Once I get inside and hit these air conditioners I get a little dizzy. -Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

The quote I really wanted to use, but is too long for a blogger title:
-First of all, don't make fun of the weather here, and don't say the weather is the same all the time here. Because it's not. In fact, it's two degrees colder today than yesterday.
-Two degrees colder, me without my muff.


1. What film did Alfred Hitchcock make twice?

2. What actor's arms did Frank Sinatra die in, in From Here To Eternity?

3. What 1970 war epic ended with the line: "All glory is fleeting"?

4. Who sang Put the Blame on Mame in Gilda?

5. What film concerned the first murder in the annals of Sparta, Mississippi?

ETA: Answers, finally, in the comments.

# 18: Out of Africa

Out Of Africa by Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen) is a memoir of a time and a place that don't exist anymore: European colonial Africa. This is one instance though where I was glad that I saw the movie movie before reading the book, in order to have a visual sense of the scenery. The movie is vastly different than the book because it is based on the life of Karen Blixen as opposed to what is in the memoir, which has sketches of life in Africa, no mention of her husband, and stories about her 'friend' Denys Finch-Hatton. What makes this book worth reading is Karen Blixen's ability to describe what it is to be a stranger in a strange land who suddenly feels at home there. When forced to leave Kenya at the end of the book she writes about how it feels to leave a place you have been of, rather than just in:

I was the last person to realize that I was going. When I look back upon my last months in Africa, it seems to me that the lifeless things were aware of my departure a long time before I was so myself. The hills, the forests, plains and rivers, the wind, all knew that we were to part. When I first began to make terms with fate, and the negotiations about the farm were taken up, the attitude of the landscape towards me changed. Till then I had been part of it, and the drought had been to me like a fever, and the flowering of the plain like a new frock. Now the country disengaged itself from me, and stood back a little, in order that I should see clearly and as a whole.

I've experienced a similar feeling when leaving a place that had become home without realizing it, and never would have expressed the feeling this elegantly or perfectly. These places, my college town and the cities of my internships, I don't think I truly saw until I was leaving them.

The other nice thing about seeing the movie first: its nice to have Robert Redford as the idea of what Denys looks like when reading about a character for whom little physical description is given. Substitute a young Meryl Streep for the narrator if that is your persuasion.

To make yard-long green bean soup, first you must have some yard-long green beans.

It's been a busy week at work and elsewhere, but thankfully it is now over. This weekend I planted seeds in the garden for basil, chives, and yard-long green beans. The Basil, because I have a problem paying the high prices in the grocery store for the fresh stuff and so many summer recipes require it. The chives just because. The yard-long green beans because a long time ago (maybe 15 years) I saw and episode of Yan Can Cook with my brother in which he made yard-long green bean soup. It was the funniest cooking show we had ever seen, if only because Yan cannot say "r"'s very well and it sounded sort of like 'yawd-long gween-bean' soup. Only he said it really fast..over and over again. Here's what youtube digs up for Yan:



Hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to make some yard-long green bean soup for myself.

Change the title. It sounds too much like a beer.

The above, written by a Warner Brothers publicist in a studio memo just before the 1942 world premiere of Casablanca.

CBS is airing the new American Film Institute 100 years...100 films results tomorrow from 8 to 11. Of the old list I've seen 71. Of the 400 films on the ballot, I've seen 178. The criteria, in addition to the requirements of being a narrative over 60 minutes in length and having significant creative or production elements from the United States, that the jurors are asked to judge the films on are: Critical Recognition, Major Award Winner (Awards), Popularity Over Time, Historical Significance, and Cultural Impact.

Comparing the old list to this criteria, it's easy to see why some of the more controversial choices end up in the 100 films list. The Birth Of A Nation isn't going to do well under in the popularity over time category--but, it is a significant film in the other categories, it introduced new techniques for camera shots, action sequences, and film editing. Are its technical merits enough to overcome the actual content of the story being told? I'm not sure, I haven't seen this film yet, though I will since it's part of the 1001 MYMSBYD. It should probably stay on the list only because it was the first feature length American film, and only for that reason. We'll find out tomorrow.

Tuesday night's plastic corrosion awareness meeting, was I think, a big success. -Toy Story (1995)

It's trivia time once again, on schedule for once! (Question, is it still a schedule if it rarely follows it? This of course akin to the age old, if a tree falls in the forest...)

1. What was blown up in Blow-Up?

2. What Fellini film opened with a helicopter lifting a statue of Christ out of Rome?

3. What medal was Raymond Shaw awarded in The Manchurian Candidate?

4. What Bogart film was so complicated that the director said: "Neither the author, the writer nor myself knew who had killed whom"?

5. What did Clark Gable call the sheet he strung up between him and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night?

ETA: Answers in the comments

generation whY?

It has come to my attention recently that I may be classified as a member of Gen Y. I might also be a member of Gen X. Apparently being born in 1980 puts me with one foot in X and one foot in Y. While I remember the Challenger explosion (I was 5, and shuttle launches were sufficiently exciting to be watched on television at school), a defining moment according to wikipedia (if it's on wikipedia it must be right!), I probably don't have much in common with those born in the 1960's. Luckily I miss being a Millenial by 2 years by graduating from highschool in 1998. Luckily, because the word Millenial is annoying and kind of sticky. Luckily, because even though I went to school with people that graduated from highschool after 1999 there's a sense of difference that a change in the century made. Maybe it was their denial about when the new century actually started...who knows, hey they got the nice round number and the lack of leap year. Whatever it is, I'm glad I'm not one. But, I also don't feel like a founding member of Gen Y. I suppose my identity issues stem from my two brothers, who are rightful members of Gen X. This is who I am, the younger sister of Gen X. And I'm okay with that.

Yeah but when Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't start to eat the people. -Jurassic Park (1993)

To make up for missing last weeks installment:
9 questions with numbers for answers, 1 with a number in the question...

1. How many lines did Dumbo have in the Disney animated film Dumbo?

2. How many horse drew the buck in Stagecoach?

3.What percent of the action in Springtime for Hitler was sold in The Producers?

4. How many Von Trapp children were there in The Sound Of Music?

5. How many months did Henry Higgins give himself to make a lady of Eliza in My Fair Lady?

6. How many biplanes shot down King Kong in 1933?

7. What stretch of time was Cool Hand Luke sentenced to?

8. How many members of the commando force survived the assault on the bridge on the River Kwai?

9. How many broke out, however briefly, in The Great Escape?

10. What film saw Bud Baxter stuck in Section W, Desk 861, of the Ordinary Policy Department?

ETA: Answers in comments