Song of the Day: Layla (by Derek & The Dominoes)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Layla” is still one of those solos guitar players treat like a rite of passage. It’s not just the famous riff; the way Clapton and Duane Allman tear into the lead lines makes the whole first half feel like it’s permanently on the edge of falling apart, in the best way. The solo really starts to bloom once the main riff gives way to the verse lead around the 2:20 mark, with the piano-driven section kicking in later at about 3:10 on the original studio version.

A big part of why musicians and fans rate it so highly is the balance between flash and feel. The bends, slides, and quick little runs are impressive, but they always come back to short, singable phrases instead of just running scales. Allman’s slide work, especially those pushed, “beyond the fretboard” high notes, is a huge talking point among players because it sounds wild and emotional while still landing dead-on pitch.

People also love how the solo feels like one long emotional unraveling rather than a neat, contained spotlight moment. The guitar gradually hands things over to the piano section instead of ending on a standard rock climax, so the solo feels like it spills into that second movement of the song. That journey—from searing, tangled guitar lines to that almost resigned, melodic outro—is a big reason “Layla” keeps showing up on “greatest solos” lists and in conversations between working guitarists and casual fans alike.

Layla

What’ll you do when you get lonely
And nobody’s waiting by your side?
You’ve been running and hiding much too long
You know it’s just your foolish pride

Layla
You’ve got me on my knees
Layla
I’m begging, darling, please
Layla
Darling, won’t you ease my worried mind?

I tried to give you consolation
When your old man had let you down
Like a fool, I fell in love with you
You turned my whole world upside down

Layla
You’ve got me on my knees
Layla
I’m begging, darling, please
Layla
Darling, won’t you ease my worried mind?

Let’s make the best of the situation
Before I finally go insane
Please, don’t say we’ll never find a way
And tell me all my love’s in vain

Layla
You’ve got me on my knees
Layla
I’m begging, darling, please
Layla
Darling, won’t you ease my worried mind?
Layla
You’ve got me on my knees
Layla
I’m begging, darling, please
Layla
Darling, won’t you ease my worried mind?

[guitar solo]

Great Guitar Solos Series

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix for Easy A!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly watch parties.  On Twitter, I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday and I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday.  On Mastodon, I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 10 pm et, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix and celebrating the event’s 5th birthday with an encore presentation!  The movie?  2010’s Easy A!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, find Easy A on Prime, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag!  I’ll be there happily tweeting.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

See you there!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 4.23 “Heaven Nose, Mr. Smith”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week …. oh, where to begin?

Episode 4.23 “Heaven Nose, Mr. Smith”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on March 30th, 1988)

This episode was bad.

How bad?

Let me count the ways.

  1. Jonathan is driving the car, for once.  He and Mark are going to get some time off.  Suddenly, a very shrill alarm goes off.  Jonathan says that he has to go up to Heaven to meet with the never-before mentioned Sycopomp, who is in charge of handing out angel assignments.  Jonathan vanishes, leaving the car without a driver.  Mark nearly crashes before he gets control of the wheel.
  2. How have we gone for four seasons without the alarm going off earlier?
  3. Since when has Jonathan gotten assignments from anyone other than The Boss?
  4. Does Jonathan not realize Mark could have been killed as a result of him suddenly vanishing?
  5. The Sycopomp is played by Bob Hope.  Yes, the comedian Bob Hope.  Bob Hope was 85 when he appeared in this episode and, not surprisingly, he doesn’t do much.  In fact, he does so little that you have to wonder why it was necessary to have the character at all.
  6. The Sycopomp explains that the Boss has computerized Heaven — “Modern technology,” he says, with a shrug.  Why would the Boss do that since the Boss is God and God knows everything and can do anything?
  7. The computers have malfunctioned.  How could a computer built by God malfunction?
  8. As a result of the computer malfunction, an angel named Max (Bill Macy) has been assigned to help fix the marriage of Stanley (John Pleshette) and Constance (Murphy Cross).  The problem is that Max is Stanley’s deceased father and he’s always disliked Constance so, instead of helping Stanley and Constance, he’s instead trying to get Stanley to leave Constance for his childhood girlfriend, Nel (Anna Stuart).
  9. What?  Okay, Jonathan got mad and yelled at the Boss a few episodes ago and he was immediately stripped of his powers.  Yet somehow, Max is able to do a lot worse without any sort of punishment.
  10. Jonathan and Mark are sent to stop Max.  They meet Stanley and Constance.  While Constance’s main flaw is that she has a terrible hair style, Stanley is a total wimp who has never finished anything in his life.  Stanley is so unlikable that it’s hard not to feel that Constance would be better off without him.
  11. Jonathan and Max both reveal themselves to be angels to Stanley.  Yeah, Jonathan has revealed himself to be an angel in the past but it still feels like lazy writing.
  12. From out of nowhere, wimpy, middle-aged Stanley is revealed to be a fast runner.
  13. Jonathan and Max bully Stanley into entering a marathon.
  14. Stanley nearly dies during the marathon but makes it to the end.  He comes in last place but Constance doesn’t care.  What matters is that he finished something!  And it looks like the marriage has been saved but Stanley is so sweaty and out-of-breath that one still expects him to drop dead right there.
  15. Sara (Patti Karr), Max’s wife, is sent down as an angel as well.  She doesn’t accomplish anything but she’s sent down nonetheless.
  16. Why would someone as self-centered as Max be made an angel in the first place?
  17. With the assignment completed, everyone leaves.  Constance and Stanley are back together!  Except, earlier, we were told that Constance and Stanley’s marriage was in trouble because Constance wanted children and Stanley didn’t.  That storyline is never resolved.  In fact, it’s just kind of dropped.
  18. Other than Jonathan and Mark, there are no likable people in this episode.  This episode tires to mix comedy and drama and it just doesn’t work.

