Mazel Tov: Dick Dale's Hava Nagila

When an Israeli friend of mine got married last summer, she was trying to think of a unique version of “Hava Nagila” to play after the traditional breaking of the glass. Without question, I told her the most original version I know is Dick Dale & His Del-Tones’ surf-rock arrangement from the mid-'60s.

Although Dale became an amateur surfer in Los Angeles, he was actually born in Massachusetts to a Lebanese father and Polish mother. Although I suspected that there probably wasn't much of a surfing legacy there, my friend Naomi Boxer (with tongue-in-cheek) asserted otherwise. "On a historical note, regarding Poland and surfers, perhaps you have made a slight oversight here? Have you not heard of the (in)famous Minsker Boys? There is strong historical evidence that they were a Jewish group of surfers from the city of Minsk. Usually part of Poland but slurped up by Russia during The Partition of Poland. According to the cultural lore that I've heard, they surfed the Black Sea in the earlier part of the 20th century in home-made (by their mothers of course) water-proof clothing with layers of chicken fat for warmth. The image that the Minsker Boys evokes certainly flies in the face of traditional Eastern European Jewish stereotypes." Who would have guessed?

Chick Flicks: A Bogus Phrase for a Bogus Genre

If ever there was film genre term that I wish would disappear it’s the chick flick. As one who always champions movies as a democratic art form, it’s beyond ludicrous to hear people – usually women – dismiss the opinions of men when it comes to (mostly) romantic stories just because they happen to be a member of the wrong gender. I first encountered this dubious term back in 1993 when I told a group of women that I found Nora Ephron’s romantic weeper Sleepless in Seattle rather creepy. In the movie, Meg Ryan pursues (you could say stalks) a wistful widowed man (Tom Hanks) until he finally hooks up with her. I suggested that I didn’t find the premise the least bit romantic because if the roles had been reversed, and it was Hanks shadowing Ryan, the picture would have been a sleazy thriller. Think Sleeping with the Enemy (1991) rather than Sleepless in Seattle. A few of the women though dismissed my observation and stated that I just didn’t get Sleepless in Seattle because I was a guy and didn’t understand a chick flick when I saw one. (My response: What the fuck is a chick flick?)

Following the insanity of that line of gender demarcation, it would stand to reason then that only guys should review action films that blow up shit real good. And maybe only blacks should weigh in on anything starring Denzel Washington and Queen Latifah. Perhaps Jews are the only ones qualified to discuss the oeuvre of Adam Sandler. Anyway, I think you get the idea. I thought of all this when reading the reactions to Toronto Globe and Mail film critic Rick Groen’s pan of the second Sex and the City movie. A number of women (and a few men) cried foul because, since Rick was a man, he obviously didn’t understand what made the movie appealing to females. First of all, the idea of designating such a limiting, condescending term as chick flick to movies like Sex and the City is insulting to both men and women. It suggests that only women like romantic stories, so therefore they should only be allowed to review them. Forget that I know many women who love action fare and despise sentimental movies, just as I know many men (including me) who loved Gillian Armstrong’s stirring adaptation of Little Women (1994). And while we’re at it, why not bring up director Katherine Bigelow, a woman who made a number of (mostly) redundant violent action pictures until, with The Hurt Locker (2009), she finally made a powerful film about the very underpinnings of the genre.

Lost Moment: Clint Eastwood's Invictus (2009)

There just wasn't enough time. When Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa in 1994, he was already 76 years old. After spending 27 years in an apartheid prison on Robben Island, few would have condemned him for seeking a measure of justice, if not outright revenge, for his treatment at the hands of South Africa's whites. Instead he chose a higher road. He wanted to reconcile with the white South Africans in an effort to end the cycle of violence that could have easily continued when the apartheid regime finally collapsed in 1994.

