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.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
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
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
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
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
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
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
Sunday, May 01, 2011
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
Sunday, April 03, 2011
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
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
Sunday, March 27, 2011
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
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
2011 Toy Fair images.
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
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
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
The pages reproduced above are from the 1901 book "The Complete Tribune Primer" by Eugene Field with drawings by Frederick Opper. I picked it up from a used book dealer because of the Opper cartoons.
Opper is one of the true pioneers of newspaper comic strips. He is known for his "Happy Hooligan" strip as well as " And her Name was Maude" – about an independent donkey – and "Alphonse and Gaston" – the eternally polite Frenchmen.
I really like his cartoony style and the illustrations in this book are a joy.
I had never heard much about Field, here is a complete bio of him but he is from the school of journalism in the 19th century that allowed people to be writers of both hard news and fiction, not unlike Ambrose Bierce, one of my literary heroes.
It should be noted that Field and his brother were raised after the death of his mother in Amherst.
Some of his "primers" still work today, such as "The Bottle." (capitalization is the author's)
"This is a Bottle. What is in the Bottler? Very bad Whiskey. It has been Sent to the Local Editor. He did not Buy it. If he had Bought it the Whiskey would have been Poorer than it is. Little Children, you Must never Drink Bad Whiskey."
Ain't that the truth!
© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
Monday, January 31, 2011
John Kawie
I may have written before that journalists seldom have the opportunity to do anything that approaches a long-form interview. Usually the first question that I ask once I've been told I have an interview scheduled is "how much time do I have?"
It was a refreshing change of pace to sit down with John Kawie and his wife to discuss his DVD without a publicist setting a time limit. Kawie is a very likable guy – heck, he's a Springfield boy who remembers the Wicky Wacky Cloud Club, for goodness sake! – and I could have spoken with him much longer than I did.
It made me feel good. I hope he liked the story I wrote.
Sometimes cliches aren't trite and John Kawie has indeed made lemonade out of the lemons life has handed to him.
In 1997, the Springfield native had successfully made a difficult career transition. After almost a decade of hard work, he had left his role as a business owner and become an in-demand stand-up comedian.
A week after his wedding, Kawie faced the aftermath of something he never anticipated: a devastating stroke at age 47.
Kawie's journey through his recovery is presented in his one-man show, "Brain Freeze," which has just been released on DVD.
Kawie spoke to Reminder Publications during a visit to the area. Although a long time resident of New York City, Kawie, who grew up in the Hungry Hill section of Springfield, has family and friends here.
He recalled fondly going to Springfield Indians matches at the Coliseum and Giants games at Pynchon Park while growing up.
Even though he successfully headed the business founded by his father, Kawie said, "My first love was to make people laugh." When someone approached him to buy the business, Kawie saw this as his opportunity to follow his dream.
He took a course on writing humor, which culminated with a performance at a Connecticut comedy club.
"I had a great set and I loved it," he recalled.
He was hooked.
"If you follow what your heart tells you to, doors will open," he asserted.
He decided to move to New York City and pursue a career as a comic.
"I was broke, but I was working," he said.
Kawie explained that in the late 1980s during the boom of stand-up comedy, there were a lot of clubs in New York City, but not all of them paid. Many club owners considered giving stage time to a new comic to be enough compensation.
Kawie noted with appreciation the owner of the Improvisation as someone who would regularly give the comics at least a token payment that could pay for carfare.
To help make ends meet, Kawie landed a job at a Gap store as a clerk, while seeking time on stages at clubs. He said there is a difference between staying in New York City to work as opposed to touring. Comics watch each other in New York City and tend to write better. On the road, he explained, comics learn they can be sloppier with their performances.
Kawie was seen as an up and comer, opening for comics such as Dennis Miller and Howie Mandel. He had his own special on Comedy Central and he developed a unique niche as the country's first Arab-American comedian.
He became a writer and performer on "The David Brenner Radio Show" and wrote for Bill Maher's monologue on Comedy Central's "Politically Incorrect." He also was a substitute host for Dick Cavett on his radio talk show and he wrote for Dennis Miller's show on HBO.
He recalled with a smile fellow comics, such as Dave Attell and Sam Kinison, who encouraged him.
"Life was good," he said.
One week after his own wedding, he and his wife Marilyn attended the wedding of a friend. The next day, Kawie didn't feel just right, but he chalked it up to a mild hangover. When he realized that his condition far exceeded his initial reaction, he was taken to a hospital.
He had had a stroke and he thought at the time he would be released the next day.
Instead, he spent months in hospitals and rehabilitation clinics regaining his abilities. He admitted, "My memory was shot."
His left arm was paralyzed and he had difficulty walking.
His outpatient therapy years were "the dark period of my life," he said.
Participating in group therapy, Kawie began to tell a joke each session as a way to work his way back. He started writing again and thought about a project.
Kawie's comic idol was Richard Pryor. He explained there are several schools of comedy. Comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld offer observations, while someone such as Pryor deal in telling truths about themselves and society.
Before his stroke, Kawie had become interested in the monologues of Spalding Grey and Eric Bogosian and Kawie began to think about turning his experience into a one-man play.
His acting coach helped him for six months, writing and honing what would become "Brain Freeze." He had trouble memorizing his work and would listen to a recording of it over and over to learn it. Memorization didn't help the comic timing he needed and he had to learn where to pause.
He said that those around him always encouraged his effort.
"I always got green lights. "I didn't get red light," he said.
Kawie started performing his show at hospitals and rehab centers to others facing the same challenges he faced. The reaction was so positive, he started performing in "off off Broadway" theaters.
He expanded his writing activities by writing a column, "Life at the Curb," for the American Heart Association's magazine, "Stroke Connection."
A performance in 2003 at the New York Fringe Festival led to an award, "Best Solo Show," and to glowing reviews in the New York Times and the New York Daily News.
