Two Tickets to Paradis
A few months back, I stumbled across this awesome music sharing weblog called The Isle of Deserted Pop Stars. Generally speaking, this blog unearths semi-forgotten dance pop from the late ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s — the kind of slickly produced, no longer available major label stuff that is too recent to be nostalgic, yet also obscure enough to fly under everyone’s radar (even when it was new). A narrowly focused project like this could only be of interest to someone who’d enjoy hearing an entire album by ’80s Madonna clone Regina, but I’m totally digging it.
I’ve downloaded a bunch of albums off this site. So far my favorite is the self-titled 1992 album by French chanteuse Vanessa Paradis, a project noted for being produced and mostly written by Paradis’ then-boyfriend, Lenny Kravitz. I’ve never much taken to Kravitz and his overbaked neo-soul, but on this album he did a fantastic job of tailoring various retro styles to the limited yet captivating voice of Ms. Paradis. Which brings me to the videos of the day. First is the single “Be My Baby” — despite having an irresistible Motown inspired groove and being a huge hit across Europe, this tune inexplicably failed to catch on in the U.S. If anything demands a comprehensive CIA investigation, it’s that. I’ve also included the video for Paradis’ follow-up single “Sunday Monday,” which settles into more of a flower-power hippie pop groove. Bon!
Weekly Mishmash: March 7-14
Avenue Q. A mishmash first — theat-ah! I’ve been longing to see Avenue Q ever since hearing an interview with the show’s two songwriters professing their love for Sesame Street and The Electric Company (one even sung the latter’s T-I-O-N tune, neat). The soundtrack has been a popular play in our house for years, but we haven’t seen the whole show in performance until last week. Although the cast in this touring production was a shade less polished than the Broadway cast, we totally enjoyed it. People claim the show is pretty racy, but in actuality the humor is on the same level as your average PG-13 rated comedy. The book and music are very hip and knowing, as exemplified by “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist” below. And I loved the graphic shout-outs to Sesame and Electric shown via onstage monitors. It would have been cool to have seen this in a smaller theater when it was just starting out, since the cavernous Grady Gammage Auditorium in Tempe was a bit outsized for the show’s purpose, but nonetheless this was a great thing to experience with an enthusiastic cast and audience.
Citizen Ruth (1996). Laura Dern as a paint-huffing loser who finds herself pregnant for a fourth time while imprisoned. She is bailed out by a Christian family and becomes the center of a heated tug of war between pro-life and pro-choice forces who want to use her for their own means. Being a big fan of Alexander Payne’s Election and Sideways, I looked forward to his first feature and for the most part I wasn’t disappointed. The film is filled to the brim with colorful characters who are only grounded enough to not look like human cartoons. Payne doesn’t firmly side with either group, and seems to take the position that having a myopic view on any issue regardless of one’s viewpoint is unhealthy. Generally I liked the casting, except that Laura Dern’s dim bulb character grated as the film progressed (for too long). Having the film revolve around someone so obviously stupid was an interesting change from the norm, however.
The Format — Dog Problems. Possessing an album’s worth of eMusic credits and a yen for something power poppy, I decided to give this acclaimed 2006 album from the now defunct Phoenix area duo The Format a try. Excellent album, tuneful throughout, with just enough quasi-psychedelic circuslike touches to not be annoying. The band sounds like a classic power pop outfit most reminiscent of ’90s faves Jellyfish. Unsurprisingly, the group did cover Jellyfish’s “Gluttony of Symphony” for the import version of this album. Best tracks: “Time Bomb,” “The Compromise.”
