Happy birthday, America!
Sing it, stars of yesteryear!
Monthly Archives: July 2020
Happy 4th of July From The Shattered Lens!
Happy Independence Day!
Obviously, this 4th of July is going to be different for a lot of people. I’m not even sure how many counties are still going to be doing an official fireworks show and I know a lot of people aren’t going to want to spend all day outside, wearing a mask in 100 degree heat. This is probably the angriest Independence Day in my lifetime and I know there’s some people who are even saying that it’ll be our last because America’s on the verge of collapsing.
Personally, I don’t think it’ll be our last and I think that, though it may not seem like it today, things will get better. America’s been through tough times before. If most of the people out there knew as much about history as they thought they did, they’d know that.
Now, myself, I have to admit that I love the whole ritual of fireworks. I’m a Texan and I’m probably more of a country girl than even I’m willing to admit. I mean, as sophisticated as I may try to be here on the Shattered Lens, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t own an American flag bikini and if I didn’t kind of get a thrill from the sight of fireworks exploding in the night sky. In fact, since I’m up at Lake Texoma, I’m planning on spending tonight out on the deck, wearing an American flag bikini while watching fireworks explode over the water. Of course, I’ll also be writing about classic movies while I do so because I love cinema even more than I love fireworks.
Anyway, here’s my point. There’s going to be fireworks tonight, whether they’re “legal” or not. A lot of them will probably be set off by drunk idiots in their backyard. People have been locked up for a long time. There’s a lot of frustration and a lot of people are going to be expressing that frustration by making as much noise as possible. (I don’t blame the people, by the way. I blame government officials who, instead of understanding people’s frustrations and trying to help them deal with them, have instead used this entire crisis to act like a bunch of petty authoritarians. A little empathy goes a long way to convincing people to do the right thing.)
So, please, as a favor to me — GET YOUR PETS INSIDE! KEEP THEM INSIDE! Seriously, they’re going to be scared to death. Every 4th of July, our cat hides underneath a bed and refuses to come out until after the fireworks have stopped. Erin and I usually toss one of his kitty toys under there and he’ll usually end up playing with it until he eventually decides to come out. It’s funny. As much as we would worry whenever we saw Doc scramble under the bed, that’s where he feels safe on the 4th of July. I don’t know if it’s the same for dogs but cats are all about finding a safe place. Once they do, they can handle just about anything.
Also, please remember that fireworks may be fun to you and me but they’re not fun for people who have served in war and/or who are suffering from PTSD and who might find them triggering. So, check on your neighbors. Keep them in mind before you go crazy trying to recreate a combat zone in their neighborhood.
“But Lisa, you just said you love fireworks….”
Yes, I do. But I love animals and treating people with consideration even more.
Anyway, stay safe out there! Happy Independence Day from the Shattered Lens!
Artwork of the Day: 4th of July
by Erin Nicole
Music Video Of The Day: American Girl by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (1980, directed by ????)
“I wrote that in a little apartment I had in Encino. It was right next to the freeway and the cars sometimes sounded like waves from the ocean, which is why there’s the line about the waves crashing on the beach. The words just came tumbling out very quickly – and it was the start of writing about people who are longing for something else in life, something better than they have.”
— Tom Petty on American Girl
Because it’s the 4th of July, I wanted to share the music video for Tom Petty’s American Girl but it turns out that there never was an official video for American Girl. The song came out before the launch of MTV and, strangely enough, it was never as big a hit in the United States than it was in the UK.
I was, however, able to find footage of Tom Petty performing the song on Fridays. Fridays was a rip-off of Saturday Night Live. It aired live with a regular ensemble and it also featured a weekly musical guest. The only real difference between it and SNL was that Fridays aired on …. you guessed it, Friday night. It never escaped the shadow of Saturday Night Live, though it did receive some attention when guest host Andy Kaufman got into an on-air brawl with Michael Richards. (Apparently, it was a staged fight though, as was often the case with Kaufman, few people realized it.) Today, Fridays is best known for featuring several performers — Richards, Larry David, Bruce Mahler, and others — who were later appeared on Seinfeld.
This performance above is from the June 6th, 1980 episode of Fridays. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed Shadow of a Doubt and American Girl on the episode. According to Wikipedia, that episode also featured sketches with names like “Johannes the Friday’s Parakeet Needs Marijuana Seeds” and “Prostitution Debate with Pastor Babbitt.”
American Girl, incidentally, was originally recorded on July 4th, 1976. Today is its 44th birthday.
Enjoy!
Some Kind of Hero (1982, directed by Michael Pressman)
Eddie Keller (Richard Pryor) is a member of the U.S. Army, serving in Vietnam when he gets captured by the VC and spends the next few years in a POW camp. During that time, he befriends another POW named Vinnie (Ray Sharkey). Though the quick-witted Eddie is often able to outsmart his captors and their attempts to turn him into a propaganda tool, he finally snaps when he’s told that Vinnie will be allowed to die unless Eddie signs a “confession” in which he renounces both America and the war. Hoping to save his friend’s life, Eddie signs the paper.
