Tricia McCallum

And in the end all that is really left is a feeling

April 15, 2014 No Comments

This combines – sumptuously – the work of two of my favourite poets, Dana Gioia and Jena Strong. With Strong responding compellingly to Gioia’s melancholic wise poem, “The Letter.”

The Letter

by Dana Gioia

And in the end, all that is really left Is a feeling—strong and unavoidable— That somehow we deserved something better. That somewhere along the line things Got fouled up. And that letter from whoever’s In charge, which certainly would have set Everything straight between us and the world, Never reached us. Got lost somewhere. Possibly mislaid in some provincial station. Or sent by mistake to an old address Whose new tenant put it on her dresser With the curlers and the hairspray forgetting To give it to the landlord to forward. And we still wait like children who have sent two weeks’ allowance far away To answer an enticing advertisement From a crumbling, yellow magazine, Watching through years as long as a childhood summer, Checking the post box with impatient faith Even on days when mail is never brought.

And here, Jena Strong’s “Response:”

No, Dana. In the end, we will have received every letter, opened some neatly, along the crease of the envelope, using the letter opener we found that time at the five and dime when we were little kids with coins in our lint-lined pockets, that somehow we kept through all the loves and all the moves, all the well days and all the hand-wringing goodbye moments, tucked away and taken out to open letters announcing: I love you, you are loved.

Others, we will have been not so careful with, tearing them open with overeager hands or our front teeth like rabid animals, hungry not for news but for something to chew on and digest, to fuel us through one hard winter after another.

Yes, we sent messages out to the world, in bottles, in songs, in pleas and prayers, in exultation and in desperation, asking for so much and stopping one day and then another, no longer wondering if we deserved answers, deserved return receipt, deserved reciprocity.

We deserved it, deserved it all in the end, got what our starving hearts feared wouldn’t come. We arrived, at the end, here, to this place where open and honest learned to lie together, lion and lamb, storm and stasis, breath and gifts from an abyss of longing unwrapped, a party in our mouths of words and of kisses and of running to the mailbox after work to lift the lid from the tin mailbox– It came! It came! Mama!

All things in good time and all good things in time after so long waiting, Dana. This, I believe. This, I refuse to give up for another minute, not wasting a single morsel of the mail, the inbox– the sender and the receiver, the writer and the reader are one, and the same.

The most romantic lines in movies. Ever.

March 15, 2014 No Comments

In “Pride And Prejudice” when Darcy (Matthew MacFadyen) says to Elizabeth (Keira Knightley): “…If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love … I love … I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.”

In “An Affair to Remember” when Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) says to Nicky Ferranti (Cary Grant): “Oh, it’s nobody’s fault but my own! I was looking up… it was the nearest thing to heaven! You were there…”

In “Notting Hill” when Anna (Julia Roberts) says to William (Hugh Grant): “Don’t forget I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”

In “As Good As It Gets“ when Melvin (Jack Nicholson) says to Carol (Helen Hunt): “I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and … I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me.”

In “Say Anything” when Lloyd (John Cusack) says to his girlfriend Diane’s (Ione Skye) dad (John Mahoney):“What I really want to do with my life — what I want to do for a living — is I want to be with your daughter. I’m good at it.”

In “The Last of the Mohicans“ when Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) says to Cora (Madeleine Stowe): “…You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you.”

In “On Golden Pond” when Ethel (Katharine Hepburn) says to Norman (Henry Fonda): “Listen to me, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor. Don’t forget it.”

In “Sleepless in Seattle” when Sam (Tom Hanks) says: “It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together … and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home. .. only to no home I’d ever known … I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like … magic.”

In “Always,” when the ghost of Richard Dreyfuss’ character sees his love (Holly Hunter’s character) again, he says to her: ”I miss you. I miss you like it was a thousand years.”

In “The Wedding Date” when Dermot Mulroney’s character says to Debra Messing’s character: “I think I loved you even before I met you.”

In “An Affair to Remember when Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) says to Cary Grant:

“Oh, it’s nobody’s fault but my own! I was looking up… it was the nearest thing to heaven! You were there…”

In “Rich Man, Poor Man,” when Nick Nolte’s character says to Kay Lenz’ character: “Every time we make love I forget one more bad thing that’s happened to me.”

