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Macy's Closing Stores

While the decision to close stores is difficult, it is necessary that we do so selectively in locations with declining sales and where we have been unable to identify sufficient growth opportunities.
-Terry J. Lundgren, Macy's Chief Executive

Macy's was never one of my favorite stores and it would make no difference to me if they closed them all. Wards closed and I don't miss it. K-Mart is no longer in my market, and I don't miss it. I have never been a big shopper at Dillards, Bloomingdale's, Sak's Fifth Avenue, or even Banana Republic. Much like Anne Hathaway's clueless secretary in The Devil Wears Prada-fashion doesn't mean all that much to me.

Macy's store closings are just one more sign of the times, but not a very big one. Macy's said Thursday it will close 11 underperforming stores in nine states — affecting 960 employees. Macy's operates more than 850 department stores in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico under the names of Macy's and Bloomingdale's-so Macy's closing 11 stores is not really that big a deal, is it?

I mean, having a job at Macy's is not exactly highly paid, highly skilled labor is it? It's like that old Paula Poundstone routine-I used to work at International House of Pancakes. You set your goals. You go for them. It's a dream. I made it happen.

"These closings are part of our normal-course process to prune underperforming locations each year in order to maintain a healthy portfolio of stores," said Terry J. Lundgren

Stores to be closed are located in:

Ernst & Young Plaza (Citicorp Plaza), Los Angeles, CA (135,000 square feet; 136 employees; opened in 1986)
The Citadel, Colorado Springs, CO (195,000 square feet; 105 employees; opened in 1984)
Westminster Mall, Westminster, CO (156,000 square feet; 110 employees; opened in 1986)
Palm Beach Mall, West Palm Beach, FL (190,000 square feet; 71 employees; opened in 1979)
Mauna Lani Bay Hotel, Island of Hawaii, HI (3,000 square feet; 3 employees; opened in 1983)
Lafayette Square, Indianapolis, IN (160,000 square feet; 84 employees; opened in 1974)
Brookdale Center, Brooklyn Center, MN (195,000 square feet; 72 employees; opened in 1966)
Crestwood Mall, St. Louis, MO (166,000 square feet; 176 employees; opened in 1969)
Natrona Heights Plaza, Natrona Heights, PA (73,000 square feet; 124 employees; opened in 1956)
Century III Furniture and Clearance, West Mifflin, PA (83,000 square feet; 3 employees; opened in 2000)
Bellevue Center, Nashville, TN (211,000 square feet; 76 employees; opened in 1990).

Of course, this business as usual Macy's Store Closings follows the news in late December of 9 other Macy's store closings. Still, 20 out of 850 is not that big a deal either, is it? I think when Macy's store closings hit triple digits it will be something to worry about.

Rolling Acres Mall, Akron, with 84 employees
Canton Centre, Canton, with 76 employees
Randall Park Mall, North Randall, Ohio, with 91 employees
Washington Square, Indianapolis, with 90 employees
Prien Lake Mall, Lake Charles, La., with 75 employees
Crossroads Mall, Oklahoma City, with 84 employees
Valley View Center, Dallas, with 132 employees
Sharpstown Center, Houston, 172 employees
Family Center at Riverdale, Riverdale, Utah, with 95 employees

Relative Values starring Julie Andrews

Some spoilers within.

Relative Values is one of Julie Andrew's movies that I somehow missed seeing until very recently. Made in 2000 from the Noël Coward play of the same name. Set in the 1950s we are in the same world as Howard's End and Gosford Park where we find one woman, Julie Andrews, living in a vast sprawling estate surrounded by an endless array of servants. Chief among these servants is the Butler, played brilliantly by Stephen Fry who appears to be born to play a know-it-all Butler.

It's possible that this would have been a lot funnier if I knew a bit more about that whole Upstairs/Downstairs world that seems to be the basis of many of the jokes.

William Baldwin plays the part of a brash American Movie Star-a role much like the one played by older brother Alec Baldwin in Notting Hill. William Baldwin does a good job of looking cute and hansom as tried to win back the love of his life. Jeanne Tripplehorn plays the Hollywood starlet that leaves William Baldwin and falls for rich English Aristocrat Edward Atterton, who does a good job of being very stiff upper lipped.

Like Wooster and Jeeves the general assumption is that the Servants are much smarter than the Masters. One of the many story lines flowing in Relative Values involves a maid being the sister of the Hollywood starlet, and neither one of them wanting to pick of their relationship after twenty years of separation. So the Maid, played by Sophie Thompson, disguises herself as just another Aristocrat visiting Julie Andrews estate. She is then shocked as the Hollywood starlets tells all kinds of lies about her childhood, until the maid yells at her and reveals who she really is.

