Cool

Over the weekend, the humidity lowered and the heatwave finally broke. We slept last night with our windows open and, this morning, I was actually a little bit chilly when I got out of bed. It's both funny and not funny at all how the weather turns on a dime here. Last night, Suzanne and I sat on the porch and watched Maryn and Avery run around with plastic cups trying to catch fireflies. There was a little breeze and the lightning bugs were glowing everywhere. It was this really lovely moment that almost made up for the outright suckiness for the last week.

The temps are supposed to be low for a few days so we're going to try to get out and take advantage of it while we can. You never know when the thermometer is going to start reading, "You don't even want to know, fool" again.

It's been a while since I reported on my movie watching progress and, for most of you, that's probably okay. Nevertheless, here are a few updates:



Magnificent Obsession - the Douglas Sirk melodramas of the 50s are just really fascinating to me. Aesthetically and thematically they're really, really formulaic. You know exactly what you're getting when you watch one - how they're going to look, what they're going to be about, etc. Magnificent Obsession is probably the apex of all melodramas. Robert Merrick is a careless, selfish playboy millionaire who, through a series of events, causes the death of a much beloved doctor. Later, in the process of frantically trying to make amends to the doctor's widow, he causes her to get hit by a car and lose her sight. After that, he becomes consumed with the "magnificent obsession" of making amends to her. In addition to paying off her debts and medical bills (secretly), he arranges for her to meet with the leading doctors in the world in hopes of restoring her sight. When that doesn't work, he becomes a brain surgeon himself and eventually restores her sight. Got that? He. Becomes. A. Brain. Surgeon.

Of course, he and the widow also fall in love along the way and when he asks to marry her, she runs away because she loves him too much to ever be a burden to him. Seriously.

It's sort of unintentionally hilarious in parts but still more interesting and more watchable than a lot of the more "serious" films I have to see. Jane Wyman was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as the world's most cheerful, selfless blind woman.



Night Nurse and Annie Oakley - What can I say? I love Barbara Stanwyck. Night Nurse was pre-code and so it's racier and more brutal than you would expect - children being starved, wild alcohol-fueled parties, women getting punched in the face, etc. but, of course, by today's standards it's pretty tame. Annie Oakley was just fun. It reminded me of Yankee Doodle Dandy, another hagiography of an quintessential American character. It's far from anything other than just a Hollywood fluff piece - but Stanwyck is charming and Moroni Olsen's performance as Buffalo Bill was a lot of fun. (By the way, with a name like Moroni Olsen, do you think he might be Mormon? Oh yeah. Check it out here. He was the voice of the Magic Mirror in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Who knew?)

Battleground - Good. Saving Private Ryan owes it a lot.
12 O'Clock High - Good. Gregory Peck as a hardcore general is good stuff.
Pork Chop Hill - Bad. Long, listless, and boring. Gregory Peck as a mushy, uncertain captain is not good stuff.
The Defiant Ones - Meh. Sidney Poitier is the man. Tony Curtis just isn't.
How Green Was My Valley - My dad has been trying for years to get me to see it and so I finally have. It's about Welsh coal miners and most of our ancestors were Welsh coal miners so it was interesting that respect. It's super sentimental and melodramatic but that's okay. John Ford frames a mean shot and it was interesting to see that young Roddy McDowall looked exactly like old Roddy McDowall.

I'm actually nearing the end of my movie quest. I'm supposed to have watched about 80 movies for the QE and I think I'm within 5 or 10 of that goal. So sooner rather than later I can go back to watching movies in color. How about that?