MOVIE Demi-REVIEW: Despicable Me

I get a phone call Friday night asking whether I wanted some tickets to see a sneak preview of the movie Despicable Me the next morning at 10. I must admit I have zero idea what that film was. But, since The Princess and the Frog disaster, I figured a movie with that title would be a no go for the Daughter, and declined. For some reason, I told her about it and she said she wanted to go. I looked up the word “despicable” in the dictionary, but since the defition was unuseful (“worthy of being despised”), I didn’t belabor trying to explain it any further.

So Saturday morning, we took the bus to Crossgates Mall. I must note that I almost never go there, in no small part because the place is just too damn big for my taste. Astonishly, we actually found the theater, screen 4 of 18, and took our sdeats behind a young man of about 10. Unlike most of us, he was wearing TWO pair of 3D glasses. Eventually, his mother returned from wherever, and he gave her a pair.

The story is about Gru (voiced with some vague Eastern European accent by Steve Carrell), a mean supervillain type who has competition in the criminal world by Vector (Jason Segal), though adored by his minions.

35 Questions Meme

Before that, though, deaths to note. The crash that killed the Polish leader and more than seven dozen other leaders was tremendously sad for that country; I found it deeply affecting. The guy who was dean of my library school when I attended died of cancer. Dixie Carter also succumbed to cancer; yes, I DID watch Designing Women, initially because it was between Newhart and Cagney & Lacey, but eventually on its own merits. Finally, I think the only thing that will create real mine safety is if someone from the WV mining company gets indicted and convicted of 29 counts of manslaughter, and that mine owners continue to be be held criminally liable; obviously, even heavy fines are treated as just the cost of doing business.
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Sunday Stealing, again.

1. How far away is the last person you kissed?

About a foot away.

2. Has someone ever told you they would be with you forever?

More than once; didn’t always work out. To be fair, that was a mutual pledge.

3. Last person you were in a car with?

The Wife and Daughter.

4. Any plans for tomorrow?

Play racquetball, go to work, come home; same as today.

5. How long does it take for you to take a shower?

10 minutes. Less when I’m in a hurry.

6. Best friend or close friends?

Close friends.

7. Is tomorrow going to be a good day?

Sure, why not?

8. Did you kiss anyone Friday?

I’m sure I did.

9. Ever thrown up in public?

Well, yes, actually, twice. The first time I remember quite vividly. I was at a party in my college town of New Paltz, NY and everyone, including me, was drinking. I was consuming a large amount of this Polish vodka, and I was really quite lucid. In fact, I had become the de facto host of the party because the host had passed out. The Polish vodka ran out, so I started drinking some Johnny Walker. In five minutes I went from sober to smashed – a late-arriving guest confirmed that he thought I was clear-headed only minutes earlier – to sick, fortunately in the bathroom. Lesson learned: don’t mix drinks.

The other time, I had some flu or food poisoning. I had had a drink or two, but hardly enough to get sick. I always felt badly, though, because my friends Jean and Rich probably thought I was just drinking too much.

10. What’s on your mind RIGHT NOW?

Baseball. Or sex. Or sleep. Or money. Wait, music.

11. Who was the last person you talked to?

The Wife.

12. What is the WORST subject they teach at school?

I don’t know that there’s a “worst” subject. There are things that I am more or less interested in.

13. Have you seen anyone lately that you don’t get along with?

Not in person.

14. What is your favourite colour top to wear?

Blue. I have more blue shirts than any other.

15. Have you ever been in a car accident?

At least two that involved medical attention, one which put me in the hospital for a day and a half. Plus the bike avoiding the car thing. And a handful of lesser events.

16. What’s the closest thing to you that’s green?

When your name is green, your mother’s, sisters’, wife’s, daughter’s niece’s names are all Green, so it is difficult to say. Oh, lower-case green: An ancient book called Play the Game: The Book of Sport that I used to read as a kid.

17. Where would you like to be right now?

On vacation. I just WAS on vacation.

18. Write down some lyrics to the song you’re listening to?

Love is just like a baseball game
Three strikes you’re out

Up to bat
I thought I hit a love run
But to my surprise
I found I didn’t hit none

Threw her love so fast
She put me in a daze
Never knew that love
Could come so many ways

(Here’s a recording.)

