I’ve been meaning to do a Fall post for a while now, but since the word Fall is really quite meaningless here in the great nation of Texas then I thought now was as good a time as any. Case and point… there is a forty degree difference between the expected high in Houston and Ann Arbor, MI for tomorrow. At any rate, here is a menagerie of things that make me think “Fall.”
Subject to Change, by Maggie Taylor. I mean come on, if ever there were a Mr. November in the Maggie Taylor twelve year calendar then this would be he.
Pianist/Comedian Victor Borge and baritone Robert Merill performing “Autumn Leaves”
I remember watching Victor Borge all the time on PBS fundraising drives when I was a kid and he has consistently made me laugh ever since then.
One of my favorite things about the change of seasons is the drop in temperature… the colder the better! Partly because I enjoy breaking out my coats and scarves but mostly because I can use my Pottery Barn faux fur throw without breaking into an instant sweat. Seriously… this thing is amazing!
fur-mazing! (gross)
And finally, the advent of Fall means the approach of Thanksgiving and the wonderful inevitability of devouring a Greenberg smoked turkey!!!! That’s right, these perfectly smoked—and mail orderable—birds out of our very own Tyler, Texas are one of my favorite things about the season.
Oprah loves ‘em and, though that may be a deterrent for some of you, so should you!
So today is Queen Oprah’s last day at her talk show and not that I was an avid watcher by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s certainly a seismic shift of large proportions on the pop culture Richter scale. (Andy Richter, that is, not that four eyed dweeb Charles) And let’s be honest, without pop culture I’d be reduced to a withering hull of a human being.
Speaking of Team Coco, I’ve put up a couple of Oprah-centric video’s I love, the first of which comes from The Conan O’Brian Show. It’s a riff on the famous “FREE CAAAAARRRR” episode.
Next up is Kathy Griffin talking about Oprah and Gayle participating in one of PBS’s “Frontier” reality shows. It’s an excerpt from one of her Bravo specials so any of her saltier language is bleeped out. And you know Mizz Griffin is like the Morton’s of MSG.
The last one can be seen here (I tried tirelessly to find one that I could embed on the blog but it’s almost non-existent and NBC has the clamp down on putting it back up.) It’s an SNL skit about Oprah’s Favorite Things from a couple of years ago. I also read today that her give-aways have amassed almost a cool $25 million since starting (!). Keep an eye out for a shout out to Greenburg Turkeys, which our family gets every year for Thanksgiving from Tyler, TX. They changed the name of it for the skit but Greenburg actually was one of her favorite things one year.
Move over, Oprah, there's a new book club in town!!!! And by "book club" I of course mean "I-don't-actually-read-books-and-just-watch-a-lot-of-movies-and-television-,-some-of-which-might-happen-to-be-based-on-books." Whew... looks like I've used my hyphen allotment for the day week. It's okay though, because I have a fellow non-reader whommm's intelligence I admire and can justify my not reading because she's smart. That makes sense, right?
For the inaugural selection it may not surprise a lot of you that I have chosen Clue, my absolute favorite movie! It is the one constant gauge I use to judge whether or not I should be friends with someone, and only one person has gotten away with not liking it; I excuse him only because he grew up on a farm and doesn't know any better. It is also the only movie ever to be based upon a classic board game. Well, until those bastard step-triplets Monopoly, Battleship, and (I'll admit it, this one sounds fabulous) Candy Land come out. Unfortunately, those are in fact legitimate films now in production... but needless to say: Clue was the first, and from the looks of it, will still be the best. That is, unless they hire Meryll Streep to play the old leather boot. The Oscars just LOVE a rags to riches story.
Side note- Did you know that Clue, originally called Cluedo in it's native United Kingdom, changed the character of Reverund Green to Mr. Green when translating for American audiences because there was an objection to even the chance that a man of the cloth would have something to do with a (hypothetical) murder? Yeah, didn't think so.
Yet I digress. The plot is basically what you would expect: people go to a ominously dark mansion, there's a bunch of murders, blah blah blah secret passage ways, candle sticks, etc. What makes it such a great movie is the stellar ensemble cast: Madeline Kahn (Mrs. White), Christopher Lloyd (Professor Plumb), Tim Curry (the butler), Lesley Ann Warren (Miss Scarlet), Eileen Brennan (Mrs. Peacock), Michael McKean (Mr. Green), Martin Mull (Colonel Mustard), and Colleen Camp (the maid).
