My Stars and Garters #2

Cor, Cavett Blogs!!! I can only hope Rick Moranis gets punchy with him in the comments section.

Mental Inventory

I find these five songs tend to run through my head, uncalled upon, more than any other. The Germans have a word for it (naturally), the Ohrwurm, or "Earworm". Usually, the best way to rid your head of a sonic creepy crawly is to pass it on to another, more susceptible person. And while that often makes for great entertainment in and of itself, these, my pets, tend to silently entertain rather than annoy. They are my most private joy. I'm not exactly what it says about my mental downtime--I don't care to analyze myself or the quality of the songs--but I am grateful they're more than a step or two above jingles.
1. Pussy Control - Prince
If sex crosses my mind every six seconds, then this song is filling the other five.
2. A Whorehouse is any House - B'P'B
Disturbing, sad and catchy. If it's in your head, it might be best to let it rot on the branch, dying slowly in its phonological loop...
3. The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins - Leonard Nimoy
I'd like to hear Ray Davies cover this. It could be his Laughing Gnome.
4. Surfin' Bird - Trashmen
Ignore Brian Eno (not that you were paying him attention anyway), this is the kind of song that inspires men, women and children to pick up a guitar and start a band.
5. The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A. - Donna Fargo
This song has the power to make me fall in love with you, world, all over again.

Oh, These Loves of Mine

Xaime Hernandez channeling Joost Swart to promote Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. I have yet to listen to the program, but I enjoy pulling the playlists off fan sites and giving 'em a spin in the THEATER OF MY MIND (it's echoey in there). No doubt, true pleasure comes from listening to the incidental bits and anecdotes as well, but I'm happy, for the time being, with my sock puppet renditions of the country blues.

Porter Wagoner
The man knew how to write a song, wear a suit and had an eagle's eye for talent.

I miss putting my hands and brain to use at work...

Thee Lemmyngs' 2007 Season Review From The Commish

THEE LEMMYNGS
2006: 5th 144 Points (67 Hitting; 77 Pitching)
PRE-season prediction: 5th 140.5 Points (82 Hitting; 52.5
Pitching)
Pull Quote – “Bidding early & often.. Was very busy in the
off-season.. Picked up Helton & Thome for some punch & Brett
Myers & Unit for a fearsome fivesome. That bullpen will be
the heel...”
2007: 2nd 156.5 Points (78 Hitting; 78.5 Pitching)

Record I know well that this team resembles:
“Suede” by Suede
Why? – Remarkably consistent through & through. Where the
ballads tail off a little bit, the rockers pick up a little
bit & vice versa. But it doesn’t match the highs & lows of
the follow-up, “Dog Man Biscuits”….

POSITIONAL RANKINGS
Corner Infield – 4th (.321 BA / .410 OBP / .501 SLG)
LG AVG - .288 / .372 / .497

Middle Infield – 2nd (.294 / .371 / .450)
LG AVG - .284 / .346 / .439

Outfield – 10th (.256 / .333 / .408)
LG AVG - .285 / .358 / .472

Catcher – 6th (.262 / .310 / .458)
LG AVG - .279 / .339 / .444

Utility – 4th (.273 / .400 / .533)
LG AVG - .282 / .375 / .499

Staring Pitchers – 2nd (.250 BAA/ 3.99 ERA / 1.30 WHIP)
LG AVG - .265 / 4.25 / 1.35

Relief Pitchers – 7th (.227 / 3.95 / 1.27)
LG AVG - .231 / 3.44 / 1.21

Top 5 hitters
1. Miguel “Fat Ass” Cabrera - $25.9
2. Jose “Butt Face” Reyes - $25
3. Todd Helton - $24.8
4. Placido Polanco - $12.4
5. David Ortiz - $10.6
Side Note: The first two guys = whatever.. Those jerks will
probably be with Thee Lemmyngs for the next 3 years, so
Matthew’s team will remain easily hate-able for awhile..
Helton & Polanco though were real surprises…. Helton at
auction = $27; Polanco at auction = $1

