Monthly Archives: December 2018

Lifetime Christmas Movie Review: Christmas Around The Corner (dir by Megan Follows)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Claire (Alexandra Breckenridge) is a venture capitalist who lives in the big city but dreams of visiting the same small Vermont town that her mother once loved.

Andrew (Jamie Spilchuk) is the latest in a long line of blacksmiths and he also owns an independent bookstore in the same small Vermont town where all of his ancestors have lived.

Together….

THEY SOLVE CRIMES!

Okay, not really.  Christmas Around The Corner is a Lifetime Christmas movie, which means that there’s not a single crime to be committed.  For that matter, there’s none of the other things that we typically expect from a Lifetime movie.  There’s no seductive nannies.  There’s no duplicitous best friends.  No adultery.  No scheming.  No runaways.  Nope, that doesn’t happen on Lifetime around Christmas time.

Instead, the movie opens with Claire having some sort of major career setback.  I’m not really sure what the exact details were but it had something to do with the stock market and a downward pointing arrow and a party that none of her investors came to.  It was financial stuff, which I’ve never really been able to follow.  What’s important is that Claire decided to get out of New York and spend the holidays in that small town in Vermont.

(Yes, yes, I know.  Vermont.  I hate Vermont but I won’t go into that right now.)

Anyway, Andrew runs a bookstore that also rents out rooms or something like that.  Apparently, when you’re staying at the bookstore, you’re also expected to work in the bookstore.  I have such mixed feelings about that.  On the one hand, I would love to live over a bookstore.  And I probably wouldn’t mind working in a bookstore, as long as I was the owner and could basically spend all day bossing people around and having them rearrange the books.  I mean, that seems like it would be a lot of fun.  However, I just can’t imagine going on a vacation so I could work.

When Claire arrives in the town, she’s really looking forward to the annual Christmas festival but …. uh oh!  The festival has been cancelled!  In fact, due to tough times and bad weather, it would appear that no one in town has the Christmas spirit!  No one but Claire!

So, can Claire get the town to rediscover its love of Christmas?

Even more importantly, can she use her marketing background to show Andrew a better way to run his bookstore?  Of course, she can!  Unfortunately, it may all be for naught because Andrew is thinking about selling the bookstore!

Along the way, Andrew and Claire fall in love.  Can you blame them?  I mean, Andrews’s a blacksmith!  Soot is sexy.

As you might expect from a Lifetime Christmas film, Christmas Around The Corner is more than a little predictable but, at the same time, it’s a sweet movie.  The town looks beautiful and Alexandra Breckenridge and Jamie Spilchuk have a likable chemistry as the two leads.  As anyone who has ever watched a Lifetime Christmas movie knows, these films always have an older voice of wisdom who helps to bring everyone together.  This time, that voice of wisdom was provided by the veteran actress Jane Alexander and she did a good job with her role.  It’s a likable movie, which is really the main thing that can ever be asked of a movie like this.  It’ll make you feel happy and Christmas-y.

Because, after all, Christmas is right around the corner!

Christmas-tery: Deanna Durbin in LADY ON A TRAIN (Universal 1945)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

Deanna Durbin was the best Christmas present Universal Studios ever received. The 15-year-old singing sensation made her feature debut in 1936’s THREE SMART GIRLS, released five days before Christmas. The smash hit helped save cash-strapped Universal from bankruptcy, and Miss Durbin signed a long-term contract, appearing in a string of musical successes: ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL, THAT CERTAIN AGE, SPRING PARADE, NICE GIRL?, IT STARTED WITH EVE. One of her best is the Christmas themed comedy/murder mystery LADY ON A TRAIN, one of only two films directed by  Charles David, who married the star in 1950, the couple then retiring to his native France.

