A Non-Partison, Non-Political Story of Selflessness and Compassion.

Mitch Albom had a piece published on freep.com on my fiftieth birthday (Sunday, Nov. 2) about one Marilyn Mock, a 50-year-old Texas rock yard owner who committed what could be termed the Granddaddy of all Random Acts of Kindness in history. While attending a foreclosure auction with her son, who was buying a house, she met a young woman named Tracey Orr, who was most definitely not there to buy a house. Tracey was there to say good-bye to her own beloved house, which she lost after she'd lost her job and had fallen behind on the payments. The mortgage company foreclosed. Touched by Orr's story, Mock found herself bidding on the $80,000 home. She won the bidding at $30K. She and Orr have worked out payment arrangements. The long and the short of it was that Mock made it possible for Orr to get her beloved home back, to the tune of $30,000. For a woman Mock had never met. Just because her heart had been touched by Orr's story.

People, I've made no secret of my choice for president. But make no mistake. No matter who wins tomorrow, the road ahead is going to be long and bumpy, more for some of us than for others. The economic crisis we face are not going away tomorrow or next months or on January 21, 2009, when we inaugurate the man we select tomorrow.

We are going to need to be good to each other, and kind to each other. We are going to need to cut each other some slack and give each other a break. We are going to have to come together and create a grassroots support system for those among us who struggle the most.

Apparently, Marilyn Mock doesn't see the country as a "have/have not" affair, but rather a place where we share what we have with those that have not. I like Marilyn Mock's view of America, and frankly, I think we all need to think about buying into it. I think if we make that effort, we'll come through this mess okay.

~C~

Miss Sowards Gripes For The Rest of the Week

I saw MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY on Saturday night, and thought it was very charming.

As many of you know, I never -- I MEAN, EVER -- read movie reviews of films I haven't seen yet (ever since Roger Ebert decided to show his contempt for a movie by revealing it's biggest plot twist without a "spoiler" warning, the rat bastard!).

I figured I'd be safe reading a review on MISS PETTIGREW, because I'd already seen the film, and instead, ran into my second-biggest pet peeve with movie critics. This one -- Hilda Yeshigian from my very own Cal State Northridge's Daily Sundial -- hadn't seen the film. Or perhaps she HAD seen most of the film, but decided to go to the ladies' or make out with her boyfriend during a couple of crucial scenes. In any case, her lapse in attention caused her to make two fairly obvious and egregious mistakes to anyone who had actually seen the film from beginning to end -- and hadn't made out with their boyfriend, or anyone else they happened to be sitting nearby (though I did see it at the DGA, and the guy sitting next to me was tres yummy!).

I won't reveal her errors, lest I pull what I've come to refer to as an "Ebert" for those of you who haven't seen it. Suffice it to say that such review boo-boos are not limited to college/university journalists. I can't tell you how many times I caught Richard Schickel, of no less venerable publications than the LA Times and Time Magazine, in what I've now come to call a "double Ebert" -- an unannounced spoiler that reveals a major plot point that never actually happened in the film! So Miss Daily Sundial is in good company.

Truly, I didn't disagree with the overall premise of her critique, but because she seems to be lacking a familiarity with a certain style of film made in the mid- to late-thirties, she kind of... well... missed the point. Again, this is not at all unusual. There are very few truly good film critics in the world. Schickel's predecessor at the Times, Charles Champlin, wasn't bad. Paid attention. Wrote well. Didn't (as far as we could tell) engage in nookie with the concessions girl instead of actually watching the film. (I should say, "isn't bad" because I think he's still considered "emeritus" at the Times, and reviews special releases from time to time.)

