FA+
Shop
What's Wong with WABBIT?
General | Posted 9 years agoWABBIT, season one, part one
http://www.amazon.com/Wabbit-S1-P1-.....dp_product_img
Yeah, yeah, I get it: this is a back-to-basics, slapstick Bugs Bunny for younger (much younger) viewers, a bunch of six-minute episodes inspired by the old seven-minute theatrical Looney Tunes we all know and love. Bugs's trickster-god demolition of bullies and pompous authority figures is front and center, as is the over-the-top violence. The highly stylized figures and backgrounds are easy on the eye, too. So why doesn't WABBIT work? Why isn't this series the least bit funny?
We're not stuck in the bad old days of ANIMANIACS and TINY TOON ADVENTURES, when the animators were field hands and the writers (who couldn't draw) were the straw bosses. The animators are clearly having fun with what they're doing, but is it possible that, given a mandate to honor the spirit of the old cartoons, no one realized that they simply weren't very good at writing slapstick gags? Bugs needs other characters to play off of, but in WABBIT he's saddled with characters so bland he might as well be alone onscreen. His new, painfully unfunny sidekicks -- the moronic Bigfoot and the generic Squeaks the Squirrel -- barely register, and the older Tunes seem miscast. Wile E. Coyote is now a condescending tech geek who won't shut up; worse, he doesn't have anything particularly funny to say. Yosemite Sam, formerly one of Bugs's most reliably funny sparring partners, is a shell of himself: just another blustering, personality-challenged fool for Bugs to destroy. The new villains, with the possible exception of the Grim Rabbit (Death...with bunny ears), are instantly forgettable. Gags from sixty-year-old cartoons are recycled, to little effect.
What went wrong with WABBIT? Why is this series so depressing to watch?
http://www.amazon.com/Wabbit-S1-P1-.....dp_product_img
Yeah, yeah, I get it: this is a back-to-basics, slapstick Bugs Bunny for younger (much younger) viewers, a bunch of six-minute episodes inspired by the old seven-minute theatrical Looney Tunes we all know and love. Bugs's trickster-god demolition of bullies and pompous authority figures is front and center, as is the over-the-top violence. The highly stylized figures and backgrounds are easy on the eye, too. So why doesn't WABBIT work? Why isn't this series the least bit funny?
We're not stuck in the bad old days of ANIMANIACS and TINY TOON ADVENTURES, when the animators were field hands and the writers (who couldn't draw) were the straw bosses. The animators are clearly having fun with what they're doing, but is it possible that, given a mandate to honor the spirit of the old cartoons, no one realized that they simply weren't very good at writing slapstick gags? Bugs needs other characters to play off of, but in WABBIT he's saddled with characters so bland he might as well be alone onscreen. His new, painfully unfunny sidekicks -- the moronic Bigfoot and the generic Squeaks the Squirrel -- barely register, and the older Tunes seem miscast. Wile E. Coyote is now a condescending tech geek who won't shut up; worse, he doesn't have anything particularly funny to say. Yosemite Sam, formerly one of Bugs's most reliably funny sparring partners, is a shell of himself: just another blustering, personality-challenged fool for Bugs to destroy. The new villains, with the possible exception of the Grim Rabbit (Death...with bunny ears), are instantly forgettable. Gags from sixty-year-old cartoons are recycled, to little effect.
What went wrong with WABBIT? Why is this series so depressing to watch?
Animal Attraction
General | Posted 9 years agoTHE ART OF ZOOTOPIA text by Jessica Julius (Chronicle Books, 978-145212-2236)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Zooto.....dp_product_img
This gorgeous book -- the paper equivalent of a rather self-congratulatory DVD special feature -- is an interesting peek into the science-fictional process of worldbuilding. What would a 21st century city look like if it was designed by and for nonhuman mammals?
As the filmmakers are fond of pointing out, the world of ZOOTOPIA (ZOOTROPOLIS in the UK) is too large for one feature film. What got left out (besides the birds and reptiles, who apparently live on other continents) are a number of supporting characters, but what I found especially interesting are the early concept and character sketches from a much darker premise than the finished film: one that began with a dystopian vision of the outnumbered predators being forced to wear inhibitor collars, and of both Nick and Judy brandishing guns. (Firearms, of course, are conspicuous in the movie by their absence.)
There's a lot to enjoy in the book, especially when you compare the work-in-progress to the finished buddy/romcom/noir that Disney painstakingly assembled.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Zooto.....dp_product_img
This gorgeous book -- the paper equivalent of a rather self-congratulatory DVD special feature -- is an interesting peek into the science-fictional process of worldbuilding. What would a 21st century city look like if it was designed by and for nonhuman mammals?
As the filmmakers are fond of pointing out, the world of ZOOTOPIA (ZOOTROPOLIS in the UK) is too large for one feature film. What got left out (besides the birds and reptiles, who apparently live on other continents) are a number of supporting characters, but what I found especially interesting are the early concept and character sketches from a much darker premise than the finished film: one that began with a dystopian vision of the outnumbered predators being forced to wear inhibitor collars, and of both Nick and Judy brandishing guns. (Firearms, of course, are conspicuous in the movie by their absence.)
There's a lot to enjoy in the book, especially when you compare the work-in-progress to the finished buddy/romcom/noir that Disney painstakingly assembled.
Jokers in Space
General | Posted 10 years agoTHE COMIC GALAXY OF MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 by Chris Morgan (McFarland, 2015, paperback and e-book)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/07.....cm_rdp_product
reviewed by Roochak
It's Chris Morgan's contention that MST3K (1988 - 1999) is "not a show where people make fun of bad movies." That'll come as a surprise to most of its fans, but Morgan argues that there's a difference between a snarky takedown of a lousy movie and a barrage of jokes about lousy filmmaking in general, served up with a heaping side order of pop culture references. While the show couldn't have existed without movies to riff on, the movies themselves (with the possible exception of MANOS) are important only to the extent to which they can generate jokes; yet the movies chosen for the show say something about the show, in a sort of feedback loop. Why these movies? What made them so suitable for the show's unique vibe?
Morgan charts MST3K's evolution from seasons zero through ten in brief essays on the KTMA-era GAMERA, THE CRAWLING EYE, CATALINA CAPER, POD PEOPLE, MANOS, MITCHELL, KITTEN WITH A WHIP, LASERBLAST, MST3K: THE MOVIE, SPACE MUTINY, HOBGOBLINS, SOULTAKER, and DANGER: DIABOLIK, each of which was instructive as a success (in terms of the show), a qualified success, or an outright failure. (CATALINA CAPER and the MST feature film fail for interesting reasons.) This isn't an academic film studies text, and though Morgan declares his book a work of film criticism, it reads more as an intellectually ambitious piece of fan writing, one that raises good points ("Maybe what [the Best Brains saw in CATALINA CAPER] was basically a comedy about the characters from THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY") while completely overlooking others.
There's Morgan's remarkable statement that "there are only really three kinds of films that fall into what we think of as B movies": exploitation films, monster movies, and the "teen angst" drama. He's somehow forgotten about genre movies: whole oceans of B movies built on standard issue plots about spies, detectives, soldiers, gangsters, and cowboys. Elsewhere, he falls into the my-taste-in-mass-culture-is-better-than-yours trap, dismissing SHARKNADO and its ilk as "cheap, cynical attempts to capture the zeitgeist...I would like to think that the folks behind MST3K, given the chance, would not even give these SyFy films the honor of being riffed. Save that for the noble failures." He writes this in all sincerity, as if watching THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU was somehow a more ennobling experience than watching SHARKNADO.
This isn't a bad book, especially if you're willing to push back against some of Morgan's more overreaching statements. MST3K is a funny show that deserves a book of serious criticism. I'm not convinced that this is it, but it's a start.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/07.....cm_rdp_product
reviewed by Roochak
It's Chris Morgan's contention that MST3K (1988 - 1999) is "not a show where people make fun of bad movies." That'll come as a surprise to most of its fans, but Morgan argues that there's a difference between a snarky takedown of a lousy movie and a barrage of jokes about lousy filmmaking in general, served up with a heaping side order of pop culture references. While the show couldn't have existed without movies to riff on, the movies themselves (with the possible exception of MANOS) are important only to the extent to which they can generate jokes; yet the movies chosen for the show say something about the show, in a sort of feedback loop. Why these movies? What made them so suitable for the show's unique vibe?
Morgan charts MST3K's evolution from seasons zero through ten in brief essays on the KTMA-era GAMERA, THE CRAWLING EYE, CATALINA CAPER, POD PEOPLE, MANOS, MITCHELL, KITTEN WITH A WHIP, LASERBLAST, MST3K: THE MOVIE, SPACE MUTINY, HOBGOBLINS, SOULTAKER, and DANGER: DIABOLIK, each of which was instructive as a success (in terms of the show), a qualified success, or an outright failure. (CATALINA CAPER and the MST feature film fail for interesting reasons.) This isn't an academic film studies text, and though Morgan declares his book a work of film criticism, it reads more as an intellectually ambitious piece of fan writing, one that raises good points ("Maybe what [the Best Brains saw in CATALINA CAPER] was basically a comedy about the characters from THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY") while completely overlooking others.
There's Morgan's remarkable statement that "there are only really three kinds of films that fall into what we think of as B movies": exploitation films, monster movies, and the "teen angst" drama. He's somehow forgotten about genre movies: whole oceans of B movies built on standard issue plots about spies, detectives, soldiers, gangsters, and cowboys. Elsewhere, he falls into the my-taste-in-mass-culture-is-better-than-yours trap, dismissing SHARKNADO and its ilk as "cheap, cynical attempts to capture the zeitgeist...I would like to think that the folks behind MST3K, given the chance, would not even give these SyFy films the honor of being riffed. Save that for the noble failures." He writes this in all sincerity, as if watching THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU was somehow a more ennobling experience than watching SHARKNADO.
