Midnight Movie Poster Boy Turns Sixty-One

YEPPERS, THAT’S right: yesterday marked necrophiliac, suicide-obsessed, proto-goth Harold Chasen’s special day! Well, actually, it was actor Bud Cort’s 61st birthday, who, along with Chasen, I’m suring –that’s my new word; doesn’t it strike a positive chord? Uh-huh, uh-huh, I think I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh!– you remember from the quirky, 70s-spawned black comedy Harold and Maude (Please, DO allow yourself the 2½ minutes it will take you, and give the movie's name a "click", because it will only set those little toes of yours to tapping, and, really, isn’t that the sort of luxury we should all be affording ourselves in the first place?), in which Bud as Harold follows the filled-with-piss-and-vinegar septuagenarian Maude’s groove and learns to embrace the un-embraceable (or so his doleful self thought): life!

HAPPY BELATED,

oh, you

necktie-partying, you!

BUT, PUT ALL THE above celebrating temporarily "to rest," if you will (I’m confident an earlier Chasen would approve.), as the gist of this blog is NOT ONLY the day-late Walter E. Cox yearly for-he’s-a-jolly-good-fellow-blow-out-the-candles stuff. (SparkleFarkle Sidestep: Good thing his SAG card says differently– Bud Cort much better suites him,

dontcha thin ’?)

NOW EVERYONE, hand over your movie Must Sees list so I can scratch out whatever you have written in the number one slot, and scrawl this title across the top instead:

Driving Lessons (2006)

IT’S MY NEW Harold and Maude sans the underlying, peculiar suicidal ideation. You’ve got to see it: Ron Weasley and his mum making with the magic, again! (THREAT ADVISORY: Elevated– significant risk of entertaining activities!)

RUPERT GRINT AND JULIE WALTERS PLAY off each other so incredibly well in this rites-of-passage comedy, which introduces a shy and downtrodden Ben (RUPERT GRINT) with yet another dreary school holiday coming around. (Here’s the rest of the lowdown I carefully lifted from the CIA aka Cinematic Intelligence Agency, because I couldn’t have said it better myself, and quite frankly, why should I, if someone else has it all piping hot, waiting for us in

(range warming pan, Harry Potter-style)
the warmer?

ON WITH THE SHOW, then:

"Seventeen years of living in an absurdly conservative and traditional household with his highly-strung and overbearing mother (LAURA LINNEY) and quiet, mild mannered vicar father have taken its toll on young Ben. While the other kids are out having fun, Ben spends these precious few weeks attending bible classes, having driving lessons with his mother and helping out at a local old people's home.

However, Ben's world is turned upside down when he's employed by an eccentric retired actress Evie (JULIE WALTERS). Vulgar, dignified and childish all at once, she certainly is not the kind of person Ben expected when searching through the job listings in the stuffy parish magazine, Hello Jesus. Evie enters Ben's life with a cataclysmic force, whisking him away on a series of adventures from camping, to performing Shakespeare in the garden, to attending the Edinburgh festival -- where he finally meets a girl much nearer his own age.

Evie's unconventional and often downright bizarre behavior challenges Ben's beliefs, and forces him to confront the very idea of who he wants to be. Then, when it seems that his new-found freedom is about to be taken away, Ben has to suddenly choose; should he continue to conform, or break out and live his life as his own man?

LIKE I BEGGED before, you’ve gotta see it. This is NOT a chick flick, it’s a laugh-out-LOUDEST, convulsively hearty, self-respecting sidesplitter! So, run out right now, if you can, and rent it. If you don’t think you have the time, quit your job or whatever’s getting in your way, and do it anyhow. Honestly, it will be worth it, I promise you.

NOW FOR A BACKTOIT: this from Cat Stevens’ do-your-own-thing musical creed that Harold Chasen learned to heed:

Well

If you want to sing out,

Sing out.

And if you want to be free,

Be free.

'Cause there's a million things to be,

You know that there are.

*

And if you want to live high,

Live high.

And if you want to live low,

Live low.

'Cause there's a million ways to go,

You know that there are.

*
You can do what you want.

The opportunity's on.

And if you find a new way,

You can do it today.

You can make it all true.

And you can make it undo,

You see,

Ah ah ah,

It's easy.

Ah ah ah,

You only need to know.

*

Well

If you want to say yes,

Say yes.

And if you want to say no,

Say no.
Cause there's a million ways to go.

You know that there are.

*

And if you want to be me,

Be me.

And if you want to be you,

Be you.

Cause thee's a million things to do,

You know that there are.

TRULY, STEVENS’ is the meow!

ONE WORD: heed

Onward, then!
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

RIP, my Mollo, Drea, Ruth Gordon AND Maude.

P.S.

IT’s A

*singing manically up-tempo*
Memories, Like the Corners
of Your Mind
Moment:

EXACTLY HOW MANY of you
out there entered

this contest

and wished to die
you would have won?!

NOT you,

Marcia,

I’ve already tallied you in.

SHOW OF HANDS, please.

Guys, too.

*resoundingly*

Me, ME! ME!!
You, YOU, YOU, too?!