Category Archives: Movies, Television and Radio

December 8, 2010 · 9:57 am

Film festivus

Guess what? We just got a new VCR. I’m very excited.

Yes, you read it correctly. VCR, as in video cassette recorder; perhaps you’ve heard of it.

I don’t watch many video cassette tapes, but my husband does. He buys cases of used classics and sits down very deliberately to watch them. So when our machine melted down recently, we put in a rush order.

About 99 percent of our Christmas movies are on VHS and I do like to watch those. Apparently all the good holiday specials were shown right after Thanksgiving. I missed every last of them when they aired on regular TV.

As Grinchy as I am this time of year, I rely on my Christmas favorites to lift my spirits and get me in the mood.

I like to kick things off with National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and then watch it again two weeks later, when things start to get tense around here; it helps me keep my sense of humor.

I listen to White Christmas while I’m putting the icicles on the tree and, if no one’s looking, I dance a few steps along with Vera-Ellen. I always wanted to dance like she did.

Last Saturday, The Washington Post ran a list of its readers’ top-ranked holiday-themed movies and TV specials. How the Grinch Stole Christmas came in first, while a movie I’ve never heard of—Emmett Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, came in 20th.

All the popular classics are there, the ones you’d expect, but it was a bit disappointing for me to see many of our family’s holiday musts absent from the list.

When our son gets into town, he’ll be wanting to crank up the VCR for such video treats as Casper’s First Christmas, Jingle All the Way (see it for no other reason than a hilarious performance by the late Phil Hartman) and Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean. Take my advice and pull any one of these out of the bargain bin the next time you’re out. That is, if you still have a VCR.

Of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas is my favorite serious holiday movie. Between Vince Guaraldi’s piano soundtrack and Linus’ recitation of the Christmas story, it’s all I need. What movie or television special must you see every year?

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December 1, 2010 · 9:18 am

Senior secrets

How long do you suppose you’ll live? Why? Have you ever known anyone who has lived 100 years or more and attributed a long life to a particular ritual or lifestyle?

If you are lucky enough to be fêted by NBC’s Willard Scott, then you have an opportunity to tell the world your secret to longevity. These secrets can be contradictory—some centenarians attribute their advanced years to eating bacon at every meal and a taking a nightly nip of gin, while others tout a life of temperance.

One of my recent favorites to receive a Smucker’s greeting from Willard was a woman whose secret to staying young is “using Crisco every day, on her face.”

Yesterday, a Jamaican-born Washingtonian turned 107. She has proudly has enjoyed a lifelong relationship with red meat, and shared a few other secrets in a Washington Post interview over the weekend.

Having had a milestone birthday of lesser proportions last year, I now pay attention to long-living seniors, and check to see how my own lifestyle matches up. Betsy Stanford, the 107-year-old honoree, is fastidious. Check. She plays Scrabble and works crossword puzzles. Check, check. She carries the phone numbers of family and friends in her head. Check (in my case, I am afraid I’ll misplace the list).

I’m not quite sure what I think of the key ingredient in Betsy’s daily diet—a Guinness and Ensure smoothie. I may have to give it a try.

What lifestyle secrets have carried you as far as your most recent birthday?

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November 16, 2010 · 9:19 am

Tale of two cities

This is a tale of two movies.

Last weekend, like many Washingtonians, I rushed to see Fair Game, the tale of an investigation into the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which, through a series of political and media responses, led to the outing of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame. International intrigue. Political power plays. Criminal charges against a White House official. It’s a true story set in the nation’s capital and cities around the world.

Washingtonians like movies set in our back yard. We are eager to see if the movie-makers got it right—the geography, the photography, the historiography.

 I wonder whether, in other cities, Fair Game is getting as much love at the box office as, oh, I don’t know, anything else.

Saturday night, I arrived at the theater 35 minutes before show time to find the movie already sold out. I envied my fellow wonks who would be nestled comfortably in their stadium seats, taking in the talent of Sean Penn in the role of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, Plame’s husband, who played a pivotal role in this historic real-life drama. I immediately got tickets for Sunday.

In the meantime, though, I was already in a movie mood. So I drove to my local shopping mall and saw Morning Glory, about a fictitious national morning news show. I’ve always thought it would be fun to work in broadcast news so, for me, this movie was a fantasy. Obviously, it takes place in New York, a city I love but know only as an outsider. A fantasy story taking place in a fantasy city.

For this reason, I didn’t concern myself with believability or accuracy or geography for that matter. I didn’t wonder if a taxi transporting a character six blocks can drive from Point A to Point B without crossing three boroughs, or whether or not a station can deviate from its scheduled programming to air a live feed from an hour away on three seconds’ notice. It’s fantasy; I don’t care.

