Last Surviving U.S. WWI Veteran Passes

Dixie Chicks – Travelin’ Soldier Live

{Travelin’ Soldier (live) – Dixie Chicks }

Frank Buckles — the last surviving U.S. veteran of the World War I forces — passed away Sunday at the age of 110. He enlisted in 1917 at the age of 16, lying about his age so he could serve his country. He later told a reporter, “I thought, well, ‘I want to get over there and see what it’s about.'”

The WWI time period is a fascinating time and is not often covered in popular culture these days. Movies and popular culture pay little attention to WWI partly because that war was so long ago and partly because it does not have the heroic triumph over evil theme that World War II has. But there are several lessons to be learned from World War I and its time, and we hope to revisit the topic in the future on Chimesfreedom, especially because I just started reading Robert Graves’s memoir of the time period, Good-Bye to All That. For today, we wanted to make sure to note the death of Frank Buckles so it is not lost in less important news like the Oscars.

World War I

Today, we remember Frank Buckles and all of the other soldiers who served in “the Great War.” The above Dixie Chicks song, “Travelin’ Soldier” is off their 2003 Top Of The World Tour Live
CD. The song was written and originally recorded by Bruce Robison, and The Dixie Chicks’s studio version of the song is on their 2002 Home album. In “Travelin’ Soldier,” the singer tells about “a girl with a bow” meeting a young man off to serve in the Vietnam war who asks her if she will write him because he has nobody else.

I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin’ for the love of a travelin’ soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin’ for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter said
A soldier’s coming home.

They exchange letters and she falls in love. But then she attends a football game where they read the names of the fallen. “And one name read but nobody really cared / But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair.”

It is ironic that this beautiful song about a woman supporting a man off to war was the victim of a campaign in the name of some sort of “patriotism.” The studio version “Travelin’ Soldier” was number one on the country charts as the U.S. was preparing to invade Iraq eight years ago this month on March 12, 2003. Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines told an audience in London: “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.” A number of country radio stations stopped playing “Travelin’ Soldier,” and the song dropped off the charts.

Many, like Merle Haggard defended Maines and her right to speak her mind. But as of today, “Travelin’ Soldier” is their last number one country song. The three made one more album together and went on hiatus. The 2006 documentary Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing
covers the reaction to the Bush quote and the impact on the group.

Fortunately, unlike the soldier in the song and so many others, Frank Buckles returned home from World War I and lived a long life, outliving the almost five million Americans who served in the war. Only one Australian man and one British woman survive Buckles of all of the 65 million people from around the world who served in the war. Not only did he live through WWI, but he saw more than a century’s worth of history, even serving as a civilian prisoner for 38 months when Japanese soldiers captured him in 1941 while he was traveling around the world. In his later years, he campaigned to get the government to refurbish a neglected World War I monument in D.C. and rededicate it as a national memorial. You may donate to the cause at the World War I Memorial Foundation website.

The West Virginia Congressional delegation from Buckles’s home state is proposing a plan for his body to lie in the U.S. Capitol. Buckles already had special government approval to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. It is good that he is so honored, because this honor is really about respecting all of the people who served in World War I, and hopefully the honor will continue to the WWI monument in DC. As for Frank Buckles, he is already home.

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    The King’s Speech Wins Best Picture

    Another Academy Awards show is over, ending minutes ago. The top six awards were:

    King's Speech

    Best Picture: The King’s Speech
    Best Director: Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
    Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
    Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
    Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
    Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter

    You may find a full list of winners and nominees at the website for The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Regarding the Oscar Predictions from the critics posted on Chimesfreedom a few days ago, only two got all of the top six awards correct: Jeff Johnson at Popdose and The Best Picture Project. Congratulations!

    As for the show itself, several of your favorite newspapers and news sources will have articles about it tomorrow, but Entertainment Weekly already has something up. Overall, there were few surprises with the awards but the show had its moments, like Randy Newman’s acceptance speech and an appearance by Kirk Douglas. I liked that Steven Spielberg introduced the Best Picture nominees by reminding everyone of some of the great movies of the past that did not win the award (“Citizen Kane. . . Raging Bull!”). To paraphrase Director Peter Jackson, movies should not be made for winning the Oscars, they should be made for the audience. And now the awards are over and we can get back to focusing on the films.

    What did you think of the 2011 Academy Awards telecast? What did you think of the hosts? Leave a comment.

