Jeffrey Miller's Blog: Jeffrey Miller Writes, page 12

We Were Promised Jetpacks!

What gives?

We were promised jetpacks back in the 1960s.

They Died With Their Boots On (1941)

General George Armstrong Custer was one of the most colorful if not one of the most controversial Union officers and cavalrymen who will forever be remembered for his last stand at the Little Big Horn in 1876. Though his story has been told and retold in film and television, one of the more endearing fictionalized depictions of his life (despite a trove of historical inaccuracies) was the 1941 Warner Brothers production, They Died With Their Boots On.

Historical inaccuracies aside, this is a rollicking drama/western featuring two of Warner Brothers more popular stars, Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHavilland. Without question, this remains one of my favorite Flynn movies.

In one of the film’s more touching scenes is right before Custer leaves his wife to go to the Little Big Horn. It’s touching because it would be the last time that Flynn and DeHavilland would ever be in a film together.

Don’t be Blinded by Science

You don’t have to go to great lengths to understand the science behind an ice cream headache.

Really.

It’s all poetry in motion.

Ice Cream Headache.

 

1968: A Year to Remember

It was no mistake when I started writing my novella Ice Cream Headache what year the story would be set. I have always been fascinated with the year 1968 because it was the year that I really became aware of the world around me. More importantly, the events which took place during this year would shape a generation. Indeed, if one looks at Ice Cream Headache from this perspective, one could argue that the story of these five individuals whose lives intertwine on this fateful day in late spring is in some regards, a microcosm of the year.

I believe that’s one of the reasons why this novella works; the year this story takes place is essential to the story. For one of the characters, Johnny Fitzpatrick, the year is important in regard to the Vietnam War. After the Tet Offensive earlier in the year, America’s involvement in the conflict would drastically change. For the first time since the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, there would be an increasing number of Americans who felt that we should get out the the quagmire the war had become.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

It’s injustice I hate, not the Normans.

There’s a reason why some films are classics, especially those films which stand up with the passage of time because of the actors/actresses, direction, music, and story. With Warner Brothers’ 1938 production of The Adventures of Robin Hood, you get all of those.

It’s been a few years since I last watched this classic Warner Brothers film, but it is the kind of film that you can watch over and over. There’s still something magical about this film–especially the on-screen chemistry between Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHavilland (they would make eight films together)–that has survived the test of time. How many actors and actresses today can say the same?

 

The Seven-Ups (1973)

I love the cop drama movies from the early 1970s; especially those set in New York like The French Connection or The Seven-Ups. There’s just something that the way these movies were filmed: the cold, gray-steel skies, steam rising up from sewers, not to mention that it always seemed cold.

There’s more to this cinematic appeal of this films and others, such as Three Days of the Condor, Taxi Driver, and Rocky filmed in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia and why I have come to grow fonder of them over the years. I think a lot has to do with going to Chicago for the first time in 1972 on a school trip to see musicals such as Godspell and Grease. Not only was it the first times for me to go to the city, but also the first time to do something without parental supervision.

Before we went to the musical, we would have some time to explore the city. It all seemed so foreign and overwhelming to me. I suppose that is why when I have watched these films I am reminded of those early journeys to the city and wandering around The Loop.

On the other hand, there’s also something to be said about the American cinema of the early 70s when many of the films seemed to have gotten grittier, honest and less Hollywood (sanitized). And in many ways, it was still a time when Hollywood was more concerned about the product than the box office–something which would change in the summer of 1975 with Jaws and two years later when Star Wars changed everything.

I’m watching the Seven-Ups today and the film still holds up well. The acting is good, the story is fine, but what still impresses me is how gritty, realistic, and honest the film is.

Ghosts of Christmas Past — 1968: The Year I stopped Believing in Santa Claus

An Excerpt from I’ll Be Home For Christmas

It was a historic year on all fronts—that started with the seizure of the USS Pueblo off North Korean coastal waters in January and culminated with the flyby of the moon by Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve.

In between there was the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, riots in Chicago, and the election of Richard M. Nixon in November. It was a tumultuous year in America, to say the least.

