And the winner is.....

This year's Academy Awards had a decidedly French flavor to it, with several films that featured either Paris, France or French actors in them. "Hugo", nominated for 11 Oscars, takes place in Paris in 1931. "Midnight in Paris", is Woody Allen's film about a writer visiting Paris who is magically transported back to 1920's Paris and who gets to meet his literary heroes, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He falls in love with a woman from the 1920s who would rather go back to La Belle Époque when painters like Edgar Degas were working, so they visit that time period and she decides to stay there instead. The whole theme of the movie is that we are never satisfied with where we are and seem to cast a longing and nostalgic eye back at times in which we think we'd rather live. This movie also garnered some Oscar nominations. Then there was "The Artist", starring French actors Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo in a black and white silent movie about a fading silent film star (Dujardin) and a rising young talkie star (Bejo). It was a charming nod to film history, as was the movie "Hugo", which is about a young boy who was restoring an old automaton with his father when he is left suddenly orphaned and goes to live with a drunken uncle at a Paris train station. The uncle disappears and Hugo must live by his wits, stealing to survive. He steals parts from a toy store in the train station to continue repair of the automaton. The toy store is run by a bitter old man who turns out to have been the former owner of the automaton and who was once a renowned pioneer filmmaker, Georges Méliès. The intersection of their two lives serves to bring Monsieur Méliès back to public recognition again when he thought that he had been long forgotten. It's a charming movie that I saw three times and would happily see again.

Well, the night's big honors went to "The Artist", which took home 5 Academy Awards, including Best Actir, Best Director, Best Movie, Best Costuming and Best Musical Score. "Hugo" took home 5 Oscars, too, but mostly for technical achievement, no big surprise, given the wizardry involved in bringing that film to life. Still, I thought that Martin Scorsese would win for Best Director at least. What he did with "Hugo" was nothing short of miraculous. It was a dazzling feast for the eyes and a very heartwarming story as well. It was also way out of Scorsese's usual comfort zone of films that seem to explore the nature of violence. "Hugo" was the very antithesis of that, a gentle, magical family story of redemption and the magical power of cinema. But it seemed like this past year was a real banner year for superlative filmmaking. I saw a lot of first rate films, many of which were vying for Oscar honors, so the competition this year was particularly stiff for just about every category. I do hope this trend of high quality movies continues into this new year. The only trouble is that they do not make it to our local theatres here and we often have to drive to Cleveland to see the really good movies. But it's a small price to pay to see some outstanding movies!

Farewell, Downton Abbey, until next year!

I have to admit to having become a dyed-in-the-wool "Downton Abbey" addict. Not since PBS's other Edwardian series "Upstairs, Downstairs" back in the early 1970s has a show so captivated me, but this one is so much more complex than that series ever was. Each character has his or her own story and we get to know a very large cast of characters, from the upstairs residents in the household of the Earl of Grantham to his downstairs staff of maids, footmen, the butler, the valet and others. This series starts a bit later than "Upstairs" did, which, if memory serves, starts in around 1902 and goes through the 1920s. "Downton" starts with the sinking of the Titanic and the fact that the only heir to the Earldom of Grantham perished when that ship went down, forcing Lord Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, to seek an unlikely heir in a distant cousin, a middle class lawyer from Manchester named Matthew Crawley, who arrives at the estate with his mother to learn the ways of nobility, and the story takes off from there with love interests, scandals, deaths and other things. The first season ends with war being declared on Germany, the beginning of World War I. The second season takes the family and the household through that great war and the effect it has on everyone, as social classes begin to break down and the world is, as a result, forever changed. Nobody is left unscathed in the household, neither servant nor the upstairs residents. We say goodbye to some characters, meet other new ones and watch as Matthew, the presumptive heir to Downton, further has his life turned upside down as he goes off to fight the great war. There is an off again, on again romance with the Earl's eldest daughter, Mary that keeps things constantly interesting. It's a totally addictive series and seems to have developed an international following. It's become PBS's big hit of the year and has won numerous awards as well. Watching PBS has become cool again, especially if you're a huge fan of this period drama.