He acquired an agent Spalding Grey's wife and took the show all over the nation.
In the show, Kawie speaks about dealing with the aftermath of his stroke from using a plethora of Post-it Notes to trying to button his overcoat with one hand.
While at his 40th high school reunion at Williston Academy, Kawie met a fellow alumnus who heads PARMA Recordings.
"That's how the DVD was born," he said,
Kawie said the release of the DVD will "get it out there to rehab centers I couldn't go to."
He intends to continue touring with the show, but will do far less traveling. He is now thinking about a book on his experiences.
He admitted that he "sometimes" misses performing stand-up, but sometimes not."
"It's a grueling lifestyle," he said.
He wouldn't want to be a young comic starting these days. He noted that some club owners are concerned about political correctness in comedy.
"It's better when you let the comic go, let him fly," he said.
To learn more about "Brain Freeze," visit its Facebook page or go to here.
© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Ben Bailey of "Cash Cab"
Mary, Mark and I saw Bailey perform at the Hu Ke Lau on Friday night and he was excellent. Although some of his material was "blue" – I love that term – most of it was clever observational humor. He's a funny guy and it's a shame the "Cash Cab" format doesn't allow him to showcase his consiberable comic talent more.
Here is my interview piece with him. I enjoyed speaking with him.
Think driving a cab in New York City is challenge? Imagine conducting a television game show while negotiating Manhattan traffic.
That's the job of Ben Bailey, the stand-up comic and actor who is the host and star of "Cash Cab," the Emmy-awarding winning game show.
Bailey, who won an Emmy himself for his hosting duties, is appearing at the Hu Ke Lau on Jan. 28 for one show.
Speaking to Reminder Publications, Bailey readily admitted that driving a cab and hosting a television show was "tough at the beginning." He started the "Cash Cab" job in 2005.
"It's still tough," he said. He added that as he doesn't concentrate on any one of his tasks listening to the producers of the show feed him questions to ask through an earpiece, driving the cab and interacting with his guests — he does alright.
"It's sort of a Zen thing," he said.
Bailey has never had an accident, despite his multi-tasking.
In "Cash Cab," unsuspecting people seeking a cab get into Bailey's taxi, only to find out they are on a quiz show and their ride, if their answers are right, could pay off in hundreds of dollars.
If their answers are wrong all it takes are three bad ones — they are back out on the street.
Bailey said the show seemed "pretty ridiculous on paper" when he auditioned for it. Originally, the producers had thought a New York cabbie would be the host, but soon realized they needed someone who could improvise and had a comic background.
He had an edge over some of the other comics, as he had already spent years as a limousine and delivery driver. To get the job, though, he had to pass the test for his taxi license, which Bailey took quite seriously.
"I was studying for a couple of weeks," he said. "I had a lot in the balance."
He was offered a pre-test, which if he passed would allow him to skip the class for the test and he had to answer the question of which bridge he would use to drive someone from 161st Street to Yankee Stadium.
The question stumped him and he was shocked to see a list of bridges in the city with names he didn't recognize.
Bailey fell into stand-up in an accidental way. He described himself as a "wise ass" in school, who enjoyed making his fellow students laugh. He aspired to be an actor and moved to California to pursue a career.
He worked in hotels while trying to get a break and was talking to a fellow New Jersey transplant in the parking lot of the Comedy Store one night in Los Angeles where he was offered a job answering the club's phones.
He watched some of the comics from the wings, thinking he could be funnier and after telling stories to other comics while they waited to perform, landed a spot on a show.
He also acted in television series such as "Law and Order Special Victim's Unit," "One Life to Live" and "Hope and Faith."
When asked which performing venue he prefers, he replied, "None of them are easy. All of them are difficult."
He added, "All are very hard, but I get a lot of enjoyment out of all of them. Stand-up is great because you get immediate feedback. The show is great because you can meet people."
Bailey has thought about starring in a sit-com and has developed several ideas. "I've been too busy to pitch them," he said.
He added the television networks really seek out reality show concepts because they are less expensive to produce and he isn't interested in doing that kind of show.
He has a busy tour schedule as a stand-up and he said with a laugh of his writing process, "For me, the jokes just fall out of the sky."
When an idea hits him, he hurriedly writes it down.
"I grab a napkin, toilet paper, a paper towel," he said.
Naturally the ideas don't' spring forth finished and Bailey said that writing and perfecting new additions to his act "is as much fun as performance,"
His comedic style is to tell stories with multiple punch lines along the way to the conclusion.
"I milk it," he said.
He clears the schedule for "Cash Cab," though. When the producers call, Bailey sets aside eight weeks once or twice a year to shoot footage for what will become 40 new shows.
Despite the show's popularity at first people would ask, "What on earth is this?" Bailey recalled not everybody wants to play. He said that on one day's shooting, it took six stops before he could find someone to play the game.
© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
Mary, Mark and I saw Bailey perform at the Hu Ke Lau on Friday night and he was excellent. Although some of his material was "blue" – I love that term – most of it was clever observational humor. He's a funny guy and it's a shame the "Cash Cab" format doesn't allow him to showcase his consiberable comic talent more.
Here is my interview piece with him. I enjoyed speaking with him.
Think driving a cab in New York City is challenge? Imagine conducting a television game show while negotiating Manhattan traffic.
That's the job of Ben Bailey, the stand-up comic and actor who is the host and star of "Cash Cab," the Emmy-awarding winning game show.
Bailey, who won an Emmy himself for his hosting duties, is appearing at the Hu Ke Lau on Jan. 28 for one show.
Speaking to Reminder Publications, Bailey readily admitted that driving a cab and hosting a television show was "tough at the beginning." He started the "Cash Cab" job in 2005.
