For my dad, a rare and beautiful flower. Gathering Flowers for the Master’s Bouquet (recorded by many) Written by Marvin E. Baumgardner. Death is an angel sent down from above, Sent for the buds of the flowers we love. Surely it’s so, for in heaven’s own way, Each soul is a flower in the Master’s Bouquet. Gathering flowers for the Master’s Bouquet, Beautiful flowers that will never decay. Gathered by angels and carried away, Forever to bloom in the Master’s Bouquet. Loved ones are passing each day and each hour, Passing away as the life of a flower. But every …
Month: August 2008
Movie Review: Touch of Evil
1958. Starring Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh. Directed by Orson Welles. Hollywood never knew how to handle a genius like Orson Welles, which may be why he’s such an enigma today. When I was growing up, he was a walking metaphor for unrestrained appetites and shameful failure, self-deprecating in his TV appearances and insincere in his grotesque-gourmand image of a pitchman for Gallo wine. Only years later, after seeing Citizen Kane and The Third Man and Lady From Shanghai, did I realize that I had misjudged him. Once I saw Touch of Evil, though, my appreciation of Welles took …
TV Paralysis
Nothing crushes ambition and productivity quite like receiving the fifth season of The Wire from Netflix. If you haven’t seen any of it, I envy you. Your future could potentially have that many more enjoyable hours. I’d like to forget the whole series and start all over again. I tore through every season of the Sopranos — excellent writing, superb acting, great end to the series. I’ve watched the entire run of Deadwood twice, and own all three seasons so I can watch it again someday. But I don’t think there has ever been a better work of fiction or …
Country Music Reclamation Project: A-11
I read today that this fall’s college freshmen will have always had GPS as part of their lives. They will have never known the experience of getting lost, of staring at a map, of the humiliation of having to stop and ask for directions — and of course, will never have had the need to figure out where they are on their own. We’ve come a long way from life without indoor plumbing, electricity, cable TV, home computers, iPods and wi-fi. So why are some of us so nostalgic for life before convenience? The jukebox has survived this time of …
Thank You Lord (for Anna Faris)
There’s a song by the Carpetbaggers called “Thank You Lord” in which my good buddy John Magnuson sings the praises of a creator who saw fit to create a variation on man that is superior in almost every way to the original. (I’m relying on country music AND the gospel here, so don’t get too upset.) They don’t seem too crazy about me, but I don’t care. I’m an enthusiastic fan of their gender, and intend this theme as appreciation of what Johnny Horton called “that little difference.” When a man equals the charm or the appeal of any female …
Movie Review: Gun Crazy
1950. Starring John Dall, Peggy Cummins. Directed by Joseph H. Lewis. The greatest film noir of all time is essentially a love story: love between a man and a woman and their love for guns. When Bart Tare (John Dall) meets Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins), it’s love at first shot. Bart has just quit as an Army sharpshooter (after a spell in reform school for stealing handguns), and Laurie is starring as a trick shooter in a carnival. Their on-stage flirtation is an incredible scene, as Laurie coyly points at Bart with her pistol as he challenges her to …
Elsewhere Online: Humans still carry antibodies from 1918 flu
Scientists have tested 32 people between the ages of 92 and 102 and found that their blood still carries antibodies created to fight the 1918 flu, responsible for killing 50 million worldwide. And the immunity still works, as tests on mice protected them from the killer flu virus. The 1918 flu virus has “mutated out of its deadly form” and is no longer a threat (although researchers have used genetic material from flu victims to recreate the virus in a government lab, so watch out), but the antibodies created by the immune systems of those who survived that period have …
Movie Review: Salesman
1968. Directed by Albert and David Maysles. The men employed by the Mid-America Bible Company have a product that belongs in every home, and comes complete with the blessing of Pope Paul. It should be easy to sell, but the good men followed on their calls in this amazing documentary face closing doors, customers unwilling to commit to a payment plan, and a sales manager who is “sick and tired of being sick and tired of their excuses.” I first saw the Maysles Brothers’ Salesman back in college, but its portrayal of despondent, chain-smoking, cynical door-to-door salesmen has stuck with …
Passings: Don Helms
Don Helms was a member of Hank Williams’ Drifting Cowboys, which must have been fulfilling and frustrating at the same time. As steel guitarist, he was able to put his signature on some of country music’s most-renown songs but he had a boss whose battles with drugs and alcohol made the lives of all around him difficult, and who played himself off the stage at age 29. Helms continued to work, adding steel guitar to the music of Johnny Cash, the Wilburn Brothers and Lefty Frizzell, among others. Don Helms was 81, and lived long enough to have a Myspace …
Movie Review: Pineapple Express
2008. Starring Seth Rogen, James Franco. Directed by David Gordon Green. The cinematic love-child of Pulp Fiction and Up in Smoke, conceived in a beanbag and delivered during a coughing fit, Pineapple Express is a buddy movie that somehow devolves into an over-the-top bloodbath. Seth Rogen and his co-writer Evan Goldberg wrote the screenplay years ago, and Rogen’s success in Knocked Up, Superbad, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin helped get this made, as well as getting Rogen the lead in the upcoming The Green Lantern epic. Rogen stars as a process server who wants to be a talk-radio host, but spends …