Apparently this movie, called Rising, was a USC (University of Southern California) master’s project, by a certain Larry Bock.
I can’t find out much about Bock (was he any relation to Dick Bock? Was he the same Lawrence Bock that became an entrepreneur?), which is a pity.
The film itself is a real gem, mixing stills, live footage, interviews with Szabo and associates (inc. Leonard Feather, and other notable jazzniks). One minor criticism is that it’d have been nice to see less cutting between pieces and more unbroken music.
Also worth checking out is this Facebook page dedicated to Gabor Szabo and his music:
When I first posted this, I’d only watched the first half of the film. Watching the remainder drove home a few salutory reminders about the artistic and/or musical life. Szabo is very candid, and quite humble, almost to the point of being a little self effacing. Saying at one point ‘maybe that’s how [through music, esp’ live performance] I compensate for my shortcomings as an individual‘!
It’s also clear that despite how we as listeners might perceive his art/music as an ‘end product’ (a horrid phrase!) that’s often perfect, or damn near, for him it was always a process of disappointment, whilst striving towards a seemingly unattainable goal. I recognise that feeling!
Robin Williams’ character, Adrian Cronauer, was indeed a DJ in Viet Nam. He’s portrayed here as an eccentric extrovert comedian, who upsets some of the stiff-necked ‘brass’.
It’s a kind of odd film, inasmuch as most American films about Viet Nam dive right in to the very obvious struggle with issues around American guilt. In comparison, this starts out seeming more like a feel-good movie. The rugged individualist sticking it to the man. As American as apple pie, and, er… napalm!?
Cronauer in DJ mode.
It’s not until an hour into the film that the ugliness of war momentarily intrudes. And quite soon after that, the movie gets back to romance. Even if it’s a stilted or unrequited one.
Rather bizarrely, whilst the cast keep the film interesting enough, it’s not until three quarters of the way through the film that it notches up a gear or two, with the sequence where Cronauer is made to realise what he has come to mean to the troops. He then plays Satchmo’s ‘Wonderful World’ whilst the movie shows some of the horrors of the war!
The core radio team cast.
So now we’re back into more familiar territory. The ugly and dirty complexity of war. Williams still manages to get both emotional nuance and laughs out of it. Impressive. And it’s impossible not to think on Williams’ fate. Life, eh!? And death? It’s in this film, and it’s in Robin Williams’ long celluloid shadow.
Unsurprisingly the movie and the reality of Cronauer‘s stint on air in The ‘Nam are galaxies apart. That’s Hollywood for ya’! And maybe this points to a fundamental issue with the American psyche? Is it any wonder they continually blunder into appalling geopolitical messes, when they live on a diet of dreams?
Ok, so last night, thinking that my daily listening to The Rainbow Goblins – sometimes multiple times – might be starting to wear thin, or lose it’s charm – I discovered (thanks to YouTube’s algorithm-bots) Takanaka’s unbelievably wonderful live 1981 Budokan performance of the entire album.
Prior to discovering Takanaka and his sublime music I would never have imagined watching a Japanese guy in a yellow plastic outfit, with rainbow hair and a rainbow axe, and a band dressed dressed in giant paper/maché goblin heads, would or could make me so happy. Who knew?
So now it’s time to knuckle down to some extra-curricular work – I’m stony broke, and a teacher in my summer hols (normally I’d be able to coast through the summer. Not this year!) – earn me some doh-re-mi, and (once the wolf is safely chased from the door!) start exploring his wider catalogue.
I know I want Seychelles (1976), his self titled ‘77 recording, and An Insatiable High (1977). Whilst I’m on the topic of the latter album, I wonder, did Jack Stratton of Vulfpeck cop his sporty look from Takanaka? Or is that just an example of what art historian Norman Rosenthal once called ‘morphological resonance’?*
Takanaka’s T-shirt and the road markings chime!Morphological resonance, homage, plagiarism?
Vulfpeck have an incredibly strong aesthetic, from their own font, to the little neo-classical and yet hyper-modern logo/jingle combo that starts their videos, to the sounds and visuals. And yet despite this, Takanaka’s sporty look – or rather the starkly sublime design brilliance of Insatiable High’s cover imagery – manages to be effortlessly and very Japanesely, ‘supelior’! Banzai!!!
