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

Because I'm taking the next two weeks off from writing these, I thought I'd give you all a bonus film "sermon" this week.  This film is so incredibly wrong on so many levels--to be fair, it is a dark comedy, so it's kind of supposed to be.  It's raunchy and heavily R-rated, but I think it taps into our desire for payback for slights committed against us during our youths, real or merely perceived.  It seemed especially fitting this particular week to revisit this particular movie.

This week, as you've no doubt heard, Faizan Zaki won the Scripps National Spelling Bee (he was the runner-up in last year's Bee).  His winning word was éclaircissement, a fancy word that most of us--myself included--had never heard of that simply means, according to The New York Times, "a clearing up of something obscure."

(FUN FACT:  100 years ago, 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser of Louisville, Kentucky, was crowned the first National Spelling Bee winner.  His winning word was "gladiolus."  Clearly, the words have gotten harder over the last century.)

When I was in junior high school, my goal was to compete in the National Spelling Bee.  After some rather disappointing turns in the sixth and seventh grades, I finally came in first in my school in the eighth grade.  One afternoon, my principal drove me to the school in our county seat to compete against the winners from the other schools in Orange County, Indiana.  Whoever won that competition would go on to the regional competition.

I ended up pulling what I call a "Reverse Dan Quayle."  Many of you may be old enough to remember when, as Vice President of the United States, Quayle visited a classroom in Trenton, New Jersey, and observed an elementary school spelling bee in 1992.  When William Figueroa correctly wrote the word "potato" on the blackboard, V.P. Quayle gently "corrected" him by picking up the chalk and adding an "e" to the end of it.  Sadly, for Quayle, he was still trying to live down the infamous "Murphy Brown" incident (you can look that one up) and this latest gaffe certainly didn't help.

Similarly, in my situation, I was given the word "potatoes," and I spelled it without the "e," which I could have sworn was an acceptable variation in my spelling text book the year before.  However, the Spelling Bee officials didn't agree and I had to hear the dreaded bell of elimination.  Actually, now that I think about it, I committed my error in 1988.  Therefore, I didn't pull a "Reverse Dan Quayle."  He pulled a "Reverse William Allen."  I suppose either way, there's a joke in there about the Indiana public school system, but I'm not going to make it.

Anyway, when I returned to seventh period Study Hall and my fellow students heard that I had lost, I was given a lot of grief for losing to a girl (it was the 1980s when that kind of behaviour was still mildly acceptable).  The truth is, I wasn't upset about losing to a girl at all.  Aside from the fact that my seventh grade spelling text book had apparently lied to me, what really pissed me off was the fact that I lost to a fifth grader.  It was my understanding that fifth graders weren't allowed to compete.  At least in my school it was only open to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.  I was denied another year of competition for no apparent reason, certainly not a good one, as far as I could tell.  As you may have guessed, I never made it to the national level.  Eh... life goes on.

It's with that bit of personal history and this week's momentous events in our nation's capital that I recommend this week's bonus movie.

In this film, Jason Bateman stars as Guy Trilby, a 40-year-old proofreader who has discovered a loophole in the rules that would allow him to compete in the Quill National Spelling Bee in Los Angeles.  While he comes across as... well, frankly an asshole, especially to his juvenile competitors, he does have his reasons for sabotaging the Bee which, coincidentally, is being nationally televised for the first time.  Even though he goes out of his way to win at all costs, his real target for public humiliation are the adults running the show.  In spite of the fact that this movie is, to quote my late father, "crude, rude, lewd, and socially unacceptable," it does have some rather sweet moments, particularly at the end.

Written by Andrew Dodge, and directed by Bateman (his first theatrical feature as director), the movie debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of 2013 and was released in America the following March, a week after being shown at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas.  Co-starring Kathryn Hahn, Allison Janney, Ben Falcone, Rohan Chand, and the great Philip Baker Hall, please enjoy Bad Words.

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!

"Ooh, there's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning."

