Concert Review – Wilco – Bloomington, IN (07/17/06)

The last and first time I saw Wilco in concert I walked out. That’s right, walked right out the door on one of the best bands playing rock and roll today. This was just after A Ghost is Born came out, so it was well into all the hoopla over Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Frankly, at the time I wasn’t much of a fan, I had only heard the Being There album and attended the show more out of something to do, than any real relationship to the band or their music.

They were playing a club way too small for them at the time. It was standing room only, and within a few songs into their set, the place was swelling. Everyone was jostling for position, pushing, squishing, and elbowing in every direction. It was more than my wife, and our friend could take.

The final poke was from an enormous young man who was not only pushing for the front row, but talking obnoxiously loud on his cell phone right in front of us. My two companions moved way to the back of the small club. I moved to a friendly section of the crowd but knew my time was coming. After a few more songs I found my people and we decided to walk out. The band was good, but not knowing any songs and the rotten crowd overruled anything our ears were hearing.

Fast forward to last night, I have since become a convert to the Wilco idolatry religion, and am very excited to see them again. Hoping to finally rid myself of the stigma of having once walked out.

This time the venue is much larger and more fitting to the band’s status. The IU Auditorium is a medium sized auditorium with lots of seats and space.

The opening band was local and an odd mix of the Meat Puppets, “Space Oddity” era David Bowie and Radiohead. They started promptly at 8:00 to a crowd at less than half capacity.

Opening acts are an odd thing to me. They say they are there to get the crowd jazzed and loosened up, but the crowds I’ve seen are usually bored by an opener and keep looking at their watches hoping those fools will get off the stage so the headliners will appear.

I guess it’s a good opportunity to hear bands you might not have heard before.

The opening band played a good 40 minute set. After a long 40 minute pause, Wilco finally took the stage at 9:20.

The crowd now at full capacity gave the auditorium a good holler.

They opened with a rumbling version of “Airline to Heaven” followed by a scorching “Kingpen.”

The crowd was pretty tame. My section of the balcony was half standing, half still in their seats. Songs from Yankee Foxtrot Hotel got the biggest cheers of the night, but songs from all of their other albums got noticeably less participation in the sing-alongs.

Actually my realization for the night is that Wilco has very little in terms of sing along lyrics. Sure, they have a few good belters such as the hillbilly bluegrass chanter “Forget the Flowers” and the nonsensicalness of “I’m a Wheel” is a hoot to scream a long with, but so much of their music has these sorts of odd tempos and changes that render any typical sing-along too difficult to enjoy.

They more than make up for this with the music. There are so many great hooks in their songs as to get lost in them trying to count. The quiet beginning of “At Least That’s What You Said” followed by the loud, pounding rhythm which is then followed by a louder, more pounding rhythm is a slice of pure rock and roll heaven.

More than once I reached the point of ecstasy where my body shook to the beat as only a white boy can, my eyes closed and my smile took over my whole person. Surely the sign of a great rock concert.

Lead singer/guitarist/primary song writer Jeff Tweedy goaded the audience by saying we were acting rather mild for an audience he had been pre-warned would be rowdy. This was the beginning of Little 500 week at Indiana University, the loudest, most party-rific week at a school which has often won the title of “#1 Party School.”

The audience responded by jumping over the rails at the front row and cramming right up against the stage.

The band closed a second encore with “California Stars” and we walked out into the cool spring night under lovely Indiana ones.

Setlist:
1. Airline To Heaven
2. Kingpin
3. Handshake Drugs
4. A Shot In The Arm
5. At Least That’s What You Said
6. Hell Is Chrome
7. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
8. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
9. Forget The Flowers
10. War On War
11. Jesus, Etc.
12. Hummingbird
13. The Good Part
14. Walken
15. Heavy Metal Drummer
16. Theologians
17. I’m The Man Who Loves You
18. Monday

Encore 1:
19. The Late Greats
20. I’m Always In Love
21. I’m A Wheel

Encore 2:
22. California Stars

Millions (2004)

Millions Movie Poster

In many of the reviews for Millions, critics have discussed how director Danny Boyle has departed from his usual violent, bloody, adult fair into a whimsical children’s story. It is a fair discussion since Boyle’s other work includes stories of greed and murder, heroin addiction, and a modern take on the zombie movie (and yes I know the villains in 28 Days Later weren’t technically zombies, they were infected. But if you look like a zombie, eat flesh like a zombie, and smell like a zombie, then you’re a zombie in my book).

