A Late Film Review: Winter’s Tale (dir by Akiva Goldsman)

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I liked Winter’s Tale.

And I don’t care what anybody else says!

And that’s a good thing too because, critically, Winter’s Tale has been one of the most maligned movies of 2014. It came out on Valentine’s Day, at the same time as Endless Love. And the critics absolutely hated it! For a while there, the online film community was taking bets on which one of the two Valentine’s Day releases would end up with the lowest score on Rotten Tomatoes. And, though it was a close race, Winter’s Tale actually ended up with the lower score, coming in at 13% as opposed to Endless Love‘s 15%.

That’s right — according to most mainstream film critics, Winter’s Tale was actually worse than Endless Love.

Well, those critics were wrong. That’s how I felt when I first saw Winter’s Tale and, after watching it a second time on HBO, that’s still how I feel. Winter’s Tale is not a bad movie!

(Incidentally, Winter’s Tale has a 6.2 rating over at the imdb, which would seem to indicate that I’m not the only person who knows better than Peter Travers.)

Admittedly, the plot of Winter’s Tale does not make much logical sense but that’s kind of the point. It’s a tale and tales are not about being realistic. Tales are about emotion and the whole point of listening to or telling a tale is to inspire feelings. To truly appreciate Winter’s Tale, you have to understand that this is a fairy tale that happens to be set in the most mythical of American cities, New York.

Opening in 1895 and ending in 2014, Winter’s Tale tells the story of Peter Lake (Colin Farrell). When Peter was an infant, his immigrant parents were refused entry into Manhattan because they both had tuberculosis. So, they put Peter in a toy boat and dropped him into ocean and watched as the boat slowly floated towards America.

Jump forward 21 years and Peter has grown up to be a thief, working for a gangster named Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe). What few people know is that Pearly is actually a demon who regularly visits his boss, Luicfer (played by Will “Yes, that Will Smith” Smith). Pearly is immortal as long as he stays in New York City.

When Peter decides that he wants to leave Pearly’s gang, Pearly orders that Peter be killed. However, while fleeing from the rest of the gang, Peter is rescued by a flying white horse. While Peter’s first instinct is to fly the horse out of New York and spend the winter in Florida, he instead decides to rob one more mansion. (It helps that the horse literally takes him to the mansion.)

While robbing the mansion, Peter meets Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay), a passionate and talented pianist who is dying of tuberculosis. In what is literally a case of love at first sight, Peter forgets about robbing the mansion and instead has a cup of tea with Beverly. They discuss their lives and Beverly tells Peter that everyone has a miracle inside of them and that everyone becomes a star after dying.

Soon, Peter and Beverly are a couple and Peter even manages to win over Beverly’s suspicious father, Isaac (William Hurt). Peter and Beverly spend the winter at her family’s summer home. Peter believes that his miracle is to save Beverly. Meanwhile, an angry Pearly waits for his chance to get revenge…

Now, I will admit that there are some obvious flaws with Winter’s Tale. Russell Crowe goes totally overboard, with his accent wildly going from Australian to New Yorkish to Scottish and back again. Meanwhile, Will Smith is not necessarily a bad choice to play the devil and he actually gives a pretty good performance but it doesn’t chance the fact that, whenever he’s on screen, all you can think about is that he’s Will Smith and he’s playing the devil.

But, honestly, who cares? This is an amazingly romantic film and Farrell and Findlay have a lot of chemistry. When you see them together, you have no doubt that Peter and Beverly are meant to be together. You care about them as a characters, even if you don’t always understand everything that’s happening around them. Their love feels real and, when it comes to telling a love story, isn’t that the most important thing?

(Add to that, does any actor fall in love as convincingly as Colin Farrell?)

And the film itself is gorgeous! From the costumes to the set design to Caleb Deschanel’s cinematography, the film is just beautiful to look at. Undoubtedly, cynics would argue that the film is almost too glossy in its appearance but Winter’s Tale is not a film for cynics. It’s a film for romantics.

So, yes, I did like Winter’s Tale and I am not ashamed to admit it.

27 Days of Old School: #17 “Take On Me” (by A-ha)

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Arleigh

“Say after me
It’s no better to be safe than sorry”

The 1980’s was a decade of excess in every sense of the word, but it was also the decade that gave birth to so many one-hit wonders. One such wonder was a song that I never failed not to like no matter that I grew older. Even now I would sing-along to this song whenever I come across it on-line or I find a mixtape of it.

