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Yesterday was Saint Nicholas Day, when the immortal spirit of a Turkish bishop puts toys in kids’ shoes (or if you’re an adult - a Chompie’s Gift Card. Sometimes he’s accompanied by Black Pete, but I’m not going near that tradition. Other times, Krampus tags along in order to punish the naughty.
Whelp. I must’ve pissed Krampus off recently because I woke up to my car not starting, my work drive glitching, and my “lady time” being extra weird. What the hell, Krampus! I thought we were cool, man!
I love a good Cinderella story . . . And this . . . How do I be diplomatic?
Let’s just dive in. The Cinderella is played by Laura Marano, an actress from one of those Disney Channel shows where the kids all have to sing and/or dance). Kat (nope, not Ella) is an aspiring songwriter who is working on a crappy Christmas pop tune. Sorry. Sorry. Anyone who knows me knows that 12 years of retail killed most “popular” Christmas songs for me. I generally just stick to the soundtrack from Muppet Christmas Carol and the classics preferably sung by Ella Fitzgerald. I should warn all the songs in this are unbelievably auto tuned Which surprised me since the main actress was on a show where all they did was make her sing. OK, deep breath, as we dive in even further.
Kat works at a Christmas Santaland as a dancing, singing elf with her best friend. She is trying to save up money to move out of her stepmother’s house, but knows realistically she can’t until she gets her inheritance at the age of 18 (which is still several months away). Also working at Santaland in secret is Dominic Wintergarden (Gregg Sulkin). Yes. That is his name. His dad (billionaire who, spoiler alert, used to be best friends with Kat’s philanthropist father) Insist that his son dresses as Santa (it is family tradition). Oh yeah. They also own Santaland.
Even though having an eighteen year old play Santa is already awkward, Kat’s best friend starts calling him “hot Santa” and “sexy Santa”. At one point he and Kat even do weird striptease, Removing hats and fake ears in order to reveal who they truly are under the costumes. And that is about the point when I sped up the speed of the movie So I didn’t have to torture myself through all 85 minutes.
Can’t hold it in anymore. I’m sure many people worked very hard on this movie, but I was in physical pain watching parts of it. It wasn’t even just the corn ball. It was scenes like scenes silly striptease with Santa (look how cute we are Even though she’s technically under age, and you’re making jokes about removing clothing - Yes, I know the actors are in their 20s; it’s the thought of it in a kid’s movie not the reality) and a random duet between Kat and “prince charming” when all of the other songs were performances/part of Kat’s songwriting process. And then at the end, she breaks the forth wall right before the “big kiss” and I suddenly felt very uncomfortable! Don’t look directly at the camera before you make out! It’s creepy!
What I did like was that she and her best friend were both creatives who supported each other (her songwriting and her friend’s aspirations to be a costume designer). Her step-mother is super wicked. She kept feeding on Kat’s insecurities and keeping her down by telling her she’s never survive as a songwriter. I kept expecting the woman to harm Kat’s disabled dog just to add to the wickedness. Also, the dog was named Bruno.
Although this is not about writing, it is based on Truman Capote’s happy childhood memories staying with his “spinster cousin”, a woman in her 60s named Miss Sook (Geraldine Page). Young Capote is called Buddy (Michael Kearney) in these childhood tales while adult Capote in all of his lispy glory narrates.
Buddy is being horribly bullied by a classmate named Odd Henderson (I’m not kidding, that his name). Miss Sook is the only person in the household who understands that academic Buddy does not know how to fight back against a bully like the other cousins want him to (yes, everyone else in the house keeps telling him to punch this kid back - oh, the good ole’ days). As a more progressive adult, Miss Sook then invites Odd Henderson to Thanksgiving dinner.
There are other childhood traumas such as one of the cousins trying to force Buddy to kill a turkey and jealousy over attentions of a pretty young female cousin. Hey, Truman Capote could have been curious about pretty girls as a child.
