Movie Review: Precious

Alternate Title: You Shouldn’t Go Home Again

Story: Put your prejudices away and run to see this powerful, emotional drama directed by Lee Daniels, written by Geoffrey Fletcher and based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire.

It is 1987, Harlem and Clareece Precious Jones is like no one you know. She is a 16 year old obese, illiterate girl who is pregnant with her second child after being raped again by her father. Why would you want to see such a seemingly depressing film? You need to see it because the script and acting are like nothing you have seen before – and, hard to believe, it is actually somewhat uplifting.

How Precious manages to escape her abusive mother, desperate situation and finds shreds of hope within herself is movie magic. Director Daniels finds just the right notes in style and substance and mixes reality with dream sequences to make this film all the more special.

I am a sucker for films about resilience, redemption and underdogs. Combine those qualities with incredible acting, an eclectic sound track and you have an award winner, for sure.

Acting: Unknown Gabourey Sidibe as Precious was simply wonderful. She will most definitely be walking the red carpet this award season. Mo’Nique as Mary should also see that red carpet since her performance was also amazing. Paula Patton as the lovely Ms. Rain, was terrific as was an almost unrecognizable Maria Carey as social worker, Ms. Weiss. Lenny Kravitz was fine in the small role of Nurse John.

Trivia: Mo’Nique launched own line of clothing Mo’Nique’s Big Beautiful and Loving It in August 2000. It closed in 2002. Paula Patton was featured on the cover of husband Robin Thicke’s first album, “A Beautiful World”. Lenny Kravitz has a daughter, Zoë Kravitz, with Lisa Bonet. He is the son of Roxie Roker and Sy Kravitz. He was named after his uncle, Pfc. Leonard Kravitz, who was killed in action in Korea on 7 March 1951 while suppressing a Chinese attack and saving most of his platoon; he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Lenny has joined the fight to get his uncle the Congressional Medal of Honor. Supporters believe the CMH has been denied to Pfc. Kravitz because he was Jewish.

Predilection: None

Critters: Cats and dogs (none were harmed)

Food: Lots of carbs, fried and greasy foods including chicken, pigs feet, corn and bread. The only healthy option was fruit eaten by a male nurse.

Sex Spectrum: Rape is not sex.

Blatant Product Placement: McDonald’s was discussed.

Soundtrack: A terrific mix of tunes by Mario Grigorov.

Opening Titles: The title is scrawled on a black background. All credits at the end.

Theater Audience: Note to self: Never ever go to the movies on a school holiday. We went on Veterans Day and it was a very crowded downstairs theater. Luckily we were in the secret balcony but sadly others have discovered that area too. It was, as they say, an interactive audience and many laughed at inappropriate times. The film was rated R – yet there were young children, accompanied by adults in evidence in the theater. I wanted to call the ratings police. Bad parenting reigns.

Weather: Precious weathers the seasons.

Sappy Factor: 0

Quirky Meter: 0

Squirm Scale: 3. The home that Precious came from was extremely abusive and at times, very hard to watch.

Drift Factor: We did not drift.

Predictability Level: High

Tissue Usage: 0

Oscar Worthy: Yes

Big Screen or Rental: This film should be seen on the big screen.

Length: Under two hours.

LOBO HOWLS: 9

Where are you going this time, Mom?  That’s what my dog Benny and cat Madison seem to be saying as they look at me with that ‘doesn’t this make you feel guilty’ look again.

Raise your hand if beach vacations are on the top of your list?  Hmm – I see lots and lots of hands.  I too, used to long for an empty beach, a good book and a drink with an umbrella in it.  So, what happened to that fun in the sun babe?  I am guessin’ the ravages of time and tide have altered my longing to be seen on a beach. Anyhow – I am off for a week – for a fine beach vacation with good friends.  Now where did I put that old lady bathing suit?
I am not taking my computer.  My goal is to not listen to much of the post-election poppycock and blathering.  I plan to unplug, de-rant, enjoy my good buddies and maybe even use their boogie board again. Gasp.

So I once again will suffer the indignities of being poked, sniffed and prodded at airports, gag at the awful smells and be forced to breathe the foul air on the plane and generally try to steer clear of anyone who is coughing, sneezing or wheezing. Alas, no matter how many times I leave for an airport the same nagging questions come to mind.

