Remembering Paul Hoeffler: Master Photographer

Paul Hoeffler

On this, the fifth anniversary of his death, I thought it was appropriate to write about my friend, photographer Paul Hoeffler. Between 1997 and 2005, I was privileged to get to know Paul, a man many would consider – to use that old saw – a photographer's photographer. Not only was he a brilliant photographer, but he was also known as one of the best printers around. He could take images and in his darkroom create works of art out of less than perfect material. I got to know Paul through my job at the LCBO, Ontario's government-run alcohol retail outlet. By the time we met, I'd been working in the liquor trade for 15 years and Paul had been a professional photographer for 40. In my capacity as a Product Consultant, he came to me looking for advice. A conversation started – it was always easy to talk to him – and we quickly moved beyond customer/retailer relationship into a friendship. Within our friendship, we had an unspoken rule: he taught me about jazz music and photography and I taught him about wine (I got the better end of that deal).

Jimmy Smith

In the 1950s, Paul was in the right place at the right time. Going to school during the day at the Rochester Institute of Technology studying photography, he spent his nights at many of the jazz clubs around the city. Using his blunt charm (he suffered neither fools nor crude behaviour gladly), he managed to win the trust and respect of many of the greatest jazz artists of the day during their concert tours through his town. Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Jimmy Smith, Oscar Peterson, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Louis Armstrong and Dizzie Gillespie, amongst others, all gave him unprecedented access in Rochester and elsewhere after he left school. In the Rochester days, the photographs weren't only because of his complete love of the music and musicians, it was also his school work assignment. That access is something, Paul told me, that is impossible today. Their music inspired him to capture, visually, what they did musically. For example, the shot of Jimmy Smith, taken from below as he plays the organ (I use the present tense here on purpose, because so many of Paul's photos feels like the action is happening right now), his cigarette smoke languidly leaves the frame, could only be achieved if the subject trusts the photographer.

Sherlock: The BBC Brings Us Holmes Again

Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as the new Holmes and Watson.

Every once in a while, a television series comes along and surprises you. Sometimes it’s because a show is so stunningly original that no precedent could have prepared you for it (e.g. HBO’s Carnivale and Fox’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer). But other times, it’s because a road has been so well-trodden that you go along for the ride, but honestly don’t expect to see anything new there. This past Sunday, BBC One broadcast “A Study in Pink” the first episode of Sherlock, a 21st century re-imagining of the celebrated Arthur Conan Doyle character. Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s The Last Enemy, Creation, The Other Boleyn Girl) stars as the titular Holmes and Watson is played by the more recognizable Martin Freeman (Tim in BBC’s The Office, and Arthur Dent in the 2005 film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). The series is the brainchild of Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, Jekyll, Coupling) and actor/writer Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Doctor Who). Moffat has a long history of critical and popular success on the BBC, and it is possible his career has recently reached a new height. In addition to this new series, this past year he took on the helm of BBC’s flagship series, Doctor Who. Given the numerous imaginings of Holmes available on television and film, one might be forgiven for thinking we need a new Sherlock Holmes series as urgently as we need a new brand of vanilla ice cream. Fortunately, this is one instance when that persistent gap between what we believe we need and what we get works decidedly in our favour!

This first run of Sherlock consists of three feature-length episodes, each running 90-minutes. (This coming fall, the series will air in the U.S. on PBS, under the Masterpiece Mystery! banner. It will also air, beginning September 10, on Showcase in Canada.) Set in contemporary London, the show succeeds in bringing familiar and beloved characters firmly into the new century while preserving the magic of the source material. The final result is a show that is funny, suspenseful, and eminently entertaining. Sherlock has something to offer both to those pre-inclined to love it, and those with no familiarity with Sherlock Holmes or the BBC.

Unstrung Hero: Remembering Maury Chaykin (1949-2010)

Was Maury Chaykin not the best character actor on the screen? I certainly thought so. But then some actors get prickly when you describe them as a character actor, as if you’d just demoted them to the role of gaffer. But Chaykin, like J.T. Walsh, brought out compelling intricacies in the characters he portrayed, idiosyncratic aspects that couldn’t be conveyed in the script. He took those roles out of the shadows and lit up parts of the movie that just weren’t getting enough light.

AMC's Newest Series: Rubicon

With last Sunday's debut of Season Four of Mad Men, my original plan was to write a counterpoint to Kevin's analysis/shortcomings of the show. I agree to a degree with some of Kevin's commentary (I think Season Two was mostly a disaster), but I also disagree (Season Three redeemed the show for me with many moments where I found that I was in the world, not just looking at set decorations). However, after watching Season Four's debut I'm going to withhold my thoughts a week, because the debut was an almost complete flop. Choppy, ill-focused, unconvincing and, um "Who is Don Draper?" the supposed through line this year?! I thought that's what blinking Season One was about. There was little new here except more of Betty the bitch, etc. We discover that Don likes to be slapped around in bed by hookers (no surprise, due to his self-loathing), but not much more than we've been showed before. And what in God's name was the point of Peggy and the new irritating boy-toy constantly sighing "John" "Marsha" at each other? (It made no sense, since the novelty song they were quoting by Stan Freberg came out in 1951. What are they doing referencing it in 1964?)

As usual, the problem is probably control-freak, series-creator Matthew Weiner. He really has trouble writing coherent scripts (he had solo credit on this first episode), so I'm hoping he at least uses co-writers for the rest of the season or we're in big trouble. Anyway, I'll launch my defence, or not, depending on how good episode two is, next week. Instead, I'm going to talk briefly about the "sneak preview" of AMC's new conspiracy-plot series Rubicon (it debuts Sunday, August 1st) that came on after Mad Men.

Channeling the Blues: Los Lobos' Tin Can Trust

Los Lobos has always had the feel and honesty of the blues in their collective back pockets. On their new album, Tin Can Trust, the first of original material in a couple of years, the band uses the blues to channel this often-gritty record to great effect. This is most obvious on the instrumental track by David Hidalgo called, “Do the Murray.” The electric guitars let loose like a cannon shot through East L.A. But the earthy feel of the title track balances the angst of the instrumental perfectly.

