It seems that back in 1996 I was mug enough to both pay for, and spend an hour listening to, an advert.
This card-covered CD sampler cost £1.00 in the UK for 16 complete Christian songs, one from each of 16 different albums.
In fairness, also attached were 16 £1-off coupons.
Had I decided to go ahead and purchase all 16 CDs, or cassettes, then this sampler would have represented quite a saving. (provided that I had spent them all before the expiry dates on the back of 31.12.96)
However fourteen years on, whenever I try to recall the experience of actually listening to this CD, I find that I can remember only one of its 16 ditties. One absolutely vomit-projectingly awful track that I just gave up half way through.
I mean, I never do that. I always stick these things out. I've sat through The Star Wars Holiday Special three times!
Anyway, aside from using it as backing music to a slide-show evening that I got together in 2003, I never let this disc see the light of a laser ever again.
Until this morning when I cranked-up the DVD-player (unthinkable back in '96) to give the whole thing another chance.
Although it's a sampler, I played every song all the way through, but did make a note of how far I was through each track when I first checked how much time was left. Except for on the first one, as I was still coming up with the idea then. Hardly a positive attitude I know, but that's the cruel world of reality blogging for you.
So, welcome to Christians Had Talent - where, by the end of this post, just one of these 16 tracks will have beaten the other 15 into submission by going around in my head for the rest of today.
Sadly, there's also a loser song in here somewhere, which will emerge as the one which made me wince so much all those long years ago.
So, let's meet our 16 hopeful contestants...
1. Field Of Souls - Wayne Watson
2. Revolution - The World Wide Message Tribe
3. Flood - Jars Of Clay
4. Glorify The Lord - Jessy Dixon & the Chicago Community Choir
5. So Help Me God - DC Talk
6. Out Of The Darkness - Re: Fresh
7. Gravity - Out Of The Grey
8. Alone In The Presence - Ce Ce Winans
9. Everything Changes - Iona
10. Love - Imagine This
11. Two Sets Of Jones - Big Tent Revival
12. The City Of Peace - Adrian Snell
13. True Devotion - Margaret Becker
14. Remember Your Chains - Steven Curtis Chapman
15. Simple Things - Tony Vincent
16. Be Encouraged - William Becton & Friends
Who will win, and who will lose? There's only one way to find out, right after these messages.
(INSERT LOCAL ADVERTS HERE)
Ready? Here we go!
1. Field Of Souls - Wayne Watson
S'okay. Maybe a bit long for an opening track.
What do you think, Simon Cowell?
Cowell: "I think this whole post is a stupid idea. The 28th of February was six weeks ago now. Why don't you find a hobby you can keep up to date at?"
Yes, thank you Simon, and thank you for your analysis. (SOBS)
2. Revolution - The World Wide Message Tribe
Dance music. At this early stage, it actually moved me to put on some headphones. (prior to that the DVD had been playing through the TV - also unthinkable in '96) Checked the time at 2:30. Not bad, I liked this. A bit barmy.
3. Flood - Jars Of Clay
Nice music, but such lifeless monotone singing. Much of it is a song with only one note. Checked the time at 0:57. And again at 2:01. And 2:37. And 3:19. Oh, please, make it stop now, newbie.
4. Glorify The Lord - Jessy Dixon & the Chicago Community Choir
This accomplishes every expectation that the title and artists' names suggest. It's hand-clapping, shoulder-triangling, throat-OWing gospel-music, much of which is rendered sadly unintelligible due to giving the instruments all the close microphones.
(We've got to Lift him up)
We got to lift him up
(Jesus!)
Lift him up!
Lift him up!
(Owww!)
(I had to wonder if they'd dropped him...)
0:48. But I mean, who doesn't like gospel music?
5. So Help Me God - DC Talk
One of those rare groups who I have actually seen perform live. (at Greenbelt 1990, since you ask) There they blew me away with their unique ability to perform a rap number that I actually liked! Here they've astounded me again. The entire track sounds like an old Philips compact cassette throughout. The dynamic range sounds appropriately narrow, it's distorted, and it quite literally wows. (I assume this copy was taken from the CD) Amazingly, despite all these self-inflicted handicaps, I noticed my foot was swinging up and down to it. I never looked at the clock.
6. Out Of The Darkness - Re: Fresh
Probably not an arrangement of the old movie of the same name, instead it's another dance / rave number. This sounds so repetitive and 1990s, these guys might just be 2 Unlimited-Lite. The track's energy-levels certainly suggest little sugar-content.
You know
That faith shows
You've lifted me
Out of the darkness
You know
That faith shows
You've lifted me
Out of the darkness
Out of the darkness
Out of the darkness
You lifted me
You lifted me
You lifted me
You lifted me
Out of the darkness
You lifted me
(You lifted me)
You lifted me
Out of the darkness
You lifted me
(You lifted me)
You lifted me
Out of the darkness
You lifted me
You lifted me
Out of the darkness
You lifted me
(fade-out)
I tell you, it was as though the CD itself was thanking me for finally playing it again.
For some reason in my notes I have written the two contradictory comments "foot swinging" and "going to sleep". I never quite looked at the clock. That could go either way, couldn't it? Well, let's be positive and assume that I liked it. My foot obviously did.
