--NOBODY MAKES IT ON THEIR OWN

 

…It’s been a very good week for cinema.  

In the last three days, I’ve seen three films—“Les Miserables,” “Django Unchained,” and “Silver Linings Playbook”—all of which were outstanding.

“Django,” at 2:47 minutes, never felt long at all.  The story was a mash-up of many things—camp, humor, wonderful acting, great writing and directing, incredible violence and a horrible yet unflinching look at slavery.  Not unlike the concentration camps in WW2, it’s hard to fathom man being so inhumane to other people.

Christopher Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio were sensational, as was Jamie Foxx.

Brady Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence were just terrific in “Silver Linings Playbook.”  My respect for their talent grew immensely after seeing them dominate the screen.

So fat it looks like “Lincoln” will win Best Picture and Daniel Day Lewis will win Best Actor.  Best Actress and the Supporting roles are all up in the air.

...Here are some things I like for the start of the weekend:

 

"I wanted to be famous, just to make the kids who'd laughed at me feel foolish. I wanted to be rich, so I'd never have to do the awful work my mother did and live at the bottom of the barrel--ever. And I wanted to be a dancer because I loved to dance... Maybe the illusions, the daydreams, made life more tolerable, but I always knew, whether I was in school or working in some damned dime store, that I'd make it. (Funny, but I never had any ambition whatsoever to become an actress.)"

-Joan Crawford

"To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life." T. S. Eliot

"Man is happy only as he finds work worth doing -- and does it well." E. Merrill Root

"Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values." Joshua L. Liebman

 "There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman.  One is born a poet.  One becomes a craftsman." Emile Zola