It owes a lot to its predecessor, "Upstairs, Downstairs", which was another series that took place around the same period and aired back in the early 1970s. I was a big fan of that show as well and followed it religiously. That show begins in 1902 and follows both sets of people through the 1920s, so it covers a lot of ground, including the sinking of the Titanic and World War I. "Downton Abbey" starts with the Titanic and so far, has taken us to the year 1920. Season 3 promises to take the household through at least the opening years of the 1920s and should have some interesting material to cover as well. There are several fascinating storylines that are still up in the air and we have yet to find out what happens to certain characters who have been left in suspense as Season 2 ended. Unfortunately, Season 3 won't air in the US until January of 2013, so we have a very long wait to find out what is going to happen next. I suppose a big part of what has endeared this show to so many viewers is the character of Violet, the Dowager Countess and mother to Lord Robert Crawley, Earl Grantham. She has a sharp tongue and responds to so many situations with absolutely hilarious lines. For example, in the first season, when she learns of a scandal involving her eldest granddaughter, she wonders if she shouldn't take her abroad to Rome or someplace to find her a potential husband, telling her daughter-in-law, the current Countess, Lady Cora Crawley, "In these moments, you can always find an Italian who isn't too picky!" Violet is played by the splendid actress Dame Maggie Smith, who plays it for all it's worth. I understand that Shirley MacLaine will be joining the Season 3 cast as Lady Cora's American mother, Martha Levinson, which promises to provide plenty of fireworks between her and the Dowager Countess! I wish the wait for the new season was not so long, but I suppose in the meantime I will have to buy the DVDs and watch the first two seasons again (I understand that it is best to buy the uncut British versions instead of the American ones, from what I hear from the fan base!). Well, Downton Abbey, it's been quite a ride, and I so look forward to a reunion with the amazing cast of this show next year.

Contraception and Healthcare

I was raised Roman Catholic and when I was growing up going to Mass at St. Patrick's every Sunday, it wasn't uncommon to see families of 10-12 kids taking up an entire pew. They usually had one in every grade in school, meaning that mom was pregnant at least once a year to have them spaced a year apart in age. Until my cousin Terry died of cancer several years ago, I had 22 first cousins on my mom's side. She is the middle of five children and her siblings all had fairly large families. That was the norm during the Baby Boom years, I suppose, but the moreso in Catholic families where birth control has been a big no-no since, well, I don't know when. Now that the Obama health care plan includes contraceptive care for women, Catholic bishops are raising the red flag and saying that it's a violation of religious liberty to make religious employers provide contraceptive care when it violates their moral belief. The Obama administration has had to do some delicate side stepping in order to cool the fires, but the bishops are still displeased and think that anyone working for a Catholic organization should be exempt from access to birth control, Catholic or no. Part of what caused me to leave the Catholic Church decades ago was my disagreement with their stance on women's reproductive issues.

When I reached my reproductive years, and I was late in coming to them, I considered using birth control pills to ameliorate miserable monthly symptoms that were nearly incapacitating. The Catholic Church wouldn't even allow it in cases where someone's health was at stake, and I began to realize that there was nothing at all in the Bible that said you couldn't exercise birth control or even take it as medication to alleviate severe pain like I was having. I also saw the effects of lack of birth control in Central America when my older sister went down to Nicaragua in 1974 after the terrible earthquake down there that ravaged that country. She returned home with pictures of wrenching poverty caused by overpopulation and I knew then that the Church in which I was raised was wrong and should do something about that. Overpopulation due to lack of access to birth control is a health care issue. It's wrong and it's unsustainable in the long term. It ticks me off that the bishops are using this as a political tool against the President of the United States, an office that seems to have lost a great deal of respect in recent years. The issue of birth control has now become a political football that will continue to be kicked from now until the elections in November. It's interesting how 98% of American Catholic women use birth control and how much smaller families are now than they were 50 years ago, when it was common to see a brood of 10-12 kids in a single family. By and large, American Catholics tend to be far more liberal than their European or Latin American counterparts. I just wonder how people will respond to the firestorm being brewed by the bishops. Will Catholics side with them while taking the pill behind their backs, or will they realize that this is a women's health care issue and that when push comes to shove, nobody is forcing anybody to take birth control pills if they truly don't believe in doing so? And that's what is at the crux of all this. It isn't as if the Obama administration is mandating that women take birth control. It's merely the idea that if a woman wishes to do so, her insurance carrier should provide her with access to it IF SHE WANTS TO DO SO. Now, why the bishops are making such a kerfuffle over this, I don't know, but it strikes me as odd that the loudest voices against women having control over their own bodies is men. That just goes to show that while women have made great strides, we have so much further to go yet. We don't really have the control over our bodies that we should have. At the end of the day, insurance and government tell us what we can and cannot do and I regard that as a crying shame.

