Carole King Tapestry: Live in Hyde Park 2016

Carole King Tapestry: Live in Hyde Park 2016, available through Youtube.

This is a performance of a classic album.  The album Tapestry was released in 1971.  It marked a turning point for King who had been a song writer for some time, and now was a solo artist.  Carole King is a classic artist and has been making music since the late 50s when she wrote "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow."  This album is the pinnacle of her career.  It includes classics like "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," And "You've Got a Friend."  It includes the song made famous by Aretha Franklin, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman."  Another anthem is "I Feel the Earth Move."  "Where you Lead" was written as a show of support from a woman to a man, then the women's lib movement hit so she hesitated singing it.  However it was reworked for the Gilmore Girls as a daughter and mother singing it together.  Her own daughter, Louise Goffin, joined her in singing it.  It is uncanny how closely she resembles her mother of 40 years ago.  King played the guitar for the rock song "Smackwater Jack."

She also performed other songs, including a medley of songs she wrote for other artists.  There was "Go Away Little Girl" sung by Donny Osmond.  They performed Jazzman with Jamie Talbot joining them on saxophone.   

King also sang many encore numbers including "Up on the roof" which is the "when this old world starts to getting you down song."  Another encore song was "locomotion" and then "Tumbling Down."  The cast from Beautiful, The Carole King Musical  joined for a song.  She then concluded with another arrangement of "You've Got a Friend."  It is amazing to me how youthful King looked.  She was in her 70s for this concert.

 

Odyssey. TV Miniseries (1997)

 With the big hubbub about "The Odyssey" I decided to watch this version on TUBI and not have to worry about the R rated movie version.  I imagine the story is the same, but the special effects probably not as great.  Odysseus is 20 years trying to get home, ten warring and another ten traveling.  Poseidon was against him.  All of his men die along the way.  But he finally makes it home, and cleans out the den of freeloaders who have been tormenting his wife.

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  Armand Assante

  Odysseus

  
  
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  Greta Scacchi

  Penelope

  
  
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  Geraldine Chaplin

  Eurycleia

Movie Review: **** The Penguin Lessons (2024)

 I found this movie truly enjoyable for a couple of reasons.  It is set in Buenos Aires shortly after the military coup which would have been shortly before I was in the country.  I was witness to some of the things which take place in the movie.  

The story is about a disillusioned english man, Tom (Steve Coogan) who takes up a teaching posiition at a private school in Buenos Aires outside the capital.  He teaches English and poetry and is assigned to coach the rugby team.  He barely knows the rules to rugby.  When the actual coup takes place, the boys are sent home for a week, and Tom travels to Uruguay for a vacation.  There he comes upon a group of penguins who have gotten caught in an oil slick and perished.  One is alive so he nurses it back to health.  The penguin becomes attached to him, and won't let him alone.  It won't go back to sea.  In the end he brings it back to the school where he hides it in his apartment.  During the day his housekeeper, Maria (Vivian el Jabber).  He befriends she and her granddaughter, Sofia (Alfonsina Carrocio).  Sofia is active in politics and protesting against the military coup.  When she and Tom are out shopping, she is picked up by the military government and Tom is unable to intervene or protect her.  He deals with his failing until he cannot any longer, and he confronts who he knows is the head of the military secret police on behalf of Sofia asking for her return.  As he result he too is picked up and beat up and then returned.  He is a British subject.  It is only when the head master, Buckle (Jonathan Pryce) gets involved and talks to the government official that Sofia is released.  There was a point when the penguin is discovered and Tom is taken by the military police that Buckle had asked him to resign.  However he is spurned to to action and resolves this with himself.  The penguin becomes a part of the class, and the students actually learn when the penguin is in the classroom.

This movie is based on the memoir of Tom Michell of the same name.  In the movie the lead character is older and more crusty than Tom Michell was when he actually taught in Buenos Aires and had a penguin for a pet.  Other things from the movie I saw--the grandmothers protesting in the Plaza de Mayo across from the Pink house by the cathedral for their disappeared children and grandchildren.  Many of the grandchildren were adopted out after their parents were killed.  The checking of documents randomly on the street by military men in uniform.  I also knew a doctor who disappeared and then was retuned after being tortured.  And another woman who was grieving the loss of a child who had been taken and she didn't know what had become of the child.  And the story of another woman and her husband who taught in the illiteracy program.  They escaped to Spain but all their home was taken and given to a military family.  