SPOILER ALERT: Of course, a drama occurs when Buddy sees Odd steal Miss Sook’s cameo. Buddy tries to reveal the theft in front of everyone at dinner and Miss Sook tries to cover for Odd because she states that “two wrongs don’t make a right”. Buddy humiliating Odd didn’t help the situation. However, Odd does return the cameo when Miss Sook lies that the cameo was not missing.
Miss Sook is clearly an inspiration for a writer’s voice. The way she talks is very poetic yet simplistic. She is also a woman trapped in a family who does not understand her and dreams of leaving for a new life. But a single woman in Great Depression South is not a person able to escape those with small minds. Of course, the cameo she planned to sell for her freedom was worthless and she never has the heart to tell Buddy.
I’m gonna go watch a horror movie and no one can stop me! The decorations are staying up! Forget you, Thanksgiving! Sorry Sarah Josepha Hale, but it’s a mess of a holiday with an even messier history! I’m going to watch Michael Meyers make a mess instead!
Every year I make sugar skulls for Dia de los Muertos, but I’m not Mexican. I’m part Italian. I just enjoy the process and the decorating. Then… I never know what to do with them. There used to be an older cemetery between my commute from work to home and I would find the oldest grave I could to leave on. I’ve since moved further into the city. Why don’t they put more cemeteries in city limits? Commuting with sugar skulls is terribly awkward. Just saying.
* I have several upcoming movie and TV blogs coming up which were written before the writers’ strike. I’m just going to post them until I run out.
“You publish this, you know what it costs.” Shirley says this to Steve about his memoir of their family’s time in a haunted house.
I waited to do this one so I could include spoilers. That having been said - Spoilers ahead!
First off, I have to declare my love for the original book and the 1963 film. Shirley Jackson was the queen of the unreliable narrators and it was magnificent! Even though she intended (according to later interviews) to always make Hill House haunted, the book is written in just the write way to make you question whether the events are supernatural or not. Director Robert Wise captured this atmosphere with even more subtly in the movie. And if anyone in the comments asks me about the 1999 version, you will get a long rant about fourteen year old me seeing that in theatres and experiencing wanting my money back for the first time.
Mike Flanagan rearranged the story completely, but kept that sense of paranoia and second guessing. By the way, I refused to watch this at first, declaring it looked nothing like the book (I had been burned before!). My friends lied to me and said, “Oh no, it’s pretty close to the book.” Turns out they’d never read the book although one of them has since (looking at you, Kira Shay).
Trigger warning - if you decide to watch the Haunting of Hill House, it deals in grief, suicide, mental health, addiction, and family trauma).
In all versions, Hill House is a structure which feeds on the energy of people. In Flanagan’s take, the house’s receives a family seven come to flip it in the early 90s. The parents, Hugh and Liv, are hoping this is the final time they will have to renovate a house and sell it so the family can have their forever home. Their child include Steve the skeptic, Shirley the practical one, Theo the stand-offish one, and the twins Luke and Nell. The house feeds upon each of them until one mysterious night Liv dies and Hugh takes them all away without a proper explanation.
As adult, the five kids blame Hill House or their parents for their issues. None of them have a good relationship with Hugh, who left the house boarded up to rot without further reasoning. Luke is a heroin addict, constantly in and out of rehab. Nell suffers from sleep paralysis, depression, and dies in Hill House at the beginning of the series. Theo is a child psychiatrist who uses her power of touching people/things to get emotions, the reason she wears gloves and shuts herself off to others most of the time. Shirley runs a funeral business with her husband, an endeavor she wants to be perfect. Finally, Steve turned around his failed novelist career by becoming a paranormal investigator and writing books based on what others see in haunted places. In case you didn’t already guess, I’m going to be focusing on Steve.