This isn't a bad book, especially if you're willing to push back against some of Morgan's more overreaching statements. MST3K is a funny show that deserves a book of serious criticism. I'm not convinced that this is it, but it's a start.
Image Comics Goes Furry -- For Once
General | Posted 10 years agoISLAND #6, edited by Brandon Graham and Emma Rios (Image Comics, $7.99)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0....._=cm_cr-mr-img
reviewed by Roochak
I'd never heard of ISLAND 'til now, but the latest issue of the Image Comics anthology series features a grab-the-furries wraparound cover -- a real eyecatcher on a rack full of this week's JUSTICE LEAGUE spinoffs. That cover and the thirty-page lead story, "Badge of Pride," are by popular artist Onta, of Hardblush dot com, and they show that he's no slouch at doing quietly dynamic slice-of-life stories when he's not busy drawing gay furry porn. A group of friends spend a day at the pride parade, and the story lets us eavesdrop on four young gay men and their very different modes of self-expression (and self-acceptance) in the public forum. I really enjoyed it.
Can't say the same about the rest of this issue. Gael Bertrand's "A Land Called Tarot: Le Bateleur" ("The Magician") is a beautifully drawn, wordless fantasy comic in which the reader is invited to linger over each exquisitely rendered panel while allowing his imagination to roam, filling in the details of the story that the drawings only hint at. It's a collaborative work between artist and reader, but I've never been a fan of the one-random-event-after-another school of fantasy, especially when I have to do half of the artist's job for him. It's just not my thing.
Australian artist F Choo provides some mysterious endpapers, Katie Skelly contributes a fashion ad parody, and there's an unreadable three-page whatever by Sarah Horrocks. A mixed bag, and a reminder of why I'm leery of anthology comics in general.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0....._=cm_cr-mr-img
reviewed by Roochak
I'd never heard of ISLAND 'til now, but the latest issue of the Image Comics anthology series features a grab-the-furries wraparound cover -- a real eyecatcher on a rack full of this week's JUSTICE LEAGUE spinoffs. That cover and the thirty-page lead story, "Badge of Pride," are by popular artist Onta, of Hardblush dot com, and they show that he's no slouch at doing quietly dynamic slice-of-life stories when he's not busy drawing gay furry porn. A group of friends spend a day at the pride parade, and the story lets us eavesdrop on four young gay men and their very different modes of self-expression (and self-acceptance) in the public forum. I really enjoyed it.
Can't say the same about the rest of this issue. Gael Bertrand's "A Land Called Tarot: Le Bateleur" ("The Magician") is a beautifully drawn, wordless fantasy comic in which the reader is invited to linger over each exquisitely rendered panel while allowing his imagination to roam, filling in the details of the story that the drawings only hint at. It's a collaborative work between artist and reader, but I've never been a fan of the one-random-event-after-another school of fantasy, especially when I have to do half of the artist's job for him. It's just not my thing.
Australian artist F Choo provides some mysterious endpapers, Katie Skelly contributes a fashion ad parody, and there's an unreadable three-page whatever by Sarah Horrocks. A mixed bag, and a reminder of why I'm leery of anthology comics in general.
The Art of the LP/CD Cover Designer
General | Posted 10 years agoA BRIEF HISTORY OF ALBUM COVERS by Jason Draper (Flame Tree, 2008, 978-184-786-2112)
http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Album-Covers/dp/184786211X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451409168&sr=1-2&keywords=history+of+album
173 album covers, reproduced in a handy 6.5" x 6.5" format -- better than a 5" x 5" CD booklet, and doing what justice it can to a 12" x 12" LP sleeve. Author Jason Draper sees album covers (the better-designed ones, anyway) as "cultural statements, on which fantasies were projected and unorthodox cigarettes were rolled." In other words, he's searching some of the ultimate objects of consumer capitalism for moments of imagination and transcendence. Sounds good to me.
Weirdly, Draper declines to identify many of the photographers, designers, and artists who created the covers, giving us only his one-paragraph interpretations of the images, along with a list of songwriters for that album. Although there were plenty of talented graphic designers in the era of the 10" disc (Axel Steinweiss, Jim Flora, and Robert Jones come to mind), Draper's survey begins well into the LP era, with a selection of 'fifties jazz (the biggest-selling format for rock 'n roll was the 45 rpm single, not the album). The 'sixties, for Draper, don't begin until 1965, with Bob Dylan's symbol-laden cover for BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME. From there on, it's the usual suspects, with a few surprises (Scott Walker, Soft Machine, It's a Beautiful Day, Plastic Ono Band).
Rather than concentrate on the elaborate airbrush paintings that seemed to define 'seventies album covers, Draper casts a wider net and drags in absolutely everything: Pink Floyd's cow portrait, Sly Stone's "improved" American flag, Bob Marley & the Wailer's "Zippo" cover, Neon Park's cartoon paintings, Kraftwerk's Constructivist group portrait, Supertramp's NYC-as-a-breakfast-table skyline, a drunken Carly Simon on her knees in lingerie and knee-length boots. The 'eighties, the decade of new romanticism, synthpop, metal, dance music, and political protest rock, seems to have fallen back on more conservative imagery, aside from Prince's thong, the Dead Kennedys' burning police cars, Bow Wow Wow's nude, 15-year-old girl, and H.R. Giger's mutilated Debbie Harry.
The 'nineties: a decade of self-loathing slackers, hip hop thugs, and NPR listeners wondering what to make of it all. By this time, there were no consensus heroes in rock or pop, and the visual aesthetic on display here is a cool, distancing irony, occasionally leavened with deadpan humor: Ol' Dirty Bastard's welfare card, a porn star on the cover of Blink-182's ENEMA OF THE STATE, the unidentifiable thing captured in mid-leap on Beck's ODELAY.
Frankly, I don't know what to make of the album covers from 2000-2006, but some older and really distinctive covers are conspicuous by their absence: THE GILDED PALACE OF SIN (A&M, 1969); UNHALFBRICKING (Island, 1969); PINK MOON (Island, 1972); the original version of APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION (Geffen, 1987); DANGEROUS (Epic, 1991); CONGREGATION (Sub Pop, 1992); GENTLEMEN (Elektra/Blast First, 1993); LIVE THROUGH THIS (DGC, 1994). Your list will differ from mine.
http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Album-Covers/dp/184786211X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451409168&sr=1-2&keywords=history+of+album
173 album covers, reproduced in a handy 6.5" x 6.5" format -- better than a 5" x 5" CD booklet, and doing what justice it can to a 12" x 12" LP sleeve. Author Jason Draper sees album covers (the better-designed ones, anyway) as "cultural statements, on which fantasies were projected and unorthodox cigarettes were rolled." In other words, he's searching some of the ultimate objects of consumer capitalism for moments of imagination and transcendence. Sounds good to me.
Weirdly, Draper declines to identify many of the photographers, designers, and artists who created the covers, giving us only his one-paragraph interpretations of the images, along with a list of songwriters for that album. Although there were plenty of talented graphic designers in the era of the 10" disc (Axel Steinweiss, Jim Flora, and Robert Jones come to mind), Draper's survey begins well into the LP era, with a selection of 'fifties jazz (the biggest-selling format for rock 'n roll was the 45 rpm single, not the album). The 'sixties, for Draper, don't begin until 1965, with Bob Dylan's symbol-laden cover for BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME. From there on, it's the usual suspects, with a few surprises (Scott Walker, Soft Machine, It's a Beautiful Day, Plastic Ono Band).
Rather than concentrate on the elaborate airbrush paintings that seemed to define 'seventies album covers, Draper casts a wider net and drags in absolutely everything: Pink Floyd's cow portrait, Sly Stone's "improved" American flag, Bob Marley & the Wailer's "Zippo" cover, Neon Park's cartoon paintings, Kraftwerk's Constructivist group portrait, Supertramp's NYC-as-a-breakfast-table skyline, a drunken Carly Simon on her knees in lingerie and knee-length boots. The 'eighties, the decade of new romanticism, synthpop, metal, dance music, and political protest rock, seems to have fallen back on more conservative imagery, aside from Prince's thong, the Dead Kennedys' burning police cars, Bow Wow Wow's nude, 15-year-old girl, and H.R. Giger's mutilated Debbie Harry.
The 'nineties: a decade of self-loathing slackers, hip hop thugs, and NPR listeners wondering what to make of it all. By this time, there were no consensus heroes in rock or pop, and the visual aesthetic on display here is a cool, distancing irony, occasionally leavened with deadpan humor: Ol' Dirty Bastard's welfare card, a porn star on the cover of Blink-182's ENEMA OF THE STATE, the unidentifiable thing captured in mid-leap on Beck's ODELAY.
Frankly, I don't know what to make of the album covers from 2000-2006, but some older and really distinctive covers are conspicuous by their absence: THE GILDED PALACE OF SIN (A&M, 1969); UNHALFBRICKING (Island, 1969); PINK MOON (Island, 1972); the original version of APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION (Geffen, 1987); DANGEROUS (Epic, 1991); CONGREGATION (Sub Pop, 1992); GENTLEMEN (Elektra/Blast First, 1993); LIVE THROUGH THIS (DGC, 1994). Your list will differ from mine.
Never Say Never Again
General | Posted 10 years agoSo has anyone seen the new Danger Mouse series yet? Whaddaya think of it?
