50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley, #48. Frank Sinatra, Sings The Select Cole Porter

Posted on February 11, 2019 by sheila

My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor. He’s wonderful in the recent You & Me, directed by Alexander Baack. (I interviewed Baack about the film here.) His most recent gig was story editor/writer on the hit series Survivor’s Remorse. Brendan hasn’t blogged in years, but the “content” (dreaded word) is so good I asked if I could import some of it to my blog. He did series on books he loved, and albums he loved. I thought it would be fun to put up some of the stuff here. So we’ll start with his list of 50 Best Albums. I’ll put up one every Monday.

Brendan’s list of 50 Best Albums is part music-critique and part memoir and part cultural snapshot.

I have always loved these essays, because I love to hear my brother talk. I am happy to share them with you!

50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley

48. Frank Sinatra – Sings The Select Cole Porter

Oh baby this one kills me. Kills me like an olive at the bottom of a glass. Like a broad in a strapless gown and high heels. Like a cigarette on a balcony. Like I hold the world in the palm of my hand.

I am classifying Sings The Select Cole Porter as an album even though it is essentially a compilation of recordings from the 1950’s. The collection was gathered and released in 1966 and pays tribute to the collaboration between Frank Sinatra, Nelson Riddle, and Cole Porter.

Nelson Riddle is essentially the George Martin to Frank’s Beatle. Riddle surrounded Sinatra with a fantastically lush landscape. This civilised beauty offered a perfect counterpoint to the tough brawl of that voice, which was simultaneously cultured and savage.

Cole Porter seems English but is actually as American as apple pie. Haughty, snobbish, superior, fabulous apple pie. Throw his burnished sophistication into this cauldron and you’ve got quite a bitches’ brew. When folks call him America’s greatest songwriter it is not bias but a matter of fact. This particular collection showcases him to such a degree that they are almost duets.

Just to clarify, this list is in no particular order but if beginning to end listens were the gauge this album might be # 1. I can sing every line. I practice singing to this album.

I still vividly remember the moment that I discovered Frank Sinatra. As a punk child of the 1980’s, thinking about Frank Sinatra was like thinking about Teddy Roosevelt. There just wasn’t much call for it. I’d seen Guys And Dolls, heard “New York, New York”, heard “My Way”, but I truly had zero idea of who he was or what he did.

I’d just come back from a year in France and I’d been hired as an actor with a children’s theater in Providence. I moved into an apartment right near Roger Williams Hospital (which would come in handy 8 months later when my appendix would burst). I was dating a girl I’d met that summer doing a summer stock production of South Pacific at Theater By The Sea in Matunuck. She was a crazy Filipino art student at RISD who was spotted waiting tables by the producer of the play and tabbed to play the island goddess. Talented, yes. Sane? No.

Anyway, she lived right over near The Coffee Exchange on Wickenden Street, a legendary part of that lovely city. Wickenden is that street packed with strange little stores, vintage and otherwise, that seem to be entirely populated by the artistic set. One of these shops was right around the corner from her rooftop studio.

I’d come to pick her up and she was having a violent reaction to some psychedelic mushrooms that she’d taken in the hours before we’d agreed to meet. Thanks for thinking of me, sweetheart. I held her hair in the bathroom, made her some tea, and then strolled out into the fall air to while away my time.

A particular vintage shop caught my eye and I ducked in. Old gas station attendant jackets, flapper hats, ruby red slippers, erotic silverware, and one tiny shelf of used LP’s. I flipped through and found a Sinatra album that had his version of “Ol’ Man River”. Hmmmm. Sinatra. I’d been a dyed-in-the-wool punk for as long as I could remember. If there was any day to try something new it was this one, with my time to myself and the girl I was dating incapacitated.

I brought it back to my bare room, popped it on the record player (!!!) and proceeded to have my mind blown fourteen ways til Sunday.

Now, “Ol’ Man River” wasn’t written by Cole Porter and it isn’t on this particular album. In fact, I don’t have a digital version of the song at all.

But when Ol’ Blue Eyes hit the lowest note I’d ever heard on “Get a little drunk and you lands in jail” and didn’t make me roll my eyes at “here we all work while the white folk play” I felt as if I had finally left my childhood behind.

Within a month I would meet the woman who would be the mother of my child. Who I would ultimately divorce. You don’t get any more adult than that.

Like I said, baby. This one kills me.

— Brendan O’Malley

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Review: St. Agatha (2019)

Posted on February 8, 2019 by sheila

This was fun. My review of St. Agatha is now up at Rogerebert.com.

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Happy 300th episode, Supernatural

Posted on February 7, 2019 by sheila

Dare I hope?

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R.I.P. George Klein

Posted on February 6, 2019 by sheila

A lifelong friend to Elvis. They went to Humes High School together. They weren’t really friends, although Klein was aware of him (everyone was aware of Elvis. He wore pink suits to high school.) Klein went into radio right after high school and became a DJ. Their friendship launched once Elvis “hit”, and their paths crossed because of their respective careers, both in the process of exploding.