Bottom 5 hitters
1. Mark Reynolds - $-7.6
2. Jason Giambi - $-6.1
3. Bobby Crosby - $-6
4. Gary Matthews Jr. - $-5.5
5. Paul LoDuca - $-5.4
Side Note: Fortunately for Matthew, these 5 guys only
totalled 76 AB’s for him, bearly 1% of his total AB’s, so no
real team killers here…

Top 5 pitchers
1. Jake Peavy - $32.6
2. Brandon Webb - $14.9
3. Justin Verlander - $12.9
4. Jonathan Papelbon - $5.3
5. Ryan Franklin - $4.6
Side Note: Those top 3 were easily the best top 3 pitchers
of the year on any team, and since they were all starters,
that made them all that more important to Tapey. Peavy was
this year’s Johan.. Oh, and Ryan Franklin is a steroid
abuser.

Bottom 5 pitchers
1. Jeff Francis - $-8.4
2. Josh Johnson - $-5.3
3. Jorge Julio - $-5.2
4. Joakim Soria - $-4.4
5. Barry Zito - $-3.9
Side Note: Holy shit.. Golden Boy of the Playoffs Jeff
Francis? Are you kidding me? I just read the numbers here…
On the surface, his rate stas don’t look that bad (.298 BAA;
4.94 ERA; 1.5 WHIP)… But, given that all of those number are
below league average & Francis threw 156.7 IP for Matthew,
that seriously lowers his value…

Best Keeper – Jake Peavy (and it’s not even close)
COST = $9.4 VALUE = $32.6
Worst Keeper – Andruw Jones
COST = $19 VALUE = $-0.2
Best Auction acquisition – I’m gonna call this a tie between
Opera Man Polanco & Bossman Jr.
COST = $1 VALUE = $12.4
COST = $1 VALUE = $9.8
Worst Auction acquisition – Chris Ray
COST = $19 VALUE = $-3.4

HIGH WATER MARK: Period 2 & 4; 172 pts. 1st place.
(The last week in 1st place: Period 9)
LOW TIDE: Period 16; 141.5 pts. 4th place
(Thee Lemmyngs never fell lower than 4th the entire year….)

Best Period: Period 18; 181 pts.
Worst Period: Period 12; 87.5 pts.

Best Trade – 8/14 Traded BJ Upton to Thin White Dukes for
David Ortiz & Dustin McGowan…
Why? – Well, what can I say? Another bummer trade for the
Dukes, but really this is a textbook, late-season salary
dump trade to get a contractable player at a premium
position for next year (who I then traded for the same
thing, but that’s another matter…).. McGowan truly was icing
on the cake for Matthew’s starters, but an argument could be
made that Ortiz got the Lemmyngs 2nd place… Regardless of
what Upton did for me, here’s what Ortiz & McGowan (the
throw-in) did for Matthew in the last month & a half:

Ortiz – 135 AB; .341 / .474 / .741; 13 HR; 35 R; 39 RBI; 35
BB / 19 KO
McGowan – 63.3 IP; 4 W; 5 L; 6 QS; .223 BAA; 4.41 ERA; 1.2
WHIP; 65/23 K/BB; 4 HRA

This trade may go down as the best deadline-deal trade in
league history.. (again with the hyperbole!)

Worst Trade – 1/19 Traded Chris Carpenter & Felix Pie to
Bunson Burners for Andruw Jones.
Why? – How can you say that this was a bad trade, when Pie
did next to nothing for Steve & Carpenter was out for the
year after his first start? The reason why this was a bad
trade is the at-bats, the crucial at-bats that Matthew was
forced to give Andruw Jones in hopes that he would somehow
turn his season around & be of some use.. He never did turn
it around, although he had a brief stint in July where
things looked maybe promising.. It’s also important to note
that Andruw Jones was actually pretty good in April (.261 /
.402 / .534), so it’s hard to ride Matthew too hard for
waiting for the comeback. Had Matthew not committed to
Andruw Jones in CF, he may have been more pro-active in
picking up one of the available CF’s that were around at the
beginning of the year (Rowand, Byrnes, Griffey) OR maybe he
could have just used an in-house option, like BJ Upton, who
was CF-eligible, to take those AB’s away from the black hole
that was Andruw Jones and traded Jones to a team who would
take a gamble on Jones’s seemingly eminent turnaround…
He didn’t do any of those. And it may have cost him the
title this year… It also didn’t help that Matthew’s
reputation around the league as a trading partner is
“difficult” at best….