Lola Bunny, Leading Lady
General | Posted 10 years agoLOONEY TUNES: RABBITS RUN (2015)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0....._new_dp_review
Think of this as a romantic comedy with Lola Bunny sharing top billing with Bugs, and you won't be disappointed. Rachel ("Mike Tyson Mysteries") Ramras, the third actor to provide Lola's voice, plays her as a spazzy-cute obsessive who shakes up everyone and everything around her, including the unflappable Bugs. Ramras, who co-wrote the screenplay and co-directed the voice cast, turns Lola into a screwball but stunning leading lady, in contrast to Kristen Wiig's scary-crazy Lola in THE LOONEY TUNES SHOW. I enjoy both approaches to the character, but Ramras's Lola is definitely the more marketable version.
If anything, RABBITS RUN is the first big step in promoting Lola from the supporting cast to the first female character in the front lines of the Looney Tunes boys' club (unless you count the gender-ambiguous Tweety). As a trickster figure who can hold her own with Bugs Bunny, she's got possibilities -- let's see what Warners does with her next. The present movie is more than watchable, but if you were expecting another slice of THE LOONEY TUNES SHOW, forget it. The Macguffin is an invisibility formula accidentally created by Lola, for which she and Bugs are chased by absolutely everyone, pausing only for a couple of musical numbers. The one sung by Mac and Tosh is, of course, completely over the top, and they get to do more cross-dressing than Bugs (Bugs, by the way, wears heels in his scenes as a female flight attendant, and his calves are spectacular).
The disc's bonus cartoons are a random assortment: the Looney Tunes Show's pilot episode, three digital Road Runner cartoons from 2010, and a digital Sylvester & Tweety from 2011.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0....._new_dp_review
Think of this as a romantic comedy with Lola Bunny sharing top billing with Bugs, and you won't be disappointed. Rachel ("Mike Tyson Mysteries") Ramras, the third actor to provide Lola's voice, plays her as a spazzy-cute obsessive who shakes up everyone and everything around her, including the unflappable Bugs. Ramras, who co-wrote the screenplay and co-directed the voice cast, turns Lola into a screwball but stunning leading lady, in contrast to Kristen Wiig's scary-crazy Lola in THE LOONEY TUNES SHOW. I enjoy both approaches to the character, but Ramras's Lola is definitely the more marketable version.
If anything, RABBITS RUN is the first big step in promoting Lola from the supporting cast to the first female character in the front lines of the Looney Tunes boys' club (unless you count the gender-ambiguous Tweety). As a trickster figure who can hold her own with Bugs Bunny, she's got possibilities -- let's see what Warners does with her next. The present movie is more than watchable, but if you were expecting another slice of THE LOONEY TUNES SHOW, forget it. The Macguffin is an invisibility formula accidentally created by Lola, for which she and Bugs are chased by absolutely everyone, pausing only for a couple of musical numbers. The one sung by Mac and Tosh is, of course, completely over the top, and they get to do more cross-dressing than Bugs (Bugs, by the way, wears heels in his scenes as a female flight attendant, and his calves are spectacular).
The disc's bonus cartoons are a random assortment: the Looney Tunes Show's pilot episode, three digital Road Runner cartoons from 2010, and a digital Sylvester & Tweety from 2011.
Time is on whose side?
General | Posted 10 years agoREGULAR SHOW: THE MOVIE
http://www.amazon.com/Regular-Show-Movie-J-G-Quintel/dp/B013VYHKJ0/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1444366439&sr=1-1&keywords=regular+show+the+movie
Because THE REGULAR SHOW is a slice-of-life comedy taking place in an absurd and distorted version of everyday reality, the crash landing of a spaceship from the future is only slightly out of the ordinary for these characters. This movie is a bromance in science fiction epic clothing, and it packs an emotional punch by stretching Mordo and Riggs's friendship to the breaking point. One lie snowballs into a lifetime of bad decisions, and that's the real story here; the plot, wittily summarized on the back cover as "Save the universe from yourselves, or you're fired!" is almost irrelevant.
It's a very funny movie, but it's a shame that Warners has better things to do than release full seasons of THE REGULAR SHOW on disc.
http://www.amazon.com/Regular-Show-Movie-J-G-Quintel/dp/B013VYHKJ0/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1444366439&sr=1-1&keywords=regular+show+the+movie
Because THE REGULAR SHOW is a slice-of-life comedy taking place in an absurd and distorted version of everyday reality, the crash landing of a spaceship from the future is only slightly out of the ordinary for these characters. This movie is a bromance in science fiction epic clothing, and it packs an emotional punch by stretching Mordo and Riggs's friendship to the breaking point. One lie snowballs into a lifetime of bad decisions, and that's the real story here; the plot, wittily summarized on the back cover as "Save the universe from yourselves, or you're fired!" is almost irrelevant.
It's a very funny movie, but it's a shame that Warners has better things to do than release full seasons of THE REGULAR SHOW on disc.
A Child's Garden of Satan
General | Posted 10 years agoMST3K: MERLIN'S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...../ref=pd_sim__2
Director Kenneth J. Berton, having nothing better to do with his 1984 turkey THE DEVIL'S GIFT, recycled it in this 1996 anthology film, probably the most inappropriate children's movie ever made. Ernest Borgnine plays a kindly old man who tells two nightmare-inducing bedtime stories to his grandson, both involving a modern-day Merlin. In the first, a pompous critic gets his comeuppance; in the second, which seems suspiciously similar to a 1980 Stephen King short story, a Satanic toy monkey targets a young boy and his family for death.
This tenth season classic never misses a beat in eviscerating a movie that should never have been released. The booze Borgnine's character must've been drinking is kept tastefully offscreen, and the disconnect between the grandson's outward cheerfulness and the alternating boredom and terror he must've been feeling is pure movie riffing gold.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...../ref=pd_sim__2
Director Kenneth J. Berton, having nothing better to do with his 1984 turkey THE DEVIL'S GIFT, recycled it in this 1996 anthology film, probably the most inappropriate children's movie ever made. Ernest Borgnine plays a kindly old man who tells two nightmare-inducing bedtime stories to his grandson, both involving a modern-day Merlin. In the first, a pompous critic gets his comeuppance; in the second, which seems suspiciously similar to a 1980 Stephen King short story, a Satanic toy monkey targets a young boy and his family for death.
This tenth season classic never misses a beat in eviscerating a movie that should never have been released. The booze Borgnine's character must've been drinking is kept tastefully offscreen, and the disconnect between the grandson's outward cheerfulness and the alternating boredom and terror he must've been feeling is pure movie riffing gold.
Prestige Records: Good Music, Weird Graphic Design
General | Posted 10 years agoPRESTIGE RECORDS: THE ALBUM COVER COLLECTION (Concord Music Group, 978-061531-8363)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615318363....._new_dp_review
reviewed by Roochak
Oddball album covers, some of which have become iconic in spite of themselves -- that, in a nutshell, is the story of Prestige Records' graphic design. Fortunately, Bob Weinstock was in the right place at the right time to record some of the outstanding musicians of the 20th century: Miles, Monk, Coltrane, Rollins, and so on.
If you enjoy playing detective, you're gonna love this book, which omits such basic information as the release dates (and in a couple cases the titles) of the 122 album covers reproduced. From the embarrassingly primitive cut-and-paste covers from around 1950, through the soul jazz releases of the late '60s, Prestige was a low budget operation, and the art design often looked it.
What's surprising is how often the label's try-anything-once approach to design works. Abstract art? We got that: Don Schlitten's strong, stark, red-and-black design for SOUL BURNIN' and his agressive black slashes for SONNY BOY; Reid Miles' "found," industrial abstraction for MAL-1 and his indefinably cool, asymmetric duotone graphics for ROLLINS PLAYS FOR BIRD; Gil Melle's blue shape for THELONIOUS MONK TRIO. Cartoons? We got Don Martin doing Edward Gorey, David Young doing David Stone Martin, Prophet Jennings doing Giorgio de Chirico, and Phil Keys doing Andy Warhol.
We got Warhol himself hand-lettering THELONIOUS MONK WITH SONNY ROLLINS AND FRANK FOSTER around Reid Miles' abstract design of the pianist's name, and Tom Hannan's witty visual pun of TOMMY FLANAGAN OVERSEAS. We got time-lapse landscapes and Walker Evans-like rural doorways, but above all we've got some great portrait photography by Esmond Edwards, Don Schlitten, Burt Goldblatt, Joe Alper, and Bob Parent, as well as Bob Weinstock's earnest amateur efforts. The portraits are fascinating, sometimes for the wrong reasons (a tuxedoed Jack McDuff sitting on the grass, Houston Person in a dashiki, Gene Ammons simply looking stoned as hell), but more often just right, as when Dolphy, Stitt, Coltrane, and Hawkins seem to have forgotten the photographer entirely. Miles was too wary to let that happen: even when relaxed, he looks defiantly posed. As a personal favorite, there's probably never been a better shot of Red Garland than Edwards' iconic sepiatone profile of the pianist for SOUL JUNCTION.
The book comes with a CD featuring nine tracks by Miles, Getz, Rollins, McLean, Coltrane, Dolphy, Booker Ervin, Mose Allison, and a street person called Moondog. It's a pretty good sampler, but the 2-CD "Very Best of Prestige Records" is a better one.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615318363....._new_dp_review
reviewed by Roochak
Oddball album covers, some of which have become iconic in spite of themselves -- that, in a nutshell, is the story of Prestige Records' graphic design. Fortunately, Bob Weinstock was in the right place at the right time to record some of the outstanding musicians of the 20th century: Miles, Monk, Coltrane, Rollins, and so on.
