"Jackpot" is another song that I asked Toby Wilson to record for me.
I first wrote "Jackpot" sometime between 15 and 20 years ago. I also got a really good modern Nashville sounding demo made by County Q Studios in Nashville. In writing this post I am shocked to discover that I never made the County Q recording the subject of a Tunesday. Maybe next week.
"Jackpot" isn't the best-constructed of my songs, but I really like it -- Blair was the primary subject.
I really like Toby's arrangement of this song -- it's simpler than the County Q version, and it feels at home.
I've been thinking that, when it comes time to assemble Toby's recordings, I'll probably ask him to replace his lead vocal with that of someone else he hires for the job. I'll probably do that with a few songs. That way no one song stands out due to having a different vocalist.
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Session: The Blood is the Life, Mr. Harker (week 4) Movie: Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) Directed by Werner Herzog
Plot: A vampire moves into town. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
I have often said that I am skeptical of remakes. They really need to provide something to prove that a remake was needed. Delving into other genres, one of the reasons I wasn't crazy about this year's remake of West Side Story is that it didn't really justify its existence. (I wrote about that here). This, being a remake of the 1922 silent film, Nosferatu (which I wrote about here), had something to prove to me. Of course, having said that, I acknowledge that major advances in movie technology, expanding what is possible to do in a film, can provide the justification. Since the original was made in 1922, well, you can do the math.
I think what I noticed first was that the entirety of this film had an odd dreamlike quality. I can't put my finger on all the elements that contribute to that, but I'll try. The characters are very soft-spoken. In fact, the movie is very quiet. The imagery is often just a little bit odd. For example, in the scene where Harker is saying goodbye to his family, the family occupies one side of the screen while the other side is occupied by the rear half of his horse. It just seems ... weird. And Lucy's white makeup makes her seem unearthly. There are multiple scenes of people walking on the beach, that are just so quiet and still that it seems not to be a movie. The whole movie is very slow-going, but somehow it doesn't get boring; it's fascinating. Harker's trip to Dracula's castle is portrayed as epic journey over mountains, through valleys, along rivers. It seems like an endless trek.
And then we meet Dracula, as portrayed by the ever-creepy Klaus Kinski. Kinski's rat-Dracula is very similar to Orlok from the 1922 film. But with the advantages of sound, better lighting and makeup, he is able to do more with the part. Kinski's lonely Dracula is almost sympathetic; at times he seems more like an addict than a predator, and we pity him.
I absolutely loved Roland Topor's giggly manic portrayal of Renfield; he seemed to be channelling Peter Lorre. But it was kind of interesting to see that in this movie the character of Renfield was different than in the last two movies Keith showed us. In those, Renfield was confined to an asylum, and Harker's boss was a different character. In this, Renfield was Harker's boss, and -- though he clearly had a screw loose -- he's not in an asylum. If I recall correctly, there was no Renfield in the 1922 film.
But that is just one example of how this remake took liberties with the characters. In this, Lucy and Harker are already married, Lucy scarifices herself, and Van Helsing is a bit less courageous in his actions.
As I noted above, a remake needs to justify its existence. Nosferatu the Vampyre delivers.
Ratings
Me: 10
Bob-O: 10 Christina: 10
Dave: 10
Ethan: 10
Sharon: 9
Cats: Yes, there are cats. But not just cats. Kittens! Adorable cuddly kittens.
If I had gone to see Steven Spielberg's West Side Story without knowing that it was a remake, I would have thought it was a perfectly fine film. But that's not what happened. It was a remake. And I went to see it specifically to compare it to the original.
Credit for the idea goes to my old friend, Vinnie. Out of the blue he suggested that we see the original 1961 film (which was in limited release), then follow up with the new remake. I could then write a blogpost comparing the two. So here we are. For the purposes of this writeup, I am going to assume that the reader is familiar with the storyline. I also note that Vinnie helped me with a lot of the thoughts and ideas. I don't remember which seeds he planted or helped develop, so I can't give him specific credit for specific points. Sorry, Vin.
The differences between the two movies is obvious from the start. The original starts with a beautiful aerial pan of Manhattan, showing the skyscrapers in their glory. Spielberg's remake starts with shots of rubble and debris, as we see that the old neighborhood is being torn down -- to be replaced by Lincoln Center. That theme is referenced several times through the movie in what seems like an attempt to give the story gravitas.
Which brings me to one of the most noticeable differences between the two movies: the level of wokeness. In the original film both gangs are portrayed with roughly the same level of sympathy. We see that from the very beginning. Throughout the prologue we see various assemblages of Sharks and Jets confronting each other and backing down -- with the advantage going to whichever gang members find themselves in the temporary majority. But aside from the ethnic differences, there's no real politics involved; both gangs consist of aggressive guys loyal to their own group. In the new film, we start with an act of political aggression by the Jets -- they vandalize a political mural featuring a Puerto Rican flag and quotes from the Puerto Rican independence movement. And throughout the disputes we are shown the Jets as xenophobes fighting what they see as foreigners encroaching on their territory. And they threw in a lot more hefty baggage about the Puerto Rican experience, which distracted from the story.