"It's still tough," he said. He added that as he doesn't concentrate on any one of his tasks listening to the producers of the show feed him questions to ask through an earpiece, driving the cab and interacting with his guests — he does alright.
"It's sort of a Zen thing," he said.
Bailey has never had an accident, despite his multi-tasking.
In "Cash Cab," unsuspecting people seeking a cab get into Bailey's taxi, only to find out they are on a quiz show and their ride, if their answers are right, could pay off in hundreds of dollars.
If their answers are wrong all it takes are three bad ones — they are back out on the street.
Bailey said the show seemed "pretty ridiculous on paper" when he auditioned for it. Originally, the producers had thought a New York cabbie would be the host, but soon realized they needed someone who could improvise and had a comic background.
He had an edge over some of the other comics, as he had already spent years as a limousine and delivery driver. To get the job, though, he had to pass the test for his taxi license, which Bailey took quite seriously.
"I was studying for a couple of weeks," he said. "I had a lot in the balance."
He was offered a pre-test, which if he passed would allow him to skip the class for the test and he had to answer the question of which bridge he would use to drive someone from 161st Street to Yankee Stadium.
The question stumped him and he was shocked to see a list of bridges in the city with names he didn't recognize.
Bailey fell into stand-up in an accidental way. He described himself as a "wise ass" in school, who enjoyed making his fellow students laugh. He aspired to be an actor and moved to California to pursue a career.
He worked in hotels while trying to get a break and was talking to a fellow New Jersey transplant in the parking lot of the Comedy Store one night in Los Angeles where he was offered a job answering the club's phones.
He watched some of the comics from the wings, thinking he could be funnier and after telling stories to other comics while they waited to perform, landed a spot on a show.
He also acted in television series such as "Law and Order Special Victim's Unit," "One Life to Live" and "Hope and Faith."
When asked which performing venue he prefers, he replied, "None of them are easy. All of them are difficult."
He added, "All are very hard, but I get a lot of enjoyment out of all of them. Stand-up is great because you get immediate feedback. The show is great because you can meet people."
Bailey has thought about starring in a sit-com and has developed several ideas. "I've been too busy to pitch them," he said.
He added the television networks really seek out reality show concepts because they are less expensive to produce and he isn't interested in doing that kind of show.
He has a busy tour schedule as a stand-up and he said with a laugh of his writing process, "For me, the jokes just fall out of the sky."
When an idea hits him, he hurriedly writes it down.
"I grab a napkin, toilet paper, a paper towel," he said.
Naturally the ideas don't' spring forth finished and Bailey said that writing and perfecting new additions to his act "is as much fun as performance,"
His comedic style is to tell stories with multiple punch lines along the way to the conclusion.
"I milk it," he said.
He clears the schedule for "Cash Cab," though. When the producers call, Bailey sets aside eight weeks once or twice a year to shoot footage for what will become 40 new shows.
Despite the show's popularity at first people would ask, "What on earth is this?" Bailey recalled not everybody wants to play. He said that on one day's shooting, it took six stops before he could find someone to play the game.
© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
Monday, January 24, 2011
Commentary: 1/21 from WGBY on Vimeo.
My media week.
I work at a newspaper all week and then did the following:
Here is my first and hopefully not last commentary for WGBY's new program "Connecting Point." I think for a old, fat grey rumpled guy I don't look too bad – I look like a newspaper editor minu a cigar clenched in my teeth – and I think I got used to the teleprompter enough to appear semi-relaxed.
Is my hair too short?I really look like my dad more and more.
The crew at the station made it very easy – good guys all of them.
I like TV enough as a medium, but I'm not good expressing a lot of emotions through my face. I can't smile on cue. After years on radio, though, I can emphasize the emotions I need through my voice.
I've never appeared on any TV show – I used to be a guest on WGBY's show "water cooler" back a few years ago – with an audience and have wondered if that would relax me a bit more.
Anyway, it was fun.
On Saturday, the fun continued with an appearance on my friend Mino Giliberti's radio show. Mino is the owner of Buon Appetito in Westfield, perhaps my most favorite restuarant on the planet.
Not that anybody asked, but here's the fat man's line-up of favorites: Buon Appetito; Peacock Chinese in Springfield; Theordore's in Springfield, Bub's Barbeque in Sunderland; City Jake's Cafe in Springfield; and Chef Wayne's in Springfield.
Anyway, it was a 2/3 WREB reunion as Jonathan Evans is Mino's co-host. Jonathna was the mid-day host on WREB and I was the p.m. drive-time host. Ron Chimelis was missing, but then Ron doesn't like to admit he was a radio talks show host!
My apperance marked the first time since 1987 that Jonathan and I have been on the same broadcast together.
So I intervierwed Mino a bit and he interviewed me more and the hour flew by quickly as good radio always does.
So print, radio and TV all in one week – a good week.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
My buddy Steve has sworn off eBay, but before he took the oath, he bought me something I had been eyeing: a fumetti starring Tom Tyler.
I didn't bid on it as its cover featured an action shot with Richard Arlen and I've discovered over the years that many people mix up the various B-Westerns stars. It's easy enough to do as they'll all a bunch of white guys in cowboy hats.
Although the term "fumetti" is used in Italy to describe comics in general, we use it specifically for stories told with photos rather than drawings.
So this publication, "Photo Adventures," is in French and was produced in 1961. It reproduces the 1935 Tyler Western "Rio Rattler."
Eddie Gribbon, a comic actor who started with Mack Sennett, plays Tom's sidekick in the film.
The film itself was pretty standard for a Tyler Western cranked out like so many sausages by director Bernard B. Ray. Tyler was under contract at this time with Reliable Pictures, a company that used the same sets and supporting actors over and over. Although Tom clearly tries his best in this film, it's interesting to see him rise to the acting challenge as the good bad guy in "Powdersmoke Range," made the same year at RKO.
