Yum! I've Been Given The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award!

To my surprise and delight, our own Caftan Woman has chosen me as a recipient of the Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award (ISBA)! And of course, everyone, Caftan Woman can always be found at:

http://caftanwoman.blogspot.com/

Following the provisos and quid-pro-quos of this delicious-looking award (suddenly I have a hankering for gluten-free strawberry shortcake!), here are the 7 Things You Lovable ISBA Folks Have Apparently Always Wanted to KnowAbout Me* 
*(but were afraid or too busy to ask! :-)

1.) I was born in New York City on June 8th, 1963 (the same year one of my favorite movies, Charade, came out), and lived back and forth in the Bronx and Manhattan until...

2.) ...I met and married my sweet, funny, devilishly clever hubby Vinnie Bartilucci, whom I met at the NYC branch of the improv group Chicago City Limits. We recently celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary and look forward to many more, not to put the whammy on it! Anyway, when Vin's job moved to PA, we moved along with it, and we've lived there for a decade now.

3.)  My colorful, lovable parents (both deceased, alas) were Jacqueline Kehoe (then Tenore, née Cherry), a vivacious model-turned-medical/legal secretary, and Peter James Tenore, a bookie-turned-restaurant manager.

4.) Before I discovered the wonderful world of blogging, Vinnie introduced me to the Internet and Amateur Press Associations (APAs) before that. For me, blogs were the writing equivalent of a gateway drug! :-)

5.) On October 30th, 1996, Vinnie and I became the proud and busy parents of Siobhan Maggie Bartilucci. As a toddler, she was diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome, but to our relief and joy, Siobhan has become a smart, funny, high-functioning, high-spirited young lady with an affectionate nature, a love of animation, and excellent grades in her Inclusion classes, in a mainstream school with lots of resources for Aspies and other kids with special needs. She's a great swimmer; in fact, we like to swim together at local pools and the Y. And she's starting high school this fall! The mind boggles! :-)

6.) Some of my favorite people, living or dead (besides my friends and loved ones) include authors Donald E. Westlake, Craig Rice, Richard Prather, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler; director/producers Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks, and the Coen Brothers; all-around entertainer Danny Kaye (who really deserves a renaissance); and Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody, who is not only a talented actor but also a kind, considerate person, as he proved at last year's New York Comic Con (NYCC). To make a long story short (who said "Too late"?), when Brody was doing a signing at NYCC and the lines went all kablooey, the folks running the show almost cut us out of the line for lack of time. Our fellow fans were kind enough to intervene on our behalf, and apparently Brody got wind of this, because he went out of his way to make sure we got face time and autographs even though the con folks were applying pressure. He was really sweet, even praising Siobhan for being so patient during the whole mishegoss! Such a mensch, bless him!

7.) I'm currently working with ghost editor Nicole Bokat, polishing my first novel The Paranoia Club, a witty, character-driven romantic thriller and novel of manners. Don't take my word for it, ask our own ClassicBecky! :-)  If you'd like a taste of PClub (as I've nicknamed it), I ran Chapter One on TotED a while back; feel free to check it out here:


http://doriantb.blogspot.com/2010/08/paranoia-club-by-dorian-tenore-chapter.html

I'm also only a couple of chapters away from finishing my second novel, Suburban Outlaws, set in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.


And now for the hard part: winnowing all my favorite bloggers down to a mere 12! Without further ado, the richly-deserving ISBA Recipients:

1.) ClassicBecky's Brain Food
http://classicbeckybrainfood.blogspot.com/

2.) Thrilling Days of Yesteryear
http://thrillingdaysofyesteryear.blogspot.com

3.) MacGuffin Movies
http://macguffinmovies.wordpress.com/

4.) My Love of Old Hollywood
http://myloveofoldhollywood.blogspot.com/

5.) Twenty-Four Frames
http://twentyfourframes.wordpress.com/

6.) Noir and Chick Flicks
http://dawnschickflicks.blogspot.com/

7.) Another Old Movie Blog
http://anotheroldmovieblog.blogspot.com/

8.) Laura's Miscellaneous Musings
http://laurasmiscmusings.blogspot.com/

9.) ...in so many words
http://yvettecandraw.blogspot.com/

10.) Is That Really Desirable?
http://itrd.blogspot.com/

11.) Classic Film and TV Cafe
http://classic-film-tv.blogspot.com/

12.) The Girl with the White Parasol
http://thegirlwiththewhiteparasol.blogspot.com/

