SpaceCamp

I dealt with my laundry and was glad to have clean socks and underwear at the end of it.  I spent some time in the office trying to get something done, and it was slow going.  I walked into the library and browsed through the Blu-ray discs.  I selected “SpaceCamp,” not because I thought it was going to be any good, but because I had clear memories of seeing a huge billboard advertising it and wondered what the result was.  After the Challenger shuttle disaster of January 28, 1986, no one was going to see this movie.  If it was going to be released early in the year, you had to wonder what the movie studio thought of it in the first place.  Even without the unfortunate event and timing, the chances of this movie being a hit would have been minimal, because it is full of clichés, the characters are poorly written, and the plot is totally ludicrous.  It also seems like the kids in this story are privileged to be able to go to this place.  A teen with a bad attitude is a necessity in a movie like this, for some reason, and it is excruciating to watch this guy with his obnoxious behavior.  Does NASA have any security whatsoever to allow someone to pick up the wrong badge and continue his charade under a different name?  Lea Thompson is supposed to be the hero, and she is hugely inarticulate about why she wants to go up into space.  It’s a place that humans haven’t screwed up yet?  Kate Capshaw doesn’t turn in an Oscar-caliber performance, either, but it was fantastic compared to her screeching character in the second Indiana Jones movie.  Kelly Preston is in the cast.  Looking over her credits, I don’t see much that is notable, except for “Jerry Maguire.”  There is an annoying robot that some have said was inspired by Star Wars, but I thought more about “Short Circuit.”  The real surprise was Joaquin Phoenix, who was known then as Leaf Phoenix, brother of River Phoenix.  He was ten years old, and it took me a while to recognize.  How could this kid have turned into the Joaquin we’ve known through “Gladiator”?  Tom Skerritt played Kate’s husband, and it looked like he was warming up for “Top Gun” in this movie.  He was already 52 at the time of filming, and he’s 84 now.  I was surprised to see him in that last Harry Dean Stanton movie.  Anyway, to get back to “SpaceCamp,” which I’ve been trying to avoid, it was laughable that these kids who demonstrated that they couldn’t work together would be allowed in a space shuttle, and not only that, but when the actual rockets are being fired.  There is a crisis with oxygen, and in an embarrassingly contrived moment, Kate is injured, leaving Lea to pilot the shuttle.  These immature kids have to pull together to save themselves and the adult.  Many things in this plot didn’t seem to make sense.  The movie was a mishmash of things I’d seen before and since, like “Marooned,” “Moonraker,” “Apollo 13,” and “Gravity.”  It also made me think of “Taps,” with those kids taking over.  It had a trace of Disney.  I would hate to compare a movie like this with “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but the crisis with the oxygen did bring it to mind.  This movie was released seven years after “Moonraker,” but I didn’t detect a great improvement in the special effects, other than the absence of lasers.  John Williams did the music, I guess to bring some Star Wars or Spielberg magic along, but no, it did not work.  “SpaceCamp” was less than mediocre, although to some it might be unintentionally hilarious.  You could have more fun picking it apart than watching it.  One of the special features was Lea Thompson talking about the making of the movie.  I thought it hard to get past the thought that she looked like she had plastic surgery.  She mentioned that the movie came between “Back to the Future” and “Howard the Duck” for her.  She said that her boyfriend at the time was Dennis Quaid, who had been in “The Right Stuff.”  She had mentioned Kelly Preston and George Clooney.  I wondered why she was mentioning these names, and what people like Meg Ryan would think of these comments.  She said that the movie was ten days behind schedule after the first day, and the zero gravity effects were done with wires, paddles, and a rotating set that was like Fred Astaire’s ceiling dance in “Royal Wedding.”  She also said that the crew had to act like a mime troupe to sell the idea that they were really floating.  It does make for some amusing stories than would be possible with a green screen.  The Best Picture nominees for 1986 were “Children of a Lesser God,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “The Mission,” “Platoon,” and “A Room with a View.”  Some of the other movies I saw that year were “Aliens,” “The Fly,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Labyrinth,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Stand by Me,” and “Blue Velvet.”  Now I’m glad that I didn’t see “SpaceCamp” when it was released.  It certainly wasn’t worth a 31-year wait, either.  Some of the people who died on October 19 include Jonathan Swift (1745), John Reed (1920), Edna St. Vincent Millay (1950), Gig Young (1978), Jacqueline du Pré (1987), Martha Raye (1994), Mr. Blackwell (2008), Dee Dee Warwick (2008), Joseph Wiseman (2009), and Tom Bolsey (2010).  Today is a birthday for Evander Holyfield (55), John Lithgow (72), Michael Gambon (77), and Peter Max (80).

