Two Sea Turtles

 One on land, on in the water

Maui

 Good week to be here.

Inauguration Day

Michael Curtiz's Opening of Mildred Pierce

 If you watch most movies from the pre-TV period, you proceed in a typical fashion. Title Cards, then the story opens relatively statically. But Michael Curtiz developed the type of opening we now see more often. The kind that pulls you in. Take the opening of Mildred Pierce (below).

The first sequence sets up the plot and tone of the movie from the beginning.

1. A shot of an Ocean Front House shows power and money.
2. The Interior reflects money and power, but pans to a dapper playboy (Monty) who is shot repeatedly.
3. Monty hits the floor, the gun is thrown at him, and Monty says "Mildred."
4. A car rushes away - we assume with the killer.
5. Mildred Pierce walks hesitantly along an ocean boardwalk. She walks out on the pier.
6. Mildred looks painfully at the water, and begins to climb over the railing.
7. A loud clang announces someone else is there.

Here you go. You know there is a murder. You know that this is Mildred, rich but haggard. You know she doesn't know what to do next. All before the first words are spoken.

Now rewatch the mini-scene of Monty being shot. The first frames are from a lower angle. You see Monty and the ceiling simultaneously, giving a sense of claustrophobia.  When he falls, the gun is thrown, and he is lying in front of a fire that isn't extinguished, showing the killer leaving in a hurry.

Joan Crawford, as Mildred, gives a great performance in these few scenes. She conveys a sense of helplessness and weariness without saying a word.

Great.

Michael Curtiz turned bad guys from the silents into feel-good stars.

In the silent movies, two of the bad and evil men were William Powell and Warner William. They were big box office stars. With sound, they were some of the few that made the transition to talkies. No doubt it is because both were Broadway actors before coming to Hollywood.

Some of their first sound movies were done with Michael Curtiz who managed their change from cads to charming, if alcohol-influenced, detectives and good lawyers.

Color me inpressed.

 

Beautiful Plantation Restaurant

Yesterday we ate at an old sugar mill. It was redone beautifully. 

I’m not a fan of pics of me, but I like this.

Kay Francis - what happened to stars in the 1930s.

 Most people haven't heard of or seen Kay Francis, which is too bad. She was legendary. Here is a blurb from Wikipedia.

Kay Francis (born Katharine Edwina Gibbs; January 13, 1905 – August 26, 1968) was an American stage and film actress.[1] After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star and highest-paid actress at Warner Bros. studio.[2] She adopted her mother's maiden name (Francis) as her professional surname.

My reading of Michael Curtiz biography (truly an amazing book) mentions her many times. She and Curtis had an excellent record at Warner Brothers. The book talked about 2 of her films, and how Curtiz changed them and introduced new shots. I watched them. I was impressed by the direction. And, it turns out, I loved Kay Francis.

A precode Comedy

A precode drama / tragedy

She was called box-office poison and dumped in 1936. It was Carol Lombard, who had been in a few of her films, that demanded Kay get a role in a show with Carol and Gary Grant. She was very good, and had a comeback until the war.

In WWII, she immediately joined and entertained the troops. In 1944, she collapsed on stage and was rushed back to her hotel room after passing out from "exhaustion and medication." Then came the horrible accident when trying to wake her up and then letting her sleep it off, the helpers left her legs against the radiator, where they were horribly burned. She ended up in an oxygen tent for her 3 degree burns and essentially stopped working afterwards.

She died from cancer in 1968. Without a family, she left a million plus dollars to a nonprofit that trains site-seeing dogs.

Iconic Bird is reintroduced in Japan

 The Toki (Japanese Crested Ibis) is endemic to only a few places in Japan.  It feasts in the rice fields, where it eats bugs and frogs from the rice patty (not rice). From the 80s through the 2000s, the population crashed to extinction in the wild. 

Japan took the last 9 out for breeding. China cooperated with them, getting the 7 last ones from a Chinese zoo sent to Japan to help the gene pool.

The breakthrough came in a typhoon of 2017 that wiped out the infrastructure of the island (Sado) in the Ishikawa province. When the typhoon destroyed the rice fields in particular, about 30+ rice farmers signed on to grow rice without pesticides in a Toki pact. About 3 years later, many of the Toki were released. It is thought there are now about 900 birds doing well there.

