Postman

"The Postman," the top-grossing foreign film of 1995, has been released in over 250 theaters -- including The Rotunda -- the widest release ever for a foreign-language movie."The Postman" ("Il Postino") featured Phillipe Noiret as the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who achieved a touching relationship with his illiterate postman (Massimo Troisi).The movie has showed up on many end-of-year best-film lists. Miramax is spending money in Los Angeles to push for a Best Picture nomination for "The Postman.

The problem: A damaged cluster mailbox in Woodlawn was removed but never replaced. The back story: Cureline Beasley felt she had been patient long enough. The Woodlawn resident used to receive her mail in a cluster mailbox she shared with neighbors in the 100 block of Darius Court. The setup made for efficient mail delivery to that block of the 28-year-old community, allowing the carrier to deliver letters to one location, where residents could collect. But as long ago as November, the door on the back of the box that the carrier used to put mail into boxes broke.

This postman doesn't even ring once. Instead, hat in hand, a look of pathetic self-doubt inscribed on his disorganized features, he approaches his sole client with the diffidence of a flower girl approaching the Duke of Lorcano.The client, however, is a forgiving man, a humane man, though still a great man. He allows himself to be approached, he is not mean or short, and in a little bit of time, unbelievably, a relationship is formed. That is the majesty and the magic of "The Postman," the Italian film directed by an Englishman about a Chilean.

George "Hobey" Hammen, a retired police officer and postal worker in Baltimore, died Saturday. The Joppa resident was 83. Mr. Hammen served in the Navy during World War II and in the Naval Reserve. He then became a Baltimore police officer during the 1950s. After leaving the police force, he worked as a postal carrier for 20 years. A memorial service will be held 7 p.m. Tuesday at McComas Funeral Homes, 1317 Cokesbury Road, Abingdon. Mr. Hammen is survived by his wife of 62 years, Amelia "Honey" Hammen.

Kevin Costner's going to take a lot of heat for "The Postman," from critics complaining it's too long, too self-involved, too silly, too maudlin.And there's some truth in all of that, but not enough to sink what is really a very good film, an epic tale of a reluctant hero who inspires a much-needed revolt among some especially downtrodden masses. Sure it's overblown, and sure Costner's character sometimes seems too good to be true, but isn't that what myths are all about?The year is 2013, and the combination of nuclear war, nuclear fallout and nuclear winter has left the United States in pretty much of a mess; in fact, there is no U.S.A.

Christopher George Newberger, a retired Irvington postman and decorated World War II bombardier, died of congestive heart failure Sunday at Brightview Assisted Living in Catonsville. The Woodlawn resident was 87. Born in Baltimore and raised on Monastery Avenue, he was a 1934 graduate of City College. He was an inventory worker for the old Montgomery Ward mail-order house on Washington Boulevard before enlisting in 1943 in the Army Air Forces. He logged more than 700 hours of flying time over enemy lands in World War II. A first lieutenant with the 738th bomb squadron, he took part in raids on the Munich Motor Works, the Ploesti Oil Fields in eastern Romania and the Latisana railroad bridge in Italy.

Much of "Inventing the Future," a conference at the University of Baltimore, celebrates what technologies can do in a computerized, interactive, video-savvy, virtual-reality world.L Then along comes Neal Postman, an intellectual party-pooper."It's very easy to point out what a new technology can do," he said. "I think it takes some insight and intelligence to realize what it can undo."Dr. Postman seeks to remind us that "every technology gives us something and takes away something." This, he says, is true of every advance, from the development of the plow and writing on up to the latest in computers and satellite communications.

Postman Plus, a mail and office service business, opened Nov. 5 at 1359 N. Main St. in the rear of the building.The business is ownedby two couples: Charles and Gail Hillier Varner of Hampstead, and Paul M. and M. Ann Lloyd of Upperco, Baltimore County.The store offers services such as shipping and receiving packagesfrom United Parcel Service, Federal Express and the U.S. Postal Service, wrapping parcels, faxing, photocopying, laminating and gift wrapping, Charles Varner said.The owners also are notaries and offer secretarial and bookkeeping work, he said.

THEY threw me off the hay truck about noon."That's how "The Postman Always Rings Twice" opens.This year is the centennial of the birth of its author, James M. Cain, and a Cain exhibit on the second floor of the Central Pratt is well worth visiting.Directly on the floor above, over Cain's head, so to speak, is Henry Mencken's special room. It's good they are so close. Both had their days in Baltimore, wrote here, knew one another here.Cain did not come to writing early, nor did he come to it easily.

It was a mere 159 pages, this book called "Bar-B-Q," and even its author had only modest hopes when he sent it off to the publisher.He told his wife: "More than 500 novels come out every year in this country, and not many attract attention. If I sell a couple of thousand copies, get my name in the papers, and pick up a little money, we'll all be to the good and I'll try to think of another one."Not even his old employer, The Sun, could work up much enthusiasm. In February 1934, it ran a small photograph of the 41-year-old writer, noting simply his first novel would be out soon.