If you enjoy playing detective, you're gonna love this book, which omits such basic information as the release dates (and in a couple cases the titles) of the 122 album covers reproduced. From the embarrassingly primitive cut-and-paste covers from around 1950, through the soul jazz releases of the late '60s, Prestige was a low budget operation, and the art design often looked it.
What's surprising is how often the label's try-anything-once approach to design works. Abstract art? We got that: Don Schlitten's strong, stark, red-and-black design for SOUL BURNIN' and his agressive black slashes for SONNY BOY; Reid Miles' "found," industrial abstraction for MAL-1 and his indefinably cool, asymmetric duotone graphics for ROLLINS PLAYS FOR BIRD; Gil Melle's blue shape for THELONIOUS MONK TRIO. Cartoons? We got Don Martin doing Edward Gorey, David Young doing David Stone Martin, Prophet Jennings doing Giorgio de Chirico, and Phil Keys doing Andy Warhol.
We got Warhol himself hand-lettering THELONIOUS MONK WITH SONNY ROLLINS AND FRANK FOSTER around Reid Miles' abstract design of the pianist's name, and Tom Hannan's witty visual pun of TOMMY FLANAGAN OVERSEAS. We got time-lapse landscapes and Walker Evans-like rural doorways, but above all we've got some great portrait photography by Esmond Edwards, Don Schlitten, Burt Goldblatt, Joe Alper, and Bob Parent, as well as Bob Weinstock's earnest amateur efforts. The portraits are fascinating, sometimes for the wrong reasons (a tuxedoed Jack McDuff sitting on the grass, Houston Person in a dashiki, Gene Ammons simply looking stoned as hell), but more often just right, as when Dolphy, Stitt, Coltrane, and Hawkins seem to have forgotten the photographer entirely. Miles was too wary to let that happen: even when relaxed, he looks defiantly posed. As a personal favorite, there's probably never been a better shot of Red Garland than Edwards' iconic sepiatone profile of the pianist for SOUL JUNCTION.
The book comes with a CD featuring nine tracks by Miles, Getz, Rollins, McLean, Coltrane, Dolphy, Booker Ervin, Mose Allison, and a street person called Moondog. It's a pretty good sampler, but the 2-CD "Very Best of Prestige Records" is a better one.
We Miss Yinz Already
General | Posted 10 years agoI'm not one for writing con reports, but I had to give a shout out to everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, in attendance at Anthrocon 2015. You made this weekend the most fun I've had at a con in years, even with PennDOT closing off I-376, the resulting bottleneck traffic in the Fort Pitt Tunnel, the long detour through Carnegie (whose only inhabitants seem to be elderly Ukrainians and Italians), and the shorter but scarier detour along a (literally) crumbling road through the hills of Crafton.
The locals seem to have gotten over their initial suspicion of us, and are now seeing Anthrocon as Pittsburgh's very own Mardi Gras. They've certainly embraced the fursuit parade as an unofficial local holiday, an estimated 5,000 civilians turning out to watch 1,460 'suiters in AC's first-ever public parade.
As for
flatrat and I, we received such generous, positive, and encouraging feedback from our friends, fans, and fellow artists that we soon shitcanned our initial idea that this might be our last appearance at AC. Y'all rock!
The locals seem to have gotten over their initial suspicion of us, and are now seeing Anthrocon as Pittsburgh's very own Mardi Gras. They've certainly embraced the fursuit parade as an unofficial local holiday, an estimated 5,000 civilians turning out to watch 1,460 'suiters in AC's first-ever public parade.
As for
flatrat and I, we received such generous, positive, and encouraging feedback from our friends, fans, and fellow artists that we soon shitcanned our initial idea that this might be our last appearance at AC. Y'all rock!"But above anything else, I love the children"
General | Posted 10 years agoTHE INNOCENTS (1961), directed by Jack Clayton (The Criterion Collection). Based on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Innocents.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
Who's really in danger here -- Deborah Kerr's virginal, increasingly unhinged governess, or the unnervingly adult youngsters in her charge?
It's Henry James by way of screenwriter Truman Capote, which explains why the two young actors (Pamela Franklin and Martin Stephens) utter dialogue far too arch and knowing to be issuing from the mouths of children, which is precisely the point. It's another dream project for director Jack Clayton, one of the seven films he completed in a thirty year, hard luck career. It's a tour de force for actress Deborah Kerr, whose character's actions are balanced on a knife edge of heroic resolve and utter insanity.
And yes, it's one of the scariest ghost stories I've ever seen. We're never quite sure of what we're hearing or seeing in this film, which quietly refuses to clear up any of its ambiguities.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Innocents.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
Who's really in danger here -- Deborah Kerr's virginal, increasingly unhinged governess, or the unnervingly adult youngsters in her charge?
It's Henry James by way of screenwriter Truman Capote, which explains why the two young actors (Pamela Franklin and Martin Stephens) utter dialogue far too arch and knowing to be issuing from the mouths of children, which is precisely the point. It's another dream project for director Jack Clayton, one of the seven films he completed in a thirty year, hard luck career. It's a tour de force for actress Deborah Kerr, whose character's actions are balanced on a knife edge of heroic resolve and utter insanity.
And yes, it's one of the scariest ghost stories I've ever seen. We're never quite sure of what we're hearing or seeing in this film, which quietly refuses to clear up any of its ambiguities.
Postapocalypse Mickey: Upsetting the SF Applecart
General | Posted 10 years agoTHINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME: SELECTED SHORT FICTION 1980 - 2005 by Howard Waldrop (Old Earth Books, 2007)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1882968360....._new_dp_review
Howard Waldrop's stories are proof, if you need it, that science fiction isn't a collection of tropes (far future, space travel, technology, etc.); it's a way of seeing things. While there's no such thing as a typical Waldrop story, a familiar Waldrop protagonist keeps surfacing: working class, tough-minded, practical, contrarian. This is the character who has to figure out how to live when the bottom drops out of his universe ("Calling Your Name," "King of Where-I-Go," "Mr. Goober's Show").
But then there's the sheer otherness of the bulk of his stories: a thirteen-year-old African boy obsessed with writing a history play; secret agent Kit Marlowe, dispatched to terminate the sorcerer John Faust; an obsessed American director using CGI to create a French New Wave art film starring himself; a wily sheriff vs. H.G. Wells' Martian invaders in 1898 Texas; Mickey, Donald, and Goofy at the end of time; and have you heard the one about the three Romans and a centaur? ("The only way I'll write a fantasy story is as if it were happening to truck drivers," says the author.)
Science fiction, Waldrop keeps reminding us, is a great way not to make money: he points to "US" (included here), the shorter, better version of an idea that Philip Roth ran with in the later novel THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, as Exhibit A in a long career of one-of-a-kind, Hugo- and Nebula-nominated, perennial best-of-the-year-anthology stories that hardly anyone seems to know about.
You should get to know them. You'll be glad you did.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1882968360....._new_dp_review
Howard Waldrop's stories are proof, if you need it, that science fiction isn't a collection of tropes (far future, space travel, technology, etc.); it's a way of seeing things. While there's no such thing as a typical Waldrop story, a familiar Waldrop protagonist keeps surfacing: working class, tough-minded, practical, contrarian. This is the character who has to figure out how to live when the bottom drops out of his universe ("Calling Your Name," "King of Where-I-Go," "Mr. Goober's Show").
But then there's the sheer otherness of the bulk of his stories: a thirteen-year-old African boy obsessed with writing a history play; secret agent Kit Marlowe, dispatched to terminate the sorcerer John Faust; an obsessed American director using CGI to create a French New Wave art film starring himself; a wily sheriff vs. H.G. Wells' Martian invaders in 1898 Texas; Mickey, Donald, and Goofy at the end of time; and have you heard the one about the three Romans and a centaur? ("The only way I'll write a fantasy story is as if it were happening to truck drivers," says the author.)
Science fiction, Waldrop keeps reminding us, is a great way not to make money: he points to "US" (included here), the shorter, better version of an idea that Philip Roth ran with in the later novel THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, as Exhibit A in a long career of one-of-a-kind, Hugo- and Nebula-nominated, perennial best-of-the-year-anthology stories that hardly anyone seems to know about.
You should get to know them. You'll be glad you did.
The Sad Super-Truth, the Dirty Dynamic Lowdown
General | Posted 10 years agoTHE LEAGUE OF REGRETTABLE SUPERHEROES by Jon Morris (Quirk Books, 2015)
My review is posted at Popzara:
http://www.popzara.com/culture/book.....erheroes-2015/
My review is posted at Popzara:
http://www.popzara.com/culture/book.....erheroes-2015/
The Classical Concerto, in Brief
General | Posted 10 years agoCONCERTO CONVERSATIONS by Joseph Kerman (Harvard University Press; out of print, but available online, cheap)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674006739....._new_dp_review
reviewed by Roochak
Given the popularity of the concerto -- it isn't easy to attend a symphony concert that doesn't have one on the program -- you'd think there'd be a wider-ranging conversation in print about the musical relationships between soloist(s) and orchestra that doesn't just stop at all-purpose words like "dramatic." It's useful, though, to keep the metaphor of drama in mind as we listen, for as Joseph Kerman argues in these lectures, there's a good deal of roleplaying going on in concertos.
But first, in describing the kinds of duality we hear in them, Kerman suggests the terms "polarity," "reciprocity" and "diffusion." Polarity, in which orchestra and solo play different musical material without sharing it, is typical of the early 18th century; reciprocity, in which the concerto agents share musical material between them, is typical of the Classical and Romantic eras; and diffusion witnesses the integration of soloist and orchestra in much post-Romantic music.
