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: Ready or Not (2019)

Hollywood's latest salute to traditional marriage.

Oddly enough, this flick was considered to be more politically acceptable than The Hunt.

TV Quote of the Week

What a model parent you've been! You loved your creature so long as it was pretty but when it lost its looks, Hah! That was another matter! So much for your dainty conscience.
--James Mason, Frankenstein: The True Story (1973)

It Was a Tangled Web That They Wove But It Was Woven in a Good Way

The first time I saw the 2010 movie Tangled, I was surprised how much actress Donna Murphy's "Mother Knows Best" number seemed to describe the dysfunctional love-hate relationship that one of my female friends had with her own mother. Like the main character of Tangled, the woman in question seemed to have a loving mother but only as long as she did what she was told. The minute the woman in question stopped obeying her mother's wishes, the woman's mother proved to be not so loving -- so much so that the woman spent most of her time in mortal fear of her mother's disapproval. (And bear in mind that this friend was a woman who was old enough to work at a local hospital.) While the woman's mother made a great show of showing people outside her family how friendly she could be, it seemed obvious by my friend's statements to me in private that her mother was not quite as friendly behind closed doors. If that was not bad enough, every time she and her mother had an argument, the friend would often be threatened with the possibility being thrown out of her mother's home -- a threat which usually made her back down really fast.

Fortunately, this movie's main character -- Rapunzel -- was not as intimidated as my friend but then she had the luxury of being a fictional character. Granted, we should be wary of reading our own issues into movies lest we see stuff that is not really there. But I never really expected to identify with Rapunzel as much as I did after I came across that number on YouTube -- and of course after that, I had to sample other songs from the same movie and then rent the video.

Mind you, I don't consider this flick to be a perfect movie. I could have done without the anachronistic chameleon that Rapunzel had for a pet or for that matter, Maximus the world's most dedicated guard horse. For that matter, I am not the world's biggest fan of singer Mandy Moore -- the person who voiced the character of Rapunzel -- though I must admit that I liked her very much in this movie. And yet when I consider how much I expected to hate this movie judging from an early description of it that I had read online... Well, suffice it to say that I rather be surprised by how good a movie is than by how bad it is.

Anyway, Tangled is a retelling of the classic story of Rapunzel, the long-haired princess who was trapped in a tower due to an old curse. Since this is a modern retelling, this Rapunzel was not content to sit around and wait to be rescued. Instead she chose to leave her tower voluntarily even though the woman she considered to be her mother firmly warned her against doing so. Along the way, she met up with a would-be thief who wished to hide out in her tower until his pursuers lost interest, only to end up interested in Rapunzel instead. This being a Disney film, there were countless misunderstandings for Rapunzel and her would-be boyfriend to wade through but there was also an inevitable happy ending.

Rapunzel eventually learned that yes, the world can be a scary place but despite what her would-be mother said, it could be beautiful as well. It was all a question of where you chose to look. And that is hardly the worst lesson one can receive nowadays.

Movie Song of the Week: "Mother Knows Best"

I must admit that my mother was never like the mother in this song from the 2010 film Tangled. And neither are most mothers I have met.

However, I have met some mothers who are not much different than this. And for me, the saddest part of the video is when Rapunzel goes to hug the woman she believes to be her mother because she wants so much to be loved that she will almost put up with anything for sake of her mother's love. And unfortunately, I have known women in real life who are much like that too.

Movie Quote of the Week

I should've killed myself when he put it in me. After the first time, before we were married, Ralph promised never again. He promised, and I believed him. But sin never dies. Sin never dies. At first, it was all right. We lived sinlessly. We slept in the same bed, but we never did it. And then, that night, I saw him looking down at me that way. We got down on our knees to pray for strength. I smelled the whiskey on his breath. Then he took me. He took me, with the stink of filthy roadhouse whiskey on his breath, and I liked it. I liked it! With all that dirty touching of his hands all over me. I should've given you to God when you were born, but I was weak and backsliding, and now the devil has come home.
--Piper Laurie, Carrie (1976)

Trailer of the Week: Bachelor Mother (1939)

Ah, the good old days of good old-fashioned family values. I always thought Ms. Rogers' character in this movie deserved one heck of a Mother's Day present considering everything she went through.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Back to You: “Pilot”

Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton have received a reputation during the last decade or so for being two of the most outspoken conservative celebrities in television. So naturally when the two of them got together in 2007 to star in a sitcom for which Grammer was the executive producer, they naturally chose to star in a show in which one of the major subplots involved the conception of a child outside of wedlock.

