It's my mother's birthday today. She's in her seventies. It's also Christy Turlington's birthday. She's the supermodel in her thirties. I sent my mother a gift which she liked very much. I didn't send Christy anything because I don't know her and anyway she's got that husband, Edward Burns, to give her whatever gifts she needs.

Christy Turlington is one of those girls whose bathwater I'd drink--as the saying goes between men when they're trying to really and truly express how much they dig a gal.

My mother lives in the Midwest and I, of course, live in New York. I talked to my mother more often than usual this weekend; on Friday, when she received her birthday gift; on New Year's, to wish a happy 2006; and today, to wish her a happy birthday. My kid sister and her family came by to visit Mom on her birthday and have some cake, and Mom seemed in a better than usual mood. She'd gotten some nice gifts, some cute cards, and some pleasant phone calls.

Why does my stomach feel in a knot? Because I wish I loved my mother more than the grudging dutiful feeling I have towards her. She's a difficult person, granted, but I wish I didn't feel locked into my feelings of the past, of being overwhelmed by her intense judgmental personality. Actually, I deal with her in a pretty mature fashion. I keep it simple and don't get into arguments. Although I get impatient and stressed even when I speak to her for short spells, I bite my tongue to contain this impatience.

I know suddenly why my stomach is in a knot. It's because I feel somehow I'm ruining her birthday by writing this post, even though she's not going to read it--my family does not know about this blog. I can only write with honesty about such personal matters if I am anonymous.

I wish I didn't feel like a restless adolescent around my mother, wanting to escape to go see or talk to my friends, hang out with people who accept me and know me for exactly who I am. Isn't that the way a teenager feels, wanting to be with his peers instead of Mom or Dad? Because when I talk with my mother, I always feel like a surly punk walking on eggshells. I don't like to see myself that way.

If she would just be nicer to my sisters, it would mean a lot to me. I've told my sisters to deal with her more assertively, to stand up to her sarcasm, to reject her disrespect. I can't do it for them; if they do it, maybe she'll treat them better.

I hope my mother has a good year and finds it in her to be less bitter about people and things.

Trying to be positive about life has been a hard-fought battle for my sisters and myself. Mom doesn't realize how hard-fought it's been. We inherited in full measure the tangled web of her negativity.

Now, what about Christy Turlington? I used to collect pictures of her; I would cut them out of magazines; or, if I saw her on a billboard in Times Square, I'd take a photo, just to have a record of it, because her face is so beautiful. Christy didn't smile in all her photos but when she did it was so lovely to behold.

My mother's mouth is a little like Christy Turlington's, so it's odd too that they were born on the same day though decades apart. But my mother never smiled like Christy did in her pictures. It never had the same warm effect on me. Or perhaps I could never see the warmth in my mother's smile, because I associate her too much with her own air of dissatisfaction. I most recall with dread my mother's smiles of triumph, of self-satisfaction about winning her way in matters long forgotten.

Anybody who's read my blog on a regular basis knows I am greatly attracted to women who have warm-hearted smiles. Yet the paradox of Sir Cranky is that he is also attracted to women who can play the sexual game--not the reality, but the game--of being a domineering bitch.

Look how everything gets mixed up in the psyche.

So. I wished my mother a happy birthday, and I wish Christy Turlington a happy birthday too. Both have affected me in different ways. My mother is like a powerful drug I am obliged to take out of my sense of filial responsibility. Christy Turlington--and her smile in photos--is one of the many antidotes I've utilized for emotional relief.

My favorite strippers and movie actresses are other antidotes.

We do what we must to get through the days, and nights--and the jumbled hours when emotions make it difficult to tell if the sun is out, or the moon.

I realized last night after I finished my post about David Janssen that I was getting a bit of the post-holiday blues. Not too bad, but just a touch of it, as I felt how quickly the leisure time passes and it's back to work. Because of my freelance schedules, it's very difficult to take long enough chunks of time off, and I really covet the last week in December as a chill-out period. Well, at least we got a little extra this year because the holidays fell on Sunday. And I've enjoyed the uncharacteristic quiet in midtown both yesterday and today.

In fact, to cut off the post-holiday gloom at the pass, I already started my week's work and got a few productive hours in.

On another front, there was a big article in the New York Times Arts and Leisure section yesterday, by Sharon Waxman, about how difficult it seems to be for Hollywood to create bankable stars in their 20s. The case of Orlando Bloom was cited. Although he scored with teenagers because of his role in the Lord of the Rings, he's had far less success in getting audiences to see him in pictures like Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, and Elizabethtown.

