The Dark Side Rises

    SO, having been captivated by arguably the world's most adorable baby,(see below), excepting your own and my own when they were little, and grandchildren for whom you do not have to be completely responsible, I once again believed the world was a beautiful place.  I invited Eloise's parents to leave their belongings in my room while they went to see the La Brea Tar Pits, as there was no room at the inn, echoing the sacred story of the same title. Instead, they took everything in their car, which was burgled in broad daylight on 6th and Curzon, the thieves breaking even into the glove compartment, taking the GPS, and from the boot, Eloise's diapers.
    Who can you trust?  Certainly not the NRA, whose response to the horrific shooting in Colorado was that if there had been someone packing in the audience, he could have shot the shooter.  I am sorry that Dennis Hopper is not still with us, in one of his cowboy roles.
   Not having yet heard of the massacre, and grieving over the absence of my latest lost love, Eloise, I went to see Batman yesterday afternoon, only to encounter, as I left the theater, less than estheically fulfilled, a youngish man(20s) handing out passes for a screening next Tuesday, of Sylvester Stallone's new film, BULLET TO THE HEAD.  I was, of course, not within the age perameters(sp. ?) of the desired audience, but I lied so I could see what the invite said, mendicants seeming to me to be the least offensive of the sinners on earth, as by that time word of the slayings had reached the theater, along with a full viewing of the movie itself, which was just as noisy and filled with unrealized writing as could have been imagined, though not nearly as wince-inducing as SAVAGES, Oliver Stone being even more unrelenting than Christopher Nolan, though clearly a better taskmaster when it came to the script.
    So this scruffy young man handing out passes pulled from my line of vision a picture of a man holding a gun, the original bait for moviegoers who might want to rush to BULLET TO THE HEAD, as he said he was not supposed to show it, because of the shooting in Colorado.  And I wondered what our country was coming to, much less Sylvester Stallone, whose own son had died in too recent memory, probably a suicide, or some sad admixture of drugs to ease whatever affliction afflicts the children of movie stars.
   And I hoped that Eloise, gorgeous as she is, and clever (over ten words, plus repetition of any that you say slowly,) will not be tempted by Hollywood.  And I wondered where Preston Sturges was, and Frank Capra, and Joe Mankiewicz, whose spirits should have inspired SOMEONE to be clever and inventive and not just violent, and spendthrift on explosives.
     What a world, what a world! Margaret Hamilton would cackle, as she flew off on her broom, when all there was to fear was wicked witches and a dark future to Judy Garland.  Does anyone remember?