Okay, maybe that’s a good thing for fans of the show. Fair enough.
What I find most interesting about Fox’s revised January schedule, however, is that they have so much faith in the new Parker Posey sitcom that they’ve buried it on Friday nights and teamed it with re-runs of “‘Til Death.”
Wow. That good, huh?
I didn’t love the pilot, but, still, I was keeping my hopes up because it’s coming from the Paladino camp, a.k.a. the home of “Gilmore Girls.” Now, though, I’m starting to get worried…
It’s taken a long, long time for me to finally realize that I enjoy a good Western, and, frankly, I blame “Star Wars.” When I was a kid, my world was one of people flying around the galaxy in starships and getting involved in laser battles…and when you’re a kid, you just can’t wrap your head around what the hell your dad’s talking about when he tries to explain how what you’re watching is just a hi-tech version of the cowboys he watched when he was a kid.
Yeah, okay, now I get it: my starships were his horses, my laser blasters were his six-shooters, and so on. But back then, I was just, like, “Okay, whatever, dad: that stuff is in black and white, and that means it’s old.” And to his credit, he was never one of those dads who’d try to assure me that if I’d really enjoy Westerns if I’d just sit down and give them a try…which is a little ironic, given that that’s pretty much my stock maneuver when I’m trying to sway people to check out unheralded stuff. But, y’know, if he’d force-fed me the stuff, I would’ve probably walked away never wanting to see another Western ever again, whereas having found them of my own accord at a time when I was actually able to appreciate them, I’m now finding that I really dig them.
Ironically, though, I think I probably would’ve found myself delving into Westerns several years earlier if I’d paid more attention to the stuff my uncle Charlie – my mom’s brother – was talking up when I was a kid. While Charlie and my dad were both of the same generation, with Charlie actually being a few years older, I distinctly remember that my uncle was a big fan of Clint Eastwood’s Westerns as well. These were the so-called “Spaghetti Westerns,” and they sounded vaguely intriguing even back in my youth… possibly just because I always thought my uncle Charlie was really cool, but, even so, the memory has stuck with me for all these years.
My dad, however, had always been a card-carrying member of the John Wayne / Gene Autry style of Western, and in the world of Westerns, that’s the equivalent of…well, I’m not sure in this case who would be Elvis and who would be The Beatles, but whatever the case, my dad’s allegiance to the kinder, gentler, and less graphic Western was clear. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with this, especially since I’ve yet to see a John Wayne / John Ford collaboration that I didn’t enjoy, but after watching “The Spaghetti West,” an IFC original documentary on the genre, I can only say this:
Man, I have been missing out!
For years, I’d always thought that the term “Spaghetti Western” was intended as a disparaging term, to imply that the films that fell under this banner were nothing more than sub-par foreign rip-offs of the far superior American films which had inspired them. (U.S.A.! U.S.A.!) Gradually, though, I began to learn a little bit more about the genre, saw that these films were starring highly-respected actors like Eastwood, Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, and Jack Palance, and began to realize that maybe I hadn’t been reading this thing quite right. If you enjoy Westerns but you’ve also spent time in this confused camp (and please say if you have, because I don’t want to believe I’m the only one who thought this), then “The Spaghetti West” will serve as a grand illumination for you.
In addition to exploring the work of the legendary Sergio Leone, who all but invented the genre with “A Fistful of Dollars” (and its subsequent sequels, “For A Few Dollars More” and “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”), the documentary explores other key figures in the movement, including Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Sollima. That’s right: they’re the Three Sergios, and if you included nothing but their films, you’d still have a pretty damned effective look at the best of the Spaghetti Westerns. Corbucci proved to be a tremendous influence on Quentin Tarantino, if only for a particularly notorious scene in Corbucci’s “Django,” where this poor bastard gets his ear cut off. (When Tarantino saw the film for the first time, I wonder if his fellow theatergoers were distracted by the lightbulb that must’ve immediately appeared above his head.) We get a good exploration of the three ages of the Spaghetti Western: the straight films which originated the genre, the political-themed versions which came about as things began to get too predictable (a.k.a. the Zapata Westerns), and the comedy or parody takes on the genre – like, say, the “Trinity,” starring Terrence Hill – which prove so inevitable when a genre becomes embraced by the mainstream. Leone, it should be noted, hated the third age (he didn’t think they were funny), but he still ended up providing a post-script to the movement as a whole with “My Name Is Nobody,” which teamed Hill with Henry Fonda and served the final Western of Fonda’s career.
