Quote of the Day- Neil Simon

We continue with our series of quips from famous playwrights this month with a quote from Neil Simon. Though "The Odd Couple" is my favorite Simon play, "Barefoot in the Park" appears to be the most popular one. There is a great audio version of the play with Laura Linney (tv's "The Big C") from Los Angeles Theatre Works (LATW).

Here is the quote:

"If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor."

SIDEBAR ONE: Various sources have said that the following joke from stand-up comic Nick Helm was considered to be the funniest one at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland: "I need a password eight characters long, so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

SIDEBAR TWO: Though I am a human secularist, as the son of a late Muslim Turkish immigrant, I want to wish everyone in the greater Muslim community in the United States, Turkey and around the world a Happy Eid ul-Fitr, which falls on August 30th this year. Eid ul-Fitr, also known as Seker Bayrami (Sugar Holiday) in Turkey, marks the end of the 30-day Ramadan period. We imagine those who faithfully followed the fast in places like Austin, Tex., which was very hot this week, were tempted to go for the Dasani or Gatorade.

The alt weekly "C'ville Weekly" in Charlottesville, Va., has an interesting story about how Ramadan is being celebrated by Muslim inmates in Virginia prisons, which agreed after pressure from the Virginia ACLU to adjust dinning schedules for Ramadan for those following Islam.

And, irregardless of one's faith, Turkish food is always among the finest cuisine one can have. In the Philadelphia area, Divan Turkish Kitchen is considered to be among the best Turkish restaurants in the City of Brotherly Love.

The Last 10 Films I've Seen-- A Lot of Docs

Greetings from the Spring Center Laundromat in silver Spring, Maryland, where we are blogging from live tonight....actually, they closed about three hours ago as their operating hours are from 8:00 a.m.-11 p.m. daily, but there is really such a place. We're not actually even in Maryland, but we thought it would be quirky to mention them.

Most of the last few films I've seen have been quite good, with the exception of "Troll 2" (1990) which I saw tonight at the Shadowbox Cinema in Roanoke, Va., which is about four and half hours south of suburban Maryland, but hey---it would be worth the drive!

"Troll 2" is truly a god awful film, but we knew that going in. In fact, a 2009 documentary about that film called "Best Worst Movie," directed by Michael Stephenson, who is the kid in "Troll 2" (he was born in 1978, so he is either 32 or 33 now), is also on this list.

Arta Doboraghi, age 31, an actress who is originally from Kosovo, left quite an impression in her portrayal as an Albanian immigrant in the 2008 Belgian film "Lorna's Silence," which features one of the most surreal sex scenes (involving Doboraghi) I've seen on film in a while. In fact, it occurs after the troubled couple has just broken up?!

"I Need that Record!" is a timely documentary about how modern technology and big box stores (Wally's World) have destroyed unique places like record stores and comic book shops across America. I was just thinking about that when I saw that a great video in Carrboro, NC, (next to the famed Cat's Cradle music club) which may have actually carried every Ingmar Bergman film ever made has, as of this year, closed its doors.

"Beeswax," which was filmed on location in Austin, Tex., is yet another unique slice of life film from Andrew Bujalski, who is arguably the Orson Welles of 'mumblecore' indy films, which feature lots of talking but great, realistic dialogue. And, amazingly enough, he makes indy films which are not as depressing as Bergman's films (seriously, I think "Fanny and Alexander" was even more depressing than "Schindler's List;" even though it's a great film, I refuse to watch it- ever again!).

Here are the last ten films I've seen, and yes we should add that we got this idea from "Film Comment." I hope this doesn't result in a nasty email from Gavin Smith, the excellent editor of that magazine that I've subscribed to for nine years now:

1. "Troll 2" (1990, dir. Claudio Fragasso)

2. "Beeswax" (2009, dir. Andrew Bujalski)

3. "The Beaches of Agnes" (2008, dir. Agnes Varda. doc. France)

4. "Lorna's Silence" (2008, dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardene. Belgium)

5. "The Killer Inside Me" (2010, d. Michael Winterbottom.)

6. "35 Shots of Rum" (2008, d. Claire Denis, France).

7. "I Need That Record!" (2008, d. Brendan Toller. doc.)

8. "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" (2010, dirs. Rick Stern and Anne Sundberg. doc.)

9. "Best Worst Movie" (2009. dir. Michael Stephenson, doc.)

10. "Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Seuss," dir. Felix Moeller. doc. Germany)

Silly Photo to Fill Space- Jaaack-O-Lantern

For those of you who reside in a remote village in Azerbaijan, this image above is of Jack Nicholson who played Jack Torrence in the Stanley Kubrick film version of "The Shinning," based on the Stephen King novel of the same name.

King is to this day reportedly displeased with the Kubrick film. Interestingly enough, Kubrick would frequently call King when it was the middle of the night in Maine, where King still resides, and ask him absurd questions like: "Do you believe in God?"

"The Shinning" is currently showing (at least of tonight) at the famed Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Tex., which is about as close to us as a remote village in Azerbaijan (we are on the east coast).

According to the IMDB, King also professed a preference for actor Jon Voight, now known more for his radical transformation from post-Vietnam hippie to a right-wing Tea Party extremist than his still emmence on-screen talents, to play the title role instead of Jaaack Nicholson.

The title of the book apparently came about when King was listening to or thinking about the John Lennon song "Instant Karma" and the line: "We all shine on."