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85 Years Ago: The Best Thing

July 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Photo by: JimmyMac210

Photo by: JimmyMac210

I can’t let this month end without a word about sliced bread.

Eight-five years ago this July Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri introduced an automated machine that both sliced bread and wrapped it to keep it fresh.

We might take sliced bread for granted. And those who bake their own bread today probably enjoy making that first slice themselves more than anything in the world.  But in 1928 it was a game-changer.  With the pop-up electric toaster available to the general public for a couple of years, think of how much easier it was to use without getting out the cutting board.  And anyone, children, too, could make a sandwich without losing a finger on a sharp knife.

When Wonder Bread began marketing sliced bread in the 1930s, consumers worried that it would dry out too quickly, but convenience soon took precedence over other concerns.  The slices were smaller and more uniform, and housewives knew exactly how many servings they were getting in a package.

“The best thing since sliced bread” is still the ultimate compliment.  Imagine that.

© 2013 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved

 

Filed Under: Odds and Ends Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Hear Ye Hear Ye: Talking About the Stars

July 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Book CoverYesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of chatting with Betty Jo Tucker, movie critic extraordinaire and the editor/lead critic of ReelTalk Movie Reviews, and her co-host James Colt Harrison, also an author of thousands of reviews and articles about Hollywood, on Betty Jo’s radio program “Movie Addict Headquarters.”

My book Hollywood or Bust was the central point of our conversation, and I was peppered with lots of questions.  Where did the idea come from?  What was the biggest challenge in writing the book?  How did you decide on the themes in the book?  What are your favorite quotes in the book?

Oh, there are so many.  I like the first quote in the book from Hilary Swank: “I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream.”  I think that sets the tone of the book because Hollywood and the movies, even life itself, are all about dreams.

On the loss of privacy that comes with fame, I like Jennifer Aniston’s quote: “When someone follows you all the way to the shop and watches you buy a roll of toilet paper, you know your life has changed.”  The lesson here is to be careful for what you wish.

Betty Jo had her favorite quotes, too.  She pointed out how touched she was by Charlie Chaplin saying, “I was loved by crowds, but I didn’t have a single close friend. I felt like the loneliest man alive,” and she played a few minutes of music Chaplin had composed for Modern Times.  Afterwards she noted, “There he is making everyone else laugh, but he has such feeling.”  And, then we moved on to more amusing topics.

James shared a story relating a chance meeting between Clark Gable and William Faulkner on the MGM lot where they were both working in the 1930s.  Clark Gable knew who William Faulkner was, but Faulkner couldn’t return the compliment.  Ah, writers.  What would the movies be without them?

As screenwriter Joe Eszterhas noted: “Screenplays are a bitch to write.  One man wrote War and Peace.  Thirty-five screenwriters wrote The Flintstones.” Ah, Hollywood.

© 2013 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved

Here’s the link for your listening pleasure:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/movieaddictheadquarters/2013/07/30/hollywood-or-bust

Filed Under: Culture Quiz Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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A Summer Without James Bond

July 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Sean Connery as BondEveryone has a favorite James Bond something – a girl, a gadget, a bad guy, and certainly a favorite James Bond. Even Roger Moore has his fans.

Moore took over from the widely popular Sean Connery, known for his debonair charm and suave style with or without a gun in hand, in Live and Let Die. (1973).   This was after George Lazenby gave it a go in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) and Connery returned for one last appearance in the role for which he set the bar in Diamonds Are Forever (1971).

Moore had a more light-hearted approach to the character and could do wondrous things with his eyebrows, but he wasn’t the first choice for 007.  The producers approached Clint Eastwood, who had established his character Dirty Harry in, well, Dirty Harry.  They also looked at Adam West, better known as Batman, and Burt Reynolds, fresh from his success in Deliverance.  All men passed, believing a Brit should fill the role. Really!  What had producer Albert J. Broccoli been thinking?

In total, Moore made seven James Bond movies, the last being A View to a Kill (1985).  He was 45 years old when he became a secret agent and 58 years old when he announced his retirement, making him the oldest and longest–lasting actor in the part.  He must have been doing something right.  Along the way, he made other movies including Cannonball Run (1981), ironically meeting up with Burt Reynolds, whose career path had gone south via Smokey and the Bandit.  Moore’s character was a millionaire mama’s boy so obsessed with Roger Moore that he had plastic surgery to look like his hero.  Perfect casting.

