Ode To an Enchanted Rock Legend - Stevie Nicks

I’ve always had a fascination with Stevie Nicks, the one-time drugged-out, esoteric "witch" queen of the 70’s rock scene, her lace and spacey fantasy lyrics reaching across the last four decades like a low and throaty howl.  Lovers dance in a carefree world of finery, calling to mind Shakespearian costumes full of frilly lace, beautiful damsels from enchanted castles and all manner of fairy tale heroes and heroines as Stevie paints pictures with words of inviting, mystical fantasy landscapes.

     That’s the poetry and feeling of the music of Stevie Nicks, captured on her 3 CD set Enchanted, featuring her hits, some personal favorites, and brimming with rarities.  Stevie isn’t for all tastes, and my love for her music has waned somewhat over the years, especially considering some of the New Age mysticism she tends to dabble in.  I'm a right-wing conservative, and she is not, obviously!  Nowhere is this clearer than in some of the lyrics to Fleetwood Mac's Say You Will CD.  Her voice has also taken on a husky tone over the years that unfortunately comes with age.

     Despite all of that, I was very impressed by the late 90's Fleetwood Mac concert The Dance.  Stevie seemed revitalized, and there was a rapport with her band mates and the audience that took on a new style of nostalgia and maturity that only a band as long lived as Fleetwood Mac can attain, and even THAT was over ten years ago!  Her career’s work outside of Fleetwood Mac is also very impressive, as heard on Enchanted and her CD's released since then, Trouble in Shangri-La, her latest Greatest Hits package, Crystal Visions - The Best of Stevie Nicks (with all the videos!), and her 2011 release, In Your Dreams. 

     Her recent appearance on American Idol shows she is starting to act like a bit of a grandma, but that's to be expected, and she still looks quite good.  Her skin simply glows, and she has aged quite gracefully.

     She called her boxed set Enchanted.  I always was.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare: Why the Seventh Freddy Film is the Best of the Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise

I found Wes Craven’s New Nightmare to be artistically interesting.  This is almost an impossible feat for the seventh in a slasher film series!  Nobody would really expect such a movie to be all that great, especially after parts 4, 5, and 6 got progressively worse, each becoming more comedic and forgettable than the last until the entire franchise had pretty much run its course and Freddy Krueger was no longer quite the scary boogeyman he once was, becoming instead some sort of culturally iconic horror movie clown.  But then Wes Craven came up with a superb idea:  What if, in light of all of this, this decent into sequel hell, he decided to make one more Nightmare film, one in which the idea is all about him making one more Nightmare film, and in so doing, whatever demonic force he had originally dreamed up to become Freddy on film was, because of this, attempting to break out of the fictional film world and into the real one, and using the actress who played Nancy in the first film, Heather Langenkamp, to do it.  

Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp,
and Robert Englund all play versions
of themselves.

And so the film has Wes Craven playing himself, and Heather Langenkamp playing a version of herself that wasn’t really her and her family, but was still an interesting twist for the nature of the film.  John Saxon, and of course Robert England, are back for more, playing themselves, and with England hamming it up as the commercialized Freddy when he appears in Freddy makeup on a local talk show with “Heather”, but is then haunted by nightmares himself of the real demon who inspired Freddy and who is waiting to be born into our world, and his nightmares of this “Freddy demon” start to become realized in his paintings.  It is so reverential and interesting, especially when you realize the ways in which this is like their real lives, but not, with actor Miko Hughes, not really related to Heather Langenkamp, playing her son Dylan, and another actor playing her husband, and just like her real husband, also a special effects technician and yet, in real life, still very much alive.  The commentary track on the DVD refers to the fact they shot in other houses standing in for Heather’s and Robert’s, and that Robert Englund doesn’t really paint for a hobby like his “Robert Englund” character does here.  What was so interesting about this film, despite the fact that the final confrontation with “Freddy” was, unfortunately, a let down, was how metaphysical and self-reverential the whole thing was, making this rise high, high above most other entries in this franchise, and taking it in a whole new direction.  It made the actual filming of this movie imitate the movie itself when Wes Craven added earthquakes to signify the Freddy demon's attempts to enter our reality coinciding with real earthquakes that were occurring during the actual filming of the movie, and which Craven actually used in some of the movie for the “aftermath” shots.  There are moments in this where they manage to break through the “fourth wall” and really play with this vivid concept, such as the dual scene where Heather’s filmic son, playing her real son, almost dies when he climbs up to the top of a play fort on the playground and tries to reach his father in heaven, and the follow up scene where Heather visits Wes Craven as he is writing the script, and sees the entire event having already been dreamed up and written on his computer!  Other than the cheesy final battle with “demon Freddy”, there are quite a few inspired scenes, and not all of them dealt with the rather ingenious metaphysical aspect of this film.  Before the final fight, Freddy here is often downright scary, and a few other inspired elements include the menacing Dr. Heffner or Heather chasing after her son Dylan on foot in the middle of dangerous highway traffic!  

