Dr. Jahnke's History Of Film - Another Thin Man

The Thin Man series is one of the minor miracles of Hollywood filmmaking. These six movies, produced between 1934 and 1947, are among the most effortlessly entertaining, smart and sophisticated films to come from Hollywood’s Golden Age. William Powell and Myrna Loy starred as frequently inebriated investigator Nick Charles and his wife/partner-in-crime Nora. Powell and Loy made plenty of other movies together, many of them quite good, including 1936’s Libeled Lady. But Nick and Nora would prove to be their most enduring collaboration, coming to represent witty repartee and undeniable romantic chemistry at its best.

We tend to think of sequels (or, to use the abominable current phraseology, franchises) as a relatively modern phenomenon. But today’s studios are positively restrained compared with their 30s and 40s forebears. It’s impressive that the Fast & Furious movies are still packing ‘em in at seven-going-on-eight entries. But Vin and crew have a ways to go before they catch up with Blondie (28 movies between 1938 and 1950) or The Bowery Boys (48 between 1946 and 1958 and that’s not even counting earlier iterations like The East Side Kids).

Of course, one big difference between today’s franchises and yesteryear’s long-running series was the budget. Back then, movies series were typically the domain of Poverty Row studios like Monogram. Even if they started life as A-pictures, like the Charlie Chan series, they’d eventually be discontinued by the majors and picked up elsewhere.

The Thin Man movies were unique in this respect as well. The six movies were spaced out over a number of years (most series back then would cram as many as three or four entries into a single year) and retained their prestige and relatively high budgets. And if none of the sequels can quite match the sheer perfection of the original, they are all at the very least entertaining.

The third entry, 1939’s Another Thin Man, introduces what should have been a surefire series killer. After two movies of unencumbered marital bliss, drinking their way from port to port, the Charles family finally produces an offspring: Nicky, Jr. Surprisingly, this has almost no effect on Nick and Nora’s demeanor or behavior. Nora stays a bit more sober in this installment but that’s about it. Child-rearing duties are pretty much handed over to a nanny (Ruth Hussey) who’s hired on the spot without so much as an interview, much less a background check. At this point, Nicky Jr. has less impact on the story than Asta, the Charles’ faithful dog.

This would be the last film in the series based on a Dashiell Hammett story, albeit one that did not originally feature Nick and Nora. This time, Team Charles is summoned to the Long Island estate of Colonel MacFay (C. Aubrey Smith), an old friend of Nora’s father and the manager of her vast inheritance. Strange and troubling accidents had been occurring around MacFay recently, accidents he believes are the work of a man named Church (Sheldon Leonard). MacFay let Church take the fall for some illegal business dealings, so naturally Church is out for revenge. But when MacFay is actually killed, the case becomes a lot more complex than it first seems.

The great pleasures of these movies are obviously the sparkling dialogue and easy banter between Powell and Loy. But in the three movies based on Hammett stories, the mystery is every bit as clever and nuanced as the characters. I’ve never been one to actively try to solve mystery plots while watching or reading them. If my mind is engaged on that level, it means something else in the story isn’t working and I’m not engaged elsewhere. If a mystery plot doesn’t work, then I’ll notice and have a problem. Another Thin Man is fun because while it may not be the most plausible story ever told, it makes just enough sense to be believable.

It’s also a pleasant surprise that motherhood hasn’t dulled Nora’s instincts. At one point, Nick ditches Nora, worried that it’d be too dangerous for her to come along. A lesser movie would have her throw a tantrum and stay behind with baby. Not Nora. Within 60 seconds, she fields a phone call and heads out on her own adventure, potentially even sketchier than the one she was being protected from. It’s hard to pinpoint who deserves credit for moments like this, although I suspect husband-and-wife screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett had a lot to do with it. Not to mention the fact that it’s virtually impossible to imagine an actress as vibrant and exciting as Myrna Loy being sidelined for long.

