Monika, Oh My Darling
Today’s video is a Bollywood treasure — “Piya Tu Ab To Aaja” from the 1971 opus Caravan. Sung by Asha Bhosle and R.D. Burman, danced by the incomparable Helen (no last name). Campy as all get out, but energetic and fun:
Weekly Mishmash: December 20-26
Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), and Alien: Resurrection (1997). Housesitting for a neighbor, we discovered that he owned a copy of the 2004 Alien Quadrilogy DVD set. Since I had only seen the first Alien (odd, no?), we decided to gorge on the sequels for our Christmas holiday. Aliens was awesome, a textbook example of where to take a story to satisfying new horizons. I loved the casting, the very ’80s militaristic atmosphere, and the maternal theme that draws parallels between both Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley and stowaway Newt and the fearsome Alien queen’s need to procreate. Good special effects, too. Alien 3, overall, was more of an interesting failure. It had lots of potential with David Fincher directing and an appropriately grungy atmosphere on a planet full of prisoners. Killing off many of the survivors from Aliens right away was an awful idea, however, and the film never lets up from that bungle. In the first two films, the aliens were interesting characters that operated like insects needing to propagate (it wasn’t their fault that those pesky humans just got in their way). With Alien 3, the threat comes from a single not very menacing alien who bites its victims’ heads off willy-nilly and a rogue egg that mysteriously appears out of nowhere. Woo hoo. Also, Fincher fills the climax with too many shots of winding corridors from the alien’s p.o.v. Bad as Alien 3 was, it was a bouquet of roses compared with Alien: Resurrection. This was a completely cynical and joyless studio-imposed sequel, despite having another interesting director on board in French Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who had previously helmed the wild Delicatessen and City of Lost Children). Jeunet’s trippy vision for the film bizarrely contrasts with Joss Whedon’s snarky, catch phrase heavy script — one of dozens of problems with this movie (don’t even get me started on Winona Ryder). Sigourney Weaver is always good, but in these last two sequels she seemed to be phoning it in. Apparently it wasn’t just Ripley who was getting tired of the aliens.
The Big Shot (1942). Along with One Fatal Hour (see Dec. 6-12), this was one of the films from TCM’s Humphrey Bogart film fest that I’d never heard of before. Bogie plays an affable crook who wants to complete one last armored car robbery despite the possibility of facing a lifelong jail sentence for the crime. He gets caught and goes to the slammer, then schemes with some fellow cons and his ex (thoroughly bland Irene Manning) to escape. Leading man aside, this is a thoroughly indistinguishable b-movie — which surprised me. I didn’t think Bogart was doing rote b-movies this late at Warner Bros. The script and direction are listless, and even the casting lacks the salty supporting players one usually associates with Warners (what I wouldn’t give to have Frank McHugh or Alan Hale goofing around here). On the plus side, the French poster for this film is simply gorgeous.
The Silver Seas — High Society. Boy howdy, these “best albums of the decade” lists popping up lately are making me feel old. Most of them contain the same few albums by artists that are either overrated or unlistenable. It’s not that I’m oblivious to new kinds of music, only that I prefer melodic pop and apparently the ’00s were a terrible decade for that particular genre. Luckily I did find one list, from David Medsker of esdmusic.com, that had better than average overlap with my own musical tastes. I downloaded the Silver Seas’ High Society at eMusic based on Medsker’s #9 ranking of this album, a decision that turned out to be a wise one. Although the album doesn’t break ground in any way, it’s a gem that sounds a bit like a lost country-pop LP from the ’70s (the fact that the singer sounds bizarrely like Jackson Browne doesn’t hurt). I’ve read that the main songwriter in this group used old TV show themes as his inspiration here. That makes a lot of sense, but the final product mostly sounds like the kind of expertly crafted, intelligent indie pop that ought to be the norm rather than the exception.
Talk To Me (2007). A recent biopic that had a lot of potential, but turned out kind of disappointing. Don Cheadle stars as Petey Greene, former criminal turned radio personality whose straight-talking style is just the thing for mobilizing Washington D.C.’s African American community in the late ’60s. Cheadle is excellent, and his dynamic presence is the main reason to watch. The film itself, however, is strangely structured with a needless third act. Taraji P. Henson is too overbearing as Geene’s girlfriend, and there were a lot of anachronistic touches here that bugged me. For example, not only do the filmmakers wrongly use the elegant “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” by Diana Ross & The Supremes and The Temptations as an example of the kind of “square” music Greene was rebelling against, they also play it in a scene that takes place at a time well before the record came out in November 1968. A little more research was in order, guys.
Foxy and Brassy
Now that Christmas is over, I can reveal the main gift I gave to Christopher. Design Within Reach sells these Bosse brass animal figurines, reproduced from Viennese designs originally sold in the ’40s. Knowing how he loves animals and midcentury mod design, this was perfect for him. I got the fox pictured above — so cute (and tiny)!
Fine Feathered Friends
I’m pleased as punch with the illustration for our holiday card for this year. Best wishes for the season, everyone.
Have a Happy Pappy
Merry Christmas 1930s style, courtesy of the Max Fleischer Color Classic Christmas Comes But Once a Year. This one stars Betty Boop’s gadget makin’ pal Pappy. The cartoon’s climax sports a 3D background that must’ve looked great in 1936:
And look at the very end — the 1936 Christmas seal!
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
Various — The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 10: 1970. Something I forgot to mention on last weekend’s mishmash was this box set, a holiday gift to myself. You know the drill by now: contained within these six discs are every single a- and b-side Motown (and its subsidiary labels) released during 1970 — 144 songs in all! It took me three weeks, but I’ve finally gotten through the whole thing. My blanket judgement is that overall the company’s output in ‘70 wasn’t as good as ‘66-69, but there are still a lot of highlights as they adjusted to a rapidly changing musical landscape. Starting the previous year Berry Gordy was on a mission to diversify his company’s output, and here you get the full picture of those efforts with singles that cover not only sweet soul but heavier funk, mainstream rock, jazz, and even reggae (Bob & Marcia’s charming “Young Gifted and Black”). Things also got much more slickly produced this year as epitomized by early efforts of the newly solo Diana Ross and the Jackson 5’s chart-topping bubblegum soul. Lots of hits got notched this year, but the set also contains several fascinating nuggets by Ivy Jo, Kiki Dee, Buzzie and Michael Denton which failed to chart. It wasn’t just the one-off artists having trouble, either — this might be the first year in a while where just about every major artist on the label had a dud single. Despite that, there are a lot of treasures to be had here. This was the best year for the post-Ross Supremes, the Temptations were rolling along with more hot Norman Whitfield-produced funk, Gladys Knight and her Pips were moving in a more adult direction with “If I Were Your Woman,” and Stevie Wonder was becoming a force to be reckoned with both on his own (”Signed Sealed Delivered”) and with others (The Spinners’ “It’s A Shame”). Oh, and I almost forgot Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson’s towering production on Diana Ross’ “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” a diva-tastic moment for the ages. So, yes, I suppose this was a very good set.
Weekly Mishmash: December 13-19
Avatar (2009). We began our Avatar experience by walking through a long and twisty corridor, accepting pairs of funny looking glasses, finding a seat near the back of a cavernous theater, full of anticipation. I wasn’t expecting to be blown away, but I was. Though the film is not without its flaws (predictable story, dumb-dumb action climax), Avatar pretty much lives up to the hype. The rainforest-on-steroids world of Pandora is so fully realized and enveloping that I often lost sight of the fact that it was computer generated. By comparison the human world was a bit more pedestrian, but it’s a fun confection populated with an attractive cast (with Sigourney Weaver’s feisty and very Ripley-esque researcher being the highlight). James Cameron may come off like a massive blowhard in interviews, but when it comes to entertainment on a mass scale he really delivers the goods. Strangely enough, the only thing that truly distracted me was how they used the Papyrus font for the alien language subtitles. Papyrus, really? A font that comes equipped on every single Mac computer on earth? You’d think they’d use some of that $240 million budget to spring for a custom typeface.
