Random Friday Thoughts — February 17, 2023

The shortest month of the year is moving right along and before you know it, March will be here. Let the “madness” begin!

Thank you for taking time to check out my random thoughts this Friday. Feel free to share yours.

AMC THEATRES, I’M DONE WITH YOU!

AMC Theatres, after my last visit to your location in Decatur, Illinois, in September 2022 to see “Bros”, and your poor customer service and lack of response, I was already over you.

Now, with your new seating and pricing scheme, I’m done with you!

In case you haven’t heard, the company is rolling out a test program of charging for seats like venues do for concerts (three different prices for seats).

Do you realize how frustrating this will be for people trying to watch movie trailer previews? And, during the movie, will they have employees checking to see if people move from the seats they paid for?

While AMC Theatres expects to expand this to all domestic locations by the end of 2023, I see the company ditching this venture before it goes wide!

I’M SORRY OLIVIA!

I’m sure Olivia Newton-John is rolling over in her grave!

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl and just happened to catch the T-Mobile commercial with John Travolta with Zach Braff and Donald Faison.

It was a pathetic and horrible ripoff of “Summer Nights” from “Grease”.

Listening to the commercial, it goes to show that even in 1978 producers could polish a mediocre voice (Travolta) or team it with a real singer (Olivia) to make a hit record — “Summer Nights” reached #5 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

What’s even more shocking is that it was the #2 viewed Super Bowl ad on YouTube Sunday. Maybe it was from just the shock and absurdity of it?

So, here’s the original with Olivia just to get the commercial out of my head!

“A REMARKABLE MOTHER”

I very well could be talking about my late mother, Dessie, who would have turned 80-years-old the day after Valentine’s Day. Sadly, she only lived to 47.

However, I’m talking about the 2008 book written by President Jimmy Carter about his late mother, Lillian Gordy Carter.

It’s a very touching tribute that covered her life in small town Plains, Georgia — from becoming a nurse, a mother, a Peace Corps volunteer in India, when she was 68-years-old, to representing the President and the United States at state functions and funerals around the world.

FAVORITE LILLIAN CARTER QUOTES

I would have loved to have met Ms. Lillian, but she passed away in 1983.

Luckily, I got to meet my idol President Carter and Rosalynn Carter in the summer of 2017.

After reading “A Remarkable Mother”, I want to share my three favorite Lillian Carter quotes.

At #3 is one President Carter has no recollection of why she said this and it became an answer in “Trivial Pursuit”: “Sometimes, when I look at my children, I wish I had remained a virgin.”

Her reaction when Jimmy told her he was running for president. She replied, “President of what?”

And, my favorite: After always making herself available to President Carter’s campaigns and traveling the world to represent him and the U.S., Miss Lillian wanted some peace and quiet.

She told the President and his press secretary she wouldn’t do anymore interviews. They convinced her to do one more with a woman from The Washington Post.

The reporter kept questioning Lillian about Jimmy saying he would not tell a lie and she wouldn’t let it drop.  Finally, Lillian said, “Well maybe a little white lie every now and then.”

The reporter gets closer with her microphone and replied, “Aha!  Aha!  And what do you mean by a ‘little white lie’?”

Lillian’s response is priceless: “Well do you remember a few minutes ago when I met you at the door and said that you look very nice and that I was glad to see you.”

“YOU” SEASON 4, PART ONE

Netflix dropped the first half of the fourth season of the creepy stalker series, “You”, last weekend.

I absolutely loved Season 3. It was my favorite and I gave it a grade of “A-“.

Season four takes place in London as Joe (Penn Badgley) escapes his California life. I won’t say why if you haven’t seen season three.

And, let me just say, I’m really digging Joe’s beard and sexiness this season! I digress!

Joe’s teaching at a university and gets involved with a crowd that I absolutely despise. Well, there’s one in the group that I like and she has an interesting candle collection!

Season four is a cat and mouse game like the first three seasons, however Joe is the one that’s being creeped on this time!

There really isn’t too much that surprises me, but there were two scenes early on that left me a little shocked with a very naughty smile on my face!

Let’s just say I’m sure there were many Googling “Prince Albert” afterwards and when it comes to water sports, it didn’t involve boating or skiing!

Season 4, Part 2 arrives March 9, 2022!

