I'm little but I'm old: the Movie Marathon update

The Movie Maven's Movie Marathon for America was a lot of fun. Good company, good movies, lots of chips and candy and a little conversation about politics and movies.

It was great to be surrounded by wonderful people in the comfort of my own living room.

Thank you to namastenancy, the famous Greg of the N-Judah Chronicles, the kind and generous dutchbaby, my gourmet popcorn queen Amber and her world traveling hubby Mike, a new friend Tim and his friend Thalia, the mysterious A. and the lovely new mommy Ms. Wellspring and her adorable three-week old Peach. And all of you who attended in spirit, including Paris Parfait and Christina.

I felt very fortunate that The Peach made her first real outing by choosing to attend a fundraising event at my house. She brought us good luck.

All in all, we raised about $500 for "That One." Not bad for a day of eating carbohydrates and sitting in a dark room for hours.

We watched four movies: Dick, Lost in America (those were our two wry comedies), and then The Manchurian Candidate and The Conversation (to fulfill our paranoia/on location in San Francisco requirements).

The other film I would have loved to have watched with the group was To Kill a Mockingbird, but we just ran out of time. So I watched it by myself the next day.

***

I absolutely adore this film, and the book I've read quite a few times since I first discovered it in junior high school. I don't know how many times I've seen the movie, but just the haunting and innocent film score by Elmer Bernstein alone makes me want to watch it.

"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

"The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash."

"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

The first clip below is the movie score, the other two are brief but powerful scenes from the film.