Up until almost the very end of his life, Klein hosted a Friday show on Sirius Radio playing Elvis songs and telling stories about Elvis, their friendship, the times they had. Klein was interesting because he wasn’t a Memphis Mafia “entourage” person. Their friendship was separate. He didn’t need Elvis for anything. He wasn’t on Elvis’ payroll. Klein had a very good very busy career all on his own. The man had a 60-year career in broadcasting. He was inducted into the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame in 2013.

Elvis was best man at Klein’s wedding (hence the title of his book: My Best Man: Radio Days, Rock ‘n’ Roll Nights, and My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley). It’s not every groom whose Best Man shows up for the ceremony in a head to toe black velvet suit.

There’s a very memorable story in the book about him sleeping over at Elvis’ house for the first time. This was the house on Audobon Drive (the house before Graceland, the first house Elvis owned, that the Presley family in general had ever owned. They moved into it from a public housing project.) At this point, Elvis and George were 20, 21 years old. They didn’t know each other all that well yet. Klein was in awe of what happened with his old classmate: that shy stuttering pimply classmate was now famous and sexy and notorious.

Klein was deferential towards Elvis, happy to be invited over, almost like he couldn’t believe his luck. Eventually the scales would balance out into an equal friendship, and what happened on this sleepover is part of why George becmae such a trusted friend.

Klein made a move to sleep on the floor and Elvis was like, “Oh come on, just get in bed with me”. They slept in the same bed (the image of this …) As they lay there, trying to fall asleep, Klein became aware of small knocks on the window, and murmuring whispering sounds outside. Raccoons? A bear? What the hell. Elvis knew what it was. It was hungry horny girls, who had tracked Elvis down, and were literally scratching on the walls of the house. !!!! Klein was freaked, but all Elvis said was, “This is why I have to move.” hahahaha.

Finally, they went to sleep. Klein described what happened next:

I woke up with a start and realized there was somebody standing in the bedroom. I bolted up in bed and reached over to wake up Elvis, but his side of the bed was empty. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I realized that the figure standing in the bedroom shadows was Elvis.

‘Elvis? You okay?’

He mumbled something and shuffled around the room a little bit. Elvis was walking in his sleep. Earlier in the night, Mrs. Presley had pulled me aside and said that if I was going to stay over, I should be aware that Elvis often walked in his sleep. She’d given me some tips on how to talk gently to him to get him back in bed, so that’s what I did now.

‘Elvis, why don’t you come back to sleep,’ I said softly.

‘Huh?’

‘Come back to sleep, Elvis.’

He mumbled something else and shuffled away from the bed. I started to get a little more concerned. I stood up, but I didn’t get so close as to startle him. He kept talking, like he was lost in thought trying to work something out. And I kept gently asking him to come back to bed. Finally, after a few nervous minutes on my part, he simply walked to the bed and, without any fuss, climbed in and was out like a light. As for me, I was thrilled to be in Elvis’ home, but my first night there, I didn’t sleep too well.

In the morning Elvis didn’t say anything about his nightwalking and I didn’t either. It was still early in his career, and early in our friendship, but already I knew that he was a guy with a deep personal pride, and I knew this was the kind of thing that was more likely to embarrass him than be something he’d enjoy kidding around about. He took a lot of knocks from the press and the mainstream public in his early days, and when he let somebody into his world on a personal level, he did it with a great sense of trust. I wasn’t going to do anything to make him think that trusting me was a mistake.

Klein kept that promise.

He was one of Elvis’ pallbearers. True inner circle (and it was a very small circle).

There are only a couple of “I knew Elvis” books that I recommend: June Juanico’s Elvis: In the Twilight of Memory, – Jerry Schilling’s Me and a Guy Named Elvis: My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley and George Klein’s My Best Man.)

Rest in peace, George Klein. And thank you for everything! He devoted himself to keeping the Elvis flame alive. Not the gossip and the scandals, but the music and the man.

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R.I.P. Julie Adams

Posted on February 6, 2019 by sheila

Julie Adams, the beloved star of Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) has died at the age of 92. She was one of those figures who hit paydirt (if not financially – then culturally) in a monster movie which has withstood the test of time. As an elderly woman, she gave interviews, attended festivals, was totally cool and grateful with her legacy being this 1950s B-movie, happy that new generations continued to discover the movie and her.

People also might remember her as the real estate lady on Murder, She Wrote. I loved her in that!

I love her as Vera Radford, the boss-lady of the “fat farm” in the Elvis movie Tickle Me (1965). Tickle Me is – as usual – an underseen and underappreciated movie. It’s a self-aware wink-wink lampoon of the Elvis Formula Movie, with a random Ghost Town subplot tacked on at the end, just to make it even weirder. In Tickle Me Elvis got to make fun of the movies he was making, showing that he was always in on the joke. He even breaks the fourth wall a couple of times, staring straight at us like “Can you believe the shit they’re making me do? What the hell is even going ON in this movie.”

He also performs “It Feels So Right” in Tickle Me, early on, and is such a powerful sexual persona that all he has to do is stand there, and allow people to feast their eyes. And he does so in a spirit of generosity, not vanity. Not to be tried by amateurs. I wrote a whole post about it.

Julie Adams is seen first at the .26-second mark, grooving to what he’s putting out there, like everybody else – male and female – grooves to what he puts out there. If you resist, you’re an idiot.

