The best radio talk show featuring the incomparable Neil Rogers. If you lived in Miami in the mid-80s to 2009 (or in Tampa when the show was broadcast there for a little while in the 90s), then you’ll remember Uncle Neil. One advantage of the internet was being able to listen to Neil while I was living in England from 2001 to 2005. Another advantage is finding old shows like this one available online:
Caela Bailey, Sydni Devereux, and Dalisha Phillips with the troupe Mod Carousel produced this video and reworking of “Blurred Lines” in response to Robin Thicke’s original song and video. This gender reversed parody is certainly more fun and better sung than the original…
Thicke’s song fits in with a long line of sleazy, catchy rock songs and Thicke seems to be enjoying the controversy.
I’d never heard Thicke, Mod Carousel or the song prior to an article posted on Violet Blue. I’m old enough and unconcerned with contemporary pop songs enough that I first thought Alan Thicke (from Thicke of the Night and Growing Pains, and a theme song writer) was the person involved in this controversy. Turns out its his son, and young Robin seems rather thicke-headed given his response to the complaints. Good for those who are calling him on it, although the theme of the song fits right in to a tradition of songs that go back to the roots of rock. Glad that the ladies and Mod Carousel responded with this flip of the genders, if for no other reason then I want to hear more of Bailey, Devereux, and Phillips’ music.
I am a bit wary of the term “all-time greatest”. It seems presumptuous to say that anything would be considered the best forever. Would it not be better to call them 100 Great Films? Citizen Kane has often been called the greatest movie ever made which has proved more of a curse than a blessing for the film.
Neverless the label goes with the hyperbole, which like film and entertainment news is as American as apple pie (at least as far as this list is concerned. Very few foreign films made the cut). As former Vice President Spiro Agnew is rumored to have said, “The United States, for all its faults, is still the greatest nation in the country.” And certainly that is the greatest quote of all time.
One of my all-time greatest pleasures is discussing films. Both the gent writing as Samurai Frog at Electronic Cerebrectomy and Roger of Ramblin with Roger have reviewed Entertainment Weekly‘s entire list. Following their lead, I will do the same although just the top ten for now. I have no objection to any of the films on the EW list, although certainly some worthy and even excellent films don’t appear and very few non-English films made their “100 All-Time Greatest”. Anyway, here goes:
1. Citizen Kane (1941)
An amazing film, as good as its reputation and a film that uses all the elements of film in imaginative ways. A film whose narrative structure has been repeatedly borrowed by other filmmakers including Welles himself whose Mr. Arkadin/Confidential Report (1955). (A films which is not anywhere near the league of Citizen Kane, but which I find fascinating despite its flaws). Welles would never be as free to explore the potential of Hollywood film making as he was on this, his first film, and it shows his pure joy in experimenting with the medium. The script by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz is based on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst but comes to be a study less of Hearst the man then a potentially great man who fails to fulfill his promise. Wonderful acting from every member of the cast, many of whom had been part of Welles’ Mercury Theatre Company. Standouts include Agnes Moorehead as Mrs. Mary Kane, the newspaper man’s mother, Joseph Cotten as Kane’s best friend Jed Leland, Everett Sloane as Mr. Bernstein (whose recollection of a lady is a highlight of the film), and Dorothy Comingore as Susan Alexander Kane.
The trailer for the film is also fun and innovative in its approach to publicizing the film.
2. The Godfather (1972)
Based on Mario Puzo’s bestselling novel, this is one of the best films of the 1970s. Wonderful cinematography Gordon Willis whose experiments with color, light and shadow in this film earned him the nickname “The Prince of Darkness”. A romantic vision of an “honorable” crime family whose criminal organization comes under attack, a film that looks at the bonds between fathers and sons, family obligations and the nature of crime as a business and the business of crime. Francis Ford Coppola has made some other equally interesting films but never a better film. Puzo, who co-wrote the script, never wrote a more entertaining novel.
3. Casablanca (1942)
The perfect Hollywood studio movie. A great script, not completed at the time of filming and written on the fly but nevertheless filled with great dialogue, fascinating characters, and political themes mixed with adventure, humor and romance. A film about United States isolationism and the need for the US to join the fight against the Nazi’s and Axis powers from Warner Brothers, the most pro-Roosevelt and pro-Allied forces of all the Hollywood studios. Perfect cast directed by the best studio director at Warner Brothers, Michael Curtiz and unforgettable music by Max Steiner, who originally did not want to use the song “As Time Goes By” and then based much of his score around that song.
