Tuesday, August 06, 2019

Friends and Lovers and Meddling Kids

It was cloudy and humid when I rolled out of bed this morning. After breakfast, I continued the cleaning. Got the kitchen done. I ate at home a lot last month, so I really needed to be done. The sink was especially grimy. Watched Let's Do It Again while I worked. I go further into this 1953 musical remake of The Awful Truth on my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

Let's Do It Again (1953)

Rushed to work after eating a quick lunch and dropping my DVDs and donations at the Oaklyn Library. Work was a bit of a pain. I thought it was going to rain, so I spent the first hour rushing around, trying to gather as many carts as I could. I'd just finished that when I was called to mop up the overflowing freezer again. I had barely gotten started there when the head manager wanted me to take a register, despite dealing with the freezer mess at the same time! Thankfully, once the lunch rush hour ended, so did our customers. We weren't busy the rest of the day. I had to take one more customer, but only for a few minutes. I mostly shelved candy after break.

(By the way, it never did rain. By the time I headed home, the clouds were gone, and it was hot, sunny, and killer humid.)

When I got home, I had a snack, then worked on writing. Vedder loses his temper and chokes Ahsoka, until she brings up his ex-wife Patti. He claims she's dead, but they both know better.

Meanwhile, Luke is at the Dagobah YMCA, working on his handstands with Yoda while Rudy paints the walls. Luke's not sure what he's doing there, but Yoda knows where the real strength lies...

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Watched another episode of What's New, Scooby Doo? while eating leftovers. "Wrestle Maniacs" parodies the popularity of WCW and WWE in the early millennium. Fred's thrilled when they go to a huge wrestling show to see his favorite players, and his enthusasim doesn't dull when the show is attacked by mutant ghost of a wrestler who was twisted to death. While Shaggy and Scooby befriend a retired player, the others try to keep this monstrous brawler from attacking the current champ.

Moved on to Lego Star Wars after dinner. Finally got through "Escape from Echo Base," which brings me down to two blue miniki challenges I haven't done in Empire Strikes Back. Tried "Hoth Battle," but couldn't get far. I'll give it another go tomorrow.

Finished the night with Green Book, this year's Oscar-winning Best Picture. Frank "Tony the Lip" Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) is a bouncer from the Bronx who takes a job driving African-American concert pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) around in the Deep South for a tour. The working-class Italian American and wealthy musician learn a great deal about friendship, class and race differences, and working as a team when Frank stands up for his friend when he's discriminated against in clubs and bars in the South, and Don smooths things over with Frank's temper and makes sure he gets home on Christmas Eve.

Aww, I really liked this one. Sweet and tough, this has a lot of interesting things to say about the divides between race and class in the US, even now. Ali won a Supporting Actor Oscar as the musician whose education has cut him off from both white and black lower classes; Mortensen is almost as good as the working stiff who comes to admire and respect him. There were some complaints about other aspects of Shirley's life besides his musical side not being really developed and about Frank coming to Shirley's rescue a little too often, but for the most part, this is a really interesting and touching story about an unusual friendship that gets a major recommendation from me.

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