My Movies to Watch List

Author Julia R Barrett recently posted a blog entitled, "Who is Robert Redford?" in response to someone in their 30's who admitted they had no idea who he was!  Redford as we all surely know is one of the most entertaining and influential actors from the last 45 years, but, I don't want this blog to be about him, although for at least one reason that will become clear, he did play a small bit part in my memories of courtship and eventual marriage!

The other thing raised by the original post was a request that we think about our favourite movies and why, were they life changing, thought provoking or just plain entertaining, and to either give them to Julia or as I have chosen to do, write my own blog, so, to the original young lady who posed the question and Julia for the inspiration here is my list and the reasons behind them...

1. The Way we Were with Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand.

This was obviously not the first movie that I remember seeing as, by the time it came out, I was already in my late teens, left home and was serving in the British Army in Berlin.

No, the reason it is number one on my list is because it is the first movie that I took my then (short term girlfriend, Hah) to see, and it was in the American cinema in the American sector of Berlin! I was around 18 and Ishbel was 16, we got married two years later! I still remember and can sing the title song today!




2. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid again with Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

I saw this movie after sneaking into the cinema to see it but I can't quite remember if it was the Odeon next to The Brew ( or, to give it its proper name - The Unemployment Office, where you signed on when you didn't have a job) or the Regal down by The Fountain.

I had been reading western books by JT Edson and of course the Lone Ranger at Saturday morning cinema and Alias Smith and Jones on the Telly, but this was different and the chemistry between these two guys and the humour was unforgettable.  Scenes that you always remember, "I can't swim" before they leap of the cliff into the river,  The song Raindrops Keep Falling on my head and the bicycle scene with Katharine Ross.  The conversation with the George Furth as Woodcock, before they blow him up on the train and so many more...

3. The Ghost and Mrs Muir  Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney.

A widow, Lucy Muir, and her daughter move into a cliff top cottage only to discover that it is still inhabited by the ghost of its former owner a brusque dead sea captain who falls in love with Mrs Muir and who in turn falls in love with him.

Soft I know, but I just love watching this movie even although it was made 9 years before I was even born.  It was a somewhat dark and gloomy film but the concept of a ghost appealed to me then when I first saw this movie.  Rex Harrison's wonderful baritone voice and the the beauty of Gene Tierney all helped to draw you in and the closing scenes, well, tissue time again, that's all I'm saying...



4. Goodbye Mr Chips Robert Donat and Greer Garson.

Another movie made long before I was even born and again one of my all time favourites.  Unbelievably sad about a lonely and strict disciplinarian school teacher who goes off on yet another solo holiday , but finds and falls in love.  Bringing the new Mrs Chips back to the school with him he becomes less strict and more loved by his pupils, thanks to the influence of his wife.

His wife announces that she is pregnant, but both she and the child die during childbirth.  If you haven't seen this and track it down, buy a box of tissues with the DVD, you will need them.



5. We Were Soldiers Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe and Sam Elliot

A bit more up to date with this one, set in the Vietnam war.  While the battle scenes are realistic and well filmed, it has to be one of those 'war' movies that falls into the category of 'anti-war', making you think is it all worth it.  But then as human beings it is probably one of the things that we are best suited to doing, unfortunately.

If you haven't seen this movie can I suggest man or woman, have a box of tissues to hand as the men go off to fight the women are left at home and when the telegrams start arriving informing the wives that their husbands are dead, WOW.  Based on real events and the first real battle that the Americans fought in this conflict, it truly is a riveting film.




6. Barefoot in The Park Robert Redford, Jane Fonda and Mildred Nantwick

Another Robert Redford I'm afraid.  This is one of the most deliciously funny movies of all time with the scatter brained Jane Fonda marrying the up and coming lawyer and him leaving it to her to find their new apartment.  The difference in expectations from them both to the found apartment is just so funny and then mother played by Mildred Natwick after climbing the 5 or was it 7 flights of stairs to the apartment (no lift/elevator) has to be one of the single most funniest moments in film history.  If any youngsters reading this need to watch a film that will make them laugh out loud, this is it.

Supporting the three above are an excellent ensemble cast from the telephone installer, to the delivery man and of course the inimitable Charles Boyer as the European enigma who lives on the roof of the apartment, hilarious, as stuffy Mr Redford is finally cracked.

