Happy 100th Birthday, Gene Kelly and Weather Around America

 

Well, as it turns out, we are NOT singin' in the rain, but we recognize Gene Kelly (1912-1996) which would have been this past week. Of course, to those of us who love Stanley Kubrick films, we will always cherish the tune in part because it's Alex's anthem in "A Clockwork Orange."

 

As Tropical Storm Isaac threatens the Republican Convention, scheduled to begin in Tampa, Fla., on Monday, weather is actually replacing politics as America's main concern. Of course, our thoughts are also with people in Cuba and Haiti who are dealing with the storm as well.

 

Speaking of the GOP Convention, we can't wait to start makin fun of Paul Ryan again; he reads Voltaire?! Yeah, I still not voting for him and Mitt Romney either. My personal feeling is that once again Boo Boo is overshadowing Yogi Bear; perhaps now Romney wishes he chose Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).

 

Here's a look at weather around America:

 

Boston 68 74 cloudy

 

Cleveland 81 clear

 

Columbia, SC, 74 clear

 

New York 73 partly cloudy

 

Philadelphia 75 cloudy

 

Raleigh, NC, 68 cloudy

 

Roanoke, Va. 69 cloudy

 

St. Louis 75 rain

 

San Francisco 56 cloudy

 

Tampa 79 partly cloudy

 

Washington DC 72 cloudy

 

http://www.weather.com

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Quote of the Week- Ludwig van Beethoven

In the Whoops Department, we meant to quote Ludwig van Betthoven (1770-1827) first, and then quote Bryan Adams in the next entry. But, the phone was ringing and we are listening to the Virginia Tech- Georgia Tech football from Atlanta which have the Hokies beating the home team Yellow Jackets 21-13 at half-time. Ok, yes, that was a cop-out!

For fans of the Stanley Kubrick cinematic classic "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), the ninth symphony from 'Ludwig van' which is featured in the film always conjurs up sadistic notions (that film wasn't exactly "Bambi").

If you want to hear Bethooven on the Internet, both WETA-FM in Washington, DC, which is an NPR station, and WCPE in Raleigh, NC, which is an independent, non-profit station play the likes of Bethooven, Mozart and Metallica (ok, they don't play Metallica!) 24 hours a day.

Here is the quote:

"A great poet is the most precious jewel of a nation."

The Rabbit Ears Quiz- Space 1999 (2 of 12)

It just dawned on me that two future Academy Award-winners for Best Supporting Actor came to prominence thanks to two science-fiction oriented tv show. The two actors I'm thinking of are Robin Williams ("Mork and Mindy" is one of the few sci-fi sitcoms one can think of) and Martin Landau, who starred in the British tv cult classic "Space 1999," who won an Oscar for playing Bela Lugosi in "Ed Wood."

I first came across "Space 1999," which ran for two seasons from 1975 until 1978, in a very unusual way. When I saw the show, it was actually called "Uzay 1999" and it aired on the TRT, Turkish Radio and Television. When I saw the show in the fall of 1977, there was only one channel of tv in Turkey and it only came on at certain hours of the day. Plus, virtually all of the tvs were in black and white. Of course, now one can watch hundreds of channels of tv in Turkey, which I would presume has posed challenged for the TRT, which was a state-run media monopoly at the time.

For its time, "Space 1999" was the most expensive television ever made. It drew inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's cinematic masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey"
(1968). In addition to Landau, the show featured his then-wife Barabara Bain.

So, for today's quiz, since it's a safe assumption that most science fiction fans are good at math (well, I'm certainly not!), we are going to ask what is mathematical difference between the number of episodes for "Space 1999" and "Star Trek," which was called "Uzay Yolu" in Turkey.

Is the answer:

A) 28
B) 29
C) 31
D) 33

SIDEBAR: While researching this piece, we learned that German television will air a 1968 episode of the original "Star Trek" series entitled "The Patterns of Force" for the very first time. The reason why the episode is being aired in Germany only now is fairly obvious: Captain Kirk and Mister Spock dress like Nazis to breech the third reich.

