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

For some time now, I've been drawn to films that tend to play with viewers' heads.  I affectionately refer to these films as "mind fucks."  They tend to stay with me sometimes for quite awhile after the initial viewing.  I seem to be enjoying these films more and more--maybe it's an age thing, I don't know.

This week's film is one of those.  I don't know how I missed it in theaters when it was originally released fifteen years ago.  It looked like one I would have enjoyed--I guess a part of me has always enjoyed these kinds of movies.  I recently saw a cheap, used copy on blu-ray and picked it up.  I like the cast, I like the director, I figured I would enjoy it.  Sadly, the disc wouldn't load properly in my player, but I was able to find it on a streaming service that I actually subscribe to.  (I was able to watch the bonus disc with extra features which were quite enjoyable.)

This film is such a mind fuck, I find it hard to describe.  The basic premise centers around planting an idea in someone's subconscious mind while they're dreaming.  When the person wakes up, they remember this idea and, thinking they dreamed it on their own, act acccordingly.  The part of the movie that really fascinates me is the idea of being able to enter someone else's subconscious and actually be a part of their dream.  As someone who finds dreams themselves to be equally fascinating I've often wondered if this phenomenon has ever occurred accidentally.  When someone shows up in my dream--especially if it's one in which I remember certain details and can't seem to forget it--I wonder if that person had the same dream, possibly at the same time.  If I go off somewhere else within the dream and maybe meet someone else, does the person I was dreaming about go off on their own subconscious journey that they'll also remember when they awake, but I'll never witness because I went off on my own path?  And where did the other person I'm meeting just come from?  Will they remember it when they wake up along with our meeting?  What if our dreams are interconnected with the dreams of everyone we know?

(At this point, I want it noted that I was stone cold sober when I wrote the above paragraph.)

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan (a man who sems to direct a lot of mind fucks), the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a thief who normally enters peoples' dreams in order to steal corporate secrets.  This time he's leading a team to plant an idea in someone's dream in order to clear up his sketchy past and get home to his children.  Also in the cast are Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Elliott (then Ellen) Page, Tom Hardy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, and Cillian Murphy (because, y'know... Christopher Nolan wrote and directed it).  From 2010, I'm recommending with much enthusiasm, Inception.  If you've never seen it, it is available on Netflix until the 28th of this month.

(Fun fact:  Gordon-Levitt, Cotillard, Hardy, Caine, and Murphy all went on to appear in Nolan's next film, The Dark Knight Rises--the third installment of Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy.  Watanabe also appeared in the first installment, Batman Begins.  Caine and Murphy, of course, appeared in all three films of the series.)

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!

If you know me at all, you know that I tend to have a somewhat morbid sense of humour.  I actually like to think that my humour is quite varied--I can appreciate low-brow humour, high-brow humour, smart jokes, dumb jokes, stupid jokes, dad jokes, puns, even just giving someone "rabbit ears" behind their back.  But I do have a fondness for satire and I pride myself on being able to laugh at things that "normal" or even "civilized" people wouldn't consider "funny."

I find satire and "dark humour" often go hand in hand.  It's actually a wonderful coping mechanism for dealing with hard times.  I've tended to gravitate toward it a lot over the last 25 years or so.  In an effort to stay informed about what's going on, I have to hear about all these horrible things that are going on in the world around me.  Finding the humour in it makes it bearable.  Admittedly, it's become something of a crutch probably since 9/11.  The last few months in particular have been kind of worrisome and I shudder to think what the next four years will bring.

This week's album comes from one of the greatest satirists of the twentieth century, Tom Lehrer.  What's funny to me is that Lehrer considers himself first and foremost an academic.  Though not a full-fledged professor, he has taught undergraduate math at many prestigious colleges and universities.  A Harvard grad himself, Lehrer wrote a handful of songs and recorded a couple of albums in the 1950s as a side hustle.  His primary passion is teaching--as such he hasn't recorded a full album in 60 years.  His last recording sessions (that I'm aware of) consisted of three songs in 1999 that were released on a boxed set of his work the following year.

I first became aware of Lehrer's work through Dr. Demento who put two of his songs--"Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" and "The Masochism Tango"--on his own anniversary collection.  Those songs became some of my favourites on that set.  I thought they were smartly written.  The darkness of the lyrics was offset by the upbeat tempo of the music which made the whole piece even funnier for me.  What still stands out to me are his amazing rhymes.  They are absolutely genius.  "It's not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon," "I've never quibbled if it was ribald," and my personal favourite, "Everybody say his own kyrie eleison" are just a few examples of his magnificent wordplay.  Rappers should study Lehrer's work.

