HGL3

I heard the UN was sending observers into Florida and Ohio in 2008? Is it true?

I thought it would have been a great addition to one of those--"What The 'Helm' Family Did The Past Year" letters. Those letters are big with my dad's generation...Aunt Mildred always sends one that starts "Merry Christmas to one and all" and then is a laundry list of all of the years deaths, illnesses, disappointments and tragedies. Then it closes with "Wishing You Happiness in the Year to Come!" We always got a good laugh out of it. I, of course, send nothing during the holidays.

A movie from the A list that has similar family values and is quite enjoyable to watch is "A Date With Judy"---not engrossing but highly entertaining.

Better than being decided by the Dung SCOTUS!!! Watching the news I am led to wonder, is it possible third world countries aren't capable of successful democracies?

Yes, Shakespeare was a powerful lens through which almost all interpretations tend to pass. However, and though I have not the time or memeory to document them, there are actually quite a few ancient sources about Cleopatra-though mostly from a Roman perspective where she is quite reviled. Shakespeare had historical materials to work with. I had friends who were scandalized because the HBO series "Rome" contradicted the Shakespeare/DeMille/Liz Taylor version and, sticking closer to ancient sources, presented her as a less than glamorous figure. The fact is by the time Cleopatra was queen of Egypt it was not a glorious pharonic kingdom but a decadent, third world back water of civilization when contrasted with Rome and Greece. She was brought back to Rome as a prisoner.

Mel and Matt- Definitely agree Roe v Wade should never have been decided by the Supremes. As noted elsewhere judicial activism really depends on your perspective and whether you agree with decisions or not. There must be some middle road between reading into the costitution rights that do not exist (like the right to abortion) and treating the constitution as if it can not be interpreted beyond the letter like Scalia insisting there are NO privacy rights that can be found in it. As I say I don't care if abortion is outlawed or not. It makes no difference to me. Therefore I would never vote for or against anyone because of their stand for or against abortion. If you are happy with the President that is all that matters-it doesn't really matter what I think because it will not change anything...and as you can probably surmise I would be just as unhappy if John Kerry were President... "You are blocking the sunlight, Alexander" Diogenes

AOL hasn't upgraded for Macs in years and has a lot of bugs. Does anyone willingly STILL use AOL? Talk about an sado/masochistic relationship! Is Macintosh that much worse than anyone else when it comes to "planned obsolecense?" The Mac is a beautiful system and were I a richer man would have one. My first personal system was a Macintosh...back in 1989. Little tiny black and white screen-all in one construction and light years ahead of what I had to use in the work place (IBM) But you are right Mac is the minority machine and it would be frustrating to not have the access to new software the rest of us take for granted...otherwise thought do you loke your Mac? Have you always been on the Mac side of the canyon or is it new for you?

A LIBERTARIAN RANT Just heard (on talk radio) an interview with a former member of the Reagan administration called "Imposter: How George W. Bush Betrayed the Reagan Revolution" arguing that Dubya was elected to do only two things-cut taxes and overturn Roe v. Wade. And he really doesn't care about the rest of the conservative agenda-especially controlling the size and cost of government. The fact that he has not once used his veto power is proof. The fact that he insists on keeping congressional Republicans in the dark about important issues rather than working to gain their support is proof. And most tellingly, Reagan lived by the old Truman idea "The Buck Stops Here" taking responsibility for things that don't work as planned. Bush is incapable of taking responsibility for anything and so appears to be out of touch with reality or just plain dishonest. Appears to be hiding things and appears to be deceitful. Above all else has been good at talking a good "conservative" game but has failed to bring any real leadership. The contrast with Reagan is chiefly that Reagan had principles and Bush doesn't. Reagan got more done with a Democrat controlled Congress than Bush has been able to do with one supposedly controlled by conservatives. If it weren't for 9/11, and his ability to manipulate the propaganda war around it, he would never have been able to increase Republican majorities in 2002 or been reelected in 2004. If he had worked as hard to promote the true conservative agenda as he has to "spin" his pet war in Iraq things might have gotten done. Just like the Democrats when confronted by a choice between promoting principles and conserving power: power wins. Being President is more important than what you DO as President. Being the majority party is more important than really doing anything with that majority. If you can't do anything at least enrich yourself and your friends while doing nothing. Follow the money...the pursuit of profit is what really counts...just ask Tom "justice delayed" Delay... People thought it funny Reagan would doze off in cabinet meetings but Bush has been pretty much AWOL...a well established pattern in his life... As a libertarian the only part of the conservative agenda that I care about is reigning in government, cutting its size, controlling its cost, reducing the regulatory burden on small business people and reducing my tax burden while not increasing the deficit/debt (ie eliminating programs and waste) and maintaining a credible national DEFENSE not wasting our resouces on a stupid and unnecessary war in Iraq. I have "wasted" every vote I have cast since 1980 by NOT voting for either Democrats or Republicans...but I at least can sleep at night knowing I have not contributed to the "illusion" that these jack **** have a "mandate" or "political capital" or...we get exactly the government deserve...and we deserve exactly what we get whether its Bill "Head Hunter" Clinton or George "Duh-bya" Bush.

