A Movie Nearly Every Night: O.K. Connery

O.K Connery or Operation Kid Brother (1967)
Dir. Alberto De Martino
Starring: Neil Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Adolfo Celi, Agata Flori

Last year's Largo and this year's Connery - when they met, it was murder

I like to think I can take just about any kind of punishment from a movie. Friends, did I or did I not watch The Fifth Element? True, we walked out on Gangs of New York, but it was in a stuffy theater and we'd only paid $1.50 to see it and I can sleep for free at home. (snort. hmpf. "What, he hasn't killed him yet? Let's go.")

But I couldn't watch this one all the way through. I tried. I really did. I wanted to like it because what's not to like? It's a Bond spoof with Bond actors including M and Miss Moneypenny (as Commander Cunninghammmmm-no, not M, really, and Lois Maxwell as Miss Maxwell ... really). Add dash of former Bond villains and a former Bond girl, with a pinch of Bond girl look-alikes and a Morricone soundtrack that makes you wonder how he wasn't sued, and you've got magic, right? Right?

"Max" in a wee Tam o'Shanter that resembles my tea cozy.

Wow, no. The dubbing, the plot, watching Adolfo Celi feel-up some evil minion in a go-go sailor outfit ... eeeeew argh, I'm sorry, I just couldn't take it. But, as we fast-forwarded through the hour and a half that remained the cousin/roommate and I discovered two things: 1) it's much better when on fast-forward because there's no sound and the action flows faster; 2) these clothes were GREAT.

Daniela Bianchi in a fetching hat.
It matches her Creamsicle-colored dress and shoes

Nearly every scene featured some nutty use of wardrobe and not always bad, although sometimes slightly uncomfortable. (We won't be discussing what passes for evil male clothing because it just made me feel funny.)(No, not funny "ha-ha.") Daniela Bianchi, the actual Bond girl, is femme fatale Maya and everything she wears is orange or orange and white. But that's okay, because she looks good in orange, and even with sticking to a single color they manage to put her in a sweet selection of outfits.

I swear the guy on the left has "shemped" in 2 other Bond films.

Neil gets a chance to show off a full-Scots for a significant segment of film time while Daniela sports orange fur. I had this same coat in faux-fur. It was pink. It did not come with the matching hair clip like Daniela's, but it had the double-breast and brass buttons. I wore it about 5 years after it was in style, but I thought it was cool, especially with white boots and a daisy print sundress underneath.

But I digress.

Yes, even an orange and white can-can outfit. Who'da thunk it?

Agata Flori fares a little better with color variety as the evil side-kick with the non-evil name, Mildred.

Fixing a wardrobe malfunction, and I don't mean the pretzel hair.

She is also found crawling on the floor for most of the first half of the picture prompting the obvious question: "Do you ever walk upright?"

Pink and black with little Benita Bizarre accents

Pink and yellow with little clown accents

So, yes, there are crosses and double-crosses and kooky plot twists and Lois Maxwell shooting guns and flame throwers, which makes it all very Bond-like, sort of, and maybe it's entertaining if you watch it in real-time, but I'm not patient enough to find out. Honestly, when you can figure it all out on fast-forward with no sound, what does that tell you?

no comment

I don't think I have to spell it out.

Nerd

Platelet count: 39
Tumor shrunk 1.8 cm.

So that's a big f--you to cancer, yeah?

It's nice to know that the weird facial hair, hot flashes and missing the Vegas trip have actually had positive results. For a while there I was getting weepy and depressed. (Yeah, I know! weird.) And in the weepy and depressed mode, I set little weepy and depressed goals for myself, thinking "If I could just make it to the World Cup," "If I could just make it to my birthday," etc...

This is my new goal:



Comin' with me? It'll be so cool.

If only we had IMAX in Eugene.

It's What's Inside That Counts

Good Fortune

Bad Fortune

that is all

Vini, Vidi, Vinci

Li'l Hateful: 1 Denny's: 0

Helping out was the brother and soon to be sister (she's a keeper), who took the cousin/roommate and I out for the feast:


This photo was not taken at Denny's, but at a little coffee shop called Todd's Place after a day-long celebration of slam-fullness, which included a trip to Saturday Market, a viewing (in full)(!) of Om Shanti Om and a Eugene Emeralds game where we sat behind home plate and watched baseball scouts clock the pitchers with radar guns. The Em's lost, but the scouting stuff was kind of cool.

Unfortunately not included in the celebration of slam-fullness, due to unfair anchoring of lesser prizes, was acquiring the best soft toy ever made by machine: Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.

Thank you. Come again.

Summer of Slam

I'm posting this at work, which means it's dead slow and the formatting may be all screwy. I'm just sayin' so's you know. You can let it dangle.

MRI yesterday. Results July 26th. Can I wait that long? Sure. I don't want to hear anything about cancer on my birfday. I get a whole week next week of no doctors. I had one of those kinds of weeks last month and I'm beginning to like the feeling. So snap to you, health sciences!

What will I have on my birfday? Well, I'm glad you axed. My birthday dinner be Trader Joe's Ultra Chocolate Ice Cream. No. That's it. That's all I want. Maybe some Orangina, but probably not. But tomorrow is the real treat: Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast.

It's been about 20 years since I've had one and I've been exercising and eating salads all week in preparation for the feast. I feel good. I feel strong. I feel like I can handle the double meat, the double stack, the double eggs, the coffee and the orange juice. The Grand Slam is a proud warrior, strong like bull, but I'm going to do everything I can to drop it to the mat and finish every portion with extreme prejudice.

Later, sure, I may throw up. But until then, I predict VICTORY!

