Ernest Borgnine is dead.........

I loved everything Borgnine ever did, particularly MARTY.    I had a friend who, when we were both still single, I'd do things with like going to the movies, mostly going to dinner, or (believe it or not) playing pool!.......we'd try to decide what to do and always quote from the film... "What do you want to do, Marty?   I don't know what do YOU want to do.." like they did in the film....
I guess he doesn't have to say THAT anymore.   I loved Marty.

I hated Borgnine's guts as Sgt Judson in From Here to Eternity......he pummeled Maggio and we all hated him for it.....Rest in Peace, Mr. Borgnine.   You were a terrific actor.
z

Atlas Shrugged...please go see it

I haven't seen ATLAS SHRUGGED yet, it came to L.A. on Friday, but I know people who have seen it and they really liked it.
Jon Stewart's already slamming it, so you know the message is feared and the word is out to kill the film in the box office though it did $1.7 million the first weekend with practically no promotion at all.

From THIS SITE:  "Atlas Shrugged pulled in $1.7 million at the box office this weekend — all by itself, without a shred of help from anyone, just to make itself happy! So self-reliant! The critically panned adaptation of Ayn Rand's 1957 objectivist bible was made for around $10 million, and producers say the film's draw, in 80 cities on around 300 screens, was "at the upper edge" of their expectations. They're hoping to expand the release to 1,000 screens."

Please see it if you can.  The message is a good one and we need to support films like this

z

A Spaniard's new impression of America

This is only one guy 's opinion, but I had to blog this.   Leave it to me to meet a fellow and have the following conversation at church yesterday whose little girl goes to our preschool which had sung moments before in the service.   I'd walked out of church for a few minutes (I'll admit it was during the sermon, but I've been fighting laryngitis and needed some air and a cup of coffee from the fellowship pot waiting outside for after the service)....Anyway, I walked out and he and I and this guy's little 2 yr old boy were the only people in the courtyard and we got to talking.  He's a scientist just brought over here by UCLA to do work on some amazing things he went into some detail about.

We got to talking about the differences in Europe and the States and his adapting to life and work in America and he came up with "what's amazing is there's no similarity between what Europeans say about America and America itself...... they're so critical there and this (and he made quotes with is fingers in the air around) 'capitalist' country has given me such great opportunity and the people have been amazingly kind and helpful to me."   I suppose they laugh at the 'capitalist' part over there and he was playing on that, as if 'capitalist' is a dirty word over there where nobody would believe any good could come out of that.  He repeated this a few times so it was clear the juxtaposition of truth and criticism was remarkable to him.

I reminded him that most of what Europeans hear in Europe about America (and I know this first hand and with certitude) is from the NY Times:  critical, demeaning, insulting, etc. .(Even Europe's English-speaking Herald Tribune has been wholly owned by the NY Times for the last 11 years or so).. and he says Europeans believe that's actually news and believe it.  Don't forget, he's an academic and he admitted most of those he comes into contact with are leftwing academics and I got the impression he's not exactly conservative himself but he sure has different attitudes about America since having come here to live.     His statements (I wish I remembered more of what he said) made me feel so good and so sad at the same time.  I don't know what we can do about this situation.  I think FOX was on a few cable channels in Paris by the time we moved back to the States and that was nearly 10 years ago now, so maybe it's on more channels now....at least they'd get some balance.  The only English speaking TV they really get there is CNN International which is even more biased to the left than our CNN.

Later, driving home, I saw a billboard for the remake (wasn't the original good enough?) of the film ARTHUR....the billboard says  'ARTHUR.... MEET THE WORLD'S ONLY LOVEABLE BILLIONAIRE!'   Really?  The ONLY lovable billionaire?...suggesting no other billionaires are lovable?  WHY?  Because they (gasp!) are CAPITALISTS, have what's come to be looked at as evil:  MONEY?    SO, you see, not only is this nonsense rampant in news in America and Europe but it's even in entertainment.......subtle, beguiling, and effective.


What can be done?

z

Jesus in a huge box office hit? .......bringing in CHANGE$$$ (for the better)

Soul Surfer opens after fights over depicting faith

Full article here By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor

"Soul Surfer," the feature film based on the true story of surfer Bethany Hamilton being attacked by a shark and her journey back to surfing, opened last weekend in the fourth spot on the box office charts - partly a testament to its appealing family-friendly message and a marketing campaign that heavily targeted religious groups.
But even though Hamilton and her family's faith plays a key role in the film, many audiences would be surprised to learn that the question of how to show their religion in the film caused huge debate on set.
"I think to get anything in the film was a battle," said Sarah Hill, Hamilton's youth group leader at North Shore Christian Church, who was played by Carrie Underwood in the movie.
"Basically, what you're doing is you have all these people who want to make a movie about Bethany and they don't know the Lord and they don't have a personal relationship with Jesus. For what we have in the movie it was such a battle."  (Z:  It's sad to consider that anything that the truth about any story is fine if it's ugly and seamy and debauched...the more the better, but let a Christian girl want her all-important faith portrayed and it's a fight with Hollywood)
In one scene, Hill's character is shown counseling Hamilton as she struggles with living as an amputee. She reads from Jeremiah 29:11 " 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' "  (Z: is that a threatening thought to anyone?)

