the rix mix

Wonderfully talented actor with a conscience.

Every character James Gandolfini played looked unhealthy, & he looked unhealthy in person, too. My first reaction to The Sopranos was a shock of recognition, that I had met & heard people like them many times in real life in New Jersey. I had. So had Gandolfini.

 When I saw him in Crimson Tide I thought, that's the guy from True Romance. I still didn't know his name. With Get Shorty, I wanted to know who he was, he played the part of  Bear so true to Elmore Leonard's written character.

 The unveiling of The Sopranos, prior to the Radio City official debut, was at Union County Arts Center in Rahway. The Sopranos had the most buzz for a TV show since Twin Peaks. From my point of view, Steven Van Zant was the "name." My employer at the time, a close friend of one of Gandolfini's Rutgers roommates, managed to obtain an invitation. I walked over to the theater - I lived across the street - but  could not find a way into the event. They had that place locked down.

There are only two star-celebrities Jerseyans really embraced & owned, Springsteen & Gandolfini.

My friend Jim Ruggia posted this great tribute. I don't think he'll mind me using it:

I went to see Streetcar Named Desire with a then young Jessica Lang & Alec Baldwin as Stanley. Baldwin called in sick & Gandolfini, who was young and svelte then filled in. He brought all that power of impending explosion to the play. It was obvious he was much more than an understudy. There were times as Tony Soprano when he was able to fully communicate a terrifying vacuity in his gaze, that registered with me as what true nihilism actually looks like. He was a giant.

Labels: movies, New Jersey, obituary, TV

Frankie & Annette. No last names needed.

The first Beach Party movie was released in 1963, just as  I was entering full teenhood. There were plenty of good songs on the radio in 1963, but even I knew what passed for teen culture was generally bogus, product created by adults for teen consumption. The rock & roll Revolution of the mid-Fifties had been suppressed, the crazy rockers tamed or banished to country music & the Black radio stations. The Beach Party movies had little connection to the teen culture I was becoming  part of at the time, except that they happened to be part of teen culture merely by existing & being shown in local theaters.  They were staples of late night weekend TV for decades afterward. Frankie & Annette were hardly Southern California surfer types (they were "greasers," although we didn't use that term*),  were musically irrelevant (as was Elvis, for that matter), We laughed at Annette's frozen doos & obsession  with protecting her "virtue," but she was never an object of scorn. Everyone loved Annette. We'd all been fans of the Mickey Mouse Club. The movies themselves were harmless, funny - Harvey Lembeck's biker outlaw character Eric Von Zipper was great, & they were  filled with Hollywood's best jiggly go go dancers.

By the summer of '64 everything had changed, with the assassination of JFK & the arrival of The Beatles & the Brits.  The change was so great that something like a generation gap opened up between my sister & I, & she was only two years older, Class of '64.  But the beach party movies & the various spinoffs & imitations went on until 1967.

In 1987 Frankie & Annette reunited in a  funny parody of their old movies, Back to the Beach.   According to Frankie, Annette was showing early symptoms of multiple sclerosis, but he didn't know she had the disease & she may not have known it yet. She announced she had it in 1992, to counter rumors she was an alcoholic.

It might seem that Annette's immense talent  was underused. But she herself chose not to become an "adult" performer. She could have made sitcoms & dozens of made-for-TV movies  &  had a great Vegas & nightclub career for sure - definitely in tandem with Frankie Avalon, who still works Atlantic City. She just dabbled -  specials with Frankie, guest appearances on Love, American Style  & Fantasy Island. Apparently Annette really was Annette, not someone playing a character named Annette. I'm sure she ate Skippy Peanut Butter, & sold a lot of it.

Annette Funicello, died of complications from m.s., age 70.



*In my school the guys favored leather jackets, high roll collars, tight Italian cut pants & leather jackets, styled haircuts,  in contrast to the "collegiate" madras shirts & khaki  pants & "dry" look hair cuts that came in with the Beach Boys. They  were often called "hoods," an inaccurate, disparaging term, since most were just regular guys & we mixed quite freely in sports & socially, some of them were good  musicians I later played with in garage bands. 

Labels: culture, growing up, movies, music, obituary

by Nino Rota. Performed by Severino Gazzelloni, flute.