     But these kinds of scenes are not what make the movie the best of the franchise, and in fact, without the metaphysical, self-reverential script, there isn't much here beyond the usual slice and dice variety, and is the reason the final battle with Freddy in some otherworldly boiler room is such a letdown.  This film tends to really come alive whenever that fourth wall is shattered and it the film skates on the edge of what could be considered "reality."  I loved the part where Heather is speaking with John Saxon, and as they leave her house, he is suddenly wearing his character’s police uniform from the first film and calling Heather “Nancy”, and as Heather finds her clothes have changed to the nightie her character Nancy was wearing in the first movie, and that her house has changed to the Elm Street house, the demon Freddy starts to enter into the real world through her bed sheets as he did at the very end of the first film, but he hesitates, as if waiting for her to accept what is happening, and when she calls John Saxon “Daddy”, like he was to her fictional character in the first film, that is when this Freddy finally rips through the sheet and comes fully into “reality”.  It turns Freddy from a fictional demon haunting the dreams of fictional characters into something a bit more "real" and attempting to cross over from the fictional world of ideas and characters on page and screen into reality, haunting the very actors, special effects technicians, and the writer/director who first gave him "life."  It turns this film into a wholly intelligent undertaking, whereas the most recent attempts were bordering on brain dead!  This is pretty fascinating and heady stuff, especially for the seventh in a horror movie franchise!  The ending has Heather confronting the Freddy demon, saving her son, and making it out of his bed (with shades of both Alice in Wonderland and Hansel and Gretel), falling onto the floor of his room, battered and bruised, and finding the delivered, finished script.  She reads the last page aloud to her son, which describes how the "character" of the "actress Heather Lagencamp" falls out of her son’s bed, finds the script, and starts reading it to him, which she, in fact, is doing right now!  I find that to be just so clever!

By this point, is she "Heather" or "Nancy"?  In the demon Freddy's unreal world, she finds Wes Craven's "New Nightmare" script.

Missing the Crocodile Hunter

Steve Irwin was a completely wild and crazy Australian crocodile guy, yet it was that crazy edge that made him and his Animal Planet show so watchable!  Together with his wife Teri, he explored the wild with a childlike rapture and tremendous enthusiasm for the creatures they found.  Steve would get so excited at the thought of holding a deadly Boa Constrictor or getting as close to dangerous crocs as possible that he was like a kid on Christmas morning who had just found the greatest gift ever!  “Ah, look at ‘er!  Isn’t she gorgeous!?!” he would shout, holding a big, ugly lizard that was so frightened, its claws were digging deep into Steve’s arm.  When he found a den of very poisonous rattlers, he would go nuts with exhilaration, and actually CLIMB INTO THE DEN WITH THEM!  He would then climb back out a few seconds later holding a rattler by the tail, with the serpent twisting around and trying to bite him in the face!  “Ah, look at ‘er!  She’s so angry!  Isn’t she just adorable!?!”

     Teri was more normal, and much more laid back.  Perhaps she helped to keep his feet on the ground somewhat.

     There are three very positive things I liked about his show, and these three things could be the reasons I found Steve Irwin to be a role model.  First, it’s obvious that Steve loved Teri very, very much, and she loved him back.  Secondly, he loved nature, and that overwhelming love of nature was infectious.  Thirdly, he just loved what he did for a living, and took great pride in it.  If only we were all that lucky!

Real Heroes: Socrates as Role Model

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”  This quote from Socrates has a lot of meaning for me.  First and foremost, the quote itself is quite enlightening and has deep meaning within it.  Without examination, life is only full of trivialities, a banal sequence of events that leads inexorably towards death.  Socrates is saying that only by examining life does one make the life they live of any worth.  Even if no one else reads it, this gives my journal purpose.

     Secondly, I had heard this quote before, but the way I came across it this month was another one of those times I have to define as being a “God Moment”, an instance in which God shows me of His existence through yet another event that unbelievers can easily dismiss as just another crazy coincidence, but it amazes me how it all ties together like a big, fascinating, undeniable jigsaw puzzle!

     I recently bought a special issue of Time magazine that looked fascinating to me: “100 Ideas That Changed the World:  History’s Greatest Breakthroughs, Inventions, and Theories”.  The magazine listed and then wrote about these historical ideas and events in a concise way I had never experienced before. 

     When I was in school studying history, it always seemed so dry.  Only in movies did history seem interesting to me, even though at the same time I realized that fictionalized accounts always used dramatic license to some degree, and that there was always the question of historical accuracy, a critique that could, at the same time, even be leveled against textbooks and what was being taught.  Like news, history was open to subjective interpretation, not only in the material itself, but in the way, or the order, in which it was presented.  Not that it mattered to me anyway, for as I look back upon my school years learning about history, I always found it as dry as a segment on Sixty Minutes would be to any kid obsessed with cartoons and fantasy.  Having recently watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off again, I can equate my experiences with learning history with the teachers presented in that movie, droning on about ancient times and documents and terms the kids had no interest in, and not doing very much to make it exciting for them either.  But after reading some new historical interpretations of past events by the likes of Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, they’ve helped make history come alive for me in a way my grade school teachers never did, and it all started to connect and make more sense.  A book like this one from Time magazine was irresistible to someone like me; here was a short and snappy presentation, not an endless parade of names and dates, but a quick, chronological rundown of the 100 ideas that changed the world, and even if a person might quibble with a  few of them, just flipping through this quick read shows that at least 80% would probably be universal ideas that would show up on everyone’s list of the biggest ideas, from the ideas of such major religions as Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, and yes, Christianity, to all the major ideas in the fields of philosophy, political theory, and mathematics, covering the ancient world, the middle ages, the renaissance, the age of enlightenment, and modern times concisely like I had never seen before, and helping it all to make more sense.  

