Movie Millisecond: Just wish I were dead

Gentleman’s Agreement (Elia Kazan*, 1947).

You know. The usual.

Actually, this movie is really excellent and special. It shed light on the prevalent anti-Semitism which proceded the second World War. Everyone is always so busy patting themselves on the back for liberating the concentration camps* during the Allied victory over Hitler & Co. that we tend to forget the Jewish people were still being discriminated against in the countries of their liberators.

via.

Based on a book by Laura Z. Hobson, the film is about a writer who claims to be Jewish in order to write an authentic series on anti-Semitism in America. He quickly learns firsthand how prevalent bigotry against Jewish citizens remained in the post-War years. It was considered a risky film to make, and the anecdotal Hollywood folktale circuit would have it that Jewish heads of other production companies went to producer Darryl Zanuck and asked him not to make the film. I’m not so sure: I think that sounds like marveolous publicity fodder and is more likely a fiction generated by Zanuck to drum up interest in the picture than anything that actually happened — especially since a scene mirroring that situation is included in the film. Inspiration for PR story much? In any case, the buzz paid off: the film was Fox’s top-grossing movie of 1948.

*Kazan himself is of course controversial.
**no question, the liberation of the camps was fantastic and thank God for it, no matter if it was late in the game or for political rather than humanitarian reasons, but I’m just sayin’.

Teevee Time: Tonight, tonight won’t be just any night, or, Ready to get “Lost” … Final Ed.

Portions of this entry have appeared before.

When I overhauled my life last year, I discovered that I am not a big guy for the television (except for 30 Rock, though even that I just periodically catch up on using the hulu), so I — without fanfare or officialdom but just mainly and casually — quit it nearly altogether in favor of holing up under the covers with a book or lurking in the batcave on the computer. However, the one show I stopped watching but have never stopped thinking about is Lost, the final episode of which airs tonight.

Nevermind the crisp and bullocks. Give me that rum. Mmm — Dharma Initiative-y.

I’ve mainly kept up this year and now I find myself looking down the barrel of the final episode. The thing is, almost literally everything in my life has changed since I first heard about and, a few months later when it premiered, began watching this show. I mean everything. Like, other than my gender, I have changed pretty much every other aspect of my life. I’ve had a child, earned a degree, married, moved, moved again, split up, shook up, sometimes I even throw up, overhauled career and self, set new goals, I mean, jeebus — I’ve been all over the map physically and emotionally since I first tuned in to this program.

L to R: Almanzo Wilder, Nellie Olson, and Laura Ingalls “Half-Pint” Wilder.

(Not pictured in the above shot: Velociraptor cyborgs and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln’s clone. Yes, clone — the Good One. The Evil One went rogue and was shot by government agent and island native John Wilkes Boothe. Oh, historical snap! Eventually they killed the Good One too and his ghost haunts the island now because it is all just Agent Mulder’s dream.) I remember one time a friend telling me that he’d hit rock bottom and I agreed I’d done the same — but we also concurred that suicide was for neither of us an option because then we would never know what happens on the last episode of Lost. Does Gilligan pick Ginger? Or Mary Anne?? Aw, just kiddin’, rabid Losties. He picks the Skipper, duh!

Who is a pretty princess?? Daniel Faraday is a pretty princess! I ♥ this character in an embarassing way, the sort of way for which I would mercilessly mock others.

It is sobering to consider how different a person I am now than I was when this interest began. I cannot even begin to count the ways, and it’s actually starting to freak me out. So now I am preparing to throw on pyjamas, pick up pepperoni pizza, and slide on down to Gorgeous George’s with the kidlet to watch the finale of Lost, and, in a wider sense, take another step toward closing what has been a very tumultuous chapter in my life.

Catch you on the flip side. (“See you in another life, brutha.”)

Spoiler: I can’t believe Darth Vader is Charles Widmore’s father.