Elvis plays a rough rodeo-rider slash singer (because of course) who gets a job at an all-girl “spa” (as we would call it now) in the middle of the desert. Imagine being a woman, stranded in a desert, away from all men, taking yoga classes, eating salads and being “healthy” – when into that environment strolls Elvis, a guitar-playing rodeo-riding walking-male-sexpot-erotic-muse. Naturally, the horny lonely girls all GO BANANAS for him. He wreaks HAVOC. And Vera may be the boss, but she falls for him too. She is, after all, a sentient human being.

Julie Adams said she had a great time on Tickle Me, and loved working with Elvis. She said he did everything “beautifully.” Every behind the scenes in-between-takes photograph of the two of them shows them engulfed in laughter. They had a ball.

Julie Adams understood genre, how it operated, what was required of her as an actress. She had fun with all of it. In Tickle Me she is charming and funny, she creates a believable character (in a completely ridiculous context), and highlights him gorgeously, giving him something to play off of.

She understood everything. She also understood the most important thing was: if you are lucky enough to have any kind of career at all in show biz … ENJOY IT.

Rest in peace.

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50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley. #49. Fugazi, Steady Diet of Nothing

Posted on February 4, 2019 by sheila

My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor! He’s wonderful in the now-available You & Me, directed by Alexander Baack. (I interviewed Baack about the film here.) His most recent gig was story editor/writer on the hit series Survivor’s Remorse. Brendan hasn’t blogged in years, but the “content” (dreaded word) is so good I asked if I could import some of it to my blog. He did series on books he loved, and albums he loved. I thought it would be fun to put up some of the stuff here. So we’ll start with his list of 50 Best Albums. I’ll put up one every Monday.

Brendan’s list of 50 Best Albums is part music-critique and part memoir and part cultural snapshot.

I have always loved these essays, because I love to hear my brother talk. I am happy to share them with you!

50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley

49. Fugazi – Steady Diet Of Nothing

Indignation and social criticism do not often make for compelling music if you ask me. For every Straight Outta Compton there are 15 Arrested Developments rhyming every ‘-tion’ in the book (emancipation, resignation, disinformation, reputation, etc. etc.). If you are preaching to the converted you should simply preach and drop the music. Strong moral centers reacting to modern society might be great fodder for research papers but it rarely ROCKS.

Fugazi are the exception to this rule. I’ve not yet been able to put my finger on why and I’ve been listening to Fugazi from the moment they came into recorded existence back in 1987.

Context is everything so in order to understand Steady Diet Of Nothing, today’s entry in the O’Malley Pantheon of Greatness, you must return to the scene of the crime. Released in 1991, Steady Diet was their third album. They had risen out of the ashes of several DC hardcore bands in ’87, released their debut 13 Songs in ’89, and followed that up with Repeater in ’90.

Desert Storm was raging in Iraq. We were spectators to war for the first time. CNN exploded. The Internet was still a gleam in Al Gore’s eye. It is hard to look back at this as a time of innocence. But as we stare down the barrel of a Post-9/11 world even the chaos of Bush the First seems quaint in comparison.

Steady Diet Of Nothing is a voice crying out in the wilderness. Far from being didactic or preachy, the album is simply a mirror held up and left too long in front of an unwilling public.

Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto trade off singing their own compositions. The interplay between their vocal styles is a giant part of the appeal of the band. MacKaye is gruff and staccato, barking his manifestos like a hybrid of a carnival barker and a drill sergeant. Picciotto is mellifluous and nasal, stretching out notes to their breaking point and beyond. The two singers also spar with their guitars. Sputtering and spitting and grinding each other up they create an interlocking cry of anguish.

The rhythm section is precise to the point of danger. They bring to mind a POW running at top speed along a fence of barbed wire. Occasionally a spotlight brings them to a dead halt and you can hear the fear in the silence. Then they are off and running again, leaping right back to full speed and volume.

There are no declarations of right and wrong. They are as leery of solution as they are fatigued by misdirection. In “Stacks”, MacKaye goes beyond politics and into the realm of linguistics.

Language keeps me locked and repeating
Language keeps me locked and repeating
Language keeps me locked and repeating
America is just a word but I use it

I type those words out and it hits home just how powerful the music is. Upon hearing this song you will feel a strange connection to the uneasy Roman at the height of the Empire, thinking that there couldn’t possibly be a day when Rome wouldn’t rule. But deep down they were all Nero waiting with a fiddle.

I could go track by track but, to be honest, my articulation fails. Just know this. When I think of the Gulf War I think of Ian MacKaye in “Nice New Outfit” bellowing the following…

You’re number one with a bullet
That’s money well spent
Your mouth plastered like poster
Address yourself success
You can pinpoint your chimney
And drop one down its length
In your nice new outfit
Sorry about the mess

The SCUD missile has become just another fashion accessory to a public CONSUMING the war. The illusion of boundary has fallen away and we are merely the tribe you fear.

This album is not well-loved by Fugazi fans. Perhaps it is rigorous to an almost fascistic degree. Perhaps every sing-along makes you feel like a part of a blood-crazed mob. Perhaps it hits too close to home. Most political music allows you the pleasure of superiority, be it left or right. Toby Keith and Bruce Springsteen are two sides of the same coin. But that is still the coin of the realm.

