Brandi’s Blog

Sad news today. Cyd Charisse has passed away at the age of 87. Read the AFP article HERE.

Fred Astaire only made two films with Cyd but the impression these two films made on me were significant. The Bandwagon - arguably Fred Astaire’s best film - and Silk Stockings are filled with humor, great music and, of course, wonderful dancing. Cyd was one of Fred’s best partners and he was generous enough to let her show it. When she danced with Gene Kelly it always seemed that all Gene wanted to do was lift her and carry her around. Fred let her keep her feet on the ground and actually dance.

And, wow, could she dance. I have no problem understanding what Fred meant when he said, “When you dance with Cyd Charisse, you’ve been danced with.”

So, it’s my birthday and I got up at 6:00.

This is very odd for me. I hate mornings and I normally sleep as long as possible - I don’t have to be at work until 7:30 - but I didn’t feel like sleeping anymore.

When I got on the scale it told me that I have lost 11 pounds in the past three weeks.

So far, it’s been a decent birthday.

I just checked my stats for my website - I haven’t done it in a long time - and found that for the past few months my hits have been up substantially. One reason was that Lost post I made (tip: If you want people to read your blog, just type the world Lost. Lost Lost Lost Lost) but another was the fact that there are STILL idiots out there who don’t realize or don’t care that hotlinking is just not kosher.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. There were two main culprits, one being a message board. I didn’t read the thread too closely but it seemed to be about The Big Lebowski but it was also bashing women and stating that they shouldn’t be anywhere near a computer. Seems to me that it should be bandwidth and image stealing assholes who shouldn’t be allowed near a computer.

Learn to right-click, idiots. Hot linking is for thieves and losers.

Don’t get me wrong - I like Locke very much. He’s been one of the best three characters from the very beginning but I have this unhealthy fascination with Ben. If I were on the island I would be very tempted to join the Others - and the fact that Nestor “I am Batmanuel” Carbonell is one of them would have nothing (okay, maybe a little) to do with it.

No logic here. Ben went way down below the island to a very cold place - wearing the coat he was wearing when he turned up in the desert - turned an ancient wheel and after a noise as annoying as Jim Carey’s screech it went bye bye. Right on! Find THAT Charles Widmore, you man who keeps showing up on all of my favorite shows.

This season finale did cause one reaction I don’t think I’ve ever had with this show - crying not because of a disaster, or sad ending but for a very happy ending. When Desmond and Penny saw each other I turned into a total girl and cried for them. There aren’t too many of those kind of moments on Lost and I was glad that it went to the third of my three favorite characters (Desmond).

• What did Sawyer ask Kate to do?
• Where did the island go?
• Did everyone/everything make the jump or were others tossed out like Ben?
• Did Miles stay because he knew the boat was going to go boom or is there something else going on with him?
• Where is Sayid taking Hurley?
• Is Jack’s dad dead or not?
• When does the second half of season four start?

• Washington Monument: 1888
• Lincoln Memorial: 1922
• Jefferson Memorial: 1943
• Adams Memorial: To be announced

My relatives recently took a trip to D.C. and this just reminded me of my irritation over the fact that John Adams still does not have a Memorial. It looks like this is finally going to be remedied. Architectural designer Rodney M. Cooke Jr. will be coordinating the design of the memorial which will honor John Adams, his wife Abigail Adams, his son John Quincy Adams and his wife Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams.

In my opinion, this has come at least 66 years too late. Adams should have gotten a memorial before Jefferson, despite his not-so-stellar presidency. He did more work toward Independence than Jefferson ever did - he just wasn’t as good with words or with people to get the recognition he deserved. I can identify with that - especially the part about not getting on with people. They can really suck, you know?

Every once in a while I’ll enter a contest if it’s easy or if the requirements are interesting. A while back Pink Raygun had a contest to guess the top 8 movies in their March Madness movie tournament. I guessed four and I won. Woo hoo!

I’m not feeling well today and i’m stuck at home in bed so I thought I’d make another entry in my ’series’ of favorites. Today’s entry is the third actor in my trio of number ones - James Cagney.

Two posts ago I told how I first became interested in James Cagney via Michael J. Fox. As I wrote then, my first encounter with James Cagney was not through a gangster film filled with sneers, smacks on the chin or the ventilation of snitch-filled car trunks. Mine was of a short, well-mannered man in a tux dancing around an overly-done art-deco night club. Something to Sing About is not one of Cagney’s best films, but I’ve always liked it very much.

After I saw that movie back in high school, I didn’t really go out looking for Cagney films. I did, however, watch them when I happened upon them. The second Cagney film I saw was (a badly colorized version of) Yankee Doodle Dandy while I was in college. This one wasn’t hard to come by - it plays on many stations every Independence Day. I liked this one even more than Something to Sing About and I was a little miffed at my roommate at the time who made fun of his stiff-legged dancing. His style wasn’t as graceful as Astaire, but that didn’t make it bad and I liked it quite a bit.

