James Stewart Movie: ***^ Harvey (1950)

 Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart) disturbs everyone with his friend Harvey.  Harvey is a six foot rabbit that no one else can see.  This is making a big fuss with his family.  His sister (Josephine Hull) lives with him, and talk of Harvey seems to scare any suitor his niece (Victoria Horne) might have.  The have had enough and send him to the sanatorium.  However when they get there Dr. Sanderson (Charles Drake) hospitalizes the sister instead of Elwood Dowd and all kinds of pandemonium results.  Through everything Dowd is calm and peaceful.  The niece falls for the orderly (Jesse White) and it is serious.  The head doctor, Dr. Chumley (Cecil Kellaway) is upset with Dr. Sanderson for hospitalizing the wrong person, and fires him.  In the meantime he finally confesses his love to the nurse (Peggy Dow).  And Dr. Chumley sees the rabbit which is a pooka.  So in the end nobody ends up in the hospital, and Dr. Sanderson is unfired, and the pooka stays with Elwood.  

A funny show in its way, and James Stewart down plays everything and is just happy.  And his naiveté leads to two new relationships.  

Music Review: Yo Yo Ma: Bach Cello Suites: Six Evolutions

 Yo Yo Ma: Bach Cello Suites: Six Evolutions, Sound Postings, Sony Music, 2018.

Six cello only suites performed by Yo Yo Ma and they seem to have a progressive theme: Nature of play; Journey to light; Celebration; Building; Struggle for hope; Epiphany.  Each suite has six parts: Prélude (short piece of music), Allemande (moderately paced Baroque or Renaissance dance in 4/4), Courante (triple meter dance), Sarabande (slow dance in triple time), Menuets I&II (moderate tempo dance in triple meter) or Bourrées I&II (fast paced dance) or Gavottes I&II (court dance), Gigue (fast lively).  This music with just cello is a good piece with which to relax.  Yo Yo Ma says for six decades these six suites have given him "sustenance, comfort, and joy during times of stress, celebration and loss."

Animated Movie Review: *** An American Tail (1986)

 An American Tail is an animated film film directed by Don Bluth.  It features the voice talents of Dom deLuise as Tiger the cat who joins the mouse in the struggle for equality.  Fievel (Phillip Glasser) is seperated from his family crossing the ocean from Russia to America.  His sister Tanya (Amy Green) sings a beautiful son, "Somewhere Out There."  His father (Nehemiah Persoff) plays the violin and his mother (Eric Yohn) keeps the family together.  But it is Tanya who doesn't give up on Fievel.  There is a big battle betwwe cats and mice with the cat making a robot dog and chasing the mice away.  It is father's playing that leads to Fievel reconnecting with his family.

Movie Review: ***^ Omaha (Movie) (2025)

 Omaha is a very sad and disturbing movie.  Dad (John Magaro) has lost his wife.  The show opens with him losing his house as well.  So he piles his kids, Ella and Charlie (Molly Belle Wright and Wyatt Solis) in the car for a road trip.  They are leaving Utah and heading for Nebraska.  They go the wrong way at first, to the salt flats to fly a kite.  Dad is torn and never really does explain where they are going.  Along the way he decides they cannot afford the dog so takes him to a Humane Society.  This is a foreview of what father is doing with the kids.  Nebraska has a Safe Haven law and father hopes to give his kids to the state because he cannot care for them.  His daughter heard about the Omaha Doorly Zoo and so he determines to take them there, and then he leaves the kids at a hospital.  He leaves the traumatized and in tears.

The next day he regrets what he did.  He goes back to the hospital for the kids, but they are now with social services.  Nurse Edie (Talia Balsam) explains it may be some time before he can see the kids.

This movie portrays the effects of poverty on a family.  Throughout the movie the car is barely running, and has to be pushed to start.  They are always close to collapse.  It is also based on a temporary safe haven law in Nebraska from 2008.  The law was short lived as it resulted in 35 children being left, none of them new borns, toddlers to 17.  Five were from out of state.  The law lasted only four months and then was modified.  Today the law allows for surrender up to 90 days from birth.  

This movie has Utah ties.  The director Cole Webley is from Utah as is the writer, Robert Machoian.  There was a 20-day film shoot in Utah, mostly rural counties.

Music Review: Simon and Garfunkel: Sounds of Silence

Sounds of Silence is the second studio album for Simon and Garfunkel.  It was released in 1966 by Columbia Records, producer Tom Wilson.

This C.D. set starts off where their previous C.D. left off with "The Sound of Silence," the classic which sort of gives its name to the album.  On the flip side the last three songs of the set are very nice.  They highlight the Simon and Garfunkel Sound, "April Come She Will," "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'" and "I Am a Rock."  Paul Simon also plays the guitar solo Anji written by Davy Graham.  I have been soaking up Simon and Garfunkel lately.  

Movie Review: * 2001 Space Odyssey(1968)

This movie is probably the slowest movie in the history of cinema.  They are always traveling through space at a snail's pace with music playing.  I remember falling asleep to this movie several times growing up.  True this is the early period of scifi and special effects are limited, but it is a bit much.  

Dr David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) are traveling into deep space.  They are accompanied by the computer HAL.  There are more astronauts sleeping. Hal goes weird, and kills those sleeping as well as Poole.  HAL attempts killing Bowman, not opening the ship to him to get back after he rescued the body of Poole.  However Bowman is able to turn HAL off, and then continues his journey to deep space.  He finally gets someplace and there is an apartment where he grows old and then is reborn.  It all has to do with a monolith that apes found and starting using tools.  The same thing is happenning in space.  A race of extra terrestrials is watching out for and helping man progress.  

A movie about AI going bad.  The computer never makes mistakes.  Directed and written by Stanley Kubrick.  

Music Review: Simon and Garfunkel: Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m.

 Simon and Garfunkel: Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m., Columbia Records, 1964.

This is the first studio album of the duo Simon and Garfunkel.  It is subtitled "exciting new sounds in the folk tradition."  It was first released in 1964 but not very successful, but then rereleased in 1966 when it reached no 30 on the billboard chart.  The song "The Sound of Silence" had become popular in the meantime.  This song alone makes the album special.  It was redone with guitars and a drum kit.  Other songs on the album are special.  "He Was My Brother" is a tribute to their friend Andrew Goodman who had been murdered.  He was part of a group of three civil rights workers murdered in the South.  The perform an arrangement of "Go Tell it on the Mountain."  They also cover the Bob Dylan song "The Times They Are a Changin.'"  The C.D. concludes with the titular song written by Paul Simon.  It tells the story of a man who will be forced out of his love's bed because he has committed a crime.  

Simon and Garfunkel have their distinctive harmonies with Paul Simon usually singing melody and Art Garfunkel singing above him.  Produced by Tom Wilson.