WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Hoppe-hoppe Reiter! Improved Sound Ltd. mp3s

You know the feeling.  You stumble on a local yard / stoop sale that features a lot of tasteless glassware and sweatshirts, ancient kids' toys and one thin box of records seemingly dominated by James Last and Chicago records.  That feeling is despair.  But you pulled over, so you might as well get your fingers dusty.  Then you spot an inexplicable cover featuring the upper quarters of a Gérard Depardieu lookalike being ridden, hobbyhorse-style, by a mostly naked angel-winged nymph.  Hope creeps in.  You ask how much - the answer: a dime.  Turning it over, you spot song titles such as "Leave This Lesbian World", "Don't Know Baby If You Are Safe" and "Hit'em In The Face", mismatched with the frumpiest looking set of anti-rock stars Bavaria could cough up.  Yes yes, that despair has now flipped itself into a feeling indescribable yet holy and life-giving.  If you know, you know.  If you don't, well... it's like I said to Terre T during one of my insufferable attempts to justify my coffee-snobbery: "it's like trying to explain WFMU to your grandmother".

What this thing is is the soundtrack to one of those arty lite-porn German offerings from the late-60's (1969, precisely), written and performed entirely by the band IMPROVED SOUND Ltd.  The title is "Engelchen macht weiter hoppe-hoppe Reiter" (buy it here).  You want the plot?  Here's a Google translation, courtesy listener Freddy:

"Gustl seller leads a harmonious marriage with Helene, in which sexual life is not too short.  From the time Sexrummel infected, he would like to see a sex party to organize.  Because it echoes Mitmacher not a lack of potential, a date for the orgy reported, but since Gustl gets under suspicion, to have smallpox, he must away from the big event. When thinking about his Helene because without him so everything could drive, it packs the jealousy ..."

Jump the flip for mp3s, the full cover (of which the above is a zoom), some links, and a little more info.

You Be the Judge

WFMU DJ Kenny G, or John Travolta? I'm faceblind, so I can't tell.

Meat Beat Manifested

Everyone has seen a live visual presentation (i.e. Shakespeare in the Park), and everyone has heard a live audio presentation (i.e. WFMU).  And most people have seen a TV show or a movie (i.e. Beavis and Butt-Head, Baby Mama).  Some people have even been told they're being treated to an audiovisual presentation (i.e. Dark Side of the Moon Laser Light Shows). Until last week, I didn't think anyone had made an live audiovisual presentation that really truly was aural and visual at the same time, together.  Then I saw Meat Beat Manifesto on Saturday at the Highline Ballroom.

Zillion-dollar budgets can give electronic music performers like Daft Punk and Kraftwerk an edge in creating visceral visual thrills at their concerts - you can't really do much more for a techno fan than have real robots playing a concert.  But Meat Beat Manifesto has taken a well-worn and considerably less expensive approach - collaging video behind the performers onstage - and taken it to a new zenith of accomplishment in that medium.

Meat Beat mastermind Jack Dangers and Mark Pistel from the political hardcore band Consolidated stood onstage controlling the otherworldly jungle-dubstep-trance beats and squiggles, and at the far right live drummer Lynn Farmer kept incredible pace throughout the entire performance.  On the far left stood Ben Stokes, the visual programmer for the show, who's worked with everyone from Ministry to Public Enemy to Levi's.  He grabbed video samples of Captain Beefheart, old BBC Radiophonic Workshop-esque explanations of sonic technology, Dali's eye-cutting nightmare, The Invaders, Sammy Davis Jr., Harrison Ford as President James Marshall in Air Force One, Star Trek, Billie Holiday, and even Animal, playing in tandem with a live feed of the drummer.

