And another part of my childhood dies. Or more precisely, part of my teen age years since I was the right age to get caught up in the whole Monkees revival of the mid-'80s. I even went to two of their concerts.
The Monkees really deserve more credit then they get. Yes they started out as manufactured, but the albums they wrote and played on were really quite good as well. Davy was probably the least musically talented of the group, but without his charm and cuteness the show probably would not have been a success.
So here is my favorite of the songs Davy sang.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Buster Keaton
Way back in October Turner Classic Movies featured Buster Keaton as their Star of the Month. I have enjoyed silent films when I watch them, but I am usually doing something else while I watch TV and so rarely give the films my undivided attention. The compromise I came up with is to exercise while I watch silents. I hate exercise, but having my DVR clogged with silent films provides some motivation to get some exercise each day. TCM showed most of Keaton's starring shorts and features along with some Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle shorts which was a lot of product. In the intervening months, I also watched some other silents which is why it has taken so long for me to finally get through Keaton's works.
Keaton's short films are two reelers making the perfect for exercising to (a reel is about ten minutes and I really should exercise twenty minutes a day which doesn't always happen). The best of the lot is also the earliest. In One Week, Keaton builds a prefab house for his new bride and everything goes wrong. It has one of the best surprise endings ever. I also really enjoyed The High Sign which had crooks chasing Buster through a house full of secret passages.
Keaton's features come in two stages. He started off writing and producing his own movies. Steamboat Bill Jr. is the most famous since t his is the one with the big storm that drops a house front on Keaton. It's a great stunt in which he easily could have died, but the stunt looses some of its intrigue after having watched one of the Arbuckle/Keaton films where Arbuckle performs the stunt on a much smaller scale. Sherlock Jr. is most noticeable for a mind blowing scene in which Buster walks into a movie.
This was released in 1924 and was all done with practical effects. Here we are ninety years later and some CGI effects don't look this good. Later there is also a awesome motorcycle scene which is equally amazing. Another great piece of stunt work comes in Our Hospitality.
Go to about 4:50 in and watch Keaton snatch his love from the brink of a waterfall.
The second stage of Buster's feature career came when he signed with MGM in order to free himself from the money problems of producing his own films. Huge mistake. MGM was a dream factory with the emphasis on factory. On his own Keaton would let his films develop on set. Now he had to have preapproved scripts. MGM didn't like him doing his own stunts. This was understandable since they wanted to protect their investment, however Keaton's films are often great due to equal parts comedy and how is this man not dead stunt work. Without the stunts, the movies suffered. Then came sound and the pairing of Keaton with Jimmy Durante. Both are good on their own, but together with sound Durante's characters naturally took over the films. These films were moneymakers, but Keaton had lost his magic and his feature film career was over. It couldn't have helped matters that Keaton had a slow deep voice. It wasn't a bad voice, but it was not the voice one would expect the swift running, athletic ladies man of his silent films to have.
In closing, I'd say Keaton's films between 1920 and 1928 are the ones most worth checking out. I definitely have no desire to ever see any of the sound films again.
Keaton's short films are two reelers making the perfect for exercising to (a reel is about ten minutes and I really should exercise twenty minutes a day which doesn't always happen). The best of the lot is also the earliest. In One Week, Keaton builds a prefab house for his new bride and everything goes wrong. It has one of the best surprise endings ever. I also really enjoyed The High Sign which had crooks chasing Buster through a house full of secret passages.
Keaton's features come in two stages. He started off writing and producing his own movies. Steamboat Bill Jr. is the most famous since t his is the one with the big storm that drops a house front on Keaton. It's a great stunt in which he easily could have died, but the stunt looses some of its intrigue after having watched one of the Arbuckle/Keaton films where Arbuckle performs the stunt on a much smaller scale. Sherlock Jr. is most noticeable for a mind blowing scene in which Buster walks into a movie.
This was released in 1924 and was all done with practical effects. Here we are ninety years later and some CGI effects don't look this good. Later there is also a awesome motorcycle scene which is equally amazing. Another great piece of stunt work comes in Our Hospitality.
Go to about 4:50 in and watch Keaton snatch his love from the brink of a waterfall.
The second stage of Buster's feature career came when he signed with MGM in order to free himself from the money problems of producing his own films. Huge mistake. MGM was a dream factory with the emphasis on factory. On his own Keaton would let his films develop on set. Now he had to have preapproved scripts. MGM didn't like him doing his own stunts. This was understandable since they wanted to protect their investment, however Keaton's films are often great due to equal parts comedy and how is this man not dead stunt work. Without the stunts, the movies suffered. Then came sound and the pairing of Keaton with Jimmy Durante. Both are good on their own, but together with sound Durante's characters naturally took over the films. These films were moneymakers, but Keaton had lost his magic and his feature film career was over. It couldn't have helped matters that Keaton had a slow deep voice. It wasn't a bad voice, but it was not the voice one would expect the swift running, athletic ladies man of his silent films to have.