“Take On Me” by the Norwegian synthpop band A-ha was a simple enough song, but when heard by way of it’s groundbreaking music video which combined live-action scenes with rotoscoped pencil sketching of the video it became an instant classic. The video was just like most music videos of the 1980’s in that it tried to wrap a story around the song though most of the time I had no idea what was going on.

Despite the video making little sense I still consider it a nostalgic favorite of mine from the days when MTV actually played music videos.

Review: The Walking Dead S5E06 “Consumed”

Posted on November 16, 2014 by Arleigh

“Everything now just consumes you.” — Carol Peletier

[spoilers]

This latest season of The Walking Dead has been focusing a lot on the theme of guilt and rebirth. With the former we find each episode exploring each character dealing with the many dark deeds they’ve had to do in order to have survived this far into the zombie apocalypse. We also see the season show how through the crucible of the past two years since the world fell into ruin those who have survived this far have been reborn through the very tragedies and sins they’ve had to commit and experience.

“Consumed” starts off with a cold opening that takes us all the way back to season 4 when Rick exiles Carol from the group after having learned that it was her who killed Karen and another and burned their bodies in the prison during the virus outbreak. It’s an emotional sequence as we see her go through so many emotions from breaking down on the side of the road to getting back to survival mode then finally seeing the aftermath of the Governor’s final assault on the prison.

This episode might have been about Carol and Daryl, but in the end it was a further continuation of exploring Carol’s growth from the mousy, battered wife and mother from season 1 through most of 3 and into the badass survivor we saw emerge from the start of season 4. It’s an interesting journey for a character that had been criminally-underwritten and underused by the series’ previous two showrunners (Frank Darabont and Glen Mazzara) who has now found a rebirth under current showrunner Scott M. Gimple.

Yes, we’ll continue to see that theme of rebirth throughout this season and tonight’s episode showed how this new dead world brought out the best in some while many have succumbed to their basest instinct. It’s difficult to say that for someone like Carol who has admitted to premeditated murder and killed a young girl. In the old world and how things were then one would call Carol a monster, but this new world has put out new rules and one such change has been was whether those still left would be willing to sacrifice something of their own humanity in order to survive. Then that brings up the next question of whether those who could make that sacrifice be able to hold onto what’s left of their humanity and moral compass to evade becoming the very monsters they’re slaying.

Carol goes through such a rebirth tonight as we see her internal war to continue being that lone wolf survivor (even with Daryl now by her side). All the dark things she has done since season 4 has been to keep the hell she knows she’s destined for kept at bay for as long as she could. We see her make on the fly decisions that even Daryl blinks at like trying to kill the fleeing Noah who had stolen their weapons.

Was she really trying to shoot him in the leg or was she being pragmatic and trying to kill the scared, young man who they thought was another survivor who couldn’t be trusted? By the end of the episode we see that Daryl a sort of Jiminy Cricket to Carol. Always trying to get her to talk about what had happened since the prison. He has seen the changes in her and he understands what sort of things she has had to do to last this long, but he also wants to make sure she doesn’t fall off that precipice that will forever change her and not for the better.

It was a tough episode to sit through in that the decision to intersperse scenes from the past season dealing with Carol’s shift into survivor mode at times seemed awkward in how they appeared. Last week’s flashbacks with Abraham was better handled yet for all the awkwardness with tonight’s flashbacks it didn’t minimize the message that tonight’s episode was telling. Carol that we knew from the first three seasons of the show has died. She’s gone through the worst crucible of fire one has had to go through. She’s lost her own daughter Sophia and two adopted ones in Lizzie and Mika and yet she has come through that consuming flame not as ashes, but something reborn that’s both mother and warrior.

Yes, this new world has been consuming everyone who’re left since the apocalypse began. It’s not just the zombies but other survivors as well both literally and figuratively. But as we’ve seen throughout this season, while Carol, Rick and those in their group have had to do dark and awful things to survive since their old world ended they’ve avoided being consumed by their very choices and have kept a tight hold on what keeps them human.

Carol and the others might be more willing to kill now than they have in the past, but they also believe that it’s still not too late for them to save those who need saving. Shane never learned that lesson and looked like he never would have. The Governor might’ve been doing things to save people but in the end he was consumed by the power of his position. Gareth started of as saving people, but was corrupted by tragedy and got lost in the wilderness. Even Joe from last season, as well adapted as he and his group was to the zombie apocalypse, took the wrong lessons from this new world and instead took advantage of the weak.