When he became President, he accomplished many things, especially trying to bring peace to his fractured country. It was as simple as using both black and white bodyguards (that integration itself spoke volumes to the nation), and as complex as embracing South Africa's national rugby team, the Springboks -- a team that was a symbol of white rule in South Africa -- on the cusp of South Africa hosting the Rugby World Cup in 1995. The Springboks were a woeful team that everybody assumed would make an early exit from the tournament. For Mandela, the success of the team became a personal mission. He contacted the team's captain, Francois Pienaar, and encouraged him to win the World Cup for South Africa. It was a tall order. With the assistance of a new coach, Pienaar's drive, and Mandela's complete support, the Springboks trained like demons and, remarkably, went on to win the title. Both these decisions were symbols, nothing more, but they were symbols of what can come out of hope.This is the material that is covered in Clint Eastwood's flawed film, Invictus (latin for 'unconquered') and it is a matter of historical record.

Winona Zelenka Interprets J.S. Bach’s Six Suites For Solo Cello: Earthy And Immediate

Completed in 1723, the J.S.Bach suites BWV 1007 – 1012 are a rite of passage for the cellist. The history of the composition and its reputation for cello players around the world has produced high expectations due to their familiarity with audiences and with fellow musicians. For Canadian cellist Winona Zelenka it must have been a rather daunting task to record the suites and then be subject to comparison to every cellist who's come before. Mstislav Rostropovich, Mischa Maisky, Yo Yo Ma, Anner Bylsma and the great Pablo Casals, to name five, have recorded the Six Suites for solo cello.

The cello suites offer a musician a technical and emotional trip than is demanding, playful and contemplative. As Baroque compositions, they offer dances and rhythmic variations that require the deepest commitment and concentration of the player. This has, to my ear, been a mixed blessing for Zelenka, who makes tempo changes more frequently than her predecessors whose interpretations were based on either Baroque or Romantic styles of playing. (Baroque style favours more use of open strings) In other words, a level of expectation about "how" to play these pieces leaves little room for interpretation, strictly speaking. That said, how does this recording measure up? To begin, the suites have been separated on two CDs: Suites 1, 3 and 5 on disc one and Suites 2, 4 and 6 on disc two. Already a statement in itself, separating the suites says something about our expectations: should we listen to them in sequence? Zelenka would suggest 'no'. (or at least her producer may have thought so) Curiously, they weren’t recorded in sequence or in one or two weeks. The recordings were made between 2007 and 2010 as clearly stated in the liner notes. Perhaps I didn’t need to know that in advance, but time can alter a musician’s approach to music, either emotionally or technically.

Martin Campbell: Hollywood's Best Unknown Director

When you put your hard earned bucks down at the box office for a film directed by New Zealand-born/England-trained Martin Campbell you are generally assured of a very good return on your investment. Since the 1980s, Campbell has crafted a series of episodic TV episodes and motion pictures that actually put the motion back into pictures.

Campbell first came to my attention in 1983 when he co-directed the twelve-part series, Reilly: Ace of Spies about Sidney Reilly (Sam Neill), considered England's first and best spy. Set during the first 25 years of the last century, the show was both exciting and sexy. Campbell directed the most vital episodes, 2 through 4, 8 and 9 and the finale. The secret to this show (and every film and TV show he's made) was not the espionage and action, but the way that Campbell helped the actors construct their characters within the tension. Every show that Campbell has touched has always been first and foremost about the characters.

He next made an impact on me with another six-part series, Edge of Darkness (1985 - basis for the Mel Gibson movie just-released on DVD that Campbell also directed). Again the solving of the mystery of why Ronald Craven's (Bob Peck) daughter (Joanne Whalley) was murdered right in front of him took a back seat to the people. What mattered to Campbell was examining the grief and pain that Craven's character was living through as he tried to get revenge for his dead daughter (I'll talk about the remake later). Campbell's first film in the US, Criminal Law (1988), was a bit lame, but a lively cable movie, Cast A Deadly Spell (1991), that successfully combined the hard-boiled detective and fantasy genres (trust me, it worked) put him back on track.

