Seven Deadly Arts

paradise

2010-03-12T23:15:00.000-06:00

Nilsson does Ernie Kovacs

2010-03-06T11:59:00.000-06:00

From a rare BBC special:

And the winner (maybe) is...

2010-03-04T16:32:00.000-06:00

My final too-late-to-turn-back predictions:

Best Picture: "Avatar"
Best Director: Katheryn Bigelow "The Hurt Locker"
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock
Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique
Best Original Screenplay: "The Hurt Locker"
Best Adapted Screenplay: "Up in the Air"
Best Animated Feature: "Up"
Best Foreign Language Film: "The White Ribbon"
Best Documentary Feature: "The Cove"
Best Documentary Short: "Music by Prudence"
Best Live Action Short Film: "Kavi"
Best Animated Short Film: "A Matter of Loaf and Death"
Best Original Score: "Up"
Best Song: "The Weary Kind" from "Crazy Heart"
Best Cinematography: "The White Ribbon"
Best Film Editing: "The Hurt Locker"
Best Art Direction: "Sherlock Holmes" (This is the only one I'm having second thoughts about, simply because it was such an awful film.)
Best Costume Design: "The Young Victoria"
Best Sound Editing: "Avatar"
Best Sound Mixing: "The Hurt Locker"
Best Visual Effects: "Avatar"
Best Makeup: "Star Trek"

Through the looking glass

2010-03-03T09:43:00.000-06:00

Down the rabbit hole, circa 1903

2010-03-02T13:12:00.000-06:00

Courtesy of the British Film Institute, the first film adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland". Read all about it here.

Cinematic altar

2010-03-02T10:29:00.000-06:00

This memorial to James Whale can be found by the Showcase Cinema in his hometown of Dudley, England.

Walkin' my cat named dog

2010-03-01T21:34:00.000-06:00

A great forgotten song.. How did this one fall through the pop-cult tracks?

More of Norma (the b-side?) here.

Not an animal

2010-02-28T21:45:00.001-06:00

Thanks to The Playlist for drawing my attention to Richard Schickel's piece on the making of "Raging Bull" in the current "Vanity Fair" . Scorsese has never attempted to hide his personal problems during 70s and 80s, but Schickel does a good job of showing how they contributed to his commitment to make something more than a conventional sports film.
One important and rarely mentioned detail is how producers Chartoff and Winkler had to dangle the carrot of "Rocky II" ("Rocky" had been a popular and even well-reviewed film, but was not yet a sequel-producing-franchise) to convince United Artists to back Scorsese's film.
I suspect, however, that Schickel overstates the failure of "New York, New York" as a factor in Scorsese's personal bottoming out at the end of the 70s. Yes, "New York" was a commercial disappointment, but United Artists was still coasting on its reputation as a director's studio. As hard as it is to believe, the era of judging films solely by their opening weekends hadn't yet begun.

(One minor error in Schickel's account: "Home Movies" isn't one of DePalma's "earlier" films; Produced as a class project for his students at Sarah Lawrence, it was released in 1980 - the same year as "Raging Bull.")

See the tree? How big it's grown! and other ballads

2010-02-27T19:55:00.000-06:00

I have a confession to make: I've always had a problem with songs that tell long, pathetic stories, especially the maudlin pop ballads that were popular in the early 70s. Call it a short attention span, but I tend to drift off somewhere around the second verse. It took me years to figure out what happened to Timothy when he was trapped in the mine. I'm still not sure exactly what happened on the night Chicago died or what Joey did to get the young singer's daddy so worked up. Even after 40 years, I don't know why the lights went out in Georgia, though I'm fairly sure that it involved hanging an innocent man.
But here's one I've always been able to follow (after the cigarette break):

And the winner won't be...

2010-02-27T11:08:00.000-06:00

"Logorama"- although it's worth a look. My Academy Award predictions, trickling in a few at a time, can be found here.

Logorama Trailer from www.club-construct.com on Vimeo.

Tourism Dogme Style

2010-02-26T22:11:00.000-06:00

Denmark Introduces Harrowing New Tourism Ads Directed By Lars Von Trier

Don't me our annual Dogville Days!

We are the world, too.

2010-02-26T19:08:00.003-06:00

Looks even more refreshing compared to the rather stiff "We are the World 25".
(I know..they're both for a good cause, so do what you have to do...)

