Star Magazine, and I don't mean the one talking about Tori Spelling's boring weight loss, was a short lived but influential magazine from the seventies focused on the wild platform heeled and tap panted world of groupies. It's amazing and sadly, in such demand that back issues can be really hard to find.
We're all in luck though, because the Star Groupie Magazine site offers us all a glimpse at the magic. Prepare to be mind blown and feel incredible urges to fro your hair and wear tube tops.
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman is a very bizarre little piece of television history. Not available to the public for decades, the new release to DVD serves as a joy to those who remember the strange show and a great introduction to an experiment both of and ahead of its time for those that don't.
As a satire on the unrealistic soap operas that fueled house wife's dreams, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman deals with realistically controversial issues like impotence and masturbation as well as outlandishly inappropriate (for the time) plot lines like cults and mass murder.
If you are unaware of the formula and have not watched old soap operas before (like Jim) you'll find the humor even more difficult to grasp than the rest of us. The tone of the show seems to shift from moment to moment; at times it's goofy, then surreal, then suddenly poignant and a bit depressing.
It's an acquired taste and I'm not sure if I've got it yet, but I was intrigued enough to watch the first nine episodes fairly uninterrupted. Even if it didn't have me in stitches laughing, it kept me strangely fascinated.
Making All the President's Men into a taut, suspenseful, and intelligent political drama was no small feat for director Alan J Pakula (who proved to be an expert in the poli-thriller genre with the equally great Parallax View) considering that everyone knows how the story ends and that most of the two hour plus running time consists of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman making phone calls, taking notes, running around and trying desperately to extract information from unwilling sources.
I saw this movie when I was a kid and learned what this whole 'Watergate' thing I'd heard so much about actually was. I also grew a fond of corduroy suits thanks to the utterly charming (as usual) Robert Redford, who has the hair of a god. Thanks to other young viewers, it's since become known as “the movie that launched a thousand journalism careers” with its accurate and respectful depiction of all the hard work that goes into revealing the truth.
Of course, since the films release in 1976, the entire world of traditional newspaper journalism has been pushed to the brink of obsolescence by the easy access to information offered by the internet; several major publications have already folded (recently my homestate's Rocky Mountain News). The film is nostalgic, then about the days when newspaper journalism was still considered vitally important and could actually change the world.
The informant known as Deep Throat, played by a sinisterly smokey Hal Holbrook in the film, has since been revealed to have been Mark Felt, the FBI's number two man.
All the President's Men is currently available for instant viewing on Netflix.
Known primarily (if at all) for their hit Venus, a song that certainly colored my early years when it was covered by Bananarama, Shocking Blue was a groovy Dutch band made up of good looking kids that were slightly more popular in Europe.
While Venus is great, I'm more drawn to the less commercially successful track Deamon Lover from the album Scorpio's Dance. A moody song with a witchy heart accompanied by kind of surfy mesmerizing guitar.
Plus, it shares its title with Jim's favorite movie about corporate espionage in the porn video game industry.
Joni Mitchell, universally lauded for her impact and song-writing, is kind of an acquired taste. Thanks to extremely poignant and relevant environmental lyrics and the beautiful refrain, “Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you got till it's gone” (which was oddly sampled by Janet without any regard to the original meaning), Big Yellow Taxi is one of Mitchell's most popular and accessible songs.
Even reluctant listeners, like my friend Mike you used to torment the little hippy girls in high school by singing, “I wanna shampoo your haaaaaiiir” in a mocking falsetto would have to admit that this song has a lasting and pretty ring to it.
Written during a trip to Hawaii when Joni, “…took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart… this blight on paradise.”
What's Going On is an album of beautiful despair, told from the point of view of a Vietnam vet returned to a country on the wrong path. The album, which was a departure for Marvin Gaye (and his reluctant record company, which was known as a hit factory), dealt with many issues that had been bubbling just below the surface of a forgotten American dream. Poverty, joblessness, and environmental issues were a far cry from Heard it Trough the Grapevine, but Gaye was not feeling terribly hopeful and cheery in 1970. His duet partner Tammi Terrell had just died and other factors of fame had sent him into a deep depression.
The titular track is by far the album's most popular, but it's a great experience to listen to it in its entirety as each song bleeds into the next. Considered revolutionary and praised as a soul masterpiece, it's actually a somewhat subdued and simple album that derives its power from the strength of its subject, Gaye's captivating voice, and the layers of orchestration.
While I consider the album one of despair, and it seems that that's the way he was feeling when making it, there's a sense of, if not hope than at least a quiet ambition to try to make the world a better place. In many ways, as lots of the problems Gaye addressed become worse, it's still a powerfully relevant piece today.
Bad Ronald is a 1974 made-for-TV-movie that derives at least some of its allure from the mere fact that it's so hard to find (although it can be seen on You Tube). Airing two years before VHS was unleashed on the US, Bad Ronald was bound to become a forgotten eerie relic of the past. The fact that my favorite writer, science fiction master Jack Vance, wrote the novel on which it was based (the only one of his works ever adapted for the screen) piqued my interest even more and I just had to get a copy from J4HI.
The movie, depending on your point of view, either suffers from or is enhanced by the venerable yet constrictive format of the made-for-TV-movie. The melodramatic music, the odd pacing, and the considerably watered down plot lines that (reportedly) are far less brutal than the original source material (I say reportedly because the book is out of print and first editions are out of my price range) can make for pretty difficult viewing for those with limited patience for the retro verging on cheesy. I myself am not such a person, I find low production values can be an asset – particularly when it comes to thrillers – and once I adjusted to the grainy transfer and flat acting style, I discovered the qualities of this strange and chilling little gem.