With this album, Fugazi somehow project us into a world where the United States is merely an idea, a communal projection. It isn’t some idyllic community broadcasting its best self for the world to see. It is a place slaves built. It is a place the poor go to die. It is a place you do not want to be late at night.

No rhymed combination of -isms or -tions can keep the slouching beast from roughing us up. Hey Nero, we’ve got 250 million fiddles, can we come up on the hill with you and watch ourselves burn?

— Brendan O’Malley

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January 2019 Viewing Diary

Posted on February 3, 2019 by sheila

Q and A (1990; d. Sidney Lumet)
I closed out 2018 with North Dallas Forty, which inspired me to 1. write a post about Nick Nolte’s vulnerability and launch a little unofficial Nick Nolte retrospective. I will be a broken record, but Nolte goes deeper than most actors do. It’s not just about the surface transformations. It goes deeper than that. Such depth is usually accompanied by torment. You can’t go as deep as he does without being affected on a personal level. He’s one of the best there is. Casting Timothy Hutton as a New York Irish-American from a big Irish-American cop family was … a stretch.

Communion (2019; d. Anna Zamecka)
I loved this documentary, a first film from Polish filmmaker Zamecka. I reviewed for Ebert.

The Prince of Tides (1991; d. Barbra Streisand)
He’s so fantastic in this. It’s such a layered performance (and also couldn’t be more different than Q and A, filmed right before it). He plays a deep man who has chosen to live high up on the surface, to avoid the trauma/pain of his past. I also love Nolte as a leading man, as a romantic figure.

Affliction (1997; d. Paul Schrader)
I saw this one in the movie theatre and it depressed and distressed me so much I’ve never seen it since. So that’s … what … 20 years now. I popped it in with a sense of foreboding. I was mainly thinking about the tooth-pulling scene – which is just as awful as I remembered it, but I forced myself to keep my eyes on the screen, because I wanted to observe him, I wanted to watch him go where the character goes in that moment. This is one of his most uncompromising performances. It’s devastating. It’s just … wreckage. A human wreck. Ruined by violence, a very male story. The abuse of little boys turning men into … this. Russell Banks’ subject matter: generations of abuse. Nick Nolte embodies it. Just a reminder to everyone who actually thinks the Oscars indicate actual WORTH: Roberto Benigni won Best Actor in 1997.

Afterglow (1997; d. Alan Rudolph)
Nick Nolte and Alan Rudolph have had a very fruitful collaboration! This is a really interesting movie. Julie Christie is lovely and sad. Haunted. A cousin to Don’t Look Now, the beautiful wife living in the past, cut off from the present. Lara Flynn Boyle is funny and almost screwball. And Nolte is just gorgeous. He sleeps with everybody but … he does so in a way that makes it seem friendly, not pathological. He’s providing a service, a necessary service. Not too many actors could make that work.

Warrior (2011; d. Gavin O’Connor)
Nick Nolte acts those two talented younger actors off the screen. He obliterates them, and makes it seem like they are working on a very shallow level (which neither of them are. It’s just the contrast.) There’s one moment where he calls out to Tom Hardy, “It’s okay, son!” and I burst into tears. Pain and regret and loss are not just etched into his face, but into his spirit and soul.

Fearless (1993; d. Peter Weir)
One of my faves. I’ve watched it many many times since I first saw it in the movie theatre, and every time it seems like a different movie. I take this movie very VERY personally, so depending where I’M at, the movie itself seems to change.

Moneyball (2011; d. Bennett Miller)
I love this movie. I love its obsessive quality. I love it because it is romantic and not romantic about baseball. I reviewed for Capital New York (now Politico).

Touch Me Not (2019; d. Adina Pintilie)
This was a bit of a bore. I hate saying that but it’s the truth. I say it knowing that stuff about sex is – of course – going to be totally subjective. I say that in my review too.

Cape Fear (1991; d. Martin Scorsese)
This movie is as disturbing – in its way – as the original, and even more so in other ways, since the family is shown as deeply fractured and already weakened when the predator comes along. Mom is restless and pissed off. Dad is too. The marriage is clearly on the rocks. Daughter is so hormonal she can barely stand still. She is quite literally out of control with hormonal-girl-lustiness. And yet she’s still a child. It’s a superstorm of fucked-up-ness. (In the original, everything’s hunky-dory at home.) So. Scorsese throws in all these rifts. The fact that Nick Nolte can play a man who feels emasculated is evidence alone of his gigantic talent. Same year as The Prince of Tides. He’s a wonder.

The Invisibles (2019; d. Claus Räfle)
An interesting film telling the stories of 4 of the 7,000 Jews who hid in Berlin from 1943 until the end of the war. I reviewed for Ebert.

Downton Abbey, Season 1, episodes 1, 2
I began a re-watch and then got sidetracked. I watched the show religiously for a while and then lost track of it in its later seasons. Eventually I will rectify since I like this cast so much.

Sounder (1972; d. Martin Ritt)
A favorite. I have a very strong memory of this film from when I was a kid, which I’ll share a little bit later.

