Jack Feerick has the deadline blues this week, leading him to publish his first flashback column — a previously unpublished look at “The Biggest Loser.”
The latest installment of the vaunted PBS series Independent Lens is No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos. The documentary about the legendary Hungarian cinematographers debuts this week around the country. Check your local listings for time and channel.
Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond met at film school in Budapest in the 1950s. When Soviet tanks rumbled into the city to crush the reform movement in 1956, the two friends took to the streets to document the horrors of the crackdown. They understood the importance of the footage they had, and volunteered to smuggle it out of their repressed country.
The two filmmakers eventually settled in Hollywood, where they did all sorts of odd jobs before getting opportunities to work on low-budget horror and biker films. Over the next 40 years, they created some of the most indelible images in the history of film. Kovacs got his break when he was tapped to be the Director of Photography for the seminal film Easy Rider in 1969. He went on to be the cinematographer on some of the greatest films of the 1970s, including Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces, Peter Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon, Hal Ashby’s Shampoo, and Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York. In the 1980s, he worked on films like Ghostbusters and Say Anything.
At the same time, Zsigmond was creating his own masterpieces, the first of which was his work on Robert Altman’s classic McCabe & Mrs. Miller. He went on work with Steven Spielberg on Sugarland Express, and most notably Close Encounters of the Third Kind, for which he won the Academy Award. His credits also include Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter, and Heaven’s Gate. He received his fourth Academy Award nomination for his work on The Black Dahlia in 2006, and he is currently at work on his third film with Woody Allen. (more…)
Andy Barker, P.I.was, by far, my favorite new series to premiere during the winter of 2007. Andy Richter’s second foray into half-hour comedy was a hybrid comedy/mystery series, co-created by executive producers Conan O’Brien and Jonathan Groff. Although a critical darling, it only lasted six episodes before vanishing from the air. Luckily, the smart people at Shout! Factory have chosen to release the entire series on this new 2-disc DVD set. In addition to each episode containing commentary by Groff and at least two cast members, there are excellent bonus features including a look back at the show with interviews with all the major players.
Richter stars as the titular character, a nerdy accountant who has always succeeded in life. When he opens a private practice in an L.A. strip mall, Andy expects business to take off. It doesn’t. Instead, he waits patiently for the hours to pass before returning home to his loving, perky wife, Jenny (Ellen’s Clea Lewis). At the strip mall, Andy quickly befriends Simon, the manager of a video store (played by the hilarious Tony Hale, late of Arrested Development) and Wally (Marshall Manesh) an Afghani restaurant owner. In the pilot, a woman mistakes Andy for Lew Staziak, a retired private investigator that used to occupy the storefront where Andy now runs his office. Although he tries to convince the woman he’s no private dick, the money she slaps down in front of him — and the intrigue of being a gumshoe — is too thrilling to pas up. Simon, a walking encyclopedia of old movies, comes along as Andy’s sidekick. Eventually Andy runs into Lew Staziak (Fargo’s Harve Presnell), and the retired tough as nails P.I. becomes Andy’s mentor. (more…)
The holidays will have a lot to offer fans of all types of entertainment, including those of us who enjoy some pretty sick and twisted stuff. For those of you who enjoy grown-up animation, Adult Swim has released Adult Swim in a Box, a massive 12-DVD set that includes volumes of several of their classic series, as well as some of their more popular recent efforts. In all, six different programs are represented in the box, each a season’s worth of episodes. This collection is a decent mix of funny, bizarre and down right repulsive animation, the type of entertainment that has made the channel a big hit with stoners, college students and insomniacs.