Flanagan mixes in word-for-word quotes from the original book in Steve’s narration from his own work. Jackson’s spooky and straight-forward style adds to the idea of Steve’s writing hiding his own disbelief. It lends itself well to the internet theories that the black mold in Hill House actually caused everything.
I get why Steve wanted to use their childhood as the basis of a book. And he was totally right. It was a bestseller. However, the way he goes about the process felt backwards. He writes the book, sends it to an editor and agent, gets a deal, AND THEN asks his siblings for permission. Shirley declares that he’s a phony since he never saw or heard anything in Hill House, yet uses their experiences and their mother’s mental illness to make a buck. She refuses any money he offers from the book sales. The others secretly agree to the money and later harp on Steve for using their pain to become famous. Theo even points out what he got wrong in book because (fanfare please) HE NEVER ASKED THEM WHILE WRITING IT!
He should have interviewed them. Written it with their help. Gotten the facts and permission first. However, nope. Steve was going to do what Steve was going to do. He does learn his lesson after that to a point. He starts interviewing people, asking if they will let him tell their stories of ghosts and terrors. He writes his books in such a way to feel like he believes in what he writes. That being said, Steve is so dismissive of what others believe he makes people feel bad about seeing ghosts.
When the family returns to the house, it feeds on each of their insecurities. For Steve it’s his writing and how he betrayed his family.
“Is anything real before you write it, Steve? The things you write about are real. Those people are real, their feelings are real, their pain is real, but not to you, is it? Not until you chew it up and digest it and you shit it out on a piece of paper. And even then, it’s a pale imitation at best.” A version of Steve’s wife in his head says this when the house is trying claim him. Seems to me that Hill House was not a fan of the book. Who knew houses could read?
* I have several upcoming movie and TV blogs coming up which were written before the writers’ strike. I’m just going to post them until I run out.
“When a story’s on paper, you can feel it. You can see it. And others can read it as well. But beware: for once a story’s written, it no longer belongs to the author, but has a life of it’s own.” This is the quote from the beginning of this episode meant to draw the viewer in.
For those unaware, “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” was Nickelodeon television show in the 90s about a groups of kids who told ghost stories around a campfire and my Saturday nights revolved around it and the rest of the Snick lineup.
This particular episode was about Sean, an aspiring writer who finds an old typewriter hidden under the stairs of the house his parents are fixing up. The teenager is instantly happy with the discovery especially since the previous owner was a bestselling mystery writer in the 1930s (who disappeared then was found dead - a story we never find out more about).
Since this is a supernatural show meant to scare kids, the typewriter has horrible powers. When Sean writes a story, the friends he includes in the prose then have a vivid dream where they live out the story. And if someone other than Sean then reads the words on the page, the people are physically sucked into the story where they have no power over the outcome.
First of all, as a child (I was probably nine or ten when this one aired) I only remember two aspects of this tale. Number one: the special effects were awful even for children’s TV made in Canada. Number two: Who writes their friends directly into a short story and use their real names?
Second of all, watching this as an adult I realize those two things still bug me, but two additional things bother me. Their English teacher steals food from the cafeteria! She realizes she’s run out of donuts and go to take a sweet roll from the school fridge. Who does that? And lastly, he wrote an entire short story in a night? I remember those days. Sigh.
* I have several upcoming movie and TV blogs coming up which were written before the writers’ strike. I’m just going to post them until I run out.
This blog will be short because I don’t think I can relive this film for too long.
In 1985, horror writer Whitley Strieber claims to have had encounters with possible beings from another world. In 1989, New Line Cinema decided to make a movie based on Strieber’s book of the events starring Christopher Walken.
This movies . . . awkward. I’m not just talking about the parts with lame rubber mask aliens who don’t move much because they didn’t have an animatronics budget. Every time people are talking or interacting, something feels off. Like no one reacts or says what you would expect in such situations, even when they are just sitting around laughing. Anyway, the movie is about this author who has to come to terms (and dance with?) the beings who experimented upon him more than once. There’s also a son who it’s hinted at was also experimented on, yet the parents decide to just let him deal with that when it becomes a repressed memory in his forties. Let’s get to the part about writing.
