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Woodstock, and six more movies

THE
NEVERENDING
FILM FESTIVAL

#127

Tuesday,
Jan. 3, 2023


Today at the movies — Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges go joyriding across Montana, William Shatner goes looking for God, a safecracker goes for the diamonds, hundreds die in an accidental release of biological weapons, hundreds of thousands trip out and dance to high-quality rock'n'roll, millions are killed in a worldwide pandemic, and Bruce Lee's legacy gets an incoherent high-kick in the face.

Contagion (2011)
The Crazies (1973)
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Superdragon vs Supermen (1975)
Thief (1981)
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (1970)

Best of the week and superb on every account: Woodstock.

Pretty damned good: Contagion, Thief, and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.

Pretty damned good, for a bargain-basement budget: The Crazies.

Pretty damned bad: Star Trek V, and Superdragon vs Supermen.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Contagion (2011) 

Having (so far) lived through the (so far) biggest pandemic of my lifetime, I was curious to see how a worldwide pandemic was portrayed back when the idea was science fiction instead of fact.

In the hands of moviemaker Steven Soderbergh, it's a rather conventional disaster movie, but certainly compelling to watch.

You'll be fooled into thinking Gweneth Paltrow stars, but she's only in the movie long enough to die and become Patient Zero. Her widowed husband (Matt Damon) and their daughter are the central points in a sprawling ensemble cast of ordinary people and medical professionals, going about their lives until the disease strikes, and then going about their deaths.

So — did Soderbergh get it right? Overall, in addition to making a pretty good movie, yeah, his prophesy is way better than anything by that Nostradamus dude.

As she travels the world telling people of the dangers of the virus, Doctor Kate Winslet doesn't wear a mask. The movie shows no panicked run for toilet paper, but instead mentions a run on the bank, which didn't happen, in my 2020 hindsight. 

But here's Jude Law as a delightfully slimy blogger who pushes forsythia as the cure — that's a shrub, and the next best nonsense to hydroxychloroquine. And the movie uses the term "social distancing," which I don't recall ever hearing as medical advice before COVID-19.

When a vaccine is developed and rush-approved, the movie shows hooded burglars storming any facility that might have some, which didn't happen. But the irresponsible blogger brags that he could tell his millions of followers not to get the jab and they wouldn't, which definitely did.

Damon's daughter complains of losing spring and summer, which rings authentic, only we lost years. People who know insiders have a better chance to survive, which was certainly true in real life, though rarely mentioned in the media. There's a lottery of birthdates, to determine who gets the injection first, but nah, that's stupid; and the way the CDC did it was smarter — rationing the vaccine by giving it to old people first. 

There are no particular insights here for the next crisis, but it's a fun Hollywood popcorn-muncher that starts with a single cough, and ends with the audience perhaps a little more eager to wash their hands.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The Crazies (1973)

The US military has developed a new biological weapon, which is accidentally released in an air crash, contaminating a small Pennsylvania town.

When you're infected, you lose all mental control and start acting crazy, and then you die, so people who have the bug are called 'The Crazies'. It's contagious, and of course, there's no known cure. 

I happened to see this the day after watching Contagion (above), and the comparisons couldn't be more stark. Of course, Contagion is a many-million-dollar Hollywood blockbuster, and The Crazies is an indy cheapo that probably played mostly in drive-in theaters. The philosophical differences are more to the point.

In Contagion, scientists and authorities work together to understand and counteract the epidemic. In The Crazies, the response is completely chaotic, with authority figures often making stupid decisions, arguing amongst themselves, and using the military to quarantine the town but never telling the locals what's going on.

The out-of-control feeling of The Crazies is so complete that often, watching the movie, I had no idea what was happening. The constant screaming and bedlam certainly isn't as much fun as the rational progress of science in Contagion.

Writer-director George Romero's message is that our leaders created this crisis, and then all through the film their mistakes and squabbling and stubbornness, and specifically their insistence on following the rules, makes the situation worse instead of better.

The Crazies is an antidote to Contagion.

In keeping with both the movie's point and its budget, the storytelling is frantic, poorly articulated, and if you miss a moment of explanatory dialogue you'll never get a second chance to understand what the heck's going on. This isn't Romero's most polished piece, and it's certainly no Night of the Living Dead. It's messy and loud, and there's so much yelling!, but it's definitely watch-worthy.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

This is the franchise's dumbest moment, the first Trek movie that's simply bad, and doesn't work on any level. If it wasn't Star Trek, you'd think it's Roger Corman.

