A youtuber, David Hartley, tells the tale of how The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" came to be.
You can see more footage of the night of the orchestral recording in the official music video:
Mick Jagger was there but that's not as interesting as the fact that Mike Nesmith was too (2:34, 3:33). The Monkees were a huge influence on The Beatles.
One thing I've heard that isn't covered is that at the end of the song, while the piano is vibrating, you can hear the air conditioning of the Abbey Road Studios kick in. But that may be a myth, I don't know.
This PSA aired in my area so often, it's not ingrained in my mind and gets stuck in my head often. This, despite the fact that I don't know 90% of the lyrics and never have.
For whatever it's worth, I think this youtube version is sped up and the proper playback speed is 0.90.
Somewhere around 2000-2003 (college) I resolved to watch every episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." It was the heyday of file-sharing, in those days, and such a thing was just, at that precise moment, theoretically possible. Big, special shout-out to eDonkey and eMule. "Possible" but not necessarily easy.
To illustrate the effort of watching every MST3K episode, I used to say that it was harder than watching every episode of "The Simpsons" (or basically pick any long running series you want). The reasoning is simple: there were (at that time) about 200 episodes of MST3K and each one was about 1.5 hours long, so that's about 300 hours of viewage. Compared to "The Simpsons", I'll even include all the episodes made since then, the math is: 805 episodes, at 0.3 hours each episode that's about 250 hours of viewage. Note: it's a pretty good metric for comparison because download effort and file availability are generally proportional to the length of material. This metric, of course, doesn't take into account how bad "The Simpsons" has become, though.
Given the disorganized nature of file-sharing, I created a spreadsheet to act as the source of truth, each episode listed, each had a "watched" or "not watched" status. I even added percentage calculation and a countdown to 0 because I had a lot of time on my hands and it seemed cool. But on that spreadsheet there were always 4 blank spots: 4 "lost" episodes that did not exist publicly in any form.
After 1 or 2 years (perhaps more, it was a long time ago), I finished the goal - I had watched every available episode and, by that time, I simply made peace with the idea that there were 4 episodes that just did not exist.
Then, in 2008 the "Pilot Episode" ("The Green Slime") (not really an episode) was shown at a convention and bootlegged on Youtube. Check. Down to 3.
Then, in 2016 two more "lost" episodes ("Invaders From The Deep" and "Revenge of the Mysterions from Mars") were found by the MST3K Producers in their archives and were released to backers of the 11th Season Kickstarter. Check and check.
That left ONE unreleased, "lost" episode.... One episode that no fan has turned up. One episode that even the creators of MST3K confirmed they had no access to.... What are the chances that someone somewhere taped it, kept the tape, held on to it for 38 years and never told anyone?
A few days ago, arthurputie on Reddit posted that his cousin had bought a load of old VHS's at a garage sale in the Minneapolis area and that one of them was labeled with the episode name ("Star Force: Fugitive Alien II"). Arthurputie confirmed it to actually be the lost episode and it has now been uploaded it to Youtube.
Lost no more.
This is not posted as a recommendation. If you are not a MST3K fan, avoid the early episodes at all costs. If you are a MST3K fan, still avoid this at all costs. This is only posted for Completionists like me with a 25 year old score to settle. That, and it's also a fascinating archeological discovery.
So here's the final word. I have now watched all the episodes of MST3K, it is still difficult and the spreadsheet has not been updated to 0 because it was lost in a hard drive crash 10 years ago. Oh, and new episodes are in the works.
Continuing my exploration of Robert Duvall movies and I cannot be definitive here - I haven't watched them all, nor will I - but I may have hit upon the worst movie Robert Duvall ever made.
With such a legendary actor in such a lousy movie, what scapegoat can I blame for this outrage?
Written By: Robert Duvall
Directed By: Robert Duvall
Starring: Robert Duvall.
DANG IT.