Strieber’s process is unusual. I wouldn’t judge but this movie begs to be judged. Walken’s character writes while wearing a fedora. Sometimes there’s no pants or no shirt yet the fedora remains. I love a fedora and I love being without pants. Not sure if doing both would help my creative process . . . then again, I’ll try most things once. Strieber also records himself and has his face live on TV next to the computer where he writes. The computer is a fantastic 80s model with green letters against a black screen that breaks on him constantly.
There are several of the standard practices as well. Talking to one’s characters while thinking out loud. Reviewing what you’ve already written while trying to fit in other household chores like cooking (yes, cooking is chore - don’t care that it’s needed for survival). And naturally the being super excited when a big idea comes. However, because all of this is being done by my beloved Walken, the behavior rides a thin line between psychotic and endearing.
Reality in less than a paragraph
Harry Price was the original paranormal investigator. From the 1800s until his death in the 1940s, he traveled the United Kingdom searching for proof of ghosts and the fame/glory that could bring to him. His most well-known investigation took place in Borley Rectory, claiming it to be the most haunted house in England. He also worked to defraud mediums preying upon the grieving as part of his work for the Society for Psychical Research. He set up his own research organization when his self-promotion had member of the Society frown upon him. I confess, I don’t know the little details of his life, just the big information. Still, based upon these big details I watched these three films.
Harry Price: Ghost Hunter (2015)
Based on a novel and produced for ITV in the United Kingdom, this fictionalized account of Price is more like an adventure or a detective novel. It gives Price sidekicks, a love interest, and enough of a mystery to keep you interested. It felt like a lot of plot to fit into 90 minutes which made it a little muddled. Still, this was my favorite of the three. Then again, this was the one the least like what I think Price was actually like.
Rafe Spall plays Price as an empathetic, guilt ridden man determined to make amends to a world he wronged with medium trickery. He is in a race against time to save a politician’s wife from the asylum and prove ghosts have nothing to do with her mental state . . . or do they?
The Haunting of Borley Manor (2019)
I get it. Borley Rectory was the great haunting of Price’s career. This film was not great, but I’ve seen worse. This movie isn’t focused on Price, but it shows how investigating the Rectory effected him as he listens to the story of WWII soldier haunted by a ghostly nun (who I really could not tell if she was malevolent or misunderstood) while staying on the rectory grounds after the house burned down. I mean got the point of the film, don’t come for me, trolls. I’m just saying that the nun had a very changeable attitude through this mess.
Rad Brown plays Price as an adamant professor type, shaken by the haunting he viewed yet still obsessed with the past. He is mostly very English, you know stiff upper lip and examine the facts while secretly shaking in his boots.
The Ghosts of Borley Rectory (2021)
This and Haunting of Borley Manor were made by the same man (Stephen M. Smith). For clearly being obsessed with this story, Smith once again only used the names of real people for this low budget horror.
And low budget it was. THIS WAS THE WORST! It was a like a bad student film mixed with scenes from history channel re-enactments from the 90s! Somehow it had Julian Sands and Colin Baker in it which amused me, but mostly it was an hour and a half of boring conversations, bad costumes, and failed jump scares.
Toby Wynn-Davies is a little more realistic as Price, playing him as a manipulative and pompous investigator who is way to calm each time the killer nun shows up (except once and then he’s way to over-dramatic then goes back to acting like it was nothing).
Final thoughts - If you are interested in ghost hunters, check out our book From the Darkest Corner available in our shop!
* I have several upcoming movie and TV blogs coming up which were written before the writers’ strike. I’m just going to post them until I run out.
* I have several upcoming movie and TV blogs coming up which were written before the writers’ strike. I’m just going to post them until I run out.
