Netflix new release roundup for December ‘20

The Vaccine is out in the world now, and it’ll take some time before its impact on the future of the film industry can be measured. One likes to believe 2021 couldn’t possibly be any worse than 2020, but getting past that nightmare of a year with not only a new president on deck but a legitimate defense against the Virus does give one reason to be hopeful. Zod knows we could all use that.

—Mank. The making of Citizen Kane through the eyes of co-writer Herman Mankiewicz. I was kinda drowsy when I watched this, plus it was really talky (what a surprise, a movie about a writer was packed with dialogue). It was cool to see historical figures like Orson Welles, Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg and William Randolph Hearst depicted, but ultimately this didn’t thrill me as much as I had hoped it would. David Fincher directs from a screenplay by his late father Jack. Gary Oldman acts drunk most of the time as Mankiewicz and Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies was good, but overall I thought it was kinda meh.

—Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Early 20th-century blues pioneer Ma Rainey comes to Chicago with her band to record her songs, but her ambitious trumpet player has ideas of his own about how her music should be played. Co-produced by Denzel Washington, based on the play by August Wilson, Viola Davis is damn near unrecognizable in the title role but is also a force of nature, taking the contempt she holds for the white men controlling her career, the suspicion she has over Chadwick Boseman (in his final role) subverting her position as bandleader, and her general world-weariness and putting it into the blues. Boseman stands a strong chance at winning a posthumous Oscar with his performance; how very sad it is that he’s no longer with us.

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By now you’ve heard about Warner Brothers’ deal to release all its 2021 films on HBO Max at the same time as they’re released theatrically. It’s a plan that has rubbed some people the wrong way, among them Christopher Nolan. 

It’s awful hard to look at this and not think the genie is out of the bottle. It’s not likely to return, either. The theatrical distribution model was struggling before the Virus and if it’s a matter of financial survival on the studios’ part, even with a Vaccine now available, I’m unconvinced they’ll go to bat for the theaters without a strong motivation. Maybe one will come. 

That said, the recent stimulus deal signed last month offers some hope, and this piece offers more reasons to be cheerful for the long-term future of theaters (though watching movies at home has its merits too).

More on the other side.

Schoolhouse Rock!

In the midst of an intense hearing for Alabama senator and U.S. Attorney General appointee Jeff Sessions, there was a surprising bit of silliness: Jeff Sessions is a big fan of “Schoolhouse Rock!”

During the hearing, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse said that there was a “civics crisis” in the U.S. and asked about Sessions’ thought on [President] Obama’s use of executive orders. While arguing that Obama’s use of executive power was an overreach, Sessions said that he felt “Schoolhouse Rock!” was “not a bad basic lesson in how the government is supposed to work.”

There you have it. What more do you need than an endorsement from an actual government representative on the effectiveness of Schoolhouse Rock! as an educational tool?

This series of musical shorts was part of my childhood as it was for most kids of my generation, and I grew to anticipate it as much as the other series on Saturday mornings. They were proto-music videos, with original, catchy songs designed to make kids learn about science and math and history in a fun way, to the point where they don’t even realize they’re learning—and it works. I can still sing the preamble to the Constitution without missing a beat.

“Three is a Magic Number”

The brainchild of ad exec David McCall, who wanted a better way for his son to learn multiplication, he hired musician Bob Dorough to write a math song. The result was the first SHR hit, “Three is a Magic Number.” McCall’s co-worker, illustrator Tom Yohe, made some accompanying images and they pitched it to ABC as a series. The SHR pilot, featuring “Three,” debuted in 1971; two years later came the series. Yohe and George Newall were the executive producers and Dorough, who died two years ago, was musical director.

The following are some of my favorite songs in the series. Links to the videos are in the titles.

—“Verb: That’s What’s Happening.” Music by Zachary Sanders, lyrics by Dorough. The song is all kinds of awesome, but I’m still hoping somebody, somewhere will do something with the Verb superhero character in the video. He’s already cool enough to have his own movie; give him a TV show, a comic book, a toy line, something. 

—“Unpack Your Adjectives.” Music by Blossom Dearie, Lyrics by Newall. Blossom Dearie (yes, that really was her name) was a jazz singer in the 50s and 60s and yes, she really did sing in that high, girlish voice. I liked this video because I can easily imagine a kid on a camping trip who complains the whole time about the tiniest things using adjectives like “frustrating” and “worst” to describe it. Plus, I just thought the little girl slapping signs on everything was kinda funny.

