Sunday, May 31, 2009
Summer Tunes Will Make Me Feel Fine I:
The Lee Boys
As I slam through last meetings through the that have been put off for months in the waning days of the academic year, I find myself sometimes anticipating some promising looking evenings of music that have been announced in the summer entertainment preview of the Oregonian's Friday A&E section. Original name eh? There was, in fact, a lawsuit with the A&E cable network over name dispute. I don't know how it was decided or settled.
At this moment, I am most interested in the upcoming July 3 lineup of Portland's Waterfront Blues Festival. The second day of the four day festival features Bayou guitarist Sonny Landreth, the irrepressible Karl Denson and his Tiny Universe, and a band I have only heard about through word-of-mouth so far: The Lee Boys.
The Lee Boys are a Sacred Steel funk band made upof brothers and nephews. They are as tight as outfit of family as one could fathom this side of Nevilles. Their origins are in a House of God church they attended in Perrine, FL lead by Rev Robert Lee, their father and grandfather who also played the sanctified steel guitar.
Nowadays they are bringing their music to the masses. The testifying gospel plays a role in what they do, but the funk that makes you feel good is what really takes prominence. They play a lot of festivals and sometimes show up with some very unlikely company when they jam, such as Warren Hayes of Allmans/Dead/Gov't. Mule or with Del McCourey's sons when they perform as the Travelin' McCourys. I watched some YouTube clips and somehow Sacred Steel and hot bluegrass complement and converge quite nicely.
On July 3 they will be doing a set on the BluesFest mainstage but they will also be on a three hour jam hour show across the street at the Marriott after the Albino Jimi Hendrix aka Johnny Winter has shut down the bowl (that place is hell on sad arches like mine, I'm telling you) for the night. They are also doing the blues cruise the night before, but I think they are the kind of act you only see once or once in a long while. Besides that is the night Bayren Munchen's B Squad is in town to flash over the Timbers. And you know they are going to be cooler with Karl.
Religious root soul is a tricky thing to pull off. Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin truly worked miracles. But I am always rooting for the Kirk Franklins and Winans of the world. Lee Boys are far more interesting to me than the first Sacred Steel crossover artist, Robert Randolph, who was the first High Sierra Music Festival act I ever saw. Randolph is truly a showboat. He does a great Papa Was A Rolling Stone. Lee Nephew Roosevelt "the Doctor" Collier can be flashy but he is more like a great B3 organist in the Charles Earland tradition who uses dynamics and leads up just so before he gives you some pyrotechnics.
These two clips are from the Sioux City Jazz and Blues festival in 2007 where they are "heatin' up the stage y'all" for the first couple of the blues Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:50 PM
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Saturday, May 30, 2009
Jellyfish: A film from Israel
Jellyfish (Meduzot), an Israeli film directed by Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret is one of those films I knew I liked a lot after the first few shots. It is no accident that it won the Camera d'or, the Cannes film festival award for best first feature. It features stories of three women in Tel Aviv, loosely interweaving and overlapping them.
Batya works for a wedding caterer. Joy is a Filipino guest worker giving support giver for elders wanting to make it home to her son. Keren is a newlywed who injured herself crawling over a locked stall at her wedding, an injury that forces her and new husband to stay at a local hotel instead of taking off for the Caribbean for a honeymoon. Keren appears to be high maintenance and superficial harpie, but the audience learns differently as the film transpires.
Jellyfish is filled with chance, circumstance, and sometimes destiny reminding me of Tom Twyker's Winterschläfer. It also pulls of some moments of magical realism that actually come off well. Directors Geffen and Keret fill their movie with thought provoking connections between the characters or the characters and their history amid solid imagery. Their being awarded the Camera d'Or was not a token or accident. Coming across a film like Jellyfish is a reassurance that film is international, universal, and still a wellspring from which viewers have the opporunity to make discoveries of films like this one.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:19 PM
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Friday, May 29, 2009
Dan & Louis Oyster Bar
Dan and Louis Oyster Bar is located on SW Second and Ankeny in Portland Oregon. Nowadays its used as a landmark for locations to Voodoo Donut or the Church of Elvis.The waitresses in oversize sailor outfits always the ones who called you dear. It was always a special treat when Dad would take me their to lunch with his work associates when I was off from school for a orthodonist appointment or other similar kind of reason.
To a kid this place is like going into a make believe ship world. I remember wanting to look at all the pictures. I still do. My favorite then and now is newspaper cliping of Sebastian Cabot at the height of Mr French working over a big plate of oysters. It is appropriate because Dan & Louis is the ultimate Family Affair a direct lineage going back to 1865 when a twenty four year old sailor named Meinert Wachsmuth (Louis' father)decided to stay at Yacquina Bay Oregon after being shipwrecked there. Meinert farmed oysters and forty or so years later Louis came to Portland as first a seafood marketer who sold oyster cocktails and expanding out as the restaurant with Oyster stew with Yacquinas from the family business. I am glad the restaurant is still there and stil in the family. It has changed quite a bit lately. The shrimp Louis is no longer made up entirely cuts of iceberg lettuce angeled at 15 degrees or so. And the menu is no longer clam shaped with rainbow trim and a picture of Louis Wachsmith on the back. But other than that the other big change came a few decades earlier when when the container for the unlimited oyster crackers were no longer the large open sandbox pail sized buckets of oyster crackers. They are still plentiful but now distributed in liter wine carafes. Regardless, generations of us have loved that perk and still do.
If this was my unsubstanitated fictional picture history of the Oyster bar, I would want to believe that this ship was the Annie Doyle and Meinart Wachsmith was on board and that it was snapped by an early Zapruder or paparazi right before it ship wrecked.Meinart Wachsmith was from the island of Sylt. I was there once. One of my first full days after my first transatlantic flight was spent with long bus rides and ferry rides to get there. I remember lots of narrow streets with angular close curves with big rich people's houses. At one point we walked through a closed down beach resort and gift area. And I took a picture of a poster with some penguins on it.
This image of Celilo Falls fishermen was contemporaneous of a lot of the history of Dan and Louis, certainly well before my time.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:04 PM
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Thursday, May 28, 2009
Murder in a Blue World aka Clockwork Terror
Murder in a Blue World is a strange dystopic Spanish film from the mid seventies. It "borrows" excessively from A Clockwork Orange and emasculates it with a psychosexual slasher film. The US release of the film was even called Clockwork Terror.
Director Eloy de la Iglesia's version of droogies are leather clad biker types who drive around in a dune buggy perpetrating their form of ultraviolence with bull whips. (No I'm not making this up) There is also scenes of electroshock aversion therapy almost directly knocked off from Clockwork Orange. That therapy is overseen by the male lead of the film played by Robert Mitchum's son Chris, in a wooden performance reminiscent of Robert Wagner's acting.
I find a certain charm and allure to an international B movie from the sixties or seventies. American actors (or in Chris Mitchum's case, actors with relations which provide name recognition) for the grindhouse or drive in marquee. Blue World features Sue Lyon as the psycho killer. Lyon, of course, played Lolita in Kubrick's Lolita. At one point her character healthcare worker and seductress slasher Ana Verina is even shown reading Nabokov's novel before she takes out her next victim with a surgical scalpel. According to her imdb bio, Lyon lived in Spain at the time of this film as an expatriate because of pressures she faced in the United States due to her interracial marriage with photographer and football coach Roland Harrison.
Director Eloy de la Iglesia fills his movie with all kinds of elaborate camera movements and angles. It is quite entertaining to see how much of A Clockwork Orange is appropriated as well as other quotes in films of its time. He even endeavors to use classical music in a way similar to Kuburick. This and a surprise ending designed to give the film a higher level of profundity are not by any means enough to elevate it to what it truly is, a psychotronic filler from the seventies.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:53 PM
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009
A Vision of Desert Burbopolis
Video as an art medium has always felt like it had so much potential but more so than many media, it takes the right artist with the right formula to do be able to untap its unique powers. The essay is one of the most elusive of forms. The filmmaker must be careful and judicious of the elements they utilize to explore their topic and tell their tale.
Local 909er, a half hour video essay by multi-faceted artist Erin Baxter Blader is a stunning piece of work that explores the Inland Empire of Southen California. Baxter masterfully orchestrates the elements she has chosen: sun bleached video imagery, her narration that contrasts a stilted somewhat monotone with powerful impassioned content about what is happening to the region she calls home, several segments that utilize still photography in a way reminiscent of Chris Marker's La Jette and a sculpted soundtrack which repeatedly returns to sound of a radio being tuned.
"In the last three years more people have moved to the Inland Empire than anywhere else in the United States," Blader states in the film's narration. She moves through a series of short profiles of places like Upland where Blader lives. She contrasts a local County Fair festival in Upland that is barely attended with the synthesized old downtown Victoria Gardens Mall owned by the Lewis Corporation in Rancho Cucamonga.
We also visit Norco, California known as Horsetown, USA. One can get a good sense of the tone and voice of Local 909er by
viewing this excerpt from the film. Norco is one of the several towns filled with big burb homes filled with residents who commute two to three hours for work.
In the world of Local 909er big money and big profits are the ruling order. Master plan communities of new homes homes spring up in dairy land where residents "have to contend with flooded out roads, manure saturated mud on their cars and flies, the flies, and flies... ."
