Before MTV ever hit the airwaves, there was TOMMY, Ken Russell’s stylized cinematic vision of The Who’s 1969 ‘rock opera’. It was a match made in heaven, teaming Britain’s Wild Man of Cinema with the anarchic rock and roll of Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon (not to mention England’s own enfant terrible,Oliver Reed ). Russell both captures the spirit of Townsend’s hard rock opus and expands on it visually with an all-out assault-on-the-senses musical featuring an all-star cast that includes an Oscar-nominated performance by Ann-Margret as the mother of “that deaf, dumb, and blind kid” who “sure plays a mean pinball”!
The Who’s original album cover
Townshend, the group’s primary songwriter, had been experimenting with long-form rock’n’roll since the beginning, notably the nine minute suite “A Quick One While He’s Away” on their second album A QUICK ONE (retitled in America HAPPY JACK). TOMMY was…
One of two semi-recent releases by Daria Tessler from Perfectly Acceptable Press (the other being Accursed, reviewed on this very site just a handful of days ago), the uneconomically-titled Three Magical Recipes From The Book Of Secrets Of Albertus Magnus is not only overflowing with verbiage on the cover, but wonderfully archaic script throughout and, most importantly and essentially, positively inspired artwork that casts a thoroughly mesmerizing spell all its own on each and every of the book’s 28 riso-printed pages. Insanely colorful, imaginative, and engrossing, this is a project that is entirely what it espouses itself as being, yet also considerably more than anyone could justifiably be pre-disposed to hope for.
Yeah, it really is that good.
Exploding at readers in a kaleidoscopic explosion of red, fluorescent pink, yellow, and a tone of blue classified as “federal,” Tessler’s vibrant and immersive renderings of these, for lack of a…
Yes, this video was directed by that David Fincher.
Taking place in a crowded bar and featuring patrons dancing while Steve Winwood and the band perform in the background, this video shows that, even before directing films like Se7en, Fight Club, and The Social Network, Fincher had a strong eye for detail. The video makes you feel the heat.
Because this video has a page at the imdb, we actually know the names of some of the people who collaborated with Winwood and Fincher. The choreography was provided by none other than Paula Abdul while the black-and-white cinematography is credited to Mark Plummer. (Plummer’s other credits include the films Two Moon Junction, After Dark My Sweet, The Waterdance, and Albino Alligator.) The video was edited by Scott Chestnut, who subsequently worked on several feature films directed by John Dahl, including Red Rock West, Unforgettable, and Rounders.
With the help of this video, Roll With It went on to spend four weeks at the top of Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
Netflix is known for taking risks and “The Christmas Chronicles” is no exception. There are six felonies in this film: 2 Grand Theft Autos, a kidnapping, money laundering, attempted murder, and whatever they did to that partridge in the pear tree. Yet, it worked! I will admit that I am of the Y-Generation and Kurt Russell remains forever cool in my book, but this movie had some good story writing, great acting from veterans like Kurt Russell and Stevie Van Zandt, but great performances by up and comers Judah Lewis (The Babysitter) and Darby Camp (Big Little Lies) as well.
Clay Kaytis had his directorial debut with this film. He is famous for being an animator for a panoply of films that you have taken your daughters to see: Frozen, Tangled, and Mulan…etc. Clay was a pretty good choice considering the amount of animation that is in this film. Honestly, it was a family movie that would have been a HUGE box office draw.
The film begins with a series of home movies featuring a classic nuclear family enjoying Christmas over the years…until 2017. We learn that the father was a fireman who lost his life saving a family, leaving his family grieving and without the spirit of Christmas. The mom is now taking extra shifts as a nurse, the daughter is REALLY into Santa, and the son is now a no-kidding degenerate car thief. There are enough dark scenes in this film to classify it as Film Noir.
The family is trying to live as best they can and the daughter Kate is trying to reconnect with the memory of her late father by watching old home movies. In one of the films, she sees a mystery arm delivering a package. She convinces her brother that it could be Santa in the film and they decide to set a trap for him…..and IT WORKS!!! Not only do they catch Santa on film, they stow away onto his sleigh and cause Santa to crash. He loses his sleigh, reindeer, bag of toys, and his magic hat. The main ticking clock for the film is that Santa needs to get his presents delivered before christmas is up or christmas spirit will tick down to zero and it will be like the Hills Have Eyes or something. The rest of the film is spent helping Santa retrieve these lost items and busting Santa out of jail to prevent the After Times.
And yes, Santa ends up in jail, charged with multiple felonies, and does a pretty amazing blues number with the E Street Band. Yes, the E Street Band. I know that a lot of this movie is starting to sound like a Christmas fever dream, but it works and my 7 and 9 year old girls were riveted and didn’t hurt each other for the duration of the film. Thank you, Clay Kaytis…THANK YOU!