--Jimmy Buffett, "Fruitcakes," 1994

As I said in my album "sermon,"  I went to see this week's movie.  While most people probably went because it looked like a good, suspenseful horror film (and admittedly, I did partly go for that), I went because I enjoy twentieth century period pieces.  I like seeing contemporary actors in period clothes, driving period cars, and looking like they would have looked 90 years ago, or whatever period the film is set in.  Having seen the trailer, I also figured I would be treated to some badass blues music.  I was more than happy not to be wrong about that.

"There are legends of people with the gift of making music so true it can conjure spirits from the past... and the future.  This gift can bring fame and fortune.  But it also can pierce the veil between life and death."

--Wunmi Mosaku as Annie in Sinners, 2025

Set in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1932, Michael B. Jordan plays twins Smoke and Stack (named after Howlin' Wolf's classic song "Smokestack Lightnin'") who have returned to their hometown after spending several years in Chicago to open their own juke joint... in the Jim Crow south... during Prohibition.  In the process, all hell breaks loose.

As I said, it's a horror film and I won't spoil anything on that front in case you haven't seen it.  But I was not prepared to be as moved as I was from a spiritual/musical perspective.  I've loved blues music (as well as Irish folk music) since I was a teenager, but this movie reminded me why film and music are the closest things I get to religion.  I was so moved, it's been a struggle to find the right words to describe just how moved I was. I can't even begin to write more about it other than to say go see it--preferably in a theater.

Co-starring Miles Caton (in his film debut), Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, Li Jun Li, Yao, Hailee Steinfeld, and Delroy Lindo and written and directed by Ryan Coogler, this week I can't help but recommend Sinners.

I'll be taking the next two weeks 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!

I saw a wonderful movie this past week.  I'll get to that in my film rant.  But one aspect of the movie--and probably not the one that drove it to the top of the box office charts some weeks back--kind of grabbed me even more tightly than it usually does and hasn't loosened up yet.  Truth be told, it grabbed me about 35 years ago and never really let go.  Sometimes, like now, the grip tightens, sometimes it loosens, but it's always there.  Consequently I'm going to pontificate and philosophize about it.  I may even rhapsodize and some may think I'm bloviating.  And I know I've talked about it in past "sermons," but it never hurts to come back to it.

I think it's kind of sad that you don't see a lot of blues music topping the charts these days.  You don't hear it on the radio too much outside of the occasional NPR program or on an independent station.  I realize this is true of most styles of music that don't fit neatly into the "pop," "rock," or "country" genres.  But blues music is special.  Without it, we wouldn't have soul music or R&B (what did you think the "B" stands for, after all?), we wouldn't have rap or hip hop, and we certainly wouldn't have rock and roll.  And I'll be the first person to acknowledge that public tastes change over time, music evolves, new artists come along with their own styles, older artists retire or die (sadly), but we often tend to forget our roots... musically and otherwise.

I discovered the blues in high school.  After geeking out over The Rolling Stones when I was twelve, I started doing geeky things like reading liner notes and finding out what influenced them.  This introduced me to the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.  Throughout high school and college I found myself falling in love with the music of B.B. King, John Lee Hooker (especially John Lee), and anyone who recorded an album for Chicago based Alligator Records.

Like other genres of music, blues has different styles within it--mostly regional.  There's Mississippi Delta blues, which is much more rural and acoustic.  Many people consider that to be more authentic blues since that's essentially where it all started.  During the Great Migration, a lot of artists traveled north and started playing in clubs and juke joints in places like Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit--even Memphis,  although it was in the south--and the sound evolved.  The musicians even started using electric instruments.  (I heard somewhere once that much of what we consider "Chicago blues" is actually "St. Louis blues."  Apparently St. Louis blues musicians would travel to Chicago to make their records because Chicago had better recording studios.  Again, I heard this once when I was in college on a radio program, but I've never heard or read about this anywhere else, so take it with a grain of salt.)

