The Daily Earworm Shuffle: Part II

Posted on April 25, 2020 by strictlybackcatalogue

Last week, I took a journey through one of my longstanding Spotify playlists: Daily Earworm. It was fun, and much more upbeat than I expected, so I’m doing it again. Here are more highlights from the ongoing set list in my subconscious:

“Reminiscing,” Little River Band: This is one of the yacht rock classics that takes me back to my childhood summer vacations in the Florida panhandle. For me, this is the sound of driving to the beach with my family on a ridiculously sunny day, and, for that reason alone, I will always love yacht rock.

“9 to 5,” Dolly Parton: Over the course of our marriage so far, my wife and I have discovered a couple of things. First, we can watch this movie anytime. It is eternally delightful. Secondly, we both really love Dolly. We will listen to any song of hers, and watch any movie of hers (And, we have.)

“Flash Light,” Parliament: One of my wife’s absolute favorite songs. It ends up on the playlist for every party we throw. We played it at our wedding. I’m guessing it will get played at our respective funerals. Basically, a song for all occasions.

“Here Come Those Tears Again,” Jackson Browne: A rare upbeat-sounding track from Browne that belies its pensive, melancholy lyrics. I’ve always loved his voice and the way he writes, and this is one of my favorites of his.

“The Mandalorian,” Ludwig Goransson: My wife and I were immediately taken with this show when it premiered last year, and especially with its soundtrack. I’m a longtime fan of film and television music, so it didn’t take any doing for this to enter my heavy rotation for a week or two.

“I Believe (When I Fall in Love it Will be Forever),” Stevie Wonder: Speaking of TV shows, have you seen the new High Fidelity series with Zoe Kravitz? It is so well done, and I highly recommend it. This was another one I binged right away when it premiered, and I loved the way it used this song, both as connective tissue to its movie version and as a bit of a thematic inversion from the way it was used in the movie. Super clever and super cool.

“Stand Up,” Cynthia Erivo: Another catchy movie song, delivered with catchy conviction by Erivo. I couldn’t hear this one enough the day after I saw Harriet.

“Walking on a Thin Line,” Huey Lewis and the News: A rare moment of gravitas for this pack of Bay Area favorites. It’s not quite convincing, but it doesn’t really matter because everything else that’s great about them – catchy hooks, a tight rhythm section, and Huey’s smooth vocals – is on full display.

“If I Should Fall from Grace with God,” The Pogues: This raucous celebration of a song needs no explanation. But, if you do need one, just picture yourself and your mates listening to this while sharing a pitcher in your favorite pub. There you go.

“The Dicty Glide,” Don Byron: This album, Byron’s tribute to the work of the Raymond Scott Quintette, the John Kirby Sextet and Duke Ellington, became a favorite of mine when I worked at a record store during college. I played it in the store as often as I could, and it always made my shift go by faster (plus, I never failed to sell a copy or two).

“Walk it Down,” Talking Heads: A subtly catchy tune from a cleverly crafted Heads album. This band truly did not know how to do anything poorly.

“Jigsaw Puzzle,” The Rolling Stones: A forgotten track from a classic Stones album. This was back when they were transitioning from learning their trade in record time to becoming the self-professed Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World. No wonder they could bill themselves as such with a throwaway this good.

“How Much Did You Get for Your Soul?,” The Pretenders: Slick, shiny, synth-tinged Pretenders still pack a punch. Chrissie Hynde’s patented snarl comes through no matter how studio musicians she surrounds herself with.

“I Say a Little Prayer,” Aretha Franklin: I’ve written about this one before. Suffice it to say, one of the greatest covers of all time.

“The Chamber of 32 Doors,” Genesis: One day, I’ll write something extensive about how much I love this band. For now, though, I continue to marvel at how much their inherent pop sensibilities shine through the prog rock conventions of the mid-1970s. Mind-blowing to this day.

