Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary

 

When making a "dockumentary" about Yacht Rock, there are beset on both sides by two ditches - you can embrace the parody webseries origin of the genre (and treat it as a joke) or you can ignore the origins and define the genre as the general public has since defined it (Jimmy Buffett, The Eagles, nautical themes, sailor hats, etc.) "Yacht Rock" veers off into neither ditch. In fact, I was surprised at how serious a music documentary it is. This is "The History of Rock 'n' Roll" for 2024.

And, at the same time, they also give proper weight and deference to the group of guys who invented the term.

Highly recommended if you want to see an excellent music documentary.

One of the through-lines that goes between MST3K and "Best of the Worst" and shows like that they're mocking films but they're often doing so while appreciating any traces of good art, even at the service of really bad movies. It's an admirable trait to still find the good within the bad, especially as it's a trait I don't have, or at least, haven't developed. One of the things that struck me as poignant, reflecting on the re-emergence of the Yacht Rock genre is this idea that there are these dusty records that no one wants because they're old and out of fashion and someone listens to them and points out that there's something great there and we should all re-think our biases. Let's face it, Yacht Rock - and Easy Listening moreso - was playing when I was a kid and going to the dentist or shopping for clothes; I have, even subconsciously, dismissed huge swaths of music. I admire anyone who shakes off preconceived notions, paying no service to form or fashion and examines the thing objectively for what it is.

JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass

 

Over the years I've flip-flopped quite a lot in my opinion of Oliver Stone's "JFK." To be more precise I always felt it was a fascinating film, extremely well constructed and haunting, but what I kept questioning was whether it told a true story.

In 2021, with the help of further research and unclassified documents, Stone returned to the same subject to re-assess his previous movie. The new information adds a great deal of clarity, as does the documentary, rather than feature film, format.

It's hard to believe I had not heard of this movie's existence until recently - "JFK" was a box-office and cultural phenomenon. Whether it is a function of Oliver Stone's decline in relevance, a decline in interest in documentaries, my own ignorance or something else, I cannot say. But upon hearing about it, I knew I was interested.

Not wishing to be political in any way, but it is worth noting that President Trump has promised to open up the JFK files when he takes office. That should be very interesting indeed and perhaps another movie will be called for.

BOTW - Cade: The Tortured Crossing

 

Speaking of bad movies, Neil Breen has a new one. Well, not "new" but RLM spaces these things out a bit.

If an hour and twenty minutes is too long for you, you can skip to 45 minutes to get the short recap.

But if you do have the time to watch the full episode, then if you've come this far perhaps you can come a little farther. Read the description on the youtube page.

Film Flam - Freddy's Fridays

 

Bad news: no Dylan 'Bruiser' King. Good news: karate!

Thoughts on Saving Private Ryan

Went to see "Saving Private Ryan" in the theater tonight and here are some thoughts.

One thing I've usually done in these posts is identify visual elements on the sides of the screen or usually out of focus that are clearer in a large screen presentation. I only have one thing for that - "Saving Private Ryan" is pretty plain in its visuals, pretty much "what you see is what you get." But when Mrs. Ryan is about to be informed of the death of her sons, she opens the door and to the right of the door is a photograph of all 4 boys together. It's plain enough that I'm not sure this even counts but it stuck out, watching tonight.

But I also want to note an element of the audio. As the final battle approaches, we hear the low rumble of the German tanks grow louder and louder. A special theater experience is that eventually the roar becomes so loud that it shakes everything inside you. It's a great touch.

One moment that stuck out especially, to me, is the scene early on when the movie becomes quiet for the first time and Giovanni Ribisi (Medic Wade) has a quiet monologue. He tells the story from his childhood, how he would try to stay up late at night to speak to his mom when she came home. He loved talking to his mother except sometimes she wouldn't get to talk to him because he would pretend to be asleep. He wonders why he would do that.

Film 101 tells you that this memory must have some higher meaning, some greater significance to the plot but I have never found it. My best guess is that it's a subversion - the memory is just a typical memory that all of us have. If you have any theories, let me know. But notice this: this meaningful memory is all about his mother which connects later to him bleeding out and dyeing - his last words are a call to his mother. These were men but these were kids.