7. Gravity - Out Of The Grey
Nothing to do with UFOs, unless we're talking about time-travel. This one certainly transported me back in time, specifically to the 1970s. This time my swinging foot was joined by my lips mouthing along. Despite these good signs, 1:46 and 2:43.
8. Alone In The Presence - Ce Ce Winans
I think this was the point when the CD started to get the better of me, or maybe I actually mean the worse. I first looked at the clock at 0:39. I second looked at the clock a mere eight seconds later at 0:47. At the lyric "Your will clearly shows" I let out a Krusty-esque groan, and picked up a comic to read for the rest.
Heh-heh, that was funny. What's the time now? 2:11. Spent the rest of this in the comic book. Doctor Who And The Star Beast part one to be precise. Dave Gibbons' art is excellent as ever, turning the newsreader character into a believable Angela Rippon. Mills & Wagner's script is more comical than usual, but it works. Beep the Meep comes across in his first appearance as comedically cute, and I like that.
This might just be the way to knuckle down for the rest of this disc. Yes, of course that'll be unfair on all the other artists.
Sorry CeCe. Apparently just not my thing.
9. Everything Changes - Iona
Okay. No opinion. A bit haunting maybe. What clock? Don't distract me - the Wrarth Warriors have planted a bomb in the Doctor's stomach! They want to use him to blow-up that nice Meep! "Meep! Meep!"
10. Love - Imagine This
Funky from the outset, I liked this immediately, despite the lyrics sounding like some jilted lover laying-into their crazy cheating ex.
"I never knew
The ways that you could be
And I never dreamed
The things that I could see
And I never felt
The way I feel right now
And I never knew
That you lived in the clouds.
Mm-hmm-hmm…"
"But now I know...
That your love is everywhere
Like a song in the air
Your love is everywhere I go
Whoa!
Your love is everywhere
Like a song in the air
Your love is everywhere I go
All the time.
Mm-hm-hmm.
I'd never seen
The faces you could wear..."
11. Two Sets Of Jones - Big Tent Revival
ARGHH! This is the track I just couldn't stomach last time!
Surely preaching to the converted, it's the tale of two couples, one of whom placed their faith in Jesus, and the other of whom didn't. Well, guess what happens.
Not so much a straw-man argument, more of a straw-marriage one. 0:16. I never looked at the clock again - I had my hand over my face in despair throughout, and was literally shaking my head at the end. I don't know what the opposite of evangelism is, but this might be it. Unvangelism maybe. Don't ever let a non-Christian hear this. Don't let any divorced Christians hear it either.
Happily married Christians? They might like it, but I'm not sure it'll promote humility.
Lyrics here.
(it doesn't include all his smug crooning "Lie-de-die, lie-de-die, lie-de-die, lie-de-die" at the end)
Eurghh…
12. The City Of Peace - Adrian Snell
Urgh. (Y'know "urgh"? Doesn't quite make it to "eurghh"?) Straight back to the comic. Sorry Adrian, but you were up against a really good reprint. BTW I think your song's title - "The City Of Peace" - would make a good Doctor Who story-title too.
Heh-heh, K-9's been reprogrammed to think that he's a cat.
13. True Devotion - Margaret Becker
This sounds like 1991. Specifically, December. In an okay way. It also turns out that the Meep is evil, while the Wrarth are actually the good guys. The Doctor's still not too keen on blowing-up though.
14. Remember Your Chains - Steven Curtis Chapman
I've written nothing down. Nothing. Not even the track number. I do remember the evil Meep turning humans into zombies to help it repair its spaceship.
15. Simple Things - Tony Vincent
"1980s." That's it.
16. Be Encouraged - William Becton & Friends
It's the final track of the CD, and my notes aren't looking good. I seem to have written simply "2:53", "4:37", "4:48" and "4:53". I'm guessing that it ended sometime around the 5:00 mark. Does this mean that I'm not one of William Becton's friends? But I can't even remember why…
Overall, being a publicity album, I suppose they probably put the arguably best tracks at the start, figuring that the early ones would get listened to more and stand a greater chance of generating sales.
On the plus side, the Doctor fiddled with the Meep's star drive, saving everyone and indirectly causing it to be taken into intergalactic custody. He's even had the bomb removed from his stomach. K-9 still thinks he's a cat though. So, the CD hasn't been a total waste.
I guess I should round-off by noting here that, in maybe 14 years, I've never bought a single one of the albums being advertised here.
That's all very well, but which is the track that I can't stop humming?
Well, now that I've had a good eight hours sleep, I can confidently reveal which one of the sixteen songs has been repeatedly going around in my head today.
Yes, The Two freakin' Jones. Yes, that's the same one that I disliked the most as well. Hey - that's the music industry for ya, kid.
Y'know, although it still annoys me, it's a catchy little number. I like the realisation of the line "and the rains came down." And the stark imagery of the lyric "One set of Joneses was standing that day." Maybe I should have listened to it a little more?
Lie-de-die, lie-de-die, lie-de-die, lie-de-die…
(with thanks to Herschel for the comic)Labels: comics, music
Doctor Who finally does a story about Area 51, and gets away with it.