* Trust an art critic to coin such a wordy phrase. Why use ‘they just so happen to look the same’, or ‘coincidence’, when you can invent your own snappy polysyllabic term!?
Myeah… Not great, to be honest. The Bond Franchise is, like so many these days, flogging a donkey carcass that died a long time ago.
What this means is that it’s kind of lost, and all that remains is a collection of accessories: exotic locations, action sequences, the movie stars employed for it, and labyrinthine plots that are ultimately the most disappointing element of the whole collapsed soufflé.
I don’t buy Craig as Bond. At all. I like that he’s ruggedly odd-looking. But, aside from looking pretty good, he has zero charisma. The best Bonds – Connery and Moore – literally exuded charisma like sweat.
Like so much modern cinema, it becomes a series of set-piece action scenes that are impressive on the technical and adrenaline fronts, but utterly bereft of emotional involvement. I simply don’t care about anyone, as nobody seems either remotely real, nor even pleasingly cartoonishly intriguing.
Matera, Italy. Fab location!
So ultimately I simply don’t care about the story, or the ‘characters’, and all that’s left is the hi-octane stuff. And that’s just not enough, is it?
And now I’m coming to the biggest problem of all. This is a gutless, neutered version of a vision of masculinity that was born in another era, and whose charm lay very much in lots of assumptions that simply don’t get past the guardians of PC who make this sort of ‘by committee’ pap.
I guess this conclusion also shows up my demographic? If you’ve ever read any of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels, you’ll know that the movies with Connery and Moore, whilst different (esp. with Moore’s more comic take), do capture the preposterously presumptuous macho visions of Bond’s creator, whose creation is sick with self-love.
I don’t need to be a privately educated scion of a self-appointed aristocracy, or have that Tory sense of self-righteousness and entitlement that Bond and the ‘establishment’ he serves have, and represent, nor approve of the multilayered series of assumptions that underpin the whole ‘Cold War’ worldview in which most of the old stories unfolded, to enjoy the real ‘vintage’ Bond. In fact the daftness of it all is part of its period charm.
Rami Malek as Lyutsifer (!) Safin. Ugly is evil!
Ironically, for all the limply emasculated Bond-age, and the ‘empowered’ females, of whatever ethnicity, some of the most toxic and unattractive ideas of modern culture (present in the ‘real’ Bond, as well), esp’ around casual, even comical, violence, do pass the moral filters that rob this version of Bond of any balls.
I kind of want to say that the only actor who comes off even half decently (or should that be indecently?) – and that’s only speaking relatively – as he isn’t given much to work with, is Rami Malik. Who does, almost, make a Bond villain worthy of the original lineage. But even that claim is, in reality, too weak. Look at how Bond eventually offs him. Turns out Lyutsifer is a pathetically easy push-over!
And Cristoph Waltz, who I liked in Inglorious Basterds and The Hateful Eight, is really pretty lame here, as Ernst Stavros Blofeldt. And pretty much all the other characters, from M and Q to Moneypenny, and the many supporting characters, are just blank cyphers.
I like long films if they’re good. But this is way too long. And both very dull and very disappointing. But, truth be be told, it’s exactly what I expected. In fact, the best – or at least the most attractive – character in the movie is the Italian town of Matera, also recently featured in James May’s Our Man In Italy.
I got this DVD box quite some time ago. Been meaning to start watching it for ages! It was enjoying Swayze in Dirty Dancing that prompted the purchase! His undeniable charisma coupled with my abiding interest in the ACW meant this was a ‘shoe-in’, whatever that is!
Last night Teresa and I watched the first two episodes. Each of which is a 90 minute self contained movie. We really enjoyed it. Sure, it’s cornball, and very sentimental. But it’s durn good fun watching.
Our handsome heroes at West Point.
Swayze’s Orry, and his buddy Hazard (James Read) make for very likeable pals. And the basic premise, of the clashing of cultures and a friendship tested by the travails of love and war, is a familiar but potent vehicle for good solid drama.
I’m not going to go into any great detail here, this is just a brief note to record that I’m watching and enjoying this old but epic series. I might have more to say about it as I watch more of it.
