Recent Viewings, Part 2

[M.10rda]

Good one. Kevin Spacey's reputation may be unsalvageable but his legacy of performances from the 90s is unimpeachable. He and Judy Davis were a great onscreen team.

[FatFreddysCat]

"White Christmas" (1954)
Two song-and-dance men (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) romance a pair of singing sisters (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) as they prepare for a big show to help save their former Army general's troubled Vermont resort.
This old fashioned holiday perennial is impressively staged and schmaltzy in all the right places. I've never been a particularly big fan of musicals but I have a soft spot for this one.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Silent Night, Deadly Night 3:  Better Watch Out!" (1989)
A blind girl with psychic powers is part of an experiment attempting to "connect" with a comatose "Ricky," the Santa Claus psycho killer from the previous movie. Naturally, this turns out to be a spectacularly bad idea, as Ricky (now played by Bill Mosely, aka "Chop Top" from "TCM2") awakens and follows her to her Granny's house to crash their holiday celebration.
This cheap looking slasher flick is competently made, but the bizarre plot, sub-par acting and sluggish pace don't come close to equaling the exploitative mean streak of the original or the total absurdity of the 2nd film.
Followed by two more DTV sequels which wisely left the "Ricky" character behind in favor of new Yuletide themed horror stories.

[Rev. Powell]

SOULEYMANE'S STORY (2025): A desperate Guinean refugee in Paris tries to raise money for fake documents and memorize an elaborate cover story he thinks will get him asylum status. Ultra-realistic look at a shady underworld of refugee exploitation; it's a good trick to make you sympathize with Souleymane even though he's planning to commit fraud. 3.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Heavy Metal Brittania" (2010)
Cool BBC-TV documentary about England's role in developing the sound of heavy metal and their part in it becoming a worldwide musical phenomenon. Features great vintage clips and photos plus commentary by members of Sabbath, Priest, Maiden, Diamond Head, Saxon, Budgie, and more. Long time 'heads probably won't learn anything new but it's a nice trip down metal memory lane nonetheless.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Why Should the Devil Have All The Good Music?" (2004)
The 2003 Cornerstone Festival provides the backdrop for this documentary on Christian rock and its struggle to be taken seriously by the "mainstream" rock scene. Interviewees include members of MxPx, Living Sacrifice, the OC Supertones, Five Iron Frenzy, Stryper, and many more.

[lester1/2jr]

Fat Freddy's Cat - My college room mate was a born again Christian and played bass in a Christian emocore band called Pedro The Lion. He was friendly with the guy from Sunny Day Real Estate who were, like Pedro the Lion, not exactly my thing but undoubtedly talented. I genuinely did like The Danielson Famile, a very strange Pixies/ modest Mouse type band actually made up of a large family. He was kind of a jerk though, if we're being honest.

[FatFreddysCat]

Fat Freddy's Cat - My college room mate was a born again Christian and played bass in a Christian emocore band called Pedro The Lion. He was friendly with the guy from Sunny Day Real Estate who were, like Pedro the Lion, not exactly my thing but undoubtedly talented. I genuinely did like The Danielson Famile, a very strange Pixies/ modest Mouse type band actually made up of a large family. He was kind of a jerk though, if we're being honest.

A guy from Pedro The Lion and the Danielson Familie are interviewed in this doc, haha. I'm an 80s hard rock/metal guy so they're not my cup of Java either.

Right after watching that doc, YouTube suggested this "related" one, so I watched it too. Saw a lot of the same people in it...

"The Cornerstone Festival: 20 Years and Counting" (2003)
A documentary tracing the history of Cornerstone, the annual Christian music & arts festival, from its humble beginning with a handful of bands playing in an Illinois cornfield to the massive, sprawling multi-stage event it is today. A cool history lesson with commentary and memories from dozens of musicians.