Timothy Dalton was the next Bond.  He exhibited a tougher, rougher persona, closer to the spy’s guise in the Ian Fleming novels, prevailing over Sam Neill and Mel Gibson who were also being considered.  Pierce Brosnan, who was also a strong contender at the time, couldn’t get out of his Remington Steele contract.

That Brosnan eventually played Bond, James Bond, was preordained. He had met Broccoli on the set of For Your Eyes Only (1981,) as his first wife was in the film.  The producer declared, “If he can act, he’s my guy.”

Brosnan started with GoldenEye (1995), out-gunning Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, and, again, Mel Gibson, and ended with Die Another Day (2002). Dame Judi Dench also made her first appearance in GoldenEye as M, the cold, blunt, analytical MI6 chief and Bond’s boss.  By the way, Dench lasted another four movies (who says men age better than women?), her character meeting her death in Skyfall  (2012) despite Daniel Craig’s best efforts as Bond to save her._8637

Ah, Daniel Craig.  Producer Barbara Broccoli, Albert’s daughter, had her eye on him after seeing him in the 2004 crime thriller Layer Cake, but no one has a headlock on James Bond.  Hugh Jackman had been approached for the role, but he wasn’t interested. “I was about to shoot X-Men 2 and Wolverine had become this thing in my life,” Jackman explained, “And I didn’t want to be doing two such iconic characters at once.”

Any doubts about Craig’s suitability were quashed when he showed up in a tuxedo in Casino Royale (2006). Yes, a new Bond was back in town.  Unfortunately, he won’t be in town this summer or next, but Bond 24, the working title of the 24th James Bond movie, will be released September 2015.

Looking for action and adventure now?  Wolverine is in theaters July 26.

© 2013 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved

Filed Under: Movies Matter
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Thank you, Betty Jo Tucker

July 21, 2013 by 1 Comment

Betty Jo Tucker is a movie critic extraordinaire, currently serving as editor/lead critic of ReelTalk Movie Reviews and hosting “Movie Addict Headquarters” on BlogTalkRadio. An author herself of Confessions of a Movie Addict and Susan Saradon: A True Maverick, she took time out of her busy schedule to review Hollywood or Bust.  Her review, posted on authorsden.com, is reposted below.

 Hollywood or Bust Book Review

By Betty Jo Tucker

Posted: Friday, July 19, 2013

Happiness for movie fans like me is reading “Hollywood or Bust” by Susan Marg! I love all the quips, quotes, and off-the-cuff remarks from some of my favorite actors and actresses that are included in this fascinating anthology. So, of course, I found Marg’s revealing, star-studded book impossible to put down once I started it.

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As someone who has had a longstanding love affair with the cinema for over fifty years, I was surprised to find so many delicious surprises in Hollywood or Bust. For example, why did Mel Brooks start out as a drummer? What did Sandra Bullock learn from directing a film? How does Harrison Ford define a movie star? What did Elizabeth Taylor have in common with the critics?  Why did Michael Caine want to win an Oscar?  And that’s just the tip of the show-biz iceberg.

The complete title of this entertaining read is Hollywood or Bust: Movie Stars Dish on Following their Dreams, Making It Big, and Surviving in Tinseltown.And “dish” they do – from the price they pay for stardom and what they think about acting as a career to their feelings about each other as well as about directors, writers, studio executives, agents, and the Oscar. According to Marg, their observations “are caustic, critical and cynical on the one hand — but they are also eye opening, amusing, inspiring, and in some cases, even endearing.” Most of all — to me — they are extremely readable.

Marg calls herself a writer, a reader, a television watcher, a moviegoer, a theater attendee, and a museum visitor. She is also the author of Las Vegas Weddings: A Brief History, Celebrity Gossip, Everything Elvis and the Complete Chapel Guide, published by Harper Collins.

Hollywood or Bust is published by Cowgirl Jane Press, and here’s the link to the book’s website: www.HollywoodOrBustTheBook.com.

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At the Movies: The Merry Go Round

July 16, 2013 by 1 Comment
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Photo by: richiesoft

“Too much violence,” Michelle Pfeiffer said of Silence of the Lambs (1991). “Too much nudity,” she said of Basic Instinct (1992). And she passed on the leading roles in both.  She had earlier said “no” to Pretty Woman and later to Casino (1995).  Too many guns, gangs, and drugs, like Scarface (1983), perhaps?

