I woke up this morning and chose the beauty of combat.
Well, that would be the beauty and majesty of traditional Mongolian throat-singing and instrumentation combined with the modern styling of metal and you get The Hu.
The Hu is the popular, at least with metal and folk music fans, Mongolian folk metal band created in 2016 by members Gala, Jaya, Enkush and Temka. In addition to the requisite electric guitars and drums we find with rock and metal bands, The HU also incorporates traditional Mongolion instruments such as the Morin khuur (a two-stringed, horsehead fiddle with strings made from horsehair), Tovshuur (a three-stringed Mongolian guitar), Tsuur (Mongolian flute) and the Tumur khuur (a jaw harp) just to name a few.
Throat-singing is at the forefront of most of The HU’s songs. While The Hu is not the first Mongolian band to find success with music fans (I was first introdcued to Mongolian rock scene with the Mongolian folk rock band Altan Urag), they have been the most successful in crossing over to a somewhat mainstream success in the West.
There are other songs that are probably better musically structured, but I always go back to the song that introduced me to the band: Wolf Totem.
Laws of Man opens with two U.S. marshals driving through the desert of Utah. Tommy Morton (Jackson Rathbone) is young and impulsive, a Korean war vet who is quick to open fire. Frank Fenton (Jacob Keohane) is older and more cautious. He also served in the military, though his service was during World War II. Frank is haunted by flashbacks to a particularly gruesome battle. Tommy and Frank may spend most of their time wearing black suits in the desert but neither one breaks a sweat.
The year is 1963. Kennedy is in the White House. The communists are on the move. And Tommy and Frank are busy executing arrest warrants in the most desolate part of the country. An attempt to arrest Mormon cult leader Crash Mooncalf (Ricard Brake) leads to a bloody shootout that leaves Mooncalf and his followers dead. Their next assignment leads them to a small town in Nevada, where Bill Bonney (Dermot Mulroney) and his violent family is suspected of killing local ranchers and stealing their land.
From the minute that Tommy and Frank arrive in Nevada, something feels off. They stay at a cheap motel, where Tommy picks up a woman named Dinah (Ashley Gallegos) and Frank spends his time talking to a bartender named Callie (Kelly Lynn Reiter). An old rancher named Don Burgess (Forrie J. Smith) shows off his gun and says that he would rather suffer a violent death than give up his land. A traveling preacher named Cassidy Whitaker (Harvey Keitel) approaches Frank in the parking lot and starts talking about sin and redemption. Meanwhile, FBI agent Galen Armstong (Keith Carradine) appears to be curiously unconcerned with the Bonneys and their reign of violence. As for the sheriff (Graham Greene), he spending his time sitting outside a burned-out ranch house. The charred bodies of the owners are still inside, seated around the dinner table.
An attempt to arrest Bill Bonney at his home leads to a violent shootout, one in which no one is killed but Bill is still not happy about having a bunch of bullet holes in his roof. Tommy and Frank attempt to serve the arrest warrant, just to discover that it’s not going to be as easy as they thought. Frank, whose World War II flashbacks are getting more and more intense, wants to leave town. Tommy, however, is obsessed with discovering what exactly everyone is hiding.
And, through it all, people who know their history will notice that the film is taking place in November of 1963 and the 22nd is rapidly approaching….
Laws of Man gets off to a strong start but begins to meander about halfway through. Luckily, the film’s final third features a wonderfully insane twist that recaptures the viewer’s attention. No matter what you may think is going on in the film, it can’t prepare you for just how weird things eventually get. Laws of Man is an entertaining film, one that is occasionally a bit too self-consciously quirky for its own good but which ultimately works. Jackson Rathbone and Jacob Keohane both give strong performances in the lead roles and the familiar faces in the film’s supporting cast all do their best to bring the film’s often surreal world to life. Dermot Mulroney and Keith Carradine give especially strong performance while Harvey Keitel appears to be having fun as the offbeat preacher.
Laws of Man managed to truly take me by surprise. For fans of paranoid cinema, it’s definitely worth making time for.