I picked up this week's album shortly after it was released.  I think--and this memory is kind of hazy--I was browsing the music section at Borders (remember Borders?) and I think I saw it on a featured display.  In hindsight, as a blues lover, I'm kind of surprised I wasn't as familar with the artist as I should have been.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I bought it for his backing band more than anything else as I was a huge fan of them.  At any rate, when I played it, I was kind of blown away by it.  It's one of those "transportative" albums (once again, my word, trademark pending).  When I hear it, I find myself on the streets of Bloomington, Indiana, and I feel 22 years old again.  Recorded live at his Chicago club, Buddy Guy's Legends, please enjoy the man himself, Buddy Guy, with G.E. Smith & The Saturday Night Live Band with his/their 1996 release, Live! The Real Deal.

Due to family commitments, I'll be taking the next two weeks off from writing these "sermons."  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!

Sometimes I spend a lot of time contemplating which albums and films I want to submit for these weekly "sermons."  I haven't even finished writing the rants for this week yet and I'm already plotting next week.  Even when the idea comes to me quickly (I actually knew last week what album I wanted to share with you all this week), it's usually a very time-consuming process to figure out what I want to say about it and how exactly to do so.  This is one of those rare occasions where my film choice was actually influenced by my album selection.  And it's not that the two are related in any way, shape, or form.  But my memories of the two are interconnected.

In my album "sermon," I mentioned a woman that I'm calling Marie.  She was the assistant manager at Barnes & Noble in the Cleveland suburb of Richmond Heights where I had recently been hired as the manager of the music department.  We bonded over a mutual love of... many things, actually, and became good friends.  Since I lived somewhat near the store and didn't have a car at the time, she even offered to pick me up for our Monday morning managers meetings so I wouldn't have to walk--particularly during what can be brutal Cleveland winters.  As I stated, I developed something of a crush on her which, believe it or not, is a fairly unusual occurrence for me.  I'm one of those odd people for whom finding someone attractive and being attracted to someone are two completely different situations.  I can honestly say that if I really sat down and thought about it, I can count the number of women I've been attracted to in my life on one hand.  (For the purposes of this rant, I won't even discuss the idea of "falling in love," which is an entirely different can of worms.)

I know you're all (however few of you are actually reading this) now wondering, what ever happened with Marie?  Honestly, nothing.  I never told her that I had a crush on her.  I have a hunch that she was smart enough to figure it out on her own, but I probably should have said something.  No matter how foolish that sounds in hindsight, I did have my reasons in the moment--most notably the fact that she was technically my supervisor and the company kind of frowned on romantic relationships in those situations.  I've often reassured myself that if either one of us worked elsewhere and/or I hadn't made plans to eventually move back to Indiana, I would have asked her out.  At least that's what I like to tell myself so that I feel less like a loser, but who knows if that's actually true?  In spite of how sad that might sound, I don't regret anything.  I have a lot of fond memories that make me smile when I think of her, and even though U2's music has been making me think of her even more over the last few weeks than I normally do, I don't think I would have done anything differently, for better or worse.

One of the things we bonded over was John Cusack movies.  A week or two before I moved back to southern Indiana, I did ask her if she wanted to go see his latest film with me, which she seemed happy to do.  I've often said it was the closest thing I had to a date in the entire year I lived in the 440 area code.  I know I had a good time and I hope she did as well.  I particularly enjoyed the fact that she laughed--out loud--at some of the dirtier jokes in the movie, which, like her love of U2, I found rather endearing.  She did have a great laugh (I assume she still does).  Looking back on it now, it's not a great movie.  It's not bad--I might even call it pretty good.  But, like so many pieces of music, the unrelated sentimental feelings that it evokes make up for any deficiencies in the film itself.  And every time I find myself watching this film, I think of that Friday summer afternoon with Marie and smile.

