Vadis, and most of all The Sound of Music.

One problem though is that for some damn reason, my laptop that has a blu-ray play player in it won’t play them.  Even after installing software to enable you to do so.  It just won’t recognize the discs, so it would be impossible for me to do a few screen captures for a review unless I use my web cam as I did on this article for The Big Bird Cage.  Come to think of it, I should do another one of those.  I had a lot of fun writing that.

I hope to get back to doing a lot of reading sometime before I’m placed in the furnace and my ashes dumped into some pretty urn. Between work, this blog, and dealing with pain on a day to day basis, I haven’t had the time. I do have one large book back in the bedroom I intend to read soon, just before I review the movie version of that same book. And no, I won’t say what it is but it’s an older book and movie. I can tell you for sure it isn’t Harry Potter though.

And so I was also a skeptic about the Kindle, until I my son bought one.  Now, I want one.  Sure you can read books on your laptop, desktop, or your I-pad, but it’s not even close to the same experience as reading the printed page.  The Kindle comes as close to that as you possibly can get electronically.  I can’t compare it to the Nook, because I haven’t seen one of those, but if you want to send me one, I’ll check it out and let you know.

And finally, if you look in the right hand margin you’ll see a list of my most popular posts.  Of course, a bunch of dirty old bastards searching endlessly for Jenni and Dex porn have made the Jennifer Ringsley article number one.  Right beneath it however is my review of the 1973 version of Walking Tall.  I was kind of perplexed about that at first but not any more.  People aren’t looking to read my review about Walking Tall, they want to buy it. Some of them may be vendors hoping to pick up a cheap copy for resale at an exorbitant price.

The problem is that for whatever reason, the movie is out of print again, and the prices on Amazon have skyrocketed and are climbing on a daily basis.  The lowest price for a used disc is $40 but a new unopened copy will put you back $60 dollars or more.  Why is it out of print?  I don’t know.  Ask Paramount.  I think they have the rights.  I don’t know how well the movie sold, or what their plans are.  Maybe they will sell the rights to Amazon or Netflix for streaming, which might put a dent in the DVD price, but not much of one because streaming is still not the same as owning  it. 

I have three copies of this film.  The first time I bought it was part of a three disc set that included all three original movies.  And the quality was abysmal to say the least.  I think it was issued by Rhino.  Yet, this crappy quality three disc box set is selling for $85 dollars right now at Amazon by outside sellers.  But I won’t be selling mine.  Not because I cherish it that much, but it is the only copies of the other two films that I have should I decide to revisit that franchise, something that is a distinct possibility. 

When Paramount finally reissued the film in widescreen with good picture quality, I for one was eternally grateful.  But somehow my disc came up missing here in the house and I had to repurchase it.  Eventually the other disc showed up which is how I ended up with two of them.  The original one I bought was only played once I think, so I guess I could list it as like new and sell it.

But I won’t.  Posting ads for Amazon all over the place is one thing, getting into actually having to sell them is another story altogether.  Maybe if I were healthy and retired and had hours to kill, I could manage it.  What I can’t figure out is why any one would pay these prices?  Well, hell yes I can.

Way back when, Disney had issued a copy of The Little Mermaid on DVD for a limited time.  This was a bare bones edition released when DVD’s were in their infancy.  By the time I bought a DVD player, it had been out of print for a quite a while.  So I got caught up in an auction for one on Ebay.  I really wanted the disc, and ended up paying fifty dollars for a brand new unopened copy.  Afterwards I kind of regretted it and later Disney reissued the movie as a special edition just like they always do, which meant that the value of the copy I had went into the dumpster.  So even to this day I kind of regret having bought it.

Still, I don’t know what the odds are of Walking Talk getting another reprieve on disc.  It would be cool to see a blu-ray issue of the set with some special features and commentary by some of the cast, even if I didn’t particularly care for the sequels.  I would say that’s a long shot though.  I don’t know if the film has a large enough following for penny pinching Paramount to believe it merits that.

But that’s the gamble you take if you buy it.  If it is reissued, than you lose.  If it never sees the light of day again, then you win.  So if you want to spend that kind of money, be my guest.  Since you’ll be buying from an outside seller, it doesn’t affect me one way or the other in regards to Amazon.  Catch you later!

Clyde’s Movie Palace: RV (2006)

starring
Robin Williams
Cheryl Hines
Joanna 'JoJo' Levesque
Josh Hutcherson
Jeff Daniels
Kristin Chenoweth
Hunter Parrish
Chloe Sonnenfeld
Alex Ferris

Written by
Geoff Rodkey
Directed by
Barry Sonnenfeld

Once upon a time there was a nice average All-American type family. The father was a working stiff who just wanted to have a family vacation where they would spend all their time together before the kids grew up and went off to college. He decided the best way to do this was to take the family on a cross country trip together. The rest of the family objected at first but the father's mind was made up. As they traveled out west the family had one misadventure after another. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong so that near the end of our little fairy tale everybody was ready to wring dear old dad’s neck. But as fairy tales go, the family eventually found togetherness and despite all the mishaps and hardships, they found that being a family is truly the greatest thing on earth.