19. How many dogs do you have?

Zero. Haven’t had one in decades.

20. Is anything bugging you right now?

Yes. Fred Phelps’ “church”, among other things.

21. Is life going right for you now?

It’s more than tolerable. But I have a physical tomorrow, so we’ll see.

22. Is there someone you care about more than yourself?

Yes.

23. What made you laugh today?

The Daughter: something she said.

24. What was the last movie you watched?

Crazy Heart.

25. Whats the last conversation you had about?

Housecleaning.

26. What were you doing at 7:00 this morning?

Will be getting ready for work.

27. Do you like your hair long or short?

What hair?

28. Do you want to see somebody right now?

If I had the power of teleporting, I’d use it a lot.

29. Do you like the rain?

In moderation.

30. Did you have a valentine this year?

Why, yes.

31. The last person you kissed needs you at 3 am, would you go?

Why not?

32. Would you honestly say you’d risk your life for someone else?

Yes.

33. Honestly, if you could go back 1 month and change something would you?

Not so much. Well, actually, if you said TWO months ago, then the answer would be yes.

34. How do you feel about boys smoking?

I hate smoking, no matter who is doing it.

35. Could you see yourself with someone forever?

I have my hopes.

ROG

ROG

Bob & Dick

I’ve noticed quite often that when someone, say, at church dies, who I might have known for a couple decades, they always have a back story revealed at the funeral I would not have imagined. Whereas the stories of public figures – actors, singers, and the like – are usually well-known to me.

So I was surprised that I was surprised to learn much more about Robert Culp, the actor who died last week at the age of 79. Not only was he a performer but also a writer and sometime director, often of the series on which he was performing at the time.

I knew Culp him best as Kelly Robinson on I Spy, partnering up with Bill Cosby’s Alexander Scott. Cosby was a well-regarded young comedian, but known for his stand-up routines, not dramatic performances. Yet Sheldon Leonard gave him the job, Cosby got three Emmys in three years, and Cosby and Culp became good friends.

But what struck me when I get to Gordon’s very nice obit of Robert Culp was this book cover of the Whitman novelization Message from Moscow by Brandon Keith (1966). I read this story at least a few times in my early teen years, but oddly I don’t remember that much about it, except for one thing: the villain was quite literally “hoist by his own petard.”

I Spy: I watched that show religiously for the three years it was on. I venture to say 90% of black Americans watched it, just like most black folk watched Nat King Cole’s short-lived variety show a decade earlier. There just weren’t that many opportunities to see people of color on the screen – and when you did, they were often in minor, often demeaning roles. I appreciated how both Culp and Cosby demanded that Cosby’s race not be a centerpiece of the show. I may have to go to HULU and catch an episode or two to see if it is as good as I remember it.
***
I should mention the passing of Dick Giordano, whose ascension to the position of DC Comics’ editor-in-chief corresponded to me starting at the comic book store FantaCo, in 1980. I wasn’t a big DC fan, but I did find myself picking up more of their books in the decade or so he was in charge far more than in the period before. I have a vague recollection meeting him once very briefly at the San Diego Comic Con, and he didn’t SEEM like a corporate stuffed shirt. I suspect that was because, most of all, he was an artist, specifically a quality inker, so he was inclined to try to undersand and appreciate the artist POV. A much better remembrance here.
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Oh, and this is coincidentally related. My buddy Steve Bissette has been musing at length about Forgotten Comics Wars of the mid to late 1980s. Subtitled How Angry Freelancers Made It Possible for A New Mainstream Comics Era (Including Vertigo) to Exist, it is a very interesting take on an era when I was actively involved in the retail comics biz. I was going to compile the 12 parts once they were all released, but Mark Evanier, bless him, beat me to it. And ME notes: “That last installment has bittersweet meaning because of the recent passing of Dick Giordano, who was in the midst of the controversy.”
ROG

