Ice Cream Man - Converse Should be Proud

Ice Cream Man

Director: Paul Norman

Mom, mom, the ice cream man's here. The ice cream man's here. –Child

It's classified, Ice Cream Man; it's classified. –Detective Maldwyn

You're right. Not every day is a happy, happy, happy day. –Ice Cream Man

This isn't a game boys. There's a child stalker out there and you two are playing cops and robbers. –Detective Maldwyn

I checked out Ice Cream Man. I couldn't find squat. –Detective Maldwyn

That's what I call a brain freeze. –Ice Cream Man

Who's the Pied Piper now, Ice Cream Dick? –Small Paul

Ready to groan? Read this Netflix description of my latest 30@30 movie:

I scream … you'll definitely scream! A child witnesses the gruesome murder of "The Ice Cream King" and grows up to become a demented, mass-murdering ice cream man (played by Clint Howard, brother of director Ron Howard). How about some sprinkles on that eyeball parfait? The surprisingly deep supporting cast includes Olivia Hussey, Lee Majors, David Naughton, Jan-Michael Vincent and David Warner.

First of all… surprisingly deep? I don't know what they meant by that, but there was nothing deep about this movie. And why'd they have to go and drag poor Ron Howard's name into this!? Can't baby brother Clint stand on his own acting chops? I mean, he was one of the stars of Gentle Ben as a child, and has several small credits to his name.

I don’t know which is worse in this movie: the acting or the writing. It's awful. And I don't mean that in an "it's so awful, it's awesome!" way, like Event Horizon or Get Over It are so awful they're awesome (I will watch these movies over and over again and not apologize). I mean this movie was just awful. I conned a friend of mine into watching it with me, and I really wish I could have recorded our reactions and conversation. I'm pretty sure we spent the majority of the movie alternating between hysterics and confusion (confusion at how this movie was ever made).

However, on RottenTomatoes.com, one of the three "reviews" (though how "Oh clint howard" can be considered a review, I do not understand) is from a movie critic who says it's "the greatest movie of all time." I hope he was being sarcastic. However, I also saw a comment on youtube.com from someone who says it's the best ice cream man movie made. And, of course, the person who recommended this to me, thinks it's so bad it's good. But I just don't see it. By the way, if you're curious, here's a slightly pixelated trailer for the movie:

Fun fact about Ice Cream Man: Converse sponsored it, in part. That explains why everyone – villain and hero alike – wore Chucks and why the cameraman seemed so obsessed with them. Also, instead of hiring a fat kid to play Tuna Cassera (no lie, that's the character's name, as listed in the credits), they very obviously decided to hide a pillow and shoulder pads under a skinny kid's shirt. Please note, Tuna is not a nickname in this movie; there is no other, formal,  name given to this character, there no quotations around Tuna in the credits and the kid's parents even call him Tuna. Methinks the writer was partaking in some of mom's old-fashioned tuna and noodle casserole when this name was invented. How much do you want to bet the character's middle name is Nudal? Poor, poor "fat" little Tuna Nudal Cassera.

Another ridiculous aspect of this movie is its preoccupation with plastic, spinning sunflower lawn ornaments, which are very clearly meant to denote the mentally, emotionally and criminally insane characters. The Ice Cream man has several staked into the lawn outside his abandoned ice cream parlor. Nurse Wharton mentions longingly – and quite seriously – that she wishes he'd plant some in her yard. The doctors in the mental hospital – and don't even get me started on THAT scene – also play with the plastic flowers.

My takeaway: Adults should always listen to their children and investigate before dismissing their stories as crazy, even if they sound as absolutely ridiculous as, "Small Paul is missing and I think the Ice Cream Man snatched him!" And cops who refer to a guy as "Ice Cream Man" to his face in lieu of his real name are probably better off not investigating a child abduction.

Slaughterhouse-Five - So It Goes

Slaughterhouse Five

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

I been hungrier than this. […] I been in worse places than this. This ain't so bad.
–Hobo

There is no why. –Tralfamadorian

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.
–Edgar Derby's epitaph

"Anybody ever asks you what the sweetest thing in life is—" said Lazzaro, "it's revenge."

All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.
–Tralfamadorian

The first description of this book I read was very simple:

Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.

For some reason I decided to scroll further down the Amazon.com page, where I found the company's review of the book. It proved much more confusing:

Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

The phrase, of course, which surprised me, was "abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore." Never had I been told that this book included alien abduction or time jumping. I'd always heard it was a classic anti-war book about someone who experienced WWII, akin to Catch-22. Although, that comparison alone should have clued me in to something: I tried to read Catch-22 and couldn't wrap my head around it enough to finish it; it was just too out there. I'm not sure how I expected anything less than Tralfamadorian abduction in Slaughterhouse-Five.

