I love the Kids in the Hall and looked forward to speaking with these two guys. I wasn't disappointed.

It’s not the easiest thing to laugh and take notes and that was the primary challenge in speaking with Kevin McDonald and Scott Thompson, two of the members of the legendary comedy troupe, The Kids in the Hall.

This reporter recently conducted two separate telephone interviews with the comedians and actors and that was a blessing. If they had been on the line at the same time, I would have been unable to take clear notes.

At the same time both men were refreshingly candid about a career in show business.

McDonald and Thompson will be appearing together in a stand-up act with new material at the Hu Ke Lau in Chicopee on Oct. 7.

On the show, McDonald played a number of either crazy or naïve women as well as his unforgettable role as “King of Empty Promises,” while Thompson broke new comedy ground with his monologues as Buddy Cole.

“The Kids in the Hall” television series ran from 1988 to 1995 and has been re-run since as well as collected recently on DVD. Since then, both men have been busy with a variety of projects and appearances as well as taking part in several reunion projects with fellow “Kids” Mark McKinney, Bruce McCullough and Dave Foley, the most recent being “Death Comes to Town” in 2008.

McDonald, for instance, has made a mark as a voice actor in animated productions that include “Invader Zim,” “Lilo and Stitch” and “Catscratch.” He likes it, even though he has no creative power.

“It’s tiring,” he explained. “I scream all day because my characters always fall a lot.”

He noted with a little apprehension that he met a voice actor who “did me better than me.”

McDonald recently made the move from Los Angeles to Winnipeg, Canada, because of a new relationship. He explained he initially made the move from Canada because “I have to go out and keep reminding people about me; reminding them about the Kids in the Hall and ask them for money.”

Performing in the reunion tours with the rest of the group “seemed like old times,” he said.

The Kids in the Hall were often noted for their performance in female roles and the steps they took to look like women. Playing in drag today, means “certainly a lot more makeup,” McDonald said.

One of the aspects of “The Kids in the Hall” television show that continues to impress is the edgy innovative quality of the writing. McDonald said the members used to write the television shows by bringing ideas together to McCullough’s apartment and acting them out over and over. Since then with the advent of the personal computer, the team has broken up into smaller writing groups.

He said that the “hardest thing” the group ever wrote was their feature film “Brain Candy.”

“We couldn’t turn a page [in the script] until everyone agreed,” McDonald remembered.

He said each of the tours featured new material and that while in the writing process it seemed like “no time had passed.”

McCullough was in charge of the most recent “Kids” production, the mini-series “Death Comes to Town” and McDonald said the problem the “Kids” has always had is writing longer pieces than skits.

McDonald is new to stand-up but enjoys it and is happy to be on the road with his friend.

“Kevin and I are such good friends,” Thompson said. Neither man wanted to tour alone and the two decided to make a two-year commitment to a stand-up gig.

McDonald said that although part of his stand-up show is scripted, there is also room for improvisation. Thompson explained the two men do a separate set and then come together for a set.

If you’re hoping to see a reprise of well-known characters or skits, you won’t find them at this show, Thompson said.

He said at the beginning of the tour, they tried to do some of their well-known characters, but “we dumped them.”

“It’s easier [to do the tour] without a bag of wigs,” he said.

Thompson was one of the first openly gay performers on television and his signature character was Buddy Cole, the acerbic barfly always holding a martini and ready with a piercing remark.

Cole was Thompson’s stand-up voice for years and Thompson envisioned bringing Cole back as the star of a new show in which Buddy is undertaking a tour of Africa and the Middle East.

Thompson, along with “Kids” writer Paul Bellini, even wrote a Buddy Cole book titled “Buddy Babylon: The Autobiography of Buddy Cole.”

One can tell there is more than a little of Cole in Thompson. When I opened the interview with the admission I’m a big fan of the “Kids,” he said that would make things easier.

“The last [interviewer] was a petulant a*****e and he stayed one through the interview,” he said.

Thompson has also been busy since the “Kids” left the airwaves. He’s had prominent roles in television series such as “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Providence,” as well as other shows.

He said he is “thrilled” to be on stage and performing stand-up, nothing that much of the material is about his life.

“Stand-up is so pure,” he said. “It’s just you and a mic. You’re like a gunslinger.”

Although he improvises on stage, he sticks to the material he developed and said with a hearty laugh, “The show is filthy — really, really dirty.”

Thompson is also honest about the tour and about the nature of show business and in a moment of candor, he said he needs the money from the stand-up tour.

“I’ve not had the most illustrious post-“Kids” career,” he said. He views himself as a comic actor and writer who would be “very, very happy with different character roles.”

He noted, that unlike shows such as ”Saturday Night Live,” there was no “break-out” member of the troupe, with the possible exception of Foley, who landed the starring role on “News Radio.”

He said that McKinney and McCullough gravitated to “behind the camera.”

Thompson had been vocal in the past about the depiction of gays on television and in film and the straight actors who get the parts. He said things have “come a million miles” since he raged against how Tom Hanks played a gay man dieing of AIDS in the film “Philadelphia.”

He said he watched the sitcom “Glee” and was amazed by the gay character on it.

“I’m more philosophical about that now,” he said. “I kind of forgive.”

He said one observer wrote of “The Kids” that watching them performing one could tell that they loved one another.

“That’s the secret,” he said. “The Kids in the Hall, that’s our secret — a ‘bromance.’”

© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

With comedians, you never quite know what to expect in an interview. I've conducted conversations with comics that was all about their shtick and some who acted like they never cracked a smile.

I didn't know what to expect from Tom Green, a polarizing talent if there ever was one. I think that either you're a fan of what he is best known for– outrageous, in-your-face confrontational prank humor – or you're not. I admire the guy for staking out a piece of comic turf that relatively few have.

It turns out that Green is an articulate sincere guy, who is serious about his stand-up career.

If you think of outrageous when you think of comedian Tom Green, you would be right. Green came to prominence with a program on MTV that emphasized a willingness to do almost anything to himself or his sidekicks for laughs — or shock.

Talking to Green reveals another side to the guy willing to put live mice in his mouth for an audience’s amusement. He’s a performer who is very serious about developing his stand-up act.

Green spoke to Reminder Publications last week. He will be appearing at the Hu Ke Lau on Oct. 1 in Chicopee.

MTV picked Green up for his first show in 1999, after the performer had starred and produced his own show for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, which was based on his long-running homemade show seen on cable access.

The success of the first MTV show led to subsequent shows and specials on the network as well as a string of movies, including the infamous “Freddy Got Fingered,” which was Green directed and co-wrote.

Having started performing stand-up at age 15, Green has returned to the comedy format and has been touring for the past two years.

“I always wanted to do it again,” he said of stand-up. Green stopped performing when he started his cable access television show.

He added he enjoys the writing process of developing jokes and stories.

“The real fun I have is crafting a joke with a lot of structure, but make them look unstructured,” he explained.

Green does improvise on stage as well and uses stand-up for the expression of opinions on social issues.

After working on mainstream television and movies, Green appreciates the one-man quality of stand-up.

“What I love about stand-up is the complete freedom. There are no rules there,” he said.

“With the television shows, we were challenging ourselves to smash the rules each week into smithereens,” Green said.

Green was raised in the culture of skateboard and said that was the inspiration for the crazy physical stunts seen on his show. When asked if his show inspired MTV’s “Jackass,” he said, “People ask me that [all the] time. I tell them to drawn their own conclusion.”

While Green doesn’t think MTV copied him, he said he has been told by “Jackass” cast members such as Steve O that they were inspired by him.

Green’s success also led to movie roles in a number of films as well as his star turn in “Freddy Got Fingered,” a film that is now considered a cult film.

He said that acting in someone else’s film “takes a lot on pressure off” him and he “doesn’t necessarily have to always do everything.”

He currently has several film ideas in development, including one he calls “Insane Prank Movie.”