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Fathom

I sat in the office and graded some exams.  It consumed a lot of my time.  I gave a forgettable lecture before going out to lunch, having a hamburger.  I gave a lecture to my late class and stopped to buy frozen yogurt before going home.  I watched a DVD of “Fathom,” the spy comedy starring Raquel Welch.  It had been shown on television not too long ago, but I missed part of it.  It certainly wasn’t a great movie, with a forgettable plot and some action scenes that looked like cheap imitations of James Bond films like “Thunderball” and “From Russia With Love.”  The main attraction was Raquel, who was beautiful, although she could have used a hair stylist for some scenes.  Her acting was not top level, although she looked like she had a lot of spirit and showed effort.  I kept thinking that this film was an example of how she ended up with movies that weren’t as good as they should have been.  I was thinking of things like “Kansas City Bomber.”  I have good memories of seeing her in “Fantastic Voyage” and “The Three Musketeers.”  The plot and the feel of the movie reminded me at times of The Beatles in “Help!”  Raquel’s character, who was named Fathom Harvill, would have been more fun if she could have handled herself more like Diana Rigg.  She screams, and men like Tony Franciosa come in to save her.  She had to struggled with men who were stronger than her, and you never got the sense that she could overcome physical force.  She didn’t even seem to know how to run.  When she was trapped in the bull ring, I kept expecting her to show some resourcefulness and find a way out.  She did have a moment of triumph in the airplane at the end.  Raquel got second billing even though she is the main character.  The soundtrack had that dated 1960s sound with singers that I think I last heard in “Midnight Cowboy.”  The quality of the picture on the DVD was not too good, perhaps only slightly better than a videotape.  At one moment, a hair was visible, which I couldn’t understand seeing, as this was supposed to be digital technology.  The quality of the color wasn’t good, either.  Raquel’s green bikini should have looked brighter, and the colors looked faded at the very end.  This movie certainly didn’t deserve a good review, especially during a time when there was a surplus of spy movies and parodies of spy movies.  One thing the movie didn’t have was racial diversity.  Tony Franciosa wasn’t not one of your big immortal movie stars.  I vaguely remember seeing him on television during the 1970s.  I have to admit that I got wrapped up in watching this trashy movie, so that I forgot to take a break and have a snack and listen to radio highlights.  I saw on the news that the Warriors lost their home opener to the Houston Rockets.  We still have the possibility of a Yankees-Dodgers World Series.  I watched a little bit of David Letterman on the Jimmy Kimmel show.  Some of the people who died on October 18 include Charles Gounod (1893), Thomas Edison (1931), Walt Kelly (1973), Julie London (2000), Gwen Verdon (2000), and Kam Fong (2002).  Today is a birthday for Wynton Marsalis (56), Martina Navratilova (61), Pam Dawber (66), Mike Ditka (78), and Dawn Wells (79).  According to the Brandon Brooks Rewind radio segment for October 18, John Lennon was arrested in Ringo Starr’s apartment for marijuana possession in 1968.  In 1969, the Temptations had the Number One single, “I Can’t Get Next to You.”  In 1988, “Roseanne,” the television show starring Roseanne Barr, debuted on ABC.  In 1990, Los Angeles declared the day “Rocky Horror Picture Show Day.”