     And so, while reading this book, there was one section on the philosophy of Socrates that I found interesting enough to share with Mom, even if Mom didn’t quite understand the reason I might have wanted to share it with her.  This book was making the past come alive for me, and I found a new appreciation for the thoughts and ideas of Socrates, and many others.  But it was the brief article on Socrates I felt the need the share with Mom, reading to her about his life and death, and the Socratic method of finding Truth with a capital “T”.  Through what came to be known as the Socratic method, a series of questions are asked to arrive at ultimate truth about them, and although it was through this questioning that Socrates was arrested and sentenced to death (setting an example among the people of the day of questioning those in power), it was also because of this that Socrates said the quote above in his own defense, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David (1787)

     And honestly, how many times in a normal person’s lifetime does a he or she make a special point of studying Socrates?  Before sharing that quote with Mom, I believe the last time I gave this historical figure any thought was years and years ago, the last time I saw the movie Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a dumb yet charming throw-away comedy in which the famous Greek philosopher was used for laughs, such as the way Bill and Ted both pronounced his name as “so-crates” instead of “sock-rat-ees”.  

Socrates, or "So-crates", rocks out with Bill & Ted!

     But the very same weekend I read this little article to Mom about Socrates, one of the pastors at our church used this exact same quote from Socrates as one of the messages that week!  Now some people who may hear this little story of mine may yawn and say it’s just a coincidence, but not me.  For me, it was affirmation.  For me, it was like God’s confirmation of His own existence, and his affirmation for the road I was on, and the fact that it was from this particular quote, and this particular historical figure, and this particular book, all spoke volumes to that same affirmation!

            And it continues…  Because of this book, and the way it brilliantly took all these ideas from the whole of human history and presented them so succinctly in a neat little, easy to understand package, it left me thirsty for more.  The liberals, who are basically now the ones in charge of the entire curriculum from Kindergarten through college, have taken it upon themselves to rewrite history, demonizing America every chance they get and downplaying the conservative Christian basis of the entire American culture.  For this reason, I downloaded a book on iTunes called A Patriot’s History of the United States that reexamines the whole of American history from the perspective of the conservative Christian camp… because we get enough of the other kind in school.  I am very interested in reading the rest of this book.  It will give me a basis I never had before, and hopefully, some of it will stick with me.  Hopefully, all these years later, I can better understand what I didn’t before, and become not only a true fan of history, but be able to understand what all of it might mean.

Images from:

http://www.emersonkent.com/history_notes/socrates.htm

http://thescatterbrainperspective.blogspot.com/2011/02/time-100-ideas-that-changed-world.html

http://www.philipcoppens.com/socrates.html

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3355739136/ch0046456

A Love Letter for Seven of Nine and The Doctor of the Starship Voyager

Voyager is an often criticized Star Trek show, and I don’t believe it really deserves most of that denigration.  I found it to be very rich and imaginative!  It seems to me some of the best shows were those that focused on Seven of Nine and the Doctor, two of my favorite characters from that show who weren’t quite human, but displayed some of the best humanity had to offer in their quest to grow and to be more than they were.

A favorite of mine from the fifth season, for instance, was “Drone,” the one where a Borg from the future was created when parts of Seven of Nine’s Borg implants wound up fusing with the Doctor’s holo-emitter and a crewmember’s DNA.  When the drone tried to extract information from Seven at the beginning of the episode, Seven commanded him to stop and that it was hurting her.  When he sacrificed himself for the crew, Seven told him the exact same thing, showing how much she cared for him and didn’t want him to die!  That’s clever writing.  

Another classic, “Timeless,” had Voyager being destroyed with only Ensign Kim and Commander Chakotay surviving.  Twenty years later, they used a time traveling device, along with remnants of Seven of Nine’s Borg implants and the Doctor’s holo-emitter together in an attempt to change Voyager’s fate; and it worked… barely!  And then there was “Latent Image” in which the holographic Doctor began to have what appeared to be a nervous break-down, and was shocked to discover that Captain Janeway had erased some of his memory files before, when he had begun experiencing the same breakdown. 

Janeway later explained to Seven of Nine that the Doctor had more in common with a replicator than with a man.  But Seven stuck up for him, and pointed out that she had just as much in common with the Doctor as she did with a human, and causing Janeway to reconsider.  In the end, Janeway decided that by allowing the Doctor to grow and change and explore his own existence over the years, they had given him more than just some personality sub-routines for a friendlier bedside manner; somehow, the Doctor developed a soul, or the equivalent of one.  Previously, she had simply erased his memories, denying him the time a human would have had to search his soul and experience some of the more haunting complexities of life.  This time, however, with Seven’s wisdom and insight leading her, she realized that, in a way, she was responsible for the Doctor and his development, whatever that may mean, and finally allowed him the time to work through his thoughts, as every man should have the freedom to do.  “I think, therefore I am.”  Like the Star Trek shows that came before it, I find Voyager to be highly inventive, colorful, and intelligent – a step above normal television in my eyes.