Green has the reputation of pushing boundaries and he did that with his Internet-based talk and variety show that ran from 2006 to this year. Green was a pioneer in using the Internet as a way to broadcast a television show, which he jokingly called “Web-o-Vision.”

He said he enjoyed the show and would do it again, despite the fact that he made just enough money on the show to cover the costs.

“It was a fairly elaborate show,” he noted, which was broadcast weeknights over Livestream and then archived.

“I’ve always been aware of technology and curious how to apply it to make funny comedy,” Green said.

He stopped the production of the show to go on tour and devote himself to stand-up. Green recently did a 12-day appearance as part of the acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which was well received.

One unidentified reviewer wrote on www.edinburghspotlight.com, “His insanely genius ‘shock humour’ is what helped Tom shoot to fame and it’s something he fortunately hasn’t let go of. Loosely based on the story of his life, Tom doesn’t hold back. He’s incredibly open and honest about elements of his past making the show much more than just hilarious antics.”

© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Flea market treasures

One of my true summer and fall pleasures is the Hadley Flea Market, an outdoor collection of dealers located on Route 47. Mary and I have been going there for years and almost always find something either for us or for a friend.

Because of the horrendous summer we've had, we took only the second trip to the flea market of the season today, but it proved to be a great haul for us. We each found books, a couple of things that will be Christmas presents and I discovered the following post cards.



This is an arcade card, a photo printed on card stock the same size as a postcard that was given our as a prize or sold at carnivals and penny arcades. This one features Tom Tyler and Frankie Darro (w) from the silent western "The Desert Pirate."



Okay Springfield residents, this is what the corner of State and Chestnut Streets looked like at the turn of the 20th Century. You see the church where the museum parking lost is now located and the former library building that was moved into the Quadrangle to allow the construction of the present central library.



This next shot is looking down Main Street. The building with the onion dome in the foreground is at the corner of Main and Bridge streets.



This "skyscraper" was the home of "Good Housekeeping" magazine and Phelps Publishing.




© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Sen. Lieberman



The tornado victim



The esteemed panel

All photos by Patrick Dobbs


Ah, so close and yet so far away.

Last week I had the honor of being part of a panel discussion at the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford, Conn. – a truly impressive interactive science museum. The museum has a new exhibit called “Nature Unleashed: Inside Natural Disasters” and the discussion was on the theme “Are We Ready for Nature Unleashed?”

I was asked because the museum personnel wanted a survivor of the tornado in the group and had been steered to the stories I’ve written by a friend of mine. I joined a panel that included the state’s deputy commissioner of emergency services and public protection, a vice president of Connecticut Light and Power, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official and the chief operating officer for the Connecticut and Rhode Island American Red Cross.

The star of the show, though, was Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

I thought it would be interesting to ask Lieberman two things: does he really support the idea of cutting Social Security in order to strengthen a defense strategy against terrorists as reported and does he agree with what Mitt Romney proposed about eliminating FEMA and allowing states to respond to disasters without federal help.

I didn’t get the opportunity to pose either question and Lieberman framed his remarks around being prepared for national security threats rather than natural events.

He did ask the audience if they would contact their members of Congress to get entitlements under control.

He offered no message about tax reform or questioning whether or not the war in Afghanistan is worth the lives and money it is costing.

The discussion was a worthy one with all of us contributing to it, but the journalist in me was yearning to be allowed to talk.

I thought it was interesting that a week later we are hit by a huge hurricane. What's next? A plague of locusts?

© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Magical Mystery Tour

This has not been a good year so far and, in response to the stress, my wife and I have made plans for a number of little trips. This weekend with the boys was one of them and included no strips clubs and very little drinking! And only one seegar! We were good geezers.

Instead it was a mini-tour of some new England oddities, stuff that fascinates me! Here in still, movie and print is some of what we experienced.




In top photo, author and researcher Loren Colen in his museum. In bottom photo, I meet Big Foot, or a reasonable facsimile. Both photos copyright by Joseph A. Citro and used by permission.

This is what I wrote about the museum. It was a pleasure to speak with Loren Coleman who is a hell of a nice guy, besides researching a topic that is a huge interest of mine.

PORTLAND, MAINE – It may take you a little more than a tank of gas to drive from Western Massachusetts to the International Museum of Cryptozoology and back, but if you are interested in topics such as Big Foot, lake monsters and unknown cats, among other creatures of controversy, the expense is well worth it.

The museum has the ultimate interactive feature: its founder Loren Coleman, a world-renowned expert on cryptozoology, is on hand most of the time to personally answer questions from visitors.

“Cryptozoology” is the study of hidden animals and the proponents of the research point out that such creatures as the giant squid, mountain gorilla and okapi were once thought of as mythical. Coleman has used the coelacanth, the living “fossil fish” long though extinct until a live specimen was caught in 1938, as the symbol of his museum.

Coleman is no wide-eyed fanatic with an aluminum foil hat. He has a graduate degree in psychiatric social work and worked in that field for years. He has written numerous books and has regularly appeared on such television shows as “In search of …” and “Monsterquest,” among many others.

Originally, the prolific author and researcher had the museum in his home, but the demand to see it was so great he decided to move it to its present location in 2009. In turn, the response has been great enough that Coleman will be moving it around the corner from its present location at 661 Congress St. to larger quarters.

The museum is an amazingly dense collection of artifacts that range from original plaster castings of Big Foot footprints to photos of lake monsters and unknown sea creatures to items depicting efforts to defraud the public such as the a reproduction of a Big Foot mask used in 2008 to earn a group of grifters money for the sale of a fake Big Foot carcass.

Where else could you see a sample of hair from a yeti?

There is an amazing undated photo of a group of Marines with a large unidentified sea creature that will leave you wondering just what it was. A digital frame displays a slide show of lake monster photos, including the famous photo of “Champ,” the lake monster of Lake Champlain.

Another digital screen runs a loop of the famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film of Big Foot striding through a California forest. Coleman dispute the more recent claims that the much-studied film was faked.

The recent report of a motorist in Connecticut killing a mountain lion – an animal long extinct from New England – is an example of a less exotic “cryptid.” Although there have been reports for years of people spotting mountain lions where they shouldn’t be, Coleman noted the official explanation was that this mountain lion shared DNA with big cats from South Dakota. Rather than say that mountain lions had returned to New England, wildlife officials claimed the animal had walked 1,500 miles.

Mountain lion generally have a range of 100 miles. To admit that mountain lions have returned would trigger their classification as an endangered species, Coleman said which could affect issues such as commercial development.

Coleman explained to Reminder Publications the museum attracts 5,000 visitors a year and that most are curious tourists who have heard about the attraction. About 30 percent are “cryptonuts,” while about 10 percent are skeptics who come to challenge Coleman.

That the museum has plenty of examples of attempted hoaxes is acknowledgment that Coleman applies great scrutiny to reports about unknown animals.

Ironically, in the age of digital technology that should make documenting sightings of unknown animals more plentiful, presenting fake photos and videos have become easier, Coleman said.

He also noted that just because a person’s cell phone has a camera doesn’t mean there would be more photos of Big Foot and big cats. Besides the fear and astonishment a sighting can inspire, it still takes time for a person to take a phone out of a pocket or purse.

But if you do get a good shot of the inexplicable, Coleman might be interested.

For more information on International Museum of Cryptozoology, go here.

Fed up

I was going to blog about Dave Sharpe. Go ahead, Google “Dave Sharpe stuntman.” He was frickin’ amazing.

But my hands have a mind of their own.

Lord, these politics is killing me. I just want to escape. Let’s watch a movie. Let’s go out to my favorite watering hole. Let’s smoke a seegar on the front stoop and talk trash.

I can’t convey the depths of my despair about the idiots who are bringing this country down the road to an even deeper depression.

I feel like I’m a broken record. I write in editorials and on Facebook that we need jobs. We need terms limits. We need to reverse the Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to be considered as “people.” Outlaw lobbyist who buy votes on behalf of their clients. We have to get out of the toxic trade agreements that are killing American manufacturing.