There are two things that I have come to expect of Phil Ford's Doctor Who scripts:
1. A reasonable story, about an original subject.
2. A few conspicuous mistakes.
On the whole, I find that observation one doesn't usually manage to eclipse observation two, however for me, this story didn't even have a point two.
I will admit to being confused by the many different factions in this - two human and three alien - but I came out of it confident that the story had worked, even though I had not fully understood it. That's quite an achievement given the number of problems that I have had with this series in the past.
The main characters play their parts well, Murray Gold's Thunderbirds-ish music hides well in a cartoon, and the story itself is a good old-fashioned runaround, as the underdog Doctor figures-out the mystery. The action sequences work well too, and some of the artwork looks great.
Even the token zombies are okay, outweighed as they are by so many other good elements. Let's hope we see some more of these robots again sometime.
What is conspicuous by its absence is any motion-capture work. As a result, none of the animatics move with any conviction, not even when the script merely calls for them to simply walk. Again with the Thunderbirds style.
The Doctor manages to outrun bullets quite a lot, and his sonic screwdriver seems to get considerately left on him when captured, but so what.
I do think it's a shame than an official spin-off like this wasn't smart enough to state precisely when it takes place for the Doctor. The last live-action episode (The Waters Of Mars) finished a bit differently to normal, so I can't help but wonder whether, in retrospect, this story will make more sense out of transmission-sequence. Still, we'll see.
The last Doctor Who cartoon - The Infinite Quest - didn't really do much for me, but as a series this one certainly has potential.
Set in a big sandpit with a few monsters, it might as well have been live-action.
Is that a compliment for doing Doctor Who well, or a criticism for not maximising on the opportunities afforded by the animated medium?
I guess it's a bit of both.
:)Labels: doctor-who, tv
Two years ago I missed this film at the cinema.
Then, last week, it got a screening on Channel 4, so I taped it.
Then, this week, as apparently is their wont, Channel 4 went and showed it again.
By the time I finally watched it this morning, (fourth time lucky) over four years had passed since Herschel and I had gone to the cinema to watch the first one. It's a good job that I'm a fan of the comics, or by now I might well have forgotten who all these super-types were.
Except for that mailman character - I remember him. Just what was that bouncer thinking - turning away such a hard-working fellow from Reed and Sue's wedding, just for pretending to be Stan Lee? I mean we've all done it.
Anyway, Herschel never shovelled-out for the sequel either, and since my film reviews seem to have been getting a bit negative lately, here just for a change is his review of it.
Remember now, let's keep that blood-pressure down...
"Way to mess up the ending, Hollywood!
So, the Silver Surfer just had to turn on the cloud and it would disappear forever. Well, maybe he should have thought of that as soon as he got his powers, huh? It's not like the Surfer is ever a bad guy in this.
I liked the cloud effect, but it so desperately cried out for a sentient presence inside it. The Surfer attracting a space typhoon made no sense. I wonder what non-comic readers made of that, whether it made more or less sense than it did to me knowing the original story.
And Galactus only got named once in the whole thing. Such a loss.
This was probably the greatest ever Marvel comic, the most glorious story ever put in comics, and they utterly loused up the ending. The rest trekked along with some wit and style, but it just bailed out entirely on the ending.
If the cloud had had any suggestion of sentience at all it might have made more sense, but it just wasn't portrayed like that at all. At least it could have spoken, "how dare you defy me, herald!" - something!!! But no, it was a weather system. A weather system of EVIL!
I'm sorry, Hollywood people... this was a better movie than the first FF, and there was some charm to the performances at least, but even if you have to lose the image of a giant guy in purple armour (which you don't, Galactus is the definition of awesome), you still need...
1. Galactus to have personality.
2. The FF to play some role in saving the day.
This was an Ultimate Nullifier short of a success. I give it 6 Hey!™s out of 10, the ending was just a shambles."Labels: comics, films
TX 24/01/2010
The first in a series of films on Channel 4 expressing famous people's beliefs on the Bible.
Jewish-ish novelist Howard Jacobson loves the Biblical account of creation, but he doesn't believe that it's literally true.
I haven't asked them all, but I'd speculate that maybe 50% of my church-going Christian friends agree with him.
Unfortunately the backbone of this film depends upon the old straw-polarisation of religion and science into two irreconcilable camps, which Jacobson then seeks to reconcile. When, in the closing ten minutes, he finally interviews a Christian who considers the first chapter of Genesis to be poetry, I had to wonder just why he had left such a common perspective until so late.
However Jacobson's (general) respect for the people of both leanings is refreshing, as is his commitment to his search for truth.
"Where's the point in attacking religion for thinking it has all the answers, when you think you have all the answers yourself? Blind faith is fatuous, but so is blind doubt."
That said, Jacobson's pre-existing beliefs rob him of some of the open-mindedness necessary for a search for truth. Hence, when it comes to his opinion on natural history, evolution is understandably assumed to be true throughout this, while creation is not.
