You mean to tell me...

that the Nascar Testocracy was perturbed-n-upset because slender Danica Patrick's girly frame gave her a weighty advantage in this weekend's Indy 500?
HAW!
I love it!
100 yrs now, American Women have been dieting away to a shape pleasing to men and now this regimen gives Danica Patrtick a potential competitive edge in auto racing, a male dominated sport???
Hilarious!
All those Nascar drivers will have to join slenderella and start eating salads for lunch keepup with Danica!
HAR!

Pick of the Week...

hands down its Babes in Arms starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland at 7pm tonight at the Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy Street in da teemin' heart o' Harvard Square.
We all know this one by heart, keen eyed offspring of destitute vaudvillians put on a show for the benefit of their parents.
Ah but its Busby Berkeley's show in every way.
Otherwise the Drive Ins are a risky washout this weekend, I however was lucky enough to see "Revenge of the Sith" at the Tritown last Thursday night.
For the moment I may have to let the Drive Ins languish until I can acquire a car that can stand up to the strain of night runs to Leominster & Mendon.

Drive-Inspiration

The Tri Town Drive In is featuring
"xXx" starring Ice Cube dis weekend
on a double bill with...
"The Amityville Horror"
The funs starts at 7:45 or so.
This is a good double feature all told, but I'm gonna be a little more choosey in my Drive Ination this year. Certain films will be classified "must sees" (exp "Batman Begins" "Revenge of the Sith", "War of the Worlds") others will be "targets of opportunity".

Tri-Town Drive-In, Lunenberg
3 Youngs Road, off West Main Street
978-345-5062

Pick of the Week:

Has to be "Gigi" starring Maurice Chevalier which is screening at 7pm tonight at the Regent Theater on Medford Street in Arlington tonight, FOR FREE!

Otherwise "Robots" and "Fever Pitch" are screening at the Tri Town Drive In (3 Youngs Rd Leominster)starting at 7:30pm. Alas rain is predicted but if you are a die hard Sox fan and a Drive In Mark whats a little rain to you?

Grace Note from Air America Radio:

Don Novello in his ever dependable "Fr. Guido Sarducci" character called into the Al Franken Show Monday and airly predicted the next Pope's name would be "Benedict" although he said he'd be "Benedict the 17th"...not much laughs there but a
pretty close prediction I'd say.

Either it is Patriot's Day

in (Romantic) Arlington, or else the Shriners have risen and are marching on the Town Hall to stage a military coup.

One way or another, Arlington's Patriot's Day Parade does pack a wallop...plenty of bands-clowns-re-enactors and suchlike.
The American Legion looked good the local notables ditto and the muster of klassic kars was neato keen.

Sports Thought...

Since Alex Rodriguez saved a tyke from being run over on Newbury Street (Sure-n who ELSE can afford to shop on that bumptious boulevard now that the Avenue Victor Hugo has gone the way of the Wooly Mammoth and honest men in Politics?)...does this mean Johnny Damon will have to save someone from drowning in East River? I mean...now that we've reached rough parity with the Yankees then we've got to find new ways to keep the rivalry fresh.

No Pick of the Week this Week I'm afraid, nothing particularly interesting is out there. But the Mendon Drive In opens up next weekend so things will pick up.

Is it my imagination or

did Drew Barrymore get some of her tattoos lasered off? Her unsvelte self all over the local papers thanks to the local premiere of "Fever Pitch" co-starring Jimmy Fallon. Or maybe all her alleged tattoos were mere fakes cooked up to enhance her character's bad grrl image for the "Charlie's Angels" franchise?
Oh who the hell cares anyway?
:)

I've decided that TV Producer J.J. Abrams...

is "one of us".
I mean, as the high priest of his own personal cult of television obscurity.
What is "Alias" but a straightened-out version of Stephanie Powers' old one season wonder "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E."?
"Lost" though, that has a more tangled lineage. The setting is suggestive of Aaron Spelling's 1969 flop "The New People" (screened by Channel Zero last summer as a matter of fact)...the science fictional elements (mysterious monsters, strangers on the island) evoke everything from "Land of the Giants" to more notorious stuff like "Lost in Space".
So what is old is what is new...either that or J.J. Abrams was sneaking into our old shows at the Liberty Cafe and Phoenix Landing.
:)
Whats next for him I wonder...a reconfiguration of "Captain Nice" starring Andy Dick?

Pick of the Week...

Has to be an improbable revival of "Ishtar" starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman at the Coolidge Corner Theater at Midnight tonight.
On 35mm no less, of course I do wanna note, that Channel Zero was shown the door over ther for screening the likes of "The Gorilla" starring the Ritz Brothers and Bela Lugosi.
Yup its a strange film market we live in, and getting stranger all the time.

The Drive Ins are Open! The Drive Ins are Open!!!