So the parts went, respectively, to Jodie Foster, who won Best Actress Oscar, Sharon Stone, launching her career, Sharon Stone, again, earning her an Academy Award nomination, and Julia Roberts, whose place in the Hollywood firmament was cemented forever.

Pfeiffer isn’t the only one who has steered clear of what would be a career-defining character, albeit for someone else.

Kim Bassinger declined to play Catherine Trammel in Basic Instinct, but so did twelve other actresses.

Pretty in Pink actress Molly Ringwald passed on Pretty Woman, as well as Ghost, the highest grossing film in 1990 with five Academy Award nominations.  She has since turned to writing.

Halle Berry, as well as thirty-four others, turned down Speed (1994), a critical and commercial success for everyone involved, including Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, who, by the way, wasn’t the first choice to play the male lead.

By the time production on Million Dollar Baby (2004) started, Bullock, who was slated to play Maggie, was committed to Miss Congeniality 2, of which she was a producer. Million Dollar Baby won Hilary Swank her second Oscar.

Although a People’s Choice favorite movie actress for years, Bullock didn’t get her Academy Award until 2009 for Blind Side, a role in which Julia Roberts wasn’t interested.

Well, even the most glamorous among us make mistakes.  Shall I go on?

Having already starred with Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes steered clear of the Titanic (1997) for which Kate Winslet earned an Oscar nomination.

Winslet, in turn, following the success inTitanic, decided Shakespeare In Love (1998) wasn’t for her. Julia Roberts felt the same way, dropping out of the running, reportedly after Daniel Day-Lewis decided he wasn’t suited to be William Shakespeare.  So Gwyneth Paltrow became Viola to Joseph Fiennes’ Shakespeare and won a Best Actress Oscar for doing so.

As Queen Elizabeth in said picture, Judy Dench, who was on screen for all of eight minutes in four short scenes, won the Academy Award for supporting actress.  A lesser performer might have deemed the part too small.

Round and round they go.  When will the music stop? No one knows.

© 2013 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved

Filed Under: Movies Matter Tagged With: , , , ,
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It’s Summertime. Read a Book.

July 2, 2013 by 2 Comments
Photo by: Vicki Ashton

Photo by: Vicki Ashton

Looking for a good book to read?  Sometimes one’s hard to find.

Nothing in the reviews in the New York Times and the New Yorker jumps out at you.  Scouring your local newspaper, if you still take a local newspaper, hasn’t yielded just the right result.  And you don’t trust the reviews in People magazine.

So check out what “the people” have to say.

In its own words, “Goodreads is a free website for book lovers. Imagine it as a large library that you can wander through and see everyone’s bookshelves, their reviews, and their ratings.”  With eighteen million members it must be doing something right.  And all those members have posted twenty-four million reviews and counting.

Books are organized by category, such as art, biography, comedy, history, and mystery.  Simply skim the recommendations that are tailored to your interests.

Alternatively, peruse ”Recent Updates From the Community” on the home page. There should be something that appeals to you.

Did you miss the Hunger Games craze?  Well, a reader gives the first book in the series by Suzanne Collins five stars, but no synopsis. There’s always Amazon to find out what it’s all about.

Do you like the classics?  One reader recommends the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird.  I recommend seeing the movie starring Gregory Peck.

Want to be frightened into action?  Books by both Stephen King and Dean Kootz are mentioned.  The Shining was described as “the scariest book ever.”   But who hasn’t seen the movie?

Does it sound like I’m mocking the efforts of these critics? I’m not.  Really.

On a recent search I was reminded that I have been intending to read Abraham Verghese’s 2009 novel Cutting the Stone.  It’s about conjoined twins separated at birth who follow in their father’s path to become doctors.  I added it to my “want to read” list.

And I’ve devoured many of Barbara Kingsolver’s books, but I missed The Poisonwood Bible.  It, too, now resides on my list.

Someone somewhere has written just the book for which you’re looking, and someone on Goodreads has written a review about it.

© 2013 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved

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P.S. I also joined the program as a Goodreads author to promote my book Hollywood or Bust.  Type in my name.  Sign up for the free giveaway (winners are picked randomly at the end of July).  Write a review, if that’s your thing.  Thank you.

 

Filed Under: Culture Quiz, Words of Wisdom Tagged With: , , , , , ,