Consider yourself very lucky if you’ve never fallen like Bud and Deanie in Splendor in the Grass — a fairly well-known, but often underrated Natalie Wood film that speaks volumes about how dangerous emotions can be. I haven’t seen the film in a long time, but it doesn’t matter because I could share (if you so desired) frame by frame just exactly what happens. Let me tell you, the movie might be pretty, but it’s not always romantic…it’s such a huge storm of feelings that I can only handle it every few years.

The title is taken from a line in a William Wordsworth poem, and it appropriately underscores how often innocence and sexuality are at odds, yet similar in their euphoria.

In one startling, heartbreaking scene, Deanie’s character (Wood) is taking a bath and has already started to show signs of being affected by her feelings for Bud (Warren Beatty). Her mother — with good intentions, even if they are smothering — is concerned about her daughter’s "purity." Deanie, suddenly covering herself and standing up in the tub, shouts "No, Mom! I’m not spoiled. I’m not spoiled, Mom!" It’s a scene years ahead of its time in its depiction of the messiness of first love — shocking in its bluntness, almost tragic in its vulnerability.

Few films have left such a mark on me, but Splendor in the Grass is particularly special because of its resonating power over the years. Anyone who has loved just a little too much in her (or his) life can probably understand how the wrong kind of love can put you in the hospital…as happens with Deanie. (Did I mention how outstanding Natalie Wood is here??)

As with any classic, its age doesn’t matter. Love changes in form over the years, but its effects can be equally smashing or uplifting. We want to feel passionately. To go through life without any interests or enthusiasm is awful…but sometimes how strongly we feel about someone zaps everything else out of us. The cost of loving someone else is sometimes detrimental to our own well-being.

Splendor in the Grass dealt with sex and sexuality in an honest and sincere way that current films would not be able to…and it recognized that teenagers and young adults have the power to love and want things they may not be capable of handling so early in their lives.

I LOVE the accordion, though maybe not as much as Steve Urkel did.  I think it should be appreciated and even seen as sexy (if used right). Huey Lewis and The News put an album out in late 1988 ("Small World") that used the accordion in a wonderful and tastefully wacky way...

On one of the Korgis' songs I've been listening to you can hear whispers of the quirky musical instrument. The track (called "Hunger") is appropriately titled because it makes you feel the singer's longing for someone, something,  he can never have...he sounds like a less theatrical, more melancholy Barry Manilow, with his own "Mandy" thing going on...

"Hunger" is haunting, seductive and somehow makes you want to tango.

Every once in a while you discover a horror film that makes you wrestle with the ending for days afterward. It seeps into you and causes restless sleep, and not just because it's scary. Based on the Stephen King novella of the same name, The Mist mixes the unimaginable with the all-too-familiar and may very well make you feel uncomfortable and unnerved. And like so many of Stephen King's works, this film takes you somewhere you think of as safe -- in this case, the grocery store -- and makes it the creepiest place around.

The incredible cast (including Thomas Jane and Andre Braugher playing neighbors pitted against each other) couldn’t have done a better job...though maybe Marcia Gay Harden might have toned it down JUST a tad. She plays a religious fanatic the way it’s been played in countless horror films before (think Piper Laurie in Carrie, but slightly less bitter).  I love it though, when a man she’s trying to preach to responds with: "I do believe in God, I just don’t think He’s the vengeful, bloodthirsty (replace curse word with family friendly word here) you make him out to be."

Whereas I don’t remember the book being so deep...the movie really captures the current cultural divide and the absolutes people cling to so desperately, often causing them to lash out at others who politely disagree.

I won’t ruin the ending, but let’s just say it blindsides you. It throws out so much that really gets to you: nail-biting suspense...humanity...inhumanity (a lot of the people are far worse than the supernatural creatures they battle inside the grocery store), emotions...tough, protective women...sensitive, protective men...

The Mist is an intense experience and never quite the film you're expecting, a combination making it a cut above (way above!) all the other horror films you've seen until now. The only complaint I have? Someone needs to teach Thomas Jane (who otherwise is amazing in this!) how to properly cry.

Sure, I've gotten over my disappointment that "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" was canceled. It WAS a great sci-fi show, with lots of emotional complexities buried under a seemingly reserved family dynamic, but mourning a program's loss needs to be quick and swift because it's never coming back.

Still that doesn't mean I can't listen to Bear McCreary's lovely score!:)

The music is more low key and chill than anything that ever came from the movie's soundtrack...it's just wonderful to listen to when you want something without words and are in a contemplative mood.

Another tv soundtrack that's amazing (and in this case, FAR better than the show) is:



It's everything I had hoped the show would be: smart, pretty, loving, spiritual, complex, sincere...needless to say (if you've seen even one episode!) the show was none of these...

On last night's "24" Agent Walker (played by superb actress Annie Wersching)  continued her very interesting and intense descent from a previously level-headed and reserved by-the-book FBI agent to a self-destructive break-the-rules-with-a-vengeance woman who (we now learn) may or may not have been sexually abused the first time she went undercover with the Russian mob.

While it's true that a LOT of off-screen things happened to Agent Walker between season 7 and 8 (the one currently airing on Fox Monday nights) it's still hard swallow such a swift change in character; with a less talented actress, it would be near impossible...in last night's episode we learned much more about why Walker had the nervous breakdown that was mentioned in the January 19th episode...and I still have a hard time believing that it's supposed to be connected solely to her interrogating a witness and not more related to the horrible things she experienced while undercover and probably will again now that's she been reassigned (unofficially) to infiltrate the mob.

I know it's just a tv show and Wersching (who I might have already mentioned is doing a superb job!) is just playing a fictional character. Still...it saddens and even unnerves me to see the difference between what the cost of recklessness is to a woman who is basically doing the same things (minus last week's saw incident) Jack is and paying a much higher price...that is if we're talking about all of this unwinding being a direct result of Walker's harshly interrogating her witness...I'm still not sure that's what this is all about...

Next week's preview looks even more disturbing as in it we see Wersching's character in a towel  and fresh out of the shower being summoned by Vladimir, the man who physically abused her the first time she went undercover. Even in a brief glimpse of her face it's easy to tell that she does not want to respond. The whole situation (being undercover and having to put up with physical, and possibly sexual, assault or risk breaking her cover) is a very uneasy one and (if handled right) has the potential to pose one of the most thought-provoking questions "24" has ever raised...what exactly is a person capable of going through when committed to a job that involves national security but puts her in serious jeopardy, in both bodily and emotional harm.

Jack's drug addiction horrors (as a result of his undercover work during the third season) sort of pale next to this.