In our cinema history class, we started a month of Alien ripoffs. That is, movies that were churned out to cash in on the success of the 1979 blockbuster. Last night, we started off with Contamination, an Italian-made film from 1980, starring Ian McCulloch.
The bottom line? Contamination is a better movie than it has any right to be. It rips off Alien, and it rips off Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Psycho, and it rips off a dozen other sources. But it's suspenseful and fun. There are some scenes with truly great camera work, and the music (by either "Goblin" or "The Goblin," depending on what you think is correct) was the perfect complement. Interestingly, while it was a ripoff, I can think of several later bits of popculture that may have been influenced by it. Scarface and Little Shop of Horrors (the 1980s version) come to mind. And Kand and Kodos (the aliens from The Simpsons) look like they may have been influenced by the design of the Alien Cyclops (yes, you read that right). Assuming, of course, that the producers of The Simpsons saw this and it's not just a coincidence.
As far as these classes go, this four-week session is a bit of an anomaly. We have generally focused on fare from the 1950s and 1960s, though we have gone back to the 1920s. Keith, who runs the show, tends not to be interested in material from the 1980s and later. But as this session covers ripoffs of Alien, we're kind of forced into material from 1980 and later.
I think I gave it a 7.2. Which is about 6.2 higher than I expected I would.
Last night was our first horseshoe crab count for the season. We've been doing this every year for a while. In the spring, we go out to the Waterfront Center in Oyster Bay and count horseshoe crabs. We count the lone males, lone females, mating pairs, and mating groups (generally a female with more than one male), and lone females (though there are rarely any of those). It's sort of like a Star Trek convention for arthropods. We adjust for visibility conditions, and somehow the good folks at the Cornell University Cooperative Extension take our numbers as part of a pool of data to determine...I'm not sure what. How many horseshoe crabs there are?
It was a slow night. We saw fewer than half a dozen. But later in the season is bound to be better, and we'll be seeing several dozen in an evening. Well, it is a chance to walk on the beach at night.
Ethan and I saw Phantom of the Opera on Broadwaylast night. Thanks, mom, for the tickets.
I'm not going to attempt to review it here, since m,any people who are more eloquent and more experienced have reviewed it already. But I do have three comments to make.
1) I have seen a bunch of Broadway shows before. I'm not a regular at the theatres, but I've seen enough that I'd have trouble trying to list all of them on the spot. I have never seen such spectacle at a Broadway show. The pyrotechnics, the moving set pieces. This is an extremely creative production. I remember feeling that Miss Saigon had amazing spectacle. But this easily topped it.
2) Before the show, the woman two seats over from me turned to the women behind her and warned them about an effect they should be aware of and prepared for, sitting where they were. I had been unaware, and her warning ruined the surprise for me. I think I would have enjoyed that moment a lot more had I not known it was coming. It's sort of like telling movie-goers the plot twist to The Crying Game or The Sixth Sense. Well, maybe not quite that extreme. But ou get the idea. Incidentally, I am not saying what the effect was, in case anyone reading this is unaware of the effect and plans to see Phantom. That said, when I mentioned it to Blair she told me that it's a well-known thing. Sort of like throwing toast at The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
3) During the number, "Music of the Night," I couldn't help but thinking that it sounded like a duet from a Meat Loaf album.
It would be hard to pin down one movie as my favorite. Things like that are likely tochange from day to day with my mood. But one of the candidates is the quintessential spaghetti Western, The Goo, the Bad and the Ugly.
GB&U is a film of wide scope, following three gunslingers as they chase down a cache of Confederate gold during the Civil War. It's got humor, it's got pathos. It has one of the most haunting soundtracks in movie history. Every time I watch it I notice something that I hadn't noticed before. Oh, also, it's got a great early reference to "monologing." I love Tuco's line in this clip:
But there is one thing I don't like. In the beginning, as the three main characters are introduced, we see script writing appear on screen to tell us which one is the good, which one is the bad, and which one is the ugly.I can't help thinking that the movie would have been better without spelling that out. Let the audience decide. Better yet, let them debate.
When I first heard that the Monkees were going to be putting out a new album this year (to celebrate 50 years since their inception), I was...less than optimistic. I pre-ordered the album, but in a sense it was more out of duty then genuine excitement.