I would recommend this film and for you to subscribe to Netflix. Otherwise, how will you understand half of my reviews?!!!!!
The 1947 film noir, Framed, is the story of a loser.
That, in itself, is not a surprise. The loser who finds himself stranded in a strange place where he’s manipulated by nearly everyone he meets is a film noir archetype. This is especially true when it comes to movies about men who end up getting manipulated by another film noir archetype, the femme fatale. I mean, let’s be honest. Most film noir “heroes” fall victim to their own desperation. If they weren’t so obviously desperate to find money or sex, they probably wouldn’t end up in the trouble that always seems to follow them around.
Framed tells the story of Mike Lambert (Glenn Ford). When we first meet Mike, he’s sitting behind the wheel of an out-of-control truck. While the truck recklessly speeds down a steep hill, Mike desperately tries to keep from crashing. It’s not until Mike pulls into a small town that he finally gets the truck to stop. Of course, in the process of stopping, he also dings the back of someone else’s pickup truck.
It turns out that, until recently, Mike was a mining engineer. After he lost his job, he found temporary employment as a truck driver. He needed the money so he didn’t bother to find out what he was hauling or even if the truck had working brakes. When Mike calls up the man who hired him and tells him that the owner of the pickup is demanding that Mike’s employer pay for the damage, the man hangs up on him. To recap, before we’re even 10 minutes into the movie, we’ve seen that Mike can be tricked into driving a truck with no brakes and that he can’t even convince his employer to help pay for the damage caused by those faulty brakes. In other words: Loser!
Anyway, the local cops are planning on tossing Mike in jail for reckless driving but fortunately, a local waitress, Paula Craig (Janis Carter), is willing to pay Mike’s fine. She even helps a drunken Mike find a hotel room. Is Paula doing all of this out of the goodness of her heart or is it all just a part of an elaborate scheme? While Mike is getting a job with a local prospector (Edgar Buchanan), Paula is meeting with her married boyfriend, Steve Price (Barry Sullivan), and bragging about how she’s finally found the perfect patsy.
Yes, to no one’s surprise, Paula and Steve have hatched a nefarious scheme and Mike is about to find himself stuck right in the middle of it. Of course, since this is a film noir, it should come as no surprise to learn that Paula and Steve are just as willing to double cross each other as they are Mike….
Framed is an entertaining if slightly predictable noir. From the minute that Paula first appears, we know that she’s not to be trusted but part of the fun of the film is that those of us in the audience are always a step or two ahead of poor Mike. You watch Mike in amazement that someone could be so dense but, at the same time, Glenn Ford is likable enough that you do hope that everything will turn out okay for him. As for the film’s main villains, Barry Sullivan is perfectly slick and sleazy as Steve Price but the film is really stolen by Janis Carter, who plays Paula as if she were a panther waiting to pounce on her prey.
Framed is a film that will definitely be enjoyed by those who appreciate the shadowy landscape of an old school film noir. It may not rewrite the rules of genre but it’s still an undeniably entertaining film about a loser and the people who use him.
You couldn’t go into any bar, pub, or tavern in my fishing port hometown of New Bedford, MA for literally decades without someone playing Looking Glass’s #1 hit from 1972, “Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)” on the jukebox – usually more than once a night!:
(And yes, that’s future country legend Kenny Rogers doing the introduction!)
The song/story of a barmaid in love with a sailor she can never truly have, because as he says “my life, my lover, my lady, is the sea” resonated with us locals, as I’m sure it did in every “harbor town” where barmaids work “layin’ whiskey down” to hard working seafaring men (not to mention that fact that it made a helluva great slow-dancing tune as closing time neared – ah, those were the days, my friends!).
The band Looking Glass was from New Brunswick, New Jersey, and consisted of Elliot Lurie (lead singer…
An instant hit when it was first released in 1976, More Than A Feeling was a song that spent several years in the making. The founder of Boston, MIT graduate Tom Scholz, spent five years working on the song, recording and re-recording it in his basement while working his day job at Polaroid.
When Boston finally signed with CBS Records, More Than A Feeling was the first single released off of their debut album and it has since remained a classic rock mainstay, with the chorus riff becoming one of the most familiar sounds in the history of rock. Scholz has said that he was inspired to write More Than A Feeling by the Left Bank’s song, Walk Away Renée. “I see my Marianne walk away” was a reference to an older cousin whom Tom Scholz had a crush on when he was nine years old.
For me, though, More Than A Feeling will always be the song that I used to listen to whenever I was driving a stolen car around San Andreas, looking for hot coffee and trying to avoid the police.
The Who’s original album cover 
Through the Shattered Lens 