That’s a far cry from your normal kids’ flick.

Upon closer look at this film, Boyle has not stretched that far from his normal themes as you might suspect. He is still dealing with greed, the darkness of the human soul, and the things that make us human, only in a manner more childlike and full of wonder than usual.

The story involves two young brothers, Damian (Alexander Nathan Etel) and Anthony (Lewis Owen McGibbon), who chance upon a bag full of British Pounds when it literally falls from the sky and onto Damian’s playhouse. The boys must quickly spend the money for Britain is only days away from converting to the Euro, thus making the Pound worthless.

Boyle creates a fantasy world that is effervescent and joyous. It is a joyful film that is alive with buoyant colors and so unique in its ability to remain enjoyable to children as well as adults as to render it uncommon in today’s everything-must-be-a-blockbuster world.

The two brothers differ greatly in how they see fit to spend the money. Anthony, being a bit older and perhaps more world-wise, spends it at his new school bribing his classmates into a kind of mini-mafia, purchases the coolest new toys for tikes, and looks to invest in real estate to parlay his fortune a little further.

Damian is something of a dreamer and often is visited by famous saints such as St. Peter and St. Francis of Assisi. The saints point Damian to a different road where the money can be put to better use than selfish gain. So he sets about giving the money to a homeless man, a group of Mormons, and other charitable organizations — much to the chagrin of Anthony.

This sets up the moral of the tale, where nearly everyone is affected by greed. The boy’s father finds himself trying to spend the money even after he has learned it is stolen property. Boyle tends to wear his morals on his sleeve a bit too much — especially at the end — but it is told with such jubilation it is hard to knock him for it.

It is a lovely family film, one that is well made and neither panders to the kids, nor is too insipid for adults.

Random Shuffle – (04/10/06)

heart like a wheel album

“Willin’” – Linda Ronstadt
From Heart Like a Wheel

My perception of this Little Feat ode to truck drivers comes from the James Cameron underwater sci-fi flick, The Abyss. It is the Linda Ronstadt version that plays when the underwater oil rig crew is shown doing their blue-collar work. The song plays as background music to the scene, but is also part of the action, being lip-synched by nearly everyone in a joyful montage that defies explanation.

It is a great sing-along song. The lyrics are all about being on the road for too long, with nothing but drugs and alcohol to keep you moving to that next stop, that next destination somewhere down the road.

The music is pure outlaw country. Ronstadt has that rock n roll vibe, with the country girl twang that just fits the song perfectly.

tom waits one from the heart

“One From the Heart” – Tom Waits/Crystal Gail
From One From the Heart

This is from the soundtrack to an unseen (by me) Francis Ford Coppola movie of the same name. Waits actually sings with a croon, rather than the drunken hobo ran over by a train voice he usually sings with. He’s accompanied by the sweet voice of Crystal Gail.

It’s all soft porn smooth piano and saxophone musically. It’s slow and sad, and probably romantic, but I’d have to see the movie before I let my vote out on that one. There isn’t much to it for me, honestly. It’s Waits with a better voice, but not much of his lyrical poignancy. At least that’s what I get from the casual listen I gave it.

“I’m Gonna Live Forever” – Highwaymen
From 06/04/96

The Highwaymen were country music’s version of Mount Rushmore. With Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings in their own supergroup, it’s too bad that most of their albums were only just ok.

It’s like the Beatles effect in reverse. Where John and Paul continually pushed each other to strive harder and create an even more perfect song, the Highwaymen seem to play yes men to each other creating music that while not bad, isn’t up to any expectation they create. Instead of Abbey Road, we get something more akin to McCartney’s post-Beatles solo work.

This is a pleasant Billy Joe Shaver tune, performed quite nicely with all of the Highwaymen trading verses and harmonizing on the chorus.

the cure wish “Wendy Time” – The Cure
From Wish

A lively, upbeat song from the masters of gloom. Well the music is fun and frilly, but being the Cure the lyrics are all sad and depressing. It is the story of a well-meaning lass trying to cheer up the gloomy singer by offering to be a friend or sister. Being Robert Smith, the singer continues to push her away to mingle and drown in his own misery.

I mentioned in a previous Random Shuffle how this album reminds me of a specific time and place. It is amazing how music can transport us to places. I would never call my high school years happy ones, and yet I am often drawn to that time, filled with nostalgia.

