I was so sleepy that I missed the first hour of CBS This Morning: Saturday. What I did see was Nancy Cordes interviewing a young girl named Zoe Thomson about her guitar playing skills. This girl said she loved Metallica. She wasn’t the greatest interview subject, giving a one-word answer to a question. She ended the interview by playing “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” Yes, she’s satisfied with playing these riffs for now, but what happens when she gets burnt out on it? The chef of the morning was Kerry Heffernan, whose special dish was the Whole Black Sea Bass Stuffed with Crab. His other recipes included the Sag Harbor Clam Chowder, Rutabaga Gratin, Mustard Greens, and Maple Syrup Flan. Nancy really liked the dessert, describing it as “crazy.” Erica Hill gave a preview for Monday’s show, and I couldn’t look away from her sleeves. I worked on the blog and looked at the Top 10 songs for January 28, 1978: “Thicker Than Water,” “Just the Way You Are,” “Come Sail Away,” “How Deep is Your Love,” “We Are the Champions,” “Slip Slidin’ Away,” “You’re in My Heart,” “Stayin’ Alive,” “Short People,” and “Baby Come Back.” I took the bus out to Emeryville to look at the DVDs that were on sale. They were selling the first season of Saturday Night Live for $10, so I bought a copy. For me, only the seasons with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi were worth watching. On the bus back, some students were talking about their classes and their housing. The one guy doing all the talking should have been concentrating on studying. I went to the theatre to see “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” the movie about a young boy trying to cope with his father’s death on 9/11. Tom Hanks is Thomas Schell, a jeweler who happens to be at the Twin Towers at the time of the attack. The son’s name is Oskar. He’s a smart guy, but he also latches onto ideas like a leech. He tries to solve a mystery of a sixth borough, but I couldn’t figure out how he had the time or resources to do any of it. At some moments, he looks like Tom Hanks, but he also has an androgynous look to him. Sandra Bullock is the mother, who has a few touching moments, but has a style of mothering that Christy Lemire would find highly questionable. What she reveals to her son at the end made me question her sanity. Max Von Sydow is a mysterious renter living in Oskar’s grandmother’s unit. He doesn’t talk at all. He communicates by writing on a notepad with a pen. I couldn’t help thinking about how it was 25 years between “Hannah and Her Sisters” and this movie. The man is older but still alive. A year after 9/11, which Oskar refers to as The Worst Day, Oskar is going through the closest and breaks a blue vase. He discovers an envelope with a key in it, and he goes on an obsessive quest to find what the key unlocks. He’s hoping for some meaningful last connection with his father before he finally has to do on with life. For such a bright kid, it is strange that he doesn’t observe the name Black written on the envelope. He goes through a stack of phone books and tries to visit everywhere named Black in New York City to solve this mystery. The approach isn’t exactly brilliant, because he could have focused on his immediate surroundings and what his father was doing before his death instead of wandering around the big city. Of course, this is all really the chance to show what the people in the city are like, and how they came together in spirit as a result of this tragedy. I didn’t like this view of New York City as the center of everything. There are some humorous moments in Oskar’s quest, although it’s uncomfortable watching him lie so much. The kid really needed some help, and Sandra’s handling of the matter was really dangerous. Oskar becomes rather irritating at times, especially when he gets wound up and talks fast. When he mentions that if the sun explodes, we wouldn’t know about it for eight minutes, I was annoyed. That sounds like an interesting fact you learn in school, but it won’t happen in our lifetime. I can understand how Oskar could deal with his grief by throwing himself into this question about the key. I would probably do something like that if I were in his place. I think a lot of people must have complained about the answer about what the key was. It turned out to be extremely disappointing. For one thing, we never get to see the key opening the lock, which isn’t all of it. Sandra has to deal with her son’s not feeling as much love for her as for her husband. The way the movie is tilted, you can see that, because the kid has a lot of fun with his dad, and he admires his intellect. As I watched Sandra Bullock, I thought of the woman she was in “The Blind Side,” but without the Southern accent. At the end, I still wondered if Oskar would grow up to be a normal adult, but he did seem to have a future as an author of pop-up books. The last shot of the movie shows him swinging on a swing in Central Park, recalling Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru.” I thought this movie was better than I was led to believe, based on some negative reviews. The best movie I’ve seen about 9/11 was “United 93,” because it just showed what happened without commentary. As far as it compares with the other movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, I’d probably place it about seventh out of nine. John Goodman played a doorman, and I thought he was out of place, giving a Big Lebowski flavor to his scenes. I walked out of the theatre and went into CVS to buy a package of batteries. I still listen to CDs because of albums with tracks that flow from one to the next, like “Abbey Road.” I returned home to have my pork buns and salad. On the news, I saw that one of the 49ers had been arrested on a DUI charge. It’s good to see any kind of misfortune happen to the 49ers. The Occupy Oakland protest was in the news. They keep costing the city money and annoying people. The national news showed Jon Voight campaigning for Mitt Romney. Back in 1978, Voight played a disabled Vietnam War veteran warning an auditorium full of high school students about the dangers of the military. He was in this movie with Jane Fonda. Was this really the same man we saw in 1978? I think I can see how Angelina Jolie was estranged from him. I left the TV as I worked on other things. Some of the programs were “Batman,” “Lost in Space,” and “Star Trek.” I watched the first Saturday Night Live program on DVD. The opening skit featured John Belushi, and George Carlin was the first host. There were two musical guests, Billy Preston, but they didn’t perform any songs together. Andy Kaufman did his famous Mighty Mouse routine twelve and a half minutes into the program. A red string or hair or stain appeared on the lens in a couple of shots. One of the funniest bits had Dan Aykroyd and Garrett Morris as home security salesmen. Janis Ian sang “At Seventeen” and “In the Winter,” reminding me what a great album “Between the Lines” was. Since October 11, 1975, some of the people who have died are George Carlin, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Andy Kaufman, and Billy Preston. My notes on Brandon Brooks Rewind radio segment about January 29 tell me that in 1962, Peter, Paul and Mary signed with Warner Bros. Records. In 1964, “Dr. Strangelove” was released. In 1966, The Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out” was the Number One pop song, and in 1977, it was Rose Royce’s “Car Wash.” In 1980, Jimmy Durante died at age 87. It’s Oprah Winfrey’s 58th birthday. I made a list of some of the words I’m sick of because of overuse, misuse, or both:
Amazing
Crazy
Emotional
Game-changer
Hella
Ironic
Niners
Passion
Surreal
Weird.
Christopher's space 