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OPINIONOPINION

Mountain Views-News Saturday, July 20, 2024 

RICH JOHNSON 

NOW THAT’S RICH

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STUART TOLCHIN


PUT THE LIGHTS ON

FAVORITE AND NOT SO FAVORITE MOVIES

NOT AN IDEAL TIME

Favorite and Not So Favorite Movies

If you were born in the late 19th, 20th or 21st century you 
have probably been exposed to movies. According to Variety 
Magazine, the movies were officially born in 1922. And, in 
honor of the movies Variety assembled film writers and critics to create a 
list of the “best” movies of all time. (A ridiculous exercise in my opinion but 
worth a peek.)

Variety’s Magazine’s top ten movies.

10. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

9. All About Eve (1950)

8. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

7. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

6. Seven Samurai (1954)

5. Pulp Fiction (1994)

4. Citizen Kane (1941)

3. The Godfather (1972)

2. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

1. Psycho (1960)

 

Rotten Tomatoes top ten.

10. On the Waterfront (1954)

9. Chinatown (1974)

8. Toy Story 2 (1999)

7. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

6. Schindler’s List (1993)

5. Parasite (2019)

4. Seven Samurai (1954)

3. Casablanca (1942)

2. The Godfather (1972)

1. L.A. Confidential (1997)

 

Celebrities Favorite Movies

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Jimmy Fallon

A Clockwork Orange, Keanu Reeves

The Champ, Idris Elba

Network, George Clooney 

Singin’ In the Rain, Al Pacino 

Moulin Rouge, Morgan Freeman 

Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Charlize Theron

Dirty Dancing, Natalie Portman 

The Godfather, Barack Obama

The Wizard of Oz, Johnny Depp

 

I suppose you might be mildly curious what my list of favorite movies would 
look like. I intentionally put this list at the end of the column in case you 
could care less.

 

I prefer old movies. Many of my favorite movies are in black and white. For 
example, a black and white movie from 1947 starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt 
Earp. The title of the film is My Darlin’ Clementine. Another black and white 
favorite is not all that old. In fact it was filmed in 1982 and starred Steve 
Martin. Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Martin plays a 1940s private detective 
solving a case. What’s so clever about this movie is Steve cut and pasted a 
whole movie together editing clips from old film noir movies of the 1940s into 
a story line. So, his costars include Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, 
Fred MacMurray, Kirk Douglas, Ingrid Bergman and more. Clever and fun.

 

Other favorite films include The Princess Bride (1987), The Magnificent 
Seven (1960), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Mr. Smith Goes 
to Washington (1939), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), Dracula 
(1931), The Thin Man (1934), Kiss of Death (1947), Raiders of the Lost Ark 
(1979), Star Wars (1977), It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and the list goes 
on and on.

 

One movie I’ll close with is a movie I watch from beginning, middle, even 
close to the end. If I channel surf and stumble onto this movie, odds are I will 
stop, sit down and finish it to the end. It’s a movie about World War II. When 
news the movie was about to be made, the following actors were asked to play 
the lead: Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, Lee Marvin, Rod Steiger and even 
Ronald Reagan all said no. Most of them later regretted turning it down. One 
actor was desperate to play the role but was turned down. That actor was 
Marion Robert Morrison, whom you would know as John Wayne.

 

The actor who ended up playing the lead role was George C. Scott. If you 
are old enough to remember, you know I am talking about the 1970 movie 
“Patton”. George C. Scott ended up winning the Best Actor Oscar for his 
performance. He never showed up to receive it. Compellingly good film.

This is not an ideal time for many reasons. Last week, 
it seems so long ago, I had to write and submit my 
article a couple of days before the televised wounding 
of ex-President Donald Trump on Saturday. On 
Tuesday it was revealed that Senator J.D. Vance was 
Trump’s choice as a Vice-Presidential candidate, notwithstanding Vance’s 
previous statements in which he called Trump “a moral disaster, and 
possibly America’s Hitler.”

 I listened to Senator Vance’s acceptance speech yesterday and 
for a while I thought he was expressing political positions that greatly 
conformed to my own and contradicted previously stated Republican 
ambitions. He described the Republican Parties intention to free the 
Country from being beholden to the elite and wealthy and described the 
party as always having been supportive of the American workingman 
laboring for inadequate wages in especially the swing states where the 
election could go either way. He spoke “to the people of Ohio, and the 
forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania” and 
promised that he would never be a Vice President who forgot where he 
came from.

He forgot to mention that he was a successful millionaire 
venture capitalist who had a Law Degree from Harvard. He also forgot 
to mention that his selection was the result of efforts by Peter Thiel and a 
network of Tech billionaires. Vance also forgot to mention his complete 
opposition to abortion based upon his concern for the unborn. What 
about his actual disinterest in the welfare of those humans born who do 
not become members of America’s elite class.

I should stop this nonsense about what Vance did not say simply 
to point out that what he did say was completely consistent with only one 
thing, his desire to be elected to the office of Vice President following 
which he will become the American President of what remains of our 
democracy. Frightening as it is to realize, Vance is only thirty-nine years 
of age some forty years younger than Mr. Trump and 43 years younger 
that our present President. This business of age must me mentioned. Just 
before beginning this article, I viewed the pictures of President Biden 
struggling down the steps of an Airplane. In the morning Pasadena Star 
News, I read of our local Congressman Adam Schiff’s plea to the President 
to” step aside from his reelection bid.” I have learned that much of the 
Democratic leadership including the ex-Speaker of the House, and the 
present Democratic leaders of the House and Senate have joined in this 
plea.