The character of Doc, the gentle old Jewish shopkeeper who was kind of a neutral party running a no-man's land in the original has been replaced by Valentina, whom we learn is Doc's widow. Doc married a Puerto Rican woman, so she's kind of, sort of, trusted -- but only so far -- by both gangs. This, of course, leads me to wonder why she tried to talk Tony out of his romance with Maria. She could have encouraged it. And, when Anita objected, she could have said "it worked for me and Doc." Then, her singing "There's a Place for Us" at the end of the film (stealing that number from Tony and Maria, to whom it belonged) might have made sense.
On another note, Anybody's, the tomboy in the original, is a transmale in this one. The change doesn't really serve any purpose except, presumably to let Spielberg check a box. But it just smells of pandering to me.
So instead of being content to retell a tragic love story, Spielberg and company decided to tell a political tale. There's certainly room in the world for movies with these stories -- eminent domain and the displacement of the poor, the struggles of Puerto Ricans in the 1950s, and other such topics. But a remake of West Side Story shouldn't be the place for it.
Another noticeable difference between the films is in the dance numbers. The choreography in the remake lacked the artistry of the original. Watching the original, I was amazed at the beauty with which the performers portrayed violence through movement. This was especially true in the overture. The remake featured a much-shortened overture that's just not in the same league as the long version in the original. In many numbers, the remake uses complex filler instead of simple artistry. For example, "Gee, Officer Krupke" is performed in a police station with lots of desks and chairs, and papers flying all over the place. All that extra visual nonsense is simply distracting. "America" is turned into a huge extravaganza, bringing in children and blocking intersections, but the dance itself doesn't manage to capture the right feel.
The characters in this are less likeable than in the original. Riff and Bernardo were both likeable -- despite their manifest flaws -- in the original. In the remake they're much less so -- both are much more angry and hateful. Chino starts out seeming very nerdy but always has a sinister quality to him. Those main characters, as well as Anita and Maria are given more full backstories. In some ways is a plus. Bernardo and Anita become a much more interesting couple, as they debate their future together -- where to live, how many children to have. In fact, they are a much more interesting couple than Tony and Maria. Perhaps someone should make a movie about them. At any rate, there's very little done to give the rest of the Sharks and Jets any distinct personalities. They're kind of like this movie's Munchkins (or Oompa Loompas if you prefer) -- there are a lot of them and they're mostly interchangeable.
There is one thing about the remake that's superior to the original -- skintone. In the original movie there were times that the Puerto Rican characters -- notably Bernardo -- look like white people with dirt smudged on their faces to make them look darker.* The remake, with its Hispanic actors, looks more realistic in that regard. I'm not of the opinion that people should only accept or be given roles that match their ethnicities, but they should look believably like the characters they're playing -- without the obvious addition of face-schmutz.
Because my comments above are largely negative, I need to restate what I said above. The new WSS is a fine movie if you take it on its own. But it's by no means great, and it doesn't measure up to the original. I'm of the opinion that films should be remade only if there's a reason, and they should justify their necessity. There was no good reason for this one, and it failed to justify itself.
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*I acknowledge that this might be in part a byproduct of modern technology. With the film cleaned up and converted to whatever higher-definition is being used, flaws that weren't apparent may be showing up. I never saw the original in its original release, so I can't say for sure.
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Session: The Blood is the Life, Mr. Harker (week 3) Movie: Count Dracula (1977) Directed by Philip Saville
Plot: A lawyer travels from London to Transylvania to help Count Dracula buy a new home. And that's when his troubles begin. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
I didn't expect it, but Louis Jourdan is possibly the best Dracula that cinema has ever produced. Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi have been great in the role. But none of them approach the suave charm of Jourdan. He is truly the James Bond of Draculas. In addition, Keith tells me that this movie is probably the truest representation of Bram Stoker's original. Truth be told, I wouldn't know, since I never read the novel.
A lot of the movie played with the boundary between erotic and creepy. Largely because of Judi Bowker's portrayal of Mina. She often exudes sexuality, but then there are shots that make her appear underage -- though the character is not intended to actually be a minor.
Jack Shepherd's portrayal of Renfield was really well done. A couple weeks earlier, I really enjoyed Klaus Kinski's mute version of the character. Shepherd has no trouble talking, and in his dialogue does a great job of seeming insane. Not that it matters, but I note that he also seemed oddly like a young Brent Spiner.
The simple but effective special effects -- they used negatives, black and white shots and vivid painting on the screen -- added an interesting psychedelic effect. and the effects in the climactic fight were much better than what we saw in the Christopher Lee movie a couple weeks ago.
On the other hand, I really didn't care for the portrayal of Lucy, and Quincey's fake Texas accent was just awful.
Ratings
Cats: No, there were no cats. But there were wolves and domesticated birds.
I guess I should note that I'm not really a big fan of rap. But I'm not really anti-rap. I am certainly not one to claim that it's not music. That attitude seems closed-minded to me. It's just that rap, for the most part, is not my cup of tea.
That said, I have to like this track, "Mawsh," by Nas Jee. That's because Sharon and Asher appear in the video. Asher is easy to spot. He's the white kid in the gray sweatshirt. In fact, he's even visible in the thumbnail. Sharon is a bit harder to spot; most of the time that she appears her face is obscured by her hair or her hood. But she's the girl in a navy and gray hoodie. Often, she's dancing on the picnic table.