Winter is finally driven out starting this Friday @ 7:15 pm EDT! Thats when the mighty projector at the Tri Town Drive In (3 Youngs Rd Leominster-Lunenberg Ma 978-345-5062) fires up for the 2005 DI season!
Word is, they are showing:
"Are We There Yet" and "Hitch".
All decent citizens are advised to drop on by and help keep alive this national institution!

This is the venue in which to see "Revenge of the Sith"...Hell this is the place to see "Catwoman"!
:)

The Downfall (2004)

As Jon Haber once said "Every generation gets the Hitler it deserves". He was of course, speaking entirely in cinematic terms.
Which brings us to "The Downfall" a lavish German recreation of Adolf Hitler's last ten days in the fabled Fuhrer Bunker where suprisingly his entourage suddenly discovers they've been working for an anti-semite all these years.
Critics have been mulling over the consequences of a German Hitler after decades of Funny Hitlers, Dancing Hitlers, English Hitlers, Music Hall Hitlers, Singing Hitlers, American Hitlers, even a Jewish Hitler (Moe Howard of course). Alas though, this is nothing new, back in the 1950's in West Germany there was a brief vogue for World War Two pictures depicting high level Nazi politics, G.W. Pabst's last film "The Jackboot Mutiny" (U.S. Title) recounted von Stauffenberg's failed 1944 coup'd'etat against Hitler.
What is different is the obvious naturalism of Bruno Ganz' portrayal, he makes Hitler seem boring and bourgeois. This is itself a bit of a break with tradition as even the comics versions of Der Fuhrer kowtowed to his diabolical pre-eminence.
Then there is Traudl Junge (kewpie doll-ish Alexandra Maria Lara) Hitler's semi devoted secretary who forms the audience's perspective on the closing hystrionics of the Nazi Era. Alas its hard for American audiences to get behind Traudl good looks or not as her proximity to power and genocide gives her a Sergeant Schultz-like "I see Nothink" air. In other words is she dope or a collaborator.-who knows? Mostly she is there to reinforce the notion of there being german victims of Hitler's regime.
And at two and half hours the film gets wearisome as it is mostly set in Hitler's claustrophobic Fuhrer Bunker.
Still and all that the acting is tight but the story is too familiar to make this a worthwhile night at the movies. The film's most riveting sequence doesnt even involve Hitler at all. Rather it is Magda Goebbel's methodical slaughter of her own children, as she could not bear the notion of them living in a world without Nazism. Sadly the spirit of Magda Goebbels is with us today in all sorts of grim homicidal ways.
My advice, Wait for the DVD wherein no doubt even MORE footage will be included a'la "Das Boot".

"Dido, Queen of Carthage" Reviewed...

Brave Aeneas, last son of Troy washes up on the shores of Libya far from safety and wretched under the heavy disdain of Juno, the Trojan-hating Queen of the Gods. Ah but fortunately, Aeneas' Mother, Venus, casts a love spell on the local Queen, the widow Dido so that Aeneus will be properly taken care on his way to the founding of Rome and of course, glory. Ah but will the embraces of the fair Queen sway Aeneas from his heroic destiny or will he leave her in the lurch?
Such is the bare bones of Christopher Marlowe's seldom produced play and the A.R.T. gave this one there all last night. Was it A.R.T.-y? Yes with the usual incomprehensible flourishes including the whimsical choice of a bare stage for most of the show's action. Honestly I don't believe a word of the director's notes, I think the creative powers that be on Brattle Street simply flip a coin to determine if a classic is to be produced on bare stage or in a elaborate corn crib. Lets not forget the A.R.T.'s continuing fascination with transvestite chic, this time with Thomas Derrah's Juno swanning about like the late Harris Glen Milstead aka "Divine".
Ah but the acting was tight in every way, Colin Lane as Aeneas and Diane D'Aquila as Dido had the wit to let the script do its work without undue interference. I also think the selection of two middle aged actors as the leads was a interesting and suggestive idea. The easiest thing in the world would've been to cast some bimbo as Dido or some chorus boy lout as Aeneas and let that carry & distort the show but the A.R.T. made this a play by and for grown-ups-for that I am grateful.
The sex angle gets played up a lot whenever discussion turns to Dido, given the opening sequence wherein Jupiter declaims his love for Ganymede his gay cup-bearer. There is a lot of gay subtext and even over text to Marlowe's plays, but I think "Dido" is more a meditation on the perfidity and superficiality of the Gods who control everyone's fate in the play. Jupiter is an old gay lecher, Venus is a well-meaning mother in Aeneas who cannot bring herself to talk plainly with her son and whose love spell sets motion the play's core tragedy. Juno, alleged Queen of the Gids plots to murder Aeneas' son, truly Marlowe saw the Olympians as a trivial, superficial, inconstant lot.
Alas poor Marlowe, he is all but a forgotten man these days, his plays are rarely produced here in Boston. His best known work "Dr. Faustus" -a superior play in every respect has been revived a mere three times in twelve years, two of those performances were by college undergraduates. Its a shame because Kit had talent and was clearly major influence on Shakespeare. So the A.R.T. weird flourishes and all, has done us a favor, lets us hope they at least remember Marlowe.