Our story begins with young Nikki Collins travelling by train from San Francisco to New York City to visit her Aunt Martha, reading a murder mystery to pass the time. Nikki witnesses a real-life murder committed through a window, and after ditching her wealthy…

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“Fashion Forecasts” Is Forward Thinking Writ — And Drawn — Large

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)'s avatarRyan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

What will the future hold? What changes, subtle or otherwise, will it usher in? How will it alter the essential character of our lives? And, perhaps most importantly — what will it look like?

Yumi Sakugawa has thought about these questions thoroughly, deeply. She’s considered how the past, how one’s heritage and cultural traditions, will not only survive into, but actively inform, both the aesthetics and the thinking of the world that’s coming (gratuitous OMAC reference there), and she’s laid out her vision in the pages of Fashion Forecasts, a kind of visual treatise recently released as part of Retrofit/Big Planet’s consistently-fascinating joint publication venture. It may not fit the traditional definition of what a “comic book,” or even a “graphic novel” actually is, but expanding conventional thinking about what comics can do or be has always been part and parcel of the Retrofit/Big Planet ethos, and…

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Music Video of the Day: Celtic Carol by Lindsey Stirling (2011, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s start this holiday weekend off with another music video from Lindsey Stirling!

In Celtic Carol, Lindsey is an elf who has been locked into Santa’s workshop.  Apparently, Santa is a really demanding boss, which I always kind of suspected.  I mean, if you’ve ever seen Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, you now what I’m talking about.

Anyway, Elf Lindsey manages to get in the Christmas spirit despite having to work.

Enjoy!

Book Review: Thanks A Lot Mr. Kibblewhite: My Story by Roger Daltrey

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

On March 1st, 1959, a 15 year-old student at Acton County Grammar School brought an air gun to school.  Years later, the student would write about how he and a friend were “in the changing room, mucking about after football,” when someone fired the gun.  The pellet ricocheted off a wall and struck another student in the eye.

The student who brought the air gun was taken down to see Mr. Kibblewhite, the headmaster.  Mr. Kibblewhite announced, “We can’t control you, Daltrey.  You’re out.”  As the now-expelled student left the office, Mr. Kibblewhite added, “You’ll never make anything out of your life, Daltrey.”

Roger Daltrey, of course, went on to become the lead singer of The Who and is considered to be the epitome of a charismatic rock and roll frontman.  As for Mr. Kibblewhite, he went on to lend his name to the title of Daltrey’s autobiography.

As befits someone who, has a reputation for being one of the most down-to-Earth people in rock and roll, Thanks A Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite is a short and straight-forward account of Roger Daltrey’s life, from his youth in war-scarred London to his time as the frontman for one of the loudest bands in rock and roll to his current life as one of rock’s elder statesmen.  If it’s not as salacious as some other rock-and-roll tell-alls, that’s because Daltrey never gave into the excessive behavior that proved to be the downfall of many of his contemporaries (including, of course, his former Who bandmates, Keith Moon and Jon Entwistle).  As Daltrey tells it, he avoided hard drugs to such an extent that he was briefly kicked out of the band for flushing Moon’s stash of pills.

As is true with The Who’s best albums, the heart of Thanks A Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite is found in Daltrey’s close but often difficult collaboration with Pete Townshend.  Even after performing with Townshend for over fifty years, Daltrey still seems to be struggling with how he feels about his legendary bandmate.  Daltrey’s admiration for Townshend’s talent is obvious but he also writes that Townshend could be like “a scorpion with a good heart.”  Daltrey recounts not only the numerous times that Townshend was dismissive of the rest of the band in the press but he also tells the full story of the infamous fist fight in which Daltrey knocked Townshend out with one punch.  And yet, when Townshend is falsely accused of downloading child pornography, Daltrey is just as passionate about explaining how he knew his bandmate was innocent.

Daltrey also writes extensively about Keith Moon.  In Daltrey’s telling, Moon comes across as a unique, one-of-a-kind talent who was ultimately destroyed by his need to keep up with his own wild reputation.  Daltrey is open about often becoming exasperated with Moon but he also writes that, for him, The Who ceased to be The Who after Moon died.  Without Moon, Daltrey writes that The Who’s anthems were “now just songs.”