I recently acquired that aforementioned 2000 boxed set, The Remains of Tom Lehrer, which includes all five of his albums in their entirety plus a whole bunch of bonus tracks, many of which had been previously unreleased.  What fascinated me in listening to some of those songs again was how satirical many of them really were.  Some songs such as "I Wanna Go Back To Dixie," "We Will All Go Together When We Go," and "So Long, Mom (A Song For World War III)" still seem relevant more than 60 years after he wrote them.  Because it's satire, I can't decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

He stepped away from recording and touring in the 1960s.  Over the decades he has recorded a handful of educational songs for children's television programs, but he stopped writing political satire, which he said "became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."  Lehrer retired from teaching at the University of California Santa Cruz in 2001, teaching his last math class on the subject of infinity.  As an example of how secondary his musical career is to him (something I actually quite admire), in 2020, Lehrer relinquished the rights to his songs and all of them are now in the public domain.  He will celebrate his 97th birthday this coming April.

This week's album was originally released in 1965 and was included on the third disc of that boxed set.  I was immediately taken by the opening track, "National Brotherhood Week."  Again, I was surprised how much the song still resonates in 2025.  It was recorded live at the hungry i in San Francisco in July of that year.  I appreciated the fact that the audience seemed to be as enamoured of his music as I am.  It's nice to know that there are people out there whose senses of humour are as warped as mine.  Please enjoy That Was The Year That Was.

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

 

 

You're the One... I'm the One... We're the Ones... (I Don't Know Why, Revisited)

Three years ago, I posted on this here very blog an essay in which I detailed my feelings toward you.  In it, I wrote that I didn't expect you to ever read it, and I would be willing to bet good money that, as I write this, you haven't.  You probably won't read this either, but I still feel a necessity to write it out for my own benefit.

My reasons for writing that was my attempt at preventing World War III (you can read the post itself for a more in-depth explanation).  Since I wrote it, while we haven't experienced a World War--at least not yet--I haven't noticed our situation get any better.  The Russian invasion of Ukraine occurred just as we knew it would.  And while this hasn't brought about the end of the world as we know it, the move toward autocracy in many nations, including our own, does not make me feel any safer.

As I said in the earlier post, I doubt the actions I take in my personal life have any bearing on world events or international politics.  But, assuming I did prevent World War III in 1987 (again, you can read that post for a more in-depth explanation), I suppose it would be immoral of me not to try again.  Maybe there were things I could have said three years ago that didn't occur to me in the moment and that's why things seem to have gone from bad to worse-but-not-quite-Armageddon.  As I said, highly unlikely, but what could it hurt to take another chance?

During the time since I wrote that post, I've reflected on it a lot... probably more than I should, which is troublesome.  Aside from preventing a global calamity, the whole point of writing it was to get a lot of things out of my system, off of my mind, put them behind me, and maybe move on with my life.  It's worked with other posts.  Perhaps my feelings toward you were a bit more stubborn and harder to exorcise than my feelings toward the music of Florence + The Machine or the 2016 World Series and how it related to the loss of my father the same year.

In re-reading what I wrote, I realized that I never really acknowledged any wrongdoing on my part.  You hurt me, and I was still feeling it twenty years after the fact.  And even though I was acting in self-defense, I should recognize the fact that I likely hurt you too and I didn't think to mention that in my post three years ago.

"There are three sides to every story:  Your side, my side, and the truth.  And no one is lying.  Memories shared serve each differently."

--Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture, 1994

I am truly sorry for hurting you.  I never intentionally meant to cause you pain.  Ultimately, I just wanted you to be happy.  The problem is that I wanted to be happy too, and I was happiest when I was with you.  I tried to be the bigger person/gracious loser, maybe even convince myself that you were better off with anyone but me.  I couldn't do that and I apologize profusely.  Frankly, I expected better of myself.

Perhaps my biggest regret--and I alluded to this earlier--is falling in love, which is not something one is supposed to regret.  Yet I do, profoundly.  And, again, I don't know if I regret falling in love in general or if I regret falling in love with you, but since you're the only person with whom I've truly been in love, I can't really differentiate between the two.

"It's a sin when you love somebody,

Damned if you don't, twice damned if you do."

--Jimmy Webb, "It's a Sin When You Love Somebody," 1974

I never wanted to fall in love with you--let alone multiple times over the course of our lives.  In fact, the last time around, I begged, pleaded, and prayed to any deity that would listen to not let me do that again.  Since that clearly didn't work, I can only assume that I committed some kind of unforgivably egregious sin by falling in love with my best friend.  Why do I still feel like I'm perpetually atoning for that sin, given the fact that we haven't seen or spoken to each other in over fifteen years?