“Tin Can Trust” is the lament of a poor man with nothing but a “tin can” with a few coins. He’s not able to buy his lady anything like diamonds and pearls, but he does have hope and the offer of love is his currency. By the time we reach track 10, “The Lady and The Rose,” Los Lobos has painted as strong a picture of spiritual torment as something out of Robert Johnson. This song tells the story of a man from the “barren slopes of a thousand hopes” suddenly finding divine intervention striking him cold in the face. It’s a powerful song and one that perfectly suits the theme of the record.

Tabula Rasa: The Return of Mad Men

I wish I could share the enthusiasm expressed by many who have been eagerly awaiting the return of the hit series Mad Men, whose fourth season premieres tonight on AMC. But I’m not sure what there is to be so enthusiastic about except the show’s tantalizing ambitions, ambitions that have never travelled far from the shallow end of the pool.

Mad Men is set in the 1960s and examines the lives of the advertising men who work on Madison Avenue in New York City at the firm Sterling Cooper. Created by former Sopranos’ writer Matthew Weiner in 2007, Mad Men does have a clever premise; creative ad men selling us dreams of an American life they themselves can’t possibly live. The main character, Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the creative director at the firm, isn’t even who he claims to be. He’s a con artist living out his own fantasy while selling products to others. Placing a con artist at the center of a story of self-made men is definitely appetizing. It draws significantly on the corruption of the American ideal where you can make of yourself anything you wish. In doing so, Mad Men tries to examine the changing mores of American middle-class culture from the post-War comforts of suburbia to the social upheavals of the sixties. But I’m afraid that the show ultimately fails to live up to its promise. Rather than capture an era in turmoil, or characters at crossroads between what they sell and who they are, Mad Men fixates itself on the details of the period, the minutiae of sixties kitsch, to compensate for its lack of dramatic coherence. Rather than go deeply into the characters behind the facade, the show chooses to illuminate the facade. In short, I think Mad Men is itself a slick bit of advertising.

A Masterpiece and its Spiritual Cousins: Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds and Aftermath

Is it possible that The Shirelles best embodied the idealistic spirit of JFK's New Frontier? Perhaps. Especially with one 1960 pop song, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" that delicately captured both the assurance of the decade and its secret fears. Written by Carole King, and her first husband, Gerry Goffin, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" had an awareness that within every hope lay the possibility of failure, defeat, and maybe betrayal. The singer accepts the devotion of her lover, the light she sees in his eyes, but she's also worried about the future, when that light may refuse to shine. In this enduringly complex tune, the stakes of love get raised so high that the fear of it all falling apart weighs pretty heavy. As Bob Dylan said in 1965, right at the cusp of his greatest glory, "when you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose." The Shirelles had, in a certain sense, laid the ground for the romantic dream The Beatles (who would cover their songs) were about to create. But The Beatles also inherited that possibility of failure that The Shirelles saw coming. When the hopes of the New Frontier were so cruelly dashed in Dallas in 1963, The Beatles had reached into that despair, two months later, to hold our hand. But it was coming up to two years since The Beatles rekindled those hopes, and the question of whether we'd still love them tomorrow was still up for grabs.

Their electrifying early records had sought us out, demanding that we share in the pleasures those songs offered. When John Lennon said in "Please Please Me" that he'd continue pleasing us, if only we'd agree to please him, were offered a definite stake in the relationship. Each song they wrote was designed to be a two-way street, the creation of a romantic bond, which required the participation of the listener in every way. The utopianism heard in "There's a Place" was only viable when we first believed that the place actually existed. But by 1965, The Beatles were starting to grow weary and suspicious of their audience. There's a place, alright, and maybe it's now far away from you. No longer trusting the screams of adoration or enjoying the enduring isolation of hotel rooms and ducking into limos, the group began retreating into the safety of the studio.Within those walls, the sounds they began to create outclassed the sounds from the stage. The songs they wrote and covered, in the beginning, had taken the world by force, by the affection expressed in them. Now their music was more elusive, the pleasures tucked beneath the dense melodies. At this point, though, their retreat did not diminish their work. Instead, detachment took it deeper, farther into the exigencies of love and loyalty.

Over 45 years ago, The Beatles released Rubber Soul which is arguably their best album. Rubber Soul showed that The Beatles, now seeking solace from the madness of Beatlemania, were creating a new music that sought to find the more discerning listener. The songs included reached out to find those who dared step outside the din of the screaming throng. With this record, they asked us to lean forward, listen carefully, and take the doubts along with the hopes and the desires along with the fears. Rubber Soul had all the yearnings and qualms of Goffin/King's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" but it didn't stop with the question of the title. Rubber Soul went much further to ask: If you don't love me tomorrow, then what? While taking over 113 hours to record, compared to the one-day they took putting together their debut Please Please Me (1963), Rubber Soul was startlingly innovative taking the R&B genre beyond its purist roots. Unlike many other white pop artists, especially the ones who merely paid reverence to the style and attitude of black blues and R&B, or channelled the essence of the form (as did Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac), The Beatles sublimated rhythm and blues into their continually expanding musical fabric. And the record would irrevocably change the direction and sound of pop music. With a densely intelligent collection of love songs, Rubber Soul confronted a variety of issues: the cost of romantic desire (“I’m Looking Through You”), the power of love to heal (“The Word”), as well as to hurt (“Girl”); contemplation (“In My Life”); and the deep despair of estrangement (“Nowhere Man”). On the record, The Beatles broadened their musical identity, too, by introducing an original interpretation of classic R&B (specifically the Memphis Stax soul sound) while resisting being defined by black music (as many other British blues bands were). The Beatles instead defined their own interpretation of American black music.

Recent French Cinema: New Directions, Mixed Results

French filmmakers, more often than not, tend not to stand still in terms of repeating themselves in their films. They may stick to their favourite themes but their movies usually vary in tone and intent. That’s the case with three movies from 2009 that have opened commercially this summer, Catherine Breillat’s Bluebeard (Barbe Bleue), Alain Resnais’ Wild Grass (Les herbes folles) and Jean – Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs (Micmacs à tire-larigot).

Fans of Catherine Breillat, the enfant terrible of French cinema, may be surprised how relatively tame and conventional Bluebeard is, compared to such incendiary movies of hers as Romance (1999), Anatomy of Hell (Anatomie de l’enfer (2001) and Fat Girl (À ma soeur) (2004). Her concerns about female desire, sexual attraction and the age old gender wars are still there but filtered through the 300 plus year old Bluebeard fairy tale. That’s the famous French fairy tale of the young girl who marries a famous lord and is warned, when he goes away on a business trip, not to go into a room of the castle they live in. When she does, she discovers what has happened to his many previous wives.