Anyhoo... this is a gripe I've had for a while. I love the movies -- I love going there, I love watching trailers, I love sitting in the theater, waiting for the lights to go out and the film to start. I even love the little dancing hot dog. I love it all. I love the experience of movies. And I generally hate most movie critics, mostly because the vast majority of them not only don't know anything about movies, but don't really like them in general, and it shows. I wonder sometimes how interested most of them are in the history of film. Or even in old films, without the history (I'm not much of a trivia buff, for certain.) I'm sure our Miss Daily Sundial has seen Titanic, but has she seen A Night At the Opera, with the Marx Brothers? Maybe she has. Who knows? I guess the question is really, did she manage to make it all the way through to the end without turning away from the screen to snog her boyfriend?

(sigh)

~C~

Dangerous Suspect Freed on Technicality (i.e., No Proof of a Crime!)

This scary character at the left is Treffly Coyne. She's got a mugshot on file somewhere, though we've never seen it. Oh, sure. She looks pleasant enough. But beware. Treffly Coyne is a wanton, dangerous criminal. No, seriously. Getta load o' this!!! Oh, believe me. This woman is a fiend... A FIENNDDDD, I tell you!

On December 8, 2007, Treffly Coyne, mother of three in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park, Illinois, was loading her youngest, Phoebe, age 2, in the carseat after a day of Christmas errands in nearby Crestwood, when the toddler fell promptly to sleep. Coyne's two older daughters and a little friend of theirs wanted to donate coins they'd collected for charity to a Salvation Army bell ringer standing on a curb, fewer than ten yards from Coyne's car.

It was sleeting, so Coyne decided to leave Phoebe in the warm, dry car. She turned on her emergency flashers, locked the car doors, activated the alarm, and walked the three little girls to the where the bell ringer stood. The car was NEVER out of her sight. She snapped a few photos of the girls making their donations (because she's obviously a hateful, uncaring, unloving mom), then walked back to the car. As she arrived there, a Crestwood police officer was waiting for her. The female officer -- who has yet to be named, but I can't wait to find out so I can make it public -- began yelling at Coyne that she was endangering her daughter and promptly told her she was being arrested, handcuffing her in full view of her two older children, who were standing on the curb in the sleeting rain. Immediately after hearing she was to be arrested, Coyne telephoned her husband, who (wisely, I think) told her to stay mum and not say a word until he arrived on the scene. Irritated that Coyne refused to speak with her further, including refusing to divulge Phoebe's name to either the officer or the child welfare worker, the cop added "obstructing a police officer" to the charge of "child endangerment." ("You have the right to remain silent....")

The officer called child welfare and had Phoebe taken into protective services -- did I mention that the three older girls were left standing in the sleeting rain -- STILL? Child welfare drove off with little Phoebe. And the three older girls were left standing in the sleeting rain. Still. Ignored by both the police officer and the child welfare worker (apparently, there's a cut-off in Illinois as to how old a child has to be before the city of Crestwood gives a crap. Once you hit three, kid, you're on your own!) Luckily, as the officer was shutting the back door of the squad car with the murderous, dangerous Treffly Coyne safely handcuffed in the back seat, her husband drove up. They were barely able to exchange a few words, when the female cop -- stalwartly protecting the safety of all children in Crestwood (in diapers, that is) -- drove away without a backward glance to make sure the three little girls she left standing in the sleeting rain had been claimed. Coyne's husband found them crying just outside the Wal-Mart. But I'm sure they were perfectly safe, now that they'd been freed from horrifying clutches of killer soccer mom Treffly Coyne by the heroic Crestwood peace officer. (Peace officer? Hmmm...)

This morning, Coyne was set to stand trial, where she faced one count each of child endangerment and obstructing a police officer. Had she been convicted, she could have served a year in prison and been forced to pay a $2500 fine. Instead, amazingly, the prosecutor dropped the charges, stating that his office could not meet the burden of proof that Coyne actually committed a crime.