In the movie, Eddie Harris (Cusack) is an actor who's had a nervous breakdown after his breakup with frequent co-star Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who has since taken up with another actor named Hector (Hank Azaria speaking with a humourously bad Thpanish acthent).  Before they broke up, they did complete one final movie.  The studio is desperate for a hit and studio publicist extraordinaire Lee Phillips (Billy Crystal), with a tremendous amount of help from Gwen's sister Kiki (Julia Roberts), has to convince both of them to show up for the press junket.  Ultimately you come away from it liking the characters you're supposed to like and not liking the characters you're not supposed to like.  I tend to look at it as an indictment of Hollywood phoniness.  Gwen is incredibly vapid and self-centered (as is Hector come to think of it).  Kiki tries hard not to be, but has taken on the role of her sister's personal assistant, so she frequently finds herself having to fake a lot of things.  The person I liked the most, however, was the character of Lee.  As a publicist, he knows his job is completely phony.  He's a salesman.  His job is to sell people on this upcoming movie.  It's because of that knowledge, that he can play that phoniness with a certain level of depth, which makes him much more likeable.  As an actor, I would imagine that would be a difficult part to play, but Crystal did it beautifully.

Co-written by Crystal with Peter Tolan and directed by Joe Roth, the film co-stars Stanley Tucci, Alan Arkin, Seth Green, and Christopher Walken as the eccentric director of Eddie's and Gwen's as yet unreleased movie (this was the film where I learned that Walken can tap dance.  #WhoKnew?)  If you look carefully, you can even see Rainn Wilson in an early pre-"Office" role as well as small appearances by frequent Cusack collaborator Steve Pink as well as Cusack's sister Ann in an uncredited role (I assume Joan wasn't available for this one).  From 2001, please enjoy America's Sweethearts.

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!

An interesting phenomenon occurred a couple of weeks ago that I'm still trying to wrap my brain around.  I found myself recalling fond memories that were sparked by an album I had never actually heard, let alone listened to.  Allow me to explain...

As I said last week, I constructed my own soundtrack for the first season of "NCIS: Origins."  The bulk of the songs used in the series (so far) were songs I already had in my CD collection.  There were a few songs that I didn't own--there were a few I didn't even know.  And while the playlist is still technically incomplete (the most egregious absence is Bryan Adams's love theme from the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves), I wanted enough music to fill a CD.  This required buying two more CDs on my part, one of which I actually had on vinyl and the other I should have already had, the latter of which is the beginning of the eventual focus of this week's "sermon."

The season finale of "NCIS: Origins" featured a song that sounded vaguely familiar to me--that is to say the singer's voice sounded familiar although I did not recognize the tune.  I Googled the lyrics whilst watching the program to discover the song was by U2 and titled "All I Want Is You."  It was the closing track to their 1988 album Rattle and Hum, which is an odd album in that roughly a third of the songs are live performances from the tour behind their landmark album The Joshua Tree.

U2 is one of those bands that I've only come to appreciate as an adult.  I first heard The Joshua Tree in the winter of 2001 on a car ride from Cleveland to southern Indiana and thought it was excellent.  In the intervening 24 years, I've bought a few albums here and there and have grown to really like them.  Even if I didn't like their music, I deeply admire Bono for his charity work and his sometimes annoyingly self-righteous insistence on making the world a better place.  (In fact, one of my favourite internet memes--and I hope and pray that this actually happened and wasn't just made up for the internet--says that during a concert in Edinburgh, Bono quieted the crowd and began slowly clapping his hands every few seconds.  He said, "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."  From near the front row, a voice in a thick, Scottish accent bellowed, "Then fuckin' stop doin' it, you evil bastard!")  Since I'm a fan of the group and owned a few of their albums, I felt compelled to order Rattle and Hum, figuring that I should have already had it in the first place.  This allowed me to "complete" my soundtrack, which delighted me no end (the only other time I successfully did this was for the 1978 film Coming Home).  I thoroughly enjoyed the album and have listened to it a few times now and "All I Want Is You," has been haunting me--I've awakened most mornings this past week to have it stuck in my head.  It's a beautiful song, but even beautiful songs can wear thin after four consecutive days.  I think I've finally been able to exorcise it from my subconscious, but as Arlo Guthrie once said, "That's not what I came to tell ya' about."

