No, Genius, Not the Guy from Kiss!-- A Great Actress Remembered

Hollywood suffered a great loss last Friday. Jean Simmons is gone.

I thought it would be appropriate to share my perspective on a few points of her career. I've never seen two of the films that made her famous-- Great Expectations and Olivier's Hamlet-- but if her work in them is anything like what's listed here, I must investigate these with all expediency.

So, ladies and gentlemen and (c)-- Miss Jean Simmons.

Diana, The Robe (1953)
Anyone who's ever seen Henry Koster's widescreen Biblical melodrama knows that, while visually mind-boggling, it's not good to expect too much in the way of performances. But playing opposite Richard Burton, Simmons brings the movie into focus, keeps the drama (mostly) restrained, and comports herself like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments-- bringing what could be one of the goofiest films ever under an umbrella-- however wide.

Sister Sarah Brown, Guys & Dolls (1955)
She may not have the most even singing voice around (and no, she's not dubbed), but you just can't argue with the drunken giddiness she uses in "If I Were a Bell." And on other songs, she just does what she does, which is so much better than almost anyone still working in Hollywood today. Past and present critics are more interested in Marlon Brando (it was his first appearance as a singer and dancer), but it's Simmons who, once again, reins in the crazy to provide a more interesting, layered film. No other actress would have worked in this version.

Varinia, Spartacus (1960)
Even forced to play second fiddle to Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis and even Peter Ustinov, she's unbelievably good. She pairs well with Douglas, but her best scene comes at the end (spoiler), showing the dying Spartacus their infant son. And for some reason, Alex North's music provides the perfect instrumental background for her kind of dignity.

We now leap decades ahead, to see--
Admiral Nora Satie, Star Trek: The Next Generation [The Drumhead]
Simmons plays a veteran investigator trying to sniff out the perpetrator(s) of a conspiracy on Picard's Enterprise. The investigation snowballs into a witch-hunt that has everyone, including the captain, suspect. It's wickedly thrilling to watch her character unravel from a passionate but dignified seeker of truth into a snarling hawk-- all the while with Picard remaining as calm as if he were sending back a cup of tepid tea. It's guest stars like Jean Simmons that kept this from being a B-level show, and she's at the forefront.

Also seen in: Elmer Gantry (1960)
Also heard in: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2000) and the English translation of Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

The World Goes to the H-Word....

I think leading evangelists get up in the morning and plan ways to ruin the world through talk.

Remarks made last week by notorious hyper-conservative wack job Pat Robertson saying that Haitians made a "deal with the devil" a couple centuries ago to gain their freedom and therefore deserve the disaster, misery, and death toll of the recent earthquake remain in the air. The same vestiges of Christian supremacy that would like to see all gays hanging on gallows now say, quite emphatically and clearly, that God is punishing Haiti for the alleged "mistakes" of its long-dead ancestors.

I cannot believe in any kind of God like that-- misery and mass destruction for something the victims had no control over.

Nor do I believe that the scumbag who advances this idiotic, crushing "theory" has any right to continue polluting the world's already-noxious air with his verbal garbage. I think a punishment is in order-- a mandatory gag for the rest of his life, with intravenous feeding. Thousands upon thousands of people are dead, millions upon millions are otherwise affected, and the final numbers will climb higher and higher and higher in the foreseeable future. And it's not because God wants revenge. It's because the Earth is a kind of living entity, and Haiti is on top of two opposing faults. It takes a really sick individual (whom I can't even consider a human being) to claim that as a miracle or divine justice.

Then there's the other theory-- the earthquake, like all other disasters in recent memory, is the work of the Antichrist, who, as we all know, is Barack Obama, right?

Or maybe it's God punishing the world for our tolerance of homosexuality... isn't that what caused Hurricane Katrina?

If you're not going to help the situation (as in monetary contribution or the infinitely more valuable "personal approach") or at the very least offer condolences, keep your big flippin' mouth shut before you destroy even more lives than have already been destroyed.