 

Sounds like it would make a great movie with endless possibilities doesn't it? Well, it did back in 1983 when Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo and Randy Quaid got together for the first time to make National Lampoon’s Vacation. As for the Robin Williams version of goofball family takes a vacation, it’s not so hot and instead of endless possibilities we end up on a dead end street. In fact, if you make it to the end of RV, give yourself a courage medal for having made the trip.

Plot wise, there isn’t too much to tell except that unlike Clark Griswold who wanted to take his family on a cross country tour to Disneyland facsimile Wally World, Bob Munro (Robin Williams) eschews the planned trip to Hawaii out of necessity because his boss wants him to deliver a sales pitch in Colorado. Bob then rents an RV and convinces his wife Jamie (Cheryl Hines) that it’s best to take the two kids, Cassie and Carl ('JoJo' Levesque and Josh Hutcherson) and hit the road in an RV. Of course Bob knows nothing about going across country in such a vehicle, and the possibilities of ensuing hilarity are endless. What you’ll find out is that although the movie runs a quick 98 minutes you’ll be worn out from pacing the floor hoping the film will end for about 97 1/2 of those minute. There were more laughs watching the airbag open in the Griswold’s Wagon Queen Family Truckster than in the entire running time of RV.

This is an example of what director Barry Sonnenfeld and writer Geoff Rodkey see as being uproariously comedic. Not far into the journey the crapper in the RV gets backed up. Of course Bob has to figure out how to empty it and yes you can pencil in, “this is the part where Bob gets gross waste products sprayed on him.”

Although we can easily predict this occurrence, there was still a chance for the sequence to tickle are funny bone if done with some imagination. Instead we get stuck with Bob and Carl aided endlessly by some other hapless bumpkins who don’t know much more about it than they do. What we get is a crash course in RV plumbing as they change one hose and one connection after another and each time a little more shit sprays on Bob. By the time the sequence is over, I guarantee you’ll be looking at your watch. I looked at the timer on the DVD player and it told me I still had more than an hour of suffering yet to go. By the time the film was over, I was ready to apply for Sainthood.  This is however, what one should expect when you have the director of The Wild Wild West team up with the writer of Daddy Day Care and Daddy Day Camp.  That alone should have been an ominous omen.

Just as the Griswold’s had Cousin Eddie and his weird and hilariously obnoxious family to help out, the Munro’s meet up with Gornicke Family. Unlike Cousin Eddie and family, the Gornicke’s (Jeff Daniels, Kristin Chenoweth, Hunter Parrish, Chloe Sonnenfeld, Alex Ferris) aren’t very weird or all that strange, so of course they are seldom if ever funny. They are simply here to help Bob and the rest of us learn a lesson. 

The lesson we learn is that if you see a PG rating next to a film that’s supposed to be outrageously over the top funny, chances are that it’s not going to be. Yes, you read that right. It is rated PG for crude humor, innuendo and language. In other words, take the doo-doo scene out and you probably get a G rating.

This could almost be any Disney film made in the seventies with Kurt Russell being strong, invisible, or a computer wearing tennis shoes. No, I take that back. Those films were much better and funnier than than this film was, and take my word for it. They weren't that funny.

Perhaps it might have helped if Bob Monroe was a more likable guy at the outset but he is not. Instead of Robin Williams making Bob a funny man, he makes Bob the most obnoxious person you were ever forced to meet. The best way to explain it is that Bob is obnoxious in the way that a Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity would be if they were in this film, not a lovable type of obnoxious the way a Ted Baxter was.

Somebody on YouTube likes Jo Jo.

Cheryl Hines as his wife Jamie doesn’t fare much better. She isn’t obnoxious, but she isn’t funny either. She’s simply there. And why do teenagers in movies these days have to be so obnoxious from beginning to end? One would think that all teenagers totally hate their parents, never do anything they’re told, and their first brain cell is still under development. Is this the same Josh Hutcherson that was so great in Bridge to Terabithia?

If you have never seen this film, then good for you. Avoid it under any and all circumstances. Even if it would somehow save you from death, take your chances with death. If you see it on a video store shelf run away as fast as you can. Don't go near it, and for God's sake don't let your kids or teens bring it home either. If they do take it out in the yard and bury it, quickly. And if the dog digs it up and starts chewing on it, shoot the dog.

Having instituted a special certificate of merit award, I now have another film to lovingly bestow it on. Better second than never. Yes, my friends, RV becomes the second winner of the Poo Poo on you award.

A Day in the Life: Truckstop Radiation & Wal-mart

Not the real name of course, but that's what I call it.

The good: I got off work early.
The bad: It's so I can come here to Truckstop Radiation to get another MRI. This time on my neck.
The ugly: I'm really beginning to hate this place. I should own shares by now. I'll update later.
Another reason to hate it:  I’ve been here a half dozen times over the past few months.  Still, they want me to fill out the same idiotic form with the same questions and the same answers every damn time.  I even asked the guy why couldn’t they just Xerox it.

“We just want to know if there are any changes,” he said.

“No, there aren’t.  Now here’s your paper back,”  I said.  In my mind that is.  I filled the damn thing out.

