Queue Tips: Eden is Cheese

When I was growing up in the Philippines, Eden was cheese.  Not sure why they named it that.  I remember picking at it sometimes.  You weren't supposed to eat it without bread.  And you kind of saved it for special occasions.  It probably was not cheap.  Do they still make it?

In any case, I saw "East of Eden" recently.  It stars James Dean.  I don't think I've seen much of his films.  A lot of his acting in here involves hugging trees and playing with their leaves and groping walls for some reason.  And then he runs with his arms flailing about.  And being overly dramatic like a hormonal teenager even though he looked middle aged at this point.

This film was made in 1955, and I guess that's just how those movies were.  But I just couldn't get into the melodrama.  I prefer a little more subtlety, but I guess that's just how acting was back then.  At the same time, I also can't stand some of the acting nowadays.  

Apparently, east of Eden is where Cain went to live after he killed his brother Abel in the Bible.  This movie does have two brothers having a rivalry, but one doesn't kill the other.  Unless I missed it somehow.    Instead it involves a girl.  One has a girlfriend and the other I guess likes her, too.  I have two brothers, and I can't picture myself liking any of their girlfriends.

And then apparently they don't know who their mother is or something.  But then James Dean finds out who she is.  And he follows her around and for some reason instead of talking to her, he throws stones at her house.  And then later on when they actually finally meet, it's like they just basically acknowledge each other as mother and son.  Like after making a big whole deal about it, suddenly it's just like nothing.  Like taken for granted.

Kinda reminds me of stuff I went through as a kid.  There was a lot of drama with my mom and dad, and they eventually divorced around the time I was in college.  And drama with the in-laws.  My mom used to trade letters with my aunt.  That was probably actually the main reason why she kept picking up my grandma from her house.  So that she could drop off her letter when she got there.  And then when she dropped off my grandma back there, she would come back with a letter from my aunt in response.  At one time I got a glimpse of it but either didn't get a chance to fully read it or just didn't want to.  My mom kept it somewhere else after, and I never found it again.  Or never looked for it.

Anyways, many years later, with me already an adult, everybody kinds of makes up with each other.  And everything is nice nice.  Meanwhile, I was in the middle of all this as a child, and even now no one has acknowledged that.  And I never got close with my aunt or my uncle or my cousin after, and with me spending all those lonely days and nights in a tiny apartment and all those boring summers with nowhere to go and nothing do.  I mean, it would have been nice to be around some family.  But let's just forget all that now that we are all cool with each other again.

Queue Tips: The Lonely Dead

When I was working at the baseball network a few years ago, there was this play where someone from right field made a throw or something and they got somebody out at the plate.  So the producers wrote in their copy something like, "They got him dead to rights!"  And they had this lady hosting the highlights show, and she just would not say the line.  Instead she would say something like, "Dead at home plate" or something like that.  And the producers kept asking her to do the line again and again, every time she wouldn't say it.  I feel like she just did not get the expression.  They were frustrated with her, but they just let it go.  She never did say it correctly.  We all just wanted to go home in the end.  I keep thinking of that when I hear the word "dead".

A few years ago, I started watching "Dead To Me".  I don't remember why I checked it out.  I don't think I even knew Christina Applegate was in it.  I think it was a pleasant surprise when I saw her.  And then that girl from "Freaks and Geeks", too, who was also in some episodes of "Mad Men".

It was very interesting at first.  I really liked the premise.  It was about a widow dealing with the death of her husband, and she kind of had this attitude about grieving, like it was beyond her.  And then she meets this woman who befriends her.  She has lost somebody also, and they bond and overcome their loneliness together.  And then it turns out the protagonist had two kids.  As a father, it was interesting to me to see what kind of a hole his death would have left on that family.  The show started out great.

And then it kind of went downhill from there.  Spoiler alert.  There turned out to be a good twist right away, as the woman friend turned out to be the killer of the husband.  So then you're kinda hooked into wondering how they could possibly survive the friendship once the truth comes out.  And then the truth comes out and it just kind of becomes ridiculous at that point.  That's sort of what I don't like about watching a series, because then you are now invested and want to know how it turns out.

So how they resolved it is they then made the main character kill the friend's husband also.  So now they're even.  And it just kinda gets sillier from there.  They end up befriending the detectives working on the case, and they end up getting away with it because of that.  And it turns out the friend's husband had a twin brother.  Dun dun dun!  And the friend also helps to bury her husband.  It just turned out to be a soap opera at that point.

Somewhere along the line, they just forgot about the original dead guy.  Who he was to their kids and to the main character was just ignored.  The focus on the grieving disappeared, and it was just about how the living moved on with their lives and got away with their crimes.  Of course, they made you feel bad about the dead so that you kind of root for these women.  The performances were great though.  Christina and the "Freaks and Geeks" girl were amazing.  And Christina's mom from "Married... With Children" also appeared in some episodes, and she was good, too.  That was the redeeming factor.  But the writing overall was not so good.