“I’m Just a Bill” taught how a bill
becomes a law.

—“The Shot Heard ‘Round the World.” Music and lyrics by Dorough. A greatly simplified, but memorable summation of the Revolutionary War, I just remember liking the song a lot. It came in handy while writing my novel, too: I remembered this song while making a passing reference to the war.

—“Interplanet Janet.” Music and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Obviously one that appeals to the SF geek in me, this is another character I’d love to see something else done with, but first I think she’d have to be defined. She seems like an alien life form but she has a body like a rocket ship?—which makes me think she’s actually some manner of cybernetic creature. She probably doesn’t need to breathe since she can travel in space, but what does she use for propulsion? If there’s never been a planet Janet hasn’t seen, how fast can she travel? Light speed? Inquiring minds want to know!

—“Electricity, Electricity.” Music by Sanders, lyrics by Dorough. EEE-lec-tricity. Once you hear it, you can’t unhear it. EEE-lec-tricity.

“Conjunction Junction”
taught about conjunctions.

In 1993, a live theatrical adaptation of the SHR songs debuted in Chicago and has enjoyed a number of revivals since, including a sequel.

I worked in Tower Records in 1995, which is how I learned of the rock album of SHR cover songs, Schoolhouse Rock Rocks (which makes an excellent companion piece to the rock album of cartoon theme songs, Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits). Listen to “I’m Just a Bill” by Deluxx Folk Implosion to get an idea of what the album’s like. 

Dorough gathered new groups of musicians together to make more SHR songs in 1994-96 and again in 2009.

SHR aired on ABC, and in 1996, Disney bought ABC, so Disney... sigh... owns the rights to SHR now—but at least they actually play the series on Disney+, which is good.

SHR was and is a lot of fun and it’s good to know it hasn’t been forgotten.

Bob Dorough

The Rutles: All You Need is Cash

The Rutles: All You Need is Cash

YouTube viewing

Ten years of this blog and I have yet to talk about Monty Python. For now, I’ll say what practically everyone else says about the British comedy troupe: they’re hilarious, I thoroughly enjoy their material, both on TV and in the movies (I own Holy Grail on DVD), and I could watch them all day. But this is not about Python as a group, just one of them: Eric Idle.

In the sixties, Idle appeared on the ITV children’s show Do Not Adjust Your Set with Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Terry Jones and met John Cleese and Graham Chapman as a guest on At Last the 1948 Show.

Idle and the others from Adjust were offered an adult, late-night show at around the same time Cleese and Chapman were offered a series by the BBC. In 1969, after a taping of Adjust, Cleese arranged a dinner meeting between the six of them to discuss a collaboration, and a legend was born.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus aired on the BBC from 1969-1974, and afterwards, Idle and the others pursued solo projects. In 1975 Idle created the sketch show Rutland Weekend Television, with music by Neil Innes. It was during this period that the two came up with characters that spawned a life of their own.

The short films of Andy Warhol

I’ve tried to understand what the big deal was about Andy Warhol. When I lived in Columbus, I went to a major Warhol exhibit and looked at his silkscreens, sat through a few of his films, read his history, but I can’t say I ever made a personal connection to any of it.

It’s easy to say, “You had to be there,” but in his case, I really feel that’s true. For all of the articles that testify to his importance to art history and pop culture history, I don’t grok any of it, and certainly not his films—I mean, who would want to sit through a static shot of the Empire State Building for eight damn hours? More to the point, who would feel such a film had value?

I get that Warhol was mostly pulling everyone’s collective leg with his work, but audiences of the 60s strike me as willing accomplices to the joke. I dunno. Still, his films have a relevancy because of who he was, if not for their content, so I will examine a few and try to appreciate the importance they may have. No promises.

Harlem Rides the Range

Harlem Rides the Range
YouTube viewing

I really wanted to write about a black cowboy movie but thought I’d have to settle for one from the 70s or 80s. Then I came across this discovery: Herb Jeffries (AKA Herbert Jeffrey) was a singing cowboy from the 30s who starred in westerns with all-black casts.

He was very light-skinned (his mom was white) but identified as black. He started out as a singer in Detroit and moved to Chicago. In 1931 he joined Earl Hines’ band for a few years and then moved to LA in 1934. In time he became part of Duke Ellington’s band and lowered his vocal range to sound more like Bing Crosby.