Then there is Banning, California, "pretty much in the middle of the desert." In this segment Blader shows how when big box stores like Walmart upgrade to Super store status the old buildings are abandoned and impact the buildings around them and other shops eventually close. One of the most compelling of segments in the film is when she shows "In Ontario, right next to the 10 freeway, you can see what a Target looks like when it dies." Big money abandons its old enterprises for new leaving multiple store closings in its wake.
The film closes with a return to Upland. Blader tells how the residents on her street know each other and take pride in how they work for their houses. She tells how a man came to her door and asked if they wanted to sell to make room for townhomes. She said we told him know. The last image is a balloon advertising new homes and development as credits roll. The last text screen asks the question "Does Every Neighborhood have to look the same?"
Local 909er (909 is the area code for most of the region and has been appropriated as local slang term for Inland Emiprites) was filmed over a four year period and was funded in part by th California Council for the Humanities. It appears on a recently released video collection called A Film Is a Burning Place: Works by Enid Baxter Blader. Most of her the other works on the disc seemed much more casual and did not connect with me. But it makes no difference because Local 909er is so strong and memorable.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:27 PM
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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Again I Celebrate Dylan's Memorial Day Weekend Birthday Alone
One of my most memorable Memorial days weekends was in Bellingham WA 1976. I was like one of three folks in my dorm who elected not to go home, or at least it seemed it. It was bright and sunny and I could play music loud while I cleaned or poked at studying. On my solid state clock radio I picked up a public radio station in Vancouver BC were devoting an afternoon to music and talk about Bob Dylan who had celebrated his thirty fifth birthday. I liked Dylan okay. I heard records at my friend's sisters. I owned John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline when they first came out and played them, but not nearly as much as Simon and Garfunkel or the first three Chicago records.
The two Canadian Dylan "scholars" caught my attention big time when they played back to back versions of Its All Right Mom, I'm Only Bleeding, the original Bringing It All Back Home and the other from the Geffen Dylan/Band concert souvenir Before the Flood. This is the moment I really became a Dylan follower. The difference between the versions was pretty staggering, but the essence and the intensity of the song itself powerful in both settings.
The mid-seventies were a great time to get caught up in Dylan for the first time. This was the era of Blood on the Tracks, The Rolling Thunder Review, Desire and Renaldo and Clara. Then there was Street Legal and Budokon. Then Jesus, being baptized in Pat Boone's pool and leaving most of the world scratching their heads even when he drafted Dire Straits for Slow Train.
This past weekend I spent Memorial Day weekend 2009 and Bob Dylan's 68th birthday alone once again. And in circumstances a little bit coincidental, karmic, and cosmic, dug into Dylan, but not classic He's Not There eras of Bobby. Douglas Brinkley's interview with Dylan in Rolling Stone had me curious about the last nearly twenty years of his Americana personified period beginning with the albums of American standard folk songs (Frankie and Johnny, Little Maggie, Stack O Lee, etc) that consisted of Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong) to his albums Time out of Mind, Love and Theft, Modern Times, and last month's release Together Through Life
I will reserve another time to expand upon Together Through Life, but like what I hear with a band that has a Tom Petty Heartbreaker and a Los Lobos (Dave Hidalgo) with tunes of American heritage. Sometimes muddy. Sometimes Bright. I'm fascinated to listen closer to hear the signs of Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter's contribution. he few hours I spent listing this weekend lead me to conclude that I like Americana Bob and love the concept of the Never Ending Tour, although he gets real sensitive when it is is called that. I wish I could be able to see Dylan with Willie Nelson and John Cougar Mellencamp at their AAA ball park tour this summer, but, alas, I don't see myself in Stockon or Fresno in mid to late August.
The only pre-nineties Dylan I have been listening to in this round has been the Bob Dylan and Grateful Dead show from Autzen Stadium, 7.19.87. That show features a phenomenal performance of Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest which originally appeared on John Wesley Harding. The tune is a gnarly, intense allegory about friendship and temptation. The performance features an impassioned vocal by Dylan, particularly in the final choruses.
No one tried to say a thing
When they took him out in jest,
Except, of course, the little neighbor boy
Who carried him to rest.
And he just walked along, alone,
With his guilt so well concealed,
And muttered underneath his breath,
"Nothing is revealed."
Well, the moral of the story,
The moral of this song,
Is simply that one should never be
Where one does not belong.
So when you see your neighbor carryin' somethin',
Help him with his load,
And don't go mistaking Paradise
For that home across the road.
The performance is pretty phenomenal. All of the major elements of the Dead: Brent's keyboard, Bobby and Jerry almost sounding like the two dueling protagonists on guitar (Frankie and Judas, perhaps?) Phil's bass runs are especially inspired and Billy and Micky are kicking some major drummer butt. Before the last set of verses you can hear what sounds like a board operator throwing out another filter or whatever it is they do for sweet house sound. But listen closely: it is the sound of thousands of folks going batshit crazy as the song moves to the moral of the story and song. I didn't go to Dylan and the Band 74 or the Rolling Thunder review but I was lucky to be there for this one.
Think I am exagerating or sweetening the situation here? Then check it out for yourself...
Dylan and Dead 7.19.87 Ballad of Frankie Lee & Judas Priest
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:24 PM
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Monday, May 25, 2009
Kurosawa's One Wonderful Sunday
There has been a genre of cinema for a long time relating to couples going through changes, usually over the course of a day or two, such as in Murnau's Sunrise or the abysml Richard Linklatter-Ethan Hawke Before Sunrise,(One of my least favorite films but one of my favorite beach towels. Thanks Steveman) A setting of a day or a couple creates a significant dramatic structure. But Couple Changes Cinema can experiment with time like how Stanley Donan's Two for the Road compresses an entire relationship through jump cuts.
I became aware of another film of this genre by Akira Kurosawa. One Wonderful Sunday (1947) was his seventh film. It shows us Yuzo and Massaka out on their weekly date. They only have 35 yen between them.
Yuzo has allowed himself to be beat up. He is the veteran trying to make the change in a society in transition. Life and the quality of living plus lack of confidence has created an equation situation: Money and Love = Security. Thank god that Massaka is much more an optimist and willing to accept their current station in life. Not only are they limited by their funds, These too also encounter greed motivated folks that prevent them from optimizing their few precious yen at a concert or a coffee shop. In the end, money, of course, does not equate hapiness either, but they have to sweat and work hard to get to that point.
In One Wonderful Sunday, Kursosawa is visual poet trying the possibility of the cinema out. He was trying to figure out a way to put hope and change on the screen. One Wonderful Sunday is two kinds of film in one. The first half is kinetic full of tempo and mood changes. The couple remains in the city but there is a kind of picaresque road trip going on.
The second is not a dream but Kurosawa has certainly taken us to a world with a fantasy domain. And that is really the major conflict going on here. Will injected fantasy be the victor? And he gives them time to do it. There are some really long shots here in the second half. This is not a movie you want to be watching when you are sleepy.
One Wonderful Sundayis one of five films in the Criterion/Eclipse box set Postwar Kurosawa which features five of the eleven films that Kurosawa directed between 1946 and 1955.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:17 PM
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
Pabst and Brooks: Redux with a Diary
Pandora's Box, directed by GW Pabst is one of the most revered films of the last years of the silent era, if not all of cinema history, and rightly so. It is a kind of epic exploration of sensual abandon and the shadow side of the human condition. It also features Louise Brooks as Lulu in a role as integral to her screen career as The Passion of Joan of Arc was to Maria Falconetti or as Marie in Au hasard Balthazar is for Anne Wiazemsky. We think of the film, role, and actress being inseparable.
Diary of a Lost Girl was the 1929 follow up by Pabst and Brooks to Pandora's Box. I need to go back and look at Pandora's before I give any kind of specifics and comparison. I can only say that I found this film to be a signficant and moving experience. There are some plot elements that don't make sense on a realistic and logical level, but there is a greater concern here to a high level of emotion and morality that Pabst and Co. are taking on it. It contains some dark and devastating moments, but Thymiane, the protagonist of Lost Girl gets to celebrate a spiritual victory, and the audience does as well.
Thymiane, Margarete Böhme's heroine of Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen is sexually assaulted and impregnated by her father's apothecary assistant. The baby goes up for adoption and Thymiane is sent to this brutal Dickens like reform school while her father takes up with his latest housekeeper. She escapes and becomes a prostitute in conditions that were certainly an improvement to the school. But it is the last act, in which money and time create circumstances towards redemption that makes this work kind of extraordinary.
This viewing of Diary will send me back to Pandora's Box, but also to move deeper into works by Pabst, Murnau and others like Borzage from the silent era. There is a kind of elemental connection with their subject matter and their audience that the best of silent filmmakers were masters. Technology has changed, but the best work of roughly the first third of cinema's history is filled with moments powerful and as eternal as the best of great literature.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:16 PM
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Saturday, May 23, 2009
When Volker Met Billy
Billy Wilder was 82 when he was interviewed over a two week period by another admiring filmmaker, Volker Schlöndorff. There is often something wonderful that happens when these kinds of situations occur. The Hitchcock interviews by Francois Truffaut will always feel like a kind of definitive document. As do the interviews that Peter Bogdanovich did with Orson Welles or, certainly, the book Conversations with Wilder by Cameron Crowe with transcriptions of interviews done ten years after Schlöndorff's footage.
