My Family Theater: "Ruthless People" (1986)

"You look like my mother... I hate my mother!"

Why don't people ever talk about the 1986 David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams comedy "Ruthless People" when they yammer on and on about classic 1980's films?

Ken and Sandy, a married couple and pair of too-nice kidnappers (Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater) kidnap shrieking, poisonous Barbara Stone (Bette Midler) to get money from Sam Stone (Danny Devito), who screwed them by stealing and getting rich stealing Sandy's clothing designs. The one thing they don't count on? Sam was going to kill Barbara anyway and is thrilled that she's been kidnapped.

Icing on the cake! Bill Pullman and the late, great and hot Anita Morris are trying to get theirs.

It is in no way appropriate for children, yet I have wonderful memories of being home sick from school watching this film with my mother, snorting with laughter at Midler shouting at her inept kidnappers, "YOU'VE FUCKED WITH THE WRONG PERSON! My husband does business with the Mafia! When they track you down, you, your entire family, everyone you ever KNEW will all get chainsaw enemas!"

DeVito has never been slimier or better. This scene of him sharing the secret of his success with a young cop (he's also supposed to be worried sick over his kidnapped wife) is comedy gold and possibly the best way to answer a wrong number.

And how nice is it to see Bette Midler doing Rated R comedy before she submitted to gooey chick roles, like the insulin-shock inducing Beaches or the vile Scenes from a Mall or the epic-ly crappy WWII cheesefest For the Boys.

This revenge on the rich-who-screw-over-the-working-guy was perfect for the greed obsessed 1980s but is just as delightful now.

Amazing animated opening sequence to Mick Jagger song! - click here!

Girls Write Now

Just calling some attention to Girls Write Now, my favorite non-profit and where they are kind enough to let me come and help out now and again.

This spring, Girls Write Now is thrilled to announce CHAPTERS, showcasing the work of New York City's best teen writers and the professional women who mentor them, and featuring a dynamic, diverse line-up of special guest authors.

Curated by Maud Newton, CHAPTERS readings will be held at the Center for Fiction(17 East 47th Street bet. 5th Ave. & Madison), from 6:00PM to 8:00PM.

On J.D. Salinger's Passing

Can a person be "in the world but not of it"?

Well, a writer must spend some time in the world to write about it, obviously. And I guess a writer such as J.D. Salinger, didn't have to spend too much time with people to write honestly and perfectly about the loneliness of being a fragile soul in a world full of loudmouths, blowhards, dullards and cretins. Seymour the damaged soul, traumatized in WWII, no longer able or interested in communicating with regular people, even his nail-lacquering wife. His characters all cry out for understanding in a loud, busy, cruel world that keeps on going on despite the fact that there are adults out there who never learned to be adults. They hurt like children hurt, that's why a lot of them like or deeply resent children. Jews can live like WASPs but they're still Jews and it makes life harder for complicated reasons.

I suppose a life of travel, luxe living in New York City, then getting hurled onto Utah Beach in 1944, he met a lot of different kinds of people. I guess he felt like he'd met enough.

Thanks to the The New Yorker for linking to 12 stories today. "Teddy" and "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut" are two his most devastating and two of my very favorites.

Books About Movies That Don't Suck

Is there anything more boring and pretentious than humorless bloviating gasbags farting on and on about film? Not to me. If you are going to write about the movies, I need on-set stories, interviews with the actual filmmaker (not just "Chris Farley Show" hero worship) and some sense of historical background. I'm just a movie lover, not a film critic. Give me something juicy or go home.

So here are some books about the movies that I've read and re-read. I'm sure there are others.

City of Nets by Otto Friedrich

The Studio by John Gregory Dunne

The Devil's Candy by Julie Salamon

Final Cut by Stephen Bach

That is all for today.

If you want to fritter some time away, I recommend Nathan Rabin's hilarious and comprehensive "My Year of Flops" on the AV Club. It's one of the few things I can honestly say, I wish I had written.

Tips for a More Delightful Life

Just some ideas for making your days just a little less rife with despair.

1) Buy frozen fruit such as peaches, strawberries or mango. Use in your juice instead of ice cubes. Then, when you are done drinking, leave the glass in your sink. A few hours later, you will be pleased to discover thawed, tasty fruit, ready to be sucked down. It's all about surprising yourself!

2) Turn your morning OJ into a mocktail. Buy REAL cranberry juice (its expensive, cheaper at Traders Joes but you only need a splash, so it will last a long time) and toss a shot into your morning orange juice. Tart, tasty, full of vitamin C and a friend to your bladder! Feel free to toss in frozen fruit (see above) or booze to add some "cock" to your mocktail.

