Memphis Blues by Cyndi Lauper
by Oscar on Aug.22, 2010, under Music
Lauper Singing The Blues? Yes, And Quite Well, Thank You!
Most music these days is purchased by people in their teens and early twenties, so what chance is there that they have even heard of Cyndi Lauper or could identify any of her past hits? “True Colors” comes immediately to mind, as does “Time After Time”, and who can forget her iconic “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”? But despite her invisible presence in popular music today Cyndi has always shown that she has a voice that is capable of producing some very good performances, so maybe her latest attempt, “Memphis Blues”, is just a logical progression in her career to prove that she still has the stuff to make people want to listen.
For those of us who are fans of the genre “Memphis Blues” will not cause us to jump online and purchase it, but it DOES have some very fine moments worth the time to listen to. Part of what makes this recording is the guest artists that lend their talents, AND their cred, to the overall collection. The great B.B. King on guitar and vocals, Charlie Musselwhite on harmonica, Johnny Lang on guitar, Allen Toussaint playing blues piano, and Memphis soul singer Ann Peebles. As I said earlier, this is not a “must have” for Blues fans, but there are definitely three cuts that induced me to spend a few bucks to purchase.
The set begins with a barroom classic in Little Walter Jacobs’ “Just Your Fool” with Musselwhite’s muscular harmonica juxtaposed against her vocal The song is playful and energetic with Lauper using her personality to carry her through till the end. A few months ago she performed this song on “Celebrity Apprentice”, and here’s the vid of that broadcast: As you can see, she has not changed much performance-wise, but her looks and her voice make me think of a demented Dolly Parton on a “bad hair” day. I just loved her brashness and her playfulness in front of The Donald. What a hoot!
On a much slower note there is “Romance in the Dark”, one of three cuts by Lauper and her band, without any cameos, which works wonderfully. Its slow, nocturnal, languidly sexy feel underscores her strengths as a singer in both phrasing and tone. She definitely won’t remind you of Billie Holiday or Dinah Washington, but she does well enough to sell the song’s credibility.
Probably the best of the set is Louis Jordan’s “Early in the Morning”, with King and Toussaint. The interplay between the latter’s rumbling New Orleans R&B piano and the former’s sparse but mean lead guitar works well with Lauper’s vocal, especially with the tune’s humorous lyrics; it really jumps. Again, if you have heard other versions of this song done by veteran Bluesmen then you won’t be impressed, but taken on its own this cut is worth having.
Of the remaining offerings “Rollin’ And Tumblin’” begins with promise featuring just Cyndi’s voice accompanied by a single droning guitar note, but then breaks the haunting spell by breaking out into a full band performance that quickly devolves into a generic performance. Equally disappointing is a redoing of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads”, a song that should be put on a “DO NOT RECORD” list for the next dozen years till someone can re-imagine it in some new way. Cyndi seems to be trying to emulate a female singer from the forties but the overall vibe of the arrangement just isn’t consistent enough to ring true.
For a quick review of the cuts check out this vid:
ALL IN ALL, A DECENT OFFERING, BUT I RATE IT ONLY
MARY AND MAX: An Adult Animated Treat
by Oscar on Aug.03, 2010, under Movie Reviews
FROM AUSTRALIA: A WICKEDLY FUNNY MOVIE WITH A MESSAGE
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Short Film, Animated (“Harvie Krumpet,” 2003), 39 year old Adam Elliot has created another winner in his claymation feature length film, “MARY AND MAX”. Normally I don’t pay much attention to animation having been overloaded with Shrek I, II, III, and a host of Pixar projects. At one time they were rare and exciting, but now they are ubiquitous, new ones being released on a monthly basis, so when the cover of “MARY AND MAX” jumped out at me in the local DVD-mart I picked it up and read the back cover. Here’s a synopsis:
“Mary Daisy Dinkle (voiced by Oscar® nominee Toni Collette) is a lonely 8-year-old in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Max Jerry Horowitz (Oscar® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman) is an obese 44-year-old with Asperger’s Syndrome living in the chaos of New York City. Over the course of 20 years and 2 continents, their unusual journey of friendship will explore autism, taxidermy, alcoholism, where babies come from, kleptomania, sexual differences, trust, copulating dogs, religious differences, agoraphobia and more of life’s big and little surprises.”
Sounded a bit quirky so I decided to give it a try.
As the movie opens with a jaunty theme playing in the background, and camera scanning the surrounding neighborhood in muted colors, we see Mary Dinkle gazing out of her bedroom window. The Narrator intones:“Mary Dinkle’s eyes were the color of muddy puddles, her birth mark the color of poo. Mary’s mood ring, which she’d found in a cereal box, was gray, which according to the chart meant that she was either pensive, unconsciously ambitious or hungry.“ So we meet the sad little girl who has no friends yet hungers for human contact. One of the charms of this film is that we don’t have to put up with cartoon voices, except for random exclamatory vocalizations, since it is the narrator who carries the story, describing everything we see, with only brief lines spoken by the characters themselves.