ROG

the Experiment

Usually, I try to write something comprehensive (and ideally, comprehensible) to post the next morning. I have maybe a half dozen things in draft form, not quite ready to go. So as a one-off experience, I have gotten up at 5:03 a.m., slightly foggy, and will write for 20 minutes, and post whatever at 5:30.
**
Doing the March Madness thing. For those not familiar, it’s college basketball. I think the idea that, theoretically, ANY ONE of the 65 teams (well, 64 now), can win lends a sense of democracy to the proceedings. I have our local team, Siena, winning their first game, over Purdue, just as they won their first first game the last two years as an underdog. Still haven’t finished my picks, though, tentatively, I have Kansas over Syracuse, west Virginia over Baylor, and because I believe WV got jobbed out of being a #12 seed, WV over Kansas. Anyone who actually FOLLOWS basketball with insights, please comment. SOON.
***
Gave blood on Tuesday, BP was uncharacteristically high for me. It’s usually 100 to 120; that day, it was 138. What changed has been a habituation to caffeinated cola; I mean one a day, not multiples, but I’ve just stopped. Yesterday about 4:30 pm, I went to the bathroom and threw cold water on my face.
***
Anyone out there use that free wifi searcher from Makayama? I downloaded it, put it on my thumb drive, but couldn’t get it to work on my laptop at home.
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I was checking Dead or Alive this morning.
Knew Peter Graves died. He started on the second season of the show Mission: Impossible, and those two or three seasons with him, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, were among the best in television. He was also in my top three favorite comedy, Airplane!
Merlin Olson died. I never saw a single fill episode of Little House on the Prairie. I knew him as a football player for the LA Rams, back in the days that Los Angeles actually had a pro football team. I mean besides UCLA and USC.
Caroline McWilliams died last month, which I never noted here. I used to love her in Soap and Benson.
Corey Haim died, and I don’t know that I ever saw him in anything.
***
Ah, nuts. Time’s up
***
EDIT:
Roger Ebert on Glenn Beck and Beck’s “I beg you, look for the words social justice or economic justice on your church web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can.”
***
Bummer: Alex Chilton died at the age of 59.
ROG

ROG

Behind the Curve

Partially because I deigned to watch football the last three weekends and partially because I have the annoying habit of taking on more stuff than I’m comfortable with, I’m behind in watching stuff on TV, reading the paper, etc.

That two-hour Haiti special, the album for which is the first #1 album that exists without an actual physical product? Haven’t watched it.

The State of the Union – read the reviews, but not heard the actual address. The chat Obama had with Republicans that went so well for the President that FOX News stopped showing it 20 minutes in – plenty of places to read it or watch it, including here but hasn’t happened yet. Still, I think Evanier’s right when he notes: Once you tell your constituents that everything Obama does is evil, you can’t meet him halfway on anything without appearing to be compromising with evil. You can’t even support him when he does things you like. I think that’s a lot of our problem right there.

Of course, being behind has its benefits. After Martha Coakley lost to Scott Brown in the Massachusetts race for US Senate, there’s been this revisionist message that the Democrats only dumped on her because she lost. Watching the Sunday morning talk shows two and nine days before that election, it was clear that the Democrats, though muted in their criticism – she was still their candidate – suggested that she did not run the robust campaign she ought to have. Yes, in answer to her rhetorical question, you DO pass out fliers in front of Fenway Park.

Some stories I missed altogether, such as the death of Pernell Roberts, the eldest son on Bonanza who later became, in some bizarro world spinoff, Trapper John in the CBS drama Trapper John, MD. It was not a great show, though it was the jumping off point for now-Broadway legend Brian Stokes Mitchell.

I plowed through a couple weeks of the Wall Street Journal and came across this story of Scarlett Johansson’s debut on Broadway as well as a very positive review of “Gregory Mosher’s revival of ‘A View From the Bridge, Arthur Miller’s
1955 play about love and death on the Brooklyn waterfront.” “Of course you’ll be wondering about Ms. Johansson, whose Broadway debut this is, and I can tell you all you need to know in a sentence: She is so completely submerged in her role that you could easily fail to spot her when she makes her first entrance. You’d never guess that she hasn’t acted on a stage since she was a little girl.”

