anger habit

 

Albert Finney and Diana Keaton are in the above photograph from the 1982 movie, Shoot The Moon.

----------{disclaimer / alert} -------------- I'm going to talk about the ending scene of this movie, so if you think you want to watch it and be surprised, don't read this post; just check back with Blue Collar Lit. tomorrow. Thanks. ----------------------- [end of disclaimer / alert]

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I saw this movie when it first came out, in Boston. I think I went because Diane Keaton was in it, and I liked her in Annie Hall and Manhattan.

        Well, Shoot The Moon is no Woody Allen comedy - it is a drama about a couple that's getting divorced.  Critics liked it; not so much audiences.

It is very well acted and good in every way, in how it tells the story.  But it's a sad story.

The crazy thing for me was, seeing the whole movie on You Tube now, I totally did not remember at all the final, shocking scene.  (Thought maybe I was traumatized by it and it became one of those "repressed memories" or something....)

        Throughout the movie, you can see that these people truly did love each other and still do, in a way, but they just cannot get along.

        Resentment has built up over the years.  

        They have four children.

        Anyway, as the movie goes along:

the husband has a secret girlfriend

the wife finds out

they're both mad

he leaves the family home

they both hire lawyers and get on with divorce proceedings.

The wife, Faith (Diane Keaton)  has a tennis court built on the property.  The contractor she hires becomes her boyfriend.

        So then the husband George is all, like, mad because - well - he can have a girlfriend, but his ex-wife may not find love again... seems to be his attitude.

George's anger problems become apparent as the movie goes along.  He doesn't hit his wife, but he breaks some dishes, breaks a door down to get in the house, hits one of the kids.  

        Is his anger uncontrollable?  Or does he choose not to control it?  Like it's his privilege to have his way, and to throw a fit if he doesn't get it....?

After each event of anger and violence, either physical or verbal, the husband and wife at some point show love and consideration for each other again, and try to get along.

------------------------------ As the ending scene went, when George gets in his car and starts it up... I was shocked because I didn't remember that scene at. All.

There's a party going on, with lots of guests, at the family home where Faith and the four children live.  The party is outside, at night, by the tennis court.  There are lights all over, and tables of refreshments, somebody is playing some music, it's kind of relaxed and informal, people mingling.

Faith and George are talking.  Being nice.  She says he will have to come over to play tennis sometime and bring his new girlfriend (I can't remember her name).  But Diane Keaton says they're invited.  

You can tell both ex-wife and ex-husband are kind of feeling their way in the conversation, trying to create a new tradition of social friendship, since they aren't in their romantic relationship anymore and they each have a new love interest.  They are trying to "move on" and be "grown up about this."

Just trying, you know?

  

And when they say good-night and he goes and gets into his car, turns the ignition, lights on, he backs up - and starts barreling straight for some building - a barn, or garage, or large shed of some kind. 

        You think he's going to crash into the building and harm himself that way, but then he veers and starts driving all around the party area, crashing into picnic tables, and parked cars.  He doesn't look out for anyone, people are running, you see the guy with the guitar take off...  Fence around the tennis court - he drives straight into that, putting a big dent.

Then he finally crashes into something, I don't even know what it was, but a lot of stuff comes crashing down, and he and his car are buried under some of it, so the car is finally stopped.

Faith's boyfriend, then, the contractor, runs over there, fueled by anger and outrage, he starts picking up the big pieces of debris off the car and flinging them aside so he can get at George.

        He whacks the car with a chair, then throws the chair aside, hauls George out of the car and beats the hell out of him.

I was thinking there could kind of be three reasons the contractor was hitting George:

1. George was destroying the lady's property and spoiling her party

2. George destroyed the tennis court which he himself, (the contractor), had built.

and 3. to stop George from doing further damage.

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you're the one

 

pineapple-cucumber salad

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in a bowl:  pineapple chunks or slices

on cutting board:  cucumber slices

sprinkle on the cucumber slices:  lemon pepper, and garlic-and-herb mix

put cucumbers on top of the pineapple

sprinkle over:  grated Parmesan

        enjoy

- - - I invented that.