My daughter Siobhan and my sister Cara in Florida in the Early Aughties

Now everybody go spread the love amongst your favorite 12 bloggers, prepare to share 7 fun facts about your fine selves, and go for a swim while the summer's still here! :-)

Godzilla Vs. Flintstone! Team Bartilucci's Favorite Thanksgiving-Season Flicks

We of Team Bartilucci have our own favorite holiday movies, and Thanksgiving is no exception. However, our favorites aren’t necessarily films that represent the holidays, but rather the events in our collective family life that pleasantly remind us of the happy holiday-related circumstances in which we first saw them.

Dorian’s Pick: The Man Called Flintstone (1966)

My favorite Thanksgiving movie isn’t Plymouth Adventure or Trains, Planes, and Automobiles. It’s The Man Called Flintstone (TMCF)! That’s right, the first (and best, IMO) feature-length film starring that animated Modern Stone-Age Family happens to be my favorite Thanksgiving movie! You see, since I was a tiny tot of 3 back in 1966 when TMCF was in theaters, I didn’t discover it until the early 1970s, when our local ABC-TV affiliate began showing it yearly on Thanksgiving morning. It became my favorite thing about Turkey Day next to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and CBS’s multi-parade extravaganza (we usually channel-surfed back and forth among TMCF and the various parades). When TMCF became available on LaserDisc in the 1980s, I found I still loved it—even more so in recent years, when we discovered the Canadian TMCF DVD with about ten minutes of footage not available in previous editions! The only disappointment was that TMCF’s special Columbia Pictures logo showing Wilma Flintstone carrying the torch wasn’t included on the DVD, probably due to rights issues.

Must’ve taken Stone Age Man forever
to make skyscrapers from boulders!

Is Fred Flintstone about to plummet to his doom?
No, but his lookalike Rock Slag might!

Lovable loudmouth Fred Flintstone (voiced by Alan Reed) is recruited by spymaster Chief Boulder (Harvey Korman) to fill in for injured Fred lookalike Rock Slag, the James Bond of the Stone Age. Chief Boulder’s good-guy spies are pitted against the nefarious SMIRK organization; it’s so secret, SMIRK doesn’t even let us viewers know what the acronym stands for! Fred’s mission is to capture the megalomaniacal "Green Goose" (Paul Frees) and foil his evil plan for his prehistoric WMD, the Interrockinental Missile. Wacky hijinks ensue as Fred is chased all over Eurock by sinister yet bumbling henchmen Ali and Bobo, along with slinky glamour gals, including The Green Goose’s lieutenant Tanya (June Foray), who rocks that big picture hat/mask! By the way, these beauties are the only people in the movie who wear shoes; there’s a cute joke about that a little over 40 minutes into the movie.

“Speak up, Tanya, where’s the Green Goose? And where can I get Wilma a hat like that?”

Air travel hasn’t changed much since The Stone Age, has it?

How many of these passengers look familiar from Flintstones TV episodes?

Meanwhile, Fred’s scrambling to keep his wife Wilma (Jean Vander Pyl), and their pals the Rubbles, Betty (Gerry Johnson) and Barney (Mel Blanc), in the dark about his new "Spy-Type Guy" temp job. The secret-agent spoofery ranges from grinworthy to hilarious; indeed, the movie begins with a funny yet suspenseful action sequence that would do James Bond proud. The songs by John McCarthy and Doug Goodwin are catchy (including “Pensate Amore,” sung by one of our family favorites, Louis Prima!).

The animation is much more assured in this big-screen Flintstones adventure; indeed, the smart, snappy, Pop Art-y animation techniques used in musical numbers like “Someday” are still being used today by animators like Genndy Tartakovsky.  Nice little details, too, like the Flintstones and Rubbles flying to Eurock on Qantas (modern Stone Age product placement!), and Wilma getting a snappy new lavender dress instead of her usual white frock. I always get a kick out of the Qantas airline’s “jet propulsion” basically being a great big slingshot. According to the IMDb, TMCF was produced right after production of the original Flintstones series ended, and was meant as a swan song for the characters. Ha! Little did they know that thanks to reruns and home video, The Flintstones and so many other beloved cartoons will never die!