The intensity of emotion I felt during those years is something I’ve never come close to in the 10-odd years afterward. Those days it seems like every moment was filled with incredible highs of joy or immensely lows of sadness. The perpetual word days of drudgery keep me on a pretty even keel in these times. Oh, I’m not nearly as depressed as I was then, but I rarely feel as completely free or happy as I did on those good days either.

Wish reminds me specifically of a girl named Elise who I used to sing songs from this album to. It reminds me of sitting in my room (having lived in 20 odd houses as a kid, it is a very specific room, but one I am unable to describe here) and arguing with my sister about whose month it was to get the TV in their room and feeling all those emotions on my sleeve.

“Ride Into the Sun” – Velvet Underground
From Acetate Demos – 1969

Speaking of nostalgic memories the Velvets always remind me of my first love, Candy. If my feelings were worn on my sleeve, if I felt things with more passion then, she felt them 100 times more.

She was a lovely girl who taught me it was ok to believe in God and listen to wild music and live outside the cookie-cutter. We used to write long, passionate letters to each other with the margins filled with song lyrics.

She loved the Velvet Underground. We spent many an hour lying on a bed listening to Lou Reed sing about love, drugs and the underground. We’d play “Heroin” over and over and see who could get every lyric, every note exactly perfect.

This is a sloppy, loose demo version of “Ride into the Sun” off of their Another View album. It’s really for completists only, of which I am not. I got this along with other demos and live tracks from a download a few weeks back. I’m addicted to downloading perfectly legal live music and the like and so when I see a Velvet Underground set, I simply have to have it, even if I haven’t been much of a fan since high school.

Bootleg Country: David Nelson Band – Honeydew, CA (07/21/01)

Originally posted on April 9, 2006.

For years I have been collecting what I’ll call bootleg CDs. Though the term bootleg gives all kinds of wrong impressions as if I’m selling cases of scotch under the table during Prohibition.

The bootlegs I am referring to are not only legal but highly condoned in some circles. I’m talking about live concert recordings unreleased by the studios or the bands.

People have been recording concerts since there have been portable recording equipment. Alan Lomax was traipsing around the country recording folk and blues artists in the 1930s. Today, some bands allow fans to patch directly into the soundboard with pristine, lossless DAT machines.

The Grateful Dead were pioneers of bootleg trading. Instead of spending thousands of dollars trying to hunt down thieves and bootleggers selling live recordings of their performances, they killed the opportunity by giving their live recordings away. They set up a special taper’s section in the audience allowing anyone with a portable mike to set up shop and record every note. On many nights they would allow fans to patch directly into their soundboard. They always recorded their own shows, and often “leaked” copies to fans and allowed everyone to make copies, as long as it wasn’t sold for profit.

It became a profitable marketing adventure. Fans would turn on others to the band by sharing the live music, thus creating other fans who would then buy the band’s albums and pay to see their concerts in person. Through the years other bands have seen the wisdom in this policy and have followed suit.

There is a whole underground movement of fans trading live concert recordings. It is quite an addicting hobby, let me tell you. I’ve been trading for about 8 years now and have well over 800 hours of live music CDs.

My collection is more live music than I could ever listen to, and yet I am continually in search of more. With the advent of cheap, fast broadband connections there is more live music available than ever before.

Live music feeds weary ears. With the decline of actual music on the radio and the rising prices of studio albums, finding mind-moving, completely legal music available for the price of your time to download is an absolutely beautiful thing.

In Bootleg Country, I will attempt to go through my collection of live music and review every note.

David Nelson Band
07/21/01
Honeydew, CA

A few years back I worked with a guy named Bob. Bob was somewhere in his middle fifties, with a nice beer gut hanging over his belt loop and long, curly gray hair. He was a throwback from the 1960s Summer of love. He was a genuine hippy and remained true to those ideals even into the year 2000.

The David Nelson Band reminds me of Bob. They are still waving their freak flags, and playing music as if it could save our souls.

A David Nelson Band show is like a picnic on a sunny day. They mix old-time country music with the folk wisdom of 1960s San Francisco and sprinkle it with psychedelic jams.

You can picture yourself sitting in a city park, spread out on a blanket, belly full of fried chicken while listening to this band. They have the homely feel of any small-town local band playing songs that you’d sing to your kids. Although they have the chops to blow any local players through the roof, they maintain that intimate, down-home feel to their concerts.