One creationist – Greg Haslam – objectively challenges the fossil record:
Haslam: “Fossils aren’t formed gradually over time, because dead animals rot or they’re eaten by predators. How could a whole dinosaur be preserved without sudden catastrophic burial.”
Jacobson discards this reasoning without addressing it.
I found the theory that the first thirteen books of the Bible were an enormous historical retcon a fascinating one, although tough to swallow without equally doubting today's similar retcons, such as evolution and the big bang.
This programme's modern CGI images of what we imagine Earth and gigantic starfields to look like really ought to emphasise the extent to which our perceptions today are informed by our faith. We only know what space looks like from here - we use science to calculate what we think it looks like from elsewhere, and then faith to believe it.
Similarly, we use science to calculate natural history, and then faith to believe that too.
My own stance on the debate is that you can't conclusively prove - using science or written records - that any event definitely happened before your life began. Sure, we can speculate with reasonable certainty events from within the lifetime of those contemporaries older than ourselves, and maybe even within the lifetime of people who they used to know, but beyond that history gets muddy. We can't really be sure of any alleged event based purely upon the testimony of people we've never met, and certainly not of any supposed event from before records even began.
It's very easy to be wrong about a thing that you can't check, and as man cannot travel in time, both evolution and creation remain very, very unchecked. Maybe we should all just get over ourselves and accept that we don’t, and can’t, know.
At the close of the programme, Jacobson seems to agree with the Christian who believes the creation account to be a beautiful work of fiction constructed from the author's (or authors') present-day world.
Disappointingly, he doesn't equally apply this perspective to test evolution.
But then Jacobson's journey is not about discerning which version, if either, is true, but about how he can embrace them both.
I have to admit that, although I believe creation, I do see some beauty in the evolution theory too.
Click here for review of programme 2 - Abraham.
Click here for review of programme 3 - Moses and the Law.
Click here for review of programme 4 - The Daughters of Eve.
Click here for review of programme 5 - Jesus.
Click here for review of programme 6 - St. Paul.
Click here for review of programme 7 - Revelation - The Last Judgement.Labels: bible, tv
Overall, it's been a promising series.
I think The Sarah Jane Adventures really wants to regain the hipness of its first season, but has become too much of a performance piece. The central character in that first series was arguably Maria, and the relationship that she had with her mum and dad was highly believable.
These days however, Maria has been replaced by the sparkier Rani, who has sitcom parents. There's nothing wrong with that - actors Ace Bhatti and Mina Anwar make a great double act - but I do think the overall show misses that grounding in the real world.
When every edition now starts off with Clyde talking to camera and introducing clips from upcoming episodes, well you do lose that a bit. I am impressed that they didn't misuse this sequence to give-away the Doctor's return. Speaking of which… this season the Doctor returned!
The stories this year have been weaker than in the first series too, but acceptable because they have also been nowhere near as poor as in series two. At least this time they have generally been workable again, although that may be because so many of them have followed the same formula - zombies, and a machine that conveniently undoes everything at the end.
Stepping-up the rate of broadcast to two episodes a week didn't help to disguise this repetition either.
It's a shame that Maria hasn't made it back for her mum's wedding yet, but maybe a fourth series will grant us her long-awaited meeting with Rani?
And I must mention the music. About 80% of it must go. It's like listening to shortwave radio and getting interference from another station.
Of course, what I'd really like to see is an episode written by Steven Moffat. The dialogue in SJA tends to feel quite awkward at times, but his sparkling banter might just be able to make it all flow like in his old filmic series Press Gang.
Not that that will be any good if we can't hear it.
Stories this season:
Comic Relief Special
Prisoner Of The Judoon
The Mad Woman In The Attic
The Wedding Of Sarah Jane Smith
The Eternity Trap
Mona Lisa's Revenge
The GiftLabels: doctor-who, tv
The final story of this series doesn't start off so well.
There's an obese kid being chased by our heroes. Obesity, as you know, is not something you should poke fun at kids for.
Rani: "He's just a kid! What does he want with a… what was is called?"
Luke: "Matter Compressor."
Clyde: "Well - maybe he wants some matter compressed."
However, everyone knows that in this show, obese people are always evil Slitheen who must be stopped, not that that's the sort of message you would want to send into the nation's playgrounds either…
Despite this, our heroes are amazed when said big kid turns out to be a Slitheen zombie, as usual.
No-one even mentions the poor kid who has died to provide the body.
The Slitheen actually get defeated in the opening minutes by the Blathereen. These are two good aliens voiced with unusual difficulty by Simon Callow and Miriam Margoyles.
The helpful Blathereen then politely invite themselves over to Rani's house for dinner. At this farcical situation, a comedy of manners ensues, strangulated as always by so much incidental music. Trying to filter out so much interference is reminiscent of watching something on a portable TV.
At the end of the evening, the friendly aliens give Sarah a rackweed plant as a gift, promising that it can solve the Earth's famine problem. (which I'd always thought was more about mankind's lack of organisation) Sarah's reluctance to accept prompts her to wonder if she's actually being careful, or just plain prejudiced.
This in turn then gives way to a more solid storyline about said plant infecting the Earth's atmosphere and proceeding to destroy the environment. It's a New Zealand customs official's worst nightmare. It goes without saying that these new nice aliens turn out to actually be malicious ones.