So, what! Those of you who are at all interested probably are 
already aware of everything I have written above. True, this is not an 
ideal time but what can “we” do about it? Go outside and notice how 
ridiculously intolerably hot it is. Will it just go away? What about our air 
and our water and our ability to know what is true. That is what bothers 
me. No one now seems to be talking about it. These days my four-year 
old granddaughter refers to Donald Trump as the “Angry Man” and raises 
her arm like him and growls. She is right, we all should be angry.

 A couple of days ago at my wife’s suggestion, we resaw the 
1976 movie Network. If it was before your time, or you are too old 
now to recall, the movie Network was all about the need for an angry 
population to go open their windows. Find it, see it, and if nothing 
else demand that those in power speak the truth to us. All I want is that 
we have is the truth because I believe with Jesus “that if you will know 
the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Please do not mention how my quoting of the words of the Bible 
probably contradicts everything I have previously written in the past 
eighteen years that my articles have appeared. See, I have already learned 
something from J.D. Vance. 

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TOM PURCELL

ONE GUY IS DANGEROUSLY 
DEMAGOGIC, THE OTHER IS 
DANGEROUSLY DELUSIONAL


I’m in a musical 
mood. Cue Joni 
Mitchell:

All the news of home 
you read

Just gives you the 
blues

Just gives you the blues

Having taken a short vacation from the 
news, I’m tanned, rested, and ready to 
report that the fundamentals of our 
nightmarish and unwanted presidential 
tourney haven’t changed much since 
Saturday night, when a registered 
Republican white boy armed with an 
AR-15 wreaked havoc at a MAGA hate 
rally. (Easy access to AR-15s is an all-
American staple, thanks to MAGA 
Republicans. But I digress.)

The state of play basically remains the 
same:

1. The guy who’s on the cusp of another 
GOP nomination is the same fascist 
threat to our teetering democracy as 
he was before the kid shot at him. I’m 
relieved that Trump wasn’t killed – the 
national trauma, from every angle, 
would’ve been so much worse had that 
happened. But whereas many members 
of the mainstream media (having still 
learned apparently nothing) have been 
sucking up to his brush with blood 
martyrdom by suggesting that he has 
been “humbled” and “changed,” certain 
facts remain stubbornly self-evident.

He’s still a convicted felon. He’s still 
under indictment for plotting to 
violently overthrow the peaceful transfer 
of power. He’s still on record using Nazi 
rhetoric, railing that undocumented 
immigrants are “poisoning the blood of 
the country.” He’s still thirsting to use 
unchecked power, granted to him by 
the MAGA Supreme Court, to prosecute 
political opponents. He’s still the guy who 
boasts about restricting women’s bodily 
autonomy. He’s still a pathological liar 
at war with factual reality. He’s still the 
vehicle for Project 2025, the right-wing 
blueprint (crafted by scores of his allies) 
that intends to erase anti-discrimination 
protects for women and gays. He’s all 
that and much more, and no ear bandage 
can retroactively beautify him.

Only a fervently unified Democratic 
party, led by a fervently energetic 
presidential candidate, can dispel the 
dark clouds looming on the horizon. 
Which brings me to what else hasn’t 
changed.

2. Joe Biden, whom I’ve long boosted 
and supported, is still sucking us toward 
the abyss. With each precious passing 
day, with each new release of dire poll 
numbers (a new sampling shows him 
sliding ever further in seven swing 
states, while another new sampling 
says that nearly two-third of grassroots 
Democrats want him to withdraw), he 
nevertheless grows more delusional.

Earlier this week on his I’m-not-too-
old tour, he told a cable TV interviewer: 
“When I originally ran…I said I was 
gonna be a transitional candidate, and 
I thought that I’d be able to move from 
this, just pass it on to someone else. But 
I didn’t anticipate things getting so, so, 
so divided. And quite frankly, I think 
the only thing age brings a little bit of 
wisdom.”

Hang on. He didn’t anticipate “things 
getting so, so, so divided”? If memory 
serves, he took the oath of office only 
14 days after MAGA goons stormed 
the Capitol, killed some people, and 
smeared feces on the hallowed walls – 
stark evidence that things were already 
so, so, so divided. Now he’s claiming that 
he’s running again because he “didn’t 
anticipate” what he already knew to be 
true. That rationale running again is 
thinner than dental floss.

And, as painful as it is for me to say 
this, wisdom is not “the only thing age 
brings.” Cognitive issues are common, 
too. One of my fiercely anti-MAGA 
friends, an eldercare specialist based in 
Atlanta, publicly posted some worthy 
thoughts on July 6:

“I had been thinking for months that 
(Biden’s) apparent frailty would repel 
voters. But I wasn’t worried about his 
actual cognition. I was mainly worried 
about his ability to beat Trump. But now 
I’m thinking geez, this lovely man really 
does have cognitive deficits. I’m not a 
doctor, but for many years I worked with 
neurologists and neuropsychologists to 
assess older adults suspected of having 
cognitive decline. Many patients who 
were diagnosed with mild cognitive 
impairment or early dementia had 
anosognosia, the inability to recognize 
their own deficits. It’s not denial – it’s 
different. They had no insight into their 
problems and so they’d become very 
offended and angry when concerned 
others told them otherwise… I hate 
being so negative but I just don’t think 
this gentleman is fit to have the hardest 
job in the world.”

I too hate being so negative, but unless 
Democratic leaders and delegates see fit 
to stop the party’s death spiral…well, I 
said at the outset that I was in a musical 
mood. Take it away, Paul Simon:

Slip slidin’ away

Slip slidin’ away

You know the nearer your destination

The more you’re slip slidin’ away


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