Posts tagged New England
“Admission” a Multicultural and Multigenerational Love Story
0March 29, 2013
“Multicultural and Multigenerational Love Story”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Admission is full of laughs and enough awkward situations that produce their own laughs that you almost forget that basically you almost overlook the fact that it is also a love story on many different levels.
Tina Fey plays Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton University, Paul Rudd plays John Pressman, the founder and head of an alternative high school in New England, and they had a mutual friend 16 years earlier when they were both classmates at Dartmouth.
Their mutual connection plays an important part in the story.
Portia has been working as an admissions officer so long that her speeches to student applicants are given by rote and amount to not much more than “If this is is the right place for you, then you will get in.”
Portia admits that she is not good with kids, but she gets excited when she learns that the dean of admissions, played by Wallace Shawn, is retiring, and she and another officer are in consideration to replace him, because if she gets the job this will be her last travel season.
John calls Portia and invites her to visit his school, which is having its first graduating class, because he would like her to meet an exceptional student, Jeremiah, who is interested in attending Princeton.
Portia agrees to visit, because her mother, played by Lily Tomlin, lives near the school, and so Portia could also visit her mother.
Well, the students at the New Quest School are so exceptional that they force Portia to change the speech of rote that she always gives, but the most interesting thing about Portia’s visit is that John informs her that Jeremiah is probably Portia’s son, whom she gave up for adoption after she had him in college.
When Portia meets Jeremiah, they have enough in common that Portia becomes convinced that he is her son, but, of course, she and John don’t tell Jeremiah that, and this new complication in Portia’s life changes her situation and behavior back at Princeton.
And Portia does a bad, bad thing because of it.
Given all the complications in the story, the audience can’t tell if it is going to have a happy ending or not, and so I won’t ruin it for you.
Admission is a multicultural love story, and a multigenerational one, too.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
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“Moonrise Kingdom” a Weird Piece of Crap
0June 30, 2012
“Weird Piece of Crap”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Moonrise Kingdom is the latest film from acclaimed writer and director Wes Anderson, and if you thought his previous films were weird and offbeat, get ready for this one.
To say that the films of Anderson are an acquired taste would be an overstatement. Each of his films is an acquired taste, and this latest one left a bad taste in my mouth.
The cast doesn’t lack for fame and talent, and it includes Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, and Harvey Keitel, but all of them play supporting roles in the story, which is about two 12-year-old misfits who fall in love and decide to run away together.
Now, if you think that is quirky, even the location of the story is quirky. It takes place in 1965 on an island off the coast of New England.
We learn that a year earlier Sam Shakusky and Suzy Bishop had met when she was appearing in a pageant and he went backstage where Suzy was in makeup and asked her, “What bird are you?”
They took a liking to each other, apparently because they were both troubled kids without any friends, and they became pen pals, writing to each other regularly for the past year and making plans to escape together.
Now, remember that they are both 12 years old and living on a small island, and so you can see some ready-made flaws in their plan, right?
Anyway, they meet on schedule and take off to a small cove where they plan to hide out. The adults discover that the kids are missing, and so they start searching for them.
There is also a storm coming that is going to turn into a hurricane.
We see many scenes of Sam and Suzy swimming and dancing around in their underwear that are uncomfortable to watch, especially when Sam paints a picture of Suzy lying down that is a direct copy of the painting scene in the 1997 Titantic, except for their ages and their underwear.
Also, everyone–including the adults–acts deadly serious, which must have been the director’s choice for comic effect, but it just comes across as stupid.
And just when you think it couldn’t get any weirder, it does.
Moonrise Kingdom is just a piece of weird, stupid crap.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
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Jann Scotts Journal: Sally McNulty’s father died in the war: she always looked sad
0May 26, 2012
Jann Scott’s Journal is the story and life of Boulder Icon and talk host Jann Scott. He has been in print, on radio and on TV in Boulder since 1989. Some consider him the voice of Boulder’s soul.
In the small New England town of 4,000 where I grew up, there were a lot of war vets. My dad was a wounded war vet from WWII. The north town cemetery has graves from the American Revolution on up. In front of the library on main street is a memorial to the men and women who served in WWII. There are over 500 names on it. 32 have white crosses next to them.
In the small New England town of 4,000 where I grew up, there were a lot of war vets. My dad was a wounded war vet from WWII. The north town cemetery has graves from the American Revolution on up. In front of the library on main street is a memorial to the men and women who served in WWII. There are over 500 names on it. 32 have white crosses next to them.
Over 10& of our towns population served. Every man of fighting age served and many of the women. In the early 50′s the war was
American children who have lost fathers of brothers in war
still fresh in peoples minds and there were some big parades on Memorial Day. My dad marched in some but, then after a while mostly everybody wanted to forget the war. But everybody came out for the parade and they all gathered around the memorial for taps when the names of the war dead were read out loud. Everybody cried too. I didn’t understand. I was only 5 or 6 at the time.
But I do remember little Sally McNulty crying. She was two years older than me and seemed to be the only little kid crying. My dad would pick her up and tell her it would be OK and that a lot of people in our town loved her. Then he would buy her an Ice Cream cone and it would be over.
Later when I was in high school Sally had come to work for my families business and we sort of hit off a friendship. that consisted of me helping her baby sit, drinking a six pack of beer and making out.
But Sally had never gotten over her fathers death. He was killed at Anzio when she was just two years old, but she remembered him. Her mom who looked just like Sally drank a bit to cover her pain. She never remarried. Sally said she felt so out of place because she didn’t have a father and she hated to explain “that no her parents weren’t divorced, that they loved each other very much and that my father was killed in the war”. Gulp. I didn’t know a lot of kids who lost someone in the war. But it wasn’t a joking matter. It was sobering.
A picture of Sally’s father sat on a table in the living room of her house in 1965. He was a smiling handsome guy of about 22. And he was dead. ” It has really affected my mom and I she said. We have been pretty unhappy for the last 20 years.
Now at 66 I have a lot of stories like this. My friend Anne lost her brother in Vietnam while she was a CU Junior. Anne was an intern at the newspaper I worked at. To this day she hosts a memorial for her brother at her Boulder home. She hasn’t forgotten.
We should all remember the families of those who have fallen on this memorial day.
from a city with many war dead on both sides of the Indian Wars, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the middle East
Jann Scott
Boulder Colorado
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My visit to Windsor Castle
0April 14, 2012
Sylvia and I took a day trip up the Thames river to the Royal Castle one summers day in August. Windsor Castle sits on 13 acres in the country in Berkshire county England. Coincidentally, I grew up in the Berkshires in New England not that I lay any claim to royalty or the castle, but a visit to Windsor is awe inspiring.
To give you some perspective, Windsor Castle was originally built by William the Conqueror in the decade after the Norman conquest of 1066. It is surround by the beautiful Windsor park In all it is the size of Boulder….well nearly
Sylvia was American English. She looked very English. We were young in love and on an adventure. She studied fashion design at Bournemouth College. I was a staffer at International Times in London.
The castle is so big it was used as a fortress and was a small town complete with everything for self sustainability. Even today as the Royals official castle and sometime summer home it maintains a staff of 400 just to keep it going.
We were drawn to one part of the castle the Crimson drawing room which stretched on for ever.
And then there was the Kings Bedroom also in crimson.
Anyway, if you do go to England this summer or any summer, do go to Windsor Castle if you want to be blown away. Yes, but go in the summer. The winter is too cold and dreary. and make sure the Royals aren’t there, because they won’t let you in.
From Royal Boulder
Jann Scott