There's a very cheesy opening, with Kirk climbing Yosemite without adequate gear, Spock stupidly distracting him so he loses his footing, and then Spock rocketing through the air to catch Kirk at the last moment. It's like an episode of Johnny Quest.

Then Kirk and Spock and McCoy make painful small talk and sing "Row Row Row Your Boat" around the campfire. Seriously.

All through the movie there's painfully bad writing like that, and many of the many lame lines are delivered awkwardly, because a realistic delivery would be impossible. Everything on-screen feels simply wrong.

We're half an hour into this before there's anything but small talk and bad jokes. When a plot finally reveals itself, it's about a religious zealot who wants to feel your pain like a Scientology quiz, heal your mind, and lead you toward God or heaven or some such.

As a concept, that gets a maybe, but the execution is like the other kind of execution — a guillotine or hangman's noose.

The most obvious mistake is that William Shatner directs the movie. He was the star of the show, but I doubt he ever really understood what made Star Trek tick — it sure wasn't him.

Directing is a little bit like coaching in sports, I think. A star athlete rarely becomes a great coach. The game's come too easy for him, and for his whole career, it's always been about him. Sparky Anderson, Dusty Baker, and Tony LaRusa weren't big stars on the playing field; a reliable veteran or second-stringer is much more likely to be a good coach, because he's seen the game from more of a 'team' perspective. 

Shatner the star is a lousy director, but his interstellar sidekick Leonard Nimoy directed the third and fourth Star Trek movies, quite well.

So Star Trek V sucks, but in addition to blaming the director, blame the script, too — based on a story by William Shatner.

Dude, you're not even a very good actor; what the hell makes you think you can write and direct?

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Superdragon vs Supermen (1975)
a/k/a Bruce Lee against Supermen
a/k/a Call Me Dragon

After martial arts and movie star Bruce Lee's death, a series of 'Brucesploitation' flicks cashed in on his name, and if this wasn't the worst it'll do until something even awfuller comes along. The dialogue is badly dubbed into English, and if there was ever a story (doubtful) it's lost in translation.

Someone going by the name Bruce Li stars, wearing a knock-off of Bruce Lee's Kato outfit from The Green Hornet. The fights are poorly staged, and look like guys goofing around at the dojo, with plenty of backflips added for no reason. Every fight has added sound effects, loud and silly even for a chop socky flick. In one scene, the good guy accidentally drops someone to their death, and watches him fall but shows no regret. 

All the music is swiped from wherever they could find it — there's some "Autobahn" in there, a few other pop tunes of the '70s, and the opening theme is a slightly jazzed-up version of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," without the lyrics, of course. Martin Luther, founder of the Lutheran Church, wrote that hymn, but neither he nor Kraftwerk are credited.

Verdict: BIG NO. It's not even the kind of bad movie that's funny.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Thief (1981)

Is it me, or is that a dreadful poster for this movie? It's James Caan wearing shades, but with the photographic tricks he looks like a space alien. 

The movie, though, is lots better than the poster.

Caan stars as a professional thief who prefers to work independently from the mafia, choosing and planning his own burglaries and keeping the spoils. Mob-man Robert Prosky wants Caan on his team, and offers him everything he asks, including an illegally-adopted son for Caan and his wife, Tuesday Weld. Prosky sends Caan to steal a few million dollars worth of diamonds, and the tension triples.

Written and directed by Michael Mann, this is a very good heist film. You'll forget it's a movie, and be fully engrossed into the story.

The burglaries are marvelous, the drama is palpable, and Caan's character gets a brief backstory that makes him sympathetic despite his criminal shenanigans.

The movie's little moments are excellent, too, like a perfectly scripted and performed courtroom scene, showing the legal and illegal wrangling necessary to get Caan's mentor and friend, Willie Nelson, released from prison.

Like most of the Mann movies I've seen (Manhunter, Heat, Collateral), all the details and characteristics of crime and criminals seem authentic, all the pieces fit together, and everything moves at a quick pace and holds your attention. It's so dang good, I'll make a special exception and forgive the presence of Jim Belushi, who's at least not trying to be funny.

Music by Tangerine Dream.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

Notice who's missing from the poster for this one? Jeff Bridges. It's a buddy picture, but he wasn't yet a big enough star to merit being included.

Clint Eastwood plays a conman — he's a preacher in the first scene, which is hilarious and really gets things going. George Kennedy, an old friend who's now an enemy, shows up to shoot at him 27 times by my count, and misses every time. I didn't know any manufacturer made 27-shooter pistols, but I ain't complaining. This is a terrific action-adventure heist and buried treasure flick.

