“Give Me A Number And I’ll Give You The Guts”

 

Jackie Robinson

“Give me a number and I’ll give you the guts” turned out to be a promise hard to keep.  When Branch Rickey , the General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers made the unprecedented and momentous decision to bring a Negro ball player into the major leagues, he altered the future outcome of American baseball.  Rickey had it in his mind to change the game, prove that he still had it, and assuage a gnawing age-old guilt he harbored from his college days.  And of course baseball was his life and his business and he knew the way to infuse life and money into it, was to win and win big.  His eye was on the prize of the World Series.

But back to the promise…Branch Rickey planned on adding a black baseball player to his farm team, the Montreal Royals with the intention of bringing that player into the Dodgers.  But not just any player;  The man would have to be good, he would have to be strong, he would have to have courage and conviction, he would have to have a thick skin and he would have to want the prize as much as Rickey did.  He found these characteristics and qualities in Jackie Roosevelt Robinson, a short stop playing for the         Kansas City Monarchs.  Rickey knew that the road ahead for this player would be fraught with every kind of discrimination that was still prevalent in our country at that time.  He knew and hoped Robinson who was known to have a temper, would be able to withstand the pressures and pain that came with the number.  All that Branch hoped for was, Promises made, promises kept.

In the 1940′s post-war era, baseball became and has remained as The National Pastime of the American public.  People of all ages flocked to the games;  It was an inexpensive and entertaining way to spend the afternoon and could also be a family affair.  There were two  white leagues (AL + NL) and the Negro league, each with their own style and fans and never the two to mix.  That is until Branch Rickey decided to break the color barrier.

Brian Helgeland directed this film based on the significance of Jackie Robinson’s role in baseball.  He extracted an excellent performance  from Harrison Ford.   Although at times, one might say Ford’s portrayal of Branch Rickey bordered on caricature, he was entirely believable and best of all, you forget that you are watching the former Indiana Jones.  I thought there were notable performances from John C. McGinley who played the Red Barber, T. R. Knight as Harry (Harold Parott), Rickey’s right hand man, and André Holland who portrayed Wendell Smith, the sports writer for the Pittsburgh Courier, and Lucas Black as Pee Wee Reese.  Chadwick Boseman embodied the moody and guarded reticence of the angry young Robinson and showed us a deeply moving  display of pent-up anger and frustration when Robinson was being horrendously taunted by Ben Chapman, (Alan Tudyk), the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies.

42 brings the injustice and ultimately the absurdity of racial discrimination  once again to the forefront of our consciousness much in the same manner as The Help.  We are collectively ashamed and cheered by the triumph of those oppressed characters, once again confirming the age-old adage that good triumphs over evil.  Rickie predicted it himself when he said, “ We can win only if we can convince the world that I’m doing this because you’re a great ballplayer, a fine gentleman.”

I found myself tearing up during many scenes, it was emotionally moving.  I Loved It!

Read Full Post »

Oscar 2013 Upsets or A House Divided….

Well now, did you win the Oscar pool at your office or party?  I did NOT but I did come in 2nd place and we all know how important second place is!  Yeah, like who came in second for Best Picture?

The evening started off with what I thought was an upset.  Christopher Waltz wins Best Supporting Actor.  His role as the fast-talking dentist cum snake oil salesman was really terrific and he held the screen’s attention whenever he was in the scene.  However, I thought Robert DeNiro  would win because I read all the predictions.  That’s not who I thought should win…in fact, I don’t consider DeNiro’s portrayal of the father in Silver Linings Playbook even among his better roles.  Tommy Lee Jones or Philip Seymour Hoffman would have been my pick.

Best  Actress was also an upset.  Again, I chose the one I considered a favorite, Emmanuelle Riva in Amour.   I saw Silver Linings Playbook  and loved her character.  I did think one of her best scenes was somewhat borrowed  from  Five Easy Pieces.  And again, not really an Oscar-worthy performance.  So how did she capture this prize?  I think the old saying A house divided…..may have had some bearing here – Emmanuelle Riva was a favorite and Quvenzhané Wallis, a young lady who became an actress and a star within the space of a year.  I think these two other entries divided the vote significantly.