Included in Adult Swim in a Box are: Space Ghost Coast to Coast, one of Adult Swim’s original hits. In it, the Saturday Morning super hero Space Ghost was re-imagined as a talk show host and the end result was often hilarious. Volume Three, the collection included here, contains 24 extended episodes including appearances by Beck, Rob Zombie and the always unpredictable Andy Dick. The success of Space Ghost in the late ’90s led to several spinoffs, one of which was Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I like Aqua Teen Hunger Force a lot. Despite its limited animation and strange setup (its heroes are an angry milkshake, a box of french fries and a mass of ground meat), I find the writing and performances biting and funny. Volume 2 contains 13 episodes, commentary, deleted scenes and a feature on the creation of the series.
Another one of the “classic” Adult Swim series included in the box set is Sealab 2021. Like Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021 incorporates stock animation footage (from a series called Sealab 2020) and new dialogue written for the old footage. The season 2 set has 13 episodes and several bonus features including commentary on all 13 episodes and a tribute to the late actor Harry Goz, voice of the show’s deranged “Captain Murphy.” (more…)
Gary Hustwit is best known (to me, anyway) as the filmmaker behind the award-winning documentary about Wilco, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, and his film about synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog, simply called Moog. He also got my attention by managing to make a very interesting film about, of all things, a font. That was Helvetica, and it was the first in Hustwit’s planned trilogy about design. Now he has returned with the second entry in his trilogy, Objectified. The new film will premiere November 24 on PBS as part of the Independent Lens series. Check your local listings for time and channel in your area.
Most people don’t think much about design. We touch and use hundreds of items in a day without giving a second thought about who made them, or why they look and feel as they do. Fortunately, there are people who give a lot of thought to design, and those people are the subjects of Hustwit’s film. Through in-depth conversations with people like Paola Antonelli, the design curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Chris Bangle of the BMW Group in Munich, Bill Moggridge co-founder IDEO (who designed what may have been the first laptop computer, which he demonstrates), and Jonathan Ive at Apple, Hustwit gets to the heart of creative design and thinking. (more…)
Beginning this Sunday night, AMC will be asking you to invest six hours of your television viewing time, over the course of three nights, in their remake of the iconic ’60s British drama, The Prisoner.
A man named Michael wakes up in a strange place known to its inhabitants as The Village. He has memories of his past life in New York City, but no idea of how he got to The Village. Everyone there has a number instead of a name, and our hero, played by Jim Caviezel, is referred to as 6. At first glance, The Village appears to be a bright cheerful place, with a few idiosyncrasies. The only television program seems to be a soap opera called The Wonkers, and the only food available comes in the form of wraps filled with various ingredients.
The man in charge of all of this is called 2, and he is played by the wonderful Ian McKellen. 2 appears to be some sort of benevolent monarch, but he is, in fact, a paranoid, scheming dictator, who employs “undercovers” to spy on the populace, and keeps his wife in a drug-induced dream state much of the time. The citizens who present the most danger for 2 are the “dreamers,” because they know that, despite 2’s insistence to the contrary, there is another world beyond The Village. 6 knows there is an outside world. He sees it in his dreams. He remembers living in it. He fights a running battle with 2 to retain his identity, proclaiming loudly that he is not a number. (more…)
The Airmen and the Headhunters is the most recent entry in the PBS series Secrets of the Dead, which has been running for nine years on the network. The documentary tells the little-known story of U.S. airmen who bailed out of their stricken aircraft over Japanese-occupied Borneo in 1944. On the island, they encountered Dayak tribesmen, also known as the “wild men of Borneo,” who kept them hidden from the Japanese until they could be rescued in 1945. These tribes were best known for hunting the heads of their enemies.
In the 1930s, Christian missionaries came to Borneo, and were successful in converting many of the island’s tribal people. When the Japanese occupied the island at the start of WW II, they murdered the missionaries and their families, which caused a great deal of anger among the indigenous people of Borneo. That’s why they were only too willing to assist the airmen when they arrived on the island.
