Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 148

Call Him 'Christiefuh'

Call Him 'Christiephah'

Jenny Jenny Jenny

Not a joke:  Since she appeared on Bill Maher's HBO show tonight, let's revive this: Former governor, talk show host and DNC convention wild woman, Jennifer Granholm, appeared on the Dating Game as a 19-year-old, IDed as "cute and curvaceous." Or is that Farrah Fawcett?  Granholm released a statement when this surfaced: “Alas, this is what being a teenager in the '70s gets you: I was having a bad hair decade!”

'Alive Inside' at Sundance

A few years ago an astonishing video that showed a man, who'd been uncommunicative in a nursing home for 10 years, suddenly singing and talking after listening via iPod to music from his past, went viral (and now has nearly 8 million views). The footage was part of Michael Rossato-Bennett's documentary, Alive Inside, premiering this weekend at Sundance.

I saw a version of the film a few years ago, an exhilarating look at social worker Dan Cohen's use of personalized music as a way to stir the memory and emotion of nursing home residents. (I've surely seen this with my own mother; cue up Ray Charles' "Come Rain or Come Shine," and joy ensues.) As Oliver Sachs says in the film: "Music is not luxury to them, but a necessity, and can have a power beyond anything else to restore them to themselves, and to others, at least for a while."  The film's web site also has info on how to donate  to Dan Cohen's Music & Memory Project. -- B.B. 

Circling 'The Square'

Yesterday it got an Oscar nod, today it went live on Netflix, and tonight I will likely watch it.  It is, of course, the Egyptian doc, The Square.  Trailer below.  -- G.M.

Your 'School Shooting of the Day'

Ho-hum, just another one.  This time at charter high school in North Philly area.  Two students, a guy and a girl, possibly both 15, shot in gym--or cafeteri--at close of day, rushed to hospital.  Reports suggest police still pursuing gunman, likely a student.  A Twitter report has a "suspect" stopped on a street nearby.   Police tweeted:  "SHOOTER - Turn yourself in. Get it over with now." UPDATE:  Police say shooter in custody, found near home, but gun missing. -- G.M.

Friday Cat Blogging

Half a Century of Strangelove

Yes, we will be celebrating here for the rest of the month the 50th anniversary of the release of my #1 all-time fave movie Dr. Strangelove, which debuted January 29, 1964.  The first preview screening had been set for Nov. 22, 1963 but....well, you know.  The premiere was then pushed back a bit.   Fortunately, Kubrick's president was more Ike than JFK.  Here's the original trailer which was killed and not seen for decades.  And my own surreal nuclear film tale. -- G.M.

Almost Hidden, West Virginia

Unreal, though still off the front pages nationally:  Water company in Wet Virginia sent out tankers for residents, who have had no water or tainted water for a week (with much illness still reported)--and turns out they filled the tankers with their own tainted water!  Below, Lucinda Williams, "I Asked for Water (He Gave Me Gasoline)."

Kanawha County Manager Jennifer Sayre said complaints began coming in late Thursday afternoon about the now-familiar licorice odor in water given out at the Crossings Mall in Elkview and at Riverside High School.

"We were getting conflicting information as to where [those tankers] were filled," Sayre said Thursday evening. "We wanted to clear that up."

According to Sayre, county officials originally were told the tankers were being filled "off site, out of Charleston." After hearing complaints, though, they checked again with West Virginia American Water officials, who told them to take the tankers out of circulation, Sayre said.

Thank Aaron

SOPA-related excerpts from the much-awaited doc about Aaron Swartz  soon to debut at Sundance.