I've only seen Bloom in the movie Troy and he didn't impress me very much. His interpretation of the role of Paris, the lover of Helen of Troy, was a bit on the wimpy side. That could have been as much a problem of the screenplay as of the actor's choices. The old Italian sword-and-sandal movie The Trojan Horse from the early 1960s, starring Steve Reeves and John Drew Barrymore, shows that there are more interesting ways to portray that character than Troy chose to do. In the Trojan Horse, Paris is a sleazy scumbag, a far more interesting concept of the legendary lover whose irresponsible actions were the impetus for the Trojan War. Although I wasn't bored by Troy, it had a very heavy political interpretation of the story which really wasn't all that interesting. Fer crissakes, guys, it was a sword-and-sandal movie! They tried to puff it up into something they weren't capable of really delivering: a TRAGIC DRAMA.

I've never seen Orlando Bloom in Lord of the Rings. I admit I have huge gaps despite my film buff status, and that fantasy trilogy never appealed to me in book form either.

I think the problem with Hollywood is that they put too much weight on actors being "bankable," and less weight on delivering movies that people want to actually see in theaters. Movies take themselves so damn seriously, a fact that's obvious by the trailers which are so full of pretentious imagery and voiceovers. Nothing feels like fun anymore.

I'm supposed to finally catch up with King Kong tomorrow. But I have to admit that the advertising campaign, showing Kong and Naomi Watts looking off soulfully into the sunset together, is a major turn-off. Is it a cross-species love story or a damn monster movie? Adding to this nonsense are articles in the paper by various female journalists who talk about how King Kong seems like their idea of the perfect male, sensitive, macho, protective, and blah-blah-blah. Fer crissakes, girls, he's a giant ape who fights dinosaurs and goes berserk in New York. If the movie isn't about that, bottom line, I think it's going to be a very long three hours of viewing time for Sir Cranky. As it is, I have to schedule seeing the movie when my bladder will be in the less active mode.

Ironically, I remember when I was in seventh grade that I got into an argument with another monster-movie fan named Albert who swore that the original 1933 King Kong was four hours long. I told him he was wrong, it was about a hundred minutes long--I'd read that in the horror fan's bible, Famous Monsters of Filmland. Still, Albert wouldn't back down and we argued back and forth. Fer cryin' out, neither of us had even seen the 1933 movie yet, because in those days you had to wait for it to show up on regular tv!! Well, wherever Albert is today, he must be happy because although he hasn't gotten an actual four-hour Kong, he's gotten three-quarters of it!

Sometimes I think Hollywood has no clue about how to reach audiences. Advertising and trailers--what used to be called ballyhoo--are often clueless in how they try to appeal to us. And if you make a three-hour movie, GIVE US AN INTERMISSION!!

So while I don't have any great love for Orlando Bloom, I suggest the suits in filmland take a look at the stories they're putting these actors in and how they promote these flicks too. American movies lost a lot when they started to be taken seriously as "art" instead of fun entertainment. Very few films--books--paintings--songs--really qualify as art. That's a status that only time can confer. Meanwhile, just give us ballyhoo that isn't bullshit, and stories that know what they're about!

It's funny how certain actors speak to our certain moods. Tonight I watched a 1966 crime drama called Warning Shot, which starred David Janssen, the late great star of the 60s tv series The Fugitive. Warning Shot just became available on DVD from Paramount.

With his rugged but eternally melancholy face, Janssen plays a cop trying to clear himself of a manslaughter charge. Naturally, the deck is stacked against him. The flick is a decent mystery, not great but enjoyable, and typical of its era: a journey through a series of encounters with eccentric or seedy characters on the way to a twist conclusion. A young Stefanie Powers is luscious to look at and listen to, and a fortysomething Eleanor Parker is sexy and uninhibited as a distinctly ungrieving redheaded widow with the hots for Janssen. Joan Collins plays her classic bitch role here too as Janssen's estranged wife. But the movie belongs to Janssen. Never has a handsome dude ever looked so put-upon by the fates, except maybe Tom Neal in the classic film noir Detour.

When I watch a flick with a strong lead actor, I feel my mind almost merging with his character and gestures. It takes me a couple of hours to feel completely like Sir Cranky again. Certain actors affect me like this--usually tough guys who have a much different look and demeanor than I do. I guess it's a vicarious machismo I seek through watching someone else go through his hardboiled paces on the big screen or on television. This never happens to me with people I know in real life, though. It's something that happens only when I watch movies or tv. I don't mean I have a psychotic break--I know the difference between myself and a character on-screen--but I am able to so strongly identify with certain characters that I feel myself partaking of their emotions or rhythms for a while after the film is over. I would imagine this phenomenon sometimes happens to other viewers too.

