Hope all of y'all had an enjoyable 4th. We did not engage in the main American pastime of blowin' shit up (or the closely related "watching other people blow shit up") instead opting for the less explosive grilling of cheeseburgers on ye olde Weber. After some misadventures caused by poor planning that involved two separate trips to two separate grocery stores by two separate people to secure all the necessary components. But in the end burgers were grilled and enjoyed. I kicked off the evening with an oh-so-veddy-British gin & tonic and then declared my freedom from colonial rule by switching to local microbrews. Now we're watching 1776. Which I seem never to have mentioned is a favorite of mine. Not so much cos it's a great movie but because it was the first musical I ever saw on Broadway. One of the advantages of having grown up in NYC is that I got to take school trips to see Broadway shows. Well, only twice (probably would've been more if I'd ended up being a theater geek instead of a band/orchestra geek) but still not too shabby. I had the Playbill from that show kicking around my folks' house for a long time but I'm pretty sure it got tossed in some mad frenzy of cleaning at some point over the decades.
One thing which I first noticed last year when TCM showed 1776 with the restored footage of "Cool Considerate Men" (apparently cut from the movie at the request of Nixon) is that the number (which I'd forgotten about after multiple viewings of the movie had gotten in the way of my memories of the play) is anachronistically using the right/left political spectrum. Dickinson and his boys sing that they're "to the right, ever to the right, never to the left." But the idea of left and right as we understand it today is generally thought to have come from the French Revolution. Or about 13 years after the movie takes place. Oh well. The number is rather obviously more about the political realities of the 1960s than the 1770s. But if it's not a great song, it is a pretty good number with all the minuet-ing and then everyone driving off in horse drawn carriages waving walking sticks in the air.

So I had my RDA of fail this week. Sometime on Sunday, I remembered that I'd forgotten to buy tix for last night's Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings show. Went to purchase same only to discover that the show was very much sold out. Trés fail. As a small effort to make up for the loss, we watched Standing in the Shadows of Motown, the documentary about the Funk Brothers, who were the house band for Motown in the 60s. Excellent movie with lots of good stories and (of course) lots of good music. Early on, they talk to a bunch of people shopping in a record store and none of them have any idea who the musicians were on all those great Motown hits. And I remember having the same reaction the first time I read about this movie (or it might have been the book on which the movie was based). I had no idea that there was just one band playing for all those different singers. For a doc that's all about a group of artists who never really got the recognition they deserved (several of whom died before the movie was finished), it's actually surprisingly upbeat. One of my favorite stories is about a night when they were playing a gig at some jazz or blues club in Detroit and the owner tried to stiff them out of their pay. And then the guns started coming out. Trust me, it's a lot funnier than that makes it sound.

In other, sadder, music news, the great Lena Horne died last weekend. Here's a nice photo essay. Sarah's planning a tribute to Lena Horne for this Sunday's Divaville Lounge, Sunday 2-4pm on WXDU, 88.7fm in Durham or listen online at the XDU website.

Friday's movie: Patti Smith: Dream of Life. I enjoyed this but it is flawed. Director Steven Sebring spent 10 years working with Smith on the film but it still seems unfinished and, in a way, uncertain about just what kind of movie it wants to be and what kind of story it wants to tell. I agree with other reviews that complained about the lack of performance footage. Also, there's not much context given to a lot of the footage. It's often hard to know where (or when) scenes are happening. But there are some really nice moments: the scene with her parents at their home is sweet. I also liked the moments when she's painting and the bits where she's talking about Mapplethorpe, Burroughs, and her husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith. A few too many scenes seemed contrived (playing guitar w/ Sam Shepherd, hanging out on the beach w/ Flea, visiting RImbaud's grave) and less like Patti Smith's life and more like "hey, let's do this; it'll look cool in the movie." At its best it has some of the loose, poetry-driven feel of Wings of Desire. But you probably need to already be a Patti Smith fan to really appreciate it. Here's a good review by Andrew O'Hehir.

