One lovely morning, in the peaceful country town of
Canaima, California…in front of an attractive old farm-house… down
kerplops a crow! Fell right out of the sky! Dead!
Next, up pulls a station wagon, and out piles the
handsome, fair-haired Jennings family from nearby San Francisco, eager
to move into their new dream home. They are Ross Jennings (Jeff
Daniels), a doctor, his wife Molly (Harley Jean Kozak), and their two
kids.
Dr. Jennings does have this one personality quirk: because of a childhood trauma, he has “arachnophobia’—the fear of spiders.
Meanwhile, creeping off the nearby dead crow, eager to move into his
new dream home—the barn—is “Big Bob”: a huge, hairy, horrifying
tarantula, coming to us directly from a just-discovered prehistoric
sinkhole in Venezuela, some 4,125 miles away as the crow flew (actually,
Bob took a plane most of the way).
This incredible happenstance might be both
funny-peculiar and funny-ha-ha, since “Arachnophobia” is billed as a
“thrill-omedy”. But what it portends is: within two months all the
crickets in Canaima stop chirping; several locals die of apparent heart
attacks; and finally, there is Dr. Jennings poking around in his cellar,
hyper-ventilating, with a homemade flame-thrower consisting of a can of
spray-paint and a Bic Flic, which he fires off frantically at any
moving shadow—and they all seem to be moving!
This traumatic physician-heal-thyselfing seems a
bit much—why not just give him a regular, healthy fear of spiders, like
the rest of us? I myself have since adopted a squish first, ask
questions later policy, there is a rolled up newspaper within reach
right now, ready to smash any UMO’s (unidentified moving objects) that
appear.
Studies have shown that a spider’s scariness is
geometrically proportional to the thickness of its legs, and Big Bob’s
plump drumsticks would give anyone the leaping heebies. He somehow mates
with a harmless little California spider his first night in town, and
their many offspring have thinner but nimbler limbs, allowing them to
quickly disperse through town, climbing up steps, scuttling under
doorways and across walls, and sometimes catapulting off ceilings. They
crawl into coffee cups, shoes, blankets, football helmets, and shower
drains. One even becomes an unwelcome premium in a box of breakfast
flakes.
The moviemakers worried about keeping us too tense
for too long, so they cast John Goodman (of ABC’s Roseanne) as an
eccentric exterminator.
“We needed to have somebody who the audience knows
is a funny guy. When they see his name, they feel that this movie will
be okay,” says director Frank Marshall (“Shot by Shot”, Premiere, 7/90).
Also, though, he thought it “was very important to have it totally
believable —so I used real spiders throughout the movie.” (“Thrills,
Chills and Spiders”, WPIX, 7/23/90).
Entomologists may find the most comic relief in
“Arachnophobia”. Their on-screen proxy, Dr. James Atherton (the dashing
Julian Sands), collects specimens by blasting trees with insecticide and
raking up the bodies—yet later on he insists that dead spiders are no
good to study; Dr. Jennings must find him a live one.
When a member of his expedition dies suddenly, and
his corpse wears an expression of supreme terror, Atherton dismisses it
as “jungle fever”. When, at night, alone, looking for the poisonous Big
Bob, he finds a web as big as a circus net in the Jennings’ barn, he
strums the trigger thread playfully and says, “Come out, Mr. Spider,
dinner’s ready.” He’s not even wearing gloves!!!
Just as using real spiders doesn’t guarantee
believability, nor is simply casting John Goodman enough for the
funniness—they didn’t give him enough funny things for him to say and
do.
Also, the spiders are lousy actors —in their
closeups, you can tell they don’t know who they’re supposed to bite,
where they’re supposed to go, or anything.
Those legs definitely put the chill on you, though,
and there’s so many spiders that when you try to go to sleep that
night, they’ll still be swimming in front of your eyes.
Daniels and Kozak are attractive performers; the
set design and cinematography are high quality; and on all counts, if
you are wanting a spider movie, “Arachnophobia” is way better than
“Kingdom of the Spiders”, “The Giant Spider Invasion”, or even “Earth
Versus The Spider”.
The opening sequence, shot on location in the
awesome Venezuelan mountains, is wonderful—there’s this one shot of two
blue parrots swooping in front of a green background that I’d love to
have framed —we hate to see the expedition leave this amazing place.
Maybe they should have stayed in the sinkhole, giving Big Bob the home
court advantage, and had Daniels and Kozak along on the expedition as
the pilot and a free-lance photographer respectively. She could be
initially attracted to the dashing Sands, and the timid Daniels would
have to prove himself, and —ahhhhhh! [SMASH] Oops, sorry, thought I saw
something moving!