SIDEBAR TWO: Ironically, we found out today that this blog is apparently more popular in Greece as of late than Turkey (I happen to be a Turkish-American). Hmmmmm.....In all seriousness, we wish our followers in Greece good luck during this trying economic time. Of course, this doesn't mean that we recognize Kardak as being 'your island.'*

*- Kardak, which is called Imia in Greek, is an uninhabited goat island which actually caused a foreign relations fiasco between Turkey and Greece some years ago. It does in fact belong to Greece, and I hope this is ok with the goats!

My Choice for the Best Films of 1971

I had no intention of having two blog entries within a few days featuring fruits, but since we had problems finding a good image of Malcolm McDowell's Alex (and there were other snafus while putting this together!), we thought we would opt for (what else?!) some oranges.

McDowell lists his personal favorite guilty pleasures in the current issue of "Film Comment" and two of the films are ones that he was in. Amazingly, he did not list "Caligula."

Generally, we don't go with popular films for our own choices for the best films of a given, but "A Clockwork Orange," my own personal favorite Stanley Kubrick film, and I say this expecting a full rebutal from my friend Bilge Ebiri who prefers "Barry Lyndon" (1975), is also my favorite film from 1971, a year when I was just one year old.

Many people have said that 1971 was amazing year in cinema, and I have to agree. For whatever reason, filmmakers around the world, made amazing films and many of the films which will not make the cut on the list, such as "Two-Lane Blacktop" and "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," could have been the best film of years with few good films, such as 1989, which only had a few memorable films like Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing."

Here are my choices for the best films of 1971:

1) "A Clockwork Orange" (dir. Stanley Kubrick)

2) "The Last Picture Show" (dir. Peter Bogdanovich)

3) "Harold and Maude" (dir. Hal Ashby)

4)* "The French Connection" (dir. William Friedkin)

5) "Death in Venice" (Italy. dir-Luchino Visconti)

6) "Murmur of the Heart" (France. dir-Louis Malle)

7) "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (dir. Robert Altman)

8) "Punishment Park" (dir. Peter Watkins)

9) "How Tasty My Little Frenchman" (Brazil. dir- Nelson Pereira dos Santos)

10) **"Baba/The Father"(Turkey. dir-Yilmaz Guney)

*-Oscar-winner for Best Film

**-"Baba" is only available on VHS, and in very limited supply, in the United States.

Quote of the Week- Ludwig van Beethoven

Gazooks! It has been almost a full week since we last posted a blog entry, but I am still here.

We continue with a quip from German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) whom we all know from "A Clockwork Orange" (I know classical music people will hate me for saying that!).

For those interested, the Beethoven music in Stanley Kubrick's classic 1971 film is "Beethoven's ninth symphony, fourth movement."

Beethoven was also portrayed by actor Gary Oldman in "Immortal Beloved" (1994).

Here is our quote from Ludwig:

"Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make good soup."

One can listen to classical music 24/7 on WCPE (89.7-FM) in Raleigh, NC.

"A Clockwork Orange" will be screened at the Bardavan Opera House (ironically enough) in Poughkeepsie, NY, on Jan. 28.

Top 10 Most Controversial Films of All Time?

If there is one thing that the two Top Ten Controversial Film Lists I've posted here and on my other blog have in common, it is that religion--more than anything else, seems to make films controversial.

There are some notable controversial films that were not on either list, including two highly political and left-of-center films "Salt of the Earth" (1954) and "Punishment Park" (1974), both of which are excellent films even if one disagrees with their politics.

Horror films like the infamous Italian "Cannibal Holocaust" (1977) which features an actual slaughter of a Galapagos turtle on film were not mentioned that often. The more recent Japanese shock horror film "Audition" (2000) which features very graphic images was also not mentioned as were the "Saw" films, which have been labeled as torture porn films by some.

And, neither list cited Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" or Elia Kazan's "Baby Doll."

This list was published on film.com on July 21, 2009:

10. "Midnight Cowboy" (John Schlesinger, 1969)

9. "A Clockwork Orange" (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)

8. "Last House on the Left" (Wes Craven, 1972)*

7. "Last Tango in Paris" (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1973)

6. "Salo" (P. Paolo Pasolini, 1975)

5. "I Spit On Your Grave" (Meir Zarchi, 1978)

4. "Life of Brian" (Terry Gilliam, 1979)

3. "Blue Velvet" (David Lynch, 1986)

2. "Kids" (Larry Clark, 1995)

1. "Anti-Christ" (Lars von Trier, 2009)

*- The film has since been remade