So Morning Glory was amusing and entertaining—because all I had to do was sit back, get an artificial glimpse into the TV news business and munch popcorn. And try not to wonder whether the message was a lampoon or defense of what network morning programs have become.

Sunday it was back to Washington and back to reality with Fair Game. I found the movie to be very well done, the acting superb. There was one little geographic inaccuracy.

Joe Wilson hopped in a cab and asked to be taken to The Palisades. Before long, an overly chatty cab driver got on Wilson’s nerves and Wilson asked the driver to pull over. “I’ll walk,” he said. As he got out of the cab, we see that he is at the U.S. Capitol–seven miles from The Palisades.

It wasn’t fun to relive such an unfortunate event in U.S. history and I left feeling uncomfortable. But at least it was about something real. Two thumbs up.

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November 15, 2010 · 9:30 am

Woof it down

If a book is ever written about my life, it should be entitled, “Only You.”

That’s because whenever I do something extraordinarily stupid, the person I am with says, “Only you…”

This past weekend, a friend and I met at the Washington, D.C., convention center for the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show. Or as featured celebrity chef Paula Deen called it in the TV promos, Metropolitan Cookin’ and Entertainin’ Show.

I didn’t see Paula, or Bobby Flay or Rachael Ray, because I didn’t want to shell out the hundreds of dollars their personal demos and book signings commanded.

Instead, I went on a General Admission ticket, which got me into the exhibit hall, along with the rest of the masses, who stood in long lines to taste a piece of cheese the size of a pinky nail.

It turns out that General Admission was where I belonged. You can’t take me anywhere nice.

My first mistake was to go into the hall hungry. My second mistake was to walk up to the first booth without a long line, take what looked like a delicious peanut butter cookie, and pop it in my mouth.

Just then I heard the voice of the exhibitor. “Ma’am, that’s a dog biscuit.”

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November 11, 2010 · 9:33 am

Bring’em back

I just heard about a new book about which I could get pretty excited. My dilemma is whether to go ahead and order now it or hope I get it for Christmas.

It’s called Let’s Bring Back: An Encyclopedia of Forgotten-Yet-Delightful, Chic, Useful, Curious, and Otherwise Commendable Things from Times Gone By and it was written by the Huffington Post’s Lesley M.M. Blume.

By how you know I am quite nostalgic;  just the mention of a blast from the past lifts my spirits.

According to the product description on Amazon.com, the book “invites you to consider whatever happened to cuckoo clocks? Or bed curtains? Why do we have so many “friends” but have done away with the much more useful word “acquaintance”? All of these things, plus hot toddies, riddles, proverbs, corsets, calling cards, and many more, are due for a revival. Throughout this whimsical, beautifully illustrated encyclopedia of nostalgia, Blume breathes new life into the elegant, mysterious, and delightful trappings of bygone eras, honoring the timeless tradition of artful living along the way. Inspired by her much loved column of the same name and featuring entries from famous icons of style and culture, Let’s Bring Back leads readers to rediscover the things that entertained, awed, beautified, satiated, and fascinated in eras past.” Are you aquiver?

Learning about Let’s Bring Back reminded me of another book that evokes similarly fond memories.

American Greats was edited by Stanley Marcus (of Neiman Marcus) and Robert A. Wilson. It too revisits innovations and events that made a significants on American life. For example, the Corvette, the ticker tape parade and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, among 280. American Greats is more of a coffee table book, which makes leafing through the photos and commentary all the more fun.

Stanley Marcus has since passed away, but I’d like to share a little story about Robert Wilson, if I might.

Bob Wilson and I worked for the same company about 20 years ago, though our paths crossed only a few times. He was far more senior than I. I admired him as one of the brightest and most creative minds in the company–and one of the humblest. Ten years later, in 2000, I was delighted to have our paths cross again. We had both gone in different directions but found ourselves working on a video shoot for a day. At the end of the day, I was driving him to the train and was looking to make polite conversation. I had remembered he had young children when we knew each other before. So I asked, “How are your boys doing?” Bob replied, “Very well, thanks. Luke and Andrew just finished filming Charlie’s Angels and Owen is in a movie called Meet the Parents.” It didn’t compute.

About a week later, I received an autographed copy of American Greats, with a note thanking me for my work on the project. It wasn’t until I was watching the closing credits of The Royal Tenenbaums—starring Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson and co-written by Owen–that it clicked.

Serious digression, I know. The point was to do three things:

  1. Tell you how intrigued I am about Let’s Bring Back
  2. Encourage you to pick up your own copy of  American Greats
  3. Ask you, what treasures or American greats would you like to bring back?

