Such a good day. Camera Girl cooked up a storm. Beef and pork roasts, vegetables, mashed potatoes, biscuits, gravy, stuffed mushrooms and more. And then the desserts. At my insistence there were five different flavors of ice cream. That’s because I know the kids crave it (well me too). But she also made eclairs, tiramisu, ricotta cheesecake, chocolate cake (for the kids) and pineapple upside down cake. I never even got to the pineapple cake. I was too stuffed. And the coffee was hot, strong and good.
The kids were busy with all kinds of silly games and gadgets. But they were good. When they started to get bored, I put on the original “King Kong.” The family Godzilla aficionado was unimpressed with King Kong’s susceptibility to fifty caliber machine gun bullets. He informed me that a real monster is unkillable with anything up to and including a thermonuclear warhead. What could I say? I pointed out that he did manage to kill a T Rex and also a Manhattan elevated subway train. But apparently Godzilla is so incomparably superior to actual dinosaurs that conquering them is as nothing in the context of what Godzilla can do. I was made aware that if Godzilla needed to, he has a mode called “thermonuclear” whereby he can emit the equivalent of a fifty-megaton hydrogen bomb against his surroundings. This I was informed would utterly consume everything within a forty-mile radius around him. I confessed defeat and asked if we could still watch the end of the movie where Carl Denham tells the cop that “It was beauty killed the beast.” He rolled his eyes at the screen and shook his head. Well, anyway, I still think Fay Wray is pretty good looking. I don’t blame old Kong for carrying her off twice.
After they went home, I watched Barabbas. That’s an old Dino DeLaurentis swords and sandals epic from the 1960s with Anthony Quinn as the title character who in the Bible is released instead of Jesus for the Passover clemency. I’ll say with no hesitation that this is one of the worst biblical epics hands down. Quinn is playing the same part he plays in Zorba the Greek and many other Mediterranean dramas. His struggles in a Jerusalem prison, a Sicilian sulfur mine and the Roman Coliseum all seem self-inflicted and by the end of the movie I had to wonder if even St Peter wasn’t ready to kick his butt up and down the Roman jail. Because Barrabas mistook Nero’s blaming the Christians for the burning of Rome with a real Christian plan to “burn the old world” Barabbas gets caught torching an oil warehouse and claims he’s doing it because he’s a Christian. So, because of this St Peter and the rest of the real Christians are crucified by Nero. What a genius!
As Barabbas is hanging on a cross at the end of the movie making what seem to be fairly meaningless comments, it seemed to me that the whole movie was absolutely pointless from every perspective; artistically, religiously, even logically. As spectacle it was borderline ridiculous. Quinn has a showdown in the Coliseum with Jack Palance in a chariot and himself on foot. I’ve never seen a less convincing, more boring fight sequence. At the end of the battle even the actor playing Nero looked like he wanted to be somewhere else but just couldn’t escape.
I also watched an old film noir called “Steel Trap.” That was much more satisfactory. I’ll review it soon. Well, this will have to do for today. A good day and a busy day.