I appreciate the classic movies and my husband is an avid watcher of Turner Classic Movies. But when I am home and unencumbered, my eyes no longer able to focus on the printed page and I choose to relax alone at night, I have my go-to favorites that I watch over and over. I admit it; I love a good romance, even better if it is a costume drama.

My all-time favorite movie (as noted by the Featured photo) is Shakespeare in Love (1998). I know…it beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Movie of the year and my husband will never let me live that one down. You must understand, I think Romeo and Juliet is the finest play ever written. I always wanted to play Juliet and was hughly disappointed when I realized I was too old. So seeing the supposed origin story of the play, with witty intermingling of other quotes from Shakespeare interspersed was just heaven. It became migraine therapy for me. When I had taken all the medication I could that day, I would run off to see this again; it played a mile from my house. I saw it 15 times in the theater; yes a record for me. I still love it.

I saw this movie the night after Thanksgiving, 1992, in a tiny theater in Hamilton, NY while Dan’s parents babysat. It struck me like a bolt of lightening. I had to see it over and over again. It took me years to understand why it had the impact on me that it did (it had to do with loss and my father, whose birthday was November 23; he had only been dead a few years then). I became obsessed with Daniel Day-Lewis, as I recounted in My Love Affair With Daniel Day-Lewis. (Seeing DD-L in My Left Foot years earlier did not have the same affect). I find it holds up well and I still enjoy it.

I know many prefer the Masterpiece Theater version with Colin Firth. I love this one and find it satisfying to watch it over and over again. Keira Knightly was a relative new-comer and very good in this.

One you’ve never heard of, directed by a Brandeis friend (Marshall Herskowitz). It did no box office, but I saw it on Boston’s opening night and fell in love. It takes place during the time of the courtesans in Venice with lush costumes and scenery, plenty of sexy romance, a strong female lead. Jacqueline Bisset plays the mother. I saw her at the Nantucket Film Festival a few years ago and told her this was a favorite (just as I’ve told Marshall, who is a classmate of my husband’s). Both remarked that the film has a cult following. Guilty as charged.

Love the music (Solomon Burke’s “Cry To Me” makes me melt), the dancing and the romance. Not much more to say except, “No one puts Baby in a corner”.

I love anything with Audrey Hepburn but particularly enjoy Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Two for the Road, and a small gem with Peter O’Toole called How to Steal a Million; light as a feather, it’s an art heist in Paris with some romantic entanglements and great Givenchy clothing.

West Side Story and To Kill a Mockingbird are timeless. I can’t believe Spielberg is remaking WSS! Sacrilege!

At Christmas time, I must watch Miracle on 34th Street, White Christmas, and It’s a Wonderful Life. I have them recorded on my bedroom DVR, safely stowed away for all time.

Neither avant-garde nor New Wave, though we do see try to see all the Oscar-nominated films and enjoy foreign and indies. We see a lot of movies each year, but those listed above are the films I watch over and over. They do not disappoint.

There are a few privileges of getting old. Maybe gray hair is one of them.
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Only My Hairdresser Knows for Sure

Oops,  now everybody knows for sure!

Retroflash / 6 Words

– Dana Susan Lehrman

“Do you think my hair is falling out?” my sister asked. After going through a round of chemotherapy for lung cancer, hair loss would not be unexpected. She raked her fingers through her hair as she asked, and we both noticed  the silver strands she now held in her hand. After a moment, I asked if I should book her a haircut with Noah, our mutual hairdresser.  She had followed me when I started going to Noah for my haircuts, and we both liked his gentle scalp massages, his skill with the scissors, and his ability to engage us in lively conversation while he snipped away. Noah, I knew, would do a good job–and she definitely needed a pick-me-up, especially in light of this latest indignity. We both wanted to avoid the gradual loss of her hair, dragging out the inevitable. So I made the appointment.

It so happened that my daughter had flown in from New York to offer additional support and encouragement to her dear aunt. All three of us drove over to the salon. My daughter and I stood by and kibbitzed as my sister’s already thinning hair fell in sparse bits and clumps to the floor.

Noah gave her a short, kind of spiky do, which suited her already thin– and now even thinner– face. I asked them to pose for a picture.

Then the three of us girls went to the Berkeley Rose garden to sit in the sun and enjoy each other’s company. After a short while, my sister said she was tired, so we took her back home.

This was in February, 2015.

My sister died in May, almost a week after this picture was taken, holding the hand of my grandson Sam. I miss her every day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Natalie Sue (Susie) Elkind

4/9/49-5/22/15