Some of my fondest memories spent as a student at Bowling Green State University were spent as a member of “America’s Finest Singing Machine” the BGSU Men’s Chorus. To become a member was one of the most harrowing yet rewarding experiences I have ever had to undergo. Because it was so painful if I had to divulge the requirements on this blog I would have to do something drastic. The best part of the group was the Spring Break Tour in which the chorus travels to either the north Atlantic coast and eventually New York City itself or south to Florida. LOOOOOONG hours were spent on a Lakefront charter bus to drive to and from various schools and churches to perform not to mention the gracious host familes who provided a bed, shower, and food to 120 men and one female accompanist. Thank goodness for VCR (this was before the infancy of DVD) and euchre cards.

My second year (1996) as a member was the New York recruitment tour. I just hated it. The highlight of the tour was three days spent in the Big Apple. The first afternoon, after standing in line to get tickets for a show at the TKTS booth on Broadway, a bunch of us decided to make our way to the Ed Sullivan Theatre to see about stand-by tickets for the Letterman show. Believe it or not, there were none to be had. However, instead of taking the advice of the doorman and going across the street to the Winter Garden Theatre to watch a bunch of performers dressed as Cats, SOMEONE came up with the bright idea of starting to sing and entertain the crowd gathering around the building. At 5pm, the taping for the evening’s Letterman show started. At about 5.35 PM, a doorman came out and told the choir to come inside. Apparently, one of the audience members inside was either totally disgusted with us and wanted the police called or else we were awesome. Word traveled during the first two commercial breaks and finally, Dave gave in and said….”OK, bring on the choir.” Then, our 30 seconds of fame arrived as we sang the tag to our rendition of the BGSU alma mater. After our brief segment, Dave introduced us as the BGSU Men’s Chorus from Bowling Green, KENTUCKY? WOOLY SHEEP!!!

The next morning, an even larger contingent of the chorus ventured over to Rockefeller Center dressed in our penguin suits. After one of Al Roker’s weather forecasts, we sang our barbershop rendition of the National Anthem.

So, as you can clearly see, I had a dreadful time in New York City.

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Because I know all of my faithful readers have been dying to learn the answers to last Saturday’s tagline quiz (aside from the one who provided additional clues to the answers), I will now reveal the correct responses.

!. The Fly (1986 remake starring Jeff Goldblum and Gena Davis)

2. Jurassic Park (which was pretty much a gimmee… again with Jeff Goldblum… purely coincidence)

3. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (rather plodding kick off of the movie franchise which will be relaunched Christmas Day, 2008 and is being directed by “Lost” creator J.J. Abrams)

4. Aliens (the best of the Sigourney Weaver starring quadrilogy…. I have yet to try the two Alien v. Predator films)

5. Toy Story (a third is in the works…. interesting)

6. E.T. – The Extraterrestrial (again, a bit obvious. Harrison Ford was married to the screenwriter, Melissa Matheson at the time of its release and was supposed to have a cameo as a school principal. Steven Spielberg felt that the actor’s presence would be too distracting to the cast and crew and his scene was cut. Did not hurt either the movie nor Mr. Ford’s career in the least).

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Tomorrow, the young summer blockbuster season will continue with the second installment of The Chronicles of Narnia series: Prince Caspian. I was really excited three years ago when The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was brough to magnificent life on the big screen. I was introduced to the marvelous fantasy world in the fourth grade when our teacher read the entire 7 book series to the class. The first movie was an extremely faithful imagining of C.S. Lewis’ novel. It tells the story of the four Pevensie children who are sent to live with an old professor during World War II. While there, the four children discover a magic wardrobe which leads them to a world in which animals speak and magic is all around. Narnia is under the spell of the wicked White Witch. Only two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve can break the spell of endless winter…. always winter but no Christmas (that would seem to change with the appearance of a gentleman dressed in red riding in a sleigh).  Along with several mythological creatures including the omnipotent lion Aslan the great, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy attempt to restore the magic kingdom.

