So, the fog days of summer have arrived. Like many others, you might be feeling lazy, cheap, bored, and uninspired. Heck, do you even want to leave the house? You haven’t brushed your hair for three days and Oprah is coming on soon. Still, you know your mother is right when she’s yelling at you to get out of the house. Don’t know where to go? Why not combine your love of movies and free air conditioning at your local branch of the Peninsula Library System? Though they don’t hand out free popcorn, the price is good enough to make up for that.
Movie costs vary from library to library. For example, the South San Francisco library on West Orange Avenue charges $1 per DVD rental, but San Carlos library employees will look at you strangely if you wave money at them in the check-out line. If you take advantage of the place hold option (having materials from other libraries sent to your local branch), add $0.50 per title. More often than not, “rentals” are free and the selection is pretty decent.
And while we’re on the topic of staying indoors, this week’s films inspired me to jot down a quick guide: “How to Not be a Recluse In Three Easy Steps!” Memorize it now; remember it before you go senile and think having 20 cats is a good idea.
Place: South San Francisco Library, 840 West Orange Ave.
Movies: 1
Cost: $1
Days per film: 7
Place: San Carlos Library, 610 Elm St.
Movies: 2
Cost: FREE!
Days per film: from 7days to 3 weeks
Total cost: $1
1) two people + one big, lonely house = trouble
If “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” could show us only one thing, it would be that one doesn’t need to live alone to be isolated from the rest of the world…or reality. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford go toe-to-toe in this tale of sibling rivalry gone deadly. The story follows “Baby” Jane Hudson (Davis), a child vaudeville star-turned-washed-up-alcoholic, and her disabled ex-movie-star sister, Blanche (Crawford). Together, they live in a sizeable mansion getting occasional visits from the maid. Other than that, no one comes in or out. There are bars on all windows and a thick gate on the door. The only way out is through the telephone. Think a house-shaped cage in which jealousy and hatred has imprisoned the two sisters. It’s a creepy concept, but the acting is superb, especially on the part of Davis, who plays the deranged Baby Jane with an unhinged glee. Who wins the title of Queen Bee? Watch the movie and see! Fun: Interested in campy thrillers featuring Crawford, Davis, and other old actresses you wouldn’t trust with an axe? Check out this essay from The Terror Trap
2) Put down the hooch and slowly back away from the bottle.
Charlie Chaplin is known for his 1920s silent films, and therein, his Little Tramp character. By the time he made “Limelight” in 1952, the Little Tramp was nowhere to be found. In his place, The Great Calvero, a once-famous vaudeville-comedian-turned-lonely-alcoholic. One night he stumbles home to his tenement building drunk (again), only to find a neighboring young lady, Terry (Claire Bloom), trying to commit suicide. After he saves her, he learns of her past as a dancer, and together they become determined to make it back onto the stage. Too bad Calvero can’t seem to put down the booze. “Limelight” just goes on to prove that alcohol can isolate you, even if you are surrounded by friends and lovers. Perk: “Limelight” features the only scene Chaplin and silent movie giant Buster Keaton ever did together. It’s funny, too!
3) Do not feed the raccoons in your attic.
Perhaps the most disturbing film of the bunch is “Grey Gardens.” Featuring “Little” and “Big” Edie Bouvier Beale, the cousins of Jackie O., this documentary gives us a slice of the true recluse lifestyle. Living in a beachside East Hampton mansion called Grey Gardens, the Maysles brothers show us how time and life has caught up with the mother and daughter team since their house was nearly condemned. Well, they caught up quickly. There are gaping holes in the walls, raccoons and other wildlife live in the attic, an indeterminate number of cats (at least one of which is named Whiskers), and Little Edie doesn’t trust the errand boy/friend of Big Edie. That’s not what makes the story so sad, surprisingly. Big Edie, a one-time-singer-turned-alcoholic (I’m sensing a trend here), is practically bedridden, and Little Edie gave up a burgeoning stage career to care for her mother. They bicker, lament the “path not taken,” and sing an awful lot. Even Little Edie’s hyperbolic quotes ring oddly true for the situation at hand (e.g. “If you can’t get a man to propose to you, you might as well be dead.”) Excuse us while we go jump off a cliff. Trivia: Singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright wrote a song by the same name about this movie.
Stick to this guide, and hopefully you won’t start thinking the mail man is trying to kill you…or your pet cat, Whisky.