Car thief Jeff Bridges (Lightfoot) accidentally comes to Eastwood's rescue, but they don't become buddies instantly; it takes about a third of the movie, and I like that. Nobody becomes best pals instantly, like you see so often in lesser flicks.

Eventually Lightfoot calls Eastwood "Thunderbolt," though I don't remember why, and there's your catchy title.

Eastwood is Eastwood, all sneers and glares, and even when he smiles he looks mean. It's the same enjoyable character he played for decades. Bridges is young and full of sass and sassafras, more energetic than you're accustomed to seeing from him. Kennedy is a son of a bitch with a mean squint and low IQ.

Michael Cimino wrote and directs, and there are lots of other things here that you don't often see, including bad guys working an ice cream truck, Jeff Bridges in drag, and an ingeniously planned getaway through a drive-in theater.

Geoffrey Lewis, Catherine Bach, Gary Busey, Dub Taylor, and especially Burton Gilliam add little bits of brilliance. The film is stuffed full of them, and it was filmed on location in Montana, so Bridges isn't the only pretty thing to see here.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (1970)

Once upon a time in the '60s, music promoter Michael Lang and a few co-sponsors rented some farmland in upstate New York, about 40 miles south of Woodstock. That's about fifty miles from Poughkeepsie.

What they'd planned was an enormous 3-day festival of music and art, with up to 50,000 people in attendance. The actual turnout, though, approached half a million. The crowd trampled the fences, and tickets couldn't possibly be collected, making Woodstock a free concert. And food and medical care for what was suddenly the third-largest city in New York became an emergency. 

The highways were jammed for miles, the Army sent medics via helicopter, locals and officials did all they could do to get food to the people, and filmmaker Michael Wadleigh was there.

Over the course of the long weekend, Wadleigh and his crew (including then-unknowns Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker) used 16 cameras to shoot 120 miles of film, which was eventually edited into this Oscar-winning documentary.

It opens on an empty green field, surrounded by other empty fields. Then comes the construction of a temporary bandstand, and several tall towers for loudspeakers. And then come the people, and more and more people, and the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was underway.

It was a rock'n'roll concert, of course, so it's no surprise that the music is terrific. Most of the era's greats were there — Joan Baez, Country Joe and the Fish, Crosby Stills & Nash (their second performance together anywhere, says Stephen Stills), Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Carlos Sanata, John Sebastian, Sly & the Family Stone, Ten Years After, and The Who were on the bill, and maybe one or two more performers that I've forgotten.

The Grateful Dead was there, but for reasons unknown to me, didn't make it into the movie. Almost perversely, Sha-Na-Na did. I didn't even know Sha-Na-Na was a real band — I thought they were invented for TV.

The music is amazing — yes, even Sha-Na-Na — and not simply because it's so many of my favorite performers playing a lot of my favorite songs. It's amazing because the sound is as clear as a brand-new LP on your hi-fi stereo.

It's always bothered me, not slightly but a lot, to hear a song that was recorded live, and also hear some fuckin' bozo in the audience finger-whistle louder than a siren, and other people screaming, shouting in the background. When you're at a concert, you can tune out all the ruckus of the crowd and only hear the music, but the microphone can't.

And yet, the sound here is flawless. It's only the musicians making music. Either the film's sound technicians put in enormous hours removing all the ordinary crowd sounds, or Woodstock somehow had stage microphones far superior to those that have been used in recording live performances ever since.

The movie is certainly not all music, though. What happened at Woodstock was hella bigger than music, and so's the movie.

There are lots of (brief) interviews with locals, who mostly seem bemused, and with young adults who explain why they felt compelled to cross the country to be there.

We see a guy cleaning the few portable toilets, and Wavy Gravy saying, "Folks, we're planning breakfast in bed for 400,000 people," and of course the famous public-address warnings about the quality of the acid going around.

We see storm clouds approaching, then soaking everyone, and the music is stopped for safety concerns, what with all the power-amps and electronics on stage. When the rains stop, we see the mud, the mess, and hear the music start again.

At one point, a camera crew finds Lang, the concert's bedraggled promoter, and asks him, "You're in the red?"

"Financially?" he answers. "It's hard to think in those terms when you're talking about something like this, but financially, this is a disaster."

"But you look so happy," the unseen cameraman says.

"I'm very happy. It has nothing to do with money, nothing to do with tangible things…"

They don't make concerts like Woodstock any more, and I don't think they make promoters like Lang, either. He looks like a man who, for a moment, cares nothing about making a profit. If that's the Woodstock Effect, it's a beautiful thing.

