Andyland, USA

I could easily state that I don’t just listen to music, I consume it. Music is perhaps the one thing in my life that is closest to an addiction. I listen to incredible amounts of it, buying records makes me happy, and I talk about it a lot. Part of my musical obsessions is one with the music of the 1960s. There are many bands of the ‘60s that are vastly overlooked and underrated--for a number of reasons, mostly generated by “holier than thou” attitudes at rock rags in the ‘70s. There’s the idea rock music didn’t really come to fore till The Beatles arrived, and/or that music was lame until The Beatles got high. I get where these attitudes come from, but I don’t hold much salt in them. However, attitudes like these are why some really great groups of the era have been regulated to their place in history--by some--based only on the merits of their biggest hit song or songs. There are numerous bands that I feel deserves more cred, praise, and appreciation. One band in particula...

It’s easy to get overwhelmed looking at the filmography of director Howard Hawks. There are numerous films in the Hawks catalog that any director would be happy to have one of. Out of forty six films, Hawks has nine on The National Film Registry. Hawks was a genre master, tackling and succeeding in screwball comedy, musicals, drama, western, film noir, and even sci-fi.  If the name Howard Hawks doesn’t immediately ring a bell with you, odds are good you’ve seen at least one of his bigger films: “Bringing Up Baby,” “The Big Sleep,” “Rio Bravo,” “To Have and Have Not,” “Red River,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” and the film which this week’s column is about, “His Girl Friday.” Released in 1940 by Columbia Pictures, “His Girl Friday” stars Cary Grant & Rosalind Russell, and is based upon the 1928 stage play “The Front Page” written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Grant plays Walter Burns, the determined and hard-boiled editor of “The Morning Post,” who learns his ex...

2017 is getting off to a robust start for blu-ray releases, for as much goodness that Warner Archive brought to HD last year, this year gets started with four titles. “Battleground,” “Wait Until Dark,” “Bells are Ringing,” and “Bad Day at Black Rock” all get Blu-Ray debuts this month, I’ll be talking about the former two this week. One is a film I hadn’t seen before, and the other is one of a handful of films that I find truly terrifying (standing in such great company as “Baby’s Day Out”). Released in 1949 MGM’s “Battleground” was the first major film about World War Two produced after the war had ended. MGM head Louis B. Mayer initially had hesitation about producing the film--which went on to be MGM’s largest grossing film in five years--feeling that audiences wouldn’t want a war movie so close to World War Two having ended. Where “Battleground” differs from most war films is that it’s more of a human story than a war story. A film with very little action sequences. Focusing...

It’s November which means for film fans it’s #Noirvember, the month in which we celebrate the genre that audiences love to yell at improv performers, Film Noir. With perfect timing Warner Archive has released the 1952 RKO Noir “On Dangerous Ground” on blu-ray for the first time. Directed by Nicholas Ray, whose most famous for “Rebel Without a Cause,” with a score by the great Bernard Herrmann, “On Dangerous Ground” stars Noir giants Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino--who in addition to acting was a pioneering producer and director during a time when that was unheard of.   Ryan plays New York cop Jim Wilson, a man who has become so hardened and cynical by his job he says to a thug “Why do you make me do it?” before he smashes him to a pulp. Wilson’s soul is gone. He’s seen too many criminals, too much of the dirt of humanity to have any glimmer of hope left inside of him. Jim Wilson wakes up, does his job, eats, goes to bed. However, it’s all become part of an autopilot mode whe...

How long does this last again? Eh, it’s not that cold out. I’ll be fine. I’ve got my jacket. I wonder who is driving the truck this is hitched to? Should I scoot my chair back a little? I’m not that close to the edge, but things could go wrong. No. No, I will not think about it this way. That’s negative thinking. My therapist said I should make a conscientious effort to squash negative thinking. It’s a Christmas parade! This is a happy place.  Ah, we’re moving now, a good slow crawl. What float is this again? I don’t remember what group this represents, I just was told “look for the red flatbed with the inflatable Snoopy on it.” Maybe this isn’t a group, just a kindly soul who is enthusiastic about Christmas parades. I did it all because she asked me to and I like her. Is it infantile the way I approach potential relationships now that I’m in my 30s? There I go talking like my therapist again. Maybe that’s good? I dunno.  Smile, wave, toss candy to kids. That’s...

Today, the box office is driven by superhero movies, but before 1978 there was no such thing as a “serious” superhero movie. The biggest thing to happen to the genre was the 1966 Adam West “Batman” TV series--which I love with the passion of a thousand suns--but no real attempts at doing anything beyond “kiddie fare” with the genre existed prior to the landmark “Superman” movie of ‘78. A few years back, I talked about the 1994 Alec Baldwin starring film adaptation of “The Shadow,” a pulp hero and precursor to Batman. Much of modern superhero fare has it roots in the hero pulp fiction that peaked in the 1920s and ‘30s.  Along with The Shadow, one of the most popular heroes to come from the world of pulp is Doc Savage, created by the same publishing house as The Shadow, Street & Smith, and driven largely by writer Lester Dent. No less an authority than Stan Lee has called Doc Savage the forerunner to modern superheroes. In the 1960s the Doc Savage stories were repub...

A friend of mine is dating this guy who is a bit, well, super earthy. He’s an alright person, generally speaking, but the patchouli can be detected before he enters the room. He also claims that he can interpret dreams. When the group gets together for a gathering, like a game night, he’ll ask us all if we had any memorable dreams lately. “The memorable ones are the ones you’ve gotta look out for” he says.  At a recent game night, while I was pondering my hand for my turn at Scrabble, Dreamweaver asked me about my recent dreams. I hadn’t had any out of the unusual dreams lately, just that recurring one where I keep getting a dollar on The Price is Right wheel--Dreamweaver doesn’t own a TV, so I never tell him about this one. I decided to see just how far Dreamweaver could go with this skill set and started making up dreams on the spot.  “Oh, well the other night I dreamt that I was swimming in a pool full of gelatine while being given swimming advice from the pet Go...