Timothy Sulikowski, police chief for Crestwood, believed that the prosecutor made a huge mistake letting this hardened criminal go. Why, she'd brought it all on herself, he told reporters, by refusing to give the police officer her daughter's name. Had she simply given the officer Phoebe's name, Sulikowski said, there would never have been an arrest. There is some dispute on this, however, as Coyne claims her call to her husband -- in which he advised her to keep quiet --was a result of being told she was, in fact, being arrested, and she wanted to let him know (lest the remaining three children be left in the SLEETING RAIN! We just can't emphasize that point enough, can we?). It was only after that call that Coyne refused to speak to the arresting officer, so Sulikowski's story does not exactly jibe with both the officer's and Coyne's account of the arrest. "Still," according to CNN, "he claims that while police were obligated to report the case to the state’s child welfare agency, Coyne would not have been arrested had she cooperated and not refused to give them basic information, including the child’s name."

"'By not providing us with that information and the information of her child, at that point we don’t know that that child is hers. We don’t know if that child has been listed as a kidnapped child or a missing child,” he said. “Absolutely, she forced this.'”

Yes, we get it, Chief Sulikowski. I mean, just look at her. She looks like a hardened criminal. That low-slung brow -- those beady eyes -- that wide, slack jaw... Oh, wait... sorry... I was looking at a photo of Curly Howard from The Three Stooges. My bad....

In any case, we can all still see that it's suburban criminal scum like Coyne that really keep the Crestwood police department hopping on sleety, rainy nights when cruising a parking lot full of Volvos and mini-vans at Christmas time is way harder than, say, busting meth labs in downtown Chicago (I mean, those downtown cops have it cherry!). By the way, did she also force the part about your officer leaving her other children on the sidewalk, sobbing -- IN THE SLEETING RAIN? I guess your cop showed that witch Treffly Coyne, huh! Teach her to screw with the Crestwood PD! (Gee, I hope real criminals looking for a place where police presence is kind of soft don't read this.) I do find it interesting that, during initial interviews after Coyne's arrest, when it was pointed out that she had moved away from the car for a very brief time, Chief Sulikowski was quick to say, "A minute or two -- that's when things can happen." Seriously, Chief? It's too bad, then, that Officer Great-Big-Stick-Up-Her-Butt didn't get that memo when it came to the other three children she left as she sailed away, safe in the knowledge that she had just protected Crestwood from the next Bonnie Parker. You remember those kids, right, Chief? The ones you've absolutely failed to mention in EVERY SINGLE INTERVIEW YOU'VE GIVEN, as if they didn't exist -- kinda like your own officer, and the child welfare worker that night.

So, now that Coyne is out on the streets again, free to shop and take her kids to ballet class, Tinley Park can never quite feel safe again, knowing that any day now, she could move more than 30 feet from any of her children (though they're still within her sight), leaving them in the world unprotected and unattended. And then being sure that, should a police officer arrive on the scene, she might then commit the heinous act of refusing to speak to him or her. She's dangerous, I say, and she should be locked up. You know who else should be arrested? That Salvation Army bell ringer. I mean, do we even know who this guy was that lured Treffly Coyne into her infamous crime spree? I think this guy needs some investigating. It could be a ring -- a huge sindicate, where Salvation Army bell ringers lure the older children of suburban soccer moms into their dark web of coin donation, tempting them to leave their toddlers in warm, dry, locked, alarmed cars thirty feet away.

The prosecutor may have given up on this case, but I haven't! I'm determined to save Tinley Park from this frightening thug. It's not too late to rehabilitate Ms. Coyne from her flagrantly felonious life. I'll save you, Treffly. I'll save you and show you the error of your ways. By the way, next week, we'll be surgically attaching all three children to various parts of your body, so you can never be more than 20 to 30 centimeters from them at any given point in time. No need to thank me -- the future safety of your children and hapless citizens of suburban Chicago is thanks enough.

~C~

P.S. and totally off-point: Treffly Coyne gets this quarter's award for coolest name in a blog post subject.

