The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

I was a child of the 1980s.  But I was a weird child of the 1980s (go fig).  I didn't like a lot of the music that was popular at the time.  I preferred the music of my parents'--and even my grandparents'--generation.  Today, I love a lot of '80s music, but I only got into it through nostalgia--particularly soundtracks to movies that either used a lot of '80s songs like Romy and Michele's High School Reunion and Grosse Pointe Blank or were period pieces like The Wedding Singer.  I would hear those songs and remember where I was when I first heard them and think, "Y'know, that's not as bad as I remember it."

Because I grew up in the middle of nowhere, if I went to a movie, it had to be a movie that my parents (particularly Dad) wanted to see.  I did see such classics as Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, the Indiana Jones films, and Batman in theaters--and sometimes drive-ins--when they were originally released, but a lot of films that were specifically aimed at my demographic I didn't get to see until much later because my folks had no interest in seeing a comedic drama about high school life.  I never saw Top Gun or Dirty Dancing until I was an adult.  And with the exception of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which Dad rented once (we always liked Steve Martin in my family) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which I saw at Jake Tincher's thirteenth birthday party after it had been released on videocassette, I missed the entire oeuvre of John Hughes movies.

At some point in my mid-30s, after his untimely passing, I bought a box set of Hughes films.  I had seen and even enjoyed The Breakfast Club in college, and even though I had never seen Sixteen Candles or Weird Science, I took a chance on the set anyway.  I found I really liked them.  They were funny but at the same time touching and poignant.  I don't know how I had never seen these movies before.  They were well-written with great dialogue and wonderful soundtracks.  I immediately made a point of getting Ferris Bueller, which I think carries a message that is as important today as it was 40 years ago.

Even though I'd never seen it, I also picked up Pretty in Pink.  (I miss the days when Best Buy sold movies and music!)  Somehow, I fell in love with this film and began watching it repeatedly.  Like most film addictions, I can only guess as to why I was drawn to it over and over again.  Perhaps I realized that I would have totally had a crush on Molly Ringwald in high school (I've always been a sucker for redheads--I swear to God they will be the death of me!).  As a bit of an eccentric, perhaps I identified a little too hard with the character of Duckie who loved the music of Otis Redding and was in love with a redhead who only looked at him as a best friend.  I was even drawn to Iona who managed a record store and had a smartass attitude that I try to emulate as much as possible.

Over the last ten years, the film was re-released in theaters to mark its 30th and 35th anniversaries.  Unfortunately, I missed it both times.  Tomorrow, I'm excited to say, I finally get to see one of my favourite "Saturday" movies on the big screen to commemorate its 40th anniversary.  In fact, I've intentionally not watched it in a couple of months in anticipation of it.  I'm hoping that like It's a Wonderful Life and Back to the Future, I'll notice some little detail that I never noticed before on my TV screen.

Originally released in 1986, the film stars Molly Ringwald as Andie, a high school senior from the poor side of town, in love with a rich kid Blaine (Andrew McCarthy), whose friends don't approve of him dating someone that they deem to be trash.  The movie co-stars Jon Cryer as Andie's friend Duckie, Annie Potts as her record store boss and confidante Iona, Harry Dean Stanton as her father Jack, and James Spader as Blaine's friend Steph, arguably one of the greatest assholes of 1980s cinema.  Written by Hughes and directed by Howard Deutch, please enjoy Pretty in Pink.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents a Bonus Album of the Week! (One From the Vault!)

I wrote the following and originally posted it to Facebook on 12 February, 2022.  Since it's Valentine's Day, I felt compelled to revisit it.  NOTE:  This flashback contains another flashback.  Hope you can keep up--I've tried to space them apart accordingly...

 

As many of you will probably remember, there was a predecessor to these weekly rants. It wasn't as public, but I would email a song a week to family and friends. In February of 2008, in the very second installment of those weekly rants, I wrote the following:

 

 

"What came first—the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?

"People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands—literally thousands—of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives."

—Rob Fleming in the novel "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby

 

So a couple years ago I was thumbing through the Encyclopædia Britannica because I wanted to know the origins of this Cupid chap who is supposed to be flying around this week. He's Roman, in case you didn't know (I didn't at the time, which is why I was looking him up in the first place). He apparently enjoys archery and he's a menace to our society. Britannica says that his "wounds inspired love or passion in his every victim." "WOUNDS???" "VICTIM???" He's hunting human prey, for crying out loud! Clearly this guy is a terrorist and needs to be stopped at all costs! We need to ship his wing-ed little ass off to Guantánamo and find out what his real agenda is!