As he's telling the story, the company who had been joking around up until now, becomes completely silent and still. There is a sense in which his memories from home are hallowed and holy, no one dares encroach on them. This is a motif that reappears throughout the film - talk of the life before, talk of home stops everyone, freezes everyone. In one of these moments Captain Miller opines, "I just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel." If each kill is a further descent into Hell, then could it be that everything about their life before the war becomes sacred? And it is perhaps significant that when Ribisi delivers his monologue, the setting is a church.

In the penultimate scene, there is another repetition of the motif. A memory too sacred to even be uttered.

Private Ryan: Tell me about your wife and those rosebushes?

Captain Miller: No, no that one I save just for me.

Overlong Thoughts from The Last Waltz

 

Today I went to the 45th anniversary re-release of "The Last Waltz." Here are some unorganized thoughts.

With all of these "see it on the big screen" releases, I try to find visual details that weren't apparent before. Here are some things I noticed for the first time. 

• During the "Old Time Religion" piece, Rick Danko is wearing a black hat but I never noticed that it appears to be plastic. Shiny plastic, like it's a party favor. Is it a joke, is it a 70s style that I don't understand?
• Scorsese made it a special point to not show the audience much. But various shots throughout the movie, I noticed, out in the audience, there's someone displaying numbers that keep incrementing. My guess is that's the cue for the brass section that they're on "song 38", "song 39," etc. Or maybe it's for everyone, not sure.
• When "Bet Your Balls" Neil Diamond comes on to do "one song but do it good" there's also a second drummer. Who is that? Why?
• 70mm vs. 35mm film were previously meaningless terms to me. This is the first concert film to be recorded in 35mm film and you can see there is a fuzziness to it with a pronounced grain.
• Laszlo Kovacs worked on this film as "additional director of photography."

So those are some visual things, let's talk about what I didn't notice visually. "The Last Waltz" is famously a concert film with a special effects budget. During his performance, Neil Young had a visible piece of cocaine in his nose which had to be optically removed (which wasn't easy in 1978 - I believe it was a frame-by-frame job). While watching the movie on the big screen, I forgot to look up his nose to see if anything looks photoshoppy about it. Oh well.

I always skip Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the DVD but had no choice here. Garbage. And what is The Canterbury Tales doing in this movie? Neil Diamond's presence in this concert/movie is (rightfully) controversial but at least it's music. Cut out the poetry.

In "This Wheel's on Fire," Levon Helm recalls that somewhere in the middle of the concert (after Joni Mitchell), the energy of the audience seemed to flag but once Van Morrison was done high kicking he had breathed new life into everyone. There is some (weak) evidence in the film to support this. Toward the end of "Further on up the Road" the camera zooms out to reveal the audience in the lower left cheering, fist pumping and hopping. Then during Van Morrison's performance (pre-kickoff) we get a head-on shot of the audience, not very animated, fairly subdued. Thin evidence but it's there. I think with a 5 hour concert and a full-course turkey dinner, it would be impossible to not have some lulls in the action.

The most interesting thing that struck me on this viewing is the way Scorsese makes a point of making obvious the artificiality of documentary-making. This is established by the very first sounds of the movie - technicians rolling sound and Rick Danko saying "cut-throat." This is followed by Scorsese asking (off camera) "Ok, Rick, what's the game?" to which Rick replies "cut-throat." Usually, you cut the first part and leave just the "real" part. But starting a few seconds earlier reveals that the question and answer are not casual conversation happening in real life, they are part of a movie. After explaining the rules of the game, Danko gives a look that suggests his hyper awareness of being filmed. This is all staged.

Then look at the first few seconds of Robbie Robertson's first interview of the film. Robbie answers the question, asks if Scorsese wants him to rephrase and then answers again. All of it is left in.

Later on in the film, Martin starts his awkward, pointless interview with Rick Danko at "Shangri La." The shot starts a few seconds before "action" as if it's an amateur film.

It would be apparent to everyone that these flaws should be edited out. Scorsese is a perfectly competent filmmaker so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that this is a choice. The film is an artificial construct and he's deliberately pointing out the artifice. He's purposefully taking you out of the "reality" of the scene to remind you that it's not real. But why? What is he saying?  The only thing I can guess at this point, is that it's merely for "style."