Ding Dong! A real Southern Belle!
One thing I will note is that Lesley Anne Down is, as we said back in the 1980s, lush! And I rather warmed, bizarrely perhaps, to the villainous Bent (Philip Casnoff), esp’ when we learn that he’s the bastard ‘mistake’ of a powerful senator.
Looking forward to watching some more later today!
Haven’t watched this yet. Might be dreadful!? But just before turning in for the night I discovered this, whilst randomly browsing stuff, stumbling upon it I know not how.
Sounded interesting, with a long and troubled production. Never actually really officially finished. Indeed, this video is the work of a fan, who’s attempted to ‘finish the job’ in the style intended by its creator.
I have to confess I binge watched this entire mini-series last night. Not a terrifically wise decision, given I started watching it at about 9-10pm! I’m guessing it must have been about 5am when it finished?
I was hankering for some enjoyable adrenal-gland stimulation, that could be administered lying down. And in that respect, this new show – premiered July 1st – ticked the box.
Author and former SEAL, Jack Carr.
The story is based on a book of the same name by former Navy SEAL turned author, Jack Carr. Rather surprisingly, whilst the TV show has a Wikipedia page, Carr himself does not.
I’m not going to delve too deep into Carr’s real life or military career, nor am I going to synopsise the entire TV series. This is just going to be a fairly basic review/reaction to having just watched the entire show.
The fetishisation of macho violence is total.
I’m giving it three stars, for now. Why? Well, it was entertaining and compelling enough that I stayed up most the night to watch it. But it is also rather troubling – very worrying, frankly – in how it relates to the current rise in neo-Fascist aspects of contemporary American Conservatism, US gun culture and modern ideas of masculinity.
Jaws so square they could chisel granite.
What it highlights for me is the incredibly dangerous intersections of whole constellations of myths and reality in the psyche of the modern American right.
To highlight what I’m talking about, let’s just very lightly unpick one aspect of the story… the private contractors hired to provide security for various characters, large numbers of whom wind up as just so much cannon fodder.
This idea is quite well parodied in one of the Austin Powers movies; at one level these functionaries are really just guys doing a job, feeding their families. But here they’re no more than meat for the grinder of ‘righteous’ hatred!
Fails his family…
The attempt to have Reece as both a loving family man, as well as a war hardened super ninja, is, ultimately, as another reviewer I read elsewhere (I can’t recall where) says, really quite boneheaded.
Offing countless mercenaries to get to his targets, some of whom (the latter esp’) he brutally tortures – he’s more successful as a killer and a sadist than as a family man – just doesn’t square well with ‘nice ordinary guy’. Dude’s a freakin’ psycho!
… but excels as sadistic executioner.
Jack Carr loves his weapons, especially his guns, as you might imagine a Navy SEAL would. He hunts big game at home (mountain lion recently, I read somewhere). And he’s hunted humans too, as a sniper, whilst serving overseas.
He goes to gun shows, and gives interviews to people like Soldier of Fortune and The Federalist. The former essentially being ‘Mercernaries Monthly’, the latter a Conservative media organ that has shamelessly spouted anti-vax bollocks, and declared support for Trump’s blatant lies around the whole ‘stolen election’ fraud.
‘Lock and load’ is one thing. ‘Pray and spray’!?
In his SOF interview (read that here) he describes the story, accurately enough, as ‘a story of revenge without constraint.’ His hero Reece goes on the warpath, Stateside, to kill those – on his ‘terminal list’ – who he holds responsible for the deaths of his entire squad (mostly overseas), and his wife and daughter, once back home.
In the same SOF piece Carr expands: Reece kills ‘those involved using the tactics and techniques used by the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan, so at another level it’s about someone abandoning the rule of law and becoming the terrorist and insurgent he’d been fighting … it’s about a veteran of the War on Terror bringing that war home.’
That sounds quite interesting as an idea. There is a chickens coming home to roost side to the ‘war on terror’ that America seems to fundamentally fail to grasp. But that potentially interesting thread is poorly served here, in the end.
The suits and their spooks, always corrupt.