My big fear is that all of this is some kind of karmic retribution for something I did in a previous life, assuming such a thing is possible.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of karmic retribution--even for myself--but, since I have no recollection of what I might have done in that previous life, I'm left to wonder why.  (Maybe I fell in love with my best friend in that life as well and clearly I still haven't learned that lesson.)  If I'm just atoning for falling in love with you in this life, I'm perfectly fine with that since I remember doing it.

"You've got to hold on tightly, let go lightly.

It's only surrender, it's all in the game

If you just hold on tightly, let go lightly,

There's always forgiveness and no one to blame."

--John Denver, "Hold On Tightly," 1983

Not that any of this matters in the here and now.  I still think about you every day and wonder what I could have said and/or done differently and/or better.  I wonder why, after all this time, I still haven't been able to find anyone who makes me feel half of what you did.  I wonder why I was so unworthy and what all of those other (wrong) guys had that I didn't.  It's a weight and a burden that I've never been able to figure out how to unload, even in writing.

Presuming that falling in love with my best friend is, in fact, a sin, how do I atone for that?  Whose forgiveness should I seek?  Yours?  God's or whatever unseen "higher power" is supposed to be in charge of it all?  How much of my own dignity do I have to sacrifice in order to make up for such a horrible crime?  I've already admitted wrongdoing, so much so that I may have even convinced myself that you were justified in dragging my name and reputation through the mud by lying about me to my own family members.

Maybe my real problem is that I can't seem to forgive myself for falling in love with someone who would do something like that, justified or not.  Forgiving you was easy by comparison.

 

In spite of it all, what I told you is still true:  you will never find anyone who will know you better, take better care of you, or love you more than I will.  And that is your loss.  And I know you don't believe that.  But you should also remember that I would never lie to you.   Even if I wanted to, it's not something I'm capable of doing.

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

It's my weekend off and it's a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  It's gloomy and there's a dusting of snow in the forecast.  In short, it's a perfect day to sit inside and fire up the ol' blu-ray player.

I like to think I'm very good at pairing the right film with the right time of day or week or meteorological conditions because I'm a dork.  I've always said that westerns and war epics are usually best appreciated on a Sunday morning or early Sunday afternoon.  Saturdays (especially gloomy ones with precipitation) I find are best paired with romantic movies--"romcoms," "chick flicks" or whatever rhyming slang you wnnt to give them.  For some reason, I'm a sucker for them--even bad ones.  Now before anyone accuses me of just "lying around" while watching these movies, I should point out that I'm usually doing other things while watching them, usually light housework or some personal project that I might be working on.  It's also the time that I tend to dedicate to writing these weekly missives.  Sometimes, I get so wrapped up in what I'm doing that the movie is really just pleasant background noise.

While pondering which movies to watch today, and sighing over the fact that I could only fit so many movies into a day (my record is eleven), I pulled this week's film off the shelf.  It's one I had been meaning to watch again.  It is perfect for a gray Saturday afternoon.  When I first saw it 25 years ago, I just thought it was a good date movie to see with my then-girlfriend.  But there are so many things I like about the film that go beyond that, not the least of which is that it co-stars Minnie Driver, on whom I have a bit of a crush, so the movie immediately had that going for it.

I was also curious to see David Duchovny in something that didn't seem too heavy.  At that point, aside from a couple of very small roles in films like Chaplin and Working Girl, like most Americans, I primarily knew him from the television series "The X-Files."  The only other thing of his I had seen was a film that my girlfriend and I rented once called Playing God.  It was so bad, we couldn't finish watching it.  This week's film, in contrast, was the first thing I ever saw him in that didn't remind me of Agent Mulder.  To this day, it's still one of my favourite performances of his, primarily for that reason.  More on this in future "sermons."

This film also validates a theory I have regarding romantic comedies--it's frequently not the leading actors that make the film work.  I mean, sure, they are the main focus of the movie, but let's be honest.  We all know that 99% of the time, the two leads end up together, it's just a matter of how, and the fun is watching the mishaps they go through along the way.  What really makes a romantic comedy work, in my opinion--aside from good writing and chemistry between the actors, obviously--is the supporting cast.  The friends and relatives of the lead characters are the real gems in these kinds of movies and often my favourite characters in those films.  And this week's film has an amazing supporting cast including David Alan Grier, Bonnie Hunt, Jim Belushi, Robert Loggia, Carrol O'Connor, Eddie Jones, Marianne Muellerleile, William Bronder, and Joely Richardson.