Time will tell if tonight’s episode was a sign of the show and it’s writers building up Carol only to sacrifice her to save the rest of the people she has adopted as her new family. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, but it would be a waste of a great character that looks to have more growing to do for seasons to come if allowed to live.

Notes

“Consumed” was written by Matt Negrete and directed by Seith Mann.
Fire became a running theme throughout the episode both as a symbol of destruction and one of rebirth.
Seeing Atlanta again since season 1 was a nice change of pace from the rural and woodland settings since season 2.
We saw glimpses of places from season 1 like the train tracks and the abandoned tank in the intersection where Rick had to shelter from a herd of zombies.
The city itself seemed to have very little zombies, or at least not too concentrated, which is a nice reference back to the end of season 2 where we found out that the herd that attacked Hershel’s farm came from those who left Atlanta following the sounds and racket made by Rick and his people after they left the city.
Scene of the building skywalk bridge was similar to a scene out of novel of the series, The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor.
Tonight’s guests on the Talking Dead are CM Punk, Yvette Nicole Brown (Community) and, Noah from the show, Tyler James Williams.

Season 5

27 Days of Old School: #16 “Gimme All Your Lovin'” (by ZZ Top)

Posted on November 16, 2014 by Arleigh

“Gimme all your lovin’
All your hugs and kisses too,
Gimme all your lovin’
Don’t let up until we’re through.”

I didn’t know what blues and blues rock was when I first heard it on the radio and then watched it on MTV. I did know that they had a real unique sound that was very much like rock, but also had a sort of country vibe to it.

One of the first bands of blues rock that I really ended up being a fan of was ZZ Top and it was mainly due to their three videos for three singles off of their Eliminator album. The first one that I saw was for the track “Gimme All Your Lovin’“.

The video itself was just very cool. It had everything a young boy was curious about. Cars, girls and rock and roll. Well, mostly it was the girls and the video to this song introduced the “Three ZZ Girls”.

It was much, much later in high school that I went back to listening to ZZ Top and their songs and realize that they were pretty much singing about sex, sex and more sex to the tune of Texas boogie blues. I ended up loving the band even more then.

Film Review: Endless Love (dir by Shana Feste)

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, what a disappointing film this turned out to be!

When the trailer for Endless Love came out way back in the closing days of 2013, both me and my BFF Evelyn were seriously excited about seeing it. The trailer was great! It featured Florence + The Machine! The movie looked hot and sexy and fun and…

Well, let’s just rewatch the trailer, shall we?

Here’s the thing: Sometimes, trailers lie.

I saw Endless Love when it was originally released in February but I didn’t review it. I meant to review it but somehow I never got around to doing so. And, unfortunately, the film itself was so bland and forgettable that I actually struggled to think of anything to say about it. Some movies make you laugh. Some movies make you cry. Some movies make you mad. And some movies are just there.

Endless Love is a just there type of movie.

That said, when I saw that Endless Love would be making its cable debut on Cinemax on Saturday night, I decided to give it a second chance. “Who knows?” I thought to myself, “Maybe I just went into the film with unrealistic expectations. Maybe I was just in a bitchy mood when I saw it. Maybe, on a second viewing, I’ll discover that Endless Love works on a purely emotional level…”

No such luck! Having watched Endless Love a second time, I can now actually remember enough about the film to finally get around to writing a review. However, I have also now been reminded why I didn’t care much about the film the first time I saw it.

Endless Love is essentially a collection of generically pretty scenes that all feature pretty performers thinking about love, talking about, and making love. Recent high school graduates David (Alex Pettyfer) and Jade (Gabriella Wilde) start going out. Jade comes from a wealthy family. David does not. Jade’s overly protective father, Hugh (Bruce Greenwood), does not approve of the relationship because Jade has an ivy league future ahead of her while David has no plans to attend college at all. Jade becomes more rebellious. David lectures Hugh on the fact that nothing is more important than love. Hugh takes out a restraining order against David. Jade goes off to college. David tries to secretly see her. And, of course, there’s a fire.

(Though, unlike in the original Endless Love, the fire is not deliberately set. This is Endless Love reimagined as a Nicholas Sparks novel.)

And who really cares?

The problem with Endless Love is that we’re supposed to care about David and Jade and we’re supposed love how obsessed they are with each other but David and Jade are two of the most boring people ever so who cares? Alex Pettyfer is nice to look at. Gabriella Wilde is pretty. But, as a couple, they have next to no chemistry. Instead, they come across like one of those vapid couples that my boyfriend and I always worry we’re going to end up getting trapped in an endless conversation with.

