We Are NOT The Millers
Without Prejudice
Watched the review on " We're The Millers" tonight on " At The Movies " with the very excellent Margaret Pomerantz and David Stratton. I love them both, they know their craft and you can tell they drink up a great movie. Apparently, "We're the Millers " is not one of them.
Roman Polanski's " Knife In The Water " , is, as that was their classic movie for the week, and when you see it through their eyes, it is , and you can see the difference. The cool jazz music, the beautiful imagery, so " out of the box " for a first time Director like Roman. And he won the first Oscar of a Polish person, the first time Poland had won an award for cinema, ever.
I'm so very glad Margaret and David are back after a break. Their replacements were ok, but if I had to listen to Judith Lucy's nasal twang one more time I would have eviscerated myself with a knife out of the water. And stuck a fork up my nose. I am sure she is a lovely person but the voice reminds me of the pommy lady and man that do a lot of home shopping commercials. They scream not talk and the two voices are reminiscent of buzz saws going off in your ear. I don't even know the name of what product they advertise. I don't care.
It sounds like I watch a lot of telly, and I do,I admit it. I love to be entertained and find it feeds my ideas, imagination and knowledge. It also makes good background noise if I am writing.
Anyway back to " We're the Millers " which gained a generous 2 from David and another from Margaret. The premise being that a young guy, a weed smoker, is robbed of cash and weed owned by a big time drug dealer and has to take on a courier role to pay back the big dealer. To do this he has to travel across the border, and chooses to invent a family to be able to avoid suspicion.even Jennifer Aniston, stripping, can't save the movie.
Margaret commented she is a little tired of a stoner movie of a poor hapless druggie losing the stash.it all turns out O.K., no one dies or gets beaten to death.
Here's what really happens.
In the bad old days, about 18 years ago, one of my girls was with her childhood sweetheart, S, the wonder druggie. She was ever hopeful of him getting off the "gear" which is not about to happen in his lifetime but at that time, she was a rebel, a mother to his kids and a misguided optimist. Or just plain blind, deaf and dumb, in love and hoped she could fix him.
He went out one day with a pound of dope, given to him by a dealer called Lenny. S. has never been a clever criminal by any stretch of the imagination, mainly as he keeps getting caught, goes to Port Phillip, serves time, writes lots of bullshit letters, promises to get clean, gets out and does the same thing again. We call him the revolving door.
My daughter has other names for him these days, but I realise my Grand Kids read my stories so I will keep it polite. As soon as he hit the streets of Dandenong, " Off his guts " ( Refer to previous sentence re calling names etc ) he was arrested. Dope confiscated by the "Jacks ". My daughter had warned him this would happen as he had six cans of Jim Beam prior to the short lived selling spree.
He was released on bail and then the fun really started. Lenny wasn't happy that the pound was gone and you owe even if the dope has been confiscated. Too bad, how sad. So S knew that Lenny was coming to get him and violence would be involved.
My daughter had left him, ringing me up one day, begging to come and stay with the 4 little boys. So I took her in and that was pretty hair raising for three months until we were able to get her a house. I
used to come home from work and say,
" Ok, what's broken today ? "
The air conditioner had a comb inserted in it. The video player a banana. One boy at 4, stuck a fork in the power point and booted himself across the room. My windshield broken by another of them trying to pull the rear view mirror off. Oh, the joy. But she needed the help and I wanted her away from S. no matter what the cost.
He, S, stayed in the old house and waited, he had nowhere else to go. He knew they were coming for him. The house, his Mothers old house was a rat tip. Broken windows, everything a mess, a typical junkies house. The Mother had remarried and had moved out long before.
And one night two men came. One was Lenny and the other unknown. Both with baseball bats. S.had taken out the light bulbs and had a couple of homemade booby traps. They copped him a few times before he ended up crashing through a closed window and running for his life to a neighbours. We heard through the grapevine he was in hospital, another daughter went to see him and said he was unrecognisable.
He was.
He looked like The Elephant Man, not one inch of his face was not bruised, swollen, split. I would have never recognised him if I didn't know it was S. His head was twice the normal size, it was eerie and he could only whisper through swollen lips, he looked like a blow fish.
But he was alive, at least. And he took off for Adelaide, with my daughter and the boys. He was locked up over there and then went on the run for a long time. My daughter drove back in the car he had tried to get off her. Her journey was heart stopping but she made it, in the car she called ThE Green Pickle ( another one of my stories ) which conked out just around the corner of my house.
She moved into her own house shortly after, and never ever looked back. He was not heard of for ages until Albury, (Another story ) and she then took out an A V O on him. It took them ten years to serve it on him. We worked on getting her a bigger place, which she was able to get because of the A.V.O. And she needed to be safe.
She's been in her new house eight years now, her and her boys, and we haven't heard where he is lately, rumours abound, but it will be off his face somewhere or good old Port Phillip again. Still laughing, still smiling, still writing letters that are no longer read, and telling all that will listen, next time he's going straight. They met at 15 and 13, she being the older. He's now 40.