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November 8, 2010 · 9:22 am

Royal flair

Some headlines are just too good not to re-post:

Queen joins Facebook, but you can’t be her friend or poke her (UK Metro)

The Socialite Network: UK’s Queen joins Facebook (Associated Press, London)

Queen Elizabeth on Facebook, not looking for friends (Montreal Gazette)

What do you know? Today Buckingham Palace is to launch a Facebook account for The British Monarchy, which will feature news, photos, videos and daily updates about the activities of Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the Royal Family.

We don’t know what kind of settings are available uniquely to Her Majesty but it has been made clear she’ll be protected from common pokes, Friend requests and any direct contact other than a distant “like.”

I’m not one of the Royal Family’s 70,000 followers on Twitter, so I don’t know what kind of updates are already tweeting out of the palace on a regular basis.

Will we now know what kind of tea she’s sipping or what’s in her porridge? For whom she’s voting on Britain’s Got Talent? How many animals she’s feeding in FarmVille? What she really thinks of Kate Middleton?

Have you liked the Queen today?

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November 4, 2010 · 8:32 am

Dream on

Not too long ago, we had fun here talking about our first jobs. The idea came about when the Today show ran a series about its hosts’ first jobs. The post prompted readers to share memories of theirs.

This week, CBS’ The Early Show has been airing a series on dream jobs, in which the hosts and others from the CBS family help viewers score their dream jobs, if only for a day–working at the zoo, cooking alongside Bobby Flay, writing cards for Hallmark and so on.

This got me thinking. I don’t know about you, but my idea of a dream job takes on a different form with each passing year.

When I was four, I wanted to be a ballerina nun. That lasted until I was six, when I wanted to be a go-go dancer. Actually I was a go-go dancer, in a make-believe go-go club my friends and I set up in the garage, with the help of my mother, who made us all fringed hot pink go-go dresses. We had one 45 rpm record, The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love;” two if you count the flip side, which was “You Can’t Do That.”

It has turned out that I’ve had a real dream job or two in my life. Or at least good jobs with dream perks. For several years, I got to travel the world, sometimes via corporate jet, doing fascinating work. Still, working in public policy as I did, it was not unusual to work on a single issue for years on end with seemingly little hope of completion.

It was then I used to dream of being a supermarket cashier. In addition to a fondness for groceries, what appealed to me most was the ability to finish a day’s work completely and definitively, with nothing hanging over my head. When your shift ends, you turn in your cash drawer, clock out, go home and leave it behind. You come in the next day with a clean smock and a fresh outlook.

I no longer have that dream because I am fortunate to be engaged more recently in project work, which carries with it that same sense of satisfaction–of completing a project, wrapping it up neatly and beginning a new one.

My husband has what many consider a dream job, and yet he dreams of other options. He is an oceanographer and wants to be a cowboy.

I can’t say at this moment what I’d consider to be my dream job. Maybe a shoe model.

Your turn. What did you want to be when you grew up or, now that you’re grown, what would be your dream job, even if you could do it for only a day?

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November 1, 2010 · 8:14 am

Weekend in Washington

And so goes another weekend. Another Halloween. Another Marine Corps Marathon. Another Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Another October, gone.

My ears are still ringing from the flip-flip-flip of calendar pages turning in animation, the door bell ringing, endless political ads and the oohs and ows following my husband’s excellent Marathon performance. Thank goodness I Restored my Sanity.

As far as the Rally, which by the way was an absolute blast, you’ve no doubt read the news, watched the television coverage and seen the 100 Best Signs, so there’s not much I can add. Except my favorite sign: “Take it off CAPS LOCK.”

I trust the weekend provided the District of Columbia’s economy with a big burst of stimulus, thanks to the Rally on Saturday, Marathon on Sunday and traditionally huge crowds in Georgetown Sunday night.

I outgrew Halloween in Georgetown many years ago. Instead, I spent the evening on our front porch, in a rocker, wrapped in a blanket, Elvis the cat in my lap. The trick-or-treaters thought he was part of my costume. Crazy Cat Lady.

Nearly 500 revelers came to our door dressed in about 40 different costumes. In addition to the usual witches, cats, fairy princesses and superheroes, there were emergent, yet unfamiliar themes that proved I am not seeing enough movies or playing enough video games. Don’t tell my nephews I asked this, but what in heaven’s galaxy is a clone trooper?

If I could give out prizes, I’d reward all the kids wearing homemade costumes—including a pair of 1920s flappers, a set of black and white Siamese twins and a foursome of six-year-old Mafia men.