What always fascinates me is how pop culture is recycled. Here is a 1935 creaky low budget American B Western turned into a French language fumetti in 1961. Although it's been made clear to me the reach B- Westerns and serials have had is surprising – consider the 1970s Turkish remakes of Republic serials from the 1940s – I'm always amazed by artifacts such as this one.
© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
Monday, January 10, 2011
I have a feeling some of my conservative friends won't like the following very much, but it's been on my mind.
I don't know about your family and friends, but the following recently happened in our circle.
The son of a very close friend a young man not yet 30 is fighting cancer. He had an operation and chemotherapy, went into remission and the cancer returned. He has had additional chemotherapy and appears to be on the
road to recovery, but his doctors wanted to run a PT Scan. This test would confirm their results.
His insurance company said no.
An elderly relative of ours is battling a number of health related issues. Her doctor sent her to a specialized hospital ward for 10 days for necessary observation.
Her insurance company said no. It cut her stay to five days.
She has had asthma for years. The insurance company told her it would longer accept the prescription for the inhaler she has long used under the co-pay agreement.
When I witness for myself these kinds of incidents, I bristle at the notion that many people repeat like parrots, "We have the best healthcare system in the world."
They then usually bleat out some talking points about socialized medicine, Obamacare and death panels.
There is little wrong with our healthcare providers. There are great doctors, technicians, nurses and therapists working in organizations committed to providing the best care possible in this nation.
I have no beef with them. It¹s not a healthcare problem. It¹s a health insurance problem.
"Death panels?" While the Obama legislation had nothing to do about deciding who lives or dies – it's a great lie as counseling someone over end of life decisions is not euthanasia we have plenty of people who make decisions on a daily basis that can affect the quality and length of a person's life.
They are called insurance companies and you pay for the privilege.
The political theater over repealing the recently passed health insurance legislation will probably amount to just more time wasted and more talking heads spitting out the same old rhetoric.
I wonder if any of these critics would like to sit down with the people I know and honestly see what their lives are like as they cope with illnesses that are not of their making.
Perhaps if they had a similar situation in their family, they would think differently. I'd like to think so.
© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
I don't know about your family and friends, but the following recently happened in our circle.
The son of a very close friend a young man not yet 30 is fighting cancer. He had an operation and chemotherapy, went into remission and the cancer returned. He has had additional chemotherapy and appears to be on the
road to recovery, but his doctors wanted to run a PT Scan. This test would confirm their results.
His insurance company said no.
An elderly relative of ours is battling a number of health related issues. Her doctor sent her to a specialized hospital ward for 10 days for necessary observation.
Her insurance company said no. It cut her stay to five days.
She has had asthma for years. The insurance company told her it would longer accept the prescription for the inhaler she has long used under the co-pay agreement.
When I witness for myself these kinds of incidents, I bristle at the notion that many people repeat like parrots, "We have the best healthcare system in the world."
They then usually bleat out some talking points about socialized medicine, Obamacare and death panels.
There is little wrong with our healthcare providers. There are great doctors, technicians, nurses and therapists working in organizations committed to providing the best care possible in this nation.
I have no beef with them. It¹s not a healthcare problem. It¹s a health insurance problem.
"Death panels?" While the Obama legislation had nothing to do about deciding who lives or dies – it's a great lie as counseling someone over end of life decisions is not euthanasia we have plenty of people who make decisions on a daily basis that can affect the quality and length of a person's life.
They are called insurance companies and you pay for the privilege.
The political theater over repealing the recently passed health insurance legislation will probably amount to just more time wasted and more talking heads spitting out the same old rhetoric.
I wonder if any of these critics would like to sit down with the people I know and honestly see what their lives are like as they cope with illnesses that are not of their making.
Perhaps if they had a similar situation in their family, they would think differently. I'd like to think so.
© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
Thursday, January 06, 2011
File this under "unbelievable."
Since "Machete" was released on DVD this week, I thought sharing this commentary from Alex Jones was appropriate. I think Jones has made some very interesting points about various conspiracies but I can't believe Jones is taking a parody/homage to exploitation films as the Latino version of "Birth of a Nation."
He better not watch any vintage black exploitation from the 1970s if he is easily upset by the message there are bad white people.
Wow.
I wonder if he ever actually watched the completed film.
Since "Machete" was released on DVD this week, I thought sharing this commentary from Alex Jones was appropriate. I think Jones has made some very interesting points about various conspiracies but I can't believe Jones is taking a parody/homage to exploitation films as the Latino version of "Birth of a Nation."
He better not watch any vintage black exploitation from the 1970s if he is easily upset by the message there are bad white people.
Wow.
I wonder if he ever actually watched the completed film.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Some recent DVD reviews:
Resident Evil: Afterlife
As a horror film fan, I suppose some people would be surprised that I hadn't seen any of the three preceding "Resident Evil" films, but I must admit a certain prejudice toward movies based on video games. Those I've seen haven't been very good.
"Resident Evil," though, has been a very successful movie franchise and stars an actress I admire — Milla Jovovich.
If you're like me and are coming to the franchise late, you need to know that Jovovich plays Alice, a woman who has been turned into a superhero due to the experimentation of the Umbrella Corporation, the most sinister of companies. This same group has developed a virus that has turned most of the population into flesh-eating zombies and Alice fights for her survival from both the zombies and the corporation.
In this fourth film, shot in 3-D but released flat on DVD, Alice has had her super powers neutralized by one of the Umbrella Corporation's men, but escapes to try to find "Arcadia," a place where other survivors have gathered to form a zombie-free community. She finds her friend Claire (Ali Larter) along the way as well as a group of people in Los Angeles who have successfully escaped the zombies by making a fortress out of the city's jail.
When they realize Arcadia is a ship docked in the harbor, they try to make their way to it.