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” - L. M. Montgomery
What? It’s not quite October yet? Well, that’s fine. This wasn’t quite Anne of Green Gables.
I’m not going to do a specific episode here. I confess that I am an Anne of Green Gables purist and this show gave me anxiety. Why did every episode have to be a major drama? This show made Avonlea the most depressing place in North America. I mean, I appreciate them trying to add in actual social commentary especially from the time period, but hour after hour of PTSD, inequality, nearly losing the farm, being beaten by ruffians, con-men, and sexual assault! Seriously, where was the joy?
Just in case anyone is unfamiliar - Anne is an orphan in the early 1900s who is accidentally sent to the home (Green Gables) of spinster siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert who were expecting a boy to help on the farm. They end up keeping the talkative, imaginative Anne despite all of her misadventures and ways she upsets social norms.
I’m going to talk about writing now. Something I did like in the show the spotlight it shown on Anne’s love of writing. She and her friends start a story club where they bring their ideas to a clubhouse they built in the woods. This is one of the few sweet, childhood moments in the first season. They keep the core of imaginative play there with Anne’s made-up beliefs developing into characters and plots.
The show adds more to the ideals of being a blossoming writer including a school newspaper. Anne experiences censorship and it leads the students to realize the importance of freedom of speech. They idea of Anne becoming an author is rather lost by the end of the series, taking a backseat to her unrequited love. At least the show never stopped the use of large words to convey meaning and never let up on how important those words were to young Anne.
The Equinox is only two days away. Therefore, I’ve made a list of ways you can celebrate and upset your homeowner’s association at the same time!
Some people light a candle. That’s small potatoes. I say light dozens of torches, placed strategically on your yard in the shape of the owl from The Sword and Sword (just don’t let Disney catch ya).
Balance an egg to stand on the small end! Does this work? You’ll have to try it to find out.
Throw handfuls of fall leaves at people, yell “you are healed!”. Then skip away.
Peanut butter. I have given you a concept. Run with it.
Buy candy corn. I don’t care what your stance is on it? Love it. Hate it. Just support it. Support it as a glorious tradition passed down through the ages.
Find a doll, preferably an older doll with the blank stare of death. Set her in the window of your enemy (or just someone whose been pissing you off). Then move her to a different window. Continue this at various time between now and Halloween.
APPLES!!!! ALL THE APPLES!!!! Pick em! Bake em! Roast them on a fire! Dip them in tasty goo!
Collect recipes requiring squash. Buy the squash. Intend to cook it. Watch it go bad like a fun science experiment.
Find a farm and have a harvest festival for one until a stereotypical farmer appears shaking a pitchfork at you.
Time how long the sun is up versus how long it’s down. See if all this autumn equinox hype is true.
Go away! According to a website it’s Live Creative Day, National Coloring Day, and National Cram Filled Donut Day. I’m busy living my best life!
* I have several upcoming movie and TV blogs coming up which were written before the writers’ strike. I’m just going to post them until I run out.
IT’S NATIONAL BUY A BOOK DAY AND YOU’RE IN LUCK BECAUSE WE SELL BOOKS!
AREN’T YOU GLAD YOU CLICKED ON THIS BLOG?
Hey there local parents! Your kids have been in school almost a whole month! You must be enjoying the break of not having them around the house all summer. Guess what, your kids’ teachers are already exhausted! Eight more months to go!
23 Paces to Baker Street is decent, but somewhat underwhelming mystery about Philip Hannon (Van Johnson), a man recently blinded who has moved to London in an attempt to rebuild his life after ditching his fiancee Jean (Vera Miles). His butler Bob (Cecil Parker) is good about attempting to make him feel “normal”, however Phil’s new advanced senses of smell and hearing help him to hide his disability.
Due to Phil’s new abilities (which are somewhat comically showcased to the audience as distracting small sounds turned up like a watch ticking sounding like Big Ben), he overhears a sinister conversation. When the police decide that Phil’s career as a playwright has addled his imagination, Phil, Jean, and Bob attempt to sleuth on their own. They suspect a kidnapping and corruption.