It’s a band that can make a medley of “All You Need is Love” and “Put a Little Love In Your Heart” and play it without a twinge of irony.

Songs like “Panama Red” and “Ragged But Right” start off the show and they are just the type of songs I’m talking about. They are blue-collar songs with the kind of lyrics that truck drivers, hippies, and grandmothers could all sing along with and smile. The music is a country swing that would feel at home anywhere the grass is green and the sun is shining.

As the set carried on, some of the songs mixed in tried way too hard to be meaningful. Songs like “Last Lonely Eagle” just have cringe-inducing lyrics like

If you go down where the lights push the nighttime
Back far enough so you can’t feel the fear
Remember the boy who you left on the mountain
Who’s sitting alone with the stars and his tears

The second set really scorches it up with some very stellar improvisational jams. The music jumps into interstellar overdrive with a sweet instrumental jam of the Grateful Dead’s “Fire on the Mountain,” sending the grandmas to the snack shack and the rest of us into twirling heaven.

The third set brings us back down to earth with the aforementioned “Love Medley” and some more silly, hokey hippy music.

I don’t suspect the David Nelson Band will ever make it onto MTV, or Billboard’s Top 40 list. You won’t see them headlining a worldwide stadium tour in this lifetime. But as they continue to travel the country, small venue tour at a time, they’ll continue to play real music from the heart, with the chops to back them up and keep audiences of all sizes smiling and dancing through the night.

If you’d like a copy of this show, leave me a comment, and I’ll try to work something out for you.

Keller & The Keels – Grass

keller and the keels grass

Interesting covers are nothing new in the bluegrass world. There are bluegrass covers of Prince’s “1999”, Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart, Hayseed Dixie did a whole album of AC/DC covers, and who can forget Dolly Parton singing “Stairway to Heaven?”

The ubiquitous one-man jam band Keller Williams has teamed up with Larry and Jenny Keel for an all-bluegrass album titled Grass. It is an interesting mix of original tunes and covers from the likes of Pink Floyd, Tom Petty, and the Grateful Dead, amongst others.

Keller Williams solo is something of a minor miracle. Playing a variety of instruments including a 12-string guitar modified into a 10-string instrument, bass, and synthesizers he creates a rainbow of sounds by looping them all together on a delay system.

The Keels add some nice flavors to the music creating a more organic sound than Keller normally creates as a solo player. The pickin’ and a grinnin’ is nothing but sunshine. The trio plays some mean bluegrass and is obviously having a great time doing it.

Keller, being the smart-arsed clown that he is, just can’t stop himself from tweaking the covers he chooses. So we get “Mary Jane’s Last Breakdown” which is a creative mixing up of the two Tom Petty tunes, and a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Loser” bookended by the chorus of Beck’s song of the same name. Both work better than they have any right to.

The low spot is the Pink Floyd cover “Another Brick in the Wall.” While the playing there remains solid, gone is the dark cynicism of the original version. Pink Floyd plays the song with a sneer toward the horror of elementary school. Keller plays it with a wink and a smile at how clever he is for doing such an interesting cover but misses the soul of the song.

The standouts are the three original Keller Williams tunes. The album opener “Goofballs” is a fast, hilarious ode to the drug-induced road trip. With lyrics like

Rockin’ it, never stoppin’ it,
Cap’n Kirk and Spock’n it
Transforming the road into the holodeck
Crunchin’ it and punchin’ it, casually lunchin’ it
Doin’ what you can to avoid the wreck

it’s hard not to smile like a freight train.

The other two self-penned tracks, “Crater in the “Backyard” and “Local” contain the same type of smart-allecked lyrics and jubilant melodies.

“Dupree’s Diamond Blues” might just be better than the original Grateful Dead version. There is a lightness of touch and buoyancy in Keller’s version that the Dead could never muster.

Grass is a jubilant touch of newgrass that for the most part will satisfy my bluegrass needs until the next summer festival.

Concert Review – Railroad Earth – Bloomington, IN (03/10/06)

Originally posted on March 12, 2006.

It has been over a year since my last real concert, something unheard of in Brewsterland. Sure, over the years my ability to go out and hear live music has decreased, but I’ve always managed to see a show at least once every few months.

I did go to the Strasbourg Music Festival last spring, but it was more about the madness and chaos of walking the densely populated city streets than really sitting and listening to one band play. Ah, a mad scene that was with local bands of all flavors playing on every corner, alleyway, and sidewalk. You couldn’t hear one band for the three others playing down the road.