In closing, I'd say Keaton's films between 1920 and 1928 are the ones most worth checking out. I definitely have no desire to ever see any of the sound films again.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
2012 Academy Awards
Once again i am watching the Oscars not having seen any of the nominated films, but who cares. The major awards are somewhat of a foregone conclusion and the only points in watching is for the clothes and the hopes that one of the minor award winners will saw something interesting. Speaking of dresses, it was quite a dull read carpet. Everyone played it safe so there were no train wrecks, a lot of good, but not much great.
Billy Crystal has a tough row to hoe since he can't possibly live up to how good people think he used to be. The sound seems a bit off, too. A little echo-y/buzzy.
Don't like the beard on Hanks. Do like that he's presenting technical and not acting awards.
I think the point of this montage is supposed to be the magic of going to the movies, but it completely lacks focus and is a perfect example of five minutes they could have cut.
They're letting both people talk if there are two winners for an award. And the winners are keeping it short so they haven't had to play anyone off yet.
Octavia Spencer looks lovely from the waist up but I don't find the bottom back to be flattering. This is how a plus size woman should dress for formal. the other plus size nominees tonight had too much going on with jeweled accents at the waist and neck
Angelina Jolie is clapping and her upper arms jiggle. There is no hope for normal women. ( I worked women's clothing retail for 11 years and discovered that 99% of women do not want to show their arms because they are convinced people will be disgusted by the fact their arms are jiggly.)
A bit about focus groups by Christopher Guest. Fred Willard provides the first real laughs of the night.
Dear Citizen's Bank, If you want to have an actor portray Alexander Hamilton in your ads can you at least hire someone good looking? After all, in addition to creating our country's fiscal policy, he was also a major hottie.
Cirque du Soleil presenting something that is supposed to represent going to the movies. Another ten minutes of my life I'll never get back. Audience--don't applaud this. It will only encourage them to pull more of this crap again next year.
I dislike Gwyneth Paltrow on general principle but kind of liked her dress on the red carpet. Without the cape, it's got these awful shoulder pads in the cap sleeves that look bizarre.
Christopher Plummer--classy, gracious, and funny. This is how acceptance speeches should be done.
Only two nominees for best song and they both seemingly suck (at least judging from the clips shown).
Two hours in and there are still issues with the sound. What the hell.
Dick jokes--the height of comedy.Of course, these are unfunny dick jokes form the cast of Bridesmaids since we apparently have to prove that women can be as raunchy as men this year. Wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the short film awards since those winners generally give some of the nicest, sincere acceptance speeches of the night.
Meryl Streep's dress is not good. Maybe in a different fabric.
Decent In Memorium..Liz Taylor came last, of course.
Okay--i am in love with the winner of Best Animated Short. Books and movies--my two favorite things. And I love that the lead has Buster Keaton's style, Harold Lloyd's boater, and Charlie Chaplin's cane.
I hate these individualized introductions of each of the Best Actor/Actress nominees. Waste of time and so much pointless ego stroking.
Good God I did not want Meryl Streep to win. Not that she is not deserving. I like her. She's a good actress and seems genuinely nice. But from what I heard, The Iron Lady was a mediocre film. And she has just been everywhere lately. Plus, I really think Glenn Close should have an Oscar. But the Oscar likes to reward actors for playing famous people. On the other hand, I have yet to forgive her for that awful, awful piece of drek that is the film version of Mamma Mia. Of course, her speech is utterly charming so I can't stay mad.
Done by 11:40 so at least one good thing about the show.
Billy Crystal has a tough row to hoe since he can't possibly live up to how good people think he used to be. The sound seems a bit off, too. A little echo-y/buzzy.
Don't like the beard on Hanks. Do like that he's presenting technical and not acting awards.
I think the point of this montage is supposed to be the magic of going to the movies, but it completely lacks focus and is a perfect example of five minutes they could have cut.
They're letting both people talk if there are two winners for an award. And the winners are keeping it short so they haven't had to play anyone off yet.
Octavia Spencer looks lovely from the waist up but I don't find the bottom back to be flattering. This is how a plus size woman should dress for formal. the other plus size nominees tonight had too much going on with jeweled accents at the waist and neck
Angelina Jolie is clapping and her upper arms jiggle. There is no hope for normal women. ( I worked women's clothing retail for 11 years and discovered that 99% of women do not want to show their arms because they are convinced people will be disgusted by the fact their arms are jiggly.)
