This Week in Rixflix #6: April 14-20, 2017

So, the big Mystery Science Theater 3000 reveal happened to the public, and by the time Easter weekend finished, I had watched the remaining episodes via Netflix. Using my iPad at night, I even watched a couple of them a second time (not counting the first episode that I saw again and again and yet again the previous Sunday).

I will write more about the show in a separate series I am planning to start soon, and despite MST3K basically stealing my brain and attention for the past fortnight, I will mention that I still managed to see a fair amount of feature films throughout the remainder of the week. Most notably of that bunch, I finally watched Kubo and the Two Strings. As a stop-motion aficionado (né nut), I have once again had to kick myself over and over mentally for not having seen Kubo on a big screen in a theatre in the first place. Likewise, for also not having seen it multiple times in such a setting. The film is genuinely one of the coolest, most engrossing films I have viewed in a very long time, and its arrival on Blu-ray at my household will be immediate following my next spurt of employment.

I will post a couple of articles on Cinema 4: Cel Bloc in the very near future that recap and review the two dozen or so National Film Board of Canada animated shorts that were aired by TCM the previous weekend, all of which I watched while juggling MST3K episodes on release weekend. Please keep your eyes peeled for that at http://cinema4celbloc.blogspot.com/, but just in case it takes a little longer to make those articles live than I am planning, also please keep those eyes on ice after you peel them.

This week's feature-length film count: 17; 14 first-time viewings and 3 repeats.
Animated shorts seen: 27
Highest rated feature-length film: Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) – 9/9
Lowest rated feature films: Crossroads (2002) and The Colony (2014) – 4/9
Average films per day in April thus far: 2.3
Average films per day in 2017 thus far: 3.02

Kismet (1955) Dir.: Vincente Minnelli – In the past couple of years, I have repeatedly confused the different filmed versions of Kismet. I have recorded the 1944 Marlene Dietrich version at least thrice when the one that I needed to check off my watchlist was the Howard Keel musical version from MGM in 1955. Finally, I trapped the little bugger and quickly dove into the proper Kismet at last. This film does fall into my "put off for too long" category, though I will say that having now seen it, I merely thought it was a good film but not nearly as engaging as I had hoped. The sets and costuming are, assuredly, quite wonderful to behold, and I truly did enjoy Keel's lead role as a poet known as the "King of the Beggars" who uses his wits and his skill with words to position his daughter for a better life as the wife of the Caliph. Keel is quite fun and able in the role, as is a pre-Family Affair and Jungle Book Sebastian Cabot as a grumbly wazir (who, fortunately, does not try to sing). There is a chance that if I manage to record this version of Kismet properly a couple more times in the future that I may grow to like it even more, possibly even to loving it. As it stands right now, my TC4P rating is a solid 6/9.

Bright Road (1953) Dir.: Gerald Mayer – I have recorded this film a couple of times before, but have deleted the recording each time either out of need for DVR space or disinterest at that particular moment. Well, I finally got interested enough to watch it, and now I regret not having visited Bright Road earlier. An early '50s attempt to engage a broader segment of the population beyond the white audience, with the lovely Dorothy Dandridge as a schoolteacher (at a segregated schoolhouse, of course) who has a sweet but troubled student in her class who doesn't quite connect with learning in the normal way. (Gee, I wonder why I connected to this material so quickly? Hmmm...) The always marvelous Harry Belafonte is the principal of the school who allows Dandridge some room (eventually) in trying to figure out the utter puzzle sitting at the little desk before her. It's a quietly paced, often sad tale, but the lead actors do wonders in working with their young cast to make the film a rewarding experience. Surprisingly for a film that is not a musical, Belafonte sings a haunting ballad during one scene that once more reminded me that he had some range beyond his more familiar calypso hits. TC4P rating: 7/9

Fort Dobbs (1958) Dir.: Gordon Douglas – The other tall, western-prone Clint. Someday, I will write more about actor Clint Walker's influence on my youth. He is somewhat of a forgotten man these days, but as a kid in my earliest years, he loomed like a 6-foot, 6-inch god before me on the TV screen. I saw old episodes of his series, Cheyenne, in syndication, and I also remember watching his extremely short-lived series, Kodiak (which lasted all of 4 episodes). I recall the show pretty clearly as we were very excited because the lead character was an Alaskan State Trooper. (For newbies to this site, I was born and partially raised in Anchorage, Alaska.) I also saw Walker in numerous films and TV movies in the '70s, the most memorable of which (for me) were Night of the Grizzly, The White Buffalo, Snowbeast, and the murderous construction equipment epic, Killdozer! (Yes, yes, more on that last one at a later date; I've been itching to talk about that absurd flick – though based on a sci-fi short story classic – for quite a while now.) 

Walker is now long retired from acting and a shocking 89 years old, so I will have to rely on his back catalogue. I have been able to see a couple of his earlier films recently, including Fort Dobbs, a small but gritty western from 1958, one of three in a row that he did with director Gordon Douglas. Walker is a man on the run from the law for shooting down a man (though it was in self-defense) but despite this, he comes to the aid of an entire town fleeing from renegade Comanches (as opposed to regular Comanches). He also has to forge a relationship with the wife (Virginia Mayo) and son (Richard Eyre, the annoying kid genie from 7th Voyage of Sinbad) of the man he shot. Walker is his usual, physically daunting heroic self, but speaking of A Family Affair earlier, that show's dad, Brian Keith, shows up in Fort Dobbs as a truly despicable and obnoxious cad who runs up against Walker when he plans to sell some newfangled repeating rifles to the very Indians that are attacking the town. While at first the film makes it seem they will be friends, their eventual rivalry is quite welcome as everything livens up each time Keith grits his teeth and says something mildly threatening. It's a darker turn from another favorite actor of my youth. The film overall is no great shakes, merely just more western product, but its cast makes it enjoyable enough. Sometimes, mere western product is what the town doc ordered. And if anything, Fort Dobbs once more reinforces my faith in my solo cult of Clint Walker. TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Mind Benders (1963) Dir.: Basil Dearden – When Ben Mankiewicz listed off similar films to The Mind Benders that dealt with brainwashing, he hit the usual suspects, such as The Manchurian Candidate (from the year before this one), A Clockwork Orange, and The Parallax View. And yes, The Mind Benders (especially owing to its name) does deal directly with influencing someone's actions using sophisticated scientific techniques. Lead actor Dirk Bogarde's character is indeed brainwashed to believe that he no longer loves his wife, in an effort (requested by Bogarde) to not only prove that one's mind can be turned completely away from his most strongly held beliefs. But he is also doing it to clear the name of his mentor, who committed suicide after using sensory deprivation therapy but whom the police believe did himself in to escape being caught as a Communist double agent. (Got all that?) 

