The Other Side of the Mountain

Geez Louise, guess what I found on Netflix tonight!!

The summer after I'd graduated from high school Mom & I came to tech for freshman orientation.  We stayed in Chitwood Hall and ate in the cafeteria and toured the campus.  And we went to the Fox theater on 19th street and saw 'The Other Side of the Mountan'.  I had no clue what it was going to be about.  It probably started at the right time!  We did not have a theater in Spur anymore and most of the movies I'd ever seen were when I spent time in the summer with Cathy.  Movies were a treat.

This movie is about skier Jill Kinmont, a shoe-in for the 1956 Olympics until she severed her spine in an accident just before.  It then shows her journey through rehab and breakup with her fiance who could not handle her condition and then losing the man she loved later in a plane crash.  She recovered and went on to become a teacher.  And she even finished her story in happy ending fashion in same movie, part 2.

The acting was not great.  The actors were a little long in the tooth to be playing high schoolers but it was
an ok movie and there was even a tear or 2.

Beau Bridges played the love of her life who died in the plain crash.  He was about 34 at the time and he looked then what his son Jordan Bridges looks like now.   Look,  a surprise separated at birth although not my typical find.  They are father and son after all.

    

And in an odd note, in the 2nd movie (yep, I watched it too) Jill says every man she ever loved had died...even Buddy, the fiance who dumped her....he died at 28 in an avalanche.  It would have been some kind of karma if he'd lived but been paralyzed, huh?

Ready for Spring. Ready for Baseball.

Separated at birth...obscure version

One I don't remember ever seeing before tonight.  Jeremy Slate was on 'The Untouchables' very last show.  He played a former army hero who was hired to kill Eliot Ness.  He was a very creepy character who smoked a corn cob pipe.

And growing up, there was a sitcom starring Brian Keith called 'Family Affair' and there was a little boy with red hair who played an orphan named Jody.  His name was Johnny Whitaker.  I don't know what happened to him after he was about 10 years old.  But when I saw 'The Untouchables' tonight I thought about him.

Tom Selleck

Back in 1980, a show came on CBS called Magnum P. I.  Tom Selleck starred as a private investigator Thomas Magnum, a vet who lived on an estate in Hawaii and solved cases and lived in paradise.  He was a pretty man back then, no doubt.  Not a great actor but a amiable, low key actor.  

Magnum P.I.

The show went on for a few years and he worked steady and was still pretty charming and pretty.  He was never my favorite actor of all time but I always liked him.   Now he is Frank Reagan, the Police Commissioner of New York City on Blue Bloods and I still like him alot.  He is believable and comfortable and fair and standup.  Kinda like he was Magnum who naturally morphed over to the man in charge.

I think I'd like Tom and Frank a lot in real life.

Thin Mints & Potter's Field

I can't say I learn something new everyday but at least in the last 2 days I have.  It's certainly not brain surgery but it's going in the right direction I guess.

1.   I bought Girl Scout Cookies yesterday, Thin Mints.  The box says "Crispy chocolate wafers dipped in a mint chocolaty coating".  I always thought the mint was in the cookies, not the coating.  Eat and learn.

2.  Potter's Field--I learned this from the Untouchables.  I knew that Potter's field was where the indigent and unclaimed were buried.   But I found out today, from federal agent Lee Hobson that the origin is from the bible.  When Judas returned the 30 pieces of silver he received for betraying Jesus, the priests would not keep the blood money and instead bought "potter's field" to be a burying place for strangers.

Then Judas, who betrayed him, seeing that he was condemned, repenting himself, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and ancients, saying: "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." But they said: "What is that to us? Look thou to it." And casting down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed, and went and hanged himself with a halter. But the chief priests, having taken the pieces of silver, said: "It is not lawful to put them into the corbona, because it is the price of blood." And after they had consulted together, they bought with them the potter's field, to be a burying place for strangers. For this the field was called Haceldama, that is, the field of blood, even to this day ~~ Matthew 27: 3-8

Different, but both interesting...

Jack Reacher

As a reader, you almost always picture a character in your mind, especially one that you have become friends.  Then when the books are made into movies or TV someone either fits perfectly or they are all wrong.

Robert Urich was a perfect Spenser although Barbara Stock who I had never seen before or since, was not perfect as his Susan Silverman.

Vivian Leigh was perfect as Scarlett O'Hara.  And Leslie Howard was perfect as the wimpy Ashley Wilkes. I never thought anyone would fall for Clark Gable's Rhett Butler but that opinion is rare.

Katherine Heigl wasn't Stephanie Plum.

Harry Potter was perfectly cast, top to bottom.

Jennifer Lawrence is Katniss Everdeen.  And Woody Harrell is perfect as Haymich.

Jack Reacher is a character that British author Lee Child created.  6'4".  A tough man of mystery.  Former MP.  A man who puts right above everything.  And who does Hollywood choose to play him?  Tom Friggin Cruise.  5/2, eyes of blue.  Cocky little asshole.  Doing his 'A Few Good Men' impression.  Obviously not my favorite actor.  Wrong choice.  Seriously.