Friday, March 31, 2023
March Words of Wisdom
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Ladies and gentleman, the leader of the free world. If by free world, you mean clown world.
No joke. This is the text of Joe Biden's remarks on the school shooting in Nashville. I transcribed it myself, but you can see it here via ABC News starting at the 6:45 mark. It was like watching the guy warming up an audience for the headliner. How someone could joke and laugh at a time like this is inexplicable to me. Just sickening.
Monday, March 27, 2023
LOVE this!
Sunday, March 26, 2023
Those who forget the past...
Both Christie and Dahl lived and wrote in a completely different time and place. Any idiot who isn't focused on forcing their beliefs down the throats of others can simply and quietly understand that, and enjoy the works for their entertainment value.
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Behold the meme of memes!!!
Sunday, March 19, 2023
The Show Must Go Online
Sunday, March 12, 2023
Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining
Gotta admit, I'm sick to death of listening to Biden talking about how he's rescued the country from the "disaster" it was when he inherited it. (Spoiler alert - he wrecked it, not whoever he's blaming it on this week. Don't care about your political party or who you voted for - this is recent.)
Gas prices in Southern California are back above $5/gallon, after a period of them going down. Not down to pre-Biden levels, but at least not in the $5+ range. That didn't last. Oh, and a bank just crashed and there's a good chance that starting tomorrow the stock market is going to do the same. Peachy.
Prices of everything are going up. I don't know how people are surviving, especially those that have to commute to work (1 hour+ one-way isn't unusual here in L.A.) and provide for children. The closest thing I have to a kid is the lovely Sophie, and even she's getting expensive. Case in point:
Yeah, there's cheaper cat food, but Sophie is old and has gotten picky as heck in her old age. In fact, if she'd eat the even more expensive specialty food for kidney disease that she rejected, I'd pay for that too. But I'm also not in the position of having to decide between feeding kids or the family pet, so I'll take the hit and she'll continue to get the fancy-schmancy stuff.
Anyhoo, this box of twelve servings has always been in the $11-$12 range, depending on where I buy it (Target, Walmart, or a grocery store). About a week ago I was at CVS and it was priced at a jaw-dropping $22. Not making that up. TWENTY. TWO. DOLLARS. I probably should have taken a picture, but I was too stunned by that number to think about it.
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"Regular" price. There's nothing "regular" about it. |
The only thing that brought it down to close to the old price was being a "member". Otherwise, nearly twenty bucks. For twelve servings. She'll go through that in well under a week.
Saturday, March 11, 2023
It took me a few seconds, but YIKES!!!
Friday, March 10, 2023
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
The Dude still abides
- The film only earned $18 million at the box office in its initial release. Since then it has surpassed the $100 million mark primarily from home viewing.
- The film's poor performance surprised Bridges, who expected it to be a big hit.
- Bridges was concerned about playing "a big pothead" because he had preteen children at the time.
- There was very little ad-libbing. The actors largely adhered to the script, including the vast usage of "man" and "fuck".
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Culinary humor
Monday, March 6, 2023
Screening: "Casablanca"
- Bogart lost the Oscar to Paul Lukas in Watch on the Rhine. Rains was bested by Charles Coburn in The More the Merrier. Bogart would finally get his Oscar in 1952, for The African Queen.
- Bergman was nominated for Best Actress, but not for Casablanca. She got her nod for For Whom the Bell Tolls. She lost to Jennifer Jones (The Song of Bernadette).
- The Academy nominated ten films for Best Picture. The films bested by Casablanca were For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Song of Bernadette, Madame Curie, Heaven Can Wait, In Which We Serve, The Human Comedy, The Ox-Bow Incident, The More the Merrier, and Watch on the Rhine.
- The classic song "As Time Goes By" was written years earlier for another production and was therefore ineligible for an Oscar nomination for its use in Casablanca. Academy rules require a song to be written specifically for a film to be eligible. The winning song at that year's Oscars was "You'll Never Know" from Hello Frisco, Hello.
- Many of the actors in Casablanca were Jews who had fled Europe as the Nazis gained power.
- Casablanca may be one of the most underrated films by those involved during its filming. Orson Welles claimed that at the time, Bogart told him that he was in "the worst picture I've ever been in." Neither Bergman or Henreid wanted to be in the film. Bergman didn't think it would do anything for her career and Henreid didn't want to play a non-lead.
- Other actresses considered for the role of Ilsa Lund included Ann Sheridan, Hedy Lamarr, Luise Rainer, and Michele Morgan.
- Other actors considered for the role of Victor Lazslo included Herbert Marshall, Joseph Cotten, Philip Dorn, and Dean Jagger.
- Wallis's first choice of director was William Wyler, but he was unavailable.
- Joan Alison, one of the authors of Everybody Comes to Rick's, the unproduced play that was the basis for Casablanca, disliked Bogart and had envisioned Clark Gable as Rick.
- Conrad Veidt was the highest paid actor in the film.
- Rick never says, "Play it again, Sam." The line is, "You played it for her, you can play it for me. If she can stand it, I can. Play it." Ilsa simply says, "Play it, Sam."
- Dooley Wilson was a musician, but he was a drummer and had to fake playing the piano.
- Sam's piano from the cafe was sold at a TCM film memorabilia auction in 2014. It fetched $3.4 million.
- Rick Blaine is one of the roles believed to have been famously turned down by George Raft, however this may have been a self-serving rumor started by Raft himself, as it's also claimed that Bogart was always who the producers had in mind.
- In 2006 the Writers Guild of America named Casablanca as the Best Screenplay of All Time.
- Film critic Leonard Maltin called Casablanca "the best Hollywood movie of all time".