Quote of the Week

The members of the elite did not object at all to paying a price, the destruction of civilization, for the fun of seeing how those who had been excluded unjustly in the past forced their way into it.
--Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

A Long, Thankless Trek Through Darkest Europe

There is undoubtedly a great novel to be written about a world in which Islam and Christianity has switched places but the Harry Turtledove novel Through Darkest Europe isn't it.

The chief problem with the novel isn't that it's a bad book -- merely a repetitive one. Turtledove keeps making the same point over and over again and while I appreciate his literary efforts on behalf of Team Tolerance, a little bit of his prose goes a long way.

The sad thing is that there used to be a time when reading the latest Harry Turtledove novel was not such a chore. But those days seem long-gone.

¡Feliz Día de los Caídos!

I do not have enough words to pay adequate tribute to all those who have fallen in the service of this country.

However, I do hope that all my readers have a pleasant Memorial Day just the same.

Trailer of the Week: A Bridge Too Far

One of the first big-budget World War II movies that I had a chance to see on the big screen. Thanks to changing audience tastes, this was for many years the last such movie that I had a chance to see on the big screen -- at least until the release of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan in 1998.

Movie Quote of the Week

No one cared who I was 'til I put on the mask
--Tom Hardy, The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

TV Quote of the Week

Who did you expect? Dick Dastardly?
--Paul Lynde, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, "Jungle Jeopardy"

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

The Paul Lynde Show: “Howie Comes Home To Roost”

The late comic actor Paul Lynde was best known to my generation as the guy who played the lovable prankster Uncle Arthur on the TV show Bewitched so naturally when it came time to give him his own show, the suits made sure to keep him as far away from that type of role as possible. Instead, they gave Lynde the rather thankless role of Paul Simms, a conservative attorney who was always ordering his wife (played by actress Barbara Allen) to make him a martini when not ranting about the troubles of the world in general.

Simms seemed like an odd role for Lynde to play since Lynde seemed far more comfortable with sarcastic quips and what would today be called gay mannerisms than he was with portraying a normal heterosexual father. To his credit, Lynde did his damnedest to fulfill the needs of his role even though his postmortem reputation as a gay icon often made his performances seem a bit surreal to the modern viewer. It didn't help that a key part of the plot involved Simms repeatedly making quips about his daughter Barbara's most recent husband Howie Dickerson (played by John Calvin), a "hippie" character who was usually dressed in shorts, swim trunks or other types of abbreviated clothing. Of course, most of the odd parts of Lynde's performance went right over my head when I first saw this show as a kid. But nowadays, it seemed so obvious that I'm surprised no one older than me noticed.

In any event, the plot of this episode involved Lynde's law firm trying to close down a X-rated movie theatre, only to have their efforts wasted when Howie dropped by Simms' law office and inadvertently gave free legal advice to the owner of the movie theatre. Later on, Howie found a way to fix the mistake and for a while, all was well. But Simms was still not happy with having Howie as a son-in-law and he got even less unhappy when he found out that Howie and Barbara were moving in with them.

Did the TV show improve after this particular episode? Well, it would be nice to say so, but alas...

Quote of the Week

Privilege is when your culture is taught as a core curriculum, and mine is taught as an elective.
--Jasmine Cho

A tip of the sombrero to fellow blogger Bluejay for introducing me to this quote.

Book of the Week

It is tempting to recommend Natalie Haynes's book The Ancient Guide to Modern Life if for no other reason that it is that rarity of rarities -- a historical book that manages to make a better case for the Internet than most of the pro-Internet puff pieces in existence. But it is also a great history book as well. Not many historians can write prose as accessible as Ms. Haynes. Not every historian tries. And while I must admit to having a slight bias in favor of this book due to its emphasis on classical history, I have yet to come across a recent book that does such a good job of relating such history to modern times. (Well, Will and Ariel Durant did a good job but their work is not exactly recent.)

Of course, there could be some budding history major out there at this very moment who is aiming to prove me wrong about all this. Then again stumbling across such a writer would hardly be the worst experience of my life.

Pop Song of the Week: "La Isla Bonita"

They borrow from us; we borrow from them. What category this song falls into depends on your definition of us and them.

However, I do remember driving my late father up the wall back in 1987 by continually switching the car radio to this song when we were driving cross-country. I also remember the sister of my second Mexican-born girlfriend showing off a tape of the album from which this song was taken when my father and I visited her family during that same trip. So those are at least two reasons why I'm likely to remember this tune in a way that most people never will.

Movie Song of the Week: "Matador"

The official video for the Spanish-language song that would later be used on the soundtrack for the 1997 movie Grosse Pointe Blank. This song should have made the Argentine group that recorded it -- Los Fabulosos Cadillacs -- much more famous than they were. Alas, it was not to be.

