Chuck and John

Chuck Berry and John Lennon meet at the Mike Douglas Show in New York in February 1972. They talk and play together: two icons at the summit of talent. Enough said.


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RIP Robert Osborne: Movie Truth Teller

With the passing of original Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne  at age 84, classic movie fans have lost both a genial movie host and a man with a profound love for and encyclopedic knowledge of film and its history. And in this one TCM introduction I happened to stumble upon while looking for something to post that would represent Osborne's talents in a nutshell, there exists a goldmine. In introducing 1971's Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange for a scant  two minutes and seventeen seconds, he manages to do three things:

1) Impart a movie truism: Movies don't change. We do.

2) Educate and/or remind us that the film had its supporters and detractors. And indeed, a quick check of the IMDb reveals that the film divided the critical establishment. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times hated the film for its violent  and cynical worldview and cavalier treatment of subjects like murder and rape, while Vincent Canby of the New York Times praised it for the same things.

3) Osborne's admission that he himself was initially one of Clockwork's detractors, walking out of a Christmas season 1971 preview screening after witnessing Malcom McDowell's sadistic and demented Alex stomp a hobo to death while pretending to be Gene Kelly in Singing in The Rain. Not the best way to get into the Christmas spirit, he thought. And he's obviously right. But leaving a screening can be a ballsy and potentially career-damaging thing to do, particularly if he was there to review it. I know I got a stern talking to from my editor for leaving a screening of Constantine that I was reviewing for a college paper simply to answer the call of nature. To give Robert Osborne the posthumous benefit of the doubt, I will assume that the screening was an opinion maker one, to generate buzz in the Hollywood community among critics and other notables, and not one he had to cover.

4) And finally his assertion that with all the things going on in the world in the last while, A Clockwork Orange's cynical, downbeat tone seems more timely than ever.




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RIP Chuck Barris

Chuck Barris, the legendary host of The Gong Show in the 70s and author of the "unauthorized" biography Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, passed away in his Palisades, New Jersey home today at the age of the age of 87. I cannot say that I was an avid fan of Mr. Barris or the Gong Show in its heyday, but I have to say I admire the man's gigantic balls for taking a small kernel of truth (yes, he did actually apply for the CIA but ultimately opted for a television career) into an action-filled potboiler that people believed for years.

Hmmm...since I have worn a dinner jacket a few times in my life, and since I got a shave and a haircut yesterday, I guess I can start writing my book entitled That Night I Switched Places With James Bond. I'll let you know how that goes.

Now let's watch the trailer for the 2002 film Confessions of A Dangerous Mind directed by George Clooney and starring Sam Rockwell as Barris, as well as a 1977 episode of The Gong Show, essentially an ancestor to America's Got Talent. With no less than young David Letterman on the judging panel.








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RIP Chuck Berry

Let us remember music legend at the point where it all began, with Johnny B. Goode. And also let us remember the 30th anniversary of the 1987 documentary Chuck Berry: Hail Hail Rock and Roll, in which director Taylor Hackford pays tribute to and celebrates the longevity of the man at the 30-year milestone in his career.





And here is a 21-minute outtake from the film with Berry jamming with Keith Richards and Eric Clapton:




Hail hail and rock on!

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Love Actually Actually Again?

So yesterday came word that the team behind Love Actually is reuniting for a followup to the 2003 sleeper hit. with Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant) and his beloved civilian Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) front and center. I am not too sure about this. While I enjoyed the original film's exploration of the different types of love, be it romantic, platonic, friendly, bromance or cute preteen crush, Love Actually also relied heavily on the chemistry between its couples. At the time I had trouble buying Grant as a PM because he looked too good. But I guess history has caught up to us in Canada at least, seeing as we have our very own dashing fella at the helm. It remains to be seen if the magic of Liam Neeson's remark to his son that there is hope for him if Ringo Starr can get a Bond girl, or the sheer audaciousness of Bill Nighy's aging, profane rock star, can be replicated. But I tell you what, if the new plot involves a bus breakdown during the rock star's reunion tour with his old faux Stones band with Liam's son on drums and Ringo as the lad's drum tech, I'm in.


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