-  Is the dog sitter available?  -  Is the cat sitter available?  -  Should I pay my bills before I go away or wait until I come home? – Did I stop the newspaper from being delivered?  -  What book should I take?  What if I don’t like the one book I brought?  – Should I leave my windows open? -  How much cash should I take?  -  Did I forget my passport?  (you now need a passport to go to the Virgin Islands) -  What time should I call to have the car service pick me up?  -  Is the weather going to be good for the flight?  -  Will there be turbulence?  -  Will we make the connecting flight?  – What about swine flu?  -  Will some rat bastard diseased carrier be sitting next to me on the flight?  -  How many pairs of socks should I take?  – Underwear?  -  Will everything fit in my carry-on luggage? -  Do I need a winter coat for when I come home? – Did I pack my Xanax? -   Should I set an alarm clock?  I never need an alarm clock but I always set one before a trip.  I do not even know if the alarm clock works.  I am always up before it goes off.  Now I have to worry about that too. These are just a few of the things that are running through my brain. Mwah!

See you soon.

Election day is always an emotional roller coaster.  I was most nervous about Jon Corzine and guess what?  New Jerseyans decided they wanted the ‘fat guy’ not the ‘rich guy’ to run their state for the next four years. As we say in Yiddish ‘ gey gezunterheyt’ (fine – do whatever you like – don’t listen to me – see if I care’). Living across the river from New Jersey gives me a semi-interest in their politics and lots of laughs about their corruption and scandals.  Sometimes New Jersey makes the crowd in Albany look almost competent. The Jersey crowd has thrown out Corzine.  Let us see what Governor Christie can do with their economy.

I was not at all optimistic about the craziness in upstate New York in the 23rd district.  But I was interest in the Repugnant in-fighting over who was going to be Repugnantly Conservative enough to win the backing of the big shots in their shambles of a party. Democrat Bill Owens took a surprising victory in the special election, winning a House seat that Repugnants had controlled since 1872 and in the process, has probably cause more fighting amongst the Repugnants for control of the party. This is going to be good watching.

Bloomberg did not win by the huge (or as we say in Brooklyn -’yooge’) margin they thought he would. Only one million New Yorkers came out to vote. Shame on you if you did not vote.  You could not find 10 minutes out of a 15 hour polling day to exercise your right to vote? Bah!  Since he did not win by a huge amount I can already hear the rustling for position by the Democrats who now think 2013 is theirs.  Anthony Weiner?  Is it your turn?

The ugliest vote was out on Maine.  Once again, the bigots, the homophobes and the supposedly Christian believers have denied other people their rights. Maine voters repealed a state law granting same-sex couples the right to marry, defeating an effort by gay activists who hoped the state would become the first to approve gay marriage at the polls. Shame on Maine.

Virginia was not a contest from the beginning.

So what does it all mean?  Who knows?  The blathering TV heads will spin this anyway they choose.  The Dems are already saying it had nothing to do with Obama – well – I am not so sure of that.  The Repugnants will play down NY’s 23rd district in favor of bathering about NJ and Virginia.  I am going on vacation.

Movie Review: Law Abiding Citizen

Alternate Title: Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold

Story: Revenge can be very sweet, highly entertaining and has been an ongoing theme on the big screen for a long time. However, when the film maker loses sight of the reason for the revenge – huge plot holes can open up and a film quickly goes down the toilet. Sadly, director F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job) and writer Kurt Wimmer fall into that rabbit hole.

Engineer and family man, Clyde Shelton’s wife and daughter are brutally murdered during a home invasion. After the killers are caught, Philadelphia hot shot, prosecutor Nick Rice, in an effort to keep his conviction rate at 96% makes a deal that allows one of the killers to serve a light sentence and the other goes to death row. This abuse of the judicial system does not sit well with our grieving engineer, now widower.

Fast forward 10 years and the mayhem begins. Admittedly, watching the two murderers get their just rewards (however gruesome) was satisfying. If the film had ended there, it would have been considered a short. So, for another hour we endure the bodies piling up and after awhile my movie buddy and I would just point and snicker at which character was going to be whacked next.

The productions values were fine but sadly, the script was murdered along the way. Unlike their license plates, You do NOT have a friend in Pennsylvania in this bummer film.