Update: 5:30 and I'm done. Didn't take as long as others I've had. This new blogger app is better than what we had but it still needs work. For instance, any time I do an update, if I add a picture it should beneath or above your text . Instead it just shoves them all to the bottom of your page.  There’s no way to actually place them unless you’re an HTML whiz kid.  I am not.   I also wish there was a way to auto watermark your pics, but there isn't as far as I can tell.  (Note:  these were watermarked  and placed properly after I returned home)

Update: Traffic isn't as bad as usual. At the Rosedale Wal Mart to pick up some Allegra my HCP wants me to take. I was in Rite Aid yesterday and the price was outrageous. Even for the store brand. I would have bought it anyway because you don't save any money driving all the way into Bakersfield, but I knew I had to come into town anyway for the MRI so I just waited since Wal-mart was in the vicinity.  Hell, there’s always a Wally World in the vicinity.

The 15 tablet pack of Allegra was almost 18 bucks at Rite Aid yesterday. It was about $5 less here. The generic store brand was less then ten dollars at Wal-mart. That's what I bought.  Here’s some comparison price shopping for you though.

There were only a couple of packages of the Wal-mart brand left and they were kind of beat up.  But I didn’t really want to spring for the 30 pack since these are one a day tablets and I have to go back to the HCP in two weeks so she can see how I’m doing.  And I will be doing just fine, because the last thing I want is another specialist hitting me up for my 15 dollar co-pay.

I hate shopping here at the Wal-mart in Rosedale though.  The place is a Zoo.  There’s always a bunch of little monsters running amok and the aisles are way too narrow.  I had to wait forever to get to the aisle with the Allegra in it.  After I got the stuff, I headed to the back of the store for some DVD and electronics browsing.  But first I had to stop off for some needed supplies.

Usually I would buy the Gain and use it to pollute our environment with.  I’ve found that the really generic cheap shit doesn’t clean your clothes very well.  But with the six dollar price different and the inviting aroma of lavender, how could I resist the Great Value?  And dig that colorful packaging!  Or am I just becoming a cheap skate.  I would prefer to buy Tide but with Guiding Light off the air, why should I support Proctor and Gamble?  Oh hell, they probably made all of these brands.

 

If I buy microwave popcorn at the local Save-Mart, the best I can do is get the generic Sunny Select brand for $4.49.  For that price you get ten bags.  Here, for $3.68 you get twelve bags.  So since I eat a lot of this stuff (it’s my one major indulgence), I stocked up.  The best low fat microwave popcorn I’ve tasted is Jolly Time, above and beyond the taste of any others.  Since I don’t eat regular fatty popcorn, I can’t attest to the taste of those.  The problem with Jolly Time is that it’s so darn expensive.  At Save Mart, it only comes in three packs, for about $2.69.  So that’s almost 90 cents a bag which means ten bags is about $9.00.  I did get some at Rite Aid not too long ago because they had single bags for 69 Cents.  Still, that’s seven dollars for ten bags.  But this stuff is okay for the price.

You’ll recognize the above picture.  It is the $5 DVD bin where all DVD’s go to die.  I used to get some goodies out of here but lately the pickings have been slim.  Such was the case this time.  The rule of thumb is if I don’t already have them, chances are that I don’t want them.  That is not always the case though because I did find one DVD that I decided to get.  Believe it or not I’ve never seen it, although I did see it’s unrelated predecessor.  Maybe I’ll end up writing a review on it.  How this did not end up in my collection I don’t know, and I’m a Julia Roberts booster.

I see I screwed up the watermark on it though.  I don’t know how the date and time got turned on for this picture and none of the others.  Freaking IPhone!  Anyway, I’ll put this on the shelf and get around to it.  I haven’t seen Erin Brockovich either, something I really need to do.  It’s here at the house somewhere.    I mean after all, she did win an Academy Award for that one.  The next thing I came across was the following worthless piece of shit.

Wasn’t this out at theaters less than a month ago?  I notice theater owners aren’t bitching about this movie’s quick release to DVD.  Although this shelf is full, I bet there’s plenty of wing nuts out there to spend their $13.00.  Idiots.  Damn, I just now noticed that.   At that price for a new release, they really are desperate to get rid of these drink coasters.  However, if somebody wants to send me a copy, feel free to do so and I promise to be fair and watch the thing before I write a review ripping it to shreds.  (I sure as hell am not wasting a spot in my Netflix Queue or a dollar at Redbox on it)  The next time I watch The Undefeated, it’ll have John Wayne and Rock Hudson in it.  And Missy, if you’re reading this, will you please return my gawddamn DVD’s?

Speaking of bad movies, whatever you do, don’t ever ask me to review these next three films.  There is no way I’ll ever sit through them again.  Once was one time too many and it’s taken me all of these years to cleanse them from my memory.  I don’t care if they are just $13.00.

I own seasons one through eight of Hawaii Five-O, then I had to quit on it.  The darn things were just costing me too much money at $35 or more a season.  And besides, you can now stream the show on Netflix so what’s the point?  Still, I might finish off my collection when the price comes down.  The consensus of opinion is that the series was on a steady decline after the seventh season anyway.  Being honest, I would love to own the whole series, but time and money are not on my side.  It was a great series though and maybe some time in the future I’ll write about it.