Short-ish season review
Matthew’s season, as stated before, really was the model of
consistency. I mean, he finished the year with almost
identical hitting & pitching totals. In an interesting
parallel with the 2006 HPRL season, the team that finished
second that year, Sharkey, also had a balanced team (85
hitting; 84.5 pitching)… So, I guess being the most
balanced team gets you second place, but that’s beside the
point and also me pointing out the obvious & by God, I do
enough of that.. This review may be the easiest to write,
since the reasons for success / failure are so readily
apparent in Matthew’s team.. On the positive side, the
starting pitching was wonderful & possibly as important, the
usage of the starters was equally important.. Unlike
virtually every other team in the league, Matthew resisted
the temptation to use too many SP’s to go after the pitching
counting stats (K’s; W’s; QS’s), which helped him maintain
his quality in the rate stats (BAA; ERA; WHIP). For example,
Matthew’s top 5 starters in terms of IP (Peavy, Webb,
Verlander, Francis & Cain) logged 951.7 IP this year, the
highest amount for any “top 5 starters” in the league. With
that, Matthew’s top 5 accounted for 52% of his total IP for
the year. Here’s how that compared to the other teams in the
league:

All Beef Franks – 48%
Black Fred McGriff – 47%
Bugeaters – 37%
Bunson Burners – 39%
Evil Committee – 45%
King Biscuits – 44%
Astronaut Diapers – 40%
Steve Reich n’ Roll – 42%
Thin White Dukes – 36%

So, while the rest of us were giving key IP to borderline
replacement-level pitchers, Matthew held to his guns &
resisted the temptation & it paid off for him. Also, this is
certainly not a case of an owner who forgets about playing
half way through the year & just leaves the same 5 SP’s he
started the year with in for the whole season. Quite the
contrary. After his top five, Matthew gave a total of 172.3
combined IP to three other pitchers (Unit, Boy Chops, &
Zito), essentially another starter for the year & here is
the production he got out of them:

Three-Headed Monster – 172.3 IP; 10 W 12 L; 17 QS; .241 BAA;
4.43 ERA; 1.24 WHIP; 171/57 K/BB; 18 HRA

If you were to plug those numbers into our dollar value
calculater, that’s a $6 pitcher right there. Not bad for
your #6 guy….

It’s also important to remember that Matthew paid $26 for
Brett Myers in the auction to be his #4 starter with Peavy,
Webb & Verlander. We all know what happened to Myers as a
starter, but his conversion to the bullpen was actually a
godsend for Matthew, stabalizing a suspect bullpen & giving
him 20 ‘cheater’ saves & 3 ‘cheater’ holds (‘cheater
saves/holds = saves/holds from RP’s who are SP-eligible),
It had to be tough, as I know that, above just about every
other category, Matthew wants to win K’s the most… His use
of starters this year is a trend that may be followed in the
future by other teams, so Tapey is certainly a trailblazer
in this regard.
The bullpen started off horribly & never truly recovered,
although they did make it back to respectability, which was
all Matthew really needed, given his strength at SP..

On the offensive side, Matthew’s hitting in April, fueled by
Fat Ass, Upton, Reyes & Helton, was the best month of
hitting that any team had in any single month of the season,
totalling 107 points (Dave’s June was 2nd at 101 points.)
Thee Lemmyngs needed all of those points too, as the hitter
quickly went into the deep freeze in May, which continued
into June… The reason for the shutdown, and for my money,
the reason Matthew finished in 2nd this year, were the 3
veteran OF’s that Matthew took with him into the season;
Jason Bay in LF; Andruw Jones in CF; J.D. Drew in RF… In the
simplest terms, all 3 OF’s, all-stars each one of them,
totally underperformed. It cost Matthew $56.1 to keep these
3 OF’s. Here’s the 3-year averages for each of these players
going into this year:

Bay - .292 / .388 / .545; 31 HR; 91 R; 97 RBI; 79 / 142
BB/KO; 9 SB (20th ranked v. all other hitters) = $21.7
Jones - .261 / .351 / .528; 40 HR; 96 R; 116 RBI; 72 / 129
BB/KO; 2 SB (38th ranked) = $20.2
Drew - .292 / .415 / .532; 22 HR; 83 R; 76 RBI; 86 / 91
BB/KO; 3 SB (24th ranked) = $15.9

Here’s what Matthew got out of these guys this year:

Bay – 473 AB; .247 / .326 / .414; 17 HR; 69 R; 73 RBI; 54 /
125 BB/KO; 2 SB = $2.1
Jones – 524 AB; .223 / .315 / .405; 22 HR; 75 R; 84 RBI; 67
/ 132 BB/KO; 3 SB = $-0.3
Drew – 201 AB; .264 / .376 / .379; 3 HR; 35 R; 21 RBI; 38 /
38 BB/KO; 1 SB = $0.1

The real shocker here is Bay. What happened? No one can
really say. Matthew tried to give AB’s to Frenchy & Cust to
stem the tide, but nothing really worked….

And then Ortiz showed up…
Ortiz’s exploits with Thee Lemmyngs were noted previously &
the Lemmyngs were the best team in the league for August &
September, the two months that Ortiz was with the team..

But the difficiencies of the outfield couldn’t be overcome &
it cost Matthew the title.

Top 10 Potential Contract-ables?
Miguel Cabrera - $23
Jeff Francouer - $5
Jeremy Hermida - $5
Brian McCann - $6
David Ortiz - $34
Jose Reyes - $19
Rickie Weeks - $5
Jake Peavy - $21
Justin Verlander - $12
Brandon Webb - $17

Next year in a sentence? – “I came here to do two things:
kick some ass & drink some beer… Looks like we’re almost
outta beer..” – Clint.

The King of the Dance Floor meets the King of Rock & Roll

Doubly Fascinated

"He had a tremendous identification with the people he put in his art. He became Elvis, too, and the electric chair".
David Cronenberg on Andy Warhol

Jonathan Demme Can Screw

This might be the best looking live performance I've ever seen. And holy balls I love that drum work.

Murray! Stoney! Canadians-eh!

We Two Times Two

Thank you, thank you, thank you for two amazing years!

Yesterday I lived a dream that I've dreamed of for a very long time...

MR. SHOOP’S SURFIN' SUMMER SCHOOL MIDTERM

(Courtesy of Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule)

1) Favorite quote from a filmmaker?
"In England, I'm a horror movie director. In Germany, I'm a filmmaker. In the US, I'm a bum." ~ John Carpenter

2) A good movie from a bad director?
I'll go with one I've just seen, The Silent Partner directed by Daryl Duke. Of course, the only other work I've seen by him is the Thorn Birds, which, at 8 years old, left me wanting to tear my eyes out. This movie, though, is pure goodness.

3) Favorite Laurence Olivier performance?
Also my favorite Ira Levin adaptation (it's true!), The Boys from Brazil.

4) Describe a famous location from a movie that you have visited. Was it anything like the way it was in the film? Why or why not?
Accidentally stumbled into Snoqualmie, WA on a trip with my parents. It's home to good pie, decent folks and a damn fine cup of coffee. Just as advertised.

5) Carlo Ponti or Dino De Laurentiis (Producer)?
Dino's given me some of my all-time favourite good-good, good-bad and bad-bad movies.

6) Best movie about baseball
I probably like The Scout more than I should. Maybe I'll go the safe route and choose Bad News Bears.

7) Favorite Barbara Stanwyck performance?
Jessica Drummond in Forty Guns. Truly, no man can tame her.

8) Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Dazed and Confused?
Um... there are moments in FT@RH that I'll take to my grave, but Dazed and Confused wins it in a cage match.

9) What was the last movie you saw, and why?
Zodiac at home and Ratatouille theatrically. Z. because I've been dying to see it since it came out--was better than I had even hoped. R. because I agreed to go with a most hungover buddy. Also top notch.

10) Whether or not you have actually procreated or not, is there a movie you can think of that seriously affected the way you think about having kids of your own?
The Brood helped me to keep it my pants for a while, but it hasn't seriously shaped my thinking on the matter.

11) Favorite Katharine Hepburn performance?
Suddenly, Last Summer or African Queen.

12) A bad movie from a good director?
Most directors have one or two of these in their closets, but Jack made me pity and hate FF Coppola for a year or two.

13) Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom-- yes or no?
Yes, unapologetically.

14) Ben Hecht or Billy Wilder (Screenwriter)?
Wilder could write the hell out of his own movies, but I'm gonna go with Hecht as he had to survive on his ability to craft any number of screenplays.

15) Name the film festival you’d most want to attend, or your favorite festival that you actually have attended?
I really want to go to Rotterdam.

16) Head or 200 Motels?
I'll take the Monkees over Zappa any day.

17) Favorite cameo appearance?
I'm going to cheat and choose my favorite, uh-hem, extended cameo. That is Screamin' Jay Hawkins in Mystery Train. I hear women can get pregnant just by watching it.

18) Favorite Rosalind Russell performance?
I'm bad because I've never seen anything she's in... yes, including The Front Page.

19) What movie, either currently available on DVD or not, has never received the splashy collector’s edition treatment you think it deserves? What would such an edition include?
Chimes at Midnight. It should come with a tankard of ale.

20) Name a performance that everyone needs to be reminded of, for whatever reason?
Paul LeMat in Melvin and Howard, or Jeff Daniels in Something Wild. J. Demme might be the best of his generation at directing, and shooting, actors.

21) Louis B. Mayer or Harry Cohn (Studio Head)?
Cohn

22) Favorite John Wayne performance?
I like Rio Bravo, Nicole prefers his turn as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror.

23) Naked Lunch or Barton Fink?
Fink's more fun, but there's a little more gristle with Lunch.

24) Your Ray Harryhausen movie of choice?

The Valley of the Gwangi
I met him once in Boulder. Couldn't have been more of a gentleman. And what a storyteller.

25) Is there a movie you can think of that you feel like the world would be better off without, one that should have never been made?
Pretty Woman sure messed up a lot of heads...

24) Favorite Dub Taylor performance?
I guess from The Wild Bunch

25) If you had the choice of seeing three final movies, to go with your three last meals, before shuffling off this mortal coil, what would they be?
Gremlins, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Miracle at Morgan's Creek. Wild Things or The Wolf Man as alternates...

26) And what movie theater would you choose to see them in?
The late, lamented CineMolly. The movie theater of my childhood, responsible for introducing me to the joys of Police Academy 5, Popeye and La Bamba.

Terrors of the Deep #3

Passing Attractions #4

Duel (Spielberg, 1971)

Heroes of the Avant-Garde #1

One of my favorites and truly one of the all time unheralded greats: Arthur Lipsett

Ahrt by Dixon!

Now that's handsome.

To a Muse #2

Amanda Lear (Doing her very best impersonation of another leggy, handsome blond muse)
Surrealist and Pop Muse, Disco Diva and beloved, rubber-clad Panther Walker

To a Muse #1

Lee Miller
Fashion Model, War Correspondent, Photojournalist and Surrealist Muse

<3 <3 <3

You are my one and only, birthday gal!
love always,
Your #1 fan!

Happy Opening Day World!

Happy Birthday Joe!

Oh, My Stars and Garters! #1

Mark Gonzales, Video Days (Spike Jonze, 1991)

Stars of Stage, Screen and Wax Cylinder

Jimmie Rodgers and Will Rogers

A Glass Darkly

I just learned Freddie Francis died earlier this month. There are a handful of filmmakers and film artists I can point to and say they're the reason I've grown to love the movies as much as I do, and Freddie numbers among them.

It might sound a bit contrived (and, well, it was intended to be), but I remember so vividly the first time I saw Sandy (Laura Dern) step out of the pitch black streets of Lumberton, all a glow in innocence, wonder and love, and into Jeffrey's (Kyle MacLachlan, as the boy detective) world. I was in my girlfriend's room, during a typical snowbound winter afternoon, the smoke from pilfered cigarettes and awkward teenage flirtations hanging in the air, watching a copy of Blue Velvet I'd somehow managed to rent from our town's lone video store (they were mighty strict about film ratings and minors).



