A short while back, I posted the full 20th anniversary broadcast of the NPR quiz game show, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!, rather than just post the 'Not My Job' segment, which is what I usually do. I realized, though, that some people may like the segment but didn't want to listen to the full show. So, here's that 'Not My Job' just for them! And...well, you and everyone.
For the 20th anniversary, they did something a little bit different, having two guests, rather than just one. And so host Peter Sagal brought on two NPR stalwarts, Robert Siegel and Nina Totenberg, who play a fun joint-game with a combined twists as the subject matter.
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Continuing with Rachel Maddow's podcast, Bag Man, the story of the investigation behind Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation. Here is episode 2 of the seven-part series.
If you missed the opening episode, you can listen to it here. Episode 2: Crawling In With the Watergate scandal gripping the nation, and President Richard Nixon on the verge of going down, a small team of federal prosecutors in Baltimore discover a bombshell that will rock a nation already on the edge. The Vice President of the United States— right at the height of Watergate—has been conducting a secret bribery and extortion operation… from inside the White House itself. And only they know it. As I've noted here often, I'm a a big fan of the Smothers Brothers. One of the very first LPs I owned was when a kidling was The Smothers Brothers at the Purple Onion (a San Francisco nightclub), which I think may have been their first album. This below is a fairly early video of them on the Hootenany TV show, broadcast from Rutgers University in 1963. The song they sing here, "Marching to Pretoria" was on that Purple Onion album, recorded two years earlier. The Huffington Post has a self-righteous article today titled, "Widows Isn't Making Much Money At The Box Office. What's Wrong With You, America?" It's a sort of joint-interview with two writers for HuffPo decrying the fact that the well-reviewed movie only finished fifth in its opening holiday weekend, with a mediocre per screen average of $4,400. They trash Mark Wallberg personally, whose movie Immediate Family topped Widows, and express dismay that Fantastic Beasts and Bohemian Rhapsody made more money. (In the case of Fantastic Beasts, much more money, finishing #1 at the box office.)
One of the comments in the article by the authors -- in fact, the editors even put it in the sub-headline -- is that the movie is "electrifying and crowd-pleasing." This is one of the more bizarre contradictory phrases you'll likely find in a movie analysis -- bemoaning the lack of audience support for a movie that's crowd-pleasing. I would suggest most crowd-pleasing movies get crowds. (In fairness, some movies take a while to build word-of-mouth, if they actually are crowd-pleasing, so the authors here fall into Hollywood Conventional Thinking trap by jumping the gun bemoaning the movie flopping, rather than waiting a few weeks to see for sure. It may well flop, but c'mon, give it more than five days. Maybe people want to see it, but with so many other films opening over the holidays, they only chose one or perhaps two, and will get around to it next week. Or they want to hear from friends what they thought. Express surprise that it didn't open better, but don't write off "America" as not wanting to see it when America has only had five days.) I will note something else in that regard. While the Rotten Tomatoes website shows that 91% of critics gave the film a positive review, only 60% of the audience liked it. So...maybe it's not as "crowd-pleasing" at the audience thought. I'll add something else. I saw Widows at a Writers Guild screening a week ago, and stayed for the Q&A afterwards with the film's writers Gillian Flynn and Steve McQueen (who also directed it). And I thought it was wonderfully produced, nicely edited, well-acted and had good dialogue -- and was empty and fairly uninteresting. I was glad I saw it (though it was free), but left the Q&A early because they were expounding so enthusiastically about something I didn't think reached that level. I left thinking, "Yeah, okay, fun, but whatever.) You'll note that I didn't write a "Capsule Review" of the film, which is because I felt ambivalent enough about it that I decided to use my writing time elsewhere. It's not a bad movie at all, but I personally didn't find it especially compelling and "electrifying," most-particularly enough to slam "America" for not supporting it more. Side note: lest one think otherwise, I was actually predisposed to really like this film and was looking forward to it. I love heist movies, it's one of my favorite genres. (Just last week, in fact, you'll recall that I wrote about Topkapi, and it being one of the all-time great heist movies.) And further, my novel and screenplay, The Wild Roses, is about a group of women bonding together in an action-adventure. I not only was pulling for Widows to succeed...I still am. The authors of the article talk about the film's "electrifying twists." (As did the fawning interviewer at the Q&A.) I found that there was one big twist, not plural. And I pretty much guessed that one an hour earlier. (In fairness, the audience reacted to it with a yelp, so they obviously didn't see it coming.) The rest of the "electrifying twists" weren't really "twists" in that they didn't change the plot, but were