Some Like It Hot

I tried to get a lot of work done for my classes.  I had a long day of work, and I came home to have some ravioli.  I watched the Blu-ray disc of “Some Like It Hot.”  It was actually on television on Saturday night, following “12 Angry Men” on KQED, but I didn’t watch it then.  This disc started with the MGM lion roaring, and then it went straight into the movie.  I liked the absence of trailers and other advertising junk.  It takes a long time before we see Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dressed as women, and about a minute later, we see Marilyn Monroe for the first time. George Raft is the gangster Spats.  I remember him only for this movie and for “The Ladies Man.”  I thought a couple of the coincidences were too unlikely to be believable.  How was it that this all-girl band just happened to be lacking a bass player and a saxophonist?  How did Spats end up at the same hotel as the two main characters.  I liked the shot of the fire escape near the beginning of the film, but that car was conveniently parked underneath it.  I wondered why the band was playing without Josephine and Daphne at the end without anyone trying to find either of them.  I liked the songs that were in the movie.  I thought that the big flaw in the movie was Tony Curtis’ female voice, which was dubbed.  I wondered if Jerry ever got around to seeing the dentist.  One of the reasons Billy Wilder filmed this movie in black and white was so that the makeup on Curtis and Lemmon would look reasonably believable.  Marilyn preferred the way she looked in color.  I thought that Joe and Jerry were broke, so I couldn’t figure out how they got the money for the women’s clothes.  Lemmon was nearly believable as a woman.  I kept looking at his throat for his Adam’s apple.  Joe did a Cary Grant impersonation, which is amusing.  The movie was ahead of its time with its implications.  You can think about this movie in terms of today’s issues, like same-sex marriage.  Grace Lee Whitney of Star Trek was one of the girls on the train.  I wondered why no one noticed that Joe was wearing stolen clothes and a stolen pair of eyeglasses.  There was quite a bit of death in this movie, considering that it was a comedy in the Fifties.  I knew how this movie would end because I have seen it many times, but I still laughed at the last line.  One odd thing about this disc was that the volume was low, and so I had to turn up the volume on my television to hear anything.  The picture quality was better than I ever remember it from DVD.  Marilyn famous had trouble with her lines in the movie, like “Where’s the bourbon?”  One other story I read about the filming was that Billy Wilder saw Wende Wagner out swimming and offered her a screen test.  Her parents made her finish high school.  She would see Wilder after graduating, but she didn’t want to be in “The Apartment.”  She would be in the Green Hornet television series, and also “Rosemary’s Baby.”  I listened to part of the game between the Yankees and the Astros.  Some of the people who died on October 17 include Frederic Chopin (1849), Christopher Glenn (2006), Joey Bishop (2007), Levi Stubbs (2008), and Vic Mizzy (2009).  Today is a birthday for Eminem (45), Mike Judge (55), Margot Kidder (69), and George Wendt (69).  According to the Brandon Brooks Rewind radio segment for October 17, the Elvis Presley movie “Jailhouse Rock” had its premiere in 1957.  In 1958, “An Evening with Fred Astaire” was broadcast on NBC.  In 1963, Dion and the Belmonts broke up.  In 1966, “Hollywood Squares” made its debut on NBC.  In 1967, “Hair” had its premiere off Broadway.  Today is Gary Puckett’s 75^th birthday.

