My Movie Collection | Peaches Prattlings

{April 1, 2021} Why can’t a woman be more like a man? HA HA

Before you start crowing, I was listending to Pandora radio and one of my favorite stations is Broadway Musicals. As I’m working, Why can’t a woman be more like a man? from My Fair Lady came on, sung by Rex Harrison.

The musical, which originated on Broadway and then was made into a motion picture staring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, sigh, one of my alltime favorite actresses, yes I know, I know, I have many, but she was…well, that’s another post for another day. And another post…the fact that Julie Andrews made that role on Broadway, but was denied the role because the producer, Jack L Warner didn’t think she was well known enough as a screen actor, humph I say! Don’t get me wrong, Audrey Hepburn was fabulous in the role, but c’mon on!

The tagline from IMDB: Snobbish phonetics Professor Henry Higgins agrees to a wager that he can make flower girl Eliza Doolittle presentable in high society. That about sums it up. She’s poor and uneducated, he’s rich and possibly over educated. She doesn’t think she’s better than anyone, meaning, she is who she is, but she would like to improve her station and be a little more polished, she has a great song Wouldn’t it be loverly, truth be told, that was where I heard and first started using the word loverly, it’s a simple song of the simple things she wants in life. On the opposite end, he thinks he’s better than everyone, there’s no filter when he opens his mouth and his mother just shakes her head when he comes around.

Eliza overhears Henry Higgins identifying different individuals accents while outside of the theater one night, even claiming he could make her a proper lady. Eliza goes to his house the next morning wanting to hire him to give her elocution lessons, she wants to ‘talk better’.

Digression here…one of my favorite lines from Working Girl, starring Melanie Griffith, who is having a conversation with Joan Cusack about taking speech classes. “What do you need speech classes for? Ya tawk fine!” Classic! Back to our regularly scheduled program…

Higgins agrees to take her on and “class her up”, he’s going to work with his house guest, Colonel Pickering, played by Wilfrid Hyde-White, to do it. The goal…the Embassy Ball, to see who they can fool. They work day and night, Eliza suffering through the torture he puts her through, while he suffers through the tireless effort he’s putting in, interesting take on things, different viewpoints. She manages to make it through, imagining all the ways to kill him! Just you wait. And for some reason he can’t understand why he can’t get along with women…

All of a sudden, she gets it “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain“, try saying that through a mouth full of marbles…and there is much joy and praise in the house, but…not for Eliza, it’s all for Henry Higgins, for all the work he’s done…The first test…take Eliza to the races to meet her mother and see how she fits in with the upper crust, she passes, mostly. She only says what she’s told, sort of, until the first races starts, then the gutter snipe comes out, for a moment, it’s priceless, and she actually charms a few people with it, especially one young man, but that’s another story for another day. Well, wait, here’s a man who falls in love with her, who just wants to be On the street where you live, but who does Eliza eventually fall in love with? Yup…

Back to the purpose of the post. After the races, which was a success, we are off to the Embassy Ball, where she is stunning, and stuns. She is regal and refined, and any other r words? She’s polished and proper, and a thing of beauty, she charms everyone and the Queen of Transylvania asks her to dance with the prince. She is now what she wanted to be, polished and proper, she could do anything, get a job in a flower shop, she could run the flower shop, she could probably marry well, who knows. Keep in mind, the story is set in London 1912, none of this would be considered wrong, unheard of, out of the ordinary.

Well, what happens when they get home from the ball, Higgins and Pickering are so very proud of themselves, the household staff have been treating him like he’s all that and the bag o’ chips, they don’t pay Eliza much mind and no one says anything of what she’s done for herself, she put in the hard work, but does anyone notice, nope and Eliza finally realizes she doesn’t have to take that shite anymore and leaves, good on ya!

In the morning, when Higgins realizes she’s gone, he’s put out and out of sorts and doesn’t understand why. He can’t understand, after the triumph of the ball, why would she leave. Dense… and he goes into the reason we’re here, Why can’t a woman be more like a man? It’s a sort of conversation with Colonel Pickering, but more the musings of obnoxious, self-centered, misogynistic, need I go on?