Tonight's movie: Kings of Pastry. It's the first night of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and this was the grand opening movie. Directed by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker (who were in attendance and spoke briefly before the screening -- there was also a Q&A session after but I was kinda tired by that point so we didn't stay), it's a look at the MOF, a pastry chef competition that's similar to Bocuse d'Or. Wonderful movie and highly recommended if you get a chance to see it. One of the interesting things to me was the ways it differed from the standard Food Network coverage of events like MOF. Mostly I think it's because Hegedus/Pennebaker took more time to tell the story. Not having to cram everything into 50 min. makes their movie feel less rushed and their storytelling more organic. Sarah said she thought the movie did a better job of finding subtle ways to advance the plot and tell the story. I agree with that. I think Hegedus/Pennebaker trust their audience and trust their story so they're not hitting us over the head with "big moments" or contrived story arcs. More thoughts on the movie behind the cut

Monday's movie: Get Smart. The recent-ish big Hollywood explodo-fest remake. I remember seeing the early trailers for this in a theater, the one with just Carell recreating the opening credits from the original series and thinking it was gonna be excellent. Then it came out and the commercials made it look like a big dumb explodofest. Even though my pal Ace Flyrite is a HUGE fan of the original and gave it his seal of approval, I was still somewhat dubious. But I gotta say, it was awesome. Steve Carell was brilliant as Max. Alan Arkin nearly steals the movie as the Chief. Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson shows some fine comedy chops and stapler skills. Shoe phone, cone of silence and Hymie appearances. Terence Stamp!! Plus a Bill Murray cameo AND a Bernie Kopell cameo. In much the same way as the recent Star Trek reboot, I thought it did a good job balancing the expectations of audiences who have never seen the original show with those of hardcore fans. Fun stuff and definitely worth renting if you haven't already gotten around to it.

Today's movie: 3 Idiots. When were up on SI for the holiday, Sarah and I watched this leased-time show about the best Bollywood songs from last year. It also included a behind-the-scenes look at the making of 3 Idiots, the new Aamir Khan movie. It looked really good so we were very excited when it opened at the Galaxy in Cary. A little bit of Real Genius (okay maybe more than a little bit). Plus some MacGyver, some Mythbusters with a heavy dose of coming-of-age melodrama. And big splashy musical numbers. And flatulence jokes. And a Satyajit Ray parody. And big splashy musical numbers. As a matter of fact, "Aal izz Well" (my fave number from the movie; couldn't find any video but this is the song) is quite literally splashy, taking place inside the shower rooms at the engineering college where most of the movie is set. Just a big fun movie.
Highly recommended.

Tonight's movie: Maestro. Outstanding look at NYC underground dance culture in the 70s and 80s, the roots of house and particularly the late, great DJ Larry Levan. Apparently there's very little film of Larry Levan (which makes sense... how many people are going around filming club DJs?) but the movie makes up for that by interviewing just about everyone, including Nicky Siano, David Mancuso, Louie Vega, Frankie Knuckles, Francois K, Tom Moulton, Jellybean, Derrick May. Highly recommended.
Sometimes I think documentaries about urban scenes of the late 20th century should be required to use a Memento format. That way the grim drug addiction and AIDS section of the story would come at the begining and the movies could end with the more upbeat earlier years. They try to get around this in Maestro by ending with a visual tour of contemporary DJ culture (movie was released in 2003). Which was nice (hey, that's Dimitri from Paris... Sven Vath... Fantastic Plastic Machine) but kinda frustrating cos they were just showing their pictures and not playing any of their music.

What with pre-holiday rushing around and travel and festiveness and such I've been pretty much out-of-the-loop and disconnected from most news-like objects. I guess I'll test the waters over the weekend before diving back into the madness next week.
Meanwhile, it's the end o' the year and I feel like I should make some sort of summarizing post or something. But there's just nothing that I'm really moved to say. Instead, here's John Scalzi's top 10 SF movies of the last 10 years. In deference to several of my occasional readers, I will refrain from calling it "best of the decade" altho, really, the ship has sailed on that. It might be factually wrong to say the decade runs (ran? whatever?) from 00 to 09 but, as a supporter of descriptive grammar, I have to acknowledge that the current usage is pretty much that. Anyway, back to Scalzi's list. I've seen only 4 of these. Which surprised me. Most ot the rest are on my ever expanding list of things I need to watch Real Soon Now. Altho I have only limited interest in 28 Days Later (I'm sorry, but fast zombies are just WRONG) and District 9 (looks so depressing). And I'd take active steps to avoid Cloverfield (I get what Scalzi's saying but I'm not convinced).

I missed the holiday with this but just saw it over on boing² -- an interesting (or insane, depending on how you look at it) book about Chanuko.

Last night I watched Big Time, the Tom Waits concert movie. Amazing! From 1988, with Ralph Carney and Marc Ribot in the band. I recorded it when it aired on Ovation earlier this month. So I wouldn't have to just keep it on the DVR forever (and to see it w/o commercials), I went online to see about renting or buying it on DVD. Only to find out that it's never been released. Found a few mentions of a possible DVD release from 8 years ago but that was about it. Well that and lots of people wondering whether there'd ever be a DVD. Plus many places to download pirated copies. So, good job entertainment industry! Give the people what you want them to want.