Other stories I just didn’t know what to say. I noticed that Kate McGarrigle of the singing/songwriting McGarrigle Sisters, and also mother of Rufus and Martha Wainwright, died of cancer at the age of 62 back on January 18. The best I could come with is a link to an obituary for Kate written by her sister Anna. I was listening to Trio, an album by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris this week. There’s a Kate song called I’ve Had Enough, about lost love, but feels right here.

Love it’s not I who didn’t try
Hard enough, hard enough
And this is why I’m saying goodbye
I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough
Love you don’t see
The pain in me
That’s plain enough, plain enough
You’re never here to catch the tears
I cried for us, I cried for us

I’ll take my share but I’ll be fair
There’s not much stuff
Easy enough
And if you choose I’ll break the news
This part is tough, so very tough

I’ve tried and tried to put aside
The time to talk, but without luck
So I’ll just pin this note within your coat
And leave the garden gate unlocked

And this is why I’m saying goodbye
I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough

Her funeral is today in Montreal.

Little Boxes theme from Weeds by the McGarrigle Sisters.

ROG

ROG

LOST Question

This has nothing to do with the ABC-TV show of the same name.

The scripture in the lectionary was that reading in Luke where Jesus is 12 and he gets lost. OK, he doesn’t think he’s lost. Mary and Joseph think he’s visiting other relatives, and travel a day before realizing he’s not with the other travelers. Frantic, they return to Jerusalem and look all over for three days before finally finding him in the temple. Jesus says, “Yeesh, mom and dad, you should have KNOWN where I’d be.” I always thought he was a little impudent. On the other hand, if they were in fact visited by angels before Jesus was born, maybe he had a point.

So my questions:

1. Have you ever been lost as a child?

I was at Ross Park Zoo in Binghamton, NY when I was four or five, maybe six. There were these huge culverts though the park and I wanted to know where they went. I got to the end, or at least as far as I wanted to go, and I came back. *I* didn’t think I was lost; I knew exactly how to get back. But my parents thought I was lost. I vaguely recall their combination of relief and anger.

2. Have you ever lost a child?

Well, no, but I have thought from time to time that I had. Lydia has this annoying habit of hiding, and she’s pretty good at it, too. So there have been a few times I Thought she was MIA, but fortunately, she was not.
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And speaking of lost, we lost Chas. Balun, horror film expert, a funny, irreverent, and generally nice bear of a man, to cancer at the age of 61. I started dealing with Chas. in my FantaCo days in the early 1980s when Tom Skulan came across one of his publications and we started it sell it. Later we were putting out the magazine he edited, Deep Red, and eventually we published books he authored, such as Horror Holocaust (1986) and The Gore Score (1987). My dealing with him as the person in charge of the mail order, I’d talk to him about the prosaic issue of how the items were selling. We always seemed to find some amicable banter, primarily about music.

Steve Bissette wrote a nice piece about Chas.

ROG

ROG

Should old acquaintance

There are lots of ideas that I come up with for this blog but eventually abandon. Things like, my favorite albums of the aughts or my favorite TV shows of the aughts. I just can’t wrap my head around the beginning and end points, I’d likely just forget a bunch of choices, and it’d be unsatisfactory for all involved. Especially me.

(Not to be confused with the things I start but haven’t finished yet. Sssh, we won’t mention THEM just yet.)

In fact, I don’t even note the significant deaths of the year, because everyone else has already done so. I do want to note some deaths I had not mentioned here, most of which did NOT make it into those annual lists in the magazines, because the magazines came out in the FIRST WEEK IN DECEMBER. No one dies in December, it would seem; ask James Brown.

Edward Woodward (11/16, age 79) – there was this show I enjoyed in the mid-1980s called The Equalizer on CBS that I enjoyed immensely. it was about a secret agent for the US government (Woodward) who quit and helped individuals in dire straits. Unfortunately, it was head-to-head, Wednesday at 10 p.m. with St. Elsewhere on NBC, one of my favorite shows, for most of 1985-1988. So I only saw it when the hospital show was in reruns, until The Equalizer’s last season, when St. Elsewhere had gone off the air.