In the film, Duchovny plays Bob an architect who has spent the last couple of years grieving after the death of his wife (Richardson).  Driver plays Grace, a recent heart transplant recipient who lives with her grandfather (O'Connor) who runs an Irish/Italian restaurant with his brother-in-law (Loggia).  The two are thrown together through a series of poorly thought out blind dates that their friends and family try to set them up on.  To put it succinctly, the two end up discovering something about themselves that could put everything in jeopardy.  BONUS:  It takes place in (and was filmed in) my favourite city in the world, Chicago, Illinois (with some brief moments toward the end of the picture in Rome, Italy, which does make for some nice eye candy).

Bonnie Hunt not only co-stars in the film as Grace's best friend Megan, but she also directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay with Don Lake (who also has a cameo appearance as one of Grace's potential set-ups).  Hunt and Lake wrote the screenplay based on a story they co-wrote with Andrew Stern and Samantha Goodman (just to give credit where credit is due).  This film also marks the final works of Carroll O'Connor (best known as TV's Archie Bunker) and Dick Cusack (father of John and Joan).

This week, in honour of gloomy Saturdays, I recommend Return To Me.

I'll be taking next week off from writing these.  Until I return, 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!

Today, folks, it's a gloomy winter Saturday with just a bit of snow in the forecast, and I have the weekend off (more on this in my Film of the Week "sermon").

My mood kind of matches the weather.  I've had a lot on my mind... well, I'd say "lately," but the truth is I can't remember the last time I didn't have a lot on my mind.  I suppose it acts like an engine for me.  It frequently inspires me to write.  But the cold weather is screwing with my joints (especially when it can't make up its mind about whether or not to be cold in the first place), Monday would have been my father's 76th birthday, Friday is Valentine's Day (a loathesome excuse to buy candy and greeting cards if ever there was one), and... well, we've seen what's been going on in Washington the last few weeks--I won't dwell on that any further.

These things in combination with each other tend to make me moody, cranky, and not too much fun to be around.  On days like today, especially after a long two weeks of work, I tend to withdraw from the "real world" and retreat into my own little world--from where I bring you this report.  Here there's no pressure to conform to everyone else's standards and I can truly be myself.  Here if anyone judges my behaviour or my attitude, I can afford not to give one good fuck about it, because I'm in my world and judgement ain't welcome here.  When I'm here, I know that there will be plenty of movies, plenty of music, quite a fair share of indolence, quite a bit of alcohol, and enough writing to give me carpal tunnel syndrome.

When I'm in one of these funky moods, especially if I can't fully escape reality in the moment, I can always find the right music to at least provide me a little solace.  This week's album is one of those that's good for moods like mine.  Listening to it tends to make me feel like I'm in my own little world, even when I know I'm not.  Please enjoy the incomparable Van Morrison with his 1995 album Days Like This.

I'm taking next week off from writing these.  Until I return, 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 Film of the Week!

I've always felt this week's film is underappreciated at best. I recently found a copy of it on DVD (for some reason, I had never upgraded my old VHS copy) and watched it again for the first time in many years and now I can't get it out of my head. In hindsight, I find it kind of sad that it wasn't a bigger hit when it was released in 1992. In fact, the film was such a commercial failure that Billy Crystal (the film's star, co-writer, and director) made City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold to make up for it.

In the film, Crystal plays Buddy Young Jr. (a character he had developed over time on various TV specials as well as "Saturday Night Live"), a comic whose heyday was during the "Golden Age of Television" in the 1950s. Now in his 70s, he never quite reached the level of success he feels he should have, the jobs aren't coming to him like they used to, the face of comedy has changed drastically over his life, and he's struggling to find his place in it. As he frequently points out in the film, he has no winter. I would personally describe him as an analogue soul in an increasingly digital universe.

The film flashes back and forth between the present day (with the three principal characters made up to look old) and the 1950s where we see Buddy in his prime, working in the Catskills, and later on his own variety show. As we watch his life unfold, we come to root for him... even though, he's not really that nice of a guy. And (from this viewer's perspective) I get the impression that he's not necessarily trying to be a jerk. In fact, I'm unsure if he even realizes he is one. But he does have a bit of a temper and an overdeveloped sense of sarcasm that tend to combine when things don't go his way, often with disastrous results. You want to love the guy, but you also kind of want to hate him.