Hendrix famously insisted on performing last, not wanting to be anybody's warm-up gig, so after three days of build-up he finally takes the stage as Woodstock's climactic act. And he's great, of course, but there'd been numerous weather delays, and most of the crowd had already packed up and gone, so Hendrix plays to several thousand people and a lot of dirt and mud.

And while we're talking about scheduling, nobody should ever want to follow Crosby Stills & Nash. They're sheer perfection.

Over the event's three days, there were two deaths at Woodstock, but quickly Googling around for stats, a city of that size should expect about a dozen deaths daily.

Of course, there weren't many senior citizens in the crowd, which perhaps skews the comparison, but with all those people taking all those drugs, there was only one fatal overdose. The other death was someone who took shelter and fell asleep under a tractor, and got rudely awakened and killed when the farmer didn't notice him and drove off to the fields.

There are several different cuts of this film, but longer is better. The version I watched was three hours and 44 minutes, and ends with a moment's memorial to those who've passed, including most of the Woodstock Generation.

Seeing the movie feels like you're part of it, only you get the luxury of flush toilets.

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Coming attractions:

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1969)
Dead Again (1991)
Face/Off (1997)
Flash Gordon (1980)
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982)
The Naked Prey (1965)
Pi (1998)

1/3/2023   

There are so many good movies out there — old movies, odd or artsy, foreign or forgotten movies, or do-it-yourself movies made just for the joy of making them — that if you only watch whatever's on Netflix or playing at the twentyplex, you're missing out.

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Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. No talking once the lights dim. Real butter, not that fake crap, on the popcorn. I try to make these reviews spoiler-free, but sometimes screw up, sorry. Piracy is not a victimless crime. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.   

 

18 comments:

  1. Star Trek 5 was the worst of them all but I didn't hate it so much as you, and the second half was good.

    You make me want to see Woodstock.

    I saw what you did with Safety Not Guaranteed, too.

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    1. Perhaps I hold Star Trek to a higher standard, and it wasn't as awful as I seems to me.

      I will say, I saw it when it came out, and I saw it again a week ago, and that's it. All the other Star Treks I've seen often enough to lose count.

      As for the other, I ain't saying I'm equal to Ebert or even Siskel, but I was in a hurry.

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  2. Also appearing at Woodstock were Melanie, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Band, Tim Hardin, Keef Hartley, Quill, Sweetwater, Bert Sommer, The Incredible String Band, Mountain, Johnny Winter, Ravi Shankar, Blood Sweat and Tears, Johnny Winter and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

    You might be the first person to claim CSN&Y were good at Woodstock. They certainly did not care for their performance and while loose is often better than tight and robotic, this is a looseness that is so off-key at times as to hurt everyone's ears.

    The likely reason the sound is so good for this film is because over the years, sound engineers have more and more 'corrective' technology at their disposal. They can fix out of tune guitars, out of tune harmonies, delete crowd noise, even 'fly' a solo from a different take from somewhere else into the song you're listening to. I've no idea how much or how little 'sweetening' was used in each subsequent remix/remaster of the soundtrack, but I assume it isn't zero.

    The weirdest example of this 'fixing' might be The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park, July 1969. Recorded just days after Brian Jones died and with new member/replacement Mick Taylor still learning his role, the Stones' performance as it's been heard on bootlegs for decades was that of a frequently out of tune, draggy band that sounded like they wanted to be anywhere but onstage. Yet, when I heard a modern DVD of the concert, they are now in-key, tempos move at a faster and steadier pace. It left me wondering if anything one hears nowadays is anything like what it actually was.

    Live concerts back then were hit and miss. Sound systems were only finally catching up to what they needed to be for performers to hear one another and the amount of intoxication from whatever by nearly everyone in the chain, pretty much guarantees a train wreck from everyone at some point.
    -- Arden

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  3. Pt. 2 -- I was told my comment was too long for one entry!

    I consider Michael Lang to be one of the luckiest guys to have lived in that era. He left crucial details to the wind and somehow convinced people to let him run festivals even though the only profits his concerts ever made were in selling the film and soundtrack. There's a longer version of the Woodstock film -- maybe this was it, I don't know -- where you get a much better sense of how local folks really went out of their way to help these kids. Emergency task forces brought water, food, medical to these naive kids looking to have a good time. Ask yourself if people would've been as charitable if the 'kids' weren't mostly white.