7. The Sand Pebbles Steve McQueen, Candice Bergen

What can I say about this movie. Steve McQueen and Candice Bergen.  Bergen has to have been one of the most beautiful women on the planet (and still is for a woman of senior years)  and she could act.  She was not the main focus of this one, that was more McQueen doing what he always did, play the lone rebellious part in a group under pressure, but played it to perfection and as usual (not giving it away here if you haven't seen it, but think Great Escape ending)





8. Soldier Blue Candice Bergen, Peter Strauss.


I think this was the first truly Violent western I had ever seen and it was probably most notable for those graphic scenes against the Indians by the soldiers including the breast cutting one, truly horrific.  This film was also notable for the title song by Buffy Sainte-Marie



9. Casablanca  Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Raines

I said for No's and 7 and 8 that  Bergen was one of the most beautiful women on the planet but even she was surpassed by Ingrid Bergman's Ilse Lunde next to Bogart's Rick Blaine an atmospheric war time thriller with a love triangle between Rick, Ilse and Victor.

While this was a great movie, it was however  the scene stealing Claude Raines as Captain Renault who was my favourite character.

10. Cockles and Mussels or in the original French, Crustacés & Coquillages. Gilbert Melki, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Sabrina Seyvecou.

This is a great littler French film that I discovered on the BBC late one night and I absolutely loved it. Light hearted and funny and I have watched it about 4 or 5 times,

The plot is that of a family; husband, wife, teenage daughter and son,  returning to the fathers family home each year for the summer holiday but it turns out that the wife is having an affair and is followed by her lover and she keeps sneaking away to see him.  The daughter is off on the back of her boyfriends motorbike touring leaving the son to cope with his neurotic parents, but his gay friend turns up and the parents think that he may be gay.  It turns out also that prior to leaving the village the father was also gay and had an affair with the local plumber who encounters the family son's friend whilst 'dogging'!

The whole thing is a farce and as such hilarious, if you can get your hands on it, well worth the effort, and all is revealed at the end and all live happily together, Oh and it ends with a little song and dance for the closing credits, so a bonus

11. Wasabi Jean Reno

Another French movie. You may recognise the title Wasabi, as the name of the Japanese condiment much like our own mustard and is a bit of an acquired taste probably much like the film, but I do have a penchant for foreign movies, French ones in particular and I also happen to like Jean Reno very much.

Reno plays a hard boiled French cop who always gets results, no matter the cost and after another bout of mayhem is ordered on leave.  As he takes this forced holiday he receives word that the love of his life, in a former life, while in Japan has died, and he has been appointed executor of her will.  In arriving in Japan he finds that he has a daughter although she does not know he is the father, thinking that she was the product of a rape.  It's two days before her birthday and the Yakuza want her dead to recover money that her mother stole from them.  Mayhem ensues and a few laughs particularly over Renos penchant for Wasabi but unlike normal people he does not just take a pinch he guzzles it and others trying to emulate this make for some serious laughs.

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Illness Makes You Worry, But Sometimes Laughter Really is the Best Medicine!

You will know, if you follow my posts, that I have had a couple of minor ailments and accidents over the years.  I apparently have a touch of Asthma.  Had a hearing test recently where allegedly I am suffering from the slightest of hearing loss in both ears, does that mean I am going deaf in stereo?

I recently had an Attack of the Poorlies when Ishbel my wife of 35 and a bit years was cleaning up after me.  I've been shot, I've been trapped down a pothole with torrential rain above leading to the pothole beginning to flood, I have had canoes spring leaks on me in the middle of the English Channel and the Middle of the Danube river ( read bloody big and wide and not really blue, yuk) oh, and I crushed  some vertebrae in a parachuting incident.  But hey, you venture out into the world and these things happen, don't they? 

But other than that, and being FAT I'm doing OK.

Now Ishbel on the other hand for the 35 and a bit years, plus (please don't hit me again if I get this wrong) the 3 or was it 4 years before we got married (oh Ish,  please don't hit me again), has been relatively fit and healthy, eats like a pig and never puts on any weight(what's that B word associated with women that I am not allowed to use), is never ill and never never misses a step through life until.....

Memory again, about 1993 or was it 94 she started to lose her voice ( I wasn't really pleased, honest I wasn't) anyway after a battery of tests, poking and prodding she was sent to see a specialist in London and she was diagnosed with something called  Laryngeal Dystonia Now this is a condition that affects the vocal cords and as far as I can tell the only treatment is a very painful one, or so Ishbel tells me (but what do women know about pain) and that is a large needle pushed directly into her vocal cords every couple of months with an injection, and anyway why is she whingeing, it's Botox and as son says, she is going to be the only wrinkly 100 year old with a neck as smooth as a baby's bum! 