Along with the excitement and wonder present in Narnia. There are several religious undertones: the Adam and Eve connection, a resurrection, and betrayal (although it is for a treat called Turkish Delight and not 30 pieces of silver).

Prince Caspian picks up one summer later in “Earth time.” However, once the Pevensie children return to Narnia, 1000 years in the magical land have passed.

If you have not experienced the world of Narnia for yourself and you enjoy a great fantasy movie or book, treat yourself to this truely magical world.

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Perhaps in an attempt to cash in on the Indiana Jones craze sweeping the nation (not to mention this blog), a treasured crystal skull was stolen from a New Age store in Claremont, California.

Hunt for the Crystal Skull Begins Early

Let me just point out that I was nowhere near California on the date in question.

Perhaps authorities should begin by questioning the two three young men (?) responsible for grave robbing to retrieve a skull to use as a bong. I was surprised to learn of the laid-back nature of the store. Although they have never had any trouble with shoplifting in the past, it would seem that such a high profile item would draw considerable attention. As with the MacGuffins (the Ark of the Covenant, Sankara stones, and the Holy Grail) used in the previous 3 Indy adventures, the crystal skull does have its basis in reality perhaps just not as widely known as some of the others.

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Today was a rather dull day at work. The rain did not help although Wednesday’s are notoriously slow days. I found myself staring out the window of the store at the lamppost across the street at the post office and remembering Gene Kelly dancing and splashing with his umbrella while Singin’ in the Rain. An excellent movie musical even if you can’t dance.

Later this afternoon, things picked up. I happened to be glancing at the front page of our area newspaper and I saw the face a certain young lady who I know quite well in full color right on the front page. I must admit to being slightly jealous.

About 2:30, the mother of one of my high school classmates came in just to deliver something she had for me. She went out to her car and brought back a picture of me dressed as the Herald from Cinderella along with her four granddaughters.
I made it a point to mention Little Women coming at the end of June. She was not sure if the girls were old enough to appreciate this show but she would ask. I am sure that the oldest of the four would definitely be.

So, a little sunshine was spread on a rather dismal, rainy day.

Ok, I know this is just asking for trouble but something strangely intriguing was brought up in David Letterman’s Monday night  Small Town News segment.  I have heard some strange town names before but this one takes the cake: Intercourse, Pennsylvania.  The weekly publication “Intercourse News” has the subtitle “about families that do things together.” Strange and twisted I know but I just had to research it further.  What prompted this post is the fact that it has ties to two Hollywood movies.  The previously mentioned film Witness was filmed in the Pennsylvania Amish community.  Secondly, the Tim Allen/Kirstie Alley starring comedy For Richer Or Poorer (?) was set, but not filmed in the Amish community. And the reason I decided to watch Dave Monday night…. Shia LaBeouf who revealed absolutely nothing about his little movie opening on May 22nd and spent most of his time talking about his arrest in a Chicago Walgreens in November.

After the whole family (siblings and their children) all took Mom out for Mother’s Day brunch HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL! I decided to tag along and watch Speed Racer…. following a brief play-reading meeting. Going in, I had little expectation. I only vaguely remember seeing repeat episodes of the 60s Japanese animated import. I most remember the little brother and the chimp popping out of the trunk of the race car. And since this was another Wachowski brother production, I was expecting a visually dazzling display with little plot, or character development much like the Matrix trilogy of a few years ago.

Here we have the Racer family (Pops, Mom, Speed, his girl Trixie, little brother Spittle, mechanic Sparks, and cute chimp Chim-Chim). Speed is offered the opportunity to race for a huge racing team that is reknowned for dirty racing. In fact, those who do not take the opportunity usually end up regretting their decision. In order to reveal the racing cartel, Speed joins forces with the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox from Lost) and a Japanese racer (whose name I do not remember).