    Admittedly, I would never go near a festival. I love music but standing in the middle of anything more than 10,000 people for longer than 4 hours is not my idea of a good time. Give me a seat in a sound-engineered music room (I'll sit on the ground if need be, as I have) with 300 other people and we have the makings of a potentially transcendent moment. I've seen a great number of shows in little rooms that I wouldn't trade for one arena show.

    I get the novelty of Woodstock. It showed to the straight world that there really were a lot of teenagers and slightly older young people who loved the culture they were observing. But Woodstock has been overrated since the day it ended. I've known a few people who attended and none enjoyed it at the time.

    You should check out the more recently released Summer of Soul documentary, overseen by Questlove. It takes us back to that era on the black side of town, with performances that rank a bit higher on the musical scale.

    Not that I didn't enjoy some of the Woodstock footage. I want to know how much acid the cameraman who shot film of Hendrix took without showing Jimi's guitar playing. I mean, Hendrix is always in full command of his instrument and yet we can't see any of it through major portions of his set. The Who were great and I applaud Pete Townshend for hitting Abbie Hoffman with his guitar to get him off the stage. (By any means necessary, Pete!), Richie Havens performed well under pressure. John Sebastian was peaked on LSD and acting every bit the "stoner" from every bad movie ever made about hippies. Far out, man! Sly & the Family Stone were terrific, if sadly Sly was about to steadily decline from the fame and drugs. What little I've heard of CCR at Woodstock (finally released in 2019, officially) is excellent and arguably maybe the highlight. Tim Hardin (again, with his set issued in 2019) is decent even if his set is too short for my liking.

    Just a short note! -- Arden

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    1. I thought, drugs and all, John Sebastian gave a terrific performance at Woodstock. He had an up and down career, but he excelled as a songwriter. Darling Be Home Soon (sometimes rendered as Darlin' Be Home Soon) is one of the great songs of the sixties. And I don't know how he got the commission to write the theme song for a new TV show called "Kotter", but the producers liked "Welcome Back" so much they changed the name of the show to match the theme song.

      It's worth noting that Sebastian was not scheduled to perform at Woodstock. He bought a ticket and attended as a music fan. He came backstage to say Hi to some friends and MC Chip Monck grabbed him and told him they had an empty space to fill. Sebastian borrowed Tim Hardin's guitar and performed a pretty good five song set. The Acid kicked in about halfway through, but, of course, he didn't know he'd be performing when he dropped.

      He didn't make it in the glam 70s, but Welcome Back bought him land and a house in, of all places, Woodstock, NY, where the festival wasn't. He's had medical problems, but he's still performing and recording.

      John

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    2. Arden —

      I wouldn't have been at Woodstock, not if I was me. I hate crowds. Even younger me could only tolerate crowds in a chair, for as long as it takes to watch a movie or listen to music, preferably with an empty seat on both sides of me.

      Sitting on dirt for three days, surrounded by thousands, hundreds of thousands? That would drive me nuts if I was me.

      That's a functional if, though. As a teenager, I wasn't quite me yet, so who knows, maybe I would've gone. Gotta wonder.

      Also gotta wonder, have I been hoodwinked by so many years of a distant, vague, maybe unfocused understanding of that time? People being people, no doubt many or most hippies and freaks were also assholes. Possibly I would've not only hated the real Woodstock, but hated most of the people there.

      I've bought into the hippie hype, though, '60s counterculture, even more enthusiastically than my after-the-fact buy into noir and beatnik culture.

      The movie plays into my prejudice — I love the music, want to people to be the good hippies and freaks I believe in, and in the movie they are.

      Quite likely someone else could've made an Evil Woodstock movie, and I'd've hated it.

      > You might be the first person to claim CSN&Y were good at Woodstock...

      Well, I only claim they were good *in* Woodstock, not necessarily *at*. As you say, whole lotta audio tweakery going on.

      You got me curious, though, so I've been running the movie again while writing this, and they sound terrific to me.

      > The Who were great…

      Really? Of all the acts that made it into the film, theirs was the only one where I noticed some painfully flat notes.

      Time amazes me, man. The rockers and the audience were mostly born in the 1940s and '50s. The people in town watching and trying to grasp what was happening, they were born in the 1910s, '20s, and '30s. They'd never seen anything like it.

      Neither have I, except through other people's memories and movies and rock'n'roll…

      CS&N have finished and the movie's still re-rolling as I type this, and it'll probably keep rolling until the end…

      Thanks for the short note, man, love it…

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    3. Welcome Back, Kotter. Jeez. I didn't know it was his song, and the song was the only thing I particularly liked about that show.

