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Category: Film (Page 15 of 16)

The Week That Was Supercalifragalistic

HopeSo it was an emotionally busy and exhausting week in the United States in general and in California in particular. My office was off in Cairo Egypt working on tweaking-the-Internet-meetings and our web team did a record amount of work on the website. That left me with little free time or energy. Between that and Election Day, which not only included the incredibly awesome election of Barak Obama for U.S. President (and I must say I supported Obama as a potential president back when I saw him speak at the DNC back in 2004. Not to brag but…) but the surprising passage of proposition 2 in California which ensures larger cages for farm animals  and the heartbreaking constitutional challenge to gay unions.

The ironic combination of those three election results has not been lost on us here in California with the bitter commentary that we expanded the rights of chickens while stomping on the rights of our gay community. In defense of the chickens, I must say I know of no animal rights activist who did not support gay marriage. The problems for proposition 8 were, to my mind, as such:

  1. Misleading proposition language on the ballot: many folk believed a Yes vote meant they supported gay marriage, not that they supported a ban on gay marriage. This confusing language is usually intentional on the part of the proposition’s proponents. They try to trick you into voting for stuff: get educated before you vote, people.
  2. Allegedly large amounts of money spent from the Mormon Church in support of the ban on gay unions. If this is true, it's a bit ironic considering other Christian challengers to gay marriage always claim a slippery slope which would lead to a Mormon-style bigamy. Gay haters (or Gayters as I like to call them) make strange bedfellows.
  3. Other homophobia in various communities.

And although this sucks royally, we have to keep supporting our community with each next step. This is no time to give up. This morning on the Stephanie Miller Show, the commentary-duo Frangela was on the air discussing the alleged lack of support in this proposition from the African-American community, calling on African-American civil rights leaders such as Al Sharpton to speak out against the proposition. Angela V. Shelton (one half of Franglea) has long been an advocate for gay rights and stated unequivocally that “No one is free until we’re all free.”

In other news this week:

Cher went on Access Hollywood…

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Remember When Cher was in a Gang?

BodylangFirst things news: Cher is back! Reports say she had an upper respiratory illness but she's back on stage this week. Also, JimmyDean and I have been having a lively political conversations on the election post. And…I’m working hard on a long post about Sonny & Cher’s Italian and French singles from a CD Cher scholar Peter sent me. Hopefully, that post will be coming shortly.

In the meantime, my Jack-Nicholson-fan friend sent me this interview of Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer circa Witches. I love it when celebrity obsessions collide.

The first thing I thought was that it's odd to see Cher share an interview again. And after all these years I still can figure out Cher and Sarandon’s relationship: indifferent, bad, good? At the time, I remember rumors about how things got off to a rocky start when Cher switched from the part of Jane to Alex. But then I can easily see how these two personalities would clash, although they share similar views and might possibly have bonded under the pressure of the severe sexist-pig behavior they suffered at the hands of their director, George Miller. Cher and Pfeiffer did get along well and hung out…as this clip tells, they went to see Ruthless People together…without Saranadon.

Cher's body language is noticeably cold as she sits next to Sarandon and she never makes eye contact with Sarandon until they all start talking about Sarandon's having to learn to play tennis and a musical instrument. Suddenly, Cher warms up. However, Cher does mention being up all night the night before making the Cher (1987) album so maybe she's just tired.

I loved the behind the scenes information Pfeiffer adds about how they had to spend three days in the pool for that scene at Daryl Van Horne's mansion and how it was difficult to corral all those tow-headed kids of Sukie's.

This interview is also representative of Cher’s nicknaming tendencies. Jack Nicholson is Johnny,  Susan becomes Sue. I forgot what she called Michelle…I think it was Misha. Here's the conversation I had with my friend about it:

RemovedCherRib: i am trying to find Cher's nickname for Michelle Pfeiffer
OzzyBat: is it "mish" like "meesh"?
RemovedCherRib: yeah…i was thinking Misha. it bothers me that this is even remotely stuck in our memory banks
OzzyBat: sigh. many hours spent rewatching those interviews on vhs tape. they did like 3 days of interviews for today. I
remember being so pissed off at jane pauley because she kept making faces when they would talk about jack being sexy. They were always talking about their tennis lessons and cher kept telling her free floating anxiety story.

Can this Jimmy Carter reporter make them all sound any dumber??  I am not usually bothered hearing gals called 'Girl' – remember my previous conversation about Riot Grrrls. However, when this guy says 'girl,' it sounds like little girls not kick-ass grrrls. And it's annoying.

