JENNIE!! Here is your BIRTHDAY SONG, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by the identical Scottish twins "The Proclaimers" off the soundtrack from the quirky romantic comedy classic "Benny & Joon" (1993), starring your beloved favorite actor, Johnny Depp, opposite Mary Staurt Masterson:
"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers
My BIRTHDAY WISH for you is that a Johnny Depp clone, with "a look of Buster Keaton" wearing a top hat & suspenders and swinging carefreely OUTSIDE your 8th story WINDOWto win your attention, will "proclaim":
"I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more just to be the man who walked 1000 miles to fall down at your door!"
I ♥ SHARING MY BIRTHDAY WITH YOU, DEAREST ONE!!!!
In this week of our birth...here is the touching story of Patricia & Joan Miller, identical twin sisters who left this world together at the age of 73 -- as you said, "it's like The Notebook," but with twins!"
And here we are...a photo memory for our birthday...
BIRTHDAY TWINS!!
Because...
"I thought I understood it -- that I could grasp it, but I didn't... Not really. Only the Smudgeness of it. The pink-slippered, all-containered, semi-precious Eagerness of it...I didn't realize it would sometimes be more than whole...that the wholeness was a rather luxurious idea.
Because it's the Halves that Halve you in Half.
Didn't know, don't know about the in-between bits -- The gory bits of you & the gory bits of me..."
--Felicity Jones in Like Crazy (2011) -- your favorite film of the yearwhich we received during our birthday week on March 6th! Anna & Jacob in the film are like twin souls that can't be apart... LIKE CRAZY TRAILER 1:
Because, as Anna tells Jacob...
"The things we have with each other are things that I don't have with any other person -- with any other human being apart from you."
Two weeks ago today, I went with Sharon Masturzo to see the film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Beautifully directed by Stephen Daldry, and based on the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer, the film intimately follows the unique perspective of Oskar Schell, a nine-year-old boy with manifestations of Asperger's Syndrome who struggles to make sense of the death of his father during the World Trade Center attacks on September 11th, 2001. A year after that "worst day," as Oskar calls it, he finds a mysterious key in his dad's closet and obsessively plans an expedition to find its purpose, which he believes will "stretch out his 8 minutes with his father." Armed only with a backback of bare essentials, a tamburine to keep him calm, and, most importantly, a newspaper clipping on which his father circled the phrase "To Not Stop Looking," accompanied by the vivid memory of his father's favorite adage, "If things were easy to find, they wouldn't be worth finding," Oskar battles his hypersensitive fears of the outside world (made even more acute in the wake of the attacks) and the strangers he meets in all five boroughs of New York City to search for the lock that, by his reasonings, his father's key must fit.
I knew I would love the film from the trailers, especially in light of the fact that Stephen Daldry directed another of my all-time favorite films, Billy Elliot, about an extraordinary boy who, like Oskar, struggles with the loss of a parent at a young age. Interestingly, Billy Elliot was released into theaters a year before September 11th, and the week I was released from an extensive hospitalization which left me frail and depressed. I will never forget how the opening sequence of Billy leaping gracefully with ballet moves "like electricity" to his favorite record lifted my spirits. This opening is skillfully echoed by Stephen Daldry in the beginning shots for Extremely Loud, although in a much more somber manner.
Trailer 1: "My Dad said, "Sometimes we have to face our fears."
Trailer 2: "If things were easy to find, they wouldn't be worth finding."