Labels: movies, music

World's shortest woman wants to be Bollywood star

NAGPUR, India (AP) — A high school student in central India was recognized as the world's shortest woman by Guinness World Records on Friday as she turned 18 and said she hopes to earn a degree and make it in Bollywood.


Jyoti Amge stood just 62.8 centimeters (24.7 inches) tall — shorter than the average 2-year-old — when Guinness representatives visiting from London measured her at a ceremony attended by about 30 relatives and friends in the town of Nagpur, in Maharashtra state.

She's adorable, a perfect Indian woman only tiny. If there's ever a Bollywood musical version of Mothra, cast Jyoti as The Mothra Fairies (they were 12" tall).

Labels: culture, movies

With the death of Elizabeth Taylor at age 79, I wondered if she had starred in any movie I really liked, beyond just looking at her - which was a pleasure even though in many of them she played  against  her personally elegant style. In her prime it was almost impossible to make her look bad. But there isn't a single film I'd list among my favorites. Several were "daring" for their time, but I cannot  watch Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly, Last Summer, & Butterfield 8 without being annoyed by the sexual coyness of the Hollywood scripts. Cleopatra is outrageous. The Sandpiper is laughable - Liz as a proto-hippie, Richard as an Episcopal priest. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is unbearably ugly, although Liz & Richard may have tapped some truth about theit marriage that lent authenticity to the drunken insults. After Brando, Taylor was  the biggest star to routinely waste her talent when she gained the power to do so, following her Academy Award.   Brando did it more deliberately. Liz, I suspect, expected some of her worse movies to be good. 

Elizabeth Taylor was a great female Pisces, all soft & dreamy on one side, neurotic & sickly on the other, generous yet stubbornly focused on self. She was born & she died near the cusps of the sign.  When a lover lands one of those colorful fishes, it  must remembered (but rarely is) that she will be intensely devoted until the moment she decides to swim away. Love, not wealth & power,  is the ultimate addiction for them, & if it's not a drug they'd rather be alone. I found her immensely, mysteriously beautiful & sexy.
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To enlarge upon Carrie's comment:  Liz became such an icon that younger generations aren't aware of how she made her rep. She was competing at the box office  (& for Oscars) with actresses like Deborah Kerr, Kathryn Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Anne Bancroft, Joanne Woodward,   & with (or against) some out-sized male stars. The year she lost for Cat, probably my favorite role by her, & a film I wasn't old enough to see or understand (or criticize) until years after it was made, all five nominees had Oscar-worthy performances.

Liz's greatest moment came, I think, when she refused to avert her eyes from the growing AIDS tragedy.  She was clear-eyed, realistic, brave,  & completely without prejudice.  

Labels: culture, movies, obituary

John Barry Dies at 77; Composed for Bond Films

John Barry, whose bold, jazzy scores for “From Russia With Love,” “Goldfinger” and nine other James Bond films put a musical stamp on one of the most successful film franchises of all time, and who won five Academy Awards as a composer for “Born Free,” “Dances With Wolves” and other films, died on Sunday in New York. He was 77.

Wonderful, versatile film composer, came out of London's pre-Beatles pop scene. The Sixties were a great decade for Barry. Scored a number of hip British films in addition to James Bond. Won Academy Awards for song & score for Born Free, & for music for The Lion In Winter. Scored a Brando movie, The Chase; Midnight Cowboy; the underrated western, Monte Walsh. In 1971, Barry composed the music for three of my fav (if strange) films: They Might Be Giants, with George C. Scott & Joanne Woodward, Murphy's War with Peter O'Toole, & Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout - two kids abandoned in the Australian outback.

Barry also won Oscars for Out of Africa & Dances With Wolves. Given his stature, I was surprised to learn he was nominated only two other times.

The Knack was the first Barry score I knew other than his Bond music. "The Good Times Are Coming" is from Monte Walsh, with lyrics by Hal David, sung on the soundtrack by Mama Cass Elliot. A minor hit for Cass, it should've been nominated for an Oscar (& lost to "Shaft.")

