Concert Review: Tea Leaf Green – Bloomington, IN (10/19/06)

I should have known better than to attend a concert while still recovering from a rather rotten head cold. “But it’s Tea Leaf Green,” my wife pleaded, and “we haven’t been out in so long.” And so there we went out in the cold and the rain, sniffling, sneezing and all.

To tell the truth, it was a bit odd to hear my wife excited to see Tea Leaf Green as she wasn’t at all familiar with the band’s material. Me either except for their recent DVD release, Rock N Roll Band of which I had recently played numerous times and reviewed right here. But she had enjoyed what she had heard, and the idea of going to a concert always has its appeal.

We showed up early, nearly half an hour, as it was general admission and we wanted to get a seat, instead of standing for the entirety of the performance. Early wasn’t needed, as the place was nearly empty.

We sat, the two of us looking ragged and full of head germs, and waited. Nine o’clock came and still there were but a few folks gathered about. We pondered the meaning of the sign announcing “56 Hope Road” and showing us a cute little deer’s head. “Could it be a brand of beer?” we pondered. “Or perhaps it is a new teen show on the WB.” “I know,” I declared, “It has to be Locke’s home address on Lost.”

As it turned out it was the name of the opening band. They played for the few folks standing about as if they were at Madison Square Garden in front of a full crowd. I was duly impressed. They jammed out every song and had a good thing going, though it was hard to discern more than the electric guitar and drums from the distorted sound quality.

A few more folks came, including a large group of college kids who plumped down right next to us. I feel like an old man on a rotating record when I complain about the kids today, but dang they sure don’t have any respect for anything.

Though there was a band playing their hearts out right in front of them, and though they had surely paid good money to hear this band, they paid no mind at all to the performance. Instead, the men applied their attention to the ladies, scooting their chairs right up against them so as to look deeply into their eyes, and entwine legs like a spider. The ladies meanwhile, retracted their cellular phones from their purses every two minutes as if they were expecting a call for the next world summit.

Meanwhile, some sparkling good music played on.

56 Hope Road played a good hour set and Tea Leaf Green came on around 10:30. The room had since filled up to about half capacity, but what was there was energized and ready for the headliners.

It is always an interesting thing to attend a concert where you aren’t familiar with most of the band’s work. There are no songs to sing along to, nor grooves to groove along with knowingly. It’s all shake it as you can. We remained seated as our bodies were in no shape to groove anyway.

Seated it was still a darn fine groove thing. The band plays like a well grooved machine and they know how to work the crowd. The thing is on the aforementioned DVD it kind of irked me to watch the lead singer, Trevor Garrod, work the crowd like a crazed cross between a Southern Baptist preacher and PT Barnum. Grabbing the microphone like a dagger he’d swagger and sway with the music while singing his lyrics like the Holy Word. It irked me because I tend to prefer musicians who approach music with importance and leave the posing to those on TRL. However, in person, it is quite impressive, and it must be said that young Trevor hits the keys as much as he shakes it for the crowd.

Despite our illnesses, the wife and I both forgot everything and fell into the trance of great music. I got up into the crowd and swayed and moved like a teenager once again.

The darned kids were still at it with their cell phones and make-out moves. The two girls seemed to be texting each other back, while another guy somehow managed to talk to whomever, though standing but feet from a fat round of speakers.

Kids today and their rock and roll.

The first set concluded around midnight. It was a high performance and we’d had a grand time, but old age and illness took hold. My wife declared that she could barely hold her eyes open any longer, and I knew I wasn’t long for this cognizant world, and so we headed home.

A younger me would have cursed the day I ever left a concert before the last note was played, but the older me has learned when I’ve had enough no matter how killer the show.

I’ll never know what madness occurred in the second set, but having seen the first half I’ll surely catch the band the next time they come around.

My Name is Earl: Season 2, Episode 5 – “Van Hickey”

my name is earl van hickey

Numbers Scratched Off: #50 – Kicked Tom out of the band
#51 – Slept with Ralph’s mom

Funniest moment: Randy and Earl dancing in a strobe light to “Mr. Roboto”

Plot: Earl makes amends with Tom, an elderly gentleman they kicked out of the band (consisting of Randy, Earl, Ralph, and Tom) just before their one and only performance. Seems Tom was making all the ladies a little weirded out.