If you actually listen to the lyrics, you have to laugh, and to hear it as a song, and if you never really paid attention, but then all of a sudden it hits you, wow. “Why can’t a woman be more like a man? Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;Eternally noble, historically fair.” really? “Why can’t a woman take after a man? Men are so pleasant, so easy to please. Whenever you’re with them, you’re always at ease.” seriously? “Why is thinking something women never do? And why is logic never even tried?
Straightening up their hair is all they ever do. Why don’t they straighten up the mess that’s inside?” Are you kidding me? Seriously, you just have to laugh. Just take a listen, something about it set to music…Now…I have a feeling there are some people who still feel this way, who am I to judge?

And what happens in the end? Eliza goes to Henry’s mother’s house, where he finds Eliza and she tells him she doesn’t need him any longer and walks out. What happens to Henry Higgins? What do you think he realizes? I’ve grown acustomed to her face. At home later, he’s mooning over her and she appears, you don’t see it, but you know she puts him in his place, she’s put up with him and he realizes he can’t or doesn’t want to live without him.

And all the things he moaned about…why can’t a woman be like him? All the reasons he fell in love with her. Go figure…

{March 31, 2021} Movie Trailers

I absolutely la la la love movie trailers! I mean, I love trailers. One of the reasons I love going to the movies, I mean actually going to the movies is to watch the trailers before the movie starts.

Some trailers are great…they give you just enough to get you interested, but not enough to give the whole movie away. Other trailers, you wonder why they bothered, you get the entire movie, what’s left to go see? Some trailers give you almost nothing and you sit there and scratch your head!

For those of you who know me, you know I absolutely la la la love movies, well, in addition to the trailers I was just talking about. But I really do and I have a knack for knowing who’s in a movie, even if I haven’t seen the movie. I can also tell you things about a movie after only seeing it once. I can also watch a trailer and 9 times out of 10 I know if I’m going to like the movie, I’m not usually wrong.

I remember my dad calling me once because he was playing Trivial Pursuit and needed to know the name of an actor in a movie and, yup, I knew it. I had never seen the movie, but I knew the actor was Broderick Crawford, no idea how I knew, I just did. Another time that spoke volumes, I was at a friend’s house with a bunch of people and we started playing Scene It. It’s a game where you answer trivia questions about movies and pop culture. After we finished playing, we decided to play again and it was seven people against ME! What? And guess what…I lost by ONE point! Not too shabby. I really do love movies! You know I watch movies over and over, I watch movies in the background and to fall asleep, movies!

In college, I majored in Communications, focus on television. My goal was actually to work for Children’s Television, truth be told, I really wanted to work for Sesame Street! How amazingly awesome would that have been! Working in an industry I loved with a show that I adored. You have no idea! I am such a Muppet head! During my communications courses in college, we focused not only on television, but film. We disected scripts, counted beats, watched for continuity, broke down scenes, analyzed how music plays a huge part in film, you name it, we did it. I even wrote a script, it was awful, but I wrote a script. I would never have gone to see my own movie if someone made it, tried to get my money back! That bad!

What all of that did was give me an appreciation for film, I know a movie is good if I don’t start breaking it down while I’m watching it, finding things that are wrong or don’t make sense, I’m mesmerized. And one thing I always wanted to do, while in college, and then after college, was to make movies. To watch a movie and have to pick out the scenes that would entire someone to want spend their money, want to watch that movie. It’s a skill and a gift. I knew that there were certain movies I could never create trailers for, horror for one, omg! I don’t watch horror movies, no thanks! Reality can be scary enough!

One of the things I love about Hulu, Netflix, IMDB, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, even YouTube [the list goes on!] is the ability to search for and watch trailers. It’s something to do, something I love and gives me something to look forward to when I select Add to My Watchlist. I am telling you, I can get lost in trailers, especially when they have suggestions, oh man! Ooh, this looks interesting, ooh, that one too! And then it’s an hour later, what happend!? Where did the day go?