Within these modes, Kerman anthropomorphises solo and orchestra into any number of roles the music suggests: "EAVESDROPPER, TEASE, SURVIVOR, VICTIM, MOURNER, MINX, LOVER, CRITIC, EDITOR..." It's fun, for example, to read of piano and orchestra in the third movement of Mozart's D minor concerto locked together like pitbulls, or to see Chaikovsky's (yes, Kerman spells it that way) violin concerto described as the quasi-narrative of a mistress whose servant, the orchestra, evolves into her critic and equal partner.
Speaking of critics, in particular those who seem embarrassed by virtuoso display, Kerman construes virtuosity to encompass bravura (chops), mimesis (mimicry, especially vocal), and spontaneity, and argues that in the absence of display, you don't have a concerto; you have a symphony with an obbligato solo part. Spontaneity (or the ability to make through-composed music sound spontaneous) is the essence of virtuosity. He praises the Liszt piano concertos ("a hard sell," he admits) and leaves us with the wonderful reminder that "listening to flawed virtuosity is like watching college football -- a site of empathy and rapture for fans and alumni, but noplace on the scale of aesthetic experience."
The CD of concerto movements that comes with this book is, of course, useless until you convert it to MP3 files. How else are you gonna cue up those musical examples when you're reading on the go?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674006739....._new_dp_review
reviewed by Roochak
Given the popularity of the concerto -- it isn't easy to attend a symphony concert that doesn't have one on the program -- you'd think there'd be a wider-ranging conversation in print about the musical relationships between soloist(s) and orchestra that doesn't just stop at all-purpose words like "dramatic." It's useful, though, to keep the metaphor of drama in mind as we listen, for as Joseph Kerman argues in these lectures, there's a good deal of roleplaying going on in concertos.
But first, in describing the kinds of duality we hear in them, Kerman suggests the terms "polarity," "reciprocity" and "diffusion." Polarity, in which orchestra and solo play different musical material without sharing it, is typical of the early 18th century; reciprocity, in which the concerto agents share musical material between them, is typical of the Classical and Romantic eras; and diffusion witnesses the integration of soloist and orchestra in much post-Romantic music.
Within these modes, Kerman anthropomorphises solo and orchestra into any number of roles the music suggests: "EAVESDROPPER, TEASE, SURVIVOR, VICTIM, MOURNER, MINX, LOVER, CRITIC, EDITOR..." It's fun, for example, to read of piano and orchestra in the third movement of Mozart's D minor concerto locked together like pitbulls, or to see Chaikovsky's (yes, Kerman spells it that way) violin concerto described as the quasi-narrative of a mistress whose servant, the orchestra, evolves into her critic and equal partner.
Speaking of critics, in particular those who seem embarrassed by virtuoso display, Kerman construes virtuosity to encompass bravura (chops), mimesis (mimicry, especially vocal), and spontaneity, and argues that in the absence of display, you don't have a concerto; you have a symphony with an obbligato solo part. Spontaneity (or the ability to make through-composed music sound spontaneous) is the essence of virtuosity. He praises the Liszt piano concertos ("a hard sell," he admits) and leaves us with the wonderful reminder that "listening to flawed virtuosity is like watching college football -- a site of empathy and rapture for fans and alumni, but noplace on the scale of aesthetic experience."
The CD of concerto movements that comes with this book is, of course, useless until you convert it to MP3 files. How else are you gonna cue up those musical examples when you're reading on the go?
It's Only Rock 'n Roll, But She Likes It
General | Posted 10 years agoWHAT MAKES THIS BOOK SO GREAT: RE-READING THE CLASSICS OF SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY by Jo Walton (Tor Books, paperback, 978-0765331946)
http://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-This-Book-Great/dp/0765331942/ref=sr_1_1_twi_3_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432231480&sr=1-1&keywords=what+makes+this+book+so+great+by+jo+walton
I originally published this review at http://www.popzara.com/culture/what.....book-so-great/
Jo Walton, by her own admission, isn’t a literary critic. Remember that, it’ll be important later. She’s an out, proud, and in your face SF fangirl with a blog on Tor.com where she gets to write about the books she’s been re-reading lately: Heinlein, Tiptree, Tolkien, Willis, Clarke, Delany, whatever catches her fancy. (Walton’s street cred comes from the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards she’s won for her own novels.) Now she collects and fleshes out many of these entries in her new book What Makes This Book So Great, published by Tor Books, of course.
How deeply you get into these collected blog entries, posted between 2008 and 2011, depends on how you define a “classic” compared with Walton, which is the problem. Here’s Walton herself on what she’s mostly into reading:
“When I think of my comfort re-reads they all tend to be things where everything comes out all right in the end – children’s books, romances, and military stories. The characters in these sorts of books tend to be justified in what they do. There’s a certain black and white nature to everything. They tend to be series, so I can really soak myself in them, or if not series then at least a lot of books to the same formula…The other thing they have in common is that while the prose might be clunky, the characters might have only two dimensions and the plots when examined may be ridiculous, they’re really good on the storytelling level…they’re button-pushing, but they’re honest. They’re the author’s buttons too.”
So that explains why we’re treated to so many essays about C.J. Cherryh’s Union-Alliance novels, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan adventures, and Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos fantasies! Not that she doesn’t read these books insightfully, but there’s no real difference between the pleasure one gets from reading prose novels like these and reading X-Men or Justice League or any of a dozen other long-running comic book adventure series. Same emotional investment, same thrills, fewer pictures. But for those who are into it, Walton spends a lot of time with SF adventure series, and always gives you fair warning before disclosing any spoilers.
Rather than define SF, a thankless task anyway, she comes up with an interesting distinction between SF and the mainstream (“mimetic fiction”): that the world is a character in one, and the characters are the world in the other. Her musings on SF reading protocols hypothesize that where good science fiction readers see incredible things – tachyon drives, dragons, zombies – as part of the story’s reality, people who don’t like or understand SF can’t get past seeing the incredible elements as metaphors for something else. That’s why academics and mainstream critics adore SF books that play games with metaphor and representation: it’s Philip K. Dick, she drily notes, “who has a Library of America edition, not Sturgeon or Heinlein.”
It’s literary critics that Walton has a real problem with. She sees them as too detached from the books they read, too high-minded, too joyless. She’s a compulsive re-reader and she wants to gush about the books she loves, whether they’re in or out of print, first- or second-rate, SF or not. I’ve nothing against re-reading books or gushing about them, but Walton and I have different ideas about what it is that literary critics do. A good critic can be an exciting, eye-opening guide to a familiar or unfamiliar text, but maintaining the proper critical distance for that kind of reading may not be much fun. A fan’s identification with characters in a book may be fun and satisfying, but sharing those sensations with an audience may not be very exciting at all. To some in the audience, it can be like hearing an acquaintance go on and on about bands they love that you have no intention of ever listening to.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-This-Book-Great/dp/0765331942/ref=sr_1_1_twi_3_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432231480&sr=1-1&keywords=what+makes+this+book+so+great+by+jo+walton
I originally published this review at http://www.popzara.com/culture/what.....book-so-great/
Jo Walton, by her own admission, isn’t a literary critic. Remember that, it’ll be important later. She’s an out, proud, and in your face SF fangirl with a blog on Tor.com where she gets to write about the books she’s been re-reading lately: Heinlein, Tiptree, Tolkien, Willis, Clarke, Delany, whatever catches her fancy. (Walton’s street cred comes from the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards she’s won for her own novels.) Now she collects and fleshes out many of these entries in her new book What Makes This Book So Great, published by Tor Books, of course.
How deeply you get into these collected blog entries, posted between 2008 and 2011, depends on how you define a “classic” compared with Walton, which is the problem. Here’s Walton herself on what she’s mostly into reading:
“When I think of my comfort re-reads they all tend to be things where everything comes out all right in the end – children’s books, romances, and military stories. The characters in these sorts of books tend to be justified in what they do. There’s a certain black and white nature to everything. They tend to be series, so I can really soak myself in them, or if not series then at least a lot of books to the same formula…The other thing they have in common is that while the prose might be clunky, the characters might have only two dimensions and the plots when examined may be ridiculous, they’re really good on the storytelling level…they’re button-pushing, but they’re honest. They’re the author’s buttons too.”
So that explains why we’re treated to so many essays about C.J. Cherryh’s Union-Alliance novels, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan adventures, and Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos fantasies! Not that she doesn’t read these books insightfully, but there’s no real difference between the pleasure one gets from reading prose novels like these and reading X-Men or Justice League or any of a dozen other long-running comic book adventure series. Same emotional investment, same thrills, fewer pictures. But for those who are into it, Walton spends a lot of time with SF adventure series, and always gives you fair warning before disclosing any spoilers.
Rather than define SF, a thankless task anyway, she comes up with an interesting distinction between SF and the mainstream (“mimetic fiction”): that the world is a character in one, and the characters are the world in the other. Her musings on SF reading protocols hypothesize that where good science fiction readers see incredible things – tachyon drives, dragons, zombies – as part of the story’s reality, people who don’t like or understand SF can’t get past seeing the incredible elements as metaphors for something else. That’s why academics and mainstream critics adore SF books that play games with metaphor and representation: it’s Philip K. Dick, she drily notes, “who has a Library of America edition, not Sturgeon or Heinlein.”
It’s literary critics that Walton has a real problem with. She sees them as too detached from the books they read, too high-minded, too joyless. She’s a compulsive re-reader and she wants to gush about the books she loves, whether they’re in or out of print, first- or second-rate, SF or not. I’ve nothing against re-reading books or gushing about them, but Walton and I have different ideas about what it is that literary critics do. A good critic can be an exciting, eye-opening guide to a familiar or unfamiliar text, but maintaining the proper critical distance for that kind of reading may not be much fun. A fan’s identification with characters in a book may be fun and satisfying, but sharing those sensations with an audience may not be very exciting at all. To some in the audience, it can be like hearing an acquaintance go on and on about bands they love that you have no intention of ever listening to.