It's a very twisty, absolute odd experience, but in going back to my opening sentence about the films that Mankiewicz reeled off, the one film he did not mention was Ken Russell's 1981 science fiction opus Altered States (which was penned by the great Paddy Chayefsky). While Altered States was not about brainwashing, but more about the de-evolution of man back to a primordial form – hence its not being cited by Ben M. – it is the film that bears the most resemblance to that which we encounter in The Mind Benders. The use of sensory deprivation equipment is completely the same, and the results of Bogarde's trip also reduces him to a proto-Jekyll and Hyde state, only without the elaborate makeup effects or the appearance of a recognizable monster as in Altered States. But the emotions that his torture bring about in his dealings with his wife are nearly as raw and almost unbearable to watch in moments as any I have seen onscreen, and they made this film truly shocking and memorable. A must-see again for me. TC4P Rating: 8/9

Sandy Wexler (2017) Dir.: Steven Brill – Man, I am reluctant to give this film a good rating, simply because it is Adam Sandler, and it is so hard to recognize when he is being completely shitty or when he is merely decent anymore. In a Netflix Original that premiered that weekend, Sandler plays the title role, a talent manager in the early 1990s who is completely inept at keeping his small stable of talent employed but whose utter sweetness and naiveté keeps them coming back to him. Sandler falls for a songstress played by Jennifer Hudson, and if you are thinking this is a romantic pair that could never, ever happen, well... yeah, I was thinking that too. And the romance part is downplayed through most of the film, but you can never doubt that something will probably bring them together by the end. Sandy Wexler features about a zillion cameos by celebs, and I guess their inclusion is what brings the film to a full two hours in length, where it really should have been a nice 1:35 or 1:40 instead. 

Surprisingly, as much as I wish Sandler would break away from his nebbishy sad sack with a goofy, stuttering voice character, he actually gives Sandy more depth than I was expecting, and there are enough good lines and jokes to just about balance out the film's faults (and it has plenty of those too). I kind of saw the film as existing somewhat in the same world as Judd Apatow's Funny People (which was also quite overlong, had Sandler in the lead, and was possibly the last thing I actually liked him in as well). I am certain there is a lot of Jerry Lewis in Sandler's conception of his main character, and since I was a Lewis nut as a kid, I am able sometimes to see past the whiny stuff that drives other people to distraction, and lie in wait for the hero to emerge from underneath the nerd outfit. I kind of did that here, as enough of the film's other characters give a serious bullying, both physically and verbally, to the poor guy that I couldn't help but root for Wexler to succeed. Surprisingly, I thought the film was good enough for me to actually give a Sandler joint (and not one done for a big league director like Apatow or P.T. Anderson) a positive rating. Miracles do happen. TC4P Rating: 6/9

Crossroads (2002) Dir.: Tamra Davis – Because I am looking out for you guys, I sometimes have to perform the impossible. This time around, I tackled a multiple Razzie-awarded flick that just happen to drift across my path early one morning. I saw Crossroads sitting before me on the channel guide screen, and after checking to see if it was actually the swell Walter Hill blues guitar flick featuring Ralph Macchio and Stevie Vai, I instead saw it was the flop Britney Spears flick from the early part of this century. A lesser man would have wimped out at the prospect of sitting through what must be a total "chick flick," but not this guy. I knew it was on my watchlist, as all films that have been nominated for Razzies are, and so I found myself adopting a "now or never" stance. Later that afternoon, I dug right into what must be the far lesser Crossroads and found out... that I was completely right.

Even with Zoe Saldana as one of the three leads, Crossroads is a dull, utterly predictable mess. It's a road picture where three former childhood besties who have fallen out long before high school graduation find themselves drawn back together by the absolutely most boring things ever placed in a time capsule and then buried for ten years. The one played by Taryn Manning wants to throw caution to the winds and drive from Georgia to California with a hunky guy (a much younger Anson Mount) that she has heard may have killed someone. The reason? To attend an open audition at a recording studio in L.A., though they never really show Manning having any real chops as a singer, despite the girls being involved in a couple of musical sequences (of which Britney is the centerpiece anyway, of course). Somehow, Manning convinces Spears (who wants to find her long-lost mom in Arizona) and Saldana (who is engaged to a guy who is supposedly doing some work in L.A. but is stupidly cheating on her – c'mon, douchebag, it's Zoe Saldana – instead) to travel together to renew their friendship. 

I never knew just how badly someone could fuck up I Love Rock 'n' Roll until you have heard Britney robotically mumble her way through the song in an absolutely unbelievable karaoke number. For a film that is really meant to push Britney product including more albums, the music is so shoddily produced as to make it hard to believe she was ever a major pop star. Most unfortunately, one has to hear the inane lyrics to her semi-hit, I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman, both spoken as poetry and then sung at least twice in the film and credits. This fluff came from the laptop of Shonda Rhimes, a few years before Grey's Anatomy started. I do not watch anything that Rhimes currently produces or writes, and so I am not going to criticize her writing beyond this film, which is pretty much generic pabulum and completely forgettable apart from its most ridiculous, jaw-dropping moments. Still, I have seen far, far worse films, and I will cut director Tamra Davis a little slack for helming CB4 way back in the day and Dirk Gently episodes most recently. Thus, this one gets a below average rating of 4/9.