Here are a few that I love. A Song is Born, Guardians of the Galaxy, Wolverine, Animal House, The House Bunny, Mary Poppins, The Godfather, The Wizard of Oz, Grease, Footloose, Beauty and the Beast, The Muppet Movie. There are so many more, but we’d be here for ever!

{March 30, 2021} The Court Jester

The Court Jester is one of my all time favorite movies. I know, I know, I’ve said that before, but if you have spent any time with me and my family, especially when I was younger, it was Danny Kaye all the way.

I truly have been a Danny Kaye fan most of my life and one day I’ll tell you all about the other movies of his I love, like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, yes, before Ben Stiller‘s version, White Christmas with Bing Crosby, A Song is Born, the list goes on. But…today, I’m going to tell you about a movie that myself, my dad, my sister, and my mom all loved. When we were kids, we spent our summers in Mastic Beach, NY, which is on the South Shore of Long Island. We had a VCR, for those of you under 45…ha ha, that’s a video cassette recorder, you would put the cassette tape in, watch it and then have to rewind it before you took it back! and we would bicycle or drive to the library and get movies out.

Two movies that my sister and I absolutely adored were Walt Disney’s Cinderella [1950] and The Court Jester [1955] with Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury. Some of you will know who all of these people are, but I’ll give you other references if that helps. I told you about Danny Kaye, but…you might not remember that he played Dr Burns, the dentist on The Cosby Show. Glynis Johns was also the mother, Mrs Banks in Mary Poppins and the grandmother in While You Were Sleeping, she used to come into the deli I worked in, in the Hamptons! Basil Rathbone was most famous as Sir Guy of Gisborne in The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and personally, I think he was one of the best Sherlock Holmes. Lastly, there was Angela Lansbury, Miss Price in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Mrs Potts in Beauty and the Beast, and probably most known as Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote. Ok, now you’re caught up on some of the bigger names in the movie.

The tagline in IMBD: A hapless carnival performer masquerades as the court jester as part of a plot against an evil ruler who has overthrown the rightful King. That pretty much says it all. It’s an action/adventure story, with a little swash buckler thrown in, romance, intrigue, all wrapped up in a musical. What more could you want?!

Danny Kaye plays Hubert Hawkins, he’s part of The Black Fox’s band of merry men, gives you a Robin Hood type of vibe. His role is to entertain the merry men, but he wants more, he wants to be out there, on the front lines, fighting, but The Black Fox feels he is best suited where he is. King Roderick I is on the throne, but not by birthright and he is constantly looking over his shoulder because there is a rumor that the royal baby was missed, the rightful heir to the throne and he can’t have that!

His righthand man is the evil Sir Ravenhurst, who does the kings bidding. Basil Rathbone can play a mean one, he can. Little known fact, he is best known for his fencing skills as the greatest swordsman in Hollywood history, what do you think about them apples! He really was great, it was a treat to watch his skills with a blade! What he did made Danny Kaye look good in their scenes.

Something happens at The Black Fox’s camp and Hawkins has to go with the Maid Jean, Glynis Johns, who happens to be The Black Fox’s Captain, to deliver the royal baby to the castle and take the throne back for the royal baby. Along the way, they meet Giacamo, King of Jesters and Jester to the King, and Hawkins takes his place when he gets to the palace, perfect cover!

Throughout the movie there is laughter, silliness, sword fighting, poison, intrigue, romance, spells, threats, singing, dancing, and to top it all off, a baby with a royal birthmark. What more could you want?!

The songs are clever and fun, with Danny Kaye, you know there has to be hillarity, some of the best scenes are where he is being a total goofball. The best scenes also have the most tongue tying lines! “The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.”

Here’s a quote from IMDB about that line: Danny Kaye’s daughter, Dena Kaye, said for the rest of his life, when people recognized Danny in a restaurant, they would walk up and spout the entire “brew that is true” speech.