And if you're looking for an idea for a research paper, you could try exploring this "revealing the artifice" as a continuation of the ideas of Antonin Artaud and his "Theatre of Cruelty", through to Jack Hirschman's UCLA career in the 60s who then influenced Jim Morrison. And if you can make it work, this thread would continue later, reaching a climax in the 1990s on MTV. You may recall that MTV would, for instance, film a person talking into the camera but suddenly cut to a second shot that shows the person, the camera filming them, and the overhead microphone (preferably in black and white.) Why did they do that? As far as I know, it was merely "style." It's a thought. But there is a Criterion release of "The Last Waltz" with a director's commentary and so the real explanation is probably there.

In a few songs, most powerfully in "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," the crowd applauds at the climax of the song rather than wait for the song to be over or nearly over. I think that was a 70s trend but I'm not sure. It's definitely not just this concert, the example that comes to mind for this is Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" (though that one is simulated, still the same idea). Like I said, I think this was a thing in the 70s but I don't know for sure. Was it? Did it happen in other eras? For what it's worth, I like it, it makes the crowd another element in the song and seems to take the emotion over the top.

Last thing: watching it again I was struck, as I'm always struck - to the soul - by the perfection of "It Makes No Difference" so I'll end with that.

Film Flam - Spider in the Attic

Another classic from Jagged Edge Productions.

Re:View - Pee-wee's Big Adventure

 

I may re-visit "Big Top Pee-wee." It was always my favorite of the two but this seems to imply it's not very good. I really liked the Rube Goldberg device in "Big Top" and remember really liking the 80s babe love interest. Those two things were the only things that mattered so maybe that's throwing me off.

My favorite joke in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" is this one:

It's clever, it's goofy, it's perfectly setup but still a surprise. So good.

Popcorn in Bed - Vertigo

 Another classic. Another Hitchcock classic.

If you haven't seen the movie, this will all be spoilers.

One of my favorite observations about "Vertigo" is from a Roger Ebert article that is hard to find and not very well known:

Let's close by returning to "Vertigo." Every time I've gone through any film a shot at a time over several days, someone in the audience has noticed something amazing. When I was at the University of Virginia, we got to the point when Scottie (James Stewart) rescues the unconscious Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak) from San Francisco Bay and takes her unconscious back to his apartment. He gently undresses her and puts her into bed.

"His action is incredible," I said. "He's changing an unconscious stranger."

"She's not unconscious," said a voice in the dark.

"What?"

"She's pretending. That wasn't Madeleine attempting suicide, but Judy playing Madeleine. She's pretending to be unconscious."

And Scotty saved her, did not ravish her, treated her gently, and tucked her in. That may help explain why the next time we see her, coming into the living room and joining Scottie, she has a glow in her eyes. Madeleine went into the bedroom, and Judy came out. It's then she starts to love and pity him. Oh, this is an even deeper film than it seems.    

And here is Roger Ebert's analysis of the color palette of "Vertigo" and what each means: link.

Read Roger Ebert's full review: here.

And here's a video "How Hitchcock Blocks a Scene" where the scene, of course, is from "Vertigo:"

Re:View - Temple of Doom

 

"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" was the first Indiana Jones movie I ever saw and I loved it. When I was a little older and finally saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark" I was a little disappointed - it was clear to me that "Temple..." was the better movie. I was surprised to learn that that is the minority opinion.

These days, the only thing that's clear to me is that my favorite of the trilogy is "Last Crusade." "Temple of Doom" is so dark and weird and the action is so ridiculous, judging between that and "Raiders" is a battle between my brain and heart. Or it's a battle between me as a child and me as an adult. Fortunately it doesn't matter and no one cares. That raft thing is so inexcusable though...

Re:View - The Garbage Pail Kids Movie

When I was a kid there was a certain restaurant that sold Garbage Pail Kids and had a few arcade games and a pinball machine. I remember going there for breakfast and getting a quarter to play the arcade or getting money to buy Garbage Pail Kids. It was so much fun, so exciting.

So that's my memory of GPK. Now the movie on the other hand, I think I was unofficially not allowed to see it. At least that's my memory. So I have no nostalgic connection to the movie whatsoever.

The association of the He-Man movie and this movie is apt. They were both about things that I was obsessed with as a kid but I didn't see either movie until well after the magic had passed. And when I did see these movies, I was still excited for them but subtly or subconsciously aware that they weren't great.