This Week in Rixflix #5: April 7-13, 2017

I will admit that I was a bit distracted from watching other films last week, what with the new, eleventh season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 lurking in wait for me by week's end on Netflix.

Actually, I didn't have to wait that long to watch most of it because I was one of the 48,270 people who took part in the Kickstarter campaign, which raised over $5 million total to bring MST3K back as a show. As a result, I got my name in the end credits (there are so many names they split them up between shows; mine shows up in Episode 11), got a whole bunch of goodies like a T-shirt, keychain, soundtrack, and coffee mug (some items still pending), and got to download the entire season in DRM-free files 24 hours before the season premiered on Netflix. (Creator Joel Hodgson made us promise to watch the show on Netflix as much as possible, though, and to save watching the files for a rainy day in the future when we are without internet.)

Best of all, though, we backers got to see the pilot on the Sunday before the Friday, April 14 premiere, as it streamed for us for 24 straight hours, during which I watched the pilot three full times, took part in an exclusive live viewing Q&A chat with Joel and Jonah Ray on YouTube, and then did a side-by-side comparison of the episode next to my DVD copy of Reptilicus, the film torn to shreds by the riffing in the pilot. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we got 48 hours to stream the entire season exclusively, followed by the early downloads on Thursday. Having been a hardcore MSTie ever since the show's first Comedy Channel season in 1989-1990 – unfortunately, I have never lived in Minneapolis, so I didn't see any of the original season's episodes until later –  the events of this week have almost been a dream come true (apart from actually being on the show).

But I did cram in a bunch of films in the two days before that Sunday (7 in all), and then in the brief moments between MST3K showings (I did need a few breaks... didn't want to totally burn out, you know), Jen and I finally watched the Carrie Fisher/Debbie Reynolds doc that was far to painful to view when we recorded it in late December a week after their deaths (which I will write about at a later date), and a few other palate cleansers (and some Canadian cartoons, but more on that next week) that happened across my path. But the overriding theme was the buildup to MST3K, and I can tell you, writing this a few days into the following week, that theme has not let up for me at all. Each day, there has been a little bit of MST3K for me.

The rest of my life might be shit right now, but at least I have the Satellite of Love again...

This week's feature-length film count: 14; 12 first-time viewings and 2 repeats.
Animated shorts seen: 6
Highest rated feature-length films: The Winding Stream (2014), Night Will Fall (2014), and Bright Lights: Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (2016) – 8/9
Lowest rated film: Reptilicus (1961) – 3/9
Average films per day in April thus far: 2.23
Average films per day in 2017 thus far: 3.08
Consecutive days with at least 1 feature-length film seen: 121

Dead West (2016) Dir.: Jeff Ferrell – The poster of this movie offers up a glaring example of how one (i.e. me) should pay a little more attention to even the most generic artwork when browsing for a movie to watch on Netflix. My eye caught the title, Dead West, the cowboy hat, the gun, and the ominous posing of the figure, and immediately thought the film might be a dark horror western. What I didn't pay enough attention to in the poster was the modern gun in the figure's hand, for Dead West is indeed a dark horror western, but a current one that could even happen in your neighborhood. The low budget, overlong (seriously, two hours) and quite often ponderous story of a serial killer practicing his grim trade in the bars and hotels of the American West, searching for true love but always ending up disappointed in the women he meets, the filmmakers seem to wish they could emulate Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in style, but have no idea (or the resources) to pull off such a feat off satisfactorily.

I like that the lead actor, Jeffrey Arrington, is basically an everyman schmo in the looks department (the actor may not feel that way, but hey, he's the one who let the camera film him), but I find his character, Tony, more creepy than charming as he sweet-talks his future victims into making the last mistake of their lives. (In much of the promotion and reviews for the film, his character is described as "charming".) And he does it all with dialogue that fails to convince much of the time. The classic "western" tone of the story comes into play in the form of the brother of one of Tony's former girlfriend/victims, who longs for revenge and hits the road to track down the ladykiller and end his reign of terror. I won't say what happens, but rest assured, it will be handled in an unsatisfying fashion, and if you are coming to this film for gore effects, you will not have that great a time either. Though there are a couple of twists that I did find interesting before the end, overall, I felt the film was a disappointment, even if I had no pre-conceived notions going in, apart from the mistaken thinking about it being a dark horror western. With some judicious pruning of about 20 minutes or so, this might have ended up becoming a semi-decent feature, but in its current released form, it is not charming at all, and the only form of danger it conveys it that of being deadly dull. – TC4P Rating: 4/9

Joe Cocker: Mad Dog with Soul (2017) Dir.: John Edginton – Joe Cocker has been in the mix of the music of my life since I was a kid. You Are So Beautiful was known to me before I was a teenager, but it wasn't until I saw John Belushi pull off his amazing impersonation of Cocker's idiosyncratic stage style on Saturday Night Live (on an episode on which Joe Cocker sang) that I really knew who he was. When I saw Woodstock on network television, I got to see Joe in one of his most famous performances, and around that time, he was making a comeback that went through the 1980s. Best of all, though, I had the pleasure to see him live in concert in Anchorage, Alaska, in a fantastic July 24, 1990 show that Joe co-headlined with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. (The opening act was Nicolette Larsen, who was adorable and delightful, and who sang with both headliners later in their respective parts of the show.) The concert took place a month and two days before Vaughan, one of my main guitar heroes at the time (as he still is now), was killed in a helicopter accident in Michigan. But this is about Joe Cocker, who only died relatively recently (in Dec. 2014), and while I had several Cocker albums in my collection over the years, I never really thought much about who he was a person. I knew he had troubles and battled the bottle for many years, but I just kind of accepted that he was this cool musical presence in my life, and never dug into it very much.