Alfred Hitchcock Movie: ****Murder (1930)

 Diana Baring (Nora Baring) is accused of murder.  She does not remember what happened; but her defense in court of being in a fugue state does not go with the jury.  But one juror, Sir John Menier (Herbert Marshall) still has his doubts.  He was convinced to vote guilty, but he still believes the woman.  She doesn't remember what happened.  He wants to find out.  

So he begins his own investigation.  She was the only one in the room.  He interviews the owners of the apartment Doucie and Ted Markham (Phyllis Konstam and Edward Chapman).  They do not give much information, but Ted decides to investigate with him.  Miss Mitcham (Marie Wright) isn't much help either.

They go to the theater where they work and find more clues there.  Here are people who are on the edge of society--circus performers.  Also people who can get into tight spaces, one being an acrobat.  Baring has been hiding the identity of a man in the room.  But she does mention he is half caste (bi racial).  At the circus Menier discovers Handel Fane (Esme Percy).  He is suppose to be biracial, and the murder victim had discovered this so he kills her to keep her silent.  It was taboo to be biracial during this period and would have reuined his career.  The victim and Baring were in deep conversation so he was able to sneak in the window, go past them and strike a blow with the poker.  

Menier traps him through the guise of reading a script for a theater production.  The script has the last page blank, and Menier recruits him to finish it, which he does describing how he completed the murder before killing himself.  

Fane is a male performing a trapeze act dressed as a woman.  He also hides his identity, as well as his involvement in the murder.  When this all comes out it is more than his psychic can take and he hangs himself from the trapeze bar.  

Alfred Hitchcock Movie: ***^ Stage Fright (1950)

 A movie very similar to the Hitchcock film Young and Innocent.  Eve Gill (Jane Wyman) has a crush on Jonathan Cooper (Richard Todd) who has been accused of murder.  He tells the story that the actress, Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich) is actually responsible based on her bloody dress.  He is helping her avoid legal entanglements, while he, himself is accused by the police.  

This movie follows the theme of Young and Innocent, but as time goes on Gill is less in love with Todd and more in love with the detective, Wilfred Smith (Michael Wilding).  Gill also involves her father (Alastair Sim) in keeping the fugitive safe.  

This movie does not end the same as Young and Innocent when the fugitive is proven innocent.  It turns out very differently.  I was a bit frustrated with Detective Smith.  I had a hard time understanding him with his accent.

Alfred Hitchcock Movie: **** Family Plot (1976)

Alfred Hitchcock's last movie.  It is very good, and pits two seemingly unrelated crime families.  George and Blanche (Bruce Dern and Barbara Harris have a very interesting relationship.  Blanche is a supposed psychic and George helps her in her schemes and is also a taxi driver.  She comes upon a scheme when a client (Cathleen Nesbitt) reveals she is hoping to reunite with a nephew who was adopted out.  She is willing to pay $10,000 if the psychic can find this nephew.  So Blanche puts up her boyfriend to do the detective work.

The other couple is Fran and Arthur (Karen Black and William Davane).  The are professional kidnappers and are very good at their job and are paid a lot of money in ransoms by prominent people.  They use a shot that puts people to sleep and then haul the people off to a secret room in their house, and then await the ransom money.

George starts poking around and discovers that the person in question supposedly died in a fire, as well as his adoptive parents.  A gas station (Ed Lauter) owner paid for a headstone for the son, which was placed later than the couple's head stone.  Turns out Arthur is the man they are looking for.  But when word gets to him he is sure they are onto the kidnapping scheme.  He asks the gas station owner to do them in.  The attendant was also involved in the fire that killed his parents.  In the attempt to kill George and Blanche by running them over, he goes off a cliff and kills himself.  

Blanche and George learn the name of the person they seek, but when they go to tell him the good news, they are in the middle of a kidnapping, and everything turns upside down.

This is a very fun movie.  The characters are well presented and there is enough tension and intrigue.  

James Stewart Movies

Jimmy Stewart's career in movies lasted five decades with many good movies.  

***** Mr. Kruegers Christmas. (1980). An annual ritual for me

**** The Shootist (1976). With John Wayne as the shootist.

**** Bandolero (1968). Character played by Stewart rescues his brother, and robs a bank

**** Anatomy of a Murder (1959). a good whodunnit

**** The Man Who Knew Too Much. (1956)  A rtemake where an innocent couple gets drawn into a spy movie when their son is kidnapped.  With Doris Day.

****^ Rear Window (1955) Alfred Hitchcock and murder discovered out the back window

**** Broken Arrow (1950)  Which deals with a broken treaty with Native Americans

***^ The Rope (1948). A Hitchcock murder story.

***** Its a Wonderful Life (1946) The best Christmas movie ever