Now, what interested me about this film is Jovovich, as she is undoubtedly one of the few female action stars working today. She does a great job with the material, which is pretty thin.
That's the problem with the film. The plot felt stretched and recycled.
Writer and director Paul W.S. Anderson and Jovovich's husband — is not the most precise of directors. There are story elements that are introduced, such as a giant, axe-welding zombie who acts quite differently for no apparent reason that the other zombies, that are pretty inexplicable.
While the "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" films were treated as standalone films with somewhat open endings, this film doesn't have a plot rich enough to use that story-telling technique successfully. The ending comes across as a cheap device.
Despite my crush on Jovovich, I can't recommend this sloppy, tired film.
Crazy Mama/ The Lady in Red
Shout Factory is now releasing a new series of DVDs featuring many of the films produced by Roger Corman during the 1970s and into the early '80s. For geezers such as me, these DVDs will be the cinematic equivalent of junk food nostalgia, while for others younger viewers — they may provide an insight into the careers of some now well-known directors and stars.
These films came at a time when the drive-ins were still a huge force in the movie business and young people were going to movies to see something they couldn't see on television.
Corman, of course, is the director turned producer who has bragged he has never lost money on any film he has made. This might be true. Corman had released dozens of the most unapologetic exploitation films imaginable in every genre.
Filmmakers such as Ron Howard, James Cameron and Joe Dante, among others, received their start from Corman, which is one reason why the veteran producer received an honorary Oscar in 2009.
This double feature presented by Shout Factor can be viewed in "grindhouse" mode, as if you're watching the film in a sleazy urban theater. It adds to the experience.
"Crazy Mama" is director Jonathan Demme's second film. As explained in one of the extras, Demme was able to go from being a publicity agent for United Artists to a director for Corman.
Demme may have won awards for his films such as "Silence of the Lambs," but "Crazy Mama" certainly wouldn't be one of them. Cloris Leachman stars in the 1975 film as Melba, a struggling beauty salon owner who decides to return to her roots in Arkansas when she is evicted.
Her mission is to buy back the farm from which her family was evicted 30 years ago. She has no idea how she is going to do this and along with her daughter, mother, two of her daughter's boyfriends, a dotty senior citizen and a married man she has picked up, she embarks on a series of petty crimes to fund the purchase of the farm.
This film is an amazing mess. One moment it's a broad comedy, while another it's supposed to be a suspenseful crime drama. It's difficult to tell if Demme wants audiences to take any of it seriously.
One should note that winning an Oscar much less being in a hit television show — does not ensure choice cinematic material.
Leachman, though, slogs through the film admirably, trying to make Melba a sympathetic character. I think Demme owes the actress a role in one of his new movies.
"The Lady in Red," from 1979, is a surprisingly effective period film that purports to tell us the life of the young woman who mistakenly betrayed gangster John Dillinger to the FBI.
Pamela Sue Martin plays farm girl Polly Franklin, who winds up working as a prostitute in the early 1930s in Chicago. Although in other films adapting the life of Dillinger, this character is a minor one, this script by John Sayles makes Franklin's story the central one.
Sayles includes social commentary in the film, which also has the prerequisite violence and nudity that exploitation audiences expected. Director Lewis Teague, who went on to helm "The Jewel of the Nile" and "Cujo," among other films, keeps the pace of the film quick and clearly had an eye for period details.
Martin makes her character sympathetic and believable as a young woman trapped by her circumstances.
"The Lady in Red" is a very good example of how the exploitation film could be something more than simply throwaway drive-in fodder.
If you like seeing films that skirted underneath the radar of many critics years ago, check out these releases from Shout Factory.
Easy A
Remember how rumors could tear through a high school? Remember how wrong they usually were? This is the premise of "Easy A," a solid little comedy that shows that even in the era of cell phone and Internet, there has been little advancement when it comes to relationships in high school.
Olive (played with perfection by Emma Stone) is a high school student who flies under the radar. She's a good student and a good girl, but one day her best friend badgers her into saying something she shouldn't have. In an attempt to shut her up, Olive claims that she recently lost her virginity to an older guy going to the local community college.
She really hasn't. She doesn't even have a boy friend. Her best friend, though, can't resist telling people and before long Olive is the girl everyone is talking about and not in a good way.
Guys who acted as if she was invisible, now stare at her. Girls called her names. The high school's Christian group prays for her, when they aren't condemning her.
Olive's reaction to her new found fame is to play it up. If people can't understand she was fibbing, then she will play the part of the school's tart. That decision leads to other repercussions.
What I admired about the film is that Olive is a sensible, positive kid from a loving family who makes a mistake and eventually learns from it. Stone is one of my favorite new actors, especially after her performance in "Zombieland."
Director Will Gluck and writer Bert V. Royal have created a realistic, endearing and funny teen movie.
Vengeance
If it's made in Hong Kong, I'll give it a try and this 2009 film, just coming out on DVD, is one that is in many ways worth watching.
Legendary French singer and actor Johnny Hallyday plays Costello, a successful chef and restaurant owner who comes to Macau in response to the murder of his son-in-law and grandchildren. Only his daughter has survived the attack.
Hallyday plays Costello with the barest of emotions and expressions, but he makes it clear that this is not a man to mess with. When it's clear the police are not moving fast enough to solve the crime, he decided to take action.
He is, though, a stranger in a strange land and being in the right place at the right time gives him the allies he needs.
Costello witnesses a contract murder carried out by a gang of three men. He goes to the police to view a line-up and even though the cops have one of the trio, Costello doesn't give him up.
It's his way to find the men he needs men who know the local underworld. The trio accepts his offer and finds the men who killed Costello's family. The story doesn't end there.
Two twists in the film provide the audience with questions about the nature of vengeance and whether or not Costello's efforts were worth the price.
