Month: November 2020

Review of movie Stan and Ollie (2018)

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I’ve always liked Laurel and Hardy as performers.   They portrayed two kind and sincere people who loved life but life didn’t seem to love them. Their characters had several careers to which they were neither suited nor qualified.   They danced, sang, and made jokes in their movies and live performances.    If you have never seen any of their old material, you are in for a calming treat.  

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy began in silent movies until talkies and lasted from 1927-1955.   In 1927, “Putting Pants on Philip” was their first official film released featuring the comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy.

1937 was the height of their careers and they should have had a luxurious life but Oliver wasn’t good with money.  They were in 107 short movies, feature films, and cameo roles.   In 1953, they went on their last tours as illustrated in the movie.   Lots of books have been written about them.  

Oliver (played by John C. Reilly) feels that Hal Roach (played by Danny Huston) is not paying him enough of the profits from their movies.   Roach feels that Oliver should stop collecting wives and get a better handle on his money.  The trouble comes when Laurel (played by Steve Coogan) doesn’t support Stan in his attempt to get more money.   Roach’s solution is to replace Oliver with another comedian.

John C. Reilly is a great character actor who came into his own after movies such as Talladega Nights:  The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, Delores Claiborne, Dark Water, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the musical film Chicago that I’ve seen him in, but he has been in 105 movies.

Steve Coogan is also a great character actor of whom I have not seen enough.  I saw him as a villain in the movie The Other Guys, but he, like Reilly, has been in a lot of movies.

Danny Huston I would also describe as a character actor.   I’ve seen him in a few movies such as a vampire leader in 30 Days of Night, a military commander trying to steal the powers of and get rid of all mutants in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a Nazi commander greedy for power in Wonder Woman, a man using Hitchcock’s wife to get Alfred Hitchcock to read his script in the movie Hitchcock among others.

Shirley Henderson plays Oliver Hardy’s wife, Lucille.   She is a tiny woman with a tiny voice whom I’ve seen in a lot of British movies.   I’ve seen her as a drowned little girl ghost Moaning Myrtle in two Harry Potter movies, Jude in three Bridget Jones movies, Edythe in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Ursula Blake in Dr. Who, DS Angela Young in Death in Paradise, and doing Babu Frik’s voice in Star Wars:  The Rise of Skywalker.

Nina Arianda plays Stan Laurel’s bossy outspoken wife Ida Kitaeva Raphael Laurel with a Russian accent.  She was very good in the role. Unfortunately, the only movie I’ve seen her in is Midnight in Paris, but she is noted for many movies and plays.

Stan and Ollie was directed by Jon S. Baird.  The movie is very true to the acts they performed in real life.   I loved the movie.  Thanks for giving me insight into their lives.

Source:  Wikipedia    

Written by Rosa L. Griffin

Ray Bradbury’s still got it!

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As a child, I used to hang out in the Pratt library in east Baltimore by myself.   The public library is where I developed my taste for Science Fiction, Gothic Romance and Black Literature.   I remember coming across Ray Bradbury’s books.  

Recently, I was delighted to find that there was a marathon of his short stories broadcast on Comet tv called The Ray Bradbury Theater on Sunday afternoons.   Ray Bradbury himself speaking about how he came up with story ideas was repeated before each story began.

On September 20, 2020, I saw an episode of a Ray Bradbury short story called “A Miracle of Rare Device” (season 3, episode 2, 7/14/89, starring Pat Harrington, Jr. formerly of the “One day at a time” tv show; Wayne Robson, and William Kircher).   It is a story about two scraggly guys who drove around in their beat-up truck looking for whatever they could find to make money.   There was a less scraggly bully on a motorcycle who was always after them to get whatever they could find.

One day they outran the guy by sheer luck and found an opening in the desert on the side of the road in which they hid.   The more intelligent of the two saw over the horizon a mirage of New York City.  It was hard for his partner to see it, but eventually he did also.

The more resourceful fella figured he could charge one dollar per vehicle for others to see it.   A scam coming, right?   But it turned out that others saw what they really needed to see.   Yes, the two men made money, but to them, it became a miracle for the people who came.   The visitors told them what they saw and it seemed like miracles to the two men, who really started appreciating the mirages as miracles.

Of course, the motorcycle man found out about their money-making and took all their money.  And, although he could not see the mirage at all, he planned on taking over, but none of the people who came after that could see the mirage at all either.    Motorcycle man gave up and left the two honest men there with nothing but their truck, not even the mirage.   But eventually they could see it again and they decided to let people see the mirage for free from now on.  

I cried when the individual people told what they saw and when the men concluded that this was something of God.   I had forgotten how good Ray Bradbury’s stories were.  I’ve seen two marathons so far and look forward to seeing more.

Written by Rosa L. Griffin