http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 9 Aug 2007 19:11:38 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/08/09/191138.php RechercherIn its eulogy for the Weekly World News, the Washington Post quoted a former WWN editor's newsroom philosophy. His admonition, "Don't fact-check your way out of a good story," also seems perfectly applicable to much of the lay criticism of our current favorite work of the media arts, AMC's Mad Men. Many online comments about this series nitpick this or that detail of the costumes or props or express genuine outrage at the characters' "excessive" drinking and smoking -- so many, on so many different sites, that a segment of the audience seems in danger of fact-checking itself right out of a very good story indeed. Like a certain WWN stalwart, some of these viewers seem mad, "pig-biting mad" about Mad Men. We're not going to let their anger get in the way of our good time.Mad Men not only plausibly recreates the world of 1960 -- it's also competing with our contemporary perceptions of what that world was like, impressions of that period (even for those who lived it) which have been formed over time by the media, mostly television and the movies. Nancy Franklin's canny one-paragraph appraisal in The New Yorker pegged the series as a love letter to Hollywood's idealized version of New York in the late '50s/early '60s. Director Douglas Sirk is often invoked, but so far what Mad Men most resembles is a melodramatic (and we mean that as a compliment) mashup, told from today's vantage point, of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and the productions of Jerry Wald, especially Jean Negulesco's The Best of Everything. It seems to us that many of Mad Men's haters don't understand just how favorably Mad Men compares with those sources or they willfully refuse to appreciate the basic premise of historical fiction. In a period drama, the period is a leading character. If, as we argue, there have been only one or two truly glaring anachronisms or inaccuracies per every few episodes, then in Mad Men that character has been developed and it is fleshed out pretty damn well. And pick all the nits you want, but when the human characters of Mad Men smoke, drink, flaunt their marriage vows, and feed their un-seatbelted children peanut butter, they are not doing so simply to rub our collective noses in the outdated social mores of 1960. They are also creating the mise en scène that makes fictional ad agency Sterling Cooper (and all who are nailed in her) a world we viewers can immerse ourselves in, every week. Like the viewers, the creators are observing that world -- and commenting on it -- from a 2007 perspective. Throughout its history, television has done period drama with varying degrees of success. Mad Men 's production design seems meticulously researched compared to period pieces from American television's earlier periods. How do Gunsmoke or Bonanza hold up next to Deadwood (or even '90s syndie Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years)? From its second season, Happy Days included more anachronisms (costumes, grooming, dialog) in each episode than we will probably see in Mad Men's entire run. Productions take more care with historical material in the era of Deadwood and HBO's various biographical films, but there are still exceptions. We'll cut the recent BBC production of Robin Hood some slack for its obvious camp but that still doesn't excuse its lapses into modern dialog ("Okay!") and off-the-rack costumes. The Tudors is Showtime's wretched retelling of the Henry VIII history in which only a few of the supporting roles are even watchable. Despite the richness (and middling accuracy) of the interiors and the richness (and irritating inaccuracy) of much of the costuming and grooming, the series' grating dialog and petulant characterizations are enough to make the discerning viewer long for the late '60s and early '70s run of BBC and ITV studio productions that set a seldom-matched standard for televised historical drama.Some of those British series were, like Mad Men, original stories and not adaptations, among them The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Upstairs, Downstairs. They were quite simply very well-written and period-accurate plays. Straight out of the theatrical tradition, these were dramas performed live-to-tape under the constraints of what is now considered primitive studio TV production: they were shot by relatively huge and cumbersome television - not video - cameras, under harsh lights on a few standing sets. Yet the beauty of the dialog, the quality of the performances, and the rich detail of the costumes (copied, albeit cheaply, from portraits and other primary sources) combine to pull the viewer into another place and time, and keep us there, which is exactly what we want from a period