Episode 3 opens with Shane (David Carradine) and Joey (Christopher Shea) watching as geese are flying over the ranch on their way south. Joey wonders how the geese know to go south. Shane tells him that it’s instinct, almost like they have an internal clock telling them when it’s time to go. It seems like we’re supposed to be reading something deeper into this conversation, like maybe it’s time for Shane to be heading out.
In the next scene, Shane and Marian Starett (Jill Ireland) are at Sam Grafton’s General Store. Sam (Sam Gilman) agrees to loan the Starett’s money for the purchase of some hogs. It seems that disease has struck their stock. They offer a 20 acre stand of wheat to Sam as their collateral. Unfortunately, soon after the deal is made, a herd of cattle stampede the wheat, destroying any potential crop and leaving them with no ability to purchase the hogs. Shane and the Staretts immediately suspect that Rufe Ryker (Bert Freed) is behind the stampede based on his desire to have their land at any cost. Threats are made, but Ryker denies it.
With these financial difficulties as a backdrop, a group of men show up at Sam’s saloon looking for Shane. The leader of the bunch is Johnny Wake (Don Gordon), a guy Shane has ridden with in the past. He’s come to see if he can buy Shane and his gun for $300 to help with a range war they’re involved in. Normally, Shane would be able to say no, but with the Starett’s farm in trouble, it may now be time for Shane to leave. Is Shane like one of the wild geese? Did Ryker stampede the wheat field? Will Shane go back to his old ways with Johnny Wake and the funky bunch? We’ll soon find out.
I liked this episode. Ryker was set up to be such an A-hole in the pilot, but I found myself believing him when he told Shane that he was not responsible for the stampede that ruined the Starett’s wheat. He’s still an A-hole though. I also liked that there’s some tension between Shane and Marian in this episode. She makes it clear that no matter how bad things are financially for their family, she will never accept “blood money” as help. They look at each other longingly several times over the course of the episode’s 45 minutes. Is this heading towards a big smooch at some point? I like that little Joey gets to say “I love you, Shane” as he’s leaving the farm in this episode. Finally, I like that Shane gets to actually use his gun here. I won’t spoil who it’s used on, but I will admit that it’s satisfying.
Three episodes in, and I’m really enjoying the series! I can’t wait to check out Episode 4!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.
This week, the bicycle cops continue to expect to be taken seriously.
Episode 1.2 “First Shoot”
(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on March 9th, 1996)
It’s a busy time for the bicycle cops of Santa Monica.
Elvis (David Lander), the bicycle repairman who speaks with an indecipherable accent, is paranoid because a group of Bulgarian men are wandering the beach and asking if anyone knows where they can find him. It turns out that the men are not dangerous but instead, they are the members of Bulgaria’s Olympic bicycling team. They want Elvis to be their official team repairman. However, Elvis previously had an affair with the girlfriend of one of the Olympians so he declines the offers. He prefers the glamour of California.
Meanwhile, a pickpocket is robbing people on the boardwalk. When he makes the mistake of grabbing the wallet of an old Italian man named Mr. Tataglia (Joseph Campanella), Tataglia goes to Lt. Palermo and explains that he wants the wallet back because it contains a picture of his wife. He would consider it a matter of personal respect if Palermo retrieved the wallet and he promises to repay the favor. Fortunately, the brave bicycle cops do catch the pickpocket. Mr. Tataglia watches from a distance and nods. I guess Mr. Tataglia is meant to be a mobster. Believe it or not, not all Italians are in the Mafia. I’m a fourth-Italian and I’m fairly sure that side of my family is not mob-related.
While that’s going on, Chris and Del Toro ride their bikes out to a film set and provide security for a spoiled movie star named Scott Magruder (Bojesse Christopher). Chris is the one who has a crush on Magruder but it’s Del Toro who is seduced by the prospect of fame. When Magruder gives Del Toro a line in the movie, Del Toro has visions of movie stardom in his head. But then the scene gets cut. Sorry, Del Toro, looks like you’re just going to have to spend the rest of your life riding around the beach on a Schwinn like a dumbass. Scott later gets arrested in a bar fight but it turns out it was a publicity stunt. Chris is saddened to learn that celebs aren’t as likable in real life as they are in the gossip pages. Myself, I’m just wondering why Chris has gone from being the smart and driven character that she was in the pilot to being a total airhead just one episode later.