"Maybe it's just a really awful Fantastic Four origin story"
General | Posted 10 years agoRiffTrax Live: SHARKNADO
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VZ06BB6....._new_dp_review
Sharknado is the Springtime for Hitler of disaster movies, a joke that everyone wanted to be in on, after the fact. This modestly-budgeted, made-for-TV masterpiece of ridiculous action set pieces barely needs the riffing, 'cause it has everything: gratuitous bikini shots, bloody fight scenes in which dozens of CGI sharks are dispatched with everything from pool cues to bombs and chainsaws, a complete disregard for scientific fact, and, of course, Ian Ziering's greatest role since Biker Mice from Mars.
Mike, Kevin, and Bill hit their stride when Tara Reid (as Ziering's ex-wife) enters the picture; she gets the funniest and most merciless riffs, and if I wasn't busy laughing so hard, I might almost have a twinge of conscience about that. Before the feature, there's the short "A Case of Spring Fever," reprised from MST3K's tenth season, but with new and funnier jokes.
One reservation, though: I rented this in standard definition and watched it on an old laptop, and the video resolution was, frankly, terrible. Live and learn.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VZ06BB6....._new_dp_review
Sharknado is the Springtime for Hitler of disaster movies, a joke that everyone wanted to be in on, after the fact. This modestly-budgeted, made-for-TV masterpiece of ridiculous action set pieces barely needs the riffing, 'cause it has everything: gratuitous bikini shots, bloody fight scenes in which dozens of CGI sharks are dispatched with everything from pool cues to bombs and chainsaws, a complete disregard for scientific fact, and, of course, Ian Ziering's greatest role since Biker Mice from Mars.
Mike, Kevin, and Bill hit their stride when Tara Reid (as Ziering's ex-wife) enters the picture; she gets the funniest and most merciless riffs, and if I wasn't busy laughing so hard, I might almost have a twinge of conscience about that. Before the feature, there's the short "A Case of Spring Fever," reprised from MST3K's tenth season, but with new and funnier jokes.
One reservation, though: I rented this in standard definition and watched it on an old laptop, and the video resolution was, frankly, terrible. Live and learn.
A Few Nights with Cinematic Titanic
General | Posted 10 years agoMYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 (1988 - 1999), television's original movie-riffing puppet show, was reincarnated, minus the 'bots, in two projects by its cast members: CINEMATIC TITANIC (2007 - 2013), with Joel, Trace, Josh, Frank, and Mary Jo; and RIFFTRAX (2006 - ), with Mike, Kevin, and Bill.
While RiffTrax is a successful, ongoing business, Cinematic Titanic went on indefinite hiatus at the end of 2013. I've been watching some of the earlier CT releases, and jotted down a few thoughts, along with links to the Amazon video downloads; ten episodes are also available at Hulu.
#1: THE OOZING SKULL
http://www.amazon.com/Cinematic-Tit.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
Mad scientist? Check. Evil dwarf assistant? Check. Dying dictator ordering his brain to be transplanted into a younger body? Check. Platinum-haired female impersonator as dictator's main squeeze? Check. This movie has all the ingredients for some great riffing, so why did Joel and his crew feel compelled to stop the film four or five times to perform some tedious comedy skits?
Y'know, I should really just relax. With CT on indefinite hiatus since 2014, and twelve of the fifteen movies they've riffed available online and on disc, there's plenty more to watch, but it may be awhile before we get another serving of this quintet's brand of well-roasted cinematic cheese.
#2: DOOMSDAY MACHINE
http://www.amazon.com/Cinematic-Tit.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
Man, was this one hard to sit through! If ever a movie deserved to be made fun of, it's this staggeringly incompetent 1972 no-budget "thriller" about the end of the world. It comes complete with tons of stock footage; a spaceship (apparently steam powered) that keeps changing its shape; characters played by two different actors, hoping that the audience won't notice; and very long, static scenes of characters doing absolutely nothing.
Joel's quintet comes not to praise this turkey, but to bury it. That they do, but without quite alleviating the pain and boredom of watching a cast of idiots struggle towards the movie's pointless, unsatisfying ending.
#3: THE WASP WOMAN
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0....._sim_mov_aiv_4
You could overanalyze "The Wasp Woman" as a period piece about a cosmetics company owner who sees no difference between saving her business and saving her looks, but let's just enjoy the cheese factor of this slapdash Roger Corman monsterpiece about the high price of drinking from the fountain of youth.
It stars B-movie actress Susan Cabot, in her last feature film (she would die at the hands of her mentally ill son many years later), and offers goofy-looking monster makeup, consistently sharp riffing by Joel and company, and only two annoying comedy skits this time around, one of which is kinda sorta funny if you're a Buddy Rich fan.
#5: SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0....._sim_mov_aiv_5
For a professional smartass, Joel Hodgson has a sentimental streak a mile wide. That he chose to revisit "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" nearly twenty years after the MST3K version shouldn't be surprising: it's a movie that, for all its sad, ludicrous, no-budget faults (and I don't just mean you, Droppo), has a warmth and gentleness that's quite genuine. Watching John Call's impossibly optimistic, reality-challenged Santa is like watching Captain Kangaroo getting sloshed on whiskey-spiced eggnog: jovial, if a little disturbing.
So which version is funnier: MST3K (1992) or Cinematic Titanic (2008)? I'd call it a draw. Some of the jokes in the earlier version can't be topped, but the newer material is very strong, and in some cases an improvement over the '92 version. The "Chochem" scene, truncated for MST3K, is seen in its entirety in the CT version, and the latter has the advantage of a better quality, more colorful print, for what it's worth.
(À propos of nothing, ever notice that the MST3K theme song is as catchy as the theme from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND?)
While RiffTrax is a successful, ongoing business, Cinematic Titanic went on indefinite hiatus at the end of 2013. I've been watching some of the earlier CT releases, and jotted down a few thoughts, along with links to the Amazon video downloads; ten episodes are also available at Hulu.
#1: THE OOZING SKULL
http://www.amazon.com/Cinematic-Tit.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
Mad scientist? Check. Evil dwarf assistant? Check. Dying dictator ordering his brain to be transplanted into a younger body? Check. Platinum-haired female impersonator as dictator's main squeeze? Check. This movie has all the ingredients for some great riffing, so why did Joel and his crew feel compelled to stop the film four or five times to perform some tedious comedy skits?
Y'know, I should really just relax. With CT on indefinite hiatus since 2014, and twelve of the fifteen movies they've riffed available online and on disc, there's plenty more to watch, but it may be awhile before we get another serving of this quintet's brand of well-roasted cinematic cheese.
#2: DOOMSDAY MACHINE
http://www.amazon.com/Cinematic-Tit.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
Man, was this one hard to sit through! If ever a movie deserved to be made fun of, it's this staggeringly incompetent 1972 no-budget "thriller" about the end of the world. It comes complete with tons of stock footage; a spaceship (apparently steam powered) that keeps changing its shape; characters played by two different actors, hoping that the audience won't notice; and very long, static scenes of characters doing absolutely nothing.
Joel's quintet comes not to praise this turkey, but to bury it. That they do, but without quite alleviating the pain and boredom of watching a cast of idiots struggle towards the movie's pointless, unsatisfying ending.
#3: THE WASP WOMAN
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0....._sim_mov_aiv_4
You could overanalyze "The Wasp Woman" as a period piece about a cosmetics company owner who sees no difference between saving her business and saving her looks, but let's just enjoy the cheese factor of this slapdash Roger Corman monsterpiece about the high price of drinking from the fountain of youth.
It stars B-movie actress Susan Cabot, in her last feature film (she would die at the hands of her mentally ill son many years later), and offers goofy-looking monster makeup, consistently sharp riffing by Joel and company, and only two annoying comedy skits this time around, one of which is kinda sorta funny if you're a Buddy Rich fan.
#5: SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0....._sim_mov_aiv_5
For a professional smartass, Joel Hodgson has a sentimental streak a mile wide. That he chose to revisit "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" nearly twenty years after the MST3K version shouldn't be surprising: it's a movie that, for all its sad, ludicrous, no-budget faults (and I don't just mean you, Droppo), has a warmth and gentleness that's quite genuine. Watching John Call's impossibly optimistic, reality-challenged Santa is like watching Captain Kangaroo getting sloshed on whiskey-spiced eggnog: jovial, if a little disturbing.
So which version is funnier: MST3K (1992) or Cinematic Titanic (2008)? I'd call it a draw. Some of the jokes in the earlier version can't be topped, but the newer material is very strong, and in some cases an improvement over the '92 version. The "Chochem" scene, truncated for MST3K, is seen in its entirety in the CT version, and the latter has the advantage of a better quality, more colorful print, for what it's worth.
(À propos of nothing, ever notice that the MST3K theme song is as catchy as the theme from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND?)
Martin Rosen's Pastoral Symphony
General | Posted 11 years agohttp://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PULRC0U....._new_dp_review
WATERSHIP DOWN is a simple adventure story about a group of rabbits seeking a new place to call home -- simple, that is, until you see that it's part political allegory and part POW escape thriller, woven together with a trickster creation myth and the kind of death-haunted theology one could imagine in the lives of a prey species at the mercy of a world of predators.
Is this a kids' movie? Sure, for thoughtful, older kids who won't be freaked out by seeing some of life's harsher realities on the screen.