But she never complains.  Then recently we were sitting at the table having a meal and I noticed that she was suddenly staring at the wall with a vacant expression on her face (some might say living with me that is normal - and I would just smack them on the teeth) and her right hand, or was it her left, see my memory is going too, was banging constantly on the plate!  I tried to to ask what was going on, what was the matter, but was getting absolutely no response, as suddenly as it had started it was gone. Ishbel says she was not aware of what I was talking about and went straight into continuing the sentence she was uttering, as if nothing had happened.  I was worried of course, but trying to get someone to go and see the doctor for something that they did not know was happening, was a hard task.

Fortunately, or not, as the case may be, it started to happen again, not a lot but intermittently and I would keep on at her.  But then it happened when the kids were over for a visit  and again Ishbel would say she had no idea what we were talking about, but agreed to go to the doctor.   

Long story short, it turns out she's a nutter, sorry she has a mild form of epilepsy, easily controlled with a pill, so all is well and she still never misses a step, she gallivants all over the south of England on her days off work, on train, tube, bus and shank's pony  visiting son, and daughters and grandchildren, then comes home and looks after me (not that I need looking after I am a MAN), and even with all of that we still have a laugh, well mainly me laughing at her as can be seen here......The Bionic Babe and that explains also why I am also laughing when I shouldn't be, remember ever so slight loss of hearing and I do miss some things that are said to me and what do I do, laugh like an idiot of course!

Keep well and look after yourselves 

PS: I should point out since MR Fat started to lose weight his wheezing is nowhere as bad as can be heard, you'll understand......

The Stir - Sasha Brown-Worsham Doesn't write on bathroom walls, Really!

I subscribed to something called The Stir, through my Facebook page and it has had a couple of interesting articles , but more and more I feel like I am reading a newspaper (which I very rarely do these days and I certainly don't purchase any)  that reminds me of The News of The World.

In other words, I am reading a publication that is full of tittle tattle and innuendo with no real merit and the only purpose is to create and make up stories that titillate and serve to feed the need for some members of the public for whatever unfathomable reason who can not resist this kind of rubbish. The latest piece that has provoked my ire is this one Wild Ashton Kutcher 'Love Child Rumour Could be True '


Now, as a rule I do not - and I do realise the following comment will no doubt be met with some derision, but never the less it makes no less of a truth - and that is, that I do not usually read this type of tittle tattle gossip.  Two reasons for that;


1. It is normally spiteful innuendo with no basis in truth and usually ends up hurting someone who is innocent, and in this case the baby who in years to come will have it pointed out to him by some bullying twat that his mother had an affair and whoever she ends up with either in marriage or as a life partner and who will probably love the kid as if he was his own,is going to be shouted at with, HE IS NOT YOUR DAD, will be the taunts.  And if it turns out that it was not Mr Kutcher, what has the article achieved?


2. It's about people who I watch and with whom I sometimes enjoy performances from on screen and sometimes not, but I have no real interest in their lives outside of their work than that, except for a few that I follow on Twitter for their witty comments on life in general or that they have been promoting a cause that I am interested in...

Now the short bio of the author of the above piece says this:

ABOUT THE AUTHORSasha Brown-Worsham can't decide whether she is a mother, writer, or runner, but is usually all three at some point each day. She has written for dozens of print magazines, newspapers, and websites. She rarely ever writes on bathroom walls."

Now the comment that caught my attention was, "She rarely ever writes on bathroom walls."  But surely that is exactly what she is doing as that is exactly where this type of drivel belongs?

I heard, and I can not either confirm or vouch for the veracity of the information as it was only  an unsubstantiated rumour, that   Sasha Brown-Worsham had an affair about 4 and a half years ago and out of that affair a son was born.  That son is in a very loving home and is dotted on by the person who may or may not be his father!

Now how would the son feel reading that as he got older, particularly as in this case as I just made the whole thing up as I have never heard of Sasha Brown-Worsham, until I foolishly looked at the article she has written full of innuendo and supposition.  I do not know January Jones and I certainly do not know Ashton Kutcher or  Demi Moore and I realise that Brown-Worsham is not the only proponent of this scandalous muck.  We have just seen The News of The World paper in the UK that specialised in this kind of muck raking close its doors and presses and one can only hope that a few more both here and around the world do so as well.  Maybe The Stir is from the same stable, but I am afraid I will not be subscribing to any more stories from it on line.

