"20,000 Years in Arlington Heights" (#1 in an occasional series)

3:30pm Dr. Who starring Tom Baker on Channel Six


4pm "Land of the Giants" re-runs on Channel 25

TELL ME I didn't have the best adolescence EVER!!!

Pick of the Week:

"The Wind Across the Everglades" tomorrow night at 7pm at the Harvard Film Archive. I'm told it features Burl Ives as a sort of "King of the Swamp Men" character, which is sheer typecasting if you think on it.

Sighted on the Red Line last night

A man presumably carrying home to his wife, GF or SO a bunch of sunflowers from a local florist.
This gave me to think, "if the sheer size of the bouquet varies in proportion to the scale of the transgression what did this poor schnook do such that only freakishly huge blooms can mollify the situation?"

The Almighty Three-Fer

The Nicholas Ray retrospective at the HFA continues tonight with "The Flying Leathernecks" at 9:15pm, and then Jeffrey "The Man who said no to Star Trek" Hunter as God's notorious beatnik son, Jesus H. Christ in "The King of Kings" tomorrow and then Joan Crawford at her most Crawford-esque in "Johnny Guitar" Monday at 7pm.
Dunno if I have the strength for it all, but I am gonna try at any rate.

When "Casper the Friendly Ghost" started up in 1948

It was waaa-ay darker in tone than the bulbous headed rather twee character we know today.

If you want proof, then just check this PD gem out:

I'm not immune to sentiment, but if Casper is really desperate for friends, then the lesson of this cartoon is, he can create all he wants by going on a killing spree.

PIck of the Week

Once again, the Harvard Film Archive owns the weekend movie firmament, with a long thorough month long retrospective devoted to the works of Nicholas Ray.
Tonight it is "Bigger than Life" (7pm, also on Monday at 7pm) in which a nice middle class family man and teacher goes batsh*t crazy from a cortisone prescription. Tame stuff in today's world, but freaky-deaky fer sherr in 1956.
And on Sunday at 8:30pm "The True Story of Jesse James" (1957) starring Jeffrey "The Man who Turned Down Star Trek" Hunter as the famous outlaw.
The casting alone sells that bad baby.
Now if it is straight movies you want "Despicable Me" is playing at the Arlington Capitol in 4-d...that is of course if you won't do the decent thing and make for the Mendon Twin Drive In.

When Marcus Aurelius first said that

"Each day should be lived as if it was your last" he had no idea the depths to which Lindsay Lohan was prepared to take this notion.

Official Independence Day Adorable Story...

So it is another stinkin' hot July Fourth hyar in Massachusetts and like a damn fool I'm trudging up the Minuteman Bike Path thru Lexington Center on my way back to my car which is parked in a remote corner of (Romantic) Arlington.
When suddenly, a sweet blonde little girl sprang out of the bushes and trilled at me "We are taking down our wemonade stand, yoo kin have th' las' glass fer a dime, if you don't have a dime, yoo kin have it fuh fwee!"
Genius advertising ploy, I handed her a dollar for the "las' glass" and counted myself richer by one great story.

Pick of the Week (Part II)

Dennis Hopper in the seldom screened outlaw biker epic "The Glory Stompers" @ 9:30pm tonight at the Brattle.
Before Hopper was a counterculture icon, he was a certified b-movie drudge with credits in everything from "Planet of Blood" down to episodes of "Bonanza" on TV.
Years ago, back when we were writing "It's All True" for the now defunct "Boston Comic News" we tried to scare up some interest in a gag presidential candidacy toplined by Dennis Hopper, we had a slogan as well, "Dennis Hopper for President, he is experienced, maybe a little too experienced".