(“How did you two meet? Wait, before you start — let me tell you how we met… It’s a great story…you guys are going to love this…we were both attending kindergarten on a dance scholarship but the ballet kids all hated the ballroom kids. Then they moved to Iceland and I asked my dad if we could move to Greenland and then…”)

And again, this just shows the power of a good trailer. Watching the trailer, you would never guess how boring David and Jade truly are. Incidentally, the best parts of the trailer are all taken from a “David and Jade dating” montage that occurs about halfway through the film. As such, the scenes that made me want to see Endless Love pretty much just serve as filler in the actual film.

Also, Florence + The Machine are nowhere to be heard in the actual film. And their haunting, atmospheric music would have been out of place anyway. Florence + The Machine embraces the power of ambiguity and Endless Love takes place in a world where there is no ambiguity.

However, there is a lot of blue.

Everyone's wearing blue in htis movie. They should have called it Endless Blue. #EndlessLove

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) November 16, 2014

Seriously! (And yes, I do realize that there’s a typo in my tweet but everyone is allowed to be illiterate on twitter so get off my back.) This movie opens with a high school graduation where everyone is wearing a blue robe and the entire cast is so oppressively cheerful and overwhelmingly pleasant-looking that I briefly wondered if they were supposed to be a graduating class or a cult. Later on, David works at a valet at a country club and, of course, he wears a blue shirt. Everyone who belongs to the club also appears to be wearing a blue shirt, except that it’s a lighter shade of blue than David’s blue. It’s just odd-looking and reinforces the feeling that Endless Love is less a movie and more a collection of commercial outtakes.

Endless Love, of course, is a remake of a film from the early 80s. The first Endless Love isn’t very good but it’s at least a lot of unintentional fun! And you can read my review of it (and even watch the film!) by clicking here.

27 Days of Old School: #15 “You Shook Me All Night Long” (by AC/DC)

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Arleigh

“Taking More Than Her Share
Had Me Fighting For Air
She Told Me To Come But I Was Already There”

You shook me all night long! Yes, on the KTSL charts at No. 15 is just one of the greatest rock songs ever. Hyperbole and all that, but this song is just awesome times awesome equals awesome.

AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” first appeared in their mega-blockbuster album in 1980, Back In Black. It wasn’t until 1986 when it was re-released as part of their Who Made Who album. It was during it’s re-release that I first heard and first saw the new video that accompanied the song. I think every teenage boy ended up glued to their TV’s whenever this video came on. They probably ended up taping the video for further repeat viewing.

As is their style, the song was just full of double entendres and the video itself just played up on the song’s lyrics. This video and song was just hard rock at it’s most 1980’s excess and debauchery and it was great.

A Late Film Review: Non-Stop (dir by Jaume Collet-Serra)

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

With 2014 rapidly coming to a close, I am currently trying to get caught up on some of the movies that I either missed seeing or did not get a chance to review earlier this year. After all, in just another month and a half, it’ll be time for me to make out my “Best Of the Year List” and I want to have as many options as possible.

With that in mind, I just finished watching Liam Neeson in Non-Stop, an action-suspense film that came out way back in February.

In Non-Stop, Liam Neeson plays Bill Marks. It’s interesting to note that Bill Marks has the same initials as Bryan Mills, the very specifically trained CIA agent that Neeson plays in the Taken films. And really, Bill Marks might as well Bryan Mills because Neeson pretty much gives the exact same performance in Non-Stop that he previously gave in Taken. That’s not necessarily a criticism. There’s a reason why Liam keeps getting cast in these type of roles. He’s good at them.

In fact, I would say that Liam Neeson is one of the few action stars who I can imagine actually killing someone in real life (though only if he had to). He has a rugged, world-weary cynicism about him. You look into the eyes of a character played by Liam Neeson and you realize that he’s had to do things that you probably don’t want to know anything about. At the same time, Neeson also projects a certain old-fashioned decency as well. He’s the epitome of a decent man forced to use bad methods for the good of us all.

