Social Media Director: Boulder International Film Festival

I (right) lead the Q & A with visiting director Thomas Sem Løkke-Sørensen ("The Unhappy Woman"). [Photo by Randy Malone]

Here is a link to my work this year as the Social Media Director of the Boulder International Film Festival. We had a lot of fun sharing information with our ever-widening audience, both attendees and those joining in  from around the world. As usual, I was up there moderating discussions and emceeing film events to boot -- take a look!

High Art in Low Places: Classics on the Discount Rack

What becomes a legend most?

What about the bargain bin?

Cultural artifacts are often held over our heads, beginning in childhood and on through our life spans. These creative touchstones, supposed founts of meaning and common underpinnings of Western civilization, are touted as semi-sacred objects, to be admired, if not worshipped.

Once upon a time, everyone was schooled in them. For better or worse, a monolithic, non-fragmented cultural landscape was laid out before us, dotted with common landmarks, mostly created by dead white guys. We were supposed to fret over ourselves if we didn’t quite see the attraction the rest of society had to them. Conversely, they were there to be lambasted, to be pooh-poohed, lampooned, subverted, attacked or ignored if they were deemed to be old-hat, stodgy or irrelevant.

When something is deemed a classic, it occupies special and sometimes little-visited or -questioned places of sanctity – libraries, museums, galleries, concert halls, and art cinemas. The true believers, and those they drag reluctantly behind them, feast upon the aesthetic ecstasies within.

But what about “great art” that wanders, or falls, or is pushed from its lofty perches and enters the plebian sphere? When “great art” goes slumming, is it a good or bad thing? Does it cheapen it? What does it lose, if anything, when it leaks into the vernacular, like a Bach cantata used as an underlying musical “bed” for an elegant car commercial? Like the Mona Lisa endlessly aped for her gag value? The Venus de Milo tied to the bumper of disdain and dragged around the block a few times, then demoted to tabletop duty with a clock installed in her armless torso?

Or does the stuff that makes it through freefall merit a badge of honor? Does it serve as a strand that weaves an interpenetration of high and low? Does it signify a certain toughness, durability, an ability to reach past the effete gatekeepers of culture and really speak to the hoi polloi? Are these bits of wrack and drift waiting for that one person to touch and gaze upon them, within them, to hear and be affected and changed, to metamorphose into a connoisseur, or into an artist, whatever that is, his- or herself?

Or, is there something inherent in certain artists that’s schlock-worthy, that can just sink down and anchor into the sea-bottom of the trite in an instant and stay fixed there for generations, morphing into an unrecognizable but real bump on the floor of the collective unconscious?

I determined to find out through strict, exacting empirical method.

OK, actually, I was stuck for something to while away the time at the grand opening of a new Goodwill store in our neighborhood. I began to sift through the merchandise to see what lofty creations might have side-slipped into our banal dimension.

Of course, it’s a bit difficult to stay on task when you see things such as REAL HONEST-TO-GOD 8-TRACK TAPES ($0.99 each), and a gen-u-wine antique DuoTone voice-actuated dual two-way record cassette remote-control answering system ($5.99)! There was even a self-basting chicken roaster ($9.99). Tempting.

ART

Ironically, the artist most represented was not who I would have guessed – R.C. Gorman or Thomas Kinkade. It’s our grouchy old schizophrenic friend, Vincent Van Gogh! Yes, the one who was so legendarily despised and/or dismissed during his lifetime is still going strong in the reprint market, making massive amounts of money he’ll never spend.

Here, he is represented by “View of Arles, Flowering Orchards,” from 1889:

$4.99.

There is also “The Artist’s Room, Arles,” also 1889:

$2.99.

Then there is a HUGE print of “Starry Night over the Rhone,” 1888, for $14.99.

 Oddly, all these pictures date from the last two years of the archetypically tortured artist’s life. Is his famously turbulent insanity the reason behind the cachet of owning and displaying these pieces? Or is the manic brushwork and loud colors the equivalent of a scream for attention in your dorm room? And would you really like them over your couch when you are trying to have a quiet evening at home?

The second most popular artist is Van Gogh’s antithesis, Monet. Calm, contemplative, boring old Monet. Goes anywhere, fits with any room. You can pick up his “Beneath the Lilacs Grey Weather” from 1873 for $5.99:

For a dollar more, you can obtain “Branch of the Seine near Giverny,” from about 25 years later. Your eyes slide greasy across the misty surfaces of his work; vague, unchallenging, so . . .  sleepy . . .

Auguste Renoir is here (Impressionism rules in Discount Land) with the terminally winsome “Girl with Watering Can” from 1876. Help!