After 5 long years in the camp, Eddie finally returns to America. He’s given a momentary hero’s welcome and then he is quickly forgotten about. After all, everyone wants to move on from Vietnam and Eddie, by his very existence, is a reminder of the war. However, Eddie can’t move on. His wife (Lynne Moody) left him for another man while he was missing. His mother (Olivia Cole) suffered a stroke and is now in a nursing home. Worst of all, because Eddie signed that confession, the army considers him to be a traitor and is refusing to release his backpay.
What can Eddie do? How about a rob a bank and then run off with Toni (Margot Kidder), a hooker with a heart of gold?
Like a lot of Richard Pryor’s starring vehicles, Some Kind of Hero is an uneven film. Pryor was a skilled dramatic actor but he was best known as a comedian and, in most of his starring roles, there was always a conflict between his serious instincts and the demand that all of his films be funny. Some Kind of Hero starts out strong with Pryor in Vietnam. The scenes with Pyror and Sharkey in the POW camp are strong. (In the novel on which the film was based, Eddie and Vinnie were lovers. In the film, they’re just friends.) Though there are funny moments during the first half of the film, the humor arises naturally out of the situation. During the first half of the film, Pryor may make you laugh but he also makes sure that you never forget that he’s on joking to maintain his sanity. But once Eddie returns to the U.S., Some Kind of Hero awkwardly turns into a heist film and the comedy goes from being darkly humorous to being broadly slaptstick. Eddie, who could survive being a prisoner of war and who could usually outsmart the VC, is suddenly transformed into a naive klutz. Richard Pyror does his best but the two halves of the film never seem to belong together.
Unfortunately, Hollywood never really figured out what to do with Richard Pryor as an actor. Some Kind of Hero at least shows that Richard Pryor could be a strong dramatic actor. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t really live up to his talents.
4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Michele Soavi Edition
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we wish a joyous 63rd birthday to Italian filmmaker Michele Soavi!
Soavi, of course, started his career as an actor. You can find him in Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead and Lamberto Bava’s A Blade In The Dark and Demons. Reportedly, he came close to playing the role that was eventually played by Giovanni Lombardo Radice in The House On The Edge of the Park. Soavi, however, eventually moved behind the camera. He was an assistant director on both Dario Argento’s Tenebrae and Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Brothers Grimm.
He also, of course, directed four of the greatest Italian horror films of all time, Stage Fright, The Church, The Sect, and Dellamorte Dellamore. Though a family tragedy temporarily put his career as a director on hold, Soavi has since returned to directing.
In honor of Michele Soavi and his birthday, here are….
4 Shots From 4 Films
Stage Fright (1987, dir by Michele Soavi)
The Church (1989, dir by Michele Soavi)
The Sect (1991, dir by Michele Soavi)
Dellamorte Dellamore (1994, dir by Michele Soavi)
Independence Days Of The Past
Though it was celebrated long before that, the 4th of July has been an official holiday since 1941. In honor of the Fourth’s long history, here are some vintage photographs from Independence Days of the past. As you can see, you don’t always need fireworks to celebrate America’s birthday:
1920s
1923
1925
1939
1942
1956
1960s
1969
1970s
1976
1987
1996
I hope everyone has a good 4th of July! Usually, I celebrate Independence Day by taking a lot of blurry photographs of the fireworks exploding in the sky above me and then posting them to twitter. I won’t be doing that this year but I’ll still find a way to celebrate everything that’s good about my home country.
Artwork of the Day: Thrilling Love (artist unknown)
Artist Unknown
Music Video of the Day: Last Train to London by Electric Light Orchestra (1979, directed by Mike Mansfield)
John Cleese used to joked that, on the 3rd of July, the UK would celebrate “Dependence Day,” by setting up cardboard cut-outs of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and taunting them with shouts of, “Well, why don’t you go get your freedom, then!?”
Sadly, Dependence Day is not an actual holiday. Perhaps it should be. If the UK can celebrate Guy Fawkes Day without being sure whether or not it means to celebrate Fawkes’s plan to blow up Parliament or his death, I certainly think that time can be found to shout rude things at a caricature of John Adams.
Today, in honor of Dependence Day, I picked a music video for a song that has nothing to do with the American revolution but it does mention London and I guess that’s close enough. This song was actually written because the members of ELO used to spend a lot of time riding the train between from Birmingham to London.
Enjoy!
Mainstream Comics Worth Paying Attention To : “Dead Eyes”
Decisively proving that you can’t keep a good bad guy down, writer Gerry Duggan and artist John McCrea’s socially-conscious crime series (yes, that’s a thing) from Image Comics, Dead Rabbit, returned from a cease-and-desist order filed by a bar of the same name (no, I swear I’m not kidding) under the shiny new moniker of Dead Eyes — and not only did the creators not miss a beat, their book has only gotten better.
It also re-introduced itself in a manner entirely accessible to new readers, laying out the premise quick and easy, just as I will here : infamous Boston-area masked stick-up man from the 1990s is now retired and living the quiet life, but he needs to come out of retirement when his disabled wife gets hit with a mountain of medical bills that her insurance won’t cover. Our guy is still pretty good at what…
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Through the Shattered Lens 