"Wild Horses" stars Robert Duvall, James Franco and Josh Hartnett (remember Josh Hartnett?). Three fine actors, and yet none of these people plays the protagonist of the movie. The protagonist of this movie is, apparently, played by one of the worst actors in the history of film. I say "one of the worst" but cannot say that she is "the worst" for I have seen Rod in "Birdemic" ....but she's clearly one of the worst. The main plot is a crime investigation of sorts - Luciana Pedraza is an Argentinian playing a Native American cop with no emotion and a Texan accent; she is paired with a cop partner (not worth looking up) who is coincidentally played by another insanely awful actor. Whenever there are scenes of these two people interacting, it's incredible, it's like staring into infinity mirror of emotionlessness.
How did this happen? How does the best American actor of his generation not weed out terrible actors when casting his own movie? Well, I can only explain the terrible lead - the terrible lead is played by his real-life wife, a woman 41 years younger than himself.
Bad acting from main characters is huge in this movie but isn't the entire problem. There's also bad acting from the minor characters - and in pivotal scenes. Very pivotal and very emotional and very terrible scenes. But also, the cinematography of this movie varies between on-par-with-Walker-Texas-Ranger and dreadful. There are moments with bad sound. These moments could have easily been fixed in ADR but weren't, somehow, for some reason. The editing is weird and awkward. The pacing is weird. The movie is lifeless and not believable - it's simply boring. At many points, this movie doesn't even feel like a movie.
If you've ever wondered what would happen if you dropped a great actor into a terrible movie, here's your experiment. I would like to say that Robert Duvall transcends his surroundings but I can't say that. This movie is so empty and unconvincing it even makes Robert Duvall's acting seem questionable.
I looked on youtube for a scene or compilation of the bad acting in "Wild Horses" to share for demonstration, but I see nothing. That seems strange. Maybe, as bad movies go, this flew below the popular radar.
One of the things I love discovering and posting about is pop-culture surprises and oddities. A while back I looked at the history of Peanuts TV Specials and noted the oddity of the live-action "It's the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown." There is another Peanuts oddity that I have been avoiding posting anything about but I may as well just get it over quickly and move on.
I'm just going to say it. The plot of "Why, Charlie Brown, Why?" is: a little girl in Charlie Brown's class gets cancer. And.... that's not what you expect when you want to watch Snoopy.
I can't do a beat-by-beat breakdown of how wacky and crazy it is - it's well executed, I suppose. The noteworthy thing is just the very concept is shocking and unusual. So it exists, I watched it, it doesn't make sense to me but perhaps that's due to the nature of Peanuts - it's watched by kids but wasn't intended to be solely for kids; it's not afraid to get serious among the jokes, and so forth.
Evidently it was well received and was praised for helping educate kids on this subject.
Robert Duvall's passing has given me impetus to revisit his filmography. Some movies are re-watches of his classics, some I'm watching for the first time. Among the "new" movies, it's a mixed bag, of course. But I have found one so far that I would consider a "hidden gem" - "A Family Thing."
Duvall stars as an older man whose mother dies and reveals in a letter that she was never actually his mother. His mother was a black woman and, oldey Southerney times being what they were, he was taken away to be raised by his white father and was never told of his heritage.
The corollary of finding his mother was black is that he has black kin who he's never met, including a black brother (James Earl Jones). Duvall sets out to meet his brother and events evolve from there.
This movie is very much a product of the 90s (both good and bad but mostly good) and it's just a very nice, fairly mundane character-study-slash-buddy-movie. It has the feel of a play. The premise (or the casting, really) is ridiculous Robert Duvall doesn't look mixed race in any respect, but if you get past that hurdle, it's excellent. I considered it like "Back to the Future" - you just have to accept that a DeLorean was made into a time machine and then you move on. The true highlight of the movie is simply seeing two great actors - Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones - acting together.
A few more notes: the script was written by Billy Bob Thornton - this is after he'd made the "Sling Blade" short but before "Sling Blade." Secondly, James Earle Jones was a lifelong stutterer though I never saw it in any form and I doubt you did either, but in this movie he uses it as part of his character. Finally, I just to have to get out that the title is terrible. It's so uninteresting and unmemorable - it may be the sole reason this movie is so obscure.
So there you go, I'm not saying this is a classic, it is not perfect, but it's a solid, charming movie from another era with two legendary leads and I really enjoyed it.