Ikiru (1952). Our first viewing from TCM’s month long Akira Kurosawa tribute coincides with a bunch of Kurosawa Criterion DVDs arriving via Netflix. I fear we may be Kurosawaed out soon, but so far the viewing has been fascinating. Ikiru is one of his most acclaimed, a film at turns both touching and mind-meltingly dull. In it, a meek government worker (unblinking Kanji Watanabe) undergoes a crisis when informed that he only has a year to live. At first he decides to splurge on booze and women in his final months, but then he experiences an epiphany and works to build a playground on land that was previously held up in a mess of bureaucratic red tape. A great concept that many can identify with — what if I never leave my mark on the world? — explored sensitively by Kurosawa with several beautifully filmed slice-of-life vignettes. Unfortunately the film is too long by at least an hour, bogged down by lots of talky, pointless scenes that only point out Watanabe’s annoying passivity. Undoubtably there’s a lot to this film that resonates to Japanese postwar culture and social mores of the time. With much of it, however, we were bored silly. Next, please.
Oliver! (1968). A TCM 31 Days of Oscar remnant that I watched in bits and pieces over a weeklong period. Perhaps not the best viewing setup, but I took it better this way. This splashy Dickens adaptation is a huge, impressive production with several enjoyable musical sequences (”Consider Yourself” is a highlight) and a nail-biting climax. The film on the whole just seemed too big and impersonal. Though pleasing, I don’t understand why it won Best Picture for 1968. Never-nominated 2001: A Space Odyssey wound up being the true celluloid achievement for that year, but Oliver!’s competitors Funny Girl and The Lion In Winter are more absorbing and better made.
Rose of Washington Square (1939). Another musical in what wound up being an all-singing, all-dancing week. This is a typically nostalgic Fox production, a frothy and fake vehicle for Alice Faye as a fictionalized Fanny Brice type singer rising to fame in 1910s New York and being wooed by smooth cad Tyrone Power. This was a lighthearted and fun movie, one made momentarily uncomfortable by Al Jolson playing himself in blackface makeup. Mostly we got this due to the fact that Joyce Compton has a relatively meaty role as Faye’s sidekick. Joycie is her own perky self throughout; she even gets to share a dramatic scene with Jolson. Most of the film’s musical sequences are straightforward stage performances, nicely gimmick free. Alice Faye and a chorusful of dancers doing amazing things with cigarettes in the title number is one of those wonderful non-p.c. moments that one can only find in the world of black and white movies.
Friday Fun
Christopher had the day off work today, so we decided to head out to Scottsdale and Tempe for some outdoor fun. Our first stop was Desert Botanical Gardens. This place is a a total snowbird tourist magnet, but it’s also a Phoenix area institution that reminds us of the beautiful flora and fauna that can still be found around here. C. had free passes, which included a special butterfly exhibit. The butterflies were great, and several of them were oddly attracted to my green shirt. After the gardens, we went thrift shopping and I found a set of small brown melamine bowls for my secret project. Then it was lunch at our favorite Mexican eatery in the area, La Fonda (a place that has stood in the same Scottsdale strip mall since I was a wee one!). We then drove to nearby Tempe to view the lake pouring water into the Salt River, and an exhibit on Chuck Jones at the Tempe Center for the Arts. The Jones exhibit was fantastic. It was mostly paintings and cericels from Jones’ personal collection, along with pencil drawings and other wonderful artifacts from the Warner Bros. cartoon vaults. A nice day — now I’m exhausted!
Weekly Mishmash: February 28-March 6
My Kid Could Paint That (2007). Good yet haphazard documentary on child prodigy painter Marla Olmstead, who became a mid-2000s media sensation with a series of abstract canvases far too sophisticated to be the work of a six-year-old. Director Amir Bar-Lev intended for this to be a straightforward look at Olmstead and her doting parents, until a 60 Minutes profile captured during filming revealed that Marla may have gotten help from her dad, Mark Olmstead. Personally, I smelled b.s. on the smarmy dad from the start. Despite the scandal, Bar-Lev doesn’t take a firm position either way — which actually hurts more than helps the film. There are many uncomfortable yet compelling scenes of the family members behaving weirdly. Marla is often shown painting, or more accurately smearing paint around into a mass of brown goo the way an average kid would. She seems more interested in the tactile experience of moving goop around on a surface, rather than the art itself. Meanwhile, the dad and art dealer play their p.r. games and a tacky, rich couple are seen dropping $20K on a painting before speeding away in a Hummer. The ’00s, wasn’t it a time?