Family Legacies: Jeremiah Zagar's In a Dream

Is it just my imagination or have families that are not crazy become as rare as the northern hairy-nosed wombat? Environmentalists believe only about 113 of these marsupials still exist in Australia. Dysfunctional homo sapiens, on the other hand, now number in the billions worldwide. The word ‘dysfunction’ is relative, of course. But when it comes to my relatives, there’s madness aplenty running through our intermingled bloodlines.

So, somehow it did not surprise me to learn that a distant cousin I’ve never met -- Jeremiah Zagar -- made a documentary titled In a Dream that chronicles the meltdown of his nuclear family. My maternal grandmother was a half-sister of his maternal grandfather, ancestors who both died before we were born. In the 20th century, the entire clan left Poland (just a few steps ahead of the Nazis, who would obliterate their Jewish shtetl) and landed in America. Later, my immediate kin remained in New York while his settled in Pennsylvania.

Four Films About Love

Ralph Fiennes and Kristen Scott Thomas in The English Patient. 

"Love means never having to say you're sorry," the dying Ali McGraw told hubby Ryan O'Neal in that popular tear-jerker Love Story (1971). But not only did the movie excuse you from having to apologize, it also saved you from the complexity of love’s transgressions. Love Story said that love could transcend all of life’s tragedies and could cure us all of life’s ills – it might even ennoble us. Lou Rawls once sang that “love can be a hurtin’ thing,” but if you want a hit movie about painful subjects, love best be a healin’ thing. Hence, redemptive dramas like Terms of Endearment (1983) or Ghost (1990) became box office triumphs whereas more ambivalent pictures like James Gray’s Two Lovers (2008) didn’t (in this picture’s case, it was also criminally underrated).

Making Your Own Sound: Geoff Dyer's But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz

I was recently having lunch with Critics at Large colleague John Corcelli and he was telling me about reading this “exhaustive but fascinating” new biography of jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. While enthusiastically describing the various ways the book identified Monk as the originator of be-bop jazz, John got me thinking about one of my favourite books about jazz, one that didn’t dispel the myths surrounding those legendary figures, but rather examined the source of their power: Geoff Dyer’s But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz (1991).

The way Dyer writes about jazz, the sound of the music burns through the lines on the page like some subliminal jukebox. Dyer’s not so much a soloist improvising on a tune; instead, he evokes the feeling of the music and the sound at the core of the individual who plays it. “Jazz was about making your own sound,” he explains, “finding a way to be different from everybody else, never playing the same thing two nights running.”

Geoff Dyer writes, in eight very succinct and visually evocative vignettes, of some great – and very different – jazz artists: Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Ben Webster, Bud Powell, Chet Baker and Art Pepper. And Dyer weaves quite an impressionistic tapestry. But Beautiful illustrates the different kinds of artistic temperaments responsible for this uniquely American music. For in his view, jazz music was the perfect artistic expression for talented and inspired outsiders who often demonstrated very idiosyncratic behavior. And, in America, most of these outsiders who discovered and created jazz were black. But Beautiful is both illuminating and inventive because Dyer – a novelist who wrote The Colour of Memory (1989) and The Search (1993) – has constructed this biographical journey in the style of a novel. Drawing on anecdotes, scenes from documentary films, photographs and conjecture, Dyer concocts his drama out of snapshot impressions.

Produced and Abandoned: The Triumph of Love

During the horrific 9/11 attacks, I was covering the Toronto International Film Festival for Boxoffice Magazine in Los Angeles. Like most catastrophes, I can still remember where I was before and after the terrorists struck. There were also two movies that framed the event, and as it turned out, they were movies that would both be eventually produced and abandoned. The night before, I had gone to Roy Thompson Hall to see Fred Schepisi’s stunning adaptation of Graham Swift’s novel Last Orders (which David Churchill wrote perceptively about for Critics at Large back on January 15th); the other, which I viewed on September 12th, was Clare Peploe’s marvelous adaptation of Pierre Marivaux’s 18th-Century play, The Triumph of Love.