The morning they went to shoot that scene, said Hill, who was on set often, "Twelve producers, me and the director were all sitting at the table and they all are just adamant about the Scripture not being in the movie. And they were saying at least let's not have the reference in it."   (Z: how scared they seem)
"For me it was a hill worth dying on to keep God in the movie," she said.
Tom Hamilton, Bethany’s father, said, “In my heart of hearts I wanted as many Christians as we could get to play parts in the movie. They just have a different spirit about them (Z:  Every actor I know in this town says the same thing and many have brought secular people to Christ on sets, believe me) ... Craig T. Nelson, who is a really strong Christian and goes to our church in Kauai, I called him and begged him to be in the movie.
“A lot of the producers didn’t want to go too overboard because they thought Christianity doesn’t always sell well,” Tom Hamilton said.  (Z: right...like the Passion didn't sell well, or The Blind Side? :)
Kevin Sorbo, who plays Holt Blanchard, the father of Hamilton's best friend, said, "Sony (Pictures, the film's producer) was afraid to throw in the word Jesus. They said you can have God but not Jesus. They were worried about that.  (Z: but the Black Swan can show a girl masturbating, no problem)

"The studios, you can't really fight them," he said. "Hollywood screams for freedom of speech but only if you agree with them. It's a very two-faced industry."

Sorbo said Sony wanted to take out another scene in which Bethany Hamilton wakes up in the hospital. Her father, played by Dennis Quaid, is shown reading a Bible. He reads to her from Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through him who gives me strength."  (Z: I happen to know that Dennis Quaid is a committed Christian...sorry to disillusion anybody)
Tom Hamilton said the studio rented a house for the family during the filming so they could be on set every day.
“They changed the script a lot,” Hamilton said. “Dennis Quaid would come up to say, ‘Hey, this doesn’t sound right, we need a Scripture here.’ The script was in constant motion, it changed on the set even.”
“They listened to us. We had some pretty heated discussions. Everyone saw how passionate about it we were, getting the message we wanted out there,” he said.

Rich Peluso, the vice president of AFFIRM Films, a division of Sony Pictures, said the studio made no efforts to whitewash the Hamilton family's faith for the movie. He points out that Jesus is mentioned twice in the film and that the family's faith is central to the plot. (Z: But...wait....everyone on the set says differently...read above!)

On set, he said, "There were certainly lots of discussions," specifically about the inclusion of Hill's character quoting Jeremiah.
"There were some that voiced the opinion that may have made it sound too faith-focused," Peluso said. "The counter-argument was, 'Well, if her character uses those words and doesn't attribute them to the Bible it seems like she's stealing them.' We came to the agreement the best thing to do was to use the Scripture there."
The biggest question the movie's producers were trying to determine was, "How do we have it come off (in a way) that is authentic to the family's faith and doesn't push it too far so that it appears to the viewer to be forced in?" he said. "We didn't want it to appear we were pushing in faith to appeal to the faith community."
The studio made a big push to attract faith leaders to the project, setting up screenings for pastors and ministry leaders. But it's hard to characterize "Soul Surfer" as a Christian movie.

(Z: It all sounds very odd.  They're afraid that a surfing movie about a girl losing her arm and strongly relying on her faith to get her through is "pushing in faith to appeal to the faith community"  as if they made the faith part up to pander?  And, of course, then it says the studio invited pastors....now, isn't THAT "pushing in faith"?    They "made a big push" but didn't want to "push too far"...why the screenings?)
 