Los Angeles Chargers 17, Oakland Raiders 16

I watched CBS Sunday Morning, which had a segment on Lincoln’s beard.  I got a phone call from my parents, and my mother didn’t understand what I was trying to say about the wildfires that were making the air smoky.  I sat in the plaza using my computer for a while before I walked over to Trader Joe’s to buy a salad.  I listened to Will Shortz on the radio giving puzzles to a listener, who couldn’t come up with the word “ruling” for a Supreme Court decision.  I listened to Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me as I took the buses out to the Fruitvale BART station.  I got to the stadium just after 11:30, and I headed to my seat.  I fell asleep for a while.  I listened to the 49ers game on the radio.  As an attempt to be sensitive to the wildfire disaster, no one lit the Al Davis torch before the game started.  We saw a video message from Cliff Branch telling us that he had lost his house in the fire.  Jim Plunkett stepped onto the field for the coin toss.  This was the first time I would see the Chargers as the Los Angeles Chargers.  They were supposed to be weak at defending running plays.  They received the opening kickoff but didn’t score.  Derek Carr was back at quarterback after being absent last week because of his injury.  His first pass attempt was an interception, which seemed like it might be an ominous sign.  The Chargers missed a field goal.  The first score of the game would be a 23-yard pass to Michael Crabtree, as he stepped onto the pylon at the end of his run.  Amari Cooper would catch more than one pass in this game, but he wouldn’t gain many more yards than those 23 that went to Crabtree on that play.  Marshawn Lynch would run for 63 yards, but he didn’t have the biggest running play of the day.  The quarter ended with the score at 7-0.  It was late in the second quarter when the Chargers scored their first points on a 7-yard touchdown run.  The Raiders had less than two minutes left on the clock, but managed to give Giorgio Tavecchio a chance to kick for three more points, which he did, so the Raiders were ahead, 10-7, at halftime.  We saw a fan struggle with the trivia challenge, including a question about Jack Del Rio’s time spent in the NFL.  The UC Davis Marching Band went onto the field to perform during the halftime break.  They played for about seven or eight minutes.  The Chargers’ kicker was leaving the ball short on kickoffs, which was how the third quarter started.  Carr passed the ball to Lynch, who tipped it, and it went for an interception.  Neither team scored during the quarter.  In the fourth quarter, the Raiders tried a fourth down play and failed.  Maybe Jack Del Rio heard echoes of the criticism for not trying a fourth down play last week.  The Chargers would go 59 yards on ten plays, ending with a 6-yard pass for a touchdown.  The crowd was quiet as the Chargers suddenly had a 14-10 lead.  As the quarter approached the midway point, Cordarrelle ran the ball 47 yards for a touchdown with one of the most impressive plays of the afternoon.  The crowd was excited and loud, and they had hopes that the home team would pull this one out.  However, Jon Condo’s high snap caused Tavecchio to miss the extra point, which was another of those ominous signs.  The teams exchanged punts.  Marquette King made some good kicks in this game.  The Chargers had some big pass plays to their right side on this afternoon.  They went methodically down the field, forcing the Raiders to use up the time outs.  They kept running the ball and getting first downs.  They set up their kicker’s preferred position and ran down the clock with their last two plays before the kick with three seconds left.  There was no repeat of last year’s mistake, as the Chargers won, 17-16, on that final play.  Raiders fans were distressed, and there was no cheerful chanting after the game.  We didn’t see Marshawn Lynch dance on the sidelines.  I discovered that someone had stolen my plastic game from under my seat.  It was old and coming apart, and so it wasn’t worth much, but I thought it showed the lowlife nature of some football fans in the stadium.  I headed out to the BART station as quickly as I could and caught the Pittsburg/Bay Point train.  I heard Chris Townsend on the radio talking about being in Section 219 and knowing that the Raiders would lose once Tavecchio missed that extra point.  I wondered if he had been drinking much, because he didn’t sound sharp.  It’s hard to believe that so many people expected the Raiders to be Super Bowl contenders, and on this afternoon they were in last place in the AFC West.  They showed highlights of the AFC Championship Game on January 11, 1981, which seemed like ages ago.  I got off the train at the Rockridge station and took the bus home.  I watched a bit of the Giants and Broncos on television, and listened to a bit of the Dodgers and Cubs on the radio.  I listened to Robert Hilburn’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Times radio program on KCSN.  He played live tracks of The Verve and Oasis.  I was too tired to go out and see “Take Every Wave” at ten o’clock.  I fell asleep while watching a Columbo episode.  Some of the people who died on October 16 include Gene Krupa (1973), Dan Dailey (1978), Cornel Wilde (1989), Art Blakely (1990), James A. Michener (1997), Jean Shepherd (1999), Rick Jason (2000), Deborah Kerr (2007), and Barbara Billingsley (2010).  Today is a birthday for Flea (55), Suzanne Somers (71), and Angela Lansbury (91).  According to the Brandon Brooks Rewind radio segment for October 16, the members of Creedence Clearwater Revival announced their breakup in 1972.  In 1976, Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life” reached Number One on the Billboard album chart.  Also in 1976, Rick Dees’ “Disco Duck” reached Number One on the singles chart.  In 2003, Simon and Garfunkel opened their Old Friends concert tour in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  In 2007, Deborah Kerr died at age 86.  In 2010, Barbara Billingsley, who played June Cleaver in the Leave It to Beaver television series, died at age 94 in Los Angeles.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