Unlike so many other video shows, clips didn't just sit lay flat and stuttery in the background.  They were accompanied by audio, and were layered over existing beats, scratched, stretched, and re-sampled in a way that fit in with the theme of the song - video of nuclear bomb blasts dropped to the beat, sounds and videos of Rastas burning weed edged their way into a drugs song (well, at least the one that referenced them the most overtly).  Dangers and Stokes were always working together in the audiovisual realm, as well - you could almost imagine the behind-the-scenes dialogue:  "Jack, I've found about 15 clips of people falling from the tops of buildings, can we work the sound of them screaming into the set?" or "Ben, could you work on finding a video of James Brown playing this one sample I use in this song?" Magic like that doesn't just pop out of a video mixer, or an audio mixer for that matter.

The most impressive part about the whole thing was Meat Beat's mastery in weaving overt political commentary into the show. 

Fxxk The Humans!

This week, animator/comic genius Brad Neely dropped a new short musical animated piece. I wrote a bit about Neely in a previous post, and he is popping up on screen as one of the subjects of the new film We Are Wizards, which examines the subculture around the Harry Potter books (the film played at the NY Underground Film Festival earlier this month, as is in the Independent Film Festival of Boston this weekend).

His new cartoon is musical ditty in which "all of the woodland elves, satyrs and hobgoblins are finally coming together for a ragtime protest ditty against us Homo sapiens." They have a rather impressive list of all the things we get wrong.

Dirty, crude, juvenile, and completely reprehensible. And catchy as hell...

NSFW video after the jump.

Night of the Comet

Night of the Comet doesn't have any right to be as doggone enjoyable as it is. For one thing, it's an overly simple pitch: The Omega Man with Valley Girls. Instead of disease, we've got a different end of the world event - a Haley's-type comet that turns everyone to red dust - which leaves only a few survivors and a plague of pesky zombies. And unlike Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, the survivors don't hole up and go slightly mental - they go to the mall in a "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" montage!

While not a major hit, first time feature director Thom Eberhardt's action-comedy zombie-apocalypse teen film really captured the adolescent imagination and became burned in the mind of pretty much any kid growing up in the 80s. It tainted a lot of reality for me, and for years I thought that all radio stations were heavily decorated with neon (false), that cheerleaders holding automatic weapons were pretty hot (true), that steel would protect me from evil comets (possible), and that movie theater projection booths would be an awesome place to have a tryst (no comment).

Re-watching the film as an adult, I'm struck a bit more by the movie's mellow pace and enjoyable tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. And God bless low budgets, because instead of annoying over-effects, we get simpler tastes of post apocalyptic life: a red tint in the air, piles of clothes (like a Christian scare film), empty streets, and zombies that aren't the drooling, decomposing, over-the-top undead - but merely the angry, slightly decomposing undead.

Unfortunately, the small budget does mean a selection of crappy non-hits for the soundtrack. Listen to:  Thom Pace, "Virgin In Love"

Unlike many a comedy thriller, the first half of the film offers plenty of character development. The heroines are two sisters, the oldest being Regina (the rather bland Catherine Mary Stewart), and the youngest being sassy cheerleader Sam, played with completely endearing snottiness by Kelli Maroney. In fact, you could say that she pretty much steals the film, and creates the defining 80s cheerleader girl in the process (she was actually cast due to her other cheerleader role in Fast Times At Ridgemont High). They meet up with a hunky young male survivor (played by future Star Trek Voyager cast member Robert Beltran) and take up camp at a Top 40 radio station.

Rocky VI (video)

Twenty years before Sylvester Stallone revived the Rocky franchise in 2006 for the sixth installment of the series, Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki shot a short film called "Rocky VI". It was Kaurismäki's spoof of "Rocky IV" which had come out in 1985. In the words of the director, it was his "revenge on Mr. Stallone, who I think is an asshole". Here is the complete 8 minute thing.

If this doesn't work for you, try it on YouTube. By the way, it is about time that someone release all the great classic Kaurismäki movies on DVD in the US.  Not even "Leningrad Cowboys Go America" is available in region code 1. Criterion, do you hear this?

