This blog will present news items about the motion picture business, with emphasis on lower budget, independent film in most cases. Some reviews or commentaries on specific films, with emphasis on significance (artistic or political) or comparison, are presented. Note: No one pays me for these reviews; they are not "endorsements"! Starting in May 2016, many of the reviews for new feature films have been done on a hosted Wordpress site, and this blog now mostly does shorts and older films.
Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!
"Parenthood", the movie by Ron Howard, with Steve Martin, inspired the NBC series
The popular TV series “Parenthood” actually was derived from
a 1989 comedy feature of that name, by Ron Howard, a Universal feature very
much in the spirit of 80s family dramas (like “Ordinary People”, which had been
one of my favorites).
Steve Martin plays the pseudo-patriarch, a sales executive
who has just quit his job (he couldn’t stand being a huckster forever) married
to Karen (Marry Steenburgen) who confronts him with the fact that she’s
pregnant with their fourth child, by accident. “Women have choices, but men
have responsibilities”, he protests. He even goes on a little rant about being
expected to get clients laid if he goes back to work.
The extended family has a lot of complications, including
kids in special education, and a brother Larry, who has tried to make it by
gambling and is in debt to loan sharks.
The real patriarch is Frank (Jason Robards). Keanu Reeves (with chest scar) and Tom Hulce also appear.
The overall theme of the movie is supposed to be what makes
ideal parents, with an answer to the effect there really is no answer. But it also shows the dynamics of the
heterosexual family world that I skipped.
The film opens with a scene at a St. Louis Cardinals game,
and has two baseball little league scenes, one with a dropped pop fly and later
a great catch by the same kid after a collision in the outfield. “A grown man’s happiness depends on whether a
nine-year-old catches a pop-up.”
There's an early scene where Gil says to the family, "doesn't returning from Disney World make you want to throw up?" whereupon the daughter vomits all over his shoes. Such is family life, "Sinfonia Domestica".
There’s another line about predicting whether a marriage
will work: “I give it six months, four if she cooks.”
The film ends, of course, with a birth scene. "It's a girl." The new babies make "a healthy bottom line."
The DVD has a long short "Art Imitates Life", where the cast and director talk about how many kids they have collectively and how their own experience as parents influenced the film. The had to find and hire "writers". Ron Howard says this is the most personal film he has ever made. Two other shorts are "Family Reunion" (with a depiction of the parlor game of "Wink", where you commit "murder" by merely glancing at someone with a stare) and "Words and Music."
A great quote from the second short: "You can use comedy to sneak up on people, and say things that aren't funny in real life." And from the movie when Gil says, "When your kid is born he is perfect, hasn't made any mistakes yet, but grows up to be like -- me."
The film is set in the St, Louis area but was filmed at Universal Studios in Florida, well before the modern additions to the theme parks (which I visited in July).
Wikipedia attribution link for picture of new Busch Stadium (taken
by David K. Staub) under construction, taken by David K. Staub, under Creative Commons Generic 2.5 License. The St. Louis Cardinals is one of the best-managed franchises in Major League Baseball, good every year.
No comments:
Post a Comment