Award Tour: Oscar Season Warm-Up, Part 2

Posted on January 12, 2020 by strictlybackcatalogue

Award Tour travels through the yesteryears of pop culture to revisit both the highlights and the curiosities of award season.

As the announcement of this year’s Academy Award nominations approaches (FYI: they’re coming up tomorrow morning), I continue my look back at past recipients of the four major film critics groups end-of-year awards. In my previous post, I highlighted a half dozen times the critics’ picks were spot-on. This time, I take a look at six instances where they opted to be truly idiosyncratic, in either an innovative, surprising, or (sometimes) baffling way. These former honorees prove that there is no ironclad way to predict what the critics will do come award season.

1969 – National Board of Review (NBR), Best Director: Alfred Hitchcock, Topaz

This was only the second time in his career that Hitchcock won an award for directing, and it was a puzzling choice for so many reasons. 1969 was a year chock full of notable films, but the NBR thought that Hitchcock prevailed with a film that is now largely forgotten. Really? They couldn’t have honored him sooner for any of the legendary movies he’d made before then? The late film director Francois Truffaut said it best in what may be the definitive book on Hitchcock: “It is obvious that despite a few scattered beautiful scenes…Topaz is not a good picture. The studio didn’t like it, and neither did the public, the critics, nor even the Hitcockians. The director himself wanted to forget it, and felt an imperative need to make up for it.”

1977 – Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), Best Picture: Star Wars

Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a world in which the Star Wars franchise doesn’t exist. But, back in 1977, the original installment of the Skywalker saga was a shock to the moviegoing public’s system, a movie so revolutionary that it changed both the parameters of filmmaking possibilites and the business practices of the movie industry. Let me put it this way: Star Wars was such a big deal when it came out that it shattered the show business bias against so-called “genre films,” and scored 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. The LAFCA Best Picture win for Best Picture was one of the first steps in Star Wars‘ long march towards arguably becoming the all-time heavyweight champion of movie blockbusters.

1981 – National Society of Film Critics (NSFC), Best Supporting Actor: Robert Preston, S.O.B.

Best remembered as Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man (or Centauri in The Last Starfighter, depending upon which generation you hail from), Preston has some mischievous fun playing against type in S.O.B., Blake Edwards’ rowdy, savage takedown of the movie industry. Playing a private physician to the Hollywood elite with the kind of low-key, flexible morals that suit his clientele just fine, Preston gets to display some dry comic wit, and position himself as a comedic supporting actor par excellence. His performance didn’t get much more traction on the 1981 awards trail beyond his NSFC win, but it probably helped his longer-term case the following year when he nabbed his first (and only) Oscar nomination for his scene-stealing turn in Victor/Victoria.

1984 – New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), Best Actor: Steve Martin, All of Me

This was the performance that took Martin’s film career up a notch or two, and he knew it. In the biography Steve Martin: The Magic Years, the comedian admitted, “My mature film career started with All of Me…” 1984 was a heavyweight year for movies, featuring a crowded field of iconic, award-worthy performances – including Martin’s. As an everyday attorney who accidentally ends up having to share his body with the soul of an eccentric millionaire (played by the fantastic Lily Tomlin), Martin’s bravura performance is a master class in physical comedy, and it brought him a newfound level of professional respect: he also won the NSFC’s Best Actor Award, received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, and proved once and all that there was more to him than just “King Tut” and The Jerk.

1984 – NSFC, Best Supporting Actress: Melanie Griffith, Body Double

Melanie Griffith and Craig Wasson in Body Double (1984)

In hindsight, this one seems a little random, especially considering that 1984 was such a powerhouse year for movie performances. Still, Griffith shines in her breakout role as a porn star caught up in an amateur sleuth’s cock-eyed murder investigation. As former New York Times film critic Vincent Canby said in his review of Body Double, “Miss Griffith gives a perfectly controlled comic performance that successfully neutralizes all questions relating to plausibility. She’s not exactly new to films… What is new is the self- assured screen presence she demonstrates here…” Griffith went on to score a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her work here, and it wasn’t long before she was starring in the films that cemented her reputation: Something Wild and Working Girl.