But instead too many people prattle on as if the rich are going to save the country. Don’t raise their taxes! They create jobs. No, they don’t. The companies they own create jobs – overseas so the rich can get even richer.

This country was built on entrepreneurs who got their hands dirty developing inventions, providing services or building something. The potential is still there, but the odds are longer and longer every day for success. It’s not government regulation. It’s the way the marketplace is controlled.

The middle class and working poor people who support the Tea Party and the Republicans think the rich will provide solutions. They might as well be sucking a gas pipe. Supporting these people will strip you of your ability for collective bargaining and tear away any sort of safety net.

Is there waste in government? Damn straight. Are both parties to blame? Absolutely. Have too many Democrats drunk that corporate Kool-Aid? I’m afraid so.

But the beauty part of all of these discussions is how the powers that be keep the groundlings bickering among themselves about stuff that scarcely matters.

Corporations with agendas own the national media and the whole left-right argument no longer applies. Corporations are essentially countries. The only political agenda is to gain power and money in the short term.

What can we do? More than what we are doing now. Pick an issue and become obsessive. Mine is keeping local. Want to build jobs? Buy local. Keep your money out of the hands of national chains as much as you can afford. We need to go back to growing as much food as we can locally and regionally. We need to look at our own area and see what is how potential for surviving on our own. We need to rebuild our economy locally as well as nationally.

We need kick the sumbitches out of office locally who aren’t being progressive, who cling to the old ways of graft and getting along.

Anyway, I need some relief. I’m not going to get it from Congress. The networks aren’t going to have the guts to tell the real story.

I’m going to watch a little Dave Sharpe. Damn, he was great in “Spy Smasher.

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© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Haven't posted in a while, so I'll do a quick one collecting the more recent DVD reviews. This summer has been so disjointed between increasing stress-filled work, the tornado and a virus that has diminished my hearing. Blogging has taken a back seat.



It’s July and at this time 35 years ago, the drive-in theaters would have been in the middle of their season. Remember The Airline, The Red Rock? The Park Way? Can you hum the jingle played on the commercial for the snack bar? Did you watch the countdown clock as it noted the time to the next feature?

Variety, the bible of show business, called them “ozoners;” parents of teens called them “passion pits;” and families on a budget saw them as an inexpensive night out for a carload of kids.

From a business point of view, drive-ins were largely owned by independent showmen who understood that to draw crowds to their theaters, they had to offer audiences something they couldn’t experience either in standard theaters or on television. It’s no wonder those owners were willing to take chances on independently made films, foreign movies and low budget productions that had the elements that would draw audiences: action, adventure, sex and horror.

These showmen knew they had to package these films creatively and did so in double-bills, triple bills and “from dawn to dusk” shows.

Home video killed these theaters as renting a movie to watch at home proved to be even cheaper than popping the family into the station wagon and heading for the drive-in. At least staying at home meant there was no fear of driving away with the speaker still on your door.

This week’s films would be highly suitable for a drive-in double bill.

REC2



Several years ago, when attending the Rock and Shock show in Worcester, “REC” was the film many people was buzzing about. The Spanish horror film was told through the camera of a video crew that was following a group of firefighters as they responded to a call in a large apartment building in Barcelona.

Inside that building, which was quickly cordoned off by the government, was a group of zombie like creatures who aggressively attacked the crew. The last image of the film showed the reporter being dragged away from the camera by a particularly awful creature.

The sequel, “REC2” has just been released on DVD and continues the story 15 minutes from the conclusion of the first film. Now, a group of SWAT police officers are told they must accompany an official from the Ministry of Health inside the building to assess the situation.

What they don’t know is the man is not a health official, but a priest and the zombies are not your garden variety walking dead, but instead are demonically possessed.

That’s the only spoiler you will get from me about this very-well directed film that punches your buttons on a variety of levels. Running around a claustrophobic dark old building is bad enough without being attacked periodically by ravenous demons, but then directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza pile on more surprises.

While not a gore film, this movie is indeed moist at times – a warning for the squeamish.

The DVD is presented in its original Spanish with well-crafted subtitles. It has an extensive “making of” feature as well.

This is a kick-ass film and has an ending that will leaving you slack jawed.

Insidious


“Insidious” is a film I wanted to see in theaters, but instead my wife and I took our goddaughter to see “Hop.” Thanks goodness for DVD!

James Wan is noted for being the director for the first “SAW” film, but that film and this one are quite far apart in theme and treatment. “Insidious” is about a family that is struggling with a tragedy: one of the children, Dalton, has fallen into a coma that baffles his doctors.

With the coma comes an increased level of what appears to be a disturbing amount of paranormal activity at the family’s home. A move to a new home does quell the aggressive sightings.

When an investigator is called in, her interpretation shocks the parents. It’s not the houses that are haunted; it’s their son.

This is not a gore film at all. Wan and writer Leigh Whannell created a realistic state of sadness and dread and their shocks are frequently as simple — but effective — as a face at a window. They prove that severed body parts are not necessary to give audiences the shivers they expect.

With several major plot twists, “Insidious” delivers the kind of thrills I certainly seek from a horror film. It would be right at home at a drive-in.

Omnibus

When I was a kid, “Omnibus” was exactly the kind of television that I avoided. Give me “The Lone Ranger” or “Soupy Sales” any day of the week.

But what do kids know?

I still like “The Lone Ranger” and “Soupy Sales” — what do adults know? — but watching the new two disc set of some of the best segments of this long-running series made me realize even more what a lazy, cheap and terrible medium mainstream television has become.

“Omnibus” ran on all three commercial networks during its long run in from 1952 to 1961. It was underwritten by the Ford Foundation, but supported with commercial advertisers. The show featured a wide selection of documentary films, performances and interviews. It was smart TV that didn’t come across as snooty.

This set features some great episodes. Host Alistair Cooke introduced and participated in many of the segments and the DVD includes Cooke interviewing author and cartoonist James Thurber. The collection also features several of the pieces focusing on classical music and conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein.

One of my favorite segments is one in which Dr. Seuss — Springfield’s own Theodor Geisel — hosts a talk about how he would design a science museum for children. The piece is funny and Geisel was charming as he spoke about a terrible science museum in “South Anthrax” that was dominated by dust and dead things. His recommendations were based on the then-new Boston Museum of Science.

I also enjoyed a filmed essay of the “night people” of New York City, the people who work at night and the people who stay out for the city’s diverse nightlife.

“Omnibus” was the type of show that in some ways was set up like a magazine. If one segment wasn’t appealing, wait a moment and another would be of interest.

Much of the show was produced live and it was broadcast before the advent of videotape. The quality of the images — taken from 16 mm films — is acceptable. The set comes with a booklet that adds additional background to the segments presented in the collection.

This is the type of television I wish we still had today.

The Girls Next Door: Season Six

Oh, where do I start? I would personally love to sit and talk with Hugh Hefner about a wide variety of topics — classic films, cartoonists, the publishing industry — but the subject of why a guy in his 80’s would want to “date” women in their 20’s wouldn’t come up — really.

The fact that Hefner is actually one of the most influential men in popular culture in the latter half of the 20th century has been over-shadowed by his successful attempt to re-energize the Playboy brand by allowing a “reality” series to portray a version of his life in which he is squiring about women young enough to be his granddaughters.

For a guy to be willing to allow his life to be shown as a freak show might be seen as sad to some and to others a testament of his willingness to promote his business.

In any event, this edition of the television series will undoubtedly not sell very well as it features a new cast of “girlfriends,” including the one who stood Hef up at the altar. Who wants to see a slow motion car wreck? We all know the tragic ending.

Who knows if there will be another series, as it will depend on the now 85 year-old publisher wants to assemble a new group of bubbleheads willing to pretend they like the old man enough to be his “girl.”

And this, my friends, is what television has become.