It's mostly old school Hollywood actors who affect me like this. John Garfield, Richard Conte, Dennis O'Keefe, and Gregory Peck are four of my favorites. James Cagney to a lesser extent, because he sometimes seems a little too stylized. And watching Janssen tonight I remembered that he's one of this group as well. Robert Lansing, who starred on the mid-60s World War 2 drama Twelve O'Clock High, is another. Anthony Denison, who played top gangster Ray Luca on the 1986-87 tv series Crime Story, is yet one more.

I guess Janssen's dramatic persona, of the man knocked around by fate and wary of people because of it, appeals to me tonight and is sticking with me because I'm feeling a little sorry for myself. I'm sitting here at my computer thinking I'd sure like to go out tonight and have a little fun. You see, underneath the bruised nobility of Janssen's prototype character of Dr. Richard Kimble and all the tough-luck joes that followed in his filmography, I always detect a unspoken plea for the audience to feel sorry for him. Poor Dr. Kimble, nice guy frigged by fate. Now my own concerns tonight are, thank the gods, more trivial. It all just comes down to the feeling that I haven't been in a stripclub in ten days and I surely do miss my favorite dancer Lily. I really wish she was working at the joint on this pin-drop-quiet night after New Year's Eve so I could hang out with her a little. But I know she's still on her holiday break and damn I feel like I need a little female distraction anyway. But then I feel like I want to be "faithful" to her and not go to the club and cut loose with anyone else in her stead. It's just so damn ridiculous and I'm feeling a little like Sir Cranky needs his blankie and Miss Lily's not around to provide it so maybe he could go play with MIss Whoever-You-Are or Miss Happy-to-Know-You.

But I'm not being noble about the whole thing--not that nobility is called for, because she's a stripper and I'm her customer, and I can darn well have a drink or a dance with anyone else I please. I'm a free friggin' agent. But I have to admit that when she's around she might just as well be the only girl in the club because I don't feel much interest in anyone else. Yeah, maybe I'd like to schmooze a little with Misty, she's a sweet gal from Flatbush in Brooklyn who's great with the jokes and it's nice to just see her cross those gams, but she's just a pal. Lily is--in the chosen terminology here--My Favorite Dancer.

But as I was saying, I don't think I'm being steadfast, not really, because "faithfulness" is not really the issue. I don't think it's a good idea that I even contemplate being "faithful" to Lily, because it's not a real relationship but a commercial one. The fact is, I could turn off the computer and go out to a club right now, but I don't want to do it because I don't want to spend money I can barely afford on just some girl. Because I've done that about a half a million times or so. And I guess if I'm going to spend money I can barely afford, I'd rather wait until Lily comes back later this week and I can spend it on her.

So is it a matter of money, or that I just dig Lily and don't really want to ogle anybody else tonight after all? Lately I think my blog has begun to sound like the musings of a lovelorn swain instead of a guy who likes to watch naked girls dance. What did I call myself in my very first blog post? "Sir Cranky on the scene," or something like that?

So you see why David Janssen is an actor I can identify with tonight? Yeah, I feel browbeaten by fate--and my fate is my inability to make really good money so I can just throw it away without worry on my g-string honey. Poor Sir Cranky. In fact, I wonder if I decided to watch this David Janssen movie (which has been on my shelf for three weeks) just to stir my pity-pot. Was I looking for mystery thrills, or a cinematic persona onto which I could project my own mood? Look! That's not David Janssen fighting against the fates--it's Sir Cranky!

Happy 2006! As it turned out, after taking a walk and a subway ride down to the East Village to pick up some videos, I decided to stay in my apartment on New Year's Eve. The skies were gray, sleet was coming down, and according to the radio, one million people packed the streets around Times Square, which is close to where I live. I used to dig the excitement of these crowds but every year they've become bigger and the streets have become harder and more time-consuming to navigate. It's on occasions like this that I feel like a truly middle-aged person, but the fact is I get claustrophobic in groups of a hundred thousand or more. Of course if Lily, my favorite stripper, had been working last night there would have been an 80% chance I would have succumbed to her siren song, dealt with the throngs, and gone out to the club and been my friskier self.

I watched three movies last night instead, and their subject matter is a good indication of the spectrum of my tastes--although, as you will see, there is a common thread that runs through all three.

The first two films were A Geisha (1953) and Street of Shame (1956) by the Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi. The first is the story of a young woman's first few months as a apprentice geisha in 1950s Kyoto, and the second is the story of a brothel in 1950's Tokyo. I'd seen Street of Shame about ten or twelve years ago, but this was the first time I saw A Geisha.

These movies were so beautiful, and I don't mean in a glossy visual sense, although they were exceptionally well-photographed. What made them great were their simple stories in which the characters came fully alive. In only a few minutes, I got to know each character as a fully-rounded person. A Geisha contrasts the willfulness of the young apprentice with her older mentor. Eiko, the apprentice, does not want to take on a male patron unless she is attracted to him, and her attitude inspires her mentor, Miyoharu, to also spurn the advances of a potential patron. This gets both geisha in trouble and they then find it hard to get any assignments to work at parties and teahouses. How their plight is resolved tenderly shows the closeness between the two women as they struggle to make their living with dignity.