I have no more words for this. But I hope the nation continues to rebuild. Every day the bad news keeps coming, but relief is on the ground, more is on the way, and the progress continues. I truly, truly hope it isn't ruined by a few psychos who think it's fun or non-harmful to blame the victims.

Xander's Film Registry Continues....

While I try desperately to calm down over the whole Uganda thing mentioned on Wednesday's post (I am still seething over that), I shall turn to lighter fare, inducting three more movies into my Hall of Fame. An interesting thing to consider, folks: life is too garflinking short. Find a dream and do it. Before you know it, the world could sink deeper into the bowels of Hell, and then where will you be? Besides watching a horned dude and a country boy in a fiddle contest while the mercury hits 150?

On that subject, I introduce the star of today's registry admission: James Dean. A man who only lived a quarter of a century, starred in only three films, and lived to see only one of them. Yet he did in two years and three films what most actors don't achieve in decades and scores. He created a whole new archetype and ushered in the era in which parents actually listen to their kids. It wouldn't be right to have any list of "definitive" film experiences without including all three, even though the last one is a wee bit on the weak side. The films are: an adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden; the quintessential teen movie, Rebel Without a Cause; and Giant, an ambitious epic from Edna Ferber's novel.

East of Eden (1955)- Dean was introduced to the world as Cal, the brooding, outcast, misfit, well-intentioned brother who lives in the shadow of his sibling, Aron (Richard Davalos), who is preferred by their father (Raymond Massey). For a while, Cal's primary mission seems to be winning the approval of his father, but when a financial calamity befalls the man, Cal dedicates his life to helping the man who bred him-- with precisely the results he should have been expecting. Set before and during World War I, this is a re-working of the old story of Cain and Abel, with a component of the story often excised from Genesis: Cal and Aron's missing mother, played perfectly by Jo Van Fleet, is Lilith to Massey's Adam. Kudos to Julie Harris as Abra, and Dean should have gotten that lil' award for which he was nominated (the first posthumous nomination by the Academy for an actor).

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)- A 24-hour Greek tragedy in contemporary California, complete with cosmic parallels, a surprising romantic subplot, and Jim "Thurston Howell" Backus as James Dean's inept, emasculated father. Dean co-stars brilliantly with Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo in the story of three outcast teenagers who become friends while witnessing and coping with a tragedy that snowballs to a heartbreaking conclusion. Ironically, Dean gives what is still considered his defining performance here-- and it was the only film not to get him an Academy nomination. He shares the screen well, and it's interesting to see what teenage rebellion was like in the pre-rock 'n' roll era, when blue jeans were still considered inappropriate dress for school.

Giant (1956)- He shared the screen with Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo in Rebel, but he mostly gets the screen taken from him in his final film, Edna Ferber's sprawling tale of love, rivalry, and racism. Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor lead the cast, and she gives a performance that shows she can actually act-- despite the impression given by Cleopatra in retrospect. Dean plays a wrangler, working for Hudson until Hudson's strong-willed sister bequeaths the worker a little scrap of the 595,000-acre ranch... and Dean discovers there's oil running under it. His initial, extremely exuberant discovery of his newfound wealth is one of the proudest, most enjoyable sequences in movie history-- but it's quickly ruined, because Dean's character is also destroyed by the income and power. He turns into a bigoted, sleazy, nouveau-riche hick who, twenty years later, returns to wreak his vengeance on Hudson's family... but his liquor-riddled liver won't allow it. It runs 201 minutes and it leaves the audience more than a little frustrated with the way things work for Dean, but it's still one of a trilogy of excellent performances and it almost makes up for director George Stevens' later debacle, The Greatest Story Ever Told.

It probably won't be directly the next time I post, but the next time the Film Registry returns, we'll be looking at some financial duds that should have been huge blockbusters.

Well, Uganda, have you come to your senses yet?

I'm Seeing a Familiar Pattern, and it Scares the Dickens out of Me

Happy New Year, people. This is how the Evangelical faith and the government of Uganda choose to reward you on the occasion of this new beginning.

After a number of visits to Uganda from Evangelical Christians of America, the Ugandan government is putting into legislation a law which would impose a death sentence on homosexuals. This would make Uganda just another country that does this.