Next, as the tableau unfolds, we meet Mary’s mom, whom she describes as “a little bit wobbly”, perpetually dressed in a robe and slippers, hair in unraveling curlers, and sipping sherry from a tea cup. Mary’s father is seldom seen, spending all of his time in his work room practicing his solitary hobby of taxidermy on road kill. So with no real sense of a familial bond Mary’s sense of isolation drives her to try to make some kind of intimate contact with someone, ANYONE, who might also long for her company. So, in an impulsive move Mary rips out a page from an New York City phone book and randomly picks a name as her choice for a pen pal…Max Jerry Horowitz.
Max is a forty-ish, single, overweight and emotionally fragile man, living in a cramped apartment. His only forays into the world at large are for his therapy appointments and his Overeaters Anonymous meetings. You see, Max suffers from a form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome, which means that he cannot relate to normal people’s emotions. As the narrator reports:“Max had trouble understanding non verbal signals, and flirting was as foreign to him as jogging.” So when he receives Mary’s unsolicited letter he is confused, befuddled and petrified. Not knowing how to respond Max suffers from a bout with severe anxiety which immobilizes him for hours. Soon after, though, he begins to respond in the only way he know how, by composing a rambling and self revealing letter on his typewriter and sending it off to a mysterious little girl in the far off Australia.
Here’s a couple of the things that I liked about this animated film:
This past year saw two “stop action” animated features, “Fantastic Mister Fox” and “Mary and Max”. Mister Fox was more of a children’s film with a wider adult appeal and plenty of colorful action, as opposed to “Mary And Max” which was filmed in muted colors and dealt with several adult type themes and an audience appeal for older kids/pre-teens and adults. Where Mister Fox used the standard “stop action” figures Mary And Max featured the seldom used “claymation” technique.
It seemed as if Adam Elliot’s philosophy n writing this film was to throw as much offbeat jokes, sight gags, and humorous situations as possible at the viewers in hopes that some of it would strike home. Well, in MY estimation it WORKED! From the copulating dogs in the opening scene, through Mary’s pickled mother, and the sight of a terrified Max trying to withstand the amorous advances of a female neighbor, it ALL left me laughing and wanting to see more. Even the bits of pathos in the story had their own quirky kind of humor in them. All in all there were many more laughs than there were groans.
Long after the movie was over, even a few days after, I found myself going over in my mind a few of the scenes in “Mary And Max”. Even while writing this review, a full week after I returned the film I still harbor warm feelings for the message of the film, that is, that friendships are hard to come by, can take many different forms, and should never be taken for granted.
“Mary And Max” is a film that is both entertaining and thought inducing, well worth your time to view it.
MARY AND MAX, AN ANIMATED GIFT! I RATE IT WITH
SALT starring Angelina Jolie: Review
by Oscar on Jul.25, 2010, under Movie Reviews
THIS ISN’T “CINEMA” BUT IT IS ENTERTAINING
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwitel Ejiofor, August Diehl
Director: Phillip Noyce
Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes
Industry rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action.
With her almond shaped eyes and ample lips Angelina Jolie is always pleasant to look at, and in certain instances she has even shown that she can act, but an “action hero”? Well…not so much! Admittedly, she DID do a nice turn as a professional hit-person in “WANTED”, but that was in a limited scope where the bulk of the action did not depend on HER! In “SALT” she has the burden of carrying the action in a believable manner, but at 5’7″ tall and 120 pounds she just can’t cut it. Also, the plot itself suffers from some logical leaps, but they are covered well by the action sequences: Jolie jumping from a bridge, Jolie taking down a motorcyclist and high-jacking the bike, Jolie taking out a derelict ship full of Russian spies, and Jolie impersonating a young, male Russian officer while penetrating the high security presidential bunker in the White House.
There is really nothing new in this latest spy thriller that we haven’t already seen in any of the “Bourne” movies but, please excuse my chauvinism, Angelina is much nicer to watch for an old lech like me. Sure she’s fairly unbelievable in the “mano y mano” fight scenes, but the direction and execution is just good enough to keep it enjoyable by using the standard cut editing so that we only see snippets of the action. Normally I’d place my cash on the 6 foot 3 inch, 185 pound trained agent when confronting the slight framed Jolie, no matter how well trained she may be, but to see her thrash three guys simultaneously only elicits a comment of “Oh, come ON!” from anyone expecting more. So for this one it is best to just sit back, chomp on your popcorn, and enjoy the show for what it is: just entertainment!
But most improbably of all, the ending of the movie pre-supposes that prospective fans might want to see more of Evelyn Salt when it leaves us with just one more ridiculous scene as Jolie jumps out of a helicopter, escaping the clutches of the CIA and the FBI, at least a thousand feet over the Potomac River and swimming to safety. Will she return to mete justice to her Soviet handlers? Will anybody really care? My guess is NO! Although good for a summer diversion the promotion going into “SALT” far outstripped the movie’s ability to deliver a star vehicle for Angelina, but WILL ensure a brisk DVD rental in a few months.
For strictly entertainment value I’ll give “SALT”