— R. Rube; article first published in Hunterdon County Review, 1990
![“Now you tell me — is he not the cutest creature ever?”
A bittersweet story, told over six days. Words and pictures by Betsy Lentz.A big announcement! The baby mallards hatched yesterday! About eight little baby ducklings were up in the nest in the tree with the mommy duck! And then, only hours later, they had all left … except I saw there was one baby left there all by himself. I left him there in case the mommy might come back for him. And then late in the day I saw he was on the ground under the tree. Dave had come home by then and he went to look for the mommy and ducklings so we could try to reunite him with them, but they are nowhere to be found. So, we ended up taking the duckling inside, putting him in a box with a lightbulb for heat. And first thing this morning I went to Agway for duckling food. He’s just as cute as could possibly be! He looks like one of those little “Peeps” (marshmallow chicks) except he has a bill and he’s colored yellow and green(ish). And it’s fascinating to watch him — he jumps around, and grooms himself, and chirps almost nonstop, like a little songbird. And if he sees a fly, he chases it, even though he’s only a day old. I had to encourage him to eat the grain and water I got him, and he’s getting the hang of it now. One issue is that they say the ducklings need water to drink at all times, but if I leave water with him in the box, inevitably he falls in it and gets wet, which they say is not good (he’ll get cold because he doesn’t have his regular feathers yet). In fact, the first time, he fell in the water, got wet, AND couldn’t seem to get up off his back! So I end up just putting him on the floor with me and hanging out with him and helping him drink and eat.
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“Vulcan Nerve Pinch Thing”
…spending almost all day Friday taking care of the duckling, who we have named Goober (for now). I’m starting to wonder if I really have time for all this responsibility! The thing about Goober is that he wants to be with his mommy or daddy all the time. When we put him in the cage (he’s now in a cat carrier which has a gate in the front), he usually cheeps loudly and throws himself against the cage. In fact last night, all his cheeping and knocking against the cage kept me awake and I had to sleep on the floor in the exercise room (since we don’t have a couch yet). Today, we took Goober outside and he followed us and staring chasing and eating the tiny little bugs that fly low to the ground. It was a lot of work for such a tiny amount of food! Fortunately for Goober, he can stock up on the grain food afterwards. Another cute thing about Goober is how he can be running around catching bugs, but if you pick him up and pet him, he conks out within seconds — it’s like that Vulcan nerve pinch thing! And lots of times he just climbs up into your lap and then into the palm of your hand, and he’ll fall asleep there. He sure is an amazing little creature!
My big dilemma
Goober has the eating and drinking thing down pat now. What ducks do is they eat some food and then have some water and wash it down, so they go back and forth. He’s really packing away the food now! We moved him back into the box from the cat carrier, because he was trying to get through the bars in the cat carrier and we were afraid he would hurt himself. But the box is only a short-term solution because it won’t be long before he can jump out of it. Now when I bring him out of the box in the morning he runs around like mad — he has all this pent-up energy and he’s all excited to be out. As you know, my big dilemma now is that I’ve been doing research on the web, and some of what I’m reading suggests that Goober may be better off if I bring him to a professional rehaber. They know how to raise him and give him the natural foods he would eat (greens, bugs) and I think their goal is to then release him into the wild. Plus, maybe he could be with some other ducklings. I probably should do this for him, but I’m so attached to him now, it makes me cry to think of it!
Six More Cute Things About Goober
1. When he falls asleep, his eyelids close from the bottom up (so he has lower lids, not upper lids). 2. Whenever I walk away from him, he runs like mad to follow me. 3. He loves to climb up on my lap and go to sleep. Often he crawls up to the crook of my arm and snuggles his face in there, so all I see is his back. 4. He has a repertoire of different chirps: one is three notes going upward (like “do, re, mi”); another is 4 to 6 chirps in a row, all the same note; rarely, he’ll do a single note that raises up or down at the end and therefore is extra cute. There’s probably more but that’s all I’ve isolated. 5. He doesn’t get discouraged when he falls down or slips, which happens all the time. He just gets up, dusts himself off, and starts running or jumping again. 6. He’s very clean — he’s always grooming himself.
You don’t get the full Gooby experience from the pictures
These are three photos of Gooby on my lap that were taken in quick succession by Dave, and you can see how in the first two he’s awake and the third he’s asleep. That’s how he was, one minute wide awake, the next his eyes shut and his head starts leaning over. One thought I had about the pictures is …You don’t get the full Gooby experience from the pictures. You don’t get the sounds and the movement and the touch. If the picture had sound, you’d hear he’s almost constantly chirping in a soothing manner… bup-bup-bup… bup-bup-bup-bup-bup .. . bup-bup.