The Drive-In Lives

Now that the Spring is finally springing, I've got a hankerin for two things.

One, is celebrating the final season of classic Coney Island. It should be noted that Coney has always been a place for change, it's just too bad we know live in an era where change becomes corporate homogenization. However, there is good news: though the parks themselves are being replaced, the Coney Island Freakshow and Coney Island Museum are getting bigger and better now that they own the building. Hooray!

The other outdoor activity that I can't live without is the Drive-In. Yes, it too is a dying beast, but a few hearty places live on. The best may well be the Starlight Drive-In in Atlanta. Not only do they host an annual Monster Bash and two day B-Movie marathon that makes a special road trip worth while, but they may possibly have the coolest concession stand on the planet.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Check out more Starlight concession stand photos via Flickr user Zombophoto. (While you're there, take the time to look over his 8 Track Tape collection, and a house so jam-packed with cool collectible stuff that it might even make the Cramps jealous. Okay, maybe not - because they have a LOT of stuff.)

WFMU's Kelly Jones and Bronwyn C. on film

All of you Tribeca Film Fest fans should be pleased to know that WFMU's own hilarious girlie talk duo, Kelly Jones and Bronwyn C., are featured in one of this year's flicks: Guest of Cindy Sherman.

Back in 2004, listener Paul H-O called into The Kelly Jones Show Starring Bronwyn Carlton, seeking advice on how to deal with dating someone famous (listen to the archive). Said famous person happened to be artiste magnifique, Cindy Sherman. Less than a year later, Paul decided to document his experiences, and asked Bronwyn and Kelly to participate in the film.

Fast forward to 2008, and Guest of Cindy Sherman is slated for Tribeca AND Sundance. Congrats to Paul! More info and showtimes for Tribeca screenings available here. Ok ok, now the exciting part... check out this clip, starring Kelly Jones and Bronwyn Carlton.

Elektro the Robot's Sordid Stag Reel

It was during the heady mechanical man creating years of the late 1930s when a walking, talking, 78 rpm record playing robot emerged from the dank appliance division of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Mansfield, Ohio. Deemed unsuitable for doing dishes or even trimming the hedges, the plucky humanoid had over 700 words at his command and a litany of pithy one-liners to go with them. Grunt work's loss was entertainment's gain and soon the mundanely named Elektro was shipped to Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, New York, where he dazzled the World's Fair attendees twenty times a day, seven days a week.

In 1940, with Elektro's initially sensational reviews slipping, the Westinghouse lab boys scurried back to Mansfield with their notepads at the ready. Desperate for a new gimmick, they cooked up a companion for the oversized rust-bucket--the scene stealing bionic bone-nibbler, Sparko the Mechanical Dog. The attention-grabbing contrapt-a-pooch irked the jealous robot to no end with his fetching antics and purile parlor tricks. The situation worsened when the leaky little scamp nearly electrocuted Elektro on at least two occasions.

Disgruntled and increasingly unmanageable, Elektro dropped out of show biz and after an unsuccessful stint as mayor of La Hoya, California, he spent the next fifteen years crumpled in the forgotten scrap heap of broken robot dreams. By the time the World's Fair had shut down, Sparko's notoriety had peaked as well. In 1949 the tinfoil mutt was implicated in a bungled pet store robbery in Wappingers Falls, New York. He has since fled the country.

Elektro was eventually re-discovered in Los Angeles by MGM second unit director Ralph E. Black. The story goes that Black was taking his Buick in for an oil change at the South Central Filler-Up where he espied the disoriented robot in a dumpster out back. The former Westinghouse Pavilion star was loudly lubricated out of his metallic skull on used STP straight from the drip pan. Black needed a semi-willing robot to follow his commands--Elektro needed a squeegee. Together they appeared to be possibly unbeatable.