Although I was only 10 years old, I knew something was going on that year when I heard and watched the news of these events. I might not have understood completely what each one of these events meant, but I did know—by observing and listening to the adults around me talk about them—that these events rattled and shook our nation to the core.

It was also the year I stopped believing in Santa Claus.

* * *

The holiday season for a kid traditionally began with the arrival of the Christmas catalogs from Aldens, Montgomery Ward, and Sears. As soon as our mailman, Earl Jansen, delivered ours, my brother Robbie and I spent hours perusing the toy section until we knew it by heart. Still too young for a BB gun, but too old for G.I. Joes and Lincoln Logs, I had my sights set on a Hot Wheels Double Dare Drag Set, Battleship, Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, and a Bobby Hull hockey game.

Mom told us that we shouldn’t expect too much this Christmas because our father wouldn’t be with us, which I thought was strange because I didn’t know how his absence had anything to do with what we would or wouldn’t get for Christmas. It was toward the end of our summer vacation when Mom sat me down and told me that she and our father had gotten a divorce. I knew what it meant. There was another kid at school whose parents were divorced and all the other kids made fun of him. They also made fun of him because he still believed in Santa Claus. Of course I still believed in Santa Claus; I mean, who in their right mind wouldn’t believe in him, but after I heard about the ribbing Lester got from those older kids, I feared Santa’s days were numbered.

Robbie, on the other hand, wasn’t worried about Dad not being with us; he was afraid that Santa wouldn’t find us because we moved.

* * *

Halloween came and then Thanksgiving. By then, the pages in the toy section of the Aldens’ catalog were worn, creased, and dog-eared from all our visits. At night, when my brother and I were supposed to be asleep, we pulled the covers up over our heads, and with a flashlight, looked again at the toys we hoped Santa would bring us. When it came time to write our letters to Santa, I made sure to write down the description of the toys exactly the way they were written in the catalog and why I couldn’t live without them. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, before we watched Miracle on 34th Street on WGN’s Family Classics with Frazier Thomas, my brother and I sat down at the kitchen table and wrote those letters. I let my tongue hang outside the corner of my mouth to aid my concentration as I slowly and carefully printed each letter with my pencil, the same way I had been taught up through the third grade. I put those A’s received for penmanship to good use as I composed what I felt was the best letter ever written to Santa Claus.

When I finished one hour later, I couldn’t wait to show our mother the neatly written letter to Santa. I gleamed as I passed it across the table where my mother nursed a Bloody Mary and thumbed through a recent issue of Family Weekly. She took one look at the letter and the color immediately drained from her face.

“Don’t you think this is too much?” she asked, looking up from the letter.

My heart sunk. It wasn’t the answer I expected as I immediately switched gears and pleaded my case. “All the other kids ask Santa for a lot.”

“All those other kids have parents who make more money than I do,” she said, as she got up from the table to make herself another drink. “Go and watch your movie.”

I wasn’t sure how the amount of money that my friends’ parents possessed had anything to do with the stuff I asked Santa to bring, but I knew better than to talk back to Mom when she had been drinking. I picked up the letter, stuffed it inside an envelope and went into the living room.

Read more here.

Christmas Movies: Die Hard 2

What’s that? Die Hard 2 a Christmas movie?

Well, it does that place around Christmas, so why not?

It’s one of my perennial favorites come December. It’s also one of the best snow movies. Pop some popcorn, grab your favorite beverage and get some ready for some Christmas action, Bruce Willis style.

Welcome to the New World

It’s become an annual ritual for me to watch The Hunt For Red October on December 7th, the day I arrived in Korea in 1990.

Why The Hunt For Red October?

It was the last movie shown on the Northwest flight from Seattle to Seoul. However, after the first movie, Days of Thunder, I fell asleep. When I woke up, The Hunt For Red October was just ending. I woke up just in time to hear this exchange between Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin:

Captain Ramius: … and the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home, Christopher Columbus.

Jack Ryan: Welcome to the New World, Sir.

It was like coming to a new world, twenty-three years ago.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas — Cover Art

My thanks again to Anna Takahashi for her awesome cover design for I’ll Be Home For Christmas. Her creative vision adds another dimension to my books. I think you’ll agree that this cover rocks!