Claude Lelouch's C'était un rendez-vous (1976)

This is probably the most irresponsible and likely one of the most morally indefensible bits of film ever produced by a major filmmaker, and though I hate to admit this, it is a lot of fun. It's one shot and lasts only eight minutes and forty seconds, but it is the ultimate adrenaline rush for anybody who likes to drive fast. Jeremy Clarkson, the man/boy on Top Gear, said this about the film: "it makes Bullitt look like a cartoon."

The film, C'était un rendez-vous, whose title translates "It Was A Date," consists of a very fast car, with a camera attached to its bumper, racing through the early morning (5:30am) streets of Paris at ridiculous, life-threatening speeds. Claude Lelouch, a fast-car nut (in his best known film, A Man and A Woman, the lead male is a race car driver), did this piece of stunt filmmaking without permission or warning. Supposedly interested in testing a new gyro device to steady film images in 'jittery' environments (this was prior to the invention of the Steadicam), he decided to mount the device, a camera with one 10-minute reel of film inside on the front bumper of his car. He had a route mapped out -- allegedly there was an assistant at one blind corner to radio him of any obstacles -- got into the car and gunned it. The route takes him racing down the Avenue Foch towards the Arc de Triomphe, and finishes several kilometres later at the Basilique de Sacré-Cœur. It ends with, of course, a girl awaiting his arrival. He steps out of the car, they embrace and fin.

Climb Aboard and Testify: Robert Randolph and The Family Band's We Walk This Road

Lately I’ve been conscious of record producers such as Joe Henry and T-Bone Burnett. Like Phil Spector and Daniel Lanois, they create a distinctive sound that can really bring out the best in a musician. In the past year Joe Henry has brought out the roots of Allen Toussaint for last year’s best Jazz album, Bright Mississippi. Burnett won an Academy Award for his work on "The Weary Kind” from the film, Crazy Heart. He’s also produced some excellent records for Sam Phillips and his efforts on the sublime Raising Sand with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss were remarkable for bringing two different artists together under one aural roof.

Once again Burnett leaves his mark on one of the most energizing groups to come out of the United States, Robert Randolph and the Family Band. Known mostly as a contemporary Gospel group, this group features a unique blend of blues-based funk and traditional gospel music that's fused to perfection. Unlike a lot of gospel groups featuring a strong Hammond B-3, this band has the sharp-edge of a slide guitar driving the musical bus. All you have to do is climb aboard and testify.

Breaking Bad: AMC’s Amorality Tale

As most of the TV-watching universe is waiting patiently for Mad Men to launch its fourth season next Sunday, the third season of AMC’s ‘other show’ has come and gone.

Breaking Bad tells the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher who, after an unexpected diagnosis with terminal lung cancer, turns to cooking crystal meth. The show was created by Vince Gilligan (The X-Files, The Lone Gunmen), and, along with Mad Men, it is one of only two original series ever broadcast on AMC. (A third show, the promising conspiracy series, Rubicon, will premiere this August.) After production on its first season was cut short due to the 2007-2008 Writer’s Guild of America strike, Breaking Bad returned a year later with a sophomore season that took an interesting and likeable TV show and elevated it to one of the best shows on television. Everyone I know who’s watched it has become hooked. But that’s the catch: you’ve got to watch it. And there are many reasons why you probably haven’t.

First of all, you don’t normally go to AMC for original programming. AMC has only the two shows, both with compressed 13-episode seasons, and they understandably don’t air them at the same time. To watch Breaking Bad, you’ve got to seek it out. And from a distance, it is easy to see why you might not have bothered. It’s a basic cable show about a middle-class school teacher who turns to manufacturing drugs, played by an actor best known for his portrayal of Hal, the father on FOX’s Malcolm in the Middle for 7 seasons. It sounds like a low-estrogen take on Showtime’s Weeds, but without any of the sex appeal. This assessment, while perhaps understandable, could not be more misleading.

The Church of Carlos Santana: Ontario Place's Molson Amphitheatre - July 11, 2010

It is possible to suggest that going to see a Carlos Santana concert is yet another trip down memory lane (after claiming, as I did in my June 27th Jethro Tull piece, that I don't go see nostalgia acts), however there's something about his ability over the years to reinvent himself that still makes him vital. He's not as good at it as somebody like Madonna, but he still finds ways -- by either surrounding himself with currently popular singers/musicians (Rob Thomas in 1999 for the hit song “Smooth,” or Chad Kroeger of Nickelback in 2007 with the very catchy tune “Into the Night”) or embracing timely musical genres and infusing them with his own sensibilities -- to stay relevant. And yet, within that vitality is a political point of view that is seriously trapped in the 1960s - but first, to the concert.

The opening act was Steve Winwood. He has made a good habit over the last few years of being the special guest for people such as Santana, Tom Petty and Eric Clapton. Singing hits from the 1960s such as “I’m a Man” and “Gimme Some Lovin’” (when he was part of The Spencer Davis Group) and “Dear Mr. Fantasy” (from his stint in Traffic), through the 1980s, “Higher Love” (his solo years), Winwood's voice still sounds, well, like Steve Winwood. His vocal cords got tired near the end of his 75-minute show, but for a 62-year old, he sounds a lot like he did when he was 16. His band is very solid with a laugh provided to my wife and I as we both thought his lead guitarist, Jose Neto, from a distance at least (we were about 50 feet from the stage), looked like Critics at Large's Kevin Courrier (who knew Kevin had a side gig!). It was not a great, revelatory set, but a nice way to start a warm night down by the water. If there was musical nostalgia on the evening, it was here.

Another Look: Stephen King's Under The Dome

On March 4th this year, Critics at Large's David Churchill wrote about horror author Stephen King’s latest novel, Under the Dome. He rightly praised King’s vivid writing and lauded the book for being a trenchant, relevant look at what happens when society cuts democratic corners by utilizing a ruthless strongman to do the dirty work it has decided is necessary for its survival. David is right about that, but I think Under the Dome is also indicative of how America has changed and become more polarized than ever before in its recent turbulent history, even more so, I suspect, than back in the 60s, when the generation gap reigned supreme.