Just Go With It

I’m not a big fan of Adam Sandler or farces or the source material of this new romantic comedy, but I did find myself actually enjoying the comic’s new film, “Just Go With It.”

This new film directed by Sandler’s regular collaborator Dennis Duggan, has good pacing, some great gags, casting surprises and a genuine heart about it.

Sandler plays Danny, a successful and basically nice plastic surgeon, whose bad brush with marriage has caused him to use a ruse with women: he claims he is in a bad marriage. The scheme to meet and bed women has worked well for 20 years but backfired when a young woman, Palmer (played by Brooklyn Decker) he has met objects strongly to the idea that he is married.

Danny must now convince his girlfriend that he has a bad marriage and must find someone to act out that role. His long-time nurse in his practice, Katherine, played by Jennifer Aniston, reluctantly agrees to help him out. All goes smoothly until her children are accidentally mentioned and a new layer of lies must be installed.

The complications really pile up, though, on a trip to Hawaii where Danny, Katherine and her kids must all play their roles.

What makes this film so different than its source material, the 1970 comedy “Cactus Flower,” is that Danny is a decent guy and Palmer isn’t a ditz. In the original film, the Walter Matthau character was a nasty womanizer and Goldie Hawn’s character wasn’t too appealing either.

What really makes this work, though, is the chemistry between Sandler and Aniston. They actually seemed to be enjoying their roles together.

The film’s other surprise is two accomplished comic performances by Nicole Kidman and rocker Dave Matthews.

While no comic masterpiece, “Just Go With It,” is a light fun comedy, perfect for summer viewing.

Battle Los Angeles

I didn’t see the Tom Cruse remake of “The War of the Worlds” — George Pal’s original take on the H. G. Wells book still works fine for me — but this science fiction war film seems to be a great updating of the material, even if it isn’t an official remake.

Although an epic subject — the world is invaded by alien war machines and soldiers — director Jonathan Liebesman and writer Christopher Bertolini keep the focus on a small group of Marines in Los Angeles charged with a specific mission.

By keeping the story small, the audience can identify with the Marines and the group of civilians they are attempting to rescue. This approach works well and the science fiction parts of the story are made more realistic this way.

Liebesman brings the grittiness and horror of war to the film, which plays most of the time as a well-directed combat movie.

Aaron Eckhart leads an ensemble cast — that includes Longmeadow native Bridget Moynahan — as the war-hardened vet who is the sergeant in command of the Marine unit. Eckhart is an accomplished performer who seems at ease with both comic and dramatic parts.

Although this film may not present anything groundbreaking for either the war or science fiction genres, it is a piece of expertly assembled entertainment.

© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

So when does the reporter become past of the story? When a U.S. senator is touring his neighborhood and a news colleague needs a quick example of a resident hit by the tornado. As usual, the dean of Western Massachusetts reporters, I use that title with respect, did his typical fine job. Thanks Ray!

See my crushed car right here!

As some people might remember – old people – I was a radio talk show host on the late WREB in Holyoke in the pre-Limbaugh era. It was a time in the industry when local hosts prevailed and there were few national syndicated shows, if any. The dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine helped ensure the rise of the syndicated show, which was often offered free to station in exchange for advertising time, and the demise of the local host.

I loved being on the air as I am a ham at heart and would do it again if offered a job with a realistic salary. From 1982 to 1987, I earned $5 and hour as a talk host and was paid .75 for each live endorsement I did.

The salad days!

I love going to the New Media Seminar presented by the bible of the business, Talkers Magazine and bask in the glory of radio. People often wonder why I am there and I have to explain I'm a writer from the area where Talkers is published.

Every year I enjoy the Talk Rumble and for the last few years I've been posting video from it. Here is a part of this year's combat.

I shot some tornado footage and finally had the time to edit the shots together.

Back in the 1980s when I was a radio talk show host over WREB, I interviewed a fair number of celebs including Elvira Mistress of the Dark. That was the problem. I was interviewing Elvira, the fictional character rather than Cassandra Peterson the talented actress who created the role.

The result was a very awkward exchange in which I was attempting to do improv comedy with someone who had been trained at The Groundlings along side with Phil Hartman and Paul Ruebens.

At least I got a great station i.d. from her.

The interview didn't stop me, though, from enjoying her show and her two feature films.

A couple of weeks ago I received the opportunity to interview her once more and she was great. At the end of the talk, I told her about our previous conversation and she explained that at the time she wanted to do what Ruebens had been doing – stay in character (he was constantly Pee Wee Herman) during interviews and public appearances.

She has since decided to discontinue that practice and for me that's great as I'd much rather speak to Peterson.

Before "Mystery Science Theater 3000," before "Riff Tax," before "Cinema Titanic," Cassandra Peterson was making fun of movies as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

She told Reminder Publications in contrast to the members of those other comic groups she had "two big things working for me [dramatic pause] — my personality and my talent."

"I'm the queen of subtlety," she said with a laugh.

Peterson has brought her show "Movie Macabre" back to television in syndication — WTIC runs it at 2 a.m. Friday and Sundays at 1 a.m. — and two of the new shows are now on DVD.

Each DVD has a double feature. The first is "Night of the Living Dead" with "I Eat Your Skin" — which Peterson quickly noted has nothing to do with eating someone's skin — while the second has Sir Christopher Lee's last appearance as Dracula in "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" paired with "The Werewolf of Washington."

The new shows are funny and clever with Elvira not only poking fun at the movies — of the four only "Night of the Living Dead" is really any good — but also setting up comic bits.

Peterson, an actress who was a member of the famed Los Angeles-based improvisational troupe, The Groundlings, auditioned to be a local horror film host on a TV station in 1981. Her success in the regional market led to a syndication deal where "Movie Macabre" was seen all over the country.

Her character took on a life of its own and became a cottage industry inspiring two movies, many guest appearances on television shows and a lot of merchandise. Although she has done other roles than Elvira, Peterson is at peace with the character that took over her career.

"I was very angry," she said with a laugh. "I wanted to do Shakespeare in the Park."

She said she did have some reservations in the beginning, but realized as she landed roles on pilots for television shows she had a decision to make: work all season long in a show being paid the minimum union scale or work in October and make a year's worth of money.

Peterson owns the rights to the character and controls what she does with it.

"It's like running a company and I'm the CEO," she explained.

The down side is that because a show business corporation doesn't own her character, Elvira doesn't have the support that other characters receive.

Peterson said she "wades" through horror films in the public domain to select ones she thinks have potential for the show. Then she and her writing partner Ted Biaselli watch the film over and over — as many as four or five times — to come up with a theme for the Elvira segments and the "pop-ins" in which Elvira appears at the corner of the screen with a quip as the film is running.

She said her training in improvisational humor helps her with the writing.

She has made 20 shows for syndication and six more that will be DVD exclusives.

Peterson continues to make public appearances at various pop culture conventions and is impressed with the stories her fans tell her.

She recalled that people have come up to her teary-eyed because they watched her show as a child with a now departed parent. Many young women have told her they saw Elvira as a strong powerful woman and she was a role model.

Other fans have recalled how they had one of her posters up in their room.

"I think I helped them through puberty," she laughed.

Considering this has become a career for her, it is lucky for her own sanity that she is actually a horror movie fan.

"Totally, totally," she said. "I wouldn't have gone to the audition if I hadn't."

She quickly noted she likes "the old bad ones that are unintentionally funny," and isn't a fan of the new breed of slasher movies.

Peterson said that as a child her favorite film was the Vincent Price classic "House on Haunted Hill" and she loved the movies Price made with director Roger Corman based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe.

She said that while other girls were interested in playing with Barbie, she was assembling plastic monster models.

"I was a pretty odd girl, but it paid off," she said.

To learn more about her show and the DVDs, log onto elvira.com or become her friend on her Facebook page at Elvira Mistress of the Dark (Official).

© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Yes, we were lucky






Our new to us car was crushed.

It was supposed to be a typical Wednesday evening – no big deal.

