Happy Birthday: Ginger Rogers

Ginger Rogers was born with the name Virginia McMath on July 16, 1911 in Independence, Missouri. She got the nickname Ginger from a little cousin who wasn't able to pronounce the name Virginia correctly. Ginger is best known for her dancing and being partnered with Fred Astaire. She is one of my favorite dancers of all time, as is Fred. Also, she won an Oscar for her performance as Kitty Foyle in Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman (1940).  Ginger passed away on April 25, 1995 in Rancho Mirage, California from congestive heart failure. She would have been 99 years old today!

Happy Birthday: Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman was born on July 14, 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden. He died on July 30, 2007, but I'm not sure why. Maybe because he was 89, but my great-grandma lived until she was 100, so 89 isn't too old in my opinion! He is widely considered one of the best directors in motion picture history. R.I.P. Ingmar and happy would have been 92nd birthday.

I've only just recently discovered Ingmar Bergman and I am highly impressed by him. I watched his film Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället 1957), which he both directed and wrote the screenplay for. It is brilliant. It is beautiful. The cinematography is stellar. It is also witty and humorous at times. It is also very interesting and intriguing. I loved the characters. The acting was remarkable. I obviously really enjoyed this film! It's a must watch!


The film is about an elderly man, Isak Borg (played by Victor Sjöström), who is a professor of medicine and an accomplished physician. He is traveling to Lund in order to receive an honorary award. His daughter-in-law comes along with him for the trip and they meet some strangers along the way who end up traveling with them. During the trip, Isak finds himself experiencing intrusive dreams and hallucinations that relate to and explore some of his past experiences in life that have affected him tremendously. From these, Isak is able to analyze his life, confront his fears, and contemplate the man that he has become. 

Ingmar inspecting a model of a shark. Not sure why...

Happy Birthday: Yul Brynner

Today would have been Yul's 90th birthday. He passed away from lung cancer on October 11th in 1985. The guy was an awesome actor and he looked good with that shaved head.

He won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role for The King and I back in 1956. He was said to have remained good friends with his co-star Deborah Kerr after filming that movie. Also, he was the one who insisted that she be given the part of Anna.

An interesting fact about Yul is that he was also a gifted photographer. His daughter, Victoria Brynner, put together some of his photographs and put them into a book, which is called Yul Brynner Photographer. A picture that he took of Ingrid Bergman is on the front cover of it.

Another interesting fact is that he was a circus acrobat before he became an actor. It was because of a serious acrobat accident that he ended up acting.

Yul's reflection in the mirror as he is taking a picture of Ingrid Bergman. Love it.

Yul with Deborah Kerr. 

Yul supported himself as a guitarist and singer before his acting career took off.

Cute!

Fantastic video of Yul on 'What's my Line?'

Inception

Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite modern directors. I love Memento (2000) and The Dark Knight (2008). Batman Begins (2005) was enjoyable as well, but I feel that Memento and The Dark Knight surpass it. The plots and characters of Memento and The Dark Knight intrigue me. I don't know why I haven't seen some of his other films yet because I've been wanting to, but I will see them fairly soon.

To me, Inception appears as though it will be a fantastic film. I love the casting of it, mainly because of Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, and Marion Cotillard. Also, the story line of the film is strange and it entices me into the plot even from just watching the short trailer. I need to see this film, now! This movie is about dreams and using the mind in order to invade someone else's subconscious during their dream state. DiCaprio's character, Dom Cobb is the ultimate master of this and he has been invading others' dreams in order to steal ideas from them. This has made him a fugitive and has cost him everything. However, he is given the chance to redeem himself if he can do the impossible with his team of specialists, which would be to plant an idea into someone's subconsciousness rather than steal one away. Who or what will try to stand in the way? Will they succeed or not? I guess we'll just have to find out on July 16th.

Harry Potter

The Harry Potter series will be coming to an end on the big screen in July 2011. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, having grown up with those characters just like I grew up with Andy from Toy Story. I had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new trailer for the Deathly Hallows and I finally saw it today! I posted it below for those who are interested. It will be strange with them breaking this one into two separate parts. 

I really want to go to that new Wizarding World of Harry Potter Theme Park in Orlando. I've been dreaming about it since I was informed it was going to be made, which was a while ago because I remember hearing about the plans for it back when I was in high school. Well, I guess it wasn't that long ago because that was four years ago, but it seems like longer. I've got a lot of friends and family members that are interested in going to that theme park, too, so I'll get there eventually. 

Jack Lemmon: RIP

It's been 9 years since Jack Lemmon's death on June 27, 2001. He died from bladder cancer. I recently watched Days of Wine and Roses (1962), where he played an alcoholic married to a woman who he in turn transforms into an alcoholic. The performances by both Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick were magnificent. I felt terrible for the characters because they were struggling so much with their addiction to alcohol. I love how Jack could play both serious characters and comedic ones so well. Rest in peace!

The Tornado and the Far Side of the Moon

A few nights ago, while I was relaxing watching a film on Netflix around 1 something in the morning, I heard a strange noise. At first, I thought it was just part of the movie I was watching, which was Moon (2009). Moon, for those of you who have not heard of it, is a Sci-Fi Thriller about an astronaut who has been living and working on the far side of the moon. He has a three-year contract with a company known as Lunar Industries to mine Helium-3, which is the Earth's primary source of energy.

Anyway, back to that strange noise I heard! While watching the movie, the noise I heard made sense because there were a lot of strange sounds in the Moon spaceship, so I accepted it at first. However, I became aware that the noise was emitting at different sound frequencies, which didn't make sense. Then, it hit me, the tornado sirens were going off!!!

I jumped out of my bed and started shouting to my parents to get downstairs into the basement, but they were both in a deep sleep and didn't hear me. I kept yelling and yelling for a while, but they still didn't hear me! Thinking that they must be going deaf, I knocked on their door and still shouted about the tornado siren, which proved to be a successful way of waking them. Both flew up into the air, along with the dog, and my mom ran to look out the window first. She somehow poked her eyeball in the process, which scratched it up and bruised it a little.

My mom, my dog, my cat, and I went downstairs into the basement. My dad is stubborn and wouldn't believe that the tornado siren was going off, so he stayed upstairs and refused to come down to the basement. It was quite a storm. The lightening was so intense that it looked like a spastic strobe light was going off in the sky. While we were sitting there, the cat and I heard what sounded like a tiny waterfall flowing into the house. I pointed this out to my mom, who couldn't hear it and told me it was probably outside, however, she was wrong and water was spreading everywhere. My dad was yelling from upstairs that the tornado had passed us and we could come back upstairs. We then shouted to my dad to come downstairs because the basement was flooding.

Something about the tornado weather and storms in general always makes me want to watch The Wizard of Oz. I think that I will finally watch it tonight, it has been a while.  Also, the mention of the far side of the moon always makes me think of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" record, which when started at a certain point synchs with the plot of The Wizard of Oz. One of my teachers back in high school made us watch the movie like this for an hour.