I’m going to be in Alabama for the next three days so, naturally, I decided that today’s music video should be Sweet Home Alabama. Since the song was recorded before music videos were really a big thing, Lynard Skynard never did a video for their original recording. However, I was able to find a video for Keenan West’s soulful cover version.
Sweet Home Alabama was originally recorded in 1973, as a response to a song by Neil Yong that was called Southern Man. In that song, Neil Young looked down on the South from the safety of Canada and basically damned everything he saw. In response, Ronnie Van Zant wrote:
Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her Well, I heard ol’ Neil put her down Well, I hope Neil Young will remember A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow
Not surprisingly, Sweet Home Alabama has been a popular but controversial song in the past. Over the years, several critics — mostly folks from up north who don’t really get nuance — have assumed that Sweet Home Alabama was meant to be some sort of right-wing political track. What they miss is that the song is openly critical of Alabama’s segregationist governor. (There’s a reason why there’s a chorus of “boo! boo! boo!” after the governor is mentioned.) Sweet Home Alabama was less about defending the South and more about calling out the self-righteousness of northern activists who attacked the South while either ignoring or rationalizing the racism in their own back yard.
(And if you want argue with me about that interpretation, I’m going to need you to first read Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas. Don’t come at me unless you’re willing to discuss what happened in the early 70s when Boston attempted to integrate its schools.)
Anyway, this is a good cover version and nicely heartfelt video.
The year is 1973. The American Solider (played by David Carradine, who also directed) has just been discharged from Vietnam and is now hitchhiking across an America that he no longer understands. When he reaches a small town in Kansas, he stumbles across a run-down carousel sitting in an overgrown field. The Soldier decided to spend the night camping in the field and, the next morning, he sets out to rebuild the old merry-go-round.
No one in town can understand why the Soldier is doing what he is doing. The local teenagers harass him while a silent and beautiful girl in a white dress (played by Carradine’s then-partner, Barbara Hershey) brings him a toolbox but runs away whenever the Soldier tries to speak with her. Some of the older townspeople, led by gas station owner Mike (Michael Greene), help the Soldier by giving him odd jobs and deals on equipment and tools. But, when the Soldier refuses to attend a weekly cockfight, both Mike and eventually the entire town turns against him.
Even with the community refusing to help, the Soldier continues his work. Finally, the Soldier needs only one last piece to complete the restoration. Mike agrees to give it to him on the condition that the Soldier first fight a dog.
Based on the 1948 novel, The Perfect Round, Americana was a passion project for both David Carradine and Barbara Hershey. They first learned of the book and its story in 1969. Four years later, using the money that he made starring in Kung Fu, Carradine purchased the rights to the novel and set out to the bring the story to the screen. As producer, director, editor, and star, Carradine had complete artistic control over the project. This was both a blessing and a curse because Carradine spent a total of 8 years editing his film. It then took another two years for Americana to finally be picked up by a distributor, Crown International Pictures. Ten years after filming began, Americana was finally released in 1983. Carradine was shooting new scenes up until two weeks before the film’s release, which explains why the Soldier suddenly and dramatically ages an hour into the completed movie.
Americana may be strange but it’s not bad. In some ways, it reminded me of what First Blood would have been like if, instead of going on a rampage, Rambo had taken the Sheriff’s advice and moved on to the next town. It has its share of pretentious moments but the overall story, about a man who, having seen so much destruction in Vietnam, now just wants to build something good, shines through. Even if her character never makes sense, Barbara Hershey is stunningly beautiful and Carradine is effectively low-key as the Soldier. Even Americana‘s controversial ending works as a statement about sacrifice. Much like the characters played by John Wayne in The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Soldier’s role is to defend and improve a society that has no place for him inside of it.
If Americana had been released in 1973, it probably would have been ahead of its time. Few people wanted to talk about Vietnam, much less go to a movie that was a metaphor for the entire conflict. When Americana was was released in 1983, people were more interested in refighting the war and achieving victory with Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris and had little interest in Carradine’s more thoughtful approach. Americana got pushed into obscurity but David Carradine’s vision of post-war America is still worth watching.
Take a walk on the dangerous side of the street with these pulp covers from artist Frank Cozzarelli. I could not find much biographical information on Cozzarelli but all of the work of his that I was able to find was from the 1950s. As you can tell from the examples below, his covers were lively and detailed and included everything that we associate with the pulp era: tough guys, beautiful women, and danger around every corner!
My favorites are the covers for Murder! and Manhunt.
Some youtube commenters are already predicting that this will be the theme song of Trainspotting 3. Personally, I have my doubts as to whether there will ever be a Trainspotting 3 (if just because it took 20 years to get the 1st sequel and you have to wonder just how much long Sick Boy’s going to be able avoid either getting murdered or sent to prison) but still, I love this song and I love this video and therefore, it’s our music video of the day!
This is off the upcoming Teatime Dub Encounters.
Here are the credits for the video, as listed on YouTube:
I always have such mixed feelings about July. I hate the heat but I enjoy writing about Big Brother for the Big Brother Blog. I also love celebrating the 4th of July and this year, there was actually a nice breeze blowing on the 4th. The 4th brought together two things that I love: family and illegal fireworks.
It doesn’t matter how bloody or gory a film is. It doesn’t matter how creative the filmmakers gets when it comes to creating their monster or plotting out their haunting. It doesn’t matter how meta the dialogue is or how many references are tossed in to other horror movies. It all starts with atmosphere.