Acting: Jamie Foxx, who usually surprises me with his acting, essentially grunted through this film. I do not know what the fuss is all about when it come to Gerard Butler. He does not appeal to me nor did I notice any acting skills in this film at all. Steady screen presences, Bruce McGill, Colm Meaney and Viola Davis all handed in fine performances given what they had to work with.

Trivia: Director F. Gary Gray won Best Video of the Year for Directing the TLC’s “Waterfalls” video at the 1995 MTV Music Video Awards. Gerard Butler went to Glasgow University where he studied to be a lawyer/solicitor. He is Scottish, but is of partial Irish ancestry. He has a tiny pug your could fit in your palm named Lolitta he fell in love with while walking by a pet shop.

Predilection: Sometimes gratuitous violence is very entertaining.

Critters: None, thankfully.

Food: A big scene involving a porterhouse steak, pasta and asparagus.

Blatant Product Placement: Apple, Duxiana beds, Pepsi

Soundtrack: Loud, louder and loudest.

Opening Titles: The horrific home invasion which leads to the revenge part of the film comes before the title. All other credits at the end.

Visual Art: The prison scenes were filmed at Broadmeadows prison, which is very much like Eastern States prison and can be visited in Philadelphia. I have been there and it is one cool tour.

Theater Audience: About 10 other people and us. FYI – my movie buddy liked Saw VI. Need I say more?

Weather: It was so cold while filming this movie, I pointed out to my movie buddy that you could see the breaths of the actors even while they were indoors.

Sappy Factor: 0

Quirky Meter: 0

Squirm Scale: The revenge killings are pretty squirmy.

Drift Factor: I did not drift.

Predictability Level: High

Tissue Usage: 0

Oscar Worthy: No

Big Screen or Rental: Rental would be fine.

Length: 110 minutes

LOBO HOWLS: 4

I love election day.  I have always loved politics and was raised in a very vocal, politically active family. I guess you could say I was genetically built with ranting in my veins. The photo on the left is of my father, my sister and little pudge-ball me standing in front of the White House, circa 1956. Notice how close you could get to the White House in those very innocent days where the only thing to fear was nuclear bombs dropping in your back yard.  Apparently, if you ducked for cover under your school desk – you would be all right.   Election days bubble with the hope of change, upsets and the possibility that everyone in the city (state or country) suddenly thinks like me. (oh, that was just a dream).

So, I grab the front section of the New York Times and head out the door at 7:01AM to vote.  I anticipate long lines like last year (what was I thinking?)  I enter the school where I vote and there it is – an empty gym.  I look around and what do I see?  An overweight NYPD cop busily looking at his Blackberry and two tables of smiling election workers.  They greet me with hearty “hellos” and a loud “welcome.” I said “Where is everybody?”  They laughed and said – “Maybe later.”

I vote straight party line – ALL DEMOCRATS and the head to the gym wondering if this is the year that apathy reigns.  It is too early to tell.

I have never missed an election.  Go out and vote.  It is your civic responsibility.  It feels good.

-  While lumbering on the treadmill at the gym thoughts of election days past flowed through my head.  Here are some standouts:

- My first vote was as an absentee in 1964. I had just turned 21 (which was the age to vote back then) and I got to vote for Robert F. Kennedy to be the next Senator for New York State. It was thrilling as my friends stood around our kitchen table in Providence RI and watched me mark my ‘X’ very proudly. My first vote was memorable and we won.  I thought that this was going to be the way it would be always — that we would win. Oy vey – how wrong I was.

- In 1972, my former husband and I were living in North West NJ and were poll watchers for the Nixon – McGovern Presidential race. We stood for hours, working for the Democrats, making sure the voters were not denied their right to vote.  As the day wore on we realized that we were probably the only two that had voted for McGovern.  I remember turning to my husband and saying ‘Let’s move.’

-  In 1980, we were living in California.  I had not even gotten to vote when the media had declared Reagan the winner.  I believe that was the first time I actually saw flames shooting out of my head.  I went to vote anyway. Nothing has ever been the same since that disastrous election day.