Henrietta (played by Anna Chancellor):  You were even sweet to me, although you thought I was an idiot.

Charles (played by Hugh Grant):  I did not.

Henrietta:  You did!  I thought U2 was a type of submarine.

Charles:  Well in a way you were right.  They're music has a very naval quality.

--from the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, 1994

While in the process of ordering Rattle and Hum, an offer appeared from the online seller to buy another U2 album for an extra two bucks.  When I saw the album in question, I figured I may as well add it to my cart.  It was not one I had ever heard before, but when I saw the cover art, I immediately thought of my time in Cleveland.  When I worked for Barnes & Noble in Richmond Heights, I became quite good friends with the assistant manager.  I won't lie--I even had a bit of a crush on her.  Not that she's likely to read this, but to protect her identity just in case, let's call her Marie.  Anyway, Marie was a huge U2 fan and was super excited when this album was released in October of 2000.  I have a vague recollection of her buying it as soon as we opened the store that morning.  Since I wasn't really a U2 fan at that time, ordinarily I wouldn't have given it much thought but, as I said, I did have a bit of a crush on her, so I paid it--and her--a little more attention.  Ordinarily, I would say that she didn't seem to be able to shut up about it but, as I said, I did have a bit of a crush on her, so I found this trait more endearing than annoying.  Besides, I can't really judge, given the fact that I have similar reactions to new albums by The Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and Florence + The Machine.  (Did I mention I had a bit of a crush on her?)

It was in remembrance of Marie that I spent the extra two dollars on my order--it didn't even change my shipping charge.  I quite enjoyed the album.  One or two songs really kind of hit me on a gut level.  "Kite," in particular, is one of those songs that wound up meaning something to me that I'm sure was quite different from what Bono and The Edge intended when they wrote those lyrics.  The fact that I can't even begin to describe coherently what it means to me and that it might mean something completely different to someone else--and who even knows what it means to Marie?--is a sign of great songwriting.

So this week, in honour of schoolboy crushes from long ago and new musical discoveries that should have been unearthed way back when, please enjoy U2 with their release from (GASP) 25 years ago, All That You Can't Leave Behind.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please, as always, 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 a Bonus Album of the Week! (One From the Vault!)

I posted this originally on Facebook (back in the day before I posted all of these here) on 30 September, 2023.  Given the topic of the Album of the Week I just posted for 17 May, 2025, I thought it seemed apropos to revisit this one.  (By the way, I'm still looking for that second volume of the "Rockford" TV movies.)  Enjoy...

 

 

One of my "guilty pleasures," for lack of a better term (although, to be honest with you, I don't feel too guilty about it), are police procedural/mystery television programs. I have no doubt that this is my mother's influence on me. When I was a kid we used to watch shows like "Remington Steele" and "Murder, She Wrote" together. As an adult, it was "Grantchester" and "Blue Bloods." After she died, I bought the boxed sets of the original "Magnum, P.I." and "The Rockford Files"--two of her favourites--and have spent a number of evenings binge watching multiple episodes. They're highly enjoyable--what I call "TV comfort food." And you know what? I'm even comfortable enough in my heterosexuality to admit that I have a bit of a man crush on James Garner.

(NOTE: Between 1994 and 1999, James Garner reprised the role of Jim Rockford in eight made-for-TV movies. If anyone knows where I can find a DVD of the second volume of those programs, please let me know. I have Volume 1, but I'm having no luck finding Volume 2. Every website I check seems to be out of stock. Or if anyone has a copy lying around that they don't want anymore, I'm happy to take it off your hands.)

 

One of our favourites was (and, in my case, still is) the long-running CBS drama "NCIS." I was kind of saddened to learn of the death this past week of actor David McCallum who played my favourite character on the show, Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard, NCIS's lovably eccentric medical examiner. Whenever the actors' strike is finally resolved and the show can commence its 21st season, there will be a noticeable absence that even Dr. Jimmy Palmer himself would admit that he can't fill. (In researching this week's rant, I was surprised to discover McCallum actually attended medical examiner's conventions and became an expert in forensics to the point where show producer Donald P. Bellisario considered making him a technical adviser.)

