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Sunday, October 5th, 2008
1:55 pm	Gotcha covered … I spent a pleasant morning this week listening to the latest of what seems to be a spate of covers albums. This one, forthrightly titled “Covers,” came out this week and features James Taylor and his band doing live-in-the-studio renditions of other folks’ songs. Taylor, of course, has a successful track record with covers such as “Handy Man,” “Up on the Roof” and “How Sweet It Is.” The project originally started out as a collection of r&b covers but eventually morphed into something more general, though r&b and country are the dominant flavors in the set, with a little rock ’n’ roll thrown in. The album works extremely well, not just because Taylor still has one of pop music’s most ingratiating voices, but because he’s taken material ranging from the Temptations to the Dixie Chicks to Leonard Cohen to Eddie Cochran and made it stylistically his own, with some tracks almost indistinguishable from JT originals. The album opens in an r&b groove with a laid-back reading of “It’s Growing,” a Smokey Robinson tune originally done by the Temptations, followed by a soulful version of the Jr. Walker and the All-Stars tune “(I’m a) Road Runner.” Then Taylor switches gears and tackles the great Jimmy Webb classic that was a smash for Glen Campbell, “Wichita Lineman.” Doing a song so closely associated with another artist isn’t easy, but Taylor pulls it off by giving it a folky arrangement using understated violin and piano. Veering into country, Taylor comes up with a fiddle-backed version of George Jones’ “Why Baby Why.” That leads into a mildy funky, horn-backed rendition of the Dixie Chicks’ upbeat “Some Days You Gotta Dance,” followed by the track that for me is the album’s high point, a lovely country-folk version of John Anderson’s “Seminole Wind” backed by a mournful fiddle. Drop this into any of JT’s albums of originals and it would fit just fine. I found myself hitting repeat over and over on this track. Next up is the Leonard Cohen poem-song “Suzanne,” a favorite from when it was done by Noel Harrison back in the ’60s. Arranged with violin and piano, JT’s slowed-down version is gorgeous. Then comes a slightly tongue-in-cheek r&b workout on the Lieber-Stoller Elvis tune “Hound Dog,” featuring soulful backing vocalists, horns and organ. After a spoken dedication to mothers as an opening, Taylor takes a smooth dip further into soul with the Spinners tune “Sadie.” That’s followed by a very relaxed, understated horn-backed treatment of “On Broadway.” The tempo picks up with an r&b arrangement of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” before the album winds up with a chugging Bo Diddley-style reading of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.” My sole complaint about the album is that it’s only about 40 minutes long and leaves you wanting more. But maybe that’s not a bad thing. Another cover album I’ve enjoyed recently, though I probably won’t play it all that often, is the Smithereens’ “B-Sides The Beatles,” the follow-up to their “Meet the Smithereens” tribute to “Meet The Beatles!” Here, the New Jersey band focuses for the most part on the flip side of singles from the early years of The Beatles’ recording career, staying away from the more stylistically diverse later tracks. And as with their earlier Beatles tribute album, this isn’t strictly a sound-alike performance — the Smithereens do follow the original arrangements, including backing vocals, and pretty well nail the instrumental backing, but they make no attempt to “do” The Beatles vocally. My favorites are “Thank You Girl,” “There’s a Place” and “Ask Me Why,” the latter featuring a superb job with the backing vocals. The other B-sides are fun listening too, including “I’ll Get You” (love the middle eight!), “You Can’t Do That,” “Cry for a Shadow” (the Hamburg instrumental done complete with background shouts), “P.S. I Love You” (on which session player Andy White handles drums, as he did on the Beatles original), “I’m Happy Just to Dance With You,” “If I Fell” (nice harmonies), “Slow Down” (the lead vocal isn’t as raucous as John Lennon’s) and “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party.” The only false note to me is the inclusion of album closer “Some Other Guy,” a tune that The Beatles did live but never recorded. Hey, if you’re going to do an album of B-sides, is it too much to ask that you stick to B-sides? I’d much rather have had “I Should Have Known Better,” “She’s a Woman” or “I’m Down,” though I can understand why they shied away from “Yes It Is.” Still, an enjoyable trip to the musical past. QUICKIES: Reading about original Kingston Trio member Nick Reynolds’ death this week at age 75 reminded me of the days of “Hootenanny” on TV and the album by the Trio that my Dad bought along with the family’s first stereo (the portable suitcase model for my Mom that later became mine). The Kingston Trio may have presented a more commercialized, mainstream version of folk music, but they kicked off the folk music craze with their smash hit of “Tom Dooley” in the late ’50s and made it possible for more challenging folk artists such as Joan Baez and even Bob Dylan to reach a mass audience. … The trailer for the upcoming Tom Cruise WWII thriller “Valkyrie” looks pretty good, though I found Cruise’s American accent in the role of the German officer who tried to off Hitler a bit disconcerting. You can watch the trailer here: http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/valkyrie.html?showVideo=1 I’m not so sure it’s a good idea for Russell Crowe to be playing both the Sheriff of Nottingham AND Robin Hood in the new Ridley Scott reworking of the Sherwood Forest legend, in which the sheriff is the good guy. Sounds gimmicky and ego-driven. … If Guy Ritchie plays it straight, his more action-oriented rethinking of Sherlock Holmes, with Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson, could be a lot of fun. But with a comedy version featuring Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell also in the pipeline, we don’t need another campy treatment of the Great Detective. … Thank God for Turner Classic Movies, one of the few cable/satellite channels that hasn’t veered away from its original concept. The Atlanta-based channel has put together a 24-hour marathon on Oct. 12 of films starring the late, lamented Paul Newman, one of the classiest stars and most generous humanitarians Hollywood has ever produced. Included are: “The Rack,” “Until They Sail,” “Torn Curtain,” “Exodus,” “Sweet Bird of Youth,” “Hud,” “Somebody Up There Likes Me,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Rachel, Rachel” and “The Outrage.” My own favorite Newman flicks: “The Long Hot Summer,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Sting,” “Slap Shot,” “Absence of Malice” and “The Verdict.” Meanwhile, one of the most heartfelt tributes to Newman came from his pal and fellow racing enthusiast, Dave Letterman, whose rambling reminiscence was both funny and fond. You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbBMrz1DmXc Warner Bros. and DC Comics never would allow the “Smallville” producers to let their young Clark Kent encounter the young Bruce Wayne because they didn’t want to overlap at all with the Batman movie series, but the CW now is working on a sort-of spinoff called “The Graysons,” which features the adventures of young Dick Grayson before he met the Caped Crusader and became Robin. Which is kinda weird, since the current Christian Bale Batman movie series apparently has no intention of introducing a Robin (thankfully). As one of those who always believed the highest purpose Robin could serve was as a target to draw bullets away from Batman, I would much rather see DC devote its TV emphasis on a more worthy comic book character. … I’m not much of a Rosie O’Donnell fan and never have been (going back to her “Star Search” and VH1 days), but I’m rooting for her upcoming Thanksgiving special that’s serving as a pilot for a prospective live variety hour on NBC. That’s a genre I’d love to see return to prime-time network TV. … A live-action version of Hanna-Barbera’s “Yogi Bear” with CGI versions of Yogi and Boo Boo interacting with real actors? Sounds like the worst idea for a feature film since the “Scooby Doo” movies. … Probably the most distinctive soap opera theme of all time is that of “Days of Our Lives,” which surprisingly was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, better known for their Monkees tunes and their own hit “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight.” Anyway, SongVest.com is offering fans a chance to own a piece of the soap theme in an auction running through Oct. 14. The winning bidder will receive a plaque declaring them co-owner of the song. … The latter years of “My Three Sons” were pretty clunky, as Chip or Ernie Douglas would put it, but the first few years of the 1960s sitcom with the great Fred MacMurray as widower Steve Douglas and William Frawley as granddad/housekeeper Bub (plus the original three sons, including Disney vet Tim Considine), weren’t bad at all. Volume 1 of the first season finally made it out on DVD this past week. … Tarzan hasn’t fared too well at the movies in recent decades, with the exception of 1984’s “Greystoke” with Christopher Lambert as the ape man, but Edgar Rice Burroughs fans are probably cautiously optimistic that the director who revived the “Mummy” franchise, Stephen Sommers, is negotiating with Warner Bros. to do a new Tarzan flick. I’m sure they would have preferred Guillermo del Toro, who was originally attached to the project, but he’s got a four-year commitment in New Zeland with the two “Hobbit” pictures. ... Good news for those of us who count ourselves as fans of the delectable Diane Kruger (“Troy,” the “National Treasure” movies). The German-born actress has joined the cast of Quentin Tarantino’s Brad Pitt WWII adventure, “Inglorious Bastards.” Meanwhile, Disney does plan a third “National Treasure,” though no date is set yet. If you'd like to add to or have your say about anything in this column, just click on comment below. You don't have to be registered with Live Journal. Current Mood: busy Current Music: "Covers" (17 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
8:20 pm	Catching up Quickly … Sorry I haven’t weighed in over the past month, but free time has been hard to come by. Anyway, I have a few moments, so let’s get on with it … AT THE MOVIES: The only film I’ve seen since you last heard from me is the new version of “Brideshead Revisited,” which Leslie and I finally caught. Leslie was a major fan of the 1981 TV series as well as the Evelyn Waugh novel about an extremely dysfunctional Roman Catholic family in Britain and their impact on the life of an artist named Charles Ryder, while I had never read the book and went in and out of the TV version, finding parts of it enjoyable but Jeremy Irons a bit of a bore. Interestingly, we both enjoyed the new film, which I thought was extremely well cast with Matthew Goode as Charles (a big improvement over Irons), Ben Whishaw as the flamboyant Sebastian Flyte (gayer but more believable than Anthony Andrews in the TV version) and Hayley Atwell every bit the equal of the TV version’s Diana Quick as Julia (Sebastian’s sister, with whom Charles eventually falls in lust, if not love). Even the small parts were well cast, with the likes of Michael Gambon, Greta Schachi and Patrick Malahide, and Emma Thompson suitably unsympathetic as the Flytes’ overbearing mama. Leslie says the film compressed and left out a lot and juiced up the triangle between Charles, Sebastian and Julia, but I don’t think you could have made a workable film out the material without doing those things. Anyway, if you are at all inclined toward between-the-wars Brit family dramas, this is a good one. Otherwise, the fall movie season is off to an extremely underwhelming start for me, with none of the new releases coaxing me into the cinema, but there are films coming up over the next three months that at least merit come consideration. With “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” moved to next summer, the only must-see for me this fall is “Quantum of Solace,” Daniel Radcliffe’s much welcomed second gritty outing as James Bond — and the first 007 film to truly function as a sequel to the preceding film. Directed by the very talented Marc Forster (“Monster’s Ball,” “Finding Neverland”), it picks up where the excellent “Casino Royale” left off, introducing a SPECTRE-like organization behind the demise of Bond’s love in the earlier film. The trailers have been terrific. To see the latest one, go here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/09/10/bfbond110.xml Already out is the “Quantum of Solace” theme song, “Another Way to Die,” written by Jack White and recorded by him and Alicia Keys as the first Bond theme to be a duet. I like the nasty guitar riff and the instrumental parts work OK, but the rhythmic, hip-hoppish vocals don’t do a lot for me. Of course, I wasn’t too impressed at first with the “Casino Royale” song by Chris Cornell, “You Know My Name,” but got to like it quite a bit after seeing the film a couple of times. Anyway, you can listen to White’s song here: http://www.thirdmanrecords.com/ Films due out this fall about which I’m undecided but might consider: Spike Lee’s “Miracle at St. Anna,” pegged on a mystery involving black troops in WWII; “Appaloosa,” an old-fashioned Western starring Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris, Renée Zellweger and Jeremy Irons; “The Duchess,” a British period piece that does have Keira Knightley, one of my (and my daughter’s) favorites, but also has suffered from particularly lackluster trailers and promotional clips (always a warning sign since you expect the trailer to include the best bits in a movie); “Ghost Town,” the just-released “I see really annoying dead people” comedy starring brilliant Brit Ricky Gervais; “Forever Strong,” with the Fat Hobbit, Sean Astin, starring in a rugby (!) sports drama (“Rudy” with an accent and no helmets or pads?); “Body of Lies,” the CIA thriller starring Leonard DiCaprio and Russell Crowe (good cast but unimpressive trailer); “Changeling,” the Clint Eastwood-directed Angelina Jolie drama about a mother who doesn’t think she got the right kid back after her young son was kidnapped (I’m leaning toward this one); Viggo Mortensen in the post-apocalyptic father-son tale “The Road” (I don’t know enough about it); “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” a remake of the sci-fi classic with Keanu Reeves in the Michael Rennie role (the trailer is OK but I’m resistant to the very idea of remaking that film); “Eagle Eye,” an assassination-plot thriller with Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan (again, I don’t know enough about it); and DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reteamed for the first time since “Titanic” in “Revolutionary Road,” a convoluted-sounding relationship drama directed by luckiest man in the world Sam Mendes (her real-life husband). Films I’ll most likely leave for satellite viewing unless I get a recommendation from a trusted source: the Coen Brothers’ “Burn After Reading,” which already has opened and has an impressive cast but suffers from the most uninviting trailer and ads in recent memory; the just-opened “Towelhead,” with Aaron Eckhart as the creepy neighbor who seduces a troubled Lebanese-American teenage girl; the already-opened “Righteous Kill” with Robert De Niro and infamous scenery chewer Al Pacino (who unfortunately doesn’t even seem like the same actor who was so brilliant in the first two “Godfather” films); “Hounddog,” the Southern gothic drama aka “the Dakota Fanning rape movie”; “Rachel Getting Married,” the reportedly Oscar-worthy soap starring Anne Hathaway as a recovering drug addict who stirs up the angst at her sister’s wedding; “W,” the Oliver Stone version of the life of our nation’s worst president (I’m really NOT interested in devoting a couple of hours to even a critical look at Dubya); Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in the would-be sweeping romantic saga “Australia” (directed by that master of excess, Baz Luhrmann); “Defiance,” with Daniel Craig, Liev Shreiber and Jamie Bell as Lithuanian brothers leading resistance fighters against the Nazis (this one sounds promising); “Frost/Nixon” with Frank Langella as Tricky Dick in the story of the 1977 interviews he did with British broadcast legend David Frost; Adam Sandler and the adorable Keri Russell in Disney’s fantasy comedy “Bedtime Stories”; and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the technical tour de force in which Brad Pitt plays all the different ages (using motion-capture CGI) of a man who is born 80 and proceeds to get younger (the trailer is intriguing but I’m not sure the premise would hold together for an entire film). A lot of other films out this fall I don’t have an opinion on one way or the other. And then there are the films you’d have to pay me to attend, including “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” (my daughter, thank goodness, has never been interested in this series); “Marley & Me,” a cute-dog story co-starring the oh-so-cute Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston; “Max Payne” (another video game turned into a movie — no thanks!); “An American Carol” (rightwing director David Zucker of “Scary Movie 4” infamy applies his heavyhanded humor to bashing liberals — sort of “Fox News: The Movie”); “Milk,” the story of assassinated San Francisco official Harvey Milk (Sean Penn begging for another Oscar by playing gay? I don’t think so); and the recent arrival “Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys” (I’m not wild about any director who insists on making his own name part of the title of all his films, but particularly when it’s schlockmeister Perry). ON THE TUBE: My daughter Olivia and I have both gotten hooked on “Fringe,” the new Fox series (9 p.m. Eastern on Tuesdays) from J.J. “Lost” Abram. It’s sort of a riff on “The X-Files” formula, only with the bad guys being more corporate than alien. It stars Australian Ann Torv (playing an American) as an FBI agent pulling Mulder/Scully duty with the aid of a slightly insane scientist (played by John Noble of “The Lord of the Rings” fame) and his cynical, brilliant ne’er-do-well son (Joshua Jackson, ex of “Dawson’s Creek”). I find the look of the series a bit bleak and the 3-D captions inserted into picture as if they were real more than a bit irritating, but I think I’ll stick with it. I’m also enjoying “True Blood,” the bloody, sexy new HBO series from metro Atlanta native Alan Ball (“Six Feet Under”) set in a world where the creation of synthetic blood has allowed vampires to “come out of the coffin” and assume the role of untrusted minority agitating for their rights. The series is set in backwoods Louisiana and some of the fake Southern accents are a bit over the top, but Anna Paquin strikes an amazing balance between sensual and naïve as a mindreading (literally) barmaid named Sookie Stackhouse who gets involved with a mysterious vampire named Bill (Stephen Moyer), who’s over 170 years old but appears to have stuck with a haircut from the early 1970s. It’s sexy and violent (as you’d expect from HBO) but so far engrossing. And Paquin is the sexiest thing on TV at the moment. New episodes debut at 9 p.m. Eastern on Sundays and repeat several times during the week. Best thing on TV at the moment? "Mad Men," with new episodes premiering Sunday nights at 10 on AMC. Brilliant stuff. QUICKIES: This week, Microsoft shelved those rather pointless and at times seemingly interminable ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates trying to be lovably quirky. When it comes to ads, as well as computers, give me Mac any day. … If you didn’t get to see Tina Fey’s devastating take on Sarah Palin on the first new “Saturday Night Live” of the season (or early last week on YouTube), you can still check it out at NBC.com. (The clip was pulled off YouTube by NBC). It’s available for viewing here: http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/ On Nov. 11, Disney is FINALLY releasing the DVD of “Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh,” the terrific 1964 smuggling adventure starring Patrick McGoohan that had many kids flipping back and forth between NBC’s “Wonderful World of Color” and CBS’ “Ed Sullivan Show” the night The Beatles made their Sullivan debut. The DVD includes all three episodes as originally seen on TV and the stitched-together film version released in theaters. If you’re making lists of the best TV theme songs of all time, “Scarecrow” has to be in the Top 10. … I’m sure this puts me at odds with a number of my readers, but I was rather underwhelmed by “That Lucky Old Sun,” the new Brian Wilson concept album. Yes, the harmonies are enjoyable and it makes for pleasant listening, but most of it is not very memorable melodically and I could very much have done without the spoken portions written by Van Dyke Parks and read rather woodenly by Wilson. … My friend Howie Edelson (one of those Wilson fans probably choking over the previous item) sent me an amusing e-mail with the subject line “Bill King’s Worlds Collide” about Kate Winslet reportedly being in line to play John Lennon’s mother in the upcoming bioflick “Nowhere Boy.” Only trouble is, it turns out this is more useless U.K. tabloid reportage. A Daily Mail columnist reported Winslet was “one of several actresses” that the film’s director is interested in. Via the Internet, that, of course, got twisted into “Winslet to play Lennon’s mother” headlines. It’d be great, but I wouldn’t bet on it. If you'd like to add to or have your say about anything in this column, just click on comment below. You don't have to be registered with Live Journal. Current Mood: rushed Current Music: "Another Way to Die" (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 24th, 2008
8:21 pm	Getting reacquainted with the Wichita Lineman It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to a new Glen Campbell album. Actually, it’s been a long time since anyone listened to a new Glen Campbell album that wasn’t a live album or special theme collection focusing on the holidays or his greatest hits. But I figured the release last week of the coyly titled “Meet Glen Campbell,” his return to his hitmaking home of Capitol Records with a new studio album on which the 72-year-old musician and producer Julian Raymond tackle up-to-date material by the likes of the Foo Fighters, Tom Petty and Green Day, was a good excuse for getting reacquainted with the pride of Delight, Ark. I always liked Campbell back in his heyday when he was turning out slightly countrified pop hits hits like “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” John Hartford’s “Gentle on My Mind,” “Where’s the Playground Susie?”, the quietly anti-war “Galveston” and the magnificent “Wichita Lineman,” written by Campbell fave Jimmy Webb. Hey, even some of Campbell’s cheesier stuff, like “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “Southern Nights,” was so catchy that it was hard to dismiss. I always enjoyed his late ’60s-early ’70s CBS variety hour, too, especially the bits where Campbell on guitar and Hartford on banjo (replaced after the first season by Larry McNeeley) would do some serious picking. Renowned as a session player for the Beach Boys and others before he started having hits, Campbell had major league chops as a guitarist, though his fame as a singer overshadowed that aspect of his talent. What producer Raymond is trying to do with the 10-song “Meet Glen Campbell” is sort of what Rick Rubin did for Johnny Cash and, more recently, Neil Diamond — make them musically relevant again with more contemporary material and introduce them to a new audience. Only in the case of Campbell, Raymond decided to do the updated songs in the classic heavily orchestrated style of Campbell’s original hits. That approach works for the most part, though I would have preferred the more stripped down Rubin-style sound. Occasionally the strings and heavenly choruses mixed in with banjos and mandolins threaten to overwhelm Campbell’s still incredibly rich and clear tenor, and the album definitely doesn’t give us enough of Campbell’s guitar playing. (An interesting side note: Buried in there somewhere in the layered sound are Rick Nielsen and Robin Zander of Cheap Trick.) The material on “Meet Glen Campbell” is mostly superb, and he sounds right at home singing it. Highlights include his shimmering take on the British band Travis’ “Sing,” Petty’s “Walls” (which sounds like it could be a Campbell song from way back when) and “Angel Dream” (which benefits from a more acoustic backing), the Foo Fighters’ “Times Like These” (perfect for Campbell though a little heavy on the strings), Jackson Browne’s “These Days” (with more understated orchestration), Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” (another well-known tune well-suited to Campbell’s voice, though the busy rhythm track is a bit too prominent in the mix) and the stately rendition of John Lennon’s romantic ode, “Grow Old With Me.” Even the less interesting tracks — the Replacements’ melancholy “Sadly, Beautiful”; a somewhat generic-sounding rendition of U2’s “All I Want Is You”; and Velvet Underground’s repetititive “Jesus” — are worth a listen. If you still look back fondly on his “Galveston” era, I think you’ll get quite a kick out of re-meeting Glen Campbell on this album. TELL EVERYONE: Getting great word of mouth on the art-house cinema circuit is “Tell No One,” a French thriller based on the international best-seller by Harlan Coben and starring Francois Cluzet as a pediatrician devastated by his wife’s savage murder eight years earlier who receives an anonymous e-mail that leads to a video that seems to indicate she might still be alive. Meanwhile, police have re-opened the case and put him under suspicion again after the bodies of her apparent attackers are found near his place in the country. The closer he gets to the truth, the more the death count climbs, and it turns out someone else has been reading his e-mail and wants to know the whereabouts of his wife (played by Marie-Josée Croze). With the help of friends, including his sister’s lover (Kristin Scott Thomas), the doc tries to stay out of jail while unscrambling the past and present. What with the film’s headlong pace and subtitles, the plot can be a bit tricky to follow (Leslie and I ended up with a couple of unanswered questions that may have been holes in the story or may just have been things we missed) and I thought the everything-explained ending was a tad disappointing, but overall it’s an engrossing couple of hours of cinema highly recommended for anyone inclined to Hitchcockian suspense. BEIJING 2008: Thanks to my daughter’s obsession with seeing as many Olympic sports as possible (I mean, even archery and trampoline!), I’ve seen much more of the summer Games than I’d originally intended. Normally I might have settled for the prime-time Michael Phelps medal chase and women’s gymnastics finals (where the anti-U.S. bias in the judging was sometimes maddening), but I must say I did get caught up in the U.S. women’s beach volleyball triumph and even some of the track and field. Unfortunately, most of the team sports I would have watched, especially soccer, were banished to the early morning hours on one of NBC’s cable outlets. Overall, the games seem to have been run by