Nerdy-Sexy

In Kissing Jessica Stein, two women are discussing men and the term "ugly-sexy" comes up. One of them defines the quality by listing a number of actors who have it: Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, James Woods. Yeah (except for Keitel, who rather repulses me on every level), I can get behind that list. But I am more of a nerd-loving kind of girl. I just love really brainy guys with quirky looks who aren't dangerous or menacing (unlike Woods and Keitel, for example).

I have since compiled a list of nerdy-sexy guys to whom I've grown attached of late. Some of them are characters in much-loved movies and t.v. shows, some of them, the actors who play them.

Jefferson Smith (as portrayed by Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) - Jefferson Smith is one of my favorite nerds. Earnest, bright, but not very worldly, he finally catches wise and learns how to make the system work in his favor. His sincerity and integrity prevail over the twin evils of greed and injustice and he manages with one philibuster to clear his good name, foil the unholy, power-mongering politicians and get Jean Arthur by end titles. Where are the Jefferson Smiths when you need 'em?

Alan Rickman (British actor, director) -- I've had it bad for Alan Rickman for a very long time. Why he doesn't just leave his lifelong partner of 30 years, economist Rima Horton, and run away with me, I'll never understand. I think I completely fell in love with him for his portrayal of sniffly ghost Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply. Oh, sure, he's plenty menacing in a lot of his roles, but even as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and his uneasy, secretive Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films, there was a touch of abject nerdy awkwardness. He's quirky and a more than a little odd, and anyone who can pull down his trousers to reveal a sexless, Ken-doll-like pubic area (as Metatron in Dogma) with such dash and aplomb -- why, that's the nerd for me.

Dr. Carl Sagan -- Smart, sexy, a stylish little overbite and, man, oh, man, those turtlenecks. I was in college (the first time around) when Cosmos debuted on PBS in 1980. I never missed an episode. He was forthright about his belief in the Drake equation, which used mathematical calculation to prove that there must be life in the universe, because for Earth to be the only planet that bore life would simply be statistically improbable. Any guy who can make algebra sexy (while wearing a turtleneck, mind you) can whisk me away to his alternative universe any day. Sagan scoffed at all the then-popular "ancient astronauts" claptrap, because the claims couldn't withstand the scientific standards for putting theories to the test in his book "The Demon- Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark," (the title alone just makes you want to sleep with him, doesn't it?) which included such axioms as "Try not to get too attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours," and "If there are two hypotheses that explain the data equally well choose the simpler (Occam's razor)." If he had an enormous ego (he was a Scorpio, after all -- ahem), he managed to keep it well-hidden in favor of the science.

Adrien Brody (Academy-award winning actor who kissed Halle Berry like she's never been kissed before or since -- and who was kissed the following year by Charlize Theron). Let me tell you something. I got me five dollars here that says there were girls in Adrien Brody's high school who swore they'd die before they'd let him anywhere near them, who are now kicking their own ever-expanding Elmhurst housewife asses for being so stupid. If I were twenty years younger, I'd stalk this boy and marry him right quick. You go, boy. (Darn that Halle Berry anyway -- she gets to have all the fun!)

Frank Darabont (director, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Majestic) -- the only one of my nerd crushes that I've actually met (I moderated this Q&A with him for Fox Searchlab). Frank happily embraces his nerdiness and flaunts it like a badge of honor, God love 'im. Frank seems to have settled nicely into the filmmaker nerd role, along with friends George Lucas (maxo-nerd) and Steven Spielberg (uber-nerd of the first order). We are less than two months apart in age and grew up less than three miles apart, and I'm stunned I never met him while we were growing up (I knew a bunch of kids at his school, Hollywood High). Now, I understand he's gotten married to Collateral producer Julie Richardson. I guess it was never meant to be between Frank and me. Which is a damn shame, since my daughter was already picking out the color Porsche she was going to buy if he ever became her stepfather. Sucks to be her, I guess, huh.