Is it worth noting that  they all have their legs spread out in an open formation? Is this Freudian? Are they still pissed at Miller and asserting themselves subconsciously?

And who would use that God awful couch for interviews?

   

Rumors about Cher Playing the Next Catwoman

If I had a dollar for every film role Cher was rumored to be in the running for…I go get me some Shakeys pizza.

One news report says “Veteran singer Cher” — veteran: that's a new one — is first in line to play Catwoman in the next Batman movie.  This we hear is according to the franchise’s director Christopher Nolan. However, Angelina Jolie is also rumored to be up for the part.

According to the Sunday Mirror,

"Cher is Nolan's first choice to play Catwoman. He wants to portray her like a vamp in her twilight years. The new Catwoman will be the absolute opposite of Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry's creations." Julie Newmar was the first actress to take on the role in the 1960s Batman television series. The supervillainess has also been played by Eartha Kitt, Lee Meriwether, Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry.

This doesn’t mean Cher has agreed, responded or even been approached officially yet for this part. So don’t go updating your Cher-filmographies, batkids. In fact, many entertainment news site are expressing their deep skepticism about this particular rumor.

 

Wrecking Crew Documentary is Awesome

Cherwc If you live in LA, go see the documentary The Wrecking Crew at the Arclight in Hollywood this week only. The movie not only has good commentary from Cher, it has a semi-lengthy clip of Sonny & Cher in sessions for their Wondrous World album and interviews and conversations about the many musicians and producers who worked with them in the 60s and 70s. You get a great sense of what recordings were all about during that time of that frenetic westcoast sound S&C were part of. You also get:

  • Extensive interviews and discussions about drummer Hal Blaine, who played on many a Cher and Sonny & Cher album.
  • Interviews with Snuff Garrett – including a clip where he talks about “Gypsys Tramps and Thieves” a fact that made me rethink the musicians used for the All I Ever Need is You album. If the Wrecking Crew played for Snuff on the solo Kapp album Cher in 1971, they most likely played on the duet album as well instead of S&C’s live band at the time who played on their first live album.
  • Jimmy Webb was also interviewed extensively but not about anything related to Cher.
  • This tightly knit group of studio musicians were more often than not excluded from album credits even though they were the real musicians behind so many iconic albums, even for heavy-hitters like The Beach Boys and The Byrds. Conventional wisdom was that it would have been embarrassing to credit them. Buy at least producers like Phil Spector and Snuff Garret made sure they got paid well. It’s also interesting to note that Sonny Bono did credit them on Sonny & Cher’s debut album Look at Us: Earl Palmer, Hal Blaine, Don Randi, Mike Rubini, Don Peake, Julius Wechter.
  • Cher commented that she didn’t know how great these musicians were when she recorded with them; she was very shy and new to recording and she was basically just trying not to get in anyone’s way. Years later other musicians would ask her about working with these musicians with awe and respect.
  • The Wrecking Girl had one chick, Carol Kaye, and she was awesome! Worth seeing the movie for her contributions alone. She explained first hearing and working on “The Beat Goes On”  and coming up with that great bass hook. She sang how the song sounded as written (kind of adult contemporary, not very groovy) and how she thought ‘we gotta light this thing up!’ Very funny. She said Sonny loved it and they used it. Her story was indicative of how these studio musicians contributed in substantial ways to songs from Herb Albert to The Beach Boys.
  • More interesting tid-bits about what contributed to the wall of sound: the ceramic walls of Gold Star Studios, the bleeding between playing instruments and making musicians do so many takes, they became exhausted (less showboating).
  • If you see the movie at the Arclight in Hollywood, you are in a one-mile radius of where all these great songs were recorded. Amazing insight into 60s California sound.

I also learned a lot about Plas Johnson and Tommy Tedesco who was doing guitar on just about every iconic piece of music from the 60s or 70s, including many TV themes like Bonanza and MASH.

At the end of the movie there was a Q&A with Don Randi (who played piano on Look at Us)  with the film’s director. The film is doing very well in festivals and showcases but is looking for a distributor. They do plan a DVD and soundtrack at some point. There are 125 songs in the movie, so that will be an interesting soundtrack. Check Wreckingcrewfilm.com for more information. Or read my post from last week.
   

Sonny & Cher Musicians and Cher in a Movie Alert

Here’s a link to a story on a new documentary about The Wrecking Crew, a gang of studio musicians who for Sinatra, Streisand, S&C and many others and included both a young Glen Campbell and a young Leon Russell.