But other than that it was the summer of 2004 since I caught anything live or musical. Wow, just reading that makes me sad.

There is nothing like live music. With all the technical wizardry and beeps and gadgets they come up with in the studio, as amazing as some of it is, it just can’t beat the magic that comes from hearing a band playing live for all they’ve got. Standing in a crowd of people moving in one groove as the sounds pump right through your insides is nothing short of awesome.

I once saw Phil Lesh one hot Thursday afternoon in Oklahoma City. It was well over a hundred degrees and I was standing in a patch of ground that had been baked into dust. I came home drenched in sweat, sunburned beyond recognition, and caked in dirt and dust. It was one of the best times of my life.

So, it was with great anticipation that I waited for Friday night to come and my chance to see Railroad Earth at the Bluebird in Bloomington, IN.

My wife laying low with a migraine I invited my friend and coworker to tag along.

Arriving I was a little trepidacious, having never been a part of the press corps, or guest list. I approached the ticket counter (actually a burly young man sitting in the first booth for the bar.)

“Do you have tickets?” he asked.

“Um, I should be on the guest list. It’s Mat Brewster.”

Scanning the two pages of the guest list he asked me again what my name was. Peering at the same list I could see a Mat Hutchins listed with Blogcritics next to it.

“Yeah, that’s me, I’m from Blogcritics. “

Both relieved that I got in and a little annoyed that they got my name completely wrong we went inside.

The Bluebird is an old country bar that saw its best days around a couple of decades ago. It is old and worn and best seen through a smoky haze, something you don’t get anymore since the city has outlawed smoking pretty much everywhere.

The stage has grown since the last time I visited. A couple of years ago I saw Sam Bush and his band could barely fit on the tiny platform. I’ve always loved the stage, though. It stands about waist high and is set up so that you can get within inches of the band.

I first came to know Railroad Earth, oddly enough, through a t-shirt of syndicated radio host, David Gans. After hearing him rave about them again on the Grateful Dead Hour I downloaded one of their shows on archive.org and found there really was something to rave about. Those boys can cook!

They are a hard band to describe. They play bluegrass instruments (banjo, fiddle, dobro, mandolin, etc.) but have a drummer and everything is plugged in and amped up. You can hear influences from bluegrass to jazz to straight-up rock and roll.

In an age where musicians get more hype for their clothes than their songs, it is refreshing to hear a band really getting off on music, without even a glance at the bottom line.

Even with six musicians on the stage, I could clearly hear each instrument. The band came to jam, and the improvisations often extended a song out for more than 15 minutes. Yet unlike so many jam bands their jams never turned into noodle fests. They were unique and interesting extensions and transitions of the songs, while still maintaining the integrity of the melody.

At the beginning of the second set, another fellow coworker showed up with some buddies, drunk off their arses, all three. Suddenly, I was in the middle of what I absolutely despise at concerts – a group who would rather talk, and make loud, dumb comments than listen. I hate those people, and now I was one of them.

What could I do, what can you do when you’ve got three drunks shouting at you that the place smells like a toilet and that there are no cute girls? Thankfully, they left after a couple of songs.

The crowd was fairly small, with the venue about half full. South-Central Indiana is a bit far off from their normal fan base. But those who were there were full of smiles and white boy dance grooves. It was an odd mix of frat boys, middle-aged couples, and neo-hippies.

God bless hippies.

Several beautiful young hippy ladies were dolled out in flowing, blowing long skirts. They danced, whirled, and twirled on the second-tier floor oblivious to everything and everyone but the songs.

My drunken friends returned and I had to swear that I was on my second beer (though I had only taken a few sips of my first) to keep my coworker quiet and calm. At this point, they were so zonked they pretended to dig the band so they could hit on the girls.

Ignoring them I continued to let the groove move me to other worlds. The psychedelic outings of “Warhead Boogie” and “Like a Buddha” left me more than emotionally erect, and fully satisfied. On these songs the band was so tight, so connected they moved as if they were a cohesive whole of one organism rather than six distinct individuals.

We headed home at 1:30. The band played a full 2 and half hours of joyful, mind-blowing music. I made it home exhausted, but completely satisfied.

Calendar Movies: Ben-Hur (1959)

This was originally written and posted on March 10, 2006.

“What are you doing this weekend?” a fellow coworker asked.