-  In 1992, living back in NYC, I met a group of like minded thinkers at the Central Park Zoo.  We were all Bill Clinton backers. I am the only one that is still working at the Zoo but we still are all friends and meet periodically to discuss the politics of the day. I can thank Mark, Linc and Sarah for helping me sort my thoughts which eventually turned itself into the LOBO RANT.

Keep the faith – I have.

While the Repugnants are busy wailing and flailing over Socialism, Government takeover of their precious health care system and other fruit loop topics, the Obama Administration is quietly passing laws.  Check out this article from today’s The Wall Street Journal (yes, the WSJ)  -

From the article:
-  The legislation includes, ‘defense-policy legislation that included an unrelated measure widening federal hate-crimes laws to cover sexual orientation and gender identification — 12 years after it was first introduced. The same legislation also tightened the rules of admissible evidence for military commissions, an issue that consumed Congress in debate in 2007 but received almost no attention this go-round.  The hate-crimes bill became law 11 years after the slayings of the men it is named after: Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay man left for dead on a split-rail fence in Wyoming, and James Byrd, a black man dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas’.

-  ‘Other new measures signed into law since the administration took office, all of which kicked up controversy in past congresses, make it easier for women to sue for equal pay, set aside land in the West from development, give the government the power to regulate tobacco and raise tobacco taxes to expand health insurance for children. Congress and the White House, in the new defense-policy bill, also killed weapons programs that have survived earlier attempts at termination, among them, the F-22 fighter jet, the VH-71 presidential helicopter and the Army’s Future Combat System’.

- ‘ The new public-lands law signed this spring was also once hotly debated. Among other things, the new law declares 1.2 million acres of Wyoming range land off-limits to oil and natural-gas development. Regarding the new tobacco law, the Food and Drug Administration and allies in Congress have been seeking regulatory authority over tobacco since the early 1990s’.

I hope they keep staring at those shiny objects for a long, long time.

And just for fun:

Talk about strange overlaps.  While walking my dog Benny  (who does not yet acknowledge the fact that we turned the clock back an hour last night), I noticed the Halloween revelers were still walking home while the NYC Marathon buses filled with anxious runners, were headed to Staten Island to await the start later this morning.  I guess that there are both party marathoners and running marathoners, right?

-  Since people are taking part in both activities at the same time I decided I can write about the Marathon and still be celebrating Halloween.  So, the above photo of Benny is my little Halloween greeting to you and yours.

-  The medals featured on the left are all about my Marathon days.

-  The New York Times had a front page story this rainy Marathon morning about cheating while Marathoning. I know from my five NYC  Marathons that it is uber-tempting to cheat.  When you enter Manhattan at mile 17 you can practically smell Central Park but you still have to lumber north on first Avenue through the Bronx, turn around and then head south to the finish line. Shame, shame, shame on the cheaters.

-  My memories of those five Marathon are some of the sweetest in this addled brain.  After hanging up my running shoes six years ago, I hung up my five medals and look at them almost every day (especially when these old bones begin to ache).  Completing a marathon is like nothing else.  It is a feeling of accomplishment and empowerment.  The down side are blisters and black toes.  Those things go away – but the sweet memories linger. Benny and I waved to all of those anxious Marathoners this morning and I will be watching and cheering for them both a the gym this morning and form my couch.

-  To the Halloween revelers that are stumbling home, I say – do not forget to turn your clocks back an hour.

-  Speaking of Marathons, the seemingly never ending November elections slog on.

-  Jon Stewart joins in the chat about NYC Mayoral race.  It is all about term limits.  Must watch.

-  Jon Stewart also looks at how the Fox opinion shows influence Fox “news” reporting. “See the Fox opinion guy’s outrage becomes the ’some say’ source for the newsside. It’s a perpetual rerevulsion machine,” explained Stewart.

-  Last week’s visit to the Philadelphia provided some great images and this funny 33 second video I shot of an orangutan playing doctor with a gibbon.

-Boo at the Central Park Zoo for you:

‘I know, I know — but’ - is the response I have been getting from all of my friends when I tell them that I am not voting for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Some friends look away with a momentary guilty look.  Some hang their heads down and say ‘but I don’t like the other guy (Bill Thompson).’ Some just say ‘ well, he cannot be bought.’  To all of them, I say, as Rachel Maddow always says, ‘Bull Hockey.’