Wilder asked that Schlöndorff not show his footage until after his death apparently because it was not felt to be polished or professional enough. There was a reference in the film that there was an intent to later and do a more complete and polished presentation. The footage was assembled into a 2006 film, Billy Wilder Speaks.
This film has a lovely rough hewn, jump around feel to it in many ways. The original source material came from at least four or five different interviews filmed over the two weeks. He also moves between German and English depending on mood or topic. A viewer of this film must work and listen hard to sometimes grasp the context and flow of his stories and reminiscences as one does when listening to an elder/
Billy Wilder had served as a writer on almost twenty five films before coming to the US after Hitler came to power. He made quick study of English and all aspects of American culture, being hired as a screenwriter in short order collaborating with the likes of Charles Bracket, and director Ernst Lubitsch. In 1939 he wrote the screenplay of Ninotchka for fellow expatriate and career mentor Lubitsch whose influence was great on him. In Billy Wilder Speaks, we see the sign sign in his office that said "How Would Lubitsch Do It?"
Wilder had an unprecedented twenty year run beginning with Double Indemnity in 1944 until The Fortune Cookie in 1966. Movies in the mid twentieth century would have been not nearly as rich without the likes of The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, ,Ace In the Hole, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and One, Two Three Some of these films unblinkly show the darker side of human nature with a touch of irony that is unique to Wilder.
A lot of the anecdotes one would expect in a Wilder documentary are present. There is an explanation how the door opens up to the outside of an apartment so that Barbara Stanwyck could hide from Edward G. Robinson in Double Indemnity. And then there is the lesson in comic timing when drag disguised Jack Lemmon is using maracas to reveal his news of courting a man to Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot.
Yet, it is his exchanges with Schlöndorff about a US War department documentary he made called Death Mills which are among the most intriguing in Billy Wilder Speaks. Wilder, a eastern European Jew whose mother and step mother were killed at Auschwitz was determined to give a head on account of what took place in the concentration camps for a film that was intended for screening in German and Austrian cinemas. The first audience mostly walked out and stole the pencils for the post-audience reaction. Later audiences had to produce their ration cards for stamping after seeing the film, according to Wilder. He was determined to create a document that could not be dismissed as something manufactured by some Jews in Hollywood.
Another of the best moments occurs when Schlöndorff asks Wilder about his extensive use of the Paramount music library in his films, especially "Isn't It Romantic" in Sabrina. "It is very nice when you use it in Paris, when they are walking up the Champs-Élysée, but how about using it in Berlin when they are driving through the ruins? inquires Schlöndorff. Wilder responds with a question "Did I use it?" Schlöndorff replies yes. To which Wilder says "That just shows you how cheap we are."
There are several such moments in Billy Wilder Speaks and in the hour of extra interview segments on the DVD that are introduced by Schlöndorff. To lovers of film, these are priceless. I am thankful for the Crowe book for its completeness and earnestness in capturing Wilder's career but Billy Wilder Speaks is also invaluable, especially in getting a true since of what it was like to be able o sit down and talk with this master about his life and times.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:28 PM
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Friday, May 22, 2009
A Hero is Nothing But A Sandwich
I heard rumblings that this was a satisfying film to check out. I've seen it lumped in with blaxploitation films although like Claudine with Dihann Carroll and James Earl Jones or Charles Wright's Killer of Sheep. All three of these film are stories about regular African American folks getting by and getting through life's sometimes rough patches. The other films of this era were about "trying to get over" (Superfly--as the last line of the title song says) Or getting at the man. who might be the government or some cops or, my favorite, 1970s movie Mafioso.
Sure, there is some pretty arcane stuff in A Hero is Nothing But A Sandwich like an interminable dialog between the nationalist black power instructor rapping about the future with the Jewish reading and composition instructor or a rehab intervention smackdown that reminded me of something out of the ranch school in Billy Jack. I, a product of the seventies myself, like these kinds of time capsule moments.
Such moments ultimately do not matter because Hero is a fine well-crafted piece of American cinema which feels like a kind of not too distant relation to the kind of independent small movies that came on the scene a decade and a half later. Most obviously this film had two exceptionally high profile African American actors of their time coming back on screen together six or seven years after Sounder.
From Sounder to Sandwich. Here's how much time had passed. Kevin Hooks who was a focal point in Sounder and in a TV movie three years earlier about this kitty he found called J.T. is too old to play the barely teen junkie in Hero. Instead Hooks plays Tiger the small time lowlife dealer who gets Benjie (Larry B. Scott) on the mainline in no time.
Films about junkies are hard to watch and films about young smart people on junk get even tougher. But Hero is really a story of the human condition told with the same kind sensitivity that Tod Haynes gave to Safe As Safe is so much more than a film about environmental allergies, Sandwich is more than a story of a young kid on junk. Both are considered observations of the human condition well acted and interestingly crafted.
Hero's director Ralph Nelson has made a number of significant films (Soldier Blue, Charly, Lilies of the Field, and Requiem for A Heavyweight) I remember seeing two of his sixties films in theaters. The the nail biting air disaster procedural Fate Is The Hunter with Glenn Ford was the first second feature at a drive in I remember staying up and watching all the way through with my parents. Then there was Father Goose with Cary Grant an Leslie Caron. This bad broad comedy seemed to follow me like a disease getting booked as a second feature to a Disney cartoon or Don Knotts comedy at least twice that I can remember.
But the point is, Nelson knew how to make a film and here he had a lot to work with, not only to flight actors, but a solid screenplay by Alice Childress based on her novel. I first came across this book in the Young Adult section of a bookstore I worked at when I was going to college. Childress according to her Wikipedia article is most known for her work in theater. "She formed an off-broadway union for actors. Her first play, Florence, was produced off-Broadway in 1950. She was the first black woman to have a play produced professionally, and is also the first woman to win an OBIE award." I find this interesting because Hero very much has a play like structure, The first act is about Benjie getting hooked, the second is hitting bottom and going to rehab.
The third act of Hero is about the impact of the relationship between Benjie, his mom, grandmother, and the man who lives with them trying to surf the unknown of what their life and relationships are going to be after Benjie gets out of rehab. Winfield brings quite a lot to Butler, a former professional musician with service sector job who desires a stepfather role with Benjie. He describes himself well at one point: "I don't bother hardly nobody, but I am kind of direct in my way." His directness comes in inevitable conflict with the still fragile Benjie and his mother. But Nelson and Childress don't moralize or take sides in the battle. They instead keep to the view and perspective of telling a story about folks in complicated stead.
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:07 PM
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Thursday, May 21, 2009
Stevie As A Sideman To Fellow Legends
I love YouTube's role as a giant jukebox of cultural ephemera. I used to hate it when a classmate or work colleague would come up to me and say "Hey did you see _______ lay it down with______ on
Here are a couple of gems I found one night doing the YouTube, looking for music that wasn't shot on someone's cell phone. Stevie Wonder performs a couple of his best tunes with a couple of other legendary musical geniuses. He brings a touch of Stevie to the performances, but it is clear to me that he is doing all he can for them as well.
Living For the City with Ray Charles
The funkiness of these masters slices through the bloated television variety show orchestra. Ray's fingers are on fire and his first couple of choruses transform it from its prior history as a hit tune on innervisions and take into something you would hear on an all blues and gospel label somewhere between Hi and Malaco records, a world that never saw a cross over like the ones that Al Green, Brother Ray and others had.
And then there's Ray's rap in the middle testifying about the plight of the ghetto with desperation at the keyboard pulpit. At another point his cryouts to Stevie 'All Right Son" come out with real deal gladness in the midst of television madness.
Wonder gets his licks in, but he is obviously there for the master's voice
Until You Come Back To Me with Aretha Franklin
You gotta Respect the Reee. Aretha Franklin and Stevie transform what could be a fully 100% cheez moment when they do Wonder's Until You Come Back To Me. And time has its way of changing bodies and ravaging voices once so sweet and unique. But the soul and phrasing is still there. Again, Steve is there to give
And a lovely thing happens, the arrangement kind of breaks down and Stevie laughs and seems to love the moment of near collapse as they fade out wrapping on doors tapping on window panes.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:33 AM
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Sun Ra: Points on a Space Age
Ephraim Asili's film Sun Ra: Points On A Space Age is essentially a snapshot of the Sun Ra Arkestra as it exists in the current era with a few glimpses into the history and philosophy of the music. It consists of interviews with six instrumentalists who are currently in the current Arkestra directed by long time Arkestra saxophonist Marshall Allen, some concert and rehearsal footage of the group interspersed with NASA stock footage and brief readings of Sun Ra's poetry.
Sun Ra: Points On A Space Ageis a nice addendum and could help serve some as an introduction to the music of Ra, who I consider, along with George Clinton to be one of the last two great African American big band visionaries. Unfortunately, it is quite brief at 38 minutes long, doesn't feature any interview footage with Marshall Allen. Additionally, the six Arkestra musicians that are interviewed on camera (Yahyah Abdul-Majid, Fareed Baron, Howard Cooper, Dave Davis, Tyrone Hill, and Thadeus Thomas) are not even provided identifying subtitles. An exception is trombonist Tyrone Hill, who is given a memoriam credit at the end of the film.
Hill is also in my favorite shot of the film right before a gig where he takes off his Philadelphia Phillies ball cap and replaces it with a gold cap he wears as a member of the Arkestra. He's just another night to get ready to travel the spaceways from planet to planet.