“I have to work Saturday and then I’m going to a maple syrup festival and then on to my in- laws in Palmyra, Indiana.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” Came the uninterested eye-rolled reply.

The thing is, it was nice. My days of going to the clubs, to the bars, enjoying the scene are long gone, if, in fact, they ever existed.

An enjoyable evening to me anymore is a well-made, home-cooked meal, a good DVD on the TV, and a nice book to tuck me in at night.

I turn 30 years old on March 25. A fact that both announces itself with every breath I take and sneaks up on me every day.

With each passing day, I feel more the recluse, more the anti-social hermit. It’s not that I don’t like people, for I enjoy a number of folk’s company. I like to laugh and tell stories and hang out. It’s more that I don’t feel the need to meet more people. The spark of excitement I once got at a room full of fresh faces is gone. Give me a small gathering in a familiar cozy setting and I’m much happier.

When I started this concept of Calendar Movies I had visions of lavish parties where my guests would dress up as characters from this month’s film and eat and drink and have the times of their lives. Yet the reality has become that the parties are small affairs. Three or four people come for a simple dinner and sit quietly throughout the films.

Several times, I’ve gotten bewildered faces upon invitation to the party. As if why anyone would want to watch an old movie is simply beyond them. For The Wizard of Oz, I was even laughed at.

So, it is fitting that I watched March’s Calendar Movie with my in-laws, in their little home in small town USA.

For as long as I can remember I’ve had itchy feet. I just can’t seem to stay in one place for very long. For this, I completely blame my dad. He is a home builder by trade and as a child, he would build a house, move us in, then sell the house and move us into a rental. Then he’d build another one and start the vicious circle all over again. He built entire subdivisions over the years and I think I lived in every house on the block.

I have never, ever lived in one home for more than a few years.

This constant moving has stayed the same in my grown-up years. Since moving out 11 years ago I’ve lived in 9 cities, 6 states and 2 countries.

Though in many ways this has been exciting, I’ve also lost any sense of home. My life is packed away into boxes, always intending to be unpacked, but never settled before its time to move again.

In the five years I’ve been with my wife, her parent’s house has become my home. No, I’ve never truly lived there, but it has become all of those things I think of when I think of home – stability, warmth and comfort.

When my wife (then girlfriend) spent one summer in Montreal and our relationship, along with my career and life, were up in the air, I spent a few days in that little house in Palmyra. It was there I felt like things might be ok. It was there I found some sense of myself.

It was there again that I sat last Saturday night watching Ben-Hur. And though the kids at work will continue to roll their eyes and laugh at me, and I know I’ll never make the society pages, I’ve come to realize that it is there that I belong.

Sleuth (1972)

sleuth movie poster

This was originally written and posted on March 1, 2006.

A delightful plot-twisting mystery starring Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier, and nothing but Michael Cain and Laurence Olivier – albeit in two roles for Michael Caine. It is essentially a showcase for both actors, and it is quite a show they put on.

The plot gets complicated, but essentially Olivier plays a mystery writer in the vein of Agatha Christie. Michael Caine has been having an affair with Olivier’s wife. The two meet at Olivier’s house to discuss the state of things. Fiendish plot point after another and things get sinister and fun very quickly. There isn’t much more to say, for letting the twists and turns come as they are is half the fun.

Director Joseph L Mankeiwicz manages to adapt what was originally a successful stage play into the cinema very well. He uses his set pieces as supporting actors. There are dozens of games lying about Olivier’s house, and nearly all of them play some part of the plot.

Though the DVD seems to be out of print, Sleuth is well worth tracking down at the local library or video club.

Father’s Little Dividend (1951)

fathers little dividend poster

Like many of my generation, I am more familiar with the Steve Martin remakes of the Father of the Bride series than the original Spencer Tracy versions. The original is less flamboyant (there is no Martin Short counterpart), more realistic (the mother is not also pregnant), and more notable for its 1950s sensibility (Tracy is shocked – shocked – that his daughter would think of having a baby naturally) than its general film qualities.

It is a cute, well-made picture. The jokes are mostly funny, if not all that memorable or hilarious. The cast (including a very young Elizabeth Taylor) plays its parts well. The direction is adequate if again not all that memorable.

There are a couple of particularly lovely moments including a card game played while Elizabeth Taylor’s character bursting at the seams. She squeals at a lousy hand forcing a reaction out of everyone else as if she was having the baby on the table.

