"Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."

Harvey, 1950. Three Stars.

I've wanted to see this movie ever since hearing Weird Al's "Harvey The Wonder Hamster" when Alapalooza came out in 1993. I grew up with Weird Al's song-based hilarity (even though Al TV always managed to escape my youngster radar, I don't know how!!). But Alapalooza, along with the film Jurassic Park*, went hand-in-hand in creating my pre-teen, 5th-grade world, so as weird as it sounds, it was kind of a seminal part of my life. Explains a lot, eh? :D

Somehow, Harvey the Wonder Hamster got me hipped to this movie Harvey. I knew it wasn't hamster-related, but maybe the grown-ups in my life were like "Oh yeah, Harvey. He's an invisible 6-foot rabbit." Anyways, this Weird Al song had somehow led me to knowledge about this movie starring a guy who had an invisible giant rabbit friend. And I thought it sounded great, so I wanted to see it.

Last week I was flipping through the TV guide and I saw that it was on HBO. So I set up a DVR recording for it and watched it. It got four stars so, because of that and because I had heard about it for over half of my life, I thought this movie was gonna be killer. And, I liked it. I wasn't head-over-heels about it, but it was very well-done, and pretty enjoyable. I think it has a really nice and unique point-of-view, and maybe it was, like, super-duper uproarious back in it's day. But, I liked it and I'm really happy that I saw it. If you get a chance to see it, I recommend checking it out.

Everyone in this was great, especially Jimmy Stewart. Also I really liked the script lettering used in the beginning credits.

I didn't know this: it was based on Mary Chase's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and I was glad to see that she co-wrote the screen play. I'd love to see this on stage. This movie adaptation felt like a movie and was pretty open, rather than just feeling like something that was created for stage, so it'd be interesting to see how it's played out in its original state on stage.

I found out that Harvey was re-done for TV in 1972. It seems like the only real notable thing about it was that it was Madeline Kahn's TV debut (and third film). I love her!! Also Jimmy Stewart continued to play Elwood P. Dowd on stage (and in this '72 re-do). I guess if you're awesome at something, stick to it.

"Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it. "

*I was in a public school academic enrichment program in 5th grade, you Quincy kids will remember it as "E.L.C." That's right, I was a "labbie"!! (And to this day I still get shit from people like TIM about it, haha!) One day a week me and a few other kids in my class would take a bus to another school and meet up with other kids and learn rad stuff. Like how to use computers, paint watercolor landscapes, do word problems (they sucked but they were way less sucky than doing regular math problems), and do calligraphy... Basically a bunch of interesting and creative things that most public schools usually aren't able to offer. It also taught us responsibilities by giving us responsibilities around the classroom (but apparently didn't teach me how to use a thesaurus to not use the same word twice in a sentence, ha!). And we did a few big projects, like we learned how to write giant multi-paged reports! And I did mine on my young love: basketball! With a diorama of offensive and defensive positions! And I wrote letters to my favorite basketball-related peeps about basketball, and Jim Calhoun wrote back to me! And so did Red Auerbach, on official Celtics stationery! So cool! ANYWAYS, for one of our projects we were split in to groups and had to figure out how to solve the world over-population problem if it ever happened. The group with the best solution got to go see Jurassic Park. My group's underwater biodome KICKED ASS and we won!! So, not only was Jurassic Park a flippin' cool-ass movie, but I got to see it for free as a result of an academic achievement. And that's one of the reasons Jurassic Park means a lot to me. And also we got pizza after the movie. I love pizza! Double score!!!!

"Well, there was a lot of crying, so, I believe everybody had a good time." -OR- "She thought I was wonderful. She was the first woman I ever fooled."

Heaven Can Wait, 1943. Three and a Half Stars.

I found myself looking through the TV guide for movies, as I so often do, and came across this one: A playboy recollects his life to the gatekeeper of Hades. And it was from the 40's. Sounded interesting, so I set up a recording for it.

I don't really have much to say, except, it was pretty good! Well at least I enjoyed it! It wasn't as "naughty" as I expected, but that's fine: The story told is from the Victorian era, so there was a big importance in "preserving decency" and "the family honor" and all that. So I thought it was fitting that Van Cleve's "affairs" were only alluded to.

I don't think he deserved Martha though, but at least he wasn't a completely selfish person that he was before he met her...

I really liked "His Excellency" and the "waiting room" to Hell. I can't help being fascinated by the extravagant sets mostly found in this period of films.

Also, someone cross-stitched the credits at the beginning... Or someone painted them to look cross-stitched. Either way, a lot of talent and time went in to that!

This movie is based on the play Birthday by Leslie Bush-Fekete. I'd like to check it out some time. It's too bad this movie didn't keep the Birthday title; the story was strongly focused on the passage of Van Cleve's birthdays in order to mark the events of his life, so it makes much more sense than "Heaven Can Wait" (which was an entirely different play that inspired a movie in the 40's and it's remakes/re-imaginings in the 70's and 00's).