It must not have been easy for Stephen Daldry to find Thomas Horn, the 13-year-old first-time actor/newcomer who, despite his lack of acting training or experience, delivers an innately moving and emotionally complex performance as 9-year-old Oskar. The energetic and agile spirit of movement that Thomas Horn embodies as a small boy who could fit into tiny spaces and run through New York City streets brought back the spirit of dance that was, of course, a part of Billy Elliot. A recent "For Your Consideration" online article praises young Thomas, saying in part:
“Thomas Horn, who gives perhaps the most extraordinary performance by a child in a leading role in recent cinematic memory (above Anna Paquin who won the Oscar for her supporting role in “The Piano,” and on a par with Keisha-Castle Hughes who was nominated for her newcomer leading role in “Whale Rider”), particularly considering the fact that he had no previous acting training and yet delivers an incredibly moving and frenetic 8 minute monologue at a pivotal moment in the film (to adopt Oskar’s obsessive phrase, “I know because I’ve counted!”), was incomprehensibly not recognized by the Academy. If only our 8 minutes with Thomas (like Oskar’s 8 minutes with his Dad) were stretched out a little longer…”
It is during this fast-paced 8 minute monologue that Thomas, fully embodying Oskar in a tormented outpouring to "The Renter" (played Max Von Syndow in an Oscar-nominated supporting role), recites his father's favorite adage.
Clip 1 -- Oskar to "The Renter": "How come you don't speak?"
Oskar's father is played by Tom Hanks, whose encouraging rapport with young Thomas Horn in each scene they share as father and son is "incredibly close," in tune, adoring, and precious.
Clip 2 -- Oskar to His Dad: "Was there really a 6th Borough?"
Indeed, Thomas's work in the film was further recognized this week when he won the Critic's Choice Award for Best Young Actor/Actress against other notable teenagers who have been in front of film cameras since before they could talk. His receipt of the award is well-deserved, though, because it is his performance -- most notably the expressiveness of his coin-size blue eyes and the depth of emotion he channels through them -- that drives every scene of the exceptional film.
Critic's Choice -- Best Young Actor/Actress: Thomas Horn
Another article published on the Canadian film website Tribute.ca in December 2011 likewise praises Thomas's performance as worthy of an Oscar nomination:
Remarkably, Thomas Horn was discovered after appearing on an episode of "Kid's Jeopardy" by producer Scott Rudin, who happened to be watching that particular evening in 2010 when it aired. Thomas, who is by all accounts, just as exceptionally intelligent and hypercurious as his character in Extremely Loud, won the game by an impressive margin over his equally capable competitors, gaining the attention of Mr. Rudin, and subsequently Mr. Daldry who called him in for a grueling 5-day audition.
Finding Thomas Horn: Jeopardy Kids Week 2010
Thomas Horn Interview 1: "It's not the typical casting procedure..."
Thomas Horn Interview 2: "Oskar's Dad is 95% of his world..."
Thomas Horn Interview 3: On Finding the True Purpose of Oskar's Key...
Thomas Horn at the Berlin Press Conference PART 1
Thomas Horn at the Berlin Press Conference PART 2
Aiding Thomas's portrayal of the grief-striken Oskar is the film's original score composed by Alexandre Desplat. My favorite track of the score is #4 called "The Very Best Plan" which plays over a poignant scene when Oskar is preparing to embark on the expedition for his father's key. I love the at once fragile and urgent piano melody that comes towards the end of that track which captures both Oskar's fear and determined resolve to "Not Stop Looking."
"The Very Best Plan" Track #4 by Alexandre Desplat
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which is nominated for a Best Picture Oscar this year, particularly touched me because Oskar's personal journey (and how Thomas expresses this journey, while portraying the boy's hypersensitive phobias) captures so many familiar aspects of losing one's father at a young age. Like Oskar, I was nearly 9 when my father died, and still hold on to many indelible memories of how "incredibly close" we were. Beyond that, it captures the universal experience of deeply grieving over and trying to make sense of losing a loved one who -- in Oskar's case -- is senselessly taken too soon and, like the phantom "6th Borough" and the collapsed and crumbled Twin Towers, can never be recovered or replaced.
What Oskar ends up finding, in the end, is in his father's words, his "own excellence (worth)," as the enduring human legacy his father left behind... (or in another words, as Tom Hanks exclaims to young Thomas, "You ROCK!")
As the original song "Everything Must Find Its Place" by Sleeperstar reinforces:
Music Video: "Everything Must Find Its Place" by Sleeperstar