Tom will only forgive Earl if he lets him back in the band. So they get the band back together only to have it disbanded again when it slips out that Earl slept with Ralph’s mom. The night after the concert Earl’s date fell unconscious and Randy’s mom was there and willing and…well one thing led to another.

The only way Ralph feels Earl can amend this problem is to let Randy kill him. He’s serious too and places a large handgun against Earl’s temple ready to do the deed. Earl manages to talk him out of it by vowing to marry Ralph’s mom.

They marry and everything goes well until Ralph realizes the marriage has not been consummated. Earl digs everything about the marriage – the home-cooked meals, the conversation, and the house cleaning – except for the idea of sleeping with Ralph’s mom.

Once again killing is threatened, but Earl is saved by Tom who begins a relationship with Ralph’s mom after the band played their second gig.

Rating: ***
Ralph is a new character to me. I suspect he’s been around in other episodes, but he felt kind of tossed in for the gag, and as such kind of knocked the appeal of the show down a notch. If I see him more, I may warm up to him.

The band gag was kind of lame as was the concept of sleeping with/marrying the old lady. Jason Lee pulls it off as usual with his abundant charm, and I can’t have anything but love for Ethan Suplee. There were a couple of great gags and that more than made up for the less-than-stellar plot

Best Gags:

Joy playing “Red Rover” with some elderly folks at a home (which she is doing to help her pending court case). A lady with a walker is called and it takes her ten minutes to get across to the other side.

Randy to some groovy chicks: “We’re rock stars. You can tell from my rock star pants. See all the zippers. Guess what’s in this zipper – licorice.”
Groovy chick: Maybe I’ll see what’s in the other zippers.”
Randy: “More licorice”
Earl on sleeping with Ralph’s mom: “She wasn’t young, but she was conscious.”

Tori Amos – A Piano: The Collection

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I don’t believe there is a girl between the ages of 25-35 who didn’t fall madly in love with Tori Amos’ first album, Little Earthquakes. It was a perfect album for a perfect time. In the midst of grunge with all its loud guitars and thundering bass came this sprite woman plinking a piano. Forging a path through what stood for females in rock music – Paula Abdul and Madonna with their glimmer and shake – came a fiery red-headed creature singing about God and sex in a voice that spoke – really spoke for her generation.

With songs like “Me and a Gun,” an acapella, heart-wrenching retelling of Amos’ own rape, she ushered in a new era of songwriting. One that was introspective, brutally honest, and completely feminine. She doesn’t try to be the masculinized version of female that so many other artists have succumbed to, she is purely herself, and we related – by the millions.

By those same numbers, most of the people I know who fell in love with that first album, have since fallen away from the Cult of Tori through subsequent albums. Refusing to rest on her own laurels Tori’s follow-up albums got heavier instrumentation and less immediately revealing lyrics. Adding in guitars, drums, synth beats, and more her songs have become denser, layered things, which often obscures the straightforward intensity that made her famous.

Nevertheless, she has continually stretched her legs as an artist, releasing albums with divergent styles and accessibility. Doing so she may have lost some of her original fan base, but she has grown an intensified, cult-like following.

A Piano: The Collection is a five-disk boxed set that covers all of her albums from Little Earthquakes through The Beekeeper. Various alternate versions of songs, demos, and B-Sides are included.

It comes in a lovely-looking box that is shaped like a piano, with plastic keys and everything. In fact, when the Fed Ex man brought it I wondered why anyone would send me a synthesizer. Tori has made extensive notes on the collection detailing her experiences with each record and some of the songs.

For someone who lost track of Tori after Under the Pink, this is an excellent way to catch up with the ever-experimenting singer. I’ve got to say though, that after Little Earthquakes, while she always maintains an emotional intensity in her songs, I’ve not been able to latch onto anything I’d like to keep.