Like the hit movie "The Blind Side," though, the characters in "Soul Surfer" are decidedly Christian.  The movie opens with Bethany Hamilton rushing into a beachside church service because the Sunday morning waves were just too good to pass up.
"It's not that it's a Christian movie, it's an American movie," Peluso said.(Z:NOW he gets it)
In 2003, when a tiger shark attacked the 14-year-old Hamilton near Kauai, Hawaii, the story gripped the nation. Just three weeks after the attack, Hamilton was back in the water learning how to surf with one arm. A year later, she won a national surfing title.
Battles over how to portray religious themes in movies are becoming more common, as Hollywood becomes more open to addressing faith  (Z:, what, like this group at Sony which fought them at every turn from mentioning Jesus? really?) and marketing movies to religious audiences but worries about alienating nonreligious audiences or viewers from other traditions.(Z: have you all seen films from the forties whose music is all hymns, or all the characters go to church?  didn't seem threatening then, did it)
“After all the back and forth - and there’s always back and forth - it’s always best to err on the side of authenticity,” said Michael Flaherty, the president of Walden Media, which has helped produced the Chronicles of Narnia franchise and other Christian-themes movies.
“It actually is not in your commercial interest to secularize something like that, people will reject it,” he said of “Soul Surfer.” “People think they are making these decisions to broaden their audience but what they end up doing is narrowing it.”
But Flaherty said he thought “Soul Surfer” struck the right balance. “To see a movie where she wasn’t talking about her faith … it would have flopped,” he said. “It’s silly to narrow (the family’s faith). It’s like someone saying, ‘Let’s make a movie about Bethany but not talk about surfing.’”(Z: Finally, someone's thinking)
Today, Bethany Hamilton is a professional surfer. In 2010 she was ranked 23rd in the world. "The shy kid has gone on to have a legit pro surf career despite her massive physical impairment," Joel Patterson recently wrote in Surfer Magazine, "and, in the process, she's inspired uncountable people struggling against cruel twists of fate."
Hamilton has long been outspoken about her Christian faith and the positive role it played in her recovery.
"We work with a lot of films, but the Hamiltons have to live with this for the rest of their lives, so that balance was important to us," AFFIRM's Peluso said. "I think we threaded the needle after a lot of work."
Tom Hamilton said Peluso constantly went to bat for the family with the movie, adding, "There was some give and take, but everything that was very important for us to portray ended up in the movie. We were very happy over all with the movie. We just wanted the real story told.”

Z: Odd that people think this surfer's faith has to somehow jump off the screen and strangle people till they believe, too, isn't it?  I mean, Islam would be portrayed with NO PROBLEM "How interesting"  "fascinating"...but Christianity is so controversial that a woman can't show her faith without Hollywood executives getting nervous?   WHY?   Of course, the box office has been fabulous for Soul Surfer.  Funny, but I've heard about this film for weeks and, until reading this article, I had no idea it had Christian undertones...never even questioned the "soul" part.  Mr. Peluso from SONY sent some mixed messages but it seems he was finally coerced into doing a true betrayal and then sold it as if it was his idea all along.  Well, it that's what it takes to get Hollywood happy and to attract viewers to an amazing story of faith, that should be acceptable to anyone.

What do you think?

z

McCain/Palin film ....A Liberal BLAST!

Oh, please, God, if I die and come back as an actress, let me play Jane Fonda or Hillary Clinton in a serious film about them!  I want to have a blast with nuance that shows what I think about them. I want to make Democrats look as bad as the Dems are going to make McCain and Palin look in the new film GAME CHANGE, okay???

It's just not FAIR that liberal Julianne Moore gets to play Sarah Palin and very liberal Ed Harris gets to play John McCain, it'll just be too much fun for them.   They must have jumped at the chance to slam Republicans because, after all, what else could the film be about, there was very little interesting about their side of the  '08 campaign!

Talking about 2008's election, God, do you have the inside scoop of who's going to portray Hillary or Gloria Allred or any of the people threatening voters outside the Houston precincts in '08 when Hillary gets furious that Obama's people were telling people they had to vote for him or leave and they did?, and when Allred blew the whistle about that but suddenly dummied up when Conservatives learned about it?.......From what I hear about Hillary, playing her REALLY MAD might be quite an experience!  OH, but I forgot, I doubt seriously that anything about that cheating by Obama supporters against Hillary will appear on film.   What was I thinking, God?

So, that's my prayer.....  And, by the way, I'm just kidding about wanting to come back OR play liberals......just trying to make a point here.   If I ever came back as Hillary or Allred or Fonda even in a role, just shoot me, God. :-)

Amen.

z

FILMS: Got a favorite?

Happy Monday to you....let's have fun today instead of dwelling on politics and shootings and sickness!
On my Saturday blog, I told everybody you have to see Hitchcock's favorite of his films, SHADOW OF A DOUBT and we got into some good conversation in the Comments Section.......so.....

Could you list at least 3 of your favorite films?   

I would love to see them and know others will enjoy that, too..........It's always good to get some new things to watch............thanks!

z

FILMS.....got a suggestion?

Is there a film, or maybe two or three, which you think should be seen by American kids? For me, Boyz in the Hood, Stand and Deliver, and Pride and Prejudice come quickly to my mind. (I have a lot of others).
What would you recommend for High School viewing and WHY?
Thanks, I'm looking forward to hearing what you think.

Z

"Julie and Julia"...DNC AD? Did they have to PAY?