Watching a movie was probably the last thing I wanted to do that day, but I had a job to do. While fully understanding that I was - on one level - "enjoying" the picture, I was also aware that I felt distant from the screen, unable to let anything penetrate the state of shock that I was in. It was much worse trying to write the collection of reviews that were due at the conclusion of TIFF. Writing essentially seemed like an insignificant act, a negligible gesture in the face overwhelming horror. While I eventually got my enthusiasm for reviewing back, it took a few years to return to The Triumph of Love. When it barely made a dent at the box office and closed quickly, I had to wait for the DVD release to fully acquaint myself with the pleasure of experiencing it, which was more than I could do in 2001. I came to realize upon watching the DVD that the sensual lyricism of the material couldn't be fully appreciated right after a day of mass murder.

Blast Furnace Soul: The Black Keys' Brothers

Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney certainly spell it out on their new release with a cover that states, “This is an album by The Black Keys." The name of this album is Brothers with the back cover announcing: “These are the names of the songs on this album” and “These are the guys in the band.” Why they felt obligated to indicate precisely what the recording was all about remains part of the mystery surrounding the band and for that matter the music.

This record is a super-heated, funk-based album featuring 9 of 14 tracks recorded at the Muscle Shoals studios in Alabama. The Muscle Shoals “sound” always inspired many a struggling musician. The Rolling Stones were reborn here after recording "Brown Sugar" in 1969. Paul Simon wrote and recorded most of the songs from his debut-self titled, solo album featuring “Kodachrome” and “Loves Me Like a Rock,” bringing the power of gospel music and mixing it with the southern R&B with a dash of country for good measure. Due to its size, which isn’t much larger than the one-room Sun Studios in Memphis, Muscle Shoals requires your full attention as a musician. The close confines can either work against you, or help you focus if you’re a member of a multi-piece band. Ironically The Black Keys, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, can’t possibly do much work “off the floor” like a rock-n-roll band because they’re a duo. But what they do accomplish with this record is the “feeling” of a spontaneous band session.

Lost and Found: The 13th Warrior (1999)

My original intent with John McTiernan's The 13th Warrior (1999) was to have it be the third in the 'pantheon' of Mini Masterpieces Within Mediocre Movies (MMWinMM), because there's one scene early in the film which was truly great. I remembered the rest of it as being a bit of a mess. To confirm this, I decided to rewatch it (after first seeing it sometime in early 2001 on videotape). Imagine my surprise that in 2010 I found it quite entertaining.

Set in the early 10th century, The 13th Warrior tells the story of Ahmed (Antonio Banderas), a Mesopotamian prince who is exiled as a 'diplomat' to the Norseland for indiscretions in Babylon. With the assistance of Melchisidek (Omar Sharif) as his guide and interpreter, they find themselves welcomed into the Norse king's home shortly after he has died. Almost immediately, it is announced that a distant community has been attacked by an unknown evil force that has laid waste to the village. A shaman proclaims that 13 warriors must go to defeat this threat. Twelve would be Norse, one must not be a Northman, so Ahmed is quickly co-opted into the group. The biggest problem is that he cannot understand a word they say and they cannot understand him (this leads to the MMWinMM which I will get to in a minute).

Democratic Vistas: Vaclav Havel's The Art of the Impossible

A friend of mine earlier in the year lamented that the euphoria over Barack Obama’s election victory seemed to have waned since that thrilling November evening. While I could acknowledge some truth in what he said, fully sensing that the party fizz had flattened somewhat, I also detected something much more urgent in his comment. I suspect that beyond the historical implications of Obama’s win, as well as the ripe possibilities and hopes that it raised, there was also a utopian element at work in my friend’s expectations. It was as if his hatred of George Bush had been so intense that the love of Obama was, to some degree, just the other side of that coin.

