Kevin Bacon never forgets

Trying to remember…have I already written about Alzheimer’s disease?

No.  No, I haven’t.  I’m sure of it.  Pretty sure. 

This much is certain – I follow every trick and tip I discover to stave off that thief of noodles. 

That’s why I play Words with Friends.  It’s not a deadly time-killer that beckons its victims to the Qi at any pause in their action-filled lives.  No!  No it’s not.

WWF is ‘way more than a silly electronic game of Scrabble!  On the contrary, WWF constitutes a pointed effort to hop up the hippocampus.  Oh my yes! 

I can’t tell you how happy I am to find that my compulsive pastime plays a preventive role in saving synapses.

It’s good to find evidence to back up my here-to-fore defenseless argument about why those little yellow lettered squares mean so much.

I learned it at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, 2014.

OK.  I didn’t go to the Alzheimer’s Conference.  Couldn’t find my car keys.  Forgot to mark my calendar.  Missed the flight to Copenhagen.  Yuk yuk yuk groan.

But here’s the good news for us addicts of WWF – not to be confused with the World Wrestling Federation, which, most likely, is bad for your brain – straight from the AAIC:  Traditional pastimes like playing card games and working puzzles help to increase brain volume! 

Evidently when it comes to brains, size does matter.

And these findings build on previous studies which have linked playing video games to larger brain structures. 

Would someone please tell Mr. Plath?  He makes a point of needling me at every opportunity just because my fingers twitch whenever my iPhone plays that tinkling notification that one of my nemeses has sent me another WORD! 

I cannot not respond…!

On the other hand, please don’t tell my boomerang son who plays video games, or more accurately, a particular video game, with the fervor of a young suitor pursuing the woman of his dreams.  He lives for long stretches in that virtual world where an actual woman is unlikely to materialize.  Unless perhaps, she also has heard the Call of Duty.  A mother can hope.

On the bright side, his brain must be bulging against his ear drums.

Another favorite game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, builds brain power too. 

Oh you may think of Six Degrees as an exasperating exercise that movie buffs use to clear a room.  It works well for that; but it is much, much more.

Six Degrees is a memory exercise that constructs a web of actors, their playlists, full movie casts and connections over time in Hollywood history.  That’s an elegant metaphor for a neural network! 

Case in point:  Just this week I happened upon a snippet of “Footloose” starring Kevin Bacon; and guess who costars in it?  John Lithgow! 

Instantly, my dementia defiant system of associations kicked into gear like a Rube Goldberg machine:  My memory mouse ran down that 1984 “Footloose” ramp, hopped onto the Ferris Wheel, swung around and jumped into a canoe.  From there, she paddled up to the ladder leading to 2014’s “Interstellar” starring Matthew McConaughey and, wait for it…John Lithgow!

So, “Interstellar’s” entire cast:  McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Michael Cain, Matt Damon, Ellen Burstyn, Anne Hathaway and lots more – all connect to Kevin Bacon via John Lithgow.

That spans generations of movies and dozens of second-degree connections!  All those actors’ playlists!  I couldn’t wait to explain all this to you! 

Isn’t it just so cool?!!

Oh.  OK.  I get it.  You’re not a movie nerd.  But you get the brain-building analogy, right?  I mean, it’s at least as good as pinochle.  Come on!  You have to give me that!

And Kevin Bacon is more interesting than Super Mario!  In another study cited at the AAIC, German researchers had people playing Super Mario 64 – a 1996 video game from Nintendo – for 30 minutes a day over 2 months and then compared their brain volumes with those of a control group.

Guess who had larger grey matter structures in areas of the brain associated with memory, spatial navigation and strategic planning?  John Lithgow!

Wait!  No!  I meant Kevin Bacon!  No!  No!  What was I doing?  Where was I going with all this?

Oh yeah.  Defeating dementia through distracting diversions.


See?  It works!

Six Degrees of Sweden

I don’t know where the Swedes get off with their movie rating system.  That wheel was invented a long while ago right here in the US of A. 

That’s right, Sven, we have the Motion Picture Association of America to protect and advise us.  So what if they’re a trade organization that works for the studios in Hollywood?

They let us know if our movies contain sex or bad words, or bad words about sex.  Or of course, violins.  Sex and violins.  That’s it, mostly.

What??  Oh!  Violence.  Got it!  The MPAA is on the lookout for sex and violence.

Pretty sure that covers any legitimate concern an insightful film goer might have prior to shelling out the $37.50 per person required to sit in the multi-plex and be safely entertained. 

Relax.  Thanks to the MPAA you run no risk of being blind-sided by an untoward bit of slang, errant body part, or stray bullet.

Thank God. 

And, like you, I of course have my own system for evaluating movies after I have seen them.

OK.  Maybe proximity of cast members to Kevin Bacon is not the strongest movie rating system.

But hey – that’s not the only reason I like “Mars Attacks!” (Rated PG-13 for sci-fi fantasy violence and brief sexuality).

Come on!  You’ve gotta love a Tim Burton concoction chock full of camp. 

“Mars Attacks!” also just happens to have a cast of dozens.  This gives the astute Six Degrees aficionado links to a cross-section of the playlists of notable actors including, among others, Michael J. Fox, Pierce Bronsan, Lucas Haas, Paul Winfield, Rod Steiger, Annette Bening, Glenn Close, Natalie Portman, Sarah Jessica Parker, and – this is key – Jack Nicholson.

If you can get to Jack Nicholson, you can get to Kevin Bacon. 

So “Mars Attacks!” is not only a fun movie.  It also delivers the critical bonus of easy access for the Six Degrees.

That’s an important way to rate a movie.

