Arlo Guthrie: Alice's Restaurant
This CD is just one of those classics that is a wonderful story, and a lot of fun. The title track tells the story of the "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," which is rather a favorite of folk people all over the world.
The perfect antidote for Dilbertian cynicism is Frank Capra's masterpiece, You Can't Take It With You (1938), starring Jimmy Stewart as a financier's heir in the Depression who gives it all up for Jean Arthur and her kooky family.
Natalie gets to pair up with her father on the title track, for a truly wonderful combination! This special edition package contains the UNFORGETTABLE CD, an additional CD with Cole's version of "The Christmas Song" and a video featuring the "Unforgettable" video and "The Christmas Song."
If you want the 50's version of life in the corporate (and World War II) trenches, try Gregory Peck in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956) as an executive who faces a choice between family and career while waxing nostalgic for the simplicity of his service in Italy.
The 80's feminist revenge movie
9 to 5 (1980), starring Dolly, Jane, and Lily, starts a trend brought to a climax by Thelma and Louise. Dabney Coleman is terrific as the obnoxious boss giving the good ladies a hard time.
A lot of people will also miss Mel Tormé, who died on June 5th (the day this page was designed). This collection from the Concord Jazz Heritage Series was just released last year.
On a more serious note, one of the best movies of 1997, L.A. Confidential (or get it on DVD) gives us the inside scoop on corruption in L.A., with
dynamite performances by Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, and
especially Kim Basinger. Who knew she could act? Try the book by James
Ellroy for an extra layer of conspiracy too hot for Hollywood.
Harry Chapin was a master storyteller, even if the only song he ever sang that got a lot of airplay was "Cat's Cradle." The stories come from his life, and you can really tell.
Katherine Hepburn also plays Bunny Watson, an encyclopedically knowledgeable TV network fact checker threatened with replacement by an IBM computer spewing Hollerith cards, in the 1957 movie Desk Set. Spencer Tracy costars as the engineer assigned to install the computer. As in all Hepburn/Tracy comedies, after initial fireworks, they end up together. Screenplay by Henry and Phoebe Ephron, parents of Nora Ephron, who brought us You've Got Mail.
Christopher Franke's scoring comes to life even without the accompanying TV show, although if you have seen Babylon 5, you'll start envisioning the scenes that go along with the music.
For complete brainy silliness, it's hard to beat "Pinky and the Brain," a TV series wherein two laboratory rats plan to take over the world. These cartoons fall into the best tradition of the Warner Brothers animation parodies (my personal favorite: a pastiche of "Man of La Mancha" in which the Brain sings "To Scheme the Impossible Scheme"). The Brain himself is a parody of a parody (Orson Welles as "Citizen Kane," based on William Randolph Hearst).
What? You've never heard of Dry Branch Fire Squad?!? Well, if you like folk music, you should have. This group has a great up-front man, and an absolutely marvelous fiddler.
Natalie Wood's last movie (she died during principal photography), this is an early 80's take on how virtual reality would affect our lives. Trippy special effects à la 2001 round out an intriguing sci-fi thought experiment. (Also available in DVD format.)
Enchanted Forest is a collection of Japanese melodies played on Galway's melodious flute. This album is a definite departure for those people accustomed to hearing Galway playing Irish melodies with The Chieftans.
In this comedy, Parker Posey plays a Greenwich Village resident whose rent party is busted by the cops. Instead of singing rock opera about it as in Rent, she turns to her librarian aunt, who reluctantly gives her a position as a clerk. She finds fulfillment by using her brain, and falls in love with an immigrant push cart salesman while helping him get credentials in the U.S. as a teacher.
Five O'Clock Shadow: So There. This is
FOCS first
widescale release. I first heard this group in
concert in RI, and they are awesome, with an
energy that is almost unbelievable. FOCS is an
a capella group, but you couldn't tell it by
listening to their music, because they even
sing the instrumentals to go with
the normal vocals. This is a must
hear in my book.
Real Genius with Val Kilmer. Well, what can I say? I saw
this movie when it first came out in 1985, and I still like
it now. Visit Pacific Tech (a loosely veiled Caltech), and
see how the "brainy" half lives (and it's
somewhat realistic). Besides, what else to you expect
to find at the Brain Store?
I.Q. 1994 starring Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan, and Walter Matthau as Albert
Einstein. TR plays an auto mechanic who falls for Meg Ryan, Albert
Einstein's mathematical niece. Albert likes the young man, and lends him
an old theory to expound to impress the girl; a romantic comedy with an
intellectual twist.
The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra performs Marsalis' epic oratorio on slavery which won
the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for music, the first ever awarded for a non-classical composition.
The archetypal "screwball" romantic comedy features a scientific
protagonist:
Bringing up Baby (1936). Cary Grant plays an absentminded
paleontologist who falls for a society girl (Katherine Hepburn) while
helping her keep a wayward leopard under control.
Matthew Broderick plays Richard Feynman in Inifinity (1996), a
bittersweet love story based on the American physicist's memoirs of his
first marriage What do you care what other people think?.
For those of us who knew Dick Feynman, something is lost in the
translation, but it's a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes at the
Manhattan Project. (Also available in widescreen format.)
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