the Chinese with fascist efficiency (Mussolini made the trains run on time, remember) but with an almost total lack of spontanaity aside from the athletes. The streets were scrubbed of undesirables, security was oppressive and repressive, a small area was set aside for protests, only to have no applications from protesters granted, and where in Atlanta you had children playing in an Olympic fountain, in Beijing such features were fenced off. Yes, Beijing’s mass display of synchronized dancers, drummers and acrobats in its Opening Ceremony was impressive, but later we heard how the participants were practically held hostage and worked to the point of exhaustion. And the torch-lighting was a letdown (the torch bearer hoisted on a wire doesn’t come close to matching Barcelona’s flaming arrow or Atlanta’s Mohamed Ali), the music banal as usual at these affairs, and the fact that the organizers yanked the little girl who sang the theme song for a more photogenic lip-syncer pretty well sums up the fakery that seems to have been the Beijing Olympics’ hallmark. Oh, sure, the IOC has given lip service to having the international gymnastics body “investigate” China’s blatant use of under-age athletes, but we know that will be dropped once the Chinese turn over some freshly minted fake birth certificates. This is what happens when the IOC rewards a totalitarian regime’s abysmal human rights record with the opprortunity to play host to Olympic Games. The Olympics themselves end up diminished. And while on the subject of the Olympics, there’s been much talk about whether London’s Games can match Beijing’s for spectacle. They shouldn’t even try. London’s Opening and Closing Ceremonies should be a joyous celebration of the true Olympic spirit and what Britain has given to the world, not a manufactured display of uniformity. Whether it’s the voices of great British actors, music from Paul McCartney or a bagpipe band or a Welsh choir, or a touch of real pomp and circumstance with the Queen, London has everything it needs to stand head and shoulders above Beijing’s artificial razzle-dazzle. I LIKED IKE: I was particularly saddened by the recent death of Isaac Hayes because, as I’ve written here before, my encounters with him during his years living in Atlanta had showed him to be a generous, thoughtful man. I have two particularly vivid memories of my time with Hayes. One was at his Atlanta mansion, when we went out in his backyard and the kids at an expensive private school located next door starting hanging out the classroom windows, waving and calling out, “Isaac! Isaac!” He enjoyed waving back t them. The other is one I’ve related here before: I was at Atlanta's Fox Theatre to do a backstage post-concert interview with the notoriously temperamental Dionne Warwick, who suddenly had decided she wasn't in the mood to talk. Suddenly, to the rescue came Hayes, who stepped in and assured his old pal Dionne that I was a good guy and would do well by her and she really ought to do this interview. And what's more, he promised he'd sit in with us just to hold her hand. As a result, I got a much better story than I had any right to expect. Isaac Hayes was indeed a class act. If you'd like to add to or have your say about anything in this column, just click on comment below. You don't have to be registered with Live Journal. Current Mood: pleased Current Music: "Meet Glen Campbell" (27 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 4th, 2008
10:59 am	Cut to the Quickies … Quite a few topics I can’t resist as summer’s dog days get kinda loony (L.A.’s police chief outs Lindsay Lohan!), so here goes another batch of items of the short-attention-span variety … Anyone surprised that the International Olympic Committee would knuckle under to Beijing and allow them to censor Internet access for the thousands of journalists covering the Olympics in China simply hasn’t paid much attention to the IOC over the years. Despite IOC chief Jacques Rogge’s claims that China would provide free and “uncensored” Web access for the foreign news media during the Games, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages, including those that discuss Tibet, Taiwan, China’s suppression of dissidents and sites for Amnesty International, the BBC and even several Hong Kong newspapers. If the IOC really cared about freedom of thought and expression, or freedom of any kind, it never would have awarded China the Games. But as we learned in Atlanta, the folks who run the Olympics may preach the purity of amateur athletics and world peace and cooperation, but the only thing that matters to IOC officials is how much swag they can pocket from the next sucker wanting to play host to the Games. … Thanks to the Internet, the unsourced, speculative (and mostly fictional) show biz scoops that are a specialty of the British press now circulate quickly around the world and are reported as if they are legitimate news. A couple of recent examples concern The Beatles and Batman. Britain’s Daily Express ran a story quoting unnamed sources as saying that a DVD release of The Beatles’ film “Let It Be” has been blocked by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr because it shows the group in an unflattering light. No quotes from them or even comment from their reps, of course. Just anonymous “insiders.” While the late Neil Aspinall had indicated in the past that some of the outtake footage being considered for DVD release still stirred up sensitive feelings within the Beatles camp, there’s never been any indication it won’t be released again. And I’m inclined not to believe the Express just because I’ve seen how unreliable these anonymously sourced reports have been over the years. Plus the Abbeyrd news site was told last week by Apple: “We do have plans to release it sometime in the future.” Then there are the frequent speculative U.K. movie casting reports, most of which have absolutely no more substance than a bunch of fans playing “what if.” The latest has Johnny Depp being in line to play the Riddler in the next Batman film after “The Dark Knight.” It may sound reasonable, but after “Batman Begins” came out in 2005, similar reports were saying the next film would feature Robin Williams as the Joker. Or Steve Buscemi. Or Mark Hamill. Or Paul Bettany. Or Sean Penn. Of course, when the announcement finally came in July 2006, it ended up being Heath Ledger, whom no one had predicted. The recent reports also have Philip Seymour Hoffman being considered as the Penguin. The same thing was reported in 2006, when they said the character would be reimagined as a British arms dealer. And, in one of the most predictable bits of casting speculation, they’re also touting Angelina Jolie as Catwoman. She’d no doubt be a great choice in the role. As Depp and Hoffman probably would, too. But the fact that these reports emanate from the British press makes them pretty worthless. … Speaking of McCartney, he is the lead vocalist on a track from the forthcoming “London Undersound” album by British composer Nitin Sawhney (due out in Britain Oct. 13) that has been released online. It’s called “My Soul” and combines one of Macca’s nicer vocals in recent years with a fairly catchy tune. What’s most surprising about it, considering Sawhney’s Asian-influenced jazz-electronica background, is how MOR it sounds. You can check “My Soul” out at: http://k848.vox.com/library/audio/6a00f48cf28ea5000300fa9683f07f0003.html It’s been amazing up to now how much show biz mileage Freddie Prinze Jr. has gotten out of a famous name and no discernible talent, but that seems to be coming to an end with the announcement that Prinze Jr. has “joined the creative team” at World Wrestling Entertainment. Actually, come to think of it, most pro wrestlers probably have twice the acting talent of Prinze Jr. … Thankfully, the U.K. media reports earlier this year that the extremely irritating and overexposed Amy Winehouse might do the theme song for the next James Bond flick turned out to be … you guessed it … wrong. Instead, Alicia Keys and Jack White have recorded the theme for “Quantum of Solace,” due to open Nov. 7. … The first couple of episodes of the second season of AMC’s critically acclaimed “Mad Men” series, set in the world of Madison Avenue advertising in the early 1960s, have shown the same aversion to network TV drama formula that made the first series so refreshing. Instead of cashing in on all the awards and media hype by doing some sort of stunt scripting for the season premiere, creator/writer Matthew Weiner (a vet of “The Sopranos”) maintained his extremely leisurely pacing and emphasis on nuanced character development. Not much actually seems to happen amid the constant drinking and smoking, but you get beneath the characters’ skin in ways you almost never seen in most TV dramas. And the period detail continues to be impressive. … Speaking of enjoying shows where it’s all about character, fans of the beloved Britcom “As Time Goes By” know all about that. I’ve caught the show off and over the years as my mother and daughter Olivia have watched in on Saturday nights on our local PBS station but mostly had only seen episodes from the show’s latter years. Over the past couple of weeks Olivia has been catching me up as we’ve watched the first six series (generally only six to 10 episodes each), which she’s collected on DVD. The gentle interplay between Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer as former lovers who rediscover each other after 38 years apart makes for a nice escape from the real world. Paired with a nice steaming mug of English tea, it’s the perfect way to wind down after a day amidst the buyouts and layoffs that dominate the newspaper industry these days. … AT THE MOVIES: Over the past two weekends, Olivia and I have caught a couple of films that didn’t fare all that well with critics but which we found mostly enjoyable. “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” isn’t the big summer CGI blockbuster about aliens from outer space that some reviewers apparently wanted. Instead, it’s a quieter, more character-driven thriller. Some critics complained it’s like an extended episode of the old TV series, but that’s sort of the point. This film is aimed at fans of the series, particularly those who found the complicated relationship between Agents Mulder and Scully (David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) more compelling than the aliens-among-us story arc. The plot of “I Want to Believe” may border on run-of-the-mill police procedural with a particularly grisly twist, but seeing Mulder and Scully openly expressing their feelings provides the payoff for longtime X-Philes. If you’re one and you haven’t yet seen the film, do so. And be sure to sit through the credits. Enough said. … Meanwhile this weekend we saw “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” the third in the current “Mummy” series starring Brendan Fraser. Set in post WWII China, it actually has nothing to do with mummies (think terracotta soldiers brought to life by a fire-breathing undead evil emperor who bears more than a passing resemblance to the Batman comic villain Clayface) and is flawed by some storytelling leaps of logic (which probably won’t bother you until you think about it later) and characters that are much less developed than in the first two “Mummy” movies. And acclaimed actress Maria Bello is a bit of a disappointment taking over the lead female role from the delightful Rachel Weisz, who played it in the first two films. Nevertheless, it’s still a fun action picture (my daughter objects to that description, apparently because she finds it somewhat condescending, but to me it’s a bit more to the point than the popular phrase “popcorn flick”), and has fairly convincing computer-generated special effects. Plus you get to see martial arts stars Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh duke it out (although their battle would be more effective if it didn’t suffer from the choppy fast-cut editing that plagues so many films nowadays). This is mindless fun, not a film you want to think much about, but there’s certainly a place for that in the megaplexes this time of year. Besides the terrific 007 “Quantum of Solace” trailer that’s been out a few weeks, the coming attractions before “Mummy” also included the new trailer for this fall’s “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” featuring a look back at when Dumbledore first encountered the young Tom Riddle, who would grow up to be the evil Wizard Voldemort. The creepy kid is portrayed by Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, the 10-year-old nephew of Ralph Fiennes, who plays the grown-up villain. You can catch the trailer online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBGbKCm_pQQ If you'd like to add to or have your say about anything in this column, just click on comment below. You don't have to be registered with Live Journal. Current Mood: drained Current Music: "My Soul" (25 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
6:26 pm	Joker means a winning hand Sold-out midnight shows and packed first-night screenings full of the young moviegoing crowd are one thing, but a theater half-filled with adults (mostly without kids) willing to attend a showing of a film based on a comic book at 10 o’ clock on a Saturday morning? Confirmation that “The Dark Knight” isn’t just any comic book film. If you've ever winced at the tongue-in-cheek dialogue, pop-art colors, over-the-top villains, battles bloated with outlandish computer-generated images, and two-dimensional heroes that populate most comic book-inspired movies — wishing instead for something darker, grittier, more complex and grounded in at least some semblance of reality — the long wait is over. From what I'd read in advance, I knew that "The Dark Knight" lives up to its title, but when my 14-year-old daughter, Olivia, who attended a Friday night screening, added in the middle of giving it a rave review that it was "so dark it was depressing" and that the late Heath Ledger's acclaimed portrayal of the Joker was "fantastically creepy," I knew director Christopher Nolan had succeeded. Then my grad-student son called from D.C., where he has a summer internship, to report he'd just seen it, too. Young Bill, who generally isn't nearly as easily pleased at the movies as his sister and father, pronounced it "ridiculously good." Then he added: "It's the Batman film I always hoped would be made." I knew just what he meant. You see, young Bill grew up on Batman movies, starting with the two Tim Burton films, which were entertaining but flawed. Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne/Batman was refreshingly off-center but Burton's tendency toward operatic overkill often got in the way of his story. And while Jack Nicholson's hammy interpretation of the Joker scared 3-year-old Bill in the first film, I preferred Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer's darker readings of the Penguin and Catwoman in the second, though that film went off the rails a bit toward the end with its army of rocket-bearing penguins shuffling through Gotham City. Bill and I both found the third film, with which director Joel Schumacher took over the franchise and Val Kilmer's Batman was joined by Robin (always my least favorite comic book character), a bit silly, and we were hardly out of the theater from seeing Schumacher's "Batman and Robin," with an ill-used George Clooney in the title role and a winking tone that aped the awful, campy 1960s TV series, before we were saying how much we hated it. We weren't alone. Audience rejection of the film was so complete that it killed the Batman movies for a decade. But when Nolan relaunched the series with 2005's "Batman Begins," we agreed that he was on the right track. However, that first Nolan effort spent half the film setting up the rather too-lengthy back story before finally getting around to what we were there for: Batman. Versatile Welshman Christian Bale's interpretation of the Caped Crusader hit all the right notes, though, and the closing scene's hint that the next film would feature a new take on the Joker was tantalizing. Then came the unorthodox casting of Ledger in the role, the first online views of his grisly twisted-clown visage, and then the media hoopla over the young star's death this past winter after production wrapped. After a suitable period of mourning, Warner Bros. unleashed a well-executed publicity campaign that stoked fans' anticipation to unprecedented heights. The only question was, could "The Dark Knight" possibly live up to the hype? Reviews mentioning Ledger and Oscar in the same sentence and giving the film nearly across-the-board raves were the answer. And in this case the critics are right on the mark. The new film doesn't waste any time on back story and in fact taunts those who want one by having Ledger's Joker tell different versions of how he got his leering-grin scars to different victims. It has lots of action, filmed refreshingly the old-fashioned way (much of it on location in Chicago) with stunt men and real explosions. The flipping of an 18-wheeler and blowing up of a hospital weren't done with computers or even miniature models. They really flipped an 18-wheeler on a Chicago street, and a former Windy City candy factory was blown to high heaven in the guise of Gotham General, with the shock waves visibly buffeting Ledger's Joker as he walks away from the scene — a one-take wonder. While Ledger is getting most of the critical attention, the rest of the cast also shines. Bale gets both the angry, anguished masked vigilante and his flippant playboy alter ego just right. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman give strong support. Aaron Eckhart makes a believable 180-degree turn as crusading D.A. Harvey Dent, the film's tragic "hero," and Maggie Gyllenhaal is much more interesting as Dent and Bruce Wayne's mutual love interest, Rachel Dawes, than Katie Holmes was in "Batman Begins." (My daughter didn't like Gyllenhaal much on her first viewing of the film but decided after accompanying me to the Saturday morning screening 17 hours later that she'd changed her mind.) But Ledger's Joker is the film's centerpiece, and it's an unforgettable (and in my mind unsurpassable) performance. Beyond the masterfully grotesque smeared makeup, he manages to give us a remarkably nuanced portrayal of a villain who is really more of a terrorist than just a bank robber and killer. This is not the Clown Prince of Crime embodied by Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson. This is a thinking man's freak, a merciless killer with a perverse sense of humor. The pencil scene early on (I won't spoil it), leaves members of the audience gasping. And the little touches — from Ledger's snakelike flicking of his tongue and cracked voice to his body language and the way he primps by brushing back his greasy, greenish-tinted hair with a hand clutching a knife as he approaches Rachel after crashing a society fund-raiser — fill out the portrait of calculated madness perfectly. "The Dark Knight" isn't just a good vs. evil story, either. The Joker knows, and Bruce Wayne learns the hard way, that there's a fine line between vigilante and terrorist, that he and Batman are different sides of the same coin. Complex issues, such as using illegal surveillance techniques for a greater good and whether the unvarnished truth is really what we always need, take the comic book film genre in a new direction. But it's not all downbeat. The Joker's cynical reading of the public at large ultimately isn't vindicated, and he winds up truly surprised that while he might have turned one hero to the dark side, he can't make Batman into a killer. Plus, the twist at the end, in which the Joker and the Batman both wind up losing, is a master stroke. Young Bill put it best: It's the Batman film that true fans always hoped would be made but feared was beyond Hollywood's grasp. I can't wait to see it again. MORE AT THE MOVIES: The previous weekend, Olivia and I had a double-dose of Jules Verne-inspired screen adventure. First, we went to see the new fun but flawed PG-rated Brendan Fraser version of “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” At only 92 minutes long, it moves quickly, and Fraser is an ingratiating screen presence, as always. Anita Briem, who plays an Icelandic mountain guide (and is actually from Iceland originally before launching an acting career in Britain) makes for diverting viewing, too. And it’s nicely modernized by having Fraser’s volcano expert character following the tracks of his missing brother, who was a Verne fan, by using a copy of the original Verne novel as a reference. But even by Verne standards much of it doesn’t make a lot of sense — surviving a fall miles down in a volcano tube? A cellphone receiving a call at the center of the earth? — and if you take away the 3-D elements (which mostly consist of stuff shooting out toward the audience), the CGI special effects aren’t all that special. It’s basically a kids movie made by folks who don’t really have faith in the kid audience, who don’t believe kids can handle any plot or character development more involved than in your average beginner’s level video game. That same night, we pulled out the DVD of the original 1959 Pat Boone-James Mason (yes, Boone, incredibly, was top-billled) of “Journey,” one of my childhood favorites from the time I first saw it in one of those PTA-sponsored Saturday morning movie series in fifth grade. Made on a much grander scale than the new film and more or less following the original Verne story, it’s so great that it doesn’t even matter that Boone is in it! The science may be just as unrealistic, but it’s believably and excitingly presented. And I still found the monsters done by using trick photography to make real-life lizards look giant much more convincing than the computerized dinosaurs in the new version. After the disc was finished, I asked Olivia which version she liked better. She didn’t hesitate in picking the 1959 film. Who says kids don’t appreciate the classics? FULL CIRCLE AT SHEA: Friday night, Billy Joel performed in the last-ever concert at New York City’s soon to be demolished Shea Stadium (named, of course, for the famous Cuban guerrilla, Che Stadium), and the show was topped with rumors of a Paul McCartney appearance coming true. Macca and his Hofner bass came on for a storming version of “I Saw Her Standing There” with Joel and his band, and then after Joel did “Piano Man,” he brought Paul back on to do “Let It Be” on piano (with Joel singing backup while sitting at times on the grand). My friend Tom Frangione was there and pronounced it “pretty friggin’ amazing.” Says Tom of when McCartney was first introduced: “I’ve been to hundreds of indoor and outdoor shows (with or without a Beatle on hand), and even more baseball games at Shea, and I have never, ever felt the concrete foundation shake the way it did at that moment.” So, The Beatles played Shea’s first rock concert in 1965, and a Beatle fittingly played the last song performed in concert at Shea. Kudos to Billy for making it happen. You can see several so-so audience-shot Youtube videos of the McCartney-Joel numbers at: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Billy+Joel+and+Paul+McCartney&search_type=&aq=o QUICKIES: Speaking of McCartney, a lot of Americans first became aware of a much loved British children’s character, Rupert Bear, through Macca’s animated short “Rupert and the Frog Song.” My Welsh grandmother used to send me Rupert annuals (hardcover compilations of the comic-book style adventures issued yearly) for Christmas. But before I was old enough for Rupert, she sent me annuals for another U.K. children’s favorite that I first discovered when my mother took me to Wales for my 3rd birthday: Sooty Bear. Sooty started out as a handpuppet on British TV, and in fact appeared on the first week of “The Mickey Mouse Club” in America in 1955 (available now on DVD). Another Beatle, George Harrison, once wrote an introduction to a book about Sooty. Anyway, this weekend Sooty celebrated his 60th birthday in Britain. Which takes me back to my pre-school days and makes me feel rather old, all at the same time! … After four weeks of reading about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” topping the U.S. singles chart, I decided to check it out on Youtube. It’s slick, danceable pop performed by a very attractive 23-year-old singer-songwriter and sometime actress, and the video at once wallows in your typical music video Frederick’s of Hollywood sexy stereotypes while sending them up. Ditto popular sapphic fantasies, which are both exploited and winkingly parodied. Along the same lines, last year Perry first attracted attention with “Ur So Gay,” a catchy folk-pop number that makes fun of a former boyfriend (and the use of “gay” in the current Generation Y lexicon) by using Barbie and Ken-style dolls. Most of the other tunes of hers I’ve heard are sort of in that beat-heavy pop territory between Alanis Morissette and Madonna. It’s not bad, but what sets Perry apart so far is her sense of humor. Once upon a time she would have been a prime candidate for a musical-comedy variety show on TV. Anyway, you can check her out at: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Katy+Perry&search_type=&aq=f About a decade ago, before Emeril and Bobby Flay had become household names, my family first discovered Food Network by tuning in to the British cooking series “Two Fat Ladies,” featuring Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright, who spent not quite four seasons traveling about the U.K. and dishing up a mixture of delightful wit, no-nonsense tips and deliciously rich, high-calorie dishes before Paterson’s death. A 4-disc “Two Fat Ladies” set comes out on DVD July 29 and is highly recommended for those who like a dollop or two of fun (as well as cream and butter) in the kitchen. If you'd like to add to or have your say about anything in this column, just click on comment below. You don't have to be registered with Live Journal. Current Mood: pleased Current Music: Jason Mraz (26 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 7th, 2008
11:24 am	When the Bozos weren’t all on newscasts … The news last week of the death at age 83 of Larry Harmon, the man who made Bozo the Clown a “local” television phenomenon across the country in the 1960s, got me to thinking how local children’s programming has all but disappeared. It seems only in the fictional Springfield, where animated Bart and Lisa Simpson are loyal followers of a brutal Bozo parody named Krusty the Klown, does television still target the younger set with such localized kiddie characters. Back when I was a kid, not only did every TV market have such shows, but just about every station had its own kiddie host. Many featured their own Bozos since Harmon, who bought the character from its originator, syndicated the rights to TV stations around the country who then hired someone locally to put on the trademarked orange fringe of hair, bulbous red nose and red-white-and-blue clown suit. Some stations came up with their own Bozo knockoffs, and there were many other variations, including friendly policemen or firemen, cowboys, forest rangers, ship captains and so on. I grew up in the greater Atlanta TV market, where kiddie TV was ruled by a jovial faux cop known as “Officer Don” (reportedly inspired by an “Officer Joe” in New York City), who at his peak filled 90 minutes every weekday afternoon on WSB/Channel 2, the most-watched station, with pie-in-the-face slapstick comedy, games and cartoons on the “Popeye Club.” Officer Don, a sort of wacky overgrown kid himself who in later years had a phenomenally popular wisecracking dragon puppet sidekick named Orville, was a booth announcer and news update reader named Don Kennedy who had been drafted unwillingly into the role but then proceeded to become the nation’s highest-rated local children’s host. Soon there was a long waiting list for tickets to be part of the in-studio “gang” that got to count down the cartoons (5,4,3,2 …) and play games like Ooey Gooey (a variation on Russian Roulette with the loser sticking his hand into a bag filled with raw eggs, chocolate syrup and the like). For a brief b&w glimpse of Officer Don leading a cartoon countdown, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77TYGwMVWEk Kennedy started taking the format on the road on weekends, appearing before SRO crowds at movie theaters and shopping centers all over the northern half of the state (where Channel 2 could be seen). Sometimes he’d have to do two shows, and one time in my hometown even that wasn’t enough, with a couple of thousand kids showing up, some of whom didn’t get in. I’ll never forget one of the times Officer Don appeared at the Palace Theatre and I got picked by him to go up onstage and play musical chairs. Kennedy ended up doing so well that he and a couple of partners bought a radio station on the side and eventually he launched a statewide radio news network and owned a UHF TV station. He’s still around as host of the nationally syndicated “Big Band Jump” radio program and has done voices and bit parts for Atlanta-based Cartoon Network’s “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Oh, and many years after the “Popeye Club,” Atlanta TV alums Terry and Bonnie Turner paid tribute to Kennedy by naming Wayne Knight’s character “Officer Don Orville” on their NBC sitcom “Third Rock From the Sun.” Every other station in town in the 1950s and ’60s had its own kid show host, such as “Skipper Ray” (supposedly a yacht captain; he showed Three Stooges shorts), “Mr. Pix” (he wore a candy-cane jacket and drew funny pictures; years later when he was a newscaster for the local NBC affiliate and then Headline News, I still thought of him as “Mr. Pix”), “Tubby and Lester” (a blatant Laurel and Hardy ripoff) and Bestoink Dooley (mainly known as the ghoulish but erudite tramp host of late-night Friday horror movies — another local TV staple in those days — but briefly on in the afternoons as well). But none of them came close to Officer Don in popularity. When the clouds were just right, we also could pick up stations out of South Carolina and North Carolina that had their own kiddie shows, including “Mr. Bill and Bozo” out of Asheville. And when we got community antenna TV (as cable was originally called) in the mid-’60s, my younger brothers could see those distant shows on a regular basis, along with Trooper Terry, a sort of redneck version of Officer Don, on an Augusta station. Compared with the inspired silliness of Officer Don, however, they all came up lacking. Yes, even Bozo. As an adult, I got to meet Kennedy quite a few times when I was doing stories for the paper or guesting on a music news show on his TV station. The first time I ever interviewed him, I told him I’d grown up watching him and he said he got that all the time. I asked him if he minded hearing that from grown-up fans. “Only when I’m in a bar trying to pick up some chick and a guy comes up and calls me ‘Officer Don’,” he cracked between puffs on a cigar. By the mid-1970s, local kiddie hosts were pretty much out of fashion, with syndicated animated offerings increasingly taking their place. (Kennedy kept Officer Don going into the late ’70s on his UHF station, but it was no longer a big deal among Atlanta kids.) Of course, the fact that stations weren’t really bothering to do much local programming aside from news any more had something to do with it, too. No more “house party” midday shows or local talk shows, no more “Dialing for Dollars” movies, no more “Big Movie Shockers.” Eventually, with various cable channels splintering the kid audience and more syndicated talk shows available for local stations desiring to build the adult audience for their early evening newscasts, afternoon became too valuable for local stations to devote it to children’s programming. So even the syndicated Disney Afternoon and Fox Kids lineups that my son grew up with went away, and children’s programming left the local airwaves. The profits may be bigger nowadays without the likes of Officer Don and Bozo, but local television definitely is the poorer for the passing of that era. And here’s one more example of how much things have changed. My daughter, spotting a newspaper photo of Bozo last week, shuddered a bit and said, “Clowns creep me out.” Turns out the the girls had been sharing evil clown tales during ghost-story time at summer camp. Thanks a lot, Stephen King! AT THE MOVIES: I managed to see two new films over the holiday weekend. First, Leslie and I caught “Wanted,” the action flick about a secret cult of assassins starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. The film’s comic book origins are betrayed by its hyper-reality, with laws of physics defied by more than just marksmen able to bend bullets around obstacles to hit their targets. And all those slo-mo shots used by Russian director Timbor Bekmambetov owe a large debt to “The Matrix.” But it’s fast, furious fun that only occasionally gets too ridiculous (the “loom of fate” weaving out the assassin’s next target). McAvoy, who I’d previously seen in more sensitive roles in the first “Narnia” film, “Atonement” and “The Last King of Scotland,” makes a surprisingly credible action hero. And Jolie is ultra cool and, of course, looks terrific. It’s mindless mayhem with a body count too large to keep track of, but we enjoyed it. Also enjoyable, in a much different way, was “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl,” the film based on the series of historical dolls, which I saw with my daughter, whose first American Girl doll was the Kit character. Thanks to a top-notch cast that includes Oscar-nominee Abigail Breslin in the title role and the likes of Julia Ormond, Jane Krakowski, Stanley Tucci and Wallace Shawn in supporting roles, plus a healthy injection of Great Depression economic suffering, it was a cut above your usual G-rated children’s film. The only false notes: the folks in the Hobo Jungle looked a bit too clean, and Joan Cusack’s wacky mobile librarian was little over the top. Still, if you have an American Girl fan in your family wanting to see this film, you don’t need to dread taking her. QUICKIES: Cable’s USA channel has been running an amusing promo for the new season of its “Psych” series featuring a takeoff on the Paul McCartney-Stevie Wonder “Ebony and Ivory” video that shows a lot of attention to detail. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvM3RHLyzOo I don’t know why the great “Lou Grant” series still hasn’t shown up on DVD, but you can now watch some first-season episodes of the Ed Asner newspaper drama here: http://www.fancast.com/tv/Lou-Grant/90535/watch-it/on-fancast Out this week are a couple of 30th anniversary editions of Billy Joel’s “The Stranger” album. The limited-edition deluxe set includes the original album remastered by producer Phil Ramone; a CD of a previously unreleased concert, “Live at Carnegie Hall 1977”; a DVD that features a couple of live promotional videos plus Joel’s 60-minute 1978 performance on the BBC’s “Old Grey Whistle Test”; and a 48-page booklet. The cheaper Legacy Edition has the remastered album, the Carnegie Hall disc and a 24-page booklet. It’s a classic album well deserving of such treatment. … Andy Griffith, whose wonderful supporting turn in “Waitress” is currently on the cable/satellite movie channels, appears in the new music video for country star Brad Paisley’s “Waitin’ on a Woman.” Said Paisley of Griffith: “He has influenced my life more than most people that I grew up with. … I wrote Andy a letter telling him what he has meant to me over the years and asked him to be in the video.” The 82-year-old Griffith agreed and “really adopted the music video as if it was his own.” You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvKgnkIN8C8 This could be hiliarious or painful: Sacha Baron Cohen of “Borat” fame and Will Ferrell will play Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in a film being co-produced by Judd Apatow (“Knocked Up”). … Here’s a new wrinkle on battling concert ticket scalping. A friend of my son attended a Tom Waits show at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre this weekend for which ticket buyers were not offered the chance to print their own or have tickets mailed to them. Instead, you had to show up with your credit card at the theater, where they processed the charge and then admitted you straight to the theater with no chance to peddle the tickets elsewhere. Of course, such an arrangement could only work at smaller shows like that. Can you imagine how many hours it would take to process charges for an arena-size crowd? If you'd like to add to or have your say about anything in this column, just click on comment below. You don't have to be registered with Live Journal. Current Mood: nostalgic Current Music: The Monkees (34 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 30th, 2008
10:28 am	Getting Smarter A spy who’s more lucky than adept bumbles his way through outlandish adventures with a beautiful (and probably smarter) female associate at his side. That description of course brings to mind the ’60s TV sitcom “Get Smart,” in which Don Adams’ nasally-challenged Maxwell Smart and Barbara Feldon’s glamorous Agent 99 spoofed “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” James Bond and the rest of the decade’s spy mania. And for the moviegoing crowd, it encapsulates the new big-screen adaptation of "Get Smart," starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway. But it also sums up another, very different spy spoof currently in theaters: “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” a French farce starring Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo. My friend Mark Gunter, mentioned here in the past as a reliable source of pop culture recommendations, talked me into seeing “OSS 117” with him last weekend, and then my daughter Olivia and I joined Mark in seeing the new “Get Smart” film this weekend. Despite their similar setups, the two films are very different, and yet both accomplish their missions. "OSS 117" is based on a very popular series of post-World War II French spy novels predating Ian Fleming's 007 books by a few years. Past movie adaptations were straight espionage adventures, but this latest film (released in France in 2006 but only out in the U.S. since May) takes off on the "From Russia With Love" era of Bond films before the gadgets, plots and stunts became high-tech. It's set in 1955 in Cairo, where agents representing France, Britain, the Soviets and even the nascent Islamic fundamentalist movement are all stabbing each other in the back, literally as well as figuratively. The film satirizes cheesy spy film conventions of the time, including obvious rear-screen projection behind the characters while they're supposedly riding in a car or on a motorcycle, and day-for-night photography. Dujardin has the early Sean Connery look down pat ... until he gives one of his goofy grins and goes off on a hilarious tangent like a French Maxwell Smart. In addition to making fun of spy movies, "OSS 117" takes some shots at the condescending colonial attitude Westerners had toward the Middle East and particularly Muslims in that era. The French agent manages to antagonize just about every Egyptian he meets with his cavalier ignorance of and dismissal of the various tenets of Islam that he finds strange. (He opines that no religion that bans the use of alcohol can last.) It also has quite a bit of fun with the lead character's sexual insecurity. As his trusty (or maybe not) local assistant, the very appealing Argentine-born Bejo does a nicely understated job, managing to keep at least one foot planted in reality. There are occasional cartoonish elements to the comedy, mostly involving Nazis, and a running gag about the agent playing with the lights at a chicken plant to turn the birds' clucking on and off gets a little silly, but a mid-film musical number performed by Dujardin is an unexpected delight. As you would expect of a French indie film, "OSS 117" takes a much more low-key approach than a Bond extravaganza, and in fact uses this as part of its satire, replacing the usual shootout at one point with the French agent and a mysterious hooded antagonist throwing dead chickens at each other in the poultry plant (which provides the French secret service's decidedly downscale undercover headquarters). In contrast, "Get Smart" spoofs the big-budget special effects-laden deadly battles of the latter-day Bond films (it, in fact, works quite well as an action film) while at the same time paying affectionate tribute to the original TV show and its various iconic images (the series of elaborate automatic doors leading to the phone booth that provides entry to CONTROL headquarters, the shoe phone, and the original Max's sporty red convertible) and fondly remembered catchphrases ("Sorry about that, chief," "the old [fill in the blank with an elaborate scenario] trick" and "Missed it by THAT much"). I knew from past films that the drop-dead gorgeous Hathaway would be an on-screen treat (though I'd underestimated just how sexy and Emma Peel-ish her Agent 99 would be), but I wasn't sure what to expect from Carell replacing the wisecracking