piece.Production values have long since advanced to the point where the television costume drama once rooted in the theater now takes its cues from motion pictures. Filmed on a basic-cable budget for AMC (a channel desperate for original "cinematic" programming that can complement and freshen the demo for its often dubious library of "classic" films), Mad Men is also working within certain limitations. By our 2007 standards it is doing a fine job. We enjoy playing spot-the-anachronism as much as the next viewer -- even more, maybe, when a work tackles one of our favorite eras in aesthetics. But when it comes to Mad Men, we agree to willingly suspend our disbelief. We have an inkling that the producers of Mad Men are telling a good story, we are predisposed to enjoy it, and we're determined not to let a few stray facts get in our way. Video67349@blogcritics.org Thu, 9 Aug 2007 19:11:38 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/12/09/003159.php RechercherYou can buy an iPod for the same price as 20 CDs. Of course there are people in the sticks that haven't given up on 8-track. --from a music industry chat board discussion on the future of the compact discIn the annals of consumer audio formats, neither 128kps files on the iPod nor the 8-track tape rate very high on the fidelity scale. Magnetic or digital, portable audio is designed for convenience. The quality of the reproduction is secondary.When Bill Lear introduced the Stereo 8 tape system to consumers in 1965, he was not embarking on an adventure in hi-fi. Lear's intention was to supply automakers (and the luxury private airplane industry) with an easy-to-use and more reliable version of existing audio cartridge technology that in one form or another had been used in broadcast and background music applications since magnetic tape recorders were liberated from Germany after World War II.Lear's system was optimized for a moving vehicle. 8-tracks played back four separate stereo "programs" recorded on a loop of quarter-inch tape that would cycle through the machine endlessly, right up to and including the moment when some part of the plastic cartridge malfunctioned.With its low fidelity, non-standard formatting that broke albums up into (arbitrary, not artistic) 12-minute chunks, and fragile playback mechanism, it is amazing that the commercial 8-track format survived for as long as it did, and that its fans still support a small but thriving secondary market. New(ish)ly released on DVD, the film So Wrong They're Right preserves 8-track fandom for posterity--much, much longer than the tapes themselves were designed to last with normal use.Shot during a coast-to-coast collector's odyssey by the editor of fanzine 8-Track Mind and featuring interviews with many of its regular contributors, So Wrong They're Right chronicles in loving detail the 90s subculture that grew up around an orphaned format most closely associated with the 70s.The paradox of any subculture is that once enough cool people with shared interests find each other, they codify the fun right out of the ethos. Participants in the scene rather than objective observers, the filmmakers don't ask us to decide whether the format they love is timeless or past it. So Wrong They're Right simply records scenes from a decade--the 90s--awash in recycled culture. Some 8-track fans fancy the tapes and equipment as part of their retro lifestyle. Some are music and audio geeks (like a writer for Stereophile) enjoying a fun goof on collector obsessions and audiophile connoisseurship. The core group of 8-trackers portrayed in the film would have us believe that it's all about the music: they are the creative free spirits who just want to listen; they have had it with a consumer electronics and music industry that tries to cram a new format down our collective throat about every ten years, and to prove it they proudly immerse themselves in lo-fi renditions of thirty-year-old pop.The lifestyle-accessory moments are not the most compelling in the film. The collectors who are most comfortable on camera joyously celebrate their dorky love of the obscure. They include record producer Don Fleming and members of the band Gumball with their mountain of 8-tracks, and a used-music merchant who displays examples of just about every tape cartridge format ever made.But as the film unfolds there's no overarching story to advance. Rather, we see multiple nationwide variations on a single theme: although one private dealer in rare tapes appears in the film, for most of the subjects collecting 8-track tapes and tape players at thrift stores was an affordable way to build a kitschy 60s and 70s music collection. The hobbyists say they're analog at heart; because so many of them are given equal time, the film offers plenty of context but lacks narrative rhythm. It's ironic that the filmmakers can't actually