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Shoulda Coulda

Movies

John Nolte does an interesting service for all of us in examining which movies should have won Best Picture awards during the 1960s.

I only took issue with a couple (and I agree with his scorn for the Academy’s inexplicable yen for big-budget musicals like Sound of Music, West Side Story and [the weakest] Oliver! ).

Kim’s List of the Shoulda-Wons:

1960:  BUtterfield 8  (over The Apartment ).  Liz Taylor won Best Actress, and the movie was just as good.

1961:  The Misfits  (over West Side Story ).  At the end of this movie, my emotions felt like they’d been pulled through a roll of barbed wire.  Gable and Monroe, both unbelievably good.

1962:  Lawrence of Arabia  (which did win, and deservedly so).  The only other possible contenders could have been Cape Fear  and What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?

1963:  Lilies Of The Field  (over Tom Jones ).  This one’s not even close.

1964:  Becket  (over My Fair Lady ).  Once again, not even close.  The only other movie which could ever be considered that year was Zorba The Greek.

1965:  Doctor Zhivago (over The Sound Of Music ).  Or maybe The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, if we’re going to consider Cold War noir  movies as Oscar material.

1966:  A Man For All Seasons.  Which won, and considering it’s one of the greatest movies ever made — bar none — there’s no argument from either me or Nolte.

1967:  Nolte makes this a tie between In The Heat Of The Night  (which won) and Bonnie and Clyde.  I would fuzz the issue up by arguing for Cool Hand Luke  and Belle Du Jour  (even though it’s furrin;  good is good, and it’s magnificent).

1968:  This was the Year Of Oliver!  — and while Nolte recommends Rosemary’s Baby  in its place, I would choose The Lion In Winter  (even though it’s really just a filmed play like Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet — also from 1968).  It was actually a terrible year for movies, and the only other way to go is for the quirky (e.g. Lindsay Anderson’s if… or Once Upon A Time In The West ).  That’s five alternatives to Oliver!, and each of the five is better that that syrupy slop.

1969:  Midnight Cowboy  won, and deservedly so.  My only possible alternatives would be Anne of the Thousand Days  or The Wild Bunch, but in truth, they’re far behind.

Lots of fun.  Feel free to nominate your favorites, in Comments.

Afterthought:  Nolte has done the same for the following decades, but they’re less interesting — both in terms of the movies themselves and how time changed the criteria for Oscar-winning films.  (Braveheart?  Titanic?  Seriously? )

Well, There’s That

Boomershoot

Email from National Treasure Joe Huffman, concerning The Great Gun Robbery:

That really sucks.
I have moved your entry to next year. Same position, etc.
The event will probably be April 29th -> May 1st.

Joe Huffman
Boomershoot Event Director

For me, Boomershoot is becoming like the Jews’ mantra:  “Next year in Jerusalem Orofino.”

Itchy Feet 2

Travels

NOT HELPING, YOU GUYS!!!

Oh let me see… this?

…or this:

Well, I’ve been to Paris before, but never Milan.  So:

Arriverderci, tutti.  [Italian for “See y’all later.”]

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

Wait… what day is it?

Oh yeah, it’s Monday.

So to get things a little more ship-shape, some funny stuff.  And given what happened over the past couple weeks, what better than a little black-and-white humor?  (And just so we’re all clear about my bona fides :  remember that I’m a full-blooded  African-American.)

Well, who can resist that invitation?

And after all that, I think it’s time for an All-American White Girl:

Disaster

Boomershoot, Crime, The Gun Thing

Yesterday I went over to our (still-being-rebuilt) apartment.  Not having any room in our tiny hotel room, on Wednesday I’d taken all the Boomershoot stuff and stored it in our (locked) garage, to be loaded into the rental SUV for the trip up to Idaho on Monday (tomorrow).

On Friday night, the garage was burgled and all the guns and related stuff stolen.

Rifle #1:  CZ 557 Varmint (.308 Win)
Scope #1:  Vortex Viper HS-T

Rifle #2:  CZ 550 American (6.5x55mm)
Scope #2:  Meopta Optika6 Illuminated (4.5-30x50mm)

Revolver:  Ruger Single Six (.22LR/.22Mag)

Also, a double-rifle hard case and two range bags.

And, of course, about a thousand rounds of .308 and 6.5x55mm ammo, all helpfully loaded into ammo cans, and a few dozen rounds of .45, .22 and 9mm (in the range bags).  Amazingly, a pair of expensive Steiner binoculars were tossed aside (!).

Total value of the stolen goods:  just under $6,000.

All our brand new replacement furniture, and electronics (TV, computer etc.) and all my tools (!) were untouched.  They were after the guns.  (Thank gawd I’d already moved all my other guns over to Doc Russia’s place, or else I’d be in even more trouble.)

According to the Plano PD (yeah, I have a case # and everything), there were no fingerprints left, which points to a pro job.  There is a pretty substantial group of suspects — this was not a case of a couple guys walking past and deciding that this looked like a likely place to burgle — but I’ll leave that to the cops to figure out.  They have the list.

What this means:

1.)  I’ve had to cancel Boomershoot this year — no point in going, no guns to shoot, no ammo, nada.  I’ve already canceled the rental SUV and hotel accommodation.  So we’re all clear on this:  I am spitting angry, but most of all I am embarrassed because many of you kind folks sent me money, not only for the drawing but to help with the costs of associated purchases for the trip — several items of which have already been bought.  Aaargh.  Nevertheless, if you are one of those people who specified that the money was for expenses, email me and I will refund you your money.  (Almost all the paper records I have were being kept — where else? in one of the missing range bags — so I have no clue what the total amount is;  but I’ll trust in your honesty.)

2.)  When the insurance company reimburses me for the guns (less my $500 co-pay of course), I’ll replace the CZ 557 and scope, and hold the lottery for that rig then.  I don’t know how long it will take for them to do this, most likely a few months.  Please be patient with me while I speak to the insurance company over the next few days.

3.)  I have no idea whether the guns will ever be recovered.

Fuck.

Kim’s Hell

Architecture, Modernism

This is what happens when I get curious about stuff and set out to explore.

Last week, I read that former Spain- and Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas (one of the best goalies ever, btw) has divorced his journototty wife Sara:

…and moved to a “Japanese-style” penthouse in La Finca.

Where dat?

Not being familiar with Spain, I eventually found out that it’s a swanky suburb of Madrid.  (I should also mention that I caught the giggles because I first read “Finca” as “Fica” — the Italian slang for “pussy” — but I recovered and went on.)

I should have stopped upon learning that La Finca was a Madrid suburb.  But noooo, I had to see what it looks like.  Casilla’s penthouse apartment (see here) should have given me a clue, but when I DuckDucked it, I saw stuff like this… endless examples of foul glass and concrete boxes modernity:

       

I could go on, but I think you get the drift.  (If you want to see bigger pictures — gawd help you — just DuckDuck “La Finca Madrid”.)

As a rule, I quite like traditional Spanish architecture — especially the Catalonian style:

 

…and as for apartments and public buildings:

 

Compared to those, La Finca Horrible doesn’t even come close:

I think I need to look at something beautiful, just to recover from that hideousness.  Here’s Paz Vega:

Now that’s some classic Spanish architecture for you.