Do Despotic Rulers Still Have Human Rights of their Own?

I listened to a radio interview this evening on Radio 4 where Robert Colville from the UN (wikipedia) was insisting that a full independent investigation needs to be carried out to determine the true facts surrounding the death of Colonel Gaddafi.  He went on to state that there were at least four versions emanating from Libya on how the death occurred!

Let me save them, the UN, some time and OUR money*:  Some put upon Libyan who, or some member of his family had probably suffered at the hands of the regime at sometime, over Gaddafi's 46 years in power, found him cowering in a hole, dragged him out threw him in the back of a pick-up and put a bullet in his head, end of story, now what is there to investigate?

He went on to say that there was a human rights element to this and "lets not forget this is an elderly man in his late 70's", I mean can you believe the crap these people come out with.  As if his age had anything to do with it, it didn't stop him sending his secret police out to arrest, imprison, torture and kill his own people, now did it. And what about their human rights over the last 46 years.. While that talking shop in New York debated, Libya, Iraq and all the other states ruled by people of that ilk who gave no consideration to their own peoples human rights, what makes them think that those same people who suffered were going to give one thought to his, if he was caught, and they didn't, and so what!

The interviewer asked him, if they did find evidence that conclusively pointed to him having been 'executed', "what action would the UN take".

"Oh let's not get ahead of ourselves on that one", he replied.  Well why not, if you are going to put in place an investigation, there can only be three outcomes to it surely?

1. No evidence to support he was murdered
2. Evidence to support he was murdered 
3. Or (as we have in Scotland) a not proven verdict 

Now I suspect if the investiagtion does find in favour of 2 above that absolutely nothing will be done by the UN or anyone else, SO, I ask again what is the bloody point of holding the investigation in the first place.

It's a bit like their investigation into Bin Laden's death what is the point.  Another UN chappie who goes by the name Navi Pillay, a top UN human rights official,  is reported to have said at the time, "all counter-terrorism operations must respect international law".

Forgive both my ignorance and naivety here, but to the general law abiding populace of the world, to which I admit to being one of that many, but I, like they, believe that as terrorists, or every day commonal garden criminals for that matter, do not respect our human rights, why should we worry about theirs.

It's not as if David Cameron or Barrack Obama are going to send a special forces hit squad after us for penning another blog calling them a bunch of plonkers, again, (well at least I hope not or I may well be moving up the list with the UK government at least). So, I really do not understand this propensity by these dunderheads in the UN calling for investigations into these killings, when the majority of people do not give a damn as to how they have met their end.

And let's face it, in reality, since 1945 when Human Rights issues were first enshrined in  various laws and when the UN came into being to replace the League of Nations, it has been the biggest waste of space adding to the 'greenhouse gas problem' talk, talk talk, without actually doing what it was set up to do, which in layman's terms was to bring all the countries of the planet to the table to talk and to prevent armed conflict, well that worked out well then for the rest of us, didn't it!

Finally, let's have no more talk about a UN investigation.  If Gaddafi had remained alive, do not think for one moment that the Libyans would have given him up to stand trial in the Hague, cos if I had been a Libyan, that would have been the last place I would want him sent, to pontificate and pronounce for years to come about how misunderstood he was and that everything he did was for the good of his beloved people and it was just that they were to stupid to understand the he knew better than them (much like our own politicians in that respect then),. No, if he had remained alive he would have been put on trial, convicted of crimes against his own people and sentenced to death, in the same way as that other numpty from Iraq, Saddam whatshisname.

This way, it is done, it is over, and the Libyans can get on with rebuilding their country, their economy and their LIVES.  UN get over it and find something useful to do, like turn off the lights in that very ugly building in New York, send all the hangers on back to their own countries, and leave the talking to the respective governments directly  and then each country can stop paying the massive bills for an organisation that really does appear to be a complete waste of money.

And as for their Human Rights - they are not entitled to be treated the same as the rest of us, they gave up that right when they set the rule of law aside and tortured and murdered their own peoples and aided and abetted in the murder of other nations citizens through financial funding or terrorist training camps or supplying arms to other terrorist groups around the world.


*Yes we pay, and the last time I can find what we paid, although the more astute of you will no doubt find more up to date data, was over £300 million in 2005, so extrapolating that, we in the UK have probably paid about £2 Billion since thenUN (website)