Brrr-rr A COLD TURKEY
Bad Day At Black Rock, I’ve used that phrase for years and didn’t actually know where it came from until the other day. I didn’t realize it was the title of a 1955 movie starring Spencer Tracey. Although not so much used now, the phrase which means the worst day ever, was quite popular. I guess it’s now relegated to the likes of me, women of a certain age. Of course if you live in Manhattan and use the phrase, people might think you are complaining about working at CBS – oh no that’s just “The Rock”, oh well…. Ah Hah! A correction from my friend, Gail – CBS is known as BLACK ROCK after all.
When I was in Florida last month visiting my daughter and the grandkids, I really got a taste of living in Gulf Stream; It is a very small section of Delray Beach in the historic section and I think there are about 800 families. The school, Gulf Stream Day School IS the heart beat of the town. It seems as if all the kids go there, dressed in their neat preppy uniforms in khaki, white and navy. The line of cars dropping off and picking up was pretty impressive. Then there’s The Ocean Club, where we went for a Friday night barbecue and it was deja vu all over again. I wrote about that in a previous post; see Sun and Sand, Sangria and Surfing plus Salmon, It’s Saturday-DAY 6. However the point of bringing that up is that by Friday I had observed just how small this little town was and remarked to my daughter that, “This place has all the makings of a Peyton Place“. I said this in front of her and about 4 of her friends. They just looked at me! Uh, what’s a Peyton Place? You’ve got to be kidding me! Forget the TV show, what about the movie? Forget about it, they were clueless and I’m getting really old!
COLD TURKEY: Did you think the phrase Cold Turkey could ever have had a meaning other than the rigors of drug withdrawal? Yes of course it did or it wouldn’t be in this post, lol. Turkeys loom large in American psyche and are the starring entrée at every Thanksgiving Day meal. The phrase talking cold turkey means talking no nonsense and getting done to business. In the early 20th century, the phrase evolved into talking turkey and also going cold turkey – just getting it done.
As I get older, the list of phrases and words lost to Generation X and Y just gets longer and longer. But their day will come soon enough. I’ve already noticed that what I thought was GREAT, they think is AWESOME and the Millennials think it’s SICK!
Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
Pbenjay's Blog 
Is Religion the Root of All Evil? – PRISONERS
Posted in From My Point of View - Personal commentary on Movies and Books, tagged Catholic, Christian, Crusade, God, Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jihad, Judaism, maze, movie review, Muslim, red whistle, turkey on September 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Well, think about it; Many people believe this and they’re not all atheists! People have been persecuted for their religious beliefs dating back to way, way back and how far back might depend somewhat on your own beliefs. What I mean by that is if you’ve been raised as a Catholic (and probably all Christian religions) then you’ve heard or read some or all of the following stories: Moses led his people out of Egypt where they had been enslaved – this one is part of the Jewish religion too. We’ve heard that Christians were thrown to the lions, that they were forced to become gladiators and were laborers for the Romans.
Popes organized the Crusades; Catholic Europe went to war against the Muslims. Sound familiar? Christians call it a Crusade and Muslims call it Jihad. The pilgrims fled to America to escape the Anglican church and Hitler tried to eliminate the entire European Jewish population. Jim Jones convinced hundreds of people to kill themselves, all in the name of religion. The Taliban imposes harsh laws and restrictive behavior, again in the name of their religion. In theory, Turkey recognizes the civil, cultural and political rights of non-Muslim minorities. In practice, the government only recognizes Greek, Armenian and Jewish minorities and does not grant them all the civil liberties allowed in the Treaty of Lausanne.
And that brings us to PRISONERS , a movie I saw the other night. Two hours and twenty minutes long and pretty intense! It was a tale of twisted religious beliefs as well as a story about kidnapped kids. From the opening scene, I was struck by the religious overtones. I mean who really recites The Our Father before they shoot (to kill) a deer. As scenes unfolded, I saw crosses on the walls and one hanging around Hugh Jackman‘s neck. I heard religious talk shows on the car radio, and watched the lead character kneel and pray as he tortured his victim. In one of the final scenes you see a large poster of angels.
It didn’t stop there; On the hunt for registered sex-offenders in the town, you just knew one of them was going to be a priest. You were not wrong! And there’s more; this priest is not just a sex-offender, he is a drunk and a killer! And who did he take out? Why a twisted, distorted religious crazy who actually kidnapped and killed kids because….are you ready for this philosophy? Because he “was waging a war against God and losing their children makes parents crazy” – this may be a bit paraphrased because I couldn’t quite remember it and all my research did not turn up this very poignant-twice-stated reason. Apparently he and his wife lost their child to cancer and were very angry at God. So once again we have heinous crimes being committed, heavy with religious overtones.
Hugh Jackman is a very angry, vengeful soul and this is the man who prays before he shoots. Jake Gyllenhaal seems unmoved and uninterested in anything other than finding Anna and Joy. He is darkly intense, his hooded eyes seek out everything because as he says, “Everything matters”.
It’s a suspense thriller with maybe too much foreshadowing; you could predict a lot of what was going to happen even without the blatant and obvious telltale signs. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go see it, this commentary really isn’t that much of a spoiler.
Photo from Amazon.com
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