 For those with big-space needs, there’s a huge Grant Wood “American Gothic” for $19.99, a Remington I can’t quite place for the same price, and a truly mystifying triptych of pre-Raphaelite maidens and knights, twisting and yearning chastely toward each other for $5.99.

THE WINNER: For sheer bad-classic goodness, there is an M.C. Escher perspective-defying lithographic print, “Waterfall.” It was a jigsaw puzzle – it’s been glued down permanently and framed. $1.99. NOW how much would you pay?

FILM

Unless you still have a functioning VHS, don’t come knocking. The DVDs were few and far between, and seemed to consist primarily of Christian children’s animated specials, which are not that entertaining unless you are an extremely ironic atheist.

What cinematic treasures lurk on the old analog playback shelf? (All items $1.99 unless otherwise marked.) There’s the 1945 hit “The Bells of St. Mary’s” (which Michael and Kay watch right before learning that Don Corleone has been shot in “The Godfather”) with Bing Crosby as the lovable priest and Ingrid Bergman packing a wallop in her wimple. Comedy expert Leo McCarey directs; it’s a good example of his schmaltzy later period.

 For those who need who get acquainted with Shirley Temple, you can check out the 1939 version of “The Little Princess,” the last critical and financial success for the child star.

 (Strangely, you can get “The Wizard of Oz” for $0.99!) The only other Golden Age Hollywood selection is Hitchcock’s interesting experiment in a one-set, real-time, faux-continuous-shot murder mystery, 1948’s “Rope.”

Moving into more contemporary territory, there’s Altman’s only-for-completists 2000 romantic comedy, “Dr. T & the Women,” Kenneth Branagh’s spunky 1989 adaptation of “Henry V,” M. Night Shamalayan’s “The Sixth Sense” from 1999, the 1989 black comedy “Heathers” and Jonathan Demme’s 1993 award-winning weeper “Philadelphia.”

THE WINNER: The unjustly overlooked “Trespass,” a great update of “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” penned in part by Bob Zemeckis and handled beautifully by Walter Hill. (Why William Sadler is not more honored as an actor is beyond me.)

LITERATURE

Paperbacks, $0.99, hardbacks $2.49. Aside from the ubiquitous Bibles and “Da Vinci Code”s, there are a surprising number of intriguing choices here.

Philip Roth will be happy to hear that he shows up in spades. “The Dying Animal,” “Sabbath's Theater” and “The Plot against America” are all present

 Margaret Atwood’s excellent examination of the writer’s life, “Negotiating with the Dead” is here, as is Le Carre’s decent spy novel “The Looking Glass War.” Other simply decent reads include two Conan Doyle Holmes compendiums.

Then there are the “classics” that so many have attempted and then obviously flung across the room halfway through the assignment. Someone struggled with, and abandoned, Jack London’s artsy-tough “The Sea-Wolf” and Toole’s “Confederacy of Dunces”; here’s Garcia Marquez’s “100 Years of Solitude” and D.H. Lawrence’s “Women in Love.” If you haven’t had a love for Robert Frost beaten out of you by English class analysis, here’s “Three Books” by him, all smushed together, and Twain’s UNEXPURGATED “Huckleberry Finn.”

As a Shakespeare nut, I can’t help but be happy there are a few scattered copies of the Bard to be found pretty much everywhere you go. Here are “The Tempest,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Hamlet” and “Macbeth.” A good start.

The oddest finds – Hobbes’ “Leviathan”; this vital, indigestible piece of 17^th-century political thought, seems to have been well-read. I salute you, resolute reader!

THE WINNER: Goethe’s “Faust” (trans. Kaufmann, Part One only). The translation is problematic, but the text is still mind-blowing.

MUSIC

The richest vein to be mined is on the music shelves. There is usual slew of soft-classical compilations – “Best of Beethoven,” “Best of Handel,” “Best of Tchaikovsky,” “Chill with Tchaikovsky,” “Relaxing Classical.” These kinds of anthologies can’t be legislated against; I checked.

More acceptable are titles such as “Strauss Waltzes,” an honest sampling, and “Instruments of Classical Music: The Piano” ($1.99). Working our way forward in time, you can get an absolutely great introduction to the classical a cappella group Anonymous 4, the excerpt compilation “A Portrait of . . .” and Hilary Hahn’s quite fine Bach Violin Concerti with Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

 

Out of left field, there is something called “La Scuola Piedmontese Nel XVIII Secolo – Gotti, Mosca, Tabacco” – should have snatched it up, as I can’t even track it on line. Baroque?