Finally, Cory and the bike cops help the real cops bust a group of drug dealers. Cory shoots an aspiring rapper named Rasheed (Jeremiah Birkett). Rasheed claims that he didn’t have a gun. Cory is determined to prove that he did. Apparently, this was the first time that Cory ever shot anyone. Strangely, it doesn’t seem to rattle her at all that she nearly ended someone else’s life. I mean, it seems like most people would have a more emotional reaction to nearly killing a man, even if that guy was a criminal with a gun. Cory, however, is cool and calm and kind of creepy about it. It’s established that Cory comes from a family of cops so maybe that’s why the shooting doesn’t faze her.
There was a lot going on in this episode. Actually, there was probably too much going on. This is only the second episode of the show and it’s not like any of the characters have really developed much of an individual personality. Everyone is still pretty much interchangeable. As a result, none of the action in this show carried much of an emotional impact. The characters are all still strangers to me.
Maybe things will improve next week.
(Seriously, let’s hope so! I’ve got a lot of episodes to make my way through before I’m done with Pacific Blue.)
Katharine Hepburn was famous for both her relationship with Spencer Tracy and the films that she made with him. They were such frequent co-stars and so associated with each other that “Hepburn-Tracy” became a film genre in and of itself, one that promised a bit of comedy, a bit of drama, and some sharp-witted romance. That said, I have to admit that one of my favorite of Katharine Hepburn’s film is one that she made not with Spencer Tracy but instead with Fred MacMurray. Alice Adams is a Tracy-Hepburn film without Tracy.
First released in 1935 and based on a novel by Booth Tarkington (who was quite a big deal back in the day even if, like Arrowsmith‘s Sinclair Lewis, he’s somewhat forgotten today), Alice Adams stars Hepburn as the title character. Alice is the daughter of Virgil Adams (Fred Stone) and his wife, who is only referred to as being Mrs. Adams (Anne Shoemaker). Virgil is a sickly man who has worked as a clerk at a glue factory for several years. Despite living in a rather large house and having a maid named Malena (Hatti McDaniel), the Adams family is not wealthy. However, Mrs. Adams desperately wants the family to be rich and Alice carries herself with the airs of a wealthy woman, despite the fact that everyone in town knows that she’s not. Alice love her family and is loyal to them, even if her younger brother (Frank Albertson, who later played Sam “Hee Haw” Wainwright in It’s A Wonderful Life) appears to be addicted to gambling and her mother is constantly browbeating her father for not being more ambitious. Her family may embarrass her but we know she wouldn’t trade them for all the money in the world. That’s why we like Alice, even if she does sometimes act like a snob.
However, when Alice meets and falls for the wealthy Arthur Russell (Fred MacMurray), she lies about her social background and tries to present herself as being just as rich as him. When she invites Arthur and his parents to her house for a dinner party, she frantically tries to keep up the charade of being wealthy. Meanwhile, Virgil finds himself wrongly accused of stealing from his boss (Charley Grapewin) and, as a result, the family’s financial future is put in jeopardy.
Alice Adams is a mix of screwball comedy and social drama. On the one hand, Alice’s desperate attempts to throw the perfect party are frequently very funny. Katharine Hepburn was always at her best when she played a flighty character and the contrast between Alice’s sophisticated airs and Alice’s actual personality makes me laugh every time that I watch the film. At the same time, there’s a definite undercurrent of melancholy to the film. Alice and her mother are both so desperate to be rich that they’ve both been blinded to just how wonderful their lives really are. Alice may like Arthur and Arthur definitely likes Alice but one never forgets that a part of Alice’s attraction to Arthur is that Arthur can give her the life to which she aspires.
Alice Adams features one of Hepburn’s best performances and it’s a rare Hepburn performance to which anyone watching should be able to relate. At some point in our lives, we’ve all felt like Alice. We’ve all been Alice, even if we don’t want to admit it. Fred MacMurray’s natural likability serves him well as Arthur. He comes across like a genuinely nice guy and we definitely want him and Alice to end up together.