Midnight in Paris: Drawn to Its Many Charms Like the Main Character Was Drawn to Paris of the 1920's

I loved this movie!  I am not, I repeat, not the biggest fan of Woody Allen, and I’ve seen quite a few of his movies.  Many of them just didn’t impress me, and I found them overbearing, pretentious, and too artsy, such as Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Hannah and Her Sisters.  Yet over the years, I have enjoyed a few; a small handful of his earlier films, like Take the Money and Run and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask, and a few of his later films, like Radio Days, Bullets Over Broadway, and Cassandra’s Dream.  There are even a few others I might like to see, such as Everyone Says I Love You, Match Point, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona.  This is still a pretty impressive body of work, so I understand Woody Allen is no slouch.  I like him much better as a director than as an actor.  His pretentious stream of consciousness gets tiresome, and often works better with other actors, such as John Cusak in Bullets Over Broadway.

     Then there’s Owen Wilson.  I’ve just never cared much for this guy.  I usually try to avoid his movies after seeing him in such films as The Haunting, Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights, Meet the Parents, Zoolander, Starsky & Hutch, and Wedding Crashers.  I just don’t care much for his slacker persona, even in a few better films like the Night at the Museum movies and Marley & Me.  However, I get it now.  This character in Midnight in Paris fits him to a “T”!

Tom Hiddlesten and Alison Pill as F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald: Hiddlesten looks much more dapper than as Thor's very villainous brother Loki in "Thor" and "The Avengers"

     I’m a bit of a romantic at heart.  I think a lot of people are, and Woody Allen tapped into that with this film.  Many of us idolize the past (I did just recently with the film Water for Elephants), even though it would not have been as romantic if we actually lived in those times, and Woody Allen captures this mood as well.  Gil is a Hollywood screenwriter struggling through his first novel.  He and his fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams) are in Paris with her parents, and while she is enamored with a cultured, pseudo-intellectual jerk named Paul (Michael Sheen, another favorite actor), Gil makes any and every excuse to get away.  He finds himself walking the streets of Paris after midnight, and somehow crosses over into the past to the 1920’s, to a time when Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, T.S. Elliot, Henri Matisse, and many other notable artists had flocked to this magical, European capital!  

Owen Wilson, Corey Stoll, and Kathy Bates as Gil, Ernest Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein

     He is amazed and totally captivated and enchanted to discuss their artistic ideas and to have them critique his writing.  Yet one of the women he meets there, Adriana (Picasso’s mistress) is bored.  She has a dalliance with Hemingway, and back in the future during the daytime, as Gil’s relationship with Inez severely sours, he finds Adriana’s diary, and can’t believe she wrote about him, and was in love with him!  One night, while he is with her in the 1920’s, a carriage appears and takes them both back another twenty years, to Paris’ Belle Epoque era that Adriana romanticizes about.  There they meet Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and Edgar Degas, who themselves think that Paris’ best era was during the Renaissance.  It is at this point that Gil begins to understand the true nature of nostalgia, and begins to accept his place in the present.  However, with help from Gertrude Stein, who has critiqued his semi-autobiographical novel, he realizes Inez is having an affair with Paul.  He calls it off, and sets off for the streets of Paris in the rain, with Gabrielle, the girl who helped him find Adriana’s diary, and has a similar affinity to Paris of the 20’s.

Paris in the Rain: Almost as romantic as Paris After Midnight!

     I loved everything about this film:  The music, the writing, the performances, the cinematography, the sweet nostalgic quality, the magical time travel angle, the characterizations of famous artists and writers of the past, their dialogue and pontificating, and the way the past mixed with the future to change his character in the end.  In a word:  Brilliant! 

Images From:

http://teaser-trailer.com/movie/midnight-in-paris/

http://thecineasteslament.com/2012/01/18/the-importance-of-being-ernest-hemingway/

http://www.bartboehlert.com/2012/01/midnight-in-paris-and-murphys.html

http://unknowncritics.com/?p=851

Stevie Nicks and VH1's Old Series "Behind the Music": Where Have All the Documentaries Gone?

Midweek, and another entry from my earlier journals, espousing the praise of TV biography shows, and in particular, VH1's Behind the Music and a profile of rocker Stevie Nicks:

    As with the Arts & Entertainment network’s Biography series, VH1’s Behind the Music was very fascinating, depending upon who they profiled.  I saw profiles on both Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks that were both intriguing, especially the one on Stevie!  As the Biography show and magazine tagline states, “Every life tells a story,” and it is sometimes fascinating finding out the stories BEHIND the hype and celebrity, to see the real person who lives inside the flash and the famous skin.

     For instance, with the Stevie Nicks story, I can recall seeing a video of the Fleetwood Mac Mirage tour, and thinking that Stevie didn’t seem to be at her best, and thinking she was just allowing herself and her career to slip into the world of drugs – this despite the beautiful and creative video for “Gypsy.”  In later years, it was obvious that she was deteriorating, both her voice and her songs (Street Angel is not one of her best albums).  Yet I had never stopped to ponder why any of this happened.  This Behind the Music show clued me in.