4. Bonnie And Clyde (1967)
Another terrific selection. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are terrific as the title duo who meet a bad end but have an exciting run in the meantime.
5. Psycho (1960)
One of Alfred Hitchcock’s best, and most shocking films, even if you know the twist at the end. A change of pace for Hitchcock, shot in black and white during a period in which his films were usually shot in color. His previous film had been the equally terrific North by Northwest with Cary Grant in the lead role.
6. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
Frank Capra’s fable is often funny, but its themes are dark and its hero, George Bailey, is one of his most complicated protagonists. James Stewart is terrific as Bailey, as is Donna Reed as his wife Mary. Towards the end of the film George is plunged into a dark, nightmare world in which he is shown how one person can have a great impact on their community and never know it. And how their absence can bring down a happy world like a house of cards.
7. Mean Streets (1973)
I saw this film years ago, and recall thinking that Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel and Richard Romanus were good in the film. I cannot recall anything about the film now. Perhaps its time to refresh my memory.
8. The Gold Rush (1925)
I first saw this film on a bill with Buster Keaton’s The General. I had never seen a silent film prior to this and was absolutely floored by how funny and delightful these films were. This was in the days before video or DVD and the audience, college students all, were howling with laughter during these films. Chaplin perfectly balanced tragic scenes (the New Year’s Eve Party) and comedy. Later comedians and Chaplin himself would go overboard in seeking to show the “tears of the clown” but here they truly work in relation to each other to enhance the film. Classic comic sequences include the Oceana Roll scene, Chaplin eating his shoe, and trying to escape a hungry colleague who thinks Chaplin is a giant chicken. Chaplin would later remove the titles and add sound narration to the film…avoid that version at all costs! The original version, without narration, is much better.
9. Nashville (1975)
I have not yet seen this film.
10. Gone With The Wind (1939)
A film with many problems, most of which stem from the source novel. Racism and a romanticizing of life in the pre-Civil War south is not the half of it. And without Vivian Leigh’s electrifying performance as Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Cable’s equally captivating turn as Rhett Butler, this film would have been long forgotten. Good direction, romance, beautiful scenery, and a supporting cast that includes Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel as “Mammy”, Butterfly McQueen as Prissy and Everett Brown as Big Sam. It’s a testament to their skills as actors that the stereotypical roles they played in the film work at all. Still for a film epic it is never dull and frequently captivating despite its ugly values.
George Carlin has been my favorite comedian since I first saw him on television when I was twelve years old. My parents and I were visiting my grandparents in West Virginia. This was back when cable was relatively new, so new that we did not have it at home, but I believe my father bought it for his parents so they could watch films since they rarely left the house, my grandfather having had a stroke a few years before this visit.
One of the channels, perhaps HBO, was running a special on top comedians. They kept showing a clip of Carlin. It was his voice that caught my attention and his exploration of language that kept it. Not long after seeing the short clip on television, I sought out his albums, starting with a “best of” which included “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” and “Football and Baseball”. I’ve been a fan ever since. A highlight of my college years at Florida State was seeing Carlin in concert. During the same four years I also attended talks by Kurt Vonnegut (He was booed by some idiots for suggesting that a war in Iraq was a bad idea. He flipped them off.), Barbara Ehrenreich, Harlan Ellison and performances by Arlo Guthrie, Brenda Kahn, 2 Nice Girls, Jason and the Scorchers, and B. B. King. Great time to be at college. Even attended the occasional class.
Here is a video of Carlin at the National Press Club from 1999. Still discussing language and as usual, incredibly funny while observing the way language is used to prevent communication, obscure meaning and dodge the question.
From my new favorite blog featuring lots of stuff I owned once upon a time and lots of goodies (like the magazine above) that I’d never seen before. Via DC Comics Fortress of Memorabilia
Actress and singer Jane Birkin has recorded many songs by her Serge Gainsbourg, whom she met on the set of the film Slogan (1968). Gainsbourg and Birkin had a passionate long term relationship, which was reflected in his song Je t’aime… moi non plus, a song written for Brigitte Bardot in 1967 but not released for decades. The famous version of that song was recorded later and features Jane Birkin and Gainsbourg on vocals. The record has a wonderfully sleazy ambience that is, oddly enough, reminiscent of Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale (1967), although the themes of the songs were quite different.
For her first solo album Di doo dah, Gainsbourg wrote this song for Birkin, an ode to sweets called Les langues de chat (1972). (“Cat tongues” are French biscuits).
Randm Round Table 