D.O.A. (1950). I barely remember watching this noir chestnut eons ago on American Movie Classics, but I wanted to catch it again after learning parts of this movie were filmed in L.A.’s historic Bradbury Building. It’s here, all right — one of the stops that harried Edmond O’Brien makes when trying to track down the evildoer who slipped him a slow-acting, fatal dose of poison. This was a fun film, very cheesy at times (especially the scene where wolf whistles are incongruously placed on the soundtrack) but effectively tense and briskly made. I found O’Brien’s character appealing, even if he was a bit of a henpecked wuss with a shrew of a girlfriend. The Bradbury office and several other scenes make wonderful use of location shooting. I especially dug the part where O’Brien was running down a busy San Francisco street, frantically bumping into passers-by with bracing realism (apparently it was filmed with actual, unaware pedestrians and not actors). Scenes like that are a fascinating little window into the real world of 1950 that one rarely sees in classic Hollywood films.
Public Enemies (2009). Disappointing. Bryan Burrough’s book of the same name was an encyclopedic chronicle of America’s early ’30s crime wave and how the government reacted with J. Edgar Hoover and his squad of G-Men. It might have made for a terrific miniseries had it been filmed exactly as written, but Michael Mann boils it down here to an uninspiring cat-and-mouse tale with Johnny Depp as John Dillinger and Christian Bale as Hoover’s top G-Man, Melvin Purvis. Mostly the film just seemed too poky and unnecessarily artsy. Burrough portrays Dillinger as a happy-go-lucky sort who reveled in his own celebrity, but Depp’s interpretation is so dark and morose it puts a pall on the whole thing. Despite all that, the film does have a few interesting parts. I enjoyed the scene set during Dillinger’s final night in a Chicago theater, Manhattan Melodrama projected onscreen while the camera focuses on Depp’s face mulling over how the movie he’s watching mirrors his own past. If only the rest of the film was that concise and eloquent.
Disco Nite
Today’s video is a performance of the disco-era “Spacer” by Sheila & B. Devotion, resplendent in silver jumpsuits and matching choreography. Sheila was a French singer who got her start in the ’60s ye-ye girl pop scene — and although she’s no great shakes as a vocalist, with this tune she gets a heavenly production from Bernard Edwards and Nile Rogers of Chic.
Flash forward a couple of decades, and we find Swedish trio Alcazar heavily sampling “Spacer” for their wonderful 2000 dance club hit “Crying at the Discotheque.” I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite between these two. True, Sheila doesn’t have lyrics as priceless as “You wore a tie like Richard Gere’s.” The “Cryin’” video is so bizarre, I just have to share it here:
Together Forever
Stumbled across on YouTube: part 1 of a Stock Aitken Waterman video megamix. Very well done, even if it points out the similarities between everything S.A.W. did (not that I’m complaining; I love that cheesy, happy ’80s sound). Even the accompanying videos have a similar look — lots of well-scrubbed faces, “fun” jewelry and hair product galore.
On a similar note, I was browsing through Abercrombie & Fitch in Las Vegas last week and was surprised to find Rick Astley’s “Together Forever” loudly pumping throughout the store. I never suspected that kids today were that much into the Rickster, but there you go.
Weekly Mishmash: December 6-12
Black Book (2006). Super slick and engrossing German Dutch WWII drama directed by Paul Verhoeven. It concerns a woman (Carice Van Houten, great), living in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, who decides to join the Dutch resistance. Eventually she infiltrates a Nazi office posing as a secretary and kept woman for a high ranking official (Sebastian Koch, who was also in The Lives Of Others). This was a speedily paced and well-mounted flick, occasionally sexy and violent in ways that European films rarely are (obviously the years working in Hollywood were a big plus for Verhoeven with this one). Mostly it reminded me of an updated version of classic wartime melodramas from that period. In that sense, this accomplishes what Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German tried and failed to do. If you like stirring wartime entertainment, definitely seek this one out.
One Fatal Hour (1936). This melodrama came on during TCM’s month-long Humphrey Bogart salute; I recorded it simply because it’s one of the few Bogie films that I’d never heard of before. As I was watching, it looked vaguely familiar. As it turned out, One Fatal Hour is a remake of 1931’s Five Star Final with a setting switch from newsroom to radio station. Despite Bogart’s solid presence in the role previously played by Edward G. Robinson, however, this one falls way short of the original. The film manages to turn an interesting plot (about a matronly ex-con desparately trying to prevent an exploitative broadcaster from revealing her past) into an overbearing and preachy bore.
