Let me begin by stating that 1988’s Die Hard was my choice for Best Picture that year (with all due apologies to Rain Man — a great film, but not as great as Die Hard). The fact that it wasn’t even nominated is yet another example in the endless line of Oscar fuckups, if you ask me. When I got my first laserdisc player in ‘89, the very first disc I bought was Fox’s “special widescreen edition” of the film.
I saw Die Hard on opening weekend at San Francisco’s Coronet theater, which is sadly no more. I was so pumped after it was over that I decided to walk the entire 20 blocks back home. A friend even offered me a ride, but I didn’t take it. I was on one of those “good movie” highs: my adrenaline was jacked up, and I needed to take in what I’d just seen and walk it all off.
It’s funny, because I went into Die Hard thinking it wasn’t going to be that great — the “It’ll blow you through the back wall of the theater” tagline was a little on the lame side (even though it turned out to be accurate), plus Bruce Willis was good on Moonlighting, but somehow it was difficult for me to picture him in a feature film as an action hero.
Shows how much I knew. And it occurred to me once, while watching the old laserdisc, that the first 17 minutes of Die Hard are so good, it would still be a great film even if Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and company didn’t show up.
This week will see the release of The Time Traveler’s Wife, a movie about a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel involuntarily, and the problems that causes for his marriage. I say, if your genes are turning you into a time traveler, your marriage is the least of your problems. I’d be worried about what other genes I had wandering around in there, and whether any of them might cause me to turn into a dinosaur or a walking nuclear reactor, which seems equally feasible. No matter what happened, I’d blame exposure to cleaning products.
Regardless, it joins a fine tradition of time travel movies, which all share one remarkable characteristic: If you think about them too much, your brain will explode. (Which is not necessarily unique to time travel films – I find I have the same problem with Meg Ryan movies.) Still, it’s a worthy genre; if you don’t believe me, go back in time and review these classic examples.
12 Monkeys (1995): Would it be going out on a limb to call this the last great time-travel movie? OK, how about the last great Bruce Willis movie (the one with the dead people notwithstanding)?
Willis had quite a trifecta in 1994-’95 with Pulp Fiction, Nobody’s Fool, and then this film, which strikes just the right note of off-kilter paranoia and impending, unchangeable doom that marks more than a few sci-fi classics. I mean, it’s nice that Marty McFly winds up rich with better-looking parents, but wouldn’t that movie have been even better if he’d caused the whole planet to be wiped out by a killer virus? Wait, scratch that — then we wouldn’t have had the sequels.
As those of you who were present during the Jefitoblog days may remember, my original mission statement was “poking pop culture’s soft, white underbelly with a sharp-witted stick” — a goal that, insofar as it was ever truly achieved, was attainable mainly because of my deep and abiding love for said underbelly. We try to be a little more inclusive here at Popdose, but if you’ve followed the site at all, you know we try to focus on things that the other 1,175,000 music sites aren’t already covering — and to that end, we’ve given ourselves free rein to follow our muses all over the map. The less mainstream, the better.
All of which is my way of telling you that, if you live in the Connecticut area, next Friday is your chance to do two things:
Meet up with me, Jason Hare, and our pal Michael Parr from Ickmusic
See television heartthrob Jack Wagner perform live and in concert
What’s that, you say? You didn’t know that the guy who played Dr. Peter Burns on Melrose Place was a singer? Oh, for shame! You must not remember his #2 hit “All I Need,” which clambered up the charts in late 1984 while Wagner was making love in the afternoon as General Hospital’s singer/adventurer/cop/superspy Andrew “Frisco” Jones. Allow me to refresh your memory: (more…)
Before I wrap up my case against the defendant – that man over there with the plaid sportcoat, golf pants and bad haircut, the one who has refused to wipe that shit-eating grin off his face at any point during these proceedings (or, indeed, during his entire career) – I’d like to congratulate each of you for being selected to pass judgment on the serial crimes committed against rock ‘n’ roll by this defendant, Mr. … Lewis? (Actually, his given name is Hugh Cregg the Third.)
Take a look around you. You, my friends, are the soul of Popdose’s vast readership, the very backbone of music-blog culture! And that makes you – let’s face it – cool. Hip. Happenin’. You are steeped in music history and well-versed in the loose morals and bad attitudes that make rock ‘n’ roll what it is and always has been, at its best: Cutting-edge. Rebellious. Dangerous. You know perfectly well which music lives up to those standards, and which does not. You know which artists have provided major contributions, and you know – perhaps more than anyone – that with a fat recording contract and a complacent rubber-stamp from radio, a swill merchant like Mr. Lewis can do enormous damage to this music, this culture, this … industry of cool in which we are all invested.