GRADE: B

BACK TO “DOWNTON ABBEY”

Since I needed a “The Crown” fix after watching season five in November, I started “Downton Abbey” that originally aired from 2010-2015.

While enjoyable, I got burned out on it after season four and took a break. I’m back to finish the final two seasons and the two feature length movies released in 2019 and 2022.

My favorite characters are Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) and Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan).

Also, there’s Mrs. Patmore (Leslie Nichol) from downstairs and Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), Isobel Gray (Penelope Wilton), and Tom Branson (Allen Leech) upstairs.

By far, my least favorite character is Thomas Barrow (Rob James-Collier), even though he’s very sexy, but so tormented!

I’m cracked up the most by some of the one-liners and the looks from Violet Crawley, The Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith).

In the beginning, I couldn’t stand Lady Mary, but I really like her now and I hope she ends up with super sexy, hottie Charles Blake (Julian Ovenden).

And, it would be wonderful if the uptight Mr. Carson and the oh so sweet Mrs. Hughes started dating.

SPOILER ALERT!

Two things: Dammit, I was looking for photos of those two couples to post above and now I know the answers on both accounts! 🙂

And, the fate of one is confirmed and the other is hinted at in the final episode of the fifth season that I just finished!

THAT’S IT

With all the craziness in the world, make it the best in your little part of it!

Anthony

Random Friday Thoughts — October 26, 2018

I’m back after a couple of weeks off for my trip to Morocco, so thank you for checking out my random thoughts.

I’m sure there are many Halloween parties this weekend, so have fun and be safe.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HILLARY CLINTON

I hope you have an incredible day and year ahead.  Meeting you in 2016 is still one of the highlights in my life!

“HALLOWEEN”

Since I arrived back from my Africa trip on opening day and worked the next seven days, I’ve avoided the spoilers to the new “Halloween” movie.

But, I’m going to see it this weekend!

The movie scared up an incredible $76.2 last weekend!

After just the opening weekend, it’s now the highest grossing movie * in the 11-movie franchise that started 40 years ago.

*  If you adjust the box office of all the movies to account for ticket price inflation, 1978’s $47 million box office for the original “Halloween” would be $183.6 million today, making it the biggest!

“WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?”

As a kid, I never got to watch “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”.  But, on the return flight, I watched the documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”.

I absolutely fell in love with Fred Rogers and I’m glad I had the whole row of seats to myself because of the tears streaming down my face!

It brought in $22.6 million in domestic box office receipts making it the biggest documentary of 2018!

GRADE:  A+

MORE “OZARK” TO COME 

A couple of weeks ago (10/10), Netflix renewed the Emmy Award nominated “Ozark” for a third season.

I absolutely love this show and I’m predicting that Laura Linney and Julia Garner will (or should) get Emmy nominations next year when they come out.

Jason Bateman was nominated this year.

If you haven’t seen the first two seasons, you now have time to do so now.  It’s an incredible drama!

“KENNEDY”

I’m reading an 800-plus page biography of President John F. Kennedy by Ted Sorensen, his adviser and speechwriter.

The book was first released in 1965 and is pretty much the autobiography that Kennedy never got to write.

I’m 400 pages into the book now and one of the most interesting non-political things I’ve learned about the nation’s 35th president is that he bathed three times a day!

His Attorney General, his brother Robert, didn’t like being called “Bobby”, even though that’s what JFK called him.  Robert Kennedy preferred “Bob”.

JFK ate many times a day — small portions at a time — and really liked soups!

And, I’m astounded that him being Catholic was a major issue for him in the 1960 election.  He broke that glass ceiling, just as Obama did in 2008 with race.

Now, if only the 2016 election hadn’t been stolen from Hillary Clinton, another glass ceiling would have been shattered!

Thanks Vladimir Putin and Russia!

“SEIZE THE MOMENT”

After reading Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s “All The President’s Men” and “The Final Days”, I realized I had one more Nixon book on my bookshelf, 1992’s “Seize The Moment: America’s Challenge in a One-Superpower World”.

Reading most of it and skimming over some of the very outdated parts, here are a few takeaways.

Clearly, unlike Ronald Reagan who was in bed (metaphorically) with Mikhail Gorbachev, Nixon has nothing good to say about that Soviet leader.  He was on Team Boris Yeltsin.