Relative Values is an old style comedy of manners and class, so it is not really surprising that I had never heard of it before. This film requires that you pay attention to it to get the jokes, and that maybe you do a little bit of research to get the jokes. No one wants to work that hard. Thinking has not been a part of American Movies for a really long time-for American comedy longer still.

The sets and costumes and autos were all wonderful-I love the Maid uniforms with the little pill caps. The entire cast was perfect and I could watch Stephen Fry talk down to William Baldwin all day long. The obsession with the rich and the not so rich and those that take care of the rich is always going to be interesting. Here is it fun as well.

A&W Root Float

I tried the Big Red Float when it came out and was surprised that it tasted sort of like a float-I was even more surprised that they use Big Red as the flavor base for a float. I never made a Big Red float on my own-and never bought any more of the canned sodas either.

Then I saw A&W Float and thought, well, now we're talking. But at almost two dollars a bottle I skipped trying it. It now seems that A&W Float has been discontinued, which might explain why I found it on sale for $3.99 for a four pack.

A&W Float is my kind of soda-sweet to the max. A&W Float is a very creamy and very sweet drink and I really like it. Would I like it enough to pay two dollars a bottle for it? Well, no. But as long as the Kroger's is selling off the last of their supplies for a dollar a bottle I will keep drinking it until it is gone.

A&W Float reminds me of another favorite soda that has gone the way of all good things-Black Cherry Vanilla Coke. That was an awesome drink, as they tweaked the flavors to flow over the tongue so that you actually tasted cherry, Coke, and vanilla. It might still be available somewhere, but I have not seen on the store shelves in a while.

Top Ten Movies of 2008

Film Critics see a lot of movies and, as a general rule, film critics love moves-that's why they became film critics. So the problem will all film critics Top Ten films of the year lists is that they tend to love whatever movie they saw last. So that every January we are given lists of the best film of the year and nine time out of ten, they are either films that were released in December or films that have not yet been released-which, to me, makes them this year's best film, not last year's best film.

These are, more often than not, films I have never heard of and films that will not likely be coming to a theater near me. Film Critics also like just about anything different. So if the movie is filmed in black&white, the dialogue is all in Swahili, and the plot involves a bit of paper blowing out a window-it is hailed as a visionary masterpiece not to be missed.

Critics also tend to ignore the Box Office Top Ten-as those are just movies people have actually seen and heard of-so they can't be any good. I have seen most of the movies on the Top Ten Box Office Movies and have heard of all of the films on the list.

10. Horton Hears a Who Total Gross: $154,529,439
9. Twilight Total Gross: $158,461,000
8. Quantum of Solace Total Gross: $161,300,000
7. Madagascar:Escape 2 Africa Total Gross: $172,332,000
6. Kung Fu Panda Total Gross: $215,434,591
5. WALL-E Total Gross: $223,749,872
4. Hancok Total Gross: $227,946,274
3. Indian Jone and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull Total Gross: $317,023,851
2. Iron Man Total Gross: $318,313,199
1. The Dark Knight Total Gross: $530,750,228

AFI's Top Ten List for 2008

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button-release date-Dec 25th
The Dark Knight-On Box Office list
Frost/Nixon-release date-Nov 17th-still in limited release
Frozen River-release date-Oct 31-still in limited release-I never heard of this one
Gran Torino-release date-Dec 12 limited-Jan 9 wide-in other words, a 2009 movie
Iron Man-On Box Office list
Milk-release date Nov 26th-still in limited release
Wall-E-On Box Office list
Wendy and Lucy-release Dec 10-seems to be a Film Festival film-I never heard of this one
The Wrestler-release date Dec 9-limited release-I heard of this film yesterday

NPR's David Edelstein's Top Ten List

1. Rachel Getting Married-release Oct 3-still in limited release-I never heard of this one
2. Wall-E-On Box Office List
3. Happy-Go-Lucky-April 18 UK-not too surprising that I have not heard of a British film
4. Cadillac Records-release Dec 5 still in limited release-I never heard of this one
5. The Class-release Dec 19 limited-I never heard of this one
6. Waltz with Bashir-Dec 25 limited-another Film Festival film I never heard of.
7. Shotgun Stories-March 26-oddly this seems to be a 2007 film that I never heard of.
8. Kit Kittredge: American Girl-July 2-I have heard of this one, just didn't care to see it. Also it breaks the recent release/I've never heard of it rule.
9. Doubt-Dec 12 limited-seems to be in wide release now
10. Taxi to the Dark Side-another 2007 film that I never heard of.
11. Trouble the Water-August 22-I never heard of this one

Many movie critic use their end of the year list to promote movies that no one has ever heard of. This is their way of getting the word out that there is more to the movies than big CGI Things fighting off Big Name Movie Stars. The trouble, of course, is that most of us like Big CGI Things fighting with Big Name Movie Stars. Just look at the Top Box Office list again-remove the CGI and the list vanishes in a poof of pixel dust.