 No surprises in Best Picture and Best Actor.  Argo  was favored to win by all accounts in the last weeks of the Oscar race.  It was a really good movie but I don’t think it was better than Lincoln and rumor is….Argo was picked because the Academy snubbed Ben Affleck and didn’t nominate him for Best Director. Mmmmm could be! Out of the five nominees for Best Actor there were really 3 strong contenders.  Hugh Jackman and Denzel Washington gave us Academy Award performances.  Joaquin Phoenix was   absolutely fantastic and although he was the lead in the movie, I think he would have been better placed in the Best Supporting Actor category. And no surprise for Best Supporting Actress either – Anne Hathaway sang her heart out and up the red carpet.

As the big night wound down and the big three were about to be announced, hardly anyone expected any upsets at this point in the evening.  Never assume!  When Ang Lee won Best Director, I felt that was a real upset.  Steven Speilberg had been mentioned over and over as favored to win, so was this yet another house divided?  Certainly all the nominees were real contenders;  Benh Zeitlin directed an entire cast of mostly unprofessionals – brilliant! David O. Russell was an emotional favorite due to his son’s condition. Probably the least likely to win was Michael Haneke, not because his direction of Amour  wasn’t spot on, he just hasn’t directed  a lot of movies that were hits in the USA and as I said, the competition in this field was fierce.

My husband and I were guests at our neighbor Alice’s party.  It was a small but lively group and great company.  Heather, her daughter is witty and sardonic and she makes a mean Cosmopoiitan ( I just was’t in the mood for one thinking it might too sweet for me).  Jason and Joanie, both friends of Heather were there as well as Mark, another neighbor.  Jason and I hit it off immediately because the two of us sat there iPad in hands and we tweeted throughout the show giving our own personal insight and opinions on everything from the gowns, Who are you wearing?  to critiquing performances and even hairpieces! We were wicked!  It was no surprise that we had a great time, and  that Alice had enough food to feed an army.  But there was one more upset of the evening – Heather (self-acclaimed favorite) did not win the Oscar pool!  She had such a strong early lead that the rest of us figured the money was going to her for sure.  Mmm NOT  Jason scored the highest score with the most correct answers and hey he was holding the money all evening……. ??!!

Academy Award (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Read Full Post »

Academy Awards Oscar UPSETS! Surprises and Controversies!

The big night is rapidly approaching and the educated guessing is full out by now. It’s not  a science, it’s not a horse race and it’s hard to use statistics all because you can never really second-guess humans.  They can always change their mind at the last minute.   Apparently they did because here’s a few more memorable upsets.

1.1981 - Reds was nominated for 12 categories and yet it was outrun in the race for Best Picture by Chariots of Fire!  Sometimes a race is won in the final sprint to the finish line. Must be the case here.

2. 1998-Titanic, a pathetic remake riddled with special effects drowned out L.A. Confidential  and Good Will Hunting.  Sad but true.

3.1988 – The Academy was Moonstruck by Cher’s outstanding performance and she went home with Oscar and Glen Close and Meryl Streep went home with their husbands.

4. 1999 – He scampered over chairs, he jumped around on stage – Roberto Benigni won Best Actor and none were more surprised than Tom Hanks.  Hanks was the favorite for his role in Saving Private Ryan.

5. 1994 – There really is a pattern here. The Academy seems to vote more often for feel-good, loveable or the down and out rise to good fortune through their courage, fortitude and a measure of luck.  And that’s how it went the night in 1994 when Quentin Tarantino was “Gumped” by Robert Zemekis.   Pulp Fiction must have been just too avante-garde for the Academy voters.

6. 1980 – Martin Scorcese made his first feature length film in 1967 and didn’t win an Oscar for his directorial achievements.  In 1980 he lost Best Director to Robert Redford who won it for Ordinary People and he lost it for Raging Bull.

7. 2008 – More than an upset, the fact that The Dark Knight wash’t even nominated! Slumdog Millionaire took home Best Picture and it was an entertaining movie which took audiences to a part of the world they rarely see.  No dispute here, BUT shouldn’t The Dark Knight have been on the table with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, The Reader and Frost/Nixon?

8. 1969 – Oh how I remember this one!  John Wayne wins Best Actor for his role of a cowboy (wow that’s a switch) in True Grit and Dustin Hoffman and John Voight who were spectacular in Midnight Cowboy.

9. 1985 – Another surprise ! The Color Purple was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won NONE!

10. 1968-Oliver,  won Best Director and Best Picture.  It was a buoyant musical retelling of the story of Oliver Twist and sent Stanley Kubrick’s startling and innovative science fiction epic  2001: Space Odyssey  home hungry.

Best Actress Academy Awards (Photo credit: cliff1066™)

Read Full Post »

Thursday’s Top Ten Oscar Upsets!