Street of Shame follows the lives of women in the then-legal prostitution district of Tokyo, called the Yoshiwara. Five different stories are skillfully illuminated at the same time that we get a look at the daily operations of a post-war brothel. One prostitute is a brazen rebel against her family; one sells her body to support her baby and unemployed tubercular husband; one works to take care of her son, who lives with his grandparents; one is coldly manipulating her customers so that she can accumulate enough money from them to go into a different business; and the last woman holds onto a dream of leaving the brothel to marry a man she calls her lover. It's amazing how all this is gracefully presented in a film only about 85 minutes long. The end of the movie, which shows a young girl about to solicit her first customer, is in my opinion one of the most heartbreaking, tragic images in cinema. The last shot of A Geisha is heart-wrenching too, but in a way that affirms without any sentimentality the resilience of human beings.

A Geisha is also about 85 minutes. In our age of overlong movies, I think directors should take a cue from the concise storytelling methods of Mizoguchi.

Although the movies are primarily serious, they do have moments of humor. In Street of Shame, one prostitute gives a storeowner a kiss and stows her used-up chewing gum in his mouth! This is his reward instead of actually paying him for her sundries!

According to the VHS boxcover of Street of Shame (I don't know if it's on DVD yet), the film helped finally bring about anti-prostitution legislation in Japan. But the movie does not condemn the business in a strident way, instead choosing to show the difficult conditions that lead to prostitution and the not-unreasonable justifications for continuing it. In short, the movie respects its characters, as well as the complexity and tragic aspects of the sex-for-sale business. Similarly, although A Geisha shows the difficulty of the women's lives, and how their task is to present an artful illusion to their clients while masking their personal pain, it also presents in quick but captivating strokes a sense of the beauty that keeps the art of the geisha alive not just for the customers, but for the geisha themselves.

These were great films to end 2005 on, but I still had a couple of hours left until midnight, so I decided to watch...Konga.

Yes, Sir Cranky went from getting teary over unhappy geisha to...Konga!

This 1961 schlock monster movie, just released on DVD by MGM, and produced in England by the late American horror specialist Herman Cohen, grabs the viewer as quickly as the Mizoguchi films, although in Konga's case the emotions did not wrench my heart with compassion but rather appalled me at the spectacle of misanthropy and narcissism gone berserk. Michael Gough, who played Alfred, the butler in the earlier Batman movies of the 1990s, here plays Dr. Charles Decker, a mad scientist who develops a growth serum which he injects into his pet chimpanzee, Konga. When Decker feels himself threatened by various other characters, he turns Konga into a very large ape who commits murder on Decker's command. Things get testy when Decker's fiance, Margaret, discovers him putting the moves on a busty blonde student. Margaret then injects Konga with enough growth serum that he grows bigger than a house...bigger than a hotel...and almost as big as Big Ben, the famous clocktower in London. Konga grabs Decker and carries him around just as King Kong carried around Fay Wray. On the loose in Londontown, Konga makes a far lamer splash than a veteran monster-fan like myself would wish for, but that's okay because the movie is less about a giant ape terrorizing a city than the overheated passions of an extremely neurotic scientist who seems to loathe the entire world and all its inhabitants (except busty blondes).

I said earlier that all three of the movies I watched had a common link. That link is their ability to convey interesting and authentic emotions. I knew that the characters in A Geisha and Street of Shame would really get to me; similarly, although I had seen Konga before and knew its monster-rampage climax is probably one of the weakest in horror film history, I remembered that Michael Gough's fascinatingly twisted performance as Dr. Charles Decker would pull me right in with its feverishness. In one scene, when he talks about being addressed officiously by a college dean, Gough conveys a bitterness that seems to allude to Decker having experienced a childhood bruised by brutal schoolmasters and British class warfare. So while the ape angle is goofy, the characterization is fascinating. Herman Cohen's other movies, like Horrors of the Black Museum and Black Zoo, also feature Gough in similar roles of "visionaries" who have vital screws loose and hate everybody's guts--except for those of busty blondes and other comely types.

Konga may have been a considerably less sterling cinematic achievement than A Geisha or Street of Shame, but Michael Gough brought the cliched character of a mad scientist to fully rounded life, and he was fun to watch--although he certainly deserved getting tossed to the ground at the end by Konga! And the final image of this film is haunting in its own crazy way, as both Konga and his master lie dead in the London streets.

Here's to a 2006 filled with more movies that stir us with authentic emotion and characters we love--or love to hate!