A movie can do a lot of things to an audience. It may move them, amuse them, disgust them, terrify them, or in all too many cases bore them. One thing only a handful of films can do is inspire wonder. Every once in a while, a winning combination of writer, director, designers, composers and cast meet in perfect harmony. Such, I feel, is the case of Marcel Carné’s 1945 epic romance, Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise).

This article is filed under Art, Best Movies, Classics, France, Humor, Literary Themes, Movies, Music, Poetry, The Fourth Wall, Theatre.

The amount of factual detail and insights that Ball brings to the themes under discussion is impressive in the extreme. On just one page, in the chapter dealing with rhythm, he weaves relevant examples ranging from Gyorgy Ligeti’s composition used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s electronic work, Kontakte, Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Chinese zither music and songs by Australian Aborigines that are accompanied by the clicking of rhythm sticks.

This article is filed under Music, Non-Fiction Reviews.

It’s no surprise that David has musical talent in his DNA. His father is a jazz trumpet player, his mother is a gifted singer, his grandmother sang in TV commercials and acted in a few movies (and was known in Utah as “the little lady with the big voice”) and his grandfather sang in a barbershop quartet. Talk about stacking the genetic deck!

This article is filed under Biography, Music, Non-Fiction Reviews.

Nearby, Jeffry Mitchell’s portrait as Kurt is arguably the hidden gem of the exhibit. Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain in the Style of Jay Steensma features a skull wearing a blond wig amongst a thickly painted sea of grey. (Steensma was a “mystic” artist famous for his paintings of grey, Northwestern landscapes).

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Sandke offers no critical commentary about this piece of advice that was given Armstrong after he left New Orleans: “When you go up north, be sure and get yourself a white man that will put his hand on your shoulder and say, ‘This is my nigger.’” Nor does he state that there was anything objectionable about black musicians being allowed to play in Storyville brothels and cabarets, but never to be customers. The same went for “black and tan” nightspots like New York’s Cotton Club, where blacks made music and waited tables, while “tan, tall and terrific” showgirls entertained the exclusively white clientele.

This article is filed under African American, Music, Non-Fiction Reviews.

For the next few years, Hollywood musicals, climaxing in 42nd Street (1933), would be “backstage” pictures. Songs would be delivered in scenes depicting stage rehearsals, with aspiring singers and hard-bitten producers battling against the odds to “put on a show.” It was fun while it lasted – and big profits for the film studios. But after a few years, audiences grew tired of predictable scenarios of theatrical angst and happy “all singing, all dancing finales.”

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In the Nashville of the 1960s, songs were typically recorded in an hour or less and mistakes were kept in because they made the sound more “human.” Fussing over them any longer than that was considered “burning the beans.” After concerts, fees were paid in cash in shopping bags. In the course of recounting Wynette’s life, McDonough describes a cast of characters that no novelist could have invented without being accused of stretching the borders of believability.

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“It’s not about women’s lib, kitties, it’s about women’s libido!” manager Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) screams to his young charges. The same could be said about the movie itself. It commences with blood when Currie (Dakota Fanning) gets her first period, and snowballs from there, touching on every aspect of sexual awakening—female sexual awakening, to be precise. Self-gratification and experimentation with both women and men occurs in the film, building an undercurrent of sexual energy that seems to buffet the band as they rise to international stardom. Coming-of-age stories for girls rarely touch so explicitly on feminine libido, and it’s a welcome change.

This article is filed under Movies, Movies & TV, Music.

Jackson as a zombie in “Thriller” William Bibbiani noted in the Great Music Videos #1 post that music videos are effectively commercials. They’re produced to sell copies of albums, to “sell” a musician to the public, or at the very least to boost (paid) MP3 downloads. Michael Jackson’s video for “Thriller” straddles the line between [...]

This article is filed under Movies, Music, The Fourth Wall, Thrillers.

In the 80s, there was “We Are the World,” a recording and video jam-packed with celebrities to benefit famine relief in Africa. This year’s remake of “We Are the World” was made to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti. The song is a cringe-worthy, Autotune-filled mess, but I hope it helps raise awareness and [...]

This article is filed under Movies, Music, The Fourth Wall.

She’s been called the female Roy Orbison, a psychedelic metalhead who grew up listening to Elvis and Patsy Cline. She adores Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin, does covers of Patti Smith and reminds listeners of Dusty Springfield. She has a voice like gray autumn skies and a fondness for nightmares. Classify Nicole Atkins at your peril.

This article is filed under Music, Performing Arts.

The granddaughter of slaves on both parents’ sides of the family, Simone’s stardom coincided with the civil rights struggle in the U.S. If it is necessary to find a defining moment in her life, it may have come even earlier than the Curtis Institute rejection. At her first public concert, at age ten in Tryon’s Town Hall, her parents were asked to give up their seats to a white couple. The child protested out loud until her father and mother were allowed to stay in their places.

This article is filed under African American, Biography, Music, Non-Fiction Reviews.

For someone who radiated pure joy, his beginnings were Deep South Dickensian. Born in New Orleans in August 4, 1901, his unwed mother was a sometime prostitute and his absent father worked in a turpentine factory. As an unsupervised child, he worked unloading boats and selling newspapers on the sidewalk. Evenings, he would stand outside nightclubs and listen to the great trumpet players of the day, including Buddy Bolden and King Oliver, who would later become his mentor.

This article is filed under African American, Art, Biography, Music, Non-Fiction Reviews.

Again, it took an intervention, this time by Moss Hart, to point her in the right direction. She doesn’t say much about what he did in the 48 hours of rehearsal that he devoted to her, but she does include one of his most memorable lines. When asked by his wife how the session had gone, he replied, “Oh she’ll be fine. She has that terrible British strength that makes you wonder how they ever lost India.” My Fair Lady was a hit and she belted it, day in, day out, both on Broadway and in London, fitting in her twenty-first birthday and a marriage to Tony Walton in the meantime.

This article is filed under Biography, Great Britain, Movies, Music, Non-Fiction Reviews, Theatre.

A photographic essay: The Rock Posters of Rich Black.

This article is filed under Art, Art & Design, Music.