Sure, it could've gone better

Okay, so a brief word on the side effects ---- bad, but not like that other stuff. I could at least get out of bed and get down the hall swiftly to throw up in the bathroom, and that is half the battle. I still couldn't eat anything, not even pudding (!), but I could work from home if I didn't move my head around too much. I would much rather have been at work in air conditioning, but that would have required showering and putting on clothes, two things I was finding it impossible to do.

Things are better now since I convinced the cousin/roommate to go buy some Pop Tarts yesterday. It was a struggle, ("They're just sugar!" "So what? They work!" "But they're bad for you!" "No, Good!") but I knew they would work, although for a few minutes I had my doubts. But all is settled in now and I may try the pudding again.

What didn't help was Turner Classic Movies, my old pal, my old chum, my old companion on sick days. Here was their line-up for last Friday:

'Til We Meet Again (1940)
A dying woman shares a shipboard romance with a criminal on his way to the gallows. Cast: Merle Oberon, George Brent.

Dark Victory (1939)
A flighty heiress discovers inner strength when she develops a brain tumor. Cast: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart.

Invitation (1952)
A millionaire tries to buy his dying daughter a husband. Cast: Dorothy McGuire, Van Johnson

Dude. What? They couldn't find a copy of Terms of Endearment? Honestly...

Must Be The Hendrick's Gin

Platelet Count: 43

I'm on half a steroid every other day (dude, what is the point?) for another 2 weeks, but it looks like I'm back to my old regular ITP again. I also had my first dose of Zometa this afternoon and I've been drowning myself in liquids all day to keep the side effects down. I've heard it could be as bad as Aredia, so we have pudding cups and clear-ish Gatorade just in case. So far so good and I promise I won't freak out this time. I have my Percocet on stand-by.

It's now 4 months into this cancer thing and I think I'm starting to get used to it. The patterns of my life haven't changed all that much and I don't really feel any different, with the exception of the hot flashes, fatigue, short-term memory blanks, hot flashes and fatigue. I still don't plan past a few weeks because I don't know what will happen beyond the next doctor's appointment, but I'm reaching a point where I can almost see myself living with this for a while.

Sure, I still have doubts -- a lot of them -- and I think about Kelly every day and how we had hope and how hope wasn't enough. I don't suppose I'll ever completely trust science again or put all of my eggs in the hope basket. But, right now, I think I've got a grip on the day-to-day portion of it.

And I have my Percocet on stand-by.

A Movie Nearly Every Night: It's a tough racket double feature

The September Issue (2009)
Dir. R. J. Cutler
Starring: Anna Wintour, Grace Coddington and all kinds of fashion folk

Anna Wintour: focused on paper; distracting with pencil

By now the person of Anna Wintour is overshadowed by the media creation of Anna Wintour: She's the Ice Goddess. She's the Pope of Fashion. She is demanding, persnickety, and exacting. She's the devil in Prada.

Yeah, well? She's Editor of Vogue. That's a lot of responsibility, and while I won't say I'm completely suckered in by the somewhat lonely somewhat lovable image offered by The September Issue, I can't imagine how she'd do her job if she wasn't demanding, persnickety and exacting. She makes great and terrible decisions every second of every day. Those photo shoots really are incredible and beautiful and awesome, but something's got to go and people look to her to be the cutter. She's not your friend.

But just look at the way she sits in her metal chair -- metal, people. metal.

She's got to be demanding because she works with self-centered, flighty, emotional fashion people and she's got 5 minutes to tell them what's right and what's wrong with their work. There's no time for nice.

Unless you're Grace Coddington.

Grace gets inspired by cameraman Robert Richman.

Grace is the Creative Director at Vogue and is warm and accessible in comparison to the cold fabrication that is Anna. Grace started out as a Vogue model and now she works on the other side of the camera, creating stunning layouts that are as much a part of the "new" look of Vogue as Anna's focus on celebrity and fur.

Young Grace strikes a pose.

She's also one of the few, if only, members of the Vogue staff with enough savvy and gusto to stand up to her editor. She knows her limitations, but she's also smart enough to know how to work her boss.

In one scene Grace brings up the matter of a budget for a Couture photo shoot, because she knows Anna's not going to talk money while the cameras roll. This comes after seeing some of her best photo layouts rejected, so it's a small, but sweet victory.

But, sure, if this movie teaches anything it's that fashion is stressful. (Not that body image is dictated by Photoshop or fashion is absurd or any of that unimportant stuff.) You've got to get it right or you end up at the bottom, and in fashion publishing, forget it. You get it wrong once and you're out of a job, even if you're the editor.

Of course it's not like driving a gravel truck.

Hell Drivers (1957)
Dir. C. Raker Endfield
Starring: Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, Patrick McGoohan

"I want fast drivers. 50 miles an hour right round the clock. Bad roads, wet or fine ... if you don't think you can handle 10 tons at that speed just say so." Then you've got to go out in the truck and speed through the run without brakes -- and that's just the job interview.

Once you're hired you find yourself constantly harassed by "Red" who likes to spit at you and challenges you to a fight all the time. But he's Irish, right? That's how they are. Don't get yourself in trouble fighting with him.

He's crazy weird anyway.

But it hurts that your your mum doesn't understand, although she's still bitter about you crippling your little brother, Jimmy. (It's okay, tho', because he went on to better things like Ancient Prophesies and N.C.I.S.)

But you made a good friend in Gino "Spaghetti" Rossi, who takes you into his confidence on the first day and tells you how he's going to marry the office round-heels, Lucy.

Although this seems to come as a surprise to her,

since she isn't afraid to tell you and any other nosy Nellie at the tea bar how she's not anybody's girl.

And you're tempted by Lucy/Loosey, while poor Jill Ireland can't keep her eyes off of you even though she's dancing with Sean Connery (who clearly isn't pleased with her attention on someone else).

Still, that Red is a crazy bastard, and Who does that boss man think he is anyway?