Lorenzo’s Oil (1992; d. George Miller)
This movie is excellent. I saw it in the theatre when it first came out. I have since watched it many times. There is something very satisfying in its arc: these two people who decide to teach themselves what they need to learn in order to come up with solutions for their son. Neither character is particularly “likable”. And being “likable” is beside the point with most good acting. I am so disheartened to see so much criticism focusing on whether or not characters are likable. It’s very weak. Lady Macbeth isn’t “likable” but she’s a great character. At any rate: one of the things I keep forgetting about this film is Miller’s work. It’s quite distinctive. This is not a “paint by numbers” approach. His angles are stark and dramatic. They literally call attention to themselves. It’s fascinating work from Miller, and gives the story more “oomph” than your basic Illness-of-the-Week melodrama. And then … there’s this moment. Each time I see it, I forget it is coming. Each time I see it, I am in awe of him.

Surviving R Kelly (2019)
This was a very tough watch. I had to force myself to finish it.

Dirty John (2018)
This whole thing was fascinating. I read the initial piece in the LA Times and got very sucked into the story of this predator psycho who infiltrated this family, via an extremely naive woman. The mini-series could have been melodramatic, dumb, surface-level, expected, etc. Instead, there were really good performances from Connie Britton and Eric Bana, as well as Juno Temple (so good) and Julia Garner. Plus Jean Smart is fantastic in her small role. Allison and I watched it together, stopping to discuss. One of the things about this kind of story is the reactions, people so often say “I would have totally noticed all the red flags right away.” Well, aren’t you lucky to be so well-adjusted! THAT BEING SAID, this woman is really something else, man. She had been married 4 times or whatever and still spoke like a schoolgirl about finding “the one.” She was a romantic, she was “swept off her feet.” In other words: she was prey. And maybe you’ve never been prey to being prey … good for you. I’ve been tricked a couple of times. You know why? Because I’m fucking lonely. If you don’t understand that? Count your lucky stars that you haven’t been warped by loneliness. And maybe try to understand what it might be like for the rest of us. THAT BEING SAID: This guy was being so freaky and scary to her daughters … and her “Oh well, I deserve this, I’m having Me Time” is less understandable or forgivable. There are many lines you do not cross. If you do or say anything – even the SLIGHTEST thing – against my family, I will cut you off completely. It’s happened before. But for whatever reason, those boundaries did not exist for this woman. As you can see, I was totally fascinated by the whole thing. And I love watching things with Allison because we have great discussions about it. This was really good. The acting is really really good. It’s so disturbing.

The Heiresses (2019; d. Marcelo Martinessi)
I loved this movie! I reviewed for Ebert.

Diner (1982; d. Barry Levinson)
It’s been a long time. It still works. It always works.

Performance (1970; d. Nicolas Roeg)
I had a blast participating in a QA after the screening of Performance at the IFC Center. I wrote the obituary for Roeg in the current Film Comment magazine.

Yentl (1983; d. Barbra Streisand)
Streisand showed an early cut of Yentl to Steven Spielberg for his comments and feedback. All he said was, “Don’t change a frame.” He was right.

Deadwood, Season 2 final 6 episodes
The LANGUAGE. How does one even BEGIN to speak that language and make it sound real? Or as real as that language is supposed to sound? There are so many intersecting stories and characters that there are times when I feel literally dazzled by what’s going on onscreen. It’s too much to take in. Plus, the mise-en-scene itself. The town growing like a diseased mushroom. It feels like in every shot another building heaves itself up out of the mud. The level of detail onscreen is just awe-inspiring. I have my favorites. I fluctuate in my crushes. I have a huge crush on Charlie Utter, I’ll just say that right NOW. I want him and Joanie to have a happy ending, but I know that probably isn’t in the cards, but DON’T TELL ME. I love Richardson so much. Every time I see him, I start laughing. William Sanderson is such a brilliant actor I don’t even know what to do with myself. Huge crush on Silas Adams too. So many crushes, so little time. Poor Mr. Ellsworth. The costumes are also fascinating. I’m watching them develop and morph too. In the first season, everything was dark, greys and blacks. Now in Season 2, things are changing. We’ve got purple velvet, and sky-blue silks and orange silk vests. I’m loving it and I’m sorry that it will soon be over. As of this coming Thursday I will have watched the whole series – in preparation for the upcoming movie.

The TAMI Show (1964; d. Steve Binder)
One of the best concert films of all time. I discussed it enthusiastically on the Film Comment podcast.

Sign o’ the Times (1987; d. Prince)
Another film we discussed on said podcast. A classic. Unless you were there, it is hard to express what it felt like when Prince suddenly “arrived.” He arrived at just the right time for me. A couple years earlier I was still listening to show tunes and not interested in pop music. I might have missed it. By the time Purple Rain came along, I was IN. And he literally took over. This is another great great concert film, capturing Prince’s “act” – in all its extraordinary power. “The Cross” … goosebumps. Overhead shots of Sheila E. – STUNNING.

Dirty John: The Dirty Truth (2019)
Okay, fine, I’m obsessed. I also listened to the podcast.

Fyre Fraud (2019; d. Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nason)
Talk about obsessed. I was obsessed with this story – like millions of others – as it unfolded. Now we have not one, but TWO, documentaries about it, both of them released in the same week. I am now disappointed that two more weren’t released the following week, and etc. I want more. The story dovetails with many of my interests, mainly grifts, cons, Ponzi schemes, compulsive liars, speculative bubbles, there’s “no there there”, and all the rest. I think the Netflix doc is better, but both are fascinating.