I first saw the Sun Ra Arkestra in the winter of 1979 at the Earth Tavern in Portland Oregon. The costumes, the space mythology, the audience participation, the mix of free jazz and tight big band arrangements blew me away. Ra's private universes and collaboration with highly devoted long term band members have the ability to transform and transcend. Sun Ra's philosophy and musical discipline is also credited with helping get John Coltrane to kick his heroin habit.
The last time I saw the Arkestra was in a version of the band in Asili's film providing two short sets at the High Sierra Music Festival a few tears back. Sure, it wasn't the same as seeing the Arkestra back when Sonny Blount aka Sun Ra lead the group through astral dimensions, but much of the flavor was there. I still find it incredulous that these folks were flown to Reno, driven to a county fair grounds in the middle of nowhere to do their thing and were whisked off again. Many of the musicians were definitely in their seventies.
Either back in his day, or in the incarnation lead by Allen, Ra's music tries to define the ominverse, a music to describe all things. One of the musicians talks about the good, the bad and the ugly always being in the music. It was music about finding new worlds. Another musician says if the music traveling to Jupiter in their music and we hadn't been there, it makes sense that the music would sound strange.
One of the highlights of a Sun Ra Arkestra concert is when the band moves off the stage into the audience. Ra used the notion of moving orchestration when he designed and created his music. One of the last shots of Sun Ra: Points On A Space Age is a static one showing two thirds of the stage and the front of the audience. Folks of all shapes and sizes mix in the serpentine of the Arkestra. The music has moved them, and it is up to the beholder if it feels like going to Saturn, Jupiter or some other destination.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:41 PM
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Stereoscopic Parallax in Portland
I usually cull through my unsolicited e-mails rather quickly. However, on Monday morning I found one that caught my eye. The Cascade chapter of ACM Siggraph puts on some pretty good events, such as local screenings of the best animation from the international Siggraph conference or an appearance earlier this fall by animator and author Richard Williams. But the timing always seems way off. It seems I always hear about their events either a day or so before they occur or just after the fact. So when I received about a survey of 3D photographic commercial activities in Portland, both past and present at Portland Community College's Cascade campus to take place, you guessed it, later that same evening, I decided to not to this one pass, and I figured out a strategy to be able to attend.
From Toys to Technology a full but well-ordered program. First Kathleen O'Reilly gave an overview of the underlying technology behind 3D photography and traced its evolution up to the advent of the Viewmaster. After about ten minutes my head was spining with tems like parallax, inter-ocular distance and stereopsis. I wondered where my mother's lorgnette (a hand held viewer for stereo cards.) And reviewed what I understood about anaglyphs with the red and blue lenses, and the two major ways that polarizing lenses are used in 3D technologies. I always liked the science of photography and cinema. Stereoscopy could be viewed upon as a kind of applied photography.
Ron Kriesel, a retired agricultural economist is a long time 3D enthusiast and one of the board members of the 3D Center for Art and Photography. The cener is a cool little non-profit located in the "film blocks" (where 35mm nitrate films were stored and distributed back in the silent era) of NW Portland. He was next up on the podium where he gave a history of Viewmaster, which O'Reilly and at least another in the program confessed to being their favorite toy growing up. I know it was probably one of mine, but I may have loved our Kenner Give A Show Projector more.
Kreisel reviewed the history of Viewmaster, how it was founded because of a chance late 1930s meeting at the Oregon coast between an organ maker and photographer and an employee of a Sawyer's, a twenty eight year old Portland photography firm that specialized in tourist souvenirs. Both had an interest in 3D photography that they transformed into a company with a presence at the 1939 World's fair which allowed for private viewing of seven stereoscopic images on a reel. Kreisel told how the Sawyer's company provided viewers and reels to the US military during WWII. And he mentioned how the company was changed forever when it acquired their competitor Tru-Vue in 1951 because their new acquisition had licensing rights to Disney properties.
Pat Green and Tom Woody were next on the program representing their companies, Planar and McNaughton. Both have developed nifty 3D display solutions in the past few years using LCD monitors. Planar uses a mirror between two tilted LCD monitors which along with the use of polarizing glasses creates absolutely stunning 3D effects. Green provided how 3D imagery of mammography screening proved to be almost 40-50% more accurate results (with both false negative and false positive results) than a screening of flat 2D mammograms. The McNaughton solution uses shuttered glasses and sandwiched LCD screens. The last speaker was also the moderator of the event was also the moderator for the evening. Herc Silverstein of Schrodinger talked about interlaced 3D images and Open GL. I'm' not sure I absorbed much of his presentation since my head was already filled with a full contingent of stereoscopic concepts and applications.
The coolest part of the night was at the end to sample all of the technologies (including Viewmaster) that had been discussed throughout the evening. In her presentation, O'Reilly talked about how her early fascination with Viewmaster lead her to the photographic concepts of need to effectively use foreground, middle ground and background in a composition. On stage there were plenty of examples of this, especially with the Planar technology. I remember studying ViewMaster reels of moon landings for hours probably. Space should be in three dimensions.
I wish I had been able to catch a picture of Ron Kriesel taking a picture of the audience partaking in first hand views of the technology they learned about that evening, but I had some polarizing glasses on and couldn't get my camera out soon enough.
So what is it about Portland that this should have 70 year history of lucrative stereoscopic entrepreneurs? Is it just another extension of what is expressed in Music Millennium's bumper sticker, Keep Portland Weird. Maybe if not weird, at least a world where two dimensions are not enough or where at least depth is given illusion.
posted by well-executed buffet at 5:37 AM
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Monday, May 18, 2009
Of Time and The City: Mixed Media with Mixed Messages
I had hopes for Of Time and The City, a nonfiction documentary film essay by Terrence Daives (whose most recognizable film credit is the Gillian Anderson version of House of Mirth) on Liverpool, where he grew up. I am fond of poetic documentaries and film essays about cities from the city symphony films to Wender's meditations on places like Tokyo.
There are about four different elements on his palate: archival footage, contemporary images, music, and voice over narration with lots of quotations and poetry. Davies is endeavoring to give his own story, but one driven by memory, not in any kind of linear way. Unfortunately he comes off as a pedantic old man. His rant about the queen against an overabundance of color wedding footage and his snarling yea yea yea when the Beatles (more or less his contemporaries) were pretty off-putting. At that point, I found myself not really caring about what Davies thought.
Instead, I awaited the next music sequences. There are two that are pretty well executed in film. One was an earlier version of Dirty Old Town by a group called the Spinners (Not the Rubber Band Man guys) who are apparently a Kingston Trio/Brothers Four folk group from the sixties who brought out a kind of bittersweetness in a song that most from my generation know of as rampaging vehicle by the Pogues. Davies also scores big by matching up Peggy Lee's The Folks Who Live Up On the Hill with footage of fifties impoverished street urchins.
In the film, Davies states his whole world consisted of home, school, and movies. And maybe that is part of the problem here; looking back at his life he doesn't really have an hour's worth of reflection of Liverpool or many original things to day. In an extras interview on the DVD, Davies explains how the film was a commission and how it was his first documentary. Some filmmakers are best suited perhaps to stay in their range or realm. Wenders and Herzog are men of cinema who are impassioned in a way to move between fiction and non-fiction. At a half hour it could have worked probably, but big backing from the BBC for footage and rights can't create a seventy minute documentary if there isn't enough to sustain that length.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:03 AM
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Sunday, May 17, 2009
What Chuck and Jill were up to From Noon Till Three
There is an entire sub-genre in American film that took place in the sixties and seventies. It was what happened when the screwball or broad comedy got gene-spliced with the western. There was quite a lineage of these. Let's begin with John Wayne in McLintock (1963) and link up to Cat Ballou (1965), The Hallelujah Trail (1965), Waterhole #3 (1967), Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), The Cheyenne Social Club (1970), Dirty Dingus Magee (1971), Skin Game (1971), and Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971). And then, of course there is Blazing Saddles (1974)
From Noon Till Three (1976) is best viewed as an artifact in this tradition, but color it screwball western or not, it is one of the strangest films I have ever seen. It features Jill Ireland and Charles Bronson at the height of their Hollywood couple fame where they were kind of cross between Dick & Liz and Burt & Lonnie. Actually, this is the time I consciously recall seeing both of them in a film besides the ubiquitous and actually a tiny bit moving PSA spot that was produced in the midst of Jill's battle with breast cancer. Maybe this was due in part to Chuck's pensive and always a little bit spooky delivery.
This film begins with a very elaborate dream sequence and that allows writer/director Frank D. Gilroy, (The Subject was Roses) to proceed into his tale a little bit off kilter. It starts deceptively simple enough. An outlaw plagued by nightmares stays at an aristocratic farmhouse a lot like the one in Days of Heaven which is owned by a very beautiful and rich widow with Boston bluebood roots. They get into some sexual power politics and then into sex and love. Then things get real different. If you think you will never see this film you can read the 750 word synopsis at the film's Wikipedia page.
It is a romantic comedy on one level, but it takes some rather curious and thought-provoking turns into themes and explorations of the nature of celebrity, identity and the power of Romanticism on human nature. It wasn't what I had expected when I thought I was beginning Charles Bronson/Jill Ireland's take on the screwball western.
