Different Slants

by Robert M. Katzman (Secret Movie Maven)©️ Memorial Day, May 2019

I have been obsessed with the fantasy world of movies since I was a child who couldn’t escape a dangerous home. An alternative cinematic Universe seemed a safe harbor, if only for a brief time.

Sports were never an alternative. Hit a ball, catch a ball, get crushed while holding a ball, avoid being hit by a speeding ball–what is it with balls and aggression? 

Oh, wait. Not a good question.

While a lot of people revered Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig, I was a long time admirer of Roger Ebert, and even got to know him for a long while. He was the only person in my one year on Amazon who bought my first book.

I’ve made a list of a number of movies, various genres, but all involving human interaction of movies worth seeing more than once or twice. I won’t list the casts or directors because younger people won’t recognize the names, but also because an existing group of famed movie stars appearing together in a film can amount to nothing without a great script and director.

There are a number of Westerns, but they tend to tell detailed moments of intense relationships in isolated areas of America where mutual dependence is essential. The fact they are “Westerns” is not essential to the overall story.

There are qualities of friendship, empathy, grit, courage and determination that sew these varied films into a celluloid quilt, but a person’s perception of pleasure is partly base on what rescued them from pain, I believe. Emotion doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

May 14, 2019

I planted 4 trees today. 

I drove far away to a lovely rural nursery and the prices were tiny compared to near me.

Amber, Lisa and Kaitlan helped me with the transaction and with loading my old van.

The van needed to be jump-started because I haven’t used it all winter.

My driving forever cured the van’s sad battery.

My old body is inconceivably tired.

So tired I can’t tell how tired I am.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how tired am I?

42

by Robert M. Katzman © March 31, 2019 

Baby, what’s wrong?
I wanna go out
I know, your coat is on and everything 
But the rain is so cold
So, want some hot cocoa?
No! I wanna go out…
What would you do…outside?
I’d run around
I’d watch the ants
I’d try at climb that big tree
One day, when I’m bigger…
What else?

Incident At Nick’s Diner by Robert M. Katzman © June 2005

After my divorce in 1977, I would pick up my daughter at her mother’s house early everySaturday and bring her home Sunday morning. Sometimes, before I would return her to her mother’s house, she and I would stop off for a quick breakfast at Nick’s Diner, a popular local restaurant.

Nick was a very friendly Greek man from Athens. He would wave and smile at me whenever I would stop by his place.  The food was good, and cheap, and Kate, the waitress, was fast and sweet to my daughter. We liked Nick’s Diner.

One Sunday morning in 1979, when my daughter was four and I was twenty-nine, we were sitting in our usual spot in a booth near the door, when I heard a loud and obnoxious voice from across the diner.

by Robert M. Katzman © January 13, 2019

Painful News Flash for South Siders and Undying lovers of the Original (and best!) Magnificent 7: That stunning deathless film which came out in 1960 when I was living near 87th and Jeffrey, and the three movie theaters were the Avalon on Stoney Island, or north of the RR tracks on 71st St, The Hamilton and the Jeffrey, has lost the last and most seductive member of its original cast:

Mexican actress Rosenda Monteros, the young woman, Petra, hiding in the forest wearing the all white pants and top costume, because her father warned her the seven American gunslingers “were brutes” and she should hide with the rest of the villages older girls, has died at the age of 86 in Mexico.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/01/11/obituaries/08MONTEROS1/08MONTEROS1-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp 

Here is an inspiring true story about the kindness of strangers. It is forgotten Chicago history, but not by me: 
When I was in my battle between my tiny independent magazine distribution company (1975-1980), against America’s largest distributor, as time went on I was becoming overwhelmed by the impossible odds.

I drove one truck and my wife, Joyce, drove the other one with our newborn son David (now 40, this week) sleeping in a cardboard box lined with soft blankets next to the step van’s vibrating stick-shift, helping me servicing 60 accounts.