I have The Garbage Pail Kids Movie officially rated as 2/10, which is extremely rare for me. I can't remember the last movie I rated so low. It's almost like it was their goal to make a movie with no redeeming qualities, for some reason. Yeah, I don't get it.

What's Your Favorite Independence Day Movie?

"I came to America in 1914 by way of Philadelphia..."

 "What's your favorite Independence Day movie?" I thought it was a fair conversation-starter. I thought of it ahead of time but when I was around people, I forgot to ask it. There aren't many movies that revolve around July 4th. There are so few that one might add war movies to the mix. That's a discussion in itself - somehow "Saving Private Ryan" doesn't feel like an Independence Day movies but "Glory" does. And, is it me, or are there way too few movies about the Revolutionary War? You'd think there'd be a billion of them. But, narrowing the field as best I could, and having the advantage of advance notice, I determined my answer was "Avalon" (1990).

"Avalon" is my favorite type of movie: it's largely plotless, only revolving around the relationships between people and the passage of time. In this case it shows a grandfather immigrating to the United States, follows the second generation as they go into business for themselves and much of the action is seen through the eyes of the third generation played by child actor Elijah Wood. It's the kind of movie that hits me harder than any other but I can't share with anyone because it's "boring."

Roger Ebert postulates that "Avalon" is about the deterioration of familial ties and it's the contention of the film that the fault lies with the rise of television. What a harrowing tale when you consider that it's not just television anymore, it's internet, youtube, apps, video games and social media. Watching it now, it's clear that he's partly right: the television's effects on the family is a running motif, but it's also undeniable that the main fault of family break down is simple human fallibility - petty bickering, rivalry, stubbornness, and so on.

I think of "Avalon" as a meditation on the generational continuum we are all on. The grandfather tells his story to the grandchildren who listen with rapt attention. When he tells stories to his children, they've heard them all a million times and are tired of them. Consider the experience of the storyteller himself: "If I knew things would no longer be, I would have tried to remember better." He also sums up the entire film: "Jules, if you stop remembering, you forget."

Re:View - Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

 

A really interesting discussion on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" I think this is the best Re:View they've ever done.

Treasure Island is a Terrible Kid's Movie

I remember one day in elementary school, they gathered perhaps the entire school together into the gymnasium and showed us "Treasure Island" (1950) using the old projector and screen. I have no idea why, I would love to know. Do school faculties just decide one day that they don't feel like teaching so let's just watch a movie? My best guess is it might have been weather. I'm not sure but I think it was raining all day so they cancelled all recess or something. Is that possible? Don't know.

Regardless of the cause, it's always been quite a distinct memory for me and what I remember is this: it seemed to last forever. It was just a single movie and, I suppose, was just a single day but the movie was able to alter the nature of time and space and fit an eternity into just one afternoon. It went on and on and on, it was relentless; not only would it not end, it seemed to have no beginning or middle such that I could estimate how far along we were. 30 years later, I decided to watch it again to give it a re-evaluation. My first observation: in objective terms, the running time is 1 hour, 36 minutes. 

Having re-watched it, I absolutely understand the problem I had as a kid. It's a terrible kid's movie. And I don't think it's bad for kids because it has alcohol or murder or guns, or even that it shows a child shooting a man in the face. I think all that's great. It's a terrible kid's movie because it's unintelligible.

Perhaps audiences in the fifties were different but the makers of the movie seem to have made no attempt to update the dialogue for modern audiences. I made a note of a few lines. Imagine a child following this:

"You'll get plenty of cut and rip when the times comes, but until I gives the signal, lay to."

Now, I'm an adult an I can use the context to piece together what's meant here but kid-me had no chance. How about this line:

"I imagine I'll have to strike my colors. That comes hard from a master mariner to a ship's yonker like you, Jim."

It's a movie about sailors and pirates so some mariner lingo is going to be inevitable but come on. It's the rule of threes, so how about this:

"Picked up Hawke's old helmsman, we did, and a bosun what pipes man-o'-war fashion."

My word. Compounding the dialogue is that the lines are delivered with some thick English accents and recorded on equipment from the fifties and when I saw it, it was probably played on a loudspeaker in an auditorium. At one point a character is giving instruction to the main character with his dying breaths. He seems to say "And don't beach and I'll go bears". Listening to it again, it might be "And don't go peach and I'll go pears." It's about fruit? Turning on the closed captions, the real text is "And don't peach and I'll go shares." Oh, I see, I never had a chance to begin with. Neat.