While touring in the South with Hines, Jeffries experienced racism for the first time; the band could only play in tobacco warehouses and black-only theaters. When he saw black kids watching westerns, he decided they should have a black cowboy hero of their own.

He hooked up with producer Jed Buell, raised some money and wrote songs for the film. Jeffries had learned about horse riding on his grandfather’s farm, so he cast himself in the lead and used makeup to darken his skin.

Harlem on the Prairie was shot in five days in 1937 and though the critical reaction was mixed, it got a write-up in Time. “The Bronze Buckaroo” went on to make three more westerns, including the one I watched, Harlem Rides the Range, from 1939. I’m sorry to say it’s not very good; the acting is amateurish, the editing uninspired and there are only two songs in the hour-long movie.

That said, Jeffries was a good singer and the fact that his movies got made at all is an accomplishment in itself worth noting. He appeared in other non-western movies and television later in life, including an episode of The Virginian. A documentary short, A Colored Life, was made about him in 2008.

Gene Autry vs. Roy Rogers

Singing cowboys (and cowgirls) have been around almost as long as sound in motion pictures. I can’t say I have much experience with them. I remember some of the country records my father listened to by self-styled cowboys—Marty Robbins, Freddy Fender, Tex Ritter—but as a kid, I never associated singing cowboys with the movies. I suppose my father must have watched singing cowboy movies growing up and then later, as an adult, but I don’t recall seeing any on TV.

If you had asked me back then, I would’ve said Gene Autry was the owner of the California Angels and Roy Rogers was the fast food restaurant. Even when I discovered who they were beyond those roles, I can’t say I cared much; westerns were what my parents watched. Now, many years later, as I re-examine westerns, it occurs to me that my education would be incomplete without a foray into the sub-genre of the western musical, and the two guys who dominated the field like oil rigs on the plains of Texas.

Here’s a top ten list of singing cowboys and cowgirls featuring some names you may not know. Here’s a history of the sub-genre, with a heavy focus on Autry and Rogers. With this post, I’m mostly interested in seeing their movies (and a bit of their TV shows) and seeing which one of them I like better. I realize I’m working from a small test sample, given the breadth of their careers, but I’m guessing their movies followed a formula and rarely strayed from that formula. My small sample will probably be enough.

The Outlaw

The Outlaw
YouTube viewing

I was going to spend this post about The Outlaw talking about Howard Hughes, about the real Billy the Kid and Doc Holliday and Pat Garrett, but the truth is, this is such a bad movie that I can’t be bothered—and I was disappointed, too, because Walter Huston is in it and I had enjoyed every other film of his I had seen—even Kongo! And this is all before I get to Jane Russell.

No one in it acts like a normal human being. (Well, maybe the middle-aged Mexican woman does. Her I liked.) The major bone of contention between Billy and Doc is over a horse. I swear to god they fight over this horse for most of the movie. They fight over Russell, too—she starts out with Doc but ends up with Billy—but at one point, when offered the choice of Russell or the horse, Doc actually chooses the horse.

HE CHOOSES THE HORSE OVER JANE FREAKING RUSSELL.

Think about that.

5 Minutes to Live

The Pop Stars Moonlighting Blogathon is an event devoted to singers who act, hosted by RealWeegieMidget Reviews. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the link at the host site.

5 Minutes to Live (AKA Door-to-Door Maniac)
YouTube viewing

He was a musician in the fields of not only country music, but rock, folk, and gospel, a pioneer whose influence continues to be felt today. He had a roguish reputation, fueled by his addictions to alcohol and drugs. He was a deeply spiritual man who wrote songs about the plight of Native Americans and other disenfranchised people. They called him the Man in Black—but his name was Johnny Cash.

Invisible links

Once again, I need to learn to keep my big mouth shut when it comes to premature Oscar predictions, because Parasite took Best Picture and 1917 didn’t. It’s okay, though: Parasite is an outstanding movie and it deserves to win. Kudos to Bong Joon-Ho, who also won Best Director and Original Screenplay, for making a suspenseful, often times funny, and ultimately relevant picture that also just happens to be in a foreign language.

The Academy got it right—and acknowledging the best movie as coming from someplace beyond America speaks to how the world is shrinking culturally. We’re more aware of different filmmakers and different filmmaking styles than before, and that’s bound to have an impact on our own homegrown filmmakers in the future.