Much of the problem lies in that I have trouble hearing exactly what she talking about, or bobbing my head along to the tune. I know that’s a rather juvenile approach to music criticism, but as a listener, I need something to maintain my attention. On songs like “Silent All These Years” the lyrics were easily understood and filled with an emotional intensity, while with “Happy Phantom” the lyrics might be a little opaque, it was a jaunty little ditty and great fun to sing along with. While there is a certain poetry in “Suede” I can’t actually understand the words, and the music is so thick I can’t help but find it dull.

It is true that I’m not really Tori’s audience. I’m a middle-aged male whose musical tendency runs towards the hippies and the hillbillies, not sophisticated, alternative feminists. My wife has been enjoying the boxed set, and I’m sure many others will too. It has enough alternate material to please the hard-core fans and covers her studio thoroughly enough to give a good scope of her recorded output thus far

As for me though, I think I’ll grab some Ralph Stanley from the record shelf and take a nap with a good book.

Flightplan (2005)

flightplan movie poster

In the previews for Flightplan they show Jodie Foster on an airplane claiming she has lost her daughter. They then show one of the flight crew explaining to Jodie Foster that her daughter was never on board the plane. And with that, there are no surprises in the film.

Her daughter not being on the passenger list/flight manifest might have made for a good surprise ending à la The Sixth Sense or something, but if they are using it in the commercials then you know it isn’t the surprise ending but a twist found somewhere between the opening and the end credits. But if it is not the surprise ending, then you automatically know the daughter is real.

Mental psychosis plays well for an ending, but in the middle, it has to be a ploy to divert the audience’s attention so that they can again surprise us with the daughter having really been taken. And if someone took her then there must be some kind of terrorist plotting.

And really if I can figure this stuff out by the previews, anybody can. Because I’m totally not the sort who figures stuff out on my own.

Unfortunately, those surprises are all the film has going for it. In a film where you know where it’s going to wind up, it’s the getting there that has to be good, and this film never quite makes the ride interesting. It’s more like a real transatlantic flight – long, tiring, and your legs feel all tired out by the time it ends.

Jodie Foster and Peter Sarsgaard are fine actors and they do their best with the material, but there just isn’t enough there.

It is the kind of film where I found myself yelling at the television over the extensive amount of plot holes, and stupidity of the characters until I fell asleep from exhaustion.

Random Shuffle (10/18/06) – .moe, Yonder Mountain String Band, Elton John, The Cranberries & Motley Crue

“She Sends Me” – moe.
From No Doy

It was at a Furthur Festival that I had first heard of moe. There were all these neo-hippies with bumper stickers plastered over all sorts of things with the band name. It was always like that too, all lower cases with the period in the back. It’s a goofy little thing, but definitely stands out and makes you wonder what they are all about. I don’t really remember their performance that day. I remember I liked it, but out of the half-dozen bands I saw it’s hard to recall much about this one when I didn’t know any of their songs

Eventually, I bought an album, No Doy, and it has become an album I really enjoy, but rarely listen to. “She Sends Me” is pretty typical fare for the band, or at least the album. It has a little funky, warbly bass line that moves the song along, at least until the final rave-up when the guitar takes over into a quickly-paced free-for-all. The lyrics are completely goofy and fun.

There are a good little band, one that I love for their ability to continue putting out fine music and creating a profitable scene while remaining almost completely obscured from mainstream media. A band that plays for the music, man, and not MTV credibility.

“Must’ve Had Your Reasons” – Yonder Mountain String Band
From Town by Town

A few summers back I saw the Yonder Mountain String Band in Indianapolis during a festival dubbed “Jamgrass” which was supposed to be this crazy fusion of jam bands and bluegrass players. It was a great, long day filled with the likes of Sam Bush, Tony Rice with Peter Rowan, David Grisman, Dark Star Orchestra, and the aforementioned String Band. That’s a big collection of tried and true pickers to compete with but Yonder Mountain held their own. They did so by making bluegrass fun again. They have combined traditional bluegrass styles with popular music. It is similar to what Sam Bush did ten years ago when creating New Grass, except where Bush now carries a drummer, Yonder Mountain still keeps it with traditional instruments. They did a great version of “Suspicious Minds” for Elvis’ birthday, and if you haven’t heard Elvis done bluegrass style well, you just haven’t lived. At least not anywhere near Kentucky.

