Afternoon Matinee ’74

Friday Song: The Asylum Street Spankers

I have a strange relationship with this incredibly popular yet unknown band from the green oasis of Texas, Austin. When I was living in Dallas, a co-worker passed me a copy of “Bud Good & The Good Buds,” a front for some weed-crazed local musicians who played the hell out of their own collection of satirical bluegrass folk country, centered around a pirate radio station and a ship full of pounds. I played the hell out of that CD driving from Dallas to the 1998 Poetry Slam at the Paramount Theatre in Austin. I particularly loved the joint anthem, “Funny Cigarette” and the train tribute, “Super Chief,” songs that captured the eccentric Texas ambiance like an episode of “King Of The Hill.”

So what were the odds that the opening band to kick off the Poetry Slam was the Asylum Street Spankers, featuring one Pops Bailas, who began to sing…”Funny Cigarette.” Bud Good & The Good Buds! Some of them anyway, for the Spankers had about seven or eight revolving members, but I knew by his voice Pops had to be Bud Good. When I later moved to Austin, I become more familiar with this most-Austin of groups, replete with its eclectic and electric membership (you might recognize singer Wammo from his role in SLACKER). They’re simply one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen and they always carry with them my time in Texas. The Spankers have a new album, “God’s Favorite Band’ and are on tour now so I advise those to treat yourself to a night of fun, song, satire and kick-ass music.

J.D. Salinger RIP

I first picked up an orange copy of “Catcher In The Rye” back in high school. Well, found it in a desk actually and took it home. I’d barely heard of it or its author, but within the first paragraph I was hooked, as were most readers in 1951 and to this very day. Despite J.D. Salinger’s prep school millieu — or maybe because of it — Holden Caufield became the most famous adolescent in 20th century American literature. His abhorrence at the “phonies” around him solidified the first post-modern generational angst and would lead to the flowering of the Beats. I devoured all of Salinger’s thin output, amazed that a writer could so easily remove himself from the public eye after such a brief, successful run. Maybe he said everything he wanted; maybe he thought he couldn’t top “Catcher In The Rye.” I’m hoping we’ll get a clue as to what he’s been writing over the past four decades. But it’s certain that no matter what the era, Holden Caufield abides.

“Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.  You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know.  Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now.  Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles.  You’ll learn from them – if you want to.  Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you.  It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement.  And it isn’t education.  It’s history.  It’s poetry.”

whyPad?

So let me get this straight, it’s a screen without a keyboard. Half a laptop. How does that help? Where does it go? Does it sit on my lap or table? Am I to be looking down at all times? Do I want to type on a soft screen? How do you watch a 16:9 movie with a 4:3 ratio? Are you to read books? How? Hold it up? Prop it up? Then you have a laptop without a lap — in other words, a screen. Why?

Blu-ray Theatre

I’m always a suspicious Sid when it comes to new technologies, especially since I understand all too well the post-modern industrial concept of “planned obsolesence” (Apple’s silent motto), which is why cassette tapes I have from the 70′s play and sound fine but some of my compact discs from the 90′s are unplayable. That’s why I have a nice turntable and LP collection. I sometimes prefer the analog over the digital. I like to collect VHS tapes and laserdiscs still, particularly out of print movies and miscellania that will never make it to DVD (Roger Vadim’s PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW and GRAMPA’S SCI-FI MOVIES trailer collection comes to mind). So I was skeptical of the Blu-ray versus HD DVD war, content with my tapes and DVD’s. But I needed to see for myself and so the first Blu-ray film I ever watched was BARAKA and was duly blown away by the image depth and clarity. I’m still  unsure how much detail is too much, but with a visual landscape poem like BARAKA, nothing is too much.