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Virginia and I went to a late-night screening of Rosemary’s Baby and afterwards she was convinced she had seen a cut earlier in life where you actually saw the baby at the end, or at least its eyes. Take it for what it’s worth, but according to IMDB, Roman Polanski rejected producer William Castle’s suggestion that the baby be shown. There’s a fleeting glimpse of demon eyes after Sidney Blackmer says “He has his father’s eyes,” and that’s what made Virginia think she had seen the baby, but I always thought that was supposed to be the devil in that shot.

More interestingly, though, was something else she picked up on: she said that Blackmer and Ruth Gordon’s characters are supposed to be WASPs, but the other witches were either Jewish stereotypes or minorities (remember the Japanese guy snapping photos?). I admit, as many times as I’ve seen the movie, I never thought of that—and later, she even sent me this article, which points out the Jewish metaphors. It didn’t wreck her enjoyment of the movie, though—she wanted to see it.

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So that’s that. On to the links:

Aurora attends a ceremony in New Jersey in which a street is named after John Barrymore.

What did Virginie learn after watching all 31 Carry On films?

Karen’s favorite pre-code films (updated).

Maddy gets into the water with Jaws.

Will the Parasite TV show feature Mark Ruffalo?

The Oscar telecast got its lowest ratings ever.

Wes Anderson’s forthcoming film is inspired by The New Yorker.

The latest Invisible Man remake is a parable for domestic violence.

Antonio Banderas on his first Oscar nomination and what it means.

Corey Feldman’s “Me Too” documentary about his childhood will play once and once only.

Beloved YA author Judy Blume is ready to go Hollywood.

The enduring friendship of Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks.

Rick Moranis comes out of retirement, but not for the new Ghostbusters movie.

Was Johnny Depp’s Lone Ranger movie better than we thought?

Are you ready for a KISS biopic?

Check out this 19th-century Lumiere Brothers short updated in 4K and a 60 FPS frame rate.

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster and Through the Never

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Netflix viewing

Metallica: Through the Never
YouTube viewing

One of my Spotify playlists is called “Headbangers Ball.” It’s for metal and punk bands: Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Black Flag, The Sex Pistols, etc. Generally, I have anywhere between three to seven songs for each band, for a total of over three hundred.

I have over twenty songs on the playlist for Metallica alone.

I don’t recall when I first discovered the San Francisco quartet, but I do remember buying their album And Justice For All on cassette, when it came out in 1988, around the time I seriously got into metal. I might’ve learned about them from my friends, or from the radio, maybe even from MTV—this was also around the time I first got cable.

Like lots of metal bands, Metallica writes songs about abstract concepts: war, violence, death, fear, politics, religion—you get the idea. Unlike lots of metal bands, they perform with a ferocity and a virtuosity unmatched in all of rock. If you’ve ever seen or heard them live, it’s like they operate at another level. Historically, despite changes to the band through the years, there have only been four active members at any one time, yet they engage the crowd and make them part of the show like few bands are capable of doing. It helps that their fans know the words to their most popular songs: “Enter Sandman,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Creeping Death,” “One,” and of course, “Master of Puppets.” When band and audience combine, the music becomes almost alive.

Neighborhood links

Joker director Todd Phillips, previously known for his raunchy R-rated comedies like The Hangover trilogy, has said one reason he made Joker, a drama, was because it was difficult to make irreverent comedies, since audiences are more easily offended these days.

Is it true? The numbers don’t lie: when the tween comedy Good Boys opened at number one this summer, it was the first R comedy to do that in over three years. Once again, PG-13 appears to be the safer choice for Hollywood studios now; in a recent interview, Eddie Murphy, whose R-rated Rudy Ray Moore biopic Dolemite is My Name is playing on Netflix, confirmed as much. This Variety piece from 2017 also theorized a change in the culture, but cited the immediacy of late-night television as a factor...

...which brings us back to Phillips’ theory. I know my tastes have evolved over time. I don’t seek out R comedies (Murphy’s movie notwithstanding), but I don’t think I ever did—unless Kevin Smith made them. Why don’t I go to R comedies as much anymore? If I’m being honest, I suppose I want a little more... sophistication. All those Lubitsch and Wilder and Sturges movies made an impression! Plus, a movie like The Hangover works better if you go with friends, and practically none of my friends, who are over forty, like me, have any interest in them either.

