HBO's John Adams

I gotta say I'm excited for this mini-series! I read the book by David McCullough and it was very VERY good. Paul Giamatti is playing the role of John Adams and I do enjoy his work. He was great in Cinderella Man and The Woman in the Water and from the bits and pieces I've seen/heard he's will not let us down in this role either. Laura Linney is playing the role of Abigail Adams (I thought Aby was a brunette!?!?). I'm not sure how I feel about that fit. To be honest, I think she's too pretty. My take on Abigail is that she was more "earthy". I"m willing to wait for an episode or two before I pass my final judgment (it's your role to blunder at this point, Laura... break a leg).

Now having said how excited I am about this project, I have to admit that I heard something today on POTUS (XM Radio channel something-or-other) that has me somewhat disappointed about this one of the episodes. Evidently the makers (director) has felt it necessary that it include a sex scene between Giamatti and Linney. First of all, even the thought of Giamatti in a sex scene is disturbing in and of itself, but even more to the point, WHY!?!? Why is it necessary to show a love scene between John and Abigail?? It wasn't in the book?? It wasn't in the original script (that's supposed to closely follow the book). Why does Hollywood think that everything needs to have sex scenes in order to be believable? Here's the scene as described by the director: John has been in Paris and separated from Abigail for a long time. They are very very in love (this is true) and the separation is painful for both of them. Finally, John makes it possible for Abigail to cross the Atlantic to be with him. The original scene evidently included John and Abigail acting the very proper Northeastern protestants that they were by greeting each other as "Mrs. Adams" and "Mr. Adams". John then gives Abigail a tour of their house in Paris moving through each room and floor until they end upstairs in the bedroom. This is the point were they make physical contact for the first time. This is also where the director decided it was "necessary" (his word, not mine) that they ad lib a love scene. He said in effect, "it's important that we know that people of this time had sex. It's important to the project that we have some moment of our founding fathers... um... well the third 'F' [giggle, giggle, smirk, smirk]." Ummm... I don't think I need that (and by the way, how crass and disrespectful can you be?). I assumed that since they'd had a lot of children that the fact they'd had sex was self-evident. In fact, if you read the book, it's incredibly obvious that they were madly in love with each other, but the expression of their love to one another, even in their most personal writings was tempered by the the "properness" of a New England society still steeped in puritan sensibilities and was based more on their admiration for the person than their infatuation with the person's parts (I mean, C'MON... look at how they dressed!!!). I think a much more appropriate scene would have been for John and Abigail upon reaching the bedroom, to reach out and slowly draw each other close while looking into each others' eyes and while starting to slowly smile, each knowing what was on the other's mind, slowly close the door on the camera leaving us standing on the other side. We all know what happens next. We don't need to be in the room with them when it happens. To do otherwise just disrespects the love that the Adams' had for each other and the privacy in which they held their intimacies. The "love scene" as described by the makers of this episode has much less to do with "it's importance" or "our need to view it in order for it to be honest and real" and much more to do with Hollywood's degrading (and I may say self-inflating but WRONG) presumption that we're all just a bunch of voyeuristic deviants and that need a movie to have sex and violence in order for it to be worthwhile. So sad, so sad The just don't get it.

The Celluloid Corner (or Kelly's Picture Pics... whatever)

Me thinks tis time to catch up on the movies I've seen in the past couple of weeks and provide all of you folkses out there my thoughts on what's worth seeing these days in Cinemaville, USA.

Last weekend, Pookie (as I love to call my better half) and I decided to do a Double Feature at our local Monroe Galaxy Cinemaplex. Now this is something we used to do all the time when the ol' Galaxy 12 Theaters was new and "happenin'" and sitting by itself next to a gravel pit back behind Fred Meyers (back when Monroe was nothing more than a cow town on hwy 2 with big dreams of becoming a metropolis complete with big city lights and a Red Robbins and a Lowe's Home Improvement Center). But them days are long gone by and me 'n Pookie are so much less energetic nowadays (and although Monroe now has a Red Robbin and Lowe's Home Improvement Center... right across the street from the Galaxy 12 Cineplex as a matter of fact... it's still a cow town on hwy 2 and the gravel pit is still in business). Anyways, on with my review. So... the double feature... we were feelin' spry and wild... maybe it was the promise of Spring, or maybe we had been drinking too much Diet Coke, I don't know... maybe we just wanted to escape our wearies and woes and we had some extra danieros in our pocket. it was just something we had to do. Soooooo... we did.