Under the Dome, which has just come out in trade paperback, and runs to a huge 1,000 plus pages, has a premise that is brilliant simplicity itself but is anything but simple. As the book begins, the small Maine town of Chester’s Mill has been suddenly encased under a dome, which has cut it off from the outside world. A few of the townsfolk try to resist those who want to capitalize on this unexplained event in order to run the town the way they always felt it should be managed. But very quickly things fall apart and in a manner which makes Lord of the Flies seem Pollyannaish.

This is one really scary novel - a pervasive sense of dread is manifest in Under the Dome - that's up there with King’s best horror: Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Stand, his truly frightening novella The Mist, It and (most of) Cell. His usual strengths, the superb characterization (you always believe the protagonists in King’s books), descriptive prowess (Chester’s Mill comes alive in a way that you can practically touch) and imaginative plotting (Under the Dome is both great horror and ingenious science fiction) are in evidence but this time, there's something new percolating under the surface of his gripping novel: a disquieting political subtext that has bubbled up from current realities.

Jungian Sideshow: David J. Skal’s The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror

“I’ll show you what horror means.”

-- actor Frederic March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932).

“Let them see the horror!”

-- Jacqueline Kennedy comments in Dallas after refusing to change her blood-soaked dress after President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

In real life, Frederic March and Jacqueline Kennedy would have nothing in common. But in the imagination of American life, with its intersection of popular culture and politics, a peculiar dynamic gets struck wherein true horror produces the same sting as imagined horror. America may be a place where the Statue of Liberty promises (and often delivers) a lamp that lights the way to freedom, but it also has a soul that D.H. Lawrence once called “hard, isolated, stoic and a killer.” It’s a country built on the twisted perfectionist dreams and fundamentalist pursuits of puritans, so it should come as no surprise that the phenomenon of vampires, ghouls, zombies and serial killers also find their way into the imagination of readers and moviegoers. During the eighties, as Ronald Reagan (a puritan in Hollywood garb) portrayed America as a promised land that was waking up to a new morning, author David J. Skal in The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (1993, revised in 2001) saw quite another picture – a waking nightmare – where beneath American optimism lay “disenfranchisement, exclusion, downward mobility, a struggle-to-the-death world of winners and losers.” Alongside the insipidly cheerful optimism of this Morning in America was a place where “familiar, civic-minded signposts are all reversed: the family is a sick joke, its house more likely to offer siege instead of shelter.” The Monster Show is an earnest attempt to come to terms with that darker world adding horror as a shrewd form of cultural reflection.

Jesse Winchester, You're On My Mind

Jimmy Buffett’s schtick, which conjures up images of enjoying tequila and triple sec cocktails in the sun, never appealed to me. But the 63-year-old musician suddenly is a notch or two higher in my estimation and not just because his environmental activism -- save the manatees! -- has sharpened in reaction to the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Here’s the primary reason: When the hipster dude who turns out hits like “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise” organized a free July 11 concert in his native Alabama, the show included Jesse Winchester.

This singer-songwriter with a soulful tenor voice is the antithesis of a “parrothead,” the term Buffett aficionados use to symbolize the “island escapism” sensibility of their hero. Winchester, also a Southerner, has a rather somber demeanor, even when performing as cheerful an anthem as “Laisse les Bon Temps Rouler.” With a courtly, almost old-fashioned manner, despite the perennial hippie beard, he rocketed to fame in the late 1970s as an artist living in exile who was finally able to visit his homeland again after President Jimmy Carter pardoned America’s draft resisters.

The End of the 2010 South Africa World Cup

It's a photograph that's drawn me in all my life, first as a small, damaged post card, and later as a restored 11" by 17" blow up. The picture shows a group of men gathered in front of a wall as they look purposefully back at the camera. The men are a football team (or soccer team to North Americans), taken sometime around 1917 in Toronto. In the centre of the photograph, kneeling behind a soccer ball inscribed "Young Ireland's Gaelic FC" sits my grandfather, Tom Burden. In his early days, he was sports mad. A superb athlete, family lore suggested that, with proper training (which he never received) he might have been good enough to participate in the early Olympic games as a sprinter. It wasn't to be. (Another thing that wasn't to be, thankfully, was that he had a ticket to come over to North America on the Titanic, but his Mom took sick and he cancelled it, coming over a month later on the Lusitania...talk about the luck of the Irish!) He was also, by all reports, an extremely talented footballer. So over the last 16 years, he would have been very proud of me, because I finally GOT football [See at the end. After I posted, an Irish friend corrected me on some issues].

Show, Don't Tell: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

Famed science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once claimed, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Filmmaking is not without its own magicians, pioneering landscapes for our bewilderment. Georges Méliès took us on a trip to the moon in La Voyage dans la lune (1902), long before Apollo 11 touched down on it in 1969. In Star Wars (1977), George Lucas piloted us on a journey to a galaxy both far away and long ago. Terry Gilliam has traveled with us through the belly of a monstrous fish, to the moon, and explored the depths of a raging volcano and time itself in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989). These are only a handful of the artists who've waved a cinematic wand to make us believe in the impossible. They inspired generations through mystique. We all wanted to know the answer to one question; how was this possible? With DVD bonus features and behind the scenes documentaries we can now answer that question but the true masters have never revealed their secrets upfront. 

Live Aid ‘85: 25 Years Later

In many ways, the immense Live Aid charity concert, which took place simultaneously in London, England and Philadelphia, U.S.A., 25 years ago today, was my Woodstock. (Joan Baez made a similar statement to the crowd at J.F.K. stadium in Philadelphia when she came onstage.) I was way too young to have been able to attend the seminal 1969 Woodstock, N.Y. concert, which crystallized the 60s in many people’s minds. So when almost everyone who was a who’s who in English and American rock and pop music got together, under the auspices of The Boomtown Rats' Bob Geldof and Ultravox’s Midge Ure, to raise monies for the starving millions in Ethiopia and Sub-Saharan Africa, I was psyched to lose myself in the music. And I certainly, like so many, was shocked at the images of starving children, in particular, facing death in the 20^th century. That this terrible tragedy could be happening in such a ‘prosperous’ world seemed almost inconceivable. At that time, I was working in a video rental outlet (remember them?) located in a department store in downtown Toronto, fortuitously right in front of all the televisions. So when I showed up for work that Saturday morning of July 13, 1985, I made sure all the TV sets in the department were tuned to the live broadcast of the concerts and also that the TVs were turned up loud. (I still remember one of the older salesmen holding his hands over his ears in silent protest at the ‘noise.’) Later on, after my shift was over, I headed off to a friend’s house to watch the taped ABC special commemorating the event. That whole day, twelve hours long at least, was all about the cause and the music.