And, truth be told, after watching this a bunch of times (to see my kids in action -- watching them dance is fun), I find this kind of growing on me. If only I had a lyric sheet.
Seriously though...Nas, keep up the creative work.
Another recording that I commissioned Toby Wilson to make. And this, a rarity for me, is a song for which I had co-authors. And there were three of them.
There's a bit of history here. Go ahead, listen to the song before you read the background.
Originally, I started writing a novelty song, with the chorus:
Do you Google me now and again? Do your fingers hit the keyboard when Something frees your memories? Do you Google me now and again?
I spent a lot of time -- as in years -- sitting on that. I was trying to write verses with references to the interwebs and social media. But everything I could come up with was just way too gimmicky. Eventually I decided that the whole direction was too gimmicky and risked becoming dated. I changed the chorus to what we have here:
Do you think of me now and again? Do the feelings come flooding back when Something frees your memories? Do you think of me now and again?
Eventually I also wrote what would become (with some wordsmithing) half of the first verse, the second verse and the bridge. I ran it by Scott Milner, a friend and musician. He rearranged it a bit and added what would become the second half of the first verse. And we had a completed song.
Enter Eric Goulden (AKA Wreckless Eric) and Amy Rigby. They were crowdfunding what would be their third album. As part of their campaign, they agreed to record a demo. In the process they touched up the wording and improved the melody in the bridge. I explained that part in more detail in a blogpost a year and a half ago.
And that brings us to today. As part of my musical vanity project, I commissioned Toby Wilson to record it. I hope you enjoy.
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Session: The Blood is the Life, Mr. Harker (week 2) Movie: Count Dracula (1970) Directed by Jess Franco
Plot: A lawyer travels from London to Transylvania to help Count Dracula buy a new home. And that's when his troubles begin. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
Sadly, I couldn't attend class. Work got in the way. Keith graciously lent me his Blu-ray so I could keep up. It's not the same, but that's life.
This movie is, in many ways a thing of beauty. It's shot in such wonderful vivid color, it's really a work of art. But in some ways it was disjointed, with the scenes not really connecting with each other. So it didn't really work as a cohesive whole.
I did appreciate Klaus Kinski's sanitarium-bound character. Kinski is interesting in just about everything he's in. And, of course, Christopher Lee is wonderfully imposing.
Ratings
Since I missed the class, and watched the movie on my own afterwards, I would prefer not to rate it. But here's what everyone else had to say:
Cats: No, there were no cats. But there were wolves.
Stoopidstats enthusiast Emily Terwilliger Levatte suggested that it would be interesting to see the same treatment for hits. So here we are.
The process is essentially the same, and there's no reason it can't be performed for hits -- or strikesout, RsBI, triples, or any other discrete stat. That said, it did take longer to do hits than homes run. That's just a consequence of the numbers. I have a well defined process for deciding what players' careers to look at. Assuming I apply it correctly, I can rest assured that I haven't missed anything. When I was looking at homes run I had to consider 24 players' careers. For hits I had to consider 65.
Anyway, none of the records has changed since 2013. That was the year Ichiro Suzuki set the record for most hits in a 13-year span. The records are summarized below.
It's been quite the busy fall, so I have fallen behind in my annual ritual of updating my baseball stoopidstats. But I got the first bit out of the way: my annual update of the set of records for most homes run in an n-year span (for positive integers, n).
People may be interested -- or not -- to learn that, once again none of these records has changed. There was a flurry of change in these records during the steroid era, but it's been well over a decade since any of the records changed. The records -- all aleph-null of them are held by four players -- Barry Bonds (who last played in 2007), Mark McGwire (2001), Sammy Sosa (2007) and Babe Ruth (1935). So obviously, none of these records has changed since at least 2007.
I'm a bit late on this. A month late. I edit the semi-annual LIDS Newsletter. I distributed the Fall issue at last month's meeting (and then by email). I meant to share it here. You can read it below in all its four-page glory. There's an article about The 5th Man, the new documentary about LIDS member, Paul Limmer. Following that is an article about how to take cuttings. Finally, there's a brief list of new cultivars introduced by LIDS members.
Enjoy! And join LIDS if you haven't already done so.
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Session: The Blood is the Life, Mr. Harker (week 1) Movie: Nosferatu (1922) Directed by F.W. Murnau
Plot: A vampire moves into town. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
Part of the treat of watching this was the treatment this release gave the film. Nosferatu is in the public domain, so there have been many, many different versions released from different prints of various quality. This one apparently took pieces from a lot of these and pulled them together to create the most complete version of the film available. Further, an orchestra was commissioned to record the original score (based on the original sheet music) for the disc. Keith noted that the first version he saw as a kid (which, coincidentally, is also the version Christina saw as a kid) had an odd jazzy score that didn't really fit. Thanks, PBS.
This was really a masterpiece, and a great example of by German expressionism. And, damn if it wasn't creepy. I also have to admit that I loved the image of Orlok wandering around town carrying his coffin like some kind of oversized suitcase. It all kind of makes me wonder what might have been if the whole vampire mythology had continued along with the rat-creature portrayal we saw here instead of the romantic suave vampire that is so familiar now.
