Bite Me, Tony

We caught the redeye flight out of San Francisco International Airport Sunday night and wound up back in Ft. Lauderdale at 7:30 Monday morning. Stepping out of the subzero environs of the FLL baggage claim area, we were immediately scooped up into the clammy, overwrought embrace of a rainy South Florida morning. The surly Lyft driver eyed us warily while we loaded our own luggage into the trunk of his Nissan Altima. An unhelpful fellow, he apparently wasn't feeling too chatty, either, since during the drive home, he remained grim-faced and silent. Welcome home, boys. I didn't mind, really, since it'd been a day or two since I'd gotten any sleep and my thought processes weren't up to formatting complete sentences anyway.  On the whole, I'd rather be back in San Francisco. It's cool there, and by cool , I mean it in every sense of the word. Of course, the ungodly heat here is a given: if you haven't had the (dis)pleasure of experiencing a South Florida su...

Last night I watched Blow-Up again. It is my go-to movie whenever I start feeling nostalgic for the 60's. It's also one of my all-time favorite movies from my favorite decade for movies. I watched a lot of movies in the 60's, by the way. My maternal granddad, a Stetson-wearing, boot-scootin', skirt-chasin' rancher, was a big movie buff, though his tastes generally ran towards the dynamic pairings of two Johns: Ford and Wayne. All the better if Jane Russell or Maureen O'Hara were co-starring. I mention my grandfather because he is central to my development as a film lover; together (and sometimes with my grandmother), we watched countless old movies on television when I was growing up, as well as at the local drive-in picture show. My grandfather  did not introduce me to Blow-Up, by the way. To be honest, I doubt if he ever heard of it. By the time 1970 rolled around, he, like many of his kinfolk, pretty much lived fulltime in a John Wayne western (minus the ...

What fresh hell is this?  ( quote attributed to Dorothy Parker*)                                                                                                                       A surprise to no one, yet, nevertheless, a stinging slap in the face to women across the nation, the Supreme Court, on Friday, overturned Roe v. Wade, the longstanding federal legislation allowing women the right to have an abortion. Much reviled by religious and pro-life organizations, Roe v. Wade has had a target on its back since the Supreme Court announced its ruling back in 1973. After assuring Congressional inquisitors during confirmation hearings that they would not reconsider matters that were estab...

Today is Father's Day . It also happens to be Juneteenth . My dad, though no longer with us, would appreciate this. Despite his conservative appearance and, often, dour professional demeanor--he was, after all, a small-town school superintendent (starting out) in 1960's Oklahoma --Dad was actually very progressive and extremely well-educated, quietly championing the plight of the poor and oppressed while working within a biased educational system. In a state (and community) steeped in virulent racism and religious superstition, my dad identified with those on society's margins. One of ten children, he was five years old when his own father died in the mid-1930's. The family found themselves homeless and penniless in the epicenter of the Dust Bowl at the height of the Great Depression . After his father's more fortunate brothers loaded up the family and their few belongings in a truck, they drove them to Boise City, Oklahoma, where the uncles had selected a former c...

What do you even begin to say about Julia Ducournau 's 2021 Palm d'Or winner, Titane ? Wow? Okay, how about: it's not for everybody. In fact, it's probably not for a vast majority of moviegoers, particularly those weaned on soppy romances and superhero "event" movies. Although, to be honest, Titane 's subversive edge does include turning certain elements of Marvel Entertainment and the DC Universe on their heads. And I am really-- REALLY --onboard with that!  Titane is ostensibly a sci-fi/horror hybrid that manages to cross over into significantly deeper territory, transcending its bleak, gory plotline of savagery and transformation, and morphing into a moving meditation on the transformative power of unconditional love. However, getting from Point A to Point B is no walk in the park.  SPOILERS below: Our barely verbal anti-heroine, Alexia, has a titanium plate in her skull, the result of a near-fatal childhood car crash for which she bears much resp...