From Noon Till Three can be rented at Netflix or viewed into a bunch of longish clip chapters at You Tube.
posted by well-executed buffet at 12:07 AM
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Saturday, May 16, 2009
Night of the Brothers who Really Aren't
Set One: The Doobie Brothers
For me and I would reckon to wager many in my era seeing the Doobie Brothers live is are kind of like bumping into a college roommate that you haven't seen since back in the day or that relative that only shows up at major weddings and the occasional funeral.
They are the only band I can think of besides Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers who was ubiquitous and taken in total just as they were on both KGON, which we now call a Classic Rock format radio station as well as KINK which would be called boomer contemporary, excuse me, I mean adult contemporary. The Doobies are journeyman radio ready and state fair mainstage friendly. It is one of the few bands I can think of that both my Dad and I owned records of. In the seventies they could be found on cassette decks of Japanese imports in the west hills and muscle cars on 82nd Avenue.
They were a band and a brand with a lot of eras. There was the Talouse Street, What Were Once Habits, Me and My Captain period that was fine hip popish rock topical for the times with some occasional blues infusion as well as country touches and other Americana influence. This was the band that appeared on an episode of What's Happening? I remember seeing Nick at Night a few years ago that featured Rerun and his buddies digging the show and playing the fool when they tried to talk about it later.
And then there was the Michael McDonald star machinery period. The Jeff "Skunk" Baxter years. You would hear more of them on KINK than on KGON during this era. Takin' to the Streets and all that. I hear those albums now and they kind of seem like a deathwatch to the seventies. The big nod to this time was Takin' It To The Streets McDonald isn't in the Doobie tent on this tour. The vocal was done by their African American bassist SKylark and was passable enough. But really the coolest thing about Skyrlark was his bass that had the Tivoli lights on the neck, which looked kind of like a light saber when it was dark.
Doobies 2009 is a little like going to a nostalgic Americana infused Doobieland. We get a lot of the hits but also their legacy. They played Nobody, which original and constant member Patrick Simmons said was probably the first song ever recorded by the band. They followed this with Back to the Chateau, which is one their new tunes which will appear.
The dual drum sound is key to Doobies, as well as The Allman Brothers Band and The Dead, other bands they are sharing gigs with this weekend. Any band with two drummers is probably worth listening to, in my opinion.
Tom Johnston with his crisp, expressive, tenor intensity is the other immediately recognizable voice of the Doobies. The evening was getting a little overloaded with the hit machine by the time they got to Blackwater, to which a pretty nice moment occurred--It turns out that you and me and everyone in the whole world know most of the lyrics to this song. You don't believe me, well try this on for size.
Old black water, keep on rollin
Mississippi moon, wont you keep on shinin on me
Yeah, keep on shinin your light
Gonna make everything, pretty mama
Gonna make everything all right
And I aint got no worries
cause I aint in no hurry at all
Believe me, you know it. And I must confess, that it sounded good with everyone singing their hearts out. It wasn't This Land is Your Land with Pete Seeger, but it brought up some nice memories and a slice of late seventies Americana, with roots from much earlier.
Then it was time for Long Time Runnin' and China Grove. I left during the encore to assure I would not have a long line for my intermission Hefeweizen.
posted by well-executed buffet at 1:37 AM
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Friday, May 15, 2009
Night of the Brothers who Really Aren't
Set 2 The Allman Brothers Band
Until tonight, The Allman Brothers Band has not performed in the Pacific Northwest for ten years and not been on the west coast for four It was a good solid show. The set list was bluesy and it seemed like there was a lot of new material. It certainly came no where near the Come On In My Kitchen, Dreams, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, Mountain Jam>Dazed And Confused>Mountain Jam, Whipping Post March 24, 2007 second set I saw at the Beacon in New York.
But there were some marvelous moments in Portland, more with the examples of some of the band's best songcraft rather than the jams. Melissa, Midnight Rider, and Soulshine, all in the same set? There ain't nothing wrong with that. The tight as can be duet vocals of Warren Haynes and Greg Allman absolutely put shivers up my neck on both Midnight Rider and Soulshine.
Soulshine is as good a tune as Garcia/Hunter ever came up with. And I believe it stands up with Kris Kristofferson at his Bobbie McGee best. What a chorus this song has:
Let your soul shine,
Its better than sunshine,
Its better than moonshine,
Damn sure better than rain.
Statesboro Blues was a highlight for me this time out. The screen visual was a nicely put together montage sequence of most the major Chess Records era bluesmen. Greg Allman propels a Hammond B3 into deep blues territory. I don't know why the universe doesn't celebrate his voice more.
The Allmans are touring more this Spring, summer and fall than them doing for a very long time. There is a lot of press and merch that is commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the band. But they are working for this recognition. The two drummers and the little blond kid with a nose for trouble and sometimes stupid (marrying Cher) outlasted.
A version of No One to Run With also featured illustrative video images. The band was scene in the graveyard with two folks that certainly aren't running with them anymore except in spectral format: Barry Oakley and Duane Allman. Dickey Betts was also there along with Greg, Jaimoe and Butch. Dickey is still among the mortal. He's more like the relative who really screwed up and no one talks about.
In additon to the picture, there was also cutaways of Warren Hayes' old Allman and Mule bassist Alan Woody. The film being projected intercut footage of Woody playing which was intercut of some footage of Duane Allman jamming. It was cut to look like they were in the same band. The thing that gave it away was the bass drum head for Gov't Mule.
The images were great, but No One To Run With is a pretty crappy song, partly because it got kind of popular at one point. I'm thankful it didn't raise the band up to the popularity of Touch of Grey had and one could say helped guide the Dead towards their end.
The longevity of the Allman Brothers Band is truly worth noting. Most folks are aware that there is only one Allman left. Nowadays there is an Uncle and his nephew in the band, Butch and Derek Trucks. Will they ever create a solo project called The Uncle and his Nephew Trucks Band?
Anyway, here is the set list: Hot 'Lanta, Statesboro Blues, Don't Keep Me Wonderin', Soulshine, No One To Run With, Midnight Rider, Woman Across The River, Stand Back, Melissa, Rocking Horse, Les Brers In A Minor, One Way Out It isn't really right to split hairs and be picky about a band which is nearly great all he time, but I still believe that about four of those really aren't A-List Allmans material. May they have a successful tour for the rest of the year and come back here real soon to mine their book of the blues further.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:49 AM
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Thursday, May 14, 2009
Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin and films of fifties NY
Many thanks to the Consumate Dabbler for informing me about the filmmaking team of photographers Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin. I've not yet caught up to their most noted credit, Little Fugitive, but I feel I gained a rich experience of what New York was like in the fifties when I viewed the two films that followed, Lovers and Lollipops and Weddings and Babies. They are rich and deceptively simple, naturalistic portraits of the pressures and experiences in life that are universal.
Their films, especially Little Fugitive are linked as both forerunners to the French New Wave and a source of inspiration for filmmakers like Cassavetes, but for me these films had a feel of the classic Italian Neorealist films like The Bicycle Thief, but without so much melodrama, They capture moments in time of the human condition. In Lovers and Lollipops a six year old girl learns how to adjust to her widowed mother finding a new romance. Weddings and Babies follows Al, a professional photographer unable to accept his life for where he is and move it forward in a non-emotional and positive way.
Both films are less than 90 minutes long, but they are not afraid to take their time. Engel shows us that there is something very cinematic about the moments where people and things are lost, displaced or hung out in a little bit of a limbo. Little Peggy in Lovers and Lollipops finds ways to get away from her mother and her "new friend" Larry when the three of them go out on outings. Perspective shifts between the two parties in a kind of cause and effect. At another point, Peggy sails the small boat that Larry has given to her as a gift in a museum pond. A long wide angle covers the action as guard, Larry, and, in her own way Peggy try to grab the boat, which is just out of reach. It is a simple moment, but one that the audience becomes involved in because the filmmakers are giving us the gift of the kind of life situation that are of the sort that get recounted at family gatherings years later.
A lot of what makes these films special is that they are showcases for the kind of sensitivity and sensibility that are those of folks who pursue and believe in the power of the photographic image. Bea, (Viiveca Linfords) the patient and long-suffering girl friend of Al the photographer in Weddings and Babies is seen looking out of their shop window from behind. Her body expresses more mood in that single shot than a collection of closeups could. At another point, Bea and Al depart from each other at a low angle shot that is cut off at their shoulders. It is again another lovely image that express volumes.
Sound was the Achilles pick breaker of location and portable filmmaking for years. Sound for Lovers and Lollipops was looped in post production after shooting as was the necessary and customary for a small production. (And was the practice in Italian and European cinema for decades) Weddings and Babies used a synchronized sound system that appeared in the credits which resulted in some variable quality. In retrospect, such technical imperfections can lead to the charm of a work when you visit it years later.