Unfortunately, most of the albums I’ve bought since that fateful performance have not lived up to the sheer joy of that evening. I don’t know what it is – the original songs, the lack of energy that only comes from a live performance, or something else – but the studio recordings have never done much for me.

Town by Town seems to be a lot more of what I remember from that evening, and this song is just about perfect. It feels lighter, and more energetic than the others I’ve listened to. You know how often studio tracks are performed with each musician playing their tracks separately, in a box, and you can hear that? Well, this one feels like the band is back on the road, playing live and in the spirit. I’m glad to hear them pull it off on the album, and keep checking my local listings to see them coming back to my town.

“Tiny Dancer” – Elton John
From Madman Across the Water

I can’t not hear this song and think of that scene in Almost Famous where the band finds common ground in it while lip-synching along It’s a great movie moment, and a nearly perfect song. My relationship with Elton is a sordid one. My first memory of the man is not of his music but of a radio news announcer discussing that Elton was auctioning off much of his stage props and costumes. There was much ballyhoo over Elton’s elaborate stage get-ups and many a comparison to the late Liberace. An odd memory I know, but yet there it is.

Certainly, I loved songs like “Candle in the Wind” when I was young and have great fond memories of hearing Elton sing during the 800-mile drive from college in Alabama to home in Oklahoma. My friend had a mix tape full of Elton John and I would borrow it for the long journey.

We had a bit of a falling out, me and Elton, during his Lion King years full of schmaltzy dreck, but I have recently rediscovered (for the first time) his output from the 1970s that brought him success in the first place. Albums like Madman, Honky Chateau, and Tumbleweed Connection are full of marvelous songcraft. “Tiny Dancer” always takes me there, too, and I remember what a great thing a song can be.

“Linger” – the Cranberries
From Unplugged

The early 1990s were when I first truly discovered music. I was a teenager and had begun to feel things in the only way teenagers can – fully and as if it was the only thing that mattered. So I have a great deal of nostalgia for the music that came out during this era. It’s funny because there is so much nostalgia these days over all things 1980’s and while I’ve rode that boat and loved it, a great deal of that decade I don’t really remember. So say on songs like “Hungry Like the Wolf” I can’t really remember loving the song when it first came out, but I know the song, and realize it is from my childhood and so I create a sort of nostalgia for it and celebrate what a great freaking song it is, as if it was my own.

But the 90s created a real nostalgia for me, from true memories, and not ones I pretend I remember for the sake of nostalgia. The Cranberries are right there in the thick of things, and this song always places me in a specific time. This particular version is from MTV’s Unplugged series, a series that likewise lives in my nostalgic memory case. It’s a lovely little thing with Dolores O’Riordan’s voice as haunting as ever.

“Dr. Feelgood” – Mötley Crüe
From Dr. Feelgood

Alright so after that admission I have to disclose my absolute secret love for all things hair metal. I know it is musically tepid and I know that half the bands had hits off of sentimental, sappy power ballads, but I love them just the same. You could probably argue that I can’t claim to not remember the 80s and hold fond memories of hair bands, but time is kind of a sliding scale, isn’t it?

I mean take this album, it feels like totally 80’s and technically it is, but with a release date of September 1989, it could really go either way. And I guess that’s what I really mean. I turned 14 in 1990 so my real musical awareness began in the late 80’s and blossomed in the early 90s and while I do have a dear fondness for many of the songs that came out say in 1987 the real heart of 80s nostalgia goes a lot further back. But enough about that, we’ve got to talk about the Crüe.

I guess you could call it a small teenage rebellion that I listened to hair metal. I was from a small town in Oklahoma and there weren’t cool folks to turn me onto real metal bands or punk rock, so I took the generic stuff with enough loud guitars and satanic emblems to tick off my parents. It was safe enough not to get me into real trouble, and dangerous enough to kick my young hormones into action. And that was enough for the time.

Tea Leaf Green – Rock ‘N Roll Band (2006)

tea leaf green rock and roll band

From the ashes of the Grateful Dead rose a veritable scene of improvisational players of rock – or jam bands – all vying for the top spot now vacated by the defunct Dead. Yet no one band could be crowned king. Phish came closest, but for all the fans they gained there was a collective chorus of You’re not the Dead – instead an army of the jam coalesced and proceeded to noodle and space into improvisational bliss.