Alice Adams was nominated for Best Picture but it lost to a much bigger production, Mutiny on the Bounty. Bette Davis beat Katharine Hepburn for Best Actress. Davis later said that she felt Hepburn should have won.
We all know the story. Eddie Murphy is Axel Foley, a streetsmart detective in Detroit whose childhood friend, Mickey (James Russo), is murdered because of something that he saw while working as a security guard in Beverly Hills. Axel plays by his own rules and gets results even as he gives his boss, Inspector Todd (Gil Hill), heartburn. Todd refuses to allow Foley to investigate Mickey’s death so Axel puts in for some vacation time and catches the first plane to Beverly Hills.
In Beverly Hills, he meets up with another childhood friend, Jenny (Lisa Eilbacher). Axel thinks that Mickey’s murder was ordered by a shady businessman named Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff). The Beverly Hills Police Department orders Axel to leave Maitland alone and to return to Detroit. Axel won’t go until he gets justice for Mickey. Lt. Bogomil (Ronny Cox) assigns Taggart (John Ashton) and Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) to follow Axel in Beverly Hills.
Like 48 Hrs., the story is serious but the comedy comes from how the well-drawn characters interact with each other and from seeing how Axel reacts to the strange and wealthy world of Beverly Hills. Axel has the same reactions that we would have but, because he’s played by Eddie Murphy, he always has the perfect response to everything that he sees, whether it’s dealing with a snooty hotel clerk or with someone like Serge (Bronson Pichot), Jenny’s co-worker who speaks with an unidentifiable accent. Even more so than in 48 Hrs or Trading Places, Murphy reveals himself to be a natural star here. One reason why we like Axel is because he’s not just funny but he’s also the type of confident hero that we all wish we could be. He’s not intimidated by Beverly Hills for a second.
It’s now impossible to picture anyone else in the role of Axel Foley but, when the film’s script was first being shopped around, it was originally offered to Sylvester Stallone, who said the story had potential but was missing something. He rewrote the script and took out all of the humor, turning it into a grim and serious action film. (It is rumored that Stallone later turned his version of the script into Cobra.) Fortunately, Stallone eventually dropped out of Beverly Hills Cop so that he could co-star with Dolly Parton in Rhinestone. Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, then at the start of their producing careers, then offered the role to Eddie Murphy, who took Stallone’s script and added back all of the humor. Murphy also ended up ad-libbing several of the film’s best one-liners, improvising the hotel lobby scene and the meeting with Serge on the spot.
Beverly Hills Cop was a huge success, cementing Murphy’s status as a star and proving that Murphy could carry a movie on his own. The film still holds up, certainly better than any of the sequels that followed. Even though Murphy was clearly the main attraction, the movie also gave actors like John Ashton, Judge Reinhold, Ronny Cox, Bronson Pinchot, and even Paul Reiser a chance to shine. The villainous performances of Steven Berkoff and Jonathan Banks would serve as a model for countless bad guys through the 80s and 90s. Beverly Hills Cop is a movie that makes you happy that Sylvester Stallone didn’t have a better sense of humor.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites. Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.
Welcome to the sixth season of Fantasy Island!
Episode 6.1 “Curse of the Moreaus/My Man Friday”
(Dir by Bob Sweeney, originally aired on October 16th, 1982)
A new season has begun and the fifth season’s Julie experiment is officially over. Mr. Roarke is back and Tattoo is once again his only assistant. Julie is not only missing but she’s not even mentioned in this episode. Personally, I think Julie went to college on the mainland or maybe she married Gopher from the Love Boat. Either way, Julie is gone and Fantasy Island is back to normal.
This week’s fantasies both felt familiar. It was another haunted house fantasy and another “secretary-becomes-the-boss fantasy.” After spending nearly ten years as a secretary at an ad agency, Linda Whitney (Pamela Hensley) has watched as her stupid boss, Ed Turner (Avery Schrieber) has taken credit for all of her ideas and as everyone has gotten promoted but her. Linda wants to be an executive and fortunately, Mr. Roarke knows the president of her company. Linda has received a promotion to the executive suite. She has 48 hours to prove herself or she’ll be “demoted” back to secretary.