One of the things I noticed -- though I was hesitant to bring it up -- was the way Orlok (the vampire) and Knock reminded me of old anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews. I was hesitant to raise the issue because I don't want to be overly-sensitive, finding anti-Semitism where it doesn't exist. But Keith said that I'm not the first to make the observation. And, in fact, Julius Streicher (editor of the infamous Der Sturmer) was fascinated by the movie, interpreting it as a metaphor for Jews causing provoking the ruination of everything that is good about society.
I was torn about whether to rate Nosferatu. It's very far out of my normal movie experience, and therefore hard to rate. But I decided to just do my best and rate it. There are certainly crude elements, but this was 1922, so I can't judge it by today's standards. But there's the thing. If I were to simply judge it by today's standards it would come off remarkably well. Orlok as the ratlike vampire holds up very well a century later. He's way more creepy than any of today's movie monsters. In the end, I have to recognize how ahead of its time this film was, and how they did such a great job creating such a vividly frightening creature.
Do you know that feeling you get when you hear a song for the first time and it just seems so right? To clarify, it's not just a song you've never heard, but a band you've never heard of. Somehow you feel right at home with the song like it's been part of your soul forever, even if you didn't know it. It's a sublime moment. The kind to cherish. I had that moment today. In the car. Going to a doctor's appointment.
But it got even better. Ethan, the kid whose musical taste has virtually no overlap with mine, was singing along. I asked if he was singing along, and he quickly denied it. But a few measures later he was doing it again. That time I didn't say anything. I just enjoyed the moment.
I made sure to memorize the title and band name so I could find them later. "Spinning Records" by The Shang Hi Los. For all I knew it could have been from the 1980's -- it was played right after Graham Parker's "Local Girls" (1979). But it had a more recent, grungier sound. So it could have been newer. 1980 to today covers a lot of time. And, strictly speaking, there are clear influences from earlier.
At home I learned that the group is from Boston, and the song is from their debut album, Kick It Like a Wicked Bad Habit (my copy, ordered this evening, should be coming on Friday) which was released earlier this year. I could go on and on about it, but just listen.
Many thanks to my friends, Keith and Christina Crocker, for introducing me to this video. It's of interest for a variety of reasons.
Notably, it features Christopher Lee, whom I am most familiar with as a horror film actor. Lee is kind of wooden here as a singer, but that stiffness actually helps draw the contrast between himself and Gary Curtis, the lead vocalist.
The song also sounds a lot like Nick Lowe (circa the Cowboy Outfit era). That said, it also reminds me of Dire Straits' "Twisting by the Pool." It's a really catchy song, even if it is kind of disposable.
Finally, Gary Curtis' look and manner remind me of a guy at work. Discretion prevents me from naming him.
Session: Get Some Skull, Week 4 Movie: The Screaming Skull (1958) Directed by Alex Nicol
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: Newly married Eric, brings his rich but nervous bride to the palatial home he inherited from his first wife after she drowned. There, the newlyweds are haunted by her ghost. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
Ethan put it best when he called this movie "a good fun fifties film."
SS isn't particularly deep, but it's a lot of fun. The scares are humorous, the visual effects are great, and the story itself is spooky. In some ways it plays like an extended Twilight Zone. The red herrings are good distractions, and the element of gaslighting adds interest.
When Phyllis, Cloris Leachman's spinoff from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I wasn't what you'd call a regular viewer. I loved MTM, but just didn't get into the spinoff. I vaguely recall trying a couple episodes and not liking it. But I have few specific memories other than frequent mention of "Lars" and the clever theme song. So, for decades I thought of Phyllis as a sort of inferior copy of MTM.
But, recently, I found the first episode on Youtube. I forget how or why it came up, but there it was. And I started watching it. And found it quite funny -- not hysterical laugh-out-loud funny, but clever. So now I've been watching complete episodes on Youtube -- sadly, I can't seem to find them anywhere else.
I think my favorite character is Audrey (Phyllis' air-headed but well-meaning mother-in-law). One of my favorite exchanges (as Phyllis, Audrey and Jonathan (Audrey's husband) are sitting down at a fancy restaurant):
Audrey: Why, they serve every kind of fish in the sea here. I can't imagine why we haven't been here before.
Jonathan: You hate fish.
Audrey: Maybe that's it.
Another (when it dawns on Phyllis how old her daughter is getting):
Phyllis: It was only yesterday that I nursed her at my breast, played pattycake with her, put on her booties, sprinkled talcum on her little bottom. Only yesterday...
Audrey: I thought you went to that new Woody Allen picture yesterday.
Who knows? Maybe I'll even give Rhoda a shot. I really hated that when I was a kid.
In high school I wrote a song called "Mercy of the Wind." It sucked. In the interests of full disclosure, I only wrote the lyrics. A friend set it to music. The music was fine. It was the lyrics that sucked. I'd say more about that song, but I'd have to go into all sorts of cringey cringitude. Take my word for it.
But I still liked that title, so decades later I wrote this little number. As I was writing it, I had "Mercy of the Wind" as the working title. But as it neared completion I realized that I had the wrong title. It just wasn't the right emphasis. I played with "Living Like Flowers," which I like as a song title. But that also doesn't seem right for this song. Combining the two into "Living Like Flowers (at the Mercy of the Wind)" just seems right. It's a bit long, but whatevs.
