Well, I guess the title doesn’t say it all. It could mean when you are flipping channels and are about to hit the hay, when you stumble on something that looks vaguely interesting… And you wind up watching an entire movie. Has it happened to you? I’ve done it a lot. In this case, I mean confusing one movie with another, usually because of a key word or similar words in film titles. This too, I have done a lot.

One time, my friend Frank Moraes and my brother, Marlo, were going to a movie and asked if I’d like to go. They were headed to see something at the discount theater, which showed 2nd (3rd?) run movies and classics, for cheap. In this instance, they were going to see something called Blue Velvet. I wasn’t that interested in seeing a horse movie. No, you are correct: Blue Velvet is not a horse movie. I was mistaking it for being something along the lines of National Velvet or Black Beauty. Well, I went. I was entranced. I was shocked. And, to an extent, disappointed. Did I mention I have done that a lot?

Such was the case last night—late at night. At first things went the other way… I began to watch The Yellow Wallpaper, and the first three minutes confirmed it indeed was a story, of the same title, I was forced to read in college. (“Hey, layoff… I went for a few years.”) I stopped that one and fumbled through the selection for something that sounded familiar but which I had not seen, or fully seen.

I found it. The Woman in Black. That’s it. I always wanted to know more, some of the hypothetical aspect would be nice too, of that woman, the wannabe actress, who was murdered and mutilated in the outskirts of Hollywood. Um, no. Wrong again. That most recent theatrical retelling of that story is titled, The Black Dalia, and I wound up watching a much different story.

It’s the Transitional part of my story…

When I was ten (10! Ten!), my much older, adult sister, Kathleen Maxwell Abeta-Brown (now known merely as Kathy Winters) decided the next mistaken, parent-unapproved gift for her youngest brother was to be a drastically abused console television. It was within a month or two of my birthday, one way or the other (I don’t really recall).

That was it… I was off to the races with my addiction to Abbott and Costello, Lucile Ball, and the Bowery Boys. I was the most severe television fanatic of any person I’ve known or heard of, prior to the era of 200 channels we don’t watch. I watched everything. It almost never turned off. In the mornings before school; late at night, with little or no volume. The weekends were a blur of old movies, classics or not, anything that aired within reach of our antenna.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

So, that The Woman in Black was not a dramatized murder mystery and instead was a ’40s style ghost story, was familiar, almost welcomed, territory. The review of said film is mixed. All of us go into things with preconceived notions, it’s our nature… They can work for or against you. In this case, I was pleasantly surprised, but I could understand being in the minority as this is pretty classic in its pace and level of special effects. In our gilded cages, we are accustomed to bright lights, shiny objects and over-blown special effects, especially in languishing tales of woe of the likes of Harry Potter and his friends. It seems the main character of The Woman in Black is also the lead from that movie series. It also seems that people are expecting too much of an actor struggling to free himself from type-casting.

I’m not really saying you should run out for the nearest Redbox or embark on some other pilgrimage to acquire your own copy of this movie, but given the approaching holiday, if you’d like to disturb your mate’s slumber by jumping suddenly a few times here and there, it’s not a bad way to justify it.

As I noted this morning, I went to see Escape Plan with my brother. Given that it is a Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, I expected it to be terrible. It wasn’t. I found it more engaging than I expected. It is a prison break film, and as such, there was much more actual plot than one normally gets in these things. Still, there was much to dislike. It had far too much exposition. The plot is straight out of a comic book. And it still had a lot of unnecessary action. But it is certainly one of the better films that either man has been in—not Rocky or Terminator 2, but watchable.

Thematically, what’s wrong with the film—and for that matter almost any Hollywood film—is its focus on the individual. Stallone plays Ray Breslin, a guy who consults with prisons by breaking out of them to show their weaknesses. He ends up in—Of course!—a prison that can’t be broken out of because of a double cross.[1] In the movie, Breslin is helped out by Emil Rottmayer. But that’s just because Schwarzenegger plays him. In general, the American film is the rugged individual defeating the system. Frankly, we’ve regressed from an artistic standpoint.

For example, Breslin has his business associates who are shown to be worried about him. But they are impotent to help him. A more reasonable plot would have them rescue him at exactly the time that he gets out himself. This approach seems to have fallen out of favor, just like the bomb being diffused with one second to go—and for the same reason: it seems awfully contrived.

Most of my day was spent working on a technical project that isn’t going terribly well. And this evening, I found myself having an anxiety attack. I decided to stop working and watch what has become my “go to” film when I am anxious or depressed: Romantics Anonymous. It is true that I have a huge crush on Isabelle Carre. And I very much identify with the Benoit Poelvoorde character. But I don’t think that’s why I return to it again and again.

The main characters are far more individualistic than any character that Stallone (or Schwarzenegger) has ever played. But it is only through the help of those around them that they find happiness. She has her support group and he has his employees. The individuals need help from their community in order to thrive. And in Romantics Anonymous, the community is celebrated. It is sad that we rarely see this in an American movie.