But my favorite comes from the only-in-Washington category. He was a little guy dressed in a suit and tie, pressed white shirt, good dress shoes and a leather briefcase.

He was a lobbyist.

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October 28, 2010 · 8:28 am

Empty phrases

Last spring, I wrote a couple of blog posts on useless words. One was on phrases that mean nothing in which I referenced a list of 10 Annoying Phrases That Serve No Purpose. The other was on verbal pauses, you know, words like, “you know” and “like.” Based on comments I received, I learned that some people have emotional or habitual attachments to certain phrases or verbal patterns and don’t share my opinion that, while some expressions may be clever upon their arrival on the language scene, it eventually becomes time to move on from them.

At the risk stepping out on another flimsy limb, I’d like to add two more to the list.

The first happens to occupy second place on the list of 10 Annoying Phrases That Serve No Purpose: “at the end of the day.”

I first took notice of “at the end of the day” in 1991. I was working with a Harvard-educated consultant who used it in just the perfect context:  when all is said and done, when everything else has been taken into consideration. I noted how descriptive—and original—it sounded. I may have even picked it up and used it a few times. Not too long after that, I heard about an industry executive from the Gulf Coast region who, when testifying on Capitol Hill, used the phrase to sum up his testimony. He had the creativity to follow it up with something even more descriptive:  “At the end of the day, when the gumbo boils down . . .”

Almost 20 years later, I believe “at the end of the day” has become stale and overused. It has lost its punch. Unless, of course, it is followed by a clever colloquialism.

The second phrase, while innocuous enough, has come to be spoken without thought. Still, it precedes a great preponderance of sentences these days. “You know what?” Pay attention and you will really begin to notice. Again, there’s technically nothing wrong with it, but it is way overused. “You know what? I am going to have eggs over easy.”

These two sayings hit me in the face yesterday morning as I watched former JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater being interviewed on the major morning news programs—NBC’s Today, ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS’ The Early Show. 

As a refresher, Slater was the airline employee who had a colossal meltdown on a flight from Pittsburgh to New York, cursed out a plane full of passengers over the intercom and, when the plane landed at JFK, grabbed two beers, popped open the emergency exit door and slid down the escape ramp. He parted ways with JetBlue and pled guilty to two criminal charges.

In three network interviews, he told his side of the story, using “at the end of the day” and “you know what?” collectively at least 10 times. My favorite, though, was on GMA, when he was asked how his notoriety has affected him. He said, “At the end of the day, I still put my pants on one leg at a time.”

Don’t people usually take their pants off at the end of the day? Maybe he was referring to his PJs, in which he probably spends a lot of time these days.

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October 26, 2010 · 8:27 am

Pandora’s gift box

According to Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman. By some accounts, Pandora is “she who sends up gifts.”

We all know about Pandora’s box which, after some reading, I learned was actually a jar. No matter; it’s ancient mythology. But I’ve discovered a modern-day Pandora who also sends up some mighty nice gifts.

You may already know her. As a slow-to-moderate adopter of modern technology, it took me a while to get around to putting Pandora on my iPhone, but what a gift she has been. How she works just boggles my mind.

For those who aren’t familiar, Pandora Radio is an Internet music service associated with something called the Music Genome Project. Now I don’t know a lot about music and even less about genetics.

All I know is that Pandora knows what music I like or dislike and why. And it’s free.

This first got my attention when a friend described Pandora as her soul mate, which I interpreted as someone who knew her better and at a deeper, perhaps more cosmic, level than anyone. I was intrigued.

Pandora gets to know me by playing a song and asking me for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Each of my thumb votes increases Pandora’s understanding of me and my musical tastes, but at a level even I may not know.

Naturally, this understanding is based on mathematical algorithms. It’s all mathematical algorithms these days.

I like to think that, like the Human Genome, the Music Genome has a human element; thus, its genetic approach. As soon as I give a song a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, Pandora considers more than 400 different musical attributes to select the next song. These 400 attributes are combined into some 2,000 traits, including rhythm syncopation, key tonality, vocal harmonies and instrumental proficiency.

I’ve barely unwrapped Pandora’s box, having had her for only 48 hours. She hasn’t yet achieved soul mate status after such a short time, but I have faith we’ll bond. She and her Acoustic Blues selections got me through a particularly grueling time Sunday evening. This is promising.

I had hoped my husband would share my enthusiasm. Last night, as I was reading more about the application online, he walked by my office. I shouted, “Hey, did you know we can stream Pandora through the Blu-ray?” 

He just looked at me as if I had asked, “ξέρατε ότι μπορούμε να ρεύσουμε Pandora μέσω της blu-ακτίνας μας?”

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