(Demoted is in scare quotes because, right out of college, I worked as an administrative assistant and let me just say that a good assistant is the most important person in any office.)
What’s odd about this fantasy is that Mr. Roarke arranges for Linda’s office to be transported to Fantasy Island. But all of Linda’s co-workers are transported to the Island as well. In fact, the entire building seems to now be on Fantasy Island. I mean, at this point, we all know that Mr. Roarke can pretty much do anything but even this seems a bit extreme for a fantasy that is clearly established as not being something that’s just happening in Linda’s head. Mr. Roarke is somehow transporting office buildings now. Were Linda’s co-workers given any warning before being transported to the Island?
It’s not easy being an executive. Her old boss wants her to fail. All of her former secretarial colleagues want her to fail. Can Linda get land the big account? Sure, she can. Luckily, she has a male secretary named Jack Friday (James Houghton) to help out! By the end of the episode, Linda has come to realize that she treated the handsome Jack almost as poorly and objectified Jack almost as much Ed Turner did to her. Then again, Jack does introduce himself by saying that he likes working for women because they have “better legs.” All that said, I liked the fantasy. I liked that Linda kept her promotion. I liked that she worked with Jack without falling in love with him. I like that she left the Island on her own, satisfied with her new career.
As for the other fantasy, Jack Moreau (Stuart Whitman) is haunted by nightmares in which he kills his wife, Kathy (Barbara Rush). Agck! It turns out that Moreau men are cursed. They murder their wives on their 50th birthday. Jack failed to mention this to Kathy when they got married. That’s probably grounds for divorce. Anyway, Mr. Roarke sends them to spend Jack’s birthday weekend in the Moreau plantation, where they are watched by a mysterious servant (Raymond St. Jacques) who seems to be all about driving Jack to murder his wife. Fortunately, Jack does not murder his wife. Kathy tells Jack that she loves him and the curse is broken. Hey, that was easy! That said, I enjoyed this fantasy. The Fantasy Island haunted house stories always have a lot of atmosphere to them. They’re fun to watch.
This was a good start of the season. It was nice to see Tattoo and Roarke joking again. Tattoo points out that a good boss needs good people working for him and Tattoo’s absolutely right.
Today is Faye Dunaway’s birthday and today’s song of the day is The Happening, which was the theme song of Dunaway’s first movie, 1966’s The Happening! Faye played a hippie who, with George Maharis and Michael Parks, kidnapped Anthony Quinn. The film wasn’t a hit but the song was.
Here are The Supremes with The Happening.
Hey, life, look at me I can see the reality ‘Cause when you shook me, took me out of my world I woke up Suddenly I just woke up to the happening When you find that you left the future behind ‘Cause when you got a tender love You don’t take care of Then you better beware of the happening
One day you’re up, then you turn around You find your world is tumbling down It happened to me, and it can happen to you
I was sure, I felt secure Until love took a detour Yeah, riding high on top of the world It happened, suddenly it just happened I saw my dreams fall apart When love walked away from my heart And when you lose that precious love you need To guide you Something happens inside you, the happening
Now I see life for what it is It’s not all dreams, ooh, it’s not all bliss It happened to me and it can happen to you
Once Ooh, and then it happened Ooh, and then it happened Ooh, and then it happened Ooh, and then it happened
Is it real, is it fake Is this game of life a mistake? ‘Cause when I lost the love I thought was mine For certain, suddenly I started hurting I saw the light too late When that fickle finger of fate Yeah, came and broke my pretty balloon I woke up Suddenly I just woke up to the happening
So sure, I felt secure Until love took a detour ‘Cause when you got a tender love you don’t Take care of, then you better beware of
Songwriters: Alex Mungo / David Taylor / Jasper John Nielson Stainthorpe / Mark Robert Tiplady / Rob Downes / Stephen Wren
Through the Shattered Lens 