Before going on, let me note that I am now cautiously optimistic -- based on the strength of the first single, "She Makes Me Laugh." I'll explain below.
"She Makes Me Laugh" from the forthcoming album
Now, to continue where I left off: Since Changes, which was the last of the Monkees' "original" albums, there have been occasional attempts at reunions. For the purposes of this discussion I'm largely limiting myself to recordings of new material.
The first such attempt was in the mid '70s. But Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork wouldn't sign on, So Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart (who had written much of the material for the original albums, got on board. Then, legal issues prevented them from being "The Monkees." So they were Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart. The album they recorded was actually a pretty decent bit of pop music, but it didn't do well.
"Sweet Heart Attack" from Dolenz Jones Boyce and Hart
Ten years later, amid MTV-fueled nostalgia, they tried it again. This time, Tork was onboard, making it a ¾ reunion. They recorded three new tracks to tack onto a compilation album. Two of them -- including a cover of "Kicks," which had been a hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders -- were forgettable, though "That Was Then, This is Now" was pretty good and actually hit #20 on Billboard.
"That Was Then, This Is Now" from Then and Now...The Best of the Monkees
But it never got that good again. In 1987 they went for a full album. Pool It featured an updated sound, and had some very strong elements. But it was very forgettable. That was a huge disappointment for me, personally. I was in grad school, trying to become a mathematician, but also maintaining an interest in music journalism. I got Tower Records Pulse! to let me do a kind of preview article about the upcoming album. The trick was that I had to write about it as if I had heard the album. Which I hadn't. To help, Pulse arranged for me to talk to producer Roger Bechirian. That was a thrill, since he had worked with many of the New Wave/Post-Pub Rock acts that I had loved since high school. As an aside, I'll note that that article contained one of the most cringeworthy mistakes of my writing career. Anyway, I was stoked for te album -- a new album of new Monkees recordings, including a cover of Wreckless Eric's "(I'd Go the) Whole Wide World." But the attempt to make the Monkees sound contemporary just didn't work. It was cheesy pop music -- while not truly bad, it wasn't really good either.
"Heart and Soul" from Pool It!
1996 saw the next real attempt. Somehow they got Mike Nesmith on board, so there was a full reunion, and an album of new recordings, featuring all four Monkees acting like a band. Once again, I was waiting in anticpation -- this time for Justus. I tried to like the album. I really tried. But I never really warmed up to it.
"You and I" from Justus
So now, here we are, twenty years after that atrocity. In that time there have been lots of Monkees tours with one or another nonempty subset of the group.. And there have been lots of stories of one or another being kicked out of the group, or being reinstated, or whatever. I haven;t had the energy to follow the saga. But Davy Jones died four years ago, which kind of puts him permanently out of the group (at least for the purposes of touring). I'd kind of come to accept the idea that there wouldn't be new material, though Rhino Records does seem to keep finding ways to repackage the existing stuff or add previously unreleased tracks or alternate takes.
And that's where I was when I first heard that there would be a new album (called Good Times!) of all new material. I didn't like the last two attempts, and there'll be no Davy. So it can't be good. Then I heard that there will be Davy. They found old ("vintage") Monkees recordings from the 1960s. Sounds great! But then I remembered those awful tracks with John Lennon that made their way onto the Beatles' Anthology albums. And I shuddered. This can't go well, I told myself. They'll update the hell out of the group. Like Justus, it won't sound like the Monkees. And they'll have some crappy archival recording of Davy singing a crappy song that was never released for a very good reason. But, perhaps against my best judgement, I pre-ordered the album. And the release date was moved up, so bitter dissapointment loomed larger and larger.
So, this weekend I saw an email from Rhino records that I could hear the first single, "She Makes Me Laugh" (the video is at the top of this post). In my apprehension, I thought of "Laugh," from the group's second album, and worried that this will be a disaster. But I am pleased to have been proven wrong. "She Makes Me Laugh" is a catchy song. And they made it sound like vintage Monkees. If you had tyold me that it was an outtake from the 1966 recordings, I wouldn't have a hard time believing it. And Micky Dolenz' vocals sound like they did fifty years ago.
Will I be disappointed again? Maybe. But maybe not?