I really hate to judge another culture. I really do. But as far as I'm concerned, hatred and bigotry are not viable cultural traditions. It's just an excuse to keep making the world a far worse place. It's bad enough already!

In Uganda, the political majority believes in firm traditions, a very conservative view that includes the "traditional" view of family. There's nothing wrong with believing in old values. What's wrong about this is using those old values as a way to cleanse the ol' gene pool and make yourself a world where the so-called "undesirables" have been eliminated.

Who else had that dream?

Oh, yeah, his name was Hitler.

The Evangelicals' speeches and discussions included the ol far-right talking points that continue to make a lot of people sick: homosexuals carry disease; homosexuals are dedicated to making obsolete the Biblical concepts of "marriage" and "family"; homosexuals, as we all know, are sent by Satan to corrupt the word of God and convert all straight people to their insidious legion by raping those who won't consent.

So now, the same hate mongers who gave these little pep talks are trying to divorce themselves (no pun intended!) from any responsibility for the proposed Ugandan law. They're saying they just basically wanted to spread the word, not become unwitting proponents of mass murder.

Of course, I for one don't hold the EC visitors solely responosible for this disaster, but they can't just weasel their way out of blame. In unstable situations, the wrong words from the proper people can result in the lighting of some very dangerous fuses. The situation in Uganda already was unstable: the GLBT population were receiving death threats, for one; the government also condoned the galling practice of "corrective rape." Now, thanks to the words of a few hateful individuals who think they had the best of intentions, the fuse has been lit. Will the bomb be a dud? Or will it cause a concussive blast that knocks a hole in the freaking mantle?

Knowing human nature, it'll probably be the latter.

Just keep this in mind. Those same kinds of rumors (mentioned earlier) about gays and lesbians are the same kind of vicious lies spread about the Jewish people decades and centuries earlier-- the words that were, whether directly or indirectly, responsible for Russian pogroms and the Holocaust. It was said at the time that Jewish boys loved to rape Gentile girls; that Jewish religious ceremonies used the blood of Christian babies, which they would obtain by any means necessary; and that Judaism was-- you guessed it!-- sent by Satan to pervert the word of God and destroy the world of the righteous.

Something else to keep in mind: when the Holocaust was over and six million had been butchered, people still blamed the entire war on a handful of Jewish profiteers.

Is the world so happy and carefree that we need another Holocaust to cleanse the gene pool?

A Silent Moment

This is an unofficial continuation of Wednesday's post. Please join me in a moment of silence.
















Thank you.

Sunday: Memorial

This week more than ever I hate the human race. And let me just go out of the way to assure you that there is nothing sarcastic, satirical, or even vaguely funny about this post. I know it's out of character to be serious, but considering what's just happened I think it's necessary.

From the morning to the night of Sunday, November 30, eight people were killed in Washington state (eight that we know of) for reasons that can absolutely not be excused or tolerated.

The first took place in the Tacoma suburb of Parkland, in the morning, when four Lakewood police officers were viciously gunned down for no reason other than the fact that they were police. These men-&-woman were ruthlessly ambushed, in a place where they should have been absolutely safe. This has made national news for a few reasons, one of which is obvious, another of which is the fact that the suspect, the now-deceased Maurice Clemmons, had a 90+ year prison sentence commuted by Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. But I won't talk about this, because he was also released on bail from a prison sentence incurred by child rape, right here in Washington.

Clemmons is now dead because a patrol officer in Seattle saw him in a stolen car. Clemmons appeared to be reaching for a weapon, after the officer told him to put his hands up and hold still, and so in self-defense the officer shot. He wouldn't have survived anyway with the belly wound he received from the Lakewood officer who fought back. I know that Clemmons' death doesn't balance out the four lives he took. Even so-- while I'm not exactly dancing a jig about it-- it gives me a little relief, as I'm sure it does to a lot of people around here, to know that this sick _____ won't ever ambush cops again. Or any of the other stuff his warped _____ mind is capable of.