For archival purposes, one could divide the remaining jam bands into two categories – those involved in serious musicology, and those ready to party. The split actually often occurred during the height of popularity for the Dead. Heads often speak of the scene changing after the Dead fanbase grew proportionally when they scored a top-ten hit in the late 80s. Suddenly legions of folks were showing up to concerts, not for inspiration at the muse of music, but to get high, get laid, and get down.

With no more Dead, these fans ran to other concerts, and bands who were more than poised to be the soundtrack to the next party.

Tea Leaf Green fall flat into this category. There’s a party going on and these boys are the mix-tape.

By saying this, don’t for a minute think that I an implying they lack musicianship. For all four members seem accomplished at their chosen instruments. This is not a frat party band playing for kegs. These are serious musicians who create songs that aren’t meant to be taken seriously.

With Rock ’N’ Roll Band, Tea Leaf Green has created a memorable rock film in the vein of The Last Waltz and the Grateful Dead Movie.

Director Justin Kreutzmann (son of legendary Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann) has created more than just a recording of a live performance, but a snapshot of a band on the move.

Featuring most of the band’s concert on May 19, 2006, in Boulder, Colorado the film intertwines band interviews and a few impromptu jam sessions. Making great use of split screen Kreutzmann creates an excellent portrait of the band and the music they create.

Honestly, Tea Leaf Green is a name I knew from bootleg trading circles, but I had never actually heard their music until I plugged in this DVD. At first listen, I gotta say I counted them as another flakey band riding the jam band wave, but after a few more spins there’s another level to their songs that pushes them forward. The bottom line still seems to be about having a good time, but there is craftsmanship to the music that makes it more than just party music.

Take the lead song, “These Two Chairs,” for example. It doesn’t have a chorus to speak of but there is a repeated line that just kills

“They just don’t understand
But they got a rock and roll…”
Then pause and wait for it
Crash boom…”ba-a-and.”

It is a great moment that gets the whole audience jazzed. It might not be studied by graduate students in years to come, but it sure is a lot of fun.

And what else do you want from a rock and roll band anyway?

The DVD doesn’t come with any extras to speak of, but it sounds good and looks fantastic. Justin Kreutzmann obviously knows his way around a rockumentary and creates a video that is more than just another rock concert caught on tape, but is cinema, and an important portrait of a band.

The soundtrack album to the movie comprises thirteen of the songs played, including “All of Your Cigarettes” from the sound check. It’s a nice disc, and a good companion to the movie.

Lost: Season Three, Episode Two – “The Glass Ballerina”

lost the glass ballerina

In lieu of giving a scene-by-scene run down of this week’s episode, I am going to point you to Wikipedia’s episode guide, which gives the plot details in full. Instead, I’ll give some brief feedback on what I thought about the episode.

What a difference a week makes. For last week’s season premiere, I was waiting with bated breath. All summer I couldn’t wait until the new season premiered. This week I hardly gave it a thought, and nearly forgot about it entirely.

I have to say that I am finally starting to tire of the entire program. This has nothing to do with this week’s episode, for it was a good one, but rather I am being worn down by the perpetual non-reveal. Every time they give us a hint at what it might all be about, they add in another half dozen mysteries. I can’t really blame the show for this, for if they gave us the hard facts the show would be over. It’s just beginning to feel like the perpetual state of blue ball that was life before love and I’m finding myself ready for some celibacy.

This may pass, as it has been a rough week personally and my general malcontent may have soured the show for me for the moment. I’ll continue to watch and we may find that next week I’m right back into the fold.

The two big reveals tonight were some background information on “Henry Gale” who is now known by his real name, Benjamin Linus. He tells Jack that he has lived on the island his entire life, posing a lot more questions about who the Others really are, and what their purpose on the island actually is. The other reveals also involved Ben as he informs Jack that if he cooperates he will be set free and sent home. To make Jack believe he shows him a television set and plays a piece of last year’s World Series with the Red Sox winning the pennant.