Secret Agent Fred!
They’ve given him a thumbprint
and taken away his name!

Never a dull moment with Ali and Bobo,
“The Goon Twins!” (Fraternal twins, perhaps?)

Vinnie notes - Team Mates is actually the first time we get to hear future-Fred Henry Corden do Fred's voice; he handled the singing parts in the film.  After Alan Reed passed in '77, he took the part on full time.

Rockhattan Murder Mystery!

Big trouble for Barney Rubble!

 

Vinnie’s Pick: The Thanksgiving Monster Movie Marathon!

Japan has given much to American culture, but nothing more important than the Godzilla movie.  More correctly, the kaiju eiga, or (giant) monster movie. 

Godzilla movies were an important part of my childhood, not to mention the programming schedules of New York TV stations.  Channel 11, WPIX had the best collection, and had Monster Week on their afternoon movie at least once a year, if not more.  WABC-7, the network affiliate, had the legendary 4:30 Movie, and the monster films were pretty easy to hack down to fit the 90-minute timeslot.  WPIX had most of the major Toho films, but ABC had the Gamera films, and on occasion showed stuff like Gappa the Triphibian Monster, and once in a blue moon, The Green Slime (now available on DVD from the Warner Archive, BTW). 

WOR Channel 9 had a smaller selection to choose from, and as such held back for their big splash on the Thanksgiving holiday.  But they had an ace in the hole – they had all the King Kong movies, possibly due to the fact that back in the day I believe it was owned by RKO.  So they had a bang-up two-day slate – all the Kong films on Thursday, and Godzilla on Friday.

“All the King Kong Films” pretty much meant King Kong, Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young.  Once in a while they’d play semantics and run Toho’s King Kong Escapes on Thursday, a move that caused much debate among monster fans.  Truly, did the fact that Toho’s Kong was so different from the original make it more of a Godzilla film?  It’s a question that may never be answered to everyone’s acceptance.

Thanksgiving meant going over to Nanny’s house and sitting through a seemingly endless parade of very Italian food that I wasn’t going to put in my mouth for love or money. I was a very picky eater, and the only masculine child of my generation, and as such was pretty much spoiled rotten.  So they made me some plain roasted chicken legs, which I ate while everyone was still passing the antipasto platters, and I spent most of the day in her bedroom watching the Kong films on her cheesy black-and-white set.  The color set in the living room a) had no dial cause it broke off and you had to change the channel with pliers, and b) had a seriously burnt-out screen as a result of being left on too long during technical difficulties of a broadcast of To Kill a Mockingbird, so no matter what you were watching, the ghost of Gregory Peck looked down on the proceedings disapprovingly.  So it was the bedroom. The Kong films were in black and white anyway, so no great loss.

Kong was okay, but for me Thanksgiving was a day to be endured rather than enjoyed, as it was in the way of Godzilla.  King Kong and his stop-motion brethren were tragic figures, pulled from their homes and frightened near out of their wits, then shot at when they struck back.  I was far too young to appreciate such a subtle storyline.  Godzilla, on the other hand, was a big green force of nature.  

(No, Jack Palance was never in a Godzilla film.
That was some weird misunderstanding that crept in years ago, and was taken as gospel for decades.)

Friday was the big day.  I might go over to my friends’ houses to play, but we were never further than twenty feet or so of a TV set to Channel 9.  WOR had the later Godzilla films, the ones where they tried to solve the problems of the narrative by throwing more monsters at it. Like the later Batman and Spider-Man films, they were notoriously third-wheel-heavy. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla featured the imponderable King Caesar on Big G’s side, its sequel, Terror of Mechagodzilla had the Titanosaurus on the side of evil, and Godzilla vs. Megalon had Jet Jaguar on the side of good and the return of Gigan.  Godzilla vs the Sea Monster had a terrible and fairly misleading title.  First time I saw it, having only given is passing attention due to the weak title, I was surprised and enraged to learn Mothra was in it, as I would have given it far greater attention.