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    2011 Oscar Predictions Roundup

    Most commentators agree on predictions for the top awards at tomorrow night’s 2011 Academy Awards presentations. According to them, the Oscar goes to:

    Academy Award, Oscar

    Best Picture: The King’s Speech (with The Social Network in second);
    Best Director: David Fincher for The Social Network, with Tom Hooper a close second for The King’s Speech;
    Best Actress: Natalie Portman from Black Swan (with Annette Bening from The Kids Are All Right in second);
    Best Actor: Colin Firth from The King’s Speech (with Jesse Eisenberg from The Social Network a distant second);
    Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo for The Fighter, with Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit a close second.
    Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale for The Fighter, with Geoffrey Rush for The King’s Speech a close second.

    Anything outside these picks will be a big surprise, but surprises are always possible. The contested areas with close two-horse races are Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor Categories.

    For a random sampling of predictions and other Oscar news around the Internet:

    – For the three contested slots of Director/Supporting Actress/Supporting Actor, Roger Ebert opts for the non-Fighter leaders and is in the Hooper/Steinfeld/Rush category. While agreeing with the consensus on the other picks, he notes that if he were voting for Best Picture, he would opt for The Social Network even as he predicts The King’s Speech to win.

    – Roger Ebert’s former TV co-host Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times goes a different route, opting for the Fincher/Leo/Bale combination. Also, he is one of the few who are still predicting The Social Network as the Best Picture, although he hedges his bets by saying it might be safer to go with The King’s Speech.

    Melenia Ryzik at The New York Times liked The Fighter and is in the Fincher/Leo/Bale category. Moviephone also liked The Fighter‘s supporting nominees and is in the Fincher/Leo/Bale category, as is Rick’s Predictions at Awards Wiz.

    Peter Hartlaub at the San Francisco Chronicle agrees, going with Fincher/Leo/Bale, although he thinks The Social Network will upset The King’s Speech.

    – Gregory Ellwood at the HitFlix Blog bravely predicts a Fighter split with the Supporting Acting awards going to Steinfeld and Bale.

    – Jeff Johnson over at Popdose also mixes it up a little bit, going with a Hooper/Leo/Bale combination, and The Best Picture Project agrees.

    – Five critics at The Guardian UK differ among themselves, but with most saying the contested three categories will go to Fincher, Bale and . . . the country’s own Helena Bonham Carter for Best Supporting Actress (The King’s Speech)! Three of the five also pick The Social Network as Best Picture.

    – For another take on the Ocars, Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street makes his predictions (Best Actor: “Colin Filth”).

    Cinematical has some interesting Oscar statistics. Did you know that the movie with the highest number of Oscars while winning 100% of nominated categories was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) with 11 wins out of 11 nominations?

    – For a trip down memory lane, Salon has a slide show of past Oscar Moments Everyone Should See.

    Among other big categories, the sure things seem to be Toy Story 3 for Best Animated Feature and The Social Network for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Best Documentary category seems to be a battle between Exit Through the Gift Shop and Inside Job. See Chimesfreedom’s previous post on an industry’s campaign against another Best Documentary nominee, Gasland.

    Conclusion on the Big Awards? It is always tricky to predict the winners because you are not selecting the “Best” but who you think others will say is the “Best.” So Chimesfreedom will leave the predictions to others (but see related posts below for thoughts on some of the contenders). From our random sampling, it will be a big surprise if The King’s Speech does not get Best Picture or if Natalie Portman does not get Best Actress or if Colin Firth does not get Best Actor. The difference in the close races will depend on whether or not the voters completely loved The King’s Speech and how much they liked The Fighter, as The Fighter lovers are going for Fincher/Leo/Bale while The King’s Speech lovers opt for Hopper/Steinfeld/Rush.

    But if predictions were always right, we would not need the awards show. So our prediction is simply that somewhere along the line, there will be a surprise or two.

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    Discovery’s Final Launch: The Space Race is Over

    Space Shuttle Discovery

    Bragg, Billy – The Space Race Is Over The Space Race is Over – Billy Bragg (press to play)

    Today at 4:50 p.m. EST (2150 GMT), the space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to make its final launch. During the 11-day mission, Discovery will bring supplies to the International Space Station, including Robonaut 2, a humanoid robot (I missed Robonaut 1 apparently). Since Discovery’s first flight in 1984, the shuttle has traveled 143 million miles and carried 246 humans into space.

    I remember watching the first Discovery flight. It was an exciting time for the space program. I was lucky to grow up with exciting changes in the space program, including seeing Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. The new space shuttles promised an even more exciting era. Many years before the shuttle’s first launch into space, I had a plastic space shuttle model that I glued together, and I would have guessed that by the time I was as old as I am now, we would have regular trips to the moon and robot servants.