As for Non-Stop, I imagine it was probably pitched as being “Taken on a plane.” Bill Marks is an air marshal who is on board a non-stop flight from New York to London. Shortly after the plane takes off, he starts to receive mysterious text messages telling him that, unless he arranges for a 150 million dollar ransom to be paid into a specific bank account, someone on the plane will die every 20 minutes. While Bill tries to discover who is sending him the text messages and various people on the plane die, the authorities on the ground are convinced that Bill is hijacking the plane. Why? Well, mostly because the bank account is in Bill’s name…

That’s right! Somebody’s trying to frame Bill Marks! Can Bill — with the help of a passenger played by Julianne Moore — figure out who is trying to frame him and why? I have to admit that there was a part of me that was hoping that it would turn out that Bill really was the mastermind behind the whole scheme but instead, the movie offers up a solution that is even more ludicrous and illogical. Naturally, there’s a twist. The hijacking is not what it originally appears to be. Perhaps if Non-Stop itself was more fun, the total implausibility of the twist wouldn’t bother me.

Director Juame Collet-Serra (who previously directed Neeson in Unknown) manages a few good action sequence but, ultimately, Non-Stop is really saved only be the presence of Liam Neeson. Regardless of how implausible or silly the film may get, Neeson always brings a lot of authority to his role. He’s never more convincing than when he’s walking up and down the aisles, glaring at the passengers and barking out orders.

It’s the type of performance that leaves us assured that the world will be safe as long as Liam Neeson is around to kill people.

Liam Neeson, about to kill someone

Film Review: In the Blood (dir by John Stockwell)

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Do you remember Haywire?

Haywire was an action film that came out in 2011. It briefly got a lot of attention because it starred MMA fighter Gina Carano in her feature film debut and it was directed by Steven Soderbergh. I have to admit that I didn’t care much for Haywire. Some of that is because Gina Carano herself didn’t seem to be a very good actress but my main issue with the film was with Steven Soderbergh. Don’t get me wrong — I know that Soderbergh can be a genius. However, he’s also a remarkably pretentious filmmaker. Sometimes that pretension works, like with The Girlfriend Experience. But, in the case of Haywire, all the pretension served to do was to make a thin story even more annoying.

John Stockwell, on the other hand, is a director who is the very opposite of pretentious. Whereas Soderbergh often makes genre films that try too hard to be art, Stockwell makes genre films that are so unapologetic about being genre that they often become art despite themselves. Stockwell may never be as acclaimed as Soderbergh but, on the whole, he’s a much more consistent filmmaker.

Take In The Blood for instance. In the Blood came out earlier this year, got thoroughly mediocre reviews, and disappeared from theaters pretty quickly. When I watched it last night, I had very low expectations.

But you know what?

In the Blood isn’t bad.

In fact, it’s a perfectly entertaining and, ultimately, rather empowering film.

In In The Blood, Gina Carano plays Ava. Ava, we quickly learn, has led a difficult life. Raised in extreme poverty by a father who taught her early how to fight and how to defend herself, Ava is a former drug addict. When she goes to rehab, she meets and falls in love with fellow addict Derek (Cam Gigandet). Once they’re both clean, Ava and Derek marry despite the concerns of Derek’s wealthy father (Treat Williams).

For their honeymoon, Derek and Ava go to the type of Caribbean island where bad things always happen in movies like In The Blood. They meet Manny (Ismael Cruz Cordova), who agrees to be their guide on the island. One night, Manny takes them out to a club where Ava ends up getting into a huge fight with literally everyone on the dance floor, including a local gangster played by Danny Trejo. The next morning, Manny takes them zip lining but Derek ends up plunging from the zip line and crashing down to the ground below. He’s rushed to the hospital where he promptly vanishes.

Despite being ordered to return to America by police chief Luis Guzman, Ava is determined to figure out what has happened to her husband and she’s willing to beat up the entire island to do it…

Obviously inspired (much like almost every other low-budget action film released over the past few years) by Taken, In The Blood is a familiar but enjoyable burst of pulp fiction. As opposed to Soderbergh’s approach to Haywire, Stockwell doesn’t worry about trying to disguise the genre roots of In The Blood. Instead, he simply tells the story and he tells it well. In The Blood is a film that’s full of beautiful island scenery, villainous character actors, and enjoyable melodramatic dialogue. The pace never falters and the action is exciting. In a few years, the club fight scene will be remembered as a classic of action cinema.

And best of all, Gina Carano kicks ass! In The Blood gives her a chance to show what she can actually do when she has a director who is willing to get out of her way. As opposed to Haywire, where she often seemed to get lost amongst all of Soderbergh’s showy techniques, Gina Carano gives a confident and determined performance in In The Blood. After having to sit through countless action films where every female character is either a victim or a pawn, there is something so wonderful about seeing a movie where a woman gets to do something more than whimper and beg. Regardless of how predictable the film’s plot may be, the fact that it’s a woman — as opposed to a man — who is getting to kick ass (and look good while doing it!) serves to make In The Blood something of a minor masterpiece of the pulp imagination.