1998 – NYFCC, Best Actress: Cameron Diaz, There’s Something About Mary

Historically speaking, film critics have been more willing to consider comedy as artistically legitimate than the movie industry guilds have. By that metric alone, this pick by the NYFCC should not have been all that surprising – and yet, it totally was. Diaz had not been in the awards conversation at all that year, despite starring in one of the highest-grossing films of 1998. Perhaps it was easy to overlook her performance because she basically played the comic straight man to her flashier co-stars, Ben Stiller and Matt Dillon. But, what Diaz brings to There’s Something About Mary is an old-fashioned dose of high-wattage movie star charisma. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that Diaz plays the title character “with a blithe comic style that makes her as funny as she is dazzling.” Maslin was not alone in that opinion: Diaz scored a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress later that year, and her career went next level after Mary.

Award Tour: Oscar Season Warm-Up, Part 1

Posted on December 2, 2019 by strictlybackcatalogue

Award Tour travels through the yesteryears of pop culture to revisit both the highlights and the curiosities of award season.

As we approach the end of the calendar year, we also move into the beginning of Oscar season, a concentrated burst of heavyweight P.R. campaigns and red carpet appearances that spans the Golden Globe Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a host of other industry fetes, and culminates at the biggest Hollywood finish line of them all: the Academy Awards (which will be handed out on February 9, 2020).

The official start of Oscar season comes early this month when the National Board of Review announces the recipients of their annual awards on December 3rd. They represent the first of the four major critics groups – including the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics – whose best-of-the-year accolades signal that the Oscar race is officially on.

By the time the Oscar nominations are announced each year, there are usually very few surprises left. But, the critics group awards are often full of surprises that influence the Oscar race, and can also boost the visibility of a deserving artist or film. Here are a half dozen moments where the scribes got things amazingly right.

1938 – New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), Best Director: Alfred Hitchcock, The Lady Vanishes

Film buffs take note: this was the first of only two awards that Hitchcock ever won for directing (and, we’ll be talking about the second one in a follow-up post). Throughout a long and storied career in which he arguably became the most popular, well-known, and frequently imitated director that the movie business has ever known, it seems shocking, in retrospect, that Hitchcock never won any of the industry’s highest honors (i.e. the Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe, or Director’s Guild Award), and was largely ignored by most of the major film critics groups. So, without knowing it, the Gotham critics made history with this one. In a year that has since become better known for such traditional Hollywood fare as Boys Town, Jezebel, and You Can’t Take it With You (the eventual 1938 Oscar winner for both Best Picture and Best Director), the NYFCC’s decision to honor Hitchcock for his classic mystery thriller now looks especially forward-thinking.

1985 – Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), Best Film: Brazil

This was another forward-thinking choice, and one that was especially daring at the time. Director Terry Gilliam was locked in a contentious battle with Universal Pictures over the release of his dystopian science fiction satire, Brazil (a battle that was well-chronicled in Jack Mathews’ behind-the-scenes page-turner, The Battle of Brazil). The now-legendary conflict between Gilliam and Universal chairman Sid Sheinberg included a studio-sanctioned team of editors working on a more audience-friendly version of the movie without Gilliam’s consent; a full-page ad in Variety in which Gilliam cheekily asked Sheinberg when he was going to release the film; and, a slate of secret screenings of Gilliam’s cut of the film that the director held for film critics behind the studio’s back. The shocking conclusion to this whole affair came when the LAFCA voted to give Brazil their award for Best Film, even though it still had not yet been officially released anywhere in the United States. With heavyweight hopefuls like The Color Purple and Out of Africa (the eventual Oscar winner for Best Picture that year) vying for award season position, this was the equivalent of lobbing a grenade at the Hollywood publicity machine. After that, Universal quickly relented: Gilliam and Sheinberg reached a détente that got Brazil into theaters for an end-of-the-year run, and a cult classic was born.