And You Thought Your Class Reunion Was Tough: Grosse Pointe Blank

You can tell Grosse Pointe Blank is an old movie because it features actress Minnie Driver speaking with an American accent.

And if you're from Michigan -- like yours truly -- you can't help finding it quaint how the movie tries to present Grosse Pointe as just another small town with a suburban lifestyle when it's actually more famous to my fellow Detroiters for being the local residence for rich kids. At worst, Grosse Pointe is the Michigan equivalent of Beverly Hills -- not a bad place to live but not a humble small town either.

That said, Grosse Pointe Blank holds up pretty well for an old movie. (Though like most people who are old enough to remember the 1990s, I still find it depressing to consider it an old movie.) Granted, the film is sometimes a little self-congratulatory in its humor but it's still pretty watchable. And I just love the Spanish-language song that plays over the end credits -- the type of song that made me say, "What the hell is that?" the first time I heard it.

Trailer of the Week: Blinded by the Light (2019)

I could probably spend all day unpacking the issues that this movie reminded me of but perhaps the most important aspect of this flick that deserves notice is that it was far, far better than the trailer indicated. At least in my humble opinion.

Mind you, I was a big Springsteen fan back in the day as well. But I don't recall having any big epiphanies in regard to his music and those emotional reactions that I did have probably would not make for a good movie. Which is just as well since while there is always going to be a little part of me that remembers listening to the music my fellow sixth-graders listened to and being more curious about that music than I was about the Mexican music I heard at home, there is also another part of me that still feels nostalgic whenever he hears that type of Mexican music.

Book of the Week

Believe it or not, there was a time when writer Ed Morales was capable of writing in plain English. But nowadays he seems more prone to write in culturebabble...

Perhaps it's better to remember his best books of yesteryear rather than kvetch about the dubious stuff he writes today. And of all the books of his that I have the good fortune to read, Living in Spanglish: The Search for Latino Identity in America is the one that I like the best.

Quote of the Week

You should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.
--Werner Herzog

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Penny Dreadful: “Night Work”

Oh my! And here I thought the Hammer films were violent!

I'm still not sure whether or not to praise Penny Dreadful. It was certainly more ambitious than your average horror film and it certainly deserved credit for doing its best to breathe new life -- so to speak -- into such characters as Dracula, Frankenstein, Dorian Grey and other Victorian characters. Yet there was something about the way it treated the main character -- Miss Vanessa Ives (played by Vesper Lynd herself aka Eva Green) -- that managed to be creepy in a way which I hope was unintended.

I would like to hope that there was more to this "re-imagining" of so many classical horror tropes than "let's make a modern version of a Hammer movie, only with far more sex, gore and nudity than they could have ever gotten away back in the 1950s". However, time will tell.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Upstart Crow: “The Most Unkindest Cut of All”

This week's episode satirized Shakespeare's attempt to write a play about Julius Caesar -- oddly enough, the one Shakespearean play that my middle brother can quote from -- only to take time out for the obligatory political joke/message, which this week alluded to the various benefits Britons received from the Roman Empire. That's right. Almost two thousand years after Queen Boudica led a rebellion against the Romans, it has now become fashionable for political progressives like showrunner Ben Elton to lament the good old days of the Roman Empire. We, indeed, do live in interesting times.

What's next, I wonder? A comedy lamenting the failure of the Spanish Armada? Or a sitcom describing how the British in general would have been a lot better off had Napoleon won at Waterloo? I suppose from a would-be writer's pov, I should consider it a good thing to see that not all the foolishness is concentrated on the pro-Brexit side of the political aisle but still...

¡Feliz Día de la Madre!

Happy Mother's Day to all my loyal readers. I hope you all enjoy a pleasant day with your own mothers.

Pop Song of the Week: "Industrial Disease"

I'm kinda surprised that it took so long to post this song. And I find it kinda depressing that so many of the lyrics still ring true.

Movie Song of the Week: "Mother Knows Best (Reprise)"

This week I post the inevitable sequel to this tune in honor of -- er -- mothers who are nothing like the Donna Murphy character in this musical number. Next year I'll try to find something more fitting.

Trailer of the Week: Juarez

"...But when a presidente misrules, the people change him." Oh, snap! Easy enough to see why this movie isn't likely to be remade any time soon. But wait! They're talking about another country in this movie, right? Not the US...