The plot is further complicated by other strands in the story. I’ll refrain from spoilers. Despite these attempts to be confusingly interesting, however, the over familiar ’conspiracy from within’ trope is rather convoluted, and, frankly, veers towards the silly. But it just about serves its purpose, as a plot driver. Don’t examine anything too closely though. It bears very little scrutiny!
Ultimately this one of those recurring and popular fantasies of older right wing males: über machismo uncorked. And ultimately it’s pretty revolting. The ending being particularly dumb and horrid.
But the untethered ego of the hero survives! So… all is well, is it? Really? If I was Carr’s wife, I’d be pretty worried about his priorities and general mental health.
Black, red,white? Wasn’t there a little Austrian chap that liked this combo’?
Returning to the neo-fascist threads, these are on display everywhere, from the unctuous tattooed bodybuilder villain, to the rites of the US military itself, to Reece, part hillbilly demon, part sensitive beautiful powerful man!
There’s a toxic self-regard at the heart of this macho male military culture, in which everything and everybody else is merely an ancillary appendage to the hero’s ego. Not at all attractive, to me at any rate!
Most real world villains prob’ spend less time in gyms and salons.*
In the end it’s all just a rehash of everything from Clint Eastwood to James Bond to Rambo. The lone hero, against pretty much the entire world. Mean, moody. A hardass mo’fo’, who’ll slit you from gullet to gizzard just as readily as buy you a brew.
Clearly made with a huge budget, and pretty decently acted, albeit in a world of cartoonish simplification, I did enjoy ‘the ride’. But as a film that might have anything to leave the viewer with, after the adrenaline subsides? Pretty bleak!
Reece hangs with his bro’.
* I’m sure real-life super vain super villains like Trump spend plenty of time and money on their appearance. They just clearly do so far less successfully than some of the specimens Hollywood style casting agents clearly prefer.
Today a cinema fairly local to me is showing Casablanca.
Billed as an 80th anniversary screening, it’s a one-off. I really want to go see it on the big screen. I’ve only ever seen it at home, on TV or DVD, so on a relatively tiny screen.
Truth be told, it’s Woody Allen’s wonderful 1972 Play It Again, Sam, that is, I believe, the chief reason I love Bogey and Casablanca. And, exactly like me, Allen’s movie is 50 this year! So Casablanca and Play It Again, Sam both celebrate significant anniversaries this year.
Allen’s Walter Mitty like Bogey daydream visitations are priceless.
Pity the local cinema isn’t doing the two as a double-bill. They’re missing a trick there. How I’d love to see that! I wonder if anyone anywhere is putting on such a bill? I’d be there, like a shot! (Adopts a faux-Bogey accent) So… would that be a two fingers of bourbon type shot, or a slug from a 45!?
Indeed, such is my yearning to see Casablanca on the big screen, I’m going to try and shift my Monday drum lessons around a bit and make it happen. Wish me luck!
Allen and Keaton do the ‘airport scene’.
This post isn’t the place for reviews or synopses of these great movies. That said, a few notes or observations seem fair game. For one thing, it’s fascinating how this, one of the best and most quintessentially Woody Allen-esque of all Allen’s movies wasn’t directed by Allen himself. Strange but true!
Also, it may very well be that it was Allen’s original stage play, from whence this movie derives, and of course the film itself, that have helped propagate the ‘false memory’ that the title of Woody’s works is actually a direct quote from Casablanca itself. It isn’t.
Vintage Hollywood!
Both are terrific films. I do hope I do manage to see Casablanca later today. We shall see, I guess…
Wow! I do love YouTube, for giving us all the chance to stumble across gems such as this. Thanks also to the NFB, or National Film Board of Canada.
Bill Mason, who made this film, and ‘stars’ in it, is Canadian. I have Canadian family and ancestry, on my dad’s side. So these facts set up something of a sympathetic resonance for me.
Then there’s Bill Mason himself, the man: he is, or rather was, an outdoorsman and artist, who made, I’ve subsequently discovered, numerous utterly gorgeous and fascinating films, of which this is one of the best.
The chief charms of this are simple yet kaleidoscopically rich, like the environment in which the film is set, on and around Lake Superior.
One of the things Bill addresses, a vexed issue for me, is spirituality. This was the only note struck in this otherwise perfect reverie of sound and vision, nature and culture, that – if not necessarily jarring – gave me pause for some (Indian!?) reservations.
