American Teen

Today I went to my local fine arts cinema to see a special screening of the documentary "American Teen." The screening was followed by a special Q&A session with three of the five subjects of the movie. The movie follows the lives of five teenagers during their senior year in high school in the small community of Warsaw, Indiana. The kids are Colin, the jock; Hannah, the artsy rebel; Megan, the popular mean girl; Mitch, the sweet heartthrob; and Jake, the band geek. The five are typical teens dealing with the typical high school insecurities of first loves, heartbreaks, cliques, and basically just surviving four years of angst.

Each of the kid's respective storylines is compelling and you are drawn to these five young people and their trials, fears, hopes and dreams. Colin is the captain of the basketball team, whose main focus during senior year is to get noticed by scouts because without a basketball scholarship for college its the army for him. Megan is the popular mean girl who seemingly makes herself feel better by hurting others. She could be straight out of "Mean Girls" or "Heathers", but just when you have her figured out, you find out a truth which just might (maybe a little) explain why she is the way she is. Mitch is the hunky basketball player who all the girls drool over, and who falls for Hannah. Jake is the lonely band geek who dreams of having a girlfriend and makes it his mission to find one before senior year is over. Lastly, Hannah, I think the key person in the movie, is the quirky rebel who feels that she just doesn't fit in, who dreams of moving to California and becoming a film-maker.

As you watch the film you forget its a documentary, because it plays like a script from any of the old John Hughes teen films of the 80s, the most obvious one of course being "The Breakfast Club." The movie was very touching and by the end you really care about what happened to each of the kids. Luckily, there's a blurb on each of the kids at the end, right before the credits so you don't leave the theater wondering. You'll also find yourself taking a little trip down memory lane as you watch the movie, because it draws you back to your own high school memories--good or bad--whichever it maybe for you. Watching and remembering all those high school insecurities which seemed to be the most important things in the world at the time, all I could think was thank God thats over. As for the movie, I loved it! I laughed, I cried, and laughed and cried some more.

The Q&A session following the screening was also great because it gave you the chance to see and hear about how much each of them has grown and matured--especially Megan--since the movie was filmed.

On this Day (in 1940)

On July 27, 1940 Bugs Bunny made his film debut in "A Wild Hare." Bugs Bunny was animated by Chuck Jones and his voice came from the legendary Mel Blanc.

This is my personal favorite, "Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid", with 'Killer' the shy buzzard.

The Third Angel

“The Third Angel” is the first book I’ve ever read by Alice Hoffman, and I breezed through it in two days. It was that good. The book encompasses three stories connected by the same characters and locations in different times, as well as by the theme of hopeless and tragic love. The first story, ‘The Heron’s Wife’ is set in 1999 and shares the tale of two sisters, Maddy and Allie Heller, both in love with the same man. Maddy is the jealous younger sister, who feels that Allie is “the good sister, the perfect sister, the one who had everything.” Maddy travels to London in advance of her sister’s wedding, and becomes instantly attracted to Allie’s fiancé Paul, ultimately having an affair with him. The second story, 'Lion Park', set in 1966, centers on Frieda Lewis, who later becomes Paul’s mother, when she was a young woman working as a maid at a hotel and how she becomes the muse for and falls in love with a young drug-addicted rocker, Jamie. Finally, the third story 'The Rules of Love', set in 1952, is about 12-year old Lucy (Maddy and Allie’s mother), and how she plays the role of go-between for two doomed lovers caught up in a love triangle.

The title of the book refers to a story told to Frieda Lewis by her father, a doctor whom she accompanied on house calls. He told her that in addition to the Angel of Life and the Angel of Death, either of which rode with him when he made house calls, there was a mysterious Third Angel who walks among us: "You can't even tell if he's an angel or not. You think you're doing him a kindness, you think you're the one taking care of him, while all the while, he's the one who's saving your life."

As I said, I really enjoyed this book. Each character was compelling, even the ones with less than redeeming qualities or actions. It’s a story not only about love, but about relationships and redemption. After reading this novel, I’ll definitely be hitting my local library for some of Ms. Hoffman’s other works.

Just a Spoon Full of Sugar Makes the Medicine Go Down

In this case, it's laughs and not sugar, but you get the idea...an important message conveyed through laughter. A friend emailed me a hilarious article from the Miami Herald. The article was entitled “Dave Barry: A journey into my colon -- and yours.” The article is laugh out loud funny, yet it conveys a very serious message about the importance of having a colonoscopy and finding colon rectal cancer early. If you’re 50, which I think is the age when people are encouraged to have their first, or even if you’re not and just want a good laugh, you’ve got to read it.

A Suspense-Filled Evening

If one movie can make the case for the fact that they don’t make suspense movies like they used to, with some exceptions, its Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” which I enjoyed watching for the first time last night. This suspense classic really wowed me, and I’m so glad I went for the oldie but goodie at the rental store this time around. The movie stars an all-star cast, including James Stewart, Grace Kelly, and Raymond Burr.

In the movie L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies (Stewart) is a photographer cooped up in his apartment and confined to a wheelchair due to a broken leg. He enjoys the daily visit of his nurse Stella and his socialite fiancée, Lisa Fremont (Kelly), but to alleviate his boredom he enjoys watching through his rear window at the daily goings on of the neighbor’s that live in the apartment buildings that surround the courtyard, even giving them monikers, including Ms. Lonely Hearts, a sad woman that sets out a place setting for her imaginary lover and then play acts welcoming him at the door and their ensuing conversation, Ms. Torso, a ballerina who rehearses in her underclothes and that holds court with her many male admirers as if a Queen Bee with her drones, and the salesman, Thorwald (Burr) with the nagging invalid wife.

While people watching helped pass the time, Jeff’s curiosity is truly piqued when during a 2:00 am rainstorm he spies Thorwald, the salesman, making numerous trips to and from his apartment with his large metal sample case. The morning after, the invalid wife is glaringly and mysteriously absent from the apartment. Thorwald’s next steps only increase Jeff’s suspicions that the wife has been the victim of foul play. Despite his fiancé’s disbelief or that of his detective friend, whom he contacts to confirm his suspicions, he’s determined to do what it takes to catch who he believes is the killer.

Great movie!! It was definitely one of Hitchcock’s best.

A Close Encounter with a Teen Angel

So yesterday I went to see "Grease" on Broadway and had a wonderful time. The show was tons of fun, though I was slightly disconcerted by the switcheroo in the song order compared to the movie, a small insignificant fact which did not detract at all from an enjoyable two hours of great music. Luckily, both of the leads, Max Crumm and Laura Osnes, were there for our performance. As you guys might recall, Max and Laura won the lead roles as Danny and Sandy (the Broadway debut for each) in NBC's reality competition "You're the One That I Want."

Of course, the best part of the show, and one--if not the--main reason I got the tickets was to see Taylor Hicks as Teen Angel. As I've previously mentioned I'm a proud member of the Soul Patrol, so I had to go see my man perform on the Great White Way, and let me just say he was great...woohooo! Either there were tons of Soul Patrollers out in the audience, or the unbiased crowd agreed wholeheartedly with my assessment of his performance, because he received a pretty raucous greeting from the crowd both following his performance and during the curtain call when he sang and played his harmonica for the crowd.

Thanks to my cousin who rushed to the front of the barricade by the theater exit door, we got his autograph and that of the show leads, and I also got these photos.



I took this photo during the curtain call when he was blowing on his harmonica. Hated the combed back hairdo, but his jacket was very cute. It had these two small rhinestone angels wings on the back.