Gene Barry (12/9, age 90) – the western Bat Masterson (1958-1961) was a little before my time, but Burke’s Law (1963-1965) was not. It about a millionaire L.A. chief of detectives (Barry, pictured above with Jaye P. morgan in 1984), who’d get driven in his limousine to the latest celebrity murder; he was always surrounded by beautiful young women. A great theme song. LOTS of guest stars in these shows. I loved it, yet didn’t follow Barry when the show segued into Amos Burke – Secret Agent in the 1965-1966 season.

Oral Roberts (12/15, age 91). When I was 12, his theology was right up my alley. By a decade later, it had become anathema to me. That clip that ABC News showed with Roberts proclaiming need for more money for the ministry, lest the Lord take him away, is one of the most vile pieces of “theology” I’ve seen.

Connie Hines (12/18, age 78). It must have be difficult for a working actress to be best known as the “mom” of TV horse Mr. Ed (1961-1966), especially since her character Carol didn’t even know the equine talked; only her husband Wilbur (Alan Young) did. An insidious theme song, which unfortunately I’ve known by heart for decades. She seemed to have left acting in 1971.

Brittany Murphy (12/20, age 32!) I saw her in the movies Clueless and Girl, Interrupted. But I enjoyed her most as the voice of Luanne in the cartoon series King of the Hill, the extended theme by the Refreshments which can be found here.

Arnold Stang (12/20, age 91) the voice of a lot of nerdy cartoon characters, plus one of my favorite cartoon characters, the cool and unflappable Top Cat. He also did some onscreen performances. Evanier has a piece or two. I remember THAT theme too, and in case you don’t, here’s a singalong version.
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The passing of the Spatula Forum blog, mentioned here only yesterday. I am sad but I understand. Sort of. There’s been a number of blogs that I followed that bit the dust this year: Delenda Est Carthago by Greg Burgas, though he still has the Daughter Chronicles; Tom the Dog; Tosy and Cosh. The latter two are on Twitter, but it just ain’t the same.
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So because it pleases me, A Charlie Brown Hey Ya Christmas. Hey, it’s only the seventh day of Christmas.

ROG

ROG

Anticipating Halloween QUESTIONS

In my twenties, I used to dress up for Halloween. While I might pull out my Frankenstein mask now and then – I REALLY can’t breathe in that thing – I’ve lost my All Hallows Eve mojo.

But this year, the child is going to need an escort for her trick-or-treating; her costume is a ballet dress that lights up – I might just surprise myself by dressing

All I want to know:

Are you dressing up for Halloween? As what?
Are you going to a party, or parties?
Are you going trick or treating? Do you have a child to provide you cover?
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Top 10 Spooky Buildings
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My friend Fred Hembeck’s comic icon, Soupy Sales, died this week. One of the many things Fred taught me about Soupy is that he was a Motown artist. Really. And some of the songs, as Fred noted, weren’t half bad.
A suitable tribute for Soupy.
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Scott from Scooter Chronicles answers my questions.
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I’ve seen this a couple places on the Internet already: the octogenarian war vet’s impassioned plea for gay rights.

ROG

ROG

Date afternoon

One of the things those relationship “experts” always say is that, in order to keep a relationship strong, you need to continue to “date” your spouse/s.o. It’s ESPECIALLY necessary when you have children.

So we decided on a date afternoon this past Sunday. We used to do it once a month, in the middle of the month (we got married on 15 May), but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. The trick about Sunday is that it was communion Sunday (which means a longer service) AND the wife was partially in charge of the after-service snacks. And because my wife’s a deacon, people had things to ask her. So while she was talking, I struck up a conversation with someone. It turns out she kept talking because I was talking, and I was talking because SHE was talking. By this point, our babysitter, who had previously had just been sitting around, had engaged in conversation.

So, it’s 12:45 pm by the time we get home. too late really to feed the child and get to the 1 pm movies. So instead we went out to a restaurant. It’s a Middle Eastern restaurant called Ma Moun. The food was good, but we were mildly worried that no one else came in the whole time we were there.