I’ve gone on elsewhere about how different television was back in the day.  Old cartoons and movies filled a huge chunk of the schedule, and it was a great way to get a history of film.  But with video and all the competing cable channels, seeing those films on broadcast TV is all but impossible.  WABC dropped The 4:30 Movie decades ago once it was obvious that people would watch more of the news at 5 p.m.  The movie libraries fell out of the control of the local stations as the film companies drew them back into their vaults for eventual video releases.  Yes, we get far better versions of the films, uncut and even with the original Japanese versions and/or soundtracks included.  But there’s something magical about seeing a 75-and change-meter tall monster reduced to 17 inches, tromping through Tokyo in between commercial breaks.

Especially if Atticus Finch is staring him down.

 

Here's a Readers' Digest version of what the festival was like, commercials and all.

Blogging for Autism: Siobhan Maggie Bartilucci in One Million Words or Less

We interrupt our usual Tales of the Easily Distracted pop culture & fiction to take part in today's Moms Blogging for Autism

Siobhan* Maggie Bartilucci in One Million Words or Less

                                     (*Pronounced “shuh-VON.”)
Our daughter Siobhan, who recently celebrated her 14th birthday, is a smart, upbeat young lady who loves her family, cartoons, playing, sweets, and swimming, more or less in that order. She happens to have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, which causes her to behave in a more introverted way. By “introverted,” we don’t mean “shy.” (In fact, Siobhan often walks up to total strangers and asks them about themselves, which we discourage only because of the dreaded “stranger danger.”) In Siobhan’s case, “introverted” means that, for example, if she’s alone in an elevator she will, if not reminded, do the kind of things most people do when they’re all alone: she’ll talk to herself, dance around entertaining herself, etc.  Siobhan has also been diagnosed with ADHD, which means she does these things at great speed.  She’s very high-functioning and can be quite gregarious and charming, but she’ll close off quickly when her bank of conversation questions is depleted.

Siobhan is severely allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, and sesame, and must carry an Epi-Pen with her at all times. Luckily, she’s also a picky eater, so she always asks what things contain, and then doesn’t eat it anyway because it’s not pizza or a hot dog.  We try to encourage her to try new foods, but we don’t make a big thing of it because that way lies eating disorders, and nobody really wants to go on Dr. Phil.

Her avowed one true love is Sonic the Hedgehog, who she plans to marry as soon as she reaches legal age.  As long as he can provide for her in the style to which we’d like her to become accustomed, and the kids are raised Catholic, we’ve chosen not to keep them apart.
Siobhan’s musical tastes tend more to trance, including the work of Cascada and Paul van Dyk, with a good bit of Webb Wilder and the theme songs from the Japanese Sentai shows, the ones they use to make Power Rangers.  We’re all cartoon fans in our house, so her TV watching tends more towards animated fare from various decades. 

She can and does sit through entire films and TV shows, but left to her own devices (said devices being the remote) will tend to pop about to her favorite scenes, re-running them endlessly, wearing a hole in the DVD and then who’s going to buy a new copy I ask you not me missy.

She has made the jump in the past year from random non-sequiturs spouted at inopportune moments to the correctly chosen cultural reference.  She’s slowly finding the way to make her eccentric affectations work to her benefit, and we enjoy watching it happen.

Siobhan is well aware of what rules are, and that they apply to her, but she sees no need not to try to get around them when not under scrutiny.  She comes from this honestly, being her father’s child.  While she’s sweet, she's not made of sugar, and can withstand reasonable discipline. Luckily, she’s basically a good kid, and far more affectionate and empathetic than most Aspies we've met. In addition, we've had a reward system in place since her kindergarten days, encouraging her to be on her best behavior. If she behaves well (e.g., getting homework and chores done, being respectful, all that good stuff), she gets a smiley-face drawn on her calendar for that day.  If she gets only three frowny-faces or less in the entire month, she gets to choose an end-of-the-month prize costing $20 or less as a reward. We’re happy to say this reward system works wonders with Siobhan; in fact, we can’t remember offhand when she last got a frowny-face! :-)