The Hap-Happiest Time of the Year

Television programmers channel my wishes during the period of time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.  I can turn to any of the many movie stations fiber optically sent to my cable box and find something that I really want to watch.  For example:

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Witness for the Prosecution was on this afternoon as Big Cuter and I returned from a fruitless attempt to secure running shoes (for him).  Una O'Connor never liked him anyway, but JES enjoyed the show as I found out when I checked Facebook and found this as his status: "Witness for the Prosecution: great, great film."


I love it when those I love are doing the same thing that I am doing albeit thousands of miles away.

iolakeatoncelebration.org

My Man Godfrey taught William Powell how to be humble and gave Carol Lombard a chance to give full flight to ditzy behaviors.  The notion of The Forgotten Man, living in the city dump in the 1930's, now foreclosed out of his too-big-for-my-budget home, is a timeless one, as is Eugene Pallett's long suffering father. 

My favorite part, though, is how effortlessly Irene corrals Godfrey into marriage.  Breezing into his office/apartment with a butler and a bag of groceries, her words are absurd, her actions ridiculous, her logic convoluted, and the marriage accomplished.  I'm left shaking my head and marveling at how nuttiness wins the day.

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TBG was watching Sanka and Derice slide down the bobsled run as my favorite-except-for-all-the-cartoons Disney movie of all time, Cool Runnings, came on the screen as he was channel surfing.  There are so many many quotable lines - Sanka,  you dead?....I'm freezing my royal Rastafarian nay-nays off!....Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time!  -  but it's the faces in the bar back in Jamaica that really get me going. 


This is one of the movies that anyone in our family will sit down to watch at any time, and that has been true since it was released when the children were 8 and 10.

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The Maltese Falcon greeted me when I came out of the shower mid-morning today.  I can watch Humphrey Bogart comfort Effie for 10 seconds before she toughens up and gets back to work and feel stronger for the rest of the day.  We've all had our falcons, our desires that are just out of reach, things we've wanted but could never attain.  It's true that these are the stuff that dreams are made of.

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Two of the three Howard Hawks/John Wayne western series  - Rio Bravo and El Dorado - kept me company over the weekend.  It's the same movie; the actors are interchangeable drill bits.  I love arguing about whether Ricky Nelson or James Caan is the better side-kick.  There is no doubt, however, that Walter Brennan's Stumpy and Angie Dickinson's Feathers steal the show.

There were more, so very many more.  But the kid is leaving in the morning and there is laundry to be done and packing to be considered and I haven't even checked out the tv guide to see what other gems are awaiting me. 

So much to do, so little time.