A to Z Challenge post - O is for obeliscolychny and O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Mornin' all. Welcome back to another A to Z Challenge post. Today's word is: obeliscolychny. It's a lighthouse, and unfortunately, that is pretty much all of the information I can find on the word. I can't find any history or anything! Hopefully that is really what it means, and it's not some obscure swear word or mother insult. So...yeah. There you go.

 

Today's film selection is a really good one: O Brother, Where Art Thou? This 2000 film stars George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning. The Coen brothers once again bring an unusual yet endearing story to the big screen. Here is the storyline from IMBd: Loosely based on Homer's "Odyssey," the movie deals with the picaresque adventures of Ulysses Everett McGill and his companions Delmar and Pete in 1930s Mississippi. Sprung from a chain gang and trying to reach Everett's home to recover the buried loot of a bank heist they are confronted by a series of strange characters--among them sirens, a cyclops, bank robber George "Baby Face" Nelson (very annoyed by that nickname), a campaigning governor and his opponent, a KKK lynch mob, and a blind prophet who warns the trio that "the treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find." 

 

Not only is there great acting, but there is wonderful music. Not a musical per se, there are some outstanding musical numbers in the movie. Again, from IMBd: The film's soundtrack became an unlikely blockbuster, even surpassing the success of the film. By early 2001, it had sold five million copies, spawned a documentary film, three follow-up albums ("O Sister" and "O Sister 2"), two concert tours, and won Country Music Awards for Album of the Year and Single of the Year (for "Man of Constant Sorrow"). It also won five Grammys, including Album of the Year, and hit #1 on the Billboard album charts the week of March 15, 2002, 63 weeks after its release and over a year after the release of the film. I own the soundtrack and have pretty much worn it out! Even the guys I work with here in the lab like to play it on the lab's stereo. If you enjoy old gospel/folk type music, or if you are a fan of Alison Krauss, you will love the soundtrack.

 

I don't remember a lot of swearing in the film, and any violence is more slapstick in nature. It was nominated for two Oscars, and George Clooney won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical. I highly recommend it.

Until tomorrow and the letter "P" - TTFN my friends!