vineri, 31 martie 2023
miercuri, 29 martie 2023
Waiting for Guffman by Christopher Lee and Eugene Levy, authors of the mirthful Best in Show https://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2021/02/88-out-100-for-best-in-show.html and other miracles - 10 out of 10
Waiting for
Guffman by Christopher Lee and Eugene Levy, authors of the mirthful Best in
Show https://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2021/02/88-out-100-for-best-in-show.html and other miracles
10 out of
10
Humor is an
essential element of happiness and listed on the Martin Seligman Character
Strengths list http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/07/character-strengths-and-weaknesses.html under Transcendence, along with
appreciation for excellence and beauty, hope, spirituality, gratitude…there are
Temperance, Courage, Wisdom, Justice and Humanity categories to explore if you
are interested
Indeed, I
am concentrating more on humor, as I move along and try to select the best
films, books and generally masterpieces that I try to engage with, eliminating
as much as possible crime - though I am in the process of reading The Friends
of Eddie Coyle, and of course, we have possibly the best chef d’oeuvre of the
genre Crime and Punishment http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/crime-and-punishment-by-fyodor.html and others like it – together with
works on War, Science Fiction, without too much emphasis on Love
Love is the
essential element of Positivity (the crowning ingredient, where amusement – you
see, there it is again – interest, awe, inspiration, hope, gratitude [yes,
gratitude is massive, paramount, august] pride, serenity and joy contribute to
the optimum formula) as explained by Barbara Fredrickson http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/05/positivity-by-barbara-fredrickson-life.html in her classic.
Why not
enjoy jest while indulging in what could be wondrous, miraculous literature,
such as you can find in more than twenty books by the King of Comedy Sir
Kingsley Amis, starting with Lucky Jim http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/03/lucky-jim-by-kingsley-amis-author-of.html included on the TIME 100 list of
Best 100 Novels and read for the second time just a few days ago…it is somehow
on YouTube…
Or this
could be a confusion, maybe I am thinking of The Old Devils http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-old-devils-by-kingsley-amis-97-out.html which is definitely (Lord Copper)
there on the video channel, and it won The Booker Prize for the Magister Ludi,
who joked on the matter by saying he had ‘previously thought of the Booker as a
rather trivial, showbiz sort of caper, but now considered it a very serious,
reliable indication of literary merit’ or words to that effect
It is
argued that Kingsley Amis dominates the Laughing Glasperlenspiel in the second
half of the last century (while there are detractors to this position, I for
one admire the magician) and Evelyn Waugh was the best in jest and comedy in
the first part, with chefs d’oeuvre like Vile Bodies http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/12/vile-bodies-by-evelyn-waugh-10-out-of-10.html or Decline and Fall, Scoop
The latter
has launched ‘up to a point, Lord Copper’ and other quotes, characters have
become famous…Kingsley Amis uses references, such as the mistakes one can make
‘in the manner of a visitor who asks a banal question, only to find that the
tribe chief takes that as a demand to jump his wife (or one of those spouses)’
this is in no way a quote, but it is easy to find it, better still, read Scoop,
The Loved One, or one of the other about ten books included on the 1,000 Novels
Everyone Must Read list, maybe Black Mischief http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/05/black-mischief-by-evelyn-waugh-10-out.html
It may have
been Memoirs http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/12/memoirs-by-kingsley-amis-author-of-take.html that I found somebody who had known
Evelyn Waugh saying he was an unlikable little man, snobbish to the point where
he was adulatory to the aristocrats, entertained the person, until he found she
lost her title or something similar…we do read in Intellectuals by Paul Johnson
that luminaries, Leo Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, Henrik Ibsen, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau have been great thinkers, authors, brilliant minds, but on a personal
level, they could hell to live, or have a relationship with…
http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/02/bright-lights-big-city-by-jay-mcinerney.html Bright Lights, Big City by Jay
McInerney is another example of Humor at its best, with a capital letter,
offering not just jest, but also a marvelous story, told with ‘you’ as the main
character, indeed, instead of ‘he, she, or they’ did this or that, we have you,
and it evidently enhances the connection with the narrative and the hero, you
become the protagonist and then you find it easier to enter the fictional lives
‘“The person who doesn't read lives only one life…The reader lives 5,000…Reading
is immortality backwards” ― Umberto Eco said it and it is much easier to jump
into these universes, if there is hilarity involved
If we need
to say a few words about Waiting for Guffman http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/12/one-of-best-100-comedies-waiting-for.html then it has to be said that this is
a fabulous parody, it looks at the shortcomings of rural America (which is
embracing Trump and similar goonies like Marjorie, with all hands and soul) we
have sophistication, along with easy laughs, simplistic attitudes that are
lambasted, but also a take on so much more – there are tiny figures that
reference the classic My Dinner with Andre http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/10/my-dinner-with-herve-written-and.html - and the film is august
Let us just
mention another Magnum opus that is both exhilarating and hilarious – Towards
The End of The Morning http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/10/towards-end-of-morning-by-michael-frayn.html by Michael Frayn where you take a
joy ride and then the truth of what Malcolm Bradbury has said becomes clear ‘Fiction’s
people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its
(fiction’s) actions are more intricate,
illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic
fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this
you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's
more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher
order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors,
who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful
mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that
wise epic by an often foolish author…’
http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world
http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html