    But it did not happen that fast. Science takes time, and some of the greatest advances are not necessarily the most exciting initially. I understand the debates about how money should be spent, but we cannot ignore science if we want a good future for us earthlings. And the International Space Station is pretty cool, and at least they will have a robot servant.

    Billy Bragg is an English singer-songwriter who has songs ranging from punk to folk. He is also active in left political causes, and in the 1990s Woody Guthrie’s daughter chose him to write music for some of Guthrie’s lyrics that were without music. The result was the excellent 1998 Mermaid Avenue album that he recorded with Wilco (along with Mermaid Avenue, Vol. II two years later). But Bragg probably is more known for writing excellent lyrics.

    One of Bragg’s songs from his Must I Paint You A Picture?: The Essential Billy Bragg, “The Space Race is Over” captures the nostalgia for the space adventures and perfectly captures how one might feel about the Discovery’s final mission. He remembers back to being a kid and telling his mom, “We’ll walk on the moon someday” because “Armstrong and Aldrin spoke to me/ From Houston and Cape Kennedy.”

    The song tells about his dream of someday traveling in space “On the high tide of technology. / But the dreams had all been taken / And the window seat’s taken too.”

    Now that the space race is over
    It’s been and it’s gone
    And I’ll never get to the moon.
    Now that the space race is over
    And I can’t help but feel
    That we’ve all grown up too soon.

    It is possible Bragg is being critical of the waste of resources, but I do not think that is the main point of the song. His son does ask, “”Why did they ever go,” and the song concludes, “Now that the space race is over/And I can’t help but feel/That we’re all just goin’ nowhere.” But the nostalgia is genuine. The song’s invocation of his mother and his son point toward him intending the mixed emotions in the song.

    “The Space Race is Over” appears on Billy Bragg’s album William Bloke, which Bragg released in 1996 after taking some time off from music to raise his son. In that context, the song’s reference to his son evokes some loss that future generations are not getting the excitement from science and the space program that we “older folks” did. Even if a computer did win on Jeopardy recently, it is not as exciting as getting humans to the moon. And “don’t offer me a place out in cyberspace / ’cause where in the hell’s that at?”

    Will I be watching the final launch of Discovery today? As an adult, I have other plans and will be traveling on the subway around the time of the launch, so I will miss it. Oh well. Godspeed Robonaut 2.

    Now that the space race is over
    And I can’t help but feel
    That we’ve all grown up too soon.

    Bonus Live Version Video: A live video of Billy Bragg performing “The Space Race is Over” is on YouTube.

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    Barney’s Version (short review)

    There are movies like this week’s Oscar front-runner The King’s Speech (2010), where very early into the film, you know what it is and where it is going and you enjoy it from the first minutes. Then there are movies like Barney’s Version (2010), which slowly suck you into the story and then takes you in unexpected directions.

    Barney's Version PosterFrom the reviews and previews, I knew going in that the movie starred Paul Giamatti as the Barney in the title and had something to do with following his life through three marriages. IMDb describes the movie as a “picaresque and touching story” about “Barney Panofsky, a hard-drinking, cigar-smoking, foulmouthed 65-year old hockey fanatic and television producer, as he reflects on his life’s successes and (numerous) gaffes and failures.” And the movie starts off that way and I went along, because I always enjoy Giamatti. There were little surprises in the movie, some of which you discover early on, such as a police officer who thinks Giamatti committed a murder. But the real turning point in Barney’s Version, which is based on a novel by Mordecai Richler, comes nearer the end when the movie heads in a different direction in a way that happens in real life.

    Like co-star Dustin Hoffman, Giamatti is always an interesting actor to watch. There are moments in many of his movies where I am blown away by his fine acting, such as in an ordinary scene in American Splendor where he is talking to one of the movie’s oddball characters in a car. Nothing special happens in the scene, but Giamatti is so comfortable in the character it blurs the line between acting and real life. Similarly, there is an emotional scene in Barney’s Version between Giamatti and Rosamund Pike, playing his third wife, that that is understated and cuts to the bone of reality. Although Giamatti was not nominated for an Oscar, he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy for this performance.

    I am not going to ruin the movie for you by saying anything more, and you should not expect a big twist ending, as the surprises are small scale. But if you are looking for a good smaller movie that is a character study after you have seen the big studio Oscar contenders, check out Barney’s Version, which is in theaters now.

    What did you think of Barney’s Version? Leave a comment.

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