I just watched the film "Julie and Julia". It's not a bad film at all. It's also a free ad for the Democrats. I was stunned. Not that I haven't seen constant Republican bashing over the years, but the comments in the film were quite something. As a matter of fact, just before "Julie and Julia", there was that standard long line of trailers before the film which I'd rented on NetFlix and one was a film with Hugh Grant and Jessica Parker, "Did You Hear about the Morgans?"...the preview had a scene where they go to some cowboy town (they're New York elitists who had to very begrudgingly leave town on a witness protection program) and run into a woman about whom Parker very disdainfully says "oh, NO.........Sarah Palin!" Okay, I thought...let's pretend we didn't hear that get down to the one I want to SEE, Netflix...OKAY? And, my film started........

The film's divided into Julia's life in Paris in the early fifties and Julie's life in Queens, NYC in 2002. First, it made me weepy because Julia's part takes place in Paris and Mr Z and I lived there for the exact amount of time the Childs did...four years. Julia says Mr. Child talks about how she would rather shop for food than clothes and, brother, that was ME (still is, by the way). Mr. Z said exactly the same thing about me. Julia mentions her husband says that because she's tall and can't find clothes to fit her in Paris. I'm tall, too, not heavy, but tall, and I had a tough time finding clothes there, too. Practically anyone who's not a size 2 has trouble! And that's really only a slight exaggeration.

Julia Child never loved a bite of French food more than I did. This, I am sure of. Mr Z and I took GREAT pleasure in eating out quite often. We also went to several American or German embassy events, as depicted in the film when the Childs also went to them. I also took classes at the Cordon Bleu, as she did. I have wonderful stories to tell about those days and will...perhaps on my food blog, Mac 'n GeeeeeZ. ANYWAY, because of all the things the Z's and the Childs had in common while in France, the film was full of REALLY wonderful if painful memories for me now (we LOVED living in Paris and it's almost hurt to see certain locations on TV since we returned 7 years ago but it's especially painful since Mr. Z's passed away).... I was enjoying the film and then it started with the Republican bashing........

First, there was talk between the Childs about Joe McCarthy and the "disgusting" associated government of America at the time......as if everyone in that government was Joe McCarthy (and as if he was so bad, but that's not the topic of this post)...... THEN, Julia's sister arrives and they sit and commiserate about why the sister's not married "I'm VERY tall!" They laugh and agree about that and then Julia says "We were supposed to stay in Pasadena! And MARRY REPUBLICANS! Bwaahhhaaaa!!" shuddering as they laugh. Ya. (can't you imagine the GLEE with which lefty Meryl Streep says that?)

Then, we go to Julie Powell in Queens, living with her husband and cooking Julia's recipes every day for a year and blogging on that experience and she stays home sick one day though she's not sick and her boss calls her in the next morning........."Julie, I know you weren't really sick.......A REPUBLICAN WOULD FIRE YOU! I'M not a SHMUCK!"

Nice, huh? And even our lefty trolls here disagree that anybody bashes Republicans in films....the idea of which is ridiculous, silly, and downright FALSE.

So, I'd see the film if you haven't already......it's kind of cute and quite well done, though the ending really went to hell in a handbag somehow..........but, please, people, aren't YOU tired of the constant nasty Republican comments? I AM. (And, really, shouldn't the DNC PAY for 'ads' in films like these?!!!)

Meanwhile, I just saw this in a NY Times article on Liz Cheney....

"Liberal critics have been outraged that the TV networks give the Cheneys so much time on the air for their crusade." "crusade"? ...REALLY? Odd word, isn't it? And, geeeeeZ, I wonder if those same 'critics' get 'outraged' at the kinds of lines in films these days against the Right? !! naaaa

z

Film Recommendation

May I recommend FREEDOM WRITERS? Suddenly, while watching yesterday, it clicked in me what possessed even Conservative Black Americans to vote for Obama because he is Black.
It's a very touching film. Slow beginning...but it's well worth it. I feel richer for understanding this. (Now, please don't miss that video below...you won't believe your ears)
z

What's the SCARIEST movie you EVER saw?

Ever see a modern day tract-house Frankenstein movie when you were little which forced you to sit in the corner of your living room for DAYS so you could see every window and every door just to make sure HE wasn't coming in? Oh, ya...that happened to me! I loved the old Transylvania castle type Frankenstein movies, but Frankenstein with sliding glass windows and a picket fence sent me into a PANIC! "Wait! He could be at OUR HOUSE!"

Edge had a post on THE BIRDS and it got me thinking about how scared we got as kids....and can STILL get! There's a billboard nearby which has a bunch of 3-dimensional birds standing across the top of it...Every time I drive by I want to tell Tippi Hedrin to "RUN, as FAST as you can!! They're plotting!"

You got a scary movie story?

z