Along comes Mad Dog with Soul, a pretty comprehensive documentary about his life, with a pretty even focus across all the various periods of his career. Especially fun was learning about his pre-Woodstock years as a young man growing up in Sheffield, England. I guess that I always figured Joe was this being from outer space who came down with this amazing voice and style intact, but it was eye-opening to see his early years of struggle with his own teenage band, his off-kilter approach to everything not necessarily making things smooth for him in society, and his daytime job as a gasfitter while he worked the clubs in a variety of bands, which resulted in an unsatisfying recording contract that eventually withered. When he formed the Grease Band in 1966, he seemed to find the musicians he needed to propel him to stardom. His first 1969 album, With a Little Help from My Friends (and its Beatles-covering, massive hit single of the same name) set him up for his appearance at Woodstock and then his famously crazed Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, which also brought great notice to his bandleader, Leon Russell. He had several big hits along the way, but by the mid-'70s, the cracks began to show. Alcohol and heroin addiction took over his life. While he cleaned himself up and launched his comeback that led to Up Where We Belong winning Grammys and an Oscar, he also wrestled with his demons for many years afterward. Continuing to perform and record to the end, when he died in 2014, Cocker's iconic stature was such that it is almost disgusting he is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I felt that before I saw Mad Dog with Soul, but thanks to how deeply the film digs into his roots and helped me to understand the artist so fully, his eventual inclusion is now a cause with me. Joe must be honored... – TC4P Rating: 7/9

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) Dir.: Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook – Over a decade ago when I still lived up in Alaska, my best friend was dating another friend of mine who had a young daughter named Grace. Little Grace was awfully fond of an animated movie about wild horses called Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and at a series of parties over the period of a year or so, Grace would pretend that I was Spirit the Stallion, and would feed me hay and lead me around with invisible reins. (Grace would actually call me, "Spiwit: Stallion offa Cimmawon" but we adults would further garble the language to insist she was saying "Scallion offa Cinnamon".) It wasn't horsey of the sort that many kids play; I never got my back broken by having to ride some little kid around on it. The play was more respectful and gentle, and I remember being told when I didn't show up for one party that Grace asked if Spirit was going to show up that night. That kind of thing just about broke my heart hearing it.

Here's the catch: while I am a huge animation fan, I had not actually seen Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron at that time. Nor had I seen it until last week, when it popped up in an early morning Saturday showing on HBO. Now's the time, I said. Grace and her parents were down here at Disneyland in late February, and I revealed to the now-teenage Grace that I had never seen the film. She was shocked by this, and last week, I decided to make things right. Now, while I knew it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, I was still not expecting myself to actually enjoy the film. I was also dreading having to listen to anthropomorphized horses talking to each other through 90 minutes of film; yes, much of the animation I watch does have anthropomorphized animals discussing all manner of things, but I was worried about the tone of the film. To my surprise, Spirit mostly keeps the horses as they normally behave, except for a few facial expressions that I have never seen on a real horse, and with a greater understanding of the human world around them as well.

Otherwise, this is a remarkably natural film in regards to the basic behavior of the wild horses, and the more than slightly preachy tone of the narrative luckily falls into my general worldview (white man mostly horrid, Native Americans murdered and robbed of their lands and cultures, animals and natural resources ravaged and abused). I thought the color palette was lovely, and the combination of hand-drawn and computer animation to be lovingly mixed and thoroughly engaging. A bit overlong considering its target audience, though that was not much of a problem for me, with the only things that really bothered me being the Bryan Adams' song score (which had to have felt dated already in 2002, the year of its release) and the narration by Matt Damon as Spirit telling his tale (without actually speaking directly in front of the camera), which I felt was fairly unnecessary, though again, not enough to stop me enjoying the film. There you go, Grace... I have finally caught up to you. – TC4P Rating: 7/9

Now, back to MST3K...

This Week in Rixflix #4: March 31-April 6, 2017

A much smaller week in film watching than the previous week (10 less films), much of it directly responsible for the upswing in my hours spent writing now that the hip is doing even better than before. Having regular physical therapy also ate into the film watching time as well. Oh, yeah, and some old pal reunion time at Disney California Adventure Park on April Fools' Day with my pals Mattman and Leandro, where April Fools' was never even mentioned once. Hard for even me to think about film for long when hanging with my buddies at Disneyland Resort. (Unless we are talking about film, of course. But we only did a little bit...)

This week's feature film count: 15; 13 first-time viewings and 2 repeats.
Highest rated film: Little Fugitive (1953) – 8/9.
Lowest rated film: Frankenstein Island (1981) – 2/9.

The Arnelo Affair (1947) Dir.: Arch Oboler – A deadly dull affair without a single surprise in it, The Arnelo Affair is a waste of a pretty decent cast including Frances Gifford, George Murphy, John Hodiak, a very young Dean Stockwell, and a devastatingly underused Eve Arden, who brings the only life (and intentional comedy) to the picture. The lovely Gifford is a wife who is absolutely bored with her life with Murphy, who shows her no affection or attention at all. Her attention is turned momentarily by cad about town Hodiak (who might as well twirl his mustache if only it were longer) but when push comes to shove, she refuses to destroy her marriage with an affair. But Hodiak sets her up as the prime suspect when he decides to murder his previous flame. Since we know everything going on, and barring an incredible twist ending that never comes, all one can do for the last 40 minutes is wait for Hodiak to have a change of heart. Want to take bets that he does, but in such a way that Hodiak pays for his murdering ways violently so that the censors are appeased? Rating: 5/9

Rosalie (1937) Dir.: W.S. Van Dyke – A rather strange film that I would refer to as a "trifle" if it weren't overlong at 123 minutes, Rosalie boasts Nelson Eddy in his first role away from Jeanette McDonald, Cole Porter songs, John Philip Sousa marches, collegiate football, West Point antics, European court intrigue, and Eleanor Powell dancing her heart out at usual in the leading lady role (including the famous scene where she taps across the tops of a series of giant drums). It's an odd amalgam of ingredients, and though it has a cast filled with terrific character actors, some of them – such as Edna May Oliver, Jerry Colonna, and William Demarest – are absolutely trapped in nothing roles. I guess this was so they could give Eddy more time to bore us with molasses-slow ballads.