The Troubling Nature of Love: Before Sunset & Sideways

No two films about the troubling nature of love better bracketed the latter half of 2004 than Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset and Alexander Payne’s Sideways. Both films, long available on DVD, are worth watching again over a rainy weekend in August (if we have one), because both are without question masterful if not masterpieces.

Both expertly deal with ‘damaged’ people trying to find their way through pain, depression, self-loathing, what-have-you, to that place where they can let themselves be loved again. Both also happen to be deeply moving and painfully funny. The fact that one of them, Before Sunset, happens to be a sequel to the tiny, perfect Before Sunrise (1995) is just the icing on the cake.

Two New Nashville Albums: Only One Is Fresh

Somedays The Song Writes You

Guy Clark

Dualtone

Just Across The River

Jimmy Webb

E1 Music

“Nashville runs on songs” – Larry Wanagas, k.d. lang’s former manager.

Two of the most prolific composers to come out of Nashville are Jimmy Webb and Guy Clark. Webb is the man who wrote country pop songs for Glen Campbell (“Wichita Lineman,” “By The Time I Get to Phoenix”} and Richard Harris (“MacArthur Park”). Guy Clark, who’s originally from the west Texas town of Monahans, has penned songs recorded by Johnny Cash (“Texas, 1947”) and Ricky Skaggs  (“Heartbroke”).

There’s always been a kind of pathos to the songs of Guy Clark and no less so on his new album Somedays The Song Writes You, but this is a record about the difficulty of writing songs and tapping into one’s muse. The title track laments a common belief that a song can appear in one’s head at any time regardless of your direction. As Clark sings. “There’s no rhyme or reason/Ain’t a damn thing you can do/Somedays you write the song/Somedays the song writes you.” This is a belief every songwriter or poet or novelist must endure to tap into his or her creativity and put pen to paper, as it were. “Hemingway’s Whiskey” brings the artistic struggle together with the personal, clearly talking about American writer Ernest Hemingway. Clark sings, “You know it’s tough out there/A good muse is hard to find/Livin’ one word to the next/One line at a time.” But Clark also points out “there’s more to life than whiskey/More to words than rhyme.” That song, like the whole album, is delightful to the ear.

For Jimmy Webb, who tapped into his muse for some of the most familiar songs in popular music, offers a success story with his new album Just Across The River. It’s a collection of duets featuring Webb’s most famous tunes newly recorded by him with special guests. For instance, Webb is joined by Glen Campbell on “By The Time I Get to Phoenix,” one of the saddest songs ever written. Like many of the performances on this album, it falls under the weight of familiarity for me. There’s nothing fresh in the vocals or interpretations. That said, Lucinda Williams does make a valiant attempt at phrasing “Galveston” in a rougher way, but the evenness of the production softens her natural edge. Billy Joel’s efforts on “Wichita Lineman” are earnest but he doesn’t make it past the New Jersey turnpike let alone across the river on that track. Meanwhile, Jackson Browne’s vocal on “P.F. Sloan” is strong because he seems to have that West Coast feel that Jimmy Webb exploits perfectly.

Webb’s songs succeed because he pens a great lyric with a lush musical arrangement. Guy Clark’s songs offer simple, unpretentious, hurtful stories, while Webb’s songs are rooted in country ballads with the twang removed. While Clark is still writing effectively about his personal struggles, Webb has nothing new to say.

-- John Corcelli is a musician, actor, broadcaster and theatre director.

My Holiday Obsession: Cinematic Sharks

Robert Shaw as Sam Quint, in Jaws (2005).

On America’s annual Fourth of July this month, I lazily tuned into a late-night cable broadcast of the ultimate Independence Day movie: Jaws, which haunted my visits to the beach – and that of countless others – long after it was released in 1975. This time around, adrenaline-fueled insomnia kept me glued to the TV for the film’s next two sequels, which I’d never seen before. But I was too pooped by 2:45 a.m. to keep my eyes open for Jaws: The Revenge. I can only assume that a franchise getting sillier by the year had reached an apex of silliness by its fourth go-round.

This guilty-pleasure marathon came despite the fact that Steven Spielberg’s career-making hit (he only directed the first one) and George Lucas’ 1977 Star Wars forever altered the landscape of cinema in my country. (Or should I say the seascape and galaxyscape?) The more introspective narratives with gravitas of the early 1970s gave way to action and adventure, a scenario that bombards us with one mindless summer blockbuster after another, few of them ever as original as their lower-tech antecedents of three decades ago.

The ‘Millennium’ Movies: 'Stieg Larsson' Adaptations Fall Short of Brilliant Books

The Girl Who Played With Fire, which opens in North America today, is a significant improvement on its predecessor, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, released last spring. (Both films are adapted from the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s phenomenally popular novels and make up the first two thirds of his ‘Millennium’ trilogy.) Whereas the first film in the series, directed by Niels Arden Oplev, was a clunky affair, lurching from scene to scene before slowing down to breathe, the second movie, with Daniel Alfredson at the helm, is a smoother, more consistent and pleasing experience.

Much of the reason for that is Alfredson’s superior skills as a director – both he and Oplev have TV backgrounds and credits I am not familiar with – which is good news for those awaiting the final film in the series, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest, also directed by Alfredson. But to be fair to Oplev, there was quite a bit of exposition to cram into The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which at over 2 & 1/ 2 hours is about half an hour longer than The Girl Who Played With Fire. (The Swedish cut of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo clocks in at three hours, which may mean it flows better than the shorter version that reached North America.)

Michael Golamco' s Year Zero

In one of history’s most insidious social experiments, after the April 1975 overthrow of the Cambodian government, the Khmer Rouge began trying to erase that ancient civilization’s culture and traditions. During a single day, these “rice paddy nationalists” emptied the capital city of Phnom Penh. Many died during the forced march of two million residents into the countryside, where they were enslaved in agricultural labor camps, working night and day without adequate food. People with an apparent education -- even anyone who wore eyeglasses -- were executed. The insane goal was to return the populace to a peasant economy with no class divisions, no monetary system, no schools, no hospitals and, for a devout Buddhist society, no religion. Torture was commonplace. Surgical experiments were conducted without anesthesia. The forces of leader Pol Pot, who had been a university student in France, even murdered babies. He predicted that his ultra-Marxist minions would “do away with all vestiges of the past” and described the new era, in which an estimated 1.7 million citizens were killed, as Year Zero.

