Reelin and Rockin @ the Gateway Turns Two! Twenty Four Rock Movies and Counting..

Two years ago, my pal (and CD1025 DJ) Brian Phillips and myself had a dream. We wanted to watch more rock documentaries and drink more beer, but noticed jobs, families and responsibilities were increasingly disrupting our best laid plans.

So we hatched the ultimate caper. What if we could find a really cool movie house to let us borrow a theater one Wednesday a month, and then we will bring some people out for a happy hour followed by a screening of kick ass rock movie?  And to top it all off, all the proceeds would go to charity.  Win - Win!

Thankfully, CD102.5 and the good folks at the Gateway Film Center took us up on our offer and Wednesday September 18th we will be celebrating our two year anniversary of "Reelin and Rockin" at the Gateway Film Center" with The Rolling Stones classic "Gimmie Shelter".  Drinks at Upstairs bar 7 pm, movie at 8.This was actually our first movie shown those twenty four months ago, but it is so good, we had to show it again. 

If you haven't made it out to "Reelin and Rockin" in the past two years, here is what you have missed. (loser) 

Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter / Wilco - I Am Trying to Break Your Heart / The Band - The Last Waltz / Ramones - End of The Century / The Other F- Word / Joe Strummer - The Future is Unwritten / It Might Get Loud / Morphine - Cure For Pain, The Mark Sandman Story / Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park / This is Spinal Tap / Marley _ The Bob Marley Story / Iggy and The Stooges Raw Power / The Tom Synder Punk Rock Interviews / Rolling Stones - Some Girls Live in Texas / The Replacements - Color Me Obsessed / Johnny Cash's America / I'm Now - The Story of Mudhoney / Rolling Stones - Charlie is My Darling / Sound City (Dave Grohl) / Flogging Molly - Whiskey on a Sunday / Anvil - The Story of Anvil / Searching For Sugar Man / Sex Pistols - Filth and The Fury / DIG! / Big Star - Nothing Can Hurt Me / Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter.

I get a little misty eyed looking at this list and I am sure I can speak for Brian when I say thanks to everybody who has come out and helped us with our little film series. It's about as much fun as a grown music geek can have on the third Wednesday of every month.  - Colin G.

Please Click here for the Reelin and Rockin Facebook Page

You can learn more about Colin Gawel and Brian Phillips by visiting the Pencilstorm Contributors page by clicking here. 

I Just Came From the Big Star Movie.....by Ricki C.

I just came from the Big Star movie at Colin and Brian Phillips' Reelin' & Rockin' Series at the Gateway Theater.   It's a pretty great movie.  You should go see it when it opens at the Gateway for its regular run, I think in September.  (Johnny DiLoretto, a little help?)

Anyway, as I was driving home under a gorgeous full moon I was thinking about the parallels between Big Star's and Watershed's careers.  They were both power pop bands from out-of-the-way locales.  (Let's face it, when Big Star emerged in 1972, Memphis hadn't exactly been a hotbed of rock & roll since the  mid-1950's heyday of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Sam Phillips' groundbreaking Sun Studios.)  Big Star's No. 1 Record  came out in the middle of heavy-metal, prog-rock & the sensitive singer/songwriter boom of early 70's America, and was promptly buried underneath all that musical mediocrity.  Who needed a cool Beatle-esque pop band with great lyrics and killer harmonies when you could gobble a handful of 'ludes and nod out to Led Zep or a 15-minute drum solo from Foghat.   (As a matter of fact I heard Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" on the Newark oldies station on my drive home and thought, "Jesus, why couldn't this be "When My Baby's Beside Me"  or "Thirteen" instead?)  Watershed's Twister  was released in 1995 as the Seattle grunge juggernaut was crushing everything in its path, with its lyrical themes of "Give up your dreams, kids, all is death & misery, kneel & listen as we pummel you with our ponderous fusion of heavy-metal & bad punk."  That's not rock & roll.  