Dolly Parton — Dolly. Four disc, encyclopedic compilation proves once and for all that Miss Parton talents encompass more than just a big smile and a bigger chest. This set isn’t quite career-spanning, but it does start with her earliest single (1959’s “Puppy Love” on the tiny Gold Band label) and goes comprehensively through the years all the way up to her 1993 hit “Romeo.” At first I thought this might be too much Dolly for me, but I found myself really enjoying every facet of this set. Unlike many smaller hits collections that focus on the #1s (many of which she didn’t write), this box really does a good job of showing her development as one of the best songwriters in Country music — not to mention her savvy way of embracing passing trends while retaining her own distinctly rural point of view. One example is the fantastic Shangri-Las inspired teen drama of 1966’s “Don’t Drop Out,” which is joined here by “I’ve Known You All My Life” a previously unreleased Goffin-King gem that proves she had pop instincts several years before “9 to 5″ topped the charts. The set also contains many of the duets with Porter Wagoner which cemented her early fame. These songs are quaint and old fashioned compared to her own simultaneous output like “Just Because I’m a Woman,” but they do provide a framework for what would come later and they’re entertaining in their own cheesy way. Dolly standards like “Jolene” sound even better surrounded by worthy album cuts, and even the material coming out of her pop crossover period beginning with 1977’s perky “Here You Come Again” sounds fresh. I even enjoyed totally ’80s synthesized productions like “Think About Love” (I do wish there was at least one cut from her notorious 1987 pop-oriented flop Rainbow, however). Nowadays the lady is starting to look more and more like a drag queen version of herself, but with this set my admiration for the woman has hit a new high.
Make the Yuletide Gay
Ivan requested it, so I will pass it along like a perpetually re-gifted Christmas fruitcake — my ten favorite holiday songs.
10. “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” For a song that started as a promotional gimmick for Montgomery Ward department stores, this novelty has had a long shelf life. Gene Autry’s rendition from the ’40s is among the best. Most covers of this tend towards the cloying, but the Temptations’ 1969 version is a badass classic.
9. “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” Many of the best holiday songs have a tinge of sadness, and this one from the fantastic Phil Spector Presents a Christmas Gift for You album is no exception. Darlene Love sings with such fierce passion, one has to wonder if she isn’t being downright suicidal over the thought of her sweetie not showing up for Christmas.
8. “One Foot In Front Of The Other” A perky ode to self esteem sung by Mickey Rooney and Keenan Wynn in the Rankin-Bass animated special Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town. This tune isn’t particularly Christmassy in lyrics or sentiment, but it never fails to make me smile whenever the song (rarely) pops up on a store’s holiday-themed music loop.
7. “What Christmas Means To Me” Teenaged Stevie Wonder guilelessly lists his favorite seasonal things over a killer Motown beat. This gets me in a Christmas mood as soon as the tambourines come in.
6. “Jingle Bells” An overplayed perennial, for sure — but it warms my heart to hear this every year, and it’s so damned easy to sing along with it. Check out the nifty ’40s animated Screen Song version, sporting a rarely performed extra verse:
5. “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” Another sad classic. A thousand syrupy renditions can’t hide the fact that this came from the WWII era and has the same aura of hopeful resignation as “I’ll Be Seeing You” and “We’ll Meet Again.” Beautiful song.
4. “Fairytale Of New York” The last 25 years haven’t produced a lot of yuletide standards, but this collaboration between the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl deserves to be right up there with “Silent Night” and “White Christmas.” Great as those songs are, they lack the directness of lyrics like “You’re a bum you’re a punk/You’re an old slut on junk.” Some of us require a bit of acid in our egg nog, you know.
3. “All I Want For Christmas Is You” See above. Though I normally don’t favor Ms. Carey and her overwrought singing style, this song is such a stirring, fantastic production and I never tire of hearing it. What I hear in these 3:55 is everyone giving their all, a nostalgic Phil Spector pastiche that strangely sounds more timeless as the years go by.
2. “Christmas Time Is Here” The highlight of the Vince Guaraldi’s lovely Charlie Brown Christmas score. Having it performed by a doleful sounding choir of children was a strike of genius.