1987 – NYFCC, Best Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman, Street Smart

Before he was known as both God and one of America’s favorite movie presidents, Morgan Freeman was perhaps most recognizable as one of the most popular characters from 1970s children’s television: Easy Reader from The Electric Company. After spending much of that decade on PBS helping a subset of Gen X-ers learn how to read, it was a total surprise to see Freeman playing an irascible and manipulative pimp in Street Smart. But, his performance allowed him to display more versatility than audiences knew he had, and it got the attention of the larger film community: he won nearly all of the film critics’ awards that year, and landed his first Oscar nomination. Best of all, Street Smart gave Freeman the breakthrough role that launched his movie career as we know it now.

1988 – NYFCC, Best Actor: Jeremy Irons, Dead Ringers

Why yes, a David Cronenberg movie about twin brother gyncologists who are both sleeping with the same partner is just as weird and unsettling as one would expect it to be. But, the movie in question, Dead Ringers, also gave Jeremy Irons a flashy role that made him an early Oscar frontrunner in 1988. It, therefore, wasn’t surprising when he started racking up award season accolades from the critics group. The big surprise came later when he was shut out of that year’s Best Actor Oscar race altogether (the eventual winner was equally flashy in his own right: Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man). Two years later, when Irons finally did win an Oscar (for his equally colorful turn as Claus von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune), he gave Cronenberg a long overdue thanks in his acceptance speech.

1991 – National Board of Review (NBR), Best Actress: Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, Thelma & Louise

When it comes to movie awards, ties don’t happen very often, but the NBR’s 1991 tie for Best Actress could not have been more appropriate. How else to honor two equally iconic performances in an epochal film? How could anyone sepearate Thelma from Louise? Impossible. This was the only suitable response. Unfortunately, the Oscars skipped a golden opportunity to follow suit at that year’s ceremony: Davis and Sarandon were passed over in favor of Jodie Foster’s equally classic turn in The Silence of the Lambs.

2007 – National Society of Film Critics (NSFC), Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There

In a career full of dazzling performances, this one may be Cate Blanchett’s most stunning. There’s no other way to describe how thoroughly she morphs into one of Todd Haynes‘ multiple Bob Dylan dopplegangers in the musical docudrama I’m Not There. (Compare the clip above with this footage of Dylan from 1965, then take note of how fast Blanchett’s performance blows your mind.) Critics had high praise for Haynes’ surreal impressionistic biopic, but audiences were more lukewarm towards it, which may have dampened Blanchett’s Oscar chances that year. (Tilda Swinton took home the Best Supporting Actress trophy that year for her turn in Michael Clayton).

For Your Consideration: Honorary Oscar 2020

Posted on June 13, 2019 by strictlybackcatalogue

Image result for harrison ford han solo empire strikes back

Earlier this month, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their roster of honorees for this year’s Governors Awards – a.k.a. the Academy’s trio of lifetime achievement trophies: the Honorary Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, or the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award – and they’ve chosen another group of deserving recipients. Over the course of the past decade, the Academy’s Board of Governors has been especially sharp in their selections for these awards, which are given for “extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences, or for outstanding service to the Academy.” Some of my favorite honorees from recent years include Lauren Bacall, Gordon Willis, Eli Wallach, James Earl Jones, Hal Needham, Angela Lansbury, Steve Martin, Hayao Miyazaki, Spike Lee, Gena Rowlands, Jackie Chan, Lynn Stalmaster, and Donald Sutherland. It’s as if the Academy has finally started paying closer attention to those creatives who have carved out a truly distinctive career for themselves, as well as those whom audiences actually care about.