Barada nikto

2009-06-23T16:54:00.001-05:00

Rockford's finest

2009-06-22T22:54:00.001-05:00

Didn't I see you cryin'?

Today, dear father

2009-06-20T23:46:00.001-05:00

hold on

2009-06-19T22:15:00.001-05:00

Great Exploitations: Cannonball

2009-06-11T21:41:00.002-05:00

In memory of David Carradine, here's the trailer for one of the most entertaining films from Roger Corman's New World Pictures, AND the only film where you'll see Martin Scorsese and Sylvester Stallone sharing a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Not so Innocent Abroad

2009-06-11T21:22:00.002-05:00

From the "New York Review of Books", a good introduction to Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels...

Built like a car

2009-06-10T23:55:00.001-05:00

Don't wake me up too late

2009-06-10T23:39:00.003-05:00

It ain't right.

2009-06-10T23:34:00.003-05:00

But my eyes can see

2009-06-10T23:34:00.001-05:00

Come now, gentlemen

2009-06-10T23:22:00.001-05:00

inch by inch

2009-06-08T23:28:00.001-05:00

Great Exploitations: The Doberman Gang

2009-06-07T13:20:00.003-05:00

Human kindness is overflowing

2009-06-05T23:52:00.002-05:00

Raising Caine

2009-06-05T22:04:00.001-05:00

Regardless of how he died or what sordid tale emerges, we're truly saddened by the death of David Carradine. Here's a clip from Abbe Wool's underrated "Roadside Prophets".

Bystander on the mean streets

2009-06-05T21:55:00.002-05:00

From The Guardian, news that Raymond Chandler has a previously unidentifed cameo in "Double Indemnity":

Remember.

2009-06-05T16:51:00.001-05:00

I come apart., but that's okay...

2009-06-04T22:24:00.000-05:00

Rivers, you know how is the story

2009-06-03T23:45:00.000-05:00

We come with the dust and we're gone with the wind

2009-06-03T23:40:00.000-05:00

won't be long

2009-06-03T23:35:00.001-05:00

Bob Dylan does the Rolling Stones!

2009-05-31T22:10:00.001-05:00

The Rolling Stones do Dylan!

2009-05-31T22:08:00.000-05:00

Freud's last years

2009-05-31T11:39:00.001-05:00

More here and here.

The Great Man walks

2009-05-31T11:36:00.001-05:00

..and sips tea

Don't they know?

2009-05-31T11:32:00.000-05:00

Hey Now! Little Mouse!

2009-05-31T09:55:00.000-05:00

MiMi / Abba

2009-05-29T22:40:00.001-05:00

Lock the gates, Goofy; take my hand

2009-05-29T13:44:00.002-05:00

(Skip the first 2 minutes or so when David Sanborn is trying to interview him; He lloks almost as uncomfortable as this guy.)

Two sad songs

2009-05-28T22:58:00.001-05:00

Two

Lie to me, tell me they're only robins.

2009-05-28T19:36:00.002-05:00

Okay, so you've decided to post a video to accompany a great but fairly obscure country song from 1969 (Highest position: No. 19) - What images come to mind?

Why, a slide show of auto-dealers! What else?

(But what a great song!)

The Silver Tongued Devil and I

2009-05-28T15:09:00.002-05:00

The middle part of life

2009-05-27T15:39:00.001-05:00

And here's the sequel/remake made years later...

2009-05-27T08:58:00.001-05:00

..in the summertime

2009-05-26T11:40:00.000-05:00

listen

2009-05-22T14:15:00.000-05:00

time for a change

2009-05-17T19:00:00.000-05:00

New rules

2009-05-14T23:08:00.002-05:00

1. Never beg another man.
2. Never Trust anyone
3. Never get between a gun and its target.
4. Punches are like bullets. If you don't make the first one count,you just might be finished.
5. If you wound a man, you better kill him or sooner or later he's going to kill you.
6. The right bullet at the right time, well aimed.
7. If you untie a man, take his gun before that.
8. Don't give a man any more bullets than what he's got use for.
9. When you start killing, you can't stop it.

Companeros

2009-05-06T22:21:00.001-05:00

and you know it's right

2009-05-06T22:07:00.001-05:00

Nobody?

2009-05-03T21:50:00.002-05:00

A trailer for a relatively obscure Terence Hill western, "A Genius, Two Companions and a Dupe", also known as "A Genius" and "Nobody is the Greatest", directed by Damiano Damiani.