That certainly sold me on the cinephillic pleasure of Blu-ray; I follow the arguments on DVD Beaver for this or against that remastering job; whether the grain should stay or go (let it be); or if Friedkin was right in altering the look of THE FRENCH CONNECTION. I hope that Blu-ray discs import all the previous DVD and laserdisc extra features, but sometimes they don’t to their detriment. There’s plenty of space for extras and at Blu-ray prices and storage space, they have little excuse not to cram them. I tend to dislike 90 percent of Blu-ray covers, usually cheap, unimaginative Photoshopped images thrown together. How about just using the original movie posters? And please get rid of the labyrinthic menus that often show key scenes from the film you’re about to watch. Otherwise, I’m anxious to see more classics and cult films transformed into a more representative version of their theatrical shadows. With that in mind, here’s a brief selection of Blu-ray releases that have appealed to my cine-soul:

AKIRA (1988) – Based on the popular manga, Katsuhiro Otomo’s groundbreaking anime ushered in the new age of Japanese cartoons and helped flower burgeoning American interest. I was already a devoted reader of the manga before I saw the film and my friends and I passed AKIRA around on a bootleg tape when it became available. I still remember how transfixed I was by the opening scene, a mesmerizing motorcycle ride and battle through a neon pop Tokyo 2019 by night. Although the story of Tetsuo and Kaneda is too detailed to go into here (I’m still figuring it out myself), suffice to say the Blu-ray transfer is awesome, as good as it ever looked. It has the charm of the last age of non-computer animation, especially when you see the subtle movements of the cells. But I love that like I love the bristling fur from an animator’s fingertips. This is still the single greatest achievement in sci-fi anime as far as I’m concerned.

GOLDFINGER (1964)/THUNDERBALL (1965) – Bond and Blu-ray are a match made in spy movie heaven. After years of varying remasters, some quite superior, the crispness and color on display here is stunning. This is a great double feature as they represent the height of the series, at least in terms of their cultural impact. GOLDFINGER looks fantastic, particularly in my favorite scene, the pre-credits action beat that for me is still the best of the series. I don’t think Sean Connery has ever looked cooler as 007 than in his black jumpsuit as he lays out plastique explosive. With Blu-ray, you note all sorts of things you might have missed before; the color of a lapel, the glint of steel or the down on naked skin. GOLDFINGER would be the film’s template for worse ultimately not better, but this is still the archetypal, culturally defining Bond epic. Need I mention John Barry’s iconic soundtrack?

THUNDERBALL was the first 007 to be shot in Panavision, the perfect widescreen format to encapsulate the global scope and phenomenon of the character. Terence Young came back for one final directorial swan song, and though this is the film that began to lose Bond amid the kitchen sink of gadgetry and spectacle, it also represents Sean Connery at his cool, witty, suave best, the ultimate 1960′s Playboy Killer. And the Blu-ray to my eyes is spectacular, from the sexy hues of Maurice Binder’s memorable title sequence to the lush panorama of the Bahamas. Ken Adams’ awesome sets reveal more heightened depth and detail; they’re almost as important as the characters. And this must be the most beautiful collection of Bond babes in the series. Luciana Paluzzi is terrific as Fiona Volpe, the unrepentant SPECTRE agent who finally tells 007 that his bedside manner has failed to convert her. Connery gets his most serious retort in the movie with a pithy, “My dear girl, don’t flatter yourself. What I did this evening was for Queen and country. You don’t think it gave me any pleasure, do you?” SLAP. Volpe’s suspenseful comeuppance at a dance club is my favorite scene in the film.

Hard to believe that THUNDERBALL is still the most successful Bond film, and in adjusted box-office has made almost one billion dollars. It’s overlong, true and the underwater scenes slow down the film, but I still like the frogmen battle at the end. The color and clarity of the Blu-ray makes you pay more attention to the scenes, so they  don’t seem as ponderous as before. Tho even as a kid, I hated the high-speed boat fight at the end. But I always thought it great when Domino spears Largo. Now I’m anxious to have an excuse to revisit the whole 007 series again. The Blu-ray versions are a long way from the days of box televisions with pan-and-scanned edited prints. But of course.

PLAYTIME (1967) – Although I’ve never been a huge observer of Jacques Tati and it took a Frenchman to show me his classic MISTER HULOT’S HOLIDAY, which came across as a more witty, subtle Jerry Lewis, I never delved into his gentle modernist mise en scene. I’d read much about his opus PLAYTIME, which took five years to produce in 70mm at a cost of 15 million dollars, a staggering number by 60′s cinema standards, especially in France. Tati wanted to make his ultimate statement on the depersonalization of the city, so he actually constructed his own mini-Paris with airport facade. Combined with his social optimism that even under technologically oppressive conditions, people will still find a way to connect with one another. The film was well-received by critics (although fan Richard Lester is surprisingly dismissive in his Steven Soderbergh interviews), but Tati wanted the film to be seen in its proper aspect ratio. Since most world screens lack 70mm projection, the release did poorly and led to Tati’s bankruptcy. Twenty minutes were also trimmed, believed lost forever. I could kick myself like a bad mime for missing the last two recent Los Angeles 70mm screenings, but thanks to the film monks at Criterion, PLAYTIME is available in a stunning new Blu-ray transfer and short of a giant theater, this is the best it will ever get for a home viewing. And what a view.

So I recently sat before a vast home screen and basked in the glory of Jacques Tati’s cine-metropolis. It’s always wonderful when you’re exposed to a fresh experience from an older work of art, and PLAYTIME certainly counts, a cross between 1968′s THE PARTY and 2001: A SPACE ODYESSY. Tati’s intricate compositions of people amid stark cityscapes from dusk to dawn are astounding, literally jaw-dropping. Like a MAD magazine panel, each frame is overloaded with information, to the point where multiple viewings are de rigeur. Mister Hulot is only a peripheral character, as everybody who appears seems to have a beat or narrative, and dialogue is kept to a bare minimum, used for comic rhythm in the background. There are no big gags, only a series of them, some instantaneous, some sustained throughout the film. PLAYTIME I would also say must be seen in 70mm in order to fully envelope and appreciate — barring that, this Criterion edition is the definitive home version. A genuine cinematic masterpiece.

Friday Song: Bryan Ferry

Here’s a favorite from a not-at-all-guilty pleasure, Sir Ridley Scott’s magnificent, misunderstood 1986 fairy tale epic, LEGEND, written by William Hjortsberg (ANGEL HEART), with fantastic makeup effects by Rob Bottin and beautiful production design by Assheton Gorton. And Tim Curry as the greatest devil in film history. A critical and commercial failure on release due to the pragmatic Reagan era of Michael Keating and Donald Trump being a harsh buzz killer on a world of fairies and unicorns. Still, I showed the director’s cut of LEGEND to some friends a few years back and they were giggling in disbelief: “Unicorns?” Yet they loved THE MATRIX and could accept Keanu Reeves as a kung fu killing machine in the future. Ultimately, Tom Cruise with long hair didn’t work for audiences in the 80′s, especially after TOP GUN. He won’t even talk about the film today.

But as the third of Ridley Scott’s amazing genre trilogy, ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER, I adore LEGEND, even though the American release has clearly been over-edited, losing its pastoral narrative rhythm in favor of a more MTV version. Replacing Jerry Goldsmith’s unique, evocative soundtrack with Tangerine Dream gives the film a different texture, if not wholly appropriate, yet I appreciate their score in its own way; obviously, I’m a big TD fan. Sir Ridley asked Roxy Music maestro Bryan Ferry to record a song for the end credits and to use as a promotional video. Ferry took an unused demo called “Circles” from the “Avalon” sessions and adapted it into this haunting, memorable song — with the added bonus of David Gilmour on guitar. Although “Is Your Love Strong Enough” didn’t save LEGEND and only made it to number 22 on English charts, I’m a sucker for Bryan Ferry’s ultra-smooth and sincere voice. That this song has its roots in their masterpiece, “Avalon,” makes it even more appealing. And then there’s lovely Mia Sara running among fairies, devils and unicorns…

