Review of Old Movie--The Big Chill, 500 Days of Summer, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Been a long time since I saw The Big Chill

but watching 500 Days of Summer and 

now Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? I had 

the feeling "I've seen this movie before"

and with 500 I very well may have such

are the blessings of creeping age.

For me what makes them so similar is their dependence on

relatively famous music as the background of some insubstantial

(in the case of Days) and some unbelievable (in the case of 

Brother) plot events. Perhaps it's because I don't know much about

more recent music that I didn't want to conclude anything but Chill

as generational props. Brother depends a lot on the post-production

digital manipulation of color to give it a dry, dusty atmosphere as if 

it were shot through a sepia filter. Much more complicated than that

states the extra feature.




Quick and Dirty: Each is interesting and enjoyable in its own right.

None will do permanent damage and the music in Chill and Brother

is outstanding. I had hoped for more from Deschanel in Summer

but she played the deadpan disaffected ingenue again. How can a 

woman look so good and not have any emotions?



c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150630 (OCD)

Russian psychologist Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik (1901-1988)

It ain’t easy being me

Not with this self-imposed rule

Of writing every day. Not that I 

Can’t fill a page with gibberish

I’m sure readers think I’ve already

Shown that many times over

It’s the contention that I can say 

Something meaningful wise clever

Like a dog with new tricks

An inexhaustible font of sparkle

Prideful the good sisters would decry

This need to show off Ahh Bushwa

Get off my ass you second-raters

Who’d tie my hands rather than

Applaud my trying or maybe it’s just

Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik again

Showing her hand as she so often has

Since I first learned of the mysterious 

And daunting Zeigarnik Effect 

Subjects were given a wide range of tasks

Some they completed and randomly 

Some were stopped before they could finish 

Tested later about the work

They better remembered 

The incomplete ones than those they completed 

No matter which tasks they were

Bluma is that why I can’t forget the boat I couldn’t make

Or why Helen Mary who refused every plea

Will linger until my memory dies

Why the sting of coming in second remains

When the exhilaration of every first 

Has long been forgotten

At least we’re not conscienceless psychopaths

Who swing willy-nilly from this to that

Piling up waste as their predilections

Waver meaninglessly

No we O-C-D-ers must count to eight

Must first go back to the dead ones 

And seek expiation which never can come

It’s as if every day we still bear the burdens

Of the weeks of the yesterday’s yesterday

As far back as it goes

No wonder we tire before we set out

With half our minds roped to old boulders

Good old Bluma you never caned

Those who didn’t finish so why

Don’t our internal apparatchiks 

Just stamp our papers and let us go on

I know I’m missing 6-14-28

And that’s just for June

Forgive me cruel mistress 

Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik

I honestly wish we’d never met

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150629 (phony horror)

The horror previews did me in

After five minutes of the movie itself 

I hit eject walked it back to the return slot

A B-list product with a B-list cast

Except for an A-lister And Featuring 

To give it some hope at the box office

Predictable music helped if you were slow 

There’s Something in the attic 

The husband will die such a dunce 

The young boy on whose eyes

The camera dwelled too long said

Get ready to see these suckers glow red

With glee when I go bad

Maybe the A-lister had hopes of a comeback

She wouldn’t have been

The first older woman star

To break back in with horror flicks

We never found out why really didn’t care

The sheet music the wife couldn’t find 

She saw boxed in the attic 

When she ran up to check on

Her son’s desperate screams

That’s when my preview reactions

Told me I’m not doing this

Who needs the sudden appearance of

Jellied-face Blob man to scare him out of his wits 

When reading headlines can do it for cheap

Seems there are people who love a good scare 

Can watch endless gore without losing their lunch 

It’s a fix they crave and filmers will cater

Previews promise they’ll torture the lead

You’ll get to watch every rip of the pliers

When the monster-rapist-killer works his worst 

On the chained whore 

Just for you bloodied faces stretch scream 

In terror for no one to hear

Who really needs this 

One of my neighbors years ago 

Told me he loved watching heads fly  

Guts fall out blood splattering 

Eagerly watched every second

He was a Vietnam veteran

A radioman forward who called in coordinates

To rain mortar death on his enemy nearby

Surely he must have seen the results 

Of his accuracy hurled overhead 

Mowing the lawn a car backfired

He dropped flat to the grass 

The mower went on without him

A kind father loving husband

Coming home from Pittsburgh

Late one night sleepy at the wheel

He impaled a lamppost at an exit

And was crushed in the wreckage

We never let our kids watch slashers

But my one guy who lived on the edge

Got his fill of gore with another

When the parents were working

I’ll jump with horror when the girl

Alone in the woods feels a hand on her arm

And fullscreen shows it’s only her boyfriend

With the zombie just a few steps back

She can’t scream or even point to the danger

Her friend wonders why then he gets it

Well I don’t get it and I don’t need it

I’ll save all my paralyzed screaming

For the real thing like when 

I was mugged on the street

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150627 (ambivalence)