Black offered the intoxicated moto-man fifty bucks and a full tune-up (with a fancy Turtle Wax finish) if he would consent to clean up and appear in his new picture down at Metro. It was a Mamie Van Doren farce starring Marty Milner, Conway Twitty and Vampira. His frayed logistic circuits long since burned out, the anxious android eagerly agreed to essay the role of "Thinko" in the upcoming production. Elektro worked relatively well with the quirky ensemble and soon a smutty subplot was added to the shooting script in order to cash in on his unique skills. Aided by yet another down-on-his-luck thespian, Voltaire the Chimp, Elektro excelled in what could have been just another drunk monkey/midget butler/stripper sequence. His nuanced and natural performance was reviewed favorably in Cahiers du cinéma and in darkened theaters worldwide by discerning popeyes and transients alike.

Currently semi-retired in his native Ohio, Elektro mixes it up with locals and tourists several times a week. Any queries regarding his softcore past will only elicit a mechanical wink and his signature "Ha. Ha. Ha."

Elektro's smut reel after the jump. NSFW. Unless you work in a strip joint, but even then not such a good idea.

Born for Hard Luck

I'm happy to see more and more websites including video players (that actually work) on their pages that include all manner of things that aren't necessarily available on YouTube. I recently discovered the archives of FolkStreams.net, a fantastic site generally devoted to the American working class experience as it pertains to music. Here are some of the great documentaries you can view on their site for absolutely free. They are, for the most part, available in four different formats, making viewing easy to do.

Born for Hard Luck is a sensational little black and white documentary from 1976 profiling the life of a one legged blues man from North Carolina named Peg Leg Sam Jackson. Tom Davenport's gritty black and white look lends itself well to the subject matter. I believe a clip from this was used in the film Amelie (2001).

It Ain't City Music captures the spirit of a 1973 country and western festival held in a small rural community in Virginia and its ability to unite hillbillies and hippies alike.

The Popovich Brothers of South Chicago is another winner, this one from 1978. The documentary chronicles the extra-curricular musical activities of poor, working class Serbian-Americans.

There are close to forty more rarely seen documentaries following the lives of unsung Blues, Gospel, Country and Folk legends from around the USA. Most of the docs are from the sixties or seventies and several from the eighties. Here's the menu.

My Secret Garden (the weird alienated one)

I sometimes hear guys talking about how mystified they are by choices women make when it comes to a hetero partner. Frankly, even as a broad, I can offer little insight into what goes on in the minds of women myself. I just know that girls start a hell of alot earlier than you may have been led to believe when it comes to creating a sexual inner life. Add to that mix the fact that most boys find girls icky until they are almost thirteen and you've got yourself the first giant chasm in the gender gap.
As early as the age of four back in the late sixties/early seventies my preoccupation with and crushes on celebrities were a mental tsunami drowning the village of my own potential. Worse was the fact that my crushes were on personalities so incredibly unsexy to other young girls who dreamt about the classic version of Prince Charming that I could not even share during girltalk, leaving me left out of that whole female bonding thing. The endurance of each of my manias made Wuthering Heights look like a Peanuts cartoon. Meanwhile other girls flipped their crushes as quickly as they thumbed through the latest Tiger Beat. Similarly when other little girls collected 45s, I sat transfixed with my LPs stacked on the return arm of the stereo.                                                                                                            
For the sake of some (any) logic, I've lumped my pre-teen loves into three different categories. Mind you, some of the celebrities are literally shoe-horned into these groups but I'm trying make things easier for you people. Anyhoo, there are "The Nice Jewish Boys", "The Pan-Sexuals" and "The Feel Funnys".
In the first category, I give you Barry Gordon From A Thousand Clowns, one of the more influential films for me as a kid. I guess I related to Barry's geekiness. He plays Larry David's Rabbi now on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Then there's Wes Stern. You might remember him from Getting Together with that douchey Bobby Sherman, and also The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where he played Lou Grant's nephew who wanted to lose his virginity to Mary. Later I think he grew up, changed character and did it with Brenda Morgenstern on Rhoda. Scott Jacoby was the Nice Jewish Boy who played Bad Ronald, one of the greatest '70s TV-movies ever. There's quite a bit of Scott up on youtube and I still think he was pretty hot back then.
Inevitably, we come to Gene Wilder in this first group. When I finally did get a friend by the sixth grade, she and I fought over who was going to marry him first. I really resented her for this. Can I just say a million dorky girls like me were really really happy when he married Gilda Radner because we actually could relate to her just a little bit more than say, Farrah Fawcett-Majors? 