Even those who are well versed in the world of Spaghetti Westerns will love this documentary, which interviews many of the major players, all the way up to Eastwood himself, including several of the directors and actors, as well as Leone’s go-to guy for music, Ennio Morricone. Don’t be surprised if you walk away from this thing with a checklist of new movies for your Netflix queue.
Unfortunately, there’s no trailer for “The Spaghetti West” available, so, in lieu of that, I present the trailer for the film that left me the most curious: Sergio Corbucci’s “Django.” Damn, screw renting; I may just have to buy this thing outright…
Post-Script: I called my dad and told him about having just finished watching this documentary, and his exact quote – following a laugh – was, “Well, I don’t think you’ve just gotten finished watching anything that I care much about!” I mentioned to him how I’d remembered how Charlie had been a fan of some of the Spaghetti Westerns, and he backed me up on that, but then he admitted that half the reason that he’d never liked Spaghetti Westerns himself lay in his rail fandom. (Translated, that means he’s a retired railroad man who’s loved trains all his life.) “I’d see the trains in those movies that were so clearly Italian, with their big ol’ cowcatchers, but they’d’ve painted ‘Santa Fe’ on them or whatever, and I’d just be, like, ‘Give me a break.'” He added, though, that the dubbing from Italian into English always drove him up the wall, too. “I don’t think I ever saw one where they didn’t seem to be at least a syllable behind!” I hereby declare these both to be highly valid reasons.
Last night, FOX’s “Kitchen Nightmares” returned after a 3-week hiatus, with a bang. For the first time since the show started airing in the States, Gordon Ramsey visited a restaurant outside of New York. This time it was Sebastian’s Pizza in Burbank, California, near the TV studios. Not surprisingly, the staff, including owner Sebastian, are aspiring actors and actresses.
The draw for this restaurant, according to Sebastian, is the unique, gargantuan menu that features not just pizza, but weird flavor and meat combinations for entrees. We also learn early on that Sebastian’s wife, Nicole, has invested $300 K of her own money to help her husband get started, and it’s currently losing money like crazy. Maybe that’s because no one is eating there.
So Ramsey arrives and sits down for lunch. Sebastian boasts that he loves his large menu, complete with photos of the dishes he took himself, and that he also likes to visit with his customers and “drink wine” with them. Ramsey is already turned off. He orders calamari, pizza and New York strip, and asks Sebastian if the calamari is fresh. He says “yes,” and then Ramsey learns from the waitress that they are indeed frozen. In fact, almost everything on the menu is frozen, including the pizza dough. Ramsey samples the food and is turned off by just about everything, especially the fact that Sebastian lied about the calamari. He tells the waitress he’d like a “sick bag,” which sets off Sebastian’s temper.
At the dinner service that night, Ramsey notices that nothing is fresh, and things take a bad turn when a customer finds a hair in her salad. Sebastian apologizes and comps her meal, along with $300 worth of other meals that night. Ramsey decides this place needs a revamped, fresh menu and sets that up for the following night’s dinner service. The menu is to focus on wood-fired pizza with fresh dough and ingredients. He then has his design team come in and give the interior a makeover, something Sebastian loves. But he doesn’t love the menu change, because he’s still so attached to his 20 flavor combination idea, and the fact that he thinks he’s going to franchise that idea someday. The night of the new menu also coincides with Oscar night in Burbank, so the place is hopping.
But during the dinner service, Sebastian keeps changing orders….having his staff revert back to his old menu. This creates chaos, and infuriates Ramsey. Sebastian’s ego has gotten in the way, and Ramsey tells him that in his 40 years he’s never met anyone he believes in less than Sebastian. Ouch. So you get the feeling Ramsey will leave and never come back, but what happens is that Sebastian takes a walk and comes back saying that Ramsey is right. I don’t know about you, but this theme seems to happen a lot on this show…..the lead “character” is not buying into Ramsey’s changes with five minutes left in the show, then suddenly changes his tune and goes along with them…..and everyone goes home happy.