There are some great resources about Engel and Orkin on line. I especially enjoyed this profile a profile by Bret Wood about Engel he talks about how he was still working with film and video in his seventies and eighties. His family has done a nice job of keeping and archive of his work as well as Orkin's online.
posted by well-executed buffet at 2:52 AM
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Dorothee in Erosland
Die Jungfrauenmaschine (Virgin Machine) is a 1988 film by Monika Treut that tells the story of Dorothee Müller, a sexually ambivalent journalist and author in Hamburg who comes to San Francisco on a personal and professional journey of self-discovery. A flimsy premise for a film to be sure, but looking at it twenty years ago, it has an endearing kind of glow to it. Ina Blum as rather waif like exuding a certain sense of wonder as she encounters lesbian strip clubs and icons of that time like Susie Bright and Pearl Harbour (of the Explosions)
I love a road movie. And a road movie is even better if it is a voyage of discovery from an outsider's perspective. Die Jungfrauenmaschine came ten years later than the German New Wave kicked up by the likes of Wenders and Herzog, but it has some of the same kind of energy for me that their discoveries of America of their films like Alice in the Cities or Stroszek. My favorite scene in Treut's film is of Dorothee hanging out of a hotel room of in San Francisco's Tenderloin, watching the world below her.
Die Jungfrauenmaschine has that lovely eighties Jarmusch-like black and white look to it capturing a corner of lesbian nightlife with abandon. There is definitely an agenda here. Treut seems to be addressing the Dorothees of her time that searching and experimenting what Curtis Mayfield sang years earlier "Its alright to have a good time. It's alrght." And she also shows that part of the journey is to be able to laugh at oneself as Dorothee does most heartily shrouding herself in a sheet when she realizes that she was hustled by a woman sex "therapist" under the guise of falling in love. But that experience gives her further strength to break out and eventually put the baggage and sexual ambivalence of her life in Hamburg behind her, seemingly once and for all.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:02 PM
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Tuesday, May 12, 2009
A Sign?
Does this mean that sometimes the sidewalk talks to me? I found this inscription on my way to work. Perhaps significantly, it was pointing in the right direction. Leads me to believe there might be a team of people with chalk running around at night to make sure I head the right way.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:34 PM
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Monday, May 11, 2009
Man on a Pillar
Luis Bunuel's Simon of the Desert is basically an extended blackout sketch with one set up. But what a grand set up it is. It consists of an indelible image of a holy man standing on a pillar in the middle of nowhere. So therefore, nowhere becomes somewhere, doesn't it?
Bunuel's work can make me laugh, but it is a laughter responding to circumstance and situation and absurdity. It isn't the same as laughing at Jon Stewart and his minions throw out their well-scripted jokes each evening. An obstinate ascetic high on a pillar gets badgered by a dwarf sheep herder or god/Satan as a woman with a Jesus beard? Sure, it isn't the same as Stewart pulling his shoulders up and raising his hands in the air to do his he-he Bush impersonation or his Cheney with a growl, but it makes me laugh.
And I love the fact that Bunuel mostly sustained setting and dress and manor as possibly being that of Simeon Stylites, the fifth century saint who lived on the pillar for 37 years. He almost exclusively maintains this until the final sequence when a jet appears, and then you see him at a disco with the female Satan watching young folks dancing away with St Vitus abandon. Simon tells the woman he wants to go home but she will not let him.
Mexico was home for Bunuel for nineteen years and twenty two films. Simon was the last of the Mexican film. But home for Bunuel was, I believe, the very unique world he was able to create in his movies when he had control, whether based in Spain, Mexico, or France. Only Fellini made a universe so unique that was both discrete and open-ended.
The Criterion edition of Simon of the Desert a mid nineties documentary by Emilio Maillé called A Mexican Bunuel. It doesn't pretend to be comprehensive of Bunuel's Mexican period, but does feature Roberto Cobo who played "El Jaibo" returning to a location of Bunuel's first major Mexican feature Los Olvidados And it shows a team of folks trying to remove one of Simon's pillars from the location of that film so it can be a part of a tribute to the film master.
But the pillar turns out to be too heavy to move. I hope it is still out there fifteen years after the tribute documentary was made. The very last scene of A Mexican Bunuelshows a billboard of a Remy Martin ad on a pillar much like Simon's. The film's narrator states "At the same time, totally by coinicdence, billboards advertising a French cognac appeared all over Mexico City. The manufacturer couldn't have known it was Bunuel's favorite brand. Mexico often amused Bunuel. One can understand why."
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:45 PM
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Sunday, May 10, 2009
Soulive: Building Their Own Tower
Doug Fir in PDX 5.10.09
Although they have featured vocalists and expanded their lineup to a horn section from time to time, Soulive is, at its core, a jazz organ power trio consisting of two brothers, Alan and Neal Evans on drums and keyboard, respectively, and guitar wizard Eric Krasno. In my preview post, I talked about how they live on the musical corner of funk/soul and jazz. And that is a musical address that was well founded for them by lots of organ trio and quartet forerunners; folks like Charles Earland and Jimmy McGriff. George Benson and Grover Washington, Jr. are two examples of musicians who cut their musical teeth in small organ groups before reconstituting their sound into commercial viability. Stanley Turrentine even more so--he was married to a superb jazz organist, Shirley Scott and they recorded and toured together for many years.
Alan Evans is a great drummer to watch. Last night he served as a kind of emcee for the evening. The latest Soulive tour is set up like an old rhythm and blues review. The trio does a couple numbers, they bring out the Shady Horns, and later their guest vocalist and opening act Nigel Hall to do a few numbers. Like the band itself, it is a format that provides them the ability to cover a lot of ground. The Shady Horns consist of saxophonists Ryan Zoidis on Tenor Sax and Sam Kininger on Alto Sax. Both are highly accomplished players when they solo, but it seems to me one of their most important roles is to fatten up key chords with Neal Evans and Krasno. Horns have an amazing quality in the context of funk/soul groups that can elevate them. The result is kind of like Tower of Power, but Soulive is out to build their own tower musically, now with their own Record Label, Royal Family, which for this band with a solid cult following probably makes sense, especially when one considers their prior history of multiple record labels (BlueNote and Concord, specifically)
Vocalist Nigel Hall sang a number from the new Soulive album Up Here, but he was most impressive in a mid-set cover of Curtis Mayfield's Move On Up and a very elaborate James Brown medley featuring "There Was A Time" where he calls off the names of dances and demonstrates them. Although he can do Brown's moves and shout and call out like the godfather, he also has a sweet way of delivering a song in a voice that reminds me of Tower of Power's former vocalist, Lenny Williams. Regardless, watching him, the horn, and the Soulive core trio together gave me a sense that these are folks who take their funk/soul/jazz very seriously. It feels almost like an enterprise where everything is at stake when they are on stage.
I waited around to purchase a live CD of the evening's show and watched the Doug Fir be transformed back to a room what needed to be cleaned up before the next concert. The Doug Fir has been open for several years now, but this was my first visit to the club. The downstairs performance space feels a little like going over to your friend's house after school, if your friend's parents owned and lived in a motel and a Denny's or had a ski lodge. I missed Nigel Hall's opening set, but was able to find standing room up on the bench level against the wall, leaning up against the cushions on the wall that were intended to look like a faux log cabin interior. I told Pam that if I had been in my twenties or thirties, this would be a place I would likely to go see shows at on a regular basis. It kind of reminds me of the old Pine Street Theater/La Luna venue, I frequented routinely in the eighties and nineties that was just a few blocks away from where Doug Fir is now. In fact, I remember coming to this location a couple of times in the La Luna days for a meal to escape an opening act that didn't seem to have much promise. Who would have guessed that twelve of fifteen years later that it would become eastside hipster central?
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:56 PM
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Saturday, May 9, 2009
Watching The Watchmen
Pam and I were having a conversation about how we didn't care about big movies anymore. I say its because we were burned one two many times. We enjoyed the Bournes, but felt unfulfilled after a Mission Impossible sequel. Neither of us could get excited about the new Star Trek. There are exceptions to this rule. Pam is looking forward to the new Terminator product.
Somehow our discussion of big movies evolved into plans to go to the Academy Theater on 78th and Stark to go see Watchmen. It is a neighborhood of autoshops, places where you can get a Patty Melt and a Bloody Mary like Thatchers, and couple of pizza joints. The Academy is proof that you an old auditorium can be pleasantly reconstituted and plexed. They serve their wine in a glass and have daycare. I think admission is three bucks for flicks soon on their way to DVD. (Idea for a poem -- movies leaving theaters for cable/DVD/Netflix/Basic Cable/LifeTime and AMC/DVD cutout racks at Hollywood and Blockbuster could be compared to cute farm animals going to the feed lot and then to slaughterhouse, grocery store and then to your plate.
I wasn't really aware of the whole Watchmen phenomena until some of my students were reading it and I saw several Watchman hoddies among the laptop gaming clique. Librarian Z filled me in a little bit. Pam then read the comic, which looked like too big a project before seeing the movie, but I was struck by some impressions she shared about it along with some other comments I saw and read at a glance. Movie comics are pretty sketchy, but then I realized that I was basing my impression on Dark Knight and The Spirit. So actually my issue is probably with Frank Miller, who I liked best when he interviewed Will Eisner (then made hash out of Eisner's great contribution to pop culture and American comics, The Spirit.
The Watchmen was an intriguing and engaging movie experience for me for a number of reasons. Mainly because seeing it was a new world complete, and I entered it with no expectations. The speculative world of what 85 would be like if Nixon was to run for five terms also was very cool with dead on pop culture references with kind of look alike imitators for everyone from McLaughlin Group panels to Annie Leibovitz at a photo shoot, to Nixon and Kissinger jowling about Nuclear War.
