"When I am mad, I am mad."

The title of this post is one of my favorite lines from "Bringing Up Baby." I often say it to Jeff, used to say it to Spike, and just today said it to Lola. Jeff added "I told you Lola, when she is mad, she is mad."

Well, now I am mad. We're watching the Mets-Dodger game. Asshole umpire Adam Hamari threw out pitcher Noal Syndergaard because he threw a pitch behind Chase Utley. Syndegaard didn't hit Utley, Nor did the asshole umpire issue a warning. Manager Terry Collins backed up his pitcher and was also thrown out of the game.

Grrr. I don't believe in coddling stars or giving them passes because they're stars (I'm thinking of you Bryce Harper) but damn. Don't throw out a star starting pitcher without a warning.

When I am mad, I am mad.

Bringing Up Baby

This is the quintessential screwball comedy and my fourth favorite movie. http://lynnecoll.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-five-favorite-movies.html

A madcap heiress ropes a reluctant paleontologist into helping her transport a tame, music-loving leopard from New York City to Connecticut. What could be screwier than that?

Katharine Hepburn is charming and intoxicating and Cary Grant is at his flustered best. They first meet on the golf course when Susan Vance (Hepburn) plays the ball of David Huxley (Grant) interrupting his important game. Next she takes off in his car. Things just get crazier from there at a nightclub with the olive trick and the ripped dress, a drive around Riverdale. Then the fateful trip to Connecticut: an encounter with a pair of swans, a stolen car, a shifting riverbed, an escaped circus animal, multiple arrests and a memorable interrogation.

Backing Hepburn and Grant is a brilliant supporting cast: May Robson as Aunt Elizabeth, Charles Ruggles as Major Applegate and Walter Catlett as Constable Slocum (among many others.) Don't forget Skippy, the wire haired terrier who played George, "...a perfect little fiend and you know it," as Aunt Elizabeth says. Skippy worked with Grant earlier in The Awful Truth and is best known as Asta, Nick and Nora Charles' dog in The Thin Man Series.

 

The dialogue is fast and snappy--jokes fly so fast it's easy to miss some. One of my favorites is when Constable Slocum asks why Susan is limping. She says she lost her heel. Slocum says, "Well, forget about him." I'm not giving it justice here--trust me, it's very funny.

The film includes what may be the first modern movie use of the term, gay. When Aunt Elizabeth asks why David is wearing a negligee, he says he just turned gay, all of a sudden (apparently, an ad lib by Grant.)

A great film and a funny movie: see it.

 

My five favorite movies

My first full time job had some slow, boring periods. One of my co-workers used to write memorial quizes for celebrities who died. We also made lots of lists: favorite movies, people we'd take with us to a desert island, dead people we'd take with us to a desert island (if they were alive--no zombies for us.)

My favorite movie list has changed since then, but number one and two remain the same. I'll discuss the top five in future posts.

1. Casablanca
2. Citizen Kane
3. Fargo
4. Bringing Up Baby
5. The Letter