3) Take more baths. Sure they aren't great for the environment but once in a while, it's good for the old jangled nerves. Toss in some Epsom Salts - $2.49 for a huge bag of it at Rite-Aid. I like the Lavender scented ones but plain ones are good too. Use sparingly, if you are a homeowner, salt rots your plumbing. But if you are a renter, fuck it, not your problem.

4) Make your own applesauce. I use the recipe from the "Joy of Cooking." Cheap to make (the guys at the farmers market are happy to unload their imperfect apples) and lovely to eat with everything: pierogi, yogurt, chicken cutlets, or just on its own. I recommend a mix of sour and sweet apples. Makes your house smell good.

5) Get a cat from a shelter. My cat Moshe has melted the black ore that once surrounded my heart. He is a big weirdo and barfs up big hairballs and doesn't see so hot out of one eye. But when I'm mad at him, I tell him how grateful he should be for me for saving his life from misery and cage horror. One time, he knocked T's turkey sandwich off the table, scarfed the turkey and left the bread all in 15 seconds. We called it his "Last Great Heist" since he's about 10 years old. Kind of like Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in "Tough Guys."

6) Watch some Preston Sturges films. Without these films, the Coen brothers would be a bunch of romantic comedy directors or something. Interestingly, he was an Orson Welles-style auteur in the early 1940's... the same time at Orson Welles was irking people all over Hollywood. I love Orson Welles films for when I want to wallow in the callous-ness of man. But when I want to laugh, I watch: "Sullivan's Travels" and "The Palm Beach Story." Check out

"The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" -- a film that caused critics to cry: The censor board was "raped in its sleep."

7) Read "A Way of Life, Like Any Other" by Darcy O'Brien. I found this book on the remainder shelves Coliseum Books before it closed its midtown location. One of the greatest coming of age stories ever. I can't say enough about how much I loved this book. Turned me on to the New York Review Books press.

8) Buy bed linen that you can mix and match with other bed linen. That way, if your pillow cases get ratty, you can toss them but keep the top sheet, etc... I've got kind of a sea green thing going. Nothing matches but it looks "eclectic." Aha!

9) Call your grandma. She misses you. If you have no grandma, call someone else's grandma. Or your grandpa. Or great-aunt.

10) Make coffee with a french press. I don't actually do this but my husband says it's a great way to drink your coffee. So give it a try. He vouches for its delightful-ness.

Emma Bovary, The Original Desperate Housewife

Saw "Madame Bovary" (1949) last night. It was pretty decent actually, despite being bookended by absurd "courtroom testimony" by Flaubert at his obscenity trial. It must have been some censor or decency issue. I wish James Mason would come back to life and read me bedtime stories.

Anyhoo, Jennifer Jones as Emma was too beautiful and Van Heflin as Dr. Bovary not nearly nebbish-y enough. Ballroom dancing scene was fantastic. A stretch to compare it to Saturday Night Fever dance scene but then again, it's possible the director had seen "Madame Bovary". It was directed by Vincent Minnelli after all.

I read the book last year and found it much more modern than I expected. Subtle and snide and sympathetic, the book is fresher than the film.

Amazing trailer! English, with French subtitles.




Not much to say today. Feeling okay. Working from home, sending ideas out into the ether and waiting for response... not easy. Tomorrow may be better. More socializing, more to keep my brain percolating.

Making chickpea and mango curry for dinner tonight from this cookbook. Hope it turns out okay. I don't have much faith in my cooking ability.

I can't believe I've never seen a Satyajit Ray movie. I really need to remedy this.

Jim Croce, Lee Atwater and Lunch in Chelsea

While I was doing the dishes a few minutes ago, I heard the Jim Croce song "Operator." And as I listened to it, I thought about what a sad song it was in that hokey-ish but kind of heart-tweaking way that 1970s singer songwriters get just right. I'm a sucker for certain kinds of 1970s music, what can I say? I must have heard a lotta easy listening in the womb back in 1977.

I'd never even heard of the song until I read "Bad Haircut" the excellent collection of Tom Perrotta stories. I'd only bought the book because I liked the cover and the Harvard Book Store had an autographed copy near the register.

But what struck me the most about hearing that song was that the last time I'd heard it, I thought it was the saddest song of all time. I was going through a pretty deep and cavernous depression at the time (2001, I think) when I thought that nothing would ever get better. So maybe poor old Jim is the measuring stick for depression. If I can listen to it and do the dishes, I'm okay. If it makes me curl up in the fetal position sobbing, I may be facing a more serious problem.

Anyway.

Today was a good day. Had a delicious lunch with an old friend, (hey LK, if you're reading this!), got a writing assignment approved, came home and fed the cat. Nice!

Hoping to watch "Boogie Man", the documentary about GOP "genius" Lee Atwater tonight. It will probably depress the shit out of me but it sound fascinating nonetheless.

Link - PBS Frontline - The Lee Atwater story