[1] The plot is entirely predictable and a glance at my notes during the movie show. But here is something to remember: the villain much be introduced in the first act of a movie. Normally, the villain is introduced in the first 5 minutes. This usually means it will be someone close to the main character. These days it is normally the character who seems too boring to be suspected. Anyway, it is all related to Chekhov’s notion, “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

On this day in 1908, the great political cartoonist Herbert Lawrence Block was born. He was better know as Herblock. He started creating political cartoons in 1929. By the 1950s, he was established at the Washington Post (you know, when it was a good newspaper). He is best known for coining the term “”McCarthyism” in a 1950 cartoon. He also managed to make it on Richard Nixon’s “enemies list”—one of the greatest achievements one could have in Washington of the 1970s. He continued to work into his 90s.

Jazz pianist Art Tatum was born in 1909. Known for his great virtuosity, he really should be heard. I often think of him as much a classical musician as anything. God knows he could have been anything. You owe it to yourself to listen to this two minute solo piano version of the song “Yesterdays.” It is exquisite:

The great songwriter Paul Simon is 72 today. I am not that fond of Simon & Garfunkel. But when he went solo, something clicked. Here he is doing one of my very favorite songs, “Train in the Distance.” I love that line, “Negotiation and love songs are often mistaken…” But more than that, it is that rarest of things: a discussion of love as one gets older. No one loves a train up close; it scares the horses and wakes everyone up.

Other birthdays: painter Mariotto Albertinelli (1474); and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (42).

The day, however, belongs to the great comedian Lenny Bruce who was born on this day in 1925. He is a tragic character in the history of 20th century American hypocrisy. For the last five years of his life he was actively pursued for obscenity. This was to the point of police going to his shows under cover so that they could arrest him afterwards. And he wasn’t doing anything that people weren’t doing on late night television ten years later.

I feel a great affinity for Bruce. I don’t think he understood just how serious the government was about enforcing clearly ridiculous laws. He was arrested for saying “bad” words on stage to people who had paid to see him do exactly that. He was arrested for possessing “dangerous” drugs. I think he thought that it must all be an elaborate joke. “Surely they can’t be this small minded!” But indeed they were. And are.

There is very little video of Bruce. The following is really great, although it is not exactly typical of his act. However, it shows his wonderful combination of harsh humor and sweet sentimentality. Based on the very end of it, it must be from some documentary.

Happy birthday Lenny Bruce!

As consumers increasingly turn away from cable, cable tightens the noose on those skating by…

-By “cable” I specifically mean Comcast.

-By “those skating by” I mean those who have the most basic internet access at home and somehow, by default, have a very limited access to cable service (called “limited basic” by Comcast personnel).

For many years, those who subscribed to a basic level of cable-based internet have found, that if they connected a digital tv and did a channel search, they had something they weren’t supposed to have, for “free.”

Just recently, in the San Francisco northbay and many other regions of the US, Comcast has put an end to the freeloading.

The access was very basic, only allowing a handful of English-speaking networks. Mostly, what you would get as free broadcast, if you were close enough to the nearest major population (MSA).

In theory, we are close enough to San Francisco to get free television broadcasts, but the surrounding terrain make the signal impossible to pull in from 39.5 miles away.

What you are left with is a couple channels carrying FM audio and a very annoying video of a 20-something Comcast Rep telling you about how they have made service changes in your area to streamline your cost-effective options.

Comcast… Thanks for making me consider signing a contract… with satellite service.

On this day in 1901, the television host Ed Sullivan was born. Like many of the people who made it big in the early days of television, he didn’t have much of a resume. He was a journalist in New York, writing mostly about the theater scene and the gossip associated with it. That led him to doing a radio show and led pretty directly to doing the television variety show Toast of the Town, which later became The Ed Sullivan Show. There isn’t a lot to tell from there. People remember Elvis Presley and The Beatles. But if you go back and watch the shows, they were pretty terrible. If you are old enough to remember guys who spun plates on sticks, then you have a very good idea of the caliber of talent that the show had. But it didn’t have great competition.

The actor Peter Finch was born in 1916. I don’t think much of him one way or another. Except, of course, for his great performance in Network. He had a very good career as an actor, but it also shows how dependent even excellent actors are on the parts that they get. Most actors have a lot more talent than they ever get to show. But anyway, Peter Finch will always be remembered as Howard Beale:

Other birthdays: academic painter Alexandre Cabanel (1823); the discoverer of gamma rays Paul Ulrich Villard (1860); boxer Max Schmeling (1905); cartoonist Al Capp (1909); computer scientist Seymour Cray (1925); actor Brigitte Bardot (79); actor Jeffrey Jones (67); comedian Janeane Garofalo (49); and actor Naomi Watts (45).

The day, however, belongs to the great filmmaker John Sayles who is 63 today. I don’t know much about his career. He started working for Roger Corman, who taught a lot of people how to make films on a budget. All of Sayles’ films are worth seeing, because he makes films about things that matter. Of particular interest are The Brother from Another Planet, Matewan, and Silver City, which I think made a lot of us feel better during the last years of the Bush fiasco. Here he is talking about his most recent film Amigo:

Happy birthday John Sayles!