The best parts, and the main reasons this film slinks up to "good" territory for me, belong to sidekick Ray Bolger as Eddy's best pal who has to jump through hoops (not literally) to win his own fickle girlfriend's heart back, and his future co-star from The Wizard of Oz, Frank Morgan – the Wizard himself – as the king of Romanza, a fictitious country that doesn't seem to be all that happy to have a befuddled monarch who takes his orders from his own ventriloquist dummy. (That's right... you did not read that wrong. Ventriloquist dummy...) I did wonder for a while if perhaps this film was actually meant for Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, but it turns out that the film version of Rosalie (it was a Broadway show originally with a non-Porter score; Frank Morgan played the king on stage as well) was started in 1928 as a vehicle for Marion Davies until the production fell to pieces. A decade later in the sound era, the film was completed with only a few shots from the 1928 attempt incorporated into the final product. Regardless of its history, what made Rosalie work for me, apart from Powell's luminous dancing talent, were the scenes between Bolger (who never really gets to let loose with his incredible dance skills, though he teases them) and Morgan, who form an odd friendship amongst all the dull romantic stuff around them. They are great fun, but unless you have over two hours to spare, don't bother. Rating: 6/9

Honeysuckle Rose (1980) Dir.: Jerry Schatzberg –  One of a pair of films that I watched this week where I had seen portions of each previously but had never sat down to go through them in their entirety (Min and Bill being the other), Honeysuckle Rose was the first starring feature for Willie Nelson, and he came out of it with an Oscar nomination for One the Road Again, the monster crossover hit that was introduced in this picture. It had once astounded me that this film also received a Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst Supporting Actress (for Amy Irving, in the very first year of the Razzies), but when you actually look the truly shocking facts up, 70 films overall have received either nominations or awards at both the Oscars and Razzies (including Suicide Squad, which won an Oscar – sadly – this year). While Irving is pretty unpolished and young in this film, nothing about her performance reads "year's worst" to me, so obviously someone just had a beef with her in the nomination process (probably John Wilson, founder of the Razzies, whom I take exception with on a great many things he does with his awards). This movie is merely OK dramatically; in a film mostly about infidelity and the threat of divorce, everything gets tidied up far too neatly to be satisfying on that front. But the musical sequences onstage with Nelson and his band are wholly entertaining, and I also have to give a nod to a fine supporting role from the great cowboy actor Slim Pickens in a non-comedic performance. Rating: 6/9

The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened (2016) Dir.: Lonny Price – I love several Stephen Sondheim musicals, but Merrily We Roll Along is not one of them. This is mainly because I have barely heard of it, though I have heard a couple of songs from the show before (Good Thing Going, Not a Day Goes By). The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, directed by show alumnus Lonny Price, gets into exactly why most people don't know Merrily better, which opened and closed after 16 official performances (not counting previews) in 1981 (though it has been revived more successfully since). We see modern day interviews with many of the original cast, including Jason Alexander, long before his fame-making days on Seinfeld, and with Sondheim and producer Harold Prince. Luckily for this documentary, extensive filming of rehearsals had taken place at the time in conjunction with a planned television doc, which gives viewers more of a inside look at the development of the production than we might normally have gotten. But there was a little too much "inside baseball" going on here to keep my full interest through its running time. Nicely done, and essential for Sondheim and/or musical theatre fanatics only. Rating: 6/9

Easy to Love (1934) Dir.: William Keighley – The first of two 1934 comedies with which I quite unexpectedly had great fun during the week. Easy to Love is a romantic farce that features the always elegant Adolphe Menjou as a philandering husband who has the tables turned on him by his wife, played by an angered but mischievous Genevieve Tobin. She finds out the location of the love nest he shares with his would-be next wife, Mary Astor, and then precedes to make him jealous in return by affecting an affair with his best friend, a millionaire played hilariously by Edward Everett Horton, a personal favorite since my youth. Door-slamming silliness abounds, all very lightly done and coated with some terrific lines by a game cast. ("Well, I've had a lot of shotgun weddings, but this is the first fire ax wedding I've ever officiated at," says the Justice of the Peace, essayed by the terrific character actor, Guy Kibbee, and yes... someone is indeed holding a fire ax in the chapel.) Hugh Herbert shows up as a very confused detective, and that was all I needed to sell this film to me for good. A nice surprise. Rating: 7/9

Sing and Like It (1934) Dir.: William A. Seiter – And here's that other 1934 comedy, that has gangster Nat Pendleton and his grouchy, cigar-chomping (as always) sidekick Ned Sparks wander into a community theatre and encounter ZaSu Pitts, where she awkwardly and awfully squawks her way though a terrible song about mothers. Unluckily for everyone, Pendleton is a full-on mama's boy who tears up at the song, and decides then and there (and especially after everyone says openly that it stinks) that he is going to make Pitts a big Broadway star. Soon, he and his thugs are not just taking over the upcoming show belonging to a big-time producer played (once again) by Edward Everett Horton, but he even has a couple of his guys rewrite the script by adding incredibly sophomoric jokes to it. If this sounds reminiscent at all of Bullets Over Broadway, then you win a cigar, because that is basically what it is, only the would-be star is just gawky ol' ZaSu Pitts and not the gangster's girlfriend, played here by a fiery Pert Kelton, who then plans to have Pitts kidnapped. Just so remarkably silly and goofy, in which Sparks gets the best showcase, throwing off remarks about everything going on around them, which mostly fall on the deaf ears of Pendleton, who just keeps crying every time he hears the "Mama" song. Sing and Like It gets a couple of big demerits though for having a repeated punchline being each time Kelton ends up with a black eye from her man. (Easy to Love doesn't go that far, but yes, the threat of a wife-beating lurks there as well, as it does in many a 1930s comedy.) Sure, it was the times, and one cannot judge ancient relics by the acceptable societal measures of today and ever hope to be entertained. But that doesn't mean one has to like them either, and such scenes come off completely cold today for anyone that is not a white male in the House or Congress. Still, my rating is a 7/9.