[M.10rda]

LIL' ABNER (1959):
My annual holiday visit to a less-remembered mid-century musical pays dividends again - LIL' ABNER is a real eye-popper. Based on a comic strip, it's as garishly colorful as a cartoon with oddly shaped humans and physics-defying choreography to match. Capp's original material is seen as a satirical forerunner to BLOOM COUNTY and DOONESBURY, and that DNA survives onscreen. The indigent, leisure-loving hill people of Dogpatch, Arkansas are threatened with abrupt eviction from their homes in order for the US military to use their "utterly worthless" community as a nuclear testing site. Yes (I know, you're shocked to read this), this film's federal government is callously indifferent to the suffering of its own servile constituency; the corporate wing of the military-industrial complex is eager to swoop in and exploit that suffering, even resorting to homicide to insure its profits; and the targets of this malfeasance (the eponymous Abner Yoakam and his family and neighbors) are too busy preserving their hermetic gender norms and celebrating past glories of the Confederacy to do anything on their own behalf except salute on command. This isn't the subtext of LIL' ABNER - it's the majority of the comedic text (plus a large serving of romantic farce).

Yup, the essentially forgotten LIL' ABNER still hits in 2025, particularly when contrasted with hoary perennial audience favs like OKLAHOMA! and GREASE. I've long loathed both of those crowdpleasing musicals - for their books more than their catchy scores. Unlike those tone-deaf dinosaurs, LIL' ABNER seems entirely aware that it's about terrible human beings reifying monstrous attitudes and toxic traditions, and it leans into that bit. The film's biggest showstopper is a paean at the feet of a statue commemorating General "Jubilation T. Cornpone", beloved hero of the Confederate army, who the cast cheerfully acknowledge as a wholly inept fool, coward, and charlatan. A later song focusing on the state of Washington politics offers more or less universal criticisms of American governance, but then adds a single verse (lyrics by Johnny Mercer) vis a vis how "both" Democrats and Republicans are equally complicit in mismanagement. This probably seemed like an agreeable/impartial disclaimer in the 1950s, but it's aged well, and today resonates as exactly what disconnected voters in the middle of nowhere tell themselves in order to maintain their complacency.

The other major draw of LIL' ABNER is its cast. After stealing the show in GUYS AND DOLLS, third-billed Stubby Kaye is handed the keys and basically drives the entire show here as "Marryin' Sam", a slick yet sympathetic traveling preacher who sings the lead in most of the songs and never wears out his welcome. Abner is played by Elvisesque Peter Palmer, who is agreeably inert as a performer but really makes a visual impression as the unnaturally large title character - he looks about a foot taller than everyone around him, excepting his statuesque teen love interest Daisy May. Ubermensch Abner and organically grown Daisy May would/will make some real purdy babies. Actress Leslie Parrish is just about as hot as blondes get in my book - like Margot Robbie/Elizabeth Banks hot. Stella Stevens (in what must be one of her earliest roles) plays Daisy Mae's rivel for Abner's affections. Stevens' performance is weirdly understated (particularly for this material) and Stevens is also unusually overdressed... but most oddly of all, traditionally blonde Stevens is a redhead here. I dig it, but it isn't enough to trump Parrish's earthy charms.

There are three actors, though, who leap (literally) onto the screen as if straight from the newspaper strip. As Abner's Mammy, Billie Hayes (best known as TV's "Witchie-Poo") appears entirely animated by hand-painted cel artists. Presumably a former gymnast, Hayes struts, gesticulates, and hops 3 feet off the ground like a living cartoon. Her physical abilities are at least approached by Al Nesoro (who would later play one of the bad guys in SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS), a tiny Harry Shearer-type in an enormous green zoot suit whose feet move inhumanly fast. (The obviously ethnic villain "Evil Eye Fleagle" has magical powers to trick and confound, and seems instantly if non-specifically objectionable.) However LIL' ABNER's most incredible special effect is 5'11" Julie Newmar (the original "Catwoman") in high heels and a tiny bodice, playing a proto-fembot. She dwarves the tiny male chorus dancers that surround her - sincerely appearing twice their size. Newmar does justice to a character named "Stupefyin' Jones" as she is truly stunning. Forget the slinky human Catwoman - she should have originated the role of Wonder Woman.

4/5   
I didn't even mention Robert Strauss as a creepy gun-toting hick, the Jerry Lewis cameo, or perhaps the film's best gag, which involves the tiny husbands of Dogpatch being transformed via magic potion into studly Adonises who are eternally young, physically fit, and beautiful... but wholly disinterested in women.      What a movie!

[lester1/2jr]

Fatt Freddyscat- The first Sunny Day Real Estate album is really impressive. It was where modern emo began and probably should have ended.