The first movie we saw was Jumper; the story of a crazy kid with a crazy gift and no sense of personal or ethical responsibility. After learning that all he had to do was visualize in his mind where he wanted to be and **Poof** he was there (his motto was "if you can think it, you are there") he became a lazy slob who didn't even take the time to learn how to use a doorknob (which became an obvious problem for him when "jumped" home from the opera only to find his front room full of a big bad Samuel Jackson waiting for him and the poor lad couldn't figure out how to open the door ("why didn't he just jump back out?" you ask. Pay your own $7.50 and find out).
For a show that I thought was going to serious exploration into the juxtaposition of trying to develop a serious loving relationship within the boundless nexus of the space-time continuum (a definite metaphor to the the Mormon concept of eternal families), I was sorely disappointed and Pooky was just downright confused. (I hate it when I have to leave her to make a quick jaunt to the men's room only to return in the middle of a critical fight scene where the hero has somehow gotten tied up in a web of high voltage cables fighting off the evils of darkness while at the same time trying as best he can to create a worm hole with nothing but a whim and a thought which will suck his reality, not to mention his apartment building, into a parallel universe in order to save his lover's life while possibly destroying his own, and in an attempt to grasp the magnitude of what is unfolding on the screen before me, asking Pookie, "what did I miss??" and hearing her non-chalant reply, "ummm... nothing much." ) It was too deep a movie for my Love. I understand this now. Soooo on a Kelly's scale of Sir Issac Newton to Albert Einstein I give it a Mr. Waldron for good effort but obviously playing too those hoping for a sequel. And what about jet lag??

Our next Choi du Cinema (impressive, no?) was something of a lighter fare. Pooky loves the kids classics (as well as story lines with a little more fantasy and a lot less hard scientific theory.. actually she loves the romantic comedies but we couldn't make the showing of 10,000 BC) so into the Spiderwick Chronicles we went. I have to admit, this was a bit more fun and entertaining (OK, OK... I like the kids fantasy thing too). This movie had that kid who starred in August Rush (do NOT get me started on that mess of a movie) in a roll a' la Haley Mills in the Parent Trap (i.e. he played twins). Lots of fun and creepy creatures trying to get some book that he, his "brother", and his sister are supposed to protect and keep hidden. I have to admit, there were some scenes in there that would have had me as a 5 year old crawling under the seats and bawling like a baby, but the end was surprisingly funny and light hearted. On a Kelly's scale of scary movies, I think I'd rate it in there with "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" (what a classic) for about the same mixture of chills 'n giggles (remember that organ in the attic with the blood stains on the keys?? Thinking of that organ playing by itself still gives me the willies 40 years later!!)

Now, speaking of love comedies, I went and saw 10,000 BC the other night because I new it just had to be one of the best movies of the 2008 season. OH MY WORD! I have three words for this movie (for the love of all that is good and worthwhile, PLEASE give heed!): DO NOT GO!!! Actually, this movie can be summed up in one word: LOSER (or perhaps another three words: WASTE OF MONEY!!). In the infamous words of Mr. Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."

(Pookee Love.... you would have hated it)

The "Burgle" revisited

Things are getting somewhat back to normal around here.  The list of stolen stuff includes ALL of my camera equipment, all of the jewelry that Gina didn't have on at the time, three laptops, all of my software, two handguns, an old pocket-watch, Gina's passport, an ounce of gold formed into a pendant, Gina's ipod, ipod dock, a Garmin handheld GPS, Underwater housing and strobe for one of my cameras, a video camera, a couple of duffel bags, and a whole lot of memories.  The claim has been put into the insurance company (American Family Insurance) and we'll see how good they are to their customers.  

You know, for the most part, I'm not that worked up about the whole thing.  It's only stuff and we're insured.  However, there are some things that will never be able to be replaced.  The two handguns were guns my father gave to me when my parents moved from their home in Malad to be closer to family up here in the Northwest.  I spent many a Sunday afternoon with my dad up at the Malad "Junk Yard" shooting up tin cans and glass bottles.  I remember on winter afternoon when my dad fashioned a big pile of snow so that when he shot into it with this particular Ruger .22 cal he was able to find the expended cartridge so that I could have an undeformed bullet.  The .38 cal which was stolen was a gun he got after being deputized by none other than Ralph Burton for the sole purpose of being able to get his hands on this "police special".  He quit the "service" immediately after getting the gun.  The pocket watch had belonged to my grandfather (Charles Marshall Allen) and my parents had just had it completely rebuilt and refurbished.  It wasn't worth much in dollars, but it was inestimable in it's sentimental value.  There was also a one ounce gold pendant that my in-laws gave to my daughter when she completed her undergrad at BYU.  Eight years ago they stole a civil war era musket that had been my grandfather's.  Again, not worth much money wise, but invaluable in memories.  The sad thing about all of this is that I'm sure that the guns probably have been thrown into some nearby lake and the watch simply trashed.   Makes me sad. 

Anyway! we now have ADT in our house and in the next couple of weeks I will have a gate up at the end or our lane.  Live and learn. I told Gina we should just take any money we get from the insurance and put a down payment on a place over in Hawaii... plan for the future and all that.  I'm not sure she went for it.  We'll see....