This is the eighth recording that Toby Wilson has made for me, and I happen to think this is the best of them.
Special thanks to Christina Crocker for her advice regarding how to split this as a duet. She has a real gift for that kind of thing.
A bit ago I posted about the storytelling class that Ethan and I were taking. Well, the class is over and the stories are told. Of the 13 people who started the class, nine stayed until the end. Here are Ethan's story and mine.
NOTE: The Monkees, live at the Paramount Theater in Huntington, NY, October 28, 2021
On my own I wouldn't have bothered getting tickets to see The Monkees on their farewell tour. Davy Jones and Peter Tork are dead, leaving Mike Nesmith and Micky Dolenz to carry on. And they're both in their upper '70s. If I had to choose two of the four to perform a show it would have been Dolenz and Nesmith, so there's that. But I still didn't have high hopes.
But friends decided that they were going and asked if Blair and I were interested. So that kind of made it a horse of a different color.
But the show was actually quite good. That was due in large part to a band of really great musicians I'd never heard of (and whose names I don't remember). OK, I'd heard of one of them -- Coco Dolenz, Micky's sister was there for backup vocals and percussion. At any rate, the band did a really good job with the material. As one would expect, the emphasis was on the hits. But they also played some of the lesser-known tracks including "Goin' Down," "Auntie's Municipal Court" and "Tapioca Tundra." That last one was, technically, a hit but is little-remembered. One special treat was "Different Drum," a hit for Linda Ronstadt that Nesmith wrote.
Nesmith and Dolenz were simply vocalists, leaving the instrumentation to the band.* And that's one of the differences between this tour and what I've seen of recent tours. I don't know this is the first tour in which the Monkees themselves are just the vocalists (and I'm not interested enough in the matter to research). But a quick search for footage of past tours on Youtube shows me that as recently as 2019 Dolenz and Nesmith were playing guitar onstage. Incidentally, I can see that the band on that tour featured at least some of the same musicians as on this.
Which, of course, raises the question of why they're not playing more instruments. [MAJOR DISCLAIMER HERE: I HAVE NO INSIDER KNOWLEDGE, AND THIS IS PURELY SUPPOSITION BASED ON WHAT I SAW] Based on the way Nesmith shuffled weakly onto the stage, at times seemed to have trouble controlling his hands, and seemed to have trouble standing (among other things I saw), I strongly suspect he has Parkinson's disease. And if not parkinson's he clearly has some other physically debilitating problem. I don't believe he had the physical wherewithal to play a guitar. Mickey, by contrast, was vigorous and youthful, clearly enjoying himself as master showman and belting out tunes. But it would have looked odd for him to be playing a guitar while Nesmith wasn't. Nesmith looked old weak by comparison, and at times he appeared to be having trouble even singing.
But the fans in attendance -- myself included -- were inclined to overlook any physical shortcomings. Perhaps because we were just happy to see these two performing the old favorites, and to sing along. And perhaps because this is very likely the last time we'll see The Monkees in any plural form.
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*In the interests of full disclosure, Dolenz did play tambourine at times, and he played timpani for the opening of "Randy Scouse Git."
Session: Get Some Skull, Week 3 Movie: The Screaming Skull (1973) Directed by Gloria Monty
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: After Dr. Pratt kills his wife, her skull comes back to haunt him. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
The first thing I need to say is that this The Screaming Skull is not the famous 1958 film (which I have yet to see). This was a 1973 made-for-TV production. It's not exactly famous -- I couldn't find anything about it on Youtube (which is why I have just the still picture up there instead of a trailer) or Wikipedia.
Originally broadcast in color, the film seems to only be available in black and white -- in a version taken from a kinescope. Oddly, the loss of picture quality serves this interesting ghost story well -- enhancing the nightmare quality. I suspect that it wasn't as effective in the original full color crisp version that aired on TV. It also made the production feel much older. It had a 1950s feel to it.
Gloria Monty's direction was generally good, though at times (especially early on) she made the film feel like a soap opera. Which kind of makes sense given that she is best known for her work with the soaps. Vincent Gardenia and David McCallum play off each other beautifully, even if they really don't look convincingly like brothers.
This, I should note, is a nearly-forgotten gem that I likely would have never heard of if not for Keith's class.
I figured out a shortcut that will save me time in sending group emails -- a way to easily put a bunch of email addresses in the "to" line of my emails without having to enter each one individually. Put simply, a distribution list. Yeah, I am sure Gmail has a way to do it, but I haven't figured it out.
I am the newsletter editor for LIDS. In that capacity, I sometimes have to send group emails to the entire LIDS membership. I have a membership list in a spreadsheet with several dozen email addresses. In the past, I've typed each email address in. I haven't had to type the full addresses because of the predictive features. But it's still a pain in the ass. And it's prone to error.