explore the musical content on the tapes with any degree of depth, because to do so they would have had to buy rights and pay sync fees to the same music industry that made the 8-track tape obsolete.If So Wrong They're Right is not your first introduction to the minutiae of pop subcultures (because you belong to one, you study them...or you're breathing), you may find that 90 minutes of 8-track flashback is about 30 minutes too much. It is by sheer length and the leisurely, repetitive nature of its narrative that So Wrong They're Right visualizes the abandoned technology that it documents. It takes a long, slow loop around its subject, its title card transitions are awkward and clunky--and you may have to click through something boring to get to the good parts.For a whole kit of good parts, check out another recent DVD from Other Cinema. A collection of public service announcements, television promos and industrial films salvaged from a Portland TV station dumpster, The 70s Dimension gives you the tools to take your own look back at the decade when the 8-track actually thrived.Rechercher is the senior editor at Beyond The Roots of Lounge ed: JH Video40675@blogcritics.org Fri, 9 Dec 2005 00:31:59 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/24/072507.php RechercherHollywood movie studios and the television industry now enjoy such a cozy relationship as wholly-owned subsidiaries of each other it is easy to forget that back at the close of Hollywood's Golden Age and the beginning of television's, the two were not close allies but bitter adversaries. The advent of television threatened Hollywood's life's blood revenue stream. Rental of films to movie theatres (preferably theatres the studios owned) was a key part of the economic model on which the old studio system was built. The studios did not want to play nice with the TV industry, but faced with anti-trust lawsuits (over the theatres) and competition from the hot new technology that made both sound and pictures fly through the air into the audience's living room, Hollywood eventually made peace with the new media kid on the block. Consumer demand for TV sets and programming to watch on them had reached critical mainstream mass by the mid-50s. That helped convince the studios to swallow hard and start selling the television broadcast rights to what we now consider "classic films." The studios (through the syndication arms they created when they were forced to divest themselves of their theatres) sold packages of what were then just "old movies" directly to local TV stations, where movies were handy multitaskers. Stations drew an audience with films, but also relied on them as time-fillers, to--let's face it--give talent and crew a break when much of the broadcast day was still nearly all-live and mostly locally produced.One of the most notable syndie packages was made up of horror films from Universal, including the original 1930s versions of Frankenstein and Dracula and other now-classic examples of the genre. By the late 1950s these films had spent up to 25 years gathering real dust (not a light atmospheric coating of fuller's earth from the prop department) in what was then Universal International's vault. The studios hadn't yet figured out that their vaults--their crypts, if you will--were about to become a new goldmine. A station in what was at that time a medium-sized market of about 300,000 TV households might have paid $1000 per airing of an "A" movie with big stars, but as little as $300 per airing of a "B" western or a horror movie with little perceived value. That low dollar amount could be earned back by moving very little "inventory"--airing just a few commercials--and everything else was gravy. Or ketchup. With the local broadcast of horror films came the local horror host. Local stations employed assorted spooky characters to host the monster movies in weekend late-night "fringe" timeslots that were a tough sell to advertisers--airtime that station sales departments already considered to be a "graveyard" of unsold commercial spots.Imagine, then, your local station's surprise when horror flicks proved immensely popular. Perhaps it was Cold War Paranoia, perhaps the local hosts exercised a mysterious power over their viewing minions. (Perhaps the next sound you hear will be...a theremin) Classic hosts ran the gamut from KABC-TV's Vampira, the original Lady of Horrors, and Elvira, the stacked Mistress of the Dark and presenter of Movie Macabre on KHJ-TV (both in Los Angeles), to Count Gore DeVol, the (literate!) vampire host on WDXR-TV in Paducah, Kentucky. The local horror movie broadcast was quite lucrative for TV stations. The film packages were a cheap source of programming, the local host segments were no-budget productions--often to hysterical effect--and the monster chiller horror theatre shock show quickly