I have seen this movie more times than I can count, but I first watched it (and then rewatched and rewatched) with my brother when we were younger. The part that always got me then was when the singing telegram girl gets shot:
(Hopefully this isn't where my career is headed)
Since then I have owned the movie in all its various incarnations... VHS, DVD, digital download from iTunes, and finally on my iPod. At one point, my friends Will and Clinton and I would watch it over and over, just focusing on one character the whole movie through. And yes, somehow I have managed to get three degrees in the process! I have watched it so many times that it is among the few movies I can quote large sections of. Sections like these:
(MMMMM... omlets)
(Just listen to those suspenders pop!)
Mr. Green: Who would wanna kill the cook?
Miss Scarlet: Dinner wasn't that bad.
Colonel Mustard: How can you make jokes at a time like this?
Miss Scarlet: It's my defense mechanism.
Colonel Mustard: Some defense, if I was the killer, I would kill you next.
Miss Scarlet: Oh?
[Everyone looks at Colonel Mustard]
Colonel Mustard: I said, "if," "IF!"
Wadsworth: The game's up, Scarlet. There are no more bullets left in that gun.
Miss Scarlet: Oh, come on, you don't think I'm gonna fall for that old trick?
Wadsworth: It's not a trick. There was one shot at Mr. Boddy in the Study; two for the chandelier; two at the Lounge door and one for the singing telegram.
Miss Scarlet: That's not six.
Wadsworth: One plus two plus two plus one.
Miss Scarlet: Uh-uh, there was only one shot that got the chandelier. That's one plus two plus *one* plus one.
Wadsworth: Even if you were right, that would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus *two* plus one plus one.
Miss Scarlet: Okay, fine. One plus two plus one... Shut up! The point is, there is one bullet left in this gun and guess who's gonna get it!
Mr. Green: [to Miss Scarlet] So, how did you know Colonel Mustard works in Washington? Is he one of your clients?
Colonel Mustard: Certainly not!
Mr. Green: I was asking Miss Scarlet.
Colonel Mustard: [to Miss Scarlet] Well, you tell him it's not true.
Miss Scarlet: It's not true.
Professor Plum: [to Miss Scarlet] Is that true?
Miss Scarlet: No, it's not true.
Mr. Green: Ah ha! So it is true!
Wadsworth: A double negative!
Colonel Mustard: A double negative?
[whispering]
Colonel Mustard: You mean you have photographs?
Wadsworth: That sounds like a confession to me. In fact the double negative has led to proof positive. I'm afraid you gave yourself away.
Colonel Mustard: [angry, to Wadsworth] Are you trying to make me look stupid in front of the other guests?
Wadsworth: You don't need any help from me, sir.
Colonel Mustard: That's right!
I could probably go on like this for a while but it might be easier-- and probably more entertaining-- for you to just rent the damn movie. Plus, it has three different endings!!! When the movie was first released theatrically, depending on which theater you went to, you would get a different ending, just as if you were playing the game. C'aint nobody say that about Fargo. Like, what if it were Jerry Lundegaard, in the dealer lot, with a tire iron instead of Gaear Grimsrud, by the lake, with a woodchipper? Doesn't exactly have the same ring as Miss Scarlet, in the study, with the revolver. Apparently a fourth ending was scripted and filmed but never made it into the movie because it clashed with the comedic nature of the movie. Must have been horrifying!
Oh... and I also recently read that Universal Studios is set to film a re-make of the movie, which will most likely be horrible and cast Jessica Simpson as the maid. Gore Verbinski, of Pirates of the Caribbean directorial fame, is said to helm.
What are you doing? What, what, WHAT are you doing tonight? If the answer isn't: "watching the premier of Life on the Discovery channel," then you don't deserve to be my friend. I have been excited about the follow-up to Planet Earth, a collaboration between The Discovery Channel and the BBC, ever since I saw a clip from the British version last year.
My ub-session with Planet Earth actually began when Oprah devoted an entire episode to the series on her show. I now own it and it's by far the most re-watched DVD in my collection. Well, that and Clue: The Movie. She became such an advocate for the show that the producers hired her to narrate Life in the US, though I'm a little sad we won't get to hear the gravitas-laden voice of David Attenborough explaining the mating habits of Bornean orangutans with a certain eloquence only a Brit can muster. Smart move, mind you, because with her involvement it is bound to win a gazillion awards. Or we'll see the historic election of our first TV Documentary president in 2012.
Oh yeah, and blah blah blah topical comment about Life and the impending health care vote tonight.
Update: I completely buried the lead in my original post. My old roommate, Lembit, is friends with a guy who wrote some of the music for Life. How cool is that?