Anywho, from opening credits on I was enchanted by the movie's mannered perversity, goofy grace notes, and oh-so-real grotesqueries. But to me, and this might have been the most revelatory aspect, was the damned look of the thing. The movie was tumid with light and life. And it was Laura Dern, in her pretty pink outfit, standing under a street lamp, that brought a slow tingle of understanding of the greater magic that could be found in film. That was Mr. Lynch and Mr. Francis' doing, and for that I will be forever grateful.



Here's a nice obit from the Guardian Unlimited, which sheds some nice light on his directorial efforts as well.

(H/T to Lynchnet for the photos)

Cage Match

Watching the Detectives #1

Lemmy Caution

Larger Than Life #2

The Mayor of Drinkin' Island

"Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers."

HPRL 2007 Draft (3/18/07)

Spread the Disease #1

The last, true, Germs show. Four days later, Darby Crash would be dead from an intentional, and well stage-managed, heroin overdose.

Larger Than Life #1

"The people I like best are those I don't know and who don't know me. Why? Because I can't stand myself. If I did, I'd play the same guy in all my roles. I don't even like my own company." Playboy interview, January 1969

See Ya in the Funny Pages

Fantomah

Get used to seeing the name Fletcher Hanks, as an upcoming collection of his work will be released this summer from Fantagraphics. I haven't seen much outside of what's available on the web, or the stand alone representation in Art out of Time, but I'm already quite taken by the comic (featuring a world of tense, grotesque characters framed in eye-popping primary colored jungles, both urban and wild, spartan diaglogue and severe moralizing). The blunt storytelling, fantastic settings and outrageous situations give it a wonderfully naive, fever dream quality. That's not to say I find it kitschy, quite the opposite really. There seems to be a real sense of personality behind the work, with a unique pen in hand and an unusual creativity unbound. The grave seriousness lends itself to unintentional humor, but the pay-off is in the louder, quirkier and more perverse elements of the adventure. I'm sure it will keep me indoors on many a sunny day. I'm glad Fanta has done so well for itself with the Peanuts property, allowing them to put together great, and risky, collections like this, Pogo and my personal favorite, Popeye.

Terrors of the Deep #2

From Conrad Gessner's Historiae Animalium

Eye Grimace

Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing...#1

Terrors of the Deep #1

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.--Tennyson

Passing Attractions #3

The Big Combo(Joseph H. Lewis, 1955)

Smut Peddler

A Great Curio From A Long And Curious Career

Orson Welles' Voodoo Macbeth

Is it hot in here, or is it just MUMMY?

1.
2.
3.
4.

The Most Dangerous Game

Thanks to a fine, and fine smelling, friend at Horseshoes and Handgrenades, there's finally some documentation of the bar stool sensation that's sweeping the nation: Yetsko Photohunt Challenge. The premise is quite easy, find a bar with a photohunt terminal, saddle up to that lonely corner and begin to play, drink, play, drink, play, drink, drink, play through your day. At some point you should reach the high score (it's pretty simple to lay waste to the mediocre tallies of drunks that aren't you), and when you do, enter Y-E-T-S-K-O in the champeen's place. Like the mighty Zoro's brand, Yetsko's name is symbolic of a player's peak physical skill, quick wit, devilish good looks and devastating charm. It also means you can give over countless hours to sitting, drinking and staring at a box. Best of luck.

Passing Attractions #2

Film: Mystery Train (Jim Jarmusch, 1989) Poster Art: Andrezj Klimowski

Favorite Literary Characters #2

Cthulhu

Irony Like a Fatted Calf

2Clever by half.

Amazin' Logos #2

The Denver Bears (1955-62, 1969-82)

Morricone's Heart of Darkness

Here's the theme to Brian DePalma's Casualties of War (1989). This is the second time Morricone and DePalma had worked together, their first being on The Untouchables a couple of years earlier. This composition definitely falls into later period Morricone; a cleaner, more traditional approach to film scoring. Thankfully, there's nothing so treacly or bombastic as the work being done by his contemporaries (and those favored byDePalma's cohort): James Horner and John Williams. Here, the music is lean, yet atmospheric, moving away from his earlier expressionistic style and toward impressionism. The mood is regretful, hesitant, and I'd even say a little pious--reflecting the themes and tone of the film and its very Lutheran protagonist.

More-icone

'The Ecstasy of Gold" from Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo (Leone, 1966)

Favorite Literary Characters #1

Bertram Wilberforce "Bertie" Wooster

Carshow Gunfight Celebrates Ennio Morricone

For the next week I'm going to post trailers and clips featuring favorite selections from Ennio Morricone's film work. (Well, what I can find. I have yet to come across any decent, stand alone sequences from Exorcist II or John Carpenter's The Thing). I hope to do a little writing on the subject, as well... time allowing. I'm gonna do myself a disservice and post what might be my second favorite piece, from the opening credit sequence from La Resa dei conti* (Sollima, 1966), Run, Man Run. Music by the Maestro and lyrics by Audrey Nohra.


*That's The Big Gundown to you and me, pardner.

Bile* Them Cabbage Down

*pronounced "boil"


Went up on the mountain
Just to give my horn a blow
Thought I heard my true love say
Yonder comes my beau

Bile them cabbage down
Turn them hoecakes brown
The only song that I can sing
Is bile them cabbage down

Possum in a simmon tree
Raccoon on the ground
Raccoon says you son-of-a-gun
Shake some Simmons down

CHORUS

Someone stole my old 'coon dog
Wish they'd bring him back
He chase the big hogs through the fence
And the little ones through the crack

CHORUS

Chicago #1

"Out in Chicago, the only genuinely civilised city in the New World, they take the fine arts seriously and get into such frets and excitements about them as are raised nowhere else save by baseball, murder, political treachery, foreign wars and romantic loves... almost one fancies the world bumped by an asteroid, and the Chicago river suddenly turned into the Seine."-H.L. Mencken

A Pitcheresque Game #1

Ed Walsh, RHP (1904-17)

Passing Attractions #1

Chimes at Midnight, aka Falstaff (Dir. Orson Welles, 1965)

National Film Registry's New Titles for 2006

Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, spent last year dumpster diving in world cinema's big ol' editing bin to rescue these dazzling gems from the countless turds. The following twenty-five titles were added to the National Film Registry in December 2006, bringing the total to 450 honest-to-god cinematic treasures. Chosen for their artistic merit, historic import, and cultural significance, these films will be forever preserved for your enjoyment, your children's bewilderment, and your children's children's yawning disinterest. I'm particularly appreciative of their avant-garde selections this year, especially the Harry Smith (Early Abstractions series), and spy with approving eye Halloween, Fargo, and Groundhog Day, as well. Siege sounds pretty incredible and I hope I get a chance to see it someday. Julien Bryan was stranded in Warsaw in 1939, where he documented Nazi Germany's blitzkrieg attack on the city. The subsequent film was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost on the technicality of having never been screened in theaters.

Anyhow, here they are in all their alphabetical glory:

1) Applause (1929)

2) The Big Trail (1930)

3) Blazing Saddles (1974)

4) The Curse of Quon Gwon (1916-17)

5) Daughter of Shanghai (1937)

6) Drums of Winter (1988)

7) Early Abstractions #1-5,7,10 (1939-56)

8) Fargo (1996)

9) Flesh and the Devil (1927)

10) Groundhog Day (1993)

11) Halloween (1978)

12) In the Street (1948/52)

13) The Last Command (1928)

14) Notorious (1946)

15) Red Dust (1932)

16) Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1971-72)

17) Rocky (1976)

18) Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989)

19) Siege (1940)

20) St. Louis Blues (1929)

21) The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)

22) Tess of the Storm Country (1914)

23) Think of Me First as a Person (1960-75)

24) A Time Out of War (1954)

25) Traffic in Souls (1913)

Supposedly, Peter Bogdanovich once asked Orson Welles what most disappointed him about film, to which he replied: "It's canned." Of course, he also said, "I hate television. I hate it as much as I hate peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts." And look where that got him.

Amazin' Team Logos #1

Seattle Pilots (1969-70)

Okay Bob.