No, seriously. Almost fifteen years after the big Murphy Brown debate about the implications of an unwed mother appearing on prime-time TV, two of Hollywood's most notorious conservatives chose to star in a TV show in which one of the main characters was a woman who not only conceived a child out of wedlock, but made little effort to hide such child from any of her co-workers.

Needless to say, we've come a long way from the days when Lucille Ball had to tiptoe around network censors to find ways to refer to her own pregnancy during the filming of her show I Love Lucy even though she and her real-life husband were playing a married couple. And yet as the recent fracas over poor Natalie Portman showed, we haven't come far enough.

After all, one has to ask: if Natalie Portman's decision to attend the Oscars sans wedding ring while she was visibly pregnant was so bad, why was it okay for conservatives like Grammer and Heaton to play unwed parents in a show that essentially glamourized unwed parenthood? After all, it would have been a lot easier for Grammer to have the scripts rewritten so that he and Heaton were not playing unwed parents than it would have been for Portman to just ignore one of the biggest nights in her career because of her pregnancy. For that matter, why was it okay with so many cultural conservatives for Ms. Heaton to essentially play the same type of unwed mother role on Back to You that Candice Bergen got criticized for playing on the '90s series Murphy Brown?

For what it is worth, I am not a big fan of unwed pregnancies -- which is why I have been careful to avoid creating any -- but I am also not a big fan of the notion that they are the worst of all social evils. Nor do I see how lecturing unwed mothers on their “bad behavior” is especially useful at a time when far worse behavior goes on without remark. After all, it could be argued that the father who deliberately walks away from a pregnant woman because he does not want to face the hassle of raising a child is far worse than the mother who conceives a child out of wedlock with the wrong partner because she had mistakenly thought said person would stand by her in the event of pregnancy -- yet for some reason, you rarely hear the same anger being directed at said fathers as often as it is directed against unwed mothers.

In any event, it is not like Back to You would have been one of the better sitcoms out there had it gotten rid of the unwed parent gimmick. After all, the show lasted less than a year and all too often relied on such gimmicks as “funny” ethnic names and a Latina weathergirl who was basically your classic stereotypical dumb blonde with a bad artificial tan and a Shakira wig. The only stand-out among the cast was actor Ty Burrell who has since gone on to a funnier and more famous role in Modern Family. Meanwhile, Kelsey Grammer's TV career appears to have stalled. If it weren't for Ms. Heaton's recent success as a married mother on the TV series The Middle, one would be almost tempted to call this a case of poetic justice.

But it isn't.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Dexter: “Hungry Man”

In a special Thanksgiving special, Dexter Morgan gets together with his would-be mentor for Thanksgiving dinner and discovers said mentor’s family life is not quite as blissful on the inside as it seems from the outside. Indeed, it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone having a more dysfunctional Thanksgiving than the one Dexter has in this episode.

Perhaps they should have just called this episode, “So You Thought Your Thanksgiving was Bad.”

TV Quote of the Week

She's the only person in the world who loves me. I think that's nice. I don’t have feeling about anything, but if I could have feelings at all, I’d have them for Deb.
--Michael C. Hall, Dexter, “Dexter”

Mother's Day Movie Quote of the Year

What do you mean “illiterate”? My father and mother were married right here in the City Hall.
--Penny Singleton, After the Thin Man (1936)

Hey, I Remember This Show: Big Love

Hey, look! Ice skating! Along with one of my favorite Beach Boys songs.

Granted, this show isn't as old as the most of the others I've posted here but given the current holiday season, I thought it would be nice to show a clip from a show that displays some good old-fashioned religious values for a change. Of course, it's a darn shame that none of the people in this intro is Catholic.

And no, it's not meant to be a parody of one of the clips I posted yesterday. But I must admit that watching this after seeing the trailer for Portrait of Jennie makes me feel strange.

I hope you all enjoy it.

Movie Quote of the Week

There are no secrets between my brother and I. None.
--Martine Beswick, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971)

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Separation”

“I’m sure glad my parents aren’t divorced,” said Timmy.

David ignored him, intent on the toy soldiers.

In the next room, his mom cradled the phone like an expectant lover. “No, I haven’t heard from him in months. No child support, either. Just like the bum.”

Mom had worked hard since Dad left. First as a secretary, then as a bookkeeper. Eventually she became a C.P.A. Otherwise, she spent almost all her spare time in the garden.