I was quite sure that I posted this in 2020 and I was quite sure that the video was taken down and that the link on my blog needed to be corrected, once a substitute was found. So here is the substitute, even though I now see no evidence that I ever posted it in the first place. Having memories of false posts is an annoying problem.
This is The Hu, a Mongolian metal band who are no longer new but put your mind back to 2020 and they were pretty new. The mixture of Mongolian throat singing with metal rhythms, plus the utilization of the Morin Khuur (horsehead fiddle) within a rock context is, if nothing else, extremely unique, you have to admit. What a tremendous and unexpected East-meets-West mash-up.
Of the songs of theirs that I've heard this is the only one that really hit me hard. It rocks.
Now let's all agree this post is real and definitely exists now.
No, "Fonzie Fights Tom Hanks" is not the latest AI slop, it's the slop from the 80's known as "Happy Days."
In this episode, "A Little Case of Revenge," Fonzie's nemesis from 3rd Grade has been harboring a grudge since then and shows up wanting to fight him using the art of "karate." The karate nemesis is, of course, played by Tom Hanks.
The scene is played for laughs so, unfortunately, it's not as wild and whacky as it sounds.
This role helped launch Tom Hanks' career. Ron Howard used to be the star of "Happy Days" but had moved on to directing. He saw the episode and that led to him casting Hanks in "Splash." This is also the first time anyone hits Fonzie.
Farmers are spraying loads of chemicals on their crops to get rid of bugs and people with gardens are doing the same and we generally accept that because it's a tough problem and what else are you gonna do?
But the Amish have been farming and using the same farming methods for hundreds of years, so it can be done. What is their secret?
This is a question that I never thought to ask and so I'm glad I found this video. And while it remains an open question as to whether these things can be applied at scale to modern farms, it answers the question for people with a garden. Fascinating.
The COVID craze of 2020 gave birth to the rise of Instacart - and possibly other services - that created a new class of professional grocery shoppers. This class has not gone away and appears to be permanent, as I still observe them today.
I have noticed that the telltale sign that someone is shopping professionally is their shopping cart technique. The amateur grocery shopper, like me, pushes their shopping cart from behind. The professionals pull their cart from the front corner. This is the taxonomy as observed in the wild.
But ever since I've noticed this, I've been wondering why. I can't figure it out. What have the pro's learned that we have been blind to?
For one thing, being behind means that you're going into intersections somewhat blind. Peering from out front allows one to easily avoid accidents. But I don't think this is sufficient cause.
Secondly, the steering leverage using the "push" technique forces you to use two hands. The "pull" method allows for less effort and frees up one hand for consulting a grocery list stored on a smart phone. This is the most likely reason I've found to date, but is not entirely satisfactory... I often have a phone in one hand as I'm pushing the cart from behind, it works just fine. And is the saved energy really that important when the in-store workload is only part of your job?
The revived "Mystery Science Theater 3000" did "Mac and Me" a while back and if you haven't seen the newish season or are a fan of "Mac and Me" - or maybe you're into watching kids in wheelchairs fall off a cliff, you sicko - this is your chance: the episode is free on Youtube.
The Game Grumps full playthrough of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES.
I think their debate about whether TMNT is a classic is worth noting. Arin argues that it is but Dan argues the opposite. I think it's the case of someone who didn't live it and wasn't there, having a different view from someone who was there.
TMNT (the game) was massive, it was a huge seller, every kid owned it (loosely speaking - I didn't own it, but you know...), and no one liked it aside from the fact that it was TMNT and that carried a whole lot of weight. I watched my friend play it and saw him unable to get past the Dam Stage (it's a cliche but it's a true story) and realized this game isn't fun, it's not at all in keeping with the fun/crazy spirit of the show. Konami/Ultra made a cartoonishly difficult game and tortured a generation of kids.
So it's a popular game but not Great game, and not a Classic.
The perfect TMNT video game would come a bit later in the form of TMNT The Arcade Game (both the arcade and NES versions).
Anyways, they set out to beat the game and that was the draw to me and also made it worth posting. I don't believe I've ever seen anyone beat it or even get close to beating it. I may have never seen anyone get past the Dam Stage, in fact. I'm not sure.