I arrived home around 4:15 p.m. to prepare supper for my in-laws. We bring it to them most Wednesdays and my wife visits them while I cover the Chicopee School Committee.

While I put some meatballs in the microwave I looked out through our back porch. It was raining a bit and I wondered which, if any, of our cats were outside. I had heard there was a threat of a tornado, which I immediately discounted. The storm was intensifying and I thought, “I’ve never seen a thunderstorm like this.”

That’s because it wasn’t just a thunderstorm.

The winds quickly picked up to a level I’d only seen on televised news reports. The color of the sky was a shade of green. When a huge tree came crashing down from my neighbor’s yard, I knew this was no ordinary thunderstorm.

I watched the winds selectively snatch the cable for the television, phone and Internet from the side of the house and pull it.

I walked from the kitchen to the dining room with the porch door flapping crazily in the background. The noise of the wind was deafening. Having most of my windows open meant they were saved from being blown out by the difference in pressure, but it also meant the winds came into my house to do damage.

The winds popped out the window screens. It pushed a glass jar off the mantle, which broke on the floor. Debris from leaves to pieces of insulation in the wind was deposited almost everywhere.

The cliché of the tornado seeming to take forever to pass while in reality only lasting several minutes was true in this case. When it was over, I was in a daze.

I looked out my front door. The tree that shaded our living room had been uprooted and it laid length-wise down the top of my relatively new car. A large piece of roof decking from someone’s house was mixed in with the tree. Another tree near the driveway was snapped into two pieces, which hung together.

The debris around my car blocked Spruce Street and two other downed trees covered the intersection with Hawthorne Street.

The trees in our backyard, which provided shade for the house, were all destroyed. A spruce tree was snapped close to its base. Two maple trees were shredded. There were broken limbs, roofing material and glass everywhere.

My back porch was structurally intact but most of the windows were destroyed and part of the siding near the roof was gone. A quick look around the house showed that storm windows had been broken but the regular windows seemed OK.

I was startled to realize that our power was still on. The underground cables that bring us electricity in this neighborhood are notorious for having problems, either on the hottest night of summer or the coldest day of winter.

This time, though, the technology came through for us.

I called my wife and told her what had happened. She had watched the funnel cloud travel through the area from her office on State Street. She told her co-workers she knew it was in her neighborhood.

I went back to the front door and looked out. People are starting to come out of their homes. One woman was screaming the name of a child, whom she eventually found unharmed. Neighbors started going from home to home asking each other if they were OK.

A group of people started removing the tree limbs from my car with the intent to clear the street. Rain forced us to stop. When the rains stopped, more people with axes and chainsaws came back. I was able to move my car up onto the sidewalk and Spruce Street was now somewhat clear.

My wife and I have lived in this neighborhood since 1990 and have never seen people coming together in the fashion as they did that night.

A young woman walked down the street trembling and clearly distressed. She can’t get past the debris and we told her to walk up on our yard, but be careful of the boards with nails.

My wife, who had arrived home, talked with her. She lives in Sixteen Acres, but she has family here and she needs to check on them.

As the afternoon pushed on, we were visited by two police officers who were checking every home. They told us there was considerable destruction in the South End.

As dusk fell, the sky was still an odd color. One young woman declared breathlessly at one point she has heard another tornado is coming. I dreaded the thought of going through this a second time, fearing we wouldn’t be as lucky as we were a few hours before.

Fortunately, another tornado didn’t come; only rain fell.

I took a short walk down to Central Street and saw in the dusk homes with no roofs and another one, recently renovated, that was practically destroyed.

We sat on our front porch, watching lightening strikes in the distance and listening to a steady soundtrack of sirens and passing helicopters. People waked down the street asking us if we were OK.

Later than night, I watched the news conference on our television that still has an antenna. I turned it off near midnight but had a difficult time sleeping. A team of firefighters awoke me between 3 and 4 a.m. to make sure we were all right.

The next morning, I drove my wife to work. What should be a five-minute trip was lengthened due to the traffic. Central Street was closed and Florence Street became the detour. Our tiny Spruce Street – barely wide enough at times for two cars – was suddenly elevated as a main drag.

Being a journalist, I couldn’t stay at home. I got my notebooks and camera and set out walking. What I saw are things I’ve never seen in person before.

House after house had suffered damage from stripped off roofs to complete destruction. On Hancock Street I walked past the Elias Brookings Museum Magnet School. There were some children gathered there and a guy wearing a hardhat told them there would be no more school here.

Looking at the damages, I thought, he may be more correct than he really knows.

School personnel were going in and out of the building. Its windows were all blown out and there was one second-floor classroom that is completely open to the elements.

Across the street, one house had most of its front walk sheared off, giving it the exposed view of a dollhouse. Next door, another brick building was without its roof.

I met, by accident, Ward Three City Councilor Melvin Edwards, who lives in the neighborhood. Like me, his home suffered minimal damage, but we shared a worry for this area as a whole.

There had finally been some forward development in this working class, working poor neighborhood. In the Central Street corridor, the long abandoned Spruce Manor Nursing Home – a major problem – had been demolished and there are now new single-family homes being built.

As we walked up Central Street, the destruction was breathtaking. I now realize how incredibly lucky we were. Only a fluke in topography or barometric pressure kept the tornado from ripping apart our home as it did so many others.

I took photos and shot some video. Edwards and I went to Beech Street where nearly every home had been damaged including one that was lifted off its foundation.

The police had blocked Central Street as workers tried to deal with a brick apartment building that was crumbling apart.
CNN had a crew on Beech Street. The videographer told me no matter how many times he has seen scenes such as this one he can’t get used to it.

I also met a reporter from WCBS radio in New York City. He left the city at 5:30 a.m. that morning to report on the tornado, which has been his fourth one in the Northeast.

As the morning progressed there were a growing number of people driving and walking through the area holding video cameras and taking still photos. As I sat on my front steps I watched this conga line of gawkers as they drove slowly, many with one hand on the wheel and another aiming a video camera.

I felt like sharing a gesture with them.

I realized this was a historical event and people want to see it, but this shouldn’t be some sort of perverse tourist attraction.

Crews of workers came through the area in the afternoon sawing down fallen trees to make sure streets and fire hydrants are clear. A pick-up truck rolled through with a woman standing on the back bumper asking everyone if they needed water. Children sat in the truck bed handing out bottles.

At suppertime, my wife and I took a walk. What appeared to be insurance adjusters were walking throughout the neighborhood with clipboards and cameras.

As we headed home we saw two men trying to loosen a piece of metal siding from its perch in branches. They were successful and laughed, although looked a little sheepish when they saw us. They loaded the metal into their pickup, which was already nearly full.

Vultures, I thought. It didn’t take them long at all.

Although the process of getting a new car and the overwhelming chore of cleaning up tons of tree debris numbs us, my wife and I know we were very lucky. Many people were not. And this neighborhood may take several years to fully recover.

One more shot of our car followed by homes very close to us that were hit by the storm.

ADVENTURES IN MEDIA, EPISODE 213:

My career in media has almost always included an interactive element. I certainly had that as a radio talk show host back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and I've had that for the past 11 years working at Reminder Publications.

Even when people are calling me names and expressing pretty hateful thoughts about me, I hold close to my happy place that this is the nature of political discourse in America and really has always been so. Newspapers in the 18th and 19th century were far more harsh than even the worse Murdoch tab today – as difficult as that may be.

My mail at WREB included a cut and paste job in which my face was photocopied on top of the "Asshole of the Month" column that used to run in "Hustler." Whoever sent it put some thought in that piece of hate mail.

It's interesting how some people are reassured by hate and seek its comfort over trying to either understand some other opinion or agree that this country was founded on varying ideas.

Today, I get a fair number of letters to the editor and over the years I've learned that some people write to react to something I've written, some people simply need to voice their opinion on an issue and some just need to write – anything

The graphic above is my all time favorite letter, written to me by John Skok who used write almost every week. I'm afraid that Mr. Skok has probably passed on by now and I enjoyed his musings.