With that second description in mind, I began reading. I was pleasantly surprised to find the Tralfamador wasn't the main focus of the book. That alone made the book – oddly – more believable. The way that Vonnegut lays out the story, jump around though it does, beautifully sets up the abduction as just another part of the narrator's life, as was the bombing at Dresden. Because both events, which could each serve as a traumatic focal point of a story, are treated as just another part of one man’s life, both events are downplayed.

I'm no psychologist, but I'm going to ignore that fact for a moment. It seems to me that the part of this story that is true – and by "true" I mean true in the life of the character; a literary truth and not a literal truth (though to be fair, Vonnegut himself did experience the very event about which he writes) – is the Dresden bombing and the events surrounding Billy's time in the war. This real life experience was too much for him to take, mentally and emotionally. So instead of trying to deal with it, he travelled far away from his existence – as far away as Tralfamadore. He created a safe place inside his head where he could hide when the world tried to remind him that he watched men die.

I do the same thing, and I can't even claim a traumatic wartime experience caused it. I'm often creating worlds in my head where I can be a hero, a badass, a singer, an actor or an athlete. In fact, isn't that partially why we read books or watch movies – to escape the real world and whatever stress, trauma or disappointment life brings and instead be transported to a world where we can be or do whatever we’d like? This project, then, could be considered my Tralfamador…

My takeaway: Sometimes physically surviving something as traumatic as the bombing at Dresden (and watching an acquaintance get shot for pilfering a teapot) is only half the battle. And you are my Tralfamadorians.

The Young Victoria - Long Live the Queen

The Young Victoria

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée

Do you ever feel like a chess piece yourself, in a game being played against your will? … Constantly [I do]. I see them leaning in and moving me around the board. –Victoria

Oh never try to do good, Your Majesty; it always leads to terrible scrapes. 

–Lord Melbourne

A man who has no work becomes ridiculous. And a poor man with a rich wife must work twice as hard as anyone else. 

–Queen Adelaide

I will not have my role usurped. I wear the crown. And if there are mistakes, they will be my mistakes and no one else will make them. –Queen Victoria

The Netflix.com description doesn't offer much… well… description:

Eighteen-year-old British royal Victoria (Emily Blunt) ascends to the throne and is romanced by future husband Prince Albert (Rupert Friend) in this lush period film that chronicles the early years of the British monarch's larger-than-life reign. Produced by Martin Scorsese and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, the Oscar-nominated film also stars Miranda Richardson as the Duchess of Kent, Jim Broadbent as King William, and Paul Bettany as Lord Melbourne.

I often don't enjoy period pieces, and I certainly have no invested interest in England's past, or in that of its royals. However, I have to admit that many times I found myself pulling for the young queen, even smiling at her proposal to Prince Albert.

Young Victoria's life was always on display. And no one seemed to be on her side for her own sake. The people who pretended to be on her side were only looking to use her for their own gain. Even her mother – perpetually controlled by Sir John Conroy – stood by as her daughter was verbally abused and misused by him, a misstep for which Victoria would never forgive her.

I even went so far as to read the overview of Queen Victoria on Wikipedia.com, where I learned that she and Albert had nine children and that she went on to serve a long and celebrated sovereignty, though she deeply mourned her husband’s passing.

I also learned that the movie stayed fairly true to the facts. It included what Wiki referred to as the bedchamber crisis as well as the assassination attempt during the queen's first pregnancy. But while I appreciate the historical accuracy (though I'm sure things were changed and events embellished), I most appreciated the story they spun. I was captivated both visually, with the rich, luxurious costuming, and aurally, with the rise and fall of power and confidence in Victoria’s words. My only real complaint is that some of the characters look very similar, which made it a bit hard for me to distinguish between them. But really, that's on me, not the movie.

My takeaway: When done well and with the right actors, director, costume designer and subject matter, even I can enjoy a period piece; though there's always the possibility that this is only a one-off experience. And being royalty is hard work!

