Yearly Archives: 2018

Confessions of a TV Addict #12: An Appreciation of Ken Berry

Posted on by gary loggins

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I’ve always said if Ken Berry had been born a bit earlier, he would have taken up the mantle of song-and-dance masters Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in films. But Berry, who died this past weekend at age 85, came up at a time when Hollywood musicals were, if not dying, definitely on life support. Berry had his greatest success in the world of TV sitcoms, though he did find opportunities to display his dancing skills in variety shows of the era.

Moline, IL born Ken won a talent contest at age 15 and toured with popular Big Band leader Horace Heidt’s Youth Opportunity Program. Joining the Army after high school, he was assigned to Special Services to entertain the troops. His sergeant encouraged Ken to head to Hollywood after his hitch was over. The sergeant’s name: Leonard Nimoy ! Ken begun his professional show biz career as a Universal…

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Here’s The Trailer For Avengers: Endgame!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The trailer for the fourth Avengers movie was released earlier today.

The trailer reveals that:

  1. Thanos did succeed in wiping out 50% of the universe’s population.
  2. Tony Stark is floating around in space.
  3. Thor is feeling depressed.
  4. Thanos is wandering around his new home, perhaps in the nude and maybe suffering from the ennui that often inflicts people who have achieved their lifelong dream too early.
  5. Captain America has a plan.  Doesn’t he always?
  6. The Black Widow is still doing the blonde thing.
  7. Clint Barton is now some sort of ninja and Ant-Man made it back from that dimension that he was stranded in at the end of his previous film.
  8. The name of the latest Avengers film is Endgame.

And, to be honest, I think that might be an appropriate title.  I loved Infinity War but, after going to the extreme of wiping out 50% of the universe, it’s kind of hard to see how any other film is going to top it.  At some point, the MCU bubble is going to pop and, with Chris Evans apparently leaving the role of Captain America after this film, we’ll have to see wait and see what the next phase of the MCU is going to be.

Here’s the trailer!

Music Video Of The Day: What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? by R.E.M. (1994, directed by Peter Care)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

On October 4th, 1986, CBS News anchor Dan Rather was attacked on the streets of New York by a man who, as he pummeled Rather, repeatedly shouted, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?!”  When a doorman intervened to protect Rather, the man took off running.  (Some accounts say that there were actually two men attacking Rather.)

Though he wouldn’t be identified for another 11 years, the attacker’s name was William Tager.  Tager believed that the television networks were beaming signals into his brain.  In 1994, he killed a stagehand while trying to force his way into NBC studios.  In 1997, while Tager was serving a 25-year prison sentence, he was identified as the man who had attacked Rather.  Tager was subsequently paroled in 2010.

The same year that Tager was arrested, R.E.M. released a song called What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?  Though the song was clearly inspired by the attack on Rather, lead singer Michael Stipe has also said that the song was about an older man trying to understand the younger generation.

The video for What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? was directed by frequent R.E.M. collaborator Peter Care and features the band performing the song.  The jacket worn by bassist Mike Mills once belonged to the legendary Gram Parsons.

Rumors that R.E.M. stands for “Rather’s Ear Muffs” were once popular but have been denied by the band.  Instead, Michael Stipe selected the name after randomly coming across “Rapid Eye Movement” in the dictionary.

Snap! Crackle! Pop!: TENSION (MGM 1949)

Posted on by gary loggins

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The best films noir deal with post-WWII disillusionment, and that’s exactly what drives Richard Basehart’s sad sack Warren Quimby in TENSION. This cynical, downbeat, and downright sordid little tale of infidelity and murder is  boosted by first-rate performances from Basehart and scorchingly hot Audrey Totter as his manipulative bimbo of a wife, with a taut screenplay by Allen Rivkin and solid direction by John Berry. It may not make anyone’s top ten list (or even top thirty), but it’s one of those ‘B’ films that really works, provided you’re willing to suspend disbelief for an hour and a half.

Mild mannered pharmacist Quimby met and married Claire while stationed in San Diego during the war. He, like many others, hopes to someday live the American Dream: house, kids, the whole nine yards. Trampy Claire doesn’t give a crap about that; she prefers excitement, the high life. Claire is messing around…

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Some thoughts on the Golden Globe Nominations

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, it happens every year.

The precursor season always starts with some unexpected winners and you start to think that maybe some of the year’s best indie films might be able to get some Oscar love.  This season, for instance, I was excited to see the attention being given to Eighth Grade and, to a lesser extent, First Reformed.  I was also excited to see that A Quiet Place and Black Panther were being remembered.

“Oh my God!” I thought, “Even if we already know that either Green Book or A Star is Born are going to win everything this year, the Oscar nominations could still be interesting!”

And then, as they do every year, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association had to come along and basically fuck everything up.  For some reason, the HFPA have become one of the biggest of the precursor awards.  Getting nominated for a Golden Globe is considered to be a major step for any Oscar contender.  Getting ignored by the Golden Globes is enough to knock a previously strong contender out of the contest.  Why is this?  I’m not sure.  The HFPA is a notorious bunch of star fuckers and it’s pretty much an open secret that almost anyone can buy a Golden Globe nomination if they’ve got enough money.  But, for some reason, the annually mediocre Golden Globe nominations carry a lot of weight in Hollywood.

Anyway, this year’s nominations pretty much ignored all of the cool indie films that have come out this year.  Elsie Fisher was nominated for Best Actress but otherwise, Eighth Grade was ignored.  First Reformed was nominated for nothing.  Hereditary was nominated for nothing.  I am happy to see that Black Panther was nominated.  That’s a step in the right direction in that film’s quest to be the first comic book movie to be nominated for best picture.

I guess what really bugs me is that Vice — a film that I have no desire to see — received the most nominations and is now definitely an Oscar contender.  I’ve been told that Vice is even more smug and shallow than The Big Short.  And now, I guess I have to see it.  AGONY!

Anyway, here are the nominees.  (Below are the film nominees.  For the TV nominees, click here.)

Best Motion Picture – Drama
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
If Beale Streat Could Talk
A Star Is Born

Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical
Crazy Rich Asians
The Favourite
Green Book
Mary Poppins Returns
Vice

Best Director
Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born)
Alfonso Cuaron (Roma)
Peter Farrelly (Green Book)
Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman)
Adam McKay (Vice)

Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born)
Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate)
Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased)
Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)
John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman)

Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
Glenn Close (The Wife)
Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born)
Nicole Kidman (Destroyer)
Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)
Rosamund Pike (A Private War)

Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical
Christian Bale (Vice)
Lin-Manuel Miranda (Mary Poppins Returns)
Viggo Mortensen (Green Book)
Robert Redford (The Old Man & the Gun)
John C. Reilly (Stan & Ollie)

Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical
Emily Blunt (Mary Poppins Returns)
Olivia Colman (The Favourite)
Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade)
Charlize Theron (Tully)
Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians)

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Mahershala Ali (Green Book)
Timothée Chalamet (Beautiful Boy)
Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman)
Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)
Sam Rockwell (Vice)

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Amy Adams (Vice)
Claire Foy (First Man)
Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Emma Stone (The Favourite)
Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

Best Screenplay
Alfonso Cuaron (Roma)
Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara (The Favourite)
Barry Jenkins (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Adam McKay (Vice)
Peter Farrelly, Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie (Green Book)

Best Score
Marco Beltrami (A Quiet Place)
Alexandre Desplat (Isle of Dogs)
Ludwig Göransson (Black Panther)
Justin Hurwitz (First Man)
Marc Shaiman (Mary Poppins Returns)

Best Original Song
“All the Stars” (Black Panther)
“Girl in the Movies” (Dumplin’)
“Requiem For A Private War” (A Private War)
“Revelation’ (Boy Erased)
“Shallow” (A Star Is Born)

Best Motion Picture – Animated
Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language
Capernaum (Lebanon)
Girl (Belgium)
Never Look Away (Germany)
Roma (Mexico)
Shoplifters (Japan)

 

Music Video Of The Day: Animal by Def Leppard (1987, directed by Doug Freel and Jean Pellerin)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Animal is a song that took three years for Def Leppard to complete.  The band started work on the song in 1984 with producer Jim Steinman, who is best known for his collaborations with musicians like Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler.  Steinman’s orchestral style proved to be a poor fit with Def Leppard’s more straight forward sound.  After realizing that Steinman wasn’t going to work out, the band brought in Mutt Lange, who was able to get the sound that the band wanted.

Though the band had already found success in the United States, Animal was the first Def Leppard song to became a hit in the UK.  Not only did it reach No. 6 on the UK Single Chart but it also scored the band their first invitation to perform on Top of the Pops.  (For the benefit of our American readers, that was, back in the day, a big effing deal.)

The video finds the band working and performing in a traveling circus.  The video was directed by Doug Freel and Jean Pellerin, both of whom have directed videos for several different artists.  Along with directing several other videos for Def Leppard, Freel and Pellerin have also worked with Metallica.  On his own, Freel has done videos for Roxette and Faith No More.  Pellerin, meanwhile, directed the films, Laserhawk, For Hire, Daybreak, and The Clown At Midnight.

Four Color Apocalypse 2018 Year In Review : Top Ten Vintage Collections

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

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

Another day, another year end “Top 10” list! This time around we look at my favorite collected editions of vintage material published in the past year, “vintage” in this case being work originally produced prior to the year 2000. Eurocomics and Manga are both eligible here, as well, as long as they first saw print prior to all our computers failing, the electrical grid going dark, the food supply collapsing, and civilization falling apart on December 31st, 1999. Remember those crazy times?

10. Brat Pack By Rick Veitch (IDW) – Arguably the last great work of super-hero revisionism prior to Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s Black Hammer, Veitch’s bleak and unforgiving look at the teen sidekicks of Slumburg is as shocking, ugly, and mean-spirited as ever — not to mention gorgeously illustrated. IDW pulled out all the stops with this one, loading it up with “behind-the-scenes” bonus material that…

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