This one, though, was simply way out of the box and, yes, I printed it.

"Has anyone noticed as I have that some bathroom tissues (toilet paper rolls) are less wide than they used to be? If the companies are going to make the paper tissue less wider than now we are in big trouble. Oh, well, back to the depression era when we used crumpled newspaper ot leaves. What a way to recycle paper."

© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Here are some recent DVDs I've watched.



No One Knows About Persian Cats


One reason I love watching foreign films is to get a taste of a different culture and Iran is certainly a different culture. This film from director Bahman Ghobadi is part documentary and part fiction about the huge underground music scene in that country.

Ghobadi's film is the product of the underground. In the making-of feature, he explained that in Iran, one must obtain a permit to shoot a movie. The script and subject matter must be approved by government censors who want to make sure there is nothing that goes counter to the government or how they interpret Islam.

Tired of the bureaucracy, Ghobadi decided to shoot the film illegally and did so with a skeleton crew with their eyes peeled for the police. Despite the obstacles, the film has a very polished look and is very well edited.

The film tells the story of two musicians, Negar and Ashkan. They are trying to fill out their band, obtain a permit for concert in Tehran and then get visas and passports so they can tour Europe. Their search is a difficult one, taking them to secret rehearsal spaces and dealing with forgers to get the necessary papers.

I think they are a couple, but the film is extremely chaste. Only in the last few minutes does one get the sense they are in love.

Ghobadi filmed the performances of actual bands to present a flavor of the music scene and clearly young Iranians love all sorts of rock 'n' roll — folk rock, heavy metal and hip-hop are among the genres represented. Unfortunately, playing it can land them in jail.

The film is subtitled, although almost all of the music is sung in English, which must be the international language of rock.

Go to Netflix and check it out.



Behind the Burly Q


Director Leslie Zemeckis has produced what is clearly a labor of love. Starting in 2006, she began interviewing people who worked in burlesque — strippers, comics, straight men, theater owners and others — to capture a look at an American art form that only recently has seen a resurgence of interest.

Burlesque — a somewhat naughty combination of low humor, music and pretty unclad women — has been around in this country since the 1860s, but reached its classic form in the late 1920s and continued until the mid-1950s. Those on camera spoke fondly, most of their time on stage and generally explained how the reputation of burlesque's overt sexuality has been overstated throughout the years.

For some, burlesque was a training ground. Chris Costello, daughter of comic Lou Costello, spoke about her father's time in burlesque where he and Bud Abbott developed many of their most famous routines.

Alan Alda detailed how growing up in burlesque affected him. His father, Robert, was a singer in burlesque before he landed a movie deal at Warner Brothers and lead roles on Broadway.

Although the hazards of making a living doing something many people viewed as immoral took its toll on performers, the remarkable thing is how many of those interviewed seem to miss it.

For Springfield area residents who remember burlesque, "Behind the Burly Q" features a segment on Ann Corio, the stripper from Hartford, Conn., who used her fame to land movie roles in the 1940s.

Corio and her husband owned the Storrowton Music Theater in West Springfield for years where summer theater productions were presented, including versions of her own hit Broadway review, "This was Burlesque."

In this day of explicit entertainment, old-fashioned burlesque might seem like weak tea, but Zemeckis revealed the charms of the wink and the nod and leaving the audience wanting more.

Anything Goes


In 1954, Broadway legend Ethel Merman returned to a production that had helped make her a star 20 years previous, "Anything Goes," with songs by Cole Porter.

Merman recreated her role as brassy nightclub singer Reno Sweeney in an hour-long episode of "The Colgate Comedy Hour." The Archive of American Television has now released a DVD of the production and I'm sure Merman's fans as well as those of classic Broadway shows will have many reasons to rejoice.

There is another attraction to this long-forgotten show: Frank Sinatra.

This show was broadcast live 56 years ago and the DVD's source material is a kinescope — Merman's personal copy. Kinescopes were 16-millimeter films of live television with the image taken from a television monitor. I've seen some kinescopes where the image is soft and slightly out of focus. This image, though, is very sharp, making watching it a pleasant experience.

The DVD comes with a 20-page booklet that put the show into its historical context. Although Merman never had the kind of success in movies she had enjoyed on the stage, she was still a big draw in the mid-'50s. Sinatra, on the other hand, was in a career slump at this time.

The plot revolves around Merman's character finding her true love with Sinatra's gangster character as opposed to marrying for money and stability.

It's silly stuff — as most musical comedy is — and the bulk of the humor is carried on the capable shoulders of Bert Lahr — better known as the Cowardly Lion from "The Wizard of Oz."

What fascinated me about this show is that it's an example of what television used to be: live and willing to take chances. Theatrical productions were a key part of programming at that time.

Could you imagine a network forgoing its schedule of cheap reality shows to actually put a live theatrical event on the air today?

I'm not a big fan of either Merman or Sinatra, but these two performers seemed to enjoy what they were doing so much, their energy proved to be infectious.

For more information, log onto www.eonehomevideo.com.



Valhalla Rising

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn is an up and coming filmmaker on the international scene and other critics have praised this art house film as a cult film in the making.

I've watched a lot of cult films and my share of art house films and all I can say is that Refn's film has a long way to go to measure up to the best in either genre.

Set in 1000 A.D., the film centers on an enigmatic prisoner held by a Viking clan and used as a fighter. One Eye, as he is known, doesn't speak, but is the champion at the fights that earn his captors money.

He hates them and manages to kill all of the tribe while escaping, with the exception of a boy, who had been charged to take care of him. After his escape, One Eye and the boy join up with a group of Vikings headed to the Crusades. Instead of the Middle East, they wind up in North America, where things don't go very well.

I thought Vikings were amazing mariners — not this bunch.

Refn's film is full of long, long shots of rugged landscapes or dirty actors clad in skins reciting pithy dialogue. It's a pretentious piece of claptrap. The glacier-like pacing of the film is punctuated by scenes of graphic violence. I've not seen a disemboweling in a movie for a long time — joy!

I'm sure the film was about something and had some deep inner meaning, but it wasn't apparent to me.

Sugar Boxx

This is what "Grindhouse" — the loving and entertaining recreation of 1970s drive-in movies — has brought about. Now, people like me will have to suffer through low-budget "homages" to independent fare from 35 years ago.

I would much rather watch the originals. Thanks goodness, they are now on DVD.

This particular film tackles one of the most controversial genres: the women in prison movies. It is next to impossible to craft a type of production that would have the potential for as much exploitation as the women in prison movies.

It is also next to impossible to defend the films — which date all the way back to the 1930s, but really didn't come into their own until the 1960s.

Despite the distinct lack of political correctness, women in prison films have always found an audience and I'm sure when "Sugar Boxx" pops up at a Red Box, it will also be a high renter.

Set in 1975 — although there are no indicators of a particular time — Genevieve Anderson stars as an investigative reporter who goes undercover at a notorious women's prison. All of the plot points and cliches of the genre are trotted out.

According to the making-of feature, this is all supposed to be amusing and hip. It's not. It's cheap, style-less and tawdry.

The movie also commits the unforgivable sin of being boring.

Pass this one up.

© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Films I hate!

Recently I was speaking with my friend Amber about movies – a typical conversation between us – and I brought up how much I hate “Top Gun.”

To my surprise, since “Top Gun” is considered to be some sort of "classic,” she hated it as well. Thank you Amber!

For me, “Top Gun” is all that is wrong with big budget vapid Hollywood fare: big names, big effects and nothing else. I particularly hate the film for how the lead female character is treated in it. Kelly McGillis is a civilian instructor who risks her entire career in order to have a relationship with the arrogant fighter pilot played by Tom Cruse.

The film celebrates very bad values and is completely soulless, but it clearly has touched the 13 year-old make fantasy that lives in too many adult men.