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019; d. Chris Smith)
Billy McFarland is interviewed in this one, and his behavior is nearly as sketchy as Chris Watts’, although not murderous. The blinking. The dry mouth. Watching him in action in happier days it is amazing to think that ANYONE thought he was credible. He operated in a bubble of surface-hype, and in that bubble things clearly looked very differently. Also, I have almost no FOMO. I’m too old for FOMO.

Dead of Winter, Season 1, episode 1 “The Empty Chair” (2019)
April Wolfe, a film/TV critic, mentioned this approvingly on Twitter so I thought I would check it out. Yes, this series – about crimes that happened in the “dead of winter” – is excellent. Not your average CSI/Investigation Discovery. The re-enactments here were sensitively used, and the stories they’ve dredged up are quite horrifying. I’ll definitely watch more.

Supernatural, Season 14, episode 10, “Nihilism” (2019; d. Amanda Tapping)
That’s more like it. Still too much Castiel! Get out of the way so I CAN SEE SAM PLEASE KTHXBAI. Also: I am really done with the slo-mo. Slo-mo wrecks the moment. Pamela clearly could have caught that gun, and it would be a much more exciting moment seeing it unfold in real time. These details matter.

Twin Peaks: The Return, episode 1 “Part 1” (2017; d. David Lynch)
I was just saying on Twitter last week that this series helped me get through 2017. And I needed a lot of help. When it was over, I felt bereft, like “What am I supposed to do now?” It’s SO good. SO weird and rich and … ITSELF. You never ever knew what would happen from one moment to the next. It enveloped you in its own rules. No matter my expectations, the show did its own thing. Part of the fun of it, and the catharsis of it, was how much it required me to “let go.” 2017 was terrible. 2018 was worse. But in the middle of all that stress, was this weekly show – where everyone had to tune in at the same time, just like in the old days – where you had no idea what was coming, and you had to relax into it, it was okay to let go. I don’t think I’ve even fully processed how much it meant to me, how INTO. IT. I even was. So I thought, Let’s go back and watch it.

Twin Peaks: The Return, episode 2 “Part 2” (2017; d. David Lynch)
So in love with it. Having so much fun submitting again. It’s all about submission.

Twin Peaks: The Return, episode 3 “Part 3” (2017; d. David Lynch)
I swoon into the dream of this episode. I am grateful that it exists.

Abducted in Plain Sight (2019; d. Skye Borgman)
This is one of the most fucked-up upsetting things I’ve ever seen. It’s EXCELLENT but I literally could not sleep after watching it. I highly recommend it, but with every trigger warning possible attached to it. I myself could have used some. I wished I was watching it with Allison so at least I wasn’t all by myself.

Eighth Grade (2018; d. Bo Burnham)
I reviewed for Ebert, loved it. It was fun to re-visit. The scene between her and her father at the very end just killed me. Very emotional film.

Life Support (2019; d. Larry Clarke)
This is my friend Larry’s wonderful movie (he wrote/directed/starred). Release date TBD. I wrote about it here.

Mad Men, Season 1
This is comfort food for me.

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019; d. Joe Berlinger)
I am so glad I “got into” serial killers and psycho killers and mass murderers and psychopaths long before the Internet came along to concern-troll everyone for having such interests. If you haven’t been following all the “why is everyone interested in Ted Bundy” so-called “think”-pieces, consider yourself lucky. My God, what a bunch of busybodies. “It’s disturbing that you are so into this, and it’s disturbing that you are into this in this particular way.” Mind your beeswax. Jeez Louise. What is more interesting than the human mind, and how it operates when it’s working well, and how it operates when it’s NOT working well? I had no idea there were so many bossy people in the world who wanted to tell everyone else what to be interested in and why until the Internet came along. Rant over. Bundy fascinates for many reasons. He’s a black hole. What really struck me watching this was how much of a chameleon he was. People go on about him being “good-looking” – and I guess objectively I can see it? He’s so not my type that I have zero attraction to him on a pheromonal level. But what’s interesting about this is that even with the “good looks” there was something BLANK about him, and that blank-ness meant he looked almost like a totally different person in every single picture taken of him. There was something nondescript about him. A cipher. This became a problem when people tried to describe him to the police. He literally would part his hair a different way, and he looked like an entirely different person. Creepy. There was no essential “self” there. Here I am watching it on my laptop, with Hope not really letting me.

Johnny Handsome (1989; d. Walter Hill)
I’m thinking of doing something on this movie. Hadn’t seen it in years. There’s a kind of funny story here. When I was researching my Mickey Rourke piece (the first piece I wrote that got any traction, and it got tons of traction. IMDB linked to it on their main page), I watched Johnny Handsome and wrote a brief post on my site, saying I hadn’t seen the movie before, and etc. One of my ex-boyfriends emailed me immediately saying “I cannot believe that you don’t remember that I showed you this movie. I made you watch it.” Oops.

July and Half of August (2016; d. Brandeaux Tourville)
Sometimes it’s fun to go and watch my movie again.