Coincidentally, I just made Mp3s of three songs from my only Leon Russell album:

  • Tightrope" – which is why I picked up the album in a used record store in St. Louis back in the 80s.

    "I’m up in the spotlight
    Oh does it feel right
    Whoa, the altitude seems to get to me"                        
               

  • "Stranger in a Strange Land" – which I can actually hear Elijah covering nicely in my head. Or Cher too for that matter.
       
  • And the oft recorded "Song For You" – Russell wrote this song so I feel this should be the definitive version, not The Carpenters’ or Ray Charles'. However, I do think Cher’s version is great, far better than The Carpenters version because she sounds more experienced to Karen Carpenter’s voice of innocence. I feel the inverse applies to their dual recordings of “Superstar” – the innocence in Karen Carpenters voice here serves the song better. As for versions of “Song For You” I also really like the R&B/rap group City High’s version (I love their song “What Would You Do.” I really do). Actually, I think I take umbrage with the words 'definitive version'. What does that mean anyhow? The version that quintessentially defines the song? What the hell? Is that even possible?

But I digress. There’s this documentary out on The Wrecking Crew:

“The stars, he said, were accommodating, including Cher, Dick Clark and Campbell,” said producer Denny Tedesco, 47-year-old son of Wrecking Crew guitarist Tommy Tedesco. “As big as Cher is, she was very giving. It brought her back to that period when she was 16 years old. It was a wonderful time for her. And it was a lot of fond memories for Glen. He said he missed not having to be 'the guy.' Tedesco, a Woodland Hills resident, grew to admire his father even more after all the research and filming.”

Halblaineglencampbell Visit http://www.wreckingcrew.tv/upcoming.html to find a screening in your town.

Here's another Wrecking Crew interview that includes another S&C musician, Hal Blaine: http://www.modernguitars.com/archives/004300.html

As, you may know many S&C band members from the early 70s went on to form the band Toto and as I was starting to convert my vinyl to MP3s recently with my new turn-table, I came across these Chicago liner notes from Chicago 16(yes I bought it for “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” in 1983 when I was 13, I’m not ashamed of it!). I found many familiar names in the liner notes: Steve Lukather guitars; David Paich synthesizer, Steve Porcaro synthesizer programming. And I can’t shake this feeling that I’ve seen Chicago’s own Bill Champlin on a Cher album credit somewhere. Am I crazy? Please don’t answer that. Does this ring a bell with anyone?

Jimmy Dean also alerted me last week of Jerry Wexler’s passing. Wexler was a famous Muscle Shoals Aretha producer for many landmark albums of Aretha Franklin and Dusty Springfield among many others. The awesome Dusty in Memphis was recorded the same year as Cher's unheralded 1969 album 3614 Jackson Highway which Wexler was one of the producers on. Jimmy Dean also mentioned that no news reported his brief association with Cher. I searched google in vain to find such a reference myself. However, I did find this exert of a bio of David Geffen (scroll down and click the link "The Operator") that claimed Wexler was Geffen’s long-time nemesis. The excerpt covers details of the night Cher met Geffen and the general gist of his involvement and substantial aid to Cher in her time of mid-70s legal crisis, which is quite important in considering where she is today. You could almost say there would be no Sonny & Cher without Sonny and there would be no Cher solo without David Geffen. And possibly no Cher into the 21st century without Cher herself. She’s been svengali-less for decades now!

    

Estelle Getty Dies

Estelle_getty_medium Estelle Getty died this week, the first Golden Girl we are to lose thus far. But Getty also played Barry Manilow’s mum in the TV musical Copacabana and Cher’s mum in Mask.

My favorite line from Getty in Mask was when she walked into the dark living room after returning her grandson Rocky from a baseball game and saw Cher (as Rusty) on a bummer (as Sonny would say). 

She shook her head, rolled her eyes and said “Florence.” The she turned around and walked out.

Mask, The Pasadena Playhouse Musical

Mask Unfortunately I did not get to go to the Pasadena Playhouse and see the musical resurrection of the movie Mask. I only had one friend who was willing to go with me and then only with half-price tickets which were available but I was in France for most of the show’s run and then my friend had to go to New York during the last week of the run. So no cookies for me. Or "I Ride With Rocky" buttons which were allegedly available in the lobby.

I was curious to hear the new songs written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (who have done Barry Manilow songs I have loved before). The musical also promised to flesh out the story a bit more with a longer running time. Unfortunately, the reviews weren’t all that great.