It reminds me of purring — in that it reassures you that he’s there and he feels fine. I have no idea if that’s the true purpose of it, but that’s how it makes me feel. Plus you can pet him and he feels warm and soft.
Goober starts his new life (sniff, sniff)
Yesterday, I called a wildlife rehabber who specializes in “waterfowl” and unfortunately she confirmed that Goober would be better off in her care, and with other ducklings, and that I should bring him in “the sooner the better”. I was so sad and said I wasn’t sure if I could bring him in today (meaning yesterday) but I would see, and if not, I could definitely bring him in tomorrow. In reality, I could bring him in right away, I just didn’t want to! Couldn’t I just have one more day? So I hung up and thought it over and heard the words “the sooner the better” ringing in my ears. And also realized it was only going to be harder, the longer I waited. So I called back and said I could bring him in. I put Goober in the cat carrier on a nice soft towel along with his water, and put him in the passenger sear of the car facing me so he could see me, and drove off. He had no problem with the car ride, even though he tended to slide around as I had to stop or accelerate. He was as cute as always. And I tried not to cry, since that would be embarrassing if I was a basket case when I turned him over. The rehabber is near Broadway, NJ, which is on Route 57 (on the way toward Washington), down a long driveway and in a nice woodsy area. When I arrived, I met two young women leaving the place who had just dropped off some mice (not sure why they need rehabbing!) and of course they said how cute Goober was and I told him how great he was and they said “Why are you bringing him in then, why don’t you keep him?” And I almost cried then and there! But I just told them it was better for Goober. Once inside, the rehabber had me fill out paperwork and she put Goober in a wooden box in the back room, with a mirror, which will apparently make him think there’s another duckling there. She said after awhile she would put him with some other ducklings, and then after a couple months (they become adults in a couple months), he would be released to some nice area, possibly to Merrill Creek Reservoir (which I know is really nice and they don’t allow hunting there). I felt sad because I could tell she wasn’t going to interact with Goober and I felt he would be lonely … but the whole point was to get him unattached to humans and to bond with ducks. But still, it was hard to see how living with other ducks could be better than staying with me! But I just have to take it on faith. So the rest of the day, I cried on and off and I think you’re right that this is a sign from Harley that I should get a kitten, because it brought me so much joy to take care of a little creature. I could always get another duckling — a domestic one. But kittens are a lot easier. And of course, I don’t know what ducks are like when they grow up … But maybe I can get a kitten and a duckling! Anyway, I have to remember that Goober would have died Thursday night if it weren’t for us. And that now he has a better chance of survival than any of his siblings, since he’ll be in protective care until he’s grown. So everything is for the best.
It’s hard for me to imagine they could be like Goober
One thing I couldn’t get a clear answer on was what would happen if we kept him with the intent to care for him for the rest of his life. Rather than with the intent to release him to the wild later (in which case, it was clear he wouldn’t be prepared unless I gave him to a rehaber). I got the impression that somehow he’d be “betwixt and between” (I think that’s an expression) — he’d be drawn to the wild by instinct but drawn to me as his imprinted mother. Like you mentioned, he might be drawn to migrate in the winter but not have the skills to do it. And then he would be in jeopardy. But I wasn’t completely clear on this, and so I’m having all these doubts. But that’s just typical me …always second guessing. But I think you’re right that living his natural life in the wild with other ducks and being able to fly and migrate is pretty exciting. Dave told me one of the teachers at the school who hatches ducklings every year (as a science project) says they’re all totally adorable, but it’s hard for me to imagine they could be like Goober. I’ll have to go visit the ducks they hatch this year to see for myself. §Recently had some more adventures in the true Goober spirit. First, a couple weeks ago, Skeesix brought a little garter snake up on the deck and was playing with it. We (Dave) managed to get it away from Skeezy and noticed it seemed to be regurgitating a worm, except it was stuck. So he pulled it out. (Of course, possibly he was trying to swallow the worm, and was now deprived of his meal, but it was the thought that counted). Then he put him on the riverbank and he slithered away. I have retroactively named the snake Sam. Then, last weekend after the record rainfall on Saturday, we discovered a baby squirrel on the ground with his eyes still closed, although he was not that tiny. Initially, I was worried he might be sick and we should stay away. But then, we noticed a second baby squirrel a few feet away, also with eyes closed. Both were moving just a little bit. Initially I was alarmed — was this a mysterious baby squirrel plague? But then Dave hypothesized that the squirrels nest had been flooded and they fell out, and that made more sense. I said we should put the two of them back together so they could snuggle up, which they did. And we put a fallen tree branch over them protectively. And I named them Heckel and Jeckel. Then I located a squirrel rehabilitator (thanks to Goober, I knew how to locate rehabilitators) — at Woodlands Wildlife Refuge (or something like that). She said to put the squirrels in a box with a cloth for warmth and wait to see if the Mom found them; if they weren’t discovered by mom by late afternoon, we should bring them in to rehab. Which is what we ended up doing. The rehabber checked them out and said they looked healthy other than a few abrasions from the fall, and some fleas. At the rehab place, there were skunks, possums, raccoons and even some kind of wildcat.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/5149a24caa7082d7fbf92715fd3e617d/tumblr_mhjiiyrky81rmgv4fo1_r1_1280.jpg)
![“I AM big. It’s the PICTURES that got small.”