It all finishes with K-9, Clyde and Rani realising that the plant can handily be destroyed by sound, and Mr Smith somehow retuning London's smoke-alarms, clock radios, car alarms, even microwaves etc. to that frequency. Yes, once again they have a machine that just undoes everything for them.
Mr. Smith: "I am now linking to all electrical devices in the area invaded by the rackweed, and retuning them to replicate the bell's frequency."
How does he do that? I mean I know that Mr. Smith is an alien computer an'all, but still, just how does he retune the alarm frequency of all the microwave ovens in London?
Furthermore, why didn't the aliens just release the plant into the wild themselves? Why go through that whole difficult charade of having dinner with, and talking Sarah into, accepting the plant as a gift? All this and cool Clyde's out-of-character theft of K-9, and "Go" dance.
It all adds up to the worst full-length story this season, particularly because of the ending, in which the aliens break wind so violently that they literally explode their brown innards all over the cast.
Since the last story of each series usually features the return of the aliens from the opening one, I had been expecting the Judoon to come back. Now of course I wish that they had.
Silly me, I guess I forgot about this season's actual opener, specifically that awful sketch on Comic Relief…
Sorry guys, but I didn't think it finished so well either.Labels: doctor-who, tv
I'd like to call this entry a 'return to form' for the series, but since I've found all three films so far to be quite different in tone to each other, I'm just not sure what this franchise's 'form' is.
This is definitely the best of the three though, featuring a much simpler - and therefore easier to follow - plot, and more depth to the characters.
Ethan Hunt is now engaged to a girl to whom he's apparently planning to spend the rest of his life lying. About his past, about his job, and about himself. Well, obviously I was rooting for that relationship to end straight away, for her sake. Has he even told her about the girl he was going out with in II?
The other stumbling-block I had here stemmed from the first movie. After the way they made the TV show's lead character Jim Phelps become a bad guy, it still follows that new lead Ethan Hunt may well do the same thing. Frankly, I just don't want to root for Hunt after that film.
Why sure, maybe I should consider this third movie in isolation from the other two, but my point is that my keenness on the whole series was disabled by that first one. This is the extent of the damage done by that ill-advised own-goal.
Okay, I'll take some deep breaths now… (gaaasp, exhale, gaaaasp, exhale, gaaaaasp…)
Mission: Impossible IV's due out next year. Yep, I'm up for that, but not enough to reward them by buying a ticket.Labels: films
When writing these reviews, I usually only put the year in brackets after the title if there has been more than one version made, to differentiate which production I am talking about.
As far as I know, there has only ever been one movie adaptation of Charles Webb’s book The Graduate, but let’s be honest, as soon as someone in Hollywood notices, that will change. It’ll be Teri Hatcher coming onto Frankie Muniz or someone.
I watched this film today because it’s Valentine’s Day, and this was the closest thing I could find to a romcom. (I’ve decided to start liking romcoms from now on)
I gotta say, although I’d never seen it before, The Graduate felt like a movie that I had already sat through many times, purely because it’s been so extensively satirised down the years.
Particularly the ending. When Dustin Hoffman pelts down that road towards the church, expending every drop of energy that he has to play the scene, I already had a pretty clear idea what the layout and architecture of the building would be, along with exactly how he was about to interact with it.
The Graduate is a film that starts out as a finely performed drama, before sliding slowly into comedy, and ultimately throwing it all aside for Hollywood fantasy. Benjamin has slept with Elaine’s mom, but being movieland he still gets the girl anyway. Now there's forgiveness in a relationship for you. All the same, I guess that’s the point at which this jumped the shark for me.
That’s not enough to make it a bad movie though. Films about introverts are always watchable, and Dustin Hoffman proves throughout this that he’s every bit the first rate actor that he’s so often parodied for.
The music too is outstanding. I don’t normally like to hear lyrics on a film’s soundtrack, because I think it’s a form of narration and breaks the fourth wall, but Simon & Garfunkel’s guitarry numbers convey so much of the title character’s loneliness and desperation that they imbue the film with an atmosphere all of its own.
Maybe I was wrong above when I suggested that this classic was in danger of suffering a remake. The original book did get a sequel recently…Labels: films
Since they became so ubiquitous, I have never understood film soundtrack albums.
I mean it made sense that if a movie contained a lot of particularly worthy music, such as Queen’s work on Flash Gordon, then of course there might be a lot of people who would enjoy listening to it for its own value.
But every single other flick? Come off it.
Excluding musicals, songs used to be something of a rarity in movies, but the whole Original Soundtrack Album industry seems to have changed all that. For example, your average soundtrack album is about 60 minutes long, and predominantly full of lyrics. Your average film is more like 90-120 minutes. This means that every film that gets made now must contain singing throughout at least 50% of it.
Of course that’s not true, these days the songs on these things only have to be in the film briefly, if at all. The Blair Witch Project, I understand, contains no music, yet still managed to produce a soundtrack album anyway. On some level I have to admire such positive thinking.
In most cases though, a production company will now happily mix-in as much inappropriate music as seems necessary to secure better CD sales afterwards, often making a worse movie in the process.