Still, you know the producers love the conflict and play it up. And you know Ramsey knows what he is doing, and that these big egos need to listen to him in order to save their businesses. Next week Ramsey visits an Irish pub and another hotheaded family. I can’t wait!
I didn’t have to know anything about this movie to give it a chance; all I needed to do was see the words “narrated by John Waters” emblazoned on the front. I’m not really a huge fan of Waters’ films – although I don’t by any means hate them – but I’ve always thought the guy came off as a real hoot when doing interviews, and his appearances on episodes of “The Simpsons” and “My Name Is Earl” have done nothing but cement that impression. (One of these days, I really should check out the Court TV series, “‘Til Death Do Us Part,” if only because he plays a character called the Groom Reaper.)
Waters doesn’t have a hand in “Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea” beyond offering the narration, but you can see what attracted him to contribute to the film; there are some definite eccentrics living ’round California’s Salton Sea, and lWaters is always the first to appreciate a good kook.
You may well be familiar with the name “Salton Sea” from the Val Kilmer film, but this is a completely different entity…to say the least. The Salton Sea is an inland salt lake in Southern California, an area which more or less arose as a result of an ecological disaster in the early years of the 20th century, then evolved into a tourist attractions in the 1920s; now, however, it’s falling apart at the seams, having suffered a steady decline over the last several years due to such fun events as massive fish and bird die-offs.
“Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea” is co-directed by Jeff Springer and Chris Metzler, who an in-depth history of the area and its highs and lows while introducing us to the area’s current residents, some of whom have lived there for years upon years. It’s a motley crue, to be sure, living in a land where palm trees surround trailers, golf carts are the preferred method of transportation, and the whole place could pass for a ghost town if you didn’t know better…and, yet, we meet a bunch of folks who seem quite happy to be living where they do.
Some of my favorites were Harold Gaston, the 90+ year old owner of Gaston’s Cafe, Hunky Daddy, the unofficial mayor of the city (who has leapt to the top of my list of Hungarians I’d Like To Have A Beer With), and the Landman, who’s always trying to sell folks a lot in the area, but the place is filled with low-key, upbeat people who always seem to be ready with a smile and a story: Norm Niver, Les Marty, and Aunt Marney, Bobbie Todhunter, Paul Clement, and…oh, geez, I can’t forget Donald Scheidler, the town’s resident nudist, or mountain artist Leonard Knight!
Most of the folks who live in Bombay Beach don’t come nearly as well, unfortunately; it’s admirable that they want to raise their kids in a safer environment than can be found in the bigger cities of Southern California, but when the parents are seen strutting down the street, tossing back big-ass glasses of beer, you begin to wonder exactly how much better off the kids are going to end up.
There are moments of amusement in the film, as you can tell from the above description, but for the most part, “Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea” is actually pretty serious…and pretty depressing, actually. The residents are amazingly upbeat, given everything their area has suffered through over the years; in fact, while this may be a travelogue about a place you’d probably never want to visit yourself, by the end, you’ll find that you wouldn’t actually mind meeting some of the people who live there.
Whether you’re a casual TV viewer or a full-fledged couch potato, you probably know about the WGA writer’s strike that’s currently gripping the entertainment industry. Even at the risk of having both my livelihood and my viewing habits upset, as a writer myself (albeit not of scripts, although I do have a few projects I’ve been working on), I’m unequivocally on the side of the Writer’s Guild members in this battle; I’d prefer that it come to a conclusion sooner than later, of course, but when it comes right down to it, I want it to last until the writers get a decent share of the profits from the material they’ve worked so hard on. Besides, like I don’t have enough TV-DVD sets to hold me over ’til it reaches an agreeable conclusion…?
If you don’t really know what’s going on, there are plenty of places to get the scoop from a journalistic perspective, but I think you’ll get much more insight if you take info straight from the horse’s mouth, i.e. from some of the individuals who are actually doing the striking, and the best place to start is at at Mark Evanier’s blog. I don’t think I’ve seen a more succinct explanation anywhere as to why the striking writers are, well, in the right.
For the latest and greatest (or most depressing) updates on how things are going, check out DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com, where Nikki Finke provides about the best coverage that the ‘net has to offer. For alternate blog coverage, there’s also “Scribe Vibe” (Variety) and The Huffington Post.