But I realized -- and I wonder how it took me so long to realize -- that I can use Excel's features to create my distribution list. Using Gmail's website for my email, the required format for entering multiple addresses in the "To" line is to separate addresses with a comma and a space. So in the membership spreadsheet, which has one row for each member (or couple), I added a new column for the distribution list. As the rows go down, it builds the list. So the entry in the last row is the full list -- which I can copy and paste in the "To" field. I figure I can do this for other things where I have more-or-less set lists of people to send emails to. The JEA Board, Keith's film class...
For the purposes of illustration, I created a simplified list of three names, showing how the distribution list would grow. This obviously works for longer lists. If someone changes email addresses, or people are added or removed, this is easy to change. In the LIDS list, I also included logic to ignore rows where there is no email address -- yes, we have a few members who eschew such things. For what it's worth, people who are more comfortable in Word can create and update a similar type of list in Word and use it in GMail. But I used Excel because I am much more comfortable in spreadsheets than in word processors.
I used my LIDS list this past weekend to send out the fall newsletter, and it was so much easier.
All that said, I realized as I wrote this that I probably could have Googled something like "Create a distribution list in GMail." I'll bet there's a simple way of doing it. But I have my solution so, whatevs...
Session: Get Some Skull, Week 2 Movie: The Skull (1965) Directed by Freddie Francis
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: Collectors are interested in the skull of the Marquis de Sade. But it comes with a heavy price. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
This was a Peter Cushing tour de force. There are large stretches of this film with little or no dialogue, yet Cushing manages to convey so much with that face. There was a great cast in this -- along with Cushing, the film starred Christopher Lee, Richard Wymark, and a bunch of other really good actors.
Some of the best parts of this movie -- though my description will just make them sound creepy -- are the scenes in which the titular skull is exerting its influence, controlling people and (possibly most unsettling), floating from place to place. The fact that the damn thing moves so slowly and hauntingly makes it work -- despite what one might think from the description.
Whoever designed the sets and pulled together the props did a tremendous job. In the collectors' homes, it seemed like everywhere you looked there was a visual treat. Maybe they just went to the old prop storage shed and pulled anything and everything that could possibly fit.
Back in March of 2020, Ethan and I started a Storytelling class at The Magnet Theater. I blogged about that class -- or the start of it anyway -- here. Well, that class ended after one session. COVID. Ethan and I had the option of continuing the class in Zoom, but decided against it. Instead we bided our time, hoping things would eventually open up.
And open they did. A bit anyway.
So Ethan and I restarted Adam Wade's storytelling class last month. Today was the sixth session, which means that next week is the class showcase -- the finale, where we each get onstage in front of an audience and tell our story. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In the year and a half since the abortive session, Adam has changed things up quite a bit. Back then, at the end of the first class, Adam asked us to come back with three story pitches. Some amount of time in the subsequent classes would have been spent discussing the pitches and each of us deciding what story to tell. Remembering that, I was -- in the first class - already contemplating what stories I would pitch.
But those thoughts were wasted -- Adam has taken a different approach. In the first class, he gave us a prompt -- a beloved childhood object. Near the end of class, we each got up and spoke about such an object. He told us, for the second week, to prepare a talk about a favorite restaurant or similar eating establishment. And in the secondo class he told us to prepare, for the third week, to talk about a mentor or friend. After that, we each had to pick one of those three prompts and build it into our story.
That had me disappointed. Even though I was having trouble coming up with three stories to pitch, I was feeling oddly annoyed that Adam was limiting us to these three prompts. In fairness, Adam did give us the option of going off menu -- subject to his approval -- if we had some other story that we really really wanted to go with. But when I thought about it, I realized that I could craft stories from each of the three prompts, so the hardest part was picking one of them.
But I picked one. And the last three weeks have been spent building my story. figuring out what works and what doesn't. Adding bits and removing others. And Ethan has been doing the same with his. We have each presented three iterations for the class, and listened to critiques and suggestions. We still have a week to practice, but at this point we're pretty much ready.
So next week I'll be onstage, telling my story about ... well, just tune in next week.
Session: Get Some Skull, Week 1 Movie: The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959) Directed by Edward L. Cahn
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: The men of the Drake family have all died at age 60. A long-dead archaeologist and his also-dead companion want to make sure that keeps happening. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
This is an interesting story, and it's well-paced. There are some good performances -- notably by Henry Daniell, who played Dr. Zurich. And, it should be noted the gore -- tame by today's standards -- was (at points) envelope pushing.
All that said, I didn't find any of the characters interesting, and it was therefore hard to really feel engaged with the story. In fact, I enjoyed myself immensely while watching the film, but I think that was more a product of the environment than the movie itself, because within a few days it had kind of left my brain. Were I to rate it now, it would fare worse than it when I rated it fresh off the viewing.
Well, this is it: חמישה פחות אחד by החברים של בני (which translates, roughly to "Five Minus One" by Benny's Friends")
My song actually began as an attempt to translate the Hebrew song. And my chorus is -- lyrically -- very similar to Benny's Friends' chorus. Of course, it's in a different language, the melody is very different and the choruses are very different.
Benny's Friends' song is much more poetic, and certainly less literal than mine. In case any of my reader is not fluent in Hebrew, here is a translation of their song (aided by Google Translate):
Soon the light, the light
Will surprise an endless black night
We are waiting for this light.
That’s why we’re here.
Soon the time, the time
Will start a different count, a different sign.
We are waiting for this time.