Good guys gone bad and bad gals gone worse, claustrophobic cityscapes and never-ending nights, unsuspecting patsies and moral compasses gone hopelessly astray: Such is the world of film noir, that dense, gloomy cinematic genre that became all the rage in the years after World War II, as Americans began to grow weary, and wary, of the happy endings Hollywood had been selling them for so long. Tay Garnett's 1946 The Postman Always Rings Twice (8 p.m., TCM), based on the pulp novel by James M. Cain, was an early high point in the genre - and one of the few that would come from MGM, a studio that tended to back away from such lurid desecrations of the American dream.

Dudley Bradburn Letter carrier U.S. Postal Service, Catonsville Salary --$47,900, plus overtime Age --55 Years on the job --30 How he got started --After getting out of the Marine Corps, Bradburn took a job with a glass company but then applied for several other jobs. The Postal Service was the first to call him back. He's been on the same Catonsville route for 25 years. Typical day --Bradburn works Monday through Friday and also works many overtime shifts on Saturdays. He starts at 8 a.m. by pulling and sorting the mail to be delivered.

Michael Anthony Mazz, a retired postman who had been active in volleyball circles, died of complications from cancer Oct. 15 at Charlestown Retirement Community, where he lived for the past five years. The former Southwest Baltimore resident was 93. Born Michael Anthony Maziuravic in Baltimore and raised on Herkimer Street, he was a Polytechnic Institute graduate. His family later changed the spelling of its name. Mr. Mazz was a carpenter at the old Hochschild Kohn department store in downtown Baltimore before joining the Army during World War II. Wounded by shrapnel, he served in Africa and in the Battle of the Bulge.

Christopher George Newberger, a retired Irvington postman and decorated World War II bombardier, died of congestive heart failure Sunday at Brightview Assisted Living in Catonsville. The Woodlawn resident was 87. Born in Baltimore and raised on Monastery Avenue, he was a 1934 graduate of City College. He was an inventory worker for the old Montgomery Ward mail-order house on Washington Boulevard before enlisting in 1943 in the Army Air Forces. He logged more than 700 hours of flying time over enemy lands in World War II. A first lieutenant with the 738th bomb squadron, he took part in raids on the Munich Motor Works, the Ploesti Oil Fields in eastern Romania and the Latisana railroad bridge in Italy.

It's terrible that a tiger mauled longtime Las Vegas showman Roy Horn - of Siegfried & Roy fame - during one of his trademark routines earlier this month. The morning shows, the cable talk programs, local news - all have succumbed to the allure of the tiger. Friends, publicists, audience members, fellow Nevadans were rounded up for interviews. Experts have argued over whether the tiger intended to hurt Horn, who was put in critical condition by the tiger's on-stage attack. Cable news outlets have offered updates daily, sometimes even hourly.

Melvin R. Strawbridge, a retired electrician and former Parkville resident, died April 12 of leukemia at his home in Van Vleck, Texas. He was 74. Born and raised in Northeast Baltimore near Clifton Park, Mr. Strawbridge was a graduate of Baltimore public schools. During World War II, he served in the Navy from 1944 to 1948 as a postman. Until retiring in 1966, Mr. Strawbridge worked as an electrician with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 28 in Baltimore. He later moved to New Hampshire, New Orleans and Las Vegas before moving to Van Vleck in the 1980s.

It's terrible that a tiger mauled longtime Las Vegas showman Roy Horn - of Siegfried & Roy fame - during one of his trademark routines earlier this month. The morning shows, the cable talk programs, local news - all have succumbed to the allure of the tiger. Friends, publicists, audience members, fellow Nevadans were rounded up for interviews. Experts have argued over whether the tiger intended to hurt Horn, who was put in critical condition by the tiger's on-stage attack. Cable news outlets have offered updates daily, sometimes even hourly.

John Garfield could turn the act of cadging a smoke and savoring it into a romantic invitation. He epitomized the virile working-class antihero of the 1930s and '40s - an urban Joe with a well-worn chip on his shoulder, alternately resisting and giving into temptation and sometimes staging a scam or two himself. He was at his best in the 1946 movie version of Baltimorean James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice. As a cheerful hitchhiker who ambles into a Southern California roadside luncheonette and immediately falls in love with the proprietor's voluptuous wife (Lana Turner)

Kevin Costner's going to take a lot of heat for "The Postman," from critics complaining it's too long, too self-involved, too silly, too maudlin.And there's some truth in all of that, but not enough to sink what is really a very good film, an epic tale of a reluctant hero who inspires a much-needed revolt among some especially downtrodden masses. Sure it's overblown, and sure Costner's character sometimes seems too good to be true, but isn't that what myths are all about?The year is 2013, and the combination of nuclear war, nuclear fallout and nuclear winter has left the United States in pretty much of a mess; in fact, there is no U.S.A.