While I am stumped when asked what is my single most favorite film, I do know what films I hate and what films I couldn’t be made to watch again. I’ve been told over and over my taste in films is not with the critical norm.

For instance, I don’t think Adam Sandler is a huge comic star. Neither is Will Ferrell. They do the same damn movie over and over. “Avatar” is an exercise in re-presenting themes common to several genres. It’s a derivative piece of crap.

I’ve never seen “Titanic” and never will. Knowing how the film ends kills any interest in it.

“Independence Day:” a big budgeted 1950s sci-fi film, again with few new ideas but a lot of noise. A mini-budgeted film, such as “Cube” has more ideas and more tension that than film.

"2001" is really really pretentious and amazingly boring and I know I'm supposed to love that film.

Most of the Robert Altman films I've sat through bored me to tears – "MASH," "Nashville" – with the one exception of his adaptation of "Popeye," which I liked alot. Of course,most Altman fans HATED "Popeye."

“Gone With the Wind” is a film I saw in the eighth grade and I’ve never seen the thing in its entirety since. Now, we 13 year-old white kids from Granby Junior Senior High School were hustled into a bus and brought to the theater to see The Great Film and not a single teacher provided any context for us nor did anyone challenge any of the racist images and scenes depicted in the film.

Besides all of that, Scarlett O’Hara is a psychopath. Why would anyone want to be with her?

“White Christmas” was a television staple around the holidays as I was growing up, but it always seemed to be so fake on so many levels. Shot on soundstages, the film lacked any touch to reality. This is another film I grew to despise.

In fact, almost anything with cloying self-conscious Danny Kaye is enough to make the skin peel off of my skin.

Here comes a shocker: I’ve never seen “Bambi” or “Dumbo.” That’s right “Mr. Animation” has never seen either film, both of which are celebrated classics. I intend to go to my grave never seeing them. Why? I’m the biggest sentimental lunkhead when it comes to movies. I’m sure I would sit and bawl when Bambi’s mom is shot or when Dumbo is teased and that kind of emotional response is not entertaining to me.

I spent several evenings with my pal Steve watching films with him that naturally he LOVED and just brought me closer to the grave. “Sante Sangre,” “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and her Lover,” Jan Svankmajer’s “Faust” and “Twin Peaks: Come Fire Walk with Me.”



Now with Steve, the more he realized I hated each film, the more pleasure he received from the film. If you asked him, those four films probably among his favorite films, I’m sure.

We remain close even those any one of the films could have torn the friendship apart!

What films are you suppose to like, but you hate?

© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Back in the days when I was editing the two animation magazines (Animato and Animation Planet) I tried to see every animated feature I possibly could.

My love of animation has not diminished, but my time that I can devote to it has decreased substantially.

On Friday, we took our 11-year-old goddaughter to a movie she requested to see, “Hop.” Now, my understanding wife told me I could be exempt from this expedition to a kid film that looked just awful to me.

Does anyone need yet another CGI animated, live action film with a hackneyed plot? The only advantage I could see to the thing was that it was NOT in 3-D.

We went to a suppertime show and the auditorium was filled with families with kids. It’s been a while since I went to a kid’s movie like this and I forgot the joy of listening to a movie over screaming babies and parents who were providing a commentary track for their kids.

Yeah, I can be a grumpy old man.

The film started and there was a moment that gave me a little hope. In the sequence depicting the many rabbits that served as Easter Bunnies through the years, there was one rabbit in armor on a horse with a lance. I want to believe that was a reference to Crusader Rabbit, the first animated series designed for television.



I had renewed hope this wouldn’t be too painful and I’m happy to say my blood sugar levels didn’t rise too much as the film unreeled.

This is one of those movies with a lot of talented performers in absolutely thankless roles that don’t allow them to do very much. Everyone needs to pay the bills, but Dennis Cole, Elizabeth Perkins and Kaley Cuoco were pretty much wasted.

The stars of the show were James Marsden on screen and Russell Brand, Hugh Laurie and Hank Azaria off screen providing the three key voices. Marsden’s character is a somewhat irritating loser, while Brand played the Easter Bunny’s son destined to take over his father’s (Laurie) job. The plot revolves around Marsden’s and Brand’s characters coming to grips with what they want to do in life.

Don’t we all.

I laughed five times in the film, which was five more times than I thought I would laugh. There was quite a product placement for Hershey/Cadbury chocolate in the film and I wondered for a while just how much I cost.

All in all, I can think of a lot of other kid’s movies that were far worse than this mostly benign film. And, most importantly our goddaughter liked it.

Here is the trailer.

©2010 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Yeah, yeah yeah: spoilers.


Two thoughts occurred to me as I watched the beautiful disaster known as “Suckerpunch.”

First was “How much CGI does a movie have to have before it’s considered as animated or mostly animated?”

The second was “How did Zack Snyder pitch this movie to the money guys?”

I was looking forward to the film, based on its rather outstanding visuals and, I must admit, its cast of beautiful women kicking ass in action sequences. I wasn’t prepared by any of the film’s marketing to expect a half-baked film with a film within a film that is ultimately some sort of statement about personal freedom.

Emily Browning plays a young woman whose loses his her mother and in the course of defending herself and her sister against the advances of an evil stepfather, kills her younger sister. She is then hustled into an insane asylum where the step-dad bribes an orderly to have her lobotomized in five days before the police can start investigating – even though the cops have started their inquiry.

It is this moment in the plot – about 15 minutes in – that for me the film fell part. The idea the step-dad could do this is completely illogical. Now in light of this film being some sort of anthem for personal freedom and choices – supposedly – I guess anything is possible, but the set-up doesn’t work.

Once inside the asylum, our heroine, dubbed “Baby Doll,” participates in a therapy involving theater. Through that she imagines she is being held captive at a combination burlesque house and brothel. While there during the course of a dance, she is transported to another fantasy dimension where she encounters Scott Glenn as some sort of wise man. He instructs her how she can escape.

So every time she dances, she and her fellow prisoners are in this fantasy dimension and Glenn’s character sends them on some sort of mission. This mission is a parallel to what is happening in the dance club and in the asylum (although we never see the action in the asylum).

These action sequences are pretty amazing to watch but they don’t carry any dramatic weight because they are a fantasy. If we were seeing the action in the asylum we could possibly feel something for the characters.

The conclusion is that Baby Doll doesn’t escape. She is lobotomized, but one of the fellow inmates escaped thanks to her efforts. That woman manages to get to the bus station where the kindly old drive – Scott Glenn – covers for her when the cops start looking.

Cue a CGI landscape with the bus rolling off and a voice-over blathering about choices and freedom.

Huh?

I would have loved to have listened to Snyder explain how he was going to make this “personal” film about personal freedom and cut a trailer that made it look like a women in prison action movie on steroids.

Or did the success of “300” and “Watchmen” – which cost $120 million to film and made $185 million world-wide in theaters, not a huge success – give the director carte blanche? “Watchmen” was essentially an expensive art house film for comic fans. “300” was a silly film whose tone reminded me of one of those men’s magazines from my youth with covers featuring half-naked women Nazis and bare-chested heroes.

In any event, any success this film will have will be from its cleverly edited trailer and not from word-of-mouth. The audience with which I saw it was pretty much glassy-eyed by the end. They clearly wondered what they had experienced and not in a good way.

On the question of animation, I’m fearful someone at the Academy of Motion Pictures Art and Sciences will be asked to start considering movies for the animation classification if the majority of the footage is created in the computer rather than the soundstage, such as this one. While I have nothing against CGI films – I re-watched “Sky Captain” recently and confirmed just how much I loved that film – I think sooner or later someone is going to look at these kind of films in a different way.

Perhaps the producers of these CGI-heavy films will take a similar stance to that of Robert Semeckis who claims his motion capture technique has no relationship to rotoscoping – right.

In any event avoid “Suckerpunch” like the plague.