For many, especially on the left, Bush had made America the scourge of the planet which meant that (after Obama won) the world would soon be spinning on its proper axis again. The belief seemed to be, with Obama in the White House, that the violent insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban suicide bombers in Afghanistan would now put away their toys and play nice. But the world hasn’t changed in that manner and the zealots haven’t gone away. (Neither has the right-wing version currently propping up the Tea Party.) I do think that Obama sensed the unreal expectations being heaped upon him which is why he underplayed the significance of his election. He knew that the world he was about to confront was the same world that the previous President confronted. Their approach to it might be radically different, but (unlike Naomi Klein) he understood that the irrational ideologies threatening democracy were not solely the product of American corporate power. (In saying so, I'm also not forgetting the economic mess the previous administration left for Obama to clean up.)

Do The Right Thing! The Contentious Issue of Politically Correct Casting

There’s been much ado about some casting choices in recent Hollywood projects, not because the actors chosen are necessarily bad but because, say their critics, they’re not the right colour for the roles.

First off, many people are upset that white actor Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain) is the lead in the just-released film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, since he’s demonstrably not of Persian (or Iranian, as it’s known today) origin. Then comes news that The Last Airbender, the soon-to-be-released movie from M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) -- based on an Asian - inspired TV series, called Avatar: The Last Airbender -- will also be a largely whitewashed affair. This follows on the heels of the announcement that white filmmaker Kenneth Branagh (Hamlet) has cast a black actor, The Wire’s Idris Elba as Heimdall, one of the Norse gods in Branagh’s upcoming adaptation of Marvel’s Thor.

Each of these movies has provoked a backlash. Though, predictably, in our politically correct climate. the Marvel comic fans objecting to Elba’s casting in Thor are deemed to be suspect, if not outright, racist in their concerns. while those protesting the casting in Prince of Persia and The Last Airbender, are deemed to have valid concerns about the casting decisions. Would I be labeled racist if I suggest that they all have legitimate reasons for being unhappy with the choices made in the adaptations of their favorite TV show, comic book or video game (Prince of Persia)?

Lifting the Veil: The Rolling Stones’ Remastered Exile on Main St

Recorded in the basement of a mansion in the south of France during the summer of 1972, this double-album was The Rolling Stones’ “blues” record from start to finish. Save for the contractual hit singles, such as “Happy” and “Tumbling’ Dice,” this album freed up guitarist Mick Taylor to play his best licks as a contributing member of the band and not just the sub for Brian Jones (best heard on their cover of Robert Johnson’s “Stop Breaking Down”).

Considering the risk of re-mastering, this version of Exile, produced behind a veil of murk and mirth, the veil has finally been lifted revealing a remarkable mix of excellent arrangements. On “Tumbling Dice”, one of the stock favourites in The Rolling Stones’ songbook, has been cleaned up to show off the great background vocals and sweet guitar licks in between. The under-recognized “Sweet Black Angel” shows off its true colours with subtle hints of harmonica and xylophone once buried in the mix, now brought out of the darkness. And I suppose the mystery and darkness of Exile will piss off a lot of fans of the original mix. This was an album you played in the dark and experienced while passing a reefer and bottle of Jack Daniels.

TV Series Finale: Lost Lived and Died By Its Characters

In the fall of 1983, I was helping a friend move out of our shared apartment. She had this big comfy chair that had been a royal pain in the arse to get up the apartment's very narrow staircase, so to move it out I suggested we throw a rope around it and lower it over a small second-floor balcony at the front. I volunteered to do the lowering. It wasn't that heavy, so I was up there alone. I lifted the chair over the railing and started to lower it. After a second, I noticed that the chair's legs had caught on the balcony's slight overhang, so I put my thighs against the railing and swung the chair out.

Then the railing collapsed. I fell about 18 feet, but God intervened that day, because the chair landed on its side and I landed, ass down, on the chair's arm. It broke my fall. I still bounced off and landed on the ground knocking myself out. I have no memory of the actual fall, but one of my friends who witnessed it said I did a perfect swan dive. I also have only fragmentary memories of the next hour, and that was only when I moved or was moved by the paramedics.