Losses to the Kent community

This past Tuesday evening, the Kent community lost one of its more distinguished members. Gordon F. Vars, 88, retired Kent State University education professor, was hit by a car while walking across the street to his home and killed. I knew him from both my church community at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent and from his environmental activism in fighting to preserve the Kent Bog State Nature Preserve from encroaching development that could have threatened its fragile ecosystem. Gordon was tireless in his advocating for the Bog, going so far as to found the Friends of the Kent Bog advocacy group to join his voice with others in working to preserve the Bog for future generations. Gordon also led regular tours through the Bog to point out its unique flora and fauna to visitors and provided seasonal brochures to walkers as to what to look for along its walking path as the seasons changed. He was tireless in his work to save an asset that he felt so strongly about and never let up advocating for it and for other environmental causes. He was an active member of the Kent Environmental Council as well. When I received the sad news of his passing, I began trying to think of some way to honor this man who I admired so much and considered to be a good friend and a bit of a father figure. So I contacted the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and asked them if they might consider naming the walking path at the Bog in his name, to forever honor his years and years of advocacy on behalf of the Bog, and quite surprisingly, they agreed. So on the day of Gordon's memorial service, we will have a ceremony at the Bog to dedicate the newly renamed Gordon Vars Memorial Walkway at the Tom S. Cooperrider Kent Bog State Nature Preserve. I am so glad that I was able to find a way to honor Dr. Vars for the many years he spent advocating for preservation of the Bog. May he rest in eternal peace, knowing how deeply respected and loved he was by his community. We will miss you, Gordon.

Another person we lost this morning was local artist Bob Wood, 68. Many around town saw him as something of an eccentric and didn't really understand him. His appearance made him seem like some sort of old hippie and many of us called him a nickname which I won't share here because of one of his many odd habits, but underneath the misunderstood veneer lay the soul of a fascinating man who I only got to know fairly recently by offering him rides places and talking to him on occasion. Bob was a unique, intelligent, witty and gentle man. Once I got to know him, I knew that many around town didn't quite understand him because they just never got a chance to know him. I can't say I knew him well, but I did get a peek under his odd exterior to find someone who I came to really enjoy talking to and sharing a laugh on occasion. He was an award winning artist who in his time was probably not appreciated enough for the level of talent he had and it is my hope that his passing that he will finally receive the appreciation and recognition that he so richly deserves. What will happen to his artwork is anybody's guess, but I do hope that some of it ends up in local museums for future generations to admire. Bob was certainly someone that, if you lived in Kent, you knew. Some here referred to him as "local color", but at the end of the day, he was a kind, gentle, talented, fascinating and funny man who I wish more people had gotten to know. Sure, he seemed a tad eccentric, but underneath that was someone very special. I'm glad I had the chance to get to know him, not well, but at least to become acquainted with who he was and what he had to offer in the way of a good conversation. He will be missed and I do hope that he receives the recognition as an artist that I feel that he so richly deserves. Farewell, Bob, it was great getting to know you. You were a kind and decent man and I'll miss you.