For years, a Thin Man remake was in development that would have starred Johnny Depp. While I feel like Depp’s gotten a bit of an undeserved bad rap lately, his recent turn in Mortdecai didn’t exactly fill me with confidence that he’d make an ideal Nick Charles. Since the film series ended, the characters have returned on TV, radio and on stage. I’m certain they’ll be back yet again, either on film or elsewhere. But William Powell and Myrna Loy will always cast a huge shadow over these roles. It isn’t that you can’t imagine anyone else playing them. You absolutely can. But why would you want to?

Another Thin Man is available on DVD from Warner Home Video.

Back To The Future

If you’ve read any of my posts here since relaunching Jahnke’s Electric Theatre in blog form, first of all, thank you. There is a LOT of content online bucking for your eyeholes, a lot of which is presented in pictographic listicle form that doesn’t require you to read nearly as much as my run-on sentences do. I appreciate each and every one of you who takes the time to click on over to the Theatre.

However, you may have had a couple of puzzled thoughts I’d like to address. The first one (and I’m paraphrasing here) is, “Jeez, Jahnke. You’re posting even less here than you did when you were writing for The Digital Bits. What gives, you lazy choad?” Well, you nailed it on that score. Left to my own devices, I tend to get easily distracted and allow myself to waste ridiculous amounts of time on pointless things. I apologize and I’m trying to fix that.

Your second thought may have been, “Is there, you know, like a point to all this? A lot of what you’re doing here doesn’t seem all that different from what you were doing on the Bits. Why aren’t you just putting it there? And the rest of it’s kind of all over the map. Focus up, dude.”

OK, fair enough. First off, there were a number of reasons behind my decision to leave the Bits. But the driving force was that as much as I enjoy writing about film, I really didn’t want to write about DVD and Blu-ray anymore (and I sure as hell didn’t want to have to write about whatever 4K nonsense is coming next). Don’t get me wrong. I’m still a fervent champion of physical media. Witness the ongoing JET’s Most Wanted crusade over on Facebook. But writing about discs has turned a corner in the last couple of years and is headed down a road I didn’t want to live on.

When you’re writing a review of a DVD or Blu-ray, you are writing about the film as a consumer product, not as a work of art. This is actually an obligation the disc reviewer has to his/her audience. Nine times out of ten, the person reading the review has already made up their mind about the movie itself. These days, they may have already purchased it on different formats two or three times. If you’re lucky, the reader will listen politely to your opinions on the film itself but that isn’t really why they’re there. This reader wants to know how this particular product stands up to every other product that’s come before it. And heaven help the reviewer who misses something because there will always be someone looking at the product with a far more critical eye than you.

To a certain extent, I understand and sympathize with this viewpoint. For years, every new home video format was, at best, a little better than the one it was designed to replace. Then Blu-ray came along, touted as the ultimate home entertainment experience. Of course, now we know it’s not but whatever. After years spent building a DVD library, consumers rightfully demanded to know why they should bother starting all over again.

But the rise of high-definition also helped prove the old adage a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Now that HD televisions were commonplace and people were adding more and more speakers to their systems, it seemed there were a lot more “experts” than ever before. Unfortunately, this all came at a time when quality control at the studio level was on the decline. There have absolutely been far more discs making it to market with serious flaws than should ever be acceptable. But now we have people seeing mistakes where there aren’t any or, at the very least, so negligible that they’re scarcely worth mentioning.

The miracle of being able to own a library of films and television programs, including many that were once virtually impossible to see, has been overshadowed by complaints about color timing, aspect ratios and audio mixes. It seems the only people reading DVD and Blu-ray reviews anymore are the people who intently study screengrabs trying to decide between a US or UK release. That’s only going to get worse in the Ultra HD era, so I decided it was time for me to bow out.

That said, I’ve been writing about the movies in some form or another since I was a teenager. I wanted to keep doing so, even though there isn’t a dime to be made in it. The recent shuttering of The Dissolve, home of the best film writing on the internet, was a bucket of ice cold water to anybody who still harbors dreams of making it as a full-time film critic. Right now, I make no money off this blog, although that’s chiefly because I have no idea how to monetize it. If anybody has some advice, I’m all ears, even if I only make the same amount per post that Lucy Van Pelt earns for a session of psychiatric help.

But writing about “The Movies” is a great big blank canvas that could lead anywhere. I don’t do well with absolute freedom, so I wanted to steer this in a particular direction. After giving it some thought, I realized the answer was literally staring me right in the face.

For years, I’ve had a “Now Playing” DVD display stand hanging in my living room. I’ve always enjoyed rotating wall art, so I decided to switch it out weekly. A couple of years ago now, I hit upon the idea of using this so-called Movie of the Week project as a way to watch my entire collection in chronological order, from the silent era on up. It’s been a fascinating experiment, so why not bring the Movie of the Week to the Electric Theatre?

In fact, I already started this with my last post looking at the Jimmy Stewart/Ginger Rogers comedy Vivacious Lady. I’m now about to embark on 1939, widely considered Hollywood’s greatest year, so I figured that would be the ideal time to jump on board. Bear in mind, this project is only roughly chronological. I’m not such a stickler for detail that I’m looking up exact release dates. Also, if I add something to my library later (say, for example, I pick up a copy of The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari in a few months time), I’ll pause and include that earlier title. This project will also incorporate my ongoing themes such as Captures and An Honor To Be Nominated, so watch for those to return.

Dr. Jahnke’s History of Film will be the primary focus here from now on, although I reserve the right to toss in other stuff and non-movie-related content from time to time. What’s the fun of writing a blog if you don’t allow yourself to write about whatever crosses your mind from time to time? Anyway, this should be fun and, if nothing else, my collection is eclectic enough that you probably won’t get bored. Join me next week as we go back to 1939. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Captures - Vivacious Lady

{Captures is a deep dive into the seemingly bottomless well of movies previously unavailableon DVD.}

While George Stevens is far from becoming a forgotten filmmaker, it’s undeniably true that his name and work are mentioned far less often than those of his contemporaries such as John Ford and Howard Hawks. Part of the reason for his relatively low profile may be that he was never quite as prolific as other directors of the era. He began his career as a cameraman before becoming a dependable director of comedy shorts for Hal Roach and later RKO. Moving into features, Stevens helmed several acknowledged classics in the late 30s and early 40s before the outbreak of World War II.

Stevens was one of several filmmakers who played a key part in the war effort, capturing legendary black-and-white and color footage of Nazi concentration camps and D-Day. But after the war, Stevens’ output slowed down considerably. He made only 8 films between 1948 and 1970. Granted, these included some of the best work of his career, including Shane and Giant. Nevertheless, it’s far less than Ford and Hawks turned out over the same period.

Vivacious Lady, a breezy romantic comedy directed by Stevens in 1938, is no classic but it’s deserved a better fate than languishing in obscurity for so long. James Stewart, just starting on his transition from “what-the-hell-do-we-do-with-this-guy” to leading man, stars as botany professor Peter Morgan. Tasked with fetching his philandering cousin Keith (James Ellison) home from New York, he instead falls head over heels in love with the object of Keith’s affection, nightclub singer Francey (Ginger Rogers). After a whirlwind courtship of less than 24 hours, Peter and Francey impulsively decide to get married.

Peter brings his new bride home to the staid college town of Old Sharon where his father (Charles Coburn) is president of the university. But after seeing Francey get off the train with Keith, Mr. Morgan makes a snap judgment against the blonde hussy and will hear no more about it, leaving Peter far too flummoxed to tell his parents or social-climbing fiancée (Frances Mercer) about his new marital status.

Even by screwball comedy standards, the plot of Vivacious Lady is outlandishly contrived. The entire film hinges on Peter’s total inability to convey a single bit of information to his family (not to mention Francey’s willingness to put up with this and not just drop the bombshell herself). And while Jimmy Stewart was certainly a world-champion hemmer and hawer, this strains even his abilities. But Stewart and Rogers have terrific chemistry together and if that were all the movie had going for it, it’d probably be enough to carry it a long way.

In fact, it’s the interplay between the supporting characters, particularly the women, that makes Vivacious Lady worth revisiting. Beulah Bondi appears as, surprise surprise, Stewart’s mother and she shares several affecting scenes with Rogers, sneaking cigarettes behind her husband’s back and sharing marital secrets. It’s a very pleasant surprise to see such genuine moments of female bonding in a movie of any vintage, much less one from 1938. While on the opposite end of the spectrum, Rogers and Mercer get into it with a truly hilarious fight scene. Even if you like nothing else about the movie, you’ll probably like this scene.

If the men don’t fare quite as well, there is at least a case to be made for James Ellison’s performance as Keith. When Peter and Francey return as husband and wife, a more predictable movie would have found Keith in a rage at Peter for stealing his girl. Instead, he reacts with minor irritation, followed quickly by resignation and bemusement at Peter’s predicament. It’s as if Keith knew he never really planned on asking Francey to marry him. He’s just out for a good time. If anything, he seems happier to have Francey as a pal and in-law than as a wife. The characters seem more believable thanks to this platonic but still flirtatious relationship.

It’s too bad Stewart and Rogers never made another movie together after Vivacious Lady. Jimmy could have been to Ginger’s comedy career what Fred Astaire was to her musical career. As for George Stevens, he would eventually begin to focus on more serious-minded pictures but first, he’d go on to make a few more crackling romantic comedies, including the classic Tracy-Hepburn team-up Woman Of The Year. And while all involved would go on to make better pictures, Vivacious Lady remains an entertaining step in the evolution of their careers.

Vivacious Lady is now available on MOD DVD from the Warner Archive Collection.

The Blu Report: Howling II & Ladyhawke

Time to get caught up on a couple of the more interesting Blu-ray discs to cross my desk in recent weeks. I plan on doing one of these grab-bag posts every so often, so if nothing tickles your fancy this time, maybe we’ll find your fancy-tickler in an upcoming installment. And if the promise of having your fancy tickled isn’t enough to keep you coming back for more, I give up.

Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf (Scream Factory)

When the legendary Christopher Lee passed away recently, tributes flooded the internet from fans of every generation. Odds are you may have watched one or two Christopher Lee movies yourself in honor of his memory. With well over two hundred titles to his credit, there were certainly plenty of options, from his iconic Hammer Films to cult favorites like The Wicker Man and Gremlins 2 to more recent turns for filmmakers like Tim Burton and Peter Jackson. And yet, I can almost guarantee that nobody’s first choice for a Christopher Lee Tribute Night was Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf.

Blessed/cursed with one of the most ridiculous titles of all time (even better/worse in its original form, Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch), this is the only movie in the surprisingly resilient Howling franchise to at least nod back to Joe Dante’s original. Although it may be overstating things to call the connection a nod. It’s more like a dismissive wave goodbye while shooting it the finger.

Reb Brown (Yor, the hunter from the future, himself!) plays the brother of Dee Wallace’s character from the first film. Lee turns up to let Brown know his sister was a werewolf and talk him into trekking to Transylvania to take on Stirba, the werewolf queen (Sybil Danning).

I’m somewhat fascinated by the Howling series. For all intents and purposes, this is the anthology franchise that Halloween III: Season Of The Witch tried and failed to become. The Howling movies have nothing in common apart from their titles and the fact that they all have something to do with werewolves. Oh, and one other common denominator: none of the sequels are particularly good. Director Philippe Mora would go on to make one more entry, 1987’s goofy Howling III: The Marsupials. Howling II is more trashy than goofy with some very 80s costume choices and more than a few what-were-they-thinking moments. You can’t really recommend this movie to anyone but the audience for this movie knows who they are, anyway.

This is a typically impressive Scream Factory release with plenty of extras that are a whole lot more interesting than the movie itself. You get two audio commentaries (both worth listening to), interviews with Reb Brown, Sybil Danning and makeup FX artists Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler, alternate footage, stills, the trailer and more. If I can’t recommend the movie, I can certainly recommend the disc. It’s a worthwhile entry in the Scream Factory lineup.

Ladyhawke (Warner Archive)

If you were a fan of fantasy films back in the 1980s, you probably look back at ’85 and ’86 as two of your favorite years. Those years gave us Ladyhawke, Legend, Labyrinth and even a few movies that didn’t start with an “L”, such as The Black Cauldron and Highlander. Each of these movies has their ardent fans but unfortunately, none of them were colossal mega-hits. As a result, fantasy remained a pricey and dicey proposition at the box office for years. Hard to believe these days, after Peter Jackson has made six epic journeys to Middle-earth and Game Of Thrones has conquered TV.

Of these ‘80s fantasies, Ladyhawke was probably the most conventional, a straight-forward fantasy-romance about two lovers under a curse that transforms her into a hawk by day and him into a wolf by night. But Ladyhawke works as well as it does because it’s told with conviction and sincerity by an unusual group of collaborators.

This was one of two movies directed by Richard Donner released in 1985, debuting just two months before The Goonies. Donner was actually in need of a bit of a comeback at the time. The runaway success of The Omen and Superman had been followed by his removal from Superman II and the critically successful but little-seen Inside Moves. Since then, he’d released just one movie, the loathsome Richard Pryor/Jackie Gleason anti-comedy The Toy. Ladyhawke kicked off a winning streak for Donner that lasted for the rest of the decade.

Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer are ideal as the cursed lovers. This would be one of the few attempts at transforming Hauer into a conventional Hollywood leading man, an effort that was probably doomed from the start. Hauer’s intensity makes him anything but conventional. Back in ’85, Hollywood still wasn’t sure what to do with Pfeiffer, either. It’d be a couple more years before she truly came into her own and audiences got a chance to see what she was capable of.

Then there’s Matthew Broderick, acting as though his agent got his clients mixed up and sent him to the wrong set. It’s too harsh to say that he’s the weak link because the movie still works but his performance absolutely clashes with the old-fashioned grandeur around him. Broderick gets top billing but the movie belongs to his costars.

Ladyhawke was not well-served on DVD, making Warner Archive’s Blu-ray a welcome upgrade. Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography looks absolutely spectacular on this disc. The only extra on board is the film’s trailer. A commentary by Richard Donner would have been nice but the movie’s modest fan base ruled that out. Even so, the disc is worth picking up for its technical improvements alone.

Captures - Viva Villa!

If you’re familiar with the Jahnke’s Electric Theatre page on Facebook, you’re all too aware of the ongoing JET’s Most Wanted project. If you’re not, I’m not sure how you got here but hey, welcome! Simply put, JET’s Most Wanted spotlights obscure but worthy titles that have never before been released on DVD (in the US…foreign mileage may vary).

Since I started JET’s Most Wanted waaaaay back in 2010, over 300 featured titles have been released on DVD, Blu-ray and/or MOD DVD. It’s an eclectic group, so odds are you’ve probably even purchased a few of them. But if you’re anything like me (and honestly, I pray to God you’re not), there are likely a few discs in your collection that remain unwatched, despite your best intentions. Personally, I feel a twinge of guilt when I finally get a Most Wanted pick on disc and allow it to sit, unopened, for months. I can almost hear the disc taunting me from the shelf. “You asked for it. You got it. Now what are you gonna do with it?”

Welcome to Captures, an occasional new feature here at the Electric Theatre. In this space, I’ll be taking a closer look at former Most Wanted picks to see how they hold up now that they’re readily available. When I first started JET’s Most Wanted, I focused on movies I’d already seen that weren’t on disc. It didn’t take too long before the scope widened to include movies I’d always wanted to see but couldn’t, which naturally led to discovering more unavailable movies that sounded interesting. Captures is meant to be a deep dive into the seemingly bottomless well of movies previously unavailable on DVD.

Viva Villa!, newly available on MOD DVD from Warner Archive, has tumbled into obscurity since its release in 1934. If you Google “Viva Villa” today, the first results you’ll get are for a chain of Taquerias in Southern California. But at the time, it was a sizable box office hit and up for multiple Oscars including Best Picture (hey, this can double as an Honor To Be Nominated column, too! Score!). It even won one for Best Assistant Director John Waters (not that one, obviously). Bet you didn’t even know Best Assistant Director used to be a category, did you? I know I didn’t.

If Mr. Waters assisted everybody who had a hand in directing Viva Villa!, I’d say he earned his Oscar. Like most studio system films, this was producer David O. Selznick’s vision more than the director’s. Jack Conway ended up with screen credit but William Wellman and Howard Hawks each did uncredited work as well. It comes as no surprise that the resulting film is extremely episodic and about as authentically Mexican as a Doritos® Cheesy Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell. But the movie is undeniably entertaining and that goes a long way.

Wallace Beery, sounding more like Chico Marx than a Mexican Revolutionary, stars as Pancho Villa. Beery was a huge star in the 30s thanks to movies like The Champ and The Big House but for years, I only knew him as a punchline in the Coens’ Barton Fink. (“Wallace Beery! Wrestling picture! What do you need, a road map?”) Beery is rarely mentioned in the same breath as the other legendary stars of the 30s these days but after watching some of his most enduring work, it’s easy to see why he was such a popular personality. He’s a boisterous, larger-than-life character, eager to please and oddly likable even when he’s boasting about his rape-and-murder filled exploits.

Part of this is due to the fact that most of the violence and mayhem takes place off-screen. The storyteller’s mantra may be “show, don’t tell” but Viva Villa! never uses imagery when dozens of words can be employed instead. Although the filmmakers do have a penchant for whips, first in the opening scene where young Pancho sees his father killed after 100 lashes. This comes back into play years later when an incensed Pancho tries to teach Spanish aristocrat Teresa (Fay Wray) a thing or two about real suffering. The scene is shot in silhouette (presumably by the great James Wong Howe, one of two credited cinematographers). The moody camerawork and Wray’s reactions give the whole thing a distinct S&M quality. Even during all this, Pancho Villa comes across as a big, friendly, loyal, kinda dumb dog, ironic considering his father dies protesting that he is a man, not a dog.

Structurally, Viva Villa! bears an unmistakable similarity to Elia Kazan’s Viva Zapata!, released almost 20 years later. Personally, I preferred Viva Villa! to Kazan’s humorless slog of a movie. Neither movie can lay much claim to historical accuracy and suffers from casting very American actors in very Hispanic roles (though, granted, Kazan’s movie does have Anthony Quinn’s Oscar-winning performance going for it). But Beery as Villa at least seems to be having fun. You can’t say the same about Marlon Brando as Zapata. Brando always seems on the verge of realizing he’s made a mistake and walking off set.

A dozen movies were nominated for Best Picture in 1934 and, believe it or not, three of them still remain unaccounted for on DVD: the opulent biopic House Of Rothschild, the musical One Night Of Love, and The White Parade, a tribute to young nurses. I can’t say how Viva Villa! stacks up next to these rarities. For that matter, I don’t think anyone would argue that it deserved to triumph over the year’s winner, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night. If nothing else, Viva Villa! serves as a reminder of the studio system’s remarkable capacity for making effective entertainment out of the most chaotic and troubled productions. It’s no classic but the fact that it’s even coherent is something of an achievement.

Viva Villa! is now available on MOD DVD at www.wbshop.com.

Thanks For Watching. Good Night, Everybody.

It’s difficult for me to overstate the profound impact David Letterman has had on my life. That may sound ridiculous or, at the very least, pretty lofty for something that Dave himself has repeatedly dismissed as just a TV show. But for over 30 years, Dave has helped shape my sense of humor, my taste in music, even my image of New York City, a town I’ve only been to once in my life. Without David Letterman, television would have been a far more boring medium for the past few decades.

I first discovered Dave on his short-lived daytime talk show. I can only assume I was home from school sick that day (and I’m sure Dave would say, “Well, that explains a lot.”) (Note: Actually, a quick internet search reveals the show debuted in June, so I probably watched it all summer long. But that home sick joke seems appropriate, so I’m leaving it in.) I was hooked from the very beginning. I loved his total lack of talk show phoniness and the absurdist streak in his comedy. A favorite gag from the daytime show that I still remember all these years later: Dave’s Household Hints – Scrape the dried up globs of toothpaste from the bathroom sink and serve them as after-dinner mints.

When school began in the fall, I would occasionally skip class just to catch the show. Still, nobody was happier than I was when The David Letterman Show was canceled after just four months. In those pre-VCR days, skipping school was my only option but not really a viable long-term solution. But staying up to watch Dave guest host The Tonight Show or, as of 1982, even later once he snagged the post-Carson slot? That I could do.

Thus began a steady diet of Stupid Pet Tricks, Top Ten Lists, Viewer Mail, Small Town News, suits made out of Velcro and Rice Krispies, Larry “Bud” Melman and various Guys played by Chris Elliott. At its best, the comedy was sharp, surreal and utterly ridiculous. At its worst, Dave would give the camera a withering, knowing look and somehow make it work.

It also didn’t hurt that Dave brought out the best, and occasionally the worst, in his guests. Recurring favorites like Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Martin Short, and many more always brought their A-game to Dave’s shows. Hell, even Jay Leno was a frequent and hilarious presence during the Late Night years. But Dave could be, in the immortal words of Cher, an asshole but really only when the guest deserved it. Dave had zero tolerance for fools and idiots and while that edge may have softened a bit after he moved to CBS, it never entirely went away.

As much as Dave helped mold my sense of humor, Paul Shaffer was an equally big influence on my taste in music. Paul was the perfect choice for the show, having honed his comedy chops on Saturday Night Live in addition to his prodigious musical gifts. I was introduced to countless songs and artists thanks to Paul and The World’s Most Dangerous Band/The CBS Orchestra playing them during commercial breaks. Not for nothing is Paul the musical director for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. These folks can back up pretty much any artist, play any kind of music under the sun, and sound amazing.

As for the musical guests, it goes without saying that I discovered countless artists thanks to their exposure on Dave’s shows, first and foremost, the late, great Warren Zevon. But over the years, there have been so, so many others, including Janelle Monáe, Heartless Bastards, The Heavy…the list goes on. Dave clearly loved nothing more than when a mostly unknown band or artist made their network television debut on the show and proceeded to “blow the roof off the dump”. And what Christmas is going to be like this year without Darlene Love’s annual performance of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is simply too awful to contemplate.

So far, Dave’s swan song has been refreshingly and predictably free of sap. Dave has never seemed like the sort of person who dwells too much on the past. But if (when) some sentimentality creeps into these final shows, it’ll be borne of genuine, heartfelt emotion tempered by a realistic view of what’s really ending here. It’s natural to get emotional when you’re saying goodbye to people you’ve worked alongside for years and closing a major chapter of your life. But at the end of the day, it’s just a little comedy show, one of way too many cluttering the airwaves these days. In a few months, Stephen Colbert will make the show his own. Life will go on.

Dave’s best on-air moments have always struck that balance, whether it was his return to TV after 9/11 or his heart surgery or speaking candidly about the birth of his son or his sex scandal. When it mattered most, Dave always spoke from the heart and helped put things in perspective. These bigger issues, community, family, health, wellbeing, these are what matter. Everything else is pretty small in comparison. But if crushing watermelons with a steamroller and having stagehands Pat and Kenny read Oprah transcripts helps us to momentarily forget about these bigger problems in some weird way, so be it.

It’s important to remember that for the most part, all these indelible memories are just that: memories. Sure, we have some YouTube clips these days and there were a tiny handful of best-of releases on VHS long ago but there are no DVD releases of Late Night or the Late Show. Part of me doubts there ever will be. It’s no easy thing to revisit these old episodes. Somewhere deep in storage I have a few videotapes full of episodes of Late Night. For years, I kept one right next to the VCR, ready to be popped in if there was a good guest. Eventually that practice fell by the wayside, but at least I got some gems including anniversary specials, the Holiday Film Festivals and the Dave-hosted Academy Awards.

Dave’s final episode of Late Night on NBC was just about perfect, capped by a surprise appearance from Bruce Springsteen, making his first appearance on the show after years of requests, performing (what else?) “Glory Days”. The show ended on a high and why wouldn’t it? It was a send-off, not a farewell. Dave was on to bigger and better things.

This time is different but I suspect the final show will still be a celebration, not the quiet, somewhat mournful goodbye of Johnny Carson’s final Tonight Show. The show and its host have always been too modest, self-deprecating, and irreverent for that kind of treatment. Over the years, it’s become easy to take Dave for granted but to a lot of us, he really mattered. A lot. And we’ll miss him when he’s gone.

Thanks Dave. Maybe I’ll run into you on the street in Montana someday. Enjoy your retirement and, of course, enjoy every sandwich.

The Movies of 2014, Volume VI

All things considered, 2014 was a very good year for movies. Even the movies in yesterday’s entry that disappointed me weren’t complete wastes of time. If you didn’t see at least one movie you liked last year, you just weren’t trying very hard.

But there are always a few stragglers that simply didn’t work. At all. Try as one might to avoid lousy movies, sometimes they’re simply unavoidable, like food poisoning or Ebola. With that, I give you the movies I’d prefer to forget, the worst films I saw in 2014.

Proxy

This indie horror flick from director Zack Parker is actually an interesting case. It’s one of the few films where you can literally pinpoint the exact moment it goes off the rails. And it’s a real pity because up until that moment, this is a moody and intriguing thriller (although it opens with a particularly brutal act of violence that might have you switching it off long beforehand). Without giving too much away, the twist in this movie is spectacularly ill-conceived. The closest analogy I can think of would be if Marion Crane had overpowered Norman Bates in Psycho and the movie continued to be about her instead of the far more interesting Bates. This is a bizarrely self-sabotaging movie that fails to recognize the genuinely disturbing and compelling questions its first half raises.

Divergent

I feel a little bit bad about including this YA sci-fi franchise kickstarter. I didn’t hate it but it had really no impact on my brain whatsoever. I’d essentially forgotten it existed while the closing credits played. I probably wouldn’t have watched it at all if it weren’t for the presence of Kate Winslet. Her appearances can lead me to make some regrettable movie-going decisions.

The Monuments Men

George Clooney is an excellent filmmaker. If you don’t believe me, just watch Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind and Good Night, And Good Luck. Don’t watch this. I’m baffled by what happened here. It’s a very interesting story packed with a stellar cast, including Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray and John Goodman. This should have been a home run. Instead, it’s pleasant at best and downright dull as dishwater at worst. This feels like it needed a little more time at the drawing board before the cameras rolled.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

I’ve never read a single Tom Clancy book but for whatever reason, I feel compelled to watch every Jack Ryan movie. This despite the fact that they’ve all struck me as pretty generic and forgettable. However, none of them have been quite as generic and forgettable as this attempt. Chris Pine fails to bring much spark to the role and Kenneth Branagh probably should have concentrated on one job instead of two. His Russian bad guy seems like he should be giving orders to Boris and Natasha.

Noah

I think Darren Aronofsky is a terrific filmmaker and I’ve genuinely enjoyed most of his work to date. But I’m really confused who the audience for this movie is supposed to be. It’s ambiguously religious (or, if you prefer, spiritual), so it’s not likely to please the church-and-temple crowd. But it’s a reasonably faithful retelling of one of the most famous stories in the Bible, so agnostics and atheists probably won’t have much use for it, either. It’s certainly an ambitious movie but ultimately it felt like those ambitions defeated Aronofsky and his cast.

3 Days To Kill

And then there’s this. Kevin Costner goes to France to team up with co-writer Luc Besson and director McG in a bid for a piece of that Liam Neeson aging action hero pie. Costner is diagnosed with terminal cancer, retires from the CIA and attempts to reconnect with his estranged wife and daughter. Until sultry and miscast Amber Heard shows up to lure him back into the spy game with the promise of an experimental miracle drug if he helps her take down some bad guys. This isn’t so much an action movie as it is a jigsaw puzzle that’s been tossed into the air and haphazardly assembled by an indifferent child in a hurry. As usual, I had some trouble figuring out the exact placement of some of the movies on these lists. But there was never any question what movie was going to be dead last. If there was a worse movie than 3 Days To Kill released in 2014, I pray to all the major and minor deities that I never see it.

That’ll finally do it for 2014. I’ll be back again soon to talk about…I dunno, other stuff. This blog is still a bit of a blank slate, so it’ll be fun figuring out what to use it for. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.