No Country For Old Men (2007). Stuck this on my Netflix queue when it was new and forgot about it until the DVD arrived here last week. This is an excellent, potent film, although I could sense two conflicting p.o.v.s at work here. For the first two thirds, it’s a gripping tale of Josh Brolin coming across stolen drug money and creepy Javier Bardem’s attempts to get it back. Joel and Ethan Coen do a great job of evoking dusty, morally bankrupt doings in rural Texas of 1980. The film’s tone then shifts in its final third to weathered sheriff Tommy Lee Jones and his puzzlement over the changing times he lives in. Very Cormac McCarthy, in other words, right up to the vague ending. Many viewers apparently didn’t favor this turn, but I found it effective and thought provoking. Bardem’s chilling, dead-eyed character is not so easy to forget.
2012 (2009). Stupid disaster flick, even by Roland Emmerich standards. Special effects of a disintegrating Los Angeles are impressive if on a scale too large to be truly believable.
Unholy Love (1932). This interesting Pre-Code telling of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary was among the handful of cheapie DVDs from Alpha Video that Christopher recently purchased. Unholy Love was a special request from me since, as you can see from the box art, Joyce Compton takes center stage in it. Although she is third billed behind silent-era actors H. B. Warner and Lila Lee, Compton actually has the most screen time as a flirty gardener’s daughter who slinks her way into high society. It’s a fun role and Joyce has a field day with it, even if at this early point in her career she doesn’t quite have the acting chops to effectively pull it off. Generally this film is a leaden-paced, typical melodrama. Probably its biggest value is of historical interest, since this independent production counts as one of the few earlier appearances of Compton’s currently available on DVD. It was a pleasure watching her in a dramatic turn (and a lead!) very atypical of the comic relief she was eventually best known for; your mileage may vary.
Various — Journey to Paradise: The Larry Levan Story. A 2006 two disc compilation from Rhino Records saluting legendary disco deejay Larry Levan, heavy on the Warner Bros.-owned dance music. I never noticed this one before, but when it popped up on eMusic as a download for the same price that single albums usually go for, I grabbed it. It’s an uplifting and laid-back set, emphasizing earthy, R&B-based dance music from roughly 1979-82 over the cheesy polyester disco we all know and loathe. When it comes to dance, I’m a bit of a non-purist who prefers radio-friendly edited songs over endless 12″ mixes. This set is heavy on the latter, but luckily many of the mixes are enjoyable and the songs themselves are far from overexposed. The inclusion of white groups Yazoo and Talking Heads serve as a nifty reminder of when the R&B world briefly flirted with New Wave. If you could download only one tune, pick Change’s “Paradise” — a tune that sums up Levan’s life-affirming m.o. better than anything else.
Gardening — for Victory!
This nice sunny Saturday was a perfect opportunity for us to plant the seeds for the very first vegetable garden in our backyard. We had actually been planning our victory garden for a while now. Christopher prepared the plot for planting last fall, and heavy rains over the winter caused the ground to get nice and soft. We have a good variety of crops including carrots, onions, bell and hot peppers, and green beans (marked by hand-drawn stones pictured below). I have no idea if the Arizona soil is good for vegetables, but we’re planning to water it diligently and hope for the best.
Who Will Win?
The Academy Awards are almost upon us, but what I find frustrating for us anal retentive types is that most of the online predictions only cover the major award categories. I want my Live Action Short and Sound Mixing predictions, dammit! Comprehensive lists are out there if you look hard enough; this guy’s are as good as any, I suppose. Have you entered Kris’s Oscar contest yet? A Twilight sparkly sock monkey playset (infinitely more adorable than Robert Pattinson) can be yours with the right guesses.
Christopher and I are having our own little Oscar party Sunday night. We all should know that the only awards that ever truly mattered can be seen below:
It Blowed Up Real Good
I want to have something different to share today, video-wise. How about Disney animator Ward Kimball’s very un-Disney 1968 short, Escalation?
