"harold and maude" movie review

last night i watched "harold and maude," a black comedy tied with "the rocky horror picture show" as my all-time favorite cult film. i've seen this movie at least a half dozen times and it's as fresh now, as it was the first time. like all great cult films, it should open with mixed to negative reviews, find it's way to the midnight movie circuit, and slowly get re-discovered by all the critics who panned or dismissed it the first time around. when "harold and maude" opened in late 1971 it was critical and box-office flop. yet now, almost 40 years later, it's a classic!

on it's most basic level it's a seriously bizarre love story between a morbid 19 year old boy and a 79 year old woman. bud cort, who plays harold, spends a good deal of the movie committing suicide (primarily for the benefit of his mother). he does this mainly to witness his mother's increasingly exasperated reactions (freudians should have field day with this motif). harold "killed himself" 8 different ways during the 90+ minute film. with all that preoccupation over planning his own demise, it's a wonder he actually met maude at all!

that magic moment occurs at, appropriately enough, a funeral - which harold attended in his newly purchased (from a used car lot) and refurbished hearse! when he isn't trying to kill himself, harold passes the time attending the funerals of complete strangers. so too, it seems, does maude. ruth gordon plays the free spirited 79 year old maude like a free spirit outlaw. she it the total opposite of the withdrawn harold. in that vein, it's almost impossible to believe she belongs at anyones funeral - much less those of strangers. but, here it worked.

any scene with maude behind the wheel of a car is side-splitting hilarious. my favorite part is when maude drives (with harold in the passenger seat) a pick-up truck with a tree in need of planting on board. it's stolen, the tree is stolen, the shovel is borrowed. maude breaks every speed and traffic law at hand. the motorcycle cop that corrals them (played by an uncredited tom skerrit) his equally hilarious as the straight man to maude's answers. first she drives away, then she leads him on an unlikely chase, and finally - leaving the audience incredulous - maude "escapes" on his motorcycle, with harold on back holding on to the shovel (which they intend to return)!

my favorite of harold's suicide scenes (most of which are hilarious) is with his third blind date, sunshine. his mother had arranged a series of three dates via a computer dating service (the first two also witnessed harold's suicide efforts). this date was especially fun since (as an actress herself) she though harold was "acting" when he committed harakiri. she in turn recites juliet's farewell and (thinking the knife was a prop), stabs herself. as a result of the malfunctioning prop knife, we're led to believe she actually died. the scene is remarkable, if only, for harold's astonished expression at having the tables turned on him.

there are many dark laughs in this film. but the bittersweet ending - when harold wants to marry ruth and discovers she had taken poison that would kill her at the end of her 80th birthday party (80 is long enough to live, she tells him) - seemed perfectly fitting. his reaction to her death, with his 8th suicide, is likewise fitting. we're left (with echoes of the finale of "quadrophenia," no less), with harold playing ruth's banjo at the edge of the cliff. has harold finally learned, and decided, to live life after all?

rent this film - it's a must see.

2009 norwalk summer series 7 miler: race report

saturday was the third race in the norwalk summer series, the 7 miler. the first two, the 3 miler and 5 miler, were single loop courses. the 7 mile course had (and the remaining 3 will have) an out and back run to a double loop. the double loop of beach in the 7 miler was a replay of the double loop we ran at the rowayton father's day fun run last month. interestingly, while the course was accurately measured, the markers were off - and that led to a bit of post-race speculation that we may have run more than the advertised 7 miles (but i get ahead of myself).

when i arrived at the high school i was pleasantly surprised to run into my old friend art, who i haven't seen at a race since last summer?! it was great catching up with him - and, as usual, my other friends (roy, john, kate, emmy, rob, anton...). but i was a bit distracted that morning because immediately after the race i had to drive home, collect katie and her gear, then drive her to field hockey camp (in storrs, ct) in time for the noon check-in. the round trip camp drop-off took almost 5 hours of driving time.

as for the race itself, i wanted to run the 7 miler in 48 minutes, a 6:50 pace. as late as 6 miles into the race i was still on track for that goal. but my race imploded in the final mile and i missed that target by a wide margin. my first mile, 6:38 and second, 6:05, gave me a 2 mile split of 12:43. i'm not sure if mile two was short, but the pace seemed a bit fast. the next mile took 6:41 and i reached the 3 mile split at 19:24, a 6:28 pace. from that point on, the final 4 miles became something of a struggle.

i reached 4 miles in 26:29 - in my slowest mile, 7:05, so far. mile 5, in 6:57, was marginally faster, and my 5 mile split was 33:36 - still well under my 6:50 target. but mile 6 took me 7:30 - and wasn't easy. my 40:46 split was still on pace for a 48 minute finish. i wouldn't be pretty, but i was sure i could gut out the last mile in 7 minute (or even 7:30). but that wouldn't happen. my legs died and it took 8:37 to finish that last mile. runners passed me like i was standing still!

my 49:33 finish (a 7:05 pace) was a minute and a half slower than my goal - and all that time was lost in the very last mile. it was a major bummer - and one of the rare times this year that i just couldn't shake off a lackluster performance. most of the runners were convinced the course was long. that was topic one of post-race conversation and don got a lot of questions (grief) over it. but the actual distance was irrelevant to me - as i was passed repeatedly in the last mile. whatever the distance, everyone ran the same course!

disappointed as i was, i still socialized a bit and took a couple of pictures before hopping in my car for the drive home. and we did get katie up to her camp in plenty of time for check-in and first day orientation!

as a coda to the course distance back and forth, jim took the time to remeasure route! here is the result (which don emailed to us yesterday):

"Guys - I certified it at 7.0 last year before the race. Just to make sure it was run as measured I re-rode it Sunday afternoon, and it came up the same, w/in 2 ft. The mile marks were way off, however. 1 was a bit long then each subsequent mile was short, 6 being almost 200m before its correct placement, which made every one's last mile seem long, thus throwing the whole course distance into doubt (this did give me some good grist for an article I'm writing, however)."

here are my race photos.

