Casey Anthony trial, Part I

I haven't been addicted to a good murder trial since Phil Spector's... and I blame my daughter for calling me on the phone to warn me I was missing Casey Anthony's crocodile tears (at left) and I'd surely regret it. So I turned it on and... yeah, you know what happened. I've been tuned in ever since opening arguments.

Typically, Casey is blaming daddy for her messed-up mind, and the defense is asserting that her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, drowned and the entire family covered it up. It's a stretch, but that's the story, and they are sticking to it.

All the Ann Rule books (particularly Small Sacrifices) that kept me entertained (for decades!) have prepared me for watching this sordid trial of mother-love gone berserk. For instance, I immediately noticed that Casey sobbed when opening arguments referred to her own bad treatment at the hands of her father. And yet she remains stoic and unemotional when witnesses say things like, "... and then a skull rolled out of the garbage bag"... excuse me, say what?! This is your baby, and you sit there like a stone when they talk about her skull rolling out of a bag? (Jesus H. Christ, that looks so bad.) But that very intense brand of narcissism is fairly typical in murderers, and was present in both Diane Downs and Debora Green. (For Casey's sake, I hope nobody on the jury has been reading Ann Rule.)

Anybody else watching? Opinions? What did you think of dad on the witness stand today?

~*~

Although thoroughly unemployed, I've been chugging along... reorganizing drawers, catching up on tarot readings for friends and fans, re-commencing hiking and yoga (I now need Yoga for Cynics more than ever!), repairing old jewelry and vintage clothing... and watching Casey Anthony sob over her sorry-ass life. I'm also reading Robert Stone's fabulous memoir PRIME GREEN, and it IS nice to have some time to read for a change.

Speaking of reading, if you have some free time, here you go:

The "Alternative" Female Actress, And Why Hollywood Has So Few Of Them (Jezebel)

Focus on the Family Head: "We've Probably Lost" on Gay Marriage (Mother Jones)

Stop the Execution of Roy Davis! (Amnesty International Alert)

Great American Patriots (Glenn Greenwald/Salon)

Required reading for movie fans: The Dying of the Light (by Roger Ebert), which addresses the fact that films are growing ever-darker due to the accompanying rise of 3-D. (Thanks to Erik Loomis at Alterdestiny for the link.) I recently noticed that THOR was somewhat dark (of course Mr Daisy forced me to go see THOR), even though we skipped on the 3D and went to the regular showing. We even talked about it afterwards; the film seemed darker than usual.

Ebert worries that the darkness is rapidly becoming the norm.

~*~

BTW, the wonderful Asheville-based blog ASHVEGAS linked my Fanaticon photos, and thank you!

Still life with locusts

We watched Terrence Malick's amazing film BADLANDS again last week, and it is such a work of art, I need to share the trailer and insist you all see it. Like, right now.

I can still remember Molly Haskell noting that Sissy Spacek's childlike narration sounded just like TRUE ROMANCES or one of those adolescent magazines. It sure does, and how wonderful and perfect it is.

Roger Ebert includes BADLANDS in his list of GREAT MOVIES:

Kit is played by Martin Sheen, in one of the great modern film performances. He looks like James Dean, does not have bowlegs, and plays the killer as a plain and simple soul who has somehow been terribly damaged by life...

Holly is played by the freckle-faced redhead Sissy Spacek. She takes her schoolbooks along on the murder spree so as not to get behind. She is in love with Kit at first, but there is a stubborn logic in her makeup and she eventually realizes that Kit means trouble. "I made a resolution never again to take up with any hell-bent types," she confides.

Badlands - Trailer (1973)



After presenting the world with this work of art, Malick took several eons directing another amazing work of art, the fabulous DAYS OF HEAVEN. Which you will also go out and rent immediately, especially if you are a working-class or poor person.

Again, Roger Ebert includes this movie among his GREAT MOVIES. And like BADLANDS, there is also a young female's guileless narration, this one by Linda Manz:

Although passions erupt in a deadly love triangle, all the feelings are somehow held at arm's length. This observation is true enough, if you think only about the actions of the adults in the story. But watching this 1978 film again recently, I was struck more than ever with the conviction that this is the story of a teenage girl, told by her, and its subject is the way that hope and cheer have been beaten down in her heart. We do not feel the full passion of the adults because it is not her passion: It is seen at a distance, as a phenomenon, like the weather, or the plague of grasshoppers that signals the beginning of the end.

Unfortunately, this trailer doesn't include any of Manz's wonderfully plaintive narration, as the BADLANDS trailer included Spacek's. You do see, however, that the whole movie looks like an Andrew Wyeth painting come to life. And Richard Gere was... ohhhh my goodness (((fans self)))).

Quite simply, one of the greatest movies ever made.

Days of Heaven - Trailer (1978)



If you are in a suitably biblical/apocalyptic mood, check out the locust invasion. Linda Manz is cutting the vegetables in the first scene.

Incredible, peerless film-making, boys and girls. Took him years, but I'm so glad it did.