By 1945, the tide of the war had turned in the Allies’ favor, and they were re-taking many of the territories that they had lost to the Japanese. The recapture of Borneo, a former British and Dutch colony, was high on their list of priorities. Toward that end, the British sent an eccentric anthropologist named Tom Harrisson to organize a guerilla war to coincide with the coming invasion of the island. Harrisson was only too happy to allow the natives to bring back the practice of headhunting which had been banned at the turn of the century, and the Dayaks were thrilled to resume the practice. Also employing poison blow darts, the Dayaks struck fear into the hearts of the Japanese. (more…)
As a longtime Monty Python fanatic, I’ve often heard of the legendary FawltyTowers, the British sitcom John Cleese co-created and starred in after Flying Circus had gone off the air. The show ranks high in the annals of sitcom lore, with Cleese singled out for his performance as Basil Fawlty, the co-owner of a small, English seaside hotel. For reasons I can’t come up with, I had never seen this revered show before it arrived on my doorstep in the form of a new BBC 30th Anniversary collector’s edition that contains every episode from its two seasons (1975 and 1979) painstakingly remastered. I was thrilled for the opportunity to finally see the show I’d heard so much about since I first began watching Python in my college dorm room, 20 years ago.
Cleese created the show with his then-wife, actress Connie Booth (who also co-stars). The show follows the exploits of Basil, one of the most cantankerous, put-upon, non-people persons you’d ever meet. If ever there was a man who shouldn’t be interacting with hotel guests, it’s Basil Fawlty. The character was based on a real hotel owner named Donald Sinclair. As the story goes, while the Pythons were on a film shoot in the early ’70s, they stayed at Sinclair’s hotel, only to check out after just one night’s stay. Sinclair was so rude that the actors couldn’t stand him. However, Cleese opted to stay behind and study the man, fascinated by his behavior. When the time came to pitch a series to the BBC, Booth suggested to her husband “What about that hotel owner?” The rest is history. (more…)
On November 9, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, PBS in New York (check your local listings for date and time in your area) will air the 60-minute documentary How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin. The film is co-produced by WNET.ORG and London’s Blakeway Productions.
You’ve probably seen that very raw two-minute clip of the Beatles playing “Some Other Guy” at the Cavern in Liverpool in 1962. That clip was shot by a filmmaker by the name of Leslie Woodhead. Twenty-five years later, while Woodhead was making films in Russia, he first became aware of the major impact that Beatlemania had in the Soviet Union. Now Woodhead has made a film that explores the lasting power of the Beatles in the former communist bloc.
The Beatles and their music were banned in the Soviet Union, but that did little to deter the fans of the Liverpool band. In the ’60s, there was a flourishing black market in Beatles music, which was recorded onto x-ray film, creating flexi-discs that were called “ribs” because you could often see the image of someone’s bone structure on the discs. After purchase, the music on these discs was transferred to tape recorders, giving it a longer shelf life. Tribute bands were formed. In St. Petersburg, Kolya Vasin built a “Temple of Peace and Love” to John Lennon. All of this was illegal and carried a high degree of risk. (more…)
A Note on This Week’s Column: I’ve been sidelined by the Dreaded Deadline Doom this week, so there’s no new column, strictly speaking. But as a special treat — all right, to fill the gap in the schedule — I’m presenting here, for the first time, the very first How Bad Can It Be? ever written.
Jeff Giles first approached me about doing a column about a year ago — November 2008. We kicked around some concepts, knocking the premise into shape. To help me get a grip on it, I wrote a bunch of sample columns, including this one, about the then-current season of NBC’s The Biggest Loser. The start date for the column was eventually pushed back to January 2009, leaving this piece basically unpublishable — hopelessly past its sell-by date. And so it has sat on my hard drive until now. Hope you enjoy this peek behind the curtain — the Secret Origin of HBCIB?, if you will.