"public enemies" movie review

i finally had a chance to watch "public enemies" this weekend. maybe my expectations were too high going in, but i was underwhelmed with this film. that's a tough one liner to write since i'm a big fan of both johnny depp and christian bale. on the postive side, bale more than redeemed himself as melvin pervis - as contrasted with his practically dialed-in performance of john conner in terminator salvation. in terminator salvation, bale's performance was upstaged by his co-star, sam worthington. in similar style, bale was much more fun to watch on screen as purvis, than depp was in the title role!

bale's performance had strange echoes of his "american pyscho" persona! i watched transfixed as an apparently mild mannered g-man fronted for a maniacally determined lawman out to exterminate public enemies (regardless of his place on the most wanted pecking order). from the initial nod to modern investigative techniques available to the fbi (a proto war room that would decades later morph into the ubiquitous instantaneous tracking of jason bourne via satellites and supercomputers) - to the more heavy handed insistence that j. edgar hoover approve his request to import the "big guns" from texas.

that was the literal capitulation - following the cold blooded execution of an inexperienced g-man - of hoover's cerebral, detached wish (daydream) that sheer brain power would capture dillinger and his gang. moreover, even when they captured him, they couldn't hold him. they couldn't even keep him in shackles - another excellent bit of symbolism found its way on screen as his lawyer demanded that dillinger be freed of the shackles as he sat in court for the a hearing to move him to a more secure state prison. that small courtroom victory set the stage for depp's second houdini-style escape from a prison.

the cinematography was a mixed bag - a lot of sepia, grey and muted colors set the grim tone (even in the presumably sunny florida and arizona shots). but the skillful use of color was almost outdone by the incessantly annoying handheld shots. once, twice, even three times - then get yee a tripod and save the audience's eyesight. in addition, the movie ran too long. a gratuitous scene when depp/dillinger, just before his final moments on earth, walked into a chicago police station and ambled about the dillinger 'war room' was a surreal fantasy.

was that tacked on to further glorify the dillinger mystique? another, equally ludicrous moment - beware, spoiler alert - had one of the g-men who gunned down dillinger go visit his girlfriend in jail. he went there at dillinger's request, to tell her his last words words, "bye bye blackbird" - what unadulterated drivel. as if that last utterance could somehow convert the film into a chick flick by playing up the romantic in him?! please! one last cavil, it was true that dillinger went to see "manhattan melodrama" at the biograph - but in showing us clips of the film while he sat in the theatre, they were out of sequence!

bottom line, while it was enjoyable, i'd wait for the dvd on this one.

world lung foundation running team 2nd group run in central park

this morning the world lung foundation running team did its 2nd training run in central park, our road to the new york city half marathon next month. the number of runners that joined us on this group run doubled, to eight, from our first group run 3 weeks ago. the weather was perfect (although it rained last night and the clouds lingered until just before we got our group under way at 8:30). half of the group finished the 6 mile loop of central park in just under one hour, the other half took just over an hour. we capped off the morning with some post-run socializing at a nearby coffee shop.

waveny park summer xc series 2 person relay: race report

thursday was my first waveny summer xc series couples relay without katie as a partner. the race was postponed from its regular tuesday night date because of a nasty weather forecast. on the rescheduled date katie was in brooklyn, for a visit to her grandmother. so my new partner for the relay turned out to be emmy! her original partner, francoise, couldn't make the new date (along with our friend john). but, in a surprise, kate was there to run her first waveny relay!

the course is one mile loop that runs along soccer and baseball fields, tennis courts, and returns to the start/finish via a short out and back in front of the waiting (and cheering) teammates. it's a fun course. each runner does a mile and trades off to his partner, who runs the next mile and, in turn, trades back to her partner until 6 loops (miles) are completed. in the past, when katie and i ran it together, there was little chance of coming in first in our combined age group.

with emmy as a partner, there was a good chance we could win our age group - if we ran fast! emmy had complained of a sore foot before the race (and i wasn't really in race-ready state of mind myself). since she would run first, i would take my lead from her first mile. if decided to run fast (under 7), i'd race it. she blew through the first mile, sore foot and all, in 6:37 - so it was race mode!

here are our splits (run to my mental soundtrack of the talking heads, "life during wartime" lyrics: "this ain't not party, this ain't no disco - this ain't fooling around...."):

6:37
6:33 13:10
6:35 19:45
6:35 26:20
6:38 32:58
6:30 39:28

6:35 combined pace

we won our age group - and the very nifty race tee shirts in the above picture! but the best part of the night was easily the post-race sam adams rob brought (and sushi emmy had).

here are my race photos.

2009 norwalk summer series 7 miler: race photos and results

the third race in the norwalk summer series, the 7 miler, is in the books. i ran a 49:33, but couldn't stick around for the post-race festivities. we have to drive katie up to field hockey camp today.

here is my race report.

here are the race results.

here are some race photos (more to come):

waveny park summer xc series 2 person relay: photos and results

last night was the rescheduled two-person at waveny park. since my original partner, katie, was at her grandmother's house, emmy graciously stepped up and ran with me. and with a combined 39:28 (unofficial) for the 6 miles, we won our age group!

here is my short race report.

here are the relay results.

here are some race photos:

roy and rob


kate


emmy


bob


ronnie, and marty (finishing)


kate, finishing


kate, done


roy and jim


roy, luis, and kate


roy, rob, and emmy, rehydrating :D


jim, announcing awards


george and kate


ronnie and me


emmy, me, and our "prizes"