Scorch is always up to something but that's why it's ironic that the thing he's up to now is being retired. Except he's retired and working on a new App and there are subscriptions somewhere (facebook?) for a few dollars a month, or something?
What a legendary actor. Time for the rundown. "The Godfather", "Apocalypse Now," "M*A*S*H", "The Conversation", "Network", "Tender Mercies", "The Natural", "Lonesome Dove", "Falling Down", "Sling Blade", "The Apostle", "Crazy Heart".
A few performance people not be aware of or may have forgotten: he was in an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Twilight Zone". He was also in Lucas' "THX 1138." He did a movie co-starring Bill Murray called "Get Low" - it's fine, it flew under the radar, but the movie doesn't live up to the cast.
And that's the thing, even in bad movies, Duvall was always good. I believe it was Roger Ebert who said that you could never catch Duvall "acting" - he always fully inhabited the character.
I would like to state my favorite performance of his but I would need to re-visit "Lonesome Dove" and "Tender Mercies" to really decide. It's been a long while. "Lonesome Dove" is Duvall's own favorite, by the way. For me, let's say, for any movie buffs reading this, my favorite performance of his is officially "The Apostle" but if we're all friends here and are able to open up without fear of mockery, my favorite may be "Days of Thunder." Sorry, he's just so good in it. A performance of his that astonishes me is "Sling Blade" - but I'm loathe to pick a "crazy" role as my favorite, it's also pretty brief.
Duvall on Westerns: "The Western is our genre in the United States of America. The English have Shakespeare, the French have Molière, the Russians have Chekhov, but we have the Western."
Norm Macdonald considered Duvall to be the greatest actor of all-time and got to interview him once. Here's that interview.
I was a huge Transformers fan and was at the exact age to get hit by it as a phenomenon. I remember exactly where I was when I first saw the scene where Optimus dies. I have to say, of all the things that traumatized my childhood, this wasn't one of them. I can't explain why, and it did hit me, it just didn't hit me hard.
The continuing tradition of doing decidedly non-Super-Bowl things instead of watching the Super Bowl... the historical exception being that I'd watch if the Eagles were playing but even that is inconsistent. For my own records, here's the run-down of the previous 30 years...
Pre-2011 - Puppy Bowl I, Muppet Treasure Island, Follow That Bird.
And I'll repeat, of course, that this recurring tradition jumped the shark in 2021.
So this year, no real idea came to me. No gimmick, no hook, no high concept. Then this week I went a little crazy with work and when the weekend came, I didn't feel like doing anything.
It occurred to me that not watching The Super Bowl gave me a great opportunity to go grocery shopping during the game and have the store to myself. There were still some people around, and I don't usually shop on a Sunday night, but it was basically successful. A "pro tip" if any of you are in the same situation.
Another thing that occurred to me: with today's high being about 18 degrees Fahrenheit, it was a good day to make a fire, which I did.
And now for the main thing...
Some time back, I heard Jean Shepherd recounting a Honeymooners episode and opining that the show was much more sophisticated than it gets credit for - and a show worth remembering. As far as I can tell, the plot he describes was made up by him, for what purpose I don't know, but there's no time for that mystery now. That story, plus the fact that I never saw much of "The Honeymooners," plus the fact that it only lasted one season and "only" had 39 episodes planted the seed that I might, someday, watch the full series.
So tonight's experiment was watching "The Honeymooners." Only 3 episodes, by the way. Here is where I might usually go through the episodes in depth but I don't think I can do it justice. Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton are one of the great duos in comedy history, of course. And at the same time, Ralph Kramden and Alice Kramden are also one of the great duos in comedy history. It's a classic early American sitcom. For a long time I thought it was the earliest sitcom still rerun on TV but here's the trivia on that: "I Love Lucy" premiered in 1951 and "The Honeymooners" didn't go on the air until 1955. It was the cheaper sets and the rougher video quality that fooled me into thinking it must be much older.
Two episodes were filmed per week instead of the usual one per week for weekly shows.