If nothing else, In The Blood shows that sometimes it’s best to keep things simple.

Lisa Reviews The Oscar Nominees: The Philadelphia Story (dir by George Cukor)

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There are a few reasons why The Philadelphia Story was one of those films that I had been meaning to watch for a while. For one thing, The Philadelphia Story was nominated for best picture of 1940 (it lost to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca) and my ultimate goal is to see and review every single film ever nominated for best picture. The other reason is that Jimmy Stewart won an Oscar for his performance in The Philadelphia Story and anyone who doesn’t love Jimmy Stewart has obviously never seen Anatomy of a Murder (not to mention It’s a Wonderful Life!).

Well, The Philadelphia Story was on TCM last night and I finally got to see it and what can I say? I absolutely loved it. For a 74 year-old, black-and-white comedy, The Philadelphia Story is still a lot of fun.

The Philadelphia Story tells the story of Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn), a wealthy socialite who is engaged to marry George Kitteridge (John Howard), a self-described “man of the people,” who is widely respect for both his strong moral character and the fact that — unlike most of Tracy’s friends — he made his fortune as opposed to inheriting it.

It would be tempting to reach into the bag of simplistic blogging clichés and call the Lords a 1940s version of Khardashians but I’m not going to do that because the Lords have a lot more wit and class. My favorite member of Tracy’s family was Dinah (Virginia Wiedler), her teenage sister who is sarcastic, cheerfully cynical, and has no problem demanding to be the center of attention. My sister Erin claims that the reason I liked Dinah is because I saw a lot of myself in the character and that’s probably true. However, I have to say that the great thing about both Tracy and Dinah is that they were both wittier, classier, and better dressers than all of the Khardashians and Jenners combined.

Anyway, the evil editor of Spy Magazine, Sidney Kidd (Henry Daniell), wants to get pictures of Tracy’s very exclusive and very private wedding so he sends two of his reporters in under cover. Mike Connor (James Stewart) is a frustrated writer who hates having to lower himself to writing for a tabloid. Photographer Liz (Ruth Hussey) is secretly in love with Mike. Helping Mike and Liz pass themselves off as friends of the family is Tracy’s ex-husband, C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant).

As quickly becomes obvious, Dexter is still in love with Tracy. However, Tracy divorced Dexter because Dexter was an irresponsible alcoholic and, even though Dexter has changed his ways and she is still obviously attracted to him, Tracy is now engaged to the morally upright but boring and judgmental George.

However, Tracy is not just torn between George and Dexter. She is attracted to Mike as well, to the extent that Tracy even takes the trouble to read some of Mike’s short stories. For only the second time in her life, Tracy gets drunk and goes for a midnight swim with Mike. This, of course, leads to the best scene in The Philadelphia Story: Jimmy Stewart singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

Seriously, the scene made my entire night.

The Philadelphia Story is based on a play and the film itself is rather stagey in that way that films from the 40s often appear to be to modern viewers. But, once you get used to the fact that the movie was made in 1940 and not 2014, it’s a real delight. The dialogue is funny and it’s delivered by one of the best casts ever. Playing a role that was specifically written for her, Katherine Hepburn is brilliant as the strong-willed but unapologetically romantic Tracy and Cary Grant is just as charming as you would expect Cary Grant to be. Best of all, you’ve got Jimmy Stewart singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow and seriously, how can you not love that?

27 Days of Old School: #14 “The Trooper” (by Iron Maiden)

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Arleigh

“The Bugle sounds and the charge begins”

I didn’t hear #14 the year it came out in 1983. I wasn’t too much into heavy metal at that age (still just 10). Now, once I got into high school and expanded my circle of friends (still not much but did include a couple who were into metal) I was finally introduced to heavy metal.

One of the first songs I really got into was Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper” from their Piece of Mind album. Even from the first time hearing the song I had an idea what the song about. I was already a huge hoarder of all things military history in my teen years and I knew the song was about the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War.

What I didn’t realize at that time was that the song itself was using a famous poem about said charge. So, in addition to getting me into heavy metal (which waxed and waned in the years since until meeting necromoonyeti online), I ended up learning about Tennyson and his poem about that fateful charge of British Light Cavalry against a well-defended and heavily-armed Russian artillery battery.

Also, seeing the cover for “The Trooper” with Eddie in full light cavalry regalia waving a cavalry saber and a bloodied, tattered Union Jack just hit me right in my wheelhouse.