Stevie Nicks: The "Bella Donna" Album, with Robin Anderson, and Fleetwood Mac's "Mirage"

     Immediately after releasing her first solo album Bella Donna – in fact, at the height of that album’s popularity, on the very day the album reached the Number 1 position on Billboard’s album chart – Stevie received a phone call from not just a close and personal friend, but her very best friend in all the world, Robin Anderson.  Robin had been diagnosed with leukemia, and was given only three months to live.  Even worse, Robin was pregnant, but according to the doctors, she would die long before the baby was due.  Stevie, who was at once elated over the news about Bella Donna reaching Number One, was suddenly devastated, and other than a few short hours before Robin’s call, never got to enjoy the success of Bella Donna.  Instead, she took her dying friend on an all expense paid trip to Hawaii, trying to ease her pain and suffering, if only for a little bit.  The baby was born three months premature and Robin died five days later.  Stevie was heartbroken and distraught, yet at the same time, her band Fleetwood Mac had the new album Mirage released, and were being pressured to tour to help promote it.  Stevie reluctantly agreed to an expensive Fleetwood Mac world tour, but had no time to grieve because of it.  According to this documentary, that’s when she began to really loose focus, and all these experiences only helped to send Stevie spiraling out of control with a devastating cocaine addiction that wouldn’t end until years later, when her doctor scared the hell out of her by telling her if she kept it up, she wouldn’t have a nose left, perhaps inside of a year.     Here I was, just a kid who liked some of her tunes, and thought she was pretty, but a show like this makes me begin to realize the true story, and the power of reality.  Shows like this make me gain a new respect for one of the most publicly disrespected film genres: The documentary.  People may not be following critical advice to flock to theaters to watch real life in the form of documentaries, but shows like this are thriving on TV.  I guess the documentary just needed the right setting to appeal to the masses.

From my Journal, July, 1999

Reality TV: My Thoughts on the 2012 Seasons of American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Celebrity Apprentice, and Survivor

American Idol

I love Phillip Phillips!  He may be eccentric in his singing, and a bit too laid back otherwise, but what a talent!  I’ve downloaded nearly all his songs, though truthfully, some are better than others.  He’s unique.  I also love Hollie.  I can see what the judges are saying about her sometimes over-thinking her performances, or not having the soul of Jessica and Joshua, but so what?  Soul has its own problems, and while the audience seems to love every performance by every person, and the judges give standing ovations to the soul performers almost exclusively, soul music still only appeals to one niche in the grand scheme of the music world.  The judges need to keep that in perspective, like they do for country music.  Just because it’s the kind of music they favor in particular doesn’t mean it’s the kind of music everyone likes.  And like Phillip, but in a different way, Hollie is also a talent, and an often maligned one.  While the judges have primarily been very hard on her, she’s stuck around week after week after week, and I’ve downloaded some amazing performances of hers:  “All the Man That I Need,” “The Power of Love,” “Perfect,” “Rolling in the Deep,” and “The Climb,” among others.

     I’ve downloaded a few of Joshua and Jessica’s, when they’re more restrained, including their duet together “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)”.  When they’re not screaming, or being egged on to scream even more by the judges’ constant praise when they do, they seem to do a very good job, and I liked Joshua singing Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” and “Ready for Love,” while Jessica has done an amazing job on songs by the late Whitney Houston:  “I Will Always Love You” and “How Will I Know,” as well as a wonderful rendition of Luther Vandros’ “Dance with My Father”. 

     Then there’s Skylar and Colton, who did an amazing job on the duet “Islands in the Stream”.  It took me a bit to warm up to them.  I thought Skylar possessed some of the qualities I find difficult to like in today’s modern country music landscape:  Namely, an affinity for rock and roll, and I didn’t like her as much as, say, Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina from last season, or Kellie Pickler from season 5.  But later, I really enjoyed her versions of old classics like “Wind Beneath My Wings” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”  In fact, upon review, she hasn’t really had a bad performance.  It’s just that, usually, they are not quite as good as some of the other performer’s good performances in any given week.  For instance, on the week where the performers did a Queen song and then a more modern choice, most of the performers had one good performance and one bad performance (or, in the case of Elise, two bad performances), but even though Skyler’s were both good, they weren’t among the best (which, for that week, were “Dance with My Father” by Jessica, “The Climb” by Hollie, “Ready for Love” by Joshua, and “Fat Bottomed Girls” by Phillip).  Likewise, I didn’t care much for Colton at first, and on the week he was voted out, he messed up with unimpressive versions of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and a slow piano version of Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September”.  Yet at the beginning of the competition, I didn’t think I’d like any of his performances, and I was surprised when I found myself downloading “Piano Man,” “Time After Time,” and “Love the Way You Lie.”

     That just leaves a handful of people who might have been better if they had been afforded an opportunity to stay longer or to grow.  This group includes the baritone, gentle giant Jermaine (not so gentle, apparently, since the reason he left early was for not admitting his arrest record) Erika Van Pelt, and Heejun Han.