The Tale of Despereaux

The Tale of Despereaux has an all star cast telling the story of a small mouse with big ears who thinks of himself as a Gentleman. As with all fairy tales, it is necessary for someone's mother to die, that someone is usually the hero of the story. Not so in The Tale of Despereaux. The poor mother in this case is the Queen of Dor, who is frightened by a rat named Roscuro, faints, and then drowns in a bowl of soup.

Dor is famous for it's soup, but now the King of Dor hates soup and rats and outlaws both. This causes a grey cloud that never rains to form over the Kingdom. Well, it is a fairly tale after all, so a few bad things have to happen.

Under the capitol city of Dor there are two worlds-possibly more-Rat World and Mouse World. Rat World is not a very nice place and this is where the accidental Queen murderer Roscuro finds himself. He doesn't fit in, as he likes the world of humans and not the world of rats. Mouse World is where our hero Despereaux lives and is a failure as a mouse, he refuses to cower and scurry.

This was a beautifully made film, with a feeling of art instead of animation. The mice were very well done, managing to look like both mice and people at the same time. The rats had much the same feel as the rats from Ratatouille, except that they were all better dressed. The human characters were a bit off, as is usual in this kind of film. They go to great lengths to make the mice and rats looks as photo realistic as possible and then give us goofball renderings like the ugly father and ugly daughter and the highly stylized King and Princess. They might as well have been different species like the rats and mice. Which I suppose was the idea.

Among the odd bits in The Tale of Despereaux was the fact that no one seems to find talking rats and mice at all out of the ordinary. There was also a magic Chef made from vegetables who urged the real Chef to make better soup and not serve the Kingdom dishwater.

There is a great deal made out of the fact that the King is depressed because his wife has died. The King goes into mourning and this is shown as a bad thing. Only when the Cook disobeys the King's orders and makes soup does life return to normal and the King realize the error of his ways. Not all monarchies are like Henry VIII. Queen Victoria stayed in mourning for the rest of her life when her husband died. Was she wrong to do that? I don't think the King was being overly selfish in his sorrow, but maybe that's just me.

It was a beautiful film to watch and I look forward to more movies made with this style of animation. I have seen all the Ice Age/Monsters Inc/Incredibles style of computer animation I care to see. The techonlogy is now in place to make real movies, not just silly cartoons. The Tale of Despereaux is a step in the right direction.

Christmas On Mars-Worst Xmas Movie Ever

To the world at large the Flaming Lips are a One Hit Wonder for their odd and haunting song Do You Realize. The Flaming Lips must have done something else over the years, but none of it has crossed my path. Until I found a blurb on BBC about The Flaming Lips making a movie called Christmas on Mars.

Christmas on Mars is the story of a handful of people living on Mars. A group of men, one woman, and a baby make up the people inhabiting the Mars station. During Christmas they are visited by an alien who never speaks and it is never explained why he stops by in the first place.

Which is not all that surprising, as nothing is explained and nothing makes any sense whatsoever. The story drags from one pointless scene to another. The cast seems to be made up of random people pulled off the streets and given a script to read, or just told to go with the flow, as it is hard to imagine there was a script to this mixed up mishmash. The only recognizable actor is Adam Goldberg and it is flatly baffling to see him in this horrid bit of business.

The acting, such as it is, is awful. The use of black and white makes it look even worse than it should have. The only real special effects in Christmas on Mars involve the use of vagina headed space suits. In addition to the use of animatronic female genitalia there is a lot of profanity in what little dialogue exists. The multi-antennaed alien is just silly looking.

Christmas on Mars is easily the worst movie I have seen in a long time. Christmas on Mars has been compared to Eraserhead, Magical Mystery Tour, and even 2001:A Space Odyssey-though I would rather sit through any of those than watch Christmas on Mars a second time. It reminded me of a similarly bad sci fi movie called Pi-which was filmed in black & white and in which nothing much happened. It's the kind of film that you expect one of those Woody Allen moments where director Federico Fellini steps on screen and tells The Flaming Lips what they are doing wrong.

It seems The Flaming Lips have been working on this POS film for 7 years. I even saw a comment that said it was better than the previous versions. The mind boggles. Maybe if I were a die hard fan of The Flaming Lips I would like, or at least, understand Christmas On Mars. This is a clear case of someone wanting to make a movie, but not really knowing how.

It does seem that The Flaming Lips read a lot Stanislaw Lem before making Christmas On Mars-as his brand of Sci Fi is interesting, but often confusing. The Flaming Lips nailed the confusing part.