I woke up and watched CBS This Morning and their chef segment.  Some of Diane Kochilas’ signature recipes include Classic Greek lamb chops, Braised octopus with olives, “Little Shoes”: Eggplant halves baked with three cheeses and tomato, and Shrimp Saganaki.  The musical guest was Bill Murray, who sang a Van Morrison song.  I looked up the American Top 40 playlist for the weekend.  The Top 10 songs on October 18, 1975 were “Who Loves You,” “They Just Can’t Help It (Games People Play),” “Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady,” “Feelings,” “Dance with Me,” “Ballroom Blitz,” “Lyin’ Eyes,” “Miracles,” “Calypso,” and “Bad Blood.”  I went out to work for six hours.  I tried to get to the theatre where “Take Every Wave” was showing with the Q&A afterwards, but I got to the box office too late, and tickets were sold out.  I settled for “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women” across the street.  It was interesting to see this movie several months after the popular Wonder Woman movie that was so popular.  Marston was a psychology professor, and his comic book attempted to promote his views.  He was also the inventor of the lie detector, which seemed to reveal a lot about himself.  The relationship he had with his wife and his student was something of a variation on Jules and Jim.  Rebecca Hall was the wife Elizabeth.  I didn’t see her as having any kind of appealing personality that could inspire such great emotion.  Olive, the student, reminded me of Heather Graham from “Boogie Nights.”  Marston was fired from his academic position and struggled to find something new as Elizabeth went on to work as a secretary, and Olive gave birth.  I don’t know why these three would leave the door open for any snooping neighbors to walk in on what they were doing.  They really could have used the home schooling idea back then.  It’s funny to think how the images in the Wonder Woman comic book were cleaned up from pornography showing bondage and submission.  I can see how it fit into the world of comic books and pulp paperbacks, which had a low appeal with busty women and crime.  I wondered how the producers of the movie came up with the comic books that people burned.  It brought back the memory of people burning Beatles albums after John Lennon’s famous Jesus remark.  Marston reminded me of Michael Shannon, the actor who was in “Hell or High Water” and “Elvis and Nixon.”  The movie didn’t go enough into the creation into the comic book.  I liked what I saw in “American Splendor” by comparison.  One of the meaningful moments was one of the children coming from home school after getting into a fight over rumors about his family.  It was rather predictable, as a lot of this movie was, despite its outrageous surface.  When Marston starts coughing, you know what his fate is.  I flashed back to Johnny Depp in “Finding Neverland.”  One of the trailers we saw was for that movie about Christopher Robin.  All of these movies are related to each other.  I did like the scene with Marston playing with his plane with the kids, reminding me of old times before electronic toys and devices.  It seemed to imply that these activities stimulated Marston’s imagination in a way that you don’t see these days.  Olive lived on until 1985.  I kept wondering what she thought of the Wonder Woman television series, and what Lynda Carter thought of this movie.  The audience did laugh at some things, like the explanation of the premise of the Wonder Woman comic book, but the movie seemed to fall short of expectations.  I would have to say that I thought the more could have been done with the concept.  I walked over to Dollar Tree to buy some batteries, and then I headed home to listen to the Dodgers and Cubs game on the radio.  I thought the Cubs would have one last rally to get close to tying the score, but it didn’t happen.  Meanwhile, the Yankees didn’t do their part in making the matchup with the Dodgers possible.  1981 now feels like a long time ago.  I saw “12 Angry Men” on KQED.  I thought about how some people have a fantasy that they see things more clearly than eleven other people and are persuasive enough to convince everyone else about their point of view.  Professor Marston may have been one of that type.  Some of the people who died on October 15 include Cole Porter (1964), Frank DeKova (1981), Delphine Seyrig (1990), and Jack Narz (2008).  Today is a birthday for Tanya Roberts (62), Tito Jackson (64), Penny Marshall (74), and Linda Lavin (80).  According to the Brandon Brooks Rewind radio segment for October 15, the last Otis Redding studio album, “Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul,” was released in 1966.  In 1967, “Bonnie and Clyde” was Number One at the box office.  In 1985, a black and white episode of “Moonlighting” with an introduction by Orson Welles aired on ABC five days after Welles’ death.