Petrolheads: Our Love Affair With the Car

Ever since I played on the remains of my maternal grandfather's one-and-only car back in the 1960s, I've been fascinated by cars and driving. My grandfather owned a Model T Ford that, once it was no longer viable for the road, he had turned into a tractor to work his land. By the time I got to it, it was a rusting hulk that sat on my uncle's property. We kids used to hop on the old seat and pretend we were driving anywhere but there.

Though I've had a life-long love affair with cars, I've actually never, technically, owned one. Both cars my wife and I have owned have been in her name. So it goes. Yet, I love the idea of the freedom that a car gives you; I love the speed and I love to drive fast. Just not as fast or as well as Nelson Monteiro (more on him in a second). Unfortunately, living in the city, with the congestion, incompetent drivers, irriating stoplights and unrealistic speed limits, it's taken much of the joy out it for me. So, I live vicariously through a long-running, very politically incorrect BBC series called Top Gear (BBC Canada, Monday through Friday at 9 pm -- repeats of the 2002 through 2009 seasons; new shows, Saturdays 9pm). The show has been on TV for almost 33 years (with a one-year break between 2001 and 2002 when it was reconfigured into its current format). The show, hosted by three archetypes (Jeremy Clarkson, the tall, paunchy, man/boy; James May, the long-haired, intellectual, musician who's nickname is Captain Slow due to his, by the show's standards, unwillingness to drive fast; and Richard Hamilton, sort of the 'cute Beatle' of the show who's nickname is The Hampster because he's not as tall as the oafish Clarkson), is pretty basic. Using humour of a decidedly 'laddish' variety, they start most episodes by showcasing some sort of super car (usually an Audi, Maserati, Jaguar, Ferrari, Porsche, you get the idea) on their track. All three are skilled drivers, with Clarkson being the best, Hamilton the most reckless and May, well, his nickname is Captain Slow for a reason. Clarkson or Hamilton almost always take on this part of the show. They race around the track while they discuss a 'fast car's' strengths or weaknesses. There's usually a lot of speed, lots of spins, tons of smoke and a bunch of silly showing off.

Notes From a Critic at Large (Part Two)

Along with some of the forgettable pictures I mentioned yesterday, there was one riveting movie I did catch up with in recent months – and it never turned up in a theatre. Killshot (2008) is a tip-top crime thriller featuring Mickey Rourke in the role in which he should have been acclaimed.

As good as Rourke was in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (2008), the picture was shaped around our knowledge of the damage Rourke did to his career after the promise he displayed; first in a small role as an arsonist in Body Heat (1981), and then in a major part in Barry Levinson’s autobiographical Diner (1982). After showing some of the flair of Brando, with his soft machismo and sweet charm, Rourke (to paraphrase Brando in On the Waterfront) quickly took a one-way ticket to Palookaville. Leading a life of excess and self-destruction, Rourke’s career basically took a header. The Wrestler was his unapologetic calling card for redemption, a celebrated comeback, and he delivered a touching and bruising performance as a man making amends with what little he had left. But his life flooded into that performance to such a degree that you couldn’t really separate the actor from the man. (Brando had done a similar thing in Last Tango in Paris but he used that role to examine the nature of masculine aggression that he had so dramatically defined early in his career. In The Wrestler, Aronofsky’s redemption story confined Rourke, who could only trace the lines of a promised life now gutted.)

Notes From a Critic at Large (Part One)

Ever since “losing” my job as a freelance film critic for Metro Newspaper last fall, I’ve spent very little time going out to movies. Whereas in the past thirty years, as a professional critic, I used to see about three films a week, I’ve been lucky to see three movies in a theatre in the last five months. I’ve simply lost the heart for it. But I’ve also been seeing signs that films aren’t getting any better, either.

Looking at Russell Crowe’s grim, purposeful expression on the billboards for Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, the movie seemed to be issuing a threat rather than enticing audiences to see it. Besides, I had already seen that glum look of Crowe’s way back in Ridley Scott’s equally dour Gladiator (2000). (On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed watching Crowe in Scott’s inconsequential, but lovely 2006 comedy, A Good Year, which most people had ignored, or dismissed.) Witnessing the collection of stooges (Adam Sandler, Kevin James, David Spade, Chris Rock and Rob Schneider) on posters for Grown Ups, the film seemed to be arrogantly daring you to defy its potential stupidity. (Stupid can be fun when it’s smart stupid. Dumb stupid, on the other hand, is always a drag.)

Lately, I’ve been working on my new book and catching up with reading, music and some films that were gathering dust at the foot of my television. Movies I’ve caught up with on television have been largely stupefying. Law Abiding Citizen, for instance, is one of the most incoherent thrillers I’ve seen in years. Clyde Shelton (Gerald Butler) witnesses his wife raped and his daughter killed in a home invasion. During the trial, Philadelphia prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) tells him that one of the two criminals will get a light conviction due to botched forensic evidence. Rice ultimately makes a deal with the most brutal of the offenders (the guy who did the raping and killing), so that they can fry his accomplice. Shelton feels betrayed and ultimately gets revenge on the killers, the prosecutor and the whole damn city of Philadelphia. Director F. Gary Gray (2003's The Italian Job) starts out by staging scenes more outlandish than Michael Winner’s ugly vigilante fantasy Death Wish (1974), but he realizes (soon enough) that, with the popularity of torture porn in mainstream horror pictures (Saw, Hostel, etc.), he better turn Shelton into Dexter. As a result, Shelton only mutilates those he finds responsible for heinous crimes. But in order to explain how Shelton is able to continue wreaking havoc, even while in prison, Gray (and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer) concoct a ridiculous subplot about Shelton having connections to black ops in the CIA. (Apparently, his black ops training enabled Shelton to dig tunnels between his solitary cell and a garage he happened to own nearby thus allowing him to prowl the city unnoticed.) While a number of good actors (Jamie Foxx, Colm Meaney, Leslie Bibb) try to save face by gamely following the dots in the story, the charmless Gerard Butler can do nothing to cover the preposterousness of the avenging father.

Crossover Standard: Renee Fleming's Dark Hope

Crossover is a term used in the music business that refers to an artist from one genre "crossing over" to another. Its most familiar definition refers to an opera singer taking a stab at either jazz or pop. For me, this approach has failed more often than succeeded in the history of popular music. Consider Kiri Te Kanawa's disappointing jazz album many years ago with Andre Previn, or Sting’s rather soulless Songs from the Labyrinth featuring the music of John Dowland.

For Renee Fleming, one of the finest voices to hit the operatic stage, her new album Dark Hope sets a new standard and level of achievement to which all other crossover artists shall be compared. This is a thoughtful record of songs from new bands such as Muse ("Endlessly") and Arcade Fire ("Intervention"), with more familiar songs from Peter Gabriel ("In Your Eyes") and Leonard Cohen ("Hallelujah"). The music works for two important reasons: she sings in her own speaking voice and she took the time to prepare each song with a trusted producer. Clearly this was the way to go for Fleming, now 51 years of age, to inspire her in new ways beyond the regular schedule of opera performances. Her producer, David Kahne, wanted to create an album linked by her voice, rather than song selection, consequently what we hear is rather seamless; something akin to a euro-pop or dream-pop sound. And while that may not challenge my ears, I do find the mix irresistible.

-- John Corcelli is a musician, actor, broadcaster and theatre director.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo & The Girl Who Played With Fire: Stieg Larsson’s Masterful Mysteries

Not since the Harry Potter novels has a series of books so connected with such a wide variety of readers as the Stieg Larsson mysteries have. Last week, on two successive days, I saw a different person, one male, one female, on the transit system reading The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second in the late Swedish writer’s ‘Millennium’ trilogy. Over the last month, I’ve noticed at least half a dozen folks with eyes glued to that book and several more dipping into the first one in the series, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Considering how few people read at all while taking transit or are content just skimming the free subway newspapers, that’s a pretty impressive statistic. Wondering what’s so great about the Larsson oeuvre? Lots, actually.

Larsson has created, in Lisbeth Salander, one of the most compelling, ferocious and complex protagonists ever to appear in mystery literature. She’s twenty-four when the series opens, a tattooed and pierced young woman who has suffered horrendous abuse in her short life, doesn’t trust a soul, is anti–social to an unparalleled degree, yet affects everyone she comes into contact with, so much so that they become her staunchest defenders.

The Last Airbender: Not the Worst Movie Ever Made

The Last Airbender, which went into wide release this week, is based on Avatar: The Last Airbender, an animated series produced by the American cable channel Nickelodeon, and broadcast from 2005-2008. Avatar ran for 61 episodes and three seasons, and it was a critical and popular success, resonating with viewers far beyond the network’s very young demographic. I count myself among those adults who, in the summer of 2008, eagerly awaited its concluding episodes. In January 2007, months before the show`s third season had begun, it was announced that M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Happening) would write, direct, and produce a live-action feature film adaptation. I greeted that announcement with the usual trepidation of one who hears that a beloved novel has been tagged for Hollywood treatment. And so, having been following the film’s production for over 3 years, and putting my creative concerns aside, I walked into the theatre with genuine anticipation. But it wasn’t ‘the new M. Night Shyamalan film’ that I came to see, nor the summer’s next highly-promoted ‘3-D fantasy epic.’ No, I came to see The Last Airbender, the big screen adaptation of a television series that I genuinely love.

A Second Look at HBO's Horrifying The Pacific

Let me be blunt. Films or mini-series about the war in the Pacific in World War II have been few and far between because it was one gigantic horror show from beginning to end. Most that have been made -- save David Lean's Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) -- have been commercial if not critical flops (Terence Mallick's overrated The Thin Red Line (1998), for example). Obviously, the war in the European theatre was no picnic -- the barbarity there was equally deranged -- but at least there were brief glimmers of humanity and dignity within it (and as one European vet tells a returning Pacific vet "I at least got down time in Paris or London"). The war in the Pacific was a seemingly unrelenting bloodbath. Now that I've finished watching Tom Hank's and Steven Spielberg's The Pacific (they were the executive producers), I understand why it never got the ratings or the critical acclaim the European-set predecessor, Band of Brothers (2001), received. The Pacific is a shattering, deeply disturbing nightmare that will haunt you long after it is over. As depicted, both sides committed atrocious acts, innumerable atrocious acts. Nobody comes off well, and the characters we spend 10 or so hours following end up seriously emotionally damaged (those that survive, that is). This is not material that goes down very easily on a Sunday evening before the start of the work week.

Appetite for Destruction: The Media Coverage of the G20 Summit

“The media are all-knowing. They supply a community of knowledge and feelings, and a common morality. Many people, literate and illiterate alike, simply do not read. They receive information from television whether or not they seek that information. It often comes to them in the form of entertainment.”

--Tony Schwartz, Media: The Second God (1983).


Like most people, especially Torontonians, who witnessed the war zone that became our city during the past weekend of the G20 summit, I was appalled by a number of things. One could get into a number of healthy debates over the decision to have the summit in Toronto (given the violent history of these events), the destructive acts of the Black Bloc, or the reaction of the police to those acts. But I was struck more by some other factors that I believe contributed to creating the dark vortex the city fell into while world leaders were discussing the problems of the planet.

Good Intentions: Herbie Hancock's The Imagine Project

Herbie Hancock is one of my musical heroes because he’s constantly trying new things and takes none of his talent for playing, writing and arranging for granted. His latest effort is The Imagine Project which is, as he describes it, “an effort to show the power and beauty of global collaboration as a golden path to peace.” This is a well-intentioned album with some successes and failures.

The opening track is John Lennon’s iconic song adapted to a world - beat arrangement, but the vocal track fails to be inspiring let alone take you to that idyllic place that Lennon wrote about back in 1971. Some songs never work well when they’re re-configured; this is one of them. Interestingly, a Beatles song, “Tomorrow Never Knows,” is also included. Performed by Dave Matthews, with the requisite phased-vocal track, I wondered why this song was chosen in the first place. "T.N.K." never had the notion of a “path to peace” for me; more of quiet trip to another, other worldly place after death. (The lyrics are taken from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.)