I mentioned romance, right? Hawkins is awkward around women, and when he appears at the castle, Princess Gwendolyn’s handmaid, Griselda, who is also a witch, puts a spell on Hawkins to romance the princess to save her own neck! She makes him braver than he ever was!

The reason I’m telling you all about this movie and these memories is I has it on as background while I was working today. There are certain movies and tv shows that I have seen so many times, I don’t have to actually pay attention to them, I can have them on in the background and still get work done. I might sing along, maybe to The Maladjusted Jester, or Life Could Not Better Be, or any of the songs he sings. When GES and I watched this movie, the same thing with Cinderella, we would watch it, rewind it, then watch it again, rewind, watch, repeat. We don’t have to say much more than one of the lines and we’re off and running, quoting lines and laughing with each other.

Today, while I was watching it, I actually recorded the Pellet with the Poison scene and sent it to my dad and sister, sent good vibes into the universe and got them right back.

My hope is that any one of the clips I posted has maybe piqued your interest just a bit, maybe you’re curious to explore the world of Danny Kaye, even try to find The Court Jester and check out all the merriment. Even if you just watch the clips, maybe look for additional clips and laugh, I’m good with that!

Get it. Got it. Good. Yes friends, if you’ve ever heard me say that…now you know where I got it!

{March 16, 2021} Our Marvel-ous Marathon Progress

Like how I did that?! I am over the top punny! Well, at least I think so, PSM keeps groaning.

So…our progress so far in our Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Marathon, meaning watching the movies in order. We have watched:

I promise, you will get a review of each movie from me here in the future, just not today, but I will definitely share my thoughts. One thing I have observed, which is interesting…as we watch these movies, a few things are happening, which contradicts the beginning of this sentence, go figure…

As I was saying…as we watch these movies, I don’t know about PSM, but I am seeing these movies through not only new eyes and maybe getting new perspectives on a few aspects of the film, noticing things I might not have noticed before, but I am also talking a lot more, well, asking questions, which I don’t do very much the first time I watch a movie, notice I said, not very much! There are more questions that I have as I watch these movies, much to PSM’s chagrin, I’m sure! At least we’re not in the movie theater!

The other thing I’m doing, oh my word, is coming up with some awful [ly funny] puns! For example…tonight we watched Iron Man 3 and the villians were on something which made them get very hot and blow up, so my brain can’t stop, which comes right out…”Oooh, she’s hot!” “He blew away the competition!” and it went downhill from there! I laughed!

Overall, it’s been fun to watch them again, and to watch them with PSM. So far, some of the ones we just watched are the first time we’re watching them together, that really has been fun. Also, looking for the amazing Stan Lee. I know there are lists of where he appears in each movie, but I am keeping my own list as we go, and I will share it with you when we are done with all 23 movies, promise.

I wanted to say thanks for joining me on this marvel-ous adventure, it’s quite the undertaking. Over the course of these posts, we’ll Iron out the details. I’m keeping my Hawkeyes out for Stan Lee’s cameos, which I think is a Banner idea! [groan!] I honestly tried to keep it all Loki, but it’s not working! I’m afraid I mave have made you Fury-ous! I am Thoroughly enjoying this! As I’ve Peppered this post with puns, it’s made me so Happy! I hope you don’t find all of this Strange and you’re not Hulking mad! If you did, please don’t Avenger, I might turn Scarlet, sorry, I had a Vision. Ok, I’m done! [I’m sure there will be more down the road, I’m just that determined, I’m trying to get to the Groot of the problem! Maybe more on Thorsday! Thorry…

{March 14, 2021} Raya and the Last Dragon

Today, since it was raining, no motorcycle rides for us, but…we decided to go to the movies and saw Raya and the Last Dragon, the newest Disney movie. The IMDB tagline is “In a realm known as Kumandra, a re-imagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, a warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon.” Pretty accurate.