Golden State Warriors 117, Sacramento Kings 106

Instead of watching the news, I watched the Partridge Family episode “See Here, Private Partridge.”  Shirley Jones’ strong suit in acting is not expressing anger.  I’d like to take a close look at what was supposed to be the Partridge Family’s first album.  It sure didn’t take too long between the recording sessions and the pressing.  Keith was in the background in this story.  I smelled the smoke in the air and thought it was going to be a bad day.  I shopped at Trader Joe’s and took the bus over to Emeryville, where I saw “Blade Runner 2049” again.  I liked how Ryan Gosling had to do the physical stuff, namely the fighting, while Harrison Ford sat down, although it was in cold water.  I took the bus back home so that I could have a late lunch.  I browsed through the record stores and found a couple of records I wanted to buy, but I put it off.  I didn’t want to use up all my cash before the Warriors game.  I took BART over to the Oracle Arena.  There were a lot of people already lined up to get into the building because of the giveaway, the Kevin Durant bobblehead.  The two people behind me in line talked about the 49ers and having to take care of grandparents in Taiwan.  I had arrived at about five o’clock, and in half an hour, it looked like a thousand fans had gotten in line behind me.  I was just glad to get my bobblehead.  This was the first time I had been in the Oracle Arena since Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and it was the first NBA preseason I was going to see.  I walked in a big circle to get to the team store, where the item of the night was a victory parade T-shirt for $10.  I bought one of those, along with a lanyard.  They had popcorn buckets for $15.  I thought of buying one, but how much popcorn was I going to eat all by myself?  I took my seat and watched Franco Finn.  We saw some video of the Warriors’ trip to China.  It looks like the team has a lot of fans in other countries.  It appeared that we were going to get only one half of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, and no Kevin Durant and no Draymond Green.  There were empty seats for this game against the Sacramento Kings.  Curry scored his share of points, and we saw the dance cam, which caught the woman with the glittery Warriors outfit who always draws applause.  The Warriors were two points ahead after one quarter at 26-24.  You can count on seeing at least a couple of bad passes from the Warriors, and on this night we would see Zaza Pachulia and Klay Thompson make them.  We saw the obligatory marriage proposal, although what was different from usual was that it was the woman who did the proposing.  If I were in his place, I would have said no.  The Kings cut into the lead and were behind by only three points at halftime, 54-51.  A team of kids took the court, and the fans had a favorite, the smallest kid on the court, who wore number 22.  By the end, the crowd was chanting “Twenty-two!”  The stars didn’t play in the second half, although Sean Livingston was out there.  Nick Young scored more points in the second half.  We saw a dance-off between two women who were trying to win Pink tickets.  The concert wasn’t going to happen until May.  The third quarter ended with the Warriors ahead by three points, 84-81.  The Warriors pulled away in the fourth quarter, pushing their lead to fifteen points.  The final score was 117-106.  I thought about whether I should return to the arena for Arcade Fire.  I was happy to return home.  I heard that the Astros had won Game 1 with the Yankees.  Also, California had gone ahead with their game in the smoky air against Washington State, and they actually won easily.  Washington State was supposed to be a Top 10 team, but I thought that they couldn’t have been that good if Cal could win by 34 points.  Some of the people who died on October 14 include Errol Flynn (1959), Bing Crosby (1977), Keenan Wynn (1986), Leonard Bernstein (1990), Harold Robbins (1997), Freddy Fender (2006), Sigrid Valdis (2007), and Elizabeth Peña (2014).  Today is a birthday for Steve Coogan (52), Cliff Richard (77), and Ralph Lauren (78).  According to the Brandon Brooks Rewind radio segment for October 14, Bing Crosby died in Spain at age 74 of a heart attack after he had finished a round of golf.  In 1982, “It Takes Two,” starring Richard Crenna, Patty Duke Astin, and Helen Hunt, premiered on ABC.  In 1983, Sam Peckinpah’s final film, “The Osterman Weekend,” was released.