Here is why I am not voting for Mayor Mike.

1. I am still angry that Bloomberg brought the RNC to NYC in 2004 and even more angry at the illegal arrest and detention of over 1800 individuals by the authorities during the Republican Nation Convention. The 1800 arrests and detentions were a record for a political convention in the U.S. Many people were detained longer than 24 hours on relatively trivial charges. However, 90% of those charges were eventually dropped. I have ranted about these arrests before and also ranted about the fact that I can never GET arrested while demonstrating.  I definitely will have to try harder next time. There are a slew of details here.

2. I hated his trying to shove the West Side Stadium down our throats in 2005. Luckily, he lost that battle.

3. However, it is his overturning of term limits that put me over the top. Long story short, in the fall of 2008, Bloomberg successfully campaigned for an amendment to New York City’s term limits law, in order to allow him to run for a third term in 2009.  There was plenty of time for him to pay for (about $40 million) a special election so that the people, who had already voted twice on this issue, could decide if Bloomberg could run for another term.  He decided not to go that way – and essentially bought the City Council and overturned the law.  He thought we would forget.  Well, most have – or just do not care.  I have not. (For the record – I voted NO to term limits two times but that is beside the point. It was the LAW).

Clyde Haberman, says that Bloomberg Is Betting on Voters With an Elastic Approach to the Law. “The mayor used to believe fervently in a two-term limit — until it became inconvenient for him. His “complete and utter disregard for the democratic process,” Mr. Thompson said, “was a defining moment for all of us.” “Does the richest man in New York City get to live by one set of rules while the rest of us live by another?”

4.  Obscene amounts of his own money have been spent on his campaign. Bloomberg, the richest man in New York City, has spent $85 million on his current re-election campaign — a U.S. record for most personal money spent in a campaign for public office. The election is less than a week away and Bloomberg may wind up spending up to $140 million. This is plain wrong.  I do not care if it is his own money.  It is offensive.

5.  He can’t be bought, some say.  When a man has billions of dollars, he doesn’t need to be bought.  He can do all of the buying and that is just what has happened in the last eight years. New York Magazine, in a lengthy piece. details how and why Bloomberg has become as successful as he has, in this uncontrollable City. ‘A remarkable number of dominoes have fallen Bloomberg’s way. The city’s ethnic politics are at a transition point: Black activists trained in the civil-rights model are fading, and though the city’s Latino and Asian communities have rising population numbers, they have yet to coalesce around any leaders, though the primary victory of John Liu is perhaps a sign of things to come. The speaker of the City Council is usually a mayoral antagonist. But the current speaker, Christine Quinn, decided that the best way to be elected mayor herself was to ingratiate herself with Bloomberg. Then Quinn was further neutered by the council’s slush-fund scandal’.

6. He brought Rudy Giuliani in to campaign for him. Did he really need to do that?  There is no one who is more divisive than Rudy.  He still makes most of us shudder whenever his punim shows up on TV or in the press.  Rudy then did what he does best – he pulls the fear factor out of his ass and goes for broke. He invokes those code words and we all get nauseous.  Yesterday, the New York Times’ Michael Powell revisited the Dinkins years that Rudy was brewing and stewing about. The record gets straightened out and Dinkins gets some of the credit he deserves.

-  As Rudy Giuliani comes to town to campaign for Mayor Bloomberg, remember that Republicans stick together.

7.  And why oh why is it that Bloomberg cannot decide whether he is a Democrat, Republican or an Independent. Is that such a hard thing to do?

-  Did Mayor Bloomberg do a good job as Mayor for the past eight years?  Yes. He did some fine things – but you know what?  That is what we elect people to do – their job.  And when it is time to go — it is time to go.  As far as I am concerned, the best thing about Mayor Mike was his bringing The Gates Project to Central Park in 2005.

-  Will Mike Bloomberg win a third term? I would be crazy to bet against him.  The only thing Bill Thompson has going for him is the fact that many people will not go to the polls.  Only 7% of eligible voters turned out for the run-off two weeks ago.

-  Mayor Michael Bloomberg was bitten by groundhog, Staten Island Chuck during the Staten island Zoo’s annual Groundhog Day event.