      Once again, I didn't know none of that. Having you around is at least as good as reading the book of rock'n'roll history. Always something pertinent and interesting.

      Hope they at least refunded Mr Sebastian's ticket price?

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    4. I live near Woodstock, NY and yes, John Sebastian can often be found in the area doing his thing. I haven't seen him around in some time, but the pandemic sent many people into new routines. I never approached him. (I leave people alone, since I don't have anything interesting to say to them.) I will say, anyone who loves the music of that era should check out John's first two studio albums, John B. Sebastian (was released by two labels around the same time in 1970 with different covers, so don't be misled) and The Four of Us. The self-titled album is the stronger of the two, opening with Red-Eye Express and including the two songs that are represented in live versions on the Woodstock soundtrack album, I Had a Dream and Rainbows Over Your Blues.

      From what I remember reading, the success of the song Welcome Back forced John's hand into making an album to sell alongside it. Reviews have been mixed and I can't remember it, so it didn't make a strong impression on me when I streamed it sometime ago. Considering that John had to scramble to fill out a new album of material suggests the album might be a bit undercooked. The sad fact there is that John wasn't writing much at that point, I suppose. The Lovin' Spoonful had many cool, gentle tunes. Either John's songwriting muse was visiting less or it's possible that without a band and a goal to write for, he didn't focus on it the way he had in the '60s. -- Arden

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    5. Songs well-written in vernacular American English are attractive for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is their relative rarity over the last sixty years (That's why I love John Prine songs). I mentioned my admiration for Sebastian's song Darling Be Home Soon above. What the hell, here is a TV performance of Sebastian fronting the Spoonful with the song, followed, unnecessarily, by the lyrics. Somehow, "for the great relief of having you to talk to" captures my most precious memories.

      John

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr4n-nSicnM

      Come
      And talk of all the things we did today
      Here
      And laugh about our funny little ways
      While we have a few minutes to breathe
      Then I know that it's time you must leave

      But, darling, be home soon
      I couldn't bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled
      My darling, be home soon
      It's not just these few hours, but I've been waiting since I toddled
      For the great relief of having you to talk to

      And now
      A quarter of my life is almost past
      I think I've come to see myself at last
      And I see that the time spent confused
      Was the time that I spent without you
      And I feel myself in bloom

      So, darling, be home soon
      I couldn't bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled
      My darling, be home soon
      It's not just these few hours, but I've been waiting since I toddled
      For the great relief of having you to talk to

      So, darling
      My darling, be home soon
      I couldn't bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled
      My darling, be home soon
      It's not just these few hours, but I've been waiting since I toddled
      For the great relief of having you to talk to

      Go
      And beat your crazy head against the sky
      Try
      And see beyond the houses and your eyes
      It's okay to shoot the moon

      Darling be home soon
      I couldn't bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled
      My darling, be home soon
      It's not just these few hours, but I've been waiting since I toddled
      For the great relief of having you to talk to

      @ John B. Sebastian, 1968

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    6. Reply to Doug's comment above, out of order because the Googs don't believe in recursive imbedded replies.

      “I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed” . . . MP via jtb

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    7. Military Police?

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    8. Beat you too it slightly, with some lovely Lovin' Spoonful in today's mix. Beautiful stuff, and on my extensive listening of current and recent pop (zilch) I know of nothing to compare.

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    9. Arden, every creative mind sputters in old age. Mine does nothing but sputter, so I don't demand perpetual brilliance from Mr Sebastian.

      You're local to Woodstock? Any good stories you've heard?

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    10. Doug, I saw you posted the song before I commented it. I was thinking about the music, and I jumped on and commented before I read the post. Brilliant minds might run parallel, but I fear we'll never know. Our minds were running somewhere together.

      John

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    11. Marco Polo on his death bead in Venice after writing books and speaking often about his adventures in southeast and eastern Asia.

      jtb

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    12. Well I shore wonta thought of him.

      Delete
  4. Re Thunderbolt: Word is that Eastwood was jealous of all the attention Jeff Bridges was getting for his performance in the movie. Since it was made by Clint's production company, he made himself the marketing focus.

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    1. That sounds like what I'd expect of Eastwood. Even when he shared a poster with Meryl Streep for The Bridges of Madison County you could barely recognize her, and his face is twice the size of hers and unmistakable.

      Bridges is *very* good in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Better than Eastwood. Better than most of what Bridges has done in the last twenty years, too.

      Delete

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