Les quatre cents coups

I overheard some English teachers talking about their students, saying that many of them were lacking motivation and a good work ethic.  I gave an exam to my late class and went out to buy a California burrito before going home and watching “The 400 Blows” again, this time on the Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition.  Even with the high definition, it doesn’t quite have the impact it does in a movie theatre on a big screen.  I always thought back to the moment when Antoine’s father slaps him right in front of all his classmates as one of the most powerful moments in the film.  This was the first time I’ve seen this film since Jeanne Moreau’s death, so I took notice of her camera, in which she is looking for a dog.  She walks away from the camera.  I liked one of the shots in which Antoine runs down some steps, and we see a view of Paris.  It’s also hard to forget his theft of a bottle of milk, although his behavior is incredibly conspicuous and suspicious.  Antoine gets slapped twice, and I think he goes to the movies three times.  The one happy scene is the family’s return from the movie “Paris Belongs to Us.”  Antoine says that he had strawberry ice cream for the first time.  The kids steal a lot of money in this film.  I thought of the poor teacher whose students ditched him, perhaps except for the final two trailing him.  Truffaut’s cameo comes at the carnival ride, and I noticed that at the end of the last shot, he is lighting a cigarette.  Why are these kids so anxious to smoke?  Antoine’s theft of the very heavy typewriter shows that he isn’t a mastermind, and he made the mistake of putting it back where he got it instead of hightailing it out of there.  His lack of concentration in school spills over into real life.  The attitude of his parents doesn’t help, as he’s told not to do homework at the table, and his mother comments that algebra and science are useless subjects.  The Michelin guide seems to be a valuable commodity in this little world.  The times when Antoine displays strong emotional reactions are rather interesting.  There was the happiness during the carnival ride and with the parents after the movie, and the panic of the Balzac shrine catching fire, and the sadness with tears streaming from his eyes in the police van, and the sly smile when asked about girls.  His face is without expression after the two times he is slapped across the face.  You have to give credit to Jean-Pierre Léaud for giving a good performance at such a young age, and helping this film be a success.  I did notice that there were no young girls in the story.  It was as if no one in all of Paris had a daughter.  I read through Roger Ebert’s review of the movie on August 8, 1999, mentioning in the last two paragraphs “Small Change” and “The Green Room.”  I’d like to go back and see “The Green Room” again, as I always think back on people who have died.  Some of the people who died on October 13 include Claudius (54 AD), Millard Mitchell (1953), Clifton Webb (1966), Ed Sullivan (1974), Henry Roth (1995), and Jean Peters (2000).  Today is a birthday for Nancy Kerrigan (48), Jerry Rice (55), Marie Osmond (58), Sammy Hagar (70), and Paul Simon (76).  According to the Brandon Brooks Rewind radio segment for October 13, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” was the Number One movie at the box office in 1969.  In 1979, Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” hit Number One on the singles chart.  In 1984, Stevie Wonder had the Number One single, “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”  In 2004, the Internal Revenue Service charged Ronald Isley with five counts of tax evasion, for which he would eventually serve three years in prison.