The history of the Academy Awards is littered with deserving artists who never won a competitive Oscar. The Academy has done its best over the years to correct such oversights by handing out their Honorary Awards. That’s how countless past masters finally got their due: I’m thinking of Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet, Cary Grant, Judy Garland, and Peter O’Toole, off the top of my head, but the list goes on and on.

But, there have also been the non-winners who never even even got an Honorary Oscar (i.e. Richard Burton), and the legends who were kept out of the mix for both an Honorary Oscar and a competitive one (i.e. Marilyn Monroe). One could literally write a book about the Academy’s blind spots on both fronts.

With that said, I humbly submit the following candidates for Honorary Oscar consideration in 2020. All five have established themselves firmly in the field over the years, and have built up substantial goodwill with filmgoing audiences around the world.

Kevin Bacon

Bacon has reinvented himself countless times, shown remarkable career longevity, and he never phones it in. And, what does he have to show for it? Nary a single Oscar nomination. Dear Academy: are you kidding me? Did you see Murder in the First? Let me put it this way: even my wife – who thinks the Oscars are self-congratulatory show biz nonsense, and truly could not care less about them – even she was outraged when I told her Bacon had never been nominated. That’s how ridiculous his career-long omission is. Plus, he’s been around so long, and is so popular with audiences, there’s a game named after him. Who else can say that?

Annette Bening

Always a bridesmaid at the Oscars, but never the bride – yet. It never quite seems to be Bening’s year. She’s been nominated four times over the past two decades, and been thwarted by her Oscar kryptonite, Hilary Swank, on two of those occasions. She’s built an impressive resume that has established her as one of the strongest actors of the modern era, and she’s well-connected: Bening previously served as one of the Actors Branch representatives on the Academy’s Board of Governors, so they quite literally know her. How stupid will they feel twenty years from now when they realize it took them so long to give her the Honorary Oscar?

Glenn Close

Talk about someone who has reinvented themselves countless times, shown remarkable career longevity, and, like Kevin Bacon, also never phones it in. In an alternate universe, Close would be as critically lauded as Meryl Streep, and she’d have the hardware to show for it. The buzz around Close when she first hit in the early 1980s made it seem like such an outcome was inevitable. Nearly 40 years and seven Oscar nominations later, however, she remains winless. That makes her the current record-holder among living actors for most nods without a win. (Was I the only person who thought she would finally win for The Wife?) It seems inconceivable that someone as respected, versatile, and ballsy as Close would still be empty-handed, but here we are. Dear Academy, I ask you: what else does she have to do?

Harrison Ford

Come on, now. He is both Han Solo and Indiana Jones, for Christ’s sake. He has made a bundle of money for the studios. And, he’s only been nominated for an Oscar once, for his splendid performance in Witness. The $64,000 question is: how was he not nominated for playing two of the most iconic characters in film history?! In hindsight, those omissions seem absurd, especially considering how often he’s imitated (after all, he did help create the template for the modern action movie hero). Best of all: he doesn’t actually give a damn – about accolades, or much else to do with show biz. Still, Ford is that rare movie star who remains both influential and bankable after five decades in the industry. He is long overdue for some recognition.

Samuel L. Jackson

Like Harrison Ford, Jackson has only been nominated once, for his legendary, career-defining performance in Pulp Fiction. Also, like Ford, this is such a no-brainer, I feel as if it doesn’t have to be explained or justified, so I’ll just say this: he’s been both a Jedi and Senor Love Daddy, he has battled snakes on a plane, he assembled the most popular team of superheroes on Earth, and he’s also Mr. Glass. He is extraordinarily popular with audiences and knows which projects to hitch his wagon to: as of this writing, the total box office gross of his collective filmography make Jackson the highest-grossing film actor of all time. In other words, he can – and will – do anything. Show the man some respect.