 

As you may have guessed (if you didn't already know), I find Valentine's Day a disgusting and crass holiday. Even in the days when I had a girlfriend, I still wasn't that fond of it (although I will admit that it was a lot more fun). I don't understand the concept of it, personally. Some poor schlub gets his head lobbed off and I'm supposed to be romantic about it? "Y'know, honey, we can go out to dinner and a movie anytime. Tonight, why don't we watch someone get martyred?" I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly get hot just thinking about someone's decapitation. Valentine's Day—Bah! Humbug!

 

Which brings me to love itself. Can there be anything as screwed up as this emotion? I find it thoroughly fascinating that while love is the antithesis of hate, it can be just as destructive—just ask Helen of Troy. Or Shakespeare. Or Leonard Cohen... The only good thing to come out of it (aside from the continuation of the species, I suppose—which is a diatribe for another time) is what it does to us creatively. Just ask Shakespeare. Or Leonard Cohen...

 

Our species has created plays, paintings, movies, stories, and, yes, literally thousands of songs according to Rob Fleming (or Rob Gordon if you're a fan of the movie), devoted to love. One could make the argument that the entire entertainment industry was built upon the ideas of love and romance. Hugh Grant alone owes his entire career to it!

 

 

 

So here I am/we are—fourteen years later—and my opinion hasn't changed all that much on these matters. I still have difficulty uttering the phrase "Valentine's Day" without a hint of derision in my voice, sometimes with an obscene hand gesture. Having recently described myself on a friend's Facebook post as "perpetually single," I feel entitled to piss on everyone's romantic parade every February 14. I figure I atone for it by being a hopeless romantic the rest of the year... or maybe I'm just hopeless, the jury's still out on that one. Every Valentine's Day, I still feel compelled to dress as though I were going to Johnny Cash's funeral and referring to myself as "The Anti-Cupid," commanding people to kneel before me and sing Roy Orbison songs (although I was once described as "hot" in that suit, which led me to wear it to an erotic masquerade ball in 2004... but that's a very long story). And to top it all off, my taste in music has had the audacity to broaden itself in the intervening years, making my familiarity with depressing songs even... well, broader.

 

Picking a whole album for this week wasn't terribly tricky. Between the aforementioned Leonard Cohen and Roy Orbison, there's a lot to choose from. But in the end, there was really only one choice. As Bruno Kirby said in the movie This Is Spinal Tap, "When you've loved and lost the way Frank has, then you, uh... you know what life's about."

 

So this week, if you're as bitter about institutionalized romance as I am—or even if you're not, I present to you the Chairman of the Ol' Blue Eyes himself, Francis Albert Sinatra with his 1959 album (probably not a special Valentine's Day release, but you never know...), No One Cares.

 

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

 

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

 

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

I do apologize if this seems like a "spin-off"--for lack of a better term--of last week's "sermon."  It wasn't intended to be.  But I was thinking of a conversation I had with my sister regarding music.

While at work a few days back, my phone randomly played the song "Guilty" by the group Nazareth.  I commented to Heather (my sister) that the song should be considered part of the Great American Songbook, alongside the works of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael, and the Gershwins.  Even though Nazareth was a Scottish band, "Guilty" was written by the American composer and songwriter Randy Newman.  (To which Heather replied, and I quote, "Gasp!  Short People guy??"  I added that I'm pretty sure that's what he likes to be called.) 

I figure when a song has been covered by multiple artists from different genres over the course of its life, it can be called a standard, even if it wasn't necessarily a hit single for any of them.  I first heard "Guilty" by The Blues Brothers when I was in high school.  Over the years, I've heard it by the likes of Madeleine Peyroux, Bonnie Raitt (who, to the best of my knowledge, actually recorded it first), and, of course, Newman himself.  Perhaps my favourite recording is by Joe Cocker, whose version was not only released the same year as Newman's, but also featured Newman on piano.  If I were ever crazy enough to sing karaoke, this would be the one song I would want to attempt.  I think I could really tear that one up--and I can't even sing that well.

Critic Mark Deming once wrote, "Between 1977 and 1988, Randy Newman seemed bound and determined to prove he could be a pop star, which is no small task when your voice is froggy, wear glasses, and your favorite themes are racism and insensitivity."  Most people tend to think of Newman as a musical satirist (for songs like "Short People" "Rednecks," and "Political Science") or the guy who writes songs for Disney films (most famously "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story).  Because of this, I think he gets unfairly overlooked as a songwriter, just because I think most people tend to pay attention to the performer rather than the writer.