Serfs Up

WASHINGTON, DC – A coalition of public interest organizations strongly condemned today’s ruling by the US Supreme Court allowing unlimited corporate money in US elections and announced that it is launching a campaign to amend the United States Constitution to overturn the ruling.  The groups, Voter Action, Public Citizen, the Center for Corporate Policy, and the American Independent Business Alliance, say the Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC poses a serious and direct threat to democracy.  They aim, through their constitutional amendment campaign, to correct the judiciary’s creation of corporate rights under the First Amendment over the past three decades.  Immediately following the Court’s ruling, the groups unveiled a new website – http://www.freespeechforpeople.org – devoted to this campaign.

“Free speech rights are for people, not corporations,” says John Bonifaz, Voter Action’s legal director.  ”In wrongly assigning First Amendment protections to corporations, the Supreme Court has now unleashed a torrent of corporate money in our political process unmatched by any campaign expenditure totals in US history.  This campaign to amend the Constitution will seek to restore the First Amendment to its original purpose.”

1963

Massholes

Random Blog Comment of the Day: “A truck-driving nude model with an American Idol-loser as a daughter winning on an anti-health care platform because his opponent got some sport facts wrong, in a meta-liberal state? This is a referendum on the American voter.”

MLK

From 1986′s “The Pacific Age,” here’s OMD’s musique-sound collage tribute, “Southern.”

Forgotten Films: Way…Way Out (1966)

From the tragic to the tragique, I realize I’ve written very little on Monsieur Jerry Lewis, the greatest living comedic filmmaker on the planet (alongside Woody) despite the highly debatable nature of his output or even if some consider it comedic at all. Or do they? Lewis was the butt of many jokes about bad comedy in the 1970′s-80′s until his critical reformation in THE KING OF COMEDY (1982) — and Lewis was right, the critics are usually the last to know. That was then. Is there actually anybody now who can’t find something hilarious in any Jerry Lewis film? Maybe John Simon or Rex Reed. Or the authors of THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED (1970). Woody Allen even asked The Idiot to direct TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (1969) and Lewis told him to do it himself. I was glad to see Jerry take the stage and finally get his Academy Award, though he shoulda been nominated for Best Actor as THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (1963) — as Eddie Murphy also should have in the otherwise uneven re-make in 1996. Like Marty Scorcese, I keep a treasured copy of “The Total Filmmaker” close to my vest.

All of which is fanfare about a flea, since we’re talking WAY…WAY OUT from 1966, one of Lewis’ rarely-screened and unavailable films. I recall seeing this only once in my TV childhood, a CBS Late Night movie I believe; I was an astronaut geek and intrigued by its 60′s space age ambiance. Plus I was a Lewis fan as most children were. But this was one of the transitional films where Lewis was trying to update his man-child persona into swinging bachelorhood, the same way Julius Kelp transforms into Buddy Love, though less obnoxious. Paramount wanted Lewis to stop directing, stop getting all artistic and go back to the laughs, as in the sexy stews comedy with Tony Curtis, BOEING BOEING (1965). That was his last film at the studio, but he tried this soft approach at 20th Century Fox. But comparing THE NUTTY PROFESSOR to WAY…WAY OUT shows the fallacy of that argument.

The screenplay by William Bowers is the highly probable story of a 1989 cosmic cold sex war as Jerry Lewis and Connie Stevens, the first American married astronauts, are sent to a moonbase along with a horny Russian couple. Wacky outer space 60′s hi-jinks ensue. Or don’t, depending on your comedy bent. The gags are on the level of a risque party jokebook, with the characters as strained as the material. And as directed by that venerable workhorse Gordon Douglas (THEM; OCEAN’S ELEVEN), the set-ups are more static than a CinemaScope episode of LOST IN SPACE. Yet…yet there are pleasures to be had in WAY…WAY OUT. The movie blasts off from the get go-go with the infectious theme song by Gary Lewis & The Playboys along with Lalo Schifrin, who composed the supercool soundtrack (which is what most favorably remember about this effort along with its spaz star). The widescreen frame gives this low-budget film an epic Pan Am sheen; the production design is suitably NASA pop for the era.

