News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Saturday July 27th 2024
“DEAR PARENT, YOUR CHILD IS FAT”
By Jane Thomson
Above is the gist of a message that would have been sent home a couple of years ago in a harebrained plan to combat childhood obesity. Now, Michelle Obama is on the problem, and at least, she will do no harm. I was a fat child; it was not fun; and guess what ”“ my parents had noticed without being informed. When I was ten years old, after years of nagging, my mother gave me, as part of my Christmas present, a pocket-sized calorie reference book with a dial on the front to count my daily calories. The timing must have been right, as instead of hurting my feelings, the book intrigued me. I ate a lot of cantaloupe that summer, and Junket (comparable to today”'s instant sugar-free pudding mix made with skim milk). When I went back to school the following fall, I was no longer fat and clumsy, but thin and clumsy.
What causes childhood obesity? I will add to the condemnation of junk food and soda advertising – cigarette companies are hardly alone in trying to get at their market as early in the kid”'s lives as possible. In my case, living in an inner-city apartment with little access to physical activity was part of the problem.… Read the rest ““DEAR PARENT, YOUR CHILD IS FAT””
Top 10 movies of 2009*
by Howard McQuitter, II
[*Editor”'s Note: Howard”'s selections were done before the Academy Awards and were only listed in the March issue of The Alley. This month we include the list with notes.]
Hurt Locker
War/drama
Rated: R
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) has the most dangerous job in the world, disconnecting road bombs in Baghdad. There”'s not enough money to compensate him for his task. Sometimes Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), James”' superior, thinks James is a little crazy.
Baader Meinhof Komplex
Drama/History/Thriller/Adventure/Mystery
Rated: R
Director: Uli Edel
German with English subtitles
The meanest leftist groups in the west, the Red Army Faction, aka Baader Meinhof Gang, emerges in the late 1960s and into the 1970s in reaction to too much ultraconservatism in the West German government. They seek to take extreme measures, bombing banks, government buildings, etc., against the status quo.
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Casablanca: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Casablanca
by Howard McQuitter
*****
1942 Warner Brothers
Parkway Theater
Drama/Romance/Mystery
Running time: 102 minutes
B/W, English, French, German
Director: Michael Curtiz
“Casablanca” is one of those special films I have seen many times over the last 50 years, but every time I see it, the feeling is like the first time. The first time over many times, the Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Bergman duo, the cynical Claude Rains as Captain Renault, the Czech freedom fighter and escapee from a Nazi concentration camp, the memorable piano player “playing” “As Time Goes By” in Bogart”'s character Rick Blaines”' Rick”'s Café American, and so forth.
However, as many times as I have seen “Casablanca”, there were things I didn”'t know until now. At a showing of “Casablanca” at the Parkway Theater in South Minneapolis last month, poet par excellence John Flynn explained that there were 35 nationalities represented in “Casablanca”, and all but the beginning scenes are set on stages. Another point he brought out, to my surprise, was that the famed “African American” pianist Dooley Wilson, a drummer by trade, had his playing “As Time Goes By” and “It Had To Be You” dubbed. Although Michael Curtiz”' “Casablanca” premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942, it received general release on January 23, 1943.… Read the rest “Casablanca: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.””
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