From the Marx Brothers’ best film “Duck Soup” comes the manifesto (set to music) of the fictional country Freedonia’s new dictator Rufus T. Firefly. Key lines: “The last man nearly ruined this place, he didn’t know what to with it. If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait ’til I get through with it!”
When it was released, “Duck Soup” wasn’t as successful as other Marx Brothers films. However, contrary to popular legend it wasn’t a bomb (it was the 6th highest grossing film that year). According to Groucho Marx’s son Arthur Marx, “[MGM studio head Irving Thalberg] said the trouble with ‘Duck Soup’ is you’ve got funny gags in it, but there’s no story and there’s nothing to root for. You can’t root for the Marx Brothers because they’re a bunch of zany kooks. [Thalberg] says, ‘You gotta put a love story in your movie so there’ll be something to root for, and you have to help the lovers get together.'” And I would argue this is EXACTLY why the movies the brothers made for Thalberg pale in comparison to the earlier, more anarchic ones they made for Paramount. And it’s probably why “Duck Soup” is widely regarded as their best movie these days.
Some other fun trivia about “Duck Soup”: The residents of Fredonia, NY were upset that the use of their name as the country in the film would hurt their town’s reputation. The Marx Brothers argued that they should change the name of their town, lest it hurt the reputation of their film.
Determining the reason why Dave Chappelle walked away from a rumored $50 million deal with Comedy Central when he was ostensibly on top of the American pop culture pyramid is a parlor game many comedy and entertainment junkies have engaged in for nearly a decade. New York Times writer Jason Zinoman doesn’t really present any new theories in his insanely readable 54 page Amazon Kindle Single “Searching for Dave Chappelle,” but it’s the best profile on Chappelle’s career I’ve ever read and provides a lot of food for thought not only about comedy, but also about race, success, fame, spirituality, and happiness. Along with Joe Eszterhas’s “Heaven and Mel” and Joshua Davis’s “John McAfee’s Last Stand,” “Searching for Dave Chappelle” is a fine example of how damn good a Kindle Single can be.
And if you like what you read, you should really pick up Zinoman’s terrific book on 1970s horror films “Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror.”
From Zevon’s 1991 album “Mr. Bad Example” (LOVE that title!), comes “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead,” a song that only Zevon could have written.
Unfortunately, most people nowadays think of the 1995 film of the same name when this song is mentioned. To be fair, it wasn’t a bad film. It had some good performances, especially Treat Williams as a psychotic hit man / scat-muncher. But it was one of the lesser Tarantino-inspired modern noirs that arose like Herpes sores in the few years after the success of “Pulp Fiction” in 1994.
Ah, but I digress. The song is one of Zevon’s best.
In “Citizen Kane,” there’s a brief and pivotal scene where Bernstein, one of Charles Foster Kane’s oldest associates, is talking to the reporter trying to uncover the meaning of Kane’s last word “Rosebud.” As Bernstein puts it, “A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.”
I don’t have anything quite that poetic, but a friend recently Facebooked about being stuck on a train and it reminded me of taking the train to visit my Dad back when I was a teenager. On one particular trip when I was 15, I was sitting next to a cute girl my own age and we seemed to hit it off (though at the time, I didn’t realize it). She was not only cute, but also hip (she liked the B52s … this was before their huge commercial breakthrough in 1989 with “Cosmic Thing”). Anyway, when the drink cart came by, I threw all caution to the wind and ordered a beer. Being 6’2″ at 15 years old, they either thought I was of drinking age (21 at the time), or didn’t care, so they took my money and served me my Molson (it was Canadian, so I felt especially debonair … it wasn’t until years later when I moved closed to the Canadian border that Molson is like Busch in Canada). Anyway, the girl sitting next to me was VERY impressed with my drink ordering skills, laughed at all my jokes, and we had a great conversation all the way back home in the train car. Natch, she even lived in my hometown. Did I even think of asking for her phone number? Of course not. This was one of the few suave (OK, suave for a 15-year old) James Bond moments of my life and … I didn’t even think to go for it. The PMRC should have gone after the Smiths back in the day. They’ve arguably ruined more lives than Ozzy ever did.
Anyway, wherever she may be and whatever her name is, this is for “train girl.”
OK, I’ve been a little depressing tonight with my media selections, so I’m ending on a happier note. In this case, it’s the Ramones’ “Chasing the Night” from their kick-ass 1984 album “Too Tough to Die.”
“Chasing the Night” was always my favorite “I”m going out tonight to have a great f–king time” song and this is a great live performance from the UK’s “Old Grey Whistle Test” TV program. Good night, folks!
The first track off Harvey’s brilliant debut LP from 1992 “Dry,” “Oh My Lover” is the least sexy and most depressing “open” relationship song ever recorded. There’s nothing “liberating” here. It’s the anguished cry of a person who’s so desperate to hang on to the person they’re with, they’re willing to do something that breaks their heart to have some remnant of connection with that person.
I don’t think Harvey is passing judgment here and I don’t think she’s advocating the position of the protagonist of this song. It’s just the painful portrait of someone whose only sense of self is tied up inextricably with someone who is all but willing to exploit the protagonist’s weakness. Devastating stuff.
Korn’s Jonathan Davis does a pretty cool and transcendent cover of Neil Diamond’s “Love on the Rocks,” recorded for the “Wonderland” soundtrack in 2003. I call it transcendent because Davis sounds like he’s taking the lyrics VERY seriously and treating them with all the gravity and desperation they allude to.
