Saturday, December 1, 2012

CLASSIC SEASONAL MOVIE PICK  #7 ~  "While You Were Sleeping"

One of the best romantic comedies of the season, the occurrences of the movie takes place at Christmastime and throughout the weeks leading up to New Years...set in Chicago in the dead of winter, it has all the earmarks of a modern day Cinderella story...only, Lucy is the heroine of her own experience, as she saves her real life fantasy, Prince Charming, only to find out as he lays in a deep sleep, that she is really falling for his brother and his entire kooky, delightful family...it makes you laugh, smile, cry,  warms your heart and touches every romantic bone in your body...I love settling in for a cold winters night, curling up with a cup of gourmet hot chocolate, a big bowl of popcorn with my kitty purring in my lap for the one millionth and two viewing of  "While You Were Sleeping"

"If you don't mind a heavy dose of schmaltz and sentiment, this romantic comedy has a gentle way of seducing you with its charms. While You Were Sleeping was the first starring role for Sandra Bullock after her blockbuster success in Speed.  She plays Lucy Eleanor Moderatz, a Chicago Transit tollbooth clerk who's hopelessly smitten with a daily commuter, Peter Callaghan (Peter Gallagher). She saves the object of her affection from certain death after he's mugged and falls onto the train tracks. While Peter is in a coma, she lets his family believe that she is his fiancĂ©e, and surprisingly finds herself drawn to his brother (Bill Pullman), for whom the attraction is definitely mutual. How Lucy gets out of this amorous predicament is what makes this pleasant movie less predictable than its familiar ingredients would initially indicate. It's feel-good fluff, with characters and performances that keep you smiling through throughout the seemingly drippy plot mechanics." --Jeff Shannon

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Sunday, September 23, 2012

"Sir Anthony"

LOVE THIS! 

This philosophy is very much like what I try to follow as stated on many occasions, by Dr. Wayne Dyer..."Be Open to Everything, and Attached to Nothing!", and in part also reminiscent of a book I read many years ago by Terry Cole Whitaker, "What You Think of Me is None of My Business"

As an aside, I actually had an encounter of sorts with Sir Anthony Hopkins , right here in Rochester,

one summer evening, many years ago, when I was taking my evening walk down Park Ave., and I saw him leisurely having dinner, with a beautiful lady friend, in an outside cafe that existed at the time on the block just between Oxford and Goodman...he happened to glance at me as I was passing by his table, so respectfully, not wanted to disturb his meal, I smiled and just said from where I was walking..."I hope you are enjoying yourself in our fair city", I had every intention to keep on walking but he smiled broadly and motioned me to come over and asked me for my name...I walked over and shook his outstretched hand and said it was Linda, and he smiled again and said, with much enthusiasm and great warmth (and not to mention in that delightful accent)..."Well, Linda , it is indeed a pleasure to meet you, and Yes, I am enjoying your beautiful city very much"...I told him in kind it was a great pleasure to meet him as well, and wished him a wonderful evening...he smiled broadly again, and said "And you as well, beautiful Linda!"...needless to say I had quite the eventful walk that pleasant summers eve...What a gentleman and a sweet, warm soul, that Sir Anthony is...:)
 
 

The Depp Man

This one is for the ladies...Gotta love "The Depp Man!"

Now this is one "book", I would have to read very slowly...from cover to cover...LOL

"My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story!" 


"There are four questions of value in life... What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love."

"Me, I'm dishonest, and you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. Honestly, it's the honest ones you have to watch out for."  

"France, and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing though is that people there know how to live! In America they've forgotten all about it. I'm afraid that the American culture is a disaster."


"I pretty much try to stay in a constant state of confusion just because of the expression it leaves on my face."

 

"If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it's OK to be different, that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color."


"I am doing things that are true to me. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled."


"I don't pretend to be captain weird. I just do what I do."

"I think the thing to do is enjoy the ride while you're on it."

"If you catch me saying 'I am a serious actor,' I beg you to slap me.
"

"I was ecstatic they re-named 'French Fries' as 'Freedom Fries'. Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots.
"

"It's all kinds of these profound things crashing on you when your child arrives into the world. It's like you've met your reason to live.
"

"The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.
"

"People say I make strange choices, but they're not strange for me. My sickness is that I'm fascinated by human behavior, by what's underneath the surface, by the worlds inside people.
"

"I'm an old-fashioned guy... I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake or something.
"

"Life's pretty good, and why wouldn't it be? I'm a pirate, after all.
 
"I like the challenge of trying different things and wondering whether it's going to work or whether I'm going to fall flat on my face."

"For a long time I tried to manage an honesty and openness about my personal life because I'm human and I'm normal - well, semi-normal.
"

"The beauty, the poetry of the fear in their eyes. I didn't mind going to jail for, what, five, six hours? It was absolutely worth it.
"

"The quality of life is so different in France. There is the possibility of living a simple life."


"
I like the challenge of trying different things and wondering whether it's going to work or whether I'm going to fall flat on my face."
 
"A
nything I've done up till May 27th 1999 was kind of an illusion, existing without living. My daughter, the birth of my daughter, gave me life."

"The term 'serious actor' is kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? Like 'Republican party' or 'airplane food.' "

~ Johnny Depp



 

 

Michael Clarke Duncan ~ RIP

Just Heard...So Sad...