     Finally, there’s Elise.  Sure, she has some talent, but it wore thin over the weeks, and her personality stunk.  She was not very gracious, and definitely not a gracious loser.  Think of her as a worse version of Haley Reinhart.  As snotty as my brother and his wife thought Haley was, Elise was snottier, and though Elise did have a unique tone to her voice, it wasn’t as unique or as pleasant as Haley’s.  I’m glad Elise is gone.  She didn’t deserve to win, and everyone was nicer than her.

Dancing with the Stars

 The big, goony klutz this year, similar to Macy Gray and Penn Jillette from previous seasons, was Martina Navratilova, though I thought it was sad to see professional Tony Dovolani go so soon.  Of the other performers already voted out, most of them were not that strong, like Jack Wagner, though Sherri Shepherd and Gavin DeGraw will be missed leaving so soon, as I really liked both of their personalities, and Sherri had some real dancing talent!  Gladys Knight hung on much too long in my opinion, though she did pretty well for being the oldest contestant.  I also liked all their dancing partners (Anna Trebunskaya for Jack Wagner, Karina Smirnoff for Gavin DeGraw, Tristan MacManus for Gladys Knight) except that Sherri’s partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, Maksim’s brother, really rubs me the wrong way!  And several news stories and rumors about Jaleel White of “Urkel” fame, paired with Kym Johnson, have circulated that he’s not the nicest guy around!

     Of those remaining, Melissa Gilbert, paired with Maks, should thank her lucky stars she made it this far!  She is trying, but she is the weakest of all the dancers remaining.  And Roshon Fegan of Disney Channel fame, paired with Chelsie Hightower, is technically proficient and a natural dancing talent, yet I find it interesting he has been in the bottom two a few times now, after good performances, so despite his talent, he doesn’t stand the best chance of winning.

     That leaves a few sports figures, a classical singer, and an obscure Latin heartthrob dueling it out, and any of the four of them could win.  Wrestler Maria Menounos with the horrible laugh is paired with Derek Hough, which is reason enough to believe she could win, yet the others are good enough to give Derek a run for his money this year.  Donald Driver, teamed with Peta Murgatroyd, has given this newcomer a much better chance at the trophy than who she was paired with last time around (Mehta Worldpeace; giggle).  However, on mere looks alone, Latin star William Levy, paired with Cheryl Burke, is the most popular, and nobody really knows who he is. Still, I’m rooting for classical vocalist Katherine Jenkins and her partner Mark Ballas.  As a close friend of Derek’s, Mark is choreographing some great routines, and Jenkins has some dancing ability, and she’s cute.  Still, they might make a cuter couple if Mark would grow his hair out.  That haircut is way too severe if you ask me!

Celebrity Apprentice

 I was surprised that my favorite two players turned out to be Arsenio Hall and Clay Aiken, who actually work well together!  They seem to keep cool under pressure (usually, but not always), and seem to have the best business sense.  My least favorite players are Lisa Lampanelli and Aubrey O’Day, though surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) they are my twin brother’s favorites!  Lisa’s one of those loud and aggressive female comedians in the same vein as Kathy Griffin and Sarah Silverman, so she already has at least a dozen strikes against her just for that, and Aubrey sings and acts, but what she’s most known for is posing nude for playboy, which just shows you where her morals are!  Lisa has a mouth, an attitude, and a demeaning manner, talking down to everyone, and has quite the temper!  Meanwhile, Aubrey’s number one fan is Aubrey, and like Lisa, she has a tendency to think less of everyone around her than she thinks of herself.  No wonder she and Lisa got along so well!  I can’t tell you the number of times each of them said they had to carry the team, and though Lisa was sometimes correct saying this, expecially when she had Lou Ferrigno on her team, Aubrey was just plain wrong saying such things about Arsenio Hall.  The two of them together, Lisa and Aubrey, actually reminded me of the two witches at my former job who devised my removal.  Sitting in my final “meeting” with them, I felt like Clay Aiken or Cheryl Tiegs.  Fighting loud or self-centered women like that just isn’t my thing, and in hindsight, it was obviously orchestrated, and simply unfair.

     I liked most of the celebrities more than I thought I would, and that included Penn Jillette and Adam Carolla, who certainly couldn’t dance when they were on Dancing with the Stars.  I liked Cheryl Tiegs, and thought she was voted out way too early (it’s a compliment to say she was too nice for such a cutthroat competition), and Tia Carrere, and Patricia Velasquez, who I remembered as Anck Su Namun, the Mummy’s vicious bride, from the first two Brendan Frasier Mummy movies, and even Dee Snider of Twisted Sister fame.  Would you believe, I thought even George Takei was okay, though Mom couldn’t stand him, and when I imitated him, my sister and her girls thought it was funny, but Mom didn’t!  I also liked Paul Teutul Sr. and Michael Andretti, though they seemed laid back and didn’t do a whole lot.  I thought model and Ms. Universe Dayana Mendoza put up the good fight, but didn’t have the stamina or the brains for such competitive, corporate shenanigans, and that goes double for Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice.  Victoria Gotti was just about useless, though having mob connections, people were afraid to say such things (should I be worried now?), and Lou Ferrigno was almost as bad.  He could do little else other than pose and be the Hulk, and he knew it!  Debbie Gibson was the same, trying to recapture her previous 15 minutes of fame, but without one half the talent of Clay Aiken, or, much as I hate to admit it because she’s so self-centered, shallow, and immoral, Aubrey O’Day!  I’m just glad I don’t have to hear Gibson’s nasally “Pomtini – In the Garden of Crystal Light” jingle again!  They actually had the gall to hand that out as keepsakes!