Daughter of Mine (2019; d. Laura Bispuri)
I reviewed for Ebert.

Supernatural, Season 14, episode 11 “Damaged Goods” (2019; d. Philip Sgriccia)
Supernatural has not been itself since the end of Season 11. It was just renewed for Season 15. Season 12 was a travesty. Season 13 was off-and-on, but the main issue is that it just didn’t feel like “the show” anymore. Something essential had been drained out of it. It didn’t remember what it used to be, its origins. It’s been painful and alienating. But I can’t stop watching. I know many people who have stopped watching. “Nihilism” felt different, mainly because it was INTERESTED in the interior lives of the two leads. I mean, the fact that this is even missing – that the show forgets that the interior lives of Sam and Dean are the only game in town … is evidence of how far the show has fallen. But then came “Damaged Goods” which REALLY felt like a true “return to form.” I watched it with a dawning sense of wonder. They allowed the guys to be awkward again! They allowed them to engage with each other in ways that felt new. Or at least ALIVE. What the hell are we even DOING here if we aren’t interested in the inner lives of Sam and Dean? Ya got me. This was in a really sweet spot for me.

Sworn Virgin (2015; d. Laura Bispuri)
I watched this in preparation for Daughter of Mine, which I was reviewing for Ebert. This is a fascinating movie about the “sworn virgins of Albania” (look it up). A woman decides to live as a man, basically to escape the brutal conditions of women. She vows to remain celibate. This is the story of one of those women. Alba Rohrwacher is an amazing actress, and is having a hell of a couple of years (look her up on IMDB).

Mad Men, season 2, 3
Comfort food. I love these characters so much. They’re all so messed up.

Supernatural, Season 14, episode 12 “Prophet and Loss” (2019; d. Thomas J. Wright)
Dare I hope? The film-maker buff inside me was so pleased with the look of this episode, an underwater murky green. Except for a couple of scenes, the entire thing took place in this burbly murky greenish light, and it was gorgeous. The show has been so ugly looking I notice when someone over there gives a shit about beauty! Also, this is 3 for 3, as far as I’m concerned. 3 episodes in a row that focused on the right things. No more hunter-refugees who I don’t care about, Castiel in his proper place as support staff – not having his own little arcs all over the place made up entirely of giving Jack pep talks (don’t they realize how repetitive they’re getting with this stuff??) … and also Jack not present. I like Jack. But he’s becoming a liability too. EVERYONE is a liability if the main characters aren’t invested in. If Sam and Dean are not invested in – then who cares about anything else? Thomas Wright did a beautiful job here. The opening scene was terrifying, a living nightmare. And a flashback to the opening of Season 4. I’m really liking where everything is going right now. I am sure they will fuck it all up somehow, but let me have this moment of joy.

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Review: Daughter of Mine (2019)

Posted on February 1, 2019 by sheila

I reviewed Laura Bispuri’s second feature, Daughter of Mine, for Rogerebert.com.

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Introducing: Music Monday: 50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley. #50. Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain

Posted on January 28, 2019 by sheila

My talented brother Brendan O’Malley used to blog, back in the day. He’s an amazing writer (and actor! He’s wonderful in the now-available You & Me, directed by Alexander Baack. I interviewed Baack about the film here.) His most recent gig was story editor/writer on the hit series Survivor’s Remorse. Brendan hasn’t blogged in years, but the “content” (dreaded word) is so good I asked if I could import some of it to my blog. He did series on books he loved, and albums he loved. (Brendan has been in numerous bands, is an amazing songwriter, a music-mad-man.) I thought it would be fun to put up some of the stuff here, since his blog is no more. So we’ll start with his list of 50 Best Albums. I’ll put up one every Monday.

A word of warning: Every time anyone anywhere puts up a list on the Internet, you get comments like “What about [such-and-such]”? or “You forgot to include [such-and-such].” No. I didn’t. No anyone didn’t. This isn’t your list. Try not to be boring. How about you engage with what is here? There are no right answers, no right list, no right order. Let’s not try to shut down conversation, but to continue conversation.

Brendan’s list of 50 Best Albums is part music-critique and part memoir. He writes personally about the albums, how he discovered them, the contexts of those discoveries, his preconceived notions vanishing in reality, or – more prosaically – where he was and when he was when he first heard the album. Some of the albums are by family members (many musicians), one is from him, and unavailable anywhere. This is a personal list. Albums that matter to my brother.

I have always loved these essays, because I love to hear my brother talk. I am happy to share them with you!

The way he designed the list is a count-down from the bottom, so we’ll start from 50 and work our way up.

50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley

50. Miles Davis – Sketches Of Spain

In no particular order I am going to lay down the O’Malley gauntlet of greatness. I was talking with my cousin Mike about what the heck I was going to do next on my blog and he said I should review my favorite 50 albums. Well, what could I do? Once something like that is out there it has to be done.

As I readied myself for the bus ride this morning I immediately thought of The Replacements album Let It Be which is probably the album I’d have on a deserted island, an island with an iPod and electricity. But I have wanted this blog to be a constant source of challenge. I’ll get to Let It Be but I thought I’d start with something I barely have a vocabulary to cover…

Jazz.

I have vivid memories of making my sister Sheila howl by imitating a person I call a ‘jazz douche’. I won’t go too far into what makes up a ‘jazz douche’ but I will give a quick distillation of what truly bothers me about the die-hard jazz fan.

The die-hard jazz fan is deluded and angry. They feel that jazz is a superior form of music and they can’t quite wrap their beret laden brains around the fact that the majority of the populace prefers just about any other genre. I’m all for passion and interest but when that starts to calcify into prejudice and snootiness, count me out.

According to the die-hard jazz douche, my love of the three minute pop song with repeated verse/chorus/verse structure is evidence of my inferior brain. I also am a slave to marketing because if I could only throw off the shackles of the corporate jailer I would instantly abhor anything so bourgeois as MELODY.

So. Never been a fan of the jazz fan. For decades this kept me from exploring even the slightest bit in the genre.

Then I was cast in Side Man. It had won the Tony a year earlier and was now being done around the country in regional theaters. I’d scoffed and rolled my eyes at the NY Times review that compared it to a jazz ensemble. My hatred of the prejudice of the jazz fan caused me to hold this play in contempt. When I got the sides from my agent I barely took the time to read them, so deep was my scorn.

I went to the audition and came out thinking, “I’ll probably book this stupid jazz-douche play, you watch.” Sure enough, I booked it.

Once I read the whole play however, I was forced to admit that it was not merely the ravings of a beret-topped, handlebar-mustache-wearing, microbrew-in-the-garage, stamp-collecting, jazz douche. It packed a fierce emotional wallop and the writing was fantastic.

This pierce in my armor allowed me to take a chance on listening to some jazz in order to better understand the milieu. I figured Miles Davis wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

Thus Sketches Of Spain.

How did I decide to buy this album? Deep research? Asking a true jazz douche? Nope. I liked the cover. Stately, mysterious, violent, gorgeous.

Now a real jazz douche would be able to say, “They recorded this album entirely live with each instrument filtered through copper and brass pipes which gives the album its trebly overtones. Frank ‘Bubbles’ Harrington produced the album and he was greatly influenced by Ferdinand the Bull and gallons of homemade sangria. So when you listen to these tracks, man, you got to let the grapes take you away and sit down on that bee and let Miles bite you in the ass.”

But alas, I am not a jazz douche. I know nothing of how this was made. I only know how it sounds to me. Track by track…

1. ‘Concierto De Aranjuez (Adagio)’

A strange percussion types away while horns seem to fly in over tiled roofs. Men in white shirts and black pants held up by lengths of rope roll slowly out of hammocks, blinking away the rice and wine that led them to their sleep. The smell of blood can be sensed coming from the arena at the heart of the town. A bullfight.

2. ‘Will O’ The Wisp’

Her dark hair falls over her full lips. The basket she has prepared sits on a brightly colored blanket. Birds chirp and call your eyes up to the horizon. The town is far away. No one will see you. You know she wants you to kiss her but you’ve waited so long to be alone with her that you prolong the conversation, drawing your voice lower and lower until the talk can’t get any smaller. Her eyelashes flutter as she laughs and suddenly your mouths are meeting as closely as your minds.

3. ‘The Pan Piper’

The children are afraid. The man with the knapsack and flute has them gathered by the church. He’s told them that they will see their parents again if they are very very good. They like music, don’t they? If they like music, they should raise their hands. They don’t want to raise their hands even though they like music. They feel like if they start doing what he says they’ll never be able to stop. The sun tries to reach them from beyond the church spire but the clouds are gathering. Horse hooves pound from around the corner of the wall and suddenly the flute is silenced and the man on the horse is bringing them back to their houses trying to keep them from seeing the blood on his sword.

4. ‘Saeta’

The learned men must hide their knowledge. Superstition rules the hour. If the Church has the ear of the King then the people must give over their mouths. Practical men reconcile this hypocrisy quite easily but dreamers are compromised to an almost maddening degree.

5. ‘Solea’

Aren’t the ships in the harbor beautiful? They await their orders. The beach goers lounge and converse. The bells in the tower peal on the hour. All of a sudden a cannon booms and a flurry of activity ensues on the decks of the warships. Word spreads until recreation seems inappropriate and the sand is quickly vacated. War has come to Spain.

6. ‘Song Of Our Country’

Fists pounded on the thick table cluttered with pewter mugs. National identity emerges from each man’s mouth louder than the one before. Loaves of bread are ignored. So are women, until later. Minutiae rules the day.

7. ‘Concierto De Aranjuez (Part One)

The bull has swords hanging from every part of his hide. Breasts heave in corsets ringed with lace. Screams fall short of the sun. Pride holds the matador still beneath his cape, withholding the death blow for maximum drama.

8. ‘Concierto De Aranjuez (Part Two Ending)’

The arena is empty. The sand is stained here and there with the blood of the bull. The setting sun casts darkness into the stands. How could such brutality end in such peace?

I guess there is a little jazz douche in everyone.

— Brendan O’Malley

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Supernatural, new episode

Posted on January 25, 2019 by sheila

I haven’t seen it yet and I am avoiding all of you on Twitter who are talking about it.

Will catch up with you once I’ve seen it!

Posted in Television | Tagged | 50 Comments