Happy birthday, Pete Seeger!

2009-05-03T15:52:00.001-05:00

One of my heroes - and yours too, I hope - turns 90 today.

On Earth as it is in Heaven

2009-04-28T21:19:00.001-05:00

working like a dog

2009-04-08T23:03:00.000-05:00

2009-03-12T15:14:00.000-05:00

Sita Sings the Blues

2009-03-07T00:52:00.002-06:00

If you haven't already seen this, go here and follow the links.

This may be the creepiest video ever..

2009-02-08T23:40:00.000-06:00

2009-02-08T23:29:00.000-06:00

This just in...

2009-01-20T07:05:00.000-06:00

The ugly truth

2009-01-16T23:17:00.000-06:00

Choosing sides?

2009-01-16T23:09:00.001-06:00

More seasonal greetings

2008-12-15T23:40:00.002-06:00

This, the earlier Kinks and Roy Wood songs, are the only Christmas music you'll ever need.

Motivational video of the year

2008-12-11T23:15:00.002-06:00

From the folks as Overthinking it.
Here's the full text - because you'll probably want this in a needlepoint sampler:
"Shame on you. This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you’re going to let it be the worst. And I guarantee a week won’t go by in your life you won’t regret walking out, letting them get the best of you. Well, I’m not going home. We’ve come too far! And I’m going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause. A day may come when the courage of men fails… but it is not THIS day. The line must be drawn HERE. This far, no further! I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. You’re going to work harder than you ever worked before. But that’s fine, we’ll just get tougher with it! If a person grits his teeth and shows real determination, failure is not an option. That’s how winning is done! Believe me when I say we can break this army here, and win just one for the Gipper. But I say to you what every warrior has known since the beginning of time: you’ve got to get mad. I mean plum mad dog mean. If you would be free men, then you must fight to fulfill that promise! Let us cut out their living guts one inch at a time, and they will know what we can do! Let no man forget how menacing we are. We are lions! You’re like a big bear, man! This is YOUR time! Seize the day, never surrender, victory or death… that’s the Chicago Way! Who’s with me? Clap! Clap! Don’t let Tink die! Clap! Alright! Let’s fly! And gentlemen in England now abed shall know my name is the Lord when I tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our Independence Day!"

No laughing matter...

2008-12-10T10:01:00.000-06:00

And more seasonal...

2008-12-09T05:42:00.000-06:00

Seasonal...

2008-12-07T11:34:00.000-06:00

Brian Wilson rides the Black Cab

2008-12-06T15:18:00.002-06:00

The Black Cab Sessions is a series of short videos in which musicians are asked to perform while riding in the back seat of a cab. Simple enough, right?

2008-09-28T21:56:00.001-05:00

2008-06-09T22:44:00.001-05:00

We all need a helping hand.

2008-05-05T22:40:00.000-05:00

Watch the skies.

2008-05-05T21:25:00.000-05:00

Heroes and villains

2008-05-03T18:40:00.001-05:00

2008-04-27T22:30:00.000-05:00

...won't pay the rent?

2008-04-12T17:43:00.000-05:00

Straight Shooting

2008-04-09T21:47:00.002-05:00

From Harvard's 02138, a no-nonsense talk with the great Tommy Lee Jones. (Thanks to Jeffrey Wells' always relevant Hollywood Elsewhere for bringing this to my attention.)

Recommended viewing:

Life in the city

2008-04-05T13:44:00.001-05:00

He's got the silver..

2008-03-31T22:38:00.004-05:00

I admit it; I'm pretty excited about "Shine a Light" one reason being the trailer, which cracks me up every time I watch it:

Turns out Marty's also on the accursed MySpace, if you're interested. Go ahead, be his friend.

(P.S. 5/4/08: I had to disable the Flash version. But, go see the movie. It's amazing...)

Hello sailor!

2008-03-31T10:58:00.003-05:00

Popeye with Dorothy Lamour, courtesy of this post at Cartoon Brew.

This day in history...

2008-03-29T14:20:00.003-05:00

1973: Dr. Hook actually made the cover.

"Aw man, that's beautiful!"

(I saw Dr. Hook perform shortly before this song broke, in between their 1st and 2nd albums, as part of a show that also included ShaNaNa and Flo and Eddie. This video catches some of the rowdy nature of their performance, which included a completely disrespectful trashing of their earlier hit, the weepy "Sylvia's Mother." It was the biggest single of 1971, only to suffer a huge backlash when the entire world collectively decided that the song got on its nerves.