Beer - If You're Tough Enough

Beer

Director: Patrick Kelly

Men will drink the beer that makes them feel more like men. –B.D. Tucker

You have a slight image problem. […] You’re just not black enough. –B.D. Tucker

Whip out your Norbecker. –Merle Draggett

We have a film to make, beer to sell. There’s 220 million Americans out there can’t wait to have their minds twisted and bent. And if I can’t do it, by god, nobody can. –Buzz Beckerman

You did it, honey: you fooled them with a goddamned bottle of beer. What an old fool I am for making movies, making people laugh, cry. It’s crap compared to what you’ve done. –Buzz Beckerman

It was a hell of a ride, B.D., but it just doesn’t seem right anymore. –Merle Draggett

To quote Netflix.com:

With her client's beer sales falling flat, ad agency executive B.D. Tucker (Loretta Swit) is desperately trying to come up with new marketing ideas and senses an opportunity when three losers receive unwarranted credit for preventing a bar from being robbed. The agency quickly hires the overnight heroes for its new campaign -- which turns out to be as successful as it is tasteless. Dick Shawn's send-up of talk-show host Phil Donahue is a must-see.

This movie stars M*A*S*H's Major Houlihan, Boy Meets World's Alan Matthews and Dodgeball's Patches O'Houlihan. It satirizes the advertising industry, a bit like Thank You for Not Smoking and Josie and the Pussycats, both of which came out more than 15 years later.

B.D. Tucker (M*A*S*H's Major Houlihan) is given the task of bolstering beer sales by designing an ad campaign that appeals to the working man. The first spot is an exaggeration of the bar holdup that made the three soon-to-be commercial stars famous. And the subsequent spots depict the men as chauvinistic, sex-crazed "men's men." The more offensive the commercials, the bigger the sales increase.

It makes me think about the commercials of today. It's common knowledge that "sex sells." But today's ad agents  are much more sensitive to political correctness and to walking the fine line of what is sexy to women and what is sexy to men. Products are less and less geared toward one sex, with some exceptions of course (I'm pretty sure the commercials for feminine hygiene products are under no illusions that men give two shakes about them). Even products like perfumes and colognes are less likely to focus on only men or only women as consumers – they often appeal to the opposite sex, aiming to entice purchase for a loved one.

What's the reason for the change to at least political awareness, if not complete political correctness? I believe it's affected, at least in part, by social media and the power of the consumer. While word-of-mouth has always been a factor in brand advertising and credibility, companies now have to worry about word-of-tweet, word-of-Facebook and word-of-blog. One person's negative response to an ad can soon infiltrate the minds of hundreds, thousands or millions of people via social media. Companies have to watch their POVs and react quickly to negative comments left in any number of places. Pissing someone off does a lot more damage today than it did in the '80s.

But, of course, this movie isn't a literal depiction of the advertising world in the '80s; if it were, it wouldn't be considered satire. It is, however, an entertaining caricature of it. While I doubt any agency (or the FCC, for that matter) would allow a commercial with such a blatant allusion to oral sex as is in one of the commercials created in the movie, there isn't much else that they won't do.

My takeaway: We are a media-driven society, often showing our manipulability to others' influence by believing what the advertising agencies tell us we believe, value and stand for. And real men drink Norbecker!

The Red Tent - Dinah's Rite

The Red Tent

Author: Anita Diamant

If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother's life - without flinching or whining - the stronger the daughter. –Dinah

My world was filled with mothers and brothers, work and games, new moons and good food. The hills in the distance held my life in a bowl filled with everything I could possibly want. –Dinah

In the red tent, the truth is known. In the red tent, where days pass like a gentle stream, as the gift of Innana courses through us, cleansing the body of last month’s death, preparing the body to receive the new month’s life, women give thanks — for repose and restoration, for the knowledge that life comes from between our legs, and that life costs blood. –Dinah

Amazon.com's description of The Red Tent by Anita Diamant:

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that tell of her father, Jacob, and his twelve sons.

Told in Dinah's voice, Anita Diamant imagines the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood--the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of the mothers--Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah--the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through childhood, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past.

I don't really know what to write about this book. There were some beautiful parts: Dinah's first experience with the flowing water of a river; her relationships with her mothers, with Tabea and with Meryt; her love for her son. But there were some very disturbing moments, as well: the few references to men fornicating with uncooperative sheep; the ceremony that takes place when a virginal woman experiences her first menstruation cycle; the vicious slaughter of a whole palace of people.

These moments – especially the first blood ceremony – left me feeling uncomfortable and voyeuristic. Sure, the whole book could essentially make the reader feel like a voyeur – and really, couldn't any first-person narrative be considered voyeuristic, when you get down to it? – seeing into the life of the narrator and the lives of her family. But this was different… it was… private. And the customs of Biblical Israel are far from the American culture I am part of today. What happens today when a girl first gets her period? She's shown how to use a sanitary pad and a tampon and told that heating pads and Midol can help with the cramps. Though there are still some women who "celebrate" their daughters' first period with a day of pampering and bonding, it's certainly not the trend I'm used to.