David Levinson (as portrayed by Jeff Goldlum in Independence Day) -- if Goldblum's Ian Macolm (Jurassic Park) was "ugly-sexy", his scientist-turned-superhero in ID4 was the height of nerdy-sexiness. Geeky, awkward, hopelessly in love with a wife who won't talk to him, and jealous of the man he thinks has stolen her affections (who also happens to be the hunky President of the United States) -- so much so that he actually punches him in the nose -- Levinson finds himself shunted into herodom with his cranky father (Judd Hirsch) and hotdog fighter pilot (Will Smith). Still, he's funny when he's frightened and charming when he's falling all over himself and how Margaret Collin manages to resist him for the first 120 minutes of the movie is an utter and complete mystery to me.

And, finally, Dann Florek (L.A. Law (as direct-marketing nerd-king Dave Meyer; Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU (as slightly less nerdy, but just-nerdy-enough-to-be-sexy Capt. Donald Cragen)) -- Dann Florek won my heart as the painfully socially challenged Dave Meyer, who managed to pursuade financially troubled legal secretary Roxanne Mehlman to marry him on NBC's L.A. Law. He went on to play badge-and-gun-toting-nerd-of-authority Capt. Don Cragen on the first three seasons of Law & Order and then to reprise the role in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for the past six (going on seven) seasons. Aside from being a really good dramatic actor, he's got a way with comedy, and he can take a potentially obnoxious character like Meyer and embue in him such an underlying sweetness that he was watchable for a season or two (rather than what I'm sure would have been, with any other actor in the role, six episodes at most, then -- blam! -- hit by a bus). Florek also distinguishes himself in another way. Florek doesn't just play a nerd on t.v. -- he actually is one in real-life. According to his L&O:SVU bio, Florek started as a math and physics major at Eastern Michigan University, only to switch to theater because -- get this! -- he thought acting might be "more fun than synthetic projective geometry." Oh, my Jesus gay! Beat me, whip me, teach me differential calculus -- baby, I'm all yours.

So, there's more about me than you ever wanted to know, I'm sure. I suppose I like nerds because I know that I need a guy with a brain, who can hold up his end of the conversation. I need someone who is more interested in what's going on with the world than what's going on with his crow's feet. I just sense that I'd work with a nerd, perhaps because I'm kind of one myself (or so my kid tells me). Not a math nerd -- more of a natural sciences nerd, who as young child pointed out to her mother that paisley was kind of creepy because the pattern looked like amoebae swimming around under a microscope. I figure there must be a nerd out there with my name on him. It's only a matter of time before he finds me.

~CA~

Schadenfreude-R-Us

Okay... it's tacky... I know it's tacky. But I can't help it. We laugh when others suffer. I believe it's human nature. 'Round about these parts, when something goes wrong... it goes spectacularly wrong! Seems that Fox Publicity and Advertising department took another blow over the New York premiere of our latest, The Fantastic Four, Wednesday night. A minor publicity stunt in L.A. didn't exactly go as planned either. The publicity campaign was such an all-over fiasco, the New York Daily Observer's online blog, The Daily Transom, felt the need to do three whole posts about it here. And here. And here, too. Oh, how they laughed....

Those of us who work in the "majors" (major movie studios) have a special relationship with our respective P&A departments. These are the people who believe -- deep in their heart of hearts -- that nobody will go to see a movie that isn't named after either a comic book or a bad '70s song -- even if the song has nothing to do with the picture. This explains the inane reasoning behind taking a movie based on Laura Zigman's wildly successful chick-lit novel, Animal Husbandry, and renaming it Someone Like You. Remember that horrible Rod Stewart song? No? Well, judging by the number of people who didn't see this movie, you're not alone. The reasoning of the Fox P&A department was that women would be offended by the title Animal Husbandry. Of course, they would. That explains the tremendous success (complete with multiple printings and formats) that Dial Press enjoyed, in hardcover, paperback and audio, of this book to... did I mention it was chick-lit? If I'm not very much mistaken, that's women, is it not? Yes. Well. Most studio in-house P&A departments are renowned for backing the wrong horse, right after renaming it and whipping up a totally misleading trailer for it. Their decisions are all based on the following tragic misperception: "We know what makes a movie sell."