“No, I don’t intend to sell the house,” she said to her friend. “Just because Doug shirked his responsibilities doesn’t mean I’m going to.”

One afternoon last week, Dad had showed up at the patio door, looking very pale. David had ran to let him in, but he was gone by the time he got there. David had then went outside, but no one was there.

Later that same day, he had told Mom. She turned pale.

“What did he say?” she had said.

“Nothing.” David had told her. “He just looked sad.”

The next time he mentioned it, Mom bawled him out for lying.

“Don’t you believe me?” said David.

“David, your father left for good,” she said. “He’s not coming back. You have to believe that.”

“Then why does he keep showing up?”

One night, Dad came to the window. He beckoned to him.

David followed him outside to the garden. Dad handed him a garden trowel and told him to start digging.

David didn’t want to. He would be destroying Mom’s favorite spot. But Dad insisted.

A few feet down, David came across a hand bearing Dad’s ring.

He looked up, but Dad was not there.

***********************************************************

“They‘re really quiet in the morning and always trying to outstare each other,” said Timmy of his parents. “But at least they‘re not talking divorce. I can‘t imagine anything worse than that.”

“I can,” said David quietly.

He said nothing more.

Damn It, Cesca!

And the award for Link Tonio Kruger is Least Likely to Share with His Sister goes to...

Seriously, who knew there were so many examples of that theme to be found in pop culture?

And that's without mentioning Wuthering Heights.

Top of the World, Sis!

I don’t know. Maybe because you’re me and I’m you. It’s always been that way.
--Ann Dvorak, Scarface (1932)

Mother of Mercy, could this line be the best of 1932’s Scarface? Okay, maybe not. After all, it does not exactly rank up there with “we’ll always have Paris” or “I am Heathcliff.” But it is still memorable in its own way if for no other way than the fact that that line is not delivered by the male protagonist’s wife or girlfriend -- it is delivered by his sister. And it says something about the spiritedness of Ann Dvorak’s performance as said sister that that scene does not come across as ridiculous as I would have thought.

To be fair, the entire movie hints at a rather odd connection between the title character Tony Camonte (played by Paul Muni) and his sister Francesca -- aka Cesca -- that goes beyond mere familial protectiveness. Whenever Tony sees Cesca kiss a boy, he gets jealous. He does not mind “rewarding” her for being a good girl by giving her part of his ill-gotten gains but he insists on “protecting” her honor despite her own wishes to the contrary. A gesture that seems even more hypocritical when he chooses to pursue Poppy, his boss’s blonde Anglo-American mistress. Apparently, Tony doesn’t mind pursuing his own version of forbidden fruit -- but he will be damned if he will allow Cesca the same freedom.

Although Tony’s mother is wise enough to suspect Tony’s true motive for being so zealous about his little sister’s honor, she is not strong enough to do anything about it. Neither Tony nor Cesca are inclined to listen to her, and since Tony is an up-and-coming gangster, forcing him to do her maternal bidding is hardly a realistic option.

Even Tony’s own boss cannot keep Tony in his place. Tony is bound and determined to gain as much power in the bootlegging business as he can get, even if it means trouble with rival gangsters and the cops. Toward the end, he manages to finally win Poppy away from his competition by literally disposing of his rival. But he is still not satisfied and keeps on pushing until finally his feelings for his sister prove to be his undoing.

The end shows a distracted Tony facing near-death from his own sibling until the arrival of the cops outside Tony’s residence prompts Cesca to have a change of heart regarding her brother. The two of them prepare to make a final stand against the cops but such a stand proves futile. In the end, Tony gets his long-overdue just desserts and justice is finally served. Sort of.

It’s tempting to negatively compare this version of Scarface with the more famous 1983 remake by director Brian De Palma, but I must confess that I like this version better. Granted, Muni’s accent seems silly at times and his character appears to be way too much an Italian-American stereotype -- but it never provoked the same giggles in me as Al Pacino’s laughable attempt at a Cuban accent in the 1983 movie. Nor is Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance in that movie quite as compelling as Karen Morley’s performance as Poppy.

Ann Dvorak, of course, is in a class by herself, regardless of whether her character is leaning out a window to look at an organ grinder or trying her best to seduce a gangster. Even the potentially silly ending of her character seems more compelling than the fate of a similar character in the 1983 film -- perhaps because Hawks does not quite end her character’s story arc on a safe, reassuring note but manages to hint at an even more subversive relationship between the two siblings than even the most liberal of movie-goers would have guessed. A relationship so daring that even a provocative director like De Palma did not dare to depict anything similar on screen -- though George Lucas undoubtedly came close.

