Saturday, November 29, 2014
I chomped down a good old piece of old-timey Hollywood cornpone the other day: the 1935 version of The Last Days of Pompeii. It was gloriously dopey.
The 1935 was at least the fourth adaptation of the novel of the same name by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who these days is better known for posthumously and (surely) inadvertently lending his name to an annual contest for deliberately atrocious prose. His book, written in 1834, had been made into films in Italy in 1908, 1913 and 1926; the 1935 film that I watched was not only the first English-language version but the first non-silent version.
The directors, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper, were fairly fresh off their massive 1933 hit King Kong; between that film and The Last Days of Pompeii, Schoedsack directed Blind Adventure (1933), the inevitable Son of Kong (1933) and the John Barrymore comedy Long Lost Father. Cooper is noted more for his work as a producer, but I'll take this opportunity to recommend a documentary that he and Schoedsack codirected in 1925: Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life. Fascinating film.
Tags: film , movie , what i'm watching , the last days of pompeii , pompeii , ernest b. schoedsack , merian c. cooper , king kong , peplum , gladiator , ridley scott , sword , sandals , spectacle , Image , Web Only
Friday, November 28, 2014
But in case you haven't made a snap judgment and are willing to give this film a chance, here's more:
Tags: movies , film , charlie countryman , shia labeouf , evan rachel wood , fredrik bond , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
OK, so that's not exactly breaking news in Vermont, or anywhere else in the greater guitar-geek world, really. Under the banner of his Burlington-based company, Creston Electric, Lea has been building custom guitars since 2002. And, owing both to his own craftsmanship and the eye-catching, Western-styled artwork by local artist Sarah Ryan that often adorns them, he's developed quite a reputation for high quality and distinctive axes.
The ringing sound of his Tele-styled guitars is practically the soundtrack to Burlington itself, as several of the area's notable players swear by their Crestons. These include Brett Hughes, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals' Benny Yurco, Anders Parker, Swale's Eric Olsen and Waylon Speed's Kelly Ravin, to name a handful.
Lea has quite a few bigger-name acolytes as well, such as Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi, Adam Ant, actress Gaby Hoffman and Son Volt's Jay Farrar. By the way, Son Volt guitarist and Burlington expat Mark Spencer is also known to rock a Creston or six and, according to a new short documentary film, might have been the man who started Lea on his path to becoming a luthier to the stars.
That film, Wood & Wire: The Hand-Crafted Guitars of Creston Lea, is a Vermont Community Access Media (VCAM) production helmed by local filmmaker Bill Simmon. The 20-minute doc examines Lea's guitar-building history, his place in the world of custom guitars, his collaboration with Ryan and why, as Lea notes in on his website, the customer is only "sometimes" — read: "almost never" — right.
Tags: Creston Electric , Creston Lea , guitars , luthier , Fretboard Journal , Mark Spencer , VCAM , Bill Simmon , burlington , vermont , Video , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
After this week, Burlingtonians will no longer see Bolyard behind the digital turntables as the host of Karaoke Kapers, but they're more likely to see him performing in other venues. Bolyard, who says he's never once called in sick to the St. John's Club, is stepping down so he can devote more time to theatrical performances.
The karaoke maestro appeared in Lyric Theatre's April production of Les Misérables, and the experience — his first show in seven years — reawakened his love for theater, Bolyard says.
He's also a member of local drag troupe House of Lemay. "I've missed a lot of opportunities to expand that because I haven't been available on Friday nights," Bolyard says. The group will perform its Christmas show, "Another Beaver Pond Christmas," at FlynnSpace on Friday, December 5.
The St. John's Club will continue to offer karaoke to its patrons, manager Ken Ploof confirmed. It has contracted with a karaoke company called Premier DJ to run the show on Friday nights. "Nothing will change as far as karaoke goes," says Ploof, "but we will miss Bob. We certainly wish him all the best, and great things in the future."
Tags: karaoke , bob bolyard , st john's club , music , house of lemay , Burlington , Vermont , Image , Web Only
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Perhaps the most significant moment of "The Paul Lynde Halloween Special," which aired on ABC in 1976 and which may now be found on YouTube, occurs near its end. As Lynde and Roz "Pinky Tuscadero" Kelly lead the show's entire cast in a lip-synched rendition of "Disco Baby" (a gender-neutralized version of Johnnie Taylor's hit "Disco Lady"), the members of KISS, the special's marquee musical guest, gaze down from a balcony in disapproval as stoic as their makeup will allow.