Can on German TV 1971 (video)

This is a great German TV special from 1971, featuring Krautrock legends Can doing some avant-gardish things, playing foosball (better known under the name "table football" in Europe), jamming around, and talking about socialism and music. The clip is taken from a 1999 Can documentary (which you can order with some other goodies on DVD at Spoon Records). I don't know whether the introduction is from the same program, but it was just too good to leave out.

For slightly better quality, you can download the video (32 meg MPEG-4).

This week's viral crazes...

Two videos I just saw this week and couldn't help but share.

The McCain Girls (via New York Mag)
It's painful, but hold out for the scene where it actually does start raining McCain's and you'll lose your shit.

UPDATE: Tis a damn fine comedy hoax.

Bathing with Bierko: John Malkovich
The fact that John Malkovich is willing to get in the tub with Craig Bierko and have his ears lovingly scrubbed as he repeats "Portugal" and "flamingo" over and over makes me love Malkovich even more than I already did.

You'll Never Look at Breakfast the Same Way Again

The clip after the jump may be the most hilariously disturbing thing I have ever seen. A friend slipped this scene quietly onto a video he made for me and it changed my life forever. I have shown this video to everyone who I can force to watch it and the reaction has always been the same - beautiful howling horrors.

Enjoy! (NSFW *porn* after jump!!!)

At The Movies with Sidney and Richard (Part 3 of 3)

We wrap up our Richard Widmark/Sidney Poitier series on a sad note. Richard Widmark passed away this week at the age of 93 (link)

In 1964 Widmark and Poitier came together for the second time (The Bedford Incident was their third and final collaboration) for a historical Vikings vs Moors romp. Poitier is the Moorish King Aly Mansuh obsessed with finding a legendary bell made out of gold. Widmark is Rolf the viking. He happens upon the bell's location, and with a crew of vikings he sets sail to get it. But they run ashore and are taken prisoner by Mansuh.

You certainly get the sense that they may have done this one for the money but that doesn't mean the movie is no good. In the clip below we have all kinds of intrigue. Rolf is brought to the bed chambers of Mansuh's wife Aminah, to talk business of course, while the King talks business with Rolf's little brother Orm's girlfriend Gerda. The rest of the vikings start some monkey business with the royal Harem!

If you want to find out what the Mare of Steel is - you will have to watch the movie (link).

Bummer

The Maysles brothers' doc of the Stones' 1969 tour Gimme Shelter was grim, horrifying, numbing, chaotic, painful, bitter, sad, enraging, complex, terrifying, exhilarating, disturbing, seminal, absorbing, aaaand rocking.  But also, it was occasionally hilarious.  Here's Jer & Phil, with, I believe, the white guy from Santana, having just been told the Hell's Angels are beating people up.

Jump the flip for a whole gallery of bummers.

Shield in the shadows

Robert Crumb is a curmudgeon nonpareil, and a man of idiosyncratic fetishes. One of them is the music of Leroy Shield. Until the 1990s, Shield, a prolific composer/conductor most of his life (1893-1962), was relatively unknown for what was arguably his greatest musical achievement: composing hundreds of themes for the 1930s Hal Roach comedies of Laurel & Hardy and The Little Rascals. In the early '90s, a Dutch orchestra called The Beau Hunks (christened after a L&H feature) recorded three albums of Shield's compositions from the Roach era, thus reviving a prodigious legacy.

After the Hunks released their first album in 1993, Crumb wrote them a fan letter, exclaiming, "This is music I've been looking for all my life!" He later elaborated: "Shield's music first got me interested in old music. I was hearing it on TV when I was a kid. I searched for that music." His hunt was a predestined dead-end because, until the Hunks recorded the Shield themes, they had never been commercially available. The composer hadn't even received screen credit. Along with legions of Roach film fans, Crumb was elated to discover the reconstructed versions. "It's my favorite music of all time," he affirmed. "I never get tired of it. I guess Shield was not too concerned with getting credit. He just did his job, then went out and played golf. There's a certain kind of Indian shaman that works his magic behind the scenes. I guess that's what Shield was."

Crumb was so enamored of the Beau Hunks' masterful performances of the Shield charts, he rendered the sketch (at right) and offered it free of charge to the band to use as CD cover art.

Now Steve Cloutier, working with Shield historian/graphic designer Piet Schreuders, has launched a new site devoted to the composer.

"The site's purpose is both a tribute and the means to satisfy a widespread curiosity that many have about the composer," Cloutier emailed. "Piet's diligent research and advice have been the most important ingredients in building this site. Thank heaven the Beau Hunks recorded this wonderful music. Leroy Shield's name could well have slipped into obscurity."

Fast Cars, Large Supermarkets: Meringues and Old Supermarkets

I imagine for most of us, the first real experience we had with the modern world of chain stores was the local supermarket.  And depending on how isolated your  hometown was from the cosmopolitan world of multiple market offerings, when you discovered another market, very different from the one you grew up with, you were stunned, disappointed, perhaps awed, or maybe none of the above.  Were you one of those children who ate only white food?  Maybe the culture of the aisles of offerings was not something you can summon from your childhood.  I think because food is such a primal link, I can still 'see' the visual differences between the markets of my childhood, and can remember feeling disappointed when a chain would expire and another would take its' place.  Even in today's real estate marketplace, one of the largest physical aches a neighborhood can feel is the loss of a large grocery store that no retailer feels the need to scoop up, leaving an empty totem surrounded by prairie-like concrete expanse.
     I lament the loss of uniqueness in the marketplace.  It feels like today's modus operandi is to make all stores look alike.   This copycat method is so uninteresting to me.  It has a numbing effect, driving me to avoid this experience however I can.  One of the pleasures of a vacation is stumbling upon the local, wacky leftover store from days gone by and taking advantage of the unusual offerings, sort of like going shopping in a foreign country and buying food in an unintelligible tongue. 
     I had an online flirtation with Fresh Direct, the new virtual supermarket whose huge trucks might be clogging an intersection in your NY metropolitan neighborhood as you read this, and I am not won over.  As much as I lament the loss of the visually arresting supermarket moment, I am not ready for the search by sub-heading, postage stamp photo approach.  I want to spend less time in front of my computer, not more.  Not that I want that time to go out and shoot an elk for dinner, but I want to see the food, and perhaps be prompted by the sight of something I have never bought before.  That is the siren experience of your local green market, colors and smells command your attention, tightening their grip around your wallet as you try to eek past.
     As much as I am waxing on about  an old-time religious supermarket vision, we all know that supermarkets did some things awfully, and have irreparably affected our vision of this food forever and ever.    I enter supermarket exhibit #1:  Meringues.  I always thought they were colored cardboard puffs, until I made my own, rather unconventional ones.  Last week I supported the WFMU fund raising, phone-answering troops with some of these, and heard hurrahs all around. 

Chocolate Almond Pecan Meringues

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.  Line 2 baking pans with parchment paper.  I now use a pan with a slight rim, or else be careful when pulling these from the oven, the parchment paper has a tendency to slide off...Bake the meringues for 2&1/2 - 3 hours without opening the oven.  Then turn off the oven, and leave them in there for at least 15 minutes.  Cool completely before removing from pan.  Meringues will turn out softer or firmer, depending on the humidity (it's nearly impossible to beat egg whites when it is drenching out).  Store them in an airtight tin lined with wax paper.

6 egg whites (separate them when they are fresh out of the fridge, then let them come to room temp before beating)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 Tablespoons of super quality cocoa
1/3 cup of almond meal
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup chopped pecans

1. Sift together : powdered sugar, cocoa, salt.  Add almond meal to bowl     and mix well.

2.Beat together the egg whites and vanilla at high speed until they form stiff peaks.  Fold in sugar-nut meal mixture followed by chocolate chips and pecans.

3. Drop by tablespoon onto prepared baking trays. Bake as above.

Foxes

When I first saw Foxes as a kid on cable TV, I wasn't too impressed with the movie itself. Back then, growing up in the midst of suburban ennui, it was hard to appreciate films about kids growing up in the midst of suburban ennui. Too close to home, if you will. What really captivated me about the film was the idea that they were close to the big city, Los Angeles in this case, where they would head to experience the big weird world of hookers, drug addicts, and really kick ass rock shows featuring glam-rock bands named Angel.

But as an adult I have learned to enjoy Foxes much more as a film about the hard process of growing up. I've also come to appreciate that instead of the male bonding of The Outsiders or Over the Edge, this film shows the gritty and troubled reality of female adolescence. Foxes wasn't alone, as the late 70s and early 80s offered several great "girls gone wild" films: Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains, Times Square, Little Darlings, and especially Fast Times At Ridgemont High (everyone seems to only remember the stoner fun of Spicoli, but Jennifer Jason Leigh's abortion drama was the center of that film).

In other words, despite the marketing and the title and the soundtrack featuring Donna Summer, Foxes is not a sex romp. Instead, the first film from Adrian Lyne (Flashdance, Jacob's Ladder, etc), is an R-rated version of an after-school special, where four pre-Valley Girl valley girls slowly grow up and grow apart - and the hard life leads to the inevitable tragedy.

At The Movies with Sidney and Richard (Part 2 of 3)

The third and final film Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier made together was the 1965 Cold War Thriller The Bedford Incident. This time race is not the issue - Photojournalist Ben Munceford (Poitier) boards Captain Eric Finlander's (Widmark) ship the Bedford in pursuit of a story about Finlander's gung-ho pro war proclivities, but Finlander has no time to chat as he is busy pursuing a Russian submarine. The movie is directed by James Harris who was Stanley Kubrick's producer before they parted ways the year before (1964, the year Kubrick made Dr. Strangelove) 

Widmark's Ahab-like determination to get the sub results in Nuclear Armageddon. I find this movie even scarier that the great Dr. Strangelove because Finlander at heart is just another dumb stubborn son-of-a-bitch who is incapable of seeing that his action plan is only going to get everyone killed. What's even scarier is how everyone else plays along. To the end.

Forty People Working Behind the Scenes in TV/Film With The Same Names as Famous Fictional TV/Film Characters

Right on, spunky chookens, for $400,000 big bad smackers to ‘FMU!! Since I’m not Kenny G I won’t list four hundred people—forty will have to suffice. Nonetheless, to celebrate this auspicious milestone, here are in fact forty complete strangers with the dire misfortune of sharing their given names with only one other complete stranger…who ain’t real.

1: Shower curtain rings (?), “Getting Away With Murder” (1996)

2: Animator, “The Mad Magazine TV Special” (1974)

3: Actor, “Barry” (2006), “All For Melissa” (2007)

4: Sound designer, “Call Girl Wives” (2005);

Writer, “Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog” (1998)

5: Actor, “Out of Order”, (2003)

6: Actor, “Golf Punks” (1998)

7: Rough inbetween artist., “Anatasia” (1997)

    Inbetween artist “Bartok the Magnificent” (1999)

My Favorite Movies I Won't Ever Watch

The cinematography in this music video reminds me of those weird interludes between Kids In The Hall sketches.  Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet did to the latter what fellow Canadians Fifth Column do to the former.  By vaguer association, I can't help thinking of a newish Blank Dogs video I recently saw.  At any rate, here's Fifth Column's video for "Like This".

I dig the yo-yo cut up stuff two minutes into the video.  Does anybody have 1985's out of print Fifth Column At The Funnel movie?  Post clips on youtube or contact me or something please!  Drawing in large part from the above music video's director, Bruce LaBruce, Fifth Column drummer, guitarist and vocalist GB Jones went on to direct a couple of movies herself.  Below you'll find trailers from Jones' films and the trailer to Bruce LaBruce's new "melancholy gay zombie" film...

Johnny Greenwood and the Oscars

It is a sure bet that Paul Thomas Anderson's excellent film There Will Be Blood will grab a few Oscars tonight, but unfortunately it won't get one for Best Original Score. The reason is an arcane and stupid Academy Awards rule excluding "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music".

The score was written by Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood, combining pieces by Arvo Pärt, Johannes Brahms, and others, with a good chunk (supposedly about 35 minutes) of music written by himself specifically for this film. He also used a few pieces of his BBC-commissioned 2006 composition Popcorn Superhet Receiver (RealAudio streaming link). Apparently this was too much "diluting" for the Academy, and it really is a shame that this keeps the best 2007 film score out of the awards.

If you think this is a 21st century problem, you might be surprised that this rule has already robbed another great composer from receiving an Oscar, 35 years ago. Nino Rota's score for the original 1972 Godfather movie was ruled ineligible for recycling a theme from his soundtrack for the 1958 film Fortunella. However, Rota used the same theme again in 1974's Godfather II, and this film finally got him his deserved award. It doesn't make any sense, but it really happened that way. I am waiting for There Will Be Blood II...

You can listen to a track from Johnny Greenwood's score on his MySpace page, and you should also check out an excerpt from Bodysong (YouTube link), a 2003 film by Simon Pummell which was scored by Greenwood.

Chris T.'s Oscar Picks 2008

I'm stranded in Hollywood due to the winter storm on the East Coast, so I thought I'd take advantage of my proximity to the Kodak Theater, where the 2008 Oscars will be awarded Sunday night, and see if I can go five for five in the top categories, as I did last year:

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: The true contenders are Ruby Dee in American Gangster and Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There. I was leaning toward Blanchett but she won a few years ago for The Aviator. Ruby Dee has never won an Oscar and that will be rectified this year.

BEST ACTRESS: The race is between Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose, and Julie Christie, Away From Her. They're both earning raves but Miss Cotillard gets my nod because my friend Jim says she was amazing.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: This one is a lock: Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men.

BEST ACTOR: Another lock: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood.

BEST PICTURE: Some folks hated the ending - not me: No Country For Old Men.

No Country For Old Star Children

Oh shit, is it that time already?!?  Well, what do you know - it's Oscar Weekend.  There's been a lot of heavy talk concerning the Coen Bros' beautiful "No Country For Old Men", and its supposed return to the despairing nihilism and hopelessness of "Blood Simple", among other things.  So was it really just a few months ago when the chatter surrounding the film's release centered primarily on The Hair?  It was, and I'm bringing it back, if for no other reason than I have discovered the direct ancestral source of The Hair.

That's right, I'm saying Javier Bardem's look was inspired by the teenage Paul Stanley.  Let's hope the inspiration doesn't extend to some acceptance-speech shenanigans.  I pity the schmuck who'd shine a laser on Starchild Chigurh!  (link) Oh, or what if Javier shows the same gratitude Paul showed to the fans who didn't buy his paintings at the "Wentworth Gallery" (at a shopping mall in Hackensack)?  (link)