more surprises in the action. But then, it's an action-heist film, for goodness sake, and periodic surprises is almost the point of any film in the genre. To give its due, maybe one of these surprises could also be called a "big twist" -- but not even remotely "electrifying." After all, without giving anything away, the title of the movie is "Widows." So, audiences should have a fairly good idea what they're in for, and it's pretty difficult to feel electrified when the title tells you what is to follow. As I said, I'm glad I saw the movie, and enjoyed much of it, particularly when I wasn't thinking too closely. But among the things that bothered me enough to find it empty is that -- I disliked pretty much everyone in it. While I felt sympathy for the women being widowed I didn't find them all as innocent as the movie wanted to portray them, especially the main character who has garnered a fabulously wealthy lifestyle thanks to her husbands career in thievery. To come up with the money demanded of them, their idea is to rob someone else. There were piles of lucky-coincidences dropping throughout the film -- the best of the taut, action-thriller heist movies are so carefully constructed that most-every piece falls meticulously into place. And then there's emptiness of the heist itself, which normally is the core of...a heist film. "It’s a redefinition of what a heist film can be," the authors of the article rave. Well, yeah, I guess, if by that you mean taking a heist film and not get around to the planning of the heist for 75 minutes, making the planning be the most banal of chores ("You're in charge of getting a gun. You have to find someone who can drive. And you have to figure out who this person is" -- which she does by a very lucky break) -- and then having the big heist take all of about five minutes, tops. And the heist sequence is about as "electrifying" as some drugged-out kid breaking into a house to steal jewelry. I could be a whole lot more clear and explicit about all of this -- as it stands, I know that my comments about the film's details are a bit amorphous -- but since the movie just opened and others here may likely see it, I don't want to give anything away. Again, the movie is very-well produced, nicely acted and has sharp dialogue. But to me, it's a whole lot more thin that these two adoring author take America to task over. I know my opinion is just mine. I also know that according to that one "exit poll," only 60% of the movie actually liked it. Which I think is a fair number -- I liked it about 40-60%. So, the problem with "America" not seeing the movie may not be that they didn't want to for all the reasons the authors ruminate, but more that a lot of people who saw it just didn't find it "electrifying" and it hasn't gotten great word of mouth. Maybe it still will, they only gave it five days. And if people did love the movie, I myself wouldn't argue with them, I completely understand the film's strong points, and if those are to a person's taste, I get it. But to ask "America" what is wrong with you for not supporting in its first five days this very well-made, empty film, methinks they doth protest too much... Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse are known for their two stage musicals, Stop the World I Want to Get Off,and The Roar of the Greasepaint the Smell of the Crowd. Together, they also wrote the scores to several movies, most notably Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and Bricusse alone wrote the scores to several movie musicals (including Doctor Doolittle, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and the aforementioned Scrooge, which I posted from this morning), as well as collaborating on some other stage musicals -- like the lyrics for the beloved Pickwick.
But less known is that Newley and Bricusse actually wrote a third stage musical together, after the first two, The Good Old Bad Old Days. It played in London in 1974, but never came to Broadway. As in their other shows, in addition to the score they also wrote the book, and Newley directed, as well as starred. The score has a few very good things in it, most notably the terrific title song (which Jimmy Durante, of all people, recorded, and did a wonderful job with) and "It's a Musical World," that had a bit of a life thanks to Newly performing it outside the show. A few others are pretty nice, though it's not a particularly memorable score. I'll play some of them later on. This song today (sung by Julia Sutton, it appears to be from the album, and chorus) isn't especially distinguished, but it's quite nice -- and most thoroughly appropriate. That's because it's title is..."Thanksgiving Day." Which totally by chance -- between Scrooge, Pickwick and now The Good Old, Bad Old Days gives us three Leslie Bricusse references today, for the price of one. I'ts that time o' year, and I think it's near-impossible on Thanksgiving to not celebrate with this classic by Stan Freberg, from his great Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America. Here is his version of how Thanksgiving actually came about. It begins with the local mayor decided a bit of self-promotion would help him if he threw a big gala and invited some Indians to show what a great guy he was. Which leads to a Freberg gem, "Take an Indian to Lunch." And once the holiday event was decided upon, things didn't go as smoothly as plans would hope.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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