This just wasn’t a good episode.  The story just feels unfinished.

Next week, season 4 comes to a close!

Lisa Marie’s Oscar Predictions For November

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I guess the question right now is whether or not Wicked: For Good will receive a Best Picture nomination.  Tradition would seem to dictate that, like The Lord of the Rings films and the Dune films, Wicked: For Good would get a nomination to go along with the first part of the story.  However, the reviews of Wicked: For Good have not been particularly good.

That said, those reviews have not had much effect when it comes to the film’s box office.  And that’s why I think, despite bad reviews, Wicked: For Good will be nominated.  I don’t think it’s going be quite the Oscar powerhouse that some were expecting but it will still, at the very least, be nominated.  It’s too big to fail at this point.

Here are my review for November.  Click here for my April and May and June and July and August and September and October predictions!

Best Picture

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Jay Kelly

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Train Dreams

Wicked For Good

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another

Ryan Coogler for Sinners

Josh Safie for Marty Supreme

Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value

Chloe Zhao for Hamnet

Best Actor

Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme

George Clooney in Jay Kelly

Joel Edgerton in Train Dreams

Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon

Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent

Best Actress

Jessie Buckley in Hamnet

Cynthia Erivo in Wicked For Good

Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue

Renate Reinsve in Sentimental Valure

Amanda Seyfried in The Testament of Ann Lee

Best Supporting Actor

Benicio del Toro in One Battle After Another

Paul Mescal in Hamnet

Sean Penn in One Battle After Another

Adam Sandler in Jay Kelly

Stellan Skarsgard in Sentimental Value

Best Supporting Actress

Elle Fanning in Sentimental Value

Ariana Grande in Wicked For Good

Regina Hall in One Battle After Another

Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in Sentimental Value

Amy Madigan in Weapons

Retro Television Review: Decoy 1.13 “My Brother’s Killer”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Decoy, which aired in Syndication in 1957 and 1958.  The show can be viewed on Tubi!

Episode 1.13 “My Brother’s Killer”

(Dir by Stuart Rosenberg, originally aired on January 6th, 1958)

Anne (Barbara Barrie) goes to the police because her boyfriend, Victor Bernard (Bernard Kates), has been acting strangely and refuses to let her into his apartment.  At first, the police point out that there’s nothing they can do about this but then Casey, in what can only be described as a miraculous feat of deductive reasoning, guesses that Victor Bernard’s last name might have originally been Bernardino and he might be the brother of wanted robber, Frank Bernardino.

A look at a picture of Victor reveals that he does look a lot like Frank.  However, as Casey discovers when she goes over to Victor’s apartment, Frank is dead.  But his partner, Hal Bishop (Sy Travers), is still alive.  Hal promptly takes Casey and Victor hostage and heads for the Canadian border.

Once you accept that Casey’s miracle hunch (and, seriously, it takes some effort), this is an intense episode.  I’m not really a fan of shows in which people are held hostage — the confined narrative tends to get tedious pretty quickly — but this episode featured a typically good performance from Beverly Garland and an absolutely terrifying one from Sy Travers.  It also features what seems like a surprising amount of violence for a 1950s television show.  Imagine gathering the family in front of the television in 1958 and being immediately confronted by Sy Travers as Hal Bishop pointing a gun at an innocent man’s head and pulling the trigger.  A lot of people get shot over the course of this episode, including Hal Bishop himself.  Casey survives but there are no smiles or celebrations.  There’s just the weary look of someone who has been confronted with the worst that humanity has to offer.