The Oscar Race

It's going to be a most interesting Oscar race this year. I can't quite remember a year in which there were so many high quality movies made, and that bodes well for Hollywood. Not every film I saw was nominated for anything, but still, I can say in all honesty that this was a banner year for top notch films, making the Academy Awards a really tough competition between some really outstanding movies. The nominations for Best Picture this year are: "The Artist". "Hugo", "The Descendants", "Tree of Life", "War Horse", "Midnight in Paris", "The Help", "Moneyball" and "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close". I've seen them all except "Tree of Life" and "Moneyball". My personal choice would be "Hugo", because it's such a groundbreaking movie. It can't be easily categorized. It's not precisely a children's movie, not a fantasy as such, not really a mystery, although it sort of is, but it is its own unique genre of film and absolutely brilliantly done. Martin Scorsese deserves Best Director for stepping so far outside of his normal milieu. He is renowned for making fairly violent movies and "Hugo" is anything but. It's a brilliant film about the magical power of film and why we love them so much. It's also about finding a family and the power of love to transform even the hardest of hearts. There's an almost Dickensian quality about it in a way and as a serious fan of that author's work, this film really resonated with me in a very big way. I do hope that "Hugo" does take home many awards at the Oscars.

Right behind it for nominations is "The Artist", a 21st century black and white silent movie about a silent movie star who fails to make the adjustment to the talkies. The fact that it IS a silent movie, and is shot in old fashioned black and white, makes it unique and special. The male lead, played by French actor Jean Dujardin, looks like a love child between Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Gene Kelly. He and the female co-star are quite the hoofers as well and to see beautiful dancing like what used to be in the movies. I hope this movie wins some awards, too, for its wistful look back at the silent era and early talkies. This past year seemed to be one in which Hollywood was being particularly nostalgic and I do hope that moviemakers continue looking backward for inspiration. Nothing wrong with that in my book! So the Oscars this year should be quite remarkable for the number of outstanding movies made this past year. Competition is going to be very stiff, to say the least! Stay tuned!

At the movies

In the past few months, I've been to see more movies than I probably have seen in the past five or so years alone. The reason for this is that my mom can no longer drive and it means that if she wants to go see movies, I have to take her, if I am available to do so. But that's OK, because I've seen some outstanding movies in the past few months, probably because, as the end of the year approached, producers were trotting out their offerings to be considered for an Oscar nomination. Not every movie I've seen had "Oscar" written all over it, but I sure have seen some incredibly good films, so here is what I have seen in the past few months. Starting in October, I saw a French movie in Cleveland called "Mozart's Sister" that was subtitled, but still a pretty good movie. I had read a book of this same title by a French author, Rita Charbonnier, so I assumed that the film was going to be based on the book, but alas, it was not. That's not to say that it wasn't a good movie, it was. The story revolved around "Nannerl" Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus's very talented sister, who was not permitted to show her skill at composing, because women just didn't do that back then. She was constrained to live in her famous brother's shadow and was never given the recognition she was due. In the movie, she falls in love with the "Dauphin" of France, who ultimately rejects her and leaves her broken hearted. The music and scenery in the film were glorious and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if the actress playing "Nannerl" was a bit wooden in her performance. My mom and I saw an interesting movie called "Anonymous", that speculates whether William Shakespeare really did write all those plays. In that movie, the Earl of Oxford supposedly writes them and entrusts author Ben Jonson to put his name to them so as to keep the Earl anonymous, but alas, Shakespeare ends up taking credit at the end of one of the plays, and thus the plot turns! Interesting movie, to say the least. Then my mom and I saw a little heralded movie called "The Way", starring our fave actor Martin Sheen, about a man who's son dies on his first day of a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Sheen's character flies to France to reclaim his son's body but decides to complete the pilgrimage himself in order to honor his late son, and in so doing, has a life altering experience that brings him closer to his son, with whom he never had a great relationship.