That disapproval — just barely glimpsed in the corner of the screen; one gets the sense that the camera operator was trying not to include it — bespeaks a complicated, contradictory cultural shift into which this strange little hour of television inserted itself. KISS' putative genre is metal, or perhaps "glam metal" — though true metalheads have long dismissed the band and their ilk as "false metal" of the type on which death ought properly to be wished. Yet here, as Lynde, Kelly and a horde of extras disco-dance their way around the stage, KISS' detectable scorn looks like nothing so much as one of the first salvos in one of the decade's most fascinating culture wars.
Tags: what i'm watching , tv , halloween , paul lynde , paul lynde halloween special , kiss , vaudeville , disco , florence henderson , Video , Web Only
Friday, November 21, 2014
What You Missed
Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) is a young singer-songwriter with more aspiration than inspiration. Basically, all his song ideas are crap.
Then Jon meets the Soronprfbs. The band's keyboardist has just tried to drown himself, and they need a replacement for tonight's show. When Jon shows up for the last-minute (and catastrophic) gig, he's weirded out by the band's American frontman, Frank (Fassbender), who wears a giant fake head. Not just for shows, all the time. ("I have a certificate!" he yells at anyone who asks him to take it off.)
Tags: movies , film , frank , lenny abrahamson , michael fassbender , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
This month, Hitzig has taken the concept to a way larger venue: a billboard. Of course, he's also taken it out of state, since billboards are illegal in Vermont.
The one pictured here — obviously, the one in the middle — is alongside Route 9 in Queensbury, just south of Lake George. It's near Interstate 87 between exits 19 and 20, Hitzig specifies in an e-newsletter. He rented the billboard space for four weeks; it went up November 11 and will be on view until December 8. If you're traveling the New York State byway anytime soon, be sure to wave. Or just contemplate.
"My concept is to provide a gift of mental space for viewers as an antidote to the barrage of messages constantly demanding something of us," Hitzig writes. "Ironically, I have to leave Vermont and use a billboard in an attempt to create the same feeling that one gets driving around our billboardless state."
Tags: abstract art , billboards , Vermont , New York state , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
The Emergent Universe Oratorio, from which the chorus will perform several sections, was created by Vermont musician and composer Sam Guarnaccia. Drawing upon, among other inspirations, the writings of environmentalist Wendell Berry and cosmologist Brian Swimme, Guarnaccia's oratorio is a sweeping, epic, thoughtful composition. The piece premiered in September 2013 in a suitably spectacular venue: the gigantic Breeding Barn at Shelburne Farms.
The oratorio — whose subject matter is the interconnectedness of humanity and the cosmos — has not been performed since its premiere more than a year ago, during which interval Guarnaccia has been busy revising both the music and the libretto.
Tags: oratorio , emergent universe oratorio , sam guarnaccia , middlebury college , community chorus , vermont , Image , Web Only
Sunday, November 16, 2014
It's a little difficult to explain exactly what "Too Many Cooks" is. Mostly, it's a parody of some of the most hackneyed clichés of American genre television. A little more specifically, it's a parody of those shows' opening-credits sequences.
I'd hazard that the film's single most important touchstone (right down to its font choice) is the opening-credits sequence of the 1980s sitcom "Full House," but also invoked are those of such shows as "Growing Pains," "Family Matters," "G.I. Joe," "Hill Street Blues," "Hunter" and "ALF," to name a few. "Full House," though, seems to have just about all of the ingredients that "Too Many Cooks" parodies so deftly: heartwarming family situations; zany, good-natured antics; a terrible earworm of a theme song.
Tags: what i'm watching , too many cooks , tv , sitcom , credits , parody , adult swim , Image , Video , Web Only
Friday, November 14, 2014
What You Missed
Simon James (Eisenberg) is a loser. Total strangers order him to vacate his seat on the subway. His fellow employees at a drab government agency barely recognize him. Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), the depressed, ethereal girl he loves, doesn't know he's alive. He uses a telescope to observe her through her window and carefully retrieves the torn-up artwork she throws in the trash.
Then James Simon (also Eisenberg) enters the picture. The new employee could be Simon's physical twin, but he's outgoing, gregarious, likable, manipulative. In no time at all, James has Simon doing favors for him and Hannah in his bed. He knows how to make her happy — and unhappy, it transpires.
Tags: the double , richard ayoade , jesse eisenberg , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only