Director Johnnie Ito is a guy who is willing to throw some traditional and non-tradition ingredients into his dish, including a French star who is probably not too familiar to his core market.
The taciturn Hallyday looks like he has had one too many plastic surgeries and his minimalist acting style is at first a bit off-putting. His performance eventually grew on me, especially in the second half of the film.
Ito cast two Hong Kong superstars into the film Anthony Wong and Simon Yam. Wong plays the leader of the men recruited by Costello and does it with great cool. Yam is George Fung, the mobster who ordered the hit on Costello's family.
I enjoyed the stylish film that ends not with a satisfyingly violent conclusion to the story but rather with a contemplative note.
Looking for a crime drama that's different? Check out "Vengeance."
Despicable Me
I had wanted to see this film in the theaters, but the time to do so eluded me and now I've caught up with it on DVD and I'm glad I did.
The trend in animation lately is to present the story in computer animation as the medium and 3-D as the marketing point. Although simply using computer generated imagery (CGI) is no guarantee of a quality film, at this time the medium is dominating the industry.
I do miss the artistry of hand-drawn animation or the realism that traditional stop motion brings to a film, but in the right hands, CGI is fine. I thoroughly enjoyed "How to Train Your Dragon" and "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," and this film joins them as a movie both adults and kids can enjoy over and over.
Gru is a criminal mastermind who yearns to be the most successful evil genius in the world. When he comes up with a plan to shrink the moon to hold it for ransom, he is stopped in his tracks by Vector, a younger super villain on the rise.
In order to obtain the shrink ray Vector has, Gru uses three orphan girls as cover for the robbery. The three girls, though, have an effect on Gru he did not expect.
The film opens with a wonderfully twisted sequence that defines Gru. He encounters a little boy who is upset that he has dropped his ice cream cone. Gru cheers him up by twisting up a balloon animal and gives it to the boy. As soon as the kid is happy, Gru punctures the balloon.
To see this professionally evil guy change is the heart of the movie. It never gets bogged down in sentiment and there is much humor created by Gru's minions -- little yellow pill-shaped guys who make the various things he needs to carry out his plans.
I saw the film flat and it works just fine. I really think the current 3-D hysteria is vastly unnecessary.
The voice performances are quite good and Steve Carrell gives Gru a great "foreign" sound. I did think it was silly for the producers to bring in someone as talented as Julie Andrews for literally a handful of lines as Gru's mom. What's the point? Any number of voice actors could have done that.
That's a minor gripe. This is an animated film adults shouldn't dread watching.
Doghouse
It has been said, "Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery" and I think there is some little love note to "Shaun of the Dead" in this new zombie horror comedy from Great Britain.
Lucky for horror fans, the producers of "Doghouse" have come up with enough twists to keep the film fresh.
Stephen Graham -- currently seen as Al Capone on the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire" -- is Vince.
Vince used to be quite the ladies' man until his marriage and now that he is depressed over his up-coming divorce, his friends have decided to undertake a road trip for all of them to re-assert their single maleness.
All of them are in lousy relationships with women and naturally they don't blame themselves.
So where to go but a remote village where women outnumber the men and they would be the new roosters in the henhouse?
Except this village is the site for an experiment that has turned all of the women into cannibalistic zombies who only attack men.
While "Shaun of the Dead" was a vastly superior film that could be enjoyed by non-horror film fans, "Doghouse" is marketed to a crowd that likes their films "moister."
There are plenty of blood and guts, humor and genuine surprises to keep things interesting; although the movie has one of the worst endings I've seen in a long time.
Not for everyone, horror fans should welcome "Doghouse".
Billy The Exterminator, Seasons One and Two
Just in time for the holidays are these two collections of the television series that details the professional adventures of a Louisiana exterminator.
A high concept, indeed.
Billy Bretherton was featured in two episodes of "Dirty Jobs," and he was clearly charismatic enough that producers at A&E decided he could carry his own show.
Billy and his family tackle any number of critters and what makes him different -- I assume -- from his peers is they don't dress as if they are roadies for a heavy metal band.
Billy likes his bleached spiked hair, his studded bracelets and black ensembles and goes to work removing alligators, wrestling opossums and mixing it up with raccoons as if he had just shopped at Hot Topic.
Despite his clownish look, he takes his profession seriously and drops a variety of factoids throughout the show.
He clearly tries to make the show educational and there is a theme of "I'm a professional; don't try this at home" running throughout it.
I like the show, but if you are bothered by legions of cockroaches, a beehive as big as a shed, bats, rats and other small beasts, you might want to consider watching something else.
© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
Resident Evil: Afterlife
As a horror film fan, I suppose some people would be surprised that I hadn't seen any of the three preceding "Resident Evil" films, but I must admit a certain prejudice toward movies based on video games. Those I've seen haven't been very good.
"Resident Evil," though, has been a very successful movie franchise and stars an actress I admire — Milla Jovovich.
If you're like me and are coming to the franchise late, you need to know that Jovovich plays Alice, a woman who has been turned into a superhero due to the experimentation of the Umbrella Corporation, the most sinister of companies. This same group has developed a virus that has turned most of the population into flesh-eating zombies and Alice fights for her survival from both the zombies and the corporation.
In this fourth film, shot in 3-D but released flat on DVD, Alice has had her super powers neutralized by one of the Umbrella Corporation's men, but escapes to try to find "Arcadia," a place where other survivors have gathered to form a zombie-free community. She finds her friend Claire (Ali Larter) along the way as well as a group of people in Los Angeles who have successfully escaped the zombies by making a fortress out of the city's jail.
When they realize Arcadia is a ship docked in the harbor, they try to make their way to it.
Now, what interested me about this film is Jovovich, as she is undoubtedly one of the few female action stars working today. She does a great job with the material, which is pretty thin.
That's the problem with the film. The plot felt stretched and recycled.