 

In all the tributes and media stories about him over the last week, everyone has talked about his acting career going back to British television in the 1950s. After some notable performances in a few big films, particularly 1963's "The Great Escape" (which, oddly enough, also starred James Garner) and 1964's "The Greatest Story Every Told," in which he played Judas Iscariot, he was cast as Russian agent Illya Kuryakin who was partnered with American agent Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughan) in the series "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." which ran from 1964 to 1968. The show made him something of a sex symbol and garnered him two of the three Emmy nominations he would achieve in his career. In the 35 years between "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." and "NCIS" (and what are the odds that his two biggest roles would have abbreviated government agencies in their titles?), he had a fairly solid acting career, but never achieved the level of fame that he got either in the 1960s or in the last two decades. Perhaps his biggest role during that time was a British sci-fi series called "Sapphire & Steel" in which he starred with Joanna Lumley from 1979 to 1982.

 

But none of the stories I've read about McCallum this week have touched on his other career as a musician. McCallum actually came from a musical family. His mother, Dorothy Dorman, was a concert cellist for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. His father, David McCallum Sr., was the principal first violinist for the Royal Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, and the Scottish National Orchestras. David McCallum (the Younger) won a scholarship to University College School in Hampstead, London, where he studied music and played the oboe. It was there that he first became involved in acting. He left school when he was 18 and, after a National Service stint in the British Army, he began attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

But he never completely left his musical roots.  While starring in "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," he released four albums with producer David Axelrod for Capitol Records in 1966 and 1967. Unlike a lot of actors who ventured into music at that time, McCallum did not sing on any of them. The songs on the albums were mostly instrumental versions of popular songs of the day that McCallum conducted. He even wrote a couple of original pieces that were featured on the albums. Perhaps the most well-known piece is one Axelrod composed called "The Edge" which was sampled by Dr. Dre on his song "The Next Episode" and was also featured in the video game "Grand Theft Auto IV." I first heard the song on the soundtrack to Edgar Wright's 2017 film "Baby Driver." This was where I discovered, much to my surprise, that McCallum had also had a musical career. In fact, I had to do some research to make sure it wasn't a different David McCallum. I really loved the piece and found that like so many of my favourite pieces of music, it's probably best appreciated behind the wheel of a car with a manual transmission.

 

So it's with that in mind, since no one else is doing it, that I'm choosing to focus on the musical side of David McCallum's career this week. Featuring the aforementioned track "The Edge," please enjoy his second album from 1967, "Music: A Bit More of Me."

 

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 Film of the Week!

I think--I hope--that if there's one thing you can deduce about me as a person from reading these weekly "sermons" is how important film and music are in my life.  I get my love and appreciation of both primarily from my late father.  Growing up, he exposed me to all sorts of different music.  He did the same with movies.  I've loved film since he took me to see Star Wars (or as it's known today, Episode IV: A New Hope) in 1977.  I was three years old and you can only imagine what an impact that film had on a kid that age.  It's fascinating to me that it still has that effect on kids nearly 50 years later.

Throughout my youth, he would take me to movies when Heather would have a sleepover.  If there was something that everybody wanted to see, we would all go as a family.  When we finally got a VCR, he would pick up tapes of some of his favourite movies of his youth and introduce those to me as well.  As I've said in past rants, my favourite movie of all time is a tie between Dr. Strangelove and Casablanca--both of which are older than me, both of which he showed me when I was in college.

When DVDs were introduced, we were both quite taken with the format--particularly with all the behind-the-scenes "bonus features."  We would actually exchange films and later compare notes.  "What did you think of the commentary on Casablanca?"  "I loved Ebert's commentary, but I thought Rudy Behlmer's was kind of dry.  In fact, I didn't even finish listening to it.  It was kind of disappointing, because he seemed so animated in the documentary features."  What can I say?  Yes, I'm a dork.  So was Dad, but he was a lot cooler about it than I am.