Survivor: One World

Finally, here’s ten things to know about this season of Survivor:

1. Colton, the selfish, spoiled, ber-gay guy who identified more with the women and somehow managed to steer the entire direction of the game, was quite the little, limp-wristed villain!  (I’m not being homophobic here because Colton would be the first to describe himself as a limp-wristed flamer!)  He treated Bill as a second class citizen (was it because he’s black or a stand up comedian?) and had a strong alliance with another villain, Alicia, telling Christina he didn’t care if she fell into the fire or got voted out.  His supposed case of appendicitis was probably God speaking.
2. There were a lot of idiots on this season!  Read on!
3. Christina is not too bright.  She consistently voted with the women, even when it was obvious she was the one on the very bottom.
4. Tarzan (real name Greg) is a plastic surgeon in real life but didn’t talk or act like he had a brain in his head!  I now wish I had written down some of his dialogue during tribal councils, because it was hilarious, but not even Wikiquote had it catalogued!
5. Leif, the short person who had a nice personality, was also not very sharp.  Along with Tarzan, he stuck with the women, even though it was obvious the women were voting out all the men.  When Troyzan won immunity, the women, of course, went to the other remaining men, and Leif was gone, only because he was a bit smarter and less useless than Tarzan.
6. Kat was the epitome of the stereotype “dumb blond” and didn’t even know what appendicitis or an appendix was.  When Colton was removed from the game for suspected appendicitis, Kat looked shocked and said she hoped she didn’t get it!
7. Kim probably thinks of herself as a good person, but she should watch footage of her expression each time her plan works and one of the guys is voted out.  None of the other women seem to understand that she is the mastermind, not even Christina and Kat, who are on the chopping block once all the guys disappear!  In fact, Kat was just voted out before Tarzan!
8. Jonas is an all-round nice guy, but didn’t have a backbone.  He followed Colton unquestioningly, and when the women took control, he was voted out first simply because, unlike some of the more macho and conceited guys that had already been voted out, he was the nicest, hardest working, and amiable guy around.  I think Jonas should win the favorite or most likable player this year.
9. Jay may look like a normal guy, but he has a weird, little kid voice.
10. I’m sure I can’t be the only one who groaned over the fact that two guys, Greg and Troy, went by either Troyzan or Tarzan.  Give me a break!

Images from:

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/03/02/american-idol-top-13/

http://ready-set-gossip.com/archives/3666

http://celebritynewsandstyle.com/celebrity-apprentice-2012-adam-carolla-vows-to-destroy-the-competition-who-are-the-real-stars-112/

http://survivorfandom.com/survivor-2012-catch-one-world-preview-on-tv-guide-channel-33193/

The Problem with Horror Films and Gangster Comedies: Five More Bad Old Movies

Still going back and posting movie reviews I wrote a bit over a decade ago, I find I'm not the biggest fan of romances even back then, but at the same time, I was beginning to see the horror films I cherished in a more mature light, and that goes for gangster comedies as well.  While I had no love for a romance like Forces of Nature, saying of it, "The script sucked completely, making the movie awful despite having two charismatic leads in Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck," and complaining that "the lighting and cinematography were horrible, making the splashy promotional material look like it was advertising for a different movie," I had much more to say about Analyze This and three old horror films, one of which was new at the time I reviewed it in my journal (The Blair Witch Project) and two strange old gory films which I may have once liked, but outgrew:

Analyze This

Okay, I get it.  DeNiro is a gangster.  He’s going to use the F word.  So are all his made men.  But can you at least tone it down, especially since this is supposedly a comedy?  I hate these movies that have to overuse profanity.  Can’t these screenwriters and actors get their point across without every other word being a swear word?  I get the point!  They’re gangsters.  I have no problem if they pepper the dialogue with some rough language.  But there is no need to completely saturate it!  Ten uses of the F-word in a half-hour’s time gets the point across, but more than a hundred times is probably a bit much.

     But Ana-Fu… – e’em, I mean, Analyze This, is not even that good when you remove all the excessive swearing.  The movie is standard Billy Crystal fare and is a low point for De Niro.  

     In the 40’s, Universal took their once scary horror movie icons Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolf Man, and put them smack dab in the middle of an Abbott and Costello comedy, finding that these once frightening creatures could be played for laughs.  Now the same thing seems to be happening with gangsters, with Marlon Brando parodying Don Corleone from The Godfather in the late 80’s Matthew Broderick vehicle The Freshman, and De Niro doing his gangster schtick for laughs in Analyze This.  The main difference is that when those classic Universal Monsters appeared in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, it was actually funny!  Maybe once it becomes schtick, you should schtop!

