March 1, 2019
Dear Everyone:
I don’t suppose anyone noticed that last week’s Letter was a day late.
That’s because “Jeannie” decided, more or less at the last
minute, that we should visit Stitches West, a
fiber arts convention in
Santa Clara, on Friday.
On the one hand, had I known earlier, I might have written the Letter
earlier in the week and had it all ready to send out on Friday.
On the other hand, it gave me something to write about on
Saturday. As “Jeannie”,
would say, “Half of one, six dozen of the other.”
As it was, we went to the convention and merrily walked about for some
three hours. By that time,
we were both tired and decided to go home.
“Jeannie” had already decided that she wanted to go back on
Sunday, when a lot of things go on sale.
Consequently, I bought a two-day ticket for her, as well as a
single-day ticket for myself.
By Sunday, “Jeannie” couldn’t find the two-day ticket.
When in doubt, blame the cats.
So she paid for a second single-day ticket and spent many hours
and dollars going through all the “sale items”.
On her way home, she stopped at my place and we spent in the
neighborhood of five hours eating junk food and watching the
Academy
Awards ceremony on TV. Lots
of pretty people dressed in very pretty clothes.
Lots of pink for some reason this year.
Speaking of movies, I actually did get to see at least two of the
contenders:
The movie,
Vice, can be summed
up in one word: Facetious.
At the very beginning, the producers freely and frankly admitted that
they really made the whole thing up.
Christian Bale portrayed Dick Cheney from his inauspicious beginnings as
a drunken lineman in Colorado through his overtaking of the US
Government as the “most powerful Vice President in history”.
Amy Adams shone as Dick’s ambitious wife who fulfilled her dream
of going from not-quite-trailer-trash to the Queen of Washington
Society. In other words,
Cheney’s whole political career was based on his attempts to satisfy his
wife’s extreme ambitions.
Steve Carell was fantastic as a gleefully immoral Donald Rumsfeld.
Cheney and Rumsfeld were delighted by the Bin Laden attack on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, as it gave them an
excuse to invade Iraq. Not
because Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the attack, of course but
because they thought it would be easy to invade.
Period.
Meanwhile, Cheney’s occasional heart attacks seemed to qualify as little
more than an inconvenience.
Something to remember here:
When Mel Gibson was chided for the historical inaccuracies in his film,
Braveheart, about Scotland’s famous hero, William Wallace, Gibson
replied, “It’s a movie, not a documentary.”
True. However.
Wallace’s defeat of the English in the Battle of Stirling Bridge wholly
depended on his brilliant strategical use of Stirling Bridge.
In fact, in Scotland it is usually referred to as “The Miracle of
Stirling Bridge”. Gibson
claimed to have depicted the Battle, but completely excluded the Bridge.
Mel, you forgot the Bridge???!
Nevertheless, Braveheart won
the Academy Award for Gibson’s Directing, plus four others including
Makeup.
Vice is also a
movie, not a documentary.
And it only won one Award, also for Makeup.
That would be for making Christian Bale look old enough to be
Dick Cheney.
Next…
The Favourite
follows the escapades of two young women who compete with each other to
become the “official” favorite courtier to Queen Anne of England.
It all takes place in the early 1700’s, back when Johann
Sebastian Bach was composing his ducky little heart out and furniture
was developing sweeping legs with curved feet, known as “Queen Anne”
pieces.
Categorized as an historical black comedy, this is a scathing
condemnation of monarchy as a form of government.
Anne was only queen because of who her great-great-great-great-
great-grandpa was: King
Henry VII of England. The
“Us versus Them” power struggle between two flavors of Christianity
(Papist v. Protestant) had resulted in the Glorious Revolution of 1688
in England, where The Powers That Be decided to put the Anglican Mary,
and her husband, William, on the throne.
When they died off, Mary’s sister, Anne was the only one left.
In The Favourite, Anne is
depicted as old, fat, childless, embittered and utterly devoid of any
interest in running the government that she has inherited.
Instead, she lavishes her attention on seventeen bunny rabbits
and a parade of self-interested courtiers.
Sarah Churchill, ancestress of Sir Winston Churchill, is played by
Rachel Weisz. Sarah’s
impoverished cousin, Abigail, is played by Emma Stone.
Both are Academy Award winners for acting.
Both were hoping to give that little gold statue a companion this
year. Both were
disappointed.
Sarah, with her husband, the 1st Duke of Marlborough, really
was a very good advisor to the Queen.
But eventually, they had a falling out.
Whether or not it was due to the machinations implied by the
movie is a possible dissertation by some history major.
In the meantime, the film glories in the set decoration and costumes,
both of which garnered Oscar nominations of their own.
Sadly, neither won.
The only winner for The Favourite
was a completely gob smacked Olivia Colman, as Queen Anne.
Clearly Colman didn’t expect to win or she would have chosen a
dress that was less complicated for climbing stairs and holding a very
heavy little gold statue.
Nevertheless, of the two, I preferred
The Favourite.
Of course, not having won Best Picture, both have already
vanished from local cinemas. But
there’s always the various streaming services to choose from, should
anyone care.
Love, as always,
Pete
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