A little bit of trivia…Kumandra was inspired bythe Southeast Asian cultures of Brunei, Singapore, Laos, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The story is that Kumandra is peace and harmony and all peoples living as one, with the five lands in the shape of a dragon: Heart, Talon, Spine, Fang, and Tail, all connected by the River Dragon. One day, a very long time ago, the Druun emerged, a swirling mass of purple and black, reminding me of The Nothing from the NeverEnding Story, it basically swirls and swarms through the lands turing the people and dragons to stone statues.

The dragons pooled their magic into a magic gem called the Dragon Gem, to protect against the Druun and the five lands are now divided. The dragons who pooled their magic gave the Dragon Gem to their sister, Sisu, the last remaining dragon. The Heart Land was tasked to guard the Dragon Orb for centuries and when Raya’s father brings the lands together, hoping for peace and a return to Kumandra…unfortunately, I think you can guess what happens, and the orb is broken apart and each leader takes a piece of the orb to try to protect themselves and their people. Unfortunately, that unleased the Druun to begin it’s attack on the people and the lands again. And the mistrust is even greater amongst the people.

Raya’s Ba, or father, is turned to stone as he pushses Raya away, gives her his piece of the orb and tells her it is on her to go and bring unity back to the world. That’s a lot to put on a 12 year old’s shoulders, but she rises to the challenge. We see her six years later, riding on Tuk-Tuk, her loveable pet, comprised of one third-pill bug, one third-armadillo, and one third-pug hybrid, with the ability to roll into a ball, it’s pretty cool. He’s adorable, as a wee bit, and then a big bit and stays very much a goofball throughout the movie, but he can move! Where do I get one?! These movies have to stop creating characters that I want for my own!

As Raya sets out, she goes to each of the lands to attempt to take the piece of the gem to reunite them together. Along the way, she finds Sisu, who seems to have been asleep for a while, not really sure what’s happening when she ‘wakes up’. It was interesting to watch their dynamic, and to see Sisu see the world through new eyes, a lot has changed since she’s been gone, almost the eyes of a child, or at least a very trusting, naive innocent, she still has faith in humanity and what it can accomplish if you put your trust in one another, something hard to do at this point, for most of the people still there, or left behind, as it feels.

Along the way, as she is going to each land, Raya meets someone that she has to trust and earn their trust in return and as you might imagine, they become their own band of merry men, so to speak. It really is an interesting combination of characters that she brings together. I hope you can picture all they can do, when they learn to trust and work together.

And that’s what the movie is about, believing in yourself, having the power and strength to open yourself up to others, to trust them and allow them to trust you and what you can accomplish together. Did they succeed? Was there unity? Were people reunited with their lost loved ones? Did Raya get her Ba back? First…if I tell you everything, how will you be surprised. Second…it’s a Disney animated movie, yeah, that about sums it up.

The cast is great, Raya is played by Kelly Marie Tran, Sisu by the brilliantly funny Awkwafina, the dialog was perfectly her and there were a few times I felt like she was channeling Robin Williams, in that way he would kind of do his own thing with dialog, go off the rails, like he did in as the genii in Aladdin. Gemma Chan was Raya’s nemesis, from Fang, Benedict Wong was Tong from Spine, Sandra Oh was Chieftess Virana from Fang, Lucille Soong was Chieftess Dang Hu from Talon, Daniel Dae Kim was Chief Benja and Raya’s father. I love that Alan Tudyk played Tuk Tuk, he didn’t say much, but his noises were mighty cute!

Overall, it was a great movie, a lot of wonderful symbolism, pageantry, colors, feelings, story, action, humor, humility, unity, trust, and love. What more could you want?! I hope you enjoy it, I’m going to watch it again!

{March 12, 2021} Spoiler Alert! Kermit the Frog?!

Sorry, I know I just blurted that out, but I couldn’t help myself! If you watch The Masked Singer and you haven’t seen the fist episode yet, sorry! I’m just still in shock!

If you don’t watch The Masked Singer [IMDB listing], then you’re good! If you don’t watch it, the premise is A singing competition guessing game based on Korean format King of Mask Singer. 12 celebrity performers wear costumes to conceal identities. One singer is eliminated each week and unmasked. Small hints are given for the viewer guess along. There are four judges, but it’s the audience, and the judges who vote, not just the judges, and at the end of the show, whoever gets the least amount of votes goes home. Now you know the way you win or lose. Let’s get to the rest of it.