WATERSHIP DOWN is a simple adventure story about a group of rabbits seeking a new place to call home -- simple, that is, until you see that it's part political allegory and part POW escape thriller, woven together with a trickster creation myth and the kind of death-haunted theology one could imagine in the lives of a prey species at the mercy of a world of predators.
Is this a kids' movie? Sure, for thoughtful, older kids who won't be freaked out by seeing some of life's harsher realities on the screen.
BIRDEMIC: "It's worse than MANOS!"
General | Posted 11 years agoRIFFTRAX LIVE: BIRDEMIC
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OZOILGM....._new_dp_review
We were thinking the same thing as the end credits rolled, but my partner Flatrat said it first: "My god," he laughed, "it's worse than MANOS!"
BIRDEMIC has to be seen to be disbelieved. A no-budget, apocalyptic fantasy of birds going postal on humankind, it features hilariously bad special effects, endless driving and parking sequences, a dim-witted internet millionaire and his supermodel girlfriend (who spend a lot of their time hanging out in cheap restaurants at the local mall), interminable lectures on the evils of fossil fuels and global warming by characters who look and sound mentally ill, and a now-you-hear-it-now-you-don't soundtrack. The movie's an unintentional laugh riot on its own, but of course it's the riffing by Mike, Kevin, and Bill, firing on all cylinders in front of a Nashville audience, that lifts BIRDEMIC to the rank of a comedy masterpiece. What can I say? You'll never hear the words "solar panel" quite the same way again.
The feature is preceded by the short "Norman Checks In," in which our titular, hangdog hero continues to endure the indignities of life in the early 1970s.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OZOILGM....._new_dp_review
We were thinking the same thing as the end credits rolled, but my partner Flatrat said it first: "My god," he laughed, "it's worse than MANOS!"
BIRDEMIC has to be seen to be disbelieved. A no-budget, apocalyptic fantasy of birds going postal on humankind, it features hilariously bad special effects, endless driving and parking sequences, a dim-witted internet millionaire and his supermodel girlfriend (who spend a lot of their time hanging out in cheap restaurants at the local mall), interminable lectures on the evils of fossil fuels and global warming by characters who look and sound mentally ill, and a now-you-hear-it-now-you-don't soundtrack. The movie's an unintentional laugh riot on its own, but of course it's the riffing by Mike, Kevin, and Bill, firing on all cylinders in front of a Nashville audience, that lifts BIRDEMIC to the rank of a comedy masterpiece. What can I say? You'll never hear the words "solar panel" quite the same way again.
The feature is preceded by the short "Norman Checks In," in which our titular, hangdog hero continues to endure the indignities of life in the early 1970s.
The Original Stoner Comedy
General | Posted 11 years agoRIFFTRAX LIVE: REEFER MADNESS
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XNH4YU....._new_dp_review
Somehow I'd managed to miss "Reefer Madness" on the midnight movie circuit, but now I can see the appeal of this movie: it's one of the greatest unintentional comedies ever made. It's absolutely impossible to watch it without laughing.
A wizened prune of a man lectures anyone within earshot about the evils of marijuana, and illustrates his point by recounting the story of a high school dweeb who smokes one joint, and is immediately plunged into a world of addiction, madness, murder and suicide. This is a colorized version -- as if watching this turkey in the original black & white would be any improvement -- and Mike, Bill, and Kevin rip this movie a new one, hilarious even when they flub the occasional line.
The shorts preceding the feature are awesomely bizarre. Animator Rich Kyanka provides two surrealistic films written and narrated by his five-year-old daughter, which are even stranger than the plotless 1930 cartoon, "Frozen Frolics" (remember to pack a seltzer bottle when traveling to the north pole). Oh, and there's an educational short warning you not to wash your clothes in a pan of gasoline on your kitchen counter. Just so you know.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XNH4YU....._new_dp_review
Somehow I'd managed to miss "Reefer Madness" on the midnight movie circuit, but now I can see the appeal of this movie: it's one of the greatest unintentional comedies ever made. It's absolutely impossible to watch it without laughing.
A wizened prune of a man lectures anyone within earshot about the evils of marijuana, and illustrates his point by recounting the story of a high school dweeb who smokes one joint, and is immediately plunged into a world of addiction, madness, murder and suicide. This is a colorized version -- as if watching this turkey in the original black & white would be any improvement -- and Mike, Bill, and Kevin rip this movie a new one, hilarious even when they flub the occasional line.
The shorts preceding the feature are awesomely bizarre. Animator Rich Kyanka provides two surrealistic films written and narrated by his five-year-old daughter, which are even stranger than the plotless 1930 cartoon, "Frozen Frolics" (remember to pack a seltzer bottle when traveling to the north pole). Oh, and there's an educational short warning you not to wash your clothes in a pan of gasoline on your kitchen counter. Just so you know.
"Where's your theme music NOW, Torgo?"
General | Posted 11 years agoRIFFTRAX LIVE: MANOS, THE HANDS OF FATE
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MEVMU8S....._new_dp_review
Ed Wood, the patron saint of inept filmmakers, must've anointed Hal Warren to put his wacko sexual fantasies on film, and for that we who love professional movie riffing are grateful. MANOS, the plotless, poorly lit, out-of-focus anti-masterpiece rescued from oblivion by MST3K, gets the Rifftrax treatment, and what a difference twenty years makes!
Where the movie's interminable driving sequences had reduced the 'bots to tears in 1992, Mike, Kevin, and Bill sail through them now with a steady stream of jokes about the Texas landscape. The pop culture references are fresher (they actually manage to work in an extended riff on TWILIGHT), and the trio knows when to stop riffing and just let the movie mock itself. Above all, there's Torgo (greeted by audience applause at his first onscreen appearance)...Mike Nelson's incomparable rendition of Torgo is reason enough to watch this version, even if you hate MANOS (and who doesn't?). The two shorts and a vintage TV commercial (nothing quenches your thirst like a tall, cool glass of prune juice) are great fun as well.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MEVMU8S....._new_dp_review
Ed Wood, the patron saint of inept filmmakers, must've anointed Hal Warren to put his wacko sexual fantasies on film, and for that we who love professional movie riffing are grateful. MANOS, the plotless, poorly lit, out-of-focus anti-masterpiece rescued from oblivion by MST3K, gets the Rifftrax treatment, and what a difference twenty years makes!
Where the movie's interminable driving sequences had reduced the 'bots to tears in 1992, Mike, Kevin, and Bill sail through them now with a steady stream of jokes about the Texas landscape. The pop culture references are fresher (they actually manage to work in an extended riff on TWILIGHT), and the trio knows when to stop riffing and just let the movie mock itself. Above all, there's Torgo (greeted by audience applause at his first onscreen appearance)...Mike Nelson's incomparable rendition of Torgo is reason enough to watch this version, even if you hate MANOS (and who doesn't?). The two shorts and a vintage TV commercial (nothing quenches your thirst like a tall, cool glass of prune juice) are great fun as well.
Nerd Culture: MST3K, Rifftrax, Cinematic Titanic
General | Posted 11 years agoMST3K: THE STARFIGHTERS
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ATI7UW....._new_dp_review
Let me attempt a plot summary of "The Starfighters": There is no plot. Planes go up. They refuel in mid-air. They land. They go up again. They do bombing runs in the desert. They land. The pilots, who are barely distinguishable from one another, drink whiskey and try to pick up a woman who gives them an impromptu technical lecture on corn detassling; later, their CO issues them "poopie suits." They go up again.
Mike and the 'bots have a field day with what's essentially the world's longest Air Force recruitment ad. The riffing is fast, furious, and consistently funny, turning this non-movie into comedy gold.
RIFFTRAX LIVE: HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XNH4XQ....._new_dp_review
"Paper & I," a supremely creepy short film about a young boy's attachment to a talking paper bag, is scarier than anything in "House on Haunted Hill," a goofy William Castle cross between "Diabolique" and "Ten Little Indians." HoHH is great fun with the riffing, especially when Elisha Cook's nebbish character comes under fire, but you never forget for a moment that you're watching a creaky melodrama that's trying with all its might (and failing miserably) to be scary. By contrast, the "Paper" short and "Magical Disappearing Money," in which a supermarket witch uses her dark powers to make shoppers save money on a variety of unappealing groceries, seem to've gone straight from the filmmakers' id to the camera, pausing only to be enacted by a cast of dazed amateurs.
The feature film is entertaining, but the two shorts are filmmaking at its most crazed. What's not to like?
CINEMATIC TITANIC: LEGACY OF BLOOD
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002OMUB1U....._new_dp_review
In this deservedly forgotten 1971 grindhouse movie, an insane millionaire's loathsome family, hoping for a fat inheritance, is bumped off over the course of one very long night. You get overacting galore, incestuous love, a guy who looks like Burt Reynolds dressed as Freddie from the Scooby-Doo cartoons, a color film so murky it might as well have been shot in black and white, and some pretty sharp riffing from the CT crew.
I could've done without the tedious comedy skit they performed while the film was paused; the movie itself was hard enough to watch. I'd call this a solid CT performance, not as out-of-the-ballpark funny as "Danger on Tiki Island," but entertaining enough to ease the pain of watching this hamfest.
RIFFTRAX DOUBLE FEATURE: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD/THE BEST OF RIFFTRAX SHORTS, VOL. 1
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00370IUGG....._new_dp_review
There are those who claim that you can't riff a comedy, but I'd say that you can't riff a really good movie either, and that's what Nelson, Murphy and Corbett take on in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Despite its low budget, its lack of gore (by today's standards), and the catatonic performance of its lead actress, no other horror movie conveys a sense of claustrophobia and adrenaline-fueled panic better than NOTLD, and its nihilistic ending is both inevitable and unexpected; in a word, perfect.