So who do you think is going to win this year?  Unlike some other years, there isn’t just one picture which will run away with all of the top awards.  The field is open and the predicting is hitting fever pitch.  Is it anybody’s guess?  Maybe.  I have my own predictions and I’ll post them before Sunday evening.  Feel free to write in your own choices for Best Picture, Best Actor and Actress, Best Director, and any other BEST you want to pick.

Sometimes a dark horse emerges and at the last moment, streams past all the other contenders and snatches the top prize.  Do you remember these well-known Oscar upsets?

1. 2006 - Crash beats out Broke Back Mountain for Best Picture! WTF? Crash was interesting and full of racial and social tension but when it was announced that it won Best Picture, there were some audible gasps and best of all, do you remember that Jack Nicholson, who announced the winner, raised one of his famous eyebrows in a betcha didn’t see that coming!

2. 1943 - What were they thinking???  Paul Lukas won the Best Actor Award for his role in Watch On The Rhine.  And Humphrey Bogart LOST for his role in Casablanca.  OMG!!

3. 1999 – Shakespeare in Love  was a fine movie, with great costumes but did you expect it to beat out Saving Private Ryan?  I mean really? Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Edward Burns????

4. 2002 - Who beat out Nicholas Cage, Jack Nicholson, Daniel  Day-Lewis, and Michael Caine for Best Actor?  Adrien Brody! He was relatively unknown compared to the heavy-hitters he was up against.  If his win was a surprise, imagine what Halle Berry was thinking when he grabbed her and planted a great big kiss on her mouth and when they tried to stop his acceptance speech, he said NO. Then gave an anti-war speech and received a standing ovation for it.

5. 1994 - Schindler’s List won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing and 5 more Best categories, BUT Ralph Fiennes did NOT win Best Actor.  Tommy Lee Jones took the top prize with his role in The Fugitive.  Jones was good as a cop but seriously?  Fiennes was Oscar-worthy as the odious Nazi, Amon Goth.  I can only imagine how awful that night was for him as Schindler’s List racked up win after win.

6. 1991 – It was not a good night for Goodfellows!  Dances With Wolves snapped up the Best Picture Award.  The other nominees were Godfather Part III, Awakenings and Ghost.  And yet another “you lose” for Martin Scorcese.

7. 1942 – Only time will tell and it did…How Green Was My Valley won Best Picture over……are you ready? Citizen Kane!  Consistently on the top of greatest movie lists for years, in 1998 AFI declared Citizen Kane to be the number one greatest movie ever! Better late than never??

8.1977 – Should we have been surprised when a feel-good-loser-wins-in-the-end-against-all-odds movie punched its way to Best Picture and in doing so knocked out Taxi Driver and All The President’s Men? YES! OMG, Taxi Driver? DeNiro?

9. 1993- This was the night the wild card entry won! Marisa Tomei played the sassy and saucy Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny.  And Vanessa Redgrave and Miranda Richardson went home empty-handed.

10. 2010- No list of Oscar upsets would be complete without mentioning Kathryn Bigelow.  She was the first female to win Best Director for The Hurt Locker and truly upset her ex-husband James Cameron who was the favorite to win with Avatar!

Academy Awards night has been full of surprises and upsets many times over and this list is by no means complete.  Perhaps I can post another list before the big night!

Read Full Post »

ARGO – You Are There!

English: Ben Affleck  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you ever wanted (why??) to know what it would feel like to be under attack in a foreign country, then you should see ARGO.

Actually you should go and see ARGO for lots of good reasons:  Ben Affleck is brilliant as the CIA’s extraction expert.  Some of my readers were just kids when 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days in Iran.  The United States gave the hated Shah of Iran asylum because he was dying.  The Iranians, naturally wanted to try the  dictator as a criminal and since they were thwarted by the United States in this matter, protests outside the American Embassy were a daily event.

The movie opens with the American Embassy under attack by an angry and hostile mob chanting loudly outside the gates.  Those who were adult at that time know what happened next.  The mob climbed the fences and stormed the Embassy compound.  The intense chaos and the sheer terror sent shivers through me.  And that was only the opening scene.   I could not stop shivering and shaking throughout the entire movie.  I had a scarf that I kept fussing with and holding it up over my mouth.  I swear my teeth were chattering!