The right atmosphere keeps us, the viewers, off-balance throughout the entire film. The right atmosphere leaves us wondering what’s lurking behind every corner and it makes us jump at every unexpected sound. The right atmosphere tells us that something terrifying could happen at any minute. The right atmosphere makes us feel as if we’re watching a filmed nightmare. The right atmosphere keeps us watching even when we might want to look away.
The Howling is full of atmosphere.
Now, before anyone asks, this British film is not a remake of the classic American werewolf movie. Instead, it deals with the legend of Dr. Rathbone (Jon-Paul Gates). Rathbone, it’s said, was a scientist who lived in a mansion outside of a small English village. Everyone suspected that, inside of his mansion, Rathbone was performing horrific experiments on both animals and humans. When Rathbone mysteriously disappeared, no one regretted his absence. In fact, many people suspected that perhaps Rathbone had been killed by one of his experiments and, if so, good riddance! Of course, the only problem was that, with Rathbone gone, no one was quite what had actually happened to his experiments. Were they now living in the woods or was the whole thing just an urban legend?
Dr. Rathbone, at work
As Halloween approaches, three teenagers — Jason (Erik Knutsvik), his girlfriend Kristy (Tiffany-Ellen Robinson), and their friend Sophia (Maria Austin) — camp in the woods, hoping to discover the truth. After all, there’s a lot of online clicks and youtube views to be captured by hunting the paranormal. One need only watch Mystery, Uncovered with Ben Tramer (Matthew Fitzthomas Rogers) to understand that!
(I assume that Ben Tramer was named after Laurie’s unfortunate crush in the first two Halloweenfilms.)
When it starts storming and their car disappears, Jason, Kristy, and Sophia are forced to seek refuge in what appears to be some sort of decrepit asylum. They’re met by the caretaker, Shelley (Hans Hernke), who says he works for the Master and who, when an inmate suddenly makes an appearance, says, “Don’t mind him, he’s harmless.”
Of course, no one that they’ll meet that night is harmless…
The Howling plays out like a filmed dream, full of strange characters and nicely surreal images. The film starts with a series of overhead shots, all of which suggest that not only the main characters but the entire world is being watched and stalked by some ominous and unknown force. With the exception of a few key scenes, the majority of the film is in black-and-white and some of the images captures, especially in the doctor’s lab, are striking in their starkness. (There are also a few brief scenes where the asylum is so dark that it’s hard to visually make out what’s happening. Instead, we only hear voices in the blackness, an effective reminder of why so many people sleep with at least one light on.) The few times when color does intrude on the film, like when Shelley lights a candle or when we see an episode of Mystery, Uncovered, the effect is a disquieting one. In perhaps the film’s strongest sequence, several of Rathbone’s “patients’ suddenly appear in full, vibrant color, a nightmarish montage that seems to literally explode from the film. There’s also a nicely down black-and-white scene involving a rather haunting dance.
Lest I give you the wrong idea, The Howling definitely has a sense of humor about itself. In many ways it’s an homage to the gloriously over-the-top horror films of the past. It’s a film that obviously was made for horror fans by horror fans and, as a result, the 83 minute running time is full of references to other classic horror films. Shelley, for instance, will be a familiar character to anyone who has ever seen a haunted house film from the 40s or 50s. There’s always a mysterious caretaker. As for the Asylum itself, it feels like it could have been transported in from the twisted, psychological landscape of German Expressionism.
I liked The Howling. It’s a low-budget horror film that makes pays homage to some of my favorite horror films and makes good use of a dream-like atmosphere. And, as I said before, atmosphere is everything….
Here are some of the trailers that dropped last week.
First up, we have El Angel. This fact-based Argentine film is about Carlos Robledo Puch, a youthful criminal whose crime spree both stunned Argentina and turned him into a celebrity in 1971. El Angel premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and does not yet have an American release date.
Gilliam Anderson may be leaving The X-Files but, judging from this trailer for UFO, she’s not leaving the world of extraterrestrial conspiracy theories. UFO was filmed in Cincinnati last December and is scheduled to be released sometime this year.
Breaking and Exiting is a comedy about a thief (Milo Gibson) who breaks into the home of a suicidal woman (Jordan Hinson) and who, according to the film’s imdb page, “decides to save her from herself. Breaking and Exiting will be released on August 17th.
Am I the only one who can’t watch the trailer for The School without thinking of Silent Hill? The School will be released, in Australia, on July 27th.
Co-starring Ryan Potter, Matt Dillon, and Jim Caviezel, Running For Grace is set in Hawaii in the 1920s and is about a forbidden love affair between a mixed race orphan and the daughter of a plantation owner. Running For Grace will be released on August 1st.
As far as what’s happening in this trailer for The Immortal, your guess is as good as mine. This is a Vietnamese film that does not appear to have a release date yet,
Finally, we have the latest version of Jack London’s classic novel, White Fang. This animated adaptation is now streaming on Netflix.
Still reeling from the shock of losing Steve Ditko here, but nevertheless, the show must go on, even if it feels like it shouldn’t. Is there any time afforded us, in this modern world, to slow down, catch a breath, and take stock of where we are — not just individually, but as a people? Funny you should ask —
Tom Kaczynski has clearly been giving this very subject a great deal of thought, and in Cartoon Dialectics #3, the latest in an occasional series published by his own Uncivilized Books (pride of the Minneapolis indie cartooning scene, I assure you), he reflects on the siren-call power, and dangerous trappings, of nostalgia, and examines how yearning for an entirely mythologized past led us to where we are today — which means, of course, how it managed to get us stuck with Trump. Danish cartoonist Clara Jetsmark is his writing collaborator…
Through the Shattered Lens 