Oddly, the very first conversation I ever had with Colin Gawel back in 1990 when I was a roadie for Willie Phoenix and Watershed was Willie's opening band at Ruby Tuesday's touched on Big Star.  Watershed had just delivered a killer set of mostly new material - including "Rise," their first TRULY GREAT song - and I said to Colin, "So do you guys listen to Big Star, The Scruffs, The Records and all those other 70's power-pop bands?"  (I knew Willie was producing the guys.  I figured he had hooked them up with the bands Willie and I had bonded over back in 1978.)  Colin just kinda looked down at his shoes and mumbled, "Uh no, mostly we listen to Kiss and Rush and Triumph."  "Triumph!?!" I said/scolded, and that pretty much ended the conversation.  (Years later, after I became a member of Watershed's road crew and recounted the conversation to Colin - which he had no memory of - in the band van, Colin admitted he had never even HEARD of Big Star at that point and that he only mentioned Triumph because he considered them an obscure rock name to conjure with.)

The most striking difference in the Big Star and Watershed stories, though, is how SAD the Big Star story turns out.  The band descended from the lofty heights of 1972's No. 1 Record and 1973's truly sublime Radio City  to the depths of Third/Sister Lovers in 1975, just two short years later.  Three of the original four members have left this life, well before their time.     

Watershed, however, have just kept plugging away in the 20 years since they were dropped by major label Sony.  They made arguably their best album - 2002's The More It Hurts, The More It Works - 15 years into their career, and possibly their second-best, Brick & Mortar, just last year in 2012, 25 years in.  Not a bad record (pun intended) of creative longevity for a rock & roll band.   But nobody in Watershed has died, or had their careers cut short by drugs & alcohol, so no movie.  The band's biggest casualty to date, drummer Dave Masica, screwed up his back working his day-job as a cook at a country club.  Not exactly Gimme Shelter-level cinematic material.        

I realize that some readers out there might find this incredibly self-serving, coming from a member of the band's road crew, but I was a Watershed fan long before and for many more years than I've been an employee of the group, and I just wanna say this: Thank you Colin, Joe, Herb & Dave (and Pooch & Joe Peppercorn) for the music and  for the memories.  

I just came from the Big Star movie, and while it vividly demonstrates that there is no justice in rock & roll, it also eminently demonstrates that there are many heart-loads of wonder. - Ricki C. / August 21st, 2013. 

A Prayer for Breaking Bad. Kill Skyler. by Tommy C.

You know, Breaking Bad, it's kind of  like I’m Conan and you’re his Barbarian God Crom – I've never prayed to you, and you don’t mind because you wouldn’t like it anyway.

It's awkward for both of us, I'm sure. And why would you need prayers in the first place? You’re already kicking ass. Absolutely nobody's questioning that.

No, I come to you with full faith in your writing, and your actors. I know they won’t fail us, and humanity knows it, too. You’re the Greatest Show Ever, and your ending will make us all grab our faces and scream, and then run out into the street still screaming about how awesome it was.

I know that you won’t abuse yourself with normal Big Series Endings, that you’ll avoid the Newhart Ending, where Walt wakes up on the couch with the cast of Malcom in the Middle running around him banging pots and pans together. And I know you’ll avoid the LOST ending, where all the characters go and have pizza in a parallel universe and agree that the show was never about crime or meth or tightly-woven plotlines, but was instead about several hundred classic works of literature.

And I know that the characters won’t just go out to dinner someplace and then you turn the camera off.

No, I come to you with respect, Breaking Bad, like the dude came to the Godfather and yes, I have a favor, something I need from you that only you can provide. Something the whole world needs at this exact time in television history.

Something I beg of you, sir, as your humble and faithful follower.

I want you to kill Skyler, Breaking Bad.

I hate her so much that I frequently find myself screaming obscenities at her image on the screen. I have to rewind it a lot when she’s poking around for stuff to do. Please kill her.

Pretty, pretty please, Breaking Bad?

I mean, I don’t want to micromanage. I understand that you probably have to have Hank nearly get Walt but then get killed in a very tricky way by Walt, who then appears to get away but then Jesse shows up and shoots him, ironically using all the amoral cunning and criminal experience he gained teaming up with Walt in the first place. And I understand that at the end, Walt’s annoying son gets a stack of cash – sure.

