Weird things found

[captainsblog]

* In my own garage, an international organization of evil.

Well, only homonymically. I got home yesterday from a Full Rich Day of driving to and from a faraway court for little purpose whatsoever, and found a bird trapped in our garage.  Despite us opening the car-size door to assist in its escape, it proceeded to treat the opened door as a very large perch and stayed up there close to an hour pining for the fjords, or whatever a bird does in rainy cold autumn weather.

Further  research proved it to be a member of the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity (more about the Bush administration later). It had cute little markings on its breast, much like these


- and had a delightful little song, which we interpreted as "hell, I'm not going anywhere."

We left an extra window open for it to use, and it was gone by this morning, but it's always nice to have company.

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* A bunch of weirdass movies made in the 70s.

I added to my [insert count here once I figure it out]-Books-Read list last week by finishing a cute little mystery from a writer named Lisa Lutz. Titled The Spellman Files, it chronicles a 30-ish member of a family private eye firm in taking on the evil villains of the world, most of whom, it seems, she is related to.  I mention this mainly because at one key point, she's dating a dentist, and upon finding out that her little sister is shadowing him to get dirt on their relationship, he aids the protagonist's cause by encouraging the kid to stop spying on them.  Big sister Izzy starts it by arranging a family viewing of the video of Marathon Man, and the dentist then seals the deal by asking the little sister, while in his dentist chair, "Is it safe?"

To anyone who's ever seen even that one scene from the film, no words from a dentist can ever be as scary, and sure enough, little Rae amscraed in record time. Still, I got a jones to catch up on the film itself for the first time in years, and with the help of the fast-forward button, really enjoyed it.  It comes with some updated making-of type features, the really touching ones being about Laurence Olivier. The producer speaks of the immense difficulty they had in getting insurance on Olivier, who had taken ill by that time, and how they finally went to a high-risk, Lloyds-style underwriter in England and said, "Dammit, you OWE him!" They wrote the coverage, and he not only outlived the shooting, but lived, and made films for most of, 13 more years.  Dustin Hoffman also contributed a scene in which he recounts a meetup with Olivier in New York, where Hoffman was unexpectedly presented with a gift from "his Lordage" (as they affectionately called him). It was a set of Shakespeare books- utterly unremarkable for their publishing vintage, but priceless beyond all words in that Olivier had annotated so many of the speeches with his own notes on his interpretations of the parts. 

Tonight, reminded by God-knows-what, I'm trying another weird film from that era, the tag line for which just popped into my head the other day:

Zechariah!-iah!-iah!

Perhaps the world's only rock-musical western, it has the minds of the Firesign Theater behind it. I'm guessing I will either love it to death or smoosh it to pieces after five minutes.

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* Other manifestations of evil, foreign and domestic.

On the subject to death-by-smooshies, here's one more reason to hate the government:

Chertie, Yer Doin' a Heckuva Job!

The Federal Emergency Management Agency staged a fake news conference this week, with agency staff officials, pretending to be reporters, peppering one of their own bosses with decidedly friendly questions about the response to the California fires, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged Friday.

...
The questions from the staff were posed after FEMA gave reporters only 15 minutes notice for a news conference on Tuesday, meaning that other than television camera crews, no reporters showed up before questioning began. A toll-free telephone line was provided so reporters could listen in, but it was not set up to allow questions.

As a result, staff members asked Mr. Johnson a series of friendly questions like, “Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” and, “What lessons learned from Katrina have been applied?”

I'm surprised they didn't throw up any softballs about whether FEMA suspects either Osama bin-Laden or illegal aliens of setting the fires, or about why anyone who questions the deployment of men and materiel is some liberal who hates America.

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Elliott seems have come to at least one or two of his senses on the illegal alien issue; he was scheduled to announce today that he is going to allow New York to join the secure license program for citizens only known as REAL ID. It'll just be a matter of time, though, before some fringe group complains about how that will turn illegal immigrants into "second class citizens" who won't be able to vote or board planes on account of being racially profiled.

::pauses for the insanity of that to sink in::

Comments

[symian.livejournal.com]

I loved "Marathon Man". Excellent.

Did you like "The Boys From Brazil"? Really, they don't make movies like that anymore. Not really. Not without too many special effects. One wonders if actors these days can pull of the work without that help. Sort of like Costner in No Way Out. Excellent.

I was scanning through cable today and saw "Clifford" with Martin Short and Charles Grodin. I hated that movie when it came out, and I hate it today. Probably one of the worst films ever made.

*shudders*