Tiger on Broadway

My second cousin, Rajiv Joseph -- I'm sure we wouldn't know each other if we were trapped in an elevator together -- wrote "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo", Robin Williams' Broadway debut.  I'm not sure if it's still in previews or if it's had its official opening yet.  It sounds like it's attracting enough audience to be successful, based on what I saw in the NY Times.  Here's one glowing review, and another, well, not so much:  Zap2It couldn't wait for it to end, but the LA Times thinks it's brilliant.

Cary Grant Project

Today's Cary Grant movie, "The Amazing Adventure", like many from the 1930s, has him playing an Englishman -- although in this one he sounds like regular, old Cary Grant, not Cary Grant with an English accent. I can't say I recognize any of the co-stars. He's a bored wealthy dude who makes one of those crazy bets that rich people make in movies: if he can live for a year without relying on his wealth or connections, a doctor who snubbed him will shake his hand and apologize. And if he can't make it, he'll donate 50 grand to the doctor's clinic. I suspect he's going to learn about what's really important in life.

1. "North By Northwest", 1959, also starring Eva Marie Saint and James Mason
2. "Bringing Up Baby", 1938, also starring Katharine Hepburn
3. "Charade", 1963, also starring Audrey Hepburn
4. "The Philadelphia Story", 1940, also starring Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart
5. "The Awful Truth", 1937, also starring Irene Dunne
6. "Notorious", 1946, also starring Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains
7. "His Girl Friday", 1940, also starring Rosalind Russell and Ralph Bellamy
8. "People Will Talk", 1951, also starring Hume Cronyn
9. "Houseboat", 1958, also starring Sophia Loren
10. "My Favorite Wife", 1940, also starring Irene Dunne
11. "Father Goose", 1964, also starring Leslie Caron
12. "Indiscreet", 1958, also starring Ingrid Bergman
13. "Suspicion", 1941, also starring Joan Fontaine
14. "The Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer", 1947, also starring Myrna Loy
15. "An Affair To Remember", 1957, also starring Deborah Kerr
16. "To Catch A Thief", 1955, also starring Grace Kelly
17. "The Talk Of The Town", 1942, also starring Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman
18. "That Touch Of Mink", 1962, also starring Doris Day and Gig Young
19. "Operation Petticoat", 1959, also starring Tony Curtis
20. "Arsenic And Old Lace", 1944, also starring Raymond Massey
21. "The Bishop's Wife", 1947, also starring Loretta Young and David Niven
22. "Monkey Business", 1952, also starring Ginger Rogers
23. "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House", 1948, also starring Myrna Loy and Melvyn Douglas
24. "Walk Don't Run", 1966
25. "Destination Tokyo", 1943, also starring John Garfield
26. "Only Angels Have Wings", 1939, also starring Jean Arthur
27. "I Was A Male War Bride", 1949, also starring Ann Sheridan
28. "Once Upon A Honeymoon", 1942, also starring Ginger Rogers
29. "In Name Only", 1939, also starring Carole Lombard
30. "The Amazing Adventure", 1936
31. "Topper", 1937, also starring Constance Bennett
32. "The Grass Is Greener", 1960, also starring Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum
33. "Kiss Them For Me", 1957, also starring Jayne Mansfield, Ray Walston, and Werner Klemperer
    
34. "Penny Serenade", 1941, also starring Irene Dunne
35. "Night And Day", 1946, also starring Alexis Smith
36. "The Howards Of Virginia", 1940, also starring Martha Scott
37. "Room For One More", 1952, also starring Betsy Drake
38. "Sylvia Scarlett", 1935, also starring Katharine Hepburn
39. "I'm No Angel", 1933, also starring Mae West
40. "Gunga Din", 1939, also starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
41. "None But The Lonely Heart", 1944, also starring Ethel Barrymore
42. "She Done Him Wrong", 1933, also starring Mae West
43. "The Pride And The Passion", 1957, also starring Frank Sinatra and Sophia Loren

March In Review

Whoa. There goes another month. Still no job. Just as in Feb., I did have one on-site interview, this time in Madison.  I could become Madison Dan!  But, just as in Feb., nothing has come of it.

There was a bonus "heavy game day" this month. Usually it's only the even months.  This time it was "Angola", where each player represents a faction in the Angolan civil war in the mid-1970s and one pair of players plays against the other.  Believe it or not, it's actually interesting to play, even if you're one of the few who has no dog in this fight. Or someone who couldn't really say who won this war. It is long, though.  We called it quits after 8 hours or so, when it was pretty clear which side was going to win.

At "regular game day", I found myself in a couple of time killing games ("To Court The King" -- again -- and "Easy Come, Easy Go"), a simple game that the whole family could play ("Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers"), and a couple of games that are fun and interesting ("Power Grid" and "Amun-Re").

And there was still time for some movies, as shown below.  I finally plopped in the second movie in the "Planet Of The Apes" box set -- the only Blu-Ray movies I own.  There were several post-apocalyptic-nightmare movies I'd never even heard of before, but also one you hear about every once in a while that I'd never seen: "A Boy And His Dog", notable for being one of Don Johnson's earliest movies.  He was 25 when it came out. He communicates telepathically with his dog, which is the brains of their partnership, as they wander the wasteland looking for food and, well, women. Kind of a freaky, far-out, low-budget 1970s flick.  Finally, I was really fascinated by "District 9".  It was so easy to identify with the "hero", who definitely did not come from central casting's hero catalog. Having the aliens be a bunch of dim-witted thugs -- with a single genius scientist among them -- seemed kind of Sleestakian to me.  If I may say so.

+------------------------------------------------------+
| 2011-03-02 - King Solomon's Mines (1950)             |
| 2011-03-03 - Jennifer's Body (2009)                  |
| 2011-03-04 - Adventures Of Robin Hood, The (1938)    |
| 2011-03-04 - Da Vinci Code, The (2006)               |
| 2011-03-06 - Teen Wolf (1985)                        |
| 2011-03-06 - Star Is Born, A (1954)                  |
| 2011-03-10 - Secret Of My Success, The (1987)        |
| 2011-03-11 - Stranger Than Fiction (2006)            |
| 2011-03-13 - I'm No Angel (1933)                     |
| 2011-03-14 - Ghost Rider (2007)                      |
| 2011-03-15 - Five (1951)                             |
| 2011-03-18 - Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)   |
| 2011-03-19 - Losers, The (2010)                      |
| 2011-03-20 - Phase IV (1974)                         |
| 2011-03-20 - Grass Is Greener, The (1960)            |
| 2011-03-21 - Last Night (1998)                       |
| 2011-03-22 - 9 (2009)                                |
| 2011-03-23 - Boy And His Dog, A (1975)               |
| 2011-03-24 - Superman/Batman: Apocalypse (2010)      |
| 2011-03-25 - Noah, The (1975)                        |
| 2011-03-25 - District 9 (2009)                       |
| 2011-03-26 - Domino (2005)                           |
| 2011-03-27 - Penny Serenade (1941)                   |
| 2011-03-27 - Charlie's Angels:  Full Throttle (2003) |
+------------------------------------------------------+
24 rows in set (0.01 sec)

Oh, and did I have a gallbladder attack near the end of the month? I'm not sure if there's any way to prove it, although at least one GI seemed adamant.  Great Caesar's Ghost! The jury's still out. I'd like to see what doctors who have known me for more than a day have to say about it.