Same as it ever was?

2008-03-17T23:14:00.003-05:00

I've been looking for this clip for years and couldn't even find so much as a still from it until now. One more reason to name YouTube one of the Seven Wonders of the Internet World...
(The inspiration for it can be found here and here and here...)

from the old country...

2008-03-17T21:25:00.000-05:00

Sacred chords and beautiful losers

2008-03-16T12:50:00.004-05:00

A well-deserved honor for the debonair Mr. Cohen...

His week still beats your year.

2008-03-02T10:17:00.002-06:00

Happy birthday to Lou Reed, still cooler than the rest of us...

More here and here and especially here.

and the final count...

2008-02-24T23:29:00.002-06:00

15 out of 24.. Anything over 50% is respectable in my book..

My predictions (if "prediction" and "guess" mean the same thing):

2008-02-24T11:18:00.002-06:00

Best Picture:
No Country For Old Men
Best Director:
The Coens
Best Actor
Daniel Day Lewis
Best Actress
Julie Christie
Best Supporting Actor
Bardem
Supporting Actress:
Cate Blanchett
Foreign Film
The Counterfeiters
Animated Feature
Ratatouille
Art Direction
There Will Be Blood
Cinematography
There Will Be Blood
Costume Design
Atonement
Documentary Feature
Sicko
Documentary Short
Freeheld
Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
Makeup
La Vie en Rose
Original Score
Michael Clayton
Song
Falling Slowly
Animated Short
Madame Tutli-Putli
Live Action Short
At Night
Sound Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
Sound Mixing
The Bourne Ultimatum
Visual Effects
Transformers
Screenplay –Adapted
No Country for Old Men
Screenplay –Original
Juno

Second gussing: The ones I am most doubtful about are the two actresses, original screenplay, original score and costume design...

The last good man

2008-02-22T16:13:00.000-06:00

Seeing things in black and white...

2008-02-01T16:47:00.000-06:00

A review of Persepolis, courtesy of Playback.

"What number is it, Chip?" ... "7A"

2008-01-20T22:38:00.000-06:00

Folksinger John Stewart, formerly of the Kingston Trio, is dead. He's best known for this very fine song:

You can find Stewart's own version here.

Beware of "perilous stunts" and "fancy alcoholic drinks".

2008-01-19T21:46:00.000-06:00

Today I became Jack Valenti's Worst Nightmare. I took a group of pre-teenagers to an R-rated movie (Sweeney Todd, which is, by the way, just as good the second time around).

Meanwhile, for those of you who think the MPAA isn't tough enough, The Guardian offers this helpful selection of highlights from various " parental guidance" websites..

The 666 Trio

2008-01-19T14:21:00.001-06:00

"When there's no more room in Hell..."

2008-01-13T12:47:00.000-06:00

The esteemed Robin Wood, whose writings on horror films in the 1970s remain the definitive critical work on that genre, has written a brief but typically incisive look at Diary of the Dead, the fifth installment in George Romero's trilogy-that-grew for the latest issue of Film Comment. I haven't seen the film, which was generally well received on the festival circuit last year, so I'll let Wood's analysis speak for itself.
The film is due to open in the U.S. on February 15th.

Outwitting the Curse of GMRX

2008-01-11T20:00:00.000-06:00

A very good common-sense piece by A. O. Scott in the NYT about why people need to learn how to ignore the ratings.

The sun never sets: George Macdonald Fraser (1926-2008)

2008-01-04T16:57:00.000-06:00

George Macdonald Fraser, whose twelve volumes of "The Flashman Papers" are among the most entertaining works of fiction of the last forty years, has died. In addition to creating (or rather, reshaping from a minor literary role in the Victorian classic "Tom Brown's Schooldays") the rascally Harry Flashman, Fraser wrote the screenplays for Richard Lester's "Three Musketeers" films.
Information on Fraser's life can be found here, plus a sample of his work here.

A cautionary tale...

2008-01-02T16:40:00.000-06:00

Did you ever notice how the cautionary mental hygiene films and the exploitation films of the 1960s have in common?

Can we make a quick edit?

