Just another evening at home...

Grooming in New Guinea

I thought you'd get a kick out of this photo of my father,
taken in the jungles of New Guinea during WWII.
On the back he wrote "John Kunkle butchering my hair - 9/10/43"

I sure miss him.

Sean Cheetham - New "Old Master"

Please take a moment to look at the work of a sensational contemporary artist, whose work I didn't know until today. Sean Cheetham does contemporary work in the style of the old masters. I'd love to be able to paint like this! http://seancheetham.blogspot.com/

Movie Review: Cross Creek

Another wonderful movie you probably haven't seen: "Cross Creek", directed by Martin Ritt, starring Mary Steenburgen and Alfre Woodard.

Halfway through watching this movie again last night it occurred to me that Mary Steenburgen and Alfre Woodard are in another of my favorite, seldom-watched movies -- "Miss Firecracker". This one, "Cross Creek" is the story of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of the classic "The Yearling" who, in 1928 left her husband and writing career to move to Florida -- the Everglades, apparently -- to be able to write in peace. (I may have missed the "why" of the move to Florida and how she landed where she did.) Of course, the shack she's moving into is a shambles and she's a prissy, self-important New Yorker, closed off and determined to write Gothic novels a la "Jane Eyre". 

In the course of things she hires a housekeeper (Woodard), meets her backwoods neighbor Marsh Taylor (Rip Torn) and his daughter, who turns out to be the inspiration for "The Yearling". And there's the charming local man who owns the hotel in town (Peter Coyote) with whom she falls, eventually, in love.  She brings her orange grove to life, relaxes gradually into a routine -- and continues to work away on her Gothic, determined to finish and send it off to her editor, Max Perkins, in New York. (Perkins was an editor at Charles Scribner's Sons, who also published F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway and where I worked for a few years in the 70's.)

Of course the novel is a dud, and Perkins urges her to write stories based on the people she's met and her experiences starting a new life in the Florida swamp. Which she does, along the way tapping into her true talent and allowing people into her life and her heart. She also came to understand the importance of the land and the people who helped sustain it.

It's a simple film, but deceptive. The most "dramatic" part of the story comes about three-quarters of the way through, but it grows on you slowly, thanks to the direction and the pitch-perfect performances, everything so beautifully underplayed -- even the "big" characters like the backwoods local and Alfre Woodard's Geechee. (Both Rip Torn and Woodard received Oscar nominations.) It reminds you that a really, really good movie doesn't need a convoluted plot and a lot of CGI effects and violence to really engage you, and it thankfully doesn't become one of those "how a genteel city gal moves to the stix and grows a spine" flicks. Rawlings was apparently a tough, headstrong woman and it's also about how a creative artist finds her voice.

Check out some of the reviews on the IMDb website -- some of them give a better overall idea about the picture. I just wanted to let you know about "Cross Creek". Enjoy!

Aging With Style

Lynn Dell, from Advanced Style 

In Times Square, Advanced Style

Check out my new favorite blog: ttp://advancedstyle.blogspot.com/

proving we don't just have to shuffle off...

Another terrific movie you've probably never seen...

"Resurrection" starring Ellen Burstyn, Sam Shepard, Eva LaGallienne. I'll let the NY Times review give you the synopsis:

''Resurrection,'' ... has the simple, charmed manner of a fairy tale. Once upon a time, Lewis John Carlino's story goes, there was a woman named Edna (Ellen Burstyn) who was very much in love with her husband. Then she gave him a sports car for his birthday, and he died in an accident. Edna nearly died in the accident herself, and, in fact, she saw the visions reserved for those who pass into an afterlife. But Edna returned, and found herself partly paralyzed. She was despondent until, on a car trip with her father, she met a very strange man in the desert. The man had a two-headed snake, which was even stranger. Edna wasn't with this man very long, but something he did must have changed her. From this point on, she had the power to heal.

    " The movie follows Edna as she cures patient after patient by the laying on of hands. She even cures her own paralysis. After a while, she becomes involved with a sullen, handsome, volatile young man who questions the source of her powers, challenging her to acknowledge a religious element, but Edna insists it's all just a matter of love.... this is a movie that really seems to have brought out the best in everyone who worked on it. Chief among them is Miss Burstyn, who gives the kind of performance that makes all the odd events in the screenplay seem perfectly plausible, perfectly sane. Her presence is radiant, and so steadying it lets the movie exert a tremendous emotional pull.

     "The whole cast of ''Resurrection'' is outstanding. The playwright Sam Shepard, who showed such promise as he made his acting debut in ''Days of Heaven,'' realizes that promise here. As Edna's hottempered lover, he brings a keen, nervous alertness to the role, and a presumptuousness that turns very appealing. Richard Farnsworth, as the old man Edna meets at the gas station, has only a few moments to make his mark upon the audience, and succeeds beautifully; in a very short time, he suggests all the magic his character is supposed to have. Also notable are Eva Le Gallienne and Lois Smith, playing high-spirited members of Edna's large family in the heartland, and Roberts Blossom as her terse, unyielding father. Mr. Blossom's character, like many in the movie, is obliged to undergo wrenching changes in order to keep the story moving, but he accomplishes this comfortably."

The Times seemed to have a bit of trouble with the faith aspect of this picture and found parts of it "weepy". Well you may tear up at points, but the tears are earned by the wonderful cast. Eva LaGallienne was a legendary actress, director and producer during the first half of the 20th century (you remember the 20th century) and she's luminous here. 

I don't know why this movie affected me so, but I suspect a lot of it has to do with Ellen Burstyn whom I love. The end is lovely and a nice coda. 

And make no mistake, this is not just about faith or "religion" or healing -- there's a great deal to do with family, with the changes people go through whether they want to, or intend to, or not. 

It's available on DVD and should not be confused with another movie titled "Resurrection" starring Christopher Lambert. I checked on Amazon, which leads to the following digression: the customer review of the Lambert movie (apparently a horror thriller) is so (unintentionally) funny, I had to share part of it here: 

  "I don't want to ruin the main concept but this film is full of gore and grissly, graphic scenes. Not for the squirmish. The graphic scenes are so realistic and what the maniac ends up doing is shocking! Lambert plays detective Prudhomme who is not partically accepted by his fellow officers, except his partner, Andrew. Several disturbing murders occur and slowly Prudhomme pieces the puzzle together and the end result is so disturbing."

Suffice to say I probably won't be renting this one. I tend to be "squirmish". (Actually, not a bad word...)

Julia Child & Company

A rare glimpse at the people (literally) behind the inimitable Julia Child. (Although Meryl did a pretty good job...)