Will is a member of the Television Critics Association and has written for Decider.com, the Onion A.V. Club, The Dissolve, Indiewire, Rhino.com, TV Week Magazine, The Virginian-Pilot, Popdose.com, and EW.com along with writing for Bullz-Eye.com and Premium Hollywood.
To borrow a line from Lloyd Cole, “Oh, my sentimental fool, have I got a tale for you…”
Say hello to the Drama Program of Long Island’s ANCHOR Organization…and before you ask, it stands for Answering the Needs of Citizens with Handicaps through Organized Recreation. The title’s a bit of a gimme, but in “Yellow Brick Road,” ANCHOR’s group of dramatists have embarked upon a four-month adventure which, at the end of their path, will hopefully find them putting on a rather fine production of “The Wizard of Oz.” Yes, each of the participants is handicapped in some fashion, but it hasn’t dampened their enthusiasm one bit. In fact, if anything, it serves to make them some of the least-jaded actors you’ve ever come across.
Let’s stop for a minute and consider what I’ve just written. Now, if you like documentaries at all, then based on this description, there are really only about three reactions you can have:
1. Oh, wow, that sounds like such a sweet story! 2. Yeah, I don’t know about that. Handicapped people make me feel kind of uncomfortable. 3. Hey, I don’t play this whole “politically correct” game, but does “handicapped” mean “retarded”? ‘Cause if it does, this is gonna be awesome!
Okay, if your reaction is closest to #3, then you’re a jackass and probably shouldn’t be watching this film. If your reaction is closest to #2, well, okay, I understand where you’re coming from, and, yes, it is sometimes can be little difficult to be around handicapped people when you’re not used to being around them, but we’re not tyrants here at Premium Hollywood. I mean, no-one’s forcing you to watch “Yellow Brick Road.” But for the record, let me assure those of you whose reaction echoed #1 that you’re right, this is a sweet story…and if there’s any question as to whether or not you’re going to find yourself caught up in it, it’s answered within the first few minutes, when the girl who gets the role of Miss Gulch literally bursts into tears of joy at the news of her casting, unable to even catch her breath. (“I have to call my mom,” she manages to get out between her sobs, clambering over her fellow cast members as she tries to leaves the aisle and make a mad dash to a pay phone.)
Oh, yeah. This is one mother of an uplifting flick.
Directors Keith Rondinelli and Matthew Makar offer a close look at several of the cast members and how they live decidedly full lives even with their handicaps. They also aren’t afraid to acknowledge the occasional frustration suffered by the director of the production, who – let’s face it – has a bit of a challenge on her hands with her thespians. Still, after much work, many practices, and occasional moments of panic (will the Scarecrow need to be replaced?), these individuals pull off a highly successful “Wizard of Oz,” providing an ending with enough heart to rival that of the Tin Man.
NBC may not be King of the Nielsen Ratings just yet, but we know good television when we see it, and the Peacock has returned in full force with a dominating presence that includes the top three shows and five of the top six. HBO, on the other hand, is experiencing the opposite, with the departure of “The Sopranos,” “Deadwood” and “Rome.” Add to that the fact that our list features a whopping 10 new entries — five of which are freshmen — and you’ve got one heck of a Power Rankings shakeup. Much of this has to do with so many shows being on hiatus until next year, but whatever the cause, it’s nice to see some much-needed change to a usually familiar lineup. And, hey, don’t miss the list of our favorite shows which are currently on hiatus (and are therefore ineligible for the Top-20), our farewell to “The Sopranos,” and our stable of Honorable Mentions.
Check out the list here, then come back and let us know how we did…or if we missed any of your favorites!
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.
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.
