The Terrible Catsafterme

Who can forget such 1980’s classics as Valley Girl, My Chafufeur, or April Fool’s Day? C’mon…show of hands. OK, so almost no one. I do, because they were on frequent rotation on HBO. And I have a feeling there are a lot of others my age who were inundated by these or other similar low-quality-but-fun movies as youthful, impressionable boys. The common denominator among all of these films is that they all were lead by actress Deborah Foreman. She wasn’t just some bit player, she was the star! Read the rest of this entry »

I had stayed up later than Bob the night before watching the TV pilot episode of Newhart on my laptop after Bob had already fallen asleep. The reason why is that I was sleeping inside the Waybury Inn, in East Middlebury, Vermont – which was used as the establishing shot of the Stratford Inn on one of my all-time favorite sitcoms Newhart. Mind you they never actually filmed anything here other than shots of the inn. Bob Newhart had never even been at the inn. But in watching the show, you see it two or three times per episode, so it had become ingrained in my mind, so since the beginning of this trip’s inception, staying here was a must. Read the rest of this entry »

Martin Scorsese’s 1980 film Raging Bull is a movie that just keeps getting better the more times you watch it. I think it was somewhere around the third when I realized just how much of a masterpiece it was, how the period flavors swirled around the intense action, and how every nuance of every character had been perfected. The movie of course is the story of boxer Jake LaMotta, one of the most determined, but self-destructive, men who ever entered the sport of pugilism. Cathy Moriarty played opposite Robert De Niro as his ever-suffering wife Vikki to absolute perfection. She conveyed the part of a sexy and loyal woman who gradually watches her husband turn into a jealous monster. Read the rest of this entry »

If I were ever to achieve the office of the President (which most likely isn’t going to be happening), I’m not sure if I’d rather be thought of as one of the most unknown U.S. Presidents, or one of the worst U.S. Presidents. Franklin Pierce has somehow managed to achieve both. Despite his messy haircut and the fact that he wasn’t even considered a candidate for the Presidency during the election of 1852, he was elected to the highest office in the land and remained so for one term from 1853-1857. A Northerner with Southern sympathies, our 14th President entered the Presidency a thoroughly sad and depressed man, after losing his only surviving child during a train accident weeks after he was elected President. Obviously this disturbing event was enough to take Pierce’s mind off his job running the nation. Pierce was eventually abandoned by his own party and wasn’t nominated by the Democratic Party to run in the next election. Read the rest of this entry »