Gleason, a veteran live performer, chose to deliberately stage the show as a play using a live audience, something that was still a very new concept in television in 1955. As such, Gleason eschewed rehearsals as he wanted the performances to capture the feel of a live show, even though all episodes were taped and aired later. Due to under-rehearsing, almost all episodes contain a mixture of dropped lines, missed entrances, actors correcting or covering for another's lines, and moments of general confusion. Gleason did not re-shoot or try to conceal these flaws as he wanted the audience to feel like they were watching a live broadcast.
The show was shot "as live" (filmed before an audience, edited, and shown later). If you ever notice Jackie Gleason patting himself on the stomach, it was a sign that he had forgotten his line.
CBS and Buick, the show's sponsor, wanted a second season. Jackie Gleason refused because he felt that the quality of the scripts wouldn't sustain it for another season.
The bit about eschewing rehearsals is incredible. The scenes are looonnnnggg and filled with tons of dialogue. How they remembered it all and performed first-time, is beyond my understanding. And then two episodes per week?! What? Amazing.
Having watched the first three episodes, I plan to keep watching. In addition to being a timeless classic, the show has a certain nostalgic feel that defies explanation. I never lived in the time of the show and I didn't grow up watching the show on reruns but somehow it feels cozy and comfortable, like it's from my past, somehow. And no, I'm not making allusion here to "The Flintstones."
Another random Mitch Hedberg stand-up appearance on the Late Show.
I assume, eventually, all of these will be released, which is nice, but I wish they said how many their were total and said what number each one is. Just a small thought.
A long time ago the original creator of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" bought back the rights and launched a kickstarter to produce a new season (11). That kickstarter was successful, set a record for Kickstarter and led to more Kickstarters for Seasons 12, 13 and 14.
A Kickstarter was created for Season 15 and reaction was lackluster - it failed to reach its goal and the series was once again on hiatus. Recently, it was revealed that Joel Hodgson sold the rights to the show to Radial Entertainment.
Now, the new owners have apparently struck a deal with Rifftrax to bring back a version of the show with the classic cast - Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy and Mary Joe Pehl - and that is a Kickstarter.
My initial reaction: I'm tired, boss.
We're funding all new sets, props, writing, actors... we already funded all new sets, props, writing, actors. We funded sets, props, writing, actors several times. Where did all the money go to? Can anything be reused?
Well, I have no insight into the behind-the-scenes but it's possible that something is being reused. While past Kickstarters brought in millions of dollars, this one has a goal of only $20,000 and it has already far exceeded that goal. Kudos to the fans who are not as fatigued as I. Eh, I might back it too.
And I'm excited to see the shows, although it's only 4 episodes. Should be fun.
The video title "I Filmed Plants for 12 Years" drew me in and turned out to be a bit misleading, in my opinion. I was hoping to see the "Boyhood" of plant videos.
Nevertheless, the video is beautiful, hypnotic and very much worth watching.
Just recently I discovered a new site that simulates 90s television. Now, completely unrelated, someone sent me this video where a guy creates a 90s cable television simulator, complete with an actual cable box. It's quite involved.
Growing up, I didn't have cable so I have no nostalgia for the cable box and only some nostalgia for the channels. MTV is a big one, Nickelodeon obviously and then Comedy Central later in the decade.
Similar to "Twins," another wide-release, crowd-pleasing, mainstream movie that we don't get anymore, it seems.
A little depressing that the Billy Crystal character has a mid-life crisis when he's younger than I am. Of course he also thinks his life sucks when he has a steady job, a wife and kids. Best not think about it too much.
Worlds collide as the history-of-comedy podcast "Why Are You Laughing?" examines the career of Karl Pilkington.
This is one where I can say "I lived it." I was listening to the XFM broadcasts basically on a loop from around 2003 to around 2013. I was there when they reunited for the BBC, did the podcast, made the HBO show, and so on. I mention this by way of reminiscing, rather than some form of bragging. I recommended Ricky, Steve and Karl to so many people and only one person really got it. But that was a big hit.
There's a project underway that's unearthing "new" XFM material and remastering the archives. I've lost track of it though. For whatever reason, the clip I shared of the new material has been deleted. But if you're looking to track down that project, you can start here.