Movie Quote of the Week

I wear the mask; it does not wear me.
--Leo DiCaprio, The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

TV Quote of the Week

All sad people like poetry. Happy people like songs.
--Eva Green, Penny Dreadful, "Above the Vaulted Sky"

Quote of the Week

Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.
--César Chávez

Close But No Cigar: Race

There is undoubtedly a great movie to be made about the modern-day political conflicts between American Latinos and African-Americans back in the 1990s -- but the 1998 movie Race is not it. It gets credit for at least trying to acknowledge some of the issues involved in such conflicts, but I all too often got the feeling while watching it that the movie was deliberately pulling its punches in regard to the main plot.

Perhaps most symbolic of the movie's problems was a scene in which a black political candidate (played by CCH Pounder) asked a group of white senior citizens to tell her their concerns -- only to receive a lot of trivial complaints about black basketball players. I don't doubt that such a scene might have happened in real life but I also can't help but wonder whether all complaints from white voters about various ethnic groups should be presumed to be that trivial. After all, mainstream op-ed writers frequently trivialized the complaints of blacks and Hispanics back in the 1990s -- and even today, when white Americans are presumably more "woke", there's a tendency to blow off any concerns expressed by minority voters any time such concerns conflict with the concerns of white people. So why is it in the interest of blacks and Hispanics to encourage such trivialization when the shoe is on the other foot?

In any event, the movie Race started out promisingly, then threatened to turn into a Mexican soap opera till finally settling for an ending that seemed all too believable yet also wrapped things up in way too convenient a package. As much as I wanted to love the ending, I could not help wondering how realistic it was for the screenwriters to conveniently blame a white non-Hispanic villain for the conflicts between the two lead characters (a black political candidate and a Hispanic political candidate) when real life has shown over and over again that the origin of such conflicts is not that simple. Anyway, I don't doubt that there are a lot of white non-Hispanics who get a kick out of playing the divide and conquer game in regard to blacks and Hispanics. But I also believe that a lot of black and Hispanic candidates who have issues with each other often have their own motives for such conflicts. To pretend otherwise is to pretend they're not human. And quite frankly, there are already enough people in this country who think that way without encouraging it.

Pop Song of the Week: "No No Joe"

Hank Williams Sr. sings about the most notorious Joe of the last hundred years. And no, that's not a reference to Joe Biden.

Movie Song of the Week: "Shall We Dance?"

I'm kinda surprised I haven't posted this yet. It's such a classic musical number that I was sure I already posted it a long time ago. But apparently I didn't.

Nowadays, it seems even more apt than usual. Poor Fred Astaire pursuing a masked Ginger Rogers -- on a stage where every woman wears a mask -- and being socially distanced, to boot. Oh my!

And of course, the lyrics have a nice Dylan Thomas-ish subtext, which is a neat trick considering the fact the song was written at least a decade or so before Thomas wrote "Do not go gentle into that good night".

Spanish Words of Russian History

1. Bloque del Este -- Eastern Bloc.
2. bolchevique -- Bolshevik.
3. comunismo -- communism.
4. comunista -- communist.
5. cosaco -- cossack.
6. El Telón de Acero -- Castilian term for "Iron Curtain".
7. Eslavos -- Slavs.
8. estalinismo -- Stalinism.
9. hoz y martillo -- hammer and sickle.
10. Imperio del Mal -- literally, "Empire of Evil"; U.S. President Ronald Reagan's term for "the Soviet Union."
11. Imperio Malvado -- literally, "Evil Empire"; U.S. President Ronald Reagan's term for "the Soviet Union."
12. La Cortina de Hierro -- Latin American term for "Iron Curtain".
13. La Guerra Fría -- The Cold War.
14. La Gran Purga -- The Great Purge.
15. Marxismo -- Marxism.
16. Pueblo Potemkin -- Potemkin village.
17. purga -- purge.
18. República Popular -- People's Republic.
19. Unión Soviética -- Soviet Union.
20. zar -- czar.

Trailer of the Week: Reds

Well, it is May Day.

But seriously, folks...

If nothing else, I have to respect the chutzpah Warren Beatty needed to get this movie made. Granted, it's not my favorite movie. And like most Americans of East European ancestry, I can't help but have mixed emotions about a movie that appears to celebrate the Russian Revolution. (My mother's maternal ancestors may not have done all that well under the Czars but it seems foolish to pretend that they did better under the Communists.)

Then again the movie was artistically ambitious in a way that I rarely see in high-budget movies nowadays. Plus it dared to be long enough to require an intermission at a time when filmmakers were being encouraged to make films that were shorter and shorter.

It's tempting to call this the other movie about 1917 but since I haven't seen 1917 yet, I'll leave it to others to make that judgment. In any event, you all are probably better off seeing for yourselves. Hopefully, it's still possible to watch it nowadays and not wonder whatever happened to Warren Beatty.

Quote of the Week

No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.
--Roger Ebert