Stumbling Upon a Treasure

Every once in a while, as I flip mindlessly through the channels, the kids are busy keeping to themselves, my husband is obsessively playing Bejewled, and the stars are lined up just right...I will stumble on a movie that I have never seen before and get to watch it in peace. A movie that is just about to start so I can catch it right from the beginning. A movie I have never even heard of. A movie that ends up just delighting me.

Stumbling upon such a movie is like stumbling upon a rare treasure. It's like doing laundry and finding a 20 dollar bill in the washing machine that no one remembers existed. I love that feeling. And it doesn't happen that often. Especially where I am left alone and no one needs a snack or help with something or complaining about my lack of housekeeping skills. Just me,the couch, a blanket, and my dogs.

Yesterday afternoon this happened to me. I had a long night on Saturday, involving an emergency, middle of the night babysitting for a neighbor. All I wanted to do yesterday was sleep, sleep, and sleep some more, but if I did that my sleep would continue to be all messed up. I'm a night owl as it is. I don't need to encourage that bad habit. Especially when I have to be up by 6 am if I don't want to homeschool my kids. Which I don't. They NEED to GO. Get OUT!!! Give me MY space and time. I don't know how homeschool moms do it. Big Kudos to you!!

Anyway, I decided to turn on the tv to see if there was anything on that would at least help me keep my interest and keep my eyes open without resorting to propping the lids with toothpicks.
I flipped through the guide, not really seeing anything I hadn't seen before or had any interest in. There really is nothing on tv on Sunday afternoons.

I saw something called Nobody's Baby. It was the only movie that was just about to start, so I figured "What the heck." Worse came to worse, I would just fall back to sleep.

Nobody's Baby was absolutely adorable. Warm, witty, charming. A great Sunday Afternoon movie.

I don't believe this movie was ever released in the theaters, but it is definitely worth checking out. The plot is a simple one: drifter, heart of gold, not-to-bright criminal Skeet Ulrich finds a baby and decides he wants to keep her. With the help of his best friend, and a small group of trailer park misfits, they keep the baby from falling in the wrong hands, and keep him from getting caught.

But the real reason to see this movie is because of this guy:

Do you see him? I didn't at first. I caught of glimpse of him, somewhere in the greasy, balding hair, bad teeth, bushy 'stache, and welfare glasses. And I questioned whether I really saw him. Could it be? Was it him?

I looked closely again:


And I still doubted myself. Could that be this man:


Is this another one of his hundreds of faces?


And it was. Gary Oldman is pure genius in this movie as a bumbling, idiotic criminal with a fetish for chapstick on his "other lips". He makes the movie. He completely loses himself in the role. Gone is the British actor. Instead, there is an out of style, moronic, goofy, red neck, good ole' boy. To bad the academy doesn't recognize little known films like this one, because Gary Oldman deserved something.

So, I stand by my previous statement in a previous post that Gary Oldman is indeed the top chameleon actor out there. No one else does it better.

It is a joy to find a good movie when you least expect it. It is a treasure when you find Gary Oldman in the movie.

If you do happen to watch this movie, don't turn it off as soon as it is over. As the credits roll, there's a little something extra. Gary and co-star Mary Steenburgen do a little line dancing. Staying in character, Gary's rooster like, loose legged dance moves were just too funny. It was just so hard for me to picture him as Sirius Black. Or Dracula. Or any other wonderful character he has bought to the screen.