As this was to have been the inaugural column, it begins with a statement of purpose — one I find worth revisiting now and then…
I will not cop to charges of snobbery; I find my pop-culture thrills wherever I can. I freely admit, though, that I’m selective. Any consumer of media has to be, I think. There are only so many hours in a day, and so much to fill them with. It’s not so much that I’m actively avoiding anything; it’s just that there’s so much good stuff out there that I’ve not yet experienced — Infinite Jest, “Trout Mask Replica,” Kurosawa’s Rashomon — that I’ve got to be choosy with the little time I have above ground. And because I write about media from the perspective of an enthusiast, rather than a critic, I’m not obliged to watch or read and listen to anything in which I would otherwise have no interest.
In practice, that means gravitating towards a comfort zone. It’s a big zone, as these things go — I’m a pretty well-rounded guy — but in the great spectrum of mass media, it’s a relatively narrow bandwidth. Now, I can and do often enjoy myself when I venture out of that zone; but I always do so with mingled feelings of hope and dread. Part of me wonders, “Am I going to hate myself for watching this? Will I wish I could have this hour back?” And another part of me thinks, “Hey, you never know. This could be a keeper. And really, after all — how bad can it be?”
If vampires, mysteries and romance are your thing, you can do much worse than Blood Ties,the supernatural drama that aired on Lifetime in 2007. The second season collection contains the final nine episodes on three DVDs.
Blood Ties stars Christina Cox as Vicki Nelson, a former cop turned private investigator. Her partner is a hunky, ageless vampire named Henry Fitzroy (Kyle Schmid). The two of them are hired to solve crimes that are out of the ordinary (demons, cat people, etc) and sometimes get brought in by Vicki’s old police partner and lover, Mike Celluci (Dylan Neal). Although all three are “friends,” there are lingering feelings between Mike and Vicki, feelings that make Henry a bit jealous. Likewise, Mike isn’t too sure how he feels about his ex hanging out with a bloodsucking bo-hunk. This strange romantic triangle makes for some light moments in between the X-Files-esque cases that form the basis for the plots of Blood Ties.
Nelson is a no-nonsense, hard nosed detective; she’s not afraid of anything. It’s this quality in her that makes her attractive to both men. Of the two, she seems more drawn to Henry and seems open to the idea of living forever. However, Henry knows that should he give her the gift of eternal life, their love will evaporate; he will have cursed Vicki into watching her friends and family die. This makes Henry one of the most sensitive vampires I’ve seen since Brat Pitt bared his fangs in Interview with a Vampire (this show did come out long before Twilight and The Vampire Diaries). Henry is no pushover and is quite protective of Vicki, as is Mike. The tough guy detective draws many stares and places his career in jeopardy by constantly going to Vicki for help. Some begin to question his sanity as he lets slip his belief in the supernatural. (more…)
The latest installment of the vaunted PBS series Independent Lens is No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos. The documentary about the legendary Hungarian cinematographers debuts this week around the country. Check your local listings for time and channel.
Andy Barker, P.I. 
The holidays will have a lot to offer fans of all types of entertainment, including those of us who enjoy some pretty sick and twisted stuff. For those of you who enjoy grown-up animation, Adult Swim has released 
Beginning this Sunday night, AMC will be asking you to invest six hours of your television viewing time, over the course of three nights, in their remake of the iconic ’60s British drama, The Prisoner.![68741-104[1]](http://popdose.com/wp-content/uploads/68741-1041.jpg "68741-104[1]")
The Airmen and the Headhunters is the most recent entry in the PBS series Secrets of the Dead, which has been running for nine years on the network. The documentary tells the little-known story of U.S. airmen who bailed out of their stricken aircraft over Japanese-occupied Borneo in 1944. On the island, they encountered Dayak tribesmen, also known as the “wild men of Borneo,” who kept them hidden from the Japanese until they could be rescued in 1945. These tribes were best known for hunting the heads of their enemies.
On November 9, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, PBS in New York (check your local listings for date and time in your area) will air the 60-minute documentary How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin. The film is co-produced by WNET.ORG and London’s Blakeway Productions.
If vampires, mysteries and romance are your thing, you can do much worse than 