Yay

Had a nice hike yesterday

 Eddie and I are spending a little time in Hawaii with my brother and sister-in-law in Maui. I've never been, and it should be fun.

Meantime, here are some pictures of a little hike we did yesterday up Tahquitz Canyon.

The nondescript start of the hike.

The riparian vegetation shows this stream is pretty reliable.

Ta-da! The end. It is very shallow where you can see. 
Past the rock is opens up into a deeper pool.

And we return to the valley floor.

And so we say good-bye to the lovely Tahquitz Canyon and Waterfall.

Nin Com Poop Ery

 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is our new Health Secretary. (For my British friends, like a change in government in your country, our new President staffs his cabinet. Unlike in your country, however, they are never legislative (Parliament) members.)

Anywho, RFK Jr. is a renowned anti-vaxxer. He subscribes to refuted theories and disapproves of all vaccines, even going so far as to question if the Polio vaccine was a good idea. He is nuts.

But at least the best thinking could go; he is a nut with a sense of dedication to what he believes in, whatever the cost. And the cost for him was high, one thought. He quit his legal practices to devote himself full-time to this nutty cause. He could afford to do that because he has a family fortune and his wife is a well-paid actress.

Of course, it turns out that was a lie. Despite his public insistence that he works for his non-profit for free, he just "adjusted" his earned income to state that he made a little money from it. In reality, he pocketed $2.2 million in wages for a non-profit that lost $3 million last year.

Oh, the woes of the powerful.

The Entertaining and Frustrating World of Taylor Sheridan

 For those who don't know, Taylor Sheridan is a prolific writer and producer of great, entertaining, and frustrating shows. He wrote the Acadamy-nominated Sicario and Hell or High Water. He has been nominated for an Academy and Writer's Guild Award.

Most famously, he wrote Yellowstone and its prequels. Yellowstone is a mean, violent, and thoroughly entertaining TV show. It is also conservative with a small "c." As a writer, he consistently badmouths urban people who come to "urbanize" Montana. In particular, he trashes New York and Los Angeles residents. He derides those people (i.e. me) as vermin who must be stopped. Okay. I get it. The people in those areas feel that way about non-Montanans as a group. But they are nearly all friendly to the actual people from those places.

And in Landman and Lioness, two new shows I like, his MAGA bonafides go up exceptionally. 

In Landman, he makes a totally true statement about the enduring need for oil. I TOTALLY agree with his reasoning and explanation. But then he has to tack on that wind and solar are useless. Not that wind and solar are a start of renewable energy, but they are useless except in the oilfields. 

He is completely right that oil is indispensable and will continue to be used (hell - we still use coal). But solar, wind, and nuclear are additive to the energy mix as we move forward. A point he actively and vocally disavows. 

Look I could go on and on. But my point is threefold.

1. He hates people that don't agree with him. They are killed, tortured, turned into laughing stocks, or turned into Snidely Whiplash villains. 

More Importantly

2. Taylor Sheridan's shows annoy me in a way that progressive shows(with a small p) must annoy others.

I think those TV shows that extol inclusion probably annoy conservatives (again, small "c"). It has opened my eyes a bit. The preachiness of Sheridan is painfully evident to me. But it has also made me aware that some of my favorite shows are just as or more annoying when they get preachy.

Note: Sheridan may hate LGBT people (especially Trans), but he is NOT a racist. He is full of inclusion for some really forgotten people - Mexicans, Indians, the elderly, and those living week to week. His casting isn't colorblind, but it is honest and truthful. He never supports hate directed at a race of people.

Okay. Italian

 I want to learn Italian. I did a 30-day online course, which was great. Now I can read and understand a lot. But then I dropped it. I am going to blame the holiday stuff. 

Therefore, I am going to start again. I will daily post some information about what I did the day before here, everyday. It is a way to keep myself on track and let Lynn (or whomever) comment if I do not do it.

Hopefully, this will work.

FYI - for those playing along at home. Every Italian syllable is pronounced with the vowels. So my name is "mi chiamo" pronounced "me key-a-mo" . There is less of an accented syllable in Italian - so it is all a little flat.

And some odd changes like the American "chi" is spelt "ci" and the American "ke" is spelt "chi". 

Anyway, please help keep me honest.