Big reveals for sure, but again it only reveals enough so that we ask even more questions about what’s going on. I have always felt that Lost can only conclude in ridiculousness. I cannot fathom how they will manage to end the series in a manner that will satisfy everyone and not be cheesy. I tend to hope they end it sooner rather than later as it will only become more impossible as the series continues.

I very much enjoyed the Sun backstory with her cheating on Jin with Jae Lee. Sun has been one of the few characters without a miserable back story and we begin to see her past is none too sunny.

It’s also interesting to see Sawyer be sweet to Kate without any of his obnoxiousness dirtying it up. It is as if seeing Kate in a situation she can’t get out of, polishes his feelings for her.

The one scene that bothered me was when Sawyer gets the gun off of the one guy, but puts it back down when Juliet threatens Kate. It is the second time Kate’s helplessness has turned the upper hand on the castaways, and in this case, it felt almost false. If Sawyer had really had the rifle it seems more like him to have started shooting and sorting it out afterwards. But maybe that’s just me and my callousness.

Again it was a good episode and I enjoyed it immensely. I hope that my feelings are fleeting and that once my personal life is sorted out a little more, I’ll continue to love the show. I do wish they’d give us something solid that we could lean upon instead of this continual barrage of whispers in the dark.

The Office: Season Three, Episode Four – “Grief Counseling”

the office grief counseling

Originally posted on October 13, 2006.

My all-time favorite show is Cheers. One of the things I loved about the show was its pre-title gag. It often had nothing to do with the plot of the episode but was a hilarious way to start things off. One of my favorites had someone tapping their pencil which was followed by a few more tappings which morphed into the whole bar singing “We Will Rock You.” Silly – yes. Hilarious – absolutely.

This week’s Office episode started with a similar bit of nonsense having Michael do the old walking down the stairs, while really just squatting behind some boxes bit. The real gag was Jan asking him to get her some coffee in the “warehouse” and watching Michael crawl to the break room to get it. Dumb – yes. Perfect comedy – absolutely. Especially when Michael says he’s like “Bette Midler in For the Boys.”

We’re back to two offices in unrelated events, but they managed to keep both stories cohesive and funny. Stamford keeps getting the smaller, more gag-y stories, while Scranton gets actual plot lines, but this makes sense since we know Scranton better.

Stamford evolved around the flirtations of Karen and Jim. It starts with Jim being asked to essentially babysit Karen to ensure she finishes a task. Karen obviously miffed, rails on Jim about some potato chips when the vending machine is out of her preferred kind. Jim turns it into a flirty mission by spending the rest of the day making calls to find the chips.

In Scranton, Michael’s old boss, Ed Truck, has passed away through a drunken decapitation and he spends his day disrupting work to deal with his own grief.

In one particularly fine moment, Michael laments that they take a day off to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. and “he didn’t even work here.” Instead of a day off, Michael and Dwight begin discussing a full-sized statuary tribute that turns into a raging robot which Dwight designs a six-foot extension cord for, so that it can’t attack.

Later Michael brings the staff into the conference room so that they can discuss their grief. Michael starts by saying that it “feels like my heart has been dropped into a bucket of boiling tears and someone else is hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer and a third guy is punching me in the griefbone, but no one hears me because I’m terribly, terribly alone.”

Dwight recollects that he was actually a twin as a fetus, but he absorbed the other person and feels stronger for it.

They then pass around a ball to talk about any moment in their past when they were grieved but this quickly turns into a mockery as the staff recounts moments from such films as Million Dollar Baby, the Lion King, and, Weekend at Bernie’s.

In order to restore order, Toby tells Michael that death is part of life and recalls a bird that crashed into the door that morning. Michael runs to rescue the bird, going as far as to give it water in the break room before finally admitting it is dead.

Everybody then has a funeral for the bird in the parking lot before burning it in its final resting Kleenex box. Pam manages to say some very touching words obviously meant to comfort Michael. Similar to how Jim spoke kindly to him at the convention Pam now shows her own kind soul as the episode ends.

My Name is Earl: Season 2, Episode 4 – “Larceny of a Kitty Cat”

my name is earl larceny of a kitty cat Originally posted on October 13, 2006.

I think I am enjoying the new method of starting out with something on the list, but shuffling over to something only sort of related. The show has always had a way of moving in directions you’d never find on a map, so the disjointed way of crossing off a listed item is kind of fun.