Yet it took my purchase of the Major League soundtrack LP from Tower Records on 9th November 1989 to realise much of this.
I’d watched the film Major League several times while… what? What do you mean how can I remember the date? Why do you want to know that? Look, here I am trying to point an accusing cursor at the failings of an entire album genre, and all you can do is focus on one trivial little detail. What do you mean that’s what I’m doing as well? (sigh) Oh, all right, look, I can remember the date because I kept the receipt, okay?
Right, can we please go on now? Thank you.
I’d watched Major League several times in 1989 (because the year’s printed on my payslips okay) while working at my local Odeon, and there was one specific bit of drummy instrumental music that I particularly liked. It played over an establishing shot of the Cleveland Stadium at night.
So, like a mug, I went out and bought the album.
(insert receipt jpeg)
Y’see? I was GOING to put the receipt picture in HERE. Now I have to substitute the LP cover instead, which means somehow fitting it into my much smaller scanner, so I’m going to have to scan it in in four parts, and then seamlessly jigsaw them all together in Paint.
There – sorted.
Now here’s my point. There were only two instrumental tracks on the entire album, both towards the end of side 2, and neither of which was the one that I actually wanted.
The rest of the album, like so many soundtrack releases these days, is packed to bursting with songs, in the wrong order, and most of which we’d only enjoyed brief snatches of in the film, if at all. Admittedly, I haven’t been through checking each one, so maybe all nine of them were indeed buried away in there somewhere. It's starting to seem as though those samples in the movie were just adverts for the CD.
Anyway, those two instrumental pieces - Trial & Error and Pennant Fever, both by James Newton Howard and mixed by Robert Schaper - feature in the film in their entirety, and understandably wound up being my favourite tracks on the album. They even handily provided the intro music to my first broadcast radio show on 1st December 1991. (because I wrote it on the side of the cassette it’s recorded on)
I was still using those tracks 15 years later in New Zealand…
Anyway, back to the early 1990s, and one day I happened upon the CD album of the sequel:
This is probably the best of the three Major League CDs, and does indeed feature some instrumentals, particularly Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Rude Mood, which I find pleasantly reminiscent of The Goodies.
Ultimately I wound up playing this CD several times over, so much so that when I finally sat down to watch the film itself, I kept getting distracted by spotting all the familiar songs whenever they crept in. For example, one track can be briefly heard on a juke box in a bar. This broke the illusion.
When I came across the threequel’s CD, I made sure that I left it forgotten in a dark corner of my room for the many years that would pass until I finally got around to watching the movie first.
Well, since that day happened recently on 6th February 2010 (because it’s on my blog!), tonight I finally cranked-up the DVD player, plugged the headphones into the TV, sat back and listened.
This one contains quite a range of styles, from Scatman John’s slightly dogmatic Steal The Base, to the Cuban-sounding Oye Como Va from Takaaki Ishibashi, Dennis Haysbert & The Jay Miley Band.
But any instrumentals? The text on the CD itself states that Reverend Horton Heat’s Baby I’m Drunk qualifies, but maybe whoever typed that was (hic) drunk at the time.
The very last track on here however – Robert Folk’s Dugout - contains no lyrics whatsoever, and the wandering clarinet makes it sound curiously reminiscent of a Harold Lloyd movie.
Overall though, despite each one including a crowd-pleasing cover-version of a classic hit, on all three discs the dominant style is country, which I still find too laid-back to really get me interested.
I hardly ever buy soundtrack albums now.
Major League available to sample / buy here.
Major League II available to sample / buy here.
Major League: Back To The Minors available to sample / listen here.Labels: films, music
It’s the four issues from 1985 of Marvel UK’s Spider-Man Weekly reprint series, that began its sudden and mistifying attempt to shed its existing teen readership in favour of one half its age.
Unsurprisingly, these issues also began the decent towards the title’s inevitable cancellation six months later.
With issue #634, the new production team retitled the mag The Spider-Man Comic and began replacing all the established Marvel Universe strips with material from outside the generally accepted canon. Spider-Man’s decades-old storyline was suddenly dropped in favour of rather more generic fare. Readers who had previously enjoyed the mag for all its super-powered battles were now being invited to send in their funniest rib-ticklers. But on the plus side, the first two issues did come with free transfers!
(admittedly some of the transfers were the same)
These four issues principally reprint two Spider-stories.
The first is Danger In Denver! which is set in the world of the old Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends TV cartoon, featuring as it does our hero together with his flatmates Iceman and Fire-Star.
In the US, this hadn’t even been printed in a regular Marvel Comic. This strip was especially created for a free advertising supplement within the Denver Post.
So throwaway had this insertion been, that apparently someone had even thrown away the original printing plates. Look at the colour, or rather lack of it, in this panel:
And now imagine it in black-and-white.
The second story – the earlier published Southwest Showdown! - looks much clearer, and had originally been distributed free with both the Dallas Times Herald and Tulsa World, as well as through the now world-famous Sanger Harris store. World-famous since this strip got reprinted by Marvel UK anyway. These strips had after all originally been written just for shoppers and their kids, so take a look at these six panels, and ask yourself if you feel like buying anything...