But kill Skyler. And I mean like, kill her when she’s in the act of being an irritating moron, that would be the most satisfying thing, like she walks into some deadly trap Walt set up for say, Hank. Explodes or maybe gets her head cut off by some sheet metal, or she’s eaten alive by pigs or insects. You're a very original show - go nuts.

That’d be great. Hallowed be thy name. Don’t forget to kill Skyler. See you Sunday.

Tommy C. is a man of mystery who writes the acclaimed blog "The Curse of Future Tom". You can learn more about him and others on our contributors page. 

Top 5 Movie Monologues with Rock and Roll Intentions. By Lizard McGee

 Top 5 Movie Monologues with Rock and Roll intentions.

or

Everything I ever needed to know in life, I learned from Rock and Roll

By Lizard McGee

You go to the theater and sit in the dark. A projector pushes light through film and out onto the screen. You open your mind to the power of imagination and pretense momentarily suspending all disbelief. Actors expound on delicate dramatic details. You are washed with an intense certainty that they are speaking directly to you. As if a folded horn grows directly from their heart, out through the screen ending at yr face, amplifying and translating the deepest meanings of their words. 

Whatever they are talking about, they’re really talking about Rock and Roll. Everything I ever needed to know in life I learned from Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll is the beginning and the end of the world. It’s everything. Remember in Apocalypse Now when Marlon Brando says that he “… has seen Horrors.” ? Rock and Roll has seen those Horrors. Or Citizen Kane’s “Rosebud.” Rock and Roll has a Rosebud. 

But those are films. I’m talking about movies. Consider this a master class in Rock and Roll. 

1. Tears in Rain (Blade Runner) - Rutger Hauer 

Rock and Roll should always go for the jugular. The emotional response. You want the audience ripping off their panties and throwing them at the stage with mindless abandon. Even if your audience includes that ripped, sweaty, fantastically mustachioed grip who winks at you during scene breaks. No matter what, you want them all to be lost in the moment. 

Legend has it that the film crew was brought to tears and erupted into spontaneous applause after Mr. Hauer delivered this impromptu soliloquy. He ditched the script and went with his gut, abbreviating and adjusting what the director and screen-writer had given him. His gutsy move reminds us that great performance is also about spontaneity. Plus nothing says Rock and Roll more than having platinum blond hair and holding a dove in one hand while talking about death.

2. Don’t Ever Get Married (Purple Rain) – Clarence Williams III

Prince’s dad beat his ass, just beat his Mom’s ass and is now sitting at a piano in the basement crying while playing a beautiful melody that Prince later turns into Purple Rain. His dad grills the Kid about whether or not he has a girlfriend and what their future plans are. 

“I never meant to cause you any sorrow/I never meant to cause you any pain”

Indeed. 

Q: What do we learn from this growling monologue? A: Rock and roll is wrong. You should do it in a basement. You might get yr ass kicked. And most importantly, making plans for the future is a bad idea because that bitch will just break yr heart.

3. I’m A Wolf (Moonstruck) – Nicolas Cage

Ronny and Loretta have fire. Ronny has fallen crazy in love with Loretta. He wants her to come upstairs with him and get in his bed. But Loretta is fighting against her heart. Loretta is trying to be reasonable, she’s trying to make “good decisions”. What does this scene tell us about the dogma of Rock and Roll? It tells us that playing it safe is a loser’s game. The past and the future are a joke. Nothing matters but right now. Why? Because fucking. Because recklessness. Because it doesn’t matter how and it doesn’t matter why. Love breaks yr heart, love ruins everything, love is a mess. And when yr on fire, everything seems like nothing against -I want you in my bed. 

Nick Cage speaks for Rock and Roll. And Rock and Roll says - Don’t play it safe. Listen to the Wolf.

4. Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope (Star Wars) – Carrie Fisher

Editing is Rock and Roll’s masterstroke. You must have impact. And it’s all in that last line. That one sentence has so much power. The wanting in her voice. Because everything depends upon this. This is a call. This is the power ballad. This is top notch Rock and Roll. Because it’s a fucking hologram, so cool. Also, Carrie Fisher is fine. Because metal bikini. And because it’s fucking STAR WARS and I still want a Landspeeder.