I Watched Beautiful Wave (2012, Dir. by David Mueller)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

After her father dies in an accident, teenage Nicole (Aimee Teargarden) is sent to Santa Cruz for the summer by her mother.  In Santa Cruz, Nicole meets her grandmother, Sue (Patricia Richardson), for the first time.  At first, Nicole is bitter and angry and doesn’t want a thing to do with Santa Cruz or its culture of surfing.   That changes when she learns about her grandfather, Max (Lance Henriksen).  Max was a legendary surfer who went to Vietnam and never returned.  When Nicole comes across Max’s old map of surfing spots, she and her friend Kayla (Alicia Ziegler) go on a journey that leads to Nicole not only appreciating surfing but also discovering the truth about her grandfather.

Beautiful Wave is pretty predictable and, at first, Nicole is so sullen that she can sometimes be difficult to take even if she does have a good reason for not being in a cheerful mood.  I liked the idea of Nicole and Kayla going on a journey together but I didn’t like that they brought two knucklehead surfers with them.  What could have been a celebration of sisterhood instead became a film about two women having to deal with two idiots.

Beautiful Wave still won me over, with its gorgeous beach footage and its story of paying respect to the past and discovering your own roots.  Even with the two idiot surfers getting in the way, I appreciated the way the film showed the bond between Nicole and Kayla.  The ending was heartwarming, even if it did raise more questions than it answered.  There are some movies that you have to be in the right mood for and I guess my mood was the right one for Beautiful Wave.

MAN WITH A CAMERA (TV Series) – starring Charles Bronson – S1, E8: Blind Spot 

Posted on by Bradley Crain

First, I want to say Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who read this review! I’m so thankful for The Shattered Lens and the opportunity to share my love of movies, TV and pop culture with all of you! Now on with the show…

Originally airing on December 5th, 1958, “Blind Spot” opens with free-lance photographer, Mike Kovac (Charles Bronson), receiving a phone call from his best friend Terry Ross (Norman Alden), who is in Lisbon, Portugal. A very nervous Terry tells Kovac that he will be airmailing him some very important negatives for something “dynamite” that he’s working on. While they’re on the phone, an imposing man with a wide-brimmed, boater hat steps into Terry’s room and shoots him dead. Hearing the shots, Kovac is on the next plane to Lisbon to talk to the police and try to find out what happened. Apparently this is big news as the Lisbon paper even reports that Kovac is on his way. The killer, who we soon learn is named Al Alviella (Mario Alcalde), is waiting on Kovac in front of the police station and through a variety of events, is able to convince him that he was Terry’s friend and can help him in his investigation. It seems the police believe that Terry was working for an underworld espionage organization and that he got killed for it. Kovac doesn’t believe there’s any possibility that his old wartime photographer buddy could be involved in anything dirty. But with the killer Al’s false stories and leads, as well as Kovac’s discovery of Terry’s wife Renee (Chana Eden), when he didn’t even know Terry was married, Kovac begins to question how well he really knew his old friend. When the truth finally all comes to light, will Kovac be able to get out of Lisbon alive?!

After the disappointing melodrama of the previous episode, MAN WITH A CAMERA gets back on track with “Blind Spot.” First, we get a somewhat intriguing crime storyline in this episode. While we know from the beginning that Kovac’s friend was murdered and who the killer is, the story still has a few surprises up its sleeve. The final reveal and fight scenes are very well handled, with Bronson continuing to prove that no one can throw a punch quite like him. Second, the episode has an appealing theme of “friendship forged by fire,” in this case by serving together in World War II. With the circumstantial evidence mounting, Kovac begins to doubt his old friend, and it’s here that the new wife steps in and says “Terry said you were his friend… his best friend!” Kovac knows in his heart that his friend just couldn’t have done these things, no matter how bad it looks, and he keeps pushing to find out the truth. I want to have friends like that! 

Finally, “Blind Spot” contains some solid performances and an interesting guest appearance. Bronson himself is quite emotional and demonstrative in this episode. He yells at the police when they tell him they believe his old buddy is dirty. He yells at the shadowy underworld “man” who tells him that his buddy was on his payroll, and then proceeds to start punching henchmen until they get the upper hand on him. And I’ve already mentioned the coolness of the final fight scenes where he clearly does his own stunts! I also found Mario Alcalde to be charismatic as the killer Al Alviella. There’s something about him, maybe it was his voice, that kind of reminds me of Andy Garcia, an actor I really like. Alcalde appeared on most of the good TV shows of the late 50’s and 60’s, but unfortunately died at the young age of 44 in 1971. One last thing about the casting that I found interesting involves character actor Frank DeKova, who has one scene here as a shadowy, Lisbon underworld figure credited only as “The Man.” DeKova would play one scene as a shadowy underworld figure known only as “The Man” 14 years later in Bronson’s action classic THE MECHANIC! 

“Blind Spot” isn’t a perfect episode, as it does have a fairly slow build up after its entertaining opening scene. However, the excitement of the ending scenes, the more interesting storyline, and the good performances from its main players are more than enough to get a recommendation from me.