There are 12 famous people who are in the costumes, and these costumes were nominated and won an emmy! These costumes really are something! Look at it this way, you can’t see the singer, so you need something to look at! Here is a list of all 5 seasons of costumes! There have been some great ones and some goofy ones, but all of them have been impressive. I want to say we tried to watch The Masked Dancer and one episode was enough for us, you won’t hear me talk about it again!

In each costume are celebreties that include singers, dancers, actors, politians, athletes. These performers include stage and screen, paid atheletes and olympians, you honestly never can tell! There are four judges, Jenny McCarthy, Ken Jeong, Nicole Scherzinger, and Robin Thicke, and host, Nick Cannon. Niecy Nash is hosting the first few shows of the season, I looked it up, Nick Cannon had Covid at the time they started taping. She was fun, gave Ken Jeong the same crap Nick Cannon does! The winner of The Masked Singer is going for The Golden Mask trophy, the judges are going for bragging rights and now, The Golden Ear trophy. Each week, four singers go up against each other, before they go on, they give the audience and panel clues to their identity. When they first come out, the judges have to make a first guess and it goes into a vault, to be taken out at the end of the season and the judge with the most correct guesses, wins. Some of the clues are easy, some are tough. It’s funny to watch the judges try to guess, Ken Jeong is the goofiest of them all. The silliest part…they ALL say this is the best opening ever! And it’s always the toughest to watch someone go…

The thing we like about the show is you honestly don’t know who is in the costume and they really are doing for the love of doing it! Sometimes you can’t believe how long someone has lasted and you’re shocked at some of the ones who go home early! It really is a fun show and what we love…we watch it on Hulu, so if we want to just binge an entire season…there it is, even better…I paid for no commercials! I told you, I have no patience!

Ok, back to the first episode. This season, so far, there are Russian Dolls, Porcupine, or Robopine has he wanted to be called, you’ll see…Seashell, Raccoon, and Snail. I thought Racoon would go first, but Snail [this was the Snail singing the song] it was. He sang You Make My Dreams Come True by Hall and Oates, I thought he did pretty well. Actually, when he started singing, I actually, for a moment, thought it sounded like Barack Obama! Why not?! But it wasn’t. It was actually… Kermit the Frog! O M G! If I remember correctly, the tag line was a TV Legend, movie star, producer, singer, actor, entertainer. And wow, is he ever! If you know me, you know I am a HUGE Muppet fan, not just Kermit the Frog, as evident by my Muppets Monopoly [2 different versions], Muppets Chess set, Muppet Show and Muppet Movie collection, GIANT stuffed Kermit the Frog and Kermit the Frog cookie jar, and my other Muppet stuff, I’ll show you those some other time.

Kermit the Frog was the first eliminated singer, watch the reveal, also the first puppet/Muppet to participate in The Masked Singer. We were floored. If this doesn’t tell you what a big kid I am, we need to talk! Bottom line, we really enjoy The Masked Singer, not a lot of reality shows we watch together, but this one is fun and fun to guess and get shocked at!

And…sorry for the spoiler alert…I wonder who’s next! I won’t do that to you again, promise!

{March 11, 2021} A Marvel-ous undertaking!

Oh, how punny! I know, you have no idea, so I’m going to tell you, not to worry!

Last week sometime, while I was in Colorado, I told PSM, this was a whim I had, and I’ve had a few, that when I’m home, we need to do an MCU marathon! And for those of you not in the know…that’s Marvel Cinematic Universe! And for those of you still not in the know, those are the super hero movies based on the Marvel Comics, and the amazing Stan Lee, just one of the many brilliant minds who brought us all those amazing super hero comic books and grapic novels.

I was a kid when I started reading the comic strips in the newspaper, Sunday funnies, those were great, because, depending on the newspaper, those were the ones in color! When it came to comic books, I started with Archie Comics, Spider Man, in high school, I was introduced to X-Men, among others, I could go on and on and on, on this topic and I might just do that…another day. Back to the topic at hand.