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        Thinking about the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

        Sometime in the early 1990s I drove out to the western part of the state where I live, to attend a meeting of educators, for the association I worked for, & take notes.  At the same time, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was scheduled to appear in that area.

        I went to their show - it was great, and afterwards I stood in line to meet the band members and - maybe buy something, I don't know - a T-shirt?  A cassette?  It was something, and the line was kind of long, but it was moving, so I thought, What the heck, I can meet the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band members.

        Mostly you just say "Hi, great show!" and shake hands if they want to, and keep it moving, but one guy was kind of loquacious - he was sitting behind the table and he looked up at me and spoke in a friendly, outgoing manner and then told me I looked like Juliette Lewis.  

        She was an actress - I don't know if she still appears in movies, but at that time, she had been in several, including the Woody Allen film, Husbands And Wives, which I had seen.

        Of course I said, "Oh! - Thank you!" although I didn't think I looked like her, but it seemed like he was trying to give me a compliment, while "keeping it light" - like, not getting too personal.

Perhaps he told every girl she looked like some actress.

:  )

Kind of in that same time period, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band played a show at the State Fair, which is in the town where I live.

        I was in the audience for that, and I loved it - it was great.

Afterwards, one of the band members was walking past where I was, down in the section in front of the stage - I went over and said to him I loved the concert, it was terrific, and I added, "In the 80s, I worked at a country music radio station, here, and I played so many of your songs!"  

And he said, as if he was pleasantly surprised, "Oh! - you're the one!"

In the decades since, I've heard other artists in - music, movies, book-writers, etc. - when someone says to them, 

I just bought your book,

or 

I have all your albums,

or 

whatever - they say, "Oh, you're the one!"

...being gracious, and humorous, and humble.

So - that's a thing, in the entertainment business.

        Of course, in the early 1990s when the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band guy said it to me, I thought he had just come up with that on the spur of the moment.... LOL

Juliette Lewis; Woody Allen, in the 1992 film Husbands And Wives

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hey, hey, hey - that's what I say

 Taylor Swift and Mick Jagger performing "Satisfaction" onstage!

        you tube

        Taylor Swift & Mick Jagger - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

        (@Taylor Swift Tour Extras)

Her introduction is too long at the beginning, but the song is worth waiting for.

This was during her 2015 tour.

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heaven holds a place for those who pray

 In The Graduate, the situation is Benjamin Braddock has just graduated from college, and he doesn't know what he should do next:

graduate school?

job?

find a girlfriend and contemplate marriage?

The thoughts he's having about it start to get kind of existential, like he cannot see a point to anything - he feels lost, directionless.

        His parents, at the beginning of the movie, are real happy that he has graduated and had good grades and was a "track star."  They throw a party for him, and all their friends are there, telling Ben how proud they are of him.

One asks, "What are you going to do now?"

Ben:  "I was just going to go upstairs for a minute."

A little later in the movie his parents' viewpoint seems to be changing, a little.  His mother tentatively asks where he goes at night; his dad tells him relaxing in the pool is OK for a young man, but after "a few weeks, I'd imagine he'd start to think about getting off his ass."

        Out on a date, Ben confides to the girl his insecurities about what to choose next in his life, saying, "The rules don't make any sense to me - they're being made up by all the wrong people.

        No! - I mean, no one makes them up, they seem to have made themselves up."

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the superstar in rent-a-car

 

Last winter when the Reiner murders occurred in Brentwood, I thought, Wow, this is going to be the biggest trial since O.J.

        But that's wrong.  That was just a first impression that I had.

        The eventual trial - if it comes to that - of Rob Reiner's son Nick will be in the news, certainly, but it won't be nearly as big as the O.J. Simpson trial was in the '90s.

One difference, perhaps the main difference, is that O.J. Simpson was far more famous than Nick Reiner.  Nick Reiner was not famous at all, until the horrific murder of his parents.