Matt- Parties are not consistently the same. Jefferson wouldn't recognize or like the modern Democrat party...and Lincoln and TR would harly endorse the current manifestation of the Republican party. Does anyone believe for a minute that the southern suppression of the black vote was first and foremost about race? Every southern Democrat saw a Republican vote in every black face they saw. The civil rights movement drove the southern democrats out of the party into the alliance with the Republicans. Again the relationship is not based on race or race hatred it is purely about the conservation of POWER. The Democrats in control of the south then were and are the Republicans in control today. I am not implying that there weren't intolerable conditions in the south for african americans...but underlying the conditions was the deperate maintenance of control by whites. Blacks were solidly Republican until the 1950s. They will be again...just wait and see. So here we are...Republicans the party of ever increasing Government, out of control spending and debt, and pandering to the religious right by raising "fake" issues like the threat of sodomite marriage, the mysterious persecution of God and his suffering representatives by the ACLU and the promotion of Intelligent Design. and there are the Democrats...never missed an opportunity to address every "problem" with a new government program, out of control spending and ever increasing redistribution of wealth via the tax system and pandering to the prodeath lobby, the promoters of sodomite rights and the promotion of the new politically correct facism. Honestly, I don't see any difference in the two parties. No matter which one you lay down with you're gonna get screwed. And neither one will still repect you in the morning. I guess the only people who populate the TCM website are Republicans or people who are apolitical-haven't seen a liberal whine or a Libertarian rant the entire time I've been watching it...

Fred- Thanks for the links to the music. West Virginia owes its existence to the Civil War. When Virginia Seceded they seceded from Virginia...for a month the State was called "Kanawha"-no offense to Kanawhaites but I think that would have been the ugliest name in the Union! I went to college with a man whose family were "hill people" but they had moved from Virginia territory into Southern Ohio sometime in the early 19th century and said that they maintained many of the "old ways" among his people. Apparently he was among the first in his family to become college educated. He was as **** as he could be but man could he play Shakespeare! Yes the history of the "Hebrews" as the southerners are wont to call them (in their most genteel way!) is interesting and sometimes sad. Lillian Hellman was from the south (Louisiana) and judging from "The Little Foxes" and "Another Part of the Forest" understood the south quite well. Then of course there was the infamous case of the most famous Jew of the south Leo Frank in Georgia. Has that story ever been made into a film? Should be but it is too sad a story to tell...

Actual Initials...I think Ted needs to drive it adds to the dramatic tension since the car is almost (ala Stephen King) irresistably drawn toward bridge railings and deep bodies of water. Hmmm. How was it Ben Afleck and Matt Damon didn't get to make "Brokeback Mountain" seems like a natural fit for them...hehehe.

That?s a good idea. I alway get the impression that the old artist who paints the leaf on the brick wall is Jewish. What do you think? Yup, he's Jewish. I kind of like klezmer, zydeko (however you spell that!) and Tex/Mex polka bands. And when you put all three together it's even better! There used to be a band in the 80s from Texas called "Joe "King" Carasco and the Coronas" they were kind of a punk rock/polka band...really a trip.

Just shows to go ya how fast things travel nowadays-from Leno to a T-Shirt in a few days...I like it best where it is presented as the choice of two equally awful choices since I despise Dick and Ted equally. Despise Democrats and Republicans equally...and since the "end is near"...How about "Dick and Ted's Excellent Adventure" driving the backroads of Texas and the drunken duo trying to shoot game from the road? They get lost and in an homage to "Twilight Zone" find themselves driving aimlessly from one movie set of a movie set in Texas to another trying to find their way home...what movies would they drive into?

Also please understand that Bill Wilson was given LSD in the 50's and under the supervision of a medical doctor and as part of a controlled study which was trying to determine if LSD had potential therapeutic effects for a variety of disorders. He did not just drop acid on his own.

Bukowski is as outside as one can get. I loved "Bar Fly" and think it, along with "Ironweed" are two of the best films about the dynamics of alcoholism. Huntress, I think the film about Bill Wilson is "My Name is Bill W." with James Woods as Bill Wilson, James Garner as Bob Smith, Jo Beth Williams and Gary Sinise as Eby Thatcher. It was made for Hallmark Hall of Fame and so was a TV movie and got a few Emmy nominations and Woods won one. I don't go to school any more but I do like to write for myself. I like to research historical subjects and my BA was in Theatre Arts...so film and theatre are natural areas of interest. I am not much of a writer, and to be honest, there isn't much that hasn't been covered better by smarter and more talented people than me. I want to get a list together and then watch them and perhaps try to outline the progression of how the theme is treated.