But I’d like to take this post as an opportunity to consider a few things, and there are many, that this film either touches upon directly, or stirred in me by association.
First there are the ‘renaissance man’ and self-reliance aspects. Bill, who formerly worked as a ‘commercial artist’, was a conservationist, famed canoeist, artist, writer, family man, and all sorts. I love all of that! I have my own aspirations to living a multi-faceted life. Richer, one hopes -not fiscally perhaps, but in other better more important ways – than the monomaniac furrows our society drills us into pursuing.
So, there are many things Bill’s example encourages: to spend more time in, and pay more attention to, nature, and indeed all our environments. Art, get up, and out, and make some. Buy or build a canoe; get out and start messing about in the water!
It was also interesting to learn that Bill’s health wasn’t terrific. A sickly child, he has severe asthma all his life. And yet he didn’t allow this to stop him from adventuring. Maybe his derring-do contributed to his early demise? But then again, maybe not? And at least he lived a rich and inspiring life while he lived.
Some might laugh reading this next bit. And it may indeed sound facile. But I truly couldn’t care less! And that’s the fact that I like his style. And I’ve gone as far as to add elements of it – some were already there, others just a little tweak in already beloved themes – to my own sartorial repertoire.
I already had the neckerchiefs (though mine are too small!), and brown leather walking boots, and many a checked shirt. But the red outdoorsman socks are new! And so too is the very particular red and black check ‘lumberjack’ shirt!
Bill’s particular style of art – he favours palette knives over brushes, and cites J. M. W. Turner as his chief inspiration and influence – is terrific, albeit not entirely to my normal tastes. But that he does it all, is inspiration. It was interesting to see that he, like myself and several artists I’ve known personally, is highly self-critical bout his work, and often destroys what others. Might regard as decent work, because he’s unhappy with it.
Then there’s music. In other Mason films he strums guitar or plays harmonica. It amazingly, one might add. And his family aren’t exactly fulsome in their appreciation (does this remind any of us of our own domestic musical life? Or is it just me!?). But for Waterwalker, the music is supplied by (?) and (?). (?) is a star in his own right. And the music totally suits the subject!
Some of it, such as the actual ‘theme tune’, might induce cringing amongst some listeners. I’d understand why. It has a ‘new agey’ earnestness. But I love it.
Another facet of the whole thing that some might find they react to differently than I do, is the whole tenor of it all. It’s definitely dreamy, romantic, and perhaps even somewhat solipsistic? And it’s no surprise such movies helped created a cult of Bill Mason. But as a ‘fellow traveller’, and sympathetic romantic introvert soul-mate, I love it all. As did critics, numerous of his films, inc’ this one, winning a variety of awards and accolades.
Also interesting to me, is how stuff like this leaches into other areas. For example, I noticed, whilst watching a recent Jack Stratton ‘Holy Trinity’ episode, on YouTube, that he had created a logo and a whole invented Vulf Films thing suspiciously akin to the Canadian NFB (National Film Board) doodad.
Just as Bill Mason’s film is simultaneously about following one’s own individual and sometimes lonely paths, it’s also about connections. Be they to nature, or each other, immediate or indirect. Love it!
Having recently read Michael Palin’s excellent Erebus, I thought I’d revisit the Top Gear Polar Special.
Watching the lovable trio of – Jezza, James and Richard – flippant but funny morons, gradually realising how hardcore their undertaking, or rather their environment, is, is very entertaining.
And it makes excellent TV.
A snapshot of Clarkson and May’s transport on our TV screen.Got myself a plastic Jesus…
The arctic is, as you expect, breathtaking, sublime, awe-inspiring. It’s great to be able to watch such things from the comfort of the sofa in your warm home. And as oafish as the Top Gear trio are, they’re also brave (foolhardy!?).
Hammond goes via dog-sled, with a lady musher (whose name escapes me), whilst Jeremy and Cap’n Slow go in a modified Toyota four-wheel drive.
Hammond and co.Hammond with one of his crew.
They encounter Polar Bears, a plane-wreck, and play ‘eye-spy’ (under limited conditions!), get exhausted, scared, and traverse some frighteningly beautiful landscapes. Great TV!