Mozart is heavily represented, as I suspect he would have wanted – his String Quartets are here, as are the Sinfonia Concertante (K364) and Concertone (K190). A cut-rate Beethoven Concerti 1-5 can be found, as well as the Tchaikovsky (meh) Symphony #6 with Rostropovich at the podium (un-meh).

Here are a couple of gems – Bernstein’s leading of Ives’ Symphonies 2 and 3 ($2.99 – someone with taste is marking up the good stuff!) and Guilini’s handling of the Mahler 9 with the Chicago Symphony (priced likewise).

Those seeking a reasonably priced musical education of quality can build up their mental muscles here.

PURCHASES

So, did I buy anything? Yes, I succumbed. Charles Mackay’s odd 1841 “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” a thorough and entertaining chronicle of mob psychology down the ages. This hilarious and harrowing 768-page historical survey of folly includes, willy-nilly, economic bubbles, prophecies, witch hunts, urban slang, alchemy and much, much more. If nothing else, there are hundred of story ideas here.

 Music – I took a chance and grabbed two discs by composer Erik Bergman. This composer, completely unknown to me, was a 20^th-century Finnish avant-garde figure who worked primarily with the human voice. The discs, “Mieskuorolauluja” and “Works for Mixed Choir” are tough on anyone not raised on atonal music – the harsh, dissonant sound is off-putting. However, as a stubborn investigator of marginal music, I dug in, listened all the way through . . . and learned a lot, finding some dark beauty on the way.

I also picked up one of Mieczysław Horszowski’s last recordings. The Polish pianist, who had the longest known career in the history of the performing arts (1901-1991), escaped Europe in World War II and settled in the U.S., teaching for decades at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. 

His disc was recorded in early January, 1991, and consists of Bach’s French Suite No. 6, Schumann’s Papillons, and a couple of preludes and a mazurka by Chopin. This is really is treasure. Despite his supposedly small hands, his 90 (!) years of playing distill themselves into sharp, clear interpretation – no frills, no gestural groans or sighs – just the ongoing, never-finished task of one artist trying to understand and illuminate the work of another. Nice.

 

And, OK, I found one DVD. Call me crazy, but I’ve always loved “SLC Punk,” James Merendino’s 1999 cult classic about, what else, punks – trapped in 1985 Salt Lake City, the ne plus ultra of un-hip urban American conformity. Matthew Lillard does a great job as the protagonist Stevo, who manages an extremely funny existential crisis.

 

THE VERDICT

What the hell. I have to fully endorse the discount-store cultural experience. I encountered new delights, and met up with some old cultural friends. And for newbies -- getting introduced to Haydn or Michelangelo or John Ford in some crazy, second-hand back-alley context is better than never running into them at all.

Plus, few real classics have gone the distance without rolling around in the dirt. Subjection to the vagaries of taste and time, getting knocked down and getting back up again, is as essential for the character of a creative work as it is for a human being. So, if your creation manages to percolate down into the groundwater of the zeitgeist, be grateful. In the business of selling things I craft out of my own head myself, I count almost any sale as a positive thing.

I think the dead white guys I ran into would agree. As Stevo’s lawyer dad says so memorably in “SLC Punk,” “I didn’t sell out, son. I bought in.” Yeah.

New story for EnCompass: "Denver dazzles with nocturnal delights"

The folks at EnCompass magazine, the regional publication of AAA, kindly used my story about Denver nightlife in their current edition. I had a lot of fun writing it -- thanks!

From the archives: Have a Rankin/Bass Christmas!

Hey! Now that the holidays are here, it's time to dwell on the true purpose of Christmas -- watching the usual Xmas shows, especially the garish, stop-motion parade of Rankin/Bass holiday specials! Whether they haunted your childhood dreams or annoy your offspring today, they are a vital part of the season. Let's stroll down Memory Lane in this story from 2009 --

Senior discount: life ends at 50

“I don't know who you are, I don't want to know. It's taken me my whole life to find out who I am, and I'm tired now, you hear what I'm saying?”

-- Ossie Davis as Marshall in “Joe Versus the Volcano”

I was walking past a window in my house last night and I yelled to my wife, “Hey! There’s a creepy old man out there! He’s staring at me! I’m scared!”

“Oh, crap. It’s a mirror.”

What happened? Where am I?

“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,

ché la diritta via era smarrita.”

Dante, The Inferno, Canto I

 (I like it. It’s pretentious. And it stops the story cold. Ezra Pound might have quoted swatches of it without explanation. David Foster Wallace could have included it in footnotes at the bottom. Here’s the translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who tackled the project in his 50’s and made more money from it than Dante ever did:

“Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”)

I’m as old as Fred Flintstone, and a day older than “The Andy Griffith Show.” Ted Williams had his last at-bat the week I was born; Kennedy and Nixon were duking it out on live TV.