Fear of being offended is not a factor for me (I laughed at the “porch monkey” jokes in Clerks 2), yet I can’t deny “woke culture” is a palpable presence these days. Twitter users are ready and willing to pounce on anything that carries even a hint of being un-PC, and if they have led to a decline in irreverent comedies, that would be a shame and a waste. It may be with the best of intentions, but I don’t like the thought of pop culture settling into a safe middle ground where everything is sanitized. If I choose not to see a Hangover-type movie, that should be my choice—and I should be free to change my mind without fear of censure. At the same time, I hope I don’t have that fear-of-offense attitude myself, but if I do, I’m gonna work at changing it.

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Lonergan (L), next to the Wyler sisters.
I don’t know who the moderator was.

Last month, Virginia and I had the privilege of attending a New York Film Festival screening of one of my favorite classic films, Dodsworth. It was a new restoration, screened at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, and the daughters of director William Wyler, Catherine and Melanie, were in attendance for a Q&A, along with Manchester by the Sea director Kenneth Lonergan.

This was the first time I had seen it with an audience, and once again, I found the experience of hearing other people laughing at moments I didn’t necessarily find funny jarring. I’ve seen other film bloggers talk about this when it comes to old movies, and now I understand this feeling better: you see a film made in a different era, you connect with it, and then you see it with a crowd and that connection changes because others don’t react to it the same way you do. I doubt the audience thought Dodsworth was campy, and I don’t think they were being disrespectful; their reactions just rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t get like this when it comes to more recent movies, or if I do, the feeling’s not as acute. That’s the chance you take with an audience, but it’s okay.

Regardless, the restoration was beautiful. The Wyler sisters and Lonergan discussed casting, including William Wyler butting heads with Ruth Chatterton; Mary Astor’s great performance despite the scandalous divorce she was part of at the time; the overall acting; and the film in a historical context. Virginia loved the film, as I knew she would.

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I saw Ad Astra again, this time with Ann, who wanted to see it. I think I understand the movie better the second time around. As I explained to Ann afterwards, the bigness of the movie, the Kubrick-meets-Malick aspect of the storytelling and filmmaking might have blinded me to the humanity at the heart of it all, but the second viewing made it easier to see the characters as people, and I appreciate it better. If you wanna talk about it further, spoilers are allowed in the comments to this post.

More on the other side.

Xanadu

Xanadu
Showtime viewing

Olivia Newton-John was one of the first pop megastars I not only knew but genuinely dug. I may have been too young to have seen Grease, but the soundtrack was inescapable; you know the songs as well as I do—and of course, she had lots of other hits. Remember “Physical,” and the video that went with it, which took advantage of the aerobics craze at the time? That song was all over AM radio, and that video was one of the most representative of the 80s.

It was easy to grok why she was so huge: good-girl image combined with a heavenly voice. She was no Streisand, but she was pretty and exotic (if Australia counts as such) in a way reminiscent of older songbirds like Petula Clark and Lesley Gore.

To know that she’s on round three of her prizefight against breast cancer is pretty sad, but if interviews like this are any indication, she wouldn’t want me or anyone else to feel sorry for her. It could be this is the round she doesn’t get up off of the canvas, but if so, she’s gonna go out like a trooper, and even if you don’t care for her music, you have to respect her bravery.

Because she was a huge pop star, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood came calling. Grease has been written about to death by now—I think it’s terrific that she and John Travolta have remained so close through the years—but much less talked-about is her follow-up film, Xanadu, which did not exactly do as well.

Rainbow links

As mentioned, I ran my second 5K on the 22nd. This one was tougher than the previous one because it had more hills—not big ones, but the kind you might find along the trail of a dense and wild park, which is where the race was.

Only two days before, I tripped and fell while out jogging. The worst I got was some scratches and scrapes, especially on my wrist, but my left foot was sore and I feared whether or not I’d be able to run. Fortunately I had some thick sneakers that protected my feet well, and by the time race day came along the soreness had reduced. Then, the night before the race, I had to call the cops on some loud neighbors on the street level, partying very late. I never thought I’d be grateful for the end of summer if it meant the end of Saturday night parties. Am I getting old?

Virginia arrived late to the race; almost thought I’d missed her, but she made it, and we spent the rest of the day together. I wasn’t in as much pain as I thought I might be after the fall, but we ended up doing a lot of walking and as I write this (the 23rd), my feet and legs are sore again, but I’ll live. She’s convinced me to try one more 5K this year, so I’ll decide on one soon.

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The doors to the Kew Gardens Cinemas have been repaired and the place looks like a car never crashed through into the lobby and I am relieved. Maybe I was too worried, but I’ve seen enough footage of other drivers doing the exact same thing to other buildings (here’s just one example), causing more damage and actually hurting people, to not assume the worst. And I want the Kew to survive. I’m glad it will.