proved itself a reliable vehicle for delivering many bloodshot eyeballs to local advertisers. Long after TV was a mature business, in Omaha, Nebraska the Saturday night Creature Feature broadcast with Dr. San Guinary (played by a KMTV staff director, the late John Jones) was still pulling an estimated 52% share of that market's TV audience at the height of its popularity in the early to mid-70s.In the San Francisco Bay Area, the local horror host tradition lives on in the person of Doktor Goulfinger (no "H,"--"they're for the weak," he says). The Doktor keeps the scary flag flying on Berkeley cable access, in personal appearances and at his web site, The Hip Crypt of Doktor Goulfinger.The Dok is also one of the nation's leading experts on local TV horror hosts. He maintains a huge memorabilia collection including props, costumes and airchecks--expertise that led him to a gig as an Associate Producer and research specialist on American Scary, a documentary overview of the horror host genre by filmmakers Sandy Clark and John Hudgens.Dok Goulfinger was kind enough to write the rest of this piece for us answer a few questions on the history of local TV horror hosting earlier this month as he completed preparations for his busy season:How did you get interested in horror films and horror hosts? DG: I think kids have a natural attraction to monsters. It's a natural extension of fairy tales. I grew up in the era of the 'monster boom', the early to mid-60s, when horror and science fiction films had established themselves as broadcast staples. In the San Francisco Bay Area, it seemed every local station had one or more regularly scheduled horror movie programs. My earliest childhood memories include films like Bride of the Monster (the first horror film that gave me nightmares), Tarantula, Creature Walks Among Us and The Magic Sword.The defining moment for me was one Halloween night when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I was trick or treating with my brothers when my bag started to tear - this was back in the days when a kid could literally gather a shopping bag of booty in the course of an evening. I was close to home and ran in to grab a new bag. My dad was laying on the couch in the dark watching Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, and I walked in just as the monsters were being revived. The whole image - the monsters on the screen, my dad on the couch - imprinted itself deeply onto my psyche. That movie defines Halloween for me, and ever since it first came out on video tape, I've watched it ever year and think of my father.The shows I was seeing at the time were unhosted, but most had a menacing voice announcer introducing the film and setting the mood. This was back when you only had three stations, four stations tops, to choose from. Sometime in 1969, my mother bought portable TV that had additional UHF stations, and there I discovered KEMO CH 20, which had a program called Shock It To Me Theater -- and this show had a host called Asmodeus. Shock It To Me had the Universal package, so I finally got a chance to see the classic Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy and Wolf Man [characters and] movies I had been seeing in Famous Monsters of Filmland. So it was pretty exciting time. Shock It To Me was also where I first saw Carnival of Souls, which really popped the top off my skull and spanked my brain.And of course there was Asmodeus. Afternoon kid's shows had hosts, so the concept was familiar. But having that type of character transposed to the dark hours was startling and intriguing, to say the least. Asmodeus was an imperious, sarcastic character. His garb was macabre mod, he smoked a cigarette and had a fairly elaborate castle set.A year, year and half later, Creature Features debuted on KTVU CH 2, hosted by Bob Wilkins. Wilkins was the absolute antithesis of Asmodeus. He was a mild, slightly built guy with glasses and a cigar. And in contrast to the Shock It To Me top class film library, Creature Features came out of the gate with Horror of Party Beach, followed in quick succession by Curse of the Living Corpse and the immortal The Vulture, with Akim Tamiroff in a turkey suit.Somewhat incredibly, Creature Features flattened Shock It To Me. Wilkins was an appealing presence, a bit like a cornball Bob Newhart. The ratings went through the roof. Creature Features soon became a twice weekly double bill on Friday and Saturday and knocked Shock It To Me off the air.The program's popularity led other stations to launch their own hosted horror movie shows. KBHK CH 44 tried first by syndicating The Ghoul from Cleveland in 1973, and again a decade later with Son of Svengoolie from Chicago. In the meantime, KEMO rather peevishly ran an unhosted show called The Original Creature Feature.Another huge influence was the Carlos Clarens book, An Illustrated