Movie Dude Weekend: I am Legend marathon

This last week for Movie Dude Weekend we watched film adaptations of Richard Matheson's science-fiction novel I Am Legend:



The Last Man on Earth, 1964

a.k.a. The Damned Walk at Midnight, The Night Creatures, Vento di Morte, L'Ultimo Uomo della Terra

Director: Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow
Cast: Vincent Price, Franca Bettoja, Tony Cerevi, Emma Danieli







Omega Man, 1971

Director: Boris Sagal
Cast: Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe, Rosalind Cash, Paul Koslo






I Am Legend, 2007

Director: Francis Lawrence

Cast: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Salli Richardson-Whitfield




Movie Dude and Just Me both felt that Omega Man was the best movie of the three, but they are rather partial to Charlton Heston.

Quotes:

Just Me: What would I wear if I were the last person on earth?

Movie Dude: I'd go naked.

Just Me: I wouldn't

Movie Dude: I know, I'd wear my Sith robe!

Just me: Oh! Good idea!

Sorry Movie Dude Weekend's have been scarce for several weeks. We're trying to pack to move. Movies watched on the 10th included the last two Indiana Jones movies, The Last Crusade (1989) and The Crystal Skull (2008). The next weekend, the 16th, was viewers choice. Just Me picked Terminator Two: Judgement Day (1991) and Movie Dude picked Jaws (1975).

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

Mass Market Paperback, 310 pages

Berkley Books, 1982

reread - very highly recommended

Synopsis from cover:

Meet the Tull family... Jenny, the daughter; high-spirited and determined. She was nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loved... Cody, the oldest son. He was wild and incorrigible, possessed by the lure of power and money... Ezra, the gentle son. He was his mother's favorite, living out the dream of a perfect family that could never be his own... gathering around the memories of Pearl, their mother, whose final act of life affirms their own.

My thoughts:

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, has always been among my favorite Anne Tyler novels. The novel spans several decades in the life of the Tull family of Baltimore, Maryland. It begins with 85-year-old Pearl Tull, blind and on her deathbed, looking back at her life and that of her three grown children - Cody, Jenny, and Ezra. Told from alternating points of view, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is ultimately about how growing up in an unconventional, dysfunctional family affected the three siblings in very different ways. It can be a heartbreakingly sad story, as the Tulls repeatedly try to accomplish the impossible: complete a family meal together.

Anne Tyler is a truly gifted writer. Her character development and attention to detail is exquisite as she explores complex interpersonal relationships in the Tull family. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle award and the 1983 Pulitzer Prize. I'm enjoying my rereads of favorite novels. If you haven't read Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, you really should

Very Highly Recommended - reread

Quotes:

While Pearl Tull was dying, a funny thought occurred to her. It twitched her lips and rustled her breath, and she felt her son lean forward from where he kept watch by her bed. "Get..." she told him. "You should have got..."

You should have got an extra mother, was what she meant to say, the way we started extra children after the first child fell so ill. opening

But it wasn't as simple as she had supposed. The second child was Ezra, so sweet and clumsy it could break your heart. She was more endangered than ever. It would have been best to stop at Cody. She still hadn't learned, though. After Ezra came Jenny, the girl - such fun to dress, to fix her hair in different styles. Girls were a luxury, Pearl felt. But she couldn't give Jenny up, either. What she had now was not one loss to fear but three. pg. 2

One Sunday night in 1944, he said he didn't want to stay married. They were sending him to Norfolk, he said; but he thought it best if he went alone. Pearl felt she was sinking in at the center, like someone given a stomach punch. Yet part of her experienced an alert form of interest, as if this were happening in a story. pg. 7

All she wanted was to be allowed to get on with what mattered: calk the windows; weatherstrip the door. With tools she was her true self, capable and strong. pg. 15

Oh, she'd been an angry sort of mother. She'd been continually on edge; she'd felt too burdened, too much alone. After Beck left, she'd been so preoccupied with paying the rent and juggling the budget and keeping those great, clod-footed children in new shoes. It was she who called the doctor at two a.m. when Jenny got appendicitis; it was she who marched downstairs with a baseball bat the night they heard that scary noise. She'd kept the furnace stoked with coal, confronted the neighborhood bully when Ezra got beaten up, hosed the roof during Mrs. Simmon's chimney fire. pg. 18