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So after all the things I said about it last month, I ended up missing Super Size Me 2. I only have so much money and I can’t see everything. Oh well. I still stand by my defense of director Morgan Spurlock, though, and I hope he’s sincere in his desire to change. Maybe the movie will come to cable.

More after the jump.

Easy links

About Peter Fonda: I saw Easy Rider during my video store days but I didn’t understand its significance in movie history until later, reading about how it heralded the youth movement in Hollywood during the late 60s and 70s. He was part of a cinematic revolution that led to some outstanding movies, and for that we should all be grateful.

In Peter Biskind’s New Hollywood tell-all Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Rider director Dennis Hopper, who was high as a kite for much of the film’s production and fought Fonda constantly, said this about the film:

...”When we were making the movie, we could feel the whole country burning up—Negroes, hippies, students,” he said. “I meant to work this feeling into the symbols in the movie, like Captain America’s Great Chrome Bike—that beautiful machine covered with stars and stripes with all the money in the gas tank is America—and that any moment we can be shot off it—BOOM—explosion—that’s the end. At the start of the movie, Peter and I do a very American thing—we commit a crime, we go for the easy money. That’s one of the big problems with the country right now: everybody’s going for the easy money. Not just obvious, simple crimes, but big corporations committing corporate crimes.”

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I need your advice. A couple of weeks ago, I read that Morgan Spurlock’s latest film, Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken had been shelved for months on account of the revelation that the documentary filmmaker had sexually harassed a co-worker, cheated on his wives and girlfriends for years, and had been accused of rape back in college.

I haven’t talked about the “Me Too” movement much here because I think it’s pretty damn self-evident that sexual harassment is wrong, full stop—and if there’s a line of women out the door saying So-and-So took liberties with them, well... innocent until proven guilty and all that, but I’d say the case doesn’t look too good for old So-and-So. I just don’t want it to turn into a witch hunt for molesters.

Spurlock, however, was different: he confessed. No one outed him; he came forward of his own free will to admit to his wrongdoing and vowed to be a better man. Now you can say, oh, he was coerced into this by someone ready to come forward, as opposed to him having a crisis of conscience he could no longer live with. Maybe. That’s certainly possible... but given the fact that this sort of thing has affected all walks of life and has consistently been news for months, which he mentions in his confession, I’d rather give him the benefit of the doubt. Someone has to—we’ll probably never know for sure one way or another.

SSM2 is finally getting a theatrical release this month. Despite its mediocre reviews (a 56 on Rotten Tomatoes so far), I’d like to see it because I loved the first SSM movie, and it’s set in Columbus, my former home, which I still miss. I totally understand the desire to boycott and shun those who have been tarnished due to similar allegations, but assuming he’s sincere and that he didn’t have a gun to his head when he made his confession, I think Spurlock coming clean like he did counts for something. And again, assuming he’s sincere, which I truly hope he is, forgiveness has to start somewhere.

Therefore, my question to you is: should I see Super Size Me 2?

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Next month is the Murder She Wrote Cookalong at Silver Screen Suppers, and this week, I plan to buy the ingredients for the recipe I’ll cook for the event, chicken paprika. When it comes to choosing what to cook, I rely on three criteria: can I afford it, can I make it, and will I like it? I’ve never had chicken paprika before, but I’m guessing I’ll find it agreeable, and I have some of the ingredients already. I often take pictures of the finished dish to post on Facebook, but never of the dish in progress, but I’ll have plenty of light, and though none of you will be able to sample it, I hope it’ll at least look appetizing.

More after the jump.

David Crosby: Remember My Name

David Crosby: Remember My Name

seen @ Cinema Village, New York, NY

I saw the trailer for this when I saw the Toni Morrison doc earlier this summer and knew I wanted to see it—and so did Virginia. We both dug this portrait of legendary folk singer David Crosby, now in his lion-in-winter years after a lifetime spent taking way too many drugs and pissing off way too many friends and lovers, to the point where his music is what keeps him sane. Fortunately, his voice is still in excellent shape, even if the rest of him isn’t.