This week’s episode involved finding a poor cat that Earl stole back when he was married to Joy. See Joy had entered a cat into a contest and was afraid that another cat, Sebastian, would win and so she sent Earl to go “Tonya Harding” on it. Earl steals the cat, but can’t break its little kitty legs and instead takes it to the “sleepy cat ladies” house.

This becomes #56 on the list and Earl heads over to the owner’s house to clear things up.

But first, I forgot to mention how Earl came to think of #56. Randy and Earl were walking when a black cat crossed their path, they turned to go the other way and the cat crossed across that way. So Earl and Randy had to sit on the sidewalk for three hours for the black cat curse to go away. As soon as the time was up the cat again crossed their path and thus reminded Earl of the list.

Sebastian’s owner Judy still holds a torch for the cat (and even has a shirt with Sebastian’s picture on it and the words “Have you seen me?”.) They trudge over to the “sleepy cat ladies” house and find Sebastian, a little bit older, and a lot fatter.

Meanwhile, Randy takes a shine to Judy and to woo her, pretends to love cats – though he is quite allergic in reality.

In the funniest segment of the night, we see a sequence of Randy’s past girlfriends and how he often pretends to be something he is not. There is the goth art chick, the Hasidic Jew, and the black power girl. They all like Randy until he acts more like himself and lets out something very un-kosher like “Did Martin Luther King’s dreams have aliens in them?”

Upon breakup, Randy goes through a long period of doing nothing but lip-synching along to Cyndy Lauper’s “Time After Time.”

Eventually Randy does tell Judy he doesn’t like cats and she agrees to give Sebastian away to be with him. Sebastian goes to Earl who decides the cat is list-worthy due to having to give up contests over what Earl did. So, Earl spends his time getting the cat in shape, while Randy continues to woo Judy.

The cat does get in shape, but only places second. Judy falls hard for Randy, but he begins to realize she treats him just like a cat. So Earl gives back the cat and Judy gives Randy back to Earl. And all is right with the world.

The Untold Story (1993)

the untold story poster

Originally written and posted in October 2006.

Someday I really will get into the reasons I tend to watch really depraved, sick, twisted, and awfully gory flickery. For now, I’ll continue to review the nasties I watch. I’m not really all that sure how I even know about some of these films anymore. I think I heard about this one by hearing about some other film and then following various links of similar films to this one. Or maybe I looked up one film on IMDB.com and followed a thread about similar films. Either way I did hear of it, and heard it was one of the most violent, sickest films out there so of course, this demented gore-head had to watch.

I hesitate to call myself a demented gore-head because my mom might read this and then where would I be? In truth, I watch lots of other films, regular like without violence and gore, but there is something raw and carnal about twisted films that make me watch. There I go again trying to explain they why when I said that would have to wait until later.

Ultimately this film wasn’t quite as sick as everyone said. Sure there is plenty of gore and buckets of blood in this tale of a crazed serial killer who slaughters people with his butcher knife and sometimes serves them up as pork pies, but none of it is particularly realistic and therefore not as sick as it could be. The blood, the guts, the nastiness always looks fake, so you never get sucked into the gore too much. The reputation comes, me thinks, from a particularly brutal scene involving the slaughter of several small children. Movies tend to shy away from mass murder involving little ones and so this film seems particularly nasty, even though what is seen on camera isn’t that vicious.

Gore aside, what really lowers the level of this film is the portrayal of cops. All of the police trying to solve the crime are completely incompetent, inept, and stupid. In one of the opening scenes where we see some severed limbs wash ashore, the cops bicker, joke, and argue over who will investigate the appendages. In numerous scenes, the one detective with half a brain brings in a scantily clad hooker as his date while the other male cops oogle and ogle all over her. In the interrogation scenes, all of the cops are all too eager to brutally beat a confession out of the killer.

Anthony Wong does an excellent job playing the psychopath and he even manages to render a few moments of sympathy from the audience.

This is totally a low-grade movie made for gore heads looking for a little fake blood. Even there it never rises above its cult standing as the epitome of crazy exploitation.

You have been warned.