That’s why we’re here.
We’re five minus one.
We gave heart to heart and hand to hand.
We had a friend who was not afraid.
We’re five minus one.
Soon the song, the song
Will fly over the sea, over the city.
We are waiting for this time.
That’s why we’re here.
We’re five minus one.
We gave heart to heart and hand to hand.
We had a friend who was not afraid.
We’re five minus one.
I started this song by trying to write a translation of an old Israeli C&W song. Bonus points if you can identify which. After coming up with a passable translation of the chorus, I decided to take the song in a different direction. I was trying to get a bit of a Louis L'Amour vibe going. I don't think I succeeded, but I still like the song. Before putting out the album, I may ask Toby to rerecord with a different arrangement.
Three and a half years ago Sharon took an art course at the Bridgeview Academy of Fine Arts. I wrote about that here. As that class came to an end, she said she wanted to take another class. But not right away. Eventually.
Eventually has come, and Sharon is back at Bridgeview. After all this time she decided to take the same course over again rather than jump to a successor class. The illustration here is from her easel at the end of the first session.
The above should not be interpreted to mean that she stopped doing art in the interim. Sometimes it seems that she's always drawing -- whether digitally on her computer or non-digitally with pen and paper. I could shae a practical gallery of her art on this post, but that's not the point. Maybe I'll devote a post just to that. At this point, a good bit of her art -- at least the digital stuff -- is commission work. So people are paying her for her work, which is really cool.
Session: Saucy Jack, Week 4 Movie: Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) Directed by Roy Ward Baker
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: Trying to end all disease, Dr. Jekyll finds a way to turn himself into a woman, which leads to a battle for control. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
The interesting thing about DJ&SH is that it's a three-way crossover, trying to combine the stories of Dr. Jekyll, Jack the Ripper and Burke & Hare. What's even more interesting is that it actually works. Brian Clemens managed to put together a script that combines these elements seamlessly in a way that doesn't seem forced.
Also to Clemens' credit, the dialog is smart and snappy with lots of well-placed humor and clever lines. As the guys in class were quick to point out the film never gets to the point of being a comedy, but it is clever and humorous. Similarly, the romantic subplots have raise the potential for this to become a screwball comedy, but it never actually went there.
I loved watching Jekyll/Hyde descend into a tug of war, as the two personalities vie for control of the one body they share. And I felt sorry for Howard and Susan, the well-meaning but unknowing Spencers who each had romantic interests in Jekyll/Hyde. But, of course, their loves were not to be.
The casting of Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick as Jekyll and Hyde was really well done. The two look like they could be brother and sister, which lends an air of believability.
Session: Saucy Jack, Week 3 Movie: Jack the Ripper (1976) Directed by Jesus Franco
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: In London, a doctor is killing prostitutes while a policeman, his ballerina girlfriend and a blind man are hot on the case. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
There were a lot good things in this movie. This featured vivid colors and some really great cinematography. Sure, there's no way that rural idyll could have been the River Thames, but that's forgivable. The lively cabaret music (a bit of which you can see in the trailer above) helped set the lively pace.
Kinski, one of the creepiest actors to have become a star, was well cast as Dr. Orloff/Jack. He is disturbingly believable in the sexual scenes as well as the violent scenes (and, it should be noted, there is plenty of overlap between those two categories). It was fun to watch the blind man providing the police the leads they needed, in a modest Peter Falk type of way. The story kept up a good level of intensity, though there was a reasonable amount of comic relief.
But I couldn't help feeling that there were missed opportunities here. The murderous doctor has a mentally challenged (presumably due to primitive brain surgery) assistant named Frieda. Frieda helps him dispose of bodies, cleans up the blood-drenched lab after he performs his dismemberments, and performs other helpful tasks. It would have made the whole thing much more interesting if, in the end, we had learned that she was his mother, and that he had performed the lobotomies. The fact that there was no such revelation disappointed me. I was also expecting that, as the police were closing in on the Doctor, Frieda would -- disgusted by the horrors she has seen -- would gather the resolve to turn on him. Again, that did not happen -- though this may have been a matter of the movie purposefully defying expectations. Finally, after all the thrills and violence, I found the very end to be a huge letdown. This could have done so much more.
Ratings
Me: 8.5
Bob-O: 7.1
Christina: 7.5
Dave: 9.5
Joe: 10 (actually, Joe missed this session, but I'm just assuming he would have given it a 10).
Session: Saucy Jack, Week 2 Movie: Jack the Ripper (1959) Directed by Monty Berman and Robert S. Baker
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: In London in 1888, a man is asking prostitutes about Mary Clarke. And then killing them. The police and doctors are trying to figure out who's killing them. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
This version of JtR features a story that's told reasonably well. The trouble is that none of the performances stand out and there was nothing to make me care about the characters, so it was hard to feel engaged. The soundtrack featured appropriate music, but it was played at too high a level, thus becoming obtrusive.
The film was, apparently, intended to be a mystery, forcing the viewer to guess at the culprit's identity. But I didn't realize that. It was so obvious to me that I didn't even realize that it was meant to be obscured.
What saves the film is the ending. The last several minutes are thrilling, and the very end is both ghastly and brilliant. There were several of us in the class (myself included) who had kind of settled on a rating only to raise it when the ending unfolded.