"Was Shylock ever Funny?"

Finally broke my movie drought and went out to see Radford's adaptation of the "Merchant of Venice". And in truth it is a good film, Pacino's Shylock is pretty low key (Smilin' Al is known for his scenery chewing so this was a good thing I think), Lynn Collins did up Portia proud and Jeremy Irons moped around with the gay thing quite nicely.
However, Radford did play it entirely as a ethnic tragedy...Shylock mad with rage gets beat down by the goyim. This is pretty much the way everyone plays the "Merchant" and "The Taming of the Shrew" for that fact these days. Alas these are both comedies of a type that make fun of touchy contemporary subjects. I wonder if either can simply be played for laughs at all?
Complicating things is that "The Taming of the Shrew" has champion scenery shredder Katherina to liven things up, but "The Merchant of Venice" relies on a few ancillary clowns to make with the funny.
Maybe Shakespeare wasn't easy with Shylock's fate?
I've always had an ambiguous relationship with the "Merchant of Venice", it was the first Shakespeare play we read in High School and a perfect catastrophe all around...nobody could believe it was a comedy. And thats not hard to see why, its short on laughs even in professional hands. The nun who was our well-meaning freshman english teacher probably wanted to score some points off prejudice, but the matter ended in frustration and doubt. The whole experience put me off Shakespeare until I was well out of college. And then I waded through some four ghastly productions of the "Merchant of Venice" before the A.R.T. and Tina Packer's Shakespeare and Co delivered the good with their respective productions.
I think the "Merchant" is hard to stage or film, the ethnic angle bothers people. Still and all that it get revived locally quite frequently...compare that to Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus" or Jonson's "The Fall of Sejanus" they NEVER get revived!
Anyhow, Radford's "Merchant of Venice" is duly praised, just don't go looking for chuckles thats all.

The National Center Jewish Film at

Brandeis University is currently trying to preserve/restore the 1939 Yiddish Film The Living Orphan. A mere one hundred dollar donation will restore about one hundred feet of film. Channel Zero has had many profitable dealings with the NCJF so we thought we'd shill for this fine project.

Pick(s) of the Week...

Radford's "The Merchant of Venice" is at the Arlington Capitol.
"Downfall" that West German Film about the last days of Adolph Hitler is opening at the Kendall Square.
"Raging Bull"- A film I've ALWAYS wanted to see on the big screen is at the Brattle this weekend.
And..."Dido Queen of Carthage" a rare revival of one of Christopher Marlowe's plays is at the ART.
Ach of course heavy snows are predicted this weekend now that I am back on the job and can afford movies at the retail price!!
I hate irony I truly do.
Well console yourselves with Lis Riba's review of "Dido" whilst you listen to the winds howl outside.
Apropos of nothing by the way but when is Mussolini gonna get his big budget film treatment? We've got dozens of Hitlers out there from Bob Watson and Moe Howard to Anthony Hopkins. Hell even the French did a big ass biopic on Marshal Petain of all people (Yes, Channel Zero does have this film on it's "find list" never fear!)but Il Duce gets bupkiss.

Tina Packer is supposedly...

writing a graphic novel adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet" for Scholastic Books!
Yowza!
Damn but Tina is ubiquitous, actor, director, classical theater company chairwoman, and now comic book writer. Her energy and talent remind me of Orson Welles back in his madcap days in the Federal Theater Project.

BTW, I start my new job tomorrow, wish me luck. The posts herein mught become even more infrequent for a while. However, this is a good thing, a job allows us to pull Channel Zero out of hiatus. Soon enough, Jon Haber and I hope to have definite plans put together for our tenth anniversary show.

Books around town:

I was downtown for the first time in years last week and had a chance to drop by the Brattle Book Shop at 9 West Street near the Theater District.
Day-um, but Kenneth Gloss runs a tight ship! The outdoor cheap-books pavilion actually includes precious hardcover copies of Will and Ariel Durant's "Story of Civilization" for ONE DOLLAR!!! In particular I know I saw "Our Oriental Heritage" on the dollar pile, wait for good weather and check out this amazing collection of books!
I picked up a VHS Copy of "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" which is an animated film from Weimar Germany...it suits my love of irony to buy videotapes at one of Boston's best used bookstores.
bibliophiles shouldn't overlook "Antiquarian Books of Boston" under the Old South Meeting House #2 Milk Street Boston. These guys started out as "Arlington Books" in that selfsame suburb before doing the counterintuitive thing and moving in town. Among other treasures, this store has a fabulous one of a kind collection of Stratemeyer Syndicate children's books everything from the original "Bobbsey Twins" to "Dave Dashaway" and "The Young Continentals at Bunker Hill"!
I snagged a good solid history of the Confederacy for three dollars, so there are many bargains to be found here.