As an impressionable fourteen-year-old, after reading this story I realised that I really needed to go out and buy some clothes. At the Sanger Harris store in Dallas. And I told my parents that I wanted to become a cheerleader.
It's hard to fathom just who these UK editions were really aimed at, but I guess it was very young British girls, who were fans of rugby, and shopped in Texas.
The back-up strips, which for the past ten years had featured a dazzling array of other Marvel super heroes, didn’t fare much better, replaced by reprints from Star Comics that were very definitely aimed at pre-teens.
Writer/Artist: Bob Bolling
Letterer: Grace Kremer
Colours: George Roussos
Editor: Sid Jacobson
Executive Editor: Tom DeFalco
Editor In Chief: Jim Shooter
Making it difficult for themselves from the outset, Willy The Wizard was a reprint from the US of Wally The Wizard. Why did they change the name? Your guess is as good as mine.
Whatever the reasoning, it required Marvel UK to rewrite the title character’s name every single time it was mentioned, along with all the other words they so liked to Anglicise. Joyously, they miss an instance on the very first page, when Marlin is actually telling-off Wally, sorry I mean Willy, oh whatever, for getting his name wrong!
If the irony was intended, then I’d like to know what excuse they had for again calling him Wally in the narration the following week…
Minor spelling errors aside, I’ve got to say that I really enjoyed this opening four-parter, entitled A Plague Of Locust. It’s pun-laden and very funny. Why aren’t there more strips like this?
Queen: (viewing events through the watchtower window)"Sir Flauntaroy! He’s been unhorsed… by a chestnut tree! No, I believe it’s an elm!"
King Kodger: "Is the sap running?"
Queen: "No! He’s out cold!"
Writer: Stan Kay
Art / Colouring: Marie Severin
Lettering: Grace Kremer
Editor: Sid Jacobson
Executive Editor: Tom DeFalco
Editor In Chief: Jim Shooter
The other back-up strip is Fraggle Rock in The Magic Time Machine. This one also impresses, being very true indeed to the original series. Not just in getting its facts right, but the characterisations, structure and tone too. Fraggle Rock was a much deeper show than it’s generally remembered for, and this spin-off outing is true to all of that.
Yet again though, Marvel UK managed to fumble their presentation of it.
In the US TV series, the human character was an American named Doc, who owned a (muppet) dog called Sprocket. When the show was sold overseas, these scenes would be refilmed with a local actor playing a completely new character, who also owned a (muppet) dog called Sprocket. This grounded the show as being set fairly nearby wherever it was viewed. In the UK, TVS got through three different actors playing three different humans (the Captain, PK and BJ) over the course of the show’s history.
With this in mind, (or maybe just because they couldn’t use the American actor’s likeness, I don’t know) the US comic strip deliberately hid the human character’s face, presumably expecting overseas reprints to simply replace the name ‘Doc’ with whatever the local one was. You gotta admit, Marvel UK should have taken to this idea like a duck to water.
Well, they missed it, which is such a shame. They would have been so good at that. Maybe they needed TVS’ permission or something. But all the same, in this first story Doc does only get name-checked in the opening narration and UK-originated recaps!
These issues also feature two British strips by Lew Stringer - Snailman and the suspiciously titled Captain Wally. These days Mr Stringer writes a hugely informative, and entertaining, blog about comics that I sometimes dip into, but twenty-five years ago these strips betrayed nothing of that knowledge. Both are about a comedically terrible super hero, and both appear to have been written for readers who are rather unfamiliar with the genre.
The inside back-cover of each issue reprints one-pagers from Spidey Super Stories, a US comic that tied-into the Children’s Television Workshop’s Electric Company TV show. After these four issues, material from this educational source would supply the lead Spider-Man strip, with predictably disastrous consequences.
These four issues therefore represent the title’s month-long segue from aiming for a teen audience to aiming for a pre-teen one. It’s an odd kind of mixture, because although the overall tone begins to talk-down, some of the old features still remain, almost apologetically. The Hallowed Ranks Of Marveldom! - a list of honourary abbreviations describing how obsessed the reader is with collecting Marvel Comics – just doesn’t belong in a comic aimed at children too young to have much pocket money.
And as for the back page of issue #637… well!
Sleep tight kids!Labels: comics
Repeat TX 28/12/2008 BBC-2
Opening narration: ”December 1966, and London is swinging. The new beat groups are rocking the charts, Hendrix has just arrived in town, and the mini-skirt is all the rage.
But tonight belongs to the old school.
Arriving in style for the star-studded premiere of their brand new film: Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Their studios on the Slough trading estate have become a mini-Hollywood and a multi-million pound empire, their TV show is an international hit, their movie will be the Christmas film, but the real stars of the night are not people - they’re puppets.
This is All About Thunderbirds - how Britain’s favourite puppet show went from Slough to the stars.”
Those words sure make it sound like the next 60 minutes are going to be a well-made BBC documentary chronicling the history of the TV series Thunderbirds, but the pictures that accompany them foreshadow the actual lazy truth.