5. Bruce Lee Kicks Everyone’s Ass (Enter The Dragon) – Bruce Lee

It doesn’t matter that this isn’t a monologue. Rock and Roll is about breaking the rules. When Bruce Lee fights, he makes the coolest fucking sounds EVER. Specifically the moment in the scene in the underground drug lair when he fights off 7 henchmen and then after he beats the last guy’s ass, he stomps on his chest, grimaces, makes an alien-cat noise and prowls away to a soundtrack of spooky synthesizers. Bruce Lee is a BAD ASS, people. He then goes on to gloriously beat the shit out of another 47 dudes (I counted). That is seriously Rock and Roll. Because nunchucks. Because you can do anything. Even against insurmountable odds. Especially against insurmountable odds. Rock and Roll feeds on the glory of the underdog. And because it doesn’t matter if you’ve reached the end of the set. Go farther. Who cares what the club owner or the sound-man says. They may throw up the house lights and try to kill yr vibe, or pull the plug on yr guitar amp and try to shut you down. But God gave you a voice and made you a human amplifier. And he did that so you can say “I think we’ve got time for one more.” 
You cannot be stopped.

“You must constantly exceed your level. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you.” – Bruce Lee

Well said, Bruce.

Rock and Roll always says -"Bring it on". Because Rock and Roll is all about stepping up yr game.

- Lizard McGee

Lizard McGee is a guest contributor for Pencilstorm and one hell of a talented guy. Follow him on Twitter or Learn more about his band Earwig and all things Lizard by clicking here

Why JAWS Keeps Getting Better With Age by Johnny DiLoretto

Everytime I see Jaws it gets better.

I don’t swim in the ocean because of Steven Spielberg’s movie. Yes, I’m missing out on the sheer joy of frolicking in the surf. And, yet, I take comfort in the fact I’ll never have my torso severed in two by a fish.

I love this movie. Most people consider it a horror movie, but really, it’s an adventure movie; albeit, one punctuated by a few excruciating moments of horror. Jaws is a miracle of editing, narrative pacing, and some of the finest character acting of the 70s. Roy Scheider as Chief Brody is absolutely perfect. His performance is deftly, profoundly complemented by Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper, the marine biologist, and Robert Shaw as the salt-weathered Quint, the hard-drinkin' shark fisherman. And those are just the three leads. This movie is alive with the lived-in faces of the extras and smaller roles. Amity feels like a real place, like you could step through the screen and into the street. 

Then, of course, there's the shark. In an era, when CGI effects are so egregiously overwrought, the actual physical animatronic shark, though clunky, has real physical heft and presence. It may not be a real shark, it may even look fake, but a dude is eaten by it and he’s not just thrashing around in front of a green screen. 

So, recently a friend told me that he’d read Peter Benchley’s novel and he boldly asserted that the book was better than the movie. Thinking he might be a jackass, I bought the book and read it. Turns out my friend is a jackass. The book is fun but what should have been a taut 200-page thrill ride, is a belabored, enough-already, 300-plus page diversion with aspirations to seriousness. Spielberg adapted it into an unrivaled masterpiece. 

Here are some of the changes, tweaks, and massages Spielberg made to make his movie sing:

For starters, in the book, Brody is from Amity. He grew up on the island, so there’s nothing unfamiliar about it. This is stupid. Spielberg makes Brody a NYC transplant who’s terrified of the water but trying to adapt to small town coastal life when the shark turns up on his beaches. That is brilliant. Brody is off balance, trying to find his footing from the start.

One thing movies can do that books can’t is show, and allow the audience to hear, the real-life way human beings talk over one another. You can't write words over top of words. But you can hear actors literally speak their lines over the lines of other actors. Benchley drones on for pages about the town. Spielberg in the couple of tight scenes wherein the town council members and chamber officials chatter and jockey for position, brings Amity to vibrant life. 

In the novel, Brody’s wife Ellen is a thinly drawn, vaguely dissatisfied woman who sleeps with Hooper. This is just silly filler designed to make the book seem “deeper.” It doesn’t help that the Hooper character is also flatly uninspired. Spielberg makes her a faithful wife and a concerned mother, and he gives her that great moment when Brody, after reading up on shark attacks, frantically demands his kid get out of the docked sailboat he’s sitting in. Ellen thinks he’s overreacting, until she glances at a page in one of the books and sees an illustration of a shark eating through the hull of a boat. “Michael,” she screams, “you heard your father – get out of that boat right now!”

This is the kind of smartly observed family dynamic Benchely can’t touch.

Back to the marine biologist Hooper. He’s a yawn in Benchley’s version. In the movie, we get a smart, tenacious Richard Dreyfuss who bonds with the harried police chief despite their class differences.  The two become friends, bonding over the challenge of cutting through Amity’s small town culture to solve their shark problem. From the minute Hooper surveys the damage of the first victim, and chides the selectmen that “this was no boating accident!” Brody’s on his side and so are we.

That scene doesn’t even exist in the book, by the way.

It’s no accident that Brody and Hooper swim off together at the end like Rick and Renault walking off into the night at the end of Casablanca. That classic friendship is deliberately echoed here.

Spielberg makes a number of other brilliant changes to Benchley’s book too. Most notably with Quint. Benchely’s Quint is Ahab redux. All seafarin’ growl and piratey bluster. He introduces us to the character in a 5-page phone conversation. Spielberg gives us the nails-on-a-chalkboard entrance and the line “for that, I’ll give you the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.” Spielberg all the way on that one.

The director also gives us the inestimably great Robert Shaw, who’s not the one-dimensional shark-hating psychopath of the book. By giving his Quint the monologue about surviving the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the blue shark feeding frenzy that consumed hundreds of men, Spielberg humanizes Quint, gives him a context for his shark obsession, and tragically foreshadows his spectacular demise.

In the book, Quint drowns like Melville’s Ahab. Dumb. In the film, he’s devoured in gut-wrenching high style.

I could go on. But let me end with this: in the book, Brody’s family is relegated to a few tossed off lines just to let us know he has one, I suppose. In the movie, he’s a father, his children swim and boat in these waters, and you can feel him weighing his every decision – how his every move might reverberate through the town or put his family in peril.

One of my favorite scenes in, not just Jaws, but in all of American cinema is the one following Brody’s comeuppance after a young boy is killed by the shark. (The child’s mother learns Brody knew about the first victim and that he failed to close the beaches. She publicly humiliates him with a smack to the face and the accusation that he was responsible for her son’s death.)

After this Spielberg cuts to the Brody family dinner table. Everyone has eaten; their places have been cleared. Ellen is washing dishes while a dejected Brody broods in his chair. We know the death of the boy wasn’t his fault, but, being a decent human being, he can’t help but consider his culpability.

He sighs and buries his face in his hands. When he peeks out from behind his fingers, he notices his youngest son, unaware of the true heft of his father’s burden, playfully imitating his every move. Brody plays along for a moment before he leans toward the boy and says “Give us a kiss.” “Why?” the kid asks. “Because I need it,” Brody replies, with the genuinely deflated air of a man beaten by a bad day at work and of a father seeking the affirmation of his child's love -- the child he is blessed to still have sitting across from him beautifully alive. 

I admit I cry every time I see this scene; and not because it’s some big, emotional moment. It’s just a small, sincerely realized moment of humanity. It’s the smallness of it that gets me – to see this truth played out: that sometimes, yes, indeed, a kiss from your child can cure many ills.

But it’s also the mark of a director in supreme command of his craft, taking some thrilling, pulpy material and transforming it into something human and unforgettable.

Johnny DiLoretto is a man of many talents. You can learn more about him and other Pencilstorm contributors by clicking here.

Why "The Lone Ranger" is WAY Better Than "Man Of Steel" by Ricki C.

Okay, forget all those negative reviews of "The Lone Ranger" you've been reading everywhere, I'm gonna explain to you why Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer & company are far and away better than the Superman pic.  (OR any other summer movie so far this season.) 

Prologue: let me warn you, this blog is going to be all over the place, even more all over the place than my usual screeds.  We're gonna jump from topic to topic and story to story with very little regard for linear sense.  Any of you have ever tried to listen to me tell a story will understand.  (Example; I'll start to tell you about Watershed at the Arts Festival a coupla weeks ago and inexplicably wind up at babbling about Jimi Hendrix at Vet's Memorial in 1968.) 

First off, "The Lone Ranger" is great because it's the most anarchistic, anti-capitalistic, white-men-as-purveyors-of-genocide movie that will EVER have the name Disney  attached to it.  It's also either the most heartrending blockbuster summer movie action-adventure picture ever or the most exciting heartrending movie ever filmed.   I'm quite serious.  I have seen a LOT of movies in my 61 years on the planet and I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie this funny, this action-packed and simultaneously this sad ever.  (I was THIS CLOSE to tears twice, and I'm a big, tough guy.)  (HA!)   

Come to think of it, that's probably what's bringing about all the bad reviews.  I'm not sure anybody knows what to make of this movie: Is it a summer movie popcorn flick, is it a treatise on corporate greed, is it a scathing indictment of the treatment of American Indians that quite literally caused them to lose their birthright?  What IS this movie? 

This movie is Johnny Depp bringing his intellect, social conscience and star power to the summer movie genre and NAILING it.  It's so much better than its summer blockbuster competition it's almost not fair to compare. 

I saw "Man Of Steel" within a week of "The Lone Ranger" and they're just not in the same league.  All the early hype was that "Man Of Steel" would do for for the Superman mythos what the Christopher Nolan "Dark Knight trilogy" did for Batman.  That's just a laughable proposition.  First, without a Christian Bale, a Heath Ledger, or an Aaron Eckhart, you're just NOT gonna build a great comic-book movie.  (By the way; for those of you scoring at home, the three greatest comic-book movies of all time - "The Avengers," "The Dark Knight," and "Iron Man 2," the last largely on the strength of Mickey Rourke's villain portrayal.)  (Also by the way, "Man Of Steel" wasn't even as good as this summer's "Iron Man 3," and that movie wasn't all that great.)

The problem with "MOS" and "IM-3" was that there was no real HEART to them.  For all the talk of "Man Of Steel" portraying Superman as the last living member of his race, hopelessly alone on Earth, a man out of time & space, the film undercut its own point by introducing as villains six or seven OTHER surviving inhabitants of Krypton.  (Not to mention the INTERMINABLE living-hologram flashbacks of Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Superman's Kryptonian father.  If part of the pathos and premise of your film is that you've lost every living inhabitant of your planet, including your parents, you don't get a series of paternal do-overs.)

Plus the big-summer-movie-finale showdown in "Man Of Steel" was hopelessly derivative of the big-summer-movie-finale showdown in "The Avengers."  (And let's talk about summer-movie collateral damage: How many innocent bystanders would have been killed in the "Man Of Steel" skyscraper-toppling battle royal, with nary a nod or blink from the filmmakers?  The massacres that take place in "The Lone Ranger" actually REGISTER the loss of human life, you FEEL it in the pit of your stomach.  If you can watch this movie without being affected by them, I don't wanna hang out with you at the movies, or anywhere else.)  

And let's face facts; when director Gore Verbinski cues up and cranks up "The William Tell Overture" and Armie Hammer starts riding his stalwart stallion Silver ON TOP OF and THROUGH railroad cars, it's a pretty cool payoff to a great summer popcorn movie. 

In short, go see "The Lone Ranger" RIGHT NOW and wait 'til "Man Of Steel" shows up at Carriage Place where you can catch it for a buck or two.  - Ricki C. / July 7th, 2013 

(Next time on Ricki C. Takes All The Fun Out Of Comic Book Movies -  Stan Lee can take all of his millions from Marvel Studios and go to hell while Jack Kirby, who died in 1994 with maybe a few thousand bucks to his name, is barely remembered today, let alone credited for all of his comic book innovations.)  (For the comic book-uninitiated who know rock & roll - This situation would be roughly akin to The Beatles not being particularly popular while they were together, but thirty years after they break up their records go HUGE and make MILLIONS and Paul McCartney gets to keep all the money while John Lennon and his heirs get NOTHING.)