The Blair Witch Project

There was so much hype and word-of-mouth about this film, I went in expecting to see classic horror movie cinema that superbly skates the thin line between what makes a landmark, scary fright film and exploitative trash.  This film was actually neither.

     This film opened against Hollywood’s big special effects horror film remake of The Haunting.  Critics applauded Blair Witch for being able to create a creepier, more involving mood than The Haunting.  They and word of mouth began comparing Blair Witch to The Exorcist as one of the scariest movies ever made, stating that what makes it so gosh darn scary is its restraint, keeping the audience guessing and on the edge of their seats.  Don’t make me laugh!

     The critics were right on target when they pegged The Haunting remake as an overproduced and overstylized movie, thereby losing its desired mood and scariness, but they were way off the mark when they claimed The Blair Witch Project to be a classic due to its restraint.  When I compare Blair Witch to some landmark horror films that were made famous due to their restraint, such as the original Cat People and the first version of The Haunting, as well as other truly scary independent, cheap films like the first Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween, I see a film that does not measure up.  It’s not enough that Blair Witch doesn’t show anything in a supposed attempt to heighten the suspense.  I can deal with that, but cinema, like a painting or a musical composition, has its own set of tools to turn a film into art, and I see none of those tools being used on Blair Witch.  It would be akin to comparing a child’s picture to a painting by one of the Masters, or classical music played on a toy piano versus by a full orchestra.  It may still be art, but it can’t compare to the others because it’s just too sparse.

     As for whether or not the film is scary, in my opinion, Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween were able to supply much more frights and scares on a shoestring budget.  In fact, aside from its restraint, which was not necessarily intended anyway, every single thing you could possibly find to praise Blair Witch for was done much better and with more skill more than 25 years ago when Tobe Hooper made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with barely any money.  And as for its cherished restraint, films like the original Cat People and The Haunting from 1963 were better movies.  Those movies also used many of the cinematic tools that Blair Witch shuns out of necessity, and the suspense created in them using music, cinematography, set design, lighting, and editing is lost on a film like The Blair Witch Project.  Perhaps my rating of what makes a good horror movie is whether or not I could do better, or at least just as good.  Give me a video camera and I could make something comparable.  Perhaps I should!  It sure made millionaires out of these guys!

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Part II

Of course horror movies, like anything else, have their fair share of crap (more than their fair share, actually).  When I first saw this, I actually liked it.  It had an appealing main character in Stretch, played by Caroline Williams, along with some black humor, and I can remember both my sister and I liking this.  I even used the main character’s paranoid, terrified ranting, “They live on fear!  They live on fear!” in an old poem of mine titled “Fear” because I thought it captured the same flavor I feel when dealing with the evil of this world.  But there are a lot of other movies out there, a lot of better movies, which have humor and make some sort of social statement, movies in which the main characters don’t have to act without their face attached, or wearing another person’s face (ick!).  Whatever else this movie may be, it takes pride in taking the low road, arriving at the lowest common denominator in “entertainment,” and it’s disgusting for no good reason!  I understand that this is a movie that centers on a family of cannibals, and I understand there is going to be some gore, but these filmmakers (including the director Tobe Hooper) seem to just relish showing all the gore they possibly can!  I can handle disgusting gore – I absolutely loved the David Cronenberg remake of The Fly, but The Fly was disgusting and gory for a good reason, and that reason was ingeniously integrated into the tightly scripted, ultimately tragic, and emotional story.  But for Texas Chainsaw II, it was simply an excuse to add gore galore, and then more!  I can just picture the film set with Tobe Hooper screaming over a bullhorn, “Okay, now slice her up some more, and stick that chainsaw right through Leatherface’s gut!  Yeah, that’s it!”  My tastes seem to be changing.  Besides, Dennis Hopper overacts shamelessly!

Phantasm

It just amazes me that this silly film has made it onto some lists of the best or scariest horror films ever made!  I wouldn’t use the words “best” or “scary” to describe this incoherent mess!  Rather, the words that seem to fit the best are “odd” and “strange.”

     Story-wise, the movie makes no sense at all, even if you have a basic grasp of the plot, the acting is just atrocious, and the movie’s two biggest promotional tools, the Tall Man and the floating balls, aren’t nearly as scary as I remembered.  There were some scary moments, to be sure, mostly involving those vicious little midget things, but I defy anyone to explain to me what was really going on here, and have it make any kind of sense!  Sure, I get it; it’s about aliens at the mortuary who want to take the corpses, bring them back from the dead, and compact them to midget size to use as slaves on their planet, which has a denser gravity (hence, the need to compact these zombies), and they have floating ball weapons.  Even knowing all this, it still doesn't make any sense!  It certainly sounds inventive and original, but not intelligent in any way, shape, or form, and the production values are just awful.  If movies with these kinds of plots are your bag, then go for it – as for me, it was a waste of time, and I think I’m finally getting wise to the ways of these gore-mongers!

Images from:

http://collider.com/entertainment/news/article.asp/aid/10733/tcid/1

http://docuniverse.blogspot.com/2010/07/review-texas-chainsaw-massacre-2-1986.html

http://postmortemdepression.blogspot.com/2011/01/psycho-babble-phantasm-1979.html