Thanks A Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite is a short book and Daltrey is such a straight-forward and no frills storyteller that it makes for good airport and airplane reading.  For fans of The Who, this book is essential.

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Again: “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love (Phillies Records 1963)

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

Like last week’s “Christmas Wrapping”, the song “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home” made it’s debut on a compilation album, 1963’s “A Christmas Gift to You from Phil Spector”:

The label’s head honcho, ‘Wall of Sound’ producer Phil Spector (we won’t get into his later sordid life – it’s Christmas!), originally wanted his then-wife Ronnie to sing the Elle Greenwich/Jeff Barry (the duo responsible for rock classics like “Be My Baby”, “Da Doo Ron Ron”, “Leader of the Pack”, “Hanky Panky”, and “River Deep – Mountain High”) penned tune. But Ronnie couldn’t give Phil quite what he wanted, so backup singer Darlene Love of The Blossoms was called in – and nailed it!

Darlene Love in the studio with Phil Spector, 1963

Darlene Love sang background vocals on many of the era’s hits (Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett’s “The Monster Mash”, The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”, Johnny Rivers’ “Poor Side…

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Music Video of the Day: Snow by ADI (2017, dir by Shir Rosenthal)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve got snow on the mind.

To anyone who knows me, that should not come as a surprise.  In fact, I put my friends and family through this every year.  Once December rolls around, I start obsessively talking about how much I hope that it will snow.  It always starts out as a cute but, around the 15th, I always start to curse the lack of snow in the forecast.  By the time the 24th hits, I’m usually stamping my foot and making demands.

(Of course, I live in Texas so it’s rare that my snow wish is ever fulfilled.  If it does snow here, it’ll probably be in late January or maybe Febuary.  A few years ago, it did actually snow in Texas on Christmas Day but, even so, it was really more of a light dusting than a real blizzard.)

This year …. well, it’s not even supposed to get down to freeing on Christmas Day.  That’s a shame because we are supposed to get hit by some rainstorms.  So, we’ll get flooded but we wont get any ice or snow.  Oh well.  As long as the sun isn’t shining, I guess I’ll be happy.

Anyway, you may be wondering what all of this has to do with today’s music video of the day and the answer is not much.  The song is called Snow but it’s not actually about snow.  Instead, it uses snow as a metaphor for an intense relationship.  The video itself doesn’t feature a blizzard, either.  Still, I’ve got snow on the mind and this song and video may be as close as I’m going to get before this year ends.

Don’t get me wrong.  Even if it’s not about real snow, I still like the video and the song because Adi Ulmansky is one of my favorite artists.  (Again, I have to thank my BFF Evelyn for introducing me to her music.)  This video was directed Shir Rosenthal, who is also credited with directing the video for Adi’s Dreamin‘.

Enjoy!

(And keep your hopes up for snow in Texas!)

Enroll Yourself In “Space Academy 123”

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)'s avatarRyan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

I’m not normally one to put a tremendous amount of stock in a publisher’s promotional blurbs — they’re over-hyped by their very nature, and get the factual basics of the work in question, which they’ve presumably read, flat-out wrong with surprising frequency — but when Koyama’s pre-press promotional materials referred to Mickey Zacchilli’s Space Academy 123 as a blend of “Starfleet with Degrassi,” they captured the essential character of the book, originally serialized as a daily strip on Instagram, with fairly astonishing accuracy. But, of course, there’s a lot more to it than that.

Zacchilli, who hails from Providence, appears to have picked up no small amount of the residual energy left over in the cultural zeitgeist of that town from Fort Thunder, in that her strips are imbued with, and subsequently convey, much of the frenetic immediacy that her cartooning forebears made their stock in trade, but they necessarily…

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