Writer and director Paul W.S. Anderson and Jovovich's husband — is not the most precise of directors. There are story elements that are introduced, such as a giant, axe-welding zombie who acts quite differently for no apparent reason that the other zombies, that are pretty inexplicable.
While the "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" films were treated as standalone films with somewhat open endings, this film doesn't have a plot rich enough to use that story-telling technique successfully. The ending comes across as a cheap device.
Despite my crush on Jovovich, I can't recommend this sloppy, tired film.
Crazy Mama/ The Lady in Red
Shout Factory is now releasing a new series of DVDs featuring many of the films produced by Roger Corman during the 1970s and into the early '80s. For geezers such as me, these DVDs will be the cinematic equivalent of junk food nostalgia, while for others younger viewers — they may provide an insight into the careers of some now well-known directors and stars.
These films came at a time when the drive-ins were still a huge force in the movie business and young people were going to movies to see something they couldn't see on television.
Corman, of course, is the director turned producer who has bragged he has never lost money on any film he has made. This might be true. Corman had released dozens of the most unapologetic exploitation films imaginable in every genre.
Filmmakers such as Ron Howard, James Cameron and Joe Dante, among others, received their start from Corman, which is one reason why the veteran producer received an honorary Oscar in 2009.
This double feature presented by Shout Factor can be viewed in "grindhouse" mode, as if you're watching the film in a sleazy urban theater. It adds to the experience.
"Crazy Mama" is director Jonathan Demme's second film. As explained in one of the extras, Demme was able to go from being a publicity agent for United Artists to a director for Corman.
Demme may have won awards for his films such as "Silence of the Lambs," but "Crazy Mama" certainly wouldn't be one of them. Cloris Leachman stars in the 1975 film as Melba, a struggling beauty salon owner who decides to return to her roots in Arkansas when she is evicted.
Her mission is to buy back the farm from which her family was evicted 30 years ago. She has no idea how she is going to do this and along with her daughter, mother, two of her daughter's boyfriends, a dotty senior citizen and a married man she has picked up, she embarks on a series of petty crimes to fund the purchase of the farm.
This film is an amazing mess. One moment it's a broad comedy, while another it's supposed to be a suspenseful crime drama. It's difficult to tell if Demme wants audiences to take any of it seriously.
One should note that winning an Oscar much less being in a hit television show — does not ensure choice cinematic material.
Leachman, though, slogs through the film admirably, trying to make Melba a sympathetic character. I think Demme owes the actress a role in one of his new movies.
"The Lady in Red," from 1979, is a surprisingly effective period film that purports to tell us the life of the young woman who mistakenly betrayed gangster John Dillinger to the FBI.
Pamela Sue Martin plays farm girl Polly Franklin, who winds up working as a prostitute in the early 1930s in Chicago. Although in other films adapting the life of Dillinger, this character is a minor one, this script by John Sayles makes Franklin's story the central one.
Sayles includes social commentary in the film, which also has the prerequisite violence and nudity that exploitation audiences expected. Director Lewis Teague, who went on to helm "The Jewel of the Nile" and "Cujo," among other films, keeps the pace of the film quick and clearly had an eye for period details.
Martin makes her character sympathetic and believable as a young woman trapped by her circumstances.
"The Lady in Red" is a very good example of how the exploitation film could be something more than simply throwaway drive-in fodder.
If you like seeing films that skirted underneath the radar of many critics years ago, check out these releases from Shout Factory.
Easy A
Remember how rumors could tear through a high school? Remember how wrong they usually were? This is the premise of "Easy A," a solid little comedy that shows that even in the era of cell phone and Internet, there has been little advancement when it comes to relationships in high school.
Olive (played with perfection by Emma Stone) is a high school student who flies under the radar. She's a good student and a good girl, but one day her best friend badgers her into saying something she shouldn't have. In an attempt to shut her up, Olive claims that she recently lost her virginity to an older guy going to the local community college.
She really hasn't. She doesn't even have a boy friend. Her best friend, though, can't resist telling people and before long Olive is the girl everyone is talking about and not in a good way.
Guys who acted as if she was invisible, now stare at her. Girls called her names. The high school's Christian group prays for her, when they aren't condemning her.
Olive's reaction to her new found fame is to play it up. If people can't understand she was fibbing, then she will play the part of the school's tart. That decision leads to other repercussions.
What I admired about the film is that Olive is a sensible, positive kid from a loving family who makes a mistake and eventually learns from it. Stone is one of my favorite new actors, especially after her performance in "Zombieland."
Director Will Gluck and writer Bert V. Royal have created a realistic, endearing and funny teen movie.
Vengeance
If it's made in Hong Kong, I'll give it a try and this 2009 film, just coming out on DVD, is one that is in many ways worth watching.
Legendary French singer and actor Johnny Hallyday plays Costello, a successful chef and restaurant owner who comes to Macau in response to the murder of his son-in-law and grandchildren. Only his daughter has survived the attack.
Hallyday plays Costello with the barest of emotions and expressions, but he makes it clear that this is not a man to mess with. When it's clear the police are not moving fast enough to solve the crime, he decided to take action.
He is, though, a stranger in a strange land and being in the right place at the right time gives him the allies he needs.
Costello witnesses a contract murder carried out by a gang of three men. He goes to the police to view a line-up and even though the cops have one of the trio, Costello doesn't give him up.
It's his way to find the men he needs men who know the local underworld. The trio accepts his offer and finds the men who killed Costello's family. The story doesn't end there.
Two twists in the film provide the audience with questions about the nature of vengeance and whether or not Costello's efforts were worth the price.
Director Johnnie Ito is a guy who is willing to throw some traditional and non-tradition ingredients into his dish, including a French star who is probably not too familiar to his core market.