Inspiration: The Night Zoo
I’ll put the cover of The Night Zoo by illustrator Bob Staake here as a little pick-me-up to get me going through the week. Staake drew these animals on paper, cut them out with an x-acto, then arranged and spruced them up digitally. It falls into the kind of whimsical and charming stuff that I dig.
My own creative venture is coming along well. Despite a few mishaps, I hope to have it live this Spring. It seems like I’ve been working on this thing forever (just over a year, in fact), but the light at the end of the tunnel is appearing. Better make sure it isn’t a train.
Weekly Mishmash: February 21-27
Patti Austin – Gettin’ Away With Murder. A delightful mid-’80s R&B album downloaded off eMusic, this set showcases the impressive pipes of Patti Austin and the nascent style of producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis in total elegance. I was surprised at how good this album was, and it holds up better today than similar R&B albums from the same year (1985) put out by the much famouser likes of Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder. I think the key to its success is Austin herself, who approaches this album like a super polished jazz singer trying out a different style on a lark. Her warm singing complements the sparkling Jam/Lewis production style well, highlighted on the semi-hit “The Heat of Heat.” From what I gather, a few other producers worked on this LP but it has a nice, consistent tone despite covering both balladry (”Summer Is The Coldest Time Of Year”) and the dancefloor (”Honey For The Bees,” previously recorded by Alison Moyet). Excellent. Throw in Austin’s perky 1981 single “Every Home Should Have One” and you have a bona fide party.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Thanks to TCM, here’s another film to cross off the “Best Picture winners I haven’t seen” list. This was a very good, compelling widescreen actioner firmly in the tradition of David Lean’s other wide screen o-rama epics (Lawrence of Arabia, and the as yet unseen by yours truly Doctor Zhivago). William Holden, Alec Guinness and Sessue Hayakawa make for a formidable leading trio, the bridge itself is impressive as all get out, and there are many beautiful shots of the Sri Lankan jungles that seem tailor made for the big screen (those bats!). On a sour note I was spoiled ahead of time by the ending — heck, it’s even pictured on the friggin’ DVD box design — but nonetheless I had a good time getting there. In the next few weeks I will be watching another big Best Picture, 1968’s Oliver!, but I have a feeling it won’t be as splendid as this one.
Compulsion (1958). Good, not great, courtroom drama based on the infamous Leopold and Loeb trial of the ’20s. The names are changed and several incidents are made-up, but the film follows the same basic story of two arrogant college students (Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman) who become media sensations as they are tried for the cold blooded murder of a child. Orson Welles plays their Clarence Darrow substitute defense lawyer. This is a standard ’50s melodrama made more interesting if one has some background on the real Leopold and Loeb case. The film adds an unnecessary romantic subplot involving classmates of the two men (played by Diane Varsi and Martin Milner) and suffers from Hayes Code restrictions, but otherwise it is a competently made drama. The filmmakers had to make many adjustments so the film wouldn’t be pure docudrama, but the few accurate bits that made it through (recreating a famous courtroom photo of the duo, for example) make it a diverting enough watch for true crime buffs.