So many of his songs were hits for other artists including "Mama Told Me Not To Come" by Three Dog Night and "You Can Leave Your Hat On" by Joe Cocker.  Many of his songs throughout his career were originally recorded by other artists first, most notably "I Think It's Going To Rain Today" and "Feels Like Home," both of which have been covered so many times over the last 60 years (30 for "Feels Like Home") that I feel they should be considered standards as well.

And when he's not recording albums, he can be found writing songs and scores for motion pictures and television.  Over the last few decades, Randy Newman has accrued 22 Academy Award nominations for his film music, winning two in 2002 and 2011.  It's actually the family business.  Three of Randy's uncles--Lionel, Emil, and Alfred Newman--wrote scores and songs for countless films going back to the 1930s.  Alfred wrote one of the most recognizable pieces of film music ever, the "20th Century Fox Fanfare" which can be heard at the beginning of most 20th Century Fox movies.  Many of Randy's cousins have also joined in, most notably David and Thomas.  They've become such a dynasty that 20th Century Fox renamed one of its largest scoring stages the Newman Scoring Stage in 1997.  And if you thought Randy's Oscar tally was impressive, we won't even go into the rest of the family.

As much as I enjoy and certainly respect his film work, I do tend to gravitate more toward his "pop" work.  I love the fact that so many of his songs, even ones that weren't exactly big hits, have become such a part of the culture that you recognize it when you hear it--even if you don't recognize it as a Randy Newman song.  "I Love L.A." has basically become an anthem for the city.  "Louisiana 1927" got a second life in 2005 when it got used over countless montages of the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina.  Many of his songs have been used in soundtracks to popular films that he didn't even score--especially it seems in the mid to late 1990s--that when you hear the song, you likely associate it with that scene in the respective film.

This week's album, at least from a critical level, is still considered something of a masterpiece, albeit a controversial one, more than 50 years after its initial release.  Perhaps it's the controversy that draws me to it.  In the liner notes of its 2002 deluxe CD re-issue, David Wild described it as "a conceptual song cycle that explores the good, the bad, and the ugly of the American South, with all the highly loaded racial and social politics that such volatile subject matter involves."

Perhaps most controversial is the album's opening track, "Rednecks."  Told from the perspective of a racist, white southerner, it addresses the hypocrisy of the north where racism and segregation were institutionalized but not really acknowledged, versus in the south where it was overt and legal for a very long time.  Because of the narrator's perspective, the song features liberal use of a particular racial epithet, which was jarring enough to hear from a white artist in the early 1970s.  It's easily ten times more jarring today.

The album features such recognizable (today) songs as "Louisiana 1927" and "Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)," a rare cover song for Newman--"Every Man a King," co-written by Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey P. Long--as well as "Guilty," which started this whole exploration in the first place.  (Thanks, sis!)  Originally released in 1974, please enjoy two-time Academy Award winner Randy Newman with Good Old Boys.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

Even at my age, sometimes, you just have to indulge your inner child.  There are a handful of things that I've never outgrown.  One of them is the art form known as animation.  I've always loved cartoons.  When I was a kid (and this really shows my age), there were only three television networks and on Saturday mornings all of them showed animated programs aimed at kids who had the weekends away from school.  Although I experimented with other networks from time to time, I always had a special place in my heart for CBS because in the late 1970s and early 1980s, for an hour and a half each Saturday, they would broadcast old Warner Brothers cartoons.  They were essentially introduced to me by my dad who would get up with me and watch them as well--he always had a fondness for the Road Runner.

(SPECIAL NOTE:  It's important to remember that these animated shorts were originally shown in theaters just before Warner Brothers feature films.  In a documentary I once saw about Warner Brothers animation, one of the directors at the famed "Termite Terrace" animation studio--and, sadly, I forget which director--said that Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were never intended for children.  He said that they made them to amuse themselves.  If nothing else, this reinforces a long-held theory of mine that when someone does something creative, it's done primarily for that very purpose.)

