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film reviews, in capsule form:
THE FIVE SENSES: Excellent Canadian film ... based on the senses ... an eye specialist is going deaf ... a masseuse (touch!) has an emotionally bent daughter who's baby-sitting a child which disappears from a park, while the sitter is watching coupling couples ... there's a fellow who swings both ways ... and a teen-ager who cross-dresses ... and it all sort of comes together at the end. On the Franklin Scale of 1-10, 10 being best, a 10.
THE PERFECT STORM: There's been enough hype, so you know the story about the fishing boat, trying to climb up a Mt. Everest-sized wave. Excellent film-making ... and it teaches you a lot ... about commercial fishing. The only flaws: the somnambulistic performances by the two star-leads: Clooney and Wahlberg. Once again, evidence, that from a cultural viewpoint, the Hollywood star system stinks. But, on the Franklin-Scale, a 9.
THE KID: a smirking, shallow Bruce Willis and an obese child actor... in a story I didn't understand ... something about the child in Bruce Willis ... and then he comes back as an aging pilot towards the end...huh ? On the f-scale: a 2
CHICKEN RUN - great "claymation"-type animation ... about a rooster, helping a farmful of hens to escape the chicken-pie making machine ... by flying them out. Great animation. Very funny dialogue. Entertaining for kids and bright adults. On the 1-10 Franklin Scale, 10 being best, a 9.
SHAFT: a resigned police dick carries on a one-man war against bad guys with the usual results. Lots of violence and not much in the way of intelligent dialogue. The yahoos will love it. On the F-Scale, a 4.
FANTASIA 2000: wonderful entertainment. It had my grandsons (6 to 8) in mouth-hanging ecstasy ... and me, too. A 10-plus.
GONE IN 60 SECONDS - you wish. About car thieves and stunt-drivers racing police cars and stolen vehicles through the city and junk-yards. Your 60 seconds are up. A 3.
SUNSHINE - a superb European film, about a Hungarian family (led in all its generations by Ralph Fiennes) and its converted course though World War One, the depression and inflation, World War Two and the Communist era. Lesson being taught by SUNSHINE: a Jew can change his name and go to church ... but, in the end, he'll still be a Jew to the "others". A 10+.
GLADIATOR - another Caesar salad, complete with fighting in an arena which has stadium seating ... a very cruel Caesar ... a general whose family is crucified and burned alive ... and an outstanding performance by Russell Crowe. An 8.
DINOSAUR - Great Disney animation about dinosaurs (natch) trying to escape their fate. Dialogue and story could have been more interesting. A generous 8.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - 2 ... Tom Cruise doing crazy motorcycle and mountain climbing stunts. Not much story. Thandie Newton is beautiful. A 4.
ON TV - don't miss HBO's "Sex and the City". Great show - and not for kids.
Is there anything more obnoxious than the currently running radio and TV commercials, (a) that mattress guy, screaming "...IT'S FREEEEE!" ...... and (b) the medicine Prevacid, with a burning stomach dancing inside the Heartburn Hotel" ?
Me, I prefer the LA Times full-page panty ads.
Advertising staying in touch with the changing culture.
If it weren't so hot in LA, I'd be going to the beach today.
I can think of nothing more boring than the start of the Republican convention, in Philadelphia. Boring people. Boring city. Even the protesters appear to be boring.
Andrea Mitchell (top dog, NBC News, Washington) was our City Hall reporter when I was News Director of KYW-TV, NBC's Philly affiliate.
At the time, c. 1970, Frank Rizzo, the ex-police chief, was the Mayor of Philadelphia. A huge, burly hulk of a man. If you were his friend, you were safe. If you weren't, look out !
The first time I met Frank Rizzo, I had just arrived in the city and was at that stage of job adjustment, when you begin to find out where the station's men's room is. Rizzo had just been elected, and we were in that interim period, between election and swearing-in, and the Mayor-elect was operating out of a temporary hotel office suite.
He asked to meet with me, the news chief of the area's most important television news operation, Westinghouse's NBC affiliate. KYW-TV. On arrival, Rizzo shooed everyone out of the temp office ... and we talked, trying to get a clearer picture of each other. At the end of the long chat, plus some coffee and pastry, we were saying a combined hello-good-to-meet-you-goodbye. He put his big arms around me, and said quietly:
"Hey, Gary, give me a call if I can help with anything ... like if you have trouble with a broad at a motel, or something .... "
What does this have to do with Andrea Mitchell ?
Well, Ms Mitchell was one of several reporters who covered Philadelphia's City Hall for our news operation ... and, somehow she had offended Mayor Rizzo with her questions.
One day, my General Manager boss at the time - a meek and not very dynamic person - got a call from Mayor Rizzo. The Mayor asked that Andrea was no longer welcome at City Hall ... and should no longer be allowed to cover Rizzo news conferences. Most news operations - even in cities much smaller than Philadelphia - would have laughed the Mayor's request out of existence. Not my GM ... and I was ordered to keep Andrea Mitchell out of the City Hall pitching lineup.
I didn't last long in Philadelphia and was transferred to Group W's KFWB in LA within a year. Andrea Mitchell soon went to NBC, Washington. The little GM just sorta faded into obscurity.
Frank Rizzo was a piece of work. I was told by one of my other reporters, who covered the city, that during one of the Civil Rights marches during the 60's, when Rizzo was police chief, he once took two march leaders by their shirts and threw both of them over the top of a police car. It was also in Philly that when police arrested some (male) marchers, they would be ordered to strip naked right on the scene, so "that they could be searched for weapons".
Another story from my reporter, had it that Police Chief Rizzo personally took over at least one interrogation of a murder suspect ... who was very badly beaten. It was said he confessed.
The point of all this is, that Philadelphia was - and, I suspect, still is - a pus-filled pimple on the buttocks of the American urban scene ... and probably the perfect place for the Bush-Cheney people to start their Campaign2000. There was a photo in the papers, a few days ago ... apparently the GOP had built a replica of the Oval Office somewhere in Philly, and sitting behind the Presidential desk and on two chairs next to it ... were three elderly GOP ladies with big Midwestern grins on their faces. Looking at the picture, my stream of consciousness concluded that not one of these three women would ever have to worry about big Dick Cheney's and the GOP's platform writers' abuse of women's control of their own bodies and abortion rights. Dried up, too old, too conservative. Just like the Grand Old Party and Philadelphia.
And please, no obscene jokes about the crack in the Liberty Bell.
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