 

 

I love Chucky.  He’s a class act.  Too bad a few of his movies stank up the joint though.  Still I came close to buying this.  I didn’t for two reasons.  One was that the first film, the most important one, was not a part of this pack.  So it wasn’t the complete series.  Two, I already own one of these (Seed of Chucky) so I wouldn’t have been getting as great of a deal as I would have otherwise.  But I still yet may buy this.  I did find the original Child’s Play film in the following set.

 

 

Yeah, you can buy this if you want the original movie.  I wasn’t tempted.  I already own a special edition of Carrie (and have reviewed it and will soon move it over to this blog),  and the original Amityville Horror is a really lousy movie.  Or at least the way I remember it when I originally saw it at the drive in years ago.  I know I wasn’t scared at all and was pretty much bored.  So I would in a sense, have been paying $13 for Child’s Play, and that crap just ain’t happening.

 

I did give a quick look to the blu-rays before moving on.  But I usually get those on line because they are cheaper.  Wal-mart does have one blu-ray I want but you have to order it from their internet site because it’s an exclusive.  Why they don’t just put it in the damn store is beyond me.  That would be the  blu-ray of Legally Blonde for $10.  So there was nothing else in this department that said “buy me.”   Besides, I just got Scream 4 and Fast Five this week, and a spanking new Ben-Hur last week.

 

 

And then there’s this.  This is the same blu ray player I bought some months back for the TV in the bedroom.  Once they added Amazon to it the way it was supposed to have been, the thing has worked like a charm and certainly at $88 I probably got my money’s worth.

 

Last stop, The Sims.  Boy how I used to love this game until EA ruined the fun with it’s endless marketing shenanigans and it’s Crappy Sims 3 Store they invented to take advantage of the mindless guppies that buy that crap.  Buying the games is one thing, but giving in to the greedy corporate mindset and to continue buying way overpriced pieces of digital dung, is just silly.  I know the guppy and the sheep will argue that it’s okay to be guppy and sheep, but I can’t deal with that.  I read what these zombified goof balls have to say on The Sims 3 site, and it really makes me want to puke.  I haven’t bothered loading the game up in months, and if I do, it’ll be so I can rewrite my Sims story.  I really need to write an article to vent about this crap.  And how many go rounds is this for the digital dogs anyway?

By the time I checked out of the store I had spent about $83 bucks, I had one of my bad dizzy spells, my back was hurting and my leg was on fire.  So I decided just to stop at the local Long John Silvers/A & W Root Beer place to get something to take home. I love the atmosphere here, the 50’s styling and the juke box.  Food is just so-so cakes, but I get tired of burgers.  I had the chicken and fish mix (1 piece and 2 pieces)

 

And finally, I read somewhere that Microsoft is going to discontinue the Zune.  It’s too bad.  I own one, and it is a superior dedicated digital music player when compared head to head to the iPod.  (We’re not talking Ipod touch here.  Get real.)  As a matter of fact, I prefer using it for music before using my IPhone.  I was going to get a new Zune HD but guess I won’t now.  The Zune connects to my car radio, and you can actually get more music on it’s 8 GBS than you can an IPod's 8 GBS.   How is that?  It has to do with reducing the bit rate.  You can go lower on the Zune and not have it affect the music.  You only have two choices on the Ipod.  Take me home, Nat.

May I Have The Netflix/Qwikster (or whatever the hell it is) Envelope Please?---Uptown Saturday Night, Let’s Do It Again, A Piece of the Action

 

Back in the seventies, Sidney Poitier decided he wanted to stretch his directing wings a little further, called up his good friend Bill Cosby on the phone and said, “Let’s make a movie together.  We’ll both star and I’ll direct as well”

And Cos replied, “Nope, let’s make three of them.”  And that’s how we ended up with this Cosby/Poitier trilogy from the seventies.  Good story, right?  I thought so too when I made it all up.  You can actually find the true story regarding how these films came to be on the special features of two of them, that being Uptown Saturday Night and a retrospective on A Piece of the Action.  

After having been on a Doris Day binge, and having danced with Schwarzenegger as Conan, I decided to have a fling with Sidney Poitier.  Why these three, when there are so many great Poitier films to choose from?  Because I already own many of Poitier’s films, he’s always been Grade A in my book, and one of his films would be in my top ten of all time list.  So I decided to start with these because my recollection of them was mostly vague.

I did remember quite a bit of Let’s Do It Again which was a good sign.  I couldn’t  remember if I had seen Uptown Saturday Night or A Piece of the Action for sure,  although I was pretty sure I had seen them both somewhere in time.  So I thought it was high time I gave these films another viewing to see how they stack up.  One thing though, while they are considered a trilogy, these films are not related in any other way except that they starred Cosby and Poitier and that Mr. Poitier directed all three. So in fact, they live or die on their own.  Let’s get busy.

If there’s one thing about Netflix/Qwikster envelopes that’s outstanding, it’s their fine use of adjectives to make you want to see a film.  Right there on line two it says, “hilarious misadventure.”  And oh, how I wish it had been so.  But Uptown Saturday Night wasn’t very hilarious.  If you’re lucky, you may get a few seconds of laughs but not from anyone mentioned on this particular envelope.

