Morning Update, December 28, 2008

The_Kitchen_Guy

There were no new developments in Paige's case yesterday. No news, no new developments.

In news of Candles for Paige we had 105 candles as of this post. Remember, candles go out after 48 hours so keep lighting candles for Paige, her family and her three children.

Instructions for lighting candles for Paige are in the Missing thread, in this post.

On this date in History...

...in 1895, the first commercial showing (they charged admission) of a moving picture show took place in Paris. The film was made by Louis and Auguste Lumiere, brothers who invented a device called the Cinematographe. The Lumiere brothers made 2,000 films over a five year career. The Lumiere brothers thought that there was no future in moving pictures, so their career as filmmakers was rather short. In 1903, they patented a color film making process. They also developed a dressing for burns and a surgical tool.


The World's First Movie Poster

...in 1846, Iowa became the 29th state of the Union.

...in 1964, principal filming began on Carlo Ponti's monumental film, Doctor Zhivago, which opened on December 22, 1965. Boris Pasternak's novel, started in the teens and 1920's, was not completed until 1956. Because the hero, Doktor Zhivago, is more concerned with individuals than society as a whole, Pasternak's viewpoint was not correct in the eyes of Soviet authorities. The manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union and published in Italy in 1957. It won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, but again, Soviet officials would not allow Pasternak to accept the prize. The film, directed by David Lean, is considered by some to be the last great epic film, relying on characters and not computer generated aliens or mythical creatures. Although the subject of harsh criticism when it was released, it has stood the test of time and remains a very popular film.



...in 1941, Rear Admiral Ben Moreell requested a contingent of construction workers who would build anything, anywhere, from airfields to harbors. The units would be known as the Construction Battalion, CB, or "Seabees." The men for the units would not be standard draftees or enlisted volunteers, these were all men with construction experience. The recruits had built the Boulder Dam highways, mines, tunnels and quarries. Some had been shipbuilders, others had been high steel workers. The Seabees were also trained as infantrymen, but they built airfields for B-29's and support aircraft on Guam, Saipan and Tinian. At Normandy, the Seabees were some of the first units ashore, tasked with removing the concrete barriers the Germans had built to obstruct the invasion. Approximately 325,000 men served as Seabees, representing about 60 different trades.



That's it. That's all we know as of 12:01 AM, EST.

raebates

I've never seen Dr. Zhivago. Through bits and pieces I'm familiar with the story. I may need to rent that sometime.

We're at 112 candles right now.

The_Kitchen_Guy

I see things each time I watch Zhivago that I didn't see in a previous viewing. (Sort of like Airplane! but not exactly.)

Little things, like, I always wondered why the boy that played young Zhivago looked so much like the older Zhivago - it's because the roll was played by Omar Sharif's son. I also know now how the "Ice palace" was constructed, and I wish I didn't, because I'll never see it the same way again.

The film ran on the local PBS affiliate last night, followed by Great Expectations. So the night was sort-of a David Lean/Alec Guinness film festival. Lean directed both films, Great Expectations was Guinness' first speaking roll on film, as Mr. Pocket, the same roll he had in the stage version that Lean saw in 1939 - and he cast Guinness in the same roll in the 1946 film.