Then we went to Staples to buy a paper shredder. Tres romantique, n’est-ce pas? Except that it was just nice even doing something that mundane. the cool thing was that they were on sale 25%. The confusing thing was that the one we decided on was only marked down from $79.95 to $74.95; a larger machine would have cost the same. We took it to the counter for a price check and stated our confusion with that minimal discount; the clerk called the manager, who surveyed the situation and said, “How much do you want to pay for it?” Well, since you asked…The manager took $15 off, and the $59.95 was what we had in mind. Usually it’s the wife who picks up on these pricing discrepancies, but this time I sussed it out.

It was a nice date.
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Did that radio thing I was worried about yesterday; I haven’t heard it yet, but once the nausea went away, I guess it went OK. I’ll listen to it when it’s available.
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Yesterday afternoon about 5 pm, Joe Fludd, long-time FantaCo customer, e-mailed me with the sad news that Nic Morrison, another FantaCo regular who worked there for a time had died. I enjoyed seeing Nic around from time to time. As the obit noted, he “entered into eternal life on his 47th birthday, October 1, 2009, at the Hospice Inn at St. Peter’s Hospital, ten days after suffering a devastating stroke.” The wake was Sunday, the funeral yesterday; had I known sooner, I might have made one or the other. Quoting a mutual friend, “Nic was a gentle soul and a good person. 47 is too young.”
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Apparently, Blogger has a limit of 2000 labels, and I have reached that threshold. Thus, e.g., I cannot add Nic Morrison to the label. Sometime when I have absolutely nothing better to do, I will deal with relabeling fifty-three months of blogging.

ROG

The Random Dozen Meme

I’m Sunday Stealing again:

1. When you go to Wowmart, what one thing do you get every single time, besides a funky-wheeled squeaking cart full of frustration?

The heebie-jeebies. Since I never go there on my own, only with other people, usually those with whom I am related, I find that it’s almost like suffocating.

2. What is something that people are currently “into” that you just don’t get or appreciate?

Probably a reality show that I haven’t even heard of. I mean I never knew about Jon and Kate until their marriage went south, and now I hear about them ALL OF THE TIME. Oh, I know something else: Twilight. All I know about it is what I read in other people’s blogs, none of it complimentary.

3. What is something that really hoists your sail that other people might feel “ho-hum” about?

Racquetball, the sport of kings. And I actually like to watch tennis tournaments such as the U.S. open and Wimbledon.

4. Favorite song to sing in the shower or car?

Oh, there’s no singular favorite. It’s often affected by my mood or what I’ve been listening to. On the bike, though, it’s as often as not, “Keeping On Running” by the Spencer Davis Group; GREAT bass line.

5. A really great salad must have this ingredient:

Lettuce other than iceberg.

6. What advice in a nutshell would you give to new bloggers?

Write three days worth of stuff before you post your first item; otherwise, you’ll have tabula rasa every day.

7. What was the alternate name that your parents almost named you? Do you wish they had chosen it instead of the one they gave you?

Actually, I was always going to be Roger, and my sister Leslie was going to be Leslie. I think my mom was pushing for Margaret for the baby sister, but Marcia was the compromise.

8. What in your life are you waiting for?

Very little. I find that waiting for even the weekend tends to diminish the time I’m in presently in. If it’d Wednesday and I want it to be Friday would mean Wednesday and Thursday are not being honored.

9. You get a package in the mail. What is it, and who is it from?

From my sister Marcia. Something she’s passed on from my 18-year-old niece to my 5 year old daughter.

10. Today–what song represents you?

I’m So Tired by the Beatles.

11. What is one thing that blogging has taught you about yourself?

That I’m even more opinionated than I thought I was, and more disciplined.

12. How are you going to (or how did you) choose the clothes you’re wearing today?
What do they say about you in general or specifically how you’re feeling today?

Are they clean? Are they wrinkled? Do they vaguely match? Are they torn? If the answers are Yes, No, Yes, and Depends On Where And How Much, respectively, we’re good to go. It means that clothes have never been that important to me.
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I should note the passing of Larry Gelbart, writer of the TV show M*A*S*H (which I watched religiously), co-creator of the Broadway musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (hilarious, even in a local production I saw), and co-writer of Tootsie (a film I enjoyed), among many other credits, going back to working with Sid Caesar. But I’ll just recommend this piece by Mark Evanier and also this one, which rightly points to this piece by Ken Levine.

ROG

ROG