Then there are the superheroes with baggage and disconnects, just like real folk. The actors were almost entirely unknowns to a a good part of the planet and that added to the buy in for this wild tale which covered everything from nuclear war to being true to yourself for nearly three hours.
The look of the film and the consistency of really cool special effects helped it out as well. There is a kind of nerdly joy in this movie, that I haven't really seen realized in a similar way since I first saw the first Matrix movie. Look forward to checking out the comic next, but I doubt you'll see me at Wolverine ever or Star Trek maybe until it shows up at the Academy with the feed lot trucks parked out back.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:06 PM
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Friday, May 8, 2009
Soulive Preview
Soulive is going to be on the west coast this weekend. This is a glory because they are special in the same way that Bela Fleck is because they are unique, chop based and although there certainly are progressive bluegrass bands and power Organ trios out there, but I'm thinking it has to do with the blood. The Evans Brothers and the Wooten Brothers. Only difference is that Lamont Wooten plays bass with brother Future Man. (If you don't know about Futureman, well, he plays a drumitar. It really is worth an entire post of its own sometime) And in Soulive, drummer brother Evans has been at it with guitarist Eric Krasno and his brother who is one of the most amazing keyboard artists I have ever seen.
There is no string bass in this group. Neal Evans reminds me of a Bernie Worrell, but he is like a young tiger or cougar in how he attacks his B3 and the rest of his keyboard arsenal. When I became aware there was no string bass, I started to how the bass part being applied to this group's music.
And it can't be organ jazz without a few numbers where it seems like the keyboards just explode and threaten to burn the place down. Neal knows how to do these and, most importantly, when to do these. This band can lay low and come out in and a fury both. That's what happens when you live at the intersection of Bird Avenue and McLemore.
Speaking of McLemore, the 2006-07 chapter of Soulive, and the time they caught my full attention, was deeply connected to Stax. The band was a foursome then, adding Toussaint, a vocalist who had his Otis Redding moves down. Their album No Place Like Soul was a first release for the latest reconstituted version of the Stax label. As Alan Evans underscores in this interview the band prior to Toussaint's departure.
"No Toussaint?" questioned one of my associates who joined me for one of the sets I caught in summer 07. I don't know the story on this. I hope it wasn't a Dicky Betts kind of parting the same way you don't want to hear about details of divorce when you know and like both parties.
But the fact is that this band moves their own way and is following its own path. They have been on five record labels in the last ten years, counting their Concord/Stax manifestation. They also did several years on the Blue Note imprint, which I believe is controlled by Capitol Records. What do you say about a band who has been on both Blue Note and Stax (even in Legacy formations) and is deserved to have a place on both those timelines in music history? Plus they have the funk jazz hippie people who discovered them after they tapped out George Clinton's catalog or found their musical tastes transformed after going to a Karl Denson concert at a festival and finding Soulive's nice collection of audience tapes at archive.org
Soulive is a band which has can be viewed as evolutionary process, just like Bela's group which I thought would disintegrate after keyboardist and harmonica player Howard Levy left. But that departure was followed by the band turning into an odd power trio, tours with Sam Bush, and, finally, the addition of the amazing saxophonist Geoff Coffin.
Post-Toussaint, Soulive doesn't appear to be strictly returning to the strictly power trio mold. Their latest manifestation includes the Shady Horns and a tour where they comingle with a singer fronted band led by Nigel Hall, who is listed as also being a primary collaborator on the new Soulive album, Up Here. The below video is a highlight reel of their last tour. There is funky Organ stuff to be sure, but also Tighten Up and a killer James Brown Superbad.
posted by well-executed buffet at 1:00 AM
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Thursday, May 7, 2009
Up From the Couch
My parents had this exceptionally long green couch in their living room which I would take a nap on after I got home from high school, often accompanied by the afternoon jazz show playing on KBOO, Portland's non-profit, listener supported radio station. One afternoon I woke to voice somewhere between thunder and lightning intoning "I'm sorry, the government you have elected is inoperative ...Click! Inoperative!" This was Gil Scott Heron doing H20 Blues and I think it was a kind of transformative moment for me. I'm sure I had already heard "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and I could recognize the voice even if I didn't know the name of the artist. But wow, here was attitude about the government and the weirdlimbo Nixon-Ford placeholder world of 1974 and 75 that was happening around me that I could relate to.
McCord has blown. Mitchell has blown no tap on my telephone
Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean
It follows a pattern if you dig what I mean.
Years later there was that famous quotation about rap being the CNN for a good part of America and Gil Scott Heron has been canonized as being one of the primary godfathers of rap music. For me, the most descriptive of all Gil Scott Heron albums is Bridges. His music, commentary, and poetry took me to all kinds of worlds and exploration, certainly in regards to politics, poetry, and issues of black inequality. But also musically, the keyboard and drum jams of The Bottle and Home is Where The Hatred Is on the Gil Scott Heron, Brian Jackson and the Midnight Band album It's Your Worldwere some of the most exciting musical jam moments I had encountered.
His prime output was pretty prodigious: fifteen albums of music and/or poetry between 1970 and 1982 with a unique voice and a level of fairly high and consistent. Yet Gil's demons with drugs finally overtook his creativity. The seven or eight performances I saw in the eighties or nineties were anything but consistent. One time in the late eighties his band was ready to go for a Seattle matinee performance, but the plug was pulled because Gil didn't make the plane from the Bellingham gig the night before. And he was still in pretty rough shape when we saw him the next night in Portland. But by contrast, there was the Bumbershoot shows of 1981 where he previewed B Movie before the Reflections album was released. It was just Gil and his Fender Rhodes or as my friend Katie would call it "his little piano" and it still stands out as one of the smartest, most intense performances I have had privilege to have witnessed.
Wolfgangs Vault has a gem of a show from 1977. It comes a year after the shows captured on It's Your World, and contains a lot of music from Bridges, which hadn't hit the streets yet. It is hard not to want to embed the whole show, but I chose to include the opening rap because it reminds me a lot of when that voice woke me up on the couch taking about how "America's faith is drowning, beneath that cesspool-Watergate."
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:48 PM
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Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Incognito: A Band That Should be More Visible
I do not understand why Incognito doesn't have greater popularity and recognition outside of England, most of the rest of Europe, and in Asia. They have a lovely listenable sound I have been digging for over 15 years now. Why aren't they big in the US? Maybe its because their funk is too much in a mellow groove, their jazz isn't smooth enough for the easy listening crowd and too much like seventies fusion, their R and B is too jazzy and their pop has too much jazz. Also they hit the scene in the early nineties and got pigeon holed with the label of being acid jazz, which in itself is a label that doesn't mean a whole helluva lot and kind of went down with Jamiroquai and his conveyer belt.
A decent definition of Acid Jazz appears on the acidjazzy blog "a musical genre that combines elements of soul music, funk, disco, particularly looping beats and modal harmony." The roots of this music are definitely laid down earlier. Roy Ayers, Ramsey Lewis, Les McCann, Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott Heron, Charles Earland, Grover Washington Jr., and others all mixed up jazz, soul, and pop during the seventies. In many ways, Incognito, Brand New Heavies, US3, and a whole lot of others picked up on this after the eighties (the decade that good music mostly forgot) and somehow the Acid Jazz moniker got stuck onto it.
All I know is that that I dig the formula that Incognito founder and mastermind Jean-Paul 'Bluey' Maunick came up with and pretty much consistently delivers in the albums he has been producing for the last 16 years or so. That formula consists of a solid rhythm section, a Fender Rhodes sound straight out of the seventies, an on-the mark horn section and a deep bench of soulful vocalists each of whom have a distinct style and delivery and harmonize quite well together as well.
The strongest and most consistent albums of their catalog that all came out in the mid section of the nineties: Tribes Vibes and Scribes, Positivity, 100° And Rising, Beneath The Surface all took full advantage of the hour plus fifteen or so minute capacity of a CD. All featured tunes that took their time some clocking in at seven or eight minutes. And the content of the songs have a good and positive vibe. For instance, one of the few covers they have taken on in their long career is Stevie Wonder's Don't Worry 'Bout A Thing and it fits well next to originals like Always There and Pieces of A Dream.
The new DVD Incognito: Live at The Java Jazz Festival Jakarta was my first chance to see this band in a long form concert video and it is filled with lots of impressive moments. The formidable diva Maysa, who was once part of Stevie Wonder's Wonderlove ensemble throws down a couple of Incognito favorites as does the other vocalists in this manifestation of the band, Joy Rose and Imani and Tony Momarelle. But probably most impressive is keyboardist Matt Cooper who seems to be in perpetual motion throughout the two hour set.
On YouTube, opportunities to get a good taste of Incognito are harder to come by. Here are a couple clips of broadcast quality that certainly reflect the flavor of the band, but not quite the palpable drive of the Java DVD. The first is a segment from a fairly recent North Sea Jazz concert of Always There and another tune I'm not as thrilled with Nights Over Egypt, despite a very nice hook section in the middle, but you will get a good idea of what this band is about from this performance, especially the tight groove they are capable of laying down. The second clip of Everyday is definitely a vintage performance from the nineties. The keyboards unfortunately sound a little too much like the eighties for me, but it is still Bluey and his band, and, hey, that's good enough for me.