Her boys all turned out O.K. Smart, polite, good at school. She met someone else and he adores her. They have two boys. And S. refuses to believe that it's over or that he did all those things. And until he realises that his life is his fault and not someone else's that revolving door is just going to keep going around and around and around. X
Watched the review on " We're The Millers" tonight on " At The Movies " with the very excellent Margaret Pomerantz and David Stratton. I love them both, they know their craft and you can tell they drink up a great movie. Apparently, "We're the Millers " is not one of them.
Roman Polanski's " Knife In The Water " , is, as that was their classic movie for the week, and when you see it through their eyes, it is , and you can see the difference. The cool jazz music, the beautiful imagery, so " out of the box " for a first time Director like Roman. And he won the first Oscar of a Polish person, the first time Poland had won an award for cinema, ever.
I'm so very glad Margaret and David are back after a break. Their replacements were ok, but if I had to listen to Judith Lucy's nasal twang one more time I would have eviscerated myself with a knife out of the water. And stuck a fork up my nose. I am sure she is a lovely person but the voice reminds me of the pommy lady and man that do a lot of home shopping commercials. They scream not talk and the two voices are reminiscent of buzz saws going off in your ear. I don't even know the name of what product they advertise. I don't care.
It sounds like I watch a lot of telly, and I do,I admit it. I love to be entertained and find it feeds my ideas, imagination and knowledge. It also makes good background noise if I am writing.
Anyway back to " We're the Millers " which gained a generous 2 from David and another from Margaret. The premise being that a young guy, a weed smoker, is robbed of cash and weed owned by a big time drug dealer and has to take on a courier role to pay back the big dealer. To do this he has to travel across the border, and chooses to invent a family to be able to avoid suspicion.even Jennifer Aniston, stripping, can't save the movie.
Margaret commented she is a little tired of a stoner movie of a poor hapless druggie losing the stash.it all turns out O.K., no one dies or gets beaten to death.
Here's what really happens.
In the bad old days, about 18 years ago, one of my girls was with her childhood sweetheart, S, the wonder druggie. She was ever hopeful of him getting off the "gear" which is not about to happen in his lifetime but at that time, she was a rebel, a mother to his kids and a misguided optimist. Or just plain blind, deaf and dumb, in love and hoped she could fix him.
He went out one day with a pound of dope, given to him by a dealer called Lenny. S. has never been a clever criminal by any stretch of the imagination, mainly as he keeps getting caught, goes to Port Phillip, serves time, writes lots of bullshit letters, promises to get clean, gets out and does the same thing again. We call him the revolving door.
My daughter has other names for him these days, but I realise my Grand Kids read my stories so I will keep it polite. As soon as he hit the streets of Dandenong, " Off his guts " ( Refer to previous sentence re calling names etc ) he was arrested. Dope confiscated by the "Jacks ". My daughter had warned him this would happen as he had six cans of Jim Beam prior to the short lived selling spree.
He was released on bail and then the fun really started. Lenny wasn't happy that the pound was gone and you owe even if the dope has been confiscated. Too bad, how sad. So S knew that Lenny was coming to get him and violence would be involved.
My daughter had left him, ringing me up one day, begging to come and stay with the 4 little boys. So I took her in and that was pretty hair raising for three months until we were able to get her a house. I
used to come home from work and say,
" Ok, what's broken today ? "
The air conditioner had a comb inserted in it. The video player a banana. One boy at 4, stuck a fork in the power point and booted himself across the room. My windshield broken by another of them trying to pull the rear view mirror off. Oh, the joy. But she needed the help and I wanted her away from S. no matter what the cost.
He, S, stayed in the old house and waited, he had nowhere else to go. He knew they were coming for him. The house, his Mothers old house was a rat tip. Broken windows, everything a mess, a typical junkies house. The Mother had remarried and had moved out long before.
And one night two men came. One was Lenny and the other unknown. Both with baseball bats. S.had taken out the light bulbs and had a couple of homemade booby traps. They copped him a few times before he ended up crashing through a closed window and running for his life to a neighbours. We heard through the grapevine he was in hospital, another daughter went to see him and said he was unrecognisable.
He was.
He looked like The Elephant Man, not one inch of his face was not bruised, swollen, split. I would have never recognised him if I didn't know it was S. His head was twice the normal size, it was eerie and he could only whisper through swollen lips, he looked like a blow fish.
But he was alive, at least. And he took off for Adelaide, with my daughter and the boys. He was locked up over there and then went on the run for a long time. My daughter drove back in the car he had tried to get off her. Her journey was heart stopping but she made it, in the car she called ThE Green Pickle ( another one of my stories ) which conked out just around the corner of my house.
She moved into her own house shortly after, and never ever looked back. He was not heard of for ages until Albury, (Another story ) and she then took out an A V O on him. It took them ten years to serve it on him. We worked on getting her a bigger place, which she was able to get because of the A.V.O. And she needed to be safe.
She's been in her new house eight years now, her and her boys, and we haven't heard where he is lately, rumours abound, but it will be off his face somewhere or good old Port Phillip again. Still laughing, still smiling, still writing letters that are no longer read, and telling all that will listen, next time he's going straight. They met at 15 and 13, she being the older. He's now 40.
Her boys all turned out O.K. Smart, polite, good at school. She met someone else and he adores her. They have two boys. And S. refuses to believe that it's over or that he did all those things. And until he realises that his life is his fault and not someone else's that revolving door is just going to keep going around and around and around. X