If I feel compelled to buy a blu-ray disc of a movie that I already have in DVD, by and large, I'll give away the DVD to a good home.  There are a few exceptions--if the blu-ray has fewer bonus features than the DVD (yes, I'm looking at you, Pretty in Pink!  What the hell?), or if the soundtrack might be different (such as Love Actually).  But I've also noticed that I tend to hold on to certain titles just because they were among my favourites growing up.  In all of these cases, I even still have them on VHS because, being the sentimentalist I am, seeing those tapes remind me of certain times in my life and how those films played into it.  In some cases, those tapes were given to me as gifts--in one particular case a gesture that moved me almost to tears.

This past week, for better or worse, I bought all of the James Bond movies in blu-ray--I justified it by convincing myself that it was actually a bargain because they were second-hand and, therefore, cheaper.  I have a lot of fond memories of the series, mostly because it was something I shared with Dad.  We saw quite a few of those films together in theaters when they were first issued.  Back in the day, ABC used to air them in prime time and we had taped many of them from those broadcasts (we even managed to edit out the commercials).  In the mid-1990s, after Pierce Brosnan took over the role, there was a sudden resurgence in popularity for the franchise.  During that time I managed to acquire widescreen VHS copies of all of the films--at least the ones that had been done up to that time.  I still have those tapes--in the case of the Connery films, once again, gift... unexpected... moved... near tears.  In 2006, when Daniel Craig started playing Bond, the films were re-issued again in four box sets, each containing five movies, digitally remastered in 2-disc special editions.  In a review I wrote for a local publication at the time, I said that it was worth it just to hear Auric Goldfinger say, "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" in Dolby DTS 5.1 stereo surround sound.

When No Time To Die was released in 2021 (a year and a half late--thanks, Covid!), it was kind of hard to watch because it was the first Bond film that I couldn't talk to Dad about.  In fact, that's the one film in the series I've watched the least--although to be fair, it's not as old and does have a running time of 2 hours and 43 minutes.  And when I think of Bond, I tend to think of my Dad because we spent so much time together watching those movies.  In fact, after he died, it took me awhile to be able to bring myself to watch one again.

I suspect that on a subconscious level, I bought that blu-ray set this week because Wednesday was the anniversary of his passing.  After I realized that fact, I determined that the best way to remember him this week was to build some Lego insects (a long story--hopefully I'll have pictures up on Facebook soon) and watch what he once told me was his favourite 007 thriller.  I even indulged in a glass of really good Scotch.

Dad often told a story of going to see this film as a teenager.  He and a friend of his stayed in the theater, hiding behind their seats, staying for a couple more showings.  Granted, they were also horny teenage boys and Dad admits they primarily watched it repeatedly for the belly dancing scene in the gypsy camp.

Originally released in 1963, this was the second film in the franchise starring Sir Sean Connery as the world's least secret secret agent.  It was also the first film where everything that we love about Bond films started to come together.  It was the first to have a pre-credit sequence, the first to feature Desmond Llewelyn as MI6's quartermaster, Major Boothroyd, also known as "Q" (who would continue to play the role for the next 36 years until his death in 1999), and the first to feature Q's "gadgets," which would often save 007's life (I would love to have that briefcase).  It was also the first to feature a score by composer John Barry, who went on to write the scores for 10 more Bond films--more than any other composer.  I've often said that those scores frequently served as another character in those films, especially during the 1960s.

Written by Richard Maibaum and Johanna Harwood and based on the novel by Ian Fleming, the film stars Robert Shaw, Daniela Bianchi, Lotte Lenya, Pedro Armendáriz (in what would be his last film), and Walter Gotell (who would later go on to frequently play General Gogol during the Roger Moore era).  Produced by the team of Harry Saltzman and Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and directed by Terence Young, this week, I highly recommend From Russia With Love.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that James Bond will return.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill