Jeff Fox's blog

Thanks for the help, folks. I managed to get quite a few blog, Facebook and e-mail comments in today's business column on helpful ideas for those who are cheap and proud of it.
 
The column is at http://www.examiner.net/business/x1156073351/Trying-to-squeeze-every-last-nickel.
 

Hi gang,
Looking for some help. Here's a piece of my column on today's business page:
I keep trying to impress upon my teenage son that cheapness is good.

Since he’s lobbying for a new HD television in time for Olympic hockey – game 1, U.S. vs. Switzerland, is only 112 days away – he’s found the best leverage available, but it probably won’t be enough.
I’m just cheap, and I want others to rush to my defense.

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this one. They're remaking "True Grit."
 
Why, you might ask? How do you improve upon a classic?
 

Those Oscar people must know what they're doing. I saw the best movie I've seen in quite a while the other night.
 
"Departures" won the Oscar this year for best foreign film. Like "The Lives of Others," which won a couple of years ago in that category, it didn't get to Kansas City until long after the awards. So do we complain that it took so long, or are we thankful it made it here at all? I don't know any more.
 

There’s a quirky, quiet, charming movie in KC just for this week. No one is shot, stabbed or blown up. There are no steamy sex scenes. There’s no one in it you ever heard of. And it’s in Norsk, with subtitles.

Go see it anyway, you want something sweet, intelligent, offbeat and entirely unlike anything at the gigantoplex.

For the first half of "Public Enemies," two things kept jumping out at me. The first was that there seemed to be one scene after another written with a punchline crafted just for a good trailer. That gets old after a while. Stop teasing. Start telling the story.
 

What's this? A crowded Tivoli on a Sunday afternoon? For a documentary?
 

I'd like to thank the academy for making my life more complicated – but probably more fun, too.
 
First and foremost, the annual Oscars show is a TV show. Its ratings are off. Hollywood always struggles between art and commerce, and the Oscars are supposed to be for the best efforts of the year. Fair enough, but maybe more people would tune in if some of the movies in the running were at least, you know, movies that people actually went to see.
 

Hi, gang. Just a quick hit on one of those really good art-house movies that might or might not be around for awhile. It's Kansas City, and you never can tell.
 

I really tried to enjoy Father's Day. Church was fine. Good discussion at Bible study, and then we sang one of my favorite hymns during the service. So it looked like a good day.
 
At 11:15, the phone rang. Did I want four Royals tickets? My 17-year-old son informed me that, yes, I did. Not that he's paying. So much for notions of watching the game in the AC while flipping through the Sunday papers and perhaps catching a nap.
 

Has this ever happened before? This week three documentaries about Kansas City were on area screens. One just went away, but I've seen the other two, and both are worth checking out.
 

I had this co-worker who should have used more discretion. Instead of just letting it go, he pushed a point with the boss that threatened to bring of grief on the whole crew.
 
"You arrogant ass," I said, "You've killed us."
 
Quick – name that movie.
 
Fortunately, my friend got the reference and got the joke. Instead of popping me between the eyes, he laughed heartily, and domestic tranquility was maintained.
 

Mrs. Schoen was one of my most influential teachers. Actually, she was the junior high school librarian, but I hung out in the library a lot. She encouraged my growing interest in the Civil War, and she suggested I read something other than "Old Yeller" for a tenth time. Heaven only knows what she would have thought of kids re-re-reading the "Harry Potter" books. I say reading is good, period.

The bottom line is I did get to a movie over the weekend, and it was OK. Who cares if it cost $27, more or less.
I was all jazzed about "The Only Good Indian," a film shot in – ahem – that state just west of here and starring Wes Studi. OK, I only know Wes Studi from a small role in one of my favorite movies of the '90s, "Heat," but he was going to be at the theater in downtown Kansas City when they showed this thing last week. Sounded like fun.

It's spring, so my YouthFriends effort kicks into high gear. By the way, YouthFriends is a great program in our local schools. If you're not volunteering, stop reading this and go sign up.