Stanley Donen: Full of Joy

Posted on March 20, 2019 by strictlybackcatalogue

When Stanley Donen died late last month, the world lost one of the last remaining film directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age. He was almost never mentioned in the same sentence with his peers from that hallowed era – Hitchcock, Hawks, Huston, Welles, Chaplin, Wilder, Kazan, to name a few – probably because he specialized in a genre that has seldom been taken seriously: the big-budget movie musical. I dare say, however, that he was, in his own way, just as talented, accomplished, and influential as his more revered colleagues. After all, he did co-direct one of the universally acknowledged greatest films of all time, a rare distinction for a musical.

One look at Donen’s filmography reveals his strengths and interests, best summarized by Tad Friend of The New Yorker in a 2003 profile of the director: “He made the world of champagne fountains and pillbox hats look enchanting, which is much harder than it sounds.” The signature stars of Donen’s most well-known films – Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, and Audrey Hepburn – exemplify that ethos of charming, witty refinement perfectly.

But, a closer look at Donen’s films also reveals another overarching theme: joy, of all stripes, as evidenced by some of my favorite moments from his films:

“You’re All the World to Me,” Royal Wedding (1951)

The musical number that personifies the phrase “movie magic.” It’s got everything, starting with Fred Astaire’s Tom Bowen being so in love that he momentarily turns into Spider-Man. Donen and Astaire do such an incredible job on this number that the audience never thinks twice about it being completely stylistically different from the rest of the movie. Instead, it is simply proof positive that once the singing and dancing start, anything can happen in a musical. It’s genre that is built for this kind of whimsy, and Donen clearly loves that.

**“Good Morning,” Singin’ in the Rain (1952)**

Here is Donen the craftsman showing off in his own subtle way: with terrific framing and composition, great camera movement, and a minimum of cuts. Donen uses maximum shot lengths in order to let the performers fully do their thing, and the choreography complements both them and the plot. Every move that Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor make here is appropriate for this particular point in the story. This is the joy of watching three top-notch triple threats in peak form.

“Make ‘Em Laugh,” Singin’ in the Rain

A musical number that perfectly introduces and defines a character. We know exactly who Donald O’Connor’s Cosmo is after this, and we carry that knowledge with us for the rest of the movie: anytime he shows up, we know he could potentially be this funny, nimble, and charming at any moment. It’s no coincidence that this number is both inventive and hilarious and also tailored to O’Connor’s strengths. This is another moment from the Donen filmography where we revel in the joy of watching a expert performer operating at the highest level.

“Sunday Jumps,” Royal Wedding

My mom’s first question after I told her I’d recently watched this movie again: “Is that the one where he dances with the hat rack?” Please note that she did not ask “Is that the one where he dances on the ceiling?” That’s how good this number is. Donen and Fred Astaire take a potentially lame idea – dancing solo with a room full of inanimate objects – and activate it the fullest. This is a prime example of Donen’s and Astaire’s inventiveness, and another great illustration of character development through dance: Astaire’s Tom Bowen is both resourceful and a workaholic.

Jo Stockton’s Bohemian Dance, Funny Face (1957)

There are so many reasons why Funny Face is one of Donen’s best musicals, and most of them can be found in this number. Yet again, we have a dance that is tailored to a performer’s strengths, and also defines character. Audrey Hepburn’s Jo Stockton is thrilled to be out in Paris meeting the bohemian intelligentsia, and this dance is how she expresses that. It’s a great showcase for both Hepburn’s latent dance skills and her goofy sense of humor. Plus, the mise-en-scene is off the charts.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention another highlight from Funny Face: two of the greatest shots of Audrey Hepburn ever put on film. Donen clearly loved working with A-list movie stars, and often did everything he could to make sure they looked their glamorous best. I would bet that no one ever looked as fabulous in any of his movies as Hepburn does here. Case in point: skip forward to the 3:29 point in this number and the 5:53 point in this sequence, and you will see Hepburn being even more photogenic and iconic than usual. (She must have liked working with Donen, as well: they went on to make two more movies together.)

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