In the Simpson case, the most famous person involved was the suspect.

In the Reiner case, the most famous person involved is one of the victims.

And the fame-spotlight and news coverage follows the suspect.

        The suspect is the person who is still alive that you can follow.  There's going to be no news about the victim - they're dead.

It's interesting to contemplate the fame of O.J. Simpson.  He represented a variety of talents and ideas and dreams that are attractive to many people.  He apparently could be this, that, or the other in private, but on the Big Screen of the public imagination he was a hero.

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"just the Robinsons' affair"

 Mrs. Robinson calmly asking Benjamin, "Are you armed?" - just so funny.

These are - not - gun people.

        I have thought, since the first time I saw The Graduate, that while it's a movie that's considered to be kind of representative of 1960s America, it doesn't show my idea of the 1960s.

And I have a sort of awareness, or recognition, that my personal idea of "the Sixties" is probably sort of - 1968 to 1975.  That's a perspective probably common among people in my age group.

        Director Mike Nichols made The Graduate during the year 1967, and so the clothes, hairstyles, and even people's attitudes are more typical of the early '60s, which for a lot of us would be sort of - 1957 to 1966.  (Maybe 1967 was stood alone as an evolution point....)

Mike Nichols

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a quick drink before you go

 

Towards the end of the movie The Graduate, the song "Mrs. Robinson" plays - I noticed today it has the Bo Diddley beat.

(Or, anyway, I thought it was the Bo Diddley beat.  But I Googled, asking "AI," and he - or she - or - it - told me I was right!  It said the version of the song on the album is more in a folk-rock style, but the version in the movie does, indeed, use the Bo Diddley beat.

        Yay!  I liked being right!  Then I thought, Oh, I shouldn't allow myself to enjoy being "right" too much, I don't want to turn into one of those people yelling about 'liberals' on the Internet. - ['I'm right I'm right Imright!!!!!!!"])

------------------------ Below is a description of one of my favorite scenes from this movie; if you think it might be a "spoiler" and you would rather be surprised later when you see the movie, then stop reading here, & join us tomorrow.

It isn't that much of a spoiler - this movie is not a thriller or horror movie - if you watch it from the beginning, you are going to kind of know where it's going....

Benjamin Braddock drives fast back to the L.A. suburb where the Robinsons live, because Elaine's parents are trying to keep her away from Ben and make her marry someone else, but Ben and Elaine are in love. 

So he drives there, goes to their house, hurries up the stairs, looking for Elaine, and gets to her bedroom and goes in and finds her mom, Mrs. Robinson in there, packing clothes in suitcases.

Mrs. Robinson shows no surprise at seeing him and says, with unnervingly calm aplomb, "Hello, Benjamin," while walking past him.

She picks up a telephone receiver.

Benjamin:  Where is she?

Mrs. R. (into the phone) - Hello, get me the police, please.

Ben:  Where is Elaine?

Mrs. R, to Ben:  I'll be with you in a moment Benjamin.

Mrs. R, into the phone:  Do you have a patrol car in the vicinity of 1200 Glenview Road? (pauses to listen) - Good.  We have a burglar here.

(pause) - Just a second, I'll ask him.  (she tilts her head back a little, from the phone receiver and addresses Benjamin) - "Are you armed?"

He just stands there and stares at her.

Mrs. R (into the phone) - No, I don't believe he is.  Thank you.

And hangs up.

Ben:  What have you done to her?

Mrs. R:  I think we have everything quite under control now Benjamin.  Would you like a quick drink before you go?

Ben:  You can't stop me from seeing her, Mrs. Robinson, I'll find her.

Mrs. R:  I'm sorry we won't be able to invite you to the wedding, Benjamin, but the arrangements have been so rushed.

Ben (getting mad) - What the hell have you -

[sound of car skidding to a hasty stop, outside]

Mrs. Robinson (sighs) then says:  I don't think you'll have time for that drink after all.

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