I’ve talked about “Wonderland” before on Dave’s Strange World and it’s the James Cox-directed docudrama about the infamous Wonderland Murders of 1981, which involved down-on-his-luck porn star John Holmes. Imagine the “Sister Christian/Jessie’s Girl” sequence from “Boogie Nights” expanded to feature length and that will give you an idea of what an unremittingly intense experience “Wonderland” is.
The accompanying video is a montage of scenes from “Wonderland” set to the this Davis cover. Not safe for work.
For those who may not remember this exploitation landmark, “Faces of Death” is less a documentary than a compilation of authentic news footage too grisly for broadcast and reenacted (and faked) scenes of death and mayhem. The film didn’t make much of an impact in the United States until it was released on video during the mid-1980s. Due to its then wide release, it was the subject of news stories, editorials, and the kind of hysterical overreaction normally associated with so-called “moral panics.” To judge whether this film is “good” or “bad” is futile. It’s a freak show. And a freak show’s ultimate success is not based on your judgment, but whether or not the producers got your attention, and ultimately, your money.
Being a teenager and a film fanatic at the time of its stateside video debut (especially of “controversial” films), I was anxious to see it and finally did, when a friend of my brother’s rented the video. The film did everything it was intended to do: it shocked me, appalled me, and grossed me out. It especially helped that I was too dim to see that the film’s grisliest scenes were faked. Given the fact that I was on a speech team at school at the time the film was gaining notoriety, I saw an opportunity to use my viewing of the film as the subject of an indignant diatribe against sadistic violence in film that I hoped would win me some recognition.
Now, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll realize how patently ridiculous this stance is … and was. Like most moral crusaders, I went into explicit … and titillating … detail about the content of “Faces of Death” as well as other controversial epics of the day (“Silent Night, Deadly Night,” “Body Double”) to make a point about … I mean, I was trying to get people to … OK, for the life of me, I can’t remember what my conclusion was. I don’t think I called for banning the films and I don’t think I advocated broadcasting them on the Disney Channel. If memory serves … there was literally no point to the speech at all, except to describe in explicit detail the sexual and violent content of these films. The speech was as much of a freak show as the films I discussed and of course had a tone of “These movies didn’t warp me because I’m smart … but not-so-smart people may do harmful things if they see them, so look out!”
I remember practicing this speech in front of my older brother. He listened patiently and when I finished, he told me in the kind of tone reserved for a doctor telling a patient they have a terminal illness said “Dave, you need to get laid.” Needless to say, given the lack of point and the endless variety of atrocities I described, the judges saw through my ruse immediately and the speech was, alas, not a success.
Seeing the writing on the wall, I abandoned being a moral crusader. Not only was I not good at it and full of s–t, I realized that moral crusaders frequently don’t live up to their highfalutin’ pronouncements and often find themselves being referred to as “Client 9” in indictments. More importantly, my peers of the fairer sex generally don’t find uptight, strident, self-righteous prigs that attractive. Besides, in subsequent months, I had discovered an awesome way to simulate someone’s hand being blown apart (ala “Taxi Driver”) which I used in my own sleazy Paul Schrader-inspired short film that I made for an arts program the following summer. I should point out that the graphic hand mutilation was ABSOLUTELY essential to the plot.
I’ve included the ending of “Faces of Death IV”. As much as the narrator looks like Larry David, I don’t believe it’s him (though, God, I wish it were). Anyway, after the success of the first three “Faces of Death” films, it looks like they had enough money to finally compose a song based on the film series. The song has to be heard to be believed. I will warn you that the footage over the end credits is fairly gruesome and not safe for work, but if you’re a sicko like me, the theme song will have you dying in hysterics. Enjoy!
Here’s a very cool use of (arguably) Michael Jackson’s finest music moment (“ABC”) in a film where you wouldn’t necessarily expect such a cute scene. Don’t get me wrong. Despite the crude jokes and language, Kevin Smith movies always have a lot of heart. However, the comic highlight of this film does involve a donkey show that goes WAAAAY further than the one in “The Godfather Part II” or the Tom Hanks film “Bachelor Party” …. so take it for what it’s worth. Rest assured, dear lurkers, this is a sweet scene where the lead character Dante is nervous about his upcoming wedding and his good friend (and recent one-time lover) Becky is teaching him how to dance for his wedding … despite some misgivings that she’s having trouble admitting to herself. It’s not entirely safe for work due to some brief nudity of some large man’s ass who seems to be dancing and urinating at the same time (trust me, it’s not as bad as it sounds). And yes, I have a little crush on Rosario Dawson, the actress who plays Becky. Dawson always struck me as a more down-to-earth J-Lo. Why Dawson’s not a bigger star is God’s private mystery. Aside from “Dogma,” “Clerks 2” is Kevin Smith’s best movie.
This may be weepie 70s AM-pop at its most maudlin, but this song packs an emotional wallop. Desite Harry Nilsson’s talent as a composer, this is actually a cover of a Badfinger song. As much as I love Badfinger, their original version of “Without You” is severely lacking, especially in emotional heft. Which is shocking, especially given how melancholy their “Straight Up” album is. But Nilsson nailed it way better in my mind. Later used to great effect in Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film “Casino” and especially in Roger Avary’s 2002 film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s “Rules of Attraction.”
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