It wasn’t until a few years later, when I did start seeking out Cagney films, that I finally saw the type of movie Cagney is most famous for and, to be honest, I don’t remember which one it was. Maybe The Roaring Twenties but I know it wasn’t Public Enemy. The first time I saw Public Enemy I was a little shocked at how brutal it was (this was before I knew about ‘pre-code’ films and how they differed from the ‘post-code’ films I was used to seeing) and just how damned scary Cagney could be. Before these gangster films, the worst I had seen Cagney’s characters behave was due to an overabundance of self-confidence.

I love Cagney’s gangster films - or, at least, I love him in these films - but I personally prefer the non-gangster roles. The musicals, the comedies, the straight dramas. When I hear people talk of Cagney today, it’s always in reference to his tough guy roles.

“Does anyone know what a Jimmy Cagney love scene is? It’s when Cagney lets the good guy live.” - Shoot ‘em Up, 2007

His comedic, (non bad-guy) dramatic and musical talents are rarely mentioned in pop culture. I know what a James Cagney love scene is and so did Ann Sheridan, Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth, Olivia DeHaviland and countless other leading ladies.

(As an aside, I actually really like the movie that quote up there is from. It’s spoken by a really, really bad man so I can’t expect him to know any better.)

To get a really well-rounded look-see at what Cagney was really all about, I would recommend the following:

• Public Enemy (as Tom Powers) - Cagney’s break-out role. He was originally cast as the ‘good’ best friend but it was soon clear that he was better suited to the intense role of Tom Powers.
• The St. Louis Kid (as Eddie Kennedy) - A schizophrenic film that starts off as a romantic comedy but turns into a heavy pro-labor union drama.
• The Irish in Us (as Danny O’Hara) - Sharing the screen with two of his best friends, Pat O’Brien and Frank McHugh, Cagney plays the irresponsible brother to Pat O’Brien’s good brother - a pattern that repeated in almost all the movies they shared (one really good exception - Torrid Zone)
• Angels With Dirty Faces (as Rocky Sullivan) - One of Cagney’s most famous roles, which is very much deserved. He is again playing a gangster but this time he is endangering children by encouraging them to follow in his footsteps. He best friend, the priest (Pat O’Brien once again) who looks over these youths, asks him to make a huge sacrifice that goes against Rocky’s very being.
• The Oklahoma Kid (as Jim Kincaid, The Oklahoma Kid) - Yep, this is a western. Cagney made a few more westerns, but not until he was much older. Cagney’s image was very urbane, but his first choice of career was to be a farmer so this role actually felt natural to him and he was disappointed that the public didn’t agree. The bad guy in this movie (complete with an all-black outfit, including his hat) was equally urbane Humphrey Bogart. Not a bad movie and a hoot to watch just for the stark differences in role types for both of these icons.
• The Strawberry Blonde (as T.L. ‘Biff’ Grimes) - A romantic comedy, one of the few Cagney made, this is one of my favorite Cagney films period. The plot isn’t all that original (boy loves the wrong girl - the right girl loves him - the boy finally realizes the wrong girl is an utter bitch and falls for the right girl after having been married to the right girl for years) but the period setting and wonderful performances help it rise above all of this. Rita Hayworth is utterly gorgeous (of course) and can even make the beautiful Olivia DeHaviland look plan in comparison, but we all know which one is worth Cagney’s time, right?
• Yankee Doodle Dandy (as George M. Cohan) - Everyone knows this one, but in case you don’t this is the biographical film of one of the stage performer/composer/director greats. Fred Astaire was Cohan’s first choice, but Cagney was the bettert choice for the role. Fred was a good actor, but Cagney was much better at playing the brash, egotistical, in-your-face - but still likeable - jerk.
• White Heat (as Cody Jarrett) - Yes, another gangster role but this time he’s a ruthless, insane Mama’s boy - a dangerous combination if there ever was one. This was Cagney’s return to a genre he wasn’t thrilled to go back to, but at least he came back with a bang…literally.
• Love Me or Leave Me (as Martin Snyder) - Another bio-pic about a stage man, but this time he’s an ‘agent’ and not the performer. This movie is more about Ruth Etting, played wonderfully by Doris Day, than it is about Snyder, but Cagney’s performance as the brutal and insanely jealous manager is as scary of his role as Tom Powers in Public Enemy. Only, this time, he charms his prey to trap them instead of gunning them down.

There are many others that are just as good, but the above roles are different enough from the others and do a good job at showing just what Cagney was capable of. Not all of these films are available on DVD but you might be able to catch them on Turner Classic Movies if you keep an eye out. Hopefully they will all be available soon.

If you want to hear me go off on a rant, mention Fred Astaire’s widow. If you want to piss me off, tell me Fred Astaire was a no-talent hoofer. If you want to be my friend forever tell me Fred Astaire was the best dancer in musical films ever.

Strangely enough, however, I did not start watching Fred movies because of his dancing. I started watching his movies because he made me laugh.

Back in high school when my parents got divorced I got a bit depressed. Both my mother and I tended to watch  and listen to entertainment that made us laugh. (We both went through a big Ray Stevens kick, but that’s another story I may never tell.) So, I was home alone one day, flipping around the channels when I came upon an old black and white movie. There was this skinny man dressed to the nines sitting on a couch, not speaking and obviously thinking things over. The way he moved his eyes as he did this made me laugh out loud so I finished watching The Gay Divorcee even though I had no idea what was going on.