Never you mind about all off the murder and chases and moments of thrilling near-death experiences. Let’s talk about the writer in this film! Phil uses an audio recorder to take down the dialog for his plays and Bob types them out. When first hearing the conversation about a kidnapping, Phil memorizes it and records it on his device. The trouble is, he’s not an actor so each word is missing the inflections of the original owners.
Ball of Fire (1941) and A Song is Born (1948) are almost the same film save for most of the cast and what they are writing. I mean REALLY the same! Even the director Howard Hawks returned for the musical remake of his own movie. Why did they feel the needed to remake a fairly new film? Because film studios don’t change. If something makes money, might as well do it again to make more money! Plus, in the 1940s, you couldn’t buy a copy to watch at home or stream. Television was a fairly new household appliance in 1948.
First, Ball of Fire is about a group of eight professors writing an encyclopedia employed by Miss Tottem, a woman both interested in the writing process and frustrated by how long the endeavor is taking. Her father, the inventor of the electric toaster, wanted a new compendium of human knowledge created which included ample information about himself. As the men realize they need a section on modern slang, the youngest of the professors, Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) leaves the comfort of their studies. Enter our Snow White character, Sugarpuss O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck) whose is hiding from the cops because of her mobster boyfriend, Joe (Dana Andrews). She agrees to be the slang interpreter for the seven men if she can stay in their house however, they do not know the reasons why. The other seven professors (played by a who’s who of popular character actors) are shy of Sugar at first, but she wins them each over, to the chagrin of the old fashioned housekeeper who come in each day to feed the men.
Naturally, Joe butts in just at Potts and Sugar start to fall in love. He’s determined to marry Sugar so she can’t testify against him for murder. And shenanigans ensue.
Potts sets up his research by having a brain trust of people he picked up off the streets to teach him slang. He studies them, writes down what they say and their explanations. I’m not sure how an encyclopedia is written, but it seems a long process of cross-referencing and research. However, I do love research. What I do know is that I would like to take these eight men to trivia night.
The original, Ball of Fire, is the superior of the two (I’m sorry Danny Kaye), still A Song of Born is full of many of the music greats of the mid-twentieth century. For that and that alone, I loved it as a child (yes, as a child I knew who Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman were because I was a strange child). Danny Kaye is Professor Frisbee, this time the youngest of a group writing a musical encyclopedia for Miss Totten (same Miss Totten as in Ball of Fire - Mary Field). Her father was a failed musician who left money in his will that such a lofty project be completed. And just like in the original film, the professors are distracted by Honey Swanson (Virginia Mayo), a fast talking mobster moll in hiding.
Their writing is more anthropological, looking at how music influences culture (whether any of this was accurate is a different story altogether). However, they realize that their encyclopedia is severely lacking in swing, “boogie woogie”, and few other modern forms of music when a pair of Black window washers (played by real life duo Buck and Bubbles). Frisbee decides to gather as many popular musicians as he can. Granted a lot of these were musicians already under contract to the movie studio, but that’s how he finds Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, Lionel Hampton, and the love interest Honey. I cannot stress enough that the music is the key reason to watch this version. *Random note: As a kid I asked my mom why all of the Black men in the movie called Louis Armstrong “Satchmo” and the white men called him, “Mr. Armstrong”. Cut to me learning about a movie trying to show respect to an African American performer the only way they knew how before the major civil rights movement. I think I also got a lesson about Hattie McDaniel that day.
The rest plays out fairly the same except one big notable difference in how they write their book. Everything they write about is also recorded. Each recording accompanies a group of chapters and an brief verbal summary of those chapters indicating why the recorded music is an audible example of the text. That sounds exhausting.