Good News....

looks like I'm finally going back to work next week. A doughy little temp agency has found me gainful if none too renumerative employee for a local hulking giant of a corporation. There is even a bit of intellectual stimulus involved-yay!
If all works out well, we can take Channel Zero off hiatus and start planning our tenth anniversary show for later this year!

Casual notes on the release of "Lost in Space" to DVD

so here are my notes to Lost in Space, the series is finally creeping out on DVD.

As for the movie there are no space prospectors none of those cheapo
monster suits...and does Penny become a go-go-dancer... she does not!
And is Dr. Smith played as the superb anti-hero he was in the 1960's!?!
He is not.
I mean no wonder he's so infantile and antisocial once a top-notch spy he's
trapped on board this lumbering space camper with this berserk-o whitebread
family with a robotic father who won't ask for directions and a homicidal
pilot...frankly I would've thrown myself out the airlock! Not Dr. Smith, he tries
to rise to the challenge as best he can...but you can see the Robinson's and
their harsh puritanical colonist ways are a strain on him.

Does anyone blame Dr. Smith for selling everyone out in a vain attempt to book
passage home?
Look who he's stuck with?
Maureen: People forget that in the broadcast LiS pilot she's referred to as
Doctor Maureen Robinson M.D! Somehow despite being spacewrecked on a half dozen
world's & in constant danger she finds time to revert to a traditional sex-role
to the point of cooking and doing laundry fer heaven's sake!
Don West: About every half-hour Don threatens to kill Doctor Smith, does anyone
else think that if Major West didn't have Smith to pick on, he'd turn his fury
against some other hapless member of the flight?
Judy: Ignoring Marta Kristen's slight scandanavian accent, just why did Judy opt
for space-flight anyway? Other than a depressing thing for Major West Judy is
pretty much a cypher...she's so innocuous she pitiable.
Penny: Penny at least has spunk, shes constantly trying to escape the tyranny of
her brainy-but-bratty younger brother Will. She's also the only member of the
crew (other than Will) who has some empathy for Dr. Smith's plight. Alone of the
Robinson offspring she enthusiastically embraces both go-go dancing and
classical music. I think she'd turn out all right if she wasn't oppressed by her
father's casual condescension and everyone's middle-class in orbit mindset
Will: Okay so the kids irritating overbright and a handful for his sisters, but
on the other hand I think he subconsciously realizes that Dr. Smith is the only
source of adventure and amusement in his highly regulated life. Much as he finds
fault with his character, Will needs Dr. Smith to provide a narcissistic
alternative to his familie's arid puritan ways...Will is Prince Hal to Dr.
Smith's Falstaff.
John Robinson: Okay the guy is supposed to be a natural parental figure and a
leader of men...so how come he never asks for directions or cannibalizes the
hundreds of tons of alien hardware the party has come accross over the years?
We're supposed to believe he and Will are extra-special close, I don't believe
it-week after week Will comes tearing back to camp insisting that the planet is
about to invaded by space-vikings space acountants and or space flower children
and what does Father Robinson do? Upbraid his son for having an over-active
imagination. Fifteen minutes later when the Jupiter II is being overrun by
monsters and extraterrestrial hippies does he have the common courtesy to
apologize to his prescient son?
He does not.
We never did get Dr. Smith's side of the story did we?...okay so he tried to
sabotage the Jupiter II that is no reason to get shirty with him especially
given the pathologies rife within the Robinson family.
After all what kind of lunatic allow his entire family to be shot into
interstellar space as part of a colonization drive? What was NASA thinking-we're
gonna colonize distant star systems one family at a time? I think there is a
secret Presidential Decision Directive ordering NASA to exile spastic dinks like
the Robinsons off the planet by any means possible.
What else explains the situation?

The Stupor Bowl...

Giving Fox the broadcasting rights to the Superbowl, is like feeding a hyperactive child a huge bowl of Capt'n Crunch with a half a pound of sugar dusted on top mixed in with some powdered amphetamine....in other words it's a recipe for disaster. Granted it is the local faves The Patriots, and yes everyone wants not only victory, but the sweet vulgar vindication that only dynastic aspirations can bring. Still and all that when does does four full hours of pre-game hype degenerate into an exhausted tantrum and whiny insufferable plea for attention?
Four full hours of pre-game hype is enough to profile the entire history of the game, the NFL, the opposing squads, with time left over for a propitiary human sacrifice to Apollo the God of Competition. And if things start to drag prior to kick-off, don't for a moment think Fox WON'T hack out the heart of a cheerleader or whoever to keep everyone tuned in.