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:17 PM
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Tuesday, May 5, 2009
The Story Of India
Sir Kenneth Clark's Civilization and Alistar Cooke's America were two documentary television series in the late sixties and seventies that informed my interest in history. There are several episodes that I still remember well, such as the America episode filled with aerial shots of the Massachusetts accompanied by Dvorak's New World Symphony or lovely tracking shots of St Peters in Clark's episode on the Renaissance. These programs were groundbreaking in establishing the event of the historical documentary that were later expanded by the likes of The World At War and the Ken Burns. At their best, these kinds of films have earned a place on a bookshelf with any major survey book on their topics.
Michael Wood's The Story of India, which was broadcast on PBS this January and subsequently was released on DVD, continues in that tradition. I believe it will be fundamental in opening the eyes of a generation or two to the diversity, complexity and wonder of that subcontinent. It only consists of six one hour episodes but feels much more dense. Wood and his production team compress thousands of years and multiple empires, cultures and religions into a highly entertaining and informative package. It can be dizzying at times, but they create a rhythm of beautiful HD imagery, informative and well contextualized sound bites and visits with experts that I at least as a viewer found generally quite captivating. They also used an interesting convention of film clips from Bollywood and other historical epics to underscore some of the events, particularly those that involved large stagings of armies.
But mostly the camera is on the countryside and on Wood, often irrepressible and ebullient in his excitement as he handles manuscripts, acts as a witness and participant in festivals and talks to experts about concepts and historical events. His head shot narrations are generally given on the move, in boats and taxis, but are succinct and clear and feel quite natural. Only the turquoise scarf he often wears (and at one point is turned into turban when he meets with Sikhs) feels affected.
Sure Westerners have a knowledge of Alexander, Buddha and Gandhi, but I venture that most are far less aware of Emperor Ashoka, Kanishka, and the Cholan empire. They will still be a kind of blur after watching Wood's film, but to many it will make one aware, as it did me, about how little of this component of civilization's timeline they were aware of. I know I'll revisit The Story of India as I have the work of Burns, Cooke, and Clark. History and an understanding of culture are great to attain in books, but can be augmented and experienced through solid and well-produced documentary filmmaking as well.
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:33 PM
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Monday, May 4, 2009
Random Stuff
I have never been terribly fond of this concrete play structure at the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics (fka Shumway Junior High School) until I encountered it from this angle. It now seems to possess dragon-like characteristics for me.
To my writer friends--Check out this for the possible name of a character. I'm pretty sure that this post box consists of two separate surnames, but what a colorful name for one it could be.
Pam created a lovely post about our venture to Clark's cherry trees the other evening. Here she celebrates the petals after a day of predictably unpredictable storms including a pretty dramatic thunderstorm in the afternoon. I remember hearing about the cherry tree gift over twenty years ago from a local Japanese businessman who had done well in our area with a technology plant and didn't think much of it one way or another. Now each Spring I applaud and celebrate his vision.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:42 PM
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Sunday, May 3, 2009
Frozen River: Border Crossings and Getting By
Neither Pam nor I are quite sure how this film ended up in the Netflix queue or made it towards the top, but I'm glad I saw it with little foreknowledge other than knowing that it had been up for some awards. In a late night insomniac moment, I popped it in with no expectations, and came away quite impressed with its portrait of an underclass struggling to get by and the film's ability to capture a sense of place.
Frozen River is the story of an abandoned wife who connects with a Native American woman involved in smuggling illegal immigrants over the New York border via the Mohawk reservation. Melissa Leo was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar this past year for her portrayal of Ray Eddy, the wife of an addicted gambler who is trying to best she can for her two boys as a cashier at the Yankee One Dollar Store She has hopes of sometime being an assistant manager and dreams of purchasing a Double Wide with a Jacuzzi bath and three bedrooms. Her life converges with that of Lila Littlefeather (Misty Upham), a young widow whose husband was killed on an illegal alien smuggling run when the ice broke through and whose infant son is living with her mother-in-law.
Independent film productions by first time directors are so often a crapshoot for the viewer, even when they are endorsed with accolades from Sundance or other festivals. Plot points are sometime bleary, scripts often state the obvious and flat and stolid line readings by non-professionals can be the death of many a well-intentioned film. Frozen River is not devoid of these elements, but there is so much in first feature writer-director Courtney Hunt's film that feels right, it is easy to overlook slight missteps and shortfalls.
Most effective is her ability to draw the viewer into the lives and circumstances of the two major characters and their relationship. This is more key to the success of the film. Stephen Holden in his New York Times review of the film last Summer wrote: "If Frozen River is a social realist film, it has no political axes to grind. It is more interested in exploring the reluctant bond that develops between Ray and Lila than in suggesting any root causes for their situations. When that bond is severely tested, the movie refuses to sentimentalize it."
Frozen River has a lot going for it to make it stand out and be unique. By no means is it a revolutionary or exceptional piece of art. But its assets are notable: a rich attention to detail, some good acting (particularly on Leo's part), and a location and story that have not been overdone in the world of film, independent or otherwise.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:32 PM
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Saturday, May 2, 2009
L'innocente: Visconti's Last Journey
L'innocente was Luchino Visconti's last film made in 1976. It is set in the 19th century and deals with the cultural, psychological and gender politics of sexuality in the high monied aristocracy of the era. Giancarlo Giannini plays Tullio Hermil who is first tortured by his fickle mistress Teresa Raffo played by Jennifer O'Neill. Secondly by his wife Laura Antonelli who has an affair of her own with a writer and lastly, by the outcome of that affair.
I was kind of overexposed to Giannini in his many roles in Lina Wertmuller films, back when she was the hottest filmmaker to come out of Italy since Fellini. I remember him as the vengeful bumbling lover in Swept Away or the deadpan protagonist in Seven Beauties. I was more impressed with him here than I can recall I was from his time as Wertmuller's favored and frequent actor. His pain is palpable as we watch him descend into a private hell created in great part due to his actions. He even complains to his wife about the torture his mistress brings him. He pleads with her to tolerate him as one would a ill person. She presses his hand and calls him out as "An ill person who rejoices in his own illness."
This illness compounds itself when it becomes clearer that his wife is having an affair as well. He encounters the object of her desire, author Filippo d'Arborio in the fencing gym. One of the most justified uses of full frontal nudity follows when Flippo briefly preens in front of him. Tullio/Giannini seeks to win his wife back forgoing a trip with Teresa/O'Neil in Paris who has taunted him further with the reality of his wife's affair. He instead goes to his mother's house where his wife Giuliana has gone to escape Rome with a secret which will not allow Tullio to win her back on the terms he had hoped for.
I felt a sense of dread and pity as I watched Tullio's descent. It reminded me of the same kind of journey that Tom Cruise took during the latter acts of Eyes Wide Shut, another final film by a master known for his control and uncompromising vision. Both Visconti and Kubrick were not afraid to tell their stories at the pace and detail they felt appropriate. Both were not afraid to use surprise at times. One of my favorite shots in L'innocente occurs when at an important moment between the couple, Tullio's brother appears in full fencing gear. Tullio looks shocked for a amoment when he doesn't know who is behind the mask, because the last time we saw a fencer it was his wife's lover Filippo.
This last effort of Visconti's may not have been his most notable film which was most likely The Leopard. Nor well-known, that came a few years earlier Death of Venice. But unpleasant as it is in parts, L'innocente is certainly memorable. And one could make a case that it does somehow reflect both the close study of aristocracy seen in Ludwig and The Leopard with an agonizing personal journey not totally unlike the one Gustav von Aschenbach suffers in Visconti's only Oscar nominated film.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:08 PM
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Friday, May 1, 2009
Edge of the City
Edge of the Cityis a 1957 motion picture that is one of those points of transition between Actor's Studio influenced live television drama and an era of crackling naturalistic location-centered cinema that paralleled the French New Wave and a vital era in British filmmaking. Edge is a remake of a Philco Television Theater production called A Man is Ten Feet Tall. Sidney Poitier played the central role of dock worker Tommy Tyler in both the teleplay and the film. The film also stars John Cassavettes, Ruby Dee, and Jack Warden. It was the first feature film for Martin Ritt, who later directed Hud, Sounder, and The Molly Macguires.
It is always a pleasant surprise to come across a film that still maintains a crackling kind of energy after several decades with good actors captured giving their all to a project in their early years. Cassavettes plays Axel North, a troubled soul deserted from the army and awash in a sea of self-blame for his brother's death a couple years prior. He gets taken on as a stevedore on the New York docks by Charlie Malik. a corrupt, prejudiced, nasty specimen of humanity played by Jack Warden. On the other end of the spectrum of life is Tom Tyler, a hard working ebullient, joyful man portrayed by Poitier.
Tyler befriends North and brings him out of his brooding shell. He arranges North to work for him instead of Malik, he brings him home to meet his wife (Dee), and sets him up with a date. Race does not play a factor in their relationship whatsoever. But the outside world and North's past encroach on this friendship.
Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront came out two years prior to Edge and parallels are quite evident. Regardless, this film stands well on its own from the Saul Bass title sequence to the final chords of Leonard Rosenman's score. Besides these folks, the cast, and Ritt, other noted individuals played a part in this film. It was an early art direction credit for Richard Sylbert, who went on to be associated with most of the great films Paramount produced in the sixties and seventies. And it was one of the first films to be produced by David Suskind. Edge of the City stands as a vital and still entertaining product of the times with many of its participants on the edge of big and well-noted accomplishments to come.