The 50 Something or Other Songs of 2016: Part 3

After getting through the first forty songs of Rolling Stone's Best 50 Songs of 2016 list, and with a mere ten left to go, it had become most apparent that I have stuck strongly to my guns in regards to my favorite genres of music, and had grown little in the way of generating warmth toward those that I considered beneath my notice.

This is somewhat of an inverse effect to my personal politics, where I have grown increasingly more liberal since my teenage years; I was always rebellious against authority since my earliest days, but my mind was shaped, to my detriment, by the continuing prejudices of the time in which I was raised (mostly the '70s) and the older books and movies which I devoured eagerly. I found increasing influence all around me, however, thanks to my eagerness to learn from history's mistakes (not recreate them) and my understanding that if the human world is ever going to truly move away from "caveman" status, one's mindset must always look to the future in a progressive manner. Only the most backward-longing simpleton (i.e, Sean Hannity) doesn't evolve with the times that he inhabits, and part of living beyond being such a noxious creature, one must adopt and cultivate a widened acceptance of not just changing societal norms, but also the arts that derive and evolve within the changing times.

Part 1: http://cinema4pylon.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-50-something-or-other-songs-of-2016.html
Part 2: http://cinema4pylon.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-50-something-or-other-songs-of-2016.html.

This does not mean that I just roll over and spread 'em for any song with a good backbeat. I demand more from my music than danceability. Hell, danceability is not even a factor, since I hate dancing (my own, that is), but that doesn't mean I don't recognize a good dance tune if I hear it. There are two very distinct sides to my personality in regards to music. The first prefers richly detailed lyrics laden with emotional impact, social importance, and cleverness, not necessarily in that order, nor all inclusive in a single song; the other weaker side has a great tolerance for even the dopiest of novelty numbers, music that if it were turned into a font, would definitely be represented by Comic Sans. (I blame Dr. Demento, but only jokingly, for this side of me.) That these two sides thrive in me is vexing at times; both are certainly affected by the other. And both sides still exist outside of the rule that says if I simply like the way a song sounds, then so be it.

The Top Ten of this list found some interesting challenges for me, only one of them involving mannequins. (Well, maybe two or three, depending on your view of the artists themselves.) One last time, if you wish to go along with me, the link to the original Rolling Stone story with music videos and song samples is: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/50-best-songs-of-2016-w452313.

*****

The 50 Something or Other Songs of 2016: Part 3

#10 - Rae Sremmurd feat. Gucci Mane, "Black Beatles"
Heard of the artist? Sort of.
Own any of their music? Nope.
Heard this song? Could you escape it? Neither could I.
Would you purchase this song? A solid maybe.

If, like me, you have been subjected (or have subjected yourself) to the myriad videos that sprang up in the no-consequence cause of the Mannequin Challenge in 2016, then you have found yourself listening to Black Beatles by Rae Sremmurd. Not only did the internet go crazy for the latest craze in viral video styling by giving birth to dozens and dozens of short clips where groups of people froze in place doing all manner of in-jokes or silly actions while a camera continues to move in often swirling fashion through the crowd or labyrinthian design, but Black Beatles is the music used in the vast majority of the videos. (Strangely enough, it is not used in the original video as far as I can tell, in fact, no music is used at all.)

It has been nearly impossible to avoid these videos since October of last year, and I will admit that I have grown enamored at the increasingly complicated variations on the initial form. I will also admit that I had no idea what the music used in the videos was nor who created it until deep into the run of these videos. Not until near end of 2016, when I read that Paul McCartney had done his own Mannequin Challenge and saw his video. (Macca is name-checked in the final chorus of the song.) His tweet for the challenge was "Love those Black Beatles," which had me scrambling for why he said it. Looking up the phrase on Google, I found the video for Rae Sremmurd and heard the full song for the first time.

I am not going to lie. I like this song. Even as an arguably overplayed and overused earworm, I firmly believe that Black Beatles caught on because it is, at the heart of things, a fun, clever song. Of course, any 30-second section of any song could have made its way into the Mannequin Challenge videos and been used over and over again. It might just be sheer luck it was Black Beatles that was employed. That takes nothing away from the track. "Haters mad for whatever reason"... not me. I am just trying to find my spot at the party...

#9 - LVL UP, "Pain"
Heard of the artist? Nope.
Own any of their music? Not yet.
Heard this song? Nope.
Would you purchase this song? Dead certain.

LVL UP is definitely right in the ballpark for me, but while Rolling Stone brings up the name of the late Elliott Smith in the vocals, I get more Doug Martsch of Built to Spill from it, not just in the vox but in the structure of the lyrics before the song spends its last 2½ minutes building towards its fireworks and feedback-strewn guitar climax. “Where is the one you love/Who loved you unconditionally/And who you need?” sings lead guitarist Mike Caridi, and it is a sentiment most of us would probably never admit to thinking but to which we are all predisposed in our lowest moments. Based on this song alone, I wanted to buy the album. Then I watched a live performance of this song and three others on KEXP's YouTube page (something I have since done for some other new artists on this list to get a more rounded feel for their work), and came away knowing this album is now an absolute must for me. It may harken back to an older sound that makes me nostalgic for other bands, but this song is comfort food for my ears. It is too early to tell if this band can carve out their own full style from the remainder of their album, but sometimes comfort food is just what you need. It will do for the moment.