I’ve watched a lot of the comic book and graphic novels come to life, like I said, another time, and I remember when the first Marvel Movie came out, Iron Man in 2008, starring Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jon Faverau, who also directed, and Terrance Howard, to name a few…I think I reviewed this movie way back when, but I have a renewed look at it, I could do it again, it is my blog, after all! And that was just the beginning, literally! One of my favorite memories was when The Avengers movie came out, May 3, 2012, I went to the AMC Theater near me for an MCU marathon!

Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and then…The Avengers. It was 18 hours in the theater! OMG! We had special passes and they let us out for about 30 minutes in between each movie, it was amazing! So…if you had only seen each movie once, which we know was not the case for me, this was an opportunity to see each movie again, and then…The Avengers! What a day it was!

So…where was I? Oh yeah, like I forgot, we’re in the MCU Universe! PSM must have heard me because last night he suggested we do a MCU Marathon, but… not in order of release date, but in chronological order, how you should watch them in the timeline that actually happened. And friends, that’s just what we did!

We started wtih Captain America: The First Avenger, starring Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, and Hayley Attwell, then we watched Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson and Samuel L Jackson. Both fabulous, oh, we have got to talk about these two movies soon! Tonight was Iron Man, we started late, so we threw in something else that didn’t take as long, tell you about it later! Tomorrow…Iron Man2 and The Incredible Hulk, with Edward Norton and Liv Tyler, of course! Oh man, I’m getting excited to tell you about the movies themselves! Tangent!

So…that is the plan, go through all the movies, even the ones we weren’t crazy about, only because one of us didn’t like the way it played out, [that would be me], but ya gotta take the good with the bad, so I’m down for some Baby Groot to lift my spirits!

Looking forward to sharing the journey with you!

{February 2, 2021} It’s Groundhog Day! It’s Groundhog Day! It’s Groundhog Day!

Did you know it’s Groundhog Day? Hopefully when you wake up tomorrow, it will be Wednesday, February 3rd! Fingers crossed for all of us!

Let me back up! Today is Tuesday, February 2, 2021 and it’s Groundhog Day. This is the day that Punxsutawney Phil, the official groundhog in Punxsutawney, PA, comes out of his hole, the temporary home he has in Gobbler’s Knob, to tell us if Winter is here to stay, well, for at least 6 more weeks, and today…Groundhog Day 2021, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and we will have 6 more weeks of winter folks. Oh joy…

“We have passed the darkness of night but now see hope and morning’s bright light. But now when I turn to see there’s a perfect shadow cast of me. Six more weeks of winter there will be!” club vice president Tom Dunkel read from the chosen scroll.

This event, which is more of a festival and celebration now, has been going on annually since 1887! Can you believe it! Well, more to the point, can you believe that this is the same groundhog that has been making a prediction since the tradition started? Yup, that’s right folks, well, that’s what the “Inner Circle” or Phil’s “Inner Circle”, identifiable by their top hats and tuxedos, want us to believe, isn’t that fabulous!

Whether or not Punxsutawney Phil’s predictions are true or not, it’s still a fun tradition to keep up and behold. This year, in keeping with Covid-19 rules, the ceremony was held virtually, well, not by everyone! Phil was there, along with his inner circle, hey, someone had to verify if Phil saw his shadow and read the proclamation. And…except for the three intimately involved…the guy holding Phil, the guy reading the proclamation, and the guy with the microphone, everyone else had a mask on, no, not Phil, duh!

I’ll be honest, as a kid, I knew about the groundhog and Groundhog Day, the tradition of the groundhog coming out and predicting the 6 more weeks of winter, or not, but I didn’t know it was such a BIG deal until I saw the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray, who plays a self-absorbed weatherman who ends up living the same day over and over and over again, well, until he gets it right.