Adams as Smart. In fact, I think Carell does a better job of humanizing Max and making him more than a one-note joke. Adams' Smart was clueless; Carell's is smart but clumsy and inexperienced. (In a smart departure from the TV version, the film has Max being promoted in a pinch from analyst to field agent and teamed with 99, who is initially cool to him and reluctant to mentor a novice.) In their game of one-upmanship, Carell's Max actually scores some points against (and impresses) the more polished 99. The on-camera chemistry between Carell and Hathaway is another plus. Dwayne Johnson (formerly known as "the Rock") shows a nice comic touch as a disdainful superstar agent, Alan Arkin provides his usual solid support as the Chief and Masi Oka and Nate Torrence are amusing as Max's geeky CONTROL pals Bruce and Lloyd. There are a lot of laughs in the film, but probably the single best bit takes place in an airliner lavatory as Max awkwardly tries over and over to sever the ties binding his wrists with a miniature crossbow built into his Swiss Army knife and winds up looking like a pin-cushion. I've seen a lot of spy spoofs going back to the "In Like Flint" films and the original "Casino Royale" on through the more cartoonish Austin Powers flicks and the forgettable "Johnny English," but both "OSS 117" and "Get Smart" improve on the standard, the former by taking the genre back to its roots, and the latter by fleshing out a character who previously was more of a caricature. Plus Anne Hathaway is worth the price of admission all by herself. I found both films quite enjoyable. For more on "OSS 117," which is currently on the art house circuit, go to: http://www.oss117movie.com REMEMBERING: Over the years, I enjoyed the work of comedian George Carlin — who died last week at age 71 — going back to his more mainstream routines in the mid-'60s when he was a slick-haired regular on the Sullivan show and other variety hours and especially after he grew his hair and started doing more "hip" anti-establishment material in the late '60s and early '70s, most notoriously with his famous seven-words-you-can't-say-on-TV routine. In recent years, he seemed to have fallen into doing old-hippie character parts, but in his HBO specials heyday, he was much more of a thoughtful wordsmith than your usual stand-up comic. This past weekend, in tribute to Carlin, NBC decided to rerun the very first edition of "Saturday Night Live" from back in 1975, which featured Carlin as guest host. Two things struck me about the show: First, it was not Carlin at his best. In fact, some of the brief bits were among the least funny I ever saw him do. Secondly, in that first show the acclaimed first group of Not Ready for Prime Time Players took a definite back seat to the guest host (who did numerous stand-up bits throughout the program) and musical acts (Janis Ian and Billy Preston). Throw in the filmed bits, a long, not particularly funny attempt by the Muppets to do edgy humor, and another routine by a now long-forgotten female stand-up, and there wasn't all that much time devoted to Belushi, Aykroyd, Radner, et al. Chevy Chase, with his "Weekend Update," was the most prominently featured of the Players. Interesting to see how tentative that first "SNL" effort was. GOTCHA COVERED: You probably saw the results of the Total Guitar magazine survey where Celine Dion was credited with the worst-ever cover version for her rendition of AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long." Conversely, Jimi Hendrix's cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" was named best cover, with The Beatles' version of "Twist and Shout" (first recorded by the Top Notes and popularized by the Isley Brothers) in second place, followed by the Guns N' Roses version of Wings' "Live and Let Die." Which got me to thinking about when we focused on the most popular Beatles cover versions in Beatlefan magazine a few years back. For my money, the best (in terms of most artistically successful) Fab cover of all time is Joe Cocker's "With a Little Help From My Friends," which went on to be the theme of "Wonder Years" on TV. As was the case with The Beatles and "Twist and Shout," Cocker practically made the song his own, and Generation X probably associates the tune more with him than the Fabs. Which, it seems to me, is the mark of a great cover. QUICKIES: Six of One, one of the more notable appreciation societies for the classic TV series "The Prisoner," has published unconfirmed details about the upcoming new miniseries version of the show being done for Britain's ITV and America's AMC. They say Jim Caviezel (“The Passion of the Christ”) will play the titular role originated by Patrick McGoohan and that Ian McKellen will play No. 2, his chief jailer/interrogator. (The TV version had numerous No. 2s, most prominently Leo McKern.) Six episodes go into production in Namibia and South Africa in August for airing next year, the group says. ... CBS/Paramount, not my favorite home video outfit for the way they mishandled some aspects of "The Andy Griffith Show" on DVD, has gotten a lot of flak lately for completely replacing the original background musical score (except the title theme) on the second-season release of "The Fugitive." The problem appears to have been that rather than just featuring the work of one composer written specifically for the show, "The Fugitive" pulled works from various music libraries (one of which is now defunct), and getting clearance to use those pieces was considered too complicated and costly by Paramount. The package, which features only a tiny disclaimer that "some music may have been changed," drew some of the most heated customer comments ever on Amazon.com. No wonder there's such a demand for so many of these old shows on the bootleg circuit. ... The new episodes of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" currently airing on USA and NBC will be the last with Chris Noth's Detective Mike Logan alternating with the quirky Vincent D’Onofrio's Bobby Goren. For the eighth season of the show, Jeff Goldblum (“The Big Chill,” "Jurasic Park"), also known for his quirky portrayals, will play the newest addition to the Major Case Squad. That’s a lot of quirky in one squad room. If you'd like to add to or have your say about anything in this column, just click on comment below. You don't have to be registered with Live Journal. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Orleans' "Still the One" (a free iTunes download from buying Coldplay tix) (25 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 16th, 2008
10:14 am	Good to see you, Mrs. Vanderbilt As a prelude to this fall’s launch of what reportedly will be an 18-month world tour (which the British press is touting as his last, something I don’t believe for a minute), Paul McCartney has done major concerts in Liverpool and Kiev over the past couple of weeks. Since Liverpool is his hometown and it was a special show celebrating the city being Europe’s Capital of Culture this year, it wasn’t at all surprising that McCartney pulled out a couple of left-field choices in the June 1 show there, opening with the old Beatles Cavern standard “Hippy Hippy Shake” and doing the acoustic number “In Liverpool,” which previously was only ever heard on the DVD of the “Liverpool Oratorio.” Neither of those choices seemed like something that would stick as part of the tour set list over the long haul, and indeed both were dropped for Saturday’s show in Kiev. On the other hand, the inclusion of “A Day in the Life”/“Give Peace a Chance” in the encore as a tribute to John Lennon has the feel of a tour standard. (Macca paid tribute to George Harrison with the Concert for George arrangement of “Something,” in which he starts out doing it solo on ukulele and then is joined for the big guitar solo and the remainder of the number by the full band. And “My Love” was done “for Linda.”) For the Kiev concert, which unlike Liverpool was a full-length show, Macca did essentially the same set, subtracting the numbers mentioned and adding a few other songs he’s done on tour before, plus “Only Mama Knows,” which along with “Dance Tonight” (done in Liverpool) makes two from last year’s “Memory Almost Full” album. The surprise selection in Kiev was a tune McCartney never has done in concert before, “Mrs. Vanderbilt” (the “ho, hey-ho” song from “Band on the Run” for those of you who are rusty on your Wings album tracks). That song apparently was performed because it was the McCartney number most requested by fans on a Ukraine Web site (it appears to have been a particular favorite in the former USSR). But here’s hoping it won’t end up a site-specific choice like “In Liverpool,” because it’s a terrific tune that’s been ably arranged and works really well live, much like another obscure choice, “Too Many People,” on his last major tour. I’m hoping it’ll still be part of the set when Macca hits North America, providing a treat “for the Wings fans,” as Paul is wont to put it. To see “Mrs. Vanderbilt” performed in Kiev, with a Macca introduction in Ukrainian (he says “We were asked to perform this song”), go to: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_YsZrEDgfhs NEW TRACK: While on the subject of McCartney, he’s made available a previously unreleased track as a gift for those who contribute to Adopt-a-Minefield through his Web site. The offer originally was supposed to expire June 12 but has been extended through the 19th. The track, “Lifelong Passion (Sail Away),” is from a forthcoming album done under Macca’s Fireman pseudonym. But where the two previous Fireman albums were offbeat “trance” music strictly for the hardcore fans, the new track is a full McCartney vocal effort, a bit reminiscent of Enya. It opens and closes with harmonica, and in between there’s lots of synths and pipes soaring over Indian-influenced percussion in a sort of Indo-Celtic blend. The result is very soothing and has a memorable melody. Looks like it could be a very interesting album. BROADCAST LOSSES: The sudden death of NBC Washington Bureau chief and “Meet the Press” moderator Tim Russert was a real shocker and leaves the Peacock Network scrambling to replace him in both jobs during a presidential campaign. Russert was a consummate pro and I appreciated his quiet, steady style though I was never a major fan and haven’t watched “Meet the Press” in decades. I was touched more by the recent death of longtime ABC sportscaster Jim McKay, whose affable, eloquent work over four decades made him a true broadcasting legend. Besides his many years introducing us to “the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat” on “Wide World of Sports,” McKay was the host of ABC’s Olympics coverage during the years when I really got caught up in the story lines of those athletes, particularly 1972 and 1976. And, of course, McKay was responsible for one of those burned-in-your-brain TV moments when he had to announce that none of the Israeli athletes kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Games had survived. The look on his face as he said, quietly, “They’re all gone,” summed up how the rest of the civilized world was feeling at that moment. The only McKay memory that I wish I hadn’t seen was on one of the more recent Olympics when NBC borrowed an aged, retired McKay and trotted him out for an embarrassingly rambling monologue. I winced watching it. I prefer to remember McKay at his peak when he was the very best in the game. AT THE MOVIES: My daughter and I did see “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” and I thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly the interplay between Harrison Ford’s Indy and Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt, who (no real spoiler here) turns out to be Indy’s son by “Raiders of the Lost Ark” love interest Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). Having Marion, by far the best of the “Indy” women, back again also was a real treat, once you got past the initial shock of seeing what an actress in her mid-50s looks like without any cosmetic surgery. (Allen has been away from Hollywood for years, running a knitting business and acting in local theater in New England.) The extended chase was good (though no chase will ever match the one in “Raiders”). The climax was a bit predictable and the Commie bad guys are fortunately no better shots than the Nazis were in “Raiders” and “The Last Crusade,” but the Lucas-Spielberg creative team wrapped things up nicely at the end (with a hint to possible future adventures with Mutt taking over the fedora). Overall, I’d rank this one second in the series behind “Raiders.” QUICKIES: It’s about time the media and business world told those rightwing nutjob bloggers and “commentators” like Michelle Malkin to take their lunatic ravings and go away. That whole flap with Dunkin Donuts pulling a Web commercial featuring Rachael Ray because Malkin and her ilk decided the black-and-white scarf she was wearing around her neck resembled the kaffiyeh, the traditional Muslim headwrap favored by the late Yasser Arafat, is just too ridiculous. First of all, I never saw Arafat or any other Muslim wearing anything with a PAISLEY design and FRINGE! Jeez, can we get the grownups back in charge? … A dispiriting sign of the times is that the BBC has dropped its second longest-running TV program, “What the Papers Say,” a weekly review of British newspapers, because, they concluded, many folks don’t bother to read newspapers any more. Which reminds me of our family’s mantra in steering our children away from the field their parents have labored in for decades: Friends don’t let friends major in journalism. … TV Shows on DVD, a Web news site, reports Time Life is working on the long-awaited release of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” on DVD. Fans have been clamoring for these shows for years, but because of the difficulty in clearing all those musical performances, it’s been slow going. Time Life apparently isn’t going to do complete-season sets unfortunately, but instead will do “best of” compilations, beginning for some reason with the controversial third season that saw the brothers and CBS part ways over censorship issues. I wish they’d find a way to put out the whole series, but any “SmoBro” is better than none! … I always thought it was ludicrous that the record labels would send out promotional copies of their releases to reviewers and broadcasters but maintain that they retained “ownership” of the discs and you couldn’t re-sell them (a restriction that was, of course, widely ignored). The labels’ position was that they could ask for the discs to be returned at any time (not that I ever heard of them doing so). So it was interesting to see this past week that a U.S. District Court judge rejected the Universal Music Group’s efforts to stop an eBay trader from selling promo discs. The judge said the trader was protected by the “first sale” doctrine in copyright law, which says that once a copyright owner gives away a copy of a CD, DVD or book, the recipient is entitled to re-sell it. Universal will appeal, of course. If you'd like to add to or have your say about anything in this column, just click on comment below. You don't have to be registered with Live Journal. Current Mood: pleased Current Music: "Mrs. Vanderbilt" (37 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 25th, 2008