While China, in 1979, implemented the “one-child policy” as a way to control population growth, Nixon talked about the aging population in Japan.  Because more than one-quarter of the population was expected to be over 65 in the year 2025, the government was giving women $6,700 grants to have a third child!

But, interestingly, while he praised Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush in the book, he never mentioned his vice president and successor Gerald Ford once!!!!!!!!!!

Pretty strange since Ford basically damned his 1976 re-election hopes by pardoning Nixon a month after he resigned the presidency in 1974!

NIXON BY NIXON:  IN HIS OWN WORDS

I was also talking about Nixon back in September and I wrote, “While I didn’t know him personally, I’ve concluded that he wasn’t a good man!  I’m not talking politically because he was a snake in the grass.”

I just came across the 2014 HBO documentary, “Nixon By Nixon: In His Own Words” and it’s incredible.   And, it verifies my September statement.  He was a vile man!

Just as the name implies, it’s not transcripts of all of Nixon’s private recordings, it’s the actual audio, which makes it even more damning.

Check out these two comments!

Nixon also said, “The press is the enemy!”

Fast forward more than four decades and it sounds like “that man” in the White House (45) now!

Nixon trashed talked everyone — women, hippies, Jews, and, of course, gays (back then it was “homosexuals”, “homo”, and “fags”)!

There’s another longer Nixon rant that really blew me away.  I’m sharing it at the bottom of the blog, so you can see more random thoughts first.

If you want to see it, you can find it in its entirety on YouTube.

MARIAH CAREY

We’re just weeks away from the release of Mariah Carey’s fifteenth studio album, “Caution”, on November 16, 2018.

I’ve already bought it!  So far, three songs are available to hear.

“With You” is the first single from the album and it’s already racing up the Adult Contemporary and the Urban Adult Contemporary chart.

Of course, Top 40 radio isn’t playing it!

And, I absolutely love the first song from “Caution”, “GTFO”.

Yes, it does stand for what you think it does and Mimi makes it sound so sexy telling someone that their company is no longer needed!

THEY SAID WHAT???

Former President Richard Nixon to White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman:

“Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general, these are the enemies of strong societies.  Goddammit, we have got to stand up to these people.  I do not mind the homosexuality.  I understand it.  Nevertheless, the point that I want to make is that goddammit, I do not think you glorify homosexuality anymore than you glorify whores.  Now we all have weaknesses and so forth and so on.  But, goddammit, what do you think that does to kids?”

Nixon rants on, “You knew what happened to the Greeks?  Homosexuality destroyed them.  Sure, Aristotle was a homo;  we all know that, so was Socrates.  You what happened to the Romans? Romans?  The last six Roman emperors were fags.  You know what happened to the Popes?  Po-Po-popes were laying the nuns.  That’s been going on for years, centuries.  But when the Popes – When the Catholic Church went to the hell, it was homosexual. And finally had to be cleaned out.”

More Nixon (in a 1983 interview):  “We talk about the men reporters, the women reporters are more bitchy than the men.”

“THE MAN THAT INVENTED CHRISTMAS”

Since Christmas is now less than two months away, here’s my customary mention of my favorite holiday. 🙂

On my flight to Paris, I finally got to see this late 2017 film and I’d highly recommend it.

It was overlooked at the box office making only $8.1 million.

It tells the story of Charles Dickens and how he came up with the holiday staple, “The Christmas Story”!

GRADE:  B

MORE DAN STEVENS

I only have one complaint about Dan Stevens.  I know it’s acting, but in two of the three movies I’ve seen him in, his beauty is hidden!

I mean, in “Beauty and the Beast”, he was totally hidden as the Beast and don’t get me started on the Dickens hair in the Christmas movie! 🙂

So, from 2014’s “The Guest”, here goes!

GRADE:  B

“I FEEL PRETTY”

This Amy Schumer comedy earned $88.4 million at the box office on a $32 million budget.

While the movie addresses body image, I wasn’t impressed.

Save yourself an hour-and-a-half of your life and watch the three minute trailer!

I guess I’m not alone with those thoughts.  It has a 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

GRADE:  C

THAT’S IT

With all the craziness in the world, make it the best in your little part of it!

Anthony