Whatever Happened To...Dianne Kay

While watching Failure To Launch with my wife, Mrs. Film Geek suddenly bolted upright, exclaiming: "Hey! That's the Eight Is Enough house." Sure enough, the exterior shot of the house where Matthew McConaughey's parents lived did seem to be the large, white, two story home used in the 1977-1981 hit ABC TV show.

How she stopped looking at McConaughey long enough to recognize the house is still a mystery...

But the reference reminded me of my favorite Bradford, Nancy, played by Dianne Kay. Nancy's sisters all had interesting personality traits: Mary was smart, Susan was quirky and Elizabeth seemed mature and insightful for her age. But Nancy had the whole package. She was smarter than you thought, perky, sensitive and cute.The perfect combination to be the object of a crush by a 12-year-old goofball kid.

Since Eight Is Enough left the air, Dianne Kay (second from left in the picture) has worked sporadically in television. She guested on shows like Fantasy Island, The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote. She did one unsuccessful pilot, titled Once A Hero.

But Is The Kinkajou Rabid?

See! It isn't just me that Paris Hilton annoys. Even Baby Luv is tired of her.

Half Light

Half Light was a real surprise. Demi Moore stars as Rachel Carlson, a novelist who seems to have a near-perfect life. She is successful, wealthy, married to an ambitious editor and mother of a young, precocious son. Her life is altered dramatically when her son, Thomas, dies in a tragic accident.

Unable to write even several months after the accident, Rachel moves to an isolated Scottish town, holes up in a cabin near a lighthouse and tries desperately to re-discover her muse. It's sparked by a romance with the local lighthouse keeper, who is sensitive and insightful. Just when life seems to be looking up, though, things begin to go bad.

Are things really what they seem?

Half Light was a surprise because the acting was better than expected, the plot was interesting and the story had enough twists and turns to make the viewer a bit unsure about the conclusion. Some aspects of the script are too predictable, but mostly Half Light entertains the old-school way: by presenting a good story, and delivering it with quality acting.

Local News Is Funny

No matter where you live, local news always comes across as pretty goofy. But local news in West Virginia always seems a bit over-the-top. For example: at Christmas-time 2002, during the year I lived out-of-state in Iowa, my new friends enjoyed ribbing me about the West Virginian arrested when found having sex with a sheep, which was being used as a prop at a live nativity scene.

So it's hardly a surprise when I read a story in the Gazette that reports:

A St. Albans (WV) area man was arrested on Friday after he allegedly told police he grew his own marijuana because it costs too much to buy, court records show. He then led the troopers over a hill behind the home where plants worth $6,000 were growing, police wrote in the complaint.

A felony. Offered up on a platter. Montani semper liberi!

Chicken Little

I needed 90 minutes or so of a Disney animation to clean the Hostel out of my head. So, the family made some popcorn, grabbed some sodas and plopped in the DVD. Mission accomplished.

Chicken Little's story gets a modern update in this adaptation. Not only is Little's reputation on the line with his "the sky is falling" schtick, he must save the world from an alien invasion that is right out of the Spielberg/Cruise snooze-fest War Of The Worlds. Little and his friends save the world, and improve the Chicken's relationship with his Dad in the process.

The animation was just OK, and the story wasn't that great, truth be told. But, there were lots of things I did like about Chicken Little. The music was awesome, with tunes from Patti LaBelle and Joss Stone ("Stir It Up"), the Barenaked Ladies ("One Little Slip"), and R.E.M. ("It`s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." And Chicken Little himself sings a cool rendition of Queen's "We Are the Champions." A subliminal plot theme involved how children face and overcome grief and trauma, in this case the death of Little's mother. And (as mentioned before) how children overcome communication barriers that pop up sometimes with parents.

Overall, Chicken Little is a C-plus movie. But, hanging out with my family eating popcorn turned it into a A-minus. Add the bonus of washing out Hostel, and it's a hit.

Hostel

I hate sounding like the old guy. Can't stand the stereotype, and hate it when "He just doesn't understand us cause he's getting old" is used to dismiss this not-quite-so-old fogie's disinterest or dislike in something. Especially art. Damn it, I like lots of things that aren't old school. I like modern music more than the music of my youth, and ...Well, I like today's music. And lots of other stuff. Promise, I do.

Ahem...anyway.

I've been reluctant to write about Hostel, due to that very reason. The first couple of times I started a post about the movie, paragraphs automatically started with: "Back in my day..." or, "Old-school horror movies were..." And in my head the voice saying the words was the Grumpy Old Man character Dana Carvey used to do on SNL. You remember:

"Back in my day, we didn't have no 'talking mooooviees.' Our movies were black and white and silent, and we had to make up the dialogue ourselves. We didn't have no mamby-pamby talking movies, all done up in techno-color and lookin' prissy. No! Our movies were hard, like our lives. And we liked it that way!