But this ritual was far more invasive. And the first blood was reserved to offer to the gods of the women, which makes me incredibly happy that my God does not require such – for lack of a better word – gross sacrifices from me. It’s hard for me to see the ritual in the book as anything but "weird." I know that my objectiveness is clouded by my grounding, to use a word from my linguistics studies in college. Because of who I am and what my personal experiences have been, it is not easy to approach such different rituals as a normal practice.

There is, of course, a lot more to the book than a ritualistic rite of passage for a young woman. The book expands on the life of a character who is afforded very little mention in the Bible as I know it. The author takes liberties and creates a realistic life for her narrator, with the ups and downs, tragedies and victories we all experience in a lifetime, proving her prowess as a Historic Novelist. I can see why Anita Diamant has received such recognition for the book, even if it won't be making my list of re-reads.

My takeaway: There is beauty and power in storytelling – it was the duty of the daughters in Biblical Israel to carry their mother's stories as legacy; Dinah, being the only daughter of her father's four wives, was granted the gift and burden of carrying all four women's stories as well as her own. And we have come a long way in menstruation sanitation... thankfully.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - HeLa lives!

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Author: Rebecca Skloot

HeLa cells were one of the most important things that happened to medicine in the last hundred years. –Donald Defler

This was the era of Jim Crow – when black people showed up at white-only hospitals, the staff was likely to send them away, even if it meant they might die in the parking lot.
–Rebecca Skloot

I started imagining her sitting in her bathroom painting those toenails, and it hit me for the first time that those cells we’d been working with all this time and sending all over the world, they came from a live woman. I’d never thought of it that way. –Mary Kubicek

Henrietta was chosen… And when the Lord chooses an angel to do his work, you never know what they going to come back looking like. –Gary Lacks

Amazon.com:

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Henrietta Lacks. I’d honestly never heard of her before I read this book, at least not that I could recall. It sometimes boggles my mind to think that someone or something that is so important in the big picture of life can be so far from my exposure. If she were so important, why hadn't I heard of her? That, of course, just makes me realize how small I am and how large this world really is. Big names in my corner of the world mean nothing to other people, just as big names in, say, physics or gymnastics or militia or forensic psychology mean nothing to me. I’m not sure I can even adequately describe the feeling… incredible, really.

I could have gone my whole life not knowing the name Henrietta Lacks (or HeLa!), even as the advances in science attributed to those cells touched my life. And yet because of this project, I was introduced to her -- incredible both in life and after it -- and my mind has been opened up and exposed to the innumerable things scientists and geneticists can do with a few simple cells. Well, “simple” is probably the wrong word. From what remarkably (and embarrassingly) little I remember from high school science classes, cells aren’t exactly simple.

My point, though, is that I learned something with this book. Sure, I like to think that I learn something from every book I read, but let’s be honest; there’s only so much you can “learn” from a Mary Higgins Clark or Janet Evanovich book. Don’t get me wrong: these two ladies are fantastic storytellers and I’d likely be reading their collected works if not for this project. But those books are purely entertaining and not so much what I’d call “educational.” This book, however, was equally well-written and it made me think.

I still know very little about science or cell mutations or how scientists use her reproducing cancerous cells to perform so many tests and come to so many conclusions. What I do know is that they do use them still today. The cytologists and geneticists and oncologists and epidemiologists continue to use those cells to discover valuable information that touches humanity. And if a cure to cancer is ever found, you can be certain that HeLa cells played a part. I don’t need to know how or why or when they helped; I just have to know that they did.

But this book isn’t just a dry dive into the world of cytologists. Rebecca Skloot set out with this book to introduce the world not only to the cells but to the woman who unknowingly contributed those cells to the world. And though Henrietta has been dead for many, many years, Rebecca used every resource at her disposal – and many of those resources came only with patience and persistence – to piece together what little is known of this woman. She also depicted for the reader Henrietta’s living relatives, warts and all. I think her biggest goal – and ultimately, her most successfully completed one – was to show the humanity in the cells and in the story.

The quote above from Mary Kubicek, one of the workers in the first lab to handle and reproduce the HeLa cells, proves just that. It is one of my favorite quotes of the book. Scientists, used to living in a microcosm where specimens are de-humanized may not always associate a living, breathing person with the cells in their petri dishes.

My takeaway: So many wonderful advances in science and medicine were made due, at least in part, to Henrietta Lacks, a woman who did not know she was donating cells to the cause, and whose family finally came to understand Henrietta’s legacy due, at least in part, to the intervention of Rebecca Skloot. And sometimes all it takes is one woman to change the lives of many – thank you, Henrietta; and thank you, Rebecca.