Yes, I have been obsessed with the Bernie Kerik scandal since it started to unravel before our very eyes.  Schadenfreude always works when we discuss old Bernie.  Jeff VanDam, of New York Magazine did a nice short chronological piece on the Rise and Thud of Bernie Kerik.

“Bernard Kerik used to run the city jails (1998–2000) and then the whole NYPD (2000–2001) and then, almost, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. But last week, he went to jail himself for leaking sealed information from his corruption trial, which begins this week. His fall has been drawn-out, and very public”.

9/11/01: As police commissioner, Kerik shares the credit with his boss Mayor Giuliani for resolute action on the day of the attacks. The two team up the next year to help form Giuliani Partners, a consulting firm.

2/28/02: Kerik pays a $2,500 fine for having two police officers travel to Ohio to research his autobiography, The Lost Son.

3/16/02: Newsday reports that an aide requested 30 seven-pound busts of Kerik from the nonprofit Police Foundation at a cost of $3,000.

2/9/03: The Daily News reports that Kerik oversaw a prison foundation that received nearly $1 million from tobacco companies that sold cigarettes to inmates; the Kerik aide in charge of the foundation’s finances later pleaded guilty to defrauding the fund of $142,733, partly to pay phone bills accrued when inmates called him collect to have phone sex. Much of the rest of the money is unaccounted for.

12/2/04: Kerik, apparently with Giuliani’s backing, is President Bush’s reported choice to run Homeland Security.

12/8/04: Nine former employees allege in the Washington Post that Kerik illicitly spied on women in relationships with his supervisor as investigation chief at a Saudi hospital twenty years earlier.

12/10/04: Kerik withdraws his nomination, citing a nanny with questionable immigration status. Newsweek reports that a warrant for Kerik’s arrest was issued in 1998 during a New Jersey civil dispute over $5,000 in condominium fees. Kerik said he’d paid the fees and the warrant had been withdrawn.

12/12/04: The Daily News reports that Kerik failed to disclose thousands of dollars in gifts, including a jewel-covered Tiffany badge, when he headed the NYPD and Correction Department. Some were given to him by a friend with ties to Interstate Industrial Corporation, a construction company suspected of mob ties that happens to have hired Kerik’s best man and brother; Kerik spoke to the city’s Trade Waste Commission on the friend’s behalf while Correction commissioner.

12/13/04: The Daily News reveals that Kerik had an extramarital affair with The Lost Son publisher Judith Regan, using a Battery Park City apartment—originally provided to ground-zero cleanup workers—for “passionate liaisons.”

12/16/04: The Bronx D.A. begins looking into the 1999 renovation of Kerik’s Riverdale apartment by Interstate.

12/22/04: Kerik quits Giuliani Partners.

6/30/06: Kerik pleads guilty to two misdemeanors, admitting he accepted the renovations from Interstate, spoke to city officials about the company, and failed to report a $28,000 loan from a real-estate developer. He pays $221,000 in fines but serves no jail time.

9/27/06: News of a new federal investigation involving Kerik emerges, this time about his alleged role in a 2005 plan to secretly record the husband of attorney-general candidate Jeanine Pirro, whom Pirro suspected of having an affair.

10/22/07: A Houston law firm sues Kerik for more than $200,000 in unpaid legal fees.

11/9/07: Kerik is indicted on sixteen federal counts that lead to two separate trials, one for tax fraud and one for corruption; he pleads not guilty.

12/2/08: The indictment against Kerik is expanded and now includes failure to pay taxes on a free luxury sedan given to him in 2004 by an armored-car company. He pleads not guilty to the new charges.

4/7/09: Kerik is seen training a dog in the background of a Real Housewives of New Jersey scene.

5/26/09: Kerik is indicted again, this time in Washington for making false statements to White House vetters; he pleads not guilty.

10/20/09: Kerik is jailed by the judge in his New York corruption trial, who believes he helped leak e-mails containing information from sealed court papers to the Washington Times.

-  On a completely different note:  A good friend (Ann) asked me to help out a friend of hers who wanted to promote the upcoming return of Wonder Woman, the play. We had 10 seconds to spin, like Wonder Woman.  Guess what?  I made the cut. It is grainy and only a second or two, but if you look closely, at the 43rd second of the clip you can see me spinning.  Fun.