Labels: movies, music, obituary

Labels: Atlantic City, boardwalks, jersey shore, movies, New Jersey, postcard

I made a small online contribution to the United Methodist Committee On Relief, checking the tiny UMC church around the corner for congregational credit (it wasn't required). That adds a little joke, because when the office over there receives notification, probably by automated e mail, someone will be really puzzled.

Seriously, UMCOR, a first rate relief organization, lost two great souls in the Hotel Montana collapse, & other Methodists on established Haitian medical missions were killed or injured. I was raised Methodist & have my problems with the denomination, but they are experienced, competent, & courageous in disaster situations, they honor John Wesley's vision of Christian service.
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Jet diverts to Philly over teen passenger's prayer

PHILADELPHIA – A Jewish teenager trying to pray on a New York-to-Kentucky flight caused a scare Thursday when he pulled out a set of small boxes containing holy scrolls, leading the captain to divert the flight to Philadelphia, where the commuter plane was greeted by police, bomb-sniffing dogs and federal agents.

The 17-year-old on US Airways Express Flight 3079 was using tefillin, a set of small boxes containing biblical passages that are attached to leather straps, Philadelphia police Lt. Frank Vanore said.

I've resided near the Orthodox Jewish Educational Center in the Elmora section of Elizabeth since 2004 & I've never seen tefillim. I do see lots of kids from their high schools in Dunkin' Donuts, but aside from the yarmulkes, modest dresses, & tendency to hold the door open for you, they're indistinguishable from public school teenagers & just as noisy.
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Harrison Ford really is a difficult talk show interview. Audiences accept it & Letterman hangs in there with good humor because Ford knows how awkward he is, but he's game, & he gets three segments & always fires off a few zingers. I've always liked "Witness," where the grim, taciturn character he plays in so many movies is forced to rely on the close-knit, pacifist (but he learns, pretty tough) Amish, & features a very unusual & sexy love story.

Labels: movies, religion

Winter solstice was this morning, & it is winter. Very much so. Some years it isn't winter weather. I think of the winter solstice as the real New Year. Nights will not become longer, although we won't take much notice of them becoming shorter until the end of January. Nearly all the traditions we now associate with Christmas are about the solstice. The sun appears to stop for a few days at its lowest, southernmost position, which must have been quite alarming to ancient people. What if it decides to stay there? So they had to perform all the rituals to bring back the sun they did last year, & the year before, etc., because those ceremonies always worked.

Check out Wendell Jamieson's appreciation of It's A Wonderful Life, It’s a Pitiful, Dreadful Life..

Not only is Pottersville cooler and more fun than Bedford Falls, it also would have had a much, much stronger future. Think about it: In one scene George helps bring manufacturing to Bedford Falls. But since the era of “It’s a Wonderful Life” manufacturing in upstate New York has suffered terribly.

On the other hand, Pottersville, with its nightclubs and gambling halls, would almost certainly be in much better financial shape today. It might well be thriving.

Jamieson thinks that the alternate timeline characters are authentic personalities repressed by the culture of Bedford Falls. Were they bound to come out eventually? Is there really a violent, undisciplined cop lurking inside Bert. If so, as an aging provincial police chief he probably flew into a rage & killed some insolent but harmless hippies hitchiking home from Woodstock.

Labels: holidays, movies

These notes have been sitting on my PC desktop for over two years. The local PBS station broadcast the film Saturday.

“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
Matthew 6:27-29

Lilies of the Field (1963) with Sidney Poitier & Lilia Skala. Poitier won an Academy Award for his performance as the free-spirited wanderer, Homer Smith, Skala, playing a strict nun who had escaped from East Germany with four of her sisters-in-habit, was nominated. It's a charming movie, very much of its time.

The story is basic. Homer Smith, traveling from somewhere to someplace, arrives at an impoverished farm in the desert occupied by East German nuns. Homer is looking for a few bucks in exchange for handyman work. After doing some work, he discovers that not only can't the nuns pay him, they can't even feed him a decent meal. The nuns want to build a small chapel but have no money or muscle. It turns out he's a skilled tradesman, knows how to build things. He can design a basic building, lay masonry, construct a roof, even operate heavy construction equipment. We don't find out where he learned all this. In the original novel, he'd been in the Army, & I wish that explanation had been in movie; the Army was the great leveller in American society at the time, but it was a regimented life. He's slowly drawn into the chapel project. The devout local Mexicans want to help build their chapel, but Homer, once he decides to stay around, is determined to build it by himself; then he calculates it would take him a year. So he relents. Homer tests his Bible knowledge against Skala's Mother Maria, gives the nuns English lessons, teaches them to sing a gospel song ("Amen"), becomes frustrated, goes away, returns, completes the task.

