September 6, 2005 Archives

The day was sunny. The temperature warm with low humidity. It was a holiday. What better day to go to the movies?

OK, it's not your conventional movie going day, but it was good for us.

Helaine asked me to decide between Wedding Crashers and 40 Year Old Virgin. Neither of us wanted to make the choice. On the phone, my friend Peter made it for us. "Wedding Crashers," he said, and that's what we saw.

Good choice Peter. This was the best movie I've seen in years.

By now (the movie's been out for some time now) you probably know the story. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn crash weddings in order to pick up women. Everything goes well until they go to one wedding and both fall in love. That's not what wedding crashers are supposed to do.

There is nothing in this script you haven't seen before. There's no plot turn that isn't predictable. It makes no difference. You don't care. The movie transcends the plot.

The success of this movie is all about Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. Their chemistry is as good as any I've ever seen on screen. And, they are both very likable.

Their back-and-forth, often praising, often denigrating, was effortless and seamless. Some of that goes to well written dialog, but I don't really think you can coach or direct this kind of repartee. It's more organic.

The rest of the cast was pretty good as well, especially Christopher Walken, Rachel McAdams and Henry Gibson.

Recently, Gibson has made himself a good living playing Henry Gibson. Good for him.

Not in the credits, but heavily featured, the currently overexposed Will Ferrell. I understand why he was there. I just don't approve. And though I like Henry Gibson playing Henry Gibson, I'm not happy with Will Ferrell doing the same¹.

At about two hours, this movie is too long. Unfortunately, nearly every movie is too long.

Note to Showcase Cinemas... If I see the Charlie Sheen pre-show short about movie theater restrictions one more time, I will march up to the screen and start reciting along with the actors as if it were the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

¹ - Before the movie began, we saw a trailer for "The Man," starring Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy. Levy, whose work on SCTV ranks among television's all-time best, may be approaching the saturation point in playing Eugene Levy. Samuel L. Jackson has earned a lifetime pass after "Pulp Fiction."

I am one of those people who firmly believe FEMA and/or the National Guard should have been in New Orleans as soon as the wind began to die down. However, a great misconception most people have is the flooding started around the time the storm peaked.

Here's what I wrote around 3:00 AM EDT Tuesday morning. By then the storm had moved north and New Orleans no longer had hurricane conditions.

As far as I can tell, that was the first national report of flooding in New Orleans.

So, maybe that was what Chertoff thought on Tuesday... but where was he on Monday? Even before the flooding, New Orleans was in great need. The city was without power. Windows were blown out all over the city. Buildings had been destroyed. People were homeless or were housed in shelters with no food, water or sanitary facilities.

Yes, the flooding came late, but wasn't anyone there surveying the damage or deciding what kind of support the city would need before then? Even before the flooding, the city had suffered a tragedy.

Why was he depending on newspapers (or any media) for his information?

As I type, we have Hurricane Maria and Tropical Storm Nate in the Atlantic. They are well to the east and not a threat to land. Tropical Depression 16 is a different story.

As was the case with Katrina, this storm has formed over the Bahamas and is moving toward Florida. Unlike Katrina, this one is expected to move northwest, toward Cape Canaveral and what is referred to as "The Treasure Coast."

The official projections are for 60 knot winds at landfall, which translate to just under hurricane strength. As soon it the depression hits 39 mph (it's at 30 mph) it will become Tropical Storm Ophelia.

When Katrina hit South Florida people wrote it off as a minimal hurricane. My guess is a strong tropical storm will get a lot more attention based on video fresh in people's minds.

The headline read, "Gilligan Dies." Maybe so. For many of us Bob Denver was just as strongly attached to the character Maynard G. Krebs from "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."

Maynard was a beatnik - maybe the only beatnik ever portrayed as a continuing character in a TV show. He was adverse to school and work, didn't understand Dobie's attraction to women (in a childlike asexual way), as Dobie didn't understand Maynard's continuing desire to see "The Monster That Devoured Cleveland" and watch "the old Endicott Building" get torn down.

As both Maynard G. Krebs and Gilligan, Bob Denver played a simple child in a grown-up's body. There was no subtext to either character. They were pure and sweetly incorruptible.

Bob Denver's blessing, having two hit TV shows, was also his curse. Typecast as this simpleton character, he was never able to break out. More recently, he had done radio in Central Pennsylvania, and ran what looked like a homebuilt website.

Though one of America's best known faces, he was seldom seen in the big time. Maybe, the truth was, in real life Denver was as simple and incorruptible as his characters.