Drunken Angel (1948). An early Akira Kurasawa/Toshiro Mifune collaboration (their first, actually), quite satisfying if not in the same league as Stray Dog. In a showy supporting role, Mifune plays a hot-headed Yazuka gangster who unwillingly has to consult with doctor Takashi Shimura when his failing health chips away on the stranglehold he has over the depressing little hamlet he controls. Kurosawa keeps things nicely controlled and effectively gives a sense of the desperation of the varied city dwellers in this film, including several heavy-handed shots of the bubbling, trash-strewn bog that the men pass by on a daily basis. Shimura does a great job as the frustrated doctor, and Mifune is simply amazing to watch as he slowly transforms into a gaunt, crazed mental case. Great ending, too. I was happy to find my fave scene from this film on YouTube, a wacky musical moment starring (apparently) the Japanese equivalent of Betty Hutton:
The Eye (2002). After an operation to restore her sight, a girl (Angelica Lee) can now see the dead. That simple premise forms the backbone for this scary Asian movie, which among scary Asian movies ranks below Ju-On (The Grudge) or Ringu but far above any of the crass American remakes of the same (including this one, which got a re-do in 2008 with Jessica Alba). This one has its share of shudder-inducing moments, and its scares come from nicely low-tech methods — only the climactic scene set on a busy street uses modern CGI. The film gets a bit poky and dialogue-heavy at times, but both of us enjoyed it. I appreciated the fact that the female lead wasn’t as passive as other Asian horror leads which tend toward the hyper-wimpy. An effectively creepy and subdued film, unlike our next selection…
Paranormal Activity (2004). This mico-budgeted scare flick became the surprise hit of 2009 in true Blair Witch fashion, but overall I found it kind of “meh”. This film follows a young woman (Katie Featherson) who is fearful that the mysterious spirit that haunted her in childhood has come back to roost in the San Diego home of her boyfriend (Micah Sloat). The skeptical guy decides to videotape them as they sleep in an effort to catch the punking ghostie on camera. This really amounts to being a glorified home movie with so-so acting and few scares. Most annoying is the fact that the film never leaves the house, an ugly cookie-cutter manse filled with terrible furniture (perhaps the ghost is Sam Walton, thanking the couple for their many Wal-Mart purchases). This is also another one of those movies in which the characters are always doing stupid things for no apparent reason. For example, the girl begs the guy not to get a ouija board, and in the next scene he’s holding a ouija board. Stay away!
Splendor in the Grass (1961). Another TCM “31 Days of Oscar” netting, Elia Kazan’s soapy yet engrossing tale of young lust was another one of those films on my to-see list. Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty play teenagers in 1920s Kansas grappling with their feelings for each other amidst leering classmates and judgmental family members. This was a nicely played, interesting film despite feeling like an inferior knockoff of Kazan’s East of Eden. The leads are very attractive and talented, which really helps when the film gets bogged down in soapy theatrics in its second half. Despite all that, it is a very evocative and well-played film right up to the bittersweet finale.
They’re Fantastic, Made ‘o Plastic
Just finished scanning and uploading a bunch of random imagery for my Ephemera, Ads Ads Ads and Cool Vintage Illustration flickr sets. A few came from a Modern Plastics magazine annual from 1966 that C. recently acquired — including this lovely ad for Plexiglas (one ’s’ thank you). These also went into the Vintage Industry flickr group. Ephemeral fun for all!
Special FX (’90s Edition)
Today’s videos are artifacts from the dorky yet lovable early years of Fox’s FX cable channel. These promos date from when the network went under the tagline “TV Made Fresh Daily,” broadcasting a variety of shows from their funky studios in New York City. Although you might recognize a few faces that later went on to better things (Tom Bergeron, Jeff Probst), mostly the channel was a low-key affair staffed by friendly guy- and girl-next-door types. I think Fox meant it to feel like a bunch of your friends got together and put on a show. Sandwiched between reruns of Batman and Mission: Impossible, the channel’s slate of original programs covered a variety of subjects. My own favorite was Personal FX, the antiques and collectibles show. I was a regular viewer despite the fact that it was hosted by a complete airhead (Claire Carter) who knew nothing about antiques and collectibles. At least co-host John Burke brought on the hunk appeal. Burke later hosted on the pre-acronym American Movie Classics, and recently I was surprised to find him in a commercial endorsing some kind of back pain gadget.
Of course, FX is now a powerhouse network with acclaimed series like Damages and Nip/Tuck on their schedule — but guess what? I never watch them. I actually prefer the old, dorky FX. Some things actually work better if they haven’t been mass marketed and focus tested to death.
Bill, When Are You Coming Back?
In Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip, Nevin Martell sets himself up with the impossible task of tracking down someone notorious for being more fame-averse than Greta Garbo and J.D. Salinger combined. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will tell you that I had a fun time reading this book. It’s equal parts memoir, history, and trying to understand an enigma. The tales about Bill Watterson and the genesis of his legendary Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, trying to get his career off the ground after years of frustration, and his love/hate relationship with success are fascinating. Watterson’s well known resistance to any and all merchandising of his characters is also fully explored here, and it adds another dimension to this complex man. It’s a frustrating tact to take, but I can understand it. It called to mind how much I cherished the Peanuts characters as a child, when what I really loved was the ancillary stuff (dolls, TV specials). Indeed, I didn’t fully appreciate Schulz’s comic itself until the Fantagraphics Complete Peanuts volumes came out. The result of Watterson’s stance is letting the comic strip speak for itself, revealing it to be one of the most brilliant explorations of childhood imagination ever committed to ink and paper. Martell shares a similarly glowing view of the strip throughout this book, ruminating in an appealing, leisurely style that oftentimes comes across not so flatteringly like magazine writing. Overall, it’s not a very substantial book (at times I wish Martell didn’t inject so much of himself in the content), but the journey he takes is an enjoyable one to tag along with.
Weekly Mishmash: February 14-20
Julee Cruise — Floating into the Night. An album I’ve been wanting to hear ever since it came out 21 (!) years ago. The 1989 fusion of the scintillating Ms. Cruise, arranger Angelo Badalamenti, and director David Lynch is a spellbinding exercise in dream pop. Much of the album floats by in a dreamlike, eerie atmosphere with the occasional ’50s pop flourish (e.g. the abstract sax solo on “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart”). “Falling,” a vocal rendition of the Twin Peaks theme, is the best-known tune here, but I like how the album’s second half delves into the darker, sleepier mood of a sustained lullaby. Listening to it from this distance makes me realize how truly one-of-a-kind this collaboration was, although it inspires cravings for cherry pie and damn fine coffee.
49 Up (2006). The most recent chapter in Michael Apted’s astonishing documentary series that profiles several “average” British citizens at seven year intervals from childhood through middle age. At this stage, the subjects are feeling very ambivalent about revisiting Apted and the strange celebrity that comes as a result of these films. It makes for voyeuristic but compelling viewing. Mostly it feels like catching up with old friends that you haven’t seen in a while. I’m always amazed at the editing, which has curious, gawky children gradually morphing into self-aware, pudgy adults. It must be somewhat painful for these people having to re-evaluate their lives every seven years, but I hope they’re aware of the great contributions they’re making to film history.
Hunger (2008). Great film about the brutal treatment of IRA members in the early ’80s British prison system, culminating in the two month hunger strike of resistance leader Bobby Sands (brilliantly played by actor Michael Fassbender). Director Steve McQueen crafted this film into an impressionistic mood piece that gradually draws the viewer in. The approach works infinitely better than it would have been with strict, straightforward storytelling. The film is filled with static shots of things like the prisoners’ feces-smeared cell walls, ugly things that look strangely beautiful in this setting. The gradual deterioration of Fassbender’s body fits into that milieu, as well. I was puzzled as to why McQueen focused on a prison guard, then an average prisoner, then Sands in the course of the film. It may have made more sense to have it centered around a few characters throughout — nonetheless, this film is an uneasy, unforgettable experience.
Orphan (2009). Well-made but far from subtle horror flick about a well-heeled couple (Peter Sarsgaard and Vera Farmiga) who adopt a creepy Russian girl with precocious talents for folksy paintings and quasi-Victorian fashions. After settling in with the couple’s other two children, things start to go very, very wrong and the concerned ma starts to suspect that little Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) isn’t who she appears to be. This is a pretty stupid, predictable little potboiler, but it’s fun. I was entertained by the way this film so liberally takes cues from other “bad child” movies such as The Bad Seed and The Good Son (the giant treehouse built prohibitively high above ground level in the latter). The cast seems committed — I was particularly impressed with Aryana Engineer as the youngest kid — but this is pure hokum from start to finish. It might even have the makings for the next camp classic.
ABC’s Funshine Saturday
A fun promo film for ABC’s Fall 1974 daytime and Saturday morning lineup includes shows familiar (The Brady Bunch, already a rerun staple mere months after getting cancelled in prime time) and unfamiliar (The Girl in My Life). That animated gumball machine on the ABC Afterschool Special elicits a real deja vu feeling here!
