Viewed: DVD

Cowgrit wanted me to watch this with her, and in a deal that she’d watch Iron Man (her idea) with me this weekend, I agreed. I’m not a fan of musicals in general –- the only ones I’ve actually liked were Grease and Best Little Whorehouse in Texas -– and I fully expected to really not like Mamma Mia.

But I have to admit, this musical is very cute. I like some ABBA songs, and, although one or two of the singers in this movie are really not good singers (to be generous, and I won’t name names), the songs seem to fit the movie story very well. Cowgrit asked how the songs and play came about (which came first) because they meshed so well that it almost seemed the songs were specifically written for the play.

There are a couple of plot items that stood out to me. First, Donna (the mother) was a bit of a slut in her youth – she slept with three different men in a very short period of time (a week or two?) whom she never saw again afterwards, and she doesn’t know which one is the father of her daughter. Second, why did Sophie (the daughter) and Sky not go ahead and get married? There’s no reason why they can’t explore the world as husband and wife, and hell, they were standing in front of the priest after all the wedding preparation.

Overall, this movie musical is cute and enjoyable. Would I see it again, as I’m willing to watch Grease again anytime I stumble across it while surfing the TV channels? Probably not, unless maybe I happen to come across it during one of the particularly cute or moving ABBA numbers. The “Dancing Queen” song and dance is as cute as “Summer Nights” in Grease, and the “The Winner Takes It All” song was as moving as “I Will Always Love You” in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

There, I’ve managed to make references to every movie musical I’ve liked enough to remember anything about.

Bullgrit

From this recent raid in the junk of my dad’s attic, I brought home the box of Star Wars action figures, the Millennium Falcon, and my two of the Shogun Warriors. (Dragun and Mazinga are my two, Godzilla and Raydeen are my brother’s.) The Falcon and Warriors, I’m giving to my boys.

I had to clean them up before handing them over, though, as they were covered in a dirty dust from around 30 years of being stored open in an attic. I gave both boys a wet paper towel and let them clean up their respective Shogun Warriors.

When I first showed the boys their new toys, Calfgrit8 immediately jumped to picking which he wanted. Calfgrit4 had a sad face as he looked at the unpicked one, “I have to take the serious one,” he said with a pathetic frown.

Both Warriors have robotic faces, but Mazinga (the one CG8 initially picked) has a big metallic grin, and Dragun (the “serious” one) has a simple frown-like expression.

CG8 is always jumping first to claim a toy over CG4. This presumptuousness combined with CG4’s disappointed eyes made me say, “Wait, wait. I was going to give Mazinga to CG4 because he’s mostly blue (his favorite color), and Dragun to you, CG8, because he’s red (your favorite color).”

CG8 paused a moment, but he took the suggestion. CG4 burst into a grin as big as Mazinga’s and ran to grab up his new toy.

While the boys cleaned up their robots, I set about cleaning the Millennium Falcon. I tried just wiping it down with a wet paper towel, but good lord it was dirty. And all the nooks and crannies of the ship made wiping it only half effective. I eventually had to actually take it apart, removing all the screws and carefully removing the top.

I filled the bathtub with water and soap, and let the ship soak while we ate dinner. You can see in the picture how dirty it was compared to the white of the bathtub.

I did eventually get it mostly beige instead of dirty tan. I dried it off with a hairdryer, but I have to glue back some broken pieces — 30 years in a non-temperature-controlled attic made some of the smaller plastic pieces brittle.

Watching me wash the Falcon off like this prompted Calfgrit4 to want to wash the little spaceship brain from Mazinga’s head. He filled the bathroom sink with water and soap, and cleaned that little red spaceship to sparkling.

After dinner, the boys played with their new robots toys and seemed to be having a real ball. They’re very anxious to include the Falcon in their play, but they’ll have to wait till at least tonight for me to get it all back together.

* * *

This morning, Calfgrit4 came out of his bedroom carrying his new-old Shogun Warrior. It’s almost two-thirds his height. It stands on the floor next to his chair as he eats breakfast.

Bullgrit

In yesterday’s post, there was a picture of some KISS trading cards. Those weren’t the only band trading cards in the box — there were The Babies, Queen, and the Village People.

My brother and I both claim these cards belong to the other, but I honestly don’t remember these cards at all. I don’t remember either of us being even the slightest bit interested in the Village People. Although it would embarrass both of us for there to be any proof that these did in fact belong to one of us, really, we were around 12 and 8 years old in 1979 (the copyright date on these cards).

So I imagine whichever one of us these belonged to just thought the pictures of singing soldiers, cops, construction workers, Indians, and whatever the black leather dude is supposed to be were cool. I mean, it’s not like we had any idea about the background culture.

It’s kind of funny: we’ll both admit to being fans of long-haired idiots that wore makeup (Brogrit – Motley Crue), or pouting pretty boys that wore florescent blouses (me – Duran Duran), but we both get nervous at the thought of being pegged as a Village People fan. Even when our fandom days would have been our innocent and ignorant childhood days.

Bullgrit

My brother and I were in our hometown this weekend, and one of the things we got together to do was go through our dad’s attic to get rid of a bunch of junk. Our dad lives in a new house in a new neighborhood way out in the country with his [relatively] new wife. But he still owns and upkeeps his old house on the edge of town, though it is not lived in by anyone.

We found lots of old treasures in the boxes from the attic. I took pictures of the items (a mixture of mine and my brother’s) that most made me smile
— all this stuff is from the 70s and early 80s:

Bullgrit