At least the plot is pretty much on the money, minus a few details.  Steve Jackson (Sidney Poitier) is on vacation from his blue collar job when his best friend Wardell Franklin (Bill Cosby)  talks him into sneaking out late one night while the wives are sleeping to visit the legendary Madame Zenobia’s after hours joint.  Besides good hard liquor, there’s rumors of fancy women and illegal gambling which all turn out to be true. 

Once inside, Wardell ends up at the craps table where he hits a winning streak by playing along with a patron by the name of Leggy Peggy (Paula Kelly).   Right in the middle of this streak, the place is robbed by masked gun men.  Wardell is forced to turn over his winnings, Steve is forced to turn over his wallet.

The next day while reading his newspaper, Steve realizes that his ship has come in.  The lottery numbers he plays on a regular basis hit.  Steve and wife Sarah (Rosalind Cash) begin celebrating until Steve realizes that the winning ticket was in his wallet that was stolen in the robbery at Madame Zenobia’s. 

He enlists the help of  Wardell to find out who robbed the joint so that they can retrieve the winning lottery ticket.   Their first attempts don’t go so well.  They try just hanging out in seedy neighborhoods to get some information, but all it does is get Wardell arrested.  They then try to hire a private detective, Sharp Eye Washington (Richard Pryor), but as it turns out Washington is simply a con artist on the lam.

Their detective prowess next lands them in  the office of Congressman Lincoln (Roscoe Lee Browne), supposedly a man of the people, but he keeps a portrait of Richard Nixon on his wall when nobody’s looking.  He’s not much help to the guys until his wife shows up, who happens to be the one and only Leggy Peggy that had launched Wardell on his winning streak.  

She tells them to track down a hood by the name of Geechie Dan Buford (Harry Belafonte) and to locate another hood who goes by the name of Little Seymour (Harold Nicholas).  Later, they discover that Geechie Dan is at war with a mob boss called Silky Slim (Calvin Lockhart) who is trying to take over Dan’s territory, which in turn lands our two heroes in the middle of their dispute.  So who has the lottery ticket and how will the guys recover it?

To be honest, by the time you reach that point you probably aren’t really going to give a damn, because except for two or three scenes, the film is just not funny.  There’s a lot of talent involved, but most of it is wasted. 

Richard Pryor’s appearance is short lived, so don’t blink.  But this could be a good thing considering he’s ill used.  Strangely, he would practically reinvent the same type of  character two years later for Silver Streak.  The difference being that Grover is a million times funnier than  Sharp Eye Washington.  Granted, his screen time is about five minutes total here, but Poitier just as well had left it on the cutting room floor for what it’s worth.

Harry Belafonte’s thing  is to do a Marlon Brando Godfather impression,  which would be okay if you have your audience rolling in the aisles with laughter.  Instead the whole Brando Impersonation shtick just become tiresome after a few minutes.  It might have been a better idea to have Belafonte develop a unique character instead of a pale carbon copy of someone else that wouldn’t even make the grade in a Saturday Night Live skit.  At least not for as long as it goes on here.

What’s amazing to me  is that Bill Cosby just seems totally uncomfortable as if he’s unsure of himself.  For the most part, Director Poitier let’s Wardell carry the film and do his thing while Steve simply reacts.  And whether it’s the script or the direction, it’s hard to say.  But neither of them elicited so much as a faint chuckle from me.

At one point, when Steve and Wardell confront Little Seymour in a bar, Wardell does a long monologue, which Steve then lamely tries to imitate.  The problem is that the monologue wasn’t that good to begin with let alone have it repeated with Wardell coaching Steve on his delivery.  This is all followed by a big fight which involves some slapstick not worthy of the prowess of Larry, Curley and Moe. 

Poitier’s direction does nothing to lend a spark to the film either.  It’s pretty straight forward and workmanlike in a film that requires something more considering the weak premise it is based on.  It simply lacks imagination much in the way that the script lacks hilarity.

On the get it where ever you can bright side, Uptown is not exactly a total loss.  Paula Kelly and Roscoe Lee Browne are in fact outrageously funny and made me laugh out loud.  So if the Netflix envelope was talking about those particular actors, then yeah, I could go along with that.  But since they aren’t even mentioned in the description, you know this pair is not whom they were referring to.  When Leggy Peggy and Congressman Lincoln are around, the film comes to life for a few quick shining moments before the patient is then pronounced dead and unable to be resuscitated.

If Uptown Saturday Night shows up on Netflix Instant Watch, then I would recommend fast forwarding to the Paula and Roscoe scenes and skipping everything else.   It’s a shame they weren’t in a better film then this, or hell they should have just made a movie with these two characters.  I would have watched. 

I can’t really recommend Uptown on it’s entertainment value, but if you want to watch from a historical perspective regarding black cinema from the seventies than maybe that would be a reason to put it in your queue, or maybe if you want to watch the trilogy you’ll feel incomplete without it.  But as it is, I have no choice but to give this film a D, saved from total failure by the Congressman and Ms. Peggy.