When my family was here for Thanksgiving, we saw a lovely George Clooney movie called "The Descendents", about a man whose family owns some prime real estate in Hawaii that they are considering selling to a developer. Clooney's character has a troubled marriage and his wife is badly injured in a boating accident at the beginning of the movie and is basically brain dead and he has to work on relationships with both his relatives and his daughters as they wrestle with whether or not to sell their land. Excellent movie. Loved it. Another George Clooney movie we saw - my, the man's been busy this past year!- was a political thriller called "The Ides of March" about an idealistic young man played by Ryan Gosling who is campaigning for a candidate, played by Clooney, and who ends up in a relationship with a troubled intern. The twists and turns this movie takes makes it very suspenseful and a great story. We also saw a movie, "Hugo" based on the Caldecott medal winning book, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick. What a charming movie, and it can rightfully be called Martin Scorsese's love letter to the movies. It's about an orphan in 1931 Paris who lives in the Gare Montparnasse railway station and who is trying to restore a mysterious automaton left to him by his late father, who dies in a fire in the beginning of the movie. This brings him into contact with a bitter old man who works in a toy store in the train station, who, you will find out later in the movie, is the legendary early filmmaker Georges Méliès, who made, among other early movies, "La Voyage Dans La Lune". "Hugo" is a celebration of early movies, and none better to direct than legendary director himself Martin Scorsese. It's a magical, marvelous and downright amazing movie that is a must-see, and the book is a must-read, too! Finally, we saw the highly anticipated movie "War Horse", that is from the book of the same name by award winning author Michael Morpurgo. While it had some weak spots, all in all it was a very good movie that I hope to see again before it disappears to be released on DVD sometime later this year. It's best seen on a large screen, in my opinion, as is "Hugo". So I've seen lots of very good movies in recent months and there are more to come, too. I'm grateful that so many good movies are being made right now. Maybe Hollywood has awoken to the fact that nobody reads books anymore and people want their stories told to them visually through the medium of film, so perhaps that is where things are headed now in our visual/electronic age where paper and hardback books are soon to be obsolete quaint museum items that kids will look at in the future and wonder why anybody would use them. Alas, I hope I'm wrong, but I see books heading the way of the dodo, unfortunately........but at least good movies are coming out of Hollywood to compensate for the lack of books and bookstores anymore. Thank goodness for some kind of decent entertainment!

Happy New Year 2012!

2011 ended with a real shake up. Literally. Yesterday at a little after 3:00 p.m., a 4.0 magnitude earthquake hit our area. Its epicenter was about 40 miles east of here in a small hamlet called McDonald, very close to some fracking waste water injection wells. It's almost certain that the earthquake was caused by these wells, which were shut down effective 5:00 p.m. on Friday due to suspicions of causing earthquakes. In the past two years, eleven earthquakes have been recorded in that general vicinity and we aren't exactly the most seismically active area in the country. We've had some small quakes over the years, nothing major. We did have a 5+ magnitude earthquake in January of 1986 that shook things pretty hard here, but that was along a known fault line and wasn't blamed on unnatural causes like yesterday's may well have been. Fortunately, no damage was caused by the quake. It was just a very weird feeling, an initial sharp jolt followed by what felt like minor aftershocks for about 30 seconds to a minute. Quite a way to end a year that of it can truly be said, good riddance. It was a real train wreck of a year that will probably go down in history as one for the books, a bad year on many levels. Things can't get much worse than they were this past year and all I can hope for is that the year ahead will bring us some better news than that we just experienced.

My earnest hopes for the new year is that our President will be re-elected in November (please, please, please!), that the wars will end once and for all, that the economy will make some improvement, that my work situation will improve before the year is out, that my family will continue to enjoy good health and some time spent together with visits from distant siblings, and that this time next year, I will be able to look ahead to retirement and a new life doing....who knows what? I need to start planning for what life post-retirement is going to look like. I'm looking forward to having more time to do what I want but not looking forward to the loss of a third of my income and what that will mean for me financially. I'm already trying to make plans to deal with that so I don't find myself struggling to make ends meet once I do retire. I want to be able to do some things that right now, time just doesn't permit because of my work schedule. I can't get any real vacation time anymore because libraries are experiencing such hard times financially that downsized staffing means less ability to take off any kind of time for travel or vacation. I can take a day here, a day there, but not more than a few days max of vacation time. That's not long enough to take any kind of trip or do any kind of travel, so I am restricted to taking stay at home vacations a day here or a day there or a few days at most. It kind of puts the kibosh on any real chance to do anything or go anywhere. Given how little money I have right now, that's fine, but even taking a short trip that wouldn't cost a lot to take is out of the question due to my job. I'm 54 now and young enough to be able to do a lot of things while I still have my health. I can't look into a crystal ball and know how long that will last. Hopefully for decades to come. I just do hope that the economy makes at least some small recovery so that life will be better not just for me, but for everyone. 2012, may you be a far better year than the one we just left behind. We can only hope.