The movie is the true story of how 6 Americans escaped.  The CIA working with the Canadian government executed a thrilling and scary rescue.  Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez gave an outstanding performance as the cool, level-headed, pragmatic, creative and courageous CIA expert.  He was understated,  quietly exuding confidence that comes only to those who believe in their abilities and strengths.  Mr. Affleck also skillfully directed this action-packed and psychological thriller.  Watching the event un-fold was nerve-wracking for me because I don’t like to watch violence and even though those scenes were limited, it was the tension , stretched taut as a  high wire act throughout the entire film that kept me shaking.

The fact that I knew the ending and outcome in no way lessened the heightened intensity of the film and by the end I was exhausted.

Alan Arkin and John Goodman used their comedic timing and deadpan delivery to bring some comic relief to this serious story.  They were wonderfully cast and it was delightful to visit with these old pros again.

ARGO is a movie about a movie that is never made BUT appears to be in production to the whole world, and especially so to the Iranian government.  It is the brainchild of Tony Mendez and his ingenious plan to extract the Americans trapped in the Canadian Embassy where they fled during the attack. Imagine if you can, the six  semi-hostages as technicians and location scouts!  And this is where John Goodman and Alan Arkin come in.

ARGO is on the fast-track to the Academy Awards, catch it when it comes to your local theater.

Read Full Post »

The Sessions formerly known as The Surrogate

Once again I find myself in the odd position of NOT loving a movie that has many admirers.  Two nights ago we saw The Sessions featuring John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy and cameo appearance by Rhea Perlman.  It is the poignant story (true) of a young man afflicted with polio since childhood.  He spends most of his life in an iron lung with respites of a few hours on a gurney  with a portable respirator.  He can only move his head although he is not totally paralyzed, he cannot move any other part of his body because polio affects all his muscles. Although his life is limited, his mind is not.  Mark (John Hawkes) is a college graduate, a devout Catholic and a virgin.  He knows the odds of his life span and has decided he should experience sex before he dies.  Oddly enough he chooses the parish priest (William H. Macy) as his confidante and looks to him for guidance.  If that in itself isn’t a bit of a stretch (hey I’m Catholic, I know!), even with long wavy (à la California) hair and suntan, not for a minute did Macy appear to be a priest to me.  Sorry

John Hawkes and Helen Hunt give outstanding performances; Hopefully, the movie isn’t too small to eliminate Hawkes from an Oscar nomination.  He can only use facial expressions and his voice to convey every emotion and yet he is as compelling in this role as he was in Martha Marcy May Marlene , as the sinister cult leader and the sensitive, complex merchant in Deadwood.  My friend, Nancy, summed up the excellence of Hunt’s performance by noting just how amazingly comfortable and at ease Helen is with her own body.  She was nakedly natural and naturally naked, skillfully playing the complex role of sex surrogate, wife, therapist and mother.

English: John Hawkes in 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) 

The screenplay is based on the autobiographical writings of Mark O’Brian. And this is where and why I think the movie didn’t  ring entirely  true for me. I believe the story was probably significantly enhanced by Hollywood, or it wouldn’t have gotten made. I suspect most of the facts are accurate however  it is through the performances of highly-skilled, beautiful actors and deliberate casting that the facts have been interpreted.  I know I sound like a pessimist but quite frankly, I seriously doubt that Mark’s life was populated with aides and therapists the likes of Helen Hunt, Moon BloodGood and Annika Marks.  Additionally I feel that the odds are not likely to be in his favor that all three beautiful women fell in love with him.  If in fact, the real Mark O’Brian was that compelling then unfortunately the script did not allow us to glimpse that magnetic personality.  

Mark was a poet, an artist in his mind, trapped in a body that allowed him to express himself only through his words.  He suffered from grandiose romantic misapprehensions, reflected in his inappropriate  but possibly also naive behavior.  First he proposes marriage to his home health aide – what was he thinking??  Later on predictably he falls for his sex therapist. 

Fortunately the story has a happy but ultimately sad ending.  I may be a spoiler but I’m stopping here.

Read Full Post »

Movies That Make You Cry

Cary Grant (Photo credit: twm1340)

I just walked into my apartment after having dinner with  a dear friend who told me all about her wonderfully romantic vacation.  My husband had left the TV on in the den and of course it was tuned to  ONE OF THE ONLY TWO stations he watches – TCM (Turner Classic Movies).  