But the man had accomplices-- people who tended to his stomach wound, gave him money, gave him a place to hide after he killed valued, cherished members of the law enforcement community! These people are perhaps even a little sicker than he, and I hope they receive a punishment as befits a cop killer in the flesh. This isn't just mob-mentality bloodlust here; they need to know that they're all guilty of more than just a "crime."

The other four deaths occurred with no premeditation, and many miles north, in Marysville. Two couples were killed in a horrific car accident because someone was driving with eight beers in their system (that made their blood alcohol level 1.5 times over the legal limit).

Seven of the deceased I didn't know at all.

One, a victim of the car wreck, was Brad Agerup, a physical education/health/sports medicine teacher at my old high school. I even had him for a semester, Individual Sports (a PE credit). I've had problems with PE teachers in the past because if you're out of shape (like myself), most of them seem to think that you're not expending any effort. Mr. Agerup was different. He could tell when students were falling short but actually trying. This acknowledgment, which he vocalized to myself and others on numerous occasions, always made me and, I suspect, everybody else feel better about our limited capabilities, which is what teachers are supposed to do: encourage improvement and respect when someone is trying to improve.

But I understand there was more to his life than that. He helped countless athletes with sports medicine and coaching. He taught resuscitation techniques, which he used to save at least one life. And who knows how many other people's lives were saved by those he instructed? That's not the life of a guy who didn't do anything useful with the gift of animation. And while I didn't know him well (I never had him as a teacher after that semester), it still feels shocking to me that he's gone, and gone for such a pitiful reason as that some drunken idiot whose blood was saturated with hooch thought he was alright to drive.

As was to be expected, the drunken driver escaped with minor injuries. But to the Agerups' two teenage daughters, both parents are gone because of him.

I know few people read this, but I'm writing like everyone in the world can see it because I'm sick of seeing good people being killed. Period. People should only die when they reach the natural end of their lives. Not when a child-raping slime ball wants to leave an impression. Not when someone has failed to hide a drunk's car keys.

If you've ever driven with alcohol in your blood, I'm a little ashamed of you right now. But I also know there's a lesson you can take from this. And I sincerely hope you do.

In memory of Tina Griswold (Lakewood PD), Ronald Owens (LPD), Mark Renninger (LPD), Greg Richards (LPD), Hilda Woods, Tom Woods, Melissa Agerup, Brad Agerup

Xander's Film Registry Admittance

Good news, everyone! You'll be making a suicide run to the Popcorn Planet!

Sorry, I got in a Futurama mode for a second. Ahem. Moving on....

The real "good news" is that Xander's Film Registry, consisting right now of sixty films you must see before you die, is becoming a permanent thing. New films will be admitted on a regular basis (well... not new new, necessarily), under the qualification that they are either movie essentials, wonderful things to show your children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews, or utter and complete garbage that you should never see without being prepared to throw yourself off an unduly high balcony. Today, a few members of the first two categories.

Exodus (1960)
(See review in earlier post)

Flower Drum Song (1961)
The first movie to cast people of Asian ancestry as serious, legitimate, three-dimensional characters, this long-lost Rodgers/Hammerstein musical features some hilarious songs, including the outrageous early-60s household fantasy "Sunday," the irony-riddled "The Other Generation," and the preposterously funny "Gliding Through My Memoree." It also includes very little of the songwriting duo's famous maudlin-ness: with the exception of the operatic "Love, Look Away," it's pure comedy.

Pete's Dragon (1977)
Despite the presence of the obnoxious Helen Reddy, this heavy-on-the-charm Disney musical pits a witty orphan and his selectively-invisible dragon pal, Elliot, against the confusing moral issues of acceptance, friendship, and child slavery. And it's rated G!

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
It has only been hours since I saw this movie, but I can't let it pass without comment. It is without a doubt one of the funniest, most offbeat and most enjoyable animated comedies ever to emerge from the human imagination. In terms of serious credibility/urgency, it's no Exodus. In terms of sustained comedy, it's no Flower Drum Song. But it is probably one of the best films of the year, and I love it, love it, love it. Go see it at once!