Overall, the picture is a harmless, enjoyable viewing, but nothing that will last much past the night. It’s the kind of movie to watch with your grandparents on a lazy Sunday afternoon that you can feel warm and pleasant after watching.

Calendar Movies: The Wizard of Oz (1939)

This was originally written on February 27, 2006

For Christmas, I received a brilliant calendar with movie posters from the classic age of cinema. Each month I have decided to have a dinner party culminating in a viewing of that particular month’s movie.

The continual beat of the baby drum has been getting louder and louder at Chez Brewster. I will turn 30 on March 25 which means my wife will turn the same six months later. With an empty crib and old age coming quickly, the old biological clock is drumming out all other sounds. No matter how much cotton I stick in my ears, in my ear I hear the ever constant shout of my wife saying,

“Let’s have a baby. Let’s have a baby. Let’s have a baby…now!”

I finally relented. I finally gave in and…I got her a cat. That softened the drumming a little. The relentless chanting of “BABY – BABY – BABY” slowed down to a whisper. It was still there, but I could at least drown it out with an old episode of Moonlighting, or Ryan Adams’ excellent, never released album Destroyer. For a little while anyway.

Really, I know I’m on the losing end of an argument. Sooner or later I must give up and agree to have a child. In fact, I want to have children, just not now. I don’t know when, and certainly I must admit the time is quickly becoming now, but the thought of how much I’ll have to give up, at how much work children are makes me want to wait a few more years.

The other day, without provocation, and without discussion, in a nonchalant manner my wife mentions that we’ll start trying this summer. I was too shocked and too tired to attempt an argument. At this point I’ve pretty much given in to the idea.

My friend, and coworker, Tim, keeps telling me to take his three children for the weekend.

“Two days with my kids and she’ll never want any of her own,” he says.

February’s classic calendar movie is the Wizard of Oz. This, I thought, was the perfect opportunity to invite Tim and children over to test his theory. For $20 he promised to bribe his kids into behaving badly.

In our typical, wait till the last minute approach we hit the stores on Friday night in search of a copy of the movie. $50. That’s what they are asking for some new whiz bang 4 disk version of the Wizard of Oz. Fifty freaking bucks for a movie. We ran all over town looking for an earlier, cheaper version. Found a 2 disk special edition for $20 at Best Buy. Still more than I wanted to pay, but what can you do when you’ve invited guests over to watch a movie and it’s too late for Netflix?

Also invited were my co-supervisor Christina, her husband, and seven month old boy.

Everybody arrived and Tim collected his $20 bucks. We had a very lovely lasagna dish with salad and breadsticks.

None of the children were particularly bad behaved. Tim’s kids range in age from about 5 to 11, and while they were not hellions at all, they were full of energy. What with the excitement of our cat and the 6 month old baby they didn’t know what to do. They ran around, wrestled and told me jokes.

You know the ones about the fat kid named Chubby, who you mimic by pressing your hands to your cheeks making them fat.

After eating and some good chatting, Christina and family had to leave.

The movie was put in and we all settled down to Dorothy, the Witch and Oz.

“Where’s the color?” Tim’s oldest, Brennan asked. This was followed by a continual, perpetual inquisition on why the film was in black and white.

At first I thought this was some kind of complaint that the movie was in black and white. I remember being a kid and not wanting to watch old black and white films. After a minute, I realized the chanting wasn’t some annoyance at old movies, but was in anticipation of Dorothy’s arrival in Oz, where the film turns into a Technicolor dream.

The Wizard of Oz is, of course, a classic. It is one of the world’s most beloved films.

My oldest memory of the film is watching it at my grandmother’s house one summer. This was back in the days when it was shown annually on television. I was playing Twister with my cousins in the living room and watching the movie simultaneously. Whenever a scene with the Wicked Witch of the West would come on I would run to my mother and close my eyes. Only opening them when my mother said it was safe.

The new DVD transfer looks marvelous. The contrast from the dreary, weary land of Kansas and the wild, swirling whirling colors of Oz is more vivid and amazing than ever before.

After we got color, the kids mostly settled down, except for the occasional wisecrack from Brennan and a peculiar desire in all the kids in seeing a darker, horror version of the picture, where the Tin Man is a robotic vampire.

The movie ended, delicious peanut butter pie was eaten, and everybody when on their merry way.

“Let’s have a baby,” my wife said as we shut the door.

Tell Tim I want my $20 bucks back.