No, I never want to be that guy. So I have to choose my comments about Hostel carefully in order to ensure my objectivity, and preserve my street cred with the kids. Let me try it this way:

Hostel is a clear indication that American culture and civilized society is nearing extinction. The end is near, folks. We're done. Toast.

Somehow, that still sounded like the Grumpy Old Man. Let's see if I can make my point.

Hostel follows three recent college graduates, all young American men, as they travel to Amsterdam for a holiday of decadence before they enter into the more responsible and professional period of their lives. While traveling, they meet up with an assortment of characters who build up their desire for easy chicks and legal drugs, and they learn that in a neighboring town "you can pay to do anything you want." They high-tail it off to the neighboring town. Of course, that's ultimately a mistake. They are eventually drugged, kidnapped and tortured (and two of the three are murdered) by rich men who have become so bored in life that they pay as much as $25,000 to torture and murder humans. This hostel is really a trap used to feed that business; unsuspecting tourists show up and spend a day or two livin' large, then become drugged into a stupor. They wake up in a dungeon, chained to a chair with some rich bastard cutting off body parts.

It is disturbing. Completely, overwhelmingly disturbing.

One young man survives the torture and escapes. As he escapes he meets up with one of the rich pricks who is getting ready to enter into a room to torture his paid-for victim. The torturer mistakes the young man for a client himself (the guy was in disguise, as he was trying to escape) and the two have a several-minutes long conversation about the pleasures of killing. The theme of that dialogue is, basically, that life has become so boring and so routine that paying large amounts of cash in order to torture and kill is necessary to have feeling, or to experience a real purpose in life. The scene is an important one, because it seems to be challenging the viewer to avoid the pitfall of becoming de-sensitized by excess.

I couldn't help but wonder how the producers could make that argument, though, knowing they were asking people to pony up a $7.50 admission price to watch what amounts to a high-budgeted snuff film that contained no artistic merit. At least Nightmare On Elm Street had a surreal, supernatural-type premise that was original. More recently, Saw blended a horror theme with a psychological thriller. Hell, American Psycho was brutal to watch, but the violence was secondary to the mental breakdown of the main character.

Hostel just allows voyeurs to peek into a room to watch torture and murder. Period.

Maybe I'm just too old to get it.

Good Luck

I get out to the theater so rarely to see newly released movies that I have a short list of must-sees. But, The Night Listener, starring Robin Williams, is on that list. (After Clerks II and before Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby.) Robin Williams in the right role is just plain brilliant, and this role may be lightening in a bottle for him.

I'm saddened to learn that Williams has recently entered rehab for alcoholism. Good luck to him, I hope he recovers well.

Wanted: Organizer of Memorabilia

Action star and all-around-tough-guy actor in need of professional organizer of memorabilia.

Successful applicant will demonstrate the ability to organize personal belongings and photographs in creative fashion, maintain household closet and pantry space, run occasional errands and complete light housework.

Applicant must also understand the subtle intricacies of alphabetizing and maintaining extensive DVD collections.

Will be supplied with a video camera and necessary audio equipment. And a gun. Reasons for and rules about gun use will be discussed prior to start date.

Must sign confidentiality agreement.

If you believe you meet these qualifications and would like to apply, contact Bruce Willis.

We Are...Marshall Featurette

Thanks to my friend Matt for the link to the featurette of We Are...Marshall. Nearly five minutes long, it has archive footage of the tragedy, interviews with the movie's stars, producers and director, interviews with Marshall football coaches associated with the tragedy and scenes from the film itself. Check it out here. You need QuickTime 7 to view it.

This And That, Again

It seems democracy isn't the only think America is exporting to Iraq. Whether they want it or not, Iraqi citizens are getting loaded up with reality TV.
You'd think reality would be the last thing they'd want to watch every evening after dinner.






Hugh Hefner, 80, is denying rumors that he recently had a stroke. Says the Playboy founder and notorious womanizer: "I've never felt better."

I'm guessing that ain't quite true.








If you're so inclined, take a look at these clips of The World Trade Center, the new movie directed by Oliver Stone and starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena. Be sure and check out the featurette, In Their Own Words, near the bottom of the clips page.






And finally, happy 69th birthday to my all-time favorite actor, Dustin Hoffman. I met him very briefly, along with director Barry Levinson, in the late 1980s. He seemed genuinely sincere, intellectually curious and very much interested in other people. Hoffman has a couple of films due out in the next few months that I am excited about, especially Stranger Than Fiction, already in the can and co-starring Will Ferrell.