TO ALL LOYAL READERS.......

Happy New Year, one an all...and please celebrate responsibly!

By the way, this happens to be The Grandstander's 600th posting. How appropriate! Thank you all for being here these past two years.

Happy Birthday, Sandy Koufax

76 years young today....

Movie Review: "The Great Escape"

My Christmas present this year came from our good friends Dave and Judy Jones was a DVD of the 1963 movie, "The Great Escape" that starred Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, and the proverbial cast of thousands, and directed by John Sturges. This movie has become a bit of a standing joke between the Joneses and us because they always quote their son Mike who once said of this movie: "The Great Escape. What was so great about it? Only three guys actually escaped."

So, we all got a laugh out of it when we exchanged gifts, but I was more than happy to receive it. I can recall seeing this movie in the theater when it came out in 1963. I would have been in seventh grade, and I no doubt probably didn't get much of the movie at the time. I do not believe that I had ever seen the movie again from start to finish in the 48 years that have passed, and I was anxious to watch it once more.

Well, I did watch this movie yesterday, and I enjoyed it very much. It has held up remarkably well over the past 48 years. So much so, that I have no doubt that an average teenager in what will soon be 2012 would enjoy it every bit as much as audiences did back in 1963.

The movie is based upon actual events that took place at a German POW camp in Poland during World War II. British and American POW's undertake an immense escape attempt that would involve over 250 prisoners escaping in one night. Well, as you can gather from Mike Jones' comment above, not all of them make it, but they do succeed in one very important goal - to disrupt and distract the German forces enough so that they have to track down these escapees, thus preventing the Nazis from actually concentrating on fighting the war. In that goal, they were most successful. (The accompanying documentary on the DVD talks about this aspect of the escape.)

Good performances by James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Coburn, Charles Bronson and many others. As the years have gone by, this movie is probably most remembered for Steve McQueen bouncing a baseball against the wall of the "cooler" and escaping from half the German army on a motorcycle. McQueen is OK in the movie, I suppose, but I have come to the conclusion after seeing this movie and a couple of others over the past year or so, that McQueen, a huge star in the 60's and 70's and the absolute epitome of "cool" during that time, is way overrated in the memories of moviegoers. I watch him in some of these supposedly great roles of his, and all I can think of are about half a dozen actors, both contemporaries of his and current day actors, who were and are much, much better. In this very movie, James Garner is a perfect example of this hypothesis.

Be that as it may, if you've never seen "The Great Escape", or if it has been many years since you have seen it, give it a shot. I do not think that you will be disappointed.

And the New Year's Eve Movie Will Be......

Thanks to those Facebook Friends who gave suggestions for what movie we will see for our traditional New Year's Eve movie date. All were considered and we decided against these suggestions:

• The Sherlock Holmes movie. While I am a fan of both Holmes and Robert Downey Jr., the movie that came out two years ago was so over the top, that I couldn't get through it, so I am not so keen on seeing this one. Perhaps when it hits the Redbox.


• Mission Impossible. Liked the first Tom Cruise MI movie, but the sequel was so convoluted that I have no desire to see this one. No disrespect to the Otts and the Materas intended.


• War Horse. This is one that we do want to see, but we were forewarned to bring tissues. Big Poppy advises that Mrs. Big Poppy was a "blubbery mess" watching this one. Mrs. Grandstander wants no parts of crying on New Year's Eve.

While we usually enjoy a nice romantic comedy on the night (although not always; one year we saw "Titanic", and watching 1,500 people die in a shipwreck is no RomCom!), the one that is out there now, "New Year's Eve", has been universally panned by everyone, so forget that. Likewise, I am thinking that "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" might be more intense than what we want to take in tomorrow.

So, we have decided that this year's New Year's Eve Date Movie will be.......

"We Bought a Zoo" starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson (what's not to like with those two, right?). Friends of ours gave this a thumbs up and while it looks like it will probably not be heard from come Academy Award night, it looks to be the light touch that we look for each New Year's Eve.

Of course, you will hear all about it come the Sunday.

To Absent Friends - Cheetah?

So I see an item on Facebook yesterday giving the news of the death of Cheetah, the chimpanzee who was in the Tarzan movies with Johnny Wiesmuller back in the 1930's. Cheetah died while a resident at a primate rescue center in Florida. Cheetah was thought to be 80 years old. Who had any idea that chimps lived that long? I sure didn't. Bummer, I thought, that this news arrived two days after I did my Absent Friends recap for 2011.

Today's paper brings word that there is some question as the whether or not the chimp who died was actually the Cheetah of the silver screen. What a shame that this star's death has to be shrouded in confusion and controversy. Must there always be a murky end when a great star passes?

Anyway, we all wish Cheetah a happy afterlife in that great jungle in the sky.

The Absent Friends of 2011

Often throughout the past year I have noted the passing of notable people. So often, in fact, that one Loyal Reader began calling this "The Obituary Blog." Be that as it may, I began calling these features "To Absent Friends", and I admit to shamelessly stealing this phrase from the late, great sportswriter, Red Smith.

As 2011 draws to a close, one final salute to all the Absent Friends noted during these last 12 months:

Anne Francis
Cookie Gilchrist
Doug Hoerth
Woodie Fryman
Chuck Tanner
Gino Cimoli
Len "Uncle Leo" Lesser
Duke Snider
Suze Rotolo
Elizabeth Taylor
Larry Shepard
Lynn Chadnois
Madame Nhu
Kenny, The Lemonade Guy
Harmon Killebrew
John Henry Johnson
Clarence Clemons
Peter Falk
Sherwood Schwartz
Alvin Rue
Jerry Leiber
Steve Jobs
Matty Alou
Andy Rooney
Joe Frazier
Harry Morgan

RIP, All.

Garbage Disposal Update - Good News

Some good news to report to you. After receiving a note on Facebook this morning about the plight of our busted garbage disposal, I decided to take one more shot at doing what the instruction manual advises. This involves using an Allen Wrench type gadget and hitting a reset button that is on the bottom of the unit. Trust me, this procedure was tried on two occasions last night to no avail. However, after giving it one more try this morning, lo and behold, the disposal began to grind away as normal. Hooray!!

There is an expression in baseball that sometimes the best trades are the ones you do not make. Similarly, sometimes the best money you receive is the money that you do not spend. So, the money that we did not spend at Lowe's this morning or on a plumber later in the week now remains in our coffers.

Nice.

(With thanks to Bob Mill for providing the impetus to give it just one more try!)