#8 - Fifth Harmony feat. Ty Dolla $ign, "Work from Home"
Heard of the artist? Nope.
Own any of their music? Nope.
Heard this song? Absolutely.
Would you purchase this song? Nope, but in a better world it could be my theme song.

Another one that I have heard in the gym numerous times now. While there is certainly a double entendre within the title statement, unlike Grande's Side by Side, there were no lyrics for me at which to gasp when I finally watching the video that caused me to suddenly lose my mind even thinking about hearing the song on my next trip to the gym. The subject matter is pretty obvious and there is very little to this song at all. Fairly tame, innocuous product that adds up to very little in my estimation. It gets you through the workout – even the workout from home – nothing more. 

#7 - Solange, "Cranes in the Sky"
Heard of the artist? Isn’t she the Knowles with the better pipes?
Own any of her music? Actually, no, but technically, yes.
Heard this song? Yes.
Would you purchase this song? Not my usual jam. It’s nice though… hmm… wait. This might be worthwhile.

Even without radio, I learned about Cranes in the Sky before this list came along by listening to its featured episode on a podcast I frequently explore called Song Exploder. I don't download every episode of the show, but I listened to this one based on a passing interest in what Solange was doing now. My immediate impulse was that this is simply a lovely sounding song. It does not contain the imagery I was expecting based on the impression I initially summoned up due to its title. I assumed co-songwriter Solange was going for the obvious metaphor based around the beautiful flight of marsh birds, but these cranes – the kind that make her curse the "metal clouds" – are more of the sky-filling construction type that can clutter up a bustling city, which served to crush her spirit when she was trying to find peace within herself in a place which she had previously considered her comfort zone. By the song’s second half, she is no closer to actual peace of mind, but the song settles your soul knowing that she is going to figure this out eventually, cranes or no cranes, metal or otherwise. 

#6 - PWR BTTM, "Projection"
Heard of the artist? Nope.
Own any of their music? Not yet.
Heard this song? Nope.
Would you purchase this song? Another dead on certainty.

The second group in this list (and in the Top 10) to use abbreviations that are presented in all caps, PWR BTTM is great fun to hear. I guessed the band's affiliation from their name, though that is never easy with bands. (Remember how The Queers weren't actually gay? At least they denied it...) You can decide whether that such matters are important or not based on your own ease with the subject; for me, knowing where PWR BTTM is coming from is a biographical detail that is important in deciphering the emotional angles within their lyrics. PWR BTTM's songs are punky, poppy, and energetic in equal measure, but Projection requires that you know of vocalist/guitarist Ben Hopkins' discomfort in a world others accept as commonplace when he sings about his skin not being "made for this weather." Without a visual reference to the band (they are not actually seen in the accompanying video), you cannot tell just how outrageously PWR BTTM seeks to push the buttons of its presumably largely straight audience. Hopkins revels in covering his face to extreme lengths in wild, thick theatrical makeup, while drummer/vocalist Liv Bruce tones that look down with merely wearing lipstick, but tends to wear dresses onstage just as his bandmate does. In other songs, the pair have a lot of fun swapping pronouns around to throw the audience, but it is done far more sincerely and fun than when Prince used to tease the world with it occasionally in his earlier works. None of this flair for outrage really distracts from the fact that the duo rocks much harder than you would expect. It is too early to call this, but I feel there could be a possibility PWR BTTM's early stuff could catch on with succeeding generations of teenagers much like the first Violent Femmes album.

#5 - Kanye West, "Ultralight Beam"
Heard of the artist? Sadly, yes.
Own any of his music? The guy is an ass.
Heard this song? On Saturday Night Live.
Would you purchase this song? Pretty song, but I am not going to support this fool, musically or politically.

Despite my better instincts, this is at its heart a gorgeous song, very well-produced and lyrically intriguing. I just have a massive problem with Kanye in real life. I was just fine with our first black president, and will be just fine with a second and a third when the time arrives. And hopefully one or both of those presidents will either be women or gay. But I am not ready for our first Black Trump. I have been told by people whose opinions I respect otherwise (or used to respect in a rather extreme example) how Kanye is one of their favorite artists, and that he has released some of the greatest albums ever. And I have heard other songs of his over the years where I felt like he was, at least in a production sense, pushing boundaries and beats that were above the usual standard. Likewise, I had seen him on TV where I felt that the performance aspect (in a theatrical sense) was innovative or well done. But as a rapper, he has not impressed me at all, and I even came to believe on some songs that he mainly grunted "Uh" and "Yeah" to a relentless degree while other guest artists spit out the actual rhymes. Well before the whole Kardashian debacle, I was of the belief that West was just another of those toddler-men of which Trump is now the not-so-shining example: adult males who cannot take the slightest criticism, throw it back in sophomoric threats and argumentative gibberish, and speak only in self-possessed superlatives and hyperbolic claims. All of this erodes away the good will built by my first statement about this song, which admitted that it is a beautiful work, even if atheist me doesn't give a single crap about it being "a God dream". I am more than willing to hear Kanye sing about his invisible deity, and I will respect his artistic and personal vision... just don't make me have to deal with it in a goddamn voting booth come 2020.

#4  - David Bowie, "No Plan"
Heard of the artist? He is (and was, dammit) everything.
Own any of his music? The bulk of it (not nearly as much as Aaron though…)
Heard this song? Yes, sir.
Would you purchase this song? Got it.

Like many people, especially my buddy Aaron, I am still nursing a bad existential hangover from the death of Bowie early last year. It really did feel like the game was over for all of the universe. Sure, you can look at celebrity deaths throughout the remainder of the year and blame it on all a specific number, or that they all felt that the world was going to take a bad turn so they were getting out while they could (which doesn't make a lick of sense because you can take yourself out of the game anytime that you'd like), or any number of conspiracy theories. Celebrities die all the time, just like regular people, and we take losing certain ones worse than others. Bowie's death was a Jim Henson-level of loss and pain for me. It was suddenly not having someone who had been a figure in your life for so long you had started to take them for granted. I could barely summon the words then and they are hard to get out now. Part of me wants to not accept it and simply pretend he is still with us.