In “Love Actually” when Mark (Andrew Lincoln) says to Juliet (Keira Knightley): “But for now, let me say — without hope or agenda, just because it’s Christmas and at Christmas you tell the truth — to me, you are perfect. And my wasted heart will love you. Until you look like this [picture of a mummy]. Merry Christmas.”

In “Forest Gump” when Forrest says to Robin Wright’s character: “I may not be smart. But I know what love is.”

In “Gable and Lombard” when Jill Clayburgh as Lombard said to James Brolin’s Gable: “I just want to curl up in your pocket and stay there forever.”

In “Dirty Dancing” when Baby (Jennifer Grey) says to Johnny (Patrick Swayze): “Me? I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of what I saw, I’m scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.”

Nuff said? See you at a matinee.

The Oscars, Scorcese-slamming, and Raspberry Squares.

February 28, 2014 No Comments

Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he’s that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it’s not, I assure you.

— Michael Caine

I love the Oscars. But I hate the cringeworthy “In Memoriam” segment. So incredibly awkward when certain photos evoke total silence from the audience.

Sorry, Ernest Borgnine. Ya reap what ya sow.

Counting the hours ‘til the curtain: Do not judge me! ‘Tis my Super Bowl!

I come by my passion honestly. When I was growing up we had a ball watching them, myself and my mother and my sisters all together. Mom would let us stay up right to the end, as long as we didn’t make a fuss getting up for school the next morning. We were quite happy with that trade off. Mom would make these insanely good jam squares of hers and we’d have pot after pot of tea. I provided colour commentary throughout, more knowledgeably as the years progressed… Who was squiring who (whom?) What were their movies? When were they last nominated? Who was wearing who? (Just try and stop me.) My kingdom for a Photoplay!

Lovely memories… I can still taste the piquant raspberry in my mouth …

The next morning I replayed the whole thing in a montage for my classmates. The early-to-bed brigade who didn’t have nearly as cool a mother as I did.

On to this year’s contenders…

I not so humbly offer the following: actively avoid “The Wolf of Wall Street,” if it’s not too late.

Soul-depleting.

For me it was entirely derivative, shamelessly so. Scorsese disappointed me, and this is from a huge fan. (Raging Bull and Casino are in my top ranks.) It was Good Fellas unabashedly revisited, but across the river and with higher rents: the ongoing self-satisfied narrative, the occasional conspiratorial glance at the camera by Di Caprio, the ever-tracking frenetic camera, the overheads, the omnipresent feeling of someone out of breath; a train at top speed without brakes, like that ridiculously entertaining movie I may have watched three, ok, four times.

The strange thing is that I became nauseated by all the excess, like when you eat the caramels out of the pot instead of waiting to coat the apples. Inured to the debauchery as ‘twere. And it sank to parody I felt; The palsied Di Caprio crawling to the car. (And who amongst us, kind sir, has not?) That said, he was wonderful in the part of Belfort. (I see Belfort actually did 22 months for money laundering, which I did not know.)

I watched 12 Years A Slave, a very difficult film, and I agree with current opinion circulating that it’s unadulterated torture porn. Can’t imagine any redeeming value there. There may be ways to elucidate when it comes to racism and slavery but a film like this I feel is not one.

Thought Matthew McConaghey could not possibly top his turn in HBO’s “True Detective.” He is transcendent in the lead role. Wrong. He does just that, in Dallas Buyers Club. I’m for him for the win on Monday. Although Christian Bale in American Hustle was sensational. That opening five minute scene where he painstakingly configures his hairpiece in front of the mirror is a master class in itself.

The whole Woody Allen thing could be hard to watch, if in fact he shows up. (Rumor has it he’ll be a no-show.) The whole art vs. artist debate is a thorny one, is it not? If we held artists’ morality up to the light we may never want to look at a piece of art again. Consider Picasso alone, that raging misogynist. Vermeer. Rodin. And of course Carrot Top. Don’t even get me started on Gallagher.

Stay tuned.