Sean Mitchell of the LA Times made these points:

“When a play or musical derives from a popular movie, even one more than 20 years old, it is hard — if not impossible — to put the film out of your mind, certainly when staged within commuting distance of Hollywood.”

“Allen E. Read, a young actor with a wonderful, emotive tenor, makes Rocky every bit as vivid and touching as Stoltz did. In the other two roles, however, the actresses tend to remind us of how good Cher and Dern were on-screen.”

“The main set, by Robert Brill, provides a painterly evocation of the Southern California suburbs, with a hazy sky dominated by power lines, dark palms and the crests of the San Gabriels. It is humble Azusa, to be precise…”

“A biker clan revealed as an unexpected cradle of homespun values is a hard sell, but it’s the sort of transaction made possible through the wiles of Hollywood and musical theater.”

Mitchell actually liked the Mann and Weil music, but didn’t feel the cast pulled off the energy needed to perform them successfully. I was surprised to hear that the character Dozer had some lead vocals. Wasn’t he was mute in the film? He sings "Close to Heaven,"

“describing to Rocky the transcendent experience of cruising the Black Hills of South Dakota on the way to an annual bikers’ convention.” (Mitchell)

We can picture Cher there at that convention, no? Other songs include:

  • "Look at Me" sung near those fun-house mirrors.
  • "I Can’t" with Rusty singing about drug abuse. Mitchell describes this number interestingly as “her cathartic Act 2 explanation to the Tribe (during an intervention) that her drug abuse is all about enduring the tragedy of her misshapen son. And for some reason, she bestows on Rusty an intrusive Brooklyn accent.”
  • "It’s a Beautiful World" sung at blind camp when Rocky teaches Diana about colors.
  • "Planet Vulkturn" a song which Mitchell describes as “Rocky’s stoically defiant response to being rejected by Diana’s parents.”
  • "Do It for Love" with Rocky singing about The Trojan War in history class.
  • "A Woman So Beautiful" lovingly sung by Gar about Rusty.
  • "Every Birth" which Mitchell says is “describing every mother’s hope for her newborn, slide projections reveal photographs of Rocky as a normal-looking adorable baby, followed by clinical pictures of his later, slowly emerging freakishness. Ouch. Try adding music to that.”

Overall Mitchell felt the musical was too long, a bit mawkish and not cohesive enough, even though the book was written by the screenwriter, Anna Hamilton Phelan, and the film’s makeup man Michael Westmore was also involved but couldn’t “rescue this overwrought idea from itself.”

Full review: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-mask24mar24,0,7180256.story

Another review on Blogcritics written by Robert Machray described the original film this way:

“The tearjerker was a highly successful vehicle for Eric Stoltz, Laura Dern, and the inimitable Cher.”

Inimitable. I love it. It means not capable of being imitated.

He goes on to say,

“Despite the fact that the story was based on real people, it was not the easiest movie to sit through despite its stellar cast and uplifting message. Add music to the mix, and believability is stretched too far.”

Like Mitchell, Machray likes the bike anthem “Look At Me” and “Planet Volturn” (these two reviews spell it differently…I always thought Cher was saying Planet Voltron, myself). But overall Machray says,

“The problem is that several of the numbers are delivered down center, as in a concert, doing nothing to further the action and serving only to tell us more about the character. This can make the show drag, especially at its staggering two hour and 45 minute length. The acting is also a mixed bag. While the principals are all quite good, the chorus is often, well, chorusy. The scenes in the classroom are quite obnoxious…”

However,

“The sets by Robert Brill evoke California’s gorgeous sky, power lines, palm trees, and the San Gabriel Mountains.

Living in LA, I would have loved to have seen their depictions of the Inland Empire, which is the main thing that struck me after watching the movie Mask for the first time after moving here.

Full review: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/03/27/122433.php

The run ended on April 13 and wasn’t extended. Of Mice and Men is playing there in a few days.

   

Videos of the week – the 80s

Cannes_2  Because last week we did so many 60s and turn-of-the-70s Cher clips, I wanted to post a mid-80s piece to be refreshing, specifically one of the scenes cut from the movie Mask: Cher and Eric Stoltz singing a duet. Another Cher duet, can you believe it? No wonder the paparazzi thought they were dating.  Unfortunately the clip was removed “for user violations” from that meany-poo video website that shall not be named.

