The way I remember it, there was one summer when I didn’t think much about music at all, when I was just a wee lad content to listen to whatever Mom put on our gargantuan old hi-fi console, and then the very next year after that, I was a budding audiophile who obsessively followed the weekly Top Ten Countdown and toted around a transistor radio everywhere I went. The biggest song in the land that summer was “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield, and I was absolutely crazy about it.
Bob Clark, the director of one of my favorite holiday movies, A Christmas Story, was killed today in a car accident, along with his 22-year-old son Ariel. Their sedan was struck by a sport utility vehicle being driven by an unlicensed idiot who sustained only minor injuries. The idiot is expected to be booked on suspicion of driving under the influence and gross vehicular manslaughter. I hope they throw away the key.
The LA Times has the details of the accident and a brief obit here.
Boy, does this ever sound like a recipe for total fanboy embarassment: take an ex-boy-bander who’s gone a bit beefy with maturity, put him on a dippy reality-show dance-off with a bunch of other has-beens and B-listers, and let him do a routine set to that old disco-ized version of the main title from Star Wars, complete with a lightsaber prop. When I heard about this, I was prepared to hang my head in shame for ever liking a movie that could lead to this… and yet it turned out to be surprisingly entertaining, if not exactly cool:
No doubt it was the girl’s Leia-style metal bikini that salvaged the whole thing…
That episode of Boston Legal I mentioned a while back aired tonight, the one that was going to incorporate footage from a legal drama William Shatner did 50 years ago. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting — the episode used only three short vintage clips, and their usage was rather understated, with none of the “significant television event” atmosphere that usually permeates this sort of stunt. But it was nevertheless a very good episode. Writer-producer David E. Kelley dialed his trademark silliness way down for a tense hostage-crisis story that’s really about the way fathers continue to influence grown men long after dad has passed on. Shatner, who is of course known as a relentless chewer of scenery and whose character on this show, Denny Crane, is something of a nutcase, delivered a subtle performance that I think ranks among the very best work he’s ever done. And the final scene, in which Denny discusses the day’s traumatic events with his friend Alan (James Spader), brought a lump to my throat; every BL episode ends on a similar note, with these two very successful, very damaged men sharing good cigars, good whiskey, friendship, and truths that have never before been spoken. But this one, in which Denny quietly says that he dosen’t want to go home tonight and Alan immediately offer to come keep him company, was immensely moving.
I haven’t been a regular viewer of this show, but I think I like it more with every episode I see…