A year later, Poitier and Cosby would team up again in this film which has a very clever title for the follow up.  Sort of like if at first you don’t succeed, try try again.  Sort of like practice makes perfect.  Sort of like once bitten twice shy.  Wait, that last one doesn’t work does it?  For the most part, Let’s Do It Again succeeds where Uptown failed.

The envelope only gives you basic details, hardly enough to make you want to put this in your Netflix/Qwikster/Whatever queue.  On top of that, the description gets it wrong.  That’s really a pet peeve of mine with Netflix/Qwikster/what was that stupid name again?  This happens way too often.  Granted, I’m not the world’s greatest movie expert, but if I were running a company I would make sure I would at least get the envelope right instead of having someone like me embarrass you with your inaccuracies.

First off, Clyde (Poitier) and Billy (Cosby) do not host the boxing match.  The boxing match takes place in New Orleans, and they  have nothing to do with “hosting” it.  It is in fact already a scheduled match between Bootney Farnsworth (Jimmie Walker)  and 40th Street Black (Rodolphus Lee Hayden) .  And second, they don’t recruit the hapless boxer, in the sense that he’s in on the plot.  Throughout the movie he’s never aware of his manipulation.  The envelope gives no details about how this boxer is to be manipulated which may seem like small potatoes to some, but it’s a very crucial plot point.  Never fear though, I’m here for you.  Because I care.  It’s all about you and your needs.  Are you buying that?  I didn’t think so.

Clyde and Billy head down to New Orleans with their wives Dee Dee ( Lee Chamberlin) and Beth (Denise Nicholas) in order to  find a boxing match they can fix, in addition to meeting the other criteria needed for the wacky plan to work.  They first must find a heavy underdog (Bootney) going up against an opponent (40th Street Black) with very long odds.  

Clyde, who learned how to hypnotize people in the army, must then put Bootney into a trance and convince him he’s the greatest fighter in the world.  Both Clyde and Billy, using funds they “borrowed” from the lodge then place huge bets on the underdog with the two main mob leaders in town, Kansas City Mack (John Amos) and Biggie Smalls (Calvin Lockhart). Biggie and K.C.  also happen to be bitter rivals much in the same way that Geechy Dan and Silky Slim (also played by Lockhart) were in Uptown Saturday Night.  But in this film, it plays out a lot better aided by the fact that we don’t have to put up with Harry Belafonte’s Don Corleone impersonation. 

Having a good idea is one thing.  Trying to implement it is another.  For one thing Bootney is well guarded in his hotel room.  Don’t know why that is since he’s such a crappy boxer and apparently in no danger from anybody unless it’s someone who got fed up with hearing him shout “Kid Dyn-O-Mite”.  But let’s not quibble over details. 

So getting to him and putting him under Clyde’s Evil Eye is rather tricky business that leads to more complications.  Other than that, it’s best for me not to give too much away.  Keep in mind though, just when you think the movie is about over it isn’t, because it’s never over until it’s over.  There’s a nice well played twist at the end that is sort of like putting the whipped cream and cherry on top of the ice cream sundae.

In Uptown, both Steve and Wardell had wives, but they were more or less window dressing.  In this film, they are actually an important part of the story and both of them have distinctly different personalities.  Clyde’s wife Dee Dee is your down home strait laced strait arrow gal.  Billy’s wife Beth is her opposite:  free wheeling and no holds barred.  In one scene in a fancy New Orleans restaurant, Beth and Clyde talk openly about their sex life  much to Steve’s delight and Dee Dee’s chagrin.  This one moment in it self is worth the rental, and  more fun than the entire hour and forty minutes spent on USN.  This 15 second clip will give you some idea as to what I’m talking about.

No doubt that some of you won’t even know who Jimmy Walker is unless you caught his act on TV Land or Nick at Nite reruns.  In the seventies, he starred as J.J.  in a family comedy called Good Times and stole the show out from underneath the two stars John Amos (who is also in this film) and Esther Rolle.  But too much of Walker’s  J.J. shenanigans can get on your last nerve.  And the earlier “Kid Dyn-o-mite” reference?  Witness it for yourselves.

Here he plays basically the same character, but not exactly the same.  J.J. was always brash and outgoing.  Bootney is shy and retiring, not good qualities when you’re a boxer trying to make it big.  After being hypnotized, he slips more into his J.J. persona and by golly it works.  Director Poitier obviously knew this as well and keeps Walker in check by trotting him out as Bootney just when the plot needs it and nothing more.  I’m grateful for that, but probably not as much as John Amos was. 

Speaking of TV characters, Denise Nicholas is as far removed from the do gooder teacher Liz McIntyre that she played in the show Room 222 as she could be.  Cosby and Nicholas are a perfect match .  There’s a reason Nicholas won three Golden Globe awards and she shows why here.  Unfortunately it always seemed as if the good stories were always going to student teacher Alice Johnson played by Karen Valentine.   And having seemingly stifled himself in the first film, Poitier loosens up this time around. 