Raised by his single mother on Chicago's South Side, Michael Clarke Duncan grew up resisting drugs and alcohol, instead concentrating on school. He wanted to play football in high school, but his mother would not let him, fearing he would get hurt. He then turned to acting, dreaming of becoming a famous actor. After graduating from high school and attending community college, he worked digging ditches at People's Gas

Company in Chicago. When he quit his job and headed to Hollywood, he landed small roles while working as a bodyguard. Michael's role in the movie Armageddon (1998) led to his breakthrough performance in The Green Mile (1999), when his Armageddon co-star Bruce Willis called director Frank Darabont, suggesting Michael for the part of convict John Coffey. He landed the role, receiving critical acclaim as well as many other Awards and Nominations, including an Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Michael Clarke Duncan died at age 54 of a heart attack on September 3, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. ~ IMDB

"You tell God the Father it was a kindness you done. I know you hurtin' and worryin', I can feel it on you, but you oughta quit on it now. Because I want it over and done. I do. I'm tired, boss. Tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. Tired of not ever having me a buddy to be with, or tell me where we's coming from or going to, or why. Mostly I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world everyday. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head all the time. Can you understand? " ~ Michael Clarke Duncan as John Coffey, "The Green Mile"


R.I.P. Gentle Giant



Wednesday, August 29, 2012

"Roxanne"


TODAY'S MEMORABLE MOVIE MOMENTS ~ QUOTES FROM "ROXANNE"

(Excerpts from classic seduction scene outside Roxanne's bedroom window spoken by Steve Martin)

"Not eloquent, just honest. You see, I am in orbit around you. I am suspended weightless over you, like, like the blue man in the Chagall. Just hovering, hanging over you in a delirious kiss...You see, I am, and I will always be, the one who love
d you without limits"...

"This is my whole life right now. Standing here, talking to you like this. Saying things I wanted to say but couldn't...No, no no, not if you knew. When you're reaching for a star, there's a long way to fall. I almost never let this moment never happen. And now I feel sorry for people for whom it never comes. I love you. I have breathed you in, and I am suffocating. I am crazy I can't go on. This is all too much!"...

"There will never be another tonight...Why should we sip from a teacup when we can drink from the river? There's a tiny word. It's not a noun, it's not a verb, it's not an adjective, I, I don't know what it is. But if you said it to me tonight, all this blackness would go away, and you and I would be connected by a tunnel of light...Yes. Yes. Yes!"

"My Favorite Year"


TODAY'S MEMORABLE MOVIE MOMENTS ~ QUOTES AND MUSINGS FROM "MY FAVORITE YEAR"

(The Classic 1982 Comedy starring Peter O'Toole and Mark Linn-Baker ~ A dissolute matinee idol is slated to appear on a live TV variety show.)

May I just say, I LOVE Peter O'Toole!
For me, both in his professional and personal life...he is a massive ball of Light who came to this planet to shine...and surely the kind of soul Jack Kerouac had in mind, when he wrote, "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

And in this brilliant film, for me, it is the quintisential O'Toole...from the beginning to its glorious conclusion, watching the great finale -- Swann flying through the air and getting that hard-to-reach moment to shine. In a voice-over, Linn-Baker says: "This is the way I like to remember him," and that has always been it for me and O'Toole. He's an amazing actor, who has appeared in everything from the highest of critical achievements to the dregs of cinema, but he never shines brighter than the moments when he gets to unleash his devilish charm.

HERE ARE SOME CLASSIC MOMENTS FROM THIS FILM...

[Benjy Stone and a very drunken Alan Swann are up on a roof as Swann attempts to shimmy down the side of the building]
Benjy Stone: "Let's *not* do this - it's too dangerous!"
Alan Swann: "Nonsense! It worked perfectly well in "A Slight Case of Divorce"!"
Benjy Stone: "That was a movie! This is real life!"
Alan Swann: "What's the difference?"

Alan Swann: "Stone... I'm afraid. I'm afraid."
Benjy Stone: "Alan Swann, afraid? The Defender of the Crown? Captain from Tortuga? The Last Knight of the Round Table?"
Alan Swann: "Those are movies, damn you! Look at me! I'm flesh and blood, life-size, no larger! I'm not that silly God-damned hero! I never was!"
Benjy Stone: "To *me* you were! Whoever you were in those movies, those silly goddamn heroes meant a lot to *me*! What does it matter if it was an illusion? It worked! So don't tell me this is you life-size. I can't use you life-size. I need Alan Swanns as big as I can get them! And let me tell you something: you couldn't have convinced me the way you did unless somewhere in you you *had* that courage! Nobody's that good an actor! You *are* that silly goddamn hero!"

("He's plastered!")..."So are some of the finest erections in Europe."...
"Stone, you can watch me or you can join me. One of them is more fun. "...
"Ladies are unwell, Stone. Gentlemen vomit."...
"What's in a name? A rose by any other name would wither and die. "...
"Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."...
"Stone, women love to be intrigued. They enjoy unraveling the mystery that is man, but you must allow them the freedom to discover you." ("Is that what you do?")
"No. I don't have that luxury. The women who are interested in me know exactly who I am and what they want, and nine times out of ten, they get it." ("That's some curse.")
"You'd be surprised. You see, no matter what I do, I can never fulfill their expectations."...
"I didn't marry any of them. They... married me."...
"I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!"...
~ (Peter O'Toole as Alan Swann)

("So Swanny")..."Ma, he's an actor, not a river."...
"Bring Allan Swann to Brooklyn?"...("Sure, what are you ashamed of?")..."Everything!"...
"Catherine, Jews know two things: suffering, and where to find great Chinese food."...
("Sanctuary! Sanctuary!")..."Sanctuary my ass!"
([Alan Swann, gazing deep into K.C's eyes] "These eyes. They're Merle Oberon's eyes.")..."Merle Oberon's! Oh, and what's Merle doing for eyes? Using Katharine Hepburn's?"
(End scene) "The way you see him here, like this, this is the way I like to remember him. I think if you had asked Alan Swann what was the single most gratifying moment in his life, he might have said this one, right here...Like Alfie says, 'With Swann you forgive a lot, you know?'...I Know"...
~ (Mark Linn-Baker as Benjy Stone)