Should have proofread the post...sorry for all the errors grammatical, syntactical and in spelling...must get some sleep!

After my maternal grandmother died I was allowed to keep a box of letters she and Grandpa exchanged during their courtship. This was in the mid 20s. They came from an area of rural south central Nebraska. They were town folk and not farm folk and grandpa decided to go to Omaha to go to barber school. Every week sometimes twice a week he would write and always, always, wrote about all the movies he had been to during the week. There are many listed that I have no clue about and many of those films are gone forever either having rotted away in a storage vault or deliberately destroyed to regain the minerals in them. Every now there will be a film I see that grandpa saw back then and I think about how both of us enjoyed the entertainment of the same film 80 years apart and I gain a little clearer memory of who my grand parents were and the world they inhabited...which I have almost always think must have been as black and white as the beginning of "The Wizard of Oz" because all the pictures I have from their youth and early marriage are black and white. The apricot trees in the side yard are tiny in those pictures and they still stand and bear fruit to this very day. There was a letter from uncle Clete (who was a distant relative of the silent actress Louise Brooks) and Aunt Ruth (grandfathers sister) talking about seeing "The Jazz Singer" and what a deal it was...The saw it at the new and elegant theatre with a balcony that had opened recently in McCook, Nebraska. I remember my mother washing dishes at the window looking out at the clothes line in the backyard while I sat drawing pictures. The windows were wide open as it was summer and there was no air conditioning in those days, and the breeze billowed the sheers in and out, as it blew into the room. She started singing "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" which I believe was from one of her favorite movies "Roberta" She would talk about the movies she had seen when she was younger and the ones she liked best and we would sit and she would tell me the stories of the movies. I was probably around 10 or 11. But long after she was dead-and she died way too young I would see a film. I saw "Roberta" and when the "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" came on I just broke down balling. Yes film preservation is important...it is part of the glue that hold us a people together. It is our past, our present and to some extent our future...a part of our collective/national memory, for good and bad, it is what we have to pass on to our heirs...how impoverished they will be if they don't get a chance to see them! And that is why even stupid movies that I hate have a place in the archive...they perhaps really communicate and document what our times are really like.

That's like asking someone what they'd prefer, hunting with Dick Cheney, or going for a drive with Ted Kennedy. That one is so good I'm sending to evryone I know! Thanks for the biggest belly laugh I've had in days! I have relatives in Texas they love "Aggie" joke like: Texas Aggies are so slow it takes them and hour and a half to watch "60 Minutes" And my favortie "Blonde" joke... Why do blondes talk the way they do? So men can understand them. Night!

Saw your comments about Thanksgiving on the other thread...I'm not sure how religious it REALLY is...like someone else noted the celebration is more of a generic almost secular event for many people. While historically religious, and the concept is religious simply in that giving thanks implies there is someone (other than your neighbors and kin as modern pc/liberal revisionists would lead us to believe) to be giving thanks to...dare one say it? "god" gasp! One side of my family makes it religious by saying Grace before the meal but there's no church going and no trees; just turkeys, cornucopias and mums. The other side of my family consecrates the day (and the three following) to feasting, swilling and football. Friday night they convene their annual meeting of DAMM (Drunks Against Mad Mothers!) So there you have it in one family the religious and secular understanding of Thanksgiving. Needless my mother's family looks down their blue noses at my dad's family and his family thinks hers a bunch of prigs with an icesicle stuck up you know where. I really would like to see what my ranchin, drinkin, tobacco spittin uncles and cousins would make of "Brokeback Mountain" but I don't think any of them have seen a movie since the drive in dried up and blew away...15-20 years ago...they do have satellite but movies kind of exceed their span of attention. I love them dearly and all but you just don't talk movie trivia with them...Uncle Stan thinks the Olympics (summer or winter) are for sissies...and there's way too much mixing of the races and cultures going on to be healthy. They are republicans who loathe the Christian right wing (but appreciate their vote for the right party) Don't think about abortion one way or another because you marry whoever you knock up and make the best of it till death do you part. Think artificial insemination is fine because they've been doing it for years with cattle...but can't figure out why anyone, even a "lesie," would want to get pregnant that way. In other words they are WAY more fun than the part of my family that is religous and pious a celebrate Thanksgiving "correctly". Didn't mean to get off on a tangent but THEY are what the holidays mean to me. And yes they have a Christmas tree and all the trimmings but they haven't stepped in a church except for weddings and funerals for decades. Which is worse the political correctness of the last 20 years or the religious correctness coming to us soon? I think I hate them both...sigh...good night and good luck all you TCMers!