He’s still the straight man for Cosby most of the time, but instead of just reacting to Cosby’s lines, this time he helps sets those lines up.  For his part, Cosby seems to have overcome whatever was holding him back as well and seems a lot more comfortable.  I really like this film.  In a way it reminds me of a film like The Sting.  It’s not always roll in the aisle type of hilarity although there are a few of those moments, but it stays amusing and unpredictable throughout.  Easily it is the best of this trilogy so I have no choice but to give a grade of B+.

A Piece of the Action is the third and final film in the Poitier/Cosby trilogy from the seventies, released two years after Let’s Do It Again.  But by my way of thinking, they should have done at least one more film.  I’ll explain why momentarily.

This film is quite a bit different from the initial two offerings.  For one thing, it would be difficult to label it as a comedy, or even a dramedy for that matter.  There’s very little humor on hand but before you go getting all pissy about it, I’m 75 per cent sure that there was never any intent to make this a laugh riot.  It starts out as more of an action/caper film than anything else, and in fact the two main characters, Manny Durrell (Poitier) ad Anderson (Cosby) don’t even know each other exist.

They are in fact thieves.   Dave is an accomplished cat burglar, and Manny is a con man.  Dave steals from the very rich, and gives unto himself.  Manny makes a big score conning mob boss Bruno (Titos Vandis) with help from some associates in particular one Bea Quitman (Frances Foster), important because she figures greatly in later developments.  

The opening sequences with Dave and Manny pulling off their cons and heists are particularly well done.  Unfortunately for them and for us, police detective Darth Vader Joshua Burke (James Earl Jones) has gathered enough evidence to put them both behind bars for about 30 years.  What exactly is this evidence and how did he get it?  I can’t answer that.  Not because it’ll give away part of the plot, but it’s because we’re never really told what it is that leads him to surmise who the two are. 

Maybe it’s not a big necessary detail that we need to know, but  a rather obvious plot hole that will bug the piss out of you especially in regards to Manny.  It would have been almost impossible for Burke or anybody else to know Manny was the one who pulled off the con since the police were never involved in any investigation or any funds reported stolen.  In other words, Burke would have had to have been part of the Psychic Friends Network or maybe an associate of Syliva Browne.  

Yes friends, the Psychic Network does live on and on and on via the internet, and you can track them down yourself if you are that gullible.  Minus Dionne Warwick of course, who quit the psychic business when the checks stopped rolling in.  Yes, you and I know PFN wasn’t around in the seventies and Ms. Browne didn’t make her big splash on TV until the nineties either.  But Burke didn’t know that and he could have communicated with them mentally over the space time continuum couldn’t he?  He seems to know everything else.  But hey, there was always The Not So Amazing Kreskin back then for him to buddy up with.  Oh horse poop, there I go getting way off track again.   Let’s see…..hmmmm….where was I?  Dave…Manning….con….heists…Burke…Okay, back on track.

Having retired from the police force, Detective Extraordinaire Vader Burke decides to use his information to blackmail both Manny and Dave.  Does he attempt to get the two crooks to pay him off in mucho dinero?  Nope.  Does he try to get Manny and Dave to work to together to pull off more heists and cons together, using their prowess to take out one underworld  criminal after another as sort of their own Mission Impossible duo? Nope, not that either.   Instead he forces them to give back to the community by working as volunteers for Lila French (Denise Nicholas) helping and aiding inner city kids to find jobs thus making the world a better place for them, and us, God, apple pie, and the United States of America.  Unfortunately though, it doesn’t necessarily make for a better movie.

Burke does all this in such a way that our two heroes don’t know who it is doing the  blackmailing.  But from the information that is provided to them, it is obvious that he has both Manny and Dave right where he wants them.  I think it’s called having them by the balls. 

At the school, they decide to split up.  Manny will stick around with the delightful young ones who have been assigned to the center by the juvenile courts as a last resort, and Dave will hit the streets trying to round up some employers stupid enough willing to take a chance on them.  And while doing these jobs, both will look for clues as to the identity of their blackmailing benefactor so they can get him off their case and go back to doing what they do best.

There’s probably another reason why Poitier gets the thrill of working with the troubled teens.  He’s been down this road before.  First, as one of them in The Blackboard Jungle, and after having been straightened out by Glenn Ford, hw went on to teach their British counterparts in To Sir With Love.   But the kids in those films seem like the Vienna Boys Choir when compared to the nasty bunch he gets saddled with here.

And while all of this is going on, Dave who is supposed to be using Lila to get information develops a crush on her.  Manny already has a girlfriend that he lives with, Nikki McLean (Tracy Reed).  But she’s here for two reasons.  The first reason is so that we can have a strange scene where her doting parents come to visit their daughter who is living in sin.  I think this is supposed to be the comedic portion of the movie for all those who entered the theater thinking they were going to get another film like Let’s Do It Again. And the second reason is to be there when the plot calls for it late in the film.

To add to Dave and Manny’s misery, especially Manny’s, Bruno has not given up on finding the person who conned him and took his money, and eventually he gets a lead which helps him close in on the culprit, that being Manny.  And Bruno is no fun loving Mob Boss like the ones in the previous movies.  This guy means business, and no Cosby monologue is going to discourage him in the least. 

To say this film is schizophrenic is an understatement.  What we have  are two entirely different films trying to mesh together, but it’s the old oil and water story.  You just can’t get those suckers to mix no matter what you do. 