I’ve heard of the Jane Arden comics, but I’ve never read them. Still, they were once popular enough for a 1939 crime movie to be made. I tried to look up what characters were from the comic, however, there’s very little about the content of the Jane Arden comic books to be found easily other than the fact that they came with paper dolls.
The film has Jane (Rosella Towne) investigating the murder of a beautiful young woman whose shooting was blamed on a random hood. Jane tells her editor, Ed, that she wants to write the real story by tracking down the real killers. Ed publicly fires her only to turn around and send her undercover with jewel smugglers they suspect really committed the crime. Jane and her ditzy friend end up on board a ship to Bermuda as jewelry mules along with the criminal mastermind and his jealous girlfriend. And Jane is pretty much having the time of her life as a fake moll.
You don’t see much of Jane’s writing in the movie other than sensational headlines in all caps. However, what made me want to watch the film is because the character of Jane Arden is what inspired many women to become journalists and writers. Her creators purposely made her strong, smart, and single so her career could be completely her own. She’s also the inspiration for Lois Lane (which is why some of you will be arguing online that she sounds like a Lois Lane rip-off).
1942 was a time of high ideals in the midst of war. This is a film about truth versus ideals which may be why it’s somewhat forgotten now. Keeper of the Flame stars Spencer Tracey as Steven O’Malley, a war correspondent back in the United States in time for the public funeral of beloved civic leader whom he wants to write biography of. However, the man’s grieving widow, Christine Forrest (Katherine Hepburn), is so determined to keep her husband’s memory pristine that she objects to reporters writing anything beyond his heroism and tragic death in a car accident.
In his pleas to convince Christine Forrest, Steven meets several people wrapped up in the end of a public figure. Even before encountering Christine, he is verbally accosted by her cousin Geoffrey (hey! it’s the Sargent from FTroop!) who has taken the death particularly hard. The house has a gatekeeper who was once Mr. Forrest’s superior officer and claimed to have been rescued by his now deceased boss. His son is Jeb, a distraught little boy who blames himself for Mr. Forrest’s death and missus his older sister who used to work for Mr. Forrest.. There is an elderly Mrs. Forrest, Christine’s mother-in-law who rambles in code. Dr. Fielding provides a more human version of Mr. Forrest, critical of the hero-worship the man inspired in others and blames him for institutionalizing Jeb’s sister. And lastly, there is Clive Kerndon, the family’s private secretary who is on Steven’s side (and I’m pretty sure had a crush on Mr. Forrest despite everything).
Despite the politically inspired youth groups, the pride of everyone in town, and the liberal and lofty idea Forrest left behind, Steven has difficulty writing the biography. He discovers that so much of the “great man’s” life is shadowed. He never expected perfection, yet he starts to suspect more sinister secrets about everyone involved. Christine and Kerndon are guarded about Mr. Forrest’s past and personality except the same rehearsed lines of his greatness and devotion to causes. I won’t give away the ending.
As far as writers go, I like the imagery in this movie of reporters all rushing with their little suitcase typewriters, fighting for a place at a hotel table and typing like mad to reach a deadline. My favorite is Jane, a secondary character who is slightly more fleshed out than the typical “lady reporter”. Tracey’s character represents what trying to print truth can do to a person over time. He’s a man with conviction and empathy who saw World War II first hand and comes home with a broader view of heroes and villains. He wanted to write the biography for other people so they could have more home in something good, hope he knew he was losing throughout the war. I like the idea of a writer wanting to give something to others even if he no longer had it himself. Christine states that she wondered if Steven “spoke as he wrote” and responded, “I speak as I feel and I feel very deeply about this”. Despite everything, he still thought truth was most important.
I didn’t have time to watch something this week so I tried to find something random to write about. I looked up holidays on July 27th, but nothing jumped out at me. I mean, I like bagpipes. Do I need a whole day of appreciation of them? No. No, I do not.
So instead enjoy this stock photo of a cute cat re-enacting the dream sequence from Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