Favorite moments from INLAND EMPIRE:
1. Hooker gang dance party.
2. Laura Dern--best performance(s) ever. She has more facial tics than Michael J. Fox.
3. Harry Dean Stanton can still light up a screen.
4. "They say I've got a way with animals."
5. Lynch's humor is fast and loose. People like to focus on the perverse and nightmarish elements, but the guy's sense of visual and verbal comedy are just as important to the film's success. This is why the almost humorless Lost Highway is one of his least regarded works.
6. Obsession. The guy knows what haunts him and he's not afraid to go back to it again, and again, and again.

Things I miss:
1. David Lynch has always had an impeccable sense of composition and timing. I miss some of the precise direction of earlier films and I won't pretend that it couldn't use a little editing (the film loses some gas about 2/3 of the way through--still finishes strong).

I noticed my photo link wasn't working. I don't feel like editing it now, so you can find photos here---> X

And just like that, the sun removes the darkness...

Last night Nicole and I caught the Chicago premiere of David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE at the Music Box Theater. After waiting in queue for an hour, in witch tit cold weather, there couldn't have been anything more welcoming than the theater's red velvet drop curtain(actually, I'm pretty sure it's heavy cotton drapery, but the effect...), a bag of warm corn, free coffee courtesy of the director and, looking evermore the ghost of Jimmy Stewart, the very charming Mr. Lynch. After a improvised pipe organ piece played by one of the Box's projectionists, Mr. Lynch took the stage, read a brief piece about life being akin to a web spun by a spider and how it is defined-and it turn defines-its creator. The next three hours were the most fun I've ever had at a David Lynch film. I was absolutely captivated.

Now, I have to cop to saying I have no idea as to what exactly happened in the film (or to me, for that matter). I've got threads of imagery and cryptic connections that lead to something, a kernel of a notion, but then it splinters off and... hell, it practically explodes, and I'm left blank. Most reviewers use the establishing scene between Nikki (Laura Dern) and her nosy neighbor (a delightfully arch Grace Zabrieskie) in their attempts to follow/establish a narrative. This leads to the making of On High in Blue Tomorrows storyline (or 4/7, the cursed film's original title), which gives you the film w/in a film (possibly w/in a television program being broadcast in a Poland that exists in the present and 1927) and some fine performances from Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons and Harry Dean Stanton. Now you can follow that adventure only so far. At some point, your theory will meet its untimely end (leaving 1/3 of the film out of the picture) and send you flipping back two or three chapters and on another course. To borrow from one of the ideas in the film, and classic pop surrealist fantasy, it's just one of many rabbit holes you can tumble down.

There are worlds within worlds in this very Lynchian metaverse (imagine all those fine moments from Elephant Man to Mulholland Drive (Twin Peaks being, perhaps, the most relevant touchstone) where dream invades film fantasy--strip the framing narratives from that, like pork off the bone, and you have IE), and I imagine I'll be going back several times with different eyes open to the many possibilities.

Here's some handy dandy Lynch for you to enjoy if if'n you can't get yourself to the movie:


And here are some photos other filmgoers snapped last night.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag

I couldn't ask for a better birthday present than the Gene Siskel Film Center's Werner Herzog: Visionary at Large program in February. I was particularly thrilled to see that they'll be showing a new print of Cobra Verde--a lesser seen masterpiece. There is one glaring omission, however, and that is Stoszek. It's a shame, because Herzog always understood us Usonians so much better than his New German Cinema cohort (I'm pointing a finger at you, Wenders). Anyhow, I'm going to try and catch each film and maybe do a little recapping in this space.

Here's the video clip of Herzog being shot (with an air rifle) while being interviewed near his home in Los Angeles.

If I recall correctly, this happened within two or three weeks of his having pulled Joaquin Phoenix free of a car accident. If only he'd been at the Viper Room in 1993...

Still working out the Kinks...

It's nice to see Ray embracing a fine tradition of the British theatre. If the promo seems eerily familiar, it's probably because Oasis' The Importance of Being Idle video is lodged somewhere in your memory. They essentially made use of the same look, wardrobe and scenario. Not the first, nor the best, thing they lifted from thee greatest English rock band of all time.