Ronald is a kid with an oddly strong bond with his possessive mom (Kim Hunter) who accidentally gets involved in some very bad business. As a result, mother convinces Ronald to stay hidden in a bathroom (which they board up) until all interest in the incident goes away. He essentially becomes a prisoner of his mother's in his own house until she goes off and die on him. A family of young, nubile girls moves in (a youngish, nubilish Dabney Coleman plays their father) and Ronald, who's basically living in the walls, becomes crazier and more like an outsider artist with each passing day as he spies on the new family and develops a psychotic fantasy world.
The film's tag-line puts it best, describing Ronald as “a ghost who isn't dead” haunting the house until he finally reveals himself to the frightened teens. It's the kind of movie that manages to inflame some fundamental fears and I imagine it was deeply etched in the minds (and nightmares) of the children who watched it when it originally aired.
Funnily enough, star Scott Jacoby seems so familiar not just because he resembles a neighbor of mine plus Matthew Modine, but because he played a recurring role as Dorothy's son on the Golden Girls.
Some time ago, when giving Mr. Showmanship credit for his bedazzling style, I mentioned that I was seeking out Liberace Cooks! I have an awesome mom, because she actually found it for me on eBay. The dusty, well loved tome, “As told to Carol Truax” (who was a native of my hometown), reads like a folky Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
Each chapter is titled after one of the seven dining rooms he and his diamond encrusted suit enjoy. The “Indoor-Outdoor Eating” chapter, which includes recipes for spareribs, sauerkraut, and chicken in brandy and cream, is centered around the dining room he eats in the most and described this way, “The draperies are a pale tomato color, the velvety carpet is mustard-yellow – convenient if somebody spills the mustard sauce”.
Another chapter called “Do it Yourself and Eat it Yourself In the Kitchen” includes Liberace's Special 15 Minute Eggs, which take fairly healthy eggs and douse them with heavy cream, butter, and cheese.
He also has a “Beautiful Buffet by the Yard” and a room for “TV Dining”. Of course, the TV is done in golds and is adorned with onyx cherubs, but I have to say, the man gave little thought to the layout and configuration of the room: if a guest were enjoying Sunset Chef's Salad (cabbage, chicken and tongue) or Scotch Squares in here, they'd have a tough time watching Leapin' Lizards, It's Liberace.
“Cookout on the Loggia” features Liberace at his burliest, grilling steak in a chef's apron under the piano keys that adorn the grill. “The entire area is greencovered, not with grass but with outdoor carpeting, so easy to walk on, so safe for wet feet.”
The “Room with a View” and “Formal Dining Room” chapters earn no photos, but do feature more heavy cream based dishes like Canape Puffs and Green Mashed Potatoes.?The final chapter gets the best title “Sauces, Sauces everywhere” because, as the man himself declares, “It's the sauces that divide the men from the boys and separate the gourmets from the guzzlers.”
It's no big surprise to learn that David Cronenberg wrote The Brood during a particularly bitter custody battle. The plot deals with a level-headed dad (played by Art Hindle, who you may recognize from the first Brix Pick Movie recommendation ever, Black Christmas) with great hair, a great winter jacket and Ted Bundy type looks who unwittingly battles the rage incarnate of his crazy ex-wife, a woman who seems wants nothing more than to make him suffer and take his young daughter away.
Like most Cronenberg films, real life pain and suffering, like the bitterness and hatred that can accompany a messy divorce, or the paranoia that can sometimes come with single parenthood, manifest in the stuff of nightmares. You've come to expect some gross out stuff from the Canadian, and he doesn't disappoint in The Brood. Initial audiences flipped out during one scene in particular that involves blood and tongue-grooming.
But the underlying horror is far more effective than simple shock value; it's deeply chilling movie because it takes something generally wholesome and comforting, family, and turns it on its ear. Violence isn't caused by some random psychopath but by mothers, children, doctors and even your own body. It's a great, discomforting movie of, but it does lag in between moments of complete visual terror.
Manly Oliver Reed is lion-like as an experimental psychiatrist who practices (the very Cronenberg sounding) “Psycho Plasmics” in a remote, very 70's, all wood and angles retreat and actress Samantha Eggar plays the crazy woman quite well. Even minor characters, like a neurotic former patient who has complaints (and a huge lymphomic neck) against the doctor is played wonderfully, with real humanity, by Croneberg regular Robert A Silverman.
While The Brood never reaches the peaks of the director's 1983 masterpiece, Videodrome, it's a quieter movie punctuated by extremely effective jolts of violence and tension.
I can not, for the life of me, figure out why Sugarman, the amazing 1970 song by little-known Rodriguez, never became a smash hit here in the USA. It's like a long lost dreamily upbeat Donovan track, minus the chilling goofiness of Mellow Yellow but imbued with the naughtiness of the Codeine's derided subject matter; it seems, to me, to be an ode to the pleasures of drug-taking.
Now considered a “cult” classic rock song, Sugarman is a huge hit in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Propelled by its recent appearance as a sample in a song by someone called “Nas” that you kids are all into these days, maybe this spectacularly catchy song will finally catch on and reach wide American audience, inspiring them to swing their shoulders like a hippies and let the sound carry them away.
Originally a Motown singer, Rodriguez came Icarianly close to stardom but lost it all with a bunk record company then went on to to shed his musical roots, living quietly and eventually making a run for local office in Detroit.
While I'm sure he's a well rounded man who's enjoyed his life and recent re-discovery, I can't help but feel sad about all the music he could have made if he'd stuck with it through the years. Though, just ask the Rolling Stones what the last good song they recorded was (answer: none)… Maybe we should just count our blessings that we're left with this singular and underplayed gem.