It was something like this. I blank blank blank blank remember blank blank blank each time blank blank me onto blank blank and then onwards to blank blank, my memory only completely coming back blank when they crashed me through blank doors of the Emergency room. Because of the well-placed chair, I came through the fall with only a concussion, whiplash (that I still suffer from to this day) and some bruises, but no breaks and more importantly, alive and not paralyzed. To this day, I sometimes reflect on that fall and wonder why I survived or why it happened, and when I'm feeling all "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"-like (1962) wondering if I did survive or am I really living this life in the seconds before I hit. It was this spirituality that was at the core of the now-completed TV show Lost, a show that started with a group of people surviving a horrific plane crash on an isolated island.

Eclectic Introspection: Broken Social Scene’s Forgiveness Rock Record

Soaring to the top of the Independent music charts in Canada probably wasn’t the intention of Toronto’s Broken Social Scene. This band, well known for having several familiar Canadian musicians, such as Feist, in and out of its line-up for the past 10 years, probably wanted to make another record as removed from the mainstream as everything they’ve collectively and individually recorded since the release of You Forgot It In People in 2002. But the talent-base of B.S.S. is simply too strong to fight against and thus the release of Forgiveness Rock Record, the band’s remarkable album of 2010.

Some bands come and go but for the grace of fans who expect the same music every time they hear them. For B.S.S., the fans have always loved their versatility as musicians and their eclectic mix of music, because they were far more introspective than Arcade Fire and much less driven by ego than trying to create a sound that stood out from the rest of the corporate-rock set. I’m happy to report that this album still has the eclecticism of B.S.S. only more refined. Having worked on and recorded the compositions for the bulk of 2009 under Chicago-based producer John McIntire, B.S.S. has excelled as songwriters and as a band.

This album is tight, taut and interesting to the ear. It features a mix of hard-driving songs with a couple of genuine, radio-friendly, hits: “Forced to Love” and “All to All”. “Sweetest Kill” which borrows a riff from “Lover’s Spit” is a dream pop delight. The arrangements on Forgiveness Rock Record are musically interesting and balanced. I always thought the vocals were buried in the mixes of the earlier records, perhaps with good reason, but this time the blend is far better. This is an album that celebrates the collective known as Broken Social Scene. It’s a family reunion of sorts, due to the disparate and diverse schedules of its members. Five years after their last one, Forgiveness Rock Record may be, dare I say it, the band’s most commercial recording to date. But I’m confident that even the most diehard fan will “forgive” the band of such an indulgence.

-- John Corcelli is a musician, actor, broadcaster and theatre director. In 2008, with Kevin Courrier, he produced a CBC radio documentary for Inside the Music about You Forgot It In People by Broken Social Scene.

The Final Cha-Chung: Remembering Law & Order

In a May 17 episode that probably should have been titled “Kinky Town,” writer Ed Zuckerman provided Law & Order with a hilarious whodunit about denial, betrayal, sneaky finances and some very bizarre sex games. It serves as a wonderful next-to-last chapter for the venerable weekly examination of New York City’s criminal justice system, just cancelled by NBC after two decades. Bewilderingly, this decision comes one season short of granting creator-executive producer Dick Wolf’s fervent wish: to boast that his series is the longest-running scripted primetime drama ever on network TV, thereby beating the 20-year run of Gunsmoke.

The Mother Ship, as everyone in the industry refers to the original cops-and-courts show that predated its spinoffs, wasn’t exactly sinking. The ratings may have been less than spectacular, but the current ensemble cast arguably is the most effective in eons. Jeremy Sisto and Anthony Anderson, playing the lead detectives, demonstrate as much great chemistry as Jerry Orbach and Chris Noth did trading wisecracks while investigating murders, robberies, kidnappings and crimes of passion from 1992 to 1995. The performances delivered by Linus Roache and Alana De La Garza, as the hands-on prosecutors, also crackle with energy. He’s a sort of combination of his predecessors, the subtle Michael Moriarty and fiery Sam Waterston; She portrays the best prosecutorial sidekick since Jill Hennessy, only with less innocence. Reliably solid Waterston and S. Epatha Merkerson -- respectively, the cranky district attorney and wise precinct commander -- never fail to amaze.