Today, it's easy to get sentimental about it as it was one of those father/son activities that I look back on with fondness, like playing chess or going to the movies.  But at the same time, it instilled in me a fascination with animation that persists to this day.  And even though I've read about and researched and watched all sorts of cartoons ranging from Walt Disney and Hayao Miyazaki to Seth MscFarlane and Matt Groening, the classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies will forever be my favourites.  I've always said that Bugs Bunny is a personal hero of mine, which I know sounds weird, but it's absolutely true.  Bugs represents the charming, dashing smart-ass that I long to be in life.  In reality, sadly, I'm probably more like Daffy Duck, but Bugs still remains aspirational.  (For more on this, you can read what I wrote three years ago and re-posted on this blog last August.)

When I first saw the trailer to this week's film, I got super excited.  When it was released in November of 2003, I was there opening night.  My mother was living with me at the time (like so much in my life--long story), and I dragged her to the theater with me.  In hindsight, it was kind of gracious of her to go along because she never particularly liked cartoons.  The theater was packed--admittedly, most of them were there to see the Russell Crowe film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which just happened to open the same day.  I'll always remember that after the movie, as we were leaving the theater, Mom witnessed some guy do something really stupid.  I didn't see it, but I presume he was trying to impress some woman.  She looked at me and asked if men ever grow up.  I said, "You're asking this of a man who's almost 30 years old and just took you to see a movie because Bugs Bunny was in it.  What do you think?"

And while it may not be the most fondly remembered Looney Tunes adventure, I still revisit it from time to time and it always puts a smile on my face.  Like it's predecessor, 1996's Space Jam, this film combined both animation and live action.  In the film, Brendan Fraser plays DJ Drake, a security guard at Warner Brothers who wants to be a stunt performer.  He also wants desperately to make it on his own and get out of the shadow of his father, superspy action star Damien Drake (Timothy Dalton spoofing his James Bond image).  After getting fired from his job by studio exec Kate Houghton (Jenna Elfman), DJ--now being essentially stalked by the also recently-fired Daffy Duck--receives a message from Damien who turns out to actually be a superspy who's been captured whilst on a mission to find the elusive diamond known as the Blue Monkey before it falls into the hands of the evil head of the Acme corporation (Steve Martin).  Written by Larry Doyle, directed by Joe Dante, and featuring appearances by Heather Locklear, Joan Cusack, Matthew Lillard, Jeff Gordon, Roger Corman, and Ron Perlman, please enjoy Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if you don't find a rabbit with lipstick amusin', you and I have nuttin' to say to each other.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

 

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

I almost submitted this album in 2025.  It was one of my favourites of the year.  But ultimately there are only so many weeks in the year.

I've been a fan of Jon Batiste for about ten years now.  Like most of his fans who are not from New Orleans--I am, after all, only from Orleans--I first heard of him as the leader of the band Stay Human, the house band on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."  Even watching him as the show went to, or came back from, its commercial breaks, he brought an infectious energy to his performances that is hard not to smile at.

I finally broke down and bought his 2021 album We Are.  While the album was not a barnstorming bestseller (like many of the albums in my collection), it strangely went on to win four Grammy Awards in 2022--Best American Roots Song and Best American Roots Performance for the song "Cry," Best Music Video for the song "Freedom," and the big one... Album of the Year.  Having won an Oscar with Nine Inch Nails for their score for the movie Soul, Batiste's career seemed to be going nowhere but up.  He felt it was time to move on.

He soon left Colbert and Stay Human (which has since been renamed The Late Show Band led by guitarist Louis Cato), married writer and motivational speaker Suleika Jaouad, and released three more albums, all of which exude that infectious energy that I so admire.  His latest is no exception.  It's upbeat, joyous, and makes me want to dance.  Personally, I think we need more energy like that in the world.  We need more Jon Batistes.  So I feel it's an obligation, even a duty, to share it with you here and now.  Featuring guest appearances by Andra Day, No ID, and the great Randy Newman (who made it worth the price of the album for me) along with a return apparance by Batiste's music curating alter ego Billy Bob Bo Bob, please enjoy BIG MONEY.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

 

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

As you (hopefully) already read, in my "Film of the Week" rant, I wrote about Catherine O'Hara and how much I enjoyed her work.  I highlighted perhaps my favourite film of hers, 2003's A Mighty Wind.  Given that the movie is essentially about music, one of the things that makes it work as well as it does is... well, the music.

And the main reason that the music works as well as it does in this film is that it was performed by the actors in the film.  Some of them even learned to play instruments specifically for the movie.  The songs themselves, although they sound like folk tunes from the late 1950s and early 1960s, were also mostly written by those same actors who would later perform them.  I was actually quite impressed with the end result and always enjoy seeing someone known for one thing (in this case acting) doing something else really well (in this case singing and writing songs).  Many of the cast members actually did a brief tour in the late summer of 2003, performing in character, recreating their reunion concert from the end of the movie.

Michael McKean and his wife Annette O'Toole even received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow," which was sung by Mitch and Mickey in the movie.  Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara performed the song in character at the 2004 Academy Awards ceremony which you can view here if you're so inclined.

This week, as a complement to the film and a tribute to the late, great Catherine O'Hara, please enjoy A Mighty Wind - The Album featuring songs from the movie.  In addition, Mitch and Mickey also sing "The Ballad of Bobby and June" and The Folksmen perform both "Blood on the Coal" and a cover of The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up"--none of which are featured in the film.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, which actually affected what I was going to highlight this week, I'm presenting my film "sermon" first.  In many ways, this is an extension of what I wrote on 13 September of last year--you can scroll through this blog to see what I wrote then if you're genuinely curious.  More on that connection in a bit.

We learned yesterday of the death of Catherine O'Hara at the age of 71.  I've been a fan since I first saw her as Winona Ryder's artistic/eccentric stepmother Delia in 1988's Beetlejuice.  She's one of a handful of actors who could appear in a bad movie, and I would still watch it, knowing it's bad, just to see her performance because I know that part of the film will still be great.

She first came to prominence as an original cast member of the Canadian sketch comedy series "SCTV" alongside such comic legends as John Candy, Dave Thomas, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty, and Eugene Levy.  After appearing in American films like After Hours and Heartburn, she endeared herself to audiences in this country, playing small and large parts in film and television ranging from Home Alone to "Six Feet Under."

On a personal note, what kind of mother gets away with forgetting her kid not once, but TWICE?  How did Child Protective Services not intervene?

As much as I've enjoyed watching her through the years, I was never more delighted than when she acted alongside her "SCTV" co-star Eugene Levy.  There was an on-screen chemistry between the two of them that was hard to ignore and was a joy to watch.  And I don't know why I've never made time to watch "Schitt's Creek," but I think I may have to make it a priority now.

O'Hara and Levy became part of a stock company of players who appeared in "mockumentary" films directed by Christopher Guest which he also co-wrote with Levy.  In these films, Guest and Levy would give a basic outline for the story and plot and then the actors would ad-lib all the dialogue.  I really love these movies.  Knowing that even the actors didn't know what they were going to say until they actually said it makes those movies even funnier and real to me than a standard, scripted comedy.  I always admire someone who can ad-lib well--it's not a skill I possess.  To me it adds an element of danger to the proceedings.  Everything can change in an instant based on what one character decides to say.  This week's film is perhaps my favourite of the bunch.

Irving Steinbloom has passed away at the age of 83.  In the early 1960s, he managed some of the biggest folk music acts of the day including The Folksmen, Mitch and Mickey, and The Main Street Singers.  His son Jonathon (played by Bob Balaban) has decided that the best way to honour his father is with a tribute concert at New York's famed Town Hall, to be broadcast live on public television, featuring a reunion for those big acts his father guided 40 years earlier.

Throughout the film we watch The Folksmen (Guest, Harry Shearer, and Michael McKean), Mitch and Mickey (Levy and O'Hara) and The New Main Street Singers (a "neuftet" that includes Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, Parker Posey, and "original member" Paul Dooley) as they reunite and rehearse for the upcoming show.  Through "on-camera interviews," we're treated to their back stories and find out what brought these musicians together in the first place and, in some cases, why they haven't performed together in many years.  The film is a wonderful tribute to the folk music of the early 1960s--equal parts laugh out loud funny and touching.  From 2003, this week, please enjoy A Mighty Wind, co-starring Jim Piddock, Fred Willard, Michael Hitchcock, Larry Miller, Jennifer Coolidge, and Ed Begley Jr.

(NOTE:  Eagle-eyed and dorky readers (and I mean that as a tremendous compliment) will have noticed that Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, and Michael McKean who play the Folksmen, also played the English heavy metal trio Spinal Tap in 1984's This Is Spinal Tap and last year's Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.  The Folksmen actually started out as a "Saturday Night Live" sketch during the show's tenth season when Guest and Shearer were cast members and McKean hosted.  When the three toured as Spinal Tap in the late 1990s and early 2000s, The Folksmen would frequently open for them.  Many audiences booed at the folk musicians, not realizing they were the same musicians who would be playing heavy metal later on.)

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill