The Couch Potato Report Online- June 15th, 2004
This week in The Couch Potato Report the second time isn't the charm, but the fourth time can be, and you'll find out about two under seen gems.
It was in 1998 when Saturday Night Live funnyman Adam Sandler teamed up with the ever radiant Drew Barrymore for the first time.
They co-starred in a very funny and heartwarming movie called THE WEDDING SINGER.
The pair worked well together and the movie was a huge hit. In fact, I would even call THE WEDDING SINGER one of the great romantic comedies of the nineties.
This year saw the duo team up once again in 50 FIRST DATES. Unlike their first movie together, the second time is not the charm and I doubt anyone will ever say that 50 FIRST DATES is one of the great romantic comedies of this, or any, decade.
Sandler plays a commitment phobic veterinarian in Hawaii who seemingly dates every woman who visits the Island on vacation.
One day he meets local resident Barrymore in a café.
They fall for each other and Sadler's commitment-phobe days seem to be behind him.
Unfortunately, as the result of a car accident, Barrymore has no short-term memory and she doesn't remeber him at all.
So Sandler has to meet her, woo her and make him fall in love with her every day, hence the title, and the premise.
I'll pause here for a moment to state that I like Adam Sandler's movies. I repeatedly watch, and still enjoy and laugh at BILLY MADISON, HAPPY GILMOUR, BIG DADDY and THE WEDDING SINGER.
And Drew Barrymore?!? Well, I have loved her since she and I were kids and she was in E.T.
She is one of those people who just looks like she is lit up from the inside. She is bright, beautiful and radiant and I enjoy seeing her in movies.
So if I like Sandler and Barrymore, why didn't I like 50 FIRST DATES?
Well, primarily because the movie has too many shifts from comedy to romance. Every genuinely affecting moment with Barrymore is followed, or preceded with a scene featuring her lisping brother, Sandler's idiot best friend or his androgynous co-worker.
At times those characters are funny, but they just seem to belong in a different movie.
50 FIRST DATES isn't a total waste of time as there are a few laughs and there is an abundance of Barrymore. But Sandler just seems out of place in the film and he brings nothing to it.
If you want to see these two firing on all cylinders, then check out THE WEDDING SINGER.
If you want to see a great movie where a man has to make a woman fall in love with him day after day after day, then watch Bill Murray do this premise justice in GROUNDHOG DAY.
If you want to see a mildly enjoyable romantic comedy that isn't really that entertaining, 50 FIRST DATES is a movie for you.
And if you want to see a television show that is hitting it's stride and succeeding no matter what it tries, then go out and get THE SIMPSONS - THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON.
Season Four of THE SIMPSONS is when the show started looking and sounding like the show we know and love today. The first three seasons very funny and enjoyable, but season four contains many of the classic episodes and lines ardcore and casual fans quote to this day.
Some of the classic episodes on this 4-disc set are Mr. Plow, Marge Vs. The Monorail, Kamp Krusty, Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie, A Streetcar Named Marge, I Love Lisa, Last Exit to Springfield, So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show, Whacking Day and Krusty Gets Kancelled
There's also audio commentaries on every one of the episodes from creator Matt Groening and others who work on the show.
THE SIMPSONS - THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON features one great episode after another.
So far this week, I've spoken about two high profile releases. The final two movies I'm going to talk about are low budget films that didn't play in many theatres, and will never get the publicity that 50 FIRST DATES and THE SIMPSONS get.
But they certainly deserve to.
Up first is THE STATION AGENT.
The film revolves around a reserved, somber train enthusiast who inherits a small depot in rural New Jersey. He makes friends, somewhat reluctantly, with a group of eccentric locals.
THE STATION AGENT is at it's best whenever the actors are just playing off each other and speaking the well-written, understated dialogue.
Another reason to recommend this film is due to the amount of information you'll learn about trains.
This isn't a movie for everyone, but if you enjoy gentle, poignant films, then
you'll find THE STATION AGENT to be an unexpected and delightful surprise.
I would also use the words "unexpected" and "delightful" to describe TOUCHING THE VOID, even if I did find the picture a bit too long.
TOUCHING THE VOID is a unique cross between a mountain climbing documentary and a reconstruction of two climbers harrowing trip up, and then down a mountain.
The film gives us the authentic stamp of factual storytelling from the climbers and a unique edge-of-the-seat tension of a dramatic movie.
TOUCHING THE VOID is astonishing at times as a real-life drama is magnificently retold.
50 FIRST DATES, THE SIMPSONS - THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON, THE STATION AGENT and TOUCHING THE VOID are available now at your favourite local video store.
COMING UP IN THE NEXT COUCH POTATO REPORT
Billy Bob Thornton stars with Bernie Mac and the lovely Lauren Graham in BAD SANTA. In this adult oriented Christmas comedy a young boy redeems two criminals playing Santa and elf in a mall.
SECRET WINDOW is based on a story by Stephen King. In it Johnny Depp plays a writer who is stalked by a stranger while he is stuck at an isolated cabin.
I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.
For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next week on The Couch!
Springsteen car imagery in exhibit
NEWARK, N.J. -- From Thunder Road to Racing in the Street, in pickups and pink Cadillacs, Bruce Springsteen spent the last 30 years riding shotgun with his fans down life's highways, dirt roads and dead ends.
On June 17, the Newark Museum opens its first major exhibition dedicated to the poet laureate of the Garden State Parkway, Springsteen: Troubadour of the Highway.
The show includes more than 60 photographs, videos and other memorabilia that explore "the artist's use of cars and highways as motifs in his music and in related visual imagery," according to the museum.
With elements that include Annie Liebowitz's American flag photos for 1984's Born in the USA cover and copies of a handwritten draft of Springsteen's Prove It All Night, the show is sure to please fans who otherwise might never set foot in Newark.
"We're really hoping that this exhibit introduces a whole new generation of New Jerseyans to the Newark Museum," museum director Mary Sue Sweeney Price said.
But the show is also a serious examination of Springsteen's automotive imagery, placing him in a tradition of American artists who employed the highway as a metaphor for Americans' alternately optimistic, restless and rootless spirit.
The show runs through Aug. 29 in Newark, the final leg of a four-city tour that began in September 2002 at the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis. Springsteen viewed the show there that year during The Rising tour.
Springsteen fan Colleen Sheehy, the Weisman's director of education, put the show together over two years after attending an E Street Band reunion concert in 1999. Sheehy, 50, an American studies scholar with roots in the Minneapolis music scene of the 1980s, wrote the title essay in the show's program, which reads like a fanzine for musicologists.
"In Thunder Road, recorded on his breakthrough 1975 album, Born to Run, the highway is a path to liberation," she wrote. "When Mary's screen door slams at the beginning of the song, the car door opens, giving the lovers an escape from a dead-end town."
By the time of 1995's The Ghost of Tom Joad, Sheehy wrote, "the highway promises nothing. It's illusory, confusing, heartbreaking."
Sheehy said a contemplative Springsteen didn't say much while viewing the show in Minneapolis, but then dedicated a song to her while performing that night. "It was a little bit of an out of body experience," Sheehy said of her time spent with The Boss.
Unique to Newark's leg of Troubadour of the Highway, the museum attempts to connect Springsteen to his artistic forebears represented in its permanent collection.
Highlighted works in the museum's Road Map to Picturing America include artist Frank Stella's eerily incandescent Factories of the Night, a 1929 work that summons the "refinery's glow" cited in the opening line of Springsteen's State Trooper.
That Troubadour of the Highway ends its tour in Springsteen's home state is a lucky accident, said Sheehy. Born in Freehold, N.J., the 54-year-old Springsteen still lives in Monmouth County.
His 1972 debut album, Greetings From Asbury Park, re-created a vintage postcard from the seaside resort where Springsteen has often performed at The Stone Pony.
The city's crumbling grandeur is a physical embodiment of the failed dreams and faded glories of Springsteen's subjects; in his song Something in the Night, Springsteen wrote of driving down Asbury's Kingsley Avenue "just to get a drink."
Amid exhibition photographs by David Gahr, Joel Bernstein, Frank Stefanko and sibling Pamela Springsteen, a text panel describes Springsteen's role as New Jersey's ambassador.
"Springsteen has made the state of New Jersey a richly mythological place," the panel reads, "raising it from a local landscape to a symbolic realm that people around the world recognize as familiar territory."
Just like The Boss himself.
Today's New Tunage!
THE BEASTIE BOYS HAVE RETURNED AND ON THEIR NEW DISC THEY RAP:
Don't expect me to wine and dine ya
I'm from Brooklyn,
You're from Regina
Go HERE and scroll down to the AUDIO ARCHIVE section to ch-ch-ch-check it out!
Okay, the city where Dan lives aside, a lot has changed since the Beastie Boys' last studio album, Hello Nasty, was released in 1998: There is no Grand Royal Records; the trio shut down its eccentric custom label in 2001. Adam "MCA" Yauch's deep, rough growl is now an even deeper, stranger weapon of taunt; he now fires boasts and insults like a hip-hop Tom Waits, in a smoker's-cough harangue scoured free of melody.
And there is no World Trade Center. This may seem like a weird time -- wartime, everywhere you look -- for Yauch, Adam "AdRock" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond, all on the cusp of forty, to make a record that in its gibes and hyperspeed is the closest they have come to their old-school fight and comedy on 1986's Licensed to Ill. Actually, it is the perfect time. To the 5 Boroughs is an exciting, astonishing balancing act: fast, funny and sobering. "I bring the shit that's beyond bizarre," Horovitz asserts against the quick hop and spears of sampled brass in "Ch-Check It Out." "Like Miss Piggy," he adds, apropos of nothing, to which all three respond in idiot falsetto, "Who moi?" In "Right Right Now Now," the Beasties lament Columbine and call for "more gun controlling" over tense rolls of Muzak harpsichord, then twist the chorus of their biggest hit into a free-speech cheer, retrieving Public Enemy's inversion from 1988: "We're gonna party for the right to fight." The Beasties pour the Pink Champale and Riunite here, but they're not drinking to forget. They turn the dis on "a president we didn't elect" in "It Takes Time to Build": "Is the U.S. gonna keep breaking necks/ Maybe it's time that we impeach Tex."
It's risky business -- odd, at first, to hear social protest in Horovitz's cutting nyah-nyah-nyah or, in "All Lifestyles," Diamond's high, shrill yelp: "Walking down the block, you say, 'Yo, D! When you coming out with the new CD that spreads love in society?'" But To the 5 Boroughs is a full-service gas. The Beasties produced the album themselves, spiking stark, muscular beats with incongruous cool, like the Brazilian rain-forest buzz of the berimbau in "Hey Fuck You." You also get an encyclopedic torrent of cheesy-TV citations, as if the Beasties have spent the last six years sucking up nothing but Nick at Nite. And two decades after turning from hardcore punk to homeboy jollies, the Beasties are still the best rap band in the biz -- three voices swinging like a jazz trio, racing like Bad Brains -- and they don't have big patience for the gold-plated phooey currently passing for gangsta. "I know you're sitting pretty in the Hampty-Hamps/Posing like you're rolling with the camp," Yauch croaks in "Shazam!" That photo of P. Diddy on a jet ski, in his polar-bear beach robe, comes to mind.
More than anything, To the 5 Boroughs is the Beasties' valentine to the city where they, and rap, were born. It is a brash, passionate toast to what we lost on 9/11 (in the cover illustration, the Twin Towers are still standing) and what survives: in memory, on the ground. The raps are packed with local cuisine (Blimpies, Murray's Cheese Shop on Bleecker Street) and nostalgia (Yauch: "Used to ride the D to beat the morning bell at Edward R. Murrow [High School] out on Avenue L"). And in "An Open Letter to NYC," the Beasties celebrate the city "that blends and mends and tests," mixing prayer and pride with sampled shots of 50 Cent, RZA and Nas over the killer riff from the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer." It's a dark whirl, but never maudlin: "2 towers down but you're still in the game," Diamond crows, a line that also has everything to do with the state and fate of the nation. The Beasties are New York from head to heel, but they've made To the 5 Boroughs for the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island in all of us.
ALSO OUT TODAY IS THE SECOND SOLO CD FROM PATTI SCIALFA!
Patti Scialfa's 1993 debut, Rumble Doll, defied listeners' expectations so outrageously that it ended up being unjustly ignored. On that record, far from coming on like Mrs. Bruce, Scialfa sounded like Ronnie Spector performing songs written by Sylvia Plath. Among other subjects, Scialfa struggled with her role as the tabloid-lashed other woman in Springsteen's first marriage, torn between the urgency of her love and the hard reality of "that ring around your finger."
Those tough choices are deep in the past on 23rd Street Lullaby, a sweeter, more confident effort. Scialfa is again examining her past, but now from the vantage of a woman who has gotten much of what she wanted and wonders if all of life's intensity is behind her. To answer those questions, she revisits Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, where, just out of college, she got her start as a singer-songwriter. "Now there's a river of faces," she sings. "In the tide of rise and fall/Do they wonder where we've gone?/Do they think of us at all?" The song's title, "You Can't Go Back," provides the unsentimental answer.
With co-producer Steve Jordan (Keith Richards, Jon Spencer), Scialfa assembles a smart group of players, including guitarists Nils Lofgren and Marc Ribot, cellist Jane Scarpantoni and violinist-singer Soozie Tyrell, with Jordan on drums and Springsteen "here and there." The result is sophisticated pop that frames Scialfa as a jaunty, East Coast version of Rickie Lee Jones or Bonnie Raitt. In its cleareyed joyfulness and unpretentious appeal, 23rd Street Lullaby evokes a woman not haunted by her past but enriched by it. "And a light fell from heaven with a promise/That all lost things are someday found," she sings in "State of Grace." Even in a world where nothing comes without a price, it's possible to get everything you paid for, and more.
Oh, there are some other discs coming out today too!
Yes, these are the other new CD releases for Tuesday, June 15, 2004:
ALABAMA TBA Alabama (RCA)
CELINE DION A New Day...Live in Las Vegas (Sony)
FOURPLAY TBA FOURPLAY (Arista Associated Labels)
M PEOPLE & HEATHER SMALL TBA M People & Heather Small (BMG Associated Labels)
PHISH Undermind (Elektra)
SPIRITUALIZED TBA SPIRITUALIZED (BMG)
VARIOUS ARTISTS Planet Pop 6 (BMG Canada)
Reality Show To Yield New INXS Singer
Australian rock act INXS will be the band at the center of television producer Mark Burnett's new reality show, "Rock Star." As previously reported, the latest show from the creator of such hits as "Survivor" and "The Apprentice" will see a new lead singer chosen for the veteran rock act.
"I am a long-time fan of INXS and feel very fortunate that INXS approached us with this idea and have entrusted us with their future," Burnett says in a statement posted today (June 14) on the band's official Web site. "I feel there's room on TV for more than one great music-based show, and I feel that rock music has been totally left out of that mix. 'Rock Star' is the perfect aspirational show and is a great fit with the [Mark Burnett Productions] brand."
Since the death of INXS singer Michael Hutchence in 1997, surviving band members Andrew Farriss, Tim Farriss, Jon Farriss, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Beers have occasionally performed with fellow Australian Jon Stevens on vocals. That lineup played during the closing ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney and toured North America in 2002 with Simple Minds.
"After Michael died, we wanted to search the world for a new singer but didn't know how we could effectively do that," Tim Farriss says. "By having Mark and everyone at MBP embrace the concept, we've now found a fantastic way to make that happen."
"Rock Star" auditions will be held on five continents. The winner and INXS will record a studio album, the band's first since 1997's "Elegantly Wasted" (Mercury), and then head out on a world tour.
Unlike other music reality shows such as "American Idol" and "Nashville Star," the viewing audience will not be the sole arbiter of the show's outcome. Band members will also assess contestants in tandem with leading entertainment industry specialists.
"Times have changed and television is now a valued medium to reach people all over the world," Andrew Farriss adds. "[Burnett's] record speaks for itself -- he is an amazing producer and we are confident that together we are going to create something very different and very special."
You Will Believe A Man Can Fly...Badly
Another 80's superhero is headed for DVD, but without the great legs. GREATEST AMERICAN HERO scribe Stephen J. Cannell (21 JUMPSTREET, HUNTER) has inked a deal that will have Anchor Bay bringing the first season to DVD later this year, or early 2005.
The show starred William Katt as Ralph Hinckley, a schoolteacher given a special suit by aliens that gave him superpowers. Unfortunately, Ralph loses the manual and spends most of the series crashing into things. Despite the goofy premise, the mixture of drama, comedy, and a great script took the show through 45 episodes counting the pilot.
GREATEST AMERICAN HERO ran for three seasons, from 1981-1983 and co-starred Robert Culp (TURK 182) and TV movie queen Connie Sellecca as Ralph's confidantes.
BATMAN BEGINS
Newsweek magazine has posted an article about a visit to the new Batman movie, staring Christian Bale (REIGN OF FIRE) and directed by Christopher Nolan (MEMENTO). "Batman is an absolutely iconic character, one of the great figures in pop culture, really," says Nolan. "But there has to be a reason for making this film as opposed to just renting Tim Burton's version." Nolan says.
SPIDER-MAN 3
Sam Raimi told Moviehole that he's all in for the next SPIDER-MAN installment but SM3 would be his last one. Raimi says he's definitely doing SPIDER-MAN 3, because he's just as interested in finding out what happens to Peter Parker as everyone else. Says Raimi, "I just really want to take Peter Parker to the next step in his journey. I'm very curious about it myself. What will happen? I have some things that might happen. And I really think that I know the character very well."
PUSHED BACK
The battery trial of Rush founder and guitarist Alex Lifeson and his son delayed three months until Sept. 13. The trial was supposed to start Monday. Defense attorneys told the judge they needed more time to prepare.
Warner Music Settles with Madonna's Maverick
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Warner Music has bought out Madonna's stake in her Maverick Record label as part of a settlement in their lengthy legal dispute over the future of the 12-year-old joint venture, the company said on Monday.
Warner Music said in a statement on Monday it had also purchased the share held by Maverick Chief Operating Officer Ronnie Dashev and signed a new multiyear contract with Maverick A&R chief Guy Oseary.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed but Warner Music said it would have a majority stake in the venture. Maverick will continue to operate as a stand-alone label and would place greater emphasis on signing and developing artists, the statement said.
In March, Maverick filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Warner Music seeking $200 million in damages and an end to the venture which is home to acts like Michelle Branch and Alanis Morissette.
Madonna and her two partners had tried to sell her 60-percent stake in the label to Time Warner for a reported $60 million but talks apparently broke down over the asking price. Industry sources said Warner had ultimately paid Madonna significantly less than $60 million.
The dispute predated last November's $2.6 billion purchase of Warner Music by a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr.
Warner Music Group Chairman Lyor Cohen said the agreement was "clearly a win-win for both WMG and Maverick."
Oseary called Madonna and Ronnie Dashev "my family. and I thank them not only for having helped build Maverick but also for having defined who I am today."
Madonna releases her own records under a separate recording deal with Warner Bros. Records.
'Shrek 2' Tops 'Nemo' to Become No 1 Animated Film
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Shrek 2," the movie about the big green ogre and his princess bride Fiona, topped last year's "Finding Nemo" to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time in the United States and Canada, DreamWorks said on Monday.
Through Sunday, the computer-animated film had sold $354 million worth of tickets at U.S. and Canadian box offices, according to box office tracking service Exhibitor Relations Inc.
That beats "Nemo," last year's big hit from Pixar Animation Studios Inc. and the Walt Disney Co., which earned $339.8 million on a comparable basis as well as 1994's Disney hit "The Lion King," which for years reigned as the leading animated box office hit with $328.4 million.
"Shrek 2" is now No. 9 on the list of all-time box office hits in North America, ahead of No. 10 "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" ($340 million) and poised to overtake No. 8 "Jurassic Park" (356.7 million).
"Shrek 2" was produced and distributed by privately held DreamWorks SKG.