Over the next month I kept an eye out for that movie (it was on AMC, back when their name actually meant something) and I kept catching snippets of it here and there but those snippets confused me even more. Turns out I was catching bits of The Gay Divorcee and Top Hat. Both have the same cast, minus one, and the plots were so thin that it was understandable.

I finally caught both movies from the beginning and watched them in their entirety. I suppose I was lucky that those two films were my first Fred films - they’re considered two of the best of the Fred and Ginger (Rogers) series - because from then on, I was hooked.

I have always wanted to know how to dance. I don’t know if this actually happened because memory is such a tricky thing, but I remember this vividly: When I was very young my mother told me I could take tap dancing lessons as long as I also took ballet lessons. I told her I wouldn’t take ballet lessons so I didn’t get any lessons. I really wish she had made me take both because I now have a deep appreciation for both styles of dancing.

So, Fred got my attention with his comedic abilities and he held it with his wonderful dancing. Every new film brought new dances and even in the worst of them his performance brought those clunkers up to a higher level. Blue Skies has the amazing ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz‘ number where he dances with over a dozen mirror images of himself. The Belle of New York has the understated soft-shoe ‘I Wanna Be a Dancin’ Man.’ And Let’s Dance has ‘Oh Them Dudes‘ - a very guilty pleasure of mine.

I’m very close to my goal of having everything Fred ever appeared in, including his non-musical performances, but there are several things that aren’t available. I highly doubt we’ll ever see his television specials he made with Barrie Chase on DVD - the music rights issues would only be one of the major obstacles - but I can still keep hoping.

Here’s to you Fred - may there never be a time when the world is deprived of your talents.

I thought I’d give a ‘theme week’ a try. Who knows - it might make me post on a more regular basis. But I doubt it. *lame grin*

So, I’ll start with the man who helped introduce me to the wonderful world of classic films for which I will be forever grateful. Without that introduction I would be devoid of my two of my three favorite actors, Fred Astaire and James Cagney.

So, my thanks goes out to Michael J. Fox. Before I saw Back to the Future I had my favorites - Shaun Cassidy was the first actor I can remember singling out and then Tom Hanks when he was on Bosom Buddies - but my ‘fanship’ of those two can never compare to what happened after I saw Back to the Future.

If you don’t believe me, check this out. Yeah. That’s my website. I’m not ashamed of it - a little defensive, maybe - but never ashamed.

After becoming the uber-geek-fan of MJF back in 1985, I started trying out things those fan magazines said he liked. I even tried Linguini in Clam sauce, for cripes sake - and that was some of the nastiest stuff I ever tasted. Ugh!

He was often quoted as saying he was a big James Cagney fan. I had never even heard of James Cagney so I had no idea what he was all about. And so, one Friday night in Southeast Texas, the local t.v. station had a James Cagney film on their schedule - Something to Sing About. Fortunately, I wasn’t one of those kids that wouldn’t watch anything in black and white - I watched Mr. Ed every night on Nick at Nite - and I watched it. And loved it.

It snowballed after that and now I’m a huge fan of classic films and especially musicals. And despite the fact that Cagney is most famous for his gangster, tough guy roles, I will always think of him as a song and dance man.

I was an obsessive fan of MJF - I’ll be the first to admit it - and I’m sure I drove my parents insane with my never-ending quest to see absolutely everything he had ever appeared in. (I even have a copy of his appearance on ‘Here’s Boomer.’) I haven’t seen everything, but I’m still working on it. And while my fansite may make some doubt this, I’m not that obsessive uber-geek-fan anymore. My respect for MJF is now more about his acting ability than how cute he is. He’s only gotten better as he’s gotten older and I sincerely hope that someday, he’ll be back on the big or small screen entertaining all of us again.

My husband is a writer, and a pretty good one. (Don’t listen to what he says about himself - he’s one of those ‘his own worst critic’ types.)

Last week his first comic to be released this year came out: Kolchak - Night Stalker of the Living Dead - and it’s gotten a nice review over HERE. He’s a big fan of the character and although I’ve only seen a few episodes of the original series it’s clear that he really gets Carl Kolchak.

Later this year (June) a three-issue mini-series of his comic Femme Noir is coming out, and it’s already getting good press. He’s been working on Femme Noir for years - it was a webcomic on his first web site back in 1999 and now it’s made the jump to print with all new stories. If you like old films of the noir and/or horror persuasion or like old pulp novels, this one would be right up your alley.

And later this year or early next year another three-issue mini-series will be released of another title, Perils on Planet X. It’s science fiction/fantasy along the lines of ‘John Carter of Mars,’ ‘Flash Gordon‘ and ‘Buck Rogers (the comic and old serials, not the 70’s tv show.)

As you can tell his writing subjects are as eclectic as his tastes and in my opinion he does a wonderful job on all of them.

Over here, you can see a list of other comics he’s done in the past. (This listing is not complete yet).