Thank you all so far and some of the ones mentioned I do remember or have seen. Thats right Delores Claiborn's husband, Joe, was making a half hearted stab at sobriety...I never read much King so that is interesting. STONEYBURKE THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!! Those sites will be a great help and I suppose you just found them 1-2-3? I have such a hard time sorting through search listings I start going gaga and then get side tracked...start out looking for Early Christian Monasticism and an hour and a half later I'm reading a biography of Gypsy Rose Lee...go figure! Yes, Nick Charles was quite a drinker but did they ever really investigate the subject seriously? From what I know so far there are three periods of handling the subject- The pre-AA period where it is depicted as a moral failure and tragic problem. With a strong temperance message. Then there is the period where the "disease model" popularized by AA begins to take hold. Some are optimistic "There is a solution..." like the end of "Lost Weekend" and "The Days of Wine and Roses" and "Come Back Little Sheba" Others are more pessimistic and inspite of everything tried nothing helps. Finally there are the treatment center movies like Postcards from the Edge, 28 Days and Clean and Sober that really explore the cataclysm of hitting bottom and transition back to everday living and negotiating the pitfalls of early sobriety. Leaving Las Vegas and Ironweed are bith great films about the wreckage and the "incomprehensible demoralization" of alcoholism. Thanks again everyone if you find anything please pass it on...

QUICK BEFORE ANYONE MISUNDERSTANDS...THE MOVIE ABOUT LINCOLN IS NOT CRAP...THE THING ABOUT HIM BEING GAY IS CRAP!

And I think I saw a Lincoln movie on last Friday, Abe Lincoln in Illinois. (Not a word about his being gay in THAT one.) That piece of historical crap is about the most shallow interpretation of a life that I have ever heard! It is a complete misreading of the 19th century way of life and the way humans lived together...I heard a great historian who said that in Lincoln's time men often slept together in the same bed in roadside inns-especially circuit judges and lawyers who had to go from courthouse to courthouse to hold trials. Judges always got a bed of their own...lawyers had to double (and even triple up) in bed. The downside: having to share a bed with other men-and for a man as tall as Lincoln who often had to lay diagonally across a bed to fit in-a real discomfort. Add to that the general standard of hygiene and I can't imagine it to be a wonderful experience. The upside of course is that the men would be nice and warm in rooms that typically had NO heat. Also as to the emotionally intimate letters of Lincoln to some of his male friends again it looks "queer" only froma 21st century perspective. In the middle east it is common for men to hold hands as they walk and caress and kiss---and I suspect there is nothing sexual going on there since it can be a capital crime in some Islamic countries to have homosexual relations. Historical revisionists make me crazy left ot right. There are revisionists on the conservative side as well. I think there has been a hesitation to make films about Washington because inspite of his fame and many of his great accomplishments of which there were many we know so little about the inner makings of the man since he (unlike almost everybody else in his time) wrote no autobiography, his diaries are little more than weather reports and records of appoinments and list of things done with no personal observations, and Martha burnt all of his personal letters as well as her own before her death. Other letters he wrote that survive are formal to the extreme and reveal nothing of his character. In other words he is too enigmatic to capture. I think also there is the "Halo" effect...a subject is so highly revered that it seems disrespectful to try and present him on the stage and screen. Lincoln, on the other hand, is such a contradictory, complex and facsinating man-whose heroic struggle and tragic end simply cries out for presentation.

Fred-YES! Thanks for bringing up the Goldbergs! I had completely forgotten about them...I did not hear them in their original broadcasts but in recordings and rebroadcasts over the years. Now the "Mama" series I don't recall...was it a a program based on the play and film of "I Remember Mama?" It was long before we ever had TV out in our part of rural Nebraska. Have you ever seen any episodes-are there any recordings left?

I WOULD LIKE HELP GATHERING A LIST OF FILMS DEALING WITH ALCOHOLISM...BEYOND THE LOST WEEKEND AND THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Anything ya'll could come up with would be appreciated. I have also searched for books and scholarly studies of the treatment of alcoholism in film and seem to be coming up against brick walls so any books anyone might be aware of would be helpful, too. Thanks!

Also when I think of Thanksgiving I always flash on the scene in "Annie Hall" when Woody Allen (super Jew) goes to Thanksgiving dinner at Diane Keaton's (ultra goyem) family with hilarious results. Also the numerous Thanksgiving celebrations that occur over the course of his film "Hannah and Her Sisters" I always wished I had a family half as interesting and attractive to come home to for the holidays!