Producer Cameron Crowe needs little prompting to get Crosby to be absolutely candid about the many mistakes he made: turning on a lover to drugs, being a dick to his band mates—primarily The Byrds and CSN(Y); doing jail time. Still, he had a hand in creating some of the best, most powerful and relevant music of his generation. He is equally candid about the politics of the 60s and how his music gave him a platform to speak his mind during a tumultuous era. He may even feel survivor’s guilt for being alive while so many of his peers are gone, including a young woman he loved who died long before her time. He lays everything bare, and now, he continues touring and recording, worrying his wife sick but unable to tear himself away from the music, which has been his constant companion.

It’s a familiar story, no doubt, and to anyone who has followed Crosby’s career, little of it can truly be considered shocking, but to someone who was born after the Summer of Love, after Kent State, after Woodstock, I found it riveting.

Blinded by the Light

Blinded by the Light
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens, NY

I’ve got an unanticipated buildup of posts and I need to clear the slate, so this will be a smaller post than I had planned. Blinded by the Light is inspired by a true story about a teenager of Pakistan descent, living in a nowheresville English town in the 80s, whose world is rocked when he discovers the music of Bruce Springsteen for the first time.

I enjoyed this one a whole lot, and not just for the nostalgia factor. Director Gurinder Chadha, who also did Bend it Like Beckham years ago, presents us with a lead character, and a situation, not unlike what you might’ve seen in the 80s and 90s films of John Hughes or Cameron Crowe, but the racial aspect is a clear and important distinction: being Pakistani alienates newcomer Viveik Kalra not only from his economically depressed town, but from his disapproving father, an immigrant just trying to look out for his family the only way he can, because he knows no one else in this bigoted environment will. Bruce’s music (which you either love or hate; you can guess how I feel) speaks to Kalra like nothing else does and tells him there’s someone else, half a world away and part of an entirely different culture, who understands.

Light is also a joyous, exuberant story that’s a pure expression of youth, which someone will turn into a Broadway musical one day, I have no doubt. Indeed, it borders on being a musical already. Any potential comparisons to Yesterday, another film about someone of East Asian descent who bonds with Western rock music in an unusual way, are unfounded, partly because of the sci-fi aspect and partly because the romance here felt more organic. I had a great time watching it.

Thank God It’s Friday

The Jeff Goldblum Blogathon is an event devoted to the life and career of the actor, hosted by RealWeegieMidget Reviews and Emma K. Wall Explains It All. For a list of participating bloggers, visit the links at the host sites.

Thank God It’s Friday

Disco! I’ve talked about it here before, and while I was way too young to have gotten involved in any disco-versus-rock flame wars civilized debates, if you had asked me in, oh, 1980, which side I was on, I would’ve put on my-my-my-my-my boogie shoes and did The Hustle to the music of Chic, or perhaps the Brothers Gibb—even if disco was dying by that point.

My sister would’ve been the reason why. Disco and classic soul is close to Lynne’s heart, always has been, and she and her husband include plenty of it in their cover band. She had a shoebox full of 45s and I believe she even had some 8-tracks, in addition to her many LPs, and whenever she wasn’t around I’d idly go through them and play a few. I was a Top 40 nerd all through grade and junior high school before I discovered classic rock in high school, so my mixtapes had not only disco, but freestyle and even some new wave.

And dancing? I must have spent the entire sixth grade trying to moonwalk. Not easy in Reeboks. I think I mentioned the bar mitzvah I went to sometime in the mid-80s where I danced up a storm with my friend Howard’s sister Susan. I’m pretty sure there was some disco on the turntable that day, though I couldn’t tell you which moves I busted.

I also recall my junior high prom, but that was in 1986 and by then, though we had plenty of Madonna and Whitney Houston and the Pointer Sisters to groove to, we didn’t call it disco. I doubt anyone did. Freestyle was lumped in with general pop music and I never made a distinction.

Five original Woodstock performers who made movies (and TV)

Of course I wish I had been there. Mad as it sounds like it was in hindsight—the rain, the disheveled crowd, the brown acid—I think it was understood, even then, how special the concert was.

Time has turned it into something larger than life, something emblematic of The Sixties in general, and yeah, that colors my perception of it (how can it not?), but strip away the legend and I still would want to have been there for it, if only for one of the three days, not just for the music but for the atmosphere, the chance to taste the spirit of this seminal period in American history which seems light years distant now.

Was there really a time when young Americans honestly believed rock and roll could change the world? Where peace, love and understanding were more than words on a bumper sticker? I look around me today and I see a nation that doesn’t need a war in Vietnam; it’s more than happy to fight itself. I see a president worse than Nixon ever was, one blind to his own divisive nature. I see the best minds of this generation raging on social media and on television so loudly they can barely hear what anyone else says.