She wondered if her children blamed her for something. Sitting close at family gatherings (with the spouses and offspring slightly apart, nonmembers forever), they tended to recall only poverty and loneliness - toys she couldn't afford for them, parties where they weren't invited. Cody, in particular, referred continually to Pearl's short temper, displaying it against a background of stunned, childish faces so sad and bewildered that Pearl herself hardly recognized them. Honestly, she thought, wasn't there some statute of limitations here? When was he going to absolve her? He was middle-aged. He had no business holding her responsible any more. pg. 21

"Ezra's going to have him a place where people come just like to a family dinner," Josiah said. "He'll cook them one thing special each day and dish it out on their plates and everything will be solid and wholesome, really homelike." pg. 75

Helter Skelter

Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi, with Curt Gentry
Mass Market Paperback, 676 pages
Bantam Books edition, 1975

reread, very highly recommended

Synopsis from cover

It began August 9 and 10, 1969, when seven people were shot, stabbed, and bludgeoned to death in Los Angeles. It ended when a nation watched in fascinated horror as the killers were tried and convicted. But the real questions went unanswered. How did Manson make his "family" kill for him? How could these young men and women kill and kill again and again without human feelings of any kind? Did the murders go on even after Manson was in jail?

My Thoughts:

This is another reread. When doing research for some paper in high school, I can clearly remember coming across news articles about the Manson murders. Then I started to look into the murders because at the time they occurred I didn't recall hearing anything about them. (It was probably kept away from me.) Once I learned there was a book, well, I got my copy of Helter Skelter shortly after it first came out in paperback. It is still a horrific true crime novel. The Tate/La Bianca murders were among the most gruesome in US history and the trial was the longest, most grueling trial the country had seen to date. Bugliosi includes many details and much information in this account. It is graphic at times and not for the faint hearted, especially since it begins with the murders. My book included 64 pages of photos and footnotes at the bottom of the page.

Very Highly Recommended

Quotes:

It was so quiet, one of the killers would later say, you could almost hear the sound of ice rattling in cocktail shakers in the homes way down the canyon.
The canyons above Hollywood and Beverly Hills play tricks with sounds. A noise clearly audible a mile away may be indistinguishable at a few hundred feet. opening

All things considered, it's surprising that more people didn't hear something.
But then it was late, just after midnight, and 10050 Cielo Drive was secluded.
Being secluded, it was also vulnerable.pg. 3

There appeared to be blood on the trunks, on the floor next to them, and on two towels in the entryway. She couldn't see the entire living room - a long couch cut off the area in front of the fireplace - but everywhere she could see she saw the red splashes. The front door was ajar. Looking out, she saw several pools of blood on the flagstone porch. And, farther on, on the lawn, she saw a body.
Screaming, she turned and ran back through the house, leaving the same way she had come in but, on running down the driveway, changing her course so as to reach the gate-control button. In so doing, she passed on the opposite side of the white Rambler, seeing for the first time that there was a body inside the car too.
Once outside the gate, she ran down the hill to the first house, 10070, ringing the bell and pounding on the door. When the Kotts didn't answer, she ran to the next house, 10090, banging on that door and screaming, "Murder, death, bodies, blood!" pg. 6-7

Altobelli had rented the main residence to Roman Polanski, the movie director, and his wife. The Polanskis had gone to Europe, however, in March, and while they were away, two of their friends, Abigail Folger and Voytek Frykowski, had moved in. Mrs. Polanski had returned less than a month ago, and Frykowski and Folger were staying on with her until her husband returned. Mrs. Polanski was a movie actress. Her name was Sharon Tate. pg 8

Printed in what appeared to be blood were three letters: PIG. pg. 10

In literature a murder scene is often likened to a picture puzzle. If one is patient and keeps trying, eventually all pieces will fit into place.
Veteran policemen know otherwise. A much better analogy would be two picture puzzles, or three, or more, no one of which is in itself complete. Even after a solution emerges - if one does - there will be leftover pieces, evidence that just doesn't fit. And some pieces will always be missing. pg 24

There is writing, in what appeared to be blood, in three places in the residence. High up on the north wall in the living room, above several paintings, were printed the words DEATH TO PIGS. On the south wall, to the left of the front door, even higher up, was the single word RISE. There were two words on the refrigerator door in the kitchen, the first of which was misspelled. They read HEALTER SKELTER. pg. 56

If it could happen in places as widely separated as Los Feliz and Bel Air, to people as disparate as movie colony celebrities and a grocery market owner and his wife, it meant it could happen anywhere, to anyone. pg. 59

An Article and Opinion

Michelle Kern has another great Book Examiner Article:

The 50 best author vs. author put-downs of all time
Part 1
Part 2

Here is a sample:

1. Ernest Hemingway, according to Vladimir Navokov (1972)
As to Hemingway, I read him for the first time in the early 'forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed it.

2. Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote, according to Martin Amis (1986)
Reading Don Quixote can be compared to an indefinite visit from your most impossible senior relative, with all his pranks, dirty habits, unstoppable reminiscences, and terrible cronies. When the experience is over, and the old boy checks out at last (on page 846 -- the prose wedged tight, with no breaks for dialogue), you will shed tears all right; not tears of relief or regret but tears of pride. You made it, despite all that 'Don Quixote' could do.

Jackie of Farmlane Books had an interesting discussion this week about the difference between bloggers from the USA and UK.
UK v US Book Bloggers

Comments are closed now and some people were offended, but I thought Jackie had a few valid points even though it was all a bit too generalized.

Going Postal

Hipee called me the other day while she was at the post office. I could hear all the post office noise in the background. It reminded me of how much I used to be scared of the post office. Really. This was long before the term “going postal” entered the lexicon and people had a reason to be cautious around postal workers. I’m not sure exactly why I didn’t like post offices. There was never a bad experience at one; I just blindly loathed them all with an equal intensity.

The fear came out when I was old enough to be sent running into places on errands by my mother. She’d send us into all sorts of stores or businesses to do things like drop off a utility payment, pick up groceries… or get stamps. Once we were driving, it was worse. She’d send Hipee and me off on errands. We’d go to the grocery store with her list and a signed, blank check. (You could do that in a small town back in those days.) I can remember us looking at her list, seeing a word that looked like a swear word, giggling over it, and then puzzling out what mom could have wanted that looked like _____ but was surely something else.

Running to the store or doing other errands for mom was annoying, but not like running into the post office. She knew I hated it. She knew I couldn’t explain why I hated the post office. Maybe it was the lobby, or the lines, or…? I have no explanation. I just know I hated the place and really had to gird my loins, so to speak, to go inside and do my business. If it was even remotely possible, I’d argue that Hipee should be the one to go in, or even Whiy.

Now that I’ve been in so many different post offices across the country, the fear is gone. There might be a wee little remnant of it stored in some dark corner of my mind. It tries to peek out when the lines are too long, there is only one employee helping customers, and I have multiple things to mail. Maybe when younger I had some sort of foresight and could sense that some of the employees had the capacity to go postal. I do know that going paperless is very attractive to me. I am also a huge fan of the Forever stamps. When I have to go to the post office today, I load up on those babies.

In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages

Signet, 1965

(my cover not pictured)

reread, very highly recommended

Synopsis:

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

My Thoughts:

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is a classic and introduced a new genre, the true crime novel. Originally, the New Yorker sent Capote and his research assistant, Nell Harper Lee, to Holcomb to investigate the murders for an article. After the article was completed, they remained and continued investigating and interviewed the killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock after they were caught and sentenced. The subject matter is brutal, but the writing is exquisite.

In this reread, I was curious if In Cold Blood would stand the test of time. It does, beautifully, and this is due to Capote's writing. He sets the stage; his descriptions capture what life was like in the late 50's. He approaches his subject matter as a reporter, remains unbiased, captures the facts, and sets the scene. He does not glamorize the killers. He carefully describes all the people and places involved and develops them as one would develop a scene or character in a work of fiction.

Very highly recommended

Quotes:

The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there." Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them. opening

Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans--in fact, few Kansans--had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there. pg 15

At the time not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them--four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives. But afterward the townspeople, theretofore sufficiently unfearful of each other to seldom trouble to lock their doors, found fantasy re-creating them over and again--those somber explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which many old neighbors viewed each other strangely, and as strangers. pg. 15

Like Mr. Clutter, the young man breakfasting in a cafe called the Little Jewel never drank coffee. He preferred root beer. Three aspirin, cold root beer, and a chain of Pall Mall cigarettes - that was his notion of a proper "chow down." pg. 24

...his own face enthralled him. Each angle of it induced a different impression. It was a changeling's face, and mirror-guided experiments had taught him how to ring the changes, how to look now ominous, now impish, now soulful; a tilt of the head, a twist of the lips, and the corrupt gypsy became the gentle romantic. pg. 26

"Why do I keep smelling smoke? Honestly, I think I'm losing my mind..." pg. 33

"One day she told the class, 'Nancy Clutter is always in a hurry, but she always has time. And that's one definition of a lady.' " pg. 36

A bookmark lay between its pages, a stiff piece of watered silk upon which an admonition had been embroidered: "Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is." pg. 42

Tenants Rights