Reporting For Battle: A Rolling Stone Coup

As a child, Michael Hastings dreamed of becoming a war correspondent.  “I remember drawing a map of the Middle East and watching CNN nightly with my dad,” he recalls, referring to his fifth-grade interest in the 1991 Persian Gulf conflict. “One day, I even asked my teacher if I could skip gym class to hear a speech by General Norman Schwarzkopf.“

But it’s his Rolling Stone profile of another general in another war -- Stanley McChrystal, until last week the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan -- that has provided Hastings with the scoop of a lifetime. Even before the magazine hit newsstands Friday, the online version had pundits across America correctly predicting that the military leader was toast. The story quoted him and his staff dissing President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and several other members of the administration. For Hastings, only 30, this All the President’s Generals moment came while he was back in Afghanistan. I’ll call him Michael, since we’ve known each other for many years and he hails from my town (Burlington, Vermont). That’s why I’ve done several interviews with him, including one last Tuesday when his name suddenly became a household word.

Fighting Nostalgia - Two Views on the Jethro Tull/Procol Harum concert: Molson Ampitheatre, June 18/10

I've never been one for the nostalgia musical acts that hit the road every summer (The Monkees, Crosby Stills & Nash, REO Speedwagon, Styx, The Who, to name but a few) because there's too much new music 'capturing my ears' (such as The Killers, Drake, Broken Social Scene, Metric, Cale Sampson, Femi Kuti, Eminem, Jamie Cullum, etc.) for me to wallow too much in the musical acts of the past. That doesn't mean I don't still listen to the music of these performers on CD/MP3, but I just don't have the need to see these acts perform well past their 'best before dates.' The first exception to this rule was two years ago when I got tickets to see Chicago. Now, ironically, I wasn't even a fan, but the tickets were free and the seats were great, so... I came away impressed by the still expert musicianship of the performers, even if the music, with a few exceptions, was really not my style.

Recently, I broke my rule again when I, along with a group of friends (including my Critics At Large colleague Kevin Courrier - see his review of the same show below) got tickets to see Jethro Tull with Procol Harum as opening act. I've always enjoyed the early music of Tull (the last album I bought was 1978's Heavy Horses), so when the opportunity came to see them live I was willing enough to enjoy an evening of, as one of my friends said, "Klassic Rawk!"

Every Road Leads Home: Toy Story 3

When I was extremely young my parents gave me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure for my birthday. My friends and I would get together and create these fantastical situations with all of our toys and face the wrath and ridicule of our siblings in the process. My Ninja Turtle would woo the Barbies and join forces with the Ghostbusters to vanquish evildoers which existed solely in our overly imaginative minds. As time faded, Leonardo lost his plastic katanas and the paint on his body began to scuff and peel. Before long I had simply outgrown him. When the time came I tossed him away in a box with the rest of my plastic memories without remorse. His blue bandana was frayed, his legs and arms were scratched and my name written in permanent marker along his bottom foot had all but worn off.

American Conscience: John Mellencamp's On the Rural Route 7609

A colleague of mine, who didn’t know John Mellencamp, asked me what he would be remembered for in music. I said, the song “Cherry Bomb” one of Mellencamp’s biggest pop songs now part of the musical currency of formatted radio. It remains a catchy track with just enough edge to stand out on any “soft-rock” radio station. I suspect that I have better ears than most, if I may be so bold to say, because there’s something explicitly “American” about John Mellencamp. His songs have continuously featured stories of farmers, the working class, rodeos, county fairs, etc. This new 4-CD box set which looks like a relic from your grandfather’s collection of 78s, seems intended to depict Mellencamp in a particular way. Quotes from Tennessee Williams bracket the collection with an essay by Anthony DeCurtis, music critic for Rolling Stone and The New York Times. If nothing else, this set is intended to re-imagine the songwriter in a less commercial way.

Five Cancelled TV Shows You Should Watch

Gone are the days of television producers holding out for that mythical 100th episode in order to guarantee a syndicated afterlife following cancellation. With DVD rentals, Netflix and Hulu.com, On-demand services from your cable provider, and entire cable channels devoted to running and rerunning every old TV show ever produced, no TV show is ever truly gone.

Even so-called failed shows, shows with no ratings and a single season (or half season) run, can have real impact, often years after airing only a few episodes on broadcast TV. Shows like Judd Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks, Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night, or Joss Whedon’s Firefly can meet untimely ends, but still stick around long enough to find their audiences, sometimes 10 years after their cancellation. Some of these shows were ahead of their time, some were just too idiosyncratic to find their audiences, many were ambitious and brilliant but flawed, and others just aired in the wrong timeslot or on the wrong channel.

Today I’m looking at 5 recent additions to the list of my favourite ‘failed’ shows. I’ll be sticking with shows of 1-hour length, and leave the sitcoms to a future post.

Tom Cruise’s Film Career: Nice Try But No Cigar

Knight and Day, Tom Cruise’s latest movie, which opens today, is a reminder, once again, of how he simply can’t hold up his end of the bargain when it comes to creating a charismatic, gripping character on screen. Up against a talented actress like Cameron Diaz he is particularly lost. Cruise, in fact, is the Energizer Bunny of Hollywood. You admire his efforts to act, but it becomes quickly apparent he’s really not getting anywhere acting.

Treme on Hiatus: The Devil's in the Details

The first-season finale of Treme on June 20 was titled “I’ll Fly Away,” and the 1929 gospel song about loss and redemption is performed at a funeral that ends the episode. Some of the lyrics (“Like a bird thrown/ driven by the storm...”) certainly apply to Katrina, which has taken place six months before the fictional TV saga begins. But, with oil now befouling the Gulf of Mexico, an untold number of those birds cannot fly at all. If only the HBO series -- which is scheduled to resume production this fall -- could fast-forward to 2010 and address this Louisiana double whammy

Produced and Abandoned: The Whole Wide World (1996)

The Whole Wide World, based on the 1986 memoir One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Price Ellis, is a small gem. Set in the early ‘30s, the picture tells the story of the turbulent relationship between pulp writer Robert E. Howard (Vincent D’Onofrio), who created Conan the Barbarian, and Novalyne Price (Renee Zellweger), a young Texas schoolteacher who had aspirations to be a writer. Director Dan Ireland provides a probing and touching appraisal of the gulf between the genders and how these two innocents attempt to bridge it. Where Price craves experience and is deeply drawn to Howard’s fervid imagination; Howard, who can only live in the world of his imagination, is initially drawn to Novalyne’s passionate desire to take in the whole wide world.