Wednesday, June 27, 2007

ring around the collar--DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!!

What exactly was ring around the collar?? I've not dealt first hand with this phenomena but I fuzzily recollect early 80s advertising that made "ring around the collar" sound like a fate worse than bubonic plague. It was advertising for some detergent, I can't remember which detergent though.



Was only really pondering this because I am doing laundry at present. I thought I should simultaneously kill some time posting (which I'd promised to be more dilligent about). I'm on the 1st of 2 loads, so OY VEY have I got time to kill!! Due to the wussy water pressure here, 1 load of laundry takes about 5 hrs or thereabouts to go through the whole wash cycle. OK well that's exaggerating a smidgeon, but it does take a loooooooooooooooooooong LONG time.


Ya know, if I had not been so darn remiss w/the blogging, I would've been able to promptly share with you the exciting discovery I made in the field of celebrity-birthdayology last week. I will still share it with you, because it's too neat-o to hoard, but it would've made more impact had I told y'all back on June 21. Sorry! Anyways the discovery-- Michael Gross and the-artist-formerly-known-as-Meredith -Baxter -Birney (she dropped the Birney some years ago) were born on the EXACT SAME DAY. It's not just a mere matter of them sharing a June 21st birthday-- both Steven & Elyse Keaton were born on JUNE 21 , 1947. How nutty is that?





Here is a website that recently snagged my attention. I'm a bit of an Alan Bates fan... actually, I think I've owned up here in this forum to having a weird retro-crush on him (& Oliver Reed too) so I'm suprised I was unaware of this fansite until just the other day. I'm so impressed with the site that I'm reluctant to refer to it as a "fan site" You can see that a hell of a lot of work and research went into this site, whereas the word "fansite" makes me think of an amateurish, juvenile, gushy shrine type of site. A fan site is something like I would produce if I tried to make such a tribute site. For instance, my hypothetical Gerard Butler site would read something like- "And 300! Did you see 300? Ger was superhumanly fine in that, no? Yeeeoww! Hubba Hubba !!Daaaaaaaamn! Here is a screen cap of a scene that got me EXTRA twitterpated.." But the Alan Bates tribute site is excellently done. I linked to the film archive section of the site (rather than the home page) because I thought that was the niftiest (and handiest) part. These are the movies on said page that I have seen--


* Evelyn--rented this once upon a time...not for an Alan Bates fix either. I don't think I liked him at the time,and also this is circa 2002 Bates, a good 30 years older than the object of my retro-crush. It was a sweet movie though, so I do recommend it. Although I am a sucker for anything set in Ireland.

*Gosford Park-- I own this one, but that purchase was on account of dreamy Clive Owen being in the film.

* The Mothman Prophecies-- I don't even remember Bates being in this but I have seen it. I don't remember all that much about this movie actually, but I know I did watch it. I saw it with my sister, who was utterly freaked out about it (I must sometime tell you of the interesting way we disagree in our definition of what constitutes a SCARY movie. I don't wanna veer waaay off topic now, but remind me sometime...) It didn't frighten me half so much but I was a bit wary of bridges for a week or so.

4. Hamlet-- I watched this in some high school English class I think. Don't recall it clearly, other than the scenes Mel Gibson shared with Glenn Close (playing his mum Gertrude) I found rather cringe- inducing. UGH.

5. Women In Love-- have rented this a thousand or so times. I suppose I'll buy it sooner or later. A really good movie (featuring Bates in his prime and Oliver Reed) I have the DH Lawrence novel in my books-to-read queue and am really intimidated by it before even cracking the thing open. This is because I've attempted to read DH Lawrence before-- got about 1/2 through "The Rainbow" and I found him to be VERY tough going. The book just got really ponderous when he got to presenting his underlying themes. Too blasted esoteric for yours truly.

6. Georgy Girl-- sweet movie...Bates is adorable in this. Can't say as I'm crazy about that ending though. Oh and that theme song is like musical brain bird ox..

7.Zorba the Greek-- Rented this one a while back. This of course, is Anthony Quinn's show (and he is very good) but I rented it to see circa 1964 Bates. I enjoyed the movie, but oddly, I cannot remember how it ends...and I think I rented it not that long ago...hmmm...



Alan Bates Movies I Want to See (ranked most anticipated (#1) to least anticipated (#))

1. ***Far From the Madding Crowd (purported to be a BEAUTIFULLY staged movie... I wonder if seeing the movie might compel me to revisit that very Hardy novel which I started --and abandoned midway--2yrs ago)***

2.The Shout (obscure arty horror movies of the 70s are mucho RAD)



3.The Go Between

4.Whistle Down the Wind (also stars young Haley Mills!! She is also mucho rad)

5.The Fixer

6. In Celebration

7.Quartet

8.King of Hearts

9.An Unmarried Woman

10. Butley

11.The Wicked Lady

12.Royal Flash

13.Nijinsky

14.A Kind of Loving

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