Cassie's final thoughts in this reaction include the sentiment that "They don't make movies like this anymore." That got me thinking... I think I agree. Yes, that's become a trope but I believe it to be true. But, for the life of me, I can't figure out why. It's not Shakespeare, it's not the smartest or most elaborate movie of all-time, it's just a simple, fun, buddy comedy. In fact, I don't know if I'd even call this a "smart" comedy - this is a not-stupid, charming, general-audience pleasing light comedy. That's the bar we seemingly aren't able to reach.
Am I blinded by nostalgia? Was there a fundamental change of culture? Have studios decided they're not profitable? (And even if the latter is so, a movie of this type could easily be done independently.)
This is the movie equivalent of the secret formula of Coca-Cola. I intuit that it should be reproducible yet no one is reproducing it.
And one more mystery while we're here...
The movie makes it clear that the engine/suitcase is worth $5 million. The movie makes it abundantly, perfectly clear that the engine/suitcase is worth $5 million. And then at the end, Devito says that by turning it into the authorities, they got a $50,000 reward when they could have had $4 million.
I've wondered about this for decades. Is that an obvious mistake or are they implying that Vincent is still dishonest, and muddling the happy ending?
Remember a while back when Glen and Friends Cooking tried re-creating the recipe for KFC? Another project he tackled, and ultimately didn't succeed with, was re-creating the recipe for Coke.
Now a chemist from the internet claims to have cracked it, more or less.
The Coca-Cola recipe being secret has always been a fascination to me. I imagine a hundred large trucks pulling up to the Coke factory, loaded with cinnamon extract (for instance) every single day and it's all a big mystery what the recipe is. This video doesn't really get into that aspect but it at least clears up the other thing I was wondering - why not just analyze it chemically. Pretty interesting.
As with the KFC recipe, I'm disappointed that it's not doable at home (or at least, it would take a lot of money).
[I just realized my illustration above is not my own, it's basically in the "Flaming Homer" episode of "The Simpsons." The point stands though]
It may be the most expensive soda I've ever bought.
L&P is a lemon-flavored soda from New Zealand. The name, Lemon and Paeroa, comes from the fact that it is lemon flavored and was first created in Paeroa, New Zealand.
Even though it's now owned by Coca-Cola, it is not easily obtained. Or, it is, but it's going to cost you the shipping expense of traveling from New Zealand. I did some shopping and some deep thinking and basically figured the cheapest I could get it was to buy a single can for $3 plus $31 shipping. So one can of soda for $34.
How is it? Well, from the branding I had it in my head that it was something like ice tea. Nothing of the sort. It tastes like lemons (as has been said) but I have something more accurate than that. I can tell you, it tastes like the candy Lemonheads. This is Lemonheads in soda form. And I like Lemonheads so I enjoyed it.
RiffTrax has made "Moose Baby" free on their Youtube channel. "Moose Baby" looms large in RiffTrax lore - I forget why - because it's arguably the most dull or the most pointless maybe. All I remember is it gets mentioned a lot.
For what it's worth, I don't get the hype other than it's a great title. I'm still more of a "Setting Up a Room" guy.
Bryan Callen wants to be known as something of an intellectual and gives an interview where he espouses the benefits of reading books. Blind Mike watches the interview and mocks him.
An artist that performs songs written by others is just as talented as an artist that writes their own songs.
This is an impossible argument. It is an argument that I would never agree to. There is no way that Beyonce is on the same artistic level as Billy Joel.
And yet, Polyphonic probably makes as good an argument in the affirmative as anyone can make. It's actually impressive... and certainly worth considering.
I saw the title of this video and tried to think what I thought Conan's worst interviews were. I came up empty. When interviews went bad, Conan was always good at pointing it out and making comedy out of it. And so when the bad interviews were the best interviews, coming up with the worst ones becomes an odd, mind-bending exercise.
With that in mind, I think this guy has done a good job of identifying the worst, and so I thought this was worth sharing.
And don't be put off by the fact that it starts with Jennifer Garner. Fortunately, the video is better than that nonsense. Fake conflict to promote a movie (or whatever it was), in my opinion.