© Gordon Michael Dobbs 2011

2011 Toy Fair images.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

NEW YORK — The mood was mixed at the annual American International Toy Fair — one of the world's largest trade shows for the toy industry — conducted last week at the Javitts Center.

Talk to one manufacturer and there was hope. Speak to another and there wasn't.

The sponsors of the trade show, Toy Industry Association Inc., released an analysis of the 2010 holiday shopping season by Sean McGowan, consumer leisure and lifestyle analyst of Needham & Company, LLC. He wrote in part, "I don't think that 2010 will go down as being a 'bad' year for toys, but I think it will be remembered for being no better than many other years. I would say retail toy sales will wind up being flat to slightly down for the year, which has pretty much been the standard for most of the past 10 years or so, with some exceptions (both positive and negative). Ironically, it may simply strengthen the notion that toy sales are relatively resistant to changes in the general economy — people don't spend much more on toys when times are good, and they don't spend much less when times are lean."

The irony about this year's Toy Fair is there were plenty of buyers walking the exhibit floor. New York City was not the center of a winter storm, which in past years has affected attendance.

Walking through the row of exhibits, one trend became clear: toy makers are still hesitant about investing in licensing. In a year that will see the last installment of the highly successful "Harry Potter" movie series, there were few toy tie-ins. While the upcoming "Green Lantern" movie may be getting a lot of attention, few manufacturers seemed willing to tie their profits to it.

Manufacturers seemed to stay with licenses that are considered evergreen: some Disney characters, Dr. Seuss and some superheroes.

Thomas Lonergan, executive vice president of Janlynn in Chicopee, said he was seeing customers buying non-licensed products over the same product featuring a Disney character.

Janlynn, primarily known for its line of crafts for both adults and children, has several lines of pillowcases that come imprinted with a design for children to color. Lonergan noted customers were buying the non-licensed kits over the Disney ones. The difference is in the pricing. He explained Janlynn must pay a fee to Disney for the use of the image and the non-licensed kits are less expensive.

He said the company would rather invest in their own brands and properties than those of another company.

Blocks away at the Hasbro show, the toy company's lineup reflected a similar philosophy. Although the company has licenses with Disney, Lucasfilm and Marvel Comics, the toy giant clearly has exercised caution with licensing. Hasbro is in the enviable position of companies seeking licenses from it for some of its established properties.

"Sesame Street" has been added to that short list of licenses this year.

Hasbro spokesperson Helen Van Tassel explained the company integrates many of its licenses into its existing toy properties. For example, its "Harry Potter" license is for a special version of its venerable board game, "Clue," in which the action takes place in Potter's world. Hasbro also has a version of "Operation," in which the long-suffering patient is now "Mater" from Pixar's "Cars."

Local companies at the show


Van Tassel said the sales for Hasbro's games division located in East Longmeadow were not outstanding, but the company hoped the new lineup of games and toys would do better this year.

Hasbro has long been positioning itself as an entertainment company with the development of animated television series and its successful "Transformers" movie series. Van Tassel said the company bought the Discovery Kids cable network to create their own television channel, "The Hub."

On the cable outlet, Hasbro has a variety of family programming, including game shows based on their classic board games.

"Transformers" is a huge franchise for the company, with the third "Transformer" feature film, "Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon," to be released this summer in 3-D. One of the toys Hasbro will be releasing is a "Transformers" mask with built-in 3-D glasses.

Hasbro is introducing a new construction aimed at the LEGO market, KRE-O, which will have 12 sets all with a "Transformer" theme.

Its "Sesame Street" lineup includes a toy that will appeal to the "Tickle Me Elmo" audience — "Let's Rock, Elmo." "Let's Rock Elmo" features an interactive, drum-playing Elmo that encourages a child to play along with it on a guitar and organ.

Hasbro has substantial licenses with two Marvel Comics movies, "Captain America" and "Thor." Toys range from two different sizes of "Thor" hammers as well as a "Captain America" shield that shoots Nerf discs.

"Star Wars" fans can rejoice with the introduction of a highly-realistic light saber designed for play that will retail at $34.99.

Hasbro's "Jigazo" should appeal to fans of both puzzles and art. The Japanese import can take any digital photo and turn it into a portrait puzzle. The pieces can be used over and over.

If that wasn't cutting edge enough, the company will be releasing two versions of famous games in its new "Live" format. "Monopoly Live" and "Battleship Live" look at first like fairly conventional board games, except each have a computer with an infrared "eye" in the center of the board. This computer "sees" the position of the players' tokens and directs the play of the game.

Van Tassel said each version allows for immediate game play without the necessity of reading and learning any rules.

Another variant on a traditional favorite is "Scrabble Alphabet Scoop," designed for young readers. Scrabble tiles are placed in a "soup bowl" and players must use spoons to retrieve the letters they need to spell out words on their game card.

Keeping with the ongoing trend of emphasizing fitness, Hasbro will be performing a "bake over" on "Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head," the first redesign since 1983. The new model will be slimmer and trimmer.

At Janlynn, Lonergan said the company was receiving substantial orders on a new line of costume jewelry aimed at girls from ages 8 through 13. "Charmtastic" is a charm bracelet system that allows girls to build their own customized charm bracelet.

Sales have been significant this year and Lonergan said the company did more business on the first day of this year's trade show that it did during the last two annual shows.

The company was also seeing interest expressed in its "Make It Cool" brand of craft kits for children.

Joel Nulman of Fantazia Marketing of Chicopee didn't have the same perception of the show as Lonergan. His company sells a line of oversized plastic items from a three-foot tall box of crayons that serves as a bank to a two-foot tall baby bottle lamp.

His new item at the show is "Acrobat Man," a bucket of plastic figures that can be linked together like a construction toy.

Although he spoke well of the traffic at the show, Nulman said, "I think people are very cautious."

He said to describe the economy as still in recovery mode would be "an understatement."

The cool and crazy


Perhaps the most fun aspect of Toy Fair is simply finding new items that amaze, horrify or sometimes confound.

As someone who keeps a "Slinky" on his desk as a tension reliever, I have to admit "Nanodots" (www.thenanodots.com) is a welcome addition — as long as I don't let them near anything that can be affected by magnets. "Nanodots" are incredibly powerful, small magnets that can be placed in a wide variety of geometric shapes. Because of their size and the health hazard they can pose if swallowed, they are not a toy for kids; but for adults, playing with them can be quite addicting.

William Mark Corporation manufactures a variety of toys that fly and the company's latest drew quite a crowd at the show. "Air Swimmers" (www.airswimmers.com) are large helium balloon fish that fly through the air like a blimp, guided with a remote control.

"Skylanders Spyro's Adventure" (www.skylandersgame.com) is a video game that works with the Nintendo Wii system and features over 30 characters in toy form that can enter or exit a game when they are placed on a "portal" connected wirelessly through the Wii. The company believes the video adventures game genre will be changed by the concept of players using actual action figures. These figures remember alterations made to the virtual character.

Heroes in Action Toys have produced a group of action figures that merge popular presidents with classic movie monsters. Richard Nixon is the "Monster from the Watergate Lagoon," while Bill Clinton is a werewolf, John F. Kennedy is the "Phantom of the White House," Abraham Lincoln is the Frankenstein monster, George Bush is a zombie and Barack Obama is a vampire.

Perhaps more disturbing are the "Throttle Necks," (www.throttlenecks.com), plastic figures of Obama, Sarah Palin and Rep. Nancy Pelosi that a person can actually strangle and hear them gurgle.

At the Toy Fair, one frequently finds an independent who, against the odds, is finding recognition and making sales. Ernest Autumn Van Den Heuvel is one of those people. A heavy equipment operator, he has developed the "HandTrux" (www.handtruxtoys.com), a bright yellow plastic toy that fits over a child's arm and imitates the digging power of a backhoe.

Van Den Heuvel, an animated guy, said he had been making sales and attracting the attention of so many buyers, he had run out of business cards and sales literature.

"This is an outstanding red letter day," he said with a wide smile.

© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs