New Show; Photos; Movies

Save the Date: February 8, 2020. New show. 

 

 

 Nancy Gilliland and Octobop at Savanna Jazz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


 

 

 

Five Movies: Three Mediocre; Two Outstanding

Ho Hum

Midway

A+ for special effects. You feel like you are in the planes on their bombing runs. Important history lesson about the beginning of WWII. Otherwise, acting and writing, not great.

Ford vs. Farrarai 

Another A+ for special effects. But, too long. Get on with it.

The Irishman

After The Godfather series; Good Fellas; The Departed, I’ve had my fill of Mafia tough guy movies. This one dragged on and on. “Hey, yo mamma!” “Gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”  Critics say it is Martin Scorsese’s best. May be, but I fell asleep.

Top Picks

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

A movie of such emotional depth you will remember it for years to come. The story line is that an Esquire reporter who is assigned to do a 400 word story on Mr. Rogers. The reporter, who is seething with anger issues sees this as trivial. The movie is about how the reporter’s life is changed because of his interactions with Fred Rogers. Thus we learn who Mr. Rogers is through his effect on those around him, especially the reporter. Spoiler alert: the reporter writes a 10,000 word article that becomes the cover story for Esquire.

Do not miss this movie. If you have “daddy issues,” bring some Kleenex. Most of the men I know have yerned for fathers like Mr. Rogers. In the movie, I was sitting next to an old friend. We both got a 90 minute allergy attack – lots of nose blowing. Best film I’ve seen all year, hands down.

Before you see the movie, you might want to watch Fred Rogers’ Congressional testimony to save National Public Television. The hard-assed congressman confesses after 10 minutes of testimony, “I just got goosebumps. You just got $20 million for National Television.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUDVn4d2Rms

 

Harriet

This movie is a docudrama about Harriet Tubman, a run-away slave who kept returning  to slave states to help others escape to Canada via the famed “Underground Railroad.” The risks that Tubman took to free others is way beyond what most of us would do. I kept thinking of Joan of Arc; John Brown; Oskar Schindler; Rosa Parks. Tubman lived into her 90s. Her image was originally scheduled to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill in 2020. But, oops, guess what? The Trump administration and Steve Mnuchin have found lots of reasons why this is a bad idea. What a surprise.

See this movie. All 9th grade civics classes (don’t exist anymore?) should see this movie. Really well done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big difference between the Ho Hum movies and my Top Picks is that the latter totally drew me in. I cared about the characters. Now that is good story telling.

 

 

 

 

One thought on “New Show; Photos; Movies

  1. Warren Harnden says:

    Randy Greer cared about character development and alerted me to that fine fact many(!) years ago; usually after we had sneaked into the Oaks Theater through an ajar side door. Yeah. did not see Midway. Or the Irishdude. But Rogers, and Harriet, yeah! I agree completely, Rick. I came out of Harriet feeling cheated and upset with our history lessons; knew about Tubman, had no idea of her magnificent and successful effort and her follow up career as aid to the elderly; she should be on that bill, maybe on a 5 which would see even more circulation(?).
    Dangbustedscrewballpoliticians.

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