The stylized fighting with Ninjas is comical. Watching John Goodman twirl one above his head as if he were tossing pizza dough created a huge roar from the audience. The entire production design resembled a comic book come to life. The colors were all super exaggerated: the sky a bright, bright blue. The sets all appeared to be futuristic… especially the racetracks). The races were fun to watch with the gadget enhanced speedsters flipping, swerving, jumping over each other, etc. In short, it was a fun movie to LOOK at. One of the downsides of the movie is the length. It ran over 2 hours and 10 minutes which is just too long for a movie to run aimed at families and there was a lot of downtime that would probably be a distraction to younger children. But, if you are a fan of the computer generated wizardry of the Wachowski brothers then Speed Racer is fun to watch.

On a tangent, the Wachowski’s must know their Bond flicks. One of the racers is poisoned by a Ninja in a scene which is played identically to one in You Only Live Twice.

Most memorable movies have at least one promotional ad campaign that features a catchy phrase that in some instances have become ingrained in the world of pop culture.  Some of these are: “A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far…Far…Away,” and “Don’t Go In The Water.”  See if you can match the tag with the movie.  Heck, I’ll even throw in the year some of the movies were originally released.  Isn’t that just so nice of me?

1.  “Be Afraid.  Be Very Afraid” (1986…. there may or may not be more than one correct answer so look at the date)

2.  “An Adventure 65 Million Years In The Making”

3.  “The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning” (1979)

4.  “This Time…It’s War” (1986)
5.  “The Adventure Takes Off” (1995)

6.  “He Is Afraid.  He Is Alone.  He Is 3 Million Light Years From Home”

Answers will be forthcoming after enough time has passed to see how many readers attempt to respond. I will try to keep it fair to everyone by monitoring the post and deleting the guesses.  Good luck.

It’s no secret who one of my favorite popcorn munching, thrill seeking, Saturday afternoon movie actors is. However, like most actors worth their salt, Harrison Ford does have a repetoire that extends far beyond two of the most successful film franchises in movie history and as I have been mentioning in probably half of my posts, he will be returning to the silver screen as a certain globe-trotting, snake fearing, bullwhip cracking, Nazi despising archaeologist. Below is a List of some of my other Ford favorites.

Witness: His first and (so far) only Academy Award nomination and it features a very cool song from days gone by.

The Fugitive: The best motion picture based on a television series.  Tommy Lee Jones’ Best Supporting Oscar winning film.  Excellent cat-and-mouse chase of the on the lam doctor and the obsessed federal marshal tracking him down. Also believed to be based on the actual case of  Cleveland, OH physician Sam Sheppard.

What Lies Beneath: Hitchcockian in its suspense without the blood and gore.

The Jack Ryan duology (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger). Alec Baldwin started the franchise in The Hunt for Red October and Ben Affleck concluded it in The Sum of All Fears.  I know it is another series but Harrison’s two films are the best.

Air Force One: Flawed, cliched, but seriously, would it be so bad if he were our president?  Another good popcorn film.

I know I am forgetting a lot so please feel free to comment on some of your favorite Harrison Ford movies.  Any will do.

This weekend at the movies you can either set off the summer blockbuster popcorn season by catching up with the number one movie Iron Man. You can take in the new Ashton Kutcher comedy What Stays in Vegas… or catch the animated series turned big screen live action extravaganza Speed Racer. These are the wide release features. However, if you live anywhere near the burrough of Manhattan you may want to check out the very limited release Poulrygeist: Night of the Living Chicken. It is described by the New York Times as a “satirical sexploitation zombie chicken gross-out musical extravaganza” with such characters as “Wendy,” “Micki,” “Arbie,” “Paco Bell,” (anyone seeing a pattern here), and “Carl, Jr.” (there is a fast food chain by that name, correct?). As the writer who reviewed this fine piece of cinema stated “it is just about as perfect as a film predicated on the joys of projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea can be.” That sounds like a crowd pleaser to me…. or at least part of a good game of Balderdash.