But perhaps I’m reading a bit too much into the movie. After all, most Latins -- Italian and otherwise -- that I have met in real life are at best indifferent to their little sisters or at least are no more affectionate to their female siblings than their Anglo counterparts. While I must admit to being somewhat fond of my own little sister, I am not that fond of my little sister. And I assure you all that my feelings for her are strictly platonic. Seriously.

Although I guess I should find it somewhat disturbing that I seem to be developing a taste in my love life for blondes -- and my little sister, of course, is blonde.

Then again she doesn’t resemble Ann Dvorak so I should rest easy. Right?

Right?

Cuento de Mi Id

“Really Cool Air”

(A story I wrote several Octobers ago)

The AC was up high, just like he expected. Very high. In a place like this, cold temperatures didn’t surprise him, but he did wish the management had made allowances for the occasional human visitor. As it was, he almost expected to see his breath every time he exhaled.

All the windows in the place were covered with tinted glass and every other corner was covered in shadow. The bartender gave him one of those odd looks as if he was the type of ghoulish tourist who would deliberately seek out a place like this.

He kept telling himself he had a legitimate reason to be here. Then he saw her.

“About time you showed up,” she said. She was dressed in black, of course. And seated at the bar. Even in this dim light, she seemed pale. But oddly enough, she wasn’t shivering even though her arms were bare and her silk blouse and leather skirt way too revealing.

“How about the two of us get a booth at the back?” she said.

“How about we not?”

“So it’s going to be like that.”

“Our parents want you home, Karen.”

“Of course they do. And the moon is made of green cheese.”

“No, seriously,” he said. “They told me to come get you. All is forgiven, they said. You can come home any time you want.”

She smiled. “Suppose I don’t want?”

“What do you mean?”

“I like it here. The temperature’s just right, the sun is not always shining in my face. I can virtually live here if I wanted. In a manner of speaking.”

He frowned. “The accident wasn’t your fault. They know that now.”

“Now,” she giggled. “They know that now. Of course it doesn’t help much that they know it now.”

She smiled and sipped at her drink. “Antifreeze,” she said, pointing at the clear liquid in her glass.

“Just come home, please, Karen,” he said. “I already said they forgive you. You know how rarely Mom and Dad do that.”

“Well, maybe they forgive me but I don’t necessarily forgive them.” She took another sip.

“You can’t stay away forever, you know.”

“I don’t have to,” she said. “Mom and Dad are getting old. In a couple of decades, they’ll be gone. I can wait till then. And then I’ll come home.”

“That’s pretty cold.”

“Hey, watch the puns.”

“No, seriously. It’s not just Mom and Dad who need you. I need you, too. You’re my sister. You belong at home.”

“I belong somewhere else, you mean,” she said. “Besides, I’m not your sister. You said so yourself. I look like your sister. I talk like your sister. I even think like your sister. But I’m not your sister. Not really. Not since the accident.”

“For the last time—“

She interrupted. “Your sister died in that accident. And she was glad to be dead. She hated living at home. Never having any friends. Never having any love. She had one chance at freedom and she took it. And of course, your parents had to screw even that much up.”

“But they saved you.”

“No, they did not save me. They saved something that looked like me. The me I used to be died in that accident. I’m no longer here anymore. You just think I am.”

“Please come home.”

“Someday,” she said. “When I think I’m ready.”

He could grab her, he thought. He could grab her and force her to come with him.

But then she really would hate him—-far more than she did now. And he couldn’t live with that.

Besides, he thought, as he walked away from the bar, it’s not really her. Just something that looked like her. She said so herself.

As he started toward the door, a woman came in. She was still reeling from her time in the sun and it was obvious that she craved the cold and the shadows. She smelled of the stuff he had remembered smelling at grandma’s funeral. She looked darn good and it was all he could do to look away.

He walked out into the harsh sunlight and told himself he would never come back to this place. And he wouldn’t, he promised himself.

At least, not while he was alive.

TV Quote of the Week

It's strange to have a creation out there -- a deeply mutated version of yourself, running loose and screwing everything up. I wonder if this is how parents feel.
--Michael C. Hall, Dexter, “The British Invasion”

Movie Quote of the Week

It‘s good to take care of your family. But remember one thing. Everyone’s your family.
--Emily Osment, Spy Kids 3: Game Over (2003)

Movie Quote of the Week

Do you spend time with your family? Good. Because a man that doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.
--Marlon Brando, The Godfather (1972)