2008-01-01T22:22:00.000-06:00

Spent the New Year's Eve/Day catching up with two movies, one of which definitely earns a slot on a revised Best of 2007 list. The other was Juno, which is destined to fill the slot in your life left empty by this.
But Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is something else altogether, a gruesome and witty horror film that just happens to be a musical. But not just any musical. Go see it.

...and then there were none

2007-12-30T21:58:00.000-06:00

...which has nothing much to do with this post, does it?

I admit that I am living a few centuries in the past in my reading habits. The best thing I read all year (late getting around to it, I admit) was a little volume called "The Iliad" involving a lot of ill-tempered people sulking and going into battle and finding out that the Gods are even more sullen and bad-tempered than they are...
But of the slightly more than 100 books I read in 2007, around 20 were actually published within the last 14 or 15 months or so - rather than recited from memory or etched into stone tablets or shouted out at dirty mobs in the Globe.
The best, in the order I read them and not in order of preference:

"Popeye: "I Yam What I Yam" ' by E.C. Segar (the first volume in Fantagraphics reprint of the original comic strips..)
"Mere Anarchy" by Woody Allen
"Mingering Mike: The Amazing Career of an Imaginary Soul Superstar" by Dori Hadar
"Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock’n’roll’s last stand in Hollywood" by Domenic Priore
"Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl" by Steven Bach
"At the Same Time: Essays & Speeches" by Susan Sontag
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
"Things I’ve Said, But Probably Shouldn’t Have" by Bruce Dern with Christopher Fryer and Robert Crane
"The Uncommon Reader" by Alan Bennett

Also of note:
"Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination" by Neal Gabler
"I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon" by Crystal Zevon
"Spook Country" by William Gibson
"Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector" by Mick Brown
"The Book of David" by David Steinberg
"Diaries 1969 – 1979: The Python Years" by Michael Palin
"Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life" by Steve Martin

... powers of ten

2007-12-30T11:00:00.000-06:00

The lists keep coming. I admit that, being Extremely Old and Irrelevant, I don't keep track of new releases in music as much as I did back in the days when I was a Highly Desired Demographic with Flammable Money. But I was a bit perturbed last year at around this time to discover that all of the new recordings I had liked most in 2006 were by people who first stepped up to a microphone at least 30 and in some cases almost 60 years earlier. My favorite new recordings this year were not entirely as biased by old age, but I'm sure you'll still see a few signs of Creeping Historicism on the list.
In no particular order, with appropriate video links....:

Arcade Fire - "Neon Bible"
Bryan Ferry - "Dylanesque"
Jarvis Cocker - "Jarvis" (Bonus track here)
Amy Winehouse - "Back to Black"
Bruce Springsteen - "Magic"
Radiohead - "In Rainbows"
Bob Dylan "Modern Times"
Neil Young "Live at Massey Hall 1971"

And my favorite song of the year:

Coming up next: books of the year...

Counting to 10

2007-12-30T09:42:00.000-06:00

I was recently asked by a local web publication to contribute a top ten list of my favorite films of the year and while I am always reluctant about these things, I complied. I was given specific instructions that it had to contain exactly ten items, no more, no less, and that they all had to be 2007 releases. I've bent the rule here to add two more titles, one of which I hadn't seen at the time I made the list. Here it is, with a few annotations.

Best of 2007
(roughly in order of preference, though once you get past the first 3 or 4, it gets blurry)

1. I'm Not There (Todd Haynes)
2. Across the Universe (Julie Taymor)
3. No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen)
4. Sicko (Michael Moore)
Everything else, in no logical order:
3:10 to Yuma (James Mangold)
The Golden Compass (Chris Weitz)
Romance and Cigarettes (John Turturro)
Hairspray (Adam Shankman)
Once (John Carney)
Zodiac (David Fincher)
The Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright)
The Landlord (Adam McKay)

Not a very good year in all, but far above the norm for musicals and westerns - and in the case of No. 1, both.
After much thought, I finally decided that I couldn't quite justify adding "Redacted" or "Helvetica" to the list. The former stays off because it's ultimately muddled, the latter because I suspect my fondness for it has more to do with my own font obsession that with the film itself.
Still haven't seen at least a few films that I'm told have a shot at a top ten list ("Sweeney Todd", "The Assassination of Jesse James", "Persepolis", the Joe Strummer documentary), but you have to draw the line somewhere...

Best DVD release: "Popeye the Sailor Volume One: 1933 - 1938" (Warner Home Video)

(I'll add a list of music and books later....)