The taciturn Hallyday looks like he has had one too many plastic surgeries and his minimalist acting style is at first a bit off-putting. His performance eventually grew on me, especially in the second half of the film.
Ito cast two Hong Kong superstars into the film Anthony Wong and Simon Yam. Wong plays the leader of the men recruited by Costello and does it with great cool. Yam is George Fung, the mobster who ordered the hit on Costello's family.
I enjoyed the stylish film that ends not with a satisfyingly violent conclusion to the story but rather with a contemplative note.
Looking for a crime drama that's different? Check out "Vengeance."
Despicable Me
I had wanted to see this film in the theaters, but the time to do so eluded me and now I've caught up with it on DVD and I'm glad I did.
The trend in animation lately is to present the story in computer animation as the medium and 3-D as the marketing point. Although simply using computer generated imagery (CGI) is no guarantee of a quality film, at this time the medium is dominating the industry.
I do miss the artistry of hand-drawn animation or the realism that traditional stop motion brings to a film, but in the right hands, CGI is fine. I thoroughly enjoyed "How to Train Your Dragon" and "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," and this film joins them as a movie both adults and kids can enjoy over and over.
Gru is a criminal mastermind who yearns to be the most successful evil genius in the world. When he comes up with a plan to shrink the moon to hold it for ransom, he is stopped in his tracks by Vector, a younger super villain on the rise.
In order to obtain the shrink ray Vector has, Gru uses three orphan girls as cover for the robbery. The three girls, though, have an effect on Gru he did not expect.
The film opens with a wonderfully twisted sequence that defines Gru. He encounters a little boy who is upset that he has dropped his ice cream cone. Gru cheers him up by twisting up a balloon animal and gives it to the boy. As soon as the kid is happy, Gru punctures the balloon.
To see this professionally evil guy change is the heart of the movie. It never gets bogged down in sentiment and there is much humor created by Gru's minions -- little yellow pill-shaped guys who make the various things he needs to carry out his plans.
I saw the film flat and it works just fine. I really think the current 3-D hysteria is vastly unnecessary.
The voice performances are quite good and Steve Carrell gives Gru a great "foreign" sound. I did think it was silly for the producers to bring in someone as talented as Julie Andrews for literally a handful of lines as Gru's mom. What's the point? Any number of voice actors could have done that.
That's a minor gripe. This is an animated film adults shouldn't dread watching.
Doghouse
It has been said, "Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery" and I think there is some little love note to "Shaun of the Dead" in this new zombie horror comedy from Great Britain.
Lucky for horror fans, the producers of "Doghouse" have come up with enough twists to keep the film fresh.
Stephen Graham -- currently seen as Al Capone on the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire" -- is Vince.
Vince used to be quite the ladies' man until his marriage and now that he is depressed over his up-coming divorce, his friends have decided to undertake a road trip for all of them to re-assert their single maleness.
All of them are in lousy relationships with women and naturally they don't blame themselves.
So where to go but a remote village where women outnumber the men and they would be the new roosters in the henhouse?
Except this village is the site for an experiment that has turned all of the women into cannibalistic zombies who only attack men.
While "Shaun of the Dead" was a vastly superior film that could be enjoyed by non-horror film fans, "Doghouse" is marketed to a crowd that likes their films "moister."
There are plenty of blood and guts, humor and genuine surprises to keep things interesting; although the movie has one of the worst endings I've seen in a long time.
Not for everyone, horror fans should welcome "Doghouse".
Billy The Exterminator, Seasons One and Two
Just in time for the holidays are these two collections of the television series that details the professional adventures of a Louisiana exterminator.
A high concept, indeed.
Billy Bretherton was featured in two episodes of "Dirty Jobs," and he was clearly charismatic enough that producers at A&E decided he could carry his own show.
Billy and his family tackle any number of critters and what makes him different -- I assume -- from his peers is they don't dress as if they are roadies for a heavy metal band.
Billy likes his bleached spiked hair, his studded bracelets and black ensembles and goes to work removing alligators, wrestling opossums and mixing it up with raccoons as if he had just shopped at Hot Topic.
Despite his clownish look, he takes his profession seriously and drops a variety of factoids throughout the show.
He clearly tries to make the show educational and there is a theme of "I'm a professional; don't try this at home" running throughout it.
I like the show, but if you are bothered by legions of cockroaches, a beehive as big as a shed, bats, rats and other small beasts, you might want to consider watching something else.
© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
Monday, January 03, 2011
My buddy Steve gave me an ad slick for a film I had never heard of – a burlesque movie in 3-D no less.
Naturally I was compelled to do some digging.
It turns out this film was actually a re-edited version of a 1947 film called "Linda be Good." The synopsis from imbd written by Les Adams matches the one on the ads sheet : "Linda Prentiss joins a burlesque troupe to get information for a novel she is writing without her husband, Roger Prentiss, knowing about it. Not knowing who he is, she meets her husband's boss, Sam Thompson, while on a night-clubbing tour with the show's burlesque queen Margie LaVitte. Later, the boss takes a client and Roger to the burlesque show, and Roger is stunned to see his wife as one of the stars."
Sidney Pink is credited as the director of the new 1953 version and he simply added a color 3-D stripper sequence as the film's conclusion.
Now, of course, I'd love to see it. I'm sure it's not a very good movie, but this is a great example of the rules of the classic exploitation film. Take a property with little value in the current market and add material to it to make it marketable. Change the title and turn something that played in neighborhood theaters into an "Adults Only" film that would be seen at drive-ins and grindhouses.
Re-titling to make a film more saleable was very common. My friend Richard Gordon's film "Tower of Evil," was also known as "Horror on Snape Island." Later, another producer bought re-issue rights to the film and called into "Into the Fog."
It's conceivable a drive-in devotee could have seen that same movie three times!
I have to admit I love the outrageous showmanship of the exploitation guys!
© 2011 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
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