9:26 pm	When in doubt, steal from the Brits … I haven’t yet had a chance to catch the new “Indy” film, though my daughter reports from the beach (where she’s on holiday with a classmate’s family) that it’s well worth seeing. Hopefully I’ll get to it soon. In the meantime, there’s a bunch of stuff I’d like to catch up on, starting with the much scaled-down new fall network prime time TV season recently announced. The most notable thing about the new fall shows is that there are so few of them — because the writers strike basically wiped out pilot season for the networks. The new shows picked up for the coming season were mostly signed on the basis of outlines rather than pilot episodes. Because of this, several of the networks opted for Americanized versions of previously produced imports. Included in this group are ABC’s remake of the BBC’s acclaimed “Life on Mars,” about a current day police detective who gets hit by a car and somehow wakes up back in the politically incorrect 1970s; superproducer Jerry Bruckheimer’s CBS remake of “Eleventh Hour,” about a team that investigates dangerous science (with Brit Rufus Sewell taking over from Patrick Stewart, who starred in the 2006 original for Britain’s ITV); and CBS’ “Worst Week,” a reworking of the 2004-2006 BBC comedy “The Worst Week of My Life,” which starred Ben Miller and was seen over here on BBC America. In the new version, Kyle Bornheimer stars as the guy who can’t do anything right in trying to impress his impending in-laws. Also, NBC has bought “Crusoe,” a new British-produced 13-part series based on the classic “Robinson Crusoe.” Philip Winchester stars as the castaway and Sean Bean is seen as his father (presumably in flashbacks). No word on who will play his man Friday. NBC is reworking the noisy Australian battling-mother-daughter sitcom “Kath & Kim,” this time starring Selma Blair and Molly Shannon. Another upshot of the writers strike is that some of last year’s new shows that never really got established before the strike cut them off are getting another chance this fall, including ABC’s “Pushing Daisies,” “Private Practice” and “Dirty Sexy Money,” none of which I ever got into watching. Plus ABC picked up a midseason run of NBC leftover “Scrubs” for some unfathomable reason. And, like a cockroach, “According to Jim” just won’t go away. The only new show really generating any advance buzz is season ratings champ Fox’s “Fringe,” a sci-fi series from “Lost” creator J.J. Abrams about a sort of “X-Files” type team. And the buzz is mostly because it’s from J.J. Abrams, since very little is known about the show itself, in typical Abrams fashion, except that it involves a female FBI agent, a scientist and a bad-boy genius who investigate unexplained phenomena. ABC’s version of “Life on Mars,” starring Irish actor Jason O’Mara (playing an American), already has run into turbulence before it’s even been shot, with executive producer David E. Kelley bowing out to concentrate on the final season of “Boston Legal.” I’m skeptical about this one, mainly because most Americanizations of quirky British hits in recent years have been completely botched (“The Office” being the notable exception, and it got off to a very rough start). Part of what made the original “Mars” so compelling (besides stars John Simm and Philip Glenister) was the typical British attention to minute period detail (usually absent in U.S. period pieces). Also, the show’s ambiguity (again, not a hallmark of most prime time fare in the U.S.) about whether the misplaced cop actually had traveled back in time or was simply in a coma. You can hardly imagine the U.S. version following through with how the British version wrapped up the second and final series with an ending that may have included the lead character’s suicide. And since it’s been given the plum slot after “Grey’s Anatomy” on Thursdays (“Lost” won’t begin its season until January), the new “Mars” is going to have to try to hold on to as much of its lead-in audience as it can — which makes ambiguity something likely to get tossed in favor of concentrating on weren’t-the-seventies-tacky culture clash moments. By the way, I wrote about the original British version back in July 2006. You read about it here: http://billking.livejournal.com/24623.html Other new shows that might merit at least a look: Simon Baker as a celebrity “psychic” who helps the cops while searching for the serial killer who murdered his family in “The Mentalist.” … “Harper’s Island,” a CBS murder mystery set on an island off Seattle where a group has assembled for a wedding (likely due in midseason). It’s been described as a cross between “10 Little Indians” and “Scream.” Plus it’s on an island, so throw “Lost” into that mix, too. … “Dollhouse,” a Fox adventure from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” producer Joss Whedon about a mercenary team that has personalities “imprinted” on them for missions and then wiped clean. Eliza Dushku is in the cast. I’m not sure what to make of “My Own Worst Enemy,” a new NBC series starring Christian Slater as a suburban efficiency expert who has a double life as some sort of secret agent/trained killer. But not being much of a fan of smarmy Jay Mohr, I doubt I’ll check out “Project Gary” (wanna bet that title changes?), in which he plays a recently divorced painter returning to dating. “The Inn,” a Jerry O’Connell Fox sitcom about the staff at a hip New York hotel, doesn’t sound very promising, either. And talk about your unlikely concepts: CBS’ “The Ex List” stars Elizabeth Reaser (“Grey’s Anatomy”) as a woman who is told by a fortune teller that she must marry within a year or be forever single, and that she’s already met the man she’ll marry but just doesn’t know it yet. Or something like that. Keifer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer and “24” won’t return for the season-that-wasn’t until after the first of the year, Fox says, but instead the network will have a two-hour stand-alone “24” movie in the fall to set up the new season, which has been completely written in advance to hopefully avoid those mid-run plot lurches that have plagued the show. The rest? Mostly a mishmash of bad (but cheap) reality and game shows (the mainstay of fourth-place NBC’s schedule now) and retreads, such as NBC’s revival of “Knight Rider” and the CW’s desperate stab at a new “90210.” It’s enough to make you wish they’d bring back the good old made-for-TV movie of the week! AT THE MOVIES: I went with my daughter to see “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” which she found even more enjoyable than the first “Narnia” film. I thought it was well done, moved briskly, had an engaging cast of young Brits, and the special effects were quite good. I did find the Aslan-the-godlike-lion-to-the-rescue ending a bit predictable, though. For more of my daughter’s thoughts on summer movies (including “Indiana Jones”), check out her new Live Journal blog: http://ojpking.livejournal.com/ QUICKIES: I was sorry to see that Dick Martin of “Laugh-In” fame had died at age 86. There was so much always going on in “Laugh-In” and so many cast members and guest stars that I think the marvelous interplay between Martin and the late Dan Rowan often went unnoticed or at least underestimated. Martin went on to direct, including episodes of the classic “Bob Newhart Show.” By the way, does anyone besides me recall Rowan & Martin’s first prime-time variety hour? It was the 1966 summer replacement for the “Dean Martin Show.” … The Chairman of the Board hit No. 2 on the album chart last week with the release of a remastered version of his “Nothing But the Best” hits collection. I know my pals Al Sussman and Brad Hundt have already groused over on Al’s blog about the fact that “Nothing But the Best” isn’t the quintessential single-disc Sinatra collection, but as they concede, there really isn’t a single-disc Sinatra hits collection that has everything you’d want. And this one does have a lot of great stuff, so if you don’t want to shell out for a box set but want to enjoy classic Frank, this very nice-sounding set is a good choice. … It’s good news that USA has ordered an eighth season of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” (though only 16 episodes instead of 22), but I’m not pleased that Julianne Nicholson’s partner for Chris Noth’s detective is returning, replacing Alicia Witt, whom I found much more appealing. Hopefully, the pattern this season of splitting the series equally between the superior Vicent D’Onofrio episodes and the lower-rated Noth ones won’t hold. We need more Goren and Eames! … If you haven’t caught the trailer for the upcoming “X-Files” movie, here it is: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36716 If you'd like to add to or have your say about anything in this column, just click on comment below. You don't have to be registered with Live Journal. Current Mood: hopeful Current Music: Coldplay's "Violet Hill" (24 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
10:52 pm	Farewell to the old newsstand The Internet is a wonderful, terrible thing. On the one hand, you can sit at your computer and read articles from publications around the world, usually free of charge. But besides changing the economics of the newspaper and magazine industries (and possibly leading them to eventual extinction), the Internet is killing off what, to me, was always one of the most magical places you could find in any city anywhere — the newsstand. Word came this week that Barnett’s Newsstand, an institution in my hometown since World War II, will be closing for good in a couple of weeks. That hurts, because Barnett’s has been a must stop for me on visits to downtown Athens for nearly as long as I can remember. Located near the cast-iron arch that marks the gateway to the University of Georgia campus, Barnett’s wasn’t one of those walk-up stands like you see on the sidewalks of New York and Chicago; rather, it was a regular store stocking newspapers, magazines, comic books (in revolving metal racks adorned with Superman and Richie Rich), paperbacks, snacks, soft drinks and tobacco products. Used to be you could even buy a shiny apple, and in fact when I think of Barnett’s in my youth the most distinctive memory is the smell, which was an intoxicating mixture of apples and pipe tobacco. When I was a kid, there were three newsstands in the downtown area of Athens, which had only just reached city status with a population of 50,000 (now it’s more than twice that). By the late ’70s, though, it was just down to Barnett’s, which expanded by taking over the store space next door, and for a brief time even added chili dogs to its offerings when the Varsity, the legendary old-style fast-food joint next door, closed down. Back in my college days, I parked downtown most of the time and passed Barnett’s going to and from class. I first discovered Rolling Stone magazine there in the spring of 1969. And Billboard, which was among the newsweeklies they put out in racks in front of the store and which I would stand there and flip through because I could only afford to buy it occasionally (usually when there was some big story concerning The Beatles). In addition to the local and Atlanta morning and afternoon dailies, you could get out-of-town papers, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and a couple of the London Sunday papers. They had specialist magazines, like journalism, art and Civil War history reviews. And even the British music weeklies Melody Maker and NME. Barnett’s also had a large selection of the latest paperback books in those days, offbeat soft-drink brands like Buffalo Rock dark ginger ale from Alabama, the hometown cherry soda Budwine and even that Yankee deli favorite, cream soda. And if you were of age and ventured behind the shutters in the back corner, there were the more hard-core adult magazines that went beyond Playboy and Penthouse. In recent years, the magazine selection at Barnett’s had gotten less extensive (my son the college student said he found more titles he was interested in at the Borders across town), they had only a smattering of comics and a handful of paperbacks. The smut was still in the back corner and the place still smelled of pipe tobacco, but the apples were long gone. Still, Barnett’s remained a regular stop for us whenever we were in downtown Athens. The passing of the newsstand is not just a small-town thing. I read where Chicago has only half as many sidewalk newsstands as it did in 2000. And I know I actually have access to a much wider variety of publications on the Net than I ever could have found at Barnett’s or any other newsstand. Somehow, though, it’s not as exciting. I doubt anyone will ever wax nostalgically about perusing Yahoo News. And the only smell I associate with the Internet is the stink emanating from the Drudge Report and its ilk. I’m gonna have to make it over to Barnett’s at least one more time. AT THE MOVIES: My daughter and I caught the first of the summer blockbusters today, and I have to say “Iron Man” is a cut above the usual comic book-inspired super hero film. The armor-plated flying suit looks cool and the special effects by Industrial Light and Magic are top-notch, but the main plus is Robert Downey Jr., who manages to take central character Tony Stark, a saracastic, arrogant playboy weapons magnate-turned-hero, and make him thoroughly charming. There’s a lot of sardonic dialogue (without ever veering into campiness), and Downey receives able support from Terrence Howard as his Air Force pal, Jeff Bridges as his corporate chief and, especially, Gyneth Paltrow as Stark’s aide Pepper Potts. The chemistry between Downey and Paltrow sizzles. Actually, the big battle near the end between Iron Man and the villain in a bigger, badder metal suit was my least favorite part of the film, since it was all Transformers-style CGI. It’s when Iron Man has his suit off that the film really soars. Good news: The principals have been signed for two more “Iron Man” films, assuming this one does big box office. Judging by the all-ages crowd at a lunchtime showing today, I’d say that’s a given. … The most exciting part of the coming attractions before “Iron Man” was the new trailer for the year’s other super hero film I’m looking forward to, “The Dark Knight.” There was a lot more footage of Heath Ledger’s decidedly darker take on the Joker and a bunch of action scenes with Christian Bale’s Batman. Of the other films previewed, Mike Myers’ “The Love Guru” looked pretty silly (which means it’ll probably appeal to the Will Ferrell crowd), and the live-action updating of the old Japanese cartoon “Speed Racer” had the fakest-looking CGI effects in memory. Sort of like real actors surrounded by a cartoon. “The Incredible Hulk” also looked incredibly fake. M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening” looked like a variation on his “Signs.” And “Mama Mia!” looked like it might appeal to the same young-teen girl audience that flocked to “Across the Universe.” The new trailer for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” wasn’t quite as enticing as the film’s first trailer, but we did get a look at the return of Karen Allen, Indy’s heartthrob in the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” And Adam Sandler as an Israeli super-soldier turned hair stylist in “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” looked just awful. LOOKING AHEAD: Besides “The Dark Knight,” the summer films I’m already planning on attending are “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” (I want to believe the reteaming of Mulder and Scully will be better than the TV series’ last couple of seasons) and “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”. I imagine I’ll take my daughter to see “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl,” the first big-screen adaptation of the pricy doll series after a couple of TV movies. Depression-era Kit was Olivia’s first American Girl and remains her favorite. I generally avoid big-screen remakes of old TV shows, but the cast of “Get Smart,” with Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, sounds promising, so that’s a possibility. I’ll have to wait and find out more about “Wanted,” an action flick pairing Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy. And I’ll hold off on Shyamalan’s “The Happening” until I hear whether he’s gone for another cheesy trick ending. As for “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” the original was one of my favorite films as a child and I firmly believe it didn’t need remaking, but I’ll wait to see what the reviews say about the new one. Likewise “Traitor,” the Don Cheadle CIA thriller written by Steve “Wild and Crazy Guy” Martin (!). And while I doubt Emma Thompson’s big-screen version of “Brideshead Revisited” can match the TV version, I’m betting Leslie will want to check it out. I know my ancient-Egypt-obsessed daughter will want to go to “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” the latest in the series with Brendan Fraser (though unfortunately the lovely and incredibly talented Rachel Weisz isn’t along for this one). But considering what clinkers George Lucas’ last couple of live-action “Star Wars” pictures were, I think I may draw the line at the animated “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and insist Olivia find a Lucas-obsessed friend to see that with. REMEMBERING PAUL DAVIS: It didn’t draw much media attention, but ’70s-’80s pop hitmaker Paul Davis died of a heart attack the week before last at age 60. The name might not ring a bell until I mention the titles of some of his hits: “I Go Crazy,” “’65 Love Affair” (both of which went Top 10 nationally) plus “Cool Night,” “Sweet Life” and “Ride ’Em Cowboy.” Leslie and I got to know Davis during the late ’70s when he was living in Atlanta, where his record label, Bang Records, was based. With his long hair, beard and honey-dipped drawl, he came across as sort of a hippie variation on the Southern good ole boy. This was the pre-disco era when the record biz was riding high and there were industry receptions and parties several nights a week. Leslie remembers one such affair at which Paul was teasing his wife about using the Yankee-esque word “smushed.” Davis was good pals with another Atlanta resident at the time, Elton John’s drummer Nigel Olsson (years before Sir Elton made Atlanta his part-time home), and he produced a couple of singles for Nigel, including a remake of “A Little Bit of Soap” that was a minor hit. Paul eventually moved to Nashville, where I saw him once in the mid-’80s and he hit the country singles chart teaming up with Marie Osmond (“You’re Still New to Me”) and Tanya Tucker (“I Won’t Take Less Than Your Love”). He apparently semi-retired from music in recent years and went back to his native Mississippi. I hadn’t thought of him in a long time, but news of his death took me back to my early days on the music beat and a time when the Atlanta scene wasn’t all about hip-hop. A mere three decades ago! TUBE BOOBS: Any so-called list of the best TV comedies ever that ranks “The Brady Bunch” and “Welcome Back Kotter” ahead of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (and only ranks “Van Dyke” No 33) is already pretty much a joke of the unfunny kind to start with. But the fact that a classic like “The Andy Griffith Show” DIDN’T EVEN MAKE THE LIST while “Good Times,” “Mork & Mindy,” “Happy Days,” “Laverne and Shirley,” “Gilligan’s Island” and “Scrubs” did, shows the compilers have a weakness for mugging, overacting and catch phrases over good writing and memorable characters. The whole list is heavily skewed toward the past 20 years, with the still relatively new “30 Rock” cracking the Top 20. “The Simpsons” tops the list. If you want to check it out, go to: http://television.aol.com/photos/best-tv-comedies The latest step in the devolution of TV Land from oasis of classic TV shows to just another lousy cable channel relying heavily on bad reality shows and oft-seen movies came with the announcement of a new elimination dating series in which young men vie for the attention of a mature woman. TV Land now is describing itself as “presenting the best in entertainment on all platforms for consumers in their 40s and 50s.” That’s odd, because most folks in that age group I know would rather watch shows from the 1960s and ’70s than the crap TV Land is offering. You may have seen ads in print and on the Internet for “Scarlet,” touted as a “new TV series” coming this past week but not mentioning any network. There was an elaborate trailer directed by David Nutter and starring Natassia Malthe that appeared to be for some sort of glossy adventure show. It turned out really to be just viral marketing for a new line (or “series”) of television sets under the Scarlet brand name. Effective? Well, it caught my attention, but it didn’t make me click through to find out anything about the TVs themselves. So … no, not really. QUICKIES: I got the free download of “Violet Hill,” the first single from Coldplay’s upcoming Brian Eno-produced album, “Viva La Vida.” I like the track. It’s not quite as immediately catchy as some of Coldplay’s earlier hits, but it’s got a slightly darker sound that’s interesting and bodes well for the album. … I think 007 dodged a bullet with news that Amy Winehouse has abandoned work on a potential theme song for the upcoming James Bond film, “Quantum of Solace.” I got a kick out of the fact that Mara Davis, lunchtime DJ on our local adult alternative station, Dave FM, recently included Winehouse in a theme show of the most irritating performers. … Glen Campbell is returning to his longtime recording home of Capitol Records with “Meet Glen Campbell,” a new album of somewhat unlikely cover versions due out Aug. 19. Among the songs covered by the onetime delight from Delight, Ark., are Velvet Undeground’s “Jesus,” U2’s “All I Want Is You,” the Foo Fighters’ “Times Like These,” John Lennon’s “Grow Old With Me,” Tom Petty’s “Angel Dream” and Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”. … The “Classic Albums: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band” DVD issued recently is a must-have. There are illuminating interviews with folks involved with the album, including Ringo Starr, Klaus Voormann and Yoko Ono, and fascinating segments in which EMI engineers who worked with Lennon play with the masters at the mixing desk, isolating vocals and instruments and playing studio chatter and alternate takes. The list price is an incredibly reasonable $14.98. … My son saw Bruce Springsteen’s recent Atlanta concert and said it was much more of an upbeat, rocking show than when he last saw the Boss in 2000. A nice mix of older songs and tunes from last year’s album, and young Bill was especially pleased Springsteen didn’t devote a segment to those dreary acoustic numbers this time around. If you'd like to add to or have your say about anything in this column, just click on comment below. You don't have to be registered with Live Journal. Current Mood: sad Current Music: "Violet Hill" (34 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 17th, 2008
10:39 am	High fidelity memories I've always loved record stores, whether they be dusty mom-and-pop shops, grungy student hangouts, holes in the wall specializing in used discs and vinyl, or multi-floored superstores that dazzle with their deep inventory. I didn't start buying records until The Beatles arrived, and in those early years the vinyl 45s and LPs that I used my paper route money for came primarily from the record departments of Woolworth's, Sears, a drug store and a discount department store. They mainly just stocked the current hits, but the discount store also had a bunch of cut-out bins of singles and albums where the occasional treasure could be found among the forgotten releases by Sonny & Cher and soundtrack albums from Broadway musicals you never heard of. My favorite cut-out bin purchase from those days was an import copy of "Nobody's Gonna Change Our World," the British charity album featuring the then-rare original version of "Across the Universe." I also occasionally checked out a pair of longtime mom-and-pop record stores downtown, but their prices on singles were a bit higher than at Woolworth's (where the latest hit could be yours for 77 cents plus a mere 3 cents sales tax!) and the mom-and-pop stores put more emphasis on LPs, with singles generally kept behind the counter, meaning you had to ask for them — kind of intimidating to a young teen. By the time I was a senior in high school, eight-track tapes were all the rage and a couple of places opened up that specialized in the chunky cartridges. One, I remember, was called Tape Town. That's where my friend Charles picked up a new Beatles release titled "Kum Back" that he didn't realize at first was a bootleg. Along with a couple of other friends, Mike and Jimmy, we listened to that tape over and over and over in his car while skipping study hall until the official "Let It Be" album came out a few months later. Of course, pretty soon all the regular record outlets had added eight-tracks to their inventory and within a couple of years the likes of Tape Town had disappeared. I bought mainly catalog stuff (favorite albums) on eight-track; new releases I continued to buy on LP (supplemented by cassettes starting in the late ‘70s) until I made the switch to CD in 1987. Record-buying options in our town broadened about the time I started attending the hometown University of Georgia in 1970. I remember it was my freshman year when Music Grotto, a small chain I'd seen advertised in the newspapers from Atlanta (66 miles away), opened a store in downtown Athens. The atmosphere was definitely more youth-oriented — posters on the wall, rock 'n' roll playing over the p.a., college students behind the counter — plus they had these neat plastic bags emblazoned with their logo. I remember strolling in during a lunch break between classes and hearing this ukulele intro coming o