Then of course there’s Jerry Lewis, who doesn’t show up for ten minutes, and who plays in a lower-idiot key, more of a men’s magazine cad than bumbling fool. As others have discovered, Lewis does just as well when under-playing and over-playing, but it’s also true that this kind of part could have been written for Tony Curtis or James Garner and doesn’t take advantage of Lewis’s physical gifts until the end of the movie as the astronauts engage in an all-too-brief space brawl. He’s also at his best in a scene where he becomes brazen and obnoxious in a drunken report to Robert Morley. The supporting cast is very interesting, especially one of my favorites, Dick Shawn, as the lovable Russian cosmonaut. Dennis Weaver and Howard Morris play the crazed, frustrated astronauts who have a complete breakdown with Weaver surprisingly funny. Brian Keith is good as a stern general cast in the DR. STRANGELOVE-mode. And it wouldn’t officially be a 60′s sex comedy without Anita Elkberg. Va-va-va zoom, lady!

Friday Song: Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

Here’s a live version of “Hawaiʻi 78,” a sad soulful hopeful song from the late great Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, the magical Hawaiian weaver of voice and melody. This is is from his famous 1993 disc, “Facing The Future.” The first time you hear this song, you’ll never forget it.

“Disaster of the century”

From the BBC:

The 7.0-magnitude quake, Haiti’s worst in two centuries, struck on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told US network CNN he believed more than 100,000 people had died. The Red Cross says up to three million people are affected.

Donations here:

American Red Cross

Unicef USA

Doctors Without Borders

Operation Blessing International

Whatever Happened To…

It’s funny when you recall something that used to be an integral part of your cultural life that you haven’t thought about in years. Of course, I’m speaking of Dave Sim and his comic aardvark creation, Cerebus. What started out in 1978 as a sly parody of adolescent sword and sorcery tales soon developed into a mammoth satirical series on politics and culture that reached its novelistic finale in 2004. Cerebus had a big impact on my comic book reading (and drawing) in the 1980′s; not only was Dave Sim a master of light and shade, also at panel layout (the equal of Frank Miller) but the philosophical bent of the series soared over most of the above/underground comix of the period. Plus, it was often simply hilarious, particularly the Moon Roach character, modeled after the Dark Knight taken to the most ridiculous extreme (slinking around the city whispering “Revenge!”).

Sim was a tireless fighter for creator’s rights, yet also a major-league contrarian who spawned a career-altering controversy with his strange attacks on feminism and women in general. I had stopped reading Cerebus around issue 24, so my disconnect from the ornery aardvark came simply from the long period between issues and the flowering of late puberty. For some reason, I thought of Cerebus again after I don’t know how many years, wondering how a revisit to the series and character would stand, especially since I have about 20 years and 300 issues worth of material to catch up with in what became the longest running comic book series ever. Now perhaps it’s time to find out what did happen to that unique, witty, deadly Earth-Pig who helped inform my early aesthetics…

Fantastic!

Sometimes I think American parents hate their kids. Why else would a corporate monstrosity like ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKEL (ow that makes me gulliver hurt) make 70 million dollars in a few days and the unique, charming, wonderful THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX go unwatched by the masses? A cross between Nick Park and Rankin/Bass, this is the perfect distillation of Wes Anderson’s diorama-esque design and narrative, with excellent voice support from George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwarztman, Bill Murray and especially William Dafoe. Of course, I’m sold on any film that starts out with the Beach Boys “Heroes & Villains.” Don’t delay, see today. This is one of the best films of the year, claws down.