A bit about focus groups by Christopher Guest. Fred Willard provides the first real laughs of the night.
Dear Citizen's Bank, If you want to have an actor portray Alexander Hamilton in your ads can you at least hire someone good looking? After all, in addition to creating our country's fiscal policy, he was also a major hottie.
Cirque du Soleil presenting something that is supposed to represent going to the movies. Another ten minutes of my life I'll never get back. Audience--don't applaud this. It will only encourage them to pull more of this crap again next year.
I dislike Gwyneth Paltrow on general principle but kind of liked her dress on the red carpet. Without the cape, it's got these awful shoulder pads in the cap sleeves that look bizarre.
Christopher Plummer--classy, gracious, and funny. This is how acceptance speeches should be done.
Only two nominees for best song and they both seemingly suck (at least judging from the clips shown).
Two hours in and there are still issues with the sound. What the hell.
Dick jokes--the height of comedy.Of course, these are unfunny dick jokes form the cast of Bridesmaids since we apparently have to prove that women can be as raunchy as men this year. Wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the short film awards since those winners generally give some of the nicest, sincere acceptance speeches of the night.
Meryl Streep's dress is not good. Maybe in a different fabric.
Decent In Memorium..Liz Taylor came last, of course.
Okay--i am in love with the winner of Best Animated Short. Books and movies--my two favorite things. And I love that the lead has Buster Keaton's style, Harold Lloyd's boater, and Charlie Chaplin's cane.
I hate these individualized introductions of each of the Best Actor/Actress nominees. Waste of time and so much pointless ego stroking.
Good God I did not want Meryl Streep to win. Not that she is not deserving. I like her. She's a good actress and seems genuinely nice. But from what I heard, The Iron Lady was a mediocre film. And she has just been everywhere lately. Plus, I really think Glenn Close should have an Oscar. But the Oscar likes to reward actors for playing famous people. On the other hand, I have yet to forgive her for that awful, awful piece of drek that is the film version of Mamma Mia. Of course, her speech is utterly charming so I can't stay mad.
Done by 11:40 so at least one good thing about the show.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Recent Reads
Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen. Someone said "here is a clever book title, write a story" and Ryhs Bowen obliged with a story that has next to nothing to do with the title. Set in 1932, Lady Georgiana is a distant relative of the British royal family who has to figure out a way to make a living without embarrassing her royal relatives. It purports to be a cozy mystery, but the dead body doesn't show up until almost halfway through and it is more a romance novel than mystery. I know mystery writers generally don't want their main characters to be too much smarter than the general reader, but Georgie is particularly stupid, especially in spending time with the killer long after it is clear who the killer is. Plot lines are picked up and dropped at random. Especially irksome was that she lied to her police about her alibi but when the police discovered evidence that her alibi was false, no one called her on that fact. As for the spying, a very minor plot has Queen Mary asking Georgie to spy on the Prince of Wales and his married American lover. This allows Bowen to engage in the popular sport of Wallis Simpson bashing even though in 1932, the Prince was not serious about Wallis and had an entirely different married American woman he was involved with (Lady Thelma Furness). This was a free audio book from Audible which is probably the only reason I got through it since I listened during my commute. The audio book was well done. Too bad the story sucked.
Sanders of the River by Edgar Wallace. A rollicking adventure novel about a British commissioner in Africa. Yes, it is racist and the natives are viewed largely as children in need of discipline, but it is about what you would expect of a imperialist novel published in 1911. Sanders at least tries to understand the ways of the natives and deal with them somewhat on their terms and not as a tyrannical despot. There's some nice humor especially in the character of an escaped criminal who becomes a tribal chief. Rather fun.
The Name of the This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch. Picked this up for free one day. It's a pale imitation of a Lemony Snicket novel involving two oddball kids investigating a kidnapping. The menacing bits are not very menacing. For its intended junior fiction reader it is probably fine, but it is a bit thin for adult readers of children's fiction.
The Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart. During WWII, a young woman and a few servants go to open the family summer home and discover a burned body in the linen cupboard. I figured out who the victim was rather easily but was completely off base on who the murderer was. A nice mystery with a touch of romance and intrigue.