The movie had a great cast, including Andie MacDowell, as his producer and eventual love interest, Chris Elliot is his goofball cameraman, Stephen Tobolowsky an old classmate of Billy Murray’s character and an insurance salesman with two of my favorite lines in the movie “BING!”, I know you have to watch it, and “Watch that first step…it’s a douzy”. Then, there’s Billy Murray’s brother, not movie brother, but actual brother, Brian Doyle Murray, a great character actor, Angela Paton, she’s one of those actors I don’t always remember her name, but I like seeing her. Rick Overton, who plays one of the guys in the car when Phil Connors, Billy Murray’s character drives off a cliff, Michael Shannon, who has a small role and I always forget that it’s him because had such a baby face in the movie, he was playing a teenager or just barely out of his teens and then, Harold Ramis who co-wrote, directed, and had a small role in the film.

The fun part is to watch Bill Murray’s character grow into an actual human being with all the experiences he has. He starts off, when he realizes that he’s stuck, is to do all the things we might think about doing, since he can’t get in trouble, or trouble that lasts past midnight, when the clock or day resets itself. Then he starts to take life a little more seriously, while still enjoying it. The day resets, but he doesn’t, so he has no choice but to grow. On the last day, well, the day that doesn’t reset itself is the day we get to see the new, maybe who he really was all along, just buried, Phil Connors. Who knows.

The hard part is to watch him try over and over to get out of this day and then you sit there wondering ‘just how long was Phil Connors stuck?‘ Harold Ramis said “It takes at least 10 years to get good at anything,” said Ramis, “and allotting for the down time and misguided years he spent, it had to be more like 30 or 40 years.” Just ouch!

Before I leave you…a bit of Groundhog Day movie trivia before I say farewell. The movie takes place in Punxsutawney, PA, but actually, it was filmed in Woodstock, Illinois! But JJ, how do you know that!? Well, first, if you look up the movie, you can find that out, but…I happened to be in Woodstock, Illinois for a project and the people at the office told me that the town square, about two blocks away, was where they filmed the movie! OMG! Of course, I had to take a stroll. How cool is that!

Well, here’s to 6 more weeks of winter and I’m hoping the radio doesn’t wake me up to I Got You Babe by Sonny and Cher. If it does, I’m going back to bed. What would you do?

{March 4, 2018} A day at home, together… sigh

PSM got home yesterday and today we got to spend the day together. What more could you ask for?

Nothing, it was great! He’s been off island for two weeks, he’s happy to be home, wouldn’t you be? We got up, hung out, eventually got some food and as we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do and the weather was not too favorable, it became a movie day.

We started with Jumanji, loved. Geostorm, ok. The Princess Bride, la la la love, who doesn’t?! The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, with Ben Stiller, always like. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it was ok.

What a great day, we talked, we laughed, we watched movies, we cooked together, talked, laughed, connected.

The perfect day. Do I really have to leave tomorrow?

{May 31, 2017} Earth Girls Are Easy

I don’t know if that’s completely true.

But it is a great movie! Haha.

I was flipping channels tonight looking for something to distract me and I found Earth Girls Are Easy. This I would say is a classic, it’s from the 80s it’s horrible, it’s funny, it’s goofy, it screams 80s.

You have Julie Brown, Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum in the infancy of their relationship, so it just screams from the screen. You’ve got a very young Damon Wayans and Jim Carrey, they all couldn’t been more than 12! And then you a bit rolls like Michael McKean, as the stoner, Surfer pool guy.

It emphasizes everything goofy about the 80s, well not everything, but there’s big hair, long fingernails, bright neon colors, zoot suits, Valley girls, the Miami Vice Don Johnson look and Julie Brown at the height of her goofiness with her plays on society videos and songs like “I’m a Blonde.”

Then there’s the underlying story, love, betrayal, infidelity, insecurity, discovery exploration they’re Spaceman after all. Of course, bottom line it’s a love story after all.

If you haven’t seen it, you haven’t lived. Check it out it’s goofy it’s funny and it’s for a good laugh.

It’s one of those cult classics either you love it or you won’t. One guess where I stand!

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