History of Horror and Science-Fiction Films, which took these movies out of the gee whiz world of Famous Monsters and placed them in the larger context of cinema. It was the first book that led me to look at horror films critically.What circumstances led to local stations creating their own horror movie series/hosts?DG: Although Vampira initially appeared back in 1954, the horror host genre officially followed the release of the Universal SHOCK! package of horror movies in 1957. It's difficult to conceive now, but this was the first time this type of thing was being seen on television (Vampira was a localized Los Angeles phenomenon), and to an audience in the late 50s and early 60s, this was pretty strong stuff. This is also the best explanation for why so many of the hosts were comic in their approach. Humor further softened the experience.Most strange is that the vast majority of hosts across the nation appeared to adhere to the same template, even though, as late as the 1980s, most local hosts had no idea what was going on in other markets. The most logical explanation for this universality seems to be in the Spook Show circuit of the '40s and '50s. These were traveling stage shows involving magic, monsters and crazy ghost effects, presided over by a magician/host with names like Dr. Evil and XXXXX. Following a raucous program mixing screams and laughs, a cheap movie, like The Ape Man or Mad Monster, would be screened. So these performers were, in effect, the first horror movie hosts.So most stations felt it was necessary to wrap the horror material with host segments?DG: [Their reasons were] a combination of creative and practical. Local stations were always keen to create identifiable personalties as spokespeople for the channel. News, variety and kid's show hosts were already established, so it was a natural to extend it to the horror movie host. The other important benefit of the host was filling time. Many of the films in the Universal package ran 60 to 70 minutes long, and needed some padding to fill out a 90 minute time slot.Which horror hosts have influenced you?DG: Asmodeus and Bob Wilkins were clearly the biggest influences. I've recently been privileged to do a number of stage and convention appearances with Bob, as well as the second Creature Features host, John Stanley. You want to talk about childhood dreams come true? Wow. At one of these shows, someone told me I reminded them of Asmodeus. Double wow.My interest in local hosts expanded well outside the Bay Area, and I've really felt the impact of folks like Ghoulardi (Cleveland), Son of Ghoul (Akron), Crematia Mortem (Kansas City), The Host (Witchita), Sammy Terry (Indianapolis), Dr. Paul Bearer (Tampa), and of course [Philadelphia's] Zacherley.You mentioned that stations were often unaware of what other stations were doing. What are some of the classic bits of local horror show hosting? Were these replicated by stations all over the country?DG: Probably THE classic bit of hostdom was Zacherley's dissection of the giant amoebae. Zach made his amoebae by wrapping Jell-O in chees cloth, which was pretty effective and cheerfully disgusting. He would pat it, whack at it, and it would jiggle like crazy. But the best was when he would then slice it open with a scalpel and squeeze out the innards. I know Dr Speculo from Florida recreated the bit, giving full credit to Zacherley. And The Ghoul did an uncredited take on it in Detroit, which naturally emphasized the messier aspects of the gag.I actually continued the experiments of the great Zacherley on a few of my own shows. I love the bit, and it gives me a chance to talk about horror host history on the show. The first time was a straight recreation of the dissection, and a second show found the Dok mating the giant amoebae with the common household parakeet, creating the first flying giant amoebae.The experiment was a spectacular failure. Made a nice big splat though... Animal rights activists excepted, the fans must have fond memories of their local hosts...DG: The absolute coolest thing about slipping into horror host drag is that people you meet will instantly start talking about the local guy or gal from their childhood. And they're always so enthusiastic.Everybody is 12 years old again. I've talked to many myself, and have been at conventions with Bob Wilkins where grown men were approaching him with big silly grins and sharing their experience of watching Creature Features from behind the couch, or with their family, or with their best friend. But most importantly, they talk about the effect the show had on them, the fun and inspiration they got out of it. It's the warmest possible exchange, and I've seen it time and again. Nothing but smiles.Rechercher is the senior editor at Beyond The Roots of Lounge.Ed/Pub:LisaM Video38373@blogcritics.org Mon, 24 Oct 2005 07:25:07 EDT