Which is not how the man faced the end of his life, nor would he want us to do so. Artists certainly do live on through their work, but it is a bit maddening to know we won't have brand new albums from Bowie moving forward. Supposedly, his final new studio recordings (there will be years of older ones coming out eventually it is rumored) are included in the Original Cast Recording of his stage show, Lazarus; three new songs and a reworking of another one that have been tacked onto the end of the Lazarus disc but are of a piece with his final full album, Blackstar (released two days before his death). The songs have also been put out on a separate EP titled No Plan, the title song of which we are discussing here. The song has Bowie seemingly floating through some sort of ether or afterlife, but the nebulousness of its description raises more questions than his journey answers. "Here, there's no music here/I’m lost in streams of sound/Here, am I nowhere now?” sounds like a man who knows he is about to move on, but to what and where, he has no clear conception... no plan, as it were. He doesn't sound scared, but he does sound uncertain, as if he regrets never having really considered the situation at length until now. "All of the things that are my life/My desire, my beliefs, my moods/Here is my place without a plan" he concedes, eventually closing the discussion with "This is no place, but here I am/This is not quite yet". Bowie spent his last months in the studio possibly being more open and confessional than he has ever been, and yet, the chill from the music still keeps the beloved artist at arm's length as ever, always keeping us guessing.

#3 - Drake feat. Wizkid, Kyla, "One Dance"
Heard of the artist? Can’t escape him these days.
Own any of his music? Nuthin’.
Heard this song? Yes, on SNL.
Would you purchase this song? Nope.

I have only heard (well, actually seen and heard) this song on Saturday Night Live. It was a brave performance, considering Drake is a surprisingly shitty dancer. Those boots couldn’t help, but he (or his Borg-like commitment to fashion) chooses to wear them; at least he let the booty girls take it over for most of the bit. The song itself is pretty catchy and low-key, and really kind of nice. Top 50 nice? Not sure about that, but to each their own.

#2 - Frank Ocean, "Ivy"
Heard of the artist? One of the most interesting artists out there.
Own any of his music? Yes.
Heard this song? Yes.
Would you purchase this song? Been on my "to buy" list for a bit.

I bought into Frank Ocean a few years ago when I bought his first album on the recommendation of several critics that I listened to at the time. This particular track was almost a disqualification because of the Spotify sample track provided in the Rolling Stone article (like with Kendrick Lamar), but I was able to give a full listen to Ivy on a video someone placed on Vimeo (though I had heard the song before). I find Ocean to be one of the more interesting artists in pop music today, and there will come a time when I will not hesitate to purchase his latest album. (That time is not right now, being so money-deprived as I am.) Ivy is a sharply edged but strikingly quiet tune about a love that never quite worked out, which Ocean reflects on in disjointed fashion, the feel of the song almost like a hazy memory cloud that never fully becomes clear in the mind but that still hurts as hard as it ever did. Over a marvelous circular guitar riff that almost has a steel drum quality to it, Frank sings, “If I could see through walls/I could see you're faking/If you could see my thoughts/You would see our faces/Safe in my rental like an armored truck back then/We didn't give a fuck back then," and then the key lines hit: "I ain't a kid no more/We'll never be those kids again." The biggest and saddest truths hit hard in dual fashion near the end of that verse: “Everything sucked back then/We were friends.” This is a pop song with a haunting, longing sting.

#1 - Beyoncé, "Formation"
Heard of the artist? Queen Bey. Not really a fan, but I recognize her importance.
Own any of her music? Just a band called The Genuine Fakes covering her.
Heard this song? Of course.
Would you purchase this song? Don’t need to. It’s everywhere. Not my thing anyway.

Saw her do this at the Super Bowl. Saw her do this in the video. She is Beyonce. She is the Queen of America (but, no, Jay-Z is not king). It has a cool springy synthesizer hook. She name-checks the Jackson Five, she takes her man's ass to Red Lobster (for services rendered properly), and she scares every jittery white idiot in our half-dopey country with her unapologetic attitude regarding both her heritage and her womanhood. And she slays and slays and slays. Formation is not meant for me, but not every song has to be meant for me. And I still think it is just dandy, though I have no reason to own it. This woman just simply slays... what don't you get yet? Deal with it, pink boy!

*****


So, where does that leave us? The final tally for Round 3:

Total number of songs this round: 10

Songs I have heard before: 8

Songs that I own already: 1

Loved: 2 | Liked: 6 | OK to Meh: 2 | Hated: 0

Songs that I plan to purchase: 3

Combined with the totals from Rounds 1 and 2, we see the full picture of this journey:

Total number of songs so far: 50

Songs I have heard before: 19

Songs that I own already: 5

Loved: 13 | Liked: 20 | OK to Meh: 11 | Hated: 5 | Couldn’t Rate: 1

Songs that I plan to purchase: 21

Last year, I had planned to definitely purchase 14 songs with 8 others considered as "maybes"; this year, I did away with the maybe category and just flatly stated that the number of purchases is around the same total number: 21. This might be the result of staying a little more perceptive throughout 2016 to the casual music I was encountering just in case it showed up on the next annual list, but the big thing for me is that I heard 19 of the 50 songs previously during the year (or even just after, in the case of the gym-bound tracks), where I had only heard 13 in 2015, with 3 wishy-washy maybes as a supplement. I also hated outright more tracks this year than last, 5 to 2, though my loves and likes were greater as well, a combined 33 to last year's 28.

Well, that's my version of the Rolling Stone list. I have now heard a lot of music I either ignored totally or never encountered before, and I have discovered a slew of new bands to explore in coming months. And I am even more excited about doing the list for 2017. Hopefully, when it is released by the magazine at the end of November, I will not be in as much pain as last November.