Not to belabor the point, but it is the crux of my point that I have a good sound system, I have the closed captions on, I'm an adult - I've read and enjoyed "Pride and Prejudice" - and I can't understand "Treasure Island." And this is for kids?

All that aside, even if I don't understand it, it's technically an old classic and so I wondered what the stars of it went on to do later.

The main character is a child star, Bobby Driscoll, and he looked kind of familiar to me. I bet he went on to be an adult in some movies I've seen. Well, he was a child star in Disney movies but when he developed a bad acne problem, his contract was terminated and he couldn't find work. He later developed a drug problem and hung out with Andy Warhol. "On March 30, 1968, two playing children found his dead body in an abandoned East Village tenement. Believed to be an unclaimed and homeless person, he was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave on Hart Island, where he remains."

Hmm. Well, how about Long John Silver? Robert Newton created a character so iconic that he altered the perception of pirates forever. Every actor and every person you hear doing a "pirate voice" is really just doing an imitation of Robert Newton. He's a legendary actor, what roles did he go on to? Newton was an alcoholic and had trouble finding work when he became increasingly unreliable. "He died at age 50 of alcohol-related causes although the official report was a heart attack."

Alright, I'm done.

How Did This Get Made? - Rad

The title of the podcast is "How Did This Get Made?" The idea is to review bad movies and ask the titular question. Now I know that you can't change the title of the podcast for an episode but honestly this episode should be called "How Did The Art Of Film Take Almost 100 Years To Make This?".

Because of course, the movie that this episode is about is Rad, the most radical film ever made.

Half in the Bag - Ghostbusters

"It's finally arrived. The most politically divisive film of the year. A f***ing Ghostbusters remake. Guess that's where we're at."



"Wait, I think there's an Electro-Voice Phenomenon.... Let's listen to it..."

Roger Ebert's Great Movies

When I was growing up "Siskel and Ebert"(the show as well as the critics) were very much in their heyday and I always found them fascinating. It seems to defy all logic that I did. I went to the movies maybe 2 or 3 times per year and there was a strict rule about only seeing movies rated G or PG. So why would a TV show where two guys discuss movies - movies that I hadn't seen and couldn't see - be interesting?

I'm not sure. I could analyze it but it's easier just to say I find movie discussion inherently interesting. Why did I love watching Bob Ross when I was never going to paint?

Roger Ebert came back to my consciousness again when I was going through the IMDB 250 list. I found some movies on the list to be absolutely unwatchable and devoid of anything worth celebrating. "How could people actually like this?", I'd wonder. But the IMDB 250 is a system of votes, not a person, you can't just ask unless you want to post that question on a forum and be dismissed as a "troll".

But I found Roger Ebert's "Great Movie" reviews online and they were the key. Even if I disagreed, even if I was absolutely unchangeable in my hatred for a particular movie, Roger Ebert usually had an essay that explained what people saw in a particular movie, what was unique about it, how it changed the history of film. Like "Siskel and Ebert", whether we agree or disagree, the discussion is still interesting.

Last May I decided to watch every movie in Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" collection and read every review. There are about 372 entries and slightly more movies in the list. There's an inexact correlation between essays and movies because one entry might be a trilogy, one essay might be about the classic Warner Bros. cartoons, one entry, "The Decalogue" is really 10 movies, and so forth. But it's around 372 and as of tonight I've finished watching every movie and reading every essay.

Now that the list is completed, I'll continue missing Roger Ebert's film reviews... and Siskel's for that matter. It's strange how they could be so successful and yet no one has come along to replace them. Perhaps the modern world is happy using review aggregators, just skip the opinion and arrive at a number. One of the knocks on film critics is that people simply don't like to be told what to watch and what not to watch. I think that misses the point. The child version of me certainly didn't see it that way watching "Siskel and Ebert" on television and I don't see it that way now.

The different reactions that movies elicit reveal the differences in the people watching them. A movie watched alone is fine but how much richer is a movie watched, discussed and contemplated with others. Yes, watch any movie you want to see and avoid any movie you don't want to see, but read the review of someone you respect, regardless. The purpose of a worthwhile review is not to tell you what to do. The purpose is simply start the conversation.