We have the film where Manny and Dave are thieves and con-artists being chased down by the mob, while trying to locate the man who is blackmailing them.  And then we have the story of Manny and Dave trying to turn the young and the restless into Citizens of the Year. 

In fact the troubled youth story is a real downer most of the time.  There is one particularly cruel scene between a student, Barbara Hanley (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and the instructor Sarah Thomas (Hope Clarke) that is so intense in it’s cruelty that the film never really recovers from it.  It  makes one dislike these students to the point where we begin to not really care what the hell happens to them, and the only thing we really want from this point on is the Manny/Dave/Bruno/Blackmail plot.  As for the scene I’m talking about, you’re in luck.  Or maybe not, it depends on your feelings about it.  But someone did upload it to YouTube so decide for yourselves.

Sheryl Lee Ralph gets mean and nasty in A Piece of the Action

Remember when I said they should have made a fourth film?  This is what I meant by that.  If they wanted to make another film dealing with these kids, then they should have done that.  They had a good film going in the beginning, then did a 180 degree turn and tried to make it about something else while still keeping elements of the original idea going on the side.  Thus one story is nothing but a distraction from the other.  You can do things like this in a film, but when you make that spin, then your film has to go totally in that direction.  You can’t have it both ways.

Case in point, would be Hitchcock’s Psycho.  For the early part of the film we believe we are watching a film about embezzling.  Then, in one scene Hitchcock changes the game and makes the film about something else altogether, and that is what the film is about and it stays there for the rest of the movie.

In this film, they try to have their cake and eat it too.  Once the work at the center becomes part of the film, they should have either focused on that or not gone that route in the first place.  Blackboard Jungle is a good film because it has focus.  The same can be said of To Sir With Love.  Could you imagine Poitier’s Mr. Thackery taking a sabbatical in the middle of that film to go pull a heist?  Neither could I.   To make matters worse, after this scene and another one like it, they try to bring in Nikki’s parents for the previously mentioned comedy relief, and it just ends up being idiotic, stupid, as if they had spliced it in from some other film.  I’m not denying the well meaning intentions involved, or that the acting in the above scene is anything but excellent.  But like I said, maybe they should have done one more film instead of cramming all of their ideas into this one.

I can’t really fault any of the actors here.  They all do well, so I suppose I could fault  Poitier, who as a director should have recognized the problems with the script.  Or I can just blame the writers who weren’t sure what kind of a movie they wanted to make so we get this instead.  The film is certainly worth a rental.  You won’t hate it.  But you may start wishing for Manny and Dave to pull off another con or some big heist.  I never thought I would see the day that I wished for J.J. to make an appearance, and if you make me wish for that I have no choice but to give you my grade of  a C.   It’s a nice effort that ultimately fails.

But I’ll leave you with something that doesn’t fail and is pretty cool to boot.  The Staple Singers and their rendition of Let’s Do It Again.

A Day in the Life: Hanging Out

 

I'm hanging out at Blockbuster, killing some time after having dropped some papers off at my neurologist. The more things change at Blockbuster, the more they stay the same (as you can see). One worker, lots of people.

Outside the weather is cloudy but nice. At home, I'm working on a post I hope to finish tonight. Debating with myself about dinner which will be after the Doc. Have a good day, catch you later.

Update: Made it to the doctor's office. I'm not sure why I am here except to have my kidney cyst explained more thoroughly. I have to have another MRI on Thursday, this time on my neck.

What I need is some pain meds but there's a problem I'll explain later. And no, I'm not addicted, just hurting. All the time.

Update:

Okay here's the explanation. About five months ago I was sent to a pain specialist because one doctor wasn't sure what was causing the pain. The pain doctor put me on Neurontin and vicatin, both of which I used sparingly to make them last. Since then, the cause of the pain has been diagnosed by my neurologist who should be prescribing the meds. But he can't because technically I'm still under the care of Dr. Feelgood, whom I haven't even seen in three months. So, in order for the neurology guy to prescribe my meds, I have to get a release from Dr. Feelgood. Easier said then done.

I call his office, the receptionist was clueless, but said she would call me back. Since I had to go burning up fossil fuels in Bakersfield today I had hope to resolve this idiots situation. But no dice.

Anyway I just had my vitals taken so stay tuned.

 

Final update: Got the pain meds straightened out. The magazine cover?
It's a July issue. Typical for a doctors office. Just wanted to offer up some doctor type atmosphere.  I also got some medication for my chronic laryngitis.  As for my tendency to write too much, sorry, but my doctor says it’s incurable.

 

 

 

Final final update:  I’m back home.  Let me offer up an explanation to those of you who are new to this blog.  If you go back a couple of months, I made it clear this blog was going to have a personal touch.  It would be not just about things I was interested in, but about me as well as much as possible.  Therefore, you get this health stuff.  And as I go through this, I’m a perfect example of why health care is in such a sorry shape in this country.  It’s so piecemeal, and everybody wants to put their hand in the cookie jar instead of finding out what the problem is and doing something about it.  Since I have to go have an MRI on Thursday  (yes another one), I’ll explain then.  Hopefully back later tonight, but have to rest now.