And what did I see? OMG I had the good fortune to walk in on the last scene of An Affair to Remember!!!! OMG (again) that scene just rips your heart out and then puts it back in its appropriate place…

Cary Grant was beyond gorgeous in this movie.  Perfectly groomed, hair with a part as straight as I-95, impeccably dressed in his own clothes always sporting French cuffs and there he is pacing nervously around Deborah Kerr‘s living room.  She is posed and poised on the couch dressed in red (after all it is Christmas) and a red coverlet covers her lower body.  Well I’m crying as soon as he starts carrying on about how he never went to the Empire State Building  and she plays it so cool yet conveying through some facial expressions the tumult of emotions at play in her mind and heart.

Tears are dropping down my cheeks and I know that the crescendo of this emotional scene has yet to unfold but it definitely on its way.  The shawl, the confession of waiting and waiting, the deep looks exchanged between the two former lovers….He moves to the door and in true Hollywood pull-at-your-heartstrings style, he stops and turns for one last look.

And then slowly in perfect timing, he explains to Terry why he didn’t take money for the painting…I’m bawling now, sobbing at each passing moment.  The climax is heartfelt and Nickie’s face is a road map of discovery, pain, realization and heartbreak.

What movies make you cry? I have some more, but I think An Affair to Remember is my all-time-guaranteed-to-make-you-cry movie.   Would love to hear from some of my readers which movies cause their eyes to fill up!

Read Full Post »

NEIL SEDAKA – 60 Years of Love Songs-Telling It Like It Is!

American singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka. Taken at the 2007 Scream Awards. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When you hear someone say, “Neil Sedaka,”  what do you think of?  I believe most people think of some 50′s simplistic Rock and Roll tune, like  the happy-go-lucky-even-if-slightly-naieve, Next Door To An Angel.  If that’s what you’re thinking, then please read on because  the next time you hear  the name, Neil Sedaka, you’re going to think twice. NO, not twice more like somewhere between 300-500 – that’s how many songs he wrote.  Neil Sedaka is a consummate composer.  I tried to do some quick research and find the answer to this burning question – just how many songs did Neil Sedaka write and/or cowrite?  I found a list of about 270 titles and in Wikipedia, it says he wrote 500.  Either way, it’s one hell of a lot of musical talent.

Neil Sedaka was playing the piano when he was eight years old.  When he was in high school in Brooklyn, NY he formed a Doo Wop group with now-famous classmates, known as The Tokens.  He was accepted into the prestigious Julliard School of Music in Manhattan, where his parents hoped he would become a concert pianist.  He is a concert pianist, he just doesn’t perform as one – believe me he plays beautifully as he demonstrated tonight at the end of his concert.

BUT tonight’s concert inspired this blog, not so much as a review of his performance but rather more as an homage to his enduring creative talent, a God-given gift (his words).  I wanted to use the word, genius, however, genius connotes (to me anyway) a talent at an extraordinary  level.  Maybe he is composing at an extraordinary level and I don’t recognize it because he makes it seem so easy.   As he said; he sits at the piano, comes up with a tempo, then a melody and then lyrics.  Sounds simple, right?  NOT!  

For me, this evening was yet another trip down nostalgia lane.  Oh those songs!  I think I sat there with a lump in my throat for most of the evening and a couple brought tears to my eyes.  The love songs had lyrics that pluck at your heart-strings.  I guess when you’re a woman of a certain age you can’t help but remember where you were, who you were with and when.  I can’t tell you what I had for dinner 4 nights ago, but I knew every word to every song!  Scary isn’t it?  And most of all I think his lyrics tell it like it is. Mr. Sedaka said that he drew inspiration for his songs from his family and friends.  And the he told us he has been married to the lovely Leba, his wife of 50 years.  She must truly be the love of his life – how else could one feel and express such emotion.  From heartbreak to regrets, to wishing and dreaming of true love, and  from longing to loving forever, the music plays on, the romance continues and all in words you can clearly understand and remember!  

The following are just a few of the songs performed this evening:

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Love Will Keep Us Together

Laughter In The Rain

And also the sad but very real Solitaire, Lonely Night, Should Have Never Let You Go, I Let You Walk Away.   The lyrics are haunting.  Often at a concert, the performer introduces some new song they’ve written or recorded and I have mostly been disappointed.  Not so tonight.  Neil Sedaka is still writing songs and sang one from a few years ago, You.  Now that’s a love song!  It had to appeal to the large majority of middle-age couples and seniors in the audience.  It is a story of the lifetime love between two people, very sweet. I loved it!