And make no mistake – the crimes we’re discussing here are not trivial ones. The defense has tried to convince you that Mr. Lewis was just making “good-time music,” having fun, giving the people what they want. But the fact is that Mr. Lewis and his band, having built their career by stringing together a nice series of hits while presenting themselves as a bunch of regular Joes – a run-of-the-mill bar band made good – proceeded to engage in years of shameless, chart-topping hackery. (more…)
Bruce Willis turned 54 on March 19, the same day his famous friend David Letterman married Regina Lasko, his girlfriend of 23 years. Two days later Willis married Emma Heming, a former Victoria’s Secret model who was seven years old when Letterman and Lasko began dating and Willis was becoming a star on ABC’s Moonlighting.
The Associated Press article about Willis and Heming’s nuptials included a picture of them at last summer’s premiere of The House Bunny, which costars Willis’s 20-year-old daughter, Rumer. All of a sudden the star of the four Die Hard movies looked — God forbid! — mortal, mostly because of the lines around his eyes. I’m 33, so I have lines around my eyes too, but I’ve gotten used to seeing myself age. (My conscience would like to interrupt this column with an important announcement: “Robert is a terrible liar.”) But childhood heroes from movies and TV? That’s something else. Thanks to home video and syndicated reruns, they’re supposed to live forever. And they will, at least in that sense, but even Hollywood types know that nothing lasts forever, unless we’re talking about The Simpsons. That’s why it’s important even for stars to acknowledge that they’re no longer spring chickens. Once they’ve done that, they can proceed to marry a spring chicken who models underwear if they so desire. Midlife crisis? No. Midlife bonus.
If there’s a theme to this mix, it comes from the movie title The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The vanity projects of TV and movie stars sometimes have the sad side effect of charting on the Top 40. Sometimes, however, I think there really is a God, because there are times when we’re spared from hearing some of these songs on the radio or seeing the video — when MTV and VH1 were in the business of playing videos, that is.
Everybody buckled in? Okay, hang on, ’cause it’s going to be a bumpy ride!
Goldie Hawn, “A Hard Day’s Night”
The fact that George Martin actually asked Goldie Hawn to do this horrible cover makes me think he was just trying to find an excuse to be in the same room with her. This is so god-awful that it’s worth at least one listen. Plus, there’s a great introduction from when Goldie was on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. (more…)
Jarreau is the name of Al Jarreau’s 1983 album. It’s a simple, straightforward title, but if you ask me, it’s missing an exclamation point at the end — the multiple Grammy winner puts such joy and excitement into his performances that it’s hard not to feel as giddy as he does.
The big hit from Jarreau was “Mornin’.” It still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. One reason is the lyrics (the song was written by Jarreau, David Foster, and Jay Graydon), which are uplifting in more ways than one:
My heart will soar with love
That’s rare and real
My smiling face
Will feel every cloud
Then higher still
Beyond the blue
Until I know I can
Like any man
Reach out my hand
And touch the face of God
What really sells the bridge is Jarreau’s delivery of the second verse. By the time he gets to “touch the face of God,” he’s pretty much done just that, leaving a mere mortal like myself marveling at the minor pop miracle I’ve witnessed. All in all, “Mornin’” is a solidly constructed, catchy song, but that moment in the bridge is absolutely transcendent — eternal rebirth captured in a four-minute “easy listening” number.
I saw Die Hard on opening weekend at San Francisco’s Coronet theater, which is sadly no more. I was so pumped after it was over that I decided to walk the entire 20 blocks back home. A friend even offered me a ride, but I didn’t take it. I was on one of those “good movie” highs: my adrenaline was jacked up, and I needed to take in what I’d just seen and walk it all off.
This week will see the release of 
As those of you who were present during the Jefitoblog days may remember, my original mission statement was “poking pop culture’s soft, white underbelly with a sharp-witted stick” — a goal that, insofar as it was ever truly achieved, was attainable mainly because of my deep and abiding love for said underbelly. We try to be a little more inclusive here at Popdose, but if you’ve followed the site at all, you know we try to focus on things that the other 1,175,000 music sites aren’t already covering — and to that end, we’ve given ourselves free rein to follow our muses all over the map. The less mainstream, the better.
![RS430~Huey-Lewis-Rolling-Stone-no-430-September-1984-Posters[1]](http://popdose.com/wp-content/uploads/RS430Huey-Lewis-Rolling-Stone-no-430-September-1984-Posters1.jpg "RS430~Huey-Lewis-Rolling-Stone-no-430-September-1984-Posters[1]")
Take a look around you. You, my friends, are the soul of Popdose’s vast readership, the very backbone of music-blog culture! And that makes you – let’s face it – cool. Hip. Happenin’. You are steeped in music history and well-versed in the loose morals and bad attitudes that make rock ‘n’ roll what it is and always has been, at its best: Cutting-edge. Rebellious. Dangerous. You know perfectly well which music lives up to those standards, and which does not. You know which artists have provided major contributions, and you know – perhaps more than anyone – that with a fat recording contract and a complacent rubber-stamp from radio, a swill merchant like Mr. Lewis can do enormous damage to this music, this culture, this … industry of cool in which we are all invested.