With the exception of his wife Elaine (played by Julie Warner), Buddy treats even his close relatives rather poorly, whether he realizes it or not. His main punching bag is his manager, brother, and one-time partner Stan (played by David Paymer, whose body of work I feel is as underappreciated as this film). Near the beginning of the film, after decades of abuse at the hands of his brother, Stan decides to retire to Florida, leaving Buddy to fend for himself, really for the first time in his life. Their relationship is really the centerpiece of the whole movie and we have the pleasure of seeing a great deal of it through Stan's eyes. In fact, Paymer's performance received a much-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor (too bad he was up against Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and Gene Hackman).

As I said above, the film was a commercial flop when it was released theatrically in 1992. And yet somehow, it's managed to have a second life. Just in time for its 30th anniversary, the film was adapted into a Broadway musical. Crystal and Paymer reprised their roles as Buddy and Stan. Given the fact that the actors had aged 30 years since the movie was made, there was apparently less old age makeup for the contemporary scenes.  In spite of the poor performance of the source material, the musical received five Tony Award nominations including Best Musical.  Crystal also got a nomination for Best Actor in a musical.

In spite of those later accolades--or maybe because of them--I felt that this week's film deserves another look.  As I wrote above, Crystal not only acted in the film, he also directed it and wrote the screenplay with legendary comedy writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (the three also wrote the book for the musical, getting a Tony nomination for that as well).  Featuring Helen Hunt, Ron Silver, Jerry Orbach, and Mary Mara, this week, I recommend Mr. Saturday Night.  I also recommend you have a box of tissue on hand while watching it.

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!

As a former music seller and current music snob, I always hated it when people would come in after an artist died and proceed to clean us out of their stock.  My immediate question is why didn't they appreciate that artist more when they were alive?  This was a big issue with both George Harrison and Michael Jackson.  The sad thing is that, since I no longer sell music for a living, I find myself guilty of doing the same thing.  When Prince died in 2016, I immediately bought two of his albums (and a third some time later), although, in my defense, I was not as familiar with his music as I felt I should be.  This week, I find myself in that same position.  I found out yesterday morning about the death of singer/actress Marianne Faithfull.  Like Prince, I'm not too familiar with her music.  And I feel I should be.  I have a couple of recordings where she made guest appearances for certain artists, most notably The Chieftains, but I don't have a full album--or even a compilation album--of her music.  I'm sure I'll be changing that in the near future.

I was primarily familiar with Faithfull because she was Mick Jagger's girlfriend in the late 1960s.  But when I read her obituary in The New York Times, I discovered a lot of fascinating things about her.  Her mother was a Viennese baroness and former ballerina.  Her father was a British spy in World War II who "invented a device meant to liberate female sexuality, which he named the 'Frigidity Machine.'"  I mean... who knew, right?  After her parents' divorce when she was six, she lived with her mother in Reading and attended a Roman Catholic convent school.

In 1964, at the age of 17, The Rolling Stones' manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, approached her at a party and asked if she could sing.  Within the next week, she recorded her first song, "As Tears Go By," which is considered to be the first song co-written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (Oldham is also credited on this song as a co-writer).  The song became a Top 10 hit in the U.K. and hit the Top 25 here in the U.S.

At age 19, she married gallery owner John Dunbar.  Shortly after giving birth to their son, she left Dunbar and started dating Jagger.  She became almost as notorious as the guys in the band, particularly during a drug bust at Keith Richards's house in 1967.  While trying to have a child with Jagger in 1968 she suffered a miscarriage.  A year later she tried to commit suicide by overdosing on pills.  She woke up from a coma six days later and apparently uttered, "Wild horses couldn't drag me away," which later became the chorus of one of the Stones' most enduring songs.

After splitting from Jagger in 1970, she spent two years on the streets of London, eventually becoming a heroin addict.  While this took a toll on her voice, lowering it considerably and causing it to occasionally crack, it allowed her to sing with a certain amount of gravitas that wasn't there when she was 19.  She finally got clean in 1985 and became something of a cabaret singer, singing show tunes and blues songs.  By the early 2000s, she was collaborating with artists who had admired her for years including Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Beck, and PJ Harvey.  She even recorded two more renditions of "As Tears Go By."

For all of the critical acclaim she received later in life, she considered this week's album to be her masterpiece.  After the initial recording of the album, producer Mark Miller Mundy felt it should be more "modern and electronic," bringing in Steve Winwood on keyboards and giving the album a distinctly new wave sound.  Released in late 1979, it became her first album to chart in the U.S. since 1965 and garnered her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Performance.  Today it's listed among the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.  Featuring songs she co-wrote, along with covers of songs by the likes of John Lennon and Shel Silverstein, this week please enjoy Broken English.

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