When you turn 50, it seems as though you should somehow be more dignified. Graced with a noble, far-seeing look, a craggy mien, a marble visage as imperturbable as Washington’s.

Nope.

You are done, though. Culturally extinct. Floating on the wrack and drift of your formative cultural memories, you cries for help are unheard by the big ships that carry the goods desired by those 18-34. You aren’t spending enough discretionary income anymore to matter; in fact, you don’t have any discretionary income. You have children.

But I’m not bitter.

In my health-obsessed town, people my age are running miles daily, or swimming for 100 hours straight, or sundering mountain chains with their bare hands. I am the old guy who sits in the park and creeps out the kids by staring at them. I am Aqualung!

I am starting to get spam about meeting 50+ singles. I don’t think they mean more than 50 singles. Not only am I very, very married, but if you think about it, 50-plus singles have either lost partners, perhaps under mysterious circumstances, or they have simply never settled down. In other words, they are rogue people.

And am I starting to drive more slowly? And is my seat getting lower? Is the steering wheel getting bigger? How long until Johnny Law makes Grandpa take the bus everywhere?

Hair is growing out of places it shouldn’t, and isn’t where it should. I say “jeepers cripes.” I say “dang.” I say “goldarn it.” I have morphed into Yosemite Sam.

 In other news, my American Association of Retired Persons membership solicitation came in the mail. On my birthday.

I click on their site. There’s an article – Olympia Dukakis is tackling “Elektra,” and diabetes.

The AARP offers plenty of senior discounts.

I flash-forwarded to me in the Jell-O line at the cafeteria; stuffing my pockets with condiments; not leaving a tip. Becoming that crazy old coot who sits in the booth all day, ordering little and ostensibly flirting with the teenage waitresses. Keeping overly polite phone solicitors on the line for hours. Smelling funny.

“Frettin’ ‘bout what you going through/Regrettin’ the things you didn’t do

Relying on compensations you’ve found

Groanin’ beneath the weight of it/Bemoanin’ the fickle fate of it

Complyin’ just to keep both feet on the ground

That won’t get you anyplace/It won’t excuse you from the race/When you meet your destiny face to face

They’ll be no more wrong or right/And no more wish I might . . .”

Mose Allison, “Let It Come Down”

Somehow, I must get in touch with my Inner Geezer, that cane-waving, porch-dwelling curmudgeon that blossoms within each of us eventually, if we make it that far.

 At 50, you are who you are, the sum total of what you have chosen and done. If you are lucky, you have wised up to yourself to a certain degree. There’s no going back.

There is nothing provisional about my life now. I don’t envy younger people their uncertainty, or longings, or fears, anger, sorrow. I wouldn’t tread that pitted road of experience again.

I’ve made a huge number of mistakes, burned a lot of bridges. I’ve done many people wrong. But the good wishes that came from so many places, that bombarded me this birthday, brought home to me the undeniable fact that I have done some good as well, and can continue to do so.

The adventures and surprises will continue. I’m not done yet.

And I’m in good company. 65 million people, one-fourth of the U.S. population, are between the ages of 45 and 65. The Boomer bulge is headed for the boneyard. Who knows? Maybe those are the people I need to be talking to: looking back with them, and looking forward and asking hard questions about what comes next. What comes last.

Two things for sure, though: I will not figure out how to monetize this, and I shall not wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Damn you, T.S. Eliot.

“ . . .we feel our lives most when they are running out: as we age, as we lose our physical abilities, our health, and, of course, family members and friends who are important to us. Then we pause for a moment, sink into ourselves, and feel: here was something, and now it is gone. It will not return. And it may be that we understand it, truly and deeply, only when it is lost. . . . life is greater than what grows dim with us and steadily fades away.”

David Grossman, “The Legend of Bruno Schulz”

AARRRR!!! Best pirate films, in honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Last year, I wrote a lengthy three-part survey of the pirate-film subgenre for Dscriber.com. I found that I had never posted it here, and since International Talk Like a Pirate Day arrives on Sunday . . . well, here you go!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Hilarious Heroes: 10 Top Comedic Influences

To quote Jack Benny: "There will now be a slight pause while you say 'Who cares?'"

It's a list that sprang unbidden into my petite cranium as I was doing research into vaudeville. Until I started plowing through that information, I hadn't realized how much comedy heritage (and stolen material) has been passed down from one medium to the next medium through the last 200 years of American history. From showboat to minstrel show to stage to radio to film to television to the Web, a long line of performers, most of them forgotten, have preserved a unique set of American approaches to comic performance.

Each generation has its favorites. Most of time, the preceding generation finds the new comic constellation offensive and tasteless, and the succeeding generation finds the stars of yesterday corny, lame and hopelessly unfunny. My own choices pin me decisively to that period when TV was still a novel enterprise, and comics were just starting to write their own material, instead of buying it off the street.

These choices don't reflect my top 10 in terms of critical estimation. Richard Pryor will always be, for me, the greatest comic who ever lived; but until the mid-'70s, I didn't know who he was. I was (and am) a SQUARE Midwestern kid -- Rickles, Dangerfield, Bishop, Hackett and the like were part of an East Coast/Vegas axis I never got. Sahl and Gregory were way out of my league. The innovations of Bruce and Carlin, Firesign Theatre and Cheech & Chong didn't hit me, oddly enough, until I went to college and got high. Still later, I "found" Jonathan Winters, Robert Klein, Nichols & May, W.C. Fields, Spike Jones, Redd Foxx and the rest.

These are the shadows and voices I watched and listened to as a kid, gapemouthed in front of the stereo or the black-and-white TV set. I was just a bit too young for Sid Caesar, unfortunately. Everybody drank and smoked; on the screen, men wore tuxes and ladies wore evening gowns. These are people who first made me laugh -- the ones who astonished me but also made me feel as though I do do that, too. They made me say, "I'm going to do that when I grow up." And I did!

In no particular order:

Bill Cosby

In the beginning was the Cos; and he was good -- long before "The Cosby Show," or "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids," or even "I Spy." The first album I ever heard was his first album, and it killed me. I knew he was making a crowd laugh, and it was heavenly. He knows just how to tell a story, and gets all the laughs that are there, and more.


Bob Newhart

The second album I ever heard? "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart." Some claim that he ripped his one-sided conversation routine concept from Shelley Berman -- but then, Berman stole it from George Jessel. And Bob is funnier -- somehow, he plays straight man to a world of imagined voices. A master of timing who also, like Jack Benny, was happy to be the butt of the humor. His TV shows cemented his reputation.

Danny Kaye

His childlike persona was perhaps disingenuous. His starring role as Hans Christian Andersen, and his rapport with kids, gave him an iconic place in our hearts. Later, we learned about his manic energy, his incredibly flexible voice and face, and his unsurpassed ability to rush pell-mell through the most dauntingly complex, hilarious songs. He wanted so much for us to love him, and we did.


Jackie Gleason

He was so relaxed. "The Great One" created a handful of brilliantly conceived personas, could tell jokes, sing, dance, you name it. His variety show was a constant in our lives (and who can forget the June Taylor Dancers?) As the excerpts from "The Honeymooners" below prove, he was a genius of gesture, grimace, groan and growl. He was Everyman.


Red Skelton

He did everything -- stage, radio, movies, TV. His pantomimic skills were incredible -- as was his nerve. Watching him work live and alone onstage, charming an audience -- quite a lesson. Another performer with a clutch of characters to pull from -- especially Klem Kaddidlehopper and the Mean Widdle Kid.


The Smothers Brothers

Their stage routines and records we sat down and memorized. Their first TV show was tremendously funny -- and had something to say, too. The interplay was breathtaking. Tommy got all the laughs, but Dick's relentless and intensely serious straight-man persona has been routinely undervalued.


Zero Mostel

Absolutely, gloriously out of his mind. "The Producers," "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," "Fiddler on the Roof," Rhinoceros," "Waiting for Godot." That's all? That's all he ever needed to do. One of the few people who could send you into hysterics just by sitting -- perfectly -- still.


Carol Burnett

Alive! So damn alive. A great singer, a great heart. And she knows just how to push an expression a hair's breadth over the edge into comic insanity. What's more, her work contains an undercurrent of vulnerability that's deeply touching. She is smart enough to surround herself with writing and performing talent, and shares the spotlight generously. Absolutely nothing got between our family and her show.


Laurel and Hardy

Nobody can touch them. Their dynamic spanned silent and sound film -- the deliberate, measured pace of their inevitable demise in each adventure gave their predicaments, self-caused or not, a profundity that's unsurpassed. They are gentle spirits in an indifferent world. "If anything happened to me, who would explain you to people?" Hardy says to Laurel in one movie. Exactly.


The Marx Brothers

C'mon, if you don't get this one, you're dead. When all is dust, their efforts alone should survive. Don't you think?