The world seemed equally bleak fifty years ago, too, but for three days in August, rock and roll brought forth into the world a different vibe. Maybe it was nothing but hype in reality, but the idea of the Age of Aquarius and the redemptive power of music was strong enough to attract half a million people to Yasgur’s Farm where “everywhere was a song and a celebration”—and the idea remains attractive today.

The musicians that attended Woodstock went on to various degrees of success and longevity. Some of them went Hollywood. Here are five examples, including links to their Woodstock performances:

Furry links

So what do I think about that Cats trailer? Now that you’ve heard everyone else’s opinion...

Back in the 90s, I saw on VHS a production of the Broadway show, so I’m familiar with it. I always thought it was peculiar. This, though, is on another level. The trailer didn’t freak me out as much as it did some people—I stayed up half the night watching “reaction” videos on YouTube—but yeah, turning the cast into CGI human-cat hybrids may not have been the wisest decision. (On the other hand, we now know a Thundercats movie is possible!) It’s doubtful the fans of the show would have accepted an animated version, though, so this is what we’re left with, not that anybody was clamoring for a Cats movie in 2019 to begin with. Plus, while I can hardly object to Jenny Hudson’s rendition of “Memory”—easily the best thing about that trailer—from the looks of her, I couldn’t help thinking she’s just reprising her role from Dreamgirls.

Still, it is Cats, and because it’s Cats, people will turn out for it, especially at Christmas. It’s one of those things where if you love it, you adore it wholeheartedly. I know; I was the same way with Rent, but that didn’t have CGI human-cat hybrids. So I guess between this and the Lion King remake, this will be remembered as (with apologies to Al Stewart) the year of the cat.

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Don’t have too much else to say at the moment, so let’s jump straight to the links:

Why does Paddy love westerns?

Who was “the Marilyn Monroe of Bollywood”? Ruth has the answer.

Ivan discusses a film written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett that has become quite relevant in 2019.

Hugh Jackman in concert is quite spectacular, as Hamlette will attest.

Jacqueline looks at which movies were playing the weekend of the moon landing.

Fritzie shows off shampoo ads with silent film actresses.

Judy Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft reflects on her mother’s legacy as a gay icon, fifty years after her death.

Also, a crowdfunding campaign is under way to restore Judy’s birthplace.

What would TS Eliot have made of the Cats movie?

That casting a black girl as the Little Mermaid is still a matter of controversy in 2019 is frankly, embarrassing. But there’s historical evidence that suggests such a thing isn’t that unusual.

The long-term implications of the virtual technology of The Lion King 2019.

Paul McCartney will write the music for a stage musical version of It’s a Wonderful Life.

84-year-old Sophia Loren is working on a new movie directed by her son.

These pics from the demolished site of the former Sunshine Cinema will depress you.

Long before he joined the cast of In Living Color, Jim Carrey appeared in this Playboy Channel movie. (NSFW)

Celebrity memorabilia and the people who buy it.

Yesterday

Yesterday
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens, NY

I have a friend named Joan who’s plenty old enough to remember the Beatles, but she never liked them. She’s no sourpuss who hates everything modern and gripes about the way things used to be; she’s quite nice, in fact. Now I don’t know her that well, so I’m fuzzy on what kind of music she prefers; I just remember being gobsmacked when she first told me that... though it is difficult to imagine her as a screaming teenager with a poster of Paul or John on her bedroom wall.

At the other extreme, the summer I worked at a sleepaway camp in Massachusetts was the summer The Beatles Anthology came out. I’m sure you remember the massive hype surrounding that event. Well, there were little kids at camp—six, seven, eight years old—who were as familiar with the most popular Beatles’ songs as they were with their times tables. That amazed me too.

Fifty years after they broke up, the greatest rock and roll band of all time remains a highly influential and polarizing cultural force in the world. In the digital age, experiencing their music as a young person is plenty different, but the devotion, from what I can tell, is the same.

I was born after they broke up, but not by much. When I grew up, I could still hear Paul and George on Top 40 radio. I have vague memories of when John died, though I didn’t completely grok what it all meant at the time. The Millennial Generation doesn’t even have any of that—but it doesn’t matter. The Beatles are eternal in an industry whose product is ephemeral and has always been easily disposable.

But what if everyone, young and old people alike, woke up one day and completely forgot who they were?