It has given me a great appreciation for ensemble casts.  And an ensemble that includes Kevin Bacon, e.g.  “Mystic River” or “JFK.”  Jackpot!

I like a good love story too.  Not a sappy one, though I did watch “The Notebook” and cry like an idiot.  But I don’t think I’ll watch it again.  It lacked key elements.

I prefer a funny love story with a supernatural edge to it, like “Ghost.”  Well worth a second and third viewing since 1990. 

“Ghost” is funny with Whoopi Goldberg’s Oscar-winning performance as a phony psychic who unwittingly becomes a real one; it has drama and tension based on betrayal and murder; and it has that incredibly sexy yet sexless Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody” fully-clothed potter’s wheel love scene between Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. 

All that and a poignant, bitter-sweet ending when Swayze makes his final choice. 

You really can’t get a love story much better than that! 

All the elements of my love story rating system are in place.  AND, you can get to Kevin Bacon in one step – via Demi Moore in “A Few Good Men.”  KB is the defense attorney for Jack Nicholson.  You’re welcome.

That’s a pretty good list of movies to see and/or see again; but none of them would pass the Swedish Bechdel Test.

Yes, brand new from Sweden…well, actually developed in 1985 by United States author Alison Bechdel, and put to use by Swedish theater operators, the Bechdel system is simple:  To pass the test with an A rating a movie must have three elements:  At least two women – who talk to each other – about something other than a man.

None of the movies already mentioned would pass.

In addition I’ve just seen some pretty great 2013 releases that won’t pass the Bechdel test either:  “Gravity,” “Captain Phillips” and “The Butler” for example.  So there is more than one way to rate a movie.

Conversely, if you’re looking for a movie with at least two men who talk to each other about something other than a woman, well, see all of the above.  In fact, see just about any movie produced in Hollywood.  Many of which are excellent. 

But Bechdel is interesting, isn’t it?  Gives you a new slant on things. 


Just sayin’.

Six Degrees of Oscar

Let me just start out by saying we need a better method for selecting Best Picture.  The criteria used by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for deciding which movie gets Best Picture are esoteric, at most.  Who are these guys, the Academy members, and how do they decide which picture is “best”? 

It’s a little too hush, hush for me.  According to NBC News’s stealth research team, 94% of Academy members are white, 77% are male, 2% are black, and less than 2% are Latino.  Who do they think they are, the United States Congress?! 

When you go to the Academy’s official website, they just shine you on.  For example, if you’d like to find out for yourself who comprises the 6,000 voting members of the Academy, the website cryptically offers “a short list of individuals from each branch.”   

Well!  I wonder why we all don’t step forward.  I just want to know who picked “Rocky” over “All the President’s Men” and “Taxi Driver.”  How did you decide on “How Green is My Valley” over “Citizen Kane”?  Really.  Come on!  Show yourselves!  

The Academy says of its members that they number among “the most gifted and skilled artists and craftsmen in the motion picture world.”  Isn’t that nice?  Their site goes on to say that “its Award stands alone as a symbol of superior achievement.” 

All right.  Maybe if we, the movie going public, the fans, the unskilled, uneducated out crowd could identify who the Academy’s in crowd is, we would be pestering them to vote for our favorite picture, the one we chose because it made us cry, or made us laugh and cry, or starred our pet actor, you know, that hunky guy who’s still single.  Of course, we have the People’s Choice Awards for this purpose.  They’re terrible.  Point taken. 

But the Academy acknowledges its own internal lobbying: “Each November, an election campaign commences that rivals, at least in Hollywood, the passions and sometimes the excesses of the quadrennial race for the nation’s presidency.  It’s the race for the Academy Award nomination.”  Imagine the hardships voting members must endure - special screenings of nominated films, free admission to commercial runs of films, and the mailing of DVDs. Oh, the humanity.   

All Academy members, whoever they are, can vote for Best Picture.  And what are their criteria for selecting the “best”?  No mention of this on the Academy’s website.  We can only assume that each member has his or her own private yardstick of cherished elements.  For example, I like a thought-provoking movie with a touch of the supernatural.  “Michael Clayton” comes to mind, or “Crash.”  With no stated standards of excellence, maybe Academy members are the ones who choose the movie that made them sniffle, or giggle ‘til they dampened their drawers.  In an information vacuum, we can only surmise. 

As it is we’re supposed to accept the wisdom of that elite cadre of shadowy figures who foisted “Shakespeare in Love” on us when “Saving Private Ryan” was in the mix.  These are the same folks who held up “Ordinary People” in place of “Raging Bull,” and “Chariots of Fire” over “On Golden Pond.”  Seriously.  Which of those “winners” have lived longer in your memory? 

Therefore, in the spirit of “Moneyball,” I propose another, more scientific method for determining Best Picture.  No more voter subjectivity.  No more gut feelings or sentimentality.  Be gone Academy politics!  Let’s just get down to the numbers: 

The Oscar for Best Picture goes to the movie that can get you to Kevin Bacon in the fewest steps.  

You know how it works, right, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?  For example, begin with Patrick Swayze in “Road House” and go to Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in “Ghost.”  Then from Demi in “Ghost” go to Demi in “A Few Good Men” - with Kevin Bacon.  Three degrees.  

Clean, transparent!  No funny business.  No hokey pokey.  Just connect the dots.  

The down side is that by this standard, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” wins with a direct link:  Tom Hanks in “EL&IC” straight to Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon in “Apollo 13.”  Voila!  Done and done.  The A’s win the pennant and a new Hollywood tradition is born. 

OK.  You’re right.  It’s not very romantic.  Yes, I do like a little romance in my movies.  And a little mystery in the process.   

Darn!