Now we tend to see caricatures in older movies. We might view Homer Smith as a "good" negro who will bend to the will of white authority under certain conditions. What he is, is good to himself, a free man. The Mexicans are caricatures, humble, simple, anonymous, except for a cynical but affable cafe proprietor (Stanley Adams, whose Spanish accent never sounds authentic). There's a little bit of racism injected by a local white businessman (played by the director), nothing threatening, & Homer easily gains his respect. An itinerant Irish priest (Dan Frazier. Kojak's boss on the TV show) lives in an Airstream trailer, conducts Mass in a cafe parking lot, may drink too much, & thinks of himself as being in exile. But it's really a good-hearted parable, set in the isolated Arizona desert so the troubled outside world of the early 60's doesn't intrude much. Everyone is alien in that landscape, Homer Smith only the newest arrival. His discovery of the what the nuns went through to reach this forsaken location touches him. No one is perfect, or bad, or without dignity.

I can't fault Sidney Poitier for keeping this character, in the year of Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech, an intelligent, independent, good-natured man with foibles rather than deep flaws. Poitier thought enough into his characters to know there were always alternatives, & he wasn't shy about sharing them with film directors (as he did while filming In the Heat of the Night), Unlike another fine movie of the time, To Kill A Mockingbird, (or many other movies), Lilies of the Field is not about enlightened white men defending or raising up oppressed black men. Homer Smith is no victim, doesn't consider himself one, & resents being "used" by a tough nun to fulfill the work she says God sent him to her to do - in part because he's a Baptist. If he can't always stand up to the head nun, it's not because he's been bent by a culture of servility but because he's a young man still sorting out his future up against a strong older woman who has also known oppression & absolutely certain of what she wants; without a chapel, the nuns cannot fulfil their purpose in coming to America. Homer put himself in the situation, he's always free to opt out of it. He's the only person in the movie with mobility. He's also, like the nuns & Mexicans, a man of faith.

In 1963, a time of great civil rights action & racist violence, this was a liberal, grown up, feel-good movie. The German nuns see Homer's skin color without prejudice. Now it's probably better for younger viewers. But with our newly-elected president, it's possible to think Sidney Poitier was looking ahead. We've also become too cynical to believe people can be essentially good & behave decently toward each other.

For the Christian viewer - the title refers to passage from the "Sermon on the Mount" - there's never any doubt that God brought everyone together for a reason, & it's not to build a chapel but to create a community. However, Homer moves on when the chapel is finished. It isn't his community or future. We don't know where he'll end up, but it will be in a good place. The loner now knows he is a leader. That is not always a happy thing to learn but it is empowering. In the novel, the nuns place an oil painting in the chapel with animage of a saint resembling Homer. That was wisely left out of the film.

Many will also appreciate the depiction of the mysterious role-playing game called "Angels," in which people are moved into challenging, though not necessarily desperate or daunting, situations calling for them to serve as angels. These situations only appear to us as coincidences.

Directed by Ralph Nelson. A critic complained of another Nelson Movie, Soldiers in the Rain, that you always feel something wonderful is about to happen but it never does. True. Yet I've always enjoyed Soldier for its depiction of peacetime Army life just prior to Vietnam, & for the performances of Jackie Gleason, Steve McQueen,& Tuesday Weld. Lilies of the Field brings the same quality to a better story. Nelson was a sincere craftsman rather than great director; he did his best work on TV in the 50's. But it says something that two of his movies had winning Oscar performances, by Poitier, & by Cliff Robertson in Charly. He later made one of Cary Grant's better late career comedies, Father Goose; a bleak, expensive western, Duel at Diablo; & a failed attempt at an antiwar revisionist western, Soldier Blue, about the Sand Creek Massacre & released at the height of the Vietnam War. He had stronger messages in his smaller films, which were, at heart, about peculiar friendships.

Labels: culture, movies, religion