Friends have been telling me for years that the Landmark Loews Jersey Theater is “great” and that I really check it out. And I said, “yeah, I will”, but didn’t. It’s like when I go to a movie in a theater myself, and come back and tell my friends that movies were made to be seen in theaters, and then after a couple of weeks I forget that myself and go back to watching them on TV.
But then, the organizer of our Book Club Meetup became pregnant; she temporarily handed over the reins of it to me; “Room 237” opened in NYC; I learned that having one Meetup gets you a second one free, so why not a Stanley Kubrick Meetup?
And then once you have a Kubrick Meetup, you can no longer not go to anything Kubrick. You HAVE to go. So, “Paths of Glory” was playing at the Loews.
Like with all “great” experiences, it was unexpected. Like Kubrick movies. No one could possibly “expect” them.
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Journal Square, coming out of the PATH Station, is bleak. The theater, right across the street, seems so too. Well, if you are like me, and don’t actually notice anything above street level.
But the moment I stepped inside, shivers ran up my back and I was suddenly happy.
It was like stepping into the entry part of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine — just wow. Wow. Then you see beyond that, something much much bigger. In this case, it was the place where they were going to show the movie.
When the lights go down, it gets really dark — “real country dark” — but you’re still aware of being in a vast place. There are many rows of heads stretching down in front of you, like pebbles on a beach.
And then when the screen lights up, it’s like that moment in the planetarium when you cross over from twilight, and there’s an the eerie feeling that they have lifted the roof off and there is nothing between you and the night sky.
While I’ve seen “Paths of Glory” many times, I realized, after a few minutes, that I had never actually seen a 35mm print of it in a theater, and that I’d almost never seen ANY film on a screen as big as this.
And there were some other realizations thereafter:
Even in the new “stadium seating” multiplexes, today’s screens seem nowhere near as big as they were at the old single-screen movie houses. You no longer think, “it’s SO big!!!” This screen gets you back to that sense of wonder and awe. And you forget what kind of seat you are sitting in.
Having one gigantic monophonic speaker directly behind the screen, the big sound coming directly FROM the image, and having some echo all around you, like you are in a big cave or cathedral — that’s a lot different, too, from the side stereo speakers and acoustic tiling we’ve gotten used to. It was kind of uncanny. Added something extra the cavernous Chateau scenes. Also when Gerald Fried uses some kind of BIG drum during the Night Patrol scene —a drum that makes some kind of deep note — never noticed it in previous viewings, and never heard anything like it before. It is what I imagine that “Boom Doom”in the Mines of Mordor would have sounded like.
Paths of Glory is very “talky”. Somebody is always making a speech. The words remained the same size as they were for me in past viewing on TV, and kept the same weight and meanings. The images, though, and the editing, become much more significant, more suggesting, having changing connections to each other, depending on what you notice in the moment. And you are really “in the moment”, immersed in the images, as if you are in the ocean trying to keep your head above the waves, rather than watching them from the beach.
The old “square” picture framing — “Academy Ratio”? — different from the standard wide screen of today — there’s a lot to be said for it, the emphasis on Tall vs. Wide. The compositions are more effective, with more tension between elements.
This is lost on small screens: Light / Shadow / Texture /Scale. They may be there, but you just don’t notice them. The quality of light, or the import of a gesture. Like looking at a large format photo print, compared to a 35mm. It feels like a “deeper” reality.
Editing: the way one image succeeds another. Your mind hangs onto to this, like Tarzan swinging from vine to vine. There’s nothing else to grab onto! Editing, Kubrick said, was the one thing unique to film-making, and his favorite part of making a movie. Contrast / Juxtaposition/ Rhythm. These provoke many associations, from which you can make your own connections, different every time.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/e1969efe412a2e54fd020adde4dc6423/tumblr_mm0wk9xQCk1rmgv4fo1_1280.jpg)