We’ll have to drown our sorrows with these:

  • a news clip after Cher’s award win at Cannes
  • And the Siskel & Ebert review of Mask. Look at their outfits! I love it when Ebert exclaims about Cher: “where did she come from! She was a has-been singer and now suddenly she’s one of our best dramatic actresses!” and then Siskel says “and picking interesting projects” and Ebert agrees. Amazing encapsulation of her success at the time, and interestingly what is so frustrating about the last two or three movies, they’re not as interesting as those first five or six. You get the feeling that Cher agreed to do those more heavy stories because she felt she had no choices. Then, when she did have more clout to choose, she picked stories the rest of us don’t find so compelling.

    Another interesting point Siskel and Ebert make is how the movie broke down each of their Siskebe_2 guards against “heart-wrenching movies.” Testament to the movie’s restraint, surely. I’d argue it’s Cher best movie; although her performance in Jimmy Dean might top it. However, that movie’s story had structural challenges. Read more elaborate movie reviews on Cher Scholar.

    There’s also a very passionate argument against the marketing strategy for this movie, an argument made by Siskel, specifically the strategy of not showing Rocky’s face in the trailers. What are your thoughts about it?
       

Some Enchanted Evening in Azuza…

Mask So it seems Mask has gone Broadway like Witches of Eastwick and become a musical. Except not on Broadway, at the Pasadena Playhouse. I don’t have high hopes though. I saw a terrible California-ized Shakespearean play there a few years ago.

Tickets range from $48 to $66 and previews start March 12 with the official opening set for March 21 through April 20. For more information call (626) 356-PLAY or visit www.Pasadenaplayhouse.org.

But alas…I could be wrong. The music was written by our friends Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. They wrote "Holy Smoke," as you remember from my previous blog.  And other Cher tunes of the late 70s, as well as the 60s hit "You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling" and the 80s hit  "Somewhere Out There."

Anna Hamilton Phelan, who as you know did the Mask screenplay, is involved again in this project. Did you know she also did the scripts for Gorillas in the Mist and  Girl Interrupted. Tony-Award winner Richard Maltby (creator of Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Fosse, and the co-creator of Miss Saigon) directs.

Playbill On-Line has more info: http://news.yahoo.com/s/playbill/20080222/en_playbill/115299

…including this good quote from Phelan (from the production notes):

"When I was researching the screenplay for ‘Mask,’ I entered the world of The Tribe. After theMask2  release of the movie in 1985 I remained friends with them, especially Rusty. As the years passed Rusty became more open about her feelings, especially about being Rocky’s mother. When I told her I was going to tell the story again, but this time as a musical play, she was thrilled. My subsequent visits with her in her trailer in Azusa unearthed a treasure of rich material as she continued to share her memories with me. I also learned that biker clubs as far away as Missouri had ‘adopted’ Rocky as a kind of mascot. Some had his initials painted on their bikes.

"The last time I spoke to Rusty was a few weeks before she died in October 2006 at the age of 70. She was driving her chopped, three-wheeled motorcycle to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. One of the back tires fell off, she was thrown and hit a curb. I’m sure she was saying to herself, ‘What a bitchin’ way to go!’

"I regret she won’t be in the front row at the opening as we had planned, but I know she would have been grateful, as I am, to the Pasadena Playhouse for giving me the opportunity to tell this story a second time”

So maybe there will be more insight now with an expanded story.

Cher Odds and Ends

SandcSome clips that have come across Cher Scholar’s desk this week:

A Cher Investment: songs written by Bon Jovi, Cher, Celine Dion and Justin Timberlake now form part of the investment portfolio of Dutch civil service pension fund ABP.

Dinner Date Night Idea: stay at home, watch Moonstruck and bake a pizza; here’s how.

Good News: the paparazzi are starting to get arrested in LA when their volume and tactics put people in jeopardy. Uh…it’s about time. Read about such an arrest.

And if you recall my gripes last week or so about Cher’s modern dance routines compared to her 80s Vegas ones, here is a story on her choreographer Doriana Sanchez and how they hooked up.Donnymarie_5

And Cher may not support Obama but he supports Cher: in a joke last week Jay Leno said: "In an interview in People Magazine, Barack Obama said he was more a fan of Sonny and Cher than he was a fan of Donny and Marie. Well, that should answer the question of whether he’s black enough!" That’s actually very kewl. Sonny & Cher got soul…we knew it!

A party of Sonny, Chers, Donny and Maries

Dolls_2   

   

   

 

    

 

   

A soulful Cher among honkey Osmonds

Osmond_cher_2 

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