Riffing works as a critique of bad movies by lampooning them in real time; it's the viewer vs. the film, and if the riffs are funny enough, the viewer wins. Rifftrax's NOTLD feels more like nitpicking than comic deconstruction, and before long I just wanted to watch the movie without the riffing. (But don't do that with this disc -- the movie is skipping video frames from beginning to end, for some reason.)
THE BEST OF RIFFTRAX SHORTS companion disc provides more consistent laughs. The nine shorts include:
"Down and Out" - A workplace safety film demonstrating that DOING ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING can lead to serious injury!
"Patriotism" - Bob Crane stops by to enlighten kids about what it means to be patriotic.
"Buying Food" - "OH MY GOD I FORGOT HOW TO BUY FOOD!"
"Skipper Learns a Lesson" - A canine bigot gets his comeuppance.
"Right or Wrong" - A morality play about the consequences of petty vandalism.
"Drugs are Like That" - Anita Bryant narrates an incoherent anti-drug film comparing drugs to harmless things that aren't drugs...especially Legos.
"The Trouble with Women" - Those darn women in the workplace!
"It Must Be the Neighbors" - Your front yard is a breeding ground for DISEASE AND DEATH!
"Shake Hands with Danger" - A gruesome series of vignettes about people who take safety shortcuts while operating heavy equipment.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ATI7UW....._new_dp_review
Let me attempt a plot summary of "The Starfighters": There is no plot. Planes go up. They refuel in mid-air. They land. They go up again. They do bombing runs in the desert. They land. The pilots, who are barely distinguishable from one another, drink whiskey and try to pick up a woman who gives them an impromptu technical lecture on corn detassling; later, their CO issues them "poopie suits." They go up again.
Mike and the 'bots have a field day with what's essentially the world's longest Air Force recruitment ad. The riffing is fast, furious, and consistently funny, turning this non-movie into comedy gold.
RIFFTRAX LIVE: HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XNH4XQ....._new_dp_review
"Paper & I," a supremely creepy short film about a young boy's attachment to a talking paper bag, is scarier than anything in "House on Haunted Hill," a goofy William Castle cross between "Diabolique" and "Ten Little Indians." HoHH is great fun with the riffing, especially when Elisha Cook's nebbish character comes under fire, but you never forget for a moment that you're watching a creaky melodrama that's trying with all its might (and failing miserably) to be scary. By contrast, the "Paper" short and "Magical Disappearing Money," in which a supermarket witch uses her dark powers to make shoppers save money on a variety of unappealing groceries, seem to've gone straight from the filmmakers' id to the camera, pausing only to be enacted by a cast of dazed amateurs.
The feature film is entertaining, but the two shorts are filmmaking at its most crazed. What's not to like?
CINEMATIC TITANIC: LEGACY OF BLOOD
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002OMUB1U....._new_dp_review
In this deservedly forgotten 1971 grindhouse movie, an insane millionaire's loathsome family, hoping for a fat inheritance, is bumped off over the course of one very long night. You get overacting galore, incestuous love, a guy who looks like Burt Reynolds dressed as Freddie from the Scooby-Doo cartoons, a color film so murky it might as well have been shot in black and white, and some pretty sharp riffing from the CT crew.
I could've done without the tedious comedy skit they performed while the film was paused; the movie itself was hard enough to watch. I'd call this a solid CT performance, not as out-of-the-ballpark funny as "Danger on Tiki Island," but entertaining enough to ease the pain of watching this hamfest.
RIFFTRAX DOUBLE FEATURE: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD/THE BEST OF RIFFTRAX SHORTS, VOL. 1
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00370IUGG....._new_dp_review
There are those who claim that you can't riff a comedy, but I'd say that you can't riff a really good movie either, and that's what Nelson, Murphy and Corbett take on in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Despite its low budget, its lack of gore (by today's standards), and the catatonic performance of its lead actress, no other horror movie conveys a sense of claustrophobia and adrenaline-fueled panic better than NOTLD, and its nihilistic ending is both inevitable and unexpected; in a word, perfect.
Riffing works as a critique of bad movies by lampooning them in real time; it's the viewer vs. the film, and if the riffs are funny enough, the viewer wins. Rifftrax's NOTLD feels more like nitpicking than comic deconstruction, and before long I just wanted to watch the movie without the riffing. (But don't do that with this disc -- the movie is skipping video frames from beginning to end, for some reason.)
THE BEST OF RIFFTRAX SHORTS companion disc provides more consistent laughs. The nine shorts include:
"Down and Out" - A workplace safety film demonstrating that DOING ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING can lead to serious injury!
"Patriotism" - Bob Crane stops by to enlighten kids about what it means to be patriotic.
"Buying Food" - "OH MY GOD I FORGOT HOW TO BUY FOOD!"
"Skipper Learns a Lesson" - A canine bigot gets his comeuppance.
"Right or Wrong" - A morality play about the consequences of petty vandalism.
"Drugs are Like That" - Anita Bryant narrates an incoherent anti-drug film comparing drugs to harmless things that aren't drugs...especially Legos.
"The Trouble with Women" - Those darn women in the workplace!
"It Must Be the Neighbors" - Your front yard is a breeding ground for DISEASE AND DEATH!
"Shake Hands with Danger" - A gruesome series of vignettes about people who take safety shortcuts while operating heavy equipment.
Some Classics
General | Posted 11 years agoBOOKS:
Dickhead Revisited
A Boy's Own Dick
The Dick With the Dragon Tattoo
Seize the Dick
A Tale of Two Dicks
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dick
The Dick Also Rises
MOVIES:
Raging Dick
Dick Me In St. Louis
The Dick Who Shot Liberty Valence
Hannah and Her Dick
A Fistful of Dick
Last Dick at Marienbad
Dick Happened One Night
Brokedick Mountain
Howard the Dick
Dickhead Revisited
A Boy's Own Dick
The Dick With the Dragon Tattoo
Seize the Dick
A Tale of Two Dicks
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dick
The Dick Also Rises
MOVIES:
Raging Dick
Dick Me In St. Louis
The Dick Who Shot Liberty Valence
Hannah and Her Dick
A Fistful of Dick
Last Dick at Marienbad
Dick Happened One Night
Brokedick Mountain
Howard the Dick
Nino Rota, Federico Fellini, & Richard Galliano's All-Stars
General | Posted 11 years agoNINO ROTA by Richard Galliano (Deutsche Grammophon)
http://www.amazon.com/Nino-Rota-Ric.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005NNJL....._new_dp_review
reviewed by Roochak
Of Nino Rota's 145 film scores, the handful that he wrote for Federico Fellini -- and, inevitably, the famous themes from Coppola's THE GODFATHER -- are what Galliano and company explore on this recording, and why not? It's the circus music of LA STRADA, vulgar, sweetly comic, and emotionally wrenching, that this quintet explores at greatest length, its themes threading through the album like a leitmotif of melancholy gaiety.
"Music should not be intellectual, but intelligent," a student of Rota's recalled. The jazz quintet that Galliano assembled for this project handles everything the scores can throw at them, from AMARCORD's foxtrots to the sardonic bossa nova of JULIET OF THE SPIRITS, to LA DOLCE VITA's medley of ritual percussion music, cool jazz, and samba.
I VITELLONI's mini-medley starts with a haunting waltz for accordion and soprano sax, leading to a jaunty, swinging theme for walking bass, muted trumpet, and sax. Galliano dusts off his trombone for an unaccompanied rendition of the GODFATHER waltz, and arranges that film's famous love theme (a recycled, slowed-down revision of a march that Rota had written years earlier, for a comedy) as a duet for accordion and bass.
If Americans were capable of taking the accordion seriously, Galliano's music wouldn't be such a hard sell in this country. The magnificent music making on this disc just might change a few minds.
Richard Galliano, accordion & trombone
Dave Douglas, trumpet
John Surman, soprano saxophone & alto clarinet
Boris Kozolov, bass
Clarence Penn, drums
http://www.amazon.com/Nino-Rota-Ric.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005NNJL....._new_dp_review
reviewed by Roochak
Of Nino Rota's 145 film scores, the handful that he wrote for Federico Fellini -- and, inevitably, the famous themes from Coppola's THE GODFATHER -- are what Galliano and company explore on this recording, and why not? It's the circus music of LA STRADA, vulgar, sweetly comic, and emotionally wrenching, that this quintet explores at greatest length, its themes threading through the album like a leitmotif of melancholy gaiety.
"Music should not be intellectual, but intelligent," a student of Rota's recalled. The jazz quintet that Galliano assembled for this project handles everything the scores can throw at them, from AMARCORD's foxtrots to the sardonic bossa nova of JULIET OF THE SPIRITS, to LA DOLCE VITA's medley of ritual percussion music, cool jazz, and samba.
I VITELLONI's mini-medley starts with a haunting waltz for accordion and soprano sax, leading to a jaunty, swinging theme for walking bass, muted trumpet, and sax. Galliano dusts off his trombone for an unaccompanied rendition of the GODFATHER waltz, and arranges that film's famous love theme (a recycled, slowed-down revision of a march that Rota had written years earlier, for a comedy) as a duet for accordion and bass.
If Americans were capable of taking the accordion seriously, Galliano's music wouldn't be such a hard sell in this country. The magnificent music making on this disc just might change a few minds.
Richard Galliano, accordion & trombone
Dave Douglas, trumpet
John Surman, soprano saxophone & alto clarinet
Boris Kozolov, bass
Clarence Penn, drums