1. “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” The holiday season is about home, togetherness, family — qualities that are perfectly embodied in “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” Complete with original “muddle through somehow” lyrics, Judy Garland’s performance of this in Meet Me In St. Louis is and will always be the definitive version.
Viva Lost Wages
The Gambler Who Blew $127 Million, a Wall Street Journal article via News From Me. I just got back from a three day stay in Las Vegas (details to come later). This article makes me feel better for the piddly sum that I lost.
Weekly Mishmash: November 29-December 5
The Days Of Wine and Roses (1962). Jack Lemmon introduces his best pal, Hootch, to a pretty young miss (Lee Remick) and the pair descend into alcoholism. This is a beautifully made film, sensitively directed by Blake Edwards with powerful performances by the two leads. The film trods a path similar to The Lost Weekend and I’ll Cry Tomorrow, but the fact that it involves an attractive young couple living in a swanky San Francisco apartment dilutes the message a bit. Still, an affecting film.
The Dolly Sisters (1945). Escapist fun with Betty Grable and June Haver as a real-life sister act that took Paris by storm in the teens and ’20s, with a pancake-covered John Payne on hand as Grable’s songwriter beau. It surprised me a bit how enjoyable this movie was. Apparently Grable was jealous of her younger co-star and didn’t enjoy doing this, but her unease certainly doesn’t show onscreen. Typically, the story is whitewashed and glammed up beyond belief (dig Orry-Kelly’s costumes, more midcentury Vogue than anything else). By and large, the songs are unmemorable but presented with a campy, eye-popping panache. The oddball salute to the cosmetic industry below is a good example. Max Factor would be proud:
Frank Lloyd Wright (1998). Did you ever rent something, then after watching a few minutes realize that you’ve already seen it? This happened with us on this PBS documentary. The second helping reveals a few things that have since become clichés for these Ken Burns biodocs (”important” narration, slow panning across b&w photos with ambient sounds on the soundtrack), but it was still good.
Gomorrah (2008). Ambitious film chronicles how the mob affects people of varied social status in a dingy Italian slum. Some were put off by the film’s meandering pace and documentary-style approach; I found it riveting (if a bit overlong). Seemingly random violence and natural performances from an unknown cast upped the realism factor for me.
Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis. I was a bit leery about this book, hearing how the Schulz family felt betrayed when Michaelis decided to paint Charles M. Schulz as a depressed, unfulfilled soul with a Charlie Brown complex. Most biographers have an agenda, however, and I went into it with an open mind. That said, it is a penetrating, interesting book. Michaelis has such an evocative way of describing I found myself caught up with empathy for Schulz’s early years of being confident in his own abilities, yet feeling alienated from everyone around him. One can fault Michaelis for emphasizing certain things over others (his extramarital affair gets an entire paragraph, while the last 25 years of Schulz’s life gets relatively glossed over), but overall you get a well-rounded and sympathetic portrait of the man within these pages. My favorite sections deal with how his life directly influenced Peanuts, with strips included amongst the text. I never realized how much his first wife Joyce was mirrored in Lucy Van Pelt, for example. This book has been out long enough to hit the remainder bins and can be gotten cheaply — even for casual Snoopy fans I’d recommend it.
Snoopy Come Home (1972). Speaking of Peanuts — I haven’t seen this, the second animated feature film with Charlie Brown and co., since the ’70s and was delighted to find it recently shown on the Family Channel. As a child I remember it being morose and depressing, and feeling upset that Snoopy would uncharacteristically run away like he did. The movie still seems overwhelmingly sad, a slight story padded out to feature length with lots of unnecessary scenes and a shrill score by Richard and Robert Sherman (sorry guys, you’re no Vince Guaraldi). It was an entertaining watch, however, with the same feel as the classic TV specials.
Deliver de Letter
A set of Vintage Christmas Seals got added to the Scrubbles flickr photostream this morning. I vaguely remember our family getting these from the Red Cross American Lung Association every year in the ’70s and ’80s — are they still making them?
Update — they are still being made.
Scraping By
America without a Middle Class, a Huffington Post editorial by Elizabeth Warren. President Obama should hire Ms. Warren as some kind of Lending Industry Czar to curb the banking industry’s greedy ways. I’ve seen her on Frontline and a few other things and she presents herself as nothing less than a paragon of common sense.