Neil Sedaka has been writing and singing songs for over 55 years.  The list is way too long for this blog, for as he said tonight, “I’ve a got a million”.  However, so many of the songs were hits and released many times over by various artists, I think you’ll know every one of them:

Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen

Earth Angel

Carol

Alone At Last

Angel Eyes

Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Cathy’s Clown

It’s All In The Game

Climb Up (Stairway to Heaven)

Proud Mary

Stagger Lee

Tears On My Pillow

The Diary

Related articles

• Neil Sedaka – Neil Sedaka Marks 50th Wedding Anniversary With Europe Trip (contactmusic.com)
• Bad Blood: Neil Sedaka (and Elton John) give a ‘bro’ some good advice, 1975 (dangerousminds.net)

Read Full Post »

JULIA CHILD – Wise Words from the Magician in the Kitchen

English: American cook, author, and television personality (August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today Julia Child would have been 100 years old!  I wonder what she would have cooked for breakfast? This post is in honor of a great lady, a wondrous cook and wise woman.  I was never a fan of her food. I don’t own any of her cookbooks not even the famous Mastering the Art of French Cooking!  I like French food but I guess as a young 20 year old bride I was more concerned with mastering cooking first and learning more about Italian dishes than French.  

However, I have always admired her quick wit and sharp to the point remarks.  So in honor of that laudable characteristic of hers, I am posting some of her famous remarks.

1. “The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.”

2. “Cooking is like love; it should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”
3. “If you’re afraid of butter, use cream.”
4. “The best way to execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a chicken. Bon appetit.”
5. “I think every woman should have a blowtorch.”
6. “Fat gives things flavor.”
7. “Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed. Eh bien, tant pis. Usually one’s cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile, and learn from her mistakes.”
8. “I think one of the terrible things today is that people have this deathly fear of food: fear of eggs, say, or fear of butter. Most doctors feel that you can have a little bit of everything.”
9. “I always give my bird a generous butter massage before I put it in the oven. Why? Because I think the chicken likes it — and, more important, I like to give it.”
10. “I think careful cooking is love, don’t you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who’s close to you is about as nice a Valentine as you can give.”
11. “You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces — just good food from fresh ingredients.”
12. “Always remember: If you’re alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who’s going to know?”
13. “I just hate health food.”
14. “Learn how to cook — try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless and above all have fun.”

Read Full Post »

May The Force Be With You Harry Potter

My grandson turned six this month and I had it in my mind that something Star   Wars would be a good gift.  So we sent him a couple of boxes of Star Wars themed Legos.  I also thought sending him the original Star Wars movie would be a good idea.  Well getting the DVD was a bit harder than I thought.  I went  to Target, Walmart, Amazon.com and a couple of other places and all I could find were copies of the new Star  Wars and mostly in Blu Ray.  So of course I turned to my very favorite online shopping mall – eBay!  We bought the Trilogy and decided that before we shipped it out to California we should treat ourselves to a viewing of each one.

So the other night we sat down and watched A New Hope known better to us as just Star Wars.  Goodness this is a long intro.  If you’re wondering where I’m going with this…I’m about to begin.

In the first 10 minutes of the film, I was struck by the similarity between Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter.  So, uhmmmm I thought, could it be possible that J.K. Rowling saw Star Wars way back when and then she created Harry Potter?  Well it’s only a thought….

Luke is seemingly orphaned and lives with his Uncle and Aunt.

Harry’s parents are dead and he lives with his Uncle and Aunt.

Luke has to help out on the farm, all he wants to do is to go to the Academy.

Harry is living under a stairwell and all he wants to do is go to Hogwarts.

Luke finds himself alone and by chance he meets up with Princess Leia who realizes his potential.

Harry is rescued from his Uncle’s house and at Hogwarts Hagrid takes him under his wing.

Luke has special powers.

Harry has special powers.

Luke meets up with Hans and together they form a forceful team.

Harry meets up with Ron and Hermione and they form a formidable team.

Luke symbolizes the Good and he uses his powers to fight evil.

Harry symbolizes the Good and he uses his powers to fight evil.

Luke is a leader.

Harry is a leader.

Luke learns how to use his power through guidance from Yoda

Harry learns wizardry from Dumbledore.

Luke stays true to his principles.

Harry stays true to his principles.

Success and triumph of good over evil falls on Luke’s shoulder.

Harry is the main defender of good over evil.

The night I watched the movie, I knew I should have taken notes OR at least tried to write this within a couple of days after viewing the film.  Alas I did neither so this is where this blog post ends.

May the Force Be With Each and Every One of You!

Read Full Post »