I'll let you guys in on a little secret. No, they don't. Neither do I. Neither do you. Know why? Because it's magic. No. Seriously. Magic. Smoke and mirrors, coupled with planetary alignment and just the right wind velocity. No one knows what will make a movie a hit. There were people at Paramount -- highly placed people who make decisions about what's good and what's bad all day -- whispering fertively that Forrest Gump would tank. Obviously, they were wrong. But they might not have been. Think about it. It's a weird little movie. It could have all gone horribly wrong, even with Hanks in the lead, Zemeckis behind the camera and an accomplished screenwriter like Eric Roth providing the screenplay. The difference between a ground-breaking, innovative, exciting, blockbuster movie and a well-intentioned, gone-awry, ambitious, expensive failure is approximately the width of an ant's eyelash. And no one -- not the studio, or the director, or the star, or the screenwriter, or even the P&A department at the studio -- can be sure in advance which movie will hit and which will fail.

Granted, a Forrest Gump or an Independence Day has certainly got a much better chance of succeeding than a Dude, Where's My Car or a Freddie Got Fingered. But a good script, good direction and brilliant performances can be thwarted by an ignorant P&A department. The perfect example is a little film released two scant months after Gump. The Shawshank Redemption is one of my all-time favorite films. Badly conceived trailers and a lackluster advertising campaign nearly put it in the toilet -- until it was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including a "best screenplay adaptation" nomination for writer/director Frank Darabont. Darabont has said that, though Shawshank won no Oscars that night, the constant mention of the movie's name during the ceremony piqued people's interest, and when the film was released on video a couple of months later, it promptly shot to the top of the "most rented" video list. It remains one of the most rented videos/DVDs of all time. Yet it's total theater box office tally in its original release was shy of $29 million (as compared to Gump's $329 million).

All because some dumbass executive in the P&A department said, "The Shawshank Redemption? Forget about it. It's Nowheresville." And thanks to that arrogant dumbass executive, it nearly was.

This is why, when things go so horribly, terribly, monumentally and publicly wrong for a studio publicity department, those of us who love film have to smile to ourselves. We like to think it must be kharma. We like to think to ourselves that, though there isn't always evidence of it, the world is a just place. A good place. A place where the scales all balance out in the end. For every decent movie that was brought to its box-office knees by P&A neglect, there will be one grandly touted premiere that will turn into an utter and complete disaster, complete with vomiting actresses, backward fireworks and skywriting, and a relentless downpour. The misery and humiliation of others occasionally fills our hearts with unabashed joy.

Is that so wrong?

~C~

George Clooney ROCKS!

Is it because he's a mega-movie star with a strong jaw and a winning smile? No, although he does. Is it because he could, with a wave of his hand, wipe away my student loan debt and not even miss it from his bank account? Well, admittedly that helps, but it's not the reason he rocks.

The reason George Clooney rocks is because he's the only person I can think of who could actually get Pat Robertson.... PAT ROBERTSON... of the 700 CLUB... to admit on national television that there are occasions when condom usage might be appropriate. Pat Robertson is the guy who's been spouting off on television that condoms don't work, even for contraception, let alone for safe sex, and so should be abandoned altogether. And George Clooney, star of the silver screen, actually got him to admit that, yes, sometimes, a condom can be a good thing, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 36.1 million people are HIV/AIDS infected.

Okay. I admit it. It's not much. But by God, it's more than anyone else has been able to do in the face of neo-conservative ostrich-ass-in-the-air-head-in-the-sand ignorance. Forget Brooke Shields. I'm taking George Clooney to lunch. (Sorry, Brookie.)

If he plays his cards right, I might just spring for dessert, too.

What?

Oh, get your minds out of the gutter. I was talking about a little cheesecake. Sheesh!

~CA~