1971. Starring James Taylor, Dennis Wilson, Laurie Bird, Warren Oates. Directed by Monte Hellman. A race across country between aimless youth in a 1955 Chevrolet and pointless adulthood in a 1970 GTO, with the affection and attention of a faithless teenager as the prize, Monte Hellman’s fantastic Two-Lane Blacktop is one of my favorite movies, right down to the then-controversial ending. The Driver (Taylor) and The Mechanic (Wilson), fresh from hustling locals with home-built hot rods, aren’t far along in “heading east” when The Girl (Bird) hops in their backseat. She watches them as they drive in silence, listening for …
Shiftless When Idle
Dear readers — both of you — I have to admit that I am now gainfully unemployed. Leaving the job I worked for eight years was painful, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I guess that, eventually, the loss of one’s self-esteem outweighs the anxiety of being without a job, and you decide to trade one problem for a different one. There’s a saying about risk and change: You can’t steal second base without taking your foot off of first. But the thought that has really stuck with me is, you don’t need a perfect plan when you’re trapped …
Country Music Reclamation Project: The Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake
Traditional country music has hid many a cautionary tale within a melody. There is a surprising number of songs about women who should avoid intimate relations with men (Fair and Tender Ladies, The Knoxville Girl, Ode to Billie Joe immediately come to mind). There are also songs that suggest you should make amends with loved ones before it’s too late (Letter Edged in Black, The Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea), don’t drink (She’s More to Be Pitied Than Scolded, The Bottom of the Bottle, again, The Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea), and thousands of songs suggesting you should get right with God, right now. …
Happy Independence Day!
I finished watching HBO’s John Adams miniseries this past week, having read the David McCullough best-seller on which it’s based. The miniseries was very well done, although it stuck with Adams and his story rather than portraying the events America was experiencing at the time. Paul Giamatti’s performance as Adams made the patriot very human, and the film showed that Abigail Adams (Laura Linney) was her husband’s best friend and counsel. Characters so well known to history students wander in and out of the tale: Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Sam Adams, and John Quincy Adams among them. At …
Condensed Milk
My Dad told me a great story this weekend. When he and his brother were kids (late 1920s), they would visit a nearby neighbor, an old pioneer living in a shack in the woods, who was excited to have their help to set his bear trap. The trap was so huge that the man couldn’t stand on each toothed side and set the trigger in the middle. So he’d have the kids stand on one side while he stood on the other and set the trap. Apparently, nothing fatal occurred to any two-legged mammal as a result. As a reward, …
Country Music Reclamation Project: Sing Me Back Home
Merle Haggard used his experience as a prison inmate to create some of country music’s best story songs — Mama Tried, I’m A Lonesome Fugitive, Branded Man — which may have made his 1957 arrest for armed robbery worth the while. At his best, Haggard deftly combined a crime writer’s stark depictions of criminal life with the pathos he hoped his real-life experience would generate. Sing Me Back Home was the title song to his 1968 LP. By that point, Haggard had had a remarkable run, with (From Now On, All My Friends are Going to be) Strangers, Sing a …
Movie Review: Double Indemnity
1944. Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson. Directed by Billy Wilder. “I couldn’t hear my own footsteps.” So says Walter Neff, who has just sold his soul. But you have to admit, it was a pretty good sale – as an insurance agent, he knew how the accident policy would pay off, even “double indemnity” if the person named in the policy died in certain circumstances, such as an unlikely fall from a train. And with the help of the unhappy wife, he was in the position to make that unlikely accident occur exactly by plan. This sounds …
Movie Review: Rififi
1955. Starring Jean Servais. Directed by Jules Dassin. Has there ever been a cinematic caper that has gone to plan? Jules Dassin filmed one of the best, an unforgettable crime tutorial, where the “Rififi” – the rough-and-tumble men – are willing to risk everything for a successful heist. The craggy Jean Servais leads a group of conspirators who have every step of the crime planned, every move timed, every potential hazard covered. Their target is a secure jewelry store, and their planning pays off to the tune of 240 million francs. But you know that something’s going to go wrong. …
Elsewhere Online: The Big Picture
The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture site is a new blog that features great news photography at a greater size than normally found online. The photos are amazing — and the size adds a level of intensity to stories I wouldn’t have thought of as dramatic, such as Korean protests against American beef. Seriously. This photo gallery on the Cassini spacecraft’s journey past Saturn is beyond words.
Country Music Reclamation Project: That’s What I Like
Country music has a lot of comedy acts, almost all of whom aren’t funny. But the great country artists all seem to have a pretty good sense of humor, and there aren’t many who don’t have a humorous song in their act. Hell, Hank Williams recorded Settin’ the Woods on Fire and Nobody’s Lonesome For Me, and he suffered severe back pain for nearly all his 29 years. Onie Wheeler isn’t quite as well-known but was just as talented. He recorded plenty of heartbreakers and sacred numbers, but his original “That’s What I Like” is full of charm, even if …