Cat of the Century by Rita Mae Brown. The problem with mystery series is that if one book is okay, I tend to read others. The Mrs. Murphy series was decent despite Brown's snobbish attitude and obvious wish that the world would revert to an agricultural society with a landed gentry (she'd be one of the few haves in this situation and not one of the far more prevalent have nots). Brown's bad tendencies get worse in the more recent books. This one came out in 2010. I was annoyed when our heroine Harry got annoyed at a shopkeeper who made Harry pay for an expensive piece of pottery her dog broke in a shop. It wasn't the fault of the dog that he got spooked by departing customers. Right--it was the fault of the stupid human who took her unleashed animal into a store full of expensive breakables. Yes, I get that Harry has some sort of undiagnosed medical condition where she is psychologically incapable of being away from an animal for more than five minutes, but she needs to accept the consequences of her actions. Then Harry and her husband were discussing a trip Harry is to take. She can't fly because they're environmentalists and air travel causes major pollution. In fact, pollution would just clear up if all air traffic would cease (while Harry is strongly against government spending and regulation, she supports it when it protects her point of view). She then debates taking her huge new truck that eats gas or her 1978 truck that, given its vintage, can't be good for the environment either. Can't rent a car since that's too expensive, never mind that the rental cost would be offset by the increased fuel efficiency that would also be better for the environment. This whole discussion is written in stilted dialogue that in no way resembles a conversation two family members would have with each other over the dinner table. I could stomach her right wing agenda if only it wasn't so poorly written. At this point, this book and another Brown sitting on my to be read shelf immediately got moved to the donate back to the library shelf.
Sanders of the River by Edgar Wallace. A rollicking adventure novel about a British commissioner in Africa. Yes, it is racist and the natives are viewed largely as children in need of discipline, but it is about what you would expect of a imperialist novel published in 1911. Sanders at least tries to understand the ways of the natives and deal with them somewhat on their terms and not as a tyrannical despot. There's some nice humor especially in the character of an escaped criminal who becomes a tribal chief. Rather fun.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Whitney Houston
Tonight is another rare occurrence when I am shocked by a celebrity death. Granted it's only been a few days since the latest paparazzi shots of Whitney leaving a club looking drugged out and somewhat bloodied. She clearly had not gotten over her well-known drug issues, but I figured she was one of those musicians (like Keith Richards) who could merrily go on their way abusing drugs without killing themselves. I have never been a fan of Whitney Houston (wailing female singers aren't my thing), but she she accomplished a lot in her professional life and could have done a lot more.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole regularly shows up on list of the funniest books of all time and the best books of the 20th Century. If nothing else it has a great back story--author commits suicide in 1969, eleven years later his mother convinces someone to publish the book, the book wins a Pulitzer Prize. For me there were several arguments against reading it. Humor can be a tricky thing to pull off, the cover was unappealing, and "great books" are not necessarily good reads (I will never reread War and Peace but I will reread Valley of the Dolls). Then I saw that audible was offering the audio book version for free so I decided to give it a shot.
The book is set in New Orleans of the 1960's. There's a massive cast of characters who are generally either pathetic or unlikable (the exception being Jones, the poor black janitor with a unique view of things). The central character is Ignatius Riley, an overweight, lazy, pretentious bore who makes his mother's life a hell. What plot there is in the story involves his having to get a job to repay a debt incurred when his mother crashes their car. The book is more a journey than a destination. It's long with lots of tangents. You might like the characters, but it's interesting to see how everything interconnects. This is very much a book that you will probably either really like or really loathe.
This is a case where I do think an audio book is a better choice than a physical one. This version was narrated by Barrett Whitener. He reads the basic bits of the story in an almost robotic tone which I thought was an odd choice at first. Once I got into it, I realized this was a great tone to take since it contrasted nicely with the voices he used for the character's dialogue. There's a large cast of characters, and Whitener gives them all a unique voice that really suits each person. All in all, I found it an enjoyable experience.
The book is set in New Orleans of the 1960's. There's a massive cast of characters who are generally either pathetic or unlikable (the exception being Jones, the poor black janitor with a unique view of things). The central character is Ignatius Riley, an overweight, lazy, pretentious bore who makes his mother's life a hell. What plot there is in the story involves his having to get a job to repay a debt incurred when his mother crashes their car. The book is more a journey than a destination. It's long with lots of tangents. You might like the characters, but it's interesting to see how everything interconnects. This is very much a book that you will probably either really like or really loathe.
This is a case where I do think an audio book is a better choice than a physical one. This version was narrated by Barrett Whitener. He reads the basic bits of the story in an almost robotic tone which I thought was an odd choice at first. Once I got into it, I realized this was a great tone to take since it contrasted nicely with the voices he used for the character's dialogue. There's a large cast of characters, and Whitener gives them all a unique voice that really suits each person. All in all, I found it an enjoyable experience.
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