For my friend Peggy Kacerek

Since I learned of slaughter 

I’ve some trouble eating

And cooking can be upsetting too

Now I haven’t a qualm about

Quashing a millipede, cockroach, or spider

But hooking a worm can keep me

From fishing if not the whole job

Of dehooking my catch from the mouth

Gaping as if it were trying to breath

The slick scales twisting in my hand

Even throwing them back 

To their watery home left me convinced 

I had broken some natural law

But when my brother invites me

To come for fish dinner I don’t defer

Saying I’d rather have tofu

No the deeds have been done

They’re breaded and crisp

Begging for lemon juice dripping

And slather of tartar sauce

Next to a heap of catsupped French fries

They don’t ask at the pizza shop

When you spec the meat topping

If you’ll go in the kitchen and hack up

A sow snorting steer bellowing

Its anguish of being squeezed in a cage

That would keep even the hungriest

From having pepperoni, bacon, et cetera

I’m not sure I could grab a hen by the neck

And swirl her overhead till she stopped kicking

Our distance from farming

Has rendered us squeamish

Of all that’s required to set a nice table

Did we think that the turkey

Plopped on the platter

After fearlessly plucking itself naked bare

Then popped its head off 

Neatly blew out its innards

So we could stuff spiced breading in there

But I happily join in the Thanksgiving

Warmth the prayer with believers

Generous wish of agnostics

And others who pass mashed potatoes

Cranberries sweet peas and butter

Biscuits and gravy unaware that

A day before someone had to guillotine Tom 

For our festive consumption

Can you tell I’m ambi- about going veggie

How I’m trying to eat more greens and such

But still cave in to hankerings for

A gyro ham sandwich or steak

I’ve a friend who’s a vegan A Vegan

Who reminds me that cheese 

Is for her forbidden fruit

She’s healthy lucid preternaturally thin

Perhaps with her prodding

I’ll make the right choice

But if I had to menu my last meal today 

Salad spaghetti with meatballs

And a fine wine

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

20150626 (temporary hero)

For years I’d faint at the sight of blood

Usually my own often another’s

Model airplanes could involve hospital care

If you slipped with a double-edged razor blade

Pinched from pop’s ratty old shaving kit

At least take a used one he’d offer

Red flow was enough but pulsing flow 

Brought an immediate stomach sinking 

Woozy slide to the ground

My head at the same height as my ass

Blood could then get to the brain 

I’d recover and wrap the wound

Tissue or rags whichever at hand

Till it stanched or was stitched

At which warnings were made

I ran the blood donor program at work

And steeled myself finally to give

Pumped out half a pint when

They saw I had faded from view 

They pulled my needle 

And said That’s enough

Lest I fall off the gurney and sue

I made it part way to the cookies

Before collapsing again and

As they were packing to leave their 

Kahuna-in-chief came over gently to urge

That I not try to give blood ever again

Should she see me at a donation site

She promised to break every bone in my body

And advised my wife who was called

To take me home Keep him as far away 

From the Red Cross as you can

So for about thirty years I didn’t try

But my knee operation required I

Have spares of my blood on hand

When quelle surprise! Oh Great Gloriosky 

I survived storing four pints for my knee

Then I gave regularly for three years or more

Switched to donating platelets 

A doubly needed procedure

Plus since it took longer I could watch a movie 

Regrettably one day selecting 

Master and Commander a Russell Crowe period 

Naval flick where at sea they had to operate

Without anesthesia on some unlucky tar

I was able to close the DVD player before

Losing consciousness

Not long after getting invited 

To an awards breakfast for prodigious 

Donation one of my test samples

Came up a false positive for HIV

Then came a phone call 

My next appointment was cancelled

The letter explaining why I was now

Persona non grata arrived on the Monday 

After the Friday I’d been scheduled to give

All those T-shirts I gotten every two months

Which I wore so often so proudly 

Are coming undone holes in the underarms

Too many paint drips too many spaghetti stains

God forbid even too many blood spatters 

That will not wash out

c. J.S.Manista, 2015