Session: Saucy Jack, Week 1 Movie: The Lodger (1944) Directed by John Brahm
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: A mysterious lodger has developed quite an obsession with a showgirl. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
The true shame of this is learning about the short career of Laird Cregar, who played the titular lodger. Tall and heavyset, Cregar was a natural to portray heavies -- something which he did wonderfully. But he wanted to be a leading man, and literally died pursuing that dream. The extreme dieting and surgery that he hoped would turn him into a svelte romantic lead killed him at age 31. He is one of those performers who died tragically young and make you wonder "what if?"
I had never heard of Cregar, but found out this information during Joe's introduction. Joe missed Bring Your Own Movie month last year and this was one of the movies he was considering bringing. So Keith let him present. He chose to focus on Cregar, and even showed us a 20-minute documentary, The Tragic Mask: The Laird Cregar Story.
And Cregar lived up to the hype. He was part of an excellent cast, but this show was him. Over the course of the story we see him slowly transform from a relatively controlled man struggling to be proper to a crazed maniac. The essence of this transformation was captured in one particular scene that places him in a cabaret, watching the object of his affections, Kitty Langley (played wonderfully by Merle Oberon). He starts out looking well enough. But each time the shot changes to the stage where Kitty is performing and then back to Mr. Slade (Cregar's character), he looks more and more disheveled. Someone, I forget who, noted similarities between that and a scene in The Night of The Hunter (which we saw recently), but this was done better. I was thinking that he seemed to be turning from Jeckyll to Hyde. And that was capped by his appearance in Langley's dressing room, looking like he's lost his grip on sanity.
Director John Brahm did a great job using Cregar's size to advantage. Many camera shots emphasize just how big he is, as the camera shoots down over his shoulder, looming over other characters, or contrasting him with smaller actresses.
Recently the subway system opened up a new free transfer between Times Square (N,Q,R,S,W,1,2,3,7) and 42 Street/Bryant Park (B,D,F,M). Essentially, this is a connection between Seventh Avenue and Sixth Avenue, along 42nd Street.
I note that the Times Square station is already connected by free transfer to 42 Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal (A,C,E) and the 42 Street/Bryant Park station is already connected by free transfer to the 5 Avenue station (7). This means that, without leaving the system you can go along 7th Avenue from 8th Avenue to 5th Avenue. Those are three long blocks. I doubt the system has any other transfers covering such a distance.
But what makes this really interesting to me (and the reason I am writing this post) is that you can now get a free transfer between the 7 train at Times Square and the 7 train at 5th Avenue. I am reasonably sure that this is the first ins-system transfer between two stops on the same line.
Session: Bring Your Own Movie Month, Week 6 (Christina) Movie: The Mafu Cage (1978) Directed by Karen Arthur
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: Ellen Carpenter is trying her best to take care of her dysfunctional sister, Sissy, who wants a pet. But can Sissy take care of an animal? Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
The Mafu Cage left me exhausted. It's an emotional roller coaster in which you really never know what's going to happen -- who will live, who will die, and how. Gee, isn't it appropriate that I'm writing this during the Ten Days of Repentance.
I've always liked Carol Kane. I usually see her in comedic roles -- notably in Taxi -- and she'sreally good with the funny wackiness. But this was a side I don't recall seeing before -- Kane's wackiness in service of dark drama. In some ways it's like looking at a mirror-universe Simka Gravas. As the movie starts Sissy's insanity seems, if not minor, harmless. Then we see that something isn't right. And, we watch her descent accelerate.
Lee Grant, as Ellen, is sane by comparison. But she has her own issues -- her passive enabling and emotional repression. And, of course, there's the creepy context of the lesbian incest. And it's easy to miss all that as her neuroses can be easily overlooked in the shadow of Sissy's massive insanity. But it's there. And Ellen's refusal to deal with a clear and obvious problem is a major factor in Sissy's descent.
This is another one of those great movies I would never have heard of if not for this class.
Ratings
Me: 10
Bob-O: 10
Dave: 10
Ethan: 10
Joe: 10 Keith: 10 Sharon: 10
I believe that this is the first time in the class where everyone gave the movie a 10.
About a week ago I posted about the fact that we put out snacks for delivery people. Yesterday I posted about the fact that some stranger dropped off some snacks to put out with the others. Those posts were here and here.
I didn't expect the topic to become a series, but this the third entry about it. So now I'm numbering it as such. We'll see if there's a fourth.
Yesterday we had the annoying experience of someone taking all the snacks. It may have been an innocent mistake. We had put out stuff for freecycle, so maybe the up-picker honestly thought the snacks were part of it. Maybe not. We'll never know for sure. But either way it left us needing to buy more snacks to put out.
Then, in the eveneing, Blair and I were out at a freind's house enjoying an end-of-summer get-together. Sharon called. Sharon and Asher went out to pick up food. When they got back they found that someone had left a case of root beer.
A week ago I wrote a post about the snack box we put outside for the mailman (as well as various others who find themselves at our door. That post is here.
This week brought a surprise. Someone -- not anyone who lives here -- added a bunch of snacks to the box. I have no idea what to say about it other than to note it.