Troublingness: Terry Gilliam's Cursed Films - The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Other Works

Terry Gilliam's (or rather "A Film From Heath Ledger & Friends", as it is officially credited) The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is his most coherent work since 12 Monkeys (1995). This comes as a relief after the complete, unwatchable botches Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Brothers Grimm (2005) and Tideland (2005). Does that make it a good film? Probably not, but it was far more enjoyable than I was led to believe.

The DVD, released May 11th, comes with a touching introduction from Gilliam as he outlines his thinking behind the film. He wanted to do a joyous and fun film, along the lines of Fellini's Amarcord (1973) and Bergman's 1982 Fanny and Alexander (his words, not mine on this Bergman film), that was a sort of playful compendium of many of the things he'd done before. He then briefly discusses the tragedy of Ledger's untimely death during the production in January 2008. A plan was hatched to finish the film (outlined below) and filming was completed. Tragedy wasn't finished with the film yet. The film's producer, Canadian William Vince (producer of Capote), died of cancer at the age of 45.

It has always been said that a "troublingness" (I know, it's not a word, but in the whacked world of Gilliam films it seems appropriate) has plagued almost every film Gilliam has made. Brazil (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and The Brothers Grimm were all swamped by fights between Gilliam and releasing companies resulting in the pictures almost never being released; The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was not completed due to a combination of storms wiping away all sets, lead actor Jean Roquefort unable to ride a horse because of severe back pain and the collapse of financial support (the whole catastrophe was outlined in the great 2002 documentary Lost In La Mancha). Supposedly he's resurrected this one and will shoot it soon with Ewan MacGregor and Robert Duvall - good luck to him. The less said about the virtually unreleased Tideland the better.

Whodunit!: Clue: The Movie

Thank goodness for videotape. After watching Clue: The Movie (1985) for the first time this past weekend I find myself conflicted, not unlike a guilty man pleading innocence before an unforgiving jury of his peers. On one hand I found myself thoroughly enjoying the cavalcade of familiar faces, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Martin Mull etc., chewing up the scenery, while on the other hand I couldn't help but think about how much I would have despised the film if I'd caught it during its original theatrical run.

Jonathan Lynn's film used an interesting advertising tactic to raise curiosity; he offered viewers three different endings which would be equally distributed and randomly attached to every film print. Surprise! The problem with this tactic is that with any other film it would promote repeated viewings but by the halfway mark in Clue you should realize that this film's conclusion will prove somewhat irrelevant. It never really mattered if it was Colonel Mustard in the observatory with the candlestick or Ms.Scarlet with the knife in the kitchen. Being offered one of three endings gave the impression that ‘whodunit’ was a question we cared to have answered. We were being told a joke for an hour and a half but the filmmakers missed the punch line. No wonder most critics panned it and its box office numbers were lackluster upon its initial release.

Elvis Costello’s Cultural Boycott of Israel: Rank Hypocrisy and Naiveté

Elvis Costello’s recent decision to cancel his two upcoming shows in Israel because of his concerns about the plight of the Palestinians, and Israeli government policy towards them, is problematic and offensive on so many levels; I scarcely know where to begin. But let’s hear from the man himself, who just recently told The Jerusalem Post, "I know from the experience of a friend who is from Israel and from people who have worked there that there is a difference of opinion there among Israelis regarding their government's policies. It seems to me that dialogue is essential....The people who call for a boycott of Israel own the narrow view that performing there must be about profit and endorsing the hawkish policy of the government. It's like never appearing in the U.S. because you didn't like Bush's policies or boycotting England because of Margaret Thatcher."