The first paragraph is accompanied by stock footage from the day, however from the confusing words “But tonight belongs to the old school” we segue into modern videotape.
This features hazily-shot doubles of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson being driven through present-day London in a lifesize replica of Lady Penelope’s FAB1 car. We know it’s present-day because of all the modern cars, taxis and buses. At one point, before reaching Burger King, the camera positively lingers on the late lamented Virgin Megastore on New Oxford Street. Even the pink Rolls Royce itself features a huge website address emblazoned across the top of the front windscreen.
Well, obviously this is all meant to represent Gerry and Sylvia being driven to the premiere of the recent live-action Thunderbirds movie in 2004. That would reconcile the opening 1966 line with the subsequent one about tonight belonging “to the old school”, along with Gerry’s modern shaved head.
No, this actually is meant to be a reconstruction of the Andersons’ journey to the opening night of Thunderbirds Are Go! in 1966.
By the end of the programme, there’s just no alternative film for them to be seeing, since not only does the 2005 remake never get a mention, but neither does Thunderbird 6. Thunderbirds Are Go! is portrayed as the flop that got the franchise cancelled, so there was no more Thunderbirds after that, apparently.
It this programme’s claim to tell us All About Thunderbirds wasn’t already damaged enough, a great deal of it gets sidetracked into recounting Anderson’s other TV series, but only up until Space: 1999. After that he seems to have stopped working. No Space Precinct, no New Captain Scarlet, no Dick Spanner, no Lavender Castle, and certainly no three years of the Thunderbirds follow-up Terrahawks.
Worse, yet again the BBC trot-out the old wives’ tale that Thunderbirds somehow remained off the air for decades until they heroically brought it back in 1991. Apparently I just imagined watching the virtually endless reruns of Anderson’s many series on the ITV regions as a teen in the 80s.
Still, at least the BBC are consistent in their propaganda, here even presenting a clip from one of their own news bulletins of the time, attempting to pass-off a cheap plug for the latest repeats as news:
Narration: “By the early 90s, even BBC bosses had realised there was something going on here.”
CLIP OF BBC NEWS 21/09/91:”Tonight at six o’clock Thunderbirds are go once again as BBC-2 begins a rerun of the classic puppet series.”
Interviewee: ”There it was – the original episodes back on BBC-2, which I think probably was the first time it had been on in, in twenty years, and then that was, in a way, somehow I feel like it was the beginning of nostalgic television actually started there, and then, y’know, all the programmes since about all the other nostalgia, feels like it kind of started somewhere around there.”
The guy who said that sounds a little nostalgic for the nostalgia, and sadly represents the generally low quality of the soundbites that break-up this programme. At another point he mocks the programme’s famous mechanically-folding palm trees as though they were real within the story. “Ridiculous – why didn’t they plant those palm trees further out?”
I don’t want to knock him too much – I have tremendous respect for his work – but as a fan he really should have known better. Even Nick Park lets the side down, apparently playing to his perceptions of the audience’s expectations by claiming that both he and his brother used to fancy the puppet Marina.
Still, it is nice to hear what the original creators had to recall, particularly Francis Matthews on playing Captain Scarlet.
Special Effects Assistant Alan Shubrook, for some reason, is interviewed next to a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle hanging from black strings. What – could it fly or something?
At one point they even flash up an actual photo of Gerry and Sylvia from the real-life premiere that their doubles were travelling to in the reconstruction at the start of the programme, and there's little similarity. Gerry even had hair back then.
Not so much a documentary, more a collection of people recalling stuff without checking their memories. Unfortunately fans will have better recall, and therefore little to get out of this.
Upon this transmission, the show was preceded, allowing for a sport update, by a ‘new’ episode of Stingray entitled The Reunion Party.
This cobbles together sequences of original Stingray episodes to form an authentic clips shows, complete with the inherent disappointment that these things always incite. Clips shows were great back when a programme only got screened twice, tolerable throughout the VHS era, and have absolutely no place in the current age of DVDs and 100 channels of repeats.
However this one’s an exception, being not only originated by the show’s creator, at the time of production, but also intended for marketing the series overseas.
Finally, this doco was presently followed by a rerun of the Thunderbirds episode Attack Of The Alligators! which I watched this morning.
This featured the scale puppets trapped in a house surrounded by actual crocodiles, who were comparatively huge. Though I usually find Thunderbirds to be quite slow, I rather enjoyed this.
Dr. Orchard: (nervously)"Where are they?"
McGill: "International Rescue are on their way, so relax Doctor."
Dr. Orchard: "Relax? With three giant alligators knocking the house down?!? Be fair, McGill."Labels: tv
Hey – remember Starship Troopers 2? What’s that – you don’t? Well, good.
This threequel is actually a sequel to Starship Troopers 1, and as such really should have come second. In fairness though, I think they simply learnt from the mistakes of that one.
Here they actually take the trouble to get a few of the original cast members back, and advance the overall story of the war, setting scenes in several different locations instead of just one.
Speaking of that word ‘location’, they go outdoors too.
Despite the sense of fun, there’s still something missing throughout, but I think it’s just the budget. I can live with that.
Not many film series make it to four, but here’s hoping.Labels: films
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